Chapter V: Discovery Along the Great Lakes (1)

BY THE REV. EDWARD D. NEILL, A.B., ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA.

_Corresponding Member Massachusetts Historical Society; Hon. Vice-President New England Historic Genealogical Society._

PURCHAS in his _Pilgrimage_ quaintly writes, that “the great river Canada hath, like an insatiable merchant, engrossed all these water commodities, so that other streames are in a manner but meere pedlers.”[438]

This river of Canada, the Hochelaga of the natives, now known as the St. Lawrence, is the most wonderful of all the streams of North America which find their way into the Atlantic Ocean. Its extreme headwaters are on the elevated plateau of the continent, near the birthplace of the Mississippi, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico, and the Red River of the North, which empties into Hudson’s Bay. Expanding into the interior sea, Lake Superior, after rippling and foaming over the rocks at Sault Ste. Marie it divides into Lake Michigan and Lake Huron; and passing through the latter and Lake St. Claire[439] and Lake Erie, with the energy of an infuriated Titan it dashes itself into foam and mist at Niagara. After recovering composure, it becomes Ontario, the “beautiful lake,”[440] and then, hedged in by scenery varied, sublime, and picturesque, and winding through a thousand isles, it becomes the wide and noble river which admits vessels of large burden to the wharves of the cities of Montreal and Quebec; and until lost in the Atlantic, “many islands are before it, offering their good-nature to be mediators between this haughty stream and the angry ocean.”[441] The aborigines, who dwelt in rude lodges near its banks, chiefly belonged to the Huron or Algonquin family; and although there were variations in dialect, they found no difficulty in understanding one another, and in their light canoes they made long journeys, on which they exchanged the copper implements and agate arrow-heads of the far West for the shells and commodities of the sea-shore.[442]

Cartier, born at the time that the discoveries of Columbus were being discussed throughout Europe, who had toughened into a daring navigator, sailed in 1535 up the St. Lawrence, giving the river its present name, and on the 2d of October he reached the site now occupied by the city of Montreal. Escorted by wondering and excited savages, he went to the top of the hill behind the Indian village, and listened to descriptions of the country from whence they obtained _caignetdaze_, or red copper, which was reached by the River Utawas, which then glittered like a silver thread amid the scarlet leaves of the autumnal forest.[443] The explorations of the French and English in the western world led the merchants of both countries to seek for its furs, and to hope for a shorter passage through it to “the wealth of Ormus and of Ind.” Apsley, a London dealer in beads, playing-cards, and gewgaws in the days of Queen Elizabeth, wrote that he expected to live long enough to see a letter in three months carried to China by a route that would be discovered across the American continent, between the forty-third and forty-sixth parallel of north latitude.[444] The explorations of Champlain have been sketched in an earlier chapter.[445] To the incentive of the fur-trade a new impulse was added when, in the spring of 1609, some Algonquins visited the trading-post, and one of the chiefs brought from his sack a piece of copper a foot in length, a fine and pure specimen. He said that it came from the banks of a tributary of a great lake, and that it was their custom to melt the copper lumps which they found, and roll them into sheets with stones.

It was in 1611, when returning from one of his visits to France, where he had become betrothed to a twelve-year-old maiden, Helen, the daughter of a Huguenot, Nicholas Boullé, secretary of the King’s Chamber, that Champlain pushed forward his western occupation by establishing a frontier trading-post where now is the city of Montreal, and arranging for trade with the distant Hurons, who were assembled at Sault St. Louis.

Again in 1615, as we have seen, he extended his observations to Lake Huron, while on his expedition against the Iroquois. With the Hurons he passed the following winter, and visited neighboring tribes, but in the spring of 1616 returned to Quebec; and although nearly twenty years elapsed before his remains were placed in a grave in that city, he appears to have been contented as the discoverer of Lakes Champlain, Huron, and Ontario, and relinquished farther westward exploration to his subordinates.

The fur-trade of Canada produced a class of men hardy, agile, fearless, and in habits approximating to the savage.[446] Inured to toil, the _voyageurs_ arose in the morning, “when it was yet dark,” and pushing their birch-bark canoes into the water, swiftly glided away, “like the shade of a cloud on the prairie,” and often did not break fast until the sun had been for hours above the horizon. Halting for a short period, they partook of their coarse fare, then re-embarking they pursued their voyage to the land of the beaver and buffalo, the woods echoing their _chansons_ until the “shades of night began to fall,” when,

“Worn with the long day’s march and the chase of the deer and the
bison,
Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where the
quivering firelight
Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms wrapped up in their
blankets.”

Among the pioneers of these wanderers in the American forests was Étienne (Anglicized, Stephen) Brulé, of Champigny.[447] It has been mentioned that he went with Champlain to the Huron villages near Georgian Bay, but did not with his Superior cross Lake Ontario. After three years of roaming, he came back to Montreal, and told Champlain that he had found a river which he descended until it flowed into a sea,—the river by some supposed to be the Susquehanna, and the sea Chesapeake Bay.[448] While in this declaration he may have depended upon his imagination, yet to him belongs the undisputed honor of being the first white man to give the world a knowledge of the region beyond Lake Huron.

Sagard[449] mentions that this bold _voyageur_, with a Frenchman named Grenolle, made a long journey, and returned with a “lingot” of red copper and with a description of Lake Superior which defined it as very large, requiring nine days to reach its upper extremity, and discharging itself into Lake Huron by a fall, first called Saut de Gaston, afterward Sault Ste. Marie. Upon the surrender of Quebec, in 1629, to the English, Étienne Brulé chose to cast in his lot with the conquerors.[450] During the occupation of nearly three years the English heard many stories of the region of the Great Lakes, and they encouraged the aborigines of the Hudson and Susquehanna to purchase English wares.

