Introduction to History of Michigan
Indians entered Michigan several thousand years ago. The earliest people were probably nomadic hunters. Later, the area was settled by mound builders and by tribes who may have mined copper on what is now Isle Royale. When European explorers arrived in the 17th century, there were about 15,000 Indians scattered throughout the region. The principal tribes were the Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Chippewa, or Ojibway—all members of the Algonquian language family—and the Huron, or Wyandot, of the Iroquoian family.
Important dates in Michigan1620? Etienne Brule, a French explorer, visited what is now Michigan.1668 Jacques Marquette founded Michigan's first permanent European settlement at Sault Ste. Marie.1701 Antoine Cadillac founded what is now Detroit.1763 The British received almost all of France’s territory in North America, including Michigan.1783 The United States gained Michigan from the British after the Revolutionary War in America.1787 The U.S. Congress made Michigan part of the Northwest Territory.1800 Michigan became part of the Indiana Territory.1805 Congress created the Territory of Michigan.1837 Michigan became the 26th state on January 26.1845 The Michigan iron mining industry began near Negaunee.1854 The Republican Party was formally named at Jackson.1855 The first of the Soo Canals was completed.1899 Ransom E. Olds established Michigan's first automobile factory in Detroit.1935 Michigan workers formed the United Automobile Workers union.1942-1945 Michigan's entire automobile industry converted to war production during World War II.1957 The Mackinac Bridge was opened to traffic between Mackinaw City in the Lower Peninsula and St. Ignace in the Upper Peninsula.1964 Michigan's new Constitution went into effect.1967 Michigan's Legislature adopted a state income tax.1992 The Michigan Scenic Rivers Act was passed by the U.S. Congress. It protects more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) along 14 Michigan rivers from development.2003 Jennifer Granholm became the first woman to be elected governor of Michigan. She took office in 2003.French Settlement
The French were the first Europeans to explore what is now Michigan. During the winter of 1618-19, Étienne Brûlé arrived at the narrows of Sault Ste. Marie, having been sent to the region by Samuel de Champlain, governor of New France, the French colony in North America. About 1634 Jean Nicolet, who was seeking a northwest passage to the Far East, sailed through the Straits of Mackinac. A mission was established at Sault Ste. Marie by Fathers Isaac Jogues and Charles Raymbault in 1641, but was soon abandoned. In 1668 Fathers Jacques Marquette and Claude Dablon reestablished the mission, which became the first permanent settlement in the area. At Sault Ste. Marie, in 1671, Sieur de St. Lusson formally claimed the entire Great Lakes region for France, making it part of New France.
The tribes of the area accepted the French missionaries who came to convert them to Christianity and engaged in fur trading with the explorers and traders who accompanied the priests. The Indians also allied with the French against the British, who supported their enemies the Iroquois. To expand the fur trade and provide protection against the British, the French established outposts on Mackinac Island and at St. Joseph, Port Huron, and Niles. Detroit was founded in 1701, by Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, to serve as commercial headquarters for the region.
Because of its strategic location as a gateway to the northwest, Michigan was a focal point in the 18th century in the struggle between France and Great Britain for control of North America. New France fell to the British as a result of France's defeat in the French and Indian War. Major Robert Rogers and his forces took possession of the Michigan area for Great Britain in 1760. In May, 1763, Pontiac, an Ottawa chief, led an uprising against the British and laid siege to Detroit. The attack on Detroit was unsuccessful, but the Indians destroyed other British outposts, including Sandusky, Fort Mackinac, and Presque Isle. Pontiac's Rebellion was ended by treaty in 1766.
Growth to Statehood
In the peace treaty ending the Revolutionary War (1783), the boundary between Canada and the United States was drawn through the middle of the Great Lakes. Although the British refused to leave the region, Michigan was made part of the newly formed Northwest Territory in 1787. Under the terms of the Jay Treaty of 1796, the British withdrew from their outposts and the United States gained actual possession of Michigan.
Michigan Territory, including the lower peninsula and the eastern end of the upper peninsula, was created in 1805. William Hull was named governor, and Detroit became the capital. During the War of 1812, the British captured Detroit, but it was recovered in 1813 following Oliver Hazard Perry's victory in the Battle of Lake Erie and William Henry Harrison's defeat of the British at the Thames River in Canada.
Growth of the territory began at war's end. Lewis Cass was appointed territorial governor in 1813, and was instrumental in persuading Indian tribes in Michigan to make many cessions of land to the United States. The first steamboat reached Detroit in 1818, and soon freight and passengers were pouring into Michigan. Also in 1818, when Illinois became a state, the remainder of the Northwest Territory (what is now Wisconsin and part of Minnesota) was attached to Michigan Territory.
During the decade and a half after the war, the fur trade boomed. By the 1830's, however, the trappers and traders had moved westward. They were replaced by settlers, mainly from New England, attracted by Michigan's fertile farmlands and abundant forests. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 increased the number of settlers arriving in Michigan and gave commercial interests an easy route to the region. The ships then returned east with lumber and agricultural products from Michigan.
In 1834 the boundary of Michigan Territory was extended to include Iowa, Minnesota, and the eastern half of the Dakotas. By 1835 the population had reached 85,000, enough to warrant statehood. There was, however, a boundary dispute with Ohio over a strip of land that included Toledo. The dispute led to what was called the Toledo War, with armed militias mobilized on both sides. Bloodshed was avoided when Congress imposed a compromise, permitting Ohio to retain the border strip and allowing Michigan to keep all of the upper peninsula as compensation.
