France and England in North America, Part III: La Salle, Discovery of The Great West
the bones of the departed chiefs. In construction, it was much like the
royal dwelling. Over it were rude wooden figures, representing three
eagles turned towards the east. A strong mud wall surrounded it, planted
with stakes, on which were stuck the skulls of enemies sacrificed to the
Sun; while before the door was a block of wood, on which lay a large
shell surrounded with the braided hair of the victims. The interior was
rude as a barn, dimly lighted from the doorway, and full of smoke. There
was a structure in the middle which Membré thinks was a kind of altar;
and before it burned a perpetual fire, fed with three logs laid end to
end, and watched by two old men devoted to this sacred office. There was
a mysterious recess, too, which the strangers were forbidden to explore,
but which, as Tonty was told, contained the riches of the nation,
consisting of pearls from the Gulf, and trinkets obtained, probably
through other tribes, from the Spaniards and other Europeans.
The chief condescended to visit La Salle at his camp,--a favor which he
would by no means have granted, had the visitors been Indians. A master
of ceremonies and six attendants preceded him, to clear the path and
prepare the place of meeting. When all was ready, he was seen advancing,
clothed in a white robe and preceded by two men bearing white fans,
while a third displayed a disk of burnished copper,--doubtless to
represent the Sun, his ancestor, or, as others will have it, his elder
brother. His aspect was marvellously grave, and he and La Salle met with
gestures of ceremonious courtesy. The interview was very friendly; and
the chief returned well pleased with the gifts which his entertainer
bestowed on him, and which, indeed, had been the principal motive of his
visit.
[Sidenote: THE NATCHEZ.]
On the next morning, as they descended the river, they saw a wooden
canoe full of Indians; and Tonty gave chase. He had nearly overtaken it,
when more than a hundred men appeared suddenly on the shore, with bows
bent to defend their countrymen. La Salle called out to Tonty to
withdraw. He obeyed; and the whole party encamped on the opposite bank.
Tonty offered to cross the river with a peace-pipe, and set out
accordingly with a small party of men. When he landed, the Indians made
signs of friendship by joining their hands,--a proceeding by which
Tonty, having but one hand, was somewhat embarrassed; but he directed
his men to respond in his stead. La Salle and Membré now joined him, and
went with the Indians to their village, three leagues distant. Here they
spent the night. "The Sieur de la Salle," writes Membré, "whose very
air, engaging manners, tact, and address attract love and respect
alike, produced such an effect on the hearts of these people that they
did not know how to treat us well enough."[240]
The Indians of this village were the Natchez; and their chief was
brother of the great chief, or Sun, of the whole nation. His town was
several leagues distant, near the site of the city of Natchez; and
thither the French repaired to visit him. They saw what they had already
seen among the Taensas,--a religious and political despotism, a
privileged caste descended from the sun, a temple, and a sacred
fire.[241] La Salle planted a large cross, with the arms of France
attached, in the midst of the town; while the inhabitants looked on with
a satisfaction which they would hardly have displayed had they
understood the meaning of the act.
[Sidenote: HOSTILITY.]
The French next visited the Coroas, at their village two leagues below;
and here they found a reception no less auspicious. On the thirty-first
of March, as they approached Red River, they passed in the fog a town of
the Oumas, and three days later discovered a party of fishermen, in
wooden canoes, among the canes along the margin of the water. They fled
at sight of the Frenchmen. La Salle sent men to reconnoitre, who, as
they struggled through the marsh, were greeted with a shower of arrows;
while from the neighboring village of the Quinipissas,[242] invisible
behind the cane-brake, they heard the sound of an Indian drum and the
whoops of the mustering warriors. La Salle, anxious to keep the peace
with all the tribes along the river, recalled his men, and pursued his
voyage. A few leagues below they saw a cluster of Indian lodges on the
left bank, apparently void of inhabitants. They landed, and found three
of them filled with corpses. It was a village of the Tangibao, sacked by
their enemies only a few days before.[243]
And now they neared their journey's end. On the sixth of April the river
divided itself into three broad channels. La Salle followed that of the
west, and Dautray that of the east; while Tonty took the middle passage.
As he drifted down the turbid current, between the low and marshy
shores, the brackish water changed to brine, and the breeze grew fresh
with the salt breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of the great Gulf
opened on his sight, tossing its restless billows, limitless, voiceless,
lonely as when born of chaos, without a sail, without a sign of life.
La Salle, in a canoe, coasted the marshy borders of the sea; and then
the reunited parties assembled on a spot of dry ground, a short distance
above the mouth of the river. Here a column was made ready, bearing the
arms of France, and inscribed with the words, "Louis Le Grand, Roy De
France Et De Navarre, Règne; Le Neuvième Avril, 1682."
The Frenchmen were mustered under arms; and while the New England
Indians and their squaws looked on in wondering silence, they chanted
the _Te Deum_, the _Exaudiat_, and the _Domine salvum fac Regem_. Then,
amid volleys of musketry and shouts of _Vive le Roi_, La Salle planted
the column in its place, and, standing near it, proclaimed in a loud
voice,--
[Sidenote: POSSESSION TAKEN.]