The very year that the English occupied Quebec, Ferdinando Gorges and associates, who had employed men to search for a great lake, received a patent for the province of Laconia, and the governor thereof arrived in June, 1630, in the ship “Warwick,” at Piscataway, New Hampshire.[451] Early in June, 1632, Captain Henry Fleet, in the “Warwick,” visited the Anacostans, whose village stood on the shores of the Potomac where now is seen the lofty dome of the Capitol of the Republic. These Indians told Fleet that they traded with the Canada Indians; and on the 27th of the month, at the Great Falls of the Potomac, he saw two axes of the pattern brought over by the brothers Kyrcke to Quebec.[452]

About the time Quebec was restored to the French, on the 23d of September, 1633,[453] Captain Thomas Young received a commission from the King of England to make certain explorations in America.[454] The next spring he sailed, and among his officers was a “cosmographer, skilful in mines and trying of metals.” Entering Delaware Bay on the 24th of July, 1634, he sailed up the river, which he named Charles, in honor of the King, and by the 1st of September had reached the vicinity of the falls, above Trenton, the capital of New Jersey. In a report from this river, dated the 20th of October, he writes: “I passed up this great river, with purpose to have pursued the discovery thereof till I had found the great lake[455] from which the great river issues, and from thence I have particular reason to believe there doth also issue some branches, one or more, by which I might have passed into that Mediterranean Sea which the Indian relateth to be four days’ journey beyond the mountains; but having passed near fifty leagues up the river, I was stopped from further proceedings by a ledge of rocks which crosseth the river.”

He then expresses a determination the next summer to build a vessel above the falls, from whence he hoped to find “a way that leadeth into that mediterranean sea,” and from the lake. He continues: “I judge that it cannot be less than one hundred and fifty or two hundred leagues in length to our North Ocean; and from thence I purpose to discover the mouths thereof, which discharge both into the North and South Sea.”[456] The same month that Captain Young was exploring the Valley of the Delaware, an expedition left Quebec which was not so barren of results.

The year that Étienne Brulé came back from his wandering in the far West, in 1618, Jean Nicolet, the son of poor parents at Cherbourg, came from France, and entered the service of the fur company known as the “Hundred Associates,” under Champlain. For several years he lived among the Algonquins of the Ottawa Valley, and traded with the Hurons; and because of his knowledge of the language of these people, he was valued as an interpreter by the trading company. On the 4th day of July, 1634, on his eventful journey to distant nations, he was at Three Rivers, a trading post just begun. Threading his way in a frail canoe among the isles which extend from Georgian Bay to the extremity of Lake Huron, he, through the Straits of Mackinaw, discovered Lake Michigan, and turning southward found its Grand Bay, an inlet of the western shore, and impressive by its length and vastness.

Here were the Gens de Mer,[457] or Ochunkgraw, called by the Algonquins Ouinipegous or Ouinipegouek,—people of the salt or bad-smelling water; and the traders gave them the name of Puants.

Calling a council of these Winnebagoes and the neighboring tribes, and knowing the power of display upon the savage, he appeared before them in a grand robe of the damask of China, on which was worked flowers and birds of different colors, and holding a pistol in each hand,—a somewhat amusing reminder of the Jove of mythology, with his variegated mantle and thunderbolts. To many he seemed a messenger from the spirit-land; and the women and children, on account of his pistols, called him the man who bore thunder in his hands.[458]

Nicolet announced that he was a peacemaker, and that he desired that they should settle their quarrels and be on friendly terms with the French at Quebec. His words were well received, and one chief, at the conclusion of the conference, invited him to a feast, at which one hundred and twenty beaver were served. He came back to Three Rivers during the next summer, and renewed the interest in the discovery of a route to the Western Ocean, by the declaration that if he had paddled three days more on a large river (probably the Wisconsin), he would have found the sea. There was no design to deceive; but the great water at that distance was what has been called “the father of waters,” the Mississippi. Before December, 1635, he was appointed interpreter at the new trading-post of Three Rivers, and was there when, on Christmas Day, at the age of sixty-eight years, one who had been the life of the fur-trade and the Governor of New France, Samuel de Champlain, expired at Quebec. After the death of the fearless and enterprising Champlain, there was a lull in the zest for discovery, and then difficulties arose which for a time led to the abandonment of all the French trading-posts on the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.

The Iroquois had for years longed to be revenged upon those who, with the aid of French arquebuses, had defeated them in battle. Friendly relations were established between them and the Dutch traders on the banks of the Hudson River; and for beaver skins, powder and firearms were received. With these they gratified their desire for revenge. They became a terror to the savage and civilized in Canada; and traders and missionaries, women and infants, fled from their scalping-knives.

The following graphic description of affairs was penned in 1653:—

“The war with the Iroquois has dried up all sources of prosperity. The beaver are allowed to build their dams in peace, none being able or willing to molest them. Crowds of Hurons no longer descend from their country with furs for trading. The Algonquin country is depopulated, and the nations beyond it are retiring farther away, fearing the musketry of the Iroquois. The keeper of the Company’s store here in Montreal has not bought a single beaver-skin for a year. At Three Rivers, the small means in hand have been used in fortifying the place, from fear of an inroad upon it. In the Quebec storehouse all is emptiness.”

