The history of Detroit and Michigan; or, The metropolis illustrated; a chronological cyclopedia of the past and present, Vol I, Part 68

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Detroit, S. Farmer & co
Number of Pages: 1096

USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > The history of Detroit and Michigan; or, The metropolis illustrated; a chronological cyclopedia of the past and present, Vol I > Part 68

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1 See Henry Gillman's paper on Mound Builders and Platy- cnemism in Michigan, in Smithsonian Report for 1873.

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ORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

vicinity the tribes of the Miamis, Potowatamies, Winnebagoes, and the Ouendats, or Wyandotts. The latter who came to this vicinity about 1680, excelled the other tribes in energy and progressive- ness. From time to time the Iroquois also appeared. This nation was composed originally of the Onon- dagas, Cayugas, Senecas, Oneidas, and Mohawks. In 1714 the Tuscaroras of North Carolina united with them, and they were afterward known as the Six Nations. They claimed all of Michigan, and between them and the Algonquins warfare was frequent. Indeed, the Iroquois were the enemies of all the Indians at or near Detroit, and in 1649 they drove the Algonquins from this region. They were unfriendly to the French, and during the French and English war did good service for the English. They were the cannibals of America, and French residents of Detroit, in 1756, stated that the Iro- quois actually ate the flesh of persons slain in battle.

It was the settled policy of the French command- ants to induce as many friendly Indians as possible to settle near their forts. We find Cadillac, in 1703, urging the Ottawas to move to Detroit. The French records of the same year show that several Miamis were already settled there, and that on June 28 thirty Hurons arrived from Mackinaw and erected wigwams near the fort. The Potowatamies had their village west of the fort, near the mouth of what was afterwards called Knagg's Creek. The Ottawa settlement was where Windsor now is, and the Hurons were gathered on the Canada side, oppo- site the Cass Farm. In 1705 about two hundred Indians had been persuaded by Cadillac to settle in the vicinity. In furtherance of his plans a great council of chiefs was held, continuing from August 6 to August 10, 1707.

The following translation from a French Colonial Memoir, written in 1707, and preserved at Paris, gives a vivid picture of Indian life at this period :

The village of the Pottowatamies adjoins the fort ; they lodge partly under Apaquois, which are made of mat-grass. The women do all this work. The men belonging to that nation are well clothed, like our domiciliated Indians at Montreal ; their entire occupation is hunting and dress ; they make use of a great deal of vermilion, and in winter wear buffalo robes richly painted, and in summer either blue or red cloth. They play a good deal at la crosse in summer, twenty or more on each side. Their bat is a sort of little racket, and the ball with which they play is made of very heavy wood, somewhat larger than the balls used at tennis ; when playing they are entirely naked, except a breech cloth, and moccasins on their feet. Their body is completely painted with all sorts of colors. Some, with white clay, trace white lace on their bodies, as if on all the seams of a coat, and at a distance it would be apt to be taken for silver lace. They play very deep (gros jeu) and often. The bets sometimes amount to more than eight hundred livres. They set up two poles and com- mence the game from the center ; one party propels the ball from one side and the other from the opposite, and which ever reaches the goal, wins. This is fine recreation and worth seeing. They often play village against village, the Poux against the Outaoues or the Hurons, and lay heavy stakes. Sometimes Frenchmen join

in the game with them. The women cultivate Indian corn, beans, peas, squashes, and melons, which come up very fine. The women and girls dance at night ; adorn themselves considerably, grease their hair, put on a white shift, paint their cheeks with vermilion, and wear whatever wampum they possess, and are very tidy in their way. They dance to the sound of the drum and sisiquoi, which is a sort of a gourd containing some grains of shot. Four or five young girls sing, and beat time with the drum and sisiquoi, and the women keep time and do not lose a step ; it is very entertaining, and lasts almost the entire night. The old men often dance the Medelinne (Medicine Dance); they resemble a set of demons, and all this takes place during the night. The young men often dance in a circle (le tour) and strike posts ; it is then they recount their achievements, and dance, at the same time, the war dance (des decouvertes), and whenever they act thus they are highly ornamented. It is altogether very curious. They often perform these things for tobacco. When they go hunting, which is every fall, they carry their Apaquois with them to hut under at night. Everybody follows, men, women, and children, and winter in the forest and return in the spring.

