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75 C aptain Henry Balfour took possession of the French forts at Michilimackinac, La Baye, and St. Joseph in autumn 1761, thereby incorporating the Michilimackinac borderland into the British Atlantic World. When Balfour reached Michilimackinac on September 28, 1761, he met British traders , who together generated mistrust, uncertainty, and anxiety among people reeling from the effects of a long war that had not yet been formerly ended by treaty. Balfour, Lieutenants Dietrich Brehm and William Leslye, and Ensigns James Gorrell and Francis Schlösser, along with traders Alexander Henry, Henry Bostwick, James Stanley Goddard, and Ezekiel Solomon, all of whom had arrived only days before, were all part of the first wave of British to come to Michilimackinac. From their first day at the fort, the British faced the daunting challenge of creating trust among themselves and Native people and Canadians while simultaneously reconstituting the fur trade and making peace in the upper country. Balfour ’s efforts to implement General Jeffery Amherst’s policy of restoring the fur trade upon a basis of fairness and openness to all licensed traders and to establish peace with the Indians was severely hampered by his general’s parsimony and low opinion of Native people. Amherst, who was under enormous pressure to reduce expenses in North America, expected his officers to dictate rather than negotiate peace with the Indians and directed them to give few, if any, presents , especially gunpowder. Amherst ordered his subordinates not to purchase “the good behavior of Indians”; rather let them barter for what they needed from traders. He also thought it “impolitick” to give Indians powder since this provided them “with the means of accomplishing the evil which is so much dreaded.”1 The British soon discovered that the Indians at Michilimackinac faced internal disunity, intertribal conflicts, the ravages of disease, and the effects of the disruption of the fur trade. Even though Balfour required the Canadians to swear an oath of allegiance to George III, rivalry between the English and French remained intense. After all, they were still technically at war. The formal peace ending the Seven Years’ War was not concluded until February 10, 1763.2 The absence of a final peace treaty made it difficult for British officers and traders to secure the trust of both Indians Michilimackinac, 1761 british troops take possession of the fort and the posts at la baye and st. joseph chapter four chapter four 76 and Canadians. The Articles of Capitulation agreed to by Amherst and Governor General Vaudreuil on September 8, 1760, at Montreal ended the fighting but did not formally end the war even though Vaudreuil had ceded Canada to Great Britain.3 If we divide the characters on the stage at Michilimackinac into four groups—Indians, Canadians (including the métis and Interior French), British military, and British traders—we are able to ascertain four perspectives relative to trust, peace, and the fur trade. All four groups wanted a profitable fur trade. Each group favored peace, but they did not all agree on how peace should come about or what peace should look like. No group, however, trusted all of the other groups. The Indians distrusted the British military and traders ; British traders were suspicious of the Indians and the Canadians; the British military were leery of the Indians and Canadians; and many Canadians feared that British traders might deprive them of their livelihood and obeyed the military only because they had taken an oath of allegiance to the British monarch. From the time that British traders and soldiers first set foot at Michilimackinac, mistrust, fear, and suspicion shaped the course of events for the next two years, leading, ultimately, to violence. The accounts of Henry Balfour ’s conference with Indians at Michilimackinac on September 29, 1761, and Alexander Henry’s recollections of his first days at the fort, published in 1809, give some valuable insights into the implications of the lack of a peace treaty.4 They write the script for a three-act drama that identifies and interprets the challenges facing the members of the furtrade society at Michilimackinac brought on by the arrival of the British. Henry and Minweweh (Minavavana), the chief of the Ojibwe band on Mackinac Island, played the leading roles in Act 1.5 • • • Alexander Henry understood that he needed to work with CanadiansinordertogainentryintotheMichilimackinacfur trade. After Henry determined to come to Michilimackinac, he moved merchandise, needed for trading, from Albany to Montreal...

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