Dawn of Detroit

by Tiya Miles

  124. Affidavit of Elijah Brush, respecting ill treatment of Matthew Elliott, Supreme Court of Michigan, ed., Blume, Vol. II, 216.

  125. As quoted in Littlejohn, “Slaves,” 24.

  126. Veta Smith Tucker, “Uncertain Freedom in Frontier Detroit,” in Karolyn Smardz Frost and Veta Smith Tucker, eds., A Fluid Frontier: Slavery, Resistance, and the Underground Railroad in the Detroit River Borderland (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2016), 27–42. Veta Tucker gives a detailed account of the Denisons’ time in Canada; see Tucker, “Uncertain Freedom,” 35. Sandwich is now a historic neighborhood in the city of Windsor, Ontario.

  5: The Rise of the Renegades (1807–1815)

  1. According to David Poremba, the Smyth tavern was located on present-day Woodward Ave., near the Woodbridge intersection. David Lee Poremba, Detroit in Its World Setting, 90. Smyth as hatter: Affidavit of Elijah Brush, respecting ill treatment of Matthew Elliott, Supreme Court of Michigan, ed., Blume, Vol. II, 216.

  2. Augustus B. Woodward to James Madison, March 17, 1808, Ms/Woodward A. B., BHC, DPL. Translation by Michelle Cassidy, November 2016.

  3. Duffey, “Northwest Ordinance,” 953–54.

  4. Braithwaite, “Military Record,” 96–98, 97; quote from Braithwaite, 96. Anthony J. Yanik, The Fall and Recapture of Detroit in the War of 1812 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011), 13, 14. Hull children, Lake Erie winds, vanished town: “Introduction,” MHPC Vol. XL, 30, 31.

  5. SH (Sarah Hull) to William Hull, April 10, 1809, William Hull Papers, BHC, DPL. Donna Valley Russell, ed., Michigan Censuses 1710–1830: Under the French, British, and Americans (Detroit: Detroit Society for Genealogical Research, 1982), 1805 Lists, 82–86. Catherine Cangany captures this aspect of Detroit’s insularity: Detroit’s “insularity, its dogged preservation of social and political localisms, its disdain for things unwanted and external, and its refusal to stand on ceremony”; Cangany, Frontier Seaport, 167–68. Quote about French residents: Augustus B. Woodward to James Madison, March 17, 1808, Ms/Woodward A. B., BHC, DPL. Quoted description of Detroit: Alec R. Gilpin, The War of 1812 in The Old Northwest (2012; reprint, East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1958), 24–25. Braithwaite, “Military Record,” 96–98, 96. Sarah and William married in 1781; Braithwaite, “Military Record,” 96. Sarah Hull at Saratoga: “Biographical Sketch: Sarah Fuller Hull, Wife of General William Hull,” Hull Family Association Journal 15:3 (Autumn 2004): 99; reprint of Elizabeth F. Ellet, The Eminent and Heroic Women of America (New York: Arno Press, 1974, repr. of 1783 ed.), 95–96.

  6. Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies (New York: Vintage Books, 2010), 102–105. Hull route by boat: Yanik, Fall and Recapture, 14.

  7. Impressment numbers: James Miller and John Thompson, National Geographic Almanac of American History (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2007), 124; ten thousand American men had been captured, with thousands gaining release and six thousand remaining in British custody by 1807; Taylor, Civil War of 1812, 105. Jenkin Ratford: Taylor, Civil War of 1812, 102.

  8. Embargo: Miller and Thompson, Almanac of American History, 125. Indian fears and Fort Mackinac Letter: Yanik, Fall and Recapture, 16–17.

  9. Yanik, Fall and Recapture, 16. “Introduction,” MPHC Vol. XL, 34–35.

  10. Lieutenant Colonel E. Brush Commission by William Hull, Sept. 12, 1805, William Woodbridge Papers, DPL. Brush resigned from this post in 1809.

  11. James Askin to Charles Askin, August 18, 1807, Askin Papers, Vol. II, 566. John Askin to Isaac Todd, September 4, 1807, Askin Papers, Vol. II, 570; quoted in Keller, “Detroit’s First Black Militia,” 85.

  12. Lieut. Colonel Grant to Secretary Green, August 17, 1807, MPHC Vol. VI, 41–43.

  13. Case 60, In the Matter of Elizabeth Denison, James Denison, Scipio Denison and Peter Denison, Jr., Calender of Cases, Papers in File, Supreme Court of Michigan, ed., Blume, Vol. I, 87. Examination of James Dodemead respecting the ill treatment said to have been received by James Heward, a subject of his Britannic Majesty, October 27, 1807, Heward Papers, DPL.

