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FROM QUEBEC
TO
NEW ORLEANS
„ • NEOPHYTE A
THE TERROR OF THE PIONEERS— THE CRUEL SAVAGES.
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DEATH OF THE FRANCISCAN FATHER NICOLAS
VIEL AND HIS DISCIPLE AHUNTSIC, IN THE
RAPIDS OF THE OTTAWA RIVER, 1625
From painting by Georges Delfosse, Montreal
By courtesy of the artist
The Franciscan Father Nicolas Viel and his disciple
Ahuntsic, white guiding their bark canoe down the rapids,
are attacked by their companions — hostile Kuxons.
Ahuntsic is already in the water. While he is trying to
regain the canoe, one of the savages pushes him back with
a paddle. Another savage has seised Father Vie! and is
about to throw him into the surging stream. The very
leaves seem to tremble with horror at the dastardly deed.
The place where this crime was committed is now known
as Sault'aU'Recollet.
4(i5^Li^L5^i3^
FROM QUEBEC
TO
NEW ORLEANS
%
TJie Story of the French
in America
ILLUSTRATED
Fort de Chartres
By
J. H. SCHLARMAN, PH. D.
BUECHLER PUBLISHING COMPANY
BELLEVILLE, ILLINOIS
m
Copyright 1930
By Joseph H. Schlarman
Published December, 1929
Printed in the United States of America
The Buechler Publishing Company,
Belleville, Illinois
?7 3. j ?
CONTENTS
PAGE
A Land Without Ruins 3
Dedication 5
Foreword 7
Introductory 13
CHAPTER
I Search for Passage to the Orient ....... 15
II Pioneer Days in New France 25
III The Governor and the Intendant 34
IV Governor Frontenac 39
V Preparing for a Great Expedition 51
VI JOLLIET AND FATHER MARQUETTE 55
VII The Prince of French Explorers 81
VIII La Salle's Dream Realized — D iberville .... 110
IX Europe Against Louis XIV 121
X Kaskaskia on the Upper Illinois 126
XI Tamarois-Cahokia Mission 130
XII Migrations of the Kaskaskias 147
XIII Hard Beginnings of Louisiana 160
XIV The Duke of Orleans Regent of France . . . 168
XV John Law — A Nation Speculating 171
XVI Fort De Chartres 190
XVII Among the Missouris 199
XVIII Mining Attempts in the Illinois Country —
Phillipe Renault 204
XIX War Against the Foxes 211
XX The British Dislike Contact of Louisiana with
New France 217
XXI M. Perrier Supersedes M. De Bienville
as Governor of Louisiana 232
XXII The Natchez Massacre 244
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
XXIII Francois-Marie Bissot De Vincennes 263
XXIV The Chickasaw Wars 272
XXV Stray Leaves from Old Records 279
XXVI The New Fort De Chartres 292
XXVII Social Life in the Fort De Chartres Country . 299
XXVIII France and England Prepare for the Final Struggle 307
XXIX Deportation of the Acadians 312
XXX On the Plains of Abraham 328
XXXI After the Fall of Quebec — Banishment of the
Jesuits 348
XXXII The Cahokia Mission Property - . 364
XXXIII British Attempts to Reach Fort De Chartres
Blocked by Pontiac 373
XXXIV The French Release Fort De Chartres — The New
Orleans Rebellion 397
XXXV From Sterling to Clark — Father Meurin and
Father Gibault 423
XXXVI The Quebec Act — The Colonies Rise Against Eng-
land 452
XXXVII The Coming of George Rogers Clark .... 479
XXXVIII Clark Captures Kaskaskia and Cahokia . . . 491
XXXIX The Winning of Vincennes — Gibault and Dr. Lap-
font 506
XL "Regulating Things in the Illinois' 1 514
XLI The Most Daring Episode of the Revolutionary War —
General Hamilton Surrenders to Colonel
Clark 528
ILLUSTRATIONS
Death of Nicolas Viel and His Disciple Ahuntsic Frontispiece
facing page
Section of Martin Behaim's Globe — 1492 1
Indian Family in the Forest 1
Samuel de Champlain, Founder of Quebec 16
Jacques Cartier, Discoverer of the St. Lawrence River 16
Champlain on Lake Huron — 1615 17
Louis XIV, King of France 32
Chomedey de Maisonneuve, Founder of Montreal 33
Major Lambert Closse — Iroquois Warrior 33
Francois de Montmorency de Laval 48
Governor Frontenac — Jean Talon, Intendant 48
Governor Frontenac 49
"I will give you my answer by the mouths of my cannon."
Louis Jolliet — Jacques Marquette 64
Father Marquette on the Mississippi 64
Isaac Jogues 65
The Spirit of Commerce — The Spirit of Christianity 80
Iroquois Method of Torture 81
The Prince of French Explorers — Fort Crevecoeur 96
Starved Rock — Tonti 97
La Salle at the Mouth of the Mississippi 112
The Rock of the Cross 113
The Seminaire de Quebec 144
Plat of the Holy Family Mission, Cahokia 145
DIberville — Bienville 160
John Law 161
Facsimile Title Page of John Law Pamphlet 176
Principal Forts and Trading Posts of Louisiana 177
Hardship of Pioneer River Traffic 192
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Diron D'Artaguiette Map of the Illinois Country 193
Diron D' Artaguiette Map of the Natchez Country 240
Natchez Method of Torture 240
Seigniorial Mill, Beaumont, P. Q., Canada 241
Chaussegros de Lery Map — The Fort of the Foxes 256
Clotures 257
Bellin Map of the Illinois Country 272
Le Pere Godbout, A Typical Habitant 273
Fort de Chartres 288
The Ruins of Fort de Chartres with Powder Magazine 289
Fort Massac 304
Acadia and Evangeline 305
Deportation of the Acadians 320
Old City Walls of Quebec 321
View of Quebec and Harbor 336
Fort Kask aski a 337
Death of General Wolfe 352
Montcalm, Defeated and Mortally Wounded, Brought to Quebec 353
The Ambush 400
Fort Gage 401
Collot Map of The Kaskaskia Country 416
View of Kaskaskia Island— 1929 417
George Rogers Clark 480
Father Gibault 481
Clark's Route 496
The Liberty Bell of the West 497
Hamilton's Surrender 548
Detail of Clark's Route • 549
*For valuable assistance in supervising technical details connected with the illustrations I am
deeply indebted to Mr. Conrad F. Stuhlman, St. Louis, Mo.
INDIAN FAMILY IN THE FOREST
Place du Palais Legislatif, Quebec
By Philippe Hebert
THE STORY OF THE FRENCH
IN AMERICA
Ol Land without Ruins is a Land
fC\ without Memories * A Land
without Memories is a Land
without History * Give me the Land
where Ruins are spread * And the
Living tread light on the Hearts of the
Dead * Give me the Land that has
Legends and Lays * That tell of the
Memories of long vanished Days.
ABRAHAM RYAN
To the Galaxy of brave Men,
daring Soldiers, and heroic Mis-
sionaries, who made light of their
Lives, bore Fatigue and Privations
unheard of, and even faced Death
at the Sta\e, and in the Interest of
History and the "Legends and Lays
that tell of the Memories of long
vanished Days," — Memories that
still linger around the Ruins of the
old French Strongholds and along
the old Highways, the Rivers and
Lakes, from Quebec to J\[ew Orleans,
THIS VOLUME
IS REVERENTLY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR
FOREWORD
<*?
From Quebec to New Orleans, — that is a long way; at
any rate, the water route, as followed by the early explorers
and missionaries, was long, at least 2500 miles. This route
was biased, first from the north, along the St. Lawrence
and across the Great Lakes, down to Kaskaskia, and then,
after finding the mouth of the Mississippi from the sea,
northward, to Fort de Chartres, thus overlapping the Cana-
dian end of it by eighteen miles.
Little is left of the once formidable chain of posts and forts
that stood guard over this highway from Quebec to New
Orleans. In Canada there is Fort Chambly on the Riche-
lieu, still well preserved. On Lake Ontario there is Fort
Niagara, also well preserved. In the American Bottom,
near the old town of Prairie du Rocher, some sixty miles
below St. Louis, but antedating it by nearly half a century,
on the east bank of the Mississippi, lie the venerable ruins of
Fort de Chartres, almost forgotten. Yet this Fort de Char-
tres, as a fort, was twelve years old when George Washing-
ton was born, and that was long ago.
Fort de Chartres, with its Powder Magazine intact and
its Bastion Towers and Walls in ruins, is a lone survivor
of another age. The men who built this stronghold of French
power, who lived there, who went out to fight the Chicasaws,
the Foxes, and the English, were gathered to their fathers ages
ago, but their spirits still seem to hover about the ruins of Fort
de Chartres. It requires but little imagination to conjure up the
figures of Boisbriand and Makarty, Saucier, St. Ange and
others, and to hear the French commands to the soldiers,
to re-people the fort with the cultured men and charming
ladies, who there danced the minuette and cotillon. But that
is getting into dreams.
"From Quebec To ?{ew Orleans" is not intended to be
an exhaustive history of the French colonies in America,
7
8 FOREWORD
or even in the Illinois country. I would call it a story, some-
what gossipy, though documented, or a cursory summary
of the high points, of the interesting and at times unique
occurrences, with just enough explanation to establish in
the mind of the reader a logical and causal connection be-
tween events. This determines the nature of the book.
Two factors seem to have been of greatest importance in the
the earliest stages of America's history : the vast extent and
nature of the land, and the character of the people who
inhabited this land when the white men came to its shores.
"The outstanding characteristic of the American soil,"
writes Volney, "is the savage aspect of the almost universal
forest. . . During the long voyage which I made in 1796,
from the mouth of the Delaware through Pennsylvania,
Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky to the Wabash River,
from thence north across the Northwest Territory . . . and
on to Albany. ... I hardly came across three consecutive
miles of timber-free land." 1
This almost "universal forest' ' was one of the greatest
obstacles to exploration and colonisation. It took nearly
two hundred and fifty years to beat down this barrier.
In these forests lurked the savages. At first they were
awed by the white men, whom they thought to be spirits.
The crack of the arquebuse or the roar of the cannon made
them hie to the depths of the forests. But when rival whites
supplied the Indians with firearms and wooed their allegiance,
they aligned themselves with the one or the other nation,
chiefly as their economic needs determined. As friends they
were fickle and undependable, as foes they were bitter and
savagely cruel.
"It has always been impossible," writes Thwaites, 2 "to
make any hard-and-fast classification; yet the Indians pre-
sented a considerable variety of types, ranging from the
Southern Indians, some of whose tribes were in a relatively
high stage of material advancement and mental calibre,
down to the savage root-eaters of the Rocky Mountain
region.
"The migrations of some of the Indian tribes were fre-
X C. F. Volney, Tableau du Climat et du Sol des EtatS'Unis d'Am&rique. 1803, 1., p. 7-
2 R. G. Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, Introduction.
FOREWORD 9
quent, and they occupied overlapping territories, so that it
is impossible to fix the tribal boundaries with any degree
of exactness.
"Again, the tribes were so merged by intermarriage, by
affiliation, by consolidation . . . that it is difficult even to
separate the savages into families. It is only on philological
[pertaining to their languages] grounds that these divisions can
be made at all. In a general way we may say that between
the Atlantic and the Rockies, Hudson Bay and the Gulf
of Mexico, there were four Indian languages in vogue, with
a great variety of local dialect:
"I. The Algonkins were the most numerous, holding
the greater portion of the country from the unoccupied fc de
batable land 1 of Kentucky northward to the Mississippi
Among their tribes were the Micmacs of Acadia, the Pe
nobscots of Maine, the Montagnais of the St. Lawrence
the ill-defined tribes of the country round about Lake St
John, and the Ottawas, Chippewas, Mascoutens, Sacs
Foxes, Pottawatomies, and Illinois of the Upper Lakes. . .
A careful estimate is, that the Algonkins at no time numbered
over 90,000 souls and possibly not over 50,000.
"II. In the heart of this Algonkin land was planted the
ethnic [racial] group called the Iroquois, with its several dis-
tinct branches, often at war with each other. The craftiest,
most daring, and most intelligent of North American In-
dians. . . The five principal tribes of this family — Mo-
hawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, all
stationed in palisaded villages south and east of lakes Erie
and Ontario, — formed a loose confederacy styled by them-
selves and the French fc The Long House 1 , and by the English
'The Five Nations 1 . . . The population of the entire group
was not over 17,000. . . Related to, but generally at war
with them, were the Hurons of Canada. . .
"III. The Southern Indians occupied the country be-
tween the Tennessee River and the Gulf, the Appalachian
Ranges and the Mississippi. Of a milder disposition than
their Northern cousins, the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choc-
taws, Creeks, and Seminoles were rather in a barbarous
than a savage state . . . [they] numbered not above 50,000.
"IV. The Dakotah, or Sioux, family occupied for the
most part the country beyond the Mississippi. They were
jo FOREWORD
and are a fierce, high-strung people, genuine nomads, and
war appears to have been their chief occupation.' 1
The beginnings of these nations are lost in the obscurity
of the distant past. They left no written record of their
origin or their deeds. The documentary history of North
America begins with the coming of the white man.
The United States, and the same is true of Canada, is
a nation imported from Europe. 1 To understand the early
history of America one must know its background in Europe.
Cheyney writes: "From the time of the settlement forward,
the only population of America that has counted in history
has been of European origin. The institutions that character-
iz;e the New World are fundamentally those of Europe.
People and institutions have been modified by the material
conditions of America; and the process of emigration gave
a new direction to the development of American history
from the very beginning; but the origin of the people, of
their institutions, and of their history was none the less a
European one. The beginnings of American history are
therefore to be found in European conditions at the time of
the foundation of the colonies. " 2
The history of the interior of the country is known to
us chiefly from the written records of the explorers and the
reports of the missionaries. Unquestionably the most abund-
ant and detailed reports thus far published were written by
the Jesuit missionaries. These annual reports, made between
the years 1632 and 1673, are known as the Jesuit Relations. 3
Reuben Gold Thwaites writes of these reports: "Many
of the Relations were written in Indian camps, amid a chaos
of distraction. Insects innumerable tormented the journal-
ists, they were immersed in scenes of squalor and degradation,
overcome by fatigue and lack of proper sustenance, often
suffering from wounds and disease, maltreated in a hundred
ways by hosts who, at times, might be properly called jailers;
x In Latin America the native stock was preserved and civilized to a remarkable degree.
2 E. P. Cheyney, European Background of American History. Preface, XXVII.
3 Reuben Gold Thwaites, Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, between
1896 and 1901, edited The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, reaching from 1610 to 1789.
This monumental work, published by The Burrows Brothers Company of Cleveland, Ohio,
comprises seventythree volumes and gives the best original French text with a page-for'page
English translation.
FOREWORD ii
and not seldom had savage superstition risen to such a height,
that to be seen making a memorandum was certain to arouse
the ferocious enmity of the band. It is not surprising that
the composition of these journals of the Jesuits is sometimes
crude; the wonder is, that they could be written at all." 1
Thwaites continues: ""Coming early to the shores of
Nova Scotia [1611], nearly a decade before the landing of
the Plymouth Pilgrims, and eventually spreading through-
out the broad expanse of New France, ever close upon the
track of the adventurous coureur de bois, they met the
American savage before contact with civilisation had seriously
affected him. With heroic fortitude, often with marvellous
enterprise, they pierced our wilderness while still there
were but Indian trails to connect far-distant villages of semi-
naked aborigines . . . Cultivated men, for the most part,
— trained to see as well as to think, and carefully to make
record of their experiences, — they left the most luxurious
country in Europe to seek shelter in the foul and unwelcome
huts of one of the most wretched races of man. . . No
coureur de bois was more expert in forest lore . . . and
the records made by these soldiers of the Cross, — explicit
and detailed, while familiar in tone, — are of the highest
scientific value, often of considerable literary interest." 2
It may be permissible to add to this appreciation by
Thwaites a few words that were written in 1845 by Bishop
Ingraham Kip 3 : "It was only by suffering and trial that these
early laborers won their triumphs. Many of them too were men
who had stood high in camps and courts, and could contrast
their desolate state in the solitary wigwam with the
refinement and affluence which had waited on their
early years. But now these were gone. Home — the
love of kindred — the golden ties of relationship — all
were to be forgotten by these stern and high- wrought men,
and they were often to go forth into the wilderness,
without an adviser, save their God. . . . Hunger and
cold and disease were to be encountered, until nothing
but the burning seal within could keep alive the wasted
1 Thwaites, Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, General Preface.
Hbid.
3 Right Rev. William Ingraham Kip, D. D., (Protestant) Bishop of California, Honorary
Member of N. Y. Historical Society, The Early Jesuit Missions in ?{orih America, Preface.
12 FOREWORD
and sinking frame. But worse than all were the spiritual
evils which forced them to weep and pray in darkness. They
had to endure the contradictions of those they came to
save.
We of to-day are more than two hundred, in some cases,
nearly three hundred years removed from the people who
lived and acted their part in those early days of our country's
history, as well as from the facts and scenes which they relate.
Still, we should like to know what sort of men they were
who lived at that time; we should like to close our eyes and
sit and dream, and in our dreams re-people with the men and
women of that distant day those places that were then the
stage of life in this country. We should like to know their
ideas, know how they lived and how they spoke and what
they said. In other words, we should like to get in touch
with the souls of those men. All that can best be achieved
by letting them speak to us in their own words, often
written in "old, odd and variable spellings", or in the
words of those who were eye-witnesses of the events of
those days, or who lived at that time and left the written
word as a record.
"From Quebec To 7"{ew Orleans'" carries out this idea.
INTRODUCTORY
"On the 23rd of May [1492] Columbus, accompanied by
Fray Juan Peres, whose character and station gave him great
importance in the neighborhood, proceeded to the church
of St. George in Palos, where the alcalde, the regidors, and
many of the inhabitants of the place had been notified to
attend. Here, in presence of them all, in the porch of the
church, a royal order was read by a notary public, command-
ing the authorities of Palos to have two caravels ready for
sea within ten days after this notice, and to place them
and their crews at the disposal of Columbus. The latter
was likewise empowered to procure and fit out a third vessel.
The crews of all three were to receive the ordinary wages of
seamen employed in armed vessels, and to be paid four
months in advance. They were to sail in such direction as
Columbus, under the royal authority, should command,
and were to obey him in all things. ... A certificate of their
good conduct, signed by Columbus, was to be the discharge
of their obligations to the crown. . . .
"It was on Friday, the 3rd of August, 1492, early in the
morning, that Columbus set sail from the bar of Saltes, a
small island formed by the arms of the Odiel, in front of
the town of Huelva, steering in a southwesterly direction for
the Canary Islands, whence it was his intention to strike
due west. As a guide by which to sail, he had prepared a
map or chart, improved upon that sent him by Paulo Tos-
canelli. 1 Neither of those now exist, but the globe or plan-
isphere finished by Martin Behem 2 in this year of the admiral's
first voyage is still extant, and furnishes an idea of what the
chart of Columbus must have been. It exhibits the coasts
1 Paolo Toscanelli, mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer, was born at Florence,
Italy, in 1397 and died there in 1482. Toscanelli was one of the most distinguished scientists
of the fifteenth century and associated with the greatest scholars of his time. It is a general
belief that Columbus conferred with Toscanelli about the western voyage.
2 Martin Behaim, noted German cartographer and navigator, was born at Nuremberg
in 1459. Later he became a disciple of the celebrated mathematician and astronomer Regio'
montanus. Behaim constructed the oldest globe existing today. He died in Lisbon, July
29, 1507-
13
14 ihtroductort
of Europe and Africa from the south of Ireland to the end of
Guinea, and opposite to them, on the other side of the Atlan-
tic, the extremity of Asia, or, as it was termed, India. Be-
tween them is placed the island of Cipango, or Japan, which,
according to Marco Polo, 1 lay fifteen hundred miles distant
from the Asiatic coast. In his computations Columbus ad-
vanced this island about a thousand leagues too much to
the east, supposing it to be about the situation of Florida;
and at this island he hoped first to arrive. " —
Washington Irving
The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, I., pp. 93
and 101.
1 Marco Polo was born at Venice, Italy, in 1251, and died there in 1324. His father and
uncle were merchants, who had established houses of business in Constantinople and at
Sudak on the Black Sea. They made long voyages into the Orient and to the residence of
the Great Khan of Tartary. In 1271 they undertook a voyage which lasted twenty-four
years. The youthful Marco Polo accompanied his father and uncle on this journey, which
led them through almost the whole of Western Asia. This voyage is intelligently described
in the Boo\ of Marco Polo.
SPAIN, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND ESTABLISH
PERMANENT SETTLEMENTS ON THE
NORTH AMERICA^. COHTIHEW
Any treatise dealing with the early history of the North
American continent must necessarily take the discovery by
Christopher Columbus and October 12, 1492, as the starting
points. No matter who may have touched upon the shores
of the New World in bygone centuries, the fact is that the
recorded history of America begins with the discovery by
Columbus. What preceded this great feat is chiefly legend-
ary. The startling news of a new world far off in the
Atlantic ocean, brought back to Europe by Columbus, set
up a hubbub among the mariners and the governments of
maritime countries. Columbus believed he had reached India,
which he had set out to find. Europe, too, thought he had
discovered the new route to India. Four years later John
Cabot undertook an expedition and expected to reach "The
island of Cipango [Japan] and the lands from which Orien-
tal caravans brought their goods to Alexandria." 1
But why did Europe look westward to reach the Orient?
Until the middle of the fifteenth century commerce between
Europe and the Orient was carried on over trade routes
which went eastward from the Mediterranean and Asia
Minor. The interposition or the armed encroachment of
the powerful Turks disturbed the commerce along these com-
plex old lines of trade, and the fall of Constantinople into
the hands of the Turks in 1453 practically closed the Orient
to the merchants of Europe. "The process by which Turk-
ish conquest was attained,' ' writes Cheyney, "and the whole
spirit and policy of that power, were adverse to trade be-
tween the East and West. . . . Therefore, the men, the nation,
the government that could find a new way to the East might
claim a trade of indefinite extent and extreme profit. 1 ' 2
The most potent single motive, then, the predominant
incentive to exploration, was the desire to find new routes
1 E. P. Cheyney, European Bac\ground of American History, p. 5.
2 lbid., pp. 37-39.
15
16 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
from Europe to the far East. Columbus believed with many
of his class that the earth is round and that, therefore, by
sailing westward he could reach the Orient. Here is his
opinion and his argument: "I have always read that the
world, comprising the land and water, is spherical, as is
testified by the investigations of Ptolemy and others, who
have proved it by the eclipses of the moon and other obser-
vations made from east to west, as well as by the elevation
of the pole from north to south." 1
It was probably the enormous and unknown extent of
the earth and the "supposed difficulty of sailing up the slope
of the sphere," 2 that had kept mariners from venturing out
into the open seas. The recently discovered art of printing
helped to broadcast the astounding news of the unexpected
discovery of the great Genoese. Spanish, English, Por-
tuguese, French, and Dutch ships soon sailed to every part
of the globe, and yet, nearly a hundred years elapsed after
the discovery by Columbus before any permanent settle-
ment was made on the North American continent, north
of Mexico. 3
The colonisation began at three distinct centres and by
three different nations: The Spanish in Florida (1565), the
English at Jamestown (1607), and the French at Quebec
(1608): St. Augustine, Jamestown, and Quebec were the
three foci of colonisation in the New World.
In 1565 Pedro Menendes founded St. Augustine, which
then became the capital of Spanish Florida. Spanish colonists
had already taken firm root in Mexico and the Antilles
(West Indies) prior to their establishment at St. Augustine,
and during the following two and a half centuries developed
their colonies along the Gulf of Mexico, and thus imparted
the Spanish imprint still noticeable in the Southwest. 4 Spain
laid claim to all of America by title of discovery.
Spain was then at the height of her power and glory. After
a struggle of nearly eight centuries Granada was taken from
the Mussulmans and the latter thrown across the Strait to
Africa (1492). That same year Columbus, under the patronage
of Ferdinand and Isabella, discovered a new world. Spain very
Quoted by Cheyney, op. cit., p. 52. 4 See Charles F. Lummis, The Spanish Pioneers,
2 Ibid The Land of Poco Tiempo, and A Tramp
3 In Mexico colonization began in 1524. across the Continent.
SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN— FOUNDER OF QUEBEC
JACQUES CARTIER— DISCOVERER OF THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER
m$f,
.i ■■:.
'
SEARCH FOR PASSAGE TO THE ORIENT n
effectively followed up her discoveries and captured most
of South America, Central America, Mexico, the West
Indies, and entered quickly upon a broad policy of colonial
expansion.
The English and French explorers of those days sought a
short cut to Asia and India, rather vague terms at that time,
through the Northwest. 1 This shorter route was of less
interest to Spain, because from the west coast of Mexico,
the port of Acapulco, she carried on a regular trade with
the Philippine Islands. But France and England felt the
need of a shorter route to the kingdom of the Great Khan.
Nearly a generation of navigators passed away before
it was realised that the land discovered was not Asia; naviga-
tors were even chagrined that this great barrier running north
and south, both extremities thus far unexplored, should
block their way to the spice lands of the East. Europe could
live without the Orient, but the luxuries, adornments, per-
fumes, and spices it craved were supplied by the East, even as
the oriental rug of our own day. Navigators and explorers
sought the northwest passage, which, they felt sure, led
somewhere, by some river or waterway, through this barrier,
now known as the American continent. In the meantime
Vasco da Gama (Portuguese) reached India via Cape of
Good Hope (South Africa) in 1498.
Attempts were also made to reach China by the northeast
passage around the northern coast of Europe. 2 All these
attempts ended in failure in the icy seas of the North. On
the American Continent, every river that was entered was
explored with the hope that it would prove to be the north-
west passage. Cartier thought the St. Lawrence would
ultimately point the waterway to India; Henry Hudson was
in search of the northwest passage when he discovered the
river that bears his name; Magellan skirted the whole coast of
South America in quest of the passage and finally found his
way through the straits at the southern-most tip of South
America, that have been named after this intrepid explorer.
There was a belief that this passage might be found some-
where near the fortieth parallel, and a map by Lock, 1582,
shows the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at this point, north
Bancroft, History of the Northwest Coast, I. p. 5, calls it the "Northern Mystery."
2 Cheyney, op. cit., p. 9.
i8 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
of what was then known as Florida, separated by a narrow
isthmus. It was thought that boats could sail up a river
flowing into the Atlantic, portage a short distance across
the intervening land, and then sail on to the other side down
a river flowing into the Pacific. This conviction was so
strong that demountable boats were actually sent to Vir-
ginia to be used for transport on the rivers flowing into
the Atlantic and into the Pacific. 1 This search for the north-
west passage, or, at least, for a passage across the North
American Continent, was continued for nearly two hun-
dred years.
It is surprising to note the number of Italians who, in
the service of other governments, made such voyages of
discovery. One need only to think of Christopher Columbus
(Colombo), John Cabot (Caboto), Verrasano, and Amerigo di
Vespucci, after whom, at the suggestion of the German
cosmographer Behaim, the new continent was named. Chey-
ney, in his article on the Italian contributions to explora-
tion, gives a very interesting explanation of this condition:
"In those arts which lay at the base of exploration, as
in so many other fields, Italy was far in advance of all other
western countries. Through the Middle Ages she preserved
much of the heritage of ancient skill and learning; by her
Renaissance studies she recovered much that had been tem-
porarily lost; and in geographical science she early made
progress of her own .... As a nation Italy played but a
slight part in the discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries; but through her scattered sons she used her fine
intelligence to initiate and guide much of the work that
was completed by the ruder but more efficient and vigorous
nations of the Atlantic seaboard. Educated men from Venice,
Genoa, Pisa, and Florence emigrated to other lands, carrying
with them science, skill, and ingenuity unknown except in
the advanced and enterprising Italian city republics and
principalities. Italian mathematicians made the calcula-
tions on which all navigation was based; Italian cartogra-
phers drew maps and charts; Italian ship-builders designed
and built the best vessels of the time; Italian captains com-
manded them, and very often Italian sailors made up their
crews; while at least in the earlier period Italian bankers
*D. Pasquet, Histoire Politique et Sociak du Peuple Americain, p. 36.
SEARCH FOR PASSAGE TO THE ORIENT 19
advanced the funds with which the expeditions were equipped
and sent out." 1
Five years after the great discovery by Columbus, in 1497,
John Cabot, 2 sailing under the banner of Henry VII of
England, touched the American shores and planted the
flag of England an4 the banner of St. Mark somewhere
about the estuary of the St. Lawrence River. But, strange
to say, while Spaniards and Portuguese and Hollanders
and French vied with one another for the East and West
Indies, England did not follow up this discovery of Cabot
for nearly a century.
During that century momentous changes took place in
England. The Protestant religion was substituted for the
Catholic religion; from an agricultural state England turned in-
to a country of cattle raising, industry, and maritime com-
merce. People left the farms to seek employment in the cities
and thus increased the army of the unemployed. The suppres-
sion of monasteries and religious charitable foundations,
that had heretofore cared for the needy, tremendously in-
creased pauperism. The government sought to stem the
depopulation of the rural districts by legislation; laws were
passed regulating the division of farmlands; laws forbidding
the turning of arable fields into pasture lands; laws even to
determine the maximum number of sheep. But the laws failed
to check the depopulation of the rural districts. Laws were
then passed against tramps and vagabonds; they were ex-
posed to the pillory, they were given so many strokes with
the lash, their ears were pierced, the letter V was branded
upon their breast with a red-hot iron. A law of 1563
imposed compulsory labor at a fixed wage, and in 1601, laws
were passed granting public aid, and the notorious work-
house laws were put into effect. 3
England at that time had a population of approximately
5,000,000, but economists considered the country overpopu-
lated. For want of a bloody war that would reduce the popula-
^heyney, op. cit., pp. 41 ff. A Portuguese chronicler, Asurara, pays this tribute to the
nations of his time: 'The greatness of the Germans, the courtesy of the French, the valor
of the English, and the wisdom of the Italians."
2 John Cabot (Caboto) was a native of Florence and a naturalised Venetian.
3 Pasquet, op. cit., pp. 32'35. See also Bliss, The Hew Encyclopedia of Social Reform, pp.
915 ff.
20 FROM QUEBEC TO >(£W ORLEANS
tion, why not re-establish the equilibrium by means of overseas
colonies? That was the suggestion of Sir Humphrey Peck-
ham. English industry was rapidly developing and would
profit by markets established in such colonies. The
natives converted by the missionaries would discontinue
going about naked — a new market for the English cloth
industry.
Willoughby and Chancellor made a futile attempt to
reach China by a route through the Northeast. The Moscow
Company was organised in 1555, the Eastland Company for
trade with the Baltic in 1579, etc. The defeat of the Spanish
Armada (1588), eliminated Spanish prestige and opened the
way for English colonisation.
In 1576 Sir Humphrey Gilbert composed a memoir to
prove the existence of the northwest passage. Plato and
Aristotle, both of whom had lived and died centuries before
Christ, were quoted in support of his contention.
Various attempts were made to gain a firm foothold on
American soil: Sir Walter Raleigh on the Roanoke, Sir
Humphrey Gilbert in Newfoundland, but all in vain. Col-
onisation Stock Companies now entered the field.
"A complete contrast," writes Cheyney, "exists between
international trade in 1400 and 1600. The type of commerce
characteristic of the earlier period was carried on by indi-
vidual merchants; that belonging to the later period was
carried on by joint stock companies. Under the former,
merchants depended on municipal support and encourage-
ment; under the latter they acted under charters received
from national governments. The individual merchants of
the earlier period had only trading privileges; the organised
companies of the later time had political powers also. In
the fifteenth century the merchants from any one city or
group of cities occupied a building, a quarter, or fondaco, 1
in each of the foreign cities with which they traded; in the
seventeenth century they more usually possessed independ-
ent colonies or fortified establishments of their own on the
coasts of foreign countries. In the earlier period trading
operations were restricted to Europe; in the later they ex-
tended over the whole world." 2
x The Fugger Houses can still be seen in some cities of Central Europe.
2 Cheyney, op. cit., p. 124.
COLONIZATION COMPANIES 21
The governments of Spain and Portugal retained in their
own hands complete control both of the colonies and their
commerce. Germany, still suffering from the effects of the
Thirty Years' War (16184648), was excluded from the pos-
sibility of establishing American colonies. The commercial
companies of England, France, Holland, Sweden, and Den-
mark "were by no means self-controlled and independent
companies; they were dependent on their governments
for many rights and privileges, and for constant support,
protection, and subsidy. On the other hand, the govern-
ments expected them not only to develop a profitable trade,
but to furnish certain advantages to the nation, such as
the creation of colonies, the increase of shipping, the provi-
sion of materials for use in the navy, the humiliation of
political rivals, the preservation of a favorable balance of
trade, and ultimately the payment of imposts and loan of
funds '*
Some fifty or sixty such companies, nearly contempora-
neous, and operating on the same broad lines of organisation,
are recorded as having been chartered by the five aforemen-
tioned governments, a few in the second half of the sixteenth
century, the greater proportion within the seventeenth
century. 2
In 1606 James I, King of England, gave his official sanction
to the establishment of two colonisation and commercial com-
panies : The London Company and the Plymouth Company,
the former to operate between the 34th and 38th degree of
latitude North, and the latter between the 41st and 45th.
The London Company sent three ship-loads of colonists into
the Chesapeake Bay and up the James River in the spring of
1607. They located their colony on the banks of the James
^heyney, op. cit., pp. 135436.
2 The subjoined partial list represents some of the more familiar names:
1597-1599 (Dutch) East India Companies (early).
15984599 (French) Canadian Companies (early).
1602 (Dutch) East India Company.
1602 (French) Company of New France.
1606 (English) London and Plymouth Companies.
1626 (French) Company of Senegal (first).
1628 (French) Company of One Hundred Associates of New France.
Hanseatic League of Germany. E. P. Cheyney, op. cit., Chap. VII.
22 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
River and called it Jamestown in honor of King James.
Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement on
American soil, as St. Augustine (1565) was the first Spanish
colony on the North American Continent.
The first French ships that came to the eastern shores
of America were not in quest of the much sought northwest
passage, but rather in search of codfish. From the early
years of the sixteenth century Normans from Dieppe, France,
Bretons from Saint-Malo, and even Basques from the south-
ern shores of France came annually to the shoals of New-
foundland for cod-fishing. Incidentally, they, no doubt,
also trafficked with the natives of the islands and of the con-
tinent. But these fishermen-sailors were neither explorers
nor colonists.
In 1524 John da Verra2;ano undertook the first voyage
of discovery in the name of Francis I, King of France. He
examined the Atlantic coast from North Carolina to Maine,
but returned to France without having found the narrow
or passage that would lead to Asia.
Ten years later, 1534, Jacques Cartier set sail from Saint-
Malo and entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He was confi-
dent that "la route des Moluques," 1 the passage to the Spice
Islands, issued from the other end of this Gulf, or at least
from somewhere near there, and hurried back to France
with this piece of news and with his mind set on another
and more elaborate expedition.
He returned the following year, 1535, and on the 10th
day of August, the Feast of St. Lawrence, sailed up the
mighty stream, which he named St. Lawrence, to the Indian
village Stadacona (Quebec), where he left his larger boats
and sailed on as far as the other Indian village Hochelaga,
situated at the foot of a small mountain, which he named
Mont Real, or Mont Royal (Montreal). The little group
returned to Stadacona, where they passed a terrible winter.
In the spring of the following year the survivors erected
a large cross, affixed to it the arms of the King of France,
and thus renewed the solemn taking of possession, first
made upon Carrier's landing, and then returned to France,
May 3rd, 1536. Carrier's "Report of a Winter's Experience"
Moluccas, or Spice Islands, Malay Archipelago,
COLOHIZATIOH COMPANIES 23
(1535-1536) 1 in the inhospitable climate, near the great
cliff of Quebec, gave pause to Frenchmen in their western
colonising schemes. Furthermore, the King was now
engaged at home in serious difficulties with Spain, and
had neither inclination, time, nor money to continue the
exploration of North America.
Six years later, 1541, when peace had been restored be-
tween France and Spain, Francis I, King of France, appointed
Jean Francois de la Roche sieur de Roberval his Viceroy of
"that part of Asia 11 , with Jacques Cartier as his captain
general and master pilot. 2 Roberval failed to appear in time,
and Cartier set sail for Quebec, which he reached in August,
1541. He built a post which, however, he abandoned in
spring, and again returned to France. Roberval arrived later
with supplies and colonists liberated from French prisons,
but remained only one year at Quebec. This second at-
tempt at establishing a permanent colony was not success-
ful; the failure of Roberval to do his part proved the undo-
ing of the entire plan.
Admiral Coligny's attempt to establish a colony for the
French Huguenots in 1562 also proved a failure.
The commercial partnership formed in the year 1600
between the Sieur du Pont (Pont-grave), Pierre Chauvin,
and Sieur de Monts, also ended in failure. Another attempt
was made in 1605 by Sieur de Monts, Champlain, and Pont-
grave. They set out in three ships and established a settlement
at Port Royal, near what is now Annapolis, Nova Soctia. It
was even then realised that Quebec could be more easily de-
fended, but the eastern peninsula, called Acadia, was stra-
tegically of tremendous importance. Acadia was firmly held,
and through the course of centuries suffered the fate of a
buffer colony.
1 Cartier"s men suffered from scurvy, a disease characterized by livid spots, spongy gums
and bleeding from the mucous membranes; it is due especially to lack of fresh vegetable
food.
2 "We are not accustomed to regard Jacques Cartier as the first Canadian author. But that
is what he was; and, within his self'appointed limits, a very good first author too. His ad'
mirably clear and vivid descriptions bring him fairly near to the very few authors who have
written books of travel that are also works of literature; while his hydrographic notes (dif-
ference of period and of opportunities duly considered) are fully equal to those made by
the greatest naval experts of the present day." — William Wood, F. R. S. C, Unique
Quebec, p. 19.
24 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Champlain convinced de Monts that Quebec was a better
site and had all the natural requirements for a stronghold
of French power. On the 3rd of July, 1608, Samuel de
Champlain, who had been appointed Governor of New
France, landed with 28 men at the foot of the rock of Que-
bec. 1 Champlain at once undertook the construction of
the "Habitation," a sort of three-storied fort, surrounded
by a moat and flanked with out- works.
"Whoever may have been the nominal head of the enter-
prise in New France during the first 35 years of the seven-
teenth century," writes Pasquet, "Champlain was the soul
and the protecting spirit of the colony. He had started
out with the ardent desire to find at last that much sought
route which led to the South Sea and to China. He died,
of course, without having realised his hope. But by 1615,
when the English of Jamestown had explored no more than
the immediate surroundings of their village, Champlain
had penetrated by way of the Ottawa River and Lake Nip-
issing, to the borders of the Georgian Bay and Lake Huron,
thus pointing the way for the future founders of Louisiana. ,,2
Huly 25, 1605, is generally given as the date of the founding of the first permanent French
settlement in Acadia. The name Quebec is an adaptation of the Algonquin word Kebec,
meaning narrowing of the waters. The French word Detroit means the same thing, hence
the name of the city at the narrowing of the waters of Lake Erie, Detroit, Michigan.
2 Pasquet, op. cit., p. 30.
FRANCE STRIKES ROOT W AMERICA —
CHAMPLAITi— CHARITABLE AT^D EDUCATION-
AL INSTITUTIONS— STRUGGLES WITH THE
IROQUOIS— MOKSEIGKEUR DE LAVAL
Various motives contributed to the establishment and
maintenance of New France. The king very naturally was
moved by a passion for territorial expansion; the Church was
eager to convert the heathen savages of the New World;
the fur trade, although abounding in great risks, was at
times so profitable as to stimulate the cupidity of merchants ;
the hope of finding deposits of precious metals was predomi-
nant in the minds of speculators; the army and the navy
were ambitious for gallant exploits; and the French people
in general were during that eventful period imbued with a
generous yearning for adventure in strange lands. Conquest,
exploration, missionary seal, and the fur trade were, there-
fore, for a hundred and fifty years, the controlling and often
warring interests of New France. 1
Champlain visioned the future greatness of the colony;
in fact, it became part of his very life and being, and he in-
spired his followers with the same enthusiasm. He was an
indefatigable worker, a keen observer, an experienced geog-
rapher, a conscientious writer, and a brave sailor. Colonel
William Wood says of him: "We all remember him as the
founder of Quebec, New France and Canada. But this
should not obscure his other merits. We are apt to forget,
some even never know, that he was a captain of the Royal
Navy of the north of France and a highly skilled hydrog-
rapher. 2 We are also apt to give him less than his intellect-
ual due as the author of books which happily combine the
exact knowledge of the professional seaman and trained
explorer with the exalting prevision of a pioneering colon-
iser and founder of a state. May I also remind you that he
was the first to recommend the cutting of the Panama Canal? " 3
J R. G. Thwaites, France in America, p. 17.
2 See Pierre'Georges Roy, Les Petites Choses de notre Histoire, p. 44.
3 William Wood, Unique Quebec, 20. That was in 1599 when Champlain visited Panama.
Spanish maps antedating Champlain indicate several routes along which a canal might be
built.
25
26 FROM QUEBEC TO Js[EW ORLEANS
This is the man whose determined aim it was to colon-
ise, to build a state, to evangelise and civilize the savage, and
to protect the colony against any aggression from white or
Indian.
Champlain's colony was situated on the St. Lawrence,
in close proximity to the fiercest of Indians, the most war-
like of all tribes — the Iroquois. The Indians were frequently
involved in tribal warfare. The Algonquins and Hurons
were aligned against the Iroquois. Champlain took the part
of the former because they were nearest to him. He
needed their friendship to promote his work of discovery and
exploration. That fact, together with the economic advan-
tages of trading with the English, made the fierce Iroquois
the inveterate enemies of the French.
The spiritual care of the French and the conversion of
the savages was not neglected; for that purpose Francis-
can Fathers, commonly known as Recollects, were brought
to the colony, and the first Mass on the Isle de Montreal was
said by the Franciscan Father Le Caron, in the presence of
Huron Indians, on the 24th day of June, 1615. 1
Trading companies were organised, dealing chiefly in
furs with the Indians; but a colony cannot grow on trading
companies. A colony needs colonists who will settle down,
clear the forests and till the soil. Louis Hebert (1617) was
the first settler who tilled the soil and gained his livelihood
from the fruit of the earth. Quebec has honored him with
a monument erected to the Premier Colon— the first farmer.
Champlain sought to create an agricultural colony, but
unhappily the desire of his financial backers to draw rich
profits from fur trading with the natives checked the agri-
cultural development.
That was one of the weaknesses of New France, a weakness
which runs all through the first century of French colon-
isation in Canada and later affected the Louisiana colony. A
Recollects (Ricollets), a branch of the Franciscan Order, who took their name from
' l recollection'houses, ,, that is, monasteries to which members of the order might retire to
live a life of penance and spiritual recollection. The Recollects favored a stricter interprc
tation of the rules of the Order of St. Francis. The Recollects were really Franciscans,
and the names will be used promiscuously.
Pierre'Georges Roy, following Benjamin Suite, holds that very probably the first Mass
in Canada was said by a chaplain of Jacques Cartier (1534 or 1535), perhaps on the lie'
Aux Coudres near Baie Saint'Paul. See Les Petites Choses de notre Histoire, pp. 3-5.
PIOTiEER DATS IH HEW FRANCE 27
Memorial by the Intendant Raudot reads as follows: "The
beaver trade, upon which the prosperity of the country is
based, is necessarily a precarious resource. . . . Agriculture
should have been the principal object in view, and it has been
only an accessory. . . . Beavers have always been looked upon
as a mine of gold, of which everyone wanted to take his share.
The settlers spent their time hunting in the woods, preferring
a life of adventure, which brought them large profits with
little toil, to the cultivation of the land, which requires
assiduous labor. . . . The remedy for this state of things is
to induce the people to take to the production of wheat,
cattle, timber, fish, oil, and to ship-building, by finding a
market for these products. 111
In the summer of 1641 a group of colonists and soldiers
embarked from La Rochelle, France, with the purpose of
establishing a colony at the foot of Mount Royal (Montreal).
Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve was the brave command-
ant. In this enterprising group there was a young lady of
rare courage and virtue. The heroic names of Maisonneuve
and Jeanne Mance will ever remain linked together in the
history of Montreal. Maisonneuve was the intrepid fron-
tier hero; Jeanne Mance, the noble heroine of charity.
The colonists remained at Quebec the first winter, and
Jeanne Mance devoted herself to the care of the sick settlers.
The following year, at Montreal, she turned her own home
into a hospital, where she nursed the sick, colonists and
savages alike. Two years later she built a hospital at a cost
of 6000 francs with the money that had been given her as a
personal gift by Madame de Bullion, a charitable widow of
Paris. 2 The Hotel Dieu at the foot of Mount Royal is a lineal
descendant of Jeanne Mance's first hospital of 1642.
Montmagny, Champlain's successor as Governor of Can-
ada, tried to dissuade Maisonneuve from taking his group
of colonists as far as Montreal. All of the island was vir-
gin forest, and behind the trees lurked the Iroquois. Maison-
neuve's courage and mettle may be judged from his reply
to the Governor: "I will go up to Montreal even if every
*A Memorial on affairs in Canada at the present time, and the settlement of Cape Breton,
July 16, 1708, in Canadian Archives, Edouard Richard, 1899, p. 227.
2 Madame de Bullion contributed at least 100,000 livres to the founding and defence of
Ville 'Marie — Montreal .
28 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW FRANCE
tree on the island turn into an Iroquois I 11 But it took twenty
years of bloody warfare with the Iroquois to make Montreal
a safe place for colonists.
Montreal is situated near the junction of several rivers.
It was then the rendezvous of numerous Indian tribes;
a post there would block the approach of the Iroquois com-
ing from the south and from the regions of Lake Champlain
and Lake George.
Besides the greater facility of trading with the Indian,
there was another reason for locating at Montreal — the
conversion of the Indian. To convert him you must go to
him. But the precarious position of this new colony, several
hundred miles inland from Quebec, gave it a decidedly
military character.
In 1641 the Iroquois had declared open war against the
French in the valley of the St. Lawrence: Maisonneuve,
Charles Le Moyne, Major Closse and men of their type were
the leaders of the colonists and performed marvelous deeds
of bravery. "The Iroquois", writes a contemporary, "ap-
proach like foxes, fight like lions, and fly away like birds. "
It was their boast that they devoured one nation each year.
On the fourth of July, 1648, they began a series of mas-
sacres in the country of the Hurons near the Georgian Bay,
and 400 Hurons were cruelly butchered. The missionaries
among them were brutally murdered or burnt at the stake.
In the midst of the massacre the Jesuit, Father Daniel,
rushed from cabin to cabin to baptize the Indian neophytes.
He fell pierced with arrows. The following year Fathers
Brebeuf and Lalemant were roasted at a slow fire, the for-
mer dying after three, the latter after seventeen hours of
torture.
Dollard des Ormeaux gathered about him a group of
young men as daring and brave as himself; they bound them-
selves by solemn oath to break the power of the Iroquois
or to die in the attempt, and went right into the country
of the enemy. As some of their number were killed, others
stepped into their places. On the banks of the Ottawa, a
little distance above Montreal, a small fort was hurriedly con-
structed. Scarcely completed, the fort was besieged. The Iro-
quois, hundreds in number, were repelled, and the little fort
held out for several days. But finally lack of water, star-
PIOHEER DATS IH HEW FRANCE 29
vation, an unfortunate accident 1 , and the strength of 700-800
Iroquois took the fort. Dollard and his men kept their
pledge, and each died the death of a hero.
A report was brought to the colony at Montreal that
four Frenchmen were surrounded by a pack of Iroquois.
The men in the palisade post at Montreal crowded around
Maisonneuve. 2 He called to them: "Are you going to
let them die? 11 The answer was: "Never!! 11 Major Closse,
with a band of twenty men, hurried to the rescue. They
were discovered by the Indians and bullets whined around
them. Four Frenchmen were killed, and the rest covered
behind trees. "Steady, take aim, 11 was the command of
Closse. Sixteen savages dropped. Then they drew their
pistols. Another steady aim a la Closse, sixteen more were
riddled with bullets, — and the remaining savages fled in
panic.
A scout, while making his rounds, was suddenly grabbed
by a powerful savage and dragged off to the band of Indians
nearby. Closse heard the cry of the scout and rushed to
the rescue with his men. An Indian chief, whom the French
nicknamed La Barriquc — the Barrel, on account of his sise,
harangued his men to attack the little colony. "Put a hole
in the Barrel, 11 shouted Closse. A volley, and the punc-
tured "Barrel 11 rolled over. At the little hospital, Jeanne
Mance, that wonderful exemplar of strong womanhood, saved
his life.
But one day, while on one of those hair-raising errands of
relief, both of Closse's pistols missed fire, and he fell a victim
to unselfish and heroic bravery.
In the meantime Quebec, the head of the French colonies,
had made important progress. The Duchesse d 1 Aiguillon,
niece of Cardinal Richelieu, undertook the founding of a
hospital, Hotel-Dieu. Mme. de la Peltrie, a young widow of
Alencon, supported the educational work of the Ursulines,
who established two schools, 3 one for the daughters of the
1 Dollard had made a bomb out of a powder keg. The fuse was lighted and the bomb
thrown out to blow up the Iroquois, but unhappily the keg hit a large branch of a tree, re'
bounded and exploded in the fort.
2 T. J. Campbell, Pioneer Laymen of America. I., pp. 215 ff.
3 The Franciscan Pacifique Duplessis had opened the first school for Indian children at
Three Rivers in 1616. — See P. G. Roy, op. tit., p. 26.
3 o FROM QUEBEC TO JiEW ORLEANS
French and another for Indian girls. Mother Marie de
Tlncarnation became the first Superior.
June 16, 1659, the first Catholic Bishop of Quebec arrived
in the person of Frangois de Montmorency de Laval, with
the title of Bishop of Petraea. Quebec numbered hardly 500
inhabitants, and the whole of Canada perhaps 2200 souls.
Laval organised a complete system of education: primary,
technical, and classical. His seminary and preparatory semi-
nary trained young men for the priesthood. In 1678 he
founded an industrial school at Saint Joachim, near Ste.
Anne, to provide the colony with skilled farmers and ar-
tisans. His seminary developed in the course of centuries
into the now famous Laval University. He was a man of
undoubted patriotism, and threw the full weight of his
powerful personality into the balance whenever there was
question of proper administration, progress of the colony
and its defence against the marauding savage. It is, of course,
unfair to judge institutions and customs of the past from
the standpoint of the present. Thomas Chapais makes a
very reasonable remark when he writes: "In studying the
history of New France the relations of church and state
cannot be ignored. Under the Old Regime the union of
these two powers was a part of the public law. But union
does not always mean harmony, and there were sometimes
very serious conflicts between the ecclesiastical and civil
authorities. The most notable was the long and fierce con-
troversy over the vexed question of the liquor trade. " 1
Most traders and coureurs de bois trafficked liquor to
the Indians. Laval and the Jesuits denounced the liquor
traffic, and this brought them into conflict with these men
and,' with the Intendant Talon and the powerful Governor
Frontenac, while the Viceroy de Tracy supported the position
of the Bishop. The Indian had an intense passion for
firewater, and the unscrupulous trader or coureur de bois
carried it to him that he might be able to strike a better bar-
gain with the drunken Indian.
There were two kinds of coureurs de bois, 2 good and
bad. The respectable kind consisted of those "traders
1 Thomas Chapais in Canada and Its Provinces, I., pp. 9 ff.
2w The Habitant is the colonist, in sharp distinction from the coureur de bois, who is the
trader, trapper, and hunter of the wilds." Wood, op. cit., p. 32.
PIOHEER DATS W HEW FRANCE 31
who did an honest business with the Indians; the other
was made up of a wild set of scapegraces, recruited from every
class of the colonial population. They started out mostly
as the travelling agents of the merchants established in
Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal, but, later on, began
to sell furs on their own account. Many of them adopted
the ways of the savages, and were never seen in the settle-
ments except when they came to dispose of their goods or
drum up companions for their wild life. They were more
immoral than the red men themselves, whom they plied
with liquor in exchange for furs, sometimes not even stop-
ping at robbery and murder. 111
A memoir of the year 1705 gives the following gruesome
description: "The village or the cabin in which the savages
drink brandy is an image of hell: fire [i. e., burning brands
of coals flung by the drunkards] flies in all directions; blows
with hatchets and knives make the blood flow on all sides;
and all the place resounds with frightful yells and cries.
They bite off each other's noses, and tear away their ears;
wherever their teeth are fixed, they carry away the morsel
[of flesh]. The father and the mother throw their babes
upon the hot coals or into the boiling kettles. They commit
a thousand abominations. . . . They roll about on the cinders
and coals, and in blood. 112 Thus the missionary's work of
years was ruined by the unscrupulous coureurs de bois.
"In the name of the public good, of humanity, and above
all of religion, 11 continues Chapais, "the Bishop and the Jesuits
denounced the fatal traffic. And they were absolutely
right. But the civil rulers of the colony spoke another lan-
guage. They argued that the brandy traffic was necessary
to keep the Indians in our alliance, to induce them to trade
with the French, and to prevent them from bearing their
furs to the Dutch and English of New York. To that line
of argument Laval had a strong answer. First, a question
of principle was involved in the matter. To attain a material
advantage it was not right to transgress Christian and nat-
ural morality. Secondly, the political and commercial ad-
vantages at stake were not so. great as represented. It was
possible to trade with the Indians without brandy. The New
1 Campbell, Pioneer Laymen of America, II., pp. 109'110.
2 Quoted by C. W. Alvord, Centennial History of Illinois, I., p. 71-
32 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
England authorities had themselves prohibited the sale of
intoxicating liquors. Furthermore, a set back in the fur
trade would not, after all, have been so disastrous. A less
number of colonists would have been diverted from agri-
cultural and industrial pursuits. The settlement of the
country would have been more rapid, and the growth of
population more notable." 1
It was finally decided by the government to forbid the
taking of liquor to the Indians, but to allow it to be sold in
the settlement. The economic effect of this regulation was
that bootleg — or outlaw — fur traders sprang up like mush-
rooms and some of the fur trade was diverted to Albany,
where the English supplied the savages with rum. The liquor
traffic with the Indians remained a perplexing problem for
more than two centuries.
Light and shadow give beauty to a picture, and the heroic
deeds of the pioneers make a refreshing contrast to the orgies
of unscrupulous forest traders and liquor-soaked savages.
The early settlers living in the midst of the forest were
a hardy race. Inured to the dangers of the wilds, they were
prepared to fight the cruel Iroquois lurking behind the trees.
The women, too, and even the children, knew how to handle
the ax and firearms, and some could load a four pounder.
The heroic deeds of the courageous little French Ca-
nadian, Mile. Marie Madeleine de Vercheres, give an idea
of the dangers that surrounded those early settlers and of
the heroic courage and the drama that formed a part of their
lives.
The following account is taken partly from a letter of
Mile, de Vercheres to the Countess de Maurepas, 2 written
shortly after the event, and partly from an account prepared
by her at the request of Governor Beauharnois. 3
"It happened on one occasion, when I was about four-
teen years old, that I found myself some 400 paces outside
the fort of Vercheres, eight leagues 4 from Montreal, — which
1 Thomas Chapais in Canada and Its Provinces, I., p. 9.
2 It is to be noted that the government of Louis XIV being very paternal, everyone who
had a reason, or thought he had a reason,expected fatherly support in the shape of a pension.
Mile, de Vercheres asks for a pension of 50 ecus or an ensigncy for her brother.
3 Canadian Archives, 1899, Edouard Richard, pp. 642 and 87-
4 A league as a measure of distance equals approximately three miles.
LOUIS XIV, KING OF FRANCE
From painting by Philippe Rigaud, Louvre, Paris
I
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2
PIOHEER DATS IH HEW FRANCE 3 3
fort belongs to my father, and was then garrisoned by one
single sentry only — when the Iroquois, who lay in ambush
in the surrounding bushes, made a sudden attack upon our
settlers, of whom they carried off some twenty. " "I heard
several shots without knowing at whom they were fired.
I soon saw that the Iroquois were firing at our settlers, who
lived above a league and a half from the fort. One of our
servants called out to me: Tly, mademoiselle, fly, the Iro-
quois are upon us V I turned instantly and saw some forty-
five Iroquois running towards me, and already within pistol
shot. Determined to die rather than fall into their hands,
I sought safety in flight. I ran towards the fort, commend-
ing myself to the Blessed Virgin, and saying to her from the
bottom of my heart : 'Holy Virgin, mother of my God, you
know I have ever honored and loved you as my dear mother;
abandon me not in this hour of danger! I would rather
a thousand times perish than fall into the hands of a race
that know you not.' I was pursued by an Iroquois up to
the very gates, but as I had preserved in that awful crisis
the little measure of assurance of which a young girl is cap-
able, and may be armed with, I left in his hands my neck
wrap and closed the door upon myself, shouting out: fc To
arms!' Then, paying no heed to the lamentations of the
women, whose husbands had been carried off, I mounted
the bastion where the sentry was posted. Shall I venture
to add, madam, that I then transformed myself by donning
the soldier's helmet, and went through a variety of move-
ments intended to create the impression that we had quite
a number of men in the fort, though in reality we had but
one soldier. I then loaded a four-pounder with ball and dis-
charged it at the Indians. The prompt discharge of the can-
non had the good effect of giving the alarm to the neigh-
bouring forts and make them guard against assaults by the
Iroquois "
COMPLICATED SYSTEM OF ADMINISTRATION
IN NEW FRANCE
England and Holland colonised through companies, such
as the London Company, the East India Company, etc.
France, too, had her colonisation companies, the chief of
which was the Company of the Hundred Associates — La
Compagnie des Cent-Associes. It was the company that
had been organised by Cardinal Richelieu 1 to promote coloni-
sation in New France. While never very successful, it had,
by 1663, lost its energy and vigor. It was part of the Company's
policy to defend the right to bring fire-water to the Indian
to facilitate trade. The missionaries, the colonists, and all who
were directly interested in the success of the missions and
the security and safe-living in the colony, opposed the liquor
traffic.
It gradually became apparent that colonisation by compa-
nies, while effective with the English and Dutch, did not suit
the French character and customs, nor did it fit into a policy
of centralisation of power as practised in France under Louis
XIV. Inasmuch as the King everywhere pressed his own
authority and substituted himself in the place of private
initiative, why not let the King take hold of the whole organ-
isation, the defense of the colony, the government, the colony
itself? Thus New France in 1663 became a crown colony.
French crown colonies, or King's colonies, that is, colonies
subject in their whole administration directly to the King
or his Prime Minister, had a very peculiar sort of administra-
tion, a method that was the cause of endless trouble from the
time of its introduction down to the Conquest in 1759. This
form of administration obtained in Canada, and later also
in Louisiana. It is, therefore, necessary to give a somewhat
detailed explanation to facilitate the understanding of this
phase of the history.
There were in this system two principal functionaries:
The Governor and the Intendant. To the Governor was
1 Armand'Jean du Plessis, Cardinal, Duke de Richelieu, was Prime Minister of France
during part of the reign of Louis XIII. He died December 4, 1642. An original of the con'
tract under which the Company of the Hundred Associates operated is preserved in the
Archives of the Seminaire de Quebec. It bears the signature of the great Prime Minister.
34
THE WTEHDAHT AHD THE GOVERNOR 35
assigned authority in conducting war and commanding the
army, or, more in detail, the Governor watched over the
defense of the country, regulated the policy, signed treaties
with the Indian tribes and represented the King in affairs
of general interest. The Intendant 1 had charge of the police,
justice, and finance, in other words, the financial, judiciary
and administrative departments. He could, and generally
did, meddle in anything and everything without trans-
gressing the limits of his powers. The Intendant corresponded
directly with the Secretary of State or Prime Minister. He
proposed to the Minister the public works to be executed
and had charge of them. He was Secretary of agriculture,
industry, commerce, in short, every detail of the adminis-
tration was in his hands or under his supervision. 2 Com-
pared with the rights and powers of the Intendant, the
office of Governor seems rather an ornamental dignity.
The functions of both officials were intentionally made
to overlap. That caused the one to report to the King on
the doings and conduct of the other, and the King was thus
always well informed as to what was going on. This system
functioned fairly satisfactorily in France, where the contending
officials were near the King, and disputes that arose could be
quickly appealed to the crown for decision, but transplanted
to New France, three thousand miles away from Versailles,
and with means of communication as imperfect, slow and un-
certain as they were, it was a failure, and impeded the progress
of the colonies of Canada and Louisiana.
"The fountain and source of honours being at Versailles, 1 '
writes Richard, "it was but natural to think that there
also was the fountain of knowledge and wisdom, even in
relation to matters which, by reason of distance, must be
outside the competence of the court. The Governor was,
therefore, with the Intendant, but the executive arm and
chief adviser of the Court. I say chief adviser, for by a strange
anomaly, not only were all civil and military officials allowed
to communicate with the Minister in relation to the duties
of their office, but they were asked to submit their views
on the various branches of the administration of the colony.
This was simply to hold out a premium to the informer and
intendant from the Latin word intendere, that is, to look, to inspect.
2 }{ouveau Larousse, V., p. 306.
36 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
sow the seed of distrust. The harvest must of necessity be
a crop of jealousy and discord. "* And so it was.
There was no legislature giving expression on essential
points to the views of the various classes of the community.
In the absence of such legislature or council, Bishop Laval,
on one of his visits to France, asked for some sort of tribunal
for the colony. The upshot was that the King established a
Conseil Souverain; but Louis did not like the word sovereign,
since there could be only one sovereign, the Grand Mori'
arque, and so the name was changed to Superieur — Superior
Council
The Superior Council ' 'exercised executive, legislative, and
judicial powers, the only appeal from their decisions being
to the home government." 2 This institution plays a very
important role in the colonies of Canada and Louisiana
up to the time of CTReilley's regime in New Orleans.
Besides these two chief functionaries there were others,
and that complicated the system still more: the Procurator
of the King (King's Attorney), equivalent to our State's Attor-
ney, acted in the name of the King; the Commandant, in
charge of the troops; the Ordonateur and the Inspector of
accounts, etc.
The officers of the Superior Council were: the Governor,
representative of the King, the Bishop, or in case of his ab-
sence, the Vicar-General, seven Councillors, and the In-
tendant of police, justice and finance, and the Attorney-Gen-
eral (ProcurewOeneral du Roi), etc.
There were some strange things about this Superior
Council : 3
Its sessions were held once a week around a table in the
house of the In tendant; the Governor sat at the upper end;
at his right the Bishop, at his left the Intendant; the Intend-
ant presided, not the Governor.
The administration of justice should be quick and gra-
tuitous.
The sentences passed had force of law.
There were no lawyers, the plaintiffs pleaded their own
cases. During the trial the procurators and the interested
1 Edouard Richard, op. cit., p. 14-
2 Thwaites, France in America, p. 129-
'See Campbell, Pioneer Laymen of 7<[orth America, II., pp. 97-99.
THE IHTEHDAHT AK[D THE GOVERNOR 37
parties spoke from behind the chairs of the judges. The
interested parties were not permitted to be present when
the case was decided.
The first Councillors were appointed conjointly by the
Governor and the Bishop, and held office at the King's pleasure.
The first man appointed by the King to set this loosely-
jointed, overlapping, complicated system into operation
in New France was Governor M. de Mesy, whose mulish
administration was a total failure. He began by attempting
to domineer everybody in the colony. The famous Maison-
neuve had been duly appointed Governor of Montreal
and had ruled that colony for twenty-two years. De Mesy
very officiously appointed Maisonneuve Governor of Mon-
treal as though he had never held this office, to let that
valiant hero of Ville-Marie feel that his appointment came
from de Mesy. Maisonneuve felt the sting and went back
to France, never to return. Canada lost a good man, a hero.
M. de Mesy antagonized the Council by high-handedly
discharging Bourdon, Villeray, and d'Aureuil, Councillors,
because they did not agree with him. The Bishop refused
to ratify this arbitrary procedure, whereupon de Mesy
threatened to incarcerate the Bishop. M. de Mesy had
just been dismissed from office when he died, 1665.
Colbert, the powerful Minister of Louis XIV, organised
the Company of the West Indies in 1664 and granted to
it very broad political and commercial rights. The Com-
pany of the West Indies superseded the Company of the
Hundred Associates and took over its rights and privileges.
But, with the exception of the functions of judges and of one
or two officials of justice, it left the entire administration of
the colony to the King.
The colony had passed through twenty years of Indian
wars, massacres and perfidy of every sort, and the Court of
Versailles decided that only armed force could control and
keep the Iroquois in check and safeguard the colonists. The
Marquis de Tracy was appointed Lieutenant of the King, 1
1 The Staff of each Province was composed of a local Governor, a Lieutenant of the King
and a Major. The local Governors were under the Governor'General and had to see to the
execution of his ordinances. The Lieutenants of the King were rather lieutenants of the
local Governors. They attended to military matters, troops and fortifications, and took the
place of the Governor in his absence. The Majors were in charge of order among the troops
38 FROM QUEBEC TO K[EW ORLEANS
M. de Courcelle, Governor, and Jean Talon, Intendant.
De Tracy and the famous Carignan Regiment, 1 comprising
403 picked soldiers, arrived in the fall of the same year.
Canada was in great distress, and Louis XIV and Colbert
were determined to save the new colony. In Courcelle,
Tracy, and Talon, Colbert sent over to New France a mighty
triumvirate which would be able to transform the rude settle-
ments of the St. Lawrence, first organised into a body politic
by Richelieu, into a powerful colony that would be able
to cope with the Indian and the nettlesome English colony
strung along the Atlantic seaboard. Talon 2 was a man of
ability and will power. In France he had been Intendant
in the army of the great Turenne, Louis XIV's most capable
General.
In 1666 Talon had the first Canadian census 3 taken in
order to submit a complete survey of New France to the
King.
Census of New France, 1666.
Quebec 555
Beaupre 678
Beauport 172
Isle cTOrleans 471
St'Jean, St-Francois et St-Michel 156
Sillery 217
Nostre Dame'des'Anges, et Riviere de
St.-Charles 118
Coste de Lauzon 6
Montreal 584
Trois-Rivieres 461
Total 3,418
Number of men between 16 and 50, capable of bearing arms, 1,344
and looked after details of the military administration. P-G. Roy, Les Officiers D^Etat-
Major, pp. 6'7-
J Edouard Richard, op. cit., p. 31.
2 Jean Talon was born at Chalons-sur-Marne in 1625, and died at Versailles, November
23, 1691. He was twice Intendant of New France, 16654668, and 16704672. Shortly
before his return to France Talon created a number of seigniories for officers of the Carignan
regiment and thereby aided the development of an aristocracy in Canada. "His excessive
seal," writes Lionel Lindsay, "for the financial prosperity of the State caused him to resent
unreasonably the wise restrictions imposed by Bishop Laval on the liquor traffic with the
Indians." Lionel Lindsay in Catholic Encyclopedia, XIV., p. 439.
3 F. X. Garneau, Histoire du Canada, Tome Second, Appendice.
TALOH-WARS AGAIHST mDIAHS-FROWEHAC
—WESTERN EXPLORATIONS— WESTWARD
EXPAJiSIOH
By the middle of the seventeenth century, the English
and Dutch settlements in Virginia, the Middle Colonies,
and Massachusetts had developed an aggregate population
of approximately twenty-five thousand. Between 1627
and 1637 upward of twenty thousand settlers emigrated
thither from Europe. 1
Talon's motto was: colonise and again colonise. Group
the settlers around the cities and villages, and thus these
settlers would form a body of voluntary militia, create cen-
ters of population, and fortify the colony frontier. Accord-
ing to Wood 2 , Charlesbourg, close to Quebec, still has
fields divided by fences which stretch out from a common
center like spokes from a hub. The hub was the local fort,
into which the habitants could easily flee when all the
neighboring fields met at a common point. The parish
church of Charlesbourg now occupies the site of the old
fort. This hub-and-spoke settlement was established in the
seigniory of the Jesuits 3 , but the method was discontinued,
because experience showed that the settlement could be
surrounded by savages, whereby every outlet to obtain relief
would be cut off. According to the same author "among
the older inhabitants in the remoter districts, any nearby
village is still referred to as le fort, in reminiscence of Iro-
quois and scalping parties; while here, unique in all America,
you still may see the fences running into one strategic point. 1 '
Talon sent explorers northwest and south. It was during
his administration that Jolliet was appointed to make his
famous voyage of exploration down the Mississippi. At
Talon's bidding, " writes Lindsay, "New France set her seal
on three-fourths of North America." Agriculture soon
progressed, cod-and seal-fishing were developed, ship-build-
ing thrived, and trade with the Antilles was inaugurated.
^hwaites, France in America, p. 34.
2 Wood, op. eft., p. 52.
3 This statement was made to me by Msgr. Amedee Gosselin, Rector of the Laval Uni'
versity, Quebec.
39
4 o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
During his seven years of office Talon renewed the face of
New France. Had his plans carried in full, New France
would have had a million inhabitants instead of sixty thous-
and in 1759, when the Grande Lutte, the Final Struggle
between England and France for the possession of America,
came to a dramatic close on the Plains of Abraham.
The Richelieu River flows from Lake Champlain into
the St. Lawrence a little distance below Montreal. Tracy
at once set to work to thrust the arm of French power along
the water-ways of New France, and constructed five forts
on the banks of this river : Sorel, de Chambly, Sainte-Therese,
Saint-Jean, and Sainte-Anne. The Iroquois awoke one
morning to find the French in possession of their main route
to the St. Lawrence.
Courcelle, the new Governor, started off in midwinter,
1666, at the head of 500 to 600 soldiers, towards Fort Chambly.
"The French, " writes Wood, "missing the Mohawk trail,
suddenly, to their intense surprise, found themselves face
to face with the English at Schenectady. They were looking
for Mohawks. The only whites of whom they knew any-
thing along the Hudson Valley were the Dutch. Yet here
were the English, who, having supplanted the Dutch at
New York eighteen months before, had now worked their
way north, straight toward the flank of New France. The
two home governments were then at peace; so French and
English parted with all the usual compliments; but not
without most ominous forebodings on both sides." 1
Courcelle "s expedition, as far as the Iroquois were con-
cerned, was a total failure, having even failed to see any.
M. de Tracy, profiting by the mishaps of Courcelle,
started operations in September, 1666. His army was the
most formidable that had ever been seen in America. It
counted several hundred of the crack Carignan Regiment,
600 militia and 100 Indians. He led this army to Fort Sainte-
Anne on the west shore of Lake Champlain, and from thence
marched into the country of the Iroquois in three separate col-
umns. After a march of a hundred miles, Indian file, and hard-
ships that would have tested the mettle of the best of men, he
reached the Iroquois country. The Indians had fled. Andaraqui,
1 Wood, op. cit., p. 41.
GOVERNOR FROWEHAC 41
the fortified Indian village, and other Indian villages, pro-
visions and all, were given to the flames. The Iroquois,
terrified and humiliated, signed a treaty of peace which
lasted eighteen years. The colony was now rid of its worst
enemies and settled down to peaceful colonisation under
the direction of the great Coloniser, the Intendant Jean
Talon. 1
A great Governor succeeded a great Intendant. Count
Frontenac 2 was a man of powerful physique and imposing
presence, of proud bearing and determined will, with a pas-
sion for power and a power for work. He was decidedly
progressive and was intimately connected with the intellect-
ual life of the French capital. He "could turn a set of appo-
site French verses as well as all except the very best courtly
poets." 3
"M. de Frontenac," writes Richard, "either because he
considered his position to be that of viceroy, or because he
desired to raise it to that dignity, sought to press the colony
into the mould of France. Convinced evidently that he
was carrying out the views of the government, he convoked
the states-general and received them with quasi regal pomp
and solemnity. Proud of his success in this matter he in-
formed the Minister of his action, manifesting at the same
time the satisfaction felt by a jealous servant who thinks
he has foreseen and accomplished in advance the secret
wishes of his master. ... He was severely reprimanded by
the Minister. The secret intention of the king, he was told,
is to allow the irksome institution to fall into disuse. . . .It
would never do then to create in Canada an institution
which the king was trying to kill in France." 4
x Desrosiers, Histoire du Canada, p. 111.
2 Louis de Buade, Count Frontenac, was born at Paris in 1622. His father was captain of
a royal castle and his mother the daughter of the King's Secretary of State. Thus it
happened that Louis XIII honored the parents by becoming the boy's godfather. Frontenac
served under Turenne in Holland, France, Italy, Germany, and in Candia before his appoint'
ment as Governor of New France. He served twice as Governor of that country, from 1672
to 1682, and again from 1689 to 1698. "He found Canada weakened and attacked on all
sides; he left it in peace, enlarged, and respected. He has been justly called 'saver of the
country.' " Lionel Lindsay, in Cath. Encyclopedia, IV., p. 310.
3 Wood, op. cit., pp. 1748.
4 Edouard Richard, op. cit., p. 14.
42 FROM QUEBEC TO KEW ORLEANS
Out of the imperious character of Frontenac grew many
difficulties. A notable and long contested quarrel was that
with Perrot, Governor of Montreal, whom he confined
to Chateau St. Louis. Another very grave controversy arose
between Frontenac and the Intendant Duchesneau and the
majority of the Superior Council. The matter in controversy
was a very delicate point of etiquette. The royal ordinance
gave to Frontenac the title of Governor and Lieutenant'
General, but it so happened that in a letter to Frontenac
the King styled him "Chef et President du Corned." Fron-
tenac promptly demanded that the Council give him this
title in its meetings. The Council refused to do so. The
controversy simmered to a children's farce. The Council
would meet, the clerk would begin to read the minutes,
and then the trouble would begin. The clerk would not
use the title Frontenac thought he should have, and the
meeting would break up. Finally Frontenac ordered the
clerk sent to jail. The position of the clerk was supported
by the Intendant Duchesneau and the majority of the Council.
Meetings remained suspended for months, and finally,
after a year of wrangling over this puerile matter, which had no
bearing at all on the welfare of the colony, the King settled
the difficulty, practically approving the standpoint of Duches-
neau. 1
Another question given ridiculously serious attention was
this : just when and in what order Frontenac and the rest of the
political dignitaries were to receive incense, holy water,
pain benit, who should have a chair in the sanctuary, etc.
Frontenac demanded special recognition at divine services.
The matter had to be referred to the King, as indeed all matters,
even the smallest details, in that overcentralised government of
Louis XIV. The King's reply read: "You are exacting more
than is accorded to Governors or Lieutenant-Governors in
France, and you would do well to stop your quarrel with the
Bishop." 2
Frontenac and Duchesneau, the Intendant, generally worked
at cross purposes. In the summer of 1769 Duchesneau wrote to
the Minister that the clearing was making but little progress,
Hbid., pp. 13-14.
2 Campbell, op. cit., II., p. 102.
GOVERNOR FROKITEHAC 43
that the farmers preferred hunting to raising crops, and that
he was powerless to stem the evil as long as Frontenac counte-
nanced it. This accusation provoked the ire of the Governor,
who replied a year later by denying the charges and adding
that he had had 'Very little respect for him [Duchesneau]
in the past, but that in the future he would have none at
all!"
The Intendant's son, Chevalier Duchesneau, foolishly
became involved in trouble with Frontenac. Bishop Laval
sought to mediate, and elicited from the Governor the promise
that he would listen to the young man and accept
his apologies. The young Chevalier accordingly called at
the Governor's house to do as he had been told. At sight
of the young culprit, Frontenac forgot his promise of leni-
ency to the Bishop; he flew at the young man, "struck him
and beat him unmercifully." 1
Even the Minister must have despaired at times of hold-
ing the impetuous Governor in check. June 4, 1695, he
wrote to Frontenac, advising him that he was too severe
in expressing his opinions and that he might have avoided
some of his many troubles; finally he censured him for his
outbursts of anger and violence. 2
However, even great men have their weak points, and
Frontenac was no exception. Yet, in spite of all these foolish
foibles, Frontenac is justly numbered among the few great
Governors of Canada; at any rate, he was the most spectacular
of them all.
October 16, 1690, the English Admiral Phipps 3 appeared
before Quebec with a fleet of thirty-four vessels carrying
approximately 3,000 men. In accordance with the manner
of warfare in those days, a small boat carrying a flag of truce
and a trumpeter was sent ashore to demand surrender. Fron-
tenac on his part sent out a simliar boat to meet the Admiral's
messenger. The trumpeter was blindfolded and led through
^douard Richard, op. cit., pp. 1344.
2 Edouard Richard, Canadian Archives, 1899, pp. 4142.
^rontenac's forces had captured Corlar (Schenectady), Salmon Falls (N. Hampshire),
and Casco (Maine). To avenge these attacks Boston sent a fleet under Phipps to capture
Quebec.
44 FROM QUEBEC TO ?iEW ORLEANS
the streets of the city up to the fort, where the bandage was
removed from his eyes in the presence of the Governor and the
military, civil, and ecclesiastical authorities.
In the name of his superior officer the messenger read the
summons to surrender: "I, William Phipps, Knight, by
these presents, and in the name of their excellent Majesties :
William and Mary, 1 King and Queen of England, France and
Scotland and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith .... demand
that you surrender into my hands, your forts and castles,
etc. . . . But if you undertake to defend yourselves, know
that I am in a position to compel you, resolved with the
help of God, in whom I put my trust, to avenge by arms the
wrongs you have done us, and subject you to the crown of
England. Your positive answer in one hour by your trum-
peter with the return of mine."
Frontenac swelled up with anger and made this charac-
teristic reply: "I will not keep you waiting that long for
my answer. Here it is. I know no King William; but I
know that the Prince of Orange is a usurper who has violated
the most sacred rights of blood and of religion by dethroning
the King, his father-in-law. I know no other lawful sovereign
of England than James II. Sir W. Phipps should not be
surprised at the hostilities committed by the French and
their allies, for he must have expected that the King, my
master, having received the King of England under his pro-
tection, would order me to carry on the war upon nations
in revolt against their lawful prince. Can he have supposed
that, were his conditions more tolerable, and I in a mood to
accept them, so many brave men would consent and advise
me to trust to the word of a man who has violated the capit-
ulation which he had made with the Governor of Acadia;
who has broken the allegiance he owes to his prince; who
has forgotten all the favors lavished on him, to follow the
party of a foreigner, who, pretending to have in view only
to be the Deliverer of England and the Defender of the Faith,
has destroyed the laws and privileges of the Kingdom and
overthrown the Anglican Church? All this the Divine
Justice, which Phipps invokes, will one day punish severely."
1 James II, the last Stuart King of England, was supplanted by his daughter Mary and her
husband, William of Orange (Holland), 1688. Campbell, op. cit. t II., p. 125.
GOVERNOR FROHTEHAC 45
The messenger requested the answer in writing. Frontenac,
burning with rage, gave the reply which has become famous
in history: "I will give you my answer by the mouths of
my cannon l" 1
And so he did. Phipps was beaten, lost all his ships but
four, and 900 men.
The expeditions of Courcelle and Tracy had shown that
the Iroquois were out of reach of the French. So Frontenac
adopted a policy of reconciliation, which he considered more
economical and more to the interest of the colony. He en-
deavored to adjust their difficulties and to play the role of
mediator. This method appealed to his pompous disposition.
Edouard Richard properly remarks: "That which was his
failing in dealing with his subordinates became in some sort
a special qualification in negotiating with the governors
of the neighboring colonies and especially with the Indians.
His noble bearing and great dignity compelled respect from
the proud Iroquois. They could not but feel on seeing him
that they were in the presence of the true representative
of a great and mighty monarch. " 2
A character like Frontenac had, of course, more than an
average number of opponents, both in Quebec and at the
Court of Versailles, and he was in consequence recalled in
1682. Unfortunately, De la Barre and Denonville, who suc-
ceeded him as Governors of New France, lacked both ability
and energy to cope successfully with the complex problems of
the colony. The savages dug up the tomahawk, and in 1689
a terrible massacre occurred in the colony. The Iroquois,
backed by the English, felt they could safely undertake
another wild attack against the French. August 5, 1689,
while a violent storm was raging, 1400 Iroquois, who had
slipped unnoticed over to the Isle de Montreal to a point
called Lachine, suddenly filled the air with their wild war
whoops. The doors were chopped down, 150-200 inhabi-
tants were killed, and some were reserved for torture. The
country about was ravaged with fire and the tomahawk
up to the very gates of Montreal. The Iroquois and the
English had conquered.
Campbell, op. tit., pp. 124-126.
2 Edouard Richard, op. cit., p. 13.
46 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEAHS
Frontenac, who lived in France, was now 68 years old;
he had regained the grace of the Court, and was considered
the only man strong enough to save Canada, and was there-
fore sent back to Quebec as Governor of New France in
1689, which office he held until 1698.
At this point we must retrace our steps and reach back
to Frontenac's first administration. Colbert visioned the possi-
bility of acquiring a great empire on the American Conti-
nent, but was troubled at the thought of the small number
of colonists who would be unduly strung out over a vast
territory by a policy of rapid expansion. Frontenac's restive
character craved to expand the field of commerce and to dot the
colony with posts and forts to safeguard the possession for
France. Talon, too, was an expansionist, and sent Louis Jolliet
to explore the region of Lake Superior in 1669, and La Salle to
the regions south of the Lakes the following year. No doubt,
Colbert was elated over the marvelous discoveries made
about this time. Still, he felt uneasy at the thinning out
of the population over so immense a territory and urged
Frontenac to see to the development of agriculture. "In
regard to new discoveries, " wrote Colbert to Frontenac,
"you ought not to turn your attention thereunto without
urgent necessity and very great advantage, and you ought to
hold as a maxim that it is much better to occupy less terri-
tory and to people it thoroughly, than to spread oneself
out more, and to have feeble colonies which can be destroyed
by any sort of accident." 1
M. de Saint-Lusson was sent to Sault Ste. Marie to carry
the message of the King of France to the Indians of the North-
west, that is, he was to take formal possession of the Ottawa
country in the name of the King. Nicolas Perrot, 2 an hon-
est coureur de bois, was sent ahead to invite the Indians
to assemble at the Sault in the spring of 1671. Accord-
ingly, on the fourth day of June, 1671, throngs of Indians
from north and west, representing fourteen nations all told,
assembled in all their savage finery and splendor around a
cross planted on a slight eminence on what is now the Amer-
^{ew Tor\ Colonial Documents, IX., p. 126— April 15, 1676.
2 Nicolas Perrot, who was in every respect a very good man, is not to be confounded with
Francois Marie Perrot, son-in-law of Talon, and Governor of Montreal, who bequeathed
to posterity an evil reputation.
GOVERNOR FROHTEHAC 4 7
ican side of Sault Ste-Marie. St. Lusson's official report sent
to Talon runs as follows: "We, Simon Frangois Daumont,
Seigneur de Saint-Lusson, commissioned as Sub-delegate of
M. lTntendant of New France on July 3rd, last, to betake
ourselves with all due expedition to the country of the
Ottawas, Nes-Perces, Illinois, and other nations hitherto
discovered or to be discovered hereafter, in North America,
along the shores of Lake Superior or La Mer Douce, to find and
discover mines of any kind, particularly of copper, and to take
possession in the name of the King of all the country inhabited,
through which we may pass, planting at the first settlement
the Cross in order to produce there the fruits of Christianity,
and the arms of France in order to ensure there the authority
of his Majesty, and the French dominion, do, therefore,
in virtue of our said commission, having first landed at the
village of Sainte-Marie du Sault where the Reverend Jesuit
Fathers have a mission, and where the nations of (here follow
the names of a few tribes) abide, we assembled the majority
of them and also whatever others could be persuaded to
come. There were fourteen tribes present (the names
are then given); all of them dwelling in the north or near
the sea, and they were charged to make known to their
neighbors who are mostly to be found on the shores of the
sea, what was done on this occasion. To them, in the pres-
ence of the Reverend Fathers of the Society of Jesus and
of all the French, hereinafter named, we have caused our
commission to be read and proclaimed in the native tongue
by Nicolas Perrot, Interpreter for His Majesty, in this
country, so that they cannot be ignorant of its tenor; and
we have erected a cross to advance the interests of Chris-
tianity in these parts. Near it we planted a post of cedar
on which we affixed the arms of France. All this was done
while repeating three times the general acclamation: 'In
the name of the Most High and Most Mighty and Most
Redoubtable Monarch, Louis Fourteenth of the name,
Most Christian King of France and Navarre, we take pos-
session,' etc. This acclamation was made each time that
the said Perrot lifted a sod of earth on the north, east, south,
and west, while shouting Vive le Roy, and making the whole
of the assembly, the French as well as the Indians, repeat
the same. All other powers, monarchical as well as repub-
4 8 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
lican, were warned not to trespass on the teritories so claimed,
under peril of incurring the wrath and power of His Majesty's
armies, and the savages are assured of the royal protection "*
The chief object of the mission, ordered by Talon and exe-
cuted by Saint-Lusson, was to establish the secular power, "to
take possession, in the King's name, of all the territories in-
habited and uninhabited ... to ensure there the authority
of His Majesty, and the French dominion. "
Among those who witnessed the solemn prise de pos-
session (taking possession) at Sault Ste. Marie, there stood
by the side of Saint-Lusson a young man of twenty-six, a
trader and explorer, whose name and fame were destined
to live long after Saint-Lusson and his solemn ceremony had
sunk into oblivion. This man was Louis Jolliet.
The year after the spectacular performance at the Sault,
Talon suggested to Governor Frontenac that Jolliet be
sent beyond the Great Lakes to explore the grande riviere,
which, the Indians alleged, flowed into the southern sea
(Pacific). This was in 1672. Jolliet was selected, writes
Frontenac to Colbert, because he was "experienced in these
kinds of discoveries and had already been very near the
river.' 1
Louis Joliet (or Jolliet) 2 was the son of Jean Joliet and
Marie d'Abancourt, who lived in what is still known as
the Basse Ville, or Lower Town, of Old Quebec. Barthol-
omew Vimont, the Jesuit Father, who baptised the future
explorer on the 21st of September, 1645, evidently forgot
to enter the date of birth, and leaves our curiosity somewhat
unsatisfied by merely stating that he baptised the "Infaw
tern recens natum — the Infant recently born." Jolliet was
baptised in the church of the Immaculate Conception, which
at that time was the ground floor of the house (perhaps
warehouse) of the Company of the Hundred Associates,
which stood on the grounds of the present Anglican Cathe-
dral across from the Clarendon Hotel. The church in Lower
Ernest Gagnon, Louis Jolliet, pp. 2022. See also Campbell, Pioneer Laymen of ]<[orth
America, II., pp. 44'45.
2 The baptismal record has Joliet, but the spelling Jolliet is the more common. Louis Jolliet
himself always, or nearly always, wrote double "1."
This account of Jolliet's early life is chiefly drawn from Ernest Gagnon, Louis Jolliet,
Decouvreur du hiississijpi.
o ^
2 I
Q
CO
BRITISH MESSENGER BEFORE FRONTENAC. By H. Sandham
"I will give you my answer by the mouths of my cannon!"
Photograph by courtesy of Edgar Gariejpy
GOVERNOR FROHTEKAC 49
Town had been destroyed by fire in 1640. Jean Jolliet,
the father, was a wagonmaker employed by the Company
of the Hundred Associates.
Louis Jolliet completed the classical studies at the Jesuit
College of Quebec. In 1663 Bishop Laval opened his
Seminaire de Quebec, and Louis Jolliet was one of the first
three students of Laval's new seminary. At this time he
thought of becoming a priest, and even received minor orders.
He finished the classics and philosophy at the Jesuit College.
Jolliet had talent and taste for music, and the records mention
him as one of the officiers de musique while at that institu-
tion. This love for music remained with him, and after his
return from the discovery of the Mississippi, the records
mention Jolliet as organist of the Cathedral of Quebec.
But, like so many men of his day, he was drawn by the
magic call of the wilderness. In 1667 he quitted the seminary
and went to Europe, where he studied engineering, hydrog-
raphy, and branches that would be useful to him in exploring
the wilds. After his return to New France he became a
coureur de bois, a rover of the unexplored forests and trader
with the Indians, among whom he learnt the languages of
several western tribes.
In 1669, Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette met
at Sault Sainte-Marie. It is probable that they had become
acquainted at Quebec in the fall of 1666. The missionary and
the explorer, both young, courageous, fiery, brave and intel-
ligent, from the day of their meeting at the Falls of Sainte-
Marie became interested in finding the "grande riviere —
Mitchi Sipi," 1 vaguely known to them from the fascinating
stories of the savages.
James Marquette was born at Laon, France, on the 10th
day of January, 1637. At the age of 17 he entered the Jesuit
novitiate at Nancy. He came to America at the age of 29,
September 30, 1666, when de Tracy and Courcelle were on
their march to subdue the Mohawks. After spending some
time at Quebec and along the St. Lawrence to study the
Algonquin language, he was sent to the mission at the far-
1 Mitchi — great, and Sibi or Sipi — water. Knowledge of the great river in the west had
been obtained chiefly from the reports of the Jesuit Claude Allouez, who came to Chequame'
gon Bay (La Pointe — Superior, Wis.) in 1669.
5o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
thest extremity of Lake Superior — La Pointe. There he came
in contact with Illinois Indians, who told him wonderful
stories of the Great River. It was then believed that this
river emptied into the Atlantic. Marquette wondered
if it might not lead to the Pacific. At any rate, he wrote
his Superior: "We shall go there next year. 1 '' His hopes
did not materialise, and he remained two years at La Pointe,
and then paddled back to Sault SaintcMarie, because a
war had broken out among the Indians at his mission. He
then moved on to the Straits of Mackinac, where he removed
the mission from the island (Mackinac) to the mainland.
It was at this mission, Saint-Ignace, that Jolliet found Mar-
quette, December 8, 1672.
SEARCH FOR A PASSAGE TO THE SOUTH SEA
We must now turn back to the 7th day of April, 1672,
when Louis XIV and his Minister Colbert issued instruc-
tions for the guidance of Frontenac, the newly-appointed
Governor of New France. The task assigned to Frontenac
was as difficult as it was delicate. He was to transform a
mission country into a crown colony, with proper balances
between the civil and the ecclesiastical powers.
Leaving aside the details of the instructions referring
to the Iroquois, agriculture, etc. as irrelevant to the pur-
pose of this volume, the following paragraph makes inter-
esting reading, and serves as a key for a better understanding
of this highly important period of history.
"The Jesuit Fathers, who are established at Quebec, 1 '
so read the instructions, "being the first 1 who carried the
light of the Faith and the Gospel to New France, and who
by their virtue and piety have contributed to the estab-
lishment and growth of this colony, His Majesty desires
that the said sr. de Frontenac be very considerate with
regard to them; but, in case that they would wish to carry
the ecclesiastical authority farther than it should reach,
it is necessary that he make known to them with courtesy
(avec douceur) the line of conduct they are expected to fol-
low, and, in case they do not yield, he will diplomatically
oppose their designs without appearance of rupture or
partiality, and he will advise His Majesty of all so that
he may be in position to apply the proper remedy.
"The colony of Montreal, situated above that of Quebec,
receiving much help and consolation from the Ecclesiastics
of the Seminary of Saint Sulpice, who are established there,
it will be necessary that the sieur de Frontenac give them
protection as far as in him lies, as also to the Recollect Fathers,
who have established themselves in the said city of Quebec,
x The first Catholic missionaries to visit New France were the secular priests who accompa'
nied Cartier. Dorn Antoine and Dom Guillaume Le Breton accompanied him on his second
voyage (15354536). L'abbe Nicolas Aubry came to Acadia in 1604. In 1610 Jesse Fleche, a
secular priest, baptized some hundred savages. The Jesuit Fathers came to Acadia in 1611.
The Franciscans (Recollects) came in 1615 and were the first missionaries along the banks of
the St. Lawrence. See H. A. Scott, Au Berceau de T^ptrc Histoire.
UNIVERSITY OF
ILLINOIS LIBRARY
5 2 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
these two ecclesiastical bodies should be favored to counter-
balance the authority which the Jesuit Fathers might as-
sume to themselves to the detriment of that of His Ma-
jesty." 1
The subsequent attitude of Frontenac towards the vari-
ous religious orders becomes clear from these instructions.
When Frontenac reached Quebec in September of the
same year, he brought various despatches relating to the
colony and a letter of great importance for the Intendant
Talon. Wrote Colbert to Talon: "After the increase of the
colony nothing is more important for that country and for the
service of His Majesty than the discovery of the passage to
the South Sea [Pacific Ocean]." 2
Talon, who was a highly efficient Intendant and a keen
observer, studied the forest rovers and explorers with a
view to selecting the proper man for the "discovery of the
passage to the South Sea." His eye fell on Jolliet, whom
he had reason to remember. According to the Journal des
Jesuites, a philosophical disputation had been held in the
Jesuit College at Quebec on the 2nd of July, 1666, the dig-
nitaries of the colony being present and taking part in the
discussion. "The Intendant [Talon] among others argued
very well. M. Jolliet and Pierre Francheville answered the
objections with excellent logic." 3
This philosophical disputation had taken place only eight
years before Colbert's letter arrived, and Talon probably
remembered the incident. Jolliet had in the meantime left
the seminary to become a trader and explorer, but Talon,
no doubt, had followed the fortunes of the young man,
and so his choice for a pathfinder to the South Sea fell upon
Louis Jolliet. It is at least probable that Father Dablon,
who, as Superior of the Jesuit missions in New France, also
had reason to observe closely the men who roamed the
forests, suggested or recommended Jolliet 's name to Talon.
Father Dablon thought very highly of Jolliet, as is evident
from the fact that two years later, August 1, 1764, he wrote
of him: "For this project they could not have chosen
iRapport de VArchiviste de la Province de Quebec pour iq27'IQ28, pp. $-6.
Collections De Manuscrits, contenant Lettres, Memoires, etc. a La 7<{ouvelle France, I.,
p. 222.
3 Quoted in Ernest Gagnon, Louis Jolliet, p. 12.
PREPARING FOR A GREAT EXPEDITION 53
a person who had better qualifications than Sieur Jolliet,
who has much frequented those countries. . . . " At any
rate, Talon discussed this matter with Frontenac, who
then, in his capacity as Governor, officially appointed Louis
Jolliet and so reported to Colbert: "M. Talon has also
judged it expedient for the service to send Sieur Jolliet for
the discovery of the South Sea. ... He is a man very skilled
in these kinds of discoveries and who has already been
quite near this great river, of which he promises to dis-
cover the mouth." 1
Jolliet immediately set to work procuring a good canoe
and experienced rowers, and laying in a supply of flour and
dried meat and articles of French make to be given as pres-
ents to the savage chiefs; nor did he forget his astronomical
instruments and the things needed to make charts and to
write his account of the voyage. 2 His aim was to reach
Michillimackinac before the cold weather and winter set in.
In those days every expedition, every voyage of dis-
covery or exploration, had its chaplain to minister to the
men in the party, as well as to carry the light of the Gospel
to the pagan savages. Jolliet and Father Marquette were
friends and had discussed the Mississippi problem before.
No doubt, Jolliet had called on Father Dablon, the Superior
of the Jesuit missions at Quebec, and had obtained from him
the appointment of Marquette as chaplain for his expedi-
tion to the South Sea.
On the 8th of December, 1672, Jolliet arrived at Mission
Saint-Ignace, and immediately informed his good friend
that he had been selected to accompany the expedition to
the South Sea. The two spent the winter and early spring
of 1673 gathering whatever information they could, pre-
paring maps, and doing whatever they thought necessary
for the great voyage of exploration which awaited them.
Since that distant date, December 8, 1672, the names of
Jolliet and Marquette have been linked with that of the
Father of Waters.
The existence of the great river, now known as the Mis-
sissippi, was more than a mere surmise at the time of the
Jolliet-Marquette expedition. While it is true that Spain
^agnon, op. tit., p. 33, n. 3.
Hbid., p. 34.
54 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
kept its discoveries as secret as possible, still, information
concerning the discoveries of Pineda (1519), Narvaes, Cabesa
de Vaca, and De Soto, who was buried in the Mississippi,
had spread over Europe. This, together with the stories
of Indians about a great river, fixed the purpose of the Jolliet-
Marquette expedition to the finding "of a passage to the
South Sea," that is, to determine whether this river, which
the Spanish designated as the Rio del Espiritu Santo, was
the same as the one spoken of by the Indians as the Mitchi
Sipi, and whether it would supply that "passage to the
South Sea." 1
*For a critical study of this question see Francis Borgia Steck, O. F. M., Ph. D., The Jolliet'
Marquette Expedition of 1673 . See also Bourne, Spain in America in the American Nation
Series, VIII, and Gilbert J. Garraghan in Thought, June, 1929, pp. 32-71.
THE EXPEDITION OF 1673
JOLLIET AHD MARQUETTE FD^D THE MISSISSIPPI
"One hundred and thirty years had passed away," writes
Gayarre, 1 "since the apparition of De Soto on the soil of Louisi-
ana, without any further attempt of the white race to pene-
trate into that fair region, when on the 7th of July, 1673, a
small band of Europeans and Canadians reached the Missis-
sippi, which they had come to seek from the distant city
of Quebec. The band had two leaders, Father Marquette . . .
and Jolliet . . . the prototypes of two great sources of power,
religion and commerce, which, in the course of time, were
destined to exercise such influence on the civilisation of the
western territory, traversed by the mighty river which they
had discovered. 2 They could not be ordinary men, those adven-
turers, who in those days undertook to expose themselves to
the fatigues and perils of a journey through unknown soli-
tudes, from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi!"
The fascinating story of the discovery or exploration of
the Mississippi by Jolliet and Father Marquette is best
told in their own words, taken from the narrative commonly
ascribed to Father Marquette, 3 prefaced by the Jesuit Supe-
HDharles Gayarre, Colonial History and Romance, p. 27-
2 Regarding the controversy, whether the Expedition should be called a Discovery or an
Exploration see Steck, The Jolliet'Marquette Expedition of 1673, pp. 192-225. Steck holds
that "the Spaniards must be credited with having discovered the Mississippi and that Jolliet
and his companions have the honor of being the first to explore our country's mighty water-
way."
Quite the opposite view is held by others, among them Henry S. Spalding, S. J., who
writes in the Illinois Historical Review, July-October, 1923, p. 41: "A discoverer is not the
one who simply visits a strange land, who touches an unknown coast, who crosses a stream
which no human eye has seen before. He is one whose work results in something permanent,
who adds something to the knowledge of the people calling him a discoverer, whether this
knowledge be historical, geographical or ethnological. "
3 The narrative of the expedition of 1673, or Recit, as Thwaites calls it, though commonly
ascribed to Father Marquette, is perhaps a recast or compilation made by Father Dablon
from a copy of Jolliet's official report, Marquette's notes, and other sources available at that
time. Perhaps the two explorers elaborated only one complete relation or official report.
At any rate, a letter of Father Dablon, Superior of the Jesuit Missions in New France,
dated Quebec, August 1, 1764, seems to suggest this idea. Jolliet called on Father Dablon
after his return from the Mississippi voyage and made an oral report . Dablon in turn reports
his conversation with Jolliet as follows: "We cannot this year give all the information that
55
56 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
rior, Father Dablon, as printed in The Jesuit Relations and
Allied Documents, 1 edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites.
It is to be noted that Jolliet's papers were lost in the Lachine
Rapids on his return voyage to Montreal.
"In the year 1673," 2 writes Father Dablon, "Monsieur,
The Count De Frontenac, Our Governor, and Monsieur
Talon, then Our Intendant, Recognising the Importance of
this discovery, — either that they might seek a passage from
there to the Sea of China, by the river that discharges into
the Vermillion, or California Sea; or, because they desired
to verify what has for some time been said concerning the 2
Kingdoms of Theguaio and Quiuira, which Border on Canada,
and in which numerous gold mines are reported to exist, —
these Gentlemen, I say, appointed at the same time for This
undertaking Sieur Jolyet, whom they considered very fit
for so great an enterprise; and they were well pleased that
Father Marquette should be of the party. 3
"They were not mistaken in the choice they made of Sieur
Jolyet, For he is a young man, born in this country, who
possesses all the qualifications that could be desired for
might be expected regarding so important a discovery, since sieur Jolliet, who was bringing
to us the account of it . . . lost his papers in the wreck which befell him. . . . However, you
will find herein what we have been able to put together after hearing him converse, while
waiting for the relation, of which father Marquette is keeping a copy. . . . Their journal
stated that . . . While waiting for the journal of that voyage. . . . The above is a brief abstract
of matters which are fully related in the journal that was lost. If we can secure a copy of it. . ."
Jesuit Relations, LVIII., pp. 93409.
The constant use of the singular seems to indicate that Jolliet and Marquette worked out
a common report. Marquette, as the more educated of the two, may have contributed more
of the literary form, but still, Jolliet was the official head of the expedition. See Steck, op. cit.
lc The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, LIX., pp. 87-163.
From the midst of the forest the Jesuit missionaries sent their reports — known as their Re-
lations — to the Superior of the Jesuit Missions at Quebec. This Superior would then com'
pile and, at times, revise these reports and send them on to the Superior at Paris where they
might again be revised before final publication.
Considering that the Jesuit missionaries were highly educated men, it is clear that these
Relations are replete with precious information that will interest the historian, the geogra'
pher, the philologist, and, in fact, anyone who will take the trouble to read them. The Jesuit
Relations and Allied Documents edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites and published by the Bur'
rows Brothers Company of Cleveland, Ohio, comprise seventythree volumes. Grateful
acknowledgement is herewith made for the generous permission of the Burrows Brothers
Company for extensive quotations.
2 The appointment was made in the fall of 1672.
3 Father Dablon appointed Father Marquette to accompany Jolliet.
JOLLIET A7iD FATHER MARQUETTE 57
such an undertaking. He has experience and knows the Lan-
guage spoken in the Country of the Outaouacs, where he has
passed several years. He possesses Tact and prudence,
which are the chief qualities necessary for the success of a
voyage as dangerous as it is difficult. Finally, he has the
Courage to dread nothing where everything is to be Feared.
Consequently, he has fulfilled all the expectations enter-
tained of him; and if, having passed through a thousand
dangers, he had not unfortunately been wrecked in the very
harbor, his Canoe having been upset below sault st. Louys,
near Montreal, — where he lost both his men and his papers,
and whence he escaped only by a sort of Miracle, — nothing
would have been left to be desired in the success of his
Voyage. 11
JOLLIET AND FATHER MARQUETTE BEGIN THEIR JOURNEY
"The feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed
Virgin — whom I have always Invoked since I have been
in this country of the outaouacs, to obtain from God the
grace of being able to visit the Nations who dwell along the
Mississipi River — was precisely the Day on which Mon-
sieur Jolyet arrived with orders from Monsieur the Count
de frontenac, Our Governor, and Monsieur Talon, Our
Intendant, to accomplish this discovery with me. I was
all the more delighted at this good news, since I saw that
my plans were about to be accomplished; and since I found
myself in the blessed necessity of exposing my life for the
salvation of all these peoples, and especially of the Illinois,
who had very urgently entreated me, when I was at the
Point of st. Esprit, to carry the word of God to Their country.
"We were not long in preparing all our Equipment, al-
though we were about to Begin a voyage, the duration of
which we could not foresee. Indian Corn, with some smoked
meat, constituted all our provisions; with these we embarked
— Monsieur Jollyet and myself, with 5 men 1 — in 2 Bark
Canoes, fully resolved to do and suffer everything for so
glorious an Undertaking.
1 According to Gagnon, op. cit., p. 42, the rowers were Pierre Porteret, Jacques Largilliers
and Pierre Moreau, Sieur de la Taupine. The names of the other two men are unknown.
58 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"Accordingly, on the 17th day of May, 1673, we started
from the Mission of St. Ignace at Michilimakinac, where I
then was. The Joy that we felt at being selected for This
Expedition animated our Courage, and rendered the labor
of paddling from morning to night agreeable to us. And
because We were going to seek Unknown countries, we
took every precaution in our power, so that, if our Under-
taking were hazardous, it should not be foolhardy. To
that end, we obtained all the Information that we could
from the savages who had frequented those regions; and
we even traced out from their reports a Map of the whole
of that New country; on it we indicated the rivers which
we were to navigate, the names of the peoples and of the
places through which we were to pass, the Course of the
great River, and the direction we were to follow when we
reached it.
"Above all, I placed our voyage under the protection
of the Blessed Virgin Immaculate, promising her that, if
she granted us the favor of discovering the great River, I
would give it the Name of the Conception, and that I would
also make the first Mission that I should establish among
those new people bear the same name. 1 This I have act-
ually done, among the Illinois."
WILD OATS INDIANS
The first nation reached were the "folle avoine or Wild
Oats Indians.' ' These Indians took their name from a
swamp grass which resembled wild oats. The Jesuits had
preached the Gospel to them already; in consequence, "there
are several good christians among them."
"I told these peoples of the folle avoine of my design
to go and discover Those Remote nations, in order to Teach
them the Mysteries of Our Holy Religion. They were
*In April, 1675, Marquette dedicated his first mission among the Illinois (near Utica, Illi'
nois) to the Immaculate Conception; the mission retained this title when re 'established under
Father Marest on the Kaskaskia River between 1700 and 1704, and to this day the church on
Kaskaskia Island, in the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois, venerates the Immaculate Conception
of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as its patron. It is interesting to note that the first church erect'
ed in Quebec by the Franciscan Father Dolbeau (June 15, 1615) was dedicated to the Immacu'
late Conception of the Blessed Virgin. See P.'G. Roy, Les Petites Choses de ?{otre Histoire,
pp. 23-25.
JOLLIET AK[D FATHER MARQUETTE 59
Greatly surprised to hear it, and did their best to dissuade
me. They represented to me that I would meet Nations
who never show mercy to Strangers, but Break Their heads
without cause; and that war was kindled Between Various
peoples who dwelt upon our Route, which Exposed us to
the further manifest danger of being killed by the hands
of Warriors who are ever in the Field. They also said that
the great River was very dangerous, when one does not
know the difficult places; that it was full of horrible mon-
sters, which devoured men and Canoes Together; that there
was even a demon, who was heard from a great distance,
who barred the way, and swallowed up all who ventured
to approach him; Finally that the Heat was so excessive
in these countries that it would Inevitably Cause Our death.' '
After the ice had broken they had left Pointe S. Ignace,
May 17, 1673, had paddled through the Straits of Mackinac,
across Lake Michigan and over to Green Bay, which the
Indians in their language called "salt bay." The French
called it "Bay des Puans — Bay of the Stinkards," "although
with them [the Indians] this is almost the same." It seems
to have gotten its name from the fact that offensive vapors
rose out of the mire. The explorers ascended the Fox River,
and arrived among the Maskoutens.
THE MASKOUTENS
"Here we are at Maskoutens. This Word may, in al'
gonquin, mean 'the fire Nation, 1 — which, indeed, is the name
given to this tribe. Here is the limit of the discoveries
which the French have made. For they have not yet gone
any farther.
"This Village Consists of three Nations who have gath-
ered there — Miamis, Maskoutens, 1 and Kikabous. The
former are the most civil, the most liberal, and the most
shapely. They wear two long locks over their ears, which
give them a pleasing appearance. They are regarded as
warriors, and rarely undertake expeditions without being
successful. They are very docile, and listen quietly to
what is said to them; and they appeared so eager to Hear
1 Mascoutah, St. Clair County, Illinois, is named after this tribe.
60 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Father Alloues when he Instructed them that they gave
Him but little rest, even during the night. The Maskoutens
and Kikabous are ruder, and seem peasants in Comparison
with the others. . . .
"No sooner had we arrived than we, Monsieur Jollyet
and I, assembled the elders together; and he told them that
he was sent by Monsieur Our Governor to discover New
countries, while I was sent by God to Illumine them with
the light of the holy Gospel. He told them that, moreover,
the sovereign Master of our lives wished to be known by
all the Nations; and that in obeying his will I feared not the
death to which I exposed myself in voyages so perilous.
He informed them that we needed two guides to show us
the way; and We gave them a present, by it asking them to
grant us the guides. To this they very Civilly consented;
and they also spoke to us by means of a present, consisting
of a Mat to serve us as a bed during the whole of our voyage.
"On the following day, the tenth of June, two Miamis
who were given us as guides embarked with us, in the sight
of a great crowd, who could not sufficiently express their
astonishment at the sight of seven Frenchmen, alone in two
Canoes, daring to undertake so extraordinary and so hazardous
an Expedition.
"We knew that, at three leagues from Maskoutens, was
a River, which discharged into Missisipi. We knew also
that the direction we were to follow in order to reach it
was west-southwesterly. But the road is broken by so
many swamps and small lakes that it is easy to lose one's
way, especially as the River leading thither is so full of wild
oats that it is difficult to find the Channel. For this reason
we greatly needed our guides who safely Conducted us to
a portage 1 of 2,700 paces, and helped us to transport our
Canoes to enter That river; after which they returned home,
leaving us alone in this Unknown country, in the hands of
providence. •
"Thus we left the Waters flowing to Quebeq, 4 or 500
Leagues from here, to float on Those that would thence-
forward Take us through strange lands. Before embarking
thereon, we Began all together a new devotion to the blessed
1 Fox' Wisconsin portage or carry ing'place.
JOLLIET AKD FATHER MARQUETTE 61
Virgin Immaculate, which we practiced daily, addressing
to her special prayers to place under her protection both
our persons and the success of our voyage; and after mutually
encouraging one another, we entered our Canoes/ '
The Jolliet'Marquette party then embarked upon the
"Meskousing," which, according to Thwaites, is one of
the numerous variants of Wisconsin. These men were
out to explore, and it is truly remarkable how very keenly
they observed and how carefully they noted down every
detail ; nothing seems to have escaped their notice : the fauna
and flora, the topography of the country, the possible effect
of the moon on the waters of Lake Michigan, the minerals,
in short, everything was observed and noted down.
THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER
The narrative continues: "At 42 and a half degrees of
latitude, We safely entered Missisipi 1 on the 17th of June,
with a Joy that I cannot Express.
"Here we are, then, on this so renowned River, all of
whose peculiar features I have endeavored to note carefully.
The Missisipi River takes its rise in various lakes in the
country of the Northern Nations. It is narrow at the place
where Miskous empties; its Current, which flows south-
ward, is slow and gentle . . . We saw only deer and cattle,
bustards, and Swans without wings, because they drop
their plumage in this country.' ' The narrative then tells of
a monstrous fish which nearly wrecked the boat, of a tiger-
cat and of a herd of 400 buffaloes.
"We continued to advance, but, As we knew not whither
we were going, — for we had proceeded over one Hundred
leagues without discovering anything except animals and
birds, — we kept well on our guard. On this account, we
11,l Mescha Cebe, — Metcha Sibou, — Mitchi Sibi, — Mississippi: — Great River," Gagnon,
op. cit., p. 45, note 1.
Jolliet gave to this river the name Buade, the family name of Frontenac, evidently a compli'
ment to the great Governor. However, in his report to the Minister, Jolliet calls it Colbert,
perhaps at the suggestion of the wary Frontenac, who deemed it wise to have the compliment
passed on to the Prime Minister. Later it became known as Fleuve Saint Louis, to compliment
Louis XIV. Marquette had promised to "give it the name of the Conception \ but in his
Journal calls it Mississipi. The Indian name survived.
62 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
make only a small fire on land, toward evening, to cook our
meals; and, after supper, we remove Ourselves as far from
it as possible, and pass the night in our Canoes, which we
anchor in the river at some distance from the shore. This
does not prevent us from always posting one of the party
as a sentinel, for fear of surprise. Proceeding still in a south-
erly and south-southwesterly direction, we find ourselves
at the parallel of 41 degrees, and as low as 40 degrees and
some minutes, — partly southeast and partly southwest, —
after having advanced over 60 leagues since We Entered
the River, without discovering anything.
"Finally on the 25th of June, we perceived on the water's
edge some tracks of men, and a narrow and somewhat beaten
path leading to a fine prairie. We stopped to Examine
it; and, thinking that it was a road which Led to some village
of savages, We resolved to go and reconnoiter it. We there-
fore left our two Canoes under the guard of our people,
strictly charging Them not to allow themselves to be sur-
prised, after which Monsieur Jollyet and I undertook this
investigation — a rather hazardous one for two men who
exposed themselves, alone, to the mercy of a barbarous and
Unknown people. We silently followed The narrow path,
and, after walking About 2 leagues, We discovered a vil-
lage on the bank of a river, and two others on a Hill distant
about half a league from the first." 1 "Then we Heartily
commended ourselves to God," says the narrative, and they
revealed themselves by shouting. Two Indians advanced
with tobacco-pipes raised towards the sun, and offered them
to smoke. The travelers were invited to enter their villages.
"At the door of the Cabin in which we were to be re-
ceived was an old man, who awaited us in a rather surprising
attitude, which constitutes a part of the Ceremonial that
they observe when they receive Strangers. This man stood
erect, and stark naked, with bis hands extended and lifted
toward the sun, As if he wished to protect himself from its
rays, which nevertheless shown on his face through his
fingers. When we came near him, he paid us This Compli-
ment: 'How beautiful the sun is, O Frenchman, when thou
Ht is commonly supposed that this village lay on the Des Moines River. L. G. Weld
holds that it was situated on the Iowa River. Des Moines is a corruption of Moingouena.
Gagnon, op. cit., 54.
JOLLIET AKD FATHER MARQUETTE 63
comest to visit us! All our village awaits thee, and thou
shalt enter all our Cabins in peace.' Having said this, he
made us enter his own, in which were a crowd of people:
they devoured us with their eyes, but, nevertheless, ob-
served profound silence. We could, however, hear these
words, which were addressed to us from time to time in a
low voice: fc How good it is, My brothers, that you should
visit us.'
The calumet was offered again, and the Elders smoked
to do them honor. The Great Captain of all the Illinois ex-
tended an invitation to come to his village 1 for a Council. These
people had never seen any Frenchmen and could not cease
looking at them; they lay on the grass along the road, they
ran ahead and then back for another look. All this was
done in silence. The reception by the Great Captain was
similar to the first welcome.
"Seeing all assembled and silent, I spoke to them by four
presents that I gave them. By the first, I told them that we
were journeying peacefully to visit the nations dwelling
on the River as far as the Sea. By the second, I announced
to them that God, who had Created them, had pity on Them,
inasmuch as, after they had so long been ignorant of him,
he wished to make himself Known to all the peoples; that I
was sent by him for that purpose; and that it was for them
to acknowledge and obey him. By the third, I said that
the Great Captain of the French informed them that he it
was who restored peace everywhere; and that he had sub-
dued The Iroquois. Finally, by the fourth, we begged
them to give us all The Information that they had about
the Sea, and the Nations through Whom we must pass to
reach it.
"When I had finished my speech, the Captain arose, and,
resting His hand upon the head of a little Slave whom he
wished to give us, he spoke thus: fc I thank thee, Black Gown,
and thee, O frenchman,' — addressing himself to Monsieur
Jollyet, — fc for having taken so much trouble to come to
visit us. Never has the earth been so beautiful, or the sun
so Bright, as today; Never has our river been so Calm, or
so clear of rocks, which your canoes have Removed in passing ;
ir rhis was the village of Peoiiarea (Peoria). Jolliet notes that this village had 300 cabins
and 180 canoes 50 ft. long. Gagnon, op. cit, 54-
64 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
never has our tobacco tasted so good, or our corn appeared so
fine, as We now see Them. n
"Having said this, he placed the little Slave 2 near us,
and gave us a second present, consisting of an altogether
mysterious Calumet, upon which they place more value
than upon a Slave. By this gift, he expressed to us The
esteem that he had for Monsieur Our Governor, from the
account which we had given of him; and, by a third, he
begged us on behalf of all his Nation not to go farther, on
account of the great dangers to which we Exposed ourselves.
"I replied that I Feared not death, and that I regarded no
happiness as greater than that of losing my life for the glory
of Him who has made all. This is what these poor people
cannot Understand.
"The Council was followed by a great feast, Consisting
of four dishes, which had to be partaken of in accordance
with all their fashions. The first course was a great wooden
platter full of sagamite, — that is to say, meal of indian corn
boiled in water, and seasoned with fat. The Master of
*It is interesting to note how beautifully these words were woven into the Song of Hid'
waiha:
"From the distant land of Wabun, All our doors stand open for you;
From the farthest realm of morning You shall enter all our wigwams,
Came the Black'Robe chief, the Prophet, For the heart's right hand we give you.
He the Priest of Prayer, the Paleface,
„,., , . ., jt- • Never bloomed the earth so gayly
With his guides and his companions. «
Never shone the sun so brightly,
And the noble Hiawatha, As to-day they shine and blossom
With his hands aloft extended, When you come so far to see us!
Held aloft in sign of welcome, Never was our lake so tranquil..
Waited, full of exultation, Nor so free from rocks and sand-bars;
Till the birch canoe with paddles For your birch canoe in passing
Grated on the shining pebbles, Has removed both rock and sand'bar.
Stranded on the sandy margin,
Till the Black-Robe chief, the Paleface, B , Never Wore had our tobacco
,,r. , t t i . i Such a sweet and pleasant flavor,
With the cross upon his bosom, 1111
Landed on the sandy margin.
Never the broad leaves of our cornfields
Were so beautiful to look on,
"Then the joyous Hiawatha As they seem to us this morning,
Cried aloud and spake in this wise: When you come so far to see us!"
"Beautiful is the sun, O strangers, _^
„,., r 1 Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha, XII, 50'
When you come so far to see us! & J
All our town in peace awaits you,
2 The boy was nine years old. Letter of Jolliet, quoted by Gagnon, op. cit., p. 55, note 2.
fflTiW illMiil i Hi
LOUIS JOLLIET JACQUES MARQUETTE
FATHER MARQUETTE ADMIRING THE BEAUTIES OF THE MISSISSIPPI
?M,> '•
ISAAC JOGUES
Born at Orleans, France, Jan. 10, 1607; Jesuit missionary among Hurons, Canada,
163642; prisoner, tortured and enslaved by Iroquois, Auriesville, N. Y., 164243; peace-
maker with Iroquois, May, 1646; missionary to Iroquois, Oct. 1646; martyred by them,
Oct. 18, 1646.
From Pioneer Priests of Worth America, by T. J. Campbell, S. J.
JOLLIET AHD FATHER MARQUETTE 65
Ceremonies filled a Spoon with sagamite three or 4 times,
and put it to my mouth As if I were a little Child. He did
The same to Monsieur Jollyet. As a second course, he caused
a second platter to be brought, on which were three fish.
He took some pieces of them, removed the bones therefrom,
and, after blowing upon them to cool them, he put them in
our mouths As one would give food to a bird. For the third
course, they brought a large dog, that had just been killed;
but, when they learned that we did not eat this meat, they
removed it from before us. Finally, the 4th course was a
piece of wild ox, The fattest morsels of which were placed
in our mouths/ 1
After that delicious country-club banquet, the visitors
were regaled with belts, garters and other Indian trinkets.
They passed the night in the cabin of the Captain, and the
following day 600 natives and their Captain accompanied
them to their canoes.
"For my own part, I promised, on bidding them Adieu,
that I would come the following year, and reside with Them
to instruct them."
THE ILLINOIS INDIANS
"When one speaks the word 'Hinois 1 it is as if one said
in their language, 'the men,' — As if the other Savages were
looked upon by them merely as animals. It must also be
admitted that they have an air of humanity which we have
not observed in the other nations that we have seen upon
our route. The shortness Of my stay among Them did
not allow me to secure all the Information that I would have
desired; among all Their customs, the following is what I
have observed.
"They are divided into many villages, some of which
are quite distant from that of which we speak, which is
called peouarea. This causes some difference in their lan-
guage, which, on the whole, resembles allegonquin, so that
we easily understood each other. They are of a gentle and
tractable disposition; we Experienced this in the reception
which they gave us. They have several wives, of whom
they are extremely jealous; they watch them very closely,
and Cut off Their noses or ears when they misbehave. I saw
several women who bore the marks of their misconduct. 1 '
66 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
War was announced by shouting at the doors of the
cabins night and morning before departure; the captains
wore red scarfs. The Illinois sowed corn, beans, and melons.
Their utensils were of wood, but their ladles were made of the
heads of cattle.
"They are liberal in cases of illness, and Think that the
effect of the medicines administered to them is in propor-
tion to the presents given to the physician. Their garments
consist only of skins; the women are always clad very mod-
estly and very becomingly, while the men do not take the
trouble to Cover themselves. . . .
"There remains no more, except to speak of the Calu-
met. 1 There is nothing more mysterious or more respected
among them. Less honor is paid to the Crowns and scepters
of Kings than the Savages bestow upon this. It seems to
be the God of peace and of war, the Arbiter of life and of
death. It has but to be carried upon one's person, and dis-
played, to enable one to walk safely through the midst of
Enemies — who, in the hottest of the Fight, lay down Their
arms when it is shown. For That reason, the Ilinois gave me
one, to serve as a safeguard among all the Nations through
whom I had to pass during my voyage. There is a Calumet
for peace, and one for war, which are distinguished solely by
the Color of the feathers with which they are adorned; Red is
a sign of war. They also use it to put an end to Their disputes,
to strengthen Their alliances, and to speak to Strangers. 1 '
Then follows a lengthy and detailed description of the
Calumet dance.
DEPARTURE FROM THE ILLINOIS OF PEOUAREA
"We take leave of our Ilinois 2 at the end of June, about
three o'clock in the afternoon. We embark in the sight of
x The Indians procured the redstone of which the calumet was made from what is now
known as "Pipestone Quarry" in southwestern Minnesota.
2 Alvord explains the presence of Illinois Indians on the west bank of the Mississippi
as follows: "The Illinois tribes attempted to stem the westward'spreading tide of Iroquois
conquest [16554667] . . . The strain of meeting the repeated blows, first of the Sioux
and then of the relentless Iroquois, was too great; weakened, the once proud and dominant
Illinois were obliged to abandon their ancient seat [on the Illinois River] and to seek safety
on the west side of the Mississippi. " Alvord, Centennial History of Illinois, I., p. 37-
Shortly after the visit of Jolliet and Marquette they seem to have returned to the Illinois,
where Marquette met the Peoiiarea on his return voyage.
JOLLIET AHD FATHER MARQUETTE 67
all the people, who admire our little Canoes, for they have
never seen any like them." Then follows a description of
plants and fruits found along the route. The narrative con-
tinues: "While Skirting some rocks, which by Their height
and Length inspired awe, We saw upon one of them two
painted monsters which at first made Us afraid, and upon
Which the boldest savages dare not Long rest their eyes.
They are as large As a calf; they have Horns on their heads
Like those of a deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard Like
a tiger's, a face somewhat like a man's, a body Covered with
scales, and so Long A tail that it winds all around the
Body, passing above the head and going back between the
legs, ending in a Fish's tail. Green, red and black are the
three colors composing the Picture. Moreover, these 2
monsters are so well painted that we cannot believe that
any savage is their author; for good painters in france would
find it difficult to paint so well, and, besides, they are so
high up on the rock that it is difficult to reach that place
Conveniently to paint them. . . }
"While conversing about these monsters, sailing quietly
in clear and calm Water, we heard the noise of a rapid,
into which we were about to run. I have seen nothing
more dreadful. An accumulation of large and entire trees,
branches, and floating islands, was issuing from The mouth
of The river pekistanoui, with such impetuosity that we
could not without great danger risk passing through it.
So great was the agitation that the water was very muddy,
and could not become clear.
"Pekitanoui 2 is a river of Considerable size, coming from
the Northwest, from a great Distance; and it discharges into
the Missisipi. There are many villages of savages along
this river, and I hope by its means to discover the vermillion
or California sea.
"Judging from the Direction of the course of the Mis-
sisipi, if it Continue the same way, we think that it discharges
^iasa near Alton, Illinois. Piasa with the Illinois Indians denoted a bird that devoured
men. Gagnon asks: "Did these paintings, which could be seen only at great distance, really
possess the artistic value ascribed to them? Like many things in this world, — to speak only
of things, — they doubtless gained by not being viewed at too close a range."
2 Pekitanoui, that is, muddy water — the Missouri River. Those who have seen
the Missouri on a rampage will readily admit that this river has not mended its ways
and still washes away entire farms.
68 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
into the mexican gulf. It would be a great advantage to
find the river Leading to the southern sea, toward Califor-
nia; and, As I have said, this is what I hope to do by means of
the Pekitanoui, according to the reports made to me by the
savages. From them I have learned that, by ascending this
river for 5 or 6 Days, one reaches a fine prairie, 20 or 30
Leagues Long. This must be crossed in a Northwesterly
direction, and it terminates at another small river, — on
which one may embark, for it is not very difficult to trans-
port Canoes through so fine a country as that prairie. This
2nd River Flows toward The southwest for 10 and 15 Leagues,
after which it enters a Lake, small and deep [the source of
another deep river — Substituted by Dablon], which flows
towards the West, where it falls into The sea. 1 I have
hardly any doubt that it is The vermilion sea, and I do
not despair of discovering It some day, If God grant me the
grace and The health to do so, in order that I may preach
The Gospel to all The Peoples of this new world who have
so Long Groveled in the darkness of infidelity."
THE OHIO RIVER MOSQUITOES THE PROTECTION OF THE
CALUMET
"Let us resume our Route, after Escaping As best We
could from the dangerous rapid Caused by The obstruction
which I have mentioned. "
The narrative describes the narrows and the "Rock of
the Cross 11 near the present Grand Tower, Illinois, or Wit-
tenberg on the Missouri side. The savages thought the noise
produced by the rushing of the waters at this point was
caused by a howling demon. Then they passed the "Wabou-
kigou" or, "Ouaboukigou" or "Ouabouskigou," as the Ohio
was then called. This name was corrupted by the French
into "Ouabache," and is now known as Wabash. In the
Vermillion or California Sea, that is, Gulf of California. Southern Sea denoted the Pacific
Ocean.
"This supposition has been confirmed by later explorations, which show that the head
waters of the Platte, tributary to the Missouri, closely approach those of the Colorado, which
falls into the Gulf of California.'' ' Jes. Rel., vol. 59, n. 34.
In the map'letter of Jolliet to Frontenac we read: "By one of these great rivers that come
from the west and empties into the river Buade [Mississippi], one will find passage to enter
into the Vermillion Sea." Quoted in Steck, op. cit., p. 172.
JOLLIET A7\[D FATHER MARQUETTE 6g
early days "Ouabache 11 might designate the present Ohio
or Wabash, or both.
"Hitherto, we had not suffered any inconvenience from
mosquitoes; but we were entering into their home, as it
were. This is what the savages of this quarter do to protect
themselves against them. They erect a scaffolding, the
floor of which consists only of poles, so that it is open to
the air in order that the smoke of the fire made underneath
may pass through, and drive away those little creatures,
which cannot endure it; the savages lie down upon the poles,
over which the bark is spread to keep off rain. These scaf-
foldings also serve them as a protection against The exces-
sive and Unbearable heat of this country; for they lie in the
shade, on the floor below, and thus protect themselves
against the sun's rays, enjoying the cool breeze that circulates
freely through the scaffolding.
"With the same object, we were compelled to erect a
sort of cabin on The water, with our sails as a protection
against the mosquitoes and the rays of the sun. While
drifting down with The current, in this condition, we per-
ceived on land some savages armed with guns, who awaited
us. I at once offered them my plumed calumet, while our
frenchmen prepared for defense but delayed firing, that
The savages might be the first to discharge their guns. I
spoke to them in huron, but they answered me by a word
which seemed to me a declaration of war against us. How-
ever, they were as frightened as we were ; and what we took
for a signal for a battle was an Invitation that they gave
us to draw near, that they might give us food. We there-
fore landed, and entered their Cabins, where they offered
us meat from wild cattle and bear's grease, with white plums,
which are very good. 11
They found that these Indians contacted with Europeans,
who gave them guns, and powder, and rosaries — the Span-
iards from Florida.
"We had gone down to near the 33rd degree of latitude,
having proceeded nearly all the time in a southerly direction,
when we perceived a village on The water's edge called
Mitchigamea. 1 We had recourse to our Patroness and guide,
1 Jolliet names it Anetihigamea, near the present Helena, Arkansas.
70 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
The Blessed virgin immaculate; and we greatly needed
her assistance, For we heard from afar The savages
who were inciting one another to the Fray by their Con-
tinual yells. They were armed with bows, arrows, hatchets,
clubs and shields. They prepared to attack us, on both
land and water; part of them embarked in great wooden
canoes — some to ascend, others to descend the river, in
order to Intercept us and surround us on all sides. Those
who were on land came and went, as if to commence The
attack. In fact, some Young men threw themselves into
The water, to come and seise my Canoe; but the current
compelled them to return to land. One of them then hurled
his club which passed over without striking us. In vain I
showed The calumet, and made them signs that we were
not coming to war against them. The alarm continued, and
they were already preparing to pierce us with arrows from
all sides, when God suddenly touched the hearts of the old
men, who were standing at the water's edge. This no doubt
happened through their sight of our Calumet, which they
had not clearly distinguished from afar; but as I did not
cease displaying it, they were influenced by it, and checked
the ardor of their Young men. Two of these elders even, —
after casting into our canoe, as if at our feet, Their bows
and quivers, to reassure us — entered the canoe, and made
us approach the shore, whereon we landed, not without
fear on our part. At first, we had to speak by signs, be-
cause none of them understood the six languages which I
spoke. At last we found an old man who could speak
a little Hinois."
These Indians do not seem to have been very communi-
cative. The narrative states: "We obtained no other
answer than that we would learn all that we desired at
another large village called Akamsea, which was only 8
or 10 leagues lower down. They offered us sagamite and
fish, and we passed The night among them, with some anx-
iety."
REASONS FOR NOT GOING FARTHER
The next morning the party continued their voyage down
the river to the village Akamsea, near which de Soto had
JOLLIET AKD FATHER MARQUETTE 71
died one hundred and thirty years before. The poor
Indians here were hemmed in by enemies all around them;
they did not even dare to hunt wild cattle, for fear of their
enemies; they knew but little about the country south, but
told Marquette and Jolliet they could reach the sea in five
days.
The narrative continues: "In the evening, the elders
held a secret council, in regard to the design entertained by
some to break our heads and rob us; but the Chief put a
stop to all these plots. After sending for us, he danced the
calumet before us, in the manner I have already described,
as a token of our entire safety ; and, to relieve us of all fear,
he made me a present of it.
"Monsieur Jolliet and I held another Council, to delib-
erate upon what we should do — whether we should push
on, or remain content with the discovery which we had
made. After attentively considering that we were not far
from the gulf of Mexico, the basin of which is at the lati-
tude of 31 degrees 60 minutes, while we were at 33 degrees
40 minutes, we judged that we could not be more than 2
or 3 days journey from it; and that, beyond a doubt, the
Missisipi river discharges into the florida or Mexican gulf
and not to The east in Virginia, whose sea-coast is at 34
degrees latitude, — which we passed, without, however,
having as yet reached the sea, — or to the west in California,
because in that case our route would have been to The
west, or the west-south-west, whereas we had always con-
tinued It toward the south. We further considered that
we exposed ourselves to the risk of losing the results of
this voyage, of which we could give no information if we
proceeded to fling ourselves into the hands of the Spaniards
who, without doubt, would at least have detained us as
captives. Moreover, we saw very plainly that we were
not in a condition to resist Savages allied to The Europeans,
who were numerous, and expert in firing guns, and who
continually infested the lower part of the river. Finally,
we had obtained all the information that could be desired
in regard to this discovery. All these reasons induced
us to decide upon Returning; this we announced to the
72 FROM QUEBEC TO JiEW ORLEANS
savages, and, after a day's rest, 1 made our preparations
for it."
THE END OF THE VOYAGE
"After a month's Navigation, while descending Mis-
sisipi from the 42nd to the 34th degree, and beyond, and
after preaching the Gospel as well as I could to the Nations,
that I met, we start on the 17th of July from the village of
the akensea, to retrace our steps. We therefore reascend
the Missisipi which gives us much trouble in breasting
its Currents. It is true that we leave it, at about the 38th
degree, to enter another river, 2 which greatly shortens
our road, and takes us with but little effort to the lake of
the Ilinois. 3
"We have seen nothing like this river that we enter,
as regards its fertility of soil, its prairies and woods; its
cattle, elk, deer, wildcats, bustards, swans, ducks, parroquets,
and even beaver. There are many small lakes and rivers.
That on which we sailed is wide, deep,and still,for 65 leagues....
We found on it a village of Ilinois called Kaskasia, con-
sisting of 74 Cabins. They received us very well, and obliged
me to promise that I would return to instruct them. One
of the chiefs of this nation, with his young men, escorted
us to the Lake of the Ilinois, whence, at last, at The end
of September, we reached the bay des puants, 4 from which
we had started at the beginning of June.
"Had this voyage resulted in the salvation of even one
soul, I would consider all my troubles well rewarded, and
I have reason to presume that such is the case. For, when
I was returning, we passed through the Ilinois of Peouarea,
and during three days I preached the faith in all their Cabins;
^'Marquette used this last day at Akamsea, which was a Sunday, to instruct the In'
dians in the truths of Christianity, while Jolliet busied himself loading the canoes with pre
visions for the return voyage and seeking further information regarding mineral deposits.
The next morning, bidding farewell to the natives gathered along the shore, the seven French'
men and the Indian boy entered their canoes and began the wearisome journey up the Mis'
sissippi." Steck, op cit., p. 163.
2 The Illinois River. Jolliet named the river Saint-Louis. Gagnon says he gave it his
own name. Gagnon, op. cit., p 74.
3 Lake Michigan.
4 St. Francis Xavier Mission, Green Bay, Wis.
JOLLIET AND FATHER MARQUETTE 73
after which, while we were embarking, a dying child was
brought to me at The water's edge, and I baptised it shortly
before it died, through an admirable act of providence for
the salvation of that Innocent soul." 1
JOLLIET S MISHAP IN THE LACHINE RAPIDS FATHER MARQUETTE S
VISIT TO THE ILLINOIS AND HIS DEATH ON THE
BANKS OF LAKE MICHIGAN
Jolliet's mission to find the ''passage to the South Sea 2 "
was finished, but he still had a great deal of detail work
to do before returning to Quebec. Why Jolliet and Mar-
quette did not return to Michillimackinac, or Saint -Ignace,
whence they had started their great voyage, is not known.
It may have been the weakened condition of Father Mar-
quette's health 3 that influenced Jolliet to take him to the
nearest mission — St. Francis Xavier at Green Bay. At
any rate, that is where they went and where they spent
the winter working out the details of Jolliet's report to the
Governor. Each had taken notes, each had drawn maps,
each had made his own observations. It is evident from the
harmony and friendship which existed between Jolliet and
Marquette, that the two compared their notes, and, in a
measure, together worked out the official report of the voy-
age. Steck thinks that "having assured himself of the mis-
sionary's safe arrival at St. Francis Xavier Mission, Jolliet
very probably went back to the Illinois country for the
purpose of exploring more thoroughly the regions at the
southern extremity of Lake Michigan. ... It may have been
also on this return visit, having more leisure than Mar-
quette's condition had previously allowed, that Jolliet dis-
covered the various mines along Lake Michigan, as also the
hill which he marks on his map as Mount Jolliet." 4
Some time in the month of May, 1674, when the lakes
and rivers were clear of ice, Jolliet loaded his canoe and
carefully stowed away his "strong box," which enclosed
Marquette's First Voyage, Jesuit Relations, LXXXVII., p. 163.
^olliet's mission was to find out whether the great river offered a passage to the Orient
by emptying into the Gulf of California.
3 Father Marquette suffered from dysentery which later turned into bloody flux.
4 Steck, op. cit., p. 167.
74 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
the precious official report and maps, all of which the tri-
umphant explorer hoped to place in the hands of Frontenac.
As a precautionary measure, a copy 1 of the relation had been
made and retained by Father Marquette.
There must have been a note of sadness in the parting.
Jolliet, no doubt, felt a justifiable pride at the happy termi-
nation of the honorable task assigned to him and looked
forward to the approving smiles of the courtly Frontenac,
and longed to embrace his fiancee, Mile. Claire-Frangoise
Bissot 2 ; but here was poor Father Marquette, weak and
broken in health from this journey of more than two thou-
sand miles. Would they ever meet again? When the paddles
of Jolliet's rowers dipped into the water, Father Marquette
must have stood on the shore, his feeble hands stretched
out in benediction over his parting friend.
What route Jolliet followed is not known, but he prob-
ably paddled along the north shore of Lake Ontario and
stopped at the newly erected Fort Frontenac (Kataroqoui
or Cataroqui — the present Kingston) to visit his friend
La Salle, who commanded there. On this occasion Jolliet
may have shown the map of the Mississippi Valley to the
future discoverer of the mouth of the Great River. 3
La Salle, too, had traveled much and explored many a
lake and stream and river; perhaps even, though this is not
at all probable, his frail canoe had glided down the limpid
waters of the Belle Riviere (Ohio) as far as the Falls, where
Louisville now stands. The spell of the western wilder-
ness was to him a magic charm, the fond object of his dreams.
He must have realised the tremendous value of the Jolliet-
Marquette expedition. France now possessed a contin-
uous water route, with only a few breaks and portages, from
the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. A chain
of river-bank forts and stockades would protect this immense
territory against the savages, and perhaps even hold back
the English to the Atlantic seaboard, east of the Alleghenies.
He still hoped to find the passage, that, he thought, must
lead to the South Sea.
x See p. 56, ante, note.
2 Jolliet and ClaircFrancoise Bissot were married the following year.
3 Gagnon, op. cit., p. 82. It is probable that Cabe^a de Vaca, one of the survivors of
the Narvaez expedition, had reached the mouth of the Mississippi in 1529.
JOLLIET AKP FATHER MARQUETTE 75
Jolliet's canoe meandered through the beautiful Thous-
and Islands of the upper St. Lawrence, and then moved
swiftly as it was caught by the rushing current, and the
oarsmen steered skilfully as the frail bark tumbled down the
roaring Rapids. All went well till they came within sight
of the first houses of Ville-Marie (Montreal). Even today
the river boats will not pass down the Lachine Rapids in
cloudy or stormy weather. Jolliet's daring tempted the
waters. Perhaps he was eager to reach Montreal before
nightfall. "The good fortune,' ' he wrote to Frontenac,
"which had always accompanied me . . . failed me a quarter
of an hour before arriving at the place from where I had
set out. I had escaped the dangers from the savages, I had
passed 42 rapids, I was ready to disembark with all the joy
that one could have over the success of so long and difficult
an enterprise, when my canoe capsized . . . whereby I
lost 2 men and my strong box, in the sight and at the en-
trance of the first French houses which I had quitted nearly
two years ago. Nothing is left me but my life 1 and the will
to employ it for whatever may please you." 2
Reporting on the same mishap to Bishop Laval, who
was then in Paris, Jolliet wrote: "I am much grieved over
a little slave, ten years old, who had been presented to me,
He was endowed with a good disposition, quickwitted,
diligent and obedient. He expressed himself in French,
began to read and write. After being 4 hours in the water,
having lost sight and consciousness, I was rescued by some
fishermen who never go to this place, and who would not
have been there if the Blessed Virgin had not obtained for
me this grace from God, Who stayed the course of nature
in order to have me rescued from death." 3
Steck conjectures "it may have been the afternoon of
Saturday, July 21," when Jolliet was unexpectedly plunged
into the roaring current of the Lachine Rapids. 4
Marquette was still at Green Bay, for he writes in his
unfinished Journal, addressed to Father Dablon: "Having
*Gagnon observes that Jolliet was not only an explorer and a geographer, but also a
merchant. No doubt, his canoe also carried a cargo of peltries. Gagnon, op. cit., 82, n. 1.
2 Quoted in Gagnon, op. cit., p. 86-87-
Hbid., p. 84.
4 Steck, op. cit., p. 169.
76 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
been compelled to remain at st. Frangois throughout the
summer on account of an ailment of which I was cured in
the month of September, I waited there the return of our
people from down below 1 , in order to learn what I was
to do with regard to my wintering. They brought me orders
to proceed to the mission La Conception among the Illi-
nois. After complying with Your Reverence's request
for copies of my Journal concerning the missisipi River, I
departed with Pierre Porteret and Jacque (blank in Ms),
on the 25th of October, 1674, about noon." 2
Under date of December 14th, Father Marquette wrote:
"Having encamped near the portage, 2 leagues up the river, 3
we resolved to winter there, as it was impossible to go far-
ther, since we were much hindered and my ailment did
not permit me to give myself much fatigue." He remarks that
he was "unable to celebrate holy mass on the day of the
Conception [Dec. 8], owing to the bad weather and cold."
On the 15th, however, he records: "We said the Mass of the
Conception. After the 14th, my disease turned into a
bloody flux." Of the wintering Marquette writes: ,fc . . .we
have not lacked provisions and have still remaining a large
sack of corn, with some meat and fat. We also lived very
pleasantly, for my illness did not prevent me from saying
holy mass every day. We were unable to keep Lent, ex-
cept Fridays and Saturdays."
Father Dablon gives interesting details of Father Mar-
quette's winter sojourn on the Chicago River: "His malady
increasing more and more. ... he told his two Companions
very plainly that he would certainly die of that malady,
and during that voyage. Duly to prepare his soul, despite
the severe disposition of his Body, he began this so severe
winter sojourn by the retreat of st. ignatius. ... A short
time after christmas, that he might obtain the favor of not
dying without having taken possession of his Dear mission,
he invited his Companions to make a novena in honor of
the immaculate conception of the blessed virgin ... his
health improving, he prepared himself to go to the village
Quebec.
2 This account and quotations are taken from Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents,
LIX.
3 Chicago River.
JOLLIET AKD FATHER MARQUETTE 77
of the Ilinois as soon as navigation should open, — which
he did with much Joy, setting out for that place on the 29th
of march. He spent eleven Days on the Way, during which
time he had occasion to suffer much, both from his own
illness, from which he had not entirely recovered, and from
the very severe and unfavorable weather. . . .
"On at last arriving at the village, he was received as an
angel from Heaven. After he had at various times assem-
bled the Chiefs of the nation, with all the old men . . . and
after having given Instructions in the Cabins, which were
always filled with a great crowd of people, he resolved to
address all in public, in a general assembly which he called
together in the open Air. ... It was a beautiful prairie,
close to a village, which was selected for the great Council;
this was adorned, after the fashion of the country, by Cov-
ering it with mats and bearskins. Then the father, having
directed them to stretch out upon Lines several pieces of
chinese taffeta, attached to these four large Pictures of the
Blessed Virgin, which were visible on all sides.
"The audience was Composed of 500 chiefs and elders,
seated in a circle around the father, and of all the Young
men, who remained standing. They numbered 1,500 men,
without counting the women and children, who are al-
ways numerous. ... He explained to them the principal
mysteries of our Religion, and the purpose that had brought
him to their country. Above all, he preached to them Jesus
Christ , on the very eve 1 (of that great day) on which he
had died upon the Cross for them, as well as for the rest
of mankind; then he said holy mass.
"On the third Day after, which was easter sunday, things
being prepared in the same manner as on Thursday, he
celebrated the holy mysteries for the 2nd time; And by
these two, the only sacrifices ever offered there to God, he
took possession of that land in the name of Jesus Christ,
and gave to that mission the name of the Immaculate Con-
ception of the blessed virgin.
"He was listened to by all these peoples with universal
Joy; and they prayed him with most earnest Entreaty to
come back to them as soon as possible, since his sickness
x Thursday of Holy Week (Maundy Thursday), 1765, near the present Utica, Illinois.
7 8 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
obliged him to return. The father . . . pledged them his
word that he, or some other fathers would return to Carry
on that mission so happily Inaugurated." 1
Father Marquette was very ill, and decided to return at
once to Michillimackinac. But a journey of nearly three
hundred miles was too long and arduous for the weakened
condition of the heroic priest-explorer. He felt death ap-
proaching, and "the evening before his death, which was
a friday, he told them, very Joyously, that it would take
place on the morrow." While they were making their
way upon the Lake he gave them the minutest instructions
as to his burial: about the spot to be chosen for his grave,
how his feet and hands should be arranged, that they should
sound the little hand-bell of his chapel while they laid him
to rest. He "perceived a river, on the shore of which stood
an eminence that he deemed well suited for the place of
his last repose. 1 '' They brought him to land, erected a little
cabin of bark, and there the great priest, missionary, and
explorer, lay on the ground, "alone in the midst of
These forests. " He told his companions to take repose,
and that he would call them, which he did two or three
hours later when his agony began. In his hands he held
a crucifix, upon which he fixed his gazje, but "Something
presented itself to him, he Suddenly raised his eyes above
his Crucifix, holding them Riveted on that object, which
he appeared to regard with pleasure. And so, with a counte-
nance beaming and all aglow, he expired without any Struggle,
and so gently that it might have been regarded as a pleasant
sleep." This was May 18th or 19th, 1675. His two faith-
ful companions laid him to rest on the banks of a river that
once bore his name. 2
Gayarre was right when he wrote: "They could not be
ordinary men, those adventurers, who in those days un-
dertook to expose themselves to fatigues and perils of a
journey through unknown solitudes, from the St. Lawrence
to the Mississippi." 3
Jesuit Relations, LIX., pp. 191499.
2 His Ottawa disciples later found the cross that marked his grave, exhumed the body
and brought his bones to the mission at St. Ignace, where they were reverently reinterred.
Two hundred years later, in 1877, Marquette's grave was accidentally rediscovered by Patrick
Murray.
3 Gayarre, op. cit., p. 27-
ROBERT CAVELIER SIEUR DE LA SALLE — HIS
COMPANIONS AND JOURNEYS —
HIS TRAGIC DEATH
Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, whom Thwaites calls
the "prince of French explorers, 1 ' was born of a wealthy
family at Rouen, France, November 21, 1643. Robert entered
the Jesuit novitiate at Paris in 1658, taught at Blois and
Tours from 1664 to 1666, and at the end of that year was
transferred to La Fleche for his course in theology. He
had a wildly imaginative and daring mind. His brother,
Jean Cavelier, was a Sulpician in New France, and letters
from him may have stirred up the restless disposition that
was La Salle's. The outlook for adventure appealed to him,
and so, at his own request, he obtained dismissal from the
Society, March 28, 1667, and sailed for New France. Here
he felt he was in an atmosphere that was congenial to his
temperament. The Sulpicians, who were seigniors of Mon-
treal, granted him an estate, known as Lachine. But La
Salle was not a colon, a man who clears the land and tills
the soil. His was the temperament of a rover and explorer,
a dreamer of great dreams, and so he went out into the wilder-
ness that lay around him and sought the company of the
savages, who in turn frequently visited him. He remained
at Lachine about three years, associated a great deal with
savages, learnt their languages and dialects, and listened to
their vague tales of great rivers that flowed through the
heart of the unexplored hinterland — might they not point
the way to the long-sought route to China?
His first voyage in quest of this much coveted passage
he undertook in 1669: two Sulpicians, 1 Galinee and Dollier
de Casson were of the party. Near a Seneca village, the
present Charlotte, near Rochester, New York, they held
councils with the Indians, but La Salle's knowledge of Iro-
quois proved inadequate, and little or nothing was achieved.
"The priests," writes Parkman, 2 "had a Dutch interpreter,
who spoke Iroquois fluently, but knew so little French, and
*In choosing Sulpicians and Franciscan Fathers as chaplains for his voyages, La Salle
followed the spirit of the instructions issued by Louis XIV and Colbert to Frontenac upon
his appointment as Governor of New France. See pp. 51'52, ante.
2 Francis Parkman, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, Centenary Edition, p. 21 .
79
80 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
was withal so obstinate, that he proved useless. 1 '' The irony
of it all was that they were obliged to call in the Jesuit
Father Fremin's man to interpret for them. An Indian
told them there was a village farther westward, where they
could easily obtain guides, and he had there met a French-
man. And westward were paddled the seven canoes that
carried the party.
Galinee says they "discovered a river one-eighth of a
league wide and extremely rapid, which is the outlet or
communication from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario,' 1 and that
some leagues up this river there is "one of the finest catar-
acts or waterfalls in the world; for all the Indians to whom I
have spoken about it said the river fell from a rock higher than
the tallest pine trees; and that is about two hundred feet. 111
The party encamped near the western end of the lake.
While on a hunting expedition, La Salle climbed over a rock,
and unexpectedly encountered three rattlesnakes, as "thick
as one's arm, six or seven feet long, entirely black. 112 The
shock so unnerved and affected La Salle that he was in a high
fever 3 when he returned to camp.
The Frenchman of whom the Indian had told them, was
Jolliet, who was on his way to Sault Sainte-Marie with four
canoe loads of goods intended for trading with the Ottawa
Indians. The Sulpicians were interested in evangelising
the savages and wished to remain there. La Salle, on the
other hand, was chiefly intent upon exploration and finding
the passage to the South Sea and China, so he left the mis-
sionaries and paddled away with Jolliet. The Sulpicians
spent the winter on the shores of Lake Erie, and the follow-
ing spring took formal possession in the name of Louis XIV.
In 1672 Frontenac made a personal visit to the Lake On-
tario region to confer with the Iroquois chieftains. A pali-
saded fort, Cataroqui, 4 on the site of the present Kingston,
Quoted by Shortt 6? Doughty, Canada and Its Provinces, I, pp. 89-96.
2 Ibid.
3 This tendency to develop high fever in consequence of great excitement is characteristic
of La Salle.
4 In 1670, the Franciscan Father Gabriel de la Ribourde was sent to Canada as Commis'
saryProvincial to reestablish the Recollects or Franciscans in New France. Upon the expi'
ration of his term of office in 1673, Ribourde was assigned to Cataroqui as the first missionary
of this post, where he remained two years. It was at Cataroqui that La Salle and Father de la
Ribourde became close friends. See P. Odoric-M. Jouve, Le Pere Gabriel de la Ribourde, p. 35.
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METHOD OF IROQUOIS TORTURE
GABRIEL LALEMANT JEAN DE BREBEUF
Jesuit Missionary
From painting by Georges Delfosse, Montreal.
Jesuit Missionary
By courtesy of the artist
THE PRIHCE OF FRENCH EXPLORERS Si
was erected. This was not a warlike measure, but merely
an arrangement to facilitate the purchase of furs which
otherwise might have gone to the English at Albany. 1 La
Salle was made commandant of this post, also called Fort
Frontenac. Although it was against the law, most of the
colonial officers did a little private trading. This sometimes
occasioned mutual incrimination; for instance, Frontenac
accused Perrot, Governor of Montreal, who in turn accused
Frontenac of illegal trafficking.
La Salle and Frontenac had many traits in common, and
in the course of time became close friends and business
associates. "The French doctrine,' ' writes Jarvis Keiley,
"that the discovery of a river gave an inchoate right to the
land drained by its tributaries suggested to La Salle and
Governor Frontenac a plan to effect a military occupation
of the whole Mississippi Valley ... by means of military
posts which should control the communication and sway
the policy of the Indian tribes, as well as present an impas-
sable barrier to the English colonies. " 2
This was a bold plan, and it would require vast sums of
money. To make this situation clear to the Minister and
to dispel the cloud of governmental distrust that hung
over his own establishment at Cataroqui, Frontenac de-
cided to send La Salle, the eloquent enthusiast, to the Court
of France.
Frontenac had chosen well. The discovery and explora-
tion of the Mississippi by Jolliet and Marquette had made
La Salle's heart burn with eager desire for still greater ex-
ploits. For well nigh seven years he had prepared himself
for his master stroke, and his ambitious heart prompted
the execution. Great discoverers are not a finished product,
nor do they happen to drop out of the skies; they are rather
the result of years of study and preparation.
The Governor's letter introducing La Salle to Colbert
read as follows: "I cannot but recommend to you, Monseig-
neur, the Sieur de la Salle, who is about to go to France,
and who is a man of intelligence and ability, the most com-
petent of anyone I know here to accomplish every enter-
1 Montreal and Albany were the two principal centers of fur trade.
2 Jarvis Keiley, in Catholic Encycbpedia, IX„ p. 9.
82 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEAHS
prise and discovery which may be intrusted to him, as he
has the most perfect knowledge of the state of the country,
as you will see, if you are disposed to give him a few mo-
ments 1 audience. 1 ' 1
Such flattering recommendation from Frontenac was an
open-sesame at the Court of Versailles and brought La Salle
the friendship and protection of men like Prince de Conti,
to whom he communicated his own contagious enthusiasm.
He was made a nobleman, and the King conferred upon him
the seigniory of Cataroqui (Fort Frontenac). Of course,
there were numerous obligations attached to this distinction.
Louis XIV was not in the habit of distributing favors with-
out a quid pro quo.
"There is nothing, 11 so reads the document, "We have
more at heart than the discovery of that country, where
there is a prospect of finding a way to penetrate as far as
Mexico. . . . We have permitted, and by these Presents,
signed by Our hand, do permit you to labor in the Dis-
covery of the Western part of New France, 2 and for the exe-
cution of this undertaking, to construct forts in the places you
may think necessary. . . and that you do not carry on any trade
with the Savages called Outaouacs and others who carry
their beavers and peltries to Montreal; that you perform the
whole at your expense and that of your associates, to whom
we have granted, as a privilege, the trade in Cibola 3 skins. 114
As usual, La Salle borrowed money. It is claimed that
his immediate relatives invested the sum of 500,000 livres
in his various schemes. If La Salle was a poor colon, he
was a poorer accountant. Enthusiastic optimist that he
was, keeping accounts and liquidating his obligations did
not worry him, provided they did not interfere with the
execution of his gigantic scheme. He once wrote to a friend:
"I have neither the habit nor the inclination to keep books,
nor have I anybody with me who knows how. 115
By September, 1675, La Salle was back in Quebec. He had
crossed the ocean in the company of a number of men who
^Ivord, Centennial History of Illinois, I., p. 79-
2 "An ingenious phrase, establishing claim before discovery ." Severance.
3 Buffalo.
4 Quoted by Frank H. Severance, An Old Frontier of France, I., p. 37-
5 Quoted by Parkman, La Salle, p. 331.
THE PRIHCE OF FREHCH EXPLORERS d 3
were, or became, outstanding figures in the early history
of the French colonies in America: Bishop Laval, de la For-
est, who became La Salle's faithful lieutenant, and the Recol-
lect Fathers Chrestien Leclerq, Luc Buisset, Zenobe Membre,
and the best known of them all, Louis Hennepin.
We must interrupt the story of that never resting La
Salle and retrace our steps to learn more about that inter-
esting character and companion of La Salle's expedition
to the Illinois country — Louis Hennepin. 1
The exact date of his birth is not known. However,
it is probable that he was born April 7, 1640, at Ath or
Roye, in the province of Hainaut, now in Belgium. He
passed his novitiate at the Franciscan convent at Bethune,
France. Hennepin was of a somewhat romantic tempera-
ment, had a great love for travel, and was extremely fond of
reading the stories of the travels and missionary voyages
of the Franciscan Fathers. Shortly after his ordination he
traveled through Italy and Germany. Later his Superiors
sent him to Calais for the season of the herring-salting, to
do some work in the interest of his Order.
At Calais, among the herring-fishers, Hennepin found
ample opportunity to satisfy his craving for sea-stories.
He himself relates that he would frequent the fc Victualling-
houses 1 ' just to hear the seamen's accounts of their adven-
tures. The strong tobacco smoke issuing from the sturdy
seamen's pipes would upset his stomach, but Hennepin
listened on and would have passed days and nights without
food, just to hear the stories of life at sea.
From 1672 to 1674 he was in Holland, doing chaplain's
duty during the war that Louis XIV waged against the
Netherlands. Hennepin says that he administered the
sacraments to more than 3000 wounded men. In 1675 he
was appointed to the missions of New France, and in due
time reached Quebec, as already noted.
At Quebec Bishop Laval appointed Hennepin to preach
the Advent and Lenten sermons. But here, too, his love for
travel and thrills was manifest, and he worked off his sur-
x For the presentation of Hennepin's case I have drawn chiefly on Abbe H. A. Scott,
M. S. R. G., who in his scholarly and critical treatise entitled Une nouvelle Apologie du P.
Louis Hennepin (1927), refutes P. Jerome Goyens' Le P. Louis Hennepin, O. F. M., Mission'
aire au Canada au XVII siecle.
8 4 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
plus energy by making trips twenty and thirty leagues from
the city. In summer he would paddle his canoe, and in
winter cover great distances on snow-shoes, while a large
dog pulled the sledge laden with his luggage.
In 1676 Hennepin was sent to Fort Frontenac (Cataroqui —
the present Kingston, Ontario), where he remained a little
more than two years. There he became interested in La
Salle's plan of going down to the mouth of the Mississippi.
October 31, 1678, Hennepin returned to Quebec to make
the necessary preparations to accompany La Salle. From
then on till he returned to France in 1681, Hennepin and
La Salle remained closely associated.
La Salle planned a fur trade on a large scale, and immediately
set to work fitting out his expedition. But he was a man of
restless disposition, and in November, 1677, was again on
his way to France. There he met Henri de Tonti, the son
of a Neapolitan banker, but now a soldier of fortune in
the service of France. In some battle he had lost a hand,
for which he had substituted one of iron. Later on the
savages were greatly impressed by the fact that a man could
have such heavy hand, and he became known among them
as the man with the Iron Hand. The stories of frontier
life appealed to Tonti, who decided to follow La Salle and
share with him the adventures of a roving forest life. Tonti
became La Salle's most faithful, devoted, and loyal follower,
supplying the tact and kindliness which the domineering
La Salle lacked, bearing faithfully with all the eccentricities
and contradictory moods of the great explorer.
La Salle, Tonti, and Captain La Motte Lussiere with
thirty men sailed from Rochelle July 14, 1678. Supplied
with anchors, cordage, sails and other materials required
for shipbuilding, La Salle organised a party to set out for
Niagara and to construct a fifty-ton sailing vessel, which
should ply on the Great Lakes and gather in the furs previously
purchased from the natives by his advance agents. In Jan'
uary of the following year La Salle and his men arrived at
the Falls of Conty 1 (Niagara). The party included Tonti,
and three Recollect Fathers as missionaries: Louis Hennepin,
Zenobe Membre, and Gabriel de la Ribourde. After much
x La Salle so named Niagara Falls.
THE PRIHCE OF FRENCH EXPLORERS 85
arguing with the Seneca Indians, who disliked the idea of a fort,
La Salle had his way and built Fort Niagara, at the outlet of
Niagara River. The fort was a mere stockade. The Griffon, 1
a fifty-ton sailing vessel, was constructed at the mouth of
Cayuga Creek above the Falls, and on August 7, 1679, La Salle
sailed for Green Bay via Mackinac. With him were thirty
two men and the Recollect Fathers, Ribourde, Membre, and
Hennepin. The Griffon also carried a "goodly supply of arms,
merchandise, and seven pieces of castiron cannon.' n
The patent, granting La Salle permission to build forts at his
own expense in the Mississippi Valley, contained the restriction
that he should not trade with tribes already regularly trafficking
with Montreal, and thus eliminated the Ottawa. However,
La Salle did what many others did; he purchased 12,000 livres
worth of peltries from the Ottawa and loaded the Griffon,
expecting at last to realise a profit that would retrieve his
strained fortunes and satisfy his anxious creditors. La Salle
was under very heavy expense, and somehow his business
ventures or speculations always went wrong, and then his
creditors would press him for money and take his property.
When hard pressed by his creditors he would go to the
woods and remain there until his creditors had gone. Mas-
siac de Saint'Colombe wrote to Nicolas Thoynard: "I
questioned a passenger of Belle Isle about your Monsieur
de La Salle. He replied that he was in the woods, that is
to say, he had disappeared, and it is thought he will remain
away until the departure of his creditors. . . . The common
belief is that he has an understanding with Frontenac, who,
under a variety of pretexts, sends him to the woods, though
it is expressly forbidden. ,,3
Disregarding the advice of the Indians, La Salle sent the
Griffon, now loaded with precious furs, on her way back
to Niagara while a heavy storm was lashing the waters of
Lake Michigan. The pilot Luc and the five men on board,
Griffon — a fabulous monster, half lion and half eagle Frontenac's coat of arms showed
two Griffons.
2 Hennepin, Description de la Louisiane, p. 49. During the night of August 25th, the
Griffon was caught in a violent storm on Lake Huron. According to Hennepin, La Salle
despaired of human aid and recommended his enterprise to God. Everybody on board ship
made a "good act of contrition."
3 Quoted by Campbell, Pioneer Laymen of America, II., p. 166.
86 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
together with the ship and all the merchandise, valued at
40,000 livres, were lost, La Salle did not hear of this dis-
heartening disaster until months later.
The day after the sailing of the Griffon, September 19,
1679, La Salle started for the Illinois country with four
canoes and fourteen men. He did not follow the route
taken by Jolliet and Marquette, but paddled along the
shore of Lake Michigan to the mouth of the River St. Joseph,
where he built a fort, which he named Miami. 1 Six of his
men deserted, and Tonti had to go in search of them. After
several days he returned with three. La Salle peremptorily
ordered Tonti to set out again and find the other three.
La Salle's harsh temper had probably caused the desertions.
Campbell tells what followed, in a manner that helps
to understand the determined but difficult character of the
great explorer. "He then went up the St. Joseph to what is
now South Bend and portaged to the Kankakee, the southern
tributary of the Illinois, over a marshy plain five miles in
length. He beached his canoes on New Year's Day, 1680,
and with his men knelt around an altar in the woods while
Mass was celebrated. Continuing down the Illinois, he
reached the site of the present Peoria, where he found a
number of Indians awaiting him. He was not sure whether
it meant hostility or friendship, but his knowledge of Indian
methods averted the danger, and both parties sat down and
smoked the pipe of peace, the savages extending the usual
courtesy of putting morsels of meat in the mouths of vis-
itors, blowing on the viands when they were too hot to
swallow, and finally anointing the feet of the white men
with bear's grease. At the dinner La Salle explained that
he was going to build a ship to sail down the Mississippi,
but it is not sure that he told them of his ultimate purpose,
though possibly he had not yet formulated it. It was nothing
less than to reach the Gulf, and in that crasy craft con-
1 In November, 1679, La Salle built Fort Miami, also referred to as Fort St. Joseph, for
the twcfold purpose of protecting his party against the savages and of providing a storehouse
for the peltries that would arrive on the Griffon. While the rest of the party proceeded
towards the site of the present Peoria, four men remained at Fort Miami to take care of
the Griffon's cargo, though La Salle had secret forebodings the ship might be lost.
THE PRIKCE OF FREHCH EXPLORERS 87
structed in the woods of Illinois, to go to the West Indies
and from there to Quebec.
"That night the Indians began to grow surly, and later
it was discovered that one of them had stolen away to stir
up the Illinois against the French. It was evidently by gen-
eral consent, for the changed countenances of the savages
made the white men keep sentries posted until morning
dawned. Indeed, the terror was such that six men deserted,
among them two of the carpenters, who had been relied
upon to build the ship. Nevertheless, not only undismayed,
but apparently unmoved, La Salle proceeded to establish
his fort. 1 He chose an eminence, on both sides of which were
deep ravines. He called it Crevecoeur (Brokenheart),
not because he was broken-hearted, for La Salle cannot be
thought of as building monuments to his lacerated feelings.
It was only a bit of flattery for Louis XIV — to commemorate a
victory won by the great King nine years before at a place
called Crevecoeur in the Netherlands. 112
But La Salle had to return to Fort Frontenac, his base
of operations, for material and supplies needed to equip the
ship he was building. There was another reason why he
could not go down to the mouth of the Mississippi just
then. His creditors were growing uneasy, and he evidently
felt that a personal interview might be good diplomacy.
To lose no time or opportunity of gathering information
about the Mississippi, even during his absence at Frontenac,
La Salle sent Father Hennepin, Michel Accault, and Antoine
Picard du Guay on an expedition to that river to explore its
upper reaches. Tonti was to remain at Fort Crevecoeur,
while La Salle would work his way through to Fort Fron-
tenac to settle his business there.
On the 29th day of February, 1680, Hennepin and his
men began to paddle down the Seignelay (Illinois) River.
March 7, 1680, they were within two leagues of the
1 Arthur Lagron, who carefully examined the various probable sites of La Salle's fort, holds
that Fort Crevecoeur stood on a slight elevation, now the right of way of the L. E. 6? W. R. R.,
near Wesley City, then about 540 feet from the east bank of the Illinois River. Two other
sites have been marked, one a mile below and the other about three miles above the one indi'
cated by Lagron, both on top of the bluff. Courtesy of Tiaomi Lagron, Peoria, III.
2 Campbell, Pioneer Laymen of J<[orth America, II., pp. 169-170.
88 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
mouth of the Illinois. There they were detained five days
because of ice floes coming down the Mississippi.
According to Hennepin's untrustworthy S[ouvelle De-
convene, published in 1697, the mouth of the Illinois River
is only "hundred and twenty or thirty leagues from the
Gulf of Mexico." 1
March 12, 1680, Hennepin and his men entered the Mis-
sissippi, turned their canoes northward, and finally discovered
the Falls, which they named "St. Anthony of Padua."
A month later, on the 11th or 12th of April, 1680, at
2 o'clock in the afternoon, they unexpectedly encountered
thirty-three canoes, carrying one hundred and twenty sav-
ages (Issati or Nadouessious), who captured Hennepin and
his men and forced them to accompany their war party.
In his Description de la Louisiane, which he published
only three years after the incident, Hennepin writes: "We
had some design to go down to the mouth of the river Col-
bert [Mississippi], which more probably flows into the
Gulf of Mexico than into the Pacific (la mer Vermeille);
but these nations who captured us did not give us time to
navigate up and down the river. 112
From the day of their capture by the Issati (April 12,
1680), until the 25th of July of the same year, Hennepin
and his men were compelled to accompany their savage
captors on the upper Mississippi and across the country
thereabouts. It so happened that on the 26th day of July,
1680, Greysolon Du Luth 3 came along with five French sol-
diers and obtained the release of Hennepin and his party.
Du Luth was a cousin of Tonti. Alvord calls him "the
greatest of all coureurs de bois."
Apart from the hardships naturally connected with
roaming about with a nomadic Indian tribe, Hennepin and
his men had been treated kindly enough, and had ample
opportunity to make valuable observations.
Hennepin now worked his way back to Quebec via Michil-
limackinac, and, in 1681 or 1682, returned to France, never
to come back to Canada. Hennepin arrived in France at
^ott, op. cit., p. 134, and Hennepin, Tiouvelle Decouverte, Chapter XXXVI, p. 245.
2 Louis Hennepin, Description de la Louisiane nouvellement decouverte au Sud de la
J^puvelle France, p. 218.
3 Du Luth or du Lhuth. Duluth, Minnesota, is named after him.
THE PRIHCE OF FRENCH EXPLORERS 89
the psychological moment. Europe was ready for a startling
story of some great discovery or exploration on the Amer-
ican Continent. The report of the Jolliet-Marquette ex-
pedition of 1763 had not yet been published. Hennepin
satisfied this expectation of the people in 1683, when he
published his Description de la Louisiane nouvellement
decouverte au Sud de la 7s[ouvelle France — Description of
Louisiana Newly Discovered south of New France, which
was translated into several languages. 1
If we turn back to the last days of February, 1680, we
find La Salle at Crevecoeur under hard nervous tension.
The savages were openly opposed to him, and he was obliged
to force his way through hostile and trackless country to
Fort Frontenac, a thousand miles away.
But La Salle belonged to that class of men "who made
light of their lives, faced fatigue and privations unheard
of, and even death at the stake, attracted as they were by the
the bait of glory or gain, or the fascination of the unknown,
or urged on by the desire of serving their country, and were
certainly no common adventurers. . . . An atmosphere of
heroism coloured with the marvellous, surrounds these men,
and crowns their brows with a luminous halo which wields
a mighty fascination over us." 2
Having sent Hennepin's party on the expedition to the
Mississippi and placed Tonti in charge of Crevecoeur, La
Salle set out 3 with four Frenchmen and an Indian hunter
on a thousand mile journey to Fort Frontenac. "It was
a wonderful thing to do," writes Severance. "He was in
his 37th year — at the zenith of physical vigor. If we knew
nothing of him save this achievement, we could picture him
as of exceptional determination and physical endurance." 4
Campbell's summary account of La Salle's heart-thrilling ad-
ventures on this journey to Frontenac in the early spring of
1680 has that "atmosphere of heroism coloured with the
marvellous," and it is herewith reproduced.
^ott, op cit., p. 139 writes: "Had P. Hennepin written only the Description de la
Louisiane, he would have left a name without blemish and would have remained one of the
great explorers of the XVII century."
2 Edouard Richard, Canadian Archives, 1899, pp. 19-20.
3 March 2, 1680.
4 Severance, op. cit., p. 61.
go FROM QUEBEC TO NEW ORLEANS
La Salle "determined to go down to Fort Frontenac, not by
the usual route of Mackinac, but across what is now the States
of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and the northern part of Pennsylvania.
His only guide was his compass, and hostile tribes occupied the
land; the streams were frozen, and he had to drag his canoes
over the ice or cut his way through with the ax; rain and
hail and snow and bitter cold pursued him for weeks; his
provisions gave out, his men fell sick; Indians pursued and
attacked him, but he kept doggedly on, and at last on Easter
Monday, 1680, reached Niagara, where he again heard
of the loss of the Griffon. 1 He did not linger there, but sped
on, and finally arrived at Frontenac after sixty-five days
of privations and dangers, such as he had never before faced. . .
He went to Montreal, where he was cordially received, and
returned to Frontenac with an ample supply of provisions.
"There startling intelligence awaited him. His men at
Crevecoeur had revolted, robbed the fort, destroying what
they could not carry off; eight of them had fled to the Eng-
lish at Albany, the refuge of deserters; and twelve others
were on their way to Frontenac with the intention of mur-
dering him. There was no time to lose. Another man would
have quailed, but not La Salle. Taking a few soldiers with
him, he met the conspirators. 11 Some surrendered, others
were captured, and two were killed in the fight. "But this
was only an incident. He must 'reach Crevecoeur at all
hazards. Taking twenty-five men and a supply of provisions,
he hurried to Mackinac and from there down to Fort Miami,
which, to his dismay, he found deserted and dismantled.
Leaving five of his men there to put it in shape, he has-
tened up the St. Joseph and across to the Kankakee and
was soon coursing down the Big Vermillion; 2 but there was
no sign of Tonti, no message on the trail to tell where he
had gone. He met herds of buffalo but saw no human be-
ing; the great Indian town near what is now Starved Rock
was deserted; he went through the empty lodges only to
find the corrupting corpses of men, women and children,
strewn around, or still fixed to the stakes where they had
been burned; even the graves in the burial ground had
*A wreck recently found near the western end of Manitoulin Island, Lake Huron, may
perhaps prove to be the lost Griffon.
2 Down the Illinois River.
THE PRIHCE OF FRENCH EXPLORERS 91
been desecrated. He groped here and there among the slain
to see if perchance any white men might be among them,
but they were all Indians. He bivouacked in that dreadful
place for the night, but kept careful watch, for fresh moccasin
tracks had been discovered. ... At last he arrived at Creve-
coeur. The defences had been demolished, though the dam-
aged hull of the ship was still on the stocks where he had
left it. More signs of massacre were met with until he de-
scended the river as far as the Mississippi. There he nailed
a message on a tree for Tonti, if perchance he might be in
the 'woods,' and then with a disconsolate heart he turned
back on his tracks ... he finally arrived at Fort Miami in
a pitiless snow storm. He had ploughed through drifts
waist deep for forty miles.' 11
Pathetic in the extreme ! La Salle, no doubt, had damaging
shortcomings: he may have been a "failure as a leader of
men," he may never have learnt the "strategic force of con-
ciliation," 2 he may have disdained to win over the good will of
his opponents, he may even have been so foolish as to at-
tribute all his bad luck to imaginary intrigues of the Jesuits 3 :
grant all that, he was still, as Alvord says, "magnificent
in his failures," and one is willing to agree withGayarre: "if
it be true that man is never greater than when engaged in
a generous and unyielding struggle against dangers and
adversity, then must it be admitted that during those . . .
trials La Salle was pre-eminently great. P 4
But Tonti was no longer in the Illinois country and did
not find the message La Salle had affixed to a tree. Tonti,
too, had played his hero-role well. Following the instructions
received from La Salle, he had gone to inspect Starved Rock
with a view to building a permanent fort there. When he
returned to Crevecoeur he found, to his great consterna-
tion, that this fort had been wrecked and the stores plundered
by his own men. With the Franciscan Fathers Membre
and Ribourde and three other men, all that were left to
1 Campbell, Pioneer Laymen, II., pp. 170472.
2 Alvord, Centennial History of Illinois, I, p. 80.
3 Parkman's version of plots against La Salle, endless intrigues, and female inquisitors
is not borne out by documentary evidence and must be considered hallucinations of the su'
persensitive La Salle woven into a pretty story by a too credulous writer.
4 Gayarre, op. cit., p. 32.
92 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
him, he went to the Illinois village between Starved Rock 1
and the Aramoni (Big Vermillion) on the right bank of the
Illinois River. His purpose was to convince these In'
dians of the friendly intentions of La Salle in establishing
himself in the Illinois country. While there, five hundred
Iroquois and one hundred Miamis came to attack the Illinois.
The Iroquois wanted furs for trade with the English at
Albany. Not having enough in their own country, they
went west to get them. They were determined to force
the western Indians to trade through them or drive out
the Illinois and exploit the territory themselves. In fact,
they drove them downward and across the river, for a time
at least.
The Illinois savages suspected Tonti and his men of being
in league with the Iroquois. To prove his friendship for the
Illinois, and that he was not falsely betraying them, Tonti
volunteered to lead them in battle against the Iroquois.
The encounter took place on the open prairie, back of the
bluff, between Starved Rock and the Big Vermillion. "The
Illinois," writes Parkman "began, after their fashion, to
charge; that is, they leaped, yelled, and shot off bullets and
arrows, advancing as they did so; while the Iroquois [is-
suing from the woods along the Vermillion] replied with
gymnastics no less agile and howlings no less terrific, mingled
with the rapid clatter of their guns." 2
It was Tonti's last chance to save the Illinois. He laid
aside his gun and, holding aloft a belt of wampum, he walked
across the bullet swept area towards the Iroquois. A young
warrior stabbed at his heart, but inflicted only a deep and
painful gash. A parley ensued: Tonti told them that the
Illinois were under the protection of the King of France;
an Iroquois stood behind him and lifted his hair for the
scalping; a Seneca chief wanted him burned; Tonti made
them believe there were twelve hundred Illinois and sixty
Frenchmen, and that bluff carried the day. Tonti brought
back a belt of peace.
1 Starved Roc\ was known to the early French explorers as Le Rocher or Le Rocher Saint-
Louis. There is a tradition that on this rock a party of Illinois Indians entrenched themselves
against attacking Pottawatamies. Cut off from food and water, the defending savages met
death by starvation.
Tarkman, op. cit., p. 226.
THE PRIHCE OF FRENCH EXPLORERS 93
The Illinois went back to their village, but the Iroquois
followed close on their heels, and so the Illinois set fire to
their village and paddled down the river, where their women
and children had been placed in safety.
Several days later, the Iroquois, who in the meantime had
occupied the former Illinois village, sent for Tonti, and,
during an elaborate ceremony, at which six packs of beaver
skins were presented, he and his companions were told to
go home. Tonti demanded to know when they would leave
the Illinois country. Some replied they would not depart
until they had eaten Illinois flesh. Considering the preca-
rious position he was in, it took almost unbelievable courage
to kick away the pack of beaver skins. But he did it to show
them he spurned presents from men who planned to eat his
friends.
The following day, 1 accompanied by the Franciscan Fathers
Membre and Ribourde and three Frenchmen, Tonti set out
northward for Green Bay. Some five leagues above Starved
Rock they came to shore to dry the baggage and to repair
their leaky canoe.
"Father Ribourde," writes Parkman 2 , "breviary in hand,
strolled across the sunny meadows for an hour of meditation
among the neighboring groves. Evening approached, and
he did not return. . . . They fired their guns to guide him,
should he still be alive. ... In truth, a band of Kickapoos,
enemies of the Iroquois, about whose camp they had been
prowling in quest of scalps, had met and wantonly murdered
the inoffensive old man. . . . Thus, in his sixty-fifth year, the
only heir of a wealthy Burgundian house perished under
the war-clubs of the savages for whose salvation he had
renounced station, ease, and affluence." 3
While Tontfs party labored northward, followed by the
savage curses of the Iroquois, these latter, now cabined in
the former village of the Illinois, gave free rein to every
vulgar, inhuman, fiendish, diabolical instinct of their depraved
^ptember 13, 1680.
2 Parkman, op. cit., 234.
3 Father Ribourde was the Superior of the Franciscan missionaries who accompanied
La Salle on his expedition to find the mouth of the Mississippi. He was sixty years of age
and often ill in consequence of the hardships necessarily connected with the constant travel
of an exploratory expedition. Odoric-M. Jouve, op. cit., p. o.
94 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
savage natures : they violated the burial place of the Illinois,
they burnt some of the dead bodies, others they threw to
the dogs and, it is related, they even ate of the flesh of the
human bodies recently exposed on scaffolds, after the man-
ner of burial among the Illinois. Then they recrossed the
Illinois River and followed the Illinois Indians in their mi-
gration southward, always on the opposite shore, until
they arrived somewhere near the mouth of the Illinois,
when they threw off the hypocritical mask of peace and
inhumanly assailed the disunited Illinois tribes, of whom
the Tamaroas were the heaviest sufferers. Those were the
scenes of horror, traces of which La Salle had witnessed on
his search for Tonti.
From Green Bay Tonti worked over to Mackinac, where
one day messengers arrived from Fort Miami seeking informa-
tion about Tonti. Word was sent back immediately that
he was there, and La Salle hurried thither to meet his faith-
ful and long-sought friend. They proceeded to Fort Frontenac
and Montreal, where, in spite of debts and mortgages that
heavily encumbered his property, La Salle, with the aid of
Frontenac, raised enough money to make another attempt
to reach the mouth of the Mississippi.
There can be no doubt that La Salle had the faculty of
communicating to others his own "contagious enthusiasm."
His is a case "where history is so much like romance that,
in many respects, it is likely to be classed as such by pos-
terity." 1
AT THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI AT LAST
Buoyed up with new courage, — perhaps he was even able
to forget his money worries, — La Salle set out for Fort Miami
with twenty-three Frenchmen and a new supply of provi-
sions. That was in the fall of 1681 . "Man shapes his own des-
tinies when the fortitude of the soul corresponds with the
vigorous organisation of the mind," 2 and La Salle was deter-
mined to make another attempt to reach the Gulf of Mexico
by way of the Mississippi. For two years he had encountered
obstacle upon obstacle, difficulties that seemed insurmount-
^ayarre, op. cit., p. 35.
2 Gayarre, op. cit., p. 31.
THE PRIKCE OF FRENCH EXPLORERS 95
able, annihilating, but La Salle remained clear-headed, im-
perturbable, his courage stood indomitable, indestructible
as an adamantine rock. The master idea that ruled his
whole being remained firmly fixed in his mind — to descend
the Mississippi to its mouth. And he did it.
La Salle spent part of the winter of 1681 at Miami, made
friends with some Abnaki and Mohegan Indians who had
drifted that way, and organised his party for another attempt
to descend the Mississippi. The Indians consented to go
with him, provided they were allowed to take their squaws
and children. That was not the sort of encumbrance La
Salle cared to take with him on an important and difficult
voyage of discovery, but he was hard pressed, and consented.
December 21, 1681, then, he set out with his party, which
included Tonti and Membre, the Franciscan Father, as
chaplain, forty-nine followers all told, counting Frenchmen
and Indians, men, women and children. They proceeded,
some by way of the Chicago, Des Plaines, and down the Illinois,
others via the St. Joseph, Kankakee, and down the Illinois, and
by the beginning of February, 1682, the canoes of La Salle's
motley party entered the Mississippi at the mouth of the
Illinois.
On February 24, 1682, they reached the Third Chickasaw
Bluffs, just below the Ohio. Pierre Prudhomme, one of the
Frenchmen in the expedition, became detached from the
party while out hunting, and could not be found for ten
days, when at last they discovered him floating down the
river on a log. Prudhomme was rescued, and since he was
too exhausted to continue the voyage, La Salle built a stock-
ade, which he named Fort Prudhomme, and left Pierre and
several of his men in charge. March 9, 1682, at the Arkansas,
La Salle took formal possession of the land by singing the
Te Deum and affixing the arms of the King of France to a post
or tree, as was customary on such occasions.
The further descent of the Great River offers nothing
very spectacular, except that the party was attacked by
Indians, found the village Tangihabo, which had been rav-
aged by savages some days before, in a horrible state, with
the dead strewn about. La Salle reached the Gulf of Mexico,
April 7, 1682. Two days later, April 9, he took formal
possession of the Valley of the Mississippi in this manner:
96 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"At about 27° latitude a column and a cross were erected,
on which were painted the arms of France and the inscrip-
tion: 'Louis le Grand Roy de France et de Havarre regne,
le 9 Avril 1682." 1 Everyone was under arms and sang the
Te Deum, the Exaudiat and the Domine Salvum fac regem.
Then, after salvos of musketry and shouts of Vive le Roi,
M. de La Salle erected the column, and standing near it,
said in a loud voice in French : fc On behalf of the most High,
Most Potent, Invincible and Victorious Prince, Louis le
Grand, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre,
I, on the 9th day of April, 1682, in virtue of a commission
of His Majesty which I hold in my hand have taken pos-
session of the seas, ports, bays, etc., and of all the nations,
peoples, cities, towns, etc., [then follow the limits of the new
territory] — all this being done with the consent of the Cha-
ousens, and Chickasas and others here living, as well as those
along the Mississippi with whom we have made an alliance. " 2
Protest is also made against encroachments by other
nations. La Salle called the country Louisiana, in honor
of Louis XIV. 3
ltl Louis the Great, King of France and Navarre, reigns, April 9, 1682."
2 Quoted by Campbell, Pioneer Laymen, II, p. 178.
3 In 1697 Hennepin published a second book entitled ?{ouvelle Decouverte d'un tres grand
Pays Situe dans VAmerique — New Discovery of a very great Country situated in America —
and in 1698 a third book entitled 7<[ouveau Voyage d"un Pais plus grand que VEurope Avec les
reflections des entreprises de Sieur de La Salle, etc. A New Voyage of a Country larger than
Europe with reflections on the enterprises of Sieur de la Salle. Both books are dedicated to
His Majesty William III (formerly William of Orange), King of England.
It is to be noted that Hennepin had not been in America since 1682. In his first book,
published in 1683, he wrote that he had "some design of going down to the mouth of the
Missisipi." In his other two books, 1697 and 1698, he states that he was actually at the
mouth of the Mississippi, thus falsely claiming for himself the honor that was La Salle's.
Hennepin in his later years seems to have had difficulties with the Superiors of his own com'
munity and passes out of the picture. Date and place of his death are unknown. Scott
says Hennepin belonged to "the imperishable breed of those not understood. Holding
themselves capable to dominate all, to rule and to reform, they themselves are ungovern-
able and irrefor maple." — Scott, op. cit., p. 146.
Moreover, it was physically impossible for Hennepin to have been at the mouth of the
Mississippi. He reached the mouth of the Illinois river March 12, 1680, and was captured
by the Issati April 11th or 12th of the same year. Thirty or thirtyone days to travel in
canoe from the mouth of the Illinois to the mouth of the Mississippi and be far enough
north to be captured by the savages at the place indicated by Hennepin himself — impossible!
Even later, 67 days from Fort de Chartres, nearly one hundred miles below the mouth of the
Illinois, to New Orleans and back, was considered good time.
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THE PRIHCE OF FRENCH EXPLORERS 97
No one at the time realised the extent of La Salle's dis-
covery. He had given an empire over to France, an empire so
immense that the northwest boundary was unknown, —
extending into the unplatted regions of the great Northwest.
After the solemn prise de possession La Salle did not
tarry long at the Gulf. The land was swampy and fever-
breeding, the Indians were not to be trusted, and eatables were
so scarce that they were even obliged to shoot crocodiles for
food. The great explorer was stricken with a dangerous fever,
and his companions feared his death. They therefore paddled
back as fast as they could. La Salle rested at Fort Prudhomme
and later at Miami, while the ever faithful Tonti hurried
on to Mackinac to report the news of the great discovery.
La Salle followed to Mackinac, but more trouble awaited
him. While he had been engaged in opening the way through
vast unknown territories and staking his life in the interest
of discovery, things had transpired at Quebec which meant
to La Salle anything but the welcome that should have
been accorded a hero. Frontenac, 1 La Salle's friend and
partner in the fur trade, had been recalled by the home
government, and M. de La Barre had been sent to take his
place as Governor of New France.
Unfortunately de la Barre was one of those petty characters
who cannot appreciate anybody's merits but their own and
nothing but what is done by their authority. He completely
failed to grasp the magnitude of La Salle's discovery. In-
stead of preparing for him a hero's welcome, he annoyed,
persecuted, and discredited him as thoroughly as he knew
how. Under the conditions, La Salle preferred not to
go to Montreal or Quebec, but returned to the Illinois
country, where he rebuilt Fort St. Louis on Starved Rock,
and carried on a fairly profitable fur trade for nearly a year.
He naturally chafed under the displeasure of de la Barre,
and finally decided to go personally to Montreal to satisfy
his creditors and opponents, and, if possible, to placate the
Governor. On his way to Montreal, somewhere on the east
shore of Lake Michigan, he met Chevalier de Baugis, who,
under orders from de la Barre, was on his way to Fort St.
Louis to relieve him of his command.
^rontenac's first term of office, 1672'1682.
9 8 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEAH$
La Salle evidently was disgusted with the opposition
to his Fort St. Louis post and felt he could not obtain justice
from de la Barre, and so he sailed for France without even
seeing the Governor. This was in the late fall of 1683.
La Salle was well received at Versailles. Louis XIV and
Seignelay were much peeved at the ruling of Spain that none
but Spanish ships should be allowed in the waters of the
Gulf of Mexico. Just at the crucial moment, La Salle, the
explorer of the lower Mississippi and the founder of
Louisiana, that immense territory whose limits no man
then knew, arrived. La Salle was the enthusiast and glow-
ing optimist, the man with the ideas that fitted well to the
mental attitude of the King and his Prime Minister. The
plan La Salle laid before them is almost puerile in its exag-
gerated optimism.
It proposed "to build a fort sixty leagues above the mouth
[of the Mississippi], where a colony can easily be established,
as the King's right is undisputed, the grant of the territory
having been made by the consent of the greatest part of
the people, who reside there. [It will be remembered that
La Salle reached the mouth of the Mississippi on the 7,
of April, turned back on the 8, took possession on the 9,
and then speedily returned north — in truth, scarcely time to
meet and obtain the "consent of the greatest part of the people
who reside there 11 ]. The land is fertile and its remoteness
from the mouth will deter enemies from attacking it; if fleets
come up the river they can be destroyed by fire boats.
Then he proceeded to demonstrate that the Indians hated
the Spaniards, and had been "won over by the gentleness
of the Sieur de la Salle.' ' He could form an army of 15,000
Indians, and they, supported by the French, could easily
overcome "the 400 Spaniards of Mexico, 11 and "a large part
of the Spanish mines could easily be captured. 111 In his wild
and idealistic optimism La Salle was a worthy forerunner
of John Law. But then, Louisiana, and all of America for
that matter, was still a land of mystery in those days.
La Salle was now famous, and with his own indestruc-
tible optimism won the good will of Louis XIV. The King
ordered de la Barre to restore to La Salle, Fort Frontenac,
Fort Miami, and Fort St. Louis, which he had taken from
Quoted in Campbell, op. cit., II., p. 186.
THE PRIHCE OF FRENCH EXPLORERS 99
him. The great explorer was further authorised to found
colonies in Louisiana and to govern all that vast territory
between Lake Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico. The
very bigness of the plans appealed to the King, who loved
extravagant ideas. La Salle intended to unite Louisiana
to Canada, and thus assure to France all the intermediate
country. "It is necessary to establish colonies in these
great countries . . . lest the English, who are our close neigh-
bors in New York, Virginia, and Carolina, anticipate the
French." 1
LA SALLE'S TRAGIC DEATH
"That Jupiter among the kings of the earth," writes
Gayarre, "had a smile to bestow upon the humble sub-
ject who came to deposit at the foot of the throne the title-
deeds of such broad domains. But that smile of royalty
was destined to be the last smile of fortune." 2
La Salle was commissioned to establish a colony at the
mouth of the Mississippi, and set sail with four ships and
280 men 3 . Scarcely had the expedition left Rochelle, July
24, 1684, when the old evil of overlapping authority, which
had caused so much friction between Governor and Intend-
ant in Canada, broke out between La Salle and Beaujeu.
Beaujeu was captain of the fleet, while La Salle had the
choice of the route and "the direction of the enterprise."
The Abbe Cavelier, a Sulpician and brother of La Salle, and
the Franciscan Fathers, Zenobe Membre, who had accom-
panied the explorer on his voyage down the Mississippi in
1682, Anastase Douay, and Maxime le Clerc accompanied
the expedition as chaplains, or missionaries, and chroniclers.
Beaujeu refused to take orders from La Salle, who was
not a military man, whereas he himself had seen many years
of service in the royal navy. After a two months'' voyage
the ships landed at Santo Domingo. Many of the men were
ill, among them La Salle. Naturally of a nervous, choleric,
quick, sensitive, artistic temperament, and now laboring
under severe mental strain, La Salle became seriously ill,
Quoted by Campbell, op. cit., pp. 184-187.
2 Gayarre, op. ctt., p. 33.
s The number is variously given. Joutel, who was of the party, says. "The ships were
like Noah's Ark with all varieties of animals."
wo FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
even to the point of death. One of the ships that carried
supplies and provisions for the new colony had been taken
by the Spaniards, who thus became aware of the purpose
of this expedition. When the much-troubled man, by an
indiscretion of some one in his entourage, heard of this mis-
hap, he suffered a severe relapse and became violently de-
lirious. 1
In November, 1684, La Salle had sufficiently recovered
to continue the search for the mouth of the Mississippi.
Unfortunately he had failed to make exact observations when
at the mouth of this river. He had taken the lati'
tude, but not the longitude. Hence he did not know how
far west he must go to reach the river. This was but part of
his dilemma. All the circumstances that attended the tragic
end of the great explorer may never be fully known, as there
are many contradictory versions.
The currents in the Gulf and imperfect astronomical
instruments contributed to increase La Salle's confusion.
He thought he was still east of the Mississippi, when he
had already passed the western branch of the delta of the great
river. The shores are very low, no outstanding landmarks
to guide him, and, in consequence, he passed the mouth of
the Mississippi without even suspecting he was anywhere
near it. Westward they sailed several days, when La Salle
began to surmise they might be wrong. He wanted to
retrace his route and turn eastward, but again the unfortunate
misunderstanding between himself and Beaujeu proved dis-
astrous. Beaujeu refused to take orders from a non-mili-
tary. They sailed westward until the 19th of January, 1685,
when they had reached Matagorda Bay, about 400 miles
west of the Mississippi. In view of the complete lack of
cooperation between La Salle and Beaujeu, what could the
former do but attempt to land his people? He gave orders
that one of the vessels should enter the harbor. It struck
a sandbar, and the greater part of the cargo, ammunition,
and nearly everything needed to establish a colony was lost.
La Salle asked Beaujeu to substitute from his cargo things
that would be needed for the colony. The latter refused,
and on March 12, 1685, set sail for Mobile Bay, which he
never reached, leaving La Salle and his colony to their own
x See page 80, ante, n. 3.
THE PRIHCE OF FRENCH EXPLORERS 101
fate on the unknown shores of Texas. He arrived in France
July 1, 1685, where he was severely reprimanded by Seignelay. 1
He had deserved worse.
For the protection of his colonists La Salle constructed
a fort, and later a second one, 6 miles farther inland, which
he named Fort St. Louis, again in honor of Louis XIV. The
colonists began to till the soil, but the crop was meager be-
cause of a severe drought. To the terrible disappointment
of everyone, including La Salle, was added discontent and
dissatisfaction with the regime, stirred up and fanned by
Duhaut, the chief trouble maker of this unfortunate colony.
Disease spread among the colonists and carried off many of
the most useful members. The attitude of the savages be-
came rather menacing. Of course, La Salle was desperate,
but tried to appear hopeful, and kept his fears and misgivings
to himself. He was the first to begin and the last to quit
work. The vast resources of his powerful character seemed
to increase under the terrible strain. But, unfortunately his
imperious temperament became more severe and unbear-
able as the outlook became more desperate. His language
was violent, and no one did enough work to satisfy him. The
colonists became yet more discouraged and despondent, and
some thirty of them died. All through his career his violent
temper was La Salle's greatest enemy. Persuasion and good-
will methods were unknown to him; authority alone counted.
Ferocious beasts frequented the neighborhood, there were
savages all around, rattlesnakes in abundance, and a species
of crocodiles in the waters, — those were the living neigh-
bors of the poor stranded colony.
La Salle was determined to find the Mississippi, and set
out in the La Belle. This exploratory expedition lasted
several months. Somewhere he had left the ship to explore
the coast, and when he returned the ship had been wrecked.
This expedition had cost him a number of men; some had
been killed by the savages, and others perished in the La
1 This account is drawn from F. X. Garneau, Histoire du Canada, tome Second, pp. 541.
See also Relation of M. Cavelier in Shea, Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi,
pp. 1542. Beaujeu offered as an excuse that he thought the bay might be the mouth of the
river "and that he had no orders to go any further. ... He told him [La Salle] that having
reached the mouth of the Mississippy he believed that he had sufficiently fulfilled his duty."
Shea, op. cit., p. 19.
102 FROM QUEBEC TO TiEW ORLEANS
Belle. He had started from France with four ships: one had
been captured by the Spaniards, a second was wrecked at
Matagorda Bay, Beaujeu sailed home in a third, and now
the last hope of ever returning to France perished in the
wreck of the La Belle. La Salle was so affected by this loss
that he broke down physically and mentally. In a few months,
however, he had recovered sufficiently to make another
attempt. April 22, 1686, he set out for the country of the
Cenis Indians, hoping to reach Canada by land. There
he was stricken with a fever, and lay for two months in the
woods. Other misfortunes attended this expedition. Of
the twenty men with whom he had started, he brought back
only eight; out of the 180 who had come ashore with him,
only 40 survived.
Each day searching eyes scanned the broad expanse of
the Gulf, looking for aid, which they hoped the King would
send. But the King must have thought them lost, and no
aid arrived. La Salle resolved to make a second attempt to
reach Canada, and ultimately, France.
"As all minds were full of the desire,' ' writes Abbe Cave'
Her, "of again beholding France, his eloquence was required
only to persuade some of our people to remain in the fort.
He portrayed to them the hardships and dangers to be en^
countered; the impossibility of subsisting if they all went
together on so long a march, with no resource but hunting.
He succeeded so well that a part determined to keep the
fort and my brother took only 28 of the most vigorous . . . * n
January 12, 1687, La Salle and his men set out for Fort
St. Louis on the Illinois River, as the first objective. "We
bade one another fare well,' ' writes Joutel, who accompanied
him, "with such tender sadness that it seemed all of us had
a secret presentiment that we should never meet again/ '
Father Zenobius said to Joutel, "he had never been so
sensibly touched at parting with anybody." 2
"There remained in that habitation," writes the same
Joutel, "the Fathers Maximus and Zenobius, Recollects;
M. Chedeville, the priest; the Marquis de la Sablonniere,
the Sieur Barbier, commander, his wife, a surgeon and others,
delation of M. Cavelier in Shea, Early Voyages Up and Down The Mississippi, p. 33.
According to Joutel he took only 17 men.
'JouteTa Historical Journal, in Cox, Journeys of La Salle, II, p. 99.
THE PRIKCE OF FRENCH EXPLORERS 103
to the number of twenty, among whom were seven women
or maids. . . ."
La Salle's band meantime struck out into the forests and
across prairies, creeks and rivers, towards the country of
the Cenis, where he had concealed food supplies on his
previous expedition (to find the Mississippi or to reach Cana-
da). The party looked ragged; their progress was slow and
toilsome; the morale of the men was low, despair was written
on every countenance, and the spirit of dissension and con-
spiracy was rife. "M. Duot of Rouen, who owned one-
half of a vessel," had for some time incited the men of the
unfortunate colony against the arbitrary regime of the nerve-
racked La Salle. The meshes of adverse fortune were tight-
ening around the great explorer.
The Relation of Couture 1 gives the following account
of the awful tragedy that was enacted on the banks of, or
at least near, the Trinity River: "On approaching the village
of the Senits, about 120 leagues from his camp . . . , he [La
Salle] came to a halt, in order to make a provision of game,
sending out a hunting party consisting of M. Morangy, his
relative, with an Arkansas from the village, and one French-
man. The return of the hunters was delayed, and De La
Salle became anxious about them. Thereupon six of the
Frenchmen volunteered to go in search of the party. But
their object was to make away with them. The six French-
men were: M. Duot of Rouen, who owned one-half of a
vessel; M. DTnctot, who held one-third of another vessel;
Meusnier, son of a King's Secretary: Gemmes, an English
soldier; 2 the pilot Texier, and the lackey of M. DTnctot.
J The version of Couture is given for the reason mentioned below by Edouard Richard
and because it is not as commonly quoted as the narratives of Joutel and Father Anastasius
Douay. "While it may be true, on the one hand, that Couture was not himself an eye'
witness of the facts, he had on the other hand this advantage over the actors in the drama,
or the friends of De la Salle, that he had no interest whatever in travestying or concealing
the truth, and that he was in a position to inform himself on the spot itself, from the source
referred to and probably from others. It is to be presumed that this narrative was written
by M. DeTonty or M. De la Forest, who were then in command at Fort St. Louis des
Illinois.'" Canadian Archives, Edouard Richard, 1899, p. 21.
2 Joutel and Douay call him Hiens. "Hiens was a buccaneer, and by birth a German."
Joutel , op. cit., p. 156. In his account of La Salle's first attempt to reach Canada, Father
Anastasius Douay writes: "... We reached a river, which we called Hiens, after a Ger'
man from Wittemburg, who got so fast in the mud that he could scarcely get out." — Cox,
op. cit., I, p. 224.
W4 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Having found the party, Duot and DTnctot proposed to the
others the murder of Morangy, Kasanga, the son of the village
chief, and the Frenchman. The Englishman, who had an
affection for Ka8an8a x because he was a good hunter, and
the pilot, did not consent, but allowed them to carry out their
design.
"Meantime De La Salle became anxious about the safety
of his cousin, and resolved to go out in search of him. M.
Cavelier [his brother] advised him to take some men with
him, but De La Salle replied that he did not need them, and
set forth accompanied only by Pere Anastase. After they
had marched some distance, De La Salle fired off his double-
barrelled pistol, the signal agreed upon in case he found him-
self in distress. The six Frenchmen had already resolved
to compass the death of De La Salle, and were returning for
that sole purpose, the first above named wanting to avenge
the death of his nephew, whom De La Salle had brought to
a miserable end, the others from personal dissatisfaction,
and each and all of them in order to get possession of the store,
which they considered themselves entitled to share as booty
among them after all the losses they had undergone, especially
the two first named.
"On hearing the pistol shots they knew that La Salle was
approaching, and all, by common consent, resolved to dispose
of him forthwith. But Duot and Ynctot, more eager than the
rest, pushed on in advance, and, catching sight of De La Salle,
went into ambush. D' Ynctot then instructed his servant to
stand facing the spot where they were concealed and to give
a rough answer to La Salle, when the latter would doubtless
advance upon him to strike him. And so it was. De La
Salle asked for news of Morangy, and the man, without
uncovering his head, gruffly replied: 'He has gone adrift 1 .
De La Salle then uttered threats, and advanced, when the
man replied with greater insolence still, and drew back to-
wards the party in ambush. De La Salle ran up to strike
him and was shot through the head by two assassins, and
expired instantly, without uttering a word or giving a sign.
And thus the company and presence of a priest, who was
beside him, was of no avail to him. The others, who had
l So given in the record. The figure 8 stands for ou — Kaouanoua.
THE PRIHCE OF FRENCH EXPLORERS 105
remained behind, ran up on hearing the shots. They then
stripped him and left his body like that of a beast unburied . . ,"*
to "feed the vulture, whose shriek, as he flapped his wings
above him, was his only Requiem !" 2
Consternation, disorder, anarchy, chaos followed. "Every
man ought to command in his turn," was the demand of
Duhaut. Joutel confesses "that the temptation we were
under of making them away in revenge for those they had
murdered would have easily prevailed and been put in execu-
tion, had not M. Cavelier, the priest, always positively
opposed it, alleging that we ought to leave vengeance to
God." 3
"They elected as chief," writes Anastasius Douay, "the
murderer of Sieur de la Salle [Duhaut], and at last, after many
deliberations, resolved to push on to that famous nation of
the Coenis. Accordingly, after marching together for several
days, crossing rivers and rivers, everywhere treated by these
wretches as servants, having nothing but what they left,
we reached the tribe without accident." 4
"Two sailors," continues Couture," who had taken refuge
among the Senits Indians a year or two before in order to
avoid ill-treatment from the hands of De La Salle, and the
Englishman Gemmes, who was one of the accomplices —
angered at not getting a share of the booty — told M. Cavelier
that they would avenge the death of his brother by killing
the two murderers Duot and DTnctot."
May 8, 1687, Hiens and the two half-savage Frenchmen
returned to camp from the Cenis, to whom they had gone
to barter. Joutel tells what follows: "He [Hiens] went
immediately to Duhaut and, after some discourse, told him
he was not for going towards the Mississippi, because it
would be of dangerous consequence for them, and therefore
demanded his share of the effects he had seised upon. Duhaut
refusing to comply, and affirming that all the axes were his
own, Hiens, who it is likely had laid the design before to
kill him, immediately drew his pistol and fired it upon Duhaut,
who staggered about four paces from the place and fell down
Canadian Archives, Edouard Richard, 1899, p. 22.
2 Kip, Early Jesuit Missions, VIII.
3 Joutel, Cox, op. cit., II, p. 130.
4 Anastasius Douay, Cox, op. cit., I, p. 246,
io6 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
dead. At the same time Ruter, who had been with Hiens,
fired his piece upon Liotot, the surgeon, and shot him through
with three balls.
"These murders, committed before us, put me into terrible
consternation, for, believing the same was designed for me,
I laid hold of my firelock to defend myself; but Hiens cried
out to me to fear nothing, to lay down my arms, and assured
me he had no design against me, but that he had avenged his
master's death. He also satisfied M. Cavelier and Father
Anastasius, who were as much frightened as myself, declaring
he meant them no harm, and, though he had been in the con-
spiracy, yet, had he been present at the time when M. de la
Salle was killed, he would not have consented, but rather
have obstructed it.
"Liotot lived some hours after, and had the good fortune
to make his confession, after which the same Ruter put him
out of his pain with a pistol shot. We dug a hole in the
earth and buried him in it with Duhaut, doing them more
honor than they had done to M. de La Salle and his nephew
Moranget, whom they left to be devoured by wild beasts/ 11
What unspeakable labor, hardships, sufferings, and horrors
the birth of the nation entailed !
TONTFS SEARCH FOR LA SALLE
In the month of September, 1683, La Salle had left Canada
in disgust, to seek the King's protection against the chicaneries
of de la Barre, Governor of New France. Tonti, whom La
Salle had left in charge of Fort St. Louis on the Illinois, sur-
rendered this post to Chevalier de Bogis, upon orders from de
la Barre, but by spring 1685 had been reinstated by order of
the King "to command at Fort St. Louis, as Captain of Foot
and Governor." In the fall of the same year Tonti went to
Michillimackinac to obtain news of La Salle. A letter from
the new Governor, Denonville, "informed me, 11 writes Tonti,
"that M. deLa Salle was engaged in seeking the mouth of the
Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico. Upon hearing this, I
resolved to go in search of him with a number of Canadians. " 2
The ever loyal Tonti reached the Gulf in Holy Week, April
^outel, Cox, op. cit., II., pp. 156-157.
Monty's Memoir, Cox, op. cit. t I., p. 33.
THE PRIHCE OF FRENCH EXPLORERS 107
10, 1686, four years after La Salle's prise de possession. "We
encamped in the place where M. de La Salle had erected the
arms of the King. As they had been thrown down by the
floods, I took them five leagues further up, and placed them
in a higher situation.' ' After searching in vain thirty leagues
west and twenty-five leagues east for some trace of his chief,
Tonti left a letter for La Salle with the chief of the Quinipis-
sas tribe, with instructions to pass it to La Salle, if perchance
he received word of his whereabouts :
"April 20, 1686.
"Sir, having found the column on which you had placed
the arms of France thrown down, I caused a new one to
be erected, about seven leagues from the sea. All the nations
have sung the calumet. These people fear us extremely,
since your attack upon their village. I close by saying that
it gives me great uneasiness to be obliged to return under
the misfortune of not having found you. Two canoes have
examined the coast thirty leagues towards Mexico, and
twenty-five towards Florida." 1
When Tonti reached the Arkansas, he left some French-
men there "to serve as an intermediate station to the Sieur
de La Salle." 2 Couture was placed in command. Tonti
and the rest of his men hurried on to Fort St. Louis on the
Illinois, and thence to Montreal, to confer with Denonville
about a war against the Iroquois.
In the meantime, seven of La Salle's companions, among
them his brother, the Reverend Cavelier, and P. Anastase,
with the consent of Hiens, broke away and continued their
route through an unknown country, and after two months
reached Couture's stockade 3 on the Arkansas, July, 1687.
Finally, on the 14th of September, 1687, Cavelier's bedrag-
gled party entered Fort St. Louis on the Illinois. "We
were conducted to the chapel," writes Anastasius Douay,
"where the Te Deum was chanted in thanksgiving, amid
the noise and volleys of the French and Indians, who were
immediately put under arms. The Sieur de Tonty, the
x Memoir by the Sieur de la Tonty, Cox, op. cit., I, pp. 31-35.
2 Douay, Cox, op. cit., I, p. 253.
3 Later called Poste aux Arkansas.
io8 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
governor of the fort, had gone to the Iroquois to conciliate
the minds of those Indians. 1 ' 1
Tonti returned soon thereafter to Fort St. Louis on the
Illinois. "There I found," he writes, "M. Cavelier, a priest;
his nephew, and the Father Anastasius, a Recollect, and two
men. They concealed from me the assassination of M. de
la Salle, and upon their assuring me that he was on the Gulf
of Mexico, in good health, I received them as if they had
been M. de la Salle himself and lent them more than seven
hundred francs. M. Cavelier departed in the spring, 1688,
to give an account of his voyage at court." 2
They did not advise Tonti of the death of La Salle, be-
cause they feared the vengeance of those implicated in the
murder, and then, too, Cavelier planned to make good the claims
of his brother. The deception of Tonti, "this brave gentle-
man [who] was always inseparably attached to the interest
of the Sieur de la Salle" 3 , remains the unpardonable sin of
Cavelier and Douay.
The miserable little colony at Matagorda Bay had a sad
end: savages attacked the colonists, massacred some and
made others prisoners, a few of whom came into the
hands of the Spaniards of Mexico. Only one found his way
back to France. 4
La Salle's ill-starred expedition to found a colony at the
mouth of the Mississippi was a total failure from the stand-
point of colonisation, but it did arouse the suspicion of the
Spaniards, who made every effort from then on to extend
their domain into Texas. 5
Hennepin, who, for some unaccountable reason, had
transferred his allegiance from Louis XIV to William III of
England, to whom he also dedicated his 7<[ouvelle Decouverte
and his K[ouveau Voyage in 1697 and 1698 respectively, un-
equivocally invited his newly acquired royal master to take
possession of the Mississippi Valley. A society was formed
in London, with Coxe, the proprietor of Carolina, as the
chief figure, for the purpose of founding a colony at or near
^ouay, Cox,, op. cit., I., p. 261.
2 Tonty, ibid., p. 41.
3 Douay, ibid., p. 262.
4 Garneau op. cit., II., pp. 3-10.
5 Heinrich, La Louisiane Frangaise, XX VII.
THE PRIHCE OF FRENCH EXPLORERS 109
the mouth of the Mississippi. Only prompt action on the
part of France could save for her the fruits of La Salle's
exploration.
Pierre Le Moyne cTIberville was the man chosen to take
up the work that had ended so pitiably with the pathetic
death of the "prince of French explorers,' 1 Robert Cavelier,
Sieur de la Salle.
D'IBERVILLE FI^DS THE MOUTH OF THE
MISSISSIPPI— THE BEGIHHIKGS
OF LOUISIAHA
For more than twelve years after 1686, when Tonti had
"encamped in the place where M. de la Salle had erected the
arms of the King," the lower Mississippi rolled its turbid
waters through the marshy, mosquito-breeding region of
the Delta, unseen by white men, and untouched by the oars
of Frenchmen. Shortly after the departure of Cavelier and
his party from Tontfs Fort St. Louis, on the Illinois, Couture,
the man in charge of the post on the Arkansas, arrived at
Fort St. Louis and informed Tonti "of the death of M. de
la Salle, with all the circumstances which they had heard
from the lips of M. Cavelier.' 11
In the hope of bringing relief to the stranded remnant of
La Salle's colony at Matagorda Bay, Tonti journeyed down to
the mouth of the Red River, and then up this stream, but
owing to the refusal of the savages to furnish guides, and
a shortage of ammunition, due to an accident, he retraced
his steps. Tonti writes in his Memoir: "I never suffered
so much in my life as in this journey to the Mississippi. . . .
We crossed fifty leagues of flooded country ... in all this
tract we found only one little island of dry land. ... It
would be difficult to give an idea of the trouble we had to
get out of this miserable country, where it rained night and
day. We were obliged to sleep on the trunks of two great
trees, placed together, and to make our fire on the trees, to
eat our dogs, and to carry our baggage across large tracts
covered with reeds." 2
The approximation of New France in the north and
Louisiana in the south, or rather, the union of the two col-
onies, as visioned by La Salle, was nearing its consummation.
July 16, 1698, Frangois de Montigny, M. Antoine Davion,
and Jean Frangois Buisson de St. Cosme, a band of secular
missionary priests, set out from the Seminary of Quebec on a
long and toilsome journey by canoe and on foot, along rivers
and lakes and across portages, to the distant field among the
l I. J. Cox, The Journeys of La Salle and His Companions, L, p. 41. Tontys Memoir.
Hbid., p. 56. Gunpowder was used to make fire.
IIO
LA SALLE'S DREAM REALIZED in
Tamarois on the east bank of the Mississippi. The mission
of the Immaculate Conception on the upper Illinois was then
the southernmost outpost of Christianity and civilisation in
the Mississippi Valley. Montigny's mission was to push
farther ahead among the pagan tribes, southward, on both
sides of the Mississippi. 1
In the previous year, September 5, 1697, "a French ship
of 42 guns," writes Gayarre, 2 L 'happened to be coasting the
hostile shore of Newfoundland. At that time England and
France were at war, and the bays and harbors of the British
possessions were swarming with the floating battlements of
the mistress of the sea. Nevertheless, from the careless man-
ner in which that ship, which bore the white flag of France,
hugged the coast, one would have thought that no danger
was to be apprehended from such close proximity to cap-
tivity or death.
"Suddenly, three vessels hove in sight; it was not long
before their broad canvass wings seemed to spread wider,
and their velocity to increase. To the most unpracticed
eye it would have been evident that they were in pursuit
of an object which they longed to reach. Yet, they of the
white flag appeared to be unconscious of the intention of
their fellow- travelers on the boundless desert of the ocean.
Although the French ship, with her long masts, towering
like steeples, could have borne much more canvass; although
the breeze blew fresh, and the circumstances might have
invited to rapidity of motion, yet not one additional inch of
sail did she show, but she continued to move with a speed,
neither relaxed nor increased.
"High on the quarter-deck stood the captain, with the
spy-glass in his hands, and surrounded by his officers. After
a minute survey of the unknown vessels, as they appeared,
with outlines faint and hardly visible from the distance,
he had dropped his glass, and said to the bystanders : 'Gentle-
men, they are vessels of war, and British.' Then he instinct-
ively cast a rapid glance upward at the rigging; the look
which he flung at the deck was long and steady. That look
and those compressed lips produced instantaneous action,
1 Quebec Seminary Archives.
sGayarrS, op. cit., pp. 3641.
in FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
such action as when man prepares to meet man in deadly
encounter. It was plain that between that chief and his
crew there was that sympathetic congeniality which im-
parts thought and feeling without the use of language.
"In the meantime, the vessels which had been descried
at the farthest point of the horizon, had been rapidly gaining
upon the intervening distance, and were dilating in size
as they approached. It could be seen that they had sep-
arated from each other, and they appeared to be sweeping
round the Pelican [for such was the name of the French ship],
as if to cut her off from retreat. Already could be plainly
discovered St. George's cross, flaunting in the wind.
"They of the white flag never thought of flight. They
shorten sail as if to invite approach. . . . The four vessels
are within gun-shot, and the fearful struggle is to begin.
One is a British ship of the line [Hampshire], showing a
row of 56 guns, and her companions [Hudson Bay and Dev
ring] are frigates armed with 32 and 36 guns each. To
court such an unequal contest, must not that French com-
mander be the very impersonation of madness?
"There he stands on the quarter-deck, a man apparently of
thirty years of age, attired as if for a courtly ball, in the gor-
geous dress of the time of Louis the Fourteenth. The profuse
curls of his perfumed hair seem to be bursting from the large,
slouched gray hat, which he wears on one side inclined,
and decorated with a red plume horizontally stuck to the
broad brim, according to the fashion of the day. . . . That
boy, so young, so delicate, but who, in an under-officer's
dress, stands with such manly courage by one of the guns, —
he is your brother! 1
"What awful silence on board of those ships! Were it
not for the roar of the waves, as they are cleft by the gigantic
bulk under which they groan, the chirping of a cricket might
be distinctly heard. How near they are to each other! ....
Now, the crash is coming ! The tempest of fire, havoc, and
destruction is to be let loose! Ha! there it goes — one
simultaneous blase! The eruption of Mount Vesuvius —
a strange whining sound — the hissing of ten thousand
serpents, bursting from hell and drunk with its venom —
1 Bienville.
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LA SALLE'S DREAM REALIZED 113
the fall of timber, as if a host of sturdy axes had been at
work in the forest. . . .
"With the occasional clearing of the smoke, the French
ship may be seen, as if animated with a charmed life, gliding
swiftly by her foes, and pouring in her broadsides with
unabated rapidity. Her commander, as if gifted with su-
pernatural powers and with the privilege of ubiquity, seems
to be present at the same time in every part of the ship,
animating and directing all with untiring ardor.' 1
The result of the gallant sea-fight was that d'Iberville,
for he was the commander of the Pelican, sank one British
ship, captured a second, and put the third to flight. 1
Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville, was the son of Charles
Le Moyne, Sieur de Longueuil, born at Montreal, July
16, 1661. He was the third of eleven sons, nine of whom
distinguished themselves in the service of Canada or France.
Iberville had learnt the art of war in the hard school of
Canadian frontier life, that demanded quick wit and pro-
digious physical resistance to the hardships of Indian warfare.
He had taken part in many expeditions against the English.
In 1694 he had wrested Fort Nelson 2 from them; two years
later he had captured all the English settlements on the coast
of Newfoundland; and in 1697 he fought the naval battle
so vividly described by Gayarre, in which Bienville, his
younger brother, was wounded. In November of the same
year, d'Iberville sailed for France. His appearance at Court
was opportune.
Spain had always looked upon America as the exclusive
patrimony of the Spaniards and thoroughly disliked La
Salle's attempt to found a colony at the mouth of the Mis-
sissippi. Spain's move to checkmate La Salle's colony was
to establish the post of Pensacola on the west coast of Flo-
rida. 3
Louis XIV selected the hero of the Pelican, Pierre Le
Moyne d'Iberville, to take up the venture so tragically
interrupted by the gruesome death of La Salle. October
24, 1698, d'Iberville, with his brothers Sauvole and Bien-
ville and their men set sail from Brest, France, in four ships,
1 Alcee Fortier, in Catholic Encyclopedia, VII., p. 614
2 Fort Nelson (Bourbon), in Hudson Bay.
3 F. X. Garneau, Histoire du Canada, Tome Second p. 12
ii 4 FROM QUEBEC TO KEW ORLEANS
to find the mouth of the Mississippi, to establish a colony,
and to work their way northward into the Mississippi
basin, and to assure its possession for France.
D' Iberville reached the neighborhood of the Mississippi
Delta on February 27, 1699. Leaving his ships in the harbor
of Ship Island, not far from the present Ocean Springs,
Miss., he set out with Bienville and 48 men in two row-
boats and two canoes. On the third day of reconnoitering,
March 2, 1699, they noticed the changed color of the water
and a strong current flowing into the ocean. Iberville had
found what La Salle had missed, — the mouth of the Mis-
sissippi.
With an escort of four men he ascended the River up to
the habitat of the Oumas Indians, opposite the mouth of
the Red River. At Bayagoulis (Quinipissas Village) the
chief showed him a soiled and greasy packet — it was the
message which Tonti had entrusted to him thirteen years
before. 1 The letter was addressed to La Salle, but that
wanderer's body had been eaten by vultures, and La.
Salle would not return to know the pathetic loyalty of Tonti.
The emotions that stirred d' Iberville at such a find, we,
who live more than two centuries later, cannot begin to
imagine.
Creeping along the northern coast of the Gulf, while
looking for the mouth of the Mississippi, d'Iberville had
stumbled on to the Spanish post in Pensacola Bay, and had
then sailed farther west, and had thus discovered Mobile
Bay, some distance east of Ship Island. He had found
the mouth of the Mississippi, and he had the letter of
Tonti to corroborate his contention; he also knew that
the Spanish were at Pensacola. D'Iberville, therefore,
decided to return at once to France to report his discoveries
and findings. However, he first erected a fort at a place
called Biloxi, 2 now Ocean Springs, and named it Fort
Maurepas, in honor of the Prime Minister of France.
Thus Fort Maurepas became the first permanent French
settlement in Louisiana. D'Iberville left Sauvole and his
younger brother Bienville in charge, with 76 men and sup-
plies for six months, and then sailed for France, May 3, 1699.
^arneau, op. cit., p. 13.
2 Montigny calls it Bilocchi.
LA SALLE'S DREAM REALIZED n 5
In his report to the Court he stressed the necessity of build'
ing up a strong colony in Louisiana, for "if France would
not take possession of that beautiful part of America, the
English colony would grow to such an extent that in less
than one hundred years England would seise the whole
of America and drive out all other nations." 1
In 1627 Charles I of England had made a grant of a cer-
tain territory known as "Carolana" to Sir Robert Heath.
