Peoria County, Illinois - Chapter 1: Discovery of the Mississippi River, 1880

Chapter 1: Discovery of the Mississippi River

De Soto - Le Caron - Samuel de Champlain - French Adventurers - James Marquette - Louis Joliet - Embarkation to Explore New Countries - Lake Michigan and Green Bay - The " Ouisconsin " - Indian Accounts of the Country - Discovering the Great River - Indian Name of the River - Joy of the Explorers - Interview with Indians on Iowa Soil - Feast - Speech of an Indian Chief - The Des Moines River - "Muddy Water" - The Arkansas - Return - Indian Nations - Marquette's Record - His Subsequent Voyage - La V'antum - Marquette's Death - Removal of His Remains - Joliet's Subsequent Explorations - Robert La Salle - Louis Hennepin - Chevalier de Tonti - De La Motte - Fort Crevecoeur - Hennepin's Voyage. - Falls of St. Anthony - Seur de Luth - Hennepin's Claims as an Explorer - Colonization of Louisiana - Dissensions - Murder of La Salle.

The three great colonizing powers of the Old World first to raise the standard of civilization within the limits of North America were France, England, and Spain. The French made their earliest settlements in the cold and inhospitable regions of Quebec ; the English at Jamestown, Virginia, and at Plymouth, Massachusetts ; and the Spaniards on the barren sands of Florida. To the French belongs the honor of discovering and colonizing that portion of our countiy known as the Valley of the Mississippi, including all that magnificent region watered by the tributaries of the Great River. It is true tliat more than one hundred years earlier (1538-41) the Spanish explorer, De Soto, had landed on tlie coast of Florida, penetrated the everglades and unbroken forests of the South, finally reaching the banks of the Great River, probably near where the city of Meinpiiis now stands. Crossing the river, he and his companions pursued their journey for some distance along the west bank, thence to the Ozark Mountains and the Hot Springs of Arkansas, and returning to the place of his death on the banks of tlie Mississijjpi. It was a perilous expedition indeed, characterized by all the splendor, romance and valor which usually attended Spanisli adventurers of that age. De Soto and his companions were the first Europeans to beliold the waters of the Mississippi, but the expedition was a failure so far as related to colonization. The requiem chanted by his companions as liis remains were committed to the waters of the great river he had discovered, died away with the solemn murmurs of the stream, and the white man's voice was not heard again in the valley for more than a hundred 3'ears. De Soto had landed at Tampa Btiy, on the coast of Florida, with a fleet of nine vessels and seven hundred men. More than half of them died, and the remainder made their way to Cuba, and finally back to Spain.

Four years before the pilgrims " moored their bark on the wild New England shore," a French Franciscan, named Le Caron, penetrated the region of the great lakes of the North, then the homes of the Iroquois and the Hurons, but a French settlement had been established at Quebec, by Samuel de Champlain, in 1608. This was followed by the establishment of various colonies in Canada, and the hardy French adventurers penetrated the country by the way of the St. Lawrence and the lakes. In 1625 a number of missionaries of the Society of Jesus arrived in Canada from France, and during the succeeding forty years extended their missions all along the shores of Lake Superior.

