Freeborn County, Minnesota - Chapter 4: Fiest White 3ien at Falls of Saint Anthony of Padua, 1882

Chapter 4: Fiest White 3ien at Falls of Saint Anthony of Padua

FalU of SI. Anthony Visitcl liy White Men. - La Salle Gives the First IVscription of Upper Mississippi Valley. - Accault, the Leader, Aecompanieil by Anfelle and Hennepin, at Falls of Saint Anthony. - Hennepin Declared Unreliable by La Salle. - His E.»rly Life. - His First Book Criticised by Abbe Bernou and Tn>nson. - Dceeptivo Map. - First Meeting with Sioux.; - Astonishment at Reading' His Breviary,- Sioux Nitmc for Guns.- Accault and Hennepin at Liike Pepin. - Leave the River Below Saint Paul.- At Mille Lacs. - A Sweating Cabin. - Sioux Wonder at Mariner's CoUtp.iss. - Fears of an Iron Pot - Miikinf a Dictionary.- Infant Baptisfd. -Route to the Pacific - Hennepin Descends Rum River.- FirstVisitto Falls of Saint Anthony. - On a Buffalo Hunt. - Meets Du Luth. - Returns to Mille Ucs. - With Du Luth at Falls of St. Anthony. - Returns to France. - Subscijuent Life.- His Books Examined. - Peoies in First Book His Descent to the Gulf of Mexico. - Dispute with Du Luth at Falls of St, Anthony.- Patronage of Du Luth. - Tribute to Du Luth. - Hennepin's Answer to Cnticisms. - Denounced by D'lbcrviUo and Father Gravier. - Kcsidcuce in Rome.

In the summer of 1680, Michael Accault (jVko), lleiuiepin, the Frauciscau missionary, Augelle, Du Luth, and Faffart all visited the Falls of Saint Aiitliony.

The first description of the valley of the upper Mississippi written by La Salle, at Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, on the 22d of August, 1()82, a month before Hennepin, in Paris, obtained a license to print, and some time before the Franciscan's first work, was issued from the press.

La Salle's knowledge must have been received from Michael Accault, the leader of the expedition, Augelle, his comrade, or the clerical attache, the Franciscan, Hennepin.

It differs from nennepin's narrative in its freedom from bombast, and if its statements are to be credited, the Francisciin must be looked on as one given to exaggeration. The careful student, however, soon learns to be cautious m receiving the statement of any of the early explorers and ecclesiastics of the Northwest. The Franciscan depreciated the Jesuit missionary, and La Salle did not hesitate to misrepresent Du Lutli and others tor his own exaltation. La Salle makes statements which we deem to be -nide of the trutli when his prejudices are aroused.

"While ollicial documents prove that Du Luth was in IMinnesota a year before Accault and associates, yet La Salle writes: " Moreover, the Xadonesioux is not a region which he has discovered. It is known that it was discovered a long time before, and that the Rev. Father Hennepin and Michael Accault were there before him."

La Salle in this communication describes Accault as one well acquainted with the language and names of the Indians of the Illinois region, and also " cool, brave, and prudent," and the head of the party of exploration.

We now proceed with tlie first description of the country above the Wisconsin, to which is given, for the first and only time, by any writer, the Sioux name, Meschetz Odeba, perhaps intended for Mcshdeke AVakpa, River of the Foxes.

He describes the Upper Mississippi in these words : " Followuig the windings of the Mississippi, they found the river Ouisconsing, AVisconsmg, or Meschetz Odeba, which flows between Bay of Puans and the Grand river. * * * About twenty-three or twenty-four leagues to the north or northwest of the mouth of the Ouisconsing, * * * they fomid the Black river, called by tlie Nadouesioux, Chabadeba [Chapa AVakpa, Beaver river] not very large, the mouth of which is bordered on the two sliores by alders.

" Ascending about thirty leagues, almost at the s.ame point of the compass, is the Buffalo river [Chippewa], as large at its mouth as tliat of the Ilhnois. They follow it ten or twelve leagues, where it is deep, smaU and without rapids, bordered by hills which widen out from tiu\e to time to form prairies."

About three o'clock in the afternoon of the 1 Uh of April, 1680, the tl'avelers were met by a war party of one hundred Sioux ui thu'ty-three birch bark canoes. "Michael Accault, who was the leader," says La Salle, "presented the Calumet." The Indians were presented by Accault with twenty knives and a fathom and a half of tobacco and some goods. Proceeduig with the Indians ten days, on the 22d of April the isles in the Mississippi were reached, where the Sioux had killed some ilaskoutens, and they halted to weep over the death of two of their own number ; and to assuage their grief, Accault gave them in trade a box of goods and twenty-four hatchets.

