Editing Mackinaw City, Michigan (section)

===European exploration and Fort Michilimackinac===
The first European to pass the site of Mackinaw City was [[Jean Nicolet]], sent out from [[Quebec City]] by [[Samuel Champlain]] in 1633 to explore and map the western [[Great Lakes]], and to establish new contacts and trading partnerships with the Indian tribes of the region.<ref>Fischer, David Hackett. ''Champlain's Dream'' (2008) p.503</ref> His reports resulted in the French government providing funds to send settlers, missionaries, traders, and soldiers to the Great Lakes region. [[Catholic Priest|Father]] [[Jacques Marquette]] had established a mission on Mackinac Island in 1671 (which was shortly thereafter moved to [[St. Ignace, Michigan|St. Ignace]] on the Michigan peninsula, where it remained active until 1705). The construction of Fort de Buade at St. Ignace in 1681 was an attempt by the authorities of [[New France]] to establish a military presence at the Straits, but it closed in 1697.<ref>Walter Romig, ''Michigan Place Names'', p. 204</ref>

Mackinaw City's first European settlement came in 1715 when the French built [[Fort Michilimackinac]]. They lost it to the British during the Seven Years' War, and the British abandoned the fort in 1783, after the [[American Revolutionary War]] resulted in independence of its Thirteen Colonies. The site of the fort in present-day Mackinaw City is a [[National Historic Landmark]] and is now preserved as an open-air historical museum. As with the forts at other settlements of the era and region such as Detroit, Michilimackinac was a fairly small post. It housed French civilians inside the fort, and allowed them to garden, hunt, and fish outside the walls. It was a trading post for the fur trade.

At the end of the [[French and Indian War]] (1754–1763), the [[United Kingdom|British]] took possession of the fort, but continued to allow the [[French people|French]] civilians to live within the walls, as they had good relations with the Odawa and Ojibwe for the fur trade. As a part of [[Pontiac's Rebellion]], [[Chippewa]] and [[Meskwaki]] warriors captured the fort on June 2, 1763, in a surprise attack during a game of ''baggatiway'' or [[lacrosse]]; the British at the fort were taken prisoner and mostly killed.

Europeans, in the form of French and Scots-Irish traders from Detroit and elsewhere, did not return until the following spring, with the understanding that they would trade more fairly with the Native Americans. The British abandoned the vulnerable site on the mainland during the [[American Revolutionary War]]; from 1779 to 1781, the troops moved the fort, including its buildings, to Mackinac Island, where they established [[Fort Mackinac]]. What the British did not take with them, they burned; that way they could prevent the American rebels from using Michilimackinac as a base.