Columbiana County, Ohio - Chapter 2: French Discoveries in the New World, 1879

While the Spaniards were making voyages and military excursions to the West Indies, Mexico, and Florida, the French directed their vessels to the coast of the New World, in a more northerly latitude. The Normandy fishermen visited the Banks of Newfoundland as early as 1504 ; and four years later a number of the natives of America were taken to France.

Under authority from Francis I., John Verrazzoni, a native of Florence, in 1523 discovered the mainland in the latitude of Wilmington, and thence coasted in a northerly direction until he reached Newfoundland, landing at intervals to tiaffic with the Indians, who received him in

In the year 1534, Jacques Cartier descended the St. Lawrence, giving the gulf that name which was afterwards extended to the river. On his second voyage, in 1535, he ascended the river to the Island of Orleans and gave the name " Mont Real" to a hill, now the site of Montreal. At what is now Quebec he fell in with the native " King of Canada." In his third voyage he explored the Saguenay country.

At this period the French made numerous unsuccessful attempts to plant colonies along the North Atlantic coast of America, continuing their efforts through a number of years, but gained only a temporary lodgment at "Acadie"* and " Cape Breton."

Henry Dumont, or De Monts, who had received a grant from Henry IV., - one of the first of those European potentates who made prodigal disposition of lands in America which they did not own, - sailed in 1004 with five vessels to search for mines. Attended by a " mixed company," he settled at St. Croix, and it is said that these L were at that time the only whites in the present United States north of Florida. He settled Annapolis; Newfoundland, which is the second oldest city founded by Europeans in the New World.

Samuel Champlain in 1G08 visited the Island of Orleans, cleared ground, and in July erected a few cabins on the site of Quebec, which proved the foundation of that city. He obtained a monopoly of the fur trade and fisheries, and established a trading-post at the new settlement. J Under the auspices of Champlain, the policy of establishing missions was introduced. " Such a policy was congenial to the Catholic Church, and was favored by the conditions of the charter itself, which recognized the neophyte among the savages as an enfranchised citizen of France."§

To the remote country of the interior the missionaries made their advance by the rivers and lakes, those natural highways supplied by the unequaled water-system of this portion of the New World.

In 1634 the French Jesuits, Brebeuf and Daniel, journ eyed as far as the Straits of St. Mary and Lake Superior, following the Ottawa and French Rivers. Champlain had

* Acadia, or Acadie, the name of the peninsula now called Nova Scotia irotn the time of its settlement by the French in 1 GO t until its cession to the English in 1713, In tho original commission of the King of France, New Brunswick and a part of Maine were included in Oadie, but practically the colony was restricted to tho peninsula.

t Annapolis is the capital of Annapolis County, in the province of Nova Scotia. Under the name of Port Royal it was the capital of the French colony of Acadia, after tho conquest of which, by the English in 1710, the name of the town was changed. The capital was removed to Halifax in 1750.

t Champlain had been many years engaged as a mariner in exploring the northern coasts near the Gulf of St. Lawrence, comprising tho provinces now known as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Cape Broton, south ol the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which wore embraced in a grant made by llcnry IV. of Franco to a company of merchants and others of Rouen, of whom Pontgrave and Cliauvin were principal. Sec Martin's Louisiana, vol. i. pp. 34 to 45, ed. of 1827.

given aid to the Huron and Algonquin tribes in their struggles with the fierce Iroquois , whose " Five Nations" occupied the country south of the St. Lawrence and Lake Erie, and thus drawn upon the French the implacable hostility of that confederacy. In consequence of this the better route to the westward, by the upper St. Lawrence and the great lakes, was practically closed to the Jesuit missionaries. Their route is described as leading " through a region horrible with forests. All day long they must wade or handle the oar. At five-and-thirty waterfalls the canoes were carried on the shoulders for leagues through thickest woods and over the roughest regions ; fifty times they were dragged through shallows and rapids and over sharpest stones. "||

Others of the Jesuit fathers followed to the country on the borders of Lake Huron during the seven years succeeding 1G40, among whom were Charles Raymbault, Claude Bejart, Isaac Jognes, and Father Bressanj. Jogues and Bressani were captured by the Iroquois , and suffered at their hands tortures the most excruciating; but were ultimately rescued and ransomed by the Dutch on Hudson's River. Jogues returned in 1647, after a visit to France, and sought to conciliate the powerful Iroquois. In this effort he lost his life, and directly following this event the missionary settlements in Canada were assailed by the savages and destroyed. The zeal of the Jesuits would not permit a cessation of their efforts in the new land. Missionaries in greater numbers entered upon the work so fatefully begun, and in a few years brought about frieudly relations with their former enemies.

In 1667, Father Claude Allouez, while in missionary service among the Chippewas , first learned of a river to the westward, called by the natives " Mesasippi" or Great River. Two years later, Claude Dablon and James Marquette were sent to establish the mission of St. Marie, which formed the oldest settlement by Europeans within the present limits of Michigan.^

In 1673, Father Marquette, who four years previous had resolved upon the discovery of the great river, was chosen with M. Joliet, a trader of Quebec, to effect that purpose. Father Marquette had gained the good-will of the natives, and such was their veneration for the gentle father that for a long time after his death, when their canoes were storm-tossed on Lake Michigan, it is said they " called upon the name of Marquette, and the wind ceased and the waves were still."** Marquette and his companion, with five other Frenchmen, left Michilimackinac May 13, 1673, coasted along the western shore of Lake Michigan, entered the bay of Puants (now Green Bay), ascended Fox River to the village of the tribe so named, then the " extreme limit of missionary effort in those western regions, where Allouez had already planted the cross."")"]'

