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.
If Talon had remained in the colony, Frontenac would infallibly have
quarrelled with him; but he was too clear-sighted not to approve his plans
for the discovery and occupation of the interior. Before sailing for
France, Talon recommended Joliet as a suitable agent for the discovery of
the Mississippi, and the Governor accepted his counsel. [Footnote: _Lettre
de Frontenac au Ministre_, 2 _Nov_. 1672; Ibid 14 _Nov_. 1674. MSS]
Louis Joliet was the son of a wagon-maker in the service of the Company of
the Hundred Associates, [Footnote: See "Jesuits in North America."] then,
owners of Canada. He was born at Quebec in 1645, was educated by the
Jesuits; and, when still very young, he resolved to be a priest. He
received the tonsure and the minor orders at the age of seventeen. Four
years after, he is mentioned with especial honor for the part he bore in
the disputes in philosophy, at which the dignitaries of the colony were
present, and in which the Intendant himself took part. [Footnote: "Le 2
Juillet (1666) les premières disputes de philosophie se font dans la
congrégation avec succès. Toutes les puissances s'y trouvent; M.
l'Intendant entr'autres y a argumenté très-bien. M. Jolliet et Pierre
Francheville y ont très-bien répondu de toute la logique."--_Journal des
Jésuites_, MS.] Not long after, he renounced his clerical vocation, and
turned fur-trader. Talon sent him, with one Péré, to explore the copper-
mines of Lake Superior; and it was on his return from this expedition that
he met La Salle and the Sulpitians near the head of Lake Ontario.
[Footnote: Nothing was known of Joliet till Shea investigated his history.
Ferland, in his _Notes sur les Registres de Notre-Dame de Québec_;
Faillon, in his _Colonie Française en Canada_; and Margry, in a series of
papers in the _Journal Général de I'Instruction Publique_,--have thrown
much new light on his life. From journals of a voyage made by him at a
later period to the coast of Labrador,--given in substance by Margry,--he
seems to have been a man of close and intelligent observation. His
mathematical acquirements appear to have been very considerable.]
In what we know of Joliet, there is nothing that reveals any salient or
distinctive trait of character, any especial breadth of view or boldness
of design. He appears to have been simply a merchant, intelligent, well
educated, courageous, hardy, and enterprising. Though he had renounced the
priesthood, he retained his partiality for the Jesuits; and it is more
than probable that their influence had aided not a little to determine
Talon's choice. One of their number, Jacques Marquette, was chosen to
accompany him.
He passed up the lakes to Michillimackinac; and found his destined
companion at Point St. Ignace, on the north side of the strait; where, in
his palisaded mission-house and chapel, he had labored for two years past
to instruct the Huron refugees from St. Esprit, and a band of Ottawas who
had joined them. Marquette was born in 1637, of an old and honorable
family at Laon, in the north of France, and was now thirty-five years of
age. When about seventeen, he had joined the Jesuits, evidently from
motives purely religious; and in 1666 he was sent to the missions of
Canada. At first he was destined to the station of Tadoussac; and, to
prepare himself for it, he studied the Montagnais language under Gabriel
Druilletes. But his destination was changed, and he was sent to the Upper
Lakes in 1668, where he had since remained. His talents as a linguist must
have been great; for, within a few years, he learned to speak with ease
six Indian languages. The traits of his character are unmistakable. He was
of the brotherhood of the early Canadian missionaries, and the true
counterpart of Garnier or Jogues. He was a devout votary of the Virgin
Mary; who, imaged to his mind in shapes of the most transcendent
loveliness with which the pencil of human genius has ever informed the
canvas, was to him the object of an adoration not unmingled with a
sentiment of chivalrous devotion. The longings of a sensitive heart,
divorced from earth, sought solace in the skies. A subtile element of
romance was blended with the fervor of his worship, and hung like an
illumined cloud over the harsh and hard realities of his daily lot.
Kindled by the smile of his celestial mistress, his gentle and noble
nature knew no fear. For her he burned to dare and to suffer, discover new
lands and conquer new realms to her sway.
He begins the journal of his voyage thus: "The day of the Immaculate
Conception of the Holy Virgin; whom I had continually invoked, since I
came to this country of the Ottawas, to obtain from God the favor of being
enabled to visit the nations on the river Mississippi--this very day was
precisely that on which M. Joliet arrived with orders from Count
Frontenac, our Governor, and from M. Talon, our Intendant, to go with me
on this discovery. I was all the more delighted at this good news, because
I saw my plans about to be accomplished, and found myself in the happy
necessity of exposing my life for the salvation of all these tribes; and
especially of the Illinois, who, when I was at Point St. Esprit, had
begged me very earnestly to bring the word of God among them."
