The zeal of the Jesuit missionaries received a fresh stimulant, not only from the opening of this new field of labour, but from the introduction by Talon of a number of Franciscan friars, who thus broke up the Jesuit monopoly, and gave rise to a spirit of rival piety. No time was lost in occupying the ground made known by Allouez. Claude Dablon and James Marquette soon followed him, and the mission of St. Mary’s, on the falls between the Lakes Superior and Huron, was established.
“The peninsula between Lake Superior and Green Bay was soon explored. Milwaukie, Chicago and St. Joseph’s were visited, and missions planted among the tribes on Lake Michigan.” For several years this indefatigable triumvirate of missionaries laboured at the work of christianising the Indian and exploring the country. The design of navigating “the Great River,” of which they continued to hear reports, originated with Marquette in 1669, and the interval which occurred between that time and its accomplishment was employed by him in acquiring some knowledge of the Illinois language.
At length Talon, seconding Colbert’s views of extending the empire of France and the sphere of Jesuit missions, deputed Marquette to the welcome business of exploration. Before he set out, however, he had collected the scattered remains of one branch of the Hurons at the Point of St. Ignatius, on the northern shore of the peninsula of Michigan, where a chapel was built and a mission established. This settlement was long maintained “as a key to the west, and a convenient rendezvous of the remote Algonquins, to whom the French gave protection; and Marquette thus gained a place also as one of the founders of Michigan.”[10]
While Marquette was thus occupied, Allouez and Dablon explored Eastern Wisconsin and the north of Illinois, preaching the religion of the cross among the Mascoutins, Kickapoos and Miamis. Allouez alone extended his pilgrimage among the tribes of the Fox Indians who inhabit the region around the river of that name.
The Potawatomies, among whom Marquette dwelt, heard with amaze of his intended exploration of the “Great River,” or the “Father of Rivers,” as it was also poetically called, and used their utmost efforts to discourage him. “Those distant, nations,” they told him, “never spared the stranger; their mutual wars filled their borders with bands of warriors; besides which the Great River abounded in monsters, which devoured both men and canoes; while the excessive heats caused death.” Marquette was not discouraged; “I shall gladly lay down my life for the salvation of souls,” said he.
Marquette, accompanied by Joliet a trader of Quebec, five other Frenchmen and two Algonquin guides, paddled up Green Bay in birch-bark canoes; then ascending Fox River crossed the portage to the Wisconsin, where in a beautiful region dwelt the friendly Kickapoos, Mascoutins and Miamis, to whom Allouez had preached with success. A council of the old men was called to receive the strangers; and the two guides left them, from fear of the Sioux and the fabulous terrors of the region into which they were venturing.
And now, on the tenth of June, 1673, Marquette, Joliet and their French companions, being, as Marquette himself says, “left alone, in this unknown land, in the hands of Providence,” embarked on the Wisconsin, and sailed “between alternate prairies and hill-sides, without seeing a single Indian; and for the first time beholding herds of buffalo, the lowings of which and the splash of their oars, were the only sounds which broke the silence of the primeval wilderness. Thus proceeded they for seven days, when they happily entered the Great River, with a joy that cannot be expressed.” So far the object of their mission was accomplished. And now the two birch-bark canoes, raising their sails, floated down the magnificent river unconscious into what regions it would lead them.
But we will take the eloquent and picturesque Bancroft as our guide—we cannot take a better:—“They floated down the calm magnificence of the ocean-stream, over the broad clear sand-bars—the resort of innumerable water-fowl—gliding past islets that swelled from the bosom of the streams, with their tufts of massive thickets, and between the wide plains of Illinois and Iowa, garlanded with majestic forests, or chequered by island groves and the open vastness of the prairie.
