deserved, they took effect upon his men, six of whom deserted on the
spot. The explorers wintered among these Illinois in a fort which La
Salle significantly named Crèvecœur.[4]
The name tells its own story. On the lakes they had been nearly drowned.
On the march they had often gone hungry, La Salle with the rest. Treason
was with him in his own camp, danger in that of the Illinois. His own
men had tried to poison him. And now, to cap the climax of misfortune,
no word had come of the Griffin[5]—the Griffin on which hung all hope
of successfully continuing their search.
But nothing could shake the resolve of La Salle. Sending Father Hennepin
to explore the lower course of the Illinois, the chief left Tonty in
charge of Fort Crèvecœur, while he himself set out for Frontenac in
order to learn what had become of the Griffin, and bring back the things
he must have before it would be possible to stir from Fort Crèvecœur
again.
We need not follow him on this remarkable journey, itself no mean
exploit.
La Salle had not yet reached the Mississippi. In August, 1680, he again
left Montreal with this object. Again he made his way to the Illinois
village. This time heaps of charred and blackened rubbish, strewed
with mangled bodies, met his eyes. During his absence the Iroquois had
wreaked their vengeance upon the Illinois, as already they had done upon
the Hurons.
[Illustration: INDIAN WAMPUM BELT.]
Where was the faithful Tonty? What had become of him? After La Salle's
departure, his men rose against Tonty, plundered the fort of what was
worth taking, demolished it, and went off in a body, leaving Tonty to
shift for himself.
But where was he? La Salle found Crèvecœur in ruins, and the place a
solitude.
In despair La Salle searched the river to its mouth, so reaching
the Mississippi at last, but without finding the least trace of his
lieutenant. On every side fate seemed conspiring for his defeat.
Still undaunted, for the third time La Salle set out in the autumn of
1681. In a wonderful manner Tonty had made his escape from the Iroquois,
and rejoined his chief on the lakes. This time the expedition passed
through the Chicago River to the Illinois, and thence down to the
Mississippi, which was reached on the 6th of February.
After a short stay here the little fleet of canoes resumed the long
voyage before them. On the 24th, the explorers landed near the Third
Chickasaw Bluff to hunt. Here they built a stockade which was called
Fort Prudhomme.[6]
Few incidents marked the passage of the explorers through the countries
of the Arkansas, Tensas[7] and Natchez nations, till the Frenchmen
reached the neighborhood of the Quinipissas, when they were shot at from
the canebrakes along the banks, though without receiving any hurt.
Knowing he was among a multitude of foes, La Salle prudently refrained
from returning the fire.
On the 6th of April, the explorers found the river branching out before
them in three streams. Which to take, they knew not. That there should
be no mistake about it, La Salle took the westernmost himself, Tonty
the middle, and another the eastern branch. Presently some one dipped
up a cupful of water to drink. It proved to be brackish to the taste.
La Salle knew now he was nearing his goal.
At last the canoes glided past the outermost point of low, reedy land,
out upon the broad bosom of the Gulf.
Landing not far above the mouth of the river, La Salle caused the arms
of France to be set up at that place, and then and there, on the ninth
day of April, 1682, he took formal possession of the country watered by
the Mississippi. It was in the name of Louis XIV. that he did so, in
whose honor La Salle declared the name of this vast acquisition to be
Louisiana.
Yet in no long time we find Louis writing with his own hands words like
these: "Like you,"—he is addressing M. de La Barre,[8]—"I am persuaded
that the discovery of the Sieur de La Salle is very useless; and it
is necessary hereafter to prevent similar enterprises which can have
no other result than to debauch the people by the hope of gain, and to
diminish the revenue from the beaver."
FOOTNOTES
[1] FORT AT NIAGARA, on the east side of Niagara River,
"a little below the mountain-ridge of Lewiston;" came into
possession of United States, 1796.
[2] GREAT ILLINOIS TOWN. First known to the whites as
Kaskaskia (see chapter "Joliet and Marquette"); its site
corresponds with the village of Utica, on the Chicago and R.
I. Railway, five miles east of La Salle.
[3] CACHES, French for hiding-places. The word is naturalized
in the West. A pit, or Indian barn, in which grain, etc., was
stored. The custom, universal among the Indians, was adopted
by white hunters and traders in their expeditions.
