CHICAGO IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
It seems quite probable that Chicago was an important meeting-place
for Indian travelers long before the first white men came to the foot
of Lake Michigan. The portage of the Indian preceded the canoe of the
white man, and the Indian trail was the forerunner of the white man's
road. Who the first white visitor to Chicago was cannot be stated with
certainty. The chief incentive to the exploration of the Northwest was
the prosecution of the fur trade, and it is probable that wandering
coureurs de bois had visited this region in advance of any of the
explorers who have left us records of their travels. Coming to the
domain of recorded history we encounter, on the threshold as it were,
the master dreamer and empire builder, La Salle.
Already interested in the subject of western exploration, in the
summer of 1669 he set out from his estate of Lachine in search of a
river which flowed to the western sea.[43] His course to the western
end of Lake Ontario is known to us, but from this point his movements
for the next two years are involved in mist and obscurity. It is
believed by some that he descended the Ohio to the Mississippi in 1670,
and that the following year he traversed Lake Michigan from north to
south, crossed the Chicago Portage, and descended the Illinois River
till he again reached the Mississippi. But the claim that he reached
the Mississippi during these years is rejected by most historians.
Probably the exact facts as to his movements at this time will never
be known. We are here interested, however, primarily in the question
whether he came to the site of Chicago. Even this cannot be stated with
certainty, but the preponderance of opinion among those best qualified
to judge is that he probably did.[44]
[Footnote 43: For this expedition and the subsequent movements of La
Salle see Winsor, _Cartier to Frontenac_; Parkman, _La Salle and the
Discovery of the Great West_; Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History_,
IV, 201 ff.]
[Footnote 44: Margry was convinced of this and Parkman thought it
entirely probable. Winsor thought that La Salle came to the head of
Lake Michigan, but was in doubt whether he entered the Chicago River or
the St. Joseph. Shea, who constantly belittles La Salle's achievements,
believed he "reached the Illinois or some other affluent of the
Mississippi." See the references given in note 43.]
The pages of history might be scanned in vain for a more fitting
character with which to begin the annals of the great city of today.
La Salle is noted, even as it is noted, for boundless energy, lofty
aspiration, and daring enterprise. He combined the capacity to dream
with the resolution to make his visions real. "He was the real
discoverer of the Great West, for he planned its occupation and began
its settlement; and he alone of the men of his time appreciated its
boundless possibilities, and with prophetic eye saw in the future its
wide area peopled by his own race."[45]
[Footnote 45: Edward G. Mason, "Early Visitors to Chicago," in _New
England Magazine_, New Ser., VI, 189.]
In strong contrast with the masterful La Salle succeeds, in the early
annals of Chicago, the gentle, saintly Marquette. For a number of
years vague and indefinite reports had been carried to Canada of the
existence, to the west of the Great Lakes, of a "great river" flowing
westwardly to the Vermilion Sea, as the Gulf of California was then
known. These reports roused in the French the hope of finding an easy
way to the South Sea, and thence to the golden commerce of the Indies.
Spurred on by the home government Talon, the intendant of Canada, took
up the project of solving the problem of the great western river.[46]
It chanced that for several years Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, had
been stationed on the shore of Lake Superior. Here he heard from his
dusky charges stories of the great river and of the pleasant country to
the westward. In consequence he became imbued with the double ambition
of solving the geographical question of the ultimate direction of the
river's flow, and of seeking in this new region a more fruitful field
of labor.[47] In the summer of 1672 Talon appointed Louis Joliet, a
young Canadian who had already achieved something of a reputation as
an explorer, to carry out the new task, and the projected exploration
of the great river was launched. Joliet proceeded that autumn to
Mackinac--the Michilimackinac of the French period--where he spent the
winter preparing for the enterprise. Hither Marquette had come two
years before, and here he had established the mission of St. Ignace.
Proximity and a common interest in the projected enterprise combined
to draw the two together; so that when the expedition set out from
Mackinac in May, 1673, the party was composed of Joliet, Marquette, and
five companions. Though Joliet was the official head of the expedition,
it has come about, through the circumstance that his records were lost
almost at the end of his toilsome journey, that we are chiefly indebted
to the journal of Marquette for our knowledge of it, and have come
insensibly to ascribe the credit for it to him.
[Footnote 46: Winsor, _Cartier to Frontenac_, 231.]
[Footnote 47: _Ibid._, 199-201.]
From Mackinac the party passed, in two canoes, to the head of Green
Bay, and thence by way of the Fox-Wisconsin River route to the
Mississippi, which was reached a month after the departure from the
mission of St. Ignace.[48] Down its broad current the voyagers paddled
and floated for another month. Arrived at the mouth of the Arkansas,
they were told by the natives that the sea was distant but ten days'
journey, and that the intervening region was inhabited by warlike
tribes, equipped with firearms, and hostile to their entertainers. This
information led the explorers to take counsel concerning their further
course. Deeming it established beyond doubt that the river emptied
into "the Florida or Mexican Gulf," and fearful of losing the fruits
of their discovery by falling into the hands of the Spaniards, they
decided to turn about and begin the homeward journey.
[Footnote 48: Marquette's Journal of the expedition is printed in
_Jesuit Relations_, Vol. LIX. For standard secondary accounts see the
works of Parkman and Winsor.]
On reaching the mouth of the Illinois they learned that they could
shorten their return to Mackinac by passing up that river. A pleasing
picture is drawn by Marquette of the country through which this new
route led them. They had seen nothing comparable to it for fertility
of soil, for prairies, woods, "cattle," and other game. The Indians
received them kindly, and obliged Marquette to promise that he would
return to instruct them. Under the guidance of an Indian escort the
voyagers passed, probably by way of the Chicago Portage and River,[49]
to Lake Michigan, whence they made their way to Green Bay by the end of
September.
[Footnote 49: It was the contention of Albert D. Hagar, a former
secretary of the Chicago Historical Society, that on both this
expedition and that of 1675 Marquette passed from the Des Plaines River
to Lake Michigan by way of the Calumet Portage and River. (Andreas,
_History of Chicago_, I, 46.) The evidence, however, seems to me to
point to the route by way of the Chicago Portage and River. Hagar's
argument is refuted by Hurlbut in _Chicago Antiquities_, 384-88.]
The following year Joliet continued on his way to Quebec to report to
Count Frontenac the results of his expedition. Marquette remained at
Green Bay, worn down by the illness that was shortly to terminate his
career. In the autumn of 1674, the disease having temporarily abated,
he undertook the fulfilment of his promise to the Illinois Indians to
return and establish a mission among them. Late in October he began the
journey,[50] accompanied by two voyageurs, Pierre Porteret and Jacques,
one of whom had been a member of the earlier expedition. The little
party was soon increased by the addition of a number of Indians, and
all together made their way down Green Bay and the western shore of
Lake Michigan, to the mouth of the "river of the portage"--the Chicago.
Over a month had been consumed in the journey, owing to frequent
delays caused by the stormy lake. The river was frozen to the depth of
half a foot and snow was plentiful. Ten days were passed here, when,
Marquette's malady having returned, a camp was made two leagues up the
river, close to the portage, and it was decided to spend the winter
there. Thus began in December, 1674, the first extended sojourn, so
far as we have record, of white men on the site of the future Chicago.
