France and England in North America, Part III: La Salle, Discovery of The Great West
"Riuiere de la Diuine ou Loutrelaise," and the Arkansas is "Riuiere
Bazire." The Mississippi is made to head in three lakes, and to
discharge itself into "B. du S. Esprit" (Mobile Bay). Some of the
legends and the orthography of various Indian names are clearly borrowed
from Marquette. This map appears to be the work of Raudin, Frontenac's
engineer. I owe a tracing of it to the kindness of Henry Harrisse, Esq.
10. _Carte des Parties les plus occidentales du Canada, par le Père
Pierre Raffeix_, S. J. This rude map shows the course of Du Lhut from
the head of Lake Superior to the Mississippi, and partly confirms the
story of Hennepin, who, Raffeix says in a note, was rescued by Du Lhut.
The course of Joliet and Marquette is given, with the legend "Voyage et
première descouverte du Mississipy faite par le P. Marquette et Mr.
Joliet en 1672." The route of La Salle in 1679, 1680, is also laid down.
11. In the Dépôt des Cartes de la Marine is another map of the Upper
Mississippi, which seems to have been made by or for Du Lhut. Lac Buade,
the "Issatis," the "Tintons," the "Houelbatons," the "Poualacs," and
other tribes of this region appear upon it. This is the map numbered
208 in the _Cartographie_ of Harrisse.
12. Another map deserving mention is a large and fine one, entitled
_Carte de l'Amérique Septentrionale et partie de la Meridionale ... avec
les nouvelles découvertes de la Rivière Missisipi, ou Colbert_. It
appears to have been made in 1682 or 1683, before the descent of La
Salle to the mouth of the Mississippi was known to the maker, who seems
to have been Franquelin. The lower Mississippi is omitted, but its upper
portions are elaborately laid down; and the name _La Louisiane_ appears
in large gold letters along its west side. The Falls of St. Anthony are
shown, and above them is written "Armes du Roy gravées sur cet arbre
l'an 1679." This refers to the _acte de prise de possession_ of Du Lhut
in July of that year, and this part of the map seems made from data
supplied by him.
13. We now come to the great map of Franquelin, the most remarkable of
all the early maps of the interior of North America, though hitherto
completely ignored by both American and Canadian writers. It is entitled
_Carte de la Louisiane ou des Voyages du Sr. de la Salle et des pays
qu'il a découverts depuis la Nouvelle France jusqu'au Golfe Mexique les
années 1679, 80, 81, et 82, par Jean Baptiste Louis Franquelin, l'an
1684. Paris._ Franquelin was a young engineer, who held the post of
hydrographer to the King, at Quebec, in which Joliet succeeded him.
Several of his maps are preserved, including one made in 1681, in which
he lays down the course of the Mississippi,--the lower part from
conjecture,--making it discharge itself into Mobile Bay. It appears from
a letter of the governor, La Barre, that Franquelin was at Quebec in
1683, engaged on a map which was probably that of which the title is
given above, though had La Barre known that it was to be called a map of
the journeys of his victim La Salle, he would have been more sparing of
his praises. "He" (Franquelin), writes the governor, "is as skilful as
any in France, but extremely poor and in need of a little aid from his
Majesty as an Engineer; he is at work on a very correct map of the
country, which I shall send you next year in his name; meanwhile, I
shall support him with some little assistance."--_Colonial Documents of
New York_, IX. 205.
The map is very elaborately executed, and is six feet long and four and
a half wide. It exhibits the political divisions of the continent, as
the French then understood them; that is to say, all the regions drained
by streams flowing into the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi are claimed
as belonging to France, and this vast domain is separated into two grand
divisions, La Nouvelle France and La Louisiane. The boundary line of the
former, New France, is drawn from the Penobscot to the southern
extremity of Lake Champlain, and thence to the Mohawk, which it crosses
a little above Schenectady, in order to make French subjects of the
Mohawk Indians. Thence it passes by the sources of the Susquehanna and
the Alleghany, along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across Southern
Michigan, and by the head of Lake Michigan, whence it sweeps
northwestward to the sources of the Mississippi. Louisiana includes the
entire valley of the Mississippi and the Ohio, besides the whole of
Texas. The Spanish province of Florida comprises the peninsula and the
country east of the Bay of Mobile, drained by streams flowing into the
Gulf; while Carolina, Virginia, and the other English provinces, form a
narrow strip between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic.
The Mississippi is called "Missisipi, ou Rivière Colbert;" the Missouri,
"Grande Rivière des Emissourittes, ou Missourits;" the Illinois,
"Rivière des Ilinois, ou Macopins;" the Ohio, which La Salle had before
called by its present name, "Fleuve St. Louis, ou Chucagoa, ou
Casquinampogamou;" one of its principal branches is "Ohio, ou Olighin"
(Alleghany); the Arkansas, "Rivière des Acansea;" the Red River,
"Rivière Seignelay," a name which had once been given to the Illinois.
Many smaller streams are designated by names which have been entirely
forgotten.