At length, in the year 1654, peace was effected between the French and Iroquois, and traders again appeared on the upper lakes, and Indians from thence appeared at Montreal. In August, two Frenchmen accompanied some Ottawas to the region of the upper lakes; and in the latter part of August, 1656, these traders came back to Quebec with a party of Ottawas,[459] whose canoes were loaded with peltries; and about this time a trader told a Jesuit missionary that “he had seen three thousand men together, for the purpose of making a treaty of peace, in the country of the Gens de Mer.”

In 1659, while the new governor Argenson was experiencing the perplexities of administration at Quebec, the extremity of Lake Superior was reached by two energetic and intelligent traders,—Medard Chouart, known in history as Sieur des Groseilliers, and Pierre d’Esprit or Sieur Radisson. Chouart was born a few miles east of Meaux, and left France when he was about sixteen years of age, and became a trader among the Hurons. In 1647 he married the widow Étienne, of Quebec, the father of whom was the pilot Abraham Martin, whose baptismal name was given to the suburb of that city, the Plains of Abraham. She gave birth to a son in 1651, named after his father, and soon after died. Chouart, the Sieur des Groseilliers, then married Marguérite Hayet Radisson, and through her he became a sympathizer with the Huguenots.[460] His brother-in-law, Sieur Radisson, was born at St. Malo, France, and in 1656 married at Three Rivers, Canada, Elizabeth Herault; and after her death he espoused a daughter of the zealous Protestant, Sir David Kyrcke, to whose brothers Champlain had surrendered Quebec.

Pushing beyond Lake Superior, after travelling six days in a southwesterly direction, these traders found the Tionnotantés, a band incorporated with the Hurons, called by the French Petuns, because they had raised tobacco. These people dwelt in the country between the sources of the Black and Chippeway Rivers in Wisconsin, where they had been wanderers for several years. Driven from their homes by the Iroquois, they migrated with the Ottawas to the isles of Lake Michigan, at the entrance of Green Bay. Hearing that the Iroquois had learned where they had retreated, they descended the Wisconsin River until they found the Mississippi, and, ascending this twelve leagues, they came to the Ayoes (Ioway) River, now known as the Upper Iowa, and followed it to its source, being kindly treated by the tribes. Although buffaloes were in abundance, they were disappointed when they found no forests, and retracing their steps to the Mississippi, ascended to a prairie island above Lake Pepin, about nine miles below the mouth of the River St. Croix, and here they often received friendly visits from the Sioux. Confident through the possession of firearms, the Ottawas and Hurons conspired to drive the Sioux away, and occupy their country. The attack was unsuccessful, and they were forced to look for another residence. Going down the Mississippi, they entered one of the mouths of the Black River, near the modern city La Crosse, and the Hurons established themselves about its sources, while their allies, the Ottawas, continued their journey to Lake Superior, and stopped at a point jutting out like a bone needle,—hence called Chagouamikon.

Groseilliers and Radisson, while sojourning with the Hurons, learned much of the deep, wide, and beautiful river, comparable in its grandeur to the St. Lawrence,[461] on an isle of which they had for a time resided. Proceeding northward, these explorers wintered with the Nadouechiouec, who hunted and fished among the “Mille Lacs” of Minnesota, between the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers. The Sioux, as these people were called by traders, were found to speak a language different from the Huron and Algonquin, and to have many strange customs. Women, for instance, were seen whose noses had been cut off as a penalty for adultery, giving them a ghastly look. Beyond, upon the northwest shore of Lake Superior, about the Grand Portage, and at the mouth of a river which upon early maps was called Groseilliers, there was met a separated warlike band of Sioux, called Poualak, who, as wood was scarce in the prairie region, made fire with coal (_charbon de terre_), and lived in skin lodges, although some of the more industrious built cabins of mud (_terre grasse_), as the swallows build their nests. The Assinepoualacs, or Assineboines, were feared by the Upper, as the Iroquois were dreaded by the Lower, Algonquins.

After an absence of about a year, these traders, about the 19th of August, 1660, returned to Montreal with three hundred Indians and sixty canoes laden with a “wealth of skins,”—

“Furs of bison and of beaver,
Furs of sable and of ermine.”

The settlers there, and at Three Rivers, and at Quebec, were deeply interested by the tales of the vastness and richness of the new-found land and the peculiarities of the wild Sioux. As soon as the furs were sold and a new outfit obtained, Groseilliers, on the 28th of August, again took his way to the westward, accompanied by six Frenchmen, besides the aged Jesuit missionary René Menard and his servant Guérin.

Just beyond the Huron Isles and Huron Bay, which still retain their name, on the southern shore of Lake Superior, is Keweenaw Bay; and on the 15th of October, Saint Theresa’s Day in the calendar of the Church of Rome, the traders and René Menard, with the returning Indians, stopped, and here some traders and the missionary passed the winter among the Outaouaks.[462] Father Menard, discouraged by the indifference of these Indians, resolved to go to the retreat of the Hurons among the marshes of what is now the State of Wisconsin. He sent three Frenchmen who had been engaged in the fur-trade to inform them of his intention; but after journeying for some days they were appalled by the bogs, rapids, and long portages, and returned. Undaunted by their tale of the difficulties of the way, and some Hurons having come to visit the Outaouaks, he resolved to return with them. On the 13th of June, 1661, Menard and his servant, Jean Guérin, by trade a gunsmith, followed in the footsteps of their Indian guides, who, however, soon forsook them in the wilderness. For fifteen days they remained by a lake, and finding a small canoe in the bushes, they embarked with their packs; and week after week in midsummer, annoyed by myriads of mosquitoes, and suffering from heat, hunger, and bruised feet, they advanced toward their destination, and about the 7th of August, while Guérin was making a portage around a rapid in a river, Menard lost the trail. His servant, becoming anxious, called for him, yet there was no answer; and then he five times fired his gun, in the hope of directing him to the right path, but it was of no avail. Two days after, Guérin reached the Huron village, and endeavored without success to employ some of the tribe to go in search of the aged missionary.

