fishing-boats, but after a short search Iberville tarried no more than
he did in the Hudson Straits for his missing consort, but pushed on and
reached San Domingo early in December. Here the governor, Ducasse, was
so impressed with Iberville's elucidation of his projects that he
expressed to the home government his opinion that the views and genius
of Iberville seemed to equal his valor in war.
English vessels had been cruising in the neighborhood of San Domingo,
which led Iberville to believe that it was a colonizing expedition, so
he worked day and night in completing his preparations, and on January
1, 1699, sailed for the Gulf of Mexico. On the afternoon of the
twenty-third day, Iberville as usual leading, land was sighted in the
northeast. It proved to be the harbor of Pensacola, where Iberville was
chagrined to find himself preceded by a Spanish colony under command of
Don Andres de la Riola. There were two frigates yet in the harbor, which
four months before had brought up three hundred colonists from Vera
Cruz. The half-finished fort, the dissatisfied garrison, and the
uncertainty of the future explorations to the westward were so many
inducements for Iberville to drive out the Spaniards and secure the
harbor. Iberville made arrangements to enter the harbor, but was
notified by the Spanish governor that he had formal orders from Spain to
permit no foreign ships to enter the harbor. Under pretence that he
feared heavy weather the French fleet sounded the entrance to the harbor
and prepared to enter. The Spanish commander, however, begged that they
would retire, and fortunately having been given information by the
Spanish pilot, Iberville decided to sail to the west. Iberville,
exploring the coast, anchored at the eastern point of the entrance to
Mobile Bay, where violent gales nearly destroyed the squadron.
[Illustration: Bienville.]
Reconnoitring boats giving such unsatisfactory reports of the depth of
the channel, Iberville determined, with his usual energy, to survey it
himself. Taking his younger brother Bienville and a crew of his
faithful Canadians he started, despite approaching darkness, so as to
begin work at day-light; the storm breaking with great violence,
Iberville's efforts to make headway over the billows were in vain.
Finally, his rowers exhausted, the boat was turned to the nearest land,
but the sea was so high and the wind so violent that unceasing efforts
were needful to prevent the boat from swamping. It was due to
Iberville's great skill that the boat was finally beached in a
favorable spot on the sandy beach, which the crew reached with
difficulty, so exhausted were they with their struggles. Here they were
weather-bound three days, and so had an opportunity to explore the
island. It was with horror that they discovered in one place ghastly
piles of human bones and skulls, mute witnesses of a scene of slaughter,
which terrified many of the crew until they found the island to be
uninhabited. The island, now known as Dauphin, was called Massacre by
Iberville, who, undisturbed by the sight, visited the mainland with a
few of his men and made every effort to discover the inhabitants, of
whom he found recent traces.
Finally came good weather, and with it the continued voyage to the west
brought the fleet to safe anchorage on a bright February morn off Ship
Island. The live-stock landed, Iberville gave his freight consorts
permission to return to France, while he explored the mainland that now
lay fair and bright before him. The Indians were communicated with,
after many failures, but, beyond the discovery of the Pascagoula and
reports of a larger river to the west, which the Bayagoula Indians
called Malbouchia, no valuable information was obtained. Iberville
planned to reach the great river by one of its reported outlets, and,
following the main channel down, thus learn the way for his vessel; but,
the Indians giving him the slip, it only remained to search every foot
of the coast until the river was gained. He was thus thrown on his own
resources, which had never failed and were not to do so now. Iberville,
with his brother Bienville and fifty picked men, largely Canadians, and
twenty days' provisions, started February 27th, on two Biscayennes or
barges, for his difficult task, the discovery of the mouth of the
Mississippi.
