Class F V hZ Ronk - W^^. / DESCRIPTION LOUISIANA, Hv FATIlKIl LOUIS HKNNKIMN, RECOLLECT MISSIONARY. IMANSlAIKIi KKOM IIIK IDiriON 0» iTjX], AND COMI'Alltl) WITH THE NOUVtl.I.I DicOIIVtUTE, THE LA «AI.I.K IIOCUMENflJ ANIJ OTHEK CONTEMPOHANEOUli PAI'KUS. By JOHN OILMARY SriEA. . NEW YORK O H N G. SHEA. 1880. COPYRIGHT iSSo, JOHN GILMARY CHEA. f^^ ,"^L .H ^4 Rt. Rev. JOHN IRELAND, D.D., J. FLETCHER WILLIAMS, ruEsniEN r anp secretary of the Minnesota historical gociety, t;ii3 workdje to their friendly compulsion is now dedicated. PREFACE. The work of Father Louis Hennepin here given is the most graphic account of La Salle's course of exploration as far as Illinois, and the only detailed narrative of Hennepin's own voyage up the Mississippi to the Sioux country during which he visited and named the Falls of Saint Anthony. Doubts thrown upon Hennepin by the evident falsity of a later work bearing his name, have led to a general charge of falsehood against him. In justice to him, it must be admitted that there are grounds for believing that his notes were adapted by an unscrupulous editor, and the second book altered even after it was printed. His original work hsre given in full for the first time in English, is supported to a remarkable degree by all contemporary authorities, by topography and Indian life. The charge made by Margry that it is a plagiarism is utterly absurd. 6 Pi^EFACE. To bring together in English matter scattered in various volumes bearing on the questions in regard to Hennepin, I have added the account of the pretended voyage down the Mississippi in the Nouvelle Decouverte ; an account of Henne- pin's capture from the Margry documents ; the account given by La Salle in his letter of August 22, 1682 ; the account given in the work ascribed to Tonty, and lastly the Report of Du Lhut to the Marquis de Seignelay of his visit to the Sioux country in v^hich he relieved or rescued Hennepin. I must express my thanks for valuable aid re- ceived from Mr. H. A. Homes, George H. Moore, LL.D., and Gen. J. Watts de Peyster. JOHN GILMARY SHEA. Elizabeth, June 12, 1880. CONTENTS- Notice on Father Louis Hennepin, g On the authenticity of Father Hennepin's works, 31 Hennepin's Description of Louisiana 41 Dedication to Louis XIV, 4-1 Royal Privilege, 48 La Salle's Earlier Explorations, 51 Obtains grant of Fort Frontenac, 52 Prepares for his Western Exploration, 64 Sends men to Niagara, 65 The Great Lakes — The Falls of Niagara, , 6g Begins fort and builds the Griffin, , 73 La Motte and Hennepin visit the Senecas, 74 Loss of La Salle's bark, 81 Launching of the Griffin, 85 She sails for the West, go At Lake St. Clare, 92 At Missilimakinac, 97 At Green Bay, 104 Sails back, 106 La Salle proceeds in canoes, 108 Trouble with Outagamis, 120 At the mouth of the river of the Miamis, 129 Builds a fort, i^i Joined by Tonty, i^-? Ascends the river, 135 Makes the portage to the Seignelay (Illinois), 140 Reaches Illinois village, 152 Reaches Illinois camp, 156 Begins Fort Crevecoeur and vessel, 175 Sets out to learn fate of the Griffin, 188 Hennepin and Accault set out, ..« 192 8 CONTENTS. Reach the Mississippi, 104 Account of the upper Mississippi, 196 Capture by Sioux, 205 Reaches and names Falls of St. Antnony, 220 Found by Du Lhut, 253 Return by way of the Wisconsin, 256 At Michilimakinac, 259 Returns to Quebec and France, 264 Latest intelligence of La Salle, 271 The Manners of the Indians, 273 Approbatory of the "Description of Louisiana," pub- lished on the " Nouveau Voyage," Utrecht, 1698,... 340 Account of a voyage down the Mississippi, from the Nouvelle Decouverte, 343 Account of Hennepin's capture, from the Margry papers, 360 Account of Hennepin's canoe exploration in La Salle's Letter of August 22, 168^, 361 Account of Hennepin's expedition in the work pub- lished in 1697, as by the Chevalier Tonty, 372 Du Lhut's Report to Monseigneur the Marquis de Seignelay, 374 Description of Niagara Falls, from the Nouvelle De- couverte, 377 Bibliography of Hennepin, 382 Index, 393 NOTICE OF FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN, Recollect Missionary. Father Louis Hennepin was the first popular writer on the French in America. Champlain, Lescarbot, the Jesuits in their Relations had written indeed but their works found no currency beyond France. Hennepin's works caught the general fancy and were translated into almost all the languages of Europe. But for him the story of La Salle would scarcely have been known even in France. Of his early life he gives us little information. He was born at Ath in Hainaut, as he assures us, although Margry on the faith of documents, says that he was really born at Roy, of a family which came from Ath. While still pursuing his studies he felt " a strong inclination to leave the world and to live in the 2 to SKETCH OP rule of pure strict virtue. With this view," says he, " I entered the order of Saint Francis, in order to spend my days there in a life of austerity. I accordingly took the habit with several of my fellow students, whom I inspired with the same design." * He made his novitiate in the Recollect Con- vent at Bethune in the province of Artois, where his Master of Novices was Father Gabriel de la Ribourde, a man eminent alike for his high social position and for a most exemplary life f and who was destined at a later day to die for the faith, while laboring as a missionary in America. " As I advanced in age," says he, "an inclination for traveling in foreign parts strengthened in my heart. One of my sisters who was married at Ghent, and for whom I entertained a very strong- affection, used every argument indeed, to divert me from this project, while I was in that great city to which I had gone in order to learn * Nouvelle Decouverte, p. 8, f Nouv. Decouv., pp. 488-9, HENNEPIN. 11 Flemish. But I was urged by several of my Amsterdam friends to go to the East Indies, and my natural inclination to travel, supporting their entreaties, shook my resolution greatly, and I almost resolved to embark in order to gratify this desire."