Houston County, Minnesota - Chapter 3: Du Luth Plants the French Arms in Minnesota, 1882

Chapter 3: Du Luth Plants the French Arms in Minnesota

Do Lath's Relatives, - Baadin Visits Extremity of Lake Superior. - ©a Lath Plants King' Arms. - Post at Kaministigoya. - Pierre MoreaF, alias La Taupine. - La Salle's Visit. - A. Pilot Deserts to the Sioux Country. - naffart, Du Luth'i Interpreter. - Desoent of the River St. Croix. - Meets Father Hennepin. - Criticised by La Salle. - Trades with New England. - Visits Prance. - In Command at Mackinaw. - Frenchmen Murdered at Keweenaw. - Du Luth Arrests and Shoots Murderers. - Builds Fort above Detroit. - With Indian Allies in the Seneca War. - Du Luth "a Brother. - Cadillac Defends the Brandy Trade. - Du Luth DisapproTes of Selling Brandy to the Indians. - In Command at Fort Frontenac. - Death.

In the year 1678, several prominent merchants of Quebec and Montreal, with the support of Governor Frontenac of Canada, formed a company to open trade with the Sioux of Minnesota, and a nephew of Patron, one of these merchants, a brother - in - law of Sieur de Lusigny, an officer of the Governor's Guards, named Daniel Greysolon Du Luth [Doo-loo], a native of St. Germain en Laye, a few miles from Paris, although Lahontan speaks of him as from Lyons, was made the leader of the expedition. At the battle of Seneffe against the Prince of Orange, he was a gendarme, and one of the King's guards.

Du Luth was also a cousin of Henry Tonty, who had been in the revolution at Naples, to throw off the Spanish dependence. Du Luth's name is variously spelled in the documents of his day. Hennepin writes, "Du Luth;" others, "Dulhut," " Du Lhu," " Du Lut," " De Luth," " Du Lud."

The temptation to procure valuable furs from the Lake Superior region, contrary to the letter of the Canadian law, was very great ; and more than one Governor winked at the contraband trade. Randin, who visited the extremity of Lake Superior, distributed presents to the Sioux and Ottawas in the name of Governor Frontenac, to secure the trade, and after his death, Du Luth was sent to complete what he had begun. With a party of twenty, seventeen Frenchmen and three Indians, he left Quebec on the first of September, 1678, and on the fifth of April, 1679, Du Luth writes to Governor Frontenac, that he is in the woods, about nine miles from Sault St. Marie, at the entrance of Lake Superior, and adds that : he " will not star from the Nadoussioux, until further orders, and, peace being concluded, he will set up the King's Arms ; lest the English and other Europeans settled towards California, take possession of the country."

On the second of July, 1679, he caused his Majesty's Arms to be planted in the great village of the Nadoussioux, called Kathio, where no Frenchman had ever been, and at Songaskicons and Houetbatons, one hundred and twenty leagues distant from the former, where he also set up the King's Arms. In a letter to Seignalay, published for the first time by Harrisse, he writes that it was in the village of Izatys [Issati]. Upon Franquelin's map, the Mississippi branches into the Tintonha [Teeton Sioux] country, and not far from here, he alleges, was seen a tree upon which was this legend: " Arms of the King cut on this tree in the year 1679."