  14. Examination of James Dodemead respecting the ill treatment said to have been received by James Heward.

  15. Examination of James Dodemead respecting the ill treatment said to have been received by James Heward. Affidavit of Elijah Brush, respecting ill treatment of Matthew Elliott, Supreme Court of Michigan, ed., Blume, Vol. II, 216. Case 91, Affidavit of Harris H. Hickman, 218–19.

  16. Affidavit of Elijah Brush, respecting ill treatment of Matthew Elliott, 217.

  17. Examination of James Dodemead respecting the ill treatment said to have been received by James Heward, a subject of his Britannic Majesty, October 27, 1807, Heward Papers, DPL. Affidavit of Elijah Brush, respecting ill treatment of Matthew Elliott, Supreme Court of Michigan, ed., Blume, Vol. II, 216. Augustus B. Woodward to James Madison, March 17, 1808, Ms/Woodward A. B., BHC, DPL.

  18. Lieut. Colonel Grant to Secretary Green, August 17, 1807, MPHC Vol. VI, 41–43. Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution, 8, 68, 83. Blacks boarding ships: Taylor, Civil War of 1812, 113. Starting with Virginia in 1639, American colonial governments banned the arming of people of African descent, but they rolled back these prohibitions at times when officials felt the need for extra military manpower, such as in the Yamasee War of 1715, during which South Carolina approved of arming Africans, including those who were enslaved, to fight Native combatants. This process did not include training or a formalization of black men’s leadership or authority. Charles Johnson, Jr., African American Soldiers in the National Guard: Recruitment and Deployment during Peacetime and War (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992), 1–2. The African American military historian Charles Johnson dates the formal beginning of African American militia groups to the late nineteenth century (1877) and notes that territorial policy sometimes deviated from national policy. This was, he states, the case with William Hull, who “formed a company composed entirely of Africans to assist in protecting the frontier against British invasion.” Johnson, African American Soldiers, 5. The force from Santo Domingo that fought with French troops in support of the American cause in Savannah during the American Revolution in 1779 was not American-born but Haitian; Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution, 82. In Massachusetts, an all-black company was led by Col. George Middleton during the Revolutionary War; Middleton was African American; Manisha Sinha, The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 49. Monuments to black soldiers in the Revolutionary War exist in Savannah as well as Washington, D.C.

  19. A.B. Woodward to William Eustis, Secretary of War, July 28, 1812, Clarence Edwin Carter, Territorial Papers, Volume 10, 389–92.

  20. William Hull to Jaspar Grant, September 3, 1807, MPHC, Vol. 31, 600, quoted in Keller, “Detroit’s First Black Militia,” 91.

  21. “Black History Month: Remembering the First Black Militia,” [no date listed], MonroeNews.com, Accessed March 19, 2012. Reconstructing the formation and engagements of the black militia of Detroit is a difficult task due to the piecemeal nature of the written record. Only a handful of primary sources have been found to date about the militia. Two of those sources, a journalistic report on the war from July 2012 and a letter by Augustus Woodward in June of 1811, are, to my knowledge, noted first here. A search for Peter Denison in the War of 1812 pension files achieved no new results. It is my hope that future historians of early Detroit will keep digging for records about this occurrence. Secondary accounts of the development of the militia have been offered in the black history month article cited above as well as by the following scholars. In some details of chronology and interpretation the descriptions by these scholars differ from my own. The lack of plentiful source material means that each scholar working on this topic has had to connect the dots, and they have done so in varying ways at the level of detail. I am indebted to all of the following individuals and projects for their published reconstructions of th
ese events. Veta Tucker, “Uncertain Freedom,” in Frost and Tucker, eds., A Fluid Frontier. Charlie Keller, “Detroit’s First Black Militia,” in Brunsman, Stone, and Fisher, eds., Border Crossings, 85–100. Gene Allen Smith, The Slaves’ Gamble: Choosing Sides in the War of 1812 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 33–34. Donald R. Hickey, Don’t Give Up the Ship: Myths of the War 1812 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 191. Johnson, Jr., African American Soldiers in the National Guard, 5. “Peter Denison,” Detroit African-American History Project, Wayne State University, www.daahp.wayne.edu/biographies. Accessed August 16, 2012. Veta Tucker’s chapter, in particular, helped me to see that Peter Denison may have given up freedom to flee with his family. Charlie Keller’s chapter is the most precise and best cited account in print.

  22. The 1805 law establishing the Michigan militia directed that each “company” should be assigned a captain, lieutenant, and ensign and should wear uniforms. Laws of the Territory of Michigan, Vol. I, The Making of Modern Law, Yale Law Library, 47, 48.

