A Third Flag for Detroit
It was on July 11, 1796, that the British hauled down their flag from Ft. Lemoult and the United States flag was raised. In the space of 35 years, the banners of three different nations had flown above Detroit. It had taken 13 years for the fledgling United States of America to bring Michigan securely into the fold.
For the new government and for its Indian, French and British people with their diverse hopes and needs, the situation around Detroit was delicate. Nevertheless, the Americans soon brought Michigan under the governance of the Northwest Territories. English loyalists who could not adjust had only to move across the river.
American newcomers showed little patience with the French willingness to adapt to the environment rather than setting out to change it. The term "muskrat French" probably dates from this era, describing the hunters and trappers who lived on spots of high ground amid the swamps.
One of the problems facing the new American government was the tangle of land ownership. The Indians, French and English all had "granted" land. Under the surveying system prescribed in the Ordinance of 1785, once claims were "proved," titles were incontestable. Records show that from 1808 to 1810 Grosse Pointers appeared at the Detroit office to establish official ownership.
During this era ponies and carrioles (horse-drawn carts or sleighs) were used both by town and country folk for jaunt s and races on the frozen lake in the winter. The Frenchmen's small, swift horses were remarkable. In winter they were turned loose to scrounge for their food, and only the hardiest survived. Each was branded on the shoulder with its owner's initials. Dogs were everywhere in those early days.
Many customs of the settlers' Norman ancestors were preserved, such as d'Ignolee (the exchanging of gifts on New Year's Day), Mardi Gras and Shrove Tuesday. The latter brought them to Lent, which was observed rigidly.
Father Richard
In 1798, Fr. Gabriel Richard arrived to assist the pastor of Ste. Anne's. By 1800 he was conducting services occasionally in Grosse Pointe, and by 1805 a huge crucifix, said to have been carved by an Indian, stood on the shore just north of Vernier Road. The site was important to religious life in the community for several decades. Fr. Richard barely had started a school in Detroit when the great fire of 1805 ended the project. The shops, barns and all but one of the houses ... many of them 100 years old and with thatched roofs ... were reduced to blackened chimneys. Pere Richard later trained four young women to be teachers, wrote the first speller printed in Michigan, and started at least six schools ... separate ones for boys and girls. Indians were welcome. An innovative educator, he supplemented the traditional curriculum with mechanical and domestic arts.
The War of 1812:
Terror to the Settlements
In 1812, few persons could have predicted that an enduring friendship would develop with our neighbor, Canada. Scottish and English traders and British Indian agents across the river and lake were fueling the Indians' hatred of Americans and providing them with arms, including scalping knives. To the people here, the war had little to do with the textbook issue ... the freedom of the seas. Rather, it was a war over the safety of the Michigan-Ohio frontier.
General Hull, the American in charge here, surrendered Detroit to the British after only a day's fighting. Under the British commander, Col. Henry Proctor, the area was to experience a year of terror. He used bands of Indians downriver to keep the Americans away from the water route, and to pillage farms at will. Few of the people were harmed.
Michigan's part in the War of 1812 was relatively minor, but its effects were to be long-lasting. Events had severely damaged the generally good feeling of the French settlers towards the Indians, and some families now had underground hiding places. On the positive side, the Treaty of Ghent returned boundaries to pre-war status; the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1818 provided for complete disarmament of the Great Lakes region by Britain and the United States, with only a few gunboats for policing purposes. The treaty never has been broken.
