Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: Jacques Cartier]
French Pathfinders
in
North America
By
William Henry Johnson
Author of "The World's Discoverers," "Pioneer Spaniards in North
America," etc.
_With Seven Full-Page Plates_
Boston
Little, Brown, and Company
1912
Copyright, 1905,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
All rights reserved
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FOREWORD
The compiler of the following sketches does not make any claim to
originality. He has dealt with material that has been used often and
again. Still there has seemed to him to be a place for a book which
should outline the story of the great French explorers in such simple,
direct fashion as might attract young readers. Trying to meet this
need, he has sought to add to the usefulness of the volume by
introductory chapters, simple in language, but drawn from the best
authorities and carefully considered, giving a view of Indian society;
also, by inserting numerous notes on Indian tribal connections,
customs, and the like subjects.
By selecting a portion of Radisson's journal for publication he does
not by any means range himself on the side of the scholarly and gifted
writer who has come forward as the champion of that picturesque
scoundrel, and seriously proposes {vi} him as the real hero of the
Northwest, to whom, we are told, is due the honor which we have
mistakenly lavished on such commonplace persons as Champlain, Joliet,
Marquette, and La Salle.
While the present writer is not qualified to express a critical opinion
as to the merits of the controversy about Radisson, a careful reading
of his journal has given him an impression that the greatest part is so
vague, so wanting in verifiable details, as to be worthless for
historical purposes. One portion, however, seems unquestionably
valuable, besides being exceedingly interesting. It is that which
recounts his experiences on Lake Superior. It bears the plainest marks
of truth and authenticity, and it is accepted as historical by the
eminent critic, Dr. Reuben G. Thwaites. Therefore it is reproduced
here, in abridged form; and on the strength of it Radisson is assigned
a place among the Pathfinders.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE INDIAN RACE . . . 3
II. SOMETHING ABOUT INDIAN SOCIAL LIFE . . . . . . . . . 15
III. THE IROQUOIS LEAGUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
IV. ACHIEVEMENTS OF FRENCHMEN IN THE NORTH OF AMERICA . . 45
V. JACQUES CARTIER, THE DISCOVERER OF CANADA . . . . . . 53
VI. JEAN RIBAUT: THE FRENCH AT PORT ROYAL,
IN SOUTH CAROLINA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
VII. RENÉ DE LAUDONNIÈRE: PLANTING A COLONY ON
THE ST. JOHN'S RIVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
VIII. SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN IN NOVA SCOTIA . . . . . . . . . 101
IX. SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN (_continued_): THE FRENCH
ON THE ST. LAWRENCE AND THE GREAT LAKES . . . . . . . 119
X. JESUIT MISSIONARY PIONEERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
XI. JEAN NICOLLET, LOUIS JOLIET, AND FATHER JACQUES
MARQUETTE; THE DISCOVERERS OF THE MISSISSIPPI . . . . 169
XII. PIERRE ESPRIT RADISSON AND MÉDARD CHOUART
EXPLORE LAKE SUPERIOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
XIII. ROBERT CAVELIER, SIEUR DE LA SALLE, THE FIRST
EXPLORER OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI . . . . . . . . . . 225
XIV. LA SALLE AND THE FOUNDING OF LOUISIANA . . . . . . . 26l
[SUPPLEMENT: THE EXECUTION OF HIS PLAN BY BIENVILLE] 278
XV. FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
XVI. THE VÉRENDRYES DISCOVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS . . . . . 313
BOOKS FOR REFERENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
JACQUES CARTIER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
From the original painting by P. Riis in the
Town Hall of St. Malo, France
Indian Family Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
FORT CAROLINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
From De Bry's "Le Moyne de Bienville"
SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
From the Ducornet portrait
FORT OF THE IROQUOIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
From Laverdière's "Oeuvres de Champlain"
THE MURDER OF LA SALLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
From Hennepin's "A New Discovery of a Vast Country in
America"
LE MOYNE DE BIENVILLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
From the original painting in the possession of
J. A. Allen, Esq., Kingston, Ont.
FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
From Carver's "Travels Through the Interior Parts
of North America"
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French Pathfinders in North America
Chapter I
THE ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE INDIAN RACE
America probably peopled from Asia.--Unity of the American Race.--The
Eskimo, possibly, an Exception.--Range of the Several Groups.