In 1687 a child was born at the little city of Laon, in France, whose destiny it was in the fullness of time to be instrumental in the hands of Providence in giving to tlie world a definite knowledge of the grandest and most fertile region ever opened up to civilization. That child was James Marquette, the descendant of a family of Celtic nobles. He entered the Society of Jesus when seventeen years of age, and soon conceived a desire to engage in the labors of a missionary among the Indians. He sailed for Quebec in 1666, and two years later founded the mission of Sault Ste. Marie at the Falls of St. Mary. The Winter of 1669-70 he spent at Point St. Ignatius, where he established another mission. Here the old town of Michillimackinac, afterward called Mackinaw, was founded. It was from Indians of the different tribes who came to this mission that he received some vague intimations of the great river - the father of all the rivers. He at once conceived a desire to penetrate to the banks of the wonderful river, and carry his missionary work to the tribes which he had learned inhabited its borders. He applied to his superior, Claude Dablon, for permission to "seek new nations toward the Southern sea." The authorities at Quebec were equally desirous of having new regions explored, and therefore appointed Louis Joliet to embark upon a voyage of discovery. Joliet was a native of Quebec and had been educated in a Jesuit college. He had, at the age of eigiiteen, taken minor orders, but had abandoned all thoughts of the priesthood and engaged in the fur trade. He was now twenty-seven years of age, with a mind ripe for adventure. He left Quebec, and arriving at Mackinaw, found Father Manjuettc liigbly delighted with the information that they were to be companions in a voyage wliich was to extend to the domain of the King of France, as well as to carry the Gospel to new nations of people. The explorers, accompanied by five assistants, who were French Canadians, started on their journey May 13, 1673. Marquette has himself recorded in the following simple language their feelings on this occasion : " We were embarking on a voyage the character of which we could not foresee. Indian corn, with some dried meat, was our whole stock of provisions. With this we set out in two bark canoes. M. Joliet, myself and five men, firmly resolved to do all and suffer all for so glorious an enterprise." They coasted along the northern shore of Lake Michigan, entered Green Bay, and passed up the Fox river, carrying their canoes across the I'ortage to the " Ouisconsin," now called Wisconsin. At Lake Winnebago, before crossing the Portage, they stopped at an Indian village, which was the furthest outpost to which Dablon and Alhnuz had extended their missionary work. Here they assembled the chiefs and old men of the village and told them of the objects of the voyage. Pointing to Joliet, Father Marquette said: "My friend is an envoy of France to discover new countries, and I am an ambassador from God to enlighten them with the truths of the Gospel." The Indians furnished two guides to conduct them to the Wisconsin river. It is related that a tribe of Indians endeavored to dissuade them from pursuing their perilous journey by telling of desperate and savage tribes that they would meet ; that the forests and the rivers were infested with frightful monsters ; that there were great fish in the rivers that would swallow up men and canoes together, and of a demon who could be heard from a great distance, and who destroyed all who approached. Unmoved by these frightful stories, .Marquette, Joliet, and their five brave assistants, launched their little canoes on the waters of the Wi.sconsin, and moved .slowly down the current. After a lapse of seven days, June 17tli, 1673, tlii-y reached the moutli of tlie Wisconsin and glided into the current of tlie Mississippi, a few miles below the place now known as Prairie du Cliien. Here, and on this day, the eye of the white man for the first time looked upon the waters of the Upper Mississippi. Marcjuette called the river "The Broad River of the Conception." The

The Northwest Territory. H.

Indian name is derived from the Algonquin language, one of the original tongues of the continent. It is a compound of the words Missi, signifj'ing great, and Sepe, a river.

The explorers felt the most intense joy on beholding the scene presented to their enraptured vision. Here was the great river whose waters somewhere thousands of miles away flowed into a southern sea, and whose broad valley was the fairest and richest in the world, but unknown to civilized man, save as an almost forgotten dream or a vague romance. They had solved one of the great mysteries of the age in which they lived. As they glided down the stream the bold bluffs reminded Marquette of the " castled shores of his own beautiful rivers in France." The far-stretching prairies alternating with forests, on either side, were adorned in all the wild glories of June. Birds sang the same notes that they had sung for ages amid these " forests primeval," while herds of buffalo, deer and elk were alarmed and fled to the dense retreats of the forest or the broad prairies beyond. Not until the 25th of June did they discover any signs of human habitation. Then, about sixty leagues, as they thought, below the mouth of the Wisconsin, at a place where they landed on the west bank of the river, they found in the sand the foot-prints of man. Marquette and Joliet left their five companions in charge of the canoes and journeyed away from the river, knowing that they must be near the habitation of men. They followed a trail leading across a prairie clothed in the wild luxuriance of Summer for a distance of about six miles, when they beheld another river and on its banks an Indian village, with other villages on higher land, a mile and a half from the first. The Indians greeted the two white strangers, as far as their ability permitted, with a splendid ovation. They appointed four of their old men to meet the strangers in council. Marquette could speak their language. They informed him that they were " Illini " (meaning " we are men "), and presenting the calumet of peace, invited them to share the hospitalities of their village. Marquette told them of the object of their visit, and that they had been sent by the French, who were their friends. He told them of the great God that the white man worshipped who was the same Great Spirit that they adored. In answer, one of the chiefs addressed them as follows :

