Dawn of Detroit

by Tiya Miles

  News of the Chesapeake affair leapt across eastern seaboard states as well as western territories. The offended American populace fumed with outrage. President Jefferson declared a risky trade embargo, crippling commercial exchange and the country’s overall economy. The American Republic and British Crown were squaring off against one another as events slowly spiraled toward war. The British lords of the sea were on the offensive, and Governor William Hull was steward of an untamed land bordered by massive waters. Michigan Territory was a virtual peninsula with three quarters of freshwater coastline accessible to an aggressive British Provincial Marine. Moreover, the land over which Hull had formal American authority, but not by Native American consent, shared a border with British Canada that was uncomfortably close. A few stone throws across the Detroit River sat in wait Fort Malden, the encampment built by the British military after these same men had begrudgingly vacated Detroit just over a decade prior. And only one month before the Chesapeake incident, Hull had received an alarming letter from an officer stationed at Fort Mackinac, on the island above the Straits of Mackinac. The captain warned that neighboring tribes were communicating by wampum belt and likely planning to attack. So Governor Hull felt the breath of danger when he cast his thoughts to the corners and borders of Michigan Territory in the summer of 1807. The Indians could assault Detroit. The British could besiege Detroit. And the two could join their nefarious forces to fall upon America together, just as they had in the Revolutionary War. Biographers of William Hull have tried to convey and contextualize his fear of an Indian attack fired up by British instigation. For it was this fear (in hindsight, strategically misdirected) that led Hull to act in unpredictable ways that shocked his white contemporaries.8

  The Renegade Militia

  William Hull determined that he needed a strong defense, the best defense that could be obtained in a hinterland settlement with a dangerously low population of free white men. His attempt to organize the local French farmers into a formidable militia, as required by law for every new territory organized through the Northwest Ordinance, had dissolved into conflict when locals complained that the uniforms Hull required were far too expensive. Through a newly devised Michigan law modeled after a New York code, Hull and the judges had bestowed upon Hull the right to dictate militiamen’s dress. A proper New Englishman with a penchant for formalities, Hull decided that each member of his militia should don: “a long blue coat . . . white plain buttons, white underclothes in summer, white vests and blue pantaloons in winter, half boots or gaiters, round black hats, black feathers tipped with red, black cartridge and bayonet belts.”9 Hull was more than slightly out of touch with his new frontier environment, judging by his dress code. Elijah Brush, the flashy attorney turned militia leader, was perhaps the only soldier more than happy to comply. Brush had ordered a uniform ready to wear from New York the moment he received his commission. But the majority of Detroit residents who were compelled to defend the settlement could not afford to purchase the fabric that Hull required for uniforms (which he had ordered wholesale and personally sold), let alone spare the time from farmhouse labors that would be required for their wives and daughters to stitch the peacockish outfits. The down-to-earth French residents of Detroit were disaffected. The eager beaver Americans were small in number. Who could Hull turn to, then, as threats outside the town walls mounted? Who, in Detroit, had nothing but their lives to lose?

  Governor Hull had no choice that did not involve invention. He was in dire need of new and untried ideas. He might have sought out, in this circumstance, someone like Elijah Brush, an influential American with local ties, a formal role as lieutenant colonel of the territorial militia, and experience in the settlement dating back several years. I know a man, Elijah Brush might have whispered to William Hull, following a meeting of militia leaders in Richard Smyth’s candlelit tavern. For surely Elijah Brush did know Peter Denison, the enslaved black laborer of William Tucker famous enough that various Detroiters had tried to buy him. Peter Denison was broadly skilled in physical work and river navigation; he had an unusual strength of mind that inspired respect in others. A man of talents masked in the historical record that paid little attention to slaves, but apparent to all who encountered him in his time, Peter Denison was soon envisioned by Governor William Hull as a chief defender of Detroit. The challenge was getting access to the man when he belonged to Catherine Tucker, a piece of human property bequeathed by her husband.