When they were eight leagues below the Falls of Saint Anthony, they resolved to go by land to their village, sixty leagues distant. They were well received ; the only strife among the villages was that which resulted from the desire to have a Frenchman in their midst. La Salle also states that it was not correct to give the impression that Du Luth had rescued his men from captivity, for they could not be properly called prisoners.

He continues: " In going up the Mississippi again, twenty leagues above that river [Saint Croixj is found the falls, which those I sent, and who passing there first, named Saint Anthony. It is thirty or forty feet high, and the river is narrower here than elsewhere. There is a small islaild in the midst of the chute, and the two banks of the river are not bordered by high hills, which gradually diminish at this point, but the country on each side is covered with thin woods, such as oaks and other hard woods, scattered wide apart.

" The canoes were carried three or four hundred steps, and eight leagues above was found the west [east?] bank of the river of the Nadouesioux, ending in a lake named Issati, which expands into a great marsh, where the mid rice grows toward the mouth."

" I believed that it was appropriate to make for you the narrative of the adventures of this canoe, because I doubt not that they will speak of it, and if you wish to confer with the Father Louis Hennepin, Recollect, who has returned to France, you must know him a little, because he will not fail to exaggerate all things; it is his character, and to me he has written as if he were about to be burned when he was not even in danger, but he beUeves that it is honorable to act in this manner,

Hemiepin was born in Ath, an inland town of the Netherlands. From boyliood he longed to visit foreign lands, and it is not to be wondered at that he assumed the priest's garb, for next to the soldier's life, it suited one of wandering propensities.

At one time he is on a begging expedition to some of the towns on the sea coast. In a few months he occupies the post of chaplain at an hospital, where he shrives the dying and administers extreme unction. From the quiet of the hospital he proceeds to the camp, and is present at the battle of Seneffe, which occurred in the year 1674.

His whole mind, from the time that he became a priest, appears to have been on " things seen and temporal," rather than on those that are " unseen and eternal." While on duty at some of the ports of the Straits of Dover, he exliibited the characteristic of an ancient Athenian more than that of a professed successor of the Apostles. He sought out the society of strangf.-rs " who spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing." With perfect nonchalance he confesses that notwithstanding the nauseating fumes of tobacco, he used to slip behind the doors of sailors' taverns, and spend days, without regard to the loss of his meals, listening to the adventures and hair-breadth escapes of the mariners in lands beyond the sea.

In the year 1676, he received a welcome order from his Superior, requiring liim to embark for Canada. Unaccustomed to the world, and arbitrary in his disposition, he rendered the cabin of the ship in which he sailed any thing but heavenly. As in modern days, the passengers in a vessel to the new world were composed of heterogeneous materials. There were young women going out in search for brothers or husbands, ecclesiastics, and those engaged in the then new, but profitable, commerce in furs. One of his fellow passengers was the talented and enterpriprising, though unfortunate. La Salle, with whom he was afterwards associated. If he is to be credited, his intercourse with La SaUe was not very pleasant on ship-board. The yoimg women, tired of being cooped up in the narrow accommodations of the ship, when the evening was fair sought the deck, and engaged in tlie rude dances of the French peasantry of that age. Hennepin, feeling that it was improper, began to assume the air of the priest, and forbade the sport. La Salle, feeling that his interference was uncalled for, called liim a pedant, and took the side of the girls, and dumg the voyage there were stormy discussions.

Good hiunor appears to have been restored when they left the ship, for Hennepin would otlier^vise liave not been the companion of La Salle in his great western journey.

Sojourning for a short period at Quebec, the adventure-loving Franciscan is permitted to go to a mission station on or near the site of the present town of Kingston, Canada West.

Here there was much to gratify his love of novelty, and he passed considerable time in rambling among the Iroquois of Kew York. In 1678 he returned to (Juebec, and was ordered to join the expedition of Robert La Salle.

On the 6th of December Father Hennepin and a portion of the exploring party had entered the Niagara river. In the vicinity of the Falls, the winter was passed, and wliile the artisans were preparing a ship above the Falls, to navigate the great lakes, the Recollect whiled away the hours, in studying the manners and customs of the Seneca Indians, and in admiring the subUmest handiwork of God on the globe.

On the 7th of August, 1679, the ship being completely rigged, luifurled its sails to the breezes of Lake Eiie. The vessel was named the " Griffin," in honor of the arms of Frontenac, Governor of Canada, the first ship of Em-opean constriction that had ever ploughed the waters of the great inland seas of North America.

After encountering a violent and dangerous storm on one of the lakes, during which they had given up all hope of escaping .shipwreck, on the 27th of the month, they were safely moored in the harbor of " MissiUmackinack."' From thence the party proceeded to Green Bay, where they left the ship, procured canoes, and continue<l along the coast of Lake Jliehigan. By the middle of January, 16.S0, La Salle had conducted his expedition to tlie Illinois River, and, on an eminence near Lake Peoria, he commenced, with much heaviness of heart, the erection of a fort,

The first work bearhig the name of the Reverend Fatlier Louis Hennepin, Franciscan Missionary of tlie Recollect order, was entitled, " Description de la Louisiane," and in 1683 published in Paris.

