Michigan History Part II

1. Michigan History Part II

2. Hopewell Burial Mounds Prehistoric people called the Hopewell built hundreds of burial mounds in the river valleys and forests of what we now call Michigan. Some Hopewell also lived in the western and southern part of the Lower Peninsula. When they buried honored people in the mounds, the Hopewell included items, such as pots and bowls, that tell us about their lives. The Hopewell built their mounds in Michigan from 10 B.C. until about A.D. 400.

3. Native Americans in Michigan Archaeologists have discovered evidence of cultures, such as the Hopewell, twelve thousand years old in the area we now call Michigan. The Native Americans who were in the area at the time the first Europeans traveled to the Great Lakes had three things in common: • All spoke the Algonquian language • They shared many cultural characteristics • They were allied in the Three Fires Confederacy. • The largest group called themselves Anishinabe and were also known as Chippewa or Ojibwa. All tribes relied on hunting, fishing, and agriculture to support their families and communities.

4. Trail Marker Trees Some misshapen trees are known as Indian marker trees or trail trees and were bent by Native Americans to mark trails or other landmarks, like a creek crossing. Most are maple, oak, or elm. Double trunk

5. Etienne Brule Etienne Brulé was one of the great explorers. He was the first white man to see Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Superior, and the first to set foot in Michigan in 1622. Somewhere alone the way to Lake Superior, perhaps all the way to Isle Royale, he came across an ingot of copper, which he later showed to the French on the St. Lawrence. Many years later, the retrieval of that copper from its source would physically transform the northern Great Lakes more than all previous events - more than the missionaries, and wars, and fur trading that followed closely in Brulé’s steps.

6. White Settlers Arrive The arrival of whites in Michigan changed native life forever. French traders, soldiers, and missionaries first came into the Great Lakes area in 1644. The traders came in search of furs, the soldiers to claim the territory in the name of the king of France, and the missionaries, Catholic priests, to save souls. One of the most important local chiefs in Michigan was Chief Okemos, chief of the Chippewa tribe from about 1789 to 1858 when he died. Like many other Native American chiefs, often under threat from American authorities, Okemos signed several treaties with Michigan and the U. S. government that allowed whites to settle what had once been Chippewa land.

7. White Influence When the white people arrived, both cultures changed each other. Native Americans converted to Christianity under white influence and early white settlers utilized native skills surviving in the harsh frontier. In the 1700s, about two thirds of the native population in Michigan died from diseases whites brought. Tribes lost massive amounts of land to the U. S. Government, for which they were often neither paid nor compensated. By 1820, they had lost claim to over half of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Native Americans also grew increasingly distant from native culture under the influence of white schools, missions, and churches.

8. Pontiac’s War Naturally, the Native Americans didn't want to give up their land. They continued to fight. Many tribes followed the leader Pontiac and fought the British Army. The Native Americans eventually lost the war, but the British did make a law that said English settlers would not take over their land. Unfortunately for the local tribes, many Europeans still settled their land despite the new law. 2,000 settlers had been killed or captured during this war. Native American losses went mostly unrecorded.

9. Native American Reservations Today

10. The Northwest Territories In 1754, the British and the French went to war over the fur trade in the Americas. The Native Americans in Michigan allied with the French and fought the English. However, in 1763, the British won the war and the land became part of the British Empire. After the American Revolution, the United States took control of Michigan. The Northwest Territory was a large area that also included the future states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. The Northwest Territory was part of Québec until it was purchased by the United States from the British in 1787.

11. Michigan Territory In 1805, the Lower Peninsula and the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula became the Territory of Michigan. With completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, American settlers had water transportation to the western territories. Many moved to Michigan from the eastern states. After five years of trying to settle a land dispute with Ohio, Michigan became the 26th state on January 26, 1837.