Daniel Coxe later bought this grant and organised a company
for the purpose of establishing a colony near the mouth of
the Mississippi in accordance with Hennepin's suggestion. 2
While d' Iberville was in France to make report of his
findings in the lower Mississippi Valley, his brother, Bien-
ville, a mere boy of eighteen, went back to further recon-
noiter the Mississippi. September 16, 1699, while returning
from this expedition, he saw in midstream a ship flying the
English flag. It was one of Coxe's ships, sent out to take
possession of that part of the Valley. Brave and fearless
as he was, the lad boarded the ship and was kindly received.
The captain, Bank, or Bess, as he is also called, told him he was
looking for the Mississippi. "This is not the Mississippi, 1 '
said Bienville, "it is a river of Canada, and there is a large
French colony further up." 3 The English actually turned
back, and the French later named that place Detour des
Anglais, or English Turn.
But the incident was replete with forebodings. The
French and English, who had already contacted on several
occasions in Canada, now met for the first time in the valley
of the lower Mississippi. English traders from the Caro-
linas soon penetrated the Alleghenies and came as far west as
the Mississippi in search of slaves, and to arm theChickasaws.
Montigny, who visited the various Indian tribes of the
south in 1699 with a view to establishing peace among them, in
order thereby to facilitate the labors of the missionaries, writes
from "des taensas:" "Two englishmen from the Carolina,
1 Heinrich, La Louisiane sous la Compagnie des Indes, p. XXXI.
2 William of Orange, a Dutch prince, had married Mary, the daughter of James II of
England. In 1688 William and Mary supplanted James II, who fled to France and died
there in 1701. Hennepin had suggested to King William the idea of taking possession of
the Mississippi Valley. See p. 96, n. 3.
3 Campbell, Pioneer Laymen, II., p. 206.
n6 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
who live among the chickachas, goad these on to make war
in all directions and to take as many slaves as they can,
whom they then purchase from them [the Chickasaws]
and sell to the english, who in turn send them to the Antilles
(barbade) and elsewhere." 1
The voyages of d 1 Iberville and young Bienville are truly
astounding. To preclude the peril of English invasion d'Iber-
ville decided to construct two forts, one on the Mississippi,
to effect a closer contact with all the tribes of the Valley,
and the other on the Mobile (Tombigbee or Tombecbeck),
to arm the Choctaws against the Chickasaws and force
them to drive out the English traders from their villages.
The Spaniards resented the idea of a French colony at
the mouth of the Mississippi; they had not forgotten La
Salle's wild dreams of dispossessing them from Mexico.
Louis XIV hoped to convince the Court of Madrid that
Spain had nothing to fear from a French colony in the lower
Mississippi basin; that, in fact, such a colony would be
decidedly advantageous to Spanish interests, as it would
facilitate a Spanish-French combination that could effect-
ively block the westward march of the English. D 1 Iberville
was commissioned to prepare the memorandum 2 for the
Court of Spain on this delicate matter. He set forth that,
taking into account the number of inhabitants in the English
colonies along the Atlantic seaboard and the population
these colonies would have within 30 to 40 years, it was
evident that the English would then be in position to roll
up an army of 30,000 — 40,000 men, and, with the help of
the Indians, drive out the Spanish and French from the lower
Mississippi. That would naturally also jeopardise the
Spanish possessions in Mexico.
But Castilian pride and self-confidence would not permit
the Court of Madrid to share the French viewpoint; Spain
refused to look upon the English as adversaries in the New
World and protested the French settlement as "an unjust
usurpation." So France decided to build up her colony
along the lower Mississippi without the blessing of Spain.
l Lettre de M. Montigny, August 25, 1699, Quebec Seminary Archives.
2 This account is drawn chiefly from Pierre Heinrich, La Louisiane sous la Compagnie
des Indes, XXXV. £
LA SALLE'S DREAM REALIZED 117
The return of Iberville in December, 1699, relieved the
sense of loneliness and brought joy to the hearts of the strug-
gling colonists. He brought the news that the King had
graciously deigned to appoint his brother Sauvole Governor
of Louisiana, Bienville Lieutenant-Governor, and Boisbriand,
his cousin, Commandant of the fort. Of course, young
Bienville took great delight in recounting to his older brother
how he had foiled the attempt of the British to establish
themselves on the Mississippi.
"Without loss of time," writes Gayarre, "he [dTberville]
departed with Bienville, on the 17th of January, 1700, and
running up the river [Mississippi], he constructed a small
fort, on the first solid ground which he met, and which is
said to have been at a distance of fifty four miles from its
mouth. When so engaged, the two brothers one day saw
a canoe rapidly sweeping down the river, and approaching
the spot where they stood. It was occupied by eight men,
six of whom were rowers, the seventh was the steersman,
and the eighth, from his appearance, was evidently of a
superior order to that of his companions, and the commander
of the party. Well may it be imagined what greetings the
stranger received, when, leaping on shore, he made himself
known as Chevalier de Tonti, who had again heard of the
establishment of a colony in Louisiana, and who, for the
second time, had come to see if there was any truth in the
report. With what emotions did Iberville and Bienville
fold in their arms the faithful companion and friend of La
Salle, of whom they had heard so many wonderful tales. . . .
With what admiration they looked at his person, and with
what increasing interest they listened to his long recitals
of what he had done and had seen on that broad continent,
the threshold of which they had hardly passed I" 1
Indeed, one can readily share the emotions animating
Gayarre when he exclaims : "Is there not something extremely
romantic in the characters of the men of that epoch?"
Bienville, on orders from Iberville, abandoned Biloxi and
proceeded to Massacre Island 2 (Dauphine Island). The
French were still feeling their way, and so they next moved
Gayarre, op. cit., pp. 75 and 46.
2 The French named this island Massacre Island, because they found a large quantity
of human bones on its shores.
u8 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
from Massacre Island and constructed "Fort Louis de la
Louisiane 11 at the second bluff on the Mobile River. That
was in March, 1702. D'Iberville himself traced the streets
of the new settlement, distributed lands, and personally
installed the first four families of the future population.
Such was the founding of Mobile, and d'Iberville felt that
it would soon be the center of a great colony. Everything
seemed to justify his expectations: vast quantities of hides
and pelts could easily be procured from the natives; there
was the possibility of ship-building, and then there were
the mines of lead and copper and perhaps more precious
metals that would supply all the needs of France.
Mobile solidly established, d'Iberville planned to erect
posts all along the Mississippi — at the mouth of the Arkansas,
Ohio, Missouri, etc. He would transplant certain friendly
Indian tribes to more strategic positions, for instance, the
Illinois Indians to the Valley of the Ohio, where Jucher-
eau de Saint Denis 1 was even then planting the Fleur-de-Lis
at d 1 Iberville's behest. All these measures would help
check the English from pushing forward to the Mississippi,
Charles Juchereau de Saint-Denys was born at Quebec, December 6, 1655. In 1694
he was appointed first royal judge of Montreal. Saint-Denys conceived the idea of estab'
lishing tanneries in the Mississippi Valley. Letters patent granting permission to estab'
lish tanneries were signed by Louis XIV, June 4, 1701. The document contains some
interesting points: permission is granted to proceed down the Mississippi with twenty
four men and eight canoes; he may take along whatever tools he may see fit, all the mer-
chandise he may need, except brandy, which he may take for the use of the Frenchmen,
but not for trade with the savages; he may barter in any kind of peltries, except beaver
skins, which barter is strictly forbidden under any pretext whatsoever; he may also work
lead and copper mines, which he may discover; he must have a chaplain to say Mass and
administer the sacraments to the men. He may choose his chaplain, subject to the approval
of the Bishop of Quebec or, in his absence, of the Vicar General.
Juchereau de Saint-Denys actually established two tanneries, one at Michillimackinac
and the other near the mouth of the Ohio, probably a short distance above the present
Cairo, Illinois. The Jesuit Father Mermet was appointed missionary of this post. The
medicine men of the neighboring tribes were extremely hostile to Father Mermet. Juch-
ereau de Saint-Denys died in the fall of 1703, and the establishment was immediately
abandoned.
As a further point of interest it may be noted that three years later his widow married
Louis Lienard de Beaujeu of Montreal. Of this marriage there were two distinguished sons:
the Abbe Louis de Beaujeu, later confessor of Louis XVI, and Daniel-Hyacinthe-Marie
de Beaujeu, who defeated Gen. Braddock on the Monongahela River. See P.-G. Roy, La Fa'
mille JuchereawDuchesnay, pp. 102., ff. See also J. Wallace, Illinois and Louisiana under French
Rule, pp. 299, ff.
LA SALLE'S DREAM REALIZED ug
and, in case of war, cTIberville would have a force strong
enough to destroy some of the English colonies. None of
these plans were carried out, chiefly because the illness
of d'Iberville, who was stricken with yellow fever, and
the inopportune outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession
prevented their execution. But his projects were so ad-
vanced and so daring that even Canada became jealous of
the prospects of Louisiana, and Callieres, Governor of that
country, petitioned the Minister to keep d'Iberville under
the Quebec government and not make him independent.
Restless and adventurous men like La Salle, d' Iberville,
Bienville and other early pioneers of Louisiana, were wonder-
ful assets for discovery and exploration, but less fitted to
establish a permanent colony. Deiler 1 very correctly re-
marks: "In the beginning of the colony the French com-
mitted the grave error of not giving enough attention to
agriculture. Two years after the founding of Mobile, in
1704, the civilian part of the population of Louisiana con-
sisted of twenty-three families, with ten children, who lived
along the shore in huts with palmetto or straw roofs, fishing
and hunting. It is true that they also had little gardens
around their huts, but for provisions they relied on the
vessels from France.' '
To d 1 Iberville's credit it must be said that, theoretically
at least, he realised that what the colony needed above all
else was a goodly number of colonists, men who were willing
to work and till the soil. Louis XIV thought of sending
him all the superfluous coureurs de bois. But most of them
were contraband, or bootleg, traders, men without fixed
domicile, nomads who roamed about, speculators who felt
they could make an easier living by other means than by
handling the plow and harrow, or grubbing stumps to clear
a field. They were, many of them, addicted to drink and
gambling, drifting along in absolute independence, recog-
nising neither superiors, nor judges, nor police, and scandal-
ising even the savages by their wild excesses. Even a strong
man like d'Iberville could not transform this class into farm-
ers, and the colony needed farmers.
Wood draws a clear picture of the vast plans entertained
by Louis XIV, who disdained small ideas; "French strategy
l J. Hanno Deiler, German Coast of Louisiana, p. 8.
120 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
in America, still based upon Quebec, then aimed at the con-
trol of the three great gulfs, the three great rivers, and the
five Great Lakes. Grandiose as this appears to us now, we
must remember that France was then the first power in
Europe and had a population far exceeding the population
of Great Britain. Moreover, she did command the local
areas of the three great gulfs toward the end of the seven-
teenth century, when d' Iberville commanded Hudson Bay,
raided Newfoundland, and had no challenger in either the
Gulf of St. Lawrence or of Mexico. The St. Lawrence,
Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers were also under French con-
trol, if under any, a little later on; while the five Great Lakes
were practically free from all whites but the French.' 11
*Wbod, Unique Quebec, p. 42.
WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION
The European background of American history again
rises into view. The troubles of Europe were in those days,
far more than today, reflected in America, and the issues of
the New World were sometimes fought out in Europe.
Disagreements between the mother countries enkindled
like feelings between their colonies in the New World. In
Europe the stake at this time was the throne of Spain. In
the southeast of North America it was quite a different one,
yet none the less precious — the friendship of the Chickasaws
and Choctaws. If the French had the friendship of these pow-
erful tribes, they had nothing to fear from their English neigh-
bors; whereas, if the South Carolinians had them as allies, they
could drive the handful of French into the Gulf of Mexico.
It all happened in this way. 1 Charles II, King of Spain,
in ill health for some time, was expected to die, and without
issue. The all-important question in Europe was: Who
will be the next King of Spain? Louis XIV of France and
Leopold I of Austria each had his candidate. Each had mar-
ried a Spanish princess, and each claimed the right for his
descendants to succeed to the crown of Spain, in case the
King died without issue. The French King chose his grand-
son, Philip of Anjou, the son of the Dauphin, 2 to become
King of Spain, and Leopold of Austria claimed the Spanish
crown for his second son, the Archduke Charles. Of course,
there were other candidates proposed in the chancellories of
Europe. Louis XIV won out in the first round. By Last
Will and Testament of October 1, 1700, Charles II of Spain
designated Philip of Anjou, the grandson of Louis XIV, to
be his successor. Charles II died soon after.
Louis XIV had hoped the relations between France and
Spain would be as cordial as though the Pyrenees 3 no longer
existed between the two countries. He admonished the new
King, Philip, his grandson, to "be a good Spaniard, that is
your first duty . . . behold these two nations so closely
^his presentation is drawn chiefly from Dr. J. B. Weiss, Weltgeschichte, Der Spanische
Erbfolge^ieg, X., pp. 654-800. This war is commonly known as Queen Anne's War.
2 Dauphin, that is, the eldest son of the King of France and heir to the throne.
3 Pyrenees — range of mountains separating France and Spain.
121
122 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
united that they really are only one. . . . You will see my
grandson at the head of the Spaniards to defend the French,
and me at the head of the French to defend the Spaniards. . . .
My son, the Pyrenees no longer exist."
Louis addressed the new King thus: "Trh'haut et tres'
puissant prince, notre tres'cher et tres'dime bon frere et petit
jrls," (Most Illustrious and most Powerful Prince, our very
dear and beloved good Brother and Grandson), and Philip,
on his part would write: "Au roi, mon frere et mon grand'
pere." (To the King, my Brother and my Grandfather).
There was great joy at the Court of Versailles. The
Dauphin, father of the new King, told his friends he could
now say: "My father the King, my son the King", and he
himself expected to become King upon the death of his father
the King, but neither he, nor even his son, became King of
France. Louis XV was the great-grandson of Louis XIV.
Unhappily for France, the other nations of Europe did
not share this rejoicing of the Bourbon family, but formed
a coalition that nearly ruined France. Leopold of Austria was
deeply offended, and all Europe sensed the danger that
might result from the close union of the crowns of France
and Spain, — the balance of power was disturbed.
The last years of Louis XIV were saddened by the dis-
asters of the war known as the War of the Spanish Suc-
cession. The conflict spread to the New World. England
and France met in battle in New France. Quebec was
attacked by a "combined invasion," writes Wood, "which,
if properly led, Quebec could never have withstood. But
the mulish Admiral, Sir Hovenden Walker, 'kept it at North 1
till Egg Island, at the N. W. corner of the Gulf, was strewn
with wrecked transports carrying a good number of the
veteran soldiers who were completely miscommanded by
that ass of a General, Jack Hill. The mule and the ass then
brayed together and went home." 1
D'Iberville had just returned to France from his third
voyage when the War of the Spanish Succession broke
out. What was to be the fate of the handful of French on
the borders of the Gulf of Mexico? The census of September
Wood, Unique Quebec, p. 42.
EUROPE AGAINST LOUIS XIV 123
14, 1704, showed 195 inhabitants at Mobile: 8 major officers,
3 priests, 72 soldiers, 14 marine officers and sailors, 10 ship-
boys, 40 Canadians, 16 laborers, 3 filibusters, 23 women or
girls, and only two families with a total of six persons. 1
What could the mother country do to aid the poor colony
while the fortunes of war were against France? Until 1707,
an average of one ship a year came to the colony, and then
none arrived until 171 1. The result was that the normal
condition of the colony was famine and misery. Bienville
had recourse to Vera Cms to obtain the necessaries of life
for his garrison. The colony lacked everything — farm hands,
oxen to pull the plow, and even farm implements. Unfor-
tunately these colonists continued to look for ships that
did not arrive, instead of turning to agriculture and making
a living. Add to that the uncertainty of the future, and it
becomes evident that nobody cared to settle down to real
work. As is usual when things do not go well, dissension
broke out in their own ranks. The colonists were almost
naked, and the soldiers wore skins instead of uniforms;
the food consisted of maise and acorns and whatever they could
obtain by hunting. To fill the measure of misery to over-
flowing, a Spanish privateer came along in 1711 and destroyed
the settlement on Massacre Island, and the same year Mobile
suffered the ravages of a disastrous flood. But the colonists
held bravely on, rebuilt their settlement on Massacre Island,
which they named Dauphine Island, and laid the foundation
for a new Mobile a few miles away.
From their father, Charles Le Moyne, who had been the
most successful peacemaker with the Indians in Canada,
both d'Iberville and Bienville had inherited the happy faculty
of treating with the Indians. It is truly marvelous how
they succeeded, when we bear in mind the small number of
Frenchmen at Mobile and their miserable condition and
abject poverty. Bienville relates that Chickasaw and Choc-
taw chiefs had asked him if his country, France, had more
people than the colony at Mobile. And if France had more
people and was a powerful country, why did they not come
to avenge the death of Father St. Cosme, the Quebec Sem-
l Udmich, op. cit., XLIV., note 1.
i2 4 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
inary missionary at Natchez, who had been murdered by
the savages I 1
Bienville's Indian policy won the day, and his savage
friends were so loyal to him that they rather accepted a
small present from him than one of much greater value
from the English. He settled their quarrels, protected the
weak against the stronger, and sent back the slaves the coureurs
de bois had purchased contrary to his orders. On the other
hand, it was the custom of the English colonists to take
slaves even from among Indian tribes who were friendly
to them. Emissaries of the Governor of Carolina appeared
among the Choctaws, and the stage was set for an attack
on the wretched French colony in the fall of 1709, but the
attitude of the tribes friendly to the French prevented the
realisation of the plan.
In 1712, Spotswood, Governor of Virginia, had called the
attention of the Board of Trade (London) to the attempts
of the French to establish a line of communication between
Canada and the lower Mississippi, and suggested to march
through the gaps of the Alleghenies to block the contacting
between the two French colonies, which, he said, menaced
the safety of the English colonies. The distant forebodings
of the final struggle between these rival nations are clearly
perceptible. The English Indian traders had already assem-
bled the savages, and the day of departure had been set,
when peace was signed between France and England, 2 and
the little colony on the Gulf was safe again.
The details of the War of the Spanish Succession, which
proved so disastrous to France, are beyond the scope of this
volume. Concerning the American possessions, the stip-
ulations of the Treaty of Utrecht, which ended this war,
are the following: 1) France cedes to England Newfound-
land, except Cape Breton, and retains an interest in the
fisheries; France further surrenders Acadia, Hudson Bay
and adjoining territories; 2) France is not to carry on trade
with the Spanish colonies, except as permitted under Charles
II, former King of Spain. 3
^einrich, op. at., LII, note 5. See also page 145, n. 1. post.
2 The Treaty of Utrecht (Holland) was signed April 11, 1713.
Weiss, Weltgeschichte, X., pp. 783, ff.
EUROPE AGAIHST LOUIS XIV 125
Article 15 of the Treaty of Utrecht was couched in such
form that later England held to one interpretation, while
France insisted on another. It reads thus: "The inhabi-
tants of Canada and other French subjects shall not molest
in future the Five Nations 1 of Indians subject to Great
Britain nor the other nations of America friendly to this
crown." Towards the end of this article it was agreed that
a committee would later determine precisely which Indians
should be considered subject and friendly to Great Britain.
The French maintained that the Iroquois, too, were the
subject of further discussion, whereas the English held
the opposite view. 2
r The five principal tribes of this family — Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas,
and Senecas, all stationed in palisaded villages south and east of lakes Erie and Ontario-—
formed a loose confederacy styled by themselves and the French The Long House,' and
by the English The Five Nations,' which firmly held the waterways connecting the Hud-
son and Ohio rivers and the Great Lakes." Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, I., Introduction, p. 11.
2 Heinrich, op. cit., LV., note 5.
KASKASKIA OH THE UPPER ILLINOIS
On Easter Sunday, April 14, 1675, Father Marquette
had set out from the Village of the Kaskaskias on what
proved to be his last journey — the journey through the
portals of death. Before his departure he had "pledged
them his word" that he or some other Father would soon
return to them. "As a mark of honor," writes Father Dablon,
"they chose to escort him for more than 30 leagues on the
Road, vying with each other in taking Charge of his slender
baggage." 1
Father Marquette's promise was kept. April 27, 1677,
Father Claude Alloue? arrived from Green Bay to continue
the work of the sainted Marquette among the Illinois Indians.
The savages generally followed the waterways, and the
traders followed the savages. French traders grouped about
the mission of the Immaculate Conception among the Kas-
kaskias on the upper Illinois, and thus the first definite set-
tlement of whites developed in the Illinois country.
Toward the end of the 17th century, the Illinois Indians
occupied an immense territory: all that country enclosed
by the Mississippi on the west, the Fox and the Wisconsin
to the northwest, Lake Michigan on the north, St. Joseph
River and Ohio River to the east, southeast and south.
Sporadic Iroquois invasions had driven the Illinois across the
Mississippi since about 1667, but little by little, and group
by group, they had come back to their habitat along the
Illinois River. The Kaskaskias were the first to return, to
the number of about 3000. Claude Alloues, Father Mar-
quette's successor, found about 11,000 Illinois Indians.
He states: "I found the population of this village [Kaskaskia]
greatly increased this last year; heretofore there was only
one nation, the Kaskaskia, but now there are eight. . . . They
live in 351 cabins which are easy to count, because they
are ranged along the river front." 2
Claude Dablon, in Jesuit Relations, LIX., pp. 186-191.
2 The eight tribes of the Illinois, as enumerated by Rochemonteix, were the following:
1) Kikapous; 2) Kaskaskias; 3) Miamis; 4) Cahokias (Caoquias); 5) Peorias; 6) Tarnarois
(Tamaroas); 7) Moiiingoiienas; 8 Mitchigamias and the Weas and Piankaskaws. Camille
de Rochemonteix, Lesjesuites et la T^puvelle France au XVIIe Siecle, III., p. 529, n. 2.
126
THE FIRST KASKASKIA 127
The good Father complains that the seven new tribes did
not manifest the same ready disposition to receive Christianity
as the Kaskaskias. He could not remain long with them,
and on May 3, 1677, erected a twenty-foot cross in their
village, and returned to Green Bay. Later, in 1678, he again
visited the mission, and remained there two years. While
he worked among the Miamis, another war 1 broke out between
the Iroquois and the Illinois Indians.
The Illinois labored under the impression that the French
had instigated the war, and swore they would kill the first
Frenchman who would dare enter their village. When Father
Alloues heard of this, he immediately set out for Kaskaskia,
and addressed the assembled Indians as follows: "I know
your wicked designs, but my seal for your salvation and my
desire to make Jesus Christ known to you, cause me to dis-
regard my own life/"* The Indians hated cowardice, and this
proof of courage and manifestation of sincere interest in
their welfare touched their savage hearts, and they replied:
"Now we know that thou dost love us and art our father. " 2
The Father improved the repentant disposition of his
savage friends and erected a chapel in their midst, and there
instructed them daily and endeavored to correct their vices.
But the war between the two tribes hampered his work
to such an extent that he left Kaskaskia 8 . He died some years
later, August 28, 1689, at Saint Francois Xavier mission.
Father Alloues had spent twenty-four years in the apostolic
field of the mid-west (Wisconsin and Illinois), 1665-1689 . It is
said that during his career in the missions he preached the
Gospel to 100,000 savages of twenty different nations, and
baptised 10,000. 4
The tangible results among the Illinois had, however,
been very meagre, but he had sown the seed of Christianity
and civilisation, and others reaped the harvest.
Father Jacques Gravier is considered the real founder of
the mission among the Illinois. "It was he who first made
^his would seem to have been the same war in which Tonti took such an heroic part.
See pp. 93-94, ante.
2 Rochemonteix, op. at., III., p. 534.
3 "In 1689 he was on the point of being burned by the savages of Chicagou on Lake Michi'
gan." La Potherie in Rochemonteix, op. at., III., p. 536, note 3.
4 Campbell, op. cit., II., p. 164.
128 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEAHS
clear the principles of their language, and who reduced them
to the rules of grammar; we have only perfected that which
he successfully began." 1
In 1689, when Gravier came to them, the Kaskaskias
and Peorias and Mouingoiienas were located near the present
Starved Rock on the Illinois River, a few leagues below
Fort Saint Louis, erected by La Salle in 1680, and below
their habitat in the days of Marquette. They were not as
numerous as then; the Iroquois war had decimated and
scattered the tribes. The Tamarois and Cahokias had located
farther south along the Mississippi River, below the mouth
of the Illinois, at and above the present Cahokia.
The Kaskaskias were the most numerous of all the Illinois
tribes, and also the most favorably inclined to accept the
teachings of Christianity. Father Gravier moved freely
among the remnants of the Illinois Indians and urged them
to locate with the Kaskaskias on the Illinois River. The
Peorias and Mouingoiienas followed his suggestion. 2
Father Rasle, who arrived among them in 1693, gives
their number at 300 cabins, all of four or five fires (one
fire is always for two families). 3 Kaskaskia was then the
most important of the eleven villages of the Illinois tribe.
In a letter to his nephew, the same Father gives the follow-
ing account of the spiritual status of the mission: "Many
of the children have been baptised, and they come every
day to instruction and catechism class. The women and
girls form a large group. They are full of fervor and often
receive the sacraments. Many others are well disposed
to receive baptism. But the medicine men (charlatans)
are very antagonistic; they fear they will lose their influence,
and the young men, too, are unfriendly, because the new
religion curbs their excessive vices. ,M
Father Julien Binneteau and Father Gabriel Marest took
up the missionary work at Kaskaskia when Rasle was trans-
Gabriel Marest in Jesuit Relations, LXVI., p. 247-
2 A few years later they must have migrated toward the southern end of Peoria Lake.
At any rate, that is where the Jesuits had their mission in November, 1698. Rochemon'
teix, op. cit., III., p. 537-
3 At an average of four persons to a family, we have (300x5x2x4) twelve thousand savages
among the three tribes. See Lawrence Kenny, S. J., St. Louis Catholic Historical Review
April, 1919, p. 153.
4 Rochemonteix, op. cit., III., p. 538.
THE FIRST KASKASKIA 129
ferred to the Abenakis missions, and Father Gravier became
Superior of the Ottawa Missions with headquarters at Michil-
limackinac. They found the Indians so well disposed to
Christianity that, within the short space of two or three
years, they built a second and a third chapel. 1
l Rochemontcix, op. ctt., III., p. 540.
MISSIOH OF THE SEMINAIRE DE QUEBEC—
TAMAROIS—CAHOKIA
It was a fixed policy of the French government throughout
the colonial period to provide spiritual guidance for the
French, and to attempt to christianize the savages in the
New World. Hanotaux tersely characterizes the history
of the French in America in these words : "The history of
Canada can be expressed in three words : exploration, struggle
(la lutte), preaching the Gospel (evangelisation). Diplomacy
scarcely did anything but make mistakes. "*
In accordance with this policy, missionaries accompanied
the first explorers, and from the time of Champlain we find
definitely established missions. First came the Recollect
(Franciscan) Fathers, then the Jesuits, then the Sulpicians. The
Seminary Fathers took up their missionary activity in 1685. 2
Bishop Laval, 3 first Catholic Bishop of Quebec, estab-
lished a Seminary in his episcopal city in 1663. 4 The primary
purpose of this Seminary was that it should be a home (foyer)
for the secular priests in the missions of his vast diocese.
In this Seminary they would be equipped to go out to the
missions; here they would stay, if for any reason they came
to Quebec; here, too, they would find a home in sickness
and old age. The mission priests could thus give their
whole lives to the cause of the missions, without any thought
of self, because in case of illness or old age a friendly home
awaited them. 5 The second purpose was to train young
1 Hanotaux, La France Vivante en Amerique du J^prd.
2 In Acadia. See p. 51, n. 1, ante.
3 Bishop Laval ruled the Church of New France from 1659 to 1684, when he resigned
on account of ill health, but he lived until May 6, 1708.
4 Gagnon, Louis Jolliet, p. 10.
5 During the summer of 1927, while working in the archives of Quebec, I spent several
weeks in the old Seminaire de Quebec, in full view of the mighty St. Lawrence. It was
quite a thrill to live within the enclosure of the very walls that stood witnesses to the dc
parture of the first three missionaries — advance agents of civilization — to the Tamarois
aux Illinois, in the Illinois country. Crossing the threshold I was greeted the "bienvenu,"''
and instantly made to feel at home. The deep religious convictions, the home-like atmos'
phere, and the delicate hospitality bequeathed to it by its sainted founder, Monseigneur
de Laval, are as old as the Seminaire, and that is not far from 300 years, but they all live
anew in each succeeding generation. Evidently, the blessing of Laval rests upon this in-
stitution.
130
TAMAROIS— CAHOKIA 13 1
men, give spiritual and moral training to those who wished
to devote their lives to the missions. The course of studies
in the classics, philosophy, and theology was at that time
provided for these young men in the Jesuit school of Quebec. 1
The third purpose of Bishop Laval's Seminary was to give
the usual training in philosophy and theology to those pre
paring to enter the priesthood. In the beginning, of course,
the Seminary had no priests of its own to send out to the
missions. It was therefore affiliated with the Seminary
of Foreign Missions (Missions Etr anger es) of Paris. The
Paris Seminary for a long time appointed the Superior of
the Quebec Seminary.
In the year 1690, Monseigneur St'Vallier, second Bishop
of Quebec, commissioned the Jesuits to preach the Gospel
to the Ottawa, Miami, Sioux, and Illinois Indians.
Eight years later, May 1, 1698, the same Bishop granted
permission to the Quebec Seminary to establish missions on
both sides of the Mississippi (en dega et au dela du Missis'
sipi). It was argued that the purpose of the Seminary of
Foreign Missions in Paris was to aid in civilizing savages
and to bring the blessings of Christianity to those still
shrouded in the darkness of infidelity, and that the Semi-
naire de Quebec, being a dependency of the Paris Seminary,
should be interested in the same kind of work. 2
Twelve days later, M. de Montigny, Vicar-General,
was appointed Superior of the future mission.
July 14 of the same year, the mission field was more
specifically designated — aux Tamarois. 3 Two days later,
the first brave little band of Quebec Seminary Missionaries
set out from that city on their long journey in canoe and
on foot for the distant field of the Tamarois, on the east
bank of the Mississippi — M. Francois de Montigny, Superior,
M. Antoine Davion, and Jean Frangois Buisson de St. Cosme.
The reasons for assigning the Tamarois mission to the
Seminary Fathers were many. 4 First of all, the territory
1 This practice continued until the fall of the French Regime. See Msgr. Amedee Gosselin,
VInstruction au Canada sous le Regime Franqais (1635-1710).
2 Mand. des Ev., I., p. 377- Frontenac, then Governor of Canada, approved the estab'
lishment of the mission by the Seminary Priests.
3 Mand. des Ev., I., pp. 274-370.
4 See Colbert's Instructions to Frontenac, p. 51, ante.
U2 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
of the Tamarois and Kaokias, lying on the east bank of the
Mississippi, which river was one of the main routes of com-
munication between Quebec and the tribes farther south,
gave to the mission a sort of key position — Clef de passage
necessaire. 1 Secondly, the nearest mission north was that
of the Jesuit Fathers, some 80 to 90 leagues away, as they
then figured the distance (Mission of the Immaculate Con-
ception on the Illinois). Then, too, Monseigneur Laval
and Bishop St-Vallier 2 had conferred with Tonti, who certainly
knew the geography and the tribes of the Mississippi Valley,
as to the most reasonable location of a new mission in the land
of the savages, and they had agreed that the proper place
would be among the Tamarois. Lastly, all this territory was
then under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of
Quebec, and it was clearly within his province, as Ordinary,
to assign the religious orders as well as the members of the
secular clergy to the various mission fields. The Jesuits, too,
had their jursidiction from the Bishop of Quebec.
The initial expense of this expedition to the Tamarois,
undertaken in the interest of Christian civilisation, amounted
to 10,800 livres. Of this amount Montigny and Davion
contributed of their own means the sum of 4,300 livres. It
cost money to make the long journey from Quebec to the
Tamarois. The missionaries needed canoes, Indian guides,
engages, or hired men, provisions for at least a year, or perhaps
longer, etc. They went to live among the savages among
whom there was hardly a single prerequisite of civilized
standards of living. Everything must be taken along. This
was true, of course, of all missionaries. A list of things need-
ed in a mission is contained in a letter, probably written by
Father Gravier.
1 This account is drawn from various documents in the Archives of the Seminaire de
Quebec.
2 "The contrast between Laval's paternal rule and St'Vallier's often untimely zeal and
anxiety to reform caused apprehension. Though his overbearing zeal and excessive desire
to perform all the good that he had in view elicited measures that were displeasing and
even offensive, these were fully outbalanced by his generosity towards the poor, and his
genuine disinterestedness. " Lindsay in Catholic Encyclopedia, XIII., p. 388.
For an exceedingly interesting account of St'Vallier's unquiet administration, see Auguste
Gosselin, Ueglise du Canada, vol. Mgr. De Saint-Vallier.
TAMAROIS—CAHOKIA 1 3 3
He enumerates some 150 articles, not counting the chapel
and its accessories. It may be of interest to select a few items :
"Six pairs of half' worsted hose. (Material for making) awn-
ings as a protection against gnats that infest the Missisipi:
One livre or 2 of cotton candle- wicking. A thousand
nails, large, medium-si2;ed, and small. 150 livres of powder;
50 livres of assorted shot, large and small; 50 livres of Bullets;
(500 gun-flints) . Ten livres of large glass Beads — white, green,
and transparent. One gross of large Clasp-Knives, with horn
handles, Six gross of small belts, Six gross of finger-Rings, 3
gross of awls. One thousand needles. Six Bars of Soap;
thirty livres of good tobacco,' ' etc. 1
A peep into the old records is extremely interesting. A
document preserved in the Archives of the Seminaire de
Quebec mentions that in 1704 two missionaries were sent
to the missions in Louisiana. They came from France and
stopped at San Domingo, where they made the following
purchases for their mission: une vache et un negre — a cow
and a Negro.
Tonti accompanied the Seminary Fathers as far as the
Arkansas. That the Fathers fully appreciated the generous
services of this remarkable man, who seemed to be always
on hand when needed, is evident from St. Cosme's letter
to St-Vallier: "I cannot, Monseigneur, express our obliga-
tions to him; he guided us as far as the Akanscas and gave
us much pleasure on the way. fie facilitated our course through
several nations, winning us the friendship of some and inti-
midating those who from jealousy or a desire of plunder had
wished to oppose our voyage; he has not only done the duty
of a brave man, but also discharged the functions of a jealous
missionary. He quieted the minds of our employees in the
little vagaries that they might have; he supported us by his
example in the exercises of devotion which the voyage per-
mitted us to perform, very often approaching the sacraments
. . . He is the man that best knows the country ... he is
loved and feared everywhere . . . Your grace, Monseigneur,
will, I doubt not, take pleasure in acknowledging the obliga-
tions we owe him." 2
Jesuit Relations, LXVI., pp. 27-31.
2 John Gilmary Shea, Early Voyages up and down the Mississippi, pp. 47 and 73.
134 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Michillimackinac, or Mackinac, was then the rendezvous
and distributing center for traders 1 and missionaries. The
journey from Quebec to this point up the St. Lawrence and
over the Great Lakes was always toilsome, and frequently
extremely hazardous. Father Brebeuf has left an interesting
account of the hardships of such a journey : "Of two ordinary
difficulties, the chief is that of the rapids and portages . . . All
the rivers of this Country are full of them, and notably the
St. Lawrence, after that of the Prairies (Ottawa) is passed.
From there onward it has no longer a smooth bed, but is
broken up in several places, rolling and leaping in a frightful
way, like an impetuous torrent; and even, in some places, it
falls from a height of several brasses. 2 . . . Now, when these
rapids or torrents are reached, it is necessary to land, and
carry on the shoulder, through woods, or over high and trouble-
some rocks, all the baggage and the canoes themselves. This
is not done without much work; for there are portages of
one, two and three leagues, and for each several trips must
be made, no matter how few packages one has. In some
places, where the current is not less stronger than in these
rapids, although easier at first, the Savages get into the water,
and haul and guide by hand their canoes with extreme difficul-
ty and danger; for they sometimes get in up to the neck, and
are compelled to let go their hold, saving themselves as best
they can from the rapidity of the water, which snatches
from them and bears off their canoe. I kept count of the num-
ber of portages, and found that we carried our canoes thirty
five times, and dragged them at least fifty. I sometimes took
a hand in helping my Savages, but the bottom of the river
is full of stones, so sharp that I could not walk long, being
barefooted.
"The second ordinary difficulty is in regard to provisions.
Frequently one has to fast, if he misses the caches 3 that
were made when descending; and even, if they are found, one
does not fail to have a good appetite after indulging in them,
lkl One thousand French traders and trappers, not counting the Indians, gathered at
times at Michilimacinac. ,, Kenny, op. cit., p. 153. The account of the voyage of the Seminary
Fathers is taken from St. Cosme's Letter, Shea, op. cit., pp. 145479.
2 From the French word bras — arm, the space to which a man can extend his arms — fathom
or 6 feet.
3 Cache — a hiding'place where food supplies were concealed for future use,
TAMAROIS—CAHOKIA 135
for the ordinary food is only a little Indian corn coarsely
broken between two stones, and sometimes taken whole in
pure water; it is no great treat. Occasionally one has fish,
but it is only a chance, unless one is passing some Tribe where
they can be bought. Add to these difficulties that one must
sleep on the bare earth, or on a hard rock, for lack of a space
ten or twelve square on which to place a wretched hut; that
one must endure continually the stench of tired-out Savages;
and must walk in water, in mud, in the obscurity and entangle-
ment of the forest, where the stings of an infinite number of
mosquitoes and gnats are a serious annoyance. ,n
The Seminary Fathers spent seven days with the Jesuit Fa th'
ers at Michillimackinac. Here the Sieur de Vincennes, who was
on his way to the Miamis, joined the Seminary mission ex-
pedition. Jean-Bap tiste Bissot de Vincennes had been a
student at the Seminaire de Quebec from 1676 to 1680. 2
According to St. Cosme, the little flotilla comprised eight
canoes — "four for the River of the Miamis, with Sieur de
Vincennes, and our three canoes, and Mr. Tonty." 3
The party left Michillimackinac September 14, 1698. The
Iroquois infested the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, and so
the travelers worked along the north shore of the lake and
then down to Green Bay. The Fox Indians made the Wis-
consin route (taken by Jolliet and Marquette) unsafe and
"this", writes St. Cosme, "obliged us to take the Chikagu
road ... we arrived on the 7th [October] at Melwarik
[Milwaukee] ... on the 10th of October, having left Meli-
warik early in the morning, we arrived at Kipikawi 4 . There
we parted with Mr. De Vincenne's party, who continued
their course towards the Miami." 5
x Edna Kenton, The Jesuit Relations, pp. 101402.
2 The Seminary Archives contain this marginal note: "Not being fitted for the clerical
state, he left the seminary, November 18, ^SO." Msgr. Amedee Gosselin in Le Sieur de
Vincennes by Pierre-Georges Roy, p. 33.
Two years later the Sovereign Council ordered Louis Jolliet, the guardian of Vin*
cennes, to pay to the Seminary tuition and board for two and one-half years. Jean-Bap-
tiste Bissot de Vincennes was the father of Francois-Marie Bissot de Vincennes, the founder
of Vincennes, Indiana.
3 Shea, op. ct't., p. 46.
iKipifywi or Kippi\avvi, according to Shea, the present Racine, Wisconsin.
5 Shea, op. cit., p. 50.
i 3 6 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
The letter of St. Cosme continues : "We cabined on the
20th five leagues from Chicaqw. We should have reached
it early on the 21st, but the wind, which suddenly sprung up
from the lake, obliged us to land a half a league from Apkaw 1 .
We had considerable difficulty in getting ashore and sav-
ing our canoes. We had to throw everything into the water
. . . the breakers get so large in a short time that the canoes
are in risk of going to pieces and losing all on board; several
travellers have already been wrecked there."
Two years before the arrival of the Seminary Fathers,
Francois Pinet, a Jesuit, had founded the Guardian Angel
Mission for the two villages of the Miamis, then located on
what is now known as the Chicago River. 2 "The Indian
village" [the one nearest the lake where the Guardian Angel
Mission was located], writes St. Cosme, "is of over 150
cabins, and one league on the river there is another village
almost as large. They are both Miamis."
The Jesuit Fathers Pinet and Binneteau were then at this
mission, and received the Seminary Fathers most cordially.
Since "the waters [probably the Chicago River] were
extremely low we made a cache on the shore and took only
what was absolutely neccessary for our voyage, reserving
till spring to send for the rest, and we left in charge of it
Brother Alexander, 3 who consented to remain there with
Father Pinet's man, and we started from Chicaqw on the
29th [October]".
Speaking of the Guardian Angel Mission at Chicago, St.
Cosme writes: "We found there Rev. Father Pinet and
Rev. Buinateau, who had recently come in from the Illinois
and were slightly sick." Writing of what happened nine
days later, St. Cosme relates that a fifteen or seventeen year
old boy had become detached from the party, and that he
^hea thinks Ap\aw or Ap\aw is a transcriber's blunder for cette place, that place,
which would make the sentence read thus: obliged us to land half a league from that place —
Chicago.
2 Frank R. Grover in Father Pierre Franqois Pinet, S. J., and His Mission of the Guardian
Angel of Chicago (Newberry Library), places the Guardian Angel Mission on the lowlands
known as Skokie, which, he holds, was then an inland sea.
3 Frere Alexandre was a frere hospitalier, or a member of the Brotherhood established
by M. Charon at Montreal for service in the missions.
TAMAROIS—CAHOKIA 137
went in search of him. 1 "On my way back", he writes,
"I met Fathers Pinet and Buinateau who were going with
two Frenchmen and one Indian to the Illinois." It may be
that, hearing from the Seminary Fathers that they were
going to the Illinois, the Jesuits Fathers decided to go
there also.
On their way down to the Tamarois, the Seminary Fathers
stopped at the Jesuit mission of the Kaskaskias. 2 "On the 15th
day of November" [1698], writes St. Cosme, "we arrived at
the old fort [Saint Louis] ; it is a rock 3 about 100 feet high on
the bank of the river, where M. de La Salle had constructed a
fort, which is now abandoned, the savages having moved
about 25 leagues farther south, down to Fort Peoria [Peouar-
oud]} There we found Father Binneteau and Father Pinet,
who, having no baggage to carry when they left Chicagou,
had arrived six or seven days ahead of us. There we also
saw Father Marest, Jesuit. All the Reverend Fathers gave
us a most hearty welcome. They were grieved to see us
leave so soon on account of the frost. This mission of the
Illinois seems to me to be the best the Jesuits have here, for,
not counting the baptised children, there are numbers of
grown people who have abandoned their superstitions and
live after the manner of good Christians, often receive the
sacraments and are married by the Church. We did not see
all the good Christians, for they were scattered down the
river in pursuit of their hunt. We only saw some Indian
women married to Frenchmen, and they edified us by their
modesty and by the interest they showed in going several
times a day to the chapel to pray. On the day of the Pre-
sentation of the Blessed Virgin [November 21, 1698], we
sang a solemn High Mass with Deacon and sub-Deacon.
We left the Illinois on the 22nd of November. We had
lk This boy made his way to Chicagou, where Brother Alexander was, thirteen days
after. He was utterly exhausted and was out of his head." Letter of La Source in Shea,
op. rit., p. 85.
2 That mission was then situated near the southern end of Peoria Lake.
3 Starved Rock.
4 Probably on or near the site of the city of Peoria.
138 FROM QUEBEC TO K[EW ORLEANS
to break the ice for a distance of two or three arpents to get
out 1 of Lake Peoria (or Timiteoui)". 2
St. Cosme continues: "Rev. Fathers Buinateau and Pinet
also joined us for part of the way, wishing to go and spend
the whole winter with their Indians. The first day of our
departure we found the cabin of Rouensas, the most consider-
able of the Illinois chiefs. He is a very good Christian and
received us politely, not like a barbarian, but like a well bred
Frenchman; he took us to his cabin and forced us to spend
the night there." Here the party heard the distressing news
that the Chickasaws and Shawnees had lately attacked the
Cahokias, killing ten and carrying off 100 slaves. The Father
made an alliance with Rouensas in order to facilitate future
passage through the Illinois nations.
November 23, in the morning, Rouensas and his family
received Holy Communion at M. de Montigny's Mass.
This circumstance, along with the chief's conduct, proves
that the Jesuit missionaries had been extraordinarily suc-
cessful in the case of "the most considerable of the Illinois
chiefs," making of him a devout Christian and a "well bred
Frenchman."
That same day the missionaries reached a village, the
chief of which was called the Bear. "All these peoples
up here are much inclined and easily conceive jealousy when
one goes to other nations." The Bear told them "it was
not advisable ... to go to the Micissipi," but Tonti bluffed
him by telling him "that to give us any trouble would be
to attack the Governor 3 in person."
November 24, they arrived at another village. The
chief, Tivet, had once been mighty and famous in his nation,
but he had fallen into disgrace. Tonti lectured him for his
jugglery, the cause of all his misfortune. The Indian prom-
ised to reform, and was "afterwards at prayers and promised
to be instructed." Father Pinet remained in this village,
"for there was a good number of Praying Indians". 4
1 Which seems to indicate they were near the southern end of the lake. Dr. M. M.
Leighton, chief of the Division of the State Geological Survey, Urbana, 111., advises me that
the southern end of the lake was then where it is now.
2 Rochemonteix, op. cit., III., p. 539.
3 Frontenac — the great Onontio at Quebec.
Christians.
TAMAROIS— CAHOKIA 139
November 26 brought them to another village. The
chief and the young men were away hunting. Some old men
came along wailing, because the Chickasaws had killed some
of their warriors. They accused Tonti of having given arms
to their enemies. Tonti hurled back the insult, saying he
had not been in the Illinois country for three years, and that
they were constantly saying unreasonable things. Tontfs
retort impressed St. Cosme, for he writes: "It must be
avowed that the Indians have a very great esteem for him 1 ''
November 27, "we were detained a part of the day by
reason of a great quantity of ice that was flowing in the
river.' '
November 28, they landed at a village of twenty cabins.
It seems to have been a case where the chief's wife had more
power than the chief, and St. Cosme very properly calls
her the l 'chief tainess." Tonti told her about the unreasonable
accusations made against him in the neighboring village.
The fc 'chief tainess" quite characteristically did not agree
with her foolish neighbors, but assured him "that all the
nation felt great joy to see him and us too."
November 29, the party made only eight leagues. "From
the 29th of November to the 3rd of December we were
detained at the same place by the ice, by which the river
was entirely blocked up During our delay, Rev.
Father Buineteau, whom we had left at the village of the
chiefs wife, came to see us, and after spending a day with
us returned to the village for the Feast of St. Francis Xavier."
December 3, "we made about a league."
December 4, "having taken wooden canoes at five Indian
cabins, we broke about three or four arpens of ice that blocked
up the river, and was about four inches thick and bore
men on it."
December 5, they reached the "Micissipi," at the mouth
of the Illinois.
December 6, "we embarked on the Micissipi," passed
the "great river of the Missouris . . . and three or four leagues
further we found on the left a rock having some figures
painted on it [Piasa], for which, it is said, the Indians have
some veneration. They are now almost effaced."
That day (December 6th) they went to the Cahokias,
then cabined near the site of the present Alton. They
i 4 o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"were still mourning over the blow inflicted on them
by the Chikakas and Chouanons; they all began to weep
on our arrival."
December 7, "about noon we reached the Tamarois [on
the site of the present Cahokia]. . . . As they had given trouble
to some of Mr. de Tonty 's men a year before, they were afraid,
and all the women and children fled from the village; but we
did not go to it, as we wished to prepare for the feast of the
Conception, we cabined on the other side of the river on
the right. 1
"Mr. de Tonty went to the village and, having reassured
them a little, he brought us the chief who begged us to go
and see him in his village. We promised to do so and next
day, Feast of the Conception, after saying our Masses we
went with Mr. de Tonty and seven of our men well armed.
They came to receive us and took us to the chief's cabin.
All the women and children were there, and we were no
sooner there than the young folks and women broke in a part
to be able to see us. They had never seen any Black Gown
except for a few days the Rev. Father Gravier, who had paid
them a visit".
The Chief and his people prepared a meal for the French-
men, and they in turn, made them a present and contracted an
alliance so that they would receive the French, who often
passed that way, and give them food.
M. Frangois de Montigny, in his capacity as Superior, 2 took
possession of the Tamarois mission. The patron of the
Seminaire de Quebec was then and is to-day the Holy Family.
It was quite natural, then, that the Seminary Fathers dedi-
*At that time a large island "a league long, and a little more, by nearly a half league in
its widest part," lay directly west of the habitat of the Tamarois. This island cut the chan'
nel of the Mississippi in two. The main channel flowed west of the island, and the smaller
channel separated the island from the east bank, where the village of the Tamarois was
located. Now, the Montigny 'Ton ti party was headed for the village of the Tamarois.
It is, therefore, probable that they rowed down the east channel, but, not wishing to go to
the village that day, they "cabined on the other side of the river (of the east channel), on the
right," that is, on the island directly across from the village of the Tamarois. Up to the middle
of the last century boats passed up and down the east channel. However, it gradually
silted and today the island is part of the mainland. The depression of the former east chan'
nel bed is known as the Cahokia Chute.
2 Note of Msgr. Amedee Gosselin.
TAMAROIS— CAHOKIA 141
cated their first mission to the patron of their home — the
Holy Family.
M. de la Source wrote a few months later: "There are as
many people at the Tamarois as at Kebeq. . . It is the largest
village we have seen. There are about 300 cabins." 1
December 8, 1698, when Montigny, Tonti and party vis-
ited the chief in his village on the site of the present Cahokia,
the bulk of the Tamarois "were cabined on an island lower
down than their village 1 '. The village was situated on the
edge of a prairie and somewhat distant from the island on
which they were cabined. St. Cosme thinks they may have
gone down to that island "to get wood more easily. . . per-
haps too for fear of their enemies. "
The island on which the Tamarois had their huts may be
Arsenal Island, if it then existed, or some other island, which
may have disappeared. At any rate, an original map in the
archives of the Seminary of Quebec, dated 1737, fails to show
Arsenal Island, but it does show a very distinct arm of the
Mississippi (Cahokia Chute) forming a large island in the river
directly west of the site of the mission. This island the
Seminary Fathers named lie de la Ste-Famille — Island of the
Holy Family. There is no reason to suppose that the site of
the mission was ever shifted. The present old mission church
of the Holy Family, Cahokia, built in 1775, certainly stands on
the site of the mission of 1737- And the church of 1737,
with the same certainty, stood on the site of the Tamarois
village and first mission church of 1699.
One of the weaknesses of New France was the restless
craving for premature expansion and fascinating exploits of
discovery. The wild forests, the unplatted prairies, new
rivers of which it was not known whence they came nor into
what sea they discharged their waters, lured the explorers on,
and so they pushed onward from tribe to tribe across limitless
prairies and through dense forests with no other guide but
their compass, following the courses of the streams, always
deeper and deeper into the unknown wilds of the American
better of de la Source, Shea, op. cit., p. 85. This M. de la Source was not a deacon, but
one of the twelve engages or hired men who joined the missionaries at Lachine, near Montreal.
He was a young man, for he fixed his own wages at 150 livres for one year. This money
was paid to him in advance. Older men generally received 500 livres for one year. This
information was furnished by Msgr. Amedee Gosselin.
i 4 2 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Continent. Colbert, on the other hand, had advised Fron-
tenac: "You ought to hold it as a maxim that it is much
better to occupy less territory and to people it thoroughly,
than to spread oneself out more, and to have feeble colonies". 1
The happy-go-lucky forest trader went on farther and far-
ther and cared little whether a well-peopled colony followed
him or not. The call of the wild was too strong. Nicolet
penetrated to Lake Superior, Verendrye to the foothills of
the Rockies, Tonti up and down the swampy shores of the
Mississippi, covering immense distances in almost every dir-
ection.
The missionary, too, felt the lure of the forest as well as
did the trader or explorer and pressed forward and onward,
though actuated by a widely different motive, and gave no
thought to confining himself to less territory and waiting till
the people were thoroughly evangelised. 2
Bishop St-Vallier had granted permission to the Seminary
of Quebec to establish missions on both sides of the Mis-
sissippi. M. de Montigny, Superior of the little band of
missionaries, wished to make a thorough survey of the large
field before limiting their activities, and so the whole party
"left Tamarois on the 8th of December, in the afternoon",
and paddled down the Mississippi.
December 12, "arrived early at Cap S. Antoine, where
we remained that day and all the next to get pitch, which
we needed. . . . Cap S. Antoine 3 is a rock on the left as you
go down. Some arpents below there is another rock on
the right which advances into the river, and forms an island,
or rather a rock about 200 feet high. . . . fourteen Miamis
were once lost there, which has rendered the spot fearful
among the Indians, so that they are accustomed to make
sacrifices to this rock when they pass. . . .On it we planted
1 Alvord, Centennial History of Illinois, I., p. 74.
2 The Seminary authorities felt that St. Cosme and Davion, while zealous workers, "loved
too much to roam about and make new discoveries," instead of thoroughly instructing one
tribe before going on to another. Taschereau, op. cit.
3 Cap S. Antoine is the present Grand Tower, Illinois. "This is a rock, round in shape,
high and steep, so called because a company of traders have sojourned there during the
feast of St. Anthony." — Journal of Diron D'Artaguiette, (1723), in Mereness, Travels in
the American Colonies, p. 67-
TAMAROIS— CAHOKIA 143
a beautiful cross, singing the Vexilla Regis, and our people
fired three volleys of musketry.' 11
December 16, the party started from the "Wabache, 11
that is, the Ohio River. 2
December 24, "we cabined early so that our people might
prepare for the great feast of Christmas. We made a little
chapel; we sang high mass at midnight where our people
and all the French attended their duties. Christmas day was
spent in saying our masses, all which our people heard and
in the afternoon we chanted Vespers. We were greatly
astonished to see the earth tremble at one o'clock in the
afternoon, and although this earthquake did not last long,
it was violent enough for all to perceive it easily." 3
They found the "Acansea nation, once so numerous, en-
tirely destroyed by war and sickness. It is not a month
since they got over the small pox which carried off the great-
est part of them. There was nothing to be seen in the village
but graves. 1 ' 4
December 30, "It was a deep regret to part with Mr.
de Tonty. ... He would have much desired to bear us
company to the other nations where we were going, but
business called him back to the Illinois. He is the man that
best knows the country. 11
M. de Montigny, as Superior, assigned the mission among
the Tonicas to M. Antoine Davion. 5
January 2, 1699, Montigny writes: "For the present I
reside among the Taensas, but am to go shortly to the Nat'
ches. 11
ll 'Cap St. Cosme [now known as the Rock of the Cross], is a high and steep rock, form-
ing a point which juts into the Mississipy, so named by M. de St. Cosme, priest of the senv
inary of Canada, when he was descending from the Illinois to Mobile."" Ibid.
The Rock of the Cross is plainly visible to passengers on the Frisco line which passes
this point. Marquette speaks of it as a "Place that is dreaded by the Savages, because
they believe that a manitou is there, — that is to say a demon, — that devours travelers/"
2 The Illinois called the Ohio the River of the Arkansas, from its having been the resi'
dence of that people. Shea, op. cit., p. 75, n. 48.
3 That was more than a century before the great earthquake of New Madrid.
4 De la Source writes: "It is a great pity. They are the best made, frankest and best
disposed men that we have seen." Shea, op. cit., p. 79.
5 M. Davion later appears at Mobile. Broken in health, he returned to France in 1725
where he died April 8, 1726.
144 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"On the 27th [of January, 1699]", writes de la Source, "we
left there [the Natchez] to the Tonkas; Mr. de Montigny and
Mr. de St. Cosme resolved to go up together to bring down
the things left at Chicagou, where Brother Alexander had
remained to guard them. . . . Mr. de Montigny intended to
see all these nations and go to the sea. Having learnt that
three Frenchmen had been lately killed and we all being sick,
he probably did not deem it proper. ... It was supposed
at the Outraois [?] that Mr. Diberville had come by sea to
the mouth of the Micissipi, but we have heard no tidings
of him. . . ."
Coming back to the Tamarois, M. de St. Cosme remained
there, being assigned to that mission by his Superior, Mon-
tigny. Taschereau writes: "M. de Montigny, after having
been dangerously ill . . . [among the Taensas], returned to
the Tamarois, where he established himself as Superior of
all the mission, which comprised an immense territory. He
immediately asked for reenforcements, and the following
year the Seminary sent M. M. Bergier, Bouteville and S. Cos-
me the younger. The latter was not a priest and went there
to study the language of the country and to fit himself to come
back later as a missionary fully acquainted with the customs of
the savages and hardened to the fatigues [of missionary life]." 1
According to de la Source, Montigny and his men arrived
at "Chicagou" on Maundy Thursday, and started back
to the Tamarois on Easter Monday. De la Source found
the Illinois country "perfectly charming:" "The finest
country that we have seen is all from Chicagou to the Tama-
rois. It is nothing but prairies and clumps of wood as far
as you can see. I will mention also, that many Canadians
marry among the Illinois." 2
While in the upper Illinois country, Montigny heard the
news of the arrival of D' Iberville at the mouth of the Missis-
sippi. He writes: "The fourth of May [1699] I left the
Illinois [probably Peoria on the Illinois], the Rev. Father
binneteau having joined us fifteen or twenty leagues further
down and we traveled together as far as the tamarois. . . .
May 14th we arrived among the tamarois where we found
taschereau, op. cit.,
2 Letters of de la Source, Shea, op. cit., p. 85.
o 3
a t
pq -X)
§1
TAMAROIS— CAHOKIA i 45
monsieur de saint cosme 1 busy finishing his church; when
it was finished we erected a cross with the greatest possible
solemnity, all the savages were present; they manifested a
great desire to be instructed and to become christians and
brought their little children and asked that we should baptise
them and give them a name. 112
Taschereau states that the second contingent "was ac-
companied by three freres donnes, who should be their
coadjutors, and two blacksmiths, supplied with the most
necessary instruments and who should help the carpenters,
brought by M. Montigny, to build chapels and houses.
One of the blacksmiths, as also one of de Montigny's men,
were associated with the Freres Charon of Montreal 3 . 11
Freres Donnes were men who in a way gave themselves
to the Seminaire de Quebec, that is, they were in the employ
of the Seminary without salary or wages. They worked
for the Seminary as farmhands, or carpenters, or artisans in
general, and for that they were considered part of the Sem-
inary family. They were not bound by vows of any kind.
The Seminary provided for them in a patriarchal way, and
they were taken care of in old age as well as in the days
when they could work. These Freres donnes might be
married, in which case their families would receive the
same consideration. The women workers were called Soeurs
donnees. In case they wished to sever their connection with
the institution, they were reimbursed for their services. 4
**n New France was an incipient colony at the time of Bishop
Laval. It needed colonists to till the soil, carpenters, black-
smiths, and men of all trades. To prepare intelligent farmers,
he established an agricultural school at St. Joachim, about
25 miles northeast of Quebec; to supply the colony with
skilled artisans of every kind, he brought instructors from
France and established a trades-school. Young men who
entered the Seminary to prepare for the priesthood and
missionary life, and later showed lack of talent or changed
1 M. de St. Cosme was later stationed at Natchez and was killed by the Sitimakas or
Chitimacka.
2 Quebec Seminary Archives, Lettre de M. de Montigny.
'Taschereau, op. cit.
*The above explanation of "Freres donnes" was given me by Msgr. Amedee Gosselin,
Rector of the Laval University.
i 4 6 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
their minds, would enter the trades-school and be prepared
to cope with the problems of life. Some of these became
Freres donnes in the sense explained above. 1
M. Charon of Montreal instituted a community of Freres
Hospitaliers, or Hospital Brothers, which, however, was
short-lived, and never reached its full development. It
was the intention of the founder that these brothers should
go out with the missionaries, be their coadjutors in every
way, as catechists to the Indians, as nurses, in short, as
assistants in the most general manner that corresponded
to the needs of a new colony and among savages. Brother
Alexander, who accompanied M. Montigny and was left
in charge of the baggage on the Chicago River, was a Frere
Charon, or Hospitalier.
The religious orders, of course, had the brothers of their
own communities. In contradistinction to Freres donnes,
who gave their services gratis, there were also the engages,
or hired men, who received wages.
1 Gosselin, L" Instruction au Canada, p. 348.
DIFFICULTIES ARISING FROM THE ESTABLISH-
MENT OF THE MISSIOH AMOKG THE TAMA-
ROIS— FURTHER MIGRATIONS OF THE
KASKASKIAS
Father Jacques Gravier, Jesuit missionary, is one of those
outstanding, active, wiry men of the early days in the Illi-
nois country, who helped mould the religious and civil
life there in the second half of the 17th century. In 1685,
at the age of 34, he came to Canada, and was sent to Michil-
limackinac the following year. He spent ten years of trying
missionary life among the Illinois in the mission of the Im-
maculate Conception, begun by Father Marquette. To him
the savages were his children; he studied their language
and reduced it to grammatical form; he gathered the scat-
tered Kaskaskias and Peorias near Fort St. Louis (Starved
Rock) after the depredation of the Iroquois, and by dint of
incredible labor and sacrifice tamed his savages into a fairly
civilised community and moulded these forest children into a
presentable flock. A saintly Indian woman, 1 daughter of
a chief, was of great help to him in his difficult task. St-
Cosme relates in 1698: "There are numbers of grown
people who have abandoned their superstitions and live
after the manner of good christians. . . . We saw Indian
women married to Frenchmen, and they edified us by their
modesty. . . . " 2
In 1696 Father Gravier became Superior at Michillimack-
inac and Vicar-General of the Bishop for the Illinois country.
Gravier's sincere interest and well merited influence among
the Illinois, then, is well established.
When the Seminary Fathers 3 Montigny, St -Cosme,
and Davion reached Michillimackinac in September, 1698,
1 Aramepinchicue, daughter of the Kaskaskia chief Rouensa, had married Michael Ac-
cault, a half'breed and one of the companions of Hennepin in 1680. See p. 87, ante.
Aramepinchicue had married only at the express demand of her father. Because of her
devout and virtuous life, she was held in highest esteem by pagans and Christians alike. See
Shea, Catholic Church in Colonial Days, p. 537-
2 See p. 137, ante.
3 The Quebec Seminary Fathers were commonly known as Les Messieurs du Seminaire —
the Gentlemen of the Seminary.
H7
i 4 8 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORELAKS
on their way to the Tamarois, they were hospitably received
by Father Gravier, but he probably had his honest misgiv-
ings about the wisdom of dividing religious authority over
the loosely connected Illinois tribes. It will be remembered
that when the question of sending missionaries from the
Seminary to the Mississippi Valley had arisen in the pre-
vious year, Bishops Laval and St-Vallier had consulted Tonti
concerning the tribes among whom they might best take
up their labors without unduly interfering with the reli-
gious interests of the Jesuit Fathers. Tonti, who knew the
Illinois tribes better than any other man of his day, sug-
gested the Tamarois.
It would seem that after Montigny established the Tama-
rois mission, Father Gravier and the Jesuit Fathers became
more actively interested in the tribes lower down the Mis-
sippi Valley, and thus we find Father Binneteau visiting
them and Father Pinet performing the duties of a missionary
among the Tamarois in 1700, while Father Bergier, a new
arrival from the Seminary of Quebec, and in charge of the
Holy Family Mission, but as yet rather unfamiliar with
the language of the savages, ministered chiefly to the French
who had settled there. There were at that time two chapels
in or near Cahokia: Sainte-Famille — Holy Family, which
was Father Bergier's mission, and Father Pinet's chapel,
the site of which is not known. 1
This assignment, by Bishop Saint- Vallier, of the Tamarois
mission to the Fathers of the Seminary of Quebec, was the
occasion of a misunderstanding, chiefly on the part of Father
Gravier. In 1690 Monseigneur St-Vallier had commissioned
the Jesuit Fathers to preach the Gospel to various tribes,
among them the Illinois. 2 Now, so argued Father Gravier,
the Tamarois belong to the Illinois, and therefore the
Tamarois should be under the jurisdiction of the Jesuit
missionaries. Father Gravier feared that overlapping au-
thority would divide and perhaps disperse his beloved
x Father Bergier succeeded St. Cosme, who in turn took the place of Montigny with the
Natchez. To judge from the early maps, it would seem that Father Pinet's chapel lay north
of the Holy Family Mission. In 1702 Father Bergier said the funeral Mass for Father Pinet,
who had died at the Jesuit mission on the des Peres. See Gilbert J. Garraghan, ?{ew Light
on Old Caho\ia, in Illinois Catholic Historical Review, vol. XI., October, 1928.
2 Auguste Gosselin, UEglise du Canada, Mgr. de Saint' Vallier, p. 167.
MIGRATIONS OF THE KASKASKIAS 149
flock, and that it would cause confusion and hamper the
work among them. It was a legitimate question of juris-
diction and was referred to the King for final decision.
Taschereau writes: "The matter was submitted to the
Bishops of Meaux and of Chartres, commissaries of the
King. June 7, 1701, they gave their decision which was
wholly in favor of the claims of the Seminary with regard
to the Tamarois. 11 M. de Montigny would have preferred
to surrender the Tamarois mission, writes Taschereau, "but
it was the Bishop of Quebec [Saint' Vallier] who insisted,
because he considered this decision an authentic confirma'
tion of his authority." 1
A few self-evident obligations were placed upon the
Seminary'priest missionaries, such as offering friendly hos'
pitality to Jesuit missionaries who might pass their way.
The division and dispersion of Father Gravier's beloved
flock came nevertheless, but it came from quite another
source than the one he had in mind. The year 1700 is one
of greatest importance in the history of the Kaskaskia In'
dians, the Kaskaskia mission and the history of Illinois.
News of D 1 Iberville's establishment at the mouth of the
Mississippi had reached the French and Indians on the
upper Illinois. A serious misunderstanding had arisen
between the Kaskaskia Indians and the neighboring tribes.
The Kaskaskias, being rather peacefully inclined, were
anxious to get away from their offending neighbors. Why
not step into their canoes and go down the river to their
"great chief?"
Father Marest was at that time the only missionary among
the Kaskaskias. His companion, Father Binneteau, had died
December 24, 1699. This good Father had accompanied
the tribe assigned to him on their wanderings across the
vast plains of their hunting grounds. That was no easy
task for a white man; it meant bearing the suffocating heat
among the high weeds and parching thirst in dry prairies;
he was scorched by the intense heat of the day and chilled
1 Taschereau, MS. Mission du Seminaire de Quebec chez les Tamarois, Quebec Seminary
Archives. Quite another view is given in Rochemonteix, op. cit., III., p. 550 ff.
See also Gilbert Garraghan, S. J., who in the Illinois Catholic Historical Review, I. c,
gives a fairly detailed account of this controversy with a slight Jesuit feeling.
i 5 o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
by the dews at night. The consequence was that the Father
caught the fever and died a few months later. Father Binne-
teau had made this report about Father Marest: "The father is
too zealous; he works very hard all day long and at night
he studies to perfect himself in the language ... his food
consists of a little boiled grain and a small mess of beans
and then he eats water melon to quench his thirst.' 11
What was Father Marest to do when his savage children
prepared to move southward bag and baggage? The Kas-
kaskias had the largest number of Christians and were the
best disposed to Christianity. So Father Marest decided
to go with them to their nW abode, leaving the Peorias
and the Moiiingouenas without a missionary. These
latter tribes, on their part, planned an offensive farewell
for the Kaskaskias.
At this critical moment the ubiquitous Gravier appeared
on the scene. "I arrived too late," he writes to his Superior,
"at the Illinois ... of whom Father Marest has charge,
to prevent the transmigration of the village of the Kaskas-
kias, which was too precipitately made on vague news of
the establishment on the Mississippi. ... At all events
I came soon enough to unite minds a little, and to prevent
the insult which the Peoiiaroua and the Moiiingouena were
bent on offering to the Kaskaskias and French as they em-
barked." 2
Gravier feared that the departure of the friendly Kas-
kaskias would jeopardise communication with the upper
country, so necessary for the welfare of the colony and
the mission. "God grant that the road from Chicagoua
to the Strait (au Detroit) be not closed, and the whole Illi-
nois mission suffer greatly." 3
Father Gravier was honestly interested in the welfare
of his Kaskaskias and begged them not to undertake hastily
the long and hazardous journey to the mouth of the Missis-
sippi, but rather to wait, declaring he would go down "to
assure himself of the truth of all that was said about it."
^ochemonteix, Les Jesuites et la 7<[ouvelle France au XVII. , Siecle, Tome III., p. 540.
2 Journal of Father Gravier, Shea, op. cit., p. 116, ff.
Father Gravier left "Chicagoua," September 8, 1700. He must have arrived among the
Kaskaskias a few days later,
3. Ibid,
MIGRATIONS OF THE KASKASKIAS 151
But the transmigration had already begun, and the two
Fathers went with the Indians. Father Gravier writes:
"After having marched four days with the Kaskaskias,
I went ahead with Father Marest, whom I left sick at the
Tamarouha." 1
The influence of Father Gravier produced a halt in the
southward migration of the Kaskaskias, first a temporary
one, and, a few years later, one that was final.
In the Seminary Archives of Quebec there is an original
map of the Seigniory of the Mission of the Holy Family
at Cahokia. On the Missouri side, on the north bank of
the River des Peres, it shows the notation: Ancien Vil-
lage des Kas\a\ias — Former Village of the Kaskaskias.
The map was drawn in April, 1735, by Fathers J. P. Mercier
and J. Courier, Seminary priests at that time stationed at
the Mission of the Holy Family of Cahokia.
Father Gravier states that he "marched four days with
the Kaskaskias." It would seem, therefore, that while,
no doubt, some of the Kaskaskias and French paddled their
canoes, the bulk of the people went by land along the Illi-
nois River and down the Mississippi, and thus came to the
Mission of the Holy Family.
There were already three tribes of savages, (the Tamarois,
the Cahokias and the Mitchigamias) on the east bank of
the Mississippi, and that may have been the reason why
the Kaskaskias did not remain there, but selected a spot
across the river, where the River des Peres flows into the
Mississippi. 2
Details of this removal are recorded in Father Bergier's
report of 1701 to Bishop St-Vallier of Quebec:
"1. The Kats 3 to the extent of about thirty cabins,
have established their new village two leagues below this
Evidently with Father Pinet.
2 Gilbert Joseph Garraghan, S. J., gives a summary of the documentary evidence show*
ing conclusively that the Kaskaskias were at one time located on the north bank of the River
des Peres, near its confluence with the Mississippi, in Missouri Historical Society Collections,
V. 3, June, 1928. The Jesuit Fathers had charge of this mission, hence the name Riviere
des Peres — River of the Fathers.
3 Pronounced Kaws, that is, the Kaskaskias. The letter "s" is frequently silent in the
French language. Thus Kaskaskias was pronounced Kaskakias. Kaskakias was corrupted into
Kas, Au Tamarois means at Tamarois, au% Tamarois, among the Tamarois. Similarly, aux
i 5 2 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
on the other side of the Mississippi. They have built a
fort there, and nearly all the French have hastened thither.
"2. The chief of the Tamarois, followed by some cabins,
joined the Kats, attracted by Rouensa who promises them
much, 1 and makes them believe him saying that he is called
by the great chief of the French, Mr. d 1 Iberville, as Father
Marest has told him.
"3. The remainder of the Tamaroa, numbering about
twenty cabins, are shortly going to join their chief, already
settled at the Kats. So there will remain here only the
Cahokia, numbering 60 or 70 cabins. They are cutting
stakes to built a fort. 2 "
Father Gravier had gone ahead of the Kaskaskias on their
southward march. October 9, 1700, he left Tamarois for the
south, and he relates that the Tamarois Indians had at that
time ' 'taken up their winter quarters in a beautiful bay two
leagues below the Tamarois village and that the Metchigamia
are to come up sixty leagues from the south to winter and
form only one village with them."
It is highly probable that the Kaskaskias reached the
winter quarters of the Tamarois and Metchigamias on that
"beautiful bay," two leagues south of the village of the
Tamarois, some time in October, 1700. The Cahokias
had taken up their winter quarters four leagues above 3 the
village of the Tamarois.
To add 1200 Kaskaskias to the two thousand and more
Tamarois and Metchigamia already in those winter quar-
ters may not have seemed practicable to the chiefs, in view
of the fact that their people lived from the chase. Almost
directly across from the winter quarters on the bay referred to,
Kas (Kaskaskias) means among the Kaskaskia Indians. Thus Father Meurin heads a letter
dated March 23, 1767, as follows: "From the priesthouse (presbitere) of the Immaculate
Conception aux Kas Colonie anglaise". The river on whose banks the Kaskaskia Indians
located took its name from the tribe and is therefore known as Kaskaskia or Okaw (aux Kas)
River.
x This migration of the Tamarois to the village of the Kaskaskias on the des Peres River
probably occasioned the change of name of the French village on the east side from Tamarois
to Caho\ia.
2 See Lawrence Kenny, S. J., Missouri's Earliest Settlement and Its T^ame, in St. Louis
Catholic Historical Review, I., April, 1919, pp. 15M56.
3 Near the present Venice or Madison, Illinois,
MIGRATIONS OF THE KASKASKIAS 153
a small river entered the Mississippi. Rouensa, the chief
of the Kaskaskias, led his people across the Mississippi and
located them on the north bank of that little river at its
junction with the Father of Waters.
It would seem that, while Father Gravier strongly opposed
the southward migration of the Kaskaskias from the Illinois
River, Father Marest encouraged Rouensa.
The decision of the King's commissaries with regard to
the mission among the Tamarois was duly forwarded to
Father Marest by Lamberville, the Paris Procurator of the
Jesuit Missions of Canada.
July 5, 1702, Marest wrote to Lamberville: "Father
Pinet . . . has left the station at the Tamarouis ... in accord-
ance with your directions to me. But he has only half quitted
it, for he has left a man in our house there who takes care of
it; and thus we occasionally go thither from this place to show
we are obedient to the King pending the receipt of his or'
ders. . . . That Father now has charge of the Cascaskias." 1
How long the Kaskaskias remained there and why they
ultimately left is not known. An entry in the old Baptismal
Record of Kaskaskia reads: "1703, April 25. Ad ripam
Metchagamia dictam venimus — April 25, 1703, we arrived
on the banks of the river called the Metchagamia." 2
Father Marest has left an interesting description of south-
ern Illinois as he saw it: "The country itself", he writes,
"with its great rivers, dense forests, extensive prairies and
wood-covered hills is delightful. There is abundance of
game: oxen, hinds, stags and other wild beasts. We find here
multitudes of swans, cranes, bustards and ducks. The wild
oats, which grow freely on the plains, fatten the fowl to such a
degree that they very often die, their fat suffocating them.
Jesuit Relations, LVI., p. 37-
2 According to Shea, the Illinois nation was composed of the Peorias, Tamarois, Caho'
kias, Kaskaskias, Moingonas, and an adopted tribe, the Metchigameas, who lived lower
down the Mississippi in Marquette's time. Later they lived on the banks of what is now
known as the Kaskaskia River. In 1703 it was known as the Metchagamia River. From
the new tribe that settled on its banks this river soon became known as the River of the
Kaskaskias. It must be noted that the spelling of Indian names was not fixed at that time;
in fact, orthography in general was not standardised,
154 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Turkeys are likewise found here in abundance, and they are as
good as in France." 1
Father Marest spent twenty years of his life in the missions
among the Indians. He died at Kaskaskia, September 15,
1714, after a life of adventure and hardship.
The life of a missionary, even though it did not end in tor-
ture and martyrdom, was truly a hard life, a life of endless
sacrifices. The total lack of congenial association, the con-
dition of being condemmed to associate almost exclusively
with savages, the isolation, the loneliness, give some idea of
his hardships.
This missionary has also left a description of the Kaskaskia
Indians before his labor of evangelisation and civilization
was completed. One can readily understand that with all his
supernatural love for the savage, his very soul must at times have
rebelled against the task. "They are", writes Marest, "indo-
lent, traitorous, fickle, inconstant, deceitful and naturally
thievish and brutal; without honor; taciturn; capable of doing
everything when you are liberal with them, but at the same
time thankless and ungrateful. . . Gluttony and love of pleasure
are, above all, the vices most dominant among them. They are
habituated to the most indecent acts before they are old
enough to know the shame connected with them. If you add
to this their wandering life in the forests in pursuit of wild
beasts, you will easily admit that reason must be greatly
brutalized in these people and that they are very much adverse
to the yoke of the Gospel." 2
The hard work fell to the lot of the women. Father Mar-
est adds: "The women thus occupied and humbled by
work are thereby more disposed to accept the truths of the
Gospel."
The missionary was often in danger of having his head split
open because of his opposition to the superstitious, indecent,
and idolatrous practices instilled into the natives by the
medicine men. The latter were finally expelled from the
settlement, whereupon the conduct of the savages became
more religious and edifying.
Jesuit Relations, 66, p. 225.
2 Gabriel Marest to P. Germain, Rochemonteix, op. cit., III., p. 530. See also Abb6
Napoleon Morisette, J<[os premiers Missionaires, pp. 1041.
MIGRATIONS OF THE KASKASKIAS 155
A certain Penicaut, an enlisted soldier on board his Maj-
esty's ship Marin, wrote an interesting account of Kas-
kaskia in his book entitled The first twenty-two years of the
Establishment of the French in Louisiana. This Penicaut,
together with a sergeant and eleven soldiers, had been sent in
1711 by Bienville and d'Artaguiette to the mission of Father
Marest (Kaskaskia) to punish some Canadians, who, under
pretext of trading, openly committed most atrocious crimes.
This incident is a case in point of another cross, and perhaps
the heaviest, of the poor missionary. The French trader
followed the Indian. The value of the Indian, from the stand-
point of trading, increased in the same proportion that the
Indian laid aside his nomadic habits and became sedentary.
The Indian became sedentary through the efforts of the
missionary. The legitimate French trader settled in the
mission. Besides the legitimate trader there was the bootleg
trader of the forests. The unchristian lives of most of the
forest traders were a scandal to the Indian and ruined the
fruit of the missionary's labors. It was probably traders of
this kind that Penicaut was sent to punish. He spent four
months at the Mission of the Immaculate Conception or
Kaskaskia and gives his impressions in Chapter XIII of his
Annals.
"The Kaskaskias Illinois [Indians]' 1 , he writes, "are very
industrious and quite skillful in tilling the soil; they work
with a plow, something I have not noticed anywhere else. . . .
The Jesuit Fathers have taught them how. . . . Near their
village there are three mills to grind the grain, to wit: one
wind mill, which belongs to the Jesuits, which is chiefly
patronised by the habitants [French settlers]; and two tread
mills, which are the property of the Illinois [Kaskaskias]
Indians. . . . The Illinois [Kaskaskias] Indians greatly delight
in good eating and they often feast one another; their best
dish is the meat of the dog or small wolf, which they raise in
their village. Most of the Illinois [Kaskaskias] are Catholics.
There is a good-si^ed church with baptismal font in their
village. This church has a very neat interior; there are three
chapels, the large choir chapel and two on the sides. There
is also a belfry and a bell; they attend High Mass and Vespers
quite regularly. . . The men and women are modestly clothed
when they come to church; they cover the body with a large
156 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
skin, or they are dressed in a robe made of several skins sewed
together ". But outside the church "the men cover only the
loins. . .the women also cover the bosom with a skin — deer-
skin". 1
"The Illinois [Kaskaskias]," writes Father Marest, "are
much less barbarous than other Savages; Christianity and
intercourse with the French have by degrees civilised them.
This is to be noticed in our Village, of which nearly all the
inhabitants are Christians; it is also this which has brought
many Frenchmen to settle here, and very recently we married
three of them to Illinois women. These Savages do not lack in-
telligence; they are naturally inquisitive, and turn a joke in a
fairly ingenious manner. Hunting and war form the whole
occupation of the men; the rest of the work belongs to the
women and the girls, — it is they who prepare the ground
which must be sowed, who do the cooking, who pound the
corn, who set up the cabins, and who carry them on their
shoulders in the journeys. These cabins are composed of mats
made of flat rushes, which they have the skill of sewing to-
gether in such a way that the rain cannot penetrate them
when they are new. In addition to this, they are busied
in working up the hair of the oxen [Buffalo] and in making it
into leggings, girdles, and bags; for the oxen here are very
different from those of Europe; besides having a great hump
upon the back, near the shoulders, they are also wholly
covered with a very fine wool, which takes the place of that
which our Savages would obtain from sheep, if there were any
in the Country." 2
The civilising and christianising of the Indian was not
an easy task. Indians were in many respects just grown
up children, and, like children, had to be kept busy
to be kept out of mischief. Agriculturally speaking, the
Indian had no value as long as he was a nomad and wandered
about without fixed abode and definite occupation. For his
religious life, too, it was necessary to change the Indian from
a nomad to a sedentary. One of the chief means was to keep
delation de Penicaut in P. Margry, Memoires et Documents, V., pp. 448'493.
2 Jesuit Relations, 66, p. 231.
MIGRATIONS OF THE KASKASKIAS 157
him occupied. The transformation wrought in the savages
by the labors of the missionary was truly marvelous.
At one time, probably in a moment of discouragement,
Father Marest seems to have felt somewhat like Mark Twain
did, many years later, when he wrote those cynical lines,
saying, it was only once in a while that he met a person who
reconciled him to mankind in general. At that time Father
Marest had written: "The conversions that are made can be
attributed neither to the reasoning of the missionary, nor to his
eloquence, nor to other talents that may be of service to him
in other countries; one can give glory only to Him who has
power to raise up children of Abraham out of stones.' 11
"To return to our Illinois [Kaskaskias]," writes Father
Marest, Nov. 9, 1712, "they are very different. . . from
what they were formerly. Christianity, as I have already
said, has softened their fierce habits, and they are now dis-
tinguished for certain gentle and polite manners that have led
the Frenchmen to take their daughters in marriage. More-
over, we find in them docility and ardor in the practice of
Christian virtues. This is the order that we observe each
day in this Mission. Very early in the morning the Cate-
chumens 2 are called to the Church, where they offer up prayers;
they listen to an instruction and sing a few Hymns. When
they have withdrawn, Mass is said, at which all the Chris-
tians are present, — the men being placed on one side and the
women on the other. We also say our prayers, which are
followed by an instruction, after which each one goes to his
work; then we are busy with visiting the sick, giving them
the necessary remedies, instructing them, and consoling those
who have any cause for sorrow.
"In the afternoon we have Catechism, when every one is
present — Christians and Catechumens, adults and children,
young people and old people; and when each one, without
distinction of rank or of age, answers the questions that the
Missionary asks him. As these people have no books and as
they are naturally indolent, they would very soon have for-
gotten the principles of Religion, if they had not been reminded
of them by almost continual instructions. Visiting the cabins
fills up the remainder of our day.
1 Rochemonteix, op. cu., III., p. 533.
2 Catechumen, that is, a person receiving religious instructions, but not yet baptized.
i 5 8 FROM QUEBEC TO K[EW ORLEANS
"In the evening, all the people meet again at the Church,
that they may hear instructions, offer prayers, and sing a
few Hymns. On Sundays and on Feast-days, to the ordinary
exercises is added an instruction which is given after Vespers.
The fervor with which these good Neophytes repair to the
Church at ail these hours is admirable; they stop their work,
and run in haste from a great distance, in order to be present
at the appointed time. They generally end the day with
private meetings, which they hold in their own houses, — the
men apart from the women; and there they recite the Rosary
in two choirs, and far on into the night they sing Hymns.
These Hymns are actual instructions, which they retain more
easily because the words are set to airs which they know, and
which are pleasing to them.
"They often approach the Sacraments, and the custom
among them is to confess and communicate every fortnight.
We have been obliged to appoint the days on which they are
allowed to confess, otherwise they would leave us no leisure
to attend to our other duties. On Saturday and Sunday
of each week, we hear them; and on those days we are over-
whelmed with a crowd of Penitents. The care that we
take of the sick wins for us their entire confidence. It is
especially in these moments that we gather the fruit of
our labors; their docility is then perfect and we have not
unfrequently the satisfaction of seeing them die in great
peace, and in a lively hope of being very soon united to
God in Heaven." 1
"The Jesuit Fathers have translated psalms and hymns
from Latin into their language. At Mass and Vespers
they alternate in singing with the French in this manner:
The Illinois [Kaskaskias] sing one verse of a psalm or hymn
in their own language and then the French sing the next
verse in Latin according to the melody used in Europe.
As to marriages. . . the banns are announced on three con-
secutive Sundays or Feast Days and the marriage is solem-
nised at Mass as is done in France." 2
Even the first Kaskaskia on the Illinois River had become
quite a center of French life, but the Kaskaskia, planted on
the triangular tongue of land between the Mississippi and
ijesuit Relations, 66, p. 241.
2 Penicaut, quoted by Rochemonteix, op. cit., III., p. 544.
MIGRATIONS OF THE KASKASKIAS 159
Kaskaskia Rivers 1 , very quickly developed into the most
flourishing colony between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico.
The Fathers taught the men how to till the soil and devel-
oped them into farmers as far, of course, as this was possible,
considering the nomadic impulse of the savage. The women
learned to sew and spin, and how to make cloth from the
wool of the buffalo, etc. The French traders naturally
followed the Indian. If the Indian lived in a village, the
trader went to see him there; if he roamed in the forest, the
trader followed him. If the Indian lived in a mission like Kas-
kaskia, that was rapidly developing into an orderly and civilised
community, the trader settled down in the same mission.
Other French came along, cleared the land, and began to
work their little farms. Until the coming of Boisbriand
and the erection of the first Fort de Chartres, that is, from
1700 to 1720, the religious and moral influence of Father
Marest and his companions, all picked men of high intellectual
and moral type, was the only government for French and
Indian alike. In this sense, and in this sense only, was the
mission of Kaskaskia a little Paraguay. 2
*l Jnfortunately this interesting old Kaskaskia village is no more. In the course of time the
channel of the Mississippi moved eastward towards the bed of the Kaskaskia. In April,
1881, when the strip of land between the two rivers measured barely 400 feet and the spring
flood had reached its crest, high northwest winds drove the water across this narrow tongue
of land into the Kaskaskia, whose waters were about eight feet lower than the waters of
the Mississippi. During the night of the 18th of April, 1881, the ground crumbled and a
millrace'like stream connected the two rivers. Two days later this little stream had become
a resistless river. The east bank of the Kaskaskia is a solid stratum of rock, and so all the
carving out of the new Mississippi bed was done in the loose ground on the village side.
The old Kaskaskia bed is now the Mississippi, the former Kaskaskia triangle has become an
island, and part of Illinois is west of the Mississippi.
See J. H. Burnham, The Destruction of Kas\as\ia y in Transactions of the State Historical
Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society, 1914, pp. 95412.
2 The Reductions of Paraguay and other reductions were villages in which the natives
were gathered and taught by missionaries to live in organized communities, under Christian
laws, to the exclusion of all whites. See 352, n. 3, post.
LOUISIANA A STRUGGLING COLOHT—CROZATS
EXPERIMENT
French Canadian explorers, traders, and missionaries had
laboriously threaded their way up the St. Lawrence, along
the Great Lakes and down the waterways of the Mississippi
Valley. Wherever the missionary stabilitated the savages,
there the merchant established his trade. Definite settle-
ments of whites developed along the waterways, for the
Indian set up his tepee chiefly along the only highways
of his day — the lakes and rivers, large and small. The trader
and the missionary — sometimes it was the missionary and
the trader, — followed the Indian. Agriculture was under-
taken in a limited way. It found its most successful and,
even flourishing, development in the new Kaskaskia colony
on the banks of the Kaskaskia River, where the Jesuit Fathers
put forth their best efforts to make farmers and stockmen
of the savages.
From the south, from D' Iberville's colony, Louisiana,
fearless explorers reached out westward and northward
and were soon in contact with the French Canadian and
Indian colony on the Kaskaskia, thus completing that im-
portant line of communication between the Gulf of Mexico
and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Kaskaskia was a paradise as compared with the poverty
of Louisiana, where famine and fever were the normal con-
dition. It was difficult for the colonists, most of whom had
been lured over by glittering misrepresentations, to adjust
themselves to the hard conditions of an incipient colony.
Bienville reports: "The males in the colony begin, through
habit, to be reconciled to corn as an article of nourishment;
but the women, who are mostly Parisians, have for this
kind of food a dogged aversion, which has not yet been sub-
dued." 1 In fact, the women threatened to leave the colony
without much thought as to how this might be done. This
threatening declaration is known as the "Petticoat Rebel-
lion".
^ayarre. op. cit. p. 93.
160
pm§ pj
W
JOHN LAW
Founder of the Mississippi Company
HARD BEGIKK&HGS OF LOUISIANA 161
• In 1708 the colony numbered 279 persons, and the prin-
cipal wealth consisted in 50 cows, 40 calves, 4 bulls, 8 oxen,
1400 hogs, and 2000 hens. 1
Deiler writes: "The truth is that the first colonists did
not want to work. . . they expected to find gold, silver, and
pearls as the Spaniards had done in Mexico. . . Since the
expected mineral treasures of the gulf coast, however, have
not been discovered even to-day, — since the Spaniards, who
claimed the whole northern gulf for themselves, were unwill-
ing to trade with the French, — since the trade with the In-
dians and with the Canadian hunters was too insignificant, —
since France, whose treasury had been emptied by Louis XIV,
could not do much for the colony — and, to make the worst
come to the worst, since yellow fever was introduced from
San Domingo in 1701 and again in 1704, the little colony of
Louisiana was for many years in a precarious condition and at
times on the verge of ruin". 2
Pontchar train, the Prime Minister, thought of turning the
colony over to an individual or a company. Men who had
not forgotten the experience of the past remarked to Pont-
chartrain that colonisation companies had been failures, at
least in New France, that, in fact, that colony had begun to
grow and prosper the day the companies retired from the
field. The home government even considered exchanging
Louisiana for the Spanish part of San Domingo. At any rate,
Pontchartrain felt that the least onerous solution would be to
turn the colony over to some individual or company for
development, at least for a number of years. Antoine Crosat
was the government's choice.
Crosat was financially interested in a number of colonial
and maritime undertakings, such as the Company of Guinea,
the Spanish company for importation of slaves, known as the
Compagnie de TAssiente, or the Assiento Company,etc.
La Mothe-Cadillac, 3 a native of Languedoc, Commandant
of Michillimakinac in 1694, and founder of the post at Detroit
in 1704, who had now been appointed Governor of Louisi-
^ayarre, op. cit., p. 108.
2 Hanno Deiler, The German Coast of Louisiana, pp.10'11.
3 Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac came from France to Port Royal in 1683; June 25, 1687,
married Therese Guyon, at Quebec, by whom he had thirteen children; 16944697 Com-
mandant at Michillimackinac; established a post at Detroit in the summer of I704,which
soon developed into a prosperous village; in 1712 appointed Governor of Louisiana, where
i6z FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
ana, so vividly pictured to Crosat the immense wealth of
Louisiana, the gold and silver mines, the fine pearls to be
found there (though he had never been in Louisiana), the
splendid opportunities for trade with the Spanish colonies,
that the latter decided to risk 700,000 livres in the venture 1
September 14, 1712, letters patent (royal charter) were
issued granting Crosat a fifteen year monopoly of trade with
exemption from all import and export duties. About the
only obligation on his part was this: to send to Louisiana
each year two ships and twenty-five young men or girls at his
choice. He had the privilege of sending one ship a year to
Africa for Negroes.
La Mothe-Cadillac, the Governor, and Duclos, accountant
for the government, received truly ideal instructions from
Pontchar train and sailed for Louisiana. Cadillac was to
"govern without passion, with justice and mildness, impar-
tially. . . like a good father 1 '. Duclos was to conduct himself
with "wisdom, prudence, and integrity' 1 .
Cadillac and Duclos arrived in July, 1713, and found the
colony in a miserable condition. At Dauphine Island there
were only 16 inhabitants; at Mobile a medley of houses with
19 families. The two companies of soldiers numbered
only 67 men, ten of whom were ill; they lived on whatever
game they could capture or kill in the woods. The settlers
were in no mood for work; in fact, they thought only of
selling out and leaving the colony. A difficult problem to
solve at best, but impossible of solution when dissension
between Cadillac and Duclos disrupted the administration.
The gold and silver mines Cadillac had pictured to Cro-
Sat were not found, and Croat's hopes of profit were van-
ishing. He attempted to establish trade with Vera Crus,
but Spain held to its treaty 2 with England, dated July 13, 1713,
he arrived in 1713 and remained five years .At Michillimackinac and Detroit he had quarrels
with the Jesuits, chiefly because of their opposition to the brandy trade with the Indians.
Vaudreuil and Raudot, Governor and Intendant, respectively, of Canada, accused him of
"looking out for himself first," of "looking to his own advantage in every thing," of being
"more interested in making money for himself than in the good of the establishment," and
finally of "being equally hated by the troops, by the inhabitants, and by the savages." —
Heinrich, op. cit., LX. See also Thwaites, op. cxt., LXV. note 36.
1 This presentation is largely drawn from Pierre Heinrich, La Louisiane sous la Compag'
nit des Indes.
2 Text of article 8 of this treaty quoted in Heinrich, op. cit., LXIII. note 7-
HARD BEG1HHIHGS OF LOUISIANA 163
according to which the Spanish colonies in America were
to give no privileges of navigation or traffic to the French
under any pretext whatsoever. La Jonchere, the ship sent to
Vera Cruz;, was ordered to leave that port. Then Crosat
hoped to carry on trade with the inhabitants along the rivers
west of the Mississippi. Juchereau de Saint'Denys^a relative
x As typical of the higher type of French trader and explorer of those early days, the fol'
lowing details are interesting.
Louis Juchereau de Saint -Denys was born at Quebec, September 17, 1676. In 16994700
he accompanied Dlberville to Louisiana. The freedom of a great and unexplored country
seemed to appeal to him; he went up and down the lower Mississippi, explored the ter*
ritory on both shores, and by his honest dealings made friends with the savages, whose Ian'
guages he learnt without much difficulty. Cadillac gave him 10,000 livres' worth of mer'
chandise and sent him off to the western tribes. Saint'Denys established a post with the
Natchitoches, forty leagues up the Red River.* That was in the summer of 1714. Accom'
panied by twelve Frenchmen and some savages he proceeded farther west to the Cenis
Indians and then on to the Spanish post San Juan Bautisto. Captain Don Remon Sanche de
Navarro was in command there and immediately informed the Viceroy of Mexico of the
arrival of this adventurous Frenchman. In the meantime Saint'Denys had fallen in love with
Dona Emmanuele, the daughter of Don Remon Sanche. At the request of the Viceroy he
was sent to Mexico and jailed. After three months the Viceroy offered to set him free if he
consented to enter the service of the King of Spain. Saint'Denys replied he had taken the
oath of fealty to the King of France and would not quit his service except with his life. The
Viceroy further offered him a company of cavalry, saying, if he accepted, Don Remon would
gladly give his daughter to a Spanish cavalry officer. Saint'Denys was set free and accompa'
nied nine missionaries to several Indian tribes. That was in October, 1715.
Having delivered the missionaries to their respective tribes, Saint'Denys returned to San
Juan Bautisto, where he was the honored guest of Don Remon. While there he had occasion
to settle singlchandedly a serious quarrel between the savages and the Spaniards, which
made him a coveted husband and a desirable son'in'law. Accordingly, the marriage between
Louis Juchereau de Saint'Denys and Dona Emanuele Sanche de Navarro was duly solemnized
in the church of the Franciscan Fathers of the post San Juan Bautisto. He gave his wife a
beautiful diamond which he had brought from France. The wedding'feast lasted three days,
and the Spanish soldiers of the post gave repeated expressions of joy by frequent volleys of
musketry.
By August 25, 1716, Saint'Denys was back in Mobile to give an account of his journeys
to La Mothe'Cadillac after an absence of three years. Shortly after his return he formed a
partnership with two other Frenchmen, purchased 43,000 livres' worth of merchandise and
started off on another tour of barter. Difficulties that arose again led him to Mexico. In 1722
he was appointed Governor of the fort of Natchitoches. It was then that he brought his wife
and children to this post. Despite the love of adventure which characterized his younger
days, he heartily disliked life in Louisiana. April 3, 1741, he wrote to a niece in Canada:
"I do not advise any of my relatives to come here, for I can assure you it is a wretched country;
happy he who can leave it, happier he who is out of it, and infinitely happier he who never
came here; and despite my age, I wish with all my heart I were away from here." He died
at Natchitoches, June 11, 1744, and was buried in the parish church of St. Francis. LePage
du Pratz says of him that he had deserved to be Governor of the colony of Louisiana.
Drawn from Pierre'Georges Roy, La FamiUe Juchereau Duchesnay, pp. 150462.
i6 4 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
of the one who established a tannery in the Valley of the
Ohio) 1 was fitted out with 10,000 livres 12 worth of mer-
chandise and sent up the Mississippi, and then along the Red
River. From there he worked his way over to the Rio
Grande, then known as Rio del Norte, to the Spanish pre-
sidio, San Juan Bautisto, where he was taken prisoner and
sent to Mexico. Put on their guard by this attempt of the
French to invade their domains, the Spanish forbade them all
access to their territory.
The hopes of finding rich mines and other wealth in Louisi-
ana were blasted, and Crosat was forced to devise other means
of retrieving his fortune. He now planned to raise tobacco
and indigo and to carry on a more extensive fur trade with
the Indians, but for that he had need of the Mississippi from
the Wabash (Ohio) to the Gulf. What he needed first of all
was soldiers and colonists. Crosat proposed to the govern-
ment to operate a lottery and thus raise the funds required to
send 400 to 500 emigrants to Louisiana each year. The
government was vitally interested in the colonisation of
Louisiana, because a strong colony there would form a bar-
rier against the English, who were trying to wedge in from
the east, the Carolinas, and therefore granted him four com-
panies of soldiers of 50 men each. The government, how-
ever, did not agree to the lottery, and so Crosat was compelled
to carry the cost of expansion on his own account.
In 1713 Crosat decided to establish two new posts — one at
Natchez, and the other on the Wabash (Ohio). In 1710
Vaudreuil had assured Pontchartrain there were rich copper
mines in the Valley of the Wabash. Then there was the
prospect of utilising those fertile lands, the anticipation of a
rich peltry trade with the natives, and, above all, the means
of keeping intact the line of communication between Louis-
iana and Canada. Cadillac did not consider the establishing
of these distant colonies feasible, and gave the project no
support.
In the meantime, the English of South Carolina were
driving a wedge into what the French considered their ter-
ritory. English traders had advanced as far as the habitats
1 Scc p. 118, n. 1, ante.
2 The livre was equivalent to 19c, though at that time all money had a far higher purchasing
value than it has today.
HARD BEGIHHIKGS OF LOUISIANA 165
of the Natchez and the Illinois tribes; they had set up one
tribe against the other to procure slaves; they had established
trading posts with the Chickasaws, and had even penetrated
to the Choctaws, who were considered the faithful allies of
the French. When Cadillac requested the English to with-
draw from this territory, because it was French, they laughed
with contempt at the 40 or 50 half-starved French soldiers
who might have attempted to give military backing to the
summons.
Just when an attempt was to be made to go to the Illinois
country to investigate the richness of certain reputed silver
mines, matters became very serious in the lower colony. An
English officer was detected among the Natchez;, endeavoring
to incite those tribes against the French colony. Three other
officers at the head of armies of Indians arrived in the Choctaw
territory, prepared to destroy all the Indian villages that in-
sisted on remaining loyal to the French. Reports came in
from the Illinois country that the English had distributed
presents to those savages that they might "break the heads
of the French at Mobile 1 '. 1 From the Great Lakes to the
Gulf the British endeavored to undermine the influence of
the French and menaced their positions.
At this critical moment two things happened, both of
them fortunate for the French. The first was that Cadillac,
whose haughty bearing had estranged the natives, was
absent, and that Bienville, with his usual happy gift of dealing
with the Indians, had regained their confidence and loyalty.
The other was the rebellion, April 15th, 1715, of the natives
against the harsh treatment by the Carolinians. 2 Their
tradesmen among the various tribes were massacred with
Indian brutality.
In August, 1715, two companies of reenforcements arrived
in Louisiana with orders to erect five posts. In addition to
Dauphine Island and Mobile, already existing, three more were
to be established — on the Alabama, among the Natchez, and
on the Ohio, thus blocking the principal approaches of the
*As early as 1699, Montigny reported that the English supplied the Chickasaws with
firearms and that an Englishman had suggested to them to kill Antoine Davion, the Seminary
priest missionary. Montigny Letter, August 25, 1699, Quebec Seminary Archives.
2 Mac Crady, History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, pp. 786787-
166 FROM QUEBEC TO X[EW ORLEANS
English. Cadillac had no faith in these distant settlements,
but did not inhibit his lieutenants, Bienville, Richebourg,
and Mandeville, from establishing the posts. August 3, 1716,
the little fort at Natchez;, which Bienville named Fort Rosalie,
in honor of Madame Pontchartrain, was completed.
It is truly amazing what this clever man accomplished where
nearly everyone else would have failed. Besides building
Fort Rosalie, Bienville had also sent a small detachment of
soldiers to Natchitoches, across the Mississippi, to block
the Spaniards. But the colony progressed very slowly, if
at all. The material condition was bad, and the morale
was worse. As Gayarre tersely expresses it: "The minds
of men are not apt to grow conciliating under the double
infliction of disappointment and famine." 1 Cadillac and
Duclos seldom agreed on anything, except on crossing the
plans of Cro2;at, who finally tired of their bickerings and
asked that both be recalled. His request was granted March,
1716.
The Conseil de Marine, which had succeeded Pontchar-
train, considered it necessary "not only to maintain Loui-
siana, but to back it as much and as promptly as possible. "
It was not the mines and the products of Louisiana that
prompted the Conseil de Marine. The Count de Poulouse
and the Marechal d'Estrees, the heads of the Conseil, clearly
saw that this struggling colony was really an advance guard,
an outpost against the English. Since the loss of New-
foundland and Acadia (by the Treaty of Utrecht), they con-
sidered Louisiana the only barrier to prevent the English
from driving the French from the American Continent, and
from pressing forward to New Mexico. Vaudreuil, Gov-
ernor of Canada, received orders about this time to maintain
stubbornly (avec fermete) the possession of the countries
that had always belonged to France, until such time as the
exact boundaries would have been agreed upon. 2
The conflicting interests and aims of French and English are
very clear even at this period. The French are determined to
maintain what they consider their territory, keep the Eng-
lish east of the Alleghenies and hold the line of communica-
1 Gayarre, op. cit., p. 109.
2 See p. 125, ante.
HARD BEGIHHIHGS OF LOUISIANA 167
tion between Louisiana and Canada open. 1 The English,
wedged in between the Atlantic and the Alleghenies, are
equally determined to break through this barrier and move
westward to the Mississippi and the Great Lakes.
*"It is absolutely necessary to have free communication between Canada and Louisiana",
or some sentence like it, is the eveivrecurring refrain of hundreds of documents down to the
Conquest.
DEATH OF LOUIS XIV— THE DUKE OF ORLEANS
REGEH? OF FRANCE
In the Cour du Mai in Paris, there is an imposing monu-
ment, erected to Malesherbes, the attorney, who was guil-
lotined for having committed the crime of defending Louis
XVI before the tribunal of the Revolution.
Only a few paces from this monument there is what
is called the Premiere Chambre. One day, away back in
1661, Louis XIV, then twenty-three years old, "booted and
spurred, strode unexpectedly in while Parlement 1 was
discussing some of his edicts, ordered that in future his
decrees should become law without discussion; and, declar-
ing, fc I am the State— VEtat cest moi,' went out." 2
Two extremes of abuse of power!
Louis XIV 3 had been tutored by Masarin, who was
the master of France during the King's minority, and it
was said that Masarin was "as powerful as God the Father
when the world began." 4
During the whole of Louis 1 long career, which ended in
1715, his policy was that of personal government. The
nobles had been powerful factors when they lived on their
estates. Louis brought them to Versailles, and they became
mere ornaments of the Court. The parlements were trained
to submission. The King held the whole power of govern-
ment in his hands, and was represented in the provinces
by Intendants. However, Louis gathered at his Court
the ablest men of the realm, whom he consulted.
For a long time Louis XIV was the arbiter of Europe,
and Voltaire calls the seventeenth century the "Age of Louis
XIV." "He did much to develop French colonial power;
but before the end of the reign, that power was to enter
upon its period of decadence. . . . No doubt the King was
forced into some of his wars . . . but his lust of fame, the
1 In France, before the revolution, parliaments (parlements) were not legislative . bodies,
but certain high courts of justice.
2 Clara E. Laughlin, in So You're Going To Paris, p. 140.
3 Louis XIV was born September 16, 1638, and died at Versailles, September 1, 1715.
4 Georges Goyau, in Catholic Encyclopedia, X., p. 93.
168
DEATH OF LOUIS XIV 169
flattery of his courtiers, and his desire to humiliate Europe
led him to prefer the glories of warfare to the wiser and more
durable triumphs which a great maritime development
would have secured for France/ 11
The last years of Louis XIV were years of bitter regret.
"He was old and sad/ 1 says Guisot, "and the state of his
kingdom preyed on his mind. 11 He realised the bankrupt
condition of his country, and he felt keenly the hatred of
his people who once had idolized him. His son and grand'
son had preceded him in death.
On August 26, 1715, he bade farewell to his Ministers,
and then sent for the Dauphin, his great-grandson, heir to
the throne, who was only five years of age. The child came
to the bedside of the King, who said to him: "My child,
soon you will be the ruler of a great kingdom. Render to
God that which you owe to Him; recognise the obligations
you have towards Him; cause Him to be honored by your
subjects. Try to preserve peace with your neighbors; I have
been too fond of war; do not imitate me in that, any more
than in the too great expenditures I have incurred. . . .
Try to relieve your people, which I have unfortunately not
been able to do. 11
Louis made public apology for his sins and for the wrong
he had done his subjects. "Gentlemen, 11 he said to those
who surrounded his deathbed, "I ask your pardon for the
bad example I have set you. 11
Repeating aloud the prayers of the attending priest,
Louis died, September 1, 1715. "In spite of his faults and
numerous culpable errors, Louis XIV had lived and died
like a King. 112
Louis XIV had provided in his will that a council, headed
by the Duke of Maine, should rule for the boy'king until
he attained his majority. Philip, Duke of Orleans, forthwith
set aside the will of the late King and captured the regency.
The European background of American history is in full
view again.
Croat's tenure was coming to a close. The days of
Richelieu, Colbert, and Louis XIV, who, after all, had a
sincere interest in the welfare and progress of the colonies,
Georges Goyau, in Catholic Encyclopedia, LX., p. 372.
2 M. Guisot, History of France, V., pp. 125-129.
iyo FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
were past. The young King, Louis XV, was only six years
of age, and his uncle, the Duke of Orleans, was Regent.
As everyone knows, the regency inaugurated the reign of
debauchery and profligacy that disgraced France until the
death of Louis XV. The Regent's administration needed
money, and obtained it by a system of exorbitant property
taxation. A levy of tax bordering on confiscation was as-
sessed against Cro2;at — the mere pittance of 6,600,000 livres. 1
The Louisiana venture had cost him 1,250,000 livres, and
Crosat was ready to quit. He remitted the colony to the
crown, wiser by many an experience.
The Regent was gifted by nature, but, according to the
testimony of his own mother, made no use of his talents.
Wine and women were the ruin of Philippe of Orleans, who
might otherwise have been a great man.
Around the Duke of Orleans gathered a group of free-
thinkers and freeiivers, profligates, the cream of the roues,
and all that class which refuses to be bound by the laws,
not only of Christianity, but even of decency.
The last two wars of Louis XIV had cost great sums of
money; the State treasury jogged along on an annual deficit
of 78 millions, while the anticipation warrants for a period
of two years in advance had already been expended. The
first problem that faced the Regent was how to improve
the finances of the country. Saint Simon advised making
a clean slate by declaring the bankruptcy of the kingdom,
and thus wiping out all debt. The means adopted by the
Regent failed to remedy the financial chaos, in fact, rather
helped make it worse.
Gold and silver were given fictitious values. The louis
d'or, actually worth 14 francs, was stamped forty. One
is reminded of the methods of the unjust steward in the
Gospel: "How much dost thou owe my Lord? But he
said: an hundred barrels of oil. And he said to him: Take
thy bill and sit down quickly, and write fifty." 3
At this critical moment John Law, a smooth-tongued
Scotchman, appeared on the scene. Law offered a scheme
that would quickly wipe out the national debt and, more
than that, make France the richest country in the world.
1 Weiss, Weltgeschichte, XI., p. 69.
2 Luke, 16, 6.
JOHH LAW— THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE
John Law, the son of a Scotch goldsmith and banker, was
born at Edinburgh in April, 1671. While he had a certain
predilection for mathematics, commerce, and finance, and
had studied these branches at Edinburgh, still it was rather
his flashy, dapper dress and affected manners than profound
scholarship that attracted the attention of the public. At
the age of twenty the provincial swain went to London to
see life — and he saw it and lived it. His father had died
when John Law was a boy of fourteen or fifteen. An over-
indulgent mother shielded and condoned the excesses of a
talented but reckless son.
