THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT LAKES OF CANADA
AND OF THE HEADWATERS OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
WHILE the English were firmly establishing themselves in New England,
and the Dutch and Swedes were struggling for the mastery in the
present states of New York and Delaware, discoveries of vital
importance were being made by the French in Canada, or as it was then
called, New France. We have already mentioned Samuel Champlain, who
accompanied both Pontgravé and De Monts in their early expedition
to Maine, and was the author of the first scientific map of the St.
Lawrence. It was this Champlain, a true hero of geographical discovery,
who paved the way for the establishment of French power in Canada, and
to whom we, as the successors of the French, owe an undying debt of
gratitude.
In the winter of 1604, when the little settlement at Port Royal
was struggling in that feeble infancy destined to be its only
existence, Champlain made it the starting point for many a trip to
the South, visiting Cape Cod――which his men named Cape Blanc, from
its far-stretching white sands――long before the landing of the Pilgrim
Fathers. In 1608, when Pourtrincourt, the successor of De Monts, had
returned to France in disgust, and Henry Hudson was preparing for the
great voyage resulting in the discovery of the river named after him,
Champlain was starting with a few faithful followers on an overland
journey through perfectly untrodden districts watered by the St.
Lawrence.
On the 3d July, after crossing the whole of Maine in a north-westerly
direction, so far as we can make out from fragmentary records of
his work, Champlain reached Stadacona, where, it will be remembered,
Cartier spent his first winter on the St. Lawrence, and at once set
to work to erect a fort, to which the name of Quebec was given, either
then or very shortly afterward.
Illustration: THE FIRST HOUSE ERECTED IN QUEBEC.
The winter was spent in winning the friendship of the Algonquin
Indians, chief of the three races then occupying the basin of the St.
Lawrence, and in learning from them the capabilities of their country.
In a terrible struggle then going on between the Algonquins and their
neighbors, the Iroquois, or Five Nations, Champlain was able to give
both advice and material assistance, and, as a reward, he was escorted
by the former, in the spring of 1610, up the St. Lawrence as far as
its junction with the Iroquois, now the Richelieu River, ascending
which he discovered Lake Peter, and came, after some little difficulty
with the rapids, so characteristic of the tributaries of the great
river, to the beautiful sheet of water now bearing his own name, and
which has so often figured in the history of the struggle between the
French and English in Canada.
Though prevented by the hostility of the Iroquois, or Five Nations
――occupying the whole of the South-west of Canada――from actually
visiting them, Champlain, on this trip, approached very nearly the
sources of the Hudson in the lofty Adirondack Mountains, on the
south-west of the great lake, and in the north-eastern corner of the
present State of New York, thus connecting his own work with that of
his great Dutch contemporary.
The discovery of Lakes Peter and Champlain may be said to have closed
the first chapter of our energetic hero’s career. On his return to
Quebec, he found that De Monts’s commission, under which he had been
acting, was revoked, compelling him to return to France to obtain
fresh powers. In this he was unsuccessful; but he agreed with De Monts
to persevere in his undertaking without royal patronage, and in 1610
we find him again on the St. Lawrence, prevented from pursuing his
geographical researches by the fierce struggles still going on between
the two native tribes, but binding the Algonquins yet further to his
service by the efficient aid he was able to render to their cause.
Illustration: QUEBEC.
On the restoration of peace in 1611, Champlain, after having paid a
second flying visit to France for supplies, ascended the St. Lawrence
as far as its junction with the Ottawa, and founded the modern city
of Montreal, near the hill which had been named Mont Royal by his
predecessors. In 1613, leaving both his infant settlements in a
flourishing condition, he started, accompanied by several Frenchmen
and an Indian escort, on an exploring expedition up the Ottawa, having
heard rumors that it came from a lake connected with the North Sea.
The early part of the voyage up the great tributary of the St.
Lawrence was full of difficulty, owing to the number and force of
the cataracts and rapids impeding navigation; but, now carrying their
canoes through the woods, now dragging them with ropes through the
foaming current, the explorers reached the home of a friendly chief,
named Tessouant, only to learn from him that the information on which
they had acted was false.
Returning to Quebec after this disappointing trip, Champlain again
sailed to France in the hope of obtaining fresh recruits for his
infant colonies. Aided by the powerful co-operation of the Prince
of Condé, he succeeded in equipping a little fleet of four vessels.
These, filled with emigrants――including four fathers of the Recollet
order, the first missionaries to settle in Canada――all well provided
with supplies for the ensuing winter, arrived safely at the mouth
of the St. Lawrence early in May 1615, and on the 25th of that month
we find the indefatigable explorer pushing on with a few picked men
to the Lachine rapids, which had been fixed on as the rendezvous
of the Indian tribes, who were again about to push forward against
the Iroquois, encamped among the Great Lakes on the west, never yet
visited by a European.
Here was an opportunity not to be lost, and Champlain at once offered
to aid the Algonquins and Hurons in making the best disposition of
their forces, if they on their part would allow him to join them.
The compact was made, and, surrounded by the wild redskins in their
picturesque war-paint and other martial trappings, the white men
marched in a north-westerly direction――first up the Ottawa, and then,
turning due west, past a number of small lagoons――till they came
to Lake Nipissing (N. lat. 46° 16’ W. long. 80°), where the natives
received them with eager hospitality.
After a rest of a couple of days, the dusky warriors and their
pale-faced guests resumed their march, and following the course of
a stream now known as the French river, they came to the present
Georgian Bay, forming the eastern side of the great Lake Huron, called
by the French traders of more modern times the Mer Douce, on account
of the remarkable freshness and clearness of its waters. Crossing
Georgian Bay in the native canoes near the island of Great Manitoulin,
or the Sacred Island, running parallel with the western half of the
northern coast, the invaders landed, and, marching northward, were
soon joined by a fresh body of Algonquin warriors, with whom they
passed several days in feasting and dancing, after which the combined
forces turned their steps southward, reaching Lake St. Clair, lying
between Lakes Huron and Erie, near the modern city of Detroit, in
a few days. Here they came in sight of the first Iroquois fort, a
primitive but well-built structure, skillfully defended by rows of
modern palisades.