12. Statehood Michigan formally entered the Union as the 26th state on January 26, 1837.

13. Lansing Capitol is the building; capital is the city! Do you know the difference between capitol and capital? The first recorded person of European descent to spot the area that is now Lansing was explorer Hugh Heward in 1790 while canoeing the Grand River. There would be no roads to this area for decades to come. Lansing was named for the home town of 1835 settlers who had come from Lansing, New York. In 1847, the state constitution required that the capital be moved from Detroit to a more central and safer location in the interior of the state. Many people were concerned about Detroit's closeness to British-controlled Canada, which had captured Detroit in the War of 1812. With the announcement that Lansing Township had been made the capital, the small village quickly transformed into the seat of state government.

14. Detroit Michigan’s biggest city was named by French colonists, referring to the Detroit River (French: le détroit du lac Érié, meaning the strait of Lake Erie), linking Lake Huron and Lake Erie. On the morning of June 11, 1805, the city of Detroit caught fire. The blaze is believed to have begun near the stables of John Harvey, the local baker. While no official cause was determined, it was rumored that hot ashes from a pipe started the fire. Flames spread quickly to other wooden structures. The population of Detroit at the time was about six hundred. With the exception of one stone fort and the brick chimneys of wooden houses, the city was leveled to the ground by that afternoon. Shockingly, no one died in the Great Fire of 1805.

15. Civil War Michigan saw little action during the Civil War (1861-1865), but our state song, Michigan, My Michigan, arose from sending troops to join the battles. Click on the image to see a video about the role of Michigan in the Civil War

16. Shipwrecks The Great Lakes have provided transportation for Michigan's residents and traders for hundreds of years. Thousands of vessels from canoes to car ferries and steamers to modern ore boats have sailed these "inland seas." An unknown number still remain - settled on the lakes’ bottom in watery graves. They lie in both shallow water and in the deepest reaches of Michigan's 38,000 square miles of the Great Lakes bottomlands. An estimated 6,000 vessels were lost on the Great Lakes with approximately 1,500 of these ships located in Michigan waters.

17. Automobiles Michigan soon became center to a new automobile industry. In 1899, Ransom Olds started the Olds Motor Works in Detroit. Henry Ford organized the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn in 1903. Other plants were built in Lansing and Flint. Detroit soon became known as the Automobile Capital of the World. Henry Ford in his first automobile 1921 Electric Car

18. The Assembly Line A young Henry Ford assembled his first engine-powered vehicle, the Quadricycle, in secret at his rented home on Bagley Avenue. Three years later, in 1899, Ford founded the Detroit Automobile Company, an automobile manufacturer, with backing from investors. The company closed down January 1901, but it didn’t take long for Ford’s idea to make a comeback. It was reorganized into the Henry Ford Company, changing the automobile industry forever. The reason for his success was due to his revolutionary use of an assembly line. The car moved from station to station where a different worker would add a different part until the car was complete.

19. Traffic Lights With all the new cars rolling off the assembly line, came a new phenomenon – traffic jams… and traffic accidents that involved both vehicles and pedestrians. The traffic signal was first invented in 1912 by a Detroit policeman named Lester Wire as a two-color, red-and-green light with a buzzer to warn pedestrians ahead of the light change. In 1920, this basic design was modified by another policeman named William Potts to include the tri-colored red, amber, and green lights widely used today.

20. Oil! In 1925, the Saginaw Prospecting Company drilled a test well in Deindorfer Woods that produced enough oil to be sold commercially.  This attracted other oil explorers to Michigan, both in the Saginaw area and beyond. During the 1920s, nine more fields were discovered. This new oil industry for Michigan also supported the growing automobile industry.

21. Motown Motown Headquarters today Motown is an American record company. It was founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. on January 12, 1959, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960 in Detroit. The name, a combination of motor and town, has also become a nickname for Detroit. Motown played an important role in the racial integration of popular music as an African American-owned record label that achieved significant success. 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, Motown's headquarters from 1959 to 1968

22. What is YOUR favorite part of Michigan? What would you write on this postcard and who would receive it?