He told them that he had come to bring them a message from the King, his master, who was the Great Chief of all the nations of the earth, and whose will it was that the Comanches should live in peace with his other children,—the Missouris, Osages, Kansas, Otoes, Omahas, and Pawnees,—with whom they had long been at war; that the chiefs of these tribes were now present, ready to renounce their old enmities; that the Comanches should henceforth regard them as friends, share with them the blessing of alliance and trade with the French, and give to these last free passage through their country to trade with the Spaniards of New Mexico. Bourgmont then gave the French flag to the Great Chief, to be kept forever as a pledge of that day's compact. The chief took the flag, and promised in behalf of his people to keep peace inviolate with the Indian children of the King. Then, with unspeakable delight, he and his tribesmen took and divided the gifts.
The next two days were spent in feasts and rejoicings. "Is it true that you are men?" asked the Great Chief. "I have heard wonders of the French, but I never could have believed what I see this day." Then, taking up a handful of earth, "The Spaniards are like this; but you are like the sun." And he offered Bourgmont, in case of need, the aid of his two thousand Comanche warriors. The pleasing manners of his visitors, and their unparalleled generosity, had completely won his heart.
As the object of the expedition was accomplished, or seemed to be so, the party set out on their return. A ride of ten days brought them again to the Missouri; they descended in canoes to Fort Orléans, and sang Te Deum in honor of the peace.[380]
No farther discovery in this direction was made for the next fifteen years. Though the French had explored the Missouri as far as the site of Fort Clark and the Mandan villages, they were possessed by the idea—due, perhaps, to Indian reports concerning the great tributary river, the Yellowstone—that in its upper course the main stream bent so far southward as to form a waterway to New Mexico, with which it was the constant desire of the authorities of Louisiana to open trade. A way thither was at last made known by two brothers named Mallet, who with six companions went up the Platte to its South Fork, which they called River of the Padoucas,—a name given it on some maps down to the middle of this century. They followed the South Fork for some distance, and then, turning southward and southwestward, crossed the plains of Colorado. Here the dried dung of the buffalo was their only fuel; and it has continued to feed the camp-fire of the traveller in this treeless region within the memory of many now living. They crossed the upper Arkansas, and apparently the Cimarron, passed Taos, and on the twenty-second of July reached Santa Fé, where they spent the winter. On the first of May, 1740, they began their return journey, three of them crossing the plains to the Pawnee villages, and the rest descending the Arkansas to the Mississippi.[381]
The bold exploit of the brothers Mallet attracted great attention at New Orleans, and Bienville resolved to renew it, find if possible a nearer and better way to Santa Fé, determine the nature and extent of these mysterious western regions, and satisfy a lingering doubt whether they were not contiguous to China and Tartary.[382] A naval officer, Fabry de la Bruyère, was sent on this errand, with the brothers Mallet and a few soldiers and Canadians. He ascended the Canadian Fork of the Arkansas, named by him the St. André, became entangled in the shallows and quicksands of that difficult river, fell into disputes with his men, and, after protracted efforts, returned unsuccessful.[383]
While French enterprise was unveiling the remote Southwest, two indomitable Canadians were pushing still more noteworthy explorations into more northern regions of the continent.
FOOTNOTES:
[358] Journal historique de l'Établissement des Français à la Louisiane, 43.
[359] Champigny au Ministre, 4 Novembre, 1693.
[360] Relation de Penecaut. In my possession is a contemporary manuscript of this narrative, for which I am indebted to the kindness of General J. Meredith Reade.
[361] Penecaut, Journal. Procès-verbal de la Prise de Possession du Pays des Nadouessioux, etc., par Nicolas Perrot, 1689. Fort Perrot seems to have been built in 1685, and to have stood near the outlet of the lake, probably on the west side. Perrot afterwards built another fort, called Fort St. Antoine, a little above, on the east bank. The position of these forts has been the subject of much discussion, and cannot be ascertained with precision. It appears by the Prise de Possession, cited above, that there was also, in 1689, a temporary French post near the mouth of the Wisconsin.
