France and England in North America, Part III: La Salle, Discovery of The Great West
extreme ill-humor. They were incensed against the French by the
ill-usage which some of their tribe had lately met when on a trading
visit to Montreal; and they received the Faith with shouts of derision.
The priest was horror-stricken at what he saw. Their lodges, each
containing from five to ten families, seemed in his eyes like seraglios;
for some of the chiefs had eight wives. He armed himself with patience,
and at length gained a hearing. Nay, he succeeded so well, that when he
showed them his crucifix they would throw tobacco on it as an offering;
and, on another visit which he made them soon after, he taught the whole
village to make the sign of the cross. A war-party was going out against
their enemies, and he bethought him of telling them the story of the
Cross and the Emperor Constantine. This so wrought upon them that they
all daubed the figure of a cross on their shields of bull-hide, set out
for the war, and came back victorious, extolling the sacred symbol as a
great war-medicine.
"Thus it is," writes Dablon, who chronicles the incident, "that our holy
faith is established among these people; and we have good hope that we
shall soon carry it to the famous river called the Mississippi, and
perhaps even to the South Sea."[33] Most things human have their phases
of the ludicrous; and the heroism of these untiring priests is no
exception to the rule.
[Sidenote: TRADING WITH INDIANS.]
The various missionary stations were much alike. They consisted of a
chapel (commonly of logs) and one or more houses, with perhaps a
store-house and a workshop; the whole fenced with palisades, and
forming, in fact, a stockade fort, surrounded with clearings and
cultivated fields. It is evident that the priests had need of other
hands than their own and those of the few lay brothers attached to the
mission. They required men inured to labor, accustomed to the forest
life, able to guide canoes and handle tools and weapons. In the earlier
epoch of the missions, when enthusiasm was at its height, they were
served in great measure by volunteers, who joined them through devotion
or penitence, and who were known as _donnés_ or "given men." Of late,
the number of these had much diminished; and they now relied chiefly on
hired men, or _engagés_. These were employed in building, hunting,
fishing, clearing, and tilling the ground, guiding canoes, and (if faith
is to be placed in reports current throughout the colony) in trading
with the Indians for the profit of the missions. This charge of
trading--which, if the results were applied exclusively to the support
of the missions, does not of necessity involve much censure--is
vehemently reiterated in many quarters, including the official
despatches of the governor of Canada; while, so far as I can discover,
the Jesuits never distinctly denied it, and on several occasions they
partially admitted its truth.[34]
FOOTNOTES:
[26] See "The Jesuits in North America."
[27] He complains that the Indians were very averse to giving
information on the subject, so that the Jesuits had not as yet
discovered the metal _in situ_, though they hoped soon to do so. The
Indians told him that the copper had first been found by four hunters,
who had landed on a certain island, near the north shore of the lake.
Wishing to boil their food in a vessel of bark, they gathered stones on
the shore, heated them red hot, and threw them in, but presently
discovered them to be pure copper. Their repast over, they hastened to
re-embark, being afraid of the lynxes and the hares, which, on this
island, were as large as dogs, and which would have devoured their
provisions, and perhaps their canoe. They took with them some of the
wonderful stones; but scarcely had they left the island, when a deep
voice, like thunder, sounded in their ears, "Who are these thieves who
steal the toys of my children?" It was the God of the Waters, or some
other powerful manito. The four adventurers retreated in great terror;
but three of them soon died, and the fourth survived only long enough to
reach his village, and tell the story. The island has no foundation, but
floats with the movement of the wind; and no Indian dares land on its
shores, dreading the wrath of the manito. Dablon, _Relation_, 1670, 84.
[28] _Lettre du Père Jacques Marquette au R. P. Supérieur des Missions;_
in _Relation_, 1670, 87.
[29] The Illinois lived at this time beyond the Mississippi, thirty
days' journey from La Pointe; whither they had been driven by the
Iroquois, from their former abode near Lake Michigan. Dablon
(_Relation_, 1671, 24, 25) says that they lived seven days' journey
beyond the Mississippi, in eight villages. A few years later, most of
them returned to the east side, and made their abode on the river
Illinois.
[30] The Baye des Puants of the early writers; or, more correctly, La
Baye des Eaux Puantes. The Winnebago Indians, living near it, were
called Les Puans, apparently for no other reason than because some
portion of the bay was said to have an odor like the sea.
Lake Michigan, the "Lac des Illinois" of the French, was, according to a
letter of Father Allouez, called "Machihiganing" by the Indians. Dablon
writes the name "Mitchiganon."
[31] _Relation_, 1671, 43.
[32] This town was on the Neenah or Fox River, above Lake Winnebago. The
Mascoutins, Fire Nation, or Nation of the Prairie, are extinct or merged
in other tribes. See "The Jesuits in North America." The Miamis soon
removed to the banks of the river St. Joseph, near Lake Michigan.
[33] _Relation_, 1672, 42.
[34] This charge was made from the first establishment of the missions.
For remarks on it, see "The Jesuits in North America" and "The Old
Régime in Canada."
CHAPTER IV.
1667-1672.
FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST.
Talon.--Saint-Lusson.--Perrot.--The Ceremony at Saut Ste.
Marie.--The Speech of Allouez.--Count Frontenac.