* " All my sister's remonstrances could not divert me from my first design. I accordingly set out to see Italy and by order of the General of our order, I visited the finest churches and the most important convents of our order in that country and Germany, in v^^hich I began to satisfy my natural curiosity. At last returning to our Nether- lands, the Rev. Father William Herinx, a Re- collect, v^^ho died not long since Bishop of Ipres -j* opposed my project of continuing my travels. He placed me in the convent of Halles in Hainaut where I discharged the duty of a preacher for a year. After that with my superior's leave I went * lb., pp. 9, 10. t He was bishop from Oct, 24, 1677, to Aug. 15, 1678, Gams, Series Episcoporum. 1 2 SKETCH OF to Artois, and was thence sent to Calais, during the season for salting herrings." " In this place my strongest passion was to listen to the stories which sea captains told of their long voyages. I then returned to our convent of Biez by Dunkirk : but I often hid behind the tavern doors, while the sailors were talking over their cruises. While thus endeavoring to hear them the tobacco smoke sickened me terribly ; yet I listened eagerly to all that these men told of their adventures at sea, of the dangers they had en- countered, and the various incidents of their voyages in foreign parts. I would have passed whole days and nights without eating in this occupation, which was so agreeable to me, because I always learned something new about the manners and mode of life of foreign nations, and touching the beauty, fertility and riches of the countries where these men had been." " I accordingly was more and more confirmed in my old inclination. With the view of grati- fying it the more, I went as a missionary to most "HENNEPIN. 13 of the cities of Holland, and at last halted at Maestricht, where I remained about eight months. There I administered the sacraments to more than three thousand wounded. While there en- gaged in this occupation, I was several times in great danger among these sick people. I was even myself taken down with purples and dysen- tery, and was within an inch of the grave. But God at last restored me my former health by the care and aid of a very able Dutch physician." " The following year, by an impulse of my zeal I again devoted myself to labor for the salvation of souls. I was then at the bloody battle of SenefF" (Aug. 11, 1674), "where so many men perished by fire and steel. There I had abundant occupation in relieving and comforting the poor wounded men. And at last after enduring great hardships and encountering extreme dangers in sieges of cities, in trenches and on the field of battle, where I exposed myself greatly for the salvation of my neighbor, while the soldiers breathed only blood and carnage, I beheld my- F4 SKETCH OF self in a condition to satisfy my first inclina- tions."'* Canada had become for a second time a field of labor for the Recollect missionaries. The Count de Frontenac, Governor General, was especially anxious to have them in the colony as a balance to the Jesuits and the Bishop, who with his secular clergy held very strict rules of morahty, especially on the point of selHng liquor to the Indians. The King of France, Louis XIV, yielding to the appeal of the Count de Frontenac, wrote to him on the 22d of April, 1675. "I ^^^e sent five Recollect religious to Canada to reinforce the community of these religious already estab- lished there."-]- Father Hennepin was one of those selected. " I then received orders," he continues, " from my superiors to proceed to Rochelle in order to em- bark as a missionary for Canada. For two months * Nouv. Decouv. pp. 10—12. t Margry i, p. 251, HENNEPIN. 15 I discharged the duties of parish priest two leagues from that city, because I had been requested to do so by the pastor of theplace who was absent." *' At last," proceeds Father Hennepin, " I abandoned myself entirely to Providence and undertook this great sea voyage of twelve or thir- teen hundred leagues, the greatest and perhaps the longest that is made on the ocean." " I accordingly embarked with Messire Francis de Laval, just then created Bishop of Petras a in partibus infidelium and subsequently made Bishop of Quebec the Capital of Canada."* Another distinguished personage who made the voyage in the same vessel was Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, to whom Louis XIV, on the 13th of May, 1675, granted Fort Frontenac and whose vanity he gratified with a patent of nobility. * The See of Quebec was erected Oct. i, 1674, and Mgr. Laval, had been Bishop of Petraea since 1658. This part of the Nouvelle Decouverte seems suspicious and in the same paragraph is the blunder which misled Greenhow, where the text says that Hennepin was a missionary in Canada while Fenelon, afterwards archbishop of Cambray resided there. It was really Fenelon's brother. Hennepin himself could not have made these errors. l6 SKETCH OF The name of the vessel is not given nor the date of sailing.* Hennepin speaks of the perils of the voyage, engagements in the Turkish vessels from Tunis and Algiers which did all tliey could to capture his vessel, but which were defeated. He saw a combat between a sword fish and a whale, and was filled with astonishment when he beheld the fishermen of many different countries taking cod off Newfoundland. " This sight," he adds, " gave great pleasure to our crew, who numbered about one hundred, to three-fourths of whom I administered the sacra- ments because they were Catholics. I performed the divine office every calm day, and we then sang the Itinerary in French set to music, after we had said our evening prayers. ""j* * The Avis au Lecteur p. 4, says that Hennepin came over in 1676, but it is clear that he came in 1675, as Bishop Laval whose fellow voyager he was, reached Quebec, September 1675. Le Clercq, ii, p. 121, attended a meeting of the Council of Quebec, Oct. 7, 1675. Edits et Ordonnances ii, p. 64, and they must have sailed after May 19, 1675. See Edits et Ordon- nances, i p. 81. f Nouv. Decouv., p. 15. HENNEPIN. 