In retaliation for this attack, Plymouth hired and despatched a vessel

commanded by one Girling, in company with their own barque, with twenty

men under Miles Standish, to dispossess the French; but the expedition

failed to accomplish anything.

[Illustration: PORT ROYAL.

[This is Champlain’s drawing in his edition of 1613. Key: _A_, House of

artisans. _B_, Platform for cannon. _C_, Storehouse. _D_, Pontgravé and

Champlain. _E_, Blacksmith. _F_, Palisade. _G_, Bakery. _H_, Kitchen.

_I_, Gardens. _K_, Burial-place. _L_, River. _M_, Moat. _N_, Dwelling,

probably of De Monts and others. _O_, Storehouse for ships’ equipments,

rebuilt and used as a dwelling by Boulay later. _P_, Gate. These

buildings were at the present Lower Granville.—ED.]]

Subsequently the two French commanders quarrelled, and, engaging

in active hostilities, made efforts (not altogether unsuccessful)

to enlist Massachusetts in their quarrel. For this purpose La Tour

visited Boston in person in the summer of 1643, and was hospitably

entertained.[413] He was not able to secure the direct co-operation of

Massachusetts, but he was permitted to hire four vessels and a pinnace

to aid him in his attack on D’Aulnay.[414] The expedition was so far

successful as to destroy a mill and some standing corn, belonging

to his rival. In the following year La Tour made a second visit to

Boston for further help; but he was able only to procure the writing

of threatening letters from the Massachusetts authorities to D’Aulnay.

Not long after La Tour’s departure from Boston, envoys from D’Aulnay

arrived here; and after considerable delay a treaty was signed pledging

the colonists to neutrality, which was ratified by the Commissioners

of the United Colonies in the following year; but it was not until

two years later that it was ratified by new envoys from the crafty

Frenchman.[415]

In this interval D’Aulnay captured by assault La Tour’s fort at St.

John, securing booty to a large amount; and a few weeks afterward

Madame la Tour, who seems to have been of a not less warlike turn than

her husband, and who had bravely defended the fort, died of shame and

mortification. La Tour was reduced to the last extremities; but he

finally made good his losses, and in 1653 he married the widow of his

rival, who had died two or three years before.[416]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration: PENTAGÖET (CASTINE)

[The site of the old fort was on the shore, at a point just below the

letter _i_ in the name _Castine_ on the peninsula. Harrisse (no. 198)

cites a plan of 1670 in the French Archives.—ED.]]

In 1654, in accordance with secret instructions from Cromwell, the

whole of Acadia was subjugated by an English force from Boston under

the command of Major Robert Sedgwick, of Charlestown, and Captain John

Leverett, of Boston. To the latter the temporary government of the

country was intrusted. Ineffectual complaints of this aggression were

made to the British Government; but by the treaty of Westminster in

the following year England was left in possession, and the question of

title was referred to commissioners. In 1656 it was made a province by

Cromwell, who appointed Sir Thomas Temple governor, and granted the

whole territory to Temple and to one William Crown and Stephen de la

Tour, son of the late governor. The rights of the latter were purchased

by the other two proprietors, and Acadia remained in possession of the

English until the treaty of Breda, in 1667, when it was ceded to France

with undefined limits.[417]

Very little was done by the French to settle and improve the country;

and on the breaking out of war between France and England after the

accession of William III., it was again conquered by an expedition

fitted out at Boston under Sir William Phips. He sailed from Boston

on the 28th of April, 1690, with a frigate of forty guns, two sloops,

one of sixteen guns and the other of eight guns, and with four smaller

vessels; and after reducing St. John, Port Royal, and other French

settlements, and appointing an English governor, he returned, with

a booty sufficient, it was thought, to defray the whole cost of the

expedition.[418]

[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM PHIPS.

[This likeness is accepted, but lacks undoubted verification; cf. _Mem.

Hist. of Boston_, ii. 36.—ED.]]

This result was a signal triumph for the New England colonies, and

when Phips became, in 1692, the first royal governor of Massachusetts

under the provincial charter, Acadia was made a part of the domain

included in it. At a later day it was with no little indignation and

mortification that New England saw the conquered territory relinquished

to the French by the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697; but the story of the

later period belongs to a subsequent volume.

[Illustration: ACADIE, 1663.

[In the _Massachusetts Archives; Documents Collected in France_, ii.

147, is a fac-simile of a map, “Tabula Novæ Franciæ,” which is thus

described by Mr. Poore: “A fac-simile of one in a manuscript atlas

purchased by M. Estancelin at a book-stall in Paris soon after the

destruction of the archbishop’s palace in 183-, the library of which

contained several boxes of manuscripts labelled _Canada_, and probably

sent from the missionaries there. The signs [church symbol] undoubtedly

were used to denote Jesuit churches or missions; the [dotted lines] the

English boundary; and the marks + the English settlements. The atlas is

dated 1663.”—ED.]]

Acadia had been the home of civilized men for nearly a hundred

years; but there was almost nothing to show as the fruits of this

long occupation of a virgin soil. It had produced no men of marked

character, and its history was little more than the record of feuds

between petty chiefs, and of feeble resistance to the attacks of more

powerful neighbors. Madame la Tour alone exhibits the courage and

energy naturally to be looked for under the circumstances in which

three generations of settlers were placed. At the end of a century

there were only a few scattered settlements spread along the coast,

passing tranquilly from allegiance to one European sovereign to

allegiance to another of different speech and religion. A few hundred

miles away, another colony founded sixteen years after the first

venture of De Monts, and with scarcely a larger number of settlers,

waged a successful war with sickness, poverty, and neglect, and made a

slow and steady progress, until, with its own consent, it was united

with a still more prosperous colony founded twenty-three years after

the first settlement at Port Royal. There are few more suggestive

contrasts than that which the history of Acadia presents when set side

by side with the history of Plymouth and Massachusetts; and what is

true of its early is not less true of its later history.

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

THE original authorities for the early history of the French

settlements in Acadia[419] are the contemporaneous narratives of Samuel

de Champlain and Marc Lescarbot. Though Champlain comes within our

observation as a companion of De Monts, a separate chapter in this

volume is given to his personal history and his writings.

Of the personal history of Marc Lescarbot we know much less than of

that of Champlain. He was born at Vervins, probably between 1580 and

1590, and was a lawyer in Paris, where he had an extensive practice,

and was the author of several works; only one, or rather a part of one,

concerns our present inquiry.[420]

This was an account of the settlement of De Monts in Acadia, which

was translated into English by a Protestant clergyman named Pierre

Erondelle, and which gives a very vivid picture of the life at Port

Royal.[421] He appears to have been a man of more than ordinary

ability, with not a little of the French vivacity, and altogether well

suited to be a pioneer in Western civilization. His narrative covers

only a brief period, and after the failure of the colony under De

Monts, he ceased to have any relations with Acadia. He is supposed to

have died about 1630.

The advent of the Jesuits in 1611 introduces the _Relations_ of their

order as a source of the first importance; but a detailed account of

these documents belongs to another chapter.[422] From the first of the

series, by Father Biard, and from his letters in Carayon’s _Première

Mission des Jésuites au Canada_, a collection published in Paris in

1864, and drawn from the archives of the Order at Rome, we have the

sufferers’ side of the story of Argall’s incursion; while from the

English marauder’s letters, published in Purchas, vol. iv., we get the

other side.[423]

[Illustration: PART OF LESCARBOT’S MAP, 1609.

There is a modern reproduction of Lescarbot’s entire map in Faillon,

_Colonie Française_, i. 85.]

[Illustration: ACADIE.

[This is a section of La Hontan’s map, _Carte Generale de Canada_,

which appeared in his La Haye edition, 1709, vol. ii. p. 5; and was

re-engraved in the _Mémoires_, vol. iii. Amsterdam, 1741. La Hontan

was in the country from 1683 till after 1690. The double-dotted line

indicates the southern limits of the French claim.—ED.]]

Another of these early adventurers who has left a personal account of

his long-continued but fruitless attempts at American colonization is

Nicolas Denys, a native of Tours. So early as 1632 he was appointed

by the French king governor of the territory between Cape Canso and

Cape Rosier. Forty years later, when he must have been well advanced

in life, though he had lost none of his early enthusiasm, he published

an historical and geographical description of this part of North

America.[424] The work shows that he was a careful and observant

navigator; but in its historical part it is confused and perplexing.

The second volume is largely devoted to an account of the cod-fishery,

and treats generally of the natural history of the places with which

he was familiar, and of the manners and life of the Indians. It has a

different titlepage from the first volume.

Abundant details as to the quarrels of D’Aulnay and La Tour are

in Winthrop’s _History of New England_; and many of the original

documents, most of them in contemporaneous translations, are in

the seventh volume of the third series of the _Collections_ of the

Massachusetts Historical Society. From the first of these sources

Hutchinson, in his _History of Massachusetts Bay_, drew largely, as did

Williamson in his _History of Maine_, both of whom devoted considerable

space to Acadian affairs. For some of the later transactions

Hutchinson is an original authority of unimpeachable weight.[425]

The Massachusetts writers are also naturally the sources of most of

our information regarding the expedition of 1654, though Denys and

Charlevoix touch upon it, and the modern historians of Nova Scotia

treat it in an episodical way. The articles of capitulation of Port

Royal are in _Massachusetts Archives; Documents Collected in France_,

ii. 107.

Among the later French writers the pre-eminence belongs to the

Jesuit Father, Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, who had access

to contemporaneous materials, of which he made careful use; and his

statements have great weight, though he wrote many years after the

events he describes. His _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_ follows the

course of the French throughout the continent, and scattered through

it are many notices of the course of events in Acadia, but its more

particular characterization belongs to another chapter.

The papers drawn up by the French and English commissioners to

determine the intent of the treaty of Utrecht have a controversial

purpose, and on each side are colored and distorted to make out a case.

In them are many statements of facts which need only to be disentangled

from the arguments by which they are obscured to have a high value.

No one, indeed, can have a thorough and accurate knowledge of Acadian

history who does not make constant reference to these memorials and

to the justificatory pieces cited on the one side or the other. They

stand, when properly sifted and weighed, among the most important

sources for tracing the history of the province.[426]

The episode of Sir William Alexander and his futile schemes of

colonization is treated exhaustively by Mr. Slafter in a monograph on

_Sir William Alexander and American Colonization_, which reproduces all

the original charters and other documents bearing on his inquiry, and

apparently leaves nothing for any future gleaner in that field.[427]

But, like many other persons who have conducted similar investigations,

it must be conceded that Mr. Slafter attaches more importance to

Sir William Alexander’s somewhat visionary plans than they really

merit. They were ill adapted to promote the great object of western

colonization, and they left no permanent trace behind them.

Whipple’s brief account of Nova Scotia in his _Geographical View of the

District of Maine_ should not be overlooked; but it was written at a

time when historical students were less exacting than they now are, and

its details are meagre and unsatisfactory.[428]

Haliburton’s _History of Nova Scotia_ is a work of conscientious and

faithful labor, but in its preparation the author was under serious

disadvantages from his inability to consult many of the books on which

such a history must be based; and as he was not able to correct the

proofs, his volumes are disfigured by the grossest typographical

blunders. No one without some previous familiarity with the subject can

safely read it; but such a reader will find in it much of value.[429]

[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER.

[Slafter, p. 124, gives an account of the engraving by Marshall,

published in 1635, of which the above is a reproduction following

Richardson’s engraving of 1795. It represents Alexander at

fifty-seven.—ED.]]

A work of far higher authority, much fuller on the earlier periods,

and one which is generally marked by great thoroughness and accuracy,

is Murdoch’s _History of Nova Scotia_. Written in the form of

annals, it lacks every grace of style; and in a few instances the

author has overlooked important sources of information,—such as

Winthrop’s _History of New England_,[430] which is not named in his

list of authorities (p. 533), and which he seems to have known only

at second-hand through the citations of Hutchinson and of Ferland;

and the original papers connected with La Tour and D’Aulnay in the

_Collections_ of the Massachusetts Historical Society. On the other

hand, he had access for the first time to very valuable manuscript

materials, which greatly enlarge our knowledge on not a few points

previously obscure.[431]

The _Cours d’Histoire du Canada_ of the Abbé Ferland is mainly devoted

to what is now known as Canada; but there are several chapters in it

on Acadian affairs. By birth and choice a Canadian, “and above all a

Catholic,” as he himself avows, his statements and inferences need to

be scrutinized carefully. He had, however, gathered considerable new

material, his narrative is clearly and compactly written, and his work

must rank among the best of the modern compilations.[432]

[Illustration: F Parkman]

The same, or nearly the same, may be said of Garneau’s _Histoire

du Canada_. The chapters on Acadia are based on materials easily

accessible, and they add no new facts to those given by the earlier

writers; but his narrative is clear and exact, and not much colored by

the writer’s point of view. He had not, however, so firm a grasp of his

subject as had Ferland; and for the period covered by this inquiry the

latter may be read with much greater pleasure and profit.[433]

An English translation of Garneau’s work was published some years after

its first appearance, with omissions and alterations by the translator,

who regarded the subject from an entirely different point of view,

and who did not hesitate to modify occasionally the statements of the

author, besides adding a great body of valuable notes.[434]

Another recent work which may be profitably consulted on the early

history of Acadia is Henry Kirke’s _First English Conquest of

Canada_.[435] This work deals mainly with the lives of Sir David Kirke

and his brothers, and its chief value is biographical; but it comprises

some hitherto unpublished documents from the Record Office, and throws

considerable light on obscure portions of the early history of Canada

and Acadia.

Among these more recent writers the highest place belongs to Francis

Parkman. In his _Pioneers of France in the New World_[436] he has

given an account of the first settlement of the French in Acadia which

is not less accurate in its minutest details than it is picturesque

in style and comprehensive in its grasp of the subject. Mr. Parkman

needed only a story of wider relations and more continuous influence

to secure for his book a foremost place among American histories.

In his _Frontenac_[437] he has told with equal vividness the story

of the marauding warfare which devastated the coast of Acadia and

the contiguous English settlements from 1689 to 1697. No one of our

historians has been more unwearied in research, as no one has been more

skilful in handling his materials. Based in great part on original

manuscripts from the French archives and on contemporaneous narratives,

his volumes leave nothing to be desired for the period which they cover.

[Illustration: Ch. C. Smith]

EDITORIAL NOTES.

=A.= A Commissioner of Public Records of Nova Scotia was appointed

in 1857, and by his list, printed in 1864, it appears that but one

of the two hundred and four volumes in which the archives were

arranged had papers of a date earlier than 1700, and that this volume

contained copies of copies from the archives in Paris made for the

Canadian Government, and covered the years 1632-1699. The Library

of Parliament _Catalogue_, p. 1538, shows that vol. i. of the third

series of manuscripts (1654-1699) is devoted to Acadia. A Nova Scotia

Historical Society, instituted a few years ago, has as yet published

but one volume of Reports and Collections for 1878, but it contains

contributions to a later period in the history of Acadia than that now

under consideration.