" I thank the Black Gown Chief (Marquette) and the Frenchman (Joliet) for taking so much pains to come and visit us ; never has the earth been so beautiful, nor the sun so bright as now ; never has the river been so calm, nor so free from rocks, which your canoes have removed as they passed ; never has our tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it to-day. Ask the Great Spirit to give us life and health, and come ye and dwell with us."

After these ceremonies the strangers were invited to a feast, an account of which is given by Marquette. It consisted of four courses. First, there was a large wooden bowl filled with tagmity, or Indian meal, boiled in water and seasoned with oil. The master of cermonies, with a wooden spoon, fed the tagmity to their guests as children are fed. The second course consisted of fish, which, after the bones were taken out, was presented to the mouths of the strangers as food may be fed to a bird. The third course was a preparation of dog meat, but learning that the strangers did not eat that, it was at once removed. The fourth and final course was a piece of buffalo meat, the fattest portion of which were put into the mouths of the guests.

The stream on whose banks took place this first interview between the explorers and the untutored Indians, after parting with their guides, was the Des Moines river, and the place of their landing was probably about where the town of Montrose is now located, in Lee county, Iowa. One of our sweetest American poets has rendered Marquette's narrative in verse, as follows :

"Came a people From the distant land of Wabun ; From the farthest realms of morning Came the Black Robe Chief, the Prophet, He the Priest of Prayer, the Pale-face,

Marquette and Joliet remained at the Indian villa<jessix da)'s, and were then accompanied to tlieir cunoes by an escort of six liundred Indians. Invitations were extended to the strangers to renew their visit, after whicli the explorers embarked in their boats and floated on down tlie stream, i>assing the sites of future great cities of liu- valley, and passing the moutlis of the Missouri and Ohio rivers, and as far down as tin' mouth of tiie Arkansas. Marquette named the .Missouri river Pekitanoui, or '* Muildy Water," on account of the now well-known character of that stream.

After extending their voyage to the mouth of the Arkansas, wlicre they found a village of the Arkansas tribe, they ascended the Missis.Mppi to tlie mouth of the Illinois. Tiiey ascended the latter river to its source. Along this streanj they found many villages of the Illinois, or Jllini, a large and powerful trilie. wiio were subilivided iutt) live smaller triiies - the Taniaroas, Michigaiuies, Kahokias, Kaskaskias, and I'eorias. Tiie country between the Illinois antl Mississippi rivers was inhabited by the thiec last nameil tribes. The Michiganiies resided in the country bordering on Lake Michigan, and the TamaroBs occupied the territory now included iu the counties of Jersey, Mailison and St. Clair, Illinois. Kaska^kia - also designatetl by the early explorers as " La Vantum " and " Great Illinois Town" was the largest of the villages, containing acctu'ding to Martjuette, seventy-five lodges. Without the loss of a num, or any serious accident, the paity reached Green Hay in September, and re|iorti'(l their discoveries. Manjuette made a faithful record of what they had seen and the incidents of the voyage. That record has been preserved. The report of Joliet was unfortunately lost by the upsetting of ids canoe while on the way to Quebec.

At the renuest of the Illinois Indians, Marquette soon retiirned and established the mission of the Immaculate Conception ;it La Vantimi. In the Spring of l(i7.'), on account of failing health, he started to return to (Jreen Hay. While pa.ssing along the shore of Lake Michigan, conscious that he was uearing the end of liis eoilhly luboi?, he observed was suitable for his burial, and requested them to land. On that lonely and desolate coast, May 18, 1675, at the age of thirty-eight, James Marquette ended his last earthly voyage, and received burial at the hands of his devoted companions. Two years later some Indians of the mission at Kaskaskia disinterred his remains, and conveyed them in a box made of birch bark, with a convoy of over twenty canoes, to Mackinaw, wliere tliey were reinterred at the mission church. The post was abandoned in 1706. and the chnrcli burned. The place of burial was finally lost, and remained lost for two hundred years. In May, 1876, the foundations of tiie old Jesuit Mission were accidentally discovered on the farm of one David Murray, with a number of cliurch relics, the moldering remains of the great missionary and explorer, and a cross with liis name inscribed upon it.

