History of Mackinac Island

ore north of Mackinac Island. Here Marquette continued his missionary labors with them, at the site of the present St. Ignace. Denonville’s memoir of 1688 claimed that the French had inhabited the area since 1648. A small French garrison was sent there sometime between 1679 and 1683. The name of Michillimackinac (later abbreviated to Mackinac) was applied generally to the entire vicinity, as well as specifically to the post at St. Ignace – and, later, to the fort and mission established on the south side of the Strait of Mackinac.

Although the British built Fort Mackinac to protect their settlement from attack by French-Canadians and native tribes, the fort was never attacked during the American Revolutionary War, and the entire Straits area was officially acquired by the United States through the Treaty of Paris in 1783. However, much of the British forces did not leave the Great Lakes area until after Jay's Treaty established U.S. sovereignty over the Northwest Territory in 1794. During the War of 1812, the British captured the fort in the first battle of the conflict because the Americans had not yet heard that war had been declared. The victorious British attempted to protect their prize by building Fort George on the high ground behind Fort Mackinac. In 1814, the Americans and British fought a second battle on the north side of the island. The American second-in-command, Major Andrew Hunter Holmes, was killed and the Americans failed to recapture the island.

Despite this outcome, the Treaty of Ghent forced the British to return the island and surrounding mainland to the U.S. in 1815. The United States reoccupied Fort Mackinac, and renamed Fort George Fort Holmes, after Major Holmes. Fort Mackinac remained under the control of the United States government until 1895 and provided volunteers to defend the Union during the