"Law," writes Gayarre, "was a votary of pleasure as
well as of study, and whenever he emerged from his closet,
it was to attend the gambling-table, the racing ground,
and to indulge in convivial and amorous exploits. . . . His
love for deep play and his gallantries soon rid him of his
patrimonial lands of Lauriston and Randleston. Their
broad acres were converted into guineas which melted
away in the hands of prodigality, and thus, in early life,
through his own folly, John Law stands before us a bank-
rupt." 1
An illicit love affair resulted in a duel with a certain
Beau Wilson. Law killed his antagonist, was condemned
to death, but by intrigue, or the influence of some lady at
Court, obtained pardon, and was permitted to escape to
Holland. At the age of twenty-three Law was a notorious
libertine, a bankrupt, a murderer, and an exiled outlaw.
His life in Holland and in every other country he visited
after that was the same as it had been in Scotland and Eng-
land. However, he made use of the opportunity in Holland
to study the practical working of banking and the financial
business of the Bank of Amsterdam. He also frequented all
the important gambling halls of the capitals of Europe, and
was sometimes prohibited from further participation, be-
cause of his shrewd playing. 2
Gayarre, op. cit., p. 200.
2 A realistic life of John Law is La Vie tres curieuse de Jean Law by Georges Oudard, 1927.
171
172 FROM QUEBEC TO J^EW ORLEANS
On his visit to Paris in 1708 he had met the dissolute
Duke of Orleans and had frequented the company of his
debauched associates. Louis XIV had refused to have any deal-
ings with Law and had even expelled him from the country
as an undesirable character. But Louis had died, and the
Duke of Orleans was Regent of France. Law returned to
Paris to offer his "system" of finance to Philippe of Orleans.
"It was at that time," writes Gayarre, "when the wisest
heads in France were not able to see their way through
the embarrassments of the treasury, that John Law came
forward with his panacea."
According to Law's theory, the wealth of a country
consists in the money that is in the country. "But," remarks
Thiers, "money is not food from which man can live, it
is not goods with which he can clothe himself, money is
not the tools with which he works, money is only a measure
of value. . . . If you increase the amount of money in a country
without increasing the goods that you can buy with it,
then, indeed, the prices will rise without actually increasing
the wealth of that country, because of the disproportion
between the amount of money and the purchaseable goods." 1
Law was an ardent advocate of paper money and held
very correctly that the reserve of a bank gives value to the
paper money 2 it issues. But his pet idea was to increase
the amount of money. Increase the means of exchange
and you stimulate trade. Specie (gold and silver) cannot
be increased, but paper money can be increased. A bank
that has one hundred million in specie can issue two hun-
dred millions in paper money. The state must become banker
and make the profits that otherwise would go to individuals.
May 3, 171 6, in face of the opposition of the financiers
of the realm, the Regent sanctioned the organisation of
a bank based on Law's plan — the Banque Generate de
France — General Bank of France. A capital stock of six
million livres was provided in the form of 1200 shares at
5000 livres each. 3 The Regent was made the Protector of
*A. Thiers, Histoire de Law, p. 20, ff.
Representative money, that is, money that represents value. Law's paper money soon
developed into irredeemable or fiat money, that is money not based upon specie. See Wil*
Ham D. P. Bliss, Encyclopedia of Social Reform (1910), p. 864.
3 Heinrich, op. tit., LXXX.
A HATIOK SPECULATING 173
this bank. April 12, 1717, he issued an edict stating that
the paper money issued by this bank would be accepted
in payment of taxes due the government. Deposits increased
tremendously, and everybody wanted some of that paper
money, which, owing to the arbitrary mint decrees of the
government, had greater fixity of value than coin.
The Conseil de Marine recognised, on the one hand,
the absolute necessity of maintaining Louisiana for reasons
already set forth, but also believed that the undertaking
was too great for any individual, and therefore suggested
on January 13, 1717, that the enterprise be given over to
a strong and energetic company.
Crosat had relinquished the colony of Louisiana to the
crown. The crown on its part turned the colony over
to the Company of the West 1 — Compagnie d'Occident,
which Law had re-established. It became known as the
Compagnie du Mississippi. But Law's bank and the Company
of the West were closely affiliated, — both were Law's cre-
ations. He feared the jealousy of England and Spain. But
the suspicion of these countries was to be averted by the
very name of the Company — Compagnie cTOcrident, which
in no way intimated any government connection.
Law conceived the idea of investing the deposits of his
bank in the development of Louisiana. The largest possible
number of share-holders was to be interested; it was to be an
affair of the whole nation, and no one should be excluded from
this splendid opportunity of becoming wealthy. The Com-
pany of the West had obtained the exclusive monopoly of the
trade of Louisiana for twenty-five years. "All the fields put
into cultivation ... all the mines opened/ 1 etc. were to
remain forever the property of this company. 2 Neither
import nor export duty was to be assessed. To promote
the rapid colonisation of Louisiana, the Company was ob-
J The Company of the West Indies was one of several corporations promoted or organized
by Colbert for the purpose of exploiting the resources of the French colonial possessions.
The Company of the West Indies had the monopoly in the fur trade. Talon realized at once
that subjecting the colony to a monopoly killed the colony. The privileges of the Company
were revoked by Louis XIV, December, 1674. Law induced the Regent to re-establish the
Company for Louisiana. See Thwaites, op. cit., XLIX., p. 278.
2 Heinrich, op. cit., p.. 3.
174 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
ligated to import each year 6000 whites and 3000 Negroes. 1
Since the Senegal Company could furnish only 1500 each
year, the Company of the West was granted the privi-
lege of importing the balance on its own account. To favor
the Company of the West still more in its vast scheme of
colonisation, the Illinois country, heretofore under the ad-
ministration of Canada, was assigned to the jurisdiction of
Louisiana, September 27, 1717-
Bienville, who had succeeded La Mothe Cadillac as
Governor, had the privilege of selecting two officers of his
own choice. He chose his cousin, Boisbriand, who was
made Commandant of Mobile and Dauphine Island and
First Lieutenant to the King, and his own youngest bro-
ther, Chataugue, commandant of troops and marine and
second lieutenant to the King. The French at that time
occupied Biloxi, Dauphine Island, Mobile, Natchez, and
Natchitoches on the Red River. 2
The fact that the leaders and colonists held so tenaciously
to the seashore and would not go out into the fertile fields
that offered fruit a hundredfold, indicates that they looked
upon the colony rather as a commercial and strategic venture
than an agricultural enterprise. Bienville finally realised
that the riches of the colony were to be sought in agriculture
and not in visionary mines.
In 1717, with a few poor carpenters and some 28 banished
salt smugglers, Bienville laid the foundations of a city 30
leagues from the sea, T^ouvelle Orleans* — New Orleans,
so named in honor of the Regent, the Duke of Orleans.
ll 'Negroes from Africa were brought to Louisiana by Law's Company, because European
laborers proved unable to endure the semitropical climate; this was the origin of African
slavery in that region." Thwaites, op. at., LXVII., p. 343
Peter Kalm, the noted Swedish traveler and scientist, gives the origin of slavery in America
as follows:
"In the Year 1620, some Negroes were brought to North America in a Dutch ship, and
in Virginia they bought twenty of them. These are said to have been the first who came
hither. When the Indians . . . saw these black people for the first time, they thought they
were a true breed of devils, and therefore they called them Manitoo for a great while: this
word in their language signifies not only God, but likewise the Devil."
Peter Kalm, Travels Into Horth America, 1748-1749, p. 309, Newberry Library, Chicago.
2 Garneau, op. cit., II., p. 79.
3 Charlevoix writes: "Those who gave it that name believed that Orleans is of the fern-
inine gender; but what does it matter? The custom is established, and it is above the rules of
grammar." Quoted by Alcee Fortier, History of Louisiana, I., p. 73 •
A HATIOH SPECULATING 175
The city was laid out by Chevalier Le Blond de La Tour,
chief engineer of the colony, and included a parish church,
which Bienville dedicated to St. Louis, patron of France.
The old St. Louis Cathedral of New Orleans still occupies
the site of this first parish church.
From the beginning of the history of Louisiana, Catholic
missionaries accompanied the explorers and pioneers. The
letters patent, which transferred the colony of Louisiana
to the joint stock company, then known as the Company
of the West, stipulated as one of the obligations of the Com-
pany the building of churches wherever settlements would
be established, and the maintaining of duly authorised priests
for the preaching of the Gospel, administration of the sac-
raments and maintenance of divine worship, all under the
jurisdiction of the Bishop of Quebec.
The stage was now set for big business. There was to
be 100 million livres capital stock in Law's new company,
divided into 200,000 shares of 500 livres each. The purchaser
had to pay 25% in cash, and 75% could be paid with govern-
ment papers, that were worth only 20-30% of the face
value.
Advertising now set in to do the work. Circulars announc-
ing the fertility of the soil, the alleged immense treasures
of gold, silver, copper and lead, richer by far than the mines
of Mexico and Peru, were printed and sent to the pros-
pective emigrant or buyer. In the Arkansas River, so said
the circulars, there was a big rock of emerald, or at any rate,
as precious as emerald. From the time of Ponce de Leon,
1512, the old world was filled with rumors of precious metal
in these regions. No explorer had ever found them, neither
Velasques, nor Narvaes, nor de Soto, although the latter's
men had searched for them for a period of 30 years. But
a vague rumor stubbornly persisted that this colony was
rich in precious metals, one had only to find them. 1
To quote Gayarre again: "These descriptions were
believed in France, and from the towering palace to the
humblest shed in the kingdom, nothing else was talked of
but Louisiana and its wonders. The national debt was
^einrich, op. cit., p. 5.
i 7 6 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
to be paid instantaneously with the Louisiana gold, France
was to purchase or to conquer the rest of the world, and
every Frenchman was to be a wealthy lord. . . . The people
seemed to have but one pursuit, but one object in life: me-
chanics dropped their tools, tradesmen closed their shops;
there was but one profession, one employment, one occu-
pation, for persons of all ranks — that of speculating in stock!" 1
The Company of the West, or the Mississippi Company,
was to be the central body, around which all business, com-
merce and commercial undertakings were to be grouped,
and the citizens of the nation were to be the stock-holders
and share in the profits. Louisiana, still sleeping calmly
in the shadows of the primeval forests, was divided into
duchies and marquisates.
By edict of May, 1719, a consolidation of all other com-
panies with the Mississippi Company was decreed. That
brought about a merger of the companies of Madagascar,
Bourbon, Isle de France, Persia, Mongolia, Siam and Japan
with the Company of the West or the Mississippi Company.
The name was then changed to Compagnie des Indes — Com-
pany of the Indies.
To this Gayarre remarks: "Through this curious process
of complex annexation and assimilation, John Law had
succeeded in erecting the most stupendous financial fabric
that has ever been presented to the world. In one company,
and through it, in one man, was vested nothing less than
the whole privileges, effects and possessions of the foreign
trade companies of France, the great farms of the kingdom,
the mint, the general receipt of the king's revenues, and the
management and property of a royal bank, with an immense
capital! Thus, one man, an obscure foreign adventurer,
through his creature, the Company, had condensed into
one lump, which his hands encircled, all the trade, taxes,
and revenues of one of the most powerful kingdoms of Europe,
and through the Royal Bank, he might, according to his
will, increase to any amount the circulating medium of that
country !" 2
Twenty-five million livres' worth of new shares were
issued. These had to be paid in specie. The demand was
Gayarre, op. tit., pp. 217-220.
2 Gayarre, ibid., p. 214.
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FACSIMILE TITLE PAGE OF A JOHN LAW PAMPHLET
From ]. Hanno Deiler, German Coast of Louisiana
'**
ArhaniQt Pc:f +
1685
John L«v
ConeessioV
XA&^
\o°
G -u I
THE PRINCIPAL FORTS AND TRADING POSTS OF LOUISIANA
From J. Hanno Deiler, German Coast of Louisiana
A NATION SPECULATING 177
so great that they jumped to 150. July 20, 1719, the right
to coin money was granted to the Company of the Indies
for a term of nine years. Law's opponents started a run on
the bank, but the bank paid every livre called for. The
confidence and enthusiasm knew no bounds. To give even
the people of small means an opportunity to obtain wealth,
10 million shares of 10 livres each were issued. A 12$
dividend was declared on the 50Olivre shares. Law was
supreme. In Rue Quincampoix, main office of the Company,
poor men became wealthy just by stooping down and letting
buyers use their backs as writing desks.
The Compagnie des Indes flourished to such extent that
it could offer the King a loan of 1200 million livres. Stocks
went up from 500 par to 2000. The government had money
to construct bridges, canals, make public improvements,
and it even built the famous church of Saint Roche 1 in
Paris. Everybody came to Paris to buy Mississippi stocks.
It is estimated that 300,000 foreigners were in Paris at
one time. The newly-rich were dubbed Mississippians.
But how find men and women to colonise that El Dorado
on the Isle Du Mississippi 2 — Mississippi Island, as it
was called in the Mercure de Paris. The question of
Negroes was easily solved. December 15, 1718, the Com-
pagnie des Indes was authorised to absorb the Senegal Slave
Trade company, which it did. But the French preferred
^'St'Roch is the finest church in the baroque style in Paris. ... In front of it once lay
a large square, where the Royalists who attacked the Convention on Oct. 5th, 1795,
posted their best battallions. Bonaparte, however, by a vigorous attack (Carlyle's 'whiff
of grapeshot 1 ) stifled the counterrevolution in its birth. The marks of the bullets on
the facade of the church have been filled up with mortar.'"
[Note: Some of the mortar has fallen out, and the bullet holes are again visible.]
"St.-Roch played a sinister role during the Revolution. As the tumbrels containing the vic-
tims to be executed at the Place de la Concorde nearly always came from the prisons by way
of the Rue St-Honore, the steps and portico of St-Roch were among the chief points at which
the mob gathered to cast insults and filth on the unfortunate captives. A woman of the people
stood in the portico of this church as the tumbrel with Queen Marie Antoinette slowly
passed (Oct. 16th, 1793), and spitting into her hand cast the saliva on the queen — an inci'
dent that caused Marie- Antoinette to lose for a moment her heroic demeanour of contempt.
This vile mob!' she exclaimed, turning her back on her insulter/' — Karl Baedeker, Paris
and Its Environments, pp. 82-83.
2 H»inrich, op. cit., p. 10.
178 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
enjoying their 12$ stock dividends at home to going to far
off Louisiana, about which, after all, they knew very little.
A small group of colonists was sent there in the fall of
1717. Three hundred land owners and enlisted soldiers
sailed from La Rochelle in May, 1718. In November of
the same year a hundred more followed. But what was
that small number for so large a colony? Bernard de la
Harpe, later an explorer of the colony, and Le Page du Prats,
one of the first historians of Louisiana, arrived in May, 1718.
Voluntary emigration was evidently not a success, and
other means had to be resorted to. Most iniquitous and re-
prehensible methods were employed. Emigration enforce-
ment officers picked up honest men who came to Paris on
legitimate business, and sent them to Louisiana. The poor,
mendicants, and vagabonds of the provinces of the north
and east were rounded up, prison sentences were commuted
to deportation to the colony, and so forth. But vagabonds
and jail birds make poor colonists, and public women make
poor farmers' wives. However, the Company needed col-
onists, and was willing to close an eye to their quality and
the manner of procuring them.
October 26, 1717, Hubert reported to the Conseil de
Marine that a hurricane 1 had silted the harbor of Dau-
phine Island (Port Dauphin). That, together with the real-
isation that the future of the colony lay in the tilling of
the soil rather than in trading, influenced the establish-
ment of settlements farther from the seashore, along the
banks of rivers, and in fertile fields. The Directors of the Com-
pany at this time really worked for the best interests of the
colony. Orders were given that a brig should go up the
Mississippi, if possible, as far as the Illinois country. New
Orleans was to be the Company's principal warehouse, in
fact, the chief centre of the colony. It was for that reason that
the convoy of May, 1718, was directed to New Orleans. Le
Page du Prats, early historian of Louisiana, was of this number,
but did not remain very long at New Orleans. He said it was
too swampy (trop aquatique). Bienville, who knew every
section of the vast territory, petitioned the establishment
of several military posts, one of them among the Yasous,
x The first hurricane recorded in Louisiana.
A KATIOH SPECULATING 179
on the present Yasoo River, which, because of the produc-
tiveness of its soil, would in the course of time become the
granary of the colony.
Every settlement in those early days was, of necessity, at
the same time a military post of some sort. The colonists
needed protection against the Indians, on the one hand;
on the other, the immense continent of America, as yet
only partly explored, and only in part and sparsely settled,
held out great hopes of being converted into powerful colonies,
or a great empire.
Three nations contended for the supremacy: Spain,
England, and France. East of the Mississippi the struggle
was chiefly between England and France. Each nation jeal-
ously guarded the territory which it considered its own,
besides trying to wedge into territory it thought it should
have, or desired to have.
At first the colonies of the English and French were
far apart. Hundreds of miles and more of dense, virgin
forest lay between the colonies of the English along the
Atlantic seaboard, and those of the French in the Missis-
sippi and Ohio Valleys. The forests were so dense that the
soldiers could break through only ax in hand. There was
no shortage of land to be colonised. A continent less than
half discovered lay open to them. It might all have been
settled after the manner of Abraham and Lot. "Abraham,
therefore, said to Lot: Let there be no quarrel, I beseech
thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and
thy herdsmen: for we are brethren. Behold the whole
land is before thee; depart from me, I pray thee; if thou
wilt go to the left hand, I will take the right : if thou choose
the right hand, I will pass to the left/' 1
But that was not done. The sources of friction between
the French and English colonists cannot be adequately
explained from national antipathies between the two races,
nor even from religious aversion between Puritan English and
Catholic French. While it is true that in the north, where
the French and English were next door neighbors, the re-
ligious feeling sometimes became quite acute, still, for in-
stance in the West Indies, where a common commercial
Genesis, XIII, 8-9.
•s
180 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
interest bound them together, they got along very well,
and together did a thriving contraband business in time of
peace and even of war. It would seem that the chief source
of friction is not to be found in old and long standing an-
tipathies, nor in the desire to own millions of square miles
of forests and land that neither knew what to do with,
but rather in the commercial rivalry for the fur trade with the
Indians 1 .
Of old "there arose a strife between the herdsmen of
Abraham and of Lot," not between Abraham and Lot
themselves. Nor was the beginning of the strife here a
quarrel between the home governments. As Pasquet re-
marks: "It does not seem that the Ministers [of the home
governments] bothered themselves to any great extent
about the colonies. It would be doing them too much
honor to credit them with a continuity of design, of which
most of them were incapable. ,,2
In the beginning, the conflict was rather between the
English traders and the French coureurs de bois and trd'
fiquants. It is they who carried this strife westward as
the beaver disappeared from the east; it is they who drew
the Indian tribes into this strife. Montreal (French) and
Albany (British) were the outstanding rivals in the commer-
cial fight for the Indian trade. The home governments
usually followed reluctantly, and it was only towards the
end of the great struggle that some men began to realise
that it was not only a fight for beaver skins, but a battle
for the possession of an empire.
It was one of the first cares of the Company of the West,
scarcely organised, to promote the raising of tobacco and
rice. The settlers were urged to take up these industries.
The Company sent an agent to San Domingo (Cap Frangais)
to find planters willing to come to Louisiana, and, failing
that, to procure a few barrels of seed, and to study tobacco
and rice growing in that country, so that he might instruct
the Louisiana colonists. The silk worm industry had al-
ready been undertaken by the Ordinateur Hubert, and was
warmly recommended to the settlers. To encourage the
colonists, the Company itself decided to establish a large
Pasquet, op. cit., p. 183.
Hbid.
A HATIOH SPECULATIHG 181
tobacco plantation. Tobacco was to be the chief product
of the colony. It was chiefly for this reason that the Company
of the West absorbed the Senegal Slavery Company, January
10, 1719, in order to provide its own Negro slaves^for work in
the plantations.
Crosat had looked for mines and precious metal, and had
failed. Profiting by this failure, the Company of the West
Indies encouraged agriculture and the development of all
the sources of wealth to their fullest capacity. To this
end, large tracts of land were given to such wealthy people
in France as would obligate themselves to send colonists
from Europe to settle thereon and till the soil. Of course,
the Company also sold tracts of land.
John Law himself, the president of the Company, was
probably the largest concessioner, owning two concessions, 1
the larger one on the west bank of the Mississippi, just
above the mouth of the Arkansas River, and the other "seven
leagues below New Orleans on the Mississippi River, below
English Turn, and adjoining one of the concessions of the
Minister of War, Le Blanc, whose principal possessions
were on the Yasoo River." 2
The Company had pledged itself to send six thousand
white emigrants to the colony each year. Law realised
that to make the venture a financial success, he needed not
only capital, but, above all, people, colonists, who were
willing to work. "A great agitation was now begun,' ' writes
Deiler, "partly to induce rich people to take shares in the
general enterprise and buy land for their own account,
and partly to entice poor people to become engages (hired
field-hands for the company or for different concessioners).
After a while, land was also given to the poor engages to
enable them also to get rich."
»3
*"A 'Concession' is a certain tract of land granted by the Company to a private individ'
ual, or to several persons, who have together formed a partnership, for the purpose of
clearing that land and making it valuable. These were the 'Counties' and 'Marquisates'
of the Mississippi. The concessioners were the Gentlemen of the country.
"A 'Habitation' is a smaller portion of land granted by the Company; the owner is called
'habitant." If he succeeds in having three or four Negroes, then he is out of his difficulties.
"A 'Settlement' is a district where several habitations make a sort of a village." Father
Du Poisson in Jesuit Relations, LXVII., pp. 28l'283.
2 Deiler, op. cit., p. 10.
3 Deiler, op. cit., p. 11.
i8 2 FROM QUEBEC TO JiEW ORLEANS
Circulars, advertising the wonderful colony on the Missis-
sippi, were scattered over France, and sent into Italy, Germany,
and Switzerland. The Swiss authorities warned the public
against agents who wished to entice people into going to
the "Island of the Mississippi, lately discovered — lie du
Mississippi nouvellement decouverte" 1
The Company made the most seductive offers; it paid
all expenses from their homes to the settlement in Louisi-
ana; promised every working man at least thirty arpents 2 of
land; to members of the nobility a large tract of land; to all,
horses and oxen for the cultivation of the fields, and thirty
pounds of flour per head till the next harvest; every crafts-
man or mechanic would receive over and above that a cow,
pigs, sheep, chickens, 3 not counting household furniture and
kitchen utensils. Unhappily for the emigrants, these were
only empty promises.
The Company of the West and other concessioners tried
to enlist engages — hired help. The Jesuit traveler, Charle-
voix, who visited the colony in 1721, made the following
report : "The people who are sent there are miserable wretches
driven from France for real or supposed crimes, or bad con-
duct, or persons who have enlisted in the troops or enrolled
as emigrants, in order to avoid the pursuit of their creditors.
Both classes regard the country as a place of exile. Every-
thing disheartens them: nothing interests them in the pro-
gress of a colony of which they are members in spite of
themselves."
The sending of jailbirds and women of doubtful reputation
had been of no benefit to the colony. They had been failures
at home and became complete wrecks under the hardships
of a new colony. The mortality was very great, and quite
a large number of all sorts of immigrants returned to France
when they could find means to do so. England had attempted
the same kind of colonisation before, and France had tried
it out in Canada in the early days. In both cases the venture
had disastrous results. It is a mistake, however, to think
*D. Pasquet, op. cit., p. 180.
2 The arpent as a linear measure is equivalent to 180 French feet or 191.85 English
feet; as a surface measure, 191.85 x 191.85 feet, a trifle less than an acre.
3 It must be remembered that nearly all our domestic animals, such as horses, cows,
sheep, hogs and chickens are not native to America and had to be brought from Europe.
A HATIOK SPECULATING 183
that it was the jailbirds and public women who really car'
ried the burden of the new colony and became its first hon-
ored citizens. Apart from the fact that many of the con-
victs were merely political offenders, the records show that
most of them soon disappeared, either by desertion or by
death. The greater part of those who remained were good
and honest people.
Law "resolved to engage for his own concessions Ger-
mans from the country on both sides of the river Rhine,
and from Switzerland." Deiler unearthed an original copy
of a pamphlet, 1 printed in German, and sent out by John
Law to advertise Louisiana.
The pamphlet states that "through the adventurer 'Chris-
tophum Columbum , many of those Europeans had been led
to leave 'Europam 1 for 'Americam,' especially for those then
still undiscovered countries."
The vague description of Louisiana is extremely inter-
esting: "The boundaries of Louisiana are towards the east
Florida and Carolina, towards the north Virginia and Canada.
The northern limits are entirely unknown. In 1700, a Ca-
nadian, M. le Sueur, ascended the St. Louis River ( c den
Fluss St. Ludewig') 2 for a distance of 700 miles. But there
is still another district known of over 100 miles, for which
reason it is almost to be supposed that this country extends
to the Tolum Arcticum. ' " 3
The soil is described as "extremely pleasant;" 4 capable
of producing four crops a year. "It is impossible to picture
the abundance of this country."
There was also plenty of game, according to the pamphlet,
which everyone might kill: "leopards, bears, buffaloes, deer,
whole swarms of Indian hens, snipe, turtle-doves, partridges,
wood-pigeons, quail, beavers, martens, wild cats, parrots, buz-
zards, ducks, prairie chicken and other fowls which I cannot
now describe." These descriptions are taken from letters of
deiler, op. cit., pp.. 1142. This pamphlet is now in the Fisk Library. A copy was sup'
plied by Mr. F. P. Kenkel of the Central Bureau of the C. V., of St. Louis, Mo. Numerous
courtesies of Mr. Aug. F. Brockland of the same institution are herewith gratefully acknow'
ledged.
2 Mississippi River.
3 "Dannenhero fast zu vermuthen, dass sich dieses Land bis an den Polum arcticum er-
strecken moechte."
4 "Ungemein angenehm."
i8 4 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
real or supposed colonists. Deer is the most useful game,
and the French carry on a big negotium 1 (business) in
doeskins, which they purchase from the savages. Ten
or twelve leaden bullets are given in exchange for such a skin.
The following must have convinced the most sceptical:
"The land is filled with gold, silver, copper, and lead mines.
If one wishes to hunt for mines, one need only to go into
the country of the Natchitoches. There we shall surely
draw pieces of silver out of the earth. Having discovered
these mines we will hunt for herbs and plants for the apothe-
caries. The savages will make them known to us. . . . 2 "
The returns on the investment are figured as follows:
"If one gets 300 acres of land for 100 Reichstalers, then
three acres cost one Taler; but, if the benefit to be derived
and other 'prerogatives' of such lands are considered, then
an acre of this land, even if not cultivated, is worth about
100 Talers. From this basis it follows that 300 acres, which,
as stated already, cost 100 Talers when purchased, are really
worth 30,000 Talers. For this reason one can easily under-
stand why these shares may yet rise very high." 3 It has
already been stated that stocks actually rose from 500 par
to 2000.
Weiss states that 12,000 Germans 4 emigrated to Louisiana
at this time. The reason the Germans were so ready
to be enticed by the glowing promises of the promoters is
to be found in the economic conditions prevailing in their
country at that time. That section of Germany had suffered
heavily from the ravages of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).
Then came the wars of Louis XIV, during which large por-
tions of Alsace and Lorraine, including the city of Strass-
burg, were absorbed by the French. Deiler states: "These
people on the Rhine had lost courage, and as in 1709-10,
at the time of the great famine, 15,000 inhabitants of the
Palatinate had listened to the English agents, and had gone
down the Rhine to England, to seek passage for the English
r 'Und treiben die Frantzosen ein starkes Negotium mit denen Rehfellen, so sie von den
Barbaren einhandeln." — Ibid.
2 Deiler, ibid.
3 Deiler, ibid.
4 "Er zweifelte an der Faehigkeit der Fransosen zum Colonisieren and kaufte 12,000
Colonisten in der Pfalz, welche der Kern der Bevoelkerung Louisiana? wurden.'" — Weiss,
Wdtgeschichte, XL, p. 81.
A NATION SPECULATING 185
colonies in America, so they were again only too eager to
listen to the Louisiana promoter, promising them peace,
political and religious freedom, and wealth in the new world.
So they went forth not only from the Palatinate, but also
from Alsace, Lorraine, Baden, Wuerttemberg, the Elec-
torates of Mayence and Treves (Mainz; and Trier), and even
from Switzerland, some of whose sons were already serving in
the Swiss regiments of Halwyl and Karer, sent by France
to Louisiana.' 11
Modern advertising is prosaic, insipid and colorless,
and lacks the romantic, as compared with the advertising
literature sent out by English and French colonisation com-
panies of the 17th and 18th centuries. The lack of authen-
tic information about America and conditions there was
so general and so profound, that it was easy to stuff the gul-
libility of a people, sighing for deliverance from oppressive
economic conditions. The writers of advertisements were
entirely free to say what they pleased, without any danger
of having their statements challenged, at least for some
time, until they had achieved their purpose.
In 1650, the author of a pamphlet entitled Virgo Try
umphans, purporting to give a true description of Vir-
ginia, writes that 22 miles above certain Falls (probably
the Richmond Falls) there is a "rock of Crystal"; three days'
march farther up there is a "rock, perhaps even a hill, of
silver." He also states that they have found "along the
banks of a river that flows from a mountain, a red sand
containing a metal, that must be considered copper, until
more complete information has been obtained, " but it might
well be a more precious metal.
Still more romantic are the pamphlets distributed among
the Germans and Swiss, who seem to have been credited with
more than an ordinary allotment of naivete. Such a pamph-
let was distributed by the envoy of George I among the
Mennonites of the Rhine Valley. Emigration agents, dec-
orated with heavy gold watch chains, to create the impres-
sion of the prosperity of the New World, visited these
simple people and gave their oral commentaries. Attempts
were made to refute the bombastic emigration literature,
^eiler, op. cit., pp. 1445,
186 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
but the emigrants went forth by the thousands. In the
colonies they were known as the Palatins — Palatinates. 1
Referring to the rather aimless exodus of French and
Germans enroute to the Mississippi, Gayarre gives this
gruesome description: "Guarded by a merciless soldiery,
they, on their way to seaports, filled up the public roads
of France like droves of cattle, and as they were hardly
furnished with means of subsistence or with clothing by
their heartless conductors, who speculated on the food
and other supplies with which they were bound to provide
them, they died in large numbers, and their unburied corpses,
rotting above ground, struck with terror the inhabitants
of the districts through which the woebegone caravan had
passed. At night they were locked up in barns, when any
could be found, and if not, they were forced, the better to
to prevent escape, to lie down in heaps at the bottom of
ditches and holes, and sentinels were put round to watch
over them. 112
The almost indescribable hardships of ocean travel in
those days were about the same everywhere, no matter
from what port people sailed. The ships sailed when it pleased
God and the captain. Thus the emigrants, having sold
all their belongings, sometimes were obliged to wait months
and months before a ship sailed. The aim was to pack the
largest possible number of people into the least possible
space. The ships ranged in size from 50 to 700 tons; they
carried from 400 to 800 passengers, or even a thousand.
Moreover, the emigrants brought their utensils, and boxes
of food supplies and barrels of drinking water had to be
taken along. The average duration of the voyage across
the Atlantic ranged between six and nine weeks, though at
times voyages lasted four to six months. In 1732, one ship
required 24 weeks to cross, and in consequence one hundred
passengers out of a total of 154 died at sea. Another extreme
case occurred in 1752, when the boat took six months to cross,
and only 20 out of a total of 140 reached the coast of America.
The crowding together of so many people under the poorest
hygienic conditions, with mouldy food and brackish and in-
fected water, of necessity brought contagious diseases, such
J Pasquet, op. cit., I., p. 131.
2 Gayarre, op. cit., p. 234.
A HATIOH SPECULATING 187
as small pox and a species of typhoid then known as the Pal'
atine Fever (fievre palatine). The average loss among emi-
grants of those days is now figured at 33%. 1
To quote Deiler again, and, what he writes about conditions
on the ships bearing emigrants to Louisiana also holds true of
those sailing to the other American colonies: "Sickness and
starvation, however, were not the only dangers of the emi-
grant of those days. At that time the buccaneers, who had
been driven from Yucatan by the Spaniards in 1717, were yet
in the Gulf of Mexico, and pursued European vessels, because
these in addition to emigrants, usually carried large quantities
of provisions, arms, ammunition and money; and many a vessel
that plied between France and Louisiana was never heard of
again. In 1721, a French ship, La Garonne, with c 300 very
sick Germans' on board was captured by buccaneers near the
Bay of Samana in San Domingo 1 \ It will be remembered
that one of La Salle's ships was captured by pirates.
Chevalier Guy Soniat Duffosat, a French naval officer, who
settled in Louisiana about 1751, says that 6000 Germans left
Europe for Louisiana.
"To this", writes Deiler, "may be added that, according
to my own searching inquiries, and after the examination of
all the well known authorities, as well as copies of many
official documents until recently unavailable, I have come to
the conclusion that of those 6000 Germans who left Europe
1 Such pest ships have in the past sailed from other ports and delivered their fever-stricken
cargoes to other shores. On the island called Grosse-Ile, situated in the St. Lawrence, thirty
miles north-east of Quebec, there is a monument that tells the sad story thus:
"IN THIS SECLUDED SPOT LIE THE MORTAL REMAINS
OF 5,424 PERSONS WHO, FLYING FROM PESTILENCE
AND FAMINE IN IRELAND, IN THE YEAR 1847,
FOUND IN AMERICA BUT A GRAVE."
There is another at Montreal, dedicated to another group, 6,000 Irish Immigrants, who
died of "ship fever," 1847-1848.
The monument bears this inscription by Madame Leprohon:
"Long since forgotten here they rest,
Sons of a distant land;
The epoch of their short career,
Mere footprints on life's sand;
But this stone will tell through many a year
They died on our shores and they slumber here."
Pierre-Georges Roy in Monuments Commemoratifs, II., p. 102 and I., p. 188. See also
Pasquet, op. cit., I., pp. 131-133.
188 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
for Louisiana, only about oncthird, 2000, actually reached the
shores of the colony. By this I do not mean to say that 2000
settled in Louisiana, but only that 2000 reached the shores and
were disembarked in Biloxi and upon Dauphine Island, in the
harbor of Mobile." 1
According to Penicaut, seven ships arrived from France in
the spring of 1720, bringing 4000 persons, 'Trench as well as
Germans and Jews." The ship, Le Dromadaire, carried the
equipment for Law's concessions, and John Law's business
manager, a Jew named Elias (Stultheus). The Germans
intended for the Law concessions were known as "Law
People." To give an idea of the lack of preparation and the
poor management at the ports of Biloxi and Dauphine Is-
land, it may be noted that Le Dromadaire, which carried
Law's equipment, a cargo valued at a million livres, lay in
Biloxi 15 months before it could sail up the river, which it
finally did at the order of the Governor, but over the pro-
tests of some of the Directors of the Company.
Deiler gives a graphic description of the reception accorded
the immigrants : "A rapid increase of the population, especially
a doubling of it in one day, would at all times, even in a well
regulated community, be a source of embarrassment; and it
would need the most careful preparations and the purchasing
and storing of a great quantity of provisions in order to solve
the problem of subsistence in a satisfactory manner. . . .Those
poor immigrants were put on land where there was always
more or less a famine, sometimes even starvation, and where
the provisions which the concessioners had brought with them
to feed their own engages were taken from the ships by force
to feed the soldiers, and the immigrants were told to subsist
on what they might be able to catch on the beach, standing
for the most part of the day in the salt water up to the waist —
crabs, oysters, and the like — and on the corn which the
Biloxi, the Pascagoula, the Chacta, and the Mobile Indians
might let them have." 2
News of the pest ships, of horrors at sea, of famine on land,
and poverty and misery everywhere, gradually filtered through
to France. People began to realise that all was not as it had
1 This presentation is chiefly drawn from Deiler, German Coast of Louisiana, Pasquet,
Histoire Politique et Sociale du Peuple Americain, and Weiss, Weltgeschichte, XI., pp. 68'83.
2 Deiler, ibid.
A HATIOK SPECULATING 189
been represented. Shrewd speculators watched the affairs
of the colony, and began to withdraw large deposits from Law's
bank, and, in consequence, the market was flooded with paper
money. Foreign depositors followed the example of French
bankers, and withdrew huge sums in gold and silver. The run
on the bank was on.
The Regent issued an order that all drafts or letters of
credit must be paid in paper money. But to no avail. Far-
seeing men purshased land and anything else, just to be buying
something with money that was rapidly depreciating.
Another edict prohibited any individual or corporation from
possessing more than 300 livres in gold or silver. That
drove the gold and silver out of the country or to hiding-
places. The public had lost confidence, and confidence
cannot be restored by edicts.
The Regent made one more desperate effort to save the
situation by combining the Bank and the Company of the
Indies, while heretofore they had only functioned under the
same head, — John Law. But the crash could not be stayed,
and the death-blow came by the edict of October 17, 1720,
which declared that the Bank's paper money would no longer
be accepted in payment of taxes due the government.
Law's book-keeping had been faultless, but his "system"
proved a complete failure and a great disaster for France, her
people and her colonies, especially Louisiana. Law resigned
his position as Comptroller General and Minister of Finance,
and was soon forced to flee from France. He claimed only what
he had brought with him to Paris, but failed to recover even
that much. A few years after the crash, 1729, John Law
died in comparative poverty at Venice, Italy. Thus burst
the Mississippi Bubble. 1
*A "good loser" of Paris wrote the following couplet:
"Lundi j'achetai des Actions; "Monday bonds I bought;
Mardi je gagnei des Millions; Tuesday gains unthought;
Mercredi j'arrangeai mon Menage; Wednesday my home to date;
Jeudi je pris un Equipage; Thursday I rode in state;
Vendredi je m'en fus au Bal; Friday I danced with glee;
Et Samedi a THopital." Saturday — , woe unto me 1 ."
Weiss, op. cit. t XL, p. 83, n. 1.
SEARCH FOR MITiES—DU TIS^fi-LA MOTHE CA-
DILLAC IH THE ILLINOIS COUHTRT—DUGUB DE
BOISBRIAKID ERECTS FORT DE
CHARTRES
The imaginary gold and silver deposits worked on the
minds of explorers, and keyed up the expectations of the
Directors of the Company and of the Ministers of France,
the former hoping to realise immense wealth, the latter to re-
plenish the depleted coffers of the government. Millions
of acres of land meant nothing to them; they wanted mines,
and mines of gold or silver at that.
February 16, 1701, Father Gravier, who had just completed
his voyage from the country of the Illinois to the mouth of
the Mississippi, wrote to his Superior: "We discovered
[October 10, 1700] the river Miaramigoiia [Meramec], where
the very rich lead mine is, twelve or thirteen leagues from
its mouth. This mine yields three-fourths [metal]. 111
Father Gravier speaks of "the very rich lead mine 11 as
already in operation. It would seem probable that this
mine, and perhaps others in the same field, were at that time
actually worked by Indians and whites. 2 Father Gravier,
however, seems to have had his misgivings about the pres-
ence of gold or silver in the Mississippi Valley, for he adds
towards the end of the same letter : "I do not know what the
court will decide about the Mississipi if no silver mines
are found, for it does not seek lands to cultivate. 11
Now, the French in France and the French in Louisiana
were always gullible and extremely credulous when it came
to stories of gold or silver mines, and La Mothe Cadillac,
the Governor-General under Crosat, was no exception.
l Shea, op. cit., p. 119.
2 See Earliest History of Mine La Motte, by John E. Rothensteiner. See also Journal d'un
Voyage fait a La Louisiane en 1720 par un Capitaine de Vaisseaux du Rot, a series of letters,
in one of which this officer tells a lady in Paris of a rumor concerning a certain silver mine
in the Illinois country. This mine, so the rumor goes, yields 12 lbs. of very pure silver to every
100 lbs. of ore, which is 3 lbs. more than the Spanish mines in New Mexico. He adds the very
sensible remark: "Their ideas are too big . . . they neglect the essential . . . the tilling of
the soil."
190
FORT DE CHARTRES 191
Towards the end of 1714, Du Tisne, one of those gallant
gentlemen, typical of the French nobility of the age of
Louis XIV, came down from the Illinois country to see
the Governor-General on Dauphine Island. He brought
two pieces of silver ore, which, he said, he had found in
the neighborhood of Kaskaskia. This Du Tisne had quite
an interesting career, and later became closely identified
with the Illinois country. 1
Le Page du Prats presents Du Tisne by introducing his
wife. Writes Du Prats: 2 "Madame du Tissenet, who be-
longed to the fashionable society of Quebec, came to the
Illinois with her husband. She loved the things that flat-
tered her curiosity and it was precisely this that made her
marry M. Du Tissenet. 1 ' Du Tisne was the son of a well-
to-do family of Paris. He was anxious to serve in the col-
onies, but his parents would not consent to his going away.
However, he offered his services to an officer as a volunteer,
and was accepted. During his stay at Quebec, a merchant
who had noticed the quick wit and polite manners of the
young man, fitted him out with a canoe, rowers, and mer-
chandise, and sent him off to the savages. He learnt the
Indian languages as he went along. But every tribe his party
visited had already been canvassed by some coureur de
bois and, therefore, no chance for Du Tisne to do any trad-
ing. They finally heard of a distant tribe that had surely
not been visited. The savages received them well and gave
them a cabin. The next day his party laid out all their
goods, and then went to the cabin of the chief and led him
and the other savages to their display room.
It must be noted that when a child, Du Tisne had lost nearly
all his hair in a severe illness. Tired of seeing just a few tufts
of hair on his head, he shaved it all off and wore a wig. Now,
his party had taken the precaution to speak only by signs,
causing the savages to believe they did not know their lan-
guage. This they did so that the savages might speak openly
x Du Tisne (Du Tissenet) twice held temporary command at Fort de Chartres : immediately
after Boisbriand and again after the death of Liette in 1729. He explored the valley of the
Missouri, was thoroughly familiar with Indian life, and his services were duly appreciated
by his superiors. He died in 1730 from a gunshot wound inflicted by a Fox Indian.
2 Le Page du Pratz, Voyages aux Indes Occidentales, II., pp. 296-305.
i 9 2 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
among themselves, thinking they would not be understood.
And so it happened. The chief lamented the fact that they
had not known the Frenchmen were coming, and that, there-
fore, they had no beaver skins, and that the season was too
far advanced to procure any. Another Indian spoke up
and said: "There is only one way to get all this pretty
merchandise: scalp them, kill them, throw them into the
river, and then we shall have it all." At that, all the men
of the party grabbed their guns, and Du Tisne shouted:
"You want my scalp?' , And he threw his wig at the In-
dian's feet. "Pick it up, if you dare!" The effect was like
that of a bolt of lightning striking at the feet of the savage.
The chief stammered: "We thought you were men the
same as we are, but we see now, you are spirits, because
you speak the same tongue that we do, and you can remove
your scalp whenever you wish!" He said he would speak
to his people and have them bring their fur robes. Du Tisne
and his men began to pack their goods, and said they would
leave on the morrow. The next day the savages brought all
the beaver robes they had in the village.
Du Tisne was then only seventeen years old. This daring
deed won for him military distinction and a wife from the
fashionable society of Quebec. Le Page du Prat? says that
Du Tisne was his friend when Commandant at Natchez,
and that he had personally confirmed this little story.
Du Tisne may, for the sport of it, have played on the
credulity of the pompous Cadillac when he showed him
those two pieces of silver ore, which, it is said, actually
came from Mexico. At any rate, La Mo the Cadillac jour-
neyed up the river to the Illinois country, and reached Kas-
kaskia in the spring of 1715. It was, without doubt, a great
honor for Kaskaskia to welcome so distinguished a guest
as the Governor-General of Louisiana, and the Kaskaskians,
red and white, showed their appreciation by entertainments
befitting the occasion.
Cadillac's party crossed the Mississippi, and then pro-
ceeded up the Saline River to a place where diggings had
already been made. Under his direction workmen dug a
trench seven to nine feet deep, when they reached solid
THE ILLINOIS COUNTRY FROM CAHOKIA CREEK TO THE
MOUTH OF THE KASKASKIA RIVER
From Diron D 1 Artaguiette Map (1732) — Karpins\i Collection, dewberry Library, Chicago
FORT DE CHARTRES 193
rock. This rock showed veins of mineral, but they were
not able to penetrate deeper, for want of proper tools. 1
According to La Harpe, Cadillac and his son returned to
Mobile in October, 1715. Perhaps to save his prestige,
the Governor-General repeated the Du Tisne story, and it
was duly announced "that a silver mine had been discovered
in the country whence he came." 2
La Mothe Cadillac was recalled March 9,1717, and was
superseded by the former Governor, Bienville. The Illinois
country, on both sides of the Mississippi, was assuming
greater importance, and so impressed the new Governor.
A few lead mines were actually in operation; according to
Du Tisne and La Mothe Cadillac, there was some silver;
agriculture was flourishing; the fur trade was good, and the
Jesuit mission of the Immaculate Conception on the Kas-
kaskia was an unmistakable success and was rapidly growing
by the advent of Frenchmen from Canada. But there was
no fort to give protection to this, the most prosperous colony
between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, while
the Fox Indian menace was ever present. Bienville sub-
mitted the matter of proper protection to the home govern-
ment.
In the spring of 1718, the frigate La Duchesse De 7<[oailles
cast anchor at Ship Island. The most distinguished pas-
senger on this boat was M. Pierre Du Gue de Boisbriand,
Lieutenant of the King in Louisiana, and Commandant of
the Illinois country.
In the month of October, 1718, M. Du Gue de Boisbriand 3
set out from Mobile with a strong detachment of regulars
for the Illinois country, with instructions to erect a per-
manent military post for the protection of the French in
that immense territory. He quartered his men at Kaskas-
kia, and then, after a few months, began the construction
of a fort, eighteen miles north, on the east bank of the Mis-
sissippi. This fort was completed in the spring of 1720,
and was named Fort de Chartres, in honor of the Due de
Chartres, the son of the Regent of France.
^othensteiner, op. cit., p. 202.
2 Charlevoix, History of Afciy France, Chapter III., p. 434.
3 Pierre-Georges Roy, La Famille Du Gue de Boisbriand.
194 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Between September 1, 1722, and September 11, 1723,
Diron cTArtaguiette, Inspector-General for the Company,
made a tour of inspection of the settlements in the Mis-
sissippi Valley. His report on the conditions in the Fort
de Chartres country gives such precise and full information,
that it is reproduced nearly in toto. 1
"April 17 [1723]. At midday we arrived at the entrance
of the Petite Riviere des Cascakias, which is on the right as
you ascend. It is two leagues up this river on the left . . .
in a vast prairie, that is situated the French village called the
Cascakias, which is composed entirely of farmers who live
there very comfortably. French wheat grows very well
there and of a fine quality, of which they gather a fairly
large quantity, which they sell for the subsistence of the
troops. All the other vegetables necessary to life grow
very well there. Their houses are built of frame timbers
on the ground. The chimneys are of stone. . . . Several
inhabitants also have horse tread mills of their own with
which they grind their French wheat. There is also a church
there, which is certainly the finest in the colony. This
church is ministered to by a Jesuit. . . .
"There is in this village a windmill made of wood, be-
longing to the Reverend Jesuit Fathers. It was formerly
placed on the bank of the Petite Riviere, but as it got little
wind in this place, 2 they considered it wise to place it in
the middle of the prairie, upon their own land, where it is
certainly better off. The Jesuit priests have a little farm
in this place, which they manage themselves. . . .
"It is six leagues by land and twelve by water from this
village to Fort de Chartres. A league higher up, on the same
side, on the road which leads to Fort de Chartres, and upon
the same river, is found the settlement of Sr. Melicq, lieu-
tenant of the company of Artaguiette, which he manages
himself.
"From this place, continuing along the road to Fort de
Chartres, at the upper end of the same prairie as that upon
which Sr. Melicq is, a half league higher up on the bank of the
l Journal of Diron D' Artaguiette, in Travels in the American Colonies, by Newton D.
Mereness, pp. l?^.
2 Because of the high bluff on the east bank of the Kaskaskia River.
FORT DE CHARTRES 195
same river, is the Indian village of the Uinois, who number
200 warriors. . . .
"April. 18 — 5 leagues. We set out from the mouth of
the Petite Riviere and came to pass the night at the salt
spring, which is on the left side of the Mississipy. (This
is a fountain of salt water which has its ebb and flow like the
ocean.) The habitants use it to make salt, which they make
by boiling the water in caldrons till a certain amount has
been boiled away, and when this is done, the water crystal'
li2;es of itself and forms a fairly good salt. . . .
"April. 19. We . . . arrived at 5 o'clock in the afternoon
at Fort de Chartres, which is on the bank of the Mississipy,
on the right as you ascend. . . . Fort de Chartres is a fort of
piles the si2;e of one's leg, square in shape, having two bas'
tions, which command all the curtains. There are two com-
panies of infantry in garrison commanded by M. de Bois-
briant, Knight of the military order of St. Louis, first royal
lieutenant of the province. There is a church outside of the
fort and some dwellings a half a league lower down, on the
same side, as well as half a league above as far as little village of
the Ilinnois, where there are two Jesuit fathers, missionaries,
who have a dwelling and a church. This little village which
is called Mechiquamias numbers perhaps about 200 warriors.
"From there one goes through a large and vast prairie a
league and a half to the northwest, where M. Renaut, director
of the mines, is established with two score Frenchmen, all
laborers. This place is a quarter of a league distant from the
Mississipy. There is a fort, with stakes the sise of a leg.
The shape is that of two horse shoes, one turning in and the
other turning out, with two square bastions. There are in
this fort a church, four houses, frame, and one of stone. . . .
About a half league to the east of this fort are two large
marshes. . . .
"The Ilinnoise Nation was formerly numerous, but the
continual wars, and principally the one against the In>
quois. . . have so enfeebled them that they number at present
not more than 700 warriors. They are scattered about in
three villages — the Cascakias, the Mekchiquamias and the
Cahokias. The last village is 18 leagues by land and 15 by
water from Fort de Chartres. Here [Cahokia] are four sol'
diers in garrison, commanded by Sr. de St. Anges. . . .
196 FROM QUEBEC TO ?{EW ORLEANS
"One hundred and ten leagues from Fort de Chartres, up
the Riviere des Ilinnois, there used to be two villages of the
same nation, the Peorias and the Roches, 1 but they were forced
to abandon these villages and to withdraw to the above-
mentioned villages , because of the Outagamis nation or the
Renards [Fox Indians], who last year came clear to their vil-
lages to attack them. . *"
Boisbriand was a native of Montreal (b. February 21,
1675), and had seen distinguished service in the days of the
great Frontenac, and especially under d 1 Iberville in the
latter's expedition against Newfoundland. Since 1699 he
had filled various important offices in Louisiana.
Bossu, 2 who was an officer at Fort de Chartres under
Makarty, has left interesting accounts of the Boisbriand's
regime. "M. de Boisbriand," he writes, "who was an officer
of distinguished merit, lacked those advantages of nature
which prepossess people in their favor: he was born with
one shoulder higher than the other, which made him look
somewhat dwarfed. . . . Despite these defects, M. de Bien-
ville, then Commandant in Louisiana, recommended him
to the king for the position of Commandant in the Illinois
country. . . . Soon after his arrival he received the delegates
of the various tribes dependent on the Illinois nation. Those
delegates were all fine looking men; 3 they had even been
specially selected to represent the Nation with the French
Commandant. His small stature at first shocked these
Americans, but later they were impressed by the dis-
course which M. de Boisbriand addressed to them.' 1
Papachengouya, the chief, presented the sacred calumet
of peace. Thereupon Boisbriand addressed them as follows :
"Illustrious and valiant nation of the Illinois, allies and
friends of the French . . . the great Chief of the French
Indians about Starved Rock.
2 Voyage de Bossu, III., pp. 2l8'229. See also Villiers du Terrage, Les Dernieres Annies
de La Louisiane Franqaise, p. 11, where he states that Boisbriand had two hundred men and
that the ice in the Mississippi forced him to spend the winter with the Arkansas.
3 Father Marest writes: "The men are generally of tall stature, very lithe, and good
runners, being accustomed from their tenderest youth to hunt wild beasts in the forest."
Jesuit Relations, 66, p. 229.
"The Illinois are in general the handsomest and the best built savages that I have seen.
Proud and arrogant at home, they are the most cowardly of men when they are out of sight
of their own village." Diron D'Artaguiette, in Mereness, op. cit., p. 71-
FORT DE CHARTRES 197
lives, as you know, beyond the lake of salty water, in an
ancient world, where the white men, his subjects, are as
numerous as the leaves of the trees in your forests. That
grand Monarch, having been informed by the speaking
bark [par Vecorce parlante, that is to say, writing on paper]
that his faithful allies and children, the Illinois Red Men,
and also their confederates, the brave Kaskakias, Mitchi-
gamias, Penhenguichias, Kaokias, Tamaroes, etc., had given
on every occasion signal proofs of their inviolable attachment
to the crown and for the good of his Colony, has graciously
honored me to come to live on your lands, to keep them
always white (that is, where peace reigns), and to give you
unmistakable proofs of his paternal goodness, for he knows
that it is with right that the red men call themselves his
children. That mark of affection on the part of the great
Emperor of the French, of which I feel very proud, author-
ised me to tell you that if I am small of stature, my heart
is big enough to lodge therein, as in a spacious cabin, all our
children, the Illinois red men. ...[!!] I have been commanded
to bring to you from his warehouses merchandise, which he
sends to you to cover your wives and daughters; for the
heart of this great Chief of the white men is pained to
hear that his children, the red men, are deserving of pity
(that is to say, that their bodies are naked); furthermore,
to make it possible for them to live from the meat of the
chase, and to make them feared, and to defend them against
your mortal enemies, the Foxes, I bring them white arms,
guns, powder and bullets. And, like a true father, he has
added some milk (the savages of Louisiana call brandy, 'fire
water' or fc milk of the French') to cheer and give strength
to the venerable elders of the Nation, that they may wisely
guide the young Warriors and expressly counsel them not
to lose their minds, that is, never scoff at the Master of
life or at the Supreme Being, who will protect you against
the nation of the cunning Foxes, your inveterate enemies.
And if they should have the temerity to defy you while
I reside on your lands ... I shall march at the head of my
brave warriors, French and Illinois, with large guns, that
will strike with thunder those audacious braggarts, and
we shall make cannon wads of their scalps."
198 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
They listened to this discourse in profound silence, and
then followed the applause of the whole assembly. The
eldest orator of the Nation responded thus:
"Thy words have penetrated our hearts as swiftly as an
arrow that flieth from the bow. Our warriors and our young
men, who frequently judge by appearances only, had till
now, like inexperienced men, scorned thee; but they realise
now, and rightly so, that thou standest higher in light and
valor than the stars over our heads, and that thy penetration
and understanding is deeper than the whirlpools of the Me-
chassepi; they think, even as I do, that it is the power of
thy spirit that hath hindered the development of thy body. . . .
We earnestly beg thee to inform by means of the speaking
bark [in writing or letter] our father, the grand Chief of
the white men, that our language has no words that ade-
quately express our sentiments of gratitude for his fatherly
interest that he has shown our nation by sending to us,
to live in our land, a Captain as brave as thou art, to keep
it white, . . . and that we will send notables of our tribe to
the other side of the great lake of salty water to assure our
father, who lives in the large cabin in the big Village of the
French, that we, the Illinois red men, wish to live and die
his most faithful allies and children."
SPANISH A?iD FRENCH RIVALRIES IH THE
MISSISSIPPI VALLEY—FORT ORLEANS
Louis XIV had hoped that placing his grandson, the
Duke of Anjou (Philip V), on the throne of Spain, would
bring about an entente cordiale between these two coun-
tries, as though the Pyrenees no longer separated them.
However, Philip V soon learned to share the misgivings of
the Spaniards with regard to the French settlement at the
mouth of the Mississippi, and concurred in a plot to destroy
it, if possible.
January 10, 1719, France declared war against Spain, and on
April 20th of the same year, Serigny, Bienville's brother,
arrived at Dauphine Island with orders to attack Pensacola
at once.
The French colony at the mouth of the Mississippi was
the aim of a Spanish attack, for Spain had ever disliked the
presence of the French in the Mississippi Valley. On the
island of San Domingo, part of which belonged to France and
part to Spain, the Spanish Governor offered a mutual declara-
tion of neutrality to the French Governor. 1
Bienville captured Pensacola; the Spanish took it back from
the French, who captured it a second time. At the prelim-
inaries of peace between France and Spain, Dubois, the Prime
Minister, insisted on retaining Pensacola, not because of this
little colony's intrinsic worth, but "to keep the English, who
are in Carolina, from coming any closer to Louisiana. 11 How-
ever, King Philip won out, and Pensacola was remitted to
Spain. 2
Bossu relates a rather fantastic story of a Spanish expedi-
tion intended to harass or destroy the French in the Illinois
country. This expedition seems to have been a phase of the
war of 1719-1723 between France and Spain.
"Spain, 11 writes Bossu. "looked with jealous eye on our
[French] settlements along the banks of the Mississipi.
The English, on their part, spared neither ruses nor intrigues
to ruin that infant colony, as they still continue to do to-day,
^einrich, op. cit., p. 53.
2 Heinrich, Ibid., p. 73.
199
200 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
on the banks of the Oyo [Ohio], which, they hold, belongs to
them; they have also laid claim to the Mississipi.
"In 1720 the Spaniards conceived the plan to establish
themselves among the Missouris, a post not far from the
Illinois, in order to restrict our westward progress more and
more. That Nation [the Missouris] is very far from new
Mexico, which is the last Spanish Province on the North.
"They thought that, to place their colony in safety, the
proper thing would be to completely annihilate the Missouris;
but seeing that this project could not be executed with their
forces, they decided to form an alliance with the Osages, a
People living next to the Missouris, and their mortal enemies
[of the Missouris] hoping by that means to surprise and com-
pletely destroy their neighbors [the Missouris]. With that
idea in mind they formed at Santa-Fe a caravan of men and
women and soldiers, with a Friar as chaplain, and a Captain
Engineer as Chief and Leader, 1 with horses and cattle re-
quired for establishing a permanent colony.
"The caravan lost its way and, instead of reaching the
Osages, it arrived among the Missouris. The Leader of the
troop, through his interpreter, spoke to a Chief of the Mis-
souris, thinking he was an Osage, and told him they had come
to form an alliance with them [the Osages] for the purpose
of annihilating the Missouris, their enemies.
"The grand Chief of the Nation of the Missouris, con-
cealing what he thought of such plan, made the Spaniards
believe he was delighted with the scheme and promised to
help them execute it. For that reason he invited them to
rest a few days from their strenuous journey and that he would
assemble the warriors and hold a council with the Elders; but
the resolution of the council of war was that they would be
the pleasantest hosts to their visitors, and make semblance of
the sincerest kind of friendship.
"They deliberated together [Missouris and Spaniards] and
agreed to start off within three days. The Spanish Captain
immediately ordered that 1500 guns and as many pistols should
be distributed among them and also swords and hatchets; but
from the night of that agreement to the break of the next day,
1 According to the Spanish version, Don Pedro de Villasus was the leader of this expe'
dition.
AMONG THE MISSOURIS 201
the Missouris were in the camp of the Spaniards and massacred
them all, with the exception of the Friar, because of the odd-
ness of his costume, which indicated he was not a warrior.
They gave him the nickname of Magpie, and they amused
themselves by making him do stunts on Spanish horses on
their assembly days.
"Although the Friar was made much of and amply supplied
with food, he was not without fears that some day all this play
would end by sacrificing him to their Manitou. That is why
one day, profiting by the confidence they placed in him, he
slipped away. These things were made known by the Mis-
ouris themselves when they brought the chapel ornaments.
They had dressed themselves with these vestments. The
Chief wore over his skin the most beautiful chasuble with the
paten dangling from his neck. ... He marched gravely at the
head, crowned with a plumed headgear and a pair of horns.
Those who followed him wore chasubles, then came those with
stoles, followed by those who had a maniple around their
necks. Then came three or four savages having albs over
their bodies and others surplices. . . . They did not know the
respect due to those sacred Vestments.' '
No doubt, Bossu allowed his imagination to run away with
him when he enumerated the exact order in which they
marched in that spectacular procession. At any rate, he
continues to say that they went to the house of M. de Bois-
briand, offered the grand calumet of peace, and then told him
what had happened. They also told him that these things
were of no use to them, and they would prefer to have mer-
chandise instead. He procured the sacred vestments from
them in exchange for merchandise, and sent them on to Bien-
ville, who was at that time Commandant-General of the Pro-
vince of Louisiana. 1
^ossu, op. cit., I., pp. 172478. There are various versions of this ill'fated expedition.
Bossu's is unquestionably the most extravagant and romantic. However, they all agree that
the expedition was undertaken to check the westward movement of the French and that
only very few Spaniards escaped the murderous attack of the savages. See the Charlevoix,
Bienville and Spanish versions in Louis Houck, History of Missouri, I., pp. 253'254.
"In fact, some sixty Spaniards, abandoned or betrayed by their savage escorts, had been
massacred, the 11th of August, 1720, by the Otos and the Panimahas." Baron Marc de Vil'
liers, La Decouverte du Missouri et UHistoire du Fort Orleans, p. 72 (Missouri Historical
Society).
202 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
To check the Spanish encroachments on what the French
considered the domain of the King of France, the Company
decided to establish a post on the Missouri River, in the
country of the Missouris and Osages. There was another
reason for establishing a post on the Missouri. The authori-
ties in Louisiana had made several attempts to reach New
Mexico by way of the Arkansas and Red Rivers, and had failed.
There was another possibility of reaching New Mexico — by
way of the Missouri and across the country occupied by the
Padoukas. Du Tisne made the attempt in 1714, but the savages
would not permit him to carry merchandise to their enemies.
The following year Boisbriand planned to ascend the Missouri,
but desisted for want of ammunition and merchandise.
The Company then commissioned Etienne Veniard de
Bourgmond to erect a fort on the Missouri River. Bourg-
mond was the son of a physician in Normandy. In 1706,
as a simple ensign, he had been appointed to succeed Tonti as
Commandant at Fort Detroit, but deserted after six months.
In his younger days he was of the hard coureur de bois type,
and seems to have preferred the free life of the savages to the
restrictions of decency, honor and civilisation. In 1714 he
first visited the Missouris, and seems to have spent at
least a part of his undisciplined youth among the savages of
this nation. His reports to the Directors of the Company
carried great weight, and in consequence he was appointed
to establish the Missouri post.
A peculiar situation prevailed at that time among the
western Indians. All the other tribes seem to have been
united against the Padoukas. "If we make peace with the
Padoukas", writes Bienville, "we offend our allies, their
enemies, and if, on the other hand, we permit the Missouris,
the Osages, the Otos and the Panimahas to continue to carry
away slaves and horses from the Padoukas, then we should
have to renounce all hope of reaching New Mexico by crossing
the vast countries overrun by the Commanches, the name
by which the Padoukas later became known". 1
In February, 1723, Bourgmond started from New Orleans.
His staff officers were : Lieutenants Jean de Pradel de Lamase,
Simars de Belisle, and Louis Saint- Ange de Bellerive. 2 Be-
Quoted in Villiers du Terrage, op. cit.
2 Later Commandant at Fort de Chartres.
AMONG THE MISSOURIS 203
sides these, he had a force of forty or fifty men. Bourgmond's
party stopped at Fort de Chartres. Jean Baptiste Mercier,
Quebec Seminary priest stationed at Cahokia, joined the ex-
pedition as chaplain and missionary.
About the middle of November, 1723, the site for the post,
which he called Fort Orleans, was selected. According to
Marc de Villiers and the Dumont and Broutin maps, this
fort was located on the left bank of the Missouri, some
miles above the mouth of the Grande River, Carroll County,
Missouri. Bourgmond continued to the country of the
Padoukas, where he established peace, and then returned to
Fort Orleans. His administration was not at all peaceful.
Some of his subordinates manifested the same lack of dis-
cipline that had characterised his own younger days. Father
Mercier remained there as chaplain till the latter part of Dec-
ember, 1724. Fort Orleans was abandoned in 1728. 1
l This presentation of the history of Fort Orleans is drawn from Baron Marc de Villiers,
La Decouverte du Missouri et UHistoire du Fort Orleans. See also Gilbert Joseph Garra*
ghan, in Missouri Historical Society Collections, June, 1928,
EARLY MIKINP ATTEMPTS IN THE ILLINOIS
COUNTRY— PHILIPPE RENAULT— SLOW
PROGRESS OF LOUISIANA
The war of 1719-1723, between France and Spain, embar-
rassed Louisiana to no small degree, but did not seriously
interfere with the development of mining in the Illinois
country.
Sieur Marc Antoine de la Loire des Ursins, who came to
Fort de Chartres with Boisbriand and held a position akin
to that of Intendant, has left a very interesting report 1 of
his inspection of some of the mines in the Illinois country.
"On June 6, 1719, we started from the establishment of
Kaskaskia. We crossed the Mississippy and spent the night
one-fourth of a league below Saline River. ... To go to
these mines we had to cross the little river of the Saline
twenty times. When the Mississipy is low, the water
reaches up to the horse's belly; at high water one could,
to reach the mines, go up the river by boat for five leagues. . . .
On the 10th we made the workmen dig into the shaft which
Mr. De la Mothe had made. It was only four feet deep;
the rock was still untouched. . . . There is a small layer
of lead four feet below the surface of the ground which is
yellow, intermingled with grains of lead, six inches thick;
deeper down is another layer, three to four inches thick. . . .
Under this rock is another which is mixed with lead, seven
inches thick; it has black and green streaks; lower down we
have found a layer of lead, which, in the strongest part of
the vein, is five inches thick. It runs from southeast to
northwest and is mixed with yellow earth. Below this
is a very heavy rock, which it has been impossible to pierce,
because everywhere we met with veins and streams of
water which we can stop only when we have the machin-
ery required. Hardly had we gone down nine feet and a
half, when the difficulty to penetrate forced us to dig another
shaft to the southwest from the first one; there is a little
creek which flows between the two shafts. . . . You find
similar mines everywhere, so to say, on the surface of
^othensteiner, op. cit., pp. 205, ff.
204
PHILIPPE RENAULT 205
the earth. The savages have made an infinite number of
holes from which they drew lead in this neighborhood where
there is such an abundance of similar mines. . . .
"On the 15th about noon we started and we arrived at this
village [Kaskaskia] on the 17th at noon. We had with us
Mr. Delisle, officer, Mr. Lochon, Messrs. Bourdon and
Texier with five of their slaves, six soldiers, one sergeant,
two salt-makers, five savages, three of them Tamaroas,
two of whom had conducted the son of Mr. De la Mothe,
and four horses. You can imagine that the soldiers do not
work at the mines, wherefore the sooner we shall get negroes
the better it will be. The Frenchmen are unfit for this
kind of work, and if they want to work, their wages will,
in proportion, be much higher than the profit from the mines
will permit. 1 ''
Rothensteiner also quotes a document by M. la Renau-
diere, who engaged in mining on the Meramec River. Charle-
voix says of him that "neither he nor any of his company un-
derstood the construction of furnaces/ ' A few quotations
from the report of Renaudiere will be interesting: "In
some places the mineral is only one foot below the surface . . .
pieces of lead weighing from 20 to 30 02; may be found. . . .
I worked it [the rock] and found a little silver. In locations
where the veins are well-formed, the mineral is found to
be good, and produces as much as 40 to 45 per cent. . . .
Two leagues from theiead-mines on the Illinois road, there
is a great mountain, where there are silver mines. Their
wealth cannot be estimated, as they have not been opened
[!]... If a settlement could be formed here upon which
30 negroes could be placed under the management of capable
persons, a good living could easily be made in many ways,
and approximately three hundred millions of lead per year."
A few years later, May, 27, 1723, Diron D'Artaguiette, 1
Inspector of troops, writes from Fort de Chartres: "Day of
the Feast of Our Lord 2 [Corpus Christi]. The procession
of the Blessed Sacrament was made, the troops under arms
lining the streets. The same day about one o'clock in the
afternoon M. Renaut, director of mines, arrived here from
the Maramek Mines, where he went a month and a half ago
^ereness, op. cit. p. 77-
2 Fztc Dieu, Feast of the Lord.
206 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
to join the thirty or so Frenchmen who were working at
getting out the ore. Sr. Renault keeps at these mines, not
without great expense, all Frenchmen, who have been there
for more than six months. There are perhaps about six
thousand pounds weight of lead melted down. These mines
are situated to the northwest from Fort de Chartres, or ten
leagues above. ... He has brought along some of the ore for
the purpose of making some assays of it in our presence, to
send by us to His Royal Highness, my Lord the Duke of
Orleans".
Phillippe Francois Renault was the son of Phillippe Re-
nault, who was interested in the iron industry at Consobre,
near Maubeuge, France. Phillippe Francois was an ener-
getic business man and a man of means. 1 He had invested
heavily in Law's Company, and was one of its Directors.
After various attempts at testing out the Illinois mines
opened till then, the Company decided to push mining
operations in the whole of Louisiana. For the specific devel-
opment of the mines in the Illinois country a special asso-
ciation was formed, under the patronage of the Company
of the Indies, and was known as the Company of St. Phil"
ippe. 2
Houck writes: "Renault sailed from France with two
hundred miners and laborers and everything needful to
carry on mining operations — even bricks for his furnaces
were made in Paris with his name on them. 3 . . . On his
voyage, the ship touched San Domingo, then a French colony
and a way-station for all vessels, sailing to Louisiana. There
he purchased five hundred negroes 4 to work the mines he
expected to find. 11
Heinrich states that about this time 600 slaves were
brought to Louisiana. Only a small number may have been
taken to the Illinois country. The census of 1732 gives the
distribution of slaves as follows: Kaskaskia, 102; Ste-Anne
de Fort de Chartres, 37; St. Philippe, 22; Cahokia, 4. To
According to Heinrich, op. cit., p. 51, Renault was a Parisian banker. He returned to
France in 1742.
2 Houck, op. at., I., p. 282.
3 Cozzens, a surveyor, found one of these bricks on Fourche a Renault, in Washington
County, Missouri.
4 The colonists could pay for slaves with tobacco and rice.
PHILIPPE REHAULT 207
this Alvord 1 remarks: "The census report disproves the
oft-repeated tradition of the importation of five hundred
Negro slaves by Renault." 2
Renault also prospected in the upper Illinois country
and reported he had found coal; but, as to ores, his pros-
pecting had brought only meager results, although, "in
examining a coal mine we found a mine of silver and of copper
of which the said Sieur Renault had made proof. 11 They
prospected along every stream in what are now the ad-
joining counties, and evidently thought they had found a
trace of silver in one of them, and named it Riviere d 1 Argent
— Silver Creek, St. Clair County, Illinois.
The Directors of the Company, their minds set on devel-
oping the mines with all vigor, instituted a special council
of ten, as a board of directors, and gave every concession
that could be of benefit to the undertaking. Smelting was
to take place every three or four weeks, the habitants and
soldiers were to be permitted to work in the mines. However,
Renault was without sufficient funds, and could not push
the development of the mines as he would have liked. 3
The Company granted Renault several cessions of land:
two across the River, near the mines on the Missouri side,
one on the Illinois River, and another north of Fort de Char-
tres, one league river frontage and two leagues inland. The
present village of Renault is situated on the southeast edge
of the Renault tract. The long since extinct village of St.
Philippe and parish of St. Philippe de la Visitation were
also located on this tract, on the low ground some six miles
northwest of Fort de Chartres.
In the meantime the development of the colony in the
rest of Louisiana moved along rather slowly and under the
Alvord, Centennial History of Illinois, I., p. 202, n. 34.
2 See page 174, n. 1, ante.
3 We, who live more than two hundred years later, are inclined to shrug a shoulder and smile
as we think of Renault and his corps of prospectors busily digging up the alluvial soil of the
American Bottom and examining every crevice and cave of the Bluff on both sides of the
Mississippi in search of precious metal; but those men, and they were intelligent men, lived
at a time when very positive and persistent rumors of rich deposits of silver and gold some'
where in this part of the American continent had circulated in Europe for nearly a century
and a half. Will those who come after us perhaps have the same piteous smile for the present
generation, because it punctures the crust of the earth for oil where, as they will then know,
there is none?
208 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
greatest difficulties. Law's failure and the crash on the
stock market had given Louisiana a bad name. The Com'
pany established strict censorship, and letters telling of
the actual conditions were intercepted, and orders given
to allow no one to return to France. However, the news
leaked out, and Louisiana was in such evil repute that nothing
was considered more disgraceful for an honest man than to
go to the Mississippi. In truth, the Directors soon had
enough trouble without having to take care of new arrivals.
Paper money depreciated about 80%, and in consequence,
prices soared higher and higher, making paupers even of
those who had any of it left. In the fall of 1721 several
non-cpmmissioned officers arrived at Alabama from Mobile,
and at their instigation, the whole Alabama garrison de-
serted and struck out for Carolina (English colony), bag,
baggage, and arms. A little later, when New Orleans
superseded Biloxi as headquarters of the Company, a Swiss
detachment, 1 stationed at Biloxi, received orders to transfer
to New Orleans, but the men refused to "serve any longer
in that miserable country' ' and compelled their captain to
lead them to Charleston (English colony). Charlevoix says
that in 1722, Louisiana was in great danger of emptying
out as quickly as it had filled up, and in truth, it had never
filled up very much.
November 24, 1721, Diron d'Artaguiette took the census
of New Orleans and classified the population as follows:
145 men (16 officers and employes, 44 workmen or sailors
in the service of the Company, 42 convicts — exported jail-
birds — and 43 not classified), 65 women, 38 children, 29
servants, 172 Negroes, 21 savage slaves. Two years prior,
the Mercure, Law's notorious advertising medium, had
given New Orleans 800 beautiful houses and five parishes.
"These," writes Charlevoix, "still only amount to a hundred
hovels and two or three houses that would not set off a
French village." 2
The harvest of 1722 promised to be abundant. The
colonists had set to work tilling the fields instead of trading
with the Indians. However, even the elements seemed to
^einrich, op. cit., p. 87-
2 Ibid., p. 93.
PHILIPPE RENAULT 209
conspire against them. September 12, 1722, a terrible hur-
ricane 1 swept the lower Valley of the Mississippi, tumbled
down most of the little huts, and the torrential rains that
followed ruined the crops. The stagnant waters that re-
mained after the flood, brought on an epidemic of disease
and malignant fever that carried off scores of the population.
Diron d'Artaguiette writes: "There is scarcely a house in
which there are not some sick persons, and at least
eight or nine persons die each day." New Orleans was then
a pile of ruins, and really did not gain any importance until
a levee 2 was built as a protection against the floods of the
Mississippi.
Diron d'Artaguiette began his tour of inspection Sep'
tember 1, 1722. Already on the 10th of the same month,
Dumanoir, director of a concession operated for merchants
of Saint Malo, near the site of the present Natchez;, Mis-
sissippi, presented a list of twelve grievances and a memo-
randum of fifteen "things which are necessary for the es-
tablishment of this colony" to the Inspector-General.
Number 13 enunciates the following sound economic
principle: "That the company ought to think first of en-
riching the inhabitants before it can even think of drawing
any profit for itself. The inhabitants once enriched, the
company will find itself reimbursed for its advances, and it
would make a large production upon which it would have a
large profit, for if one counts upon stifling the inhabitant at
the first moment he begins to breathe — I mean to say, if
one forces the inhabitant to give to this company his first
crops for nothing — this will not be the means of making him
discharge his debt, but on the contrary it will only thrust
him deeper into the abyss, by which method the company
will lose its advances and throw the country into the same
condition in which it was formerly."
The Directors at this time bent every effort to supply
the colonists with all they needed. Between April, 1721,
llt Sept. 12. New Orleans. Towards ten o'clock in the evening there sprang up the most
terrible hurricane which has been seen in these quarters. At New Orleans thirty'four
houses were destroyed, as well as the sheds, including the church, the parsonage and the
hospital. In the hospital were some people sick with wounds. . . . "Journal of Diron d Af
taguiette. The hurricane lasted till noon of the following day.
2 The levee was built by Perrier in 1727-
210 FROM QUEBEC TO KEW ORLEANS
and July, 1722, they shipped in 1,570,000 livres' worth of
foodstuffs and merchandise. 1 But the employes of the ware-
houses looked to their own gain and carried on illegal traffic
with the Spaniards in goods that had been sent for the
use of the colonists. More than that, they let go to
ruin what they could not dispose of in their illegal traffic.
It is even claimed that Bienville was perfectly willing to allow
these disorders to go on, to force the crown to take over the
colony. Nor was Bienville alone in this view. Drouet de
Valdeterre, former Commandant at Biloxi, maintained in
a memoir of 1722 the absolute necessity that Louisiana be
"held, ruled, and governed in the name of the King." 2
Fortunately for the Illinois country, agriculture remained
the chief source of revenue about Kaskaskia and Fort de
Chartres. True, the flood of 1722, which had done so much
damage at New Orleans, had also caused fever and sickness
about Fort de Chartres. But, all in all, this colony pros-
pered. The sale of flour, and the peltries, obtained at rea-
sonable prices from the Indians, gave this colony comforts
of life which one cannot find elsewhere at that early period.
The colony lived happily and enjoyed life in an easy, care-
free way. On Sundays after Mass there were visits, games,
amusements, folk-songs and folk-dances, in which the people
indulged with genuine French delight. 3 But this pastoral
peace was often disturbed by sudden attacks of the Fox
Indians.
^einrich, op. cit., p. 93.
Hbid., p. 88., n. 6.
3 See pp. 299-306, post.
WAR AGAUiST THE FOX IHDIAHS
Jolliet and Marquette had taken the Fox- Wisconsin route
down to the Mississippi. While it is true that in the course
of time other routes were used even more than the Fox-
Wisconsin, nevertheless, this route remained an important
one in itself and as leading to the savage tribes of the great
Northwest. "Quebec and New Orleans' 1 , writes Thwaites,
"were separated by a vast wilderness, only laboriously
to be traversed by canoes and bateaux; the little waterside
stockades were for the most part days distant from each
other, and looked more formidable on the map than in real-
ity; much dependence was placed on Indian support, but
in need, the savages often proved but fair weather allies." 1
The Montigny party that came down to the Tamarois in
1698, found the Fox- Wisconsin route closed by the Foxes,
and had to go by way of Chicago.
French Commandants sometimes attempted to transplant,
and at times actually transplanted, Indian tribes, to strengthen
certain sectors of their line, or to keep the savages under
surveillance near one of their important posts, and make
sure of the loyalty and trade of that tribe. This suggestion
was also made to the Fox Indians, who at first refused to go,
though "finally a large body of them yielded to continued
solicitations [1710], and after a long march overland from
Wisconsin, planted themselves in a rather defiant mood before
the gates of the little Michigan fortress [Detroit] 1 '. 2
It proved a bad bargain for Cadillac, and he was anxious to
send them back to the forests of Wisconsin, but the Foxes
would not go. Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada, finally
commanded them to go back to their own country, but even
then the invited guests were in no hurry to go. Other tribes
had settled around Detroit, and the turbulent Foxes did not
get along with them. Early in 1712 an attack was made
on the Foxes by the combined Indian tribes, backed up by
the French, and most of the Foxes were slaughtered. But there
were enough of their tribe left in Wisconsin to avenge the
butchery of their brethren. With consummate skill and
x Thwaites, Wisconsin, p. 87-
Hbid. Cadillac was then Commandant at Detroit. The Foxes plotted with the Five
Nations and the English to drive the French from Detroit.
211
2i2 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
craftiness they organised a confederacy that soon inaugurated
a reign of terror in the upper Mississippi Valley, down to
Cahokia and Fort de Chartres.
That was the beginning of the Fox War. 'The wilder-
ness from that date, 11 writes Alvord, "resounded with the
war whoop. Indian tribe warred on Indian tribe. The
secret preparation, the long line of stealthy warriors gliding
through the forest or paddling guardedly along the streams,
the surprise, the murder of men, women and children, the
torture and burning at the stake, were common events in
the region that the Jesuit missionaries had once hoped to
make the home of a peaceful agricultural people,
"The Illinois country was particularly affected, for there
had long existed a feud between the Illinois and the Foxes;
and the latter's next of kin and allies, the Kickapoo and the
Mascoutens, were near neighbors, dwelling in the valleys
of the Rock and Fox rivers. The valley of the Illinois River
became the scene of a frightful contest between the red men,
one party being assisted by their white protectors. In
1714, the Foxes were successful in killing or taking prisoner
seventy-seven of the Illinois Indians." 1
The line of communication to Canada was weak, because
the French had abandoned a number of forts in the west;
they now tried to compensate for this military weakness
by arranging a confederacy among the Indians friendly to
them. A rendezvous was arranged for Chicago in 1715,
but the Wea Indians contracted measles and could not
come. A little later the savage forces were, however, united,
and the Mascoutens, allies of the Foxes, were defeated on
the Fox River. In 1716 Louis la Porte, sieur de Louvigny,
under authority of the Governor of Canada, and command-
ing an army of several hundred Frenchmen that picked up
other whites as it went along, moved westward to attack
and, if possible, exterminate the Foxes. "Loads of mer-
chandise and forty casks of brandy were carried as muni-
tions. The Foxes stood their ground in their village on the
Fox River [Wisconsin], and Louvigny laid siege in true
European fashion with trenches and mining operations.
When the Foxes were reduced to desperation, the commander
Alvord, op. cit., L, pp. 146-148.
DEFEAT OF THE FOXES 213
granted them easy terms and marched away, greatly to the
disgust of his allies, who were expecting the annihilation of
the foe; instead, the foxes had promised beaver skins." 1
The constant worry of the Commandants in the Illinois
country for a number of years, in fact, till 1730, was how
to put an end to the depredations of the Fox Indians. Kiala
was the crafty forest diplomat, who had built up the strong
confederacy of dissatisfied Indian tribes. Charlevoix says
that in 1721, when he passed through the Mississippi Valley,
the Foxes "infested with their robberies and filled with
murders . . . almost all the routes communicating with the
remote colonial posts, as well as those leading from Canada
to Louisiana." In 1722 they inflicted a cutting defeat on
the Illinois Indians at Peoria and near Starved Rock.
Under date of June 1, 1723, the Journal of Diron cTAr-
taguiette 2 records this entry made at Fort de Chartres: "At
noon we perceived in the middle of the river a French canoe,
with a man in it who seemed to us not to be rowing. We
sent out a pirogue which brought back this canoe in which
was a man called Ponpon, a soldier detailed to the Caho-
skias. He had received two gun shots, one in the head and
the other in the arm, and several other arrow shots and had
his scalp torn off to the skull. In the stern of the canoe
there was a bundle of skins, upon which there were two
pairs of Indian mittens, and the vest of M. St. Ange, the
son, 3 in the pocket of which we found some letters from MM.
St. Ange, father, and M. Mercier, the priest, which informed
us that the Renard [Fox] Indians were coming with 300
men by land and as many by water to attack the village of
the Cahoskias. They besought M. Boisbriand to send to
their aid both men and provisions."
A few years later, Du Tisne, then Commandant at Fort
de Chartres, Acting Governor Boisbriand, the Jesuits, and
the Seminary priests, all joined in a powerful protest against
any treaty contracted with the Foxes, which did not include
the Illinois. In 1725 the Jesuit Father Beaubois of Kas-
kaskia went to France and took with him several Indian
^lvord, op. cit. p. 148.
2 Mereness, op. cit., p. 78.
3 Louis Saint'Ange de Bellerive had received only slight wounds and escaped to Fort de
Chartres on an improvised raft,
2i 4 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
chiefs: the famous Chicagou of the Michigamea, and one
each from the Otos, Osages, and Missouris, and one Indian
maiden known as the Princesse des Missouris. 1 At the Court
of Versailles they pictured the sorry plight of the Illinois
country and pleaded the urgent need of protection from the
Great White Father. 2
The Iroquois offered asylum to the Foxes in case they
were attacked. De Liette proposed to destroy the Foxes,
but de Lignery, Commandant of the expedition sent from
New France, thought it would be dangerous to both col-
onies to attempt to do so, unless assured of complete success.
June 7, 1726, he made peace with the Foxes and Winne-
bagoes; prisoners were exchanged between the Illinois and
Foxes, and promise of good behavior was made. However,
the peace was a deception, and the Foxes continued their
depredations as before. In 1727, Fort Beauharnois 3 was
built on the west bank of the Mississippi (Lake Pepin, Min-
nesota).
1 The Princesse des hiissouris, was solemnly baptized in Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris.
Later she married Dubois, a sergeant in Bourgmond's expedition. After the death of Dubois
the princess married a second time and lived at Kaskaskia. Marc de Villiers, op. cit.,
p. 119.
2 Bossu relates that he talked to an old savage who had been of the party that went to
Paris, and that he asked him what pretty things he had seen there. The Indian replied that
he liked best the "Street of the Butchers' shops, because they had so much meat there. . . .
He had also been to the opera and all those people were jugglers and crooks; that on Pont
Neuf he had seen tiny men and women who spoke and sang [they had taken him to a Punch
and Judy show]. He told the other Indians that he had seen as many people in Paris as they
had leaves on the trees of their forests. " Bossu says in explanation that the savages had no
expression to indicate numbers higher than hundred. After that they would say: "as many
as leaves on the trees in your forests," and du Poisson adds: "or mosquitoes in your woods.'"
The savage further told Bossu he had seen "in the Tuilleries and on other promenades in
Paris men who were half women, that they had their hair done up like women [they wore
wigs]; that he had a strong suspicion they used rouge and that they smelled like a crocodile"
Bossu adds that a crocodile has an odor akin to musk and can often be smelled before it is seen.
Bossu, Voyage aux Indes Occidentales, I., pp. 161468.
3 In 1720, the Jesuit Father Charlevoix came to Canada, commissioned by the French
Government, to find a route to the Western Sea. He returned by way of New Orleans and
thus visited practically all the missions and posts in the Illinois country and Louisiana. In 1744,
Father Charlevoix published his Histoire de la 7<[ouvelle France — History of New France.
He was a very keen observer, and his work is of great value. Groston, sieur de St'Ange,
accompanied Father Charlevoix on this journey. Alvord says of St'Ange that he was "a
typical trooper, illiterate, upright, pious, and attached to his duties. . . . Two of his sons,
Pierre and Louis, have also played their part on these prairies. On May 30, 1722, St'Ange.
was commissioned ensign on half pay. He and his son Louis accompanied Bourgmont to
DEFEAT OF THE FOXES 215
The French now determined to make an end of the Foxes.
The battle was fought somewhere "between the Illinois and
Wabash Rivers, on the bank of a small river [or creek], 50
leagues east southeast from the Rock [Starved Rock]." 1
The Foxes, finding themselves surrounded and the passes
blocked, had built a fort. St. Ange, Commandant of Fort
de Chartres, was the first white man there, with one hun-
dred French and four hundred Indians; Nicolas Coulon,
sieur de Villiers from St. Joseph, commanding the Miamis,
and Sieur de Noyelle, at the head of the Canadians, ar-
rived next. Whites and Indians from all around made
up an army of about 1400 men. The fort of the Foxes
was besieged for twenty-three days, when both sides ran
out of food. "They were reduced", writes M. de Villiers,
"to the extremity of eating leather, and we were little
better off". 2 During a thunderstorm the night of September
8, 1730, the Foxes escaped, but were overtaken the next day,
and were so completely annihilated£"that not more than 50
the Missouri and assisted him in his explorations, and the father commanded Fort Orleans
for a time. In 1729 he bought a house near Fort de Chartres, and after Dutisne's death he
became, as senior officer, the commandant of the Illinois, a position which he held until
1733." Alvord, op. cit., I., p. 158.
According to Thwaites, the perspicacious Charlevoix made two suggestions to the gov'
ernment at Versailles: "First, an expedition up the Missouri, thence follow some westering
waterway to the ocean — the scheme which Lewis and Clark realized eighty-five years later;
the second, to establish a line of fur-trade and missionary posts among the Sioux, and thus
gradually to creep into and across the interior." The second suggestion was adopted, and
Fort Beauharnois was built with Rene Boucher de la Periere in command. Thwaites,
Wisconsin, p. 95.
1 Where was this famous battle of extermination of the Fox Indians fought? According
to Chaussegros de Lery's map, drawn in 1730, the Fort of the Fox Indians was located be-
tween the Illinois and Wabash Rivers, fifty leagues east southeast from the Rock (Starved
Rock). Furthermore, the fort was situated on the north bank of a creek or small river flow-
ing east and "near that of the Macopin — proche celle de Macopin.'"' Now, on the Delisle
map of 1718, the present Kankakee River is marked Macopin. The only creek or small river
flowing east in that part of Illinois is the Vermillion River, between Danville and Sidney, in
Champaign County. The Saline Fork might come into question, but probably not. I there-
fore venture the statement that the Fort of the Foxes was situated somewhere between
Dan vile and Sidney, probably a mile or two south of Batestown. The Wilson map of
Vermillion County (1850) shows Indian tepees on the same spot. See also Tanner map
of 1823. Courtesies of Miss Georgia L. Osborne of the Illinois State Historical Library, of
Miss Deette Rolfe and Dr. M. M. Leighton of the Illinois State Geological Survey (Urbana)
are herewith acknowledged.
2 The story of the destruction of the Foxes is one of the most affecting and tragical of
the Indian wars of America. See Canadian Archives, 1899, p. 138.
216 FROM QUEBEC TO NEW ORLEANS
or 60 men escaped without guns and without any of the
implements for procuring their subsistence." Beauharnois
and Hocquart, Governor and Intendant of New France,
reported the matter to the Minister in the following words:
"My Lord. The Sieur Coulon de Villiers, son of Sr.
de Villiers commanding at the river St. Joseph, has just
this moment arrived, dispatched by his father to bring us
the interesting news of the almost total defeat of the Foxes;
two hundred of their warriors have been killed on the spot,
or burned after having been taken as slaves and six hundred
women and children were absolutely destroyed." 1
beauharnois and Hocquart to the Minister, Nov. 2, 1730, Correspondence officielle,
XII., p. 2786. Canadian Archives, Ottawa.
THE BRITISH DISLIKE COW ACT OF LOUISIANA
WITH HEW FRAXCB— ADMINISTRATION OF THE
COLOnX— FIRST COURT I7v[ THE ILLINOIS
While the French, with axe in hand and musket slung
across their backs, were biasing a trail through the virgin
forests of the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, or paddling their
frail canoes and stout pirogues up and down the waters
that connect the Gulf of St. Lawrence with the Gulf of Mex-
ico, to open up and strengthen that line of communication so
essential to the very existence of the newly-established colony,
Louisiana, the British advance scouts, from the tops of the
Alleghenies, watched the slow bat well-planned progress of
their rivals.
February 25, 1717, the Lords of Trade sent the following
note of alarm to Robert Hunter, then Governor of Virginia :
"We send you here inclosed the copy of a memorial lately
laid before us, concerning the progress the French have
made in finding out 6? securing a passage from St. Law-
rence or Canada River to their new settlement called Loui-
siana and down the River Mississippi in the Bay of Mexico :
whereupon we must desire you to inform yourself as par-
ticularly as you can of the fact therein mentioned and to ac-
quaint us thereof as soon as possible and give us your sen-
timents what methods may most properly be taken for pre-
venting the inconveniences to which his Majesty's Planta-
tions on the Continent of America and the Trade of this
Kingdom may be subject by such a communication between
the French settlements' 1 . 1
Four years later, September 8, 1721, the same Lords of
Trade made representation to the King that "The French
nation having always been desirous to extend their dominions
in America, have lost no opportunity of encroaching upon
their Neighbours there. And although your Majesty 6?
your Royal Ancestors have an uncontestable right as well by
discovery as possession, to the several British Colonies in
X E. B. CTCallaghan, V., p. 502. Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State
of K[ew Tor\, commonly cited as J<[ew Tor\ Colonial Documents, or simply, O'Callaghan,
who edited them in fifteen volumes.
2IJ
218 FROM QUEBEC TO K[EW ORLEANS
America; yet the french Kings have at sundry times made
grants thereof to their subjects. Such were the letters patents
of Louis the 13th in favour of the french West India Com-
pany, bearing date the 29 th of April 1627; 6? those of Louis
the 14 th to Monsr Croisat 1 some time since surrendered to the
united India Company of france, upon which they build
their title to the Mississippi. Many other instances of the
like nature might be given were they necessary to the present
purpose, but these two, which comprehended almost all your
Majesty's dominions in America, may be sufficient to shew the
unlimited inclination the french have to encroach upon
your Majesty's territories in those parts."
The document then sets forth that the French "have built
small forts at the heads of the Lakes 6? Rivers, along that vast
tract of land, from the entry of the river of St. Lawrence to
the embouchure of the Mississippi, into the bay of Mexico. "
The Lords then risk the delicate suggestion that His Majes-
ty's Ministers must have been asleep: "And indeed had
this matter been sooner considered, the french dominions had
never been extended from North to South through the whole
Continent of America. For your Majesty's subjects, who
had much greater convenience of discovering & making
treaties with the Indian nations, on the Lakes, which lie so
contiguous to the back of the British Settlements, might
effectually have prevented this communication which may
prove highly inconvenient to the trade 6*? Welfare of your
Majesty's Colonies."
The Lords of Trade feared that the fact that the British
colonies were strung out along the Atlantic seaboard, east of
the Alleghenies, which constituted the de facto boundary,
might lead some Prime Minister of England to accept the
Alleghenies as the legal boundary line between the French and
British colonies. They therefore appended the following
protest, backed up with practical suggestions, to their re-
presentation :
"Although these Mountains may serve at present for
a very good frontier, we should not propose them for the
boundary of your Majestys Empire in America. On the
contrary, it were to be wished, that the British Settlements
might be extended beyond them, & some small forts erected
1 Antoine Crosat. See p. 161, ante.
ORDER FOLLOWS CHAOS 219
on the great Lakes, in proper places, by permission of the
Indian proprietors." 1
In the meantime, France sobered up from the wild orgy
of speculating in Mississippi bonds and tried to regain her
balance, so rudely disturbed by the tremendous crash of
Law's System. April 15, 1721, the crown appointed four
commissioners to take over the management of the affairs of
the Company. To facilitate the administration of the colony
and to give the inhabitants protection and justice within
reach, the whole Province of Louisiana was divided into
nine military and civil districts, 2 each with a commandant
and a judge. The districts were: New Orleans, Biloxi,
Mobile, Alibamous, Matches, Yasou, Natchitoches, Arkansas,
and Illinois. Every part of Louisiana, whether inhabited
or not, was included in some one of those nine districts
and provided with civil and military government. These
nine districts were again grouped under four general com-
manderies, of which the Illinois and the Arkansas constituted
one commandery, assigned to the first Lieutenant of the King,
M. de Boisbriand, Commandant of Fort de Chartres.
In 1717, at the insistent request of Law, but over the
protests of the Governor of New France (Canada), the Illi-
nois country had been made a part of the Province of Loui-
siana. The northern boundary line of the Illinois or,
the boundary line between the Province of Louisiana,
which comprised the Illinois country, and New France
(Canada), was a line beginning at the mouth of the Illi-
nois River, running eastward and crossing the Wabash about
the site of the present Terre-Haute, Indiana. 3 The Illinois,
then, comprised a portion of territory on the east side of
the Mississippi within the limits above mentioned, and all
on the west, northward of the Arkansas district, how far,
no one exactly knew. Fort de Chartres was the chief place
or capital of this vast, almost limitless territory.
The Directors really made an earnest endeavor to remedy
the mistakes of the Law Company and to save what could
possibly be salvaged from the unfortunate enterprise, but
public opinion was against them. The stockholders were
^'Callaghan, op. cit., V., pp. 619, 621, 624.
2 Heinrich, op. at., p. 82, n. 4; See also Gayarre; op. cit., p. 279.
3 James Piatt Dunn, The Mission of the Ouabache, p. 280.
220 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
quite naturally wrought up. Unhappily for the undertaking,
the gold and silver mines, which never existed in reality,
were still in their heads. They could not yet understand
that the wealth of the Mississippi Valley lay not in gold
mines and veins of silver, but in the fertile soil that was
ready to yield rich harvests in abundance. A satire published
against Fagon, one of the Directors, expressed the hope
that when he had given his soul to the devil, Satan might
throw his carcass into a stagnant pool in the "deserts of the
Mississipi." 1 Drouot de Valdeterre, who had command-
ed at Biloxi and Dauphine Island, complained in a memoir
of 1722, that the royal authority was not sufficiently rec-
ognised in the colony, and therefore advocated that Louisiana
be "held, ruled and governed 1 ' in the name of the King.
Bienville, the Governor, felt very much the same about it.
He had seen with his own eyes the disastrous consequences
of the "System," and had had so many quarrels with the
representatives of the Company that he was willing to stake
his fortune on a change.
The Compagnie des Indes and the receivers or commis-
sioners of that Company, appointed after the collapse of
the Law system, had each in turn contributed a certain
share to the development of Louisiana. The misfortunes
and sufferings of the people were simply a part of the hard
beginnings of a colony, the labor of the birth of a nation,
and they were duplicated in many other later attempts, like
the Marietta colony in Ohio, and others.
The Directors felt that there had been one great defect
in the administration of the colony, that was responsible
for much suffering among the colonists and great loss to
the Company, — lack of proper supervision, too much loose
book-keeping, and no auditing of accounts.
By decree of the Council, December 8, 1722, two special
commissioners were appointed, with full powers to make
a complete audit of merchandise, foodstuffs, and funds sent
to Louisiana since 1717, hear the complaints of the colo-
nists, and take notice of everything that happened in the
colony. Each post and warehouse was to be checked up. This
measure was to stop definitively the plundering and grafting
that had caused so much harm to the colony. Most of the
*"La jette au fond cTun lac croupi, Aux deserts du Mississipi," Heinrich, op. cit., p. 2.
ORDER FOLLOWS CHAOS 221
Directors of the Council were replaced. Bienville was made
president, 1 de La Tour vice-president, and six new counsel-
lors were appointed. All of them were to live at New
Orleans. The counsellors were to meet at least three times
a week. To insure quick action and make it possible to
locate responsibility, a sort of commission form of govern-
ment was introduced. Each counsellor had his department,
for which he alone was held responsible, and no other coun-
sellor had any right to interfere in that department. Bien-
ville's department coveted presents to be distributed to the
Indians and all matters concerning Indian tribes.
March 24, 1723, the Compagnie des Indes was reinstated,
by royal decree, to the possession of its rights, and given
the monopoly of tobacco; but from that date on the Com-
pany was merely a private commercial undertaking without
direct connection with the government. Still, the govern-
ment was vitally interested in the future of Louisiana, and
therefore placed Dodun, a former commissioner, at the head
of the administrative board, known as Conseil des Indes,
and, a little later, the Directors were instructed to render a
bi-weekly report to Minister Dodun.
A sort of mania for economy prompted the Directors to
an unwise step. Although incessantly complaining of the
intrigues of the English, they decided to reduce the defense
of the colony from sixteen to twelve companies, and even
to abandon several posts, for instance, those among the
Yasous and Arkansas. This same policy of economy led the
Directors of the Company to a very peculiar line of thought.
They had noticed the good work the Jesuits and other mis-
sionaries were doing among the Indians in New France and
in the Illinois country in the way of breaking their nomadic
habits and making them sedentary, teaching them agriculture,
stock-raising, weaving, etc. In short, they noticed that
the missionary did more real good among the savages than
the soldier, and therefore decided to send more Jesuits
and fewer soldiers. 2
x Heinrich, op. cit., p. 98.
2 Heinrich, op. cit., pp. 169-170.
Claude L. Vogel in The Capuchins in French Louisiana, p. 89, formulates the Company's
political motive as follows: "The Jesuits are, therefore, necessary to neutralize the British
machinations and keep the Indians loyal to the French."
222 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
True, Charlevoix had told them of the need of sending
more missionaries to evangelise and civilise the savages, and
he had reminded them that it was one of the charter obli-
gations 1 of the Company to promote the spread of Christianity
among them, but he had not intended to convey the idea
that missionaries should be used to repel the encroaching
English.
The Post of the Yasous had been established to prevent the
English from approaching the Mississippi. The Directors
said: "Let the Jesuits evangelise and civilise the Indians, and
then these savages will repel the English.' ' The Post of the
Arkansas was a revictualing station for the convoys bound
for Kaskaskia and Fort de Chartres. Here they laid in new
supplies, but for that, said the Directors, we need no soldiers.
Make a mission of the Arkansas Post, and that will answer
the same purpose. The strong protest of Bienville saved
the Post of the Yasous, but, in 1725 the total defense of
the colony was reduced to eight companies of 50 men each.
At Fort de Chartres there were only thirty fusileers.
During Crosat's tenure, practically nothing had been done
officially for the evangelisation of the savages in Louisiana.
Charlevoix having called the Company's attention to the
neglect of a charter obligation, the Directors decided upon
sending a large number of missionaries. This marks the
coming of the Capuchins and Jesuits.
In the year 1700 Saint- Vallier, second Bishop of Quebec,
went to France in the interest of his vast diocese. He col-
lected money and gathered up an immense quantity of
goods needed for his struggling missions. After a sojourn of
four years he attempted to return to Quebec, but on high
sea the boat on which he sailed, and which carried all the
things he had collected for the missions, was captured by
the British, and boat and church goods and Bishop were
taken to England, where he was detained in honorable cap-
lll If it were assumed that, under monopoly conditions, the profits of those enjoying the
trading privileges would be very great, it was natural to assume also that the monopolists
could afford to support missionaries and establish French colonies. Needless to say, there
were many who sought such trading monopolies and lightly promised to fulfil the conditions
attached thereto, with little intention of doing so. Moreover, the fields of their operations
were far removed from the immediate cognizance of the courts which made the grants."
Adam Shortt, Canadian Currency, I., XXXV.
ORDER FOLLOWS CHAOS 223
tivity for five years, 17044709. During his absence the
diocese was governed by two Vicars-General.
Bishop Laval, who had resigned in 1684, still lived; he
was, of course, their adviser, and performed the necessary
episcopal functions when requested by the Vicars-General.
In January, 1705, the captive Saint- Vallier had petitioned the
King 1 for a coadjutor. But the King was not exactly looking
for a coadjutor, but rather for a successor, because of the
many difficulties of Saint- Vallier' s regime. Finally, June 22,
1713, the King appointed Louis-Frangois de Mornay, Guar-
dian of the Capuchin monastery at Meudon, Coadjutor of
Quebec. But, strange to say, Bishop de Mornay could not
make up his mind to go to Quebec. Some think it was an
invincible dread of the ocean voyage that held him back.
"That is possible," writes Auguste Gosselin, 2 "but we believe
that, knowing the difficult character of Mgr. Saint- Vallier,
who loved to govern by himself, and knowing the many
difficulties he had had in the past with the Seminary, and
with the religious, he thought it best to keep out of these
disputes and let the Prelate administer his diocese as he liked.'"
In truth, Saint- Vallier himself at this time did not care
to have a coadjutor at Quebec, but wanted him in Louisiana,
that vast territory, including the Illinois country, all of which
was under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of Que-
bec. The Court, too, urged Bishop de Mornay to go to
Louisiana, but he preferred to send religious of his order, the
Capuchin Fathers.
The Seminary priests remained in charge of the Mission
of the Holy Family at Cahokia, but the rest of the territory
was divided between the Jesuits and the Capuchins. The
Jesuits had charge of all the missions among the savages
above the Natchez, while the Capuchins took care of the
French posts, including New Orleans. 3
Bishop Saint- Vallier appointed Father de Beaubois, S. J.,
Vicar-General; Bishop de Mornay, in 1721, appointed the
Capuchin Father Gabriel to the same office, each to act
within his own sphere. 4
1 Louis XIV, a protagonist of personal government and parliamentary Gallicanism, claimed
the right to select the candidates for bishoprics; the Pope had but to approve and grant the
faculties. 2 Auguste Gosselin, Mgr. de Mornay, pp. 143. 3 Vogel, op. at., p. 32.
4 Gosselin, op. cit., p. 19.
224 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
It was due chiefly to the aggressive and ever active Father
Beaubois that the Ursulines had come to New Orleans for
school and hospital work. 1 Upon the forceful demand of
the Superior, Mere Tranchepain, Father Beaubois became
spiritual director of these religious, the protests of the
Capuchins to the contrary notwithstanding.
Furthermore, Father Beaubois needed a central house
in New Orleans to receive the Jesuit missionaries upon their
arrival and to care for them after they were out on the mis-
sions. The Company accorded this establishment on con-
dition "that there should not be any ecclesiastical functions
without the consent of the Capuchins." The Capuchins
feared that the somewhat turbulent Beaubois 2 would use
these concessions as an entrance wedge into their exclusive
rights. Their fears came true.
Unpleasant friction resulted, but what is that as com-
pared with the keen competition in the business world,
or the bitter rivalries and unscrupulous intrigues in political
life?
Alvord, 3 in another connection, calls attention to the fact
that such rivalries will be misunderstood unless it is borne
in mind that the people of that period thought in terms of
monopoly : monopoly of fur trade, monopoly of tobacco trade,
and hence, monopoly of evangelising savage tribes, and even
monopoly of martyrdom.
x May 6, 1728, Father Beaubois reports on the school of the Ursulines as follows:
"There are now here sixteen girl-boarders, seven Negresses, likewise boarders, and twenty
five day pupils. . . . They keep gratis orphans who had been entirely forsaken or were in
very bad hands."
In 1725 the Capuchins opened a school for boys, who were taught by a brother of the
Capuchin Order. Father Raphael, Superior of the Capuchins at New Orleans, had
agreed with Sieurs de Lery and de la Freniere (see p. 416, n. 4, post), to purchase a house
to serve as a school, each party to pay one-third of the cost, which was three thousand
livres. De Lery and Freniere failed to keep their agreement and thus the full burden was
thrown upon the Capuchins. Vogel, op. cit., pp. 70, ff.
2 Nicholas de Beaubois was born at Orleans, France, October 15, 1689. He came to the
mission in the Illinois country in 1718. Rochemonteix characterizes him as follows: "Health,
talent, sense of duty and sacrifice, none of these were wanting to him. But perfect men
are rare. Of a lively and exuberant nature, he did not always succeed in checking his all'
absorbing activity nor in holding himself within the bounds of reserve and moderation.
'He is too outspoken/ said the Governor -General, 'and cannot control himself;' he talked
too much, he was too fussy, and he undertook too much." Rochemonteix, Les Jesuites
et la XLouvelle France au XVIIle Siecle, I., p. 281.
3 Alvord, op. cit., I, p. 115; Pasquet, op. cit., p. 167-
ORDER FOLLOWS CHAOS 225
Now, to return to the run of affairs in Upper Louisiana,
the Directors of the Company considered Fort de Chartres
and Kaskaskia (poste des Illinois) of the greatest importance
(de la dernier e importance). May 12, 1722, they ordered
the establishment of a Provincial Council, or Provincial
Court, for the administration of justice, in civil and criminal
matters, in the first instance, and likewise for the management
of the affairs of the Company. This Council had jurisdiction
over the Illinois and Arkansas commanderies, but its de-
cisions were subject to appeal in the higher Court at New
Orleans. The officers of the Council were: Boisbriand,
president or judge; La Loire des Ursins, chief clerk; Chassin,
chief warden (garde-magasin) ; and a record-keeper or sec-
retary. La Loire des Ursins and Chassin were the first
and second counsellors, respectively. 1
"Probably the first criminal case ever heard in the Illi-
nois," writes Alvord, "came before this court. It concerned
Perillaut, the secretary, who had killed with his sword on
April 25, 1723, Morin, a drummer of the garrison, for having
spoken impertinently to him. 112 Perillaut seems to have been
a friend of the savages, for, during the trial three Indian
chiefs with thirty men came to Fort de Chartres to ask
for his pardon.
The record is so characteristic of the Indian mind, and
points out the infinite patience, prudence, and tact required
on the part of the Commandants, that it is herewith repro-
duced verbatim, as preserved in the Canadian Archives in
Ottawa.
"Louisianne, June 17, 1723.
"The Chiefs of the villages of the Kaskakias, to wit:
Kiracouria, Michel, and Mamentoriensa, having heard that
1 Heinrich, op. cit., p. 95, n. 2.
2 Alvord, op. cit., p. 145, n. 25.
The Journal of Diron D' Artaguiette contains the following entries: "Apr. 25 [1723].
About 2 o'clock in the afternoon a man called Perilaud, clerk of the Ilinnois stores, ran a
man named Morin, drummer of the company of Artaguiette, through the body with his
sword, for having spoken impertinently to him. This Morin died a quarter of an hour
after he received the blow, and Perilaud has been arrested.
"Apr. 26. M. d' Artaguiette presented a request to M. Boisbriant in which he asked that he
be permitted to testify against the said Perilaud.
"Apr. 29. In the morning, M. De Lisle, performing the functions of major of the above'
mentioned post, in the capacity of King's procureur, conducted the examination of the
accused." Mereness, op. cit., pp. 75-76.
226 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
M. Perillaut, who had killed a man and who is in chains,
is to be executed, came this day, the 29th of April, 1723,
at the head of thirty men of their nation to Fort de Char-
tres to ask his release.
"They presented three calumets, endeavoring in their
manner to appease by some ceremony 1 M. de Boisbriant,
Diron, de La Loere, Dartaguette [Dartaguiette] and de L'isle,
assembled to hear the said savages. Kiraoueria addressed
M. de Boisbriant in the following words:
" C I have heard that the warehouse-keeper had shed the blood
of a Frenchman and that thou, according to thy laws and
customs, must shed his blood. I and these men from the
village of the Kaskassias [Kaskaskias] have come to beg thee
and M. Diron, de La Loere, Dartaguiette, and de Lisle to
give ear to our petition.