“About sixty leagues below the mouth of the Wisconsin, they perceived on the western bank of the Mississippi the trail of men; and, leaving the canoes, Joliet and Marquette resolved alone to brave a meeting with the savages. After walking about six miles over beautiful prairie, they beheld one village on the banks of a river and two others on a distant slope. This river was the Moingona, now corrupted into Des Moines. Marquette and Joliet were the first white men who trod the soil of Iowa. Commending themselves to God, they raised a shout, on which four old men advanced slowly to meet them, bearing the peace-pipe, brilliant with many-coloured plumes. ‘We are Illinois,’ said they—that is, when translated, ‘We are men!’—and they offered the calumet. An aged chief received the strangers with great joy at his cabin, and the whole village gazed on them with friendly astonishment.
“At a great council Marquette published to them the One true God, their Creator. He spoke, also, of the great captain of the French, the governor of Canada, who had chastised the Five Nations, and commanded peace; and he questioned them of the Mississippi and the tribes which possessed its banks. A magnificent feast of hominy, fish and the choicest viands from the prairies, was prepared for the messengers, who announced the subjection of the hated Iroquois.
“After a delay of six days, the chieftain of the tribe and hundreds of warriors attended the strangers to their canoes. A peace-pipe, embellished with brilliant feathers—the mysterious arbiter of peace and war, the safeguard among the nations—was hung around Marquette as a parting gift.
“The little group proceeded down the river. They passed the perpendicular rocks which wore the appearance of monsters; they heard at a distance the noise of the waters of the Mississippi, known to them by its Algonquin name of Pekitanoni; and when they came to the most beautiful confluence of rivers in the world, where the swifter Missouri rushes like a conqueror into the calmer Mississippi, dragging it, as it were, hastily to the sea, the good Marquette resolved in his heart one day to ascend the mighty river to its source, and then, descending a westerly flowing stream, to publish the gospel to all the people of this New World.
“In a little less than forty leagues, the canoes floated past the confluence of the Ohio, then called the Wabash. Its banks were tenanted by the peaceful Shawanees, who had quailed under the incursions of the Iroquois.
“The thick canes now began to appear so close and strong that the buffalo could not break through them; the insects became intolerable, and as a shelter against the sun of July, the sails were folded into an awning. They had now left the region of prairies, and forests of whitewood, admirable for their vastness and height, crowded even the skirts of the pebbly shore. It was also observed, that in the land of the Arkansas the Indians had guns.
“Near the latitude of thirty-three degrees, on the western bank of the Mississippi, stood the village of Mitchigamea, in a region which had not been visited by Europeans since the days of De Soto. ‘Now,’ thought Marquette, ‘we must indeed ask the aid of the Virgin.’ Armed with bows and arrows, with clubs, axes and bucklers, amid continual whoops, the natives, bent on war, came to meet them in vast canoes made out of hollow trees; but at sight of the mysterious peace-pipe held aloft, God touched the hearts of the old men, who checked the impetuosity of the young, and throwing their bows and quivers into the canoes, as a token of peace, prepared a hospitable welcome.
“The next day, a long wooden canoe, containing ten men, escorted the discoverers for eight or ten leagues, to the village of Arkansea, the limit of their voyage. They had left the region of the Algonquins, and could now only speak by an interpreter. Half a league above Arkansea, they were met by two boats, in one of which stood the commander, holding in his hand the peace-pipe and singing as he drew near. After offering the pipe, he gave bread of maize. The wealth, of his tribe consisted in buffalo skins; their weapons were axes of steel, a proof of commerce with Europeans.
“Thus had our travellers descended below the entrance of the Arkansas to the genial climes which have scarcely any winter but rains; and so, having spoken of God, and the mysteries of the Catholic faith; having become certain that the Father of Rivers went not to the ocean east of Florida, nor yet to the Gulf of California, Marquette and Joliet left Arkansea, and ascended the Mississippi.
“At the thirty-eighth degree of latitude they entered the river Illinois, and discovered a country without its parallel for the fertility of its beautiful prairies, covered with buffaloes and stags—for the loveliness of its rivulets and the prodigal abundance of wild ducks and swans, and of parrots and wild turkeys. The tribe of Illinois that tenanted its banks entreated Marquette to come and reside among them. One of their chiefs, with their young men, conducted the party, by way of Chicago, to Lake Michigan, and before the end of September all were safe in Green Bay.
