Rice County, Minnesota - Chapter 4: Fikst White Sietst at Falls of Saint Anthont of Padua, 1882

Chapter 4: Fikst White Sietst at Falls of Saint Anthont of Padua

Falls of St. Anthony Visited by White Men. - La Salle Gives the Fiist Description of Upper Mississippi Valley. - Accault, the Leader, Accompanied by Avipelle and Hennepin, at Falls of Saint Anthony. - Hennepin Declared Unreliable by La Salle. - His E.arly Life. - His First Book Criticised by Abbe Eernou and Tronson- - Deceptive Map. - First Meeting with Sioux ; - Astonishment at Reading His Breviary, - Sioux Name lor Guns. - Accault and Hennepin at Lake Pepin. - Leave the River Below Saint Paul. - At Mille Lacs. - A Sweating Cabin. - Sioux Wonder at Mariner's Compass. - Fears of an lion Pot. - Making a Dictionary.- Infant Baptised. - Route to the Pacific - Hennepin Descends RumRiver. - First Visitto Falls of Saint Anthony. - On a Buffalo Hnnt.-Meets Du Luth. - Returns to Mille L.acs.- With Du Luth at Falls of S(. Anthony. - Returns to France. - Subsequent Life. - His Books Examined.- Denies 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.- Heunepin's Answer to {'riticisras. - Denounced by D'Iberville and Father Gravier. - Residence in Rome.

In the summer of 1680, ISIicliael Accault (Ako), Heiuiepiu, the Frauciscan missionary, Augelle, Du Luth, and FafCart all visited the Falls of Saint Anthony.

The fast description of the valley of the iipper Jlississippi was written by La Salle, at Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, on the 22d of August, 16S2, 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 Alichael Accault, tlie leader of the expedition, Augelle, his comrade, or the clerical attache, the Franciscan, Hennepin.

It differs from Hennepin's narrative in its freedom from bombast, and if its statements are to be credited, tlie Franciscan 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 l>u Luth and others for his Gwn exaltation. La Salle makes statements which we deem to be wide of the truth when his prejudices are aroused.

AMiile official documents prove that Du Luth was in Jliimesota a year before Accault and associates, yet La SaUe wTites: " Moreover, the Nadonesioux is not a region which he has discovered. It is known that it was discovered a long time before, and that the Eev. Father Hennepin and Michael Accault were there before him."

La Salle in this communication describes Accault as one well acquamted 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.

now proceed wfth the first description of the country above the "Wisconsin, to which is given, for the first and only time, by any writer, the Sioux name, lileschetz Odeba, perhaps intended for ^Meshdeke "Wakpa, River of the Foxes.

He describes the Upper Mississippi in these words : " Followuig the windings of the Mississippi, they found the river Ouisconsing, "Wisconsing, or Meschetz Odeba, which flows between Bay of Puaus and the Grand river. » * * About twenty-three or twenty-four leagues to the north or northwest of the mouth of the Oiiisconshig. * * * they found the Black river, called by tlie Nadouesioux, Chabadeba [Chapa "Wakpa, Beaver i-iver] not very large, the mouth of which is bordered on the two shores Viy alilers.

" Ascending about thixty leagues, almost at the same point of the compass, is the Buffalo river l^Chippewa], as large at its mouth as that of the Illinois. They follow it ten or twelve leagues, where it is deep, small and without rapids, bordered by liiUs which widen out from time to time to form prairies."

About three o'clock in the afternoon of tlie 1 Uh of April, 1680, the travelers were iiet by a war party of one hundred Sioux in thirty-three birch bark canoes. "Michael Accault, who was the leader," says La Salle, " presented the Calumet." The Indians were presented by Accanlt with twenty knives and a fathoni and a half of tobacco and some goods, rrocceding with the Indians ton days, on the 22d of April the isles in the ^lississippi were reached, where the Sioux had killed some Maskoutens, and they halted to weep over the death of two of their own number; and to assuage their grief, Accanlt gave them in trade a box of goods and twenty-four hatchets.

