LA SALLE AND THE GREATER NEW FRANCE.
“The fertile plains of Texas, the vast basin of the Mississippi
from its frozen springs to the sultry borders of the gulf; from
the wooded ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks of the
Rocky Mountains,—a region of savannas and forests, sun-cracked
deserts and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers,
ranged by a thousand warlike tribes.”
—PARKMAN.
LA SALLE AND THE GREATER NEW FRANCE.
With the exception of Champlain, the most romantic figure in the history
of New France is that of La Salle, the young adventurer from Rouen. He
landed at Quebec in 1666, the same year as Marquette, and went at once to
Montreal where he had relatives among the Sulpician order of priests, to
whom most of the island of Montreal belonged. Here he purchased from them
an estate or seigniory, as it was called. This was but a few miles west
of Montreal, and was called in derision by his friends “La Chine,” having
reference to La Salle’s dream of finding a road to China by following
westward.
In preparation for his explorations he settled down to acquaint himself
with the Indian languages, and hearing from some Seneca Indians that
there was a great river called the Ohio, which he thought might lead him
to the great Western Sea, he joined the expedition of Galinée and Father
Dollier, the Sulpician, who were setting out to establish a mission
in the Far West. With nine canoes and twenty-one men they skirted the
eastern and southern shores of Lake Ontario, and about the middle of
September reached the mouth of a river which Galinée describes: “We
discovered a river one-eighth of a league wide and extremely rapid.” The
Indians told them of a great cataract up this river which was “higher
than the highest pine trees,” and indeed he tells us he could hear the
roar. But they had a set purpose and pressed on their way, thus losing
the opportunity to be the first white men to visit the Falls of Niagara.
Indeed this is the first description of the river by any one who is known
to have reached it.
They passed on to Burlington Bay and leaving it about where Hamilton now
stands, they struck across the country, and on the 24th of September,
in an Indian village in what is known as the Beverley Swamp, near the
present city of Galt, they met Joliet returning from his search for the
copper mines on Lake Superior. La Salle was so attracted by Joliet, a
kindred adventurer in spirit, that he turned back and left Dollier and
Galinée to go on to the West, guided as to their course by the advice of
Joliet, who told them of the Pottawatomies, a tribe of Indians to whom no
missionary had yet come.
They went down the Grand River and as the season was so far advanced
they built a shelter on the lake shore near where Port Dover now stands,
erected a cross and took formal possession of the Lake Erie country in
the name of Louis the Magnificent.[10]
Here they spent the winter and are enthusiastic in their praise of the
mildness of the climate and the luscious autumn fruit. This is of great
interest to many of us who to-day look upon that county (Norfolk) as one
of the greatest fruit centres of the province of Ontario.
La Salle returned east, and we know that during the next few years he was
with Frontenac, and doubtless made many exploration trips. But in 1675
he received from the French Government a grant on Lake Ontario similar
to the seigniory at La Chine, and so at Cataraqui, where Kingston now
stands, he built a fort to control the trade coming east and to prevent
it from going to the English colony in New York. This he called “Fort
Frontenac.” He was raised to the nobility and was given a commission in
1678 to discover the “Western part of New France” and “to construct forts
in the places you may think necessary.” This meant that he would seek
out the mouth of the great Mississippi and erect a chain of forts which
would connect and hold for France the country from the mouth of the St.
Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi.
Here was the great chance for which this adventurous man had longed and
for which he had toiled, and so in November of that year he began to
gather men and material for the great project. He threw himself into this
work with energy and was backed up by Frontenac, whose policy had ever
been the extension of the boundaries of New France. Indeed, Frontenac had
advised the Home Government as early as 1673 that a fort at the mouth of
the Niagara River and a vessel on Lake Erie would enable the French to
command the Great Lakes. Like many other Home Governments when urged to
progressive measures, Colbert, the Colonial Minister, advised caution.[11]
When La Salle arrived from Rochelle with these wonderfully indefinite
powers these two men saw great possibilities and went to work at once.
Ship carpenters, blacksmiths, and other artisans were gathered at the
Niagara River, and while a fort was being built at the mouth of the river
to cut off the trade of the English, a store house was erected below the
Falls near where Lewiston now stands, and a shipyard was planned above
the Falls, where a large boat was to be built for the great western
expedition. This was the work of La Salle’s lieutenant, Henry Tonty. With
La Salle was a Récollet priest, Father Hennepin, and to him we owe our
first written account of Niagara Falls.
After many disappointments, the Griffon, named after Frontenac’s armorial
bearing, was launched, equipped, and set sail. Tonty rejoined La Salle
on board the Griffon at Detroit. He has an interest for us to-day in
that his name is preserved to us in the Tontine plan of insurance, which
was the invention of his father, a Neapolitan nobleman. And in a greater
sense this Henry Tonty was a nobleman, for through all his wandering and
discouragements La Salle found in him a sincere and trustworthy friend.
At Mackinac they were to meet with advance guards of traders sent on
by La Salle, but most of them had deserted. Gathering up a few whom he
thought would be loyal, La Salle made his way to the Illinois River,
where a fort was built and a boat begun by Tonty for exploration of the
great river. The Griffon was sent home from Green Bay, loaded with furs,
and there our knowledge of her ends.
