France and England in N. America, Part III: The Discovery of the Great West

CHAPTER III. 1670-1672. THE JESUITS ON THE LAKES

THE OLD MISSIONS AND THE NEW.—A CHANGE OF SPIRIT.—LAKE SUPERIOR AND THE COPPER-MINES.—STE. MARIE.—LA POINTE.—MICHILLIMACKINAC. —JESUITS ON LAKE MICHIGAN.—ALLOUEZ AND DABLON.—THE JESUIT FUR-TRADE.

What were the Jesuits doing? Since the ruin of their great mission of the Hurons, a perceptible change had taken place in them. They had put forth exertions almost superhuman, set at naught famine, disease, and death, lived with the self-abnegation of saints and died with the devotion of martyrs; and the result of all had been a disastrous failure. From no short-coming on their part, but from the force of events beyond the sphere of their influence, a very demon of havoc had crushed their incipient churches, slaughtered their converts, uprooted the populous communities on which their hopes had rested, and scattered them in bands of wretched fugitives far and wide through the wilderness. [Footnote: See "The Jesuits in North America."] They had devoted themselves in the fulness of faith to the building up of a Christian and Jesuit empire on the conversion of the great stationary tribes of the lakes; and of these none remained but the Iroquois,—the destroyers of the rest, among whom, indeed, was a field which might stimulate their zeal by an abundant promise of sufferings and martyrdoms; but which, from its geographical position, was too much exposed to Dutch and English influence to promise great and decisive results. Their best hopes were now in the North and the West; and thither, in great part, they had turned their energies.

We find them on Lake Huron, Lake Superior, and Lake Michigan, laboring vigorously as of old, but in a spirit not quite the same. Now, as before, two objects inspired their zeal, the "greater glory of God," and the influence and credit of the order of Jesus. If the one motive had somewhat lost in power, the other had gained. The epoch of the saints and martyrs was passing away; and henceforth we find the Canadian Jesuit less and less an apostle, more and more an explorer, a man of science, and a politician. The yearly reports of the missions are still, for the edification of the pious reader, stuffed with intolerably tedious stories of baptisms, conversions, and the exemplary deportment of neophytes; for these have become a part of the formula; but they are relieved abundantly by more mundane topics. One finds observations on the winds, currents, and tides of the Great Lakes; speculations on a subterranean outlet of Lake Superior; accounts of its copper-mines, and how we, the Jesuit fathers, are laboring to explore them for the profit of the colony; surmises touching the North Sea, the South Sea, the Sea of China, which we hope ere long to discover; and reports of that great mysterious river of which the Indians tell us,—flowing southward, perhaps to the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps to the Vermilion Sea,—and the secrets whereof, with the help of the Virgin, we will soon reveal to the world.

The Jesuit was as often a fanatic for his order as for his faith; and oftener yet, the two fanaticisms mingled in him inextricably. Ardently as he burned for the saving of souls, he would have none saved on the Upper Lakes except by his brethren and himself. He claimed a monopoly of conversion, with its attendant monopoly of toil, hardship, and martyrdom. Often disinterested for himself, he was inordinately ambitious for the great corporate power in which he had merged his own personality; and here lies one cause, among many, of the seeming contradictions which abound in the annals of the order.

Prefixed to the Relation of 1671 is that monument of Jesuit hardihood and enterprise, the map of Lake Superior; a work of which, however, the exactness has been exaggerated, as compared with other Canadian maps of the day. While making surveys, the priests were diligently looking for copper. Father Dablon reports that they had found it in greatest abundance on Isle Minong, now Isle Royale. "A day's journey from the head of the lake, on the south side, there is," he says, "a rock of copper weighing from six hundred to eight hundred pounds, lying on the shore where any who pass may see it;" and he farther speaks of great copper boulders in the bed of the River Ontonagan.