The outfit of the travellers was very simple. They provided themselves
with two birch canoes, and a supply of smoked meat and Indian corn;
embarked with five men; and began their voyage on the seventeenth of May.
They had obtained all possible information from the Indians, and had made,
by means of it, a species of map of their intended route. "Above all,"
writes Marquette, "I placed our voyage under the protection of the Holy
Virgin Immaculate, promising that if she granted us the favor of
discovering the great river, I would give it the name of the Conception."
[Footnote: The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, sanctioned in our
own time by the Pope, was always a favorite tenet of the Jesuits; and
Marquette was especially devoted to it.] Their course was westward; and,
plying their paddles, they passed the Straits of Michillimackinac, and
coasted the northern shores of Lake Michigan; landing at evening to build
their camp-fire at the edge of the forest, and draw up their canoes on the
strand. They soon reached the river Menomonie, and ascended it to the
village of the Menomonies, or Wild-rice Indians. [Footnote: The
Malhoumines, Malouminek, Oumalouminek, or Nation des Folles-Avoines, of
early French writers. The _folle-avoine_, wild oats or "wild rice,"--
_Zizania aquatica_,--was their ordinary food, as also of other tribes of
this region.] When they told them the object of their voyage, they were
filled with astonishment, and used their best ingenuity to dissuade them.
The banks of the Mississippi, they said, were inhabited by ferocious
tribes, who put every stranger to death, tomahawking all new-comers
without cause or provocation. They added that there was a demon in a
certain part of the river, whose roar could be heard at a great distance,
and who would engulf them in the abyss where he dwelt; that its waters
were full of frightful monsters, who would devour them and their canoe;
and, finally, that the heat was so great that they would perish
inevitably. Marquette set their counsel at naught, gave them a few words
of instruction in the mysteries of the Faith, taught them a prayer, and
bade them farewell.
The travellers soon reached the mission at the head of Green Bay; entered
the Fox River; with difficulty and labor dragged their canoes up the long
and tumultuous rapids; crossed Lake Winnebago; and followed the quiet
windings of the river beyond, where they glided through an endless growth
of wild rice, and scared the innumerable birds that fed upon it. On either
hand rolled the prairie, dotted with groves and trees, browsing elk and
deer. [Footnote: Dablon, on his journey with Allouez in 1670, was
delighted with the aspect of the country and the abundance of game along
this river. Carver, a century later, speaks to the same effect,--saying
the birds rose up in clouds from the wild-rice marshes.] On the seventh of
June, they reached the Mascoutins and Miamis, who, since the visit of
Dablon and Allouez, had been joined by the Kickapoos. Marquette, who had
an eye for natural beauty, was delighted with the situation of the town,
which he describes as standing on the crown of a hill; while, all around,
the prairie stretched beyond the sight, interspersed with groves and belts
of tall forest. But he was still more delighted when he saw a cross
planted in the midst of the place. The Indians had decorated it with a
number of dressed deer-skins, red girdles, and bows and arrows, which they
had hung upon it as an offering to the Great Manitou of the French,--a
sight by which, as Marquette says, he was "extremely consoled."
The travellers had no sooner reached the town than they called the chiefs
and elders to a council. Joliet told them that the Governor of Canada had
sent him to discover new countries, and that God had sent his companion to
teach the true faith to the inhabitants; and he prayed for guides to show
them the way to the waters of the Wisconsin. The council readily
consented; and on the tenth of June the Frenchmen embarked again, with two
Indians to conduct them. All the town came down to the shore to see their
departure. Here were the Miamis, with long locks of hair dangling over
each ear, after a fashion which Marquette thought very becoming; and here,
too, the Mascoutins and the Kickapoos, whom he describes as mere boors in
comparison with their Miami townsmen. All stared alike at the seven
adventurers, marvelling that men could be found to risk an enterprise so
hazardous.
