Driving Detroit: The Quest for Respect in the Motor City

3. From Fort to Ford to . . . ?

C h a p t e r 3 From Fort to Ford to . . . ? Drive your Chevrolet in the USA, America’s the Greatest Land of All —General Motors advertising jingle sung by Dinah Shore in the 1950s Though popular consciousness permanently welds the auto industry onto the economic frame of Detroit, for two-thirds of its history the city did something else for a living. The region has had three distinct economic bases. From its inception until the close of the War of 1812, Detroit served an important geopolitical function. While supporting a substantial military garrison proved a vital economic engine, it was clear from the outset that Detroit was more about making money than protecting royal empires or, later, a fragile new nation’s frontier. By single-mindedly pursuing profit, Detroit evolved from a trading post and exploiter of natural resources into a diversified manufacturing economy, supplying a dizzying array of products for businesses and households, and, finally, into the epitome of oligopolistic auto production. The potent legacies of this last evolutionary stage portend poorly for how Greater Detroit’s future economy may evolve. Fortifying Excess Although the forts that the French and the Americans built over the years in this place called Detroit served a larger military purpose, they also offered a 70 Chapter 3 modicum of security that allowed markets to develop. These markets were worth protecting because, from the very beginning, it was obvious to European settlers that money—lots of money—was to be made here. Very early on, Detroiters began worshiping a mercantile principle that would guide them for three centuries: No Success without Excess. The city’s founder unwittingly established this principle; he epitomized greedy excess before his canoes and buckskin had a chance to dry out. Within four years of the outpost’s establishment, the local Jesuit priests were grumbling and writing accusatory letters about Cadillac’s misdeeds in managing the lucrative fur industry. We can only surmise that this “management” involved a healthy “consulting fee” for the Monsieur and an inadequate cut for the local parish. Though Cadillac would be arrested, tried, and acquitted of these crimes in 1705, he hardly seemed chastened. On the contrary, Cadillac set a standard for a Detroit demi-deity leadership hubris that continued unbroken until the reign of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick three centuries later. Cadillac next honed a new act of excess: neofeudal landlord. In exchange for the land title to new farms in and around Fort Pontchartrain, Cadillac demanded annually a cash rent, a share of the produce, and a designated amount of labor to be performed on Cadillac’s own farm. Apparently these terms were so onerous and generated so much uproar that Count Pontchartrain, Cadillac’s French patron, complained to him in writing in 1709 that he showed “too much greed.” Cadillac ignored this warning, sequestering himself in his lavish home safe inside the fort’s walls. But by 1710, less than a decade since founding Detroit, Cadillac was disgraced and gone, forced to leave his fiefdom by the French government and posted to . . . of all god-forsaken backwaters . . . Louisiana. Never fear. Cadillac may have left, but his administrative descendants’ excesses never flagged, regardless of the flag they flew. Through the early eighteenth century, the British pressured French territories across North America, encroaching on their profitable trade with the natives. By 1752 the Governor of New France, Marquis Duquesne, had had enough: French greed must be protected against British greed! Duquesne organized a war party in Detroit with 250 French and Ottawa soldiers, who defeated the combined British-Miami forces at Piqua, Ohio, in June. This demonstration of French resolve apparently was impressive, as several native groups returned to trading with Detroit. Over the next few years, Detroit prospered further, growing to 2,000 inhabitants, as it became a major staging point in the French and Indian War. But its very success made it a key British target. Fort From Fort to Ford to . . . ? 71 Pontchartrain surrendered to the British on November 29, 1760, ending forever French rule (and, sadly, French pronunciation) in Detroit. Reportedly the French settlers regarded this administrative change with indifference; being pragmatists, they expected the mercantile status quo to be preserved. Their savoir faire proved justified because exploitation of the natives transcended the particulars of European nationality. Indeed, British trading methods were even more excessively greedy than those of the French. Terms of trade became so...