[4] CRÈVECŒUR, French, broken-hearted.
[5] THE GRIFFIN should have brought back cables, anchors,
sails, etc., for a vessel to be built on the Illinois, in
which La Salle purposed sailing down to the Gulf. Though the
vessel was built, the purpose came to naught for reasons given
in the text.
[6] FORT PRUDHOMME is on early maps. So named for one of La
Salle's men who wandered away and was lost in the woods. La
Salle left a few men here to await his return.
[7] TENSAS. The customs of these people were identical with
those described under the caption of "Florida Indians," as
seen by De Soto's men, which see. They kept a sacred fire
burning. (Refer to legend of Pecos, New Mexico Indians, for
analogy of customs in this respect.) Tensas County, La., was
the home of these Indians. La Salle also visited the Natchez
town, near the site of the present city of Natchez, where he
saw the same religious rites performed as among the Tensas.
[8] DE LA BARRE had succeeded Frontenac as governor of
Canada. He was La Salle's enemy.
DISCOVERY OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI.
It will be remembered, that, when La Salle found himself so
unfortunately stopped among the Illinois, his active mind was promptly
casting about for something to be achieved elsewhere. This object he
found in the Upper Mississippi, which he determined should be explored
in his absence, so interlocking his own discoveries with those of Joliet
and Marquette. Two of his people were accordingly sent to perform this
duty, with whom went Father Hennepin,[1] the Franciscan missionary
before spoken of.
The party set out from Fort Crèvecœur on the last day of February, 1680,
while at the same time La Salle was starting northward for Lake Ontario.
As historian of the expedition, Hennepin's vanity has led him to claim
the leadership for himself, while he accuses La Salle of meaning to get
rid of him,[2] in the same breath. We know, however, from La Salle
that neither is true. La Salle was much too good a judge of character
not to see through the friar after so long trial of him, though,
knowing him to be capable, he gave him the chance of being useful. For
the expedition itself, it is certain La Salle had it much at heart.
Touching Hennepin's narrative, La Salle dryly says the friar "spoke more
according to his wishes than what he knew," or, in the familiar phrase,
was in the habit of drawing on his imagination for his facts.
Hennepin himself seems to have been that singular anomaly, seldom met
with in real life, a brave braggart, whose self-conceit and arrogant
self-assertion stand forth in strong contrast with the modesty and
patience always shown by La Salle when he is speaking of his own
achievements. And it is further characteristic of the two men, that
while one felt he could afford to wait for time to do him justice,
the other sought the cheap glory to be had by sounding his own praise
abroad, even when exposure was certain to follow. So that nothing
Hennepin has written can be accepted as true, without other evidence to
substantiate it. The more is the pity! But the exaggerations of all our
early chronicles show that they were penned by men influenced by the
passions or rivalries of the time, often so distorting what is true as
to make it fit the particular end they may have had in view. To this
lamentable want of integrity may be attributed the fact that history
has so often to be re-written.
For six weeks the explorers plied their paddles against the current
of the Mississippi unmolested. One day when they had drawn their canoe
on shore to repair it, the Frenchmen were suddenly surrounded by a war
party of Sioux[3]—the very people of all others whom they most wished
to avoid.
In a moment the whites were made prisoners. The scowling looks and
threatening gestures of their captors boded them no good. Hennepin
proffered the peace-pipe. It was snatched from his hand. When he began
muttering prayers aloud, the Indians angrily signed to him to be silent,
thinking he was preparing some charm to overpower them with, but they
let him chant the same prayers, he says, thinking there could be no
sorcery or medicine in song. Presently the Sioux began their homeward
journey, thus making it clear to the Frenchmen that their future
discoveries must be made as captives.
In nineteen days the party landed near the site of St. Paul.[4] From
here the trail was struck leading to the Sioux villages, which were
reached after five days of hard marching and harder usage at the hands
of the Sioux warriors.
Here the prisoners were separated, Hennepin going to an aged chief who
adopted him as his own son. So they passed the winter among the Sioux.