The river twisted among lakes and marshes choked with wild rice; and, but
for their guides, they could scarcely have followed the perplexed and
narrow channel. It brought them at last to the portage; where, after
carrying their canoes a mile and a half over the prairie and through the
marsh, they launched them on the Wisconsin, bade farewell to the waters
that flowed to the St. Lawrence, and committed themselves to the current
that was to bear them they knew not whither,--perhaps to the Gulf of
Mexico, perhaps to the South Sea or the Gulf of California. They glided
calmly down the tranquil stream, by islands choked with trees and matted
with entangling grape-vines; by forests, groves, and prairies,--the parks
and pleasure-grounds of a prodigal nature; by thickets and marshes and
broad bare sand-bars; under the shadowing trees, between whose tops looked
down from afar the bold brow of some woody bluff. At night, the bivouac,--
the canoes inverted on the bank, the flickering fire, the meal of bison-
flesh or venison, the evening pipes, and slumber beneath the stars: and
when in the morning they embarked again, the mist hung on the river like a
bridal veil; then melted before the sun, till the glassy water and the
languid woods basked breathless in the sultry glare. [Footnote: The above
traits of the scenery of the Wisconsin are taken from personal observation
of the river during midsummer.]
On the 17th of June, they saw on their right the broad meadows, bounded in
the distance by rugged hills, where now stand the town and fort of Prairie
du Chien. Before them, a wide and rapid current coursed athwart their way,
by the foot of lofty heights wrapped thick in forests. They had found what
they sought, and "with a joy," writes Marquette, "which I cannot express,"
they steered forth their canoes on the eddies of the Mississippi.
Turning southward, they paddled down the stream, through a solitude
unrelieved by the faintest trace of man. A large fish, apparently one of
the huge cat-fish of the Mississippi, blundered against Marquette's canoe
with a force which seems to have startled him; and once, as they drew in
their net, they caught a "spade-fish," whose eccentric appearance greatly
astonished them. At length, the buffalo began to appear, grazing in herds
on the great prairies which then bordered the river; and Marquette
describes the fierce and stupid look of the old bulls, as they stared at
the intruders through the tangled mane which nearly blinded them.
They advanced with extreme caution, landed at night, and made a fire to
cook their evening meal; then extinguished it, embarked again, paddled
some way farther, and anchored in the stream, keeping a man on the watch
till morning. They had journeyed more than a fortnight without meeting a
human being; when, on the 25th, they discovered footprints of men in the
mud of the western bank, and a well-trodden path that led to the adjacent
prairie. Joliet and Marquette resolved to follow it; and, leaving the
canoes in charge of their men, they set out on their hazardous adventure.
The day was fair, and they walked two leagues in silence, following the
path through the forest and across the sunny prairie, till they discovered
an Indian village on the banks of a river, and two others on a hill half a
league distant. [Footnote: The Indian villages, under the names of
Peouaria (Peoria) and Moingouena, are represented in Marquette's map upon
a river corresponding in position with the Des Moines; though the distance
from the Wisconsin, as given by him, would indicate a river farther
north.] Now, with beating hearts, they invoked the aid of Heaven, and,
again advancing, came so near without being seen, that they could hear the
voices of the Indians among the wigwams. Then they stood forth in full
view, and shouted, to attract attention. There was great commotion in the
village. The inmates swarmed out of their huts, and four of their chief
men presently came forward to meet the strangers, advancing very
deliberately, and holding up toward the sun two calumets, or peace-pipes,
decorated with feathers. They stopped abruptly before the two Frenchmen,
and stood gazing at them with attention, without speaking a word.
Marquette was much relieved on seeing that they wore French cloth, whence
he judged that they must be friends and allies. He broke the silence, and
asked them who they were; whereupon they answered that they were Illinois,
and offered the pipe; which having been duly smoked, they all went
together to the village. Here the chief received the travellers after a
singular fashion, meant to do them honor. He stood stark naked at the door
of a large wigwam, holding up both hands as if to shield his eyes.
"Frenchmen, how bright the sun shines when you come to visit us! All our
village awaits you; and you shall enter our wigwams in peace." So saying,
he led them into his own; which was crowded to suffocation with savages,
staring at their guests in silence. Having smoked with the chiefs and old
men, they were invited to visit the great chief of all the Illinois, at
one of the villages they had seen in the distance; and thither they
proceeded, followed by a throng of warriors, squaws, and children. On
arriving, they were forced to smoke again, and listen to a speech of
welcome from the great chief; who delivered it, standing between two old
men, naked like himself. His lodge was crowded with the dignitaries of the
tribe; whom Marquette addressed in Algonquin, announcing himself as a
messenger sent by the God who had made them, and whom it behooved them to
recognize and obey. He added a few words touching the power and glory of
Count Frontenac, and concluded by asking information concerning the
Mississippi, and the tribes along its banks, whom he was on his way to
visit. The chief replied with a speech of compliment,--assuring his guests
that their presence added flavor to his tobacco, made the river more calm,
the sky more serene, and the earth more beautiful. In conclusion, he gave
them a young slave and a calumet, begging them at the same time to abandon
their purpose of descending the Mississippi.
