Viper’s Nest: Michigan in the American Revolution, 1775-1783 - America250

America 250 presentation streamed live by the Library of Michigan, viewed locally in the Michigan Room.

Though several hundred miles removed from Lexington, Concord, Yorktown, and other major flashpoints of the Revolutionary War, settlers from Detroit and Mackinac, along with Indigenous peoples from Michigan’s Anishinaabeg and Wyandotte nations, were intimately involved in the conflict that birthed the United States. Detroit and Mackinac served as staging grounds for British and Indigenous raids against American settlers in Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, while Anishinaabe warriors from northern Michigan defended Quebec during Benedict Arnold’s 1775 invasion of Canada. In response, the Continental Army planned several military campaigns to capture Detroit, none of which came to fruition. Rumors swirled of American troops on Lake Michigan and of French settlers’ sympathy for the Revolution, alarming the British and Indigenous nations. Famed frontiersman Daniel Boone and other Patriots first saw Detroit through the barred windows of “Yankee Hall,” a British prison for American soldiers and captives. This presentation will bring these and other Revolutionary War stories to light, showing how Michigan and its people both influenced and were transformed by the conflict.

Guest Speaker: Jonathan Quint