He established a post at Kamanistigoya, which was distant fifteen leagues from the Grand Portage at the western extremity of Lake Superior ; and here, on the fifteenth of September, he held a council with the Assenipoulaks [Assineboines] and other tribes, and urged them to be at peace with the Sioux. During this summer, he dispatched Pierre Moreau, a celebrated voyageur, nicknamed La Taupine, with letters to Governor Frontenac, and valuable furs to the merchants. His arrival at Quebec, created some excitement. It was charged that the Governor corresponded with Du Luth, and that he passed the beaver, sent by him, in the name of merchants in his interest. The Intendant of Justice, Du Chesneau, wrote to the Minister of the Colonial Department of France, that " the man named La Taupine, a famous coureur des bois, who set out in the month of September of last year, 1678, to go to the Outawacs, with goods, and who has always been interested with the Governor, having returned this year, and I, being advised that he had traded in two days, one hundred and fifty beaver robes in one village of this tribe, amounting to nearly nine hundred beavers, which is a matter of public notoriety ; and that he left with Du Lut two men whom he had with him, considered myself bound to have him arrested, and to interrogate him ; but having presented me with a license from the Governor, permitting him and his comrades, named Lamonde and Dupuy, to repair to the Outawac, to execute his secret orders, I had him set at liberty : and immediately on his going out, Sieur Prevost, Town Mayor of Quebec, came at the head of some soldiers to force the prison, in case he was still there, pursuant to his orders from the Governor, in these terms : " Sieur Prevost, Mayor of Quebec, is ordered, in case the Intendant arrest Pierre Moreau alias La Taupine, whom we have sent to Quebec as bearer of our dispatches, upon pretext of his having been in the bush, to set him forthwith at liberty, and to employ every means for this purpose, at his peril. Done at Montreal, the 5th September, 1679."

La Taupine, in due time returned to Lake Superior with another consignment of merchandise. The interpreter of Du Luth, and trader with the Sioux, was Faffart, who had been a soldier under La Salle at Fort Frontenac, and had deserted.

La Salle was commissioned in 1678, by the King of France, to explore the West, and trade in cibola, or buffalo skins, and on condition that he did not traffic with the Ottauwaws, who carried their beaver to Montreal.

On the 27th of August, 1679, he arrived at Mackinaw, in the " Griffin," the first sailing vessel on the great Lakes of the West, and from thence went to Green Bay, where, in the face of his commission, he traded for beaver. Loading his vessel with peltries, he sent it back to Niagara, while he, in canoes, proceeded with his expedition to the Illinois River. The ship was never heard of, and for a time supposed to be lost, but La Salle afterward learned from a Pawnee boy fourteen or fifteen years of age, who was brought prisoner to his fort on the Illinois by some Indians, that the pilot of the " Griffin " had been among the tribes of the Upper Missouri. He had ascended the Mississippi with four others in two birch canoes with goods and some hand grenades, taken from the ship, with the intention of join ing Du Luth, who had for months been trading with the Sioux ; and if their efforts were unsuccessful, they expected to push on to the English, at Hudson's Bay. While ascending the Mississippi they were attached by Indians, and the pilot and one other only survived, and they were sold to the Indians on the Missouri.

In the month of June, 1680, Du Luth, accompanied by Faffart, an interpreter, with four/ Frenchmen, also a Chippeway and a Sioux, witlf two canoes, entered a river, the mouth ot which is eight leagues from the head of Lake Superior on the South side, named Nemitsakouat. Reaching its head waters, by a short portage, of half a league, he reached a lake which was the source of the Saint Croix River, and by this, he and his companions were the first Europeans to journey in a canoe from Lake Superior to the Mississippi.

La Salle writes, that Du Luth, finding that the Sioux were on a hunt in the Mississippi valley, below the Saint Croix, and that Accault, Augelle and Hennepin, who had come up from the Illinois a few weeks before, were with them, descended until he found them. In the same letter he disregards the truth in order to disparage his rival, and writes:

" Thirty-eight or forty leagues above the Chippeway they found the river by which the Sieur Du Luth did descend to the Mississippi. He had been three years, contrary to orders, with a company of twenty " coureurs du bois " on Lake Superior; he had borne himself bravely, proclaiming everywhere that at the head of his brave fellows he did not fear the Grand Prevost, and that he would compel an amnesty.

" While he was at Lake Superior, the Nadouesioux, enticed by the presents that the late Sieur Randin had made on the part of Count Frontenac, and the Sauteurs [Ojibways], who are the savages who carry the peltries to Montreal, and who dwell on Lake Superior, wishing to obey the repeated orders of the Count, made a peace to unite the Sauteurs and French, and to trade with the Nadouesioux, sjtuated about sixty leagues to the west of Lake Superior. Du Luth, to disguise his desertion, seized the opportunity to make some reputation for himself, sending two messengers to the Count to negotiate a truce, during which period their comrades negotiated still better for beaver.

