Noquet
 A Michigan Historical Marker mentioning the Noquet at Little Bay de Noc | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| No longer exists as a distinct tribe | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| United States (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) | |
| Languages | |
| Noquet (extinct) | |
| Religion | |
| Indigenous religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Menominee, Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi |
The Noquet (/noʊˈkeɪ/ no-KAY; also spelled Nocquet, Noque, or Noc among others)[a] were a tribe of Native Americans who lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.[4] They spoke their own language in the Algonquian family, and are attested to have been most closely related to, and subsequently absorbed by, the Menominee people.[2][5]
Their name lives on in various places they inhabited throughout the peninsula, including Big Bay de Noc, Little Bay de Noc, Bay de Noc Township, and the Noquemanon River (today known as the Dead River); in addition to Lake Noquebay in northern Wisconsin.[1][2][4][6] The tribe's name is a French phonetic transcription of their endonym, derived from a Proto-Algonquian phrase meaning 'bear claw' or 'bear foot'.[2][3][4][7] For millennia, they were one of the foremost nations in the Upper Peninsula, and made contact with many of the first Europeans to set foot in what are now the territories of Michigan and Wisconsin.[8]
A cumulation of multiple factors, primarily assimilation into the Menominee and other neighboring tribes, resulted in the extinction of the Noquet by the 19th century, with no Native Americans today who are recognized or identified as Noquet, either individually or collectively.[2][6][9]
History
[edit]Pre-colonial era
[edit]The ancestors of the Noquet are believed to have inhabited and ruled the central Upper Peninsula for several thousands of years. Given the Noquet and Menominee were closely related, their most recent common ancestor was likely the Paleo-Indians that would evolve into the Algonquian group, particularly those who settled along the western banks of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, arriving in the Upper Peninsula ostensibly as early as 8500 BCE.[6]
A complex trail network between Little Bay de Noc and the southern shore of Lake Superior near the modern city of Munising allowed the Noquet to move between their winter and summer territories.[3] They lived along Lake Superior in modern Marquette County and Alger County during the summer, harvesting wild blueberries and cultivating wild rice as part of their diet.[6] They also periodically inhabited the Potawatomi Islands off the coast of the Garden Peninsula in Lake Michigan's Green Bay, formerly known as the Noquet Islands. These include Summer Island, St. Martin Island, and the largest being Washington Island. However, this archipelago would be dominated by the distantly related and eponymous Potawatomi by 1650, one of the three main branches of Anishinaabe, with whom they maintained friendly relations. Like the Menominee, the Noquet territory may have extended south of the Menominee River with its modern border into mainland Wisconsin, but this remains speculative.[10]
The Spider Cave, an archaeological site with ancient pictographs on the shores of the Stonington Peninsula that divides the Little and Big Bays de Noc in Delta County, is arguably the most notable paleohistoric feature associated with the Noquet, with them arriving to this specific locale thousands of years before present.[6] Indeed, the artifacts found at the site, including metal arrowheads, returned a date of approximately 600 CE. Of the four pictographs, all engraved on the walls of the cave with various brightly colored dyes, the most prominent one depicts a man connected to a sixteen-legged spider by a spiral umbilical cord, and is from where the cave gets its name. It is believed to represent a manifestation of the Manitou, a spiritual concept shared by all nations in the region.[11] Throughout the centuries, the images have been damaged by spelunkers and exposure to the elements, and the area is now closed off to the public as a protected zone of Fayette Historic State Park.[12]
Presque Isle Park in the city of Marquette was historically a burial ground for the Noquet, and later the Ojibwe. The Anishinaabe refer to this area as Gichi-namebini-ziibing, and several chiefs, including Charlie Kawbawgam (1800–1903), are known to be buried there.