It is useless to detail this journey of Iberville through an apparently
endless maze of islets, mud-banks, sand-banks, reefs, and marshy shoals,
which go to make up the great level delta of the Mississippi. It would,
even to-day, be a difficult search for most mariners without a chart,
but then well-nigh impossible. Iberville's skill and patience were
tasked to the utmost, and, when he did find the mouth of the great
river, it almost seemed to be by the intervention of Providence. On the
eve of March 3, 1699, while struggling along the mainland, to which they
persistently clung, the violence of an increasing gale threatened to
swamp their barges, despite every effort, if they kept off shore, while
every approach to watch the shore-line, and thus make certain of the
river-mouth, incurred danger of beaching and destruction. Darkness came
on and the gale increased, making certain, as it seemed to them, that
they must choose death at sea or death on land. Suddenly Iberville put
his barge before the wind, and into the face of death as his followers
thought, but it shot between huge piles of interlaced drift-wood into a
turbid stream of whitish water. Iberville put out his hand and tasted.
The water was fresh, and the Mississippi was rediscovered.
The Spaniards had spoken of the river as La Palisada, which Iberville
thought most appropriate when he saw the bristling barricades of huge
jagged trees with outstretched limbs and contorted roots borne
incessantly onward by the strong current.
Iberville camped that night at the edge of the dense rank sedge-growth,
saying: "Stretched on the sedges and sheltered from the gale, our
pleasure is so much the greater that we feel our escape from a great
peril. It is a very lively business, this exploring the unknown shores
of a sea in shallops too small to carry sail in the open sea, too tiny
to anchor, and yet so large that they strand and ground half a league
from land."
The next morn was that of Mardi-Gras, when our devout explorers
celebrated mass, sang joyfully the Te Deum and raised a commemorative
cross before voyaging further.
Never in their wildest dreams could the hardy Canadian explorers from
their marshy camp in the delta of the Mississippi ever have presaged,
that in the coming time, from the many millions of future inhabitants in
the Valley of the Mississippi should be gathered tens of thousands to
celebrate the merry day of carnival in the metropolitan city that was to
spring up from their memorable voyage.
The Mississippi was near its high stage, so that travel was tediously
slow, mostly by oar. The land rose somewhat, the sedge gave way first to
cane and willows, and later to richly foliaged trees with graceful
festoons pleasing to the eye and fruitful of promise in the coming
autumn. The country, largely flooded, would have seemed uninhabited save
for the Indian ferry-boats, bundles of cane pointed at both ends and
fastened together by crossbars of wood, and an occasional column of
smoke rising in the distant blue. The rapid current obliged the oarsmen
to hug the bank closely, while diminishing food and increasing piles of
drift-wood discouraged them; but the indomitable Iberville cheered on
his Canadians, and on the fifth day, some thirty-five leagues from the
river's mouth, six pirogues, or canoes, full of Indians were seen. The
savages fled, but one was captured, and through him communication and
friendly overtures were established with the Annochys. Through these
Indians Iberville was taken to the present site of New Orleans and was
shown the portage over which the Indians travelled to Lake
Pontchartrain, and thence to the bay where the ship was at anchor.
Farther up the stream Iberville visited the village of the Bayougoulas,
which consisted of about two hundred souls. The men, well made, with
short hair and painted faces, stalked around most unconcernedly in a
naked state. The women blackened their teeth, tied up their hair in a
top-knot, tattooed their faces and breasts, and wore girdles woven of
bark fibre, dyed red or bleached white, with pendulous fringes reaching
to the knee. The ornaments of the women were metal bracelets and bangles
and fancy articles made of feathers, while the young braves wore sashes
of feathers, which, weighted with bits of metal, made merry sound as
they danced. In short, they were an inoffensive folk, content with the
simple fruits of the earth, which largely served as their sustenance.
Iberville visited one of their temples, a structure some thirty feet in
diameter, which Charlevoix describes as follows: "In the centre were
slowly burning logs (keeping up a perpetual fire), and at the end a
platform on which lay skins of deer, buffalo, and bear, offerings to the
Chouchouacha (the opossum), the god of the Bayougoulas, which animal was
painted in red and black at various points in the temple. The roof was
decorated with the figures of various animals, among which a red fox was
conspicuous. On either side of the entrance were other animal figures,
such as bears and wolves and also various birds, but above all the
Chouchouacha (the opossum), an animal about the size and having the head
of the sucking pig, the white and gray fur of the badger, the tail of
the rat, the paws of an ape, and a sack under its stomach."
