would come among them to make war with them. Their enemies were of the
Iroquois of New York. Therefore, once in the dead of the winter while
the Ottawas were having a great jubilee and war dances at their island,
now Manitoulin, on account of the great conquest over the We-ne-be-goes
of Wisconsin, of which I will speak more fully in subsequent chapters,
during which time the Senecas of New York, of the Iroquois family of
Indians, came upon the remnant race and fought them, and almost
entirely annihilated them. But two escaped to tell the story, who
effected their escape by flight and by hiding in one of the natural
caves at the island, and therefore that was the end of this race. And
according to our understanding and traditions the tribal name of those
disastrous people was "Mi-shi-ne-macki naw-go," which is still existing
to this day as a monument of their former existence; for the Ottawas
and Chippewas named this little island "Mi-shi-ne-macki-nong" for
memorial sake of those their former confederates, which word is the
locative case of the Indian noun "Michinemackinawgo." Therefore, we
contend, this is properly where the name Michilimackinac is originated.

This is the earliest possible history of this little Island, as I have
related, according to the Ottawa traditions; and from that time forward
there have been many changes in its history, as other tribes of Indians
took possession of the island, such as the Hurons and Chippewas; and
still later by the whites--French, English, and Americans; and numbers
of battles have been fought from time to time there, by both Indians
and whites, of which I need not relate as other historians have already
given us the accounts of them. But only this I would relate, because I
have never yet seen the account of it: It is related in our traditions
that at the time when the Chippewas occupied the island they ceded it
to the United States Government, but reserved a strip of land all
around the island as far as a stone throw from its water's edge as