sketch on parchment, showing the Great Lakes, which were apparently
made between 1640 and 1650. They have neither maker’s name nor date,
but clearly indicate a state of knowledge derived from the early
discovery of the Upper Lakes by way of the Ottawa, and before the
southern part of Lake Huron had been explored, and found to connect
with Lake Erie. The maker must have been ignorant of the knowledge, or
discredited it, which Champlain possessed in 1632 when he connected
Ontario and Huron. Indications of settlements at Montreal would place
the date of this map after 1642; and it may have embodied the current
traditions of the explorations of Brulé and Nicolet, though it omits
all indications of Lake Michigan, which Nicolet had discovered. Though
rude in many ways, it gives one of the earliest sketches of the Bras
d’Or in Cape Breton. The channel connecting the Atlantic and the St.
Lawrence, if standing for anything, must represent the Connecticut
and the Chaudière. Dr. Kohl, in a marginal note on a copy of this map
in his Washington Collection, while referring to the uninterrupted
water-way by the Ottawa, remarks on a custom, not uncommon on the early
maps, of leaving out the portages; and the same suspicion may attach
to the New England water-way here given. A note on the map gives the
distance as three hundred leagues from Gaspé to the extremity of Lake
Ontario; two hundred more to the land of the buffaloes; two hundred
additional to the region of apes and parrots; then four hundred to the
Sea of New Spain; and thence fifteen or sixteen hundred more to the
Indies. A legend in the neighborhood of Lake Superior confirms other
mention of the early discovery of copper in that region: “In the little
lake near the mountains are found pieces of copper of five and six
hundred pounds’ weight.”
[Illustration: THE OTTAWA ROUTE, 1640-1650.]
At a later day La Salle had learned, from some Senecas who visited his
post at Lachine, of a great river, rising in their country and flowing
to the sea; and, with many geographers of his day, captivated with a
promised passage to India, he preferred to believe that it emptied into
the Gulf of California.[547]
[Illustration: DOLLIER AND GALLINÉE’S EXPLORATIONS.
This is a reduced sketch of no. 1 of Mr. Parkman’s maps, which measures
30 × 50 inches. It has two titles: _Carte du Lac Ontario et des
habitations qui l’environne, ensemble les pays que Mess^{rs} Dolier et
Galiné, missionnaires du séminaire de St. Sulpice, ont parcouru_, and
_Carte du Canada et des terres decouvertes vers le lac Derié_. _Voir
la lettre du M. Talon du 10 9^{bre}, 1670._ The figures stand for the
following names and legends:—
1. C’est ici qu’ils ont un fort Bel Establissement, une belle maison,
et de grands dezerts semés de bled francois et de bled d’inde, pois et
autres graines [referring to 70].
2. Baye des Puteotamites. Il y a dix Journées de Chemin du Sault ou
sont les RR. S. PP. JJ. aux puteotamites, c’est a dire environ 150
lieues. Je n’ay entré dans cette Baye que jusques a ces Iles que J’ay
marquées.
3. Ce lac est le plus grand de tous ceux du pays.
4. C’est icy qu’estoit une pierre qu’avoit tres peu de figures
d’hommes, qui les Iroquois tenoient pour un grand Cap^{ne}, et a qui
ils faisoient des sacrifices lorsqu’ils passoient par icy pour aller
en guerre. Nous l’avons mis en pieces et jetté à l’eau.
5. Lac Derié, je non marque que ce que j’en ay veu en attendant que je
voie le reste.
6. Grandes prairies.
7. Presqu’isle du lac D’Erie.
8. Prairies. Terres excellentes.
9. C’est icy que nous avons hyverne en le plus beau lieu que j’aye yen
en Canada, pour l’abondance des arbres, fruittiers, aces, raisins, qui
sy grande qu’on en pourroit vivre en faisant provision, grand chasse
de serfs, Bisches, Ours, Schenontons, Chats, Sauvages, et Castors.
10. Grand chasse a ce petit misseau.
11. Toutes ces costes sont extrem^t pierreuses et ne laissent pas d’y
avoir des bestes.
12. C’est dans cette Baye que estoit autrefois le pays de Hurons
lorsqu’ils furent defaits par les Iroquois, et ou les RR. PP. Jesuites
estoient fort bien establis.
13. Je n’ay point vu cette ance ou estoit autrefois le pays des
Hurons, mais je vois qu’elle est encore plus profonde que je ne la
desseins, et c’est icy apparamment qu’aboutit le chemin par ou Mr.
Perray a passé.
14. L’embouchure de cette rivière fort difficile a trouver a neanmoins
la petite isle qui la precede est fort remarquable par la grande
quantité de ces isles de roche dont elle est composée qui deboutent
fort loin au large.
17. Chasse d’originaux Bans ces isles.
18. Amikoue.
20. Portage trainage.
21. Sault. C’est dans cette Ance que les Nipissiriniens placent pour
l’ordinaire leur village. Portage, 600 pas.
22. Lac des Nipissiriniens ou des Sorciers.
24. Rivier des vases.
24-25. In this space various portages are marked.
26. On entre icy dans la grande Riviere.
27. Mataouan.
28. C’est d’icy que Mr. Perray et sa Compagnie ont campé pour entrer
dans le lac des Hurons, quand j’aurray vu le passage je le donneray
mais toujours dit-on que le chemin est fort beau, et c’est icy que
s’establiront les missionnaires de St. Sulpice.
29. Ganatse kiagourif.
30. Village de tanaouaoua.
31. C’est a ce village qu’estoit autrefois Neutre. Grand partie sesche
par tout icy et tout le long de la R. rapide.
32. Bonne Terre.
33. Grand chasse. Prairies siches.
34. R. Rapide ou de Tinaatoua.
35. Il y a le long de ces ances quantité de petits lacs separés
seulement du grand par des Chaussées de Sable. C’est dans ces lacs que
les Sanountounans prennent quantité de poisson.
36. Sault qui tombe au rapport des Sauvages de plus de 200 pieds de
haut.
37. Excellente terre.
38. Petit lac d’Erie.
39. Sault ou il y a grande pesche de barbues.
40. Gaskounchiakons.
41. Excellente terre. Village du R. P. Fremin. 4 villages des
Sonountouans, les des grands sont chacun de 100 Cabannes et les autres
d’environ 20 a 25 sans aucune fortification non pas mesme naturelle;
il faut mesme qu’ils aillent chercher l’eau fort loing.
42. Il y a de l’alun au pied de cette montagne fortaine de bitume.
Excellente terre.
43. R. des Amandes et doneiout. R. des Oiogouins.
44. Abondance de gibier dans cette riviere. Quoyqu’il ne paroisse icy
que des Sables sur le bord du lac. Ces terres ne laissent pas d’etre
bonnes dans la profondeur. R. Denon taché.
45. Kahengouetta. Kaouemounioun.
46. Otondiata.
47. Pesche d’anguille tout au travers de la riviere.
48. Islets de roches.
49. Depuis icy Jusques a Otondiata il y a de forts rapides a toutes
les pointes, et des remouils dans toutes les ances.
50. Lac St. Francois.
51. Habitation des RR. PP. Jesuites.
52. La Madelaine.
53. Lac St. Louis.
54. Habitation du Montreal.
55. Lac des 2 montagnes.
56. Belle terre. Terres nayées. Bonnes terres. Il faut faire 5
portages du Costé du Nord portage pour monter au lac St. François,
mais du costé du sud on n’en fait qu’un.
57. Long sault.
58. Ces 2 rivieres en tombant dans la grande font 2 belles nappes,
portage 50 pas.
59. L’estoit icy qu’estoit autrefois la petite nation Algonquine.
60. Portage du sault de la Chaudiere 300 pas.
61. L’estoit icy ou estoit le fameus Borgne de l’isle dans les
relations des RR. PP. Jesuites.
62. Le grand portage du sault des Calumets est de ce costé, pour
l’eviter nous prismes de l’autre coste.
63. Il faut faire 5 portages de ce costé icy d’environ 100 pas chacun.
64. Portage apellé des alumettes 200 pas.
65. Tres grande chasse d’originaux autour de ce petit lac.
66. On dit que cette branche de la grande Riviere va aux trois
rivières.
67. Grand rapides.
68. Portage 200 pas.
69. Lac Superieur.
70. Fort des S. RR^{nds} PP. Jesuites. Sauteurs.
71. Anipich.
72. R. de Tessalon. Mississague.
There are in the Kohl Collection, in the Department of State, two maps
of Lake Ontario, of 1666, the original of one of which is credited to
the Dépôt de la Marine.]
He was determined to track it; and gaining some money by selling
his grant at Lachine, and procuring the encouragement of Talon and
Courcelles, he formed an alliance for the journey with two priests of
the Seminary at Montreal, Dollier de Casson and Galinée, who were about
going westward on a missionary undertaking. La Salle started with them
on the 6th of July, 1669, with some followers, and a party of Senecas
as guides. The savages led them across Lake Ontario to a point on the
southern shore nearest to their villages, which the party visited in
the hope of securing other guides to the great river of which they
were in search. Failing in this, they made their way to the western
extremity of the lake, where they fell in with Joliet, as mentioned in
the preceding chapter. La Salle now learned Joliet’s route; but he was
not convinced that it opened to him the readiest way to the great river
of the Indians, though the Sulpitians were resolved to take Joliet’s
route north of Lake Erie. When these priests returned to Montreal, in
June, 1670, they brought back little of consequence, except the data
to make the earliest map which we have of the Upper Lakes, and of which
a sketch is given herewith.
[Illustration]
This map of Galinée, says Parkman,[548] was the earliest attempt
after Champlain to portray the great lakes. Faillon, who gives a
reproduction of this map,[549] says it is preserved in the Archives
of the Marine at Paris; but Harrisse[550] could not find it there.
There is a copy of it, made in 1856 from the original at Paris, in
the Library of Parliament at Ottawa.[551] Faillon[552] gives much
detail of the journey, for the Sulpitians were his heroes; and
Talon made a report;[553] but the main source of our information is
Galinée’s Journal, which is printed, with other papers appertaining, by
Margry,[554] and by the Abbé Verreau.[555]
The Michigan peninsula, which Galinée had failed to comprehend, is
fully brought out in the map of Lake Superior which accompanies the
Jesuit _Relation_ of 1670-1671.[556] Mr. Parkman is inclined to
consider a manuscript map without title or date, but called in the
annexed sketch “The Lakes and the Mississippi” (from a copy in the
Parkman Collection), as showing “the earliest representation of the
upper Mississippi, based perhaps on the reports of the Indians.”[557]
He calls it the work of the Jesuits, whose stations are marked on it
by crosses. It seems however to be posterior to the time when Joliet
gave the name Colbert to the Mississippi.
[Illustration: THE LAKES AND THE MISSISSIPPI.
This map bears legends or names corresponding to the following key:
1. Les Kilistinouk disent avoir veu un grand naviere qui hiverna à
l’embouchure de ce fleuve; ils auroient fait une maison d’un coste et
de l’autre un fort de bois. 2. Assinepouelak. 3. Oumounsounick. 4.
Ounaouantagouk. 5. Chiligouek. 6. Outilibik. 7. Noupining-dachirinouek.
8. Ouchkioutoulibik. 9. Missisaking-dachiri-nouek. 10. Outaouak. 11.
Michilimakinak. 12. Baye des Puans. 13. Oumalouminek. 14. Outagamik.
15. Nadouessi. 16. Icy mourut le P. Meynard. 17. Kikabou. 18.
Ouenebegouk. 19. Pouteoutamic. 20. Ousakie. 21. Illinouek Kachkachki.
22. Mouingouea. 23. Ouchachai. 24. Ouemissirita. 25. Chaboussioua.
26. Pelissiak. 27. Monsoupale. 28. Paniassa. 29. Taaleousa. 30.
Metchagamea. 31. Akenza. 32. Matorea. 33. Tamikoua. 34. Ganiassa. 35.
Minou. 36. Kachkinouba.]
What La Salle did after parting with the Sulpitians in 1669 is a
question over which there has been much dispute. The absence of any
definite knowledge of his movements for the next two years leaves ample
room for conjecture, and Margry believes that maps which he made of
his wanderings in this interval were in existence up to the middle of
the last century. It is from statements regarding such maps given in
a letter of an aged niece of La Salle in 1756, as well as from other
data, that Margry has endeavored to place within these two years what
he supposes to have been a successful attempt on La Salle’s part to
reach the Great River of the West. If an anonymous paper (“Histoire de
Monsieur de la Salle”) published by Margry[558] is to be believed, La
Salle told the writer of it in Paris,—seemingly in 1678,—that after
leaving Galinée he went to Onondaga (?), where he got guides, and
descending a stream, reached the Ohio (?), and went down that river.
How far? Margry thinks that he reached the Mississippi: Parkman demurs,
and claims that the story will not bear out the theory that he ever
reached the mouth of the Ohio; but it seems probable that he reached
the rapids at Louisville, and that from this point he retraced his
steps alone, his men having abandoned him to seek the Dutch and English
settlements. Parkman finds enough amid the geographical confusions of
this “Histoire” to think that upon the whole the paper agrees with La
Salle’s memorial to Frontenac in 1677, in which he claimed to have
discovered the Ohio and to have coursed it to the rapids, and that it
confirms the statements which Joliet has attached to the Ohio in his
maps, to the effect that it was by this stream La Salle went, “pour
aller dans le Mexique.”[559]
The same “Histoire” also represents that in the following year (1671)
La Salle took the course in which he had refused to follow Galinée, and
entering Lake Michigan, found the Chicago portage, and descending the
Illinois, reached the Mississippi. This descent Parkman is constrained
to reject, mainly for the reason that from 1673 to 1678 Joliet’s claim
to the discovery of the Mississippi was a notorious one, believed
by Frontenac and by all others, and that there was no reason why La
Salle for eight years should have concealed any prior knowledge. The
discrediting of this claim is made almost, if not quite, conclusive by
no mention being made of such discovery in the memorial of La Salle’s
kindred to the King for compensation for his services, and by the
virtual admission of La Salle’s friends of the priority of Joliet’s
discovery in a memorial to Seignelay, which Margry also prints.[560]
In 1672 some Indians from the West had told Marquette at the St.
