Iroquois County, Illinois - Chapter 8: Explorations by La Salle, 1880

Chapter 8: Explorations by La Salle

THE success of the French, in their plan of colonization, was so great, and the trade with the savages, exchanging fineries, guns, knives, and, more than all, spirituous liquors for valuable furs, yielded such enormous profits, that impetus was given to still greater enterprises. They involved no less than the hemming in of the British colonies along the Atlantic coast and a conquest of the rich mines in Mexico, from the Spanish. These purposes are boldly avowed in a letter of M. Talon, the king's enterprising intendant at Quebec, in 1671 ; and also in the declarations of the great Colbert, at Paris, " I am," says M. Talon, in his letter to the king referred to, "no courtier, and assert, not through a mere desire to please the king, nor without just reason, that this portion of the French monarchy will become something grand. What I discover around me makes me foresee this ; and those colonies of foreign nations so long settled on the seaboard already tremble with fright, in view of what his majesty has accomplished here in the interior. The measures adopted to confine them within narrow limits, by taking possession, which I have caused to be effected, do not allow them to spread, without subjecting themselves, at the same time, to be treated as usurpers, and have war waged against them. This in truth is what by all their acts they seem to greatly fear. They already know that your name is spread abroad among the savages throughout all those countries, and that they regard your majesty alone as the arbitrator of peace and war ; they detach themselves insensibly from other Europeans, and excepting the Iroquois, of whom I am not as vet assured, we can safely promise that the others will take up arms whenever we please." " The principal result," says La Salle, in his memoir at a later day, " expected from the great perils and labors which I underwent in the discovery of the Mississippi was to satisfy the wish expressed to me by the late Monsieur Colbert, of finding a port where the French might establish themselves and harass the Spaniards in those regions from whence they derive all their wealth. The place I propose to fortify lies sixty leagues above the mouth of the river Colbert (i. e. Mississippi) in the Gulf of Mexico, and possesses all the advantages for such a purpose which can be wished for, both on account of its excellent position and the favorable disposition of the savages who live in that part of the country."* It is not our province to indulge in conjectures as to how far these daring purposes of Talon and Colbert would have succeeded had not the latter died, and their active assistant, Robert La Salle, have lost his life, at the hands of an assassin, when in the act of executing the preliminary part of the enterprise. "We turn, rather, to matters of historical record, and proceed with a condensed sketch of the life and voyages of La Salle, as it was his discoveries that led to the colonization of the Mississippi Valley by the French.

La Salle was born, of a distinguished family, at Rouen, France. He was consecrated to the service of God in early life, and entered the Society of Jesus, in which he remained ten years, laying the foundation of moral principles, regular habits and elements of science that served him so well in his future arduous undertakings. Like many other young men having plans of useful life, he thought Canada would offer better facilities to develop them than the cramped and fixed society of France. He accordingly left his home, and reached Montreal in 1666. Being of a resolute and venturesome disposition, he found employment in making explorations of the country about the lakes. He soon became a favorite of Talon, the intendant, and of Frontenae, the governor, at Quebec. He was selected by the latter to take command of Fort Frontenac, near the present city of Kingston, on the St. Lawrence River, and at that time a dilapidated, wooden structure on the frontier of Canada. He remained in Canada about nine years, acquiring a knowledge of the country and particularly of the Indian tribes, their manners, habits and customs, and winning the confidence of the French authorities. He returned to France and presented a memoir to the king, in which he urged the necessity of maintaining Fort Frontenac, which he offered to restore with a structure of stone ; to keep there a garrison equal to the one at Montreal ; to employ as many as fifteen laborers during the first year; to clear and till the land, and to supply the surrounding Indian villages with Recollect missionaries in furtherance of the cause of religion, all at his own expense, on condition that the king would grant him the right of seigniory and a monopoly of the trade incident to it. He further petitioned for title of nobility in consideration of voyages he had already made in Canada at his own expense, and which had resulted in the great benefit to the king's colony. The king heard the petition graciously, and

