Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit in the context of "Detroit"

Detroit (/dɪˈtrɔɪt/ dih-TROYT, locally also /ˈdiːtrɔɪt/ DEE-troyt, French pronunciation: [detʁwa] , literally "Strait") is the most populous city in the state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from the Canadian city of Windsor, Ontario. It is the 26th-most populous city in the United States and the largest U.S. city on the Canada–United States border, with a population of 639,111 at the 2020 census. The Metro Detroit area, at over 4.4 million people, is the 14th-largest metropolitan area in the nation and second-largest in the Midwest (after the Chicago metropolitan area). The county seat of Wayne County, Detroit is a significant cultural center known for its contributions to music, art, architecture and design, in addition to its historical automotive and industrial background.

In 1701, French explorers Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and Alphonse de Tonty founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it became an important industrial hub at the center of the Great Lakes region. The city's population rose to be the fourth-largest in the nation by 1920, with the expansion of the automotive industry in the early 20th century. One of its main features, the Detroit River, became the busiest commercial hub in the world. In the mid-20th century, Detroit entered a state of urban decay that has continued to the present, as a result of industrial restructuring, the loss of jobs in the auto industry, and rapid suburbanization. Since reaching a peak of 1.85 million at the 1950 census, Detroit's population has declined by more than 65 percent. In 2013, Detroit became the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy, but successfully exited in 2014. In 2024, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that Detroit's population grew for a second consecutive year and led population growth in Michigan for the first time since the 1950s.

Antoine de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac (/ˈkædɪlæk/, French: [kadijak]; March 5, 1658 – October 16, 1730), born Antoine Laumet, was a French explorer and adventurer in New France, which stretched from Eastern Canada to Louisiana on the Gulf of Mexico. He rose from a modest beginning in Acadia in 1683 as an explorer, trapper, and a trader of alcohol and furs, achieving various positions of political importance in the colony. He was the commander of Fort de Buade in St. Ignace, Michigan, in 1694. In 1701, he founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit (which became the city of Detroit); he was commandant of the fort until 1710. Between 1710 and 1716, he was the governor of Louisiana, although he did not arrive in that territory until 1713.

His knowledge of the coasts of New England and the Great Lakes area was appreciated by Frontenac, governor of New France, and Pontchartrain, Secretary of State for the Navy. This earned him various favors, including the Order of Saint Louis from King Louis XIV. The Jesuits in Canada, however, accused him of perverting the Native Americans with his alcohol trading, and he was imprisoned for a few months in Quebec in 1704, and again in the Bastille on his return to France in 1717.

The history of human activity in Michigan, a U.S. state in the Great Lakes, began with settlement of the western Great Lakes region by Paleo-Indians perhaps as early as 11,000 B.C.E. One early technology they developed was the use of native copper, which they would fashion into tools and other implements with "hammer stones". The first Europeans to arrive in Michigan were the French. Explorer Étienne Brûlé traveled through Michigan in 1618 searching for a route to China. Soon the French laid claim to the land and began to trade with the local natives for furs. Men called "voyageurs" would travel the rivers by canoe trading various goods for furs that would bring a high price back in Europe.

The first French explorer of Michigan, Étienne Brûlé, began in about 1620. The area was part of French Canada from 1668 to 1763. In 1701, the French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, along with fifty-one additional French-Canadians, founded a settlement called Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, now the city of Detroit. When New France was defeated in the French and Indian War, it ceded the region to Britain in 1763. After the British were defeated in the American Revolutionary War, the Treaty of Paris (1783) expanded the United States' boundaries to include nearly all land east of the Mississippi River and south of Canada. Michigan was then part of the "Old Northwest". From 1787 to 1800, it was part of the Northwest Territory. In 1800, the Indiana Territory was created, and most of the current state Michigan lay within it, with only the easternmost parts of the state remaining in the Northwest Territory. In 1802, when Ohio was admitted to the Union, the whole of Michigan was attached to the Territory of Indiana, and so remained until 1805, when the Territory of Michigan was established. Michigan was made the twenty-sixth state of the United States on January 26.

Antoine de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac (/ˈkædɪlæk/, French: [kadijak]; March 5, 1658 – October 16, 1730), born Antoine Laumet, was a French explorer, military officer, and colonial administrator in New France.

Born in Gascony, Cadillac arrived in Acadia in 1683 at the age of 25. He was the commander of Fort de Buade in St. Ignace and, in 1701, founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, which he envisioned as a major settlement in the Pays d'en Haut. Cadillac called it the "Paris de la Nouvelle-France" and planned its early development. He was appointed colonial governor of French Louisiana in 1710. King Louis XIV awarded him the Order of Saint Louis.

The Fox Wars were two conflicts between the French and the Meskwaki (historically Fox) people who lived in the Great Lakes region (particularly near Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit) from 1712 to 1733. These territories are known today as the states of Michigan and Wisconsin in the United States. The Wars exemplified colonial warfare in the transitional space of New France, occurring within the complex system of alliances and enmities with native peoples and colonial plans for expansion.

The Meskwaki controlled the Fox River system in eastern Wisconsin. This river was vital for the fur trade between French Canada and the North American interior, because it allowed river travel from Green Bay in Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River. The French wanted the rights to use the river system to gain access to both the Mississippi and trade contacts with tribes to the west.