[362] This weeping over strangers was a custom with the Sioux of that time mentioned by many early writers. La Mothe-Cadillac marvels that a people so brave and warlike should have such a fountain of tears always at command.
[363] In 1702 the geographer De l'Isle made a remarkable MS. map entitled Carte de la Rivière du Mississippi, dressée sur les Mémoires de M. Le Sueur.
[364] According to the geologist Featherstonhaugh, who examined the locality, this earth owes its color to a bluish-green silicate of iron.
[365] Besides the long and circumstantial Relation de Penecaut, an account of the earlier part of La Sueur's voyage up the Mississippi is contained in the Mémoire du Chevalier de Beaurain, which, with other papers relating to this explorer, including portions of his Journal, will be found in Margry, vi. See also Journal historique de l'Établissement des Français à la Louisiane, 38-71.
[366] Iberville à ——, 15 Février, 1703 (Margry, vi. 180).
[367] Bienville au Ministre, 6 Septembre, 1704.
[368] Beaurain, Journal historique.
[369] Hubert, Mémoire envoyé au Conseil de la Marine.
[370] Penecaut, Relation, chaps. xvii., xviii. Le Page du Pratz, Histoire de la Louisiane, i. 13-22. Various documents in Margry, vi. 193-202.
[371] For an interesting contemporary map of the French establishment at Natchitoches, see Thomassy, Géologie pratique de la Louisiane.
[372] Bénard de la Harpe, in Margry, vi. 264.
[373] Beaurain says that each of these bands spoke a language of its own. They had horses in abundance, descended from Spanish stock. Among them appear to have been the Ouacos, or Huecos, and the Wichitas,—two tribes better known as the Pawnee Picts. See Marcy, Exploration of Red River.
[374] Compare the account of La Harpe with that of the Chevalier de Beaurain; both are in Margry, vi. There is an abstract in Journal historique.
[375] Relation de Bénard de la Harpe. Autre Relation du même. Du Tisné à Bienville. Margry, vi. 309, 310, 313.
[376] Bienville au Conseil de Régence, 20 Juillet, 1721.
[377] Instructions au Sieur de Bourgmont, 17 Janvier, 1722. Margry, vi. 389.
[378] The French had at this time gained a knowledge of the tribes of the Missouri as far up as the Arickaras, who were not, it seems, many days' journey below the Yellowstone, and who told them of "prodigiously high mountains,"—evidently the Rocky Mountains. Mémoire de la Renaudière, 1723.
[379] This meeting took place a little north of the Arkansas, apparently where that river makes a northward bend, near the twenty-second degree of west longitude. The Comanche villages were several days' journey to the southwest. This tribe is always mentioned in the early French narratives as the Padoucas,—a name by which the Comanches are occasionally known to this day. See Whipple and Turner, Reports upon Indian Tribes, in Explorations and Surveys for the Pacific Railroad (Senate Doc., 1853, 1854).
[380] Relation du Voyage du Sieur de Bourgmont, Juin-Novembre, 1724, in Margry, vi. 398. Le Page du Pratz, iii. 141.
[381] Journal du Voyage des Frères Mallet, présenté à MM. de Bienville et Salmon. This narrative is meagre and confused, but serves to establish the main points. Copie du Certificat donné à Santa Fé aux sept [huit] Français par le Général Hurtado, 24 Juillet, 1739. Père Rébald au Père de Beaubois, sans date. Bienville et Salmon au Ministre, 30 Avril, 1741, in Margry, vi. 455-468.
[382] Instructions données par Jean-Baptiste de Bienville à Fabry de la Bruyère, 1 Juin, 1741. Bienville was behind his time in geographical knowledge. As early as 1724 Bénard de la Harpe knew that in ascending the Missouri or the Arkansas one was moving towards the "Western Sea,"—that is, the Pacific,—and might, perhaps, find some river flowing into it. See Routes qu'on peut tenir pour se rendre à la Mer de l'Ouest, in Journal historique, 387.
[383] Extrait des Lettres du Sieur Fabry.