Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac

Antoine de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, born Antoine Laumet, was a French explorer and adventurer in New France which stretched from Eastern Canada to Louisiana on the Gulf of Mexico. He rose from a modest beginning in Acadia in 1683 as an explorer, trapper, and a trader of alcohol and furs, and he achieved various positions of political importance in the colony. He was the commander of Fort de Buade in St. Ignace, Michigan, in 1694. In 1701, he founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit ; he was commandant of the fort until 1710. Between 1710 and 1716, he was the governor of Louisiana, although he did not arrive in that territory until 1713.