Executive Committee Meeting 10-15-24

President's Report

Page 81 of 95

HISTORY

History In the late 17th century, just before the Europeans settled in the region, several major Indian tribes, including the Potawatomi, Ottawa, Huron, and Iroquois nations, lived in the area north of the Great Lakes. A Disputed Outpost In competition with the English and Iroquois in the lucrative fur trade, in 1698 the French began to consider setting up an outpost on the site of the future Detroit to defend their interests. With the endorsement of Louis XIV, Antoine de Lamothe-Cadillac set out from Montreal in June 1701, heading a party of one hundred soldiers, as many again allied Algonquin Indians, and two priests, and one month later founded the first site that marked the origin of the city: Fort Ponchartrain Detroit, overlooking the river, between Lake Saint Clair and Lake Erie. As a strategic post, the fort passed into the hands of the British in 1760, then was besieged in 1763 by Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa tribe, who sought to build an Indian coalition against the new occupier. Meanwhile, the Seven Years’ War ended with the Treaty of Paris (1763), by virtue of which Fort Ponchartrain Detroit was ceded to the British Crown. The War of Independence brought fresh change. Detroit became American territory in 1783, and it was agreed a few years later, that the Detroit River would definitively mark the border between American and

thus giving rise to its name, followed in the 1850s by the Italians and the Polish. Detroit is an true example of a genuine melting pot. From 26,000 inhabitants in 1851, the population swelled to more than 45,000 in 1860. At the end of the American Civil War in 1865, industry developed in leaps and bounds, thanks to the resources drawn from the forests, iron mines, and hydraulic energy, but also to the city's advantageous situation on the trade routes. This was the age of the barons of industry who commissioned sumptuous residences in Brush Park, and contributed to the city’s cultural expansion through various institutions: art museums, orchestras, libraries, and such. Embellished and modernized, with its green spaces and asphalted streets, it earned its nickname of the “Little Paris of the Midwest”, and even became the

first American city to give telephone subscribers an individual number. Flourishing Industry In 1900, Detroit was the country’s 13th largest city with nearly 286,000 inhabitants. Steel, copper, footwear, tobacco, shipbuilding, railway construction, cookers, paint, and pharmaceuticals were at the time the flagships of local industry, but things were about to change once more. In 1896, Henry Ford ( T p. 73) opened his first factory, before introducing assembly lines in 1913. Together with other pioneers in the sector, such as the Dodge brothers, the Packard brothers and Walter Chrysler, he helped forge the home of the automotive industry in Detroit. In the 1920s, the job pool and attractive wage policy attracted a huge population from the country’s southern

British territory. By the end of the 18th century, Detroit had a garrison, a hundred or so houses, shops, taverns, a church (Church of Saint Anne), a handful of residents, and some 2,000 people living and working on farms outside this first urban hub. Two-thirds of them were French, but there were also Black slaves, Dutch, and Germans. Father Gabriel Richard arrived in 1798 in the city where he would play a fundamental role ( T p. 35) . Rapid Early Development In 1805, a fire ravaged Detroit, razing its wooden buildings to the ground. This earned it its motto ( Meliora speramus; cineribus resurget , T p. 35 ) and spurred an urban development plan which took that of Washington, DC as its template ( T p. 18) . There were still enough French speaking inhabitants at the time for the city’s main newspaper, The Detroit Gazette (1817–1830), to be published in French as well, but the young city attracted a large number of immigrants who first came to work in the sawmills and salt mines. In 1825, the completion of the Erie Canal opened up new prospects for transportation, a sector that quickly became Detroit’s main activity. After the Germans, who arrived en masse in the mid-1820s and settled in the current districts of Corktown and Greektown, came the Irish, who were fleeing the Great Famine of the 1840s and tended to settle around Corktown,

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The Gateway to Freedom During the 19th century, the name Detroit was synonymous with hope for many slaves aspiring to change their destiny. Sitting across the water from Canada, the city was the last stage of one of the branches of the Underground Railroad , a bold undertaking implemented by altruistic benefactors of all stripes to help the fugitives make the long and perilous journey ( T p. 45) . The names of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, themselves former slaves, are intimately linked to this saga. It is estimated that between 30,000 and 100,000 people made this migration into British territory, where slavery had been permanently banned since 1833. The story of these times is recounted at the Charles H. Wright African American History Museum and the Detroit Historical Museum. On the Riverwalk, the Gateway to Freedom monument is also reminiscent of this epic chapter in history, with which several churches have been associated, including the Old Mariners’ Church, the Second Baptist Church, and the First Congregational Church, in Midtown (33 E. Forrest Ave – friendsoffirst.com) , which organizes tours that guide visitors along the footsteps of the fugitive slaves.