1681-1682.
SUCCESS OF LA SALLE.
His Followers.--The Chicago Portage.--Descent of the
Mississippi.--The Lost Hunter.--The Arkansas.--The Taensas.--The
Natchez.--Hostility.--The Mouth of the Mississippi.--Louis XIV.
proclaimed Sovereign of the Great West.
The season was far advanced. On the bare limbs of the forest hung a few
withered remnants of its gay autumnal livery; and the smoke crept upward
through the sullen November air from the squalid wigwams of La Salle's
Abenaki and Mohegan allies. These, his new friends, were savages whose
midnight yells had startled the border hamlets of New England; who had
danced around Puritan scalps, and whom Puritan imaginations painted as
incarnate fiends. La Salle chose eighteen of them, whom he added to the
twenty-three Frenchmen who remained with him, some of the rest having
deserted and others lagged behind. The Indians insisted on taking their
squaws with them. These were ten in number, besides three children; and
thus the expedition included fifty-four persons, of whom some were
useless, and others a burden.
On the 21st of December, Tonty and Membré set out from Fort Miami with
some of the party in six canoes, and crossed to the little river
Chicago.[231] La Salle, with the rest of the men, joined them a few days
later. It was the dead of winter, and the streams were frozen. They made
sledges, placed on them the canoes, the baggage, and a disabled
Frenchman; crossed from the Chicago to the northern branch of the
Illinois, and filed in a long procession down its frozen course. They
reached the site of the great Illinois village, found it tenantless, and
continued their journey, still dragging their canoes, till at length
they reached open water below Lake Peoria.
[Sidenote: PRUDHOMME.]
La Salle had abandoned for a time his original plan of building a vessel
for the navigation of the Mississippi. Bitter experience had taught him
the difficulty of the attempt, and he resolved to trust to his canoes
alone. They embarked again, floating prosperously down between the
leafless forests that flanked the tranquil river; till, on the sixth of
February, they issued upon the majestic bosom of the Mississippi. Here,
for the time, their progress was stopped; for the river was full of
floating ice. La Salle's Indians, too, had lagged behind; but within a
week all had arrived, the navigation was once more free, and they
resumed their course. Towards evening they saw on their right the mouth
of a great river; and the clear current was invaded by the headlong
torrent of the Missouri, opaque with mud. They built their camp-fires in
the neighboring forest; and at daylight, embarking anew on the dark and
mighty stream, drifted swiftly down towards unknown destinies. They
passed a deserted town of the Tamaroas; saw, three days after, the mouth
of the Ohio;[232] and, gliding by the wastes of bordering swamp, landed
on the twenty-fourth of February near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs.[233]
They encamped, and the hunters went out for game. All returned,
excepting Pierre Prudhomme; and as the others had seen fresh tracks of
Indians, La Salle feared that he was killed. While some of his followers
built a small stockade fort on a high bluff[234] by the river, others
ranged the woods in pursuit of the missing hunter. After six days of
ceaseless and fruitless search, they met two Chickasaw Indians in the
forest; and through them La Salle sent presents and peace-messages to
that warlike people, whose villages were a few days' journey distant.
Several days later Prudhomme was found, and brought into the camp,
half-dead. He had lost his way while hunting; and to console him for his
woes La Salle christened the newly built fort with his name, and left
him, with a few others, in charge of it.
Again they embarked; and with every stage of their adventurous progress
the mystery of this vast New World was more and more unveiled. More and
more they entered the realms of spring. The hazy sunlight, the warm and
drowsy air, the tender foliage, the opening flowers, betokened the
reviving life of Nature. For several days more they followed the
writhings of the great river on its tortuous course through wastes of
swamp and cane-brake, till on the thirteenth of March[235] they found
themselves wrapped in a thick fog. Neither shore was visible; but they
heard on the right the booming of an Indian drum and the shrill outcries
of the war-dance. La Salle at once crossed to the opposite side, where,
in less than an hour, his men threw up a rude fort of felled trees.