Esprit mission of a great river which they had crossed. Reports of it
also came about the same time to Allouez and Dablon, who were at work
establishing a mission at Green Bay; and in the _Relation_ of 1672 the
hope of being able to reach this Mississippi water is expressed.
Frontenac on his arrival felt that the plan of pushing the actual
possession of France beyond the lakes was the first thing to be
accomplished, and Talon, as we have seen, on leaving for France
recommended Joliet[561] as the man best suited to do it. Jacques
Marquette joined him at Point St. Ignace. The Jesuit was eight years
the senior of the fur-trader, and of a good family from the North of
France.
[Illustration: JOLIET’S MAP, 1673-1674.
Key: 1. Les sauvages habitent cette isle. 2. Sauvages de la mer. 3.
Kilistinons. 4. Assiniboels. 5. Madouesseou. 6. Nations du nord. 7. Lac
Supérieur. 8. Le Sault St. Marie. 9. Missilimakinak. 10. Kaintotan.
11. Lac Huron. 12. Nipissing. 13. Mataouan. 14. Tous les poincts sont
des rapides. 15. Les trois rivieres. 16. Tadoussac. 17. Le Saguenay.
18. Le Fleuve de St. Laurent. 20. Montroyal. 21. Fort de Frontenac.
22. Lac Frontenac ou Ontario. 24. Sault, Portage de demi lieue. 25.
Lac Erie. 26. Lac des Illinois ou Missihiganin. 27. Cuivre. 28.
Kaure. 29. Baye des Puans. 30. Puans. 31. Maskoutins. 32. Portage.
33. Riviere Miskonsing. 34. Mines de fer. 35. Riviere de Buade. 36.
Kitchigamin. 37. Ouaouiatanox. 38. Paoutet, Maha, Pana, Atontanka,
Illinois, Peouarea, 300 Cabanes, 180 Canots de bois de 50 pieds de
long. 39. Minongio, Pani, Ouchagé, Kansa, Messouni. 40. La Frontenacie.
41. Pierres Sanguines. 42. Kachkachkia. 43. Salpetre. 44. Riviere de
la Divine ou l’Outrelaize. 45. Riv. Ouabouskigou. 46. Kaskinanka,
Ouabanghihasla, Malohah. 47. Mines de fer; Chouanons, terres eiseléez,
Aganatchi. 48. Akansea sauvages. 49. Mounsoupria. 50. Apistonga. 51.
Tapensa sauvages. 52 and 53 (going up the stream which is called
Riviere Basire). Atatiosi, Matora, Akowita, Imamoueta, Papikaha,
Tanikoua, Aiahichi, Pauiassa. 54. Europeans. 55. Cap de la Floride. 56.
Mer Vermeille, ou est la Califournie, par ou on peut aller au Perou, au
Japon, et à la Chine.]
Their course has been sketched in the preceding chapter. They seemed
to have reached a conviction that the Great River flowed into the Gulf
of Mexico. Their return was by the Illinois River and the Chicag
portage.[562] During the four months of their absence, says Parkman,
they had paddled their canoes somewhat more than two thousand five
hundred miles.
While Marquette remained at the mission Joliet returned to Quebec. What
Joliet contributed to the history of this discovery can be found in a
letter on his map, later to be given in fac-simile; a letter dated Oct.
10, 1674, given by Harrisse;[563] the letter of Frontenac announcing
the discovery, which must have been derived from Joliet,[564] and the
oral accounts which Joliet gave to the writer of the “Détails sur le
voyage de Louis Joliet; and a Relation de la descouverte de plusieurs
pays situez au midi de la Nouvelle France, faite en 1673,” both of
which are printed by Margry.[565]
Within a few years there has been produced a map which seems to have
been made by Joliet immediately after his return to Montreal. This
would make it the earliest map of the Mississippi based on actual
knowledge, and the first of a series accredited to Joliet. It is called
_Nouvelle découverte de plusieurs nations dans la Nouvelle France
en l’année 1673 et 1674_. Gabriel Gravier first made this map known
through an _Étude sur une carte inconnue; la première dressée par L.
Joliet en 1674, après son exploration du Mississippi auec Jacques
Marquette en 1673_.[566] A sketch of it, with a key, is given herewith.
The tablet in the sketch marks the position of Joliet’s letter to
Frontenac, of which a reduced fac-simile is also annexed.
“In this epistle,” says Mr. Neill, “Joliet mentions that he had
presented a map showing the situation of the Lakes upon which there is
navigation for more than 1,200 leagues from east to west, and that he
had given to the great river beyond the Lakes, which he had discovered
in the years 1673-1674, the designation of Buade, the family name of
Frontenac.[567] He adds a glowing description of the prairies, the
groves, and the forests,” and writes of the quail (_cailles_) in the
fields and the parrot (_perroquet_) in the woods. He concludes his
communication as follows: “By one of the large rivers which comes from
the west and empties into the River Buade, one will find a route to the
Red Sea” [Mer vermeille, _i. e._ Gulf of California].
[Illustration]
“I saw a village which was not more than five days’ journey from a
tribe which traded with the tribes of California;[568] if I had arrived
two days before, I could have conversed with those who had come from
thence, and had brought four hatchets as a present. You would have seen
a description of these things in my Journal, if the success which had
accompanied me during the voyage had not failed me a quarter of an hour
before arriving at the place from which I had departed. I had escaped
the dangers from savages, I had passed forty-two rapids, and was about
to land with complete joy at the success of so long and difficult an
enterprise, when, after all dangers seemed past, my canoe turned over.
I lost two men and my box in sight of the first French settlement,
which I had left almost two years before. Nothing remains to me but my
life, and the wish to employ it in any service you may please.” This
Report was sent to France in November, 1674.
There is in Mr. Barlow’s Collection a large map (27 × 40 inches), which
is held by Dr. Shea and General Clarke to be a copy of the original
Joliet Map, with the Ohio marked in by a later and less skilful hand. A
sketch of it is annexed as “Joliet’s Larger Map.”
A copy of what is known as “Joliet’s Smaller Map” is also in the Barlow
Collection, and from it the annexed sketch has been made. This map
is called _Carte de la descouverte du S^r Jolliet, ou l’on voit la
communication du Fleuve St. Laurens avec les Lacs Frontenac, Erie, Lac
des Hurons, et Illinois ... au bout duquel on va joindre la Rivière
divine par un portage de mille pas qui tombe dans la Rivière Colbert et
se descharge dans le Sein Mexique_. Though evidently founded in part on
the Jesuits’ map of Lake Superior, it was an improvement upon it, and
was inscribed with a letter addressed to Frontenac. The Valley of the
Mississippi is called _Colbertie_; the Ohio is marked as the course of
La Salle’s route to the Gulf;[569] the Wisconsin is made the route of
Joliet.
Mr. Parkman describes another map, anonymous, but “indicating a greatly
increased knowledge of the country.” It marks the Ohio as a river
descended by La Salle, but it does not give the Mississippi.[570]
Harrisse found in the Archives of the Marine a map which he thought to
be a part of the same described by Parkman, and this was made by Joliet
himself later than 1674.
There is in the Parkman Collection another map ascribed to Joliet,
and called in the sketch given herewith “Joliet’s carte générale,”
which Parkman thinks was an early work (in the drafting, at least) of
the engineer Franquelin. It is signed _Johannes Ludovicus Franquelin
pinxit_; but it is a question what this implies. Harrisse[571] thinks
that Franquelin is the author, and places it under 1681. Gravier
holds it to imply simply Franquelin’s drafting, and affirms that it
corresponds closely with a map signed by Joliet, which has already been
mentioned as his earliest. Mr. Neill says of this map that it “is the
first attempt to fix the position of the nations north of the Wisconsin
and west of Lake Superior. The Wisconsin is called Miskous, perhaps
intended for Miskons; and the Ohio is marked ‘Ouaboustikou.’ On the
upper Mississippi are the names of the following tribes: The ‘Siou,’
around what is now called the Mille Lacs region, the original home
of the Sioux of the Lakes, or Eastern Sioux; the Ihanctoua, Pintoüa,
Napapatou, Ouapikouti, Chaiena, Agatomitou, Ousilloua, Alimouspigoiak.
The Ihanctoua and Ouapikouti are two divisions of the Sioux, now known
as Yanktons and Wahpekootays. The Chaiena were allies of the Sioux,
and hunted at that time in the valley of the Red River of the North.
The word in the Sioux means ‘people of another language,’ and the
_voyageurs_ called them Cheyennes.”
[Illustration: WESTERN PORTION OF JOLIET’S LARGER MAP (1674).
A reduced sketch of the copy in the Barlow Collection. The river marked
“Route du Sieur de la Salle” is seemingly drawn in by a later hand, and
the stream is without the coloring given to the other rivers. In its
course, too, it runs athwart the vignette surrounding the scale at the
bottom of the map, as if added after that was made. It is Harrisse’s
no. 203.]
[Illustration: EASTERN PORTION OF JOLIET’S LARGER MAP (1674).]
Mention may be made in passing of a small map within an ornamented
border, and detailing the results of these explorations, which bears
a Dutch title in the vignette, and another along the bottom in
French, as follows: _Pays et peuple decouverts en 1673 dans la partie
septentrionale de l’Amerique par P. Marquette et Joliet, suivant la
description qu’ils en ont faite, rectifiée sur diverses observations
posterieures de nouveau mis en jour par Pierre Vander Aa à Leide_.
[Illustration: JOLIET’S SMALLER MAP.
This is Harrisse’s no. 204. The original is in the Archives of the
Marine at Paris; cf. Library of Parliament _Catalogue_, 1858, p. 1615;
Parkman’s _La Salle_, p. 453.]
[Illustration: BASIN OF THE GREAT LAKES.
A reduced sketch of no. 3 of the Parkman maps, which measures 30 × 44
inches. It is without title or maker’s name, and the figures stand for
the names and legends as given below:
1. Pays des Outaouacs qui habitent dans les forets.
2. Par cette riviere on va aus assinepoüalac a 150 lieues vers le
Noreouest ou il y a beaucoup de Castor.
3. Isle Minong ou l’on croyoit que fust la mine de Cuivre.
4. Par cette riviere on va pays des nadouessien a 60 lieues au
couchant. Ils ont 15 villages et sont fort belligueux et la terreur de
ces contrées.
5. Pointe du St. Esprit.
6. R. Nantounagan.
7. Autrefois les restes de la Nation Huronne sestoient refugiez icy et
les Jesuites y avoient une mission. Maintenant les Nadouessien ostants
aus Hurons la liberté de chasser aus castors, ses sauvages ont quitté
et les Jesuites les ont suivie.
8. Toutes ses nations qui se sont retirées en ces pays par terreur des
Iroquois ont une tres grande quantité de Castors.
9. Nation et riviere des Oumalouminec, ou de la folle auoine.
10. Outagamis.
11. R. Mataban.
12. Isles ou les Hurons se refugierent apres la destruction de leur
nation par les Iroquois.
13. Les pp. Jesuites ont icy une mission.
14. Kakaling rapide de trois lieues de longuerer.
15. Kitchigamenqué, ou lac St. Francois.
16. Pouteatamis.
17. Oumanis.
18. Maskoutens ou Nation du feu.
19. Riviere de la Divine.
20. Les plus grands navires peuvent venir de la decharge du lac Erie
dans le lac frontenac jusques icy et de ce marais ou ils peuvent entrer
il n y a que mille pas de distance jusqu’a la riviere de la Divine qui
les peut porter jusqu’a la riviere Colbert et de la golfe de Mexique.
21. Riviere Ohio ainsy apellée par les Iroquois a cause de sa beauté
par ou le Sr. de la Salle est descendu.
22. Les Illinois.
23. Raye des Kentayentoga.
24. Les Chaoüenons.
25. Cette riviere baigne un fort beau pays ou l’on trouvé des pommes,
des grenades, des raisins et d’autres fruits sauvages. Le Pays est
decouvert pour la plus part, y ayant seulement des bois d’espace en
espace. Les Iroquois ont détruit la plus grande partie des habitans
dont on voit encore quelques restes.
26. Tout ce pays est celuy qui est aus Environs du lac Teiochariontiong
est decouvert. L’hiver y est moderé et court; les fruits y viennent en
abondance; les bœufs sauvages, poules dinde et toute sorte de gibier
s’y trouvent en quantité et il y a encore force castor.
27. Baye de Sikonam.
28. Les Tionontateronons.
29. Detroit de Missilimakinac.
30. Missilimakinac mission des Jesuites. Detroit par ou le lac des
Illinois communique avec celuy des Hurons, par ou passent les sauvages
du midy quand ils vont au Montreal chargez de Castors.
31. Sault de Ste. Marie. Ce sault est un Canal de demie lieue de
largeur par lequel le lac Superieur se decharge dans le lac Huron.
32. Dans ce lac on trouve plusieurs morceaux de cuivre rouge de rozette
tres pure. Outakouaminan.
33. Sauteurs. Sauvages qui habitent aus environs du Sault Ste. Marie.
34. Bagonache.
35. Gens des Torres. Toutes ces nations vivent de chasse dans les bois
sans villages, et la plus part sans cultivee la terre, se trouvans
seulement a de certains rendezvous de festes et de foire de temps en
temps.
36. Kilistinons.
37. Les Alemepigon.
38. Ekaentoton Isle.
39. Lieu de l’assemblée de tous les sauvages allans en traitte a
Montreal.