Faffabt, Du Luth'S Interpreter

douessioux, and as he needed an interpreter, he led off one of mine, named Faff art, formerly a soldier at Fort Frontenac. During this period there were frequent visits between the Sauteurs [Ojibways] and Nadouesioux, and supposing that it might increase the number of beaver skins, he sent Faffart by land, with the Nadouesioux and Sauteurs [Ojibways]. The young man on his return, having given an account of the quantity of beaver in that region, he wished to proceed thither himself, and, guided by a Sauteur and a Nadouesioux, and four Frenchmen, he ascended the river Nemitsakouat, where, by a short portage, he descended that stream, whereon he passed through forty leagues of rapids [Upper St. Croix Eiver], and finding that the Nadouesioux were below with my men and the Father, who had come down again from the village of the Nadouesioux, he discovered them. They went up again to the village, and from thence they all together came down. They returned by the river Ouisconsing, and came back to Montreal, where Du Luth insults the commissaries, and the deputy of the 1 procureur general,' named d'Auteuil. Count Frontenac had him arrested and imprisoned in the castle of Quebec, with the intention of returning him to France for the amnesty accorded to the coureurs des bois, did not release him."

Du Luth, during the fall of 1681, was engaged in the beaver trade at Montreal and Quebec. Du Chesneau, the Intendant of Justice for Canada, on the 13th of November, 1681, wrote to the Marquis de Siegnelay, in Paris : " Not content with the profits to be derived from the countries under the King's dominion, the desire of making money everywhere, has led the Governor [Frontenac], Boisseau, Du Lut and Patron, his uncle, to send canoes loaded with peltries, to the English. It is said sixty thousand livres' worth has been sent thither;" and he further stated that there was a very general report that within five or six days, Frontenac and his associates had divided the money received from the beavers sent to New England.

At a conference in Quebec of some of the distinguished men in that city, relative to difficulties with the Iroquois, held on the 10th of October, 1682, Du Luth was present. From thence he went to France, and, early in 1683, consulted with the Minister of Marine at Versailles relative to the interests of trade in the Hudson's Bay and Lake Superior region. Upon his return to Canada, he departed for Mackinaw. Governor t)e la Barre, on the 9th of November, 1683, wrote to the French Government that the Indians west and north of Lake Superior, " when they heard by expresses sent them by Du Lhut, of his arrival at Missilimakinak, that he was coming, sent him word to come quickly and they would unite with him to prevent others going thither. If I stop that pass as I hope, and as it is necessary to do, as the English of the Bay [Hudson's] excite against us the savages, whom Sieur Du Lhut alone can quiet."

While stationed at Mackinaw he was a participant in a tragic occurrence. During the summer of 1683 Jacques le Maire and Colin Berthot, while on their way to trade at Keweenaw, on Lake Superior, were surprised by three Indians, robbed, and murdered. Du Luth was prompt to arrest and punish the assassins. In a letter from Mackinaw, dated April 12, 1684, to the Governor of Canada, he writes: uBe pleased to know, Sir, that on the 24th of October last, I was told that Folle Avoine, accomplice in the murder and robbery of the two Frenchmen, had arrived at Sault Ste. Marie with fifteen families of the Sauteurs [Ojibways] who had fled from Chagoamigon [La Pointe] on account of an attack which they, together with the people of the land, made last Spring upon the Nadouecioux [Dakotahs.]

" He believed himself safe at the Sault, on account of the number of allies and relatives he had there. Rev. Father Albanel informed me that the French at the Saut, being only twelve in number, had not arrested him, believing themselves too weak to contend with such numbers, especially as the Sauteurs had declared that they would not allow the French to redden the land of their fathers with the blood of their brothers.