As soon as the book appeared it was criticised. Abbe Bernou, on the 29th of February, 1684, writes from Rome about the " paltry book" (meshcant livre) of Father Hennepin. About a year before the pious Tronson, imder date of March 13, 1683, wrote to a friend: " I have interviewed the P. Recollect, who pretends to have descended the Mississippi river to the Gulf of Mexico. I do not know that one li'ill believe n-hat he speaks any more than that which is in the pirintcd relation of P. Louis, which I send you that you may make your own reflections."

On the map accompanymg his first booli, he boldly marks a Recollect Mission many miles north of the point he had visited. In the Utrecht edition of 1697 this deUberate fraiul is erased.

Tliroughout the work he assumes, that he was the leader of the expedition, and magnifies trifles into tragedies. For mstance, Mr. La Salle writes that Michael Accault, also written Ako, who was the leader, presented the Sioux with the calumet ;" but Hennepin makes the occurrence more formidable.

He writes : " Our prayers were heard, when on the nth of April, 1680, about two o'clock in the afternoon, we suddenly perceived thirty -three bark canoes manned by a hundred and twenty Indians coming down mth very great speed, on a, war party, against the Miamis, Illinois and Jlaroas. These Intlians sin-rounded us, and while at a distance, discharged some arrows at us, but as they approached our canoe, the old men seeing us with the calumet of peace in our hands, prevented the young men from kilhiig us. These savages leaping from their canoes, some on land, others into the water, with frightful cries and yells approached us, and as we mad6 no resistance, being only tliree against so great a number, one of them wrenched our caltunet from our hands, while our canoe and theirs were tied to the shore. We first presented to them a piece of

" As we did not understand their language, we took a little stick, and by signs which we made on the sand, showed tliem that their enemies, the Miamis, whom they sought, had fled across the river Colbert [Mississippi] to jom the Islinois ; when they saw themselves discovered and unable to surprise their enemies, three or four old men laying their hands on my head, wept in a moiuTiful tone.

" With a spare handkerchief I had left I vnped away their tears, but they would not smoke our Calumet. They made us cross the river with great cries, while all shouted with tears in their eyes; they made us row before them, and we heard yells capable of striking the most resolute with terror. After landmg our canoe and goods, part of which had already been taken, we made a fire to boil our kettle, and we gave them two large wild tiu-keys which we had killed. These Indians having called an assembly to deliberate what they were to do with us, the two head chiefs of the party approaching, showed us by signs that the warriors wished to tomahawk us. This compelled me to go to the war chiefs with one young man, leaving the other by our property, and throw into their midst six axes, fifteen knives and six fathom of onr black tobacco ; and then bringing down my head, I showed them with an axe that they might kill me, if they thought proper. This present appeased many individual members, who gave us some beaver to eat, putting the three first morsels into our mouths, according to the custom of the country, and blowing on the meat, which was too hot, before putting the bark dish before us to let us eat as we liked. We spent the night in anxiety, because, before retiring at night, they had returned us our peace calumet.

" Our two boatmen were resolved to sell their lives dearly, and to resist if attacked ; their arms and swords were ready. As for my own part, I determined to allow myself to be killed without any resistance ; as I was going to amiounce to them a God who had been foully accused, unjustly condemned, and cruelly crucified, without showing the least aversion to those who put him to death. We watched in tm-u, in oui- anxiety, so as not to be surprised asleep. The next mommg, a chief named Narrhetoba asked for the peace calumet, filled it with wUlow bark, and all smoked. It was then signified that the white men were to return with them to then- villages."

In liis narrative the Franciscan remarks, " I found it diflicult to say my office before these Indians. Many seeing me move my lips, said in a fierce tone, ' Ouakanche.' Aliehael, all out of countenance, told me, that if I continued to say my breviary, we should all three be killed, and the Picard begged me at least to prAy apart, so as not to provoke them. I followed the latter's advice, but the more I concealed myself the more I had the Indians at my heels ; for when I entered the wood, they thought I was going to hide some goods imder gromid, so that I knew not on what side to turn to pray, for they never let me out of sight. This obliged me to beg pardon of my canoe -men, assming them I could not dispense with saying my oflice. By the word, ' Ouakanche,' the Indians meant that the book I was reading was a spuit, but by their gesture they nevertheless showed a kind of aversion, so that to accustom them to it, I chanted the litany of the Blessed Virgin in the canoe, vrtth my book opened. They thought that the breviary was a spirit which taught me to smgfor their diversion ; for these people are naturally fond of singing."