" 'Consider, my fathers, 2 that the Chicachats kill you and
us on the one hand, and on the other, the Foxes stain our
soil with your blood and with ours. Would you, my father,
M. de Boisbriant. and you my fathers, MM. Diron, De
La Loere, Dartaguiette, and de L'isle, spill the blood of a
Frenchman to blot out the blood of another and would you
add to the loss of one man the loss of another?
" 'We are not too numerous as it is to fight our common
enemy. The ware-house keeper was insane for the moment.
He bespattered thee (my father) M. de Boisbriant, with
blood; I now come to beg thee not to redden thyself with
his blood. If it be necessary to cover the body of him who
was killed, then, my fathers, M. de Boisbriant, de La Loere,
Dartaguiette and de L'isle, then let us strike the Fox and
Chicachas and with those strangers let us cover our dead. 3
x "One after another these chiefs passed their hands and calumets several times over the
head of M. de Boisbriant and over the heads of the other officers, a ceremony which they
call prayer and supplication, and by means of which they feel they can ask anything, with
the confidence that they will scarcely ever be refused."
2 "Our savages address as Father all those whom they respect. 1 '
3 "Our savages cannot understand justice in the sense that it punishes crime. They
consider justice done to a murderer as a vengeance in favor of the one who was murdered.
To them it appears folly to take the life of a murderer. With them, when someone has killed
another, by accident or otherwise, the chiefs of the village and the parents of the murderer
appease and calm the parents of the victim with presents of slaves or calumets or merchandise,
and they call this Covering the Body of the one who was killed, that is, to satisfy the victim,
to make the living forget their loss or to hide it from them in such a way that, by receiving
these kinds of presents, they may feel satisfied and think no more of revenge."
ORDER FOLLOWS CHAOS 227
Let us conceal thy blood 1 that was shed in this earth,
but for love of us, do not spill any more.
" 'I am of the Prayer, 2 that is how I know that the Great
Spirit, the Spirit Creator, God, forbids us, my father, to kill
our children. The one whom thou didst put in chains has
killed [someone], he committed all of a sudden a crime and a
great fault. But could you not, my fathers, not pay so much
attention to his folly; could you not forget it? There are
madmen everywhere, and no nation can glory in being free
from them. But does not God, who is the Master of all,
raise his eyes above our follies when we ask him to be no
longer angry? He forgives; pardon as He does, my fathers,
and for the love of Him.
" T)o not embarrass me, my fathers, I beg you. Let it
not be said, Kiraoueria and his chiefs came to express their
grief to their fathers, but their fathers were not moved.
Behold, it is the first time that I appeal to thee, my father
de Boisbriant, and I appeal for thy own blood and it is
in the name of all my nation that I ask thee to spare the life
of one of thy own children, of one who acted the madman
only once. We are here to blot out his fault and to hide it
from thee for ever.'
"While M. de Boisbriant and the officers deliberated what
sort of answer should be given in reply to the discourse,
the chief named Michel, as though impatient and appre-
hensive of an unsatisfactory reply, rose, took one of the
three calumets, passed it several times over the head and
shoulders of those officers and presented it to them to smoke.
Now, neither M. de Boisbriant nor any of the other officers
thought it wise, because of the consequences such action
might have, to send these savages away altogether dissat-
isfied and, therefore, each smoked in turn the calumet of
peace presented by the said Michel, who immediately spoke
thus:
" 'I thank you, my fathers, that you do me the honor to
place my calumet in your mouth and to smoke my tobacco.
I no longer doubt you will grant us the favor we have come
to ask. I am sure you will listen to us with attention.
^lood of a Frenchman.
2 I am a Christian.
228 FROM QUEBEC TO *[EW ORLEANS
" 'Thou art angry, my father de Boisbriant, and your hearts,
my fathers, Diron, La Loere, Dartaguiette, and de L'isle,
are filled with sadness. I came with my comrades of war to
appease and to cheer you. Would to God we could succeed.
I flatter myself and I hope that today you will obey me,
for when you speak to me, I always obey. When our father,
M. de Bienville sent word to me to redden his mat [sa natte],
thine and mine, with the blood of the Chicachas who killed
the Frenchman, he spoke to me only by mouth [gave no
presents] 1 and still, thou knowest, M. de Boisbriant, I
obeyed him and thee at once; because I wish to believe him
in all things [obey without personal interest] and I seek
only to please him and you, my fathers. I never fear to die
when there is question of avenging the Frenchman.
" 'But what do I hear! I understand, my father, that to
avenge one Frenchman thou wilt redden thy mat with the
blood of another. Ah ! I cannot bear it ... to spill my blood
is only to spill the blood of a savage, but that a Frenchman,
one whom we regret, should perish, that is sad, my fathers.
That would mean to cause joy to our enemies who would
know of it, that would mean to avenge him at our own cost.
They will say, look at them, they destroy themselves . . .
would that they killed one another every day, that would
make them weaker and us stronger. Do not give them that
satisfaction. . . . Release this Frenchman and do not take
his life, rather take my life, for I am only a savage. 1
"M. de Boisbriant asked the opinion of all the assembled
officers about this affair, which seemed a delicate matter.
On the one hand, it was dangerous to send these savages
away without making some concession, on the other, there
was reason to fear that, if they consented, the savages
would take advantage of it on another occasion.
"Having carefully discussed the affair with his council,
M. de Boisbriant had the following answer given:
" 'What you ask, my children, is of the greatest consequence,
(to express it in savage language) it is a matter of value [a
grave matter]. Yes, it is a serious matter to grant you the
life of a man who has committed such a great madness. He
has killed, and understand, today, my children, that the
x The friendship of savages had continually to be bought with presents.
ORDER FOLLOWS CHAOS 229
Grand Chief of the French, the King, your Father and ours,
desires that every murderer be punished with death. With
us such crime cannot go unpunished. Neither I nor any
of my officers who are here can grant life to this warehouse-
keeper. Only the King, your Father and ours, can grant
him pardon, and all of us place our hope in his goodness
and that he will consider the request that you make. I
will forward your demand to him and M. Diron, whom you
see here, will carry your wishes to the king. He promises
you that he will support them and I hope that M. de Bien-
ville and the chiefs below [New Orleans], whom I will
inform of your great affection for the Frenchman, will join
us in petitioning the favor you ask. I should be sorry if
you had come to weep in vain. We are touched by the
services which you have rendered and wished to render to
the French. Hope, then, that you will not be embarrassed,
but, for fear that other Frenchmen might commit similar
crimes [follies], we feel that the warehouse-keeper must still
remain in chains. It is good that he bewail his folly. Note,
my children, how we esteem and appease you, and only
out of love for you. We care little about the discourses
of our enemies. We shall always be strong enough and
sufficiently numerous, as soon as we shall have the ammu-
nition, to defeat them. But if ever a Frenchman should
commit a crime similar to the one that you have just blotted
out, I shall not hesitate to put him to death; no nation could
stop me from it. . . . Mark well, this is the first and last
time that you can hope to save the life of such madman,
of a man who has killed [committed murder].'
"After a few moments Kiraoueria rose and spoke thus:
'M. de Boisbriant, my father, we thank thee for what thy
goodness has promised us. All our fathers who are here
cause us great pleasure. It is well that we have moved their
hearts. We expect that the one who is in chains shall not
die, but we should like to see him. What harm could there
be? We have no other design than to look at him. Tell
the soldiers who guard him not to forbid us to see him.'
"M. de Boisbriant gave permission to the chiefs to see
M. Perillaud. They returned forthwith, and Kiraoueria,
having seated himself, spoke with a sad mien;
2 3 o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
" 'My father de Boisbriant, would there be any harm if
the White Collar, 1 who is our interpreter, informed the
prisoner of what you have promised us? I think it would
give him courage; he would have new hope of life and he
would not be so dejected. He makes me feel pity for him.
It seems to me he has sufficiently repented his folly; release
him/
"Immediately Michel spoke again and said:
" 'I see clearly, my fathers, de Boisbriant, Diron, De La
Loere, Dartaguiette and de L/isle, that your hearts are burn-
ing with anger. We have endeavored to quench this fire,
to appease your anger. You have assured us that the prisoner
shall not die, but, my father de Boisbriant, thou dost not
wish to release him; it is thy desire that firebrands 2 be applied
to burn his feet. I have just seen him; he is worthy of com-
passion. You may forbid me ever to come again to ask a
similar favor, but this time, hear me.
" C M. de Bienville and we at one time wept over a White
Collar 3 killed by the Coroas. Our father sent word to
my father, Rouensa, to the Kaskaskia, my village, to avenge
him. I went to war against that mad nation; I struck them
and in striking them I saw the blood of several of my warriors
spilt. My heart was aflame with anger. Later M. de Bien-
ville spoke to me only by mouth [no presents], 'be quiet 1 ,
and his word appeased me and extinguished the fire of my
angry heart. He sent word again to strike the Chicachas;
I obeyed him; I struck that nation and my comrades did
even as I did, and thou knowest that daily we weep over
the loss of those, who, while avenging the death of a French-
man, reddened the soil of that mad nation with their blood. . . .
I burn with anger, but tell me, my father, to quiet myself,
and I obey at once, and not a burning ember remains in my
heart. Listen, then, to my petition: release this Frenchman;
^'The Indians called the secular priest [Seminary priest of Cahokia], 'White Collar;'
the Jesuit was known as 'Black Robe.' "
2 "He refers to the iron bar and rings that held the feet of Perillaud."
3 M. Foucaut, a Quebec Seminary Father, and two Frenchmen had come down from
Canada to see M. Davion. M. Foucaut became ill, and so the party engaged the services of
four Coroas Indians to row their canoe to the Yazoos. The Father immediately gave them
the merchandise agreed upon. That same night, while M. Foucaut and his companions were
asleep, the savages broke their heads and threw their bodies into the river. Rochemonteix,
Op. cit., I., p. 259, n. 2.
ORDER FOLLOWS CHAOS 231
cast far away those iron bars that burn his feet; he suffers;
he makes us all pity him."
"M. de Boisbriant making no reply, the said Michel con'
tinued: fc If thou canst not release him, my father, at least
do not apply the iron bars but to one foot at a time; for
our sakes [for love of us] grant him this alleviation/
"M. de Boisbriant with the advice of his council made
reply that he did not wish to release him at present, not even
free one foot. 'The fault,' he added, my children, which
this Frenchman has committed, is great. It is important
that my soldiers know that I do not want anyone to act
the madman. However, for love of you, I shall have his
irons changed. He shall have lighter ones, and it is a great
deal that we have agreed to act in a manner that he shall
live. 1
; 'Rest assured, that no other nation but you would have
obtained what has been granted to you. You see by that
how much I esteem and love you. I listen to your words
because you listen to mine. I am not at all angry; I am
touched by what you have said and agree that your
people, who have died to avenge the Frenchman, cover the
body of the one who has now been killed. 1 "
"Signed Boisbriant Diron Desursins Legardeur De Lisle Ste
Therese Langloisere.' 1 '' 2
J "May 31, [l723]. The man called Perilaud, who killed the drummer, has been set at
liberty." Journal of Diron UArtagwette.
2 Archives Publiques du Canada. Serie F3 vol., 24, Pt. II., p. 454.
The many favors of Mr. Francis J. Audet, Chief of the Information in the Public Archives,
Ottawa, Canada, are herewith acknowledged.
RECALL OF BIEHVILLE — PERRIER APPOINTED
GOVERNOR— THE URSULIHES AT HEW
ORLEANS— FILLES A LA CASSETTE—
DiCOJWEHIEHCES OF A VOYAGE
UP THE MISSISSIPPI
The French colonial government included an Intendant,
and such official was given to the colony of Louisiana in
the person of M. Jacques de la Chaise, 1 July 11, 1725. The
Intendant had authority to adjust with finality all matters of
police, agriculture, commerce and finance. But the history of
Canada repeated itself in Louisiana. Bitter rivalry broke out.
Bienville and the Provincial Council grouped together against
La Chaise. The Superior of the Capuchins, in a letter dated
March 12,|l726, to Abbe Raguet, the Company's Director
of religious affairs in the colony, calls Louisiana, perhaps
with a twitch in his own conscience, "the land of confu-
sion." 2
Dissension among those who governed, and quarrels among
the colonists at this time paralysed the development of Louis-
iana. Surveys had been hurriedly and carelessly made;
tracts of land overlapped or had been sold to several persons
or, at least, had been so senselessly laid out, that one owner
had to pass over the land of another to reach his own, which,
in effect, is as productive of peace as if several families, living
in the same house, all use the same entrance, or must pass
through one another's rooms, a la sovikique, to get to their
own. The result was continual misunderstandings and
incessant lawsuits. 3 The colonists spent much time scribbling
their grievances instead of getting down to real farm work.
But, all in all, they were hardy pioneers, and their hardships
were many.
La Chaise was a civilian and would brook no interference,
nor even suggestion, from military men in the administra-
tion of the colony, and placed the full responsibility for
X M. de la Chaise was a nephew of the famous Pere La Chaise, confessor to Louis XIV,
after whom a famous cemetery in Paris is named. According to Gayarre, Jacques de la
Chaise was not gifted with superior intelligence, but was a "solid block of honesty.'"
2 Heinrich, op. cit., p. 88. n. 6.
s Ibid., p. 184.
232
PERRIER GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA 233
existing disorders squarely on Bienville. The Indians were
not the worst enemies Bienville had to cope with. "He
had active and ever-plotting adversaries in the colony,"
writes Gaya^," and no vessel returned to France without
carrying back heavy accusations against the Governor of
Louisiana. Hubert, the King's Commissary, was one of the
foremost, and kept repeating to the French government
that Louisiana was the finest country in the world . . . but
that if the country^ did not prosper more, it was owing to
the maladministration of Bienville, and to his favoritism for
his numerous relations and allies." 1
Of course, Bienville was aware of the sentiments of his
new colleague, the Intendant La Chaise, and gave him no
support whatever — in fact, put obstacles in his way wher-
ever and whenever he could. A little courtesy, to which Bien-
ville, who may not have been a book-keeper, should have
been entitled after nearly thirty years of strenuous and de-
voted service in Louisiana, and an ordinary measure of
diplomacy would have secured the Governor's support.
Standing alone against all the others, La Chaise soon found
himself blocked on all sides. The very fact that the Intendant
advocated anything was reason sufficient for the others to
oppose it. Du Poisson refers to these bickerings in his letter
of October 3, 1727, in which he says: "There were two
factions among the people who were at the head of affairs;
one was called la grande bande, and the other, la petite
bander 2
Bienville received orders to come to France to give an ac-
count of his stewardship, and despite his 34 years of service
to his King, was deprived of his position in the month of
July, 1726. However, in recognition of his services, the
King gave him a pension of 3,000 livres. His brother, Cha-
taugue, was deposed as second lieutenant to the King, and
was succeeded by Diron d'Artaguiette.
Bienville had received orders to report to the Directors
of the Company in 1723, but could not sail until 1725, be-
^ayarre, op. cit., p. 367-
2 The big gang and the little gang.
The Jesuit Father Beaubois cast his lot with the Bienville party, whereas Father Raphael,
the Capuchin, was on the side of de la Chaise. As between Father Beaubois and the Capu*
chin Superior, Father Raphael, the latter seems to have been the more logical and dignified.
234 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
cause the ship on which he was to sail had been wrecked.
Upon Bienville's receipt of orders to report in France,
Boisbriand, Commandant at Fort de Chartres, had been sum-
moned to New Orleans as Governor ad interim. Boisbriand
took sides with his former chief, and in consequence had the
same misunderstandings with La Chaise as Bienville had had
before him. In August, 1726, he, too, was ordered to France
to give an account of his conduct, and was deposed from office
October 27, 1727. A cutting humiliation was inflicted
upon the veteran officer by having the decree, which de-
prived him of the title and functions of First Lieutenant to
the King, read before the assembled garrison at Fort de Char-
tres. 1 Later on, however, the King realised that this brave
officer had been misjudged and accorded him a pension of
800 livres. M. Du Gue de Boisbriand died in France, June
7, 1736. 2
Perrier succeeded Bienville as Governor, and Du Tisne
temporarily succeeded Boisbriand at Fort de Chartres. De
Liette 3 was to be the regular Governor, but during a few
months of 1725, before de Liette's arrival, Pradel, 4 the senior
officer, commanded. Things did not go well under his ad-
ministration. A little revolution broke out under the leader-
ship of a certain La Plume, and Pradel was arrested and sent
to New Orleans, where he was acquitted.
Perrier was a young naval officer who had served with
distinction in the War of the Spanish Succession. He had
also been in the service of the Company for some years,
and had shown his loyalty to their interests. His instruc-
tions were to reach an understanding with La Chaise, the
Iritendant, and thus eliminate the rivalries and bickerings
that had been so harmful to the colony. The Directors took
every precaution to eradicate the secret plottings of the fac-
tionists. The rebellious counsellors were to be despoiled of
their possessions; the Noyan Brothers (Noyan Freres),
nephews of Bienville, were to be banished; two others were
^einrich, op. cit., p. 192, n. 3.
2 Pierre-Georges Roy, La Famille Du Gue de Boisbriand.
3 He was a relative of Tonti, whose maternal family name was Desliettes or Delietto,
Thwaites, op. cit., 66, 340.
4 See p. 202, ante.
PERRIER GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA 235
to be sent back to France with the next ship if it were deemed
necessary, and the climax of all these rigorous measures had
been the recall of Boisbriand.
Perrier took charge of his new post in March, 1727, but
acted more prudently than his superiors had suggested,
and disregarded the instructions as to punishments to be
meted out to certain persons in the colony. He was broad-
minded enough to write to the Company "that it mattered
little whether such or such a person is attached to his own
person or not, as long as that person is attached to his work
and makes himself useful." 1 He was generous enough to
place the cause of the colony above self.
One of his first undertakings was the construction of a
huge levee, extending eighteen miles above and below New
Orleans, to protect that territory against the high waters of
the Mississippi (1727). The following year a canal was
built from New Orleans by way of Lake Pontchartrain to
the Gulf, which also served as a spillway of the Mississippi.
Moreover, the channel of the Mississippi was dredged and
deepened to allow ocean liners to disembark at New Or-
leans.
Requests had frequently been made to the Company to
establish a hospital in Louisiana and to ask Sisters to take
charge of it. The Directors requested the Ursulines 2 of
Rouen, France, to take over this work of charity, and in
July, 1727, the first Ursulines arrived at New Orleans,
amid the joy and acclamations of the inhabitants. They
forthwith opened a house for the education of white girls,
and another for Negro and Indian girls, and, over and above
that, took charge of the military hospital.
New Orleans chronicled another happy event in 1727
— the arrival of a large number of marriageable young ladies.
These girls were known as the filles a la cassette, because,
before embarking for Louisiana, each of them had received
a small hope box, containing her trousseau, from the King.
^einrich, op. at., p. 198.
2 The Ursulines took up temporary quarters in Bienville's old home. This was the first
convent of Sisters within the present limits of the United States. "The Ursuline convent and
hospital to which the Sisters moved in 1734 are still standing on Chartres Street . . . and are
the oldest buildings in the Mississippi Valley." Claude L. Vogel, op. cit. t p. 80.
236 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Mascrier tells graphically what happened upon their
arrival: "As soon as they had been disembarked, they were
placed in a house guarded by a sentinel at the door. During
daytime the hopefuls were permitted to see them and select
the one they liked best, but after dark no one was permitted
to enter. They did not have to wait long at all to be pro-
vided and married; it is but truth to say that this cargo did
not furnish enough to satisfy all the suitors who presented
themselves, for the last one nearly caused serious trouble.
Two young men were on the point of fighting a duel to de-
cide who was to have her, although this Helene was any-
thing but beautiful, and looked more like a soldier on guard
duty than like a young lady. The commandant settled the
quarrel by making them pull straws." 1
The Illinois country did not fare so well under Perrier.
The shackles of monopoly had ever been one of the most
harming handicaps of the colony. The government had
granted the tobacco monopoly to the Company in order
to liquidate an obligation towards the latter, amounting to
3,000,000 livres. Perrier had orders to favor the tobacco
planters of the lower Mississippi in the distribution of
slaves, who worked the tobacco plantations, and to give
none to Illinois and Mobile.
In fact, it was the plan of the Company "to have no posts
farther North of New Orleans than Natches," the reason
being given that if the forces of the colony were closer
together, their maintenance would be less costly and the
occupied territory would develop much more quickly.
Their interest was not as broad as that of the French Em-
pire in America. The Company instructed Perrier to con-
sider the feasibility of abandoning Fort de Chartres as
soon as the war with the Fox Indians would be over, and,
in the meantime, to substitute the Jesuits in the place of
the soldiers stationed on the Missouri 2 — at Fort Orleans.
The men in charge of the management of the Company
were so set on cutting expenses, that they would even risk
to expose the frontier of the colony to danger of attack
from the enemies, the English, and they had so little under-
quoted in Villiers du Terrage, op. at., p. 18.
2 Heinrich, op. at., p. 192, n. 4; Arch. Col. B. XLIII, pp. 677-678.
Instructions to Perrier, Sept. 30, 1726. See p. 221, ante.
PERRIER GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA 237
standing of the value and importance of the Illinois colonies
(Fort de Chartres country), that they instructed Perrier
to send no merchandise to the Illinois, except such as would be
needed for the garrison of Fort de Chartres and for distri-
bution among the savages. To satisfy the Red Men with
trinkets seemed more important to them than the devel-
opment of their best colony. In consequence of the short-
sightedness of the Directors, the colonists were compelled
to travel all the way to New Orleans to make even the most
necessary purchases.
A letter of the Directors to Perrier 1 and La Chaise,
dated October 27, 1727, contains the following interesting
information: "That since a destructive high water of the
Mississipi had caused great damage in the Illinois country
and had destroyed Fort de Chartres, the Company is of
the opinion that the new fort should be built a la Prairie; 2
that the Company is thoroughly disgusted with the heavy
expense of that post, which seems necessary neither to the
Company nor to the colony, and that it has, therefore, re-
duced this post to the same footing as the posts supported
by the king among the savages in Canada and, therefore,
ordains as follows:
"That the Sieur Des Liettes repair to the village of the
Kaskakias [Kaskaskia], there to take up his abode in future,
that he fortify that place as he sees fit, but at his own ex-
pense, and that his pay will be increased accordingly. That
he command in that place both French and savages and that
he shall be assisted in that command by Sieur S. Ange,
father and son, that he shall pay all the expenses of the Illi-
nois country, which cannot be augmented under any pre-
text whatsoever and are regulated and fixed as follows:
"To Sieur Des Liettes, commandant, and charged with
the construction and up-keep of the fort, the sum of 2000
livres.
"To Sieur S. Ange father, a half-pay officer, 480 livres;
to S. Ange, son, half-pay ensign, 300 livres.
iArch. Col., C 13, XI, pp. 89-90.
2 It would seem that Liette himself had suggested rebuilding at la Prairie, "near Kaskaskia,
and the inhabitants of that village offered to furnish all the stone necessary and to trans'
port the munitions and other supplies to the new site on condition that each of them be
permitted to purchase two slaves by the payment of flour." Alvord, op. at., p. 159.
238 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"Maintenance of six soldiers 702 livres.
[Three officers and six soldiers assigned to keep open that
important line of communication between Louisiana and
Quebec ! !]
"Allowance for presents to the Indians, the Illinois, the
Missouri, the Akamas [Arkansas] and, in general, to cover
any expense occasioned by the savages, 1500 livres, Total
4982 livres.
"These sums shall be sent to Des Liettes each year, not
in cash, but in merchandise at New Orleans market price, 1
together with the clothes for the soldiers, the transporta-
tion being paid by the Company, and he is to let the officers
and soldiers have merchandise in lieu of their pay, at New
Orleans market price.
"Besides these expenses the Company will support two
missionaries at Kaskakias — aux Kas\a\ias.
"To the missionary father, for the purpose of saying
Mass, 75 measures [pots] 2 of wine, at 1.15 per measure,
total 126.
"At Fort de Chartres, the Rev. Father de Kereben, Jesuit,
600 livres all told."
The Directors of the Company were prejudiced against
the Illinois country; they could not see that Kaskaskia was
really the granary of Louisiana. However, Perrier and La
Chaise used their own better judgment and left more troops
in the Fort de Chartres country, and Fort de Chartres was
rebuilt on the old site. 3
As early as December 2, 1722, Boisbriand had complained
that the colony in the Illinois country was at times in want
of even the most necessary things, that merchandise shipped
from France was diverted to the colonies on the lower Mis-
sissippi, and that this discrimination left the Fort de Char-
tres colony in dire distress.
1 Tedious and expensive transportation up the river caused a 50% increase in the price of
merchandise by the time it reached Fort de Chartres.
2 The pot is a measure containing two pints, — the French pint, however, being equiv
alent to .934 of a litre, or 1.64 plus English pints. Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, XXXII.,
note 4.
3 But they made known their intention of evacuating it at the conclusion of the war against
the Fox Indians.
PERRIER GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA 239
As a rule, it would take a boat four to five months to as-
cend the Mississippi from New Orleans to Fort de Chartres
and return. In places where the current was swift the boats
had to be towed from tree to tree on a sort of windlass.
Then, too, the Indian peril was ever present and the boats
had to be convoyed by soldiers. That made transportation
very costly. The transport of even a small boat (semi-
galley) from New Orleans to Fort de Chartres would
cost 7,000 to 8,000 livres.
Father Du Poisson, missionary at the Arkansas at that
time, has left a graphic description of the difficulties of
a journey on the Mississippi in those far-off days. He writes
very good-humoredly. For instance, of one place, a short-
cut of only two leagues, but one that offered a thousand
difficulties, he says: "This passage is well named 'the pas-
sage of the Cross;' a Traveler who knows what it is, and
does not shun it, deserves the Insane Asylum should he
escape from it."
"We embarked," he writes, "May 25, 1727.
"Our baggage and that of our engages made a mass which
was more than a foot higher than the sides of our two piro-
gues; 1 we were perched upon a pile of chests and pack-
ages, and were powerless to change our position. They
prophesied that we would not go far with that equipment.
In ascending the Mississipi, they go slowly because the
current is very strong. Hardly had we lost sight of new
Orleans when a projecting branch of a tree, that was not
perceived by the man who was steering, caught a chest,
turned it over and caused a young man who was near it
to fall headlong, and then roughly struck Father Souel,
happily the branch was broken in this first strain, other-
wise both the chest and the young man would have been
in the water.
"We left the Chapitoulas on the 29th. The next day
we made six leagues, — it is seldom that more can be made
in ascending this river; and we lodged, or rather we set up
Pirogue is a dugout canoe, that is, a canoe carved from a log. This interesting account
is herewith reproduced to give an idea of the inconveniences, privations, and hardships of
a journey from New Orleans to Fort de Chartres.
2 4 o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
cabins, at les Allemands. 1 This is a district that has been
assigned to the feeble remnant of that German company
which perished from destitution either at L/Orient, 2 or
on arriving in Louisiana. Their dwellings showed great
poverty. It is here, properly speaking, that we learned
what it is to travel on the Mississipi.
"We set out at the time of highest water; the river had
risen more than forty feet 3 higher than usual; nearly all
the country is lowland, and consequently it was inundated.
Thus we were exposed to the danger of finding no cabari'
age, — that is to say, no land where we could cook and sleep.
When we do find it, this is the way we spend the night:
If the ground be still muddy, which happens when the
water begins to recede, we begin by making a bed of boughs
so that the mattress may not sink into the mud; then we
spread upon it a skin, — or a mattress and sheets, if we have
them. We bend three or four canes in semicircles, the two
ends of which we fix in the ground, and separate them from
one another according to the length of the mattress; across
these we fasten three others; then we spread over this frail
structure our baire, — that is to say, a large canvass, the ends
of which we carefully fold beneath the mattress. In these
tombs, stifling with heat, we are compelled to sleep. 4
l Les Allemands, that is, the settlement of the Germans. According to Deiler, German
Coast of Louisiana, there were two German villages at this place in 1721. Karl Friedrich
D'Arensbourg, a German who had been an officer in the Swedish army, was in charge of a
large group of German engages, sent over by the Company after Law's flight from Paris.
In January or February, 1722, the Germans on Law's concession on the Arkansas, having
heard of Law's bankruptcy and receiving no assistance from the Company, abandoned their
establishment and came down the river to demand return passage from the Directors of the
Company. But, they, too, were helpless because of the muddled condition of the Company's
affairs, so Bienville intervened and made them an offer of lands "above and below the river
front village of their countrymen on the German Coast," where D'Arensbourg functioned
as judge and commandant.
2 L'Orient, a fortified seaport of France on the Bay of Biscay.
3 A rise of forty feet in 1727, when there were no levees and the virgin forest with thick un*
dergrowth was still intact, takes on additional interest in view of proposed river improvements.
4 The Ursulines made the trip from Balise to New Orleans, a distance of twenty leagues
up the river, in six days. The mode of travel was the same as that described by Father Du
Poisson. Madeleine Hachard writes: "We retired two by two under our bars where we
slept fully dressed. ... we slept twice in the midst of mud and of water which fell from the
skies in abundance, and penetrated to us as well as our mattresses, which almost floated
in the water." Relation du Voyage des Dames Ursulines de Rouen a la Jfyuvelle'Orleans,
quoted by Dunn, The Mission of the Ouabache, p. 266.
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PERRIER GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA 241
The first thing that we do on landing is to make our baires
with all possible haste; otherwise, the mosquitoes would
not permit us to use them. If we could sleep in the open
air, we would enjoy the coolness of the night, and would
be very happy. We are much more to be pitied when we
find no camping-ground; then we fasten the pirogue to a
tree, and if we find an embarras of trees we prepare our
meal on it; if we do not find one, we go to bed without supper,
— or rather, we have no supper, and we do not go to bed;
we remain still in the same position that we kept during
the day, exposed the whole night to the fury of the mos-
quitoes. By the way, what we call an embarras is a mass of
floating trees which the river has uprooted, and which the
current drags onward continually. If these be stopped by
a tree that is rooted in the ground, or by a tongue of land,
the trees become heaped upon one another, and form enor-
mous piles; some are found that would furnish your good
city of Tours with wood for three winters. These spots
are difficult and dangerous to pass. It is necessary to sail
very close to the embarras; the current is rapid there and
should the pirogue be driven against these floating trees it
would immediately disappear and would be swallowed up
in the water under the embarras.
"This was also the season of the greatest heat, which
was increasing every day. During the whole voyage we
had only one entire day that was cloudy; there was always
a burning sun above our heads, and we were not able to
arrange over our pirogues a little screen which might give
us a slight shade. Besides, the height of the trees and the
denseness of the woods — which extend along the entire
route, on both sides of the river — did not permit us to
enjoy the least breath of air, although the river is half a
mile wide; we felt the air only in the middle of the river 1
when we were obliged to cross it so as to take the shortest
way. We were constantly drawing the water of the Mississipi
^eiler gives this description of the virgin forest in the lower Mississippi valley : "Giant
oaks with wide-spreading arms and gray mossy beards stood there as if from eternity, and
defied the axe of man. Between them arose towering pines with thick undergrowth, bushes
and shrubs and an impenetrable twist of running, spinning, and climbing vines, under whose
protection lurked a hell of hostile animals and savage men. Leopards, bears, panthers, wild
cats, snakes, and alligators, and ... a scorching sun. . . ." — Deiler, op. cit., p. 56.
242 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
with reeds, in order to quench our thirst; although the
water is very muddy, it did us no harm. Another refresh-
ment that we had was the grapes which hang from the trees
almost everywhere, and which we snatched in passing,
or went to gather when we landed.
"Our provisions consisted of biscuit, salt, and very rancid
bacon, rice, corn, and peas; the biscuit failed us a little above
the Natchez country. At ten or twelve leagues from New
Orleans, we no longer had any bacon; we lived on peas,
then on rice, which failed us only on our arrival here; the
seasoning consisted of salt, bear's oil, and a keen appetite.
The most ordinary food of this country — almost the only
one for many people, and especially for travelers — is gru.
Corn is pounded, in order to remove the outer skin, and
then is boiled a long time in water, but the Frenchmen
sometimes season it with oil; and this is gru. The Savages,
pounding the corn very fine, sometimes cook it with tallow,
and more often only with water; this is sagamite. However,
the gru answers for bread; a spoonful of gru and a mouth-
ful of meat go together.
"But the greatest torture — without which everything
else would have been only a recreation, but which passes
all belief, and could never be imagined in France unless it
had been experienced — is the mosquitoes, the cruel perse-
cution of the mosquitoes. I believe the Egyptian plague
was not more cruel. . . . There are here the frappe'd'abord,
and the brulots; these are very small flies whose sting is
so sharp — or, rather, so burning — that it seems as if a little
spark had fallen on the part that they have stung. There
are gnats, which are brulots, except that they are still smaller,
we hardly see them, and they especially attack the eyes.
There are wasps, there are gad-flies, — in a word, there is
omne genus muscarum 1 ; but we would not speak of the
others, were it not for the mosquitoes.
"This little creature has caused more swearing since the
French came to Mississipi, than had been done before that
time in all the rest of the world. Be that as it may, a swarm of
mosquitoes sets out with the traveler in the morning; when
we go through the willows or near the cane-brakes, as almost al-
^very species of flies.
PERRIER GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA 243
ways happens, another swarm flies furiously to the pirogue,
and does not leave it. We are obliged to wave our hand-
kerchiefs continually, which seldom frightens them; they make
a little flight and return immediately to the attack; our arms
become weary sooner than they do. When we are on land from
ten o'clock until two or three, for the purpose of taking our
dinner, we have a whole army to fight. We then make a
smudge, — that is to say, a large fire that is afterward smothered
with green leaves, and we must stay in the thickest of the
smoke, if we wish to avoid the persecution; I do not know
which is worse, the remedy or the evil. After having dined, we
might be inclined to take a little nap at the foot of a tree,
but that is absolutely impossible; the time of rest is spent
in fighting mosquitoes. We reembark with the mosquitoes;
at sunset we land again; we must immediately hasten to
cut canes, wood, and green leaves so as to make our baires
and the smudge, and to prepare our meal; each one does his
share of the work. Then it is not one army, but many armies,
that we must fight; that is the mosquitoes' hour! We
are eaten, devoured; they enter our mouths, our nostrils,
our ears; our faces, hands, and bodies are covered with them;
their sting penetrates the clothing, and leaves a red mark
on the flesh, which swells on those persons who are not
yet proof against their stings. Chicagou, 1 in order to make
the people of his Tribe comprehend the multitude of French-
men that he had seen, told them that there were as many in
the great village [in Paris] as there were leaves on the trees
or mosquitoes in the woods. After having hastily eaten
our supper, we are impatient to bury ourselves under our
baires, although we know that we shall stifle with the heat; but
with whatever skill, whatever adroitness we slip under
this baire, we always find that some mosquitoes have entered,
and only one or two are needed to make us spend a wretched
night.
"Such are the inconveniences of a Mississipi voyage." 2
*See p. 214, n. 2, ante.
2 "At the Akensas, this 3rd of October, 1727-" The Jesuit Relations, LXVII., pp.
279-297-
THE HATCHEZ MASSACRE — THE STORY OF A
GREEDY COMMAND A7\[T, OF SAVAGE
VEHGEAKLCE, A?iD A CLEVER
DiDIAH WOMAJi
Perrier, Governor of Louisiana, was a good man, and the
people soon felt that he was the man the colony needed : firm
but mild, progressive, interested in the welfare of the colony
as well as in that of the individuals, — no one had reason to
complain.
Father du Poisson wrote of him, October 3, 1727: "Dur-
ing our stay at new Orleans, we saw peace and good order
reestablished by the care and wisdom of the new Command-
ant-General. There had been two factions among the
people who were at the head of affairs; one was called la
grande bande, and the other, la petite bande. This division
is done away with, and there is every reason to hope that
the Colony will be more firmly established than ever." 1
But withal, Perrier did not have that intimate Bienville
understanding of the Indian character, nor had he, like
Bienville, that innate faculty of seeing through the cunning
subtlety of the Indian mind and of reading that arriere-pensee,
that sort of crafty mental reservation, which the savage
always carefully concealed.
Perhaps Perrier himself was conscious of this shortcom-
ing. At any rate, in his report dated March 13, 1726, we
read: "Since the departure of M. de Bienville, the English
have done nothing but make attempts to win over the Indian
tribes. They have sent not only to the Alabamas but also
to the Abecars, Choctaws and Chickasaws, more than
two hundred horses loaded with goods to win them over to
their aid. Happily the Choctaws and Chickasaws, who
are our nearest neighbors, quarreled with them after having
sold them a large quantity of skins. . . . They [the English]
have sent a message to the Choctaws that they were ready
to make peace with them on condition that they would
bring them the head of the French interpreter, whom they
Jesuit Relations, LXVII., p. 277-
244
SAVAGE VEHGEAKCE 245
accuse, most wrongfully, of killing and robbery. Although
these Indians appear very well-intentioned toward us, there
is danger that the English may win them over, because we
lack here always satisfactory goods for the Indians/' 1
Perrier placed too much trust in their pledges of friend-
ship and loyalty. It would seem that his desire to be just
led him to appoint a certain Chepart, or d'Etcheparre, as
Commandant at the post among the Natchez;. Le Page du
Pratz; says that this Chepart had commanded there once
before and had been deposed for maladministration, and that
Perrier reappointed him, because he gave credence to his
protestations of innocence. Considering the honesty and
integrity of Perrier, Chepart would never have been appointed,
had the General-Commandant known the full truth. This
appointment proved the undoing of Perrier and occasioned
what was perhaps the craftiest, the most treacherous and
the most gruesome massacre in those far-off pioneer days.
The Natchez; Massacre, which defied the descriptive powers
of even a Le Page Du Prats, and the consequent Chickasaw
Wars brought home to the Company a full realisation of
the importance of a strong post at Fort de Chartres. A
few years later they confessed their powerlessness to cope
with the ever increasing difficult problems in the colony,
and, in 1731, voluntarily surrendered their charter, and
Louisiana reverted to the Crown, where Druot de Valde-
terre and Bienville had wished her years before.
"The Nation of the Natchez;/ 1 writes Le Page Du Pratz; 2 ,
"is composed of the Nobility and the People. The People,
in their language, are called Miche-Miche-Quipy, which
means Stinkards, a name, neverthless, at which they take
offense, and one would not dare to speak it in their presence,
as it would put them in very bad humor. The language of
the Stinkards is totally different from the language of the
Nobility, to whom they owe absolute submission. The
language of the Nobility is soft, grave, and fairly rich;
the nouns are declined as in Latin without the article. The
Quoted in Dunn, Mission of the Ouabache, p. 288.
2 The account of the Natchez Massacre is taken from Le Page Du Pratz, Histoire de La
Louisiane, II., pp. 193-396. Chevalier de Champigny in La Louisiane Ensanglantee, 1773,
states that Du Pratz; had given the best account of the Natchez War. Other sources will be
quoted in the course of this chapter.
246 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Nobility is divided into Suns [Soleils], Nobles, and those of
Distinguished rank [Consider 6s] . The Suns are so called,
because they descend from a man and a woman who made
them believe they came from the Sun. . . .
"This man and this woman, who gave the Laws to the
Natchez;, had children, and ordained that their race should
always be distinct from the bulk of the Nation, and that
none of their descendants could ever be put to death for
any cause whatsoever. . . . Their precautious care to keep
their blood pure caused them to establish a usage of which
we find an example only among a Nation of the Scythians,
of which Herodot speaks. Their children being brothers
and sisters, could not marry each other without guilt and so,
to have offspring, they had to marry men and women of
the class of the Stinkards; but to forestall the disagreeable
consequences that would result from infidelity on the part
of the women, they ordained that Nobility should be trans-
mitted only through the women. 1 Their children, both male
and female [of the female Suns], were Suns and respected
as such; but with this difference that with the male children,
this dignity was a personal privilege, which they could
enjoy only during their own lifetime. Their children [that
is of the males] were only Nobles, and, in turn, their children
again only of Distinguished Rank. The children of the Con-
sideres were absorbed by the People and placed in the class
of the Stinkards. . . .
"The women are protected against this fusion with the
People. From mother to daughter the Nobility holds and
they are Soleilles [Sun -Women] for all times. . . . Still they
never attain to Sovereignty, any more than the children of
the Suns [male Suns]; but the eldest son of that Soleille
[Sun- Woman], who is the nearest kin to the mother of the
reigning Sovereign, ascends the Throne when a vacancy
occurs. The reigning Sun bears the title of Great Sun [Grand
Soldi]."
It will be remembered that Chepart had been appointed
by Perrier to command at the Natchez; Post.
x The Herrero tribe in South Africa follows a similar custom : the oldest son of the chief's
eldest sister becomes chief. This information was supplied by J. Pothman, O. M. I., of Belle'
ville, 111., former missionary in South Africa.
SAVAGE VEHGEAHCE 247
"This Commandant [Chepart], having taken possession
of his Post, planned to establish one of the finest plantations
in the colony. With this purpose in view he inspected all
the lands not yet occupied by the French, but he found
nothing that would quite satisfy his big ideas. There was
only the Village of the White Apple [Pomme Blanche],
in extent a league square, that could satisfy him, and promptly
he resolved to establish his plantation there. Those lands
were approximately two leagues from the Fort. . . . All
taken up with the beauty of his plan, the Commandant
ordered the Soleil of the White Apple to report at the fort.
This Village belonged to the Nation of the Natche? with
whom the French had had a previous war.
"When the Soleil appeared before the Commandant,
this officer, without further compliment, told him to look
for other lands to establish his Village, because he [the Com-
mandant] had decided to begin the erection of buildings on
the site of the Village of the White Apple at once; that
he must vacate the cabins without delay and go elsewhere. . . .
That Commandant evidently thought he was speaking to
a slave . . . forgetting that the Natives of Louisiana are
bitter opponents of slavery, the Soleils especially, being ac
customed to govern despotically, rebel against it all the more.
"The Soleil of the White Apple thought that, by talking
reason to the Commandant he could make him understand. . . .
He told him that his ancestors had lived in that Village as
many years as he had hairs in his tresses and that, therefore,
it was only fair that his people should remain there.
"As soon as the interpreter had explained this answer
to the Commandant, the latter flew into a fit of rage and
threatened the Soleil that, if he did not vacate the Village
within a few days he would have reason to regret it. The
Soleil replied that when the French had come to ask for
land they [the Natchez] had told them there was a great
deal of it that was not occupied by anyone, that they could
have it, that the same Soleil had offered to guide them, help
them along, that they would walk the same path. He would
have said more, but the Commandant, who became furiously
angry, replied that he expected to be obeyed without any
further discussion. The Soleil, without giving way to
248 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
anger, withdrew, saying he would call in the Old Men of
his Village to hold council about this matter.
"He assembled the Elders and in that Council it was
agreed that they should set forth to the Commandant, that
the grain of all the people in the Village was already out
of the ground, that the hens were hatching their eggs, and
that, if they left their Village then, the chickens and the
grain would be lost to the French as well as to themselves,
since the French have not enough hands to harvest all the
grain they have put into their fields.
"This resolution was presented to the Commandant,
who rejected the same and threatened to punish them if
they failed to vacate the village within a very short specified
time.
"The Soldi brought this answer back to the Council,
which discussed the question. It was a knotty problem.
The policy of the Elders prevailed, that they propose to the
Commandant to permit them to remain in the Village until
harvest so they would have time to gather in and thresh
their grain, and then each cabin would give him, after so
many moons, to be agreed upon, a hamper of grain for each
barrel (the Village of the Apple numbered more than eighty
cabins) and a chicken; that the Commandant appeared to
them to be very selfish, and that this proposal was made
to gain time and that before the expiration of the time set,
they would take measures to throw off the French domination.
"The Soleil went back to the Commandant to offer the
tribute just mentioned with the request that he wait till
the first frosts; that then the grain would have been gathered
and would be dry enough to be threshed; that in this way
they would not lose their grain and would not be exposed
to the danger of dying from famine; that he, the Commandant,
would find this arrangement profitable and that, as soon
as the grain is threshed, they would bring him his share.
"The greed of the Commandant prompted him to accept
this proposal, but blinded him from seeing the consequences
of his tyranny. However, he pretended condescendingly
to accept their offer only as a favor and to cause pleasure
to a Nation he esteemed and which had always been friendly
to the French. The Soleil pretended to be highly pleased
with the reprieve, a delay that gave them ample time to
SAVAGE VEHGEAHCE 249
take the necessary precautions for the safety of the Nation,
for he was not at all deceived by the feigned good'will of
the Commandant.
"The Soldi reconvened his council and reported to the
Elders that the French Commandant had accepted the offer
made to him and had granted the requested delay. Then
he set forth to them that they must make good use of the time
to escape the payment proposed and to overthrow the tyran-
nical domination of the French, which becomes more and
more oppressive as their numbers increase . . . ; that since
this undertaking is a matter of the greatest importance,
the utmost secrecy, cautious steps, and much diplomacy
are necessary; that, therefore, they must show even greater
signs of Friendship to the French Chief than heretofore;
that this matter required several days of mature reflection
before definitely deciding it and proposing it to the Grand
Soleil 1 and his council; that they should now retire, and he
would call them again after a few days to decide what
course to pursue.
"After five or six days he called in the Elders, who in
the meantime had talked the matter over among themselves
The result was, that all the voices were united upon the
same means to attain the end they had in mind, that is,
the total destruction of the French in that Province.
"The Soleil, seeing them gathered together, spoke to
them thus: 'You have had time to reflect upon the matter
I have put before you; and thus, I believe, you will quickly
agree upon the means of ridding ourselves of our wicked
^athurin le Petit, missionary in Louisiana, writes the following in Jesuit Relations,
LXVIIL, pp. 125435: "The Sun is the principal object of veneration to these people; as they
cannot conceive of anything which can be above this heavenly body. ... It is for the same
reason that the great Chief of this Nation, who knows nothing on earth more dignified than
himself, takes the title of brother of the Sun. . . . Every morning the great Chief honors by
his presence the rising of his elder brother, and salutes him with many howlings as soon as
he appears above the horizon. Then he gives orders that they shall light his calumet; he
makes him an offering of the first three puffs which he draws; afterward raising his hand
above his head, and turning from the East to the West, he shows him the direction which he
must take in his course. . . . Those who enter [the cabin of the Chief] salute by a howl. . . .
He thanks him for his politeness [a sign to be seated] by a new howl. At every question
which the Chief puts to him, he howls once before he answers, and when he takes his leave,
he prolongs a single howl until he is out of his presence. ... In the presence of his wife he
[the Big Sun] acts with the most profound respect, never eats with her and salutes her with
howls." In this latter performance the Sun Cacique of the Natchez does not stand alone.
2 5 o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
neighbors. 1 After the Soldi had finished speaking, the
Eldest of the Elders rose, saluted his chief after his own fashion
and said :
c Tor some time we have been convinced that the prox-
imity of the French does us more harm than good; we Elders
see this, but the young people do not see it. The Mer-
chandise of the French pleases the young, but what pur-
pose does it serve other than entice away the maidens and
corrupt the blood of the Nation and make them idle and
conceited? It is the same with the young men; it has
come to this that the married men are burdened unto
death with work trying to find nourishment for the fam-
ily and to satisfy the cries of the children. Before the
Frenchmen came into our country, we were men, men
who were content with what we had, and it was enough for
us, but today we only grope about, afraid to find thorns;
we walk like slaves and it will not be long before we shall
be slaves of the French, for they already treat us as though
we were slaves. Once they are strong enough, they will
cast aside diplomacy; for the least offense on the part of our
young people, they will fasten them to the stake and whip
them as they whip their black slaves. Have they not done
it already to one of our young men, and is not death itself to
be preferred to such slavery?'
"He paused a moment, took new breath and continued
thus:
" Why do we wait? Shall we let the French multiply
until we can no longer oppose their efforts? What will
the other Nations say? We are considered the most intel-
ligent of the Red Men; they will say that we have less in-
telligence than the other Nations. Why then wait longer?
Let us free ourselves [mettons-nous en liberte] ; let us show
that we are real men, men who can be satisfied with what
we have; let us begin this very day to prepare ourselves;
let us have foodstuffs made ready by our women, without
telling them the reason why; let us bring the Calumet of
Peace to the Nations of this country; let us explain to them
that since the French are stronger in our neighborhood
than elsewhere, they make us feel more than others that
they want to make slaves of us; that once they are stronger,
they will do the same to all the Nations of this country;
SAVAGE VEHGEAHCE 251
that it is to their own interest to forestall such calamity;
that to do that, they need only to join us, to destroy all
the French on the same day and at the same hour; that the
day of vengeance shall be the day on which the delay granted
by the Commandant expires and on which we are to deliver
the contributions agreed upon, that the hour shall
be the fourth of the day (9 o'clock in the morning);
that at that hour several Warriors shall go to him with
grain as to begin payment; that they shall carry their
guns on the pretext of going on a hunt; that in every
house of a Frenchman there shall be two Natchez to one
Frenchman; that they shall ask to borrow their Guns and
ammunition for a general hunt on the occasion of a great
Feast and that they will bring them meat [from the hunt];
that the shots fired at the Commandant's shall be the signal
for all to attack the Frenchmen and kill them; then we shall
be in position to prevent that those who come by the Great
Water from the ancient French Village [New Orleans]
could ever establish themselves here.''
"The same Elder added that, after they had made clear to
the other Nations the necessity of taking this violent meas-
ure, they would leave with each a bundle of twigs, which
would contain the same number of twigs as their own bundle,
and equal to the number of days that would intervene be-
tween this day and the day on which they would all attack
at the same time; that, so as not to make a mistake, they
must draw from the bundle one twig each day, break it,
and throw it aside, and that this task is to be committed to
a discreet man. Then he was silent and sat down. All
the Elders approved his plan and were of the same opinion.
The plan was also approved by the Soleil of the Apple;
but there was still question of getting the consent of the
Grand Soleil [the Great Sun] and the other Small Soleils —
for, if all the princes were of the same opinion, then the whole
Nation would blindly obey. They took the further pre-
caution that none of the women, not even the Soleilles [Sun-
Women], should have any knowledge whatsoever of this
plot or the least suspicion of what they planned to do against
the French.
"The Soleil of the Apple was very intelligent, which
made it easy to win over the Grand Soleil to his scheme.
252 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
The reigning Soleil [Great Sun] was a young man without
experience, who could, therefore, be won over all the more
readily, since all the Soleils agreed that the Chief of
the Apple had a just and penetrating mind; nor had he
ever associated much with the French. This Prince [chief
of the White Apple] went to the Sovereign of the Nation
and made him understand that it was necessary to take this
step, because he himself was compelled to leave his Village . . .
the French Habitans and soldiers had themselves complained
about the Commandant; that as long as the Grand Soleil
and the Angry Serpent, 1 his brother, had lived, the Command-
ant of the Fort had not dared to undertake anything, because
the Grand Chief of the French, who lives in their large
Village (He means to say New Orleans) loved them; but
since he, the Grand Soleil, was not at all known to them,
being still young, they would laugh at him; therefore, the
only means to uphold his authority is to rid himself of the
French in the manner and with the precautions outlined by
the Elders.
"The result of this conference was that, already the next
day, when the Soleils came in the morning to salute the Grand
Soleil, he instructed them to go to the Soleil of the Apple
without speaking of it to any one. The thing was done, and
the convincing mind of the Soleil of the Apple drew all the
Soleils into his project. In consequence, a Council was formed
including all the Soleils and the Noble Elders, who all approved
the project. These noble Elders were named Chiefs of Em-
bassies to visit the other Nations. Warriors were assigned
to accompany them and they were forbidden, under pain of
death, to speak of this matter to anyone, whosoever it might be.
This resolution taken, all departed at the same time, this
being done without the knowledge of the French.
"Despite the deep secrecy observed by the Natchez
[members of the Conference], the People felt a certain un-
easiness because of the great Council held by the Soleils
and the Noble Elders, and it is not new among the nations
of the world that the subjects worm into the secrets of the
Court. However, the curiosity of the People could not be
^rpent Pique — Angry Serpent — was a brother to the former Great Jfo and had died
about a year before.
SAVAGE VEHGEAHCE 253
satisfied; it is only the Soleilles [Sun- Women or Princesses]
of that Nation, who have a right to ask why secrets are
withheld. But the young Grande Soleille [wife of the Great
Sun] was only eighteen years old and so it was only the Bras-
Pique — the Tattoed Arm [the Mother of the Great Sun],
who had a very keen mind, who might feel offended that
nothing was said to her. In fact, she showed her chagrin to
her son, who explained to her, that these Delegations were
sent to renew the good understanding with these Nations
and that it was quite a long time that the Calumet had been
brought to them, which had made the impression his Nation
slighted them by this neglect. That feigned excuse seemed to
appease the Soleille, Tattoed Arm, but did not quite re-
move all uneasiness from her mind. In fact, her suspicions
grew as she noticed that the Soleils had secret meetings with
the Deputies when the Calumets (or Embassies) returned,
whereas ordinarily these meetings were held in public.
"She was peeved at this and said to herself: 'What, they
hide from the whole Nation what it should know? And
they hide it even from me? 1 Her anger would have burst
forth at once, had it not been tempered by prudence. It
was fortunate for the French that she thought herself
slighted, for I believe the Colony owes its safety rather to
the chagrin of an offended woman than to her love for the
French. . . .
"She feared there would be even greater secrecy, so deep
that she would discover nothing if she made noise about it.
For that reason she devised a clever ruse. She induced the
SoIei'I, her son, to accompany her to visit a sick relative
at the Village of the Flour (or Corn Village), and to say
nothing about it. She took him by the longest route, saying
it was the most picturesque, but in reality, because it was
the least frequented. Having a keen mind, she suspicioned
that they kept this profound secrecy because they harbored
some sinister plot against the French, and the movements
of the Soleil of the Apple strengthened her misgivings.
Now, finding herself alone with her son in a solitary place
and relying on the respect he had always shown her she said :
fc Let us sit down here, for I am tired and I have something
to say to thee: Open thy ears to hear me; I have never
254 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEAHS
known thee to tell me a falsehood and I have always said
that a liar does not deserve to be called a man, but a Soleil,
who would tell a falsehood, deserves the contempt even of
women; therefore, I think thou wilt tell me the truth. Then
tell me: Are the Soleils not brothers? Is their interest not
a common interest? Yet, all the Soleils keep a secret from
me, as though I could not hold my tongue. Am I a woman
who speaks in her sleep? I am heartbroken to see myself
thus scorned by my brothers and even by thee. What
then? Art not thou a child of my womb? Didst thou not
nourish at my breast on the strength of my blood? Does
not my blood flow in thy veins? Wouldst thou be Soleil
if thou wert not my son? Hast thou already forgotten,
that without my care thou wouldst long be dead? Every-
one has told thee, and I also, that thou art the son of a French-
man, but my own blood is much dearer to me than the blood
of strangers. Today I walk by thy side like a she-dog with-
out being noticed. I am astonished thou dost not push
me aside with thy foot; I do not at all wonder that others
keep secrets from me. Elders despise the women who are
not their relatives; but thou art my son and keepest secrets
from me. Didst thou ever see in our Nation that a son
scorned his mother? Thou art the only one who does that.
What! all these manoeuvres in the Nation, and I do not
know the reason, though I am the Old Soleille [Sun-Mother],
and my son is the Soleil? Dost thou fear that I reject thee
and make thee a slave of the French against whom you plot?
Ah! how I loathe to be thus scorned and to deal with men
who know not gratitude!'
"The son was profoundly affected by the words his mother
had spoken to him with tearful eyes. He listened to these
reproaches with the prudence characteristic of these Natives
and with the respect due to a mother and a Princess. Then
he replied in these words: fc Thy reproaches are like arrows
that pierce my heart. I have never treated thee with con-
tempt or neglect; but hast thou ever heard it said that one
is to betray what the Elders of the Council have agreed?
And I, who am a Soleil, must not I set the example? That
secret has been kept from the Grande Soleille as well as from
thee. Although they know that I am the son of a French-
man, they do not distrust me. They did, indeed, surmise,
SAVAGE VEHGEAHCE 255
that thou, with thy keen mind, wouldst penetrate the secret
of the Council, but, keeping the secret from the Grande
Soleille, it was proper to say nothing to thee. But since
thou hast detected all, what dost thou further wish that I
tell thee? Since thou knowest as much as I do, hold thy
tongue. 1
" 'I am not at all interested to know, 1 she said, 'against
whom you take steps, but just because it is against the
French, I fear you have not taken sufficient precautions to
surprise them. You know, they are very intelligent, though
the Commandant here has lost his mind; they are brave and
courageous and have quantities of Merchandise with which
they can enlist all the Warriors of the other Nations against
us. If you bore this grudge against Red Men, I should
sleep without worry; furthermore, I am no longer young;
whether it be French or Red Men that kill me, the life of an
old woman counts for little. If your Elders thought that
you can surprise the French as easily as the Red Men, they
are mistaken; they [the French] have resources which the
Red Men dream not of. 1
"Her son then told her she need have no apprehensions as
to the measures taken. After having told her all that I have
reported above, he added that, all the Nations had approved
the plan, and that they had promised to attack the same day,
and at the same hour, each the French Villages nearest to
them; that the Chatkas [Choctaws] had undertaken to
destroy all the French living along the lower Big River
(the River St. Louis — Mississippi) and up as far as the Tonicas;
that they had sent no Delegates to that Nation; that the
Tonicas and Oumas were too friendly to the French, and it
was better to kill them all together with the French who
lived there. He finally told her that the bundles of twigs
were on the flat board in the Temple.
"When the Bras-Pique [Tattoed Arm, the Sun-Mother]
had obtained the full information, she pretended to approve
and from that moment on molested her son no more and only
busied herself with her own plans, as to how she could
wreck the whole barbarous plot. Time was urgent, because
the intervening term, designated before the day set for Action,
had nearly elapsed.
256 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"That woman could not rest satisfied to see all the French
massacred on one day through the Conspiracy of the Natives;
to succeed in her plans, she conceived the idea to warn
some of the Indian maidens who loved the French, which
she actually did, cautioning them, however, not to dare
to say that the warning came from her.
"In the hope of opening the eyes of the Commandant,
the Bras-Pique stopped a soldier, whom she met in the
road, and told him to go at once to the Commandant and
tell him that the Natchez had gone mad and that he had
better be on his guard; that it would be enough if he
made the least repairs on the Fort in the presence of some of
them, just to show that he distrusted them, and that then
all their evil designs would evaporate. The soldier faith-
fully executed his mission, but the Commandant, far from
giving credence to this view or profiting by it, or, at least,
investigating and cautiously sifting the matter, treated
the soldier like a coward and visionary, had him put in
chains, and said he [the commandant] would carefully re-
frain from making any repairs on the Fort . . . ; that the
Natchez, seeing him take steps for defense, would think
that he lacked courage and was afraid of them. . . .
"The Bras-Pique, fearing that despite all the precautions
taken and the secrecy which she recommended, her plans
might be discovered or betrayed, went into the temple
and withdrew several twigs from the fatal Bundle: her
plan was to advance the date [in the Village of the White
Apple] so that those Frenchmen who might escape the
Massacre there, could warn their countrymen [elsewhere].
She was so active [trying to get action from her warnings]
that several Frenchmen were cautioned and some of them
then spoke to the Commandant, but he had seven of them
put in chains for being cowards. . . .
"This Soleille, seeing that the date approached and that
several messengers had been punished for having given good
advice, decided to speak to M. Maffe, a Sub-Lieutenant,
thinking that the Commandant would pay more attention
to the opinion of an Officer than to that of Soldiers; but she
was mistaken; the Commandant paid no more attention
to the Officer than to the Soldiers.
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SAVAGE VEHGEAHCE 257
"The Commandant, despite all these warnings, conceived
the idea of going with several Frenchmen to the large Vil-
lage of the Natchez to make merry, to bring some brandy
and to pass the night there; they amused themselves until
the small hours of the morning when they returned to the
Fort. Scarcely had the Commandant arrived there, when he
received urgent warnings to be on his guard.
"The Commandant, still dizzy from the debaucheries
of the night, added imprudence to disregard of the last warn-
ings; he ordered the interpreter to go at once to the large
Village, to ask the Grand Soleil, if it was true that he would
shortly appear at the head of his Warriors to kill all the
French. That was early in the morning. One may well
imagine, without saying it, what was the answer of the Grand
Soleil. Though young, he knew how to pretend, and to speak
to the Interpreter in a manner that fully satisfied the Com-
mandant, who congratulated himself on having disregarded
the warnings sent to him. He then went to his house near
the Fort to sleep off the fatigues of the previous night.
"The Natchez had too well prepared their plot not to
have the success which they expected. The fatal moment
arrived at last. . . . The houses of the French, filled with
enemies; the Fort, too, occupied by Savages, who had en-
tered by the door and by the breaches, and the Soldiers,
being without Officers or even a Sergeant, could not defend
themselves. In the meantime the Grand Soleil arrived with
warriors carrying grain, pretending ostensibly to begin
payment of the contribution. The Commandant was so
elated with joy that he immediately gave orders to set free
those who had given him warnings, so that they might see
with their own eyes that they had been wrong. But scarcely
had they stepped out to witness the delivery of the
merchandise by the Natives, when several shots were fired
at the small Galley 1 [boat in the river], near the Command-
ant's house, at the Interpreter, at a Servant and at several
x Father Le Petit's letter, covering the Natchez Massacre from a somewhat different angle,
will be frequently quoted. He writes: "The arrival of a number of richly loaded boats for
the garrison and the colonists, determined them to hasten their enterprise and to strike their
blow sooner than they had agreed with the other confederate Tribes." — Jesuit Relations,
LXV1IL, p. 165. See also Rochemonteix, Les Jesuites et la 7<[ouvelle'France au XVIIle
Siecle, I., pp. 351'354.
2 5 S FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
other Frenchmen. As this discharge was the preconcerted
Signal, a great number of shots were heard in the same moment.
Then the Commandant understood, but too late, the wisdom
of the warnings that had been given him; he runs to the Gar-
den, he calls the Soldiers of the Garrison; vain hope, they
are no more! They rush at him with raised guns and kill
him.
"The Natchez had taken the precaution to take posses-
sion of the small Galley, no doubt to make sure of
the merchandise and at the same time to be in position to
check the French who might want to embark and save
themselves; they had also a detachment on the other
shore of the river to kill those who might escape. 11
Father du Poisson, S. J., 1 missionary at John Law's former
concession on the Arkansas, was on his way to New Or-
leans in the interest of his mission of whites and Indians.
He arrived at the post of the Natchez on the 26th of Novem-
ber, 1729, and stopped there to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass.
That was Saturday, the eve of the first Sunday of Advent.
Father Philibert, Capuchin, pastor of the parish, was not
at home. The people asked Father du Poisson to fill his
place the next day. He said the Mass and preached. In
the afternoon, when he was about to continue his journey,
he was told that there were some Frenchmen who were
very sick; so he called on them and administered the last
Sacraments. The following day, Monday, Nov. 28, he said
Mass and brought Holy Viaticum to a sick man who had
confessed the day before. Returning from this mission of
charity, he met an Indian chief, who laid hands on him,
threw him to the ground, and cut off his head with a hatchet.
M. du Codere, Commandant at the Yasou post, drew his
sword to defend Father du Poisson, when he was himself
killed by a musket ball fired by another Savage.
"The Massacre 2 broke out in the whole colony at the same
hour. The French women, who were made slaves, were
quartered in a house situated on an elevation under guard
of several warriors; from there they saw a part of this tragic
Scene; they saw how some women defended their husbands
and how others tried to avenge them; but these heroines
^ochemonteix, op. cit., I., pp. 353 if. 2 Le Page du Pratz, op. cit.
SAVAGE VEKGEATiCE 259
were sacrificed to the vengeance of the enemy, who, accord'
ing to their custom, spared only the young.
"During the massacre, the great Chief of the Natchez
was seated quietly under the tobacco shed of the Company.
His warriors laid at his feet the head of the Command-
ant, about which they ranged those of the principal French
of the post, leaving their bodies a prey to the dogs, the bus-
sards, and other carnivorous birds.
"When they were assured that no other Frenchman re-
mained at the post, they applied themselves to plunder the
houses. . . . While the brandy lasted . . . they passed their
days and nights in drinking, singing, dancing and insulting
in the most barbarous manner, the dead bodies and the
memory of the French." 1
There were other outrages, too horrible to describe.
Le Page du Prat? continues: "I draw the curtain over the
other parts of the picture; what has been said is horrible,
enough: I shall only add that, out of about seven hundred
persons only a small number were saved, who brought
the frightful news to the capital, New Orleans." 2
One of the French, who had escaped the butchery, fled
to the Yasous. The Chief of that tribe received him with
every sign of good'will, supplied him with food, and even
furnished him a pirogue to escape to New Orleans. The
Chief charged him to tell M. Perrier that he had nothing
to fear from his nation, "they would not lose their mind,"
that is, they would always remain attached to the French. 3
This messenger found New Orleans in tears, because of the
frightful massacre; the message of the Chief of the Yasous
contributed not a little to pacify the minds. Soon, however,
word reached the capital that the Yasous, loaded with
presents and goaded on by the Natchez, had broken their
promise and had attacked the French of that Post (Yazous),
*Le Page du Prats. Ibid.
The Commandant Chepart, M. du Codere, M. des Ursins, Messrs. de Kolly (Koli), father
and son, des Noyers, etc., were some of the men massacred. Marc Antoine de la Loire des
Ursins was stationed at Fort de Chartres under de Boisbriand and later owned a concession
near Natchez.
2 The number of those who were killed outright or who died in consequence of the bru*
talities endured is given by some historians between 150 and 200. Rochemonteix, op. cit. t
p. 350, n. 4.
3 Le Petit in Jesuit Relations, LXVIII., p. 165.
26o FROM QUEBEC TO Js[EW ORLEANS
and spared only four women and five children, whom they
had made slaves. Des Roches, who commanded there during
the absence of M. de Codere, and 17 men were massacred.
Father Souel, missionary among the Yaz;ous, had been shot
on the previous day.
A few days after this second butchery, Father Dout-
releau, missionary in the Illinois country, with five fellow
travelers came down the river on his way to New Orleans.
At the mouth of the Yasous River they disembarked, im-
provised an altar, and the missionary began to say Mass,
at which his companions assisted. A number of savages,
who had noticed them, approached, greeted them as friends,
and took their places behind the Frenchmen, who knew
nothing of the Yasous massacre. At the Kyrie Eleison of
the Mass, the Yazous fired their guns; Father Doutreleau
was wounded at the elbow, one of the Frenchmen was killed,
another was wounded in the hip, and the other three fled.
One of these jumped into the pirogue, rowed away from
shore, and then returned to pick up the wounded French-
men. Father Doutreleau, still in his priestly garments,
holding chalice and paten in one hand, swam to the boat.
As he climbed into the boat he looked around to see if any
of the pursuers were following, and received a discharge
of small shot in the mouth. Father Doutreleau grabbed
the rudder, the others rowed, and thus they escaped behind the
bushes that lined the Mississippi. For the purpose of aid-
ing their flight from the fatal shores, they cast all their bag-
gage into the Mississippi, keeping only some pieces of raw
bacon for food.
They had planned to stop at the post of the Natchez to
dress their wounds, but seeing that everything was demol-
ished or burnt, they quickly rowed on, hotly pursued by
Natchez canoes, and finally, after several days of privation and
almost superhuman hardships, they reached New Orleans. 1
M. Perrier immediately sent Captain le Merveilleux with
a detachment to warn the habitants of both banks of the
River to be on their guard and to construct redoubts, en-
closed palisaded works (des redoutes), at certain points,
to put their slaves and cattle in safety. The Arkansas,
^ochemonteix, op. at., I., p. 355.
SAVAGE VEHGEAHCE 261
a powerful tribe, friendly to the French, attacked the Yaz;ous.
Perrier sent two ships under Loubois to equip the Tonicas
and, in case of attack, to serve as asylum for women and
children; he surrounded New Orleans with a moat, placed
guards, and furnished arms and ammunition to the homes in
the city and surrounding territory. 1
M. le Sueur, a hardy Canadian frontiersman, went to
the Choctaws to enlist their aid against the Natchez;. The
Choctaws were already peeved because the Natchez; had
advanced the date of the massacre. They were a strong
rival nation and, prompted by jealousy or ambition, pledged
him their support. At the head of 700 men Le Sueur at'
tacked the Natchez, and completely routed them. The rem-
nant of the Natchez; fled to two palisaded forts. They were
besieged by le Sueur, who had been joined by Loubois,
but since the Choctaws became impatient at the inactivity
imposed by the siege, the two French leaders accepted the
conditions offered by the besieged, to wit: surrender of all
the prisoners, women, children and Negroes. No sooner
had the French withdrawn, than the Natchez; renewed their
hostilities. The following year, in December, 1730, Perrier,
with 600 men, many of them reinforcements just arrived
from France, ascended the Mississippi, and on Jan. 20, 1731,
his men stood before the Natchez; forts. Some of these savages
fled to the Chickasaws, others dispersed through the country,
and the Grand Soleil and the principal chiefs entrenched them-
selves in one of the forts. The Soleil, the chiefs, and the other
savages, with the exception of about twenty, who had es-
caped, were taken prisoners and sent as slaves to San Domingo.
A few months later the captive Soleil died. The news
of his death, together with the idea that many of their brethren
were in bondage, aflamed anew the hatred of the Natchez;.
They dug up the hatchet and attacked the Tonicas and
Natchitoches. Again defeated, the Natchez; finally ceased
to exist as a Nation, and the survivors were absorbed by
the Chickasaws.
^eiler tells what precautions were taken aux Allemands, and the same method
was probably employed elsewhere. "Posts of observation were established along the Ger'
man Coast on high trees on the river bank, and when the men went out in the fields, women
with flint'lock firearms went up into the tops of the trees to keep a sharp lookout, and to
warn the men by shots when Indians sneaked out of the swamps and approached the habi-
tations." — Op. cit., p. 59,
262 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
The destruction of the hostile tribes gave a short-lived
peace to the colony. The Natchez wars had exhausted the
strength of the Company of the Indies, and it ceded Louisi-
ana and the Illinois country back to the Crown, January
22, 1731. From that time on down to the Conquest, Louisiana
remained a crown colony. M. Perrier was retained as Gov-
ernor under the new administration, but, wearied of Indian
troubles, he soon resigned and returned to France. Many
years before, in a similar crisis, Frontenac 1 had been recalled
to New France, and thus also Bienville was considered the
only man who could save Louisiana, and Bienville returned to
the scenes of his youthful daring exploits.
The Chickasaws were a strong and bold nation, hostile
to the French, and allies of the English, with whom they had
commercial relations. They occupied all the vast territory
between the Illinois Indians on the north and the Choctaws
on the south. Each year they grew stronger by the absorp-
tion of the remnants of other tribes. Assured of the back-
ing of the English, they incessantly disturbed the French
who lived among the Tonicas and Arkansas, and attacked
the convoys on their way to Fort de Chartres and the Illi-
nois country. This greatly annoyed the Governors of Quebec
and Louisiana. The Chickasaws favored the establishment
of English colonies on the Ohio and in the Illinois country.
The English, on their part, greatly desired the establishment
of such colonies, since they served as a wedge between the two
French colonies, Canada and Louisiana. Alliance with the
English had a decided commercial advantage for the Chicka-
saws, because the English paid better prices for peltries
than the French and furnished them with European mer-
chandise at less cost.
*See p. 46, ante.
FRAHQOIS-MARIE BISSOT DE VIKCEHN.ES
The British complained of the ' 'unlimited inclination
the French have to encroach upon His Majesty's territories 1 '
and were determined to "prevent the inconveniences to
which His Majesty's Plantations of America and the Trade
of the Kingdom 11 would be subject by a communication
between Louisiana and Canada. 1 That mental attitude
was chronic on the part of the British, and covered at least
the Ohio Valley.
The French, on their part, watched with keen jealousy —
and that, too, was habitual — the operations of the English,
their westward movement, and their contacting with sav-
ages in the Ohio Valley.
August 7, 1725, Captain Tobias Fitch, 2 who had been sent
to the Creeks to counteract the influence of the French, sum-
moned two Spaniards, who happened to be among those savages,
in the following terms: "I am sent here by the Government
of Carolina To See our Friends, The Creek Indians, and To
Transact affairs here for Our Said Government, and I am
not To Suffer any white Man To Reside in this place with-
out giveing me an account of his Business. I therefore De-
mand of you who Impower'd You To Come into This nation
and for what purpose are You Come?"
September 30, 1726, the Company of the Indies had sent to
M. Perrier, Governor of Louisiana, the following instruc-
tions, that were to guide M. de Vincennes in watching the
movements of the English:
"One hundred and twenty leagues above the Akansas,
there flows into the Mississipi the river Ouabache 3 formed
by four other rivers, of which one has its source near Lake
Erie and is called Saint- Jerome or Ouabache [Wabash],
the other, called Ohio, has its source near the Iroquois,
and the other two, called Chaouanons [Cumberland] and
lSee pp. 217-218, ante.
2Tobias Fitch's Journal, Mereness, op. cit., p. 186.
3"Ouabache," writes Dunn, "signified not only the river Wabash as we know it, but also
the Ohio river from the mouth of the Wabash to the Mississippi. In other words, up to the
middle of the eighteenth century, the Wabash was treated as the main stream and the Ohio
as a tributary of it." Dunn, The Mission of the Ouabache, p. 255.
263
264 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
des Casquinamboux [Tennessee], take their source near
Virginia. The country watered by these rivers abounds
in buffalo and is not occupied by any nation of Europe.
"Since it is by the first of these rivers that one travels from
Louisiana to Canada, and since that communication would
be completely broken if the English established themselves
at the conflux of one of these three rivers, which would at
the same time expose the country of the Illinois and jeopard-
ise all the upper part of the colony, the Company has ordered
the establishment of a post on the river Ouabache and has
requested the governor of Canada to give orders on his
part to sieur de Vincennes, who commands among the Ouya-
tanons-Miamis [on or near the site of the present Lafayette,
Indiana], now settled on the upper Ouabache, to act in
concert with the commandant of the new post to bring
that nation closer, both to protect the post as also to ob-
serve the English and to drive them away, in case they
approach/ '
The Company also sent him Boisbriand's letter of earlier
date, in which this officer writes "that the lack of merchan-
dise has prevented him from sending to establish the said
post, and that he considers it necessary to give the command
of that post to M. de Vincennes, who is already half-pay
lieutenant of infantry in Louisiana, and who understands
better than anyone else how to handle the Miamis." 1
M. de Vincennes had come down from the Ouyata-
nons-Miamis to Fort de Chartres to report to M. Des Liettes,
then commanding at that post, that the English had already
settled on the upper Ohio.
The Company further instructed Perrier that if this
report "should prove true, then there is no time to lose:
he should have the Ouyatanons occupy the lower Ohio
1 This chapter is based on the painstaking researches of the scholarly and genial M. Pierre
Georges Roy, chief archivist of the Province and City of Quebec, Canada. I am deeply
indebted to Mr. Roy for innumerable courtesies. After two years of careful research work,
during which time hundreds of documents, accumulated in the Quebec archives for a period
of three centuries, were studied, M. Pierre'Georges Roy, published his findings in a book
entitled, Le Sieur de Vincennes, Fondateur de Vlndiana et Sa Famille.
Documents are freely quoted from this work as also from the excellent treatise, The Mission
of the Ouabache, by James Piatt Dunn. See also Pierre Margry, Memoires et Documents, VI.,
pp. 657-658.
POST VIHCEHKES 265
and then erect the fort of the Wabash near the confluence of
the river Casquinamboux [Tennessee]. . . . M. Perrier is
to investigate this matter carefully and see if, by giving
eight or ten soldiers to sieur de Vincennes together with
the missionary destined for the Wabash, 1 he might not be in
position to safeguard, with the help of the savages, the com-
munication between Louisiana and Canada and prevent
the English from penetrating into our colony without com-
pelling the Company to construct a fort on the lower Wabash,
the expense of which construction and the maintenance
of the garrison would be a matter of importance.' 12
The Governors of Canada had never quite forgotten that
the Illinois country had been detached from New France
and made a part of Louisiana at the request of Law, in 1717.
A certain friction remained. In 1723, the Directors of the
Company of the Indies filed complaint with the Minister
against Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada, accusing him of
not properly cooperating with the government of Louisiana.
Vaudreuil stoutly defended himself in a letter dated Oc-
tober 11, 1723. Among other things he writes: "On various
occasions the Ouyatanons would have made war on the Illi-
nois, if, in consequence of the orders I have always given to
Sr. de Vincennes, to preserve peace between these two
nations, he [Vincennes] had not checked the movements of
the Ouyatanons, among whom he is very highly esteemed,
and had not made with them several trips to the Illinois."
In the meantime, Vaudreuil received word that Boisbriand
had recommended Vincennes for the post to be established
on the Wabash. It will be remembered that the boundary
line between New France and Louisiana ran from the mouth
of the Illinois River eastward to the present Terre Haute,
thus placing the post among the Ouyatanons [Lafayette],
where Vincennes then commanded, clearly under the jur-
isdiction of the Governor of Canada.
Vaudreuil resented Boisbriand's action and sent him the
following curt letter, dated August 17, 1724, : "I am delighted
with the promotion of the Srs St-Ange, father and son, but
x The Jesuit Father d'Outreleau. See p. 267, post.
2 Margry, op. cit., pp. 658-660.
266 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
I am astonished you would think of detaching the Sr de Vin-
cennes from my government, and that you would have un-
dertaken to persuade him to leave a post where he is much
needed by reason of his standing among the savage nations
of this post, which, you know, is in no way dependent
on the government of the Mississipi. I should be sorry to
be obliged to present my complaints to the Court, which I
will do, however, if one continues to detach [men from my
government]. I flatter myself, Monsieur, that you will
give attention to this matter, and that you will reflect upon
the inconveniences that might result from it." 1
J. P. Dunn calls attention to a very important point in
connection with the establishment of the post on the Wabash :
"that what was contemplated was not the fortification of
an existing French village, but the transfer of an Indian tribe to
unoccupied territory, the formation of a small military es-
tablishment, and the erection of a new Indian mission ;"
that there was nothing existing at that place at that time,
neither a French village, nor Indian tribes, nor a mission.
Father Mermet, who is often mentioned as missionary on
the Wabash, was neither at the present site of Vincennes,
nor even on the Wabash proper, but at Sieur Juchereau's
tannery, near the mouth of the Ohio (then called Ouabache),
somewhere near the site of the present Cairo, Illinois. 2
The earliest official mention of a missionary at the post,
subsequently known as Vincennes, is contained in a memoir*
prepared by an official of the Company of the Indies, in
1728. In this document the Jesuit Father D'Outreleau
is listed as being "at the Ouabache." Dunn then arrives
at the conclusion that Father D'Outreleau was not actually
"at the Ouabache," but was only "destined for the Oua-
bache," but never functioned there as missionary. 4
Dunn further points out the following: that, according to
Sommervogel, the noted Jesuit biographer, Father Beaubois,
some time before 1725, wrote a twelve-page Memoir on
ip.-G. Roy, op. cit. s p. 93.
2 See p. 163, n. 1, ante.
3 Dunn, op. cit., p. 262.
4 Rochemonteix, op. cit., I., p. 355, speaks of d'Outreleau as missionary at the Wabash —
missionaire a Ouabache.
POST VmCEHNES 267
the Importance of fortifying the Ouabache 1 which the English
can easily occupy; that later, when Beaubois accompanied the
Illinois Indian chiefs to France, he submitted this same
matter with other needs of the colony to the French au-
thorities; that he brought Father D'Outreleau with him to
Louisiana, intending to send that Father to the new post,
which he knew would be established; that, according to
Madeleine Hachard's Relation, Father D'Outreleau actually
went to the Illinois country in September, 1727, and was
nearly drowned when his canoe was completely wrecked;
that, in what little mention there is of Father D'Outreleau,
he is spoken of as coming from the Illinois 2 and going to the
Illinois; that Bienville, in a letter of May 13, 1737, speaks
of him as the "former superior of the Illinois 11 and that he
was "too old to learn the Indian language 1 ' and that, there-
fore, he never was sent to the Ouabache even when the In-
dians established themselves there.
This post had at first no specific name, and was referred
to as Au Ouabache. Bienville, in a letter of August 20,
1735, calls it the "fort of the Piankeshaws. 11 Later, when
St. Ange commanded there, it was called Poste St-Ange
The name of Vincennes was not applied to it until some
twenty years after the founder's tragic death.
M. Pierre-Georges Roy has positively established the
identity of the founder of the post on the Wabash and cleared
away that lack of certainty, that doubt and mystery, which
seemed to surround the distinguished founder of Indiana.
Francois-Marie Bissot de Vincennes was born and bap-
1 In this connection the following extract from the accounts of the colony for 1726 has a
peculiar interest:
"At the Ouabache (Post), when it shall be established —
(For) A Priest 600 livres shillings
For wine, flour, candles, etc 195
For a domestic 185 8
980 8
"At Cascasquia French Village and cure The Rev. Father Beaubois, Jesuit, who went to
France on the Bellow." — J. P. Dunn, op. cit., pp. 286-287-
2 It must be remembered that Aux Illinois was a very general term and might designate all
the country between the Wabash and the Mississippi and beyond. Consequently, it would
seem that this point of Dunn's argument would not positively prove that Father d'Out'
releau was not at Vincennes. Rochemonteix, op. cit., I., p. 268, states that Father Guymonneau
(who died 1736), took up his residence at "poste de Vincennes or Saint'Ange on the Ouabache
above its confluence with the Ohio." Unfortunately he fails to state in what year.
268 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
tised at Montreal, June 17, 1700. He was the son of Jean-
Bissot de Vincennes, an army officer, and Marguerite For-
estier. His cousin, Francois Margane de Batilly, stood
sponsor at his baptism, and his aunt, Marie-Madeleine
Forestier, was godmother. 1
Francois de Vincennes occasionally signed Margane de
Vincennes. It was then the custom to adopt the sponsor's
name and use it in place of one's own Christian name —
merely as a compliment to the sponsor. This innocent com-
pliment, paid to his godfather, became, in the course of time,
a source of great confusion among historians. Margane
became Morgan, and Vincennes became Saint Vincent, etc.
Jean-Baptiste Bissot de Vincennes, father, was educated
in the Seminaire de Quebec, where he spent four years,
1676-1680. Seven years later, he sold the greater part of
his belongings and went to France, probably to seek a posi-
tion in the army. At any rate, a document of 1695 is signed
by himself as "Ensign of the Navy,' 1 and in the official
report of 1696 to the Minister, Vincennes is listed with the
annotation, "Bon officier — good officer."
In September, 1696, a large number of ambassadors of
western tribes held a powwow at Quebec under the patronage
of the great Onontio, Governor Frontenac. 2 The old Governor
was at his best; he spoke to the delegates of each tribe and
thoroughly impressed those forest children with the splendor
of his power. When they prepared to go back to the woods,
Frontenac gave them a practical farewell address. He said:
"I don't want you to go back home naked [without presents].
Here are guns, and powder, and bullets, which I give you.
Make good use of them; don't go shooting roebucks and
buffaloes; shoot the Iroquois, they have less bullets and lead
x "Acte de Naissance de Francois Marie Bissot de Vincennes (Montreal, 17 juin 1700):
"Le dixseptieme juin mil sept cent a ete baptize Francois Marie fils de Jean Bissot sr de
vincennes officier dans les troupes et de Marguerite Forestier sa femme ne le meme jour des
d. mois et an. Le parain Francois Margane ecuier sr de Batilly aussi officier dans les troupes.
La mareine Marie Magd. Forestier fille du sr Forestier chirurgien.
Batilly
M. Magdelaine
forestier
R. C. De Breslay P. I. faisant les fonctions curiales."
Pierre-Georges Roy, Le Sieur de Vincennes, Fondateur de Vlndiana et sa Famille, p. 300.
2 lbid., p. 36.
POST V1KCEHKES 269
than you have. . . . War brings out the real men. Nothing
makes me feel better than to see the face of a warrior H
The Westerners left Quebec in high spirits, and shortly
after, Frontenac improved this friendly disposition by sending
D'Ailleboust as Commandant to Michillimackinac, and Jean-
Bissot de Vincennes in the same capacity to the Miamis.
The Montigny mission expedition, en route for the Tamarois
in 1698, met Vincennes at Michillimackinac, and the two
parties traveled together several days. 1
In 1712 the Foxes plotted with the Five Nations and the
English to drive the French from Detroit. M. Du Buisson
was then Commandant at that post, but had only thirty sol-
diers at his disposal. At this critical moment, Jean-Bissot
de Vincennes, father, arrived from the Miamis and helped to
extricate the French from their precarious position. Vin-
cennes, the elder, died at Ouyatanon in 1719, and many years
later the savages wept at the mention of his name — such was
the esteem and love they had for him.
At the age of eighteen, 1718, Frangois-Marie Bissot de
Vincennes came to the Miamis with his father and served there
as junior officer. Governor Vaudreuil, October 22, 1722,
reported to the Conseil de Marine that the "Sr. de Vin-
cennes fils" [son], a junior officer of the troops, commanded
among the Ouyatanons, that he was very useful to the colony,
and that the savages were attached to him as they had been
to his father.
FranQois-Marie Bissot de Vincennes is the officer who was
finally chosen to establish the post on the Ouabache. The
official budget for 1731 makes allowance for salary and main-
tenance at this post for the last six months of that year. This
permits the conclusion that Vincennes began the erection
of his fort about the middle of the year 1731.
The further development of this fort is clear from Vin-
cennes' own letters to an officer of the Marine.
"March 7, 1733.
"The Ouabache [nation] is composed of Five nations
[tribes], which include four Villages, of Which the Smallest
has sixty men bearing Arms, and The whole may total six
to seven Hundred men, whom it would be necessary To bring
x See p. 135, ante.
2 7 o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
together, for The Good Of the service, and take away from
Them The proximity Of the English. It has Been impossible
To bring together all these Nations, because there was
always a lack Of merchandise In This place. The fort which
I have had built is eighty leagues Up the Ouabache, Above
the Rivers by which the english would have little distance to
come down and open trade with These Nations. The place
is suited for A large Establishment, which I would have built,
if I had had The men. With regard to the Trading that One
can do there, it is in furs. One can send out From This post
each year thirty thousand Skins. That, Monsieur, is all The
Trading that One can do here for the present."
Vincennes stresses the need of troops because the savages,
both the Illinois and Miamis and others, are more insolent than
they have ever been. He then reminds the official of the im-
portance of this post: "It is The passage Of all the nations
as well Of the Lakes as Of other places."
June 21, 1737, Bienville wrote to the Minister as follows:
"The Peanghikeas [Piankeshaws] among whom we have a post,
where the deceased M. de Vincennes commanded, have nearly
all quitted their village, with the exception of about 15 men
who were still with Sr. de Saint- Ange. They went up the
Ouabache to another village. I foresee that, since that sta-
tion diminishes [in importance] one would be annoyed by the
Chikachas in that post, where the garrison is not strong.
That circumstance and the recent and repeated attempts of
English to wedge into the colony by way of the Oyo [Ohio]
by which they descend into the Ouabache 1 determines me to
replace that fort at 40 leagues farther down at the mouth of this
river. I should have placed it there in the beginning if the
Savages had been willing to follow us. . . . ". 2
This fort at the mouth of the Wabash, as it is known today,
was probably never built.
"You do me The honor To suggest To send you an Inven-
tory Of the works completed and to be built. There is
only a fort and Two Houses within the enclosure. A Guard-
house should be built at once with Barracks to quarter The
Soldiers. But it is not possible to remain In this place with
*See p. 263, n. 3, ante.
2 P.-G. Roy, op. tit., p. 117-
POST VmCEHHES 271
so few Soldiers. There should be thirty men with One Officer.
I am more perplexed than ever In this place by The war Of
the chicachies [Chickasaws], who came here twice since
spring; only Twelve days ago The last party abducted three
persons' 1 etc. He then asks the officer to bear in mind the
difficult position he and his little garrison are in.
"Your very humble and very obedient Servant
Vinsenne"
Vicennes wrote another letter to the same officer two weeks
later. This letter is dated: Du fort de Uabache, ce 21*
mars 1733. Vincennes reports that "The marquis de
Bauharnois 1 has sent me A collar and A calumet for the
Illinois, which I have sent on to monsr. de St. Ange to urge
The nations to go to strike the chicachias. All the nations of
Canada and the Lakes leave this spring to go there. All
those Of this neighborhood have gone already including their
Chief. . . "
He then continues to tell that the Chickasaws have killed
six Frenchmen, that the same party killed a savage and his wife
of this post, and that the Marquis de Beauharnois \Lemar-
quis de beauharnois] 2 is determined to destroy the Chidkasaws.
He complains that they are in need of everything, and that he
must borrow from voyageurs, who pass through the post. He
dreads to think of the time when these nations will return
from the war, that all the prisoners will be loaded on to
him, that they will want presents and more presents to
"cover their dead."
beauharnois, Governor of Canada.
2 Vincennes' orthography is as interesting as that of George Rogers Clark. Spelling was
not the Commandant's strong point. Occasionally, as above, he signed Vinsenne. See P-G.
Roy, op. cit., pp. 103405.
THE CHICKASAW WARS
Father Le Petit writes 1 : "The Tchikachas, a brave Nation
but treacherous. . . have endeavored to seduce the Illinois
Tribes The Illinois have replied to them: 'We are almost
all of the prayer (that is, according to their manner of ex-
pression, that they are Christians), and. . . inviolably attached
to the French We always place ourselves before the ene-
mies of the French; you must pass over our bodies to go to
them, and to strike us to the heart before a single blow can
reach them 1 ". Their conduct was in conformity with their
words. When the Illinois heard of the Natchez and Yasous
Massacres, Chicagou, at the head of the Mitchigamias, and
Mamantouensa, at the head of the Kaskaskias, 2 came to New
Orleans to weep over the Black Robes and the French and to
offer their services to Perrier.
The situation in which the French found themselves was
this: The Chickasaws had adopted the remnants of the
Natchez and, according to P. Baudoin, "made use of them to
Jesuit Relations, LXVIIL, p. 201.
2 Father Le Petit writes of their stay at New Orleans: "The Illinois had no other res'
idence but with us, during the three weeks they remained in this city. They charmed us
by their piety, and by their edifying life. Every evening they recited the rosary in alter'
nate choirs, and every morning they heard me say Mass; during which, particularly on Sun'
days and Feast'days, they chanted the different prayers of the Church suitable to the Offices
of the day. At the end of the Mass, they never fail to chant with their whole heart the
prayer for the King. The Nuns chanted the first Latin couplet in the ordinary tone of the Gre'
gorian chant, and the Illinois continued the other couplets in their language in the same tone.
This spectacle, which was novel, drew great crowds to the Church, and inspired a deep
devotion. In the course cf the day, and after supper, they often chant, either alone or to
gether, different prayers of the Church, such as the Dies irae, etc., Vexilla Regis, etc., Stabat
Mater, etc. To listen to them, you would easily perceive that they took more delight and
pleasure in chanting these holy Canticles, than the generality of the Savages, and even more
than the French receive from chanting their frivolous and often dissolute songs. . . .
'The first time the Illinois saw the Nuns, Mamantouensa, perceiving before them a troop
of little girls, remarked, '1 see, indeed, that you are not Nuns without an object." He
wished to say, that they were not mere solitaries, laboring only for their own perfection.
'You are," he added, like the black Robes, our Fathers; you labor for others. Ah! if we
had above there two or three of your number, our wives and daughters would have more
sense, and would be better Christians.' 'Ah, well!" the Mother Superior answered him,
'choose those whom you wish.' 'It is not for me to choose/ said Mamantouensa, 'it is
for you who know them. The choice should fall on those who are most attached to God,
and who love him most." " Jesuit Relations, LXVIIL, pp. 209'214.
272
O ^S
O ^
s a
3*
W o
f- i
o £
o —
£^
K g
A TYPICAL HABITANT— LE PERE GODBOUT
From painting b> Charles Huot
Archives De La Province De Quebec
From P.'G. Roy, Ulle D'Orleans
FAILURE OF CHICKASAW CAMPAIGNS 273
make incursions to the upper course of the river [Mississippi]
and to attack the convoys that went up to the Illinois coun-
try." 1 To keep open the line of communication along the
Mississippi, the Wabash and the Ohio routes, the French
felt it necessary to weaken the aggressive power of the Chick-
asaws and to prevent the English from establishing them-
selves in all that territory, which they considered the domain
of the King of France.
M. de Bienville, again Governor of Louisiana, sent word
to the Chickasaws to bring him without delay the heads
of the Natchez; warriors then living among them. The chief of
the Chickasaws replied: l 'The Natchez are now one nation
with the Chickasaws and we cannot deliver their heads. 1 ' 2
Not satisfied with this reply, Bienville declared war
against them. He sent word to M. d'Artaguiette, Command-
ant at Fort de Chartres, to raise as many men as he could —
soldiers, Canadians, French, and Illinois Indians, and to
meet him in the country of the Chickasaws on the 10th of
May, 1736. Bienville himself raised all the troops he could
in Louisiana, ascended the Mobile River to Tombechbech,
now Cotton-Gin Port, where 1200 Choctaw Indians joined
him.
"M. de Bienville, 11 writes Le Page du Prats, "sent Cap-
tain le Blanc with five armored boats to Fort de Chartres:
one boat carried a cargo of Powder and the others Merchan-
dise, all destined for the war against the Chicasaws. The
Captain also carried the instructions for M. d'Artaguiette,
commandant at Fort de Chartres.
"When the Chicasaws heard of these war preparations
made by the French, they closely watched the River, think-
ing they might be attacked from that side. In fact, having
spied the Convoy of M. le Blanc, they attacked it, but
without success, since no one was killed and the Convoy
arrived at the Arkansas. M. le Blanc, having taken a short
rest with that Nation, departed for the Illinois, but left
the Powder there, for reasons that no one has ever been able
to understand or surmise.
"Captain le Blanc reached Fort de Chartres without
further incident or delay and delivered the orders of the
l Rochemonteix, op. cit., p. 362, n. 1.
2 Ibid.
274 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
governor to d'Artaguiette. The Commandant sent a boat
to the Arkansas that same day to bring up the Powder
destined for his Fort and for the War against the Chicasaws.
On the return voyage this boat was ambuscaded; the at-
tack was so sudden that all the men were killed except M.
du Tissenet the younger, and a man named Rosalie. They
were made slaves, and the Powder destined for the War
against the Chickasaws fell into their own hands." 1
We have seen that Bienville's army arrived at Tombech-
bech on the 20th of April. The army struck camp at this
fort and remained there until the 4th day of May. Time
was wasted allowing the Choctaws to present the calu-
met to the Governor and holding a court-martial over
four French soldiers and a Swiss, who were accused of
treason.
Bienville's report gives this explanation of the disastrous
delays: "The rains, which had troubled me so much on
the river, did not leave me on land. Hardly were we en-
camped when a violent storm broke out, which raged sev-
eral times during the night and made us all fear for our pro-
visions and ammunition." 2
Le Page du Prats continues:
"Bienville's army reached the Fort of the Chicasaws
on the 27th of May. The English flag floated over the Fort,
and the French saw four Englishmen, who came out of
near-by cabins, enter the Fort. The Fort was attacked,
but with little success — thirty two men killed and seventy
wounded on Bienville's side. Bienville retreated, and off
on one side in the distance, his men saw a party of Chic-
asaws, coming towards them and holding aloft the Calumet
of Peace and a Letter which they showed; they came from
another village than the one of the Fort.
"When the French saw them they thought it was a Party,
which M. d'Artaguiette, prisoner of that Nation, sent with
*Le Page du Pratz, op. cit., III., pp. 401-426.
Pierre d'Artaguiette was a son (according to some writers, a younger brother) of Diron d'Ar-
taguiette, former royal commissioner of Louisiana. Perrier had previously made him Gom-
mandant of a Fort among the Natchez "as an acknowledgment of the intrepidity with which,
during the siege, he had exposed himself to the greatest dangers, and everywhere braved
death." See also Villiers du Terrage, Les Dernieres Annies de Louisiane, pp. 21-22.
2 Quoted in Alcee Fortier, History of Louisiana, I., p. 122.
FAILURE OF CHICKASAW CAMPAIGNS 275
a letter, from some Village that he might have reduced;
but this was only partly true. This surmise was based on
what the Choctaws, who had discovered them, had been
told, that they came to present to the Governor the Calumet
of Peace and to deliver a Letter from a French Chief who
was a slave. One of the Choctaws had run ahead as fast as
he could to bring this news to the general, who at once
gave orders to shoot them down; Four of them were killed
and the rest fled. . . . The next day a quarrel broke out
between the Soulier Rouge [Red Shoe] , a Choctaw Chief,
and the French. Bienville returned to Mobile and Louisiana
with his army; the first war against the Chickasaws had
been a failure.
"Shortly after, a Sergeant from the Illinois Garrison ar-
rived at New Orleans and reported that M. D'Artaguiette
had received through M. le Blanc the orders of Bienville
to be in the country of the Chickasaws not later than the
10th of May, 1736, with all the troops he could gather and
that he, the general, would be there at the same time; that in
consequence of these orders, M. D'Artaguiette had calcu-
lated so well that he reached the country of the Chicka-
saws with all his troops on the 9th of May; that he had sent
reconnoitering parties to locate the French army [Bienville's] ;
that he had done so each day until the 20th of May; that
his Indians, hearing the French were not yet there, insisted
that he attack the Chickasaws that day or they would go
back to their own country; 1 that D'Artaguiette had finally
decided to attack the enemy on the 21st, and that he had
at first been successful, having forced the Enemy to abandon
their Village and their Fort; that he had attacked another
Village with the same success; but that, pursuing the fugi-
tives, M. D'Artaguiette had been twice wounded and
that, when his Indians saw this, they withdrew and deserted
the Commandant, the Jesuit Father 2 who accompanied the
troops, 46 Soldiers and 2 Sergeants; that during that whole
day this small group of Soldiers had sustained and defended
their Commandant, who had finally been forced to surrender
with his troop; that the Enemy instead of torturing them
1 Almost all savages are capable of striking only one blow, and then they disperse.
2 Rochemonteix, op. cit., pp. 365-366.
276 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
had treated them kindly and led thern to their Village, where
they were cared for; that they had dressed and treated
their wounds in the hope of obtaining peace from M. de
Bienville when he should arrive; that, having heard that the
French were in their country, they had compelled M. D'Ar-
taguiette to write to the General; but since that deputation
had failed, and learning that the French had withdrawn,
and seeing that they could gain nothing by delivering up
these Slaves, they had put them to death at a slow fire.
"The Sergeant further told that he had been one of the
prisoners but had fallen into the hands of a very kind master,
who had even helped him to escape. This story this Ser-
geant related publicly and it is through him that the sad
end of D'Artaguiette became known. 111
The three brothers Drouet de Richardviile, all of them
distinguished officers, lost their lives in this battle. M. d\Ar-
taguiette, Francois-Marie Bissot de Vincennes, de Cou-
lange, a fourth brother of the Drouet, Tisne, d'Esgly, de
Saint- Ange, de Tonti and 15 or 16 soldiers were made pris-
oners. The remnant of the French and the Iroquois, who
fought against the Chickasaws, withdrew in good order
under the leadership of a certain Voisin, 2 a soldier-boy, only
16 years of age, who assumed command with the coolness
and composure of a veteran. The Chickasaws pursued them
25 leagues, but the young boy covered his retreat, and his
army marched 45 leagues without food, carrying the wounded
with them.
Father Senat, 3 chaplain of the expedition, could have
escaped with Voisin and his men; they asked him to do so,
and even offered him a horse, but he refused, his duty being
to remain with the French who had been taken prisoners.
The wounded men called to him: "Dear Father, do not
leave us." Mathurin Le Petit, reporting this unhappy
event to his Superior, June 25, 1738, writes as follows: "To-
gether with 23 or 24 frenchmen, he [Senat] was immediately
led to a prominent hill in the center of the village, where
the savages, infuriated by the loss in battle of many of their
J Le Page du Pratz, ibid.
2 Rochemonteix, op. cit., 365.
3 Antoine Senat was born at. Auch, France, September 26, 1699. In 1733 he sailed for
Louisiana and reached Kaskaskia early in 1734- Pvochemonteix, op. at., p. 367, n. 2.
FAILURE OF CHICKASAW CAMPAIGNS 277
companions, attacked them with reproaches, insults, and
clubs, and ignominiously stripped them of their clothing. Yet
they were left to themselves, so to speak, until a double
pile of wood was being raised, not far away, and in plain
view, for the purpose of burning them. ... It is certain
that each and all, piously kneeling together with their Mis-
sionary, chanted long and loudly many prayers — which
the savages, from whom we learned the fact, called a song
to go above. They repeated the same pious hymns while
they were being led to the two piles, or were carried thither
— as was the case with those who were unable to walk,
owing to their wounds; nor did they interrupt their singing
amid the fire until they fell, half burned or suffocated by
the flames. This sight won the admiration of the savages,
so that those whom they had, on the very same day, scorn-
fully called 'women' they often proclaimed to be men and
heroes. 111
Historians have to this day not solved the question why
this campaign went wrong. 2 Whose fault was it? One
thing is certain, this first campaign against the Chicka-
saws was a dismal failure.
Bienville was eager to blot out the stain of defeat. M.
de la Buissonniere was now Commandant at Fort de Char-
tres, and de Beauharnois Governor of Canada. Bienville
appealed to these two and to France for aid in a second war
against the Chickasaws. M. de Longueuil brought 440
men, French and Indians, from Canada; M. de la Buisson-
niere, Commandant of Fort Chartres, brought his soldiers
and some Indians; M. de Bienville had received reinforce-
ments in men and war material from the mother country,
and all met on the 15th of August, 1739, at Fort Assumption, 3
Jesuit Relations, LXVIII., p. 308 and 69, pp. 28-31.
Father Mathurin Le Petit, Superior of the Jesuits in Louisiana, states very positively
that the torture and execution of the prisoners took place on Palm Sunday, March 25, 1736.
April 13, 1736, Toussaint Loisel wrote from SaintcAnne des Illinois, to his brother who
lived at Montreal. In this letter he reports on the death of D'Artaguiette, Vincennes, and
40 Frenchmen. Therefore by this date news of the deaths had already reached Fort de
Chartres. If March 25 is the correct date, the whole campaign must be advanced by two
months. Rochemonteix holds that the torture took place in May and not in March, op.
cit., I., p. 370, n.
2 See Le Page du Pratz, op. cit., and Villiers du Terrage, op. cit., p. 21.
3 Fort Assumption was built specifically for this war against the Chickasaws.
278 FROM QUEBEC TO X[EW ORLEANS
near the present city of Memphis. By the end of 1739,
the army of Bienville numbered 1200 Europeans and 2000
Indians and Negroes. The Chickasaws were attacked on
the 21st of February, 1740, and immediately sent their
delegates to sue for peace. Provisions began to fail, and
sickness broke out in the camp of the French, especially
among the soldiers recently arrived from France. Bienville
gives this explanation: "It was not advisable to risk the
glory of the arms of the King on the chance of a
doubtful success. 111 Contrary to all expectation, Bien-
ville accepted the terms offered by the savages, and thus
ended the second Chickasaw War, which had taken two
years of preparation on the part of the French.
Bienville was growing old and evidently lacked the fire
and courage of his youth. He had spent nearly 40 years
of his life in Louisiana. With his brother d 1 Iberville he was
the founder of Louisiana, and thrice he had been Governor
of the colony. His star was sinking; he was very sensitive
to the severe criticism heaped upon him for his dubious con-
duct of the two Chickasaw Wars. In 1741 he asked to be
recalled to France. M. de Vaudreuil, son of the former
Governor of Canada, succeeded him as Governor of Louisi-
ana, the 10th of May, 1743.
'Quoted in Alc£e Fortjer, op. at., I., 126.
A FEW PAGES AT RANDOM FROM THE HISTORY
OF THE MISSIOH OF THE HOLT FAMILY
AT CAHOKIA
An old document in the Archives of the Seminaire de
Quebec takes us back to the days of Boisbriand.
"We, Pierre Dugue de Boisbriant, Knight of the mili-
tary order of St. Louis, first Lieutenant of the King in the
province of Louisiana, Commandant in the Islinois, And
Marc antoine de la Loere des Ursins, chief Clerk of the Royal
Company of the Indies at the said place,
"At the request of the Missionaries of the Kaokias and
Tamarois to grant them a tract of land four leagues square
in fee simple [en franc alcu] 1 together with the adjacent
Islands, beginning a quarter of a league above the little
river of the Kaokias, 2 situated above the village of the Sav-
ages and thence running back towards the fort de Chartres,
following the course of the Mississipi, running to a depth
of [four leagues]. . . . ,
"We, by virtue of our powers, the said tract of land has
been granted to the Messieurs the Missionaries of the Ka-
okias and Tamarois in fee simple, on which they may, from this
moment, cause to work, clear, and plant, awaiting the formal
grant, which will be forwarded from france by the general
directors of the Royal Company of the Indies. At fort de
Chartres this twenty second day of June one thousand seven
hundred twenty two. boisbriand, des ursins."
J. P. Mercier and J. Courier, missionaries, certify to the
correctness of the copy and forward this document des
Tamarois, April 12, 1735.
With the greatest care, the same Fathers prepared a map
or plat of the Seminary holdings at Cahokia. It must be
remembered that a few thousand acres of land meant very
little in those days. It was the improvements — house, barn,
mill, etc. — that gave value to a tract of land. The part act-
1 In English law: "free and common socage."
2 The lower course of Cahokia Creek has been changed and it now empties into the Missis'
sippi fully a mile north of its original mouth.
279
z8o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
ually under cultivation was called domaine. This tract
had been granted by the Company of the Indies to the
"Missionaries of the Kaokias and Tamarois" under the same
conditions as concessions had been conveyed to Renault
and many others in Louisiana. It was understood that such
concessions were granted with a view to developing the
country and bringing settlers, or colons, to them. The owners
of such concessions were really nothing else than the under-
takers of the settlement of a territory. In order to make their
grants more fruitful, they had to secure the cooperation of
settlers. 1
"Explanation of the plan and settlement of the seigniory of the
missions of the Tamarois. 2
"The island of the Holy Family, which hides the view
of the Mississipi from the French settlement as well as
from the savage village of the Kaokias, a league long, and
a little more, by nearly a half league in its widest part,
is completely covered with a forest of full-grown trees,
good for building purposes and firewood, especially a
great deal of poplar, few walnut-trees and mulberry-trees,
and nearly everywhere covered with horse-weed [presle],
which the horses greedily seek for. When the waters
of the Missouri and the Mississipi rise very high, a great
part of this island is inundated. The little river of the
Kaokias [riviaire des Kao\ias], which has its source in several
swamps, a league and a half more or less from here, together
with a small arm of the mississipi, form the river which
separates us from the island. One could place a water-mill
on the said river des Kaokias, if during high water the Mis-
sissipi did not check its current for quite a distance. It is
covered with trees on both sides of its bed.
"The riviere du pont [river of the bridge] also issues from
a swamp and flows quite gently into the mississipi, almost
directly across from the former village of the Kaskakias. The
mississipi never backwaters it to such extent that it would
not turn a mill a short distance above the place where a
bridge is indicated. It is the cost of a dam and the lack of
water in the long droughts which have kept us from build-
ing one there rather than in the hills.
1 Canada and Its Provinces, I., pp. 8'9.
2 ^uebec Seminary Archives. Some punctuation has been inserted to facilitate the reading.
STRAY LEAVES FROM OLD RECORDS 281
"The riviere du Platin [river of the Prairie] issues from
the foot of a rather high rock and flows through a chain of
hills and then, at the foot of the bluffs, it has very little
current. Its bed sometimes dries out, but never the pond
whence it takes its waters. We had first thought of con-
structing our mill on the said river, a suitable distance be-
low the foot of the bluffs, but we have changed our mind,
because of the expense of a dam, which the heavy showers
and downpours of rain would easily carry away, since there
is no one in this country sufficiently skilled to build one
strong enough to withstand these torrents. This is what
renders the mill, which the Jesuit fathers built in similar
hills, useless; it can operate only in heavy showers; further-
more, in less than 24 [hours] it caused 7 to 800 livres repairs
[damages]. In about three years, since it was begun, it
did not grind 150 minots 1 of flour, and it cost, figuring con-
struction and repairs, at least 20,000 livres. The dam of
the one built between the fort de Chartres and the Kaska-
kias, like the one of the fathers, was carried away by the rain;
it seems, however, that it is better than the former [the one
at the mill of the Jesuits].
"The water-fall, where we place our mill, issues from
a rock, which forms the bluff, it may be thirty feet high;
the opening through which the water rushes is large enough
that a man could enter; the cavity of the said rock is spacious
and encloses a sort of small lake, the depth of which no one
has as yet dared to sound and much less measure its full
extent. After heavy rains or the melting of the snow, the
opening of the rock not being large enough for the excess
water, there is a loud noise in the cavity, and then the water
rushes out with great force, both through the said opening
as also by another crevice of the said rock, which serves as
overflow to the first. 2 The way we place the structure of
the mill, all that fury of water cannot damage it, because
the first trough, which is five feet wide, is placed cross- wise
to receive the full downpour of water and gives only so much
water to the other troughs as is required for the mill. The
troughs 3 are hundred feet long, the large wheel is 18 feet
1 Minot about one bushel and one peck.
2 Falling'Springs, near Cahokia.
3 Troughs of the millrace.
282 FROM QUEBEC TO NEW ORLEANS
in diameter, the millstones five feet, not having been able
to find larger ones. . . .
