Chapter IV: La Salle and the Greater New France

“The fertile plains of Texas, the vast basin of the Mississippi
from its frozen springs to the sultry borders of the gulf; from
the wooded ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks of the
Rocky Mountains,—a region of savannas and forests, sun-cracked
deserts and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers,
ranged by a thousand warlike tribes.”

—PARKMAN.

LA SALLE AND THE GREATER NEW FRANCE.

With the exception of Champlain, the most romantic figure in the history of New France is that of La Salle, the young adventurer from Rouen. He landed at Quebec in 1666, the same year as Marquette, and went at once to Montreal where he had relatives among the Sulpician order of priests, to whom most of the island of Montreal belonged. Here he purchased from them an estate or seigniory, as it was called. This was but a few miles west of Montreal, and was called in derision by his friends “La Chine,” having reference to La Salle’s dream of finding a road to China by following westward.

In preparation for his explorations he settled down to acquaint himself with the Indian languages, and hearing from some Seneca Indians that there was a great river called the Ohio, which he thought might lead him to the great Western Sea, he joined the expedition of Galinée and Father Dollier, the Sulpician, who were setting out to establish a mission in the Far West. With nine canoes and twenty-one men they skirted the eastern and southern shores of Lake Ontario, and about the middle of September reached the mouth of a river which Galinée describes: “We discovered a river one-eighth of a league wide and extremely rapid.” The Indians told them of a great cataract up this river which was “higher than the highest pine trees,” and indeed he tells us he could hear the roar. But they had a set purpose and pressed on their way, thus losing the opportunity to be the first white men to visit the Falls of Niagara. Indeed this is the first description of the river by any one who is known to have reached it.

They passed on to Burlington Bay and leaving it about where Hamilton now stands, they struck across the country, and on the 24th of September, in an Indian village in what is known as the Beverley Swamp, near the present city of Galt, they met Joliet returning from his search for the copper mines on Lake Superior. La Salle was so attracted by Joliet, a kindred adventurer in spirit, that he turned back and left Dollier and Galinée to go on to the West, guided as to their course by the advice of Joliet, who told them of the Pottawatomies, a tribe of Indians to whom no missionary had yet come.

They went down the Grand River and as the season was so far advanced they built a shelter on the lake shore near where Port Dover now stands, erected a cross and took formal possession of the Lake Erie country in the name of Louis the Magnificent.[10]

Here they spent the winter and are enthusiastic in their praise of the mildness of the climate and the luscious autumn fruit. This is of great interest to many of us who to-day look upon that county (Norfolk) as one of the greatest fruit centres of the province of Ontario.

La Salle returned east, and we know that during the next few years he was with Frontenac, and doubtless made many exploration trips. But in 1675 he received from the French Government a grant on Lake Ontario similar to the seigniory at La Chine, and so at Cataraqui, where Kingston now stands, he built a fort to control the trade coming east and to prevent it from going to the English colony in New York. This he called “Fort Frontenac.” He was raised to the nobility and was given a commission in 1678 to discover the “Western part of New France” and “to construct forts in the places you may think necessary.” This meant that he would seek out the mouth of the great Mississippi and erect a chain of forts which would connect and hold for France the country from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi.

Here was the great chance for which this adventurous man had longed and for which he had toiled, and so in November of that year he began to gather men and material for the great project. He threw himself into this work with energy and was backed up by Frontenac, whose policy had ever been the extension of the boundaries of New France. Indeed, Frontenac had advised the Home Government as early as 1673 that a fort at the mouth of the Niagara River and a vessel on Lake Erie would enable the French to command the Great Lakes. Like many other Home Governments when urged to progressive measures, Colbert, the Colonial Minister, advised caution.[11]

When La Salle arrived from Rochelle with these wonderfully indefinite powers these two men saw great possibilities and went to work at once. Ship carpenters, blacksmiths, and other artisans were gathered at the Niagara River, and while a fort was being built at the mouth of the river to cut off the trade of the English, a store house was erected below the Falls near where Lewiston now stands, and a shipyard was planned above the Falls, where a large boat was to be built for the great western expedition. This was the work of La Salle’s lieutenant, Henry Tonty. With La Salle was a Récollet priest, Father Hennepin, and to him we owe our first written account of Niagara Falls.

After many disappointments, the Griffon, named after Frontenac’s armorial bearing, was launched, equipped, and set sail. Tonty rejoined La Salle on board the Griffon at Detroit. He has an interest for us to-day in that his name is preserved to us in the Tontine plan of insurance, which was the invention of his father, a Neapolitan nobleman. And in a greater sense this Henry Tonty was a nobleman, for through all his wandering and discouragements La Salle found in him a sincere and trustworthy friend. At Mackinac they were to meet with advance guards of traders sent on by La Salle, but most of them had deserted. Gathering up a few whom he thought would be loyal, La Salle made his way to the Illinois River, where a fort was built and a boat begun by Tonty for exploration of the great river. The Griffon was sent home from Green Bay, loaded with furs, and there our knowledge of her ends.