A fierce struggle ensued, in which Champlain was twice wounded, and
the Iroquois warriors defended their town with such skill and bravery
that the Canadian Indians were compelled to retreat. In this retreat
Champlain suffered terribly, having been carried, as was each of the
disabled warriors, in a small basket, his body being bound into a
circular form with strong cords to make it fit into the cramped space.
Released from this unusual position on arrival in the friendly Huron
country, our hero and his men begged to be provided with guides and
canoes for the return journey to Quebec; but they were refused, and
the white men had to spend the whole of the winter among the frozen
lakes.
In the spring of 1616, after making themselves well acquainted with
the resources of the neighborhood in the frequent hunting excursions
in which they took part, the little band of explorers managed to
effect their escape, and, accompanied by a few friendly natives,
made their way back to Quebec, where, for a time, Champlain had to
give all his attention to the internal affairs of the colonies, now
large communities, holding within their heterogeneous elements many
a seed of discord. Trip after trip to France for supplies resulted
in the arrival of many new emigrants, but it was long before peace
was sufficiently established for any fresh exploring expeditions to
be undertaken. Moreover, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas,
and Cayugas, the five nations forming the great Iroquois confederacy,
elated by their victory, in spite of the well-organized expedition
against them, advanced from their quarters on Lakes Erie and Champlain
to within a short distance of the French outposts, resolving to
involve the Algonquins and their white allies in one common doom.
In 1626 a noble, but, as it turned out, mistaken attempt at
conciliation, made by Champlain, resulted in a terrible tragedy. Some
captive Iroquois, who were about to be tortured by the Algonquins,
were sent back to their own people uninjured, accompanied by an
Algonquin chief and a Frenchman named Magnan, who had instructions
to negotiate a peace between the rival tribes. This did not,
unfortunately, suit the Algonquins, who had hoped with the aid of the
French to exterminate the Iroquois, and they therefore sent a message
to the latter, warning them that treachery was intended, and that the
Frenchman and his companion were spies.
Arrived at the Iroquois camp, the two unlucky emissaries found a large
pot boiling over a fire, and were invited to be seated. The chief was
then asked if he was hungry, and on his saying yes, a number of armed
Iroquois rushed upon him, cut slices from his body, and threw them
into the pot. This awful torture was continued till he died in the
greatest agony, when the Frenchman was put to death with torture,
though of a somewhat less revolting form.
Illustration: INDIAN WARRIORS.
Gladly would Champlain, convinced of the fatal mistake he had made,
have taken summary vengeance on the savage warriors, but, alas! he was
powerless to do so. The few settlements at Ladoussac, Three Rivers,
and other advanced points on the St. Lawrence, would have presented
an easy prey to the Iroquois, and there were no forces at Quebec or
Montreal fit to cope with the thousands who would have swept down upon
the whites from the Lakes, at the first sign of weakness among them.
At this very time, too, the English were casting longing eyes at the
rich fur-yielding grounds of the Canadian backwoods, and would gladly
have shared in the cod and whale fisheries of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A Huguenot refugee, named Kirk, actually obtained a commission from
Charles I. to conquer Canada, and for that purpose anchored a little
squadron at the mouth of the St. Lawrence in the summer of 1628,
sending a summons to Quebec to surrender.
As a matter of course, Champlain, although literally driven to bay,
with the Indians on one side and the English on the other, returned a
spirited answer of defiance, which, to his surprise, resulted in the
withdrawal of his enemies, who were totally ignorant of the real state
of affairs. A year later, however, Kirk returned, this time sailing
up the St. Lawrence, and casting anchor off Quebec. Resistance was
hopeless, and Champlain was compelled to surrender his “capital;” but,
struck by the noble bearing of his opponent, and by the courage with
which he had evidently so long been waging a hopeless contest with the
natives, Kirk granted the most liberal terms to the French, who were
allowed to remain undisturbed in their homes, which were, moreover,
now secured to them by English troops from the raids of the savages.
In the autumn of the year of the taking of Quebec, Kirk left that
city under the charge of his brother Lewis, and returned to England,
accompanied by Champlain, who hoped to obtain by diplomacy what he had
been unable to gain by force; and so earnestly did he plead his cause
with the French ambassador in London, that the affairs of New France
were brought before the then all-powerful Cardinal Richelieu.
Convinced of the vast importance to his country of the fur-trade and
fisheries of Canada, the French Minister negotiated with the English
Court for the restoration of Canada, Acadia, and Cape Breton, and
after much discussion they were transferred to the French Crown by the
treaty of St. Germain de Sage, which put off for more than a century
the establishment of the British dominion in Canada.
A year or two before this event, so auspicious to French interests
in the West, a new association had been formed in France, known as
the “Company of the Hundred Associates,” to whom Louis XIII. had
given the whole of Canada and of Florida――though the latter, as we are
aware, was already claimed by Spain――together with a monopoly of the
fur-trade. The cod and whale fisheries of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
however, the French monarch reserved for himself.
The joy of the Company of the Hundred Associates, on the restoration
of the privileges which had so suddenly been snatched away from them
by Kirk, may be imagined. They at once elected Champlain Governor of
New France, and he returned to his old home at Quebec in 1633, taking
with him a large party of new settlers, including many Jesuits, who
were to form the nucleus of a college for the education of the youth
of Canada, from which missionaries were to be sent forth for the
conversion of the natives.
Having patched up something of a peace with the Indians, and founded
his college, Champlain prepared to continue that part of his work
which was nearest his heart――the further exploration of the country;
but before he could organize an expedition to the West, his career
was cut short by death. He expired in December, 1635, having sown the
seeds of the future greatness of Canada, and inaugurated a new era of
geographical discovery.
Champlain was succeeded as Governor of Canada by M. de Montonaguy, a
man of a very different stamp, who, while displaying great ability and
address in his management of the internal affairs of the colony and
his dealings with the treacherous Iroquois, did little to extend our
knowledge of the country under his charge.
To continue our narrative of the progress of discovery in French
America, we must leave the ruling powers to join two obscure Jesuit
missionaries, named Brébœuf and Daniel, the advance guard of that
heroic band of laborers for the faith of Christ who led the way in
every early expedition from Canada, and with whose names is associated
the origin of every great town on the vast inland seas which are now
among the proudest possessions of England.
