History of Michigan
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The History of Michigan is divided into the following articles.
See also Timeline of Michigan history.
Contents |
[edit] Before 1776
Thousands of years before the arrival of the first Europeans, several indigenous tribes lived in what is today the state of Michigan. They included the Ojibwa, Menominee, Miami, Ottawa, and Potawatomi, who were part of the Algonquian family of Amerindians, as well as the Wyandot which were from the Iroquoian family and lived in the area which is now the site of the city of Detroit. It is estimated that the native population at the time the first European arrived was 15 thousand.
The first white explorer to visit Michigan was the Frenchman Étienne Brûlé, who began his expedition from Quebec City on the orders of Samuel de Champlain and traveled as far as the Upper Peninsula in 1620. Afterward, the area became part of Louisiana, one of the colonial provinces of New France. The first permanent European settlement in Michigan was founded in 1668 at Sault Ste. Marie by Jacques Marquette, a French missionary.
The French built several trading posts, forts, and villages in Michigan during the late 17th century. Among them, the most important was Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, established by Antoine de Lamothe Cadillac and which grew to become Detroit. Up until this time, French activities in the region were limited to hunting, trapping, trading with and the conversion of local Indians, and some limited subsistence agriculture. By 1760, the Michigan countryside had only a few hundred white inhabitants.
Territorial disputes between French and British colonists helped start the French and Indian War as part of the larger Seven Years' War, which took place from 1754 to 1763 and resulted in the defeat of France. As part of the Treaty of Paris, the French ceded all of their North American colonies east of the Mississippi River to Britain. Thus the future Michigan was handed over to the British. In 1774, the area was made part of Quebec. It continued to be sparsely populated and regional growth proceeded slowly because the Britons were more interested in the fur trade and peace with the natives than in settlement of the area.
[edit] From 1776 to 1837
During the American Revolutionary War, the local European population, who were primarily American colonists that supported independence, rebelled against Britain. The British, with the help of local tribes, continually attacked American settlements in the region starting in 1776 and conquered Detroit. In 1781, Spanish forces, who were allies of the Americans, travelled by river and overland from Spanish Louisiana, liberated British-held St. Joseph, and handed authority over the settlement to the Americans the following day. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, and one-day Michigan passed into the control of the newly-formed United States of America. In 1787, the region became part of the Northwest Territory. The British, however, continued to occupy Detroit and other fortifications and did not definitively leave the area until after the implementation of the Jay Treaty in 1796.
The land which is now Michigan was made part of Indiana Territory in 1800 and was largely declared as Michigan Territory in 1805, including all of the Lower Peninsula. During the War of 1812, British forces from Canada captured Detroit and Fort Mackinac early on, giving them a strategic advantage and encouraging native revolt against the United States. American troops retook Detroit in 1813 and Fort Mackinac was returned to the Americans at the end of the war in 1815.
Over the 1810s, the indigenous Ojibwa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi tribes increasingly decided to oppose white settlement and sided with the British against the U.S. government. After they had been decisively defeated in battle, they were forced to sell all of their land claims to the federal government in the Treaty of Saginaw and the Treaty of Chicago. By 1821, most of the people from these tribes were forced to relocate from Michigan to Indian reservations further to the west.
During the 1820s, the population of Michigan Territory grew rapidly, largely because of the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, which connected the navigable waters of the middle Great Lakes to those of the Atlantic Ocean and sped up transportation between the eastern states and the less-inhabited western territories.
Rising settlement prompted the elevation of Michigan Territory to that of the present-day state. In 1835, the federal government enacted a law that would have created a State of Michigan. A territorial dispute with Ohio over the Toledo Strip, a stretch of land including the city of Toledo, delayed the final accession of statehood. The disputed zone became part of Ohio by the order of a revised bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Andrew Jackson which also gave compensation to Michigan in the form of control of the Upper Peninsula. On January 26, 1837, Michigan became the 26th state of the Union.
[edit] From 1837 to 1941
During the early 1840s, large deposits of copper and iron ores were discovered on the Upper Peninsula, which attracted thousands of people from the eastern states. The Soo Locks opened in 1835 and connected shipping on Lake Superior with that of the other Great Lakes, facilitating the transport of minerals to smelters located around the country, the majority of which were located either on the Great Lakes or along major rivers and canals leading from them.