Meanwhile the fog cleared; and from the farther bank the astonished
Indians saw the strange visitors at their work. Some of the French
advanced to the edge of the water, and beckoned them to come over.
Several of them approached, in a wooden canoe, to within the distance of
a gun-shot. La Salle displayed the calumet, and sent a Frenchman to meet
them. He was well received; and the friendly mood of the Indians being
now apparent, the whole party crossed the river.
[Sidenote: THE ARKANSAS.]
On landing, they found themselves at a town of the Kappa band of the
Arkansas, a people dwelling near the mouth of the river which bears
their name. "The whole village," writes Membré to his superior, "came
down to the shore to meet us, except the women, who had run off. I
cannot tell you the civility and kindness we received from these
barbarians, who brought us poles to make huts, supplied us with firewood
during the three days we were among them, and took turns in feasting us.
But, my Reverend Father, this gives no idea of the good qualities of
these savages, who are gay, civil, and free-hearted. The young men,
though the most alert and spirited we had seen, are nevertheless so
modest that not one of them would take the liberty to enter our hut, but
all stood quietly at the door. They are so well formed that we were in
admiration at their beauty. We did not lose the value of a pin while we
were among them."
Various were the dances and ceremonies with which they entertained the
strangers, who, on their part, responded with a solemnity which their
hosts would have liked less if they had understood it better. La Salle
and Tonty, at the head of their followers, marched to the open area in
the midst of the village. Here, to the admiration of the gazing crowd of
warriors, women, and children, a cross was raised bearing the arms of
France. Membré, in canonicals, sang a hymn; the men shouted _Vive le
Roi_; and La Salle, in the King's name, took formal possession of the
country.[236] The friar, not, he flatters himself, without success,
labored to expound by signs the mysteries of the Faith; while La Salle,
by methods equally satisfactory, drew from the chief an acknowledgement
of fealty to Louis XIV.[237]
[Sidenote: THE TAENSAS.]
After touching at several other towns of this people, the voyagers
resumed their course, guided by two of the Arkansas; passed the sites,
since become historic, of Vicksburg and Grand Gulf; and, about three
hundred miles below the Arkansas, stopped by the edge of a swamp on the
western side of the river.[238] Here, as their two guides told them,
was the path to the great town of the Taensas. Tonty and Membré were
sent to visit it. They and their men shouldered their birch canoe
through the swamp, and launched it on a lake which had once formed a
portion of the channel of the river. In two hours, they reached the
town; and Tonty gazed at it with astonishment. He had seen nothing like
it in America,--large square dwellings, built of sun-baked mud mixed
with straw, arched over with a dome-shaped roof of canes, and placed in
regular order around an open area. Two of them were larger and better
than the rest. One was the lodge of the chief; the other was the temple,
or house of the Sun. They entered the former, and found a single room,
forty feet square, where, in the dim light,--for there was no opening
but the door,--the chief sat awaiting them on a sort of bedstead, three
of his wives at his side; while sixty old men, wrapped in white cloaks
woven of mulberry-bark, formed his divan. When he spoke, his wives
howled to do him honor; and the assembled councillors listened with the
reverence due to a potentate for whom, at his death, a hundred victims
were to be sacrificed. He received the visitors graciously, and
joyfully accepted the gifts which Tonty laid before him.[239] This
interview over, the Frenchmen repaired to the temple, wherein were kept
the bones of the departed chiefs. In construction, it was much like the
royal dwelling. Over it were rude wooden figures, representing three
eagles turned towards the east. A strong mud wall surrounded it, planted
with stakes, on which were stuck the skulls of enemies sacrificed to the
Sun; while before the door was a block of wood, on which lay a large
shell surrounded with the braided hair of the victims. The interior was
rude as a barn, dimly lighted from the doorway, and full of smoke. There
was a structure in the middle which Membré thinks was a kind of altar;
and before it burned a perpetual fire, fed with three logs laid end to
end, and watched by two old men devoted to this sacred office. There was
a mysterious recess, too, which the strangers were forbidden to explore,
but which, as Tonty was told, contained the riches of the nation,
consisting of pearls from the Gulf, and trinkets obtained, probably
through other tribes, from the Spaniards and other Europeans.
