CHAPTER VIII

THE FOUNDING OF DETROIT

After the failure which has been recounted in the preceding chapter, La Barre was recalled to France, and a new governor, Denonville, sent over to take his place. He had not much greater success and was in turn replaced by Count Frontenac, who returned to the scene of his former labors. This was in 1689, when England and France were at war. For the remaining nine years of his life Frontenac devoted all his energies to defending New France against the English and the Iroquois and to holding what the French had already gained on the Great Lakes. In November, 1698, in his seventy-eighth year, he died, and was deeply mourned as a strong governor and beloved leader. He had come out to New France in 1672, and during his long term of service he had used his power and influence not only to build up the settlements on the St. Lawrence, but also to plant on the shores of the Great Lakes and the rivers beyond a line of French forts and trading posts. He had gathered about him a group of young men who shared his enthusiasm for expansion and were eager to carry on his work. Five years before his death, Frontenac had sent one of his men, Cadillac, to the Straits of Mackinac to hold that centre of the fur trade.

Cadillac was a rough, forceful soldier who was summary in his methods and short in his speech. He was well suited to the command of a frontier post and did good work in keeping the lake Indians from alliance with the enemies of the French. He did not, however, get on well with the missionaries at Michilimackinac. They resented his presence and his influence with the Indians, for whose conversion to Christianity they were earnestly laboring. Cadillac soon came to see that Detroit and not Mackinac was the key to the interior. Whoever held the narrow channel connecting Lake Erie and Lake Huron would control the fur trade of the whole lake region. He hastened to Quebec to gain support for his scheme of erecting a fort and trading station on the Detroit River. There he was stoutly opposed by the Jesuits, who foresaw that the carrying out of his project would mean the ruin of their mission, which could not compete commercially with the new station, and that the extension of trade would bring the vices of civilization to the natives. Nothing daunted, Cadillac went over the seas to France, gained the favor of the colonial minister, and returned to Canada with permission to found his colony. He reached Detroit with a band of one hundred colonists and soldiers on the 24th of July, 1701.

Cadillac had done well in choosing Detroit as the situation for the first permanent colony on the lakes. In the century that was past the Great Lakes had been discovered and explored; the eighteenth century was to witness their occupation and the contest for the possession of this rich country. In this long strife, first France and England, and then England and the American colonies, were to come to blows, while always on these shores unceasing warfare would be waged between the advancing white man and the retreating red man. In the opening years of the new century Cadillac was taking the first step in permanent occupation of the country, planting his settlement on a site so important that a wise English leader was at that very time urging upon the New York assembly its colonization by the English. So long as Lake Erie and Lake Ontario had been avoided by the French, the northern Ottawa River-Georgian Bay route had been the highway of travel and trade. The easier southern route was now open to the French, but it was even more convenient and accessible to their English rivals. The French were brought face to face with the problem of how to hold the trade of the upper lakes from the English. In the solution of this problem Detroit would be the key.

There rushes through the strait of Detroit more water than through any other river in the world, save only the Niagara and the St. Lawrence. Through this channel, whose average width is a mile and whose length is only twenty-seven miles, pour in a steady, even current, unbroken by rapids or eddies, and with a speed of over two miles an hour, the waters of three lakes, Superior, Michigan, and Huron, and of the hundreds of streams that feed them. This little river is the natural outlet for eighty-two thousand square miles of lake surface and one hundred and twenty-five thousand square miles of land. Down the swift current floated in those early days scores of canoes paddled by silent Indians and swarthy coureurs de bois, bearing to the markets at Montreal, Quebec, and Albany loads of beaver, mink, and otter furs of immense value. They were the forerunners of a tonnage passing through that strait which to-day exceeds that of the Thames and London.

Cadillac and his soldiers and settlers, fifty each, had paddled, pushed, and carried their canoes, heavily laden with provisions, tools, ammunition, and supplies, all the way from Montreal. As they gazed on the beautiful site of their future homes, their weariness passed away. With shouts of joy they drew their canoes to the bank and unpacked their heavy loads for the last time.

No exploring party had ever passed through the Detroit River without longing to stop. To appreciate the charm and wealth of that spot, one must read the vivid descriptions which were written by men of that time. Such an enthusiast was Cadillac. Two months after his arrival, he wrote home the following, which would do credit to a promoter’s prospectus of the present day.