[Footnote: He complains that the Indians were very averse to giving information on the subject, so that the Jesuits had not as yet discovered the metal in situ, though they hoped soon to do so. The Indians told him that the copper had first been found by four hunters, who had landed on a certain island, near the north shore of the lake. Wishing to boil their food in a vessel of bark, they gathered stones on the shore, heated them red hot and threw them in; but presently discovered them to be pure copper. Their repast over, they hastened to re-embark, being afraid of the lynxes and the hares; which, on this island, were as large as dogs, and which would have devoured their provisions, and perhaps their canoe. They took with them some of the wonderful stones; but scarcely had they left the island, when a deep voice, like thunder, sounded in their ears, "Who are these thieves who steal the toys of my children?" It was the God of the Waters, or some other powerful manito. The four adventurers retreated in great terror, but three of them soon died, and the fourth survived only long enough to reach his village and tell the story. The island has no foundation, but floats with the movement of the wind; and no Indian dares land on its shores, dreading the wrath of the manito.—Dablon, Relation, 1670, 84.]

There were two principal missions on the Upper Lakes; which were, in a certain sense, the parents of the rest. One of these was Ste. Marie du Saut,—the same visited by Dollier and Galinée,—at the outlet of Lake Superior. This was a noted fishing-place; for the rapids were full of white-fish, and Indians came thither in crowds. The permanent residents were an Ojibwa band, called by the French Sauteurs, whose bark lodges were clustered at the foot of the rapids, near the fort of the Jesuits. Besides these, a host of Algonquins, of various tribes, resorted thither in the spring and summer; living in abundance on the fishery, and dispersing in winter to wander and starve in scattered hunting-parties far and wide through the forests.

The other chief mission was that of St. Esprit, at La Pointe, near the western extremity of Lake Superior. Here were the Hurons,—fugitives twenty years before from the slaughter of their countrymen; and the Ottawas, who, like them, had sought an asylum from the rage of the Iroquois. Many other tribes,—Illinois, Pottawattamies, Foxes, Menomonies, Sioux, Assinneboins, Knisteneaux, and a multitude besides,—came hither yearly to trade with the French. Here was a young Jesuit, Jacques Marquette, lately arrived from the Saut Ste. Marie. His savage flock disheartened him by its backslidings: and the best that he could report of the Hurons, after all the toils and all the blood lavished in their conversion, was, that they "still retain a little Christianity;" while the Ottawas are "far removed from the kingdom of God, and addicted beyond all other tribes to foulness, incantations, and sacrifices to evil spirits." [Footnote: Lettre du Père Jacques Marquette au R. P. Supérieur des Missions; in Relation, 1670, 87.]

Marquette heard from the Illinois,—yearly visitors at La Pointe,—of the great river which they had crossed on their way, [Footnote: The Illinois lived at this time beyond the Mississippi, thirty days' journey from La Pointe; whither they had been driven by the Iroquois, from their former abode near Lake Michigan. Dablon, (Relation, 1671; 24, 25,) says that they lived seven days' journey beyond the Mississippi, in eight villages. A few years later, most of them returned to the east side and made their abode on the River Illinois.] and which, as he conjectured, flowed into the Gulf of California. He heard marvels of it also from the Sioux, who lived on its banks; and a strong desire possessed him, to explore the mystery of its course. A sudden calamity dashed his hopes. The Sioux,—the Iroquois of the West, as the Jesuits call them,—had hitherto kept the peace with the expatriated tribes of La Pointe; but now, from some cause not worth inquiry, they broke into open war, and so terrified the Hurons and Ottawas that they abandoned their settlements and fled. Marquette followed his panic-stricken flock; who, passing the Saut Ste. Marie, and descending to Lake Huron, stopped, at length,—the Hurons at Michillimackinac, and the Ottawas at the Great Manatoulin Island. Two missions were now necessary to minister to the divided bands. That of Michillimackinac was assigned to Marquette, and that of the Manatoulin Island to Louis André. The former took post at Point St. Ignace, on the north shore of the straits of Michillimackinac, while the latter began the mission of St. Simon at the new abode of the Ottawas. When winter came, scattering his flock to their hunting-grounds, André made a missionary tour among the Nipissings and other neighboring tribes. The shores of Lake Huron had long been an utter solitude, swept of their denizens by the terror of the all-conquering Iroquois; but now that these tigers had felt the power of the French, and learned for a time to leave their Indian allies in peace, the fugitive hordes were returning to their ancient abodes. André's experience among them was of the roughest. The staple of his diet was acorns and tripe de roche,—a species of lichen, which, being boiled, resolved itself into a black glue, nauseous, but not void of nourishment. At times he was reduced to moss, the bark of trees, or moccasins and old moose-skins cut into strips and boiled. His hosts treated him very ill, and the worst of their fare was always his portion. When spring came to his relief, he returned to his post of St. Simon, with impaired digestion and unabated zeal.