A feast of four courses now followed. First, a wooden bowl full of a
porridge of Indian meal boiled with grease was set before the guests, and
the master of ceremonies fed them in turn, like infants, with a large
spoon. Then, appeared a platter of fish; and the same functionary,
carefully removing the bones with his fingers, and blowing on the morsels
to cool them, placed them in the mouths of the two Frenchmen. A large dog,
killed and cooked for the occasion, was next placed before them; but,
failing to tempt their fastidious appetites, was supplanted by a dish of
fat buffalo-meat, which concluded the entertainment. The crowd having
dispersed, buffalo-robes were spread on the ground, and Marquette and
Joliet spent the night on the scene of the late festivity. In the morning,
the chief, with some six hundred of his tribesmen, escorted them to their
canoes, and bade them, after their stolid fashion, a friendly farewell.
Again they were on their way, slowly drifting down the great river. They
passed the mouth of the Illinois, and glided beneath that line of rocks on
the eastern side, cut into fantastic forms by the elements, and marked as
"The Ruined Castles" on some of the early French maps. Presently they
beheld a sight which reminded them that the Devil was still lord paramount
of this wilderness. On the flat face of a high rock, were painted in red,
black, and green a pair of monsters,--each "as large as a calf, with horns
like a deer, red eyes, a beard like a tiger, and a frightful expression of
countenance. The face is something like that of a man, the body covered
with scales; and the tail so long that it passes entirely round the body,
over the head and between the legs, ending like that of a fish." Such is
the account which the worthy Jesuit gives of these _manitous_, or Indian
gods. [Footnote: The rock where these figures were painted is immediately
above the city of Alton. The tradition of their existence remains, though
they are entirely effaced by time. In 1867, when I passed the place, a
part of the rock had been quarried away, and, instead of Marquette's
monsters, it bore a huge advertisement of "Plantation Bitters." Some years
ago, certain persons, with more zeal than knowledge, proposed to restore
the figures, after conceptions of their own; but the idea was abandoned.
Marquette made a drawing of the two monsters, but it is lost. I have,
however, a fac-simile of a map made a few years later by order of the
Intendant Duchesneau; which is decorated with the portrait of one of them,
answering to Marquette's description, and probably copied from his
drawing. St. Cosme, who saw them in 1699, says that they were even then
almost effaced. Douay and Joutel also speak of them; the former, bitterly
hostile to his Jesuit contemporaries, charging Marquette with exaggeration
in his account of them. Joutel could see nothing terrifying in their
appearance; but he says that his Indians made sacrifices to them as they
passed.] He confesses that at first they frightened him; and his
imagination and that of his credulous companions were so wrought upon by
these unhallowed efforts of Indian art, that they continued for a long
time to talk of them as they plied their paddles. They were thus engaged,
when they were suddenly aroused by a real danger. A torrent of yellow mud
rushed furiously athwart the calm blue current of the Mississippi; boiling
and surging, and sweeping in its course logs, branches, and uprooted
trees. They had reached the mouth of the Missouri, where that savage
river, descending from its mad career through a vast unknown of barbarism,
poured its turbid floods into the bosom of its gentler sister. Their light
canoes whirled on the miry vortex like dry leaves on an angry brook. "I
never," writes Marquette, "saw any thing more terrific;" but they escaped
with their fright, and held their way down the turbulent and swollen
current of the now united rivers. [Footnote: The Missouri is called
Pekitanouï by Marquette. It also bears, on early French maps, the names of
Rivière des Osages, and Rivière des Emissourites, or Oumessourits. On
Marquette's map, a tribe of this name is placed near its banks, just above
the Osages. Judging by the course of the Mississippi that it discharged
into the Gulf of Mexico, he conceived the hope of one day reaching the
South Sea by way of the Missouri.] They passed the lonely forest that
covered the site of the destined city of St. Louis, and, a few days later,
saw on their left the mouth of the stream to which the Iroquois had given
the well-merited name of Ohio, or, the Beautiful River. [Footnote: Called
on Marquette's map, Ouabouskiaou. On some of the earliest maps, it is
called Ouabache (Wabash).] Soon they began to see the marshy shores buried
in a dense growth of the cane, with its tall straight stems and feathery
light-green foliage. The sun glowed through the hazy air with a languid
stifling heat, and, by day and night, mosquitoes in myriads left them no
peace. They floated slowly down the current, crouched in the shade of the
sails which they had spread as awnings, when suddenly they saw Indians on
the east bank. The surprise was mutual, and each party was as much
frightened as the other. Marquette hastened to display the calumet which
the Illinois had given him by way of passport; and the Indians,
recognizing the pacific symbol, replied with an invitation to land.
