“WE ARE ALL SAVAGES”
The winter was a long one in the valley of the Illinois. Food was scarce
and the little band at Fort Crèvecœur had many hungry days. Once there
passed the Peoria village a canoe headed downstream, and in it the
Indians recognized two of the men who had set out with La Salle. The
canoe was loaded to the gunwale with provisions. Where could the white
chief have found such a store? The answer came later from the lips of
Chassagoac himself when he returned from his winter hunt.
Trailing through the woods one day Chassagoac had seen the smoke of a
camp-fire. Drawing near with two of his men he met a strange white man
who presented him with a red blanket, a kettle, and some hatchets and
knives. Chassagoac soon learned that the stranger was La Salle, the
chief of the company of white men who had settled near the Peoria
village. The white man knew the fame of Chassagoac, and the two chiefs
sat down for a long conference, during which La Salle told of all the
things that had happened at the village and explained to the red chief
that his men at the fort were in sad need of food. If the red brother
would furnish them with provisions he would repay him on his return from
the East.
Then, as the kindly Chassagoac promised his help, the white chief went
on to tell of his plans. He told of the fort and the great ship that was
being built on the riverside. Even now he was on his way to the East to
make peace with the Iroquois for the Illinois, and he would come back
with arms for their defense and with merchandise to distribute among
them; and many more Frenchmen would return with him to establish
themselves at the Illinois villages. He told of his plans for a great
expedition down the river to its mouth, whence he could set up more easy
trade and bring from across the sea goods of all kinds for the tribes of
the Illinois.
Chassagoac was deeply interested, and with generous hand he filled a
canoe with stores from the caches of the deserted Kaskaskia village near
at hand. He urged the white man to return soon, and assured him that
what had been said about the beauty and the easy passage of the
Mississippi was all true. Then after courteous leave-taking the two
chiefs separated. La Salle continued his way up the river, while two of
his men paddled the canoe full of supplies down the stream to Fort
Crèvecœur. After parting from La Salle, Chassagoac went on with his
hunting until the day when he came once more to the village of his
people. Here his arrival was welcomed by the Indians, whose fears were
perhaps somewhat quieted by his stanch belief in the white men. He spent
much time with the gray-robed friars and talked with them of how he had
met the black-gowned Marquette on the distant shores of the Lake of the
Illinois and had given him part of the deer he had killed. Indeed,
Chassagoac thought so well of the teachings of the friars that he agreed
to follow their strange manitou, and so was baptized after the manner of
the Frenchmen.
Meanwhile two more Frenchmen slipped down the river past the village to
the fort, which they reached about the middle of April. At once there
was much stirring among the whites, and soon Tonty with a few of his men
passed up the river toward the village of the Kaskaskias. The Indians
were curious at this new move. Some time before the veteran Ako,
together with the Picard and the friar Hennepin, had set off down the
stream, and La Salle with more men had gone up the river the day after.
Now even Tonty was departing.
The Indians watched closely the handful of men who remained in the
stockaded walls. Nöel Le Blanc and Nicolas Laurent, the two men who had
lately arrived at the fort, had come with orders from La Salle to Tonty
to build another fort at the upper village. In Tonty’s absence, Le Blanc
seemed to be moving about like a restless spirit, talking earnestly
among the men. With the blacksmith and the ship carpenters in particular
he appeared to be plotting some deep-laid scheme.
Into the village of the Peorias, likewise, crept strange whisperings and
rumors. Men from other villages came to tell them that their distrusted
neighbors, the Miamis, had been seeking an alliance with the hated
Iroquois. Was the fort to be abandoned, and were the Frenchmen to creep
off by twos and threes leaving the Peorias to be eaten by the Iroquois?
Presently those who watched the fort saw another party start out. This
time there were five men in the canoe—Father Ribourde, Boisrondet,
L’Espérance, and two others, Petit-Bled and Boisdardenne. After their
departure a strange commotion arose within the walls of the fort. Ship
carpenters ran here and there plundering the cabins: they tore down the
doors, and pillaged and robbed on every hand. They even overturned the
effects in the lodgings of the priests. Hillaret and the brawny
blacksmith forced open the storehouse and brought out powder and balls
and arms, and furs and merchandise. From every corner of the fortress La
Roze and Le Blanc and their fellow-conspirators gathered things of
value. Then, loaded down with guns and beaver skins and fine linen and
moccasins, they made for the riverside. One man with a sharp instrument
scratched on the gleaming white timbers of the half-built ship the
words, “Nous sommes tous Sauvages”—“We are all savages”—and the date:
“Ce 15 A—1680.” Then off into the woods they vanished, leaving the fort
wrecked and plundered.
Meantime night had come upon the aged friar and his four companions on
their way to Tonty at the upper village. Petit-Bled and Boisdardenne, in
league with the conspirators at the fort, rose up and spiked the guns of
L’Espérance and Boisrondet, and made off with the canoe after their
fellows, leaving the Recollet and the two young men to find their way on
foot and without means of defense to the village of the Kaskaskias.
Tonty heard the news of the mutiny with consternation and anger, and
hastened back to the ruined fort. Everything of value seemed to have
been taken, except the forge and some tools and arms too heavy for the
deserters to carry on their flight. With this freight the heavy-hearted
Tonty made his way back to the Kaskaskia village, where the lodges were
once more filled by the returning warriors and hunters. After sending,
by two routes, messengers to tell La Salle of the catastrophe, Tonty
prepared for a new order of life. The fort and its garrison no longer
gave him protection; but the Man with the Iron Hand was no coward. With
his fragment of a band he entered the village and asked the Kaskaskias
if he might live in their midst. They welcomed him to their kettles and
their cabins, and shared with him and his men their food and their
buffalo robes. The band of thirty or more that had come into the valley
a few months before was now reduced to six—Tonty and his friend
Boisrondet, the two young men, L’Espérance and Renault the Parisian, and
the two friars—Father Membré having come up from the lower village.