Washington County, Minnesota - Chapter 4: First White Men at Falls of 8aint Anthony of Padua, 1881

Chapter 4: First White Men at Falls of 8aint Anthony of Padua

fall. of St. Anthon, Yi.i.e.1 by Whit. Man-La Ml. Oiv«th. Tint Dwii|ptta of Upper Mi»»i».ippl Valle) -Aec.ult, U.. Leader, AecompMued ...d Hcnucpin. »t Foil, of Saint Aulhony.-H.DB.piB Declared Unreliable by u Salle - Hi. Early Ufe-Hl. F.r»t Dock Criticis'd by Abb. Bernou Mid Tronwn. - Dccptit. Map. - Fir»t Meetin* «>th Sioux '- A.toni.bmeut at Reading Hi. Breviary, - Sioux Korn, lor Uun». -Accault and H.unr|dn at Uke replu.-U.wtb. Hiwr lU iow 8.1, .t lUul.-At Mill. Lace- A Sw.-eljug Cabin. - Sious Wonder .t Mariner'. Coiupue..-Fcur* of an Iron Fob-Making . Dictionary. - Infant Baptived.-Route to th. Facific - H.nncpin Defend. Bun. River. - Firet Vi.lt to Fall, of Burnt Anti, ony.-Ou a Buffalo Uunt.-Mecta Du Lutb. - Return, to M, lie Lac.. -With Du Lull, .1 Fall, of St. Anthoujr.- R.turu. to Fr*ne«. - Subsequent Life-Ill. B<«k. Examined-Dcm*. n F,r.t Book III. Daacent to tb. Gulf of McMCO.-Di.pute with Du Luth at Fall, of St, Anthony - Patron.. e of Du Luth -Tribute to Du l.uth.-Hennepin . An.w.r to Crilicianik - Denounced by D lberv.ll. and F»tb.r Oravier.-Rcaidcuce in Rome.

In the summer of 1680, Michael Accault ( Ako), Heiuiepin, the Franciscan missionary, Augelle, Du Luth, and Faffart all visited the Falls of Saint Anthony.

The first description of the valley of the upper Mississippi was written by La Salle, at Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, on the 22d of Au¬ gust, 1682, 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 expedi¬ tion, Augelle, his comrade, or the clerical attache, the Franciscan, Hennepin.

It differs from Hennepin's narrative in its free¬ dom from bombast, and if its statements are to be credited, the Franciscan must be looked on as one given to exaggeration. The careful student, however, booh learns to be cautious in 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 Luth and others for his own exaltation. La Salle makes statements which we deem to be wide of the truth when his prejudices are aroused.

While official documents prove that Du Luth was in Minnesota a year before Accault and asso¬ ciates, yet La Salle writes: " Moreover, the Nadonesioux is not a region which he has discov¬ ered. 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 Ac¬ cault 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 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, Meschetz Odeba, perhaps in¬ tended for Meshdeke Wakpa, River of the Foxes.

He describes the Upper Mississippi in these words : " Following the windings of the Missis¬ sippi, they found the river Ouisconsing, Wisconsing, or Meschetz Odeba, which flows between Ray of Puans and the Grand river. * * * About twenty-three or twenty-four leagues to the north or northwest of the mouth of the Ouiscousing, * * * they found the Rlack river, called by the Nadouesioux, Chabadeba [Chapa Wakpa, Beaver river] not very large, the mouth of which is bor¬ dered on the two shores by alders.

" Ascending about thir ty leagues, almost at the same point of the compass, is the Buffalo river [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, bor¬ dered by hills which widen out from time to time to form prairies."

About three o'clock in the afternoon of the 11th of April, 1680, the travelers were met 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 Accnult with twenty knives and a fathom and a half of tobacco and some goods. Proceeding with the Indians ten days, on the 22d of April the isles in the Mis¬ sissippi 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, Accault gave them in trade a box of goods and twenty-four hatchets.

they wero eight leagues l>elow 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 Lutli had rescued his men from captivity, for they could not l>o proi>erly 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 nar¬ rower here than elsewhere. There is a small island 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 hun¬ dred steps, and eight leagues above was found the west [east?] bank of the river of the Nadouesioux, ending in a lake named Issati, which ex¬ pands 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 Hen¬ nepin, 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 believes that it is honorable to act in this manner,

Hennepin was bom in Ath, an inland town of the Netherlands. From boyhood he longed to visit foreign lands, and it is not to be wondered at that ho assumed the priest's garb, for next to the soldier's life, it suited one of wandering pro¬ pensities.