Having procured Indian guides, they crossed the portage to the Wisconsin, carrying their canoes on their backs, and stood for the first time in the valley of the Mississippi, at a point beyond which no Frenchman had ventured. Aban-

One hundred miles below the mouth of the Wisconsin an Indian town near the western shore was discovered, where Marquette announced " the one true God, their Creator, and related how the French governor of Canada had humbled the Iroquois ." The savages were rejoiced, caused the party to tarry six days, and suspended from the neck of Marquette the sacred calumet, or " peace-pipe," as a " safeguard among strange tribes." Floating down the river, they passed the Missouri, or Pekitanoni, and the Ohio, and continued their voyage down to latitude 33° north, a considerable distance below De Soto's point of crossing one hundred and thirty-two years before. Father Marquette and his party returned to the lakes by way of the Illinois River.

The task of completing the exploration of the great river was undertaken by the ambitious, hardy, and enterprising Monsieur la Salle, a native of Rouen, in Normandy. The hope of reaching the South Sea and China by means of some of the western tributaries of the Mississippi, as suggested by Marquette, was still entertained in Europe, and was shared by La Salle. His plan to push French settlements westward and provide them with proper defenses was favorably entertained by the king. He was appointed to the command of Fort Cataracoui, afterwards called Frontenac, on the site now occupied by the city of Kingston, on Lake Ontario.

On the 18th of November, 1678, he set out from the fort in a bark of ten tons, and, reaching the head of Ontario, spent the winter in making further preparation for his expedition. Unable to ascend the falls of Niagara with his vessel, he built upon Lake Erie the " Griffin," of sixty tons burden, which was finished Aug. 7, 1679, and was the first sailing-vessel upon that lake. Three monks were of the company, one of whom was " Father Louis Hennepin, a Franciscan friar, a man full of ambition for discoveries and fame; daring, hardy, energetic, vain, and selfexaggerating almost to madness." The route of the expedition led through Lakes Huron and Michigan to Green Bay, where they arrived in October. From that place La Salle sent the " Griffin" upon a return voyage, richly laden with furs. The vessel was wrecked and the cargo lost; but La Salle, impatient for the " Griffin's" re-appearance, did not learn her fate until the ensuing January. Meantime he had proceeded southward, and passing around the lake to the river St. Joseph, secured consent of the Miamis for the erection of a stockade-fort and trading-post at the mouth of that river. He passed over to the Illinois, and descended that river to the broad portion of it called Lake Peoria, where he built a fort which, because of despondency occasioned by signs of mutiny among his men, he named " Creve Coeur," or Broken Heart.

The Indians became suspicious of the designs of La Salle, but fortunately serious trouble was averted. In February, 1680, before his return to Fort Frontenac, he arranged an expedition, under the lead of Father Hennepin, to explore the upper Mississippi. After a delay of ten days, occasioned by floating ice in that river, Hennepin ascended to the " Falls of St. Anthony," so called by him in honor of his patron saint, St. Anthony, of Padua. II is party spent several weeks exploring the country above the falls, " but never reached the real sources of the great river, as Hennepin falsely affirmed. "f

In the latter part of the summer of 1680, Hennepin again entered the Mississippi through the Wisconsin, and proceeded to the mouth of the Arkansas, and from that point returned without reaching the mouth of the great river.

La Salle had named the Illinois " St. Louis," and the country traversed by it " Louisiana," both in honor of the King of France. Desiring to complete the work of exploration, he started from Fort Creve Coeur in 1682, and on the 2d of February entered the Mississippi, determined to carry his investigations to its union with the sea. A few days were spent at the mouth of the Missouri, which he named "St. Philip," and other days at the mouth of the Ohio, to arrange for trade with the Indians, and at Chickasa Bluff's for a like purpose, where he obtained permission to build a fort. This post was called " Fort Prud'homme," after one who was left in command with a small garrison. He tarried at the mouth of the Arkansas, was well received by the Tensas Indians, whose village was situated, it is believed, upon the banks of what is now known as " Lake Providence," and reached Red River on the 27th of March. After a few days' delay he pursued his journey, and reached the goal of his endeavors - the confluence of the great river with the Gulf - on the 7th of April.

After a few days spent in making discoveries aloDg the coast of the Gulf, he " planted the arms of France, erected the cross, and calling the country ' Louisiana,' he closed the ceremony with a display of the solemn and imposing rites of the Catholic Church. ''I Two years later the explorations of La Salle were extended to the country of Texas. §

By virtue of these discoveries, France made claim to all the territory drained by the " Great River" and its tributaries, including the country whose waters descend to the Ohio on the south and to Lake Erie on the north.

The undefined limits of the provinces in America claimed severally by the great powers, Spain, France, and England, and the greed for territorial extension, manifested most strongly on the part of the last named, gave rise to serious struggles, both diplomatic and military, covering the period from 1690 to 1821, when, by lot of war and by purchase, a power younger than either - the United States - acquired the largest part of her present magnificent domain, including the " Mississippi Valley." The treaty by which France ceded " Louisiana," west of the Mississippi, was signed April 30, 1803.

§ It has been claimed that La Salle, in the year 1670, proceeding from Lake Eric, reached the Ohio at the Forks, where now is the city of Pittsburgh, and from thence floated down the river to the Falls. The statement, however, is disbelieved by historians generally.