Evidently, they were in communication with Europeans, for they were armed
with guns, knives, and hatchets, wore garments of cloth, and carried their
gunpowder in small bottles of thick glass. They feasted the Frenchmen with
buffalo-meat, bear's oil, and white plums; and gave them a variety of
doubtful information, including the agreeable but delusive assurance that
they would reach the mouth of the river in ten days. It was, in fact, more
than a thousand miles distant.
They resumed their course, and again floated down the interminable
monotony of river, marsh and forest. Day after day passed on in solitude,
and they had paddled some three hundred miles since their meeting with the
Indians; when, as they neared the mouth of the Arkansas, they saw a
cluster of wigwams on the west bank. Their inmates were all astir, yelling
the war-whoop, snatching their weapons, and running to the shore to meet
the strangers, who, on their part, called for succor to the Virgin. In
truth they had need of her aid; for several large wooden canoes, filled
with savages, were putting out from the shore, above and below them, to
cut off their retreat, while a swarm of headlong young warriors waded into
the water to attack them. The current proved too strong; and, failing to
reach the canoes of the Frenchmen, one of them threw his war-club, which
flew over the heads of the startled travellers. Meanwhile, Marquette had
not ceased to hold up his calumet, to which the excited crowd gave no
heed, but strung their bows and notched their arrows for immediate action;
when at length the elders of the village arrived, saw the peace-pipe,
restrained the ardor of the youth, and urged the Frenchmen to come ashore.
Marquette and his companions complied, trembling, and found a better
reception than they had reason to expect. One of the Indians spoke a
little Illinois, and served as interpreter; a friendly conference was
followed by a feast of sagamite and fish; and the travellers, not without
sore misgivings, spent the night in the lodges of their entertainers.
[Footnote: This village, called Mitchigamea, is represented on several
contemporary maps.]
Early in the morning, they embarked again, and proceeded to a village of
the Arkansas tribe, about eight leagues below. Notice of their coming was
sent before them by their late hosts; and, as they drew near, they were
met by a canoe, in the prow of which stood a naked personage, holding a
calumet, singing, and making gestures of friendship. On reaching the
village, which was on the east side, [Footnote: A few years later, the
Arkansas were all on the west side.] opposite the mouth of the river
Arkansas, they were conducted to a sort of scaffold before the lodge of
the war-chief. The space beneath had been prepared for their reception,
the ground being neatly covered with rush mats. On these they were seated;
the warriors sat around them in a semi-circle; then the elders of the
tribe; and then the promiscuous crowd of villagers, standing, and staring
over the heads of the more dignified members of the assembly. All the men
were naked; but, to compensate for the lack of clothing, they wore strings
of beads in their noses and ears. The women were clothed in shabby skins,
and wore their hair clumped in a mass behind each ear. By good luck, there
was a young Indian in the village, who had an excellent knowledge of
Illinois; and through him Marquette endeavored to explain the mysteries of
Christianity, and to gain information concerning the river below. To this
end he gave his auditors the presents indispensable on such occasions, but
received very little in return. They told him that the Mississippi was
infested by hostile Indians, armed with guns procured from white men; and
that they, the Arkansas, stood in such fear of them that they dared not
hunt the buffalo, but were forced to live on Indian corn, of which they
raised three crops a year.
During the speeches on either side, food was brought in without ceasing;
sometimes a platter of sagamite or mush; sometimes of corn boiled whole;
sometimes a roasted dog. The villagers had large earthen pots and
platters, made by themselves with tolerable skill,--as well as hatchets,
knives, and beads, gained by traffic with the Illinois and other tribes in
contact with the French or Spaniards. All day there was feasting without
respite, after the merciless practice of Indian hospitality; but at night
some of their entertainers proposed to kill and plunder them,--a scheme
which was defeated by the vigilance of the chief, who visited their
quarters, and danced the calumet dance to reassure his guests.
The travellers now held counsel as to what course they should take. They
had gone far enough, as they thought, to establish one important point,--
that the Mississippi discharged its waters, not into the Atlantic or sea
of Virginia, nor into the Gulf of California or Vermilion Sea, but into
the Gulf of Mexico. They thought themselves nearer to its mouth than they
actually were,--the distance being still about seven hundred miles; and
they feared that, if they went farther, they might be killed by Indians or
captured by Spaniards, whereby the results of their discovery would be
lost. Therefore they resolved to return to Canada, and report what they
had seen.
