- Date
- 1895
- Eras
- Indigenous eraEarly American era
- Concepts
- historiographyanishinaabe-odawagovernanceheritage
Summary
Volume 23 reprints an 1815 letter from Robert McDonall to Sir F. P. Robinson from Drummond Island. In the letter, McDonall says that the Indigenous people who had long received clothing from the British at the former post included Ottawas of L’Arbre Croche and Chippewas of Grand Traverse and the Beaver Islands.
This is useful early documentary evidence that a British Indian-affairs correspondent placed the Beaver Islands within a wider regional network of Anishinaabe communities in 1815. The record preserves the letter’s administrative and colonial viewpoint. It does not identify individuals, enumerate island populations, or replace Indigenous-authored, treaty, census, mission, or community records.
Sources
- Described in this archive: Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society collections corpus.Printed page image checked. McDonall writes that the Indians receiving British clothing at the former post included principally Ottawas of L’Arbre Croche and Chippewas of Grand Traverse and the Beaver Islands, identifying both nations as being in Lake Michigan. This is an 1895 reprinting of an 1815 letter within a colonial administrative record; it is not an Indigenous-authored account, a complete population record, or evidence of every community named beyond the letter’s wording.
Added 2 August 2026 · revised 4 August 2026. Recent changes
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “Michigan Historical Collections, volume 23, 1895”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/documents/michigan-historical-collections-volume-23/, accessed [date], citing Robert McDonall to Sir F. P. Robinson, “Drummond Is[d], 10 Jany. 1815–6,” reprinted in *Michigan Historical Collections*, vol. 23 (1895), p. 96, Internet Archive item michiganhistoric23mich..
Last revised 2026-08-04. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.
BibTeX for “Michigan Historical Collections, volume 23, 1895”RIS for “Michigan Historical Collections, volume 23, 1895”