Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, a 43-year-old French army officer, selects a site at le détroit (the straits)—the waterway between Lakes St. Clair and Erie—and establishes a French settlement. Cadillac has convinced King Louis XIV's chief minister, Count Pontchartrain, that a permanent community at present-day Detroit will strengthen French control over the upper Great Lakes and repel British advances. The one hundred soldiers and workers that accompany Cadillac build a 200-square-foot palisade and name it Fort Pontchartrain. Cadillac's wife, Marie Thérèse, soon moves to Detroit, becoming one of the first white women to settle in the Michigan wilderness. At the same time, the French strengthen Fort Michilimackinac at the Straits of Mackinac in order to better control their lucrative fur-trading empire. By the mid-eighteenth century, the French will also occupy forts at present-day Niles and Sault Ste. Marie. However, they will lose their North American empire when the British defeat them in the French and Indian War (1754-1763). By 1760 the Union Jack will fly over the Great Lakes.

Michigan Historical Center, Department of History, Arts and Libraries
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