UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 4230 7 ^ t4*4 a^ // re. e- tte.- &/ *^ t t au <&t-. f*very of the rich and inexhaustible salt springs of Onon- * An English voynge up in 1648, or thereabouts, and a Spanish one up into New York by tin- Mississippi nml Ohio, in 1669, Imve found advocates; but I conlVss my skepticism. Thnt a ship may Imve occasionally entered the Delta, El not improbable, and Imlinn report seems to fix one somewhere near 1669. See tf]>ttrksit Life of La Salle, Life of Marqtutte, Denton's New- York. XX HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY daga. Within ten years of their second arrival, they had completed the examination of the country from Lake Superior to the gulf, and founded several villages of Christian neo- phytes on the borders of the upper lakes. While the inter- course of the Dutch was yet confined to the Indians in the vicinity of Fort Orange, and five years before Elliott of New- England had addressed a single word to the Indians within six miles of Boston harbor the French missionaries planted the cross at Sault Ste. Marie, whence they looked down on the Sioux country and the valley of the Mississippi. The vast unknown west now opened its prairies before them. "Fortunately the early missionaries were men of learning and observation. They felt deeply the importance of their position, and while acquitting themselves of the duties of their calling, carefully recorded the progress of events around them."* Year after year these accounts reached Europe, and for a long time were regularly issued from the press, in the same epistolary form in which they were written. In the history of the French colonies, they are a source such as no other part of the country possesses. For our pres- ent purpose, they have been invaluable; from them we can trace step by step, the gradual discovery of the Mississippi. As early as 1639, the adventurous and noble hearted sieur Nicolet,f the interpreter of the colony had struck west of the * O'Callaghan, Jesuit Relations. f As we are perhaps the first to advance the claim of the sieur Nicolet, it may not be amiss to give a meager sketch of a man too much unknown, though he occupied an important place in the early history of Cnnada. He came out to Cnnada in 1618, and was never from that time unemployed. Almost immedi- ately after his coming, he was sent to the plundering Honqneronons, or Indians of the island, above the Chaudiere falls on the Ottawa. Here he remained two years, often suffering from hunger and their brutality, but finally acquired a great knowledge of the Algonquin. After this, he was sent with four hundred Alsronquins to make peace with the Iroqnoi*, and completely succeeded in his mission. He wns then for eight, or nine years stationed among the Nipissings, anJ became almost as Indian as they. After the restoration of Canada to France, OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEE. Xil Hurons, and, reaching the last limit of the Algonquins, found himself among the Ouinipegou (Winnebagoes), " a people called so, because they came from a distant sea, "but whom some French erroneously called Puants," says this early ac- count. Like the ]STad8e8is they spoke a language distinct from the Huron and Algonquin. With these Nicolet entered into friendly relations, and exploring Green bay, ascended Fox river to its portage, and embarked on a river, flowing west ; and says Father Yimont, " the sieur Nicolet who had pene- trated furthest into those distant countries, avers that had he sailed three days more on a great river which flows from that lake [Green bay], he would have found the sea." This shows that Nicolet like De Luna's lieutenant mistook for the sea, the Indian term Great Water, applied to the Mississippi. It is certain then, that to Nicolet is due the credit of having been the first to reach the waters of the Mississippi. The hope of reaching the Pacific now aroused the courage of the mission- aries, some fathers invited by the Algonquins were to be sent to " those men of the other sea," but, adds Vimont prophet- ically, " Perhaps this voyage will be reserved for one of us who have some little knowledge of the Algonquin."* he was made interpreter and commissary of the colony, which office he filled till he was sent, about 1639, to Green Bay, and the Men of the sea, where he met an assembly of four or five thousand men, and concluded peace with them. It must have been at this time that he ascended the Fox river to the Wisconsin. Re- turning to Quebec, he succeeded Olivier as commissary, and retained this office till his death. In 1641, we find him with F. Ragueneau, negotiating a peace with the Iroquois, at Three-Rivers. In 1642, sent from Quebec to Three-Rivers, to rescue a poor Abenaqni from the hands of some pagan Algonquins, he set out in a small boat on the 31st of October, at sunset with Savigni, but a storm came on, and their little craft capsized near Sillery. Savigni swam to the shore, Ni- colet, unable to swim, sank to rise no more. Thus perished, in a work of Chris- tian charity, the sieur Nicolet, the first Frenchman who reached the waters of the Mississippi. See Rel 1689-40, p. 135. Rel. 1640-'41, ch. ix. Rel. 1642-43, p. 8. Creuxiu*, p. 359. * Rel. 1639-'40, pp. 132, 135, Ac. The Lac des Puans is laid down on Cham- plain's map of 1632 ; but in all probability, only from report, as it is placed XX11 HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERT In 164:1, two Jesuits from the Huron mission, the illustrious Isaac Jogues and Charles Raymbout were actually sent to Sault St. Mary's, and they too heard of the Sioux and the river on which they lay, and they burned to enter those new realms and speak that language yet unknown, which fell so strangely on their ears now used to Huron and Algonquin sounds.* The next year the Iroquois war broke out in all its fury ; and the missionaries had to abandon all hopes of extending to the west. The war proved fatal to the allies of the French ; by 1650, all Upper Canada was a desert, and not a mission, not a single Indian was to be found, where but a few years before the cross towered in each of their many villages, and hundreds of fervent Christians gathered around their fifteen missionaries. The earth still reeked with the blood of the pastor and his flock; six missionary fathers had fallen by the hands of the Iroquois, another had been fearfully mutil- ated in their hands. But scarce was there a ray of peace when the survivors, were again summoned to the west. A field opened on Lake Superior. Father Garreau was sent in 1656, but was killed ere he left the St. Lawrence. De Gro- seilles and another Frenchman, more fortunate, wintered on the shores of the lake in 1658 ; they too visited the Sioux, and from the fugitive Hurons among them heard still clearer ti- dings of a great river on which they had struck, as, plunging through unknown wood and waste, over cliffs and mountains, they had sought to escape the destructive hand of the pur- suing Iroquois. " It was a beautiful river," writes the an- nalist, " large, broad, and deep, which would bear comparison, they say, with our St. Lawrence." On its banks they found the- AbimiSec, the Ilinois of later days. north of Lake Superior, unless it is meant for Lake "Winnipeg, which, like Green bay, got its name from the Algonquin epithet for the Dacotahs, as com- ing from the Pacific. * Rel, 1642, p. 166. OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. XX111 From other quarters, too, they began to hear of this great river. The missionaries on the Saguenay heard of the "Win- nipegouek, and their bay whence three seas could be reached, the north, the south, and the west.* The missionaries in New York saw Iroquois war-parties set out against the Ontoa- gannha whose towns " lay on a beautiful river [Ohio], which leads to the great lake as they called the sea, where they traded with Europeans, who pray to God as we do, and have rosaries and bells to call men to prayers." This sea the mis- sionaries judged must be the gulf of Mexico, or that of Cali- fornia, f Meanwhile Menard, an old Huron missionary, proceeded, in 1660, to Lake Superior, and founded an Ottawa mission on the southern shore. He, too, heard of the Mississippi, and had resolved to reach the nations on its banks, undeter- red by the difficulties of the way; but a work of charity called him to another quarter, and a death in the wilderness arrested his projects, before which one of half his years would have recoiled. :{: His successor, Father Allouez, also heard of the great river, "which empties," says he, "as far as I can conjecture, into the sea by Virginia." He heard, too, of the Ilimouek, and the Nadouessiouek ; and here, for the first time, we find the * Rel 1659-60, p. 61. f Rel. 1661-'62, p. 9. \ See his letter in Rel. 1663-'64, ch. i. Recent publications have put a Jesuit mission on the lake, and even on the Mississippi, as early as 1653; but the Rela- tions have not the slightest allusion to the fact, and speak of Menard as the first The Jesuits named as being concerned, are not mentioned either in the journal of the superior of the mission, nor in any printed Relations, nor in Ducreux, nor in Le Clercq. The fact of a missionary at Tamaroa prior to Marqtiette's voyage, is perfectly irreconcilable with the Relations, and if established, would destroy their authority. In this view, I will pay the most exorbitant price for any let- ter to or from F. Louis de Guerre, or Charles Drocoux, or any act of theirs at Tamaroa during the period in question, or any manuscript of the 17th century showing their existence there. HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERT river bear a name. "They live," says he, "on the great river called Messipi."* The western mission now received new accessions, and their hopes of entering the great river became more and more sanguine. The distinguished Father Dablon was sent out as superior of the Ottawa missions. A station among the Illinois was determined upon, Father Marquette named to begin it, and the study of the Illinois language actually begun by that missionary. From the accounts of a young man who was his master in that language, he formed new conjectures as to its mouth, and was apparently the first who heard of the Missouri. As to his intended voyage, he says, " If the In- dians who promise to make me a canoe do not break their word, we shall go into this river as soon as we can with a Frenchman and this young man given me, who knows some of these languages, and has a readiness for learning others ; we shall visit the nations that inhabit them in order to open the passage to so many of our fathers, who have long awaited this happiness. This discovery will give us a complete knowledge of the southern or western sea."f Meanwhile Allouez, on the 3d of November, 1669, left Sault St. Mary's to visit Green bay ; with great danger and hardship he reached it, and spent the winter preaching to the Pottawatomies, Menomonees, Sacs, Foxes, and Winnebagoes, whom he found mingled there. On the 16th of April, 1670, he began to ascend Fox river, and passing two rapids, reached Winnebago lake, and crossing it, came to a river " from a wild-oat lake." He was now, however, in search of the Outagamis, or Foxes, and turned up their river. He found them dejected by the loss of several families carried off by the Senecas on the banks of Lake Machihiganing (our * Rel 1666 -' 617 ' P- 106 \ Rel. 1669-'70, p. 157. OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. XXV Lake Michigan). After consoling them as he could, he ex- plained the object of his coming, and after given them his first general instruction in Christianity, sailed down their river again, and continued to the town of the Machkoutench, whom, says he, the Hurons call Assistaectaeronnous, or Fire nation. To reach them, he traversed the lake or marsh at the head of the Wisconsin, for they lay on that river. " It was," he says, " a beautiful river running southwest without any rapid. It leads," he says, further on, "to the great river named Messi-sipi, which is only six days' sail from here." Thus had Allouez at last reached the waters of the Missis- sippi, as Nicolet had done thirty years before.* There was now no difficulty in reaching it ; an easier way lay open than that from Chagoimegon. Father Dablon wished himself to visit the spot, and in company with Al- louez, he returned to Green bay, and as early as September, in the same year, both were again at Maskoutens.f Father Dablon had meanwhile been named superior-gen- eral of the Canada missions, and seems to have taken the more interest in the exploring of the Mississippi by the Wis- consin, as the projected Illinois mission of Father Marquette was, for a time at least, defeated. The peace on which they relied was suddenly destroyed ; the Sioux provoked by the rash insolence of the Hurons and Ottawas, declared war, and * Rel. 1669-70, p. 92. f Rel. 1670-'71, p. 169. At the time of drawing my notice on F. Allouez, p. 67 post, I had some doubts as to these visits of Allouez and Dablon. The former, Allouez, is the first missionary who reached the waters of the Mississippi ; he twice ascended the Fox river in 1670, and twice overthrew the idol at Kaka- lin rapid. Fortxinately Mr. Squier knows but little of the French missionaries at the north, or he would not have called the good fathers infamous for thus unseating the sacred object of the worship of the aborigines to substitute what with whimsical archaeology he calls the fictions of their own religion. Allouez is the first to use a term at all like Michigan for the lake, and confirms my con- jecture of the identity of the Maskoutens and Assistagueronons. XXVI HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERT sent back to the missionary the pictures which he had given them. Stratagem enabled them to neutralize the advantage which firearms gave their enemies; the Hurons and Ottawas were completely defeated, and fugitives already before the face of the Iroquois, they now fled again from a more terrible foe in the west. All hopes of his Illinois mission being thus dashed, the dejected Marquette followed his fugitive flocks, and as the Ottawas proceeded apart to Manitoulin, he ac- companied the Hurons to Mackinaw.* Here, doubtless, a hope of reaching the Mississippi by the Wisconsin, again roused him, as we soon find it the burthen of his thoughts. Father Dablon published the Relations of 1670-'71, and its map of Lake Superior. In his description of the map he at once alludes to the Mississippi. "To the south flows the great river, which they call the Missisipi, which can have its mouth only in the Florida sea, more than four hundred leagues from here."f Further on he says, " I deem it proper to set down here all we have learnt of it. It seems to en- circle all our lakes, rising in the north and running to the south, till it empties in a sea, which we take to be the Tied sea (gulf of California), or that of Florida ; as we have no knowledge of any great rivers in those parts which empty into those two seas.:}: Some Indians assure us that this river is so beautiful that more than three hundred leagues from its mouth, it is larger than that which flows by Quebec, as they make it more than a league wide. They say, moreover, that all this vast extent of country is nothing but prairies, without^ trees or woods, which obliges the inhabitants of those parts to use turf and sun-dried dung for fuel, till you come about twenty leagues from the sea. Here the forests begin to ap- * Rel. 1670-71, p. 147. f Rel. 1670-71, p. 89. \ There is probably a misprint, here, and it should be, " we have some Knowl- edge" or else he held a theory that every sea must have its great river. OF THE MISSISSIPPI BIVEB. pear again. Some warriors of this country (Maskoutens), who say that they have descended that far, assure us that they saw men like the French, who were splitting trees with long knives, some of whom had their house on the water, thus they explained their meaning, speaking of sawed planks and fillips. They say besides, that all along this great river are various towns of different nations, languages, and customs, who all make war on each other ; some are situated on the river side, but most of them inland, continuing thus up to the nation of the Nadouessi who are scattered over more than a hundred leagues of country."* The course of the Mississippi, its great features, the nature of the country, were all known to the western missionaries and the traders, who alone with them carried on the discovery of the west* Among the latter was Jolliet, who in his rambles also penetrated near the Mississippi.! As the war seemed an obstacle to so hazardous an undertaking, the missionaries, it would appear, urged the French court to set on foot an ex- pedition. Marquette held himself in readiness to leave Mac- kinaw at the first sign of his superior's will, and at last on the 4th of June, 1672, the French minister wrote to Talon, then intendant of Canada : " As after the increase of the colony there is nothing more important for the colony than the dis- covery of a passage to the south sea, his majesty wishes you to give it your attention."^: Talon was then about to return to France, but recommended Jolliet to the new governor Frontenac, who had just arrived. The latter approved the choice, and Jolliet received his proper instructions from the new intendant. " The Chevalier de Grand Fontaine," writes Frontenac, on the 2d of November, " has deemed expedient Rel. mo- 1 ?!, p. 175. f Mem. o/FrotUenac, N. T. Paris Doc., voL L, p. 274. J Ibid, vol. i., p. 267. HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY for the service to send the sieur Jolliet to discover the south 8 ea by the Maskoutens country, and the great river Missis- sippi, which is believed to empty in the California sea. He is a man of experience in this kind of discovery, and has al- ready been near the great river, of which he promises to see the mouth."* Of the missionaries, two seemed entitled to the honor of exploring the great river, Allouez, the first to reach its waters, and Marquette named for some years missionary to the Il- linois. The latter was chosen, and since his departure from Chegoimegon, he had constantly offered up his devotions to the blessed Virgin Immaculate, to obtain the grace of reach- ing the Mississippi. What was his joy when on the very festival dearest to his heart, that of the Immaculate Concep- tion, Jolliet arrived bearing the letters of his superiors which bid him embark at last, in his company to carry out the de- sign so long, and so fondly projected. "The long-expected discovery of the Mississippi was now at hand, to be accomplished by Jolliet of Quebec, of whom there is scarce a record but this one excursion that gives him immortality and by Marquette, who, after years of pious assi- duity to the poor wrecks of Hurons, whom he planted near abundant fisheries, on the cold extremity of Michigan, en- tered, with equal humility, upon a career which exposed his life to perpetual danger, and by its results affected the des- tiny of nations."f The winter was spent in preparation, in studying over all that had yet been learned of the great river, in gathering around them every Indian wanderer, and amid the tawny group drawing their first rude map of the Mississippi, and the water courses that led to it. And on this first map traced * Mem. ofFrontenac, N. Y. Paris Doc., voL i., p. 274. f Bancroft. OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVEK. XXIX doubtless kneeling on the ground they set down the names of each tribe they were to pass, each important point to be met. The discovery was dangerous, but it was not to be rash ; all was the result of calm, cool investigation, and never was chance less concerned than in the discovery of the Missis- sippi. In the spring they embarked at Mackinaw in two frail bark canoes, each with his paddle in hand, and full of hope, they soon plied them merrily over the crystal waters of the lake. All was new to Marquette, and he describes as ho went along the Menomonies, Green bay, and Maskoutens, which he reached on the 7th of June, 1673. He had now attained the limit of former discoveries, the new world was before them; they looked back a last adieu to the waters, which great as the distance was, connected them with Que- bec and their countrymen ; they knelt on the shore to offer, by a new devotion, their lives, their honor, and their under- taking, to their beloved mother the Virgin Mary Immaculate; then launching on the broad Wisconsin, sailed slowly down its current amid its vine-clad isles, and its countless sand-bars. No sound broke the stillness, no human form appeared, and at last, after sailing seven days, on the 17th of June, they happily glided into the great river. Joy that could find no utterance in words filled the grateful heart of Marquette. The broad river of the Conception, as he named it, now lay before them, stretching away hundreds of miles to an un- known sea. Soon all was new; mountain and forest had glided away ; the islands, with their groves of cotton-wood, became more frequent, and moose and deer browzed on the plains; strange animals were seen traversing the river, and monstrous fish appeared in its waters. But they proceeded on their way amid this solitude, frightful by its utter absence XXX HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY of man. Descending still further, they came to the land of the bison, or pisikiou, which, with the turkey, became sole tenants of the wilderness; all other game had disappeared. At last, on the 25th of June, they descried foot-prints on the shore. They now took heart again, and Jolliet and the mis- sionary leaving their five men in the canoes, followed a little beaten path to discover who the tribe might be. They trav- elled on in silence almost to the cabin-doors, when they halted, and with a loud hallao proclaimed their coming. Three vil- lages lay before them ; the first, roused by the cry, poured forth its motley group, which halted at the sight of the new- comers, and the well-known dress of the missionary. Old men carne slowly on, step by measured step, bearing aloft the all-mysterious calumet. All was silence ; they stood at last before the two Europeans, and Marquette asked, "Who are you ?" " "We are Illinois," was the answer, which dis- pelled all anxiety from the explorers, and sent a thrill to the heart of Marquette ; the Illinois missionary was at last amid the children of that tribe which he had so long, so tender- ly yearned to see. After friendly greetings, at this town of Pewaria, and the neighboring one of Moing-wena, they returned to their canoes, escorted by the wondering tribe, who gave their hardy visi- tants a calumet, the safeguard of the West. With renewed courage and lighter hearts, they sailed on, and passing a high rock with strange and monstrous forms depicted on its rugged surface, heard in the distance the roaring as of a mighty cata- ract, and soon beheld Pekitanoui, or the muddy river, as the Algonquins call the Missouri, rushing like some untamed monster into the calm and clear Mississippi, and hurrying in with its muddy waters the trees which it had rooted up in its impetuous course. Aln-ndy had the missionaries Ix-nrd of OF THK M1IS>IIM'I KIVKR. the river running to tlie wesiern sea to be reached by the branches of the Mississippi, jnnl Mur<|uutte, now better in- formed, fondly hoped to reach it one day by the Missouri. But now their course lay south, and passing a dangerous eddy, the demon of the western Indians, they marked the "Waboukigou, or Ohio, the river of the Shawnees, and still holding on their way, came to the warm land of the cane, and the country which the musquitoes might call their own. "While enveloped in their sails as a shelter from them, they came upon a tribe who invited them to the shore. They were wild wanderers, for they had guns bought of Catholic. Euro- peans to the east. Thus far all had been friendly, and encouraged by this second meeting, they plied their oars anew, and amid groves of cotton-wood on either side, descended to the 33d degree, where, for the first time, a hostile reception seemed promised by the excited Metchigameas. Too few to resist, their only hope on earth was the mysterious calumet, and in heaven the protection of Mary, to whom they sent up those fervent prayers, which none but one who has called on her in the hour of need can realize. At last the storm subsided, and they were received in peace ; their language formed an ob- stacle, but an interpreter was found, and after explaining the object of their coming, and announcing the great truths of Christianity, they embarked for Akamsea, a village thirty miles below on the eastern shore. Here they were well received, and learned that the month of the river was but ten days sail from this village; but they heard, too, of nations there trading with Europeans, and of wars between the tribes, and the two explorers spent a night in consultation. The Mississippi, they now saw, emptied into the gulf of Mexico, between Florida and Tampico, two Span- HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY ish points; they might by proceeding fall into their hands. They resolved to return. Thus far only Marquette traced the map, and he put down the names of other tribes of which they heard. Of these in the Atotchasi, Matora, and Papi- haka, we recognise Arkansas tribes ; and the Akoroas and Tanikwas, Pawnees and Omahas, Kansas and Apiches, are well known in after days. They accordingly set out from Akensea on the 17th of July to return. Passing the Missouri again, they entered the Il- linois, and meeting the friendly Kaskaskias at its upper portage, were led by them in a kind of triumph to Lake Mich- igan, for Marquette had promised to return and instruct them in the faith. Sailing along the lake, they crossed the outer peninsula of Green bay, and reached the mission of St. Francis Xavier, just four months after their departure from it. Thus had the missionaries achieved their long-projected work. The triumph of the age was thus completed in the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi, which threw open to France, the richest, most fertile, and accessible terri- tory in the new world. Marquette, whose health had been severely tried in this voyage, remained at St. Francis to re- cruit his strength before resuming his wonted missionary labors, for he sought no laurels, he aspired to no tinsel praise. Jolliet, who had, like Marquette, drawn up a journal and map of his voyage, set out (probably in the spring) for Que- bec, to report to the governor of Canada the result of his ex- pedition, and took with him an Indian boy, doubtless the young slave given them by the great chief of the Illinois. Unfortunately, while shooting the rapids above Montreal, his canoe turned, and he barely escaped with his life, losing all his papers and his Indian companion. What route he had followed from Mackinaw, we do not know; but he seems to OF THE MISSISSIPPI EFVEE. XXX111 have descended by Detroit river, Lake Erie, and Niagara, as Frontenac announcing his return to the government in France, says, " he has found admirable countries, and so easy a navigation by the beautiful river which he found, that from Lake Ontario and Fort Frontenac, you can go in barks to the gulf of Mexico, there being but one discharge to be made at the place where Lake Erie falls into Lake Ontario." Separated as he was from Marquette, and deprived of his papers by the accident, Jolliet drew up a narrative of his voyage from recollection, and also sketched a map which Frontenac transmitted to France in November, 1674, three months after Jolliet's arrival at Quebec.* The loss of Jolliet's narrative and map now gave the highest importance to those * As Frontenac's memoir completely refutes the assertion of Hennepin, that Jolliet made no report to the government, and is a monument of no little im- portance, as substantiating the voyage of Marquette and Jolliet we insert it in the original, from vol. L, p. 258, of the Paris Documents at Albany. " QUKBKC LK 14 NOVEMB., 1674. " VI. Retour du Sr. Joliet de son voyage a la d&couverte de la mer du sud. "Le Sr. Joliet que M. Talon m'a cons?ille d'envoyer a la decouverte de la mer du sud, lorsque j'arrivai de France, en est de retour depnis trois mois et a d6- couvort des pays admirables et unc navigation si aisie par les belles rivieres qu'il a trouv6es que du lac Ontario et du fort Frontenac on ponrrait aller en barque jnsque dans le golfe du Mexique, n'y ayant qu'une seule dcharge a faire dans 1'endroit ou le Lac Erie tombe dans le Lnc Ontario. " Ce sont des projets a quoi 1'on pourra travailler lorsque la paiz sera bien Stabile et quand il plaira au roi de pousser ces d6couvertes. "II a eti- jusqu'adix journe"es du golfe du Mexique et croit que les rividres qne da cot de 1'ouest tombent dans la grande riviere qu'il a trouv6e, qui va du nau 8 . . . et qu'on trouveroit des communications d'eaux qui meneroient a la mer Vermeille et de la Californie. "le vons envoie par mon secretaire la carte qu'il en a faite et les rlmarques dont il s'est pu souvenir, ayant perdu tons ses memoires et ses journaux dans la naufrage qu'il fit a la vue de Montreal, ou il penaa se noyer, apres avoir fait un voyage de douze cents lienes et perdit tous see papiers et un petit sauvage qu'il ramenoit de ces pays la. " II avoit Iftisse6 dans le Lac Superieur an Sault Ste. Marie chez les Peres des copies de ses jonrnaux, que nous ne saurions avoir que I'ann6e prochaine, par od vous apprendrez plus de particularity de cette decouverte, dont il s'est trfes bien acquitte. HISTORY OF THE DISCOVEKT in the bands of the missionaries ; these Frontenac promised to send, and Father Marquette, as we find by his autograph letter, transmitted copies to his superior at his request, prior to October; and the French government was, undoubtedly, possessed, in 1675, of Marquette's journal and map, and fully aware of the great advantage to be derived from the dis- coveries made, either for communicating direct with France from Illinois, or of seeking the nearest road to the gulf of Cal- ifornia and the Pacific, by the western tributaries of the Mis- sissippi. " These," says Frontenac, " are projects we can take in hand when peace is well established, and it shall please his majesty to carry out the exploration." The court allowed the whole affair to pass unnoticed. Mar- quette's narrative was not published, and the Jesuit Relations apparently prohibited ; so that it would not, perhaps, have seen the light to our days, had not Thevenot obtained a copy of the narrative and a map which he published in 1681.* France would have derived no benefit from this discovery, but for the enterprise and persevering courage of Robert Cavalier de la Salle. When Jolliet passed down Lake On- tario, in 1674, he stopped at Fort Frontenac where La Salle was then commander under Frontenac. He was thus one of the first to know the result of Jolliet's voyage, and, perhaps, was one of the few that saw his maps and journal which were lost before he reached the next French post. At the time it does not seem to have made much impression on La Salle ; his great object then was to build up a fortune, and the next year he obtained a grant of Fort Frontenac and the monopoly of the lake trade and a patent of nobility. His plans failed, and instead of acquiring wealth, he found him- self embarrassed by immense debts. He now looked for * There is a copy of this original edition in the library of Harvard College. An xact copy was printed by Mr. Rich, a few years ago. OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEE. XXXV some new field, and by reading the accounts of the Spanish adventurers, seems to have been the first to identify the great river of Marqnette, and Jolliet with the great river of Do Soto. The vast herds of bison seemed to him to afford an easy means of realizing all that he could hope, by enabling him to ship from the banks of the Missouri and Illinois direct to France by the gulf of Mexico, cargoes of buffalo-skins and wool. In 1677, he repaired again to France, and by the help of Frontenac's recommendation, obtained a patent for his dis- covery, and a new monopoly in the following May, and by September was in Canada with Tonty and a body of me- chanics and mariners, with all things necessary for his expe- dition. The plan traced by Jolliet in Frontenac's despatch of 1674, seems to have been followed by him without further investigation. As it would be necessary to unload at the falls of Niagara, the Onghiara, of the old missionaries, he re- solved to build a new fort there, and construct vessels above the cataract to ply on the upper lakes, and thus connect his trading-houses on the Mississippi with Fort Frontenac, his chief and most expensive establishment. Such was his celer- ity that, by the 5th of December, the first detachment of his party entered the Niagara river, and a site was soon selected for a fort, and for the construction of a vessel above the falls. Difficulties with the Senecas finally compelled him to relin- quish the fort, and a mere shed or storehouse was raised. The vessel, however, went on, and he at last saw it glide down into the rapid current of Niagara in August, 1679, amid the admiring crowd of Indians who had gathered around the French. There was now no obstacle to his further progress, but we must here regret that he had not studied former discoveries more narrowly. One of his clear and comprehensive mind HISTOEY OF THE DISCOVERY would have seized at once the great western branch of the Mississippi, already known to the missionaries and the Iro- quois. By his present plans he had to build one vessel above the falls of Niagara, and a second on the Illinois river ; one on the Ohio, so easily reached by the Allegheny would have carried him to the gulf, and he would thus have avoided the various troubles which so long retarded his reaching the mouth of the Mississippi. He sailed to Green bay, but found that he had arrayed against him all the private traders of the west, by sending men to trade, contrary to his patent, which expressly excepted the Ottawa country. Of this he soon felt the effects, his men began to desert, and to crown all his misfortunes, his new vessel, the Griffin, was lost on her way back to Niagara. Before this catastrophe he had set out to descend Lake Michigan. He built a kind of fort at the mouth of the St. Joseph's and sounded its channel, and, at last, in December, proceed to enter the Kankakee, a branch of the Illinois, by a portage from the St. Joseph's. Disheart- ened by the desertion and disaffection of his men, and by the want of all tidings of his vessel, he began the erection of Fort Crevecoaur, and of a vessel near the Illinois camp below Lake Peoria. The vessel he had finally to abandon for want of proper materials to complete it, and he set out almost alone for Fort Frontenac by land, after sending Father Hen- nepin to explore the Illinois to its mouth. That missionary went further ; voluntarily or as a prisoner of the Sioux, he seems to have ascended as far as St. Anthony's falls, which owe their name to him. His exploration of the Mississippi between the Illinois river and St. Anthony's falls, took place in 1680, between the months of March and September, when, delivered by De Lnth, he returned to Mackinaw, and thence in the spring almost direct to Quel>ec and Europe. By OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVEB. XXXvii 1683, he published, at Paris, an account of his voyage under the title of Description de la Louisiana, which after the Relations, and Marquette's narrative, is the next work relative to the Mississippi, and contains the first printed de- scription of that river above the mouth of the "Wisconsin, from actual observation. La Salle returned to Illinois in 1681, and, to his surprise, found his fort deserted. He soon after met the survivors of his first expedition at Mackinaw, and set about new prepara- tions for his great work. In January, 1682, he was again with his party at the extremity of Lake Michigan, and enter- ing the Chicago river, followed the old line of Father Mar- quette, reached Fort Crevecceur once more, and at last began in earnest his voyage down the Mississippi. He bad aban- doned the idea of sailing down in a ship, and resolved to go in boats, ascertain accurately the position of its mouth, and then return to France and sail direct with a colony for the mouth, and ascend to some convenient place. On the 6th of February, the little expedition, apparently in three large boats or canoes, conducted by La Salle and his lieutenants, Tonty and Dautray, with Father Zenobius Membre, as their chaplain, and Indians as hunters and guides, entered the wide waters of the Mississippi, which henceforward, in the narratives of La Salle's companions assumes the name of Colbert. They passed the mouth of the muddy Missouri, and further on, the deserted village of the Tamaroas, and next the Ohio, where the marshy land began that prevented their landing. Detained soon after by the loss of one of his men, La Salle encamped on the bluff, and fell in with some Chickasaws, then proceeding on, at last, on the 3d of March, was roused by the war-cries, and the rattling drums of an Arkansas village. He had reached the limit of Jolliet's XXXVili HISTOKT OF THE DISCOVERY voyage; henceforward, he was to be the first French ex- plorer. "Warlike as the greeting was, La Salle soon entered into friendly relations with them, and several days were spent in their village. Here a cross was planted with the arms of the French king, and the missionary endeavored, by interpreters and signs to give some idea of Christianity. On the 17th, La Salle embarked again, and passing two more Arkansas towns, reached the populous tribe of the Ta- ensas, in their houses of clay and straw, with roofs of cane, themselves attired in mantles, woven of white pliant bark, and showing Eastern reverence for their monarch, who in great ceremony visited the envoys of the French. Pursuing his course, the party next came to the Natchez, where another cross was planted, and visiting the Koroas proceeded on till the river divided into two branches. Fol- lowing the westerly one, they sailed past the Quinipissas, and the pillaged town of another tribe, till they reached the delta, on the 6th of April. La Salle and his two lieuten- ants, each taking a separate channel, advanced, full of hope ; the brackish water, growing salter as they proceeded, being a sure index of the sea, which they reached at last on the 9th of April, 1682, sixty-two days after their entering the Missis- sippi. The French had thus, at last, in the two expeditions of Jolliet and La Salle, completely explored the river from the falls of St. Anthony to the gulf of Mexico. La Salle now planted a cross with the arms of France amid the solemn chant of hymns of thanksgiving, and in the name of the French king took possession of the river, of all its branches, and the territory watered by them ; and the notary drew up an authentic act, which all signed with beating hearts, and a leaden plate with the arms of France, and the names of OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVKB. XXXIX the discoverers was amid the rattle of musketry deposited in the earth. La Salle now ascended again to Illinois, and despatched Father Zenobius Membre to France to lay an account of his voyage before the government. He sailed from Quebec on the loth of November with Frontenac, and the course of the Mississippi was known in France before the close of 1682.