"In the name of the most high, mighty, invincible, and victorious
Prince, Louis the Great, by the grace of God King of France and of
Navarre, Fourteenth of that name, I, this ninth day of April, one
thousand six hundred and eighty-two, in virtue of the commission of his
Majesty, which I hold in my hand, and which may be seen by all whom it
may concern, have taken, and do now take, in the name of his Majesty and
of his successors to the crown, possession of this country of Louisiana,
the seas, harbors, ports, bays, adjacent straits, and all the nations,
peoples, provinces, cities, towns, villages, mines, minerals, fisheries,
streams, and rivers, within the extent of the said Louisiana, from the
mouth of the great river St. Louis, otherwise called the Ohio, ... as
also along the river Colbert, or Mississippi, and the rivers which
discharge themselves thereinto, from its source beyond the country of
the Nadouessioux ... as far as its mouth at the sea, or Gulf of Mexico,
and also to the mouth of the River of Palms, upon the assurance we have
had from the natives of these countries that we are the first Europeans
who have descended or ascended the said river Colbert; hereby protesting
against all who may hereafter undertake to invade any or all of these
aforesaid countries, peoples, or lands, to the prejudice of the rights
of his Majesty, acquired by the consent of the nations dwelling herein.
Of which, and of all else that is needful, I hereby take to witness
those who hear me, and demand an act of the notary here present."[244]
Shouts of _Vive le Roi_ and volleys of musketry responded to his words.
Then a cross was planted beside the column, and a leaden plate buried
near it, bearing the arms of France, with a Latin inscription,
_Ludovicus Magnus regnat_. The weather-beaten voyagers joined their
voices in the grand hymn of the _Vexilla Regis_:--
"The banners of Heaven's King advance,
The mystery of the Cross shines forth;"
and renewed shouts of _Vive le Roi_ closed the ceremony.
On that day, the realm of France received on parchment a stupendous
accession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the
Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of
the Gulf; from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks of
the Rocky Mountains,--a region of savannas and forests, sun-cracked
deserts, and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers, ranged by a
thousand warlike tribes, passed beneath the sceptre of the Sultan of
Versailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at half
a mile.
FOOTNOTES:
[231] La Salle, _Relation de la Découverte_, 1682, in Thomassy,
_Géologie Pratique de la Louisiane 9; Lettre du Père Zenobe Membré, 3
Juin, 1682; Ibid., 14 Août, 1682_; Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 214; Tonty,
1684, 1693; _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la Louisiane,
Feuilles détachées d'une Lettre de La Salle_ (Margry, ii. 164); _Récit
de Nicolas de la Salle_ (Ibid., i. 547).
The narrative ascribed to Membré and published by Le Clerc is based on
the document preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine,
entitled _Relation de la Découverte de l'Embouchure de la Rivière
Mississippi faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l'année passée_, 1682. The
writer of the narrative has used it very freely, copying the greater
part verbatim, with occasional additions of a kind which seem to
indicate that he had taken part in the expedition. The _Relation de la
Découverte_, though written in the third person, is the official report
of the discovery made by La Salle, or perhaps for him by Membré.
[232] Called by Membré the Ouabache (Wabash).
[233] La Salle, _Relation de la Découverte de l'Embouchure, etc._;
Thomassy, 10. Membré gives the same date; but the _Procès Verbal_ makes
it the twenty-sixth.
[234] Gravier, in his letter of 16 Feb., 1701, says that he encamped
near a "great bluff of stone, called Fort Prudhomme, because M. de La
Salle, going on his discovery, intrenched himself here with his party,
fearing that Prudhomme, who had lost himself in the woods, had been
killed by the Indians, and that he himself would be attacked."
[235] La Salle, _Relation_; Thomassy, 11.
[236] _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession du Pays des Arkansas, 14
Mars, 1682._
[237] The nation of the Akanseas, Alkansas, or Arkansas, dwelt on the
west bank of the Mississippi, near the mouth of the Arkansas. They were
divided into four tribes, living for the most part in separate villages.
Those first visited by La Salle were the Kappas, or Quapaws, a remnant
of whom still subsists. The others were the Topingas, or Tongengas; the
Torimans; and the Osotouoy, or Sauthouis. According to Charlevoix, who
saw them in 1721, they were regarded as the tallest and best-formed
Indians in America, and were known as _les Beaux Hommes_. Gravier says
that they once lived on the Ohio.
[238] In Tensas County, Louisiana. Tonty's estimates of distance are
here much too low. They seem to be founded on observations of latitude,
without reckoning the windings of the river. It may interest sportsmen
to know that the party killed several large alligators, on their way.
Membré is much astonished that such monsters should be born of eggs like
chickens.
[239] Tonty, 1684, 1693. In the spurious narrative, published in Tonty's
name, the account is embellished and exaggerated. Compare Membré in Le
Clerc, ii. 227. La Salle's statements in the _Relation_ of 1682
(Thomassy, 12) sustain those of Tonty.
[240] Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 232.
[241] The Natchez and the Taensas, whose habits and customs were
similar, did not, in their social organization, differ radically from
other Indians. The same principle of clanship, or _totemship_, so widely
spread, existed in full force among them, combined with their religious
ideas, and developed into forms of which no other example, equally
distinct, is to be found. (For Indian clanship, see "The Jesuits in