Joliet, after his return to Quebec, l)ecame again a trader with the Indians. His services were rewaided by the French government by the gift of the Island of Anticosti, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Little after tiiis is known of him. He died about 1730.

The reports given of the discoveries of Marquette and Joliet, served to encourage other adventurers to engage in the effort to extend tlieir explorations. Robert La Salle, a French navigator, who was born at Rouen about the year 1635, had long cherished a project of seeking a route to China by way of the Great Lakes. Before the return of Marquette and Joliet. he had explored Lake Ontario and visited tiie different Indian tribes. In 1675 he went to France and ol)tained from tlie Government a grant to a large tract of land about Fort Frontenac, the exclusive right of traffic with the Five Nations, and also a patent of nobility. He laid before his Government his desire to explore the Mississippi to its mouth, and take possession of all the regions he miglit visit in the name of the King of France. His plans were warmly approved, and he was provided with the means for carrying them into execution. In July, 1678, he returned to Fort Frontenac, soon after established a trading house at Niagara, and visited the neighboring Indian tribes for tlie purpose of collecting furs. He engaged the services of thirty mechanics and mariners and built the first ship for the navigation of the lakes. It was called the Griffin, and was a bark of sixty tons. Having been joined by Louis Hennepin and Chevalier de Tonti, the latter an Indian veteran, on tlie 7th of August, 1679, they launched the Griffin on Niagara river, and embarked for the valley of the Mississippi. They crossed Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair, reaching Green Bay, September 2d. For the purpose of relieving himself of some pressing financial obligations at Montreal, La Salle here engaged for a time in collecting furs with whicli he loaded tlie Griffin, and sent it in tlie care of a pilot and fourteen sailors on its return trip, with orders to return immediately ; but the vessel was never heard of afterward. He waited until all hope had vanished, and then, with Father Hennepin, Chevalier de Tonti, the Sieur de la Motte, and about thirty followers, began again the voyage. They ascended the St. Joseph in canoes to the portage, and carried tlieir barks to the Kankakee, a distance of six miles, descended the Kankakee and the Illinois until they reached an Indian village on the latter stream, at the expansion of the same, known as Lake Peoria. The village was situated on the west bank of the lake, and must have been passed by Marquette and Joliet on their voyage up the river in 1673, although no mention is made of it by them. La Salle, Hennepin, Tonti and their foUoweis landed at Lake Peoria, January 3d, 1680. The Indians received them hospitably, and they remained with them for several days. Here a spirit of discontent began to manifest itself among the followers of La Salle, and fearing trouble between his men and the Indians, they crossed the river and moved down about three miles, where the}^ erected a fort, which La Salle named Fort Crevecceur (heart-break) a name expressive of La Salle's sorrow at the loss of his fortune by the disaster to the Griffin, and also his feelings in the fear of mutinj'' among his men. The party remained here until in February, when Tonti was placed in command of the post, and Hennepin charged with a voyage of discovery to the sources of the Mississippi. La Salle returned on foot with three companions to Fort Frontenac for supplies. On his arrival he learned of the certainty of the loss of the Griffin, and also of the wreck of another vessel which had been sent with resources for him from France.