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 admin¬ isters 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.

Ills whole mind, from the time that he became a priest, appears to have been on " things seen and temporal," rather than on thoso that are " un¬ seen and eternal." While on duty at some of the ports of the Straits of Dover, he exhibited fhe characteristic of an ancient Athenian more than that of a professed successor of the Apostles. He sought out the society of strange " who spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing." With perfect non¬ chalance he confesses that notwithstanding the nauseating fumes of tobacco, he used to slip be¬ hind 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 lieyond the sea.

In the year 1676, he received a welcome order from his Superior, requiring him to embark for Canada. Unaccustomed to the world, and arbi¬ trary in his disposition, he rendered the cabin of the ship in which he sailed any thing but heav¬ enly. As in modem days, the passengers in a vessel to the new world were composed of hete¬ rogeneous materials. There were young women going out in search for brothers or husbands, eocle8iastics, and those engaged in the then new, but profitable, commerce in furs. One of his fellow passengers was the talented and enterpriprising, though unfortunate, LaSalle, 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 accommo¬ dations of the ship, when the evening 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 interference 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 oth¬ erwise have not been the companion of La Sidle in his great western journey.

Sojourning for a short period at Queliec, the adventure-loving Franciscan is permitted to go to a mission station on or near tin? 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 ram¬ bling among the Iroquois of New York. In 1078 he returned to Quebec, and was ordered to join the expedition of Hubert La Salle.

On the 0th 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 whiled away the hours, in studying the manners and customs of the Sen¬ eca Indians, and in admiring the sublimest han¬ diwork of God on the 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 " Grif¬ fin," in honor of the arms of Frontenac, Governor of Canada, the first ship of European construc¬ tion 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 " Missilimaekinack.'' From thence the party proceeded to Green Bay, where they left the ship, procured canoes, and continued along the coast of Lake Michigan. By the mid¬ dle of January, 1080, La Salle had conducted his expedition to the Illinois River, and, on an emi¬ nence near Lake Peoria, he commenced, with much heaviness of heart, the erection of a fort,

The first work bearing the name of the Rev¬ erend Father Louis Hennepin, Franciscan Mis¬ sionary of the Recollect order, was entitled, " De¬ scription do la Louisiane," and in 1083 published in Paris.

As soon as the book appeared it was criticised. Abl>e Bernou, on the 29th of February, 1084, writes from Rome about the " paltry book" (ineshcant livre) of Father Hennepin. About a year before the pious Tronson, under date of March 13, 1083, 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 will believe irluit he speaks any more than that which is in the printed relation of P. Louis, which I send you that you may make your .own reflections."

On the map accompanying his first book, he boldly marks a Recollect Mission many miles north of the point he had visited. In the Utrecht edition of 1097 this deliberate fraud is erased.

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

He writes : " Our prayers were heard, when on the 11th 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 with very great speed, on a war party, against the Miamis, Illinois and Maroas. These Indians surrounded 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, prevent¬ ed the young men from killing us. These sava¬ ges leaping from their canoes, some on land, others into the water, with frightful cries and yells approached us, and as we madfe no resist¬ ance, being only three against so great a number, one of them wrenched our calumet from our hands, while our canoe and theirs were tied to the shore. We first presented to them a piece of

Hennepin'S Difficulty With Prayer-Book

"As we did not understand 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 the river Colbert [Mississippi] to join 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 mourn¬ ful tone.

