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Michigan Chapter Six Cadillac as Feudal Lord
His enemies have charged him with being grasping and avaricious and with exacting the last sou from his vassals. But the facts fail to bear out this accusation. He was under large expense. One of the conditions of his grant by the king was that he should not call upon the royal treasury for assistance. At the outset the Company were to have the exclusive rights of trade at Detroit, and this hampered him until the arrangement was made whereby the Company after three or four years surrendered to him these privileges. In 1704 Cadillac was given permission to make conveyances of lands included in his grant to actual settlers. Doubtless some of these lands had been already occupied by peasants with the authority of their fief and improvements had been begun. These conveyances were under the established feudal system which required an annual payment usually specified in the document, both as to amount and nature of payment. The farm lands
granted were mostly above the fort, extending up the river beyond the present city line. They were of the usual ribbon kind universal in New France, generally three or four arpents* in front by forty in depth. This arrangement gave each farmer a front on the river where he might fish and obtain his water supply, while behind were his orchards, his meadows and fields of grain, and still further back, before the mile-and-a-half limit was reached, were forests for timber and firewood. The dwellings were always placed near the river front, and since the tracts were narrow, it follows that the houses were comparatively close together, which was an advantage for protection from the Indians and for social neighborliness. So long as the habitant brought in on St. Martin's day his annual dues and contributions of chickens and produce or peltries, and showed that he was improving his lands, his title was perfect and his seignior could not oust him. But when he neglected this he forfeited all rights. There is evidence that Cadillac assigned the same lands to different persons at different times, and presumably for the reason that these had been forfeited in the manner stated. Cadillac owned the mill and the warehouse
Michigan
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