Michigan actively participated in the American Civil War on the side of the Union and against the separatist Confederate States of America, also called the Confederacy. After the war, the local economy became more varied and began to economically prosper. During the 1870s, the lumber industry flourished and the state became the largest producer of wood in the country. Its great forests and location in the industrializing Midwest fostered development throughout the region. Additionally, dairy farming and diversified industry grew rapidly in the state. The population doubled between 1870 and 1890. Toward the end of the century, the state government dedicated more funds to public education than did any other in the United States.
During the early 20th century, manufacturing industries became the main source of income for Michigan – in large part, because of the automobile. In 1899, the Olds Motor Vehicle Company opened a factory in Detroit. In 1903, Ford Motor Company was also founded there. With the mass production of the Ford Model T, Detroit became the world capital of the auto industry. General Motors is based in Detroit, and Ford is headquartered in nearby Dearborn. Both corporations constructed large industrial complexes in the Detroit metropolitan area, exemplified by the River Rouge Plant, which have made Michigan a national leader in manufacturing since the 1910s. This industrial base produced greatly during World War I, filling a huge demand for military vehicles.
The Great Depression caused severe economic hardship in Michigan. Thousands of auto industry workers were dismissed along with other workers from several sectors of the state economy. The financial suffering was aggravated by the fact that remaining copper reserves in the state lay deep underground. With the discovery of copper finds in other states located in less deep rock layers, local mining fell sharply and resulted in unemployment for thousands of miners. The federal government took several measures to try to diminish the negative effects. It created the Civilian Conservation Corps, a work relief program that started hiring thousands of unemployed young men for jobs like maintenance and cleaning. The Works Progress Administration was another federal agency which hired more than 500 thousand unemployed people in Michigan alone to construct major public works such as roads, buildings, and dams.
During this time, United Auto Workers was founded to represent automotive industry employees. This labor union pressured Michigan auto companies to hire for contract only workers who were union members and wanted to handle negotiations between managers and workers. Ford and General Motors became the main targets of the UAW, and continuous strikes, the most important of which was the Flint Sit-Down Strike, forced both companies to recognize the
existence of the union. Today, the UAW is one of the largest unions in the United States and has represented all of the employed workers of domestic automobile companies since 1941.
[edit] After 1941
The entry of the United States into World War II the same year ended the economic contraction in Michigan. Wartime required the large-scale production of weapons and military vehicles, leading to a massive number of new jobs being filled. After the end of the war, both the automotive and copper mining industries recovered.
From this time up until the 1980s, large numbers of African-Americans moved to Michigan and especially Detroit. A new vibrant urban culture was created, most notably visible in the creation and popularity of Motown Records. Racial conflicts developed during this period, culminating in the 12th St. Riot in 1967, lasting 8 perilous days, causing 25 million dollars in damages, and resulting in 43 deaths.
The 1973 Oil Crisis caused economic recession in the United States and greatly affected the Michigan economy. Afterward, automobile companies in the United States faced greater multinational competition, especially from Japan. As a consequence, domestic auto makers enacted cost cutting measures to remain competitive at home and abroad. Unemployment rates rose dramatically in the state.
Throughout the 1970s, Michigan possessed the highest unemployment rate of any U.S. state. Large spending cuts to education and public health were repeatedly made in an attempt to reduce growing state budget deficits. A strengthening of the auto industry and an increase in tax revenue stabilized government and household finances in the 1980s. Even so, increasing competition by Japanese and South Korean auto companies continues to challenge the state economy, which depends heavily on the automobile industry. Since the late 1980s, the government of Michigan has actively sought to attract new industries, thus reducing economic reliance on a single sector.
[edit] See also
- Algonquian peoples
- European colonization of the Americas
- North American French and Indian Wars
- History of Detroit
- History of Ford Motor Company
- History of General Motors
- History of the United States
- International Boundary Waters Treaty
- Inland Northern American English
- Northwest Ordinance
- List of Michigan county name etymologies
- List of museums in Michigan
- Native Americans in the United States
- Sixty Years' War
- Timeline of Michigan history
- Timeline of the Toledo Strip/War
[edit] External links
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