Besides the Saut Ste. Marie and Michillimackinac,—both noted fishing- places,—there was another spot, no less famous for game and fish, and therefore a favorite resort of Indians. This was the head of the Green Bay of Lake Michigan. [Footnote: The Baye des Puans of the early writers; or, more correctly, La Baye des Eaux Puantes. The Winnebago Indians, living near it, were called Lies Puans, apparently for no other reason than because some portion of the bay was said to have an odor like the sea.

Lake Michigan, the Lac des Illinois of the French, was, according to a letter of Father Allouez, called Machihiganing by the Indians. Dablon writes the name, Mitchiganon.] Here and in adjacent districts several distinct tribes had made their abode. The Menomonies were on the river which bears their name; the Pottawattamies and Winnebagoes were near the borders of the bay; the Sacs on Fox River; the Mascoutins, Miamis, and Kickapoos, on the same river, above Lake Winnebago; and the Outagamies, or Foxes, on a tributary of it flowing from the north. Green Bay was manifestly suited for a mission; and, as early as the autumn of 1669, Father Claude Allouez was sent thither to found one. After nearly perishing by the way, he set out to explore the destined field of his labors, and went as far as the town of the Mascoutins. Early in the autumn of 1670, having been joined by Dablon, Superior of the missions on the Upper Lakes, he made another journey; but not until the two fathers had held a council with the congregated tribes at St. François Xavier,—for so they named their mission of Green Bay. Here, as they harangued their naked audience, their gravity was put to the proof; for a band of warriors, anxious to do them honor, walked incessantly up and down, aping the movements of the soldiers on guard before the Governor's tent at Montreal. "We could hardly keep from laughing," writes Dablon, "though we were discoursing on very important subjects; namely, the mysteries of our religion, and the things necessary to escaping from eternal fire." [Footnote: Relation, 1671, 43.]

The fathers were delighted with the country, which Dablon. calls an earthly paradise; but he adds that the way to it is as hard as the path to heaven. He alludes especially to the rapids of Fox River, which gave the two travellers great trouble. Having safely passed them, they saw an Indian idol on the bank, similar to that which Dollier and Galinée found at Detroit; being merely a rock, bearing some resemblance to a man, and hideously painted. With the help of their attendants, they threw it into the river. Dablon expatiates on the buffalo; which he describes apparently on the report of others, as his description is not very accurate. Crossing Winnebago Lake, the two priests followed the river leading to the town of the Mascoutins and Miamis, which they reached on the fifteenth of September. [Footnote: This town was on the Neenah or Fox River, above Lake Winnebago. The Mascoutins, Fire Nation, or Nation of the Prairie, are extinct or merged in other tribes.—See "Jesuits in North America." The Miamis soon removed to the banks of the River St. Joseph, near Lake Michigan.] These two tribes lived together within the compass of the same inclosure of palisades; to the number, it is said, of more than three thousand souls. The missionaries, who had brought a highly-colored picture of the Last Judgment, called the Indians to council and displayed it before them; while Allouez, who spoke Algonquin, harangued them on hell, demons, and eternal flames. They listened with open ears, beset him night and day with questions, and invited him and his companion to unceasing feasts. They were welcomed in every lodge, and followed everywhere with eyes of curiosity, wonder, and awe. Dablon overflows with praises of the Miami chief; who was honored by his subjects like a king, and whose demeanor to wards his guests had no savor of the savage.

Their hosts told them of the great river Mississippi, rising far in the north and flowing southward,—they knew not whither,—and of many tribes that dwelt along its banks. When at length they took their departure, they left behind them a reputation as medicine-men of transcendent power.

In the winter following, Allouez visited the Foxes, whom he found in extreme ill-humor. They were incensed against the French by the ill-usage which some of their tribe had lately met with when on a trading-visit to Montreal; and they received the faith with shouts of derision. The priest was horror-stricken at what he saw. Their lodges,—each, containing from five to ten families,—seemed in his eyes like seraglios; for some of the chiefs had eight wives. He armed himself with patience, and at length gained a hearing. Nay, he succeeded so well, that when he showed them his crucifix, they would throw tobacco on it as an offering; and, on another visit, which he made them soon after, he taught the whole village to make the sign of the cross. A war-party was going out against their enemies, and he bethought him of telling them the story of the Cross and the Emperor Constantine. This so wrought upon them that they all daubed the figure of a cross on their shields of bull-hide, set out for the war, and came back victorious, extolling the sacred symbol as a great war-medicine.