Brébœuf and Daniel, who had both already done good work among the
natives, left Quebec on their joint mission in 1634, with a party of
Huron Indians, and after just such another arduous journey through the
forest and up the Ottawa as that taken by Champlain a few years before,
they arrived safely on the banks of Georgian Bay. Here they pitched
their tents, and in a short time they gathered about them a little
band of converts to the Roman Catholic faith, for whose use a little
chapel, built of the trunks of trees, was presently erected, which was
dedicated to St. Joseph.
To this little center of civilization in the wilderness flocked many
natives and Europeans alike, who were eager to lead a new life――the
former won over by the hopes held out to them for the future, the
latter eager to forget the past. First one and then another Christian
village arose on the banks of the stream connecting Lakes Huron and
Ontario, from which every now and then some worn father of the faith
would pay a flying visit to Quebec, to return with fresh recruits.
Such was the origin of St. Louis, St. Ignatius, St. Mary’s, and
many another now flourishing town of Canada, which were yet in their
infancy when the news of the great work going forward in the West
reached the ears of the Pope himself. Struck by the vast field thus
opened for the extension of the Roman Catholic religion, the Holy
Father expressed his loving approval of the work of his children
in the land of their exile. The King of France followed suit; the
enthusiasm spread to his nobles, and, eager to win the favor of the
heads of their church and of their native land, numbers of young
French gentlemen of rank joined the missionary band, and devoted their
wealth to its cause. The result was what might have been expected.
Montreal became the headquarters of the Indian church, St. Mary’s,
lying about half-way between it and Lake Huron, the rendezvous of the
missionaries from distant points, who met three times a year to give
an account of their progress.
Six years after the first arrival of Fathers Brébœuf and Daniel on
Lake Huron, the missionary outposts had extended as far west as Green
Bay, on the north-west of Lake Michigan; and though the iron belt
of the Five Nations still kept the French from the shores of Lakes
Ontario and Erie, Brébœuf was able in 1641, accompanied by Father
Joseph Marie Chaumonot, to visit the Onguiaharas, a neutral tribe
living on a river of the same name, now the Niagara.
The Onguiaharas――who appear to have acted as mediators between the
Iroquois and the Hurons and Algonquins, members of the rival tribes
meeting in peace in their huts――informed Brébœuf that they were
themselves at deadly war with a fierce nation living on the west,
which they called the Fire Nation, and described as so reckless of
human life, that the French did not care to venture among them while
so much still remained to be done around the Great Lakes.
Though so near on this occasion to the now world-famous Falls of
Niagara, Brébœuf does not appear either to have heard of them or to
have visited them. He collected, however, a good deal of information
respecting the habits of the natives, which are embodied in the
charming _Relations des Jesuites_, from which the greater part of our
early knowledge of the Canadian Indians is derived. In the same year
(1641) of this first visit to the Niagara River, two missionaries,
named Charles Raymbault and Claude Pigart, made their way to
Lake Nipissing――the most north-westerly point reached by Champlain
――arriving there just in time to witness a grand native ceremony in
honor of the dead, which they describe as extremely imposing.
Illustration: NIAGARA FALLS.
Lake Nipissing was on this occasion almost covered with the canoes
of the warriors, moving solemnly toward that point of the shore
where the souls of the departed were to be fêted. Under a long, rough
shed, in coffins of bark, wrapped in costly furs, lay the decaying
bones of those who had gone to the other world; and over them a song,
half of triumph, half of regret, was sung by the warriors, the women
accompanying them with a wailing cry, full of unutterable melancholy.
Illustration: INDIAN BURIAL GROUND.
When these heathen rites were over, the Jesuit fathers, who, with that
earnestness and thoroughness which characterized their whole body, had
prepared themselves for their mission by the study of the Nipissing
language and the Nipissing mode of thought, came forward and addressed
the assembled multitudes. They spoke of the Saviour of the white man
and of the red, who came back from the grave after laying down His
life for all mankind: and so worked upon the already melting mood of
the hardy warriors of the West, that they obtained permission to dwell
on the shores of Lake Nipissing――nay, more, an eager invitation from
some Chippeway guests to visit them in their own homes beyond Lake
Superior.
The eagerness with which this opening was seized may be imagined. The
Chippewayans, or Athabascas, one of the four families of the great
Finnish nation, occupied that great lone land stretching away beyond
the north-western banks of Hudson Bay, which has even yet not been
fully explored. In those vast solitudes, though the missionaries
knew it not, dwelt many a strange tribe, living out its destiny in
unconscious simplicity. There roamed the Copper, the Horn Mountain,
and the Beaver Indians; the Strong-bows, the Dog-ribs, the Hares, the
Red Knives, the Sheep, the Sarsis, the Brushwood, the Nagailer, and
the Rocky Mountain Indians, waiting the advent of the fur-trader, from
whom they were to receive their distinctive appellations, and to whom
they were to yield up the treasures of their deserts and of their
mountain fastnesses.
Taking a Jesuit named Isaac Jogues, as his companion, and leaving
Pigart to continue his work among the Nipissings, Raymbault started
for the North-west, and, crossing Lake Huron in a native canoe, the
voyage occupying seventeen days, he arrived safely at the mouth of the
straits connecting it with Lake Superior, where two thousand natives
were eagerly awaiting his arrival.
The point of land on Lake Superior where the white men first stepped
ashore appears to have been near the rapid known as the Sault Ste.
Marie, at the beginning of the river St. Mary, through which the
waters of Lake Superior flow into Lake Huron; and it was probably
within sight of the gray and red sandstone cliffs called the Pictured
Rocks, which now look down upon the boundary-line between British
America and the United States, that Father Raymbault took up his abode,
to begin his ministrations among the Chippewayans. Unfortunately,
however, his health began to fail him before he had been at work
a year, and, after a farewell visit to the Nipissing converts, he
retired to Quebec to die.
Jogues, meanwhile, on whom his superior’s mantle should naturally
have fallen, was working out a very different mission; and though
the Chippewayans were not forgotten, and we find Ste. Marie again a
missionary station a few years later, it was the fierce Iroquois who
were next to receive a Christian minister among them. Sent down the
St. Lawrence on a message connected with Raymbault’s work, the second
missionary, a friendly Huron chief named Ahasisteri, two young French
laymen, and some twenty-six Hurons, fell into the hands of a party
of Mohawks, who had long been eager for a feast of human flesh, and
looked upon the whites and their escort as lawful prey. To quote
the quaint Father who sent home an account of the matter, if peace
could not be made with the Iroquois, no Frenchman would be safe from
“finding a tomb in the stomachs of these savages.”
