What is the connection between the city of Cadillac in the Gironde and the famous American car brand?

“Sir of Cadillac”, Adventurer in Acadia

The name sounds good. Yes, but why this choice of Cadillac? If it has nothing to do with the bastide town of Enter-Dex-Mers, from which it did not originate, Tarnais has a tenuous connection with it. To create this new identity, he was probably inspired by his relationship with his father, a lawyer in the Parliament of Toulouse, Baron de Lamothe-Bardigues, a certain Sylvestre d’Esparbes de Lausanne de Gout. and, at that time, the lords of Cadillac (today Cadillac-sur-Geronne), Launay and Mouttet.

Tarnais set out to ensure success and social progress in New France. Trading in skins and alcohol, he traveled the length and breadth of Acadia for four years, extending his explorations to New England and New Holland. Returning to Paris in 1690, he managed to get himself appointed as an officer of the marines by the Minister of the Navy, the Count de Pontchartrain, then returned to Acadia. In 1694, he was appointed commander of all posts in the Pas d’en-Haute and left to take command at Fort Michilimackinac, which controlled all fur trade between Missouri, Mississippi, the Great Lakes and the ‘Ohio Valley’.

Founder of Pontchartrain, future Detroit, capital of American automobiles in the 20th century

During his multiple expeditions, he found a well-situated site on the shores of Lake Michigan and established Fort Pontchartrain on July 24, 1701, on the north bank of the Detroit River. Anton de Lamothe Cadillac, however, would end his life in the Southwest. Returning to France in 1717, after being governor of Louisiana, he settled with his family in La Rochelle. Imprisoned in Paris with his son for “making indecent speeches against the state government and colonies”, after his release, Cadillac received the Cross of Saint-Louis as a reward for his thirty years of loyal service in America. When he died, aged 72, in 1730, near his native village of Castelsarrasin, where he had been appointed governor, he left behind thirteen children, six girls and seven boys.

Antoine de Lamothe Cadillac’s life was a novel, of course, begun and completed in the south-west, but it will not escape you that it still has nothing to do with the Gironde city of Entre-d’Aux-Sies. None more so than the legendary American automobile brand of the same name. Be patient, we’re almost there.

General Motors, sponsor of the Cadillac Castle restoration

Founded by Antoine de Lamothe Cadillac and renamed “Detroit”, ideally located between the great lakes and river basins, it would prove strategic in becoming a major industrial center in the 19th century, then in the 20th century, as the automobile capital.

In 1902, Detroit celebrated its bicentennial. Henry M. Leland then decided to pay tribute to the Tarn adventurer by naming his automobile company after him and using his coat of arms as his emblem. William Crapo Durant, founder of General Motors, purchased the Cadillac brand in 1909 and integrated it into his firm to form its luxury car division.

Almost half a century later, in 1952, the infamous women’s prison established since the 19th century in the ducal castle of Cadillac in the Gironde was subject to administrative closure. Following a fire in 1928, the building was heavily damaged, losing its grand appearance and in danger of destruction. The “Association for the Development of Château de Cadillac” was then created. Affected; Undoubtedly, the directors of General Motors would be the first supporters of its restoration in 1953, named after the former stately residence of the Dukes of Apernon.