Module 13: An Ethnic History of Albion: Native American Life

Native Americans were the first inhabitants of the Albion area, and they came a very long time ago. Archaeological research provides two snapshots of their activities, with most information on how they met their basic needs for food and warmth.

In Springport, Michigan, the bones of a mammoth were found by local farmers laying down a pipe to drain a low-lying field. The bones lay in what was once the bottom of a lake, at the end of the Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago. The mammoth was excavated by University of Michigan paleontologist Dan Fisher. Fisher is determined to find out the cause of mammoth extinction. There are currently three theories (Discovering Archaeology, vol. 5, no. 1, 1999). The first theory is that they became extinct as the earth's climate gradually warmed at the end of the last Ice Age. In response to warmer conditions, evergreen forest replaced grassy tundra, creating food shortages for grazing animals like mammoths. Mammoth populations declined as food supplies dwindled, and finally the last mammoth died, leaving no offspring. The problem with this theory is that there were several periods of global warming during the Ice Age, and mammoths survived them all except the last one. Why was the end of the last Ice Age different enough to cause extinction?

The second theory is that mammoths were hunted to extinction by humans who entered the New World about 12,000 years ago by crossing the Bering Strait land bridge, which was created by glacial advance and lower sea levels. In the Old World, human hunters and large game animals developed in tandem, little by little, so that as human hunters became more expert, game animals became more adept at avoiding them or at reproducing more quickly. But in the New World, skilled, intelligent humans encountered game animals that were innocent of human predation, sitting ducks, that could, and were, rapidly hunted to extinction (Martin 1967).

The third theory is that mammoths were killed off by a vicious virus that traveled to the New World with humans or their dogs. This would explain why extinction episodes passed over affected continents with dramatic speed, ignoring differences in environmental suitability for humans.

At the Springport farm, Fisher looked for evidence of human hunters. He found no spear points, but he did find something curious. The mammoth bones were divided into four concentrations, as if the mammoth had been butchered into four chunks. Each concentration of bone was associated with a small, dark, circular stain on the soil, what archaeologists call a post mold, the remains of a pole or post stuck in the ground. Also, each concentration of bone was accompanied by a football-shaped deposit of sand. Fisher noticed that the deposits of sand were covered by a thin layer of green scum, and when he had the green scum analyzed, he found it contained stomach enzymes from the ancient mammoth. Fisher reconstructs the events as follows: Humans might have killed the mammoth or come upon it already dead. The cut it into four quarters and preserved the quarters by putting them into the freezing waters of the pond. To weigh them down, they filled segments of mammoth intestine with sand and tied the ends, then tied the weights to the meat. To signal the location of the submerged meat, they erected poles that would stick above the icy surface of the pond.

So, human hunters may have been involved in this case of mammoth death. Fisher will be studying the crosssections of the mammoth's tusks to see if it was suffering from a shortage of browse or if it was diseased. Tusks have growth rings (like tree trunks), and growth rate, age at maturation, and condition at death are all reflected in the pattern of growth.

Mammoths became extinct in Michigan about 10,000 years ago, so we know that Native Americans have lived in the Albion area for at least 10,000 years!

The Kalamazoo River appears to have attracted native settlement in later time. The river provided a transportation artery (for Indian canoes), drinking water, aquatic birds, fish, and wild rice. The glaciers deposited flint nodules, useful for stone tools, in the riverbank. The natural vegetation in the Albion area was an oak-hickory forest bearing nutritious nuts (hickory nuts are high in proteins and oils) and supporting game animals such as deer, bear, turkey, and partridge.

The site in the Whitehouse Nature Center is located on a hill on the south bank of the Kalamazoo River. The hill would have insured a dry campsite, but one with easy access to the river and its resources. The hill was rarely flooded, so not much soil was deposited on the site after it was abandoned. The hill was plowed by European settlers in the late nineteenth century, which moved the artifacts on the site from their original locations.