40. Les Kreiss.
41. Cette riviere vient du lac Nipissing. R. des Francois.
42. Les Amicoue.
43. Les Missisaghé.
44. Lac Skekoven ou Nipissing.
45. Sorciers.
46. A cet endroit il y a plusieurs petits marais par ou l’on va dans le
lac Nipissing en portant plusieurs fois les canots.
47. Nipissiens.
48. Sault au talc Mataouan.
49. Sault au lieure. Sault aux Allumettes. Isle du Borgne.
50. Sault des Calumets.
51. Riviere des Outaouacs ou des Hurons.
52. Les Sauvages Loups et Iroquois tirent d’icy la plus grande partie
du Castor qu’ils portent aus Anglois et aus Hollandois.
53. Cette rivière sort du lac Taronto et se jette dans le lac Huron.
54. Chemin par ou les Iroquois vont aus Outaoüacs, qu’ils auroient mené
trafiquer a la Nouvelle Hollande si le fort de Frontenac n’eust ésté
basti sur leur route.
55, 56. Villages des Iroquois dont quantité s’habituent de ce côté
depuis peu. Teyoyagon, Ganatchekiagon, Ganevaské, Kentsio.
57. Canal par ou le lac des Hurons se decharge dans le lac Erie.
58. Tsiketo ou lac de la Chaudiere.
59. Atiragenrega, nation detruite.
60. Antouaronons, nation detruite.
61. Niagagarega, nation detruite. Chute haute de 120 toises par ou le
lac Erie tombe dans le lac Frontenac.
62. Les Iroquois font leurs pesches dans tous les marais ou etangs qui
bordent ce lac, d’ou ils tirent leur principale subsistance.
63. Ka Kouagoga, nation detruite.
64. Negateca fontaine.
65. Tsonontouaeronons.
66. Goyogouenronons.
67. Les environs de ce lac et l’extremité occidentale du lac Frontenac
sont infestes de gantastogeronons, ce qui en eloigne les Iroquois.
68. Ce lac n’est pas le lac Erie, comme on le nomme ordinnairement.
Erie est une partie de la Baye de Chesapeack dans la Virginie, ou les
Eriechronons ont toujours demeuré.
69. Riviere Ohio, ainsy dite a cause de sa beauté.
70. Lac Onia-sont.
71. Les Oniasont-Keronons.
72. Riviere qui se rend dans la baye de Chesapeack.
73. Cahihonoüaghé, lieu on la plus part des Iroquois et des Loups
debarquent pour aller en traitte du Castor a la Nouvelle York par les
chemins marques de double rangs de points.
74. Les plus grands bastimens peuvent naviguer d’icy jusque au bout du
lac Frontenac.
75. Korlar.
76. Albanie, ci-devant Fort d’Orange.
77. Riviere du nord, ou des traittes ou Maurice.
78. Otondiata.
79. Tout ce qui est depuis la Nouvelle Hollande jusques icy et le long
du fleuve St. Laurent est convert de bois. La terre y est bonne pour la
plus part et produit de fort beau blé.
80. Riviere Onondkouy.
81. Lac Tontiarenhé.
82. Ohaté.
83. Lac et riviere de Tanouate Kenté.
84. En cet endroit la grande riviere se précipite dans un puis dont on
ne voit pas sortir.
85. Sault des chats.
86. Petite nation.
87. Long sault.
88. R. et I. Jesus, Montreal, etc.
89. Lac Champlain.
90. Lac du St. Sacrement.
91. Montagnes ou l’on trouve des veines de plomb, mais peu abondante.
92. St. Jean rapide.
93. Riviere de Richelieu.
94. Sorel.
95. Sauvages apelles Mahingans, ou Socoquis.
96. Socoquois, Goutsagans, Loups.
97. Vershe Riviere [Connecticut].
Dr. Shea places this map after La Salle’s descent of the Mississippi,
“as the Ohio at its mouth was not recognized at that time as the
Ohio of the Iroquois.” See Margry, ii. 191.] Something now needs to
be said regarding Marquette’s contribution to our knowledge of this
expedition of 1673. He seems to have prepared from memory a narrative
for Frontenac, which is printed in two different forms in Margry.[572]
Dablon used this account in his _Relation_, and sent a copy of the
manuscript to Paris;[573] but he seems also to have prepared another
copy, which was, with the original map, confided finally to the
Archives of the Collége Ste. Marie at Montreal, where Shea found it,
and translated it for his _Discovery of the Mississippi_,[574] in 1853,
giving with it a fac-simile of the map.[575]
Mr. Neill, in comparing this map with the earliest of Joliet’s, as
reproduced by Gravier says: “Joliet marks the large island toward the
extremity of Lake Superior known as Isle Royale; but he gives no name,
and he indicates four other islands on the north shore.”
[Illustration: JOLIET’S CARTE GÉNÉRALE.
“This is a sketch reduced from the Parkman copy of the map, which
measures 36 × 30 inches, and is called _Carte genlle de la France
sept^{le} contenant la descouverte du Pays des Illinois, faite par le
S^r Jolliet_; and is dedicated “A Monseigneur, Monseigneur Colbert,
Conseiller du Roy en son Conseil Royal, Ministre et Sécrétaire d’Estat,
Commandeur et Grand Trésorier des Ordes de sa Majesté, par son tres
humble, tres obeiss^t, et tres fidelle serviteur, Duchesnau, Intendant
de la Nouvelle France.” The figures stand for the following names and
legends: 1. Alimouspigoiak. 2. Oussiloua. 3. Agatomitou. 4. Chaiena.
5. Ouapikouti. 6. Napapatou. 7. Pintoüa. 8. Ihanctoua. 9. Paoutek. 10.
Maha. 11. Oloutanta. 12. Moengouena. 13. Ouatoutatoüaoü. 14. Grand
Village. 15. Tanikoüa. 16. Acahichi. 17. Minouk. 18. Emmamoüata. 19.
Akoraa. 20. Ototehiahi. 21. Tahenfa. 22. Europeans [_sic_]. 23. Mine de
fer, Sable doré, Terre rouge ou siselée, Gouza. 24. R. Ouaboustikou.
25. Mataholi et Apistanga, 18 villages. 26. Chaoüanone, 15 villages.
27. Chaboüafioüa. 28. Mine de cuivre rouge. 29. Ilinois. 30. Riviere
Miskous. 31. Mine de fer. 32. Maskoutens. 33. Outagami. 34. Puans. 35.
Chaoüamigon. 36. Siou. 37. Assinibouels. 38. Lac des Assinibouels. 39.
Minonk I. 40. Miscillimakinac. 41. Saut. 42. Missaské. 43. Amikoue. 44.
Nipissink. 45. Mataouan. 46. Riviere des Outaouacks. 47. Kinté. 48.
Ganateliftiagon. 49. Ganerafké. 50. I. Caiu-toton. 51. Fort Frontenac.
52. Teiaiagon. 53. Saût. 54. Sonontouans. 55. Oioguens. 56. Noutahe.
57. Onéoioutes. 58. Agnez. 59. Orange. 60. Hope. 61. Manate. 62.
Lac St. Sacrémt. 63. Lac Champlain. 64. Ste. Terese. 65. Sorel. 66.
Montreal. 67. Trois Rivieres. 68. Quebec. 69. Tadoussac. 70. R. St.
Jean. 71. Ketsicagouesse. 72. Baye des Espagnols. 73. Terre Neuve. 74.
Cape de Raze. 75. Plaisance. 76. I. la Magdelaine. 77. I. Brion. 78.
I. aux oiseaux. 79. Cap Breton. 80. Canceaux. 81. Acadie. 82. Port
Royal. 83. Baye des Chaleurs. 84. I. Bonventure. 85. I. Percée. 86. R.
St. Jean. 87. R. Ste. Croix. 88. R. Etchemins. 89. R. Pintagouete. 90.
Baston. 91. Miskoutenagach. 92. Ouabakounagon.] Marquette shows the
large island only, but without a name. Joliet on the north shore of
Lake Huron has three large islands,—one marked Kaintoton; Marquette
has the same number, but without names. Parallel columns will show some
other names of the two maps; the last three of each column referring to
tribes between Green Bay and the Mississippi:—
_Joliet’s Map._ _Marquette’s Map._
Lac Superieur. Lac Superieur, ov De Tracy.
Lac des Illinois, ou Missihiganin. Lac des Illinois.
Baye des Puans. No name.
Puans. Pouteoutami.
Outagami. Outagami.
Maskoutens. Maskoutens.
Joliet gives the name Miskonsing to the river, and marks the portage;
while Marquette gives no names. The country south of Lake Superior and
west of Lake Michigan in Marquette is blank. In Joliet it is marked
‘La Frontenacie.’ West of Lake Superior in Marquette is a blank; in
Joliet are several lakes and the tribe of Madouesseou. Joliet calls
the Mississippi, Rivière de Buade, and Marquette names it R. de la
Conception.”
The original French of the narrative as Shea found it at Montreal was
printed for Mr. Lenox in 1855,[576] and bears the following title:
_Récit des voyages et des découvertes du P. J. Marquette en l’année
1673, et aux suivantes_;[577] and the copy being defective in two
leaves, this matter was supplied from the print of Thevenot, next to be
mentioned.
The copy which Dablon sent to Paris was used by Thevenot, who gives
it, with some curtailment, in his _Recueil de voyages_, published in
Paris in 1681,[578] with the caption: “Voyage et découverte de quelques
pays et nations de l’Amérique septentrionale par le P. Marquette et Sr.
Joliet.”[579]
The Jesuits about this time made a map, which, from having been given
in Thevenot as Marquette’s, passed as the work of that missionary
till Shea found the genuine one in Canada. What was apparently the
original of this in Thevenot is a manuscript which Harrisse[580] says
was formerly in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, but cannot now
be found. Mr. Parkman has a copy of it, and calls it “so crude and
careless, and based on information so inexact, that it is of little
interest.”[581]
[Illustration: MARQUETTE’S GENUINE MAP.]
As engraved in Thevenot, this map differs a little, and bears the
title: “Carte de la découverte faite l’an 1673, dans l’Amérique
septentrionale. Liebaux fecit.” Sparks followed this engraving in
the map in his _Life of Marquette_, and calls it, with the knowledge
then current, “the first that was ever published of the Mississippi
River.”[582]
* * * * *
Marquette’s later history is but brief. In the autumn of the next year
(1674) he started to found a mission among the Illinois; but being
detained by illness near Chicago, he did not reach the Indian town
of Kaskaskia till the spring of 1675. His strength was ebbing, and
he started with his companions to return to St. Ignace, but had only
reached a point on the easterly shore of Lake Michigan, when he died,
and his companions buried him beside their temporary hut. The next year
some Ottawas who had been of his flock unearthed the bones and carried
them to Michillimackinac, where they were buried beneath the floor of
the little mission chapel.[583]
[Illustration: MISSISSIPPI VALLEY, 1672-1673.
This is a reduction of a manuscript map placed by Mr. Parkman in
Harvard College Library, no. 5 of the series, entitled: _Carte de la
nouvelle decouverte que les péres Jesuites ont fait en l’année 1672,
et continnuée par le P. Iacques Marquette de la mesme compagnie,
accompagné de quelques françois en l’année 1673, qu’on pourra nommer
en françois_ LA MANITOUMIE _a cause de la statue qui s’est trouvée
dans une belle vallée, et que les sauvages vont reconnoistre pour leur
divinitè, qu’ils appellent Manitou qui signifie esprit ou génie_. A
rude figure of this statue is placed on the map at 4, with this legend:
“Manitou statue ou les sauvages font faire leurs adorations.” The other
longer legends are: 1. “Nations qui ont des chevaux et des chameaux.”
2. “On est venu jusques icy a la hauteur de 33 deg.” 3. “Monsoupena,
ils ont des fusila.” It will be seen that the return route of Marquette
and Joliet is incorrectly laid down. Parkman’s _La Salle_, p. 65.]
Thirty years ago there were statements made by M. Noiseux, late
vicar-general of Quebec, to the effect that Marquette was not the first
priest to visit the Illinois; but the matter was set at rest by Dr.
Shea.[584] A renewed interest came in 1873 with the bicentennial of
the discovery. Dr. Shea delivered an address on the occasion of the
celebration,[585] and he also made an Address on the same theme before
the Missouri Historical Society, July 19, 1878.[586] At the Laval
University in Quebec the anniversary was also observed on the 17th of
June, 1873, when a discourse was delivered by the Abbé Verreau.[587]
[Illustration: FORT FRONTENAC.
This sketch follows a plan sent by Denonville in 1685 to Paris, which
is engraved in Faillon, _Histoire de la Colonie Française_, iii. 467.
The key is as follows: 1. Four à chaux. 2. Grange. 3. Etable. 4.
Logis. 5. Corps de garde. 6. Guerite sur la porte. 7. Boulangerie. 8.
Palissade. 9. Moulin. 10. Mortier sans chaux. 11. Fondement bâti. 12.
Haut de 4 pieds. 13. Haut de 12 pi^s. 14. A chaux et sable. 15. Puits.
16. Magasin à poudre. The peninsula extended into Lake Ontario. It is
the fort as rebuilt of stone by La Salle. Cf. the paper on La Salle’s
expenses on this fort, etc., in 2 _Pennsylvania Archives_, vi. 14, of
which the original and other papers are given in Margry (i. 291).]
New complications were now forming. The new governor, Frontenac, was
needy in purse, expedient in devices, and on terms of confidence with
a man destined to gain a name in this western discovery.[588] This was
La Salle. Parkman pictures him with having a certain robust ambition
to conquer the great valley for France and himself, and to outdo the
Jesuits. Shea sees in him little of the hero, and few traces of a
powerful purpose.[589] Whatever his character, he was soon embarked
with Frontenac on a far-reaching scheme. It has been explained in
the preceding chapter how the erection of a fort had been begun by
Frontenac near the present town of Kingston on Lake Ontario. By means
of such a post he hoped to intercept the trafficking of the Dutch and
English, and turn an uninterrupted peltry trade to the French. The
Jesuits at least neglected the scheme, but neither Frontenac nor La
Salle cared much for them.[590] Fort Frontenac was the first stage in
La Salle’s westward progress, and he was politic enough to espouse the
Governor’s side in all things when disputes occasionally ran high.