This is the first mention of a Dahkotah word in a Eiu-opean book. The savages were annoyed rather than em-aged, at seeing the white man reading a book, and exclaimed, " Wakan-de I" this is wonderful or supernatiu'al. The war party was composed of several bands of the M'dewahkantonwan Dahkotahs, and there was a diversity of opinion m relation to the disposition that should be made of the white men. The relatives of those who had been killed by the Miamis, were in favor of taking theu* scalps, but others were anxious to retain the favor of the French, and open a trading intercoiuse.

Perceiving one of the canoe-men shoot a wild turkey, they called the gun, ' ' Manza Ouackange," iron that has understanding; more correctly, " Maza Wakande," this is tlie supernatural metal.

Aquipaguettn, one of the head men, resorted to the following device to obtain merchandise. Says the Father, " This wily savage had the bones of some distinguished relative, which he preserved with great care in some skins dressed and .idonied with several rows of black and red porcupine quills. From time to time he assembled his men to give it a smoke, and made us come several days to cover the bones with goods, and by a present wipe away tlie tears he liad shed for him, and for las own son kiUed by tlie Miamis. To appease this captious man, we threw on the bones several fathoms of tobacco, axes, knives, beads, and some black and white wampum bracelets. * * * We slept at the pomt of the Lake of Tears [Lake Pepin], which we so called from the tears which this chief shed all night long, or by one of liis sons whom he caused to weep when he grew tired."

The next day, after four or five leagues' sail, a chief came, and telling them to leave their canoes, he pulled up three piles of grass for seats. Then taking a piece of cedar fidl of Uttle holes, he placed a stick into one, which he revolved between the palms of liis liands, until he kuidled a lire, and informed the Frenchmen that they would be at Mille Lac in six days. On the nmeteenth day after their captivity, they arrived in the vicinity of Saint I'aul, not far, it is ]irt)baV)le, from the marshy ground on which the Kaposia baud once lived, and now called Pig's Eye.

Tlie journal remarks, " Having arrived on the nineteenth day of our navigation, five leagues below St. Anthony's Falls, these Indians landed us in a bay, broke our canoe to nieces, and secreted their own in tlie reeds."'

They then followed the trail to MUle Lac, sixty leagues distant. As they approached their villages, the various bands began to show tlieir spoils. The tobacco was liiglily prized, and led to some contention. The chalice of the Father, which gUstened in the sun, they were afraid to touch, supposing it was ''wakan." After five days' walk they reached the Issati [Dahkotah] settlements in the valley of the Kum or Knife river. The different bauds eacli conductcil a Frenchman to their village, the chief Aqiiipaguetiu taking charge of Hennepin. After marching through the marslies towards the sources of Eum river, five wives of the cliief, in tliree bark canoes, met them and took tliem a short league to an island where their cabins were.

The son of the chief took great pleasure in carrying upon his bare back the priest's robe with dead men's bones enveloped. It was called Pere Louis Chinnen. In the Dabkotali language Shmna or Shinnan signifies a buffalo robe.

" Tlie day after our arrival, Aquipaguetln, who was the head of a large family, covered me with a robe made of ten large dressed beaver skins, trimmed with porcupine quills. Tliis Indian showed me five or six of his wives, telling them, as I afterwards learned, that they shoul-' in fu' ture regard me as one of their children.

" He set before me a bark dish full of fish, and seeing that I could not rise from the ground, he had a small sweating-cabin made, in which he made me enter with four Indians. This cabin he covered with buffalo skins, and inside he put stones red-hot. He made me a sign to do as the others before beginning to sweat, but I merely concealed my nakedness with a handkerchief. As soon as these Indians had several times breathed out quite violently, he began to sing vociferously, the others puttuig their liands on me and rubbing me while they wejit bitterly. I began to faint, but I came out and could scarcely take my habit to put on. When he made me sweat thus three times a week. I felt as strong as ever."

The mariner's compass was a constant source of wonder and amazement. Aquipaguetln having assembled the braves, would ask lleiinepin to show his compass. Perceiving that the needle turned, the chief harangued his men, and told them that the Europeans were spirits, capable of doing any thing.

In the Franciscan's possession was an iron pot with feet Uke lions', which the Indians would not touch unless their hands were wrapped in buffalo skins. The women looked upon it as " wakan," and would not enter the cabin where it was.

" The chiefs of these savages, seeing that I was desirous to learn, frequently made me write, naming aU the parts of the human body ; and as I would not put on paper certain indelicate words, at which they do not blush, they were heaitiiy amused."

They often asked the Franciscan questions, to answer which it was necessary to refer to his lexicon. This appeared very strange, and, as they had no word for paper, they said, " That white thuig must be a spirit which tells Fere Louis all we say."