Father Hennepin, with two companions, Picard du Gay and Michel Ako. on the 29th of February, 1680, embarked from Fort Crevecceur in a canoe down the Illinois to its mouth, which they reached in a few days. They then turned up the Mississippi, reaching the mouth of the Wisconsin, April ilth. Above this point no European had ever ascended. They continued the voyage, reaching the Falls of St. Anthony, April -SOth, 1680. Hennepin so named the falls in honor of his patron Saint. When they arrived at the mouth of St. Francis river, in what is now the State of Minnesota, they traveled along its banks a distance of l>iO miles, %nsiting the Sioux Indians, who inhabited that region. The river, Hennepin, so named in honor of the founder of his order. In his account of this voyage, Hennepin claims that they were held in captivity by the Indians for about three months, although they were treated kindly by them. At the end of this time a band of Frenchmen, under the leadership of Seur de Luth, in pursuit of furs, had penetrated to this part of the country by the way of Lake Superior. The Indians allowed Hennepin and his companions to return with the traders. Thej- descended the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wisconsin, passing up that stream and down the Fox river, and so on through Green Bay to Lake Michigan. Hennepin went to Quebec, and thence to France, where, in 1683, he published an account of his explorations and a description of the region of the Upper Mississippi. In 1697 (two years after La Salle's death) he published an enlarged work, in which he claimed tluit he had descended the Mississippi to its mouth. His faithful description of the valley for a time gave him credit for veracity, but the impossibility of reconciling his dates, and other circumstances, are by the best authorities regarded as stamping his claim false. Before the time this work was published, as we shall see. La Salle had descended the Mississippi to its mouth. Hennepin explained his long silence as to his exploration to the mouth of the Mississippi, by claiming that he had feared the enmity of La Salle, who had ordered him to follow a different course, and had also prided himself upon his own claims as being the first European to descend the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. Fatlier Hennepin died in Holland, about the year 1699.

We now return to the further adventures of the brave and intrepid La Salle. He returned to Fort Crevecoeur in the latter part of the year 1680, to find that Tonti had been abandoned by his men, and obliged to take refuge among the Pottawattamies. He spent another year in collecting his scattered followers, finally succeeded, and on the 6th of February, 1682, he had reached the mouth of the Illinois. As they passed down the Mississippi La Salle noted the dififerent streams tributary thereto. They erected a fort near the mouth of the Ohio, and a cabin at the firet Chickasaw bluff. On the 9th of April they entered the Gulf of Mexico. They re-ascended the river a short distance, founded the Fort of St. Louis, took possession of the whole valley in the name of France, and called it by the name of Louisiana, in honor of the king.

La Salle, having accomplished much for the glory of France, now retraced his steps northward. After spending one year about the great lakes, actively engaged in laying the foundations of French settlements in the new regions he had discovered, in November, 168.3, he reached Quebec, and soon after embarked for France. The government, with marks of great esteem, bestowed upon him a commission placing under his authority all the French and natives of the countrj', from Fort St. Louis to New Biscay. An expedition, with four vessels and 280 persons, was fitted out for the colonization of Louisiana ; it sailed August 1, 1684. Associated with La Salle, in this expedition, was Beau^jeu, as naval commander. The mouth of the Mississippi was the objective point, but by mistake the fleet passed on northward. When the error was discovered La Salle desired to return, but Beaujeu persisted in advancing. Dissensions arose, and La Salle, with 230 colonists, disembarked. This was in February, 1685. A fortified post, which was called Fort St. Louis, was established, and attempts made at agriculture, but without success. Attempts were made to reach the Mississippi, which they thought near, but failed. La Salle and his followers traversed the wilderness toward New Mexico, and in January, 1687, by sickness and disaster, his party was reduced to thirty-seven. Some of these, following Beaujeu's example, revolted. La Salle, with sixteen men, then determined to reach the country of the Illinois. Two men, who had embarked their capital in the enterprise, were bitter in their malignity toward the leader of this unsuccessful expedition. Their feelings found some gratification in the murder of a nephew of La Salle. The latter sought to investigate as to the death of his relative, but only shared his fate, as one of them fired upon him from ambush, and the heroic La Salle fell, the victim of quarrels and dissensions among his own followers. This event happened after he had passed the basin of the Colorado and reached a branch of Trinity river, in Texas. We have thus briefly outlined the part taken by this energetic and adventurous explorer, in giving to civilization a knowledge of a region that was destined to constitute the richest and most productive portion of the American continent, if not indeed, of the world.