business." This mission establishment was the beloved child and the
common centre of interest of the few Protestant families clustered
around it. Through the zeal and good management of Mr. and Mrs. Ferry,
and the fostering encouragement of the congregation, the school was in
great repute, and it was pleasant to observe the effect of mental and
religious culture in subduing the mischievous, tricky propensities of
the half-breed, and rousing the stolid apathy of the genuine Indian.

These were the palmy days of Mackinac. As the head-quarters of the
American Fur Company, and the entrepôt of the whole Northwest, all the
trade in supplies and goods on the one hand, and in furs and products of
the Indian country on the other, was in the hands of the parent
establishment or its numerous outposts scattered along Lakes Superior
and Michigan, the Mississippi, or through still more distant regions.

Probably few are ignorant of the fact, that all the Indian tribes, with
the exception of the Miamis and the Wyandots, had, since the transfer of
the old French possessions to the British Crown, maintained a firm
alliance with the latter. The independence achieved by the United
States did not alter the policy of the natives, nor did our Government
succeed in winning or purchasing their friendship. Great Britain, it is
true, bid high to retain them. Every year the leading men of the
Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottowattamies, Menomonees, Winnebagoes, Sauks, and
Foxes, and even still more remote tribes, journeyed from their distant
homes to Fort Malden in Upper Canada, to receive their annual amount of
presents from their Great Father across the water. It was a
master-policy thus to keep them in pay, and had enabled those who
practised it to do fearful execution through the aid of such allies in
the last war between the two countries.