Chapter IV: The Valley of the Mississippi

The discovery of the Mississippi by Ferdinand de Soto was not immediately productive of benefit. For nearly a century and a half after this ill-fated explorer slept beneath the waters which he had been the first to cross, the “Father of Rivers” continued to flow through unpeopled solitudes, unvisited by civilized men. The French possessed the valley of the St. Lawrence. The English had thriving settlements on the Atlantic sea-board; but the Alleghany Mountains, which shut them in on the west, allowed room for the growth of many years, and there was yet therefore no reason to seek wider limits. The valley of the Mississippi remained a hunting-ground for the savages who had long possessed it.

In course of years it became evident that England and France must settle by conflict their claims upon the American continent. The English still maintained their right, originating in discovery, to all the territory occupied by the French; and from time to time they sent out expeditions to re-assert by invasion the dormant claim. To the French, magnificent possibilities offered themselves. The whole enormous line of the Mississippi and its tributaries, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, could be seized and held; a military settlement could secure the mouth of the river; the English could be hemmed in between the Alleghanies and the ocean, and the increase of their settlements frustrated.

[Sidenote: 1671 A.D.] Nicholas Perrot, a French officer, met, on the King’s business, a gathering of Indian delegates, at a point near the northern extremity of Lake Michigan. There he was told of a vast river, called by some Mechasepé, by others Mississippi. In what direction it flowed the savages could not tell, but they were sure it did not flow either to the north or to the east. The acute Frenchman readily perceived that this mysterious stream must discharge its waters into the Pacific or into the Gulf of Mexico, and that in either case its control must be of high value to France.

[Sidenote: 1673 A.D.] An exploring party, composed of six men and furnished with two slight bark canoes, undertook the search. They ascended the Fox River from the point where it enters Lake Michigan; they crossed a narrow isthmus; and launching upon the River Wisconsin, they floated easily downwards till they came out upon the magnificent waters of the Mississippi. Their joy was great: the banks of the river seemed to their gladdened eyes rich and beautiful; the trees were taller than they had ever seen before; wild cattle in vast herds roamed over the flowery meadows of this romantic land. For many days the adventurers followed the course of the river. They came where the Missouri joins its waters to those of the Mississippi. They passed the Ohio and the Arkansas, and looked with wonder upon the vast torrents which reinforced the mighty river. They satisfied themselves that the Mississippi fell into the Gulf of Mexico; and then, mistrusting the good-will of the Spaniards, they turned back and toilsomely reascended the stream.

[Sidenote: 1680 A.D.] Some years later, a young and energetic Frenchman--Sieur de la Salle--completed the work which these explorers had begun. The hope entertained by Columbus, that he would discover a better route to the East, had only now, after two hundred years of disappointment, begun to fade out of the hearts of his followers, and it was still eagerly cherished by La Salle. He traversed the Mississippi from the mouth of the Illinois River to the Gulf. He saw the vast and dreary swamps which lie around the outlet of the Mississippi. He erected a shield bearing the arms of France; he claimed the enormous region from the Alleghany Mountains to the Pacific, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, as the possession of the French King.

For a full half century France took no action to secure the vast possession which she claimed. The later years of Louis XIV. were full of disaster. England, persuaded by King William that French ambition was a standing menace to Europe, waged wars which brought France to the verge of ruin. Her colonial possessions could receive little care when France was fighting for existence in Europe. [Sidenote: 1746 A.D.] A wise Governor of Canada--the Compte de la Galissonnière--perceived the rapid growth of the English settlements and the growing danger to France which their superior strength involved. He proposed that the line of the Mississippi should be fortified, and that ten thousand peasants should be sent out to form settlements on the banks of the great lakes and rivers. In time, the growing strength of these settlements would give to France secure possession of the valley of the Mississippi; while the English colonists, confined within the narrow region eastward of the Alleghany Mountains, must lie exposed to the damaging assault of their more powerful neighbours. So reasoned the Governor; but his words gained no attention from the pre-occupied Government of France. To the utmost of his means he sought to carry out the policy which would preserve for France her vast American possessions. He endeavoured to exclude English traders, and to persuade the Indians to adopt a similar course. He marked out the confines of French territory by leaden plates bearing the arms of France, sunk in the earth or nailed upon trees. He brought a few settlers from Nova Scotia. But all his efforts were in vain. The Anglo-Saxons were the appointed rulers of the American continent; and the time was near when, brushing aside the obstruction offered by Frenchmen and by Indians, they were to enter into full possession of their magnificent heritage.