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Following the
prehistoric inhabitants, Michigan's residents were the
tribal groups of Ojibwa, Ottawa and Potawatomi Native
Americans. The first Europeans were the French and French-
Canadians. Étienne Brulé of France, arrived in 1618 and
named the region New France. In 1634, Jean Nicolet explored
parts of the Upper Peninsula for France. Missionaries
arrived and established a mission at Keweenaw Way in 1660.
In 1668, Father Jacques Marquette established the first
permanent settlement of Michigan at Sault Sainte Marie.
France was ousted from the territory by Great Britain in
1763, following the French and Indian Wars., and England
controlled most French claims in North America, including
Michigan. Chief Pontiac led the Ottawa Indians in attacking
a number of forts this same year, killing many of the
settlers.
During the Revolutionary War, settlers in Michigan favored
British rule and often raided American settlements. At the
end of the war in 1783, Michigan came under American
control. Detroit and Fort Mackinac however, did not
surrender until 1796. In 1787, Michigan became part of the
Northwest Territory. In 1805, the Lower Peninsula and the
eastern part of the Upper Peninsula became the Territory of
Michigan.
After the Revolutionary War, the U.S. acquired most of the
region, which remained the scene of constant conflict
between the British and U.S. forces and their respective
Indian allies through the War of 1812.
The policy of pushing Native Americans westward and opening
the lands for settlement was largely due to the efforts of
Gen. Lewis Cass, who was governor of Michigan Territory
(1813-31) and later a U.S. Senator. Steamboat navigation on
the Great Lakes and sale of public lands in Detroit both
began in 1818, and the Erie Canal was opened in 1825.
The move toward statehood was slowed by the desire of Ohio
and Indiana to absorb parts of present S Michigan, and by
the opposition of southern states to the admission of
another free state. The Michigan electorate organized a
government without U.S. sanction and in 1836 operated as a
state, although outside the Union. To resolve the boundary
dispute Congress proposed that the Toledo strip be ceded to
Ohio and Indiana with compensation to Michigan of land in
the Upper Peninsula. Though the Michigan electorate rejected
the offer, a group of Democratic leaders accepted it, and by
their acceptance Michigan became the 26th state on January
26, 1837. (The admission of Arkansas as a slaveholding state
offset that of Michigan as a free state.)
After statehood, Michigan promptly adopted a program of
internal improvement through the building of railroads,
roads, and canals, including the Soo Locks Ship Canal at
Sault Ste. Marie in 1855. By 1870, lumbering in the northern
forests led the nation in lumber production.
No battles were fought on Michigan land during the Civil War
(1861-1865), but by then over 90,000 Michigan men, and at
least one woman disguised as a man, will have served in the
Union armies; approximately 15,000 will have died. The
Fourth Michigan Calvary under General Custer captured
Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy on May 10,
1865.
Ransom E. Olds of Lansing who starts Michigan's first auto
company in 1900. Like King and Ford, Olds develops a
gasoline-powered engine. In 1900, after setbacks, Olds opens
the nation's first factory designed specifically for auto
production. The following year he begins producing the
Curved-dash Runabout, which has a one-cylinder engine and is
lightweight and inexpensive. Other plants were built in
Lansing and Flint. Detroit soon became known as the
Automobile Capital of the World.
The Great Depression (1929-1939) caused hundreds of
thousands of people to lose their jobs. One of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt's most popular New Deal relief
programs, the CCC is a massive conservation program that
employs tens of thousands of young men all across the
nation. Two hundred young men from Detroit arrive at an
isolated spot in Chippewa County and set up Camp Raco--Michigan's
first Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) facility. Within
months, dozens of similar camps open across northern
Michigan.
During both World Wars, the entire automobile industry
switched to manufacturing tanks, jeeps, airplanes, and other
needed war materials. This production helped to end the
Great Depression. In 1955, a new copper mine opened in
Ontonagon. Shipping was facilitated in 1957 with the
completion of the Mackinac Bridge, connecting the Upper and
Lower Peninsulas.