Ilennepm remarks : " These Indians often asked me how many wives and children I had, and how old I was, that is, how many winters ; for so these natives always coimt. Never illumined by the light of faith, they were surprised at my answer. Fointing to our two Frenchmen, wliom I was then visiting, at a pomt three leagues from our village, I told them that a man among us could only have one wife ; that as for me, I had promised the Master of life to live as they saw me, and to come and live with them to teach them to be like the French.

" But that gross people, till then lawless and faithless, turned all I said into ridicule. ' How,' said they, ' would you have these two men with thee have wives? Ours would not Uve with them, for they have hair all over their face, and we have none there or elsewhere.' In fact, they were never better pleased with me than when I was sliaved, and from a complaisance, certainly not ciiminal, I shaved every week.

" As often as I went to visit the cabins, I found a sick child. Whose father's name was ilamenisi. Michael Ako would not accompany me ; the Picard du Gay alone followed me to act as sponsor, or, rather, to witness the baptism.

" I christened the child Antoinette, in honor of St. Anthony of Padua, as well as for the Pieard"s name, which was Anthony Anguelle. He was a native of Amiens, and nephfew of the Procurator- General of the Premonstratensians both now at Paris. Having poured natural water on tlie head and uttered these words : ' Creature of God, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of tlie Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' I took half an altar cloth wliich I had wrested from the hands of an Indian who had stolen it from me, and put it on the body of the baptized child ; for as I could not say mass for want of wine and vestments, this piece of linen could not be put to better use than to enshroud the first Christian child among these tribes. I do not know whether the softness of the linen had refreslied her, but she was the next day smiling m her mother's arms.

" During my stay among them, there arrived four savages, who said they were come alone five hundred leagues from the west, and had been four months upon the way. They assured us there was no such place as the Straits of Anian, and that they had traveled without restmg, except to sleep, and had not seen or passed over any great lake, by which phrase they always mean the sea.

" They further informed us that the nation of the Assenipoulacs [Assiniboiues] who lie northeast of Issati, was not above six or seven days' joirmey ; that none of the natiojis, within their knowledge, who lie to the east or northwest, had any great lake about their comitries, which were very large, but only rivers, which came from the north. They further assured us that there were very few forests in the countries through which they passed, insomuch that now and then they were forced to make flres of buffaloes' dung to boil their food. All these circumstances make it appear that there is no such place as the Straits of Anian, as we usually see them set do^\ii on the maps. And whatever efforts have been made for many year;* past by the English and Dutch, to find out a passage to the Frozen Sea, tliey have not yet been able to effect it. But by the help of my discovery and the assistance of God, I doubt not but a passage may still be found, and that an easy one too.

" For example, we may be transported into the Pacific Sea by rivers which are large and capable of carrying great vessels, and from thence it is very easy to go to China and Japan, without crossing the equinoctial line ; and, in all probability, Japan is on the same coniinent as America.''''

Hennepin in his first book, thus describes his first visit to the Falls of St. Anthony : " In the beginning of July, 1680, we descended the [Rum] River in a canoe southward, with the great chief Ouasicoude [AVauzeekootay] that is to say Pierced Pine, with about eighty cabins composed of more than a hundred and thirty families and about two hundred and fifty warriors. Scarcely would the Indians give me a place in their little flotilla, for they had only old canoes. They went four leagiies lower downi, to get birch bark to make some more. Having made a hole in the groinid, to hide our silver chalice and our papers, till our return from the hunt, and keeping onl)' our breviary, so as not to be loaded, I stood on the bank of the lake formed by the river we had called St. Francis [now Rum] and stretched out my hand to the canoes as they rapidly passed in succession.

"Our Frenclimen also liad one for themselves, whicli the Indians had given them. They would not take me in, Michael Ako saying that he had taken me long enough to satisfy him. I was hurl at this answer, seeing myself thus abandoned by Christians, to whom I had always done good, as they both often acknowledged; but God never having abaniloned me on that painful voyage, inspired t^vo Indians to take me in their little canoe, where I had no other employment than to bale out witli a little bark tray, the water which entered by little holes. This 1 did not do without getting all wet. Tliis boat might, indeed, be called a death box, for its lightness and fragility. These canoes do not generally weigli over hfty pounds, the least motion of the body upsets them, unless you are long accustomed to that kind of navigation.

" On disembarking in the evening, the Picard, as an excuse, told me that their canoe was halfrotten, and that had we been three in it, we shoidd have run a gi'eat risk of remaining on the way. * * * Four days after our departure for the buffalo hunt, we halted eight leagues above St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, on an eminence opposite the mouth of the River St. Francis [Rum] * * * The Picard and myself went to look for haws, gooseberries, and little wild fruit, which often did us more harm than good. This obliged us to go alone, as Itlichael Ako refused, in a wretched canoe, to Ouisconsin river, which was more tlian a hundred leagues off, to see whether the Sieur dc la Salle liad sent to that place a reinforcement of men, with powder, lead, and other mimitions, as he had promised us.