AVhen 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 Lnth 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 passuig there first, named Saint Anthony. It is thirty or forty feet high, and the river is narrower here than elsewhere. There is a small island m 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 Xailouesioux, eniling in a lake named Issati, which expands into a great marsh, where the wild rice grows toward the mouth."

" 1 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, KecoUect, 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 lie was not even in danger, but he believes that it is honorable to act in this manner,

Ilemiepin was born in Ath, an inland town of the Nethei'lands. From boyhood he longed to visit foreign lands, and it is not to be wondered at that he assumed the priesfs garb, for ne^xt 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 Seueffe, which occurred in the year lfi74.

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." AVhile on duty at some of the ports of the Straits of Dover, he exhibited the characteristic of an ancient Athenian more than that of a professed successor of the Apostles. He sought out the society of strangi>;:"s " who spent their time in nothing else bat either to tell or to hear some new thing." "With perfect nonchalance he confesses that notwithstanding the nauseating fumes of toliacco, 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, recpiiring him 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, tlie passengers in a vessel to the new world were composed of heterogeneous materials. There ^\-ere 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 Salle was not very pleasant on ship-board. The young women, tired of being cooped up in the narrow accommodations of the ship, when the e\'eniug was fair sought the deck, and engaged in the 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 inteirference was uncalled for, called him a pedant, and took the side of the girls, and during the voyage there were stormy discussions.

Good humor appears to have been restored when they left the ship, for Hennepin would otherwise have 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 ramblhig among the Iroquois of XewYork. In 1678 he returned to Quebec, and was ordered to join the exiiedition of Eobert 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 while the artisans were preparing a ship above the Falls, to navigate the great lakes, the Recollect wliiled away the hours, in studying tlie manners and customs of the Seneca Indians, and in athnirrng the sublimest handiwork of God on tlie globe.

On the 7th of August, 1679, the ship being completely rigged, unfurled its sails to the breezes of Lake Erie. The vessel was named the " Griffin," hi honor of the anns of Frontenac, Governor of Canada, the first ship of European construction tliat had ever ploughed the waters of the great inland seas of Korth America.

After encounteruig 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 tbe 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 Michigan. By the middle of January, 1680, La Salle had conducted his expedition to the Illinois Kiver, and, on an eminence near I^ake Peoria, he commenced, with much heaviness of heart, the erection of a fort,

The first work bearing the name of the Reverend Father Louis Hennepin, Franciscan Missionary of the 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 ilarch 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 leill helieve ivhat he speaks any more than that whicli is in the printed relation of P. Louis, which I send you that you may make your own reflections."

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

Tlu'oughout the work he assumes, that he was the leader of the expedition, and magnifies trifles into tragedies. For uistance, Mr. La SaUe writes that Michael Accault, also written Ako, who was the leader, presented the Sioux with the calumet ;" but Hennepm makes the occurrence more formidable.

He writes : " Oiu- prayers were heard, when on the 11th of April, 1680, about two o'clock in the afternoon, we suddenly perceived thirty -tliree bark canoes manned by a hundred and twenty Indians coming dowii with very great speed, on a war party, against tlie JSIiamis, Illinois and Maroas. These Intlians surroimded 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 oiu' hands, iirevented the young men from kilUng us. These savages leaping from their canoes, some on land, others into the water, with frightful cries and yells approached us, and as we madfe jio resistance, being oidy three against so great a number, one of them wrenched our caltimet from our hands, while our canoe and theirs were tied to the shore. We first presented to them a iiiece of

" As we did not nnderstand their language, we took a little stick, and by signs which we made on the sand, showed them that their enemies, the Miamis, whom they sought, had fled across tlie river Colbert [Mississippi] to join the Isliiiois; 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 mournful tone.

