Mackinac Island ( MAK-in-aw) is an island and resort area, covering 3.8 square miles (9.8 km2) in land area, in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located in Lake Huron, at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac, between the state's Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The island was home to an Odawa settlement before European exploration began in the 17th century. It served a strategic position as a center on the commerce of the Great Lakes fur trade.

Like many historic places in the Great Lakes region, Mackinac Island's name derives from a Native American language. Native Americans in the Straits of Mackinac region likened the shape of the island to that of a turtle so they named it "Mitchimakinak" (Ojibwe: mishimikinaak) "Big Turtle". Andrew Blackbird, an official interpreter for the U.S. government and an Ottawa chief's son, said it was named after a tribe that had lived there. The French spelled it with their version of the original pronunciation: Michilimackinac. The British shortened it to the present name: "Mackinac." Michillimackinac is also spelled as Mishinimakinago, Mishima'kinung, Mi-shi-ne-macki naw-go, Missilimakinak, Teiodondoraghie.  The Menominee traditionally lived in a large territory of 10 million acres extending from Wisconsin to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Historic references include one by Father Frederic Baraga, a Slovenian missionary priest in Michigan, who in his 1878 dictionary wrote:  Mishinimakinago; pl.-g.--This name is given to some strange Indians (according to the sayings of the Otchipwes [Ojibwe]), who are rowing through the woods, and who are sometimes heard shooting, but never seen. And from this word, the name of the village of Mackinac, or Michillimackinac, is derived.  Maehkaenah is the Menominee word for turtle. In his 1952 The Indian Tribes of North America, John Reed Swanton recorded under the "Wisconsin" section: "Menominee," a band named "Misi'nimak Kimiko Wini'niwuk, 'Michilimackinac People,' near the old fort at Mackinac, Mich."  In an early written history of Mackinac Island (1887) by Andrew Blackbird, the Odawa historian, he describes that a small independent tribe called "Mi-shi-ne-macki naw-go" once occupied Mackinac Island. They became confederated with the Ottawa from Ottawa Island (now Manitoulin Island) situated north of Lake Huron. One winter the Mi-shi-ne-macki naw-go on Mackinac Island were almost entirely annihilated by the Seneca people from New York, who were part of the Iroquois Confederacy. Only two of the local natives escaped by hiding in one of the natural caves at the island. To commemorate the losses of this allied tribe, the Ottawa named what is now Mackinac Island, as "Mi-shi-ne-macki-nong." In 1895 Fort Mackinac's John R. Bailey, M. D. published his history, entitled Mackinac formerly Michilimackinac, describing some of the first recorded presence on Mackinac of French traders. They arrived in 1654 with a large party of Huron and Ottawa heading to Three Rivers; another visitor was an adventurer making a canoe voyage in 1665.

Which tribe of Native Americans?
Ottawa