"The Indians would not have suffered this voyage had not one of the three remained willi them. They wished me to stay, but Michael Ako absolutely refused. As we were making tlic portage of our canoe at St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, we perceived five or six of our Indians wlio had taken the start ; one of them was up in an oak opposite the great fall, weeping bitterly, witli a rich dressed beaver robe, whitened inside, and trimmed with porcupine quills, which he was offering as a sacrifice to the falls; which is, in itself, admirable and fi-ightful. I heard him while shedding copious tears, say as he spoke to the great cataract, ' Thou who art a spirit, grant tliat our nation may pass here quietly, without accident ; may kill buffalo in abundance ; conquer our enemies, and bring in slaves, some of whom we will put to death before thee. The Messenecqz (so they call the tribe named by the French Outagamis) have killed our kindred ; grant that we may avenge them.' This robe offered in sacrifice, served one of our Frenchmen, who took it as we returned."

It is certainly wonderful, that Hennepin, who knew nothing of the Sioux language a few weeks before, should understand the prayer offered at the Falls without the aid of an interpreter.

The narrator continues : " A league beyond St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, the Picard was obliged to land and get his powder horn, which he had left at the Falls. * * * As we descended the river Colbert [Mississippi] we fomwl some of our Indians on the islands loaded with buffalo meat, some of which they gave us. Two hours after landing, fifteen or sixteen warriors whom we had left above St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, entered, toniakawk in hand, upset the cabin of those who had invited us, took all the meat and bear oil they found, and greased themselves from head to foot,"

This was done because the others had violated the rules for the buffalo limit. With the Indians Hennepin went down the river sixty leagues, and then went up the river again, and met buffalo. He continues :

" While seeking the Ouisconsin River, that savage father, Aquipaguetin, whom I had left, anil who I believed more than tv*-o hundred leagues off, on the 11th of July, 1680, appeared with the warriors." After this, Hennepin and I'icard continued to go up the river almost eighty leagues.

There is great confusion here, as the reader will see. When at the mouth of the Rum River, he speaks of the "Wisconsin as more than a liundred leagues off. He floats down the river sixty leagues ; then he ascended, but does not stiite the distance; then he ascends eighty leagues.

Eennefin Meets Sieub Bu Luth

with the flotilla of canoes loaded with meat, came down. * * * AH the Indian women had their stock of meat at the month of Buffalo Kiver and on the islands, and again we went dowTi the Colbert [Mississippi] about eighty leagues. * * * ^ye had another alarm in our camp : the old men on duty on the top of the mountauis auuounced that they saw two warriors in the distance ; all the bowmen hastened there with speed, each trying to outstrip the others ; but they brought back only two of their enemies, who came to tell them that a party of their people were himting at the extremity of Lake Conde [Superior] and had found four Spirits (so they call the French) who, by means of a slave, had expressed a wish to come on, knowing us to be among them. * * * On the 25th of July, IbSO, as we were ascending the river Colbert, after the buffalo hunt, to the Indian villages, we met Sieur du Luth, who came to the Nadouessious with five French soldiers. They joined us about two hundred and twenty leagues distant from the country of the Indians who had taken us. As we had some knowledge of the language, they begged us to accompany tliem to the villages of these tribes, to which I readily agreed, knowing that these two Frenchmen had not approached the sacrament for two years."

Here again the nimiber of leagues is confusing, and it is impossible to believe that Du Luth and liis interpreter Faffart, who had been trading with the Sionx for more than a year, needed the help of Hennepin, who had been about three months with these people.

We are not told by what route Hennepin and Du Luth reached Lake Issati or Mille Lacs, but Hennepin says they arrived there on the 11th of August, 1680, and he adds, " Toward the end of September, having no implements to begin an establishment, we resolved to tell these people, that for their benefit, we would have to return to the French settlements. The grand Chief of the Issati or Nadouessiouz consented, and traced in pencil on paper I gave him, the route I should take for four hundred leagues. With this chart, we set out, eight Frenchmen, in two canoes, and descended the river St. Francis and Colbert [Rum and Mississippi]. Two of our men took two beaver robes at St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, which the Indians had himg in sacrifice on the ti-ees."

The second work of Hennepin, an enlargement of the first, appeared at Lftrecht in the year 1697, ten years after La Salle's death. During the interval between the publication of the first and second book, he had passed three years as Superintendent of the Recollects at Reny in the province of Artois, when Father Hyacinth Lef evre, a friend of La Salle, and Commissary Provincial of Recollects at Paris, wished him to return to Canada. He refused, and was ordered to go to Rome, and upon his coming back was sent to a convent at St. Omer, and there received a dispatch from the Minister of State in France to return to the countries of the King of Spain, of which he was a subject. This order, he asserts, he afterwards learned was forged.

