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FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA,
A SERIES OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVES, PART THIRD.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST
BY FRANCIS PARKMAN
1870
TO THE CLASS OF 1844,
HARVARD COLLEGE,
THIS BOOK IS CORDIALLY DEDICATED
BY ONE OF THEIR NUMBER.
PREFACE.
The discovery of the "Great West," or the valleys of the Mississippi and
the Lakes, is a portion of our history hitherto very obscure. Those
magnificent regions were revealed to the world through a series of daring
enterprises, of which the motives and even the incidents have been but
partially and superficially known. The chief actor in them wrote much, but
printed nothing; and the published writings of his associates stand
wofully in need of interpretation from the unpublished documents which
exist, but which have not heretofore been used as material for history.
This volume attempts to supply the defect. Of the large amount of wholly
new material employed in it, by far the greater part is drawn from the
various public archives of France, and the rest from private sources. The
discovery of many of these documents is due to the indefatigable research
of M. Pierre Margry, assistant custodian of the Archives of the Marine and
Colonies at Paris, whose labors, as an investigator of the maritime and
colonial history of France can be appreciated only by those who have seen
their results. In the department of American colonial history, these
results have been invaluable; for, besides several private collections
made by him, he rendered important service in the collection of the French
portion of the Brodhead documents, selected and arranged the two great
series of colonial papers ordered by the Canadian government, and
prepared, with vast labor, analytical indexes of these and of
supplementary documents in the French archives, as well as a copious index
of the mass of papers relating to Louisiana. It is to be hoped that the
valuable publications on the maritime history of France which have
appeared from his pen are an earnest of more extended contributions in
future.
The late President Sparks, some time after the publication of his life of
La Salle, caused a collection to be made of documents relating to that
explorer, with the intention of incorporating them in a future edition.
This intention was never carried into effect, and the documents were never
used. With the liberality which always distinguished him, he placed them
at my disposal, and this privilege has been, kindly continued by Mrs.
Sparks.
Abbé Faillon, the learned author of "La Colonie Française en Canada," has
sent me copies of various documents found by him, including family papers
of La Salle. Among others who in various ways have aided my inquiries, are
Dr. John Paul, of Ottawa, Ill.; Count Adolphe de Circourt and M. Jules
Marcou, of Paris; M. A. Gérin Lajoie, Assistant Librarian of the Canadian
Parliament; M. J. M. Le Moine, of Quebec; General Dix, Minister of the
United States at the Court of France; O. H. Marshall, of Buffalo; J. G.
Shea, of New York; Buckingham Smith, of St. Augustine; and Colonel Thomas
Aspinwall, of Boston.
The map contained in the book is a portion of the great manuscript map of
Franquelin, of which an account will be found in the Appendix.
The next volume of the series will be devoted to the efforts of Monarchy
and Feudalism under Louis XIV. to establish a permanent power on this
continent, and to the stormy career of Louis de Buade, Count of Frontenac.
BOSTON, 16 September, 1869.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I.
1643-1669.
CAVELIER DE LA SALLE.
The Youth of La Salle.--His Connection with the Jesuits.--He goes to
Canada.--His Character.--His Schemes.--His Seigniory at La
Chine.--His Expedition in Search of a Western Passage to India.
CHAPTER II.
1669-1671.
LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS.
The French in Western New York.--Louis Joliet.--The Sulpitians on
Lake Erie.--At Detroit.--At Saut Ste. Marie.--The Mystery of La
Salle.--He discovers the Ohio.--He descends the Illinois.--Did he
reach the Mississippi?
CHAPTER III.
1670-1672.
THE JESUITS ON THE LAKES.
The Old Missions and the New.--A Change of Spirit.--Lake Superior
and the Copper Mines.--Ste. Marie.--La Pointe.--Michillimackinac.--
Jesuits on Lake Michigan.--Allouez and Dablon.--The Jesuit
Fur-Trade.
CHAPTER IV.
1667-1672.
FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST.
Talon.--St. Lusson.--Perrot.--The Ceremony at Saut Ste. Marie.--
The Speech of Allouez.--Count Frontenac.
CHAPTER V.
1672-1675.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
Joliet sent to find the Mississippi.--Jacques Marquette.--Departure.--
Green Bay.--The Wisconsin.--The Mississippi.--Indians.--Manitous.