" With a spare handkerchief I had left I wiped away their tears, but they woidd not smoke our Calimiet. They made us cross tlie river with great cries, while all shouted with tears in tlieir eyes; they made us row l)efore them, and we heard yells capable of striking tlie most resolute with terror. After landing 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 turkeys which we liad killed. These Indians having called an assembly to deliberate what they were to do with us, the two head chiefs of the party approachmg, showed us by signs that the warriors wished to tomahawk us. This compelled me to go to the war cliiefs -nith one yoimg man, leaving the other by our property, and throw into theu- midst six axes, fifteen kiuves and six fathom of our l)lack tobacco ; and then brmging dowi my head, I showed them with an axe tliat 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, accortling to the custom of the country, and blowing on the meat, which was too hot, before puttuig 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 ; theii- arms ami swords were reafly. 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 showmg the least aversion to those who put him to death. We watched in turn, in oiu- anxiety, so as not to be suqirised asleep. The n«xt morning, a chief named Narrhetoba asked for the peace calumet, filled it with willow bark, and all smoked. It was then signified that the white men were to return with them to their villages."

In his narrative the Francdscan remarks, "I foinid it difiicidt to say my ofllco before these Indians. Many seeing me move my lips, said in a fierce tone, ' Ouakanche.' Michael, all out of countenance, told me, that if I continued to say my breviary, we should all three be killed, and the Pieard begged me at least to pray apart, so as not to provoke them. I followed the latter 's advice, but the nwu-e 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 ground, 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, ass\iring them I could not dispense with saying my office. By the word, ' Ouakanche,' the Indians meant that the book I was readhig was a spirit, 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, with my book opened. They thought that the breviary was a spirit which taught me to sing for their diversion ; for these people are naturally fond of singing."

This is the first mention of a Dahkotah word m a European book. The savages were aimoyed rather than enraged, at seeing the white man reading a book, and exclaimed, " Wakan-de !" this is wondei-ful or supernatural. The war party was composed of several bauds of the M'dewahkantonwan Dahkotahs, and there was a diversity of opinion in 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 tiikhig their scalps, but others were anxious to retain the favor of the French, and open a trading intercourse.

Perceiving one of the canoe-men shoot a wild turkey, they called the gim, " Manza Ouackange," iron that has miderstanding ; more coiTectly, " iSIaza Wakande," this is the supernatiu'al metal.

Aqnipaguetui. one of the head men, resorted to the following device to obtam merchandise. Says the Father, " This M'ily savage had the bones of some distinguished relative, which he preserved with great care in some skins dressed and adorned witli several rows of black and red porcupine qiulls. From time to time he assembled his men to give it a smoke, and made us fome several days to cover the bones with goods, and by a present wipe away t!ie tears he had shed for him, and for his own son killed by the Miamis. To appease this captious man, we threw on the bones several fatlioms of tobacco, axes, knives, beads, and some black and white wampum bracelets. * * * We slept at the point 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 his 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 full of little holes, he placed a stick into one, which he revolved between the palms of his hands, until lie kintlled a fire, and informed the Frenchmen that they would be at Mille Lac in six days. On the nmeteenth day after their captivity, they arri\ed in the vicinity of Saint I'aul, not fai", it is ])robable, from the marshy ground on which the Kaposia band once lived, and now called Pig's Eye.

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

They then followed the traU to Mille Lac, sixty leagues distant. As they approached their villages, tlie various bands began to show their spoils. The tobacco was highly jirized, and led to some contention. The chalice of the Father, which glistened in the sun, they were afraid to touch, supposing it was "wakan." After five days' walk tliey reached the Issati [Dahkotali] settlements in the valley of the Rum or Knife river. The different bands each conducted a Frenchman to their village, the cliief Aquipaguetin taking charge of Hennepin. After marching through the marshes towards the sources of I?um river, five wives of the chief, m three bark canoes, met tliem and took them a sliort league to an island where tlieir 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 Chiunen. In the Dahkotah language Shinna or Shinnan signifies a buffalo robe.

" The day after our arrival, Aquipaguetin, wlio was the head of a large family, covered me with a robe made of ten large dressed beaver skhis, trimmed with porcupine qiulls. This Indian showed me five or six of his wives, telling them, as I afterwards learned, that they shoid-' 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 sweatmg-cabiu made, in wloich he made me enter with four Indians. Tliis cabin he covered with Ijuffalo 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 putting their hands on me and rubbing me while they wept 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 marmer's compass was a constant source of wonder and amazement. Aquipaguetin having assembled the braves, would ask Hennepin 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 like lions', which the Indians would not touch luiless tlieir hands were wrapped in buffalo skins. The women looked upon it as "wakan," and would not enter the cabm where it was. ' " The chiefs of these savages, seeing that I was desirous to learn, frequently made me write, naming all the jiarts of the Innnan body ; and as I would not put on paper certain indelicate words, at they do not blush, they were heartily amused."