=B.= THE WAR IN MAINE AND ACADIA.—The revolution which deposed Andros

in Boston was also the occasion of withdrawing the garrisons from the

English posts toward Acadia; and this invited in turn the onsets of the

enemy. It was calculated in 1690 that there were between Boston and

Canso four thousand two hundred and ten Indians,—a census destined to

be diminished, indeed, so that in 1726 the savages were only rated for

the same territory at five hundred and six (_N. E. Hist. and Geneal.

Reg._, 1866, p. 9). But this diminution meant a process of appalling

war. In the spring of 1689 came the catastrophe at Choceco (now Dover).

Belknap, in his _New Hampshire_, gives a sufficient narrative; and Dr.

Quint, in his notes to Pike’s Journal (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xiv.

124), indicates the manuscript sources. For the capture of the stockade

at Pemaquid, which quickly followed, we have the French side in the

_Relation_ of Father Thury, the priest of the mission to the Penobscot

Indians, who was in the action, and La Motte-Cadillac’s _Mémoire sur

l’Acadie_, 1692. Cf. the references in Shea’s _Charlevoix_, iv. 42. The

English side can be gathered from Mather’s _Magnalia; Andros Tracts_,

vol. iii.; 3 _Mass. Hist. Coll._ vol. i.; Hough’s “Pemaquid Papers,” in

_Maine Hist. Soc. Coll._, vol. v.; Hubbard’s _Indian Wars_, and John

Gyles’s _Memoirs_, Boston, 1736 (see _Mem. Hist. Boston_, ii. 336). The

story, more or less colored, under new lights or local associations, is

told in Hutchinson’s _Massachusetts_, Thornton’s _Ancient Pemaquid_,

Johnston’s _Bristol, Bremen, and Pemaquid_ (p. 170), and of course in

Williamson and Parkman.

The _Relation_ of Monseignat (_N. Y. Col. Doc._, vol. ix.) and La

Potherie are the chief French accounts on the surprise at Salmon Falls,

in March, 1690, and according to Parkman, “Charlevoix adds various

embellishments not to be found in the original sources.” On the English

side, it is still Mather’s _Magnalia_ upon which we must depend,

and, as a secondary authority, upon Belknap’s _New Hampshire_ and

Williamson’s _Maine_. Parkman points out the help which sundry papers

in the _Massachusetts Archives_ afford; and Dr. Quint, in his notes

to Pike’s Journal (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xiv. 125), has indicated

other similar sources.

[Illustration: POSITION OF FORT LOYAL.]

The attack on Fort Loyal (Portland), in May, 1690, is studied likewise

from Monseignat, La Potherie, Mather, with some fresh light out of the

“Declaration” of Sylvanus Davis, in 3 _Mass. Hist. Coll._, i. 101, and

Bradstreet’s letter to Governor Leisler, in _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, ii.

259. Le Clercq gives the French view; cf. Shea’s _Charlevoix_, iv. 133,

and _Le Clercq_, ii. 295; Willis’s _Portland_, p. 284, and _N. Y. Col.

Doc._, ix. 472.

Meanwhile Phips had sailed from Boston in April to attack Port Royal.

He anchored before its defences on the 10th of May. The place was

quickly surrendered to Phips, on the 11th of May, by De Meneval, its

governor, who did not escape the imputation of treachery at the time.

Parkman (_Frontenac_, pp. 237,) and Shea (_Charlevoix_, iv. 155) give

the authorities. Parkman says Charlevoix’s own narrative is erroneous;

but on the French side we still have Monseignat and Potherie, though

both are brief; the _Relation de la prise du Port Royal par les Anglois

de Baston_, May 27, 1690; the official _Lettre au Ministre_ of Meneval,

and the _Rapport de Champigny_, of October, 1690. Cf. _N. Y. Col.

Doc._, iii. 720; ix. 474, 475.

[Illustration]

On the English side we have Governor Bradstreet’s instructions to Phips

and an invoice of the plunder, in the _Mass. Archives; a Journal of the

Expedition from Boston to Port Royal_, among George Chalmers’ papers

in the Sparks Manuscripts at Harvard College, perhaps the document

referred to by Hutchinson, in speaking of Phips, as “his Journal;” the

unhistoric overflow of Cotton Mather’s _Life of Phips_, and sundry

extracts embodied in Bowen’s _Life of Phips_. Murdoch, in his _Nova

Scotia_, ch. xxii., gives a summarized account.

[Illustration]

During Phips’s ill-starred expedition to Quebec in the autumn of the

same year, Colonel Benjamin Church was ineffectually employed in

creating diversions in Phips’s favor in this lower region. See Dr.

Henry M. Dexter’s edition of Church’s _History of the Expedition to

the East_, and additional letters of Church in Drake’s additions to

Baylies’ _Old Colony_, pt. v.; and in 4 _Mass. Hist. Coll._, v. 271.

Williamson (_Maine_, i. 624) summarizes the authorities.

Two years later the rapine began afresh. York in Maine was captured and

burned in 1692 by the Abenakis, one of whose chiefs gave to Champigny

the narrative which he sent to the Minister, Oct. 5, 1692, which

Parkman calls the best French account. The Indians also gave Villebon

the exaggerated story which he gives in his _Journal de ce qui s’est

passé à l’Acadie_, 1691-1692. On the English side, we have the account

in Mather’s _Magnalia_, and the later summaries of Williamson and of

the general historians.

In June, Portneuf and St. Castin, with their savage followers, left

Pentagöet to attack the frontier post of Wells, but they were foiled,

and retreated. Villebon is here the principal French authority; and on

the English side, to the more general accounts of Mather, Hutchinson,

Williamson, and to the eclectic summary of Niles’s _Indian and French

Wars_, we must add the local historian Bourne’s _History of Wells_.

[Illustration: PEMAQUID.]

The reader can best follow Parkman (_Frontenac_, p. 357, etc.), who

carefully notes the authorities for the way in which Frontenac was

foiled in 1693 in an attempt to capture the English post at Pemaquid;

and for the attack on Oyster River the next year (1694), Parkman’s

references may be collated with Shea’s (_Charlevoix_, iv. 256). The

expedition was under the conduct of Villieu and the Jesuit Thury,

and what was then known as Oyster River is now Durham, about twenty

miles from Portsmouth. Villieu’s own Journal is preserved: _Relation

du Voyage fait par le Sieur de Villieu ... pour faire la Guerre aux

Anglois au printemps de l’an 1694_, and Parkman says Champigny,

Frontenac, and Callières in their reports adopt Villieu’s statements.

Belknap’s _New Hampshire_ has the best English account, which may be

supplemented by various papers in the _Provincial Records of New

Hampshire_, and the Journal of Pike in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xiv.

128, with Dr. Quint’s notes. The _Mass. Archives_ have depositions and

letters.

In 1696 Iberville, in charge of two war-ships which had come from

France, uniting with such forces and savage allies as Villebon,

Villieu, St. Castin, and Thury could gather, appeared on the 14th of

August before the English fort at Pemaquid, which quickly surrendered.

Pemaquid is a peninsula on the Maine coast between the mouths of the

Kennebec and Penobscot, and the fort was situated as shown in the

accompanying sketch. It was the most easterly of the English posts in

this debatable territory, as the French fort at Biguyduce (Pentagöet

or Castine) was the most westerly of the enemy’s. The fort at Pemaquid

had been rebuilt of stone by Phips in 1692. (Mather’s _Magnalia_,

Johnston’s _Bristol and Bremen_.) Baudoin, an Acadian priest,

accompanied the expedition, and wrote a _Journal d’une voyage fait

avec M. d’Iberville_, and Parkman also cites as contemporary French

authorities the _Relation de ce qui s’est passé_, etc., of 1695-1696,

and Des Goutin’s letter to the Minister of Sept. 23, 1696; cf. _N. Y.

Col. Docs._, vol. ix.

Mather and Hutchinson are still the chief writers on the English side,

while everything of local interest is gathered in Johnston’s_ History

of Bristol and Bremen, in Maine, including Pemaquid_, Albany, 1873.

[Illustration]

The immediate result of the capture of Pemaquid was to release

D’Iberville for an attempt to drive the English from the east coast of

Newfoundland in 1697. Parkman tells the story in his _Frontenac_, p.

391, and by him and by Shea in his _Charlevoix_, v. 46, the original

sources are traced.

Mr. Parkman (_Frontenac_, p. 408) has an important note on the military

insufficiency of the English colonies at this time.

=C.= THREATENED FRENCH ATTACKS UPON BOSTON.—Ever after the surrender

of the region east of the Penobscot to the French in 1670, there were

recurrent hopes of the French to make reprisals on the English by an

attack on Boston, and emissaries of the French occasionally reported

upon the condition of that town. Grandfontaine, on being empowered to

receive the posts of Acadia from the English (_Massachusetts Archives:

Documents Collected in France_, ii. 209, 211), had been instructed,

March 5, 1670, to make Pentagöet his seat of government; and it was at

Boston, July 7, 1670, that he and Temple concluded terms of peace; and

we have (Ibid., ii. 227) a statement of the condition of the fort at

Pentagöet when it was turned over. Talon (Ibid., ii. 247) shortly after

informed the King of his intention to go to Acadia (Nov. 2, 1671),

hoping for a conference with Temple, whom he reports as disgusted with

the government at Boston, “which is more republican than monarchical;”

and the Minister, in response, June 4, 1672 (Ibid., ii. 265), intimates

that it might do to give naturalization papers and other favors to

Temple, if he could be induced to come over to the French side. In

1678 new hopes were entertained, and under date of March 21, we find

(Ibid., ii. 359) the French had procured a description of Boston and

its shipping. Frontenac and Duchesneau were each representing to the

Court the disadvantages Canada was under in relation to the trade of

the eastern Indians, with Boston offering such rivalry (Ibid., ii. 363;

iii. 12); and Duchesneau, Nov. 14, 1679, enlarges upon a description

of Boston and its defenceless condition (Ibid., ii. 371). When the

English made peace with the Abenakis in 1681, Frontenac reported it to

the Court, with his grievances at the aggressions of the Boston people,

to whom he had sent De la Vallière to demand redress (Ibid., iii. 29,

31); and to end the matter, Duchesneau, Nov. 13, 1681, proposed to

the Minister the purchase of the English colonies. “It is true,” he

says, “that Boston, which is an English town, does not acknowledge the

sovereignty of the Duke of York at all, and very little the authority

of the English King” (Ibid., iii. 35). The French meanwhile had assumed

a right to Pemaquid, and Governor Dongan of New York had ordered them

to withdraw (Ibid., iii. 81), while complications with the “Bastonnais”

increased rapidly (Ibid., iii. 49). De Grosellier sent to the Minister

new accounts of the Puritan town and its situation (Ibid., iii. 450);

and the Bishop of Quebec remonstrated with the King for his permitting

Huguenots to settle in Acadie, since they held communication with the

people of Boston, and increased the danger (Ibid., iii. 95). The King

in turn addressed himself rather to demanding of the Duke of York that

he should see the English at Boston did not aid the savages of Acadia.

In 1690 more active measures were proposed. On the day before Phips

anchored at Port Royal, a “Projet” was drawn up at Versailles for an

attack on Boston, in which its defenceless state was described:—

“La costé de Baston est peuplée, mais il n’y à aucun poste qui

veille. Baston mesme est sans palissades à moins qu’on n’en ait mis

depuis six mois. Il y a bien du peuple en cette colonie, mais assez

difficile à rassembler. Monsieur Perrot connoist cette coste, et le

Sieur de Villebon qui est à la Rochelle à present, avec le nommé La

Motte,—tous le trois ont souvent esté à Baston et à Manat.... Par la

carte suivante, on peut voir comme ce pays se trouve situé,” etc.

The capture of Pemaquid in 1696 revived hopes in the French of making a

successful descent upon Boston, and even upon New York.

Several documents in reference to the scheme, and respecting in part

Franquelin’s map of Boston, are in the _Mass. Archives; Documents

Collected in France_, iv. 467, etc. This map is given in the _Memorial

History of Boston_, vol. ii. p. li, from a copy made by Mr. Poore,

and in Mr. Parkman’s manuscript collections. In the same place will

be found accounts of earlier French maps of Boston (1692-1693), one

of them by Franquelin, but both very inexact. The references on this

projected inroad of the French are given by Parkman (_Frontenac_, p.

384), Shea (_Charlevoix_, v. 70), and Barry (_Massachusetts_, ii. 89,

etc.).

CHAPTER V.

DISCOVERY ALONG THE GREAT LAKES.

BY THE REV. EDWARD D. NEILL, A.B., ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA.

_Corresponding Member Massachusetts Historical Society; Hon.

Vice-President New England Historic Genealogical Society._

PURCHAS in his _Pilgrimage_ quaintly writes, that “the great river

Canada hath, like an insatiable merchant, engrossed all these water

commodities, so that other streames are in a manner but meere

pedlers.”[438]

This river of Canada, the Hochelaga of the natives, now known as the

St. Lawrence, is the most wonderful of all the streams of North America

which find their way into the Atlantic Ocean. Its extreme headwaters

are on the elevated plateau of the continent, near the birthplace of

the Mississippi, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico, and the Red

River of the North, which empties into Hudson’s Bay. Expanding into

the interior sea, Lake Superior, after rippling and foaming over the

rocks at Sault Ste. Marie it divides into Lake Michigan and Lake Huron;

and passing through the latter and Lake St. Claire[439] and Lake Erie,

with the energy of an infuriated Titan it dashes itself into foam and

mist at Niagara. After recovering composure, it becomes Ontario, the

“beautiful lake,”[440] and then, hedged in by scenery varied, sublime,

and picturesque, and winding through a thousand isles, it becomes

the wide and noble river which admits vessels of large burden to the

wharves of the cities of Montreal and Quebec; and until lost in the

Atlantic, “many islands are before it, offering their good-nature to be

mediators between this haughty stream and the angry ocean.”[441] The

aborigines, who dwelt in rude lodges near its banks, chiefly belonged

to the Huron or Algonquin family; and although there were variations in

dialect, they found no difficulty in understanding one another, and in

their light canoes they made long journeys, on which they exchanged the

copper implements and agate arrow-heads of the far West for the shells

and commodities of the sea-shore.[442]

Cartier, born at the time that the discoveries of Columbus were being

discussed throughout Europe, who had toughened into a daring navigator,

sailed in 1535 up the St. Lawrence, giving the river its present name,

and on the 2d of October he reached the site now occupied by the city

of Montreal. Escorted by wondering and excited savages, he went to the

top of the hill behind the Indian village, and listened to descriptions

of the country from whence they obtained _caignetdaze_, or red copper,

which was reached by the River Utawas, which then glittered like a

silver thread amid the scarlet leaves of the autumnal forest.[443]

The explorations of the French and English in the western world led

the merchants of both countries to seek for its furs, and to hope for

a shorter passage through it to “the wealth of Ormus and of Ind.”

Apsley, a London dealer in beads, playing-cards, and gewgaws in the

days of Queen Elizabeth, wrote that he expected to live long enough to

see a letter in three months carried to China by a route that would

be discovered across the American continent, between the forty-third

and forty-sixth parallel of north latitude.[444] The explorations

of Champlain have been sketched in an earlier chapter.[445] To the

incentive of the fur-trade a new impulse was added when, in the spring

of 1609, some Algonquins visited the trading-post, and one of the

chiefs brought from his sack a piece of copper a foot in length, a fine

and pure specimen. He said that it came from the banks of a tributary

of a great lake, and that it was their custom to melt the copper lumps

which they found, and roll them into sheets with stones.