“Joliet returned to Quebec to announce the discovery, of which the fame, through Talon, quickened the ambition of Colbert. The unaspiring Marquette remained to preach the gospel to the Miamis, who dwelt in the north of Illinois, round Chicago. Two years afterwards, sailing from Chicago to Mackinaw, he entered a little river in Michigan. Erecting an altar, he said mass according to the rites of the Catholic church, after which he begged the men who conducted his canoe to leave him alone for half an hour. At the end of that time they went to seek him, but he was no more. The good missionary had fallen asleep on the margin of the stream that bears his name. Near its mouth, the canoe-men dug his grave in the sand. Ever after, the forest rangers, if in danger on Lake Michigan, would invoke his name. The people of the West will build his monument.”
A modern traveller[11] remarks, with great truth and beauty, of the Mississippi, that the history of its discovery has two epochs, and each a romance, the one as different to the other as day and night—the one a sun-bright idyll, the other a gloomy tragedy. The first belongs to the northern district, the second to the southern; the former has for its hero the mild pastor, Father Marquette, the other the Spanish soldier, Ferdinand de Soto.
Joliet, returning from the West, stopped at Frontenac, now Kingston, an outpost on Lake Ontario, of which the young Robert Cavalier la Salle was governor. La Salle, himself of a bold and adventurous turn of mind, had occupied his solitary leisure in reading the voyages of Columbus and the adventures of De Soto, and a traveller such as Joliet would not fail of being welcome. Of a good family in France, and educated a Jesuit, though he had afterwards been absolved from his vows, he had come over to Canada in the year 1667, and enjoying the favour of Talon and Courcelles, had explored Lakes Ontario and Erie. In 1675—when, on the dissolution of the West India Company, New France had reverted to the crown, La Salle hastened to his native land and obtained from the monarch the grant of Fort Frontenac, on condition of maintaining the fortress. This grant gave him in fact the exclusive traffic with the Five Nations. La Salle’s settlement here occurred about the time of the war with King Philip in New England and Bacon’s rebellion in Virginia.
From Joliet, who was well entertained at Frontenac, La Salle heard of the discovery of the Mississippi; and at once conceiving vast plans for the colonisation of the south-west, he again hastened to France and obtained a royal commission for the perfecting the discovery of the Mississippi, together with the monopoly of the trade in buffalo hides. The purpose of this visit accomplished, La Salle lost no time in returning to America, provided with men and abundant stores, and accompanied by Chevalier Tonti, an Italian soldier, as his lieutenant. It was autumn when he returned; and before winter, he had built a wooden canoe of ten tons, the first that ever sailed into Niagara River, and thus conveyed part of his company to Tonawanta Creek, not far from the falls at the foot of Lake Erie, a spot which he had selected for the purpose, and here he commenced building a sailing-vessel of sixty tons burden, which he called “The Griffin.” While the ship was building, a trading house was established at Niagara, where La Salle collected furs from the Indian traders; and Tonti and the Franciscan Father Hennepin, who was attached to the enterprise, ventured among the Senecas, with whom they formed amicable relationships.
On August 7th, 1679, amid a salvo of cannon, the chanting of the Te Deum, and the astonishment of the assembled Indians, “The Griffin” was launched, the first civilised vessel that ever ploughed the waters of Lake Erie. She bore La Salle, Tonti, and Hennepin, besides sailors, boatmen, hunters and soldiers, amounting in all to sixty persons.
Leaving Lake Erie, they entered the strait “Detroit,” at the head of the lake, and passing through a little lake which they called St. Clair, entered Lake Huron by a second strait, and navigating that inland sea, reached Lake Michigan by the Straits of Mackinaw, where La Salle planted a colony, and thence, after a voyage of twenty days, to Green Bay, thus being the first to traverse that which is now a great highway of commerce. From this point, after despatching his vessel back to Niagara, with a valuable cargo of furs, ordering her to return immediately to the head of Lake Michigan with provisions and supplies, he and his company repaired in birch-bark canoes to the appointed place of rendezvous, stopping by the way at the mouth of the St. Joseph, then called the Miami, where Allouez had already established a Jesuit mission, and here they built a fort called the Post of the Miamis.