His becoming the proprietor of the seigniory, which included the new
fort, meant the exclusion of others from the trade in furs, and such
exclusion made enemies of the merchants. It meant also colonization and
settlements; and that interfered with the labors of the Jesuits among
the savages, and made them look to the great western valley, of which
so much had been said; but La Salle was looking there too.[591]
In the first place he had strengthened his fort. He had pulled down
the wooden structure, and built another of stones and palisades, of
which a plan is preserved to us. He had drawn communities of French and
natives about him, and maintained a mission, with which Louis Hennepin
was connected. We have seen how in the autumn of 1677[592] he went
once more to France, securing the right of seigniory over other posts
as he might establish them south and west during the next five years.
This was by a patent dated at St. Germain-en-Laye, May 12, 1678.[593]
With dreams of Mexico and of a clime sunnier than that of Canada, La
Salle returned to Quebec to make new leagues with the merchants, and
to listen to Hennepin, who had come down from Fort Frontenac to meet
him.[594] Mr. Neill (in the previous chapter) has followed his fortunes
from this point, and we have seen him laying the keel of a vessel above
the cataract.[595]
While this was going on La Salle returned below the Falls, and having
begun two blockhouses on the site of the later Fort Niagara,[596]
proceeded to Fort Frontenac. By spring Tonty had the “Griffin” ready
for launching. She was of forty-five or fifty tons, and when she had
her equipment on board, five cannon looked from her port-holes. The
builders made all ready for a voyage in her, but grew weary in waiting
for La Salle, who did not return till August, when he brought with him
Membré the priest, whose Journal we are to depend on later, and the
vessel departed on the voyage which Mr. Neill has sketched.[597]
After the “Griffin” had departed homeward from this region, La Salle
and his canoes followed up the western shores of the lake, while Tonty
and another party took the eastern. The two finally met at the Miamis,
or St. Joseph River, near the southeastern corner of Lake Michigan.
They now together went up the St. Joseph, and crossing the portage[598]
launched their canoes on the Kankakee, an upper tributary of the
Illinois River, and passed on to the great town of the tribe of that
name, where Marquette had been before them, near the present town of
Utica.[599] They found the place deserted, for the people were on
their winter hunt. They discovered, however, pits of corn, and got
much-needed food. Passing on, a little distance below Peoria Lake they
came upon some inhabited wigwams. Among these people La Salle learned
how his enemies in Canada were inciting them to thwart his progress;
and there were those under this incitement who pictured so vividly
the terrors of the southern regions, that several of La Salle’s men
deserted.
In January (1680) La Salle began a fortified camp near at hand, and
called it Fort Crèvecœur,[600] and soon after he was at work building
another vessel of forty tons. He also sent off Michel Accau, or
Accault, and Hennepin on the expedition, of which some account is given
by Mr. Neill, and also by the Editor in a subsequent note. Leaving
Tonty in command of the fort, La Salle, in March, started to return to
Fort Frontenac, his object being to get equipments for his vessel; for
he had by this time made up his mind that nothing more would be seen
of the “Griffin” and her return lading of anchors and supplies. For
sixty-five days he coursed a wild country and braved floods. He made,
however, the passage of a thousand miles in safety to Fort Frontenac,
only to become aware of the disastrous state of his affairs,—the loss
of supplies.[601] A little later the same sort of news followed him
from Tonty, whose men had mutinied and scattered. His first thought
was to succor Tonty and the faithful few who remained with him; and
accordingly he started again for the Illinois country, which he found
desolate and terrible with the devastations of the Iroquois. He passed
the ruins of Crèvecœur, and went even to the mouth of the Illinois; and
under these distressing circumstances he saw the Mississippi for the
first time. Then he retraced his way, and was once again at Fort Miami.
Not a sign had been seen of Tonty, who had escaped from the feud of the
Iroquois and Illinois, not knowing which side to trust, and had made
his way down the western side of Lake Michigan toward Green Bay.
La Salle meanwhile at Fort Miami was making new plans and resolutions.
He had an idea of banding together under his leadership all the
western tribes, and by this means to keep the Iroquois in check while
he perfected his explorations southward. So in the spring (1681) he
returned to the Illinois country to try to form the league; and while
there first heard from some wandering Outagamies of the safe arrival of
Tonty at Green Bay, and of the passage through that region of Hennepin
eastward. Among the Illinois and on the St. Joseph he was listened to,
and everything promised well for his intended league. In May he went
to Michillimackinac, where he found Tonty and Membré, and with them
he proceeded to Fort Frontenac. Here once more his address got him
new supplies, and in the autumn (1681) he was again on his westward
way. In the latter part of December, with a company of fifty-four
souls,—French and savage, including some squaws,—he crossed the
Chicago portage; and sledding and floating down the Illinois, on the
6th of February he and his companions glided out upon the Mississippi
among cakes of swimming ice. On they went.[602] Stopping at one of
the Chickasaw bluffs, they built a small stockade and called it after
Prudhomme, who was left in charge of it. Again they stopped for a
conference of three days with a band of Indians near the mouth of the
Arkansas, where, on the 14th of March, in due form, La Salle took
possession of the neighboring country in the name of his King.[603]
On still they went, stopping at various villages and towns, securing
a welcome by the peace-pipe, and erecting crosses bearing the arms
of France in the open squares of the Indian settlements. On the 6th
of April La Salle divided his party into three, and each took one of
the three arms which led to the Gulf. On the 9th they reunited, and
erecting a column just within one of the mouths of the river, La Salle
formally took possession of the great Mississippi basin in the name
of the French monarch, whom he commemorated in applying the name of
Louisiana to the valley.[604]
Up the stream their canoes were now turned. On reaching Fort Prudhomme
La Salle was prostrated with a fever. Here he stayed, nursed by
Membré,[605] while Tonty went on to carry the news of their success
to Michillimackinac, whence to despatch messengers to the lower
settlements. At St. Ignace La Salle joined his lieutenant.
* * * * *
For the events of these two years we have two main sources of
information. First, the “Relation de la descouverte de l’embouchure
de la Rivière Mississipi dans le Golfe de Mexique, faite par le Sieur
de la Salle, l’année passée, 1682,” which was first published by
Thomassy;[606] the original is preserved in the Archives Scientifiques
de la Marine, and though written in the third person it is held to
constitute La Salle’s Official Report, though perhaps written for him
by Membré.[607] Second, the narrative ascribed to Membré which is
printed in Le Clercq’s _Établissement de la Foi_, ii. 214, and which
seems to be based on the document already named.[608]
In addition to this there is the paper of Nicolas de la Salle (no
kinsman of the explorer), who wrote for Iberville’s guidance, in 1699,
his _Récit de la découverte que M. de la Salle a faite de la Rivière de
Mississipi en 1682_.[609]
* * * * *
La Salle’s future plans were now clearly fixed in his own mind, which
were to reach from Europe the Mississippi by sea, and to make it the
avenue of approach to the destined colonies, which he now sent Tonty
to establish on the Illinois. With as little delay as possible, he
went himself to join his deputy. In December they selected the level
summit of the scarped rock (Starved Rock), on the river near the great
Illinois town, and there intrenched themselves, calling their fort
“St. Louis.” Around it were the villages and lodges of near twenty
thousand savages, including, it is estimated, about four thousand
warriors. To this projected colony La Salle was under the necessity of
trying to bring his supplies from Canada till the route by the Gulf
could be secured,—that Canada in which he had many enemies, and whose
new governor, De la Barre, was hostile to him, writing letters of
disparagement respecting him to the Court in Paris,[610] and seizing
his seigniory at Fort Frontenac on shallow pretexts. Thwarted in all
efforts for succor from below, La Salle left Tonty in charge of the
new fort,[611] and started for Quebec, meeting on the way an officer
sent to supersede him in command. From Quebec La Salle sailed for
France.[612]
At this time the young French engineer, Franquelin, was in Quebec
making record as best he could, from such information as reached
headquarters, of the progress of the various discoverers. There
are maps of his as early as 1679 and 1681 which are enumerated by
Harrisse.[613] Parkman is also inclined to ascribe to Franquelin a
map with neither date nor author, but of superior skill in drafting,
which is called _Carte de l’Amérique septentrionale et partie de
la meridionale ... avec les nouvelles decouvertes de la Rivière
Mississipi, ou Colbert_. It records an event of 1679 in a legend, and
omits the lower Mississippi; which would indicate that the record was
made before the results of La Salle’s explorations were known.[614] A
sketch of the Map of 1682 is given herewith from a copy in the Barlow
Collection.
[Illustration: MAP OF 1682.]
From La Salle, on his arrival in Quebec late in 1683, Franquelin
undoubtedly got new and trustworthy information of that explorer’s
expedition down the Mississippi; and this he embodied in what is
usually known as Franquelin’s Great Map of 1684. It professed to
have been made in Paris, and as Franquelin was not in that city in
1684, Harrisse contends that it was the work of De la Croix upon
Franquelin’s material. It is called _Carte de la Louisiane, ou des
voyages du Sieur de la Salle et des pays qu’il a découverts depuis la
Nouvelle-France jusqu’au Golfe de Mexique, les années 1679-80-81 et 82,
par Jean-Baptiste Louis Franquelin, l’an 1684, Paris_. It was formerly
in the Archives du Dépôt de la Marine; but Harrisse[615] reports it as
missing from that repository, and describes it from the accounts given
by Parkman and by Thomassy.[616] A manuscript copy of this map was made
for Mr. Parkman, which is now in Harvard College Library, and from this
copy another copy was made in 1856, which is now in the Library of
Parliament at Ottawa. Mr. Parkman’s copy has been used in the annexed
sketch.
[Illustration: FRANQUELIN’S 1684 MAP.]
Harrisse says that De la Croix made the _Carte de l’Amérique
septent^{le}_,[617] which also purports to be Franquelin’s, and shows
the observations of “douze années.” Harrisse places this map also in
1684, for the reason that a third map by Franquelin, _Carte de la
Amérique septentrionale_,[618] is dated 1688, and claims to embody the
observations of “plus de 16 années,” giving names and legends not in
the earlier ones.[619]
“It indicates,” says Mr. Neill, “the post which had been recently
established by Du Lhut near the lower extremity of Lake Huron, and
gives the present name, Manitoulin, to the large island of Lake Huron,
and marks on the west shore a Baye de Saginnam. It places the mission
on the south shore of Sault Ste. Marie, and names the rivers and points
on the north and south shores of Lake Superior. A stream near the
present northern boundary-line of the United States is called ‘R. des
Grossillers,’ after the first explorer of Minnesota. The river entering
Lake Superior at the present Fort William is ‘Kamanistigouian, ou Les
Trois Rivières.’ Isle Royale is called ‘Minong;’ upon the northeast
part of ‘Lac Alepimigon’ is Du Lhut’s post, ‘Fort La Tourette.’ At the
portage between the sources of the St. Croix and a stream entering
Lake Superior is ‘Fort St. Croix,’ which Bellin says was afterward
abandoned. The St. Croix River is called ‘R. de la Magdelaine.’ At
the lower extremity of Lake Pepin is ‘Fort St. Antoine;’ and the
site of the present town of Prairie du Chien, near the mouth of the
Wisconsin, appears as ‘Fort St. Nicolas,’ named in compliment to the
baptismal name of Perrot. The Minnesota River is marked ‘Les Mascoutens
Nadouescioux,’ indicating that it ran through the country of the
Prairie Sioux. After Pierre Le Sueur had explored this river, De
l’Isle, in his map of 1703, gives it the name of St. Pierre, as it is
supposed in compliment to Le Sueur.”
A map of the next year (1689), also in the Archives, claims to be based
on “Mémoires et relations qu’il a eu soin de recueillir pendant pres
de 17 années.” Harrisse thinks this also a copy by De la Croix, and
notes others of the probable dates of 1692 and 1699 respectively.[620]
Harrisse also records[621] a manuscript map, “composée, corrigée,
et augmentée sur les journaux, mémoires, et observations les plus
justes qui en ont été f^{tes}. en l’année 1685 et 1686,” which is also
preserved in the French Archives; and a _Carte Gēralle du voyage que
Mons^r De Meulles ... a fait; ... commencé le 9^e Novembre et finy le
6^e Juillet, 1686_,[622] which was dedicated to Seignelay in the same
year.
Parkman[623] says of the maps of Franquelin subsequent to his Great Map
of 1684, that they all have more or less of its features, but that the
1684 map surpasses them all in interest and completeness.
* * * * *
It is convenient to complete here this enumeration of the maps of the
western lakes and the Mississippi basin before we turn to La Salle’s
explorations from the Gulf side.
One of the earliest of the printed maps is that called _Partie
occidentale du Canada, ou de la Nouvelle France, ou sont les nations
des Ilinois, de Tracy, les Iroquois, et plusieurs autres peuples, avec
la Louisiane nouvellement découverte, ... par le P. Coronelli, corrigée
et augmentée par le Sr. Tillemon à Paris, 1688_, of which the annexed
sketch follows a copy in Harvard College Library. This was united with
the _Partie orientale_ in 1689 in a single smaller map.[624]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: FRANQUELIN’S 1688 MAP.]
[Illustration: CORONELLI ET TILLEMON, 1688.]
The routes of several of the early explorers, like those of Du Lhut,
Joliet, and Marquette (1672), and La Salle (1679-1680), are laid down
on a manuscript map, _Carte des parties les plus occidentales du
Canada, par le Père Pierre Raffeix, S. J._,[625] which is preserved in
the Bibliothèque Nationale, and of which a sketch as “Raffeix, 1688,”
is given on the next page.
