THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
%54. The Early French Possessions% on our continent may be arranged
in three great areas: 1. Acadia, 2. New France, 3. Louisiana, or the
basin of the Mississippi River.
ACADIA comprised what is now New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and a part of
Maine. It was settled in the early years of the seventeenth century at
Port Royal (now Annapolis, Nova Scotia), at Mount Desert Island, and on
the St. Croix River.
NEW FRANCE was the drainage basin of the St. Lawrence and the Great
Lakes. As far back as 1535 Jacques Cartier explored the St. Lawrence
River to the site of Montreal. But it was not till 1608 that a party
under Champlain made the first permanent settlement on the river,
at Quebec.
The French settlers at once entered into an alliance with the Huron and
Algonquin Indians, who lived along the St. Lawrence River. But these
tribes were the bitter enemies of the Iroquois, who dwelt in what is now
central New York, and when, in consequence of this alliance, the French
were summoned to take the warpath, Champlain, with a few followers,
went, and on the shore of the lake which now bears his name, not far
from the site of Ticonderoga, he met and defeated the Iroquois tribe of
Mohawks in July, 1609.
The battle was a small affair; but its consequences were serious and
lasting, for the Iroquois were thenceforth the enemies of the French,
and prevented them from ever coming southward and taking possession of
the Hudson and the Mohawk valleys. When, therefore, the French
merchants began to engage in the fur trade with the Indians, and the
French priests began their efforts to convert the Indians to
Christianity, they were forced to go westward further and further into
the interior.
[Illustration: EUROPEAN CLAIMS AND EXPLORATIONS 1650]
Their route, instead of being up the St. Lawrence, was up the Ottawa
River to its head waters, over the portage to Lake Nipissing, and down
its outlet to Georgian Bay, where the waters of the Great Lakes lay
before them (see map on p. 63). They explored these lakes, dotted their
shores here and there with mission and fur-trading stations, and took
possession of the country.
%55. The French on the Mississippi.%--In the course of these
explorations the French heard accounts from the Indians of a great
river to the westward, and in 1672 Father Marquette (mar-ket') and Louis
Joliet (zho-le-a') were sent by the governor of New France to search for
it. They set out, in May, 1673, from Michilimackinac, a French trading
post and mission at the foot of Lake Michigan. With five companions, in
two birch-bark canoes, they paddled up the lake to Green Bay, entered
Fox River, and, dragging the boats through its boiling rapids, came to a
village where lived the Miamis and the Kickapoos. These Indians tried to
dissuade them from going on; but Marquette was resolute, and on the 10th
of June, 1673, he led his followers over the swamps and marshes that
separated Fox River from a river which the Indian guides assured him
flowed into the Mississippi. This westward-flowing river he called the
Wisconsin, and there the guides left him, as he says, "alone, amid that
unknown country, in the hands of God."
The little band shoved their canoes boldly out upon the river, and for
seven days floated slowly downward into the unknown. At last, on the
17th of June, they paddled out on the bosom of the Mississippi, and,
turning their canoes to the south, followed the bends and twists of the
river, past the mouth of the Missouri, past the Ohio, to a point not far
from the mouth of the Arkansas. There the voyage ended, and the party
went slowly back to the Lakes.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read Parkman's _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great
West_.]
%56. La Salle finishes the Work of Marquette and Joliet.%--The
discovery of Marquette and Joliet was the greatest of the age. Yet five
years went by before Robert de la Salle (lah sahl') set forth with
authority from the French King "to labor at the discovery of the western
part of New France," and began the attempt to follow the river to the
sea. In 1678 La Salle and his companions left Canada, and made their way
to the shore of Lake Erie, where during the winter they built and
launched the _Griffin_, the first ship that ever floated on those
waters. In this they sailed to the mouth of Green Bay, and from there
pushed on to the Illinois River, to an Indian camp not far from the
site of Peoria, Ill. Just below this camp La Salle built Fort Crèvecoeur
(cra'v-ker, a word meaning heart-break, vexation).
[Illustration: %FRENCH CLAIMS% MISSIONS AND TRADING POSTS IN
MISSISSIPPI VALLEY %in 1700%]
Leaving the party there in charge of Henri de Tonty to construct another
ship, he with five companions went back to Canada. On his return he
found that Fort Crèvecoeur was in ruins, and that Tonty and the few men
who had been faithful were gone, he knew not where. In the hope of
meeting them he pushed on down the Illinois to the Mississippi. To go on
would have been easy, but he turned back to find Tonty, and passed the
winter on the St. Joseph River.
From there in November, 1681, he once more set forth, crossed the lake
to the place where Chicago now is, went up the Chicago River and over
the portage to the Illinois, and early in February floated out on the
Mississippi. It was, on that day, a surging torrent full of trees and
floating ice; but the explorers kept on their way and came at last to
the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. There La Salle took formal possession
of all the regions drained by the Mississippi, the Ohio, and their
tributaries, claiming them in the name of France, and naming the country
thus claimed "Louisiana." The iron will, the splendid courage, of La
Salle had triumphed over every obstacle and made him one of the grandest
characters in history.
But his work was far from ended. The valley he had explored, the
territory he had added to France, must be occupied, and to occupy it two
things were necessary: 1. A colony must be planted at the mouth of the
Mississippi, to control its navigation and shut out the Spaniards. 2. A
strong fort must be built on the Illinois, to overawe the Indians.
In order to overawe the Indians, La Salle now hurried back to the
Illinois River, where, in December, 1682, near the present town of
Ottawa, on the summit of a cliff now known as "Starved Rock," he built a
stockade which he called Fort St. Louis. In 1684, while on a voyage from
France to plant a colony on the Mississippi, he missed the mouth and
brought up on the coast of Texas; and, landing on the sands of
Matagorda Bay, the colonists built another Fort St. Louis. But death
rapidly reduced their numbers, and, in their distress, they parted. Some
remained at the fort and were killed by the Indians. Others, led by La
Salle, started for the Illinois River and reached it; but without their
leader, whom they had murdered on the way.
SUMMARY
1. After the settlement of Quebec (1608) the French began to explore the
regions lying to the west, discovered the Great Lakes, and heard of a
great river--the Mississippi.
2. This river Marquette and Joliet explored from the mouth of the
Wisconsin to the mouth of the Arkansas (1673).
3. Then La Salle floated down the Mississippi from the Illinois to the
Gulf of Mexico, took formal possession of the valley in the name of his
King, and called it Louisiana (1682).
[Illustration: Starved Rock]