That Jogues this time escaped this awful fate was indeed little short
of a miracle. He was marched with his companions in misfortune through
three Mohawk villages; he saw Ahasisteri burned to death, and one of
his own young Indian converts tomahawked for making the sign of the
cross on a baby’s forehead; yet, for some reason unexplained, his own
life was spared, and having managed to get away from his party, he
wandered about in the woods, carving the name of Christ on the bark of
the trees, till he came in sight of the Dutch fort at Albany, and was
received by its commandant, Van Cuyler, having been the first white
man to cross the northern half of the present state of New York.
From Albany, Jogues was unable to return direct to Canada, either
by sea or by land, and he therefore took ship for England, whence,
after suffering many things at the hands of Falmouth wreckers, he
managed to get back to the land of his adoption. Here he found all
the French stations in a state of horror-struck excitement, owing to
the increasing hostility of the Iroquois. A Father Bressain, who had
fallen into one of their ambushes, had seen his Huron comrades killed
and eaten, and had himself been rescued only at the last moment by
Dutch traders. Other horrors, too terrible to be related, had been
inflicted on the native converts to Christianity, and in 1645 a solemn
assembly of all the French authorities was held at Three Rivers, with
a view to the negotiation of peace with the terrible enemy. After much
private consultation among themselves, and many a picturesque palaver
with the Indian sachems, who came to the meeting decked out in all
their finery, the French were cheered by the conclusion of “eternal
peace” with the Five Nations. This peace actually lasted a whole year,
and at the end of that year seemed so little likely to be broken, that
Jogues, in spite of all his previous sufferings, resolved to venture
again to the south of the St. Lawrence, and try to win over some of
the Iroquois to Christianity.
In June, 1646, we find the heroic Jesuit embarking on the Iroquois,
now the Richelieu, escorted by four warriors of that nation and
two young Algonquins, his object being to found a church among the
Onondagas. He arrived safely at a little village at the head of a
small sheet of water connected with Lake Champlain, called by the
natives Andiatarocté, or the Gate of the Lake, to which he gave the
name of St. Sacrement. After a short cruise on the “Gate,” and the
presentation of gifts to the Iroquois chiefs and elders who happened
to be assembled on its banks, Jogues returned to the St. Lawrence
to report progress, and in September of the same year――this time
accompanied by a young Frenchman――he once more visited the Iroquois,
intending to settle among them and teach them Christianity.
All went well at first, but at the beginning of 1647 Jogues received
instructions from his superiors to go to the Mohawk country, with
a view to insuring peace with its savage warriors, who were showing
signs of breaking the solemn treaty made at Three Rivers. The Jesuit
obeyed, though he is reported to have said, “I shall go, but I shall
never return.” He was right. He had scarcely set foot among the
Mohawks, before he and his fellow-countryman were taken prisoners,
charged with having blighted the corn and caused a famine. Stripped
half naked, they were dragged into a neighboring village and there
put to death. Not until long afterward did any details of the tragedy
reach Quebec. A Mohawk prisoner, taken in a struggle with the French
on the St. Lawrence, and condemned to death for his share in an ambush
into which the white men and some of their Algonquin allies had fallen,
confessed before his torture began that he had himself killed Jogues,
and another member of his tribe the missionary’s companion.
No more vivid picture of the struggle between savagery and
civilization in the early days of Canada could be conceived, than the
account sent home by a Jesuit of the young Mohawk’s death. This Mohawk
had told how he and another had invited Jogues to supper, and when he
arrived in the half-naked state to which he had been reduced, a savage,
who had hidden behind the door of the tent where supper was prepared,
started out and struck off the head of the unsuspecting guest. The
head was stuck on the palisades of the village, as a warning to all
other Europeans, and on the following day that of the young French
layman was placed beside it.
One would have thought that, after this frank acknowledgment of his
own share in the murder, no mercy would have been shown to the Mohawk.
But here the true character of the Jesuits came out. Die he still must,
and that at the hands of the Algonquins, with all the subtle cruelties
in which they were adepts; but there was no reason for him to die in
his sins. The short time before the execution was to take place was
devoted to converting him to Christianity; and just before he was
given up to the native chief who was to preside at his death, he was
baptized Isaac, in memory of the man he had helped to martyr. Poor
Isaac is said to have cried again and again on our Saviour in his
agony, and to have said, when dying, “I have to thank Antaiok” (so he
called the Frenchman who had taken him prisoner) “that I am going to
heaven; I am very glad.”
The murder of Jogues was the signal for another Indian war; and for
a time the French missionaries and laymen alike were absorbed in the
primary duty of the defense of their own lives and of those dear to
them. Through all the tumult and confusion which ensued, however, the
geographical student may, by eager searching, trace the continuous
opening up of new districts, and on the blank map which was spread out
before us when we began our narrative, we may ♦jot down the names of
many a river and lake almost unconsciously discovered by the white men,
in the very height of their struggle.
♦ ‘dot’ replaced with ‘jot’
The storm broke first on the village of St. Joseph, now almost
entirely Christianized. The able-bodied members of the community
were away at the chase; the women and children fell an easy prey to
the Mohawk warriors. Father Daniel, the head of the mission, while
administering the last rites of the church to the dying and the dead,
fell at last beneath the poisoned arrows of the Iroquois, and was
finally dispatched by a blow from a hatchet. Next St. Ignatius and
then St. Louis were overpowered, and in the latter our old friend
Brébœuf and his companion Sallemand met their death, the first after
three, the second after seventeen hours of torture.
From St. Louis, the tide of invasion swept westward to Georgian
Bay, where the Hurons had made a feeble effort to rally. Again they
were defeated, and in their despair they sent a message by Father
Dreuillette, a zealous missionary who had long been at work among the
north-west tribes, to New England, with an entreaty for succor. But,
as we shall presently see when we return to the colonies on the coast,
the energies of the newly-formed federation were all required to meet
the necessities of home defense, and no help came to the sufferers in
the north. Dreuillette worked his way back by a new route to the St.