[Illustration]
A map of Lakes Ontario and Erie, by the Père Raffeix, is in the
Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris;[626] and from a copy in the Kohl
Collection at Washington the sketch on page 234 is taken. It is called,
_Le Lac Ontario avec les lieux circonvoisins et particulierment les
cinq Nations Iroquoises_.
Another map, thought to be the work of Raudin, Frontenac’s
engineer,[627] should be found in the Archives of the Marine, but
according to Harrisse it is not there.[628] The Barlow Collection,
however, has a map which Harrisse believes to be the lost original;
a sketch of the western part is given herewith.[629] It also gives
the eastern seaboard with approximate accuracy, but represents Lake
Champlain as lying along the headwaters of the Connecticut and the
Hudson. Lake Erie is a squarish oblong, larger than Ontario, and of a
shape rarely found in these early maps. In the upper lakes it resembles
the map of 1672-1673, which Harrisse[630] also found missing from the
Bibliothèque Nationale.
The maps which pertain to Hennepin and Lahontan are separately treated
on a later page.
[Illustration: RAFFEIX, 1688.
This sketch is from a copy in the Kohl Washington Collection. There
is another copy in the Barlow Collection. The original is in the
Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. (Harrisse, _Notes_, etc., no. 238.) It
is marked, _Parties les plus occidentales du Canada, Pierre Raffeix,
Jesuite_. Harrisse puts it under 1688; Kohl says between 1681 and 1688.
The lines of exploration, as indicated on it, are explained in the
marginal inscriptions as follows:—
Voyage et premiere descouverte de la riviere de Mississipi faite par
le P. Marquette, Jesuitte, et Mr. Jolliet, en 1672.
(—.—.) signifie l’allée.
(.....), le retour.
Ils furent jusques pres du 32 degré d’elevation. (.——.) Mr. du Lude,
qui le premier a esté ches les Sious ou Nadouesiou en 1678, et qui a
esté proche la source du Mississipi, et qui ensuitte vint retirer le
p. Louis [Hennepin], qui avoit esté fait prisonnier ches les Sious au
P., et sen reviendre finir leur descouverte par ou le P. Marquette et
Mr. Jolliet commencer la leur.
(..—..—) Voyage de Mr. de la Salle en 1679, qui ariva au fond du lac
des Illinois et qui voula commencer un petit fort, et une barque a
Crevecoeur, d’ou le Pere Louis [Hennepin] partit pour aller en haut a
la descouverte. Mr. de la Salle escrit qu’en 1681 il descendit sur le
Mississipi, et qu’il a esté jusqua la mer.
(E) Voyage a faire et plus facile pour descouvrir tout le Missĩpi en
venant du lac Ontario au bourg des Senontonans et de la en E.
(F) 1. De l’Embouchure de cette petite riviere jusqu’aux Assinipouals
et aleurs lacs Ilne a que 100 lieues.
2. Le pais des Assinipouals qui est le plus a l’ouest est un pais de
continuelles prairies cõme tout le long du Missĩpi, et l’on y voit
quelque fois passer dans un jour plus de 2 a 3,000 beufs sauvages. Il
faut remarquer que osté la forme exacte de lacs que le peu de temps na
pas permis de rechercher et que l’on trouve dans d’autres cartes; les
rivieres y sont marques avec beaucoup de soin.
PIERRE RAFFÆIX, _Jesuitte_.]
La Salle once in Paris (1684) succeeded in obtaining an interview with
the King, to whom he then and subsequently in Memorials,[631] which
have been saved to us, presented an ambitious scheme of fortifying
the Mississippi near its mouths, and of subjugating the neighboring
Spanish colonies, of whose propinquity he had very confused notions, as
Franquelin’s map showed.
[Illustration: ONTARIO AND ERIE, BY RAFFEIX, 1688.]
Peñalosa was at the same time pressing on the Court a plan for
establishing a French colony at the mouth of the Rio Bravo. La Salle’s
personal address, too, turned the scales against La Barre.
[Illustration]
Accordingly, La Forest, the rejected commander of Fort Frontenac, was
sent back to Canada with letters from the King commanding the Governor
to make restitution to La Salle’s lieutenant both of Fort Frontenac and
of Fort St. Louis. La Salle’s shining promises so affected Louis, that
the King gave him more vessels than he asked for; and of these one,
the “Joly,” carried thirty-six guns, and another six.[632] Among his
company were his brother Cavelier and two other Sulpitian priests, and
three Recollects, Membré, Douay, and Le Clercq.
[Illustration]
A captain of the royal navy, Beaujeu, was detailed to navigate the
“Joly,” but under the direction of La Salle, who was to be supreme.
La Salle’s distrust and vacillation, and Beaujeu’s jealousy and
assumptions boded no good, and a dozen warm quarrels between them were
patched up before they got to sea.[633]
[Illustration: PART OF RAUDIN’S MAP.
Harrisse says: “This is the only map in which the name Bazire is given
to the Arkansas River. Bazire was a merchant of Canada who in 1673
supported Frontenac in his design of building Fort Frontenac, with
which Raudin had also a great deal to do.” This follows the Barlow
original. There is in the Parkman Collection a copy of a part of it by
Harrisse.]
There was not a little in all this to point to a state of mental
unsoundness in La Salle. At a late day Joutel, a fellow-townsman of La
Salle, destined to become the expedition’s historian, joined the fleet
at Rochelle, and on the 24th of July (1684) it sailed, only to put
back, four days later, to repair a broken bowsprit of the “Joly.” Once
again they put to sea.
[Illustration: LA SALLE’S CAMP.
This is a reduced sketch from a copy in the Barlow collection of a
_Plan de l’entrée du lac ou l’on a laissé Mon^r de la Salle_, which
is preserved in the Archives of the Marine. It is Harrisse’s no. 226.
The key is as follows: 1. Le camp de M. de la Salle. 2. Endroit ou
la flutte c’est perdue. 3. La frigatte la “Belle” mouillée. 4 and 5.
Cabannes des sauvages.]
Everything still went wrong. The leaders chafed and quarrelled as on
land.[634] The Spaniards captured their smallest vessel.[635] At Santo
Domingo the Governor of the island and his officers joined in the
quarrel on the side of La Salle, who now fell prostrate with disease.
When he recovered he set sail again with his three remaining ships on
the 25th of November, coasted the southern shore of Cuba, and on New
Year’s Day (1685) sighted land somewhere near the River Sabine. He
supposed himself east of the Mississippi mouths, when in fact he was
far to the west of them. He knew their latitude, for he had taken the
sun when there on his canoe voyage in 1682; but he had at that time no
means of ascertaining their longitude. The “Joly” next disappeared in a
fog, and La Salle waited for her four or five days, but in vain. So he
sailed on farther till he found the coast trending southerly, when he
turned, and shortly after met the “Joly.” Passages of crimination and
recrimination between the leaders of course followed.[636] La Salle all
the while was trying to make out that the numerous lagoons along the
coast were somehow connected with the mouths of the Mississippi, while
Beaujeu, vexed at the confusion and indecision of La Salle’s mind,
did little to make matters clearer. They were in reality at Matagorda
Bay. Trying to make an anchorage within, one of the vessels struck
a reef and became a total wreck, and only a small part of her cargo
was saved.[637] La Salle suspected it was done to embarrass him; and
landing his men, he barricaded himself on the unhealthy ground, amid a
confusion of camp equipage, including what was saved from the wreck.
A swarm of squalid savages looked on, and saw a half-dozen of the
Frenchmen buried daily. The Indians contrived to pilfer some blankets,
and when a force was sent to punish them they killed several of the
French. Beaujeu offered some good advice, but La Salle rejected it; and
finally, on the 12th of March the “Joly” sailed, and La Salle was left
with his forlorn colony.[638] Beaujeu steered, as he thought, for the
Baye du St. Esprit (Mobile Bay [?]); but his belief that he was leaving
the mouths of the Mississippi made him miss that harbor, and after
various adventures he bore away for France, and reached Rochelle about
the 1st of July. With him returned the engineer, Minet, who made on the
voyage a map of the mouths of the Mississippi doubly interpreted,—one
sketch being based on the Franquelin map of 1684, as La Salle had found
it in 1682; and the other conformed to their recent observations about
Matagorda, into whose lagoons he made this great river discharge.[639]
[Illustration: CARTE DE LA LOUISIANE, BY MINET, 1685.
This is a reduced sketch from a copy (Barlow Collection) of the
original in the Archives of the Marine, giving two plans of the mouth
of the river,—the one in the body of the map as “La Salle le marque
dans sa carte,” and the other (here put in the small square), “Comme
nous les avons trouvez.” It is Harrisse’s no. 225.]
It soon dawned upon La Salle that he was not at the Mississippi delta;
and it was imperative that he should establish a base for future
movements. So he projected a settlement on the Lavaca River, which
flowed into the head of the bay; and thither all went, and essayed the
rough beginnings of a post, which he called Fort St. Louis.[640] He was
also constrained to lay out a graveyard, which received its tenants
rapidly. As soon as housing and stockades were finished, La Salle, on
the last day of October (1685), leaving Joutel in command, started with
fifty men to search for the Mississippi.
The first tidings Joutel got of his absent chief was in January (1686),
when a straggler from La Salle’s party appeared, and told a woeful
story of his mishaps. By the end of March La Salle himself returned
with some of his companions; others he had left in a palisaded fort
which he had built on a great river somewhere away. While on his return
he detached some of his men to find his little frigate, the “Belle,”
which he had left at a certain place on the coast. These men also soon
appeared, but they brought no tidings of the vessel. The loss of her
and of what she had on board made matters very desperate, and La Salle
determined on another expedition, this time to the Illinois country
and to Canada, whence he could send word to France for succor. On the
22d of April they started,—La Salle, his brother Cavelier, the Friar
Douay, and a score or so others.
Joutel was still left in command; and a few days later the appearance
of six men, who alone had been saved from the wreck of the “Belle,”
and reached the fort, confirmed the worst fears of that vessel’s
fate. Meanwhile La Salle was experiencing dangers and evils of all
kinds,—the desertion and death of his men, and delays by sickness,
and the spending of ammunition. Once again there was nothing for him
to do but to return to Joutel, and so with eight out of his twenty men
he came back to the fort. The colony had dwindled from one hundred
and eighty to forty-five souls, and another attempt to secure succor
was imperative. So in January (1687) a new cheerless party set out,
Joutel this time accompanying La Salle; and with the rest were Duhaut,
a sinister man, and Liotot the surgeon. For two months it was the
same story of suffering on the march and of danger in the camp. Then
quarrels ensued; and the murder of La Salle’s nephew and two others
who were devoted to him compelled the assassins to save themselves
by killing La Salle himself; and from an ambuscade Duhaut and Liotot
shot their chief. The party now succumbed to the rule of Duhaut. They
ranged aimlessly among the Indians for a while, and fell in with
some deserters of La Salle’s former expedition now living among the
savages. One of these conspired with Hiens, one of those privy to La
Salle’s death, and killed the assassins Duhaut and Liotot. Joutel with
the few who were left now parted amicably with Hiens and the savage
Frenchmen, and pushed their way to find the Great River. At a point on
the Arkansas not far from its confluence with the Mississippi, they
were rejoiced to find the abode of two of Tonty’s men. This sturdy
adherent of La Salle’s fortunes had been reinstated, as we have seen,
by the King’s order, in the command of the fortified rock on the
Illinois, and had in due time, after the return of Beaujeu to Rochelle,
got the news of La Salle’s landing on the Gulf. In February, 1686, he
had started down the river with a band of French and Indians to join
his old commander. He reached the Gulf,[641] but of course failed to
find La Salle; and returning, had left several men in the villages
of the Arkansas, of whom Couture and another now welcomed Joutel and
his weary companions. After some delay the wanderers floated their
wooden canoe down the Arkansas, and then began their weary journey up
the Great River, and by the middle of September they reached the Fort
St. Louis of the Illinois. They found Tonty absent, and Bellefontaine
in command. They foolishly thought to increase their welcome by
presenting themselves as the forerunners of La Salle, who was on the
way,—tidings which kept all in good spirits except the Jesuit Allouez,
who happened to be in the fort, and was ill, for he was conscious of
his machinations against La Salle, and dreaded to encounter him.[642]
Cavelier and Joutel soon started for the Chicago portage. A storm
on the lake impeded them subsequently, and they came back to the
fort to find Tonty returned from Denonville’s campaign against the
Senecas.[643] The same deceit regarding La Salle’s fate was practised
on Tonty, and he gave them money and supplies as to La Salle’s
representatives, only to learn a few months later, when Couture came
up from the Arkansas, of La Salle’s murder. The wanderers, however,
had now passed on, had reached Quebec in safety, still concealing what
they knew, and not disclosing it till they reached France; and even in
France there is a suspicion that Cavelier held his peace till he had
secured some property against the seizure of La Salle’s creditors. Why
Joutel connived at the deception is less comprehensible, for otherwise
he bears a fair name. No representations of his, however, could induce
the King to send succor to the hapless colony; and all the result, so
far as known, of the tardy acknowledgment of La Salle’s death was an
order sent to Canada for the arrest of his murderers.
The story which Couture told to Tonty in September inspired that hero
with a determination to try to rescue La Salle’s colony on the Gulf. So
in December he left his fortified rock, with five Frenchmen and three
others. Late in March he was on the Red River, where all but two of his
companions deserted him. He was himself finally, by the loss of his
ammunition, compelled to turn back, but not till he had learned of the
probable death of Heins.[644] In September he reached his fort on the
Illinois; and here, with La Forest, he continued to live, holding the
seigniory jointly under a royal patent, and trading in furs, till 1702,
when the establishment was broken up.[645] Tonty now joined D’Iberville
in Louisiana, and of his subsequent years nothing is known. The French
again occupied his rocky fastness; but when Charlevoix saw it, in 1721,
it was only a ruin.