Hennhpin'S Visit To Falls Of Saint Anthony

They often asked the Franciscan questions, to. answer wliich it was necessary to refer to his lexicon. This appeared very strange, and, as tliey liad no word lor paper, they said, "Tliatwlute tiling must be a spirit wliicli tells Pere Louis all we say."'

Hennepin remarks: "Tliese Indians often asked me how many wives and children I had, and how old 1 was, tliat is, how many winters; for so these natives always count. Never illumined by the light of faith, they were surprised at my answer. Pointing to oiu- two Frenchmen, whom I was then visiting, at a point 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 live 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 shaved, and from a complaisance, certainly not criminal, I shaved every week.

As often as I went to \asit the cabins, I found a sick child, whose father's name was Mamenisi. Michael Ako would not accompany me ; the Picard du Gay alone followed me to act as sponsor, or, rather, to \\'itness the baptism.

" I christened the child Antoinette, in honor of St. Anthony of Padua, as well as for the Picard's name, which was Anthony Auguelle. He was a native of Amiens, and nephew of the Prociu-ator- General of the Premonstrateusians both now at Paris. Having i)oin-ed natural water on the head and uttered these words : ' Creature of God, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' I took half an altar clotli which 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 C(udd 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 Chiistian child among these tribes. I do not know whether the softness of the linen had refreshed her. luit she was the next day smiling in her mother's arms.

" During my stay among them, tliere arrived fo\ir savages, who said they were come alone live hundred leagues from tlie west, and bad been four months upon tlie way. They assured us there was no such place as the Straits of Anian, and that they had traveled witliout resting, except to sleep, and had not seen or passed ov.er any great lake, by which phrase they always mean the sea.

" They further informed us that the nation of the Assenipoulacs [Assiniboines] who lie northeast of Issati, was not above six or seven days' journey ; that none of the nations, within their knowledge, who lie to the east or northwest, had any great lake about their countries, which were very large, but only rivers, which came from the north. They further assured us that there were very few forests in the coiuitries through which they passed, insomuch that -now and then they were forced to make fires of buffaloes' dung to boil their food. All these circumstances make it appear that there is no such jilace as the Straits of Anian, as we usually see them set down on the maps. And whatever efforts have been made for many years past by the English and Dutch, to find out a passage to the Frozen Sea, they 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, witho%d crossing the. equinoctial line; and, in all prohahility, Japan is on the same continent 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 hundretl and fifty warriors. Scarcely would the Indians give me a place in their little flotilla, for they had only old canoes. They went four leagues lower down, to get birch bark to make some more. Having made a hole in the ground, to hide our silver chalice and our papers, till our return from the liimt, and keeping only 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 Kum] and stretched out my hand to the canoes as they rapidly passed in succession.

"Our Frenchmen also liad one for themselves, which the Indians had given tliem. Tliey would not take me in, IMichael Ako saying that he liad taken me long enough to satisfy him. I was hurt at tliis answer, seeing myself thus abandoned by Christians, to whom I had always done good, as they both often acknowledged; but God never having abandoned me on tliat painful voyage, inspired two Indians to take me in their little canoe, where I had no other employment than to bale out with a little bark tray, the water which entered by little holes. This 1 did not do without getting all wet. This boat might, indeed, be called a death box, for its lightness and fragility. These canoes do not generally weigh over fifty 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 should have run a great 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 emmence opposite the mouth of the River St. Francis [Rum] * * * The Picard and myself went to look for liaws, gooseberries, and little wild fruit, which often did us more harm than good. This obliged us to go alone, as Michael Ako refused, in a \\Tetched canoe, to Ouiscousin river, which was more than a himdred leagues off, to see whether the Sieur de la Salle had sent to that place a reinforcement of men, with powder, le;ul, and other munitions, as he had promised us.

