In the year 1608, the daring French explorer, Samuel de Champlain,
founded a settlement on the steep cliff of Quebec, and thus laid the
foundations for the great colony of New France. This colony, in the
course of a century and a half, grew to embrace all of what we now call
Canada and the entire basin of the Mississippi River.
[Illustration: CHAMPLAIN]
New France grew slowly. This was largely owing to the opposition of the
fierce Iroquois Indians of New York, whom Champlain had greatly angered.
Another reason was the changing moods of the Algonkin Indians of Canada
and the Middle West; and still another, the enormous difficulties of
travel through the vast forests and along streams frequently strewn with
rapids. Champlain was made governor of New France, and varied his duties
by taking long and painful journeys into the wilderness, thus setting
the fashion of extensive exploration. There were two very good reasons
for encouraging explorers: in the first place, New France was then
largely controlled by a company of merchants, called the Hundred
Associates, who desired to push the fur trade far and wide among the
savage tribes; in the second place, the French Catholic missionary
priests were anxious to reach the Indians, to convert them to the
Christian religion. Thus it came about that, during the twenty-five
years when the energetic and enterprising Champlain was governor, there
was little talked or thought about in New France but exploration, the
fur trade, and the missions to the Indians.
In order to carry out his schemes for opening new fields to the traders
and missionaries, Champlain found it necessary to train young men to
this work. Only those were selected for the task who had a fair
education, and were healthy, strong, well-formed, and brave. They were,
often when mere boys, sent far up into the country to live among the
Indian tribes, to be adopted by them, to learn their habits and
languages, and to harden themselves to the rough life and rude diet of
the dusky dwellers in the forest. It took several years of this
practice, with patient suffering, for a youth to become an expert who
could be trusted to undergo any hardship or daring task that might be
asked of him. It was one of these forest-bred interpreters who became
the first white discoverer of Wisconsin.
In those early days of New France, most of its people were from the west
and northwest provinces of France. The crews of the ships which engaged
in the trade to New France were nearly all from the ports of Rouen,
Honfleur, Fecamp, Cherbourg, Havre, Dieppe, and Caen; in these
north-coast cities lived the greater part of the Hundred Associates, and
from their vicinity came nearly all of the Jesuit missionaries and the
young men who were trained as interpreters.
Jean Nicolet was born in or near Cherbourg, and was the son of a mail
carrier. He was about twenty years of age when, in 1618, he arrived in
Quebec; "and forasmuch as," says an old Jesuit writer of that time, "his
nature and excellent memory inspired good hopes of him, he was sent to
winter with the Island Algonkins, in order to learn their language. He
tarried with them two years, alone of the French, and always joined the
Barbarians in their excursions and journeys, undergoing such fatigues as
none but eyewitnesses can conceive; he often passed seven or eight days
without food, and once, full seven weeks with no other nourishment than
a little bark from the trees." These "Island Algonkins" lived on
Allumettes Island in the Ottawa River, nearly three hundred miles from
Quebec; their language was the principal one then used by the Indians in
the country on the north bank of the St. Lawrence and in the great
valley of the Ottawa.
Although the life was so hard that few white men could endure it,
Nicolet, like most of the other interpreters, learned to enjoy it; and,
passing from one tribe to another, in his search for new languages and
experiences, he remained among his forest friends for eight or nine
years. He had been with the Algonkins for three or four years when he
went, at the head of four hundred of them, into the Iroquois country,
and made a treaty of peace with this savage foe, whom the Algonkins
always greatly feared. It is related that thence he went to dwell with
the Nipissing Indians, living about Lake Nipissing, "where he passed
for one of that nation, taking part in the very frequent councils of
those tribes, having his own separate cabin and household, and fishing
and trading for himself."
Possibly Nicolet might have been recalled from the woods before this,
but, between 1629 and 1632, Canada was in the hands of the British; and
he remained among the Indians, inspiring them to hostility against the
strangers. In 1632, when the country was released to France, Champlain
and his fellow-officers returned to Quebec, and Nicolet was summoned
thither, and was employed as clerk and interpreter by the Hundred
Associates.
Champlain was eager to resume his explorations. He had once been up the
great Ottawa River, and thence had crossed over to Lake Huron, and had
become keenly interested in what were then termed the "upper waters." Of
Lakes Ontario and Erie he knew nothing, for the dreaded Iroquois had
prevented the French from going that way; and Lakes Superior and
Michigan were, as yet, undiscovered by whites. Vague rumors of these
unknown regions had been brought to Quebec by bands of strange savages
who had found their way down to the French settlements in search of
European goods in exchange for furs.
Among the many queer stories brought by these fierce, painted barbarians
was one which told of a certain "Tribe of the Sea" dwelling far away on
the western banks of the "upper waters," a people who had come out of
the West, no man knew whence. In those early days, Europeans still clung
to the notion which Columbus had always held, that America was but an
eastern projection of Asia. This is the reason that our savages were
called Indians, for the discoverers of America thought they had merely
reached an outlying portion of India; they had no idea that this was a
great and new continent. Governor Champlain, and after him Governor
Frontenac, and the great explorer La Salle, all supposed that they could
reach India and China, already known to travelers to the east, by
persistently going westward. When, therefore, Champlain heard of these
strange Men of the Sea, he at once declared they must be the long-sought
Chinese. He engaged Nicolet, in whom he had great confidence, to go out
and find them, wherever they were, make a treaty of peace with them, and
secure their trade.
