year 1687, when he was married at Quebec, being then in the thirtieth year of his age. Two years afterwards he went to France, and returned with a large grant of lands, with manorial rights, on the shores of Maine. He was subsequently employed in positions of importance in the naval and military service of the king, and was so highly esteemed for his judgment and his knowledge of colonial affairs that, in 1692, at the request of Count Pontchartrain, he was sent to France by the governor-general, to give advice respecting the military affairs of the province in its dealings with New York and New England. In the fall of 1694 he was appointed to the command of Michilimackinac, where he remained for five. years. Surveying the field of French trade and influence from that remote post, Cadillac had become convinced that Detroit, rather than any of the upper stations, was the point from which the fur trade could best be controlled, and where the friendly Indians could most conveniently be concentrated for the mutual protection of themselves and their French allies. Impressed with this view, he again went to France in 1700, determined, if possible, to obtain the necessary authority as well as the necessary assistance for the establishment of a settlement at Detroit. In a long interview with Count Pontchartrain he presented very fully the advantages of Detroit, its supreme importance as a military and trading post, the excellence of

LA MOTTE CADILLAC.

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the soil about it, and the desirability of planting in that country an agricultural colony. The sagacious minister was so impressed with his earnestness, and with the reasons assigned, that the desired permission was cordially given, and Cadillac returned to Canada early in 1701, bearing a grant from the king of a tract of land fifteen arpents square, "wherever on the Detroit the new fort should be established," and with assurance of military and other assistance. Making brief pause at Quebec he pushed on to Montreal, where he completed his arrangements for the new undertaking. Fifty soldiers and fifty Canadian traders and artisans were secured by him, and with these in canoes, well supplied with the essentials to a new settlement in the woods, he started from La Chine at the beginning of June. The younger Tonty was commander of the military force, a Récollet priest accompanied the party as chaplain, and a Jesuit as missionary to the Indians. The old route by the Ottawa and Lake Huron was followed, and the boats were drawn up on the shore at the point of destination, on July 24th. A stockade fort was immediately constructed which, in honor of the minister, was named Fort Pontchartrain, and log houses thatched with grass soon went up, in which the settlers found shelter and

a home.

At this time the solitude of the vast forests of Michigan was unbroken by the sound of the wood

man's axe. The great oaks, hickories, walnuts, and maples towered secure in majestic grandeur, and in all the region of the pine there was audible as yet neither promise nor prophecy of the rich harvest which the lumberman of another day was to reap. In the openings of Southern Michigan, which Nature had decked with more than royal adornments, the elk and the deer found abundant pasturage, and the bear fed on mast and tracked the honey bee to his secret store. The beaver was still building dams in the forest watercourses, and the buffalo fed on the prairies and frequented the abundant salt licks. Choice fish were abundant, but undisturbed, in the lakes and streams of the interior. The iron of Lake Superior was still unknown, and the wealth of its copper was but a rumor, of which the copper ornaments sometimes displayed by the Indian women furnished the only confirmation. The Indian population of the southern peninsula of Michigan was not great; the terror of the Iroquois had made their enemies seek safety in the distance. Around the trading posts and missions, or within easy reach, they had gathered, and many of them under Jesuit teaching had become nominally Christian. But their conversion had scarcely made them less savage and brutal than before; it had not changed their nature, and they could torture the prisoners taken in battle or by treachery, and on great occasions devour their flesh as a stimulant to cour

EDUCATION OF THE INDIANS.

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age, with the same delight as ever. The Ottawas, said Cadillac a little later, "would be baptized a hundred times a day for a hundred drinks of brandy." "The only good that the missionaries do consists in the baptism of children, who die after having received it, and perchance administering the same rite to some old man at the hour of death." But Cadillac did not like the Jesuits, and he underrated the value of their services. It was a great and lasting benefit to the Indians, that under the influence of the priests they were taught foresight, and in the enlarged cultivation of the soil were induced to provide against the contingencies of bad seasons and occasional failures of the chase, and thus to forestall and prevent the famines that sometimes had visited them with destructive severity. Their agriculture at the best was crude and limited, but it became at length adequate to their wants, and they were the farmers and the gardeners for the soldiers and traders.

Of the traders with the Indians at this early period some were regular, and traded under the existing grant of monopoly, or by special permits. More, however, were irregular. In the woods about every station were many coureurs de bois, or bushrangers, who carried on a lawless traffic in furs and peltry with the Indians, and lived with them much of the time in their wigwams. Their trade, though illegal, was generally connived at

by all but the regular traders, whose profits it would diminish, and even these sometimes found the bushrangers valuable agents in bringing to their places of business the traffic that otherwise might have been secured by the English. To the colony at large these people were an undoubted advantage, for they gave valuable assistance in maintaining friendly relations with the Indians, and if danger threatened they had early knowledge of it and could give warning in season. But they lived like savages and loved the savage life. At the same time they were never weaned from their native attachments, but were Frenchmen in spirit even when they had abandoned the manners and methods of civilization.

Dominion over the territory lying between the great lakes was claimed by both Canada and New York, on similar grounds of prior discovery and possession. But most of the claims on both sides, so far as can now be ascertained, had little foundation in fact. A sharp correspondence had taken place on the subject between Governor Dongan on the one side and De la Barre on the other, and this was renewed when De la Barre had been succeeded by Denonville. But the correspondence had no result; each party continued its efforts to obtain the trade of the Lake region, while jealously watching the other, and stirring up strife against their rivals as opportunity offered. In all intercourse with the Indians the French