* The next year La Salle himself reached France, and set out by sea to reach the mouth of the Mississippi ; he never again beheld it ; but Tonty seeking him, had again descended to the mouth, and it was soon constantly travelled by the ad- venturous trader, and still more adventurous missionary. A Spanish vessel under Andrew de PCS, entered the mouth soon after; but, on the 2d of March, 1699, the Canadian Iberville, more fortunate than La Salle, entered it with Father Anasta- sius Douay, who had accompanied that unfortunate adven- turer on his last voyage. f Missionaries from Canada soon came to greet him, and La Sueur ascended the Mississippi to St. Peter's river, and built a log fort on its blue-earth tributary. Henceforward all was progress ; we might now trace the labors of those who explored each mighty tributary, and watch the progress of each rising town ; we might follow down the first cargo of wheat, or look with the anxiety of the day at the first crop of sugar and of cotton ; but this were to write the history of the Mississippi valley, and we undertook only that of its discovery. Our work is done. "We turn now to trace the life of its first French explorers. The works on La Salle's voyages, besides Hennepin already noticed, are, 1. Etallittcment de la Foi, Ac., par le P. Chretien Le Clercq, Paris, 1691. 2. Der nieret dtcouvtrtet, Ac., par le Chev. de Tonty, Paris, 1697. 8. Journal Ilittoripu, Ac., par M. Joutel, Paris, 1713. f Historical Collections of Louisiana, vol. iii., p. 14 LIFE or FATHER JAMES MARQUETTE, OP THE SOCIETY OF JESUS, FIRST EXPLORER OF THE MISSISSIPPI NEAR a little branch of the river Oise, in the department of Aisne, the traveller finds perched on the mountain- side the small but stately city of Laon. Strong fortifications without, and a vast cathedral within, show that in former days it was one of those cities which were constantly replete with life and movement in the endless contests between noble and noble, and not unfrequently between the suzerain himself and his more powerful vassal. The most ancient family in this renowned city, is that of Marqnette, and in its long annals we find the highest civic honors borne almost constantly by members of that illustrious race. It already held an important place in the reign of Louis the young, and its armorial bearings still commemorate the devotedness of the sieur James Marquette, sheriff of Laon, to the cause of his royal master, the unfortunate John of France, in 1360. A martial spirit has always characterized this citizen family, and its members have constantly figured in the daz- X ]J[ LIFE OF FATHER MAKQUETTE. zlino- wars of France. Our own republic is not without its obligations to the valor of the Marquettes, three of whom died here in the French army during the Kevolutionary war. Yet not their high antiquity nor their reckless valor would ever have given the name of Marquette to fame ; the un- sought tribute which it has acquired among us, is due to the labors of one who renounced the enjoyments of country and home to devote his days to the civilization and conversion of our Indian tribes; who died in the bloom of youth, worn down by toil, in a lonely, neglected spot, whose name every effort was made to enshrine in oblivion, but who has been at last, by the hand of strangers, raised on a lofty pedestal among the great, the good, and the holy, who have honored our land ; the family is known to us only as connected with Father James Marquette of the Society of Jesus, the first ex- plorer of the Mississippi. Born at the ancient seat of his family, in the year 1637, he was, through his pious mother Rose de la Salle, allied to the venerable John Baptist de la Salle, the founder of the insti- tute known as the Brothers of the Christian Schools, whose services in t}ie cause of gratuitous education of the poor had instructed thousands before any of the modern systems of public schools had been even conceived.* From his pious mother the youthful Marquette imbibed that warm, generous, and unwavering devotion to the mother of God, which makes him so conspicuous among her servants. None but a mother could have infused such a filial affection for Mary. At the age of seventeen his heart, detached from this world and all its bright allurements, impelled him to enter the So- ciety of Jesus, as he did in the year 1654. When the two * Devisme Histoire de la Ville de Laon. A member of his family, Francis Marquette, founded similar schools for girls, in 1685, and the religious were com- monly called Scaurs Marquette. LIFE OF FATHER MARQITETTE. years of self study and examination had passed away, he was as is usual with the young Jesuits, employed in teaching or study, and twelve years glided away in the faithful per- formance of the unostentatious duties assigned him. No sooner, however, was he invested with the sacred character of the priesthood, than his ardent desire to become in all things an imitator of his chosen patron, St. Francis Xavier, induced him to seek a mission in some land that knew not God, that he might labor there to his latest breath, and die unaided and alone. The province of Champagne in which he was enrolled con- tained no foreign mission : he was transferred to that of France, and, in 1666, sailed for Canada. On the 20th of September he landed, buoyant with life and health, at Que- bec, and amid his brethren awaited the new destination on which his superiors should decide.* The moment of his arrival was one of deep interest in the religious history of a colony, which had in its early settlement so nobly represented the purest Catholicity, neither hampered by civil jealousy, nor unhearted by the cold and selfish policy of a pagan age. The halcyon days of the Canadian church were passing away, but God had raised up one to guide and guard his church, that is, in fact, his poor and little ones, in the coming struggle with worldliness and policy. This was Francis de Laval, who landed at Quebec in 1659, with the title of bishop of Petrea, and vicar apostolic of New France. Gradually he gathered around him a few secular priests and began to settle the ecclesiastical affairs of the French posts, till then mere missions in the hands of the Jesuits. At the period of Marquette's arrival, he had already begun to see his diocese assume a regular shape, his clergy had increased, his * Joor. Sup. Jea. x ]j v LIFE OF FATIIEK MAKQUETTE. cathedral and seminary were rapidly rising. The war with the Iroquois which had so long checked the prosperity of the colony, and the hopes of the missionaries, was at last brought to a successful issue by the efforts of the viceroy de Tracy, and a new field was opened for the missions. These had always been an object of his deep solicitude ; the wide west especially was a field which he sighed to pen- etrate himself, cross in hand, but this could not be. As early as 1660, from the new impulse thus given, an Ottawa mission was resolved upon, and the veteran Menard, one of the last survivors of the old Huron mission, cheered by the parting words of his holy bishop, embarked to raise the cross of Sault St. Mary's, which his companions Jogues and Kaym- baut had planted twenty years before. He bore it on to Keweena bay in Lake Superior, and while full of projects for reaching the Sioux on the upper Mississippi, died in the woods, a victim to famine or the hatchet of the roving Indian. At the time of Marquette's arrival, Father Allouez was there exploring parts which no white man had yet visited, and as he saw a wide field opening before his view, earnestly im- ploring a new missionary reinforcement. Such was the Ottawa mission ; but there were others also. Father Jogues thus associated with the earliest western dis- coveries, had penetrated into New York, and reddening the Mohawk with his life's blood, brought it within the bounds of catholicity. From this moment New York was a land which each missionary ambitioned ; visited successively by two more as prisoners, their sufferings and blood confirmed the title of the missionaries, and, in 1654, Father Simon le Moyne visited Onondaga, and gave the first account of west- era New York. A mission was established the next year, and the missionaries explored the whole state from the Hud- LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. xly son to the Niagara; but a sudden change took place a plot was formed against the French colony at Onoudaga, and this first mission was crushed in its infancy, after a brief existence of three years. The war which ensued made Canada itself tremble, and a new mission in New York was not even thought of; the attempt to renew that in Michigan is, indeed, one of the hardiest undertakings in the annals of the Jesuit missions, and a noble monument of their fearless zeal. But now the tree of peace was planted, the war-parties had ceased, and missionaries hastened to the Iroquois cantons, which, for nearly twenty years, were to be so well instructed in the truths of Christianity, that even now the catholic Iro- quois almost outnumber the rest of their countrymen. Another great mission of the time was that of the Abnakis, in Maine, founded by Druillettes in 1647, and continued by him at intervals until it became at last the permanent resi- dence of several zealous men. Besides these were the missions of the wandering Algon- quins of the river, which centred at Sillery and Three Rivers, but had been almost entirely destroyed by the Iroquois after the destruction of the Huron missions and depopulation of Upper Canada. These expiring missions the Jesuits still maintained ; but another and a harder field was that of the Montagnais, of which Tadonssac was the centre. Here at the mouth of that strange river, the Sagnenay, which pours its almost fathomless tide into the shallower St. Lawrence, is the oft-mentioned poet of Tadoussac. For a few weeks each year, it was a scene of busy, stirring life; Indians of every petty tribe from the Esquimaux of Labrador, to the Micmac of Nova Scotia, came to trade with the French. Here, then, a missionary was always found to instruct them as much as time permitted, and when found sufficiently acquainted with the x ] v i LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. mysteries of our faith, to baptize them. The Christian Indian always repaired to this post to fulfil the obligations of the church, to lay down the burthen of sin, to receive the bread of life, and then depart for the wilderness with his calendar and pin to be able to distinguish the Sundays and holydays; and thus amid the snows and crags join in the prayers and devotions of the universal church. "When the trade was over, a new field lay before the missionary ; the country was to be traversed in every direction to carry the light of faith from cabin to cabin, to exhort, instruct, confirm. These adventur- ous expeditions through parts still a wilderness, are full of in- terest, and, strange as it may seem, are rife with early notices of our western country ; they reached from the Saguenay to Hudson's bay, and stretching westward, almost reached Lake Superior. This mission required one full of life, zeal, and courage, and to it Father Marquette was in the first instance destined. The Montagnais was the key language to the various tribes, and as early as the tenth of October,* we find him starting for Three Kivers to begin the study of that language under Father Gabriel Druilletes. While thus engaged, his leisure hours were of course devoted to the exercise of his ministry, and here he remained until April, 1668, when the first proj- ect was abandoned, and he was ordered to prepare for the Ottawa mission, as that of Lake Superior was then called. He had by this time acquired also a knowledge of the Al- gonquin, and thus fitted for his new mission, he left Quebec on the 21st of April with three companions for Montreal, where he was to await the Ottawa flotilla, which was to bear him westward. A party of Nezpeices came at last, bearing Father Nicholas Louis, the companion of Allouez, and with * Jour. Sup. Jes. LIFE OF FATHER MARQTJETTE. them Father Marquette embarked. The jonrney up the Ot- tawa river, and through French river to Lake Huron, and then across that inland sea to Sault St. Mary's, has been too often and too vividly described to need repetition here. Its toil and danger are associated with the accounts of all the early Huron missionaries. When he reached Lake Superior, Marquette found that the tribes whom fear of the Iroquois had driven to the extremity of the lake, were now returning to their former abodes. New missions were thus required, and it was resolved to erect two, one at Sault St. Mary's, the other in Green Bay. The former was assigned to Father Marquette, and planting his cabin at the foot of the rapid on the American side, he began his mis- sionary career. Here, in the following year, he was joined by Father Dablon, as superior of the Ottawa missions, and by their united exertion, a church was soon built ; and thus, at last, a sanctuary worthy of the faith raised at that cradle of Christianity in the west. The tribes to which he ministered directly here were all Algonquin, and numbered about two thousand souls. They showed the greatest docility to his teaching, and would all gladly have received baptism, but caution was needed, and the prudent missionary contented himself for a time with giving them clear, distinct instructions, and with efforts to root out all lurking superstitions, conferring the sacrament only on the dying. The missionary's first lesson was, " to learn to la- bor and to wait."* His stay at the Sault among the Pahwitting-dach-irini, Outchibous, Maramegs, &c., was not, however, to be of long duration. Father Allouez departed for Green Bay, and a missionary was to be sent to LapoSnte to continue the dis- Rel 1668-'89, p. 102. LIFE OF FATHEE MARQTTETTE. heartening labors of that ungrateful field. Marquette was chosen. "Without repugnance he set out for his new station in the autumn of 1669. "We can not better depict his labors than by inserting at length the letter descriptive of his mis- sion, which he addressed to Father Francis Le Mercier, the superior of the missions in the following year. "KEVEREND FATHER, " THE PEACE OF CnRisT.f "I am obliged to render you an account of the mission of the Holy Ghost among the Ottawas, according to the orders I received from you and again from Father Dablon on my arri- val here, after a month's navigation on snow and through ice which closed my way, and kept me in constant peril of life. " Divine Providence having destined me to continue the mission of the Holy Ghost begun by Father Allouez, who had baptized the chiefs of the Kiskakonk, I arrived there on the thirteenth of September, and went to visit the Indians who were in the clearings which are divided into five towns. The Hurons to the number of about four or five hundred, almost all baptized, still preserve some little Christianity. A num- ber of the chiefs assembled in council, were at first well pleased to see me ; but I explained that I did not yet know their language perfectly, and that no other missionary was coming, both because all had gone to the Iroquois, and be- cause Father Allouez, who understood them perfectly, did not wish to return that winter, as they did not love the prayer enough. They acknowledged that it was a just punishment, and during the winter held talks about it, and resolved to amend, as they tell me. f For the benefit of investigators of manuscripts I would remark that these words, or the letters P. C. and a cross at the top of the page, are alone almoet sufficient to show a puper to be written by one of the Jesuit missionaries. LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. "The nation of the Outaouaks Sinagaux is far from the kingdom of God, being above all other nations addicted to lewdness, sacrifices, and juggleries. They ridicule the prayer, and will scarcely hear us speak of Christianity. They are proud and undeveloped, and I think that so little can be done with this tribe, that I have not baptized healthy infants who seem likely to live, watching only for such as are sick. The Indians of the Kinouche tribe declare openly that it is not yet time. There are, however, two men among them formerly baptized. One now rather old, is looked upon as a kind of miracle among the Indians, having always refused to marry, persisting in this resolution in spite of all that had been said. lie has suffered much even from his relatives, but he is as little affected by this as by the loss of all the goods which he brought last year from the settlement, not having even enough left to cover him. These are hard trials for Indians, who generally seek only to possess much in this world. The other, a new-married young man, seems of an- other nature than the rest. The Indians extremely attached to their reveries had resolved that a certain number of young women should prostitute themselves, each to choose such partner as she liked. No one in these cases ever refuses, as the lives of men are supposed to depend on it. This young Christian was called ; on entering the cabin he saw the orgies which were about to begin, and feigning illness immediately left, and though they came to call him back, he refused to go. His confession was as prudent as it could be, and I won- dered that an Indian could live so innocently, and so nobly profess himself a Christian. His mother and some of his sisters are also good Christians. The Ottawas, extremely su- perstitious in their feasts and juggleries, seem hardened to the instructions given them, yet they like to have their children 1 LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. baptized. God permitted a woman to die this winter in 'her sin ; her illness had been concealed from me, and I heard it only by the report that she had asked a very improper dance for her cure. I immediately went to a cabin where all the chiefs were at a feast, and some Kiskakonk Christians among them. To these I exposed the impiety of the woman and her medicine-men, and gave them proper instructions. I then spoke to all present, and God permitted that an old Ottawa rose to advise, granting M'hat I asked, as it made no matter, he said, if the woman did die. An old Christian then rose and told the nation that they must stop the licentiousness of their youth, and not permit Christian girls to take part in such dances. To satisfy the woman, some child's play was substitu- ted for the dance ; but this did not prevent her dying before morning. The dangerous state of a sick young man caused the medicine-men to proclaim that the devil must be invoked by extraordinary superstitions. The Christians took no part. The actors were these jugglers and the sick man, who was passed over great fires lighted in every cabin. It was said that he did not feel the heat, although his body had been greased with oil for five or six days. Men, women, and chil- dren, ran through the cabins asking as a riddle to divine their thoughts, and the successful guesser was glad to give the object named. I prevented the abominable lewdness so common at the end of these diabolical rites. I do not think they will recur, as the sick man died soon after. "The nation of Kiskakons,* which for three years refused to receive the gospel preached them by Father Allouez, re- * Father Allouez, in the Relation of 1668-'69, docs not use the term Kisknkon He calls them Queues coupes, and states that they had formerly lived on Lake Huron, where they had been visited hy the old Huron missionaries, and had been first visited by Menard on Lake Superior. I add this to my subsequent note on them, as it may throw some new light on their original position. LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. H solved, in the fall of 1668, to obey God. This resolution was adopted in full council, and announced to that father who spent four winter months instructing them. The chiefs of the nation became Christians, and as Father Allouez was called to another mission, he gave it to my charge to cultivate, and I entered on it in September, 1669. "All the Christians were then in the fields harvesting their Indian corn ; they listened with pleasure when I told them that I came to Lnpointe for their sake and that of the Hu- rons; that they never should be abandoned, but be beloved above all other nations, and that they and the French were one. I had the consolation of seeing their love for the prayer and their pride in being Christians. I baptized the new-born infants, and instructed the chiefs whom I found well-dis- posed. The head-chief having allowed a dog to be hung on a pole near his cabin, which is a kind of sacrifice the Indians make to the sun, I told him that this was wrong, and he went and threw it down. " A sick man instructed, but not baptized, begged me to grant him that favor, or to live near him, as he did not wish medicine-men to cure him, and that he feared the fires of hell. I prepared him for baptism, and frequently visited his cabin. His joy at this partly restored his health ; he thanked me for my care, and soon after saying that I had recalled him to life, gave me a little slave he had brought from the Ilinois two or three months before. "One evening, while in the cabin of the Christian where I sleep, I taught him to pray to his guardian-angel, and told him some stories to show him the assistance they give us, es- pec-i.illy when in danger of offending God. 'Now,' said he, 'I know the invisible hand that struck me when, since my baptism, I was going to commit a sin, and the voice that bid ]Ji LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. me remember that I was a Christian ; for I left the companion of my guilt without committing the sin.' He now often speaks of devotion to the angels, and explains it to the other Indians. "Some young Christian women are examples to the tribe, and are not ashamed to profess Christianity. Marriages among the Indians are dissolved almost as easily as they are made, and then it is no dishonor to marry again. Hearing that a young Christian woman abandoned by her husband was in danger of being forced to marry by her family, I en- couraged her to act as a Christian ; she has kept her word. Not a breath has been uttered against her. This conduct, with my remonstrances, induced the husband to take her back again at the close of winter, since which time she has come regularly to the chapel, for she was too far off before. She has unbosomed her conscience to me, and I admired euch a life in a young woman. "The pagans' make no feast without sacrifices, and we have great trouble to prevent them. The Christians have now changed these customs, and to effect it more easily, I have retained some, suppressing only what is really bad. The feast must open with a speech; they then address God, ask- ing him for health and all they need, as they now give food to men. It has pleased God to preserve all our Christians in health except two children whom they tried to hide, and for whom a medicine-man performed his diabolic rites, but they died soon after my baptizing them. Having invited the Kiskakons to come and winter near the chapel, they left all the other tribes to gather around us so as to be able to pray to God, be instructed, and have their children baptized. They call themselves Christians ; hence, in all councils and important affairs, I address them, and LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. lift when I wish to show them that I really wish what I ask, I need only address them as Christians ; they told me even that they obeyed me for that reason. They have taken the upper hand, and control the three other tribes. It is a great consolation to a missionary to see such pliancy in savages, and thus live in such peace with his Indians, spending the whole day in instructing them in our mysteries, and teaching them the prayers. Neither the rigor of the winter, nor the state of the weather, prevents their coming to the chapel ; many never let a day pass, and I was thus busily employed from morning till night, preparing some for baptism, some for confession, disabusing others of their reveries. The old men told me that the young men had lost their senses, and that I must stop their excesses. I often spoke to them of their daughters, urging them to prevent their being visited at night. I knew almost all that passed in two tribes near us, but though others were spoken of, I never heard anything against the Christian women, and when I spoke to the old men about their daughters, they told me that they prayed to God. I often inculcated this, knowing the importunities to which they are constantly exposed, and the courage they need to resist. They have learned to be modest, and the French who have seen them, perceive how little they resem- ble the others, from whom they are thus distinguished. " One day instructing the old people in my cabin, and speaking of the creation of the world, and various stories from the Old Testament, they told me what they had formerly be- lieved, but now treat as a fable. They have some knowledge of the tower of Babel, saying that their ancestors had related that they had formerly made a great house, but that a violent wind had thrown it down. They now despise all the little gods they had before they were baptized : they often ridicule LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. them, and wonder at their stupidity in sacrificing to these subjects of their fables. "I baptized an adult after along trial. Seeing his assi- duity at prayer, his frankness in recounting his past life, his promises especially with regard to the other sex, and his as- surance of good conduct, I yielded to his entreaty. He has persevered, and since his return from fishing, comes regularly to chapel. After Easter, all the Indians dispersed to seek subsistence ; they promised me that they would not forget the prayer, and earnestly begged that a father should come in the fall when they assemble again. This will be granted, and if it please God to send some father, he will take my place, while I, to execute the orders of our father superior, will go and begin my Ilinois mission. "The Ilinois are thirty days' journey by land from Lapointe by a difficult road ; they lie south-southwest of it. On the way you pass the nation of the Ketchigamins, who live in more than twenty large cabins; they are inland, and seek to have intercourse with the French, from whom they hope to I get axes, knives, and ironware. So much do they fear them ' that they unbound from the stake two Ilinois captives, who said, when about to be burned, that the Frenchman had de- ; clared he wished peace all over the world. You pass then to the Miamiwek, and by great deserts reach the Ilinois, who are assembled chiefly in two towns, containing more than eight or nine thousand souls. These people are well enough disposed to receive Christianity. Since Father Allouez spoke | to them at Lapointe, to adore one God, they have begun to abandon their false worship, for they adored the sun and thunder. Those seen by me are of apparently good disposi- tion ; they are not night-runners like the other Indians. A ; man kills his wife, if he finds her unfaithful; they are less LIFE OF FATHKR MARQUETTE. lv prodigal in sacrifices, and promise me to embrace Christi- anity, and do all I require in their country. In this view, the Ottawas gave me a young man recently come from their country, who initiated me to some extent in their language during the leisure given me in the winter by the Indians at Lapointe. I could scarcely understand it, though there is something of the Algonquin in it ; yet I hope by the help of God's grace to understand, and be understood if God by his goodness leads me to that country. " No one must hope to escape crosses in our missions, and the best means to live happy is not to fear them, but in the enjoyment of little crosses, hope for others still greater. The Ilinois desire us, like Indians, to share their miseries, and suffer all that can be imagined in barbarism. They are lost sheep to be sought amid woods and thorns, especially when they call so piteously to be rescued from the jaws of the wolf. Such really can I call their entreaties to me this win- ter. They have actually gone this spring to notify the old men to come for me in the fall. "The Ilinois always come by land. They sow maize which they have in great plenty ; they have pumpkins as large as those of France, and plenty of roots and fruit. The chase is very abundant in wild-cattle, bears, stags, turkeys, duck, bus- tard, wild-pigeon, and cranes. They leave their towns at certain times every year to go to their hunting-grounds to- gether, so as to be better able to resist, if attacked. They be- lieve that I will spread peace everywhere, if I go, and then only the young will go to hunt. " When the Ilinois come to Lapointe, they pass a large river almost a league wide. It runs north and south, and so far that the Iliuois, who do not know what canoes are, have never yet heard of its mouth ; they only know that there are ] V J LIFE OF FATHEK MAKQUETTE. very great nations below them, some of whom raise two crops of maize a year. East-south-east of the country is a na- tion they call Chawanon, which came to visit them last sum- mer. The young man given me who teaches me the lan- guage saw them ; they wear beads, which shows intercourse with Europeans ; they had come thirty days across land be- fore reaching their country. This great river can hardly empty in Virginia, and we rather believe that its mouth is in California. If the Indians who promise to make me a canoe do not fail to keep their word, we shall go into this river as soon as we can with a Frenchman and this young man given me, who knows some of these languages, and has a readiness for learning others ; we shall visit the nations which inhabit it, in order to open the way to so many of our fathers, who have long awaited this happiness. This discovery will give us a complete knowledge of the southern or western sea. "Six or seven days below the Hois (sic) is another great river (Missouri), on which are prodigious nations, who use wooden canoes ; we can not write more till next year, if God does us the grace to lead us there. The Ilinois are warriors ; they make many slaves whom they sell to the Ottawas for guns, powder, kettles, axes, and knives. They were formerly at war with the Nadouessi, but having made peace some years since, I confirmed it, to facili- tate their coming to Lapointe, where I am going to await them, in order to accompany them to their country. The Nadouessi are the Iroquois of this country beyond La- pointe, but less faithless, and never attack till attacked. They lie southwest of the mission of the Holy Ghost, and are a great nation, though we have not yet visited them, having confined ourselves to the conversion of the Ottawas. They fear the Frenchman, because he brings iron into their coun- LIFE OP FATHER MARQUETTE. Ivii try. Their language is entirely different from the Huron and Algonquin ; they have many towns, but they are widely scat- tered ; they have very extraordinary customs ; they princi- pally adore the calumet ; they do not speak at great feasts, and when a stranger arrives, give him to eat with a wooden fork as we would a child. All the lake tribes make war on them, but with small success ; they have false oats, use little canoes, and keep their word strictly. I sent them a present by an interpreter, to tell them to recognise the Frenchman everywhere, and not kill him or the Indians in his company; that the black-gown wished to pass to the country of the Assinipoiiare, to that of the Kilistinaux ; that he was already at Outagamis, and that I was going this fall to the Ilinois, to whom they should leave a free passage. They agreed ; but as for my present waited till all came from the chase, promising to come to Lapointe in the fall, to hold a council with the Ilinois and speak to me. "Would that all these nations loved Odd, as much as they fear the French ! Christianity would soon flourish. " The Assinipoiiare, whose language is almost that of the Nadouessi, are toward the west from the mission of the Holy Ghost ; some are fifteen or twenty days off on a lake where they have false oats and abundant fishery. I have heard that there is in their country a great river running to the western sea, and an Indian told me that at its mouth he saw Frenchmen, and four large canoes with sails.* 'The Kilistinaux are a nomad people, whose rendezvous we do not yet know. It is northwest of the mission of the Holy Ghost ; they are always in the woods, and live solely by their bow. They passed by the mission where I was last full in two hundred canoes, coming to buy merchandise and * Thia is not the first indication of the Columbia. | v iii LIFE OF FATHEK MAKQUETTE. corn, after which they go to winter in the woods; in the spring I saw them again on the shore of the lake."* Such is the substance of his letter as it has reached us, and shows us the hopes which Marquette entertained of reaching in the fall of that year, the Ilinois mission to which he had been appointed and for which he was now prepared by his knowledge of their language. If the Sioux and Ilinois met him at Lapointe in the fall, nothing was concluded ; and the missionary did not begin his overland journey to the lodges of the Ilinois. It is not, however, probable that the meeting took place ; for early in the winter the Sioux, provoked by the insolence of the Hurons and Ottawas, declared \var, and first sent back to the missionaries the pious pictures which he had sent them as a present. Their war parties now came on in their might, and the Indians of Lapointe trembled before the fierce Dahcotah with his knives of stone stuck in his belt, and in his long, black hair. In the spring both Huron and Ot- tawa resolved to leave so dangerous a neighborhood ; the latter were the first to launch upon the lake, and they soon made their way to Ekaentouton island. Father Marquette, whose missionary efforts had been neutralized by the unset- tled state of his neophytes, and the concentration of their thoughts on the all-engrossing war, was now left alone with the Hurons. With both he had more to suffer than to do ; and now he was at last compelled to leave Lapointe, and turn his back on his beloved Ilinois to accompany his Hurons in their wanderings and hardships. The remnant of a mighty nation resolved once more to commit themselves to the waves and seek a new home : with their faithful missionary they all embarked in their frail canoes, and now for the first time * Rel. 1669-70, Ottawa part LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. Hx turned toward their ancient home. Fain would they have revisited the scenes of Iluixm power, the land of the fur-lined graves of their ancestors ; fain too would the missionary have gone to spend his surviving years on the ground hallowed by the blood of Daniel, Brebeuf, Lalemant, Garnier, and Chaba- nel, but the power of the Iroquois was still too great to justify the step, and the fugitives remembering the rich fisheries of Mackinaw, resolved to return to that pebbly strand. But who, the reader may ask, were the Ilurons with whom the missionary's career seems thus linked, yet who at first were not the special object of his care. It is a tale worthy of an historian. The "Wendats, whom the French called Hurons and the English "Wyandots, are a nation of the same stock as the Iro- quois.