Fort Detroit

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Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or Fort Detroit was a fort established by the French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac in 1701. The location of the former fort is now in the city of Detroit in the U.S. state of Michigan, an area bounded by Larned Street, Griswold Street, Wayne Street, and the Civic Center.

Contents 1 Background and construction 2 Military conflicts 3 Notes 4 References

[edit] Background and construction

Fort Detroit began as a settlement on the Detroit River built to try to keep the British from moving west of New England and to monopolize the fur trade in North America. Before he built Fort Detroit, Cadillac was commandant of Fort de Buade, another French outpost in North America. Fort de Buade was abandoned in 1697 due to conflicts with religious leaders over the trading of alcohol to the Native Americans. Cadillac then persuaded his superiors to let him build a new settlement. He reached the Detroit River on July 23, 1701.

When he landed on the site he held a celebration to formally take control of the area. In honor of Louis Phélypeaux, Comte du Pontchartrain (or his son, Jerome), Minister of Marine to Louis XIV he named the new settlement Fort Ponchartrain du Detroit. The storehouse and the stockade were started immediately, but the first building completed was Ste. Anne's Church. The stockade came next and was made of logs rising about 12 feet into the sky with towers in each corner.

[edit] Military conflicts

The first major conflict of Fort Detroit occurred while Cadillac was away. The Ottawas heard a rumor about a Huron tribe ambush. The Ottawas then attacked and killed several members of the Miami tribe. The Miamis then went inside the fort and were defended by the soldiers. About 30 Ottawas were killed when they attacked the fort. After the battle the Miamies attacked an Ottawa village.

In 1712 as Cadillac was removed under a cloud of greed and replaced by Dubuisson. Dubuisson invited the Fox to live around the fort. They were not welcomed by the existing neighboring tribes and a fight ensued. Angry with the unfriendly welcome, about 1,000 Fox, Sac and Mascoutens attacked the fort. The Ottawas and the Hurons 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) brought troops to the aid of the fort ^[1]. When the Ottawas went on the raid they left the old and the young. So the fastest boys were sent to find the Ottawa warriors. When the warriors came the Fox ran and the Ottawa gave chase and killed many Fox warriors.

After a few years the English and the French conflict over North America came to a head in the French and Indian War. Detroit was far removed from the main areas of conflict and did not see combat. On November 29, 1760, Fort Detroit was turned over to the British Army's Rogers' Rangers, two months after the capitulation of the French at Montreal. British rule differed in several major ways from French rule. The British required greater taxes and confiscated weapons from "unfriendly" settlers while refusing to sell ammunition to them or to the natives. This limited their ability to trap and hunt as well as rendering them less of a threat. The British did not emphasize maintaining good relationships with the Native Americans. After the French left the conflict, Chief Pontiac of the Ottawas rallied several tribes in Pontiac's Rebellion and attempted to capture Detroit from the British on May 7, 1763. He did this by making it seem like there were thousands of Indians attacking the fort by having his warriors make lots of noise and circle the fort quickly. 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 consisted of 130 soldiers with two 6-pound cannons, one 3-pound cannon, and three mortars. As well, the 6-gun schooner Huron was anchored 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 area of action. The fort's main contribution was to arm American Indian raiding parties who attacked American settlements to the southeast. American revolutionaries, particularly George Rogers Clark, hoped to mount an expedition to Detroit in order to neutralize these operations, but could not raise enough men to make the attempt. Clark did manage to capture Henry Hamilton, the Lieutenant-Governor of Canada and senior officer at Fort Detroit. While Hamilton was a prisoner of war, in late 1778 Captain Richard B. Lernoult began construction on a new fortification a few hundred yards to the south of the original fortification. It was named Fort Lernoult on 3 October 1779.

On July 11, 1796, Fort Detroit, Fort Lernoult and the surrounding settlement was surrendered by the British to the Americans, 13 years after the Treaty of Paris ended the war and gave the area to the United States. It is claimed that only Fort Lernoult survived the 1805 fire which destroyed Detroit, so presumably no parts of Fort Detroit remained after this time.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ "Vincennes, Sieur de (Jean Baptiste Bissot)," The Encyclopedia Americana (Danbury, CT: Grolier, 1990), 28:130.

[edit] References

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