However, it is unknown how much Indian blood Agatha had. Her parents most likely came from the Odawa and Potawatomi tribes. This information helped her piece information together and identify some band members.Ī majority of the women were at least half-blood and many were married to fur traders.īiddle joined the band in 1837 and became its chief in the early 1860s.
Weller said she found a lot of interesting stories about the women and that people were extremely generous giving her information and photos of their ancestors to include in her book. These years were important because 1858 was the last year when the women’s names for annuity payments were written in their own Indian names.Īfter that, annuities were written with the names of their husbands. Weller was able to obtain records from the Mackinac Island Genealogy and Family History for 1858-59.
But there were so many gaps in between,” Weller said. “The writing process started with me making spreadsheets of all the various annuities I had and trying to compare them. Weller used records of the annuity payments to research who belonged to the band. Who were these women? Where did they come from? What were their lives like?” Sauvages is a French word meaning wild or natural. In the preface, Weller says that her purpose in writing the book “was to give the Sauvages a name. I thought that there’s so many that are related to people on Mackinac Island that I should keep going with it,” Weller said.
“It started that I was just collecting the annuities and wanted to find out what my ancestor’s Indian name was, and it just blossomed. Weller tells the genealogies of families in the band and gives readers insight into what life was like for them and others on Mackinac Island during the 19th century.
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