--The Arkansas.--The Illinois.--Joliet's Misfortune.--Marquette
at Chicago.--His Illness.--His Death.
CHAPTER VI.
1673-1678.
LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC.
Objects of La Salle.--His Difficulties.--Official Corruption in Canada.--
The Governor of Montreal.--Projects of Frontenac.--Cataraqui.--
Frontenac on Lake Ontario.--Fort Frontenac.--Success of La Salle.
CHAPTER VII.
1674-1678.
LA SALLE AND THE JESUITS.
The Abbé Fénelon.--He attacks the Governor.--The Enemies of La
Salle.--Aims of the Jesuits.--Their Hostility to La Salle.
CHAPTER VIII.
1678.
PARTY STRIFE.
La Salle and his Reporter.--Jesuit Ascendancy.--The Missions and the
Fur-Trade.--Female Inquisitors.--Plots against La Salle.--His
Brother the Priest.--Intrigues of the Jesuits.--La Salle poisoned.--
He exculpates the Jesuits.--Renewed Intrigues.
CHAPTER IX.
1677-1678.
THE GRAND ENTERPRISE.
La Salle at Fort Frontenac.--La Salle at Court.--His Plans approved.--
Henri de Tonty.--Preparation for Departure.
CHAPTER X.
1678-1679.
LA SALLE AT NIAGARA.
Father Louis Hennepin.--His Past Life; His Character.--Embarkation.
--Niagara Falls.--Indian Jealousy.--La Motte and the Senecas.--
A Disaster.--La Salle and his Followers.
CHAPTER XI.
1679.
THE LAUNCH OF THE "GRIFFIN."
The Niagara Portage.--A Vessel on the Stocks.--Suffering and
Discontent.--La Salle's Winter Journey.--The Vessel launched.--Fresh
Disasters.
CHAPTER XII.
1679.
LA SALLE ON THE UPPER LAKES.
The Voyage of the "Griffin."--Detroit.--A Storm.--St. Ignace of
Michillimackinac.--Rivals and Enemies--Lake Michigan.--Hardships.
--A Threatened Fight.--Fort Miami.--Tonty's Misfortunes.--
Forebodings.
CHAPTER XIII.
1679-1680
LA SALLE ON THE ILLINOIS.
The St. Joseph.--Adventure of La Salle.--The Prairies.--Famine.--
The Great Town of the Illinois.--Indians.--Intrigues.--Difficulties.
--Policy of La Salle.--Desertion.--Another Attempt to poison him.
CHAPTER XIV.
1680.
FORT CRÈVECOEUR.
Building of the Fort.--Loss of the "Griffin."--A Bold Resolution.--
Another Vessel.--Hennepin sent to the Mississippi.--Departure of
La Salle.
CHAPTER XV.
1680.
HARDIHOOD OF LA SALLE.
The Winter Journey.--The Deserted Town.--Starved Rock.--Lake
Michigan.--The Wilderness.--War Parties.--La Salle's Men give
out.--Ill Tidings.--Mutiny.--Chastisement of the Mutineers.
CHAPTER XVI.
1680.
INDIAN CONQUERORS.
The Enterprise renewed.--Attempt to rescue Tonty.--Buffalo.--A
Frightful Discovery.--Iroquois Fury.--The Ruined Town.--A Night
of Horror.--Traces of the Invaders.--No News of Tonty.
CHAPTER XVII.
1680.
TONTY AND THE IROQUOIS.
The Deserters.--The Iroquois War.--The Great Town of the Illinois.--
The Alarm.--Onset of the Iroquois.--Peril of Tonty.--A Treacherous
Truce.--Intrepidity of Tonty.--Murder of Ribourde.--War upon
the Dead.
CHAPTER XVIII.
1680.
THE ADVENTURES OF HENNEPIN.
Hennepin an Impostor.--His Pretended Discovery.--His Actual Discovery.
--Captured by the Sioux.--The Upper Mississippi.
CHAPTER XIX.
1680, 1681.
HENNEPIN AMONG THE SIOUX.
Signs of Danger.--Adoption.--Hennepin and his Indian Relatives.--The
Hunting-Party.--The Sioux Camp.--Falls of St. Anthony.--A
Vagabond Friar.--His Adventures on the Mississippi.--Greysolon
Du Lhut.--Return to Civilization.