* Talon's letter to the king1: Paris Documents, vol. 9, p. 73. La Salle's Memoir to the king, on the necessity of fitting out an expedition to take possession of Louisiana: Historical Collections of Louisiana, part 1, p. 5.

on the 13th May, 1675, granted La Salle and his heirs Fort Frontenac, with four leagues of the adjacent country along the lakes and rivers above and below the fort and a half a league inward, and the adjacent islands, with the right of hunting and fishing on Lake Ontario and the circumjacent rivers. On the same day, the king issued to La Salle letters patent of nobility, having, as the king declares, been informed of the worthy deeds performed by the people, either in reducing or civilizing the savages or in defending themselves against their frequent insults, especially those of the Iroquois ; in despising the greatest dangers in order to extend the king's name and empire to the extremity of that new world ; and desiring to reward those who have thus rendered themselves most eminent ; and wishing to treat most favorably Robert Cavalier Sieur de La Salle on account of the good and laudable report that has been rendered concerning his actions in Canada, the king does ennoble and decorate with the title of nobility the said cavalier, together with his wife and children. He left France with these precious documents, and repaired to Fort Frontenac, where he performed the conditions imposed by the terms of his titles.

He sailed for France again in 1677, and in the following year after he and Colbert had fully matured their plans, he again petitioned the king for a license to prosecute further discoveries. The king granted his request, giving him a permit, under date of May 12, 1678, to endeavor to discover the western part of New France ; the king avowing in the letters patent that " he had nothing more at heart than the discovery of that country where there is a prospect of finding a way to penetrate as far as Mexico," and authorizing La Salle to prosecute discoveries, and construct forts in such places as he might think necessary, and enjoy there the same monopoly as at Fort Frontenac, - all on condition that the enterprise should be prosecuted at LaSalle's expense, and completed within five years; that he should not trade with the savages, who carried their peltries and beavers to Montreal ; and that the governor, intendant, justices, and other officers of the king in New France, should aid La Salle in his enterprise.* Before leaving France, La Saiie, through the Prince de Conti, was introduced to one Henri de Tonti, an Italian by birth, who for eight years had been in the French service. Having had one of his hands shot off while in Sicily, he repaired to France to seek other employment. It was a most fortunate meeting. Tonti - a name that should be prominently associated with discoveries in this part of America - became La Salle's companion. Ever faithful and courageous, he ably and zealously fur-

* Vide the petitions of La Salle to, and the grants from, the king, which are found at length in the Paris Documents, vol. 9, pp. 122 to 127.

Louis Hennepin

thered all of La Salle's plans, followed and defended him under the most discouraging trials, with an unselfish fidelity that has few parallels in any age.

Supplied with this new grant of enlarged powers, La Salle, in company with Tonti, - or Tonty, as Dr. Sparks says he has seen the name written in an autograph letter, - and thirty men, comprising pilots, sailors, carpenters and other mechanics, with a supply of material necessary for the intended exploration, left France for Quebec. Here the party were joined by some Canadians, and the whole force was sent forward to Fort Frontenac, at the outlet of Lake Ontario, since this fort had been granted to La Salle. He had, in conformity to the terms of his letters patent, greatly enlarged and strengthened its defenses. Here he met Louis Hennepin, a Franciscan Friar, whom it seems had been sent thither along with Father Gabriel de la Ribourde and Zenobius Membre, all of the same religious order, to accompany La Salle's expedition. In the meantime, Hennepin was occupied in pastoral labors among the soldiers of the garrison, and the inhabitants of a little hamlet of peasants near by, and proselyting the Indians of the neighboring country. Hennepin, from his own account, had not only traveled over several parts of Europe before coming to Canada, but since his arrival in America, had spent much time in roaming about among the savages, to gratify his love of adventure and acquire knowledge.