Racial problems escalated in 1967. Forty-three people were
killed and over $45 million worth of property ruined, in an
eight-day riot in Detroit. New taxes were adopted to bring
increase revenue for education, welfare, and other
government services. In 1972, a state lottery was also
established to help raise money for these purposes.
The 1970s brought another recession nationwide to the
economy. With an increase in international markets, the
automobile industry slumped. By 1980, Michigan had the
highest unemployment rate in the nation. Gratefully,
automotive sales increased in 1984 that reduced the state
unemployment.
Today Michigan leaders are looking for ways to attract new
industries to the state. Tourism has increased and some
computer-related businesses are moving into the state.
Michigan Through the Years
Michigan has a rich past. These 16 important dates chronicle
over 300 years of Michigan history by featuring the people,
places and events that make them significant.
MAY 17, 1673. Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette, fur
trader Louis Jolliet and five voyageurs leave the recently
established Indian mission at St. Ignace to explore a great
river known by the Indians as the "Messissipi." The French
have been exploring the Great Lakes since Etienne Brulé
reached the St. Marys River around 1620. In two canoes,
Marquette's party travels along the northern shore of Lake
Michigan, enters Green Bay and crosses present-day
Wisconsin. The explorers paddle down the Mississippi, but by
mid-July they realize that the river is not the long-sought
passageway across North America to China. Though Marquette
will die in 1675, the French will continue to explore the
Great Lakes, ship furs to Europe and Christianize the
Indians. In 1679, Robert Cavelier Sieur de la Salle will
direct the construction of the Griffin--the first sailing
vessel on the upper Great Lakes. That same year, La Salle
will build Fort Miami at present-day St. Joseph--the first
non-Indian community in the Lower Peninsula.
JULY 24, 1701. Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, a
forty-three-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.
MAY 7, 1763. Three hundred Ottawa Indians, led by Pontiac,
enter Fort Detroit intent upon launching a surprise attack
upon the British garrison commanded by Major Henry Gladwin.
Alerted to the plan, the British are ready, and Pontiac
withdraws and places Detroit under siege. Since taking
control of France's North American empire, the British have
alienated the Indians by ending the longstanding practice of
gift-giving. Moreover, the Indians feel threatened by the
influx of white settlers into the Ohio River Valley. Indian
uprisings occur throughout the Ohio River Valley. The
Potawatomi capture Fort St. Joseph at present-day Niles on
25 May; the Chippewa take Fort Michilimackinac on 2 June. By
mid-1763, Detroit is the only British post west of Niagara,
New York, that has not fallen to Indian attack. Despite
being vastly outnumbered, the British at Detroit hold on.
Finally they receive supplies, and Pontiac ends his siege in
late October. To maintain peace with the Indians, the
British close the west to white settlement. Later they will
tax the American colonists to pay for their military
garrisons in the west. Both acts will be among the
grievances cited by rebellious colonists in 1776.
JULY 11, 1796. U.S. regulars under the command of Lt.
Colonel John F. Hamtramck enter Detroit and replace the
British Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes. The ceremony
comes thirteen years after the signing of the Treaty of
Paris at the end of the American Revolution. The delay has
been caused by British reluctance to abandon their center of
trade and power in the Ohio River Valley. As recently as
1791 the British included Michigan in their governmental
reorganization of Canada. The following year, Michigan
residents voted in their first election and elected three
Detroiters to Ontario's provincial assembly. To thwart
United States development of the Great Lakes area, the
British have been supplying the Indians with arms. Two U.S.
military efforts to subdue the Indians ended in disaster
before General "Mad" Anthony Wayne defeated the Indians at
the Battle of Fallen Timbers on August 20, 1794, near
present-day Toledo, Ohio. Wayne's success prompted the
British to evacuate the northwestern forts, opening the way
for Hamtramck's troops. In 1805 the Michigan Territory will
be organized.
JANUARY 22, 1813. A British force of 1,300 soldiers and
Indians falls upon an American army at the River Raisin near
present-day Monroe. Against direct orders, U.S. Brigadier
General James Winchester has moved his force of 700
Kentuckians and 200 regulars to the River Raisin. There they
are encamped in a poor defensive position. Their leaders
have not investigated reports of an imminent British attack.