They left the Arkansas village, and began their homeward voyage on the
seventeenth of July. It was no easy task to urge their way upward, in the
heat of midsummer, against the current of the dark and gloomy stream,
toiling all day under the parching sun, and sleeping at night in the
exhalations of the unwholesome shore, or in the narrow confines of their
birchen vessels, anchored on the river. Marquette was attacked with
dysentery. Languid and well-nigh spent, he invoked his celestial mistress.
as day after day, and week after week, they won their slow way northward.
At length they reached the Illinois, and, entering its mouth, followed its
course, charmed, as they went, with its placid waters, its shady forests,
and its rich plains, grazed by the bison and the deer. They stopped at a
spot soon to be made famous in the annals of western discovery. This was a
village of the Illinois, then called Kaskaskia,--a name afterwards
transferred to another locality. [Footnote: Marquette says that it
consisted at this time of seventy-four lodges. These, like the Huron and
Iroquois lodges, contained each several fires and several families. This
village was about seven miles below the site of the present town of
Ottawa.] A chief, with a band of young warriors, offered to guide them to
the Lake of the Illinois; that is to say, Lake Michigan. Thither they
repaired; and, coasting its shores, reached Green Bay at the end of
September, after an absence of about four months, during which they had
paddled their canoes somewhat more than two thousand five hundred miles.
[Footnote: The journal of Marquette, first published in an imperfect form
by Thevenot, in 1681, has been reprinted by Mr. Lenox, under the direction
of Mr. Shea, from the manuscript preserved in the archives of the Canadian
Jesuits. It will also be found in Shea's _Discovery and Exploration of the
Mississippi Valley_, and the _Relations Inédites_, of Martin. The true map
of Marquette accompanies all these publications. The map published by
Thevenot and reproduced by Bancroft is not Marquette's.
The original of this, of which I have a fac-simile, bears the title _Carte
de la Nouvelle Découverte que les Pères Jésuites out fait en l'année 1672,
et continuée par le Père Jacques Marquette, etc_. The return route of the
expedition is incorrectly laid down on it. A manuscript map of the Jesuit
Raffeix, preserved in the Bibliothèque Impériale, is more accurate in this
particular. I have also another contemporary manuscript map, indicating
the various Jesuit stations in the west at this time, and representing the
Mississippi, as discovered by Marquette. For these and other maps, see
Appendix.]
Marquette remained, to recruit his exhausted strength; but Joliet
descended to Quebec, to bear the report of his discovery to Count
Frontenac. Fortune had wonderfully favored him on his long and perilous
journey; but now she abandoned him on the very threshold of home. At the
foot of the rapids of La Chine, and immediately above Montreal, his canoe
was overset, two of his men and an Indian boy were drowned, all his papers
were lost, and he himself narrowly escaped. [Footnote: _Lettre de
Frontenac au Ministre, Québec_, 14 _Nov._ 1674, MS.] In a letter to
Frontenac, he speaks of the accident as follows: "I had escaped every
peril from the Indians; I had passed forty-two rapids; and was on the
point of disembarking, full of joy at the success of so long and difficult
an enterprise,--when my canoe capsized, after all the danger seemed over.
I lost two men, and my box of papers, within sight of the first French
settlements, which I had left almost two years before. Nothing remains to
me but my life, and the ardent desire to employ it on any service which
you may please to direct." [Footnote: This letter is appended to Joliet's
smaller map of his discoveries. See Appendix. Joliet applied for a grant
of the countries he had visited, but failed to obtain it, because the king
wished at this time to confine the inhabitants of Canada to productive
industry within the limits of the colony, and to restrain their tendency
to roam into the western wilderness. On the seventh of October, 1675,
Joliet married Claire Bissot, daughter of a wealthy Canadian merchant,
engaged in trade with the northern Indians. This drew Joliet's attention
to Hudson's Bay, and he made a journey thither in 1679, by way of the
Saguenay. He found three English forts on the bay, occupied by about sixty
men, who had also an armed vessel of twelve guns and several small
trading-craft. The English held out great inducements to Joliet to join
them; but he declined, and returned to Quebec, where he reported that,
unless these formidable rivals were dispossessed, the trade of Canada
would be ruined. In consequence of this report, some of the principal
merchants of the colony formed a company to compete with the English in
the trade of Hudson's Bay. In the year of this journey, Joliet received a
grant of the islands of Mignan; and in the following year, 1680, he
received another grant, of the great island of Anticosti in the lower St.
