Jacob Smith (fur trader)

Smith also served as an Indian interpreter-liaison for the United States and helped negotiate the release of several white families taken prisoner by Native American tribes.

Jacob Smith was born to a soap-maker of Canadian and German descent in Quebec, Canada, and learned to speak fluently in English, French, and the Chippewa-Ottawa dialect of the Algonquin language.

[5] The 1807 treaty, made in Detroit with the Ottawa, Chippewa, Wyandot and Potawatomi nations, ceded to the United States present-day Southeast Michigan and Northwest Ohio and was hailed as the first major land cession in the region.

[5] For his efforts in helping broker the Saginaw Treaty, Smith received five hundred dollars from the Territorial Governor of Michigan, Lewis Cass, and was hailed as a wise counsel during the talks.

[3] In addition, Smith rendered admirable service in using his relationships with Native American tribes to help liberate prisoners captured by Indians – to which the Boyer family release in the summer of 1814 was the most notable.

[4] After the Boyer home was burned by Indians and the family taken captive, Smith went into the local village with a horse full of saddled goods to use as ransom.

[2]: 54-64 Smith served in the Michigan Militia during the War of 1812 under Captain Richard Smyth's Company of Twelve Months Volunteers Cavalry from June 30 to August 16, 1812 and was present during the surrender at the Siege of Detroit.

In one instance, Smith rode into a Saginaw village with two assistants pretending to be on a trading expedition in an attempt decipher the tribe's position in the war and level of sympathy to the British cause.

Smith managed to escape the village but sustained a permanent eye injury when brush caught his face while fleeing in haste on horseback.

[2][page needed] Smith left Detroit traveling alongside three Native Americans, one of whom was a young Ottawa carrying an important wampum with a message from his chief that advised the northern Michigan Indians not to join the British cause in the war.

When Smith arrived in Saginaw along his journey he met with veteran fur trader Charles Girard to disclose that he was carrying letters for American authorities on Mackinac Island alerting them of the war declaration.

Knowing of this possibility, Smith had prepared by hiding the American orders and wearing a British military breast plate underneath his clothing.

After his death, it was discovered that these reservations were actually willed to Jacob Smith's five white children under Native American names that were given to them by Indians who frequented their house in Detroit.