page_title: Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: US stamp honoring the Cadillac exploration
context_page_description: 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.
  His knowledge of the coasts of New England and the Great Lakes area was appreciated by Frontenac, governor of New France, and Pontchartrain, Secretary of State for the Navy. This earned him various favors, including the Order of Saint Louis from King Louis XIV. The Jesuits in Canada, however, accused him of perverting the Indians with his alcohol trading, and he was imprisoned for a few months in Quebec in 1704, and again in the Bastille on his return to France in 1717.
context_section_description: Some of Antoine de Lamothe-Cadillac's far-reaching visions were developed after he had left New France. For instance, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville founded the city of New Orleans, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, in 1718, and it became a major port and city of New France.
    
  The straits became a strategic location. Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit enjoyed an ideal location between the Great Lakes and the river basins. The fort would be succeeded by Fort Detroit and Fort Wayne and by Fort Amherstburg and Fort Malden on the opposite shore.
  The car brand Cadillac was named after him, and its headquarters was in Detroit, where Cadillac himself explored.
  Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac was honored with a 3-cent stamp on July 24, 1951, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of his landing at Detroit in 1701. The stamp's background design depicts Detroit's skyline as it appeared in 1951 and the foreground shows Cadillac's landing at Detroit in 1701.
  On April 20, 2016, the public French high school in Windsor, Ontario, was renamed in Cadillac's honour.
  On the green line of the Montreal Metro, Cadillac is named in honor of him.
caption: United States postage stamp commemorating Cadillac's landing at Detroit
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