Charles Michel de Langlade (9 May 1729 at Fort Michilimackinac, New France – After 26 July 1801 at Green Bay, Northwest Territory, United States of America[1]) was a Great Lakes fur trader of French Canadian[2] and Ottawa heritage. His father was Augustin Langlade; his mother, Domitilde[3], was a sister of Ottawa war chief Nissowaquet. As a child, Langlade was educated by Jesuit missionaries.
In 1745, Charles Langlade and his father established a trading post at present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin.
On June 21, 1752, Charles Langlade led the Raid on Pickawillany, killing the chief Memeskia, which paved the way for the French and Indian War. In 1755, he led a group from the Three Fires confederacy over Edward Braddock and George Washington at the Battle of the Monongahela. He also took part in the Siege of Fort William Henry and led a group of Ottawa warriors at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. In 1757, Langlade was made the second in command of the forces at Fort Mackinac and Fort Michilimackinac. It was Langlade who surrendered the French forces at those forts to the British army in 1761. Langlage transferred his allegiance to the British after the war eneded in 1763.
In 1764, Langlade permanently moved to Green Bay, and as the first permanent partially-European settler in what became Wisconsin, he is remembered as the "Father of the State," even though Wisconsin was not a state at the time.
During the American Revolutionary War, Langlade led Great Lakes Indians as an ally of the British commanders in Canada, and was promoted to captain in the Indian Department. At the end of that war, Langlade returned to his home in Green Bay where he resided until his death some time in the second half of 1801.
Langlade County, Wisconsin is named after Charles Michel de Langlade.[4]