" On receiving this information, I immediately resolved to take with me six Frenchmen, and embark at the dawn of the next day for Sault Ste. Marie, and if possible obtain possession of the murderer. I made known my design to the Rev. Father Engalran, and, at my request, as he had some business to arrange with Rev. Father Albanel, he placed himself in my canoe.

of the Saut, the Rev. Father, the Chevalier de Fourcille, Cardonnierre, and I disembarked. I caused the canoe, in which were Baribaud, Le Mere, La Fortune, and Macons, to proceed, while we went across the wood to the house of the Rev. Father, fearing that the savages, seeing me, might suspect the object of my visit, and cause Folle Avoine to escape. Finally, to cut the matter short, I arrested him, and caused him to be guarded day and night by six Frenchmen.

" I then called a council, at which I requested all the savages of the place to be present, where I repeated what I had often said to the Hurons and Ottawas since the departure of M. Pere [Perrot], giving them the message you ordered me, Sir, that in case there should be among them any spirits so evil disposed as to follow the example of those who have murdered the French on Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, they must separate the guilty from the innocent, as I did not wish the whole nation to suffer, unless they protected the guilty. * * * The savages held several councils, to which I was invited, but their only object seemed to be to exculpate the prisoner, in order that I might release him.

" All united in accusing Achiganaga and his children, assuring themselves with the belief that M. Pere, [Perrot] with his detachment would not be able to arrest them, and wishing to persuade me that they apprehended that all the Frenchmen might be killed.

" I answered them, * * * * As to the anticipated death of M. Pere [Perrot], as well as of the other Frenchmen, that would not embarrass me, since I believed neither the allies nor the nation of Achiganaga would wish to have a war with us to sustain an action so dark as that of which we were speaking. Having only to attack a few murderers, or, at most, those of their own family, I was certain that the French would have them dead or alive.'

" This was the answer they had from me during the three days that the councils lasted ; after which I embarked, at ten o'clock in the morning, sustained by only twelve Frenchmen, to show a few unruly persons who boasted of taking the prisoner away from me, that the French did not fear them.

Kiaonan [Keweenaw] under pretext of going to war in the spring against the Nadouecioux, to avenge the death of one of his relatives, son of Ouenaus, but really to protect himself against us, in case we should become convinced that his children had killed the Frenchmen. This precaution placed me between hope and fear respecting the expedition which M. Pere [Perrot] had undertaken..

" On the 24th of November, [1683], he came across the wood at ten o'clock at night, to tell me that he had arrested Achiganaga and four of his children. He said they were not all guilty of the murder, but had thought proper, in this affair, to follow the custom of the savages, which is to seize all the relatives. Folle Avoine, whom I had arrested, he considered the most guilty, being without doubt the originator of the mischief.

" I immediately gave orders that Folle Avoine should be more closely confined, and not allowed to speak to any one ; for I had also learned that he had a brother, sister, and uncle in the village of the Kiskakons.

" M. Pere informed me that he had released the youngest son of Achiganaga, aged about thirteen or fourteen years, that he might make known to their nation and the Sauteurs [Ojibways], who are at Nocke and in the neighborhood, the reason why the French had arrested his father and brothers. M. Pere bade him assure the savages that if any one wished to complain of what he had done, he would wait for them with a firm step ; for he considered himself in a condition to set them at defiance, having found at Kiaonau [Keweenaw] eighteen Frenchmen who had wintered there.

" On the 25th, at daybreak, M. Pere embarked at the Sault, with four good men whom I gave him, to go and meet the prisoners. He left them four leagues from there, under a guard of twelve Frenchmen ; and at two o'clock in the afternoon, they arrived. I had prepared a room in my house for the prisoners, in which they were placed under a strong guard, and were not allowed to converse with any one.