Afterward Guérin met a Sauk Indian with Menard’s kettle, which he said he found in the woods, near footprints going in the direction of the Sioux country.[463] His breviary and cassock were said to have been found among the Sioux, and it is supposed that he was either killed, or died from exposure, and that his effects were taken by wandering Indians.[464] Perrot writes: “The Father followed the Ottawas to the Lake of the Illinois [Michigan], and in their flight to Louisiana [Mississippi] as far as the upper part of Black River.” Upon a map prepared by Franquelin, in 1688,[465] for Louis XIV., there is a route marked by a dotted line from the vicinity of Keweenaw Bay to the upper part of Green Bay. If Perrot’s statement is correct, Menard and his devoted attendant Guérin saw the Mississippi twelve years before Joliet and his companion looked upon the great river. The reports of Nicolet and Groseilliers led to a correction and enlargement of the charts of New France. On a map[466] accompanying the _Historia Canadensis_, by Creuxius, Lake Michigan is marked as “Magnus Lacus Algonquinorum, seu Lacus Fœtetium,” and a lake intended for Nepigon is called “Assineboines,” near which appear the nations Kilistinus and Alimibegôecus. The lake of the Assineboines is connected by a river with an arm of Hudson’s Bay called “Kilistonum Sinus;” and west of this is Jametus Sinus, or James’s Bay.

Pierre Boucher, an estimable man, sent by the inhabitants of Canada to present their grievances to the King of France, in a little book which in 1663 he published at Paris,[467] wrote: “In Lake Superior there is a great island which is fifty leagues in circumference, in which there is a very beautiful mine of copper.” He also stated that he had heard of other mines from five Frenchmen lately returned, who had been absent three years, and that they had seen an ingot of copper which they thought weighed more than eight hundred pounds, and that Indians after making a fire thereon would cut off pieces with their axes.

Groseilliers[468] returned to Canada, and on the 2d of May, 1662, again left Quebec, with ten men, for the North Sea, or Hudson’s Bay. His journey satisfied him that it was easy to secure the trade of the North by way of Lake Superior; but the Company of Canada, which had the monopoly of the fur traffic, looked upon Groseilliers’ plans for securing the peltries of distant tribes as chimerical. Thus disappointed and chagrined, Groseilliers next went to Boston, and presented his schemes to its merchants.

The Reverend Mother of the Incarnation, Superior of the Ursulines at Quebec, in allusion to him, wrote: “As he had not been successful in making a fortune, he was seized with a fancy to go to New England to better his condition. He excited a hope among the English that he had found a passage to the Sea of the North.” Passing from Boston to France, and securing the influence of the English ambassador at Paris, he went to London, and became acquainted with Prince Rupert, nephew of Charles I., who led the cavalry charge against Fairfax and Cromwell at Naseby. This brilliant man was now devoted to study and to the exhibition of the philosophical toy known to chemists as “Rupert’s drops;” but he was ready to indorse the project for extending the fur-trade, and seeking a northwestern passage to Asia. Men of science also showed interest in explorations which would enlarge the sphere of knowledge. The Secretary of the Royal Society wrote a too sanguine letter to Robert Boyle, the distinguished philosopher, and friend of the apostle Eliot. His words were: “Surely I need not tell you, from hence, what is said here with great joy of the discovery of a northwest passage, and by two Englishmen and one Frenchman, lately represented by them to his Majesty at Oxford, and answered by the grant of a vessel to sail into Hudson’s Bay and channel into the South Sea.” The ship “Nonsuch” was fitted out in charge of Captain Zachary Gillam, a son of one of the early settlers of Boston, and in this vessel Groseilliers and Radisson left the Thames in June, 1668, and the next September reached a tributary of Hudson’s Bay, which in honor of their chief patron was called Rupert’s River. The next year, by way of Boston, they returned to England, where their success was applauded; and in 1670 the trading company was chartered,—still in existence, and among the most venerable of English corporations,—known as “The Hudson’s Bay Company.”

While the Canadian Fur Company did not respond to the proposals of Groseilliers for the extension of commerce, the French Government, in view of the fact that the Dutch on the south side of the St. Lawrence and in the valley of the Hudson River had acknowledged allegiance to England, determined to show more interest in the administration of Canadian affairs, and Mézy having been recalled, hardly before his death, Daniel de Remi, Seigneur de Courcelles, was sent as provincial governor. They also created the new office of Intendant of Justice, Police, and Finance, and made Talon—a person of talent, experience, and great energy—the first incumbent. Arriving at Quebec in 1665, Talon took decided steps for the promotion of agriculture, tanneries, and fisheries, and was enthusiastic in the desire to see the white banner of France, with its fleur-de-lis, floating in the far West.[469]

In the autumn of 1668 he took with him to France one of the hardy _voyageurs_ who had lived in the region of the lakes, and on the 24th of the next February he writes to Colbert, the Colonial Minister, that this man “had penetrated among the western nations farther than any other Frenchman, and had seen the copper mine on Lake Huron. The man offers to go to that mine and explore, either by sea, or by the lake and river, the communication supposed to exist between Canada and the South Sea, or to the region of Hudson’s Bay.”

