Produced by Roger Frank
THE MAN WITH THE IRON HAND
BY
JOHN CARL PARISH
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[Illustration: La Salle took possession in the name of the King of
France.]
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True Tales of the Great Valley
EDITED BY BENJAMIN F. SHAMBAUGH
The Man with the Iron Hand
BY
JOHN CARL PARISH
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1913
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COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published October 1913
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Let us picture in imagination the history of the Great Valley of the
Mississippi as a splendid drama enacted upon a giant stage which reaches
from the Alleghanies to the Rockies and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf
of Mexico and through which the Father of Waters sweeps majestically.
Let us people this stage with real men and women—picturesque red men and
no less interesting white men, Indians, Spaniards, Frenchmen,
Englishmen, explorers, warriors, priests, voyageurs, coureurs de bois;
fur traders, and settlers. Let the scenes be set about the lakes, along
the rivers, among the hills, on the plains, and in the forests. Then,
viewing this pageant of the past, let us write the true tales of the
Great Valley as we write romance—with life, action, and color—that the
history of our Great Valley may live.
Benjamin F. Shambaugh
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AUTHOR’S PREFACE
The purpose of this book is to present in readable narrative form, yet
with strict accuracy, some of the events which attended the coming of
the French explorers into the Mississippi Valley, and to deal with these
events as much as possible from the standpoint of the Indians whose
country the white men entered. In other words, an effort has been made
to place the reader in the position and environment of the native
inhabitants in order that he may witness the coming of the whites
through the eyes and minds of the Indians instead of viewing from the
outside the exploration, by men of his own kind, of an unknown land
peopled by a strange and vaguely understood race.
For the sake of preserving the standpoint of the Great Valley, the story
of explorations is centered about Henry de Tonty—the “Man with the Iron
Hand”—who, unlike his leader La Salle, remained in the valley of the
Mississippi and in close relations with its inhabitants for a quarter of
a century.
This book is not in any sense fiction. It has been written directly from
the original sources and from the best information available upon the
life of the Indian at the time of the arrival of the whites. The sources
consist mainly of the letters and relations of Father Marquette and
other Jesuits, of Joliet and La Salle and Tonty, and the writings of the
various friars, priests, and soldiers who accompanied them. A few
fragments are accessible in manuscript form only; but the most important
material has been compiled, edited, and published by Pierre Margry, John
Gilmary Shea, B. F. French, Reuben Gold Thwaites, and others.
Where conversations are given they have been taken from the reports of
those who held them or heard them. Usually they have been translated
literally from the French records. Sometimes the direct discourse has
been turned into indirect, or abridged, and in a few cases the indirect
has been turned into the direct form.
The writings of the early explorers and priests abound in descriptive
details of a climatic, physical, or personal nature; and this
information, wherever illuminative, has been drawn upon to reproduce as
vividly and as truly as possible the conditions surrounding the events
described.
There is one secondary writer who will always deserve the gratitude of
the student of subjects connected with the French and Indians in Canada
and the Mississippi Valley, and acknowledgments are here made to Francis
Parkman, not as a source of information—although his conclusions, drawn
from an exhaustive study of original documents, are invaluable—but as a
pioneer and unrivaled master in the field and a source of unfailing
inspiration.
There are many persons who have aided the work in various ways, and
their assistance has been duly appreciated; but space will permit the
mention of only two of them. The helpful criticism and suggestions of my
wife throughout the entire preparation of the volume have materially
benefited the text; and the constant advice and encouragement of the
editor of the series, Dr. Benjamin F. Shambaugh, and his careful
editorial revision of the manuscript have added much to the value of the
book.
John Carl Parish.