It was in 1611, when returning from one of his visits to France,

where he had become betrothed to a twelve-year-old maiden, Helen,

the daughter of a Huguenot, Nicholas Boullé, secretary of the King’s

Chamber, that Champlain pushed forward his western occupation by

establishing a frontier trading-post where now is the city of Montreal,

and arranging for trade with the distant Hurons, who were assembled at

Sault St. Louis.

Again in 1615, as we have seen, he extended his observations to Lake

Huron, while on his expedition against the Iroquois. With the Hurons

he passed the following winter, and visited neighboring tribes, but

in the spring of 1616 returned to Quebec; and although nearly twenty

years elapsed before his remains were placed in a grave in that city,

he appears to have been contented as the discoverer of Lakes Champlain,

Huron, and Ontario, and relinquished farther westward exploration to

his subordinates.

The fur-trade of Canada produced a class of men hardy, agile, fearless,

and in habits approximating to the savage.[446] Inured to toil, the

_voyageurs_ arose in the morning, “when it was yet dark,” and pushing

their birch-bark canoes into the water, swiftly glided away, “like the

shade of a cloud on the prairie,” and often did not break fast until

the sun had been for hours above the horizon. Halting for a short

period, they partook of their coarse fare, then re-embarking they

pursued their voyage to the land of the beaver and buffalo, the woods

echoing their _chansons_ until the “shades of night began to fall,”

when,

“Worn with the long day’s march and the chase of the deer and the

bison,

Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where the

quivering firelight

Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms wrapped up in their

blankets.”

Among the pioneers of these wanderers in the American forests was

Étienne (Anglicized, Stephen) Brulé, of Champigny.[447] It has been

mentioned that he went with Champlain to the Huron villages near

Georgian Bay, but did not with his Superior cross Lake Ontario. After

three years of roaming, he came back to Montreal, and told Champlain

that he had found a river which he descended until it flowed into a

sea,—the river by some supposed to be the Susquehanna, and the sea

Chesapeake Bay.[448] While in this declaration he may have depended

upon his imagination, yet to him belongs the undisputed honor of being

the first white man to give the world a knowledge of the region beyond

Lake Huron.

Sagard[449] mentions that this bold _voyageur_, with a Frenchman

named Grenolle, made a long journey, and returned with a “lingot”

of red copper and with a description of Lake Superior which defined

it as very large, requiring nine days to reach its upper extremity,

and discharging itself into Lake Huron by a fall, first called Saut

de Gaston, afterward Sault Ste. Marie. Upon the surrender of Quebec,

in 1629, to the English, Étienne Brulé chose to cast in his lot with

the conquerors.[450] During the occupation of nearly three years the

English heard many stories of the region of the Great Lakes, and they

encouraged the aborigines of the Hudson and Susquehanna to purchase

English wares.

The very year that the English occupied Quebec, Ferdinando Gorges and

associates, who had employed men to search for a great lake, received a

patent for the province of Laconia, and the governor thereof arrived in

June, 1630, in the ship “Warwick,” at Piscataway, New Hampshire.[451]

Early in June, 1632, Captain Henry Fleet, in the “Warwick,” visited the

Anacostans, whose village stood on the shores of the Potomac where now

is seen the lofty dome of the Capitol of the Republic. These Indians

told Fleet that they traded with the Canada Indians; and on the 27th of

the month, at the Great Falls of the Potomac, he saw two axes of the

pattern brought over by the brothers Kyrcke to Quebec.[452]

About the time Quebec was restored to the French, on the 23d of

September, 1633,[453] Captain Thomas Young received a commission from

the King of England to make certain explorations in America.[454] The

next spring he sailed, and among his officers was a “cosmographer,

skilful in mines and trying of metals.” Entering Delaware Bay on the

24th of July, 1634, he sailed up the river, which he named Charles, in

honor of the King, and by the 1st of September had reached the vicinity

of the falls, above Trenton, the capital of New Jersey. In a report

from this river, dated the 20th of October, he writes: “I passed up

this great river, with purpose to have pursued the discovery thereof

till I had found the great lake[455] from which the great river issues,

and from thence I have particular reason to believe there doth also

issue some branches, one or more, by which I might have passed into

that Mediterranean Sea which the Indian relateth to be four days’

journey beyond the mountains; but having passed near fifty leagues up

the river, I was stopped from further proceedings by a ledge of rocks

which crosseth the river.”

He then expresses a determination the next summer to build a vessel

above the falls, from whence he hoped to find “a way that leadeth into

that mediterranean sea,” and from the lake. He continues: “I judge that

it cannot be less than one hundred and fifty or two hundred leagues

in length to our North Ocean; and from thence I purpose to discover

the mouths thereof, which discharge both into the North and South

Sea.”[456] The same month that Captain Young was exploring the Valley

of the Delaware, an expedition left Quebec which was not so barren of

results.

The year that Étienne Brulé came back from his wandering in the far

West, in 1618, Jean Nicolet, the son of poor parents at Cherbourg, came

from France, and entered the service of the fur company known as the

“Hundred Associates,” under Champlain. For several years he lived among

the Algonquins of the Ottawa Valley, and traded with the Hurons; and

because of his knowledge of the language of these people, he was valued

as an interpreter by the trading company. On the 4th day of July, 1634,

on his eventful journey to distant nations, he was at Three Rivers, a

trading post just begun. Threading his way in a frail canoe among the

isles which extend from Georgian Bay to the extremity of Lake Huron,

he, through the Straits of Mackinaw, discovered Lake Michigan, and

turning southward found its Grand Bay, an inlet of the western shore,

and impressive by its length and vastness.

Here were the Gens de Mer,[457] or Ochunkgraw, called by the

Algonquins Ouinipegous or Ouinipegouek,—people of the salt or

bad-smelling water; and the traders gave them the name of Puants.

Calling a council of these Winnebagoes and the neighboring tribes,

and knowing the power of display upon the savage, he appeared before

them in a grand robe of the damask of China, on which was worked

flowers and birds of different colors, and holding a pistol in each

hand,—a somewhat amusing reminder of the Jove of mythology, with his

variegated mantle and thunderbolts. To many he seemed a messenger from

the spirit-land; and the women and children, on account of his pistols,

called him the man who bore thunder in his hands.[458]

Nicolet announced that he was a peacemaker, and that he desired that

they should settle their quarrels and be on friendly terms with the

French at Quebec. His words were well received, and one chief, at the

conclusion of the conference, invited him to a feast, at which one

hundred and twenty beaver were served. He came back to Three Rivers

during the next summer, and renewed the interest in the discovery of a

route to the Western Ocean, by the declaration that if he had paddled

three days more on a large river (probably the Wisconsin), he would

have found the sea. There was no design to deceive; but the great water

at that distance was what has been called “the father of waters,” the

Mississippi. Before December, 1635, he was appointed interpreter at

the new trading-post of Three Rivers, and was there when, on Christmas

Day, at the age of sixty-eight years, one who had been the life of the

fur-trade and the Governor of New France, Samuel de Champlain, expired

at Quebec. After the death of the fearless and enterprising Champlain,

there was a lull in the zest for discovery, and then difficulties arose

which for a time led to the abandonment of all the French trading-posts

on the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.

The Iroquois had for years longed to be revenged upon those who, with

the aid of French arquebuses, had defeated them in battle. Friendly

relations were established between them and the Dutch traders on the

banks of the Hudson River; and for beaver skins, powder and firearms

were received. With these they gratified their desire for revenge. They

became a terror to the savage and civilized in Canada; and traders and

missionaries, women and infants, fled from their scalping-knives.

The following graphic description of affairs was penned in 1653:—

“The war with the Iroquois has dried up all sources of prosperity. The

beaver are allowed to build their dams in peace, none being able or

willing to molest them. Crowds of Hurons no longer descend from their

country with furs for trading. The Algonquin country is depopulated,

and the nations beyond it are retiring farther away, fearing the

musketry of the Iroquois. The keeper of the Company’s store here in

Montreal has not bought a single beaver-skin for a year. At Three

Rivers, the small means in hand have been used in fortifying the

place, from fear of an inroad upon it. In the Quebec storehouse all is

emptiness.”

At length, in the year 1654, peace was effected between the French and

Iroquois, and traders again appeared on the upper lakes, and Indians

from thence appeared at Montreal. In August, two Frenchmen accompanied

some Ottawas to the region of the upper lakes; and in the latter part

of August, 1656, these traders came back to Quebec with a party of

Ottawas,[459] whose canoes were loaded with peltries; and about this

time a trader told a Jesuit missionary that “he had seen three thousand

men together, for the purpose of making a treaty of peace, in the

country of the Gens de Mer.”

[Illustration]

In 1659, while the new governor Argenson was experiencing the

perplexities of administration at Quebec, the extremity of Lake

Superior was reached by two energetic and intelligent traders,—Medard

Chouart, known in history as Sieur des Groseilliers, and Pierre

d’Esprit or Sieur Radisson. Chouart was born a few miles east of Meaux,

and left France when he was about sixteen years of age, and became

a trader among the Hurons. In 1647 he married the widow Étienne,

of Quebec, the father of whom was the pilot Abraham Martin, whose

baptismal name was given to the suburb of that city, the Plains of

Abraham. She gave birth to a son in 1651, named after his father, and

soon after died. Chouart, the Sieur des Groseilliers, then married

Marguérite Hayet Radisson, and through her he became a sympathizer

with the Huguenots.[460] His brother-in-law, Sieur Radisson, was born

at St. Malo, France, and in 1656 married at Three Rivers, Canada,

Elizabeth Herault; and after her death he espoused a daughter of the

zealous Protestant, Sir David Kyrcke, to whose brothers Champlain had

surrendered Quebec.

Pushing beyond Lake Superior, after travelling six days in a

southwesterly direction, these traders found the Tionnotantés, a band

incorporated with the Hurons, called by the French Petuns, because

they had raised tobacco. These people dwelt in the country between

the sources of the Black and Chippeway Rivers in Wisconsin, where

they had been wanderers for several years. Driven from their homes by

the Iroquois, they migrated with the Ottawas to the isles of Lake

Michigan, at the entrance of Green Bay. Hearing that the Iroquois had

learned where they had retreated, they descended the Wisconsin River

until they found the Mississippi, and, ascending this twelve leagues,

they came to the Ayoes (Ioway) River, now known as the Upper Iowa, and

followed it to its source, being kindly treated by the tribes. Although

buffaloes were in abundance, they were disappointed when they found no

forests, and retracing their steps to the Mississippi, ascended to a

prairie island above Lake Pepin, about nine miles below the mouth of

the River St. Croix, and here they often received friendly visits from

the Sioux. Confident through the possession of firearms, the Ottawas

and Hurons conspired to drive the Sioux away, and occupy their country.

The attack was unsuccessful, and they were forced to look for another

residence. Going down the Mississippi, they entered one of the mouths

of the Black River, near the modern city La Crosse, and the Hurons

established themselves about its sources, while their allies, the

Ottawas, continued their journey to Lake Superior, and stopped at a

point jutting out like a bone needle,—hence called Chagouamikon.

Groseilliers and Radisson, while sojourning with the Hurons, learned

much of the deep, wide, and beautiful river, comparable in its

grandeur to the St. Lawrence,[461] on an isle of which they had for

a time resided. Proceeding northward, these explorers wintered with

the Nadouechiouec, who hunted and fished among the “Mille Lacs” of

Minnesota, between the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers. The Sioux, as

these people were called by traders, were found to speak a language

different from the Huron and Algonquin, and to have many strange

customs. Women, for instance, were seen whose noses had been cut off

as a penalty for adultery, giving them a ghastly look. Beyond, upon

the northwest shore of Lake Superior, about the Grand Portage, and at

the mouth of a river which upon early maps was called Groseilliers,

there was met a separated warlike band of Sioux, called Poualak, who,

as wood was scarce in the prairie region, made fire with coal (_charbon

de terre_), and lived in skin lodges, although some of the more

industrious built cabins of mud (_terre grasse_), as the swallows build

their nests. The Assinepoualacs, or Assineboines, were feared by the

Upper, as the Iroquois were dreaded by the Lower, Algonquins.

After an absence of about a year, these traders, about the 19th of

August, 1660, returned to Montreal with three hundred Indians and sixty

canoes laden with a “wealth of skins,”—

“Furs of bison and of beaver,

Furs of sable and of ermine.”

The settlers there, and at Three Rivers, and at Quebec, were deeply

interested by the tales of the vastness and richness of the new-found

land and the peculiarities of the wild Sioux. As soon as the furs were

sold and a new outfit obtained, Groseilliers, on the 28th of August,

again took his way to the westward, accompanied by six Frenchmen,

besides the aged Jesuit missionary René Menard and his servant Guérin.

Just beyond the Huron Isles and Huron Bay, which still retain their

name, on the southern shore of Lake Superior, is Keweenaw Bay; and

on the 15th of October, Saint Theresa’s Day in the calendar of the

Church of Rome, the traders and René Menard, with the returning

Indians, stopped, and here some traders and the missionary passed the

winter among the Outaouaks.[462] Father Menard, discouraged by the

indifference of these Indians, resolved to go to the retreat of the

Hurons among the marshes of what is now the State of Wisconsin. He sent

three Frenchmen who had been engaged in the fur-trade to inform them of

his intention; but after journeying for some days they were appalled by

the bogs, rapids, and long portages, and returned. Undaunted by their

tale of the difficulties of the way, and some Hurons having come to

visit the Outaouaks, he resolved to return with them. On the 13th of

June, 1661, Menard and his servant, Jean Guérin, by trade a gunsmith,

followed in the footsteps of their Indian guides, who, however, soon

forsook them in the wilderness. For fifteen days they remained by a

lake, and finding a small canoe in the bushes, they embarked with

their packs; and week after week in midsummer, annoyed by myriads of

mosquitoes, and suffering from heat, hunger, and bruised feet, they

advanced toward their destination, and about the 7th of August, while

Guérin was making a portage around a rapid in a river, Menard lost the

trail. His servant, becoming anxious, called for him, yet there was no

answer; and then he five times fired his gun, in the hope of directing

him to the right path, but it was of no avail. Two days after, Guérin

reached the Huron village, and endeavored without success to employ

some of the tribe to go in search of the aged missionary.

Afterward Guérin met a Sauk Indian with Menard’s kettle, which he said

he found in the woods, near footprints going in the direction of the

Sioux country.[463] His breviary and cassock were said to have been

found among the Sioux, and it is supposed that he was either killed,

or died from exposure, and that his effects were taken by wandering

Indians.[464] Perrot writes: “The Father followed the Ottawas to the

Lake of the Illinois [Michigan], and in their flight to Louisiana

[Mississippi] as far as the upper part of Black River.” Upon a map

prepared by Franquelin, in 1688,[465] for Louis XIV., there is a

route marked by a dotted line from the vicinity of Keweenaw Bay to the

upper part of Green Bay. If Perrot’s statement is correct, Menard and

his devoted attendant Guérin saw the Mississippi twelve years before

Joliet and his companion looked upon the great river. The reports

of Nicolet and Groseilliers led to a correction and enlargement of

the charts of New France. On a map[466] accompanying the _Historia

Canadensis_, by Creuxius, Lake Michigan is marked as “Magnus Lacus

Algonquinorum, seu Lacus Fœtetium,” and a lake intended for Nepigon is

called “Assineboines,” near which appear the nations Kilistinus and

Alimibegôecus. The lake of the Assineboines is connected by a river

with an arm of Hudson’s Bay called “Kilistonum Sinus;” and west of this

is Jametus Sinus, or James’s Bay.