In the meantime La Salle determined to return to Fort Frontenac to get
more material and more men to undertake the great journey. By canoe
and on foot they crossed Southern Michigan and passed over the Detroit
on a raft, thence on foot along the shores of Lake Erie (in the month
of March), and utterly worn out he, his faithful hunter, and two white
companions reached the Falls, only to hear heart-breaking news. He had
travelled more than a thousand miles in 65 days in the very worst season
of the year. There was no news of his ship—his fortune and his hope.
Deceived and even robbed by his men, in addition to all his other
disappointments, La Salle, undaunted and undismayed, sent Dautray, one
of the white men who had accompanied him, with four others, to reinforce
Tonty, and pushed on to Fort Frontenac. As if he had not already enough
bad news, just as he arrived at the Fort, messengers from Tonty told
him that the men who were building the vessel in the Illinois River had
stolen what they could and had deserted. These precious rascals, joined
by other deserters, must have been following close behind the messengers,
as we hear of them breaking into La Salle’s storehouse on the Niagara,
looting everything they could and setting out for the East. La Salle
heard of it, intercepted some of them, killed two, and took the rest
prisoners to Fort Frontenac.
But Tonty must be rescued and the exploration go on, so La Salle gathered
men and supplies and started for the West. With twelve men he went up the
Humber River, crossed to Lake Simcoe, and thence down the Severn River to
the Georgian Bay; the others with the heavier freight went by Niagara and
Lake Erie. They were to meet at Mackinac, but La Salle could not wait,
and hastened on with a foreboding that something awful may have happened
to Tonty at his Fort Crevecoeur (broken heart) in the Illinois country.
And when they arrived it was to see where once had been the chief town
of the Illinois, nothing but ashes, skulls, and mangled corpses. The
Iroquois had been there. Down the river he went looking for Tonty, even
into the Mississippi. Discouraged, they turned back to the St. Joseph
River and there at Fort Miami, where La Forest was in charge, they
settled down for the winter. In the meantime, Tonty, after trying in vain
to prevent the battle between the Iroquois and the Illinois, had escaped
and after weeks of suffering had reached Green Bay.
La Salle in the spring set out for Fort Frontenac to refit and went
by Michillimackinac. We can imagine his joy when he found Tonty, who
accompanied him to the East. By October they had arranged their affairs
and arrived at Fort Miami in November. Here they organized their
expedition of 18 Indians and 23 Frenchmen, and in Christmas week, 1681,
they set out. Across Lake Michigan to the Chicago River, thence portaging
to the north branch of the Illinois, they entered the Mississippi on
February 6th, but saw no human beings until March 13th, near the mouth
of the Arkansas River. Landing there La Salle raised the banner of
France, planted a cross, and took possession of the country in the name
of the King.
Thence down the river they went for three hundred miles to the Taensas
Indians, who lived in large square houses built of mud and straw with a
high roof of cane and surrounding a large open court. Soon they came to
the mouth or delta of the Mississippi, and going in different parties
down the channels they joined together on an island at the mouth, erected
a column, and took possession of all Louisiana from the mouth of the
Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico. And so from Lake Erie west and north to the
Rocky Mountains and the Canadian North West, and south from Lake Erie to
the Gulf, and west to the Rio Grande was added to the New France whose
capital was at the narrowing of the stream of the mighty St. Lawrence.
La Salle had realized his dream, and against obstacles which would have
staggered any ordinary man; and New France now extended from the Gulf
of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. They retraced their way up the
Mississippi and after a long illness he reached Mackinac, whither he had
sent Tonty to announce their success. It was too late to go to Quebec,
and there was a rumour that the Iroquois were on the warpath, so La Salle
and Tonty returned to the Illinois and spent the winter of 1682-3 in
fortifying Starved Rock, which was to be one of the chain of forts to
hold the new country.
But in the meantime Frontenac was recalled, the forward policy entirely
changed, and La Salle’s own possessions at Fort Frontenac seized. This
seemed the cap stone of all his troubles, and he passed eastward in the
fall of 1683, reached Quebec in November, and finding his case hopeless,
sailed for France to lay his case personally before his King.
He was a wonderful man. His vessels had been wrecked, his goods lost,
his possessions confiscated. He had been deserted by his men, been
robbed, and yet he retained that faith in himself and in his cause, and
so impressed the King that he was given command of an expedition to sail
for the mouths of the Mississippi to drive the Spaniards out of North
America. They landed somewhere near where Galveston, Texas, now stands,
having missed the Mississippi. Again through wrecks and desertion La
Salle found his numbers depleted. Added to this, dreadful sickness broke
out. La Salle determined to seek a way out to the Mississippi and thence
up to New France. He made repeated attempts, and at last, deserted by
nearly all his men who despaired of ever seeing home again, he was shot
by one of his own followers on March 18th, 1687.
Thus perished one of the most remarkable men in our history, the first
great Imperialist, who had an empire in his brain, and who if he had been
given backing would have made a New France greater than Old France could
ever hope to be. And the map of North America would have been greatly
changed!
Tonty, the faithful friend and companion of La Salle, stayed for some
years in the country of the Illinois, joined Iberville in Louisiana
in 1702, and died near where Mobile now stands about 1704. Faithful,
not only to the erratic La Salle, but also to the Home Government, he
received no recompense in any form, but has left for us an undying
picture of how true and faithful a friend can be, and under the most
trying circumstances.