Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 49 



founded about the beginning of the century, when 

 the English still clung to the estuaries of the sea- 

 board, were grouped in three clusters, separated by 

 hundreds of miles of wilderness. One of these clus- 

 ters, containing something like a third of the total 

 population, was at the straits, around Detroit. 9 It 

 was the seat of the British power in that section, 

 and remained in British hands for twenty years 

 after we had become a nation. 



The other two were linked together by their sub- 

 sequent history, and it is only with them that we 

 have to deal. The village of Vincennes lay on the 

 eastern bank of the Wabash, with two or three 

 smaller villages tributary to it in the country round 

 about; and to the west, beside the Mississippi, far 

 above where it is joined by the Ohio, lay the so- 



9 In the Haldimand MSS., Series B, vol. 122, p. 2, is a cen- 

 sus of Detroit itself, taken in 1773 by Philip Dejean, justice 

 of the peace. According to this there were 1,367 souls, of 

 whom 85 were slaves; they dwelt in 280 houses, with 157 

 barns, and owned 1,494 horned cattle, 628 sheep, and 1,067 

 hogs. Acre is used as a measure of length; their united 

 farms had a frontage of 512, and went back from 40 to 80. 

 Some of the people, it is specified, were not enumerated be- 

 cause they were out hunting or trading at the Indian vil- 

 lages. Besides the slaves, there were 93 servants. 



This only refers to the settlers of Detroit proper, and the 

 farms adjoining. Of the numerous other farms, and the 

 small villages on both sides of the straits, and of the many 

 families and individuals living as traders or trappers with 

 the Indians, I can get no good record. Perhaps the total 

 population tributary to Detroit was 2,000. It may have 

 been over this. Any attempt to estimate this Creole popu- 

 lation perforce contains much guess-work. 



C VOL. V. 