The Hurons are also near, perhaps the eighth of a league from the French fort. This is the most industrious nation that can be seen. They scarcely ever dance, and are always at work; raise a very large amount of Indian corn, peas, beans ; some grow wheat. They construct their huts entirely of bark, very strong and solid ; very lofty and very long, and arched like arbors. Their fort is strongly encircled with pickets and bastions, well redoubted, and has strong gates. They are the most faithful nation to the French, and the most expert hunters that we have. Their cabins are divided into sleeping compartments, which contain their misi- rague, and are very clean. They are the bravest of all the nations and possess considerable talent. They are well clad ; some of them wear close overcoats (juste au corps de capot). The men are always hunting, summer and winter, and the women work. When they go hunting in the fall, a goodly number of them remain to guard their fort. The old women, and through- out the winter those women who remain, collect wood in very large quantity. The soil is very fertile ; Indian corn grows there to the height of ten to twelve feet. Their fields are very clean, and very extensive ; not the smallest weed is to be seen in them.

The Outaoues are on the opposite of the river, over against the French fort ; they, likewise, have a picket fort. Their cabins resemble somewhat those of the Hurons. They do not make use of Apaquois except when out hunting : their cabins in this fort are all of bark, but not so clean nor so well made as those of the Hurons. They are as well dressed and very laborious, both in their agriculture and hunting. Their dances, juggleries, and games of ball (la crosse) and of the bowl, are the same as those of the Poux. Their game of the bowl consists of eight small pebbles (noyaux), which are red or black on one side, and yellow or white on the other ; these are tossed up in a bowl, and when he who holds the vessel tosses them and finds seven of the whole eight of the same color he gains, and continues playing as long as he receives the same thing. When the result is different, the adverse party takes the bowl and plays next, and they risk heavy stakes on all these games. They have likewise the game of the straws, and all the nations gamble in like manner.

In 1736 there were five hundred Indian warriors at Detroit,-two hundred each from the Huron and Ottawa tribes and one hundred from the Potowa- tamies. Bougainville, who was here in 1757, says :

The Indians who usually come to trade at Detroit are the Hurons of the same tribe of those of Lorette, near Quebec, a per- fidious and deceitful nation in whom we must never put confi- dence. There are also the Ottawas, the Sauteux, and the Potowatamies ; these last named are of all the Indians the most faithful and the most attached to our interests. They have never murdered any Frenchmen, and have often warned us of the plots of other tribes.

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ORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

Cadillac says that the Ottawas wore, as an orna- ment, a little stone suspended from their nose, and that "Ottawa," the name of the tribe, signified " the nation with a hole in their nose." The French gave nicknames to most of the tribes in this region. The Wyandotts they designated as Hurons, because of their fierce aspect, comparing them to a wild boar; the Chippewas, as Sauteurs, from their resi- dence near the Sault St. Marie; the Menominees were called Folles Avoines, from "wild rice," one of their principal articles of food. The name Poto- watamie was abbreviated into Poux. This nation was very uncleanly.

All of the tribes known to the Americans, north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, had their council-fire at the village of the Wyandotts, near the mouth of the Detroit River. The Wyandotts alone had the power to convene the tribes, and when a council was to be held, application was made to them, and it was held at their village. This fact gave the locality a peculiar importance and made it familiar to all the Indians.

At various times nearly all the noted Indian leaders visited this post. Pontiac, Tecumseh, and his brother The Prophet, were frequent visitors. John Logan, the Cayuga chief, whose speech to Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, is familiar to every schoolboy, was here in 1774, and after the treaty of Chillicothe, he resided for many years in this vicinity. He became a drunkard, and was killed, between Detroit and Miami, by an Indian.

The French trusted the Indians almost without fear. No seals or locks were placed on the store- houses, and the Indians came and went as they pleased. Under English and American rule the Indians were welcomed inside the stockade during the day, but at night all were turned out except those who were entertained by private persons. The Indians were always persistent beggars, and no Arab of the present day demands backsheesh more clamorously than did the red men of their French and English " brothers." Their requests were gen- erally acceded to, and the presents given them in some measure made up for the exorbitant prices charged them for articles offered in exchange for furs. Their likes and dislikes turned, like a pair of scales, according as they had free range or were restricted in their visitations to the houses. On September 18, 1770, Captain Stephenson, of the Eighteenth Regiment, then in command, wrote to Sir William Johnson :

My children here are quiet at present. They have all been to pay me a visit and suck my breast, to which they made so close an application that I told them I was afraid they would throw me in a consumption. They are very happy at having free access to my house, which my predecessor's delicacy would not admit.