17 Besides the sailors he had another Uttle flock. This was a number of girls sent over to settle in Canada. His zeal for their spiritual good led to an angry passage between him and La Salle. " This charge one day obliged me, while we were at sea, to censure several girls who were on board and were sent to Canada. They made a great noise by their dancing and thus prevented the sailors from getting their rest at night ; so that I was obliged to reprimand them somewhat severely, in order to oblige them to stop, and to observe due modesty and tranquility." "This afforded the Sieur Robert Cavelier de la Salle an occasion of anger against me, which he never forgot. He made a show of wishing to uphold these girls in their amusement. He could not refrain from telling me one day somewhat angrily, that I acted like a pedant to- wards him and all the officers, and persons of quality who were on the vessel, and who enjoyed seeing these girls dance, since I criticised them for trifles ; but Mgr Francis de Laval, created I 8 SKETCH OF first Bishop of Quebec, who made the voyage with us, having given me the direction of these girls, I thought I had a right to reply to the Sieur de la Salle, that I had never been a pedant, a term which, as all the world knows, signifies a man of a foolish and impertinent turn of mind, and who affects to display on all occasions, an ill digested learning. I added moreover, that these girls were under my direction, and that I thus had a right to rebuke them and censure them as they took on themselves too much liberty. "This answer which I made with no other view than to show the said Sieur de la Salle that I was doing my duty, made him livid with anger, and in fact he raged violently against me. I contented myself with telling him, seeing him thus disposed towards me, that he took things ill, and th'dt I had no intention of offending him, as in fact it was not my design." " Monsieur de Barrois, who had formerly been secretary to the French ambassador in Turkey, and who at this time filled the same post under HENNEPIN. 19 the Count de Frontenac, seeing this affair, drew me aside, and told me that I had inadvertently put the Sieur de la Salle in a great passion, when I told him that I had never been a pedant, be- cause he had plied the trade for ten or eleven years while he was among the Jesuits and that he had really been regent or teacher of a class, among these religious." "[ replied to the Sieur de Barrois that I had said this very innocently ; that 1 had never known that the Sieur de la Salle had lived in that famous order ; that had I been aware of it, I should doubtless have avoided uttering that word pedant in addressing him ; that I knew it to be an offen- sive term, that, in fact, men generally expressed by it an "ill polished savant" according to the French expression of the Gentlemen of Port Royal ; that thus I should have avoided using that term, had I been better informed than I was in regard to the life of the said Sieur de la Salle.* *:Nouv. Dec. Avis an Lecteur. 2G SKETCH OF To this affair Hennepin attributes a life long hostility of La Salle towards him, although we see no traces of it in his Relation of Louisiana. On reaching Canada he assures us that Bishop Laval " considering that during the voyage I had displayed great zeal in my sermons and in my assiduity in performing the divine office, and had moreover prevented several women and girls, who were sent over with us, from taking too much liberty with the young men of our crew, to whose hostility I thus frequently exposed myself, — these reasons and several others obtained for me the encomiums and good will of this illustrious bish- op. He accordingly obliged me to preach the Advent and Lent in the cloister of the Hospital Nuns of St. Augustine, in Quebec."* " However, my natural inclination was not satisfied with all this. I accordingly often went twenty or thirty leagues from our residence to visit the country. I carried on my back a little * lb,, p. 17, Mother Juchereau, in her Histoire de I'Hotel Dieu says nothing of Hennepin under this year. HENNEPIN. ^I chapel service and walked with large snow shoes, but for which I should often have fallen into fearful precipices where I should have been lost. Sometimes, in order to relieve myself, I had my little equipage drawn by a large dog that I took along, and this I did the sooner to reach Three Rivers, Saint Anne, Cap Tourmente, Bourg Royal, Pointe de Levi and the Isle of St. Laurent.* There I gathered in one of the largest cabins of these places as many people as I could. Then I admitted them to confession and holy communion. At night I had usually only a cloak to cover me. The frost often penetrated to my very bones. I was obliged to light my fire five or six times during the night for fear of being frozen to death ; and I had only in very moderate quantities, the food I needed to live, and to prevent my perish- ing with hunger on the way," " During the summer I was forced to travel in * Besides the places here enumerated he mentions elsewhere " Isle Percee where I lived in quality of a missionary a whole summer for the benefit of the fishermen who came there every year with several ships." 2± SKETCH Ot^ a canoe to continue my mission," " because there are no practicable roads in that country." * "I was sent as it were to try me, to a mission more than ahundredand twenty leagues fromQuebec."f His voyage to Fort Frontenac is described in the following pages ; but in the Nouvelle De- couverte he says : "I made several different voyages, sometimes with Canadian settlers, whom we had drawn to our Fort Catarokouy to live, sometimes with Indians whom I had become acquainted with. As I foresaw that they would excite the suspicion of the Iroquois in regard to our discoveries, I wished to see the Indians of their five Cantons. I accordingly went among them with one of our soldiers from said fort, making a journey of about seventy leagues, and both having large snowshoes on our feet, on account of the snow which is abundant in that country during winter. I had * Nouv. Dec, pp. 17-19. t lb., p. 23. HENNEPIN. 