Grand Rapids, Michigan

==== Trading post ====
After the French established territories in Michigan, [[Jesuit]] missionaries and traders traveled down Lake Michigan and its tributaries.<ref name="HISTORYlowell">{{cite web |title = A Brief History of Lowell |url = http://kent.migenweb.net/towns/lowell/1931/history.html |website = Kent County Michigan GenWeb Project |publisher = [[Kent County, Michigan|County of Kent]] |access-date = October 2, 2016 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161002190841/http://kent.migenweb.net/towns/lowell/1931/history.html |archive-date = October 2, 2016 |url-status = dead |df = mdy-all }}</ref>

In 1806, white trader Joseph La Framboise and his [[Métis]] wife, [[Magdelaine Laframboise|Madeline La Framboise]], traveled by canoe from [[Mackinac Island]] and established the first trading post in [[West Michigan]] in present-day Grand Rapids on the banks of the [[Grand River (Michigan)|Grand River]], near what is now [[Ada Township, Michigan|Ada Township]], the junction of the Grand and [[Thornapple River]]s. They were French-speaking and [[Roman Catholic]]. They likely both spoke [[Odawa]], Magdelaine's maternal ancestral language. In the fall of 1806, Joseph was fatally stabbed by a member of the [[Potawatomi]] tribe named Nequat. Joseph had been with his family and an entourage of voyageurs traveling between Grand River and Grand Rapids. The Potawatomi man had insisted that Joseph trade liquor with him. When Joseph refused, the man left, only to return at dusk when Joseph, who faithfully performed the ritual of [[Angelus]] every day at that time, was in prayer. Nequat stabbed the trader, fatally wounding him, leaving Joseph's wife, Magdelaine, a [[widow]] at age twenty-four.<ref name="Joseph LaFramboise: A factor of tre">{{cite journal |last1=Timmerman |first1=Janet |title=Joseph LaFramboise: A factor of treaties, trade, and culture |date=2009 }}</ref>

The next spring, a delegation from the Potawatomi tribe brought the offender, Nequat, before Magdelaine for her sentence upon him for the death of her husband. It was their tradition for the victim's family to avenge deaths within that tribe. Magdelaine refused to sentence him and, in an act of forgiveness, told the Potawatomi tribe members to let him go and that God would be his judge. Though Magdelaine had forgiven Nequat, the tribe had not. Nequat's body was found stabbed with his own knife the next season.<ref name="Joseph LaFramboise: A factor of tre"/>

After the murder of her husband in 1806 while en route to Grand Rapids, Magdelaine La Framboise carried on the trade business, expanding fur trading posts to the west and north, creating a good reputation among the [[American Fur Company]]. La Framboise, whose mother was Odawa and father French, later merged her successful operations with the American Fur Company.<ref name="HISTORYlowell"/>