User:Griffin's Sword/sandbox

Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or Fort Detroit (1701–1796) was a French and later British fortification established in 1701 on the north side of the Detroit River by Antoine Laumet de Lamothe Cadillac. A settlement based on the fur trade, farming and missionary work slowly developed in the area near the fort. The site is located in what is now downtown Detroit, northeast of the intersection of Washington Boulevard and West Jefferson Avenue.

Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit surrendered to the British during the Seven Years' War in November 1760 following the fall of Montreal. The British controlled the area throughout the American Revolutionary War, but replaced the French fort with the newly constructed Fort Lernoult in 1779. While the territory on what is now the Michigan side of the Detroit River was ceded to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, control of the fort was not transferred until 1796.

Fort Lernoult was renamed Fort Shelby by the Americans but was widely known as Fort Detroit. It was officially given that name in 1805. During the War of 1812 the fort was captured by the British but later reoccupied by the Americans. Fort Detroit was decommissioned in 1826 and demolished the following year.

History

The river flowing between Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie was called by Le Détroit du Lac Érié by the French, meaning "The Strait of Lake Erie." In 1698, Antoine Laumet de Lamothe Cadillac, who had previously commanded Fort de Buade at Michilimackinac proposed the establishment of a colony at le Détroit. French families would be recruited as settlers, and the Indigenous tribes living near Michilimackinac would be encouraged to migrate to the area. The settlement would not only prevent English expansion into the Great Lakes region but would also deter Iroquois aggression. Jérôme Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain, the French Secretary of State of the Navy, approved the plan despite the reservations of New France's governor-general, Louis-Hector de Calliere, and intendant, Jean Bochart de Champigny.

In early June of 1701, Cadillac and roughly 100 settlers and soldiers set out from Lachine near Montreal. The expedition followed a northerly route up the Ottawa River and across to Georgian Bay and Lake Huron. The expedition reached Grosse Ile on the Detroit River on July 23rd. The following day, the expedition returned upstream several miles to a bluff on the north shore of the river at its narrowest point. Cadillac commenced the construction of a fort which he named Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit. The first building completed was the church dedicated to Saint Anne, the patron saint of New France. In September the first European women arrived at the fort: Cadillac's wife Marie-Thérèse Guyon, and Marie Anne Picoté de Belestre, the wife of Cadillac’s lieutenant, Alphonse de Tonty.

Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit in 1710

Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit was built from white oak and initially enclosed an area of about 0.85 acres (0.34 hectares). The walls were roughly 12 feet (3.7 m) tall with a bastion positioned at each corner. Dwellings, a warehouse, and the church were constructed inside the fort. For many years the entire European population lived within the palisade. In October 1703 a fire destroyed the church and the house of the Recollect chaplain, as well as the residences of Cadillac and Tonty.

After the fort was established, Odawa (Ottawa) from Michilimackinac, and Wendat (Huron) from Michilimackinac and the St. Joseph River began migrating to Detroit and established a number of pallisaded villages there. Groups of Ojibwe and later Potawatomi also migrated to "le Détroit." Cadillac reported an Indigenous population of 2000 in 1705.

Conflict among Indigenous tribes

In 1706, the Wendat leader Cheanonvouzon may have orchestrated a conflict between the Miami and Odawa. Cheanonvouzon, known as Quarante Sols by the French and Michipichy by the Odawa, was the leader of a group of Wendat that had split from the Wendat at Michilimackinac about 1690 and had lived among the Miami on the St. Joseph River, a tributary of Lake Michigan, before rejoining the Michilimackinac Wendat at le Détroit. Cheanonvouzon sought to reclaim Wendat autonomy from the more numerous Odawa. To this end he established an alliance with the militarily powerful Miami and Iroquois. The alliance with the Iroquois gave the Wendat access to goods like Caribbean rum and scarlet woollens which could be acquired from the British at Albany but not from the French.

In June 1706, while Cadillac was at Quebec, Odawa warriors at le Détroit had set out on an expedition against the Dakota. A few days after leaving they received word that the Miami who where encamped near Fort Pontchartrain were planning to raid the Odawa villages. The Odawa chief known as Le Pesant or "The Bear" decided to lead a preemptive strike. The Odawa surprised eight Miami chiefs near the fort and slew seven of them. The eighth escaped to warn his people, and the Miamis and Wendat sought refuge in the fort. Le Pesant then led an attack against the fort. Father Constantin Delhalle and a soldier, La Rivière, were accidentally killed by the Ottawas. In a series of raids, ambushes, and counter-attacks which followed, the Miamis were joined by the Hurons. Over the next few weeks 26 Odawa were killed.