"In the long droughts, we believe, there will not be
enough water to turn the said mill; it may, nevertheless,
turn about six months of the year, which may suffice to
grind 8,000 [minots] of grain.
"Number 32 marks the domain, which we have reserved
for ourselves, in the prairie of the Kaokias. It has only six
arpents 1 frontage. In the prairie du moulin [prairie of the
mill], we shall reserve another, at least 20 arpents, in the
very place where the mill is situated, leaving it in the center,
or nearly so, of the second domain, the depth of which we
shall cause to run from the bluffs to the mississipi or from
the mississipi to the bluffs, taking for direction a line running
north northeast. On the two sides of the first domain, seven
pieces of ground have been granted, by warranty deeds,
to 7 habitants, of whom only the first, who are nearest the
french village, are in full possession; concerning the three
others, as well as ourselves, they sow in the farther part of
their fields fifteen and twenty minots of grain for this year in
the uncultivated fields, which they bought from the said
savages, and which have three arpents of frontage; our
domain as also the three fields of the habitants, being occu-
pied by the Kaokias, whom one has not been able to per-
suade to move farther than a league away, because of the
fear they entertain that some nation destroy them, if they
moved farther away from the french, we can sow only at the
farther end, where we have enough cultivated ground for
sowing 200 minots; 3 weeks ago we placed 170 minots
into the ground. The twelve arpents, granted without
contract, on this side of our domain, that is to say, on the
side of our village, were given to the men named Richard,
Blodin, Louis gault, la Source; the nine arpents on the other
side of the said domain belong to Rolet, frangois Mercier,
Robillard, who is the farthest away; all these lands should
run north northeast, as we think, which may be changed
a trifle [cTun air de vent] when a sworn surveyor, who is
not yet in this country, shall have arrived and will survey them
officially.
^he arpent as a linear measure is equivalent to 180 French feet or 191.85 English feet.
STRAY LEAVES FROM OLD RECORDS 283
"The said habitants, having absolutely demanded that
their lands begin at the little river which separates the island
from this prairie and to grant them the depth up to the bluffs,
in the same manner as it was granted by all the concession-
ers or seigniors to all the habitants of the Illinois, we were
not in position to refuse them, not only so that we should
not be alone in this mission, which would not be expedient
for us, but also not to give occasion to cry out against us,
which would not have failed to happen. As to the cens
et rentes, 1 no habitant pays it as yet in all this country;
that will, no doubt, be done later.
"The full extent of the land, belonging to the mission
and which is on the bluffs, is covered almost exclusively
with white oak; the wood there is very clear and there are
numbers of small prairies in extent from 5 to 6 arpents up
to twenty and 25. Those who know, say that the grape
would thrive admirably on these slopes. If we had a vine-
dresser, we should make an attempt, because the wild
grape of various kinds is not wanting in this country. They
also say that the sheep would find fat pastures. I shall
investigate; in that case one could procure them from the
sea [Louisiana], where there are plenty of them, which
means, nevertheless, that it would cost much to transport
them by water.
"The former village of the Kaskakias [just north of the
mouth of the River des Peres] is rightly considered a very
advantageous location for the stone fort, which the crown
orders to be built in the- Illinois country [aux Illinois] : the
limestone, the stone to cut, the timber for building, a river
to shelter the ships, the view upon the mississipi about two
leagues above and two leagues below, the rock which comes
down to the mississipi with a very gradual slope, a beau-
tiful prairie, which comes up to the said rock, the mississipi
which would be protected by the said fort as well as the
missouri, which empties into the river five leagues from here,
on the west side of the said river, and the river of the Illi-
nois, which there mixes its waters, eleven leagues from here,
coming from the east, all that would seem to invite the con-
ltl The cens was a moderate tax paid a* a recognition of the seignior's rights. . . . The
rente was a substantial rent for the land." Alvord, op. at., I., p. 205.
284 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
struction of the said fort in this place, as is much spoken
of. In that case it is not difficult to see that the seigniory
of the tamarois would be well established from one end
to the other.
"You will find, Gentlemen, several erasures in this com-
mon letter, which we wrote a month ago. These erasures
come partly from changes of habitants who take land to-
day and leave it tomorrow. If the messenger who leaves
tomorrow gave us more time, we should have recopied it,
but he is in such haste that we have not even time to write
several private letters. As to the map, which we have
the honor to send you, we made it the best we could; it is
sufficiently correct as to distance from one place to another.
If Mr Renault 1 had not been sick, he would have done us
the pleasure to draw it himself, and no doubt it would have
been made better. However that may be, it can always
give you an idea of the location of our seigniory of the Tama-
rois. We have again the honor, to be with much respect
and submission.
Gentlemen
Your very humble and very
obedient servants
des Tamarois ce 12^
avril 1735 J. P. Mercier, ptre
(Signed)
J. Courier, Ptre "
April 20, 1743, Mercier wrote to Vaudreuil, Governor
of Louisiana, telling him that, in view of the grant made
to the mission by Boisbrand, "the mission has expended
a large sum of money to solidly establish the little french
village of the Kaokias. In 1731, we bought from the savages
the land where we expect to locate the habitants who may
come here . . . then we built a water mill, the labor of which
cost 4000 francs; there is often a shortage of water and we
had to build a wind-mill, which cost 100 ecus. 2 (Our horse-
power mill would suffice for our own use). We do not grind
enough grain to pay the miller, nor to pay for the canvass,
which is very expensive here, nor the repairs that will be
1 Very probably Philippe Renault, director of mines in the Illinois country.
2 Ecu, that is, 3 livres, equivalent to 60c.
STRAT LEAVES FROM OLD RECORDS 285
necessary from time to time. . . . Besides, we have built
a wooden bridge across a little creek, % league from here,
to facilitate communication between the two prairies con-
tained in our tract of four leagues granted to our mission.
Then, too, we had to give quite a lot of presents to prevail
upon the savages to withdraw peaceably a short distance,
to avoid the many quarrels that occurred between the French
and these savages. More than half of them have moved
about three leagues away from here, where we gave them as
much land as they needed; the rest have promised to go, but
they have so often broken their word that one cannot count
on their promises in this matter, nor in other matters."
Since these expenditures were incurred for the good of
the establishment of the village of the French and the de-
velopment of the country, Mercier humbly submits the
expense account, which, however, was never paid.
August 14, 1743, the Governor very graciously replied
to Father Mercier and touched on another point of inter-
est: "I should have liked to cut down the quantity of brandy,
which ordinarily goes to the Illinois, but the abominable
laxity in this matter in the past, together with the actual
need of having some of it, as Messrs. de Bienville and Salmon
have assured me, have prevented me from taking that step
this year, but will look after it the following years. M. de
Bertet 1 would do well to keep it under control as much
as possible, so it will not be used for trade with the savages. . .
"As to the land which you purchased from the Savages
in 1731, I do not think you can claim it, because such a pur-
chase cannot take place — it does not give you title.' 1
In the same month, August, 1743, Vaudreuil and Salmon 2
wrote to Bertet at Fort de Chartres about the mission property:
"Concerning the four leagues of land granted at the time
of the Company of the Indies to the priests of the foreign
missions, we have verified by their titles that that is a franc
aleu simple and not a fief noble [not a seigniory], 3 as you list
it; there is no doubt that they are the owners of it, that
they may possess it themselves or dispose of it as a gift or
for a consideration. . . .
Commandant at Fort de Chartres.
2 Edme'Gratien Salmon was Intendant and First Judge in the Superior Council of the Province.
"Therefore they were not entitled to the small tax known as cens.
286 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"We see from a letter of M. Mercier, priest of the for-
eign missions, that they occupy a tract of land, which, they
say, was acquired from the Savages in 1731. That owner-
ship is not so well established; that title is not so clear.
However, since they are in possession of it, one can let
them alone . . . you will kindly let us know in what this
tract consists, how much they paid the Savages, of what
benefit it is to the missionaries, and if later at any time,
it could be useful to the habitants, when that section is
more settled."
Another page of earlier date, but concerning a totally
different matter:
All the while that Bishop Saint- Vallier was in Europe,
in France, or prisoner in England, 1700-1713, he never lost
sight of the needs and interests of his vast diocese in Amer-
ica, reaching from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of
Mexico. There was a close connection between the Sem-
inary of Foreign Missions in Paris and the Seminary of
Quebec, the former often supplying missionaries for the
vast field in America. M. Bergier, Superior of the Mission
of the Holy Family at Cahokia, had died. Dominique-
Marie Varlet was sent to Canada in 1712, with the approval
of Saint- Vallier, who was in Paris at the time. Varlet pre-
sented his credentials to the Vicars-General at Quebec, and
proceeded at once on his long journey to the Tamarois mis-
sion, taking the land route. As Superior of the Tamarois
mission, he was Vicar-General of the Bishop of Quebec for
that territory. In 1717, he journeyed to Quebec and brought
two missionaries, Calvarain and Thaumur de la Source, 1
back with him to the Tamarois.
KThe Directors of Foreign Missions held Varlet in highest
esteem and recommended him for a bishopric in some one
of their distant missions in the Far East. Accordingly,
February 19, 1719, he was consecrated Coadjutor Bishop of
Babylon, with the right of succession. Msgr. de Mornay
was one of the co-consecrators. By a strange coincidence,
the Bishop of Babylon died the very day on which Varlet
thaumur de la Source was the son of a surgeon at Montreal. He was probably a rel-
ative of the la Source who accompanied the Montigny party to Cahokia in 1698.
STRAY LEAVES FROM OLD RECORDS 287
was consecrated Bishop, and, therefore, the latter succeeded
at once.
Then the unexpected happened. The Pope had instructed
Bishop Varlet to present his credentials to the Papal Nuncio
at Paris, before leaving for his diocese. The new Bishop
completely and systematically ignored all orders from the
Holy See, joined the sect of the Jansenists, went to Holland,
consecrated schismatic Bishops, and became head of the
Jansenist church at Utrecht, where he died in 1732. 1
May 25, 1732, M. Mercier, Superior at Cahokia, reports
to M. Lyon of the Quebec Seminary a number of interesting
things concerning the Fort de Chartres country. He writes:
"Scarcely a month ago I had the honor to send you with a
certain Louis Poulin from the parish of St. Joachim 2 , all
the papers and documents that will help you to adequately
understand the steps we have taken in the matter of a new
church in the prairie of the fort de chartres. I need not
repeat any of that matter now. I will only say that, of all
the persons who compose that new parish, only two or three
did not make their duty, 3 but I have every reason to believe
that they have done so since then.
"On the Holy day of easter last, the said church was
dedicated under the name of St. Anne 4 to the great con-
tentment and entire satisfaction of everybody. On Wednes-
day [of Holy Week], having left M. Courier here [Cahokia],
I went to the said parish. I remained there for the feast
of easter and had much consolation to see the piety and
fervor with which everyone approached the sacraments,
because heretofore the greater number of the habitants and
other people of that place, without any scruple, went on
years without making their easter. . ."
1 Abbe Auguste Gosselin, Mgr. Smnt-Vallter, I., pp. 331, ff., and Taschereau, MS.,
Seminary Archives.
2 Ste. Genevieve, Mo.
3 Did not comply with a Catholic's Easter duty.
4 As is well known, Ste-Anne is held in great veneration in Canada. This love for Good
StcAnne, as they call her, is one of those precious heritages brought to the shores of Canada
centuries ago by the first settlers, who, in turn, had inherited that love for their Bonne Stc
Anne from their ancestors in the Normandie. The famous shrine of StcAnne de Beaupre
is known the world over.
288 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
M. de St. Ange, Commandant at Fort de Chartres, in his
report to Perrier, Governor of Louisiana, evidently had men-
tioned the fact that the people were building this church
and had taken up the matter of services with Father Mercier.
Perrier wrote to St. Ange about it, and also reported to the
Minister at Versailles as follows: "The habitans of the
Prairie of Fort de Chartres, in the Illinois, have addressed
us, requesting the confirmation of the choice they have made
of a priest of the Foreign missions to take charge of the
church and Parish house, which they have built, at their
own expense. We are informed that, before the building
of this parish church, these habitans had no one to serve
them but the Jesuit missionary to the Mitchigamia, who is
at the same time chaplain of Fort de Chartres. We informed
M. de St. Ange, who commands at this post, that our opin-
ion is, that it was not within the rights of these habitans
to name a priest, 11 etc. 1
In the same letter of May 25, 1732, Father Mercier re-
ports that "several savages wish to become christians, which
makes me forget almost entirely all the trouble we have had
with them up to the present. . . .
"The house [lumber for house at Cahokia], which I had
cut sixty by thirty-two feet, because it is all walnut and can
carry that length and width, may be raised about the begin-
ning of July. The two long sides have two galleries, which
are not for the beauty of the building, but for the preservation
of the sills [solles], which will last half as long again. The
two gable ends will be preserved by two small additions
[allonges], the one for a dairy-room and the other for a store-
room. . . .
"We sowed 53 minots of wheat; the weather is favorable
for a prospect of a crop of 5 to 600 minots. At present we
are planting corn.
"The convoy from the sea [New Orleans] arrived two
weeks ago and brought us the news of the re-union of Loui-
siana to the domain of the King. That will change matters
a great deal. I do not know whether ours will be better or
worse. 11
The charter that had been granted to the Company of
the Indies obligated the Company to provide for the build-
1 Quoted in Dunn, Mission of the Ouabache, p. 298.
■','
s
€
f
STRAY LEAVES FROM OLD RECORDS 289
ing of mission churches and for the support of missionaries
at the Company's expense. The amount to be contributed
for the maintenance of each missionary per year was 600
livres (or $120.00 of our money), and 275 livres ($55.00)
for chapel needs. This was ordinarily not paid in money,
but in merchandise, at the Company's warehouse — aux
prix de la mer 1 — New Orleans price. At the comptoir
des Islinois — Illinois warehouse, the price was 50% higher.
M. Mercier's book-keeping 2 is perfect. Merely as a matter
of record, he reports to the Seminary authorities, that, even
figuring the merchandise the missionaries received, at Illi-
nois prices, the Company had left unpaid an amount of
16,909 livres, 14 chelins, 6 deniers. The initial outlay for
the establishment of the 'Tamarois mission had been 10,800
livres. 3 This sum, added to the amount left unpaid, made
a total of 27,709 livres, which the Seminary of Quebec had
to supply, over and above many other expenses contracted.
The same letter states that M. Gagnon had charge of the
church of Ste-Anne of Fort de Chartres from the 8th of May,
1730, to November 10, 1731 ; that a boy by the name of Robert
had been sent by Boisbriand, in the name of the Company,
to board with the Fathers at the Holy Family Mission, in
order to learn the Illinois language. Board-bill, not paid!
The letter also contains the information that Thaumur de
la Source had charge of the chapel of Fort de Chartres in
1722 and one half of 1723 — 18 months. M. Mercier him-
self was chaplain au Missouri (Fort Orleans) the latter
part of 1723 and eleven months in 1724 — 14 months. M.
Gagnon and M. Courier had left Quebec for the Tamarois,
May 8, 1730.
"Louis Lemieux [an old servant] can do almost nothing
any more on account of his advanced age." Mercier asks
for a middle-aged couple — the man could do the outside
work, and his wife could take care of the house. He also
writes: "It is time to think of building a large church and then
a blacksmith-shop/ 1
x At the price at sea, or f. o. b. New Orleans, that is, not figuring transportation up the
Mississippi.
2 The original accounts are preserved in the Archives of the Seminaire de Quebec.
3 3ee page 132, ante.
2 9 o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Merrier further writes that he needs missionaries for the
"Missouri and Osages [le Missouri et les hosages], and for
the French settlements, who have asked for some/ 1 However,
October 16, 1732, he writes that the mission of the Missouris
[la mission du missoury] cannot be thought of as long as
there is no commandant on that river — the missionaries
would be too much exposed.
On August 3, 1732, Mercier reports that they (at the
Cahokia Mission) had "harvested 3500 bundles [gerbes] of
the best wheat in the world."
The spiritual progress of the mission is not so good. "If
only the Peorias were away from here! — they will leave
this fall — we could have some hopes of doing something
with several Kahos [Cahokia Indians] 11 .
Mercier writes that the savages have the idea that once the
French are strong enough, they will send them all off. All these
Illinois savages are contemptuous and insolent towards the
French at this time, and the latter must be always on the
alert. There is no commandant at Cahokia. "Unless some
help come from Canada or from the sea . . . we must dread
the same fate as the post of the Natchez; — quod Deus avertat —
which may God prevent. 11
M. Mercier closes this interesting letter with a eulogy
on the Illinois country. "If only twenty families would
come down from Canada, that would start a parish. More
than two hundred habitans could be wonderfully placed,
and in very short time they could live as comfortably as
they do in Canada. Really, I cannot help admiring the
beauty of the Illinois country! 111
Bossu 2 wrote a touching appreciation of Mercier: "I
knew Abbe Mercier very well. He was a Canadian and
Vicar general of the Illinois country. He was a man of dis-
tinguished integrity, whose friendship could only be beneficial
to me, because of his knowledge of the customs of the Sav-
1 Mercier at that distant date remotely suggests the first stanza of the State song, Illinois:
By thy rivers gently flowing, Illinois, Illinois,
O'er thy prairies verdant growing, Illinois, Illinois,
Comes an echo on the breeze,
Rustling through the leafy trees,
And its mellow tones are these, Illinois, Illinois.
2 Bossu, op. cit., I., pp. 182-184.
STRAY LEAVES FROM OLD RECORDS 291
ages, whom he edified by his virtue and unselfishness. The
language of the country was familiar to him, and he spoke
it with such ease that the Savages thought much of him
and consulted him on all sorts of matters. . . . The nations
of the Savages of these region's have always respected him.
A man of such character could not live too long for the well-
being of these Peoples. This worthy Apostle of Louisiana
was stricken during lent with a lingering illness, of which
he died one friday at eleven thirty at night. He died a Chris-
tian hero. Personally, I regretted his death very much.
The French and the Savages were not to be consoled. 11
Bossu tells how the savages came in groups to weep over
him. "These Peoples, whom we are pleased to call Savages,
know the true virtue of a man. ... He labored for their
welfare, and they called him father or Chief of the prayer. 11
BARTHELMT DE MAKARTY— THE ?{EW FORT DE
CHARTRES
One of the last acts of Vaudreuil, 1 as Governor of Louisi-
ana, was to request that the post of the Illinois (Fort de
Chartres), which was a majority, 2 be raised to the dignity of a
King's lieutenancy. He proposed Barthelmy de Makarty as
Major and M. Neyon de Villiers 3 as his Aide-Major.
When Boisbriand came to the Illinois country, he remained
some time at Kaskaskia, and then selected a site for Fort de
Chartres. The main objective of the fort was to keep open
the line of communication on the Mississippi. Guns of
those days did not carry very far, and the fort had to be
placed near the river. That probably determined the site
in the American Bottom. The high waters of 1727 de-
stroyed Fort de Charters, but, after some correspondence
and reductions of various kinds, it was rebuilt, probably
on the old site. But it seems the old fort never gave full
satisfaction, because of the weakness of construction and
the scant protection it would offer in case of attack.
As early as 1735 the crown planned to build a substantial
fort of rock, for the protection of the French interests along
the Mississippi. On the 12th of April, 1735, the Quebec
Seminary Fathers, J. P. Mercier and J. Courier, wrote a
letter to the seminary authorities at Quebec, giving a de-
tailed description of the lands of the Mission of the Holy
Family at Cahokia. In this letter they give the following
interesting information: "The former village of the Kas-
kakias [just north of the mouth of the River des Peres] is
rightly considered a very advantageous location for the
stone fort, which the crown orderd to be built in the Illinois
country [dux Illinois]".*
Makarty was appointed Commandant of Fort de Char-
tres, June 11, 1750. Grace King writes: "The family (origi-
1 Vaudreuil was appointed Governor of Canada in 1752.
2 The commanding officer stationed there ranked as major.
3 June, 1754, Neyon married Mile, du Bot, the sister'in'law of Kerlerec, Governor of
Louisiana.
4 See p. 283, ante.
292
MAKARTT AK[D SAUCIER 293
nally Macarthey-Mactaig) was a noted one among the
great Irish families, who preferred exile to the religious and
political tyranny of their English conquerors. In the seven-
teenth century, Bartholomew Macarty, of the Albemarle
Regiment, sought refuge in France, where he gained promotion
in the navy, and died a Chevalier of St. Louis and Major-
General of Division in the department of Rochefort. His
two sons, Jean Jacques and Barthelmy, came to Louisiana
in 1730, the former as commander of a marine detachment,
the latter as a lieutenant in the same command under him. 11
"Barthelmy de Macarty (as he was called) cast his life
in New Orleans, where he married Dame Frangoise Helene
Pellerin, who bore him eight children — four sons and four
daughters. 111 Celeste Eleonore became the wife of Miro,
fourth Spanish Governor of Louisiana. Makarty was made
a captain in 1732, and four years later was promoted to the
position of Aide-Major of New Orleans. He accompanied
Bienville on his unfortunate expeditions against the Chicka-
saws, and on June 11, 1750, was appointed to the command
at Fort de Chartres.
Bienville gave him this note: "Conduct good. Under-
stands detail and discipline. Attached to the service and
doing well 11 . Kerlerec added a limiting clause to his ap-
preciation of Makarty: "A very good officer 11 , he wrote,
"personally agreeable, but with little talent for dealing
with the savages. 112
In August of the following year, Makarty went up to
the Illinois country with six bateaux and four companies
of soldiers. Bossu was one of the officers under Makarty.
Of the St. Francis River he writes: "The game is so plen-
tiful . . . that when we stopped for the night on its shores,
it was impossible to sleep, because of the multitude of
swans, cranes, geese, bustards, and ducks, that came and
went all night in those swampy places . . . and when one
approaches the country of the Illinois . . . one sees such
multitudes of wild pigeons that the sun is actually darkened
1 Grace King, Creole Families of T^etu Orleans, p. 368. See also John F. Snyder, Captain
John Baptiste Saucier. The French generally wrote Ma\arty.
2 Villiers du Terrage, op. cit.,
294 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
. . . What a pity that so beautiful a country is so sparsely
populated or that it should be inhabited by brutes." 1
Bossu relates that Makarty had a touch of the gout,
and, fearing he might have to winter en route, left the convoy
at the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi and traveled
ahead. At this point of the journey Bossu's boat capsized,
and he seems quite vexed at the idea of losing his belongings
while in f the service of the King.
The Indians had been insolent and restless for some time.
The French had not forgotten the Natchez; massacre and
had every reason to fear an open rebellion. In a letter
dated at Fort de Chartres, March 28, 1752, Bossu writes:
"The Piankashaws and Ouytanons, at the instigation of
the English had plotted the total destruction of the five
French villages 2 established among the Illinois. . . . The sav-
ages had planned the attack and wanted to strike before
the arrival of the convoy. I was at that time at Kaskaskia,
where M. de Montcharvaux commanded. . . . The savages
were scattered about in the houses of the habitants."
Through a clever ruse, for which Bossu takes the credit, the
plot was discovered. "They had planned to execute the
massacre on Christmas Day after the parish High Mass. . . .
As soon as they thought they had been discovered they
thought only of flight; we fired upon them and sent 22
sprawling upon the ground. A sergeant, named Jeunesse,
a Creole and a good hunter, killed four of them in my presence.
M. de Gruisse on his part, attacked those who were in the
house of the Jesuits ... all is quiet at present; nevertheless,
command has been given, by way of precaution, that the
habitants carry their guns when they go to Mass, and that
the officer on guard place two sentinels at the door of the
church during divine service."
Bossu relates another story; it is a tale of cruel Indian
revenge and massacre, an anecdote that shows the power
of endurance of a savage, and sheds an interesting light on
life in the Fort de Chartres country two hundred years
ago. 2
1 Bossu, op. cit., I., p. 128.
K^ahokia, St. Philippe, Prairie du Rocher, Ste'Anne, Kaskaskia. — Bossu, op. cxt., I., pp.
130433.
3 Bossu, op. cit., I., pp. 148-154.
MAKARTT AND SAUCIER 295
"In 1752, the Savages of the tribe of the Koakias [Ca-
hokias], while on a hunt, met six Savages of the Nation of
the Foxes; they made them prisoners, although they were
not at war, and decided among themselves to burn them. . . .
One Fox was fortunate enough to escape As he was
pursued by his tormentors, he jumped into a lake ....
fie remained hid among the rushes, raising only his head
from time to time to breathe. He had the endurance to
remain in that position during the time they burned his
comrades. Night having come on, he escaped from the
close watch of the Illinois. . . . Having returned to his
Nation, he related what had happened to him among the
Illinois. . . . The Chief of the Nation convoked a coun-
cil. . . . The Sioux, the Sauks and the Kickapoo . . . marched
under the banner of the Foxes . . . 1000 warriors. . . .
The warriors being assembled . . . embarked in 180 bark
canoes on the Wisconsin, which empties into the Mississ-
ipi. . . . They passed in good order the Fort of the Ko-
akias, where Chevalier de Volsei commanded. . . . They
disembarked a quarter of a league from the enemy's vil-
lage. . . . The Foxes had advisedly [positivement] chosen
the feast of Corpus Christi [Jour de la fete-Dieu] for their
attack upon the Illinois. They knew that the Savages
went to Fort de Chartres to see the ceremony, which the
French observe on that solemn day. The Fort is only a
league away. . . . The young men pounced upon the village
of the enemy and killed all they met, shouting the while
the death cry . . . and then fled as swiftly as they had come.
The Illinois rushed to arms & pursued them; but the body
of the army of the Foxes which was lying on the ground
in the high grasses, fired their guns and killed 28 Illinois;
then they plunged headlong into the village and massacred
men, women, and children; they set fire to the village
etc. ... I was an eyewitness to this carnage, which hap-
pened June 6, 1752. ... I even had occasion to save the life
of a young girl about 15 years old. . . . When the enemies
pursued her, she threw herself into my arms, Ss? the Bar-
barians did not dare to shoot at her for fear they might
strike me. . . . Only the Savages who had gone to Fort de
Chartres, to see the Procession, escaped the vengeance
of the Foxes. These, satisfied with their victory, stepped
296 FROM QUEBEC TO KEW ORLEANS
into their little canoes ... 6? passing the French Fort
of the Koakias, fired a volley of musketry. . . . The village
of the Mitchigamias lost in that unfortunate affair about
eighty persons, counting the dead and the slaves. This
attack was the deathblow to the already weakened Illinois
and they gradually went down to their final doom."
When Makarty went to the Illinois, it was the opinion
of the Governor that, in view of the fact that the village
of Kaskaskia was decidedly the more important settlement,
the new fort should be built there. Jean Baptiste Saucier,
an engineer, was selected to draw plans of the new fort
and make an estimate of cost in wood and in stone. He was
instructed to confer with Makarty and his staff as to the
new location. After "mature deliberation", these men de-
cided not to build the fort at Kaskaskia, as the Governor
had suggested, but near the old Fort de Chartres.
It is rather strange that after so many years of delib-
eration as to a better location for Fort de Chartres, they
should decide to build the new fort in the bottoms, when
such excellent sites as the mouth of the River des Peres
were considered. Probably the reason for finally selecting
the present site was the proximity of Kaskaskia, which
was easily the principal settlement in the Illinois district,
while the west bank of the Mississippi offered no villages
at the time, except Ste. Genevieve. Perhaps, too, the reason
is the one that Morris Birckbeck gave in 1805, for the
location of Shawnee Town 1 : "This place I account as a
phenomenon evincing the pertinacious adhesion of the
human animal to the spot where it has once fixed itself!"
November 29, 1754, dispatches of the Minister, demanding
the "strictest economy", reached Kerlerec. 2 The dissolute
Louis XV and his coterie of roues squandered the louis
d'or at dice, with wine and women, but strictest economy
must be observed in the far-away struggling colonies. Ker-
lerec reported back that de Verges, chief engineer of the
colony, after a visit to the Illinois country, had cut down
the cost of the fort which was then under construction,
from 270,000 to 230,000 livres. In fact, an order was sent
from Paris to suspend building, but the foundations 3 had
1 Milo Milton Quaife, Pictures of Illinois One Hundred Tears Ago, p. 13.
2 Villiers du Terrage, op. cit., pp. 53'54. 3 Bossu, op. cit., I ., pp. 145446.
MAKARTT AKD SAUCIER 297
been laid some time in 1753, and the next year Kerlerec
could report that the order had arrived too late, and that
the fort was nearly completed. According to Philip Pittman,
engineer for Loftus, the plans were never fully carried out.
There is in the Archives du Ministere des Colonies in
Paris a plat of "The Fort planned to be built across from
the Establishment of the Caskakia 11 , that is, on the bluff
now known as Garrison .Hill . "There had been for years 11 ,
writes Alvord, "a palisade fort in Kaskaskia, but it was
only a protection against Indians. In 1759, the inhabi-
tants became apprehensive at the success of the British
in the east and, fearing the near approach of the enemy,
petitioned the commandant for a fort, offering to provide
the materials. With this understanding a strong palisade
fort was constructed on the bluffs across the river [Kas-
kaskia] from the village, where the outlines of the earthworks
may still be traced. 111
Bossu writes in a letter dated Aux Illinois, May 16,
1753: "The Sieur Saussier 2 , Engineer, has just finished
the plans to construct a new fort 3 here in accordance
with the views of the court. It will bear the name of the
old fort, which is called Fort de Chartres 11 .
In another letter, dated Aux Illinois, July 21, 1756,
Bossu relates that he came a second time to the "old Fort
de Chartres, where I remained until I could get lodging
in the new Fort, which is nearly finished. It is built of
rock, flanked with 4 bastions, it can house a garrison of
300 men. 114
1 Alvord, op. cit., I., p. 237- This fort is commonly and persistently, though incorrectly,
called Fort Gage. The former habitation of the Jesuit Fathers in the village of Kaskaskia
became Fort Gage. See p. 437, post.
2 According to Snyder, Eulalie, the eldest daughter of Makarty, who had a great admira'
tion for Jean Baptiste Saucier (Saussier), died at this post. Saucier lies buried in the ceme'
tery at Cahokia.
? Bossu, op. cit., I., pp. 145446.
According to the Bellin map (1755), the old Fort de Chartres was built 100 toises (600) feet
from the river, and the new fort was erected 60 toises (360 feet) east of the old fort.
4 Bossu, Ibid.
In a letter dated November 29, 1926, Baron Marc de Villiers writes that during his twenty
years of research work in the archives of Paris he never came across the plan of Fort de Chartres.
A Paris archivist, whose name I have been unable to decipher, writes: "I am sure I saw an
account of the construction of Fort Waskokias [Kaskaskias] with mention of the names of
Macarty and Saussier.'"
2 9 8 FROM QUEBEC TO NEW ORLEANS
It is amusing to read in the same letter that Bossu felt he
needed a change of climate and asked M. de Makarty
to allow him to go to "Kaokias". ! ! "The journey" he
writes, "can be made by water or by land . . . there is a
small Fort in that place, on the left bank of the Mississipi,
which is the grand highway of the Illinois to Canada and
it is the centre of quite an active fur trade with New
France. ..."
SOCIAL LIFE IJi THE FORT DE CHARTRES
COUKTRT 1
"In studying the history of New France 1 ', writes Thomas
Chapais, "the relation of church and state cannot be ig-
nored. Under the Old Regime the union of these two powers
was a part of the public law". 2 In accordance with this
principle, which also obtained in the Mississippi Valley,
the Sunday sermon was not only a religious instruction,
but, in part at least, its character was also administrative
and sometimes judicial. There were no printing presses
in the early colony, and so the acts and ordinances of the
Governors and Intendants were read from the pulpit by the
cure. Births, marriages, and deaths of princes, victories
and treaties were thus made known to the people, and Te
Deums in thanksgiving for happy events were announced. 3
The humblest habitant got all the important news at a time
when no other means of publicity existed. The church bells
marked the hours of work and the hours of repose, they rang
out in case of fire and during a storm. The cure was not
only the spiritual pastor, he was also the guide, and the
protector and counselor of all.
Those early French settlers were neither all good nor
all bad, nor were they all intermarried with savage women,
nor were they all coureurs de bois. Most of them knew
little more than to read and write, and their accounts, if
any were kept, were sometimes carved with a pocket-knife
into the doorstep or window-casing.
The ancestors of most of them had come from the Nor-
mandie, and they naturally adhered to V usage du pays —
the custom of the country. The first settlers followed
the rivers — the only highways of those days. Every cul-
tivateur wanted river frontage, bottom ground, and high
ground. So they laid out narrow strips, measured in arpents,
and gave to each four or six arpents in width and ten or
more in length. The houses were built in a row, each on
l This chapter is drawn chiefly from J'E. Roy, Histoire de la Seigneurie de Lauzon, IV.,
pp. 156-239. See also Sidney Breese, Early History of Illinois, pp. 190-213.
2 Thomas Chapais in Canada and Its Provinces, I., p. 9.
3 Public announcements were made at the church door a son de trompe — to the sound of
the trumpet, or to the beat of the drum, when the trumpet was lacking.
299
300 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
its own land, but never far apart. Their ancestors in Can-
ada had so long been subject to the brutal attacks of the
savages that they preferred the open prairie, where no
Indian could lurk behind a tree; and, in case of attack, the
settlers would always be near one another.
"The houses", writes Breese, 1 "were built in a very
simple and unpretending style of architecture. Small
timbers which the 'commons' supplied, roughly hewed
and placed upright in the ground a few inches apart, formed
the body, the interstices being filled with sticks, pieces
of stone and mud, neatly whitewashed within and without,
with low eaves and pointed roofs, covered with thatch,
or with shingles fastened by wooden pins. Those of the
wealthier class were of strong, well-hewed frames, in the
same peculiar, though more finished style, or of rough
limestone, with which the country abounded. Porches, or
galleries as they were called, protected them on every
side from the sun and storms, whilst the apartments within
were large, airy and convenient, with little furniture, but
well-scoured or neatly- waxed floors. Pictures illustrative
of our Saviour's passion, or the Blessed Virgin . . . deco-
rated the walls . . . well calculated to inspire devotional
sentiments in a people naturally and by education so much
inclined thereto. "
Their dishes and pots were mostly of earthenware;
they had tin spoons, sine coffee pots and tea kettles, iron
forks, perhaps a copper dipper, — but no knives for table
use. Those were still the frontier days, when men and women
had to be prepared to fight off the lurking savage, and
each man and woman carried a large dagger-like clasp
knife for protection, usually dangling on a little chain
fastened to the cincture or belt. Why have two knives!
At meals both men and women used their dagger knives.
"By honoured tradition, 11 writes Adjutor Rivard, 2 "the
cradle passes from generation to generation, a precious family
x Sidney Breese, Early History of Illinois, pp. 197-198.
At the age of eighteen Sidney Breese came from central New York to Kaskaskia, where
he studied law under the Hon. Elias K. Kane. Later in life he was conspicuous in politics,
holding such important positions as U. S. Senator, Circuit and Supreme Court Judge, and
Chief Justice of Illinois. He died at Carlyle, Clinton, Co., 111., June 27, 1878. Breese, Illinois,
was named in his honor.
2 Adjutor Rivard, Chez T^ous (Our Old Quebec Home), pp. 3444.
OTHER DATS OTHER WATS 301
possession; and it is the born right of the eldest daughter
to bring it down from her father's roof when she awaits
the first visit of the stork. Thus from mother to daughter
has the old cradle, affectionately known as the 'blue-box, '
descended to us. And who fashioned it in the far-away
past? . . . The colonist has hewn for himself a home in the
forest. In the middle of the clearing he has built the house
which harbours his love, his joy, his dearest hopes. . . .
"O God, do Thou bless the houses where the cradle
is held in honour! Bless those hearths where many a birth
comes to cheer the ancient cradle and bring it perpetual
youth! Bless the families who hold in reverence the vir-
tues of former days, to the glory of our Church and of
our Country."
The children did not eat at the family table until they
had received their first Holy Communion. In better sit-
uated families they had a small table to themselves, in others
they ate at the block, on which meat was chopped or
people sat, for want of an extra chair. Children in their
quarrels would say to one another: "You still eat at the
block.' '
All the early settlers were hunters; and the flint-lock
musrfe-loader and powder-horn hung from the middle beam
of the kitchen, which also served as living-room and bed-
room.
The Last Will and Testament, sometimes drawn up by an
itinerant notary, was a solemn document. It set forth
that nothing is more certain than death, and nothing more
uncertain than the hour thereof. In the formula used,
the testator then professed his faith and "recommended
his soul to God the Father Almighty, praying Him, through
the merits of the passion and death of our Lord and through
the intercession of the glorious Virgin Mary, . . . that
when his soul shall free itself from his body, to vouchsafe
to place it among the number of the blessed in the heaven-
ly kingdom. "
A peculiar custom prevailed, that immediately after
the death of the testator, the notary, who had written
the will, was called, and the will was solemnly read in
the presence of the family, over the corpse of the departed.
302 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Men and young men, on week-days and on Sundays
wore the capot — a garment of home-spun gray, caught
about the waist by a belt of red or checkered woolen stuff,
and topped off with a tuque or Norman hat with a broad
ribbon about the crown and hanging down on one side.
The color of the tuque varied. In the Quebec district
they wore the bonnet rogue; in the Three Rivers district,
white; and at Montreal and Fort de Chartres, blue.
Most of the habitants made their own shoes — soft
sole, and top reaching to the knee. They were called bottes
sauvages. 1 Of course, they did their own tanning of hides.
Women's dress! Blue or scarlet bodice without sleeves,
skirt of a different color, and straw hat while at work in the
fields. The inventories of those days show a large assort-
ment of short cloaks made of etoffe or calico; bodices of
woolen stuff; skirts of dimity or drugget, and of white
and red striped cotton or flowery calico, and handkerchiefs
of many colors, made of cotton, muslin, or even silk. Jewelry
was rare. Every good wife wore her wedding-ring, a silver
ring, and a silver cross.
"In their domestic relations 1 ', writes Breese, "they
were exemplary, kind to their slaves, and affectionate to their
children, loving each other as much as they should, and
faithful to all their vows. In truth, the domestic circle
was a very happy and a very cheerful one.
"Though there were slaves within it, it was not a prison
house, and such was the kindness always manifested towards
them in health and in sickness that they sought not to
escape from it. . . . When sick or afflicted, they were
nursed with the greatest care, and withal, were the re-
cipients of so much kindness, as to become unmindful of
the fetters with which a wicked policy had bound them."
As tillers of the land the habitants in the Mississippi
Valley 2 were not very successful. They had the advantage
^hoes of the savages.
2 Constantin Francois de Volney wrote in 1803: l "I thought I noticed in my travels in
the United States [1796], that the French did not have the same aptitude to establish farming
colonies as the immigrants from England, Ireland, and Germany." The French colonists at
Vincennes, Volney thought to be hunters rather than farmers — plutot chasseurs que culti*
vateurs. Volney, Tableau du Climat et du Sol des EatS'Unis d" Amerique, p. 392.
This view is not true of the French Canadians along the St. Lawrence, where they love
OTHER DATS OTHER WATS 303
of a rich alluvial virgin soil, and it was perhaps not so much
due to their own industry as to the soil that the crops
grew.
According to Breese, "their implements and mode of
using them were primitive indeed, a wooden plow, gen-
erally, and to carry their grain at harvest, small carts re-
sembling those used by the Swiss peasantry in their vin-
tages, with no iron about them. ... To these, if oxen
were used, they were connected not by a yoke, but by a
strong wooden bar, well secured to the horns by strips
of untanned hide, and guided by a rope of the same ma-
terial. If horses were used, they were driven tandem,
at length, or one before the other, and controlled entirely
by the whip and voice, without any ropes or reins."
The life of the habitant was patriarchal, simple, sober, and
frugal; hospitality was generous, and courtesy charming.
He was satisfied with little on the principle that c 'content-
ment surpasses riches. " He was retentive of the old. Why
do things differently? Ce nest pas V usage du pays! — It
is not the custom of the country!
"They [the habitants] visited on feast-days and Sundays,' '
writes Roy, "to enjoy themselves, to dance, to eat fruit,
to play cards. Houses in which there was no violin were
rare. The workingman, bent over his plow or in the midst
of his hardest labors, loved to sing. It was the same with
the frugal, thrifty housewife, no matter how tired from
her work.
"Pretexts for merry-making were many. If they killed
a hog, they gave the choicest pieces to their friends. They
exchanged blood-sausage and liver-sausage. St. John's fires
were lighted; . . . the baptism of a baby was nearly al-
ways a pretext for a reunion of relatives and friends. . . .
It was not a real wedding, if it did not last three days and
three nights".
Georges Bouchard, who, in Other Days Other Ways,
so beautifully sketched the simple, humble life of the habv
tant of former days, writes: "One must have lived among
their land and are willing to till the soil which their forefathers had the courage to clear.
Georges Bouchard speaks of "the most intimate marriage of a people to the soil," and "what
the sword has conquered and defended, the plough preserves and fructifies." Georges
Bouchard, M. P., Other Days Other Ways, p. 148.
30 4 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
these men of the soil to be able to appreciate all the whole-
some and exuberant gaiety, all the charm of these village
feasts. . . . The old fiddle, fashioned by the dexterous
hand of the grand'pere, out of a length of jplaine (hard
maple) free of knots and a plank of fir, in the course of long
winter nights spent at the corner of the fireplace, often
revealed itself a choice instrument under the deft touch
of the village fiddler. . . . The fiddlestick was formed
very simply of a lock of horsehair from la Grise (the gray
mare), drawn taut on a bow of supple wood. . . .
"At weddings particularly does the fiddle demonstrate
its superiority over all other instruments of music. His
services, letained a long time ahead of the ceremony, the
violoneux arrives with a flourish and is received with en-
thusiasm. He is less of a hireling than a professional man
called in to direct consequential and stirring entertain-
ment. . . .
"After kissing la mariee (the bride) and greeting la com-
pagnee (the company, the guests), the violoneux allows him-
self to be steered into la grand'' chambre (the big room, the
bedroom of the father and mother) where he lays his wraps
on the bed and partakes of the customary p'tit coup (little
drink). . . . The fiddle is stripped of its shroud of checkered
cotton to be tuned up and adjusted to the shoulder of its
owner with a solemnity that compels the deepest silence.
The silk kerchief wraps itself about the neck of the artist.
The dancers swiftly find their places in the middle of the
floor for the opening cotillon. ... In the bottom of a glass
of rum the fiddler finds the fortitude to carry on to the
end "i
A French parish had in olden days, and, in the Province
of Quebec, has to this day a number of important officials.
Besides the Cure (the parish priest) there was the Bedeau
(the sexton), "at once sacristan, master of ceremonies, grave
digger, and farm hand," the Marguilliers (church trustees)
and the Maitre-chantre (the master-singer). Bouchard de-
scribes this important functionary as follows: "It was the
privilege of the master-singer to chant at the occasional
grand'messes (high masses) on weekdays, with the assist-
ance of one of the other choristers. But he was not the least
Bouchard, op. cit., pp. 121426.
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OTHER DATS OTHER WATS 30$
upset if he happened to be without assistance for one of
these ceremonies; he would soften his voice and drop the
tone one key for the responses, and the attending faithful often
had the illusion of hearing two different voices chanting
the duo parts.'' 1 In the absence of the missionary priest,
the master-singer would lead in prayer, and, if occasion de-
manded, conduct funeral services. It is recorded that Rene
Kiercereau, 1 a master-singer, buried nineteen whites, ten
Negroes, and five Indians in Laclede's colony, St. Louis, Mo.,
between October, 1770, and March, 1772.
Another important ceremony was the drawing up by
the notary and signing of the ante-nuptial contract. This
ceremony generally took place the Sunday preceding the
wedding. The notary would solemnly read the contract
in the presence of the relatives and friends. When he
came to the part reciting the mutual dowry, he would
"rush for the bride and place a sonorous kiss on both cheeks."
It must be remembered that the Commandants and officers
of Fort de Chartres were mostly men of the nobility, and
some of them Knights of the Military Order of St. Louis.
Their families lived in the village of Ste-Anne. This infused
into the social atmosphere a certain refinement and etiquette.
Then, too, there was the proximity of the fort, the Fleur-dc
Lis floating over its ramparts, the morning and evening drum-
beats, the bugle calls, the commands of the officers and the
drilling of the soldiers, the hurried departure or arrival of
messengers, the coming and going of convoys with news they
brought from New Orleans.
To quote Breese again: "When their isolated position
is considered, separated by a long river and a vast ocean
from old France, and by a trackless wilderness from Cana-
da, .. . every institution calculated to inspire the feelings
of equality and soften and subdue their native asperities
would in this way contribute to swell the measure of their
happiness, and what could be better adapted to this end
than a religion whose holy days and fetes brought the whole
population so frequently together as on one common level. . .In
the same dance all classes cheerfully participated. . . .
The black-eyed brunette, who engaged as a daily avocation
^ohn Rothensteiner, History of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, I., p. 103.
3 o6 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
in what the fashionable might consider menial services,
in the ball-room, attired in her finery, full of cheerful smiles
and artless coquetry, might be the leading star of every
eye. ... To her a courtly Knight of the Military Order of
St. Louis might bow with the most respectful obeisance,
while, at the same time, she was the betrothed of a poor,
but honest laborer . . . and so they lived on in comparative
happiness and tranquillity, laughed and danced, loved and
married, and died, and these make up their short and simple
annals." 1
Creese, op. cit., pp. 210, 211, 226.
RUMORS OF WAR— ACADIA AHP THE
OHIO V ALLEY
The rivalry between France and England dated back many
centuries; it was fought out on the high seas and on many
a battlefield, from the War of the Roses down to the world-
famous battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815.
"In the fourteenth century", writes William Wood, 1
"France and England began their first Hundred Years' War,
a war which they were inevitably forced to renew, again
and again, until the vital question of undivided sovereignty
over the land of France had been settled beyond dispute.
France was the stronger power on land, and so she ultimate-
ly won this long and decisive struggle. Two centuries and
a half later, France and England began another mighty con-
flict, which may be justly regarded as a second Hundred
Years' War, but which, from its nature and results, should
be more aptly called the Great Imperial War. This time
it was not the possession of any particular land that was
the main object of contention, but rather the general com-
mand of the sea. Yet this change of object made no real
difference in kind. The second war was inevitably renewed
like the first, at every crisis, till the command of the sea was
settled as decisively as the actual possession of the land of
France had been. But, in degree, there was a very great
difference between the first war, which was waged within
the limits of a single country, and the second, which was
waged over every sea, seaboard and hinterland where the
ubiquitous rivals crossed each other's path."
The European background of American history is again
seen clearly. In 1713 the German Emperor, Charles VI,
promulgated what is known in history as the Pragmatic
Sanction, 2 by virtue of which, among other things, it was
specified that the possessions, that is, the countries ruled
by the Hapsburgs, were to fall to the eldest daughter, in
default of a male heir. Maria Theresa was the eldest daugh-
ter of Charles VI, her brother Leopold having died. Her
1 Wood in Canada and Its Provinces, I., p. 231.
2 Catholic Encyclopedia, IX., pp. 662*665.
307
3 o8 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
father, the Emperor, died October 20, 1740, thus leaving
Maria Theresa heir to the throne of the Hapsburgs. The
Elector of Bavaria, Charles Albert, as the descendant of
a daughter of Emperor Ferdinand I, who had died 1564,
laid claim to the crown of the Hapsburgs. War followed,
known as the War of the Austrian Succession 1 (1744-1748).
England and Austria were aligned against Bavaria, France,
Saxony, and Frederic II of Prussia. The war spread to the
colonies, and Louisbourg fell before the English naval for-
ces, June 16, 1745, and thus Louisbourg, Cap-Breton, and
the lie Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island) became British
possessions.
The War of the Austrian Succession ended with the Peace
of Aix-la-Chapelle, October 18, 1748. The French people
said France had fought for the King of Prussia, who had
added to his domains. Austria was not satisfied, because
Frederic had taken some of her territory, nor were England
and France happy over the results of the war. The peace
had been made on the basis of mutual restitution, or exchange,
and Louisbourg had been given back to France in exchange
for Madras, which the French had taken from the English;
but the boundary line between Acadia and New England,
which had been in dispute for more than a century, remained
unsettled. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was thus followed
by an armed peace of eight years, during which time each
nation prepared for a new war.
French and English commissioners held sessions for five years,
trying to settle the exact boundary of Acadia and other ques-
tions. The upshot of all these conferences was volumes and
volumes of memoirs. The British commissioners desired to push
the boundary northward, so that the St. Lawrence and the
Great Lakes would form the southern boundary of New
France. The French, on their part, insisted that the St.
Lawrence and the Great Lakes had always formed the cen-
ter of their possessions, but never the southern limit. They
also held that the Allegheny Mountains formed the eastern
border of Canada and Louisiana. Fox, a few years later
(1756), only put into words what had been the British view-
point all along — that, as far as England was concerned, there
were no Alleghenies.
^Also known as King George's War.
PREPARING FOR THE FINAL STRUGGLE 309
De la Galissoniere, who had been a member of the Boun-
dary Commission, became Provisional Governor of Canada,
June 10, 1747. Capable, wide-awake, and energetic, Ga-
lissoniere lost no time to prepare for the defense of what he
considered the "incontestable rights of France. 11 He increased
the militia to 12,000 men, and planned the strengthening of
the chain of French forts, extending from the Gulf of St.
Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. It was he who forced from
the phlegmatic Louis XV an order to rebuild Fort de Char-
tres.
The British, too, used the interim to clear the deck for
action. So, while the mother countries, England and France,
were nominally at peace, there were forebodings and rum-
blings of a storm that was gathering in the American col-
onies.
The proximate preliminary disturbances, that ultimately
led to the final clash in the Seven Years' War, occurred in
the two extreme sections of the French possessions in Amer-
ica, more than 2,000 miles apart. In the extreme northeast
the storm clouds gathered over a people who had actually
lived on that ground for a century and a half — Acadia; 1
while in the other, the practically uninhabited Ohio Valley,
the stake was future possession. The characters of the lead-
ers, on both sides, in these preliminary struggles, were
totally different. In both sections innumerable belligerent
acts occurred long before the formal declaration of war was
passed between the courts of England and France.
In pursuance of his general plan of building up the 2500-
mile line of defense, Galissoniere, in 1749, sent Celoron de
Blainville to the Ohio Valley to reassert the exclusive rights
of France, and to make a careful survey, with a view to fur-
ther fortifications that might become necessary. Blain-
ville's detachment was a formidable one, numbering three
hundred men. Captain Contrecoeur was one of the offi-
cers, and the Jesuit Bonnecamps, 2 a noted mathematician,
1 In 1603 Henry IV of France granted to Sieur de Monts a territory designated as La
Cadie. It is commonly claimed that the name La Cadie or UAcadie (Acadia) is derived from
the Micmac Indian word cadie or from the Malecite Indian word quoddy, both meaning
fertile lands or pastoral fields. Emile Lauvriere, La Tragedie d'un Peuple, I., p. 3.
2 Joseph'Pierre de Bonnecamps, S. J., was instructor of hydrography at the Jesuit College
of Quebec. Rochemonteix, op. cit., II., p. 74.
3 io FROM QUEBEC TO X[EW ORLEANS
was specially detailed by the Governor to accompany the
expedition as chaplain, because of his ability to take precise
measurements. The expedition left Lachine, near Montreal,
June 15, 1749, and required five months to complete its work.
Blainville had instructions to bury, at certain places, lead'
en plates, setting forth the claims of France as follows:
IN THE YEAR 1749 DURING THE REIGN OF
LOUIS XV KING OF FRANCE WE CELERON COM-
MANDER OF A DETACHMENT SENT BY MON-
SIEUR THE MARQUIS DE LA GALISSONIERE COM-
MANDER IN CHIEF OF NEW FRANCE FOR THE
RESTORATION OF TRANQUILLITY IN SOME VIL-
LAGES OF INDIANS OF THESE DISTRICTS HAVE
BURIED THIS PLATE AT THE CONFLUENCE OF
THE OHIO AND TCHADAKOIN THIS 29 JULY
NEAR THE RIVER OYO OTHERWISE BEAUTIFUL
RIVER AS A MONUMENT OF THE RENEWAL OF
POSSESSION WHICH WE HAVE TAKEN OF THE
SAID RIVER OYO AND OF ALL THOSE THAT
THEREIN FALL AND OF ALL THE LANDS ON BOTH
SIDES AS FAR AS THE SOURCES OF THE SAID
RIVERS IN THE SAME MANNER AS THE PRE-
CEDING KINGS OF FRANCE ENJOYED OR HAD
A RIGHT TO ENJOY THEM AND AS THEY THERE-
IN HAVE MAINTAINED THEMSELVES BY ARMS
AND BY TREATIES ESPECIALLY BY THOSE OF
RISWICK OF UTRECHT AND OF AIX-LA-CHA-
PELLE. 1
Blainville asked the Governor of Pennsylvania to warn
his subjects against trading beyond the Alleghenies, and
notified him that English merchants trading in the valley
would be seized.
The English paid no attention to the notice served on
them. The Ohio Company was formed, and the English
government granted it 600,000 acres of land in that dis-
puted valley. Under orders of this new Company, Christ-
opher Gist, "to the great disgust of the Indians", entered
this valley as surveyor, to prepare the way for planting
: N. Y. Col. Dcs., VI., 610. See facsimile in Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of
America V., p. 9.
PREPARING FOR THE FIHAL STRUGGLE 311
colonists there, and the English seised French traders found
in that same valley.
A third element entered this dispute between French
and English over lands in America — the savages; they in-
habited the disputed borderlands, and by this time began
to resent the intrusion of all whites, whether French or
English. The rival powers were perfectly clear on this point.
February 4, 1755, Governor Shirley of Massachusetts wrote
to Secretary Robinson: "The Indians in general are cer-
tainly uneasy at any incroachmts upon their lands whether
by French or English." 1
l K T. Col. Dcs„ vu p. 939
THE DEPORTATION OF THE ACADIA^S
The Treaty of Utrecht, 1713, had ceded Acadia, bound-
ed by its ancient limits (limitibus suis antiquis comprehend
sam), 1 to England. The difficulty lay in the fact that the an-
cient boundary lines had never been definitely settled. Cap-
Breton and He Saint- Jean (Prince Edward Island) remained
French possessions. By the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (Octo-
ber 18, 1748), the cession of Acadia to England was again
confirmed. The British changed its name to Nova Scotia,
and Halifax became its capital and chief port in 1749. Neither
France nor England awaited the decision of the Boundary
Commission, but each laid claim to what it most desired on
that much disputed peninsula. The French held there were
two Acadias, the British Acadia and the French Acadia.
Galissoniere disliked the establishment of Halifax, which
became the seat of the British Governors of Nova Scotia, be-
cause he considered it a menace to the future of Cap-Breton.
He therefore conceived the idea of engaging the savages
to oppose it. The total Acadian population at that time
probably numbered 15,000. Galissoniere also invited the
French of British Acadia to emigrate to French Acadia and
settle around the forts which he proposed to build along
the frontier of the isthmus, connecting Nova Scotia with
the mainland — Gaspereau and Beausejour. 2
The Governors of Halifax were like Pharaoh 3 of old, who
"said to his people: Behold the people of the children of
Israel are numerous and stronger than we. Come, let us
wisely oppress them, lest they multiply : and if any war shall
rise against us, join our enemies. 4 . . . And the Egyptians
hated the children of Israel, and afflicted them and mocked
them and they made their life bitter.
The Acadians of Nova Scotia, or British Acadia, were will-
ing to leave their homes and possessions, but the Governors of
^enri D\Arles, Acadie, I., p. 112, n. 2. Edouard Richard's manuscript Acadie was
recast, corrected, annotated, and edited by Henri d' Aries (1916).
2 These forts were built by his successor, M. de la Jonquiere.
Rochemonteix, Les Jesuites et La T^puvelle France au XVIIIe Siecle, II., p. 77-
*Exodus, I., 944.
4 Jonothan Belcher, then Chief Justice of Nova Scotia, read a document before Governor
Charles Lawrence and his Council, July 28, 1755, in which he set forth the proportion of
THE TRAGEDY OF A PEOPLE 313
Halifax did all in their power to prevent this emigration and
depopulation of the country.
As early as December 28, 1720, the Lords of Trade wrote
to Governor Philipps: "We are of opinion they ought to be
removed as soon as the Forces which we have proposed to
be sent to you shall arrive in Nova Scotia. . . ."* But Pharaoh
had said: "Let us wisely oppress them". Craggs, Secretary
of State, wrote to Philipps: "If one allowed the Acadians
to depart, the colonial power of France would be augment-
ed to that extent, and to that we must not lend ourselves.
It would be better to deport them to some place, where, thrown
in with our people, lost among strangers, they will lose their
language, their religion and the souvenir of the past, to be-
come true Englishmen." 2
Many years later, a group of these Acadians, deported to
Philadelphia, presented a petition to the King. This pe-
tition recites under what conditions they remained in their
country. "It is a matter of certainty, — and within the com-
pass of some of our memories — that in the year 1730, Gen-
eral Philipps, the Governor of Nova Scotia, did, in your Ma-
jesty's name, confirm unto us, and all the inhabitants of the
French to English inhabitants as follows:
"At Annapolis, 200 families at 5 each Family is 1000
Mines, 300 at 5 1500
Pisiquid,300 1500
Chignectou, 800 40000
8000
600 English Families at 5 3000
Ballance of the French against the English Inhabitants 5000
"Besides the French at Lunenburgh and the Lunenburghers [German colonists] themselves
who are more disposed to the French than to the English."
Belcher then stated that the Acadians had refused to take the unqualified oath of allegiance,
and if they took it, they would not be influenced by it and that such a superiority of numbers
was dangerous to the King's subjects and deterred others from coming into the Province.
He concluded his presentation to the Council as follows: "I think myself obliged for these
Reasons and from the highest necessity which is Lex temporis, to the interests of His Majesty
in the Province, humbly to advise that all the French inhabitants may be removed from the
Province." Canadian Archives, 1905, II., p. 65.
! Quoted in Henri D'Arles, op. cit., I., pp. 197'199.
2 Ibid., p. 199.
314 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
whole extent of the Bay of Minas and rivers thereunto be'
longing, the free and entire possession of those lands we were
then possessed of. . . . And on condition that we should
behave with due submission and fidelity to Your Majesty,
agreeable to the oath which was then administered to us,
which is as follows, vis. : 'We sincerely promise and swear,
by the faith of a Christian, that we shall be entirely faith'
ful, and will truly submit ourselves to His Majesty King
George, whom we acknowledge as sovereign Lord of New
Scotland, or Acadia; so God help us.'
"And at the same time, the said General Philipps did, in
like manner, promise the said French inhabitants, in Your
Majesty's name, that they should have the true [free] ex'
ercise of their religion, and be exempted from bearing arms,
and from being employed in war, either against the French
or Indians. 111 From this the Acadians were known as the
French Neutrals.
Later on, several Governors attempted to exact from these
French Neutrals an absolute oath of allegiance, which they
refused to take. The petition continues: "We acquainted
Governor Cornwallis, that if Your Majesty is not willing
to continue that exemption to us, we desire liberty to evac
uate the country, proposing to settle on the Island of St.
John, where [which] the French Government was willing to
let us have; which proposal he at the time refused to consent
to, but told us he would acquaint Your Majesty therewith
and return us an answer. But we never received an answer,
nor was any proposal of that made to us until we were made
prisoners. 112
The Acadians, on their part, were true to their oath, and
refused to take up arms against England in 1744, when Cap'
tain Duvivier attempted to reconquer Acadia from the Brit'
Quoted in Henri D' Aries, op. cit., III., p. 416, Appendix.
They asked exemption from bearing arms against the French, because they were their
own blood and kin; from fighting the Indians, because they feared bloody reprisals if they
fought against savages who had heretofore been their friends.
A few years later a group of British of Nova Scotia requested the same exemption from
fighting against their relatives in the colonies.
2 "Their loyalty had always been a qualified one. A reservation of not being obliged to
serve in war against the French had been in the past allowed in their oath; but such reser-
vation had not been approved by the Crown, though it had not been practically disallowed."
Justin Winsor, T^arrative and Critical History of America, V., p. 455.
THE TRADEGT OF A PEOPLE 315
ish. However, M. Le Loutre, missionary among the Mic-
macs, in French Acadia, accompanied the fruitless expedi-
tion and incited the savages to take part in it. Encouraged
by Galissoniere, Le Loutre urged the inhabitants of Brit-
ish Acadia to emigrate and locate about the forts Beause-
jour and Gaspereau. 1 It is estimated that some four thou-
sand actually left British Acadia and settled near the afore-
mentioned forts. Le Loutre's slogan, so productive of re-
sults, was: "Emigration and Liberty! 11 Of course, many
of the emigrants suffered great hardships and privations
because of their leaving the fertile fields they had cleared
and cultivated. Monseigneur Pontbriand, Bishop of Quebec,
severely censured Abbe le Loutre for his too active part
in the emigration movement, declaring that if the court had
decided to encourage emigration, "that is not our affair, say
nothing, neither one way nor the other. 112
Edward Cornwallis, who was then Governor of Nova
Scotia, was naturally vexed at the evacuation of his terri-
tory, and also considered the erection of the two forts Beause-
jour and Gaspereau a provocation on the part of the French.
In the spring of 1750 he sent Major Lawrence with 400 men
to dislodge the French. De la Corne, Commandant of
Beausejour, checked Lawrence at a point considered by the
French to be the boundary between British and French
Acadia. Lawrence erected a fort (Fort Lawrence) two miles
from Beausejour. Between 1750 and 1755 the British cap-
tured some three hundred French merchant vessels.
Charles Lawrence became Lieut. Governor of Nova Scotia
November 1, 1753. The wretched Francois Bigot 3 was then
the vampire Intendant of Canada, and his friend^M. de Vergor
the venal Commandant of Beausejour.
Lawrence was determinded to get rid of the so-called French
Neutrals and in June, 1755, sent an army of two thousand men
under Col. Monckton against Beausejour, although the formal
declaration of war between France and England did not take
place till nearly a year later.
During the siege of Beausejour, that is, about the 6th of
June, 1755, Lawrence carried out an ignoble plot of disarming
iRochemonteix, op. cit., II., p. 86.
2 Ibid., p. 109.
3 See pp. 345, n. 1 and 349, n. 1, post.
3 i6 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEAHS
the Acadians in the Mines district (British Acadia). One
hundred and fifty soldiers from Fort Edward and Halifax
proceeded to the Mines country, ostensibly on a "fishing
frolic." They reached Grand Pre towards evening and asked
that two soldiers might be permitted to sleep in each home —
just as a favor to these supposed fishermen — to obviate the
inconvenience of sleeping in barns. The unsuspecting Aca-
dians made room for his Majesty's fishermen in their already
crowded houses. At midnight, in accordance with instruc-
tions received from Lawrence, the soldiers seised all arms and
ammunition, carried them to a boat waiting in the harbor
and brought them to Fort Edward. A few days later an
order was issued demanding the surrender of all arms in the
Beaubassain district, under penalty of being treated as rebels. 1
To this spoliation and the principle it involved, the Aca-
dians made the following protest: "We most humbly beg
Your Excellency to consider our past conduct. You will see,
that, very far from violating the oath we have taken, we have
maintained it in its entirety, in spite of the solicitations and
the dreadful threats of another power [France].... More-
over, our guns, which we regard as our own personal property,
have been taken from us, notwithstanding the fact that they
are absolutely necessary to us, either to defend our cattle,
which are attacked by the wild beasts, or for the protection
of our children and of ourselves. . . . Besides, the arms that
have been taken from us are but a feeble guarantee of our
fidelity. It is not the gun which an inhabitant possesses,
that will induce him to revolt, nor the privation of the same
gun that will make him more faithful; but his conscience alone
must induce him to maintain his oath. . . ." 2
The deportation of the Acadians was a foregone conclu-
sion. It mattered little whether they took an absolute oath
to the King of England or held to their qualified oath as sanc-
tioned under Governor Phillips — they were to be scattered
to the winds with the least possible chance of ever returning.
Lawrence commissioned Morris, then Provincial Surveyor,
later judge, to work out a plan that would rid the colony of
the Acadians, and he did it with diabolically wicked finesse.
^douard Richard, Acadia, II., pp. 642.
2 Quoted by Richard, op. at., II., p. 37.
THE TRAGEDT OF A PEOPLE 317
"They are at all adventures to be rooted out" — that was the
advice he gave the Council.
In his Reflections on the Methods proposed to prevent their
Escape out of the Colony and the Design of removing them,
Morris wrote: "It will much facilitate their readiness to
go, if a persuasion could obtain among them that they are to
be removed to Canada ... for it is natural to think they
will be unwilling to quit their possessions, and to offer them-
selves to go voluntarily to be transported, they know not
whither M1
"After Mature Consideration," so reads the report of
Charles Lawrence, of July 28, 1755, "it was unanimously
Agreed, 2 That to prevent as Much as possible their attempt-
ing to return and molest the Setlers that may be set down on
their Lands, it would be most proper to send them to be dis-
tributed amongst the several colonies on the Continent,
and that a sufficient number of Vessels should be hired with
all possible Expedition for the purpose." 3
The stage was now set for the perpetration of one of those
shocking crimes of history, one of those inhuman deeds that
will be told and retold to the end of time.
Col. John Winslow was in command at Grand Pre; Captain
Alexander Murray at Fort Edward and Pigiquit; Major
Handfield at Annapolis, and Col. Robert Monckton at Beau-
sejour, while Governor Lawrence sat scheming at Halifax.
The letter, which Lawrence sent to Col. Monckton, July
31, 1755, is typical of the instructions issued to all the Com-
mandants. "It will be necessary," wrote Lawrence, "to
keep this measure as secret as possible, as well to prevent their
attempting to escape, as to carry off their cattle, etc., etc.,
and, the better to effect this, you will endeavour to fall upon
some stratagem to get the men, both young and old — specially
the heads of families — into your power, and detain them till
the transports shall arrive, so as they may be ready to be
shipped off; for, when this is done, it is not much to be feared
that the women and children will attempt to go away and
iReport Concerning Canadian Archives, 1905, II., Appendix B, p. 8.
2 By the Council at Halifax. De Beaujeu had defeated Gen. Braddock on the Monongahela
July 9, 1755. The sting of Braddock's defeat may have had some influence on the mind of
the Council.
"Canadian Archives, 1905. Append. B, p. 8.
3 i8 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEAHS
carry off the cattle. But, lest they should, it will not only
be very proper to secure all their shallops, boats, canoes,
and every other vessel you can lay your hands upon; but
also to send out parties to all suspected roads and places from
time to time, that they may be thereby intercepted.... ,,1
Edouard Richard, who himself was an Acadian, wrote
the following bitter lines: "The lineal descendant of Law-
rence's victims can, though late, now rend the veil that still
hides his infamy, and brand his memory as that of a scomv
drel." 2
The following letter, which Lawrence sent to Col. Monck'
ton, August 8, 1755, seems to indicate that he was far more
interested in the cattle of the Acadians than in preserving
the lives of the unsuspecting inhabitants. After telling
Monckton that the transports 3 for taking off the inhabitants
will soon arrive, he continues: "I am hopeful that you will,
in the meantime have accomplished the directions you had in
my last letter with regard to the inhabitants. As there may
be a deal of difficulty in securing them, you will, to prevent
this as much as possible, destroy all the villages on the North
and North'West side of the Isthmus that ly at any distance
from the Fort of Beausejour, and use every other method to
distress, as much as can be, those who may attempt to con-
ceal themselves in the woods. But I would have all care
taken to save the stock, and the harvest upon the ground,
which can be gathered in with any safety to the men; and
prevent as much [as possible] the French fugitives and Indians
from carrying off or destroying the cattle." 4
Another letter reads : "Upon the arrival of these Vessels
from Boston, and Chignecto in the Bason of Mines, as Many
of the Inhabitants of the Districts of Mines, Pisiquid, Cobi'
quid, the River of Canard, &c, as can Be Collected By Any
Means, Particularly the Heads of Families & Young Men,
are to Be Shipped On Board of them at the Above Rate
Quoted by Pvichard, op. cit., II., p. 58. Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, then a British
colony, had a large share in the plan and execution of the deportation.
2 Ibid., p. 22.
3 Some of these transports were furnished by Thomas Hancock, uncle of John Hancock,
later a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The Hancock firm, of Boston, supplied
provisions for garrisons in Nova Scotia.
Canadian Archives, 1905, II., Append. B, p. 8.
THE TRAGEDY OF A PEOPLE 3 i 9
of Two Persons to a Ton, Or as Near it as Possible." 1
All was now ready for the first act of the cruel drama of
deportation. Richard remarks: "Seldom does it happen
that the servant, for whom flattery is a necessity, fails to outdo
his master. " 2 Lawrence's servants, located at strategic points,
began the drive. It was most successful at Grand Pre. Wins-
low's Journal tells the sad story. On the second day of Sep-
tember, 1755, Winslow issued a citation 3 "To the Inhabitants
of the District of Grand Pre, Mines, River Cannard, &c,
as well ancient as young Men & Lades [Lads] "I there-
fore order and Strictly Injoyne by these Pressence to all the
Inhabitants as well of the above named Districts as of all
the other Districts, both old men & young men as well as all
the Lads of ten years of age to attend at the Church at Grand
Pre on Friday the 5th Instant at Three of the Clock in the
afternoon that We May Impart to them what we are ordered
to Communicate to them: Declaring that no Excuse will
be admitted on any Pretense whatsoever on Pain of Forfit-
ting Goods and Chattels on Default."
How wholly unsuspecting the poor people were of the
horrors that awaited them is clear from an entry in Winslow's
Journal for September 4, 1755: "A fine day, and the inhabi-
tants were very busy about their harvest." Only a small
number failed to respond to the summons and fled to the
woods instead.
Richard graphically describes Winslow in the presbytery
of Grand Pre, from which the priest had been banished, 4
and where he had established his headquarters, watching at
a distance the clouds of dust rising from the roads. In obe-
dience to his peremptory orders, "people on foot were slowly
wending their way from neighboring farms; then came well-
filled carts . . . they all passed before the church casting anx-
ious looks on the public square covered with tents and sol-
diers . . . the new-comers had scattered in groups in the houses,
on the door-steps, along the fences. All these groups were
grave and almost silent. They exchanged a few words on
the weather, the harvest, absent friends, or on indifferent
Canadian Archives, 1905, Append. B, pp. 1344.
2 Richard, op. cit., II., p. 79.
3 Canadian Archives, ibid., p. 19.
4 The missionary priests had been captured or driven off about the middle of July, 1755.
320 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
subjects; but minds were busy with other thoughts; ... as
often happens on such sad and solemn occasions, it was the
object of the meeting that they spoke least of. . . .
"The clock was on the stroke of three; the officers appeared
on the threshold of the priest's house; the groups had begun
to move; they had drawn near to the church. They had
entered.
"Winslow followed closely in full uniform, surrounded by
his officers. He took his place at a table set in the middle
aisle, his glance rested on that silent crowd, kneeling, because
despite the profanation of their temple, it was still the hal'
lowed place, the house of prayer. They had knelt partly
through habit perhaps, but also to implore God's help in
their hour of distress. The church was full; there were pres-
ent four hundred and eighteen men and lads above ten years
of age." 1
Winslow rose to read their sentence of condemnation 2 as
follows: "Gentlemen, — I have Received from his Excel-
lency Governor Lawrence, The Kings Commission which I
have in my hand 3 and by whose orders you are Convened
together to Manifest to you his Majesty's Final resolution
to the French Inhabitants of this his Province of Nova Scotia,
who for almost half a Century have had more Indulgence 4
Granted them, than any of his Subjects in any part of his
Dominions; what use you have made of them, you your Self
Best Know. 5
"The Part of Duty I am now upon is what thoh Necessary
is Very Disagreeable to my Natural make 6? Temper as I
Know it Must be Grievious to you who are of the Same
Specia.
1 Richard, op. cit., II., p. 87- Winslow's Journal reads: "Att three in the afternoon
the french inhabitants appeared agreable to their citation at the church in Grand-Pre, amount'
ing to 418 of their best men . . . upon which I ordered a table to be sett in the centre of the
church . . . and then declared them the King's prisoners.
^Canadian Archives, 1905, II., Append. B, pp. 19-20. That the whole matter of the
deportation of the Acadians and the responsibility therefor is still a live issue is evident from
Emile Lauvriere's La Tragedie d'un Peuple, 1924. On page 464, vol. I., Lauvriere quotes the
above document with the following running commentary:
3 "Decidedly, either the orders came from the King of England, or Lawrence and Wins-
low lied."
4 "Then why were they refused the single 'indulgence 1 which they asked, and to which
they had a right: the right to leave?"
6 "In fact, those neutrals had saved the English by not taking part against them in 1744."
THE OLD CITY WALLS— QUEBEC
THE TRAGEDY OF A PEOPLE 321
"But it is not my Business to annimedvert, but to obey
Such orders as I receive and therefore without Hessitation
Shall Deliver you his Majesty's orders and Instructions vist.
"That your Lands 6? Tennements, Cattle of all Kinds and
Live Stock of all sortes are Forfitted to the Crown with all
other your Effects Saving your Money and Household Goods
and you your Selves to be removed from this his Province.
"This it is Peremtorily his Majesty's orders That the
whole French Inhabitants of these Districts be removed, and
I am Throh his Majesty's Goodness Directed to allow you
Liberty to Carry of your money and Household Goods as
Many as you Can without Discomemoading the Vessels you
Go in. I shall do Every thing in my Power that all Those
Goods be Secured to you 1 and that you are Not Molested in
Carrying of them of and also that whole Familys Shall go
in the same Vessel, 2 and make this remove, which I am Sen-
sable must give you a great Deal of Trouble, as Easy as his
Majesty's Service will admit and hope that in what Ever part
of the world you may Fall you may be Faithful Subjects, a
Peasable 6? happy People.
"I Must also inform you That it is his Majesty's Pleasure
that you remain in Security 3 under the Inspection 6? Direc-
tion of the Troops that I have the Honr. to Command, and
then declared them the King's Prisoners." 4
Their parish church had become their jail. That evening the
men hungered and begged for bread. Winslow's Journal
for September 5, 1755, contains this laconic entry: "The
French People not having any Provissions with them and
Pleading Hunger Begd for Bread on which I Ddd 5 them and
ordered that for the Future they be Supplyd from their re-
spective Familys. 6 Thus Ended the Memorable fifth of Sep-
1 "Yes, when there was not room enough in those ships to place the poor people.
Pouah! when one deports to a hostile country people whom one has ruined forever and cast
into distress, one has no right to address them such sanctimonious wishes of good luck, under
pain of passing for a detestable hypocrite.'"
2 "We shall see what becomes of that promise.'"
3 'The euphemism of that word is monstrous.'"
*'That means to say in good French . . . : now that I have you in the trap, I will keep
you; you are my prisoners."
6 I gave them.
'During the seven weeks of captivity the women were compelled to bring them food.
At other places the men were led away as prisoners, and the women ordered to follow with
food supplies.
322 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
tember, a Day of great Fatigue 6? Troble" — for Winslow!
Bancroft writes: "I know not if the annals of the human
race keep the record of sorrows so wantonly inflicted, so
bitter and so perennial, as fell upon the French inhabitants
of Acadia." 1
This stricture receives added strength from the following
letter 2 of Capt. Murray to Winslow: "Dear Sir, — I reced
your Favor and am Exstreamly Pleased that things are So
Clever at Grand Pre and that the Poor Devils are So resigned.
Here they are more Patient then I Could have Expected
for People in their Circumstances
"When I think of those of Annapolis I applaud our thoughts
of Summoning them in. I am afraid their will be Some Lives
Lost before they are Got together, you Know our Solidiers Hate
them and if they can find a Pretence to Kill them, they will.
"I am Vastly Happy to think your Camp is So well Se-
cured. . . .
"I Long Much to See the Poor wretches Embarked and our
affar a Little Settled and and then I will do my Self the Pleasure
of Meeting you and Drinking their Good Voyage".
In the forenoon of September 10, 1755, Winslow sent orders
that within one hour two hundred and fifty of the prisoners,
beginning with the young men, were to embark on the vessels
that had just arrived. The Journal relates the incident as
follows: "I Ordered ye prisoners to March. They all An-
swered they would not go without their fathers. I Told them
that was a word I did not understand for that the Kings Com-
mand was to me absolute & Should be absolutely obeyed 6?
That I Did not Love to use Harsh Means but that the time
Did not admit of Parlies or Delays and Then ordered the whole
Troops to Fix their Bayonets and advance Towards the French
and Bid the 4 Right hand Files of the Prisoners Consisting of
24 men, wich I told of my Self, to Divied from the rest, one
of whome I Took hold on (who oposed the Marching) and bid
March. He obeyed 6? the rest followed, thoh Slowly, and went
of Praying, Singing & Crying being Met by the women &
Children all the way (which is 1J^ mile) with Great Lamenta-
x George Bancroft, History of the United States, IV., p. 206.
2 Canadian Archives, 1905, Append. B, II., p. 22. The letter is dated Fort Edward, 8th
Sept., 1755.
THE TRAGEDY OF A PEOPLE 323
tions upon their Knees, praying 6-Pc." 1
Casgrain adds this revolting scene: "Another squad,
composed of a hundered married men, was embarked directly
after the first amid similar scenes. Fathers inquired of their
wives on the shore where their sons were, brothers asked
about their brothers, who had just been led into the ships;
and they begged the officers to put them together. By way of
answer the soldiers thrust their bayonets forward and pushed
the captives into the boats' 1 . 2
Parkman writes : "In spite of Winslow's care [ !] some cases
of separation of families occured; but they were not numer-
ous". To this Richard sharply replies: "I say cases of non-
separation were not numerous. 1 '
One can readily understand that Edouard Richard, de-
scendant of a banished Acadian family, should stigmatise
Lawrence and the deportation in the following words that
seem to rise from his innermost soul at the thought of the in-
justice to his forbears: "To make its success [of the deporta-
tion] more certain, he [Lawrence] gives instructions to dis-
perse his victims in places far distant from each other; he burns 3
everything to prevent them from coming back; dismembers
families to destroy all hope of return, and to keep them en-
grossed with the more pressing question of finding relatives.
To make assurance doubly sure, he instructs the governors
of other provinces to keep them constantly under watch.
Thus the game is played; the crime is consummated. The
plan was infernal in its conception, infernal in its execution;
its author stopped at nothing to ensure its full success."'
'4
Canadian Archives, 1905, Append. B, p. 23.
'This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?
Where is the thatch'roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers, —
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean.
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre." Longfellow,[Ei> angeline.
2 Henri Raymond Casgrain, Pelerinage au Pays d'Evangeline, p. 178.
3 "For several successive evenings," writes Haliburton, "the cattle assembled round
the smouldering ruins, as if in anxious expectation of the return of their master . . . , while
all night long the faithful watch dogs of the Neutrals howled over the scene of desolation,
and mourned alike the hand that had fed, and the house that had sheltered them.'"
Judge Thomas C. Haliburton quoted in Henri D'Arles, op. cit., III., p. 83, n. 31.
4 Richard, op. cit., II., p. 130.
3 2 4 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Monckton and Handfield were not quite as successful as
Winslow and Murray. During the following months vessel
upon vessel, laden with the wretched cargo of crushed hu-
manity, young men and boys calling for their fathers, wives
and mothers seeking their husbands, daughters separated
from their mothers, lovers cruelly parted forever, families and
friends ruthlessly torn asunder — sailed from the ports of
Nova Scotia to destinations generally made known to the
captains of the ships in sealed orders. The unhappy Acadians
still found consolation in the thought, that, though separated
at the time of embarkation, they would all be sent to the same
place and would there meet their loved ones.
But that was not Lawrence's plan. The ships sailed,
some to Boston, others to Connecticut, New York, Pennsyl-
vania, Maryland, 1 Virginia, the Carolinas, to the West Indies,
to England, France and everywhere. 2 "How could they ever
General Philip Sheridan was a grandson of an Acadian deported to Maryland.
2 The following may serve to give an idea of the narrow and unchristian mental atti'
tude of the Atlantic seaboard colonists towards the unhappy Acadians deported to their
shores. Jonathan Belcher, Chief Justice of New Jersey, wrote to Governor Morris of Penn-
sylvania: "I am truly surprised how it could enter the thoughts of those who had the order-
ing of the French Neutrals, or rather traitors and rebels to the Crown of Great Britain, to
direct any of them into these Provinces, where we have already too great a number of for'
eigners for our own good and safety. I think they should have been transported to old
France, and I entirely coincide with Your Honor that these people would readily join with
the Irish Papists, etc., etc., to the ruin and destruction of the King's Colonies, and should
any attempt be made to land here [Elizabethtown], I should think it my duty to the King
and to his good people under my care to do all in my power to crush an attempt.'" Quoted
by Richard, op cit., II., p. 232. "Strange irony of human affairs!" exclaims Richard (p. 252).
"This little people had been overwhelmed with woe on the simple pretext of disloyalty; and
the last Acadians had no sooner quitted Boston than the standard of revolt was hoisted over
this same town. And, stranger still, this same people, who had become the warders of these
pretended rebels, eagerly welcomed the soldiers of France, while those who would not be
disloyal to their English sovereign [Tories], were going into exile and taking refuge on the
lands of the same Acadians."
During 1783 and the years immediately following at least 20,000 Loyalists settled in Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. In 1784 emigration of Loyalists likewise
set in for the western part of the Province of Quebec. The British government favored the
Loyalists and paid them an indemnity of $15,000,000.00 for losses sustained on account of the
War of Independence. For the benefit of the Loyalists settled in western Quebec, the Prov'
ince of Upper Canada (Ontario) was formed in 1791 with Col. Simcoe as first Lieut. Governor.
Immigration to Ontario rapidly increased and by 1796 the new province had a population of
30,000. P-G. Roy, Les Petites Choses de Tiotre Histoire, II., pp. 164-166.
According to Hugh L. Keenleyside, in Canada and the United States (p. 38), 100,000
Tories, later known as United Empire Loyalists, emigrated to Canada.
THE TRAGEDY OF A PEOPLE 325
unite again?' ' writes Richard. "How many years would
elapse before the husband could find his wife, the parents their
children, deported, no one knew where? Would they survive
the grief, the hardships, the climate? . . . The wife cast upon a
foreign shore, separated from her husband and children, them-
selves cast on other distant coasts, whom she despaired of ever
seeing again; these are the broken ties which time could not re-
new, which memory could not efface. So long as the body was
vigorous, it might hold out; but grief wastes the strength,
the body sinks, and this weeping mother, the inconsolable
wife could but languish and die. . . . Like Antores of old,
they expired with their eyes turned toward their native land".
And still, the deportations of 1755 "were only the beginning
of a systematic and pitiless persecution which continued long
after the peace of 1763". 1
Thomas Chandler Haliburton 2 tells in his History of Nova
Scotia what the covetous Lawrence and his subalterns did to
enrich themselves, while the ships that carried the victims of
their atrocity were unloading their cargoes on unfriendly and
even hostile shores: "The most valuable lands were granted
to gentlemen residing at Halifax, among whom were many of
His Majesty's Council. That portion of it which fell into the
hands of resident proprietors, was divided among a few indi-
viduals. "
: The number of Acadians at that time is generally estimated at 14,000 or 15,000.
"Of this number," writes Lauvriere, "more than one'half were deported at the first; during
the following three years another one fourth was sent away, and the remaining fourth, con'
stantly hunted down by a pitiless enemy, during many years wandered about homeless.'"
Lauvriere, op. cit., I., p. 492.
"Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from city to city,
From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern savannas, —
From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where the Father of Waters
Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to the ocean,
Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the mammoth.
Friends they sought and homes; and many, despairing, heartbroken,
Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend nor a fireside.
Written their history stands on tablets of stone in the churchyards."
Longfellow, Evangeline
2 Haliburton Hist, and Stat. Account of Jfyva Scotia, I., p. 100.
Thomas Chandler Haliburton was a grandson of a Loyalist, or Tory, who had emi'
grated to Nova Scotia after the Revolutionary War. England provided these emigre Loyalists
with land at the expense of the Acadians who had returned to their country. Thomas Hali'
burton became judge of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia,
326 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Emile Lauvriere mentions the names of Lawrence's chief
agents who received 20,000 acres each. The Lords of Trade
later reduced these concessions to 5,000 acres each. 1
And so the story goes on. 2 No matter where their lot had
been cast, the Acadians longed for the land of their forefathers.
Michael Franklin, who became administrator of the Province of
Nova Scotia in 1766, was kind and friendly and brought relief
to the victims of his predecessors, Lawrence, Belcher and Wil-
mot. "At last", writes Rameau, 3 "the frightful series of dis-
asters which had befallen the Acadian people during eleven
years, was drawing to a close. After having been proscribed,
transported, retransported, plunged and replunged into want
and misery' ' the return to the shores of Acadie set in. "Aca-
dians arrived from France, from the West Indies, Canada and
the United States, going from one settlement to another in
search of a father, a mother, a brother, a relative whose where-
abouts they had not yet found. Often death had claimed the
^mile Lauvriere, La Tragedie D'un Peuple, II., p. 8.
2 A moderate English view of this much discussed question, which has perhaps a sem'
blance of a counterpart in the invasion of Belgium during the World War, is that of William
Wood, in Canada and Its Provinces, I., p. 245: "They [the Acadians] were, in themselves,
neither better nor worse than other men, and it was not their fault that they were living
between two jealous rival powers at a very critical time, when each had to use all legitimate
means of strengthening itself and weakening its opponent. Yet they undoubtedly were a
potential factor on the French side, and so unfortunately situated as to be a very dangerous
menace to the British. The treaty of Aix-la'Chapelle had left the Acadian boundaries un'
settled. . . . The fact was that the French and British were manoeuvering for position all
along the line, and the Acadians could not be neutral, even if they had so wished. Acadia
was an outpost of the French in Canada, a landing'place for the French from Europe, and a
living link between the two. The Acadians had been mildly ruled for forty years — as is
unintentionally proved by the pictures of their happy life, drawn by the compassionate
school of writers. But since this did not turn them into friends, and since they could not
safely be allowed the chance of turning into active enemies, they had, perforce, to be rendered
neutral. A sparse population could not be interned as it stood. A concentration camp was
impracticable. So deportation was the only alternative. In any case, this would have been
a rough 'and'ready expedient, as time pressed and means were scanty. But it certainly was
carried out with needless brutality, families being broken up and scattered about indis'
criminately all over the British colonies, each of which tried to shift this unwelcome burden
on to its unwilling neighbours. On the whole, the expulsion of the Acadians was a quite
justifiable act of war, carried out in a quite unjustifiable way."
To this the following note of the Special Editor is appended :
"Parkman has taken the same view; but it can be and has been disputed. Deportation
in war time has been resorted to by other powers. But is it justifiable? That is the ques'
tion.'"
^Quoted by Richard, op. cit., II., p. 330,
THE TRAGEDY OF A PEOPLE 327
long sought one. . . . Slowly the scattered members of one
family succeeded, not infrequently, in all getting together
once more.
February 11, 1780, the famous English statesman and ora-
tor, Edmund Burke, 1 delivered a speech in Parliament on
Economical Reform. He concluded by proposing to suppress
the Board of Trade for its bungling policy with regard to the
colonies. In the course of his speech he said : "The province of
Nova Scotia was the youngest child of the board. Good God!
what sums the nursing of that ill-thriven, hard-visaged, and
ill-favoured brat has cost to this wittol nation ! . . . Sir, I am
going to state a fact to you, that will serve to set in full sun-
shine the real value of formality, and official superintendence.
"There was in the province of Nova Scotia, one little neg-
lected corner, the country of the neutral French; which having
the good fortune to escape the fostering care of both France
and England, and to have been shut out from the protection
and regulation of councils of commerce and of boards of trade,
did in silence, without notice, and without assistance, increase
to a considerable degree. But it seems our nation had more
skill and ability in destroying than in settling a colony. 2
"In the last war we did, in my opinion, most inhumanly,
and upon pretences that in the eye of an honest man are
not worth a farthing, root out this poor, innocent, deserv-
ing people, whom our utter inability to govern, or to recon-
cile, gave us no right to extirpate. . . ."
Where history stops, there the poet sets in, and the expul-
sion of the Acadians has found its most irretrievable condem-
nation in the bitter-sweet story of Longfellow's Evangeline. 3
x Quoted in Henri D'Arles, op. cit., II., pp. 380-381.
2 December 20, 1759, the Lords of Trade had written to the King: "We are extremely
sorry to find, that notwithstanding the great expense which the public has been at in
removing the French inhabitants, there should yet be many of them remaining. It is certainly
very much to be wished, that they could be entirely driven out of the Peninsula". Quoted
in Bancroft, op. cit., IV., p. 206, n. 4.
3 According to Richard, Judge Haliburton inspired Longfellow and suggested to him
the idea of writing Evangeline. In 1923 the request was made by a sectarian clergyman in
Toronto, that Evangeline be no longer on the list of books used in the schools of Canada.
Lauvriere, op. cit., II., p. 279.
THE PROXIMATE PRELIMINARIES OF A GREAT
WAR— WASHINGTON SURRENDERS AT FORT
NECESSITY— ENGLISH AND FRENCH EN-
LIST THE SAVAGES— THE GRANDE
LUTTE OR FINAL STRUGGLE BE-
TWEEN FRANCE AND
ENGLAND
The preliminary hostilities,, during what J. S. McLen-
nan 1 calls an "imperfectly'kept truce rather than a peace",
preceding the formal outbreak of the Seven Years' War,
played alternately, and at times concurrently, in the two af-
fected sections — Acadia and the Ohio Valley.
In the spring of 1753, the Marquis Duquesne, Governor
of Canada, sent an expedition to the valley of the Ohio to as-
sure its possession for the French by actual military occupation.
Marin was in charge, and the French built several forts —
Presqu'ile (now Erie, Pa.), le Boeuf (now Waterford, Erie
Co., Pa.), and Fort Machault at Venango, the confluence
of the Allegheny and French Creek (now Franklin, Pa.).
Marin died, and was succeeded by Legardeur de Saint-Pierre.
Fort Machault was particularly offensive to the English,
because it directly threatened their possessions. Dinwid-
die, Governor of Virginia, sent a messenger with a small es-
cort, guided by Christopher Gist, to Saint-Pierre, who was
Commandant at Fort le Boeuf, to call his attention to the
fact that he was building forts on English territory and to
request him to withdraw peaceably. In looking about for
an officer best qualified to carry out this delicate and im-
portant mission, the choice had fallen upon the twenty-one
year old George Washington, who was then Adjutant-Gen-
eral of the Virginia militia. 2
Sixty miles north of the present Pittsburgh, in the state
of Pennsylvania, Washington saw the French flag float over
the house formerly owned by an English trader, named Fra-
sier, who had been driven out, and he found Joncaire, a French
l J. S. McLennan in Canada and Its Provinces.
2 Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, V., p. 492; Villiers du Terrage,
op. cit. t p. 60.
328
OK THE PLAIHS OF ABRAHAM 329
officer, in command. This was at Venango, now Franklin,
Pennsylvania. Washington's own story of his meeting with
Joncaire and of his spending a great part of the evening with
him gives a thoroughly human touch to the characters con-
cerned: "He invited us to sup with them, and treated us
with the greatest complaisance. The wine, as they dosed
themselves pretty plentifully with it, soon banished the
restraint which at first appeared in their conversation, and
gave a license to their tongues to reveal their sentiments
more freely. They told me that it was their absolute de-
sign to take possession of the Ohio, and by G — they would
do it; For that, although they were sensible the English
could raise two men for their one, yet they knew their mo-
tions were too slow and dilatory to prevent any undertak-
ing of theirs. They pretend to have an undoubted right
to the river from a discovery made by one La Salle, sixty
years ago; and the rise of this expedition is, to prevent our
settling on the river or waters of it, as they heard of some
families moving out in order thereto". 1
The next day Washington proceeded to Fort le Boeuf,
where Le Gardeur de Saint-Pierre commanded, and deliv-
ered his message, December 11, 1753. By the middle of Feb-
ruary, 1754, Washington had returned to Williamsburg,
Virginia, to make his report.
Dinwiddie gave orders to send Washington with two
hundred men to build a fort at the Forks of the Ohio, the
present Pittsburgh, but before this expedition got under
way, some backwoodsmen under Captain Trent had pene-
trated the mountain passes and set to work building a fort
at that place. While this work was in progress, Contrecoeur,
a French officer, came along with a much stronger force and
issued the following peremptory summons to Trent:
"Sir,
"Nothing can surprise me more, than to see you attempt
a settlement upon the Lands of the King my Master, which
obliges me, Sir, to send you this Gentleman Chev. Le Mer-
cier, Captain of the Bombardiers, Commander of the Artil-
lery of Canada, to know of you Sir, by virtue of what Au-
thority you are come to fortify yourself within the Domin-
lWashington's Journal, America, a Library of Original Sources, III., pp. 11'37-
330 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
ions of the King my Master. ... It is incontestable, that
the lands situated along the Beautiful River, belong to his
Most Christian Majesty 1 . . . .
"Sir, if you come into this place charged with orders, I
summon you in the name of the King my Master, by virtue
of orders which I have from my General, to retreat peace-
ably your Troops from off the Lands of the King, or else I
find myself obliged to fulfill my duty ... in that case, Sir,
you may be persuaded that I will give orders, that there
shall be no damage done to my Detachment. " 2
Contrecoeur immediately set to work, built a stockade at the
Forks of the Ohio and called it Fort Duquesne (the present
Pittsburgh). But Washington had now got started with
his men on the way to the Forks. In the meantime, Contre-
coeur had sent out Coulon de Jumonville, with thirty men, to
bear summons to any English he might find in the valley,
warning them to retire from French territory. Jumonville's
instructions 3 as to the manner of procedure, in case he obtained
knowledge of any movements of the Englishmen on the do-
mains of the King, were as follows:
"We command that in that case he send us two good legs
[a runner] to inform us of what he has learned, of the day
on which he expects to serve the summons, and, as soon as
made, to make all haste to bring us the reply.
"If the sieur de Jumonville should hear that the English
are on the other side of the high mountain range [Alleghenies],
he shall not cross the height of the lands, not wishing to
disturb them and wishing to maintain the harmony which
prevails between the two crowns. ... 23 May, 1754".
An Indian guide led Washington to a glen, where two
Frenchmen had been tracked. On the morning of the 28th
of May, 1754, Washington and his men fell upon the camp
of Jumonville. The French, taken by surprise, cried: "To
arms!" Washington commanded fire. Jumonville and
eight men fell. One man escaped and brought the news
of the fatal attack to Fort Duquesne. Washington retreat-
ed to Great Meadows, where he received reenforcements.
1 Title of the King of France.
2 N- T. Col. Dcs., VI., p. 841.
3 Villiers Du Terrage, op. cit., p. 60.
OK THE PLAIHS OF ABRAHAM 331
Coulon de Villiers, a brother of Jumonville, advanced from
Fort Duquesne with five hundred men and eleven guides.
Washington hurriedly threw up breastworks, which he
called Fort Necessity. The French surrounded him on the
28th of June, and after several days of fighting, in which
the French had seventeen casualties and the English one
hundred and fifty, Washington signed the articles of capitu-
lation on the 3rd day of July, 1754:
"This 3rd day of July, at 8 o'clock in the evening.
"Since it has never been our intention to disturb the
peace and the good harmony which exists between the two
prince friends, but only to avenge the assassination which
has been perpetrated upon one of our officers, bearer of a
summons and his escort, and as also to prevent any estab-
lishment on the lands of the King my master.
"In view of these considerations, we do not object to
grant pardon to all the English who are in the fort under
the conditions as follows," etc.
Article VII of the terms of capitulation reads: "That
since the English have in their power one officer, two petty
officers and in general the prisoners whom they took from
us in the assassination [dans Vassassinat] of sieur de Jumon-
ville, and since they promise to send them under escort as
far as Fort Duquesne, situated on the Beautiful River, and
that as guarantee of this article and this treaty, Mrs Jacob
Vambram and Robert Stobo, both captains, shall be sur-
rendered to us as hostages until the arrival of our French
and Canadians afore-mentioned' 1 etc.
"Done in duplicate in one of the posts of our blockade,
the day and year above-mentioned
"Signed James Mackay, Go Washington, Coulon Villier." 1
Washington surrendered July 4, 1754.
Coulon de Villiers had granted him and his men the honors
of war; they marched out, drums beating.
"The unfortunate articles of capitulation 11 , as Winsor 2
calls them, have been and are still a subject of animated dis-
cussion between French and American historians.
^'G. Roy, Rapport de V archiviste de la Province de Quebec (19224923), p. 342. One of
the original copies of the Articles is preserved in the Archives of Montreal.
2 Winsor, op. n't., V. 12.
332 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
The prelude to the articles speaks of "U assassin — mur-
dering — of one of our officers". Some historians maintain that,
since these articles were formulated in French, which Wash-
ington did not understand, they should not be construed as
admitting his mistake. To this the French reply that he
had a German, named De Brahm, 1 among his troops, and that
Brahm acted as his interpreter.
A reasonable explanation might be that both sides were
surprised. The French certainly were, and called: "To
arms!" Washington hearing the French cry: "To arms!"
gave orders to shoot. Washington was still a young man
and had not yet acquired the sangfroid of a veteran fighter.
His whole life is so replete with honor that it must be sup-
posed, he would not have wilfully fired upon a "bearer of a
summons", at a time when the two countries were at peace.
Perhaps the version of William Wood gives a plausible
explanation. "Nine hours of desultory firing in a down-
pour of rain convinced Washington that his men could not
hold out against such a superior force, and he sent Captain
Van Braam to arrange terms in reply to the summons of de
Villiers. Van Braam, in reading aloud the French articles
in English, without a good knowledge of either language,
translated Tassassinat du Sieur de jumonvilW as 'the death
of Sieur de Jumonville, 1 and Washington, who was listen-
ing on the other side of the sputtering candle, accepted the
terms as he then understood them. The next day, July 4,
1754, Washington marched out with the honors of war,
leaving Van Braam and Stobo as hostages, for the due re-
turn to Fort Duquesne of the French prisoners taken when
de Jumonville was killed." 2
The Indians began more and more to resent the intrusion
of the whites, still the strength of the whites compelled them
to take sides, and thus the savages were drawn into the quarrel.
"The Indians, therefore," writes Wood, "chose what appeared
to them to be the lesser evil for the time being. Both white
races accused them of treachery. But they simply fought
for their own interests, just as the dominant whites did for
theirs.
l De Brahm, Vambram, J. V, Braam — all variations of the same name.
*Wood in Canada and Its Provinces, I., pp. 235'237-
OK THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM 333
"In making up their minds the Indians looked at the three
main chances which always affected them — which race was
the more congenial, which was the better one to trade with,
and which one was going to win.
"The first question was almost invariably answered in
favour of the French. Partly because of their pleasanter
manners, partly because of their greater adaptability, and
partly because of their very failure to grow as a colonizing
power, the French, nearly always proved the more natur-
ally attractive to the Indian. . . . The American colonists,
on the other hand, were nearly always uncongenial. They
were an expanding race of farmers, uprooting and destroy-
ing the Indians like weeds wherever they went. One of
their pioneers was soon followed by a dozen, and these by
a hundred, and so on, till the red man was completely dis-.
placed.
"Decidedly, the French were the more congenial to the
Indians. But which was the better race to trade with? Both
French and British cheated as a rule, and both were, of course,
entirely devoid of conscience about the liquor traffic. . . .
Owing to various causes, of which congeniality was always
the principal, the Indians, who knew nothing of the out-
side world, were generally inclined to believe more in French
than in British prowess, especially as the French understood
so much better how to make the greatest show of whatever
force they had. So in this, as in other questions, the bulk
of the Indians threw in their lot against the British and with
the French." 1
Parkman admits the above facts and enumerates some
of the causes of this lack of harmonious understanding be-
tween the English colonists and the savages. "The annual
present", he writes, "sent from England to the Iroquois was
often embezzled by corrupt governors or their favorites. " 2
The Indian chiefs were vain, loved display and grandiose
speeches, wanted to be feasted with all their men, women
and children, liked to visit with the commandant or Gover-
nor at the latter's or the government's expense, and to the
wearisome disgust of the officer, who had to smile, and smoke,
and speech through all this lengthy social function. It was
x Wood, in Canada and Its Provinces, I., p. 235.
2 Francis Parkman, Conspiracy of Pontiac, I., p. 74.
334 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
boresome, but, in modern parlance, it meant good business
if judiciously performed.
The French, in their eagerness to gain the good will of
the savages for their own cause, met them more than half
way; they studied their language, flattered their prejudices,
and were very careful not to ruffle their dignity or insult
their ancient customs.
Edouard Richard tersely characterises the English and the
French in this way: "The Frenchman's first thought was,
fc How shall I win the Indian's heart? 1 The Englishman's main
question was, or seems to have been, 'How shall I make that
d — d redskin respect me?' "*
It is a fact that all through the French regime, the actu-
ating principle of the policy of the French, or, at least the
theoretical policy of the government, towards the savages,
was in striking contrast to that pursued in other colonies.
The charter granted by Richelieu to the Company of the
Hundred Associates stipulated that if any savage, after
having been received into the Catholic Church, desired to
live in France, he had the rights of citizenship at once, with-
out any letter of naturalisation. 2
The French officers and commandants showed the same
kind of regardful courtesy to the savages in America. Writes
Parkman :
"When a party of Indian chiefs visited a French fort,
they were greeted with the firing of cannon and rolling of
drums; they were regaled at the tables of the officers, and
bribed with medals and decorations, scarlet uniforms and
French flags. . . . Complaisance was tempered with dig-
nity . . . they clearly saw that while on the one hand it
was necessary to avoid giving offence, it was not less nec-
essary on the other to assume bold demeanor and a show
of power; to caress with one hand, and grasp a drawn sword
with the other". 3
The English were perhaps more business-like, but they
were less supple, less willing to sit through those long In-
dian ceremonials, which certainly were not a pleasure, nei-
^douard Richard, op. cit., I., p. 316.
2 Canada and Its Provinces, XV., p. 24. See also G. Goyau, Les Origines religieuses du
Canada, XXXIII.
3 Parkman, Conspiracy of Pontiac, I., pp. 74'76.
OH THE PLAIHS OF ABRAHAM 335
ther to French nor English officers. "The proud chiefs",
says Parkman, "were disgusted by the cold and haughty
bearing of the English officials, and a pernicious custom pre-
vailed of conducting Indian negotiations through the medium
of the fur- traders, a class of men held in contempt by the
Iroquois, and known among them by the significant title
of fc rum carriers\ With more or less emphasis, the same
remark holds true of all the other English colonies . . . . ,n
Many of those early colonists were a rather rough lot.
William Newnham Blane, who traveled through the Amer-
ican colonies much later, gives an opinion of the English
backwoodsman, which is not at all flattering. Speaking of
the settlers at Albion, Illinois, he writes that they are "very
much degenerated; for they have copied all the vices of the
Backwoodsmen . . . drinking, fighting . . . and, when fight-
ing, 'gouging' and biting. In England, if two men quarrel,
they settle their dispute by what is called c a stand up fight'.
The by-standers form a ring, and even if one of the combat-
ants wish it, he is not permitted to strike his fallen antago-
nist. This is a manly, honourable custom. . . . But fighting
in the Backwoods is conducted upon a plan, which is only
worthy of the most ferocious savages. The object of each
combatant is ... to 'gouge' the other, that is, to poke his
eye out, or else get his nose or ear into his mouth and bite
it off. . . . Until I went into the Backwoods, I could never
credit the existence of such savage mode of fighting". 2
This type of frontier settlers, "rude, fierce and contemp-
tuous", was not inclined to respect the rights of the sava-
ges, but drove the Indians from their hunting grounds "with
curses and threats", as though they had no rights whatsoever.
The French, on the other hand, were more considerate,
and tried to help the savage along, stabilise him, and teach
him the arts of civilization. Thus, for instance, the Jesuit
Fathers gathered the Indians together at Sillery, and later
transplanted them to Ste Foy 3 , and finally to Loretteville,
where their village can be seen to this day. All in all, there
Parkman, op. cit., pp. 74'76.
2 Quaife, Pictures of Illinois One Hundred Tears Ago, p. 49.
3 H. A. Scott, Histoire de Ste Foy, pp. 45, ff.
336 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
were many reasons why the savage disliked the Frenchman
less than the frontier English settler.
The stage was set for another war. In numbers the two
colonies were very unequal, the British having a population
of more than a million to the sixty thousand French. 1 Both
^here were many reasons why the French population of Canada was so far below the
number of the British in the American colonies along the Atlantic seaboard. The main
reason was the total lack of understanding of the importance of the colonies and the conse'
quent lack of interest in them since the days of Louis XIV and Colbert. Voltaire gave ex'
pression to this ignorance of actual conditions when with his witty flippancy he spoke of
Canada as "a few acres of snow." But France made an economic mistake long before this
when she refused to admit the Huguenots to her American colonies. For the proper
understanding of this phase of our history it is necessary to revert to the religious wars in
France and to the Edict of Nantes.
To understand the Edict of Nantes it must be remembered that, as the sense of national
power rose in the sixteenth century, rulers adopted the false principle that only one religion, and
that the religion of the ruling prince, should be tolerated in each state and that the subjects
were bound to take the religion of the governing prince, according to the adage : Cujus regio
ejus religio. This obtained in Holland, where Catholic worship was absolutely forbidden, in
Germany after the Peace of Augsburg, and in England, where those Protestants, who differed
or dissented from the Established Church, were forced to seek religious liberty in America,
where they in turn applied the same principles of intolerance to those who differed from them.
The Protestants in France were known as Huguenots, probably from their connection with
Geneva, where a group, known as Eidgenots (Eidgenossen), who opposed the duke of Savoy,
became designated as Huguenots from one of their leaders, Besanzon Hugues.
After much argument and excesses on both sides, religious peace was reestablished in
France by the Edict of Nantes in 1598. By virtue of this edict, Catholic worship was again
established wherever it had been abolished by the Huguenots and, on the other hand, the
Huguenots received full freedom of conscience and a large measure of freedom of worship.
Strongholds, which the Huguenots had captured, were left in their hands. In the course
of time the Huguenots made common cause with the domestic enemies of the State. Richc
lieu, while respecting their religious liberty, decided to put an end to their political power.
Rohan and Soubise, Huguenot leaders, effected an uprising in the South of France and made
an alliance with England against the King of France.
England sent a fleet of ninety vessels manned by 10,000 men to La Rochelle, July, 1627-
Richelieu and the King laid siege to La Rochelle, drove off the English fleet and captured the
Huguenot stronghold. Thereafter Richelieu refused to permit Huguenots to settle in New
France, saying he had enough trouble with them at home without sending them to Canada.
Louis XIV in the course of time curtailed the civil rights enjoyed by the Huguenots and in
1685 revoked the Edict of Nantes, motivated by his ideas of over-centralized government with
an admixture of the false principle stated above, that the subjects follow the religion of the
Ruler.
Having been excluded from public service the Huguenots had become manufacturers, mer'
chants and farmers. Although the regrettable decree revoking the Edict of Nantes strictly
forbade them to leave the country, a strong movement of emigration set in at once. Vauban,
who strongly opposed the revocation of that Edict, wrote: "Revocation brought about the
desertion of 100,000 Frenchmen, the exportation of 60,000,000 livres, the ruin of commerce;
5«;i
' f i" ** *
FORT KASKASKIA— 1759
From Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society
OK THE PLAIHS OF ABRAHAM 337
colonies would be backed up by their respective mother coun-
tries. "Roughly, it may be said," writes the military critic
Wood, "that as the French army was twice as strong as the
British would ultimately make theirs, so the British navy was
at least twice as strong as was the French at the start. "
Of the ruling powers in the mother countries the same
author writes: "Not that the British government of 1756
was a good one, not that it was by any means free from cor-
ruption . . .; but that the French were decidedly worse. ' n
Madame de Pompadour was in power and changed Min-
isters to suit her whims; there were four Ministers of For-
eign Affairs during the period of the Seven Years 1 War, and
other portfolios suffered a similar fate at the behest of an
ambitious woman, 2 who, with Du Barry, contributed so large-
ly to discredit the reign of the phlegmatic, indolent, pleas-
ure-loving Louis XV. "What would life be worth without
coffee?" he drawled out one day. And he sleepily added:
"But then, what is it worth even with coffee?" 3 There you
have Louis XV — filled up with the pleasures of life, blase
and bored to death.
enemies' fleets were reinforced by 9,000 sailors . . . and foreign armies by 600 officers and 1,200
men, more inured to war than their own.'"
All this valuable emigration was lost to New France. Many went to England. 'Tour'
ing their eager multitudes into England," writes Arthur Henry Hirsch in The Huguenots
of South Carolina, p. 166, "the French Protestants were thereby at the same time enriching
and empoverishing their welcome hostess; enriching her by their genius and skill, impover'
ishing her by displacing English labor, by sapping the poor fund of its accumulations. . . .
The problem, then, of Great Britain was how to keep these efficient folk and at the same time
rid herself of them. The answer was found in one word: colonization. . . . Great Britain's
motive in sending the Huguenots to South Carolina was a mixture of Christian benevolence
and economic shrewdness. ..."
"Thousands of families settled at various convenient points along the Atlantic coast.