CHAPTER XX.
1681.
LA SALLE BEGINS ANEW.
His Constancy.--His Plans.--His Savage Allies.--He becomes Snow-blind.
--Negotiations.--Grand Council.--La Salle's Oratory.--Meeting
with Tonty.--Preparation.--Departure.
CHAPTER XXI.
1681-1682.
SUCCESS OF LA SALLE.
His Followers.--The Chicago Portage.--Descent of the Mississippi.--The
Lost Hunter.--The Arkansas.--The Taensas.--The Natchez.--Hostility.--The
Mouth of the Mississippi.--Louis XIV. proclaimed Sovereign of the Great
West.
CHAPTER XXII.
1682-1683.
ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
Louisiana.--Illness of La Salle.--His Colony on the Illinois.--Fort St.
Louis.--Recall of Frontenac.--Le Fèvre de la Barre.--Critical Position
of La Salle.--Hostility of the New Governor.--Triumph of the Adverse
Faction.--La Salle sails for France.
CHAPTER XXIII.
1684.
A NEW ENTERPRISE.
La Salle at Court.--His Proposals.--Occupation of Louisiana.--Invasion of
Mexico.--Royal Favor.--Preparation.--The Naval Commander.--His Jealousy of
La Salle.--Dissensions.
CHAPTER XXIV.
1684-1685.
LA SALLE IN TEXAS.
Departure.--Quarrels with Beaujeu.--St. Domingo.--La Salle attacked
with Fever.--His Desperate Condition.--The Gulf of Mexico.--A Fatal
Error.--Landing.--Wreck of the "Aimable."--Indian Attack.--Treachery
of Beaujeu.--Omens of Disaster.
CHAPTER XXV.
1685-1687.
ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
The Fort.--Misery and Dejection.--Energy of La Salle.--His Journey
of Exploration.--Duhaut.--Indian Massacre.--Return of La Salle.
--A New Calamity.--A Desperate Resolution.--Departure for
Canada.--Wreck of the "Belle."--Marriage.--Sedition.--Adventures
of La Salle's Party.--The Cenis.--The Camanches.--The Only Hope.--The
Last Farewell.
CHAPTER XXVI.
1687.
ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
His Followers.--Prairie Travelling.--A Hunter's Quarrel.--The Murder
of Moranget.--The Conspiracy.--Death of La Salle.--His Character.
CHAPTER XXVII.
1687, 1688.
THE INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY.
Triumph of the Murderers.--Joutel among the Cenis.--White Savages.
--Insolence of Duhaut and his Accomplices.--Murder of Duhaut and
Liotot.--Hiens, the Buccaneer.--Joutel and his Party.--Their
Escape.--They reach the Arkansas.--Bravery and Devotion of
Tonty.--The Fugitives reach the Illinois.--Unworthy Conduct of
Cavelier.--He and his Companions return to France.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
1688-1689.
FATE OF THE TEXAN COLONY.
Tonty attempts to rescue the Colonists.--His Difficulties and Hardships.
--Spanish Hostility.--Expedition of Alonzo De Leon.--He reaches
Fort St. Louis.--A Scene of Havoc.--Destruction of the French.--The End.
APPENDIX.
I. Early unpublished Maps of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes.
II. The Eldorado of Mathieu Sâgean.
INDEX
[Illustration: LA SALLE'S COLONY on the Illinois FROM THE MAP OF
FRANQUELIN, 1684.]
INTRODUCTION.
The Spaniards discovered the Mississippi. De Soto was buried beneath its
waters; and it was down its muddy current that his followers fled from the
Eldorado of their dreams, transformed to a dismal wilderness of misery and
death. The discovery was never used, and was well-nigh forgotten. On early
Spanish maps, the Mississippi is often indistinguishable from other
affluents of the Gulf. A century passed after De Soto's journeyings in the
South, before a French explorer reached a northern tributary of the great
river.
This was Jean Nicollet, interpreter at Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence.