* They were one of the first tribes known to the French, to whom they always remained closely united. They were a trading people, and their many fortified towns lay in a very narrow strip on Georgian Bay, a territory smaller than the state of Delaware. Between the west and southwest lay in the mountains the kindred tribe of the industrious Tionon- tates, whose luxuriant fields of tobacco, won them from the early French the name of Petuns, while south of both, from Lake St. Claire to Niagara and even slightly beyond were the allied tribes, which from the connection between their lan- guage and that of the Hurons, were called by the latter Atti- wandaronk, but Neutral by the French, from their standing aloof in the great war waged by the Iroquois against the Hurons and Algonquins. "No sooner had the French founded Quebec than the Fran- ciscan missionaries attempted the conversion of the Hurons. * Champlain (Ed. 1613, p. 288), calls the Hurons les bona Yroquoia, aa dis- tinguished from the other Yroquoia enemies. IX LIFE OF FATHER MARQTJETTE Father Joseph Le Caron, the founder of that mission, win tered among them in 1615, and in subsequent years other recollects did their best to prepare them for the faith. The Jesuits were at last called in by the recollects to aid them, and laboring together in harmony, they looked forward with sanguine hope to the speedy conversion of the Huron s and Neuters, for they, too, were visited, when all their prospects were blasted by the English conquest of Canada, in 1629. On its restoration the French court oifered the Canada mis- sions to the Capucins, but, on their recommendation, commit- ted it to the Jesuits alone. Brebeuf, for the second time, reached Upper Canada, and labored zealously on till the Hu- ron nation was annihilated by the Iroquois. Twenty-one mis- sionaries at different times came to share his toils, and of these eight like himself perished by hostile hands, martyrs to their faith and zeal, a nobler body of heroes than any other part of our country can boast. On the deaths of Brebeuf and Gamier, in 1650, the ruin of the Hurons and Petuns was con- summated. The survivors fled and blended into one tribe, soon divided into two great parties, one composed entirely of Christians, repairing to Quebec to settle on Orleans island, whose descendants are still lingering at Lorette ; the other, part Christians, part pagans, fled at last to Mackinaw, but pursued constantly by the Iroquois, they next settled on some islands at the mouth of Green Bay, where they seem to have been in Menard's time; later still, after roaming to the lodges of the Sioux on the Mississippi, they came to pitch their cabins by the mission cross planted by Allouez, at Chegoime- gon,* and here Marquette had found them. Such is the tale of their wanderings, till the period of our narrative.f * Eel. 1671-72. f Their subsequent wanderings are to Detroit, Sandusfcy, and nt last to Indian territory, where the descendants of Marquette's flock still exist, the smallest but wealthiest band of deported Indians. LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. Ixi Mackinaw, where they now rested, was indeed a bleak spot to begin a new home ; it was a point of land almost encompassed by wind-tossed lakes, icy as Siberian waters. The cold was intense, and cultivation difficult; but the waters teemed with fish, and the very danger and hardships of their capture gave it new zest. Besides this, it was a central point for trade, and so additionally recommended to the Huron, who still, as of old, sought to advance his worldly prospects by commerce. Stationed in this new spot, Father Marquette's first care was to raise a chapel. Rude and unshapely was the first sylvan shrine raised by catholicity at Mackinaw; its sides of logs, its roof of bark had nothing to impress the senses, nothing to win by a dazzling exterior the wayward child of the forest; all was as simple as the faith lie taught. Such was the origin of the mission of St. Ignatius, or Michilimackinac, already in a manner begun the previous year by missionary labors on the island of that name.* The Hurons soon built near the chapel a palisade fort, less stout and skilful indeed than the fortresses found in among their kindred Iroquois by Cartier and Champlain, but in their declining state sufficient for their defence. No details of Marquette's labors during the first year have reached us ; he wrote no letters to recount his wanderings,* but of the second year we are better informed. An unpub- lished manuscript gives us the following letter addressed to Father Dablon : " REV. FATHER : "The Hurons, called Tionnontateronnons or Petun nation, who compose the mission of St. Ignatius at Michilimakinong began last year near the chapel a fort enclosing all their * Rd. 1670-"n, p. 144. j x 'i LIFE OF FATHER MARQT7ETTE. cabins. They have come regularly to prayers, and have lis- tened more readily to the instructions I gave them, consent- ino- to what I required to prevent their disorders and abom- inable customs. We must have patience with untutored minds who know only the devil, who like their ancestors have been his slaves, and who often relapse into the sins in which they were nurtured. God alone can fix these fickle minds, and place and keep them in his grace, and touch their hearts while we stammer at their ears. "The Tionnontateronnons number this year three hundred and eighty souls, and besides sixty Outaouasinagaux have joined them. Some of these came from the mission of St. Francis Xavier, where Father Andre wintered with them last year; they are quite changed from what I saw them at Lapointe ; the zeal and patience of that missionary have gained to the faith those hearts which seemed to us most averse to it. They now wish to be Christians ; they bring their children to the chapel to be baptized, and come regu- larly to prayers. "Having been obliged to go to St. Marie du Sault with Father Allouez last summer, the Hurons came to the chapel during my absence as regularly as if I had been there, the girls singing what prayers they knew. They counted the days of my absence, and constantly asked when I was to be back ; I was absent only fourteen days, and on my arrival all assem- bled at chapel, some coming even from their fields, which are at a very considerable distance. " I went readily to their pumpkin-feast, where I instructed them, and invited them to thank God, who gave them food in plenty, while other tribes that had not yet embraced Christianity, were actually struggling with famine. I ridi- culed dreams, and urged those who had been baptized to ac- LIFE OF FATHER MAEQUETTE. knowledge Him, whose adopted children they were. Those who gave the feast, though still idolaters, spoke in high terms of Christianity, and openly made the sign of the cross before all present Some young men, whom they had tried by ridi- cule to prevent from doing it, persevered, and make the sign of the cross in the greatest assemblies, even when I am not present "An Indian of distinction among the Hurons, having in- vited me to a feast where the chiefs were, called them sev- erally by name and told them that he wished to declare his thoughts, that all might know it, namely, that he was a Christian ; that he renounced the god of dreams and all their lewd dances ; that the black-gown was master of his cabin ; and that for nothing that might happen would he forsake his resolution. Delighted to hear this, I spoke more strongly than I had ever yet done, telling them that my only design was to put them in the way of heaven ; that for this alone I remained among them ; that this obliged me to assist them at the peril of my life. As soon as anything is said in an as- sembly, it is immediately divulged through all the cabins, as I saw in this case by the assiduity of some in coming to prayers, and by the malicious efforts of others to neutralize my instructions. ^ .-vere as the winter is, it does not prevent the Indians from coming to the chapel. Some come twice a day, be the wind or cold what it may. Last fall I began to instruct some to make general confessions of their whole life, and to prepare others who had never confessed since their baptism. I would not have supposed that Indians could have given so exact an account of all that had happened in the course of their life ; but it was seriously done, as some took two weeks to examine themselves. Since then, I have perceived a marked change, ] x jy LIFE OF FATHER MAKQTJETTE. so that they will not go even to ordinary feasts without ask- ing my permission. " I have this year baptized twenty-eight children, one of which had been brought from Ste. Marie du Sault, without having received that sacrament as the Eev. F. Henry Nouvel informed me, to put me on my guard. Without my knowing it, the child fell sick, but God permitted that while instruct- ing in my cabin two important and sensible Indians, one asked me, whether such a sick child was baptized. I went at once, baptized it, and it died the next night. Some of the other children too are dead, and now in heaven. These are the consolations which God sends us, which make us esteem our life more happy as it is more wretched. "This, rev. father, is all I give about this mission, where minds are now more mild, tractable, and better disposed to receive instructions, than in any other part. I am ready, however, to leave it in the hands of another missionary to go on your order to seek new nations toward the south sea who are still unknown to us, and to teach them of our great God whom they have hitherto unknown."* Such was the laborious post to which this talented, yet humble missionary condemned himself, daily subjected to the caprices of some, the insults and petty persecution of others, looking only to another world for the reward of labors which, crowned with the most complete success, would in the eyes of the world seem unimportant ; but " motives are the test of merit," and convinced by the studies of riper years, no less than by the early teachings of a mother, that the baptismal promises were a reality, he sought to open by that sacrament the doors of bliss to the dying infant, or more aged but re- MS. Rel. 1672-"73. LIFE OF FATHEB MARQUETTB. ] X v penting sinner. To liim the salvation of a single soul was more grand and noble than the conquest of an empire, and thus borne up, he labored on. This letter of which the date is not given, nor the closing words, must have been written in the summer of 1672, and transmitted to Quebec by the Ottawa flotilla. The same con- veyance, doubtless, brought him back the assurance that his prayers had been heard, that the government had at last re- solved to act in the matter, and that he was the missionary selected to accompany the expedition. His heart exulted at the prospect, though he foresaw the danger to which he was exposed, a health already shaken by his toils and hardships, a difficult and unknown way, the only nation known the fierce Dahcotah now hostile to the French and their allies, with many another tribe noted in Indian story for -deeds of blood, closed up their path. But this did not alarm him. The hope of a glorious martyrdom while opening the way to future heralds of the cross, buoyed him up, though in his hu- mility he never spoke of martyrdom. To him it was but "a death to cease to offend God." This now engrossed his thoughts, and he waited with anxi- ety the coming of Jolliet, named to undertake the expedition. At last he arrived, and by a happy coincidence on the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the blessed Virgin, " whom," eays the pious missionary, " I had always invoked since my coming to the Ottawa country, in order to obtain of God the favor of being able to visit the nations on the Missisipi river." The winter was spent in the necessary arrangements, regu- lating the affairs of his mission, which he left, it would seem, in the hands of Father Pierson, and in drawing up the maps and statements which Indian narrators could enable them to LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. form. At last, on the 17th of May, 1673, they embarked in two canoes at Mackinaw, and proceeded to Green Bay, whence ascending the Fox river they at last reached the Wisconsin by its portage, and glided down to the Mississippi. We need not here detail this remarkable voyage, the first down the great river, as his whole narrative is contained in the volume. Sufficient to say, that with Jolliet he descended to the Arkansas, and having thus ascertained the situation of the mouth, and the perfect navigability of the river, reas- cended it as far as the mouth of the Ilinois, into which they turned, and by a portage readied Lake Michigan, and in Sep- tember arrived without accident at the mission in Green Bay. In this voyage he twice met the Peoria tribe of the Ilinois, and baptized one dying child at the water's edge, as he left them finally. He also passed the Kaskaskia tribe of the same nation on the upper waters of the Ilinois, and having been already named an Ilinois missionary, he yielded to their earnest entreaties, and promised to return and begin a mis- sion among them.* He had now reached Green Bay, but his health had given way ; he was prostrated by disease, and was not completely restored before the close of the following summer. By the Ottawa flotilla of that year he transmitted to his superior copies of his journal down the Mississippi, and doubtless the map which we now publish. The return of the fleet of canoes brought him, the necessary orders for the es- tablishment of the Ilinois mission ; and as his health was now restored, he set out on the 25th of October, 1674, for Kaskas- kia. The line of travel at that time was to coast along to the mouth of Fox river, then turn up as far as the little bay which nearly intersects the peninsula, where a portage was made to the lake. This was the route now taken by Mar- * See his narrative in this volume. LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. quette with two men to aid him, accompanied by a number of Pottawotamies and Illinois. Reaching the lake, the canoes coasted along slowly, the missionary often proceeding on foot along the beautiful beacli, embarking only at the rivers. He represents the navigation of tlie lake as easy ; " there being," says he, " no portage to make, and the landing easy, provided you do not persist in sailing when the winds and waves are high." The soil except in the prairies was poor, but the chase was abundant, and they were thus well supplied. In spite of all his courage, he was at last unable to proceed; by the 23d of November his malady had returned, and though he continued to advance, exposed to the cold and snows, when he reached Chicago river on the 4th of December, he found the river closed, and himself too much reduced to be able to attempt that winter march by land. There was no alterna- tive but to winter there alone, and accordingly instructing his Indian companions as far as time allowed, they went their w;iy, and he remained with his two men at the portage. Within fifty miles of them were two other Frenchmen, trap- pers and traders, one of whom was a surgeon at least in name, and still nearer an Illinois village. The fonner had prepared a cabin for the missionary, and one came now to visit him, being informed of his ill health ; the Indians who had also heard it, wished to send a party to carry him and all his bag- gage, fearing that he might suffer from want. The good mis- sionary, charmed at their solicitude, sent to reassure them on that head, although he was forced to tell them that if his mal- ady continued, he would find it difficult to visit them even in the spring. Alarmed at this, the sachems of the tribe assembled and deputed three to visit the b!ackgo\vn, bearing three sacks of corn, dried meat and pumpkins, and twelve beaver-skins; LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. first, to make him a mat; second, to ask him for powder; third, to prevent his being hungry; fourth, to get some mer- chandise. "I answered them," says Marquette in his last letter, " first, that I came to instruct them by speaking of the prayer; second, that I would not give them powder, as we endeavor to make peace everywhere, and because I did not wish them to begin a war against the Miamis; third, that we did not fear famine; fourth, that I would encourage the French to bring them merchandise, and that they must make reparation to the traders there for the beads taken from tliem, while the surgeon was with me." The missionary then gave them some axes, knives, and trinkets, in return for their pres- ents, and as a mark of his gratitude for their coming twenty leagues to visit him. Before he dismissed them, he promised to make every effort to reach the village, were it but for a few days. " On this," says he, " they bid me take heart and stay and die in their country, as I had promised to remain a long time," and they returned to their winter-camps. Despairing now of being able to reach his destined goal without the interposition of Heaven, the missionary turned to the patroness of his mission, the blessed Virgin Immaculate, and with his two companions began a novena in her honor. Nor was his trust belied ; God heard his prayer, his illness ceased, and though still weak, he gradually gained strength, and when the opening of the river and the consequent inun- dation compelled them to remove, he again resumed his long interrupted voyage to Kaskaskia, then on the upper waters of the Illinois river. During this painful wintering, which for all his expres- sions of comfort, was one of great hardship and suffering, his hours were chiefly speiit in prayer. Convinced that the term of his existence was drawing rapidly to a close, lie consecrated LIFE OF FATHER MARQUKTTE. this period of quiet to the exercises of a spiritual retreat, in which his soul overflowed with heavenly consolations, as rising above its frail and now tottering tenement, it soared toward that glorious home it was so soon to enter. The journal of his last voyage* comes down to the sixth of April, when the weather arrested his progress; two days after he reached Kaskaskia, where he was received as an angel from heaven. It was now Monday in holy week, and he instantly began his preliminary instructions, assembling for that purpose the chiefs and old men, and going from cabin to cabin where new crowds constantly gathered. When he had thus prepared all to understand his meaning and ob- ject, he convoked a general assembly in the open prairie on Maunday-Thursday, and raising a rustic altar, adorned it with pictures of the blessed Virgin, under whose invocation he had placed his new mission ; he turned to the assembled chiefs and warriors, and the whole tribe seated or standing around, and by ten presents declared the object of his coming, and the nature of the faith he bore, explaining the principal mysteries of religion, and especially the mystery of redemption, the incarnation and death of the Son of God, which the church then commemorated. He then celebrated mass for the first time in his new mission, and during the fol- lowing days renewed his separate instructions. After cele- brating the great festival of Easter, his malady began to ap- pear once more, and he felt that the period granted to his earnest prayers was ended. The sole object to which he had for years directed all the aspirations of his heart was now at- tained. He had actually begun his Illinois mission; he had given them the first rudiments of instruction in public and in private ; he had twice in their midst offered up the adorable * Printed in the appendix of this volume. ] xx LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. sacrifice ; there was no more to be asked on earth ; he was content to die. In hopes of reaching his former mission of Mackinaw to die with his religious brethren around him, fortified by the last rites of the church, he set out escorted to the lake by the Kaskaskias, to whom he promised that he, or some other mis- sionary should soon resume his labors. He seems to have taken the way by the St. Joseph's river, and reached the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, along which he had not yet sailed. His strength now gradually failed, and he was at last so weak that he had to be lifted in and out of his canoe when they landed each night. Calmly and cheerfully he saw the approach of death, for which he pre- pared by assiduous prayer ; his office he regularly recited to the last day of his life ; a meditation on death, which he had long since prepared for this hour, he now made the subject of his thoughts ; and as his kind but simple companions seemed overwhelmed at the prospect of their approaching loss, he blessed some water with the usual ceremonies, gave his companions directions how to act in his last moments, how to arrange his body when dead, and to commit it to the earth, with the ceremonies he prescribed. He now seemed but to seek a grave ; at last perceiving the mouth of a river which still bears his name, he pointed to an eminence as the place of his burial. His companions, Peter Porteret and James , still hoped to reach Mackinaw, but the wind drove them back, and they entered the river by the channel, where it emptied then, for it has since changed. They erected a little bark cabin, and stretched the dying missionary beneath it, as comfortably as their want permitted them. Still a priest, rather than a man/ he thought of his ministry, and, for the last 'time, heard tho LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. IxXl confessions of his companions, and encouraged them to rely with confidence on the protection of God, then sent them to take the repose they so much needed. When he felt his agony approaching he called them, and taking his crucifix from around his neck, he placed it in their hands, and pro- nouncing in a firm voice his profession of faith, thanked the Almighty for the favor of permitting him to die a Jesuit, a missionary and alone. Then he relapsed into silence, inter- rupted only by his pious aspirations, till at last, with the names of Jesus and Mary on his lips, with his eyes raised as if in ecstacy above his crucifix, with his face all radiant with joy, he passed from the scene of his labors to the God who was to be his reward. Obedient to his directions his com- panions, when the first outbursts of grief were over, laid out the body for burial, and to the sound of his little chapel-bell, bore it slowly to the point which lie had pointed out. Here they committed his body to the earth, and raising a cross above it, returned to their now desolate cabin. Such was the edifying and holy death of the illustrious ex- plorer of the Mississippi, on Saturday, the 18th of May, 1675. He was of a cheerful, joyous disposition, playful even in his manner, and universally beloved. His letters show him to us a man of education, close observation, sound sense, strict integrity, a freedom from exaggeration, and yet a vein of humor which here and there breaks out, in spite of all hia self-command. But all these qualities are little compared to his zeal as a missionary, to his sanctity as a man. His holiness drew on him in life the veneration of all around him, and the lapse of years has not even now destroyed it in the descendants of those who knew him.* In one of his sanctity, we naturally 'It led to the romantic tales which have even found their way into sober history. The missionaries in the west now hear the same account as that which Charlevouc believed and inserted. LIFE OF FATHER MARQTTETTE. find an all-absorbing devotion to the mother of the Savior, with its constant attendants, an angelical love of purity, and a close union of the heart with God. It is, indeed, charac- teristic of him. The privilege which the church honors under the title of the Immaculate Conception, was the constant ob- ject of his thoughts; from his earliest youth, he daily recited the little office of the Immaculate Conception, and fasted every Saturday in her honor. As a missionary, a variety of devotions directed to the same end still show his devotions and to her he turned in all his trials. "When he discovered the great river, when he founded his new mission, he gave it the name of the Conception, and no letter, it is said, ever came from his hand that did not contain the words, "Blessed Virgin Immaculate," and the smile that lighted up his dying face, induced his poor companions to believe that she had appeared before the eyes of her devoted client. Like St. Francis Xavier, whom he especially chose as the model of his missionary career, he labored nine years for the moral and social improvement of nations sunk in paganism and vice, and as he was alternately with tribes of varied tongues, found it was necessary to acquire a knowledge of many American languages ; six he certainly spoke with ease ; many more he is known to have understood less perfectly. His death, however, was as he had always desired, more like that of the apostle of the Indies ; there is, indeed, a striking resemblance between their last moments, and the wretched cabin, the desert shore, the few destitute companions, the lonely grave, all harmonize in Michigan and Sancian. He was buried as he had directed on a rising ground near the little river, and a cross raised above his grave showed to all the place of his rest. The Indians soon knew it, and tjrojearsafterjbisdeaih, and almost on the very anniversary LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. his own flock, the Kiskakons, returning from their hunt stopped there, and with Indian ideas, resolved to disinter their father, and bear his revered bones to their mission. At once they did so; the bones were placed in a neat box of bark, and the flotilla now become a funeral convoy, pro- ceeded on its way ; the missionary thus accomplishing in death the voyage which life had not enabled him to terminate. A party of Iroquois joined them, and as they advanced to Mackinaw, other canoes shot out to meet them with the two missionaries of the place, and there upon the waters rose the solemn De Profundis, continued till the body reached the land. It was then borne to the church with cross, and prayer, and tapers burning like his zeal, and incense rising like his aspi- rations to heaven ; in the church a pall had been arranged in the usual form for a coffin, and beneath it was placed the little box of bark, which was next, after a solemn service, deposited in a little vault in the middle of the church, " where," says our chronicler, " he reposes as the guardian- angel of our Ottawa missions." There he still reposes, for I find no trace of any subsequent removal; vague tradition, like that of his death as given by Charlevoix and others, would indeed still place him at the mouth of his river; but it is certain that he was transferred to the church of old Mackinaw, in 1677. This church was, as I judge from a manuscript Relation (1675), erected subsequent to the departure of Marquette from Mackinaw, and probably about 1674. The founding of the post of Detroit drew from Mackinaw the Christian Hurons and Ottawas, and the place became deserted. Despairing of being able to produce any good among the few pagan Indians, and almost as pagan coureurs-de-bois who still lingered there, the missionaries re- solved to abandon the post, and set fire to their church in or LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. about the year 1706. Another was subsequently erected, but this too has long since disappeared.* The history of his narrative and map are almost as curious as that of his body. We have seen that he transmitted copies to his superior, and went to his last mission. Frontenac had promised to send a copy to the government, and in all proba- bility he did. At this moment the publication of the Jesuit Relations ceases ; though not from choice on their part as the manuscript of the year 1672-'T3 prepared for the press by Father Dablon, still exists ; it could not have been from any difficulty on the part of the printer, as the announcement of the expedition to the Mississippi would have given it circula- tion, even though the journal itself were reserved for the next year. To the French government then we must attribute the non-publication of further relations, the more so, as they neg- lected to produce the narrative of Marquette in their posses- sion. The whole might have fallen into perfect oblivion, had not the narrative come into the hands of Thevenot who had just published a collection of travels ; struck with the im- portance of this, he issued a new volume in 1681, called Ke- ceuil de Voyages, in which the journal of Father Marquette as commonly known, appeared with a map of the Mississippi. The narrative is evidently taken from a manuscript like that in my hands, in the writing of which I can see the cause of some of the strange forms which Indian names have assumed. The opening of the narrative was curtailed, and occasional omissions made in the beginning, few at the end. The map is so different from that which still exists in the hand-writing * In La Hontan there is a plan of Mackinaw, -with the site of the church in which Marquette was buried. As to its fidelity, I can not speak ; but with that of Bellin in 1744, showing the sites of the second church at old Mackinaw, and the third one in new Mackinaw, the place of the original one, and of Marquette'a grave, may perhaps be determined. LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. of Father Marquette, that it is not probable that it was taken from it. With greater likelihood we may believe it to be Jolliet's map drawn from recollection, which Frontenac, as his despatch tells us, transmitted to France in 1674. If this be so, it has a new value as an original map, and not a blundering copy. Sparks, in his life of Father Marquette, observes truly of this first-published map of the Mississippi, " It was impossible to construct it, without having seen the principal objects delineated ;" and he adds, "It should be kept in mind that this map was published at Paris, in the year 1681, and consequently the year before the discoveries of La Salle on the Mississippi, and that no intelligence re- specting the country it represents, could have been obtained from any source subsequently to the voyage of Marquette."* Of the narrative itself, he says, " It is written in a terse, simple, and unpretending style. The author relates what oc- curs, and describes what he sees without embellishment or display. He writes as a scholar, and as a man of careful ob- servation and practical sense. There is no tendency to exag- gerate, nor any attempt to magnify the difficulties he had to encounter, or the importance of his discovery. In every point of view, this tract is one of the most interesting of those, which illustrate the early history of America." In spite of all this it was overlooked and nearly forgotten ; all the writers connected with La Salle's expedition except the first edition of Hennepin, published- in 1683, speak of Jolliet's voyage as a fiction. Marquette they never mention ; * The map in Thevenot had an addition of the editor in the words chemin de r116e, and chemin du retour. The latter is incorrect, but it came from his en- deavor to make Father Marquette meet the Peorias on his return. He did not know that the villages went into a body to hunt, and that the two explorers might thus have met them below the Ilinois river, or on it Other errors on the map are easily rectified. The change of the letter gives us Misscousing, Cach- kachkia, De"mon (dea monts), Pewarea, Allini-wek, Ac. ] xxv i LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. but in Le Clei'cq and those whom he cites, in the second Hennepin, in Joutel, in all in fact, except the faithful Tonty, the narrative of Marquette is derided, called a fable, or nar- rative of a pretended voyage ; and one actually goes so far as to say that, sailing up the river with the book in his hand, he could not find a word of truth in it. As a necessary result of these assertions which few examined, most writers in France and elsewhere passed over it, and in works on the Mississippi, no discovery prior to that of La Salle is men- tioned. Even Harris, who cites Marquette by name as descri- bing the calumet, and calls him a man of good sense and fair character, does not give him due credit as the first explorer.* "Indeed the services and narrative would hardly have es- caped from oblivion, had not Charlevoix brought them to light in his great work on Canada, nearly seventy years after the events. r f As to the charges themselves, they are clearly refuted by Frontenac's despatches. Hennepin, in his Description de la Louisiane, (p. 13), and F. Anastasius in Le Clercq (p. 364), admit that Jolliet descended the Mississippi below the mouth of the Missouri. Membre evidently alludes to his work (p. 259). Thus even his maligners admit that he was on the river, and without the despatches, without the force of its pub- lication prior to La Salle's voyage, we need only weigh the respective writers by their works. We find in Marquette simple narrative, in the others, the declamation of partisans, and the disposition to deprive Jolliet and Marquette of the honor of reaching the Mississippi at all, though they are forced to admit it. * Vol ii., p. 351. On the preceding page he has a summary, but just condem- nation of Hennepin and Lahontan. f And .even he misdates the time of its publication. Thevenot's edition, of which Harvard possesses a copy, was issued in 1681, not 1687. LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. Meanwhile one of the copies, after having been prepared for publication by Father Claude Dablon, superior of the mission, with the introductory and supplementary matter in the form in which we now give it, lay unnoticed and un- known in the archives of the Jesuit college at Quebec. It did not even fall into the hands of Father Charlevoix when collecting material for his history, for he seems to have made little research if any into the manuscripts at the college of Quebec. A few years after the publication of his work, Canada fell into the hands of England, and the Jesuits and Recollects, as religious orders, were condemned, the reception of new members being positively forbidden. The members of each order now formed Tontints, the whole property, on the death of the last survivor, to go to the British government, or to the law knows whom, if situated in the United States. The last survivor of the Jesuits, Father Cazot, after behold- ing that venerable institution, the college of Quebec closed for want of professors, and Canada deprived of its only and Northern America of its oldest collegiate seat of learning, felt at last that death would soon close with him the Society of Jesus in Canada. A happy forethought for the historic past induced him to wish to commit to other than to state hands, some objects and documents regarded as relics by the members of his society. Of these he made a selection, un- fortunately too moderate and too rapid, and these papers he deposited in the Hotel Dieu, or hospital at Quebec, an insti- tution destined to remain, as the nuns who directed it had not fallen under the ban of the government. They continued in their hands from shortly before 1800 till 1844, when the faithful guardians of the trust presented them to the Rev. F. Martin, one of the Jesuit fathers who returned in 1842 to the scene of the labors and sacrifices of their society. On the LIFE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. application of Mr. B. F. French to publish the narrative of Marquette in his Historical Collections, and apply the pro- ceeds, and such other sums as might be received, to the erec- tion of a monument to the great discoverer of the Mississippi, the manuscript journal and map were committed to the hands of the writer of these sketches. This narrative is a very small quarto, written in a very clear hand, with occasional corrections, comprising in all, Bixty pages. Of these, thirty-seven contain his voyage down the Mississippi, which is complete except a hiatus of one leaf in the chapter on the calumet; the rest are taken up with the account of his second voyage, death and burials, and the voyage of Father Allouez. The last nine lines on page 60, are in the hand-writing of Father Dablon, and were written as late as 1678. "With it were found the original map in the hand-writing of Father Marquette, as published now for the first time, and a letter begun but never ended by him, addressed to Father Dablon, containing a journal of the voyage on which he died, beginning with the twenty-sixth of October, (1674), and run- ning down to the sixth of April. The endorsements on it, in the same hand as the direction ascribe, the letter to Father Marquette; and a comparison between it, the written parts of the map, and a signature of his found in a parish register at Boucherville, would alone, without any knowledge of its history, establish the authenticity of the map and letter. NOTICE ON THE SIEUR JOLLIET. AFTER so extended a notice on Father Marquette, it would seem unjust to say nothing of his illustrious companion in his great voyage. It would be doubly interesting to give a full account of Jolliet, as he was a native of the country, but un- fortunately our materials are scanty and our notices vague. Neither his birthplace nor its epoch has, as far as the present writer knows, been ascertained. His education he owed to the Jesuit college of Quebec, where, unless I am mistaken, he was a class-mate of the first Canadian who was advanced to the priesthood. Jolliet was thus connected with the Jesuits, and apparently was an assistant in the college. After leaving them, he proceeded to the west to seek his for- tune in the fur-trade. Here he was always on terms of inti- macy with the missionaries, and acquired the knowledge and experience which induced the government to select him as the explorer of the Mississippi. This choice was most agreeable to the missionaries, and he and Marquette immortalized their names. They explored the great river, and settled all doubts as to its course. On his return Jolliet lost all his papers in the rapids above Mon- treal, and could make but a verbal report to the government. This, however, he reduced to writing, and accompanied with a map drawn from recollection. On the transmission of these 1XXX NOTICE ON THE SIETJR JOLLIET. to France, lie, doubtless, expected to be enabled to carry out such plans as he had conceived, and to profit to some extent by his great discovery. But he was thrown aside by more flattered adventurers. The discoverer of Mississippi was re- warded as if in mockery with an island in the gulf of St. Lawrence. This was Anticosti, and here Jolliet built a fort and a dwelling for his family, and houses for trade. They were not, however, destined to be a source of emolument to him. His labors were devoted also to other fields. Thus we find him, in 1689, in the employment of the government, rendering essential services in the west. Two years after his island was taken by the English fleet, and he himself, with his wife and mother-in-law, probably while attempting to reach Quebec, fell into the hands of Phipps, the English commander. His vessel and property were a total loss, but his liberty he recovered when the Eng- lish retired from the walls of Quebec. Of his subsequent history there are but occasional traces, and we know only that he died some years prior to 1737. Authorities: Charlevoir, La Hontan, vol. i., p. 323; ii., p. 10. MS. Journal of the Superior of the Jesuits. BouchctCs Topograph. Die. Canada. Titles : -4- ticosti and Jolliet. RELATION VOYAGES, DISCOVERIES, AND DEATH, or FATHER JAMES MAEQUETTE, AND THE SUBSEQUENT VOYAGES OF FATHER CLAUDIUS ALLOUEZ, BY FATHER CLAUDIUS DAJBLON, SUPERIOR OF TUB MISSIONS OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS, IN NEW FRANCE, PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION IN 1678. NOTICE ON FATHER DABLON. FATHER CLAUDIUS DABLON came to Canada in 1655, and was immediately Bent to Onondaga, where he continued with but one short interval of absence till the mission was broken up in 1658. Three years after, he and the hardy Druilletes attempted to reach Hudson's bay, by the Saguenay, but were arrested at the sources of the Nekouba by Iroquois war-parties. In 1668, he followed Father Marquette to Lake Superior, became superior of the Ottawa mission, founded Sault St. Mary's, visited Green bay, and reached the Wisconsin with Allouez. then returned to Quebec to assume his post as superior of all the Canada mis- sions. This office he held with intervals for many years, certainly till 1693, and he was still alive, but not apparently superior in the following year. As the head of the missions, he contributed in no small degree to their extension, and above all, to the exploration of the Mississippi, by Marquette. He pub- lished the Relations of 1670-'71, and '72, with their accurate map of Lake Superior, and prepared for press those of 1672-73 and 1673-79, which still re- main in manuscript, and the following narratives of Marquette and Allouez. The period of his death is unknown. His writings are the most valuable collection on the topography of the north- west, which have come down to our days. THE VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES OF FATHER JAMES MARQUETTE, IN THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. CHAPTER I. OF THE FIRST VOYAGE MADE BY FATHER MARQUETTE TOWARD NEW MEXICO, AND HOW THE DESIGN WAS CONCEIVED. I lATHER MARQUETTE had long projected this enter- f^ prise, impelled by his ardent desire of extending the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and of making him known and adored by all the nations of that country. He beheld him- self, as it were, at the door of these new nations, when, in 1670, he was laboring at the mission of Lapointe du St. Esprit,* which is at the extremity of the upper Lake of the Ottawas. He even saw at times many of those new tribes, concerning whom he gathered all the information that he could. This induced him to make several efforts to under- take the enterprise, but always in vain ; he had even given * This place is now called simply Lapointe, as the lake is called Superior, retaining only the first word of ita former name, Lac Superieur aux Outaoiiacs. 