About Michigan Economic, Cultural, and Political History Profile of People and Lifestyles State Facts
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CHAPTER 1 About Michigan Economic, Cultural, and Political History Profile of People and Lifestyles State Facts Economic, Cultural, and Political History ECONOMY AND CULTURE POLITICS 1660 to 1760 bout 15,000 Indians lived in Michigan when n search of the mythical northwest passage to the AEuropeans first arrived in the area in the early 1600s. IOrient, Samuel de Champlain (founder of Quebec) sent The Chippewa (Ojibway) lived in the Upper Peninsula Etienne Brulé to head west through the Georgian Bay. and eastern lower peninsula and the Potawatomi in the Brulé reached the Sault Ste. Marie area in 1618. On a later southwest. Other tribes included the Sauk, Miami, Huron, trip, in 1621, he traveled as far west as the Keweenaw Pen- and Menominee. insula. In the 1630s Jean Nicolet explored the Lake Michi- gan area, reaching Green Bay. The earliest European immigrants came largely from France, mainly as fur traders and missionaries. Father The French settled northern Michigan first because they Jacques Marquette founded the first permanent settlement had made an enemy of the Iroquois Nation in southwest in Michigan, in Sault Ste. Marie, in 1668; three years later, New York, which blocked the French path to Lake Erie he founded St. Ignace. The military posts at Mackinac and southern Michigan. Island and Mackinaw City (Fort Michilimackinac) were built to protect French influence in the region. By the turn of the 18th century, the British too were in- terested in Michigan. The French responded by forming Southern Michigan was settled a bit later. In 1690 the an alliance with various Indian tribes, as they had in the French established Fort St. Joseph, near Niles. In 1701 eastern areas of Canada and America. At the conclusion Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, who commanded Fort of the French and Indian War—which ended with a Brit- Michilimackinac, established Fort Pontchartrain in De- ish victory on the Plains of Abraham, in Quebec—the troit, which became a fur-trading hub, a strong defense French surrendered Detroit, in 1760, to British Maj. Rob- against British exploration, and an early farming site. ert Rogers. 1761 to 1836 Life was extraordinarily difficult in Michigan during much The Indian tribes had found the French to be friendly and of this period. respectful, and British ascension incited nearly nonstop skirmishing among European settlers and the Indians. For Constant skirmishing occurred among the French settlers, example, the Ottawa leader Pontiac organized attacks various Indian tribes, English settlers, and—after the Revo- against all British forts in the 1760s, and most fell. lutionary War ended, in 1783—newly independent Ameri- cans. Much of Michigan was unsettled. Control of the Michigan saw little action during the Revolutionary War, few forts shifted among French and British and American and even afterward, the British settlers ignored the new U.S. government. Fort Detroit remained in British hands APRIL 1, 2002 1 Sponsored by the Michigan Nonprofit Association and the Council of Michigan Foundations CHAPTER 1: ABOUT MICHIGAN ECONOMY AND CULTURE POLITICS 1761 to 1836 (cont.) control. Indian raids, spirited by the French and British, until 1796, and in 1812 the British and their allies, the were common. Shawnee, led by Tecumseh, regained control of Detroit and Mackinac Island; many U.S. settlers were slaughtered After the War of 1812, federal surveyors dismissed Michi- at Frenchtown, in Monroe County, in 1813. It was not gan as uninhabitable because of its swampland. This find- until 1815 that the British surrendered Mackinac Island ing caused many easterners to settle and farm in Illinois to the United States. and Missouri rather than Michigan. The Northwest Territory was formed under the Ordinance Compounding problems of settlement was the lack of of 1787, and the County of Wayne was defined as includ- clearly defined property rights. Not until treaties clearing ing most of Wisconsin, all of Michigan, and northern sec- the way for titled land were signed with the Indians in tions of Indiana and Ohio. Later, Minnesota, Iowa, and 1819 through 1821 did settlers from the eastern states begin part of the Dakotas were added. In 1805 President Jefferson moving into the Michigan Territory. declared Michigan a separate territory, with Detroit as its capitol, and named William Hull territorial governor. In the 1820s and 1830s, settlement surged. New roads were built into the territory’s central parts, the first public land In 1833 the Michigan Territory had more than 60,000 sales were held, and the Erie Canal’s completion, in 1825, inhabitants, sufficient to formally seek admission as a state. spurred an influx of farmers from New England and New Voters adopted a territorial constitution in October 1835, York. The territory grew faster than any other part of the and Michigan’s acting governor, Stevens T. Mason—who, United States. at age 19, had been appointed by President Jackson— pushed for statehood. But a skirmish with Ohio over the In 1820 Michigan had 8,896 people, excluding Indians. rightful ownership of Toledo (eventually ceded to Ohio By 1830 the population had grown to 32,000. in exchange for the Upper Peninsula) delayed statehood until 1837. 