The fate of the Texan colony is soon told. The Spaniards who had
searched for it by sea had always missed it, though they had found the
wrecked vessels.[646] A Frenchman, probably a deserter from La Salle,
fell into the Spaniards’ hands in New Leon. From him they learned
its position, and despatched under the Frenchman’s guidance a force
to capture it. They found the fort deserted, and three dead bodies a
little distance off. From the Indians they learned of two Frenchmen who
were living with a distant tribe. They sent for them under a pledge of
good treatment; and when they came, they proved to be L’Archevêque, one
of Duhaut’s accomplices, and one of the stray deserters whom Joutel
had discovered after the murder. They told a story of ravages from
the small-pox and of slaughter by the savages. A few of the colonists
had been saved by the Indian women; but these were subsequently given
up to the Spaniards, and they added their testimony to the sad and
ignominious end of the colony.
* * * * *
It is necessary to define the historical sources regarding this hapless
Texan expedition, about the purpose of which there have been some
diverse views lately expressed. It is clear that under cover of a grand
plan of Spanish conquest, La Salle had dazed the imagination of the
King in memorials,[647] which may possibly have been only meant to
induce the royal espousal of his more personal schemes. Shea contends
that La Salle’s real object was not to settle in Louisiana, but to
conquer Santa Barbara and the mining regions in Mexico, and to pave the
way for Peñalosa’s expedition.[648]
For the broader relations of the expedition to the earlier explorations
of 1682, we must go to a source of the first importance preserved in
the Archives of the Marine. It is entitled _Mémoire envoyé en 1693 sur
la découverte du Mississipi et des nations voisines par le Sieur de
la Salle, en 1678, et depuis sa mort par le Sieur de Tonty_, and is
printed by Margry;[649] and Parkman calls it excellent authority. Out
of this and an earlier paper, written in Quebec in 1684,[650] a book,
disowned by Tonty, as Charlevoix tells us, was in part fabricated, and
appeared at Paris in 1697 under the title of _Dernières découvertes
dans l’Amérique septentrionale de M. de la Salle, mises au jour par M.
le Chevalier Tonti, gouverneur du Fort St. Louis, aux Islinois_.[651]
Parkman[652] calls it “a compilation full of errors,” and does not
rely upon it. Shea says of it that, “although repudiated by Tonti, it
must have been based on papers of his.” It has been held apocryphal by
Iberville and Margry; but Falconer, La Harpe, Boimare, and Gravier put
trust in it.
It is thought that a Journal by Joutel was written in part to
counteract the statements of the _Dernières découvertes_. This Joutel
paper was given first in full by Margry,[653] and Parkman[654] says
of it that it seems to be “the work of an honest and intelligent
man.”[655] It was printed in Paris in 1713, but abridged and changed
in a way which Joutel complained of, and bore the title, _Journal
historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de la Salle fit dans le
Golfe du Mexique, pour trouver l’embouchure du Mississipi. Par M.
Joutel_.[656]
To these there are various supplemental narratives, with their interest
centring in the death of La Salle.[657] Joutel gives an account of
the scene as he learned it at the time.[658] Tonty’s account was at
second hand. Douay saw the deed, and what he reported is given in Le
Clercq’s _Établissement de la Foi_.[659] A document in the Archives of
the Marine—_Relation de la mort du Sr. de la Salle, suivant le rapport
d’un nommé Couture, à qui M. Cavelier l’apprit en passant au pays des
Akansa_—is given by Margry;[660] and Harrisse thinks that it merits
little confidence.
Cavelier is known to have made a report to Seignelay; and his rough
draft of this was recovered in 1854 by Parkman,[661] who calls it
“confused and unsatisfactory in its statements, and all the latter part
has been lost,” the fragment closing several weeks before the death of
his brother.[662]
The character of Beaujeu has certainly been put in a more favorable
light by the publication of Margry, and the old belief in his treachery
has been somewhat modified.[663]
The Spanish account of the fate of the colony is translated from
Barcia’s _Ensayo cronologico de la Florida_,[664] in Shea’s _Discovery
of the Mississippi_;[665] and Margry[666] adds to our knowledge, as
does Buckingham Smith in his _Coleccion_.[667]
It remains now to speak of the Collections which have been formed,
and the theories regarding these Western explorations which have
been maintained, by M. Pierre Margry, who has occupied till within
a few years the office of archivist of the Marine and Colonies in
Paris, having been for a long period assistant and principal. Margry
may be said to have discovered what that department contained in
manuscripts relating to the explorations of the Mississippi Valley and
River, particularly as regards La Salle’s agency. On more than one
occasion he has done good service in helping to enrich the archives of
New York[668] and Canada with copies of documents known to him,—so
far, apparently, as they did not interfere with his own projects
of publication. His position created relations for him with other
departments of the French Government, and his eager discernment found
an abundance of manuscript treasures even in private hands. These he
assiduously gathered, and on a few occasions he published papers[669]
which seemed to indicate more than he chose to disclose explicitly;
for his fellow-students were not quite satisfied, and longed for the
documents which had yielded so much. As the guardian of the public
archives, he was by office the agent and servant of the public; but
other investigators, it is feared, failed, through obstacles thrown in
their way, to profit as they might by what that office contained. There
is in the Sparks Collection of Manuscripts in Harvard College Library
a volume of copies of such documents as could be found in the Paris
Archives which that historian intended to use in another edition of his
_Life of La Salle_. While Mr. Sparks was regretting that not a single
document or letter in the hand of the great explorer had come down to
us, enough to fill a large volume was immured in these Paris Archives.
At a later day Mr. Parkman, in turn, failed of access to documents
which were of the first importance to him, and he was obliged to make
the best use he could of what it was possible to obtain. Environed by
these disadvantages Mr. Parkman published, in 1869, his _Discovery
of the Great West_. In his Preface, speaking of the obscurity which
had enshrouded the whole subject, he referred to the “indefatigable
research of M. Pierre Margry, Assistant-Custodian of the Archives of
the Marine and Colonies at Paris, whose labors as an investigator of
the maritime and colonial history of France can be appreciated only by
those who have seen their results.”
Gravier about the same time referred to the twenty years of study which
had made M. Margry the most learned of students of La Salle’s history.
It was evident that investigators could not profit by this accumulation
of material, unless M. Margry’s hopes of publication were realized. He
refused offers to purchase. In conjunction with M. Harrisse, an effort
was made by him in 1870-1871 to enlist the aid of the United States
Congress; but a vote which passed the Senate failed in the House. The
great fire at Boston in 1872 stayed the progress which, under Mr.
Parkman’s instigation, had been made to insure a private publication.
At last, by Mr. Parkman’s assiduous labors in the East, and by those
of Colonel Whittlesey, Mr. O. H. Marshall, and others in the West, and
with the active sympathy of the Hon. George F. Hoar, a bill was passed
Congress in 1873, making a subscription for five hundred copies of the
intended work.[670]
With this guaranty M. Margry put to press the series of volumes
entitled _Mémoires et documents pour servir à l’histoire des origines
Françaises de pays d’outre-mer: découvertes et établissements des
Français dans l’ouest et dans le sud d’Amérique septentrionale_.
The first volume appeared in 1876. It contained an Introduction by
M. Margry, and was prefixed by a very questionable likeness of La
Salle,—the picture (of which nothing was said by the editor) having
no better foundation than the improbable figure of the explorer in a
copperplate, published some years after his death, representing the
scene of his murder, and of which a fac-simile is annexed.[671] Of the
intended volumes, three are devoted to La Salle, and appeared between
1876 and 1878: vol. i., _Voyages des Français sur les grands lacs, et
découvertes de l’Ohio et du Mississippi_, 1614-1684; vol. ii., _Lettres
de La Salle, et correspondance relative à ses entreprises_, 1678-1685
(these include letters also preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale);
vol. iii., _Recherche des bouches du Mississipi et voyage à travers le
continent depuis les côtes du Texas jusqu’à Québec_.
[Illustration]
The later volumes (the Editor has seen in Mr. Parkman’s hands the
proofs of vols. iv. and v., and there is to be one more) pertain
to Iberville and the following century; but a volume of the early
cartography is promised as a completion of the publication. On the
issue of these three volumes Mr. Parkman in considerable part rewrote
his _Discovery of the Great West_, and republished it in 1879 as _La
Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_. In his Preface he speaks
of the collection of documents in Margry’s keeping “to which he had
not succeeded in gaining access,” and which, besides the papers in
his official charge, included others added by him from other public
archives and from private collections in France. “In the course of my
inquiries,” says Mr. Parkman, “I owed much to [M. Margry’s] friendly
aid; but his collections as a whole remained inaccessible, since he
naturally wished to be the first to make known the results of his
labors.”
[Illustration: LA SALLE.
This follows a design given in Gravier (pp. 1, 202), which is said
to be based on an engraving preserved in the Bibliothèque de Rouen,
entitled CAVILLI DE LA SALLE FRANÇOIS,—and is the only picture
meriting notice, except possibly a small vignette of which Gravier
gives a fac-simile in his _Cavelier de la Salle_. Mr. Parkman has a
photograph, given to him by Gravier, of a modern painting drawn from
the first of these two pictures. In the _Magazine of American History_,
May, 1882, there is an engraving, “after a photograph of the original
painting,” leading the reader to suppose a veritable original likeness
to have been followed, instead of this photograph of a made-up picture.]
It was fortunate that in regard to one point only this deprivation
had led Mr. Parkman astray in his earlier edition; and that was upon
La Salle’s failure to find the mouth of the Mississippi in 1684, and
the conduct therewith of Beaujeu. Mr. Parkman has testified to the
authenticity of the La Salle letters in the _North American Review_,
December, 1877, where (p. 428) he says: “The contents of these letters
were in good measure known through a long narrative compiled from them
by one of the writer’s friends, who took excellent care to put nothing
into it which could compromise him. All personalities are suppressed.
These letters of La Salle have never been used by any historical
writer.” Margry’s publication has been reviewed by J. Thoulet in the
_Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_, November and December, 1880,
where a modern map enables the reader to track the explorer’s course. A
sketch of this map is given on an earlier page.
The severest criticism of Margry’s publication has come from Dr.
Shea, in a tract entitled _The Bursting of Pierre Margry’s La Salle
Bubble_, New York, 1879,—a paper which first appeared in the _New
York Freeman’s Journal_. Margry is judged by his critic to have
unwarrantably extended the collection by repeating what had already
elsewhere been printed, sometimes at greater length.[672] The “bubble”
in question is the view long entertained by Margry that La Salle was
the real discoverer of the Mississippi, and which he has set forth at
different times in the following places:—
1. “Les Normands dans les vallées de l’Ohio et du Mississippi,” in the
_Journal general de l’instruction publique_, July-September, 1862,
placing the event in 1670-1671.
2. _Revue maritime et colonial_, Paris (1872), xxxiii. 555.
3. _La priorité de La Salle sur le Mississipi_, Paris, 1873,—a
pamphlet.
4. The preface to his _Découvertes_, etc., 1876.
5. A letter in the _American Antiquarian_ (Chicago, 1880), ii. 206,
which was addressed to the Wisconsin Historical Society (_Collections_,
ix. 108), and which first appeared in J. D. Butler’s translation in the
_State Journal_, Madison, Wisconsin, July 30, 1879.
Margry, who has wavered somewhat, first claimed that La Salle reached
the Mississippi by the Ohio in 1670; and later he has contended for the
route by the Illinois in 1671. He bases his claim upon four grounds:—
First, upon a _Récit d’un ami de l’Abbé de Galinée_, 1666-1678 (printed
in the _Découvertes_, etc., i. 342, 378),[673] which is without date,
but which Margry holds to be the work of Abbé Renaudot, derived from
La Salle in Paris in 1678, wherein it is stated that La Salle, after
parting with Dollier and Galinée, made a first expedition to the Ohio,
and a second by the Illinois to the Mississippi.
Second, upon a letter of La Salle’s niece, dated 1756 (i. 379), which
affirms that the writer of it possessed maps which had belonged to La
Salle in 1676, and that such maps showed that previous to that date he
had made two voyages of discovery, and that upon these maps the Colbert
(Mississippi) is put down.
Third, upon a letter of Frontenac in 1677 to Colbert (i. 324), which
places, as is alleged, the voyage of Joliet after that of La Salle;
but at the same time (ii. 285) he prints a paper of La Salle virtually
admitting Joliet’s priority.
Fourth, upon the general antagonism between the Jesuits, who espoused
Joliet’s claim, and the merchants, who were, with La Salle, the
adherents of the Sulpitians and Recollects.
Sides have been taken among scholars in regard to the irrefragability
of these evidences, but with a great preponderance of testimony against
their validity.
The principal supporter of Margry’s view (though Henri Martin has
adopted it) has been Gabriel Gravier in the following publications:—
1. _Découvertes et établissements de la Cavelier de la Salle de Rouen
dans l’Amérique du nord_, Paris, 1870.
2. _Cavelier de la Salle de Rouen_, Paris, 1871, p. 23. This work is in
good part a commentary on Parkman, to whom it is dedicated.
3. “La route du Mississipi,” in the _Compte rendu, Congrès des
Américanistes_, Nancy, 1878, placing it in 1666.
4. In _Magazine of American History_, viii. 305 (May, 1882).
Views in support of the prior discovery of Joliet and Marquette, and
opposed to the claim for La Salle, are given in the following places,
without enumerating Charlevoix, Sparks, and the other upholders of the
Joliet discovery, before Margry’s theory was advanced:—
1. Tailhan, as editor of Perrot’s _Sauvages_, Paris, 1864, p. 279.
2. Verreau, _Voyage de MM. Dollier et Galinée_, p. 59.
3. Parkman, _La Salle_.
4. Faillon, in his _Colonie Française en Canada_, iii. 312; while at
the same time he testifies to Margry’s labors in vol i. p. 24.
