- [Instructor] Get ready, fire!

- In the late 18th century, in the 1770s specifically, Michilimackinac was a transshipment point.

It's a center of the Great Lakes fur trade, people coming from really all over the Great Lakes watershed, indigenous people, Europeans gathering here to trade with one another, to trans-ship goods, so to transfer from one canoe to another.

But it was also a diplomatic center and a military center, which became increasingly important as the American Revolution went on.

Michigan as a whole, very few European settlements, apart from here at Michilimackinac down at Detroit, up at Sault Ste.

Marie over at St.

Joseph for what's now Niles, many, many more indigenous communities throughout the state, mostly Anishinaabe.

So the Odawa, the Ojibwe, and the Potawatomi.

Those people were largely trading with the Europeans, sometimes fighting alongside them, sometimes fighting against them.

But everyone ended up being involved in the Revolution in some way.

- Michilimackinac was founded as a permanent year-round complete community in about 1715 by the French military.

So the house we're in right now was a fur trader's house throughout our site's history, which is a unique part of our fort.

It is a fort, there are soldiers here, but there were also always civilians.

And this is one of those civilian homes that was lived in by the fur traders.

So before the American Revolution, there was a lot going on in this region.

We went through a big war, which we call the French and Indian War, the Seven Years War.

Once that was over, there was another large event that happened here in 1763, and that was a part of Pontiac's rebellion.

It was a huge uprising across the Midwest that included Michilimackinac.

The fort ended up being attacked at that point.

That settled down, and then from about 1764 until the start of the American Revolution, the fur trade really started to pick up over at Michilimackinac.

The community expanded, there ended up being about 100 more houses outside the palisade, in addition to the 40 houses that were inside the palisade.

The soldiers' presence was needed to control the area for the British government at that point.

It was also needed to regulate the fur trade.

And the big draw here was really the geography.

We're right at the tip of the lower peninsula of Michigan.

And everything in the 18th century moves on the water, and we have water (chuckles).

We have Lake Michigan, we have Lake Huron just a bit north, we have Lake Superior.

It's so easy to find Michilimackinac because of the waterways.

So prior to the American Revolution, the big draw here was the water bringing people in for the fur trade.

You can pick things up here, drop things off.

It becomes a huge meeting point for a lot of individuals.

Families lived here as well.

So we think there were maybe about 10 year-round families that stayed at the Straits of Mackinac.

In total, the population was probably about 200 in the winter.

But in the summer, again, once those waterways open up, there were closer to 2,000 people, men, women, kids, soldiers, voyagers, lots of different people who were coming out here to work The fur trade.

- Truly, you know, the Revolution is part of a much larger struggle that people have sometimes called the 60 Years War.

It kind of starts in the 1750s with the Seven Years War, the French and Indian War, and it blasts all the way through The War of 1812.

And it's for control of the Great Lakes.

It's all of these conflicts.

So you've got the Seven Years War, the Revolution there, it's the Northwest Indian War is one name for it that takes place in the early 1790s, and then The War of 1812.

And to some extent, it's the British fighting out here and the French, but it's very much the native people fighting out here to protect their communities, to protect their culture, their families.

And again, they're able to do that successfully by navigating changing imperial ambitions.

So first it's French, and then British, and then American.

And they're able to navigate their way through all of that, and again, protect themselves by taking up arms for that 60-year period.

After that, they had to shift tactics and they're able to continue fighting for their rights through the 1830s, 1840s, 1850s, more in a political sphere belt, but they're able to continue doing that.

And that's, you know, one of the reasons that those people are largely still here.

We still have Ojibwe and Odawa people right here in the Straits.

Those people have been here for a very long time.

And it's because of those efforts.

- [Instructor] Three cents.

And fire!

(guns firing) - Michilimackinac, Michigan in general, they do have a role to play in the Revolution.

People from this community, people from Detroit, people from Sault Ste.

Marie and St.

Joseph, they took part in the war, you know, either by going off to other places and taking up arms and actually fighting, or just by reacting, you know, they got news out here just like we do, it just took a little while longer.

But those people were very aware of events in other places, and they responded to them, they reacted to them, and they participated in them.

So we don't often think about Michigan being part of the American Revolution, but it absolutely was.

And in many ways, it shaped the state as we know it today.