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MICHIGAN CHAPTER 13 Progress of the Colony Under the Improved
Conditions
As to the state of the colony at Detroit at the time, a census taken by Philip Dejean, a justice of the peace, September 22, 1773, throws some light. This shows two hundred and ninety-eight men, two hundred and twenty-five women; young men and women, ten to twenty years old, one hundred and forty-two, boys and girls from one to ten, five hundred and twenty-four; servants ninety-three; slaves, eighty-five; cattle, fourteen hundred and ninety-four; sheep, six hundred and twenty-eight; hogs, one thousand and sixty-seven; acres of land cultivated, two thousand six hundred and two; houses, two
hundred and eighty, barns, one hundred and fifty-seven. This gives a total population of one thousand three hundred and sixty-seven souls and includes the garrison of the fort which numbered less than a hundred. The presence of slaves will be noticed. A few were of African descent, but they were mainly Indian captives brought here from the west and south. Though they were originally of various tribes they went under the general name of Panis, or Pawnees. The title to these slaves as property was secured by the treaty of peace and the records show many conveyances of them from one owner to another. The situation with reference to this matter was not changed after the American possession, though the holding of human property gradually ceased as the old servants died off.
Lieutenant Governor Hamilton writing from Detroit in August 1776, says: "The Canadians are mostly so illiterate that few can read and very few can sign their own names. Till the surrender of the country to the English the breeding of sheep was not known here and horned cattle were very rare.
MICHIGAN
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