Eighteenth-century Detroit is often depicted as a fur-trading post in the historiography of the colonial Great Lakes, says historian Guillaume Teasdale, while in fact, hundreds of French families from the St. Lawrence valley settled in the Detroit River region during that time.

“As a result, Detroit developed into a thriving French colony that was connected to the western Great Lakes through the fur trade,” says Dr. Teasdale, a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Research on French Canadian Culture at the University of Ottawa.

He will explore this colonial presence, focusing on agricultural settlements established in the area between the 1730s and 1790s, in his free public lecture, “The French in the Detroit River Region, 18th-19th Century,” at 3 p.m. Thursday, November 17, in room G125, Chrysler Hall North.

Teasdale will join the UWindsor history faculty in the Winter 2012 term to teach a course on the Detroit River Region and the War of 1812.