Lahontan's book published in 1703 has a map which shows our county to have been at that date a trapping ground "for the friends of the French," and abounding in beaver. In the early part of 1688 Lahontan, in going to the country of the Ojibways and the Outauos near Michillimackinac, found a large band of these Outauos, numbering three or four hundred, who had spent the winter trapping on our river and were then returning to their northern home. The same map shows that the Ottawas at that time had villages farther south and near Detroit. In 1710 there was a village of Ottawas between our county seat and Saginaw, and Colden in 1745 gives the location of another village of the same people between us and Detroit; we may assume that they held this region for many years. the power of the league having declined, the Ottawas lived in comparative peace, and when the Chippewas came in they fraternized with them as friends and allies. The Ottawas were, according to Lahontan, of great agility, but were inferior to the Huron-Iroquois in bravery. They were, like their Huron predecessors, agriculturists. Lahontan says that they had very pleasant fields, in which they sowed Indian corn, peas, and beans, besides a sort of "citruls" (summer squash) and "melons' which differed much from ours.

The ancient seat of the Ottawas was in the Manitoulin island, and the Franch called them "Cheveux releves," from their custom of wearing the hair erect, as appears from the account of the Jesuits. They were referred to in 1796 in grand council of the Indians of lower origin and that of the Ojibways and Pottawatomies, to a common ancestral people in the north land, and the relationship between these three branches of Algonquins was always close and friendly.

The first white men that the Ottawas ever saw were the French at the time of Champlain, and they were of those who allied themselves with him and went with him up the Sorel against the Mohawks of the league. The alliance was ever sacred to them; they fought with the French in the war against the English and when the British arms prevailed they were reluctant to believe it possible and slow in transforming allegiance to the English.

The French character, with its buoyancy and love of adornment, ingratiated them with the Ottawas, who were more given to gaudiness then the Hurons; during their occupancy of Genesee county there were among them many French and half-breeds, as traders and habitués, with whom they fraternized. A French patois became a medium of common communication. To this period we may refer the French names of our locality, of which "Grand Blanc," and "Grand Traverse," as applied tot he place where the old trail crossed the Flint river, are prominent examples.

Their allegiance, once transferred from the French to the English, was faithfully fulfilled, and even after the close of the Revolution, they continued to adhere to the English, whose equivocal action in holding the military posts in the United States, if not the direct incitement of the English, caused them to refuse recognition of the American claims. The punishment they received from Wayne forced the treaty of Ft. Greenville, in 1795, by which they gave up a large and valuable part of their Michigan territory. This division did not include any part of Genesee county, which continued to be Indian lands down to the treaty of 1807.

