The first permanent European settlement in Michigan was established by the French at Sault Ste. Marie. French missionaries, traders, and soldiers explored and established outposts throughout the region, including St. Ignace (1671), Fort St. Joseph (1679), and Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit (1701, modern-day Detroit). The French aimed to control the fur trade and convert Native Americans to Christianity. Interactions between the French and Native American tribes like the Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi were complex, involving both cooperation and conflict.

• 1654: Fort de Buade, a Jesuit mission, established near present day St. Ignace. It was garrisoned from 1683-1701 after Iroquois attacks.
• 1661: Louis XIV ascends to the French throne, and rules until 1715.
• 1667: French and Algonquins defeat the Iroquois, and sign peace treaty opening Michigan to settlement. Only 3,200 people live in New France, despite being offered free land and transportation to Canada.
• 1668: Father Jacques Marquette ("Pere Marquette") settles Sault Saint Marie ("St. Mary's Rapids"), the first Michigan settlement. He is called the "Father of Michigan." Another Jesuit priest, Ftr. Claude Allouez, allegedly baptized 10,000 Indians.
• 1669: French explorer Adrien Joliet (also spelled Jolliet) becomes the first European to land in what would become Detroit. With an Iroquois guide, he traveled from the St. Mary's River down Lake Huron, camping at present day Detroit, and passed through Lake Erie.
• 1670: Sulpician missionaries René de Bréhant de Galinee and François Dollier de Casson travel upriver from Lake Erie to Lake Huron, passing through Lake St. Clair. Their maps showed that the Great Lakes were all connected. There is some debate about whether Joliet or the two missionaries were first to see what would become Detroit.
• 1671: Marquette stays on Mackinac Island, then founds Saint Ignace. It is the third oldest continuously inhabited city in US.
• 1672-82: Governor of New France, Louis de Buade de Frontenac, encourages settlement in the Great Lakes area, fur trading, western exploration, and building forts to protect the frontier.
• 1673: Leaving from St. Ignace, Marquette, and Louis Joliet, Adrien's brother, discover and sail down the Mississippi River, called the "Great River," hoping to find the Pacific Ocean. Their map shows Lac de Michigami ("big water lake"). They got as far as present-day Arkansas before turning around. Marquette died in 1675 at age 37. All of Joliet's notes were destroyed in a fire and a boating accident. At this time, there were 6,700 people in New France.
• 1673: Fort Frontenac built at eastern end of Lake Erie Ontario where it meets St. Lawrence River.
• 1678: La Salle gets permission from Frontenac to explore the interior of North America.
• 1679: August 10. Commissioned by Frontenac, Robert Cavalier de la Salle and 30 men sail the first sailing vessel on the Great Lakes, 45-ton Le Griffon (the Griffin), from present-day Buffalo to St. Ignace, then past Detroit on his way north to find a route to China. Father Louis Hennepin was a companion, and the first European to describe the Niagara Falls.
• 1679: The Griffin became the first shipwreck on the Great Lakes. It may have lost in a storm, or boarded and burned by Indians. Or the six crew members stole the furs, and scuttled the ship.
• 1679: La Salle built Fort Miami near present day St. Joseph in SW Michigan to protect the Mississippi River. Fort Miami was soon abandoned in favor of nearby Fort St. Joseph.
• 1680: In the spring, La Salle made a 1,000-mile trek from central Illinois to Fort Frontenac, and became the first European to travel the interior of Michigan. They did not use trails so as to avoid Indians. The woods were “so interlaced with thorns and brambles that…our clothes were all torn and our faces so covered with blood that we hardly knew each other.” River travel was impossible due to fallen trees.
• 1682: La Salle explores the entire Mississippi River and claims Louisiana for France. He realizes that the Mississippi flows to the Gulf of Mexico, not the Pacific.
• 1686: French build Fort St. Joseph near present day Port Huron.
• 1687: La Salle, "who never took any one's advice", is killed by his own men while wandering around the south looking for the mouth of the Mississippi.
• 1689-1897: King William's War — Quebec vs. Boston (North American theater of global Nine Years War)
• 1690: Fort de Buade, a military fort, is built next to the 1654 Jesuit mission in St. Ignace.
• 1691: Fort St. Joseph built near Niles.
• 1694: Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac (real name: Antoine Laumet) appointed the commander of Fort de Buade. He angers both the Jesuit priests for using alcohol in trade, and the traders who feared his connection with Frontenac: "Never has a man amassed so much wealth in so short a time".
• 1698: Frontenac dies, and is succeeded by Count Jerome Phelypeaux de Pontchartrain. Cadillac urges him to build a fort on the strait between Lake Huron and Lake Erie to control the fur trade
• 1701: French sign peace treaty with Iroquois. Fort de Buade and other western forts abandoned.