There has been much loose writing concerning the character of their
habitation. Even Parkman states that they constructed a "log hut," and
other writers have made similar assertions. There is no warrant for
this in the original documents, and all the circumstances of the case
combine to render it improbable.[51] Marquette was too sick to travel,
and he had but two companions to assist him. They made two camps, one
at the entrance of the river, and the other, a few days later, at the
portage. It was already the dead of winter, and they could not have
been equipped with heavy tools. It seems entirely probable that in
place of a "log hut" they constructed the customary Indian shelter or
wigwam.[52]
[Footnote 50: For Marquette's Journal of this expedition see _Jesuit
Relations_, Vol. LIX. Parkman and Winsor have written standard
secondary accounts.]
Marquette found that two Frenchmen had preceded him in establishing
themselves in the Illinois country. He designates them as "La Taupine
and the surgeon," and says that they were stationed eighteen leagues
below Chicago, "in a fine place for hunting cattle, deer, and
turkeys."[53] They were supplied with corn and other provisions, and
were engaged in the fur trade. Apparently their location was selected
either because it was "a fine place for hunting," or else because
of its advantages as a trading station, for it is evident from the
narrative that they were in close proximity to the Indians.
[Footnote 51: The French word used by Marquette, _cabannez_, was
commonly employed, whether as a verb or a noun, to designate the
ordinary temporary encampment of travelers and the wigwam of the
Indian. In Marquette's Journal of his first expedition (_Jesuit
Relations_, LIX, 146), the word is used to designate the cover of
sailcloth erected over the voyagers' canoes to protect them from the
mosquitoes and the sun while floating down the Mississippi. Later, on
the second expedition, when Marquette, hastening along the eastern
shore of Lake Michigan toward Mackinac, found himself at the point of
death, his companions hastily landed and constructed a "wretched cabin
of bark" to lay him in (_ibid._, 194). Numerous other instances of the
habitual use of the word to indicate a temporary camp might easily be
cited.]
[Footnote 52: For a further development of this subject see H. H.
Hurlbut's pamphlet, _Father Marquette at Mackinac and Chicago_, 13-14.]
[Footnote 53: _Jesuit Relations_, LIX, 174-76.]
Who were these French pioneers of the upper Illinois Valley? We know
concerning La Taupine--the mole--that he was a noted fur trader whose
real name was Pierre Moreau;[54] that he was an adherent of Count
Frontenac, the governor of New France; and that he was accused by the
intendant with being one of the Governor's agents in the prosecution
of an illicit trade with the Indians. He had been with St. Lusson
at the Sault Ste. Marie in 1671, and doubtless was possessed of
all the information current among the French concerning the region
beyond the Great Lakes. In what year he pushed out into this region
and established the first habitation and business of a white man in
northern Illinois will probably forever remain unknown.
[Footnote 54: _Ibid._, 314; Mason, "Early Visitors to Chicago," cited
in note 45.]
The little that Marquette tells us of the companion of La Taupine
serves only to whet our curiosity. Though these first residents
were lawbreakers, they were not without redeeming qualities. In
anticipation, apparently, of Marquette's arrival at their station they
had made preparations to receive him, and had told the savages "that
their cabin belonged to the black robe."[55] As soon as they learned
of the priest's illness at Chicago the surgeon came, in spite of snow
and bitter cold,[56] a distance of fifty miles to bring him some corn
and blueberries. Marquette sent Jacques back with the surgeon to bear
a message to the Indians who lived in his vicinity, and the traders
loaded him, on his return, with corn and "other delicacies" for the
sick priest. Furthermore, the surgeon was a devout man, for he spent
some time with Marquette in order to perform his devotions. Clearly
here is a character who improves with closer acquaintance. But such
acquaintance is denied us. As a ship passing in the night the surgeon
flashes across Chicago's early horizon; whence he came, whither he
went, even his name will doubtless remain forever a mystery.
[Footnote 55: _Jesuit Relations_, LIX, 176.]
[Footnote 56: The Journal records that the Indians were suffering from
hunger because the cold and snow prevented them from hunting.]
Meanwhile, how fared the winter with the three Frenchmen in their
primitive camp near the portage? The picture of their life as painted
in the pages of Marquette's Journal is not, on the whole, unattractive.
The fraternal spirit manifested for them by the traders has already
been noted. The Indians were equally friendly. When those living in a
village six leagues away learned of Marquette's plight, they were so
solicitous for his welfare, and so fearful that he would suffer from
hunger, that, notwithstanding the cold, Jacques had much difficulty in
preventing the young men from coming to the portage to carry away to
their village all Marquette's belongings.
The Indians' fears, however, proved groundless. Deer and buffalo
abounded, partridges, much like those of France, were killed, and
turkeys swarmed around the camp. The traders sent corn and blueberries,
and the Indians brought corn, dried meat, and pumpkins. The severe
winter produced its effect upon the game, some of the deer that were
killed being so lean as to be worthless. But "the Blessed Virgin
Immaculate," Marquette's celestial queen, took such care of them that
there was no lack of provisions, and when the camp was broken up in the
spring there was still on hand a large sack of corn and a supply of
meat.
An intense spirit of religious devotion animated Marquette throughout
the winter. It was his zeal in the service of his Heavenly Master
that had led him, in his illness, to brave the rigors of a winter
in the wilderness. Despite his bodily affliction, the observance of
religious exercises was maintained. Mass was said every day throughout
the winter, but they were able to observe Lent only on Fridays and
Saturdays. On December 15 the mass of the Conception was celebrated.
Early in February a novena, or nine days' devotion to the Virgin,
was begun, to ask God for the restoration of Marquette's health.
Shortly afterward his condition improved, in consequence, as he
believed, of these devotions. An opportunity to give his religion a
practical application was afforded him in the latter part of January.
A deputation of Illinois Indians came bringing presents, in return for
which they requested, among other things, a supply of powder. Marquette
refused this, saying he had come to instruct them and to restore peace,
and did not wish them to begin a war with their neighbors, the Miamis.
Toward the end of March the ice began to thaw, but on breaking up it
formed a gorge, causing a rapid rise in the river. The camping-place
was suddenly flooded, the occupants having barely time enough to secure
their goods upon the trees. They themselves spent the night on a
hillock, with the water steadily gaining upon them. The following day
the gorge dissolved, the ice drifted away, and the travelers prepared
to resume their journey to the village of the Illinois.
Eleven days were consumed in this journey, during which Marquette
suffered much from illness and exposure.[57] According to Father Dablon
he was received by the Indians "as an angel from Heaven." He preached
to them and established his mission, and then, feeling the hand of
death upon him, began his return journey to the distant mission of St.
Ignace.
[Footnote 57: Marquette's Journal ends abruptly at this point, his
last entry being made on April 6 while the little party was waiting
at the Des Plaines River for the subsidence of the ice and the cold
winds to permit them to descend. For the remainder of the story we are
indebted to the narrative of Father Dablon, Marquette's superior, whose
information was derived from the two companions of Marquette. Dablon's
narrative is printed in _Jesuit Relations_, Vol. LIX.]