Lawrence, that was all. Three years of almost constant massacres, in
which many a noble death was met, alike by native converts and their
teachers, were at last succeeded by a lull. The Iroquois were sated
with bloodshed; or, as some of the French authorities tell us, their
hearts had been touched by the teaching of some of their prisoners.
In any case, peace was made in 1650, and it was scarcely concluded,
before a missionary was ready to risk his life by making a fresh
effort to convert the men at whose hands his brethren had already
suffered so much.
A certain Father Le Moyne, who had been the envoy intrusted by the
Hurons with the ratifications of peace, pitched his tent on the Mohawk
River, and a little later an Italian priest named Dablon, and a French
missionary named Chaumonot, settled at Onondaga, chief village of the
tribe of the same name dwelling on the banks of the Oswego, a river
of the modern state of New York flowing into Lake Ontario. Wonderful
to relate, they not only escaped death, but were received with eager
welcome. A chapel sprang up as if by magic, and Chaumonot soon found
himself in a position to visit the Senecas, the most powerful of the
Five Nations, who lived far away in the west of the present State of
New York, on a lake named after them, which is connected with Lake
Ontario by the rivers Oswego and Seneca. Here, as at Onondaga, the
natives seemed glad to receive the good tidings of the Gospel; but, as
they declined to interpret “peace on earth” beyond the limits of their
own tribe, and persecuted their neighbors the Eries with reckless
cruelty, their missionary soon found himself at issue with them.
Disputes now arose, and of a little body of fifty Frenchmen who had
settled on the Oswego, thinking the days of the old horrors were
over, several were murdered. This, of course, aroused the terror and
indignation of the survivors, who were compelled to make their escape
as best they could, reluctantly accompanied by the missionaries. So
ended the second attempt at converting the Iroquois; but not all the
good seed sown was lost, and now and again, afterward, some fierce
warrior of the Five Nations gave touching proof that he had not forgot
the teaching of the good white men.
Meanwhile, the work of the missionaries in opening up the districts
about the Great Lakes was being largely supplemented by energetic
fur-traders, and in 1656 two young Frenchmen, accompanied by a number
of Ottawas, appeared at St. Louis, astonishing their countrymen in
that now flourishing settlement by the accounts they gave of yet
other inland seas far away in the West, and yet other native tribes,
differing in almost every respect, alike from the Hurons, Algonquins,
and the Iroquois.
Here was a new field for missionary effort, and Dreuillette, the
unsuccessful messenger to Maine, and Gareau, a Huron missionary, were
chosen to lead the way in this fresh spiritual campaign. Accompanied
by some of the Ottawas already mentioned, they were ascending the
Ottawa, when they were attacked by the Mohawks, and Gareau was killed.
Dreuillette, however, escaped, and advanced into the present Ontario,
making his way thence to the banks of the Saguenay, long since
discovered by Cartier, whence he undertook several short trips to
the North-east, of which, however, few details have been preserved,
though they greatly paved the way for the advance of the fur-trade.
While Dreuillette was laboring in the North, René Mesnard, who had
been one of the missionaries to the Iroquois, excited by the accounts
given by two fur-traders, who had spent a winter on the banks of
Lake Superior, started to found a church among the fierce Sioux, or
Dacotahs, dwelling in those remote districts. He reached the southern
shores of Lake Superior in the autumn of 1660, and in the spring
of the following year began his journey toward the modern state of
Minnesota, which lies between the south-western extremity of the great
lake and the Dakota territory. Letters describing his progress were
occasionally received at Quebec, but they suddenly ceased; and after
much anxiety on his account, rumors were brought in by traders that
he had become separated from his companions, and lost his way in the
forests on the south of the Bay of Chagwamegan, and must have perished
miserably. The event proved that they were right. Mesnard’s body was
found in the forest by a native, who long concealed the fact, lest
he should be accused of the murder of the white man. The cassock and
breviary of Mesnard having, however, been preserved as amulets by the
Sioux, led to inquiries being made, and the truth was discovered.
In 1665, a fresh impulse was given to missionary effort in Canada by
the transference of the country to a new West Indian Company, under
the direct patronage of Louis XIV., who, recognizing the importance
of the rich fur-yielding districts of New France, sent out a regiment
to protect the traders. True, about this time New Netherland was
conquered by the English, who thus became very formidable rivals to
the French; but the Iroquois still separated the two European nations,
and yet a little longer the evil day of the loss of Canada was
deferred.
The first hero to go forth under the new government was Father Allouez,
who, following in the footsteps of Mesnard, arrived on the banks of
Lake Superior early in September, 1666. Embarking on its waters in
a native canoe, he reached the village of Chagwamegan, on the bay
of the same name, where members of no less than ten different native
races were assembled, discussing how best to prevent a threatened war
between the Sioux and the Chippewas.
Scarcely pausing to rest after his long journey, Allouez advanced into
the very midst of the dusky crowd, and, partly by promises of present
help against the common enemy, partly by his eloquent description
of the joys of eternity to the true believer, he quickly made many
converts. He had, as it were, dropped down from the skies, straight
from the home of the Good Spirit. He was invited to remain; and
accepting the hospitality tendered to him, he founded the mission of
St. Esprit, to which, in an incredibly short space of time, flocked
Hurons and Ottawas, with members of distant western tribes whose very
names had never before been heard of; the Potawatomies, or worshipers
of the sun, the Illinois, the Sacs, the Foxes, and many another race,
sinking their differences for a time in their common eagerness to
share the good tidings of great joy which the white man was said to
have brought.
Now, for the first time, were heard whispers of the existence, not
very far away from St. Esprit, of the great Father of Waters, the
Mesipi, which flowed on and on forever to the south between vast
prairies, where roamed the buffalo and the deer, where forests were
almost unknown, and the wind swept unchecked over the tall whispering
grasses.
Convinced that, from all he heard, the people on the Mesipi were ripe
for the reception of the Gospel, and little dreaming of the identity
of this great river with that of which the mouth had been discovered
by De Soto so many years before, Allouez paid a visit to Quebec in
1668 to win recruits to go forth into the prairies. As usual, there
were plenty of volunteers. Three short days after his arrival at the
capital he was on his way back to Chagwamegan, accompanied by Louis
Nicholas, and followed by Claude Dablon and James Marquette, who, as a
preliminary step for the work before them, founded the mission of St.