" On the 26th, I commenced proceedings ; and this, sir, is the course I pursued. I gave notice to all the chiefs and others, to appear at the council which I had appointed, and gave to Folle Avoine the privilege of selecting two of his rela-

Indians Condemned To Be Shot

" The council being assembled, I sent for Folle Avoine to be interrogated, and caused his answers to be written, and afterwards they were read to him, and inquiry made whether they were not, word for word, what he had said. He was then removed under a safe guard. I used the same form with the two eldest sons of Achiganaga, and, as Folle Avoine had indirectly charged the father with being accessory to the murder, I sent for him and also for Folle Avoine, and bringing them into the council, confronted the four.

" Folle Avoine and the two sons of Achiganaga accused each other of committing the murder, without denying that they were participators in the crime. Achiganaga alone strongly maintained that he knew nothing of the design of Folle Avoine, nor of his children, and called on them to say if he had advised them to kill the Frenchmen. They answered, 4 No.'

44 This confrontation, which the savages did not expect, surprised them; and, seeing the prisoners had convicted themselves of the murder, the Chiefs said: 4 It is enough; you accuse yourselves; the French are masters of your bodies.'

" The next day I held another council, in which I said there could be no doubt that the Frenchmen had been murdered, that the murderers were known, and that they knew what was the practice among themselves upon such occasions. To all this they said nothing, which obliged us on the following day to hold another council in the cabin of Brochet, where, after having spoken, and seeing that they would make no decision, and that all my councils ended only in reducing tobacco to ashes, I told them that, since they did not wish to decide, I should take the responsibility, and that the' next day I would let them know the determination of the French and myself.

44 It is proper, Sir, you should know that I observed all these forms only to see if they would feel it their duty to render to us the same justice that they do to each other, having had divers examples in which when the tribes of those who had committed the murder did not wish to go to war with the tribe aggrieved, the nearest relations of the murderers killed them themselves; that is to say, man for man.

the French that were here, and, after the interrogations and answers of the accused had been read to them, the guilt of the three appeared so evident, from their own confessions, that the vote was unanimous that all should die. But as the French who remained at Kiaonan to pass the winter had written to Father Engalran and to myself, to beg us to treat the affair with all possible leniency, the savages declaring that if they made the prisoners die they would avenge themselves* I told the gentlemen who were with me in council that, this being a case without a precedent, I believed it was expedient for the safety of the French who would pass the winter in the Lake Superior country to put to death only two, as that of the third might bring about grievous consequences, while the putting to death, man for man, could give the savages no complaint, since this is their custom. M. de la Tour, chief of the Fathers, who had served much, sustained my opinions by strong reasoning, and all decided that two should be shot, namely, Folle Avoine and the older of the two brothers, while the younger should be released, and hold his life, Sir, as a gift from you.

44 1 then returned to the cabin of Brochet with Messrs. Boisguillot, Pere, De Repentigny, De Manthet, De la Ferte, and Macons, where were all the chiefs of the Outawas du Sable, Outawas Sinagos, Kiskakons, Sauteurs, D'Achiliny, a part of the Hurons, and Oumamens, the chief of the Amikoys. I informed them of our decision *

* * that, the Frenchmen having been killed by the different nations, one of each must die, and that the same death they had caused the French to suffer they must also suffer. * * * This decision to put the murderers to death was a hard stroke to them all, for none had believed that I would dare to undertake it. * * * I then left the council and asked the Bev. Fathers if they wished to baptize the prisoners, which they did.

44 An hour after, I put myself at the head of forty-two Frenchmen, and, in sight of more than four hundred savages, and within two hundred paces of their fort, I caused the two murderers to be shot. The impossibility of keeping them until spring made me hasten their death. * * they answered that they were almost all concealed. He proceeded to the place of concealment, and was very much surprised, as were also the French with him, to find them, in fifteen or twenty different places. By the carelessness of the savages, the tobacco and powder were entirely destroyed, having been placed in the pinery, under the roots of trees, and being soaked in the water caused by ten or twelve days' continuous rain, which inundated all the lower country. The season for snow and ice having come, they had all the trouble in the world to get out the bales of cloth.