And now we come to what may be regarded as the next scene in the
annals of Chicago. A crowd of the Illinois accompanied Marquette, as a
mark of honor, for more than thirty leagues, vying with each other in
taking charge of his slender baggage. Then, "filled with great esteem
for the gospel," they took leave of him, and continuing his journey
he shortly afterward reached Lake Michigan.[58] The route followed
from this point was by way of the eastern side of the lake. But the
missionary's life was to terminate sooner than the voyage. On May 19 he
died, on the lonely shore of the lake, and was buried near the mouth of
a small river in the state of Michigan which was long to bear his name.
[Footnote 58: The route followed by Marquette and his escort from the
Illinois village to Lake Michigan is not certainly known. From the
fact that after reaching the lake Marquette sought to reach Mackinac
by following around its eastern shore, it has been argued that he
ascended the Kankakee to reach Lake Michigan. The evidence seems to me,
however, to favor the route by the Des Plaines and Chicago. Marquette
had gone this way on the return from his first expedition, and had
returned to the Illinois the same way. If he now followed this route,
the thirty leagues which the Indians accompanied him would have brought
them to the vicinity of the portage between the Des Plaines and the
Chicago. In the period when travel was chiefly by water portages were
natural meeting (and parting) places. The one argument in support of
the Kankakee route is the fact that the further route of the party was
along the eastern shore of the lake. But this fact does not obviate the
possibility of a return to the lake by the Des Plaines and Chicago.
Furthermore, by the Kankakee route from the point where the Indians
turned back Marquette would still have to travel upward of one hundred
and fifty miles to reach the lake. Yet the narrative states that he
reached it "shortly after" they left him--a statement which harmonizes
with the supposition that the leave-taking occurred at or near the
Chicago Portage. For these reasons I have chosen to consider this an
event in early Chicago history.]
A successor to Marquette at the mission of the Illinois was found in
the person of Father Claude Allouez, who was then stationed at the
mission of St. Francis Xavier at Green Bay. In October, 1676, with two
companions he set out in a canoe for his new field of work.[59] The
winter closed down early, however, and before they had proceeded far
they were compelled to lie over until February with some Pottawatomie
Indians. Then they proceeded once more, in a way "very extraordinary";
for instead of putting the canoe into the water, they placed it upon
the ice, over which a sail and a favoring wind "made it go as on the
water." When the wind failed they drew it along by means of ropes. New
obstacles to their progress arose, however, so that not until April did
they enter "the river which leads to the Illinois." At its entrance
they were met by a band of eighty Illinois Indians who had come from
their village to welcome Allouez. The ceremony of reception which
ensued may well be set forth in the words of the missionary himself, in
whose honor it was staged.
[Footnote 59: The narrative of Allouez is printed in _Jesuit
Relations_, Vol. LX. The quotations from it which follow are from the
Thwaites translation there given.]
"The captain came about 30 steps to meet me, carrying in one hand a
firebrand and in the other a Calumet adorned with feathers. Approaching
me, he placed it in my mouth and himself lighted the tobacco, which
obliged me to make a pretense of smoking it. Then he made me come into
his Cabin, and having given me the place of honor, he spoke to me as
follows:
'My Father, have pity on me; suffer me to return with thee, to
bear thee company and take thee into my village. The meeting I have
had today with thee will prove fatal to me if I do not use it to my
advantage. Thou bearest to us the gospel and the prayer. If I lose the
opportunity of listening to thee, I shall be punished by the loss of my
nephews, whom thou seest in so great number; without doubt, they will
be defeated by our enemies. Let us embark, then, in company, that I may
profit by thy coming into our land.'"
It is not to be supposed that the exact words of the "Captain" have
been preserved, though it may well be that the general tenor of his
remarks is here set forth. The speech concluded, they set out together,
and "shortly after" arrived at the Chief's abode. We have no clue,
further than this, to the location of the Indian camp. Probably it
was in the vicinity of the portage; for aside from the fact that this
furnished a logical stopping-place Marquette tells us that during his
sojourn here, two years before, Indians were encamped in his vicinity
during a portion of the winter.
After a brief stay among the Indians on the Illinois, where his labors
met with great success, Allouez left them, returning again the next
year. We have no details of these journeys, however, and our next
account of the presence of white men in this region involves us in the
schemes and deeds of the masterful La Salle.
La Salle conceived the ambitious design of leading France and
civilization together into the valley of the Mississippi.[60] But vast
obstacles interposed to hinder him in its execution. Canada must be
his base of operations, and Canada abounded in hostile traders and
priests who jealously sought to checkmate him at every opportunity.
The initiation of his design involved the establishment of a colony
in the Illinois country. In 1678 he sent out in advance a party of
men to engage in trade for him and ultimately to go to the Illinois
country and prepare for his coming. Meanwhile he himself was busied
with further preparations for the execution of his project; a sailing
vessel was constructed close above Niagara Falls, and in August, 1678,
its sails were spread upon Lake Erie for the voyage around the upper
lakes. Arrived at Green Bay, the vessel was loaded with furs and
started on its return, while La Salle and fourteen followers, in four
canoes, continued their way down the western shore of Lake Michigan.
The party laboriously made its way past the site of the modern cities
of Milwaukee and Chicago and around the southern end of the lake to the
mouth of the St. Joseph River. This had been agreed upon as the place
of rendezvous with Tonty, La Salle's faithful lieutenant, who with
twenty men was toiling, meanwhile, down the eastern side of the lake
from Mackinac. Tonty had been delayed, and La Salle employed the period
of waiting for him in building Fort Miami on an eminence near the mouth
of the river. This became, therefore, the oldest fort in this region,
and constituted an important base of operations for the prosecution of
his designs.
[Footnote 60: For the original documents pertaining to La Salle's work
see Margry's collection. For standard secondary accounts see the works
of Parkman and Winsor. I have drawn freely upon these in preparing this
portion of my own narrative.]
At last Tonty arrived, bringing news which rendered probable the loss
of La Salle's sailing vessel, the "Griffin," with her cargo of furs.
Early in December the combined party ascended the St. Joseph River to
the portage leading to the Kankakee, near the site of the modern city
of South Bend. Down the latter river they passed and into the Illinois,
until they came to the great Indian village, in the vicinity of Starved
Rock, where Marquette and Allouez had labored as missionaries during
the past five years. The place was deserted, however, the inhabitants
having departed for their annual winter hunt. The journey was resumed,
therefore, as far as Lake Peoria, near which place a village of the
Illinois was found.
A parley was held with the Indians, in the course of which La Salle
unfolded his design of building a fort in their midst, and a "great
wooden Canoe" on the Mississippi, which would go down to the sea,
and return thence with the goods they so much desired. La Salle was
successful in overcoming alike the suspicions of the natives, the
intrigues of his enemies, and the disloyalty of his own men. A site
suitable for a fort was selected, and here in the dead of winter was
constructed the first civilized habitation of a permanent character in
the modern state of Illinois; the Indians gave to the fort the name of
Checagou, but by La Salle it was christened Fort Crevecoeur.
