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The Cadottes: A Fur Trade Family on Lake Superior
The Great Lakes fur trade spanned two centuries and thousands of miles, but the story of one particular family, the Cadottes, illuminates the history of trade and trapping while exploring under-researched stories of French-Ojibwe political, social, and economic relations. Multiple generations of Cadottes were involved in the trade, usually working as interpreters and peacemakers, as the region passed from French to British to American control. Focusing on the years 1760 to 1840—the heyday of the Great Lakes fur trade—Robert Silbernagel delves into the lives of the Cadottes, with particular emphasis on the Ojibwe–French Canadian Michel Cadotte and his Ojibwe wife, Equaysayway, who were traders and regional leaders on Madeline Island for nearly forty years. In The A Fur Trade Family on Lake Superior , Silbernagel deepens our understanding of this era with stories of resilient, remarkable people.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published May 29, 2020
32 people are currently reading
359 people want to read
About the author
Robert Silbernagel
3 books5 followersRobert Silbernagel is a retired journalist and history writer who lives in Western Colorado with his wife, Judy.
In addition to books, he writes a regular history column for The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, Colorado. It's online at gjsentinel.com
In addition to books, he writes a regular history column for The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, Colorado. It's online at gjsentinel.com
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
January 7, 2020
The early history of the Great Lakes depicts the interactions between Europeans hoping to exploit the natural wealth of the New World and the indigenous population. The first to establish permanent trading posts were the French Canadians. They took native wives in "the Indian way" to cement relationships and enhance trade. Later, the British replaced the French. When the Europeans returned to the East they broke off with the native wives.
But some traders' families remained intact and flourished. Silbernagel offers us the Cadottes whose family presence on Madeline Island in western Lake Superior were important figures for two hundred years.
The Cadottes: A Fur Trade Family on Lake Superior is an interesting family history that also illuminates the history and geography of the region, the Ojibwe culture, the life of the colorful voyageurs and early fur traders, and the rise of the lucrative fur trade that produced the first multimillionaire in America.
When Silbernagel viewed the gravestone of Michel Cadotte on Madeline Island he became motivated to learn more about his life and the history of the area. He spent fifteen years researching five generations of Cadottes fur traders and interpreters for business and political ventures.
I was particularly interested in learning more about the interactions between Europeans and the Ojibwe. My husband recently donated an heirloom bible to a museum; the book had been given to his second-great-grandmother by John Riley whose father was a New York State-born trader and his mother an Ojibwe chief's daughter. I was very interested to learn that the Cadotte children were sent East for their education since one oral tradition said Riley was educated in New York State.
I enjoyed learning more about wild rice and maple syrup. I was horrified to learn about the Sandy Lake Tragedy, the forced migration of Great Lakes natives that resulted in more deaths than the Sand Creek Massacre or Wounded Knee.
The Cadottes is more than a family history. It will appeal to a wide range of readers. Through the history of one family, readers gain a well-rounded and detailed understanding of the times, people, and culture of the Colonial Great Lakes.
The book's illustrations include maps; historical depictions of voyageurs, Ojibwe, and the settlements; photographs of places, events and personages; and even snowshoe styles and beaver hat styles by era.
I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
But some traders' families remained intact and flourished. Silbernagel offers us the Cadottes whose family presence on Madeline Island in western Lake Superior were important figures for two hundred years.
The Cadottes: A Fur Trade Family on Lake Superior is an interesting family history that also illuminates the history and geography of the region, the Ojibwe culture, the life of the colorful voyageurs and early fur traders, and the rise of the lucrative fur trade that produced the first multimillionaire in America.
When Silbernagel viewed the gravestone of Michel Cadotte on Madeline Island he became motivated to learn more about his life and the history of the area. He spent fifteen years researching five generations of Cadottes fur traders and interpreters for business and political ventures.
I was particularly interested in learning more about the interactions between Europeans and the Ojibwe. My husband recently donated an heirloom bible to a museum; the book had been given to his second-great-grandmother by John Riley whose father was a New York State-born trader and his mother an Ojibwe chief's daughter. I was very interested to learn that the Cadotte children were sent East for their education since one oral tradition said Riley was educated in New York State.
I enjoyed learning more about wild rice and maple syrup. I was horrified to learn about the Sandy Lake Tragedy, the forced migration of Great Lakes natives that resulted in more deaths than the Sand Creek Massacre or Wounded Knee.
