Indian tradition concerning the name Michillimackinac is curious. It relates that Michapous, chief of spirits, sojourned long in the vicinity of the Straits of Huron, on a mountain on the border of the lake. Here he first instructed man to fabricate nets and to take fish therein. On the island of Michillimackinac he left spirits named Imakinakos and from these legendary possessors came the name Michillimackinac which means Great Turtle. The tradition is not altogether clear. Suffice it to be assured that the word is of Indian origin, and doubtless its patient originators were thoroughly well pleased with it.
The next distinguished visitor to Saint Ignace was La Motte Cadillac, whose name is spread so generously around all of this lakeside region of Michigan and whose errand was to strengthen the fort which La Salle had erected on Father Marquette’s foundation. Useless labor this proved to be, for the growing importance of Detroit and the determination of the French to build up this point at the expense of the more northern and less accessible trading-post caused Saint Ignace to wane in importance and its stockades to be unoccupied.
In 1712 the little settlement was moved bodily to the southern side of the straits at the point where Mackinaw City now stands and the second Fort Michillimackinac was erected, destined to a far more eventful history than the first. Time ran on. The French lost their grip of the New World and surrendered Michillimackinac with other places to the English. Let us see how the little place looked in English possession. Parkman has well described it:
Doubling a point he sees before him the red flag of England swelling lazily in the wind and the palisades and wooden bastions of Fort Michillimackinac standing close upon the margin of the lake. On the beach canoes are drawn up and Canadians and Indians are lazily lounging. A little beyond the fort is a cluster of the white Canadian houses roofed with bark and protected by fences of strong round pickets. The trader enters at the gate, and sees before him an extensive square area surrounded by high palisades. Numerous houses, barracks, and other buildings form a smaller square within, and in the vacant space which they enclose appear the red uniforms of British soldiers, the gray coats of Canadians, and the gaudy Indian blankets mingled in picturesque confusion; while a multitude of squaws with children of every hue stroll restlessly about the place. Such was Fort Michillimackinac in 1763.