Frontier to Freedom – A Michigan Story

Hi everyone, 

During my first week of the 2026 archaeological field school program at Fort St. Joseph, the other students/staff and I went to watch a documentary called Frontier to Freedom at Wonderland Cinema in Niles, MI. The documentary, directed by Keith Patterson, was dedicated to Michigan’s history and the role it played in the beginning and later years of American history. Throughout the documentary, Fort St. Joseph was a predominant focus, specifically including information about the fort as a key player during the fur trade, the American Revolution, and the lives of Native Americans. Ultimately, the documentary shed a lot of light on Michigan.

As someone who grew up in Charlottesville, VA, until my freshman year of High School, I have only known a limited amount about the history and role Michigan played during the creation and future of the United States of America. I was always taught that Jamestown is where everything started, and since Virginia is the state that produced the most presidents, holds countless battlefields from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, etc., it is the most important state in terms of American history. The documentary itself was super informative, especially coming from someone who knows nothing about Michigan’s history. Not only did I learn how Detroit, Fort Michilimackinac, and Fort St. Joseph came to be, but I also learned how each fort and their actions ended up affecting the United States as a whole.

One of my favorite topics within the entire documentary was the Beaver Wars. Though I only knew a little about what they were, I had no idea how much the wars affected the colonial economy, or how high the demand for beaver pelts was during the colonial era. While there were small details that bothered me in the production, like the use of generative AI for some of the imagery, learning about Fort St. Joseph itself was also extremely interesting. As I have now come to understand it, the fort holds a tumultuous amount of history that extends back to the belief of western expansion (Manifest Destiny), and the French Jesuit mission to spread their faith to local Native Americans. Overall, I very much enjoyed the information presented throughout the documentary, and I found it extremely informative, especially to people who do not have a broad understanding of Michigan’s history.

- Noa