History.—Detroit was founded in 1701 by Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac (c. 1661-1730), who had pointed out the importance of the place as a strategic point for determining the control of the fur trade and the possession of the North-west and had received assistance from the French government soon after Robert Livingston (1654-1725), the secretary of the Board of Indian Commissioners in New York, had urged the English government to establish a fort at the same place. Cadillac arrived on the 24th of July with about 100 followers. They at once built a palisade fort about 200 ft. square S. of what is now Jefferson Avenue and between Griswold and Shelby streets, and named it Fort Pontchartrain in honour of the French colonial minister. Indians at once came to the place in large numbers, but they soon complained of the high price of French goods; there was serious contention between Cadillac and the French Canadian Fur Company, to which a monopoly of the trade had been granted, as well as bitter rivalry between him and the Jesuits. After the several parties had begun to complain to the home government the monopoly of the fur trade was transferred to Cadillac and he was exhorted to cease quarrelling with the Jesuits. Although the inhabitants then increased to 200 or more, dissatisfaction with the paternal rule of the founder increased until 1710, when he was made governor of Louisiana. The year before, the soldiers had been withdrawn; by the second year after there was serious trouble with the Indians, and for several years following the population was greatly reduced and the post threatened with extinction. But in 1722, when the Mississippi country was opened, the population once more increased, and again in 1748, when the settlement of the Ohio Valley began, the governor-general of Canada offered special inducements to Frenchmen to settle at Detroit, with the result that the population was soon more than 1000 and the cultivation of farms in the vicinity was begun. In 1760, however, the place was taken by the British under Colonel Robert Rogers and an English element was introduced into the population which up to this time had been almost exclusively French. Three years later, during the conspiracy of Pontiac, the fort first narrowly escaped capture and then suffered from a siege lasting from the 9th of May until the 12th of October. Under English rule it continued from this time on as a military post with its population usually reduced to less than 500. In 1778 a new fort was built and named Fort Lernault, and during the War of Independence the British sent forth from here several Indian expeditions to ravage the frontiers. With the ratification of the treaty which concluded that war the title to the post passed to the United States in 1783, but the post itself was not surrendered until the 11th of January 1796, in accordance with Jay's Treaty of 1794. It was then named Fort Shelby; but in 1802 it was incorporated as a town and received its present name. In 1805 all except one or two buildings were destroyed by fire. General William Hull (1753-1825), a veteran of the War of American Independence, governor of Michigan territory in 1805-1812, as commander of the north-western army in 1812 occupied the city. Failing to hear immediately of the declaration of war between the United States and Great Britain, he was cut off from his supplies shipped by Lake Erie. He made from Detroit on the 12th of July an awkward and futile advance into Canada, which, if more vigorous, might have resulted in the capture of Malden and the establishment of American troops in Canada, and then retired to his fortifications. On the 16th of August 1812, without any resistance and without consulting his officers, he surrendered the city to General Brock, for reasons of humanity, and afterwards attempted to justify himself by criticism of the War Department in general and in particular of General Henry Dearborn's armistice with Prevost, which had not included in its terms Hull, whom Dearborn had been sent out to reinforce.[[1]] After Perry's victory on the 14th of September on Lake Erie, Detroit on the 29th of September was again occupied by the forces of the United States. Its growth was rather slow until 1830, but since then its progress has been unimpeded. Detroit was the capital of Michigan from 1805 to 1847.
Authorities.—Silas Farmer, The History of Detroit and Michigan (Detroit, 1884 and 1889), and "Detroit, the Queen City," in L. P. Powell's Historic Towns of the Western States (New York and London, 1901); D. F. Wilcox, "Municipal Government in Michigan and Ohio," in Columbia University Studies (New York, 1896); C. M. Burton, "Cadillac's Village" or Detroit under Cadillac (Detroit, 1896); Francis Parkman, A Half Century of Conflict (Boston, 1897); and The Conspiracy of Pontiac (Boston, 1898); and the annual Reports of the Detroit Board of Commerce (1904 sqq.).
[1] Hull was tried at Albany in 1814 by court martial, General Dearborn presiding, was found guilty of treason, cowardice, neglect of duty and unofficerlike conduct, and was sentenced to be shot; the president remitted the sentence because of Hull's services in the Revolution.
DETTINGEN, a village of Germany in the kingdom of Bavaria, on the Main, and on the Frankfort-on-Main-Aschaffenburg railway, 10 m. N.W. of Aschaffenburg. It is memorable as the scene of a decisive battle on the 27th of June 1743, when the English, Hanoverians and Austrians (the "Pragmatic army"), 42,000 men under the command of George II. of England, routed the numerically superior French forces under the duc de Noailles. It was in memory of this victory that Handel composed his Dettingen Te Deum.
DEUCALION, in Greek legend, son of Prometheus, king of Phthia in Thessaly, husband of Pyrrha, and father of Hellen, the mythical ancestor of the Hellenic race. When Zeus had resolved to destroy all mankind by a flood, Deucalion constructed a boat or ark, in which, after drifting nine days and nights, he landed on Mount Parnassus (according to others, Othrys, Aetna or Athos) with his wife. Having offered sacrifice and inquired how to renew the human race, they were ordered to cast behind them the "bones of the great mother," that is, the stones from the hillside. The stones thrown by Deucalion became men, those thrown by Pyrrha, women.
See Apollodorus i. 7, 2; Ovid, Metam. i. 243-415; Apollonius Rhodius iii. 1085 ff.; H. Usener, Die Sintflutsagen (1899).