In an earlier volume, "Pioneer Spaniards in North America," the probable
origin of the native races of America has been discussed. Let us restate
briefly the general conclusions there set forth.
It is the universal opinion of scientific men that the people whom we
call Indians did not originate in the Western World, but, in the far
distant past, came upon this continent from another--from Europe, some
say; from Asia, say others. In support of the latter opinion it is
pointed out that Asia and America once were connected by a broad belt of
land, now sunk {4} beneath the shallow Bering Sea. It is easy, then, to
picture successive hordes of dusky wanderers pouring over from the old,
old East upon the virgin soil of what was then emphatically a new world,
since no human beings roamed its vast plains or traversed its stately
forests.
Human wave followed upon wave, the new comers pushing the older ones on.
Some wandered eastward and spread themselves in the region surrounding
Hudson Bay. Others took a southeast course and were the ancestors of the
Algonquins, Iroquois, and other families inhabiting the eastern territory
of the United States. Still others pushed their way down the Pacific
coast and peopled Mexico and Central America, while yet others, driven no
doubt by the crowding of great numbers into the most desirable regions of
the isthmus, passed on into South America and gradually overspread it.
Most likely these hordes of Asiatic savages wandered into America during
hundreds of years and no doubt there was great diversity among them, some
being far more advanced in the arts of life than others. But the
essential thing to notice is that they were _all of one blood_. Thus
their descendants, however different they may {5} have become in language
and customs, constitute one stock, which we call the _American Race_.
The peoples who reared the great earth-mounds of the Middle West, those
who carved the curious sculptures of Central America, those who built the
cave-dwellings of Arizona, those who piled stone upon stone in the quaint
pueblos of New Mexico, those who drove Ponce de Leon away from the shores
of Florida, and those who greeted the Pilgrims with, "Welcome,
Englishmen!"--all these, beyond a doubt, were of one widely varying race.
To this oneness of all native Americans there is, perhaps, a single
exception. Some writers look upon the Eskimo as a remnant of an ancient
European race, known as the "Cave-men" because their remains are found in
caves in Western Europe, always associated with the bones of arctic
animals, such as the reindeer, the arctic fox, and the musk-sheep. From
this fact it seems that these primitive men found their only congenial
habitation amid ice and snow. Now, the Eskimo are distinctly an arctic
race, and in other particulars they are amazingly like these men of the
caves who dwelt in Western Europe when it had a climate like that of
Greenland. The lamented {6} Dr. John Fiske puts the case thus strongly:
"The stone arrow-heads, the sewing-needles, the necklaces and amulets of
cut teeth, and the daggers made from antler, used by the Eskimos,
resemble so minutely the implements of the Cave-men, that if recent
Eskimo remains were to be put into the Pleistocene caves of France and
England, they would be indistinguishable in appearance from the remains
of the Cave-men which are now found there."
Further, these ancient men had an astonishing talent for delineating
animals and hunting scenes. In the caves of France have been found
carvings on bone and ivory, probably many tens of thousands of years old,
which represent in the most life-like manner mammoths, cave-bears, and
other animals now extinct. Strangely enough, of all existing savage
peoples the Eskimo alone possess the same faculty. These circumstances
make it probable that they are a remnant of the otherwise extinct
Cave-men. If this is so, their ancestors probably passed over to this
continent by a land-connection then existing between Northern Europe and
Northern America, of which Greenland is a survival.
From the Eskimo southward to Cape Horn {7} we find various branches of
the one American race. First comes the _Athapascan_ stock, whose range
extends from Hudson Bay westward through British America to the Rocky
Mountains. One branch of this family left the dreary regions of almost
perpetual ice and snow, wandered far down toward the south, and became
known as the roaming and fierce Apaches, Navajos, and Lipans of the
burning southwestern plains.
Immediately south of the Athapascans was the most extensive of all the
families, the _Algonquin_. Their territory stretched without
interruption westward from Cape Race, in Newfoundland, to the Rocky
Mountains, on both banks of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. It
extended southward along the Atlantic seaboard as far, perhaps, as the
Savannah River. This family embraced some of the most famous tribes,
such as the Abnakis, Micmacs, Passamaquoddies, Pequots, Narragansetts,
and others in New England; the Mohegans, on the Hudson; the Lenape, on
the Delaware; the Nanticokes, in Maryland; the Powhatans, in Virginia;
the Miamis, Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos and Chippeways, in the Ohio and
Mississippi Valleys; and the Shawnees, on the Tennessee.