Lawrence. In 1681, he was established here with his wife and six servants.
He was engaged in fisheries; and, being a skilful navigator and surveyor,
he made about this time a chart of the St. Lawrence. In 1690, Sir William
Phips, on his way with an English fleet to attack Quebec, made a descent
on Joliet's establishment, burnt his buildings, and took prisoners his
wife and his mother-in-law. In 1694, Joliet explored the coasts of
Labrador under the auspices of a company formed for the whale and seal
fishery. On his return, Frontenac made him royal pilot for the St.
Lawrence; and at about the same time he received the appointment of
hydrographer at Quebec. He died, apparently poor, in 1699 or 1700, and was
buried on one of the islands of Mignan. The discovery of the above facts
is due in great part to the researches of Margry.]
Marquette spent the winter and the following summer at the mission of
Green Bay, still suffering from his malady. In the autumn, however, it
abated, and he was permitted by his superior to attempt the execution of a
plan to which he was devotedly attached,--the founding, at the principal
town of the Illinois, of a mission to be called the Immaculate Conception,
a name which he had already given to the river Mississippi; He set out on
this errand on the twenty-fifth of October, accompanied by two men, named
Pierre and Jacques, one of whom had been with him on his great journey of
discovery. A band of Pottawattamies and another band of Illinois also
joined him. The united parties--ten canoes in all--followed the east shore
of Green Bay as far as the inlet then called Sturgeon Cove, from the head
of which they crossed by a difficult portage through the forest to the
shore of Lake Michigan. November had come. The bright hues of the autumn
foliage were changed to rusty brown. The shore was desolate, and the lake
was stormy. They were more than a month in coasting its western border,
when at length they reached the river Chicago, entered it, and ascended
about two leagues. Marquette's disease had lately returned, and hemorrhage
now ensued. He told his two companions that this journey would be his
last. In the condition in which he was, it was impossible to go farther.
The two men built a log-hut by the river, and here they prepared to spend
the winter, while Marquette, feeble as he was, began the spiritual
exercises of Saint Ignatius, and confessed his two companions twice a
week.
Meadow, marsh, and forest were sheeted with snow, but game was abundant.
Pierre and Jacques killed buffalo and deer and shot wild turkeys close to
their hut. There was an encampment of Illinois within two days' journey;
and other Indians, passing by this well known thoroughfare, occasionally
visited them, treating the exiles kindly, and sometimes bringing them game
and Indian corn. Eighteen leagues distant was the camp of two adventurous
French traders,--one of them a noted _coureur de bois_, nicknamed La
Taupine, [Footnote: Pierre Moreau, _alias_ La Taupine, was afterwards
bitterly complained of by the Intendant Duchesneau for acting as the
Governor's agent in illicit trade with the Indians.] and the other a self-
styled surgeon. They also visited Marquette, and befriended him to the
best of their power.
Urged by a burning desire to lay, before he died, the foundation of his
new mission of the Immaculate Conception, Marquette begged his two
followers to join him in a _novena_, or nine days' devotion to the Virgin.
In consequence of this, as he believed, his disease relented; he began to
regain strength, and, in March, was able to resume the journey. On the
thirtieth of the month, they left their hut, which had been inundated by a
sudden rise of the river, and carried their canoe through mud and water
over the portage which led to the head of the Des Plaines. Marquette knew
the way, for he had passed by this route on his return from the
Mississippi. Amid the rains of opening spring, they floated down the
swollen current of the Des Plaines, by naked woods, and spongy, saturated
prairies, till they reached its junction with the main stream of the
Illinois, which they descended to their destination,--the Indian town
which Marquette calls Kaskaskia. Here, as we are told, he was received
"like an angel from Heaven." He passed from wigwam to wigwam, telling the
listening crowds of God and the Virgin, Paradise and Hell, angels and
demons; and, when he thought their minds prepared, he summoned them all to
a grand council.
It took place near the town, on the great meadow which lies between the
river and the modern village of Utica. Here five hundred chiefs and old
men were seated in a ring; behind stood fifteen hundred youths and
warriors, and behind these again all the women and children of the
village. Marquette, standing in the midst, displayed four large pictures
of the Virgin; harangued the assembly on the mysteries of the Faith, and
exhorted them to adopt it. The temper of his auditory met his utmost
wishes. They begged him to stay among them and continue his instructions;
but his life was fast ebbing away, and it behooved him to depart.