The great discrepancies between the topography of the river and the
descriptions given in the accounts of the journeys of La Salle and Tonti
so impressed Iberville that he was really doubtful if he was on the
Mississippi, and so his journey was pursued up the river to the Oumas, a
short distance below the mouth of the Red River. Fortunately his
brother, Bienville, obtained from an Indian chief a letter, which the
savage had carried for thirteen years, given him by Tonti, who
descended the river from Illinois in 1686 and left this letter addressed
to La Salle, whose active and loyal assistant Tonti was.
[Illustration: Bienville's Army on the River.]
Iberville was now over seven hundred miles distant from his ship, and
his original stock of provisions was exhausted, so that the men were
obliged to live on the corn of the Indians and such meat or game as
could be bought or killed. Sending his men back by the delta with the
barges, Iberville decided to try himself the route of portages to the
Gulf. With an Indian guide he entered the Ascantia, a narrow, winding
bayou, where with his four Canadians and two pirogues fifty portages
over fallen trees and drift were made the first day in a distance of
seven leagues. It is not surprising that the Indian guide, unaccustomed
to such tremendous labor and fatigue, deserted the second day. Iberville
none the less pushed on undauntedly, confident that he could reach his
ship through this unknown country, guide or no guide. Next, one of his
hardy Canadians fell sick, and Iberville took his place and oar, and in
the portages carried his end of a pirogue. After eighty portages they
passed into Lake Maurepas and next into Lake Pontchartrain, whence the
way was easy to the ship, which was reached eight hours in advance of
the barges from the delta.
In his absence of six weeks Iberville had found again the Mississippi,
explored its shores almost to the Red River, made friends with all its
native tribes, discovered the short route to the sea, travelled about
fifteen hundred miles, and had returned to his ship with every man of
his party. What volumes these few facts speak for the energy, tact,
skill, and foresight of this wonderful Canadian!
Casting about for a convenient spot Iberville decided to build his fort
at the head of Biloxi Bay, and in this unfortunate location, under the
spurring supervision of the chief, Fort Biloxi soon rose, and there on
Easter Sunday mass was celebrated, vespers sung, and a sermon preached.
On May 2, 1700, Iberville sailed for France, leaving his lieutenant,
Sauvole, as the first governor of the province of Louisiana and
Bienville second in command.
The action of France and the desperate haste of Iberville in occupying
the mouth of the Mississippi were most timely. The very month in which
our Canadian sailed from Brest an expedition left England under the
auspices of Mr. Cox, who sent out three vessels loaded with emigrants.
They wintered in the Carolinas, where many settled, but in 1700 two
ships continued their voyage to the Mississippi. One of these vessels
was commanded by a Captain Banks, who once captured by Iberville in
Hudson Bay now found himself worsted by his rival in the peaceful work
of colonization. One of the English ships appeared in the lower
Mississippi, into which Banks had found entrance, in September, 1700.
Bienville, with five men and two pirogues, met the English vessel, and
setting forth to the captain that France was in possession of all the
surrounding country, succeeded either by argument or cajolery in
persuading the captain to withdraw from the Mississippi.
Iberville was not long delayed by the delights and pleasures of the
French court, but speedily returned to Biloxi, where he arrived on the
eve of Twelfth Night with supplies, and more important of all, with
sixty hardy and energetic Canadians, with whom he established a fort a
short distance below the present site of New Orleans. The winter proved
a very cold one, the drinking-water freezing in the cups, but it did not
delay the rapid progress of the new fort. In the midst of this work
Chevalier de Tonti arrived with twenty Canadians from their former
settlement in Illinois.
Thus for the first time, with intercommunication established between the
permanent settlement in Illinois, Tonti's fort on the Arkansas, and the
new colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, Iberville felt that France
had indeed entered into actual possession of its great province of
Louisiana. He realized, however, the necessity of permanently connecting
these settlements, many hundred miles apart, and of facilitating
intercommunication through the establishment of intermediate posts.