" With a spare handkerchief I had left I wiped 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 weheard yells capable of striking the most resolute with tenor. 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 wild turkeys 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 com¬ pelled me to go to the war cliiefs with one young man, leaving the other by our property, and throw into their midst six axes, fifteen knives and six fathom of our 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, put¬ ting the three first morsels into our mouths, accor¬ ding 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 reti¬ ring nt 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 announce to them a God who had been foully accused, un¬ justly condemned, and cruelly crucified, without showing the least aversion to those who put him to death. We watched in turn, in our anxiety, so as not to be surprised asleep. The next morn¬ ing, a chief named Narrhetoba asked for the peace calumet, filled it with willow bark, and all smoked. It was then signified that the wliite men were to return with them to their villages."

In his narrative the Franciscan remarks, "I found it difficult to say my office 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 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 en¬ tered the wood, they thought I was going to hide some goods under ground, so that I knew not on what Bide to turn to pray, for they never let me out of sight. This obliged me to beg pardon of my canoe -men, assuring them I could not dis¬ pense with saying my office. Ily the word, * Ou¬ akanche,' the Indians meant that the book I was reading 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 tho first mention of a Dalikotah word in a European l>ook. Tho savages were annoyed lather than enraged, at Beeing the white man reading a book, and exclaimed, "Wakan-de!" this is w'onderful or supernatural. The war party was composed of seve»al bands of the M'dewahkantonwan Dahkotahs, and there was a di¬ versity of opinion in relation to the disposition that should be mado of the white men. The relatives of those who had been killed by the Miamis, were in favor of taking 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 gun, " Manza Ouackange," iron that has understanding; more correctly, " Maza Wakande," this is the supernatural metal.

Aquipaguetin. 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 adorned with several rows of black and red porcupine quills. From time to time he assem¬ bled 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 the 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 fathoms of tobacco, axes, knives, beads, and some black and white wampum brace¬ lets. * * * 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 he kindled a fire, and informed the Frenchmen that they would be at Idille Lac in six days. On the nineteenth day after their captivity, they arrived in the vicinity of Saint Paul, not far, it is probable, from the marshy ground on which the Kaposia band once lived, and now called Pig's Eye.

The 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 se¬ creted their own in the reeds."

They then followed the trail to MilleLac, sixty leagues distant. As they approached their villa¬ ges, the various bands began to show their spoils. The tobacco was highly prized, 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 they reached the Issati [Dahkotah] settle¬ ments in the valley of the Rum or Knife river. The different bands each conducted a Frenchman to their village, the chief Aquipaguetin taking charge of Hennepin. After marching through the marshes towards the sources of Rum river, five wives of the chief, in three bark canoes, met them and took them a short league to an island where their cabins were.

The son of the chief took great pleasure in car¬ rying upon his bare back the priest's robe with dead men's bones enveloped. It was called Pere Louis Chinnen. In the Dahkotah language Sliinna or Shinnan signifies a buffalo rol>e.

" The day after our arrival, Aquipaguetin, who was the head of a large family, covered me with a rol>e made of ten large dressed beaver skins, trimmed with porcupine quills. This 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 loginning 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 vo¬ ciferously, the others putting their hands on me and rubbing me while they wept bitterly. I l>egan to faint, but I came out and could scarcely take my habit to put on. When ho 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. Aquipaguetin hav¬ ing 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 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 all 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 heartily amused."

Hennepin'S Visit To Falls Of Saint Anthony

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

Hennepin 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 count. Never illu¬ mined by the light of faith, they were surprised at my answer. Pointing to our 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. * IIow,' said they, 4 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 visit 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 spon¬ sor, or, rather, to witness 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. lie was a native of Amiens, and nephew of the Procurator- General of the Premonstratensians both now at Paris. Having poured natural water on the head and uttered these words : 4 Creature of God, I baptize thee in the nafne of the Father, and of tho Son, and of the Holy ({host,' I took half an altar cloth 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 could not say mass for want of wine and vest¬ ments, this piece of linen could not be put to bet¬ ter use than to enshroud the first Christian child among these tribes. I do not know whether the softness of the linen had refreshed her, but she was the next day smiling in 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 Aninn, and that they had traveled without resting, except to sleep, and had not seen or passed over nny great lake, by which phrase they always mean the sea.

