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[ 1 ] Detroit at the Outbreak of the War of 1812 Detroit in 1812 was a small town of 800 people living on the very edge of the frontier. It was over 200 miles from the nearest large American community, Urbana, Ohio, separated by wilderness and Indian tribes that vacillated between friendship and hostility. During peacetime, Detroit’s distance from large American towns posed no real problem, although Indian lands surrounded the town to its north, west, and south. It could rely for help on friends in Upper Canada, a more settled and populous region extending east from the Detroit River to Montreal. When the War of 1812 began, Detroit had been in existence for over 100 years, having been established as a French colony by Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac on July 24, 1701. Detroit enjoyed a strategic location: furs shipped south by water from the upper lakes inevitably had to pass Detroit before descending into the lower lakes on the journey to Montreal . The settlement experienced a major problem over the years, however , with its food supply. Although farming was practiced along the river on either side of the town, settlers never were able to raise enough of a crop to make Detroit self-sustaining. The town also was faced with the specter of Indian attack at any time. Thus during its early years it existed as a combination fort and town, homes and military quarters alike enclosed within a stout stockade that gradually expanded as more homes were built.1 The British government took ownership of Detroit in 1763 after its victory in the French and Indian Wars. Almost immediately, the fort/town endured a four-month siege led by the Ottawa Indian chief Pontiac. Pontiac ’s defeat brought an end to the widespread Indian uprising he had Detroit at the Outbreak of the War 11 fomented, which had resulted in the capture of all British forts west of Niagara except Detroit. A major rebuilding of Detroit then followed: a section of the interior area, called the Citadel, was enclosed to house the fort’s troops and military stores.2 Detroit became a center of attention during the Revolutionary War when in 1778 George Rogers Clark captured British forts at Kaskasia, Vincennes, and Cahokia in present-day Indiana. Henry Hamilton, the British governor of Detroit, led an expedition south to reclaim those forts but was captured in a surprise attack at Vincennes. Clark then threatened to march on Detroit. Alarmed by the news, Captain Richard Lernoult, who had been placed in charge of Fort Detroit after Hamilton had left, came to the conclusion that it could never withstand a siege from a determined enemy like Clark, especially if Clark succeeded in mounting cannon on a high rise of ground directly north of the stockade. To prevent this, Lernoult ordered a regular fort to be constructed on the rise, with the town itself taking up the space between the fort and the river. Christened Fort Lernoult, it was a substantial structure surrounded by an earthen rampart 11 feet high, 26 feet wide at its base, and 12 feet wide across its top. A ditch 12 feet wide and five feet deep formed an outer ring around the base of the rampart and contained a single row of upright cedar poles 12 feet high. Along the outer edge of the ditch a second, low rampart called a “glacis” was constructed, in which were imbedded rows of sharpened tree branches facing outward. The inside of the fort contained the officers’ quarters, barracks, storehouses, and a bombproof magazine. The main entrance faced south toward the river and could be accessed only by drawbridge. The stockade walls that formed the town perimeter extended up to the rampart of the fort.3 As the tide of the Revolutionary War in the Northwest changed, Clark’s attack never materialized, but the new fort did provide excellent protection against Indian attacks. The Treaty of Paris terminating the Revolutionary War in September 1783 came as a distinct disappointment to the British in Canada. Michigan became part of the Northwest Territory of the United States, effectively closing off a great part of the favorite hunting grounds of British fur trappers and traders. Moreover, the loss of Detroit, which controlled the water transport of furs down the Great Lakes to Lower Canada, was especially bitter. The British fur traders convinced the government to ignore the treaty and retain possession of either Detroit or Mackinac Island. Indian tribes in...

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