committed very serious crimes were sent to Montreal for trial, but eventually Dejean assumed authority of high and low justice. This was his undoing and came near leading to his being hanged.

Missionary explorers had discovered bits of copper in the Upper Peninsula, and in 1760 attempts were made to open mines. Alexander Henry, the sole survivor of the massacre at Fort Mackinac, conducted the first copper mining operations undertaken by civilized men in the State of Michigan. This was in the year 1760. A shaft was sunk and some free copper was recovered, but in the following spring the mine caved in. The work was then abandoned, and it was not resumed until more than 70 years later.

Another notable event had been the chartering of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670, but in 1770 a rival fur company entered competition with the Hudson's Bay, and it was known as the Northwest Company. The rivalry between them was very bitter for many years.

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CHAPTER XIV

WAR CLOUDS LOOM IN THE EAST

NDER English rule a tract of 12 acres east of the fort and immediately adjoining it was set apart for the use of the post and it was known as "the King's Garden." In the rear of the fort was another tract of 30 acres used as a public common. For a time it was known as "the King's Domain" and later as "the Public Common." This ran northward far into land that is now traversed by Washington Boulevard. Maj. Bassett, the commandant in 1773, fenced off a part of this land for a pasture for his horse but the people of the town made protest because it reduced their pasturage. All around this opening was a forest and to the east and west were farms of early settlers. The fence was ordered removed.

In 1774 this region of Michigan was placed under the Quebec Act, which superseded the English Common Law. This act was very offensive to the residents. That was one of the provocations later mentioned in the Declaration of Independence which declared that “the free system of English laws has been abolished in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government so as to render it an example and a fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies." The act was passed in the face of protests, for the British home ministry was unable to see that colonists had any rights which the home government was bound to respect.

In spite of the unfavorable conditions settlers straggled into the West and soon there was a solid phalanx of farms extending for many miles along the river front, the shore of Lake St. Clair and down the shore of Lake Erie. Log cabins began to give way to frame houses. The newer log houses were laid up in the fashion commonly seen, log upon log, instead of logs standing upright with one end buried in the ground, as the early French settlers had built them.

On every farm was an orchard, and the old French pear trees, some of which grew to the height of 80 feet, were to be seen in groups all along the shore. Some of these are still standing and bearing fruit, although they are 100 to 150 years old. Some seedlings, from Detroit, still live at Monroe.

When it was evident that the eastern colonies would rebel the British government took steps to strengthen their hold upon the West. The Indians were told to drive back American settlers who came into the Ohio country from the East and the Indians having full sanction for the protection of their lands at any cost, began to murder such settlers. Capt. Henry Hamilton, a soldier of the ruthless type, was sent to take command in Detroit; Capt. Patrick Sinclair was placed over Mackinac and Capt. Edward Abbott was made commandant at Vincennes. Hamilton found in the "chief justice," Phillip Dejean, a willing tool for legalizing any sort of irregular practice. A man named Joseph Hecker murdered his brother-in-law, named Moran. Dejean had no authority for trying the case, but he assumed authority and had Hecker hanged. Jean Coutincineau, a French nomad, and Ann Wiley, a Negress, robbed a store of furs and some hardware. Dejean sentenced them to be hanged, but nobody could be found to act as hangman for so petty an offense. Dejean offered the woman her life if she would hang the Frenchman, which she did, but in such clumsy fashion that the spectators were horrified at the struggles of the victim as he slowly strangled to death. Later the woman was herself hanged, for Dejean had no respect for his word.

The years of the American Revolution were grim and terrible years in Detroit, for Hamilton, the commandant, organized a "fire in the rear" of the American Army which led to scores of wanton murders, burning of peaceful settlements, and the captivity and semi-slavery of American captives whose offense was a peaceful invasion of southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. These people were fair game for Hamilton and the Indians of the West, and there was no closed season for the hunting. War parties of Indians were organized here in Detroit. Firearms and ammunition were supplied free, as were blankets,

kettles, hatchets and red-handled scalping knives. To increase the zeal of the Indian scalp hunters, Hamilton offered a bounty of $5 each for every scalp taken from American settlers, regardless of age or sex.

As if this were not enough, he placed the Indians under direct leadership of white men who were his willing tools. Some of these were renegades who had abandoned civilized life and been adopted into Indian tribes, as were the Girty brothers-Silas, James and George. Others were white men who had yielded to the influence of a long residence in barbarous surroundings and who had been inspired with mistaken ideals of patriotism. They might have argued that committing murder "for the King" was no more than standing armies are employed for, but armies fight with armies, and these men preyed upon defenseless settlers who were struggling to build a home in the wilderness where they could rear their families and plant the seeds of civilization.

Here at Detroit the chosen leaders of these murderous bands were such men as Capt. Henry Bird, John Butler, William Caldwell, Alexander McKee, Matthew Elliott, and a few Frenchmen who were greedy for money and spoils. These bands would leave Detroit for the Ohio Valley, creeping silently upon white settlements, shooting down lone farmers as they worked in their corn planted among the stumps of a clearing, and then fall upon the defenseless wife and children. When they came away they left rotting, mutilated corpses and the ashes of ruined cabins behind them. When they returned to Detroit they carried strings of scalps on long poles, which they bore through the streets like triumphal banners. Then would follow a wild orgy of drunkenness on the public common after Hamilton had paid cash for all the human peltry brought to his warehouse. Thus Hamilton soon came to be known as "The Great Hair-Buyer of Detroit."

Under such practice the very name of Detroit became detestable in the minds of the Americans. When settlers took the alarm and rallied for defense in their little blockhouses they were sometimes conquered by firing the building or by

starvation. Then would follow the burning at the stake of the leaders of the resistance, with unspeakable barbarities.

Frequently these marauding bands would return with prisoners. Bare-footed children were driven long distances under the lash of their captors. If they fell exhausted, a hatchet dispatched them and the scalp was torn off to be sold for $5 at Hamilton's warehouse. Women roused from their beds at dead of night in the light of the blazing roof of a cabin, and dragged over the dead body of a butchered husband, would be driven to Detroit barefoot through the wilderness with little children clinging to a tattered nightgown, and perhaps the mother carrying a babe-in-arms.

Arrived on the common in Detroit, they would be surrounded by sympathetic villagers who would try to discourage the brutalities of the drunken Indians, and often they would buy the captives so as to save them from torture. At the same time the Indians would apply the whip to their captives for the purpose of stimulating the bidding for their ransom from captivity. Those were terrible years, yet it is little more than 100 years ago since such atrocities were ended in Detroit.