Iberville contemplated an exploration of the Red River, thinking it
might afford access to the gold and silver mines of New Spain, but
abandoned the project owing to the representations of the Indians that
the river was unnavigable from the interlaced drift-wood, later known as
rafts. He turned his attention to the main river, the Mississippi, and
visited the Natchez, a brave and powerful tribe of Indians, whose
country delighted his heart as resembling France, and where he planned a
city to be called Rosalie (now Natchez), which, however, it was not his
fate to ever see take definite form, as it was only built long after his
death, in 1714, by his brother Bienville. It was at this time that Le
Sueur, sent up the Mississippi by Iberville, discovered the St. Peter
River, in Minnesota, and attempting mining operations, later brought
back a worthless cargo of green earth. To Iberville's credit, it may be
said, he viewed this and many other similar schemes of development with
a sceptical and practical eye.
Later he sent his brother Bienville across country to explore the Red
River, which was done with good success. His priest Montigny was also
active in extending the faith, both among the Natchez Indians and in the
basin of the Tensas River. Indeed, every effort was made under
Iberville's sagacious direction to obtain a knowledge of the
possibilities of the country, so that its resources might be properly
developed.
Iberville returned to France ill with fever, but despite his disease, he
displayed extraordinary energy in personally advancing the practical
affairs of his new colony. Moreover, he prepared a memoir urging the
cession of Pensacola by Spain to France, which nation was to establish
forts and arm the Indians along the Mississippi River, whereby the
interior of America from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada would be under
French domination, save the narrow strip along the Atlantic coast
already occupied by England. It was a sagacious scheme which if it had
been properly supported by France would have entirely changed the future
of America. It received, however, but a perfunctory support, and only
resulted in exciting the jealousy of Spain.
Iberville's last voyage to Louisiana was made in 1701, when his health,
undermined by the climate, was impaired by the formation of an abscess
which confined him to his bed for two months. His mind worked
incessantly, and his activity through other hands was wonderful. He
planned the royal magazines on Dauphine Island, located the new post on
Mobile River, told off the relief of workmen for the various
enterprises, planned flat-boats for lighters, extended relief to the
Spaniards at Vera Cruz, and sent Tonti as an agent to make peace with
the Choctaws and Chickasaws and secure them as allies. His sailor's eye
was particularly pleased with the magnificent forests of Mobile Bay,
where the oaks and pines presented the finest timber for ship-building
he had ever seen.
With Mobile commenced, the royal storehouses erected, and the alliance
of the Choctaws and Chickasaws secured, Iberville felt that the colony
of Louisiana was on a secure foundation, and on March 31st he sailed
from Dauphine Island, then the headquarters of that colony for which he
had done so much, and which he was destined never again to see.
The domain of Louisiana, obtained by so much heroic endeavor and
individual suffering on the part of Joliet, Marquette, La Salle, Tonti,
Iberville, and their associates, passed at once, by an edict of Louis
XIV., into a monopoly and under the control of a courtier, Anton Crozat,
for trading purposes, by the decree of September 14, 1712. In this
decree the limits of Louisiana were for the first time defined,
including "all the territories by us (France) possessed, and bounded by
New Mexico and by those of the English in Carolina.... The river St.
Louis, formerly called the Mississippi, from the sea-shore to the
Illinois, together with the rivers St. Phillipe, formerly called the
Missouries, and the St. Jerome, formerly called the Wabash (the Ohio),
with all the countries, territories, lakes in the land, and the rivers
emptying directly or indirectly into that part of the river St. Louis.
All the said territories, countries, rivers, streams, and islands we
will to be and remain comprised under the name of the government of
Louisiana."
