It was for this reason that the frontiersmen grew to regard as
essential to their well-being the possession of the lake posts; so that
it became with them a prime object to wrest from the British, whether by
force of arms or by diplomacy, the forts they held at Niagara, Detroit,
and Michilimakinac. Detroit was the most important, for it served as the
headquarters of the western Indians, who formed for the time being the
chief bar to American advance. The British held the posts with a strong
grip, in the interest of their traders and merchants. To them the land
derived its chief importance from the fur trade. This was extremely
valuable, and, as it steadily increased in extent and importance, the
consequence of Detroit, the fitting-out town for the fur traders, grew
in like measure. It was the centre of a population of several thousand
Canadians, who lived by the chase and by the rude cultivation of their
long, narrow farms; and it was held by a garrison of three or four
hundred British regulars, with auxiliary bands of American loyalist and
French Canadian rangers, and, above all, with a formidable but
fluctuating reserve force of Indian allies. [Footnote: Haldimand Papers,
1784, 5, 6.
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