  23. Augustus B. Woodward to James Madison, July 18, 1807, Folder January–July, 1807, Box 1806–1808, Augustus Brevoort Woodward Papers, BHC; also transcribed in MPHC, 12: 511–18. Quoted in Charlie Keller, “Detroit’s First Black Militia,” in Brunsman, Stone, and Fisher, eds., Border Crossings, 89.

  24. Judge Woodward’s Resolution on Sundry Subjects, and the Report of the Committee on the Same, Dec. 31, 1806, MHPC, V. 12, 462–65, 463. Only the transcription has been found of this document, and the 1806 date appears to be an error. All other primary sources indicate that the black militia was formed in 1807, after the Chesapeake incident. The introduction to the Michigan Historical Collections series that includes the transcription in question notes that Woodward delivered his document to the committee in the fall of 1808. “Introduction,” MHPC Vol. XL, 41.

  25. Judge Woodward’s Resolution on Sundry Subjects, and the Report of the Committee on the Same, Dec. 31, 1806, MHPC, V. 12, 462–65, 463.

  26. There was no independent or elected legislature in territorial Michigan. The governor and three judges governed the territory, with Hull and Woodward being the most prominent voices. Hull likely dictated or wrote much of the committee’s response to Woodward’s Resolutions, which was signed by Judge John Griffin; “Introduction,” MPHC Vol. XL, 44. Charlie Keller also points out that Governor Hull probably steered the findings of this committee; Keller, “Detroit’s First Black Militia,” 91. Judge Woodward’s Resolution, MHPC, V. 12, 462–65, 470, 472. Woodward to Leib, [Gesurel?], June 14, 1811 Woodward Papers, BHC, DPL.

  27. Indenture of Charlotte Moses, Askin Papers, Vol. II: 607–608.

  28. Case 432, Box 9, Supreme Court, Michigan Territorial Records, Archives of Michigan, Michigan Historical Center, Lansing, MI. Laura Edwards presents an illuminating analysis of why textiles were so sought after in the nineteenth century for both their use value and exchange value; she also shows the importance of enslaved women’s assumed ability to own textiles as possessions. Laura F. Edwards, “Textiles, Popular Culture and the Law,” Buffalo Law Review 64 (2016): 193–214.

  29. Lieut. Colonel Grant to Secretary Green, August 17, 1807, MPHC Vol. VI, 41–43.

  30. Case 60, In the Matter of Elizabeth Denison, James Denison, Scipio Denison and Peter Denison, Jr., Calender of Cases, Papers in File, Supreme Court of Michigan, ed., Blume, Vol. I, 87.

  31. Cangany, Frontier Seaport, 139–40, 154–55.

  32. Treaty of Detroit and Related Treaties, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive of the Congress of the United States, Part 2, Volume 1 (Gales and Seaton: 1832), digitized Pennsylvania State University, 745–48.

  33. Treaty of Detroit and Related Treaties, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive of the Congress of the United States, Part 2, Volume 1 (Gales and Seaton: 1832), digitized Pennsylvania State University, 745–48.

  34. William Hull to Dearborn, February 20, 1807, MPHC Vol. XL, 1805–1813, 100–102.

  35. Treaty of Detroit and Related Treaties, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive of the Congress of the United States, Part 2, Volume 1 (Gales and Seaton: 1832), digitized Pennsylvania State University, 745–48. Treaty of Detroit, 1807. http://clarke.cimich.edu/resource_tab/native_americans_in_michigan/treaty_rights/text_of_michigan-related_treaties/detroit1807.html. Accessed March 15, 2012. Poremba, Detroit, 91. For an analysis of native political leadership in the region, see: Cary Miller, Ogimaag: Anishinaabeg Leadership, 1760–1845 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010).

  36. Treaty of Detroit and Related Treaties, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive of the Congress of the United States, Part 2, Volume 1 (Gales and Seaton: 1832), digitized Pennsylvania State University, 745–48.

  37. Charles E. Cleland, Rites of Conquest: The History and Culture of Michigan’s Native Americans (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), 218, 229. Poremba, Detroit, 91.

  38. Walter Johnson makes the similar and instructive point that the development of lands for plantation enterprises in Louisiana reduced enslaved people’s means of hiding and escaping in forested landscapes. Walter Johnson, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 220–21.

  39. Cangany, Frontier Seaport, 157, 158. Arthur Mullen, “Detroit through 300 Years—Physical Clues to Our Long History,” www.cityscapedetroit.org/articles/Physical_clues.html. Accessed November 18, 2013.

  40. Cangany, Frontier Seaport, 150, 152, 154, 155; Poremba, Detroit, 90.

  41. Farmer, History of Detroit, 24–25; Quoted in Farmer, History of Detroit, 24; quoted in Farmer, History of Detroit, 25; quoted in Farmer, History of Detroit, 27–28. “Introduction,” MHPC Vol. XL, 33.