The foregoing account of the occupation of our county, first by the Hurons and, after a period of non-occupancy, by the Ottawas, and later by the Ojibways, materially differs from the account given by Franklin Ellis in chapter 11 of the excellent Abbott history of our county. Mr. Ellis gives a detailed account of defeat and expulsion of the Sauks by a combined attack of the Ottawas and Ojibways. He tells of the occupation of the Saginaw valley and its tributary streams by the Sauks, except the valley of the Cass river, which was occupied by a kindred people, the "Onottoways;" how the invaders entered the country in two columns--one, the southern Ottawas, through our woods from the south, the other, composed of Ojibways and Ottawas from the Mackinac country, coasting in their canoes along the western short of Lake Michigan by night, and hiding by day; how they reached the bay near the mouth of the Saginaw river--that half of one force was landed west of that point, and the other half proceeding to a point on the other side of the river, when both parties moved up, one on each side the river, in the darkness. The party on the west side attacked the village of the Sauks and drove them across the river where they were met and again defeated with great slaughter by the band on the east side. He goes on to tell that the remnant of the Sauk villagers then fled to an island in the river, hoping for safety in the middle of the river that was denied them on either bank. That night ice formed on the river, of sufficient thickness to enable the victorious Ojibways to cross over, where they massacred all, except twelve women. The invaders then separated into bands and attacked and destroyed the outlying villages of the Sauks and also the Onottoways in the Cass valley. One deadly struggle took place on the Flint river a little north of the Saginaw county line, and destruction was carried to the villages of the Shiawassee, Cass and Tillabawasee rivers. All of this was accomplished by the invaders from the north, while the Ottawas from the south fell upon the Sauks just below the present city of Flint, defeating and driving them down the river to Flushing, where again they fought and again defeated the fleeing Sauks in a bloody battle. Out of this series of battles, "a miserable remnant made their escape and finally, by some means, succeeded in eluding their relentless foes, and gained the shelter of the dense wilderness west of the Lake Michigan." A note to the Ellis account says, "One of the Indian accounts of this sanguinary campaign was to the effect that no Sauk or Onottoway warrior escaped, tht of all the people of the Saginaw valley not one was spared except the twelve women before mentioned, and that they were sent westward and placed among the tribes beyond the Mississippi. This, however, was unquestionably an exaggeration, made by the boastful Chippewas, for it is certain that a part of the Sauks escaped "beyond the lake." Mr. Ellis says that the conquerors did not at once take possession of this conquered territory, but that it became a common hunting ground, and was believed to be haunted by the spirits of the murdered Sauks; that finally they overcame this superstitious terror, and the Chippewas built their lodges in the land which their bloody hands had wrenched from its rightful possessors. As evidence of the battles described, Mr. Ellis refers to the large number of skulls and bones found on the island and other points on the Saginaw river.

Mr. Ellis's account is entirely at variance with many known facts, and bears many internal evidences of general error. In the first place, we have an occupancy of the Saginaw country, including Genesee county, by a people of Huron race, from an early period, presumably down to the time when the Hurons were driven out by the Ottawas, or soon after 1638. Of this Huron people a branch acquired the name, "Sauks," from an abbreviated form of Swageh-o-no, meaning the-people-who-went-out-of-the-land. From this people the name "Saginaw," as applied to the river and county, arose. Whether the same "Sauks," was originally applied to all, or a portion of the Huron inhabitants, is uncertain; but the Saginaw country in time came to be called by the name of the Sauks, or, to use the correct form, the Osaugies. The name is Huron. In 1638 began a general stampede of the Indians of Ontario because of the inroads of the confederated Iroquois of New York whose expeditions went up the Ottawa river and even to the straits of Mackinac and into the Saginaw country. All the tribes within the reach of these terrible enemies fled from their power. The Sauks disappeared from the Saginaw county. Their country became the hunting ground for the friends of the French. A French map of about 1680, "Carte Generale de Canada," marks it "Chassee de Castor des Amis des Francois"--a hunting ground of beaver for the friends of the French. Lahontan's map (1703) also marks it as a common hunting ground for the friend of the French. In Charlevoix's "History of New France" we find the following: "During the summer (1686) information arrived that the Iroquois had made an irruption into the Saguinam, a very deep bay in the western shore of Lake Huron, and had attacked the Ottawas of Michilimackinac, whose ordinary hunting ground it was." Lahontan tells us that in the spring of 1688 he net three or four hundred Ottawas returning from a winter spent here trapping. In early part of 1667 about one hundred and twenty Ontogamis (Foxes), two hundred Sauks and eighty Hurons came to Chagonamigon (St. Micheals Isle) in western Lake Superior, to hear Father Allouez; and in 1669 Father Allouez went up the Fox river to Lake Winnebago from Green bay and began his labors among the Sac, Foxes and other tribes.

Next we have the maps showing a village of the Ottawas in our valley. The French map and Colden's map of practically the same date (1745-6) show the Ottawas to be the only settled inhabitants of this region.