The chief condescended to visit La Salle at his camp,--a favor which he
would by no means have granted, had the visitors been Indians. A master
of ceremonies and six attendants preceded him, to clear the path and
prepare the place of meeting. When all was ready, he was seen advancing,
clothed in a white robe and preceded by two men bearing white fans,
while a third displayed a disk of burnished copper,--doubtless to
represent the Sun, his ancestor, or, as others will have it, his elder
brother. His aspect was marvellously grave, and he and La Salle met with
gestures of ceremonious courtesy. The interview was very friendly; and
the chief returned well pleased with the gifts which his entertainer
bestowed on him, and which, indeed, had been the principal motive of his
visit.
[Sidenote: THE NATCHEZ.]
On the next morning, as they descended the river, they saw a wooden
canoe full of Indians; and Tonty gave chase. He had nearly overtaken it,
when more than a hundred men appeared suddenly on the shore, with bows
bent to defend their countrymen. La Salle called out to Tonty to
withdraw. He obeyed; and the whole party encamped on the opposite bank.
Tonty offered to cross the river with a peace-pipe, and set out
accordingly with a small party of men. When he landed, the Indians made
signs of friendship by joining their hands,--a proceeding by which
Tonty, having but one hand, was somewhat embarrassed; but he directed
his men to respond in his stead. La Salle and Membré now joined him, and
went with the Indians to their village, three leagues distant. Here they
spent the night. "The Sieur de la Salle," writes Membré, "whose very
air, engaging manners, tact, and address attract love and respect
alike, produced such an effect on the hearts of these people that they
did not know how to treat us well enough."[240]
The Indians of this village were the Natchez; and their chief was
brother of the great chief, or Sun, of the whole nation. His town was
several leagues distant, near the site of the city of Natchez; and
thither the French repaired to visit him. They saw what they had already
seen among the Taensas,--a religious and political despotism, a
privileged caste descended from the sun, a temple, and a sacred
fire.[241] La Salle planted a large cross, with the arms of France
attached, in the midst of the town; while the inhabitants looked on with
a satisfaction which they would hardly have displayed had they
understood the meaning of the act.
[Sidenote: HOSTILITY.]
The French next visited the Coroas, at their village two leagues below;
and here they found a reception no less auspicious. On the thirty-first
of March, as they approached Red River, they passed in the fog a town of
the Oumas, and three days later discovered a party of fishermen, in
wooden canoes, among the canes along the margin of the water. They fled
at sight of the Frenchmen. La Salle sent men to reconnoitre, who, as
they struggled through the marsh, were greeted with a shower of arrows;
while from the neighboring village of the Quinipissas,[242] invisible
behind the cane-brake, they heard the sound of an Indian drum and the
whoops of the mustering warriors. La Salle, anxious to keep the peace
with all the tribes along the river, recalled his men, and pursued his
voyage. A few leagues below they saw a cluster of Indian lodges on the
left bank, apparently void of inhabitants. They landed, and found three
of them filled with corpses. It was a village of the Tangibao, sacked by
their enemies only a few days before.[243]
And now they neared their journey's end. On the sixth of April the river
divided itself into three broad channels. La Salle followed that of the
west, and Dautray that of the east; while Tonty took the middle passage.
As he drifted down the turbid current, between the low and marshy
shores, the brackish water changed to brine, and the breeze grew fresh
with the salt breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of the great Gulf
opened on his sight, tossing its restless billows, limitless, voiceless,
lonely as when born of chaos, without a sail, without a sign of life.
La Salle, in a canoe, coasted the marshy borders of the sea; and then
the reunited parties assembled on a spot of dry ground, a short distance
above the mouth of the river. Here a column was made ready, bearing the
arms of France, and inscribed with the words, "Louis Le Grand, Roy De
France Et De Navarre, Règne; Le Neuvième Avril, 1682."