  42. M. Agnes Burton., ed., Governor and Judges Journal: Proceedings of the Land Board of Detroit (Detroit: 1915), 20, 44, 47, 116, 207, 230, 231. In the Matter of Hannah, A Negro Woman, Supreme Court of Michigan, Vol. I, ed., Blume, 163, 486–87.

  43. Taylor, Divided Ground, 399. Ainse encountered her own problems with land boards, finding that the Canadian government refused to fully recognize her land claims that were based on previous Indian deeds.

  44. Hull to Dearborn, February 20, 1807, MPHC Vol. XL, 96–97; “Introduction,” MHPC Vol. XL, 39.

  45. Russell, ed., Michigan Censuses, 87–91.

  46. Cangany, Frontier Seaport, 152; Ste. Anne’s Church Records.

  47. For a discussion of the flexibility and changeability of racial and color terms such as “mulatto” and “mustee,” see Jack D. Forbes, Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993).

  48. Poremba, Detroit, 91. Deed of Bargain and Sale from Elijah Brush, and wife; Deed of Mortgage from Governor Hull to Elijah Brush; deed Joseph Watts sells land to William Hull; Sarah, Alexander and Angus Makintosh lease land to William Hull; Indenture of lease between Pierre Toussaint Chesne and William Hull; Deed Joseph Mini and Javotte Mini to William Hull; Deed of Pierre Rivier, Relinquishment of dower Archange Rivard to William Hull; Deed, Pierre Toussaint Cécile Thérèse Chêne to William Hull; Incomplete deed between Hull and Daniel Robinson; Watson of New York to William Hull mortgage 1¾ acres lots in Detroit, William Hull Papers, Folder L2: 1808–1810, Folder L2: 1811–25, BHC, DPL.

  49. SH (Sarah Hull) to William Hull, April 10, 1809, William Hull Papers, BHC, DPL.

  50. Gilpin, War of 1812 in the Old Northwest, 66. “St. John’s Anglican Church, Sandwich, Ontario, http://essexanglican.awardspace.com. Accessed June 25, 2016.

  51. Peter and Hannah baptism: quoted in Tucker, “Uncertain Freedom,” 37. Family baptisms: Swan, Lisette, 8; the church register includes several individual Denison names in baptism, birth and burial notes (such as James, Hannah, Scipio, Lisette/Elizabeth, Phoebe, Juliet, and Charlotte) between 1811 and 1819. Juliet is listed as a fourteen-year-old daughter of Peter and Hannah in 1816; Phoebe is listed as
the daughter of Scipio and Charlotte Denison, so a grandchild of Peter and Hannah; St. John’s, Anglican, 1802–1827, Register of baptisms, marriages and burials, 1802–1827, Sandwich, Ontario, Archives of Ontario, Toronto. A third generation was born, raised, and baptized in Canada, and some of these descendants stayed there. Slaveholders in the church: Tucker, “Uncertain Freedom,” 35.

  52. Peter as “Negro Servt [servant] of Angus McIntosh [Mackintosh]” is noted upon Peter’s death: St. John’s Register, August 28, 1812. Also quoted in Tucker, “Uncertain Freedom, 37.

  53. Rebecca J. Scott, “Social Facts, Legal Fictions, and the Attribution of Slave Status: The Puzzle of Prescription,” Law and History Review (2017): 1–22, 10.

  54. Anonymous Ledger, MS/Anonymous, L4: 1806–15, BHC, DPL. Hum-Hum, a cotton fabric from Indian, was most popular in the mid- to late eighteenth century; Elisabeth McClellan, Historic Dress in America, 1607–1800 (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co, 1904), 388.

  55. The Askin Ledger, part of the John Askin Papers at the Detroit Public Library, is a lengthy fifty-page account in the original cursive script that employs financial shorthand. I was very fortunate to have the assistance of an undergraduate student, Paul Rodriguez, aided by a graduate student, Michelle Cassidy, who worked on an initial transcription of this ledger as well as the Macomb ledger over the course of two academic years. Even with this remarkable effort, the ledger is challenging to work with. I have summarized all references to the Denisons here and quoted only when I could be quite sure of my transcription, which drew from the original text and the students’ transcription. The Askin ledger has its own page numbers in the top right hand corner, but these are difficult to read and not always present. We therefore renumbered the pages from 1 to 50. When possible, I give two page numbers for references to indicate our numbering and the original numbering. References to the Denisons appear on pp: 35/180, 36, 37, 38, 39/222, 41/235, 42, 43, 44, 47, and 50. Lisette working winter nights: 36. Many other early Detroiters also appear in this ledger, including Elijah and “Mrs.” Brush. MS Askin, J. L4, 1806–1812, BHC, DPL.