A few days after Easter he left the village, escorted by a crowd of
Indians, who followed him as far as Lake Michigan. Here he embarked with
his two companions. Their destination was Michillimackinac, and their
course lay along the eastern borders of the lake. As, in the freshness of
advancing spring, Pierre and Jacques urged their canoe along that lonely
and savage shore, the priest lay with dimmed sight and prostrated
strength, communing with the Virgin, and the angels. On the nineteenth of
May he felt that his hour was near; and, as they passed the mouth of a
small river, he requested his companions to land. They complied, built a
shed of bark on a rising ground near the bank, and carried thither the
dying Jesuit. With perfect cheerfulness and composure he gave directions
for his burial, asked their forgiveness for the trouble he had caused
them, administered to them the sacrament of penitence, and thanked God
that he was permitted to die in the wilderness, a missionary of the faith
and a member of the Jesuit brotherhood. At night, seeing that they were
fatigued, he told them to take rest,--saying that he would call them when
he felt his time approaching. Two or three hours after, they heard a
feeble voice, and, hastening to his side, found him at the point of death.
He expired calmly, murmuring the names of Jesus and Mary, with his eyes
fixed on the crucifix which one of his followers held before him. They dug
a grave beside the hut, and here they buried him according to the
directions which he had given them; then re-embarking, they made their way
to Michillimackinac, to bear the tidings to the priests at the mission of
St. Ignace. [Footnote: The contemporary _Relation_ tells us that a miracle
took place at the burial of Marquette. One of the two Frenchmen, overcome
with grief and colic, bethought him of applying a little earth from the
grave to the seat of pain. This at once restored him to health and
cheerfulness.]
In the winter of 1676, a party of Kiskakon Ottawas were hunting on Lake
Michigan; and when, in the following spring, they prepared to return home,
they bethought them, in accordance with an Indian custom, of taking with
them the bones of Marquette, who had been their instructor at the mission
of St. Esprit. They repaired to the spot, found the grave, opened it,
washed and dried the bones and placed them carefully in a box of birch-
bark. Then, in a procession of thirty canoes, they bore it, singing their
funeral songs, to St. Ignace of Michillimackinac. As they approached,
priests, Indians, and traders all thronged to the shore. The relics of
Marquette were received with solemn ceremony, and buried beneath the floor
of the little chapel of the mission. [Footnote: For Marquette's death, see
the contemporary _Relation_, published by Shea, Lenox, and Martin, with
the accompanying _Lettre et Journal_. The river where he died is a small
stream in the west of Michigan, some distance south of the promontory
called the "Sleeping Bear." It long bore his name, which is now borne by a
larger neighboring stream. Charlevoix's account of Marquette's death is
derived from tradition, and is not supported by the contemporary
narrative. The _voyageurs_ on Lake Michigan long continued to invoke the
intercession of the departed missionary in time of danger.
In 1847, the missionary of the Algonquins at the Lake of Two Mountains,
above Montreal, wrote down a tradition of the death of Marquette, from the
lips of an old Indian woman, born in 1777, at Michillimackinac. Her
ancestress had been baptized by the subject of the story. The tradition
has a resemblance to that related as fact by Charlevoix. The old squaw
said that the Jesuit was returning, very ill, to Michillimackinac, when a
storm forced him and his two men to land near a little river. Here he told
them that he should die, and directed them to ring a bell over his grave
and plant a cross. They all remained four days at the spot; and, though
without food, the men felt no hunger. On the night of the fourth day he
died, and the men buried him as he had directed. On waking in the morning,
they saw a sack of Indian corn, a quantity of lard, and some biscuits,
miraculously sent to them in accordance with the promise of Marquette, who
had told them that they should have food enough for their journey to
Michillimackinac. At the same instant, the stream began to rise, and in a
few moments encircled the grave of the Jesuit, which formed, thenceforth,
an islet in the waters. The tradition adds, that an Indian battle
afterwards took place on the banks of this stream, between Christians and
infidels; and that the former gained the victory in consequence of
invoking the name of Marquette. This story bears the attestation of the
priest of the Two Mountains, that it is a literal translation of the
tradition, as recounted by the old woman.
It has been asserted that the Illinois country was visited by two priests,
some time before the visit of Marquette. This assertion was first made by
M. Noiseux, late Grand Vicar of Quebec, who gives no authority for it. Not
the slightest indication of any such visit appears in any contemporary
document or map thus far discovered. The contemporary writers, down to the
time of Marquette and La Salle, all speak of the Illinois as an unknown
country. The entire groundlessness of Noiseux's assertion is shown by Shea
in a paper in the "Weekly Herald," of New York, April 21, 1855.]