Hennepin's name and writings are so prominently connected with the early history of the Mississippi Yalley, and, withal, his contradictory statements, made at a later day of his life, as to the extent of his own travels, have so clouded his reputation with grave doubt as to his regard for truth, that we will turn aside and give the reader a sketch of this most singular man and his claims as a discoverer. He was bold, courageous, patient and hopeful under the most trying fatigues ; and had a taste for the privations and dangers of a life among the savages, whose ways and caprices he well understood, and knew how to turn them to insure his own safety. He was a shrewd observer and possessed a faculty for that detail and little minutiae, which make a narrative racy and valuable. He was vain and much given to selfglorification. He accompanied La Salle, in the first voyage, as far as Peoria Lake, and he and Father Zenobe Membre are the historians of that expedition. From Peoria Lake he went down the Illinois, under orders from La Salle, and up the Mississippi beyond St. Anthony's Falls, giving this name to the falls. This interesting voyage was not prosecuted voluntarily ; for Hennepin and his two companions were captured by the Sioux and taken up the river as prisoners, often in great peril of their lives. He saw La Salle no more, after parting with him at Peoria Lake. He was released from captivity through the intervention of Mons. Duluth, a French Coureur de Bois, who had previously established a trade with the Sioux, on the upper Mississippi, by way of Lake Superior. After his escape, Hennepin descended the Mississippi to the mouth of the "Wisconsin, which he ascended, made the portage at the head of Fox River, thence to Green Bay and Mackinaw, by the route pursued by Joliet and Marquette on their way to the Mississippi, seven years before. From Mackinaw he proceeded to France, where, in 1683, he published, under royal authority, an account of his travels. For refusing to obey an order of his superiors, to return to America, he was banished from France. He went to Holland and obtained the favor and patronage of William HI, king of England, to whose service, as he himself says, " he entirely devoted himself." In Holland, he received money and sustenance from Mr. Blathwait, King William's secretary of war, while engaged in preparing a new volume of his voyages, which was published at Utrecht, in 1697, and dedicated "To His Most Excellent Majesty William the Third." The revised edition contains substantially all of the first, and a great deal besides ; for in this last work Hennepin lays claim, for the first time, to having gone down the Mississippi to its mouth, thus seeking to deprive La Salle of the glory attaching to his name, on account of this very discovery. La Salle had now been dead about fourteen years, and from the time he went down the Mississippi, in 1682, to the hour of his death, although his discovery was well known, especially to Hennepin, the latter never laid any claim to having anticipated him in the discovery. Besides, Hennepin's own account, after so long a silence, of his pretended voyage down the river is so utterly inconsistent with itself, especially with respect to dates and the impossibility of his traveling the distances within the time he alleges, that the story carries its own refutation. For this mendacious act, Father Hennepin has merited the severest censures of Charlevoix, Jared Sparks, Francis Parkman, Dr. Shea and other historical critics.

His first work is generally regarded as authority. That he did go up the Mississippi river there seems to be no controversy, while grave doubts prevail as to many statements in his last publication, which would otherwise pass without suspicion were they not found in company with statements known to be untrue.

In the preface to his last work, issued in 1697, Father Hennepin assigns as a reason why he did not publish his descent of the Mississippi in his volume issued in 1683, " that I was obliged to say nothing of the course of the Mississippi, from the mouth of the Illinois down to the sea, for fear of disobliging M. La Salle, with whom I began my discovery. This gentleman, alone, would have the glory of having discovered the course of that river. But when he heard that I had done it two years before him he could never forgive me, though, as I have said, I was so modest as to publish nothing of it. This was the true cause of his malice against me, and of the barbarous usage I met with in France."

Still, his description of places he did visit ; the aboriginal names and geographical features of localities ; his observations, especially upon the manners and customs of the Indians, and other facts which he had no motive to misrepresent, are generally regarded as true in his last as well as in his first publication. His works, indeed, are the only repositories of many interesting particulars relating to the northwest, and authors quote from him, some indiscriminately and others with more caution, while all criticise him without measure.