44 They further informed us that the nation of the Assenipoulacs [Assiniboines] who lie north¬ east of Issati, was not above six or seven days' journey ; that none of the nations, within their knowledge, who lie to the erfst 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 countries 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 place 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 (hence it is very easy to go to China and Japan , without cross¬ ing the equinoctial line; and , in all probability, Japan is on the same continent as America ."

Hennepin in his first book, thus describes his first visit to the Fails of St. Anthony : 44 In the l>eginning of July, 1080, we descended the [Rum] River in a cauoo southward, with tho great chief Ouasicoude [Wauzeekootay] 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 okl 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 hunt, and keeping only our bre¬ viary, so qs 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 Frenchmen also had one for themselves, which 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 hurt at this answer, seeing myself thus abandoned by Christians, to whom I had always done good, as they both often acknowledged; but liod never having abandoned me on that painful voyage, in¬ spired 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 with¬ out 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 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 Michael Ako refused, in a wretched canoe, to Ouisconsin river, which was more than a hundred leagues off, to see whether the Sieur de la Salle had sent to that place a re¬ inforcement of men, with powder, lead, and other munitions, as he had promised us.

"The Indians would not have suffered this voyage had not one of the three remained with them. They wished me to stay, but Michael 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 who 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 quills, which he was offering as a sacrifice to the falls; which is, in it¬ self, admirable and frightful. I heard him while shedding copious tears, say as he s|K>kc to the great cataract, 'Thou who art a spirit, grant that our nation may pass here quietly, without acci¬ dent; may kill buffalo in abundance ; conquer our enemies, and bring in slaves, some of whom we will put to death l>efore thee. The Messeuecqz (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 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, en¬ tered, 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,"

This was done because the others had violated the rides 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 Ouisconsin River, that savage father, Aquipaguetin, whom I had left, and who I believed more than two hundred leagues off, on the 11th of July, KJ80, appeared with the warriors." 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 the mouth of the Rum River, he speaks of the Wisconsin as more than a hun¬ dred leagues off. He iloats down the river sixty leagues ; then he ascended, but does not state the distance; then he ascends eighty leagues.

Hennepin Meets Sieve Du Luth

with tlie flotilla of canoes loaded with meat, came down. * * * All the Indian women had their stock of meat at the mouth of Buffalo River and on the islands, and again we went down the Col¬ bert [Mississippi] about eighty leagues. * * * We had another alarm in our camp : the old men on duty on the top of the mountains announced that they saw two warriors in the distance ; all the bowmen hastened there with speed, each try¬ ing 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 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 us to be among them. * * * On the 25th of July, 1680, as we were ascending the river Colbert, after the buffalo hunt, to the In¬ dian villages, we met Sieur du Lutli, who came to the Nadouessious with five French soldiers. They joined us al»out 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 French¬ men had not approached the sacrament for two years."

Here again the number of leagues is confusing, and it is impossible to believe that Du Lutli and his interpreter Faffart, who had lieen 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 Lutli reached Lake Issati or Mille Lacs, but Hennepin says they arrived there on the lltli 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 lieneflt, 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 bea¬ ver robes at St. Anthony of l'adua's Falls, which the Indians had hung in sacrifice on the trees."

The 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 in¬ terval between the publication of the first and second book, he had passed three years as Superintemlentof the Recollects at Reny in the province of Artois, when Father Hyacinth Lefevre, a friend of La Salle, and Commissary Provincial of Recol¬ lects 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 coun¬ tries 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 1 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 known the malice of M. La Salle, who would have ex¬ posed 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 for about five years at Gosselies, in Brabant, as Confessor in a convent, and from thence removed to his native place, Atlr, in Belgium, where, according to his narrative in the preface to the " Nouveau Deeouverte." he was again persecuted. Then Father Payez, Grand Commissary of Recollects at Louvain, being in¬ formed 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 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 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 the Savages, while the Utrecht book of 1697 contains 509 pages without an appendix.