Pierre Boucher, an estimable man, sent by the inhabitants of Canada to

present their grievances to the King of France, in a little book which

in 1663 he published at Paris,[467] wrote: “In Lake Superior there is

a great island which is fifty leagues in circumference, in which there

is a very beautiful mine of copper.” He also stated that he had heard

of other mines from five Frenchmen lately returned, who had been absent

three years, and that they had seen an ingot of copper which they

thought weighed more than eight hundred pounds, and that Indians after

making a fire thereon would cut off pieces with their axes.

Groseilliers[468] returned to Canada, and on the 2d of May, 1662,

again left Quebec, with ten men, for the North Sea, or Hudson’s Bay.

His journey satisfied him that it was easy to secure the trade of

the North by way of Lake Superior; but the Company of Canada, which

had the monopoly of the fur traffic, looked upon Groseilliers’ plans

for securing the peltries of distant tribes as chimerical. Thus

disappointed and chagrined, Groseilliers next went to Boston, and

presented his schemes to its merchants.

The Reverend Mother of the Incarnation, Superior of the Ursulines at

Quebec, in allusion to him, wrote: “As he had not been successful in

making a fortune, he was seized with a fancy to go to New England to

better his condition. He excited a hope among the English that he

had found a passage to the Sea of the North.” Passing from Boston to

France, and securing the influence of the English ambassador at Paris,

he went to London, and became acquainted with Prince Rupert, nephew of

Charles I., who led the cavalry charge against Fairfax and Cromwell

at Naseby. This brilliant man was now devoted to study and to the

exhibition of the philosophical toy known to chemists as “Rupert’s

drops;” but he was ready to indorse the project for extending the

fur-trade, and seeking a northwestern passage to Asia. Men of science

also showed interest in explorations which would enlarge the sphere

of knowledge. The Secretary of the Royal Society wrote a too sanguine

letter to Robert Boyle, the distinguished philosopher, and friend of

the apostle Eliot. His words were: “Surely I need not tell you, from

hence, what is said here with great joy of the discovery of a northwest

passage, and by two Englishmen and one Frenchman, lately represented by

them to his Majesty at Oxford, and answered by the grant of a vessel

to sail into Hudson’s Bay and channel into the South Sea.” The ship

“Nonsuch” was fitted out in charge of Captain Zachary Gillam, a son of

one of the early settlers of Boston, and in this vessel Groseilliers

and Radisson left the Thames in June, 1668, and the next September

reached a tributary of Hudson’s Bay, which in honor of their chief

patron was called Rupert’s River. The next year, by way of Boston, they

returned to England, where their success was applauded; and in 1670 the

trading company was chartered,—still in existence, and among the most

venerable of English corporations,—known as “The Hudson’s Bay Company.”

[Illustration]

While the Canadian Fur Company did not respond to the proposals of

Groseilliers for the extension of commerce, the French Government, in

view of the fact that the Dutch on the south side of the St. Lawrence

and in the valley of the Hudson River had acknowledged allegiance to

England, determined to show more interest in the administration of

Canadian affairs, and Mézy having been recalled, hardly before his

death, Daniel de Remi, Seigneur de Courcelles, was sent as provincial

governor. They also created the new office of Intendant of Justice,

Police, and Finance, and made Talon—a person of talent, experience,

and great energy—the first incumbent. Arriving at Quebec in 1665,

Talon took decided steps for the promotion of agriculture, tanneries,

and fisheries, and was enthusiastic in the desire to see the white

banner of France, with its fleur-de-lis, floating in the far West.[469]

In the autumn of 1668 he took with him to France one of the hardy

_voyageurs_ who had lived in the region of the lakes, and on the 24th

of the next February he writes to Colbert, the Colonial Minister, that

this man “had penetrated among the western nations farther than any

other Frenchman, and had seen the copper mine on Lake Huron. The man

offers to go to that mine and explore, either by sea, or by the lake

and river, the communication supposed to exist between Canada and the

South Sea, or to the region of Hudson’s Bay.”

During the summer of 1669 the active and intelligent Louis Joliet,

with an outfit of four hundred livres, and one Peré, perhaps the

same person who gave his name to a river leading from Lake Nepigon

to Hudson’s Bay,[470] with an outfit of one thousand livres, went to

search for copper on the shores of Lake Superior, and to discover a

more direct route from the upper lakes to Montreal. Joliet went as far

as Sault Ste. Marie, where he did not long remain; but in the place of

a mine found an Iroquois prisoner among the Ottawas at that point, and

obtained permission to take him back to Canada. In company with another

Frenchman, he was led by the Iroquois from Lake Erie through the valley

of the Grand River to Lake Ontario, and on the 24th of September, at

an Iroquois village between this river and the head of Burlington Bay,

he met La Salle with four canoes and fifteen men, and the Sulpitian

priests, Galinée and De Casson, who on the 6th of July had left the

post at La Chine.

La Salle, alleging ill health, at this point separated from the

missionaries, and Joliet, before proceeding toward Montreal, drew a

chart of the upper lakes for the guidance of the Sulpitians. By the

aid of this the priests reached Lake Erie through a direct river, and

near the lake they erected a hut and passed the winter. On the 23d of

March, 1670, they resumed their voyage, and on the 25th of May reached

Sault Ste. Marie, where there were about twenty-five Frenchmen trading

with the Indians. Here was also the mission of the Jesuits among the

Ottawas,—a square enclosure defended by cedar pickets twelve feet

high, and within were a small house and chapel which had recently been

built. Remaining but three days, they returned to Montreal by the old

route along the French River of Lake Huron to Lake Nipissing, and

thence by portage to the Ottawa River.

About the time of their arrival Talon had learned from some Algonquins

that two European vessels had been seen in Hudson’s Bay, and he wrote

to Colbert,—

“After reflecting on all the nations that might have penetrated as

far north as that, I can fall back only on the English, who under the

conduct of one named Desgrozeliers, in former times an inhabitant of

Canada, might possibly have attempted that navigation, of itself not

much known, and not less dangerous. I design to send by land some men

of resolution to invite the Kilistinons, who are in great numbers in

the vicinity of that bay, to come down to see us as the Ottawas do, in

order that we may have the first handling of what the latter savages

bring us, who, acting as retail dealers between us and those natives,

make us pay for the roundabout way of three or four hundred leagues.”

To draw the trade from the English, it was determined to make an

alliance of friendship with all the nations around Lake Superior.

One of the Frenchmen[471] who roved among the tribes west of Lake

Michigan, and in the valley of the Fox River, was Nicholas Perrot.

Accustomed from boyhood to the scenes and excitements of frontier life,

quick-witted, with some education, a leading spirit among _coureurs

des bois_, and looked upon with respect by the Indians, he was an

intelligent explorer of the interior of the continent. In the spring

of 1670, when twenty-six years of age, Perrot left Green Bay with

a flotilla of canoes filled with peltries and paddled by Indians.

By way of Lake Nipissing he reached the Ottawa River, and descended

to Montreal, and in July he visited Quebec. By the Intendant Talon

he was invited to act as guide and interpreter to his deputy, Simon

François Daumont, the Sieur Saint Lusson, who on the 3d of September

was commissioned to go to Lake Superior to search for copper mines and

confer with the tribes.

It was not until October that Perrot and Saint Lusson left Montreal.

When Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron was reached, it was decided

that Saint Lusson should here remain for the winter hunting and

trading, while Perrot went on and visited the tribes of the Green Bay

region. On the 5th of May, 1671, he met Saint Lusson at Sault Ste.

Marie, accompanied by the principal chiefs of the Sauks, Menomonees,

Pottawattamies, and Winnebagoes. After the delegates of fourteen

tribes had arrived, a council was held, on the 14th of June, by Saint

Lusson, in the presence of the Jesuits André, Claude Allouez, Gabriel

Dreuilletes, and the head of the mission Claude d’Ablon, Nicholas

Perrot the interpreter, Louis Joliet, and some fur-traders;[472] and

a treaty of friendship was formed, and the countries around Lakes

Huron and Superior were taken possession of in the name of Louis XIV.,

King of France. Talon announces the result of the expedition in these

words:—

“Sieur de Saint Lusson is returned, after having advanced as far as

five hundred leagues from here, and planted the cross and set up the

King’s arms in presence of seventeen Indian nations,[473] assembled

on this occasion from all parts, all of whom voluntarily submitted

themselves to the dominion of his Majesty, whom alone they regard as

their sovereign protector. This was effected, according to the account

of the Jesuit Fathers, who assisted at the ceremony, with all the

formality and display the country could afford. I shall carry with me

the record of taking possession prepared by Sieur de Saint Lusson for

securing those countries to his Majesty.

“The place to which the said Sieur de Saint Lusson has penetrated

is supposed to be no more than three hundred leagues from the

extremities of the countries bordering on the Vermillion or South Sea.

Those bordering on the West Sea appear to be no farther from those

discovered by the French. According to the calculation made from the

reports of the Indians and from maps, there seems to remain not more

than fifteen hundred leagues of navigation to Tartary, China, and

Japan. Such discoveries must be the work of either time or of the

King. It can be said that the Spaniards have hardly penetrated farther

into the interior of South, than the French have done up to the

present time into the interior of North, America.

“Sieur de Lusson’s voyage to discover the South Sea and the copper

mine will not cost the King anything. I make no account of it in

my statements, because, having made presents to the savages of the

countries of which he took possession, he has reciprocally received

from them in beaver that which replaces his outlay.”

The Hurons and Ottawas did not arrive in time to witness the formal

taking possession of the country by the representative of France,

having been detained by difficulty with the Sioux. About the year 1662,

the Hurons, who had lingered about the sources of the Black River

of Wisconsin, joined again their old allies, the Ottawas, who were

clustered at the end of the beautiful Chegoimegon Bay of Lake Superior.

The Ottawas lived in one village, made up of three bands,—the Sinagos,

Kenonché, and Kiskakon. After this union, a party of Saulteurs,

Ottawas, Nipissings, and Amikoués were securing white-fish not far from

Sault Ste. Marie, when they discovered the smoke of an encampment of

about one hundred Iroquois. Cautiously approaching, they surprised and

defeated their dreaded foes, at a place to this day known as Iroquois

Point, just above the entrance of Lake Superior.

After this, the Hurons, Ottawas, and Saulteurs returned in triumph to

Keweenaw and Chegoimegon, and remained in quietness until a number of

Hurons went to hunt west of Lake Superior, and were captured by some of

the Sioux. While in captivity they were treated with kindness, asked

to come again, and sent away with presents. Accepting the invitation,

the Sinagos chief, with some warriors and four French traders, visited

the Sioux, and were received with honor and cordiality. Again, a few

Hurons went into the Sioux country, and some of the young warriors

made them prisoners; but the Sioux chief, who had smoked the calumet

with the Sinagos chief, insisted upon their release, and journeyed to

Chegoimegon Bay to make an apology. Upon his arrival, the Hurons proved

tricky, and persuaded the Ottawas to put to death their visitor. It

was not strange that the Sioux were surprised and enraged when they

received the intelligence, and panted for revenge. Marquette, who had

succeeded Allouez at the mission which was between the Huron and Ottawa

villages, in allusion to this disturbance, wrote:—

“Our Outaouacs and Hurons, of the Point of the Holy Ghost, had to

the present time kept up a kind of peace with them [the Sioux], but

matters having become embroiled during last winter, and some murders

having been committed on both sides, our savages had reason to

apprehend that the storm would soon burst on them, and they deemed it

was safer for them to leave the place, which they did in the spring.”

The Jesuits retired with the Hurons and Ottawas, and more than one

hundred and fifty years elapsed before another Christian mission was

attempted in this vicinity, under the “American Board of Foreign

Missions.” The retreating Ottawas did not halt until they reached an

old hunting-ground, the Manitoulin Island of Lake Huron, and the Hurons

stopped at Mackinaw. From time to time they formed war-parties with

other tribes, against the Sioux. In 1674 some Sioux warriors arrived at

Sault Ste. Marie to smoke the pipe of peace with adjacent tribes. At a

grand council the Sioux sent twelve delegates, and the others forty.

During the conference one of the opposite side drew near and brandished

his knife in the face of a Sioux, and called him a coward. The Sioux

replied he was not afraid, when the knife was plunged into his heart,

and he died. A fight immediately began, and the Sioux bravely defended

themselves, although nine were killed. The two survivors fled to

the rude log chapel of the Jesuit mission, and closed the door, and

finding there some weapons they opened fire upon their enemies. Their

assailants wished to burn down the chapel, which the Jesuits would not

allow, as they had beaver skins stored in the loft. In the extremity a

lay brother of the mission, named Louis Le Boeme, advised the firing of

a cannon shot at the cabin’s door. The discharge killed the last two of

the Sioux.[474] Governor Frontenac made complaint against Le Boeme for

this conduct, in a letter to Colbert.[475]

After the Iroquois had made a treaty of peace with the French, they

did not cease to lurk and watch for the Ottawas as they descended to

trade at Montreal, Three Rivers, or Quebec, and, as occasion offered,

rob them of their peltries and tear their scalps from their heads.

Governor Courcelles, in 1671, determined to establish a post on Lake

Ontario which would act as a barrier between the Ottawas and Iroquois,

and at the same time draw off the trade from the Hudson River.

[Illustration]

Before entering upon his journey he had constructed a large plank

flat-boat to ascend the streams,—a novelty which was a surprise. It

was of two or three tons burden, and provided with a strong rope to

haul it over the rapids and shoal places. On the morning of the 3d of

June the expedition left Montreal, consisting of the flat-boat, filled

with supplies and manned by a sergeant and eight soldiers, and thirteen

bark canoes. The party numbered fifty-six persons, who were active and

willing to endure the hardships of the journey. At night, with axe in

hand, the men cut poles for a lodge frame, which they covered with

bark stripped from the trees. The Governor, to protect himself from

mosquitoes, had a little arbor made on the ground, about two feet high,

and covered with a sheet, which touched the ground on all sides, and

prevented the approach of the insects which disturb sleep and irritate

the flesh. The second day of the voyage the flat-boat found difficulty

in passing the first rapids, and Courcelles plunged into the water,

and with the aid of the hardy _voyageurs_ pushed the boat into smooth

water. On the 10th of June the first flat-boat reached the vicinity

of Lake Ontario, and the Governor two days after, in a canoe, reached

the entrance of the lake. Here he found a stream with sufficient water

to float a large boat, and bordered by fine land, which would serve

as a site for a post. On the 14th, at the time that the deputy Saint

Lusson, at Sault Ste. Marie, was taking possession of the region of

Lake Superior, Courcelles was descending the rapids of the St. Lawrence

on his return to Montreal.[476]

[Illustration]

The report of this expedition was sent to Louis XIV., and it met

with his approval; but for the benefit of his health Courcelles

was permitted to return to France, and on the 9th of April, 1672,

Louis de Buade, Count de Frontenac, was appointed Governor and

Lieutenant-General in Canada and other parts belonging to New France.