Hennepin was born in Belgium in 1640, as is supposed, and died at Utrecht, Holland, within a few years after issuing his last book. This was republished in London in 1698, the translation into English being wretchedly executed. The book, aside from its historical value and the notoriety attaching to it because of the new claims Hennepin makes, is quite a curiosity. It is made up of Hennepin's own travels, blended with his fictitious discoveries, scraps and odd ends taken from the writings of other travelers without giving'credit ; the whole embellished with plates and a map inserted by the bookseller, and the text emphasized with italics and displayed type; all designed to render it a specimen, as it probably was in its day, of the highest skill attained in the art of book-making.

La Salle brought up the St. Lawrence to Fort Frontenac the anchors, cordage and other material to be used in the vessel which he designed to construct above the Falls of Niagara for navigating the western lakes. He already had three small vessels on Lake Ontario, which he had made use of in a coasting trade with the Indians. One of these, a brigantine of ten tons, was loaded with his effects ; his men, including Fathers Gabriel, Zenobius Membre and Hennepin, who were, as Father Zenobia declares, commissioned with care of the spiritual direction of the expedition, were placed aboard, and on the 18th of November the vessel sailed westward for the Niagara River. They kept the northern shore, and run into land and bartered for corn with the Iroquois at one of their villages, situated where Toronto, Canada, is located, and for fear of being frozen up in the river, which here empties into the lake, had to cut the ice from about their ship. Detained by adverse winds, they remained here until the wind was favorable, when they sailed across the end of the lake and found an anchorage in the mouth of Niagara River on the 6th of December. The season was far advanced, and the ground covered with snow a foot deep. Large masses of ice were floating down the river endangering the vessel, and it was necessary to take measures to give it security. Accordingly the vessel was hauled with cables up against the strong current. One of the cables broke, and the vessel itself came very near being broken to pieces or carried away by the ice, which was grinding its way to the open lake. Finally, by sheer force of human strength, the vessel was dragged to the shore, and moored with a strong hawser under a protecting cliff out of danger from the floating ice. A cabin, protected with palisades, for shelter and to serve as a magazine to store the supplies, was also constructed. The ground was frozen so hard that it had to be thawed out with boiling water before the men could drive stakes into it.

The movements of La Salle excited, first the curiosity of the Iroquois Indians, in whose country he was an intruder, and then their jealousy became aroused as they began to fear he intended the erection of a fort. The Sieur de La Salle, says the frank and modest-minded Father Zenobe Membre, "with his usual address met the principal Iroquois chiefs in conference, and gained them so completely that they not only agreed, but offered, to contribute with all their means to the execution of his designs. The conference lasted for some time. La Salle also sent many canoes to trade north and south of the lake among these tribes." Meanwhile La Salle's enemies were busy in thwarting his plans. They insinuated themselves among the Indians in the vicinity of Niagara, and filled their ears with all sorts of stories to La Salle's discredit, and aroused feelings of such distrust that work on the fort, or depot for supplies, had to be suspended, and La Salle content himself with a house surrounded by palisades.

The ground was cleared away, trees were felled, and the carpenters set to work. The keel of the vessel was laid on the 26th of January, and some of the plank being ready to fasten on, La Salle drove the first spike. As the work progressed, La Salle made several trips, over ice and snow, and later in the spring with vessels, to Fort Frontenac, to hurry forward provisions and material. One of his vessels was lost on Lake Ontario, heavily laden with a cargo of valuable supplies, through the fault or willful perversity of her pilots. The disappointment over this calamity, says Hennepin, would have dissuaded any other person than

* Francis Parkman, in his valuable work, "The Discovery of the Great West," p. 133, locates the spot at the mouth of Cayuga Creek on the American shore.