The Frenchmen were mustered under arms; and while the New England
Indians and their squaws looked on in wondering silence, they chanted
the _Te Deum_, the _Exaudiat_, and the _Domine salvum fac Regem_. Then,
amid volleys of musketry and shouts of _Vive le Roi_, La Salle planted
the column in its place, and, standing near it, proclaimed in a loud
voice,--
[Sidenote: POSSESSION TAKEN.]
"In the name of the most high, mighty, invincible, and victorious
Prince, Louis the Great, by the grace of God King of France and of
Navarre, Fourteenth of that name, I, this ninth day of April, one
thousand six hundred and eighty-two, in virtue of the commission of his
Majesty, which I hold in my hand, and which may be seen by all whom it
may concern, have taken, and do now take, in the name of his Majesty and
of his successors to the crown, possession of this country of Louisiana,
the seas, harbors, ports, bays, adjacent straits, and all the nations,
peoples, provinces, cities, towns, villages, mines, minerals, fisheries,
streams, and rivers, within the extent of the said Louisiana, from the
mouth of the great river St. Louis, otherwise called the Ohio, ... as
also along the river Colbert, or Mississippi, and the rivers which
discharge themselves thereinto, from its source beyond the country of
the Nadouessioux ... as far as its mouth at the sea, or Gulf of Mexico,
and also to the mouth of the River of Palms, upon the assurance we have
had from the natives of these countries that we are the first Europeans
who have descended or ascended the said river Colbert; hereby protesting
against all who may hereafter undertake to invade any or all of these
aforesaid countries, peoples, or lands, to the prejudice of the rights
of his Majesty, acquired by the consent of the nations dwelling herein.
Of which, and of all else that is needful, I hereby take to witness
those who hear me, and demand an act of the notary here present."[244]
Shouts of _Vive le Roi_ and volleys of musketry responded to his words.
Then a cross was planted beside the column, and a leaden plate buried
near it, bearing the arms of France, with a Latin inscription,
_Ludovicus Magnus regnat_. The weather-beaten voyagers joined their
voices in the grand hymn of the _Vexilla Regis_:--
"The banners of Heaven's King advance,
The mystery of the Cross shines forth;"
and renewed shouts of _Vive le Roi_ closed the ceremony.
On that day, the realm of France received on parchment a stupendous
accession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the
Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of
the Gulf; from the woody 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, passed beneath the sceptre of the Sultan of
Versailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at half
a mile.
FOOTNOTES:
[231] La Salle, _Relation de la Découverte_, 1682, in Thomassy,
_Géologie Pratique de la Louisiane 9; Lettre du Père Zenobe Membré, 3
Juin, 1682; Ibid., 14 Août, 1682_; Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 214; Tonty,
1684, 1693; _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la Louisiane,
Feuilles détachées d'une Lettre de La Salle_ (Margry, ii. 164); _Récit
de Nicolas de la Salle_ (Ibid., i. 547).
The narrative ascribed to Membré and published by Le Clerc is based on
the document preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine,
entitled _Relation de la Découverte de l'Embouchure de la Rivière
Mississippi faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l'année passée_, 1682. The
writer of the narrative has used it very freely, copying the greater
part verbatim, with occasional additions of a kind which seem to
indicate that he had taken part in the expedition. The _Relation de la
Découverte_, though written in the third person, is the official report
of the discovery made by La Salle, or perhaps for him by Membré.
[232] Called by Membré the Ouabache (Wabash).
[233] La Salle, _Relation de la Découverte de l'Embouchure, etc._;
Thomassy, 10. Membré gives the same date; but the _Procès Verbal_ makes
it the twenty-sixth.
[234] Gravier, in his letter of 16 Feb., 1701, says that he encamped
near a "great bluff of stone, called Fort Prudhomme, because M. de La
Salle, going on his discovery, intrenched himself here with his party,
fearing that Prudhomme, who had lost himself in the woods, had been
killed by the Indians, and that he himself would be attacked."