South Carolina was one of their most favored retreats and became known as the home of the
Huguenots in America. In this province they made eight settlements, six in and about
Charles Town. . . . " — Ibid, p. 3. See also F. X. Funk, Manual of Church History, II.,
pp. 126431; Catholic Encyclopedia, VII., pp. 527-537-
1 Wood, in Canada and Its Provinces, I., p. 246.
2 "Poor France!" exclaims Richard, "In order to retain a firm hold of your sceptre, you
had invented the Salic Law [the rule excluding women from the throne in France]. You
would not be governed by queens, and you have been ruled by harlots. You were rich and
honored; those women squandered your coins and your honor. What havoc the wit of
your madcaps has wrought in you?" Richard refers to Voltaire and Rousseau, op. cit., I., p. 18.
3 Clara E. Laughlin, So You re Going to Paris, p. 265. See also Rochemonteix, op. cit., pp. 80, ff.
338 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had settled no difficulties
between the governments of Europe; they had prepared
for eight years, each hoping to be more successful in the next
clash. There were enough explosives in the chancelleries
of Europe, and it needed only a spark to set them off. This
spark was furnished by Washington's attack on Jumon-
ville. "Rash or otherwise," observes Winsor, 1 "this onset
of the youthful Washington began the war. . . . When
Major-General Braddock and his two regiments sailed from
England for Virginia, and the Baron Dieskau and an army . . .
sailed for Quebec, the diplomats of the two crowns bowed
across the Channel, and protested to each other it all meant
nothing." But armies once mobilised cannot easily be checked,
and the struggle known as the Seven Years' War, or, the
French and Indian War, was on. It was the Grande Lutte,
the Final Struggle between France and England, for the pos-
session of America (1756-1763).
In December, 1754, Croghan 2 , a noted Indian Trader, inform-
ed Governor Morris that the Ohio Indians were ready to aid
the English. The following year, Kerlerec, Governor of
Louisiana, wrote to the Minister: "In case of war, I am simply
forced to call in the savages, but that means does not strongly
appeal to me, although the English pay a premium to the Cher-
okee for the scalps of the French. . . ." 3
Winsor, op. cit., V., pp. 493495.
2 "George Croghan came to Pennsylvania from Ireland in 1741, and entered the Indian
trade. He was the first of Pennsylvania traders to penetrate the Northwest, and soon was
regarded as having great influence among the Indians in that region, and was employed by
Pennsylvania in her negotiations with the natives. ... By 1755, George Croghan and William
Trent, with whom he was in partnership, were in financial difficulties, but were relieved
from the pressure by the generosity of their creditors. Shortly after Sir William Johnson
was appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs, he made Croghan his deputy. The latter
held this position for a number of years. At the outbreak of the Revolution he appears to
have sided with the colonists, but later was subject to suspicion and, in 1778, he was declared
a public enemy by Pennsylvania." Clarence W. Alvord & Clarence E. Carter, The Critical
Period, p. 221.
3 Villiers du Terrage, op. cit., p. 70.
May 14, 1756, Governor Charles Lawrence of Nova Scotia issued the following proclama'
tion: "We do hereby promise a reward of thirty pounds for every male Indian prisoner above
the age of sixteen years brought in alive; for a scalp of such male Indian twenty 'five pounds,
and twenty 'five pounds for every Indian woman or child brought in alive. " Quoted in
Richard, op. cit., II., p. 260.
OH THE PLAIHS OF ABRAHAM 339
And so French and English called in the savages to fight
their battles against white men. Le Page du Prats says
somewhere that the Indian was at first not a bad neighbor
to the white man, but abuse by the white man made him
a dreaded and treacherous enemy. The Indians were, above
all, opportunists, ever ready to receive presents, whether
given by French or English. Before the coming of the Eu-
ropeans they had at least been self-supporting. The pres-
ents and trading with the whites made them economically
dependent. All in all, they fought the battles of the one
who gave them most presents, the most merchandise and
bullets, and the most rum or brandy for their beaver skins.
Some clearer heads among the savages began to see that
the encroachment of the whites meant banishment of their
tribes; that cultivated fields meant, for the Indians, search
for new hunting grounds; that, after all, they were the real
owners of the land. At a conference of the Commissioners
of the seven colonies with the chiefs of the Iroquois, held
at Albany at the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, "Hen-
drick, the famous sachem of the Mohawks, spoke the Indian
mind with unpalatable plainness and truth. Taking a stick
and throwing it over his shoulder he said: 'This is the way
you have thrown us behind you. . . . The Governor of
Virginia and the Governor of Canada are quarreling about
lands which really belong to us, and their quarrel may end
in our destruction. 1 " ]
It is entirely beyond the scope of this volume to follow
the interesting campaigns of the French and Indian War,
the two years of French successes, the turning of the tide,
and to note how fort after fort and city after city fell into
the hands of the British.
England and Prussia were the allies against France and
Austria. In Europe it was well-nigh a single-handed fight
between Austria, under Maria Theresa, and Frederic II, who
led the armies of Prussia. The European result of the Seven
Years 1 War was that Frederic had strengthened the posi-
tion of Prussia as a great power. Neither Prussia nor Aus-
tria entered the colonial phase of the Seven Years' War. In
America it was the great final struggle fought out between
1 Wood in Canada and Its Provinces, I., p. 238.
340 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
England and France, both using the savages, but without
any aid from any other European country, except Spain,
which came in so late that its entry had no material effect
on the outcome of the struggle. Louisiana was at no time
drawn directly into the war, but the Illinois country played
an important role because of its man-power and the large quan-
tity of supplies furnished to New France.
The Illinois district furnished food supplies: grain, flour,
and meat to the French garrisons at Detroit, Miami, Ouia-
tanon and Fort Dusquesne. Dumas, the Commandant of
Fort Duquesne, asked for 120,000 hundredweight of flour
and 40,000 hundredweight of pork. In the spring of 1757,
Makarty sent Captain Coulon de Villiers 1 to Fort Duquesne
with as large a quantity of provisions as he could gather.
These voyages were long, tedious and dangerous. The convoys
were obliged to descend the Mississippi to the mouth of
the Ohio, and then ascend that river for a distance of a thou-
sand miles, continually laboring against the stream. Then
there were the Falls of the Ohio, where Louisville now stands;
there were no settlements, or practically none, along its shores;
and there was the constant danger of ambuscades.
Trade followed the streams, and all commerce with New
Orleans was by row boat. So also, a few years later, the
commerce between the Illinois country and Pittsburgh was
carried on by large row boats, known as bateaus (bateaux).
An estimate made by Baynton, Wharton & Morgan,
merchants of Philadelphia, in 1767, gives a good idea of the
cost of transportation in those early days. "It will require
at least forty five Batteaus, Annually, to be built at Pitts-
burgh, to transport the Provisions, Which Batteaus are
all made of green Timber and will not last longer than One
Summer; But admitting They would — The Expence of sending
Them against Stream to Fort Pitt, would be more than their
Cost; . . . Batteau costs at Fort Pitt L 55 2 — 5 Men to navi-
gate each Batteau at 4 L per month for 4 Months, . . . L80." 3
1 Villiers du Terrage, op. cit., p. 85. There were seven brothers Coulon, six of whom
were killed fighting the British.
2 55 Pounds Pennsylvania currency.
3 Alvord and Carter, The T^ew Regime, pp. 476477- "/^ pint of Rum per Day was
allowed to each Man, also 1 Pound of Flour and 1 Pound of Beef." Ibid
OH THE PLAIHS OF ABRAHAM 341
December 23, 1757, Kerlerec reported to the Minister on
the afore-mentioned convoy, conducted by Coulon de Vil-
Hers: "Monseigneur, I have the honor to report to you that
the chevalier de Villiers, captain of infantry in the service
of this colony attached to the post of the Illinois, and whom
I had sent to convoy the relief and supplies which M. de
Makarty sent last spring to M. Dumas, commandant at fort
Duquesne, performed his duty with all possible prudence
and distinction/ ' Kerlerec then tells that the season was
not favorable for Vipers' returning to the Illinois imme-
diately and that, therefore, he desired to fight the English
for the twofold purpose of sharing in the glory of the arms
of the King and of avenging the death of his brother, "who
was assassinated by the English." 1
De Villiers 1 attempt to avenge his brother's death a second
time was at first not successful. However, July 13, 1757, he set
out again with 22 Frenchmen for the village of Attique (Kittan
ing), where he picked up 32 Indians to attack the fort of George
Croghan, a bitter opponent of the French. The guide lost
his way, and landed at Fort Granville instead. Fire was
exchanged from noon till darkness set in; during the night
Villiers managed to pile four cords of wood against one of
the bastions, which was then set on fire. The next morn-
ing he prepared for a bayonet attack, but, since the Com-
mandant of the fort, two officers, and six soldiers had been
killed, the rest surrendered at discretion. Kerlerec stresses
the moderation of Villiers. There were thirty soldiers,
three women and seven children in the fort. The Indians
craved to burn some of the soldiers, which Villiers pre-
vented. Thirty-three of these prisoners were sent to Fort
de Chartres, of whom 32 arrived. Only one prisoner, a ser-
geant, was killed by the savages. Bossu, who was then sta-
tioned at Fort de Chartres, relates that the French ransomed
the prisoners from the Indians and sent them to New Or-
leans, where they arrived in the month of December, 1758. 2
Because of relief and foodstuffs sent to Fort Duquesne
in 1757, the expenditures of Fort de Chartres, for a period
of 8 months, amounted to 582,455 livres. 3
1 Villiers du Terrage, op. cit., p. 85. This was Coulon de Villiers' second encounter
with the English. See p. 331, ante.
2 Ibid., p. 87.
3 lbid. t p. 102.
342 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Some time during 1757, Makarty received word through
the Indians that the English were planning an expedition
against the Ohio, and hastened to build the Fort de l'As-
cension (Fort Massac 1 at the present Metropolis, Illinois,
near the junction of the Cherokee with the Ohio). Verges,
the government engineer, had ordered the construction of
this fort the preceding year, but the building was delayed
for want of funds. Makarty describes it as follows: "It is
a square flanked with four bastions with a curtain [encein-
te] of two rows of tree trunks [pieux] joined and set against
a banquette inside. ... It is strong enough to hold out
against the savages, but not against the English. The walls
should really be of masonry and the fort should have at its
disposal two armed bateaux to prevent the enemy from pass-
ing during the night. . . ," 2
Fear of an attack by the British produced another French
stronghold in the Illinois country — Fort Kaskaskia. "There
had been for years," writes Alvord, "a palisade fort in Kaskas-
kia, but it was only a protection against the Indians. In 1759
the inhabitants became apprehensive at the successes of the
British in the east, and fearing the near approach of the ene-
my, petitioned the commandant for a fort, offering to pro-
vide the materials. With this understanding a strong pali-
sade fort was constructed on the bluffs across from the vil-
lage, where the outlines of the earthworks may still be
traced." 3
J. F. Snyder 4 gives the following description of Fort Kas-
kaskia: "At each of its four corners was a blockhouse bas-
tion — the two of its eastern side larger than those on the
west — connected by lines of high embanked pickets. On
each side of the western gate were the officers' quarters,
and the cazernes, or soldiers' barracks, including the corps
Makarty sent M. Aubry with one hundred and fifty French and one hundred savages to
build this fort. In 1758 the Marquis de Massiac became Secretary of the Marine. The
Department of the Marine was in charge of New France and Louisiana. Evidently Fort
de r Ascension was later renamed Fort Massiac, in honor of the Secretary of the Marine.
P-G. Roy.
2 Villiers, op. at., p. 79.
3 Alvord, Centennial History of Illinois, I., p. 237-
journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol 6, No. 1, April, 1913, p. 63.
According to Pittman, Fort Kaskaskia was burnt down in October, 1766.
OH THE PLADiS OF ABRAHAM 343
de garde, or guard house, correspondingly flanked the east-
ern gate. The main store house was situated along the south-
ern line of pickets, near the southwestern angle; and in
a similar position near the northwestern angle was the pow-
der magazine built of stone. From the western gate the
chemin au prame, road to the boat landing or ferry, led down
the precipitous face of the bluff to the Kaskaskia river/ '
In November 1758, Ligneris, the Commandant of Fort
Duquesne, was forced to fall back on Fort Machault, and,
after burning Fort Duquesne, he sent the artillery to Fort de
Chartres. Makarty, on his part, reports that he was greatly
astounded to see the artillery of Fort Duquesne arrive, and
that the Cherokees had attacked the convoy and killed two
men and wounded three others.
August 30, 1759, Makarty notified Kerlerec that Niagara
had been captured by Johnson. With Duquesne and Niagara in
the hands of the British, the communication between Loui-
siana and Canada was cut. Makarty severely censures the
management of the defense of Niagara.
In the month of December, 1759, the rumor spread that
the English would invade Louisiana from the north. Jan-
uary 2, 1760, Kerlerec called a council to fortify New Orleans.
About the middle of June, 1760, Kerlerec was obliged to
go to Mobile, which was blockaded by an English frigate.
Before leaving for Mobile he sent word to Makarty to come
down to New Orleans to take charge of the colony during
his absence. Neyon de Villiers, brother-in-law of Kerlerec,
who had been designated in 1757 for the majority of the
Illinois, but had never received official letters of appoint-
ment, departed to take his place.
November 23, 1760, Beletre, the former Commandant at De-
troit, reported to the Commandant at Fort de Chartres, Neyon
de Villiers, that he had been forced to surrender; that the
English intended to attack Fort de Chartres that spring,
and that they had constructed a fort at the Falls of the Ohio
(Louisville). The surrender by France, he added, had had
a bad effect upon the savages, who said that "the French
had become the slaves of the English. "
Kerlerec states that "these posts [Illinois], not being in-
cluded in the surrender, they could have kept the English
344 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
busy at least that summer." Kerlerec also states that he
forwarded to Neyon de Villiers all that he could spare in
ammunition and merchandise, and hopes the convoy will
reach him by April 10, 1761. The sieur Bellnos, who ac-
companied this convoy, made the trip to Fort de Chartres
and return in 67 days. His party feared they might be inter-
cepted by the English if the latter could come down the
Wabash on an early rise of that river. 1
The Grande Lutte between France and England was
fought out along the Ohio, on the Great Lakes, along Lake
George and Lake Champlain, along the St. Lawrence, at
Louisbourg in Acadia — and this hard-fought final struggle
climaxed at Quebec, September 13, 1759, between the armies
of Wolfe 2 and Montcalm. In the back-country, in the Illinois
and in Louisiana, it was only the belated reports, the echoes
of victories and defeats, that aroused corresponding senti-
ments in the hearts of commandants, officers, soldiers, and
people.
Every child knows the fascinating story of the battle of
the Plains of Abraham. 3 Wolfe's army scaling the rocks near
Quebec, and Montcalm, finding the British Red Coats in
line on the Plains in the morning; both Generals mor-
1 Villiers, op. cit., pp. 1164 18. Sixty seven days was considered record time.
2 It is related that on one occasion an older general remarked to the King that Wolfe was
mad. "Mad is he?" retorted the King, "Well, I only hope he bites some of my generals!"
James Wolfe is described as a lanky, awkward, ungainly figure measuring six feet three
inches in height and crowned with red hair. Even after Pitt, the British Prime Minister, had
entrusted the siege of Quebec to Wolfe he is said to have exclaimed after a dinner given in
his honor: "Good God! that I should have entrusted the fate of the country and of the ad'
ministration to such hands."
Wolfe was of a weakly constitution, being afflicted with tuberculosis of the kidney, but
his mettle is clear from a remark he made to his surgeon only a few days before his victorious
death on the Plains of Abraham: "I know perfectly well you cannot cure my complaint;
but patch me up so that I may be able to do my duty for the next few days, and I shall be
content." W. T. Waugh, M. A., James Wolfe, Man and Soldier, p. 265.
3 " Abraham Martin (nicknamed VEcossais, the Scotchman), was born in 1589; he came
to Canada in 1614. In the previous year, he had married Marguerite Langlois; but it is
not known whether she came with him, or later. His family lived with him after 1620,
and they were among the few French colonists who remained in Quebec after its surrender
to the English in 1628. Martin was for many years an engage of the Hundred Associates,
who granted him lands on the heights of Quebec, afterwards known as the 'Plains of A bra'
ham.' In 1647, he is mentioned as royal pilot. He died in September, 1664, leaving a numer'
ous family; one of his daughters married the explorer De Grosseiliers," Thwaites, Jesuit
Relations, XXXII., note 12.
OH THE PLAIHS OF ABRAHAM 3 45
tally wounded. Wolfe hears the cry: "They run!" The
blood streaming from his wounds, he feebly asks : "Who runs? 11
"The French, 11 is the reply. "Thank God, I die in peace 11
are the last words of the great General. Montcalm, trying
to rally his fleeing troops, is mortally wounded. He is taken
to Quebec, and on hearing that his wounds are fatal, he sighs :
"So much the better, I shall not see the British in Quebec, 11
and he died the next morning.
Many who have stood on the Plains of Abraham as they
are today, who have surveyed the field of battle and ex-
amined the place where the British scaled the rocks, wonder
how it happened that Montcalm did not prevent the British
from ascending the cliffs.
Colonel William Wood, F. R. S. C, a military critic and
writer of military history, brings to light the following highly
interesting facts:
"On the very eve of 1759 the despairing Montcalm wrote
home: 'The fortifications are so ridiculous and so bad that
they would be taken as soon as attacked. 1 'What a country, 1
as he constantly wrote home in private letters, 'what a coun-
try, where rogues grow rich and honest men are ruined. 1 '
Wood then sets forth that "the source of all decisive strength
in that war was in the warring mother countries, not in
America. 11 Consequently, that mother country, "whose
sea-power could make the Atlantic a good road for its own
ships, but a bad one for its enemy's, was certain to win in
the end. . . ." The old weakness of the system of govern-
ment showed up again; the overlapping powers of Governor
and Intendant, and, in this case, of Commander-in-Chief of
the armies. "Montcalm's own military position, difficult
at first, became impossible as time went on. He would have
gladly resigned on several occasions; and it was only the
highest sense of duty to a ruined cause that prevented him
from going home after VaudreuilV contemptible pro-
l French and French Canadian writers are bitter in their denunciation of Vaudreuil and Big'
ot. Casgrain writes: "Great and small trembled before those arrogant and imperious masters
(Bigot, Deschenaux, his secretary, and Pean, major of the troops); Vaudreuil himself, the weak
and debonair Governor, had neither enough sense to understand the full extent of the evil,
nor enough will power to check it. Without directly participating in the frauds, he seemed
to be in connivance, because he shielded them with his silence and with his name."
Rochemonteix adds: "That narrowness of mind explains, if it does not excuse, his per'
petual jealousy (jalousie perpetuelle), his touchiness, and his childish vanity." Regarding
346 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
ceedings in 1758 — proceedings which followed Montcalm's
victory at Carillon, that is, Ticonderoga." Vaudreuil
was interferingly present as usual; he would not let Mont-
calm have the militia that was available; he issued ambig-
uous orders to confuse the General, and ended by sending
reenforcements when they were no longer needed.
"Vaudreuil, the Governor, was (in every possible mili-
tary way) a vain and fussy fool, wholly incompetent to con-
duct a campaign himself, but intensely jealous of Mont-
calm, bent on thwarting him at every turn, and, though
personally honest, equally bent on letting the absolutely
corrupt and corrupting Intendant Bigot have a perfectly
free hand. Now, Bigot practically controlled all the supply
and transport services of all the forces in New France. . . .
Vaudreuil, a French Canadian born, set French and French
Canadians by the ears; while Bigot, who was French-of-
France by birth, was quite impartial as to whom he robbed,
traduced, supported, or divided — always supposing that
the profits came to him. . . . Vaudreuil the fool and Bigot
the knave were interferingly present all through. . . . Mont-
calm, on the 12th [September 1759], ordered French regulars
to camp at Wolfe's Cove itself . . . Vaudreuil gave counter-
orders . . . quite angrily and accompanied by the historic
imbecility that 'those English haven't got wings — Fll see
about it myself to-morrow.' 1 Vaudreuil's to-morrow never
came. ... As Wolfe's right seemed not yet formed, Mont-
calm attacked, with the result we know. He was thwarted
by his own side to the very last. There were twenty-five
field guns available. But he was only allowed the use of
three. And so the tale goes on." 2
the relation of Vaudreuil to Montcalm, Casgrain says that Vaudreuil's character was not
of the kind that would back up Montcalm and aid him in the operations of his army.
Desandrouins is perhaps severest of all in his condemnation of Vaudreuil when he writes:
"He lays down the law to him [Montcalm] like to a schoolboy. ... He consults him only
to follow the advice of another, he makes one break after another.'" Quoted in Rochemon'
teix, Lesjesuites au XVIIIe Siecle, II., pp. 127-128.
x The next morning, the day of the great Battle of the Plains, September 13, 1759, when
Montcalm saw the British redcoats on the heights between Ste-Foy and Quebec, he exclaimed
in disgust: "There they are where they have no right to be!"
2 William Wood, Unique Quebec, in the Centenary Volume, 1824-1924, pp. 55-79. See
also, Canada and Its Provinces, I., pp. 264-267-
OK THE PLAIHS OF ABRAHAM 347
Wood observes: "It should not be necessary to detract
from the honour or fame of either of these eminent men, in
the attempt to exalt the other: — let us more worthily con-
tinue to honor and esteem the Brave Dead, to whose memory
a joint monument has been erected at Quebec. 11 But he
calls Montcalm the "organiser, strategist, tactician, and ev-
ery unprejudiced soldier's beau ideal of what a fighting leader
ought to be 11 and "worthy of a place beside Lee himself and
Stonewall Jackson. . . ."
Wolfe and Montcalm have a common monument with
the following beautiful inscription:
MORTEM VIRTUS COMMUNEM
FAMAM HISTORIA
MONUMENTUM POSTERITAS
DEDIT
BRAVERY GAVE THEM A COMMON DEATH
HISTORY A COMMON FAME
POSTERITY GAVE THIS MONUMENT
Wood then suggests this inscription to be placed over
Montcalm's tomb in the Ursuline chapel at Quebec:
QUATRE FOIS VICTORIEUX
UNE FOIS VAINCU
TOUJOURS
AU GRAND HONNEUR
DES ARMES DE LA FRANCE
FOUR TIMES VICTORIOUS
VANQUISHED BUT ONCE
ALWAYS TO THE GREAT HONOUR
OF THE ARMS OF FRANCE
AFTER THE FALL OF QUEBEC—LEV IS" LAST
STATED— TREATIES OF FOKTAIKEBLEAU A?s[D
PARIS— BANISHMENT OF THE JESUITS
Quebec fell September 13, 1759, and with Quebec fell
the power of France in America. However, Marquis de Levis,
a brave French Canadian General, gathered the straggling rem-
nants of the French Canadian soldiers at Montreal and formed
them into a new army, in the hope of retaking Quebec from
the British. His men, some 9,000 of them, were a sorry
looking lot, half-starved, poorly clad, equipped with muzzle
loaders, and knives instead of bayonets, but they were brave
and patriotic.
Levis, with his army, left Montreal April 17, 1760, and
by April 28th was within a few miles of Quebec. His ap-
proach had been so rapid that Murray, the General in charge
of Quebec, did not have time to remove the ammunition he
had stored in the church of Ste Foy, and, therefore, blew
up the ammunition, church and all. The two armies met
west of Quebec on the Ste Foy Road, a mile from the field
where Wolfe and Montcalm had fought the year before.
Murray was beaten, and retreated to Quebec. Levis' attack
on Quebec proper, however, failed.
September 8, 1760, Montreal fell into the hands of the
British, and thus New France, discovered by Jacques Car-
tier in 1535, the Canada of Champlain, of Laval, of Fron-
tenac and Talon, the Canada so gallantly defended
by Montcalm, passed over to Great Britain. Detroit and
Michillimakinac were gradually occupied by the soldiers
of King George, but the Fleur-de-Lis still floated over Louis-
iana and Fort de Chartres.
The dissolute and wretched Louis XV, whose reign dis-
graced France for a period of fifty-nine years, took but little
interest in the colonies. 1 The age of Voltaire was cynical,
and men and women lived on in a fool's paradise and thought
themselves smart, and a flippant jest counted for more than
a battle won. So, when Choiseul wrote a letter to Vol-
x The first part of this chapter is drawn chiefly from Villiers du Terrage, Les Derniere
Annies de la Louisiane, pp. 150459.
348
AFTER THE FALL OF QUEBEC 349
taire, shortly after the capitulation of Montreal, he jest-
ingly remarked: "If you counted on us for your winter furs,
I wish to inform you that you must apply to England."
That was all he cared. The vices of the court of Louis XV
were copied by his Intendant, the arch-traducer of New
France, Francois Bigot 1 , and others. Nevertheless, the gov-
ernment instituted an investigation, and Bigot and nine
others, mostly his friends and accomplices, were condemned
to make restitution of 21,000,000 livres, and Bigot was sent to
the Bastille, all his property was confiscated, and he was
banished from France. But that did not give back Canada,
which his malpractices had helped to forfeit.
After the surrender of Montreal, September 8, 1760, it
was clear that France had definitely lost Canada; but in
Europe the Seven Years' War was still on. Choiseul, Prime
Minister of France, conceived the idea of making peace with
England in a rather peculiar way. He proposed a colonial
and maritime peace, that is, cessation of hostilities on the
seas and in the colonies, but continuation of the war on the
continent. But Choiseul was no match for Pitt, the Prime
Minister of England, who flatly refused to talk peace unless
that peace included cessation of hostilities on the continent.
Choiseul then proposed to surrender to England the con-
quests France had made in Hanover, in exchange for the lost
colonies. Like refusal on the part of Pitt! Thereupon,
February, 1761, France and Spain formed a treaty, known
as the Family Pact, according to the terms of which Spain
was to declare war on England if peace had not been con-
cluded within seven months (by August 15, 1761). With
the help of the Spanish fleet, Choiseul hoped to be in po-
1 According to Chapais, Francois Bigot belonged to a family of professional men. From
1739 to 1745 he was commisaire ordonnateur of Louisbourg, Cape Breton. Charges of dis'
honesty were brought against him. From 1748 till the Conquest he was Intendant of New
France. In 1754 Bigot sailed for France and wrote thus to Vergor, one of his accomplices:
"Profit by your place, my dear Vergor; clip and cut, — you are free to do what you please —
so that you can come soon to join me in France and buy an estate near me." "To make his
fortune as quickly as possible," writes Chapais, "that was his main objective. Craving for
pleasures, a gambler, dissolute, fastidious in his tastes and going to the most unbelievable
excess in his love of luxury, he had of necessity to make a great deal of money fast to taste
and exhaust the pleasures of life. With that he was intelligent, active, a worker when it
had to be, resourceful and clever, knew how to beat down obstacles and rendered real ser'
vice in difficult situations." Quoted in Henri D'Arles, op. cit., II., p. 263, note 2 and 3.
350 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
sition to cope with England. But the year 1762 was very
unfortunate for France and Spain — defeats in Germany and
Portugal, which countries they had tried to force into their
pact. Furthermore, they lost nearly all the West Indies and
a part of the Philippines. The peace parleys began anew.
Spain foresaw that France would ultimately cede the
east bank of the Mississippi to England. Now, Spain was
not at all anxious to see the British flag on the east bank of
the Mississippi and this river open to British merchandise
and contraband traffic.
Choiseul now offered New Orleans and the west bank of
the Mississippi to Spain. Thus the Treaty of Fontainebleau
came into existence. By the terms of this treaty, which
was signed November 3, 1762, France ceded to Spain New
Orleans and the west bank of the Mississippi, as a compen-
sation for Spain's part in the late war. Spain was not at
all enthusiastic over this gift. Wall, the Prime Minister
of Spain, wrote to the Spanish ambassador at Paris that he
considered it "a negative utility, that is to say, possessing
a country to keep another [England] from getting it." Charles
III, King of Spain, wrote: "Without the hope of some day
showing the same courtesy to France [of giving it back] I
would always have opposed the cession/ ' Spain was not
ready to take possession, and so the treaty was kept secret.
The Treaty of Paris, between England, France, and Spain,
which ceded the whole east bank of the Mississippi to Eng-
land, was signed February 10, 1763.
Article VI of the Treaty of Paris gave the inhabitants
eighteen months time to emigrate, and permitted them to
sell their property and their goods, provided they were sold
to subjects of His Britannic Majesty.
The Treaty speaks of "New Orleans and the island on
which it is situated" — a clear proof how little the makers of
the Treaty, even Choiseul and his colleagues, knew of the
geography of Louisiana.
In the meantime, England prepared to take possession
of Louisiana and the Illinois district. Major Robert Farmar
arrived at Mobile September 30, 1763. France, on her part,
sent M. d'Abbadie, Commissary-General of the navy, and
now appointed Controller of Louisiana, to New Orleans to
wind up the affairs of the King of France in that country,
AFTER THE FALL OF QUEBEC 351
and to transfer it to Spain at the proper time. M. cTAbbadie
arrived at New Or leas, June 29, 1763.
After all the misery, famine, and suffering — and defeat
in a war that had lasted seven years, New Orleans celebrated
the feast of St. Louis, July 24, 1763, as though nothing had
happened, with great pomp, for externals must be kept up;
21 cannon shots were fired for the feast of the King; 19, for
that of the Governor; 13, in honor of M. d'Abbadie; 13, for
M. de la Freniere; 9, for Makarty; 9, for the Council (Su-
perior); 9, for Mme de Kerlerec; 9, for Mme d'Abbadie; and
finally 21, in honor of the King. 1
The European background strongly reacts on America
during the interim, that is, during that period of time when
the Mississippi Valley was no longer French, while neither
England nor Spain had as yet taken actual possession of the
territories allotted to them. Louisiana and the Illinois were
a sort of No Man's Land, a Fools' Paradise, where no one
really had authority, and bold and arrogant men unwarrant-
edly forced to the front and became bastard heroes for the
moment.
Speaking of the life and work of the Jesuit missionaries
in America, Parkman writes: "Their story is replete with
marvels — miracles of patient suffering and daring enter-
prise. They were the pioneers of Northern America." 2
Breese exclaims: "Who but the Jesuits would undertake
sudh dangerous missions — so full of personal peril and ex-
posing them to such suffering — bearing the fury of the ele-
ments in their bark canoes, wading and dragging them over
shoals, carrying them across tedious and difficult portages,
feeding on dry corn or moss from the trees, sleeping in the
open air and deprived of every earthly comfort. With no
weapon but the crucifix and the breviary, with no aids but
the faithful compass and their savage guides, with no hopes
to cheer them in which the world bore part, prompted alone
1 Villiers, op. cit., p. 161.
2 Parkman, Conspiracy of Pontiac, I., p. 52.
35 2 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
by religious enthusiasm, did they wander upon those then
unknown seas, and gladly meet all the dangers which beset
them." 1
But Choiseul and de la Freniere, two inmates of the eight-
eenth century French Fools' Paradise, were animated by
quite different sentiments towards the Jesuit missionaries,
and banished them from the Mississippi Valley in a heart-
less, unjustifiable and brutal manner.
The causes that gradually brought about the banishment
of the Jesuits must be briefly examined for the proper un-
derstanding of these pages of our history.
In the year 1750, Sebastian Joseph Carvalho 2 , who is
later known in history as the Marquis of Pombal, became
Prime Minister of Portugal. In the same year, Spain made
a land deal with Portugal, whereby the seven Reductions 3
of Paraguay, which were Spanish, were exchanged for the
Portuguese colony of San Sacramento.
Now, the Jesuits had developed flourishing missions in
Paraguay, and Pombal, like king Achab, who coveted the
vineyard of Naboth, coveted those missions, because he
thought, or pretended to think, the Jesuits were mining
gold. Pombal ordered the Indians to leave these missions,
which he desired (as Etchape had done to the Natche^),
and ordered them to settle on other lands, far away, that
had been allotted to them. The Jesuits could not well
1 Breese, op. cit., p. 76.
^arvalho's name was often mentioned to King John V of Portugal for promotion. The
King finally forbade the very mention of his name saying: "That man has hairs on his heart
and he comes from a cruel and vindictive family." T. J. Campbell, The Jesuits, p. 431.
3 Reduction from re, ducir, that is, to bring back. Reductions were villages where con*
verted Indians lived — natives who had been brought back from the wilds and forests. The
Jesuit Fathers gathered the savages together in separate colonies, which no white man,
except the government officials, was permitted to enter. The Indians knew the colonists
mostly as slave'dealers. "The savages flocked to these reductions from all quarters, for these
reservations afforded the only protection from the organized bands of man'hunters who
scoured the country — the hiamelu\es, as they were called because of their relentless
ferocity. . . . The Indians of the Reductions were taught all the trades, and became carpen'
ters, joiners, painters, sculptors, etc. They were also cultivators and herdsmen, and some
stations could count as many as 30,000 sheep and 100,000 head of cattle Altogether, there
were about a hundred Reductions." There is question here of seven Reductions and 30,000
Indians who were ordered to decamp within thirty days. Campbell, op. cit., pp. 301-304
and 444-448.
4 See page 247, ante.
DEATH OF MAJOR GENERAL JAMES WOLFE ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM
SEPTEMBER 13, 1759
From painting by Benjamin West
CO
w
D
a
H
E
o
D
o
3
AFTER THE FALL OF QUEBEC 35 3
approve of these harsh measures perpetrated against their
charges, although they endeavored to persuade the Indians
to bear their hard lot. The Indians rebelled against the
harsh conditions imposed upon them, but were beaten in
the War of Paraguay. From that day on Pombal bitterly
and systematically hounded the Jesuits. "The height of
PombaPs persecution was reached with the burning [at Lis-
bon, 1761] of the saintly Father Malagrida . . . ; while the
other Fathers, who had been crowded into prisons, were left
to perish by the score." 1
The storm against the Jesuits broke next in France. The
remote general causes of the antipathy against the Jesuits
were those that were at the bottom of the war of ideas 2 that
ultimately resulted in the horrors of the French Revolution
in 1789.
The specific occasion that brought on the persecution in
France may be stated as follows :
Pere Antoine La Valette, 3 Superior of the missions on
the island of Martinique, employed many natives on the
mission farms on this island. These farms were the support
of the missions. Then, too, the simple-minded natives were
not capable of transacting business and of marketing their
produce profitably, and so Father La Valette, rightly or
wrongly, managed these transactions for them.
At first his operations were successful, and the Governor
of the Island praised him very highly for his interest in the
colony and the welfare of its natives (1753). Tempted, no
doubt, by the outlook for bigger business, he borrowed
money to work the undeveloped resources of the colony.
But, unhappily for Valette, the war that cost France her
American colonies broke out, and ships carrying some
2,000,000 livres' worth of Martinique goods were seised
by the British, and, with one fell blow Father La Valette
was bankrupt.
His creditors knew, of course, that La Valette could not
pay, and therefore instituted proceedings against the Paris
Catholic Encyclopedia, XIV., p. 97, and IX, p. 566.
2 Voltaire wrote to Helvetius in 1761 : "Once we have destroyed the Jesuits, we shall
have easy work with the Pope.' 1 Campbell, op. cit., p. 480.
3 Campbell, op. cit., pp. 482, ff. See also Catholic Encyclopedia XIV., p. 97-
354 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
province of the Society of Jesus. The procurator of this pro
vince offered to negotiate a settlement, but refused to
assume responsibility for the debts of a province which
was wholly independent of his province. The courts of Paris
condemned the Paris province to payment of the debt. The
attorney for the Jesuits appealed the case to a higher court —
the "Grand'chambre du Parlement" of Paris.
This was a signal for all the opponents of the Jesuits to
combine to fight the Society, which they heartily disliked. The
war of extermination was proclaimed. A woman entered
the case, and a wicked woman at that. It was no less a per-
sonage than Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of that
disgusting weakling Louis XV. Father Perisseau, the King's
confessor, had demanded her removal from court. But she
was the royal mistress and all powerful. The Due de Choi-
seul, Prime Minister of France, owed his appointment to
Pompadour. The King disliked the whole affair, but was
too weak to assert his authority.
The Parliament of Paris went far beyond merely sustain-
ing the decision of the lower courts as to the payment of the
sum of 2,400,000 livres; it also decreed the total suppression of
the Society in France. This decree went into effect April
1, 1763.
The opposition to the Society of Jesus spread over other
countries of Europe, and Pope Clement XIV, for the sake of
peace, decreed its total abolition, August 16, 1773. This was
an administrative measure, adopted for the sake of having
peace with the royal courts that so bitterly opposed the
Jesuits. The eminent historian, Dr. F. X. Funk, says: "It can-
not be said that the Society had deserved this fate, especially as
the character of its opponents [Pombal, Pompadour, etc.]
was not such as to excite confidence, whilst sovereigns, such
as those of Prussia and Russia, would certainly not have
taken the Order under their protection had it been guilty
of outrageous crimes." 1
St. Alphonsus Liguori epitomised the situation in these
words: "Poor Pope! What could he do in the circumstances
J Dr. F. X. Funk, Manual of Church History, II., p. 173.
AFTER THE FALL OF QUEBEC 355
in which he was placed, with all the sovereigns conspiring
to demand this suppression? 111
The decree of the Parliament of Paris augured evil for
the missionaries in Louisiana and Illinois.
Father Watrin, Superior of the Jesuit house at Kaskaskia,
has left a very detailed, concise, though impassioned state-
ment of the expulsion of the missionaries from Louisiana
and the Illinois country in a document entitled : Banissement
des Jesuites, written in Paris and dated September 3, 1764.
The following account is taken from his memoir, 2 which
was written at the request of his Superior.
"I am familiar," writes Father Watrin, "with the affair
that interests you, and likewise with all that can in any way
relate thereto. I lived for almost thirty years in Louisi-
ana, 3 and only departed from thence at the beginning of
this year. 11
It must be remembered that all the territory east of the
Mississippi had been ceded to England in the Treaty of Paris,
February 10, 1763, while the west bank and New Orleans
had been given to Spain by the secret Treaty of Fontaine-
bleau, Nov. 3, 1762. True, the Treaty of Fontainebleau
was not- yet known to the public, but Choiseul, who had
negotiated it, knew that Louisiana now belonged to Spain,
and the world knew that the east bank belonged to Great
Britain.
Father Watrin continues: "There came upon the ship
M. d'Albadie, commissary-general of the navy and con-
troller of Louisiana, and with him Monsieur de la Fren-
iere, 4 procurator-general of the superior council of this
colony. . . . Monsieur the commissary [d'Abbadie] did not
delay to notify the superior of the Jesuits of what was brew-
ing against them. C I believe, 1 he said to him, 'that Monsieur
the procurator-general [de la Freniere] is charged with some
order that concerns you 1 . 11
Catholic Encyclopedia, XIV., p. 82.
2 Le Bannissement desjesuites de la Louisiane, in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, LXX., p. 233, ff.
3 Father Watrin was then 67 years old.
4 M. LeRoy, father of Nicolas de la Freniere, with four of his brothers, came from
Canada to Louisiana at the time of Bienville. As was the custom, each took a different
name. The eldest chose the name Lafreniere. See p. 416, n. 4, post.
356 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
The Superior Council of Louisiana, urged on by de la Fren-
iere, decreed to examine the "Institute 1 ," that is, the official
collection of rules governing the Jesuits, which is written
in Latin. Only one member of the council, de la Freniere,
may have understood this language. Father Watrin, there-
fore, writes: "It was a great undertaking for the council of
New Orleans to pronounce upon the Institute of the Jesuits, 11
but "to these gentlemen, it was enough to believe them-
selves well informed."
"The decree was declared on the 9th of July. It was said
that the Institute of the Jesuits was hostile to the royal au-
thority, the rights of the Bishops, and the public peace and
safety; and that the vows uttered according to this Institute
were null. It was prohibited to these Jesuits, hitherto thus
styled, to take that name hereafter, or to wear their customary
garb, orders being given them to assume that of the secular
ecclesiastics. Excepting their books and some wearing ap-
parel which was allowed to them, all their property, real
and personal, was to be seised and sold at auction. It was
ordained that the chapel ornaments and the sacred vessels
of New Orleans should be delivered up to the Reverend
Capuchin Fathers; that the chapel ornaments and sacred
vessels of the Jesuits living in the country of the Illinois,
should be delivered up to the royal procurator for that coun-
try, and that the chapels should then be demolished; and
that, finally, the aforesaid Jesuits, so-called, should return
to France, embarking upon the first ships ready to depart, —
prohibiting them meanwhile, from remaining together. A
sum of six hundred livres was assigned to pay each one's
passage, and another, of 1,500 francs, for their sustenance
and support for six months."
The general motives for the condemnation of the Jesuits
of Louisiana were copied from the decrees de la Freniere
had brought with him from France, "but, in that which the
council of New Orleans issued, it undertook to insert some-
thing special and new. It stated that the Jesuits established
in the colony had not given any care to their missions; that
they had thought only of making their estates valuable; and
Hnstitutum Societatis Jesu, that is, the official collection of all the regulations governing
this Society, — its code of laws. Since 1581, the official text used in the Society is a Latin
version. Catholic Encyclopedia, XIV., p. 82.
AFTER THE FALL OF QUEBEC 3 57
that they were usurpers of the vicariate-general 1 of New
Orleans."
Father Watrin replies to these specific accusations: "The
Jesuits will not fear ... to show what they accomplished
in their missions. I am going to separate these into two
portions, 11 to show "that among the Jesuits established amid
the Illinois, there remained some seal and care in regard to
their mission's. "
He cites the case of Father de Guyenne, who had spent
thirty'six years in the missions of Louisiana, who had been
cure of Fort de Chartres, and who was "everywhere respected
as a man of rare virtue, of singular discretion, and of an in-
violable attachment to the duties of a missionary. 11
"At one and one-fourth leagues from the village of the
Illinois savages, 11 continues Father Watrin, "there was a
French village also named Cascakias. 11 He then tells of the
visits to the sick, of the instructions carefully given to the
French and to the Negroes and savages, slaves of the French,
and of the liturgical functions, "the solemn mass and the
vespers that were sung punctually with the benediction
[of the Blessed Sacrament].
"Since the year 1753, there has been in the French village
of Cascakias a newly-built parochial church; this church is
104 feet long and 44 feet wide. 11 This church could never
have been finished if "three Jesuits, successively cures of
this parish, had not employed for this purpose the greater
part of what they obtained from their surplice [stole fees]
and their mass-offerings. 11
Then Father Watrin tells how fifteen years before that
time a new village under the name of "Sainte Genevieve 112
was established on the other bank of the Mississippi, and
that then the cure of "Cascakias 11 visited them and helped
^ee p. 223, ante. Under Bishop Saint' Vallier the Superior of the Jesuits and the Superior
of the Capuchins was each Vicar'General. Under Bishop de Mornay, himself a Capuchin,
and Msgr. Dosquet, only the Capuchin Superior held that office. Bishop Pontbriand (1741) ap-
pointed a Jesuit Vicar-General and placed the Capuchins under his jurisdiction. In May,
1765, the Capuchin, Father Dagobert, superseded the Jesuit, Father Baudoin, as Vicar-General
of Louisiana.
2 According to Watrin, the first church in old St. Genevieve was built about 1749, al-
though, according to Houck, the first village was founded about 1730. Because of the poverty
of the place, the east-siders nicknamed it Misere,
358 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
them to build a church. "However, in order to go to this
new church he must cross the Mississipi, which, in this
place is three eights of a league wide; he sometimes had to
trust himself to a slave, who alone guided the canoe; it was
necessary, in fine, to expose himself to the danger of perish-
ing, if in the middle of the river they had been overtaken
by a violent storm. . . . There is no need to call attention
to the fact that, to accomplish only a part of the work that
has just been indicated, care, courage, and constancy were
necessary. At eighty leagues from the Illinois was the post
called Vincennes or Saint Ange, from the names of the officers
who commanded there. This post is upon the river Oua-
bache. . . . There were, at the last, in this village at least
sixty houses of French people, without counting the Miami
savages, who were quite near. There, too, was sufficient
cause for care and occupation.
The document enumerates the services of the Jesuit mis-
sionaries among the Alibamons, the Choctaws, at the Fort
of Mobile where they assisted the Governors in the dis-
tribution of presents to the savages, that Father Carette had
abandoned the mission among the Arkansas, because the
Commandant did nothing to support the work of the mis-
sionary, that the room, where divine service was held, was
entirely unsuited for that purpose, "everything that was
in the fort entered there, even unto the fowls," and that
"a chicken, flying over the altar, overturned the chalice,
which had been left there at the end of the mass. 11
Father Watrin recalls the deaths of Father du Poisson in
the Natchez; massacre, of Father Souel among the Yasous,
the dastardly attack on Father d'Outreleau, 1 the burning
at the stake of Father Senat, 2 who remained with d'Ar-
taguiette in his defeat, to offer succor to the captive French.
"But, perhaps someone has chosen to say that it is not
becoming for missionaries to possess great estates . . . but,
it would then have been necessary to provide otherwise
for their subsistence, for the expenses of their journeys, for
the construction and maintenance of their houses and their
chapels. . . . Where would they, then, have found funds
^ee p. 260, ante.
2 See p. 276, ante.
AFTER THE FALL OF QUEBEC 3 59
for these expenses, even for their food and clothes, when,
in the needs of the State, the treasurers of the colony no
ths Grand'' chambre du Parlement of Paris.
To the third specific accusation raised by the Superior
Council of New Orleans, that the Jesuits "were usurpers
of the vicariate general" to the prejudice of the Capuchin
Fathers, Watrin replies that they had obeyed the orders given
them in this matter by the Bishop of Quebec, and that this
very Council, when the difficulty between the Capuchins
and the Jesuits was brought before it, had "adjudged to the Jes-
uits, by a decree, the legitimate possession of the grand'
vicariate. "
The execution of the decree of despoliation and banish'
ment issued by the Superior Council, which body was a
relic of the French regime in Louisiana, now, at least tech'
nically, Spanish territory, and in the Illinois country, which
now belonged to Great Britain, was certainly a"usurpation
of power 1 ' on the part of de la Freniere and the Superior
Council.
"A courier was sent to carry the decree of destruction 11
to the Illinois country. "Meanwhile, it was executed prompt'
ly against those [Jesuits] of New Orleans. Their establish'
ment was quite near this town, and proportioned to the needs
of twelve missionaries; there was quite a large gang for cul'
tivating the land, and for plying other trades, as is the cus'
torn in the colonies; there were also various buildings, with
herds of cattle and suitable works. Everything was seised,
inventoried, and sold at auction, and this execution lasted
a long time. . . . They [the executers] found themselves
well feasted, and they were sure their employment was a
very lucrative one. 11 The chapel ornaments and the sacred
vessels were given to the Reverend Caphuchin Fathers.
"After that, the chapel was ra^ed to the ground; and the
sepulchres of the bodies buried for thirty years in this place,
and in the neighboring cemetery, remained exposed to pre
fanation. 11 [!]
"Meanwhile, the courier despatched to Illinois 1 to bear
the decree, arrived on the night of September 23, [1763]
^he Illinois country having been ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris, February 10,
1763, neither Choiseul, nor the Superior Council of New Orleans, nor de la Freniere had
any jurisdiction over this territory.
3 6o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
at fort Chartres, distant six leagues from the residence of
the Jesuits. He delivered to the procurator of the king the
commission which charged him to execute the decree; and
on the next day, about eight or nine o'clock in the morning,
that officer of justice repaired to the house of the Jesuits,
accompanied by the registrar and the bailiff of that juris-
diction. ... He read to Father Watrin, the superior, the
decree of condemnation, and, having given him a copy of it,
he made him at once leave his room to put the seal upon it;
the same thing was done with the other missionaries who
happened to be in the house. There remained one hall where
they could remain together, although with great inconven-
ience; but this favor was refused them. ...[!]
"The procurator of the king . . . would not even permit
the Jesuits to remain at the house of one of their confreres,
who, being cure of the place, had his private lodging near
the parish church. . . . The missionaries, driven from their
own house, found quarters as best they could. . . . The news
of their condemnation had already caused many tears to be
shed in the village [of the savages] . They were asked why
they were thus treated, especially in a country where so
many disorders had been so long allowed. The old mission-
ary, after several repeated interrogations, finally replied:
'Arechi Kiecouegane tchichi \i canta manghi, — It is because
we sternly condemn their follies'."
The savages requested "that at least the chapel and the
house of the missionary be preserved, in order that the
best instructed person among them might assemble the
children and repeat the prayers to them; and that every Sun-
day and feast-day he might summon those who prayed, that
is to say, the Christians, — by the ringing of the bell, 1 to
fulfill as well as possible the duties of religion. . . . They
obtained what they asked. "
Monsieur Bobe, the commissary at Fort de Chartres, in
a single day sent four letters to the procurator of the King,
who was putting the decree in execution at Kaskaskia, beg-
ging him to use moderation. The Fathers were in conse-
quence permitted to crowd together with one of their con-
freres in a small house built for one man.
1 This bell, a gift of Louis XV to the Mission of the Immaculate Conception at Kaskas'
kia, is still at Kaskaskia, Illinois.
AFTER THE FALL OF QUEBEC 361
The savages groaned, most of the French people were
in consternation, and regarded the decree of banishment as
a public calamity. "The more intelligent of the habitants
asked by what right the government had taken possession
of the property of the Jesuits; and what power it had over
persons in a country ceded by the treaty of peace to the crown
of England."
"What could they [the Jesuits] have done? Protest
against the decree and its execution? . . . Would they [the
officials] have given public notice of their protest? They
[the Jesuits] would assuredly have been treated as people
revolting against public authority; they would have been
seised, and perhaps placed in irons, as malefactors; orders
had been given on that point."
A melancholy picture presented itself to the mission-
aries after their property had been seised and the public
auction thereof completed. "The sacred vessels and the
pictures had been taken away, the shelves of the altar had
been thrown down; the linings of the ornaments had been
given to negresses decried for their evil lives; and a large
crucifix, which had stood above the altar, and the candle-
sticks, were found placed above a cup-board in a house whose
reputation was not good. ... It was at that time that the
Jesuits of the Illinois saw their associate, Father de Vernay,
arrive; he came from the post of Saint Ange, 1 seventy or
eighty leagues distant. The order to carry out the decree
in regard to him had been sent there also; this order was so
exactly followed that from the seizure and sale of his pos-
sessions they did not except a little supply of hazelnuts which
was found in his house. 1 '' 2 Father de Vernay had been ill
with fever for six months, but the order to leave had been
given nevertheless. "He set out on his way; it was then
^he present Vincennes, Indiana.
2 According to H. S. Cauthorn, Father Julien Devernai, as he signed the records, was very ill
and had been so most of the time during the spring and summer of 1763 and later was very
feeble from his protracted illness. "At a late hour of the night, when the inhabitants were
sleeping, they [the men sent by the Superior Council of New Orleans] went to the residence of
Father Devernai, and infirm and weak as he was, arrested him and seized all his provisions and
property. . . . They would have destroyed St. Francis Xavier's church, if they had not been
afraid they would arouse the people, and thus be prevented from carrying off the priest and
his church property. " H. S. Cauthorn, St. Francis Xavier Cathedral, Vincennes, Indiana,
p. 97.
362 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
the month of November; he had to travel across very wet
woods and prairies, exposed to cold and rain."
On the 24th day of November, 1763, all were embarked:
the banished missionaries, a number of slaves — old men,
women and children, and twenty Englishmen, whom the
savages had captured some months before. The voyage to
New Orleans was made in exceptionally short time — twenty-
seven days.
It is refreshing to read that Makarty, under whose com-
mand the present Fort de Chartres was built, rendered the
services of a Good Samaritan to the victims of the cruel de-
cree. Writes Father Watrin: "Finally, at seven or eight
leagues from New Orleans, they reached the estate of Mon-
sieur de Macarty, former lieutenant of the king in that city,
who by his kind attentions recalled to their remembrance
the benevolence he had always shown at Illinois, where he
had been major-commandant-general. After they arrived
in town, he gave them several tokens of his friendship. . . .
The Reverend Capuchin Fathers, hearing of the arrival of
the Jesuits, had come at six o'clock in the evening (it was
the 21st of December) to the landing place, to manifest to
them the interest they took in their misfortune, and their
intention of rendering them all the kind offices that they
could "
While the victims of his vengeance were in New Orleans
awaiting deportation, de la Freniere obsequiously called on
the Fathers to tell them how sorry he was that duty had
compelled him to execute the decree of the Council (which
he himself had helped to formulate!). The Fathers, know-
ing well the character of the man, made no reply. De la
Freniere did not yet know the irresistible power of retri-
butive justice, repaying every good deed in full measure and
every unjust act in a measure that is full, pressed down and
round — sometimes even in small details.
"Father Meurin 1 asked the Gentlemen of the Council for
permission to return to the Illinois. This was a brave res-
olution, after the sale of all the property of the Jesuits; he
^ebastieri'Louis Meurin was born December 26, 1709, entered the Jesuit novitiate at
Nancy, September 26, 1726 and sailed for New Orleans and the missions in the Mississippi
Valley in 1741. He composed an Illinois'French dictionary in 24 parts. Rochemonteix,
Les Jesuits et La K[ouville France au XVIII, Steele, I., pp. 391, and 411.
AFTER THE FALL OF QUEBEC 363
could not count upon any fund for his subsistence, the French
were under no obligation to him, and the savages have more
need of receiving than means for giving; furthermore, the
health of this Father was very poor, as it had always been
during the twenty-one years he spent in Louisiana. "*
The first group of banished Jesuits arrived at Saint Sebastian,
Spain, April 6, 1764. Choiseul had ordered the Fathers of
Louisiana to report at Versailles at a time when the Fathers of
France were wandering at his orders as exiles into Spain. And
so the exiles of the Mississippi Valley, walking across the
Pyrenees into France, met the Fathers from France wandering
into Spain. 2
x Four of the Jesuits embarked on the Minerve, February 6, 1764, with them the abbe
Forget du Verger of the Mission of the Koly Family at Cahokia. The memoir quoted was
written September 3, 1764, and sent to one of Watrin's friends, but was not published at
the time, so as not to aggravate matters. A copy was sent to Father Ricci, General of the
Society, and was found in the archives of the Society in 1865.
2 Banissement des Jesuites.
THE CAHOKIA MISSION PROPERTY
ABBE FORGET DU VERGER
December 1, 1763, Neyon de Villiers, Commandant at
Fort de Chartres, reported to his superior officer, D' Abba-
die, on various matters concerning the administration of
the Illinois posts: the belts and speeches sent out by Pon-
tiac, the couriers, belts and talks that he (Villiers) had sent
out to persuade the savages to make peace with the English,
on the sorry plight he had been in since the evacuation of
Canada and the cutting off of all communication with that
country, etc. It is all written in minor key, and evidently
he was anxious to get away from everything as soon as possible.
No doubt many of the French felt the same way — they
desired to get away. The savages were restless and were
grouping together under the leadership of Pontiac; a new
government was coming and, as French subjects, they dread-
ed British sovereignty, as Catholics, they feared that all
the unfair restrictions still enforced against them and
their faith in the eastern colonies, would be applied against
them immediately upon taking possession by the British.
There can be no question that many of the habitants honestly
believed they and their colony were doomed to utter ruin.
Families could be seen carrying their belongings on their
backs and making their way towards the river, which they
crossed in canoes. Farmers drove their cattle from the fields
and transported them across the Mississippi; they were ready
to leave the lands they had cleared and cultivated to escape
the hated British flag. Others sold all their belongings, if
they could, and with wife and children and bundles, went
down the river to New Orleans, or across to Ste. Genevieve,
or to Laclede's trading post. "Several inhabitants", writes
Villiers, "have demanded permission to descend [to New
Orleans] to make arrangements for their emigration [to go
back to France]. I have given permission to a large number
of young men to do this and to hunt while going down/ 11
Of course, a soldier, an officer, a true missionary like Meu-
rin, will stand to his post if the good of the service so demands
1 Critical Period, p. 56.
3
ican Revolution points out some of the sectarian causes of the Revolution in New England.
She also quotes interesting specimens of "Election" and "Artillery" sermons. "An illustra'
tion," writes Miss Baldwin, "of the most violent articles written by the clergy is one against
General Gage, by the fiery-tongued old preacher, John Cleaveland, of Ipswich. The virulence
of this attack is almost incredible. 'Thou profane, wicked monster of falsehood and perfidy,'
he wrote on June 17, 1775, ' . . . your late infamous proclamation is as full of notorious lies,
as a toad or rattlesnake of deadly poison — you are an abandoned wretch. . . . Without
speedy repentance, you will have an aggravated damnation in hell. . . .' This same John
Cleaveland and many of his fellow ministers won the bitter enmity of the Loyalists and the
English by their bitter attacks upon the Tories, and seem to have been responsible for a part
at least of the harsh treatment meted out to them by the patriots. Cleaveland published ar'
tides ... in which he first suggested that it might be the 'proper dictate of wisdom, as the
way, and only way left us of our preservation and safety, as soon as we see the sword of Great
Britain drawn against us, to sacrifice every New England Tory among us." " Baldwin, op.
at., p. 158. See also Van Tyne, op. at., pp. 346'368.
4 6o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"In the United Kingdom, whence most of our early colo-
nists came, . . . the Calvinist Puritans were non-conformists;
the Methodists, the Baptists, the Quakers together with
the Catholics, were all dissenters from the Established Church
and consequently political rebels.
"Religious liberty was not established in America when
members of all these rebel and mutually antagonistic groups
were 'harried out of the land 1 . Each colony desired pri-
marily its own form of religious worship, and with three
exceptions, exacted the same rigid conformity as had been
required of it at home. Rhode Island and Pennsylvania
practiced religious tolerance; Maryland made it the basic
law of the colony. . . . in
It is clear that this embroilment in the field of religion
helped to bring about an estrangement from the mother
country. But there were many other causes, cumulative
in effect and creating a general spirit of discontent.
A daughter who marries and founds her own home is
gradually weaned away from her mother and from the home
that nurtured her, and she becomes more interested in the
welfare of her own children than in that of her kin. So the
colonists, separated from England by an ocean three thousand
miles wide, fighting their own battles against wilderness
and savage, became more and more absorbed in their own
welfare, and gradually developed a mentality differing in
many points from that of the mother country.
Then, too, the non-English element in the colonies had
become quite strong, particularly in the center, in Pennsyl-
vania, where about two thirds of the population were non-
English, and they "commonly had no particular attachment
to Old England. 1 ' 2 Even the language of the colonists began
to differ from the language of the mother country. It was
at the same time more archaic and more modern, inasmuch
as it retained many of the forms their ancestors had brought
over, and, on the other hand, adopted words and expres-
sions from the Indians and from other languages, besides
producing some of their own to meet the demand of new
conditions. Benjamin Franklin, with all his serene philoso-
1 William Franklin Sands, quoted in The Fortnightly Review, vol. XXXVI., no. 3, pp. 47 and
48.
2 Peter Kalm, op. cit., I., p. 207. See Van Tyne, op. cit., pp. 315 and 345.
THE COLOHIES RISE AGAINST EHGLAHD 461
phy, resented hearing the uppers of London speak of "our
American subjects 1 ' as sort of second-rate citizens. The
pompous Samuel Johnson exclaimed on one occasion: "They
are a race of convicts I" 1
Of course, in that early day no one thought of a British
Empire as a federation of practically independent states.
On the contrary, George III and his counsellors believed
the time had come, now that France had been expelled from
Canada, to centralize, to draw in the reins of government,
and tighten the bonds between the home country and the de-
pendencies in America.
In Canada, the friction between the French-of-France
and the French Canadians had proven fatal in the battle
of the Plains of Abraham. Similar friction, though of less
degree, existed between the English-of-England and the
Anglo-Americans, as was clearly demonstrated in Braddock's
foolhardy disregard of the warnings given him by the co-
lonials, including George Washington.
The colonists had hoped that the newly ceded Missis-
sippi Valley would offer them great opportunities for land
speculation. The Mississippi Land Company, which num-
bered among its members such men as the Washingtons,
was formed after the Treaty of Paris; it petitioned the crown
for 2,500,000 acres of land in the territory that now forms
Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Lord Hillsborough, the
new Secretary for the Colonies, interposed the imperial
authority and blocked the westward expansion. The hopes
of the eastern capitalists were frustrated. England con-
sidered the newly acquired territory as belonging to the
Empire, or even to the Crown, and not to any single colony,
although the original charters had granted to some of them
the land from ocean to ocean. The Quebec Act was also
intended to check illegal land-grabbing. 2
The French and Indian War and the Pontiac War had cost
England a great amount of money, and her Ministers felt
that at least a part of this debt should be paid by the colo-
nists, who had, after all, driven England into the war with
France, and for whose defense against the savages England
agreed to maintain an army of some 10,000 men in the colon'
^asquet, op. cit., p. 237-
2 Alvord, Centennial History of Illinois, I., pp. 303-307, See p. 455, ante.
462 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEAHS
ies. General Sir Jeffrey Amherst was in charge of the dis-
tribution of these troops, which he placed at various centers
— Quebec, Montreal, Niagara, Detroit, Nova Scotia, South
Carolina, Pensacola, the lower Mississippi, and St. Augustine.
From each center, soldiers were stationed at the different posts
within the given district. Thus English soldiers were placed
at Vincennes, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and the mouth of the
Illinois. Amherst held that it was better "to colonise from
the west eastward, since the boundaries would in this way
be sooner protected from attack." 1 George Grenville, who
was then Colonial Secretary, held that, since this distribution
of troops was to the benefit of the colonists, they should
also bear part of the burden.
The House of Commons was opposed to land-taxes. What,
then, was more natural than to think of customs-duties. Gren-
ville imposed the Sugar Act, 1764, providing a duty on
foreign sugar and many other items, with a three pence per
gallon duty on molasses. As early as 1733, there had been
a duty of six pence per gallon on molasses, but nobody had
paid it. Grenville decided to enforce the law. Revenue
men were sent to America, coast guards were placed along
the Atlantic seaboard, and a complete and detailed system
of law enforcement was organised. Offenders were no longer
judged by juries, who had proved too lenient, but by com-
manders of British vessels, who had the right to issue war-
rants to search anyone's premises for smuggled goods.
Molasses played an important role in the economic system
of those days, somewhat like malt syrup in our own day.
In the year 1763, puritanical Massachusetts had imported
15,000 hogsheads of molasses from the French West Indies. 2
Molasses was used to make rum, and rum in turn was used
to purchase slaves and to trade with the Indians. If England
insisted on the payment of duty on all the imported molasses,
that would mean the death blow to New England distil-
leries, slave trade with Guinea, and, they said, would spell uni-
versal ruin. John Adams remarked that molasses thus became
"an essential ingredient of American independence/ 13 But,
after all, molasses was a rather prosaic subject for political
ilbtd., I, p. 250.
2 David S. Muzzey, An American History, p. 95.
3 Van Tyne, op. cit., p. 128.
THE COLOHIES RISE AGAIKST ENGLAND 463
oratory, and so "there followed," says Alvord, "with the char-
acteristically English love of a phrase, a long and acrimonious
discussion of the question of taxation without represen-
tation, a discussion involving the issue of the relation of
colonies to the mother country." 1
To determine the exact limits of the rights of the mother
country over the colonies, — that was precisely the difficult
question. 2 Leaders like Franklin gave this matter serious
thought and study. They realised that it resolved itself
to this: either grant Parliament the right to impose any and
all laws at will, or deny Parliament the right to impose any
laws at all. They chose the latter, and that meant, in effect,
a declaration of independence. But it was a difficult matter
to convince the different colonies of the absolute need of
union. As Wood says: "They would not join together to
defend themselves, though they could not defend them-
selves if they did not join together. . . . What they really
wanted was thirteen separate little armed mobs, separately
controlled by thirteen assemblies. . . ." 3
Peter Kalm expressed the same idea when he wrote:
"It is to be observed, that each English colony in North
America is independent of the other, and that each has
its proper laws and coin, and may be looked upon in several
lights as a state by itself. From hence it happens, that in
time of war, things go on very slowly here: for not only
the sense of one province is sometimes directly opposite
to that of another; but frequently the views of the governor
and those of the assembly of the same province are quite
different " 4
In 1765, Grenville caused the adoption of the Stamp
Act, which required a revenue stamp on all legal documents,
articles of commerce and newspapers, etc. He honestly
believed it would be the least burdensome sort of tax and
'Alvord, op. cit., p. 308.
2 Rev. Isaac Skillman, pastor of the Second Baptist Church of Boston, in An Oration Upon
the Beauties of Liberty, or The Essential Rights of the Americans, exclaims: "Does the King ask
for tall masts? Let him have them as a gift; that British streets be paved with American gold?
let him have it but by way of trade, not taxation; for courts of Admiralty, that women spare
their husbands to be sent confined in horrid men of war and sent back to tyranny? that
judges be appointed by the King? Never!" Quoted in Baldwin, op. cit., p. 118, n. 39.
3 Wood, in Canada and Its Provinces, I., p. 239.
4 Peter Kalm, op. cit., p. 205.
464 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
hoped it would yield at least L60,000 each year.
The opposition to Grenville's stamps was general, and riots
broke out, chiefly at Boston. 1 The hated Stamp Act was
repealed in March, 1766. The colonists rejoiced and drank
freely to the health of good King George and his Ministers.
At Boston, John Hancock, later a signer of the Declaration
of Independence, gave a barrel of Madeira to the public, and
New York erected a statue, made of lead and plated with
gold, to King George. A few years later, this statue was
melted down and cast into bullets. 2
During the ministry of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham,
who was ill at the time, Charles Townshend, Chancellor
of the Exchequer, or Minister of Finance, reintroduced and
passed the obnoxious and odious taxation measures of Grenville.
Matters now soon came to a head. In May, 1768, the Liberty,
a ship carrying a cargo consigned to John Hancock, entered
the harbor of Boston. The customs officer who had boarded
the ship was locked up in the hold until the whole cargo
had been unloaded. Other customs officers had to flee to
escape the violence of the mob. 3 To punish the Bostonians
and to enforce the law, the British government sent two
regiments of soldiers — and then followed the Boston Massacre,
March 5, 1770. A strange coincidence occurred at this
time. The very day of the Boston Massacre, Parliament abro-
gated the Townshend Taxes, but King George III, to uphold
his authority and the principle underlying these taxes, in-
sisted on retaining a moderate tax on tea — and then followed
the Boston Tea Party, to knock out the principle with equal
stubbornness. It was the riot against the Townshend Taxes
that Aubry had reported.
The struggle, known as the War of Independence or the
Revolutionary War, followed — a death struggle for liberty,
which, in effect, meant the birth of a great nation.
One of the first questions that occupied Continental Con-
gress was: What will Canada do? Will the Canadians remain
1 The Canadians, whose attitude towards England was different, caused no opposition to
the Stamp Act. Chapais, op. cit., p. 176, n.
2 Pasquet, op.cit.,p. 246.
3 The "Rescue Rioters" and "Sons of Liberty," rather indefinite organizations, often re'
cruited from the lower and radical classes, did much to annoy British officials and Empire
Loyalists. Van Tyne, op. cit., pp. 134 and 170.
THE COLOHIES RISE AGAINST ENGLAND 465
loyal to their King, or, will they join the cause of the colon-
ists? For the proper understanding of the events that fol-
lowed, the relative numbers of English and French Cana-
dians inhabiting Canada must be borne in mind.
The passage of the Quebec Act, June 14, 1774, had satis-
fied the vastly preponderant French Canadians. The "King's
old subjects' ' of Montreal vehemently protested against
the Quebec Act because of the concessions made to the
French Canadian Catholics, and appealed to the English
of Quebec to cooperate in the protest.
Continental Congress, in session at Philadelphia, played a
double-cross game, was caught at it, and thus the one chance of
inducing the French Canadians to espouse the cause of the
colonists was lost, and with it Canada, probably for ever.
On October 11, 1774, it was resolved by Continental
Congress to prepare a Memorial to the People of Great Brv
tain, "stating to them the necessity of a firm, united, and
invariable observation of the measures recommended by the
Congress".
"Mr. Lee, Mr. Livingston, and Mr. Jay, are appointed a
Committee to prepare a draught of the Memorial and Address." 1
This Address was discussed and amended in various
sessions and definitely approved by the same Congress,
Friday, October 21, 1774.
"To the People of Great Britain, from the Delegates ap-
pointed by the several English Colonies. . . .
"Friends and Fellow-Subjects :"
In the preamble it is stated: "The cause of America is
now the object of universal attention; it has at length be-
come very serious. . . .
"Know then:"
Here follows an exposition of their position and a list
of their grievances. Among others:
"That we think the Legislature of Great Britain is not
authorised by the Constitution to establish a Religion fraught
with sanguinary and impious tenets, or to erect an arbitrary
form of Government in any quarter of the globe. . . .
x The texts and information covering the Memorial to the People of Great Britain, the Ad-
dress to the Inhabitants of Quebec, and the Address to the King are taken from American Ar-
chives, Fourth Series, prepared and published under authority of an Act of Congress, 1833,
vol. I., pp. 910-938. Courtesy of the Belleville Public Library.
466 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEAHS
"Now mark the progress of the Ministerial plan for en-
slaving us." Then follows an enumeration of grievances:
". . . By another Act 1 the dominion of Canada is to be ex-
tended, modelled, and governed, as that by being disunited
from us, detached from our interests, by civil as well as re-
ligious prejudices, that by their numbers daily swelling with
Catholick emigrants from Europe and by their devotion to
Administration, so friendly to their religion, they might
become formidable to us, on occasion, be fit instruments
in the hands of power, to reduce the ancient, free, Protestant
Colonies to the same state of slavery with themselves. 2 This
was evidently the object of the Act 3 ; and in this view being
extremely dangerous to our liberty and quiet, we cannot
forbear complaining of it as hostile to British America. . . .
"Nor can we suppress our astonishment, that a British
Parliament should ever consent to establish in that country
a Religion that has deluged your Island in blood, and dis-
persed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion,
through every part of the world. . . .
"Remember the taxes from America, the wealth, and
we may add the men, and particularly the Roman Catho-
licks of this vast Continent, will then be in the power of
your enemies. . . .
"If neither the voice of justice, the dictates of the law,
the principles of the Constitution, or the suggestions of
humanity, can restrain your hands from shedding human
Quebec Act.
2 The same cry had been raised in New England at the time of the French and Indian
War. Writes Baldwin: "How the ministers played upon the affections and fears of the
people! How warmly they besought them to give generously, to fight and fight again for
all they held dear! One can imagine the ardent Mayhew as he cried: l And what horrid
scene is this, which restless, roving fancy, or something of an higher nature, presents to me,
and so chills my blood ! Do I behold these territories of freedom, become the prey of arbitrary
power? . . . Do I see the slaves of Lewis [King of France] with their Indian allies, dispossess'
ing the frec'born subjects of King George, of the inheritance received from their forefathers,
and purchased by them at the expense of their ease, their treasure, their blood! ... Do I
see a protestant, there, stealing a look at his bible, and being taking [sic] in the fact, punished
like a felon! ... Do I see all liberty, property, religion, happiness changed, or rather trans'
substantiated, into slavery, poverty, superstition, wretchedness !' " Mayhew, Election
Sermon, 1754, quoted in Baldwin, op. cit., p. 87. See p. 324, n. 2, ante.
3 "The Quebec Act passed . . . with no thought of giving offense to the English provinces.
...The Quebec Act was passed with the desire to put an end to that injustice done by the
hasty Proclamation of 1763. . . ." Van Tyne, op. cit., pp. 401402.
THE COLONIES RISE AGAINST EHGLAKD 467
blood in such an impious cause, we must tell you that we
will never submit to be hewers of wood or drawers of water
for any Ministry or Nation in the world.
October 22, 1774, it was ordered by Congress that 120
copies of this Address be immediately struck off.
On the same day it was resolved "That an Address be
prepared to the People of Quebec.
"Ordered, That Mr. Cushing, Mr. Lee, and Mr. Dick-
inson, be a Committee to prepare the above Address. . . ."
The draft of this Address was discussed and "recommitted"
in the session of October 24, 1774.
Wednesday, October 26, 1774, the Address to the Inhabit
tants of the Province of Quebec was approved.
"Friends and Fellow-Subjects :"
The Address proceeds to instruct the inhabitants of
Quebec in the philosophy of government quoting Beccaria
and Montesquieu.
"When the fortune of war, after a gallant and glorious
resistance, had incorporated you with the body of English
subjects, 1 we rejoiced in the truly valuable addition, both
on our own and your account. . . . Little did we imagine
that any .... Ministers would so audaciously and cruelly
abuse the Royal authority as to withhold from you the
fruition of the irrevocable rights to which you were thus
entitled. . . ."
Then follows an enumeration of rights which the Cana-
dians should have: Participation in the government, Trial
by Jury, Habeas Corpus, Freedom of the Press, etc.
The Address proceeds :
"These are the rights you are entitled to, and ought, at
this moment, in perfection, to exercise.
"And what is offered to you, by the late Act of Parlia-
ment, 2 in their place?
"Liberty of conscience in your Religion?
"No. God gave it to you; and the temporal powers with
which you have been, and are connected, firmly stipulated
for your enjoyment of it.
!By the Treaty of Paris, 1763.
2 Quebec Act.
4 68 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"If laws, divine and human, could secure it against the
despotick caprices of wicked men, it was secure before. 11
Referring to a passage in the Canadian law, which au-
thorised the people to levy taxes for "making roads, and erect-
ing and repairing publick buildings, 11 the Address exclaims:
"Have not Canadians sense enough to attend to any other
publick affairs, than gathering of stones from one place and
piling them up in another? Unhappy people! who are not
only injured, but insulted. 11
The Address continues to suggest the thought that Great
Britain's concessions to the French Canadians are not sincere.
lt . . . Scorning to be illuded by a tinselled outside, and exert-
ing the natural sagacity of Frenchmen, examine the specious
device, and you will find it, to use an expression of Holy
Writ, fc a whited sepulchre, 1 for burying your lives, liberty,
and property. 111
Then follows this flattering appeal:
"We are too well acquainted with the liberality of sen-
timent distinguishing your Nation, to imagine that difference
of Religion will prejudice you against a hearty amity with us.
You know that the transcendent nature of freedom elevates
those who unite in her cause, above all such low-minded
infirmities. The Swiss Cantons furnish a memorable proof
of this truth. Their Union is composed of Roman Catholick
and Protestant States, living in the utmost concord and peace
with one another, and thereby enabled, ever since they
bravely vindicated their freedom, do defy and defeat every
tyrant that has invaded them. 11
The Address concludes by informing the Canadians that
"we have addressed an humble and loyal Petition to his
Majesty, praying relief of our and your grievances.
Saturday, October 21, 1774, Mr. Lee, Mr. J. Adams, Mr.
Johnson, Mr. Henry, and Mr. J. Rutledge were appointed as a
committee to draw up the Address to his Majesty. October
22, 1774, Mr. J. Dickinson was added to the committee.
i'The Quebec Act, which the revolutionists had been furiously opposing, because they
thought it too favourable to the Roman Catholics and French Canadians, was now denounced
to the habitants as an insidious attempt to take away their British liberties and prevent
their adopting American liberties instead." Wood in Canada and Its Provinces, III., p. 78.
THE COLONIES RISE AGAINST ENGLAND 469
On the same day, 1 October 26, 1774, "The Address to
the King being engrossed and compared was signed at the
table by all the Members: —
"To the King's Most Excellent Majesty:
Most Gracious Sovereign: 1 '
The Address "begs leave to lay our Grievances before
the Throne. " Then follows the usual recital of wrongs
suffered by the colonies.
Referring to the last sessions of Parliament, the Address
recites various offensive Acts passed : " . . . and a fourth for
extending the limits of Quebec, abolishing and restoring
the French laws, whereby great numbers of British Freemen
are subjected to the latter, and establishing an absolute Gov-
ernment and the Roman Catholick Religion throughout those
vast regions that border on the Westerly and Northerly
boundaries of the free Protestant English settlements. ..."
The "humble and loyal Petition to his Majesty" con-
cludes: "We therefore most earnestly beseech your Majesty,
that your Royal authority and interposition may be used
for our relief, and that a gracious Answer may be given to
this Petition. . . ."
Agents of Congress spread the "Address to the Inhabi-
tants of Quebec," while it was to the interest of the English
government to make known the other two documents.
So, before long, all three documents became known in Canada,
and the duplicity of Congress was hopelessly exposed.
At the request of Governor Carleton, who had been
active in procuring for the French Canadians the benefits
granted them by the Quebec Act, Bishop Briand issued a
powerful pastoral letter, recalling to the Canadians the
sacredness of the oath of allegiance to the King of England
taken by them. 2 He also pointed out the liberties already
actually enjoyed under and by virtue of the Quebec Act.
The intelligentsia among the French Canadians, the seig-
niors, the bourgeosie, the merchants 3 and the clergy were
^n the same day that the Address to the Inhabitants of Quebec was approved.
2 See p. 454, ante.
3 Alignment in times of violent political upheaval is never clear'Cut nor is it all one way.
As a class, the merchants of New England were patriots, while in Virginia the majority
of them were Loyalists; most of the Virginia planters supported the Revolution, while
the New England planters were Tories. See Isaac S. Harrell, Loyalism in Virginia.
470 FROM QUEBEC TO NEW ORLEANS
loyal to England, and their preponderant influence kept
Canada within the British Empire. 1
Congress evidently realised its blunder, and on February
15, 1776, resolved to send a committee to Canada to explain
its position and wishes, and to solicit the aid of the Cana-
dians. Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Car-
roll were the official members of the delegation. Rev. John
Carroll, cousin to Charles Carroll and later the first Bishop,
and then Archbishop of Baltimore, accompanied the dele-
gates by request. They were again confronted with the ridi-
culous and contradictory documents passed by Congress.
Their mission was unsuccessful, which is not surprising, for,
as Russell writes: "It is difficult to understand how the
people of the American colonies could have imagined it
possible to win over Canada to a union with them against
Great Britain, when at every turn they outraged the people
on what was dearer to them than life itself.' 12
In the meantime, the atmosphere was somewhat cleared
of the poisons of intolerance, especially after France and
Spain joined the cause of the colonies, and the war went
on. "This general war [American Revolution]," writes
Wood, "was something vastly more complex than any mere
struggle between a King and his subjects, a mother country
and her colonies, or the British and Americans. On one
side stood the home government and the loyalists in Amer-
ica; quite alone throughout the war. On the other stood
the home opposition in politics and the American revolu-
tionists in arms, but not alone, except at first. For pres-
x Chapais, Cours d'Histoxre du Canada, I., pp. 135-173. — F. P. Walton expresses the same
thought when he writes: ""It was precisely because the French Canadians felt that they
had been treated with justice and even with generosity by the British crown, that when the
crisis came . . . they turned a deaf ear to the advances of the Americans. " F. P. Walton, in
Canada and Its Provinces, III., p. 7-
2 Quoted in Guilday, op. cit., p. 104. Hugh L. Keenleyside, in Canada and the United States
(1929), after reviewing the history of the Canadian-American relations holds that the forma-
tion of the Dominion in 1867 "ended apparently forever, the possibility of the political union
of these J:wo^North American nations." "It is conceivable," he writes (p. 382), "although
from present indications unlikely, that with the lapse of time Canada may break the strong
bonds of affection that unite the Dominion with the remainder of the British Empire; it is in-
conceivable, if history has any meaning whatever, that Canada should unite, politically, with
the American Republic.'' ' If British stupidity was responsible for the creation of the Amer-
ican Republic, American*stupidity was chiefly responsible for French Canadian non-participa-
tion in the American Revolution. See p. 477, n. 3, post.
THE COLONIES RISE AGAINST ENGLAND 4 7i
ently France [February, 1778] and Spain [1779] and Holland
[1780] joined the enemy in arms, and later on the Germans,
Prussians, Russians, Swedes and Danes formed the hostile
armed neutrality of the north. 111
The names of Washington, Greene, Barry, John Paul
Jones, Lafayette, Rochambeau, Baron von Steuben, Kosciusko,
Pulaski, de Kalb and others are known to every child;
and to adult and child they conjure visions of the war. It
was a hard and a long struggle, for the colonists were weak
in numbers, in means, and sometimes in cooperation and
loyalty in their cause. Rochambeau did not exaggerate when
he wrote to Paris: "Sometimes Washington commands
15,000 men and sometimes only 3000. " 2 Steuben, who
had been drilled in the traditions of Frederic II, made of
this motley crowd an army, that, with the help of La Grasse's
fleet, was able to hold out against overwhelming numbers
and resources of the British, and, under the prudent and cau-
tious leadership of the great Washington, win the independ-
ence that has proved such a blessing to America.
But the Revolutionary War was not fought out in the
East only. Nor were Washington, and Steuben, and Lafa-
yette, and Rochambeau the only great men of this period.
The West, too, played an important part in the winning
of liberty, and the outstanding figure in the army of the
West is George Rogers Clark.
When France and England prepared to fight for the pos-
session of the Ohio Valley, which, in effect, meant exclusive
supremacy on the American continent, each pressed the
respective friendly Indian tribes into service. In the same
manner, England and the colonists sought the alliance of
the savages at the beginning of the Revolutionary War.
During the Seven Years 1 War English and French in-
dulged in mutual accusations on the subject of permitting
the savages to perpetrate their wonted cruelties on white
prisoners of war. The same happened during the Revo-
lutionary War.
1 The latter countries combined in protest against the British pretension to the right of
search at sea. Wood, in Canada and Its Provinces, III., p. 73.
2Pasquet, op. cit., p. 257.
472 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Montreal and Albany had been the centers of bitter
rivalry for the Indian trade between French and English.
Detroit and Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh), three hundred miles
apart, became the western centers in the struggle for Amer-
ican independence. Detroit and Fort Pitt were respectively
the British and American centers, from which each sought
to bring its influence to bear upon the savages in the numer-
ous councils held with the Indians. The stake for which
the leaders fought amounted to some 8,000 savages of various
tribes : the Delewares and Munsee, Shawnee, Wyandot, Chip-
pewa, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Vermillion, and the Wabash
tribes, the Miami or Pickawillanee, Mingo, Ottawa, the
Seneca, Sauk, and numerous other tribes. 1 All the western
trails led to Detroit, all the way from Kaskaskia and Vin-
cennes. Detroit was an important center of the ever im-
portant fur trade, and, in turn, Detroit furnished other posts
with supplies and grain. 2
At first the colonists took a rather ideal stand and planned
to keep the savages neutral, telling them that this would
be a "family quarrel" between the colonists and the English
across the sea, and that they should "keep the hatchet buried
deep;" 3 however, as a precautionary measure, Congress
appointed three departments of Indian Affairs. George Mor-
gan, then a Colonel in the colonial army, had charge of one
of the departments. Morgan suggested the plan which
was followed by the better type of Indian agents: "The
cheapest and most humane mode of obtaining an alliance
with the savages is by buying of their Friendship ; they have
been long taught by contending Nations to be bought and
sold." 4 However, even at this time there were direct
invitations to the savages to take an active part in the fighting.
Ethan Allen 5 wrote to some Canadian tribes in May,
1775: "I want to have your warriors come and see me, and
help me fight the King's Regular Troops. You know they
1 James Alton James, George Rogers Clar\ Papers, XV.
Hbid., XIII., n. 1.
Hbid., XVII.
*Ibid., XVIII.
5 Probably when he was getting the "Green Mountain Boys" ready for the attack on
the British garrison at Fort Ticonderoga. Fanny, a daughter of General Ethan Allen, died
a nun in the convent of the Hotel-Dieu, Montreal.
THE COLONIES RISE AGAINST EHGLAKD 473
stand all along close together, rank and file, and my men
fight so as Indians do, and I want your warriours to join me
and my warriours, like brothers, and ambush the Regulars:
if you will, I will give you money, blankets, tomahawks,
knives, paint, and anything that there is in the army, just
like brothers; and I will go with you into the woods to scout;
and my men and your men will sleep together, and eat and
drink together, and fight Regulars, because they first killed
our brothers . . . but if you our brother Indians do not fight
on either side, we will still be friends and brothers; and you
may come and hunt in our woods, and come with your canoes
in the lake, and let us have venison at our forts on the lake,
and have rum, bread, and what you want and be like broth-
ers. 1
May 25, 1776, the Indian Commissioners were instructed
to offer L50 Pennsylvania currency for every soldier prisoner
brought to them. The Indians were to be given free plunder
of the garrison. June 17, 1776, Washington was authorised
to employ Indians. 2
The British, apparently from the beginning, planned to
make use of the savages in the war against the "rebels' \
Of course, one side accused the other of using Indians, and
so General Gage urged that Carle ton, who wanted to
make it a "white man's war," should employ savages, be-
cause the "rebels" had used them on the frontier of Quebec,
etc. Lord Dunmore instructed Major Connolly to induce
the savages to fight for the British. 3 With the help of
the Indians a wedge was to be driven between the northern
and southern colonies.
British as well as American Indian agents held conference
after conference with the savages, each promising great
rewards if they gave them support, and dire punishment, if
they joined the enemy. After all, these children of the forests
understood little of the issues at stake. They were cajoled,
threatened, bribed with presents, feasted, and supplied with
rum. Here were two bodies of whites fighting each
other on lands that the Indian claimed as his own.
1 James, op. cit., XVI.
2Jbtd., XIII., p. 213.
Htid., XVIII and XIX; Wood, Canada and Its Provinces, III., p. 77-
474 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
There was only one way to keep the faith of the savages —
"by buying of their Friendship," as Morgan had suggested.
The English pursued the same policy. Major De Peyster
wrote to General Haldimand from Detroit: "But the Indians
must have presents: whenever we fall off from that article
they are no more to be depended upon." 1
The position of the colonial Indian agents became in-
creasingly difficult, because settlers continued to push west-
ward into the territory reserved to the Indians. 2 In fact,
some unscrupulous frontiersmen designedly provoked the
savages to hostilities in order to defeat them in war, and then
seise their lands. The British made capital of this in their
conferences with the savages and convinced them that ulti-
mately the colonists would take all their lands from them.
British influence and backing prompted the Six Nations
and the Chippewa Indians to send the following ultimatum
to the Virginians and Pennsylvanians : "You have feloniously
taken Possession of part of our Country on the branches of
the Ohio, as well as the Susquehanna, to the latter [Pennsyl-
vanians], we have some time since sent you word to quit our
Lands as we now do to you, as we don't know we ever give
you liberty, nor can we be easy in our minds while there is
an arnTd Force at our very doors, nor do we think you, or
anybody else would — Therefore, to use you with more
lenity than you have a right to expect, we now tell you in a
peaceful manner to quit our Lands wherever you have pos-
sessed yourselves of them immediately, or blame yourselves
for whatever may happen." 3
The Colonials kept their eyes on Detroit, and Arthur St.
Clair, Secretary for Indian Commissioners, suggested a volun-
teer expedition of five hundred men to take Detroit by sur-
prise. This was in the fall of 1775, when Generals Montgom-
ery and Arnold were making their attack on Quebec. Wash-
ington and the leading men of the country hoped and believed
that Quebec would be taken, and then Detroit would fall into
the hands of the Americans. The St. Clair expedition was,
l Clar\ Papers, XXV., n. 1.
2 By Royal Proclamation, Sept. 19, 1763, the western lands were temporarily reserved for
the use of Indians. Canadian Archives, (1906), p. 112.
3 Morgan, Letter Boo\ I, February 2, 1777 in James, op. cit., XXVII.
THE COLONIES RISE AGAINST ENGLAND 4 75
therefore, not approved, and was not undertaken. Washing-
ton wrote to General Schuyler, in the supposition that Quebec
would surrender: "If you carry your arms to Montreal,
should not the garrisons of Niagara, Detroit, ^c ... be called
upon to surrender or threatened with the consequences of
a refusal? They may, indeed, destroy their stores, and, if the
Indians are aiding, escape to Fort Chartres; but it is not very
probable. in
During the winter of 1775-1776, Canada was practically
under the control of the Americans, but the double attack
upon Quebec under Montgomery and Arnold failed, Mont-
gomery being killed under the walls of Quebec, and Arnold
wounded. The failure of the Canadian campaign gave new
impetus and courage to Hamilton at Detroit. "The summer
months [of 1776]," writes James, "were full of foreboding for
the now terror stricken frontiersmen. Six hundred Cherokee
were reported as being ready to strike the Virginia frontier
with a determination to kill or make prisoners of all the people.
These savages had also accepted the war-belt from the Shaw-
nee and Mingo, and agreed to fall on the Kentucky settle-
ments. A general confederation of all the western tribes
was reported, whose purpose was to destroy all frontier
settlements as soon as their scattered young men could be
called in and the corn necessary for subsistence should ripen." 2
Hamilton delivered tomahawks, bullets and powder to
the Mingo, who were bitter enemies of the Americans, and,
according to Morgan, harangued them as follows: "That
he wonder'd to see them so foolish as not to observe that
the Big Knife 3 was come up very near to them, & claimed
one half the water in the Ohio, 6? that if any of the Indians
crossed over to their side of the River they immediately
took him, laid his head on a Big Log and chopp'd it off — that
he had now put them in a way to prevent such Usage, 6-?
that if they met any of them they should strike their Toma-
hawks into their heads, cut off some of their hair 6? bring
it to him." 4
ijames, op. cit., XXVIII. (Letter of Nov. 5, 1775).
2 Ibid., XXXII. Cornstalk, a noted Shawnee chief gave the information about the confed'
eration.
3 Big Knife or Long Knife, that is, the Americans.
4 Morgan, Letter Boo\, Ibid., XXXIII.
476 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
This speech gained for Hamilton the unenviable title of
"Hair Buyer" General. The Americans believed him guilty
of offering rewards for scalps.
It has been pointed out that the savages disliked the Eng-
lish colonists more than the French explorers, partly for
the reason that the English colonist was followed by a hun-
dred others — and then the hunting grounds of the Indian,
from the savage's standpoint, were ruined. It was pre-
cisely the American frontiersmen who pushed their settle-
ments farther and farther into the Indian country. Morgan,
who thoroughly understood the savage mentality, recom-
mended "to restrain the frontiersmen and promote good
order among them . . . make liberal donations, and in all
respects treat the Indians with 'Justice, Humanity and
Hospitality/ ,n
September 2, 1777, Hamilton suggested the use of Indians
to harass and distress the frontiers. These savage war bands
were indeed urged to act with humanity. But one might as
well blow up the dam that holds back the floodwaters of the
Mississippi, and then expect the waters not to pour through
the crevasses, as hold the savages, turned loose on the set-
tlers, to rules of humanity. The year 1777 is, therefore,
known as the "bloody year."
"In isolated localities," writes James, "too remote for
warning, men were killed or captured while at work in the
fields or out hunting. Women and children were burned
in the houses or, as in other cases, the entire family were
carried away as prisoners. Hard pressed by their pursuers,
the Indians killed such prisoners as hindered their rapid
retreat. Thus the tomahawk saved them from sharing in
the fate of their companions which was frequently more
cruel. Upon arrival at an Indian village men prisoners were
forced at times to satisfy the cruel instincts of their captors
by running the gauntlet or were burned at the stake. Some
were sold to British and French traders and later effected
their escape or were ransomed. Women were compelled
to become the wives or slaves of the warriors and children
were adopted into the tribe." 2
ijames, op. cit., XXXV.
Hbxd., XXXVII.
THE COLONIES RISE AGAINST EHGLATiD 477
But not all British leaders were " Hair-Buy ers." In Novem-
ber, 1777, discussing the war against the rebels, Lord Suffolk
declared that "there were no means which God and Nature
might have placed at the disposal of the governing powers,
to which they would not be justified in having recourse' 1
to crush the rebels. Pitt, Earl of Chatham, rose to reply as
follows: "But who is the man, who has dared to authorise
and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping knife
of the savage? . . . What! to attribute the sanction of God
and Nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife. . . .
They shock every sentiment of honor. They shock me as a
lover of honorable war and a detester of murderous barbarity.
These abominable principles, and this more abominable
avowal of them, demand a most decisive indignation. " 2
In the colonies, too, there were Englishmen whose very
souls rebelled against the irresponsible and uncontrollable
turning loose of savages. June 8, 1778, Lieutenant-Governor
Edward Abbott 2 voiced this protest to Sir Guy Carleton 3 :
"Your Excellency will plainly perceive the employing In-
dians on the Rebel frontiers has been of great hurt to the
cause, for many hundreds would have put themselves under
His Majesty's protection was there a possibility; that not
being the case, these poor unhappy people are forced to
take up arms against their Sovereign, or be pillaged & left
to starve; cruel alternative. This is too shocking a subject
to dwell upon; Your Excellency's known humanity will
certainly put a stop, if possible, to such proceedings, as it
is not people in arms that Indians will ever daringly attack,
but the poor inoffensive families who fly to the deserts to
be out of trouble, 62? who are inhumanly butchered sparing
neither women or children." 4
1 James, op. at., XXXIX.
2 Abbott commanded at Vincennes on the Wabash.
3 Guy Carleton (17244808) served under Amherst at the siege of Louisbourg (1758), under
Wolfe at Quebec (1759) and took part in the British attack on Havana (1762); became Lieut.'
Gov. of Quebec in 1766, and inspired the Quebec Act (1774). During the Revolutionary
War he commanded the British army in Canada, defended Quebec against Montgomery and
Arnold, and forced the latter to retreat. In 1782 he superseded Gen. Amherst as Commander'
in'Chief of the British army in North America. The fact that Carleton gave inspiration to
the Quebec Act and was in consequence loved by the French Canadians was perhaps the
most potent single factor that helped to save Canada to Great Britain.
4 Abbott to Carleton, June 8, 1778, James, op. cit., p. 47-
478 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, took steps to check
the rear attacks perpetrated by the savages of the back country
under Hamilton's direction and to protect the frontier set"
tlements of Virginia. This was in the spring of 1777. Con-
gress appointed General Hand to Fort Pitt, with instructions
to invade the Indian country. The Tories along the border
lines were very active, and consequently not enough men
could be gotten together; moreover, other difficulties arose, and
as a result Hand's threatened offensive collapsed into complete
failure. General Mcintosh was next entrusted with the
task of punishing the savages, but, like his predecessor, he
failed. Mcintosh asked to be relieved of the command of
the Western army and was superseded by Colonel Daniel
Brodhead. While nothing positive was gained by these at-
temps against the savages, still the British officials at Detroit
became alarmed, particularly so because of the "greatly damped
spirits" of their savage friends.
But the days of Hamilton's "Hair-Buying" were drawing
to a close. The half-hearted undertakings of Hand and Mc-
intosh were to be overshadowed by the dashing, daring,
aggressive offensives of George Rogers Clark, by universal
consent of historians the greatest Revolutionary hero of
the Western frontier.
SPANISH LOUISIANA AFTER O'REILLY— EARLY
LIFE OF GEORGE ROGERS CLARK— FRONTIER
HARDSHIPS— BEGIHNIHGS OF KENTUCKY
—HAMILTOK THE HAIRSUYER GEN-
ERAL— CLARK PLAHS DRIVE U^
TO EHEMY COUNTRY
The keen, calculating, military O'Reilly drove the fear
of the law into the somewhat turbulent inhabitants of
Louisiana. Pedro Piernas, who had been recalled by Ulloa
almost immediately upon his arrival at Principe de Asturias,
at the mouth of the Missouri, was sent back to his post by
O'Reilly. A census taken by Piernas shows a population of
891 in the various settlements of the Spanish Illinois, west
of the Mississippi. In 1772, the population had increased
to 1288, 803 whites and 485 slaves, which increase was
mainly due to influx from the British side. The population
of St. Louis is given at 399 whites and 198 slaves. 1
In October, 1770, Don Luis Unsaga superseded O'Reilly
as Governor of Louisiana, and Don Francesco Cru2;at fol-
lowed Piernas at St. Louis in 1775. Unsaga was easy-going
and closed an eye to contraband trade of the Louisianians
of the Spanish side with the English east of the Mississippi.
A memoir of that day records that he managed the affairs
of the colony well, without neglecting his own. Crusat
followed the example of his chief in leniency towards smug-
glers.
February 1, 1777, Bernardo Galves came to the colony
as successor to Unsaga, and Don Fernando de Leyba 2 followed
Crusat at St. Louis, July, 1778.
That was the setting on the west, or the Spanish bank
of the Mississippi, in the summer of 1778, when George
Rogers Clark, who will always be considered one of the
most dramatic, meteor-like figures in American history, or
iHouck, op. cit., II., pp. 29-30.
2 "In September, 1779, his wife died and was buried in the church 'in front of the right
hand ballustrade,' and in June, 1780, Don Fernando de Leyba was buried by her side in the
same church." Houck, op. cit., II., p. 32, n.
479
4 8o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEAHS
the history of any country, made his daring dash through
the British Illinois, from the Falls of the Ohio to the east
bank of the Mississippi.
Burgoyne had surrendered at Saratoga (October 17, 1777),
Washington had weathered the crisis in the cold and hungry
winter at Valley Forge (1777-1778), France had openly es-
poused the cause of the colonists (February, 1778), Lord
North had made the mother country's far-reaching but be-
lated overtures of peace, and the British had evacuated Phil-
adelphia, when Clark undertook his daring march to drive
the British from their back-country strongholds and put an
effectual stop to the savages' attacks on the border inhabitants.
George Rogers Clark, son of John Clark and Ann, nee
Rogers, was born in Albermarle County, Virginia, Novem-
ber 19, 1752, when France and England were preparing to
fight out the question of possession of the Ohio Valley and
final domination in North America. His father owned a
400-acre farm a few miles from Charlottesville, and two and
a half miles from Shadwell, the birthplace of Thomas Jefferson.
Five years later his parents sold out and went to Caroline
County, Virginia.
At the age of eleven George Rogers was sent to a private
school, conducted by a certain Donald Robertson, to re-
ceive a classical education. His elder brother, John Rogers,
James Madison, and John Tyler attended the same school
with George Rogers.
The boy was a failure at Latin and Greek, "and so at the
end of six or eight months he was sent home." 1 Still, his
taste was not frivolous, his talents simply ran in a different
direction. His niece, Diana Gwathmey Bullitt, writes of
him: "I learned from his mother, with whom I lived a great
deal, that General Clark was very fond of history and geog-
raphy, and the study of nature from his earliest youth. When
I lived with him he used to caution me against novel reading
and urged me to read history." 2
He was thrifty, too, and at the age of fifteen earned money
for his own support. His father's account book charges him
\James Alton James, The Life of Georgz Rogers C\ar\, pp. 2'5; Frederick Palmer, C\ar\ of
the Ohio, p. 38.
2 Temple Bodley, George Rogers Clar\, p 4, n. 2. p
COLONEL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK
The Son of Virginia The Sword of Kentucky
The Conqueror of the Illinois
Erected at Quincy by the State of Illinois, igog Charles ]. Mulligan, sculptor
1 \**
4. ' .■'-■
$JJ^
FATHER GIBAULT— THE PATRIOT PRIEST OF THE WEST
THE COMIHG OF GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 481
with clothes and other articles, and credits him with the mon-
ey for a crop of tobacco, which the boy had raised.
At the age of nineteen he engaged in surveying, and his
father's account book, under date of April 13, 1772, charges
him with "Surveyors Instruments L 7.0 and Euclid's Ele-
ments L 12.0." He was then a "tall, slender, blue-eyed youth
with clear complexion and sandy hair/ 11
In the early summer of 1772, Clark, with a few adven-
turous youths, went down the Ohio on a tour of exploration.
In the fall of that year he returned home, where the little
boys, and even their elders looked upon him as a hero, who
had seen the far West. He was so taken up with the wil-
derness, that his glowing descriptions induced his father to
accompany him to the land he had picked out for himself,
some 130 miles below Pittsburgh. They made clearings,
and George Rogers filled in with surveying farms of the
settlers who were pouring into that part of the country.
He wrote to his brother Jonathan: "I had an offer of a very
considerable sum for my place. I get a good deal of cash by
surveying on this river . . . and drive on pretty well as to
clearing, hoping by spring to get a full crop." 2
In the spring of 1774, Clark descended the Ohio with
some ninety men to form a settlement in Kentucky. In the
previous year, 1773, Daniel Boone had come into Kentucky
with his family and some other families and hunters, — all told,
eighty persons. Richard Henderson of North Carolina or-
ganised the Transylvania Company, and by treaty of March
17, 1775, with Cherokee chiefs, obtained 20,000,000 acres
of land between the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers, in
exchange for L10,000 worth of clothing, trinkets, ornaments,
and firearms. 3
At this time, the savages, particularly the Shawnee, were
very hostile to the whites, and the Pennsylvanians and Vir-
ginians had a quarrel of their own about boundary lines.
^dley, op. tit., p. 8. According to Frederick Palmer, Clark had red hair.
Hbid., p. 9.
3 James, op. tit., p. 21. — One way of acquiring land in those days was by means of what was
known as the "tomahawk title.'" Settlers would chip a piece of bark off a tree and mark
on the tree the date and the number of acres they claimed for themselves. When they cleared
and planted a portion of land thus acquired by the "tomahawk title," they established a
better title known as "corn title." Ibid., p. 6.
482 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"The Pennsylvanians, engaged primarily in trade, desired
to have the natives remain in undisturbed possession of
their forests, whereas the Virginians sought to gain actual
possession of the soil." 1
Dr. Connolly, agent of Lord Dunmore, then Governor of
Virginia, stirred up trouble with the Shawnee and with the
Pennsylvanians. Clark joined CresapV expedition against the
Shawnee. Cresap, however, was careful not to molest friendly
Indians, particularly not Logan, a noted Mingo chieftain.
Then an "inhumanly brutal" crime was committed, which
precipitated the conflict known as Lord Dunmore's War.
"Five men, one of them a brother of Logan, and his sister
with her babe, crossed the Ohio, as had been their custom,
to visit with a family named Greathouse, and to secure a
supply of rum. After three of the Indians had been made
hopelessly drunk and the two others, accepting a challenge
to shoot at a mark, had discharged their guns, they were
set upon by Greathouse and his criminal associates and all
were killed. " 3
While taking part in Cresap's expedition, Clark met Jos-
eph Bowman, Leonard Helm, William Harrod and other
men, who later rendered distinguished services in the con-
quest of the Northwest.
When the war was over, Clark took up surveying in Ken-
tucky for the Ohio Company, at a salary of L80 per year,
"with the privilege of taking what lands he wanted for
himself." 4
The proprietors of Transylvania (Henderson Co.) took
steps to obtain recognition from Congress for what they in-
tended to be the fourteenth member of the United Colonies.
Clark writes: "While in Virginia I found there was var-
ious oppinions Respecting Hendersons claim. Many thought
it good, others doubted whether or not Virginia could with
propriety have any pretentions to the Countrey." 5 Tran-
sylvania lay within the limits of the original grant made to
Virginia.
x James, op. cit., p. 13.
2 Michael Cresap was the son of Thomas Cresap, a leading man in the Ohio Company and
a friend of Washington. At the outbreak of Lord Dunmore's War, Michael Cresap was
commissioned captain.
3 Ibid., p. 15. 4 Bodley, op. cit., p. 21. 5 James, C\ar\ Papers, p. 209.
THE COMIJiG OF GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 483
Clark was determined to contest the Henderson claim,
and called a general meeting of the settlers at Harrodstown,
June 6, 1776. The people elected Clark and John Gabriel
Jones delegates to the Assembly of Virginia at Williams-
burg, to protest the proprietary claims of Henderson 6?
Company, and to pray for the establishment of a county gov-
ernment under the protection of Virginia.
When the delegates reached Williamsburg they found that
the Assembly had adjourned. Jones returned to the Hol-
ston 1 to help fight off the attacks of the Cherokee, while Clark
went on to Hanover, where the Governor, Patrick Henry,
was ill. Patrick Henry "appeared much disposed to favour
the Kentuckyens and wrote by me to the [Executive] Coun-
sill on the subject. I attended them. My application was
for five hundred pounds of powder only [for the defense
of Kentucky], to be co[n]veyed to Kentucky as an Immediate
supply."
Clark reasoned that to grant the powder was an implicit
acknowledgment of the rights of Virginia over Kentucky.
But the Council was conservative and circumspect, and in-
formed Clark they would lend the powder to the Kentuck-
ians, "as to Frends in distress," but that Clark must be
answerable for it in the event the Assembly would not
acknowledge the Kentuckians as citizens of Virginia. Clark
refused to accept the powder under this condition, but
the wary Council replied that what they had offered was
already a "stretch of power," and that they could do no more
for him. To show their good will towards him and the cause
he represented, they issued an order to the keeper of the
magazine to deliver the quantity of powder requested.
Clark was only a lanky stripling, twenty-four years of
age, but on this occasion he showed the clear vision and
strong determination of a veteran diplomat. His bristles
were up, he sent the order back to the Council with the
remark that he could not think of transporting this quan-
tity of powder at his own risk through an enemy country,
and "that if a Cuntrey was not worth protecting it was not
worth Claiming, 6?c., &c. . . ."
That plucky act of Clark's woke up the Council. They
sent for him, and "Orders was immediately issued, dated
^he small settlements along the Holston River were collectively known as "The Holston.""
484 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
August 23rd, 1776, for the conveying those Stores to pitts-
burg and their to await further orders from me." 1
Virginia was thereby committed to maintaining its "west-
ern charter jurisdiction. 1 ' The same year, December 7, 1776,
the Virginia Assembly passed a bill, forming out of Fincastle
County three distinct counties: Washington, Montgomery,
and Kentucky. The Henderson claim was repudiated.
The problem of transporting the powder from Pitts-
burgh to Kentucky was still before Clark. He suspected
that the Indians of the upper Ohio knew of his plans and
would intercept him, if possible. Clark, John Gabriel Jones,
and seven oarsmen departed secretly and disembarked near
the mouth of Limestone Creek. "We hid our stores in four
or five different places, at a considerable distance apart, and
running a few miles lower in our Vessel set it a drift and
took by Land for Harrods Town in order to get a force suf-
fitient and Return for our stores." 2
With two men Clark hurried on towards Harrodstown,
while John Todd, who had chanced across Clark's men,
proceeded with nine men to get the powder. The party
was attacked by savages, and two of Todd's men were killed.
They did not bring away the powder. In January, 1777,
a force of thirty men delivered it to Harrodsburg.
Hamilton, British Lieutenant-Governor of Detroit, cleverly
fanned the revenge that was burning in the hearts of the sav-
ages. Unscrupulous frontiersmen were in great part responsible
for this attitude of the Indians. One need only think of the
murder of Logan's family by that savage white, Greathouse.
The bitter feelings of the forest children and the deep wounds
that made their hearts bleed may be judged from Logan's
sympathetic cry of despair. "I appeal to any white man
to say if he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him
not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him
not. During the last long and bloody war, 3 Logan remained
quiet in his cabin, an advocate of peace ... I had even thought
to live with you, but for the injuries of one man 4 . . . , who
last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all
x Jamcs, C\ar\ Papers, p. 213. 4 Logan erroneously blamed Michael Cresap.
Hbid., p. 214.
3 Pontiac War.
THE COMITiG OF GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 485
the relatives of Logan, not sparing even my women and
children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins
of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I
have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my
vengeance ... I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not
harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never
felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who
is there to mourn for Logan? Not one. 111
And so the innocent were made to suffer with the guilty,
and the year 1777, which was the gloomiest year for Wash-
ington, became also the "bloody year. 11 Clark was an out-
standing fighter in defense of the settlers against the attacks
of the savages during this year. "To enumerate all the little
actions that happened, 11 he writes in his Memoir, 2 "it is
Impossible. They ware continual and frequently sevear
whin compared to our small forces. The Forts ware often
attacted (policy seem to have Required that the whole should
be imbodied in one place, but, depending on Hunting for
the greatest part of our provitions, forbid it). No people
could be in a more allarming situation, detached at least two
Hundred miles from the nearest settlement of the States,
surrounded by numerous Nations of Indians, each one far
superior in number to ourselves and under the Influance
of the British government and pointedly directed to distroy
us, as appeared by many Instruments of writing left on the
brest of people Kiled by them. I was frequently affraid that
the people would think of Making their peace with DeTroit 3
and suffer themselves and Families to be carried of. Their
distress may be easily conceived from our situation, but they
yet remained firm in hopes of Relief, which they received
by the arrival of a Company of Men under Comd of Col John
Bowman on the 2d of Septr. This Reinforcement though
small added new life to the appearance of things. Incouraged
1 James, Life of George Rogers Clar\, p. 19.
2 Clar\ Papers, p. 216. George Rogers Clark was gifted with remarkable powers of dc
scription, but his spelling and punctuation are very defective. In accordance with the prin'
ciple followed throughout this volume of introducing the actors of those far'off days and then
letting them speak in their own words so that the reader may understand the souls of these
men, I have preferred to let Clark tell his own story. I have, however, taken the liberty to
insert some punctuation to facilitate the reading of Clark's extremely fascinating story of his
exploits.