The Cadottes is more than a family history. It will appeal to a wide range of readers. Through the history of one family, readers gain a well-rounded and detailed understanding of the times, people, and culture of the Colonial Great Lakes.
The book's illustrations include maps; historical depictions of voyageurs, Ojibwe, and the settlements; photographs of places, events and personages; and even snowshoe styles and beaver hat styles by era.
I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
August 13, 2025
What a great read while up in Bayfield and the Apostle Islands! When in La Pointe you can actually visit the grave sites of Chief Buffalo and some members of the Cadotte family and check out the museum where you can stand in the last log cabin built in 1835 by the American Fur Trade Company. The Great Lakes have been integral to the lives of so many, including my own, and I just love reading about the history of them! So many nuggets I can share with my APUSH class this year regarding French Colonization, Ojibwe History, and the Fur Trade!
October 5, 2024
I learned some interesting details about a place and topic (18th century fur trading) I didn't know much about. However, I felt there was a lot to the narrative that was missing, particularly from the Native perspective, though the author did make an attempt. For example, there was no discussion of the environmental impact of the fur trade on the local environment and on Native communities. There were cringeworthy statements too that put the white experience over the Native one, without further context, particularly surrounding "attacks". Finally, I felt the book could've been better organized. In the middle of the narrative would be a whole chapter on snowshoes, when that information could have been put into a broader chapter.
August 21, 2025
very informative and well written
January 18, 2021
THE CADOTTES: A Fur Trade Family on Lake Superior by Robert Sibernagel is a Wisconsin Historical Society Press publication which brings to life Lake Superior's role in the fur trade from the 1600's to its demise in the mid-1800's. One family, the Cadottes, are active in this trade throughout, first working with French Canadians, then English, and finally Americans. As the generations intermarry with Ojibwe natives, the family represents a historical perspective that meshes the perspectives of voyageurs, fur traders, and natives. Although this book is quite academic, I stuck with the repetitions and vast details for several reasons. First, our family has always been a bit fascinated with those huge voyageur canoes, and I was excited to learn what part Lake Superior played in the lives of voyageurs. Second, this book focuses on historical places we've visited in recent years. Fort Michilimackinac (Fort Mackinac) in Michigan was instrumental in the changes from French Canadian to English rule and then finally American. We toured that fort on a rainy October day three years ago and I loved learning its history. From the book, I learned more about how the fur companies sent supplies from either Montreal or England to this fort where Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and Lake Superior meet. From there the supplies traveled out for trading with the Indians. Also central to the early fur trading was Grand Portage along the western edge of Lake Superior in what is now Minnesota. This is where the furs would be brought (portaged from the river to the lake) trades made, debts paid, all capped off with several days of celebration. Then the furs from the smaller canoes would be loaded into the huge voyageur canoes and transported east. After this land became American territory, the meeting place was moved to Canada's Thunder Bay further north on Lake Superior despite Thunder Bay's more difficult harbor. On our trip to Ontario's Quetico Provincial Park a few years ago, we stopped at Grand Portage and spent a few informative hours watching a rendezvous re-enactment. And because this book focuses on the Cadotte family, it means the book also focuses on Madeline Island, where Michael Cadotte and his Ojibwe wife Equysayway had their home and trading center. Madeline Island is one of my favorite Wisconsin spots and we've visited several times over the years. It's been years since I visited the museum there, but I am sure I learned (and forgot) about the Cadottes at the museum. When I first picked up this book, I knew I would find it interesting because I am always interested in Wisconsin history. But I did not realize at that time how much the book would refer to the Ojibwe natives and specifically the Lac du Flambeau area. We happen to own a small family "up north" cabin in Lac du Flambeau township which lies within the LDF reservation. The book goes way beyond the details of fur trading and covers much about the Ojibwe way of life, their spiritual practices, their family make up, wild rice and maple sugar harvesting, and such. Also covered are the treaties which essentially stole their lands when they believed they were making contracts to sell timber or mineral rights. All and all, this book just showed me again how little we really know about our own state's history, about the people who lived and thrived here before the white arrived, and about the people who first interacted with the natives. This is a very different history from the stories of the eastern colonies or the push to the far west. One final note, I am amazed at the detailed records that still exist, right down to contracts and supply lists. It is those old records that allow us to learn about times past. In no way does this book read like fiction and it was slower reading than I like for even nonfiction, but it was well worth the effort.