During the summer of 1669 the active and intelligent Louis Joliet, with an outfit of four hundred livres, and one Peré, perhaps the same person who gave his name to a river leading from Lake Nepigon to Hudson’s Bay,[470] with an outfit of one thousand livres, went to search for copper on the shores of Lake Superior, and to discover a more direct route from the upper lakes to Montreal. Joliet went as far as Sault Ste. Marie, where he did not long remain; but in the place of a mine found an Iroquois prisoner among the Ottawas at that point, and obtained permission to take him back to Canada. In company with another Frenchman, he was led by the Iroquois from Lake Erie through the valley of the Grand River to Lake Ontario, and on the 24th of September, at an Iroquois village between this river and the head of Burlington Bay, he met La Salle with four canoes and fifteen men, and the Sulpitian priests, Galinée and De Casson, who on the 6th of July had left the post at La Chine.

La Salle, alleging ill health, at this point separated from the missionaries, and Joliet, before proceeding toward Montreal, drew a chart of the upper lakes for the guidance of the Sulpitians. By the aid of this the priests reached Lake Erie through a direct river, and near the lake they erected a hut and passed the winter. On the 23d of March, 1670, they resumed their voyage, and on the 25th of May reached Sault Ste. Marie, where there were about twenty-five Frenchmen trading with the Indians. Here was also the mission of the Jesuits among the Ottawas,—a square enclosure defended by cedar pickets twelve feet high, and within were a small house and chapel which had recently been built. Remaining but three days, they returned to Montreal by the old route along the French River of Lake Huron to Lake Nipissing, and thence by portage to the Ottawa River.

About the time of their arrival Talon had learned from some Algonquins that two European vessels had been seen in Hudson’s Bay, and he wrote to Colbert,—

“After reflecting on all the nations that might have penetrated as far north as that, I can fall back only on the English, who under the conduct of one named Desgrozeliers, in former times an inhabitant of Canada, might possibly have attempted that navigation, of itself not much known, and not less dangerous. I design to send by land some men of resolution to invite the Kilistinons, who are in great numbers in the vicinity of that bay, to come down to see us as the Ottawas do, in order that we may have the first handling of what the latter savages bring us, who, acting as retail dealers between us and those natives, make us pay for the roundabout way of three or four hundred leagues.”

To draw the trade from the English, it was determined to make an alliance of friendship with all the nations around Lake Superior. One of the Frenchmen[471] who roved among the tribes west of Lake Michigan, and in the valley of the Fox River, was Nicholas Perrot. Accustomed from boyhood to the scenes and excitements of frontier life, quick-witted, with some education, a leading spirit among _coureurs des bois_, and looked upon with respect by the Indians, he was an intelligent explorer of the interior of the continent. In the spring of 1670, when twenty-six years of age, Perrot left Green Bay with a flotilla of canoes filled with peltries and paddled by Indians. By way of Lake Nipissing he reached the Ottawa River, and descended to Montreal, and in July he visited Quebec. By the Intendant Talon he was invited to act as guide and interpreter to his deputy, Simon François Daumont, the Sieur Saint Lusson, who on the 3d of September was commissioned to go to Lake Superior to search for copper mines and confer with the tribes.

It was not until October that Perrot and Saint Lusson left Montreal. When Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron was reached, it was decided that Saint Lusson should here remain for the winter hunting and trading, while Perrot went on and visited the tribes of the Green Bay region. On the 5th of May, 1671, he met Saint Lusson at Sault Ste. Marie, accompanied by the principal chiefs of the Sauks, Menomonees, Pottawattamies, and Winnebagoes. After the delegates of fourteen tribes had arrived, a council was held, on the 14th of June, by Saint Lusson, in the presence of the Jesuits André, Claude Allouez, Gabriel Dreuilletes, and the head of the mission Claude d’Ablon, Nicholas Perrot the interpreter, Louis Joliet, and some fur-traders;[472] and a treaty of friendship was formed, and the countries around Lakes Huron and Superior were taken possession of in the name of Louis XIV., King of France. Talon announces the result of the expedition in these words:—

“Sieur de Saint Lusson is returned, after having advanced as far as five hundred leagues from here, and planted the cross and set up the King’s arms in presence of seventeen Indian nations,[473] assembled on this occasion from all parts, all of whom voluntarily submitted themselves to the dominion of his Majesty, whom alone they regard as their sovereign protector. This was effected, according to the account of the Jesuit Fathers, who assisted at the ceremony, with all the formality and display the country could afford. I shall carry with me the record of taking possession prepared by Sieur de Saint Lusson for securing those countries to his Majesty.

“The place to which the said Sieur de Saint Lusson has penetrated is supposed to be no more than three hundred leagues from the extremities of the countries bordering on the Vermillion or South Sea. Those bordering on the West Sea appear to be no farther from those discovered by the French. According to the calculation made from the reports of the Indians and from maps, there seems to remain not more than fifteen hundred leagues of navigation to Tartary, China, and Japan. Such discoveries must be the work of either time or of the King. It can be said that the Spaniards have hardly penetrated farther into the interior of South, than the French have done up to the present time into the interior of North, America.

“Sieur de Lusson’s voyage to discover the South Sea and the copper mine will not cost the King anything. I make no account of it in my statements, because, having made presents to the savages of the countries of which he took possession, he has reciprocally received from them in beaver that which replaces his outlay.”

