City of Detroit at Night
Source: Lonely Planet World Guide, 2001.
City Tour of Detroit History
Detroit History
French trader and explorer Antoine Cadillac founded what is now Detroit in 1701, believing it would make a good base from which to send furs to Canada. Cadillac named his claim Ville d'Etroit (City of the Strait) because at this site the Detroit River connects Lake St Clair with Lake Erie. The town grew steadily, using its river as a trade route to the world.
Long before Detroit became known as Motor City it was known as “Midnight,” a stop on the Underground Railroad. Detroit became the end point for Michigan along the Underground Railroad because of its close proximity and connections to Canada. A large network of escape routes used by Abolitionists and African-American Freedom Seekers who had traveled from America's southern states converged in Detroit for the dangerous final crossing. The story of its code name relates to the important role of Seymour Finney as president of the Underground Railroad in Detroit. He owned a hotel and a barn in the city. While he hid Freedoms Seekers in the barn the Slave Catchers and Bounty Hunters were drinking and carousing at the hotel. After midnight, when the catchers were thoroughly drunk, it was safe for Conductors to lead the Freedom Seekers to boats on the Detroit and row them across to freedom. Said to have been in place as early as the colonial period, the height of Underground Railroad activity in Detroit was between 1830 and 1865.
Sculptor Ed Dwight has captured the courage and strength of these Freedom Seekers who came through Detroit into Canada in his two monuments called the International Memorial to the Underground Railroad. One in Detroit called the Gateway to Freedom shows Detroit Conductor George DeBaptist pointing the way across the river to freedom. On the Canada side of the Detroit River the matching statue has flame a freedom at the top with people lifting their arms to the heavens in thankfulness.
But why was Detroit such a hotbed of Abolition? In the years before the Civil War, the leaders of Detroit were an example of the populist, mercantile politics that fueled Northern opposition to Southern aristocrats and the plantation economy. The city's
merchant class and newly prosperous immigrants saw the future of the United States
patterned after their own lives. They had prospered from freely-available land, protectionist trade policies, open immigration, and growth in transportation. Most Detroit people viewed the slave-based economy of the South with its concentration of power in the hands of a few wealthy landowners as a threat. In addition, the New England ancestry of most Detroiters made abolition a popular political cause.
From the late 1800s on, African-American musicians played an important role in Detroit's entertainment scene, and the city was the first to have an integrated musicians' union. John Lee Hooker recorded his first blues hits here in the 1940s. Motown became the biggest American music phenomenon of this century.
However, it was Henry Ford who is credited with making Detroit into a phenomenon. Born on a farm in nearby Dearborn, Ford established the Ford Motor Company in 1903. Within five years he was using the assembly line to mass produce cars for use by the average American. The assembly line inspired the United Auto Workers (UAW), which became the leader of the industrial union movement. Driven by the automobile's success, Detroit was the first city to have a paved concrete road (in 1909), the first to install a traffic light (in 1915) and the USA's first to have an urban freeway (in 1942).
Around Detroit
Spirit of Detroit
The Spirit of Detroit statue is the most famous in Detroit and is sometimes “dressed” with T-Shirts and hats representing Detroit’s sports teams.
Elmwood Cemetery
Elmwood is Detroit’s oldest cemetery incorporated in 1846. Many famous African American people are buried here, including 14 members of the 102nd U.S. Colored Troops of the Civil War and abolitionists George De Baptist and William Lambert. Lambert was the manager of the Underground Railroad network in Detroit. De Baptist has a boat called the Whitney on which he took Freedom Seekers across the Detroit River to freedom.
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Frederick Douglass -John Brown Meeting Historical Marker
Abolitionists Frederick Douglass and John Brown met with a group of Detroit leaders on March 12, 1859 to discuss methods of ending slavery in the U.S. Douglass wanted to use peaceful means while Brown argued for a revolution. Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry happened later in 1859.
This university, named for Mad Anthony Wayne of the War of 1812 fame, covers many blocks of downtown Detroit. It has one of the best medical schools in the world but is also becoming very well known in the arts.
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Detroit Institute of the Arts
This fifth largest art museum in America has a large collection of African and African-American art.
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Detroit Public Library
This main branch of the Detroit Pubic Library has two major African American collections. The Hackley Collection has records of African Americans in the arts dating from the mid 19th century. The Burton Collection features the largest collection of genealogy records outside of Salt Lake City.
Detroit Historical Museum
This museum of Detroit’s history has a permanent exhibit dedicated to the role of Detroit as a major terminal for the Underground Railroad as well as one on the automotive industry.
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Soldiers and Sailors Monument
This monument to Detroit’s Civil War soldiers is named “Emancipation” and was created in 1872. One of the statues is thought to be modeled on Sojourner Truth, famous abolitionist and feminist, who lived in Battle Creek, Michigan.
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Lewis College
Lewis College, established in 1910, was the first Black college in Michigan. It was famous as a women’s vocational college.
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Ferry Street Mansions
This district was an elite neighborhood in the late 19th century. After World War II it declined and the buildings became empty eyesores. As part of Detroit’s recent renaissance, the houses have been bought and refurbished as bed-and-breakfast inns. They are very popular since they are in the museum district.
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Charles Wright Museum
This huge museum is the largest African-American museum in the U.S. It has exhibits tracing African history, the Middle Passage and the history of slavery. The life-sized sculptures of people on the Middle Passage used Detroit school children.
Hitsville USA
When Motown recorded in the 1960s, they were working out of this set of houses. The one pictured was where the recording was done.
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Day Six:
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