Contact with Europeans
[edit]
In the early 1630s, noted explorer Jean Nicolet recounted interactions with a group of Indians now theorized to be the Noquet near the mouth of the Menominee River.[8] Later Jesuit missionaries of the time would attest to the presence of Noquet villages at the head of what is now called Little Bay de Noc, near the modern settlement of Rapid River in Delta County. By 1659, the tribe would be attached to the mission of St. Michael, alongside the Menominee and Potawatomi.[4][7] Decades later, fellow European explorer Jacques Marquette mentioned the Noquet in his journals as a small clan of Algonquian Indians numbering about 150. 17th-century French Jesuit missionary and founder of Sault Ste. Marie alongside Father Marquette, Claude Dablon, described the Noquet as the original inhabitants of the southern shore of Lake Superior, whose presence predated the arrival of prominent Anishinaabe tribes in their historic territory by potentially hundreds or thousands of years.[6]
In September 1698, another French Jesuit, Jean-François Buisson de Saint-Cosme, documented the Noquet as one of the primary tribes inhabiting the shores of Green Bay, with the Menominee, Meskwaki, Sauk, and Potawatomi.[2] He also states that upon reaching Green Bay, "one passes on the right hand another small bay called that of the Noquest", referring to what would eventually be called Little Bay de Noc.[9]
While exploring the Great Lakes in 1721, Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix noted that only a few Noquet families remained. He additionally wrote in 1761, "I have been assured that [the Menominee] had the same original and nearly the same languages with the Noquet and the Indians at the Falls."[8] This account gave further validity to the group's presumed ties with the Menominee. 19th-century Wisconsin-based trader Augustin Grignon (1780-1860), grandson of the famous French and Odawa military officer Charles Michel de Langlade, insisted that the Noquet had become part of Menominee society by his time.[6]
One of the only documented descendants of the Noquet was an Ojibwe chief named Marji Gesick (also spelled Matji-gigig, Mah-je-ge-zhik or Man-je-ki-jik), who helped lead white immigrant miners to plentiful iron deposits along the coast of Lake Superior and in the modern-day city of Ishpeming.[3][6] His name has since been lent to an annual cycling marathon in Marquette County — the Marji Gesick Mountain Bike Race. Gesick would die sometime between 1857 and 1862.[6]
Legacy
[edit]Little else is known about the Noquet today, and it is to be assumed that they were gradually integrated into the Menominee and other neighboring Algonquian nations throughout the 18th century, as a consequence of their territories overlapping, their deep linguistic and cultural ties, inter-tribal marriages, and a dwindling population due to disease.[1][6][7]
In addition to the various toponymy referencing the Noquet throughout the Upper Peninsula, their name has been lent to the Noquet Lodge, a Detroit chapter of the Boy Scouts of America that lasted from 2011 to 2020, with their totem symbol being a bear claw.[13] There was also the Bay de Noquet Lumber Company, which existed in Nahma Township from 1881 to 1951, being one of Michigan's largest producers of lumber. The mill's waste burner was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places until it collapsed in 2019.[14][15]
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]References
[edit]- 1 2 3 Santoro, Nicholas (2009). Atlas of the Indian Tribes of North America and the Clash of Cultures. p. 261.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Vogel, Virgil J. (1991). Indian Names on Wisconsin's Map. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 19–20.
- 1 2 3 4 Shier, Quita (2017). Warriors in Mr. Lincoln's Army: Native American Soldiers Who Fought in the Civil War. p. 126.
- 1 2 3 4 Swanton, John (1952). The Indian Tribes of North America. Genealogical Publishing Company. pp. 243-244.
- ↑ Waldman, Carl (2006). The Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. New York: Checkmark Books. p. 10.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Berger, Adam (2021). "Who Were the Noquet?". Upper Peninsula History. Retrieved 2 October 2025.
- 1 2 3 Hodge, Frederick (1910). Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico: N-Z. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 82.
- 1 2 3 Bruce, William George (1922). History of Milwaukee, City and County: Volume 1. Yale University Library. pp. 61-62.
- 1 2 Vogel, Virgil J. (1986). Indian Names in Michigan. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. pp. 10–11.
- ↑ Swanton, John (1952). The Indian Tribes of North America. Genealogical Publishing Company. p. 256.
- ↑ Grace Rajnovich (2009), Reading Rock Art: Interpreting the Indian Rock Paintings of the Canadian Shield, Dundurn Press Ltd., pp. 71–74, ISBN 978-1554884735
- ↑ Ruuska, Alex; Armitage, Ruth Ann (2015), "Spider Man Cave: The Desecration of the Burnt Bluff Cultural Site and Its Implications for Future Heritage Management", The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art., 96: 27–44
- ↑ Squirrell, Josh (2016). "Noquet Lodge recruits army of volunteers for council event". Scouting America: Order of the Arrow. Retrieved 5 August 2026.
- ↑ Robert O. Christensen (November 2010), National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Bay de Noquet Lumber Company Waste Burner (PDF), MI SHPO
- ↑ Diane B. Abbott; Historic American Engineering Record; Charles K. Hyde (1978), The Upper peninsula of Michigan: an inventory of historic engineering and industrial sites, Historic American Engineering Record, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation, Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, p. 49
 Native American tribes in Michigan | |
|---|---|
| Federally recognized | |
| State recognized |
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