Fort de Buade

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Fort de Buade was a French fort at the present site of St. Ignace in the U.S. state of Michigan.

In 1683, Louis de Buade de Frontenac ordered Louis de la Porte, Sieur de Louvigny and 150 French soldiers to establish a strategic presence on the north shore of the Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron come together. The French-Canadian settlement at St. Ignace prior to 1683 was an unfortified fur-trading station and mission, founded by Father Jacques Marquette, S.J. in 1671.

In the 1690s, reports of English-speaking fur traders on the Great Lakes multiplied. In 1694 Frontenac sent an aggressive young protege, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, to run the fur trade post. Cadillac made a small fortune as the post commander, possibly by collecting bribes.

Relations between the fort and the adjacent Jesuit mission were not good during Cadillac's tenure. The missionaries accused Cadillac of encouraging the sale and trading of brandy to the Native Americans. Cadillac may have seen this move as a necessary tactic to fight against the British traders.

The trading competition continued. In 1701, Cadillac decided to move his garrison south from the Straits of Mackinac to a more strategic location on the Detroit River, to interdict the flow of British trade goods into the Lake Huron area. The Fort de Buade garrison thus indirectly helped give birth to the future city of Detroit.

The 1683-1701 Fort de Buade was probably a wooden stockade. It is believed to have been located near Moran Bay on the waterfront of the current village of St. Ignace, but as of January 2006 its remains had not yet been identified.

In 1715 a French detachment re-established a presence at the Straits of Mackinac. The new fort, called Fort Michilimackinac, was raised on the south shore of the Straits near the present location of Mackinaw City, Michigan.