He had been some twenty years in Canada, had lived among the savage
Algonquins of Allumette Island, and spent eight or nine years among the
Nipissings, on the lake which bears their name. Here he became an Indian
in all his habits, but remained, nevertheless, a zealous Catholic, and
returned to civilization at last because he could not live without the
sacraments. Strange stories were current among the Nipissings of a people
without hair and without beards, who came from the West to trade with a
tribe beyond the Great Lakes. Who could doubt that these strangers were
Chinese or Japanese? Such tales may well have excited Nicollet's
curiosity; and when, in or before the year 1639, he was sent as an
ambassador to the tribe in question, he would not have been surprised if
on arriving he had found a party of mandarins among them. Possibly it was
with a view to such a contingency that he provided himself, as a dress of
ceremony, with a robe of Chinese damask embroidered with birds and
flowers. The tribe to which he was sent was that of the Winnebagoes,
living near the head of the Green Bay of Lake Michigan. They had come to
blows with the Hurons, allies of the French; and Nicollet was charged to
negotiate a peace. When he approached the Winnebago town, he sent one of
his Indian attendants to announce his coming, put on his robe of damask,
and advanced to meet the expectant crowd with a pistol in each hand. The
squaws and children fled, screaming that it was a manito, or spirit, armed
with thunder and lightning; but the chiefs and warriors regaled him with
so bountiful a hospitality that a hundred and twenty beavers were devoured
at a single feast. From the Winnebagoes, he passed westward, ascended Fox
River, crossed to the Wisconsin, and descended it so far that, as he
reported on his return, in three days more he would have reached the sea.
The truth seems to be, that he mistook the meaning of his Indian guides,
and that the "great water" to which he was so near was not the sea, but
the Mississippi.
It has been affirmed that one Colonel Wood, of Virginia, reached a branch
of the Mississippi as early as the year 1654, and that, about 1670, a
certain Captain Bolton penetrated to the river itself. Neither statement
is improbable, but neither is sustained by sufficient evidence. Meanwhile,
French Jesuits and fur-traders pushed deeper and deeper into the
wilderness of the northern lakes. In 1641, Jogues and Raymbault preached
the
DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST.
CHAPTER I.
1643-1669.
CAVELIER DE LA SALLE.
THE YOUTH OF LA SALLE.--HIS CONNECTION WITH THE JESUITS.--HE
GOES TO CANADA.--HIS CHARACTER.--HIS SCHEMES.--HIS SEIGNIORY
AT LA CHINE.--HIS EXPEDITION IN SEARCH OF A WESTERN PASSAGE
TO INDIA.
Among the burghers of Rouen was the old and rich family of the Caveliers.
Though citizens and not nobles, some of their connections held high
diplomatic posts and honorable employments at Court. They were destined to
find a better claim to distinction. In 1643 was born at Rouen Robert
Cavelier, better known by the designation of La Salle. [Footnote: The
following is the _acte de naissance_, discovered by Margry in the
_registres de l'état civil_, Paroisse St. Herbland, Rouen. "Le vingt-
deuxième jour de novembre 1643, a été baptisé Robert Cavelier, fils de
honorable homme Jean Cavelier et de Catherine Geest; ses parrain et
marraine honorables personnes Nicolas Geest et Marguerite Morice."]
La Salle's name in full was Réné-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. La
Salle was the name of an estate near Rouen, belonging to the Caveliers.
The wealthy French burghers often distinguished the various members of
their families by designations borrowed from landed estates. Thus,
François Marie Arouet, son of an ex-notary, received the name of Voltaire,
which he made famous.] His father Jean and his uncle Henri were wealthy
merchants, living more like nobles than like burghers; and the boy
received an education answering to the marked traits of intellect and
character which he soon, began to display. He showed an inclination for
the exact sciences, and especially for the mathematics, in which he made
great proficiency. At an early age, it is said, he became connected with
the Jesuits; and though doubt has been expressed of the statement, it is
probably true. [Footnote: Margry, after investigations at Rouen, is
satisfied of its truth.--_Journal Général de l'Instruction Publique_,
xxxi. 571. Family papers of the Caveliers, examined by the Abbé Faillon,
and copies of some of which he has sent to me, lead to the same
conclusion. We shall find several allusions hereafter to La Salle's having
in his youth taught in a school, which, in his position, could only have
been in connection with some religious community. The doubts alluded to
have proceeded from the failure of Father Felix Martin, S.J., to find the
name of _La Salle_ on the list of novices. If he had looked for the name
of _Robert Cavelier_, he would probably have found it. The companion of La
Salle, Hennepin, is very explicit with regard to this connection with the
Jesuits,--a point on which he had no motive for falsehood.]