In the following summer, when the Sioux went on their annual buffalo
hunt, they took the three Frenchmen along with them. This was the
prisoners' opportunity for regaining their liberty, and they hastened
to make use of it. La Salle had promised to send word of himself to
them at the mouth of the Wisconsin, and they knew he would not fail
them. Telling the Sioux their friends were coming, loaded with gifts,
the greedy Sioux were easily induced to let Hennepin and one other go
down the river to meet them alone and unguarded. One Frenchman remained
behind with the Sioux as a hostage for the others.
The two whites began their descent of the river, carrying their canoe
round the Falls of St. Anthony,[5] to which Father Hennepin gave this
name, till, after many adventures, Lake Pepin[6] was reached.
[Illustration: SIOUX CHIEF.]
To their consternation, the travellers were overtaken at this point
by a party of Sioux who had followed their prisoners so closely, as
hardly to lose sight of them, and now pushed on ahead to the Wisconsin.
Finding neither traders[7] nor goods there, as they had been led to
expect, the Sioux paddled back again in bad humor to the place where
the whites had remained. After being soundly rated for the cheat they
had practised, the unlucky whites were forced to turn about and go back
again as they came.
After some longer stay among the Sioux, the captives were found by some
French traders who had made their way from Lake Superior, through the
Sioux country, to the Mississippi. Hearing of the three white men, while
on the way, these traders had kept on from village to village, till they
reached the one in which Hennepin and his companions were detained, and
ransomed them out of the hands of the savages.
[Illustration: SIOUX TOTEM.]
At the head of the rescuing party was one Du Lhut, or Duluth, for whom
the city of Duluth is named, as Lake Pepin is also said to have been
named for another of this party. Thus, in St. Anthony's Falls, Lake
Pepin, and Duluth we have a group of names commemorating the men of La
Salle's exploring party, as well as the exploration itself.
All the Frenchmen now returned to the Sioux villages at Mille Lac
together.
They finally made their way back to the French settlements by the
Wisconsin and Green Bay route, as Marquette had done before them, and
the Sioux[8] also for many generations had travelled to the great
lake.
FOOTNOTES
[1] FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN, a Récollet, or Franciscan
friar, published his _Description of Louisiana_, 1683, with
subsequent editions, under various titles, 1697, 1698, etc.
While his exaggerations make it difficult to separate what is
true from what is false, yet his writings are an indispensable
part of the History of the Great West.
[2] GET RID OF HIM, by exposing him to be scalped among
hostile Indians.
[3] SIOUX, properly Dacotahs, may be nominally divided in
two great bodies by the Mississippi River. Those living on
the east side were Eastern Sioux, those on the west, Western
Sioux. Their country reached from the westernmost tributaries
of the Mississippi to Lake Superior. In power, they were
to the West what the Iroquois were to the East—the scourge
of weaker nations. The Sioux ceded their lands east of the
Mississippi to the United States, in 1837, living on the St.
Peter's till the massacres of 1862-63 drove them thence.
[4] ST. PAUL, nine miles below the Falls of St. Anthony,
capital city of Minnesota, settled about 1840; Benjamin
Gervais, the first settler.
[5] FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY. St. Anthony of Padua was
Hennepin's patron saint. The Sioux were in the habit of
hanging buffalo-robes on the trees as offerings to the spirit
of the waters. Minneapolis is the growth of the water-power
of these falls, having increased from 2,564 in 1860, to 46,000
in 1880.
[6] LAKE PEPIN, a broadening of the Mississippi, about
twenty-five miles long. There is a pretty Indian legend
connected with Maiden's Rock in the lake, told in Mrs.
Eastman's Legends of the Sioux.
[7] LA SALLE asserts that the Jesuits told the men he
had engaged to do this that the friar had been killed, so
preventing them from going.
[8] THE SIOUX ALSO. Recall the fact stated earlier, that
Marquette fell in with the Sioux at or about Green Bay.
THE LOST COLONY: ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
Thus, in 1682, La Salle had secured an empire for France, and at last
found a legitimate field for his own ambition. His Louisiana comprised
every thing between the Alleghanies and Rio Grande, the Gulf of Mexico
and Hudson's Bay. Upon opening the maps of the time we find the English
crowded into the comparatively narrow limits extending from the eastern
slopes of the Appalachian range to the sea, the Spaniards occupying
those between the Rio Grande and Gulf of California, while the whole
great heart of the continent, including portions of Carolina and
Florida, with its magnificent system of waterways, is covered by the
names New France and Louisiana.
