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Black people, in all of these eras, built churches, opened schools, started businesses, established institutions, made music, created art and other forms of culture, that helped to make Detroit a world-class city.
- 2014 Race Equity Report
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- 2014 Race Equity Report
- In The Shadows
- Mapping Detroit
- Market in Skins
- Where Did The Slaves Come from?
- The Denison Family
- Early Research
Fur trader John Askin owned eight of them. William Macomb, owner of Grosse Ile, had 26. Even John R. Williams, the first mayor of Detroit, is said to have engaged in the practice. It’s a little-known fact, but some of Detroit’s first families — the Woodwards, the Campaus, the Macombs, and others — were slaveholders. Historian/author Tiya Miles, a p...
Miles, a native Midwesterner, had always been interested in Detroit’s role in the abolitionist movement. The city was the last stop on the Underground Railroad before crossing the border into Canada. But when the scholar started researching the life of Michigan abolitionist Laura Smith Haviland, she uncovered a surprising truth. “When I came across...
Slavery in Detroit grew out of the bustling fur trade when the settlement was still under French control, Miles says. As trade ramped up along the busy river port, the power brokers needed a labor force – to grow and process food, handle fur, operate boats, maintain domestic spaces, and more. At this time, Native American slaves, local to the regio...
According to Miles, whose previous books address slavery in the American South, the earliest African American slaves to arrive in Detroit likely came as the property of French owners by way of Montreal. But even as the French lost control of Detroit to the British, the practice continued. Traveling from the Northeast and New York, the British often...
Through her research, Miles was able to trace the fascinating life stories and family sagas of some of the earliest slave families in Detroit. According to probate records detailed in the book, a family named Denison was owned by William Tucker, a farmer who’d earlier laid claim to Native American land. Tucker’s will specified that parents Peter an...
Miles began her research into Detroit’s dark history in 2012, working alongside two graduate students and four undergraduates via UROP. The team spent two years tracking and transcribing the records and documents that would come to shape the book’s content. In addition to The Dawn of Detroit,the researchers translated their findings into an interac...
Historians note that Africans in America were in the Michigan territory including the area that we now know as Detroit as early as the 16th century. Canadian historian Marcel Trudel found that both indigenous people and Africans were engaged in indentured servitude and forced enslavement in the territory for over a century.
Jan 30, 2012 · We are taking TELL ME MORE on the road to Detroit tomorrow, so we wanted to get in a Detroit state of mind with some music from Detroit's own singer-songwriter K'Jon.
Mar 8, 2017 · All Thornton and his wife Lucie Blackburn wanted was freedom when they came to Detroit in 1831. The African-American couple came to what was then still Michigan territory to escape the inhumane, but legal institution of slavery in Kentucky.
Jan 21, 2018 · In "The Dawn of Detroit," Tiya Miles, a professor at the University of Michigan, explores the deep roots of slavery in metro Detroit. Here's an excerpt.
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Nov 22, 2023 · The following discourse delves into the illustrious music scene of Detroit, tracking its historical origins, its iconic figures, the vibrant current landscape, notable venues and festivals, as well as the trajectory of its future in a rapidly changing digital era.
