Ancient and modern Michilimackinac, including an account of the controversy between Mackinac and the Mormons.

12

PROTESTANT MISSION.

Missionaries indicated tome progress in relig"ion. But the Indian boys educated there
were not received in the society of the whites
as equals, and wanted the capital to establish
in business; and among the Indians they were
so ignorant of the modes of procuring subsistence, and so effeminate as to be dependent and
despised.
They fell into menial employments and dissipation, and soon died. The girls, unable to
obtain respectable civilized husbands, and unfit for wives to the savages, were reduced to
the necessity of becoming mistresses to white
adventurers, by whom they were soon cast off
to the chance of promiscuous prostitution or
starvation. Disease and destitution rapidly
carried them off. The Mission was long
since abandoned. The chapel, an indifferent wooden building, has survived all its converts; and the better constructed Mission residence, is now a popular boarding house.
The civilization of the Protestant Mission,
gave the Indians all the white man's wants,
with none of his means of gratifying them.It brought before them every temptation of vice,
with none of the means of resisting it. It
cast upon the mere child of the Forest all
the responsibilities of the highest order of civilised society, with none of its expprience.
H E F;SHERIES.
The fisheries of Michilimackinac were, to
some extent, a source of subsistence to the Indians, before the country was visited by Europeans. The Indians only fished on the
shores, in the streams, and in the shallow inland Lakes. The irst Frenchmen in this country introduced the French modes of fishing, by
which the fish were pursued to the deep waters, and thus a supply was obtained all the
year.
As early as 1824, small quantities of WhiteAsh and Treut began to be snt to Bufalo for
market. In the space of thirty yetas this
brank of trade has incresed from two thoueand barrels to two hudred and ffty thousand, of which it is supposed one half are ta

ken in what were formerly known as the
Mackinac fisheries, extending from Death's
Door to Middle Channel. Formerly these
were all taken to Mackinac, where they were
repacked and sent to market. The merchants
at Mackinac furnished the fishermen, and purchased all their fish, and the entire profits of
the business accrued to them.
The fishermen, until within a few years,
were all Indians and Frenchmen, who lived
in a state of barbarism and misery, and were
almost, and in some instances quite slaves to
the traders. Their summers were spent in
wigwams of the worst kind on the Lake
shores, nearly destitute of clothing, and not
unfrequently reduced to subsist on fish alone
for weeks. The traders so conducted their
business that the fishermen were general ly in
debt. But if by any means, one had a continual run of good success, and got a little capital at command, he was induced to lay it out
in whiskey, and return to the fishing grounds,
where, with all his companions, he remained
drnnk till the supply was gone.
Gradually a few Americans and Irish went
on to the fisheries. Some of these took with
them small stocks for trade, and divided their
time between trading and fishing. As these
received their outfits from and sold their fish
at Mackinac, it did not materially change the
course of trade. But, taking the supply of intoxicating liquors more among the Indians,
made their use more commbn and fatal. But
these were men bred to civilization, who had
gone among savages to get beyond the restraints of the law. They were the worstelass
of men, scattered among the most inoffensive
and defenceless-and it is needless to say they
let slip no opportunity ot plundering them.
Numbers of them are known who boast of
the amounts they have made by taking fish
out of the open barrels of the Indians from
night to night, and plasing them in their own.
On a fishery where a dozen Indians were engaged, they were often plundered in this way
to the amount of onehundred barrels i'a season. Since the Sauk aod Fox war the lodi