Other cultural problems were also arising. Like so many of the half-Ottawa children known as half-breeds, John was becoming unmanageable. Back in Auburn, New York a boy's anti-social tendencies were effectively curbed by direct physical intervention. Within the close-knit structure of the Ottawa tribe such force was unnecessary. In fact it was unthinkable. An older family member might speak sharply to a child, but a mother never did so. Her relationship with him was totally and continually one of affection and joy. Obviously conflicts must have arisen between the trader and his wife, and John made the most of it.

Finally it was decided that John would stay on Mackinac Island with the family of Rix's old friend, the tavern-keeper Lasley and his wife, Rachel. There the boy attended the Mission School as had some of the older children in his mother's family.

During John's separation from his parents every winter, his mother's health began to fail. At first she had only a bothersome cough each morning. As the years went on she became pale enough to be mistaken for a half-breed herself. Finally it happened. She began coughing up blood. They could ignore the obvious no longer. She had consumption, and everyone knew in those days that the only hope for a cure lay in getting plenty of fresh air and sunshine. She had contracted this dread disease while living in the white man's log cabin. Her only hope lay in returning as frequently as possible to live with her own people where she could again sleep in a hut and spend her days out in the open air.²

It would be difficult enough for a white man to do his own housework and cook his own meals. But the Ottawas knew that a man who did such things was not a man at all but a woman. For convenience and to maintain Rix's trading position, Miss-a-quot-o-quay's young and beautiful niece, Sippi-quay-daw-da (River Woman), the daughter of Hazy Cloud stayed on with them. Meanwhile the wife came and went as her health permitted.³

Since the land acquisition treaty of 1836 had made specific mention of Rix's "half-breed family," young John was brought back to Ada after the first payments were made at Grand Rapids. By this time all but one of Rix's remaining six brothers had joined him in the newly ceded lands. Lewis, Rodney, and Lucas were all now settled a few miles east of Ada at the mouth of the Flat River. Among them they had easily populated a school, so John joined his cousins and a few of their Indian neighbors at the Lowell school. Later he was sent to Grand Rapids where he studied under Henry Raymond and later Henry Seymour.

John was a bright boy; and by the time he had finished all of this schooling, he was well educated indeed considering the times and circumstances. In fact he was far better educated than the majority of white farmers with whom he would have to deal.

John soon learned that there was not much call for well-educated Indians in the white man's world. Nor did he have a place among the Ottawas. There he was really quite hopelessly uneducated. While he spoke the language fluently, he was no kind of hunter. He had learned a bit about farming from his father and his Robinson uncles, but the Ottawas considered growing things to be women's work. Among the white settlers John was just another half-breed Indian while the Ottawas regarded him as a friend, but hardly their equal.