Thousands of years before the first Europeans settled in Cheboygan County, Native Americans fished, hunted, traded and warred here.

Just west of Mackinaw City, “Spirit Rock” sits in Lake Michigan a few feet from shore. It is a massive rock. Native American traditions indicate the rock has been used as a meeting place by area tribes for 6,000 years for councils over peace, war and other important issues (You can see Spirit Rock today by visiting Emmet County’s McGulpin Point County Park).

There is archaeological evidence pointing to human settlement of the Straits area more than 10,000 years ago as the glaciers from the last Ice Age retreated north. There are also signs permanent early Native settlements on Burt and Mullet Lakes.

While much of this ancient history is lost to the ages, Native Americans have preserved their stories in their traditional oral histories. And in a few cases, the stories were recorded by the European explorers and priests who were among the first to explore the Straits area in the 1600s.

One such story, about a battle between local Indian bands in the late 1600s, was preserved by Native Americans in oral tradition for more than 100 years and then shared with early settlers in Cheboygan County in the 1800s.

Thankfully, for history’s sake, a version of the story was printed in Cheboygan’s first newspaper, the Manitawauba Chronicle. This newspaper, which was published bi-weekly for a few months in 1871, preceded the Cheboygan Daily Tribune. I recently ran across a fascinating article about the battle in the March 25, 1871 edition of the Chronicle. The article was titled “Cheboygan.” It recounted an old story of two bands of Indians, an Odawa band living in St. Ignace, and the “Au-se-gum-ugs” of “Old Mackinac” (at first, “Old Mackinac” referred to the area around Fort Michilimackinac in Mackinaw City and later included Mackinac Island). The historical accuracy of the article is unknown, as it was based on Native American oral traditions passed on to early white settlers on the Cheboygan River. The 1871 newspaper article does not cite where they obtained this narrative, and the reasons for the battle were not included in the Chronicle article.

According to the legend, one day, the Au-se-gum-ugs crossed over the Straits to the Odawa camp in St. Ignace. The Odawa men were away. Seeking revenge for an undisclosed slight, the Au-se-gum-ugs found two women working in the fields and killed them before returning to the southern shore of the Straits.

When the Odawa men returned home to St. Ignace and found the murdered women, they organized a war party to cross the Straits to avenge their deaths. The Au-se-gum-ugs were away from their village. The Odawa chief could not kill their helpless women and children.

He left and followed the trail of the Au-se-gum-ugs to the mouth of the Cheboygan River. He was not sure where they went from there, so in hope of surprising them, his men hid and waited for the enemy to return.

The unsuspecting Au-se-gum-ugs warriors arrived at the mouth of the river on a hot, humid August day. Hot and tired from their journey, the warriors plunged into the cool, sparkling river waters to refresh themselves.

Then the Odawa attacked. Giving a shrill war-whoop, they rushed out of hiding and into the shallow river with their tomahawks and scalping knives. Not a single Au-se-gum-ugs warrior was left to carry the devastating news back to Old Mackinac.

When white settlers arrived in Cheboygan from Mackinac Island to establish a sawmill and homes in 1845-46, the Native Americans living there welcomed them. Surely, many Cheboyganites living today are descendants of the Odawa, Au-se-gum-ugs, and the earliest white settlers, though, thankfully, there are no longer any wars!