It was not until the leaves began to grow old that Frontenac arrived

in Quebec, and, full of energy, was ready to push on the work of

exploration which had been initiated by his predecessor. Upon the

advice of the Intendant Talon, he soon despatched Louis Joliet to go

to the Grand River, which the Indians alleged flowed southward to the

sea. Joliet (often spelled Jolliet) was born in Canada, the son of a

wagon-maker. In boyhood he had been a promising scholar in the Jesuits’

school at Quebec, but, imbibing the spirit of the times, while a young

man he became a rover in the wilderness and a trader among Indians.

Three years before his appointment to explore the great river beyond

the lakes, he had been sent with Peré to search for a copper-mine on

Lake Superior, and the year before he stood by the side of Saint Lusson

as he planted the arms of France at Sault Ste. Marie.

It was not until Dec. 8, 1672, that he reached the Straits of Mackinaw,

and as the rivers between that point and the Mississippi were by

this time frozen, he remained there during the winter and following

spring, busy in questioning the Indians who had seen the great river

as to its course, and as to the nations on its shores. On May 17,

1673, he began his journey toward a distant sea. At Mackinaw he found

Marquette, who became his companion, but had no official connection

with the expedition, as erroneously mentioned by Charlevoix. With five

_voyageurs_ and two birch-bark canoes, Joliet and Marquette, by the 7th

of June, had reached a settlement of Kikapous, Miamis, and Mascoutens,

in the valley of the Fox River, and three leagues beyond they found a

short portage by which they reached the Wisconsin River, and following

its tortuous course amid sandbars and islands dense with bushes, on the

17th of June they entered the broad great river called the Mississippi,

walled in by picturesque bluffs, with lofty limestone escarpment, whose

irregular outline looked like a succession of the ruined castles and

towers of the Rhine. In honor of his patron, Governor Frontenac, Joliet

called it Buade, the Governor’s family name. Passing one great river

flowing from the west, he learned that through its valley there was a

route to the Vermeille Sea [Gulf of California], and he saw a village

(which was about five days’ journey from another) which traded with the

people of California.[477]

This river is without name on his map,[478] but on its banks he

places villages of the Missouri, Kansa, Osages, and Pawnee tribes.

The River Ohio he marked with the Indian name Ouabouskigou; and the

Arkansas, beyond which he did not descend, and which was reached about

the middle of July, he named Bazire, after a prominent merchant of

Quebec interested in the fur-trade. After ascending the stream, he

entered the Illinois River, which he designated as the Divine, or

Outrelaise, in compliment, it is supposed, to Frontenac’s wife, a

daughter of Lagrange Trianon, noted for her beauty, and Mademoiselle

Outrelaise, her fascinating friend, who were called in Court circles

“les divines.”[479] Upon the west bank of one of its tributaries, the

Des Plaine River, there stands above the prairie a remarkable elevation

of clay, sand, and gravel, a lonely monument which has withstood the

erosion of a former geologic age. It was a noted landmark to the

Indians in their hunting, and to the French _voyageurs_ on their

trading expeditions. By this Joliet was impressed, and he gave the

elevation his own name, Mont Joliet, which it has retained, while all

the others he marked on his map have been forgotten.[480] It was not

until about the middle of August, 1674, that he returned to Quebec,

and Governor Frontenac, on the 14th of November, writes to the French

Government,—

“Sieur Joliet, whom Monsieur Talon advised me, on my arrival from

France, to despatch for the discovery of the South Sea, returned three

months ago, and found some very fine countries, and a navigation so

easy through the beautiful rivers, that a person can go from Lake

Ontario and Fort Frontenac in a bark to the Gulf of Mexico, there

being only one carrying place, half a league in length, where Lake

Ontario communicates with Lake Erie. A settlement could be made at

this post, and another bark built on Lake Erie.... He has been within

ten days’ journey of the Gulf of Mexico, and believes that water

communication could be found leading to the Vermillion and California

Seas, by means of the river that flows from the west, with the Grand

River that he discovered, which rises from north to south, and is as

large as the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec.

“I send you, by my secretary, the map[481] he has made of it, and the

observations he has been able to recollect, as he lost all his minutes

and journals in the wreck he suffered within sight of Montreal, where,

after having completed a voyage of twelve hundred leagues, he was near

being drowned, and lost all his papers, and a little Indian whom he

brought from those countries.”

Governor Frontenac was satisfied with the importance of establishing a

post on Lake Ontario, as Courcelles had suggested, and in the summer of

1673 visited the region. On the 3d of June he departed from Quebec, and

at five o’clock in the afternoon of the 15th was received at Montreal

amid the roar of cannon and the discharge of musketry. On the 9th of

July he had reached a point supposed to be in the present town of

Lisbon, in St. Lawrence County, New York, at the head of all the rapids

of the St. Lawrence; and while sojourning there, at six o’clock in the

evening two Iroquois canoes arrived with letters from La Salle, who two

months before went into their country.

After exchanging civilities with the Iroquois, and guided by them,

Frontenac was led into a beautiful bay about a cannon-shot from the

River Katarakoui, which so pleased him as a site for a post, that he

stayed until sunset examining the situation. The next day his engineer,

Sieur Raudin, was ordered to trace out the plan of a fort, and on the

morning of the 14th, at daybreak, soldiers and officers with alacrity

began to clear the ground, and in four days the fort was finished,

with the exception of the abatis. After designating the garrison

and workmen who were to remain at the post, and making La Salle the

commandant, on the 27th Frontenac began his homeward voyage, about the

time that Joliet began to ascend the Mississippi from the mouth of the

Arkansas.[482]

The reports of Joliet led to the formation of plans for the occupation

of the valley of the Mississippi by the leading merchants and officers

of Canada; and the application of Joliet, its first explorer, to go

with twenty persons and establish a post among the Illinois, was

refused by the French Government.[483]

Frontenac, in the fall of 1674,[484] sent La Salle to France. Under

the date of the 14th of November, he wrote to Minister Colbert that La

Salle was a man of character and intelligence, adapted to exploration,

and asking him to listen to his plans. A few weeks before La Salle’s

arrival in Paris, the Prince of Condé had fought a battle at Seneffe,

and obtained a victory over the Prince of Orange and the allied

generals, and every one was full of the praise of the King’s household

guards, who without flinching remained eight hours under the fire of

the enemy. La Salle could hardly have thought at that moment that the

future was yet to reveal as his associates in the exploration of the

distant valley of the Mississippi a _gend’arme_ of his Majesty’s guard

and a field chaplain of that bloody day.[485] In a memorial to the

King, he asked for the grant of Fort Frontenac and lands adjacent,

agreeing to repay Frontenac the money he had expended in establishing

the post, to repair it, and keep a garrison therein at his own expense.

He further asked, in consideration of the voyages he had made at his

own expense during the seven years of his residence in Canada, that he

might receive letters of nobility.[486] The King, upon the report of

Colbert, accepted the offer, and on the 13th of May, 1675, conferred

upon La Salle the rank of esquire, with power to attain all grades of

knighthood and _gendarmerie_.[487] This year he came back to Canada

in the same ship with Louis Hennepin, and going to Fort Frontenac in

August, 1676, he increased the buildings, erected a strong wall on the

land side, and strengthened the palisades toward the water. From time

to time he had cattle brought thither from Montreal, and constructed

barks to navigate the lake, keep the Iroquois in check, and deter

the English from trading in the region of the upper lakes.[488] In

November, 1677, he made another visit to France,[489] and obtained

a permit, dated the 12th of May, 1678, allowing him to explore the

western part of New France, with the prospect of penetrating as far as

Mexico.[490] The expedition was to be at the expense of himself and

associates, with the privilege of trade in buffalo skins, but with the

express condition that he should not trade with the Ottawas and other

Indians who brought their beavers to Montreal.

Frontenac was not only in full sympathy with La Salle, but with

other enterprising adventurers, and there is but little doubt that

he shared the profits of the fur-traders. About the time that La

Salle was improving Fort Frontenac as a trading-post, Raudin,[491]

the engineer who had laid out the plan of that fort, was sent by

Frontenac with presents to the Ojibways and Sioux, at the extremity

of Lake Superior.[492] A nephew of Patron, named Daniel Greysolon

du Lhut,[493] and who had made two voyages from France before 1674,

had then entered the army as squire of Marquis de Lassay, was in the

campaign of Franche-Comté and at Seneffe, having now returned to Quebec

was permitted to go on a voyage of discovery in the then unknown region

where dwelt the Sioux and Assineboines.

On the 1st of September, 1678, with three Indians and three Frenchmen,

Du Lhut left Montreal for Lake Superior, and wintered at some point on

the shore of, or in the vicinity of, Lake Huron. On the 5th of April,

1679, he was in the woods, three leagues from Sault Ste. Marie, when he

wrote in the third person to Governor Frontenac: “He will not stir from

the Nadoussioux until further orders; and peace being concluded he will

set up the King’s arms, lest the English and other Europeans settled

toward California take possession of the country.”[494] On the 2d of

July, 1679, Du Lhut planted the arms of France beyond Lake Superior,

among the Isanti Sioux,[495] who dwelt at Mille Lacs, in what is now

the State of Minnesota, and then visited the Songaskitons (Sissetons)

and Houetbatons, bands of the Sioux, whose villages were one hundred

and twenty leagues beyond. Entering by way of the St. Louis River,

it would be easy, by a slight portage, to reach the Sioux village,

which was at that time on the shores of the Sandy Lake of the Upper

Mississippi.

Among those who went to the Lake Superior region at the same time as

Du Lhut, were Dupuy, Lamonde, and Pierre Moreau, alias La Taupine, who

had been with Saint Lusson at the planting of the French arms in 1671

at Sault Ste. Marie, and was trading among the Illinois when Joliet

was in that country. In the summer of 1679 La Taupine returned, and it

was rumored that he had obtained among the Ottawas in two days nine

hundred beavers. Duchesneau, Intendant of Justice, feeling that Moreau

had violated the law forbidding _coureurs des bois_ to trade with

the Indians, had him, in September, arrested at Quebec; but Moreau

produced a license from Governor Frontenac, permitting him, with his

two comrades, to go to the Ottawas, to execute his secret orders, and

so was liberated. He had not left the prison but a short time when an

officer and some soldiers came with an order from Frontenac to force

the prison, in case he were still there. In a letter to Seignelay he

writes: “It is certain, my Lord, that the said La Taupine carried

goods to the Ottawas, that his two comrades remained in the country,

apparently near Du Lhut, and that he traded there.”[496]

On the 15th of September Du Lhut had returned to Lake Superior, and at

Camanistigoya, or the Three Rivers, the site of Fort William of the

old Northwest Company, he held a conference with the Assineboines, an

alienated band of the Sioux, and other northern tribes, and persuaded

them to be at peace, and to intermarry with the Sioux. The next winter

he remained in the region near the northern boundary of Minnesota; but

in June, 1680, he determined to visit the Issati Sioux by water, as he

had before gone to their villages by land.[497] With two canoes, an

Indian as an interpreter, and four Frenchmen,—one of whom was Faffart,

who had been in the employ of La Salle at Fort Frontenac,[498]—he

entered a river eight leagues from the extremity of Lake Superior, now

called Bois Brulé, a narrow, rapid stream, then much obstructed by

fallen trees and beaver-dams. After reaching its upper waters a short

portage was made to Upper Lake St. Croix, the outlet of which was a

river, which, descending, led him to the Mississippi.

Two weeks after Du Lhut left Montreal to explore the extremity of Lake

Superior, La Salle returned from France, accompanied by the brave

officer Henry Tonty, who had lost one hand in battle, but who, with

an iron substitute for the lost member, could still be efficient in

case of a conflict. He also brought with him, beside thirty persons,

a supply of cordage, anchors, and other material to be used at Fort

Frontenac and on his proposed journey toward the Gulf of Mexico.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

After reaching Frontenac, La Motte, who had been a captain in a French

regiment, was sent in advance, with the Franciscan Hennepin and sixteen

men, to select a site for building a vessel to navigate the upper

lakes. On the 8th of January, 1679, La Salle and Tonty, late at night,

reached La Motte’s encampment at the rapids below the Falls of Niagara,

only to find him absent on a visit to the Senecas. The next day La

Salle climbed the heights, and following the portage road round the

cataract he found at the entrance of Cayuga Creek an admirable place

for a ship-yard. La Motte having returned to his encampment, with La

Salle and Tonty he visited the selected site, and Tonty was charged

with the supervision of the ship-builders.

Four days later, the keel of the projected vessel was laid, and in

May it was launched with appropriate ceremonies, and named after the

fabulous animal—the symbol of strength and swiftness,—the “Griffin,”

two of which were the supporters of the escutcheon of Count Frontenac.

Tonty, on the 22d of July, was sent forward with five men to join

fourteen others who had been ordered by La Salle to stop at the mouth

of the Detroit River. On the 7th day of August the “Griffin” spread

her sails upon her voyage to unknown waters whose depths had never

been sounded, and early on the morning of the 10th reached Tonty and

his party, who had anxiously awaited its coming, and received them on

board. On the 10th of August, the day in the calendar of the Church

of Rome devoted to the memory of the virgin Saint Clare, foundress

of the Franciscan Order of Poor Clares, the vessel entered the lake

called by the Franciscan priests after her, although now written St.

Clair. On the 27th they reached the harbor of Mackinaw,—a point on

the mainland south of the straits; and upon his landing La Salle was

greatly surprised to find there a number of those whom he had sent, at

the close of the last year, to trade for his benefit with the Illinois.

Their excuse for their unfaithfulness was credence in a report that

La Salle was a visionary, and that his vessel would never arrive at

Mackinaw. Four of the deserters were arrested. La Salle, learning that

two more—Hemant and Roussel, or Roussellière—were at Sault Ste.

Marie, sent Tonty on the 29th with six men to take them into custody.

While the lieutenant was absent on this errand, La Salle lifted his

anchor and set sail for the Grand Bay, now Green Bay, where he found

among the Pottawattamies still others of those whom he had sent to the

Illinois, and who had collected furs to the value of twelve thousand

livres. From this point he determined to pursue his journey southward

in a canoe, and to send back the “Griffin” with the peltries here

collected. On the 18th of September the ship—in charge of the pilot,

a supercargo, and five sailors—sailed for the magazine at the end of

Lake Erie, but it never came to Mackinaw. Some Indians said it had

been wrecked, but there was never any certain information obtained. A

Pawnee lad, fourteen or fifteen years of age, who was a prisoner among

the Indians near a post established among the Illinois, reported that

the pilot of the “Griffin” had been seen among the Missouri tribes, and

that he had ascended the Mississippi, with four others, in two canoes,

with goods stolen from the ship, and some hand-grenades. It was the

intention of this party to join Du Lhut, and if they could not find

him, to push on to the English on Hudson’s Bay. Meeting some hostile

Indians, a fight occurred, and all the Frenchmen were killed but the

pilot and another, who were sold as prisoners to the Missouri Indians.

