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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1852. Excerpt:... The position of Detroit is one of the finest imaginable. It is on a strait between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair, commanding the whole internal commerce of these great " successive seas." Michigan, of which it is the capital, being now received into the Union, its importance, both as a frontier town and a place of trade, increases every day. The origin of the city was a little palisadoed fort, erected here, in 1702, by the French under La Motte Cadillac, to defend their fur trade. It was then called Fort Portchartrain. From this time till 1760 it remained in possession of the French, and continued to increase slowly. So late as 1721, Charlevoix speaks of the vast herds of buffaloes ranging the plains west of the city. Meantime, under the protection of the fort, the settlement and cultivation of the neighbouring districts went on, in spite of the attacks of some of the neighbouring tribes of Indians, particularly the Ottagamies, who, with the Iroquois, seem to have been the only decided and irreconcilable enemies whom the French found in this province. The capture of Quebec, and the death of "Wolfe, being followed by the cession of the whole of the French territory in North America to the power of Great Britain, Detroit, with all the other trading posts in the west, was given up to the English. It is curious that the French submitted to this change of masters more easily than the Indians, who were by no means inclined to exchange the French for the English alliance. "Whatever may have been the cause," says Governor Cass, "the fact is certain, that there is in the French character a peculiar adaptation to the habits and feelings of the Indians; and to this day the period of French domination is the era of all that is happy in Indian reminiscences." The conci...