In the meantime La Salle determined to return to Fort Frontenac to get more material and more men to undertake the great journey. By canoe and on foot they crossed Southern Michigan and passed over the Detroit on a raft, thence on foot along the shores of Lake Erie (in the month of March), and utterly worn out he, his faithful hunter, and two white companions reached the Falls, only to hear heart-breaking news. He had travelled more than a thousand miles in 65 days in the very worst season of the year. There was no news of his ship—his fortune and his hope.

Deceived and even robbed by his men, in addition to all his other disappointments, La Salle, undaunted and undismayed, sent Dautray, one of the white men who had accompanied him, with four others, to reinforce Tonty, and pushed on to Fort Frontenac. As if he had not already enough bad news, just as he arrived at the Fort, messengers from Tonty told him that the men who were building the vessel in the Illinois River had stolen what they could and had deserted. These precious rascals, joined by other deserters, must have been following close behind the messengers, as we hear of them breaking into La Salle’s storehouse on the Niagara, looting everything they could and setting out for the East. La Salle heard of it, intercepted some of them, killed two, and took the rest prisoners to Fort Frontenac.

But Tonty must be rescued and the exploration go on, so La Salle gathered men and supplies and started for the West. With twelve men he went up the Humber River, crossed to Lake Simcoe, and thence down the Severn River to the Georgian Bay; the others with the heavier freight went by Niagara and Lake Erie. They were to meet at Mackinac, but La Salle could not wait, and hastened on with a foreboding that something awful may have happened to Tonty at his Fort Crevecoeur (broken heart) in the Illinois country.

And when they arrived it was to see where once had been the chief town of the Illinois, nothing but ashes, skulls, and mangled corpses. The Iroquois had been there. Down the river he went looking for Tonty, even into the Mississippi. Discouraged, they turned back to the St. Joseph River and there at Fort Miami, where La Forest was in charge, they settled down for the winter. In the meantime, Tonty, after trying in vain to prevent the battle between the Iroquois and the Illinois, had escaped and after weeks of suffering had reached Green Bay.

La Salle in the spring set out for Fort Frontenac to refit and went by Michillimackinac. We can imagine his joy when he found Tonty, who accompanied him to the East. By October they had arranged their affairs and arrived at Fort Miami in November. Here they organized their expedition of 18 Indians and 23 Frenchmen, and in Christmas week, 1681, they set out. Across Lake Michigan to the Chicago River, thence portaging to the north branch of the Illinois, they entered the Mississippi on February 6th, but saw no human beings until March 13th, near the mouth of the Arkansas River. Landing there La Salle raised the banner of France, planted a cross, and took possession of the country in the name of the King.

Thence down the river they went for three hundred miles to the Taensas Indians, who lived in large square houses built of mud and straw with a high roof of cane and surrounding a large open court. Soon they came to the mouth or delta of the Mississippi, and going in different parties down the channels they joined together on an island at the mouth, erected a column, and took possession of all Louisiana from the mouth of the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico. And so from Lake Erie west and north to the Rocky Mountains and the Canadian North West, and south from Lake Erie to the Gulf, and west to the Rio Grande was added to the New France whose capital was at the narrowing of the stream of the mighty St. Lawrence.

La Salle had realized his dream, and against obstacles which would have staggered any ordinary man; and New France now extended from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. They retraced their way up the Mississippi and after a long illness he reached Mackinac, whither he had sent Tonty to announce their success. It was too late to go to Quebec, and there was a rumour that the Iroquois were on the warpath, so La Salle and Tonty returned to the Illinois and spent the winter of 1682-3 in fortifying Starved Rock, which was to be one of the chain of forts to hold the new country.

But in the meantime Frontenac was recalled, the forward policy entirely changed, and La Salle’s own possessions at Fort Frontenac seized. This seemed the cap stone of all his troubles, and he passed eastward in the fall of 1683, reached Quebec in November, and finding his case hopeless, sailed for France to lay his case personally before his King.

He was a wonderful man. His vessels had been wrecked, his goods lost, his possessions confiscated. He had been deserted by his men, been robbed, and yet he retained that faith in himself and in his cause, and so impressed the King that he was given command of an expedition to sail for the mouths of the Mississippi to drive the Spaniards out of North America. They landed somewhere near where Galveston, Texas, now stands, having missed the Mississippi. Again through wrecks and desertion La Salle found his numbers depleted. Added to this, dreadful sickness broke out. La Salle determined to seek a way out to the Mississippi and thence up to New France. He made repeated attempts, and at last, deserted by nearly all his men who despaired of ever seeing home again, he was shot by one of his own followers on March 18th, 1687.

Thus perished one of the most remarkable men in our history, the first great Imperialist, who had an empire in his brain, and who if he had been given backing would have made a New France greater than Old France could ever hope to be. And the map of North America would have been greatly changed!

Tonty, the faithful friend and companion of La Salle, stayed for some years in the country of the Illinois, joined Iberville in Louisiana in 1702, and died near where Mobile now stands about 1704. Faithful, not only to the erratic La Salle, but also to the Home Government, he received no recompense in any form, but has left for us an undying picture of how true and faithful a friend can be, and under the most trying circumstances.