[235] La Salle, _Relation_; Thomassy, 11.
[236] _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession du Pays des Arkansas, 14
Mars, 1682._
[237] The nation of the Akanseas, Alkansas, or Arkansas, dwelt on the
west bank of the Mississippi, near the mouth of the Arkansas. They were
divided into four tribes, living for the most part in separate villages.
Those first visited by La Salle were the Kappas, or Quapaws, a remnant
of whom still subsists. The others were the Topingas, or Tongengas; the
Torimans; and the Osotouoy, or Sauthouis. According to Charlevoix, who
saw them in 1721, they were regarded as the tallest and best-formed
Indians in America, and were known as _les Beaux Hommes_. Gravier says
that they once lived on the Ohio.
[238] In Tensas County, Louisiana. Tonty's estimates of distance are
here much too low. They seem to be founded on observations of latitude,
without reckoning the windings of the river. It may interest sportsmen
to know that the party killed several large alligators, on their way.
Membré is much astonished that such monsters should be born of eggs like
chickens.
[239] Tonty, 1684, 1693. In the spurious narrative, published in Tonty's
name, the account is embellished and exaggerated. Compare Membré in Le
Clerc, ii. 227. La Salle's statements in the _Relation_ of 1682
(Thomassy, 12) sustain those of Tonty.
[240] Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 232.
[241] The Natchez and the Taensas, whose habits and customs were
similar, did not, in their social organization, differ radically from
other Indians. The same principle of clanship, or _totemship_, so widely
spread, existed in full force among them, combined with their religious
ideas, and developed into forms of which no other example, equally
distinct, is to be found. (For Indian clanship, see "The Jesuits in
North America," _Introduction_.) Among the Natchez and Taensas, the
principal clan formed a ruling caste; and its chiefs had the attributes
of demi-gods. As descent was through the female, the chief's son never
succeeded him, but the son of one of his sisters; and as she, by the
usual totemic law, was forced to marry in another clan,--that is, to
marry a common mortal,--her husband, though the destined father of a
demi-god, was treated by her as little better than a slave. She might
kill him, if he proved unfaithful; but he was forced to submit to her
infidelities in silence.
The customs of the Natchez have been described by Du Pratz, Le Petit,
Penecaut, and others. Charlevoix visited their temple in 1721, and found
it in a somewhat shabby condition. At this time, the Taensas were
extinct. In 1729 the Natchez, enraged by the arbitrary conduct of a
French commandant, massacred the neighboring settlers, and were in
consequence expelled from their country and nearly destroyed. A few
still survive, incorporated with the Creeks; but they have lost their
peculiar customs.
[242] In St. Charles County, on the left bank, not far above New
Orleans.
[243] Hennepin uses this incident, as well as most of those which have
preceded it, in making up the story of his pretended voyage to the Gulf.
[244] In the passages omitted above, for the sake of brevity, the Ohio
is mentioned as being called also the _Olighin_-(Alleghany) _Sipou_, and
_Chukagoua_; and La Salle declares that he takes possession of the
country with the consent of the nations dwelling in it, of whom he names
the Chaouanons (Shawanoes), Kious, or Nadouessious (Sioux), Chikachas
(Chickasaws), Motantees (?), Illinois, Mitchigamias, Arkansas, Natchez,
and Koroas. This alleged consent is, of course, mere farce. If there
could be any doubt as to the meaning of the words of La Salle, as
recorded in the _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la
Louisiane_, it would be set at rest by Le Clerc, who says: "Le Sieur de
la Salle prit au nom de sa Majesté possession de ce fleuve, _de toutes
les rivières qui y entrent, et de tous les pays qu'elles arrosent_."
These words are borrowed from the report of La Salle (see Thomassy, 14).
A copy of the original _Procès Verbal_ is before me. It bears the name
of Jacques de la Metairie, Notary of Fort Frontenac, who was one of the
party.