There was another and blacker page to the decree, whereby Crozat was
further authorized to introduce African slavery: "If the aforesaid Sieur
Crozat considers it advisable to have negroes in the said country of
Louisiana, for agriculture or other use on plantations, he can send a
ship each year to trade directly with the Guinea coast, ... and is
further authorized to sell negroes to the settlers of Louisiana."
But prior to this condition of affairs the great Canadian naval
commander had passed to his final reward, having died of yellow fever at
Havana, July 9, 1706. The last leaf in his history was, however, an
effort, through his personal bravery and skill, to secure French
domination in America by driving out of the Antilles the determined
English seamen whose successful raids so often militated against the
interests of France. Despite his health, undermined by fevers, Iberville
left France with a fleet with which he hoped to carry out this great
plan. Intending to make a descent upon Barbadoes, he learned that the
English, warned of his plans, were prepared for him. He therefore seized
on the islands of Nevis and St. Christopher, where his fleet captured an
enormous amount of booty of all kinds. He decided next to ravage the
English colonies in the Carolinas, but stopping at Havana for
reinforcements he lost his own life by the epidemic which destroyed
eight hundred others of his fleet.
Among the qualities of this great Canadian all must admire his
intrepidity in war, his skill as a navigator, and his capacity as an
explorer; but beyond these were the astonishing administrative ability
and political sagacity which he displayed in such an eminent degree in
the planning, founding, and fostering of the great province of
Louisiana.
[Illustration: New Orleans in 1719.]
III.
JONATHAN CARVER,
THE EXPLORER OF MINNESOTA.
Throughout the bloody series of French and Indian wars which ravaged the
frontier settlements of America during the first half of the eighteenth
century, France maintained secure possession of the regions of the great
lakes and the basin of the upper Mississippi. The successful campaign of
the gallant Wolfe against the no less gallant Montcalm ultimately
resulted in the termination of French supremacy in these sections, and
under the treaty of Paris, in 1763, Canada with all other dominions of
France east of the Mississippi passed under the control of Great
Britain.
To this time the English colonists had confined their operations almost
entirely to the region of the Atlantic Coast, so when Great Britain
acquired her immense war-inheritance the country to the west of the
Appalachian Mountain range was practically an unknown region to its new
masters. The extension of English settlements toward the interior of the
continent was determined on by the English Government, and the more
accessible of the French trading-posts in the northwest were immediately
occupied. Maps were few and inaccurate, information as to the Indians
vague and exaggerated, while nothing was known as to the resources of
the country except that furs were obtainable in large numbers.
Scarcely were the terms of the treaty promulgated than the enterprising
pioneers moved westward and gradually pressed back the Indians nearest
the English settlements. A few other men, however, undertook to
penetrate the valley of the Mississippi to the very frontier of
Louisiana, which remained a French possession.
Among these hardy and adventurous Americans the most enterprising was
Captain Jonathan Carver, who was born in Stillwater, N. Y., in 1732. He
was the grandson of William Joseph Carver, one of the earliest of the
royal appointments in Connecticut, and his first public service was at
the age of eighteen, when he secured an ensigncy in a Connecticut
regiment. In 1757, when Colonel Oliver Partridge raised a battalion of
infantry in Massachusetts to serve against Canada, Carver was made a
lieutenant therein. Later he served as captain under Colonel Whitcomb,
in 1760, and under Colonel Saltonstall, in 1762, and participated in the
taking of Crown Point and other operations in northern New York.
Doubtless his association with scouts and camp-followers, largely
consisting of fur-traders and frontiersmen, induced a lively interest in
their accounts of the western country held by their enemies, the Indian
and the Frenchman. Certain it is that Carver acquired such ideas of the
extent, fertility, natural wealth, and possibilities of the great and
unknown West as fired his adventurous spirit with a firm determination
to solve the important geographical problems connected therewith.
His objects, he states, were to gain knowledge concerning the Indian
tribes to the west of the Mississippi, to ascertain the natural
resources of the country, and to cross the American continent between
the forty-third and forty-sixth degrees of north latitude. Ultimately he
contemplated the establishment of a trading-post at some suitable point
on the Pacific Coast.