5. Harrisse, _Notes, etc., sur la Nouvelle France_, 1872, p. 125,
where he reviews the controversy; and again in the _Revue maritime et
coloniale_ (1872), xxxii. 642.
6. J. Brucker, _Jacques Marquette et la découverte de la vallée du
Mississipi_, Lyons, 1880, taken from _Les études réligieuses_, vol. iv.
7. H. H. Hurlbut, in _Magazine of American History_, September, 1882.
8. John G. Shea, in the Wisconsin Historical Society’s _Collections_,
vii. 111; and in the _Bursting of the La Salle Bubble_, already
referred to. In his edition of _Le Clercq_, ii. 89, he speaks of the
theory as “utterly absurd.”
FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN
AND HIS REAL OR DISPUTED DISCOVERIES.
BY THE EDITOR.
THE life of this Recollect missionary is derived in its particulars
mainly from his own writings; and the details had never been set
forth in an orderly way till Dr. J. G. Shea in 1880 prefixed to a
new translation of Hennepin’s first book a satisfactory sketch. He
seems to have been born in Hainault, though precisely when does
not appear. Felix Van Hulst, in the title of his tract, gives the
date approximately: _Notice sur le Père Louis Hennepin, né à Ath_
(_Belgique_) _vers 1640_. Liege, 1845. He early joined the Franciscans,
served the Order in various places, travelled as he could, was inspired
with a desire to see the world, and felt the impulse strongest when,
at Calais, he listened to the narratives of sea-captains who had
returned from long voyages. This inclination prompted him to continued
missionary expeditions, and to attendance upon armies in their
campaigns. In 1675 Frontenac succeeded in his attempt to recall to
Canada the Recollects, as a foil to the Jesuits; and among the first of
that Order to go was Hennepin, who crossed the ocean in the same ship
with La Salle, the ambitious explorer, and De Laval, the new Bishop of
Quebec. According to his own account, Hennepin had his first quarrel
with La Salle about some girls who were on their way to reinforce the
family life of the new colony.[674]
La Salle enjoyed their dances, and Hennepin, as their spiritual guide,
kept them under restraint. This, at least, is the Recollect story of
the origin of La Salle’s enmity for the missionary.
From Quebec Hennepin continued his missionary wanderings, sometimes
to remote stations, and at one time, in the spring of 1677, among
the Iroquois,—not going, however, to Albany, as has been sometimes
asserted. (Cf. Brodhead’s _New York_, ii. 307; _Hist. Mag._ x. 268.)
Next he accompanied La Salle in his explorations west. Of Niagara he
offers us the earliest picture in his 1697 publication,—of which a
reduced fac-simile is here given. Others are in Gay’s _Pop. Hist.
U. S._, ii. 511; Shea’s _Hennepin_, p. 379, and in his _Le Clercq_,
ii. 112; and in the _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, vol. ii. no. 561. The
original cut was repeated in the later editions and translations
of Hennepin. These Falls had been indicated on Champlain’s map, in
1632, with the following note: “Sault d’eau au bout du Sault [Lac]
Sainct Louis fort hault, où plusiers sortes de poissons descendans
s’estourdissent.” This was from the natives’ accounts. Ragueneau, in
the _Relation_ of 1648, was the first to describe them, though they
had been known by report to the Jesuits some years earlier (Parkman’s
_Jesuits_, p. 142). Lalemant, in 1641, called them _Onguiaahra_.
Ragueneau gave them no definite altitude, but called them of “frightful
height.” Hennepin, in his 1683 book, calls them five hundred feet, and
in 1697 six hundred feet high, and describes a side-shoot on their
western verge which does not now exist. Sanson, in his map of 1657,
had somewhat simplified Ragueneau’s name into _Ongiara_; but Hennepin
gives the name in its present form. There is a great variety in the
early spelling of the name. (See _Canadian Journal_, 1870, p. 385.) The
word is of Iroquois origin, and its proper phonetic spelling is very
like the form now in use (Parkman, _La Salle_, p. 126; O’Callaghan,
_Col. Doc., index_, 465). Hennepin had also been anticipated in a
brief notice by Gendron, in his _Quelques Particularites_, etc., 1659.
Hennepin’s account is also translated in the _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, v.
47. His engraving was reproduced, in 1702, in Campanius’ work on New
Sweden.
[Illustration]
Hennepin accompanied La Salle to the point where Fort Crèvecœur was
built, on the Illinois, and parting from La Salle here in February,
1680, he pursued his further wandering down the Illinois to the
Mississippi, and thence up to the Falls of St. Anthony, which were
named by him in reference to his being a Recollect of the province of
St. Anthony in Artois. On the 3d of July, 1880, the bi-centenary of
the discovery of these Falls was observed, when C. K. Davis delivered
an historical address. Thence, after being captured by the Sioux and
rescued by a party under Du Lhut,[675] Hennepin made his way to the
Wisconsin, passed by Green Bay, and reached Quebec. He soon after
returned to France, where, on the 3d of September, 1682, he obtained
the royal permission to print his first book, which was issued from the
press Jan. 5, 1683.
From this point his story[676] can be best followed in connection with
the history of his books, and as they are rare and curious, it has been
thought worth while to point out a few of the repositories of copies,
which are indicated by the following heavy-faced letters:—
=BA.= Boston Athenæum.
=BPL.= Boston Public Library.
=C.= Library of Congress.
=CB.= Carter-Brown Library, Providence.
=HC.= Harvard College Library.
=HCM.= Henry C. Murphy.
=L.= Lenox Library, New York.
For full titles, see the Bibliography in Shea’s edition of the
_Description of Louisiana_, and the article “Hennepin,” in Sabin’s
_Dictionary_. Cf. also Brunet, _Supplément_, 598.
I. DESCRIPTION DE LA LOUISIANE.
This first book was entitled _Description de la Louisiane nouvellement
découverte au Sud-Oüest de la Nouvelle France. Les Mœurs des Sauvages.
Par le R. P. Louis Hennepin_, Paris, 1683. Pages 12, 312, 107. Some
copies are dated 1684.
COPIES: =BA.=, =C.=, =CB.=, =HC.=, =L.= (both dates).
REFERENCES: Shea (ed. of Hennepin), nos. 1, 2; Sabin, _Dictionary_,
no. 31,347; Ternaux, _Bibliothèque Amér._ no. 985; Harrisse, _Notes
sur la Nouv. France_, nos. 150, 352; _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, vol.
ii. no. 1,266, with fac-simile of title; _Hist. Mag._, vol. ii. no.
24 (by Mr. Lenox), 346; Dufossé, _Americana_, 70 francs, with genuine
map, and 40 or 50 francs with fac-simile; Leclerc, _Bibl. Americana_,
nos. 897, 898 at 90 and 150 francs; Rich, _Catalogue_ (1832), no. 402,
12_s._
The map, of which a section is herewith given in fac-simile, measures
10.2 X 17.2, “Guerard inven. et fecit. Roussel sculpsit,” and is often
wanting. Cf. Harrisse, no. 352; _Hist. Mag._, vol. ii. 24.
Harrisse (no. 219; also see no. 238) cites a map preserved in the
Dépôt des Cartes de la Marine, which seems to embody the results of
Hennepin’s discoveries.
The next edition (Paris, 1688) shows the same pagination, with some
verbal changes in the text, and is accompanied by the same map.
COPIES: =B.A.=, =CB.=, =HC.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 3; Sabin, no. 31,348; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no.
1,354; _Hist. Mag._ vol. ii. p. 346; Harrisse, no. 160; O’Callaghan,
_Catalogue_, no. 1,068; Beckford, _Catalogue_, no. 674, bought by
Quaritch, who advertised it at £3 3_s._
[Illustration: HENNEPIN, 1683.
An extract from the _Carte de la Nouvelle France et de la Louisiane,
nouvellement découverte, dediée au Roy l’an 1683_. _Par le Révérend
Père Louis Hennepin, Missionaire Recollect et Notaire Apostolique_,
belonging to the _Description de la Louisiane_, 1683. There is a full
fac-simile in Shea’s translation of this book, and another one was made
in 1876 by Pilinski, in Paris (36 copies). The letter A near a tree
signifies “Armes du Roy telle qu’elle sont gravée sur l’escorce d’un
chesne.” This map (Harrisse, no. 352) seems to resemble closely a map
described by Harrisse (no. 219), as indicating the discoveries of Du
Lhut, of which there is a copy in the Barlow Collection.]
The following translations may be noted:—
* * * * *
ENGLISH.—Some portions of Hennepin’s first work had been translated
in Shea’s _Discovery of the Mississippi_, pp. 107-145; but no English
translation of the whole work appeared till Dr. Shea edited a version
in 1880, comparing Hennepin’s text with the second publication of that
missionary (issued in 1697) with the La Salle documents, published by
Margry, and with other contemporaneous papers.
* * * * *
DUTCH.—The engraved title, _Ontdekking van Louisania_; the printed
title, _Beschryving van Louisania_. It appeared at Amsterdam in 1688,
under the same covers with a Dutch version of Denys’ _Coast of North
America_, accompanied by a map which is a reduction of the map of
the 1683 edition, and is called “Kaart van nieuw Vrankrijk en van
Louisania;” together with four plates.
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 5; Sabin, no. 31,357; Harrisse, no. 161;
Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,355, with fac-simile of title;
_Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 24; O’Callaghan, no. 1,069;
Stevens, _Historical Collections_, vol. i. no. 1,433; Muller, _Books
on America_, 1870, no. 908, and 1877, no. 1,395.
It is usually priced at from $8 to $10.
* * * * *
GERMAN.—There were two editions,—_Beschreibung der Landschaft
Louisiana_, to which was appended a German version of Marquette’s and
Joliet’s exploration, published at Nuremberg in 1689. It should have
two maps.
COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 6; Ternaux, no. 1,041; Carter-Brown, vol. ii no.
1,379; O’Callaghan, no. 1,071; Muller, 1877, no. 1,399.
The other German edition of the same title appeared at Nuremberg in
1692.
COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 7; Harrisse, no. 163; _Historical Magazine_,
vol. ii. p. 24; Sabin, no. 31,364.
* * * * *
ITALIAN.—_Descrizione della Luigiana._ Rendered by Casimiro Freschot,
and published at Bologna in 1686, with a map.
COPIES: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 4; Harrisse, no. 157; Sabin, no. 31,356;
_Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 346; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no.
1,326; Ternaux, no. 1,012; Leclerc, no. 900; 60 francs.
An abridgment was printed in _Il Genio Vagante_, Parma, 1691, with a
map, “Nuova Francia e Luigiana.” Cf. Harrisse, no. 365.
In this earliest work of Hennepin the Mississippi, it will be seen by
the map, forms no certain connection with the Gulf of Mexico, but is
connected by a dotted line, and there is no claim for explorations
further south than the map indicates. Hennepin’s later publications
have raised doubts as to the good faith of his narrative of discoveries
on the Upper Mississippi. Harrisse (no. 150), for instance, says “Cette
_Relation_ de 1683 n’est en réalité qu’une pâle copie d’un des mémoires
de Cavelier de la Salle;” and goes on to deny to Hennepin the priority
of giving the name of Louisiana to the country. La Salle and others of
his contemporaries threw out insinuations as to his veracity, or at
least cautioned others against his tendency to exaggerate. (Cf. Neill,
_Writings of Hennepin_.) The publication of an anonymous account of La
Salle’s whole expedition in Margry’s _Découvertes et Établissements
des Français_, has enabled Dr. Shea, in his edition of Hennepin,
to contest Margry’s views of Hennepin’s plagiarism, and to compare
the two narratives critically; and he comes to the conclusion that
probably Hennepin was La Salle’s scribe before they parted, and that he
certainly contributed directly or indirectly to La Salle’s despatches
what pertains to Hennepin’s subsequent independent exploration,—thus
making the borrowing to be on the part of the anonymous writer, who, if
he were La Salle, did certainly no more than was becoming in the master
of the expedition to combine the narratives of his subordinates. It is
Shea’s opinion, however, that the Margry document was not written by
La Salle, but by some compiler in Paris, who used Hennepin’s printed
book rather than his notes or manuscript reports. Margry claims that
this _Relation officielle de l’enterprise de La Salle, de 1678 à 1681_,
was compiled by Bernou for presentation to Colbert. Parkman thinks,
as opposed to Shea’s view, that Hennepin knew of the document, and
incorporated many passages from it into his book (_La Salle_, pp. 150,
262). Dr. Shea sided with the detractors of Hennepin in his earlier
_Discovery of the Mississippi_; but in this later book he makes fair
amends for what he now considers his hasty conclusions then. Cf.
further Sparks’s _Life of La Salle_, and the _North American Review_,
January, 1845. Mr. Parkman’s conclusion is that this early book of
Hennepin is “comparatively truthful.”
II. NOUVELLE DÉCOUVERTE.
According to Hennepin’s own story, some time after his first book was
published, he incurred the displeasure of the Provincial of his Order
by refusing to return to America, and was in more ways than one so
pursued by his superior that in the end he threw himself on the favor
of William III. of England, whom he had met at the Hague. Hennepin
searched Amsterdam for a publisher of his new venture, but had to take
it to Utrecht, where it came out, in 1697, with a fulsome dedication
to the English king. It is called in the printed title (the engraved
title is abridged): _Nouvelle Découverte d’un très grand Pays, situé
dans l’Amérique, entre le Nouveau Mexique et la Mer glaciale_, Utrecht,
1797, pp. 70, 506, with two maps and two plates, one being the earliest
view of Niagara Falls, as given on p. 86.
[Illustration: HENNEPIN, 1697.
