14 HORTICULTURE OF MICHIGAN. 



A military and trading post was at this time established on the mainland 

 at the terminal point of this voyage, which subsequently became the centre 

 of extensive and lucrative trade with the Indians. In 1686 Fort St. Joseph 

 was established on the site of the recent Fort Gratiot by De Luht, which, 

 however, was abandoned only two years later. Another fort was erected about 

 this time and named Detroit, but its precise location is unknown. In the 

 establishment of these forts at this time an important purpose seems 

 to have been to check the encroachments of the Iroquois and their English 

 friends, who sought access to the northwest by this route for the purpose of 

 sharing the rich fur trade of the northern lake region. 



In MlOl De La Motte Cadillac was placed in command of Mackinaw. He 

 conceived the idea of founding a permanent post and settlement on Detroit 

 river, and, by so doing, holding in check the incursions of the English and 

 their allies, the Iroquois. With the approval of the French prime minister, 

 Count Ponchartrain, he on the 24th day of July, 1701, landed at Detroit, 

 accompanied by one hundred persons, soldiers, traders and settlers, and at 

 once erected a stockade of pickets, about which there accumulated a couple 

 of thousand Indians within the next three or four years. 



This establishment underwent various mutations growing out of the jeal- 

 ousies and rivalry of persons in authority on the one hand, an 1 the unstable 

 character of Indian friendships on the other, so that for a long time very 

 little progress was made in the agricultural occupation of the adjacent lands. 

 About 1749 there occurred a very considerable immigration to Detroit from 

 France, the settlers being encouraged by grants of land, and even by advances 

 of stock, till, in 1761, the population of this immediate vicinity was supposed 

 to be about 2,500, of whom 500 were capable of military duty. 



The surrender of Quebec to General Wolfe in 1759 was soon followed by 

 the transfer of the northwestern posts, including those in Michigan, to the 

 English, a change which seems to have been accepted by the Indians with far 

 less readiness than by the French settlers. Indeed, this Indian disaffection, 

 which is believed to have been fomented by the Jesuits (who up to this period 

 had been almost exclusively their religious teachers), may fairly be 

 assumed to have been the most potent inspiration in bringing about the great 

 Pontiac conspiracy, which in 1763 attempted the destruction of all the Brit- 

 ish posts from Niagara to Green Bay, and which failed only in the cases of 

 Pittsburg, Niagara and Detroit, while, in Michigan, those at Mackinaw and 

 St. Joseph were captured and the occupants massacred, while Detroit was 

 subjected to a four months' siege. 



From this period until 1774, Michigan remained under military rtile. At 

 this time it became part of the province of Quebec, and became, at least 

 nominally, subject to civil government under Col. Ilenry Hamilton as Lieut. 

 Governor, and Superintendent of Detroit. This condition of the country 

 continued till the treaty of peace with Great Britain, at the close of the rev- 

 olutionary war, during which Detroit was the center of British influence 

 and for organizing Indian raids upon the frontiers of the struggling colo- 

 nies. 



By the treaty of peace, concluded in 1783, Michigan became a dependency 

 of the United States, although complications arose which delayed its actual 

 transfer until July, 1796, wiien it became part of the Northwestern Terri- 

 tory under the governorship of General Arthur St. Clair. Several subse- 

 quent changes arose out of the detachment of the territory of adjacent 

 States, till in January, 1805, an act of Congress organized it (omitting the 