4: NARRATIVE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. up all hopes of succeeding, when the Almighty presented him the following opportunity : In 1673, the Comte de Frontenac,* our governor and Mr. Talon then our intend ant, knowing the importance of this discovery, either to seek a passage from here to the China sea by the river which empties into the California or Eed sea,f or to verify what was afterward said of the two king- doms of Theguai'o and Quivira, which border on Canada, and where gold mines are, it is said abundant,^: these gentlemen, * Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac, succeeded M. de Courcelles in the gov- ernment of Canada, in 1672. M. Talon, the wise and energetic intendant of the colony, seeing the advantages to be derived to France from the discovery of the Mississippi river, immediately, on the arrival of Comte de Frontenac, laid before him his plan for exploring that river, which was adopted, and the administra- tion of Frontenac is signalized by the first exploration of the Mississippi by Mar- quette and Jollyet, between the Wisconsin and Arkansas, and by the subsequent voyage of La Salle, who continued the survey to the gulf, while his companion, Hennepin, visited the portion between the Wisconsin and St. Anthony's falls. But before the return of La Salle, Comte de Frontenac's term had expired, and he was, in 1682, succeeded by M. Lefebore de la Barre. But he was afterward re-instated governor of Canada in 1689, and died at the age of seventy-seven. He was a brave and ambitious man, and to his wise administration may be attributed the consolidation of French power in North America. F. j- The gulf of California was called by the Spaniards Mar de Cortes, or more commonly Mar Bermejo, from its resemblance in shape and color to the Red sea. Gomara His de las Indias, p. 12. Cluvier Introductio. Venegas His- toria de la California. Clavigero, Storia della California, p. 29. In ignorance of this fact, the French translated Bermejo by Vermeille, and English writers Vermillion. \ Theguaiio, or commonly Tiguex, and sometimes apparently Tejas, and Qui- vira, were two kingdoms as to which the imagination of the Spaniards, and espe- cially of the Mexicans, had become so aroused that Feijoo in his Teatro Critico includes them in the category of fabled lands, St. Brandon's Isle, the Eldorado, and in the prairies of Missouri and Arkan- sas, they pursue them on horseback; but on the upper Mississippi, where they are destitute of horses, they make use of several ingenious stratagems. One of the most common of these, is the method of hunting them with fire. The buffaloes have a great dread of fire, and retire toward the centre of the prairie as they see it approach, then being pressed together in great numbers, the Indians rush in with their arrows and musketry, and slaughter immense numbers in a few DISCOVERIES IN TIIE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 19 call them wild cattle, because they are like our domestic cattle ; they are not longer, but almost as big again, and more corpulent ; our men having killed one, three of us had con- siderable trouble in moving it. The head is very large, the forehead flat and a foot and a half broad between the horns, which are exactly like those of our cattle, except that they are black and much larger. Under the neck there is a kind of large crop hanging down, and on the back a pretty high hump. The whole head, the neck, and part of the shoulders, are covered with a great mane like a horse's ; it is a crest a foot long, which renders them hideous, and falling over their eyes, prevents their seeing before them. The rest of the body is covered with a coarse curly hair like the wool of our sheep, but much stronger and thicker. It falls in summer, and the skin is then as soft as velvet. At this time the Indians employ the skins to make beautiful robes, which they paint of various colors ; the flesh and fat of the Pisikious are excel- lent, and constitute the best dish in banquets. They are very fierce, and not a year passes without their killing some Indian. "When attacked, they take a man with their horns, if they can, lift him up, and then dash him on the ground, trample on him, and kill him. "When you fire at them from a distance with gun or bow, you must throw yourself on the ground as soon as you fire, and hide in the grass ; for, if they perceive the one who fired, they rush on him and attack him. As their feet are large and rather short, they do not hours. Few animals of the American forest contribute more to the comforts of savage life. The skin is dressed to supply them with clothing and blankets, The tallow is an article of commerce. The tongue is a delicate article of food, and the flesh, when dried after their manner, serves them for bread and meat The buffalo is generally found between 31 and 49 north latitude, and west of the Mississippi. South of 31 north latitude, the buffalo is not found ; but its place is supplied in Mexico by the wild-ox, without a hunch, which is considered of European origin. 20 NARRATIVE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. generally go very fast, except when they are irritated. They are scattered over the prairies like herds of cattle. I have seen a band of four hundred. "We advanced constantly, but as we did not know where we were going, having already made more than a hundred leagues without having discovered anything but beasts and birds, we kept well on our guard. Accordingly we make only a little fire on the shore at night to prepare our meal, and after supper keep as far off from it as possible, passing the night in our canoes, which we anchor in the river pretty far from the bank. Even this did not prevent one of us being always as a sentinel for fear of a surprise. Proceeding south and south-southwest, we find ourselves at 41 north ; then at 40 and some minutes, partly by southeast and partly by southwest, after having advanced more than sixty leagues since entering the river, without discovering anything. At last, on the 25th of June, we perceived footprints of men by the water-side, and a beaten path entering a beautiful prairie. "We stopped to examine it, and concluding that it was a path leading to some Indian village, we resolved to go and reconnoitre ; we accordingly left our two canoes in charge of our people, cautioning them strictly to beware of a surprise ; then M. Jollyet and I undertook this rather hazardous dis- covery for two single men, who thus put themselves at the discretion of an unknown and barbarous people. We followed the little path in silence, and having advanced about two leagues, we discovered a village on the banks of the river, and two others on a hill, half a league from the former.* * These villages are laid down on the map on the westerly eide of the Missis- sippi, and the names of two are given, Peouarea and Moingwena, whence it is generally supposed that the river on which they lay, is that now called the Des- moines. The upper part of that river still bears the name Moingonan, while the DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 21 Then, indeed, we recommended ourselves to God, with all our hearts ; and, having implored his help, we passed on un- discovered, and came so near that we even heard the Indians talking. We then deemed it time to announce ourselves, as we did by a cry, which we raised with all -our strength, and then halted without advancing any further. At this cry the Indians rushed out of their cabins, and having probably recognised us as French, especially seeing a black gown,* or at least having no reason to distrust us, seeing we were but two, and had made known our coming, they deputed four old men to come and speak with us. Two carried tobacco-pipes well-adorned, and trimmed with many kinds of feathers. They marched slowly, lifting their pipes toward the sun, as if offering them to him to smoke, but yet without uttering a single word. They were a long time coming the little way from the village to us. Having reached us at last, they stopped to consider us attentively. I now took courage, see- ing these ceremonies, which are used by them only with friends, and still more on seeing them covered with stuffs, which made me judge them to be allies. I, therefore, spoke to them first, and asked them, who they were; "they an- swered that they were Ilinois and, in token of peace, they presented their pipes to smoke. They then invited us to their village where all the tribe awaited us with impatience. These pipes for smoking are called in the country calumets,f a word that is so much in use, that I shall be obliged to employ it in order to be understood, as I shall have to speak of it frequently. latitude of the mouth seems to establish the identity. It must, however, be ad- mitted that the latitude given at that day differs from ours generally from 80' to a degree, as we see in the case of the Wisconsin and Ohio. This would throw Moingwena somewhat higher up. * This is the well-known Indian name for the Jesuit?. f We are probably indebted to Father Marquette for the addition to onr language of this word. 22 NARRATIVE OF FATHER MARQTIETTE. SECTION V. HOW THE ILINOIS RECEIVED THE FATHER IN THEIR VILLAGE. AT the door of the cabin in which we were to be received, was an old man awaiting us in a very remarkable posture ; which is their usual ceremony in receiving strangers. This man was standing, perfectly naked, with his hands stretched out and raised toward the sun, as if he wished to screen him- self from its rays, which nevertheless passed through his fingers to his face. When we came near him, he paid us this compliment : " How beautiful is the sun, O Frenchman, when thou comest to visit us ! All our town awaits thee, and thou shalt enter all our cabins in peace." He then took us into his, where there was a crowd of people, who devoured us with their eyes, but kept a profound silence. "We heard, however, these words occasionally addressed to us : " "Well done, brothers, to visit us !" As soon as we had taken our places, they showed us the usual civility of the country, which is to present the calumet. You must not refuse it, unless you would pass for an enemy, or at least for being impolite. It is, however, enough to pre- tend to smoke. "While all the old men smoked after us to honor us, some came to invite us on behalf of the great sa- chem of all the Ilinois to proceed to his town, where he wished to hold a council with us. We went with a good retinue, for all the people who had never seen a Frenchman among them could not tire looking at us : they threw them- selves on the grass by the wayside, they ran ahead, then turned and walked back to see us again. All this was done without noise, and with marks of a great respect entertained for us. DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 23 Having arrived at the great sachem's town, we espied him at his cabin-door, between two old men, all three standing naked, with their calumet turned to the sun. He harangued ns in few words, to congratulate us on our arrival, and then presented us his calumet and made us smoke ; at the same time we entered his cabin, where we received all their usual greetings. Seeing all assembled and in silence, I spoke to them by four presents which I made : by the first, I said that we marched in peace to visit the nations on the river to the sea : by the second, I declared to them that God their Crea- tor had pity on them, since, after their having been so long ignorant of him, he wished to become known to all nations ; that I was sent on his behalf with this design ; that it was for them to acknowledge and obey him : by the third, that the great chief of the French informed them that he spread peace everywhere, and had overcome the Iroquois. Lastly, by the fourth, we begged them to give us all the information they had of the sea, and of the nations through which we should have to pass to reach it. When I had finished my speech, the sachem rose, and lay- ing his hand on the head of a little slave, whom he was about to give us, spoke thus : " I thank thee, Blackgown, and thee, Frenchman," addressing M. Jollyet, " for taking so much pains to come and visit us ; never has the earth been so beautiful, nor the sun so bright, as to-day ; never has our river been so calm, nor so free from rocks, which your canoes have re- moved as they passed ; never has our tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it to- day. Here is my son, that I give thee, that thou mayst know my heart. I pray thee to take pity on me and all my nation. Thou knowest the Great Spirit who has made us all ; thou speakest to him and nearest his word : ask him to give me 24: NARRATIVE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. life and health, and come and dwell with us, that we may know him." Saying this, he placed the little slave near us and made us a second present, an all-mysterious calumet, which they value more than a slave; by this present he showed us his esteem for our governor, after the account we had given of him; by the third, he begged us, on behalf of his whole nation, not to proceed further, on account of the great dangers to which we exposed ourselves. I replied, that I did not fear death, and that I esteemed no happiness greater than that of losing my life for the glory of Him who made all. But this these poor people could not understand. The council was followed by a great feast which consisted of four courses, which we had to take with all their ways ; the first course was a great wooden dish full of sagamity, that is to say, of Indian meal boiled in water and seasoned with grease. The master of ceremonies, with a spoonful of sa- gamity, presented it three or four times to my mouth, as we would do with a little child ; he did the same to M. Jollyet. For the second course, he brought in a second dish contain- ing three fish ; he took some pains to remove the bones, and having blown upon it to cool it, put it in my mouth, as we would food to a bird ; for the third course, they produced a large dog,* which they had just killed, but learning that we did not eat it, it was withdrawn. Finally, the fourth course was a piece of wild ox, the fattest portions of which were put into our mouths. After this feast we had to visit the whole village, which * The dog among all Indian tribes is more valued and more esteemed than by any people of the civilized world. "When they are killed for a feast, it is considered a great compliment, and the highest mark of friendship. If an Indian sees fit to sacrifice his faithful companion to give to his friend, it is to remind him of the solemnity of his professions. F. DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VAIiET. 25 consists of full three hundred cabins. While we marched through the streets, an orator was constantly haranguing, to oblige all to see us without being troublesome ; we were everywhere presented with belts, garters, and other articles made of the hair of the bear and wild cattle, dyed red, yellow, and gray. These are their rareties ; but not being of conse- quence, we did not burthen ourselves with them. "We slept in the sachem's cabin, and the next day took leave of him, promising to pass back through his town in four moons. He escorted us to our canoes with nearly six hundred persons, who saw us embark, evincing in every possible way the pleasure our visit had given them. On taking leave, I personally promised that I would return the next year to stay with them, and instruct them. But before leaving the Ilinois country, it will be well to relate what I remarked of their customs and manners. SECTION VI. CHARACTER OF THE ILUfOIS. THEIR MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. THEIR ES- TEEM OF THE CALUMET, OR TOBACCO-PIPE, AND THEIR DANCE IN ITS HONOR. To say Ilinois is, in their language, to say "the men," as if other Indians compared to them were mere beasts. And it must be admitted that they have an air of humanity* that * "The ninois," as described by Father Marest in a letter to Father Ger- mon, from the village " of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin, Cas- casquiaa, November 9, 1712," "are much less barbarous than the other Indians. Christianity, and their intercourse with the French, have by degrees somewhat civilized them. This is particularly remarked in our village, of which the inhab- itants are almost all Christians, and has brought many French to establish them- selves here, three of whom we have recently married to Ilinoia women. These Indians are not at all wanting in wit ; they are naturally curious, and are able to use raillery in a very ingenious way. The chase and war are the sole occupa- 26 NAKBATIVE OF FATHER MAKQTJETTE. we had not remarked in the other nations that we had seen on the way. The short stay I made with them did not permit tions of the men, while the rest of the labor falls upon the women and girls. They are the persons who prepare the ground for sowing, do the cooking, pound the corn, build the wigwams, and carry them on their shoulders in their journeys. These wigwams are constructed of mats made of platted reeds, which they have the skill to sew together in such a way that the rain can not penetrate them when thev are new. Besides these things, they occupy themselves in manufac- turing articles from buffaloes' hair, and in making bands, belts, and sacks ; for the buffaloes here are very different from our cattle in Europe. Besides having a large hump on the back by the shoulders, they are also entirely covered with a fine wool, which our Indians manufacture instead of that which they would procure from sheep, if they had them in the country. "The women, thus occupied and depressed by their daily toils, are more do- cile to the truths of the gospel. This, however, is not the case at the lower end of the Missisipi, where the idleness which prevails among persons of that sex gives opportunity for the most fearful disorders, and removes them entirely from the way of safety. " It would be difficult to say what is the religion of our Indians. It consists entirely in some superstitions with which their credulity is amused. As all their knowledge is limited to an acquaintance with brutes, and to the necessities of life, it is to these things also that all their worship is confined. Their medicine- men, who have a little more intellect than the rest, gain their respect by their ability to deceive them. They persuade them that they honor a kind of spirit, to whom they give the name of Manitou, and teach them that it is this spirit which governs all things, and is master of life and of death. A bird, a buffalo, a bear, or rather the plumage of these birds, and the skin of these beasts such is their manitou. They hang it up in their wigwams, and offer to it sacrifices of dogs and other animals. "The braves carry their manitous in a mat, and unceasingly invoke them to obtain the victory over their enemies. Their medicine-men have in like manner recourse to their manitous when they compose their remedies, or when they attempt to cure the diseased. They accompany their invocations with chants, and dances, and frightful contortions, to induce the belief that they are inspired by their manitous ; and at the same time they thus aggravate their diseases, so that they often cause death. During these different contortions, the medicine- man names sometimes one animal, and sometimes another, and at last applies himself to suck that part of the body in which the sick person perceives the pain. After having done so for some time, he suddenly raises himself and throws out to him the tooth of a bear, or of some other animal, which he had kept concealed in his mouth. 'Dear friend,' he cries, 'you will live. See what it was that was killing you!' After which he says, in applauding himself: 'Who can resist my manitou? Is he not the one who is the master of life ?' If the patient happens to die, he immediately has some deceit ready prepared, to ascribe the death to Borne other cause which took place after he had left the sick man. But if, on DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 27 me to acquire all the information I would have desired. The following is what I remarked in their manners. the contrary, he should recover his health, it is then that the medicine-man re- ceives consideration, and is himself regarded as a manitou ; and after having well rewarded his labors, they procure the best that the Tillage produces to regale him. " The influence which these kinds of jugglers have places a great obstacle in the way of the conversion of the Indians. By embracing Christianity, they ex- }H>se themselves to their insults and violence. It is only a month ago that a young Christian girl experienced this treatment Holding a rosary in her hand, she was passing before the wigwam of one of these impostors. He had imagined that the sight of a similar chaplet had caused the death of his father; and be- ing transported with fury, he took his gun, and was on the point of firing nt this poor neophyte, when he was arrested by some Indians who happened to be present " I can not tell you how many times I have received the like insults from them, nor how many times I should have expired under their blows, had it not been for the particular protection of God, who has preserved me from their fury. On one occasion, among others, one of them would have split my head with his hatchet, had I not turned at the very time that his arm was raised to strike me. Thanks to God, our village is now purged from these impostors. The core which we have ourselves taken of the sick, the remedies we have given them, and which have generally produced a cure, have destroyed the credit and reputation of these medicine-men, and forced them to go and establish themselves else- where. "There are, however, some among them who are not so entirely brutal, and with whom we can sometimes talk, and endeavor to disabuse them of the vain confidence they have in their manitous ; but it is not ordinarily with much suc- cess. A conversation which one of our fathers had with one of these medicine- men will enable you to understand the extent of their obstinacy on this point, and also what ought to be the condescension of a missionary in attempting even to refute opinions as extraordinary as those with which they are here met "The French had established a fort on the river Ouabache: they asked for a missionary, and Father Mermet was sent to them. This father thought that he should also labor for the conversion of the Mascoutens, who had formed a settlement on the banks of the same river, a tribe of Indians who understood the Ilinois language, but whose extreme attachment to the superstitions of their medicine-men rendered them exceedingly indisposed to listen to the instructions of the missionary. "The course which Father Mermet took was, to confound in their presence one of their medicine-men, who worshipped the buffalo as his grand manitou. After having insensibly led him to confess that it was not by any means the buf- falo which he worshipped, but a manitou of the buffalo, which is under the earth which animates all the buffaloes, and which gives life to their sick he asked him whether the other beasts, as the bears, for example, which his comrades worshipped, were not equally animated by a manitou which is under the earth. 28 NARRATIVE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. They are divided into several villages, some of which are quite distant from that of which I speak, and which is called 'Certainly,' replied the medicine-man. 'But if this be so,' said the missionary, 'then men ought also to have a manitou which animates them.' 'Nothing can be more certain,' said the medicine-man. 'That is sufficient for me,' replied the missionary, 'to convict you of having but little reason on your side; for if man who is on the earth be the master of all the animals if he kills them, if he eats them then it is necessary that the manitou which animates the men should also be the master of all the other manitous. Where is, then, your wisdom, that you do not invoke him who is the master of all the others?' This reasoning disconcerted the medicine-man, but this was the only effect which it produced, for they were not less attached than before to their ridiculous superstitions. "At that same time a contagious disease desolated their village, and each day carried off many of the Indians : the medicine-men themselves were not spared, and died like the rest The missionary thought that he would be able to win their confidence by his attention to the care of the sick, and therefore applied himself to it without intermission ; but his zeal very often came near costing him his life. The services which he rendered to them were repaid only by outrages. There were even some who proceeded to the extremity of discharging their ar- rows at him, but they fell at his feet; it may be that they were fired by hands which were too feeble, or because God, who destined the missionary for other labors, had wished to withdraw him at that time from their fury. Father Mer- met, however, was not deterred from conferring baptism on some of the Indians, who requested it with importunity, and who died a short time after they had received it "Nevertheless, their medicine-men removed to a short distance from the fort, to make a great sacrifice to their manitou. They killed nearly forty dogs, which they carried on the tops of poles, singing, dancing, and making a thousand ex- travagant gestures. The mortality, however, did not cease, for all their sacri- fices. The chief of the medicine-men then imagined that their manitou, being less powerful than the manitou of the French, was obliged to yield to him. In this persuasion he many times made a circuit around the fort, crying out with all his strength : 'We are dead; softly, manitou of the French, strike softly do not kill us all !' Then, addressing himself to the missionary : ' Cease, good manitou, let us live; you have life and death in your possession: leave death give us life !' The missionary calmed him, and promised to take even more care of the sick than he had hitherto done ; but notwithstanding all the care he could bestow, more than half in the village died. "To return to our Ilinois: they are very different from these Indians, and also from what they formerly were themselves. Christianity, as I have already said, has softened their savage customs, and their manners are now marked by a sweetness and purity which have induced some of the French to take their daughters in marriage. We find in them, moreover, a docility and ardor for the practice of Christian virtues. The following is the order we observe each day in our mission: Early in the morning we assemble the catechumens at the church, where they have prayers, they receive instructions, and chant some can- DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 29 Peouarea. This produces a diversity in their language which in general has a great affinity to the Algonquin, so that we tides. When they hare retired, mass ia said, at which all the Christians assist, the men placed on one Bide and the women on the other ; then they have pray- ers, which are followed by giving them a homily, after which each one goes to his labor. We then spend our time in visiting the sick, to give them the necessary remedies, to instruct them, and to console those who are laboring under any affliction. "After noon the catechising is held, at which all are present, Christians and catechumens, men and children, young and old, and where each, without dis- tinction of rank or age, answers the questions put by the missionary. As these people have no books, and are naturally indolent, they would shortly forget the principles of religion if the remembrance of them was not recalled by these almost continual instructions. Our visits to their wigwams occupy the rest of the day. "In the evening, all assemble again at the church, to listen to the instructions which are given, to say prayers, and to sing some hymns. On Sundays and festivals we add to the ordinary exorcises, instructions which are given after the vespers. The zeal with which these good neophytes repair to the church at all such hours is admirable : they break off from their labors, and run from a great distance, to be there at the appointed time They generally end the day by private meetings which they hold at their own residences, the men separately from the women, and there they recite the rosary in alternate choirs, and chant the hymns, until the night is far advanced. These hymns are their best instructions, which they retain the more easily, since the words are set to airs with which they are acquainted, and which please them. "They often approach the sacraments, and the custom among them is to con- fess and to communicate once in a fortnight We have been obliged to appoint particular days on which they shall confess, or they would not leave us leisure to discharge our other duties. These are the Fridays and Sundays of each week, when we hear them, and on those days we are overwhelmed with a crowd of penitents. The care which we take of the sick gains us their confidence, and it is particularly at such times that we reap the fruits of our labors. Their docility is then perfect, and we have generally the consolation of seeing them die in great peace, and with the firm hope of being shortly united to God in heaven. " This mission owes its establishment to the late Father Gravier. Father Marquette was, in truth, the first who discovered the Missisipi, about thirty-nine years ago ; but, not being acquainted with the language of the country, he did not remain. Some time afterward he made a second journey, with the intention of fixing there his residence, and laboring for the conversion of these people; but deatl), which arrested him on the way, left to another the care of accom- plishing, this enterprise. This was Father Allouez, who charged himself with it He was acquainted with the language of the Oumiamia, which approaches very nearly to that of the Ilinois. lie, however, made but a short sojourn, hay- ing the idea while there that he should be able to accomplish more in a different country, where indeed he ended his apostolic life. 30 NARRATIVE OF FATHER MARQTTETTE. easily understood one another. They are mild and tractable in their disposition, as we experienced in the reception they "Thus Father Gravier is the one who should properly be regarded as the founder of the mission to the Ilinois. He first investigated the principles of their language, and reduced them to grammatical rules, so that we have since only been obliged to bring to perfection what he began with so great success. This missionary had at first much to suffer from their medicine-men, and his life was exposed to continual dangers; but nothing repulsed him, and he surmounted all these obstacles by his patience and mildness. Being obliged to depart to Mich- ilimakinac, his mission was confided to Father Bineteau and Father Pinet In company with these two missionaries I labored for some time, and after their death remained in sole charge of all the toilsome duties of the mission, until the arrival of Father Mermet My residence was formerly in the great village of the Peouarias, where Father Gravier, who had returned thither for the second time, received a wound which caused his death. * "After having remained eight days at the mission of St. Joseph, I embarked with my brother in his canoe, to repair together to Michilimakinac. The voyage was very delightful to me, not only because I had the pleasure of being with a brother, who is very dear, but also because it afforded me an opportunity of profiting for a much longer time by his conversation and example. "It is, as I have said, more than a hundred leagues from the mission of St Joseph to Michilimakinac. We go the whole length of Lake Michigan, which on the maps has the name, without any authority, of ' the lake of the Ilinois,' since the Ilinois do not at all dwell in its neighborhood. The stormy weather delayed us, so that our voyage took seventeen days, though it is often accom- plished in less than eight "Michilimakinac is situated between two great lakes, into which other lakes and many rivers empty. Therefore it is that this village is the ordinary resort of the French, the Indians, and almost all those engaged in the fur-trade of the country. The soil there is far inferior to that among the Ilinois. During the greater part of the year one sees nothing but fish, and the waters which are so agreeable during the summer render a residence there dull and wearisome du- ring the winter. The earth is entirely covered with snow from All-Saints' day even to the month of May. " The character of these Indians partakes of that of the climate under which they live. It is harsh and indocile. Religion among them does not take deep root, as should be desired, and there are but few souls who from time to time give themselves truly to God, and console the missionary for all his pains. For myself, I could not but admire the patience with which my brother endured their failings, his sweetness under the trial of their caprices and their coarseness, his diligence in visiting them, in teaching them, in arousing them from their in- dolence for the exercises of religion, his zeal and his love, capable of inflaming their hearts, if they had been less hard and more tractable ; and I said to myself that 'success is not always the recompense of the toils of apostolic men, nor the measure of their merit* "Having finished all our business during the two months that I remained with DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 31 gave us. They have many wives, of whom they are ex- tremely jealous ; they watch them carefully, and cut off their my brother, it became necessary for us to separate. As it was God who ordered this separation, he knew how to soften all its bitterness. I departed to rejoin Father Chardon, with whom I remained fifteen days. He is a missionary full of real, and who has a rare talent for acquiring languages. He is acquainted with almost all those of the Indians who are on these lakes, and has even learned that of the Ilinois sufficiently to make himself understood, although he has only seen some of those Indians accidentally, when they came to his Tillage ; for the Pouteautarnis and the Ilinois live in terms of friendship, and visit each other from time to time. Their manners, however, are very different : those are brutal and gross, while these, on the contrary, are mild and affable. " After having taken leave of the missionary, we ascended the river St Joseph to where it was necessary to make a portage, about thirty leagues from its mouth. The canoes which are used for navigation in this country are only of bark, and very light, although they carry as much as a large boat When the canoe has carried us for a long time on the water, we in our turn carry it on the land, over to another river ; and it was thus that we did in this place. We first trans- ported all there was in the canoe toward the source of the river of the Ilinois, which they call Haukiki ; then we carried thither our canoe, and after having launched it, we embarked there to continue our route. We were but two days making this portage, which is one and a half leagues in length. The abundant rains which had fallen during this season had swelled our little rivers, and freed us from the current* which we feared. At lost we perceived our own agreea- ble country, the wild buffaloes and herds of stags wandering on the borders of the river ; and those who were in the canoe took some of them from time to time, which served for our food. "At the distance of some leagues from the village of the Peouarias, many of these Indians came to meet me, to form an escort to defend me from hostile par- ties of warriors who might be roaming through the forest; and when I ap- proached the village, they sent forward one of their number to give notice of my arrival. The greater part ascended to the fort, which is situated on a rock on the banks of the river, and, when I entered the village, made a general dis- charge of their guns in sign of rejoicing. Their joy was, indeed, pictured plainly on their countenances, and shone fortli in my presence. I was invited, with the French and the Ilinois chiefs, to a feast which was given to us by the most dis- tirvjrui>hed of the Peouarias. It was there that one of the principal chiefs ad- dressed me in the name of the nation, testifying to me the deep grief they felt at the unworthy manner in which they had treated Father Gravier, and conjured me to forget it, to have pity on them and their children, and to open to them the gate of heaven, which they had closed against themselves. "For myself, I returned thanks to God, from the bottom of my heart, that I thus saw that accomplished which I had desired with the utmost ardor. I an- swered them, in a few words, that I was touched with their repentance ; that I always regarded them as my children ; and that after having made a short ex- cursion to my mission, I should come to fix my residence in the midst of them, 32 NAKKATIVE OF FATHER MARQTJETTE. nose or ears when they do not behave well ; I saw several who bore the marks of their infidelity. They are well-formed, nim- ble, and very adroit in using the bow and arrow ; they use guns also, which they buy of our Indian allies who trade with the French ; they use them especially to terrify their enemies by the noise and smoke, the others lying too far to the west, have never seen them, and do not know their use. They are war- like and formidable to distant nations in the south and west, where they go to carry off slaves, whom they make an article of trade, selling them at a high price to other nations for goods.