But La Salle himself, the man of large and luminous views, had now
reached the high-water-mark of his achievements. The wave which owed
its impetus to his active brain, expended its force with his life.
Upon his return voyage up the Mississippi the explorer fell sick. He
was taken to Fort Prudhomme, the one built by his order on the way
down, where he lay for months a helpless invalid, chafing under the
inaction thus forced upon him. As soon as he felt strong enough to bear
the journey, La Salle proceeded on to Michilimackinac, where he was no
sooner arrived than he set about the work of rebuilding the trading-post
on the Illinois, in room of the one his treacherous followers had
destroyed in his absence.
This was to be his half-way house to the Mississippi. Here he trusted
to gather a colony alike capable of drawing to itself all the trade
of a vast tributary region, as of defending itself and his allies, the
Illinois, against the incursions of the Iroquois.
But La Salle's greater project for securing the results of his
discoveries, by planting a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi,
henceforth looked to reaching that point by sea and not by land. To
transport every thing overland from Quebec to the Gulf was of course
impracticable. No one knew this better than La Salle himself, yet he
also foresaw the importance of keeping the way to Canada open if the
colony at the Gulf was to thrive. To this end the fort on the Illinois,
and that at the Chickasaw Bluff, were but incidents.
After establishing himself strongly on the Illinois, La Salle went to
France in order to lay his projects before the King.
In consequence of a rupture with Spain he found the court well disposed
to listen to his proposals. These contemplated the building of a fort
sixty leagues above the mouth of the Mississippi, which La Salle assumed
would draw around it, as to a common centre, all the neighbor tribes.
Gifts and good usage had already disposed these tribes favorably toward
the French, while the Spaniards had already alienated them by harsh
treatment. With their help La Salle asserted that the conquest of
New Biscay,[1] with its rich silver-mines, would be an easy matter,
because there were not more than four hundred Spaniards in all that
province.
The plan met instant favor. To enable La Salle to carry it out, four
vessels were given him instead of the two he asked for. A naval officer
by the name of Beaujeu was assigned to command them at sea. La Salle set
himself to work with his usual energy. Soldiers, priests and colonists,
arms, munitions and stores, were provided in sufficient number or
quantity to put the colony on its feet at once.
Long before the ships were ready to sail from Rochefort, La Salle and
Beaujeu had quarrelled. Beaujeu overrated himself, and underrated La
Salle. Often betrayed by those he trusted most, La Salle's naturally
suspicious nature led him to distrust every one, above all Beaujeu, who
constantly ridiculed him and his schemes to his friends. So La Salle's
reserve gave offence to Beaujeu, who grew sulky, and was at no pains
to conceal his dislike for the whole affair. Here then at the very
outset the seeds of disaster were sowed. It was under such unpromising
conditions that the fleet set sail in July, 1684, for the Gulf of
Mexico.
Three of the vessels reached St. Domingo in two months, with a large
number of sick on board, of whom La Salle himself was one. The fourth
had been taken at sea by Spanish buccaneers, thus depriving the
colonists of the tools and provisions with which she was loaded.
Upon La Salle's recovery from what came near proving a fatal illness,
the fleet again put to sea, though it was now November, and much
precious time had been lost.
Steering westward into the Gulf, they made their landfall on New
Year's Day, but when La Salle went on shore to look about him, he could
discover no sign of the great river he was in search of. The colonists
were upon a low, flat coast, without natural landmarks to guide them,
or knowledge of the longitude of the place they were seeking, or of the
currents which the Gulf sets in motion. No wonder, then, that La Salle
failed to recognize any part of the inhospitable coast before him.
Finding no trace of the Mississippi, and as the failure to do so was
every day productive of disputes between himself and Beaujeu, La Salle
resolved to land where he was, notwithstanding his belief that he had
gone too far to the westward. He was, in fact, at the time of taking
this resolution, on the coast of Texas, more than four hundred miles
from the Mississippi.
Almost at the moment of landing, La Salle's storeship, which contained
the greater part of his provisions, grounded, and became a wreck; it
is said, through the carelessness or treachery of her master, who also
was on bad terms with La Salle. Indeed, from first to last La Salle's
enemies seem to have exerted themselves to ruin him with a zeal that,
if honestly employed, would easily have insured the success of all his
plans.
