Fort de Buade

Coordinates: 45°52′02″N 84°43′23″W / 45.86722°N 84.72306°W / 45.86722; -84.72306
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Fort de Buade
Museum of Ojibwa Culture
TypeFort
Site information
Controlled byNew France
Site history
Built1683
In use1683-1701
Battles/warsIroquois Wars - War with the English
Fort de Buade
Informational Designation
Location396 North State Street
St. Ignace, Michigan
Coordinates45°52′07″N 84°43′45″W / 45.868691°N 84.729137°W / 45.868691; -84.729137
DesignatedSeptember 25, 1956
Fort de Buade is located in Michigan
Fort de Buade
Location within the state of Michigan

Fort de Buade was a

Jesuits. The fort was named after New France's governor at the time, Louis de Buade de Frontenac
.

Mission

The

Illiniwek at St. Ignace killed the Seneca
chief Annanhac, who had been leading his forces against the western peoples. The Seneca were part of the Iroquois Confederacy based in present-day New York state.

Lake Nipigon, Ontario
). He was also responsible for the region around Green Bay in present-day Wisconsin.

In the spring of 1684, La Durantaye led a relief expedition from Saint Ignace to Fort Saint Louis des Illinois, which had been besieged by the Seneca as part of the

Louis de La Porte de Louvigné
.

Forts

Fort de Buade at St. Ignace

During the 1690s, the fort became a staging area for French and Indian attacks against the Seneca, who were then allied to the English. It remained an important fur trading center and a distribution point for arms and munitions for the war against the Iroquois. In 1694 Governor

bribes. In 1697, the Huron chief Kondiaronk
from Michilimackinac led an attack on the Seneca at Lake Erie. He gained a crushing victory and dashed the Seneca hopes for victory against the French. Four years later, Kondiaronk took a leading role in forging the Great Peace of Montreal, which would conclude the war.

Relations between the fort and the adjacent

Native Americans
. Cadillac may have seen this move as a necessary tactic to check the English traders. In any case, he used it as a tactic in his own financial plans.

Despite Cadillac's liquor trade, Anglo-French commercial competition continued. Cadillac was replaced as commandant by

Detroit River, to interdict the flow of British trade goods into the Lake Huron area. In that sense, the Fort de Buade garrison was related to development of the future city of Detroit
.

The final fate of Fort de Buade is unclear. After the withdrawal of the garrison, coureurs de bois continued to frequent Michilimackinac. Governor

Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil used these traders to smuggle goods to the northern nations during the War of the Spanish Succession, despite the objections of Jérôme Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain. Among his agents was the voyageur Daniel Amiot de Villeneuve. Unless the fort was destroyed when the garrison was evacuated, Vaudreuil's men likely used it to store goods intended for the Indians, until the new fort was completed on the south side of the Straits (1715). After this date few French remained at East Moran Bay
. The fort was either destroyed or fell into disrepair and eventually disappeared.

The 1690-1701 Fort de Buade was probably built as a wooden stockade. It is believed to have been located on a site within the current municipality of St. Ignace, possibly on a hill above East Moran Bay locally called "Fort Hill." The fort could also have been located on the bay's waterfront. As of October 2022 the fort's remains had not yet been found.

Successor fort near Mackinaw City

Between 1701 and 1715 there was no official French-Canadian presence at the Straits of Mackinac. Unlicensed fur trading by coureurs des bois no doubt continued during this period. In 1715 a French detachment under

Mackinaw City
, Michigan developed near it. Most of the Huron migrated south to Detroit with Cadillac in 1701. The Ottawa moved from East Moran Bay to the new fort, and the St. Ignace area was largely abandoned until the nineteenth century.

References

  • Timothy J. Kent, Rendezvous at the Straits: Fur Trade and Military Activities at Fort de Buade and Fort Michilimackinac, 1669-1781
  • Claiborne A. Skinner, The Upper Country: French Enterprise in the Colonial Great Lakes (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008)
  • William J. Eccles, Frontenac: The Courtier Governor (Toronto: Mclelland & Stewart, 1957)
  • Gilles Havard, The Great Peace of 1701 (Montreal: MacGill-Queen's University Press, 2001)

External links

45°52′02″N 84°43′23″W / 45.86722°N 84.72306°W / 45.86722; -84.72306

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