The First Sail On Lake Erie

La Salle from the further prosecution of the enterprise. The men worked industriously on the ship. The most of the Iroquois having gone to war with a nation on the northern side of Lake Erie, the few remaining behind were become less insolent than before. Still they lingered about where the work was going on, and continued expressions of discontent at what the French were doing. One of them let on to be drunk and attempted to kill the blacksmith, but the latter repulsed the Indian with a piece of iron red-hot from the forge. The Indians threatened to burn the vessel on the stocks, and might have done so were it not constantly guarded. Much of the time the only food of the men was Indian corn and lish ; the distance to Fort Frontenac and the inclemency of the winter rendering it out of power ta procure a supply of other or better provisions.

The frequent alarms from the Indians, a want of wholesome food, the loss of the vessel with its promised supplies, and a refusal of the neighboring tribes to sell any more of their corn, reduced the party to such extremities that the ship-carpenters tried to run away. They were, however, persuaded to remain and prosecute their work. Two Mohegan Indians, successful hunters in La Salle's service, were fortunate enough to bring in some wild goats and other game they had killed, which greatly encouraged the workmen to go on with their task more briskly than before. The vessel was completed within six months from the time its keel was laid. The ship was gotten afloat before entirely finished, to prevent the designs of the natives to burn it. She was sixty tons burthen, and called the " Griffin," a name given it by La Salle by way of a compliment to Count Frontenac, whose armorial bearings were supported by two griffins. Three guns were fired, and 11 Te Deums" chanted at the christening, and prayers offered up for a prosperous voyage. The air in the wild forest rung with shouts of joy ; even the Iroqnois, looking suspiciously on, were seduced with alluring draughts of brandy to lend their deep-mouthed voices to the happy occasion. The men left their cabins of bark and swung their hammocks under the deck of the ship, where they could rest with greater security from the savages than on the shore.

The Griffin, under press of a favorable breeze, and with the help of twelve men on the shore pulling at tow-ropes, was forced up against the strong current of the Niagara River to calmer waters at the entrance of the lake. On the 7th of August, 1679, her canvas was spread, and the pilot steering by the compass, the vessel, with La Salle and his thirty odd companions and their effects aboard, sailed out westward upon the unknown, silent waters of Lake Erie. In three days they reached the mouth of Detroit River. Father Hennepin was fairly delighted with the country along this river - it was "so well situated and the soil so fertile. Vast meadows extending back from the strait and terminating at the uplands, which were clad with vineyards, and plum and pear and other fruit-bearing trees of nature's own planting, all so well arranged that one would think they could not have been so disposed without the help of art. The country was also well stocked with deer, bear, wild goats, turkeys, and other animals and birds, that supplied a most relishing food. The forest comprised walnut and other timber in abundance suitable for building purposes. So charmed was he with the prospect that he " endeavored to persuade La Salle to settle at the ' De Troit,' " it being in the midst of so many savage nations among whom a good trade could be established. La Salle would not listen to this proposal. He said he would make no settlement within one hundred leagues of Frontenac, lest other Europeans would be before them in the new country they were going to discover. This, says Hennepin, was the pretense of La Salle and the adventurers who were with him ; for I soon discovered that their intention was to buy all the furs and skins of the remotest savages who, as they thought, did not know their value, and thus enrich themselves in one single voyage. On Lake Huron the Griffin encountered a storm. The main-yards and topmast were blown away, giving the ship over to the mercy of the winds. There was no harbor to run into for shelter. La Salle, although a courageous man, gave way to his fears, and said they all were undone. Everyone thereupon fell upon their knees to say prayers and prepare for death, except the pilot, who cursed and swore all the while at La Salle for bringing him there to perish in a nasty lake, after he had acquired so much renown in a long and successful navigation on the ocean. The storm abated, and on the 27th of August, the Griffin resumed her course northwest, and was carried on the evening of the same day beyond the island of Mackinaw to point St. Ignace, and safely anchored in a bay that is sheltered, except from the south, by the projecting mainland.