Even after this region was surrendered, the Eng-

lish Government sought the favor of the Indians by annual gifts; and year by year up to 1836 thousands from various tribes gathered at Detroit, Sandwich, or Malden to receive the presents of their Great Father, the King. The American Govern- ment was compelled to follow this precedent. On November 24, 1807, Governor Hull wrote to the Secretary of War that within the two or three days previous seven or eight hundred Indians had called at Detroit, on the way to their villages, and that he had been compelled to feed them. In the autumn of 1812, while the city was in possession of the British, the Indians committed many outrages. A party of them went in a body to rob Colonel Lam- bert Beaubien's orchard, but the Colonel attacked them with his fists, and made so courageous a defense that he drove them from his premises. After the city again passed under American control, Colonel Cass was obliged to feed great numbers of the In- dians. In one communication to the War Depart- ment he states that for several years he fed an average of four hundred Indians per day. Between 1814 and 1817, he disbursed $200,000 for the benefit of the Indians. To divide and distribute among them the goods and bounty of the Government was a task vexatious in the extreme, and almost unbear- able, for it was impossible to satisfy the stupid and stolid savages. All the year round they came and went, and the agent's family was "driven from one extremity of the house to the other by them." In addition to the annuities the "government black- smith " repaired, free of charge, their guns and traps. There was always some excuse for their coming, and citizens were not surprised at any time to see a swarthy face at the window-pane; often- times the click of the latch was the only warning of the entrance of one of the nation's wards. Some of them were gayly dressed with blankets of scarlet broadcloth, and strings of silver half-moons grad- uated in size from one to several inches in length, hung from neck to ankles, both in front and down the back. Their moccasins and leggins were gay with beads and the stained quills of the porcupine. The heads of the war chiefs were frequently gayer still with the vermilion and bear's grease which had been rubbed thereon. The squaws were not left behind. There was always some burden for them to carry, and the procession ceased on one day only to begin the next. Indians and more Indians, and still they came! Indians lazy and Indians drunk, Indians sick and Indians hungry, all crying "Give ! give !" After receiving their payments, hundreds of them would lie about the city stupidly drunk ; in August, 1825, they so disturbed the peace of the city, that the Council, through the mayor, sought aid from the governor to quiet and control them.

A few of these Indians came to buy goods, and

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INDIAN AGENTS .- EARLY VISITORS.

were really trustworthy. An old account book of that period contains charges made against Indians called "Saw Goose's Wife," " Big Wind's Daughter," "The Rat," "The White Devil," " The Old Cow," "The Cow's Sister," " The Old Eagle and Son," "The Red Bird," and " The Turtle."

INDIAN AGENTS.

The disbursing of Indian annuities under British rule was intrusted to an officer styled an Indian agent, and an account book of the Macombs shows that Duperon Baby was paid ten shillings sterling per day, for services as Indian agent, from October 10, 1778, to December 24, 1780.

Under an Act of Virginia, on August 1, 1780, John Dodge was appointed Indian agent for this region. By Act of Congress April 18, 1796, Indian agents were provided for, trading houses estab- lished, and $150,000 was invested by the United States to carry them on. They were abolished May 6, 1822. Under the Act of 1805, which organized the Territory of Michigan, the governor was consti- tuted the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and continued to act in that capacity until Act of June 30, 1834, which provided that after the Territory of Wisconsin was organized, the governor should cease to act as Indian agent.

Since 1836, persons have been appointed to act solely as Indian agents.

The Indian title to land in this region was gradu- ally extinguished ; the Iroquois conveyed their title in 1784, and the Wyandotts, Chippewas, Ottawas, and other tribes, by treaties dated January 1, 1785, August 3, 1795, and November 17, 1807. In 1815 the whole number of Indians in Michigan was about 40,000; in 1825 there were nearly 30,000; in 1880 there were 10,141, and 66,632 acres of land were reserved for their use. The following persons have served as Indian agents, the office being located in Detroit up to 1871 :

1836-1843, H. R. Schoolcraft ; 1843-1845, Rob- ert Stuart ; 1845-1851, W. A. Richmond ; 1851, C. P. Babcock; 1852 and 1853, William Sprague; 1853-1858, H. C. Gilbert ; 1858-1862, A. M. Fitch ; 1862-1865, D. C. Leach ; 1865-1869, R. M. Smith ; 1869-1871, James W. Long; 1871, R. M. Smith ; 1871-1876, George I. Betts ; 1876-1881, G. W. Lee ; 1881-1886, E. P. Allen ; 1886- , M. W. Stevens.

