Fort Saint Joseph was a fort originally established on land granted to the Jesuits by King Louis XIV located on what is now the south side of the present day town of Niles, Michigan. Pere Jean Claude Allouez established the Mission de Saint-Joseph there in the 1680’s. Allouez ministered to the local Native Americans. Built by the French in 1691 mainly as a trading post on the lower Saint Joseph River, the fort was located where one branch of the Old Sauk Trail, a major east-west Native American trail, and the north-south Grand River Trail meet, fords the river. The fort was a significant stronghold of the fur trade at the southern end of Lake Michigan.
During the Battle of Jumonville Glen, Joseph Coulon de Jumonville was murdered. Jumonville's half brother, Captain Coulon de Villiers, vowed revenge. Jumonville was the son of Nicolas-Antoine Coulon de Villiers and half brother of Louis Coulon de Villiers who was stationed at Fort St. Joseph at the time of the Battle.
After the British victory in the French and Indian War, France turned the fort over to the British, who occupied it in October 1761. On May 25, 1763, during Pontiac's Rebellion, the fort was captured by Potawatomi Indians. Most of the fifteen-man garrison was killed outright, while the commander, Ensign Francis Schlosser, was taken to Detroit and ransomed by the Potawatomis as a prisoner. After Pontiac's Rebellion, the fort no longer served as a military outpost, but it continued to be an important trading post.
Fort St. Joseph was important in equipping the Miamis, Potawatomies, and other American Indians who were at war with the United States during the American Revolutionary War. The fort was raided by Americans from Cahokia, Illinois in 1780, but they were overtaken near Petit fort (in present-day Indiana) while trying to escape. Fort St. Joseph was captured and plundered on February 12, 1781 by an expedition of about 140 Spanish soldiers led by a Frenchman and made up of Frenchmen and American Indians, who had set out from the Spanish town of St. Louis. The attack was in retaliation for the attack on St. Louis in the previous year. By looting or destroying the goods held at Fort St. Joseph, they prevented a second British attack into Spanish territory.[1]
The fort was finally abandoned by the British after the Northwest Indian War and the signing of Jay's Treaty in 1795.
The specific location of the fort site was forgotten and not rediscovered until 1998. [1] [2]
References
- ^ Paré, George The St. Joseph Mission pg 47-48. Availableonline from the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, Indiana University.
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