" The pretended reason of that violent order was because I refused to return into America, where I had been already eleven years ; though the particular laws of our Order oblige none of us to go beyond sea against his will. I would have, however, returned very willingly had I not kno\«i the malice of M. La Salle, who would have exposed me to perish, as he did one of the men who accompanied me in my discovery. God knows that I am sorry for his unfortunate death ; but the judgments of the Almighty are always just, for the gentleman was killed by one of his own men, who were at last sensible that he exposed them to visible dangers without any necessity and for his private designs."

After this he was forabout five years at Gosselies, in Brabant, as Confessor in a convent, and from thence removed to his native place, Ath, in Belgium, where, according to his narrative in the preface to the " Nouveau Decouverte," he was again persecuted. Then Father Fayez, Grand Commissary of Recollects at Louvain, being informed that the King of Spain and the Elector of Bavaria recommended the step, consented that he should enter the service of William the Third of Great Britam, who had been very kind to the Roman Catholics of Netherlands. By order of Payez he was sent to Antwerp to take the lay habit in the convent there, and subsequently went to Utrecht, where he finished his second book known as the New Discovery.

His first volume, printed in 1683, contains 312 pages, with an appendix of 107 pages, on the Customs of tlie Savages, while the Utreclit book of 1697 contains 5()9 pages without an appendix.

On page 249 of the Xew Discovery, he begins an account of a voyage alleged to have been ma(k> to the mouth of the Mississippi, and occupies over sixty pages in tlie narrative. Tlie opening sentences give as a reason for concealing to this time his discovery, that La Salle would have reported him to his Superiors for presuming to go down instead of ascending the stream toward tlie north, as had been agreed ; and that the two with him threatened that if he did not consent to descend the river, they would leave him on shore during the night, and pursue their own course.

lie asserts that he left the Gulf of Mexico, to return, on the 1st of Apiil, and on the 24th left the Arkansas ; but a week after tliis, he declares he lauded with the Sioux at the marsh about two miles below the city of Saint Paul.

The account has been and is still a puzzle to the historical student. In our review of his first book we have noticed that as early as 1683, he claimed to have descended the ilississippi. In the Utrecht publication he declares that while at Quebec, upon his return to France, he gave to Father Valentine Roux, Commissary of Recollects, his journal, upon the promise that it would be kept secret, and that this Father made a copy of his whole voyage, including the visit to the Gulf of Mexico ; but in his Description of Louisiana, Ilenneiiin wrote, " We had some design of going to tlie mouth of the river Colbert, which more probably empties into the Gulf of Mexico than into tlie Red Sea, but the tribes that seized us gave us no time to sail up and down the river."

The additions in his Utrecht book to magnify his importance and detract from others, are many. As Sparks and Parkman have pointed oiit the plagiarisms of this edition, a reference here is unnecessary.

Du Luth, who left Quebec in 1678, and had been in northern Minnesota, with an interpreter, for a year, after he met Ako and Hennepin, becomes of secondary importance, in the eyes of the Franciscan.

few words : " Two of our men seized two beaver robes at the Falls of St. Anthony of Padua, which the Indians had in sacrifice, fastened to trees."' But m the Utrecht edition, conuuencing on page 416, there is nuuJi added concerning Du Luth. After using the language of the edition of 1683, already quoted it adds: "Hereupon there arose a dispute between Sieiir du Ltitli and my.self. I commended wliat they liad done, sayuig, 'The savages might judge by it that they disliked the superstition of these people.' Tlie Sieur du Luth, on tlie contrary, said tliat they ought to have left the robes where the savages placed them, for they would not fail to avenge the insult we had put upon tliem by this action, and that it was feared that they would attack iis on this journey. I confessed he had some foundation for what he said, and that he spoke according to the rules of jirudence. But one of the two men flatly replied, the two robes suited them, and they cared nothing for the savages and their superstitions. The Sieur du Luth atthe.se words was so greatly enraged that he nearly struck the one who uttered them, but I inlei-vened and settled the dispute. The Picard and Michael Ako ranged themselves on the side of those who had taken the robes in question, which might have resulted badly.

" I argued with Sieur du Luth that the savages would not attack us, because I was persuaded that their great chief Ouasicoude would have our interests at heart, and he had great credit with his nation. The matter terminated pleasantly.

" When we arrived near tlie river Ouiscoiisin, we halted to smoke tlie meat of the buffalo we had killed on the journey. During our stay, three savages of the nation we had left, came by the side of our canoe to tell us that their great chief Ouasicoude, liaving learned tliat another chief of these people wished to pursue and kill us, and that he entered the cabin wliere he was consulting, and had struck him on tlu^ liead with sucli violence as to scatter his brains upon his associiites ; thus preventing the executuig of this injurious project.