The Hurons and Ottawas did not arrive in time to witness the formal taking possession of the country by the representative of France, having been detained by difficulty with the Sioux. About the year 1662, the Hurons, who had lingered about the sources of the Black River of Wisconsin, joined again their old allies, the Ottawas, who were clustered at the end of the beautiful Chegoimegon Bay of Lake Superior. The Ottawas lived in one village, made up of three bands,—the Sinagos, Kenonché, and Kiskakon. After this union, a party of Saulteurs, Ottawas, Nipissings, and Amikoués were securing white-fish not far from Sault Ste. Marie, when they discovered the smoke of an encampment of about one hundred Iroquois. Cautiously approaching, they surprised and defeated their dreaded foes, at a place to this day known as Iroquois Point, just above the entrance of Lake Superior.

After this, the Hurons, Ottawas, and Saulteurs returned in triumph to Keweenaw and Chegoimegon, and remained in quietness until a number of Hurons went to hunt west of Lake Superior, and were captured by some of the Sioux. While in captivity they were treated with kindness, asked to come again, and sent away with presents. Accepting the invitation, the Sinagos chief, with some warriors and four French traders, visited the Sioux, and were received with honor and cordiality. Again, a few Hurons went into the Sioux country, and some of the young warriors made them prisoners; but the Sioux chief, who had smoked the calumet with the Sinagos chief, insisted upon their release, and journeyed to Chegoimegon Bay to make an apology. Upon his arrival, the Hurons proved tricky, and persuaded the Ottawas to put to death their visitor. It was not strange that the Sioux were surprised and enraged when they received the intelligence, and panted for revenge. Marquette, who had succeeded Allouez at the mission which was between the Huron and Ottawa villages, in allusion to this disturbance, wrote:—

“Our Outaouacs and Hurons, of the Point of the Holy Ghost, had to the present time kept up a kind of peace with them [the Sioux], but matters having become embroiled during last winter, and some murders having been committed on both sides, our savages had reason to apprehend that the storm would soon burst on them, and they deemed it was safer for them to leave the place, which they did in the spring.”

The Jesuits retired with the Hurons and Ottawas, and more than one hundred and fifty years elapsed before another Christian mission was attempted in this vicinity, under the “American Board of Foreign Missions.” The retreating Ottawas did not halt until they reached an old hunting-ground, the Manitoulin Island of Lake Huron, and the Hurons stopped at Mackinaw. From time to time they formed war-parties with other tribes, against the Sioux. In 1674 some Sioux warriors arrived at Sault Ste. Marie to smoke the pipe of peace with adjacent tribes. At a grand council the Sioux sent twelve delegates, and the others forty. During the conference one of the opposite side drew near and brandished his knife in the face of a Sioux, and called him a coward. The Sioux replied he was not afraid, when the knife was plunged into his heart, and he died. A fight immediately began, and the Sioux bravely defended themselves, although nine were killed. The two survivors fled to the rude log chapel of the Jesuit mission, and closed the door, and finding there some weapons they opened fire upon their enemies. Their assailants wished to burn down the chapel, which the Jesuits would not allow, as they had beaver skins stored in the loft. In the extremity a lay brother of the mission, named Louis Le Boeme, advised the firing of a cannon shot at the cabin’s door. The discharge killed the last two of the Sioux.[474] Governor Frontenac made complaint against Le Boeme for this conduct, in a letter to Colbert.[475]

After the Iroquois had made a treaty of peace with the French, they did not cease to lurk and watch for the Ottawas as they descended to trade at Montreal, Three Rivers, or Quebec, and, as occasion offered, rob them of their peltries and tear their scalps from their heads. Governor Courcelles, in 1671, determined to establish a post on Lake Ontario which would act as a barrier between the Ottawas and Iroquois, and at the same time draw off the trade from the Hudson River.

Before entering upon his journey he had constructed a large plank flat-boat to ascend the streams,—a novelty which was a surprise. It was of two or three tons burden, and provided with a strong rope to haul it over the rapids and shoal places. On the morning of the 3d of June the expedition left Montreal, consisting of the flat-boat, filled with supplies and manned by a sergeant and eight soldiers, and thirteen bark canoes. The party numbered fifty-six persons, who were active and willing to endure the hardships of the journey. At night, with axe in hand, the men cut poles for a lodge frame, which they covered with bark stripped from the trees. The Governor, to protect himself from mosquitoes, had a little arbor made on the ground, about two feet high, and covered with a sheet, which touched the ground on all sides, and prevented the approach of the insects which disturb sleep and irritate the flesh. The second day of the voyage the flat-boat found difficulty in passing the first rapids, and Courcelles plunged into the water, and with the aid of the hardy _voyageurs_ pushed the boat into smooth water. On the 10th of June the first flat-boat reached the vicinity of Lake Ontario, and the Governor two days after, in a canoe, reached the entrance of the lake. Here he found a stream with sufficient water to float a large boat, and bordered by fine land, which would serve as a site for a post. On the 14th, at the time that the deputy Saint Lusson, at Sault Ste. Marie, was taking possession of the region of Lake Superior, Courcelles was descending the rapids of the St. Lawrence on his return to Montreal.[476]

The report of this expedition was sent to Louis XIV., and it met with his approval; but for the benefit of his health Courcelles was permitted to return to France, and on the 9th of April, 1672, Louis de Buade, Count de Frontenac, was appointed Governor and Lieutenant-General in Canada and other parts belonging to New France. It was not until the leaves began to grow old that Frontenac arrived in Quebec, and, full of energy, was ready to push on the work of exploration which had been initiated by his predecessor. Upon the advice of the Intendant Talon, he soon despatched Louis Joliet to go to the Grand River, which the Indians alleged flowed southward to the sea. Joliet (often spelled Jolliet) was born in Canada, the son of a wagon-maker. In boyhood he had been a promising scholar in the Jesuits’ school at Quebec, but, imbibing the spirit of the times, while a young man he became a rover in the wilderness and a trader among Indians. Three years before his appointment to explore the great river beyond the lakes, he had been sent with Peré to search for a copper-mine on Lake Superior, and the year before he stood by the side of Saint Lusson as he planted the arms of France at Sault Ste. Marie.