{8} This great family is the one that came most in contact and conflict
with our forefathers. The Indians who figure most frequently on the
bloody pages of our early story were Algonquins. This tribe has produced
intrepid warriors and sagacious leaders.
Its various branches represent a very wide range of culture. Captain
John Smith and Champlain, coasting the shores of New England, found them
closely settled by native tribes living in fixed habitations and
cultivating regular crops of corn, beans, and pumpkins. On the other
hand, the Algonquins along the St. Lawrence, as well as some of the
western tribes, were shiftless and roving, growing no crops and having no
settled abodes, but depending on fish, game, and berries for subsistence,
famished at one time, at another gorged. Probably the highest
representatives of this extensive family were the Shawnees, at its
southernmost limit.
Like an island in the midst of the vast Algonquin territory was the
region occupied by the _Huron-Iroquois_ family. In thrift, intelligence,
skill in fortification, and daring in war, this stock stands preëminent
among all native Americans. It included the Eries and Hurons, in Canada;
{9} the Susquehannocks, on the Susquehanna; and the Conestogas, also in
Pennsylvania. But by far the most important branch was the renowned
confederacy called the Five Nations. This included the Senecas,
Onondagas, Cayugas, Oneidas, and Mohawks. These five tribes occupied
territory in a strip extending through the lake region of New York. At a
later date a kindred people, the Tuscaroras, who had drifted down into
Carolina, returned northward and rejoined the league, which thereafter
was known as the Six Nations. This confederacy was by far the most
formidable aggregation of Indians within the territory of the present
United States. It waged merciless war upon other native peoples and had
become so dreaded, says Dr. Fiske, that at the cry "A Mohawk!" the
Indians of New England fled like sheep. It was especially hostile to
some alien branches of its own kindred, the Hurons and Eries in
particular.
South of the Algonquins was the _Maskoki_ group of Indians, of a
decidedly high class, comprising the Creeks, or Muskhogees, the Choctaws,
the Chickasaws, and, later, the Seminoles. They occupied the area of the
Gulf States, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. The {10}
building of the Ohio earthworks is by many students attributed to the
ancestors of these southern tribes, and it was they who heroically fought
the Spanish invaders.
The powerful _Dakota_ family, also called Sioux, ranged over territory
extending from Lake Michigan to the Rocky Mountains and covering the most
of the valley of the Missouri.
The _Pawnee_ group occupied the Platte valley, in Nebraska, and the
territory extending thence southward; and the _Shoshonee_ group had for
its best representatives the renowned Comanches, the matchless horsemen
of the plains.
On the Pacific coast were several tribes, but none of any special
importance. In the Columbia and Sacramento valleys were the lowest
specimens of the Indian race, the only ones who may be legitimately
classed as savages. All the others are more properly known as barbarians.
In New Mexico and Arizona is a group of remarkable interest, the _Pueblo
Indians_, who inhabit large buildings (pueblos) of stone or sun-dried
brick. In this particular they stand in a class distinct from all other
native tribes in the United States. They comprise the Zuñis, Moquis,
Acomans, and others, having different languages, {11} but standing on the
same plane of culture. In many respects they have advanced far beyond
any other stock. They have specially cultivated the arts of peace.
Their great stone or adobe dwellings, in which hundreds of persons live,
reared with almost incredible toil on the top of nearly inaccessible
rocks or on the ledges of deep gorges, were constructed to serve at the
same time as dwelling-places and as strongholds against the attacks of
the roaming and murdering Apaches. These people till the thirsty soil of
their arid region by irrigation with water conducted for miles. They
have developed many industries to a remarkable degree, and their pottery
shows both skill and taste.
These high-class barbarians are especially interesting because they have
undergone little change since the Spaniards, under Coronado, first became
acquainted with them, 364 years ago. They still live in the same way and
observe the same strange ceremonies, of which the famous "Snake-dance" is
the best known. They are, also, on a level of culture not much below
that of the ancient Mexicans; so that from the study of them we may get a
very good idea of the people whom Cortes found and conquered.
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