* " They then went to see the bodies, but could not remove them, these miserable wretches having thrown them into a marsh, and thrust them down into holes which they had made. Not satisfied with this, they had also piled branches of trees upon the bodies, to prevent them from floating when the water should rise in the spring, hoping by this precaution the French would find no trace of those who were killed, but would think them drowned; as they reported that they had found in the lake on the other side of the Portage, a boat with the sides all broken in, which they believed to be a French boat.

" Those goods which the French were able to secure, they took to Kiaonau [Keweenaw], where were a number of Frenchmen who had gone there to pass the winter, who knew nothing of the death of Colin Berthot and Jacques le Maire, until M. Pere arrived.

"The ten who formed M. Pere's detachment having conferred together concerning the means they should take to prevent a total loss, decided to sell the goods to the highest bidder. The sale was made for 1100 livres, which was to be paid in beavers, to M. de la Chesnaye, to whom I send the names of the purchsers.

" The savages who were present when Achiganaga and his children were arrested wished to pass the calumet to M. Pere, and give him captives to satisfy him for the murder committed on the two Frenchmen; but he knew their intention, and would not accept their offer. He told them neither a hundred captives nor a hundred packs of beaver would give back the blood of his brothers ; that the murderers must be given up to me, and I would see what I would do.

council, that in future the savages need not think by presents to save those who commit similar deeds. Besides, sir, M. Pere showed plainly by his conduct, that he is not strongly inclined to favor the savages, as was reported. Indeed, I do not know any one whom they fear more, yet who ^ flatters them less or knows them better.

" The criminals being in two different places, M. Pere being obliged to keep four of them, sent Messrs. de Bepentigny, Manthet, and six other Frenchmen, to arrest the two who were eight leagues in the woods. Among others, M. de Bepentigny and M. de Manthet showed that they feared nothing when their honor called them.

" M. de la Chevrotiere has also served well in person, and by his advice, having pointed out where the prisoners were. Achiganaga, who had adopted him as a son, had told him where he should hunt during the winter. ***** It still remained for me to give to Achiganaga and his three children the means to return to his family. Their home from which they were taken was nearly twenty-six leagues from here. Knowing their necessity, I told them you would not be satisfied in giving them life ; you wished to preserve it, by giving them all that was necessary to prevent them from dying with hunger and cold by the way, and that your gift was made by my hands. I gave them blankets, tobacco; meat, hatchets, knives, twine to make nets for beavers, and two bags of corn, to supply them till they could kill game.

" They departed two days after, the most contented creatures in the world, but God was not ; for when only two days' journey from here, the old Achiganaga fell sick of the quinsy, and died, and his children returned. When the news of his death arrived, the greater part of the savages of this place [Mackinaw] attributed it to the French, saying we had caused him to die. I let them talk, and laughed at them. It is only about two months since the children of Achiganaga returnei toKiaonan."

Some of those opposed to Du Luth and Frontenac, prejudiced the King of France relative to the transaction we have described, and in a letter to the Governor of Canada, the King writes : " It appears to me that one of the principal causes of the war arises from one Du Luth having caused two to be killed who had assassinated two French- men on Lake Superior ; and you sufficiently see now much this man's voyage, which can not produce any advantage to the colony, and which was permitted only in the interest of some private persons, has contributed to distract the peace of the colony."

In June, 1684, Governor De la Barre sent Guillet and Hebert from Montreal to request Du Luth and I>urantaye to bring down voyageurs and Indians to assist in an expedition against the Iroquois of New York. Early in September, they reported on the St. Lawrence, with one hundred and fifty coureurs des bois and three hundred and fifty Indians ; but as a treaty had just been made with the Senecas, they returned.