Upon the first day of July, 1634, Nicolet left Quebec, a passenger in
the second of two fleets of canoes containing Indians from the Ottawa
valley, who had come down to the white settlements to trade. Among his
fellow passengers were three adventurous Jesuit missionaries, who were
on their way to the country of the Huron tribe, east of Lake Huron.
Leaving the priests at Allumettes Island, he continued up the Ottawa,
then crossed over to Lake Nipissing, visited old friends among the
Indians there, and descended French Creek, which flows from Lake
Nipissing into Georgian Bay, a northeastern arm of Lake Huron. On the
shores of the great lake, he engaged seven Hurons to paddle his long
birch-bark canoe and guide him to the mysterious "Tribe of the Sea."
Slowly they felt their way along the northern shores of Lake Huron,
where the pine forests sweep majestically down to the water's edge, or
crown the bold cliffs, while southward the green waters of the inland
sea stretch away to the horizon. Storms too severe for their frail craft
frequently detained them on the shore, and daily they sought food in the
forest. The savage crew, tiring of exertion, and overcome by
superstitious fears, would fain have abandoned the voyage; but the
strong, energetic master bore down all opposition. At last they reached
the outlet of Lake Superior, the forest-girt Strait of St. Mary, and
paddled up as far as the falls, the Sault Ste. Marie, as it came to be
called by the Jesuit missionaries. Here there was a large village of
Algonkins, where the explorer tarried, refreshing his crew and gathering
information concerning the "Tribe of the Sea." The explorers do not
appear to have visited Lake Superior; but, bolder than before, they set
forth to the southwest, and passing gayly through the island-dotted
Straits of Mackinac, now one of the greatest of the world's highways,
were soon upon the broad waters of Lake Michigan, of which Nicolet was
probably the first white discoverer.
Clinging still to the northern shore, camping in the dense woods at
night or when threatened by storm, Nicolet rounded far-stretching Point
Detour and landed upon the shores of Bay de Noquet, a northern arm of
Green Bay. Another Algonkin tribe dwelt here, with whom the persistent
explorer smoked the pipe of peace, and they gave him further news of the
people he sought. Next he stopped at the mouth of the Menominee River,
now the northeast boundary between Wisconsin and Michigan, where the
Menominee tribe lived. Another council was held, more tobacco was
smoked, and one of Nicolet's Huron companions was sent forward to notify
the Winnebagoes at the mouth of the Fox River that the great white chief
was approaching; for the uncouth Winnebagoes were the far-famed "Tribe
of the Sea" whom Nicolet had traveled so far to find.
The manner of their obtaining this name, which had so misled Champlain,
is curious. The word was originally "ouinepeg," or "ouinepego," and both
Winnipeg and Winnebago are derived from it. Now "ouinepeg" was an
Algonkin term meaning "men of (or from) the fetid (or bad-smelling)
water." Possibly the tribe, far back in their history, once dwelt by a
strong-smelling sulphur spring. The French, in their eagerness to find
China, fancied that the fetid water must necessarily be salt water,
hence the Western Ocean or "China Sea;" that is why they called the
Winnebagoes the "Tribe of the Sea," and jumped at the conclusion that
they were Chinese.
By this time, Nicolet had his doubts about meeting Chinese at Green Bay.
As, however, he had brought with him "a grand robe of China damask, all
strewn with flowers, and birds of many colors," such as Chinese
mandarins are supposed to wear, he put it on; and when he landed on the
shore of Fox River, where is now the city of Green Bay, strode forward
into the group of waiting, skin-clad savages, discharging the pistols
which he held in either hand. Women and children fled in terror to the
wigwams; and the warriors fell down and worshiped this Manitou (or
spirit) who carried with him thunder and lightning.
"The news of his coming," says the old Jesuit chronicler, "quickly
spread to the places round about, and there assembled four or five
thousand men. Each of the Chief men made a feast for him, and at one of
these banquets they served at least six-score Beavers." There was a
great deal of oratory at these feasts, with the exchange of belts of
wampum, and the smoking of pipes of peace, and no end of assurances on
the part of the red men that they were glad to become the friends of New
France and to keep the peace with the great French father at Paris.
Leaving his new friends at Green Bay, the explorer ascended the Fox
River as far as the Mascoutins, who had a village upon a prairie ridge,
near where Berlin now lies. He made a similar treaty with this people,
and learned of the Wisconsin River which flows into the Mississippi, but
did not go to seek it. He then walked overland to the tribe of the
Illinois, probably returning to Quebec, in 1635, by way of Lake
Michigan. Nicolet had proceeded over nearly two thousand five hundred
miles of lake, river, forest, and prairie; had been subjected to a
thousand dangers from man and beast, as well as from fierce rapids and
stormtossed waters; had made treaties with several heretofore unknown
tribes, and had widely extended the boundaries of New France.
For various reasons, it was nearly thirty years before another visit was
made by white men to Wisconsin. Nicolet himself soon settled down at the
new town of Three Rivers, on the shores of the St. Lawrence, between
Quebec and Montreal, as the agent and interpreter there of the great fur
trade company. He was a very useful man both to the company and to the
missionaries; for he had great influence over the Indians, who loved him
sincerely, and he always exercised this influence for the good of the
colony and of religion. He was drowned in the month of October, 1642,
while on his way to release a poor savage prisoner who was being
maltreated by Indians in the neighborhood.