The nomenclature differs materially from that of Coronelli's map,
published four years later. Here the whole of the French territory is
laid down as "Canada, ou La Nouvelle France," of which "La Louisiane"
forms an integral part. The map of Homannus, like that of Franquelin,
makes two distinct provinces, of which one is styled "Canada" and the
other "La Louisiane," the latter including Michigan and the greater part
of New York. Franquelin gives the shape of Hudson's Bay, and of all the
Great Lakes, with remarkable accuracy. He makes the Mississippi bend
much too far to the West. The peculiar sinuosities of its course are
indicated; and some of its bends--as, for example, that at New
Orleans--are easily recognized. Its mouths are represented with great
minuteness; and it may be inferred from the map that, since La Salle's
time, they have advanced considerably into the sea.
Perhaps the most interesting feature in Franquelin's map is his sketch
of La Salle's evanescent colony on the Illinois, engraved for this
volume. He reproduced the map in 1688, for presentation to the King,
with the title _Carte de l'Amérique Septentrionale, depuis le 25 jusq'au
65 degré de latitude et environ 140 et 235 degrés de longitude, etc._ In
this map, Franquelin corrects various errors in that which preceded. One
of these corrections consists in the removal of a branch of the river
Illinois which he had marked on his first map,--as will be seen by
referring to the portion of it in this book,--but which does not in fact
exist. On this second map, La Salle's colony appears in much diminished
proportions, his Indian settlements having in good measure dispersed.
Two later maps of New France and Louisiana, both bearing Franquelin's
name, are preserved in the Dépôt des Cartes de la Marine, as well as a
number of smaller maps and sketches, also by him. They all have more or
less of the features of the great map of 1684, which surpasses them all
in interest and completeness.
The remarkable manuscript map of the Upper Mississippi by Le Sueur
belongs to a period later than the close of this narrative.
These various maps, joined to contemporary documents, show that the
Valley of the Mississippi received, at an early date, the several names
of Manitoumie, Frontenacie, Colbertie, and La Louisiane. This last name,
which it long retained, is due to La Salle. The first use of it which I
have observed is in a conveyance of the Island of Belleisle made by him
to his lieutenant, La Forest, in 1679.
II.
THE ELDORADO OF MATHIEU SÂGEAN.
Father Hennepin had among his contemporaries two rivals in the
fabrication of new discoveries. The first was the noted La Hontan, whose
book, like his own, had a wide circulation and proved a great success.
La Hontan had seen much, and portions of his story have a substantial
value; but his account of his pretended voyage up the "Long River" is a
sheer fabrication. His "Long River" corresponds in position with the
St. Peter, but it corresponds in nothing else; and the populous nations
whom he found on it--the Eokoros, the Esanapes, and the Gnacsitares, no
less than their neighbors the Mozeemlek and the Tahuglauk--are as real
as the nations visited by Captain Gulliver. But La Hontan did not, like
Hennepin, add slander and plagiarism to mendacity, or seek to
appropriate to himself the credit of genuine discoveries made by others.
Mathieu Sâgean is a personage less known than Hennepin or La Hontan; for
though he surpassed them both in fertility of invention, he was
illiterate, and never made a book. In 1701, being then a soldier in a
company of marines at Brest, he revealed a secret which he declared that
he had locked within his breast for twenty years, having been unwilling
to impart it to the Dutch and English, in whose service he had been
during the whole period. His story was written down from his dictation,
and sent to the minister Ponchartrain. It is preserved in the
Bibliothèque Nationale, and in 1863 it was printed by Mr. Shea.
He was born, he declares, at La Chine in Canada, and engaged in the
service of La Salle about twenty years before the revelation of his
secret; that is, in 1681. Hence, he would have been, at the utmost, only
fourteen years old, as La Chine did not exist before 1667. He was with
La Salle at the building of Fort St. Louis of the Illinois, and was left
here as one of a hundred men under command of Tonty. Tonty, it is to be
observed, had but a small fraction of this number; and Sâgean describes
the fort in a manner which shows that he never saw it. Being desirous of
making some new discovery, he obtained leave from Tonty, and set out
with eleven other Frenchmen and two Mohegan Indians. They ascended the
Mississippi a hundred and fifty leagues, carried their canoes by a
cataract, went forty leagues farther, and stopped a month to hunt.
While thus employed, they found another river, fourteen leagues distant,
flowing south-southwest. They carried their canoes thither, meeting on
the way many lions, leopards, and tigers, which did them no harm; then
they embarked, paddled a hundred and fifty leagues farther, and found
themselves in the midst of the great nation of the Acanibas, dwelling in
many fortified towns, and governed by King Hagaren, who claimed descent
from Montezuma. The King, like his subjects, was clothed with the skins
of men. Nevertheless, he and they were civilized and polished in their
manners. They worshipped certain frightful idols of gold in the royal
palace. One of them represented the ancestor of their monarch armed with
lance, bow, and quiver, and in the act of mounting his horse; while in
his mouth he held a jewel as large as a goose's egg, which shone like
fire, and which, in the opinion of Sâgean, was a carbuncle. Another of
these images was that of a woman mounted on a golden unicorn, with a
horn more than a fathom long. After passing, pursues the story, between
these idols, which stand on platforms of gold, each thirty feet square,
one enters a magnificent vestibule, conducting to the apartment of the
King. At the four corners of this vestibule are stationed bands of
music, which, to the taste of Sâgean, was of very poor quality. The
palace is of vast extent, and the private apartment of the King is
twenty-eight or thirty feet square; the walls, to the height of eighteen
feet, being of bricks of solid gold, and the pavement of the same. Here
the King dwells alone, served only by his wives, of whom he takes a new
one every day. The Frenchmen alone had the privilege of entering, and