In the chapter on the exploration of the lakes, it is only necessary to

allude to that portion of La Salle’s expedition which pertains to this

region.

After La Salle had established Fort Crèvecœur among the Illinois, on

the 29th of February, 1680, he sent Michel Accault (often spelt Ako) on

a trading and exploring expedition to the Upper Mississippi. He took

with him Anthony Augelle, called the Picard, and the Franciscan priest

Louis Hennepin, in a canoe, with goods valued at about a thousand

livres. In ascending the Mississippi the party was hindered by ice near

the mouth of the Illinois River until the 12th of March, when they

resumed their voyage. Following the windings of the Mississippi, La

Salle mentions in a letter written on the 22d of August, 1682, at Fort

Frontenac,[499] that they passed a tributary from the east called by

the Sioux Meschetz Odéba,[500] now called Wisconsin, and twenty-three

or twenty-four leagues above they saw the Black River, called by the

Sioux Chabadeba.[501] About the 11th of April, at three o’clock in

the afternoon, a war-party of Sioux going south was met, and Accault,

as the leader, presented the calumet,[502] and gave them some tobacco

and twenty knives. The Sioux gave up their expedition, and conducted

Accault and his companions to their villages. On the 22d of April the

isles in the Mississippi were reached, where two Sioux had been killed

by the Maskoutens, and they stopped to weep over their death, while

Accault, to assuage their grief, gave them in trade a box of goods and

twenty-four hatchets. Arriving at an enlargement of the river, about

three miles below the modern city of St. Paul, the canoes were hidden

in the marshes, and the rest of the journey to the villages of Mille

Lacs was made by land. Six weeks after they reached the villages, the

Sioux determined to descend the Mississippi on a buffalo hunt, and

Hennepin and Augelle went with the party.

When Du Lhut reached the Mississippi from Lake Superior, he found eight

cabins of Sioux, and learned that some Frenchmen were with the party

hunting below the St. Croix River. Surprised by the intelligence,

leaving two Frenchmen to guard his goods, he descended in a canoe with

his interpreter and his other two men, and on the morning of the third

day he found the hunting camp and the Franciscan Hennepin. In a letter

to Seignelay, written while on a visit in France, Du Lhut writes:—

“The want of respect which they showed to the said Reverend Father

provoked me, and this I showed them, telling them he was my brother.

And I had him placed in my canoe to come with me into the villages of

the said Nadouecioux, whither I took him; and a week after our arrival

I caused a council to be convened, exposing the ill treatment which

they had been guilty of, both to the said Reverend Father and to the

other two Frenchmen who were with him, having robbed them and carried

them off as slaves,[503] and even taken the priestly vestments of

said Reverend Father.

“I had two calumets, which they had danced to, returned, on

account of the insults which they had offered, being what they

hold most in esteem to appease matters, telling them I did not

take calumets from the people who, after they had seen me and received

my peace presents, and had been for a year always with Frenchmen,

robbed them when they went to visit them. Each one in the council

endeavored to throw the blame from himself, but their excuses did not

prevent my telling the Reverend Father Louis that he would have to

come with me towards the Outagamys [Foxes], as he did; showing him

that it would strike a blow at the French nation, in a new discovery,

to suffer an insult of this nature without manifesting resentment,

although my design was to push on to the sea in a west-northwesterly

direction, which is that which is believed to be the Red Sea [Gulf of

California], whence the Indians who had gone to war on that side gave

salt to three Frenchmen whom I had sent exploring, and who brought

me said salt, having reported to me that the Indians had told them

that it was only twenty days’ journey from where they were to find

the great lake, whose waters were worthless to drink. They had made

me believe that it would not be absolutely difficult to find it, if

permission were given to go there.

“However, I preferred to retrace my steps, exhibiting the just

indignation I felt, rather than to remain, after the violence which

they had done to the Reverend Father and the other two Frenchmen

who were with him, whom I put in my canoes and brought back to

Michelimakinak.”

It was not until some time in May, 1681, that Du Lhut arrived at

Montreal, and although he protested that his journey had only been in

the interest of discovery and of peace-making with the tribes, the

Intendant of Justice accused him of violating the King’s edict against

trading with the Indians, and Frontenac held him for a time in the

castle at Quebec, more as a friend than as a prisoner. It was but a

little while before an amnesty came from the King of France to all

suspected of being “_coureurs des Bois_,” and authorizing Governor

Frontenac to issue yearly twenty-five licenses to twenty-five canoes,

each having three men, to trade among the savages.

Duchesneau, the Intendant of Justice, still complained that the

Governor winked at illicit trade, and on the 13th of November, 1681, he

wrote to Seignelay, who had succeeded his father as Minister for the

Colonies:—

“But not content with the profits to be derived within the countries

under the King’s dominion, the desire of making money everywhere has

led the Governor, Sieurs Perrot, Boisseau, Du Lhut, and Patron, his

uncle, to send canoes loaded with peltries to the English. It is

said that sixty thousand livres’ worth has been sent thither; and

though proof of this assertion cannot be adduced, it is a notorious

report.... Trade with the English is justified every day, and all

those who have pursued it agree that beaver carried to them sells for

double what it does here, for that worth fifty-two sous, six deniers,

the pound, duty paid, brings eight livres there, and the beaver for

Russia sells there at ten livres the pound in goods.”

On grounds of public policy Frontenac in 1682 was recalled, and De la

Barre, his successor, in October of this year held a conference with

the most influential persons, among whom was Du Lhut, who afterward

sailed for France, and early in 1683[504] there wrote the letter to

Seignelay from which extracts have been made.

The Iroquois having found it profitable to carry the beavers of the

northwest to the English at Albany, determined to wage war against

the tribes of the upper Lakes, seize Mackinaw, and drive away the

French. Governor de la Barre, to thwart this scheme, in May, 1683,

sent Oliver Morrel, the Sieur de la Durantaye, with six canoes and

thirty good men, to Mackinaw, and the Chevalier de Baugy was ordered

to the fort established by La Salle on the Illinois River, in charge

of Tonty. As soon as Durantaye reached Mackinaw, he immediately sent

parties to Green Bay to take steps to humble the Pottawattamies for the

hostility exhibited toward the French. He afterward went down the west

side of Lake Michigan, and Chevalier de Baugy proceeded on the other

side, hoping to meet La Salle, who was expected to go to Mackinaw by

following the eastern shore.

Du Lhut, upon his return from France, obtained a license to trade, and

in August arrived at Mackinaw with men and goods for trading in the

Sioux country[505] by way of Green Bay. Upon the 8th of the month he

left Mackinaw with about thirty persons; and after leaving their goods

at the extremity of the Bay, they proceeded, armed for war, to the

village of the Pottawattamies, and rebuked them for the bad feelings

which they had exhibited. Some Cayuga Iroquois in the vicinity captured

five of the Wyandot Hurons that Du Lhut had sent out to reconnoitre,

but avoided the French post. “The Sieur du Lhut,” writes the Governor

to Seignelay, “who had the honor to see you at Versailles, happening to

be at that post when my people arrived, placed himself at their head,

and issued such good orders that I do not think it can be seized, as

he has employed his forces and some Indians in fortifying and placing

himself in a condition of determined defence.” Having been advised

of the retreat of the Iroquois, Du Lhut proceeded toward the north

to execute his design of stopping English trade in that direction.

The project is referred to in a despatch of the Canadian to the Home

Government in these words: “The English of Hudson’s Bay have this year

attracted many of our northern Indians, who for this reason have not

come to trade to Montreal. When they learned by expresses sent them by

Du Lhut, on his arrival at Messilimakinak, that he was coming, they

sent him word to come quickly, and they would unite with him to prevent

all others going thither any more. The English of the Bay excite us

against the savages, whom Sieur du Lhut alone can quiet.”

Departing from his first post at Kaministigouia, the site of which

is in view of Prince Arthur’s Landing, he found his way between many

isles, varied and picturesque, to a river on the north shore of

Lake Superior leading to Lake Nepigon (Alepimigon). Passing to the

northeastern extremity, he built a post on a stream connecting with the

waters of the Hudson’s Bay, called after a family name, La Tourette.

He returned the next year, if not to Montreal, certainly to Mackinaw.

Keweenaw by this time had become a well-known resort of traders; and in

its vicinity, in the summer of 1683, two Frenchmen, Colin Berthot and

Jacques Le Maire, had been surprised by Indians, robbed and murdered.

While Du Lhut was at Mackinaw, on the 24th of October, he was told that

an accomplice, named Folle Avoine, had arrived at Sault Ste. Marie with

fifteen Ojibway families who had fled from Chagouamigon Bay, fearing

retaliation for an attack which they had made upon the Sioux during the

last spring. There were only twelve Frenchmen at the Sault at the time,

and they felt too weak, without aid, to make an arrest of Folle Avoine.

At the dawn of the next day after the information was received, Du Lhut

embarked with six Frenchmen to seize the murderer, and he also gave a

seat in his canoe to the Jesuit missionary, Engelran. When within a

league of the post at the Sault, he left the canoe, and with Engelran

and the Chevalier de Fourcille, on foot, went through the woods to the

mission-house, and the remaining four—Baribaud, Le Mere, La Fortune,

and Maçons—proceeded with the canoe.

Du Lhut, upon his arrival, immediately ordered the arrest of the

accused, and placed him under a guard of six men; then calling a

council, he told the Indians that those guilty of the murder must be

punished. But they, hoping to exculpate the prisoner, said that the

murder had been committed by one Achiganaga and his sons. Peré had

been sent to Keweenaw to find Achiganaga and his children, and when

he arrested them they acknowledged their guilt, and told him that the

goods they had stolen were hidden in certain places. The powder and

tobacco were found soaked in water and useless, and the bodies of the

murdered were found in holes in marshy ground, covered with branches

of trees to prevent them from floating. The goods not damaged were

sold at Keweenaw, to the highest bidder among the traders, for eleven

hundred livres, to be paid in beavers to M. de la Chesnaye. On the 24th

of November Peré, at ten o’clock at night, came and told Du Lhut that

he had found eighteen Frenchmen at Keweenaw, and that he had brought

down as prisoners Achiganaga and sons, and had left them under a guard

of twelve Frenchmen at a point twelve leagues from the Sault. The

next day, at dawn, he went back, and at two o’clock in the afternoon

returned with the prisoners, who were placed in a room in the house

where Du Lhut was, and watched by a strong guard, and not allowed to

converse with each other.

On the 26th a council was held. Folle Avoine was allowed two of his

relatives to defend him, and the same privilege was accorded to

the others. He was interrogated, and his answers taken in writing,

when they were read to him, and inquiry made whether the record was

correct. He being removed, Achiganaga was introduced, and in like

manner questioned; and then his sons. The Indians watched the judicial

examination with silent interest, and the chiefs at length said to the

prisoners: “It is enough! You accuse yourselves; the French are masters

of your bodies.”

On the 29th all the French at the place were called together. The

answers to the interrogatories by the prisoners were read, and then by

vote it was unanimously decided that they were guilty and ought to die.

As the traders at Keweenaw desired all possible leniency to be shown,

Du Lhut decided to execute only two,—man for man, for those murdered;

and in this opinion he was sustained by De la Tour, the Superior of

the Jesuit missionaries at the Sault. Folle Avoine and the eldest of

Achiganaga’s sons were selected. Du Lhut writes: “I then returned to

the cabin of Brochet [a chief], with Mess’rs Boisguillot, Peré, De

Repentigny, De Manthet, De la Ferte, and Maçons, where were all the

chiefs of the Outawas du Sable, Outawas Sinagos, Sauteurs, D’Achiliny,

a part of the Hurons, and Oumamens, chief of the Amikoys. I informed

them of our decision; ... that the Frenchmen having been killed by the

different tribes, one of each must die; and that the same death they

had caused the French to suffer they must also suffer.” The Jesuit

Fathers then proceeded to baptize the prisoners, in the belief of the

Church of Rome that by the external application of water they might

become citizens of the kingdom of heaven. One hour later, a procession

was formed of forty-two Frenchmen, with Du Lhut at their head, and

the prisoners were taken to a hill, and in the sight of four hundred

Indians the two murderers were shot.

To Du Lhut must always be given the credit of being the first in the

distant West, at the outlet of Lake Superior, to exhibit the majesty of

law, under the forms of the French code. While some of the timid and

prejudiced, in Canada and France, condemned his course as harsh and

impolitic, yet, as the enforcer of a respect for life, he was upheld by

the more thoughtful and reasonable.[506]

During the summer of 1683 (Aug. 10), René Le Gardeur, Sieur de

Beauvais, with thirteen others who had a permit to trade among the

Illinois, departed from Mackinaw, and early in December reached the

lower end of Lake Michigan, and wintered in the valley of the Theakiki

or Kankakee River. About the 10th of March, 1684, while on their way to

Fort St. Louis, on the Illinois River, they were robbed by the Seneca

Iroquois of their seven canoes of merchandise, and after nine days

sent back to the Chicago River with only two canoes and some powder

and lead. The Indians, on the 21st, approached and besieged Fort St.

Louis,[507] which was gallantly defended by the Chevalier de Baugy and

the brave Henry Tonty, the Bras Coupé (Cut Arm), as he was called by

them, because he had lost his hand in battle.[508]

Upon the receipt of the news of this incursion, Governor de la Barre,

under a pressure from the merchants of Quebec, whose goods were

imperilled, determined to attack the Iroquois in their own country.

Orders were sent to the posts of the upper lakes for the commandants to

bring down allies to Niagara. While on his way, Du Lhut wrote to De la

Barre:—

“As I was leaving Lake Alemepigon [Nepigon], I made in June all the

presents necessary to prevent the savages carrying their beavers to

the English. I have met the Sieur de la Croix, with his two comrades,

who gave me your despatches, in which you demand that I omit no step

for the delivery of your letters to the Sieur Chouart at the River

Nelson. To carry out your instructions Monsieur Péré will have to

go himself,[509] the savages having all at that time gone into the

wilderness to gather their blueberries. The Sieur Péré will have left

in August, and during that month will have delivered your letters to

the said Sieur Chouart.[510]

“It remains for me to assure you that all the savages of the north

have great confidence in me, and this makes me promise you that before

two years have passed not a single savage will visit the English at

Hudson’s Bay. This they have all promised, and have bound themselves

thereto by the presents which I have given or caused to be given.

“The Klistinos, Assenepoualacs, Sapiniere, Opemens Dacheliny,

Outouloubys, and Tabitibis, who comprise the nations who are west of

the Sea of the North, having promised next spring to be at the fort

which I have constructed near the River à la Maune, at the end of

Lake Alemepigon,[511] and next summer I shall construct one in the

country of the Klistinos, which will be an effectual barrier.... It is

necessary, to carry out my promises, that my brother[512] should, in

the early spring [of 1685], go up again, with two canoes loaded with

powder, lead, fusils, hatchets, tobacco, and necessary presents.”