October 17, 2020
“The Cadottes” promises “A Fur Trade Family On Lake Superior” but delivers much more. Author Robert Silbernagel begins with the Cadotte Family Tree to identify the dramatis personae followed by a timeline from the first arrival of the Ojibwe at the western end of Lake Superior and Madeline Island in 1395 to the opening of the Sault Locks in 1855. He then sets the scene with chapters on the geography, Lake Superior and Madeline Island, the demand for beaver hats that fueled its settlement and the snowshoes that facilitated movement in winter. He introduces the characters with narratives of the Cadottes and Ojibwe with whom they would be intertwined in commerce and marriage and the arrival of the French. The supporting props are supplied by people and items essential to the fur trade. Commerce would not have been possible without the French Forts on Madeline Island, the coureurs de bois and voyageurs who gathered the furs, canoes and that carried the trading goods west and the furs back to Montreal, or the Northwest and Hudson Bay Companies that managed the business. Life required the Indian women of the Superior region, the sugar bush that was tapped each spring, the wild rice which the Indians harvested for sustenance and endured the mosquitoes that brought the itch to summer.
The Cadotte family was at the heart of the fur trade during its hey day and remains in the area to the present. Over generations they immersed themselves in the evolving milieu merging French and Indians into Metis, competing French Catholics with American Protestants and successive treaties through which the Americans satiated their lust for land and resources at the Ojibwe’s expense.
This book is the result of multi-faceted research. Silverman visited the sites, tested the snowshoes, rode in the canoes, studied the accounts and poured over records. The text is supplemented by aged drawings and modern photos.
“The Cadotes” can be appreciated from many perspectives. From research I presume that I qualify as a Creole by heritage, if not by culture. I looked into this work for insights into the experiences of my ancestors and relatives and think that I found it. The interplay of French and Ojibwe presents a Wisconsin version of the Middle Ground (see my review of “The Middle Ground” by Richard White) in which the settlers adopted native ways and the Indians were dependent on European goods. The saga of government-Indian interaction is not all Trail of Tears and Wounded Knee. It was lived in the Upper Midwest also. Then there are the interesting facts, such that Lake Superior got its name, not because it is the largest, but because it was farthest upstream and that Duluth got its name from French agent Sieur du Lhut.
Pick your own historical interest: Indian, French and American settlers, mixing and clashes of cultures, treaties and resource exploitation. You will find it all in “The Cadottes”.
I did receive a free copy of this book without an obligation to post a review.
The Cadotte family was at the heart of the fur trade during its hey day and remains in the area to the present. Over generations they immersed themselves in the evolving milieu merging French and Indians into Metis, competing French Catholics with American Protestants and successive treaties through which the Americans satiated their lust for land and resources at the Ojibwe’s expense.
This book is the result of multi-faceted research. Silverman visited the sites, tested the snowshoes, rode in the canoes, studied the accounts and poured over records. The text is supplemented by aged drawings and modern photos.
“The Cadotes” can be appreciated from many perspectives. From research I presume that I qualify as a Creole by heritage, if not by culture. I looked into this work for insights into the experiences of my ancestors and relatives and think that I found it. The interplay of French and Ojibwe presents a Wisconsin version of the Middle Ground (see my review of “The Middle Ground” by Richard White) in which the settlers adopted native ways and the Indians were dependent on European goods. The saga of government-Indian interaction is not all Trail of Tears and Wounded Knee. It was lived in the Upper Midwest also. Then there are the interesting facts, such that Lake Superior got its name, not because it is the largest, but because it was farthest upstream and that Duluth got its name from French agent Sieur du Lhut.
Pick your own historical interest: Indian, French and American settlers, mixing and clashes of cultures, treaties and resource exploitation. You will find it all in “The Cadottes”.
I did receive a free copy of this book without an obligation to post a review.
August 1, 2020
After having visiting Madeline Island not long ago, taking the Lake Superior Circle Tour, and living in Wisconsin, Silbernagel’s story brings the era of Great Lakes fur trading and the voyageurs’ rich history to life. His book makes me want to go back to the Island now and consider anew the events unfolding there 200 years ago.
The history of fur trade in the Americas is a jumble of nationalities, exploration, high competition, and rich in folk legend. Despite the fashion of beaver fur felted hats worn since the fourteenth century in Europe, the American trade came in relatively late, during the last hundred years of the fashion. Men like John Jacob Astor quickly and under nascent US government sanction took control of the fur industry and reaped the staggering benefits while its agents mostly had a subsistent living.