The Americans repulse several British assaults, but finally
they surrender because Winchester fears a possible Indian
massacre. The British withdraw after the battle leaving
behind eighty wounded Americans. The following day, the
Indians murder many of these soldiers. The Battle of the
River Raisin--the largest battle ever fought on Michigan
soil--concludes a series of U.S. setbacks in Michigan during
the early months of the War of 1812. Earlier, in mid-1812,
Michigan Territorial Governor William Hull, who commanded
U.S. forces in Michigan, had invaded Canada prematurely,
then retreated and surrendered Detroit after only token
resistance. About the same time, the U.S. garrison at Fort
Mackinac was taken by surprise and surrendered without
firing a shot. In September 1813, U.S. forces will return to
Michigan and, amidst cries of "Remember the River Raisin,"
they will drive the British from Michigan soil. Michigan
will grow slowly after the war, but the opening of the Erie
Canal in 1825 will precipitate a flood of immigrants,
especially from New York and New England.
JANUARY 26, 1837. In Washington, DC, President Andrew
Jackson signs the bill making Michigan the nation's
twenty-sixth state. The enactment ends a struggle that began
over two years earlier when twenty-three-year-old acting
Territorial Governor Stevens T. Mason declared that Michigan
had a "right" to be a state, despite Congress's refusal to
endorse a state constitutional convention. The struggle has
focused on the ownership of a 500-square-mile stretch of
land called the Toledo Strip. Ohioans and Michiganians have
traded hostile words and then mobilized their militias to
assert their claims. While Congress was debating the matter,
Michiganians wrote a state constitution with several
farsighted features, including a comprehensive public
education system under a state superintendent. President
Jackson's signature also finalizes Michigan's acceptance of
a congressional proposal giving Toledo to Ohio and the
wilderness of the western Upper Peninsula to Michigan.
JANUARY 27, 1847. Francis Troutman and several others arrive
at the home of the Adam Crosswhite family--Kentucky slaves
who have escaped to Marshall. Troutman, who plans to return
the Crosswhites to their former master, is confronted by
several hundred Marshall residents who threaten the slave
holders with tar and feathers. While Troutman is being
charged with assault and fined $100, the Crosswhites flee to
Canada. Since 1832, Michigan has had an active antislavery
society. Quakers in Cass County, Laura Haviland in Adrian
and former slave Sojourner Truth in Battle Creek are only a
few of the many Michiganians working on the Underground
Railroad--an informal network that assists escaping slaves.
Southern concern over the Underground Railroad will lead
Congress to pass a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law in
1850. In 1854 opposition to the extension of slavery will
prompt Michiganians to meet in Jackson and organize the
Republican party. The following year Michigan's first
Republican-controlled state legislature will adopt personal
liberty laws, which prohibit state and local officials from
cooperating with federal marshals in recovering escaped
slaves.
JUNE 22, 1855. The passage of the steamer Illinois through
the locks at Sault Ste. Marie marks the opening of
unobstructed shipping between Lakes Superior and Huron.
Ships are no longer forced to stop at Sault Ste. Marie and
portage their cargoes around the rapids of the St. Mary's
River, which drops twelve feet from Lake Superior to Lake
Huron. The canal is the result of a long-sought 1852 grant
by Congress to Michigan of 750,000 acres of public land.
Construction, begun in mid-1853, has progressed despite cost
overruns, food shortages, a hostile climate and a cholera
epidemic. The mile-long canal and two 350-foot locks
arranged in tandem have been completed in two years. The
Sault locks provide new impetus to Michigan's fledgling
mining industry. Copper mining on the Keweenaw Peninsula
began in the early 1840s, and Michigan led the nation in
copper production for many years. In 1844 surveyor William
A. Burt discovered iron ore deposits near Negaunee. Iron ore
mining expanded gradually, but by the late nineteenth
century Michigan produced more iron ore than any other
state. Michigan also produced significant amounts of salt,
gypsum, oil and natural gas.