Durantaye, Du Lhut, and Nicholas Perrot left Mackinaw with one hundred

and fifty Frenchmen and about five hundred Indians[513] to join De la

Barre’s army; and they had not been six hours at Niagara, on the 6th

of September, before orders were received that their services were not

needed, as the French troops were suffering from sickness, and a truce

had been made with the Iroquois.[514] Du Lhut and the other Frenchmen

slowly returned to their posts, and when the new governor (Denonville)

arrived, he wrote to De la Durantaye at Mackinaw, and sent orders to Du

Lhut, who was at a great distance beyond, to inform him of the number

of allies he could furnish in case of a war against the Iroquois.

Nicholas Perrot, in the spring of 1685, was commissioned to go to

Green Bay and have chief command there, and of any countries he

might discover.[515] He left Montreal with twenty men, and arriving

at Green Bay, some Indians told him that they had visited countries

toward the setting sun, where they obtained the blue and green stones

suspended from their ears and noses, and that they saw horses and men

like Frenchmen,—probably the Spaniards of New Mexico; and others said

that they had obtained hatchets from persons who lived in a house

that walked on the water in the Assineboine region,—alluding to the

English established at Hudson’s Bay. At the portage between the Fox

and Wisconsin rivers thirteen Hurons were met, who were bitterly

opposed to the establishment of a post near the Sioux. After reaching

the Mississippi, Perrot sent a few Winnebagoes to notify the Aiouez

(Ioways) who roamed on the prairies beyond, that the French had

ascended the river, and that they would indicate their stopping-place

by kindling a fire. A place was found suitable for a post,[516] where

there was wood, at the foot of a high hill (_au pied d’une montagne_),

behind which there was a large prairie.[517] In eleven days a number

of Ioways arrived at the Mississippi, about twenty-five miles above,

and Perrot ascended to meet them; but as he and his men drew near, the

Indian women ran up the bluffs and hid in the woods. But twenty of

the braves met him and bore him to the chief’s lodge, and he, bending

over Perrot, began to weep, and allowed the tears to fall upon his

guest. After he had exhausted himself, the principal men continued this

wetting process. Buffalo tongues were then boiled in an earthen pot,

and after being cut into small pieces, the chief took a piece, and,

as a mark of respect, placed it in Perrot’s mouth. During the winter

Perrot traded with the Sioux; and by 1686 a post was established on the

Wisconsin shore of Lake Pepin, just above its entrance, called “Fort

St. Antoine.”[518]

Denonville discovered upon his arrival at Quebec that the policy which

De la Barre had pursued in making peace had rendered the Iroquois more

insolent, and had made the allies of the French upon the upper lakes

discontented, on account of their long and fruitless voyage to Niagara.

He therefore determined, as soon as he could gather a sufficient force,

to march into the Iroquois country[519] “and not chastise them by

halves, but if possible annihilate them.” Orders were again sent to

the posts at Mackinaw and Green Bay to prepare for another expedition

against the Seneca Iroquois. Perrot at the time he received the order

to return was among the Sioux, and his canoes had been broken by the

ice. During the summer of 1686 he visited the Miamis, sixty leagues

distant. Upon his return he perceived a great smoke, and at first

thought it was a war-party going against the Sioux. Fortunately he met

a Maskouten chief, who had been at the post to visit him, and from

him he learned that the Foxes, Kickapoos, Maskouten, and others had

determined to pillage the post, kill its inmates, and then go forward

and attack the Sioux. Hurrying on, he reached the post, and was told

that on that very day three spies had been there and discovered that

there were only six men in charge. The next day two more appeared, but

Perrot had taken the precaution to put loaded guns at the door of each

hut, and made his men frequently change their clothes. To the query of

the savage spies, “How many French were there?” the reply was, “Forty,

and that more were daily expected, who had been on a buffalo hunt, and

that the guns were loaded and the knives well sharpened.” They were

then told to go back to their camp and bring a chief of each tribe; and

that if Indians in large numbers came they would be fired at.

In accordance with this message, six chiefs presented themselves, and

after their bows and arrows had been taken from them, they were invited

to Perrot’s cabin, where he gave them something to eat and tobacco

to smoke. Looking at Perrot’s loaded guns, they asked “if he were

afraid of his children?” He answered, “No.” They continued, “Are you

displeased?” To this he said, “I have good reason to be. The Spirit has

warned me of your designs; you will take my things away and put me in

the kettle, and proceed against the Nadouaissioux. The Spirit told me

to be on my guard, and he would help me.” Astonished at these words,

they confessed he had spoken the truth. That night the chiefs slept

within the stockade, and early the next morning a part of the hostile

force came and wished to trade. Perrot had now only fifteen men, and

arresting the chiefs, he told them he would break their heads if they

did not make the Indians go away. One of the chiefs, therefore, stood

on the gate of the fort and said to the warriors: “Do not advance,

young men, the Spirit has warned Metaminens of your designs.” The

advice was followed, and the chiefs, receiving some presents, also

retired.

A few days after, Perrot returned to Green Bay in accordance with the

order of the Governor of Canada. His position toward the Jesuits at

this point was different from that of La Salle. This latter explorer

had declared that the missionaries were more anxious to convert, at

their blacksmith shop, iron into implements, to be exchanged for

beaver, than to convert souls.

After being buried in the earth for years, there has been discovered a

silver soleil or ostensorium, fifteen inches high, and weighing twenty

ounces, intended for the consecrated wafer;[520] around the oval base

of the rim is the following inscription in French: “This soleil was

given by M^r Nicholas Perrot, to the mission of St. Francis Xavier, at

the Bay of Puans, 1686.”[521]

Governor Dongan of New York, although an Irishman and Roman Catholic,

was aggressive in the interests of England, and asserted the right

of traders from Albany to go among the Indians of the Northwest. As

early as 1685 he licensed several persons, among whom was La Fontaine

Marion, a Canadian, to trade for beaver in the Ottawas country; and

their journey was successful, and created consternation at Quebec.

Governor Denonville wrote to Seignelay of the pretences of the English,

who claimed the lakes to the South Sea. His language was terse and

emphatic: “Missilimakinak is theirs. They have taken its latitude, have

been to trade there with our Outawas and Huron Indians, who received

them cordially on account of the bargains they gave by selling them

merchandise for beaver at a much higher price than we. Unfortunately we

had but very few Frenchmen there at that time.”

[Illustration: THE SOLEIL.]

A despatch on the 6th of June, 1686, was sent to Du Lhut, that he

should go and establish a post at some point on the shore of St.

Clair River, between Lake Erie and Lake Huron, which would serve as a

protection for friendly Indians, and a barrier to the English traders.

After he had built the post he was ordered to leave it in command of

a lieutenant and twenty-eight men, return to Mackinaw, and then take

thirty men more to the post, which was called Fort St. Joseph. A party

of English, under Captain Thomas Roseboome, of Albany, consisting of

twenty-nine whites and five Indians, and La Fontaine as interpreter,

in the spring of 1687 were arrested by Durantaye on Lake Huron, twenty

leagues from Mackinaw, and their _eau de vie_ (brandy) given to the

Indians.

In June, Durantaye left Mackinaw with allies for Denonville, and was

afterward followed by Perrot; and at Fort St. Joseph he met Du Lhut and

Henry Tonty, who had arrived from Fort St. Louis with a few Illinois

Indians.[522] After the united company had left this post, they met in

St. Clair River a second party of Englishmen, consisting of twenty-one

whites, six Indians, and eight prisoners, in charge of Major Patrick

Macgregory, of Albany, a native of Scotland. These were also arrested,

making about sixty then in the hands of the French.

On the 27th of June, Durantaye and associates, to the number of one

hundred and seventy Frenchmen, and about four hundred Indians, arrived

at Niagara. Sieur de la Foret, who had been with Tonty at Fort St.

Louis, on the 1st of July reported their arrival to Denonville, then at

Fort Frontenac. The Governor was pleased to hear of the capture of the

English, and in a subsequent despatch wrote: “It is certain that had

the two English detachments not been stopped and pillaged, had their

brandy and other goods entered Michillimaquina, all our Frenchmen would

have had their throats cut by a revolt of all the Hurons and Outaouas,

whose example would have been followed by all the other far nations,

in consequence of the presents which had been secretly sent to the

Indians.”

[Illustration: BOTTOM OF THE SOLEIL.]

On the 10th of July, as the Canadian and French troops entered

Irondequoit Bay, they were elated by the approach, under sail, of the

Indian allies from Mackinaw who on the 6th had left Niagara. On the

12th, the march to the Seneca village was begun; but the story of it

has been told elsewhere.[523]

The officers who came from the posts of the upper lakes were well

spoken of by Denonville. In one of his despatches he writes: “A

half-pay captaincy being vacant, I gave it to Sieur de la Durantaye,

who since I have been in this country has done good service among

the Outawas, and has been very economical in labor and expense in

executing the orders he received from me. He is a man of rank,

unfortunate in his affairs, and who, by his great assiduity at

Missillimakinak, efficiently carried out the instructions to seize the

English; he arrested one of the parties within two days’ journey of

Missillimakinak. Sieurs de Tonty and Du Lhut have acquitted themselves

very well; all would richly deserve some reward.”

After the allies had left Niagara for the scene of battle, Greysolon de

la Tourette, a brother of Du Lhut, described as “an intelligent lad,”

arrived there from Lake Nepigon, north of Lake Superior, in a canoe,

without an escort. Denonville a few weeks after wrote: “Du Lhut’s

brother, who has recently arrived from the rivers above the Lake of the

Allemepigons, assures me that he saw more than fifteen hundred persons

come to trade with him, and they were very sorry he had not sufficient

goods to satisfy them. They are of the tribes accustomed to resort to

the English at Port Nelson and River Bourbon.”[524]

The destruction of the Seneca villages having been completed, Du Lhut,

with his brave cousin Henry Tonty, returned in September to Fort

St. Joseph,[525] near the entrance of Lake Huron, garrisoned at his

own charges by _coureurs des bois_, who had in the spring sown some

bushels of Turkey wheat. The next year, to allay the irritation of the

Iroquois, Governor Denonville issued an order to abandon the fort, and

on the 27th of August the buildings were destroyed by fire.

Perrot, in 1688, was ordered to return to his post on the Upper

Mississippi, and take formal possession of the country in the King’s

name. With a party of forty men, he left Montreal to trade with the

Sioux, who, according to La Potherie, “were very distant, and could not

trade with us easily, as the other tribes and the Outagamis [Foxes]

boasted of having cut off the passage thereto.” Reaching Green Bay in

the fall of the year, Perrot was met by a deputation of Foxes, and

afterward visited their village. In the chief’s lodge there was placed

before him broiled venison, and for the rest of the French raw meat was

served; but he refused to eat, because, he said, “meat did not give him

any spirit. But he would take some when they were more reasonable.”

He then chided them for not having gone, as requested by the Governor

of Canada, on the expedition against the Senecas. Urging them to

proceed on the beaver hunt, and to fight only the Iroquois, and leaving

a few Frenchmen to trade, he proceeded toward the Sioux country.

Arriving at the portage, the ice formed some impediment, but, aided by

Pottawattamies, his men transported their goods to the Wisconsin River,

which was not frozen. Ascending the Mississippi, he proceeded to the

post which he occupied before he was summoned to fight the Senecas.

As soon as the ice left the river, in the spring of 1689, the Sioux

came down and escorted Perrot to one of their villages, where he was

received with much enthusiasm. He was carried around upon a beaver

robe, followed by a long line of warriors, each bearing a pipe and

singing. Then, taking him to the chief’s lodge, several wept over

his head, as the Ioways had done when he first visited the Upper

Mississippi. After he had left, in 1686, a Sioux chief, knowing that

few Frenchmen were at the fort, had come down with one hundred warriors

to pillage it. Of this, complaint was made by Perrot, and the guilty

leader came near being put to death by his tribe. As they were about

to leave the Sioux village, one of his men told Perrot that a box of

goods had been stolen, and he ordered a cup of water to be brought,

into which he poured some brandy. He then addressed the Indians, and

told them he would dry up their marshes if the goods were not restored,

at the same time setting on fire the brandy in the cup. The savages,

astonished, and supposing that he possessed supernatural powers, soon

detected the thief, and the goods were returned.

On the 8th of May, 1689, at the post St. Antoine, on the Wisconsin

side of Lake Pepin, a short distance above the Chippewa River, in the

presence of the Jesuit missionary, Joseph J. Marest, Boisguillot,[526]

a trader near the mouth of the Wisconsin River, Pierre Le Sueur, whose

name was afterward identified with the exploration of the Minnesota,

and a few others, Perrot took possession of the country of the rivers

St. Croix, St. Pierre, and the region of Mille Lacs, in the name of the

King of France.

When he returned to Montreal, he found a great change had occurred in

political affairs. It had become evident that the Iroquois were mere

agents of the English. The Albany traders had searched the land between

the Hudson River and Lake Erie, and had made a report that the Valley

of the Genesee was fertile and beautiful to behold, and every year an

increasing number of pale-faces wandered among the Indian villages

toward Lake Ontario. Old officers in Canada saw that their only hope

was to destroy the source of supply to the Iroquois. The question to

be determined was whether the King of France or the King of England

should control the region of the Great Lakes. Chevalier de Callières,

who had seen much service in Europe, and was in command of the troops

in Canada, insisted that decisive steps should be taken. The crisis

was hastened by the arrival of the intelligence that a revolution had

occurred in England, and that William and Mary had been acknowledged.

Callières wrote to Seignelay relative to the condition of affairs: “It

would be idle to flatter ourselves with the hope to find them improved

since the usurpation of the Prince of Orange, who will be assuredly

acknowledged by Sir Andros,[527] who is a Protestant, born in the

Island of Jersey, and by New York, the inhabitants whereof are mostly

Dutch, who planted this colony under the name of New Netherland, all of

whom are Protestant.”

He urged that the war should be carried into New York, and that a

force be sent strong enough to seize Albany, and then to move down and

capture Manhattan. “It will give his Majesty,” he said, “one of the

finest harbors in America, accessible at almost all seasons, and it

will give one of the finest countries of America, in a milder and more

fertile climate than that of Canada.” The sequel was a conflict of

drilled troops under European officers upon the borders of New England

and New York.

* * * * *

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

=1609-1640.=—The _Voyages_ of Champlain, as published in 1632 at

Paris, are valuable in facts pertaining to discovery along the shores

of Lake Champlain and Lake Huron; but the book is the subject of

special treatment in another chapter.[528] The _Grand Voyage_ of

Sagard[529] contains little more than what may be found in Champlain

and the _Relations_ of the Jesuit missionaries. Charlevoix mentions

that Sagard passed “some time among the Hurons, but had not time to see

things well enough, still less to verify all that was told him.”

=1640-1660.=—Benjamin Sulté, in his “Notes on Jean Nicolet,” printed

in the _Wisconsin Historical Society Collections_, viii. 188-194,[530]

shows that Nicolet, the trader, must have visited Green Bay between

July, 1634, and July, 1635, because this interval is the only period

of his life when he cannot be found on the shores of the St. Lawrence.

The recently published _History of the Discovery of the Northwest in

1634 by Jean Nicolet, with a Sketch of his Life_ by C. W. Butterfield,

Cincinnati, 1881, is a useful book, and gives evidence that Nicolet did

not descend the Wisconsin River.

The _Relations des Jésuites_ (of which a full bibliographical account

is appended to the following chapter) are important sources for the

tracing of these western explorations.