La Salle had thus established himself in the heart of the Mississippi
Valley, and had initiated the work of carving out what was to become
the imperial domain of French Louisiana. But the major portion of that
work lay yet before him, and difficulties were to succeed one another
in its prosecution until the leader's death at the hands of a hidden
assassin was to terminate his life in seeming failure. It is not our
purpose here to attempt a history of La Salle's career; rather our
aim is to sketch such of its salient features as may be pertinent to
the unfolding of the story of the genesis of Chicago. The loss of the
"Griffin" imposed upon La Salle the necessity of returning to Fort
Frontenac for supplies. Having urged forward the construction of his
fort and arranged for the departure of Hennepin and his associates on
what eventuated in their famous exploration of the upper waters of the
Mississippi, La Salle left Tonty in command at Fort Crevecoeur, and
himself, in March, 1680, set forth on his long and terrible journey.
In its course he again paused near Starved Rock, noted the ease with
which it might be defended, and passing on to Fort Miami, dispatched
orders to Tonty to occupy and fortify it. He then crossed on foot the
trackless waste of southern Michigan in the season of spring floods,
and came at last to his destination. He spent some months in setting
his affairs in order, and in August, 1680, set out on the return to
Illinois, passing by way of Mackinac and thence down the eastern side
of Lake Michigan to Fort Miami.
Meanwhile, what of Tonty and affairs at Fort Crevecoeur? Faithful
to his orders, Tonty, on receipt of the dispatch which La Salle had
sent forward from Fort Miami, set forth to occupy Starved Rock. In
his absence the men left at Fort Crevecoeur, spurred on by the tales
of financial disaster to La Salle related by the new arrivals, rose
in mutiny. They destroyed the fort, stole its provisions, and writing
on the side of the unfinished vessel the legend _Nous sommes tons
sauvages_--"We are all savages"--departed. Upon the heels of this
disaster succeeded a still greater menace to La Salle's designs. It
was essential to their success that the Illinois Indians should retain
peaceable possession of their territory. But now came against them
a war party of the terrible Iroquois. They assailed and destroyed
the village at the Rock and pursued the fleeing Illinois until the
scattered survivors found refuge across the Mississippi.
The indomitable Tonty, almost alone in this sea of savagery, had done
what he could to save the Illinois from destruction. His efforts proved
vain, and with his few followers he fled from impending destruction.
Their goal was distant Mackinac, and their route was up the Illinois
and the Des Plaines to Lake Michigan and thence northward along its
western shore. Doubtless the forlorn little party passed by Chicago,
though we have no direct details as to this portion of their journey.
Hardships and dangers in abundance were endured before the survivors
found refuge with a band of friendly Pottawatomies at some point to the
southward of Green Bay.
Shortly after the destruction of the Illinois La Salle, in ignorance
of what had happened, came from Fort Miami to the relief of Tonty. In
the ghastly remains of the village at Starved Rock he read the story of
this new disaster to his plans. Failing to find the bodies of Tonty and
his companions among them, he followed in the track of the pursued and
pursuing savages until he reached the Mississippi. Concluding at last
that Tonty had not come this way he retraced his steps to the junction
of the Kankakee with the Des Plaines, and turning up the latter stream
soon found traces of Tonty's party. It was now the dead of winter.
Convinced of Tonty's escape, La Salle abandoned the canoes, which he
had dragged with him on sledges thus far and made his way overland
through extreme cold and deep snow to Fort Miami, where he arrived at
the end of January.
The design was now conceived by La Salle of welding the western
tribes into a confederation, which, under the guidance of himself and
his French followers, should oppose the marauding incursions of the
Iroquois into the West. The year 1681 was devoted to the furthering of
this project and to the gathering of La Salle's scattered resources for
a renewal of his attempt at establishing himself in the Mississippi
Valley. Late in the year he was again at Fort Miami with a considerable
party of French and Indians, ready for the exploit which has given him
his greatest fame--the descent of the Mississippi to its mouth.
From Fort Miami the route followed led around the foot of Lake Michigan
to Chicago; thence across the portage and down the Des Plaines, the
Illinois, and the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. The expedition
set forth in two divisions, Tonty with the first crossing over to
the Chicago River in the closing days of December, 1681, where he
prepared sledges for transporting the canoes and equipment on the
ice, and awaited the arrival of his chief. La Salle with the second
division arrived early in January, and after a detention of a few days,
occasioned by unfavorable weather, the united party set out, dragging
their sledges on the surface of the frozen rivers until open water was
reached below Lake Peoria. There they embarked, and three months later,
on April 9, 1682, at the mouth of the Great River he had descended La
Salle took formal possession, under the name of Louisiana, of all the
vast country drained by it and by its tributaries, stretching "from the
Alleghenies to the Rocky Mountains; from the Rio Grande and the Gulf to
the farthest springs of the Missouri."[60]
[Footnote 60: Parkman, _La Salle_, chap. xxi.]
La Salle's discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi caused him to
broaden his projects. He would establish a colony at the mouth of the
Great River to serve as an outlet for his colony on the Illinois where
he hoped to gather the furs on which he relied to render his whole vast
enterprise commercially successful. The prosecution of his designs,
therefore, depended ultimately on his ability to make the Illinois
colony profitable. On his return to Mackinac from the descent of the
Mississippi, in the autumn of 1682, he learned that the Iroquois were
about to renew their attacks upon the West. The best efforts of himself
and Tonty were now directed, therefore, to the fortification of Starved
Rock, which he planned to serve as the center of his colony and its
rock of defense against the invader.
Here, on a cliff which rises sheer from the water's edge to a height
of one hundred and twenty-five feet, with its crest about an acre in
extent, and accessible only by a narrow pathway in the rear, during
the winter of 1682 and 1683 the fort was constructed. At the same time
the work of alliance with the Indians went vigorously forward until
from the lofty ramparts of St. Louis, the name given by La Salle to his
fortress, the leader could look down upon the lodges of four thousand
warriors, gathered from half a score of tribes, and a total population
of upward of twenty thousand souls. The stability of the colony thus
gathered depended on La Salle's ability to protect his allies against
the Iroquois, and to furnish them with goods and a market for their
furs.
La Salle's career shows that over natural obstacles and the wiles
of the red man he could rise triumphant, but that he was no match
for the intriguing enemies of his own race. By these his plans were
shipwrecked once more, and for the last time, so far as his Illinois
career was concerned. Count Frontenac, his staunch supporter hitherto,
was recalled, and the new governor, De la Barre, pursued a policy of
unscrupulous hostility toward him. His ammunition and supplies to
sustain himself against the Iroquois were detained, lying reports about
him were sent to the home government, and finally a force was sent to
supersede him in command of Fort St. Louis.
La Salle's only remedy against such an enemy was to appeal in person
to his monarch. Leaving Tonty in command of the colony he went, by way
of Canada, to France, whence he embarked upon the enterprise which was
to end so disastrously in the wilds of Texas. Under the guidance of
others Louisiana became, in the following century, the fairest province
of New France. Wrested from French control by the Anglo-Saxon, it has
come in time to constitute the heart and center of our magnificent
national domain. The geographical monuments to the memory of La Salle
are few; a county in Texas, a city and a county in Illinois are all,
aside from a few insignificant post towns, that bear his name. Yet
in the eyes of history he will always be regarded as the father of
Louisiana, a province as favored by Nature, as imperial in character,
as any the sun ever shone upon.
