Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac

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Statue of Cadillac commemorating his landing, in Detroit's Hart Plaza

Antoine Laumet, dit de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac (March 5 1658 – October 15 1730), a French explorer, was a colourful figure in the history of New France. The self-styled Lamothe-Cadillac was the son of one Jean Laumet, an assistant magistrate in the local court. His mother, a modest home-maker, was born Jeanne Pechagut.

Born at Les Laumets in the hamlet of Saint-Nicolas-de-la-Grave, in Gascony, he was educated in a military school. He joined the army where he was a cadet in the regiment of Dampierre-Lorraine, and in 1677 became a lieutenant in the regiment of Clairembault. He arrived in 1683 at Port-Royal, Acadia, where Governor Frontenac made him a lieutenant and later a captain.

Hardly had he disembarked than he changed his name and began calling himself "Lamothe", which was the name of a nobleman of his home region (de Lamothe-Bardigues) who was a counselor to the parliament in Toulouse. He also borrowed the latter's coat of arms that he had seen on the gates of the Bardigues estate near St. Nicolas. It is a variation on that coat of arms that has graced the Cadillac automobile for close to 100 years.

On June 25, 1687, in Quebec (which was New France at that time), he married Marie-Thérèse Guyon, niece of French-Canadian privateer, Denis Guyon. It is rumored that they met at the Governor's ball at Quebec's Château St. Louis and that Cadillac worked for her uncle as a navigator. He signed the marriage license de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac. The style "sieur" is derived from the French formal address "monsieur," and equates to the English title "sir"; it is roughly equivalent to a title between "gentleman" and "lord." It is believed that the name Cadillac is a reference to a hamlet near the town of Montech, not far from Laumet's birthplace, or perhaps the wine-producing Cadillac, seat of the Ducs d'Épernon, which is also close to Gascony. The couple had between 7 and 13 children.

In 1688, Cadillac requested and received from the Governor of New France a parcel of land in an area known as Donaquec which included part of the Donaquec River (now the Union River) and the island of Mount Desert in the present-day U.S. state of Maine. Cadillac then referred to himself as Antoine de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac, Donaquec and Mount Desert. In 1689, he went to France to consult on the war effort against New England.

He moved with his family to Quebec City in 1691 and was commissioned in the Troupes de la Marine. In 1694 he was named commander of Fort Michilimackinac in Michigan, where he stayed until 1697. After troops were withdrawn from Michilimackinac, he convinced the comte de Pontchartrain to found a colony at Detroit, which he commanded 1701-1710.

He arrived at Deroit on July 24, 1701 with his group in 75 canoes. He immediately ordered a fort to be constructed, enclosing an area of about an acre behind a 12 foot high picket fence. The first building completed was the Catholic church. Originally, the settlement was called "les Etroits" (the narrows) and Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit. Cadillac's wife along with the wife of his lieutenant, Alphonse de Tonty arrived in spring the next year. Cadillac's tenure at Detroit was marked with conflict with officials in Paris and Quebec, struggles for control of trading rights and property and even one conflict with a local Native tribe. He even found himself in conflict with the Jesuits who were sent to set up an Indian mission at Detroit in 1701. Cadillac's hostility forced Father François Vaillant de Gueslis to abandon his mission after a few months and return to Montreal.

Cadillac was frequently absent from the fort to defend his rights back east. He was finally removed from that post when it became apparent he was using it for his own gain. Charles Regnault, Sieur du Buisson became the new fort commandant.[link]

The same year, 1710, he was named governor of Louisiana. Cadillac returned to France in June, 1717, where he was briefly imprisoned in the Bastille for speaking against John Law who represented French investors in a scheme to settle the Mississippi River valley, but was released without a trial. In August 1722, Cadillac was granted the position of governor of Castelsarrasin. He died there in 1730. His former house is in Montréal; it is now converted into a McDonald's restaurant. In 1972, the city of Detroit gave money to the city of Saint-Nicolas-de-la-Grave to purchase and preserve his birthplace.

Cadillac's name lives on in General Motors' luxury Cadillac automotive line, the town of Cadillac, Michigan, and in Cadillac Mountain on Mount Desert Island in Maine.

External links

• [Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online]
• [A detailed history of Antoine Laumet]
• [Catholic Encyclopedia article]