Who was the founder of Detroit

Detroit, meaning strait in French, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Wayne County. Detroit is a major port city located north of Windsor, Ontario, on the Detroit River, in the Midwest region of the United States. It was founded in 1701 by the Frenchman Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac.

It is known as the world's traditional automotive center—"Detroit" is a metonym for the United States automobile industry—and an important source of popular music, legacies celebrated by the city's two familiar nicknames, Motor City and Motown. Other nicknames emerged in the twentieth century, including Rock City, Arsenal of Democracy during World War II, The D, D-Town, Hockeytown, and The 3-1-3 its area code.

At its peak, the city was the 4th largest city in the country, but has steadily declined in population since the 1960s.

The city name comes from the Detroit River (in French le détroit du Lac Erie), meaning "the strait of Lake Erie," linking Lake Huron and Lake Erie, in the historical context the strait included Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River. Traveling up the Detroit River on the ship Le Griffon (owned by La Salle), Father Louis Hennepin noted the north bank of the river as an ideal location for a settlement. There, in 1701, the French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded a settlement called Fort Détroit, naming it after the comte de Pontchartrain, Minister of Marine under Louis XIV. Francois Marie Picoté, sieur de Belestre (Montreal 1719–1793) was the last French military commander at Fort Detroit (1758–1760), surrendering the fort on November 29, 1760 to the British.

The first recorded mention of what became the city of Detroit in the U.S. state of Michigan was in 1670, when the French Sulpician missionaries François Dollier de Casson and René Bréhant de Galinée stopped at the site on their way to the mission at Sault Ste. Marie Galínee's journal notes that near the site of present-day Detroit, they found a stone idol venerated by the Indians and destroyed the idol with an axe and dropped the pieces into the river.

European settlement of the area began when French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded a fort and settlement at a site, where the modern city currently stands, along the Detroit River in 1701. Originally the settlement was called Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit after the Comte de Pontchartrain, minister of marine under Louis XIV of France, and for the river that connects Lakes St. Clair and Erie. Francois Marie Picoté sieur de Belestre (Montreal 1719 - 1793) was the last French military commander at Fort Detroit (1758-1760), surrendering the fort on November 29, 1760 to British Major Robert Rogers (of Rogers' Rangers fame and sponsor of the Jonathan Carver expedition to St. Anthony Falls). The British gained control of the area in 1760 thwarted by an Indian attack three years later during Pontiac's Rebellion.