  Elijah Brush must have approached Denison first. Then came the contract of indenture with Catherine Tucker, and the move of Peter and Hannah Denison into the elegant riverside home of Elijah and Adelaide Brush. Peter, in consultation with Hannah, must have extracted a promise for his dangerous work on behalf of the town: freedom for himself and his wife, and probably for their children as well. For in August of 1807, months before the Denison v. Tucker freedom suit was brought before Judge Woodward, Peter Denison was leading a company of men of color whose task it was to defend Detroit.10 Members of the prominent Askin family were among the first to nervously notate the strange sight of black men drilling with arms right across the waterway. James Askin wrote to his brother Charles from Strabane, the family abode on the Canadian coast of the Detroit River: “at Detroit they are making great preparations. The Town of Detroit is Picketed in from the Water Side until it joins Fort Lernoult. A Company of Negroes mounting Guard, The Cavalry Patroling every night, Batries Erecting along the Settlement, and the Militia called out frequently.” James’s father, John Askin, was displeased at this unwelcome turn of events, writing to a business colleague in Montreal: “our run Away Negroes have had Arms given them & Mount Guard.”11

  The Askins may not have been taken by utter surprise at this unusual turn of events. They could have been warned of developments by their in-law, Elijah Brush. But British military officials at Fort Malden in Amherstburg necessarily learned of the news through formal channels of command. On August 17, 1807, Lieutenant Colonel Jaspar Grant informed Secretary James Green of Quebec that he had heard from Colonel Isaac Brock of trouble brewing in Detroit. Grant’s description was even more detailed than the following excerpt reveals, as his intention was to expose Detroit’s advantages and weaknesses should a military conflict unfold. Grant wrote to Green in a lengthy letter:

  As the affair of the Leopard and Chesapeake has occasioned much ferment at Detroit, and has also induced the Governor the Territory of Michigan, who resides there, to take steps by no means indicative of friendly intentions, I conceive it my duty to acquaint you . . . [of] what is going forward there. . . . The Militia of Detroit have been constantly assembled for the purpose of Drill, they amount to about 400, are much better disciplined than could well be supposed, are very well appointed, and two Companies are kept in constant pay. There is, besides, a company formed of Renegade Negroes, who deserted from Captain Elliott and several Gentlemen at this side. This company consists of . . . 36 in number, and are kept for such desperate services as may be required at this side.

  These armed black men defending Detroit were joined, as Grant described the scene, by a force of “inhabitants . . . called in from the distance of 30 miles.”12 Governor Hull had been inventive indeed, forming a special militia of nearly forty former slaves; and so, it seems, had Peter Denison, their designated leader.

  Appointed as the head of a defensive force made up of enslaved men of color, Peter Denison had fished for his men across the river among the farms of Upper Canada’s largest slaveholders. Denison’s recruitment strategy of enticing enslaved men to Michigan was the unspoken cause behind Matthew Elliott’s lawsuit in October of 1807, in which Elliott attempted to recover several fugitives who were living in Detroit. Elliott had listed the Denisons as part of his absent human property although the family had not formally belonged to him. His action may have been as emotional as it was economic, a vindictive attempt to punish Denison for leading away Elliott’s bondsmen. Inside and outside the courtroom, Elliott met resistance. His overseer, James
Heward, had been tasked with finding the runaways, but met sharp recriminations from white working-class Detroiters when he arrived in town to give testimony. The overseer stopped in at Smyth’s tavern “to get a drink of grog,” and found himself being verbally accosted by a carpenter named William Daily and a navigator named Peter Curry. As half-pints of brandy made the rounds, Daily called Heward a “British rascal” and “threatened to pull off his wig.” The tavern filled with more working men from Detroit. Heward’s situation grew dicey. In a defensive move that begged greater forethought, Heward called the men “a damned rascally set of beggars,” which they rejoined by calling him “a damned British rascal.” By the time the dust settled, Heward had been tarred and feathered on the face and head, his wig tacked up by a nail on a post at a public street corner. In an irony that again revealed the intense social dynamics of Detroit, a thirteen-year-old enslaved boy belonging to the father of Heward’s host sounded the alarm that “they were killing Mr. Heward.”13 Heward was not in lethal danger, as it turned out, but his dignity took a blow, and “he had tar on his face” and “his hat full of feathers” by evening time. James Dodemead, a witness to the whole affair who testified before Judge Woodward, said he could think of no motive for the tavern patrons’ aggression except for the “offense given by Mr. Heward . . . [in] coming over to give testimony respecting Mr. Elliott’s slaves.” The only item the attackers took from Heward was his wig, the witness reported—the chief symbol of the victim’s social class and national identity.14

