adventurer explorer founder governor
Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac was born about 1656 in Gascony, France; son of a minor nobleman, Jean de la Mothe, who owned the seigneury of Cadillac. His mother was Jeanne de Malenfant; and although in his marriage contract of 1687 Antoine declared himself about twenty-six, he was in fact some years older.
Like lads of his ancestry he early entered the army, first as cadet, then as lieutenant (1677) in the regiment of Clairembault.
In 1683 he came to America and had a home at Port Royal (now Annapolis); after his marriage, he lived for a brief time on his grant in what is now Maine, including the island of Mount Desert. In 1689 he visited France, and during his absence his Port Royal place was sacked and burned by the British (1691). He obtained a recommendation to Count de Frontenac, who greatly favored him, and whose anti-Jesuit principles he embraced.
In 1694 Frontenac gave Cadillac, whom he calls "a worthy man, good officer, keen witted, " the command of the post at Mackinac, the most important position in the western country. Cadillac himself was not pleased with his position; he complained of the climate, the food, and the savages; later he became reconciled and declared his post the healthiest place in the world.
In 1697 the posts in the West were abandoned by order of the crown; Cadillac returned to Canada, and in 1699 went to France, where he laid before the ministry his plan for a post on Detroit River, which would protect the western fur trade from the English. His rank at this time was captain in the troops of the Marine (that is, of the colonies), and he obtained a grant of Detroit and the title of lieutenant of the King.
In 1701 he set forth with many colonists to found Detroit; he was also head of a company which had the trade monopoly. Recollet missionaries were part of his colony, and he planned to attract the western tribesmen to the region of Detroit, and to place them under the care of these missionaries. The Jesuits, especially those at Mackinac, bitterly opposed the removal of their neophytes and other Indians. This and other high-handed procedure brought about Cadillac a swarm of enemies.
In 1704 he was arrested, tried at Quebec, and acquitted, when he returned in triumph to Detroit. His enthusiasm for his new colony was so great and his communications to the minister in France so diffuse, that the latter rallied him upon his anticipations, writing in 1706, "I am glad to be assured that Detroit will become the Paris of New France". Cadillac brought his wife and family to Detroit, and planned to make this place his lifelong home; but in 1711 he was recalled, and appointed to the governorship of the new colony of Louisiana, which was granted in 1712 to a company founded by Antoine Crozat.
Cadillac reached Louisiana with his family in 1713 and again expressed in his reports his dissatisfaction with his appointment. He treated the Louisianians haughtily and incurred the ill will of the former governor, Bienville, and his Canadian relatives. During his three years in Louisiana, Cadillac sought every means to enrich himself, and in 1715 made a trip to Illinois in search of silver mines reported to exist there. He was much disappointed at finding only lead.
In 1716 Cadillac, of whose complaints Crozat had tired, was recalled, and is thought to have suffered a short imprisonment in the Bastille, whence he was released in February 1717. Thenceforward he made his home in his native province and died there at Castle Sarrazin. His heirs made several attempts to realize on Cadillac's American grants.
Finally in 1787 his granddaughter, Madame Gregoire, visited America, introduced by Lafayette. In a burst of generosity the Massachusetts Assembly confirmed her title to that part of Mount Desert and the neighboring mainland yet unsold, after which she and her family lived there for several years.
Cadillac's name is yet potent in Detroit, where buildings and monuments have been christened in his honor. In 1701, he founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, the future city of Detroit, which he commanded until 1710. Between 1710 and 1716 he was the governor of Louisiana, although he did not arrive in that territory until 1713. The car brand Cadillac was named after him, and its headquarters was in Detroit (it has since been moved to New York City), where Cadillac himself explored. Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac was honored with a 3-cent stamp on July 24, 1951, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of his landing at Detroit in 1701. The stamp's background design depicts Detroit's skyline as it appeared in 1951 and the foreground shows Cadillac's landing at Detroit in 1701. On 20 April 2016, the public French high school in Windsor, Ontario was renamed in Cadillac's honour.
He seems to have been a typical Gascon, alternately buoyant and depressed, of inordinate pride and much self-esteem, but withal able and clever. Had he been permitted to remain at Detroit and carry out his plans for that colony, he might have succeeded, although his enmities were stronger than his friendships. He had a wide vision of the French situation in the West, and brilliant plans for expanding French power; but he was covetous and grasping, unable to lend himself unselfishly to broad enterprises.
He was married at Quebec in 1687 to Marie Therese Guyon.
