Jacques Cartier, a French Explorer, meets the Algonkin and Huron peoples while traveling on the St. Lawrence River. This is the first recorded meetings between Europeans and Native peoples from the Great Lakes region.
After the Iroquois make a peace treaty with the French, the Iroquois conquer SW Michigan, and push out the Potawatomi, who relocate to Wisconsin.
Iroquois ally with the French, in anticipation of the threat of the Thirteen Colonies. The Iroquois allow the Potawatomi to return to Michigan.
The French and Native Americans form an alliance to fight against the British for control of the Ohio River Valley. The French and allies lost the war, and were forced to cede lands east of the Mississippi, which included Michigan.
The Pontiac War last’s for two years, and though it ends in effective stalemate, it results in Britain being forced to recognize Indigenous autonomy in the East and Midwest.
A large Native-American alliance created to resist the influence of Americans into the East and Midwest, after Britain ceded these lands to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.