La Salle was always an earnest Catholic; and yet, judging by the qualities
which his after life evinced, he was not very liable to religious
enthusiasm. It is nevertheless clear, that the Society of Jesus may have
had a powerful attraction for his youthful imagination. This great
organization, so complicated yet so harmonious, a mighty machine moved
from the centre by a single hand, was an image of regulated power, full of
fascination for a mind like his. But if it was likely that he would be
drawn into it, it was no less likely that he would soon wish to escape. To
find himself not at the centre of power, but at the circumference; not the
mover, but the moved; the passive instrument of another's will, taught to
walk in prescribed paths, to renounce his individuality and become a
component atom of a vast whole,--would have been intolerable to him.
Nature had shaped him for other uses than to teach a class of boys on the
benches of a Jesuit school. Nor, on his part, was he likely to please his
directors; for, self-controlled and self-contained as he was, he was far
too intractable a subject to serve their turn. A youth whose calm exterior
hid an inexhaustible fund of pride; whose inflexible purposes, nursed in
secret, the confessional and the "manifestation of conscience" could
hardly drag to the light; whose strong personality would not yield to the
shaping hand; and who, by a necessity of his nature, could obey no
initiative but his own,--was not after the model that Loyola had commended
to his followers.
La Salle left the Jesuits, parting with them, it is said, on good terms,
and with a reputation of excellent acquirements and unimpeachable morals.
This last is very credible. The cravings of a deep ambition, the hunger of
an insatiable intellect, the intense longing for action and achievement
subdued in him all other passions; and in his faults, the love of pleasure
had no part. He had an elder brother in Canada, the Abbé Jean Cavelier, a
priest of St. Sulpice. Apparently, it was this that shaped his destinies.
His connection with the Jesuits had deprived him, under the French law, of
the inheritance of his father, who had died not long before. An allowance
was made to him of three or, as is elsewhere stated, four hundred livres a
year, the capital of which was paid over to him, and with this pittance he
sailed for Canada, to seek his fortune, in the spring of 1666. [Footnote:
It does not appear what vows La Salle had taken. By a recent ordinance,
1666, persons entering religious orders could not take the final vows
before the age of twenty-five. By the family papers above mentioned, it
appears, however, that he had brought himself under the operation of the
law, which debarred those who, having entered religious orders, afterwards
withdrew, from claiming the inheritance of relatives who had died after
their entrance.]
Next, we find him at Montreal. In another volume, we have seen how an
association of enthusiastic devotees had made a settlement at this place.
[Footnote: "The Jesuits in North America," c. xv.] Having in some measure
accomplished its work, it was now dissolved; and the corporation of
priests, styled the Seminary of St. Sulpice, which had taken a prominent
part in the enterprise, and, indeed, had been created with a view to it,
was now the proprietor and the feudal lord of Montreal. It was destined to
retain its seignorial rights until the abolition of the feudal tenures of
Canada in our own day, and it still holds vast possessions in the city and
island. These worthy ecclesiastics, models of a discreet and sober
conservatism, were holding a post with which a band of veteran soldiers or
warlike frontiersmen would have been better matched. Montreal was perhaps
the most dangerous place in Canada. In time of war, which might have been
called the normal condition of the colony, it was exposed by its position
to incessant inroads of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, of New York; and no
man could venture into the forests or the fields without bearing his life
in his hand. The savage confederates had just received a sharp
chastisement at the hands of Courcelles, the governor; and the result was
a treaty of peace, which might at any moment be broken, but which was an
inexpressible relief while it lasted.
