He rose from a modest beginning in Acadia in 1683 as an explorer, trapper, and a trader of alcohol and furs, achieving various positions of political importance in the colony.

[1] 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.

The Jesuits in Canada, however, accused him of perverting the Native Americans 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.

"[4] Cadillac was born Antoine Laumet on March 5, 1658, in the small town of Saint-Nicolas-de-la-Grave in the province of Gascony (today in the Tarn-et-Garonne, Occitanie).

La Mothe's adult correspondence reveals that his youth included rigorous study at a Jesuit institution where he learned theology, the law, agriculture, botany and zoology.

[6] In a record of service he filled out in 1675, he said that he had enlisted in the military as a cadet at the age of 17 in the Dampierre regiment, in Charleroi, nowadays Belgium.

Laumet may have immigrated illegally, as historians have not found his name on any passenger list of ships departing from a French port.

He knew him for at least two reasons: Bardigues, Cadillac, Launay and Le Moutet are villages and localities close to his birthplace, Saint-Nicolas-de-la-Grave, and Antoine's father Jean Laumet was a lawyer in the Parliament of Toulouse.

Laumet created a new name, identity and noble origin, while protecting himself from possible recognition by persons who knew him in France.

In addition, he presented his own titles of nobility, as illustrated by armorial bearings that he appropriated, in a slightly altered form, from Sylvestre d'Esparbes de Lussan, which would later become known as the logo of Cadillac.

(1702), Marie-Thérèse (1704), Marie-Agathe (December 1707) and Joseph (1690), Antoine (1692), Jacques (1695), Pierre-Denis (1699–1700), Jean-Antoine (January 1707 – 1709), François (1709), René-Louis (1710–1714).

Lamothe entered into a trading partnership with officers of Port Royal, an activity facilitated by using a ship owned by his brothers-in-law Guyon.

Upon his return, he asked the governor of Acadia, Louis-Alexandre des Friches de Méneval, for a job as notary, to bring in a minimum income; his request was turned down.

On his return to Port Royal, LaMothe learned that the English admiral William Phips had seized the city, and that his wife, daughter, and son were being held captives.

He was sent with the cartographer Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin to draw charts of the New England coastline in preparation for a French attack on the English colonies.

He left France at the peak of his career to take up his command of Fort de Buade or Michilimackinac, which controlled all fur trading between Missouri, Mississippi, the Great Lakes, and the Ohio valley.

In Michilimackinac, he came into conflict with the Jesuit fathers, such as Étienne de Carheil, who accused him of supplying alcohol to the Native Americans.

In 1697, he was authorized to return to France to present his project of a new fort on the strait to the Secretary of State Pontchartrain; Frontenac requested that he be promoted to lieutenant commander.

[6] On July 24, 1701, Antoine de La Mothe-Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain and the parish of Sainte-Anne on the straits ("le détroit " in French).

In 1702, Cadillac went back to Quebec to request the monopoly of all fur-trading activities and the transfer to his authority of the American tribes in the area of the straits.

[citation needed] Two years later, Cadillac was charged with multiple counts of abuse of authority; Pontchartrain appointed a representative, Daigremont, to investigate.

In 1710, the king named Cadillac governor of La Louisiane, the expansive Louisiana (New France) territory, and ordered him to take up his duties immediately, traveling via the Mississippi River.

[11] In June 1713, the Cadillac family arrived at Fort Louis, Louisiana (now Mobile, Alabama), after a tiring crossing.

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.

[14] During the first decade of the 20th century, a street in the Guybourg area in Longue-Pointe (now Mercier) on the island of Montreal was named in honour of Cadillac.