" Tlie Indians would not have suffered this voyage had not one of the three remained witli them. They wished me to stay, but JMiohael Ako absolutely refused. As we were making the 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, with a rich dressed beaver robe, whitened inside, and trimmed with porcupine qmlls, which he was offering as a sacrifice to the faUs; which is, in itself, admirable and frightful. I heard him while shedding copious tears, say as he spoke to the great cataract, ' Thou wlio art a spirit, grant lliat our nation may pass here quietly, without accident ; may kill buffalo in abundance ; conquer our enemies, and bring in slaves, some of wliom 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 contmues : " 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 found 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, tomakawk 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,"

Tliis was done because the others had violated the rules for the buffalo hunt. 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 Oulsconsin River, that savage father, Aquipaguetin, whom I had left, and who I believed more than two hinidred leagues off, on the 11th of July, 1680, appeared with the waiTiors." After this, Hennepin and Picard continued to go up the river almost eighty leagues.

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

Hennepin Meets Sieur Du Lutil

with the flotilla of canoes loaded with meat, came down. * * * All tilt' Indian women had their stock of meat at the mouth of Uuffalo Kiver and on the islands, and atjain we went down the Colhert [JSIississippi] about eighty leagues. * * * We liad another alarm in our camp : the old men on duty on the top of the mountains announced that they saw two warriors in the dislance; all the bowmen hastened there witli speed, each trying to outstrip the others; butthey bronght back <iuly two of their enemies, who came to tell them that a party of their people were hunting 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 ns 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 Sieiu- du Luth, who came to the Nadouessious with live 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 them to the villages of these tribes, to which I readily agreed, knowing that these two Frenchmen had not approached the sacrament for two years."

Ilere again the munber of leagues is confusing, and it is impossilile to believe that I)u Luth and his interpreter Faffart, who had been trading with the Sioux 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 Hennepm 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 giand 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. AVith tins chart, we set out, eight Frenchmen, in two canoes, and descended the river St. Francis and Colbert [Rum and Jilississippi]. Two of our men took two beaver roljes at St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, which the Indians had hung in sacrifice on the trees."

Tlie second work of Hennepin, an enlargement of the first, appeared at Utrecht in the year 1697, ten years after La Salle's death. During the interval between the pvdjlication of the first and second book, he had passed three years as Supininf endent of the Ilecollects at Reny in the province of A rtois, when Fiither Hyacinth Lefevre, a friend of La Salle, and Connnissary Provincial of Ilecollects at Paris, wished hi!u 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 tlie King of Spain, of which he was a subject. This order, he asserts, he afterwards learned was forged.

"The pretended reason of tliat 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 liad I not known the malice of M. La Salle, who woidd have exposed me to perish, as he did one of the men w ho 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 for about 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 " Nonveau Decouverte," he was again persecuted. Then Father Payez, Grand Commissary of Recollect^i 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 (ireat Britain, 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 lie finished his second book known as the New Discovery.

Explobebs And Pioneebs Of Minnesota

His first volume, printed in 1683, contains 312 pages, witli an appendix of 107 pages, on tlie Customs of tlie Savages, wliile the Utrecht bools of 1697 contains 509 pages -witliout an appendix.

On page 249 of the Kew Discovery, he begins an account of a voyage alleged to have been made to the mouth of the Mississippi, and occupies over sixty pages in the 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 the north, as had been agreed ; and that the two with him threatened that if he did not consent to descend the river, tliey would leave him on shore during tlie night, and pursue their own course.

He asserts that he left the Gulf of Jlexico, to return, on the 1st of April, and on the 24th left the Arkansas ; but a week after this, lie 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 Mississippi. In the Utrecht publication he declares that wliile at (Quebec, upon his retin-n to France, he gave to Father Valentine Roux, Commissary of Recollects, his journal, upon the promise tliat it would be kept secret, and that tliis Father made a copy of liis whole voyage, including the visit to the Gulf of Mexico ; but m his Description of Louisiana, Hennepin wrote, " We had some design of going to the mouth of the river Colbert, which more probably empties into thei Gulf of Mexico than into the Red Sea, but the trilies 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 out the plagiarisms of this edition, a reference here is unnecessary.