EARLY VISITORS.

It is almost literally true that wherever a stream of water flowed the Jesuits and French command- ants followed its course. From the Lakes to New Orleans and eastward to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, travelers, single and in groups, and eventually troops of soldiers, went, apparently with as little

care as one now has in the journey of a hundred miles in a palace coach, through a settled country. It is impossible for us to realize the daring and bravery exhibited in those long and tedious trips.

Champlain is said to have visited this locality as early as 1610; that he came here in 1611 or 1612 is positively asserted in French colonial records. Two of the most important references to this sub- ject are to be found in the ninth volume of the New York Colonial Documents. A translation from a French Memoir, given on page 303, says: "That from 1604 to 1620 he (Champlain) has been more than five hundred leagues into the interior of New France; that he defeated the Iroquois and took possession of their river, and ascended that of Sa- guena towards the north. The relation of Sieur L. Escorbot, printed in 1612, confirms the same thing. At page 450 he says that they had received intel- ligence from upwards of five hundred leagues be- yond the first Sault of the river St. Lawrence, including the great lake it flows from; and that they, likewise, had knowledge of the Saguena country towards the northwest, and of the Iroquois country to the southwest." In the same volume, on page 378, M. de Denonville, Governor of New France, in a memoir on the French possessions in America, says of Champlain : "In the years 1611 and 1612 he ascended the Grand river as far as Lake Huron, called the fresh sea. * He * * passed by places he has himself described in his book, which are no other than Detroit and Lake Erie."

Notwithstanding these positive assertions, there seems to be no definite evidence that Champlain visited the Detroit. In the very complete transla- tion of his works by the Prince Society, is the assertion that the location of the strait was des- cribed to him by the Indians as early as 1603; but there is nothing in his works so far as published, to verify the statements made in the New York Docu- ments ; and although we do it with great reluctance, we must, at least for the present, concede that there is no satisfactory proof that Detroit was honored by a visit from the great French navigator. Although he may not have visited the site of Detroit, there can be but little doubt that some of the coureurs de bois reached here many years before there is any mention of the names of visitors. These adventur- ous traders and woodsmen went in every direction in their endeavors to procure furs, and they undoubtedly came to the site of Detroit.

One of the earliest Jesuit visitors to the region of the Lakes was Father Marquette. He traversed the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in 1668, but there is no evidence that he was ever at Detroit. He died at what is now known as Ludington, on Lake Michigan, May 19, 1675,

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EARLY VISITORS.

and in the spring of 1676 his remains were Detroit River, on a raft and proceeded to Nia- taken to Point St. Ignace, near Mackinaw. gara. The first white traveler through the Detroit was possibly the Sieur Joliet ; he is believed to have passed here in 1670. In this same year the Sulpitian priests Galinee and Dollier, with three canoes and seven men, passed through the Detroit and Lake St. Clair. They left La Chine July 6, 1669, and arrived at Detroit in the spring of 1670. In his journal Galinee says that six leagues from Lake Erie, or not far from the site of Detroit, he found a stone idol, which the Indians regarded as influencing the navigation of Lake Erie, and to which they made sacrifices of skins and food, when- ever they were about to embark on the lake. He says, "They broke one of their hatchets in breaking the idol in pieces, and then threw it into the river," adding, "God rewarded us for the pious deed, for we killed, during the same day, a deer and a bear."

The next visitor, so far as known, was Joliet. In a letter dated November 14, 1674, Frontenac says that Sieur Joliet returned to Quebec three months previous, and that "a person can go from Lake Ontario and Fort Frontenac in a bark to the Gulf of Mexico, there being only one carrying place half a league where Lake Ontario communicates with Lake Erie. * *

* He has been within ten days journey of the Gulf of Mexico, and he left copies of his journals with the Fathers at Sault St. Marie." These statements make it evident that Joliet passed through the Detroit. Unfortunately, on his return trip, near Montreal, his journals were lost.