It was not until Dec. 8, 1672, that he reached the Straits of Mackinaw, and as the rivers between that point and the Mississippi were by this time frozen, he remained there during the winter and following spring, busy in questioning the Indians who had seen the great river as to its course, and as to the nations on its shores. On May 17, 1673, he began his journey toward a distant sea. At Mackinaw he found Marquette, who became his companion, but had no official connection with the expedition, as erroneously mentioned by Charlevoix. With five _voyageurs_ and two birch-bark canoes, Joliet and Marquette, by the 7th of June, had reached a settlement of Kikapous, Miamis, and Mascoutens, in the valley of the Fox River, and three leagues beyond they found a short portage by which they reached the Wisconsin River, and following its tortuous course amid sandbars and islands dense with bushes, on the 17th of June they entered the broad great river called the Mississippi, walled in by picturesque bluffs, with lofty limestone escarpment, whose irregular outline looked like a succession of the ruined castles and towers of the Rhine. In honor of his patron, Governor Frontenac, Joliet called it Buade, the Governor’s family name. Passing one great river flowing from the west, he learned that through its valley there was a route to the Vermeille Sea [Gulf of California], and he saw a village (which was about five days’ journey from another) which traded with the people of California.[477]

This river is without name on his map,[478] but on its banks he places villages of the Missouri, Kansa, Osages, and Pawnee tribes. The River Ohio he marked with the Indian name Ouabouskigou; and the Arkansas, beyond which he did not descend, and which was reached about the middle of July, he named Bazire, after a prominent merchant of Quebec interested in the fur-trade. After ascending the stream, he entered the Illinois River, which he designated as the Divine, or Outrelaise, in compliment, it is supposed, to Frontenac’s wife, a daughter of Lagrange Trianon, noted for her beauty, and Mademoiselle Outrelaise, her fascinating friend, who were called in Court circles “les divines.”[479] Upon the west bank of one of its tributaries, the Des Plaine River, there stands above the prairie a remarkable elevation of clay, sand, and gravel, a lonely monument which has withstood the erosion of a former geologic age. It was a noted landmark to the Indians in their hunting, and to the French _voyageurs_ on their trading expeditions. By this Joliet was impressed, and he gave the elevation his own name, Mont Joliet, which it has retained, while all the others he marked on his map have been forgotten.[480] It was not until about the middle of August, 1674, that he returned to Quebec, and Governor Frontenac, on the 14th of November, writes to the French Government,—

“Sieur Joliet, whom Monsieur Talon advised me, on my arrival from France, to despatch for the discovery of the South Sea, returned three months ago, and found some very fine countries, and a navigation so easy through the beautiful rivers, that a person can go from Lake Ontario and Fort Frontenac in a bark to the Gulf of Mexico, there being only one carrying place, half a league in length, where Lake Ontario communicates with Lake Erie. A settlement could be made at this post, and another bark built on Lake Erie.... He has been within ten days’ journey of the Gulf of Mexico, and believes that water communication could be found leading to the Vermillion and California Seas, by means of the river that flows from the west, with the Grand River that he discovered, which rises from north to south, and is as large as the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec.

“I send you, by my secretary, the map[481] he has made of it, and the observations he has been able to recollect, as he lost all his minutes and journals in the wreck he suffered within sight of Montreal, where, after having completed a voyage of twelve hundred leagues, he was near being drowned, and lost all his papers, and a little Indian whom he brought from those countries.”

Governor Frontenac was satisfied with the importance of establishing a post on Lake Ontario, as Courcelles had suggested, and in the summer of 1673 visited the region. On the 3d of June he departed from Quebec, and at five o’clock in the afternoon of the 15th was received at Montreal amid the roar of cannon and the discharge of musketry. On the 9th of July he had reached a point supposed to be in the present town of Lisbon, in St. Lawrence County, New York, at the head of all the rapids of the St. Lawrence; and while sojourning there, at six o’clock in the evening two Iroquois canoes arrived with letters from La Salle, who two months before went into their country.

After exchanging civilities with the Iroquois, and guided by them, Frontenac was led into a beautiful bay about a cannon-shot from the River Katarakoui, which so pleased him as a site for a post, that he stayed until sunset examining the situation. The next day his engineer, Sieur Raudin, was ordered to trace out the plan of a fort, and on the morning of the 14th, at daybreak, soldiers and officers with alacrity began to clear the ground, and in four days the fort was finished, with the exception of the abatis. After designating the garrison and workmen who were to remain at the post, and making La Salle the commandant, on the 27th Frontenac began his homeward voyage, about the time that Joliet began to ascend the Mississippi from the mouth of the Arkansas.[482]

The reports of Joliet led to the formation of plans for the occupation of the valley of the Mississippi by the leading merchants and officers of Canada; and the application of Joliet, its first explorer, to go with twenty persons and establish a post among the Illinois, was refused by the French Government.[483]