Du Luth, who left Quebec in 167S, 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 tlie 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 in the Utrecht edition, commencing on page 416, there is much added concerning Du Lnth. After using the language of the edition of 16S3, already quoted it adds: "Hereupon there arose a dispute between Sieur du Luth and myself. I commended what they had done, saying, ' The savages might judge by it that they disliked the superstition of these people.' Tlie Sieur du Luth, on the contrary, said that 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 them by this action, and that it was feared that they would attack us on this journey. I confessed he had some foundation for wliat he said, and that he spoke according to the rules of prudence. 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 at these words was so greatly enraged that he nearly struck the one who uttered them, but I intervened and settled the dispute. The Pieard and Michael Ako ranged themselves on the side of those who liad taken the robes in question, which might have resulted badly.

" I argued with Sieur duLuth 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 Ouisconsin, we halted to smoke the 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 teU us that their great chief Ouasicoude, having learned that another chief of these people wished to pursue and kill us, and that he entered the cabin where he was consulting, and had struck liLm on the head with such violence as to scatter his brains upon his associates ; thus preventing the executing 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 oiu- voyage. He would have pushed tlie matter further, but seeing that one man would resist , and was not in the humor to be imposed uiion, lie moderat('<l. and I api)easecl lliem in the end with the assuninec that God would notaljandon us in distress, anil, jirox ided avo cunlidcd in Ilim, ho would deliver us from our foes, because lie is the proteetor of men and angels."

After describing a conference with the Sioux. he adds, " Thus the savages were very kind, wilhdut mentioning the beaver robes. The chief Ouasicoude told me to offer a fathom of ISIartinico 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. AVithout vanity, I uuist say that my name will be for a long time among these people.

"The savages having left us, to go to war against the jNIessorites, the Maroha, the Illinois, and other nations which live toward the lower part of the ^Mississippi, and are irreconcilable foes of the people of the North, the Sienr du Lutli, who iqion many occasions gave me marks of his friendship, could not forbear to tell our men that I had all the reason in tlie world to believe that the Viceroy of Canada would give me a favorable reception, should we arrive before winter, and that lie 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 Minnesota a year before his arrival.

In 1691, six years before the Utrecht edition of Ilemiepin, another Recollect Franciscan had published a book at Paris, called " The First Establishment of the Faith in New France," in which is the following tribute to Du Luth, whom Hennepin strives to make a subordinate : " In the last years of M. de Frontenac's administration, iSieur 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, called Lake Buade, from the family name of M.

In the s(n-oud volume of his last book, which is called "A Gonlinuanct^ of the JSlew Discovery of a vast Country in America," etc., Ileiiucpiii noticed some criticisms.

To the objection that his work was dedicated to "William the Third of (Jreat Ihitain.he rei)lies : " My King, his most Catholic Majesty, his Electoral Iliglmess 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 l)est warrants of the uprightness of my intentions."

To the q<iery, 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-live, 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 Mescliasii]i. in the Gulf of ^Mexico, we had used a little more baste, 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 1074, when I first set out, to the year 1688, when I printed the second edition of my ' Louisiana,' it appears that I have spent fifteen years either in travels or prmthig 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, Ijy whom I was made a slave in America, I never heard them call the smi 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 sun that shines in the night."

The Utrecht edition called forth much censure, and no one in France doubted that Hennepin was the author. DTberville, 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 cansed our sufferinj^ and total failure of our enterprise, by tlie time consimied in the search of things which alone existed in his imagination."

The Rev. 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 wlien lie speaks of Hennepin '- who presented to King William, the Relation of the Mississippi, where he never was, and after a tliousflud falsehoods and ridiculous boasts,

* * * he makes Mr. de la Salle appear in his Relation, wounded with two balls in the head, turn toward the Recollect Father Anastase, to ask him for absolution, having been killed instantly, without uttermg 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 ISIarch 1st, 1701, which mentions that Ilennepui was Uving 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 ascertained.