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Michigan is a Midwestern state of the United States of America. It was named after Lake Michigan, whose name is a French adaptation of the Ojibwe term mishigami, meaning "large water" or "large lake". Michigan is the eighth most populous state in the United States. It has the longest freshwater shoreline in the world, bounded by four of the five Great Lakes, plus Lake Saint Clair.[1] In 2005, Michigan ranked third for the number of registered recreational boats, behind California and Florida.[2] Michigan has 12,000 inland lakes. A person is never more than six miles (10 km) from a natural water source, or more than 87.2 miles (137 km) from Great Lakes coastline. The state is the only state to consist entirely of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula of Michigan, to which the name Michigan was originally applied, is sometimes dubbed "the mitten," owing to its shape. When asked where in Michigan one comes from, a resident of the Lower Peninsula may often point to the corresponding part of his or her hand. The Upper Peninsula (often referred to as The U.P.) is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile (8 km)-wide channel that joins Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. The Upper Peninsula (whose residents are often called "Yoopers") is economically important for tourism and natural resources. The Upper and Lower Peninsulas are connected by the five-mile (8 km)-long Mackinac Bridge, which is the third longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the world.[3] The bridge has given rise to the nickname of "trolls" for residents of the Lower Peninsula, because they live "under" (south of) the bridge.
History
Michigan was home to various Native Americans centuries before colonization by Europeans. When the first European explorers arrived, the most populous and influential tribes were Algonquian peoples—specifically, the Ottawa, the Anishnabe (called "Chippewa" in French, after their language, "Ojibwe"), and the Potawatomi. The Anishnabe, whose numbers are estimated to have been between 25,000 and 35,000, were the most populous. Although the Anishnabe were well-established in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Peninsula, they also inhabited northern Ontario, northern Wisconsin, southern Manitoba, and northern and north-central Minnesota. The Ottawa lived primarily south of the Straits of Mackinac in northern and western Michigan, while the Potawatomi were primarily in the southwest. The three nations co-existed peacefully as part of a loose confederation called the Council of Three Fires. Other First Nations people in Michigan, in the south and east, were the Mascouten, the Menominee, the Miami, and the Wyandot, who are better known by their French name, "Huron". 17th centuryFrench voyageurs explored and settled in Michigan in the 17th century. The first Europeans to reach what later became Michigan were those of Étienne Brûlé's expedition in 1622. The first European settlement was made in 1641 on the site where Father (Père, in French) Jacques Marquette established Sault Sainte-Marie in 1668. Saint Ignace was founded in 1671 and Marquette in 1675. Together with Sault Sainte-Marie, they are the three oldest cities in Michigan. "The Soo" (Sault Ste. Marie) has the distinction of being the oldest city in both Michigan and Ontario. It was split into two cities in 1818, a year after the U.S.-Canada boundary in the Great Lakes was finally established by the U.S.-U.K. Joint Border Commission. In 1679, Lord La Salle of France directed the construction of the Griffin, the first European sailing vessel on the upper Great Lakes. That same year, La Salle built Fort Miami at present-day St. Joseph. 18th centuryIn 1701 French explorer and army officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Le Fort Ponchartrain du Détroit or "Fort Ponchartrain on-the-Strait" on the strait between Lakes St. Clair and Erie, known as the Detroit River. Cadillac had convinced King Louis XIV's chief minister, Louis Phélypeaux, Comte de Pontchartrain, that a permanent community there would strengthen French control over the upper Great Lakes and repel British aspirations. The hundred soldiers and workers who accompanied Cadillac built a fort enclosing one arpent (about .85 acre, the equivalent of just under per side) and named it Fort Pontchartrain. Cadillac's wife, Marie Thérèse, soon moved to Detroit, becoming one of the first white women to settle in the Michigan wilderness. The town quickly became a major fur-trading and shipping post. The "Église de Saint-Anne" (Church of Saint Ann) was founded the same year. While the original building does not survive, the congregation of that name continues to be active today. At the same time, the French strengthened Fort Michilimackinac at the Straits of Mackinac to better control their lucrative fur-trading empire. By the mid-eighteenth century, the French also occupied forts at present-day Niles and Sault Ste. Marie, though most of the rest of the region remained unsettled by whites. From 1660 to the end of French rule, Michigan was part of the Royal Province of New France. In 1759, following the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, in the French and Indian War (1754–1763), Québec City fell to British forces. Under the 1763 Treaty of Paris, Michigan and the rest of New France passed to Great Britain. During the American Revolutionary War, Detroit was an important British supply center, but most of the inhabitants were either Native Americans or French-Canadians. Because of imprecise cartography and unclear language defining the boundaries in the 1763 Treaty of Paris, the British retained control of Detroit and Michigan. When Quebec was split into Lower and Upper Canada in 1790, Michigan was part of Kent County, Upper Canada. It held its first democratic elections in August 1792 to send delegates to the new provincial parliament at Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake). Under terms negotiated in the 1794 Jay Treaty, Britain withdrew from Detroit and Michilimackinac in 1796. Questions remained over the boundary for many years, and the United States did not have uncontested control of the Upper Peninsula and Drummond Island until 1818 and 1847, respectively. 19th centuryDuring the War of 1812, Michigan Territory (effectively consisting of Detroit and the surrounding area) was captured by the British and nominally returned to Upper Canada. American forces forced the British out in 1813 and pushed into Canada. The Treaty of Ghent implemented the policy of "Status Quo Ante Bellum" or "Just as Things Were Before the War." That meant Michigan stayed American, and the agreement to establish a joint U.S.