1837 to 1859 In 1840 the new state’s population had reached 212,267, On January 26, 1837, Michigan became the 26th state. and settlers were pouring into Michigan, doubling the Stevens T. Mason, a Democrat aged 24, became its first population by 1850 and again by 1860. Farming replaced elected governor. He led the efforts to establish state-sup- fur trading as the state’s primary economic activity. ported schools and to locate the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Mason left the governorship in 1840. The transplanted New Englanders and New Yorkers brought with them Yankee values: tolerance, a strong work From 1837 to the 1850s, Michigan politics were decid- ethic, and love of education. Dutch farmers settled the edly Jacksonian and Democratic out of loyalty to Presi- southwest, Germans the Saginaw Valley, Irish the south- dent Jackson for supporting Michigan statehood. One east, and Finns and Italians the Upper Peninsula. Michigan county is named after the president and several others after members of his cabinet: Barry, Berrien, Branch, The Germans, in particular, strongly encouraged estab- Calhoun, Eaton, Ingham, Livingston, and Van Buren. lishing public schools in each community. Borrowing from the Northwest Territory’s policy, the property tax revenue The influx of settlers from New York and New England from one section of each township in each county was created a strong liberal, temperate, and abolitionist po- dedicated to public schools. litical ethos. For example, Michigan was the first govern- ment unit in the country to prohibit capital punishment, In the 1830s oil was discovered in Macomb County, and and Michigan’s abolitionist sentiment gave birth to the in the 1840s rich copper and iron ore deposits were found Republican Party, uniting the Whigs and Free Soilers at a in the Upper Peninsula. July 6, 1854, convention in Jackson. 2 MICHIGAN IN BRIEF, 7th Edition Sponsored by the Michigan Nonprofit Association and the Council of Michigan Foundations CHAPTER 1: ABOUT MICHIGAN ECONOMY AND CULTURE POLITICS 1837 to 1859 (cont.) Rapid economic growth prompted land and money specu- With the exception of a single term (1840–41), when lation fueled by an unregulated credit and banking sys- Whigs William Woodbridge and James Wright Gordon tem. Following the Panic of 1837, the boom evaporated, served, Democrats controlled the governorship from state- leaving impoverished farmers, failed banks, and abandoned hood until 1854. In 1854 the new Republican Party’s stan- projects that included several grand schemes for state-fi- dard bearer, Kingsley S. Bingham, was elected chief ex- nanced railways and canals. Economic stability returned ecutive, and no Democrat managed to win the office back during the 1850s with agricultural growth and the bur- until 1890. geoning lumber and mining industries. 1860 to 1899 The population of the state reached 749,113 in 1860, and The Civil War solidified Republican control of Michigan farming, lumbering, and early manufacturing dominated politics. Michigan was fiercely pro-Union, and residents the economy in the last half of the 19th century. revered President Lincoln. Michigan’s climate and fertile soil led to national leader- A major force in state politics was the Grand Army of the ship in wheat production. Important cash crops were fruit Republic—veterans of the Civil War and staunchly Re- along the temperate Lake Michigan shoreline, sugar beets publican. Michigan’s Civil War governor, Austin Blair, in the Thumb, and celery in the Kalamazoo area. became one of the most prominent chief executives in America; he marshaled troops to serve in the war and raised Lumbering became a huge industry after the Civil War. considerable money for the effort. Michigan woodlands, producing about a quarter of the nation’s total supply, spurred furniture manufacturing in Blair’s successor as governor was Henry Crapo, the first of Grand Rapids and papermaking in Kalamazoo and pro- several lumber barons to serve as chief executive. One of duced enormous capital and wealth throughout the state. his grandsons was William C. Durant, the founding presi- Another successful industry established in this early pe- dent of General Motors. riod was the production of cereal foods, launched by W.K. Kellogg and C.W. Post. In 1882 Josiah Begole was elected governor as a Fusionist, a political party that combined Democrats and Railroads transformed Michigan’s economy by making it Greenbackers (who favored paper money and populist easier to distribute the state’s timber, livestock, and food ideals). The only other non-Republican governor in this nationwide. era was Edwin Winans, a Democrat who served in 1891– 92.