This disaster, taken with the fact that he knew not where he was, would
have staggered any one but La Salle. His dispirited people were huddled
together on the sands, among the bales and boxes saved from the wreck,
out of which they made themselves a temporary intrenchment and shelter,
for like vultures who scent their prey from afar, hostile Indians
hovered about the encampment, watching their chance to cut off any who
should stray away from its protection.
Yet misgiving for the success of an enterprise so disastrously begun,
was turned into dread when the colonists learned that they were nowhere
near their actual destination. La Salle, indeed, tried to put heart
in them by pretending to believe otherwise, but a little time soon
dispelled this fallacy. He, however, took the best means of quieting
discontent by setting every one at work. Beaujeu had sailed away after
promising much, but performing little else. The colonists now had much
more to fear from the Spaniards, than the Spaniards from them. Yet for
La Salle nothing remained but to make the best of the situation until
he should have time to look it fairly in the face.
Meanwhile, the essential thing to be done was to get his people housed
in a situation which should admit of their living in some comfort and
security, as the place where they first landed was alike destitute of
wood, water and comfortable lodging.
He therefore chose a site on the Lavaca River,[2] two leagues above
its entrance into Matagorda Bay. To this place the colonists removed
themselves and their goods, and under the energetic direction of La
Salle, whose previous training now stood him in good stead, they set
about building themselves a home in this out-of-the-way corner of the
world. As it rose from the soil, the ever-loyal La Salle named it St.
Louis,[3] in honor of his sovereign.
The summer was hot and sickly. Death was soon busy among the colonists,
those who ate wild fruits imprudently suffering first of all. Now
and then the Indians would kill some straggling hunter. Thus, in one
or another form, death lurked about them. And beneath these apparent
dangers, in which all shared alike, smouldered the embers of unreasoning
discontent which certain of La Salle's followers were always fanning
into a flame.
Having seen his people comfortably housed, and in condition to defend
themselves, the indefatigable La Salle now turned his attention to the
prime purpose of his expedition, with the certainty of the needle to its
pole, for all he had so far done was merely a step in this direction.
There was no time to lose.
Although it is not clear why La Salle should determine to march
overland, rather than make search along the shores, the character of
the Gulf coast affords a possible clew. This is described by Mr. Cable
as follows: "Across the southern end of the State,"—he is speaking
now of Louisiana,—"from Sabine Lake to Chandeleur Bay, with a north
and south width of from ten to thirty miles, and an average of about
fifteen, stretch the Gulf marshes, the wild haunt of myriads of birds
and water-fowl, serpents and saurians, hares, raccoons and wildcats,
deep-bellowing frogs, and clouds of insects, and by a few hunters whose
solitary and rarely frequented huts speck the wide green horizon at
remote intervals."
It was now October, 1685. With fifty men La Salle set out for the river
he had discovered only to lose again. Those who staid behind, lived
on buffalo-meat,[3] turtles, oysters, fish, and wild fowl which the
prairies or lagoons around them plentifully supplied in their season.
In March, the exploring party came back unsuccessful and in rags. They
had wandered far, but had not found the Mississippi. One crowning
disaster now befell these exiles. Up to this time they had kept one
little vessel of their fleet with them, which was to take them to the
Mississippi so soon as its exact situation should be discovered. This
vessel, in which their sole dependence lay, was now lost.
In desperate situations, desperate measures are alone to be availed of.
La Salle's resolve was heroic. He determined to make a last effort to
reach the Mississippi and the lakes. Indeed, there was now no hope of
obtaining relief nearer than Canada, therefore to Canada he must go,
leaving the colonists to await his return.
For this purpose La Salle chose twenty men, with whom he again set
out from the fort on the 22d of April, 1686. Each man carried his own
pack and weapons, and as the little band filed out upon the prairie,
the hopes of the lost colony went forth with them in their desperate
venture.
But these hopes sunk low when La Salle came back with only eight of the
twenty who had gone with him. The explorers had penetrated as far as
the country of the Cenis Indians,[4] when sickness and desertion had
so crippled their strength as to make further progress hopeless for the
time. They, however, procured some horses from the Indians which were
brought back to the fort.