France and England in North America, Part III: La Salle, Discovery of The Great West
Frontenac.--La Salle and Fénelon.--Success of La Salle:
his Enemies. 83
CHAPTER VII.
1678.
PARTY STRIFE.
La Salle and his Reporter.--Jesuit Ascendency.--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. 106
CHAPTER VIII.
1677, 1678.
THE GRAND ENTERPRISE.
La Salle at Fort Frontenac.--La Salle at Court: his
Memorial.--Approval of the King.--Money and Means.--Henri de
Tonty.--Return to Canada. 120
CHAPTER IX.
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. 131
CHAPTER X.
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. 144
CHAPTER XI.
1679.
LA SALLE ON THE UPPER LAKES.
The Voyage of the "Griffin."--Detroit.--A Storm.--St. Ignace of
Michilimackinac.--Rivals and Enemies.--Lake Michigan.--Hardships.--A
Threatened Fight.--Fort Miami.--Tonty's Misfortunes.--Forebodings. 151
CHAPTER XII.
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
La Salle. 164
CHAPTER XIII.
1680.
FORT CRÈVECOE]UR.
Building of the Fort.--Loss of the "Griffin."--A Bold
Resolution.--Another Vessel.--Hennepin sent to the
Mississippi.--Departure of La Salle. 180
CHAPTER XIV.
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. 189
CHAPTER XV.
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. 202
CHAPTER XVI.
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. 216
CHAPTER XVII.
1680.
THE ADVENTURES OF HENNEPIN.
Hennepin an Impostor: his Pretended Discovery; his Actual Discovery;
captured by the Sioux.--The Upper Mississippi. 242
CHAPTER XVIII.
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. 259
CHAPTER XIX.
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. 283
CHAPTER XX.
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. 295
CHAPTER XXI.
1682, 1683.
ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
Louisiana.--Illness of La Salle: his Colony on the Illinois.--Fort
St. Louis.--Recall of Frontenac.--Le Febvre de la Barre.--Critical
Position of La Salle.--Hostility of the New Governor.--Triumph of
the Adverse Faction.--La Salle sails for France. 309
CHAPTER XXII.
1680-1683.
LA SALLE PAINTED BY HIMSELF.
Difficulty of knowing him; his Detractors; his Letters; vexations of
his Position; his Unfitness for Trade; risks of Correspondence; his
Reported Marriage; alleged Ostentation; motives of Action; charges
of Harshness; intrigues against him; unpopular Manners; a Strange
Confession; his Strength and his Weakness; contrasts of his
Character. 328
CHAPTER XXIII.
1684.
A NEW ENTERPRISE.
La Salle at Court: his Proposals.--Occupation of Louisiana.--Invasion
of Mexico.--Royal Favor.--Preparation.--A Divided Command.--Beaujeu
and La Salle.--Mental Condition of La Salle: his Farewell to his
Mother. 343
CHAPTER XXIV.
1684, 1685.
THE VOYAGE.
Disputes with Beaujeu.--St. Domingo.--La Salle attacked with
Fever: his Desperate Condition.--The Gulf of Mexico.--A Vain Search
and a Fatal Error. 366
CHAPTER XXV.
1685.
LA SALLE IN TEXAS.
A Party of Exploration.--Wreck of the "Aimable."--Landing of the
Colonists.--A Forlorn Position.--Indian Neighbors.--Friendly Advances
of Beaujeu: his Departure.--A Fatal Discovery. 378
CHAPTER XXVI.
1685-1687.
ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
The Fort.--Misery and Dejection.--Energy of La Salle: his Journey of
Exploration.--Adventures and Accidents.--The Buffalo.--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. 391
CHAPTER XXVII.
1687.
ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
His Followers.--Prairie Travelling.--A Hunters' Quarrel.--The Murder
of Moranget.--The Conspiracy.--Death of La Salle: his Character. 420
CHAPTER XXVIII.
1687, 1688.
THE INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY.
Triumph of the Murderers.--Danger of Joutel.--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. 435
CHAPTER XXIX.
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. 464
APPENDIX.
I. Early Unpublished Maps of the Mississippi and the Great
Lakes 475
II. The Eldorado of Mathieu Sâgean 485
INDEX 491
LA SALLE
AND THE
DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST.
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 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 or beard, 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 1635, or possibly in 1638, 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. Perhaps 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 sustained by sufficient evidence. It is further affirmed
that, in 1678, a party from New England crossed the Mississippi, reached
New Mexico, and, returning, reported their discoveries to the
authorities of Boston,--a story without proof or probability. Meanwhile,
French Jesuits and fur-traders pushed deeper and deeper into the
wilderness of the northern lakes. In 1641, Jogues and Raymbault preached
the Faith to a concourse of Indians at the outlet of Lake Superior. Then
came the havoc and desolation of the Iroquois war, and for years farther
exploration was arrested. In 1658-59 Pierre Esprit Radisson, a Frenchman
of St. Malo, and his brother-in-law, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers,
penetrated the regions beyond Lake Superior, and roamed westward till,
as Radisson declares, they reached what was called the Forked River,
"because it has two branches, the one towards the west, the other
towards the south, which, we believe, runs towards Mexico,"--which seems
to point to the Mississippi and its great confluent the Missouri. Two
years later, the aged Jesuit Ménard attempted to plant a mission on the