23 already some little knowledge of the Iroquois language."* " We thus passed to the Honnehiouts Iroquois and to the Honnontagez,j" who received us very well. This nation is the most warlike of all the Iroquois." " At last we arrived at the Ganniekez or Agniez. J This is one of the five Iroquois nations situated a good day's journey from the neighborhood of New Netherland, now called New York." " We remained sometime among this last nation and we lodged with a Jesuit Father, born in Lyons, in order to transcribe a little Iroquois dictionary. The weather having cleared off, we one day saw three Dutchmen arrive on horseback who came to the Iroquois as ambassadors for the beaver trade. They had gone there by order of Major Andris." . . . . " These gentlemen dis- * pp. 25-6, I can find nothing in Canadian documents as to his labors. f Oneidas and Onondagas. X Mohawks. 2^ SKETCH OF mounted from their horses to make us get on them and take us with them to New Orange in order to regale me there. When they heard me speak Flemish they showed me much friendship. They then assured me that they would have been glad to see me reside among them for the spiritual consolation of several Catholics from our Low Countries, who were in their settlements. I would have done so willingly since they requested it, but I feared to give umbrage to the Jesuits, who had received me very well, and moreover I feared I might injure the colony of Canada in its beaver and fur trade with the Indians, whom I knew. We accordingly thanked these worthy Hollanders, and returned to our ordinary abode at Catarokouy, with less difficulty than in going."* * This visit to the Mohawks and encounter with the Dutch was in April, 1677, and is confirmed by N. Y. Col. Doc, iv, p. 689, ix, p. 720. It has generally been inferred from the language that he visited Albany, but this is controverted by Brodhead, History of New York ii, p. 307. Historical Maga- zine 10, p. 268. The Jesuit missionary whom he visited was Father James Bruyas, and he copied his " Racines Agnieres," HENNEPIN. 25 From Fort Catarocouy his subsequent journey- ings are given in the following pages which describe La Salle's expedition to Niagara, Mich- ilimakinac, Green Bay, the Fort of the Miamis, and Crevecoeur. Then after La Salle's departure, his own expedition with Ako down the Illinois to the Mississippi and up to the falls of St. Anthony, descending then to the Wisconsin, thence by way of Green Bay back to the Saint Lawrence, and Quebec. Taking passage to France he reached that country again in 1681 or 1682. He wrote the following work in the latter year. It was regis- tered September 10, 1682, and the printing com- pleted on the 5th of January, thereafter. During this time he was apparently at the convent at St. Germain-en-Laye. After this he was Vicar and Acting Superior of the Recollects " Mohawk Radical Words," which nearly ttvo centuries after I also copied and published in 1863. This work is the source of Hennepin's Iroquois, and an example in one of Bruyas' works, is made a ground of accusation against the Jesuits. See Margry i, p. 321, 394 3 26 SKETCH OF at Chateau Cambresis, where he was visited by his old companion Father Zenobius Membre. He was, he tells us in the Nouvelle Decouverte, Guardian of the Recollects at Renti in Artois for three years, and during that time almost rebuilt the convent, but having declined to return to the American mission at the request of F. Hyacinth le Fevre, Commissary Provincial of the Recollects of Paris, who claimed jurisdiction as Royal Com- missary over all the Recollects in the Netherland provinces captured from Spain, that Superior be- came his enemy. He prevented F. Hennepin from accompanying F. Alexander Voile, pro- minister of the Recollects of Artois to Rome to attend a chapter of the order, and then ordered him to return to the Recollect convent at St. Omer. This was followed by an order obtained from Mr. de Louvois, first minister of State, ordering Hennepin to leave French territory and return to the dominions of his own sovereign, the King of Spain. Hennepin appealed to King Louis XIV, pre- HENNEPIN. 27 senting a placet to him, detailing his trials, while the king was encamped at the chapel of Harle- mont. Louis XIV, placed it in the hands of the Grand Provost of the Court and it was lost sight of. After this Father Hennepin was, he tells us. Confessor of the Recollect Nuns (Penitents) at Gosselies. During his nearly five years' stay here, he states that he built a very fine church, doubly vaulted, a very convenient parlor, and several other edifices. This was attested, he declares, by a certificate of the nuns and by their letters to the General Chapter. He was not however left in peace. F. Louis le Fevre wished to incorporate him in the province of Flanders, declaring that Gosselies was in French territory. This he denies and affirms that he was there by virtue of a lettre de cachet of the King of Spain. He gained the friendship of Blaithwayt, Sec- retary of War to William IK who obtained a safeguard for the nuns, which saved their con- vent from pillage on several occasions. 28 SKETCH OF Blaithwayt wrote in the name of William III, to the Father Rennere de Payez, Commissary General of the Recollects at Louvain, asking him to send Hennepin to the American mission, but as there was no immediate response, Hennepin solicited the blessing of Monsignor Scarlati, in- ternuncio at Brussels, and receiving it at Ath, pro- ceeded to Louvain with a letter from Father Bonaventure Poerius, General of his order (Mar. 31, 1696), assuring the Father that the Commis- sary would do all that was fair. The Commissary wrote to the Baron de Mal- quenech, and to Mr. de Coxis and sent Hennepin to the Recollect Convent at Antwerp, where Mr. Hill, envoy extraordinary of his Britannic Maj- esty, furnished him money to purchase the ordinary clothing of gentlemen. Some allude to this as though Hennepin aban- doned his order, but he seems to have acted with the express permission of his superiors. He then set out for Amsterdam in company with a Venetian ship captain, but they were HENNEPIN. 