“The business of war being so different from that of writing,” he said, “I have not the ability to make a portrait of a country so worthy of a better pen than mine; but since you have directed me to render an account of it, I will do so.” He described the river and then continued: “Its borders are so many vast prairies, and the freshness of the beautiful waters keeps the banks always green. The prairies are bordered by long and broad rows of fruit trees which have never felt the hand of the vigilant gardener. Here also orchards, young and old, soften and bend their branches, under the weight and quantity of their fruit, towards the mother earth which has produced them. It is in this land, so fertile, that the ambitious vine, which has never wept under the knife of the vine-dresser, builds a thick roof with its large leaves and heavy clusters, weighing down the top of the tree which receives it, and often stifling it with its embrace.

“Under these broad walks one sees assembled by hundred the timid deer and fawn, also the squirrel bounding in his eagerness to collect the apples and plums with which the earth is covered. Here the cautious turkey calls and conducts her numerous brood to gather the grapes, and here also their mates come to fill their large and gluttonous crops. Golden pheasants, the quail, the partridge, woodcock, and numerous doves swarm in the woods and cover the country, which is dotted and broken with thickets and high forests of full-grown trees.... There are ten species of forest trees, among them are the walnut, white oak, red oak, the ash, the pine, whitewood and cotton-wood; straight as arrows, without knots, and almost without branches, except at the very top, and of prodigious size.... The fish here are nourished and bathed by living water of crystal clearness, and their great abundance renders them none the less delicious. Swans are so numerous that one would take for lilies the reeds in which they are crowded together. The gabbling goose, the duck, the widgeon [a kind of duck], and the bustard are so abundant that to give an idea of their numbers I must use the expression of a savage whom I asked before arriving if there was much game. ‘So much,’ he said, ‘that they draw up in lines to let the boats pass through.’... In a word, the climate is temperate, and the air purified through the day and night by a gentle breeze. The skies are always serene and spread sweet and fresh influence which makes one enjoy a tranquil sleep.”

Cadillac landed at the narrowest part of the river, where the city now stands, and began to build the little village which was to survive without a break the conflicts of the coming century. In this wilderness, inhabited only by wild beasts and savages, the first thought must be for defence; only when that was provided, could the settlers turn to plans for their own shelter from wind and weather. On the first rise of ground back from the river, along the line of the present Jefferson Avenue, Cadillac marked out a space of a little less than an acre, with a width of about two city blocks and a depth of one, which was to be enclosed by a palisade. Small trees were hewn in the forest and fashioned into sharply pointed pickets which were driven into the ground as closely as possible, thus forming a solid fence ten or twelve feet high. At the four corners were bastions of stout oak pickets from which the soldiers could shoot along the line of the palisade. Inside the stockade, Cadillac laid out a street twelve feet wide, and assigned small lots to the settlers and soldiers. The settlers bought theirs outright, but Cadillac retained the ownership of the others.

Fifty hours after their landing, on the day sacred to St. Anne, they began the foundation of a chapel on the very spot where St. Anne’s church stands to-day. In a month the chapel was completed by a rude cross placed over the door, and a bell summoned the colonists to daily prayers. When the storehouse and magazine for ammunition were also finished the people set to work on their own log huts. Trees were cut in the forest, and the rough-hewn logs were hauled to the spot. There a framework was set up, the logs were fitted into it, and the cracks were filled with mortar and mud. Last of all the top was covered with a roof of birch bark, or was thatched with grass. Land outside the stockade was assigned for agriculture, each soldier having a half acre for cultivation, and the civilians larger tracts. That very year wheat was sown for the next summer. With remarkable speed the settlement sprang up in the wilderness, and before the end of August took on an appearance of stability and permanence.

Cadillac now summoned the Indians to council and urged them to build settlements in the vicinity. He was wise enough to see that if a sufficient number of friendly Indians located near by, traders would come to buy their furs, the colony could rely on greater numbers in case of attack, and the scanty three months’ supply of provisions brought from Montreal could be eked out by food bought from Indian hunters. Three large villages sprang up, and within eight months the population of the strait was some six thousand people, whites and Indians.