Mary’s on the Falls, between Lakes Superior and Huron, close to the
spot where the Chippewayans had had their first interview with a white
man a few years previously.
From St. Mary’s, which shortly became a rendezvous for young men
anxious to help in the great movement, small parties went forth among
the tribes dwelling on Lake Michigan, founding new missions on the
site of the present Chicago, Milwaukee, etc.; and in 1669, Marquette,
who to the zeal of a missionary added that of a geographical explorer,
conceived the idea of navigating the great river. The Potawatomies
assured him that the natives who dwelt on the Father of Waters
would assuredly slay him, or, if he escaped their hands, he would
be swallowed up by the monsters which haunted the deep places in the
river. The French authorities were loth to consent to what seemed
likely to end in a mere useless loss of life; but Marquette was
resolute. He turned the long delay, before he could get permission to
start, to account by learning something of the Illinois language, and
in founding a kind of city of refuge for the scattered Hurons on the
northern shores of Lake Michigan, which long formed a “key to the West,
and rendezvous to the distant Algonquins under the protection of the
French.”
In 1670, leaving Allouez and Dablon to continue their explorations
in Eastern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, Marquette at last started
for the South, accompanied by Joliet, a trader from Quebec, five young
Frenchmen eager for adventure, and two Algonquin guides. Crossing
Green Bay in birch-bark canoes, the little band of explorers ascended
the Fox river, flowing into Lake Michigan on the west, for some
little distance, and then crossed the country to the Wisconsin, on
the banks of which they were very kindly received by a number of old
men belonging to the Kickapoo, Mascoutin, and other tribes.
Here the guides, afraid to enter the Sioux territories and to face
the horrors of the unknown South, returned to their homes, and the
Europeans embarked alone upon the Wisconsin, down which they paddled
for several days, eagerly scanning the prairies on either side for
the first traces of the wild tribes of whom they had heard. Not a sign
of human life was seen, however, until they came to the junction of
the Wisconsin with the Mississippi itself. They found the great river
without difficulty, and, to quote Marquette’s own words, “they happily
entered it with a joy that can not be expressed.”
Down the glorious river, between the modern States of Iowa and
Illinois, the two little canoes now floated, till, about sixty leagues
below the mouth of the Wisconsin, our heroes noticed the trail of men
on the western bank of the Mississippi. Determined at once to learn
something of the people of the newly-discovered districts, Marquette
and Joliet hastened to land, and, crossing one of the beautiful
prairies of Iowa, they soon came to a group of three villages, one
on the bank of a river, and two on a hill a little distance off. The
river was the Moingona, now called Des Moines.
Four old men now advanced from the village on the stream, bearing
with them the calumet of peace, a tobacco pipe, with a reed stem some
two or three feet in length, ornamented with many colored feathers.
Already familiar with this sign of amity, the white men knew they
had now nothing to fear. The villagers were _Illinois_, which is the
Indian word for “men;” and men they quickly proved themselves to be.
Conducted to the wigwam of an aged chief, the French explorers were
plied with eager questions; and when they told of the breaking of
the power of the Iroquois by the “great Captain of the French,” the
assembled “men” greeted the announcement with shouts of joy. Then
followed the usual instruction in the broad truths of Christianity,
and again the “men” rejoiced, doubtless connecting in their simple
untutored minds the two items of good news. A grand feast was held
in honor of those who had brought them, and when it was over, the
visitors were escorted to their canoes by the chief and hundreds of
his followers.
With a peace-pipe, the parting gift of the Illinois, hung round his
neck as a charm against future dangers, Marquette continued his course,
which now led him between the present States of Missouri and Illinois,
among the weird perpendicular rocks forming so characteristic a
feature of this part of the country, till he came to the junction of
the Mississippi with its mighty and turbulent affluent, the Missouri,
where the city of St. Louis now stands.
Illustration: THE MISSISSIPPI AT ST. LOUIS. (1885.)
Overwhelmed with delight at the beauty of the scene before him,
Marquette could hardly refrain from entering the Missouri then and
there, to trace it to its source; but curbing his ardor――to be, as he
vainly hoped, indulged at some future time――he continued his course
down the now greatly augmented Mississippi, passing its junction with
the Wabash or Ohio, and the homes of the peaceful Shawanees, till,
with Tennessee on one hand and Arkansas on the other, he approached
the most northerly limit reached by De Soto. There could be no doubt
now of the identity of the Father of Waters with the Miche Sepe to
which the Spanish hero had been led with the remnant of his forces by
his Chickasaw guides; and Marquette felt that his work was practically
done. He determined, however, to enter the land of the Arkansas, and
reached the village of the Mitchigamea (N. lat. 33°), where, for the
first time on this wonderful trip, the natives came out against him
with hostile intentions. Armed with bows and arrows, clubs, etc., the
Arkansas warriors closed round the little birch-bark canoes in their
own larger vessels, and it seemed for a moment as if the fate of the
intruders was sealed; but, rising up among the gesticulating crowds,
Marquette held his calumet aloft, and, as if by magic, the weapons
sunk, and the yells of rage were converted into shouts of welcome.
Illustration: MOUTH OF THE OHIO RIVER.
On the following day, Marquette and his people were escorted, by the
very men who had been so eager for their blood, to the village of
Arkansea, and here, having learned that the Father of Waters pursued
its course in a south-easterly direction to the Gulf of Mexico, our
hero resolved to turn back. The return voyage up the Mississippi was
little more than a repetition of the descent, till its junction with
the Illinois was reached, when the canoes were embarked on the waters
of the latter river, and a new land, consisting chiefly of extensive
and fertile prairies, was entered. The men of Eastern Illinois showed
themselves true brethren of the members of their tribe who had so
hospitably received the French on the western side of the great river,
and the explorers, after resisting all entreaties to take up their
abode on the Illinois, were escorted in a north-easterly direction to
Lake Michigan by way of Chicago, and arrived safely on the northern
shores of Lake Michigan, after an absence of about two years.
