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MICHIGAN AS A PROVINCE 1 - 5
They disliked the English who had given substantial aid and encouragement to their hereditary enemies, the Iroquois. They were troublesome in many ways and in the summer of 1763 attacked all the British posts about the lakes, including those at Detroit, Michilimackinac, Sault Ste Marie, Miamis and elsewhere to the number of nine through the west. Cadotte, who was well known and liked by the Indians of the adjacent country, was able to influence them to peaceful measures, and so this fort did not suffer. On December 22 the fort took fire and all the buildings with their contents were destroyed. Being destitute of food and shelter it became necessary to send the soldiers to Michilimackinac, while Jemette proposed to remain and winter among the inhabitants. The soldiers arrived there without mishap and were in the doomed fort at the time of the massacre. A month after their departure Jemette decided to go on to Michilimackinac also and with Cadotte and Alexander Henry for companions he set out on snow-shoes. This proved a slow and toilsome method of travel for the Englishman who came near losing his life on the road, from exposure and starvation. After all his sufferings he met the fate of his comrades a few months later in the massacre at the fort. This ended the British occupation of Sault
Ste Marie as a military post, though it struggled on as a little settlement or colony, dependent upon fish and some agriculture, but more upon the traffic of the traders and Indians.
In 1783 the Northwest Company was organized as the rival of the Hudson's Bay Company, established more than a hundred years before. The new company erected a post at Sault Ste Marie and here came all goods from Montreal destined for the west, and all peltries en route to Montreal.
MICHIGAN
Page 55
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