DelaBarre's successor, Governor Denonville, in a dispatch to the French Government, dated November 12th, 1685, alludes to Du Luth being in the far West, in these words : " I likewise sent to M. De la Durantaye, who is at Lake Superior under orders from M. De la Barre, and to Sieur Du Luth, who is also at a great distance in another direction, and all so far beyond reach that neither the one nor the other can hear news from me this year ; so that, not being able to see them at soonest, before next July, I considered it best not to think of undertaking any thing during the whole of next year, especially as a great number of our best men are among the Outaouacs, and can not return before the ensuing summer. * * * In regard to Sieur Du Luth, I sent him orders to repair here, so that I may learn the number of savages on whom I may depend. He is accredited among them, and rendered great services to M. De la Barre by a large number of savages he brought to Niagara, who would have attacked the Senecas, was it not for an express order from M. De la Barre to the contrary."

In 1686, while at Mackinaw, he was ordered to establish a post on the Detroit, near Lake Erie. A portion of the order reads as follows : " After having given all the orders that you may judge necessary for the safety of this post, and having well secured the obedience of the Indians, you will return to Michilimackinac, there to await Rev. Father Engelran, by whom I will communicate what I wish of you, there."

The design of this post was to block the passage of the English to the upper lakes. Before it was established, in the fall of 1686, Thomas Roseboom, a daring trader from Albany, on the Hudson, had found his way to the vicinity of Mackinaw, and by the proffer of brandy, weakened the allegiance of the tribes to the French.

A canoe coming to Mackinaw with dispatches for the French and their allies, to march to the Seneca country, in New York, perceived this New York trader and associates, and, giving the alarm, they were met by three hundred coureurs du bois and captured.

In the spring of 1687 Du Luth, Durantaye, and Tonty all left the vicinity of Detroit for Niagara, and as they were coasting along Lake Erie they met another English trader, a Scotchman by birth, and by name Major Patrick McGregor, a person of some influence, going with a number of traders to Mackinaw. Having taken him prisoner, he was sent with Boseboom to Montreal.

Du Luth, Tonty, and Durantaye arrived at Niagara on the 27th of June, 1687, with one hundred and seventy French voyageurs, besides Indians, and on the 10th of July joined the army of Denonville at the mouth of the Genesee River, and on the 13th Du Luth and his associates had a skirmish near a Seneca village, now the site of the town of Victor, twenty miles southeast of the city of Rochester, New York. Governor Denonville, in a report, writes: " On the 13th, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, having passed through two dangerous defiles, we arrived at the third, where we were vigorously attacked by eight hundred Senecas, hundred of whom fired, wishing to attack our rear, while the rest would attack our front, but the resistance, made produced such a great consternation that they soon resolved to fly. * * * We witnessed the painful sight of the usual cruelties of the savages, who cut the dead into quarters, as is done in slaughter houses, in order to put them into the kettle. The greater number were opened while still warm, that the blood might be drunk. Our rascally Otaoas distinguished themselves particularly by these barbarities. * * * We had five or six men killed on the spot, French and Indians, and about twenty wounded, among the first of whom was the Rev. Father Angelran, superior of all the Otaoan Missions, by a very severe gun-shot. It is a great

In the order to Du Luth assigning him to duty at the post on the site of the modern Fort Qratiot, above the city of Detroit, the Governor of Canada said: " If you can so arrange your affairs that your brother can be near you in the Spring, I shall be very glad. He is an intelligent lad, and might be a great assistance to you; he might also be very serviceable to us."

This lad, Greysolon de la Tourette, during the winter of 1686-7 was trading among the Assinaboines and other tribes at the west end of Lake Superior, but, upon receiving a dispatch, hastened to his brother, journeying in a canoe without any escort from Mackinaw. He did not arrive until after the battle with the Senecas. Governor Denonville, on the 25th of August, 1687, wrote:

" Du Luth's brother, who has recently arrived from the rivers above the Lake of the Allempigons [Nipegon], assures me that he saw more than fifteen hundred persons come to trade with him, and they were very sorry he had not goods sufficient to satisfy them. They are of the tribes accustomed to resort to the English at Port Nelson and Kiver Bourbon, where, they say, they did not go this year, through Sieur Du Lhu-s influence."

After the battle in the vicinity of Rochester, New York, Du Luth, with his celebrated cousin, Henry Tonty, returned together as far as the post above the present city of Detroit, Michigan, but this point, after 1688, was not again occupied.