Denver, Colorado
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CONTENTS
I THE CAPTIVE
II THE COMING OF THE STRANGERS
III DOWN THE GREAT RIVER
IV THE CAPTIVE RELEASED
V THE BLACK GOWN
VI “THE IROQUOIS ARE COMING”
VII THE SECRET COUNCIL
VIII THE FORT CALLED CRÈVECŒUR
IX THE WHITE INVASION
X THE MYSTERIOUS HAND
XI “WE ARE ALL SAVAGES”
XII THE DEATH OF CHASSAGOAC
XIII THE IROQUOIS COME
XIV THE SCATTERING OF THE TRIBES
XV A SIOUX WAR PARTY
XVI THE LAND OF THE SIOUX
XVII A BUFFALO HUNT
XVIII THE MIAMIS REPENT
XIX A CHIEF COME TO LIFE
XX STRANGE RITES
XXI THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI
XXII THE GATHERING OF THE TRIBES
XXIII FORT ST. LOUIS
XXIV THE LOST CHIEF
XXV NEWS FROM LA SALLE
XXVI AN ILL-STARRED VOYAGE
XXVII HUNTING THE MISSISSIPPI
XXVIII FROM THE GULF TO THE ILLINOIS
XXIX WHEN HE LEFT THEM
XXX WHITE AND RED SAVAGES
XXXI TONTY’S HEROIC VENTURE
XXXII THE PITIFUL REMNANT
The frontispiece is from a painting by Frank T. Merrill
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The Man with the Iron Hand
CHAPTER I
THE CAPTIVE
A sudden, far-off cry broke the stillness that had brooded over the
long, low Indian lodges on the hill. Instantly the whole village awoke
to intense excitement. Women dropped their work by the fireside; old men
put away their long-stemmed pipes and leaped like young braves to the
doors of the lodges; while in the fields young girls stood straight to
listen. Again came the cry, but nearer now and as of many voices. From
every lodge by the side of the river and on the hill came pouring the
red-skinned villagers, their straight, black hair glistening in the
sunlight. From the fields of corn and squashes and out from among the
bean-vines came lithe maidens and sturdy Indian women; and from their
play by the riverside naked children tumbled breathlessly into the open
space before the lodges.
In the distance, with wild, triumphant cries, came the war party for
which the women and old men of the village had waited so long. Now they
could see the gay feathers that decorated the heads and the red paint
that smeared the bodies of the returning braves. Now they caught sight
of scalp-locks waved in the air; and in the midst of the throng of
warriors they saw the figure of a strange Indian lad plodding along
between two tall braves. “Scalps and a captive” went up the cry from the
waiting villagers, and out into the open with shouts of welcome they
poured to meet the home-coming band.
It was an occasion long to be remembered. The women of the tribe
gathered in the open, and with weird songs and wild music, with arms
flung high and feet shuffling and leaping, and with bodies twisting and
bending, danced the scalp dance.
The captive was only a boy, who did not speak the language of the
Illinois into whose triumphant hands he had fallen. He was a stranger in
the midst of enemies. Sometimes, as he well knew, in the camps of the
Peoria tribe, when darkness had fallen after a day of battle, captives
were burned alive. Such a scene his terrified mind now pictured. He
imagined himself bound at the foot of a stake in the midst of a
clearing. He could see flames reach out hungrily and consume the dried
sticks and underbrush. Each second they mounted higher, throwing a
circle of light on a close-packed crowd of heartless and rejoicing
Indians, who watched the growing flames leap up and lick at the limbs of
the helpless captive tied to the stake.
Perhaps, if he had been an Iroquois, burning would have been the young
boy’s fate. But on this particular occasion the Iowa River, which ran
past the Peoria village, witnessed no such barbaric torturings, for the
wife of the chief claimed the captive and took him to her own lodge,
where in due time and with proper ceremony he was adopted as a member of
the chief’s family.
It was in some such train of events that this captive Indian boy came,
with strange words upon his lips and fear in his heart, to live with the
Peoria tribe of Illinois Indians. He had many forebodings, but with all
his Indian imagination he could not foresee that from this village of
his adoption he would set out upon a series of adventures such as no boy
or man of his tribe had yet experienced—that he would pass through
countries and among people like none he had ever known and come upon
dangers that would make his capture in battle seem as tame as a day’s
fishing.