On page 249 of the New 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. The opening sentences give as a reason for concealing to this time his discovery, that La Salle would have re¬ ported 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 de¬ scend 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 April, and on the 24th left the Arkansas; but a week after this, he declares he landed 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 while at Quebec, upon his return to France, he gave to Father Valentine Roux, Commissary of Recol¬ lects, 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 o i Louis¬ iana, Hennepin wrote, " We had some design of going to the mouth of the river Colbert, which more probably empties into the Gulf of Mexico than into the Red Sea, but the tribes that seized ns 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 Lutli, who left Quebec in 1678, and had been in northern Minnesota, with an interpreter, for a year, after he met Ako and Hennepin, be¬ comes of secondary importance, in the eyes of the Franciscan.

few words : " Two of our men seized two leaver 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 Lutli. After using the language of the edition of 1683, already quoted it adds : "Hereupon there arose a dispute between Sieur du Lutli and myself. I commended what they had done, say¬ ing, 'The savages might judge by it that they disliked the superstition of these people.' The Sieur du Lutli, 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 foun¬ dation for what he said, and that lie sjioko accor¬ ding to the rules of prudence, llut one of the two men flatly replied, the two robes suited them, and they cared nothing for the savages and their siqierstitions. The Sieur du Lutli at these words was so greatly enraged that he nearly struck the one who uttered them, hut I intervened and set¬ tled 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 Lutli 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 the 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 tell 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 consult¬ ing, and had struck him on the head with such violence as to scatter his brains upon his associ¬ ates; thus preventing the executing of this inju¬ rious project.

We regaled the three savages, having a great abundance of food at that time. The Sieur du Lutli, after the savages had left, was as enraged as before, and feared that they would pursue and attack us on our voyage. He would have pushed the matter further, 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 the assurance that God would not aban¬ don us in distress, and, provided we confided in Him, he would deliver us from our foes, because lie is the protector of men and angels."

After describing a conference with the Sioux, he adds, "Thus the savages were very kind, without mentioning the.beaver robes. The chief Ouasicoude told me to offer a fathom of Martinico 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 van¬ ity, I must say that my name will be for a long time among these people.

"The savages having left us, to go to war agiiinst the Mossorites, the Waroha, the Illinois, and other nations which live toward the lower part of the M ississippi, and are irreconcilable foes of the people of the North, the Sieur du Luth, 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 pa¬ tronage 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 1091, six years before the Utrecht edition of Hennepin, another liccollect Franciscan had pub¬ lished a book at Paris, called " The First Estab¬ lishment of the Faith in New France," in which is the following tribute to Du Luth, whom Hen¬ nepin strives to make a subordinate : " In the last years of M. de Frontenac's administration, Sieur Du Luth, 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, ho advanced as far ns the Lake of the Jssati, called Lake Buade, from the family name of M.

In the second volume of his lastliook, which is called " A Continuance of the New Discovery of a vast Country in America," etc., Hennepin no¬ ticed some criticisms.

To tho objection that his work was dedicated to William the Third of Great Britain, he replies : " My King, his most Catholic Majesty, his Elec¬ toral 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 inten¬ tions."

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 lie oc¬ casion. 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 Mescliasipi, 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 l>een there but about four, he evasively replies, that " reck¬ oning from the year 1674, when I first set out, to the year 1688, when I printed the second edition of my 4 Louisiana,' it appears that I have spent fifteen years either in travels or printing my Discoveries."

To those who objected to the statement in his first book, in the dedication to Louis the Four¬ teenth, 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 I<ouis. 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 lan¬ guage 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. D'Iberville, Governor of Lou¬ isiana, 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 Rec¬ ollect, 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 imag¬ ination."

The Rev. Father James Gravier, in a letter from a fort on the Gulf of Mexico, near the Mis¬ sissippi, dated February 16th, 1701, expressed the sentiment of his times when he speaks of Hen¬ nepin " who presented to King William, the Rela¬ tion of the Mississippi, where he never was, and after a thousand 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 in¬ stantly, without uttering a word - and other like false stories."

Hennepin gradually faded out of sight. Bru¬ net mentions a letter written by J. B. Dubos, from Rome, dated March 1st, 1701, which men¬ tions that Hennepin was living on the Capitoline Hill, in the celebrated convent of Ara Cadi, and was n favorite of Cardinal Spada. The time and place of his death has not been ascertained.