Of the Griffin came no tidings; and weary of waiting, La Salle resolved to employ himself in exploring the Illinois. Ten men were left to guard the fort, and La Salle, Hennepin, and the rest, it now being the depth of winter, penetrated to the banks of Lake Peoria, where was an Indian village. Four days’ journey below Lake Peoria, they built a second fort, which, as expressive of their disappointment in receiving no tidings of the Griffin, and the general depression, was called Crevecœur.
The circumstances of La Salle “were such as either to sink the spirit into despair, or to call forth untried energy and courage, according to the character of the soul; La Salle’s was of the heroic class. He resolved therefore, now that no tidings could be expected of the Griffin, which in fact had perished with all its valuable cargo of furs, to proceed himself alone, to hasten or obtain the necessary supplies, to Fort Frontenac; having first however, despatched Hennepin to explore the Upper Mississippi, in a canoe which his courage and example had inspired his men to build.
In the month of March, with his gun and powder and shot, a blanket, and two skins to cut into moccassins, La Salle, with only three attendants, set off on foot, Tonti remaining at the Illinois fort with the main body.
When La Salle, after an arduous journey, in which he encountered untold hardships, arrived at Fort Frontenac, he found that owing to a report of his death, his creditors had seized his property, which however was restored to him by help of the governor, and he was enabled to pursue his enterprise.
During his absence Hennepin, bearing the calumet or pipe of peace, and with two companions, followed the Illinois to the Mississippi, ascending which he advanced as far as the falls of St. Anthony, which he thus named in honour of his patron saint. He spent the summer in excursions through the surrounding country, and after a short captivity among the Sioux, returned by the Wisconsin and Fox rivers to Green Bay, whence proceeding to Quebec, he went to France, and, in 1682, published an account of his travels, stating incorrectly that he had discovered the sources of the Mississippi.
Tonti, in the meantime, who was left at Rock Fort or the Post of the Miamis, near the Illinois village, encountered many disasters. The men left at Crevecœur deserted, and the Iroquois, enemies alike of the Illinois and La Salle, descended the river, and compelled Tonti and the few who remained with him, with the exception of an aged Franciscan, Gabriel de la Ribourd, to flee to Lake Michigan, where they were kindly received by the Potawatomies. La Salle, on his return therefore the following year, with men and stores, and rigging for a new vessel, had the mortification and grief of finding the two forts abandoned. Distressed but not disheartened, the brave adventurer set about to retrieve his fortunes; and having built another fort on the Illinois, which he called St. Louis, set out to find Tonti and his men, in which having succeeded, they all returned to the Illinois. The following winter was actively employed in building a second vessel, in which, early in the following year, 1682, he descended the Illinois, and entering upon the waters of “the Father of Rivers,” was once more on the career of successful achievement. The voyage was happy and prosperous, interrupted only to plant a cabin on the first Chickasa bluff, to raise the cross by the Arkansas, or to plant the arms of France near the Gulf of Mexico. The country was formally claimed for the French monarch, and in honour of him called Louisiana.
“The following year La Salle returned for the third time to France, the tidings of his achievement, which had preceded him, having awakened the utmost enthusiasm. Colbert was now dead, but his son Seignelay, minister for maritime affairs, attached no less importance than his father had done to the French affairs in the New World.” Four vessels were, therefore, prepared for the colonisation of the lands bordering the mouth of the Mississippi, on board of which ware 280 persons, of whom 100 were soldiers; with about thirty volunteer gentlemen, two of whom, “the young Cavalier, and the rash passionate Maranget,” were nephews of La Salle; there were also various mechanics and some young women, so confident were the hopes of permanent colonisation.