Since 1678 La Salle's chief lieutenant in the prosecution of his
enterprises had been the capable and valorous Tonty.[62] La Salle's
mission to the French Court in 1684 had resulted in the restoration
of Tonty to command at Fort St. Louis. On the death of La Salle he
sought to step into his former leader's place, and to complete the
establishment of the French power in the Mississippi Valley. For
a dozen years longer he held his lofty post of St. Louis, seeking
meanwhile to interest the French Court in the uncompleted design of
his former chief. But other and more powerful interests held the ear
of the distant monarch, and his efforts were in vain. Finally, in 1700
an expedition was sent out under the command of Iberville to take
possession of the mouth of the Mississippi. A settlement was made at
Biloxi Bay, and hither Tonty came, abandoning his fort at the Rock, and
joining his efforts in support of the more powerful enterprise. After
four years more of service in the cause in which he had first enlisted
under La Salle's banner, he died at Biloxi of yellow fever. There in
September, 1704, "was dug the grave of the most unselfish and loyal, as
he was one of the most courageous and intrepid, of the many knightly
men who blazed the path whence entered civilization into what later
became known as the old Northwest."[63]
[Footnote 62: The story of Tonty is told by Parkman in connection with
his account of La Salle. "Henry de Tonty," a sketch and appreciation
of Tonty's career by Henry E. Legler, is printed in _Parkman Club
Publications_, No. 3. For an English translation of Tonty's own modest
narrative of his career to 1693 see French, _Historical Collections of
Louisiana_, I, 52 ff.]
[Footnote 63: Legler, _op. cit._, 37.]
[Illustration: STARVED ROCK, THE SITE OF FORT ST. LOUIS
(By courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society)]
During Tonty's occupancy of Fort St. Louis in the period following the
death of La Salle a number of travelers passed between Lake Michigan
and the Mississippi by the Chicago-Illinois route the records of whose
experiences are still preserved. One of the most interesting of these
narratives is that of Joutel, the companion of Cavelier.[64] Their
party comprised the sole survivors of La Salle's ill-fated Texan
expedition who returned to France and civilization. They came, a
band of five forlorn fugitives, up the Mississippi and the Illinois,
arriving at Fort St. Louis in September, 1687. Carefully concealing
the fact of La Salle's death, they obtained means to continue their
journey, and soon set out for Lake Michigan accompanied by a dozen
savages who carried their goods and baggage, because of the lack of
water in the Des Plaines. On the twenty-fifth they arrived at Chicago
and there found a canoe left by some Frenchmen who had recently passed
down to Fort St. Louis. Their lack of experience as canoemen, together
with contrary winds and bad weather, caused a delay of eight days at
this place. Meanwhile the season was advancing and their scanty supply
of provisions was being consumed. The state of mind to which they were
reduced is naively shown by the record of Joutel that one of the party,
having shot at some chickens and cracked his gun, "was so provoked that
it gave him a fever."
[Footnote 64: For the story of Cavelier's party see Joutel's Journal
printed in Margry, III, 89-535. An abridged and distorted English
translation of the Journal was published in 1714, and this was
reprinted at Albany in 1906 under the editorial direction of Henry Reed
Stiles.]
Finally they embarked on the lake and advanced some eight or ten
leagues along the shore to the northward, striving to come to the
villages of the Pottawatomies, where they hoped to procure a fresh
supply of food. The effort was a pitiful failure. Starvation lay
before them; the loss of a year of time with the consequently lessened
prospect of affording succor in season to the survivors of La Salle's
colony in Texas, and the danger of the discovery of their guilty secret
concerning their leader's fate, awaited their return to Fort St. Louis.
They decided, however, to turn back. It was a dejected party we may
well believe, which came early in October to the entrance of the
Chicago River. Here they made a cache in which they concealed their
goods, put their canoe upon a scaffold, and retraced their steps to
Fort St. Louis. In this place they passed the winter, and from them we
get our fullest description of the fort, and of the manner of life that
prevailed there. Some three weeks after their arrival at the fort Tonty
returned from his participation in Denonville's famous campaign against
the Iroquois. From Fort St. Louis he had led sixteen Frenchmen and two
hundred Indians to share in this distant enterprise. With a baseness
which is difficult to excuse the fugitives deceived him concerning the
death of La Salle, and after accepting his hospitality through the
winter secured from him, on the assumption that La Salle was still
alive, a considerable quantity of furs and other supplies.
Taking advantage of the spring floods they set out once more for
Chicago, March 21, 1688. They arrived on March 29, after a toilsome
journey. Because of the swiftness of the river they were compelled to
wade in the water, pulling their canoes, much of the way. Joutel avers
that he suffered more on this short trip than he had done before since
his departure from the Gulf of Mexico. Again bad weather compelled them
to delay at Chicago, this time for ten days. There was little game and
they had only corn meal to eat. But Providence furnished them "a kind
of manna" to eat with their meal, which appears from the description to
have consisted of maple sap. They also procured in the woods garlic and
other edible plants, and Joutel records that Chicago takes its name,
as they were informed, from the profusion of garlic growing in the
surrounding woods.[65]
[Footnote 65: Margry, III, 485.]
The members of Joutel's party passed on to Canada, and here we may
leave them to pursue their way, burdened with their terrible secret,
as best they may. Our interest meanwhile shifts to the story of Father
Pinet and his mission of the Guardian Angel. We have seen that commerce
and the Cross entered the upper Mississippi Valley together in 1673, in
the persons of Joliet and Marquette. During the succeeding years the
efforts of the servants of the Cross to gain control of this region
were scarcely less zealous than were those of the devotees of trade.
The missionary accompanied, sometimes even preceded, the explorer in
his journeys, seeking everywhere to introduce the doctrine of the true
faith and win the natives to the Church. The representatives of the
Jesuit order were the most active agents of the Church in this work of
proselyting. Under its auspices Marquette had established the Illinois
Mission. Its vicissitudes of fortune were as various as those of La
Salle himself, but, on the whole, it was as successful as any in all
the annals of Catholic missions to the red man.[66]
[Footnote 66: For the history of the Illinois Mission see Shea,
_Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States_,
chaps, xxii, xxiii.]
We are more particularly concerned with that portion of the work
of the Jesuits among the Illinois which pertains to the mission of
the Guardian Angel at Chicago.[67] This was established in 1696 by
Father Pierre Pinet, who had been stationed at Mackinac for a couple
of years. According to the Jesuit records, however, Pinet was soon
driven from Chicago and his mission broken up by no less a person than
Count Frontenac, governor of New France.[68] An appeal to Bishop Laval
resulted in a cessation of Frontenac's opposition, which, in the eyes
of Pinet's associates, amounted to persecution. The mission of the
Guardian Angel was accordingly resumed in 1698, but two years later it
was permanently abandoned.
[Footnote 67: For a brief biographical sketch of Pinet see _Jesuit
Relations_, LXIV, 278. Various references to Pinet scattered throughout
the _Jesuit Relations_ have been collected by Frank R. Grover in his
lecture on Pinet and his mission of the Guardian Angel of Chicago,
published by the Chicago Historical Society in 1907.]