A little later, Marquette went as a missionary to northern Illinois;
and after converting many of the Indians about Chicago to the faith,
he started for north-eastern Michigan, intending to found a mission
there. Having set up an altar on the little river bearing his name,
he asked his guides to leave him alone for a short time, and when they
returned to seek him, he was found dead. He was buried in the sand
near the town called after him, and is still revered by the natives
and settlers of the Lake districts, many of whom are said to invoke
the aid of St. Marquette when in danger in their frail canoes.
While Marquette’s career was thus cut short before he had even begun
the realization of his dream of ascending the Missouri, the work he
had commenced on the Mississippi was carried on by a man of a very
different character. On his way back to Quebec, from his trip with
Marquette, Joliet became acquainted with Robert Cavalier de la Salle,
Governor of Frontenac, now Kingston, a French outpost on Lake Ontario,
who had already made himself thoroughly acquainted with the immediate
neighborhood. Fired by what he heard from Joliet, La Salle resolved to
obtain permission from the King of France to go down the Mississippi,
and open a trade in buffalo-hides with the Indians of the South. He
hastened to France, and returned the same year, accompanied by an
Italian soldier named Tonti, and provided with full powers from his
sovereign.
The adventurers――with Father Hennepin, who accompanied them as
missionary, and some sixty followers, including boatmen, hunters, and
soldiers――began their journey, in the autumn of 1678, in a canoe built
under La Salle’s direction at Kingston, which carried them safely down
the Niagara river and across Lake Erie to Fonawauta Creek, near the
Falls at the southern extremity of the lake. Here some months were
spent in cultivating the friendship of the Senecas and constructing
a little sailing vessel of sixty tons, to which the name of the
_Griffin_ was given. The _Griffin_ was successfully launched on Lake
Erie on the 7th August, 1679, and entering the narrow strait called
Detroit, on which the city of the same name now stands, she rapidly
carried the expedition into Lake Huron, and thence through the Straits
of Mackinaw to Lake Michigan, on the north-eastern shores of which a
little colony was planted.
Lake Michigan was now traversed, and, landing on the shores of Green
Bay, La Salle made what turned out to be the fatal mistake of sending
the _Griffin_ back to Niagara laden with furs, with orders for her
captain to return with provisions with as little delay as possible.
The _Griffin_, alas! went down with all on board before Niagara
was reached; and, ignorant of her fate, La Salle, Tonti, Hennepin,
and a few followers went down Lake Michigan to St. Joseph, on the
south-eastern shores, whence they made many interesting excursions
into Illinois, discovering Lake Peoria, and winning many friends,
alike among the Illinois and the Miamis of Michigan.
As time went on, however, and no tidings came of the ill-fated
_Griffin_, which had been constructed at the cost of so much time
and labor, the spirits of the party began to sink――a fact to which
the name of Crevecœur, given to a fort built near Lake Peoria, bore
striking witness. After many a consultation as to the best course to
pursue, it was resolved that La Salle should return to Frontenac to
obtain news and supplies, and that, during his absence, Tonti and
Hennepin should remain at Crevecœur with the greater number of the
followers.
Tonti, though deserted by most of his men as soon as their leader’s
back was turned, remained bravely at his post, until he was compelled
to flee to Lake Michigan by an incursion of the Iroquois; while
Hennepin, with two companions, descended the Illinois to its junction
with the Mississippi, which he ascended till he reached the beautiful
fall in N. lat. 45°, between the modern states of Wisconsin and
Minnesota, and to which he gave the name of St. Anthony, after his
patron saint. From the Falls, Hennepin made several excursions among
the Sioux, by whom he was for some little time held captive; but,
escaping from their hands unhurt, he returned to Green Bay by way of
Wisconsin, and thence to Quebec.
Meanwhile, La Salle, on his arrival at Frontenac, found that he had
been long supposed to be dead――that his creditors had seized his
property――and that his good ship _Griffin_ had never reached Niagara.
Cast down, but not in despair, at this accumulation of troubles, he
succeeded in again collecting men and stores and rigging for a new
vessel, with which he hastened back to Crevecœur, to find it, as we
know, deserted. He ascertained, however, that Tonti was living among
the ♦Potawatomies on Lake Michigan, and having erected a new fort
some miles south of Crevecœur, which he called St. Louis, he rejoined
his old comrade, and easily persuaded him to start on a fresh journey
of discovery. Together the two heroes returned to the Illinois, and
rapidly building a second vessel, they sailed in it, in 1682, on a
voyage fruitful of the best results. Launched on the Illinois, the
little bark floated without accident to its junction with the Father
of Rivers, and thence on the broad waters of the parent stream, past
the mouth of the Missouri, between Tennessee and Arkansas, and again
between Arkansas and Mississippi, beyond the most southerly point
reached by Marquette, past the spot where De Soto’s body was committed
to the deep, until at last the final home of the Mississippi and its
many tributaries was reached, and Frenchmen stood once more on the
northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
♦ ‘Potawatamies’ replaced with ‘Potawatomies’
Having set up the arms of France in the low alluvial plains
overlooking the gulf, and named the whole district Louisiana in honor
of the French monarch, La Salle retraced his steps, and hastening
to France with the good news of his successful trip, he was shortly
placed in command of an important expedition for the colonization of
newly-discovered districts.
Full of wild hopes of the great things he was now to achieve, La Salle
sent a message to his old friend Tonti, begging him to meet him at the
mouth of the Mississippi; but alas! the latter appeared alone at the
rendezvous. Accompanied by twenty Canadians and thirty Indians, Tonti
paddled down the now familiar Mississippi from Fort St. Louis with
little difficulty, and awaited the coming of his old commander near
the site of the present New Orleans. Day after day, week after week
passed on, and no La Salle appeared. The four vessels bearing his
little company of 280 persons, including two young relatives of the
commander, named Cavalier and Moranget, were tossing about in the
Gulf of Mexico, unable to make the land. La Salle, who believed he
could have acted as pilot with the best results, was thwarted at every
turn by Beaujeu, the admiral of the fleet, who, after passing between
Florida and Cuba, insisted on maintaining a western course till he
came to the Bay of Matagorda, in Texas.
Recognizing no landmarks, La Salle entreated Beaujeu not to disembark
the forces without some further exploration of the coast; but he was
unheeded. The boats were lowered, and the colonists were put on shore.
