La Baye was a small trading post which was established on the Baie des Puants in 1634 by Jean Nicolet. Nicolas Perrot, who was sent by Father Claude-Jean Allouez, continued the work that Nicolet had started. In 1671, the Jesuits constructed a mission. Fort La Baye was thus constructed in 1717. The town of La Baye was incorpored in 1754. At the end of the Seven Years' War, it went under British in 1761 and was renamed Green Bay.[1]
By 1718, there were some Metis families in the very broad area of the fort, but no settlement focused on it specifically. Other families settled across the river from the fort in an area which was called Munnomonee, because of the Menominee native people that lived there.
It was not until 1763 that concerted civilian settlement by people with some European ancestry began in the area. The first settlement in that year was led by Charles de Langlade, who was the son of a French-Candian father and an Odawa mother. Most of the families had come to La Baye from the Mackinac area.[2]
In 1816 La Baye had a population of about 40 families, who were virtually all Métis.[3] In the summer of 1820 La Baye was estaimated by Henry Schoolcraft to have 500 inhabitants, all essentially Metis or at least in Metis families, that is even if they could be called clearly French, Odawa, or some other Native American group, their spouse was of a different group.[4]