29 Stopped between Antwerp and Mordick by six horsemen who robbed them of all their money. By the help of some friends he managed how- ever to reach Loo, and the Hague, where he was very well received by Blaithwayt and had an audience with William III. He finally reached Amsterdam and endeavored to obtain a publisher, but the volume, that was to prove one of the most popular yet issued on America, did not seem a safe venture and with the consent of the Earl of Athlone, Hennepin journeyed to Utrecht. There William Broedelet undertook the work, and it appeared in 1697, in a duodecimo of 586 pages with an engraved title page, in which as though he claimed the nobility that La Salle obtained for all his men, he is styled Louis de Hennepin, although on the printed title he is still the modest commoner Louis Hennepin. He dedicates the work to William HI in terms of flattery as extravagant as those with which he placed his former volume under the protection of Louis XIV. 3C SKETCH OF Willing now to return to America as a mission- ary, he sought the support of William III, not as the overthrower of the Catholic King of England, but as the ally of Catholic Spain and Catholic Bavaria, and the protector of the Spanish Nether- land. After publishing a third book at Amsterdam, in 1698, in which he complains of the hostility to him of some people in that city, he apparently made new efforts to return to Canada, ac a dis- patch of Louis XIV, to the Governor of the province in 1699, orders that officer to arrest Hennepin and send him back to Rochefort.* The last allusion to him now traced is in a letter of J. B. Dubos to Thouinard, written at Rome, March i, 1701, in which Father Henne- pin is said to have been then at the convent of Aracoeli in Rome, and to have induced Cardinal Spada, whose favor he enjoyed to found a new mission in the Mississippi country, where Father Hennepin hoped to renew his earlier labors.^* * N. Y, Col. Doc, ix, p. 701. I Brunei, 2 p. 539. Historical Magazine, i p. 316. HENNEPIN. 31 J. B. Foppens, a bibliographer of the last century in his Bibliotheca Belgica, Brussels, 1739 (vol. ii, pp. 832-3) says that Hennepin wrote also " La Morale Pratique du Jansenisme avec un Appel comme d' abus au Pope Innocent XIL" Researches in Belgium, Holland and Rome have failed to throw any further light on his personal history. The annalists of his order have gathered nothing, and the local histories of the places in which he passed an occasional term of years pre- serve no details as to him. My own efforts, like those of the Hon. Henry C. Murphy some years since, have been fruitless. Hennepin was from the first very freely attacked, and in our day scholars have impeached his character for truth with very little ceremony. La Salle in his letter of August, 1682, which gives no very high idea of his own veracity, wish- ing to forestal any representations of Hennepin that would make him a prisoner among the Sioux rescued by Du Lhut, when he wished him to appear as an explorer of the Sioux country before 32 SKETCH OF Du Lhut, says : " It is necessary to know him somewhat, for he will not fail to exaggerate every- thing ; it is his character ;" * yet La Salle else- where appeals to his testimony,! ^^'^ ^^ ^^^^ letter shows a disposition to sacrifice Hennepin's cha- racter to further his own interested views. The eminent Sulpitian, the Rev. Mr. Tronson, writing to the Abbe Belmont at Montreal, speaking of Father Membre, says, in 1683 : "I do not know whether men will believe all he says, any more than they will all that is in the printed Relation of Father Louis, which I send you that you may make your reflections on it." J The ^cfa Eruditorum, Leipsic, 1683, pp. 374, etc., gives a long summary of the Description de la Louistane, and raises no charge against it. Father Le Clercq refers to Hennepin and his first work in terms of praise in 1691 ; but De § * lb,, p. 230. t Margry ii, p. 259. X Margry ii, p. 305. § Etablissement de la Foi, ii, pp. 114, 160, 161. HENNEPIN. 33 Michel, the editor of Joutel in 171 3, says: " Father Hennepin, a Fleming, of the same order of Recollects, who seems to know the country well, and who took part in great discoveries ; although the truth of his Relations is very much contested. He is the one who went northward towards the source of the Missicipi, which he called Mechasipi, and who printed at Paris a Re- lation of the countries around that river under the name of Louisiana. He should have stopped there and not gone on, as he did in Holland, to issue another edition much enlarged, and perhaps not so true, which he dedicated to William HI, Prince of Orange, then king of Great Britain, a design as odd as it was ridiculous in a religious, not to say worse. For after great long eulogies which he makes in his dedication of this Pro- testant prince, he begs and conjures him to think of these vast unknown countries, to conquer them, send colonies there and obtain for the Indians, the knowledge of the true God and of his worship and to cause the gospel to be preached. This 34- SKETCH OF good religious whom many on account of his extravagance, falsely believed to have become an apostate, had no thought of such a thing. So he scandalized the Catholics and set the Huguenots laughing. For would these enemies of the Roman church pay Recollects to go to Canada to preach Popery as they called it? Or would they carry any religion but their own ? And Father Hennepin, can he in that case offer any excuse." * Still later Father Charlevoix savs of his works : " All these works are written in a declamatory style, which offends by its turgidity and shocks by the liberties which the author takes and his un- becoming invectives. As for the substance of matters Father Hennepin thought he might take a traveler's license, hence he is much decried in Canada, those who had accompanied him having often protested that he was anything but veritable in his histories." f * Journal Historique, p. 363. f Histoire de la Nouvelle France, i, p. liv. HENNEPIN. ^^ In our own time and country, Sparks showed how the Nouvdle Decouverte