Hitherto there had been on the Great Lakes nothing looking to family life or permanent residence, but in the spring of 1702, Madame Cadillac and Madame Tonty, wife of the captain of the garrison, started in open canoes, manned by Indians and Canadians, on the seven-hundred-mile journey from Montreal to Detroit. At a season when storms were likely to be frequent these two women braved the hardships of the trip, going up the rapids of the St. Lawrence, across Lake Ontario and around Niagara, and up Lake Erie to the strait. With her Madame Cadillac brought her little boy, Jacques, six years of age; her oldest son was already with his father. These were the first white women to come to the Great Lakes. They were soon followed by the wives and families of other settlers. By 1708 the settlement had grown so fast that houses were built outside the stockade, as the twenty-nine huts within the enclosure were not sufficient to accommodate the people.

The little colony suffered the usual troubles of frontier life, but managed to survive them. In 1703 several of the buildings were destroyed by a fire set by the Indians. For the first few years the colony was managed by a company, but in 1705 Cadillac succeeded in getting full control and ruled there with as absolute sway as had any feudal chief in his turreted castle. He owned the public buildings and defences and he alone could grant lots for settlement. From him alone could the people obtain their liquor, and to prevent excessive drinking by the Indians and traders he restricted the amount sold to each person at one time and charged a high price for it. To him also all must come for permits to carry on their different trades and occupations. For every privilege the people must pay, and right bitterly did they complain of their commandant to his enemies, though when he walked along the narrow street, firm and erect, in soldierly costume and with clanking sword, every hat was doffed. Doubtless some of his charges were exorbitant, but the money was turned back into the improvement of the colony, as, for instance, to build a public windmill where the people could pay to have their corn ground. The blacksmith complained that he had to pay six hundred francs a year and two casks of ale for the privilege of blacksmithing, besides having to keep all Cadillac’s horses shod. The latter task could not have been very arduous, for until 1706 there were no horses in the settlement, and of the three that Cadillac bought in that year only one, named Colin, was alive in 1711.

In 1710 Cadillac was ordered to go to Louisiana to govern the colony there, and his connection with Detroit and the Great Lakes was brought to an abrupt end. The settlement which he handed over to his successor was fairly prosperous. In the following winter, however, while the men of the neighboring Indian tribes were away at their hunting-grounds, a thousand or more hostile Indians of the Fox-Wisconsin river tribes descended upon the region and prepared to settle there. The colonists were powerless to prevent them, but waited anxiously for the return of the hunting-parties. In May they came, and under the leadership of the French finally drove off the enemy after a hard and bloody siege in which many lives were lost. For the next ten years the colony was so weak that its abandonment was contemplated. Successive governors mismanaged its internal affairs, demanding tolls and fees so exorbitant that traders refused to come there. Cadillac’s demands had been for the advancement of the colony; these men used their power to enrich themselves.

In 1720 and 1721, financial distress in France sent many a ruined Frenchman to Detroit, so that in 1722 the population was again two hundred, as it had been at the time of its founder’s departure. For the next thirty years the story of Detroit was uneventful. The settlement increased gradually in numbers and strength. Of its hardships we may best judge by the large mortality of children in those years. By the middle of the century we find the authorities in Canada so eager to have the colonies on the Great Lakes strong and permanent, that the following inducements are offered in a proclamation posted, by order of the governor-general, in all the parishes of Canada:--

“Every man who will go to settle in Detroit shall receive gratuitously, one spade, one axe, one ploughshare, one large and one small wagon. We will make an advance of other two tools to be paid for in two years only. He will be given a cow, ... also a sow. Seed will be advanced the first year, to be returned at the third harvest. The women and children will be supported for one year. Those will be deprived of the liberality of the King who shall give themselves up to trade in place of agriculture.”

In this way men with families were encouraged to make France strong in her western outposts. Within a year one hundred persons responded, and an official census shows a population at Detroit of nearly five hundred persons, of whom thirty-three were women over fifteen, and ninety-five girls under that age. This represents no mere floating population of traders and adventurers. The property returns of the inhabitants show them to have been an agricultural people who made the most of the rich land on which they lived. In the census they reported one hundred and sixty horses in place of the one of forty years before, and six hundred and eighty-two cattle. The fertility of the strait of Detroit seemed to inspire even the roving Canadian, usually so restless and adventurous, with a desire to plant and develop a home.