THE KNAGGS WINDMILL, DETROIT (Mich. Hist. Colls., VI, 501) Type of the Michigan French-Canadian windmill. 1947 and habits. In the words of a contemporary commenting on the French of the lower Raisin in 1819, "The old inhabitants are a very indolent set of people, the lower class of which depend almost wholly on hunting for their living. Those of a higher class make good dependence on the fur trade with the Indians which is tolerable good at present. Their skill in hunting and trapping and their usually pleasant relations with the Indians formed a large asset of the fur companies, and in these pursuits the French often showed much force of character.48 Contact with wild life in the forests of Canada and the Northwest through many generations could not but give a decided bent to their thought, character and habits. And this bent was strengthened by restrictions of the French Government, intended apparently to insure their servitude to the interests of the seigneurs in the fur trade." The British Government seems to have had quite as little interest in these settlements so far as concerned their agricultural development. It allowed no new lands to be taken up without in each case express permission from the king.50 A statement made by Mr. Lymbruner, agent of the Province of Canada, seems to represent the early sentiment of the British 47. Mich. Hist. Colls., XXXVIII, 485. 48. Ibid., II, 104. 49 49. See a list of conditions imposed in French grants to Detroit settlers in 1707. A. S. P., Public Lands, I, 182; also Lanman, History of Michigan, 66, 318-319; and the Magazine of Western History, IV, 375. But Judge Campbell believes these restrictions were so little insisted upon as never to have been burdensome in practice. Mich. Hist. Colls., II, 101. 50. A. S. P., Public Lands, I, 269. Royal proclamation of Oct. 7, 1763. Government towards the whole region environing Detroit, who in 1793 before the House of Commons declared it his opinion that the obstacles to Detroit's growth were so great that they "must greatly impede the progress of settlement and cultivation for ages. .to come."51 A contemporary, Judge Woodward, has left a pleasing description of the Canadian-French settlers in Michigan. According to his sketch we see them habitually gay and lighthearted, yet pious; honest beyond comparison; generous, hospitable and often refined; and with no cares from "ambition or science.”52 The apparent lack of ambition in the Michigan Canadians was owing largely to the paternalistic regime under which they and their ancestors had so long lived which accustomed them to look for everything to be done for them or to be imposed upon them by some authority from without. It would therefore require some time to adjust themselves to the "Yankee" idea of paying taxes to support schools and government, and it was to be expected that they would not take kindly to those successive stages of government which should entail upon them additional expense. The Frenchman's contentment with the slow-going ways of his ancestors was doubtless due to his setting no great value on time, of which he had an abundance. He could not well understand the spirit of hurry that characterized the "practical, hard-working, money51. Farmer, History of Detroit, I, 336. The particular obstacle was the obstruction offered by Niagara Falls to eastward transportation. 52. A. S. P., Public Lands, I, 264. getting Yankee," which disturbed him.53 vatism," his opposition to change, was His " an expression conser These of this satisfaction with things as they were. settlers were apparently unconscious of their poverty and consequently would not sell their meager improvements for several times the real value.54 This was in some degree a real hindrance to settlement, as when they refused to allow their farms to be disturbed by the needed widening or extending of streets in Detroit. Again, they naturally adhered to their mother tongue, necessarily somewhat of a barrier between them and the eastern immigrants,55 as were also their manners and customs, which are said to have been those of a hundred years before.56 Class 53. See Mr. Campau's comparison of the French Canadian and the American or Englishman in this respect, as quoted in the Magazine of Western History, X, 395. 54. McLaughlin, Higher Education in Michigan, 10. 55. "Their so-called patois is the old French tongue continued almost unchanged, like the manners and habits of those who use it." Mich. Hist. Colls., I, 364. The Gazette published several columns in French in its earlier issues, and reprinted important notices or documents often in parallel French and English columns. In that paper for November 1, 1825, the "French Gazette" is advertised, subscriptions to be received at the office of the Gazette, but so far as the writer knows this was not published. In 1805 when the commissioners of the Land Office wished to employ someone, other than the clerk of the Board, to translate the French deeds, it is stated that they could find no one sufficiently qualified in whom confidence could be placed. A. S. P., Public Lands, I, 267. 56. Mich. Hist. Colls., I, 359. Bela Hubbard says that "the Canadians were speedy to adopt the superior implements and modes of cultivation used by the AngloSaxon settlers." Mich. Hist. Colls., I, 353. The editor |