"the central point for all travel on the upper Great Lakes, and for a vast extent of wilderness and half-settled country beyond" to First Nations and Europeans (prior to the arrival of railroads). The tribes who had inhabited Mackinac Island had been driven away by the Iroquois, leaving the island practically deserted until 1670. The Huron people from Lake Superior, in fear of the Sioux, retreated to the shore north of Mackinac Island. Here Marquette continued his missionary labors with them, at the site of the present St. Ignace. The 1688 memoir of Jacques-René de Brisay de Denonville, Marquis de Denonville, claimed that the French had inhabited the area since 1648. A small French garrison was sent there some time between 1679 and 1683.