* The distant nations against whom they go to war, have no knowledge of Europeans ; they are acquainted with neither to aid them by my instructions to return into the way of salvation, from which they had perhaps wandered. At these words the chief uttered a loud cry of joy, and each one with emulation testified his gratitude. During two days that I remained in the village, I said mass in public, and discharged all the duties of a missionary. "It was toward the end of August that I embarked to return to my mission of the Cascasquias, distant a hundred and fifty leagues from the village of the Peouarias. During the first day of our departure, we found a canoe of the Scioux, broken in some places, which had drifted away, and we saw an encamp- ment of their warriors, where we judged by the view there were at least one hundred persons. We were justly alarmed, and on the point of returning to the village we had left> from which we were as yet but ten leagues' distance. "These Scioux are the most cruel of all the Indians, and we should have been lost if we had fallen into their hands. They are great warriors, but it is princi- pally upon the water that they are formidable. They have only small canoes of bark, made in the form of a gondola, and scarcely larger than the body of a man, for they can not hold more than two or three at the most They row on their knees, managing the oar now on one side and now on the other; that is, giving three or four strokes of the oar on the right side, and then as many on the left side, but with so much dexterity and swiftness, that their canoes seem to fly on the water. After having examined all things with attention, we con- cluded that these Indians had struck their intended blow, and were retiring: we, however, kept on our guard, and advanced with great caution, that we might not encounter them. But when we had once gained the Missisipi, we sped on by dint of rowing. At last, on the 10th of September, I arrived at my dear mission, in perfect health, after five months' absence." Kips Jesuit Miss. * It would appear from this remark, that a traffic in Indian slaves was carried on extensively at a very early period, by the aborigines of North America. DISCOVEBIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 33 iron or copper, and have nothing but stone knives. "When the Ilinois set out on a war part}', the whole village is noti- fied by a loud cry made at the door of their huts the mom- ing and evening before they set out. The chiefs are dis- tinguished from the soldiers by their wearing a scarf* inge- niously made of the hair of bears and wild oxen. The face is painted with red lead or ochre, which is found in great quantities a few days' journey from their village.f They live by game, which is abundant in this country, and on Indian corn, of which they always gather a good crop, so that they have never suffered by famine. They also sow beans and melons, which are excellent, especially those with a red seed. Their squashes are not of the best; they dry them in the sun, to eat in the winter and spring. Their cabins are very large ; they are lined and floored with rush-mate. They make all their dishes of wood, and their spoons of the bones of the buffalo, which they cut so well, that it serves them to eat their sagamity easily. They are liberal in their maladies, and believe that the medicines given them operate in proportion to the presents they have made the medicine-man. Their only clothes are * The scarf or belt has always formed a part of the costume of chiefs. Among the tribes of the west it is generally made of long hair braided in figures with shells:, beads, dec. Belts of deer and buffalo skins are also worn. These belt* are worn over the left shoulder, and passed around the waist, ending in a long fringe. In addition to the scarf, they likewise adorn themselves with nrm, knee, and wrist bands ; knee-rattles made of deer-hoofs, and arm themselves with the formidable bow and arrow, war-club, and scalping-knife. F. f The custom of painting their bodies is characteristic of all savage tribes. The native Britons, Germans, and Scandinavians, formerly practised it Tin? savage tribes of North and South America continue the custom to the present day, with a vif-w of rendering themselves more attractive to their friends, or more terrible t> tlivir enemies. The substances usually employed are ochres, clays, native oxydes of iron, and other minerals, the production of their country. When they go to war, they paint themselves red ; when they mourn for their friends or rel- with black ; at other times they cover their face and body with a variety of fantastic colors, which they are very skilful in mixing. F. 3 34 NARRATIVE OF FATHER MARQTJETTE. skins; their women are always dressed very modestly and decently, while the men do not take any pains to cover them- selves. Through what superstition I know not, some Ilinois, as well as some Nadouessi, while yet young, assume the fe- male dress, and keep it all their life. There is some mystery about it, for they never marry, and glory in debasing them- selves to do all that is done by women :* yet they go to war, though allowed to use only a club, and not the bow and ar- row, the peculiar arm of men ; they are present at all the juggleries and solemn dances in honor of the calumet ; they are permitted to sing, but not to dance; they attend the councils, and nothing can be decided without their advice ; finally, by the profession of an extraordinary life, they pass for manitous (that is, for genii), or persons of consequence. It now only remains for me to speak of the calumet, than / A which there is nothing among them more mysterious or more esteemed. Men do not pay to the crowns and sceptres of kings the honor they pay to it : it seems to be the god of peace and war, the arbiter of life and death. Carry it about you and show it, and you can march fearlessly amid enemies, who even in the heat of battle lay down their arms when it is shown. Hence the Ilinois gave me one, to serve as my safe- guard amid all the nations that I had to pass on my voyage. There is a calumet for peace, and one for war, distinguished only by the color of the feathers with which they are adorned, red being the sign of war. They use them also for settling disputes, strengthening alliances, and speaking to strangers. f * Others represent this custom to have been to satisfy that unnatural lust which dishonored all paganism, from the vaunted Trajan to the lowest savage. See Hennepin's account of this custom in his " Voyage en un pays plus grand que 1'Europe entre mer glaciale, et le Nouveau Mexique." f The calumet of peace is adorned with the feathers of the white eagle ; and the bearer of it may go everywhere without fear, because it is held eacred by all tribes. F. DI8COVEBIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 35 It is made of a polished red stone, like marble, so pierced that one end serves to hold the tobacco, while the other is fastened on the stem, which is a stick two feet long, as thick as a common cane, and pierced in the middle ; it is orna- mented with the head and neck of different birds of beautiful plumage ; they also add large feathers of red, green, and other colors, with which it is all covered. They esteem it particularly because they regard it as the calumet of the sun ; and, in fact, they present it to him to smoke when they wish to obtain calm, or rain, or fair weather. They scruple to bathe at the beginning of summer, or to eat new fruits, till they have danced it. They do it thus: The calumet dance* which is very famous among these Indians, is performed only for important matters, sometimes to strengthen a peace or to assemble for some great war ; at other times for a public rejoicing; sometimes they do this honor to a nation who is invited to be present; sometimes they use it to receive some important personage, as if they wished to give him the entertainment of a ball or comedy. In winter the ceremony is performed in a cabin, in summer in the open fields. They select a place, surrounded with trees, so as to be sheltered beneath their foliage against the heat of the sun. In the middle of the space they spread out a large party-colored mat of rushes ; this serves as a carpet, on which to place with honor the god of the one who gives the dance; for every one has his own god, or manitouf as * Besides the calumet dance, these tribes have a great variety of other dances, wholly of their own invention. Twenty-one of these are still in use among the southwestern Indians, to each of which there is a history attached; and many of them, without doubt, have been handed down from generation to generation until their origin is even lost in tradition. F. f Manitou is a word employed to signify the same thing by all Indians from the gulf of Mexico to the arctic regions. In the Indian language it signifies "spirit" They have good and bad manitous, great and small manitous; a mani- tou for every cave, water-fall, or other commanding object in nature, and gene- 36 NARRATIVE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. they call it, which is a snake, a bird, or something of the kind, which they have dreamed in their sleep, and in which they put all their trust for the success of their wars, fishing, and hunts. Near this manitou and at its right, they put the calumet in honor of which the feast is given, making around about it a kind of trophy, spreading there the arms used by the warriors of these tribes, namely, the war-club, bow, hatchet, quiver, and arrows. Things being thus arranged, and the hour for dancing having arrived, those who are to sing take the most honorable place under the foliage. They are the men and the women who have the finest voices, and who accord perfectly. The spectators then come and take their places around under the branches ; but each one on arriving must salute the manitou, which he does by inhaling the smoke and then puffing it from his mouth upon it, as if offering incense. Each one goes first and takes the calumet respectfully, and supporting it with both hands, makes it dance in cadence, suiting him- self to the air of the song ; he makes it go through various figures, sometimes showing it to the whole assembly by turn- ing it from side to side. After this, he who is to begin the dance appears in the midst of the assembly, and goes first ; sometimes he presents it to the sun, as if he wished it to smoke ; sometime he in- rally make offerings at such places. Their bad manitou answers to our devil. All Indians are more or less superstitious, and believe in miraculous transforma- tions, ghosts, and witchcraft. They have jugglers and prophets who predict events, interpret dreams, and perform incantations and mummeries. In the true acceptation of the term, the Indians have a religion, for they believe in a great spirit who resides in the clouds, and reigns throughout the earth. The French missionaries have been the most successful in planting Christianity among them; but in general, they prefer "to follow the religion of their fa- thers." The savage mind, habituated to sloth, is not easily roused into a state of moral activity, and therefore, in general, they are incapable of embracing and understanding the sublime truths and doctrines of the evangelical law. F. DISCOVERIES IK THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 37 clines it to the earth ; and at other times he spreads its wings as if for it to fly ; at other times, he approaches it to the mouths of the spectators for them to smoke, the whole in cadence. This is the first scene of the ballet. The second consists in a combat, to the sound of a kind of drum, which succeeds the songs, or rather joins them, har- monizing quite well. The dancer beckons to some brave to come and take the arms on the mat, and challenges him to fight to the sound of the drums ; the other approaches, takes his bow and arrow, and begins a duel against the dancer who has no defence but the calumet. This spectacle is very pleas- ing, especially as it is always done in time, for one attacks, the other defends ; one strikes, the other parries ; one flies, the other pursues ; then he who fled faces and puts his enemy to flight. This is all done so well with measured steps, and the regular sound of voices and drums, that it might pass for a very pretty opening of a ballet in France. The third scene consists of a speech delivered by the holder of the calumet, for the combat being ended without bloodshed, he relates the battles he was in, the victories he has gained ; he names the nations, the places, the captives he has taken, and as a reward, he who presides at the dance presents him with a beautiful beaver robe, or something else, which he receives, and then he presents the calumet to another, who hands it to a third, and so to all the rest, till all having done their duty, the presiding chief presents the calumet itself to the nation invited to this ceremony in token of the eternal peace which shall reign between the two tribes. The following is one of the songs which they are accus- tomed to sing ; they give it a certain expression, not easily represented by notes, yet in this all its grace consists : "Ninahani, ninahani, ninahani, Naniongo." gg NARRATIVE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. "We take leave of our Ilinois about the end of June, at three o'clock in the afternoon, and embark in sight of all the tribe, who admire our little canoes, having never seen the like. "We descend, following the course of the river, toward an- other called Pekitanoiii,* which empties into the Missisipi, coming from the northwest, of which I have something con- siderable to say, after I have related what I have remarked of this river. Passing by some pretty high rocks which line the river, I perceived a plant which seemed to me very remarkable. Its root is like small turnips linked together by little fibres, which had the taste of cai'rots. From this root springs a leaf as wide as the hand, half of a finger thick with spots in the mid- dle ; from this leaf spring other leaves like the sockets of chandeliers in our saloons. Each leaf bears five or six bell- shaped yellow flowers.f "We found abundance of mulberries, as large as the French, and a small fruit which we took at first for olives, but it had the taste of an orange, and another as large as a hen's egg ; we broke it in half and found two separations, in each of which were encased eight or ten seed shaped like an almond, which are quite good when ripe4 The tree which bears them has, however, a very bad smell, and its leaf resembles that of the walnut. There are also, in the prairies, fruit resembling our filberts, but more tender; the leaves are larger, and spring from a stalk crowned at the top with a head like a sunflower, in which all these nuts are neatly arranged ; they are very good cooked or raw.| * The name here given by Marquette, Pekitanoui, that is, muddy water, pre- vailed till Marest's time, (1712). A branch of Rock river is still called Pekatonica. The Recollects, called the Missouri, the river of the Ozages. f Probably the Cactus opuntia, several species of which grow in the western states. F. t Probably the Diospyros virginiana, or persimon-tree. [ Probably the Castanea pumila, or chincapin. F. DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 39 As we coasted along rocks frightful for their height and length, we saw two monsters painted on one of these rocks, which startled us at first, and on which the boldest Indian dare not gaze long. They are as large as a calf, with horns on the head like a deer, a fearful look, red eyes, bearded like a tiger, the face somewhat like a man's, the body covered with scales, and the tail so long that it twice makes the turn of the body, passing over the head and down between the legs, and ending at last in a fish's tail. Green, red, and a kind of black, are the colors employed. On the whole, these two monsters are so well painted, that we could not believe any Indian to have been the designer, as good painters in France would find it hard to do as well ; besides this, they are so high upon the rock that it is hard to get conveniently at them to paint them. This is pretty nearly the figure of these monsters, as I drew it off.* As we were discoursing of them, sailing gently down a beautiful, still, clear water, we heard the noise of a rapid into which we were about to fall. I have seen nothing more fright- ful; a mass of large trees, entire, with branches, real floating islands, came rushing from the mouth of the river Pekitanoiii, so impetuously, that we could not, without great danger, expose ourselves to pass across. The agitation was so great that the water was all muddy and could not get clear. Pekitanouif is a considerable river which coming from * The drawing of these figures by Marquette is lost "The painted monsters," says Stoddard, " on the side of a high perpendicular roct, apparently inaccessi- ble to man, between the Missouri and Ilinois, and known to moderns by the name of Piesa, still remain in a good degree of preservation." \ Father Marquette had now reached the junction of the Missouri and the Mississippi, in latititude north 38 50'. "The Achelous and Teliboas," says Stoddard, "are insignificant rivers when compared with the Mississippi and Missouri ; yet Thucydides and Xenophon exerted all their powers to render them immortal The two great rivers of the west furnish themes still more pregnant with the sublime and beautiful. The great length of them, the variety of scenery as they roll among mountains, or over extensive plains, at once charm the senses 40 NARRATIVE OF FATHER MARQTJETTE. very far in the northwest, empties into the Missisipi. Many Indian towns are ranged along this river, and I hope, by its means, to make the discovery of the Red, or California sea. "We judged by the direction the Missisipi takes, that if it keeps on the same course it has its mouth in the gulf of Mexico ; it would be very advantageous to find that which leads to the South sea, toward California and this, as I said, I hope to find by Pekitanoiii, following the account which the Indians have given me ; for from them I learn that advancing up this river for five or six days, you come to a beautiful prairie twenty or thirty leagues long, which you must cross to the northwest. It terminates at another little river on which you can embark, it not being difficult to transport canoes over so beautiful a country as that prairie. This second river runs southwest for ten or fifteen leagues, after which it enters a small lake, which is the source of another deep river, running to the west where it empties into the sea.* I have hardly any doubt that this is the Red sea, and I do not despair of one day making the discovery, if God does me this favor and grants me health, in order to be able to publish the gospel to all the nations of this new world who have so long been plunged in heathen darkness. Let us resume our route after having escaped as best we could, the dangerous rapid caused by the obstacle of which I have spoken. and warm the imagination. The facilities they yield to commerce, the superflu- ous wealth of twenty states conveyed to the ocean, the variety of climates, soils, and productions on their borders, the mineral and other subterranean riches of the soil, seem to be designed by Heaven to impress us with their importance and sub- limity." * Marquette was right in his conjecture, as topographical surveys have since determined, that the gulf of California might be reached by the Platte which is one of the tributaries of the Missouri. The head waters of the Platte almost in- terlock with the head waters of the Colorado, which latter river flows into the Red sea, or gulf of California, as here stated by Marquette. F. DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 41 SECTION VII. NEW COUNTRIES DISCOVERED BY THE FATHER. VARIOUS PARTICULARS. MEETING WITH SOME INDIANS. FIRST TIDINGS OF THE SEA AND OF EURO. PEAN8. GREAT DANGER AVOIDED BY THE CALUMET. AFTER Laving made about twenty leagues due south, and a little less to the southeast, we came to a river called Ona- boukigou,* the mouth of which is at 36 north. Before we arrived there, we passed by a place dreaded by the Indians, because they think that there is a manitou there, that is, a demon who devours all who pass, and of this it was, that they had spoken, when they wished to deter us from our enter- prise. The devil is this a small bay, full of rocks, some twenty feet high, where the whole current of the river is whirled ; hurled back against that which follows, and checked by a neighboring island, the mass of water is forced through a narrow channel ; all this is not done without a furious com- bat of the waters tumbling over each other, nor without a great roaring, which strikes terror into Indians who fear everything. It did not prevent our passing and reaching Sab8kig8. This river comes from the country on the east, inhabited by the people called Chaouanons,f in such numbers * The Ohio, or beautiful river, as that Iroquois name signifies. The name given by Marquette, became finally Ouabache, in our spelling Wabnsh, and is now applied to the last tributary of the Ohio. The letter used a few lines lower lown for ou, is the Greek contraction, and was used by the missionaries to ex- j>iv* a peculiar Indian sound, which we have often represented by W. f The Chawanons have become by our substitution of sh, Shawnees. I find the name Chaouanong in the Relation 1671-'72, as another name for the people called Ontouagannha, which is defined in the Relation of 1661-'62, to mean " where they do not know how to speak." This is not then their name, and the name Chaouanong probably came through the western Algonquins, and was usually translated by the French the Chats, or Cat tribe. I am strongly in- clined to think them identical with the tribe called, by the Huron missionaries, while that nation stood, the Erieehonons, or Cats (Rel. 1640-'41). This tribe 42 NARRATIVE OF FATHER MARQUETTE. that they reckon as many as twenty-three villages in one dis- trict, and fifteen in another, lying quite near each other; they are by no means warlike, and are the people the Iro- quois go far to seek in order to wage an unprovoked war upon them ; and, as these poor people can not defend themselves, they allow themselves to be taken and carried off like sheep, and innocent as they are, do not fail to experience, at times, the barbarity of the Iroqnois, who burn them cruelly. A little above this river of which I have just spoken, are cliffs where our men perceived an iron mine, which they deemed very rich ; there are many veins, and a bed a foot thick. Large masses are found combined with pebbles. There is also there a kind of unctuous earth of three colors, purple, violet, and red,* the water in which it is washed be- comes blood-red. There is also a very heavy, red sand ; I put some on a paddle, and it took the color so well, that the then occupied western New York, except a little strip on the Niagara river, where there were three or four villages of Attiwandaronk, or Neuters. Morgan in his League of the Iroquois, indeed, thinks the Neuters to be Cats ; but as the Neuters were incorporated into the Iroquois (Rel. 1655, he resumed his toils, as though returned from a voyage of pleasure, and struggled on another year at the lake. Then joined by Marquette and later by Dablon, he hastened to a new field. He mounted Fox river and laid the foundation of the mission of St Francis Xavier. In 1671, the great council of the French commander, with the Indians, required the presence of the missionaries, and especially of Allouez, at the Sault St Mary's as interpreters. Nouvel was now superior of the western missions, and from him they received a new impulse. Of the three missionary stations now established, the Sault, Mackinaw, and Green Bay, the last was given to Allouez. In 1672, aided by F. Andn's he instructed the Foxes and Fire nation, and again ascended Fox River to Maskoutens to preach to the Maskoutens, Miamis, Kikapooa, and Ilinois, assembled there. As he descended, he threw down a rude, unshapely rock, honored at Kakaling by the adoration of the benighted Indian. The next year he was stationed at St James, or Maskoutens, where he planted the cross as the limit of his discoveries and labors. They were not grateful for his toil, while superstition, and indifference almost neutralized his efforts. With the Fox and Pottawatomi, he-was more successful. In the following years, he was assisted by F. Silvy and F. Bonneault, and met with greater consolations. On the death of Marquette, he was appointed to the Ilinois mission, and we now publish for the first time, the account of his journey. This visit was in 1676. Two years afterward, he repaired to it once more, and remained till the fol- lowing year, when on learning the approach of La Salle, he retired, as that great traveller had conceived a strong prejudice against him, in consequence of some correspondence between him and his fellow missionary on the Seneca country, Father Gamier. La Mothe, La Salle's lieutenant, had even required the Seneca sachems to cause the latter to leave the lodge at a conference be- tween them. Allouez cared not to meet, in anger, La Salle, whom he had doubt- less known in France before, when he was a Jesuit like himself; he therefore re- turned to his missions in Wisconsin to wait till the mind of the gifted but irri- table explorer should recover from its false impressions. Unfortunately it proved the reverse, if some accounts are to be credited ; La Salle implicated him in some efforts made by the western traders to excite the Ilinois against him. To clear Father Allouez of this charge, we need no better proof than the friendly relations, between him and Tonty, than whom there was surely no man more faithful to the interest and honor of La Salle. Allouez went to Ilinois again in 1684, with 70 NAKBATIVE OF FATHER ALLOUEZ. In another visit which I made to the nation of the Outa- gamies (Foxes), I baptized six children almost all at the point of death. I was much consoled to see a marked change in the mind of these people ; God visits them by his scourges to render them more docile to our instructions. After these excursions, the time being proper for departing, I embarked about the close of October, 1676, in a canoe with two men to endeavor to go and winter with the Hinois ; but I had not got far when the ice prevented us, so early had the winter set in. This obliged us to lie to and wait till it was strong enough to bear us ; and it was only in February that we undertook a very extraordinary kind of navigation, for instead of putting the canoe in the water, we put it on the ice, on which a favorable wind carried it along by sails, as if it was was on water. When the wind failed us, instead of paddles, we used ropes to drag it as horses do a carriage. Passing near the Poiiteoutamis, I learned that a young man had been lately killed by the bears. I had previously baptized him at Lapointe du St. Esprit, and was acquainted with his parents ; this obliged me to turn a little off my way to go and console them. They told me that the bears get fat in the fall and re- main so, and even grow fatter during the whole winter, al- though they do not eat as naturalists have remarked. They Durantaye, when he probably remained for some time. He was there in 1687, when the survivors of La Salle's last expedition reached Fort St. Louis, in Hinois, but left for Mackinaw on the arrival of F. Anastasius Douay, and M. Cavelier, in consequence of their false report that La Salle was still alive. Father Allouez, however, still clung to his beloved Jlinois mission, which events had thus strangely disturbed ; and I am inclined to think, from a deed which fell into my hands, that he was at Fort St Louis, in the winter of 1689. If so, it was his last visit A letter dated in August, 1690, details the virtues of the great and holy missionary of the west He had gone to receive the reward of his labors. The authorities for his life are the superior's journal, the Relations from 1663-'64 to 167l-'72; M8. Rel. 1672-'73, 1673-'79, 1678; MSS. of a Jesuit, in 1690; Joutel and Tont/s journals published in Hist. Coll. of Louisiana. DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 71 hide in hollow trees, especially the females, to bring forth their young, or else they lie on fir branches which they tear off on purpose to make a bed on the snow, which they do not leave all winter, unless discovered by the hunters, and their dogs trained to this chase. This young man having discov- ered one hidden in some fir-branches, fired all the arrows of his quiver at him. The bear feeling himself wounded, but not mortally, rose, rushed upon him, clawed off his scalp, and tearing out his bowels, scattered him all in pieces around. I found his mother in deep affliction ; we offered up together prayers for the deceased, and though my presence had at first redoubled her grief, she wiped away her tears, saying for consolation : " Paulinus is dead ; that good Paulinus whom thou didst always come to call to prayer." Then to avenge, as they said, this murder, the relatives and friends of the deceased made war on the bears while they were good that is, during the winter; for in summer they are lean, and so famished, that they eat even toads and snakes. The war was so vigorous, that in a little while they killed more than five hundred, which they shared with us, saying that God had given them into our hands, to make them atone for the death of this young man who had been BO cruelly treated by one of their nation. Twelve leagues from the Pouteaoiiatami town we entered a very deep bay, whence we transported our canoe across the wood to the great lake of the Ilinois [Michigan]. This portage was a league and a half. On the eve of St. Joseph, the pa- tron of all Canada, finding ourselves on the lake, we gave it the name of that great saint, and shall henceforth call it Lake St. Joseph. We accordingly embarked on the 23d of May, and had much to do with the ice, through which we had to break a passage. The water was so cold, that it froze on our oars, and on the side of the canoe which the sun did not reach. 72 NARRATIVE OF FATHER ALLOUEZ. It pleased God to deliver us from the danger we were in on landing, when a gust of wind drove the cakes of ice on one side of our canoe, and the other on the ice which was fast to the shore. Our great trouble was, that the rivers being still frozen, \ve could not enter them till the 3d of April. "We consecrated that which we at last entered in holy week by planting a large cross on the shore, in order that the Indians, who go there in numbers to hunt either in canoes on the lake, or on foot in the woods might remember the instruc- tions we had given them on that mystery, and that the sight of it might excite them to pray. The next day we saw a rock seven or eight feet out of water, and two or three fathoms around, and called it the Pitch rock. In fact, we saw the pitch running down in little drops on the side which was warmed by the sun. We gathered some, and found it good to pitch our canoes, and I even use it to seal my letters.* "We also saw, the same day, another rock, a little smaller, part in and part out of water ; the part washed by the water was of a very bright and clear red. Some days after, we saw a stream running from a hill, the waters of which seemed mineral ; the sand is red, and the Indians said it came from a little lake where they have found pieces of copper. We advanced coasting always along vast prairies that stretched away beyond our sight ; from time to time we saw trees, but so ranged that they seemed planted designedly to form alleys more agreeable to the sight than those of orchards. The foot of these trees is often watered by little streams, where we saw herds of stags and does drinking and feeding quietly on the young grass. "We followed these vast plains * An American mineral, resembling asphaltum. It is of a brown color, in- clining to black, and sometimes BO liquid that it flows in a stream down the rides of this rock. F. DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 73 for twenty leagues, and often said, " Benedicite opera Domini Domino." After making seventy-six leagues on Lake St. Joseph, we at last entered the river which leads to the Ilinois. I here met eighty Indians of the country, by whom I was hand- somely received. The chief advanced about thirty steps to meet me, holding in one hand a firebrand and in the other a feathered calumet. As he drew near, he raised it to my mouth, and himself lit the tobacco, which obliged me to pre- tend to smoke. He then led me into his cabin, and, giving me the most honorable place, addressed me thus : " Father ! take pity on me : let me return with thee, to ac- company thee and lead thee to my village ; my meeting with, thee to-day will be fatal to me, unless I profit by it. Thou bearest to us the. gospel and the prayer : if I lose the occasion of hearing thee, I shall be punished by the loss of my neph- ews, whom thou seest so numerous, but who will assuredly be defeated by the enemy. Embark, then, with us, that I may profit by thy coming into our land." With these words he embarked at the same time as our- selves, and we soon after reached his village. NARRATIVE OF FATHER ALLOUEZ. SECTION II. FATHER ALLOUEZ ARRIVES AT THE ILINO1S TOWN. DESCRIPTION OF IT AND THE COUNTRY. THE FAITH PROCLAIMED TO ALL THESE NATIONS. IN spite of all our efforts to hasten on, it was the 27th of April, before I could reach Kachkachkia, a large Ilinois town. I immediately entered the cabin where Father Mar- quette had lodged, and the sachems with all the people being assembled, I told them the object of my coming among them, namely, to preach to them the true, living, and immortal God, and his only Son, Jesus Christ. They listened very at- tentively to my whole discourse, and thanked me for the trouble I took for their salvation. I found this village much increased since last year. It was before composed of only one nation, the Kachkachkia. There are now eight ; the first having called the others who dwelt in the neighborhood of the Missipi. You could not easily form an idea of the number of Indians who compose this town ; they are lodged in three hundred and fifty-one cabins, easily counted, for they are mostly ranged on the banks of the river. The place which they have selected for their abode is situ- ated at 40 42' ; it has on one side a prairie of vast extent, and on the other an expanse of marsh which makes the air unhealthy, and often loaded with mists ; this causes much sickness and frequent thunder. They, however, like this post, because from it they can easily discover their enemies.