The wrecking of the store-ship was the first disaster to overtake them;
it was followed, as a necessary result, by famine and discontent, and
in the midst of the confusion some Indians surprised the new-comers,
and murdered two of them.
In this terrible crisis Beaujeu at last yielded to the superior
experience of La Salle, who, restored to the command, had a fort
constructed out of the wreck of the store-ship, and, leaving 230
persons in it, he started with sixteen picked men to try and find the
Mississippi. His search was unsuccessful, and, fearing that the colony
would suffer on the low lands by the bay, La Salle returned to the
fort and superintended its removal to a hill near by, to which he gave
the name of St. Louis, claiming the whole of the surrounding country
as the property of the King of France.
The fort strengthened by outposts, the colonists cheered by brighter
prospects, La Salle now again ventured to go on a quest for the
Mississippi and the faithful Tonti, only to return four months later
in rags. Again and again the same thing was repeated. Far away from
the alluvial coast region, to the cross-timbers or wooded lands
and prairies of Eastern Texas, and into the mountain districts of
New Mexico in the West, tenanted by the Navajoes, Apaches, Utahs,
Comanches, and other wild predatory tribes, the unsuccessful explorer
led his few faithful followers, until at last he was compelled to
give up all hope of finding the great river connected with so many
hopes. He returned for the last time to Fort St. Louis to find it
almost in ruins, and of the 230 colonists only thirty-six still alive,
dissensions among themselves and famine having been the chief causes
of this terrible state of things.
It was evidently useless to remain longer on the coast, and La Salle
now came to the desperate resolution of making his way back to Canada
on foot. With sixteen companions, he started for the work, supporting
himself and his party by hunting the wild animals of the prairie; and
but for treachery, among his followers, he would probably have lived
to tell the tale of a journey of which every stage was full of the
most thrilling adventure. As it was, however, the wanderers had not
proceeded very far before La Salle’s nephew, Moranget, was murdered by
two men named Dubaut and L’Archeveque, who had long cherished bitter
feelings against the family, in whose enterprise they had embarked all
their capital. La Salle, coming up soon after Moranget’s death, and
missing him from among the party, put the simple question, “Where is
my nephew?” The only reply was a loud report from the gun of Dubaut,
and La Salle fell dead at his feet. His body and Moranget’s were
stripped, and left on the prairie to be devoured by eagles and wild
beasts, while the murderers calmly pursued their way. It is with
little regret that we add that they were shortly afterward themselves
slain by Indians, and that of the original party, seven only――fourteen
long years after the starting of the original expedition――reached
Arkansea, on the Mississippi, where they were kindly received by the
Indians, who gave them a letter from Tonti to La Salle, which had
been left with them when the former, having given up all hope of the
arrival of his friend, had returned to the lakes of Canada.
Illustration: ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
While La Salle was vainly struggling to accomplish the end for which
he had sailed to Louisiana, the French were not idle in the North.
In the rich peltries of the far West the fur-traders found a source
of wealth rivaling even the mines of the South, and a class of
men――unique alike in their manners and their experiences――sprang
up, as it were, in the heart of the wilderness, to whom the name of
_coureurs des bois_ was given. These rangers of the woods seem to
have left behind them the European prejudice against the natives,
and in their wild expeditions in remote tracts, and among distant
tribes, they adopted the Indian mode of dress, contracted marriages
with “squaws,” and brought up their half-caste children to lead a
life differing but slightly, if at all, from that of their mothers’
relations. The usual result followed: the natives copied the vices of
their visitors without their virtues, and but for the missionaries,
who settled wherever there seemed to be a hope of winning even a few
souls to God, natives and settlers would have been involved in one
common ruin, alike of body and soul.
Little by little the traders and missionaries penetrated as far north
as Hudson’s Bay, and as far west as the Saskatchewan, the shores of
which were dotted with trading houses and chapels long before its very
name was heard in Europe. Unfortunately, however, neither the seekers
after souls nor the hunters of peltries were men to talk much of their
exploits, and though fiction has drawn largely from life in the far
West in these early days for thrilling situations, little is known of
the facts of the first intercourse of the white man with the various
races of the great western hyperborean group of nations. Not until the
powerful rival of the French in the West, the Hudson’s Bay Company――of
the growth of which particulars are given elsewhere――had sent forth
its heroes on expeditions which were something more than trading
excursions, did the first volumes appear of that extensive and
fascinating literature of western travel from which the latter part
of our narrative will be culled.
To atone for the reticence of the fur-trader and missionary in the
far North-west, traveler after traveler succeeded Marquette and
La Salle in exploring the great lakes of Canada and the shores of
the Mississippi. Of these, one of the chief was Baron La Hontan,
who, starting from Lake Michigan, went down the Wisconsin to the
Mississippi, and is supposed to have very nearly approached the
settlements of the Spanish New Mexico. In any case, he heard from some
Indians, whom he called the Guaczitares――a name we altogether fail to
recognize as that of any known tribe――of the existence of white men in
the South; and, what was perhaps of more importance, he learned from
some visitors to the Guaczitares that they came from a country beyond
which lay high ♦mountains, only to be crossed with great difficulty,
but that those who had crossed them had reached a big salt lake
300 leagues round, and with a wide opening to the south. From the
mountains one great river flowed into the lake, and another eastward
to the Miche Sepe. The big salt lake was probably that part of the sea
now known as Queen Charlotte’s Sound, the river flowing into it the
Columbia, and the mountain range the Rocky Mountains.
♦ ‘moutains’ replaced with ‘mountains’
On his return journey, La Hontan descended a river supposed to have
been the second alluded to by the Indians, which brought him in five
weeks to the Mississippi, ascending which he came to the port of
Crevecœur, then still under the command of Tonti, so that he may
be said in some sense to have bridged over the gap between the two
expeditions of La Salle. With his name must be associated, however,
that of Father Charlevoix, the well-known historian of New France,
who made what may be called the grand tour of inland America, passing
up the St. Lawrence, through the lakes, and then down the Mississippi
to the Gulf of Mexico, meeting with few adventures on the way, but
collecting vast stores of information respecting the manners and
customs of the natives, and doing much to shake the narrow view
hitherto entertained, alike of the extent and importance of the lands
on the west of the Mississippi.