This is an extract from the second of Hennepin’s maps, _Carte d’un
très grand pays entre le Nouveau Mexique et la Mer glaciale, dediée à
Guillaume III.... à Utreght_. The same plate was used in later editions
(1698, 1704, 1711, etc.), with additions of many names, and some
topographical changes, and alterations of place of publication. Those
of 1698 have _à Utreght_ in some cases, and in others _à Amsterdam_.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: HENNEPIN, 1697.
Extract from _Carte d’un très grand pais nouvellement découvert dans
l’Amérique septentrionale, entre le Nouveau Mexique et la Mer glaciale,
avec le Cours du Grand Fleuve Meschasipi ... à Utreght_. The same
plate was used for the editions, _à Leiden_, 1704, etc. The plate was
re-engraved with English names for the English editions.]
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=, =HC.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 1; Sabin, no. 31,349; Ternaux, no. 1,095;
Harrisse, no. 175; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,513; _Historical
Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 346; Beckford, no. 675, bought by Quaritch, and
advertised by him at £4 4_s._; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,434; Leclerc,
no. 902, 80 francs; Harrassowitz, _Catalogue_, 1883, no. 58, 50 marks;
Brinley, _Catalogue_, no. 4,491. It is usually priced in English
catalogues at two or three guineas.
The portions repeated in this book from the _Description de la
Louisiane_ are enlarged, and the “Mœurs des Sauvages” is omitted.
It will be observed that in both of the maps of 1697, extracts
from which are given herewith, the Mississippi River is marked as
continuing its course to the Gulf. This change is made to illustrate an
interpolation in the text (pp. 249-312), borrowed from Father Membré’s
Journal of La Salle’s descent of the river, as given in Le Clercq’s
_Premier Établissement de la Foi_, p. 153. Sparks, in his _Life of
La Salle_, was the first to point out this correspondence. Mr. J. H.
Perkins, reviewing Sparks’s book in the _North American Review_ in
January, 1839 (reprinted in his _Memoir and Writings_, vol. ii.), on
the “Early French Travellers in the West,” referring to the partial
statements of the distrust of Hennepin in Andrew Ellicott’s _Journal_,
and in Stoddard’s _Sketches of Louisiana_, makes, for the first time,
as he thinks, a thorough critical statement of the grounds “for
thinking the _Reverend Father_ so great a liar.” Further elucidation
of the supposed theft was made by Dr. Shea in his _Discovery of the
Mississippi_, etc., p. 105, where, p. 83, he translated for the first
time into English Membré’s Journal. The Membré narrative is much the
same as a _Relation de la Découverte de l’Embouchure de la Rivière
Mississippi, faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l’année passée_, 1682,
preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine, and printed in
Thomassy’s _Géologie pratique de la Louisiane_. Gravier, p. 180, holds
it to be the work of La Salle himself (Boimare, _Text explicatif pour
accompagner la première planche historique relative à la Louisiane_,
Paris, 1868; cf. Gravier’s Appendix, no. viii). That there was a fraud
on Hennepin’s part has been generally held ever since Sparks made his
representations. Bancroft calls Hennepin’s journal “a lie.” Brodhead
calls it an audacious falsehood. Parkman (_La Salle_, p. 226) deems it
a fabrication, and has critically examined Hennepin’s inconsistencies.
Gravier classes his narrative with Gulliver’s.
The excuse given in the _Nouvelle Découverte_ for the tardy appearance
of this Journal is, that fear of the hostility of La Salle having
prevented its appearance in the _Description de la Louisiane_, that
explorer’s death rendered the suppression of it no longer necessary. It
is, moreover, proved that passages from Le Clercq are also appropriated
in describing the natives and the capture of Quebec in 1628. The reply
to this was that Le Clercq stole from a copy of Hennepin’s Journal,
which had been lent to Le Roux in Quebec. These revelations led Shea
seriously to question in his _Mississippi_ if Hennepin had ever seen
the upper parts of that river, and to suspect that Hennepin may have
learned what he wrote from Du Lhut. Harrisse, p. 176, brings forward
some new particulars about Hennepin’s relations with Du Lhut.
Dr. Shea’s later views, as expressed in his English translation (1880)
of the _Description de la Louisiane_ (1683), is that Hennepin’s
manuscript or revamped copy of his earlier book, as prepared for the
printer by himself, was subjected to the manipulations of an ignorant
and treacherous editor, who made these insertions to produce a more
salable book, and that Hennepin was not responsible for it in the
form in which it appeared. Shea’s arguments to prove this opposite
of the generally received opinion are based on inherent evidence in
the insertions that Hennepin could not have written them, and on the
material evidences of these questionable portions of the book having
been printed at a later time than the rest of it, and in different
type. The only rejoinder yet made to this exculpation is by Mr. E. D.
Neill, in a tract on _The Writings of Louis Hennepin_, read before the
Minnesota Historical Society in November, 1880, in which the conclusion
is reached that “nothing has been discovered to change the verdict of
two centuries, that Louis Hennepin, Recollect Franciscan, was deficient
in Christian manhood.”
The _Nouvelle Découverte_ was reset and reissued in 1698 at Amsterdam,
with the same maps and a new title.
COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 2; Sabin, no. 31,350; Harrisse, no. 176;
Ternaux, no. 1,110; O’Callaghan, no. 1,073; Muller, 1877, no. 3,666;
Sparks, _Catalogue_, no. 1,211; Rich, 1832, 12s.; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. 1,538; _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. pp. 24,346.
There was another edition, _Voyage ou Nouvelle Découverte_, at
Amsterdam in 1704, with the same maps and additional plates, to which
was appended La Borde’s _Voyage_.
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 3; Sabin, no. 31,352; Rich, 1830, no. 8;
_Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 347; Beckford, no. 676; Leclerc,
no. 905, 60 francs; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,436; Carter-Brown, vol.
iii. no. 52.
The Hague and Leyden editions of the same year (1704) had an engraved
title, _Voyage curieux ... qui contient une Nouvelle Découverte_, but
were evidently from the same type, and also have the La Borde appended.
COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=, _HCM._
REFERENCES: Shea, nos. 4, 5; Sabin, no. 31,353; _Historical Magazine_,
vol. ii. 25.
The Amsterdam edition of 1711 was called _Voyages curieux et nouveaux
de Messieurs Hennepin et de la Borde_, with oblong title, folded in,
which seems to be the only difference from the 1704 editions.
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=, =HC.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 6; Sabin, no. 31,354; Carter-Brown, vol. iii.
no. 153.
In 1712 another Amsterdam edition was called _Voyage ou Nouvelle
Découverte_.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 7; Sabin, no. 31,355; _Historical Magazine_,
vol. ii. p. 347; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 168; Stevens, vol. i. no.
1,438.
Hennepin’s book also appeared in the third edition, at Amsterdam
(1737), of Bernard’s _Recueil de Voyages au Nord_, vol. ix., with a map
called “Le Cours du fleuve Mississipi, 1737.” Cf. Shea, no. 8; Sabin,
no. 4,936; _Historical Magazine_, ii. 25. It also appeared at Amsterdam
in 1720, in _Relations de la Louisiane et du Fleuve Mississippi_
(Dufossé, 1878, no. 4,577), and again in 1737 in connection with a
translation of Garcilasso de la Vega (Dr. O’Callaghan in _Historical
Magazine_, ii. 24). An abridgment appeared in Paris, in 1720, under the
title, _Description de la Louisiane, par le Chevalier Bonrepos_, pp. 45
(Lenox in _Historical Magazine_, ii. 25).
The following translations may be noted:—
* * * * *
DUTCH.—1. _Nieuwe Ontdekkinge_, etc., Amsterdam, 1699.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 9; Sabin, no. 31,359; Harrisse, no. 183.
2. _Nieuwe Entdekkinge_, etc., Amsterdam, 1702. It follows the 1697
French edition, with the same maps and plates, and has Capiné’s book on
the Spanish West Indies appended.
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 10; Sabin, no. 31,360; Lenox in _Historical
Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 25; Muller, 1870, no. 912, and 1877, no. 1,397;
Brinley, no. 4,493; O’Callaghan, no. 1,076; Carter-Brown, vol. iii.
no. 23.
3. _Aenmerkelyke Voyagie_, etc., Leyden, 1704.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 11; Sabin, no. 31,361; Carter-Brown, vol. iii.
nos. 53, 54; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,437; Muller, 1870, no. 913, and
1877, no. 1,398.
4. _Aanmerkkelyke_ _Voyagie_, etc., Rotterdam, 1704. It is usually
found with Benzoni’s _West-Indise Voyagien_, and also in Van der Aa’s
Collection of Voyages, 1704.
COPIES: =C.=, =CB.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, nos. 12, 13; Sabin, no. 31,362; Lenox in _Historical
Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 25.
5. _Nieuwe Ontdekkinge_, etc. Amsterdam, 1722.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 14; Sabin, no. 31,363.
* * * * *
ENGLISH.—_Discovery of a Large, Rich, and Plentiful Country_, etc.,
London, 1720.
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=, =HC.= REFERENCES: Shea, no. 2; Sabin, nos.
20,247, 31,373; _Historical Magazine_, vol. i. p. 347; Rich, no. 12;
Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 267.
This is an abridgment.
* * * * *
GERMAN.—1. _Neue Entdeckung_, etc. Bremen, 1699.
COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 15; _Historical Magazine_, vol. i. p. 347,
vol. ii. p. 25; Sabin, no. 31,367; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,572;
Harrisse, no. 185; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,435.
2. _Beschreibung der Grosser Flusse Mississipi. Dritte Auflage_,
Leipzig, 1720.
COPY: =L.=
REFERENCES: Lenox in _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 25.
3. _Neue Reise Beschreibung_, etc., Nürnberg, 1739.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 16; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 604.
4. _Neue Entdeckung_, etc., Bremen, 1742.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCE: Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 708.
* * * * *
SPANISH.—_Relaçion_, etc., Brusselas, 1699.
COPIES: =HC.=, =CB.=, =L.= An abridgment by Sebastian Fernandez de
Medrano.
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 1; Sabin, no. 31,374; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no.
1,573; Lenox in _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 25; Ternaux, no.
1,126.
It has the same map with the 1697 French edition, with an Italian
label, “Carta geografica de un Pais,” etc., pasted over the French
title.
III. NOUVEAU VOYAGE.
It has been customary to bestow upon this volume a similar distrust as
upon the preceding; but Dr. Shea contends that the luckless treatment
of the _Nouvelle Découverte_ by a presumptuous editor was also repeated
with this. It was entitled, _Nouveau Voyage d’un Pais plus grand que
l’Europe_, Utrecht, 1698. The work was made up from Le Clercq, and
included the treatise on the Indians which had been omitted in the
_Nouvelle Découverte_, of which this volume may be considered the
supplement.
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 1; Sabin, no. 31,351; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no.
1,537; Harrisse, no. 177; Beckford, no. 677, bought by Quaritch, who
priced it at £4 4_s._; Leclerc, no. 904, 70 francs; Rich, no. 455;
Ternaux. no. 1,111.
The _Nouveau Voyage_ was also included in an abridged form in the
second (1720) and third (1734) editions of the _Recueil de Voyages au
Nord_, published by Bernard at Amsterdam. Cf. Shea, 2 and 3.
[Illustration]
It was also issued in the following translations:—
* * * * *
DUTCH.—Engraved title, _Reyse door nieuwe Ondekte Landen_. Printed
title, _Aenmerckelycke Historische Reijs Beschryvinge_, Utrecht, 1698.
The map reads, “Carte d’un Nouveau Monde entre Le Nouveau Mexique et la
Mer glaciale. Gasp. Bouttals fecit.”
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 4; Sabin, no. 31,358; Carter-Brown, vol. ii.
no. 1,539, with fac-simile of title; _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii.
p. 347; Harrisse, no. 179; Trömel, no. 425; O’Callaghan, no. 1,075;
Muller, 1877, no. 1,396.
* * * * *
ENGLISH.—In the _Archæologia Americana_, vol. i.
* * * * *
GERMAN, I.—_Neue Reise Beschreibung, übersetzt durch M. J. G. Langen_,
Bremen, 1698.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 5.; Sabin, no. 31,365; Ternaux, no. 1,049, of
doubtful date; Harrisse, no. 165; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,540.
2. _Reisen und seltsehme Begebenheiten_, etc., Bremen, 1742.
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 6; Sabin, no. 31,369.
IV. COMBINATION.
The _Nouvelle Découverte_ and the _Nouveau Voyage_ were combined
in an English translation issued under the following title: _A new
Discovery of a Vast Country in America, extending above four thousand
miles between New France and New Mexico_, etc., London, 1698. It
contains—part i., a translation of the _Nouvelle Découverte_; part
ii., in smaller type and new paging, a version of the _Nouveau Voyage_;
the rest of the volume in the type of part i. and continuing its
paging, being an account of Marquette’s voyages. Another edition of the
same year shows a slight change of title, with alterations in part i.
and part ii. rewritten. Still another issue conforms in title to the
earliest, but in body, with a slight correction, to the second edition.
The engraved title of the first edition is given herewith. This picture
is a re-engraving reversed of the one on the title of the _Nouvelle
Découverte_ of 1697.
COPIES: =BPL.=, =CB.=, =H.C.=
REFERENCES: Shea, nos. 1, 2, 3; Sabin, nos. 31,370, 31,371; Ternaux,
nos. 1,010, 1,119; _Historical Magazine_, vol. i. p. 347; Field,
_Indian Bibliography_, no. 685; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. nos. 1,535,
1,536; Rich, no. 456; Brinley, no. 4,492; Harrisse, no. 181; _Menzies
Catalogue_, no. 915.
In the next year (1699) there was a reprint of the second issue of the
preceding year.
COPY: =BA.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 4; Sabin, no. 31,372; O’Callaghan, no. 1,074;
and _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii p. 74; Menzies, no. 916.
BARON LA HONTAN.
A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTE BY THE EDITOR.