* * This and the position assigned to the town of the Kaskaskias (40 42') would bring it near Rockfort, making allowance for the old latitude. When Father Marquette first visited it, he found seventy-four cabins: this was in 1673. The next year it had increased to five or six hundred fires, which, at the rate of four fires to a cabin, gives one hundred to one hundred and fifty cabins, with a population of two thousand men, besides women and children. Father Allouez visiting it now in 1677, is very exact, and gives the number of cabins as three DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 75 These Indians are in character hardy, proud, and valiant. They are at war with eight or nine tribes ; they do not use fire-arms, as they find them too awkward, and too slow; they carry them, however, when they march against nations unacquainted with their use, to terrify them by the noise, and thus rout them. They ordinarily carry only the war- club, bow, and a quiver full of arrows, which they discharge so adroitly and quickly, that men anned with guns, have hardly time to raise them to the shoulder. They also carry a large buckler made of skins of wild cattle ; which is arrow-proof, and covers the whole body. They have many wives, of whom they are extremely jeal- ous, leaving them on the least suspicion. The women usually behave well, and are modestly dressed, though the men are not, having no shame of their nakedness. They live on Indian corn, and other fruits of the earth, which they cultivate on the prairies, like other Indians. They eat fourteen kinds of roots which they find in the prairies ; they made me eat them ; I found them good and very sweet. They gather, on trees or plants, fruits of forty-two different kinds, which are excellent ; they catch twenty-five kinds of fish, including eels. They hunt cattle, deer, turkeys, cats, a hundred and fifty-one. In 1680, the Recollect Father Membr6 estimates the population of the great village at seven or eight thousand, in four or five hundred cabins this did not include the Kaskaskias, whom he seems to place on the Chicago river. Hennepin, at the same time, estimates it at " four hundred and sixty cabins, made like long bowers, covered with double mate of flat rushes, so well sowed as to be impenetrable to wind, snow, and rain. Each cabin has four or five fires, and each fire one or two families." (p. 137.) It would seem, then, that Bancroft rejects too lightly the estimate given by Father Rale, in the Lettres Edifiantes, where he estimates their number at three hundred cabins, each of four or five fires, and two families to a fire. When their decadence began, they disappeared with great rapidity. Charlevoix, in 1721, makes their number then to have been very inconsiderable, although he gives no estimate of the population of the Illinois, who still formed five distinct villages. At present, the remnant of the tribe does not comprise a hundred souls, yet all who remain are Christiana. 76 NARRATIVE OF FATHER ALLOTJEZ. kind of tiger, and other animals, of which they reckon twenty- two kinds, and forty kinds of game and birds. In the lower part of the river there are, I am told, salt springs, from which they make salt ; I can not speak from my own experience. They assure me, too, that there are quarries near their town of slate as fine as ours. I have seen here, as in the Ottawa country, copper, found here as elsewhere, on the banks of the river in lumps. They tell me too, that there are rocks of pitch like that I saw on the banks of Lake St. Joseph. The Indians cut it and find silvery veins, which, when pounded, give a fine red paint. They also find other veins, from which the pitch runs ; when thrown in the fire, it burns like ours. This is all that I could remark in this country, during the short stay I made there. I will now tell what I did for Christianity. As I had but little time to remain, having come only to ac- quire the necessary information for the perfect establishment of a mission, I immediately set to work to give all the instruc- tion I could to these eight different nations, by whom, by the help of God, I made myself sufficiently understood. I would go to the cabin of the chief of the particular tribe that I wished to instruct, and there preparing a little altar with my chapel ornaments, I exposed a crucifix, before which I explained the mysteries of our faith. I could not desire a greater number of auditors, nor a more favorable attention. They brought me their youngest children to be baptized, those older, to be instructed. They repeated themselves all the prayers that I taught them. In a Word, after I had done the Bame in all the eight nations, I had the consolation of seeing Christ acknowledged by so many tribes, who needed only careful cultivation to become good Christians. This we hope to give hereafter, at leisure. DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 77 I laid the foundation of this mission by the baptism of thirty-five children, and a sick adult, who soon after died, with one of the infants, to go and take possession of heaven in the name of the whole nation. And we too, to take possession of these tribes in the name of Jesus Christ, on the 3d of May, the feast of the Holy Cross, erected in the midst of the town a cross twenty-five feet high, chanting the Yexilla Kegis in the presence of a great number of Ilinois of all tribes, of whom I can say, in truth, that they did not take Jesus Christ crucified for a folly, nor for a scandal ; on the contrary, they witnessed the ceremony with great respect, and heard all that I said on the mystery with admiration. The children even went to kiss the cross through devotion, and the old earnestly commended me to place it well so that it could not fall. The time of my departure having come, I took leave of all these tribes, and left them in a great desire of seeing me as Boon as possible, which I more willingly induced them to ex- pect ; as, on the one hand, I have reason to thank God for the little crosses he has afforded me in this voyage, and on the other, I see the harvest all ready and very abundant. The devil will, doubtless, oppose us, and perhaps will, for the purpose, use the war which the Iroquois seek to make on the Dinois. I pray our Lord to avert it, that so fair a beginning be not entirely ruined. " The next year, namely, 1678, Father Allouez set out to return to this mission, and to remain there two years in suc- cession, to labor more solidly for the conversion of these tribes. We have since learned that the Iroquois made an incursion as far as there, but were beaten by the Ilinois. This will go far to enkindle the war between these nations, and do much to injure this mission, if God does not interpose."* * The concluding paragraph of this narrative is in the handwriting of Father Claude Dablon, the superior of the missions at the time. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE "ETABLISSEMENT DE LA F I," BY FATHER CHRISTIAN LE CLERCQ, RECOLLECT. THIS curious and now rare work is the source whence all the following narra- tives, except Hennepin's, are drawn. It was published at Paris, by Aimable Auroy, in 1691, with the following very comprehensive title: "First Establish- ment of the Faith in New France, containing the Publication of the Gospel, the History of the French Colonies, and the famous Discoveries from the Mouth of the St. Lawrence, Louisiana, and the River Colbert, to the Gulf of Mexico, accom- plished under the Direction of the late Monsieur de la Salle, by Order of the King, with the Victories gained in Canada, by the Arms of his Majesty over the English and Iroquois, in 1690. Dedicated to M. de Comte de Frontenac, Gov- ernor and Lieutenant-General of New France, by Father Christian le Clercq, Recollect Missionary of the Province of St Anthony of Padua, in Arthois, and Warden of the Recollects of Lens." Of Father le Clercq, under whose name the work is thus published, we know little beyond what we glean from this work, and from his Relation de Gaspesic. He was a zealous and devout missionary on the wild coast of Gaspe, where he lived in most cordial and friendly relations with the neighboring Jesuit mission- aries, especially with Father Bigot, who speaks of him in the highest terms, as le Clercq did of him and his labors. He was the first novice of the province to which be belonged, and one of the first religious sent by it to Canada, in 1675. After spending five years as missionary at Isle Percee and Gasp6, he returned to Europe, was concerned in the establishment of a church and mission at Montreal, resumed for a time his missionary career, and was subsequently em- ployed as superior in France. His Relation de Gaspesie is a description of his own field and his own labors; the Etablii&ement assumes to be a general history of religion in Canada, and of La Salle's voyages, as tending to the establishment of missions. How far it realizes the promise of the title-page, we shall soon see. Had this work been a mere satirical pamphlet, we could at once understand it, and give it its proper value ; but in this light it can not be regarded ; it con- tains much historical information, especially with respect to La Salle, being the NOTICE ON FATHEB LE CLEKCQ. 79 first printed account of his voyage down the Mississippi, and his last fatal at- tempt A striking feature in the work is its literary skepticism, as to a great mass of early works on Canada, and the similar doubts raised subsequently as to the Etablissement itself. Le Clercq, or the real author, doubts the authen- ticity of the Relation of 1626, ascribed to F. Charles Lalemant The ground of this doubt is completely destroyed by the title of one of the chapters in Sagard's larger work ; the doubt has, however, been raised within the last few years by men of research, though probably from want of a close study of the doubting humor of the author. Having thus thrown a slur on the first Relation, he next brings the whole forty volumes of Relations, from 1632 to 1672, into the same cat gory, because, forsooth, from his high respect for the Jesuits, he can not be- lieve they ever wrote them ; and, finally, Father Marquette's published journal, which is, however, never ascribed to him, is treated as an imposture, and his voyage as pretended, on every possible occasion. This wholesale skepticism almost entitles him to a place with the celebrated Father Hardouin, who believed all the Greek and Latin classics to be forgeries. In a work like this, intended to show the validity of Marquette's claim, we must examine these doubts, and the person who makes them. Joutel, who con- tradicts the Etablissement pointedly in several places, says that it was com- posed on false relations, and thus gives some force to a charge brought in 1697, by the strange Hennepin, who asserts broadly that the Etablissement was pub- lished by Father Valentine le Roux, under the borrowed name of le Clercq ; and he charges that the so-called narrative of Membrd in the work, is really a tran- script of the journal of his great voyage down the Mississippi, a copy of which he had left in le Roux's hands at Quebec. At a still later date, when all had become calm, Charlevoix states it as a common impression that Frontenac him- self had a considerable hand in it When with all this we remember that the first published narrative of Tonty is regarded as spurious, and that Mr. Sparks has irrefragably shown Hennepin's later works to be mere romances and literary thefts; the whole series of works relative to La Salle seems drawn up or moulded to suit some party views, and to unravel the whole, we must examine what parties at the time agitated Canada. We find immediately that the civil and ecclesiastical authorities were then completely at variance, chiefly from two causes: The first was what may be called the brandy war, in which Bishop La- val seeing the injury done to the Indians by the sale of liquor, had pronounced ecclesiastical censures against those who carried on the nefarious traffic : his clergy, and especially the Jesuits, sided with him and his successor entirely on this point, as being better able from daily intercourse to see the ruin of the na- tive tribes by the use of spirituous liquors. But if the ecclesiastical authorities pronounced censures, the civil officers were not slow in taking up most curious modes of revenge ; and ridicule, above all, was brought to play upon their an- tagonists. So far had public opinion become vitiated, that in a memoir drawn up apparently by the intendant Duchesneau with regard to the Indian village of Caughnawaga, the writer addressing the French court, deemed it necessary to defend the Jesuit missionaries against the charge of preventing the erection of any tavern on their lands at Laprairie, in the vicinity of their Indian village! The only defence made is more curious ; it admits the fact, but denies the neces- 80 NOTICE ON FATHER LE CLEECQ. sity of taverns there, as Montreal was full of them. In this brand*- war, the Jesuits being in charge of the missions, were chiefly attacked, and soen after a new charge was made against them personally. 2. Frontenac especially insisted that Indian villages apart would never result in civilizing the natives ; his plan was a complete fusion of the two races, by bringing them into perfect contact. The missionaries convinced that. Indians living among the whites were irrecov- erably lost, adhered pertinaciously to their original system of separate villages and gradual advancement. Frontenac's theory is much upheld by the Etablisse- ment, and many arguments are adduced in favor of this plan which is assumed to be that of the early Recollects ; but he startles us not a little, and somewhat unseats our gravity, when he tells us that it had been carried out with perfect success in the neighboring English and Dutch colonies ; though, unfortunately, he does not tell us what New York or New England half-breed village resulted from the union. But to return to ancient politics. Religion was at that time upheld by pop- ular opinion ; a man in rank or office had to practise his religious duties ; in- deed, he never thought of not doing so. Now these duties in the catholic church are something very positive indeed, and many in Canada found them- selves under ecclesiastical censures for trading in liquor with the Indians, and saw no other alternative but that of renouncing a lucrative traffic, unless, in- deed they could find more lenient confessors. A party now called for the return of the Recollects as earnestly as they had opposed it> when they deemed them too expensive. Le Clercq states this ground of recall without a word of cen- sure ; the Recollects returned, became the fashionable confessors, and were stationed at trading points. In this way they became involved in existing dis- putes, and favored by and favoring Frontenac, found themselves arrayed in a manner against the rest of the clergy. A general charge made about the time seems to have been, that the Jesuits had really made no discoveries, and no progress in converting the natives. With this as a principle, it would not do to allow the discovery of the Mississippi to be ascribed wholly or in part to one of the missionaries of that society; hence a work dedicated to Frontenac must nat- urally be a eulogy of his ideas and his friends, and a well-directed attack on his enemies. It must be, and be expected to be, a party affair. "When then we attack this work, it will be simply as to these matters; in an historical point of view, as faithful to the documents on which it professes to be founded, it has, I believe, never been called in question. It is a well-written history of the Rec- ollect missions and La Salle's voyages, the rest is satire. The work itself consists of three parts: the first in substance an abridgment of Sagard, for the first period of French rule in Canada, down to the capture of Quebec by 1629, contains some new facts derived from manuscripts, and es- pecially from those of the great le Caron, the founder of the Huron missions. The English carried off both the Recollects and the Jesuits whom they had in- vited to aid them ; but as the restoration of Canada was expected, both pre- pared for a speedy return. For some reason, however, the French government determined to send out another missionary body, and offered Canada to the Capuchins, like the Recollects, a branch of the great Franciscan order. The Capuchins, however, declined it, and recommended the Jesuits, who were ac- NOTICE ON FATHEE LE CLESCQ. 81 cordingly sent, and the Recollects excluded. This was their first grief, and the volume before us details their unavailing efforts to return, and the suspicions entertained of opposition, or at least of lukewarmness, on the part of the Jesuits. They are, indeed, exculpated, but the charge is constantly renewed. With this on his heart, le Clercq proceeds to the second part, that of the Jesuit missions: and here he doubts the authenticity of all their Relations, and treats the mis- sions they describe as chimerical. In this pretended account of the progress of Christianity during the period in question, there is no historical order pre- served, no mention is made of the Huron missions, their rise and fall with the nation, and the death of the various missionaries whose last moments are a suf- ficient proof of their sincerity in the accounts which they had given. Of the Algonquin and Montagnais missions, and their almost entire destruction by sick- ness and war, no notice is taken ; and what is said of the Iroquois is so garbled, that it were better unsaid. No missionary ever could have written this part; or, if he did, he must be content to rank below Hennepin. One instance will show the spirit of this por- tion. Speaking of the mission in New-York, in 1655-'68, he mentions the fact that Menard, at Cayuga, baptized four hundred; and adds, "Christianity must have advanced each year by still more happy and multiplied progress, and con- tequently all these people must be converted" Then, as he finds the mass of the Iroquois in 1690, as we find them in 1850, pagans, he concludes that the ac- counts of the missions are false. Now, in the first place, the period of mis- sionary effort in New York embraces only the periods from 1665 to 1658, and from 1667 to 1685; in all, not more than twenty years, with a few visits at in- tervals before and after these dates; in 1690, there was no missionary in New York save Father Milet, who had just been dragged to Oneida as a prisoner taken at Fort Frontenac. And as to baptisms, no fact is more clearly stated in early writers, the Relations, and all others, than this, that the baptisms were chiefly those of dying children and adults. Among the Iroquois there were, indeed, children of Christian Hurons, who could be baptized in health, but only there. Hence the baptisms gave a very slight increase to the number of living neophytes, and in time of epidemics, a very great number might be baptized, and yet the church lose in point of numbers. To begin then by assuming that 400 baptisms gave as many living members, and that ten times as many gave 4,000 is a puerility in one who is not much acquainted with the matter, but a gross deceit in one who is. The second part then is not to be considered as historical ; it notices, indeed, the coming of the Ursuline and Hospital nuns, of the Sulpitians and the bishop; but even for these we must go elsewhere for a clear account The third part stands on a different footing; it is mainly historical, and though marked by the prevailing prejudice, and as we shall show by gross injus- tice to Marquette and Joliet, is, undoubtedly, the best account of La Salle'a voynrro*, nnd, for some parts, the only one we have. It is, too, an account of the rise and progress of the second Recollect missions, in a very brief form, which, with the mass of manuscripts of the time, gives rich materials for Cana- dian history. All that relates to La Salle is given in the present volume, for the first time, we believe, in English. The remaining portion of Le Clercq is, 6 82 NOTICE ON FATHER LE CLERCQ. as the title states, an account of the defeat of the English at Quebec, in 1690, by Frontenac, who had returned the previous year. Compelled by a love of truth to be somewhat severe on both le Clercq and Hennepin, we would by no means seem to reflect generally on the Recollects of Canada. The latter committed his forgeries when cast off by his province, the former was not, I believe, the author of the objectionable parts in the work that bears his name; that two hands were employed in it, will I think, appear to any one who will read it over attentively several times. That all the Rec- ollects should have been at the time under some prejudice is natural, owing to their position, and allowance is made for that, as we must daily make for those who can not judge of an individual without some attack on the church to which he belongs. Fortunately for all, the Recollects were soon relieved from their false position by the settlement of the disputes, and without attempting new Indian missions, labored for the good of the colony with a zeal beyond all praise. Chosen almost always as chaplains to the troops and forts, they were to be found at every French post, and thus became the earliest pastors of some of our western towns. Like the Jesuits, they were a second time excluded from Canada by the English on their conquest in the last century, and the last sur- vivor has long since descended to the grave. A few names, and a church that bears their name, are almost all that recall to the traveller the labors and merits of the children of St. Francis. NARRATIVE OF THE FIRST ATTEMPT BY M. CA VELIER DE LA SALLE TO EXPLORE THE MISSISSIPPI. DRAWN UP FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS OF FATHER ZENOBIUS MEMBRE, A RECOLLECT BY FATHER CHRETIEN LECLERCQ. THE Sieur Robert Cavelier de la Salle, a native of Eouen, of one of the most distinguished families there, a rnan of vast intellect, brought up for literary pursuits,* capable and learned in every branch, especially in mathematics, naturally * La Salle, in early life, resolved to consecrate himself to God in a religions order, and entered the Society of Jesus. After passing ten years, however, teach- ing and studying in their colleges, he left them for what reason is not now known and came to Canada to build up his fortunes, for he had lost his inheritance by the unjust provisions of the French law. His previous seclu- sion from the world had, perhaps, but too well fitted him for conceiving vast projects, but totally disqualified him for their successful conduct; the minute details, the cautious choice of men, the constant superintendence required in a large establishment, were foreign to his character, and we shall, in the result, see in this the cause of all his misfortunes. Like many others, he thought of finding a way to China, and began some enterprise which resulted only in giving the name of Lachine to his trading-post near Montreal. The fur trade was the great means of wealth, and he next conceived the plan of a large trading monopoly on Lake Ontario, to be centred at Fort Frontenac ; from that moment, however, he raised against him all the individual traders in the Indian country, and he was soon aware that this was no speedy road to wealth. His 84 NAKKATIVE OF FATHER MEMBKE. enterprising, prudent, and moral, had been for some years in Canada, and had already, under the administration of De Courcelles and Talon, shown his great abilities for discoveries. M. de Frontenac selected him to command Fort Frontenac, where he was nearly a year, till coming to France in 1675, he obtained of the court the government and property of the lake and its dependencies, on condition of building there a regular stone fort, clearing the ground, and making French and In- dian villages, and of supporting there, at his own expense, a sufficient garrison, and Recollect missionaries. ideas now took a new turn, Joliet had returned to Canada, after exploring the Mississippi with Marquette, far enough to verify the supposition that it emptied into the gulf of Mexico. His accounts of the buffalo country, induced La Salle to believe that a very lucrative trade in their skins and wool might be opened directly between the buffalo plains and France by the Mississippi and gulf, with- out carrying them through Canada To secure this was now his object Joliet, who seems not to have been favored, was rewarded with a grant, not on the river he had explored, but at the other extreme of the French colony, the island of Anti- costi, and La Salle, who had secured Frontenac's favor, obtained a royal patent, such as he desired. It was, however, provided, " that he carry on no trade what- ever with the Indians called Ottawas, and others who bring their beaver-skins and other peltries to Montreal," while to him and his company, the privilege of the trade in buffalo skins was granted. (Vol. i., p. 35.) The private traders who had already visited the Illinois country, considered his including it in his grant as unjustifiable, and both in the west and at Quebec opposed him in every way, monopolies having always been objects of dislike. A variety of circumstances defeated his first plan in the Illinois country, in 1680, and no new discovery having been made by himself or Hennepin, he abandoned his first plan of de- scending the Mississippi in a vessel, and sailing thence to the isles, and resolved to examine the mouth in boats, and acquire such a knowledge of its position as would enable him to reach it direct from France by sea. He accordingly sailed down in 1682, and following the course of Marquette and Joliet, reached their furthest station on the 3d of March, then passing on, explored the river to the gulf, which he reached on the 9th of April, thus crowning the work of the former explorers, and with Hennepin's voyage, tracing its whole course from the falls of St. Anthony to the sea. In pursuance of his plan he returned to France, and attempted to reach it by sea, but missed the mouth, and landing in Texas, perished in an attempt to reach the Illinois country by land. As a great but un- successful merchant, vast and enterprising in his plans, though unfitted by early associations from achieving them, he presents one of the most striking examples of calm and persevering courage amid difficulties and disasters. He rose above every adversity, unshaken and undiscouraged, ever ready to make the worse the DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 85 Monsieur de la Salle returned to Canada and fulfilled these conditions completely ; a fort with four bastions was built at the entrance of the lake on the northern side at the end of a basin, where a considerable fleet of large vessels might be sheltered from the winds. This fort enclosed that built by Monsieur de Frontenac. He also gave us a piece of ground fifteen arpents in front, by twenty deep, the donation being accepted by Monsieur de Frontenac, syndic of our mission. It would be difficult to detail the obstacles he had to en- counter, raised against him daily in the execution of his plans, so that he found less opposition in the savage tribes whom he was always able to bring into his plans. Monsieur de Fron- tenac went up there every year, and care was taken to assem- ble there the chiefs and leading men of the Iroquois nations, great and small ; maintaining by this means alliance and commerce with them, and disposing them to embrace Christi- anity, which was the principal object of the new establish- ment.* My design being to treat of the publication of the faith to that prodigious quantity of nations who are comprised in the dominions of the king, as his majesty has discovered them, we shall continue our subject by those which were made during the rest of the present epoch in all parts of New France. While the reverend father Jesuits among the southern Iro- better fortune. His life by Sparks, is one of the most valuable contributions to the early history of America. * Le Clercq, p. 119. The subsequent pages, down to page 131, relate to the religious affairs of the colony. The only reference to La Salle, is this on p. 127 : " Our reverend fathers having obtained of the king letters-patent for our estab- lishments at Quebec, Isle Percee, and Fort Frontenac, they were registered at the sovereign council of Quebec, and Monsieur de la Salle built, at his own ex- pense, a house on the land he had given us near the fort, in which a chapel was made. A fine church was afterward added, adorned with paintings and necessary vestments also, a regular house and appendages, completed by the exertions of Father Joseph Denis." 86 NABBATTVE OF FATHER MEMBBE. quois on the upper part of the river had the honor of bearing the gospel to the nations bordering on those tribes ; the peace between the two crowns of France and England giving them free access everywhere, without being traversed by the Eng- lish, they announced the faith to the Etchemins, and other In- dian nations that came to trade at Loup river, where the or- dinary post of the mission was ; our missions of St. John's River, Beaubassin, Mizamichis, Nipisiguit, Ristigouche, and Isle Perce"e, were similarly supported we continued to labor for the conversion of the Indians of those vast countries com- prized under the name of Acadia, Cape Breton and the great bay (gulf of St. Lawrence). In the time of M. de Courcelles and Talon, the discoveries were pushed toward the north bay (Hudson's), of which something was known from two or three previous attempts. The sieur de St. Simon was chosen for the expedition, with the reverend father Albanes (Albanel), a Jesuit. By the maps of the country it is easy to see what difficulties had to be surmounted, how much toil and hardship undergone, how many falls and rapids to be passed, and portages made, to reach by land these unknown parts and tribes, as far as Hud- son's bay or strait. M. de Frontenac was in Canada on the return of the party in 1672. This discovery thenceforward enabled them to push the mission much further to the north, and draw some elect from those distant nations to receive the first rudiments of Christianity, until in 1686, the victorious arms of the king, under the guidance of M. de Troye, D'Hi- berville, Ste. Helaine, and a number of brave Canadians, by order of the marquis d'Enonville, then governor-general of the country, conquered those northern parts where, as the French arms are still gloriously maintained, the zeal of the Jesuit fathers is employed in publishing the gospel. DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 87 The nnwearied charity of those illustrious missionaries ad- vanced their labors with much more success during the pres- ent epoch, among the Ottawa nations, seconded by the great zeal of Frontenac's protection, and the ascendant which the wisdom of the governor had acquired over the savages. A magnificent church, furnished with the richest vestments, was built at the mission of St. Mary's of the sault ; that of the bay of the Fetid (Green bay), and Michilimakinak island, were more and more increased by the gathering of Indian tribes. The missions around Lake Conde (Superior) further north, were also increased. This lake alone is one hundred and fifty miles long, sixty wide, and about five hundred in circuit, inhabited by different nations, whence we may form an idea of the la- bors of the missionaries in five or six establishments. Finally, in the last years of M. de Frontenac's first administration, Sieur du Luth, a man of talent and experience opened a way to the missionaries and the gospel in many different nations turning toward the north of that lake, 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. de Frontenac, plant- ing the arms of his majesty in several nations on the right and left, where the missionaries still make every effort to in- troduce Christianity, the only fruit of which indeed consists in the baptism of some dying children, and in rendering adults inexcusable at God's judgment by the gospel preached to them.* * The promise of a general account of discoveries made, and his praise of the Jesuit missionaries in the preceding pages, must excite contempt when we find them a mask for falsehood and concealment Nothing here would lead the reader to suppose that Father Allouez and other missionaries had explored the country around Lake Superior for seven years prior to the coming of Frontenac ; that an accurate map had been published by them, in 1672; that Father Marquette, after many disappointments, at last, with Joliet, descended the Mississippi far enough to be certain an to the sea into which it emptied. Yet the discoveries of Allouez 88 NARRATIVE OF FATHER MEMBRE. I shall hereafter limit myself to publish the great dis- coveries made by order of the king, under the command of M. de Frontenac and the direction of M. de la Salle, as being those which promised the greatest fruits for the establishment of the faith, if in course of time they are resumed and sup- ported as they deserve. The sieur de la Salle having completed the construction of Fort Frontenac, and greatly advanced the establishment of French and Indian settlements, was induced, by the report of many tribes, to believe that great progress could be made by pushing on the discoveries by the lakes into the river Mis- sisipi, which he then supposed to empty into the Red sea (gulf of California).