[Footnote 68: Letter of Gravier to Laval, September 17, 1697, _Jesuit
Relations_, LXV, 52.]
Pinet was a man of deeds rather than words, and has himself left no
account of his mission. The statements of his associates show that
he was successful in his work here; the adult Indians, "hardened in
debauchery," paid little heed to his teachings, but the young were
baptized, and even the medicine men, who were the most inveterate
opponents of Christianity, manifested a desire to have their children
instructed.[69] It was Pinet's practice to spend only the summer season
at Chicago. The winters he spent with the missionaries lower down on
the Illinois, or in following his charges on their annual hunt.[70]
[Footnote 69: _Ibid._, 70; Shea, _Early Voyages Up and Down the
Mississippi_, 53-54.]
[Footnote 70: _Jesuit Relations_, LXV, 70; Shea, _op. cit._, 53, 59.]
The site of the mission of the Guardian Angel has long been a subject
of misapprehension. Aside from the general allusions to the mission
as being at Chicago, the document of chief importance in determining
its location is the letter of St. Cosme of January 2, 1699.[71] He had
passed during the preceding autumn and early winter, in company with a
party of associates, from Mackinac to the Mississippi by way of Green
Bay, the Chicago Portage, and the Illinois River route, and the letter
is, in fact, a report concerning this trip. The party spent some time
at Pinet's mission, detained by storms and other obstacles. From a
study of this letter, as printed by Shea, Grover concludes that the
mission was situated above the modern Chicago on the North Shore, near
the present village of Gross Point.[72]
[Footnote 71: Printed in Shea, _op. cit._, 45 ff.]
[Footnote 72: Grover, _Pinet_, 167 ff.]
Shea's translation of St. Cosme's letter, however, frequently departs
from the original manuscript.[73] Because of this fact, reference
to the latter deprives Grover's argument of whatever force it might
otherwise possess.[74] It shows that St. Cosme's party left the site
of the modern city of Racine on October 17, and having been detained
by wind, cabined three days later "five leagues from Chikagwa." This
they should have reached early on the twenty-first, but a wind suddenly
springing up from the lake obliged them to land "half a league from
Etpikagwa." Here the priests left their baggage with the canoemen, and
went "by land" to the house of Father Pinet, which they say was built
on the bank of the little river, having on one side the lake and on
the other a fine large prairie. On the twenty-fourth, the wind having
fallen, they had their canoes brought with all their baggage, and, the
waters being extremely low, placed everything not absolutely necessary
for their further journey in a cache, to be sent for the following
spring. Finally on the twenty-ninth they started from Chicago and
encamped for the night at the portage, two leagues up the river.
[Footnote 73: This is preserved in the archives of Laval University at
Quebec. I have used an attested copy made "with the greatest possible
fidelity" by Father Gosselin, archivist of Laval University, in the
Chicago Historical Society library.]
[Footnote 74: Aside from the inaccuracy of Shea's translation of St.
Cosme's letter, on which Grover bases his argument, he has made it the
basis of a number of unwarranted and erroneous conclusions.]
It is clear from this account that "Etpikagwa" was a point on the lake
not more than fifteen miles north of Chicago; that here the party
landed early on October 21, and the priests, leaving the boatmen
behind, went by land to Pinet's house. Grover says that this shows the
mission was not on the lake shore, and that they went inland to reach
it; and he further assumes that they proceeded but a short distance. In
fact, it shows neither of these things, and since three days elapsed
before the canoes were sent for, there is nothing in the account
inconsistent with the supposition that the priests proceeded a distance
of fifteen miles down the lake shore in coming to the mission.
On the contrary, the account directly supports this supposition. If
the mission was inland near the Skokie marsh, as Grover supposes, they
could hardly have had the canoes brought to it on the twenty-fourth.
The supposition that it was located at the modern Chicago is
strengthened by St. Cosme's account of the departure from Chicago.
Having sent for the canoes on the twenty-fourth, the party started from
Chicago on the twenty-ninth and camped for the night two leagues up
the river at the beginning of the portage. They had been staying with
Father Pinet, and Father Pinet was at "Chikagwa." Now they depart from
"Chikagwa," and two leagues away, "where the little river loses itself
in the prairies," and at the commencement of the portage they camp.
Pinet's mission was, then, apparently, near the mouth of the Chicago
River. Reverting to the description already given of it as "on the bank
of the little river, having on one side the lake, and on the other a
fine large prairie," we find nothing to conflict with this conclusion.
Finally, St. Cosme records that having made half of the portage
they were delayed by the discovery that a little boy, who had joined
the party, had wandered off. St. Cosme with four of the men turned
back next day to look for him. Their quest was unsuccessful, and the
next day being All Saints', St. Cosme was obliged to go and pass the
night at Chicago. Mass having been said early, the following day was
devoted to the search. Evidently the Chicago here referred to was not,
as Grover supposes, located on the North Shore fifteen miles above
the mouth of the river. On the contrary, it must have been within a
reasonable distance of the portage where the boy was lost. From every
point of view the study of St. Cosme's letter leads to the conclusion
that the mission of the Guardian Angel was on the Chicago River at some
point between the forks and the mouth.
The members of St. Cosme's party proceeded on their way, having left a
man at Chicago in charge of some of their supplies, and without having
found the lost boy. After spending the winter among the tribes along
the lower Mississippi, the party retraced its steps northward.[75] St.
Cosme remained among the Tamaroas at Cahokia, while his companions
continued on their way to Chicago, where they arrived on "maundy
Thursday." One of them records that the boy who had been lost made
his way to Chicago after thirteen days, utterly exhausted and "out of
his head." In the spring of 1700 Father Pinet abandoned his mission
at Chicago and joined St. Cosme at Cahokia, where he died a few years
later.[76] Therewith Chicago ceased to be a place of residence for
white men for almost a century. Owing to causes which will be set forth
in the following chapter, the frequent visits made by the French in the
seventeenth century ceased, and the story of Chicago during the first
half of the eighteenth century concerns itself almost wholly with the
terrible Indian wars which desolated the Northwest during this period.
[Footnote 75: On the travels and experiences of the missionaries see
their letters in Shea, Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi.]
[Footnote 76: Citations from the _Jesuit Relations_ in Grover, _Pinet_,
162-64. The date of Pinet's death is variously given as 1702 and 1704.]
Much has been said and written on the subject of a fort at Chicago
in the French period. In the Treaty of Greenville of 1795 one of the
cessions which General Wayne extorted from the tribes was a tract of
land six miles square at the mouth of the Chicago River "where a fort
formerly stood."[77] Since the English never had a fort at Chicago, the
allusion is obviously to one belonging to the French. Thomas Hutchins,
the first and only civil "geographer of the United States,"[78] who
himself had traveled extensively in the Northwest, placed an "Indian
Village and Fort" at the entrance of the Chicago River on the map
which accompanied his famous _Topographical Description_ of 1778.
