User:Druliasdean/Cadotte Site

Namesake and Location


 * The Cadotte site was home to various Native American tribes and colonial peoples over the last millennia; being a multicultural hub, it is rich with history, cultural diversity, and archeological investigation. This site has been a focus of modern archeologists who seek to discover the various peoples and settlements at and around this site.
 * This site is named after the French Canadian trader Michel Cadotte. He was married to a Native-American woman named Equaysayway: daughter of White Crane one of the chief's of the Ojibwe tribe. Other tribes also lived throughout this area like the Odawa and Huron. The Spanish also settled in the area for a time.


 * The Cadotte Site is found in a bay located within Lake Superior in modern day Wisconsin. It is on the south side of Madeline Island. The site is across the Lake from Chequameon Bay and near an island refereed to as 'Long Island'.

Occupation of the Site and its Surrounding Areas


 * Cadotte who settled in 1790's was not the first human to use this area. Historians who follow Harold Hickerson's interpretation of its peopling say that it became occupied by the Ojibwe people in the late 1680's. However, the Ojibwe have produced a copper disk with generational information containing the rites of passage for each succeeding generation. With this in mind, the Ojibwe date their settlement time of this area to be around the late 1400's. The Ojibwe's culture also persisted in the area into the 19th century.


 * The Odawa and Huron people moved to the region as refugees of war around the 1650's. They used this area to resettle, creating agricultural sites on the island to feed and provide for their people. The Odawa also made a fortification to provide protection and a vantage point as it was inhabited by other groups.


 * A mission was founded in the bay by Father Claude Jean Alllouez in 1665. Mission St. Esprit was built near agricultural villages of the Odawa and Huron. Sioux hostilities lead to the abandonment of both the mission and Odawa/Huron settlements in 1671. In 1693 the French build a fort in the area but its exact location is still unknown.

Excavations and Artifacts Collected


 * Al Galazean was the archaeologist to do minor digs, metal collecting, and surface collecting in and around the Cadotte Site in the 1940's. He later told Leland Cooper of the area and his findings. Cooper was the first modern excavator of the site. He began digging in 1961 and was a herald of Hamelin University. Unfortunately no reports of the findings from Cooper's dig were ever published, but the site was re-excavated in the future.


 * In 1966 Geroge Quimby discovered unusual ceramic assemblages. These were believed to be of Huron and Petun make. In the 1980's Robert Birmingham discovered Robert Cadotte's settlement, which was occupied from 1790-1840. Birmingham returned in 2005 to reexamine the area Cooper had initially excavated. He was surprised to discover a cemetery from the late 1800's-early 1900's. This discovery enhanced this


 * If you would like to view these artifacts the Wisconsin Historical Society and Madeline Island Museum(as well as the Madeline Island Museum's collection at La Pointe) contain the findings of these excavations.

Refrences

Robert F. Mazrim (2011) Reconsidering the Antiquity of Trade on MadelineIsland: A View from the Cadotte Site in Northern Wisconsin, Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology,36:1, 29-71, DOI: 10.1179/mca.2011.003