JULY 1, 1863. The Twenty-fourth Michigan Infantry, a member
of the famed Iron Brigade, engages advancing Confederate
forces at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In savage fighting, the
Twenty-fourth suffers 80 percent casualties--the greatest
loss of any northern regiment in the war's most dynamic
battle. Other Michiganians have and will distinguish
themselves throughout the war. When the First Michigan
Infantry arrived in Washington, DC, in May 1861--the first
western regiment to reach the northern capital--President
Abraham Lincoln reportedly exclaimed, "Thank God for
Michigan." On May 10, 1865, defeated Confederate President
Jefferson Davis will be captured by Colonel Benjamin
Pritchard and the Fourth Michigan Cavalry. By then over
90,000 Michigan men, and at least one woman disguised as a
man, will have served in the Union armies; approximately
15,000 will have died.
JANUARY 28, 1877. Winfield Scott Gerrish opens the
7.1-mile-long Lake George and Muskegon River Railroad in
Clare County. Following a warm winter that seriously
hampered logging activities, Gerrish moves 20 million board
feet of logs to the Muskegon River. The next year he
increases his output sixfold. Though Gerrish is not the
first to build a Michigan logging railroad, his operation is
well-publicized and successful. It revolutionizes lumbering
in Michigan. By 1882, thirty-two narrow-gauge logging
railroads will operate in the state. The railroads permit
new areas to be logged, all sizes of trees to be cut and,
most importantly, allow year-round transportation of logs to
the sawmills. Commercial logging in Michigan has flourished
since the Civil War, drawing immigrants from around the
world--especially Scandinavians, Germans, Irish and
Canadians. Michigan will retain its national leadership in
lumber production until 1900. By the end of the lumbering
era, Michigan loggers will have cut 161 billion board feet
of pine logs and 50 billion board feet of hardwoods. That is
equivalent to a half-mile wide, one-inch plank road from New
York to San Francisco. In dollar value, Michigan lumber will
outvalue all the gold extracted from California by a billion
dollars. It will also create a furniture industry centered
in Grand Rapids that flourishes well into the twentieth
century. However, wasteful logging practices will leave
enormous cutover acres that are periodically ravaged by
fire. In 1881--in one of Michigan's worst natural
disasters--fires in the Thumb will leave 300 people dead.
This fire also will be the first disaster relief project for
the American Red Cross.
MARCH 6, 1896. Charles King of Detroit is the first person
to test drive a gasoline-powered automobile in Michigan.
Three months later, also in Detroit, Henry Ford drives his
gasoline-powered, two-cylinder quadricycle. But it is Ransom
E. Olds of Lansing who starts Michigan's first auto company.
Like King and Ford, Olds develops a gasoline-powered engine.
In 1900, after setbacks, Olds opens the nation's first
factory designed specifically for auto production. The
following year he begins producing the Curved-dash Runabout,
which has a one-cylinder engine and is lightweight and
inexpensive. By 1905 the Olds Motor Works is producing 6,500
cars annually. Ford, credited with perfecting modern mass
production, begins manufacturing autos in 1903. In 1908 he
introduces the Model T. Five years later, he is producing
250,000 Model Ts annually. In 1908, William Durant, a
successful Flint carriage maker, organizes the General
Motors Company. Unlike Ford, whose strategy was to
manufacture only one model of car, Durant merges several
existing auto companies to offer a diversity of models. The
availabilty of raw materials, markets and investment
capital, as well as men like Olds, Ford and Durant, will
make Michigan the auto capital of the world. By 1914, 78
percent of the nation's automobiles will be produced in
Michigan.