"Thus it is," writes Dablon, who chronicles the incident, "that our holy faith is established among these people; and we have good hope that we shall soon carry it to the famous river called the Mississippi, and perhaps even to the South Sea." [Footnote: Relation, 1672, 42.] Most things human have their phases of the ludicrous; and the heroism of these untiring priests is no exception to the rule.

The various missionary stations were much alike. They consisted of a chapel (commonly of logs) and one or more houses, with perhaps a storehouse and a workshop,—the whole fenced with palisades, and forming, in fact, a stockade fort, surrounded with clearings and cultivated fields. It is evident that the priests had need of other hands than their own and those of the few lay brothers attached to the mission. They required men inured to labor, accustomed to the forest life, able to guide canoes and handle tools and weapons. In the earlier epoch of the missions, when enthusiasm was at its height, they were served in great measure by volunteers, who joined them through devotion or penitence, and who were known as donnés, or "given men." Of late, the number of these had much diminished; and they now relied chiefly on hired men, or engagés. These were employed in building, hunting, fishing, clearing and tilling the ground, guiding canoes, and if faith is to be placed in reports current throughout the colony in trading with the Indians for the profit of the missions. This charge of trading—which, if the results were applied exclusively to the support of the missions, does not of necessity involve much censure—is vehemently reiterated in many quarters, including the official despatches of the Governor of Canada; while, so far as I can discover, the Jesuits never distinctly denied it; and, on several occasions, they partially admitted its truth. [Footnote: This charge was made from the first establishment of the missions. For remarks on it, see "Jesuits in North America."]

CHAPTER IV. 1667-1672. FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST

TALON.—ST. LUSSON.—PERROT.—THE CEREMONY AT SAUT STE. MARIE.– THE SPEECH OF ALLOUEZ.—COUNT FRONTENAC.

Jean Talon, Intendant of Canada, was a man of no common stamp. Able, vigorous, and patriotic,—he was the worthy lieutenant and disciple of the great minister Colbert, the ill-requited founder of the prosperity of Louis XIV. He cherished high hopes for the future of New France, and labored strenuously to realize them. He urged upon the king a scheme which, could it have been accomplished, would have wrought strange changes on the American continent. This was, to gain possession of New York, by treaty or conquest; [Footnote: Lettre de Talon à Colbert, 27 Oct. 1667. Twenty years after, the plan was again suggested by the Governor, Denonville.] thus giving to Canada a southern access to the ocean, open at all seasons, separating New England from Virginia, and controlling the Iroquois, the most formidable enemy of the French colony. Louis XIV. held the king of England in his pay; and, had the proposal been urged, the result could not have been foretold. The scheme failed, and Talon prepared to use his present advantages to the utmost. While laboring strenuously to develop the industrial resources of the colony, he addressed himself to discovering and occupying the interior of the continent; controlling the rivers, which were its only highways; and securing it for France against every other nation. On the east, England was to be hemmed within a narrow strip of seaboard; while, on the south, Talon aimed at securing a port on the Gulf of Mexico, to hold the Spaniards in check, and dispute with them the possession of the vast regions which they claimed as their own. But the interior of the continent was still an unknown world. It behooved him to explore it; and to that end he availed himself of Jesuits, officers, fur-traders, and enterprising schemers like La Salle. His efforts at discovery seem to have been conducted with a singular economy of the king's purse. La Salle paid all the expenses of his first expedition made under Talon's auspices; and apparently of the second also, though the Intendant announces it in his despatches as an expedition sent out by himself. [Footnote: At all events, La Salle was in great need of money about the time of his second journey. On the sixth of August, 1671, he had received on credit, "dans son grand besoin et nécessité," from Branssat, fiscal attorney of the Seminary, merchandise to the amount of four hundred and fifty livres; and, on the eighteenth of December of the following year, he gave his promise to pay the same sum, in money or furs, in the August following. Faillon found the papers in the ancient records of Montreal.] When, in 1670, he ordered Daumont de St. Lusson to search for copper-mines on Lake Superior, and, at the same time, to take formal possession of the whole interior for the king; it was arranged that he should pay the costs of the journey by trading with the Indians. [Footnote: In his despatch of 2d Nov. 1671, Talon writes to the king that "St. Lusson's expedition will cost nothing, as he has received beaver enough from the Indians to pay him."]