* He made a voyage to France in 167T, and the map are in the Relations which he elsewhere ridicules ; the voyage of Joliet he must have heard of during his residence in Canada, and known as well as Hen- nepin who refers to it in his first work, even if we are to suppose him never to have read the work of his fellow-missionary, or Thevenot's edition of Father Mar- quette's journal. In his eagerness to ascribe no discovery to the Jesuits, he ac- tually sends Dn Luth to Lake Issati before any of the missionaries. Was he there before Hennepin ? * This assertion seems perfectly gratuitous, and is not justified by the letters patent to La Salle. Joliet's return set the matter at rest, and left no doubt as to its emptying into the gulf. In this work, indeed, Marquette is never mentioned, and Joliet's voyage decried, if not denied ; but in the first of the series of works on La Salle, Hennepin's "Description de la Louisane" (Paris, 1684), of which the printing was completed January 5th, 1683, that is but a few^iays after Mem- br6's arrival with the account of La Salle's voyage, the prior voyage of Joliet is admitted, and La Salle's object thus stated : "Toward the end of the year 1678 (1677), the sieur de la Salle came to France to report to M. Colbert the execu- tion of his orders ; he then represented to him that Fort Frontenac gave him great opportunities for making discoveries with our Recollects ; that his princi- pal design in building the fort had been to continue these discoveries in rich, fertile, and temperate countries, where commerce in the skins and wool of the wild cattle, called by the Spaniards Cibola, might establish a great trade, and support powerful colonies; that, however, as it would be difficult to bring these buffalo-hides in canoes, he prayed M. Colbert to grant him a commission to go and discover the mouth of the great river Mechasipi, on which vessels might be built to come to France ; and that, considering the great expense he had un- dergone in building and supporting Fort Frontenac, he would be pleased to grant him an exclusive privilege of trading in buffalo-skins, of which he brought one as a sample, and his request was granted." P. 14. DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 89 and favored by letters from the count de Frontenac, obtained of the court necessary powers to undertake and carry out this great design at his own expense. Furnished with these powers, he arrived in Canada toward the close of September, 1678, with the sieur de Tonty, an Italian gentleman, full of spirit and resolution, who after- ward so courageously and faithfully seconded him in all his designs. He had also with him thirty men pilots, sailors, carpenters, and other mechanics, with all things necessary for his expedition. Some Canadians having joined him, he sent all his party in advance to Fort Frontenac, where Father Gabriel de la Ribourde, and Father Luke Buisset were al- ready, and where Fathers Louis Hennepin, Zenobius Mem- bre, and Melithon Watteau, now repaired. They were all three missionaries of our province of St. Anthony of Padua, in Artois, as well as Father Luke Buisset, his majesty having honored the Kecollects with the care of the spiritual direction of the expedition by express orders addressed to Father Yal- entine le Roux, commissary provincial, and superior of the mission. The sieur de la Salle soon followed them, the Al- mighty preserving him from many perils in that long voyage from Quebec, over falls and rapids to Fort Frontenac, where he arrived at last, much emaciated. Deriving new strength from his great courage, he issued all his orders and sent off his troop in a brigantine for Niagara with Father Louis, on the 18th of November. The navigation, in which they had to encounter many dangers and even disasters crossing the great lake in so ad- vanced a season, prevented their reaching Niagara river be- fore the 5th of December. On the sixth, they entered the river, and the following days, by canoe and land, advanced to the spot where the sieur de la Salle intended to raise a 90 NARRATIVE OF FATHER MEMBRE. fort, and build a bark above Niagara falls, whence the St. Lawrence (Le Fleuve) communicates with Lake Conty (Erie), and Lake Frontenac (Ontario), by the said falls and river, which is, as it were, the strait of communication. A glance at the map will show that this project with that of Fort Frontenac, and the fort he was about to build at Niag- ara, might excite some jealousy among the Iroquois who dwell in the neighborhood of the great lake. The sieur de la Salle, with his usual address, met the principal chiefs of those tribes in conference, and gained them so completely that they not only agreed to it, but even offered to contribute with all their means to the execution of his design. This great con- cert lasted some time. The sieur de la Salle also sent many canoes to trade north and south of the lake among these tribes. Meanwhile, as certain persons traversed with all their might the project of the sieur de la Salle, they insinuated feelings of distrust in the Seneca Iroquois as the fort building at Niagara began to advance, and they succeeded so well that the fort became an object of suspicion, and the works had to be suspended for a time, and he had to be sat- isfied with a house surrounded by palisades. The sieur de la Salle did not fail to give prompt orders ; he made frequent voyages from Fort Frontenac to Niagara, during the winter on the ice, in the spring with vessels loaded with provisions. In all the opposition raised by those envious of him, fortune seemed to side with them against him ; the pilot who directed one of his well-loaded barks, lost it on Lake Frontenac. When the snow began to melt, he sent fifteen of his men to trade on the lake in canoes, as far as the Hinois to prepare him the way, till his barque building at Niagara was completed. It was perfectly ready in the month of Au- gust, 1679. DISCOVEBIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 91 The father commissary had started some time before from Quebec for the fort, to give the orders incumbent on his office, and put in force those expedited in the month of July, by which Father Gabriel was named superior of the new expedition, to be accompanied by Father Louis Hennepin, Zenobius Membr6, and Melithon Watteaux, the latter to re- main at Niagara, and make it his mission, while Father Luke should remain at the fort. The three former accordingly embarked on the 7th of Au- gust, with Monsieur de la Salle and his whole party in the vessel, which had been named the Griffin in honor of the arms of Monsieur de Frontenac. Father Melithon remained at the house at Niagara, with some laborers and clerks. The same day they sailed for Lake Conty, after passing contrary to all expectations the currents of the strait. This was due to the resolution and address of the sieur de la Salle, his men having before his arrival used every means to no purpose. It appeared a kind of marvel, considering the rapidity of the current in the strait, which neither man nor animal, nor any ordinary vessel can resist, much less ascend. The map will show that from this place you sail up Lake Conty (Erie), to Lake Orleans (Huron), which terminates in Lake Dauphin (Michigan) ; these lakes being each a hundred, or a hundred and twenty leagues long, by forty or fifty wide, communicating with one another by easy channels and straits, which offer vessels a convenient and beautiful navigation. All these lakes are full of fish ; the country is most finely situated, the soil temperate, being north and south, bordered by vast prairies, which terminate in hills covered with vines, fruit-trees, groves, and tall woods, all scattered here and there, so that one would think that the ancient Romans, princes and nobles would have made them as many villas. The soil is everywhere equally fertile. 92 NARRATIVE OF FATHER MEMBRE. The sieur de la Salle having entered Lake Conty on the 7th, crossed it in three days, and on the 10th reached the strait (Detroit), by which he entered Lake Orleans. The voyage was interrupted by a storm as violent as could be met in the open sea ; our people lost all hope of escape ; but a vow which they made to St. Anthony, of Padua, the patron of mariners, delivered them by a kind of miracle, so that, after long making head against the wind, the vessel on the 27th reached Missilimakinak, which is north of the strait, by which we go from Lake Orleans to Lake Dauphin. No vessels had yet been seen sailing on the lakes ; yet an enterprise which should have been sustained by all well- meaning persons, for the glory of God, and the service of the king, had produced precisely the opposite feelings and effects, which had been already communicated to the Hurons, the Outaoiiats of the island and the neighboring nations, to make them ill affected. The sieur de la Salle even found here the fifteen men, whom he had sent in the spring, prejudiced against him, and seduced from his service ; a part of his goods wasted, far from having proceeded to the Ilinois to trade according to their orders ; the sieur de Tonty, who was at their head, having in vain made every effort to inspire them with fidelity.* At last he weighed anchor on the 2d of September, and ar- rived pretty safely at the Bay of the Fetid (Green bay), at the entrance of Lake Dauphin, forty leagues from Missili- makinak. Would to God that the sieur de la Salle had con- tinued his route in the vessel. His wisdom could not foresee the misfortunes which awaited him; he deemed proper to send it back by the same route to Niagara, with the furs al- * La Salle's sending them was a violation of his patent See Historical Collec- tions of Louisiana, vol. i, p. 86. DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY- 93 ready bought, in order to pay his creditors. He even left in it a part of his goods and implements, which were not easy to transport. The captain had orders to return with the vessel as soon as possible, and join us in the Ilinois. Meanwhile, on the 18th of September, the sieur de la Salle with our fathers and seventeen men, continued their route in canoes by Lake Dauphin, from the Pouteotatamis to the mouth of the river of the Miamis (St. Joseph's), where they arrived on the first of November. This place had been ap- pointed a rendezvous for twenty Frenchmen, who came by the opposite shore, and also for the sieur de Tonty, who had been sent by the sieur de la Salle to Missilimakinak on another expedition. The sieur de la Salle built a fort there to protect his men and property against any attack of the Indians ; our religious soon had a bark cabin erected to serve as a chapel, where they exercised their ministry for French and Indians until the third of December, when leaving four men in the fort, they went in search of the portage which would bring them to the Seignelay (Ilinois), which descends to the Missisipi. They embarked on this river to the number of thirty or forty, by which after a hundred, or a hundred and twenty leagues sail, they arrived toward the close of December, at the largest Ilinois village, composed of about four or five hundred cabins, each of five or six families. It is the custom of these tribes at harvest-time to put their Indian corn in caches, in order to keep it for summer, when meat easily spoils, and to go and pass the winter in hunting wild cattle and beaver, carrying very little grain. That of our people had run short, so that passing by the Ilinois village, they were obliged, there being no one there, to take some Indian com. as much as they deemed necessary for their subsistence. 94 NARRATIVE OF FATHER MEMBRE. They left it on the 1st of January, 1680, and by the 4th, were thirty leagues lower down amid the Ilinois camp ; they were encamped on both sides of the river, which is very nar- row there, but soon after forms a lake about seven leagues long, and about one wide, called Pimiteoui, meaning in their language that there are plenty of fat beasts there. The sieur de la Salle estimated it at 33 45'. It is remarkable, because the Ilinois river, which for several months in winter is frozen down to it, never is from this place to the mouth, although navigation is at times interrupted by accumulations of floating ice from above. Our people had been assured that the Ilinois had been ex- cited and prejudiced against them. Finding himself then in the midst of their camp, which lay on both sides of the river, at a narrow pass, where the current was hurrying on the canoes faster than they liked, the sieur de la Salle promptly put his men under arms, and ranged his canoes abreast so as to occupy the whole breadth of the river, the canoes nearest the two banks, in which were the sieur de Tonty, and the sieur de la Salle, were not more than half a pistol-shot from the shore. The Ilinois, who had not yet discovered the little flotilla ranged in battle order, were alarmed ; some ran to arms, others fled in incredible confusion. The sieur de la Salle had a calumet of peace, but would not show it, not liking to appear weak before them. As they were soon so near that they could understand each other, they asked our French- men, who they were. They replied that they were French, still keeping their arms ready, and letting the current bear them down in order, because there was no landing place till below the camp. The Indians alarmed and intimidated by this bold conduct (although they were several thousand against a handful), im- DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 95 mediately presented three calumets ; our people at the same time presented theirs, and their terror changing to joy, they conducted our party to their cabins, showed us a thousand civilities, and sent to call back those who had fled. They were told, that we came only to give them a knowledge of the true God, to defend them against their enemies, to bring them arms and other conveniences of life. Besides presents made them, they were paid for the Indian corn taken at their village ; a close alliance was made with them, the rest of the day being spent in feasts and mutual greetings. All the sieur de la Salle's intrepidity and skill were needed to keep the alliance intact, as Monsoela, one of the chiefs of the nation of Maskoutens came that very evening to traverse it. It was known that he was sent by others than those of his nation ; he had even with him some Miamis, and young men bearing kettles, knives, axes, and other goods. He had been chosen for this embassy rather than a Miami chief, to give more plausibility to what he should say, the Ilinois not having been at war with the Maskoutens, as they had with the Mi- amis. He cabaled even the whole night, speaking of the sieur de la Salle as an intriguer, a friend of the Iroquois, coming to the Ilinois only to open the way to their enemies, who were coming on all sides with the French to destroy them ; he made them presents of all that he had brought, and even told them that he came on behalf of several Frenchmen whom he named. This council was held at night, the time chosen by the In- dians to transact secret business. This embassador retired the same night, so that the next day the Ilinois chiefs were found completely changed, cold and distrustful, appearing even to plot against our Frenchmen, who were shaken by the change, but the sieur de la Salle, who had attached one of the chiefs 96 NAKKATTVE OF FATHEK MEMBBE. to him particularly by some present, learned from him the subject of this change. His address soon dispelled all these suspicions, but did not prevent six of his men, already tam- pered with and prejudiced at Michilimakinak, from deserting that very day. The sieur de la Salle not only reassured that nation, but found means in the sequel, to disabuse the Maskoutens and Miamis, and to form an alliance between them and the Ilinois which lasted as long as the sieur de la Salle was in the country. "With this assurance the little army, on the 14th of January, 1680, the floating ice from above having ceased, repaired to a little eminence, a site quite near the Ilinois camp where the Sieur de la Salle immediately set to work to build a fort, which he called Crevecoeur, on account of the many disap- pointments he had experienced, but which never shook his firm resolve. The fort was well advanced, and the little ves- sel already up to the string-piece by the first of March, when he resolved to proceed to Fort Frontenac. There were four or five hundred leagues to go by land, but not finding his brigantine, the Griffin, return, nor those he had sent on to meet her, and foreseeing the disastrous consequences of the probable loss of his vessel, his courage rose above the difficul- ties of so long and painful a journey. As he had chosen Father Louis, and as the latter had of- fered to continue the discovery toward the north, by ascend- ing the Missisipi, the sieur de la Salle reserving to himself its continuation in canoe by descending till he found the sea, Father Louis set out in canoe from Fort Crevecosur on the 29th of February, 1680, with two men well armed and equip- ped, who had besides twelve hundred livres in goods, which make a good passport. The enterprise was great and hardy, DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 97 although it did not equal the great zeal of the intrepid mis- sionary who undertook and continued it with all the firmness, constancy, and edification, which can be desired, amid incon- ceivable toils. Although the discovery had already been pushed four or five hundred leagues into Louisiana,* from Fort Frontenac to Fort Crevecoeur; this great march can be considered only as a prelude and preparation for enterprises still more vast, and an entrance to be made in countries still more advan- tageous. I have hitherto given only a short abridgment of the Kela- tions which Father Zenobius Membr6 gives of the commence- ment of this enterprise. Father Louis, whom we see starting for the upper Missisipi has published a description of the countries which he visited and into which he carried the gospel. I therefore refer my reader to it without repeating it here.f We have then only to describe what is most essential and important in this discovery conducted by the personal labors of the sieur de la Salle, in the subsequent years. * In fact no discovery had been made ; the Ilinois country was visited by traders before Marquette's second voyage to it, and was perfectly known ; Al- louez, too, was there shortly before this, as La Salle himself states. f We prefer to interrupt Le Clercq's narrative here, and insert the account published by Father Louis Hennepin, in 1684. 7 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE WORKS OF FATHER LOUIS HEKtfEPIN, A RECOLLECT OF THE PROVINCE OF ST. ANTHONY, IN ARTOIS. WE have already in the notice on Le Clercq alluded to the uncertainty which hangs around many of the works connected with the history of La Salle. In them, however, it was a question as to authorship, alterations made by pub- lishers, or the influence of party spirit in the original writers ; against Hennepin, however, there is a still heavier charge. A good man may be so blinded by party zeal as to be unjust to others, and be guilty of acts which he would personally shrink from doing, and in this case we must, to attain the truth, realize fully the position of the antagonistic parties at the time. Such is peculiarly the case with Le Clercq, as we have shown, and in judging the work, we have endeavored to go back to his own period. The charge against Hennepin is, that he was vain, conceited, exaggerating, and even mendacious. To weigh so serious an accusation, we shall examine his several volumes, which, however, as will be seen, resolve themselves into two, published at an interval of fourteen years. It is the more necessary to enter into a full discussion of his merits as few works relative to America have been more widely spread than that of Ilennepin. Published originally in French, it appeared subsequently in Dutch, English, Italian, and Spanish, and if I am not mistaken in German ; and in a large class of writers' is quoted with the commendation. It was, however, soon attacked. The editor of Joutel, in 1713, calls it in question; but he was too ignorant of Canadian history to give his charge any weight Severer strictures were passed upon it by Harris, and by Kalm, the celebrated Swedish traveller. Harris says, in vol. ii., p. 350, "As to the accounts of La Hontan, and Father Hennepin, they have been formerly very much admired, yet we are now well satisfied that they are rather ro- mances than relations, and that their authors had their particular schemes so much in view, that they have made no scruple of abusing the confidence of man- kind." In this country, within the last few years a more thorough examination of authorities has consigned Hennepin,* La Hontan, and Lebeau, to that amiable class who seem to tell truth by accident and fiction by inclination. The works of Hennepin are, I. Description de la Louisiane, nouvellement decouverte au su- doiiest de la nouvelle France, par ordre du roy. Avec carte du pays, les moeurs etla manieredevivredessauvages, dedie'e a sa Majeste 1 , par le R. P. Louis Hen- * N. A. Review for January, 1845, Spark's Life of La Salle. 100 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. nepin, Missionare Recollet et Notaire Apostolique, pp. 312, and 107 Paris. Auroy, 1684. Charlevoix takes exception to the title of this work on the ground that he misapplies the name Louisiana, but in fact Illinois, from La Salle's time, was in- cluded under that name. The title is, however, false in the words " newly dis- covered to the southwest of Canada," as no new discovery had been made in that direction, and the whole volume can show nothing in the way of new ex- ploration, beyond what had already been published in Europe, except of so much of the Mississippi as lies between the Wisconsin river and the falls of St. Anthony, which he was the first European to travel. But let us enter on the volume itself, which, apart from any intrinsic faults, possesses considerable value, as being the first published, and by far the fullest account of La Salle's first ex- pedition. Such it pretends to be, and accordingly opens with an account of that adventurer's project of reaching China, his attempt with some Sulpitians, in 1669, and his establishment at Fort Frontenac. Hennepin introduces himself to us, for the first time, on page twelve, as having established a mission at that fort with Father Luke Buisset; then mentions Joliet's voyage down the Missis- sippi as far as the Illinois (Indians), which he represents as the work of La Salle's enemies. Then follow the latter's voyage to France, in 1677, his return the next year with an order for the author to accompany him in his discoveries, and his own voyage to Fort Frontenac, which he details as though it were his first trip to that place. At Fort Frontenac La Salle's expedition begins, and our au- thor relates all that happened with great detail, and a vast profusion of nautical expressions, down to the building of Fort Crevecoeur, and his own departure from it, February 29th, 1680. His journal from this point being given in the present volume, we need not analyze it further than to say, that being sent to explore the Illinois to its mouth, in the Mississippi (p. 184), he reached that point on the 8th of March (192), and after being detained there by floating ice till the 12th, continued his route, traversing and sounding the river. Then follows, not a journal of his voyage, but a geographical description of the upper Mississippi, from the Illinois river to Mille lake and the Sioux country. After this descrip- tion, he resumes his journal and tells us (p. 206), that he was taken by the Indians on the eleventh of April, after having sailed two hundred leagues (p. 218), from the Illinois (Indians). He was taken by them to their villages, relieved by de Luth in July, and returned to Mackinaw by way of the Wisconsin and Green bay. Thence, in the spring, he proceeded to the Seneca country, Fort Fron- tenac and Montreal. His work contains, besides the journal given, only some account of the party he left at Fort Crevecceur, from letters he saw at Quebec, and of La Salle's descent to the gulf from others received by him in France. This is followed by an account of the manners of the savages (p. 107). Taking this volume by itself, the reader is struck by the unclerical character of the writer, his intense vanity and fondness for exaggeration. The manner in which he rises in importance, is truly amusing ; not only does he, to all appear- ance, make himself the superior of the little band of missionaries in La Salle's expedition, but even a kind of joint commander with La Salle himself. Take as a specimen the following passage, which we select the more readily, as it bears on his voyage to the Mississippi. Fort Crevecceur was almost built^ the Dauphin had THE WORKS OF FATHER HENNEPIN. 101 Mnt no tidings of her voyage, the men were discontented and mutinous, all was dark and gloomy around the exploring party in Illinois. " We must remark," says Hennepin, "that the winter in the Ilinois country is not longer than that in Provence; but, in 1679, the snow lasted more than twenty days, to the great astonishment of the Indians who had never seen so severe a winter, so that the rieur de la Salle and I beheld ourselves exposed to new hardships that will ap- pear incredible to those who have no experience of great voyages and new discoveries. Fort Crevecceur was almost completed, the wood was all prepared to finish the bark, but we had not cordage, nor sails, nor iron enough ; we re- ceived no tidings of the bark we had left on Lake Dauphin, nor of those sent to find what had become of her; meanwhile the sienr de la Salle saw that summer was coming on, and that, if he waited some months in vain, our enterprise would be retarded one year, and perhaps two or three, because being so far from Can- ada, he could not regulate affairs, nor have the necessary articles forwarded. In this extremity we both took a resolution as extraordinary as it was difficult to execute, I to go with two men in unknown countries where we are every mo- ment in great danger of death, and he on foot to Fort Frontenac more than five hundred leagues distant We were then at the close of winter, which had been, as we have said, as severe in America as in France; the ground was still cov- ered with snow, which was neither melted nor able to bear a man in snowshoes. He had to carry the usual equipment in such cases, that is, a blanket, pot, axe, gun, powder, and lead, with dressed skins to make Indian shoes, which last only a day, French shoes being of no use in the western countries. Besides, he had to resolve to pierce through thickets, march through marshes and melting snow, sometimes waist high, for whole days, at times with nothing to eat, because he and his three companions could not carry provisions, being compelled to rely for subsistence on what they killed with their guns, and to expect to drink only the water they found on the way. Finally he was exposed every day, and especially every night, to be surprised by four or five nations at war with each other, with this difference that the nations through which he had to pass all know the French, wliile those where I was going had never seen Europeans. Yet all these difficulties did not astound him any more than myself; our only difficulty was to find some of our men stout enough to accompany us and prevent the rest already much shaken from deserting on our departure." This is a remarkable passage, and has struck almost every writer on La Salle as their accounts often seem inspired by this graphic sketch of Hennepin. It is more than we said at first : Hennepin is here even greater than La Salle in the resolution he took at this trying crisis. After this we expect to see the two commanders depart on their dangerous expeditions, we run over the succeeding pages, the highflown language cools down, and we come to some details of La Salle's appointment of Tonty to command, which, are followed by these matter-of-fact words, com- pletely destroying the delusion created by the preceding passage. 44 He begged me to take the trouble to go and discover in advance the route he would have to take as far as the river Colbert on his return from Canada, but as I had an abscess in my mouth which had suppurated constantly for a year and a half, 1 should my repugnance, and told him that I needed to go back to Canada to have medical treatment. He replied, that if I refused this voyage, 102 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. he would write to my superiors that I would be the cause of the failure of our new missions; the reverend father Gabriel de la Ribourde, who had been my novice master, begged me to go, telling me, that if I died of that infirmity, God would one day be glorified by my apostolic labors. 'True, my son,' said that venerable old man, whose head was whitened with more than forty years' austere penance, 'you will have many monsters to overcome, and precipices to pass, in this enterprise which requires the strength of the most robust; you do not know a word of the language of these tribes whom you are going to endeavor to gain to God, but take courage, you will gain as many victories as you have combats.' Considering that this father had at his age been ready to come to my aid in the second year of our new discoveries, with the view of announcing Christ to un- known tribes, and that this old man was the only male descendant and heir of his father's house, for he was a Burgundian of rank, I offered to make the voyage and endeavor to make the acquaintance of the tribes among whom I hoped soon to establish myself, and preach the faith. The sieur de la Salle showed me his satisfaction, gave me a calumet of peace, and a canoe with two men, one of whom was called the Picard du Gay, who is now at Paris, and the other, Michael Ako ; the latter he intrusted with some merchandise fit to make presents, and worth ten or twelve thousand livres; and to myself he gave ten knives, twelve awls, a little roll of tobacco to give to the Indians, about two pounds of white and black beads, a little package of needles, declaring that he would have given me more, if he could. In fact, he is quite liberal to his friends. Having received the blessing of the reverend father Gabriel, and taken leave of the sieur de la Salle, and embraced all the party who came down to see us off, Father Gabriel concluding his adieu with the words, ' Viriliter age et confortetur cor tuum,' we set out from Fort Cr^vecoeur on the 29th of February," to the 12th of March, 1680, till which day he was detained by the floating ice, but here a new scene breaks on the startled reader: Hennepin tells us, that he actually went down the Mississippi to the gulf, but had not published the fact to avoid the hostility of LaSalle. Amazed at so unexpected a revelation, we read on carefully, but find that he waited till the twelfth, yet started on the eighth, being consequently in two places at once, each monaent during those four days ; thus aided, he reached the mouth of the Mississippi by the twenth-fifth, or at most, twenty-sixth of March, after cele- brating, on the 23d of March, the festival of Easier which, unfortunately for his accuracy, fell that year on the 21st of April, as he himself knew, for in his former work (p. 242), he states that he reached the Issati village about Easter, which, in his loose style, means some days after it But to return to his voyage down, achieved in thirteen, or at most, eighteen days; lie planted a cross and wished to wait a few days to make observations, but his men refused, and he was compelled to embark again. They did wait* however, some days it seems, for he started only on the first of April ; by the twenty -fourth, he had reached and left the Arkansas, as he tells us in two different places (pp. 129, 137), and ascending toward the Illinois, advanced only by night for fear of a surprise by the French of Fort Crevecceur. By the twelfth of the same month of April, being twelve days before he reached the Arkansas, he was taken by the Sioux a hundred and fifty leagues above the mouth of the Illinois, making all that dis- tance from the gulf in eleven days, and the distance from the Arkansas, in con- siderably less than no time at all. From this point, it continues with but occasional variations, as in the De- scription de la Louisiane, except that de Luth appears more frequently down to their ascending the Wisconsin. The second part, or second volume, contains an account of La Salle's last voyage, in which Father Anastasius is frequently cited ; the subsequent part, from page 49 to 151, treats of the manners, and customs of the Indians, and their conversion, and then follows an account of the capture of Quebec, in 1628, by the English, and of the early Recollect missions. Two things in this volume at once meet us, the horrible confusion of dates, and the utter impossibility of performing the voyages in the times given. These objections were made at the time, but were stoutly met by Hennepin, al- though the former seems not to have been much attended to by him. He gives us, however, a dissertation on the variation of the needle, and the difference of time in Europe and America, which had confused him somewhat in his ideas, and prevented his accuracy in that point. As to the impracticability of the mat- ter, he denies it> averring that he had time enough and to spare, as a bark canoe can, if necessary, go ninety miles a day up stream 1 THE WORKS OF FATHER HENNEPIN. 105 But a heavier charge was made -when his new work was compared to the Etablissement de la Foi ; his new journal down was but a set of scraps from that of Father Membre, and the reader may verify the truth of this charge by exam- ining the parallel passages given by the accurate and judicious Sparks, in his life of La Salle, or by comparing Membre"s journal in this volume with the English Hennepin, or even with the abridgment of it in vol. i., of Historical Collections of Louisiana. Hennepin admits the similarity, and accuses le Clercq or le Hour, whom he asserts to be the real author, of having published as Membre's, his, Hennepin's journal, which he had lent to le Roux, at Quebec. Let us hear his own words : " But if I do not blame Father le Clercq for the honorable mention he makes of his relative (Membre'), I think everybody will condemn him for his concealing the name of the author he has transcribed, and thereby attributing to himself (f Membr6 or le Clercq), the glory of my perilous voyage. This piece of injustice is common enough in this age." Sparkc, who has the honor of having completely exposed Hennepin, and "the in- justice common in that age," which induced Hennepin, le Clercq, Douay, Joutel, and others, to endeavor to rob Marquette of the glory due to his perilous voyage, fhows this pretext of Hennepin to be groundless. We might stop to examine it, if only here he had copied le Clercq ; but, on examination, we find that almost all the additional matter in the Nouvelle Decouverte is drawn from the Etablitne- ment de la Foi, and almost literally. This is the case with the whole second part, where, though he cites Father Anastasius, he copies the remarks of the author of the Etablisscmcnt. What relates to the Indians is full of extracts from the latter work, and the capture of Quebec, and the early missions are mere copies. In the edition of 1720, which Charlevoix calls the second, and, perhaps, in some previous edition the amount of stolen matter is still larger; but some was of such a nature as to bring ecclesiastical censure on the work. For, strange as it may seem, Hennepin residing unfrocked in Holland, the flatterer and pen- sioner of William III., seems to have remained a Catholic and Franciscan to the last ; at least I have seen nothing to establish the contrary. Had interest or ambition been his only motive, he would certainly have thrown off both titles at a time when the frenzy of religious animosity possessed the English public. But while doing him this justice, that he does not seem to have been led by interest or ambition of place, while admitting that many of his descriptions are graphic, and to some extent reliable, we say all that can be said in his favor. Where in the main fact he is supported by others, we have followed him with caution in details, bnt we must admit that the charges brought against him are too well substantiated to allow us hesitate as to his character. A question still remains as to what he really did do on leaving Fort Crtive- coeur. In his first work, as we have already remarked, he states that he was sent to explore the Illinois to its mouth, or to visit some tribes where a mission was to be established ; and he tells us that he had some design of going down the Mississippi to the gulf, but he nowhere says that he ascended it before he was taken. In the last, he was sent to the Mississippi, and the tribes on it to get the friendship of the nations inhabiting its banks, and as he tells us he went down. In both, at a very late period, he tells us that La Salle promised to send him further supplies at the mouth of the Wisconsin. 106 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. In neither have we any journal of his voyage up the river ; the geographical description is not that of a traveller ascending, as he describes first what he saw- last ; and though voyaging with Sioux, gives the Wisconsin the same name as Marquette, who reached it through the Outagamis. What then did he do be- tween March 12th, and April 12th? This must remain a mystery. That he went down to the gulf, is too absurd to be received for a moment ; that he went up is nowhere asserted by him, and is, I think, very doubtful. For my own part, I should rather believe that he was taken in an attempt to descend, or in some way acting contrary to the directions of La Salle. His evident avoiding of the latter is suspicious, and shows that he could not give a satisfactory ac- count of his proceedings; for wintering at Mackinaw, he must have known that La Salle had passed out to rejoin them at Fort Crevecoeur, and that his own companions had been compelled to leave the fort, and were then at Green bay.