Cadillac settled Detroit in 1701, but the restraint to settlement imposed by the English occupation—1763-1775—precluded any substantial growth. Pontiac, the great Indian chieftain of the Ottawas, effected his conspiracy and made a great effort to retain the territory for the Indians.
Michigan was made a separate territory in 1805 (see chapter on Evolution of the Northwest Territory), and became a state in 1837. The capital had been at Detroit, and so remained until 1847, when it was moved to Lansing.
As has been said, particularly of Illinois and Michigan, growth of American settlement in Wisconsin cannot be dissociated from the French era. Jean Nicolet is credited with being the first white man to explore the region, in 1634. But all the noted French expeditions paved the way for later trading posts and missions.
The Indian population of Wisconsin early in the seventeenth century had probably been the largest of any area of similar size east of the Mississippi River, and hence, with the adjacent Minnesota lands, the region offered great attraction to the fur traders, and to missionaries.
Prairie du Chien and Green Bay were major settlements and county seats of the first counties of the early era. While England held technical possession of the territory—1763-1783—her occupation was ineffective and of little importance. Wisconsin was, however, the last section of the Northwest Territory to be evacuated by the British.
American traders entered “Ouisconsin” 1760-1766, and were later succeeded by John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company. The lead mines discovered around present Galena, Illinois, by the Frenchman, Perrot, in the late 1600’s were a considerable factor in settlement. It is interesting to note that negro slaves were used in these mines in 1820.
Set apart as a territory in 1836, with its first boundaries later changed to the territory east of the Mississippi River in 1838, Wisconsin became a state in 1848, with its capital at Madison.
Technically, under the Ordinance of 1787, all of the Northwest Territory was to become not more than five states, and hence the present portion of Minnesota lying east of the Mississippi represents one of those adjustments of state boundaries established by Congress.
Like the areas of Michigan and Wisconsin, the Minnesota country was first explored by the French, who established missions, developed the fur trade, and conducted a search for the fabled northwest passage to the Pacific. Perhaps the earliest of the French explorers to see the Minnesota country were Radisson and Groseilliers, who may have pushed into what is now part of the state not long after the middle of the seventeenth century, and who came into contact with Sioux Indians in 1659-60. The region became known as a result of the visits of a number of explorers, including Du Lhut, who explored the country between the Mississippi and the St. Croix in the decade following 1679; Father Hennepin, who discovered the Falls of St. Anthony in 1680; Perrot, who laid formal claim to the upper Mississippi country for France in 1689; Le Sueur, who built a post on Prairie Island in the Mississippi in 1695 and Fort L’Huillier on the Blue Earth River in 1700; La Perriére, who established Fort Beauharnois on Lake Pepin in 1727; and La Vérendrye, who with his sons and his nephew opened the great canoe route from Lake Superior to Lake Winnipeg between 1731 and 1743. Along this route, which he believed might connect with the northwest passage, he established a chain of forts, including Fort St. Charles on the Lake of the Woods.