  In addition to throttling Heward outright, the men at the tavern threatened the absent Matthew Elliott with a tarring and feathering and boasted that “if the Court decided the Slaves of Mr. Elliott Should be restored, the Court should be tarred and feathered” too. Attorney General Elijah Brush, who was deposed in this case, said he was told by an irascible Mr. Smyth that Elliott was also targeted for “formerly taking an active part with the Indians against the United States” and that the threat of tarring and feathering extended to “the judge.” Harris Hickman, counsel for Matthew Elliott, swore that “Richard Smyth, tavern keeper in Detroit . . . made use of a great deal of violent and abusive language . . . relating to the Case of Mr. Elliott’s Slaves” and “Swore very bitterly that they Should not be restored to their master, and that he would Kill any person who Should come to his house to take them, or Should attempt to arrest them, and to carry them across the river.” Smyth made this promise on “several other Occasions since,” Hickman testified, “with violent language and threats of the Same Kind.”15

  The men in the tavern disdained the forcible seizure of slaves. Richard Smyth, a justice of the peace as well as a hatter and barkeep, was sequestering some of the runaways in his own house. As shown by the ire of these workers, an antislavery spark was flaring in the city along the strait. But objecting to the return of fugitive slaves to the Brits was not just rooted in a rejection of the notion or practice of bondage; it was how these men could sense as well as demonstrate their burgeoning identity as American Detroiters. It offended these residents to see rich slaveholders cross the river and try to enlist the Michigan courts to arrest black bondspeople. The British elite, once occupiers of this soil, were now intruding on these tavern-goers’ turf. Defending fugitive slaves in their midst was an act of nationalism, which is why Judge Woodward admonished them in patriotic terms. In court, Woodward chided: “he did not believe any American citizen would So much disgrace their Country” as these men had in insulting Heward and Elliott, “at a time when the United States had so many good Causes of Complaint against the British government.” Matthew Elliott, Woodward said, “had a right to be a Suitor in the Courts.”16

  The conflict between the tavern-goers and the slaveholders, between the tradesmen and the justice, was spurred by border tensions. These tensions led Smyth and his mates to see black people held captive by the British as fellows and potential allies. The presence of black runaways stoked political and class consciousness among the white workers, giving them clear ideological adversaries: British slaveholders who sided with Indians, and a pompous eastern judge who might be tempted to side with slaveholders. Slavery became a screen against which these men could project a proud national identity. Daily, the carpenter, Curry, the navigator, Smyth, the hatter, and the several men who joined them, including William Watson, Austin Langdon, Abraham Geel, and others, tested their ideal Americanness against the foreignness of British slave-owners, and even against the definition upheld by Augustus Woodward in which “Americans” should be cautious of causing “offence.” Upon witnessing the tarring and feathering of Heward, one among them had cheered his fellows on by shouting: “hurraw my boys.” They likely roared at the news that Governor Hull was arming fugitives, including some of Elliott’s own bondsmen. But Augustus Woodward saw escaped slaves as “disorderly characters who had Come from the British dominions” and decried Hull as having “resorted” to “low intrigues.” To the chief justice, black slaves, unruly workers, and jumpy territorial governors were the real threat to America.17

  While Smyth and the men at his tavern jolted the establishment, enslaved men of color were crossing the strait to fight in defense of Detroit. Peter Denison resided on the Michigan side of the border, but his men lived on the Canadian side and had pledged their “desperate services” in order to seize freedom in the United States. When they traversed the river and armed themselves beneath a rival national flag, these men were joining a tradition set by enterprising men of color in colonial wars past. During the French and Indian War as well as the American Revolution, black men had fought, mostly for the British, in exchange for promises of freedom. Even that very summer of 1807, as hackles rose in the aftermath of the Chesapeake incident, enslaved black American men had escaped their owners to board British naval ships.18 But the Detroit militia of formerly enslaved men deviated from this more typical arrangement. Led by officers of African descent, these men had crossed an international border to fight for the other side.