Jean Talon, intendant of Canada, was full of projects for the good of
the colony. On the one hand, he set himself to the development of its
industries, and, on the other, to the extension of its domain. He meant
to occupy the interior of the continent, control the rivers, which were
its only highways, and hold it for France against every other nation. On
the east, England was to be hemmed within a narrow strip of seaboard;
while, on the south, Talon aimed at securing a port on the Gulf of
Mexico, to keep the Spaniards in check, and dispute with them the
possession of the vast regions which they claimed as their own. But the
interior of the continent was still an unknown world. It behooved him to
explore it; and to that end he availed himself of Jesuits, officers,
fur-traders, and enterprising schemers like La Salle. His efforts at
discovery seem to have been conducted with a singular economy of the
King's purse. La Salle paid all the expenses of his first expedition
made under Talon's auspices; and apparently of the second also, though
the intendant announces it in his despatches as an expedition sent out
by himself.[35] When, in 1670, he ordered Daumont de Saint-Lusson to
search for copper mines on Lake Superior, and at the same time to take
formal possession of the whole interior for the King, it was arranged
that he should pay the costs of the journey by trading with the
Indians.[36]
[Sidenote: SAINT-LUSSON AND PERROT.]
Saint-Lusson set out with a small party of men, and Nicolas Perrot as
his interpreter. Among Canadian _voyageurs_, few names are so
conspicuous as that of Perrot; not because there were not others who
matched him in achievement, but because he could write, and left behind
him a tolerable account of what he had seen.[37] He was at this time
twenty-six years old, and had formerly been an _engagé_ of the Jesuits.
He was a man of enterprise, courage, and address,--the last being
especially shown in his dealings with Indians, over whom he had great
influence. He spoke Algonquin fluently, and was favorably known to many
tribes of that family.
Saint-Lusson wintered at the Manitoulin Islands; while Perrot, having
first sent messages to the tribes of the north, inviting them to meet
the deputy of the governor at the Saut Ste. Marie in the following
spring, proceeded to Green Bay, to urge the same invitation upon the
tribes of that quarter. They knew him well, and greeted him with clamors
of welcome. The Miamis, it is said, received him with a sham battle,
which was designed to do him honor, but by which nerves more susceptible
would have been severely shaken.[38] They entertained him also with a
grand game of _la crosse_, the Indian ball-play. Perrot gives a
marvellous account of the authority and state of the Miami chief, who,
he says, was attended day and night by a guard of warriors,--an
assertion which would be incredible, were it not sustained by the
account of the same chief given by the Jesuit Dablon. Of the tribes of
the Bay, the greater part promised to send delegates to the Saut; but
the Pottawattamies dissuaded the Miami potentate from attempting so long
a journey, lest the fatigue incident to it might injure his health; and
he therefore deputed them to represent him and his tribesmen at the
great meeting. Their principal chiefs, with those of the Sacs,
Winnebagoes, and Menomonies, embarked, and paddled for the place of
rendezvous, where they and Perrot arrived on the fifth of May.[39]
Saint-Lusson was here with his men, fifteen in number, among whom was
Louis Joliet;[40] and Indians were fast thronging in from their
wintering grounds, attracted, as usual, by the fishery of the rapids or
moved by the messages sent by Perrot,--Crees, Monsonis, Amikoués,
Nipissings, and many more. When fourteen tribes, or their
representatives, had arrived, Saint-Lusson prepared to execute the
commission with which he was charged.
[Sidenote: CEREMONY AT THE SAUT.]
At the foot of the rapids was the village of the Sauteurs, above the
village was a hill, and hard by stood the fort of the Jesuits. On the
morning of the fourteenth of June, Saint-Lusson led his followers to the
top of the hill, all fully equipped and under arms. Here, too, in the
vestments of their priestly office, were four Jesuits,--Claude Dablon,
Superior of the Missions of the lakes, Gabriel Druilletes, Claude
Allouez, and Louis André.[41] All around the great throng of Indians
stood, or crouched, or reclined at length, with eyes and ears intent. A
large cross of wood had been made ready. Dablon, in solemn form,
pronounced his blessing on it; and then it was reared and planted in the
ground, while the Frenchmen, uncovered, sang the _Vexilla Regis_. Then a
post of cedar was planted beside it, with a metal plate attached,
engraven with the royal arms; while Saint-Lusson's followers sang the
_Exaudiat_, and one of the Jesuits uttered a prayer for the King.
Saint-Lusson now advanced, and, holding his sword in one hand, and
raising with the other a sod of earth, proclaimed in a loud voice,--
"In the name of the Most High, Mighty, and Redoubted Monarch, Louis,
Fourteenth of that name, Most Christian King of France and of Navarre, I
take possession of this place, Sainte Marie du Saut, as also of Lakes
Huron and Superior, the Island of Manitoulin, and all countries, rivers,
lakes, and streams contiguous and adjacent thereunto,--both those which
have been discovered and those which may be discovered hereafter, in all
their length and breadth, bounded on the one side by the seas of the
North and of the West, and on the other by the South Sea: declaring to
the nations thereof that from this time forth they are vassals of his
Majesty, bound to obey his laws and follow his customs; promising them
on his part all succor and protection against the incursions and