In August, 1701, when a treaty of peace was made between the Six Nations of New York and the French and their Indian allies at the grand council AT Montreal, we find "the Hurons and Ottawas from Michilimackinac, Ojibways from Lake Superior, Crees from the remote north, Pottawatomies from Lake Michigan, Mascoutins, Sacs, Foxes, Winnebagos, and Menominees from Wisconsin, Miamis from the ST. Joseph, Illinois from the river Illinois, Abenakis from Acadie, and many allied hordes of less account," gathered to make peace, for which all were anxious--the Hurons, Sauks and Algonquins, because they had been driven out from their homeland by the invasion of the Iroquois league; the league itself, because it had, by incessant and wasting warfare, felt its power waning.

From the above authorities, we find the Sauks settled in Wisconsin as early as 1667. It is quite reasonable to assume that when they fled from this country, which had for many generations been their home, which was hallowed by the associations of many, many years, they fled away from their enemies whom they feared, and not into closer proximity to that enemy. They fled from the Saginaw country and from Genesee county to Wisconsin, or away from the power of the Five Nations, just as the Ottawas, the Hurons of Ontario, the Petuns, and others fled from that powerful enemy, in one general exodus to the west and northwest, always away from the land of the league.

In the light of these basic facts, can we imagine any such things as a junction of the Chippewas and Ottawas in a war of extermination against a considerable tribe of their allies. If it took place at all, the expedition must have happened between 1638 and 1667, at a time when both Ottawas and Chippewas were fighting in alliance with the Sauks for this very existence against a common enemy.

Mr. Ellis gained his account from a tradition of the "boastful Chippewas." The story of the Chippewas, as stated in the note above quoted, sometimes claimed utter extermination of the Sauks, except twelve women. In another form as quoted by Albert miller, on page 377, Vol. 13, "Michigan Historical Collections," the story is that a council was held by the Chippewas, Pottawatomies, Ottawas, and Six nations of new York, as a result of which "they all met at the island of Mackinac and fitted out a large army and started in bark canoes down the west shore of Lake Huron." They follows a detailed account of various battles, each of which was disastrous to the Sauks; a burial of the slain in a common grave, and final extermination of the Sauks, except twelve women who were sent to the Sioux. This story was told by an old Indian, Put-ta-gua-se-mine.

It might also be said of Mr. Ellis's account that the name Onottoways, which he gives to the people living in the vicinity of the Sauks, and who suffered a like fate; is no more nor less than one of the names of the Ottawas, variously spelled Ottaways, Ouwaes, Ouatonais, and a dozen other ways. the particular form used by Mr. Ellis seems to be made by prefixing the Huron "ono" (people) to "Ottoways," making "Ono-Ottaways," contracted to Onottoways" (the Ottawa folk). As there was a village of the Ottawas here after the departure of the Sauks somewhere near the place assigned as the location of the "Onottoways," a tradition of which probably lingered in the minds of the Chippewas, their boastful story of the expedition could well include this "other people," although the Sauks and Onottoways were never synchronous residents in the Saginaw country.

The most serious objection to the tale, however, is the fact tht the Sauks never suffered any such crushing calamity as related. They fled to Wisconsin, where they were so numerous that in 1787 Joseph Aisne found a single village of them containing seven hundred men, and in 1763 so close was the bond of friendship between then that no other tribe except the "Osangees" was admitted to the secret councils of the Chippewas in which were perfected the plans for taking the fort at Michilimackinac; the two alone carried the plan into effect.

The various stories told by the Chippewas as to this war against the Sauks seem to have been given in explanation of various places of burial along the Saginaw river and its tributaries, where the remains of considerable numbers of humans were found. From first-hand evidence obtained by the writer of this chapter from various Chippewas of Minnesota and from excavation of mounds in that state, it was found invariably that the Chippewas explain a place of common burial as a "big battle." Communal interment was the custom among the Hurons, but not among the Chippewas; consequently a battle seemed to them to be the natural explanation of such common burials.

From all the facts it seems that the story referred to of the expedition of the Chippewas must be put in the category of myths, growing out of the boastful tales of the Chippewas who invented a battle for each place of common burial of their Huron predecessors.