  In the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War fifty years into the future that would divide America from itself, black men were rarely shown the respect of being named officers of their military units. But William Hull, according to a scornful Judge Augustus Woodward, had audaciously formalized black men’s martial leadership. Woodward wrote in a complaint to the secretary of war, William Eustis, “Mister Hull had issued three commissions to captain Denison, lieutenant Burgess, and ensign Bosset, black men, not under any law of the United States or this territory.” In Woodward’s view, Hull had been “insolent in the extreme” when challenged about this course of action and had taken as his authority “some ex parte correspondence with mister dearborne, then secretary of war.”19 Hull made a show of defending his deeds in a letter to Colonel Grant at Fort Malden meant to calm escalating fears that these armed former slaves might attack. “The permission which I have given to a small number of Negroes, occasionally to exercise in Arms,” Hull wrote, “I am informed has excited some sensibility among the Inhabitants on the British Shore. Be assured Sir, it is without any foundation, for they only have the use of their Arms, while exercising, and at all other times they are deposited in a situation out of their control.”20 Hull’s reassurance that the formerly enslaved Canadian men did not always have access to their rifles and bayonets would have been cold comfort to the British military leader, as well as to the slaveholders in his province, whose human property was not just absent but also armed.

  Governor Hull cut a new groove into the pattern of using black fighting men in colonial and early America. Under his auspices, the “first black militia” was formed in the United States.21 The military titles that Hull bestowed upon leaders in this unit—captain, lieutenant, and ensign—indicate that he viewed the group as akin to a company in the Michigan militia.22 And very likely, Elijah Brush, or Peter Denison himself, had driven Hull to formulate this arrangement. The fear of an Indian attack was so great at Detroit that Hull hired desperate men for des
perate measures. How these rebels must have relished scoffing at their former masters, drilling with weapons in plain sight right across the waterway. Primary accounts describe this unusual militia company variously as a group of men made up of “Negroes” and “slaves.” Although the record does not state as much, some of these men may have been Native or mixed-race Afro-Native people enslaved by the British. Their object would have been freedom, rather than allegiance to any single slaving nation, be that nation European, American, or indigenous.

  Governor Hull had authorized an unprecedented military organization. Judge Woodward stridently objected, viewing Hull as having gone a bridge too far when he armed the slaves of the neighboring nation. Woodward directed his concerns to Secretary of State James Madison in July of 1807, writing: “There is however one point on which the inhabitants of the different sides of the river are at variance. This is the desertion of the slaves. I expect complaints will be made to you on this head by the British minister. I do not approve the temper, principles and conduct of the inhabitants of this side, on the subject. I thought something ought to be done to check it.”23 In a set of resolutions addressed to a Michigan territorial special committee in 1808, Judge Woodward continued to criticize Governor Hull on this issue, stating that Hull had been responsible for the “embodying of slaves belonging to the subjects of his Britannic Majesty residing in the province of Upper Canada into a militia company, and the issuing of commissions, or other authority, to such persons, or other slaves, or black persons, to be officers in such militia company.” Woodward viewed Hull’s actions as stoking the flames of discord between the United States and Great Britain and, most importantly to him, of violating American civil law. In order to have gone forward with a plan to arm escaped slaves, Hull should have sought higher legal approval. “In our government,” Woodward asserted, in a separate letter of complaint to the secretary of war, “we had no masters but the law.”24 Although Woodward’s comment was not consciously ironic, it highlights a difference in status that fueled the dispute; the enslaved men in Hull’s militia could not have made so bold a claim to having just one master in the abstract form of law. Their masters were men and an immoral slave system wielded by men that sometimes bested the law. The special committee responded to Woodward’s complaint that Hull had acted out of bounds by quoting the territorial dictate regarding the governor’s military powers. “‘The governor, for the time being, shall be commander-in-chief of the militia, appoint and commission all officers in the same below the rank of general officers,’” the committee reminded Woodward, then stated further that they had paid “particular attention” to Woodward’s charge that Hull had “formed negroes, who were slaves, into a military company.” The committee found it to be “true that the governor has given permission to the black male inhabitants to exercise as a military company; that he has appointed a black man by the name of Peter Denison to command them; and has given him a written license for the purpose; though not in the form of a military commission. . . . This company has frequently appeared under arms, and has made considerable progress in military discipline. That they have ever conducted in an orderly manner, manifested on all occasions an attachment to our government and a determination to aid in the defense of the country whenever their services should be required.”25