We regaled the three savages, having a great abundance of food at that time. The Sieur du Luth, after the savages had left, was as enraged as before, and feared that they would pursue and attack us on om' voyage. He w ould have pushed the matter f iirtlier, but seeing that one man would resist, and was not in the humor to be imposed upon, he moderated, and I appeased them in the end with tlie assurance that God would not abandon us in distress, and, provided we confided in Ilim, he would deliver us from our foes, because lie is the protector of men and angels."

After describing a conference with the Sioux, lie adds, "Thus the savages were very kind, without mentioning the beaver robes. Tlie chief Ouasicoude told me to offer a fathom of ilartinico tobacco to the chief Aquipaguetin, who had adopted me as a son. This had an admirable effect upon the barbarians, who went off shouting several times the word ' Louis,' [Ouis or We] which, as he said, means the sun. Without vanity, I must say that my name will be for a long time among these people.

"The savages having left us, to go to war against the Messorites, the Maroha, the Illinois, and other nations which live toward the lower part of the Mississippi, and are irreconcilalile foes of the people of tlie North, tlie Sieur du Lutb. who upon many occasions gave me marks of his friendship, could not forbear to tell our men that I had all the reason in the world to believe that the Viceroy of Canada would give me a favorable reception, should we arrive before winter, and that he wished with all his heart that he had been among as many natives as myself."

The style of Louis Hennepin is unmistakable in this extract, and it is amusing to read his patronage of one of the fearless explorers of the Northwest, a cousin of Tonty, favored by Frontenac, and who was in jyiinnesota a year before his arrival.

In 1691, six years before the Utrecht edition of Hennepin, another Recollect Franciscan had pub- Ushed a book at Paris, called " The First Establishment of the Faith in New France," in which is the following tribute to Du Luth, whom Ilennepui strives to make a subordinate : " In the last years of M. de Frontenac's administration, Sieur DuLuth,a man of talent and experience, opened a way to the missionary and the Gospel in many different nations, turning toward the north of that lake [Superior] where he even built a fort, he advanced as far as the Lake of the Issati, caUed Lake Buade, from the family name of M.

In the second volume of his last book, which is called " A Continuance of the New Discovery of a vast Country in America," etc., Hennepin noticed some criticisms.

To the objection that his work was dedicated to William the Third of Great Britain, he replies : " My King, his most Catholic Majesty, his Electoral Highness of Bavaria, the consent in writing of the Superior of my order, the integrity of my faith, and the regular observance of my vows, which his Britannic Majesty allows me, are the best warrants of the uprightness of my intentions."

To the query, how he could travel so far upon the Mississippi in so little time, he answers with a bold face, " That we may, with a canoe and a pair of oars, go twenty, twenty-five, or thirty leagues every day, and more too, if there be occasion. And though we had gone but ten leagues a day, yet in thirty days we might easily have gone three hundred leagues. If during the time we spent from the river of the Illinois to the mouth of the Meschasipi, in the Gulf of Mexico, we had used a little more haste, we might have gone the same twice over."

To the objection, that he said, he nad passed eleven years in America, when he had been there but about four, he evasively replies, that " reckoning from the year 1674, when I first set out, to the year l(iS8, when I printed the second edition of my ' Louisiana,' it appears that I have spent fifteen years either in travels or prmting my Discoveries."

To those who objected to the statement in his first book, in the dedication to Louis the Fourteenth, that the Sioux always call the sun Louis, he writes : " I repeat what I have said before, that being among the Issati and Nadouessans, by whom I was made a slave in America, I never heard them call the sun any other than Louis. It is true these savages call also the moon Louis, but with this distinction, that they give the moon the name of Louis Bastache, which in their language signifies, the sim that shines in the night."

The Utrecht edition called forth much censure, and no one in France doubted that Hennepin was the author. D'Iberville, Governor of Louisiana, while in Paris, wrote on July 3d 1699, to the Minister of Marine and Colonies of France, in these words : " Very much vexed at the Recollect, whose false narratives had deceived every one, and caused our suffering and total failure of our enterprise, by the time consumed in the ' search of things which alone existed in his imagination."

The Eev. Father James Gravier, in a letter from a fort on the Gulf of Mexico, near the Mississippi, dated February 16th, 1701, expressed the sentiment of his times when he speaks of Hennepin " who presented to King William, the Relation of the Mississippi, wliere he never was, and after a thousand falsehoods and ridiculous boasts,

* * * he makes Mr. de la Salle appear in liis Relation, wounded with two balls in the head, turn toward the Recollect Father Anastase, to ask him for absolution, having been killed instantly, without uttering a word - and other like false stories."

Hennepin gradually faded out of sight. Brunet mentions a letter written by J. B. Dubos, from Rome, dated March 1st, 1701, which mentions that Hennepin was li\ing on the Capitoline Hill, in the celebrated convent of Ara Coeli, and was a favorite of Cardinal Spada. The time and place of his death has not been ascertaiiied.