Disasters and ill omens commenced early on the voyage; and Beaujeu, the naval commander, who appears to have been a man of dogged obstinacy, continually thwarted and annoyed La Salle. On the 10th of January, 1685, they were near the mouth of the Mississippi, where Tonti, already aware of the enterprise, having descended the river from fort St. Louis with twenty Canadians and thirty Indians, was awaiting his old commander. La Salle however, unfortunately not recognising the land marks, or losing his reckoning, sailed past it, and perceiving his error, would have returned; but again he was opposed by Beaujeu, who persisted on still sailing westward, and by this means they reached the Bay of Matagorda. Hoping that all might yet be well, La Salle yielded to the self-will of Beaujeu, and entered the bay, trusting that the streams which emptied themselves into it were branches of the Mississippi. Here, on the shore of Texas, the ill-fated company disembarked, the store-ship being unfortunately wrecked in entering the harbour. The people at once lost hope; La Salle alone was calm and energetic; but Providence did not bless his efforts; endeavouring to save by boats some of the stores of the wrecked vessel; a storm arose and the wreck went to pieces; nearly everything was lost, and the same night the Indians came down and murdered two of the volunteers.
Terror and despair prevailed; La Salle alone was calm and resolute, and by the force of his character, and the inspiration of his example, sufficient energy remained to construct a fort on the shore of the remains of the wreck, where about 230 persons remained, while La Salle, with sixteen companions, ascended a stream on the west of the bay, in the hope of reaching the Mississippi. But no Mississippi was to be found. An elevated situation above the Bay of Matagorda was selected by La Salle for the erection of a fortified post, which was called St. Louis. This settlement it was which gave to France a claim upon Texas, of which possession was taken, as a portion of Louisiana, in the name of the French.
About six months were spent in constructing this fort, which was built from timber felled in the neighbouring groves, and with fragments of the wreck brought up in canoes, together with a good supply of arms. After all, the little colony was not ill-supplied, if they had been possessed of courage and perseverance. Whilst these necessary works were going forward, La Salle carefully explored the neighbouring country for “the fatal river;” on one occasion being absent four months and returning in rags. But his presence always renewed hope. In April of the next year he set out again with twenty companions, and wandered into New Mexico. On his return, he found the last of the vessels left with the colonists wrecked, and themselves reduced to about six-and-thirty, grown desperate and cruel by despair. He now determined, seeing that no succour was likely to reach them from France, to proceed to Canada on foot, and with sixteen companions set out on this terrible undertaking, their baggage laden on the wild horses of the prairies, and with moccassins made of green buffalo hides. The journey was full of unprecedented hardships. We will give the concluding scene of the tragedy in the words of our able historian Bancroft.
“In the little company of wanderers were two men, Duhaut and l’Archevêque, who had embarked their capital in the enterprise; of these Duhaut had long shown a spirit of mutiny. Inviting Maranget to take charge of the fruits of a buffalo hunt, they quarrelled with and murdered him. Wondering at the delay of his nephew’s return, La Salle went in search of him. At the brink of a river he observed eagles hovering as if over carrion, and fired an alarm gun. Warned by the sound, Duhaut and l’Archevêque crossed the river; the former skulked in the prairie-grass; La Salle asked of the latter, ‘Where is my nephew?’ At the moment of the answer Duhaut fired and La Salle fell dead without a word. ‘You are down now, proud bashaw! you are down now!’ shouted one of the conspirators, as they despoiled the body, which was left on the prairie, naked and without burial, to be devoured by wild beasts.
“Such was the end of this daring adventurer. For force of will and vast conceptions, for various knowledge and quick adaptation of his genius to untried circumstances, for a sublime magnanimity, that resigned itself to the will of Heaven and yet triumphed over affliction by energy of purpose and unfaltering hope—he had no superior among his countrymen.
“After beginning the colonisation of Upper Canada, he perfected the discovery of the Mississippi from the falls of St. Anthony to its mouth; and he will be remembered through all time as the father of colonisation in the great central valley of the West.”