was made up from Le Clercq, and Bancroft, Parkman, and most of our historical students agree in impeach- ing his veracity. This charge rested on the Nouvelle Decouverte^ while the Description de la Louisiave was as generally received as authentic. Thomassy, in his Geologie Pratique de la Lou- isiane gave a narrative of the voyage down the Mississippi as La Salle's, which coincided with that given by Le Clercq, as written by Father Zenobius Membre. Then Margry gives a narra- tive covering the whole ground of Hennepin's first book, which he ascribes to La Salle, and he says : " It is certain that Father Hennepin knew this document, from which he made many ex- tracts, but this could be no reason for our not publishing it, first because the author of the Des- cription de la Louisiane often intermingles error with his statements* and also because he left * After studying the work carefully, I cannot discover the errors, unless the misprint ot peroquets for pirogues justified the charge. But Margry's own blunders are even worse. 36 SKETCH OF Cavelier de la Salle about twenty-two months before the time when our manuscript closes. There was moreover a real interest in verifying the plagiarisms of the man who was subsequently to attempt to deprive the discoverer of the honor of his labors," etc.* Subsequently f in conse- quence of a misprint in Hennepin of perroquets for pirogues he repeats the charge of plagiarism, though as he himself prints Gamier for Gravier, Le Noble for Zenobe, and embuscade for ambass- ade he ought not to be too severe. This charge that the Description de la Louisiane was copied from the document now given by Margry has been taken up in this country with- out sufficient examination : but it is really too shallow even for such an utterly uncritical mind as Margry's to be pardoned for putting forth. This Relation des Descouvertes is anonymous and undated. Margry himself asks whether it was written by La Salle himself or " only by a * Margry ii, p. 435 n. t P- 467. "• HENNEPIN. rs>n learned ecclesiastic, by means of letters addressed by the discoverer to some one of his friends or associates." Elsewhere he gives his opinion that it is the work of the Abbe Bernou ; but as he was never in America, he could only be a com- piler, and must have used Hennepin's work, and it is necessary only to read a letter of Bernou in Margry iii, p. 74, to see what an unscrupulous intriguer Bernou was. If we analyze this Margry document we find it forms three dis- tinct divisions, ist an account of LaSalle's ope- rations down to his and Hennepin's departure from Fort Crevecceur ; 2d an account of Hen- nepin's voyage up the Mississippi and through the Wisconsin to Green Bay. 3d an account of La Salle's return to Fort Frontenac, his second visit to Illinois and his operations to 1681. Now as Hennepin was with La Salle or his party during the first period, he was competent to keep a journal of events, that might be written out in one form as La Salle's official report, and in another as the missionary's report to his own 38 SKETCH OF superiors. As to the second part Margry asks us to accept the preposterous idea that La Salle possessed by some supernatural means the know- ledge of all that Hennepin saw and did after leaving him at Fort Crevecceur, that La Salle committed this knowledge to writing, and that Hennepin, instead of describing what he saw and did as an eye witness, stole his account from this wonderful document of La Salle. La Salle him- self acknowledges the receipt of letters from Hennepin and insists on the reality of his dis- covery ; and to uphold it as against Du Lhut in- sists that Hennepin exaggerated in making out that he was a prisoner. As La Salle himself admits that his knowledge of this part came from Hennepin, he has already refuted Margry*s absurd idea that Hennepin stole this from him. As to the third part, there is nothing of it in Hennepin, so that Margry's charge depends en- tirely on the first part ; and he utterly fails to explain how Hennepin refrained from any pla- giarism of the third part. HENNEPIN. 39 The reader will see in the following pages that Margry's document in the first part agrees pretty closely with Hennepin, omitting comparatively little, while it abridges the second part greatly. The whole question is confined therefore to the first part, and as to that there is a simple test. If the narrative describes in detail events that befel the party while La Salle was absent and alludes briefly to what La Salle did, the narrative is Hennepin's ; if on the contrary it follows La Salle's actions day by day and alludes generally to what the party was doing in his absence, it must be La Salle's. Now the Margry Relation follows the party in which Hennepin was from Fort Frontenac to Niagara, gives La Motte's visit to the Senecas and then alludes briefly to La Salle's having been wrecked, but does not mention the fact that he had previously visited the Senecas and efl^ected what La Motte had failed to accomplish. Every person of sense will admit that this is not La Salle's account but Hennepin's. 4-0 SKETCH OF Later on La Salle's return to Fort Frontenac, his troubles with his creditors, his visit to the colony are all noticed briefly, while the affairs on the Niagara are detailed. This part is evidently not La Salle's. The account of the portage leading to the Illinois river, where La Salle was separated from his party is not his personal account, but of one like Hennepin with the main body. These cases and minor ones all tend to show that it is not La Salle's narrative but Hennepin's. La Salle apparently took the Recollects to chronicle his doings. Hennepin kept a journal; Membre did also, as Le Clercq assures us ; Joutel tells us that he seized and destroyed memoirs of Father Maxime le Clercq.* Why La Salle always had such an array of priests with him is a mystery. If from first to last he was led by Peiialosa's curious account of his journey to the Mississippi from New Mexico, to attempt the conquest of some of the rich mines, as he * Le Clercq ii, p. 167. Joutel p. 148. HENNEPIN 41* undoubtedly was aiming at, when he landed in Texas, we can understand that the priests would help to relieve the expedition from suspicion, and prevent harsh measures on the part of the Spani- ards, as the priests were all Spanish subjects.