St. Lusson set out with a small party of men, and Nicolas Perrot as his interpreter. Among Canadian voyageurs few names are so conspicuous as that of Perrot; not because there were not others who matched him in achievement, but because he could write, and left behind him a tolerable account of what he had seen. [Footnote: Moeurs, Coustumes, et Relligion des Sauvages de l'Amérique Septentrionale. This work of Perrot, hitherto unpublished, appeared in 1864, under the editorship of Father Tailhan, S.J. A great part of it is incorporated in La Potherie.] He was at this time twenty-six years old, and had formerly been an engagé of the Jesuits. He was a man of enterprise, courage, and address; the last being especially shown in his dealings with Indians, over whom he had great influence. He spoke Algonquin fluently, and was favorably known to many tribes of that family. St. Lusson wintered at the Manatoulin Islands; while Perrot—having first sent messages to the tribes of the north, inviting them to meet the deputy of the Governor at the Saut Ste. Marie in the following spring—proceeded to Green Bay, to urge the same invitation upon the tribes of that quarter. They knew him well, and greeted him with clamors of welcome. The Miamis, it is said, received him with a sham battle, which was designed to do him honor, but by which nerves more susceptible would have been severely shaken. [Footnote: See La Potherie, ii. 125. Perrot himself does not mention it. Charlevoix erroneously places this interview at Chicago. Perrot's narrative shows that he did not go farther than the tribes of Green Bay; and the Miamis were then, as we have seen, on the upper part of Fox River.] They entertained him also with a grand game of la crosse, the Indian ball-play. Perrot gives a marvellous account of the authority and state of the Miami chief; who, he says, was attended day and night by a guard of warriors,—an assertion which would be incredible were it not sustained by the account of the same chief given by the Jesuit Dablon. Of the tribes of the Bay, the greater part promised to send delegates to the Saut; but the Pottawattamies dissuaded the Miami potentate from attempting so long a journey, lest the fatigue incident to it might injure his health; and he therefore deputed them to represent him and his tribesmen at the great meeting. Their principal chiefs, with those of the Sacs, Winnebagoes, and Menomonies, embarked, and paddled for the place of rendezvous; where they and Perrot arrived on the fifth of May. [Footnote: Perrot, Mémoires, 127.]

St. Lusson was here with his men, fifteen in number, among whom was Louis Joliet; [Footnote: Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession, etc., 14 Juin, 1671. The names are attached to this instrument.] and Indians were fast thronging in from their wintering grounds; attracted, as usual, by the fishery of the rapids, or moved by the messages sent by Perrot,– Crees, Monsonis, Amikoués, Nipissings, and many more. When fourteen tribes, or their representatives, had arrived, St. Lusson prepared to execute the commission with which he was charged.

At the foot of the rapids was the village of the Sauteurs, above the village was a hill, and hard by stood the fort of the Jesuits. On the morning of the fourteenth of June, St. Lusson led his followers to the top of the hill, all fully equipped and under arms. Here, too, in the vestments of their priestly office, were four Jesuits,—Claude Dablon, Superior of the Missions of the Lakes, Gabriel Druilletes, Claude Allouez, and Louis André. [Footnote: Marquette is said to have been present; but the official act, just cited, proves the contrary. He was still at St. Esprit.] All around, the great throng of Indians stood, or crouched, or reclined at length, with eyes and ears intent. A large cross of wood had been made ready. Dablon, in solemn form, pronounced his blessing on it; and then it was reared and planted in the ground, while the Frenchmen, uncovered, sang the Vexilla Regis. Then a post of cedar was planted beside it, with a metal plate attached, engraven with the royal arms; while St. Lusson's followers sang the Exaudiat and one of the Jesuits uttered a prayer for the king. St. Lusson now advanced, and, holding his sword in one hand, and raising with the other a sod of earth, proclaimed in a loud voice,—