In August the Odawa abandoned their villages at le Détroit and returned to Michilimackinac.

The Governor General of New France Vaudreuil insisted that Le Pesant be turned over to the French and gave Cadillac the authority to arrest and execute him. Le Pesant was arrested but may have been allowed to escape. Cadillac later pardoned Le Pesant under the condition that the Odawa return to le Détroit.

During this time the fort was commanded by Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont. Bourgmont was criticized for his handling of the incident. When Cadillac returned, Bourgmont and some soldiers from the fort deserted. The French captured one of the deserters, who testified that the deserting party had shot and killed one of its own and cannibalized him. The deserter was sentenced to have his "head broken" by eight soldiers till death followed.

Contemporary accounts by a half-dozen leading participants, Indigenous and French, do not agree on the cause of the attack, the attribution of guilt, and the roles of Cadillac and Vaudreuil.

In 1707 Cadillac began granting land in the vicinity of the fort to French settlers. He required settlers to pay him an annual rent plus a percentage of their crops. Pontchartrain, Cadillac’s French supporter, later wrote that Cadillac was greedy because of the amount of rent and crops he requires from his settlers.

In 1708, the Miami, angry that Le Pesant was once again living at le Détroit, attacked the fort.

François Clariambalult d'Aigremont was sent in 1708 to report on the settlement at le Détroit. He recorded 60 households.

In 1710, Cadillac was removed under accusations of corruption from his position of commander at le Détroit. He was appointed the governor of the French colony in Louisiana.

François de la Forêt was appointed as Cadillac's successor, but sent Jacques-Charles Renaud Dubuisson to administer his role. In 1712, Jacques-Charles Renaud Dubuisson officially replaced Cadillac as commander at Fort Detroit.

When the Fox heard of this change, they planned an attack on the fort (after some of Cadillac's Native American supporters had left). They besieged the fort in late April 1710, with a mixed force of about 1,000 Fox, Sac, and Mascoutens. The Ottawa and the Huron warriors were out on a raid and so could not help the French. Jean Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes, commander of the French outpost at Kekionga (now Fort Wayne, Indiana) and seven fur traders reached the fort, sneaking through Fox lines. Dubuisson sent messengers to the Ottawa and Huron Indians, who returned to the fort's aid.

The Fox and their allies became caught between the French and their traditional enemies; they were besieged until the end of May. They fled to what is now Windmill Point, where the French and Huron warriors pursued them. After four days of the siege there, the Fox surrendered to spare their families. The French agreed but, after the Fox were disarmed, the French attacked and killed all of them. This event is known in the Grosse Pointe area as the Fox Indian Massacre. This siege of Fort Detroit was the opening incident in the Fox Wars.

Mission of the Assumption

In the summer of 1728, the Jesuit missionary, Father Armand de La Richardie, came from Quebec to establish a mission at Detroit. He chose a site on the south shore of the river at La Pointe de Montréal. In 1742 the mission moved 20 miles downstream to Bois Blanc Island, but returned to La Pointe de Montréal in 1748. In 1765 the roughly sixty French families living near the la Petite Côte (Little Coast) petitioned for a parish of their own. It was decided that the mission should become the Parish of Our Lady of the Assumption with the care of the souls of both the Wendat and the French settlers.

It was given the imposing title of “The Mission of Our Lady of the Assumption among the Hurons of Detroit.”

A Jesuit mission was later built across the river, and its church, L'Assomption, became the center of la Petite Côte (Little Coast). Located in what is now Windsor, La Petite Côte represents the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in Ontario.

Fort Detroit in 1763

British takeover of the fort

After a few years, the British and French conflict in North America, a front in the Seven Years' War of Europe, came to a head in the French and Indian War which broke out in 1754. Detroit was far removed from the main areas of conflict and was not involved in combat. Two months after the capitulation in 1760 of the French at Montreal, on November 29, 1760, the French ceded Fort Detroit to the British Army's Rogers' Rangers.