* Otherwise it is not easy to understand why, when Frontenac was appealing for Recollects to serve in the colony and be more indulgent spiritual guides than the Jesuits and the secular clergy, he should send five off to accompany an exploring expedition thousands of miles. While Canada was suffering for want of priests. La Salle's grand army of eleven men including him- self and his valet, sailed from Green Bay with three Recollect priests, to minister to their spiritual wants. Every view of the question confirms the opinion that the narrative is really Hennepin's ; * The charge made by Hennepin that La Salle was aiming at the Santa Barbara mines was long put down as a falsehood and a slander on La Salle. Yet now with the official docu- ments of the French government, the papers of Beaujeu and Dainmaville's account, it is evident that Hennepin was right. 4 42* SKETCH OF and that the document in Margry was compiled from it by an unknown hand. Only one question remains, and that is whether Margry's anonymous compiler plagiarized from a document drawn up by Hennepin in America, or from his printed work. Hennepin publishing his book at Paris, very naturally mentions the fact that his fellow trave- ler Antoine Auguelle, known by the soubriquet of Le Picard du Gay, was at that time actually in Paris, appealing as it were to his testimony in confirmation of his statements. Yet in the Margry Relation (i, p. 478), it mentions that the Picard " is at present in Paris." Now how could La Salle who did not see Hennepin or Auguelle after their return, know exactly in what part of France Auguelle was ? The state- ment is perfectly irreconcileable with the idea that this document was written by La Salle in America ; and the fact that it appears in the Margry Relation seems to show that its compiler used Hennepin's book without giving credit, and HENNEPIN 43* used, not a draft or copy made in America, but the edition printed in Paris but had not the honesty to cite Hennepin and refer to him. A careful comparison of the first and second parts of Margry's Relation with Hennepin's Descrip- tion de la Louisiane, 1683, will satisfy any one that the vaunted Margry document is a mere plagiarism from Hennepin's first work as far as it goes. Now what is the credit to be given to Henne- pin's work here given ? It will not do to assert that it is not trustworthy and say that Margry's Relation is. They are so near alike that if one is not trustworthy, the other is not. In the following pages references are made to documents of La Salle, Tonti and others relating to the same events. In not a single case is Hen- nepin contradicted or shown to be in error. Mr. Parkman alluding to the claims set up in the Nouvelle Decouverte says : " they are not in the early editions of Hennepin which are compara- tively truthful." " Hennepin's account of the 44* SKETCH OF falls and river of Niagara, especially his second account on his return from the west, is very minute and on the whole very accurate." " His distances on the Niagara are usually correct," 'Hennepin's account of the buffalo is interesting and true." " Fortunately there are tests by which the earlier parts of his book can be tried ; and on the whole they square exceedingly well with contemporary records of undoubted authenticity. Bating his exaggerations respecting the Falls of Niagara, his local descriptions, and even his estimates of distance are generally accurate."* " As for his ascent of that river (Mississippi) to the country of the Sioux, the general statement is fully confirmed by allusions of Tonty and other contemporary writers. For the details of the journey, we must rest on Hennepin alone ; whose account of the country and of the peculiar traits of its Indians afford, as far as they go, good evidence of truth." Such is the testimony of Parkman given at various points of his work. * Discovery of the Great West p. 124, 126, 133, 155, 228. HENNEPIN 45* Hennepin is certainly the first who gave Da- kota words : and he gives them accurately as will be seen by the reference to Riggs' Dakota Dictionary. Parkman who lived for some weeks in a Sioux lodge says that a variety of trivial in- cidents mentioned by Hennepin are perfectly in accordance with usage. In regard "to Hennepin's Dakota terms he says: "These words as far as my information reaches, are in every instance correct." Even the word Louis, which Hennepin says signifies the sun, is no invention. " The Yankton band of this people, however, call the sun oouee^'' which, it is evident, represents the French pronunciation of Louis, omitting the initial letter.* The only charges that remain are that he was vain, boastful and exaggerated. His vanity must be admitted. Not even superior of thelittle band of missionaries, he makes himself a kind of joint commander with La Salle: and his vanity leads him to exaggerate his own * lb., p. 228-9. 4-6* SKETCH OF deeds. But except in the estimate of the height of Niagara Falls, where Tonty is equally in error, his figures are accurate. The Description de la Louisiane is valuable, though we must bear in mind the real position of the writer. His next book the " Nouvelle Decouverte " contains the famous addition where he claims to have descended to the mouth, before going up to the Sioux country. A careful examination of this volume, which is in the following pages compared closely with the Description reveals some points heretofore overlooked. The book was not published, as originally printed, and seems to have been set up in two different offices. From page 313 where the account of his voyage up to the Sioux begins, the chapters have arabic numbers, while in the pre- vious part of the book, they have Roman numerals : the line at the top of the page omits a letter and an accent, and the type generally seems more HENNEPIN. 