Charles Michel de Langlade

Charles Michel de Langlade (9 May 1729 – after 26 July 1801) (Ottawa) was a Great Lakes fur trader and war chief who was important to the French in protecting their territory. His mother was Ottawa and his father a French Canadian fur trader.

Fluent in Ottawa and French, Langlade later led First Nations forces in warfare in the region, at various times allied with the French, British and later Americans. Leading French and Indian forces, in 1752 he destroyed Pickawillany, a Miami village and British trading post in present-day Ohio, where the British and French were competing for control. During the subsequent Seven Years' War, he helped defend Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) against the British. He was named second in command at Fort Michilimackinac and a captain in the Indian Department of French Canada.

After the defeat of the French in North America, Langlade became allied with the British, who took control of former French possessions and took the lead in the fur trade. During the American Revolutionary War, Langlade led Great Lakes Indians for the British against the rebel colonists and their Indian allies. At the end of the war, he retired to his home in present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin. Due to his having had a trading post at Green Bay since 1745 and later settling there, he is called the "Father of Wisconsin."

Charles de Langlade was born in 1729 at Fort Michilimackinac, New France to Domitilde, a sister of the Ottawa war chief Nissowaquet, and daughter of another Ottawa chief. Her husband was Augustin Langlade (Augustin Mouet, sieur de Langlade), a French-Canadian fur trader. She was a widow with six children when they married in 1728; he believed their marriage would provide him an advantage in the fur trade. The Ottawa were among the Anishinaabeg peoples, who inhabited areas around the Great Lakes. As a child, Langlade grew up with Ottawa as his first language and identified with his mother's culture; he was also educated in French by Jesuit missionaries at the fort.

...
Wikipedia