From this period Du Luth becomes less prominent. At the time when the Jesuits attempted to exclude brandy from the Indian country a bitter controversy arose between them and the traders. Cadillac, a Gascon by birth, commanding Fort Buade, at Mackinaw, on August 3, 1695, wrote to Count Frontenac: " Now, what reason can we assign that the. savages should not drink brandy bought with their own money as well as we? Is it prohibited to prevent them from becoming intoxicated? Or is it because the use of brandy reduces them to extreme niisery, placing it out of their power to make war by depriving them of clothing and arms? If such representations in regard to the Indians have been made to the Count, they are very. false, as everyone knows who is acquainted with the ways of the sayages. * * * It is bad faith to represent to the Count that the sale of brandy reduces the savage to a state of nudity, arid by that means places it out of his power to make war, since he never goes to war in any other condition. * * * Perhaps it will be said that the sale of brandy makes the labors of the missionaries unfruitful. It is necessary to examine this proposition. If the missionaries care for only the extension of commerce, pursuing the course they have hitherto, I agree to it; but if it is the use of brandy that hinders the advancement of the cause of God, I deny it, for it is a fact which no one can deny that there are a great number of savages who never drink brandy, yet who are not, for that, better Christians.

" All the Sioux, the most numerous of all the tribes, who inhabit the region along the shore of Lake Superior, do not even like the smell of brandy. Are they more advanced in religion for that? They do not wish to have the subject mentioned, and when the missionaries address them they only laugh at the foolishness of preaching. Yet these priests boldly fling before the eyes of Europeans, whole volumes filled with glowing descriptions of the conversion of souls by thousands in this country, causing the poor missionaries from Europe, to run to martyrdom as flies to sugar and honey."

Du Luth, or Du Lhut, as he wrote his name, during this discussion, was found upon the side of order and good morals. His attestation is as follows : " I certify that at different periods I have lived about ten years among the Ottawa nation, from the time that 1 made an exploration to the Nadouecioux people until Fort Saint Joseph was established by order of the Monsieur Marquis Denonville, Governor General, at the head of the Detroit of Lake Erie, which is in the Iroquois country, and which I had the honor to command. During this period, I have seen that the trade in eau-de-vie (brandy) produced great disorder, the father killing the son, and the son throwing his mother into the fire; and I maintain that, morally speaking, it is impossible to export brandy to the woods and distant missions, without danger of its leading to misery."

Governor Frontenac, in an expedition against the Oneidas of New York, arrived at Fort Frontenac, on the 19th of July, 1695, and Captain Du Luth was left in command with forty soldiers, and masons and carpenters, with orders to erect new buildings. In about four weeks he erected a building one hundred and twenty feet in length, containing officers' quarters, store-rooms, a bakery and a chapel. Early in 1697 he was still in command of the post, and in a report it is mentioned that " everybody was then in good health, except Captain Dulhut the commander, who was unwell of the gout."

It was just before this period, that as a member of the Roman Catholic Church, he was firmly impressed that he had been helped by prayers which he addressed to a deceased Iroquois girl, who had died in the odor of sanctity, and, as a thank offering, signed the following certificate : "I, the subscriber, certify to all whom it may concern, that having been tormented by the gout, for the space of twenty-three years, and with such severe pains, that it gave me no rest for the spac of three months at a time, I addressed myself to Catherine Tegahkouita, an Iroquois virgin deceased at the Sault Saint Louis, in the reputation of sanctity, and I promised her to visit her tomb, if God should give me health, through her intercession. I have been as perfectly cured at the end of one novena, which I made in her honor, that after five months, I have not perceived the slightest touch of my gout. Given at Fort Frontenac, this 18th day of August, 1696."

As soon as cold weather returned, his old malady again appeared. He died early in A. D. 1710. Marquis de Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada, under date of first of May of that year, wrote to Count Pontchartrain, Colonial Minister at Paris, " Captain Du Lud died this winter. He was a very honest man."