The first construct was a small trading post built by Jean Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes around 1706, while the first fortified fort was finished in 1722, and the second in 1750.

[7] In 1702, Vincennes was known to have begun visiting the growing Miami town on behalf of New France due to its increasing significance on the trade route.

"[8] This region on the eastern border of the confluence, known as the Great Black Swamp, was situated south through southwest of Lake Erie and had grown abundant with wildlife following a long untouched period during Iroquois warfare.

[9] The English of the Carolinas pursued attempts to gain an alliance with the Miamis and pit them against the French who had founded the trading post at Kekionga a decade prior.

Facing pressure, the colonial French government and Vincennes devised a plan to relocate the Miamis from the headwaters of the Maumee to the center of the St. Joseph River near present-day South Bend, Indiana.

[9] The Miami refused to abandon their village and move farther West away from the scheming British traders,[3] so Governor Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil authorized Captain Dubuisson to build a strong fort to protect the trade routes of New France, which would be completed in 1722.

[3] The fort paid off and the French were able to maintain a strong influence on the region, particularly due to its role in the fur trade and successful act as a counterbalance to the English intrigue.

[12] This period led until 1747, when English-allied Huron warriors under Chief Nicholas found it undermanned—the commandant, Ensign Douville, and most of the soldiers were away at Fort Detroit.

Around this time in 1749, Father de Bonnecamps described the bare and brutish conditions:The French there number twenty-two; all of them... had the fever... there were eight houses, or to speak more correctly, eight miserable huts which only the desire of making money render endurable.

[15] By 1752, tensions between the pro-French and pro-British villages in the area had reached a boiling point when English trader, John Pathin, was captured in the fort.

New York Governor George Clinton demanded an explanation of the capture, to which the French colonial Governor Marquis de la Jonquière shot back: The English, far from confining themselves within the limits of the King of Great Britain's possessions, not satisfied with multiplying themselves more and more on Rock River... have more than that proceeded within sight of Detroit, even unto the fort of the Miamis... John of Detroit, an inhabitant of Willensten, has been arrested in the French fort of the Miamis by M. de Villiers, commandant of that post... he entered the fort of the Miamis to persuade the Indians who remainder, to unite with those who have fled to the beautiful river [the Ohio].

[18] Shortly thereafter in 1752, two soldiers were caught outside the fort and scalped by "La Demoiselle’s savages" from the nearby breakaway English post Pickawillany.

[21] From this point forward, no active garrison would exist at the fort for the next three decades and its population would be described as a varied mix of English and French traders, rebellious frontiersmen and defiant natives.

[25] In 1780, with the town refortified by the British and the fort again made a successful trading post, it was sacked yet again by a force under Augustin de La Balme, a French cavalry officer who came to the new United States of America to assist with the revolutionary war.

The force raided the stores and held the location for two weeks, before La Balme would set off for the Miami sites along the Eel River, leaving behind a detachment of 20 troops at Kekionga.

In 1790, almost exactly 10 years after La Balme's Defeat, and riding in on the same Eel River Trail as La Balme had previously, Col. John Hardin and his force of United States troops suffered harsh losses to the Northwestern Confederacy in a number of locations within sight of the forts and village, as part of the Harmar Campaign, in what became known as Hardin's Defeat.