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MICHIGAN AS A PROVINCE 1 - 5
The Company of the Hundred Associates having tired of its responsibilities and being reduced in numbers to forty, surrendered its rights in 1664 and the king included New France in the concession which he had previously made of the French colonies in favor of the Company of the West Indies, the king still to name the governor and all other officers. The Marquis de Tracy was sent over to formally instal the new company in its Canadian possession, which included all the rights which the Hundred Associates had enjoyed. Fresh troops were despatched and new colonists were encbur-aged to become permanent settlers. Then for the first time attention was given to the matter of increasing the commerce of the country by consideration of its natural resources. Many who had come over as soldiers, when their terms of enlistment expired, remained and settled in the country. Many officers obtained lands with the rights of seignors, married and reared families whose descendants are still found here.
The land was seen to be very fertile when cleared. By 1680 the total population had incresed to 8, 515, not including Acadia. Nine years later a census showed 11, 249, a substantial growth for so short a period.
ALLUSION has been already made to the fact that in 1671 St. Lusson set up th'e arms of France with imposing ceremonies at Sault Ste Marie. He was evidently inspired to this by the fact that adventurers in the interest of the English had been exploring the country and there seemed to be danger that foreign claims to the country might intervene. Therefore he thought it wise to impress on the minds of the savages the great power and dignity of the king of France as the sovereign of all this vast domain. More than thirty years before a mission had been established there by Fathers Jogues and Raymbault, but it was short-lived. Later came Dablon, Allouez and Marquette. Though a chapel and a stockade were built and land was cleared and crops were raised by the servants of the mission, the little settlement was too much disturbed by the raids of hostile savages to flourish. In 1668 a small settlement of Europeans was found here.
MICHIGAN
Page 52
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