-UK boundary commission also remained valid. Subsequent to the findings of that commission in 1817, control of the Upper Peninsula and of islands in the St. Clair River delta was transferred from Ontario to Michigan in 1818. Mackinac Island (to which the British had moved their Michilimackinac army base) was transferred to the U.S. in 1847. The population grew slowly until the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. This brought a large influx of settlers to Michigan because it made transportation by ships through the Great Lakes possible. By the 1830s, Michigan had some 80,000 residents, which were more than enough to apply for statehood. In 1836 a state government was formed, although Congressional recognition of the state was delayed pending resolution of a boundary dispute with Ohio. Both states claimed a 468-square-mile (1,210 km²) strip of land that included the newly incorporated city of Toledo on Lake Erie and an area to the west then known as the "Great Black Swamp." The dispute came to be called the Toledo War. Michigan and Ohio militia maneuvered in the area but never exchanged fire. Congress awarded the "Toledo Strip" to Ohio. Michigan received the western part of the Upper Peninsula as a concession and formally entered the Union on January 26, 1837. Thought to be nearly valueless, the Upper Peninsula was discovered to be a rich and important source of lumber, iron, and copper. These became the state's most sought-after natural resources and generated early wealth. Geologist Douglass Houghton and land surveyor William Austin Burt were among the first to document many of these resources. Developers rushed to the state. Michigan led the nation in lumber production from 1850s to the 1880s. The lumber harvested in Michigan was shipped to the rapidly developing prairie states, Chicago, to the eastern states, and even all of the way to Europe. The first official meeting of the Republican Party took place July 6, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan, where the party adopted its platform. Michigan made a significant contribution to the Union in the American Civil War and sent more than forty regiments of volunteers to the Federal armies. 20th century to presentMichigan's economy underwent a massive change at the turn of the 20th century. The birth of the automotive industry, with Henry Ford's first plant in Highland Park, marked the beginning of a new era in transportation. Like the steamship and railroad, it was a far-reaching development. More than the forms of public transportation, the automobile transformed private life. It became the major industry of Detroit and Michigan, and permanently altered the socio-economic life of the United States and much of the world. Grand Rapids, the second-largest city in Michigan, is also a center of automotive manufacturing. Since 1838, the city had also been noted for its thriving furniture industry. Started because of ready sources of lumber, the furniture industry declined in the late 20th century.
Detroit boomed through the 1950s, at one point doubling its population in a decade. After the 1950s, Detroit's population began to shift to its suburbs, accelerating after racial strife in the 1960s and high crime rates in the 1970s and 1980s. Michigan is the leading auto producing state in the U.S even though some of the industry has shifted to less expensive labor overseas and in the Southern United States. Nevertheless, with more than ten million residents, Michigan continues to grow and remains a large and influential state, ranking eighth in population among the fifty states. The Metro Detroit in the southeast corner of the state is the largest metropolitan area in Michigan (roughly 50% of the population resides there) and one of the ten largest metropolitan areas in the country. The Grand Rapids/Holland/Muskegon metropolitan area on the west side of the state is the fastest growing metro area in the state presently, with over 1.3 million residents as of 2006. Metro Detroit's population is growing, and Detroit's population is still shrinking, though strong redevelopment in central part of the cities and a significant rise in population in the outskirts of the city are contributing to some population inflow. A period of economic transition, especially in manufacturing, has caused economic difficulties in the region since the recession of 2001. Timeline
Population History
Note: Michigan was part of the Northwest Territory established in 1787. When Indiana Territory was created in 1800 it included the west half of lower Michigan and nearly all of the Upper Peninsula, leaving the remainder of the present State in the Northwest Territory until 1802, when the eastern portion also became part of Indiana Territory. Michigan Territory was established in 1805, but nearly all the Upper Peninsula remained in Indiana or Illinois Territories. In 1818 Michigan Territory's boundaries were extended to include the rest of the Upper Peninsula and all of present-day Wisconsin and northeastern Minnesota. In 1834 the Territory was expanded still further to stretch to the Missouri River, including the rest of Minnesota, Iowa, and the eastern Dakotas. Michigan Territory included a northern strip of Indiana until 1816, and it also governed a narrow strip of what is now northwestern Ohio which was claimed by that State. This was ceded to Ohio in 1836, and Michigan was admitted as a State on January 26, 1837 with essentially its present boundaries. In 1790 the Northwest Territory had no census coverage. In 1800 coverage of the present State included only the Detroit area (Wayne County, Northwest Territory) and some persons at "Machilamackanack," Indiana Territory. Coverage in 1810, 1820, and 1830 expanded in the Lower Peninsula and included population in the strip that was ceded to Ohio in 1836. The 1820 and 1830 censuses also included some settlements in present-day Wisconsin, shown under that State. The 1840 census covered all parts of the State.. Total for 1800 comprises population reported for Wayne County, Northwest Territory (which may have included some persons in present-day northern Ohio), and for Machilamackanack, Indiana Territory (251 persons and 300 "boatmen from Canada, &c."). Total for 1820 excludes population (1,444) of Brown and Crawford Counties, and total for 1830 excludes population (3,635) of Brown, Crawford, and Iowa Counties, all enumerated in what is now Wisconsin. Total for 1890 includes 1 Indian in prison, not reported by county. Research Tips
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