But the fur trade is only part of the story of the Cadottes. Delving into the complexities of Ashinaabe, British, French, and developing US territorial trade, treaty agreements, battle, customs, religion, language, education, and law, Silbernagel creates an amalgamation of Great Lakes culture in one easy-to read volume. Following the several generations of the Cadotte family from emigration to today, the author explains how the French came to explore the new world not to conquer but to take part in the people they met, which is how Michael, part Ojibwe, and his Ojibwe wife, whose English name was Madeline, met and married. In the late 1700s they married in a traditional Objibwe custom, but forty years later, formalized their union in a legal Catholic ceremony. Silbernagel explores their reasons in the chapter “A Method to their Marriage,” one of 24 chapters devoted to helping readers understand the unique history of a developing nation of which little written documentation exists, or survives.
Recognizing the end of the fur trade era was near, the Cadottes shifted to more general trade, an attempt at lumber trade and commercial fishing, and interpreting between the Ojibwe and US government representatives during this period of upheaval.
Filled with photographs and illustrations, maps and abundant references, the history lover is sure to find The Cadottes an excellent addition to one’s expanding knowledge.
The history of fur trade in the Americas is a jumble of nationalities, exploration, high competition, and rich in folk legend. Despite the fashion of beaver fur felted hats worn since the fourteenth century in Europe, the American trade came in relatively late, during the last hundred years of the fashion. Men like John Jacob Astor quickly and under nascent US government sanction took control of the fur industry and reaped the staggering benefits while its agents mostly had a subsistent living.
But the fur trade is only part of the story of the Cadottes. Delving into the complexities of Ashinaabe, British, French, and developing US territorial trade, treaty agreements, battle, customs, religion, language, education, and law, Silbernagel creates an amalgamation of Great Lakes culture in one easy-to read volume. Following the several generations of the Cadotte family from emigration to today, the author explains how the French came to explore the new world not to conquer but to take part in the people they met, which is how Michael, part Ojibwe, and his Ojibwe wife, whose English name was Madeline, met and married. In the late 1700s they married in a traditional Objibwe custom, but forty years later, formalized their union in a legal Catholic ceremony. Silbernagel explores their reasons in the chapter “A Method to their Marriage,” one of 24 chapters devoted to helping readers understand the unique history of a developing nation of which little written documentation exists, or survives.
Recognizing the end of the fur trade era was near, the Cadottes shifted to more general trade, an attempt at lumber trade and commercial fishing, and interpreting between the Ojibwe and US government representatives during this period of upheaval.
Filled with photographs and illustrations, maps and abundant references, the history lover is sure to find The Cadottes an excellent addition to one’s expanding knowledge.
August 5, 2024
Family history of the fur trading Cadotte family of the Madeline Island area. The history of several countries collide in this area and over the fur trade, lumbering and land ownership While the chapters cover a wide range of topics, such as maple syruping and traditional ricing, I would have liked to have read more primary sources from the family history, especially the women. Silbernagel uses the story to make political commentary as well. If you enjoy this period of history, you should read the book to help you orient how interconnected these families were and running parallel to our nation's unfolding westward expansion.
October 10, 2025
This was so fascinating to read. Fur traders were very hard working. They traveled into the wilderness and carried huge loads. Everyone was required to portage with at least one 90 pound pack, sometimes two packs, one on front and one on the back. The stories of the natives exchanging with the traders for items to improve their lives. It was so interesting to see who many of our cities and lakes were named after. I live in northern Minnesota and I have had the pleasure to visit many of the places the stories took us to.
Read
February 8, 2023Given that this book was a research biography of my direct ancestors, for me, it was more of a quest in clarity regarding my own previous research. Did I learn anything new? Not so much new as put into more broad historical context. I’m happy to include this book as part of my genealogy reference collection.
February 14, 2022
I spent time looking at family history and discovered that Madeleine from my White Crane Clan family merged with Michael Cadotte. This book is the historical version of that. Very interesting in general!
February 20, 2023
Great history. Slow read, but appreciated it.
July 26, 2023
A valuable study of Indigenous society in northern Wisconsin. The first few chapters are absolutely riveting, though the bulk of the story could have been condensed.
August 15, 2025
academic and enlightened
February 6, 2022
An excellent history of northern Wisconsin and the Great Lakes, dating back to the first explorers and voyageurs. Well written and heavily researched.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews