- Date
- 1763-06
- Eras
- Indigenous era
- Concepts
- toponymyanishinaabe-odawamaritimehistoriography
- Within
- Beaver Island archipelago
Summary
Alexander Henry’s narrative supplies a direct 1763 usage of the French name Isles du Castor for the Beaver Island group. In the account, written from a colonial captive perspective after the capture of Michilimackinac, Henry says that a canoe party was bound for the Isles du Castor in Lake Michigan before changing course near Waugoshance and returning toward Michilimackinac.
This is a historical name and route attestation, not an island event record. The narrative does not establish that Henry reached the archipelago, identify a specific island, locate a landing, or independently verify its descriptions of Odawa, Ojibwe, or other people.
Evidence and limits
The archive holds the 1901 James Bain edition of a narrative about 1760–1776, not Henry’s manuscript or a 1763 printing. The passage’s violent and hostile allegations are retained as part of the source’s perspective and are not repeated as project claims. Interpretation of the 1763 crisis requires Indigenous-led scholarship and additional contemporary sources.
See also
Read the document
410 pages, rendered from the held scan.
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Sources
- Held public-domain edition. The visually checked pp. 93–95 passage says that Henry and other captives were embarked toward the “Isles du Castor, in Lake Michigan,” later calls them islands “in the mouth of Lake Michigan,” and records the party reaching Waugoshance before returning to Michilimackinac. The account is a colonial captive narrative, with hostile language and unverified allegations about Indigenous intentions; it is evidence of Henry’s naming and route narrative, not independent proof that a planned crossing occurred, that events took place on the islands, or that its claims about Anishinaabe people are factual.
- Searchable OCR locates the Isles du Castor passages and edition pagination; the name and surrounding wording were checked in the held PDF rather than accepted from OCR alone.
- Project provenance sidecar for the held Henry narrative PDF, retrieved 31 July 2026.Records the Internet Archive source URL, retrieval time, checksum, public-domain/open-access note, the 1901 Bain edition, and the verified pp. 93–95 passages. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
- Internet Archive DjVu provenance sidecar for the held Henry narrative.Records the Internet Archive derivative URL, retrieval metadata, checksum, and derivative status for the OCR navigation aid. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
Added 2 August 2026. Recent changes
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “Alexander Henry’s Isles du Castor passage, 1763 narrative; 1901 edition”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/documents/alexander-henry-isles-du-castor-1763/, accessed [date], citing Alexander Henry, *Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories between the Years 1760 and 1776*, James Bain edition, Boston, 1901, pp. 93–95 (narrating June 1763). (and 3 further sources listed on the page).
Last revised 2026-08-02. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.
BibTeX for “Alexander Henry’s Isles du Castor passage, 1763 narrative; 1901 edition”RIS for “Alexander Henry’s Isles du Castor passage, 1763 narrative; 1901 edition”