On July 24, 1701, Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac, accompanied by
approximately one hundred fellow Frenchmen and an additional one hundred
Algonquian Indians, established Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit on a site
that is today in downtown Detroit. This essay reviews the history of
that settlement from its founding until Michigan was admitted into the
Union as a state in 1837.
Although organized chronologically, this essay places the
city's time line in the context of national and international events
that shaped its destiny. Four themes from Detroit's past are stressed:
the community's political history, Detroit's military importance, the
area's economic history, and finally its social history. In reality,
each of these four narratives, the context created by national and
international events, as well as many other factors come together to
create a complex whole. This essay examines many, but not all, of the
threads that, when woven together, help to explain the events which
occurred and the people who lived in the community founded by Cadillac
in 1701.
Detroit's origins rest in the international politics of late
seventeenth-century Europe. In 1699 Cadillac traveled from Canada to
Paris. He hoped to obtain from King Louis XIV permission to found a new
settlement along the strait connecting Lake Erie and Lake Huron. In
presenting his case to the king's ministers, Cadillac stressed the
military necessity of his proposed settlement. A French outpost along
the narrows could stop raiding parties of Englishmen or their Indian
allies from entering Lake Huron and disrupting the valuable fur trade.
Such raids had happened in the past. In 1653, for example, France's
Indian allies had fought a pitched battle in the vicinity of the straits
of Mackinac against a large Iroquois raiding party.
In making his military argument Cadillac addressed a French
government that was sharply divided over Canadian expansion. French
colonial policy shifted back and forth between expanding or containing
Canadian territory depending on which of three variables was uppermost
in the ministers' minds: war with England, the market price of furs, or
the Jesuits' influence.
Whenever war with England was imminent or declared, the
French government routinely sought to harass the British colonies in
North America by both expanding its Canadian territory and by supporting
aggression against the British by France's Indian allies. In times of
peace, however, the government in Paris was far less likely to promote
expansion or support Indian aggression. Although it was less common,
Paris occasionally curtailed Canadian expansion and Indian aggression to
avoid the "minor provocations" against the English that increasing the
territory of New France would inevitably entail.
When fur prices were high there was great economic incentive,
voiced by the French trading community, to expand the number of pelts
taken by pushing farther into the Great Lakes region. The consequences
of expanding the fur trade went beyond national concerns because senior
French government officials, both in Canada and Paris, fully expected to
gain personally from this trade. However when the market was flooded
with furs, the incentive shifted to harvesting animals from a more
limited area, to cut back on supply. Thus the market price of furs
greatly influenced the opinions of the French government's ministers
regarding expansion.
Finally the Jesuits, who felt it their special mission to
convert the Indians to Catholicism, consistently opposed the expansion
of French military and particularly French economic activity in Canada.
They believed the "corrupting" presence of fur traders among the
Indians, and especially their promiscuous use of liquor, made "God's
work" far more difficult. To further the conversion of Native Americans
to Catholicism, the Jesuits used their influence at the French court to
establish or maintain policies intended to keep fur traders in a limited
area to ensure that they had minimal contact with the Indian
population.
It was the prospect of war with England that persuaded the
French government to allow Cadillac to found his new settlement. In
1699, when Cadillac argued his case, France was technically at peace.
However, Louis XIV was determined to put his grandson on the vacant
Spanish throne and the British were equally determined to stop him. The
king and his court knew that as Louis came closer to accomplishing his
goal, Britain would declare war. Thus, an outpost at "detroit" seemed
advantageous. The straits offered both a useful defensive position and
an advanced post from which to supply raiding parties to attack the
British colonials. In 1686, for similar reasons, a short-lived outpost
had been established near Port Huron. The French now saw an advantage in
reestablishing a garrison in the straits area. Thus, despite the
opposition of traders, who opposed the economic implications of
Cadillac's plan, and the Jesuits, who simply opposed the idea in
principle, Cadillac received royal authority to found Detroit and
through it control the river for France's benefit.