This year in the Glen Arbor Sun we’re publishing a series on the living legacy of the Native Americans. A desire to push back against the rise of xenophobia in contemporary America is not the only reason we chose to examine the living legacy of the local Odawa and Ojibwe among us. Across civil society in Northern Michigan, and throughout the nation, it seems that more and more people are interested in learning the Native perspective on this land and the human history it has witnessed.
One of the most puzzling marriages in Michigan history, perhaps in American history, has to have been that between Henry Schoolcraft and his Native American wife, Jane. Henry, whose name now graces roads, schools, and counties in Michigan, was an explorer who worked for the United States Department of War. He was the Indian agent at Sault Ste. Marie from 1823 to 1833. Jane was the daughter of an aristocratic Irish fur trader, John Johnston, and his wife, Ozhaw-Guscoday-Wayquay, daughter of a powerful Chippewa chief.