The _Relation_ of 1640 has an extract from a letter of Paul Le Jeune,

in which, after giving the names of the tribes of the region of the

Lakes, he adds that “the Sieur Nicolet, interpreter of the Algonquin

and Huron languages for Messieurs de la Nouvelle France, has given me

the names of these natives he has visited, for the most part in their

country.” This _Relation_ shows how near an approach Nicolet made to

discovering the Mississippi. See in this connection Margry’s “Les

Normands dans l’Ohio et le Mississippi,” in the _Journal général de

l’Instruction publique_, 30 Juillet, 1862. Shea, _Mississippi Valley_,

p. xx, contends that Nicolet reached the river or its affluents. The

_Relation_ of 1643 records the death of Nicolet, with some particulars

of his life.

For slight notices of the period, with dates of the departure and

arrival of traders and missionaries, there is serviceable aid to be

had from _Le Journal des Jésuites publié d’après le Manuscrit original

conservé aux Archives du Séminaire de Québec_. Par MM. les Abbés

Laverdière et Casgrain. Quebec, 1871.[531] Under date of Aug. 21, 1660,

is noted the arrival of a party of Ottawas at Montreal, who departed

the next day, and arrived at Three Rivers on the 24th, and on the 27th

left. It adds: “They were in number three hundred. Des Grosilleres

was in their company, who had gone to them the year before. They had

departed from Lake Superior with one hundred canoes; forty turned back,

and sixty arrived, loaded with peltry to the value of 200,000 livres.

At Montreal they left to the value of 50,000 livres, and brought the

rest to Three Rivers. They come in twenty-six days, but are two months

in going back. Des Grosillers wintered with the Bœuf tribe, who were

about four thousand, and belonged to the sedentary Nadouesseronons

[Dakotahs]. The Father Menar, the Father Albanel, and six other

Frenchmen went back with them.”

There appears to be no uniformity in the spelling of the name of

Groseilliers. Under May, 1662, is this entry: “I departed from Quebek

on the 3d for Three Rivers; there met Des Grosillers, who was going

to the Sea of the North. He left Quebek the night before with ten

men.” Under August, 1663, is the following: “The 5th returned those

who had been three years among the Outaoouac; nine Frenchmen went, and

seven returned. The Father Menar and his man, Jean Guerin, one of our

_donnés_, had died,—the Father Menar the 7th or 8th of August, 1661,

and Jean Guerin in September, 1662. The party arrived at Montreal on

the 25th of July, with thirty-five canoes and one hundred and fifty

men.” Of Creuxius’ _Historia_ and its relations to the missionaries’

reports, there is an account in the next chapter.

=1660-1680.=—The documents from the French archives in the Parliament

Library at Ottawa, Canada (copies in manuscript), and those translated

and printed in the _New York Col. Docs._, vol. ix., give much

information on this period; and so do the _Jesuit Relations_, and the

first volume of the Collections edited by Margry and published at Paris

in 1875.[532]

The _Mémoire sur les Mœurs, Coustumes, et Réligion des Sauvages de

l’Amérique septentrionale, par Nicolas Perrot, publié pour la première

fois par le R. P. J. Tailhan, de la Compagnie de Jésus_, Leipsic

and Paris, 1864,[533] was examined by Charlevoix one hundred and

fifty years ago, when it was in manuscript, and afforded him useful

information. It is the only work referring to the traders at the

extremity of Lake Superior between 1660 and 1670, and to the migrations

of the Hurons from the Mississippi to the Black River, and from thence

to Lake Superior. Much of interest is also derived from the _Histoire

de l’Amérique septentrionale_. Par M. de Bacqueville de la Potherie,

Paris, 1722, 4 vols.[534]

=1680-1690.=—There are differences of statements regarding the Upper

Mississippi Valley, but nevertheless much information of importance,

in the letter of La Salle from Fort Frontenac, in August, 1682,[535]

in Du Lhut’s _Mémoire_ of 1683, as printed by Harrisse,[536] and in

Hennepin’s _Description de la Louisiane_.[537]

Perrot, in the work already quoted, gives the best account of this

region from 1683 to 1690.

For the whole period of the exploration of the Great Lakes, the works

among the secondary authorities of the chief value are Charlevoix in

the last century, and Parkman in the present; but their labors are

commemorated elsewhere.

[Illustration]

EDITORIAL NOTE.

THE local historical work of the Northwest has been done in part under

the auspices of various State and sectional historical societies.

The Ohio Society, organized in 1831, became later inanimate, but was

revived in 1868, and ought to hold a more important position among

kindred bodies than it does. Mr. Baldwin has given an account of the

historical and pioneer societies of Ohio in the Western Reserve and

Northern Ohio Historical Society’s _Tracts_, no. 27; and this latter

Society, organized in 1867, with the Licking County Pioneer Historical

Society, organized the same year, and the Firelands Historical Society,

organized in 1857, have increased the historical literature of the

State by various publications elucidating in the main the settlements

of the last century. The youngest of the kindred associations, the

Historical and Geographical Society of Toledo, was begun in 1871. The

State, however, is fortunate in having an excellent _Bibliography

of Ohio_ (1880), embracing fourteen hundred titles, exclusive of

public documents, which was compiled by Peter G. Thomson; while the

_Americana_ Catalogues of Robert Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati, are the

completest booksellers’ lists of that kind which are published in

America. The _Ohio Valley Historical Series_, published by the same

house, has not as yet included any publication relating to the period

of the French claims to its territory. The earliest _History of Ohio_

is by Caleb Atwater, published in 1838; but the _History_ by James W.

Taylor—“First Period, 1650-1787”—is wholly confined to the Jesuits’

missions, the wars of the Eries and Iroquois, and the later border

warfare. (Field, _Indian Bibliography_, no. 1,535.) Henry Howe’s

_Historical Collections of Ohio_, originally issued in 1848, and again

in 1875, is a repository of facts pertaining for the most part to later

times.

* * * * *

The Historical Society of Indiana, founded in 1831, hardly justifies

its name, so far as appears from any publications. The chief _History

of Indiana_ is that by John B. Dillon, which, as originally issued in

1843, came down to 1816; but the edition of 1859 continues the record

to 1856. The first three chapters are given to the French missionaries

and the natives. (Field, _Indian Bibliography_, nos. 429, 430; Sabin,

vol. v. no. 20,172.) A popular conglomerate work is _The Illustrated

History of Indiana_, 1876, by Goodrich and Tuttle. A few local

histories touch the early period, like John Law’s _Colonial History of

Vincennes_, 1858; Wallace A. Brice’s _History of Fort Wayne_, 1868; H.

L. Hosmer’s _Early History of the Maumee Valley_, Toledo, 1858; and

H. S. Knapp’s _History of the Maumee Valley from 1680_, Toledo, 1872,

which is, however, very scant on the early history.

* * * * *

In Illinois there is no historical association to represent the State;

but the Historical Society of Chicago (begun in 1856), though suffering

the loss of its collections of seventeen thousand volumes in the great

fire of 1871, still survives.

The principal histories of the State touching the French occupation are

Henry Brown’s _History of Illinois_, New York, 1844; John Reynolds’s

_Pioneer History of Illinois_, Belleville, 1852, now become scarce;

and Davidson and Stuvé’s _Complete History of Illinois_, 1673-1873,

Springfield, 1874. The _Historical Series_ issued by Robert Fergus

pertain in large measure to Chicago, and, except J. D. Caton’s “Last of

the Illinois, and Sketch of the Potawatomies,” has, so far as printed,

little of interest earlier than the English occupation. H. H. Hurlbut’s

_Chicago Antiquities_, 1881, has an account of the early discovery of

the portage.

* * * * *

The Michigan Pioneer Society was founded in 1874, and has printed

three volumes of _Pioneer Collections_, 1877-1880. The Houghton County

Historical Society, devoting itself to the history of the region

near Lake Superior,[538] dates from 1866. It has published nothing

of importance. The State of Michigan secured, through General Cass,

while he was the minister of the United States at Paris, transcripts

of a large number of documents relating to its early history. The

Historical Society of Michigan was begun in 1828, and during the few

years following it printed several Annual Addresses and a volume of

_Transactions_. Every trace of the Society had nearly vanished, when

in 1857 it was revived. (_Historical Magazine_, i. 353.) The principal

histories of the State are James H. Lanman’s _History of Michigan_, New

York, 1839; Electra M. Sheldon’s _Early History of Michigan, from the

First Settlement to 1815_, New York, 1856, which is largely given to

an account of the Jesuit missions;[539] Charles R. Tuttle’s _General

History of Michigan_, Detroit, 1874; James Valentine Campbell’s

_Outlines of the Political History of Michigan_, Detroit, 1876. (Cf.

Clarke’s _Bibliotheca Americana_, 1878, p. 92; 1883, p. 169; Sabin,

_Dictionary_, vol. xii. p. 141.) A few of the sectional histories, like

W. P. Strickland’s _Old Mackinaw_, Philadelphia, 1860, touch slightly

the French period. A brief sketch of Mackinaw Island by Lieutenant

Dwight H. Kelton, U. S. A., includes extracts from the registers of the

Catholic Church at Mackinaw, and a list of the French commanders at

that post during the eighteenth century.

* * * * *

The Historical Society of Wisconsin was founded in 1849, and

reorganized in 1854. It has devoted itself to forming a large library,

and has published nine volumes of _Collections_, etc. (Joseph Sabin

in _American Bibliopolist_, vi. 158; Field, _Indian Bibliography_,

no. 1,688). Mr. D. S. Durrie published a bibliography of Wisconsin in

_Historical Magazine_, xvi. 29, and a tract on the _Early Outposts

of Wisconsin_ in 1873. A paper on the “First Page of the History of

Wisconsin” is in the _American Antiquarian_, April, 1878. The principal

histories of the State are I. A. Lapham’s _Wisconsin_, Milwaukee, 1846,

which lightly touches the earliest period; William R. Smith’s Wisconsin

(vol. i., historical; vol. ii., not published; vol. iii., documentary,

translating in part the _Jesuit Relations_ from the set in Harvard

College Library), Madison, 1854; and Charles R. Tuttle’s _Illustrated

History of Wisconsin_, Madison and Boston, 1875.

* * * * *

The Minnesota Historical Society was organized in 1849, and began the

publication of its _Annals_ in 1850, completing a volume in 1856.

This volume was reissued in 1872 as vol. i. of its _Collections_, and

includes papers on the origin of the name of Minnesota and the early

nomenclature of the region, and papers by Mr. Neill on the French

Voyageurs, the early Indian trade and traders,[540] and early notices

of the Dakotas. In vol. ii. Mr. Neill has a paper on “The Early French

Forts and Footprints in the Valley of the Upper Mississippi;”[541]

and Mr. A. J. Hill has examined the geography of Perrot so far as it

relates to Minnesota territory. In vol. iii. there is a bibliography

of the State; in vol. iv., a _History of St. Paul_, by John Fletcher

Williams, which but briefly touches the period of exploration. The

State Historical Society of Minnesota lost a considerable part of its

collections in the fire of March 11, 1881, which burned the State

capitol,—as detailed in its _Report_ for 1883.

The principal and sufficient account of the State’s history is

Edward D. Neill’s _History of Minnesota from the Earliest French

Explorations_, Philadelphia, 1858, which in 1883 reached an improved

fifth edition, and is supplemented by his _Minnesota Explorers and

Pioneers, 1659-1858_, published in 1881. In 1858 an edition was also

issued, of one hundred copies, on large paper, illustrated with

forty-five quarto steel plates, engraved from paintings chiefly by

Captain Seth Eastman, U. S. Army.

* * * * *

The Historical Society of Iowa was founded in 1857, and began the

publication of its _Annals_ in 1863. The principal account of the State

is C. R. Tuttle and D. S. Durrie’s _Illustrated History of Iowa_,

Chicago, 1876.

* * * * *

There are a few more general works to be noted: John W. Monette’s

_History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the

Mississippi_, New York, 1846-1848;[542] S. P. Hildreth’s _Pioneer

History of the Ohio Valley_, Cincinnati, 1848, which but cursorily

touches the French period; James H. Perkins’s _Annals of the West_,

Cincinnati, 1846, which brought ripe scholarship to the task at a

time before the scholar could have the benefit of much information

now accessible;[543] Adolphus M. Hart’s _History of the Discovery of

the Valley of the Mississippi_, Cincinnati, 1852,—a slight sketch,

as we now should deem it, but followed soon after by a more scholarly

treatment in J. G. Shea’s _Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi

Valley_, New York, 1852, to which a sequel, _Early Voyages up and

down the Mississippi_, was published in 1861, containing the voyages

of Cavelier, Saint Cosme, Le Sueur, Gravier, and Guignas, during the

last years of the century; George Gale’s _Upper Mississippi_, Chicago,

1867,—a topical treatment of the subject; and Rufus Blanchard’s

_Discovery and Conquests of the Northwest_, Chicago, 1880—the

latest general survey of the subject. Poole’s _Index to Periodical

Literature_, under the names of these several States, can often be

usefully consulted.

[Illustration: THE ROUTES OF EARLY FRENCH EXPLORATIONS.

This sketch follows a modern map given by Parkman. There is a similar

route-map given in the _Bulletin de la Soc. de Géog._, November, 1880,

accompanying a paper by M. J. Thoulet. In the above sketch the portages

are marked by dotted lines.]

JOLIET, MARQUETTE, AND LA SALLE.

HISTORICAL SOURCES AND ATTENDANT CARTOGRAPHY.

BY THE EDITOR.

THE principal sources for the cartographical part of this study are as

follows: The collection of manuscript copies[544] of maps in the French

Archives which was formed by Mr. Parkman, and which he has described in

his _La Salle_ (p. 449), and which is now in Harvard College Library;

a collection of manuscript and printed maps called _Cartographie du

Canada_, formed by Henry Harrisse in Paris, and which in 1872 passed

into the hands of Samuel L. M. Barlow, Esq., of New York, by whose

favor the Editor has had it in his possession for study; the collection

of copies made by Dr. J. G. Kohl which is now in the Library of the

State Department at Washington, and which through the kind offices of

Theodore F. Dwight, Esq., of that department, and by permission of the

Secretary of State, have been intrusted to the Editor’s temporary care;

and the collection of printed maps now in Harvard College Library,

formed mainly by Professor Ebeling nearly a hundred years ago, and

which came to that library, with all of Ebeling’s books, as a gift from

the late Colonel Israel Thorndike, in 1818.[545]

The completest printed enumeration of maps is in the section on

“Cartographie” in Harrisse’s _Notes pour servir à l’histoire ... de

la Nouvelle France, 1545-1700_, Paris, 1872, and this has served the

Editor as a convenient check-list. A special paper on “Early Maps of

Ohio and the West” constitutes no. 25 of the _Tracts_ of the Western

Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society. It was issued in 1875,

and has been published separately, and is the work of Mr. C. C.

Baldwin, secretary of that Society, whose own collection of maps is

described by S. D. Peet in the _American Antiquarian_, i. 21. See also

the _Transactions_ (1879) of the Minnesota Historical Society.

The main guide for the historical portion of this essay has been the

_La Salle_ of Parkman.[546]