In the fall of 1678, the Chevalier de la Salle sent fifteen men up the lakes to trade with the Indians ; and on July 22, 1679, M. Tonty with five men went from Niagara to join them. La Salle, with Father Louis Hennepin, one other Franciscan monk, and thirty artisans, in Le Griffon, overtook those who had gone before, at or near the site of Detroit, on August 10, 1679. Taking the others on board, Le Griffon proceeded on her way, reached Washington Island safely, and on September 18 started for Nia- gara, but was lost in the northern part of Lake Michigan. After it became evident that Le Griffon was lost, La Salle, with others of the party, crossed from St. Joseph to Detroit by land, arriving about the middle of April, 1680. They then crossed the

In the spring of 1687 the Marquis de Denonville, Governor of Canada, determined on an expedition against the Seneca Indians of New York, who were enemies of the Canadian colonies. In preparing for the expedition, M. de Tonty, who commanded Fort St. Louis in the Illinois country, was ordered to go to Niagara by way of Lake Huron and lake Erie, and to unite with the force of Du- luth at the Detroit. Tonty sent his subordinate, De la Forest, with thirty men, by way of the lakes, while he came over land direct to Detroit. His memoir, as given in the first volume of Louisi- ana Collections, page 69, thus narrates the occur- rence: "After two hundred leagues of journey by land we came, on the 19th of May, to Fort De- troit. We made some canoes of elm, and I sent one of them to Fort St. Joseph (near what is now Port Huron), on the high ground above Detroit, thirty leagues from where we were to give the Sieur (Greyselon) Dulud (Du Luth), the commander of this fort, information of our arrival." They took formal possession of the strait as far down as the river St. Denis, this last stream being probably the one now known as the Rouge. Soon after, on June 7, the Sieurs La Forest, Durantaye, and Du Luth joined him at Detroit. The Sieur de la Durantaye had with him thirty Englishmen, whom he had captured on Lake Huron while on his way down from Mackinaw. They had been sent by Colonel Dongan, Governor of New York, to take possession of Mackinaw and the adjoining region, and to open up trade with the Indians. The entire party, con- sisting of one hundred and fifty Frenchmen, four hundred Indians, and the thirty Englishmen, soon left Detroit and proceeded to Niagara, where they arrived June 27, 1687, having captured, on Lake Erie, a second party, consisting of Major McGregor, sixteen white men and thirteen allied Indians, who were also on their way to Mackinaw.

La Hontan, in his travels, makes no mention of a village or post at this place, but says that on Sep- tember 6, 1687, he passed through the river.

The arrival of Cadillac is elsewhere described; after him the first visitor of note was Father Peter Francis Xavier Charlevoix, who arrived June 6, 1721, and remained twelve days.

CHAPTER XLVII.

BIOGRAPHY OF CADILLAC .- THE FOUNDING AND GROWTH OF DETROIT .- MANNERS AND CUSTOMS .- MARRIAGE LAWS. - MASONIC AND ODD FELLOW SOCIETIES.

ANTOINE LAUMET DE LA MOTHE CADILLAC, the founder of Detroit, was born March 5, 1658, at St. Nicolas de la Grave, in the Department of Tarn and Garonne, France. The old parish records show that he was baptized when five days old by Rev. Father John Boscus, under the name of Antoine Laumet, and that he was the son of "Jean Laumet, Advocate in the Court, and of Jean Pechagut, mar- ried."

Previous to the birth of Cadillac, his father lived at Caumont, going from thence to St. Nicolas to serve in the capacity of advocate and judge. That he was a man of wealth is evident from various records of transfers of lands, both at Caumont and St. Nicolas. Some of the lands which Cadillac inherited from his father were known by the name of Laumet, and were in possession of his descend- ants as late as 1748. The name Laumet is still attached to a portion of the lands, and they are so designated on detailed maps of the province. The house belonging to the manor is one of the most comfortable dwellings in the vicinity, but unfortu- nately for historic purposes, it has been so thoroughly reconstructed that no trace remains of its appearance at the time our hero was born.

The father and the relatives of Cadillac figure largely in the records of the communal deliberations of Caumont; they were evidently persons of good standing, not members of the nobility, but belonging to the higher class of citizens, who, at that time, found easy access to judicial and military employments.

With regard to the various names assumed by Cadillac and applied to him by oth- ers, though there are some things as yet unexplained, there can be no doubt as to the identity of the person to whom they are applied.

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The history of Detroit and Michigan; or, The metropolis illustrated; a chronological cyclopedia of the past and present, Vol I, Part 68

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902 Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Detroit, S. Farmer & co Number of Pages: 1096

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Detroit, S. Farmer & co
Number of Pages: 1096