As regarded the companions of La Salle, some joined the Indians, and the murderers were themselves murdered. Seven alone, among whom were the other nephew of La Salle, and Joutel, the historian of the expedition, having obtained an Indian guide, finally reached Arkansea, on the Mississippi, where to their inexpressible joy they beheld a large cross on an island. Here it was that Tonti had awaited their arrival; having returned, after long and vain tarriance, to the mouth of the river. Before leaving his station at this latter point, he entrusted a letter for La Salle to the nearest Indians, “who faithfully kept it for fourteen years, and then delivered it to the first Frenchmen who made their appearance.”
While La Salle was thus employed in exploring the West, difficulties had sprung up in the administration of the affairs of New France. Frontenac, the governor-general, having disagreed with the Jesuits, had even imprisoned the afterwards celebrated Abbé Fenelon, who was for two years a missionary in Canada, for having preached against him. Talon had been removed from office, and M. du Chesneau appointed intendant in his place, but only for a short time, as both he and Frontenac were recalled, and De la Barre and Meules succeeded them.
De la Barre found the Iroquois again in a restless state, and war evidently at hand, to aid in which, at the solicitation of the colony, three companies of marines were sent over from France. The terrible Iroquois, during the interval of peace with the French, had occupied themselves in carrying on wars of extermination against all the tribes who had the misfortune to be settled on their borders; they had driven the tribes of the Lower Susquehanna upon the settlements of Maryland, as we have seen; and began “to come in contact with the back settlers of Virginia. The tribes west of the Blue Ridge and the Upper Ohio were exterminated or driven away. The Shawanees, whom Marquette had heard of as inhabiting the banks of the Lower Ohio, fled eastward before these formidable warriors, and crossed the mountains into Carolina. The conquest of the Five Nations, to which we shall presently find the English laying claim, embraced both banks of the Ohio, and reached to the Mississippi.”[12]
Dongan, the governor of New York, jealous of the French discoveries in the West, furnished the Iroquois with fire-arms and fomented the growing ill-will between them and the French.
De la Barre made an unsuccessful expedition against the Iroquois, and soon after was superseded in his office by the Marquis de Denonville, who brought over 500 or 600 regular troops, whilst M. de Champigny, who also brought additional companies of marines, was appointed intendant in the place of Meules.
Denonville determined to conquer the Senecas, the most hostile of the Five Nations, and “card money,” as it was called, the first paper money of America, made payable in France, was issued to defray the expenses of the war. A number of chiefs, decoyed into Fort Frontenac, were treacherously taken prisoners and shipped to France to work in the galleys. The Seneca country was ravaged by a force of 800 regulars, 1,000 Canadians, and 300 Indians; this roused the whole body of the Iroquois, and the invasion of the French territory was threatened. After a short interval of peace, the Iroquois came down on the island of Montreal, which they surprised, killing 200 persons, and taking the same number prisoners. Quebec was in the utmost danger. At this disastrous moment the accession of William of Orange to the English throne having involved England and France in war, new troubles threatened the French colonies, of which we shall speak anon.
“Canada,” says Hildreth, “though long planted, had not flourished; the soil and the climate were alike unfavourable. The colonial government was a military despotism; the land was held on feudal tenures, and the body of the colonists, unaccustomed to think or act for themselves, had little energy or activity of spirit. If the missionaries and fur-traders were exceptions, their number was small, and their undertakings remote and scattered, calculated to disperse over a vast extent a scanty population, which amounted as yet to hardly 12,000 persons.”
These missionaries and fur-traders had, however, produced wonderful results; spite of continual hostility from the terrible Iroquois, they had acquainted themselves with the great lakes of the West; they had established missionary posts along the shores of the Huron, Superior and Michigan lakes; they had explored the Mississippi from the falls of St. Anthony to the sea; and had traced the Fox River, the Wisconsin and the Illinois from their sources to their confluence with the great river; and that, while the rivers Connecticut, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac and the James remained unexplored by the British settlers on their lower waters.
The settlements in Acadia had never acquired much vigour, and the total of the French inhabitants in this portion of the French American territory did not amount to 3,000.