The priests of St. Sulpice were granting out their lands, on very easy
terms, to settlers. They wished to extend a thin line of settlements along
the front of their island, to form a sort of outpost, from which an alarm
could be given on any descent of the Iroquois. La Salle was the man for
such a purpose. Had the priests understood him,--which they evidently did
not, for some of them suspected him of levity, the last foible with which
he could be charged,--had they understood him, they would have seen in him
a young man in whom the fire of youth glowed not the less ardently for the
veil of reserve that covered it; who would shrink from no danger, but
would not court it in bravado; and who would cling with an invincible
tenacity of gripe to any purpose which he might espouse. There is good
reason to think that he had come to Canada with purposes already
conceived, and that he was ready to avail himself of any stepping-stone
which might help to realize them. Queylus, Superior of the Seminary, made
him a generous offer; and he accepted it. This was the gratuitous grant of
a large tract of land at the place now called La Chine, above the great
rapids of the same name, and eight or nine miles from Montreal. On one
hand, the place was greatly exposed to attack; and on the other, it was
favorably situated for the fur-trade. La Salle and his successors became
its feudal proprietors, on the sole condition of delivering to the
Seminary, on every change of ownership, a medal of fine silver, weighing
one mark. [Footnote: _Transport de la Seigneurie de St. Sulpice_, cited by
Faillon. La Salle called his new domain as above. Two or three years
later, it received the name of La Chine, for a reason which will appear.]
He entered on the improvement of his new domain, with what means he could
command, and began to grant out his land to such settlers as would join
him.
Approaching the shore where the city of Montreal now stands, one would
have seen a row of small compact dwellings, extending along a narrow
street, parallel to the river, and then, as now, called St. Paul Street.
On a hill at the right stood the windmill of the seigneurs, built of
stone, and pierced with loop-holes to serve, in time of need, as a place
of defence. On the left, in an angle formed by the junction of a rivulet
with the St. Lawrence, was a square bastioned fort of stone. Here lived
the military governor, appointed by the Seminary, and commanding a few
soldiers of the regiment of Carignan. In front, on the line of the street,
were the enclosure and buildings of the Seminary, and, nearly adjoining
them, those of the Hôtel-Dieu, or Hospital, both provided for defence in
case of an Indian attack. In the hospital enclosure was a small church,
opening on the street, and, in the absence of any other, serving for the
whole settlement. [Footnote: A detailed plan of Montreal at this time is
preserved in the Archives de l'Empire, and has been reproduced by Faillon.
There is another, a few years later, and still more minute, of which a
fac-simile will be found in the Library of the Canadian Parliament.]
Landing, passing the fort, and walking southward along the shore, one
would soon have left the rough clearings, and entered the primeval forest.
Here, mile after mile, he would have journeyed on in solitude, when the
hoarse roar of the rapids, foaming in fury on his left, would have reached
his listening ear; and, at length, after a walk of some three hours, he
would have found the rude beginnings of a settlement. It was where the St.
Lawrence widens into the broad expanse called the Lake of St. Louis. Here,
La Salle had traced out the circuit of a palisaded village, and assigned
to each settler half an arpent, or about a third of an acre, within the
enclosure, for which he was to render to the young seigneur a yearly
acknowledgment of three capons, besides six deniers--that is, half a sou--
in money. To each was assigned, moreover, sixty arpents of land beyond the
limits of the village, with the perpetual rent of half a sou for each
arpent. He also set apart a common, two hundred arpents in extent, for the
use of the settlers, on condition of the payment by each of five sous a
year. He reserved four hundred and twenty arpents for his own personal
domain, and on this he began to clear the ground and erect buildings.
Similar to this were the beginnings of all the Canadian seigniories formed
at this troubled period. [Footnote: The above particulars have been
unearthed by the indefatigable Abbé Faillon. Some of La Salle's grants are
still preserved in the ancient records of Montreal.]
That La Salle came to Canada with objects distinctly in view, is probable
from the fact that he at once began to study the Indian languages, and
with such success that he is said, within two or three years, to have
mastered the Iroquois and seven or eight other languages and dialects.
[Footnote: _Papiers de Famille_, MSS. He is said to have made several
journeys into the forests, towards the North, in the years 1667 and 1668,
and to have satisfied himself that little could be hoped from explorations
in that direction.] From the shore of his seigniory, he could gaze
westward over the broad breast of the Lake of St. Louis, bounded by the
dim forests of Chateauguay and Beauharnois; but his thoughts flew far
beyond, across the wild and lonely world that stretched towards the
sunset. Like Champlain and all the early explorers, he dreamed of a
passage to the South Sea, and a new road for commerce to the riches of
China and Japan. Indians often came to his secluded settlement; and, on
one occasion, he was visited by a band of the Seneca Iroquois, not long
before the scourge of the colony, but now, in virtue of the treaty,
wearing the semblance of friendship. The visitors spent the winter with
him, and told him of a river called the Ohio, rising in their country, and
flowing into the sea, but at such a distance that its mouth could only be
reached after a journey of eight or nine months. Evidently, the Ohio and
the Mississippi are here merged into one. [Footnote: According to Dollier
de Casson, who had good opportunities of knowing, the Iroquois always
called the Mississippi the Ohio, while the Algonquins gave it its present
name.] In accordance with geographical views then prevalent, he conceived
that this great river must needs flow into the "Vermilion Sea;" that is,
the Gulf of California. If so, it would give him what he sought,--a
western passage to China; while, in any case, the populous Indian tribes
said to inhabit its banks, might be made a source of great commercial
profit.
