“The Detroit River frontier, which encapsulates the present Detroit are and the counties of Essex and Kent in Ontario, was also a centre of French habitation and hence slavery. Black slavery in the Detroit River district began when the fur trader and explorer Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac traveled to the region and in 1701 founded Detroit. Cadillac had brought with him several dozen slaves, both Panis and Africans, from Montreal to build a fort at Detroit for the purposes of the fur trade. Among Cadillac’s party were potential settlers and colonists. So while the fur traders roamed the Michigan/Ohio countryside, colonists settled on both banks of the Detroit River with their African slaves. These servants for life thus became part of the settlement process and development of the Detroit River district. Black slaves also worked in the fur trade with their owners. Of course, enslaved Native people also made the French colonization of the Detroit River district possible. Acadia (parts of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island), though not defined administratively as a part of le Canada, was also a French colony in which enslaved Africans lived, worked, and died.” -From, “The Hanging of Angelique” By: Afua Cooper