The Frontier Underground Railroad

In 1701 the French fortified their fur trading enterprise in the Great Lakes basin by establishing an outpost on the bank of a narrow strait of river between Lakes Huron and Erie.  This encroachment into Native territory would precipitate conflicts in the Detroit River region for the next century.  Political stability would not be achieved in the region until the truce ending the War of 1812.  In its first century of European occupation, the Detroit River frontier was a zone of multi-national contact and contest that would shape the lives of people on the frontier in divergent and unpredictable ways.

Native peoples experienced a drastic reduction in their freedom, dominance and land possession on the frontier.  French and British settlers clashed to fill the vacuum they had created by suppressing Native peoples.  Native people, French and British settlers introduced African peoples into the Detroit River frontier.  Similarly, the fate of African people on the frontier diminished with each political succession.  From Native Detroit to French Detroit to British Detroit to American Detroit, the people with no land and no official political rights with which to bargain—African people—did what others on the frontier did.   African people exploited the border zone in myriad ways seeking the elusive goals of freedom and autonomy while British and Americans wrangled over sovereignty in the Detroit River borderland.

African peoples’ desire to obtain control of their lives prompted many to abandon their “masters,” cross the Detroit River and assume the role of free people.   These Detroit River crossings flowing in both directions were the earliest movements and the origins of what would later solidify into a route to freedom--an Underground Railroad for African Americans in the Detroit River border zone.