In this paper, an adaptive backstepping controller is proposed for the position tracking of a mechanical system driven by an induction motor (IM). The mechanical system is a single link fixed on the shaft of the induction motor. The backstepping methodology provides a simpler design procedure for a adaptive control scheme than the model reference adaptive control method, which is demonstrated in this paper. Another feature is that it provides a way to define the sliding surface if one wants to use the robust sliding-mode control. Thus, the backstepping control can be easily extended to be an adaptive sliding-mode controller. The final position control system is shown to be stable and robust to the parameter variations and external disturbances. The effectiveness of the proposed controllers are demonstrated by some experiments.