Michigan became the 26th state on January 26, 1837, with its present boundaries. Stevens T. Mason, a Democrat who had been a leader in the campaign for statehood, was elected governor. There was rapid economic and population growth. Roads, railroads, and canals were built. Immigrants and more settlers from the East arrived in large numbers. Population in 1840 was about 212,000. The foreign-born arrived mainly from the British Isles, the German states, and the Netherlands. The settlers who moved westward from the East came predominantly from New York and New England. In 1847 the capital was transferred from Detroit to Lansing, a more central location.
Industrial Development
Fur trapping, Michigan's first big industry, gave way in the mid-19th century to commercial lumbering and to the mining of copper and iron in the upper peninsula. The existence of copper deposits and iron ore in the Lake Superior region had been known since the beginning of European exploration, but these natural resources remained untapped until the 1840's. A copper rush that took place on the upper peninsula during 1843-46 was America's first mining boom. Iron ore was discovered in 1844 at what is now Negaunee. The completion of a ship canal at Sault Ste. Marie in 1855 opened the Lake Superior area to development.
From the earliest days of white settlement, sawmills were usually built when a community was founded. By 1854 there were about 890 mills in Michigan, employing some 4,500 workers. Large-scale lumber production began in the Saginaw Valley and expanded rapidly. Despite the export of lumber and the mining of copper and iron, agriculture remained the mainstay of the state's economy. Population at mid-century was nearly 400,000.
The national debate over slavery in the 1850's gave rise to an abolition movement in the state and led to the formation of a new political party in Michigan. Antislavery Democrats, Whigs, and Free Soilers joined under the name Republican party at a convention in Jackson in July, 1854. The Republicans won control of the state in elections that year and were the dominant political power for decades. During the Civil War, more than 90,000 men from Michigan served in the Union army. About 25,000 died as a result of wounds or disease.
The state grew rapidly after the war. There was expanded demand for lumber, iron, copper, foodstuffs, and manufactured goods. Railroad lines were extended into the upper peninsula. The lower peninsula became a center for the production of salt and chemicals. Detroit, Grand Rapids, and other Michigan cities became important manufacturing hubs. For much of the late 19th century, the economy was dominated by the lumber industry and its “lumber barons" and the state government controlled by the Republican party. During 1870-1900, the population doubled, rising from about 1,200,000 to more than 2,400,000.
Automobile manufacturing started in the late 1890's. Both Ransom E. Olds of Lansing and Henry Ford of Detroit, working independently, perfected gasoline-powered autos in 1896. Both founded motorcar companies in the Detroit area in 1899. Eventually more than 100 auto companies were established in the state, including the “Big Three"—General Motors Corporation, Ford Motor Company, and Chrysler Corporation.
Development of the auto industry transformed Michigan from an agricultural state into an industrial one. It brought a constant influx of new residents from other states, particularly from the South, and from Canada and southern and eastern Europe. In addition, it caused a large shift in population from farms and small towns to the cities. Also during the early years of the 20th century, lumbering and mining declined in importance, and agriculture became mechanized and specialized.
Increased industrialization, immigration, and urbanization gave rise to the progressive movement in Michigan in the early 1900's. Governors Chase S. Osborn (1911-12), a Republican, and Woodbridge N. Ferris (1913-16), a Democrat, persuaded the legislature to adopt various progressive reform measures. Included were laws providing for workers' compensation, conservation, and railroad regulation, and the adoption of the initiative, referendum, and recall.
During and after World War I, industry boomed. However, the prosperity of the 1920's was followed by the Great Depression of the 1930's. Michigan was especially hard hit. The mining counties of the upper peninsula and the industrial cities of the lower peninsula suffered high unemployment. There was much labor unrest, particularly in the auto industry. Walter Reuther led strikes against automakers, seeking recognition of the United Auto Workers labor union. Some strikes met violent resistance, particularly those at General Motors and Ford, but eventually were successful. The depression also brought an end to the long domination of state politics by the Republican party.
With the outbreak of World War II, Michigan's industries geared to the production of war materials. The state produced one-eighth of all the nation's war equipment. The migration of large numbers of blacks from the South to work in factories in the state led to a serious racial clash in Detroit in 1943. Prosperity returned during the war.
In the postwar period, a liberal-labor coalition gained control of the Democratic party, won the governorship with G. Mennen Williams (1949-60), and saw to the enactment of many social reforms. Prosperity continued, as did racial tension. In 1967 the most destructive racial disorder in American history to that time took place in Detroit, when riots erupted in the city's black neighborhoods. There were also clashes in some other parts of the state over the use of busing to achieve school integration.
Recessions during the late 1970's and early 1980's caused severe economic hardship in Michigan. Detroit was particularly affected because automation and foreign competition had contributed to high unemployment in the auto industry. By 1985, however, the economy had begun to rebound, and in that year the state government balanced its budget for the first time in a decade. In the late 1980's, the government was seeking ways to lessen the economy's dependence on the chronically troubled auto industry. Another recession in the early 1990's produced a state budget crisis, as a result of which officials made substantial cuts in the state's welfare program.
Jennifer Granholm was elected governor in 2002. She was the first woman to hold the position.