Mackinac became the seat of Wisconsin’s fur trade when the fort was rebuilt there in 1764. It was the only fort northwest of Detroit with government officers and Indian agents. By 1767, large numbers of traders were coming into the Wisconsin area. The Indians by this time were so dependent on the white trader that any interruption in the supply of goods flowing to the Indians worked severe hardships upon them. Wisconsin’s fur trade was still largely controlled by Montreal investors, mostly British. The actual traders, however, who contacted the Indians were still primarily Frenchmen, and this was to remain so throughout Wisconsin’s fur-trade period. Some competition in Wisconsin was given to the British by Spanish and French traders from Louisiana, which had become Spanish territory by the peace treaty in 1763. But the British managed to retain the bulk of the northwest fur trade with the Indians. Wisconsin’s Indians did not participate strongly in the American Revolution, but they did take part in some action. Charles de Langlade, half French, half Ottawa Indian leader who helped the French so efficiently during the French and Indian War, now espoused the British cause as ardently as he had the French. Langlade’s tremendous influence over the Indians was well known, and the British hoped to persuade him to obtain Wisconsin Indian help in fighting the Colonists. Langlade did succeed in leading Chippewa and Ottawa east to help Burgoyne in 1777, and in 1778 Wisconsin Indians went to Detroit to help General Hamilton. On the whole, however, Wisconsin’s Indians were too disinterested in the white man’s war to be enthusiastic about long trips east to aid the British. [Illustration: MICHILLIMACKINAC, RESTORATION OF LAST FORT.] The American Revolutionary War hero, Major George Rogers Clark, whose capture of Vincennes and Kaskaskia, and the French villages of the Illinois country, provided the basis for United States claims to the Northwest Territory during the peace negotiations between the British and the United States, called together a great assembly of Indians at Cahokia, Illinois, in 1778, and succeeded in obtaining their pledges of allegiance to the United States. Many Wisconsin Indians attended the meeting, including the noted Blackbird, chief of a Milwaukee village composed of Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi. Blackbird apparently remained loyal to the American cause. Major Clark’s influence with the Wisconsin Indians tended to nullify the efforts of Charles Langlade, and other French officers in the service of England, to mobilize the Wisconsin Indians against the United States.