Many earlier maps might be cited to show the existence of a fort at
Chicago in the French period.[79] Coming to secondary accounts, most
of the local histories which treat of early Chicago with any degree of
fullness credit the French fort tradition.[80] Mr. Edward G. Mason, a
zealous worker in the field of Illinois history, even thought there was
a fort at Chicago from 1685 until the end of French control in this
region.[81]
[Footnote 77: _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, I, 562.]
[Footnote 78: Hutchins, _Topographical Description of Virginia,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina_, 7.]
[Footnote 79: _E.g._, Hennepin, _Nouvelle découverte d'un tres grand
pays situé dans l'Amérique, Utrecht, 1697_, I, (facing) I. This map
was frequently copied by others in the years following its first
appearance. Jean Baptiste Homann's map of North and South America (copy
in Chicago Historical Society library), of unknown date, but probably
about the year 1700; Bellin, _Carte de l'Amérique septentrionale_,
1755; Jean Roque's map of North America, 1754-61.]
[Footnote 80: See among others Mason, _Chapters from Illinois
History_, 163-64; Hurlbut, _Chicago Antiquities_, 164, 171, 360-61,
592; Blanchard, _Discovery and Conquests of the Northwest with the
History of Chicago_, I, 68 (this work will be cited henceforth as _The
Northwest and Chicago_); Davidson and Stuvé, _History of Illinois_,
260. Many other works and historical articles speak more or less
briefly of the supposed French fort at Chicago; see for example
Andreas, _History of Chicago_, I, 79; Shea, "Chicago from 1673 to
1825," in _Historical Magazine_, V, 103.]
[Footnote 81: Mason, "Early Visitors to Chicago," 201-2.]
Despite these numerous assertions, however, it is extremely doubtful
whether the French ever had a regular fort at Chicago, and it can
be shown conclusively that if so it existed for but a short period
only. La Salle and Tonty passed by Chicago at various times and their
movements are known during the entire period of La Salle's activities
in Illinois. But for two exceptions, to be noted shortly, they nowhere
speak of a fort at Chicago at this time, and the evidence that there
was none, though negative, may be regarded as conclusive. There was no
establishment at Chicago in 1687 when Cavalier La Salle's party was
here vainly seeking to push on to Mackinac; nor in 1688 when the same
party, having wintered at Fort St. Louis, again tarried at Chicago
while on its way to Canada. There is no evidence that such a fort was
established in the succeeding decade; and there is negative evidence
to the contrary, both in the fact that St. Cosme makes no mention of a
fort at Chicago at the time of his visit and that the French government
gave only a grudging permission to Tonty to continue at Fort St. Louis,
limiting his yearly operations to two canoes of merchandise, and
finally, by royal decree, directing the abandonment of the fort.[82]
We have thus arrived at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Did the French have a fort at Chicago between the years 1700 and
1763? James Logan's report to Governor Keith in 1718, upon the French
establishment in the interior, which was used by Keith in his memorial
to the Board of Trade, so asserts. By the latter the statements
of Logan were incorporated in a report to the king,[83] and this,
apparently, was the source of Popple's representation of a "Fort
Miamis" at Chicago on his great _Map of the British Empire in America_
of 1732.[84] In spite of this contemporary evidence, which has gained
the approval of many historians, it may confidently be asserted that
no such fort existed at Chicago in the eighteenth century. That there
was no fort here in 1715 is shown by two independent sources. In
November of this year, Claude de Ramezay, acting governor, and Begon,
intendant of New France, in a report to the French minister dealing
in part with the military situation in the region between the upper
lakes and the Mississippi, recommended the establishment of several
new posts.[85] Among the number a post at "Chicagou" was urged, "to
facilitate access to the Illinois and the miamis, and to keep those
nations in our interests." If a fort already existed at Chicago the
two highest officials in New France would have been aware of the fact,
and there would have been no reason for this recommendation. In this
same year, 1715, as part of an elaborately planned campaign against
the Fox Indians of Wisconsin, the French arranged for the rendezvous
at Chicago of forces from Detroit, from the Wabash, and from the lower
Illinois River settlements.[86] A series of mishaps caused a complete
miscarriage of plans for the campaign; but these very mishaps show
there was at all events no garrison at Chicago. The three parties
which were to effect a junction here arrived at different times, and,
ignorant of the movements of the others, each in turn abandoned the
expedition and retired. Obviously if there had been a garrison at
Chicago it would have constituted an important factor in planning the
campaign; and the various bands which were to effect a junction here
would have been informed, on their arrival, of the movements of the
others.
[Footnote 82: Legler, "Henry de Tonty"; Winsor, _Cartier to Frontenac_,
340.]
[Footnote 83: Printed in O'Callaghan, _New York Colonial Documents_, V,
620-21.]
[Footnote 84: Popple states that his map was undertaken with the
approbation of the Lords of Trade; and that it is based upon maps,
charts, and especially the records transmitted to them by the governors
of the British colonies and others.]
[Footnote 85: _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XVI, 327 ff.]
[Footnote 86: _Ibid._, 313 ff.]
That there was no French establishment at Chicago in 1721 is evident
from the journal of Father Charlevoix. In this year he was touring the
interior of America on a royal commission to examine and report to his
king the condition of New France. His letters and history constitute
the most authoritative eighteenth century source for the history of
New France. In the very month of September, 1721, when the British
Board of Trade report was made, Charlevoix passed from Fort St. Joseph,
where the city of Niles, Michigan, now stands, down the Kankakee and
the Illinois to Peoria, and beyond.[87] He had first intended to pass
through Chicago, but a storm on the lake, together with information
of the impossibility of navigating the Des Plaines in a canoe at this
season, led him to follow the route by the St. Joseph Portage and the
Kankakee. His journal is detailed and explicit; he carefully describes
the various posts and routes of communication. He had planned to
pass by Chicago, and had informed himself concerning the portage and
the Des Plaines River. Yet he gives no hint of a fort here, a thing
incomprehensible if such a fort had in fact existed.
[Footnote 87: Charlevoix, _Histoire et description générale de la
Nouvelle France, avec le journal historique d'un voyage fait par ordre
du roi dans l'Amérique septentrionale_, letters of September 14 and 17,
1721.]
There is abundant evidence in the sources pertaining to the operations
of the French in the Northwest that they had no fort at Chicago after
1721. In connection with the Fox wars numerous campaigns were waged
in which the Chicago garrison, if there had been such, would have
participated. Yet no such force is ever mentioned, and some of the
sources make it positively evident that there was neither garrison nor
fort here. In 1727 the holding of a great conference with the Foxes
the following year at Starved Rock or Chicago was proposed.[88] If
this were done it was deemed necessary for the French to be first on
the spot appointed for the rendezvous "to erect a fort" and otherwise
prepare for the council. The project never materialized, however,
and so the fort was not built. In 1730, when the French succeeded in
trapping and destroying a large band of the Foxes in the vicinity of
Starved Rock,[89] parties came to the scene of conflict from many
directions--from Ouiatanon, St. Joseph, Fort Chartres, and elsewhere;
but none came from Chicago, although it was nearer the scene than
any of the places from which the French forces did come--obviously
because there was no garrison at Chicago. In the early winter of
1731-32 a Huron-Iroquois war party passed from Detroit to St. Joseph
and thence around the southern end of Lake Michigan and on into
Wisconsin to attack the Foxes.[90] The party paused at Chicago long
enough to build a fort in which to leave their sick. This "fort" was
evidently a temporary Indian shelter, but it is also evident that if
an ungarrisoned French fort had been standing here, the construction
of such a shelter would have been unnecessary. An official list of
the commanders of the various western posts a dozen years later is
preserved in the French colonial archives.[91] The posts at Detroit,
Mackinac, Green Bay, St. Joseph, Ouiatanon, and elsewhere are
mentioned, but the name of Chicago is not included in the list. Finally
an exhaustive memoir upon the posts and trade of the interior of the
continent by Bougainville in 1757 includes no mention of a post at
Chicago, although the neighboring posts which are known to have existed
at this time receive careful attention.[92]
[Footnote 88: _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XVII, 3-6.]
