Saginaw

Saginaw lies on the river that flows into Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron, in the homeland of Anishinaabe communities. French traders and missionaries encountered Ojibwe people here in the late seventeenth century. In 1816 Louis Campau established a fur trading post on the river's western bank, where Métis people also lived.

In the Treaty of Saginaw in 1819, Ojibwe leaders negotiated the cession of land to the United States. The following year they rejected Campau's attempt to expand across the river. American soldiers established Fort Saginaw on the western bank in 1822 but abandoned it by 1824 amid harsh conditions and illness. The settlement grew slowly afterward; even a new town plan in 1830 attracted few buyers, and the financial panic of 1837 hindered further investment.