Fort Mackinac
Mackinac Island, Michigan, USA

Fortunately, no nation had to. From the time of the American Revolution up to the 1860's Canada was essentially Great Britain, with whom the United States most assuredly did not get along; but nobody really cared about the defense of that entire length of border, because west of the Great Lakes was mostly nothing, aside from countless moose, Indians, trees and beaver...few of whom/which would have cared one way or another about a starfort. The 1600-odd-mile border that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean west to the tip of Lake Superior's pointy nose was the only section that was ever fortified in any meaningful way, and most of those efforts were clustered around a small number of chokepoints. One of those points was the spot where two of the Great Lakes, namely Huron and Michigan, join: The Straits of Mackinac.

The French constructed what they should have named Fort Grosse Tortue (Fort Big Turtle in French, Fort Michilimackinac in Ojibwe and English, in this specific instance) around 1715, on the southern banks of the strait, at what is today Mackinaw City, Michigan: This was a stockade fort, anchored by six blockhouses. In addition to attempting to benefit the eternal souls of the locals, the French were of course also interested in making money, and fur was money at that time and place: Fort Michilimackinac was one of a series of fortified trading posts that spanned from the Atlantic Ocean through the Great Lakes, and down the Mississippi River.

The Seven years' War (1756-1763) concluded with one of the many, many treaties known as the Treaty of Paris (Wikipedia lists around 40 of them), in which France agreed to surrender virtually all of its colonies in the western hemisphere to Great Britain. This included Fort Michilimackinac and its environs, which eventually presented a problem for the locals. The French version of the Great White Father had instituted a policy of annually giving gifts to the local Indians, which may or may not have been financially supportable in the long term, but at least kept the Ojibwe content enough that they weren't disrupting French commercial activity. Given the British reputation for managing their interactions with North American native peoples less successfully than did the French, it is unsurprising that, once in charge of the Michilimackinac region, the Brits declined to continue the giftgiving tradition.

Having learned their lesson, the British promised the Indians newer and better annual gifts, and everybody was happy...but once the American Revolution (1775-1783) got underway, British authorities made the wise decision to relocate Fort Michilimackinac, concluding that the original location was clearly too vulnerable to organized sporting events. What tragedy would befall the fort if the Americans showed up and started playing baseball nearby? Unthinkable.

Big Turtle (Michilimackinac) Island, about five miles northeast of Fort Michilimackinac's initial location, was chosen as the easily-defensible new fort site. Under the auspices of Major Patrick Sinclair (1736-1820), Lieutenant Governor and Superintendant of Michilimackinac, work on the new and improved fort was begun in 1780 and completed in 1781. This was to be a more formidable affair than the wooden fort it replaced, in that much of the new Fort Mackinac was built of limestone. Sadly, this awesome fortification went unchallenged during the American Revolution.

But give them up the British did, thanks to the Jay Treaty (1794)! Should you be so inclined, you may read all about the starforts that were affected by the Jay Treaty on our Jay Treaty page. The men in red departed, and Fort Mackinac was finally occupied by American troops on September 1, 1796.

On the morning of July 17, 1812, a force of 200 British and Canadian troops, along with an indeterminate number ("a few hundred") of Native Americans from various tribes landed on Mackinac Island. Lieutenant Hanks and his men were taken by surprise, being unaware that they were at war, and surrendered Fort Mackinac to the British without a fight. They were vastly outnumbered, and when them wild Injuns were involved in warfare and allied with Eurpean armies, an effective threat was always, "...if you don't surrender, I can't guarantee that these ungovernable Indians won't kill all of you very slowly, in a most unpleasant fashion..."

Hanks and his men were permitted to depart unmolested, but when he returned to Detroit he was charged with cowardice for surrendering Fort Mackinac. Fortunately Hanks' career wasn't blighted by a court martial, as before it had a chance to convene he was cut in half by a British cannonball when the British attacked Fort Lernoult in August of 1812.

The unwelcome surprise of Fort George was soon discovered by the American attackers, and the US Navy was asked to reduce it to rubble, so that the silent lightning raid on Fort Mackinac might continue. At 320 feet above lake level, however, Fort George proved to be too high for the naval guns to meaningfully bombard: Most of the rounds landed semi-harmlessly in vegetable gardens around the fort ("There go my bloody leeks," muttered Sergeant Erstwhile). A heavy fog then blew in, making further offensive operations impossible, and the Americans were forced to wait it out in their comfy ships: I believe it would be safe to say that the element of surprise had been lost by this point.

Due to his quick thinking on Mackinac Island, Major Holmes had a county named after him in Ohio, a city in Mississippi and as American fotified works are usually named for the heroically dead, Fort George was renamed Fort Holmes once Mackinac Island was returned to American control upon the conclusion of the War of 1812 (1812-1815).

As important a border fortification as Fort Mackinac was for so many years, it was hard for the US Army to give up on it, despite the gradual lessening of tension between the US and Canada. Our fort remained manned and technically active into the 1870's, but whenever there was an actual war to fight, Fort Mackinac's garrison rushed off to join the party while it was left under the supervision of a single ordnance sergeant.

During the US Civil War (1861-1865) three Confederate "political" prisoners were held at Fort Mackinac. It was desired that these prisoners sign oaths of loyalty to the federal government before being released, but when they were first delivered to Fort Mackinac in the summertime and given freedom to romp about on the island, they wondered what kind of hardship this "prison" was supposed to be? Then, winter came. Two of the prisoners willingly singed their loyalty oaths and were permitted to depart for warmer climes, and when the third continued to resist loyalty, he was moved to another facility...along with his jailers, who didn't want to spend the winter on Mackinac Island either.

Fort Mackinac State Park is open from May through October each year, global pandemic permitting. Reenactors dressed as US troops circa 1887 man the fort, sporting the oft-overlooked-if-not-openly-mocked pickelhaube, the spiked headgear that was all the rage amongst western militaries at the end of the 19th century: Thanks, Prussia.


*A thought on the pronunciation of Mackinac: According to several sources, "Mackinac" is properly pronounced "Mackinaw." You will note that the city at the tippy tip of Michigan, just southwest of Mackinac Island, went whole hog and is even spelled Mackinaw. Now, localities may pronounce their locations however they see fit of course, but if the word whence comes all of the derivitaves is the original Ojibwe Michilimackinac, which word was notionally phonetically spelled based on the original pronunciation, why was that word not Michilimackinaw? Could it be because it was the French who did the initial European spelling, and we know that they're physically incapable of pronouncing consonants at the ends of words? My Ohio-native father visited Fort Mackinac as a small person at or around 1955, and remembers that they all pronounced it with the ending "ack," but they were just going by what the signs said. If somebody out there knows the answer to this quandry, I sure would appreciate an email.