La Salle's imagination took fire. His resolution was soon formed; and he
descended the St. Lawrence to Quebec, to gain the countenance of the
Governor to his intended exploration. Few men were more skilled than he in
the art of clear and plausible statement. Both the Governor, Courcelles,
and the Intendant, Talon, were readily won over to his plan; for which,
however, they seem to have given him no more substantial aid than that of
the Governor's letters patent authorizing the enterprise. [Footnote:
Talon, in his letter to the king, of 10 Oct. 1670, expresses himself as if
the enterprise had originated with him.] The cost was to be his own; and
he had no money, having spent it all on his seigniory. He therefore
proposed that the Seminary, which had given it to him, should buy it back
again, with such improvements as he had made. Queylus, the Superior, being
favorably disposed towards him, consented, and bought of him the greater
part; while La Salle sold the remainder, including the clearings, to one
Jean Milot, an ironmonger, for twenty-eight hundred livres. [Footnote:
Faillon, _Colonie Française en Canada_, iii. 288.] With this he bought
four canoes, with the necessary supplies, and hired fourteen men.
Meanwhile, the Seminary itself was preparing a similar enterprise. The
Jesuits at this time not only held, an ascendency over the other
ecclesiastics in Canada, but exercised an inordinate influence on the
civil government. The Seminary priests of Montreal were jealous of these
powerful rivals, and eager to emulate their zeal in the saving of souls,
and the conquering of new domains for the Faith. Under this impulse, they
had, three years before, established a mission at Quinté, on the north
shore of Lake Ontario, in charge of two of their number, one of whom was
the Abbé Fénelon, elder brother of the celebrated Archbishop of Cambray.
Another of them, Dollier de Casson, had spent the winter in a hunting-camp
of the Nipissings, where an Indian prisoner, captured in the North-west,
told him of populous tribes of that quarter, living in heathenish
darkness. On this, the Seminary priests resolved to essay their
conversion; and an expedition, to be directed by Dollier, was fitted out
to this end.
He was not ill suited to the purpose. He had been a soldier in his youth,
and had fought valiantly as an officer of cavalry under Turenne. He was a
man of great courage; of a tall, commanding person; and uncommon bodily
strength, of which he had given striking proofs in the campaign of
Courcelles against the Iroquois, three years before. [Footnote: He was the
author of the very curious and valuable _Histoire de Montréal_, preserved
in the Bibliothèque Mazarine, of which a copy is in my possession. The
Historical Society of Montreal has recently resolved to print it.] On
going to Quebec, to procure the necessary outfit, he was urged by
Courcelles to modify his plans so far as to act in concert with La Salle
in exploring the mystery of the great unknown river of the West. Dollier
and his brother priests consented. One of them, Galinée, was joined with
him as a colleague, because he was skilled in surveying, and could make a
map of their route. Three canoes were procured, and seven hired men
completed the party. It was determined that La Salle's expedition, and
that of the Seminary, should be combined in one; an arrangement ill suited
to the character of the young explorer, who was unfit for any enterprise
of which he was not the undisputed chief.
Midsummer was near, and there was no time to lose. Yet the moment was most
unpropitious, for a Seneca chief had lately been murdered by three
scoundrel soldiers of the fort of Montreal; and, while they were
undergoing their trial, it became known that three other Frenchmen had
treacherously put to death several Iroquois of the Oneida tribe,--in order
to get possession of their furs. The whole colony trembled in expectation
of a new outbreak of the war. Happily, the event proved otherwise. The
authors of the last murder escaped: but the three soldiers were shot at
Montreal, in presence of a considerable number of the Iroquois, who
declared themselves satisfied with the atonement; and on this same day,
the sixth of July, the adventurers began their voyage.