The Fort, which is now a State Park, has its entrance under the famous Mackinac Bridge. Here we found the access to a path which led westward for several hundred yards to the Fort. The Fort is a reconstruction, made as it was originally, entirely of wood. Each building erected was the result of painstaking archaeological investigations in the ground and in the records so carefully kept by the commandant and merchants who lived there so long ago. As we wandered the grounds, there were many things of interest to be discovered. Several displays described the women who filled many economic roles vital to the fur trade. Odawa and Ojibwa women grew corn and traded to local merchants. French Canadian or Metis (people of Indian and European parentage) women worked in the trade as interpreters or traders. British women arrived with the military or traders. Enlisted men's wives often were employed as laundresses or domestic servants. It is known that Indians slaves arrived from the western tribes, were captured and sold into slavery by other Indians. These people were called panis, a Pawnee word, as the Pawnee Indians were the frequent source of slaves. The slave population at Michilimackinac included African-American woman and men. The panis woman left little evidence of her life in the archaeological and historical record. She probably spent her time cooking, cleaning, washing and mending, using common European tools. The exchange of Indian and European materials obscured adaptations of native sewing or cooking techniques, thus household items excavated cannot yet be correlated with ethnic groups or gender. As a captive far from home her personal possessions were few. Each reconstructed building at Michilimackinac is the result of years of research archaeology and construction. Although archaeologists have been digging since 1959, only half of the Fort's buildings have been excavated and reconstructed. This project will take many more years to complete. Undiscovered artifacts and building ruins remained buried in the sands of Michilimackinac waiting for archaeologists to excavate them. The British soldiers first marched into Fort Michilimackinac in the fall of 1761 following their victory over French and Indian forces in the "Seven Years War" also known as the French and Indian War. For the next 20 years these soldiers carried out British policy in the upper Great Lakes. Many displays examine the life and times of the ordinary British soldier in some detail. Most of Michilimackinac's British soldiers volunteered to join the army. They enlisted through a process known as "beating up for volunteers." Smartly dressed drummers drew crowds with their music while recruiting officers gave rousing speeches about the benefits of military life. Although men enlisted for life, the army often released soldiers when age or sickness made them unfit for duty. Beginning in the 1750s industrial development created dramatic changes in the British economy. Men put out of work by these changes were assured of food clothing and shelter by joining the army. Volunteers were offered an enlistment bounty of 1 1/2 guineas, which equaled 50 days of pay for a soldier. Once in, the army soldiers earned 8 pence per day. These men saw little cash however as the military deducted 6 pence a day for food and made adjustments for clothing, laundry and other expenses. The daily ration of a solider in the 86th Regiment at Michilimackinac was 1 lb. of bread, 1/2 lb. of pork, 1 oz butter, 1/4 pint of peas and 1 oz of oatmeal. Rations were issued weekly and pooled by a group of men known as the "mess". Each room of the barracks housed two "messes." Because Michilimackinac was at the end of the supply line, the rations were often of poor quality. The men frequently supplemented them with fresh fish and local produce. With the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, the British realized that wooden walls could not stand up to cannon fire and moved the fort out onto Mackinac Island where much of it was constructed of limestone. During the move, the buildings inside the old fort were torn down and reconstructed out on the island. The new fort would stay in British hands until after the Revolutionary War at which time Fort Mackinac would become an American possession but that's another story.

If you would like to know more about this story, contact their website at http://www.mackinac.com/historicparks

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