[Footnote 89: _Ibid._, 109-20.]
[Footnote 90: _Ibid._, 148-50.]
[Footnote 91: _Ibid._, 432-33.]
[Footnote 92: _Ibid._, XVIII, 167 ff.]
It is evident, then, that the French had no fort at Chicago during
the eighteenth century. Did they have one here at any time during the
seventeenth? Two exceptions to the proposition that La Salle and Tonty
make no mention of such a fort have been noted. In a letter written
from the Chicago Portage, June 4, 1683, La Salle[93] speaks of a "fort"
here, built by two of his men the preceding winter. This structure
Mason describes as a "little stockade with a log house within its
enclosure,"[94] and declares it to have been the first known structure
of anything like a permanent character at Chicago. But a log hut
constructed by two men and never garrisoned by any regular force hardly
merits the designation of a fort in the ordinary acceptation of this
term, even though it was surrounded by a stockade. Those who speak of a
French fort at Chicago in this period refer not to this structure but
to the "Fort of Chicagou" commanded by M. de la Durantaye in the winter
of 1685-86.
[Footnote 93: Margry, II, 317.]
[Footnote 94: Mason, _Chapters from Illinois History_, 144.]
Our information concerning this fort is very scanty, being confined
to a simple mention of it with the name of its commander, in Tonty's
memoir of 1693.[95] At the end of October, 1685, Tonty started from
Mackinac in a canoe on Lake Michigan to go to Fort St. Louis on the
Illinois River. Because of the lateness of the season his progress was
rendered impossible by the formation of ice in the lake. This compelled
him to return to Mackinac, whence he again set forth, this time by
land, for Fort St. Louis. An earlier account of this trip than that
of 1693, but of equal brevity, was written by Tonty in the summer of
1686.[96] It does not even mention Durantaye's "Fort of Chicagou," but
it adds certain details concerning Tonty's trip which are of importance
in determining the location of that establishment.
[Footnote 95: French, _Historical Collections of Louisiana_, I, 67.]
[Footnote 96: Letter of Tonty to M. Cabart de Villermont, August 24,
1686, in Margry, III, 560.]
Tonty was, of course, familiar by 1686 with both sides of Lake
Michigan. In view of this fact it is extremely improbable that, having
to go by land from Mackinac to Fort St. Louis in the winter time, he
would make the long détour around the head of Lake Michigan and Green
Bay and down the western side of the lake, rather than follow the
shorter route down the eastern side and around its southern end. This
reasoning finds support in the statements of Tonty of the distances he
traversed. The entire distance from Mackinac to Fort St. Louis he gives
as two hundred leagues, and states that after traveling one hundred and
twenty leagues he came to Durantaye's fort. It was, therefore, eighty
leagues from Fort St. Louis. The usual estimate of French travelers of
this time of the distance between Chicago and Fort St. Louis was thirty
leagues;[97] while the distance overland from St. Joseph to Fort St.
Louis was approximately eighty leagues. It is incredible that Tonty
would estimate the distance from Mackinac to Chicago by land at one
hundred and twenty leagues, and that from Chicago to Fort St. Louis at
eighty leagues, a distance two-thirds as great. The supposition that
Durantaye's fort was on the St. Joseph River rather than the modern
Chicago harmonizes well both with the probabilities of the case and the
distances given us by Tonty.
[Footnote 97: See for example St. Cosme's statement in Shea, _Early
Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi_, 59.]
The foregoing reasoning is not, of course, absolutely conclusive of
the location of Durantaye's "Fort of Chicagou," It is strengthened,
however, by one other consideration. If such a fort was in fact here
in January, 1686, what had happened to it in the interval between this
time and Cavalier La Salle's visit in the autumn of 1687? Joutel's
narrative of the adventures of his party is given with a wealth of
detail. Both in the autumn of 1687 and again in the spring of 1688
the traveler stayed at Chicago for several days. Not only does the
narrative show that there was no garrison or fort here, but it contains
no mention of such an establishment at any previous time.
The French had no fort at Chicago in the eighteenth century, then, and
if they had one in the seventeenth century it could only have been a
temporary, structure which quickly disappeared. It remains to suggest
an explanation of the origin of the widespread belief that there was
a French fort at Chicago. It seems evident that it was due largely to
the cartographers, who, residing for the most part in Europe, found
themselves at a loss to interpret correctly the narratives of the
explorers, which were themselves oftentimes confused and inaccurate,
or lacking in detail. That the cartographers often labored in the
dark, and that their work was frequently erroneous, will be apparent
from a comparison of their maps with those of an authoritative modern
atlas. The representations of the map-makers can no more be relied upon
implicitly than can the narratives of the time; and there is as much
reason in the one case as in the other for subjecting them to critical
scrutiny.
In the present instance the erroneous belief in the existence of a
French fort at Chicago in the eighteenth century probably originated
with Father Hennepin, the garrulous companion of La Salle. He had been
at La Salle's Fort Miami on the St. Joseph, and had passed thence with
his leader down the Kankakee and the Illinois. Yet his _New Discovery_,
first published in 1697, contains a map[98] showing "Fort des Miamis"
at the mouth of a stream emptying into the southwestern corner of Lake
Michigan. It is obvious from a comparison of this map with the one in
Hennepin's earlier work, the _Description of Louisiana_, published
in 1683,[99] that this representation is intended for the St. Joseph
River and La Salle's Fort Miami, which, by a stupid blunder, have been
transferred from the southeastern to the southwestern side of the
lake. The _New Discovery_ enjoyed widespread popularity, and numerous
editions were issued during the following years, not only in French but
also in foreign languages. Hennepin's maps, too, were widely copied
in other works, and so the blunder with respect to the location of
Fort Miami was perpetuated. Evidently this was the source of the error
of Logan and of the many who in later times repeated his statements.
Ignorant alike of the fact that Fort Miami had stood at the mouth
of the St. Joseph and that it had been destroyed nearly forty years
before, Logan located it at Chicago in 1718, adding the interesting
information that it "was not regularly garrisoned."
[Footnote 98: For a reproduction of this map see Winsor, Narrative and
Critical History, IV, 251; Hennepin, New Discovery (Thwaites ed.), I,
(facing) 22.]
[Footnote 99: For a reproduction of this map see Winsor, _op. cit._,
IV, 249; Hennepin, _op. cit._, I, frontispiece.]