MAY 2, 1933. Two hundred young men from Detroit arrive at an
isolated spot in Chippewa County and set up Camp Raco--Michigan's
first Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) facility. Within
months, dozens of similar camps open across northern
Michigan. One of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's most
popular New Deal relief programs, the CCC is a massive
conservation program that employs tens of thousands of young
men all across the nation. The CCC revitalizes Michigan's
state park system, establishes Isle Royale National Park and
builds campgrounds in Michigan's national forests. All will
benefit the state as tourism becomes one of its main
economic resources. Michigan enrollees also send home $20
million of their monthly salaries and acquire invaluable
training that will make their transition to military service
in World War II easier. When the program ends in 1942, over
100,000 Michigan men will have served in the CCC. Their
accomplishments will include: planting over 484 million
seedlings (more than twice the number in any other state),
expending 140,000 man-days in fighting forest fires, placing
150 million fish in rivers and lakes, and constructing 7,000
miles of truck trails, 504 buildings and 222 bridges.
DECEMBER 30, 1936. Spurred by an unfounded rumor that work
is going to be transferred to plants with weak union
support, autoworkers begin a spontaneous sit-down strike at
General Motors Corporation (GMC) plants in Flint. When the
workers reject a court injunction demanding that they leave
the factories, the National Guard is mobilized to keep the
peace. As the strike drags on, the workers' wives organize
to show support for their husbands' cause and keep them
supplied with provisions. The strike is a reaction to
worsening unemployment and working conditions in the early
1930s, as well as a result of autoworkers' increased
interest in union representation. In the past, semi- or
unskilled autoworkers had been unwelcome in craft unions.
Since 1935 the newly formed United Automobile Workers of
America (UAW), armed with the Wagner Act that guarantees
workers the right to organize and bargain collectively, has
been confronting GMC--the nation's largest auto
manufacturer. Despite charges of low wages and degrading
working conditions, GMC has refused to recognize a single
union as the worker's sole representative. The Flint
sit-down strike ends in early February when GMC agrees to
recognition and other demands. Other auto manufacturers soon
recognize the UAW, but the Ford Motor Company will hold out
until May 1941. Nevertheless, the Flint sit-down strike
makes Michigan one of the nation's most powerful union
states.
OCTOBER 1, 1942. The first B-24 bomber rolls off the
assembly line at the Willow Run Bomber Plant near Ypsilanti.
In December 1940 the federal government asked the Ford Motor
Company to build 1,200 B-24 bombers. Ford's chief engineer,
Charles Sorensen, quickly devised a yet-untried scheme of
mass-producing planes. The government agreed to the plan,
and in April 1941 construction began on what will become the
world's largest assembly plant. The plant will produce 8,600
planes. By early 1944 bombers will come off Willow Run's
mile-long assembly line at the rate of one an hour.
Michigan's other auto companies are also producing war
materiel. By the end of World War II, Chrysler's Warren Tank
Plant will have made 25,000 tanks, while in Kingsford, the
Ford Motor Company will have manufactured over 4,000
gliders. Known as the "Arsenal of Democracy," Michigan--with
only four percent of the nation's population--will lead all
other states in the production of war materiel.
NOVEMBER 1, 1957. The Mackinac Bridge, connecting Michigan's
two peninsulas, opens. After numerous proposals to bridge
the Straits of Mackinac--the earliest in 1884--Governor G.
Mennen Williams appointed the Mackinac Bridge Authority in
1950. Former U.S. Senator Prentiss M. Brown of St. Ignace
served as chairman. After much effort, the authority
received legislative permission to build the bridge. The
project began in May 1954. The bridge's central span--3,800
feet between the towers--is the third largest such span in
the world. The length between anchorages is 8,614 feet,
making it the world's longest suspension bridge at this
time. By 1989, two million vehicles annually will cross the
bridge, and every Labor Day thousands of people will walk
across the 26,444-foot-long structure.
JANUARY 26, 1987. Michigan celebrates its 150th anniversary
of statehood. The day's festivities begin in Sault Ste.
Marie, Michigan's oldest continuous settlement, with a
26-gun salute and a bitter-cold dogsled ride. In Lansing the
official Michigan Statehood Stamp is issued. At noon,
ceremonies are held in the State Capitol and in every county
in the state. Despite economic setbacks during the late
1970s and early 1980s, Michigan has rebounded.
Michigan--with over nine million people--ranks twelfth in
population among the fifty states.
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"Michigan Through the Years" was originally published by
Michigan History magazine in 1989. It is no longer available
in print.
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