Conclusion

The Communities of a Frontier Settlement

Throughout this exhibit I have highlighted and explored only a handful of the many different populations which would have referred to Fort Detroit as their home. Long before Detroit became the city we know it today, the town had developed it's own unique identity. Different cultures, religions, values, all came together in this frontier post. Detroit was plagued by the institution of slavery, enslaving a large portion of it's own population at the behest of ambitious merchants and military officials. The town contained no real civilian government, instead being under the jurisdiction of a military regime. From enslaved peoples who's labor was stolen from them to Indigenous Anishinaabe traders who visited the settlement as temperatures began to warm. French catholics were forced to share the same communal space as English protestants. Mixed Euro-Native family units who attended to the shops and the business of the fur trade. Detroit in the 18th century was a microcosm of the greater North American frontier at the time and served as a hub of imperial ambition, capitalist endeavors, enslavement, and diverse communal existence. The importance that the post served in this period cannot be understated from being the victim of a siege to serving as a greater staging ground to wage war along the frontier, Detroit had earned it's place in history as being a town defined by it's own unique identity.