Michigan is far from the first place you think of when talking about slavery.
But, the practice has its history here, including in northern Michigan.
For centuries, the Straits of Mackinac have been a vital artery in the heartbeat of North American commerce -- at heartbeat, at times, kept alive with the practice of slavery.
“There was a preexisting, indigenous system of slavery before the Europeans got here. Various tribes enslaving people and trading them for a variety of cultural reasons. After the Europeans arrived, the French and the British, they incentivized that system, and they, made it an economic enterprise rather than a cultural enterprise,” said Crag Wilson, the Chief Curator for the Mackinac State Historic Parks.
Wilson says Native American tribes in the straits practiced slavery for a variety of cultural reasons. That’s changed as European settlers arrived and African American slaves entered the picture.
“There are always a very small number of black, individuals enslaved here at Michilimackinac and elsewhere in Canada, but they’re always in the minority. It’s about 3 to 1 enslaved native people, to enslaved black people. Most of the work that these enslaved people are performing is domestic work, household chores, cooking, cleaning, running the household, maybe assisting with children, things like.
Slavery here at Michilimackinac and elsewhere in the Great Lakes, it is different than what people assume when they think about slavery in the United States. It’s not kinder or gentler, it’s just different. And so people who were enslaved typically lived alongside their enslavers,” explained Wilson.
That included a slave by the name of Pompe. HIs life as a slave in the straits is among the best documented.
“He’s enslaved by an Irish merchant named John Askin here in the 1770s. Pompe did a whole lot of different things for Askin including working as a sailor on his fleet of vessels running around between Mackinaw City, Sault Ste. Marie, potentially up into Lake Superior, and Askin pretty regularly mentioned him in some of his correspondence about the work he was doing,” said Wilson.
The stories of Pompe and others enslaved in the straits are now told in a new exhibit opened about a year ago inside Fort Michilimackinac.
“It’s something that a lot of people don’t think about. You know, we’re here in Michigan. It’s in the northern part of the United States. We don’t often think about slavery happening here. It did. It just is a little bit different from what we often consider American slavery to look like. And again, the stories of these native people, these black individuals who are enslaved here, they’re stories are as much a part of our shared history as anyone else
History, that no matter how painful, begs not to be forgotten.
“They’re a big part of why this region is the way it is today. Again, these enslaved individuals are here working in the fur trade, working in building these communities, working and running these communities, and, yeah, this community here in Mackinaw City over on Mackinac Island, they wouldn’t be here without all of the people, including those enslaved individuals,” said Wilson.
You can explore the slavery in the straits exhibit when Fort Michilimackinac reopens this spring.