Two small arrowheads from the site and a small piece of thin cord-marked pottery suggest that the site was occupied during the Late Allegan phase, 1000-1300 C.E. The site consists of small clusters of stone waste flakes (from manufacturing and resharpening stone tools), pea-sized pieces of pottery, broken tools (especially small stone scrapers and stone drills—we don't know what people were drilling: wood, shell, bone?), some grinding stones, a piece of a slate pendant, and one bone tool that miraculously survived plowing: a bone reamer for tanning hides. We have not found any pits dug into the ground. The absence of pits plus the thin scatter of artifacts on the site suggests that this was a temporary campsite.

European settlers in Michigan observed Indians living in small camps, staying in one location briefly, then moving on. The Europeans viewed this as evidence of an aimless, nomadic way of life. But when archaeologists analyze the pattern of Allegan-phase sites, they see that camp was part of a deliberate strategy of seasonal movement that facilitated the orderly exploitation of natural resources. Robert G. Kingsley (1979) analyzed 23 Allegan-phase site from Allegan county, where the Kalamazoo River empties into Lake Michigan. Sites fell into several different groupings based on their location and their proximity to different kinds of resources. Some sites were in bluff locations overlooking the river and in close proximity to riverine swamps. Kingsley interpreted these as sheltered winter sites, in ideal locations for cold weather deer-hunting. Some sites were located on points of land jutting into the water. Kingsley interpreted these as camps for warm-weather fishing. Some sites were located at narrow constrictions along the river valley. These would be ideal locations for sturgeon fishing during spring runs. Sites with high densities of fire-cracked rock (rock shattered by repeated heating and cooling) might have been spring camps for making maple sugar. Bluff sites in areas of maximum environmental diversity might have been fall camps for gathering and processing nuts. One site, the only one located more than a quarter mile from the river, might have served as a burial area.

These many different kinds of sites suggest a well-thought-out plan of residential mobility, enabling the harvest of one seasonally abundant food after another in a regular sequence. The Whitehouse Nature Center site was one stopping place in the seasonal round. This food-getting strategy was very reliable. It caught each food type at its peak of availability. This strategy was also very environmentally friendly. People never stayed in any one place long enough to exhaust the natural resources or pollute the water and soil. It was also a very successful strategy. Agriculture was used sparingly, or not at all, although groups to the south were dependent on maize, beans, and squash cultivation. Indians on the Kalamazoo River didn't need this form of dietary supplement.

The first contact between Michigan Indians and Europeans occurred in 1615, when Champlain encountered Indians on Georgian Bay, Ontario. Shortly thereafter, native life in Michigan was disrupted by attacks from powerful Iroquois raiding parties. The Iroquois were attempting to gain control of fur trapping in the region to expand their trade with French and British (Clifton 1986). The refugees returned in 1701, after a military alliance of Great Lakes tribes and the French forced the Iroquois to accept peace. During the eighteenth century, Michigan Indians established both economic and political relations with Europeans. They traded the furs of beaver, mink, martin, and otter for brass kettles, woolen cloth, steel knives and traps, glass beads, and rum. They were also drawn into the conflicts among European powers, siding with the French against the British in the French and Indian War and with the British against the Americans in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

From 1816 to 1833, the Potawatomi Indians, the native inhabitants of southern Michigan, were involved in some 30 treaty negotiations with the United States, exchanging a claim on much of their land (and thus opening the way for European settlement) for confirmed title to the rest of their land, reservations (i.e., lands that Native Americans "reserved" for their own use) and for cash payments and annuities. These lands were lost in 1832 when federal legislation dictated that all Native Americans living east of the Mississippi would be forced to move west of the Mississippi. The Potawatomi were marched away to Kansas in September, 1840, but three years later, many had returned to their homes and cornfields in western Michigan. The Indians used some of the money from their treaty agreements to buy back their old homesteads. They have continued to live in southwestern Michigan. In 1995, a community of about 700 Potawatomi centered in Grand Rapids won federal recognition as the Huron Band Potawatomi. Included in this group is a small group of Potawatomi living about 20 miles from Albion, in Athens, Michigan, south of Battle Creek.