From the time of the founding of the mission on the Straits, that place became a point of resort for the fur traders of Quebec and Montreal, and a point of competition with the English located on the shores of Hudson Bay, and the merchants at Albany. It is not known when Michilimackinac became a military post; we have incidental mention of it by travelers from time to time; La Salle, in the Griffon, the first vessel to plough the waters above Niagara, passed it in 1679, and in 1688 Baron La Hontan visited and described it. La Motte Cadillac was here in command of the post in 1695, and he says of it that "this village is one of the largest in all Canada." The garrison consisted of about two hundred men, and savages to the number of six or seven thousand souls lived in the vicinity, by whom sufficient corn was produced for both the French and themselves. But the capture of the Hudson Bay stations by the French in 1697, and the founding of Detroit in 1701, deprived Michilimackinac of much of its importance, and in 1706 the Jesuits who were stationed there, discouraged by the opposition at Detroit, burned down their chapel and their school building, and took up their departure for Quebec. A few traders and many Indians continued to reside there, and Father Marest soon came to care for their spiritual needs, and remained there until the post was reëstablished, but on the south side of the Straits, in 1714.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS.

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The importance of the Sault St. Marie was greatly diminished by the mission of Michilimackinac, but the Chippewas, a fierce and warlike people, had a village there, and the French government deemed it the suitable point for convening a Congress of Nations in the summer of 1671. Great numbers of Indians came, from the St. Lawrence on the one side to the Mississippi on the other, and even, it is said, from so far down as the Red River, to form or to strengthen a friendship with the French. A post was planted marked with the lilies of France, and the assembled nations were assured that they were now under French protection.

These were the settlements which preceded Detroit. A fort was also built by La Salle at the mouth of the St. Joseph, on Lake Michigan, in 1679, but there was no European settlement about it, and its importance as compared with Michilimackinac was small. A fort at the outlet of Lake Huron was built by Du Lhut in 1686, and named by him St. Joseph. It was constructed to command the passage from Lake Erie to the upper lakes, and its value for this purpose was evident, but with no settlement about it its maintenance would have been troublesome and expensive, and it was abandoned two years after its construction. The founding of Detroit soon rendered any other post on the passage of little or no importance.

CHAPTER II.

DETROIT IS FOUNDED, AND AT LENGTH SURRENDERED TO ENGLAND.

THE pathway for Indian traffic and missionary enterprise from Quebec and Montreal was by way of the Ottawa and French rivers to the Georgian Bay, and thence to Michilimackinac, St. Marie, and other stations. The existence of the connecting strait between lakes Huron and Erie must have been known to the French at an early day, but it is not certain that any one of that nation passed through it prior to the expedition made by Joliet, under the command of the intendant Talon, to discover and explore the copper mines of Lake Superior, of which rumors were prevalent. Indeed, that Joliet passed through this strait is only matter of plausible conjecture, for he left no record of this part of his journey; but on his return from his unsuccessful search for mineral wealth in 1669, he encountered, near the head of Lake Ontario, La Salle and the Sulpitian fathers Dollier and Galinée, who had started on their journey of exploration for a passage to the South Sea, and the information he imparted to

LA SALLE'S PARTY DIVIDES.

17

them respecting the upper lake country and the spiritual wants of the Indians of that region so fired the zeal of the worthy fathers that, in spite of the remonstrances of La Salle, they determined to part with him and take their course to the upper lakes by way of Lake Erie. The separation took place at the end of September, 1669, but they did not cross Lake Ontario until the following spring, and they arrived at the Sault St. Marie on May 25, 1670, having landed on or near the site of Detroit on the way up, and seized and destroyed with iconoclastic fury and indignation a stone idol which they found there, and whose remains they threw into the middle of the river, that it “might never be heard of again." At the Sault they were received with frigid reserve by the Jesuits, who plainly gave them to understand they were not wanted there, and they returned in discouragement by way of the Ottawa. A crude map made by Galinée and a minute journal of their travels were the valuable results of the expedition, and the importance of Detroit was from this time known to the colonial authorities. It seems probable, also, that at times it was temporarily occupied as a military post. But it was soon to receive more attention, and become a post of first importance, for Antoine de la Motte Cadillac, a man of mark and ability, now appears upon the scene.

We first hear of Cadillac in America in the

year 1687, when he was married at Quebec, being then in the thirtieth year of his age. Two years afterwards he went to France, and returned with a large grant of lands, with manorial rights, on the shores of Maine. He was subsequently employed in positions of importance in the naval and military service of the king, and was so highly esteemed for his judgment and his knowledge of colonial affairs that, in 1692, at the request of Count Pontchartrain, he was sent to France by the governor-general, to give advice respecting the military affairs of the province in its dealings with New York and New England. In the fall of 1694 he was appointed to the command of Michilimackinac, where he remained for five years. Surveying the field of French trade and influence from that remote post, Cadillac had become convinced that Detroit, rather than any of the upper stations, was the point from which the fur trade could best be controlled, and where the friendly Indians could most conveniently be concentrated for the mutual protection of themselves and their French allies. Impressed with this view, he again went to France in 1700, determined, if possible, to obtain the necessary authority as well as the necessary assistance for the establishment of a settlement at Detroit. In a long interview with Count Pontchartrain he presented very fully the advantages of Detroit, its supreme importance as a military and trading post, the excellence of