* Then, too, as to his description of the upper Mississippi, I am inclined to think it due to de Luth, who, as le Clercq tells us, was the first to reach the lake of the Issatis, and open the way to the missionaries ; this seems more probable as in his last work Hennepin attacks de Luth, and endeavors to destroy the credit, as though de Luth could and, perhaps, did tell another story. It will, therefore, be a matter of interest to learn whether any reports of his are still to be found, as the mere fact of Hennepin's attacking him gives them considerable value. In the meantime Hennepin's account of the upper Mississippi must stand as first published, though we can not tell how much of it he really saw ; standing on its own merits, it is an account which the first American explorers of the upper river compared as they went along, and found sufficiently accurate in one who could only guess at the various distances which he had to mention. As a valuable paper connected with the discoveries of the Mississippi, we insert it here, regretting our inability to give in justice a more flattering portrait of the writer. * Hennepin left Mackinaw on Easter week. 1681 (April 6-13), and F. Membre" arrived there on the 13th of June, and La Salle from Illinois, about the fifteenth. On Vol. I., p. 59, of this series, there is a typographical error Fete Dieu, in October, should be Octave of Corpus Christi, being that year June 13th. NARRATIVE OF THE VOYAGE TO THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI, BY FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN. FROM HIS " DESCRIPTION DE LA LOUISIANE," PRINTED AT PARIS, D* 1683. WE set out from Fort Crevecceur the 29th of February, 1680, and toward evening, while descending the Seignelay [Ilinois], we met on the way several parties of Islinois* returning to their village in their periaguas or gon- dolas, loaded with meat. They would have obliged us to return, our two boatmen were even shaken, but as they would have had to pass by Fort Crevecceur, where our Frenchmen would have stopped them, we pursued our way the next day, and my two men afterward confessed the design which they had entertained.f * We have retained Hennepin's orthography of proper names throughout this narrative. f Hennepin's party, according to his account, consisted of himself and two men, Anthony Auguelle, commonly called the Picard du Gay, and Michael Ako. The latter was intrusted by La Salle with the goods, and is probably the sieur Dacan of some other writers, as Mr. Sparks informs me, that he saw manuscripts in which it was written d'Acau. Hennepin in the preface to the first part of the English volume, charges La Salle with having maliciously caused the death of one of his two companions, meaning Ako, as he represent* the other to be alive; 103 NARRATIVE OF FATHER HENNEPIN. The river Seignelay on which we were sailing, is as deep and broad as the Seine, at Paris, and in two or three places widens out to a quarter of a league. It is lined with hills, whose sides are covered with fine large trees. Some of these hills are half a league apart, leaving between them a marshy strip often inundated, especially in the spring and fall, but producing, nevertheless, quite large trees. On ascending these hills, you discover prairies further than the eye can reach, studded at intervals, with groves of tall trees, appa- rently planted there intentionally. The current of the river is not perceptible, except in time of great rains ; it is at all times navigable for large barks about a hundred leagues, from its mouth to the Islinois village, whence its course almost al- ways runs south by southwest. On the 7th of March, we found, about two leagues from its mouth, a nation called Tamaroa, or Maroa, com- posed of two hundred familes. They would have taken us to their village west of the river Colbert (Mississippi), ^ six or seven leagues below the mouth of the river Seigne- lay; but oar two canoemen, in hopes of still greater gain, preferred to pass on, according to the advice I then gave them. These last Indians seeing that we carried iron and arms to their enemies, and unable to overtake us in their periaguas, which are wooden canoes, much heavier than our bark ones, which went much faster than their boats, despatched their young men after us by land, to pierce us with their ar- rows at some narrow part of the river, but in vain ; for soon after discovering the fire made by these warriors at their ambuscade, we crossed the river at once, and gaining the other side, encamped in an island, leaving our canoe loaded and our little dog to wake as, so as to embark with all speed, should the Indians attempt to surprise us by swimming across. DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 109 Soon after leaving these Indians, we came to the mouth of the River Seignelay, fifty leagues distant from Fort Creve- coeur, and about a hundred from the great Islinois village. It is between 36 and 37 N. latitude, and consequently one hundred and twenty or thirty leagues from the gulf of Mexico. In the angle formed on the south by this river, at its mouth, is a flat precipitous rock, about forty feet high, very well suited for building a fort. On the northern side, opposite the rock, and on the west side beyond the river, are fields of black earth, the end of which you can not see, all ready for cultiva- tion, which would be very advantageous for the existence of a colony. The ice which floated down from the north kept us in this place till the 12th of March, when we continued our route, traversing the river and sounding on all sides to see whether it was navigable. There are, indeed, three islets in the mid- dle, near the mouth of the river Seignelay, which stop the floating wood and trees from the north, and form several large sand-bars, yet the channels are deep enough, and there is sufficient water for barks ; large flat-boats can pass there at all times. The River Colbert runs south-southwest, and comes from the north and northwest; it runs between two chains of mountains, quite small here, which wind with the river, and in some places are pretty far from the banks, so that between the mountains and the river, there are large prairies, where you often see herds of wild cattle browsing. In other places these eminences leave semi-circular spots covered with grass or wood. Beyond these mountains you discover vast plains, but the more we approach the northern side ascending, the earth became apparently less fertile, and the woods less beau- tiful than in the Islinois country. 110 NARRATIVE OF FATHER HENNEPIN. This great river is almost everywhere a short league in width, and in some place, two or three ; it is divided by a number of islands covered with trees, interlaced with so many vines as to be almost impassable. It receives no consider- able river on the western side except that of the Otontenta,* and another, St. Peter's,f which comes from the west north- west, seven or eight leagues from St. Anthony of Padua's falls. On the eastern side you meet first an inconsiderable river (Rock river), and then further on another, called by the In- dians Onisconsin, or Misconsin, which comes from the east and east-northeast. Sixty leagues up you leave it, and make a portage of half a league to reach the Bay of the Fetid (Puants) by another river which, near its course, meanders most curi- ously. It is almost as large as the river Seignelay, or Ilinois, and empties into the river Colbert, a hundred leagues above the river Seignelay4 * This would seem the Desmoines, the largest south of St. Peter's, but the Iowa is not much inferior, and would better suit his description as being near half way between the Illinois and Lake Pepin. The name, too, would induce us to put it higher, as he doubtless means the tribe called by Membre' Anthoutantas, and by Marquette on his map, Otontanta, the same as the former, if and n are transposed. f The St Peter's river flows through the centre of the Sioux territories, and is a magnificent river. It was visited by Le Sueur, the French geologist, as early as 1688 (Hist. Coll. La., vol. iii.), and is very correctly described by him. It is re- markable for its mineral deposites, and the variety of clays found on its banks, which are employed by the Indians in painting their faces and bodies. Its waters are transparent, hence the Indian name of wate-paw-mene'-saute, or clear water river. The Minokantongs, or people of the waters, are located about its mouth, and the Yengetongs, and the Sissitongs, inhabit the upper part of it (School- craft) ; their principal traffic is in buffalo-robes. The numerical strength of the Sioux nation is now estimated at about twenty-two thousand. F \ It must have been just here that he was taken by the Sioux, if he sailed up the Mississippi before his capture, for he had gone two hundred leagues after leaving the Illinois, who were one hundred leagues from the mouth of their river, and the other one hundred would bring him to the Wisconsin ; though if he counts the hundred on the Illinois from the village proper, and not from the DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. Ill Twenty-four leagues above, you come to the Black river called by the ISTadouessious, or Islati Chabadeba, or Cha- baaudeba, it seems quite inconsiderable. Thirty leagues higher up, you find the lake of Tears (Lake Pepin), which ' we so named, because some of the Indians who had taken us, , wishing to kill us, wept the whole night, to induce the others to j consent to our death. This lake which is formed by the River Colbert, is seven leagues long, and about four wide ; there is no considerable current in the middle that we could perceive, but only at its entrance and exit.* Half a league below the lake of Tears, on the south side, is Buffalo river, full of turtles. It is so called by the Indians on account of the numbers of buffalo (boetifs) found there. "We followed it for ten or twelve leagues ; it empties impetuously into the river Colbert, but as you ascend it, it is constantly calm and free from rapids. It is skirted by mountains, far enough off at times to form prairies. The mouth is wooded both sides, and is full as large as that of the Seignelay. Forty leagues above is a river full of rapids (St. Croix), by which, striking northwest, you can reach Lake Conde" (Su- perior), that is, as for as Nimissakouat river,f which empties into the lake. This first river is called Tomb river, because the camp, we must go thirty leagues further, above Black river. But if captured here, how could it have taken the Indians, rowing from morning till night, nine- teen days to reach St Anthony's falls? * Tliis beautiful sheet of water is an expansion of the Mississippi river, six miles below the Sioux village of Talangamanae, and one hundred below the falls of St Anthony. It is indented with several bays and prominent points which serve to enhance the beauty of its scenery. A few miles below this lake, on the west bank of the Mississippi, are the remains of one of the most interesting and extensive of those ancient circumvallations, which are spread over the valley of the Mississippi. It was first described by Carver, in 1768. F. f This is probably the St Louis which, on the map of the Jesuit Relation of 1670-'7l (Bancroft, vol. iii.), is marked as the way to the Sioux, sixty leagues west being nearly the distance here given by Hennepin between Millelacs and Lake Superior. NARRATIVE OF FATHER HENNEPIN. Issati left there the body of one of their warriors, killed by a rattlesnake. According to their custom, I put a blanket on the grave, which act of humanity gained me much importance by the gratitude displayed by the deceased's countrymen, in a great banquet which they gave me in their country, and to which more than a hundred Indians were invited. Continuing to ascend the Colbert ten or twelve leagues more, the navigation is interrupted by a fall, which I called St. Anthony of Padua's, in gratitude for the favors done me by the Almighty through the intercession of that great saint, whom we had chosen patron and protector of all our enterprises. This fall is forty or fifty feet high, divided in the middle by a rocky island of pyramidal form.* The high mountains which skirt the river Colbert last only as far as the river Onisconsin, about one hundred and twenty leagues; at this place it begins to flow from the west and northwest, without our having been able to learn from the Indians, who have ascended it very far, where it rises. They merely told us that twenty or thirty leagues below (dessous), there is a second fall, at the foot of which are some villages of the prairie people, called Thinthonha, who live there a part of the year. Eight leagues above St. Anthony of Padua's falls on the right, you find the Issati or Nadoussion river (Eurn river), with a very narrow mouth, which you can ascend to the north for about seventy leagues to Lake Buade or Issati (Mille lake), where it rises. "We called this St. Francis river. This * These celebrated falls, now no longer beyond the pale of civilization, have been much better described by modern travellers. Schoolcraft places them fourteen miles below the confluence of the Mississawgaeigon, or Rum river. The village of St. Anthony with its schools and its churches now occupies the east bank of the river at the head of the cataract The scenery is picturesque and beautiful, but presents none of that majesty and grandeur which belong to the cataract of Niagara. The Indian name of these falls in the Sioux language, is Owah-menah, or the falling water. P. DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 113 last lake spreads out into great marshes, producing wild-rice like many other places down to the extremity of the Bay of the Fetid. This kind of grain grows wild in marshy places : it resembles oats, but tastes better, and the stems are longer as well as the stalk. The Indians gather it when ripe. The women tie several stalks together with white wood bark to prevent its being all devoured by the flocks of duck and teal found there. The Indians lay in a stock for part of the year, to eat out of the hunting season. Lake Buade, or Lake of the Issati (Mille lake), is about seventy leagues west of Lake Conde ; it is impossible to go from one to the other on account of the marshy and quaggy nature of the ground ; you might go, though with difficulty on the snow in snowshoes ; by water it is a hundred and fifty leagues, on account of the many detours to be made, and there are many portages. From Lake Conde, to go conveni- ently in canoe, you must pass by Tomb river, where we found only the bones of the Indian whom I mentioned above, the bears having eaten the flesh, and pulled up poles which the deceased's relatives had planted in form of a monument. One of our boatmen found a war-calumet beside the grave, and an earthen pot upset, in which the Indians had left fat buffalo meat, to assist the departed, as they say, in making his jour- ney to the land of souls. In the neighborhood of Lake Buade are many other lakes, whence issue several rivers, on the banks of which live the Issati, Nadouessans, Tinthonha (which means prairie-men), Chongaskethon, Dog, or "Wolf tribe (for chonga among these nations means :: or wolf), and other tribes, all which we comprise under the name Nadonessiou. These Indians num- ber eight or nine thousand warriors, very brave, great run- ners, and very good bowmen. It was by a part of these tribes 8 NAKKATIVE OF FATHEK HENNEPIN that I and our two canoemen were taken in the following way: We scrupulously said our morning and evening prayers every day on embarking, and the Angelus at noon, adding some paraphrases on the Kesponse of St. Bonaventure in honor of St. Anthony of Padua. In this way we begged of God to meet these Indians by day, for when they discover people at night, they kill them as enemies, to rob those whom they murder secretly of some axes or knives which they value more than we do gold and silver; they even kill their own allies, when they can conceal their death, so as afterward to boast of having killed men, and so pass for soldiers. "We had considered the river Colbert with great pleasure, and without hinderance, to know whether it was navigable up and down : we were loaded with seven or eight large turkeys, which multiply of themselves in these parts. "We wanted neither buffalo nor deer, nor beaver, nor fish, nor bear meat, for we killed those animals as they swam across the river. Our prayers were heard when, on the llth 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 extraordinary speed, to make war on the Miamis, Islinois, and Maroa. These Indians sur- rounded us, and while at a distance, discharged some arrows at us ; but as they approached our canoe the old men seeing us with the calumet of peace in our hands, prevented the young men from killing us. These brutal men leaping from their canoes, some on land, others into the water with fright- ful cries and yells, approached us, and as we made no re- sistance, being only three against so great a number, one of them wrenched our calumet from our hands, while our canoe DISCOVEBIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 115 and tlieirs were tied to the shore. "We first presented them a piece of French tobacco, better for smoking than theirs, and the eldest among them uttered the words Miamiha, Miamiha. 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 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 lugubrious tone. With a wretched handkerchief I had left, I wiped away their tears, but they would not smoke our peace-calumet. They made us cross the river with great cries, which all shouted together with tears in their eyes; they made us row before them, and we heard yells capable of striking the most resolute with terror. After landing our canoe and goods, part of which had been already taken, we made a fire to boil our kettle; we gave them two large wild turkeys that 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 chiefs with one of my men, leaving the other by our property, and throw into their midst six axes, fifteen knives, and six fathom of our black tobacco, then bowing down my head, I showed them, with an axe, that they might kill us, if they thought proper. This present ap- peased many individual members, who gave us some beaver to eat, putting the three first morsels in our mouth according to the custom of the country, and blowing on the meat which was too hot, before putting their bark dish before us, to let us eat as we liked ; we spent the night in anxiety, because be- fore retiring at night, they had returned us our peace-calumet. NARRATIVE OF FATHER HENNEPIN. Our two boatmen were, however, 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 an- nounce to them a God, who had been falsely accused, unjustly 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. In the morning, April 12th, one of their captains named Narrhetoba, with his face and bare body smeared with paint, asked me for our peace-calumet, filled it with tobacco of his country, made all his band smoke first, and then all the others who plotted our ruin. He then gave us to understand that we must go with them to their country, and they all turned back with us ; having thus broken off their voyage, I was not sorry in this conjuncture to continue our discovery with these people. But my greatest trouble was, that I found it difficult to say my office before these Indians, many seeing me move my lips said, in a fierce tone, Ouackanche ; and as we did not know a word of their language, we believed that they were angry at it. Michael Ako, all out of countenance, told me, that if I continued to say my breviary we should all three be killed, and the Picard begged me at least to pray apart, so as not to provoke them. I followed the latter's advice, but the more I concealed myself, the more I had the Indians at my heels, for when I entered the wood, they thought I was going to hide some goods under ground, so that I knew not on what side to turn to pray, for they never let me out of eight. This obliged me to beg pardon of my two canoemen, assuring them that I could not dispense with saying my office, that if we were massacred for that, I would be the innocent DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 117 cause of their death, as well as of my own. By the word Ouakanche 1 , 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 open. They thought that the breviary was a spirit which taught me to sing for their diversion, for these people are naturally fond of singing. The outrages done us by these Indians during our whole route was incredible, for seeing that our canoe was much larger and more heavily laden than theirs (for they have only a quiver full of arrows, a bow, and a wretched dressed skin, to serve too as a blanket at night, for it was still pretty cold at that season, always going north), and that we could not go faster than they, they put some warriors with us to help us row, to oblige us to follow them. These Indians sometimes make thirty or forty leagues, when at war and pressed for time, or anxious to surprise some enemy. Those who had taken us were of various villages and of different opinions as to us ; we cabined every night by the young chief who had asked for our peace-calumet, and put ourselves under his pro- tection ; but jealousy arose among these Indians, so that the chief of the party named Aquipagnetin, one of whose sons had been killed by the Miamis, seeing that he could not avenge his death on that nation as he had wished, turned all his rage on us. He wept through almost every night him he had lost in war, to oblige those who had come out to avenge him, to kill us and seize all we had, so as to be able to per- sue his enemies ; but those who liked European goods were much disposed to preserve us, so as to attract other French- men there and get iron, which is extremely precious in their eyes ; but of which they knew the great utility only when NAEEATIVE OF FATHER HENNEPIN. they saw one of our French boatmen kill three or four bus- tards or turkeys at a single shot, while they can scarcely kill only one with an arrow. In consequence, as we afterward learned, that the words Manza Ouackange, mean "iron that has understanding," and so these nations call a gun which breaks a man's bones, while their arrows only glance through the flesh they pierce, rarely breaking the bones of those whom they strike, and consequently producing wounds more easily cured than those made by our European guns, which often cripple those whom they wound. 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 us, gave us no time to sail up and down the river. "We had made about two hundred leagues by water since leaving the Islinois, and we sailed with the Indians who took us during some nineteen days, sometimes north, sometimes northwest, according to the direction which the river took. By the estimate which we formed, during that time (depuis cetemps la), we made about two hundred and fifty leagues, or even more on Colbert river; for these Indians row in great force, from early in the morning till evening, scarcely stopping to eat during the day. To oblige us to keep up with them, they gave us every day four or five men to increase the crew of our little vessel, which was much heavier than theirs. Sometimes we cabined when it rained, and when the weather was not bad, we slept on the ground without any shelter ; this gave us all time to contemplate the stars and the moon when it shone. Notwithstanding the fatigue of the day, the young- est of these Indian warriors danced the calumet to four or or five of their chiefs till midnight, and the chief to whom they went, sent a warrior of his family in due ceremony to DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 119 those who sang, to let them in turn smoke his war-calumet, which is distinguished from the peace-calumet by different feathers. The end of this kind of pandemonium was termin- ated every day by two of the youngest of those who had had relations killed in war ; they took several arrows which they presented by the points all crossed to the chiefs, weeping bit- terly ; they gave them to them to kiss. Notwithstanding the force of their yelling, the fatigue of the day, the watching by night, the old men almost all awoke at daybreak for fear of being surprised by their enemies. As soon as dawn appeared one of them gave the cry, and in an instant all the warriors entered their bark canoes, some passing around the islands in the river to kill some beasts, while the most alert went by land, to discover whether any enemy's fire was to be seen. It was their custom always to take post on the point of some island for safety sake, as their enemies have only periaguas, wooden canoes, which can not go as fast as they do, on ac- count of their weight. Only northern tribes have birch to make bark canoes ; the southern tribes who have not that kind of tree, are deprived of this great convenience, which wonderfully facilitates the northern Indians in going from lake to lake, and by all rivers to attack their enemies, and even when discovered, they are safe if they can get into their canoes, for those who pursue them by land, or in periaguas, can not attack or pursue them quickly enough. During one of these nineteen days of painful navigation, the chief of the party by name Aquipaguetin, resolved to halt about noon in a large prairie ; having killed a very fat bear, he gave a feast to the chief men, and after the repast all the warriors began to dance. Their faces, and especially their bodies, were marked with various colors, each being dis- tinguished by the figure of different animals, according to his 120 NARRATIVE OF FATHER HENNEPIN. particular taste or inclination ; some having their hair short and full of bear oil, with white and red feathers ; others be- sprinkled their heads with the down of birds which adhered to the oil. All danced, with their arms akimbo, and struck the ground with their feet so stoutly as to leave the imprint visible. "While a son, master of ceremonies, gave each in turn the war-calumet to smoke, he wept bitterly. The father in a doleful voice, broken with sighs and sobs, with his whole body bathed in tears, sometimes addressed the warriors, sometimes came to me, and put his hands on my head, doing the same to our two Frenchmen, sometimes he raised his eyes to heaven and often uttered the word Louis, which means sun, complaining to that great luminary of the death of his son. As far as we could conjecture this ceremony tended only to our destruction ; in fact, the course of time showed us that this Indian had often aimed at our life ; but seeing the opposition made by the other chiefs who prevented it, ho made us embark again, and employed other trickery to get by degrees the goods of our canoemen, not daring to take them openly, as he might have done, for fear of being accused by his own people of cowardice, which the bravest hold in horror. This wily savage had the bones of some important deceased relative, which he preserved with great care in some skins dressed and adorned with several rows of black and red por- cupine quills ; from time to time he assembled his men to give it a smoke, and made us come several days in succes- sion to cover the deceased's bones with goods, and by a pres- ent 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 French tobacco, axes, knives, beads, and some black and white wampum bracelets. DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 121 In this way the Indian stripped us under pretexts, -which we could not reproach him with, as he declared that what he asked was only for the deceased, and to give the warriors. In fact, he distributed among them all that we gave him. By these feints he made us believe that being a chief, he took nothing for himself, but what we gave him of our own accord. We slept at the point of the lake of Tears, 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 tired him- self, in order to excite his warriors to compassion, and oblige them to kill us and pursue their enemies to avenge his son's death These Indians at times sent their fleetest by land to chase the buffalo on the water side ; as these animals crossed the river, they sometimes killed forty or fifty, merely to take the tongue, and most delicate morsels, leaving the rest with which they would not burthen themselves, so as to go on more rapidly. "We sometimes indeed eat good pieces, but without bread, wine, salt, or other seasoning. During our three years' travels we had lived in the same way, sometimes in plenty, at others compelled to pass twenty-four hours, and often more, without eating ; because in these little bark canoes you can not take much of a load, and with every precaution you are, for most part of the time, deprived of all necessaries of life. If a religious in Europe underwent many hard- ships and labors, and abstinences like those we were often oMiged to suffer in America, no other proof would be needed for his canonization. It is true that we do not always merit in such cases and suffer only because we can not help it. During the night some old men came to weep piteously, often rubbing our arms and whole bodies with their hands, which they then put on our head. Besides being hindered 122 NAKBATIVE OF FATHER HENNEPIN. from sleeping by these tears, I often did not know what to think, nor whether these Indians wept because some of their warriors would have killed us, or out of pure compassion at the ill treatment shown us. On another occasion, Aquipaguetin relapsed into his bad humor: he had so gained most of the warriors, that one day when we were unable to encamp near our protector Narhe- toba, we were obliged to go to the very end of the camp, the Indians declaring that this chief insisted positively on killing us. We accordingly drew from a box twenty knives and some tobacco, which we angrily flung down amid the mal- contents ; the wretch regarding all his soldiers one after an- other hesitated, asking their advice, either to refuse or take our present ; and as we bowed our head and presented him with an axe to kill us, the young chief who was really or pre- tendedly our protector took us by the arm, and all in fury led us to his cabin. One of his brothers taking some arrows, broke them all in our presence, showing us by this action, that he prevented their killing us. The next day they left us alone in our canoe, without put- ting in any Indians to help us, as they usually did ; all re- mained behind us. After four or five leagues sail another chief came to us, made us disembark, and pulling up three little piles of grass, made us sit down ; he then took a piece of cedar full of little round holes in one of which he put a stick, which he spun round between his two palms, and in this way made fire to light the tobacco in his great calumet. After weeping some time, and putting his hands on my head, he gave me his peace-calumet to smoke, and showed ns that we should be in his country in six days. Having arrived on the nineteenth day of our navigation five leagues below St. Anthony's falls, these Indians landed DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 123 us in a bay and assembled to deliberate about us. They dis- tributed us separately, and gave us to three heads of families in place of three of their children who had been killed in war. They first seized all our property, and broke our canoe to pieces, for fear we should return to their enemies. Their own they hid in some alders to use when going to hunt; and though we might easily have reached their country by water, they compelled us to go sixty leagues by land, forcing us to march from daybreak to two hours after nightfall, and to swim over many rivers, while these Indians, who are often of extraordinary height, carried our habit on their head ; and our two boatmen, who were smaller than myself, on their shoulders, because they could not swim as I could. On leaving the water, which was often full of sharp ice, I could scarcely stand ; our legs were all bloody from the ice which we broke as we advanced in lakes which we forded, and as we eat only once in twenty-four hours, some pieces of meat which these barbarians grudgingly gave us, I was so weak that I often lay down on the way, resolved to die there, rather than follow these Indians who marched on and continued their route with a celerity which surpasses the power of the Europeans. To oblige us to hasten on, they often set fire to the grass of the prairies where we were passing, so that we had to advance or burn. I had then a hat which I reserved to shield me from the burning rays of the sun in summer, but I often dropped it in the flames which we were obliged to cross. As we approached their village, they divided among them all the merchandise of our two canoemen, and were near kill- ing each other for our roll of French tobacco, which is very precious to these tribes, and more esteemed than gold among Europeans. The more humane showed by signs that they 124 NARRATIVE OF FATHER HENNEPHf. would give many beaver-skins for what they took. The rea- son of the violence was, that this party was made up from two different tribes, the more distant of whom, fearing lest the others should retain all the goods in the first villages which they would have to pass, wished to take their share in advance. In fact, some time after they offered peltries in part payment ; but our boatmen would not receive them, until they gave the full value of all that had been taken. And in course of time I have no doubt they will give entire satis- faction to the French, whom they will endeavor to draw among them to carry on trade. These savages also took our brocade chasuble, and all the articles of our portable chapel, except the chalice, which they durst not touch ; for seeing that glittering silver gilt, they closed their eyes, saying that it was a spirit which would kill them. They also broke a little box with lock and key, after telling me, that if I did not break the lock, they would do so them- selves with sharp stones ; the reason of this violence was that from time to time on the route, they could not open the box to examine what was inside, having no idea of locks and keys ; besides, they did not care to carry the box, but only the goods which were inside, and which they thought consid- erable, but they found only books and papers. After five days' march by land, suffering hunger, thirst, and outrages, marching all day long without rest, fording lakes and rivers, we descried a number of women and children coming to meet our little army. All the elders of this nation assembled on our account, and as we saw cabins, and bundles of straw hanging from the posts of them, to which these savages bind those whom they take as slaves, and burn them ; and seeing that they made the Picard du Gay sing, as he held and shook a gourd full of little round pebbles, while his DISCOVERIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 125 hair and face were filled with paint of different colors, and a tuft of white feathers attached to his head by the Indians, we not unreasonably thought that they wished to kill us, as they performed many ceremonies, usually practised, when they intend to burn their enemies. The worst of it was, too, that not one of us three could make himself understood by these Indians; nevertheless, after many vows, which every Chris- tian would make in such straits, one of the principal Issati chiefs gave us his peace-calumet to smoke, and accepted the one we had brought. He then gave us some wild rice to eat, presenting it to us in large bark dishes, which the In- dian women had seasoned with whortleberries, which are black grains which they dry in the sun in summer, and are as good as currants. After this feast, the best we had had for seven or eight days, the heads of families who had adopted us, instead of their sons killed in war, conducted us separately each to his village, marching through marshes knee deep in water, for a league, after which the five wives of the one who called me Mitchinchi, that is to say, his son, received us in three bark canoes, and took us a short league from our start- ing place to an island where their cabins were. On our arrival, which was about Easter, April 21st, 1680,* one of these Indians who seemed to me decrepit, gave me a large calumet to smoke, and weeping bitterly, rubbed my head and arms, showing his compassion at seeing me so fa- tigued that two men were often obliged to give me their hands to help me to stand up. There was a bearskin near the fire, on which he rubbed my legs and the soles of my feet with wild-cat oil. * This is somewhat vague; Easter Sunday, in 1680, fell on the 21st of April; he was taken on the llth of April, travelled nineteen days in canoe, and five by land, which brings him to the 5th of May. He perceived this afterward, and in the English edition, he says, that he arrived some time in May; but he there falls into a worse error by putting Easter back to the 23d of March. 126 NARRATIVE OF FATHER HENNEPIN. Aquipaguetin's son, who called me his brother, paraded about with our brocade chasuble on his bare back, having rolled up in it some dead man's bones, for whom these people had a great veneration. The priest's girdle made of red and white wool, with two tassels at the end, served him for sus- penders, carrying thus in triumph what he called Pere Louis Chinnien, which means " the robe of him who is called the sun." After these Indians had used this chasuble to cover the bones of their dead, they presented it to some of their allies, tribes situated about five hundred leagues west of their country, who had sent them an embassy and danced the calumet. The day after our arrival, Aquipaguetin, who was the head of a large family, covered me with a robe made of ten large dressed beaver-skins, trimmed with porcupine quills. This In- dian showed me five or six of his wives, telling them, as I afterward learned, that they should in future regard me as one of their children. He set before me a bark dish full of fish, and ordered all those assembled, that each should call me by the name I was to have in the rank of our near rela- tionship; and seeing that I could not rise from the ground but by the help of two others, he had a sweating cabin made, in which he made me enter naked with four Indians. This cabin he covered with buffalo-skins, and inside he put stones red to the middle. 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 in a thundering voice, the 011101*8 seconded him, all put- ting 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 had made me sweat thus three times a week, I felt as strong as ever. DISCO VERIE8 IN TITE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 127 I often spent sad hours among these savages ; for, oesides their only giving me a little wild rice and smoked fish roes five or six times a week, which they boiled in earthen pots Aquipaguetin took me to a neighboring island with his wives and children to till the ground, in order to sow some tobacco seed, and seeds of vegetables that I had brought, and which this Indian prized extremely. Sometimes he assembled the elders of the village, in whose presence he asked me for a compass that I always had in my sleeve ; seeing that I made the needle turn with a key, and believing justly that we Europeans went all over the habitable globe, guided by this instrument, this chief, who was very eloquent, persuaded his people that we were spirits, and capable of doing anything beyond their reach. At the close of his address, which was very animated, all the old men wept over my head, admiring in me what they could not understand. I had an iron pot with three lion-paw feet, which these Indians never dared touch, unless their hand was wrapped up in some robe. The women hung it to the branch of a tree, not daring to enter the cabin where it was. I was some time unable to make myself understood by these people, but feeling myself gnawed by hunger, I began to compile a dictionary of their language by means of their children, with whom I made myself familiar, in order to learn. As soon as I could catch the word Taketchiabihen, which means in their language, " How do you call that," I became, in a little while, able to converse with them on familiar things. At first, indeed, to ask the word run in their language, I had to quicken my steps from one end of their large cabin to the other. The chiefs of these savages seeing my desire to learn, often made me write, naming all the parts of the human body, and as I would not put on paper certain indelicate words, at 128 NARRATIVE OF FATHER HENNEPIN. which they do not blush, it afforded them an agreeable amusement. They often put me questions, but as I had to look at my paper, to answer them, they said to one another : " When we ask Pere Louis [for so they had heard our two Frenchmen call me], he does not answer us ; but as soon as he has looked at what is white [for they have no word to say paper], he answers