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Birdseye view of Bay City in 1867, two years after its founding. (Photo courtesy Bay-Journal) HISTORY CITY: Bay City Loves its Past, As Sesquicentennial Pride Shows
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According to Augustus H. Gansser, military leader and historian, the native tribes who massacred the Sauks in the Beaver Wars about 1642, gathered to rest and parley on the very site of Bay City.
The Beaver Wars, of course, were all about control of the fur trade in which some bands of Indians were backed by the British and others by the French.
There is strong evidence that the Chippewa, Ottawa and Potawatomi tribes attacked the Sauks in here and multiple sites in northeastern Michigan, killed many and exiled the survivors. Some Sauks merged with the Fox Indians and the tribe today is known as the Sac and Fox, with a reservation at Stroud, Oklahoma.
The early settlers including William McCormick, told of finding skulls and bones and evidence of a great battle on what has become known as Skull Island, a former island in the Saginaw River off 41st Street.
But why would the victorious Indians gather on what Gansser described as the present site of Bay City, perhaps the location of City Hall?
Father Claude Dablon reported in the Jesuit Relations on the Indian warfare in the 1600s. The passages below, translated from the French, describe the Neutral Nation (Chippewa and allies) and the Nation du Feu (People of the Fire -- Sauks).
"From the Jesuit Relation for 1644 it is learned that the long struggle between the so-called 'Neutral Nation' and the 'Nation du Feu' at that time was still maintained with unabated fury.
"Father Jerome Lallemant states that in the summer of 1642 the Neuters with a force of 2,000 warriors advanced into the country of the 'Nation du Feu' and attacked a town of this tribe which was strongly defended by palisades and manned by 900 resolute warriors; that these patriots withstood the assaults of the besiegers for 10 days, but that at the end of this time the devoted place was carried.
"Many of its defenders were killed on the spot, and 800 captives-men, women, and children were taken; and 70 of the best warriors among the prisoners were burned at the stake, the, merciless victors putting out the eyes and cutting away the lips of all the old men and leaving them thus to die miserably.
The Father adds the interesting statement that "this Nation of the Fire is more populous than all the Neutral Nation, all the Hurons, and all the Iroquois, enemies of the Hurons, put together; it consists of a large number of villages wherein the Algonquin language is spoken.
"This last citation is further proof that the term 'Fire Nation,' or 'Nation of the Place of Fire,' at that period was applied in a broad general sense rather than in a specific one. Apparently it embraced all the tribes formerly dwelling in the eastern peninsula of the present state of Michigan, and later removed to the north and west shores of the present Lake Michigan, and still later it embraced some of the Illinois tribes."
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/sauk-tribe.htm
That description squares with the legends of the Sauks who were exiled and then joined the Fox in Illinois, stories verified by the Sauks themselves in their oral history.
That was 373 years ago, so the spot selected for the Indian gathering has long been favored by peoples living here. That dwarfs the 150 years celebrated as the founding of Bay City as an official municipality.
The intriguing question remains: Where was the town of the Sauks that was strongly defended by palisades and manned by 900 warriors? If it wasn't the present site of Bay City's City Hall, where was it? Skull Island? Or Crow Island, often confused with Skull Island?
Little archaeological evidence remains even for the existence of the Sauks here since they were nomadic. The skulls and arrowheads found by the early settlers have all been scattered. However, George W. Butterfield, in "Bay County Past & Present," (Bay City Board of Education, 1957) reported Sauk remains were found "nearer the surface, on level places as well as in the mounds."
Gansser's massive History of Bay County and Representative Citizens, published in 1905, no doubt stands as one the single most impressive tomes ever put together about a municipal entity. At 726 pages it weighs in at an even 10 pounds -- a challenge even to shelve.
But the fact that a citizen was moved to create such a document, if we can call it that, is a tribute to the community itself. People here bought it and read it and reveled in the glories of their town.
The fact that the Gansser history came out a couple of years after Bay City and West Bay City merged in 1903 may perhaps account for its publication and its popularity.
Yes, you can still get it on Amazon, for $39.95, and on Kindle, for $2.99; it ranks quite well especially on Kindle where it is in the 8,000s.
The fact that the venerable Bay City Times, founded in 1871, (only 6 years after the city itself) saw fit to elevate the 150th history of the city to front page banner headlines today on a Tim Younkman article confirms the regard of local folks to the city's past.
Modern demographers and sociologists mention a strong sense of place as an indication of quality of life. No doubt Bay City has that in spades. People go away for years and return in wonderment and joyous recollection: "I remember when..."
The Sauks themselves have such recollections in their oral histories stretching back nearly 400 years.
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tennis1960 Says:
On July 18, 2015
at 10:40 PM
So are there any official Indian burial sites in Bay County ?. Any pictures of these sites and have records of the tenets ?. Let me know....great tidbit of local history once again.
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Dave Rogers |
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