• 1701: July 24. Cadillac, leading 100 French soldiers and 100 Algonquian Indians, establishes a settlement called "le détroit" (the strait) after a 600-mile trip from Montreal. After landing on the narrowest point of the river, they build Fort Pontchartrain, a 200 foot by 200 foot wooden fort.in . Cadillac encouraged the use of alcohol in trading and intermarriage of French settlers (habitants) with Indians, which angered the missionaries. He also built churches, schools, and hospitals to encourage permanent settlement, not just a trading post. Cadillac’s wife, Marie Therese Cadillac, eventually gave birth to six children in Detroit, to add to the seven they already had.
• 1701: Fall and Early Winter. Cadillac asks Native Americans to settle in the area. He offers protection and trading opportunities. The Huron, Miami, Ottawa and Potawatomi build villages in the surrounding area.
• 1704: February 2. The first European child is born at Detroit, the daughter of Cadillac and his wife, Marie Therese Cadillac. The Cadillacs had six more children in Detroit, to add to the seven children they already had.
• 1704: Cadillac reports that 2,000 Native Americans live in villages surrounding Detroit.
• 1706: June 6. The first major confrontation between the French and local Indians occurs when a French commander's dog bites an Ottawa. Fighting leaves Father Nicolas de L'Halle, Ste. Anne's priest, and 30 Ottawa dead.
• 1707: Cadillac, as a seigneur, begins granting lands around Detroit to habitants. Ribbon farms are 400-600 feet wide on the river, and 1.5 to 3 miles long. The habitants are required to share their crops with Cadillac, pay an annual rent to him, and work on Cadillac’s land.
• 1707: England becomes Great Britain. Its people are referred to as the British, rather than the English.
• 1708: Only 63 permanent residents of Detroit, and only 200 acres cultivated. Fur trading was more lucrative than farming.
• 1709: : Count Pontchartrain,writes that Cadillac is greedy because of the amount of rent and crops he requires from his settlers, and high price of liquor. Cadillac "is so much in the habit of stating what is untrue that it is almost impossible for him to write otherwise."
• 1710: The French Government removes Cadillac from his position of commander of Detroit. He becomes the governor of the Louisiana Territory. He does not return to Detroit.
• 1712: Fox Indian Massacre - The Fox Indians, encouraged by the English, attack Fort Pontchartrain for 19 days. On retreat, the Fox are overtaken by Huron, Ottawa, and Potawatomi, who are loyal to the French. In modern-day Grosse Pointe, more than a 1,000 Fox Indians were killed over a 5-day period.
• 1715: Fearing competition from the British, the French build Fort Michilimackinac in present day Mackinaw City
• 1715: Louis XV ascends to throne after death of Louis XIV, and rules until 1774.
• 1720: Detroit's population is only about 200 people, and the settlement is in rough condition.
• 1730: Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac dies in France.
• 1733: A smallpox outbreak occurs in Detroit which further limits population growth.
• 1740: Jean Baptiste Baudry builds the first home outside the walls of Fort Pontchartrain.
• 1749: As conflict with the British increases, 150 French soldiers push Detroit's population to about 900. Despite offers of animals and farm equipment, few settlers come to area. Only about 1,500 people live in all of Michigan.
• 1751: The French now operate seven forts within Michigan to protect their fur trade in the region. Detroit's population is now down to 483, including 33 enslaved Indians and African slaves.
• 1752: Another smallpox outbreak as well as a famine strikes Detroit.
• 1752: Charles Langlade informally starts war with the British by destroying a Pro-British Indian settlement in western Ohio.
• 1752: British win the Battle of Lake Erie.
• 1754: The French and Indian War begins, which is part of the Seven Years' War between England and France around the world. Detroit plays an important role as a military post, as the French sent over 400 militia to the fort. The war pitted 60,000 French colonists versustwo million British colonists.
• 1754: 22-year-old Virginia farmer George Washington loses battle against the French and Indians under Charles Langlade. The British under Edward Braddock and Washington are defeated again by Langlade in 1755. Langlade's men also bested Major Robert Rogers' forces in 1757.
• 1759: Battle of the Plains of Abraham – In Quebec City, British Gen. James Wolfe, who died in battle, defeats Marquis de Montcalm, who also died. This pivotal battle marked the end of the French and Indian War, although skirmishes continued until 1763.
• 1760: Robert Rogers and his victorious troops take command of Detroit, ending more than 150 years of French rule. At this time, Detroit has 2,000 inhabitants and 300 buildings. Fort Pontchartrain is renamed Fort Detroit, and it is 900 feet on each side. It has 80 houses and shops, a barracks, and Ste Anne’s Church, the second oldest Catholic church in the country.