British rule differed in several major ways from French rule. The British required greater taxes and confiscated weapons from settlers they classified as "unfriendly", a category they used for many French Canadians. The British refused to sell ammunition to the French Canadians or to the Native Americans who had been trading with the French. The French traders had armed many of their trading partners with guns for years, beginning with the five Iroquois nations in New York. The British changes limited the ability of the Native Americans to trap and hunt, as well as rendering them less of a threat. The British colonists did not emphasize maintaining good relationships with the Native Americans. But the French Canadians had formed many families through intermarriage and knew about the Native American custom of giving gifts.

After the French left the conflict, Pontiac, war-leader of the Ottawa, rallied several tribes in Pontiac's Rebellion. He attempted to capture Detroit from the British on May 7, 1763. They failed to capture the fort as the British were forewarned of the attack, but did lay siege to it (see the Siege of Fort Detroit).

The British force in the fort, commanded by Henry Gladwin, consisted of 130 soldiers with two 6-pound cannons, one 3-pound cannon, and three mortars. The 6-gun schooner Huron was anchored nearby in the Detroit River. Two months into the siege, on July 29, 1763, the British brought a large relief force into the area. Skirmishing in the area, including the Battle of Bloody Run, continued until mid-November when the Indians dispersed.

During the American Revolutionary War, Detroit was far to the west of the main areas of action. The British used the fort to arm American Indian raiding parties, who attacked rebel colonial settlements to the southeast. American revolutionaries, particularly George Rogers Clark, hoped to mount an expedition to Detroit to neutralize these operations, but could not raise enough men to attempt. However, Clark did capture Henry Hamilton, the Lieutenant-Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs of the Province of Quebec and senior officer at Fort Detroit, when he traveled south to Fort Sackville.

United States fortification

In late 1778, while Hamilton was still being held as a prisoner of war, Captain Richard B. Lernoult began construction on a new fortification situated a few hundred yards to the north of the original fort. It was named Fort Lernoult on October 3, 1779. This new fort largely superseded the original fort and was often referred to as "Fort Detroit."

Following the United States gaining independence in the Revolution, the government made the Treaty of Greenville in 1795 with several Indian tribes. They ceded several blocks of land to the United States that were beyond the Greenville Treaty Line and within the Indians' territory.

Article 3, Item 12 notes:

The post of Detroit, and all the land to the north, the west and the south of it, of which the Indian title has been extinguished by gifts or grants to the French or English governments: and so much more land to be annexed to the district of Detroit, as shall be comprehended between the river Rosine [known today as the River Rouge], on the south, lake St. Clair on the north, and a line, the general course whereof shall be six miles distant from the west end of Lake Erie and Detroit river.

On July 11, 1796, under terms negotiated in the Jay Treaty, the British surrendered Fort Detroit, Fort Lernoult, and the surrounding settlement to the Americans, 13 years after the Treaty of Paris ended the war and ceded the area to Britain.

Some accounts say that only Fort Lernoult survived the 1805 fire that destroyed most of Detroit. It appears that no part of the original Fort Detroit remained after this time. Fort Lernoult was officially renamed Fort Detroit in 1805, then renamed Fort Shelby in 1813. Soon after its use by the military ended, the fort was demolished by the City of Detroit in 1827.

Location

The second Hotel Pontchartrain, now named the Fort Pontchartrain a Wyndham Hotel, is located on the former site of the fort. The Michigan Historical Marker for Fort Pontchartrain is located at the southwest corner of the Crowne Plaza, at Jefferson Ave. and Washington Blvd.

Location of Fort Detroit

References

Works cited

• Dunnigan, Brian Leigh (2001). "Fortress Detroit, 1701–1826". In Skaggs, David Curtis & Nelson, Larry L. (eds.). The Sixty Years' War for the Great Lakes, 1754–1814. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. pp. 167–185.
• "Fort Detroit: British Rule, 1760–1796". HistoryDetroit.com.

Further reading

• Farmer, Silas (1884). The History of Detroit and Michigan, or, The Metropolis Illustrated: A Chronological Cyclopaedia of the Past and Present, Including a Full Record of Territorial Days in Michigan, and the Annuals of Wayne County – via Open Library.