Frontenac, in the fall of 1674,[484] sent La Salle to France. Under the date of the 14th of November, he wrote to Minister Colbert that La Salle was a man of character and intelligence, adapted to exploration, and asking him to listen to his plans. A few weeks before La Salle’s arrival in Paris, the Prince of Condé had fought a battle at Seneffe, and obtained a victory over the Prince of Orange and the allied generals, and every one was full of the praise of the King’s household guards, who without flinching remained eight hours under the fire of the enemy. La Salle could hardly have thought at that moment that the future was yet to reveal as his associates in the exploration of the distant valley of the Mississippi a _gend’arme_ of his Majesty’s guard and a field chaplain of that bloody day.[485] In a memorial to the King, he asked for the grant of Fort Frontenac and lands adjacent, agreeing to repay Frontenac the money he had expended in establishing the post, to repair it, and keep a garrison therein at his own expense. He further asked, in consideration of the voyages he had made at his own expense during the seven years of his residence in Canada, that he might receive letters of nobility.[486] The King, upon the report of Colbert, accepted the offer, and on the 13th of May, 1675, conferred upon La Salle the rank of esquire, with power to attain all grades of knighthood and _gendarmerie_.[487] This year he came back to Canada in the same ship with Louis Hennepin, and going to Fort Frontenac in August, 1676, he increased the buildings, erected a strong wall on the land side, and strengthened the palisades toward the water. From time to time he had cattle brought thither from Montreal, and constructed barks to navigate the lake, keep the Iroquois in check, and deter the English from trading in the region of the upper lakes.[488] In November, 1677, he made another visit to France,[489] and obtained a permit, dated the 12th of May, 1678, allowing him to explore the western part of New France, with the prospect of penetrating as far as Mexico.[490] The expedition was to be at the expense of himself and associates, with the privilege of trade in buffalo skins, but with the express condition that he should not trade with the Ottawas and other Indians who brought their beavers to Montreal.

Frontenac was not only in full sympathy with La Salle, but with other enterprising adventurers, and there is but little doubt that he shared the profits of the fur-traders. About the time that La Salle was improving Fort Frontenac as a trading-post, Raudin,[491] the engineer who had laid out the plan of that fort, was sent by Frontenac with presents to the Ojibways and Sioux, at the extremity of Lake Superior.[492] A nephew of Patron, named Daniel Greysolon du Lhut,[493] and who had made two voyages from France before 1674, had then entered the army as squire of Marquis de Lassay, was in the campaign of Franche-Comté and at Seneffe, having now returned to Quebec was permitted to go on a voyage of discovery in the then unknown region where dwelt the Sioux and Assineboines.

On the 1st of September, 1678, with three Indians and three Frenchmen, Du Lhut left Montreal for Lake Superior, and wintered at some point on the shore of, or in the vicinity of, Lake Huron. On the 5th of April, 1679, he was in the woods, three leagues from Sault Ste. Marie, when he wrote in the third person to Governor Frontenac: “He will not stir from the Nadoussioux until further orders; and peace being concluded he will set up the King’s arms, lest the English and other Europeans settled toward California take possession of the country.”[494] On the 2d of July, 1679, Du Lhut planted the arms of France beyond Lake Superior, among the Isanti Sioux,[495] who dwelt at Mille Lacs, in what is now the State of Minnesota, and then visited the Songaskitons (Sissetons) and Houetbatons, bands of the Sioux, whose villages were one hundred and twenty leagues beyond. Entering by way of the St. Louis River, it would be easy, by a slight portage, to reach the Sioux village, which was at that time on the shores of the Sandy Lake of the Upper Mississippi.

Among those who went to the Lake Superior region at the same time as Du Lhut, were Dupuy, Lamonde, and Pierre Moreau, alias La Taupine, who had been with Saint Lusson at the planting of the French arms in 1671 at Sault Ste. Marie, and was trading among the Illinois when Joliet was in that country. In the summer of 1679 La Taupine returned, and it was rumored that he had obtained among the Ottawas in two days nine hundred beavers. Duchesneau, Intendant of Justice, feeling that Moreau had violated the law forbidding _coureurs des bois_ to trade with the Indians, had him, in September, arrested at Quebec; but Moreau produced a license from Governor Frontenac, permitting him, with his two comrades, to go to the Ottawas, to execute his secret orders, and so was liberated. He had not left the prison but a short time when an officer and some soldiers came with an order from Frontenac to force the prison, in case he were still there. In a letter to Seignelay he writes: “It is certain, my Lord, that the said La Taupine carried goods to the Ottawas, that his two comrades remained in the country, apparently near Du Lhut, and that he traded there.”[496]

On the 15th of September Du Lhut had returned to Lake Superior, and at Camanistigoya, or the Three Rivers, the site of Fort William of the old Northwest Company, he held a conference with the Assineboines, an alienated band of the Sioux, and other northern tribes, and persuaded them to be at peace, and to intermarry with the Sioux. The next winter he remained in the region near the northern boundary of Minnesota; but in June, 1680, he determined to visit the Issati Sioux by water, as he had before gone to their villages by land.[497] With two canoes, an Indian as an interpreter, and four Frenchmen,—one of whom was Faffart, who had been in the employ of La Salle at Fort Frontenac,[498]—he entered a river eight leagues from the extremity of Lake Superior, now called Bois Brulé, a narrow, rapid stream, then much obstructed by fallen trees and beaver-dams. After reaching its upper waters a short portage was made to Upper Lake St. Croix, the outlet of which was a river, which, descending, led him to the Mississippi.