• 1760-1763: Lord Jeffrey Amherst's institutes policies that alienate the Indians in the area. He stopped gift-giving (liquor, clothing, food), restricted gun and ammo sales, and charged high prices for European goods. He also said all trading had to be at British forts.
• 1762: Abraham Chapman becomes possibly the first Jewish settler in Detroit. <
• 1763: Feb.10. The Treaty of Paris is signed, formally ending the French and Indian war.

In the Treaty of Paris, France ceded its territories east of the Mississippi River, including Michigan, to Great Britain after the French and Indian War. Chief Pontiac led a major Native American revolt against the British, temporarily besieging Fort Detroit. The British took control of French forts and settlements, but faced resistance from Native tribes seeking to halt further colonial expansion. After the American Revolutionary War, the territory that became Michigan was ceded by Britain to the newly formed United States through the Treaty of Paris.

• 1763: On May 7th, Pontiac's Rebellion (also called Pontiac's War) begins as Chief Pontiac and 300 warriors (Ojibwe, Huron, Ottawa, Potawatomi), incited by the French, try to enter Fort Detroit by surprise, but Major Henry Gladwin learns of the deception. Pontiac's forces then attacked British settlers outside of the fort. Gladwin had only 140 men, while Pontiac commanded 1,000.
• 1763: On May 25th, Potawatomi Indians capture Fort St. Joseph in Niles.
• 1763: On June 2nd, Ojibwe warriors play lacrosse at Fort Michilimackinac, and take the fort by surprise. 27 whites were killed and 17 captured, including trader Alexander Henry. By early June, eight of 11 British forts fell to the Indians except five of rum, three rolls of tobacco, six pounds of vermilion paint and a wampum belt.
• 1771: Detroit is the center of the Great Lakes fur trade, with John Jacob Astor as its wealthiest citizen. Native Americans exchange pelts and furs for European goods like guns, cooking utensils, cloth and jewelry.
• 1773: Detroit's population is about 1,400 with 280 houses. This compares to Philadelphia with 43,000, New York with 25,000, and Boston with 16,000. All number are estimates because the first census was in 1790.
• 1774: The Quebec Act revokes the Proclamation of 1763, extending Canada's border to the Ohio River, making Michigan a province of Quebec.
• 1775: Henry Hamilton is Lieutenant Governor of Detroit who won Indian loyalty through gifts of rum. The “Hair Buyer” bought hundreds of scalping knives, and paid Indians for American scalps.
• 1776: Britain's thirteen colonies in North America demand independence as the United States of America. Detroit is not one of the colonies, and remains under British rule.
• 1776: The British fort at Detroit is reinforced with 200-300 British soldiers. The fort does not see military action, but it is used as a base for sending raiding parties into Ohio. Also, the Citadel is used to hold American prisoners.
• 1778: Col. George Rogers Clark captured Fort Sackville at Vincennes, but then retreated. Henry Hamilton took control of the fort, but Rogers, after marching 180 miles from St. Louis, attacked in 1779. He captured Hamilton, who was sent to Williamsburg Gaol (jail), and kept in a 10' x 10' cell with six other prisoners for three months. Clark's victory caused many Indians to declare neutrality.
• 1778: British Captain Richard Lernoult, replacing Hamilton, builds a new fort at Detroit, which is named after him. With a population of over 2,000 civilians, Fort Lernoult was never attacked by the Americans, and neither was Fort Michilimackinac.
• 1778: Detroit's most famous prisoner, American Patriot Daniel Boone, who was captured by Indians in Kentucky, spends 10 days there. He was then taken to Ohio, where he escaped.
• 1778: On April 26, a British census shows 2,144 residents at Detroit, not including military personnel or prisoners. The number includes 138 enslaved persons.
• 1779: General George Washington considers attacking the British at Detroit during the Revolutionary War, but he does not act.
• 1780: At its peak, Fort Lernoult held approximately 500 American prisoners at Detroit.
• 1781: British Major Patrick Sinclair buys Mackinac Island from the Ojibwe for 12 canoes of merchandise, and moves Fort Michilimackinac to the island, and burns the remainder. The new limestone Fort Mackinac was never attacked by the Americans during the war.
• 1783: On September 3rd, under the Treaty of Paris, Michigan becomes part the United States. The treaty established the American-Canadian border in the middle of four Great Lakes. Major Ephraim Douglass enters Detroit on July 4th. However, the British refuse to surrender the forts in Detroit and Mackinac Island.
• 1783-1796: Detroit remained British (part of Upper Canada) until Capt. Moses Porter raised American flag in 1796.

The following references are the foundation for the timeline. Several are primary with original materials created at the time of the event. This material provides firsthand information on the history, archaeology, and social sciences. Other references are secondary, created after the event from primary sources, and include analysis, interpretation, and synthesis of that information.