47* worn and the spacing is different. Practical printers and bibliographers alike agree that the two portions have every appearance of being printed in different offices. Before this point there are ten pages all num- bered 313*; so that certainly these were printed after the book was complete, and there is nothing to show but what much more was printed as an afterthought. This much is clear regarding the Nouvelle De- couverte merely from the mechanical point of view. Examining the matter, we find that the book introduces a great deal of personal detail and generally expands the narrative, but it substan- tially follows the Description de la Louisiane down to p. 216. Then with no apparent reason six pages are taken from La Clercq's Etablissement de la Foi (ii, pp. 173- 181), when Hennepin him- self could have given a better account. It then follows his first work to p. 247-8, where the pre- tended voyage down is introduced and the voyage described in terms taken from Le Clercq (ii, p. 4^ SKETCH OF 2 1 6). This matter continues to the last of the pages marked 3 1 3*, and may all have been printed after the book had actually been completed in its original form. On its very face Hennepin can scarcely be held absolutely responsible for a book thus tampered with. Hennepin had been on the Mississippi and had heard reports of the lower river from the Indians, he might easily have drawn up a plausible account of a voyage down ; he would have had no reason to take Membre's account and garble it. There are, moreover, actual errors in the book that Hennepin would not have made. He knew the country too well to make a nation Ouadebache, to give name to the river ; he would not have made "sasacouest," the Algonquin word for war- cry which the French had adopted, pass muster as a Chickasaw word meaning : '* Who goes there ?" Hennepin might like La Salle dispute JoUiet's priority, but he would scarcely make Jolliet disavow having sailed down the Mississppi. HENEPIN. 49* The place where he refers to his girdle as being worn as a cord of St. Francis would scarcely be written by a Franciscan. This intrusive matter cannot therefore abso- jutely be ascribed to Hennepin, and he be called a liar because it is false. Hennepin was disappointed in finding a pub- lisher at Amsterdam, and at Utrecht may have been required by Broedelet to put his book with the additional matter into the hands of some literary hack to edit. The whole book has been re-written and there are traces of another hand in various parts, in some cases making what is accurate and clear in the first book, unintelli- gible in the second. On p. 14 it reads: "I then embarked with Messire Francis de Laval then created Bishop of Petrsa in partibus injide- liumy In the Avis au Lecteur it reads : " I was sent to Canada as a missionary in the year 1676." ** I made it (.ny travels) in North America from 50* SKETCH OF the year 1679 to 1682, when I returned to Quebec." " I published a part of my voyage at Paris, in the year 1688." Now he really came over in 1675 ; Mgr. Laval had just been made Bishop of Quebec, and as Hennepin came in the same vessel he could not forget the fact. He returned to Quebec in 1681, and published his first book in 1683. We cannot suppose that Hennepin himself could possibly make such a series of blunders. He would not apply the recognized Protestant term yasteur to a Catholic cure^ nor would he have altered his accurate account of the cove where the Griffin anchored at Michilimakinac, so as to lose all value in the second book. At this time English projects of expeditions to the mouth of the Mississippi were attracting attention,* and the careless irresponsible editor whose additions had already injured the work, * See Coxe's Carolana, London 1727. Preface. HENNEPIN. 51* may have sought to increase the popularity of the book, by suppressing part and inserting a voyage down to the mouth of the Mississippi, so as to make the volume bear directly on a question of the day. That this addition really helped to commend it to public favor, will be readily seen by the result. The Nouvelie Decouverte was reprinted at Amsterdam in 1698, in French, and issued in Dutch in 1698 and 1699. The Nouveau Voyage under his name came out at Utrecht in the same year 1698, made up from Le Clercq and con- taining the Indian matter of the " Description de la Louisiane " omitted in the " Nouvelie Decou- verte." The two books are embraced in the ** New Discovery," of which two editions appeared in London in 1698, and another edition in 1699, in which year also a Spanish summary of the Nouvelie Decouverte appeared. 52* SKETCH OF To sum up all, the case stands thus : " The Description of Louisiana " by Father Hennepin, is clearly no plagiarism from La Salle's account, and on the contrary the so called La Salle Re- lation, is an anonymous undated plagiarism from Hennepin's book, and moreover the Description of Louisiana, is sustained by contemporary evi- dence and by the topography of the country, and our knowledge of the language and manners of the Sioux. It shows vanity in its author, but no falsification. So far as it goes it presents Henne- pin as truthful and accurate. A later work shows a suppression after print- ing, introduction of new and untrue matter, and the evident hand of an ignorant editor. For this book as finally published, Hennepin cannot be held responsible, nor can he justly be stigmatized as mendacious by reason of its false assertions. The third book is evidently by the same editor as the second, and the defence which it puts HENNEPIN. 53* forward in Hennepin's name cannot alter the facts, or make the original author responsible. In view of all this, it seems that now at least the case of Hennepin should be heard with more impartiality ; and we call for a rehearing in the view of documents now accessible, under the conviction that our earlier judgments were too hasty. DESCRIPTION OF LOUISIANA DESCRIPTIOJN DE LA LOUISIANE, NOUVELLEMENT DECOUVERTfi au Sud'Oiirrt de la Nouvclle Prance, PAR ORDRE DU ROY. Avetla Carte du, Fays: Lei Maurf & U Meniere de vivre des i>auvages. DEDIE'E A 5A MAJESTE* P