3 The British General Henry Hamilton commanded at Detroit.
486 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
by this and the stand they had already made, every one seemed
determined to exert himself in Strengthing the Cuntrey
by Incouraging as many of his friends as possible to move
out, 1 which succeeded in the end.' 1
Frontier life was hard, hard by its very nature, hard for
the more refined because of the rough types of many of the
frontiersmen, "wild and ungovernable, little less savage
than their tawny neighbors,' 1 hard because of the brutal
attacks of the savages, and the women shared the hardships
with the men. "Some of them were skilled in the use of
the rifle and took their turns at the portholes. While off
duty they assisted in loading guns, cared for the wound-
ed, cooked such scanty food as could be secured, and melted
the pewter plates into bullets." 2
The government of the new colony was in embryonic
condition. Individual rights counted for little; individual
might held the field, and individual prowess counted for
more than organised methods. "I am afraid," said John
Todd, "to lose sight of my house, lest some invader take
possession." And again: fc Tm worried to death almost by
this learned ignoramus set; and what is worse, there are
two lawyers here and they can't agree!" 3
Harrodsburg became the county seat, and a county lieu-
tenant, colonel, lieutenant-colonel, sheriff, and justices of
the peace were appointed. Clark 4 gave much thought to
the local government, to how the newly-created county
fitted into the general interests of the United Colonies, and
to how the rear attacks of the savages might be effectually
checked. "The defence of our Forts, the procuring pro-
vitions, and, when possible, surprising the Indeans (which
was frequently done), burying the dead and dresing the
wounded seemed to be all our business. The whole of my
time when not thus Imployed [I spent] in Reflecting on things
in Geni, particularly Kentucky, how it accorded with the
interest of the United States, whether it was to their in-
terest to support it [or] not 6?c. ... As the Commandant
^ove to Kentucky.
2 James, Life of George Rogers Clarl{, p. 57.
Hbid., p. 55.
4 George Rogers Clark was commissioned Captain of militia in 1774, Major in 1776, and
Lieutenant-Colonel in 1778.
THE COMWG OF GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 487
of the different Towns of the Illinois and Waubash, I knew,
was busily Ingaged in Exciting the Indians, their Reduction
became my first object. Expecting that it might probably
open a field for further action, I sent two young Hunters,
S. More 6-P B. Linn to those places as spies with proper In-
structions for their conduct/ 11
Philippe Rastel de Rocheblave, formerly Commandant at
Ste. Genevieve, but discharged by O'Reilly for disorders
in his accounts, was at this time British Commandant at Fort
Gage, the fortified former house of the Jesuits, situated in
the village of Kaskaskia. August 13, 1777, Sir Guy Carle-
ton wrote to Lord Sackville, Secretary for the Colonies:
"Mr. Rocheblave is a Canadian gentleman, formerly in the
French Service, whom I have employed to have an Eye on
the proceedings of the Spaniards, and the management of
the Indians on that side. 112
Galvez;, who was decidedly friendly to the cause of the
American colonists, was at this time Spanish Governor-
General in Louisiana. Oliver Pollock, an Irish-American,
agent of Virginia and of Continental Congress in New Or-
leans, enjoyed the protection and friendship of Galves, and
the two rendered incalculable service to the colonies, and to
Clark in particular. Pollock was a merchant, established
in Louisiana, who had acquired a great fortune, and whose
credit was limitless because of his honesty and business
acumen. "These assets were translated into terms of cash
with which he made huge purchases, fitted out the neces-
sary equipment for transportation by land and sea, and laid
down by his own name tremendous sums of money for those
days, with which he made necessary advances whenever
they were required. 113 Alvord states that Pollock bor-
rowed on his own account the sum of $80,000.00 "to sustain
the finances of the united colonies and Virginia in the west. 114
l Clar\ Papers, p. 217- Even at this time it was evidently Clark's plan to make a drive
right into the heart of the enemy country, capture the British strongholds, Vincennes, Kas'
kaskia, Cahokia, and Detroit, and stop the forays of the savages by removing from their midst
their sponsors and protectors.
2 Public Archives of Canada, Q. 14, p. 66. See p. 500, n. 2, post.
3 Margaret B. Downing, in Illinois Catholic Historical Review, October, 1919, p. 200; Palmer,
op. cit., pp. 275-277 and 283-289.
4 Alvord, Centennial History of Illinois, I., p. 330, n. 3,
488 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
These were the men on whom the multi-national Roche-
blave was "to have an Eye."
Clark, on his part, sent out two pairs of eyes to scruti-
nize Rocheblave and his position at Kaskaskia. More and
Linn went to St. Louis "as hunters, who had come to dispose
of some beaver skins and procure supplies there." Thence
they crossed over to Cahokia and proceeded down to Kas-
kaskia to examine Rocheblave's positions. "They returned
to Harrodsburgh," writes Clark, "with all the information
I could have Reasonably expected. I found by them that
they had but little expectation of a visit from us, but that
things ware in good [order] . . . that the greatest pains ware
taken to inflame the minds of the French Inhabitants against
the Americans, notwithstanding, they could discover traces
of affection in some of the Inhabitants. . . ." x
Clark's drive into the enemy country was by no means
to be a haphazard, hit-or-miss undertaking. Keeping his
plans to himself — and this was one of his outstanding char-
acteristics — he proceeded to Williamsburg to lay his designs
before Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia.
"On the 10th of Decembr I communicated my Views to
Govr Henry. At first View he apperd to be fond of it, but
to Detach a party off at so great a Distance (although the
service performed Might be of great utility) appeared Daring
and Hazardous as nothing but secrecy would probably give
sucksess to the Enterprise. To lay the Matter before the
assembly then seting would be dangerous, as it would soon
be known throughout the Fronters and probably the first
prisoner taken by the Indians would give the allarm, which
would end in the certain distruction of the party. He had
several private Counsills composed of select gentn. After
makeing every Inquirey into my prosed [proposed] plan of
opperation (and particularly that of a Retreat in case of Mis-
fortune, which I intended a cross the Mississippi into the
Spanish Territory), the Expedition was resolved on." 2
Truly, it looked hazardous and even foolhardy to lead
his army right through enemy country to its farthest
western outpost, and then to begin in the rear, capturing
the enemy posts as he moved eastward. Jefferson said it
l C\at\Papers,p.21$,
2 Ibid. 5 p. 219.
THE COMING OF GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 489
was the fertile and active mind of Clark that conceived this
plan: "It was an idea of his own 6? he came down from his
native country to propose to Govr Henry to raise volunteers
himself and undertake the reduction of the Illinois posts.
Govr Henry approved the design, but considering secrecy as
essential to success, could not ask authority from the legis-
lature, but consulted Colo. Mason, R. H. Lee, some others
and myself, who not only advised it, but pledged ourselves
to Clarke to use our best endeavors in the legislature, if he
succeeded, to induce them to remunerate himself and his
followers in lands." 1
Clark's plan of capturing Kaskaskia and the other Illi-
nois posts could, of course, not be made public for two rea-
sons: the British would have intercepted his course, and then,
too, quite a number of men, though willing to fight for the
safety of the settlers, their own kin, in Kentucky, would
not risk their heads trying to capture British posts in the
Illinois.
Clark writes of the further progress of the deliberations:
"After giving the Council all the intiligence I possibly could,
I resolv'd to pursue my other Plans, But being desired by
the Governour to stay some time in Town, I waited with
impatience; he, I suppose, believeing that I wanted the Com-
mand, and was determined to give it to me; But it was far
from my Inclination at that time." 2
January 2, 1778, Patrick Henry appointed George Rogers
Clark to lead the expedition into the Illinois country. Clark
was only 26 years of age, apparently careless and nonchalant,
but really clear-headed, determined, energetic, quick to act,
and confident of success.
After being engaged to conduct the campaign, he writes:
"I was then as Determined to prosecute it with Vigour, as
I was before indifferent about the Command. I had since
the beginning of the War taken pains to make myself ac-
quainted with the true situation of the British posts on the
Fronteers; and since find that I was not mistaken in my judg-
ment — I was ordered to Attact the Illinois; in case of Suc-
cess, to carry my Arms to any Quarter I pleased. I was
certain that with five hundred Men I could take the Illi-
K^uoted in Temple Bodley, George Rogers, Clark, 45, n. 3.
*C\ar\Papers, pp. 115416.
490 FROM QUEBEC TO KEW ORLEANS
nois, and by my treating the Inhabitants as fellow Citizens,
and shew them that I ment to protect rather than treat them
as a Conquered People, Engageing the Indians to our Inter-
est 6?c. It might probably have so great an effect on their
Countrymen at Detroiet (they already disliked their Mas-
ter) that it would be an easy prey 1 for me. I should have
mentioned my design to his Excellency, but was convinced,
or afraid, that it might lessen his esteem for me, as it was a
general oppinion that it would take several thousand to
approach that Place. I was happy with the thoughts of
fair prospect of undeceiveing the Publick respecting their
formidable Enemies on our Fronteers." 2
a Clark at this time planned to take the British posts in the Illinois country first and then
capture Hamilton at Detroit.
2 Mason Letter, Clar\ Papers, p. 116.
CLARK EHTERS KASKASKIA UKDER COVER OF
DAKKHESS—HE SURPRISES THE VILLAGERS
AKLD ROCHEBLAVE— CLARK AJ<[D GIBAULT
MEET— THE LIBERTY BELL OF THE
WEST—CAPTAITi BOWMAH
AT CAHOKIA
Clark 1 set out from Williamsburg January 18, 1778, car-
rying with him two sets of instructions from Patrick Henry.
The one set was intended for the public, and authorised Clark
to raise an army for the defense of the settlers in Kentucky.
The other gave official sanction to his own plan of attack-
ing the English posts in the Illinois country.
Public Instructions.
"Lieut. Colonel George Rogers Clark:
"You are to proceed, without loss of time, to enlist seven
companies of men, officered in the usual manner, to act as
militia under your own orders. They are to proceed to Ken-
tucky, and there to obey such orders and directions as you
shall give them, for three months after their arrival at that
place; but to receive pay, etc., in case they remain on duty
a longer time.
George Rogers Clark wrote two accounts of his western campaign. In the fall of 1779, less
than a year after the capture of Vincennes, he prepared the first narrative for his friend Colonel
George Mason. This is commonly known and quoted as the Mason Letter. James Alton James
writes in Clar\ Papers, p. 114, n. 1: "One of Clark's companions, with more education than
Clark himself possessed, probably acted as amanuensis in writing this letter, and may have
assisted in its composition. The signature, however, is in Clark's own hand. The location
of this letter was unknown for a number of years."
In the meantime, James Madison and United States Senator John Brown of Kentucky
strongly urged Clark to give them all the facts, saying: 'You cannot be too minute in detail of
causes and effects, of views and measures, of occurrences and transactions. . . . Circumstances
and facts which may appear unimportant to you, will not be thought so by others. . . . " Bod'
ley, op. cit., p. 35, n. 1.
In consequence of this urgent request, Clark wrote a second account of his exploits. This
second statement, which was never finished, is known as the Memoir. According to James
(Clar\ Papers, p. 629), the "Memoir is not made up of reminiscences of an old man who strove
for the dramatic in his presentation . . . the Memoir must be regarded as the supplement."
The texts quoted in this volume, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from James Alton
James, George Rogers Clar\ Papers, Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, vol.
VIII, Virginia Series, vol. III.
491
492 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"You are empowered to raise these men in any county in
the Commonwealth ; and the county lieutenants, respectively,
are requested to give all possible assistance in that business.
"Given under my hand at Williamsburgh, January 2, 1778.
P. Henry."
Secret Instructions.
"Virginia SCT.
"In Council, Wmsbug, Jan. 2, 1778.
"Lieut. Colonel George Rogers Clark:
"You are to proceed with all convenient Speed to raise
Seven Companies 1 of Soldiers to consist of fifty men each,
officered in the usual manner 6? armed most properly for
the Enterprise, 6? with this Force attack the British post
at Kaskasky.
"It is conjectured that there are many pieces of Cannon
fe? military Stores to considerable amount at that place, the
taking 6j? preservation of which would be a valuable acqui-
sition to the State. If you are so fortunate therefore as to
succeed in your Expectation, you will take every possible
Measure to secure the artillery 6? stores 6? whatever may
advantage the State.
"For the Transportation of the Troops, provisions, &?c,
down the Ohio, you are to apply to the Commanding Officer
at Fort Pitt for Boats, 6?c. during the whole Transaction
you are to take especial Care to keep the true Destination
of your Force secret. Its success depends upon this. Orders
are therefore given to Captn Smith to secure the two men from
Kaskasky. Similar conduct will be proper in similar cases.
"It is earnestly desired that you show Humanity to such
British Subjects and other persons as fall in your hands. If
the white Inhabitants at the post & the neighbourhood will
give undoubted Evidence of their attachment to this State
(for it is certain they live within its Limits) by taking the
Test prescribed by Law and by every other way & means
in their power, Let them be treated as fellow Citizens 6?
their persons 6^ property duly secured. Assistance 6? pro-
tection against all Enemies whatever shall be afforded them,
x "He was to have the men and the money, men on paper and paper money. 1 " Palmer, op.
cit., 157.
TAKITiG OF KASKASKIA AKD CAHOKIA 4 93
6-? the commonwealth of Virginia is pledged to accomplish
it. But if these people will not accede to these reasonable
Demands, they must feel the Miseries of War, under the
direction of that Humanity that has hitherto distinguished
Americans, 6? which it is expected you will ever consider
as the Rule of your Conduct, 6? from which you are in no
Instance to depart.
"The Corps you are to command are to receive the pay 6?
allowance of Militia 6? to act under the Laws 6? Regulations
of this State now in Force as Militia. The Inhabitants at
this Post will be informed by you that in Case they accede
to the offers of becoming Citizens of this Commonwealth
a proper Garrison will be maintained among them & every
Attention bestowed to render their Commerce beneficial,
the fairest prospects being opened to the Dominions of both
France 6? Spain.
"It is in Contemplation to establish a post near the Mouth
of Ohio. Cannon will be wanted to fortify it. Part of those
at Kaskasky will be easily brought thither or otherwise se-
cured as circumstances will make necessary.
"You are to apply to General Hand for powder & Lead
necessary for this Expedition. If he can't supply it the
person who has that which Capt Lynn brot from Orleans 1
can. Lead was sent to Hampshire by my orders fe? that may
be delivered you. Wishing you success, I am
Sir,
Your rTble Serv.,
P. Henry." 2
Clark immediately encountered all sorts of opposition.
He writes that he could have executed his long studied plan
"with the greatest ease if it had not been [for the] following
Conduct of many leading Men in the fronteers, that had
liked to have put an end to the enterprise, not knowing
my Destination, and through a spirit of obstinacy. They
combined and did every thing in their power to stop the
Men that had Enlisted, and set the whole Fronteers in an
uproar, even condescended to harbor and protect those
that Deserted. I found my case desperate, the longer I
remained the worse it was — I plainly saw that my Principal
Design [capture of Detroit?] was baffled — I was resolved to
*See p. 487, ante. 2 Hon. Henry Pirtle, Claris Campaign in the Illinois, pp. 95-97-
494 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
push to Kentucky with what men I could gather in West
Augusta; being joined by Capts Bowman and Helms, who
had each raised a Compy for the Expedition, but two thirds
of them was stopt by the undesign'd Enemies to the Country
that I before mentioned. In the whole I had about one hun-
dred 6? fifty Men Collected and set Sail for the Falls." 1
On the 12th day of May, 1778, Clark set out from Red-
stone. A considerable number of families and private ad-
venturers, who intended to settle at the Falls of the Ohio,
joined his party. Captain Smith, on the Holston River,
had previously informed Clark that he would meet him
with two hundred men.
"But you may easily guess at my mortification on being
informed that he had not arrived; that all his [Smith's] Men
had been stopt by the incessant labours of the populace,
except part of a Compy that had arrived under Command of
one Capt Deland. Some on their March being threatened
to be put in Prison if they did not return; this information
made me as Desperate as I was before Determined.
"Reflecting on the Information that I had of some of my
greatest opponents censureing the Governour for his Con-
duct, as they thought, ordering me for the Protection of
Kentucky only; that and some other secret impulses Oc-
cationed me in spite of all Council to Risque the Expedition
to convince them of their error until that moment, secret
to the Principal Officers I had — I was sensible of the im-
pression it would have on many, to be taken near a thousand
[miles] from the Body of their Country to attact a People
five times their number, and merciless Tribes of Indians
their Allies and determined Enemies to us.
"I knew my case was desperate, but the more I reflected
on my weakness the more I was pleased with the Enter-
prise. ... To stop the desertion I knew would ensue on
Troops knowing their Destination, I had encamped on a
small Island 2 in the middle of the Falls; [I] kept strict
^C\ar\ Papers, p. 117 (Mason Letter).
Clark's Memoir speaks of a "Little Island of about seven acres opposite to whare the Town
of Lewisville now stands." This island was later known as Corn Island. Only a small
portion of it is left today. The huge dam of the hydroelectric plant recently built just be'
low the Falls has raised the water in the Ohio to such level that the Rapids are no longer
perceptible. James, in Life of George Rogers C\ar\ writes: "He took possession of an island
70 acres in extent."'
TAKING OF KASKASKIA A7\[D CAHOKIA 4 95
Guards on the Boats, but Lieutenant Hutchings of Dil-
lards Compy contrived to make his escape with his party
after being refused leave to return. Luckely a few of his
Men was taken the next day by a party sent after them; on
this Island I first began to discipline my little Army, know-
ing that to be the most essential point towards success.
Most of them determined to follow me, the rest seeing no
probability of making their escape, I soon got that sub-
bordination as I could wish for; about twenty families that
had followed me, much against my Inclination, I found now
to be of service to me in guarding a Block house that I had
erected on the Island to secure my Provisions.
"I got every thing in Readiness on the 26th of June [1778],
sett off from the Falls, double Man'd our Oars, and pro-
ceeded day and Night until we run into the mouth of the
Tenesse River; 1 the fourth day landed on an Island to
prepare Ourselves for a March by Land; a few hours after
we took a Boat of Hunters 2 but eight days from Kaskas-
kias They were Englishmen, 6? appear'd to be in
our Interest; their intiligence was not favorable; they asked
leave to go on the Expedition, I granted it. . . . In the even-
ing of the same day I run my Boats into a small Creek about
one mile above the old Fort Missack [Massac], Reposed
ourselves for the night, and in the morning took a Rout to
the Northwest and had a very fatiegueing Journey for about
fifty miles, until we came into those level Plains that is fre-
quent throughout this extensive Country.
x Clark knew that spies were kept on the river below the towns of the Illinois and there'
fore decided to march to Kaskaskia by land — a distance of approximately 120 miles. He had
only 175 men. His original plan had been to attack Vincennes first, but "as post St. Vincennes
at this time was a Town of Considerable force consisting of near four Hundred Militia with
an Indean Town adjoining ... I could by no means venture near it 6? Resolved to begin my
Carear in the Illinois, where their was . . . less danger of being amediately overpowered by
the Indeans, and in case of necessity probably make our retreat good to the Spanish side of
the Mississippi. . . ." Clar\ Papers, p. 224 (Memoir).
2 John Duff and a party of hunters but lately come from Kaskaskia. They gave Clark a
report of the latest developments in the Illinois country: that Gov. Abbott of Vincennes had
gone to Detroit on important business; that Rocheblave commanded at Kaskaskia; that the
fort and militia at Kaskaskia were kept in good order, and that "all Hunters, both Indians
and others, ware ordered to keep a good lookout for the Rebels . . . but that, if we could sup'
prize the place, which they ware in hopes we might, they made no doubt of our being able to
do as we pleased. . . ." C\ar\ Papers, pp. 225-226 (Memoir).
496 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"As I knew my Success depended on secrecy, I was much
affraid of being discovered in these Meadows, as we might
be seen in many places for several miles; nothing extraor-
dinary happened dureing our Route, Excepting my guide
losing himself and not being able, as we judged by his con-
fusion, of giving a Just account of himself; It put the whole
Troops in the greatest Confusion. 111
"The cry of the whole Detachment was that he was a
Traitor. 11 Clark threatened him: fct If he did not discover
and take us into the Hunters Road that lead from the East
into Kaskaskias . . . that I would have him Imediately put
to death. 112
"I never in my life felt such a flow of Rage — to be wander-
ing in a Country where every Nation of Indians could raise
three, or four times our Number, and a certain loss of our
enterprise by the Enemie's getting timely notice. I could
not bear the thoughts of returning; in short, every idea of
the sort served to put me in that passion that I did not master
for some time; but in a Short time after our circumstance
had a better appearance, for I was in a moment determined
to put the guide to Death if he did not find his way that
Evening. I told him his doom. The poor fellow, scared
almost out of his wits, begged that I would stay awhile
where I was and suffer him to go and make some discovery
of a Road that could not be far from us, which I would not
suffer for fear of not seeing him again, but ordered him to
lead on the party, that his fate depended on his success;
after some little pause he begged that I would not be hard
with him, that he could find the Path that Evening, fie ac-
cordingly took his course and in two hours got within his
knowledge.
"On the Evening of the 4th of July we got within three
miles of the Town Kaskaskias, 3 having a River of the same
name to cross to the Town. After making ourselves ready
for anything that might happen, we marched after night to
l Clar\ Papers, p. 119 (Mason Letter).
2 /bicL, pp. 226-227 (Memoir).
3 The march from Fort Massac to Kaskaskia required six days. "We traveled two days
without any provisions, being very hungry. . . . About midnight we marched into the town.'"
Joseph Bowman to George Brinker, July 30, 1778. C\ar\ Papers, p. 615.
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THE HISTORIC BELL OF KASKASKIA— THE LIBERTY BELL OF THE WEST
A Gift of the King to the Church of the Illinois
This Bell was cast at La Rochelle, France, in 1745
Photograph by courtesy of Reime Studio, Belleville, Illinois
TAKING OF KASKASKIA A7s(D CAHOKIA 4 97
a Farm that was on the same side of the River about a mile 1
above the Town, took the family Prisoners 2 6^ found plenty
of Boats to Cross in; and in two hours Transported our-
selves to the other Shore with the Greatest silence.
"I learned that they had some suspician of being attacted
and had made some preparations, keeping out Spies, but
they, making no discoveries, had got off their Guard. I
immediately divided my little Army into two Divisions,
ordered one to surround the Town, with the other I broke
into the Fort." 3
In his Memoir Clark writes: "With one of the Divi'
tions I march of to the Fort and ordered the other two into
different Quarters of the Town, that if I met with no
resistance, at a certain signal a geni shout was to be given
and certain part was to be amediately possessed and men of
each detachmt that could speak the French language to Run
through every streat and proclaim what had happened. . . .
I dont suppose greator silence ever Reagnd among the In-
habitants of a place than did at this present. . . . Mr. Roche-
blave was secur'd but as it had been some time before he
could be got out of his Room, I suppose it was in order to inform
his Lady what to do to secure Publick Letters &t, as but few
was got, his chamber not being Visited for the night, shee
had full oppertunity of doing, but by what Means we never
could learn. I dont suppose among her Trunks — although
they never was examined. She must have expected the
loss of even her cloaths from the Idea she entertained
of us." 4
"[I] Sent Runners through the Town ordering the People
on the pane of Death to keep close to their Houses, which
they observed, and before daylight had the whole disarmed;
nothing could excell the Confusion these People seemed to
^ear Garrison Hill, atop of which the earthworks of old Fort Kaskaskia may still be seen.
2 "In the eavining of the fourth of July ... we got with in a few miles of the Town whare we
lay untill near dark, keeping spies a head, after which we continued our march and took pos-
session of a House whare in a large Family lived on the [left] bank of the Kaskias River about
three Quartirs of a Mille above the Town whare we ware informed that a few Days before
the people ware under arms but had concluded that the cause of the allarm was without
foundation and that at present all was quiet that their was great number of men [in] Town
but that the Indians had gen 1 * left it. . . ." C\ar\ Papers, p. 227 (Memoir).
3 Ibid., pp. 119420 (Mason Letter).
Hbid., pp. 227-228 (Memoir).
498 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
be in, being taught to expect nothing but Savage treatment
from the Americans, Giving all for lost. Their lives were
all they could dare beg for, which they did with the great-
est fervancy; they were willing to be Slaves to save their
Families.
"1 told them it did not suit me to give an answer at that
time, they repared to their houses trembling as if they were
led to Execution; my principal would not suffer me to dis-
tress such a number of People, except, through policy it
was necessary. A little reflection convinced me that it
was my Intrest to Attach them to me, according to my first
Plan; for the Town of Cohos 6? St Vincents and the numer-
ous Tribes of Indians attached to the French was yet to
influence, for I was too weak to treat them any other way.
"I sent for all the Principal Men 1 of the Town who
came in as if to a Tribunal that was to determine their fate
forever, Cursing their fortune that they were not apprised
of us [in] time to have defended themselves. I told them
I was sorry to find that they had been taught to harbour so
base an opinion of the Americans and their Cause : Explained
the nature of the dispute to them in as clear a light as I was
capable of. It was certain that they were a Conquered
People and by the fate of War was at my mercy and that
our Principal was to make those we Reduced free instead
of enslaving them as they immagined, that if I could have
surety of their Zeal and attachment to the American Cause,
they should immediately enjoy all the priviledges of our
Government and their property secured to them, that it
was only to stop farther effusion of Innocent Blood by the
Savages under trie influence of their Gouvernour, that made
them an object of our attention 6?c.
^he information Clark obtained from these men was that several persons then in
town seemed to be inclined to the American cause; and that there were then a great many
Indians in the neighborhood of Cahokia, 60 miles away. A number of the men cited to appear
before Clark accused Gabriel Cerre, a prominent merchant of Kaskaskia, of encouraging the
Indians to murder the whites. Cerre was at St. Louis on his way to Canada. Clark had his
house guarded. Cerre, hearing of the capture of Kaskaskia, returned from St. Louis to protect
his family. Clark cited Cerre and his accusers, "some of them of the American party, many
of whom were in debt to him." His enemies weakened very noticeably when confronted
before Clark with the victim of their lying tongues. Clark and Cerre became close friends
that day.
TAKIHG OF KASKASKIA A?s[D CAHOKIA 499
"No sooner had they heard this than Joy sparkled in
their Eyes and [they] fell into Transports of Joy that really
surprised me. As soon as they were a little moderated they
told me that they had always been kept in the dark as to
the dispute between America 6? Britain, that they had
never heard any thing before but what was prejuditial and
tended to insence them against the Americans, that they
were now convinced that it was a Cause they ought to Es-
pouse; that they should be happy of an oppertunity to con-
vince me of their Zeal, and think themselves the happyest
People in the World if they were united with the Ameri-
cans, and beg'd that I would receive what said their real
sentiments. . . .
"I told them that an Oath of fedelity was required from
the Citizens, and, to give them time ro reflect on it, I should
not Admfnister it for a few days. In the meantime, any of
them that chose, was at liberty to leave the Country with
their families; except two or three particular Persons, that
they might repair to their families, conduct themselves as
usial without any dread.
"The Priest that had lately come from Canada 1 had
made himself a little acquainted with our dispute; Con-
trary to the principal of his Brother 2 in Canada, was rather
prejudiced in favour of us. He asked us if I would give him
liberty to perform his duty in his Church. I told him that
I had nothing to do with Churches more than to defend
them from Insult. That, by the laws of the state, his Re-
ligion had as great Previledges as any other/ 13
A more detailed account is given in Clark's Memoir as
follows: "After some time the Priest got permition to wait
on me. He came with five or six Elderly Gentn with him.
How ever shocked they already ware from their present
situation, the addition was obvious and great when they
entered the Room whare I was siting with other Officers,
a dirty, savage apperance, as we had left our Cloath at the
River. We ware almost naked and torn by the Bushes and
Bryers. They ware shocked, and it was some time before
father Pierre Gibault.
2 Bishop Briand had issued a letter, reminding the Canadians of their oath of allegiance.
See p. 469, ante.
3 Clar\Papers, pp. 120-121 (Mason Letter).
5 oo FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
they would Venture to take seats an longer before they
would speak. They at last was asked what they wanted.
The priest informed me (after asking which was the prin-
cipal) that, as the Inhabitants expected to be separated, never
perhaps to meet again, they beged through him that they
might be permited to spend more time in the church to
take their leave of each other 1 (I knew they expected their
very Religion was obnoxtious to us). I carelesly told him
that I had nothing to say to his church, that he might go
their if he would, if he did, to inform the people not to ven-
ture out of the Town. They attempted some other Con-
versation, but was informed that we was not at leisure.
They went off after answering me a few questions that I
asked them with a very faint degree that they might [be]
totally discouraged from petitioning again, as they had not
yet come to the point I wanted.
"The whole Town seem to have collected to the Church.
Infants was Carried and the Houses Genly left without a
person in them, without it was such that cared but little
how things went, and a few others that was not so much
allarmed. Order was given to prevent the soldiers entering
a house. They Remained a considerable time in the church,
after which the priest and many of the principal men came
to me to Return thanks for the Indulgence shewn them
and beged permission to address me farther on a subject
that was more dear to them than any thing else. That their
present situation was the fate of war. That the loss of their
property they could reconsile, but was in hopes that I would
not part them from their families and that the women and
children might be allowed to keep some of their Cloaths
and a small Quantity of provitions, that [they] ware in hopes
by Industry that they might support them, that their whole
conduct has been Influanced by their Comdts whome they
looked upon themselves bound to obey and that they ware
not shore, ware not certain of being acquainted with the
nature of the American war as they had had but little op-
portunity to inform themselves, that Many of [them had]
frequently expressed themselves as much in favour of the
Americans as they dare do. In Short, they said every thing
x They knew the sad story of the deportation of the Acadians and expected the same
heartless fate.
TAKING OF KASKASKIA A^D CAHOKIA 501
that could be supposed that Sensible men in their allarming
situation would advance. All they appeared to aim at was
some lenity shewn their women and families, supposing
that their goods would appease us.
"I had suffitient Reason to believe that their was no
Finess in all this but that they really spoke their sentiments
and the height of their expectations. This was the point
I wished to bring them to — I asked them very abruptly,
whether or not they thought they were speaking to sava-
ges; that I was certain they did from the tenor of their con-
versation. Did they suppose that we ment to strip the
women and children, or take the Bread out of ther mouths,
or that we would condesend to make war on the women and
Children or the Church; that it was to prevent the effution
of Innocent blood by the Indians through the Instigation
of their Comdts and Enemies that caused us to visit them,
and not the prospect of Plunder, that as soon as that object
was obtained, we should be perrfectly satisfied, that, as the
King of France had Joined the Americans, 1 their was a
probability of their shortly being an end to the War (this
information very apparently effected them), they ware at
liberty [to] take which side they pleased with out any dred
of loosing their property or having their families distressed,
as for their church, all religians would be tolerated in amer-
ica, and that, so far from our Intermedling with it, that any
Insult offered to it, should be punished, and to convince
them that we ware not savages and Plunderers as they had
conceived, that they Might return to their Families and in-
form them that they might conduct themselves as utial,
with all Fredom, and without apprehention of any danger,
that from the information I had got since my arrivall, so
fully convinced me of their being Influanced by false infor-
mation from their leaders, that I was willing to forget every
thing past, that their friends in confinement should ame-
diately [be] Released and the guards with drawn from every
part of the Town, except Seres, 2 and that I only required
a complyance to a proclamation I should amediately issue
6fc. This was the substance of my reply to them.
France had entered the conflict February 22, 1778. It is very probable that this develop'
ment of the war was not known to the inhabitants of Kaskaskia,
2 Gabriel Cerre. See p. 498, n. 1, ante.
5 02 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"They wished to soften the Idea of my conceiving that
they supposed us to be savages and Plunderers, that they
had conceived that the property in all Towns belonged to
those that Reduced it &?c &c. I informed them that I new
that they ware taught to believe that we ware but little
better than barbarians, but that we would say no more on
the subject, that I wish them to go and Relieve the ancsiety
of the Inhabitants. Their Feelings must be more easily
guessed than expressed. They Retired and in a few minutes
the Scene was changed from an almost mortal dejection to
that of Joy on the extream, the Bells Ringing, 1 the Church
crow[d]ed, Returning thanks, in short, every appearance of
Extravagant Joy that could fill a place with almost confu'
tion. . . . 2
"I ordered Majr Bowman to mount his company and part
of another and a few Inhabitants, to inform their Friends
what had happened, on Horses to be procured from the Town
and proceed without delay and, if possible, get possession
of Kohos 3 befor the Insuing morning. ... He gave orders
for collecting the Horses on which Numbers of the Gentn
came and informed me, that they was sensible of the design
that the Troops ware much fatiegued, that they hoped I
would not take it amiss at their offering themselves to Execute
what ever I should wish to be done at Kohos, that the people
ware their friends and relations and would follow their
Example, at least, they hoped that they might be permitted
to Accompany the Detachment. Conceiving that it might
be good policy to shew them that we put confidence in them,
and that in fact [was] what I wish[ed] for from obvious Rea-
1 This bell is commonly known as the "Liberty Bell of the West". It was cast at La
Rochelle, France, in 1745, and bears the following inscription:
POUR LEGLISE DES ILLINOIS A GIFT OF THE KING
PAR LES SOWS DU ROI FOR THE CHURCH OF THE J
Like the other "Liberty BelP it is cracked and silent. The savages it once called to Mass
and Vespers are gone. Their descendants, if any, have become strangers in the land of their
forefathers. Its sweet peal that once rang out the Angelus and echoed back from Fort Kas'
kaskia Hill is heard no more. But the bell, such as it is today, is jealously guarded as a precious
relic by the Creoles of Kaskaskia Island.
2 Clar\ Papers, pp. 229-232 (Memoir).
3 Cahokia.
TAKIHG OF KASKASKIA A?iD CAHOKIA 503
sons ... I told them [if] they went they ought to [be] Equipt
for War, although I was in hopes that every [thing] would
be amicably Settled, but as it was the first time they ever
boor arms as free men, it might be well to equip themselves
and try how they felt as such, Espetially, as they ware
agoing to put their friends in the Same situation 6?c. They
appeared Highly pleased at the Idea and in the Eavening
the Majr set out with a Troop but little Inferiour to the
one we had Marched into the Cuntrey, the French being
commanded by their former militia officers. These new
Friends of ours was so Elated at thought of the Perade they
ware to make at Kohas that they ware too much Ingaged
in Equiping themselves to appear to the best advantage
that it was night before the party Moved, and the distance
20 Leagues, that it was late in the Morning of the 6th before
they Reach Kohokia, detaining every person they Met with. 1 ' 1
Captain Bowman 2 relates the details of their activities
on the way to Cahokia: "I was ordered by our commanding
officer (Colonel Clark) with thirty men mounted on horse-
back, to attack three other French towns up the Missis-
sippi. The first is called Parraderuski, 3 about fifteen miles
from Kaskaskias; the town we had in possession; and before
they had any knowledge of my arrival, I was in possession
of this place, which was no small surprise to them; in con-
sequence of which they were willing to comply with any
terms I should propose. From thence I proceeded to St.
Philip's, about nine miles higher up the river, which I like-
wise took possession of. . . . From thence I proceeded to
Cauhow, 4 about forty or fifty miles above St. Philip's, which
contained about one hundred families. . . ."
Clark continues:
"They got into the borders of the Town before they ware
discovered. The Inhabitants was at first much allarmed
at being thus suddenly visited by strangers in a Hostile ap-
pearance and ordered to surrender the Town, even by their
Friends and Relations, but as the confution among the Wo-
men [and] Children appeard greator than they expected
l Clar\ Papers, pp. 232-233, (Memoir).
2 Bowman to John Hite, July 30, 1778. Clar\ Papers, p. 612.
3 He means Prairie du Rocher. Spelling was not a strong point with these frontier heroes.
4 Cahokia t
504 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
from the cry of the big Knife 1 being in Town, they Ame-
deately assumed and gave the people a detail of what had
happened at Kaskaskias. The Majr informed them not to
be allarmed, that although Resistance at present was out
of the question, he would convince them that he would
prever their friendship than otherways, that he was au-
thorised to inform them that they ware at Liberty to become
Free americans, as their Friends at Kaskaskias had, or, that
[they who] did not chuse it, might move out of the Cuntrey,
except those that had been ingaged in Inciting the Indians
to war. Liberty and Fredom & hosaing for the Americans
ran thrugh the whole Town. The Kaskaskias Gentn dis-
persed among their Friends. In a few hours the whole was
Imicably [arranged] and Majr Bowman snugly Quartered
in the old British Fort 2 . ... A considerable number of
Indians that was then incampt in the Neighberhood, as
this was a principal post of Trade, amediately fled. One of
them that was at St. Louis some time after this got a Letter
wrote to me excusing himself for not paying me a Visit." 3
"In a few days the Inhabittants of the Country took the
Oath Subscribed by Law; and every Person appeared to
be happy; Our friends the Spanyards doing every thing
in their power to convince me of their friendship. A Cor-
respondence immediately commenced between the Gouv-
ernour 4 and myself." 5
Fernando de Leyba had superseded Don Francesco Crusat
in the government of upper Louisiana in the month of July,
1778. Later, Clark wrote to Mason: "An intamacy had
commenced between Don Leybrau, Lieut. Governour of
Western Illinois and myself. He omited nothing in his
Power to prove his Attachment to the Americans with
Clark's own marginal note to the Memoir reads: "Big Knife is a name we ware gen'
erally known to the westward and much dreaded by the Indians at the time."
2 The "old British Fort" was the former house of the Seminary Fathers in charge of the
Mission of the Holy Family at Cahokia. Bowman in his letter to Hirte says that it was "a
large stone house, well fortified for war — I was immediately threatened by a man of the
place, that he would call in 150 Indians to his assistance, and cut me off. This fellow I took
care to secure, but lay upon arms the whole night; this being the third night without sleep."
Clar\ Papers, p. 614.
Hbid., p. 233 (Memoir).
4 De Leyba.
Hbid., p. 122 (Mason Letter).
TAKING OF KASKASKIA A?s[D CAHOKIA 505
such openness as left no room for doubt; as I was never
before in Compy of any Spanish gent I was much surprised
in my expectations; for instead of finding that reserve thought
peculiar to the Nation, I here saw not the least symptoms
of it, Freedom almost to excess gave the greatest Pleasure. "*
iClar^ Papers, p. 129 (Mason Letter). There is a tradition, somewhat confused, it is
true, that Clark "met, loved, and became bethrothed to Terese, the beautiful young sister of
the Spanish Lieutenant'Caverncr." But, unhappily for himself, Clark assumed tremendous
personal obligations to finance the Illinois campaign. He was financially ruined, and, so
tradition tells the story, he told Terese he could never marry her, nor did he ever marry an'
other. After the death of her brother at St. Louis, Terese went to New Orleans and ulti'
mately returned to Spain, where she devoted her life to the service of God in a convent and
died in 1821. Bodley, op. cit., pp. 89 and 368. See also Palmer, op. cit., pp. 291-304.
"IKLFIHITE IMPORTANCE" OF VmCE?iHES— FA-
THER GIBAULT AKP DR. LAFFOW—THE WIH-
TilJiG OF VWCEKtHES
Clark writes in his Memoir: 'Tost St. Vincenes 1 I found
to be a place of Infinite Importance to us to gain, it was
now my object, but sensible that all the force we had, Joined
by every man in Kentucky, would not be able to approach
it, I resolved on other Measures than that of arms." 2
Clark fully realised the precarious situation he was in.
By a daring drive, he had, indeed, captured the farthest
post in the back-country, but, could he hold his position?
That was the question that agitated his mind. Hundreds
of miles lay between him and the nearest reenforcements
in Kentucky, and he knew no assistance could be expected
from that quarter. With the 175 men he had brought into
the Illinois country he was holding Kaskaskia, Cahokia,
and the stretch of country that lay between them. Then, too,
there was Vincennes, a British fort, that lay between him and
Kentucky. What if a force from that post marched against
him? He would be hopelessly lost. He must get posses-
sion of Vincennes. But, "as the whole was appris'd of me,
I was by no means able to march against it (their Governour 3
a few months before going to Detroyet). I was resolved,
if possible, to win their affection, which I thought myself
in a fair way of doing. More fully to know the sentiments
of the Inhabitants about there; And to execute my Plans,
I pretended that I was about to send an Express to the falls
of Ohio for a Body of Troops to Join me at a certain place
in order to at tact it; it soon had the desired effect. Advo-
cates immediately appeared among the people in their be-
half." 4
ir The English as well as the Americans seem to have taken for granted that every French
post bore the name of a saint, and thus Vincennes became "St. Vincenes v ' and "St Vincent."
One would not have been surprised had Bowman written "St. Parraderuski" for Prairie du
Rocher. The British named Post Vincennes "Fort Sackville".
2 Clar\Papers, p. 234 (Memoir).
3 E. A. Abbott.
Hbid., p. 122, (Mason Letter).
506
THE WITiHIHG OF VIHCEHHES 507
It was like the judgment of Solomon. Clark reasoned
blood would tell, and so it did. Many of the people of
Vincennes were blood relations of the Kaskaskians, and so
the latter spoke up to defend them from harm that might
come to them from an armed attack upon the village and
fort. Then, too, the people at Vincennes were Father
Gibault's parishioners, whom he felt in duty bound to pro-
tect. He spoke to Clark about the matter, who records it
as follows: "Mr. Jeboth, the Priest . . . offered to under-
take to win that Town for me, if I would permit him and
let a few of them go; they made no doubt of gaining their
friends at St. Vincents to my Interest; the Priest told me
he would go himself, and gave me to understand, that, al-
though he had nothing to do with temporal business, that
he would give them such hints in the Spiritual way that
would be very conducive to the business. 1 ' 1 The two men
learned to understand each other, and became close friends.
Clark writes in his Memoir: "From some things that
I had learnt [I] had some reason to suspect that Mr Jebault,
the Priest, was inclined to the American Interest previous
to our arrival in the Cuntrey and now, great respect showed
him having great Influance over the people 2 at this period,
St Vincent also being under his Jurisdiction. I made no
doubt of his Integrity to us. I sent for him and had long
conferance with him on the subject of St Vincenes. In
answer to all my Queries he informed me, that he did not
think it was worth my while to cause any Military prepara-
tion to be made at the Falls for the attack of St Vincenes.
Although the place was strong and a great number of Indians in
its Neighberhood, that, to his Knowledge, was Genly at war;
that Govr Abbot had a few weaks left the place on some
business to DeTroit; that he expected that when the In-
habitants was fully acquainted with what had past at the
Illinois, and the present happiness of their Friends, and
made fully acquainted with the nature of the war, that their
Sentiments would greatly change; that he knew that his
appearance their would have great weight, Eaven among
the savages; that, if it was agreable to me, he would take
l C\ar\?apers, p. 122 (Mason Letter).
2 The meaning is not quite clear, but seems to be this: The great respect the people had for
Father Gibault was a proof that he had great influence over them .
5 o8 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
this business on himself and had no doubt of his being able
to bring that place over to the American Interest without
my being at the Trouble of Marching Troops against it;
that, his business being altogether Spiritual, he wished that
another person might be charged with the Temporal part
of the Embassy, but that he would privately direct the whole
fefc. He named Doctr Lafont as his assosiate.
"This was perfectly agreable to what I had been secretly
aiming at for some Days. The plan was amediately setled
and the Two Doctors with their intended Retinue, among
whom I had a spie, Set about prepairing for their Journey
and set out on the 14 th of July with the Following Adress
and great numbers of Letters from their Friends to the In-
habitants. . . ."*
The letter of instructions 2 to Jean B. Lafont reads as
follows :
Fort Clark 3 14 July 1778.
Sir,
Having the good fortune to find two men like
Mr. Gibault and yourself to carry and to present
my address to the inhabitants of Post Vincennes,
I do not doubt that they will become good citizens
and friends of the states. Please disabuse them
as much as it is possible to do, and in case they
accept the propositions made to them, you will
assure them that proper attention will be paid to
rendering their commerce beneficial and advanta-
geous; but in case those people will not accede to
offers so reasonable as those which I make them,
they may expect to feel the miseries of a war un-
der the direction of the humanity which has so
far distinguished the Americans. If they become
citizens you will cause them to elect a commander
from among themselves, raise a company, take
possession of the fort and the munitions of the
King, and defend the inhabitants till a greater
force can be sent there. (My address will serve
as a commission.) The inhabitants will furnish
l C\ar\?apers, pp. 237-238 (Memoir).
2 Ibid., pp 53-55
3 After the capture of Kaskaskia, Fort Gage became Fort Clark.
THE WIHHIHP OF VIHCEHHES 509
victuals for the garrison which will be paid for. The
inhabitants and merchants will trade with the
savages as customarily, but it is necessary that
their influence tend towards peace, as by their
influence they will be able to save much inno-
cent blood on both sides. You will act in concert
with the priest, who I hope will prepare the in-
habitants to grant you your demands.
If it is necessary to grant presents to the savages,
you will have the kindness to furnish what
shall be necessary provided that it shall not ex-
ceed the sum of 200 piastres.
I am Sir, respectfully your very humble and
very obedient servant
G. R. Clark.
The Memoir continues: "Mr Jebault and party arrive[d]
safe and after their spending a day or two in Explaining
Matters to the people, they Universally acceeded to the
propotial (except for a few Europeans that was left by Mr.
Abbot, that amediately left the Cuntrey) arid went in a
body to the church whare the Oath of Allegiance was ad-
ministered to them in the Most Solem Manner, an officer
was Elected, and the Fort Amediately [taken possession of],
and the American Flag displayed to the astonishment of
the Indians, and every thing setled far beyond our most
sanguine hopes. 1 ' 1
How Clark's plenipotentiaries, Dr. Jean B. Laffont and
Father Gibault, transacted the delicate business entrusted
to them is interestingly told by Esra Mattingly:
"A priest, Father Gibault, volunteered to secure Vin-
cennes. His services being accepted, he left, accompanied
by Moses Henry, Indian Agent, and Dr. Lefont. Father
Gibault talked to the leading citizens as he visited them in
his official capacity, and finding them ready to revolt, he soon
laid his plans for capture. On Sunday August 6th, 1778, 2
l C\ar\ Papers, p. 238 (Memoir).
2 This date is evidently wrong. According to James, who quotes the text of the oath from
the original, the oath of allegiance was taken July 20, 1778. This date would seem correct.
Clark states that Father Gibault and party returned to Kaskaskia about the 1st of August.
See p. 510, post.
5io FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
the people went to Church. Services being over, Francis
Bosseron, a French merchant, arose and asked the priest
for information concerning Clark and his conduct and in-
tentions. The reply showed that he would soon appear
before Vincennes able to conquer it. Prospect of war was
decisive; a proposition that Vincennes declare itself for
America was unanimously accepted and Dr. Lefont adminis-
tered the oath to the congregation. The people marched to
the Fort, which was at once surrendered by its commander,
St. Marie, 1 who was glad to do so, and in a few days the
stars and stripes first floated in the winds that blew over
the great state of Indiana. The flag was made by Madame
Goddan of Vincennes, on order of Francis Bosseron, for
which she received ten livres, and was hoisted August 8th,
1778." 2
The oath of allegiance 3 of the inhabitants of Vincennes
reads: "You take an oath upon the holy Gospels of God
Almighty to renounce all fealty to George III, King of Great
Britain and his successors, and to be loyal and true subjects
of the Republic of Virginia, as a free and independent State,
and that I will never do or cause to be done any thing or
matter which might be prejudicial to liberty; and I will
inform a judge of the aforesaid State of any treasons or con-
spiracies which will come to my knowledge against the
aforementioned State or any other of the United States of
America. In faith of which we have signed our names at
Post Vincennes, July 20th, 1778. Vive le Congress." 4
Clark's Memoir continues: "The people hear [Vincennes]
amediately began to put on a new face and to talk in a dif-
ferent Stile and to act as perfect Fremen with a Garison of
their own, with the United States at their Elbows. Their
Language to the Indians was Amediately altered. They
began as Citizens of the States and informed the Indians
that their old Father, the King of France, was come to Life
: The name of St. Marie does not appear in the list of those who took the oath, though
four names are completely torn out. However, August 22, 1780, Joseph St. Marie signed a
Memorial of the citizens of Vincennes to the French Minister Lucerne. C\ar\ Taper s, p. 449.
2 Quoted by Joseph L. Thompson in Illinois Catholic Historical Review, vol. I., number
2, p. 236.
3 Clar\Papers,p.56.
4 "Long live Congress."
THE WIWilHG OF VIHCEHHES 511
again and had Joined the Big Knife as was Mad at them for
Fighting for the English, that they would advise them to
make peace with the Americans as soon [as] they could,
otherways they might expect the Land to be very Blody
&?c 6?c. They began to think seriously throughout those
Cuntreys. . . .
"Mr. Jebault and party accompanied by several gentn of
St Vincenes Returned about the first of August with the
Joyfull News. During his absence on this business, which
caused great ancsiety in me (for without the possession of
this post all our Views would have been blasted), I was
exceedingly Ingaged in Regulating of things in the Illinois." 1
Here was a post 2 that Clark considered "of infinite im-
portance to us to gain," 3 for, "without the possession of this
post all our Views would have been blasted," 4 but "all the
force we had, Joined by every man in Kentucky, would not
have been able to approach it." 5 "I was by no means able
to march against it." 6 "I wanted men." 7
Yet, this strategically important place was won for Clark
and the American cause by Father Gibault and Dr. Laffont
without firing a single gun, without shedding a drop of blood.
This business had been to Clark a source of "great ancsiety,"
and the report of its successful termination was "Joyfull
News" to him.
One can readily imagine with what eager enthusiasm
Clark listened to the report of his voluntary envoys. They
had reached Vincennes, they had explained the cause of
the Americans to the people there, and that was the all-
important matter. More than that, a number of Father
Gibault's parishioners had come along to Kaskaskia to meet
Clark. Personal contact with these people had been estab-
lished, and that, he hoped, would tell in an emergency.
l C\ar\ Tapers, p. 239 (Memoir).
2 "Fort Sackville [Vincennes] . . . was a well'built wooden fort inclosing three acres of
ground and located but a few feet back from the river [Wabash] . The four bastions, each
surmounted by three guns, were built of solid logs and stood 12 feet above the level of the
general wall, itself 11 feet in height." James, op. cit., p. 122.
Hbid., p. 234 (Memoir).
4 Ibici, p. 239 (Memoir).
Hbid., p. 234 (Memoir).
6 Ibid., p. 122 (Mason Letter).
Ubid., p. 123 (Mason Letter).
5 i2 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Governor Patrick Henry highly appreciated the signal ser-
vices of these two men. In a letter to Clark, dated December
15, 1778, he wrote : "I beg you will present my Compliments to
Mr Gibault 6? Doct Lafong 6? thank them for me for their good
Services to the State. ' n
That the British retook Vincennes does not lessen the
merit of Gibault and Laffont; that was due to the weakness
of Clark's forces. The possession of Vincennes, even for a
short time, had served its purpose. Without the first pos'
session, Clark could never have taken it from Hamilton in
1779.
The plenipotentiaries had occasion to explain the Ameri-
can side of the war to the inhabitants of Vincennes. Being
a British post, Vincennes had heard only the British version
of the underlying questions.
Gibault had also been the bearer of "spirited compliments"
from Clark to "an Indian chief, called Tobaccos son, 1 ' the
"Grand Door of the waubash," so powerful "that nothing
of Importance was . . . undertaken by the League of the
Waubash without his assent.' 12 Thus a first friendly con-
tact had been established with the Indians of the Wabash,
a contact that, through the diplomacy of Clark and Helms,
developed into staunch and loyal friendship to the Americans.
Father Gibault and Laffont told the people about Clark and
how he had granted them liberties and freedom of religion.
They heard so much about Clark that they were anxious to
see him.
They also heard that Clark was the friend of Father Gi-
bault, their pastor, and they were ready to receive him any
time it pleased him to knock at their doors.
Patrick Henry to Clark, December 15, 1778. C\ar\ Papers, p. 87- December 12, 1778,
the Virginia Council forwarded Instructions to Colonel George Rogers Clar\e Commander
in Chief of the Virginia Troops in the County ofllllinois. These instructions were written
by Governor Henry and approved by the Council. The Council considers Clark's situation
critical and recommends that he cultivate the good-will and friendship of the French and
Indians. "With their concurrence, great Things may be accomplished. . . .
"Upon a fair presumption that the people about Detroit have Similar Inclinations with
those at Illinois and Wabash, I think it possible, that they may be brought to expell their
British Masters 6? become fellow Citizens of a free State.
"I recommend this to your Serious Consideration, and to consult with some confidential
persons on the Subject, perhaps Mr. Gibault the Priest (to whom this Country owes many
Thanks for his Zeal and Services) may promote this affair. . . ." C\ar\ Papers, pp. 79'80.
2 Ibid., p. 241 (Memoir).
THE WIHHIHG OF VIHCEJiNES 513
The information, imparted to the people of Vincennes
as to friends, prepared the way for Clark's capture of that
post — in fact, was an indispensable prerequisite. Without
the achievement of Gibault and LafFont, Clark's march through
a strange country and his taking of Fort Sackville with the aid
of the people of Vincennes, already friendly to his cause,
are unthinkable. Without Gibault and LafFont, there would
be no reason for erecting a statue to Clark at Vincennes.
CLARK EHTERS D^TO TREATIES WITH IKDIAHS
—ATTEMPT OF MEADOW ITiDIAlsiS TO CAPTURE
HIM AT CAHOKIA— CLARK'S BRAVADO
INTIMIDATES SAVAGES
Being now "in possession of the whole' ' of the country,
Clark found his "Situation to be more disagreeable, " for, as
he writes, "I wanted Men." 1 He realised this the more at
each step in "Regulating of things in the Illinois."
The enlistment of most of his men terminated "three
months after their arrival at that place." He had to replenish
his ranks. Clark himself writes to Mason: "The greatest
part of my Men was for returning, as they were no longer
Ingaged. Surrounded by numerous Nations of Savages,
whose minds had been long poisoned by the English, It
was with difficulty that I could Support that Dignity that
was necessary to give my orders that force that was neces-
sary, but by great preasents and promises I got about one
hundred of my Detachment Enlisted for eight months, and,
to colour my staying with so few Troops, I made a faint of
returning to the Falls, as though I had sufficient confidence
in the People, hoping that the Inhabitants would remon-
strate against my leaving them, which they did in the warm-
est terms, proving the necessity of the Troops at that place,
that they were affraid if I returned, the English would again
possess the Country. Then, seemingly by their request,
I agreed to stay with two Companies of Troops, and that
I hardly thought, as they alleg'd that so many was neces-
sary; but if more was wanted I could get them at any time
from the Falls; where they were made to believe was a Con-
siderable Garrison.
"As soon as possible [I] sent off those that could not be
got to stay, with Mr. Rochblanch and Letters to his Excel-
lency, letting him know my situation and the necessity of
Troops in the Country. Many of the French [being] fond
of the service, the different Companies soon got Compleat." 2
Hbid., p. 123 (Mason Letter).
Hbid.
514
"REGULATING THINGS W THE ILLINOIS" 515
Clark appointed French officers, which stimulated the
enlisting of young Frenchmen. Thereupon he established
a garrison at Cahokia under command of Captain Bowman,
arid another at Kaskaskia under Captain Williams. Col.
Linn was placed in command of those who were to be discharged
at the Falls. "Captn John Montgomery was dispatched to
Government with Let™ and also Conducted Mr. Roche-
blave 1 thither." 2
Of Vincennes Clark writes: "[I] plainly saw it would be
highly necessary to have an American officer at that post.
Captn L. Helms appeared Calculated to answer my pur-
pose; he was past the Meridian of life and a good deal ac-
quainted with Indian business. I sent him to Command
at that post and also appointed him Agent for Indian affar
[affairs] in the Department of the waubash." 3
"Domestick affairs being partly well settled, the Indian
Department [be] came next the object of my attention and of
the greatest importance.
"My sudden appearance in their Country put them under
the greatest consternation. They was generally at War
against us, but the French and Spainyards appearing so fond
of us, confused them. They counciled with the French
Traders to know what was best to be done, and of course
was advised to come and selicit for peace, and did not doubt
but we might be good Friends.
iPhillippe de Rocheblave had served with distinction in the French and Indian War,
particularly at the Battle of Monongahela, July, 1755. He also conducted a detachment of
men and ammunition from Fort de Chartres to Fort Massac during this war. April 11,
1763, the banns of marriage were published for the third time, at Kaskaskia, between Phillippe
Francois de Rastel, chevalier de Rocheblave, and Michel Marie Dufresne, daughter of Jacques
Michel Dufresne, an officer of the Kaskaskia militia. After the Conquest he commanded at
Ste. Genevieve, then under Spanish regime. Discharged by O Reilly, he returned to Kas'
kaskia and was appointed by Governor Carleton to watch developments in the Illinois coun'
try. Sent to Virginia as prisoner, he escaped to Canada in 1780. Rocheblave had two sons:
Noel, who was accidentally drowned while on his way to Detroit, and Pierre, who became a
wealty merchant at Montreal. The last descendant of this family, a daughter of Pierre, died at
Montreal in 1914. She was noted for her nobie character, charity and liberality, and people
spoke of her only as Miss Mademoiselle de Rocheblave. P'G. Roy, Bulletin des Recherches
Historiques, IV., p. 357-
2 Clar\ Papers, p. 240 (Memoir).
3 Ibid., p. 240 (Memoir).
516 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
"It may appear otherwise to You, but [I] always thought
we took the wrong method 1 of treating with Indians, and
strove as soon as possible to make myself acquainted with the
French and Spanish mode, which must be prefferable to
ours, otherwise they could not possibly have such great in-
fluence among them; when thoroughly acquainted with, it
exactly Coinsided with my own idea, and Resolved to follow
that same Rule as near as Circumstances would permit.
tc The Kaskaskias, Peoreanas & Mechegames immediately
treated for peace; I sent letters and speaches by Capt Helms
to the Chief of the Kickebues & Peankeshaws residing at
Post St Vincents, desireing them to lay down their Toma-
hawk, and if they did not chuse it, to behave like Men and
fight for the English as they had done; but they would see
their great father, as they called him, given to the Dogs to
eat (gave Harsh language to supply the want of Men; well
knowing that it was a mistaken notion in many that soft
speeches was best for Indians), But if they thought of giving
their hands to the Big knives, to give their Hearts also, and
that I did not doubt but after being acquainted, that they
would find that the Big knives of better Principals than
what the bad Birds the English had taught them to believe. 1 ' 2
Clark displayed remarkable talent for reaching the hearts
and minds of the simple forest folks. He explained the nature
of the war between the Big Knives (Americans) and the
English as follows: "That a great many years ago, our fore-
fathers lived in England, but the King oppressed them in
such a manner that they were obliged to Cross the great
Waters to get out of his way; But he, not being satisfied to
loose so many Subjects, sent Governours and Soldiers among
them to make them obey his Laws, but told his Governours
to treat them well and take but little from them until they
grew populus, that then they would be able to pay a great
deal. By the good treatment we got, we grew to be a great
People and flourished fast — The King then wrote to his
^or the French method of dealing with the Indians, see pp. 333-335 and 377, ante.
"He [Clark] concluded that the States' method of dealing with the Indians had been
wrong. . . . The old method had been that of bargaining. The Indians had been approached
with bribes in return for land grants or raising or burying the tomahawk. The British could
afford bribes and Clark could not. . . . The Indians should have presents for being good, not
to make them good." Palmer, op. cit., pp. 253'254.
*Clar\ Papers, p. 123 (Mason Letter).
"REGULATING THINGS W THE ILLINOIS" 517
Gouvernour €sP Officers that we had got Rich and numerous
enough, that it was time to make us pay tribute, that he
did not care how much they took, so as they left us enough
to eat, and that he had sent them a great many soldiers to
make the Americans pay if they refused, that when they
had made the Americans do as they pleased, they would
then make the Indians pay likewise; But for fear the In-
dians should find it out by the Big Knives that the English
intended to make them also pay, 6? Should get mad with
the English for their treatment to their neighbours the Big
Knives, that they, his Governours, should make us Quarrel 6?c.
"We bore their Taxes for many Years, at last they were
so hard that, if we killed a Deer, they would take the Skin
away and leave us only the Meat, 1 and make us buy Blankets
with corn to fead their Soldiers with. By such usage we got
Poor and was obliged to go naked; And at last we com-
plained — The King got mad and made his Soldiers Kill some
of our People and Burn some of our Villages. The Old Men
then held a great Council and made the Tomahawk very
sharp and put it into the hand of the young Men, told them
to be strong and Strike the English as long as they could
find one on this Island. They immediately struck and Killed
a great many of the English. The French King, hearing of
it, sent to the Americans and told them to be strong and
fight the English like Men, that, if they wanted help or
Tomahawks, he would furnish them St. &c. 2
"They received the Speeches from the Capt with another
of his own, and after some Consultation they resolved to
take the Big Knives by the hand and came to a conclusion
of Peace — And said the Americans must be Warriers and
no deceivers, or they would never have spoke as they did;
that they liked such People; and that the English was Liers
and they would listen to them no longer. . . ." 3
With keen forethought, Clark had sent "spirited compli-
ments by Mr Jebault 11 (July, 1778) to a distinguished and in-
fluential Piankeshaw chief, "Tobaccos son, 11 whom the Indians
called the "Grand Door to the waubash," because his influence
and power were so great "that nothing of Importance was to
J At that time the skins were of greater value than the meat.
2 Clar\ Papers, p. 125 (Mason Letter).
Hbid., p. 124.
5 i8 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
be undertaken by the League on the Waubash without his
assent. 11
The chief had been flattered by Clark's compliments,
and had returned them by Father Gibault. Clark writes:
"I now, by Captn Helms, Touched him on the same spring
that I had done the Inhabitants. . . . in
Helms "touched 11 the Grand Door to the Wabash so
effectually that Tobacco announced they intended to serve
the Big Knives, and that he would "tell all the Red people
on the waubash to blody the Land no more for the English
and Jumpt up, struck his Breast, Called himself a Man and
a warriour, and said he was now a Big knife. . . , 112
Clark's treaty-making at Cahokia was a more exciting,
and for a time, at least, an extremely hazardous affair.
Clark writes to Mason: "It was with astonishment that
I viewed the Amaseing number of Savages that soon flocked
into the Town of Cohos to treat for peace, and to hear what
the Big Knives had to say, many of them 500 miles distant,
Chipoways, Ottoways, Petawatomies, Missesogies, Puans,
Sacks, Foxes, Sayges, Tauways, Mawmies and a number of
other Nations all living east of the Messicippa and many of
them then at War against us. 3
"I must confess that I was under some apprehention
among such a number of Devils, and it proved to be just, for
the second or third night, a party of puans 6? others endeav-
ored to force by the Guards into my Lodgings to Bear me
off; but was happily Detected and made Prisoners by the
elacrity of the Sergea[n]t. 114
Clark's Memoir gives the details of this attack: "A party
of what is called Meadow Indians that Rove about among
the different Nations . . . was informed that [if] they would
contrive to take me off, they would get a great reward &c.
They came Down as others had done, pretending to treat
for peace. They ware lodged in the yard of Mr Bradies . . .
Vbid., p. 241.
2 Clar\ Papers, pp. 241-242 (Memoir). Tobacco remained a true friend to the Americans.
3 These savages had heard of the happenings at Kaskaskia and came down the Mississippi
to see if the strange reports that had come to them were really true. At Cahokia "they found
the palefaces 1 fort, which the French and then the British had said would forever command
the Father of Waters, was, indeed, flying a new flag, the Big Knife flag." Palmer, op. cit , p.
255.
Hbid., p. 125 (Mason Letter).
"REGULATING THINGS Di THE ILLINOIS" 519
about one Hu[n]dred yards from my Quarters and nearly the
same distance fronting the Fort, the Little River Kohokias
passing fronting the Houses on the opposite side of that
part of the streat, 1 which was there about knee deep . . .
They listened to what was passing, Loitired about and got
pretty well acquainted With our people. . . . They had ob-
served the House I lodged in 2 . . . and had supposed the
Guards to be but few. [They] formed ther plan in the
following mariner. Some of them was to cross the River,
fire of their Guns ... on which they ware to attempt to
get in under the protection of the Quarter Guard, as [though]
flying from other Indians, their Enemies, that had fired on
them across the River. If they suckceeded, to Butcher the
Guard and Carry myself off. A few nights after ther ar-
rival they made the attempt about one aclock. . . ." 3
"The Town took the alarm and was immediately under
Arms which convinced the Savages that the French were in
our Interest. ... I immediately ordered the Chiefs to be put
into Irons by the French Militia. They insisted that it was
only to see whether the French would take part with the
Americans or not, that they had no ill Design. This treat-
ment of some of the greatest Chiefs among them occationed
great confusion among the rest of the Savages. The Pris-
oners, with great submission celicited to speak to me, but
was refused. They then made all the interest they possibly
could amongst the other Indians (who was much at a loss
what to do, as there was Strong Guards through every Quar-
ter of the Town) to get to speak to me; but I told the whole
that I believed they were a set of Villians, that they had
Joined the Inglish and that they were welcome to continue
in the Cause they had espoused; that I was a Man and a
Warrier; that I did not care who was my Friends or Foes;
and had no more to say to them.
"Such conduct Alarmed the whole Town, but I was
sensible that it would gain us no more Enemies than we had
already, and if they after selicited for terms, that it would
be more sincere, and probably a lasting good effect on the
Stream.
2 To show the Indians he did not fear them Clark would not stay at the fort. See p. 520.
3 Clar\ Papers, pp. 248-249 (Memoir).
5 2o FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Indian Nations. Distrust was visible in the Countenance
of almost every Person during the latter part of the day.
"To shew the Indians that I disregarded them, I remained
in my Lodging in the Town about one hundred Yards from
the Fort, seemingly without a guard, but kept about fifty
Men conceiled in a Parlour adjoining, and the Garrison under
Arms; there was great Counciling among the Savages dure-
ing the Night; But to make them have the greater idea of
my Indifferency about them : I assembled a Number of Gen-
tlemen 6? Ladies, and danced nearly the whole Night.
"In the morning I summoned the different Nations to a
grand Council, and the Chief, under Guard, released and
invited to Council that I might speak to them in presence
of the whole. ... I produced a Bloody Belt of wampom and
spoke to them in the following manner: I told the Chief
that was Guilty, that I was Sencible their Nation was en-
gaged in favour of the English, and if they thought it right,
I did not blame them for it, and exhorted them to behave
like Men and support the Cause they had undertaken; that
I was Sensible that the English was weak and wanted help;
that I scorned to take any advantage of them by Persuading
their Friends to desert them; that there was no People but
Americans, but would put them to death for their late be-
haviour; That it convinced me of their being my Enemies.
But it was beneath the Character of Americans to take such
revenge, that they were at their Liberty to do as they pleas'd,
But to behave like Men and not do any mischief until three
days after they left the Town, that I should have them es-
corted safe out of the Village, and after that expiration of
time, if they did not choose to return and fight me, they
might find Americans enough by going farther, That if they
did not want their own Women and Children massecred,
they must leave off killing ours and only fight Men under
Arms, which was commendable; that there was the War
Belt, We should soon see which of us would make it the most
Bloody &C — Then told them that it was customary among
all Brave Men to treat their Enemies well when assembled
as we were; that I should give them Provisions 6? Rum,
while they staid, but by their behavior I could not conceive
that they deserved that appellation, and I did not care how
soon they left after that day. . . ,
"REGULATING THINGS IK THE ILLINOIS" 521
"The whole looked like a parcel of Criminals. The other
Nations rose and made many submissive Speeches excusing
themselves for their conduct in a very pretty manner and
something noble in their sentiments ; they alledged that they
were persuaded to War by the English . . . that they did
not speak from their lips only, but that I should hereafter
find that they spoke from their Hearts, and that they hoped
I would pitty their blindness and their Women and Chil-
dren; and also selicited for their Friends that had been Guilty
of the late crime.
"I told them that I had instructions from the Great Man
of the Big Knives not to ask Peace from any People, but to
offer Peace and War, and let them take their Choice ... I
presented them with a Peace 6? War Belt and told them to
take their choice; excepting those who had been Imprisoned.
They with a great deal of seeming Joy took the Belt of Peace 1 ."
The Councils at Cahokia lasted five weeks during August
and September, 1778, and every day the captive chiefs, shackled
in irons, were "brought into the Counsel, but not suf-
fered to speak, and on finishing with the others I had their
Irons taken off." Thereupon Clark poured over them the
hot lava of his vitriolic sarcasm: that "all people said they
ought to Die," that it was contemptible to "watch and Ketch
a Bear sleaping," that they were "only old women and too
mean to be killed by a B. Knife," that, since they were "only
old women," they "ought to [be] punished for puting on
Britch Cloath," that "as long as you stay hear you shall be
treated as all skaws [squaws] ought to be," etc.
"After some time they Rose and advanced with a Belt and
Pipe of Peace ... a Sword laying on the Table, I Brok ther
Pipe and told them that B. K. [Big Knives] never treated
with women."
When other chiefs rose and spoke in behalf of the pris-
oners, Clark told them that he "had never made war upon
them, that if the B. K. come across such people in the woods,
they commonly shot them down as they did wolves to pre-
vent ther Eating the Dear, but never Talked about it &c." 2
"At last two young men advanced to the Middle of the
Floor, set down and flung their Blankets over their heads. . . .
l C\ar\ Papers, pp. 126-127 (Mason Letter).
2 Ibid, 250 (Memoir).
522 FROM QUEBEC TO ?iEW ORLEANS
Two of the chiefs with a pipe stood by them . . . [and] of-
fered those two young men as an attonement for their guilt
. . . The two young men . . . frequently would push the
Blanket aside as if impatient to know their fate ... I ordered
the young men to Rise and oncover themselves ... I con-
cluded by saying, that it was only such men as them that
[should be] chiefs of a nation, that through them the
B. K. granted Piece and Friendship to their people, that I
took them by the Hand as my Brothers and chiefs of their
Nation and I expected that all present would acknowledge
them as such. I first presented them to my own officers,
to the French and Spanish Gentn present, and Lastly to the
Indians, the whole greeting them as chiefs and ended the
Business by having them Saluted by the Garison." 1
After sitting through wearisome Indian Council cere-
monies and listening to endless speeches for five long weeks,
Clark was glad to get back to Kaskaskia to "have a moments
Leasure: which was taken up with deeper Reflections than
I ever before was Acquainted with. My situation and
weakness convinced me that more depended on my own
Behaviour and Conduct, than all the Troops I had, far re-
moved from the Body of my Country; Situated among French,
Spanyards and Numerous Bands of Savages on every Quar-
ter." 2
Weeks and months went by. Clark enforced "Strict
subordination among the Troops, 1 ' drilled his raw and un-
disciplined men, and continued to occupy his mind with
"deeper Reflections."
"But no Intiligence from St Vincents!" 3
Brave Captain Helms had indeed sent out "Intiligence"
in the form of an urgent appeal for relief, but the message had
not reached Clark — it had been intercepted by Hamilton.
December 17, 1778, Helms had sent the following des-
perate call for help:
"Dear Sir,
"At this time theer is an army within three miles of this
place. I heard of their comin several days beforehand; sent
*C\ar\ Papers, pp. 249-252 (Memoir).
2 Ibid. y p. 129 (Mason Letter).
3 Ibtd., p. 132 (Mason Letter).
"KEGULATIHG THINGS W THE ILLINOIS" 523
spies to find the certainty. The Spies being taken prison-
ers, I never got intelligence till they got within 3 miles of
the town. As I had calld the militia 6? had all assurance
of their integrity, I ordered, at the fireing of a Cannon, every
man to apear, but I saw but few. Capt Burron [Bosseron]
behaved much to his honour and Credit, but I doubt the
certaint[y] of a certain gent. Ecuse hast as the army is
in sight. My Determination is to defend the Garrison,
though I have but 21 men but wht has lef me. I referr you
to Mr Wms for the test [rest]. The army is in three hun-
dred yd [yards] of village. You must think how I feel, not
four men that I can really depend on, but am determined to
act brave. Think of my condition. I know its out of my
power to defend the town, as not one of the militia will
take arms, thoug before sight of the army, no braver men.
Their is a flag at a small distance. I must conclud.
Yr. humble servt
LeoD Helm." 1
Hamilton reached Vincennes with five hundred men,
counting the Indians, December 17, 1778. It was a cold,
wintry day, — "it snowed, 11 writes Hamilton, "and blew
fresh from day-break till one o'clock, when to my surprise
I perceived the Rebel flag still flying at the fort. 11 Major
Hay, who had been sent forward to hoist "St. George's
flag," sent word back to Hamilton "that the [Helm] would
not strike his colors till he knew what terms he was to have!"
"He was answered humane treatment, that no other
terms would be mentioned." 2
Thereupon the "Rebel flag" was struck, and "St. George's
flag" again floated over Fort Sackville, only to be taken down
definitely a few months later by George Rogers Clark.
Clark writes of these critical days in his Memoir: "No
information from St Vincents for some time past ... we
began to suspect some thing was wrong. We sent spies
that did not Return and we remained in a state of suspence." 3
. 79. Agreed to for the
following Reasons — The Remoteness of Succour,
the state and Quantity of Provisons Ss?c. The
Unanimity of officers and men on its expediency.
The Hon'ble Terms allowed and lastly the confi-
dence in a Generous enemy.
Henry Hamilton L. Govr
& Supr Intends" 3
Hamilton's report has a pathetic note that arouses
a touch of sympathy for the much hated "Hair
Buyer" General.
l C\ar\ Tapers, pp. 144445 (Mason Letter).
2 lbid., p. 288 (Memoir).
3 Ibid., pp. 145 and 162 (Bowman s Journal).
5 56 FROM QUEBEC TO HEW ORLEANS
Hamilton: "Having given the necessary orders, I pass'd the
night in sorting papers and in preparing for the
disagreable ceremony of the next day.
"Mortification, disappointment, and indignation
had their turns.
"At ten o'clock in the morning of the 25th, we
marched out with fix'd Bayonets and the Soldiers
with their knapsacks — the colors had not been
hoisted this morning, that we might be spared
the mortification of hawling them down." 1
Clark: "The Morning of the 25th aproaching, arrange-
ments ware made for receiving the Garrison, and
about 10 Oclock it was delivered in Form." 2
Bowman: "25th About 10 O Clock Capt. Bowman &
Capt. McCarty Companies paraded on the one
side of the Fort Gate, Govr Hamilton and his
Garrison Marched out, whilst Col. Clark, Capts
Williams & Wetheringtons comp'y marched into
the fort, Reliev'd the Gentry's, hoisted the Amer-
ican colors — Secur'd all their arms. Govr Hamilton
marched back to the fort, shut the Gates — Orders
for 13 Cannon to be fired. " 3
Fine Sport for the Sons of Liberty!
THE EHP OF BRITISH DOMIHATIOH IK THE
ILLINOIS COUHTRT
FINIS
Hamilton's Report, Clar\Papers, p. 191.
2 Clar\ Papers, p. 289 (Memoir). Capt. Rogers arrived with the Willing four days after
the capture of Vincennes.
3 Ibid., p. 162 (Bowman's Journal). See J. Nick Perrin, History of Illinois, for chain of title
and summary outline of subsequent events.
INDEX
INDEX
Abbadie (D'Abbadie, D'Albadie), M. de,
350, 355, 373; opinion of La Freniere, 417;
biog. note, 374 n. 1; opinion of patriotic
spirit of New Orleans rebels, 422.
Abbott, Lieut.'Gov. Edward, protests against
employing savages, 477-
Acadia, 23, 309 n. 1.
Acadians, deportation of, 312-327; led into
New Orleans Rebellion, 416.
Accault, Michel, 87, 147 n. 1.
Address to the Inhabitants of the Province of
Quebec, 467, 468; to His Majesty, 468,
469.
Advertising, John Law, 183; English, 185.
Agriculture, 210, 302, 303.
Aiguillon, Duchesse de, 29.
Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, 308, 312, 338.
Albany, center of English fur trade, 81 n. 1,
92.
Albion, Illinois, 335.
Allen, Gen. Ethan, 472.
Allouez, Claude, Jesuit missionary, 126, 127.
Amherst, Sir Jeffrey, biog. note and character
of, 373 n. 1, 380; suggests smallpox inoc'
ulation, 380, 462.
Annapolis, 313.
Aramepinchicue, 147 n. 1.
Arnold, Gen. Benedict, before Quebec,
474, 475.
Arpent, linear measure, 182 n. 2.
Artillery Sermons, 459 n. 1.
Aubry (Aubre, Aubrey, d'Aubre, d'Aubrie),
last Governor of French Louisiana, 381
ff; replies to Pontiac's delegates, 392;
awkward position of, 412, 416, 418; re
ports troubles in Boston, 455, 456.
Austrian Succession, War of, 308 ff.
B.
Background, European, 10.
Balise (Balise), 412.
Banishment of Jesuits from Louisiana and
Illinois country, 355-363.
Bank of Amsterdam, 171; of France, 172.
Baptism, first at St. Louis, 439.
Barber, Rev. Daniel, 457.
Barry, Commodore, 471 .
Baudoin, 272, 357 n. 1.
Bayley, Lieutenant, 545.
Baynton, Wharton & Morgan, merchants,
340, 409; invest in Illinois commercial
undertakings, 426, 437.
Behaim, Martin, 13 n. 2, 18.
Belcher, Jonathan, Chief Justice of Nova
Scotia, 312 n. 4, 324 n. 2.
Beletre, Commandant at Fort Detroit, 343.
Beaubois, Nicolas Ignatius de, Jesuit mis-
sionary, 213, 223, 224, 233 n. 2.
Beauharnois, M. de, Governor of Canada,
277.
Beaujeu, Abbe Louis, 118 n. 1.
Beaujeu, Captain, 99, 101 n. 1.
Beaujeu, Daniel, H. M., 118 n. 1, 317 n. 2.
Beaujeu, Louis Lienard, 118.
Beauvais, Jean Baptiste, purchases Jesuit
property (Kaskaskia), 406.
Beaver trade, 27.
Bergier, M., Quebec Seminary missionary,
148 n. 1, 286.
Bienville, Governor, 112 n. 1, 115, 123, 124,
155, 174, 193, 230; recalled, 233, 244; de-
clares war against Chickasaws, 273; re-
signs, 278.
Big Knife, 473 n. 3.
Bigot, Francois, Intendant, 345 n. 1, 349 n. 1.
Biloxi, 114.
Binneteau, Julien, Jesuit missionary, 128,
136, 147, 150.
Bissot, Claire-Francoise, 74.
Blainville, Celeron, 310.
Bloody Run, 379.
"Bloody Year," 485.
Blouin, M., leader of inhabitants of Kaskas-
kia, 424, 428 n. 2.
Bobe, Commissary at Fort de Chartres, 360,
366.
Boiret, Superior, Quebec Seminary, 371.
Boisbriand, Dugue de, 7, 174, 193, 195; con-
ference with Illinois Indians, 196-198, 213,
219, 225, 265, 279.
Bonnecamps, Joseph-Pierre de, 309 n. 2.
Boone, Daniel, 481.
Bossu, officer under Makarty, 294.
Boston Massacre, 464.
Boston Tea Party, 464.
Bouquet, General, 378 n. 2, 380.
Bourgmond, Etienne, 202.
Bowman, Capt. Joseph, 482, 494; captures
Prairie du Rocher, St. Philip and Caho-
kia, 503, 504; takes part in Clark's expe-
dition against Hamilton, 526-556; Journal
of, 529-556.
Braddock, General, 317 n. 2, 338.
Brebeuf, Jesuit missionary, 28.
Breese, Sidney, 300 n. 1.
Briand, Bishop of Quebec, issues pastoral
letter reminding French Canadians of oath
of allegiance, 469; correspondence with
Meurin and Gibault, 437451; 499 n. 2.
British military administration in Illinois
country, 397-437, 487, 497-
559
560
INDEX
Buisonniere, Commandant at Fort de Char'
tres, 277.
Burgoyne, General, surrenders at Saratoga,
480.
Burke, Edmund, 327.
Butricke, Ensign, describes life at Fort de
Chartres, 429-434.
Bullion, Madame de, 27.
C.
Cabot, John, 15, 18, 19.
Cabeza de Vaca, 74.
Cadillac, LaMothe, 161, 165, 192, 211.
Cahokia, 131, 140, 145, 151, 298; sale of
mission property, 364'372, 400, 403.
Cahokia Volunteers, 529.
Calumet, 66.
Canada, from Algonquin word Kanata,
meaning village, or group of cabins.
Canada, proportion of French Canadian and
English population, 452.
Cap-Breton, 308.
Cap-St. Antoine, 142 n. 3.
Cap-St. Cosme, 142, 143 n. 1.
Cape of Good Hope, 17.
Capuchin missionaries, 223.
Carignan regiment, 38.
Carleton, biog. note, 477 n. 3; Governor of
Canada, 453; opinion of French Canadians,
453; requests Bishop Briand to remind
French Canadians of oath of allegiance,
469; employs Rocheblave, 487.
Carolana, 115.
Carroll, Charles, delegate to Canada, 470.
Carroll, Rev. John, delegate to Canada, 470.
Cartier, Jacques, 22, 23 n. 2.
Carvalho, Sebastian Joseph, 352 n. 2.
Casco, Maine, 43.
Casgrain, Henri Raymond, 323.
Catholics: Murray asks for fair treatment of,
453; Catholic Emancipation, 454.
Cavelier, Abbe Jean, 79, 99, 105.
Cens et rentes, 283 n. 1.
Cerre, Gabriel, merchant of Kaskaskia, 498
n. 1.
Chaise, Jacques de la, Intendant of Louisi'
ana, 232.
Champlain, Samuel de, 23'26.
Charles I, King of England, 115.
Charles II, King of Spain, 121.
Charles IV, Emperor, 307-
Charlesbourg, 39.
Charleville (Charlwice), Capt. Francois,
529.
Charlevoix, Jesuit traveler, 205, 208, 213,
214 n. 3.
Chartres, Fort de, see Forts.
Chase, Samuel, delegate to Canada, 470.
Chataugue, brother of Bienville, 174.
Chepart, 245.
Cherokees, River of the, now known as
Tennessee River, 342. By error the text
reads "Cherokee River."
Cheyney, 10, 15.
Chicago, 136, 144, 150.
Chicagou, Indian chief, 214, 272.
Chignectou, 313.
Choiseul, Prime Minister of France, 349,
352, 354, 363, 415.
Chouteau, August, 407-
Chouteau, Madame Marie Therese, 407 n. 2.
Chouteau, Pierre, 386.
Cipango (Japan), 5.
Clajon, M., leader of inhabitants of Kas-
kaskia, 424.
Clark, Rogers, 471; biog. note, 480, 481,
486 n. 4; surveyor for Ohio Company,
482; delegate to Williamsburg, 483; asks
for powder, 483; transports powder, 484;
lays his plans before Patrick Henry, 488; in
command of expedition to the Illinois, 489;
writes two accounts of western campaign:
Mason Letter and Memoir, 491 n. 1; re-
ceives public and secret instructions,
491493; captures Kaskaskia, 497; romance
with Therese de Leyba, 505 n. 1; sends
Gibault and Laffont to Vincennes, 507'
511; enters treaties with Indians at Caho-
kia, 518-522; at Vincennes, 516-518; at-
tack on, by Meadow Indians, 519; no
news from Vincennes, 522, 523; attends
dance at Prairie du Rocher, 524; rumored
attack from Hamilton, 524, 525; decides
to attack Hamilton, 526; reports desper-
ate situation to Patrick Henry, 526, 527;
letter to inhabitants of Vincennes, 542;
attacks Fort Sackville, 545-549; summons
Hamilton, 549, 550; meets Hamilton, 551-
553 ; submits articles of surrender to Ham-
ilton, 555; marches into Fort Sackville, 556.
Cleaveland, Rev. John, New England min-
ister, assails Gen. Gage, 459 n. 1.
Clement, XIV, suppresses Society of Jesus,
354.
Closse, Maj. Lambert, 28.
Cole, Edward, representative of Indian de-
partment in Illinois, spends money lav-
ishly, 427.
Coligny, Admiral, 23.
Collet, Hippolyte, Franciscan missionary,
439 n. 4.
Collet, Father Luc, Franciscan missionary,
366 n. 3, 439 n. 4.
Colonization : Spanish, English, French, 16.
Colonization Companies, 20-21; London
Company, 21; Plymouth Company, 21;
Company of the Hundred Associates, 34;
Company of the West Indies, 37; Company
of the West (Mississippi Company),
173, 189, 276; Company of the Indies,
176,220,221.
INDEX
561
Columbus, Christopher, 13, 15.
Concession, 181 n. 1.
Connolly, Agent of Lord Dunmore, 482.
Conseil des Indes, 221.
Conszil de Marine, 166.
Continental Congress, sends out three curi-
ous and contradictory documents, 465'
469; sends delegation to solicit French
Canadian aid, 470; denounces Quebec
Act, 466; duplicity of, becomes known to
French Canadians, 469.
Contrecoeur, Captain, 309, 330.
Corne, de la, 315.
Corn Island, 494 n. 2.
Cornstalk, Shawnee chief, 475 n. 2.
Corn Title, 481 n. 3.
Cornwallis, Edward, Governor of Nova
Scotia, 314.
Coulon, Jumonville, Sieur de, 330.
Coulon, Nicolas, Sieur de Villiers, 215, 340.
Courcelle, M. de, 38, 40.
Coureurs de bois, see forest traders, 30-32,
299.
Courier, J., Quebec Seminary missionary,
151, 279.
Court-martial, of New Orleans rebels, 422.
Court Session, first in Illinois, 225-231.
Couture, relation of, 103 n. 1.
Coxe, Daniel, 115.
Cradle, 301.
Craggs, Secretary of State, 313.
Cresap's Expedition, 482.
Cresap, Michael, biog. note, 482 n. 2.
Critical Period, 388.
Croghan, Indian trader, 338 n. 2, 378, 395;
makes treaty with Pontiac, 395 n. 3; re-
ports on conference with Indians at Fort
de Chartres, 425 ff.
Crozat, Antoine, 160, 161, 169.
Cruzat, Don Francesco, Gov. of Upper
Louisiana, 479.
D.
Dabbadie, see Abbadie.
Dablon, Jesuit Superior, 52, 55 n. 3.
Dagobert, Capuchin, V. G., 357 n. 1, 443.
Dalsell, Captain, 379-
Daniel, Jesuit missionary, 28.
D'Arensbourg, Karl Friedrich, 240 n. 1.
D'Artaguiette, Diron, 155, 194, 205, 225.
D'Artaguiette, Pierre, Commandant at Fort
de Chartres, 273-276.
Dauphine Island, 178.
David Franks &? Company, 437-
Davion, Antoine, 110, 131, 143 n. 5.
DeKalb, 471.
De la Barre, Governor, 45, 97-
De Liette, 214, 234.
De Lignery, 214.
De Mesy, Governor, 37-
De Monts, Sieur, 23, 309 n. 1.
De Mornay, Coadjutor Bishop of Quebec,
223, 286, 357 n. 1.
Denonville, Governor, 45.
Deportation, of Acadians, 312-327; of French
from the Illinois country planned, 424;
of French Canadians demanded by "King's
Old Subjects; ' 453.
De Peyster, Major, 474-
Des Ursins, 225.
Devernai (Devernay), Jesuit missionary,
361 n. 2.
Devil's Hole, 379.
D'Iberville, Pierre le Moyne, 109; naval
battle with British, 111-113; finds mouth
of Mississippi, 114, 144.
Dieskau, Baron de, 338.
Dinwiddie, Governor of Virginia, 329.
Dollard des Ormeaux, 28.
Domestic animals, 182 n. 3.
Douay, Pere Anastase, 105.
Doutreleau, Jesuit missionary, 260, 266, 267
n. 2.
Du Barry, Madame, 337 n. 2.
Duchesneau, Intendant, 42.
Duclos, 162.
Du Codere, 258, 260.
Duff, John, 495.
Du Luth, Greysolon, 88.
Dunmore, Lord, Gov. of Virginia, 473, 482.
Duot, M., murderer of La Salle, 104, 105.
Du Poisson, Jesuit missionary, describes voy-
age up the Mississippi, 239'243, 258.
Duquesne, Marquis de, Gov. of Canada, 328.
Du Tisne, 191, 192, 213, 234.
Duvivier, Captain, 314.
DTnctot, M., murderer of La Salle, 104,
105.
E.
Ecu, equivalent to 623^ cents.
Edict of Nantes, 336 n. 1.
Education, under Laval, 30.
Eidrington, Lieut. James, at Fort de Chartres,
401 n. 1, 402 n. 2.
Election Sermons, 459 n. 1.
Embarras River, 534-
Emigration agents, 185.
Engages, 182.
England, economic condition of, 19.
English Turn, 115.
Epidemic, at Fort de Chartres, 432.
Expedition, Jolliet-Marquette, 55-73.
Exploration, motives of, 25.
Falling Springs, 281 n. 2.
Falls of the Ohio, 340.
Family Pact, France and Spain, 349.
562
INDEX
Family Quarrels, between British and Amer'
cans, 472.
Farmar, Maj. Robert, 350, 373; character of,
384; at Fort de Chartres, 425; describes
difficulties of voyage up the Mississippi,
425.
Ferdinand I, Emperor, 308.
Filles a la Cassette, 235, 236.
Fitch, Capt. Tobias, 235, 236.
Forest traders (Coureurs de bois), 30-32, 299.
British, 377 n. 3.
Forest, universal, 8.
Forget du Verger, sale of Cahokia mission
property, 364-372.
Fort Arbre Croche, 376.
Fort Assumption, 277-
Fort Beauharnois, 214.
Fort Beausejour, 312, 315.
Fort Cahokia, 195, 504 n. 2.
Fort Carlos Tercero el Rey, 413.
Fort Carrillon (Ticonderoga), 346.
Fort Cataroqui, 74, 80.
Fort Cavendish, see Fort dc Chartres, 425,
437 n. 2.
Fort Chambly, 7-
Fort Crevecoeur, 87.
Fort de Chartres, 7, 219, 225, 236, 237, 245,
309, 341; released to Capt. Sterling, 397
ff; description of, by Capt. Gordon, 401
n. 1; threatened by Mississippi and de-
struction of, 434-436, 437 n. 2.
Fort Detroit, 340, 376; western center of
British operation, 472.
Fort Duquesne (later Fort Pitt), 340.
Fort el Principe de Asturias, Senor don Car-
los, 413, 414.
Fort Frontenac, see Cataroqui.
Fort Gage, designated by Capt. Lord, 437,
437 n. 2.
Fort Gaspereau, 312.
Fort Granville, 341.
Fort Kaskaskia, 342, 399, 437 n. 2, 497-
Fort Lawrence, 315.
Fort le Boeuf, 328, 376.
Fort Machault, 328.
Fort Massac (U Ascension), 342, 399, 515
n. 1.
Fort Maurepas, 114.
Fort Miami (Fort St. Joseph), 86, 97, 135.
Fort Miami (British Fort on Maumee River),
376.
Fort Michillimackinac, 376.
Fort Mobile, 118.
Fort Natchitoches, 166.
Fort Necessity, 331.
Fort Nelson, 113.
Fort Niagara, 343, 376.
Fort Orange (Albany), 81 n. 1, 92.
Fort Orleans, 203, 236, 289.
Fort Ouabache (Post Vincennes or St. Ange),
267 n. 2, 386.
Fort Ouyatanon, 264, 340, 376.
Fort Pitt, 376, 436 n. 2; western center of
American operation, 472.
Fort Presqu ile, 328, 376.
Fort Prudhomme, 95, 97-
Fort Rosalie (Natchez), 166.
Fort Sackville, see also Vincennes, descrip-
tion of, 511 n. 2; infinite importance of,
506; Gibault and Laffont emissaries to,
507-510; inhabitants "well disposed' '
toward Clark, 533 n. 1, 541, 542; inhab-
tants give powder to Clark and feed his
men, 547; name of, 545 n. 2.
Fort Sainte-Anne, 40.
Fort Saint-Jean, 40.
Fort Sainte-Therese, 40.
Fort Schlosser, 376.
Fort St. Louis (Louisiana), 118.
Fort St. Louis (Starved Rock), 91, 92 n. 1, 98,
107, 147, 213.
Fort St. Louis (Texas), 101, 108.
Fort Sorel, 40.
Fort Tombecbeck (Tombigbee, Tombekbe),
116, 273.
Fort Venango, 376.
Fort des Yazous, 260.
Foucaut, M., killed by savages, 230 n. 3.
Fox, British Prime Minister, 308.
France, joins American cause, 501 n. 1.
Frances I, King of France, 23.
Franciscans, 26 n. 1, 51, 52, 83, 85, 99.
Franklin, Benjamin, 457; delegate to Canada,
470.
Frederic II, King of Prussia, 308, 339.
French, doctrine on rights of discovery, 81.
French Neutrals, 314.
French strategy, 119, 120.
French Canadian population, at beginning of
French and Indian War, 336, 336 n. 1.
Freniere, de la, 352, 355 n. 4, 362; convokes
delegates, 410, 416, 416 n. 4; demands
expulsion of Ulloa, 418; execution of, 422.
Freres Charon or hospitaliers, 145.
Freres Donnes, 14^.
Frontenac, Governor, 41, 41 n. 2, 44, 45, 48.
Frontier life, 486.
Frontier settlers, 335, 553 n. 5.
Gage, Gen. Thomas, protests bill of Edward
Cole, 427; to Hillsborough, concerning
approaching ruin of Fort de Chartres,
434 ff; abuse of by Rev. John Cleaveland,
459 n. 1.
Gagnon, M., Quebec Seminary missionary,
289.
Galissoniere, de la, Gov. of Canada, 309-
Gallicanism, 223 n. 1.
Galves, Bernardo, Gov. of Louisinaa, 479,
487.
INDEX
563
Gayarre, Spanish controller of Louisiana, 411.
George III, 461, 464.
Germany, 21.
German emigrants, 184, 185, 187-
Germans in New Orleans Rebellion, 417-
Gibault, 438; biog. note, 44; at Kaskaskia,
445; blesses first church in St. Louis, 446;
visits large mission field, 448; strain of
missionary life, 449451 ; first school teacher
in the Middle' West, 451 n. 1; meets
Clark, 499; volunteers to win Vincennes
for Clark, 507'5ll; influences French to
join Clark, 530 n. 3; blesses Clark's troops,
530 n.l.
Gist, Christopher, 310, 328.
Gladwin, General, 390.
Gordon, Captain Hugh, 403 .
Gordon's Journal, 401 n. 1.
Grand Pre, 316, 319.
Gravier, Jacques, Jesuit missionary, 127,
129, 147, 150, 190.
Great Meadows, 330.
Greathouse, murders Logan's family, 482.
Greene, General, 471-
Grenville, William Windham, British Coloni'
al Secretary, 462.
Grievances, of inhabitants of Illinois, 423 ff.
Griffon, La Salle's galley, 85, 86.
Guyenne, Jesuit missionary, 357.
H.
Habitation, 181 n. 1.
Hachard, Madeleine, relation, 267-
Hair Buyer General, see Henry Hamilton,
475, 476.
Haldimand, Gen. Frederick, 455.
Haliburton, Judge Thomas C, 323, 325 n. 2.
Halifax, 312.
Hamilton, Alexander, protests against Que'
bee Act, 458.
Hamilton, Henry, destroys Fort de Chartres,
436; delivers tomahawks to savages, 475;
Hair Buyzr General, 475, 476; encourages
savages, 484; occupies Fort Sackville, 523;
replies to Clark's summons, 550; requests
conference with Clark, 550, 551; tries to
explain his conduct, 552 n. 1; surrenders
to Clark, 556.
Hancock, John, 318 n. 3, 464.
Hancock, Thomas, 318 n. 3.
Hand, General, 478, 493.
Handfield, Major, 317-
Harrod, William, 482.
Harrodsburg, 486.
Hay, Major, Indian partisan, 552.
Heath, Sir Robert, 115.
Hebert, Louis, 26.
Helm, Leonard, 482, 494; appointed to com'
mand at Vincennes, 515; sends out call for
help, 522, 523.
Henderson, Richard, 481; Henderson Com'
pany, 482.
Hendrick, Mohawk chief, 339.
Hennepin, Louis, Franciscan missionary and
explorer, 83, 84, 85, 87; captured by sav'
ages 88; unreliable chroncicler, 96 n. 3,
115 n. 2.
Henry, Gov. Patrick, appoints Clark to lead
expedition to the Illinois, 489; appreciates
services of Gibault and Laffont, 512; ad'
vises Clark to confer with Gibault, 512
n. 1.
Herrero, tribe, 246 n. 1.
Hiawatha, song of, 64 n. 1.
Hiens, 103, 105.
Hilaire, Capuchin missionary at St. Louis,
447-
Hill, Gen. Jack, 122.
Hillsborough, Earl of, plans deportation of
French from Illinois country, 424; to
Gage, concerning approaching ruin of Fort
de Chartres, 434 ff; blocks westward ex-
pansion, 461.
Holston River, The Holston, 483 n. 1.
Horse Shoe Plain, 537-
Hospital, Montreal, 27; New Orleans, 224;
Quebec, 29.
Huguenots, French, 23, 336 n. 1.
Huissier, 405 n. 1.
Hunter, Robert, Gov. of Virginia, 217.
Hurricane, 178, 209 n. 1.
Hutchins, Ensign, 403 ; concerning approach'
ing ruin of Fort de Chartres, 435.
I.
Illinois, State Song, 290 n. 1.
Illinois tribes, 126 n. 2.
Indians: classification of, 8; conversion of,
28; not economic men, 369 n. 2.
Indians: Abenakis or Abnaki, 95; Cenis or
Coenis, 102, 105; Chickasaws, 244, 261,
271 ; wars against, 272'278; Choctaws,
244; Dakotah or Sioux, 9; Five Nations, 9,
125 n. 1; Fox, 211-216; attack Metchigamia
village, 295; Illinois, 65, 66 n. 2, 196 n. 2,
n. 3; Iroquois, 9, 28, 45, 125 n. 1, 211 n. 2;
Kaskaskias, 272; Longhouse, 9; Micmacs,
9; Missouris, 200, 201, 290; Mohawks,
40; Natchez, 244-262; Osage, 200, 201,
290; Penobscots, 9, 377 n. 2; Pianke-
shaws, 270; Shawnees, 391, 482, 516;
Southern, 9; Taensas, Natchez, 143; etc.
Institutum Societatis Jesu, 356 n. 1.
Intendant, duties of, 35.
Instructions, Colbert to Frontenac, 51.
Intolerance, religious, 457'459; 466 n. 2.
Irish Immigrants, 187 n. 1.
Irving, Washington, 14.
Island of the Holy Family, 140 n. 1.
Italy's contribution to exploration, 18.
564
INDEX
James I, King of England, 21.
James II, 44 n. 1, 115 n. 2.
Jamestown, 16, 22.
Jesuit College, Quebec, 52, 131.
Jesuits, expulsion of, 353'363; suppression
of, 354.
Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 10
n.3.
Jogues, Isaac, Jesuit missionary, illustration,
facing page, 65.
Johnson, Samuel, 461.
Johnson, Sir William, Superintendent of
Indian Affairs, 378.
Jolliet, Louis, 48, 49, 52, 53; mishap in
Lachine Rapids, 75, 80.
Joncaire, 328.
Jones, John Gabriel, 483.
Jones, John Paul, 471 .
Jubilee, published by Meurin, 443.
Jussiaume, Paul, purchaser of Jesuit property
(Kaskaskia), 406.
Kalm, Peter, Swedish traveler, gives origin
of Negro slavery, 174; describes lack of
union between American Colonies, 463,
465.
Kaskaskia, 58 n. 1, 126429, 151, 153, 210,
225, 237, 399 n. 1; Kaskaskia Village, 445;
destruction of, 159 n. 1.
Kaskaskia River, 194.
Kaskaskia Volunteers, 529.
Kaske, Chariot, Shawnee chief, 391.
Kerlerec, Gov. of Louisiana, 292, 293, 296,
341, 343, 411.
Khan, the Great, 17-
Kiala, Fox chief, 213.
Kiercereau, Rene, 305, 439 n. 2.
King's Old Subjects, 452, 453 ; protest against
Quebec Act, 465.
Kip, William Ingraham, 11 n. 3.
Kipling, 531 n. 2, 534 n. 2, 537 n. 1, 539 n. 1.
Kosciusko, General, 471-
L.
Laclede-Liguest, Pierre, 403, 404; bids on
*; Kaskaskia Mission property, 406; declines
to give his name to trading post, 408.
Lafayette, 471-
Laffont, emissary to Vincennes, 507-510.
La Grange, purchases Cahokia Mission pro-
perty, 367, 370.
Lagron, Arthur, determines site of Fort
Crevecoeur, 87 n. 1.
La Harpe, Bernard de, 178.
Lalemant, Jesuit missionary, 28.
Lamberville, 153.
La Moth (La Mothe), Captain, 547, 548.
La Salle, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de, 74; jour'
neys of, 79-105; at court of Versailles, 82;
heavily indebted, 82; builds the Griffon,
85; wreck of the Griffon, 86; at Creve-
coeur, 89; at Fort Miami, 95; supposed
intrigue against, 91 n. 3; at mouth of
Mississippi, 95, 96; at Matagorda Bay,
100; death of, 104.
Last Will and Testament, 301.
La Tour, early French engineer in Louisiana,
175.
Laval, Francois de, first Bishop of Quebec,
30,83, 130 n.3, 132 n. 2, 223.
La Valette, Pere Antoine, Superior, Martin-
ique, bankruptcy of, 353.
Law, John, 170; system of finance, 172;
operates Mississippi Company, 173-189-
Lawrence, Charles, Gov. of Nova Scotia,
312 n. 4, 315, 338 n.3.
Layssard, Pierre Etienne Marafet, purchases
Cahokia slaves, 370, 405.
League, French, as linear measure, 23^
miles; English, 3 miles.
Le Caron, Franciscan, 26.
LeClercq, Father Crestien, 83.
LeClercq, Father Maxime, Franciscan mis-
sionary with La Salle, 99.
Le Loutre, Acadian missionary, 315.
Le Mercier, Captain, 329.
Le Moyne, Charles, 28.
Leopold I, Emperor of Austria, 121.
Le Page, du Pratz, 178.
Le Petit, Mathurin, Jesuit missionary, 249
n. 1.
Les Allemands, 240 n. 1, 261 n. 1.
Levi, Andrew, Levi 6? Company, merchants,
437.
Levis, General Marquis de, 348.
Leyba, Don Fernando de, Gov. of Upper
Louisiana, 479, 504.
Leyba, Therese de, supposed betrothed to
Clark 505 n. 1.
Liberty Bell of the West, 360 n. 1, 502 n. 1.
Liberty of conscience, 467.
Liberty, religious, 460, 470 n. 1; proclaimed
by Clark, 501.
Ligneris, Commandant at Fort Duquesne,
343.
Liguori, St. Alphonsus, 354-
Limpach, Bernard, Capuchin, first canonical
pastor of St. Louis, 447-
Lind, Captain, 389.
Linn, B., sent to Kaskaskia, 487, 488.
Liquor traffic, 30, 31, 285.
Livre, as measure of weight, 1 lb. plus.
Livre, money, equivalent to franc, or 19 cents.
The purchasing power of a livre 200 years
ago was probably at least ten times that
of the standard franc of today.
Lock, 17.
INDEX
565
Loftus, British officer, 374; attempts to reach
Fort de Chartres, 381 ff; character of, 384.
Logan, Mingo chief, his family assassinated,
482; Logan's speech, 484, 485.
Long Knife, 475 n. 3, 504 n. 1.
Longfellow, Evangeline, 323 n. 1, 325 n. 1.
Lords of Trade, 217, 218, 313, 327 n. 2.
Lord, Captain Hugh, names Fort Gage; re-
mits former house and grounds of Jesuits
at Kaskaskia to Quebec Seminary, 437-
Loretteville, 335.
Louis XIV, 37, 42, 51, 52, 98, 113, 116, 121,
122, 168, 169, 336 n. 1.
Louis XV, 169, 296, 337, 348, 412.
Louisbourg, 308.
Louis d'or, approximately, $4-75.
Louisiana, 160, 161, 210; divided into nine
districts, 219; Illinois country made part of
219.
Louvigny, Sieur de, 212.
Loyola, Joseph, Spanish commissary of New
Orleans, 411.
Loyalists, 324 n. 2.
Lunenburgh, 313.
M.
Macleane, Undersecretary of State, receives
offer of bribe, 427.
Magellan, 17.
Maisonneuve, 27, 28.
Maisonville, Indian agent, 395, 548.
Makarty (Macarty), Barthelmy de, Com'
mandant at Fort de Chartres, 7, 292,
342, 362; death of, 384 n. 2.
Malagrida, Portuguese Jesuit, 353.
Mamantouensa, Indian chief, 272 n. 1.
Mance, Jeanne, 27, 29.
Marest, Gabriel, Jesuit missionary, 128, 149,
153, 156.
Maria-Theresa, Empress of Austria, 307, 339.
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, 177 n. 1.
Marquette, Father James, 49, 53; illness of,
73; establishes mission on the upper
Illinois River, 77; death of, 78.
Marquis, M., suggests Republic, 419;
protests against the word "sedition," 420.
Marquise d'Abrado, Senorita de Laredo,
fiancee of Ulloa, 415.
Martin, Abraham, 344 n.Jf. £,
Mason Letter, 491 n. 1.
Massacre Island, 117-
Massacre, Michillimackinac, 379 n. 1,
Massacre, Mitchigamias, 295.
Massacre, Natchez, 258.
Master-Singer, 304-
Maxent, Laclede & Company, 404 n. 3;
Maxent attempts to pay German farmers,
417.
Mazarin, Prime Minister of France, 168.
McCarty, Captain, takes part in Clark's
expedition against Hamilton, 528'556.
Mcintosh, General, 478.
Membre, Zenobe, Franciscan missionary,
83, 91.
Memoir, George Rogers Clark's, 491 n. 1.
Memorial, of inhabitants of Kaskaskia, 400
n. 1.
Memorial, to the People of Great Britain,
465 ff.
Menendez, Pedro, 16.
Meramec River, 190, 205.
Mercier, J. P., Quebec Seminary missionary,
151, 203, 213, 279, 285, 287, 288, 290, 291.
Mermet, Jesuit missionary, 163 n. 1, 266.
Messieurs du Seminaire, 147 n. 3.
Method of dealing with Indians, French,
English, 333-335, 337; Clark's method, 516.
Meurin, Sebastian-Louis, Jesuit missionary,
362 n. 1, 371, 438; praises Gibault, 447;
praises Wilkins, 448.
Mexico, 108, 116, 163 n. 1.
Michillimackinac, 88, 94, 97, 129, 134, 135,
161.
Milhet, Jean, delegate to Paris, 410.
Minas (Mines), 312, 316.
Mines, gold, silver, lead, 190, 193, 204-207-
Minot, French measure, 281 n. 1.
Misere, nickname for St. Genevieve, 409-
Mission: cost of establishment, 132, 133.
Missions, principal in the Mississippi Valley :
Guardian Angel (Chicago), 136.
Holy Family (Tamarois-Cahokia), 131,
145, 279; seigniory of, 280-284, 370;
sale of property, 364-372; 445.
Immaculate Conception, 58 n. 1, 132, 137,
147, 158, 194.
Juchereau's Tannery, 118 n. 1.
La Pointe, 50.
Michillimackinac, 50, 135.
Missouri, 203, 236, 289.
Natchitoches, 163.
Natchez, 144, 164, 258.
Mobile, 118, 133.
Peoria (Franciscan), 87, 91; (Jesuit Mis-
sion), 137-
Poste Arkansas, 258.
Poste Ouabache, 266, 267-
River des Peres, 151, 153.
Ste. Anne, of Fort de Chartres, 287, 366
n. 3, 441.
St. Francis Xavier, 73.
St. Joachim (Ste-Genevieve), 357-
Saint Ignace, 50.
St. Philiippe de la Visitation, 207-
Sault Ste. Marie, 48.
Taensas, 143.
Tonicas, 143.
Yazous (Yazoo), 259.
Mississippi: various names, 49 n.l, 61 n. 1.
Mississippi Company, 173, 189, 276.
566
INDEX
Mississippi Bubble, 189.
Mississippi Land Company, 461 .
Missouri River, 67 n. 2.
Mobile, 118, 373, 389.
Molasses, an ingredient of American inde'
pendence, 462.
Money, paper, 172 n. 2, 208; devaluation of,
410.
Monckton, Col. Robert, 315.
Monopoly, 222 n. 1, 224, 236.
Montcalm, General, 345.
Montcalm 6? Wolfe, joint monument, 347-
Montigny, Francois de, 110, 115, 131, 144,
165.
Montmagny, 27-
Montgomery, General, before Quebec, 474,
475.
Montgomery, Capt. John, conducts Roche'
blave to Virginia, 515.
Montreal, 22, 26; center of French fur trade,
81 n. 1.
Monts, Sieur de, 23.
More, Samuel, sent to Kaskaskia, 487, 488.
Morgan, George, 427; quarrels with Col.
Reed, 428, 472.
Morris, Judge, 316.
Mosquitoes, 242.
Murray, Capt. Alexander, 317-
Murray, General, first Governor of Canada,
452; gives aid to repair ravages of war,
452 n. 3.
Mussulmans, 16.
N.
Natchez, 164, 165; customs of tribe, 245,
246.
Natchitoches, 166, 261.
Naval Battle, D'Iberville against British,
111413.
Negro slaves, 174 n. 1, 207, 305.
New France, motives for establishment of,
25.
New Orleans, 174, 208, 410.
Nicknames, 409 n. 3.
Nille, Major, 548.
North, Lord Frederick, passes Quebec Act,
454.
Northwest Passage, 17 n. 1, 20.
Nova Scotia, 312.
O.
Oath, of allegiance of French Canadians,
454; Vincennes, 510; of fidelity, Kaskas'
kia, 499; of supremacy, 452 n. 2.
Ohio Company, 310, 482.
Ohio River, 68, 74, 143 n. 2, 164; forks of,
329.
Okaw River (Kaskaskia or Metchagamia),
origin of name, 151 n. 3, 153 n. 2.
O'Reilly, Count Alexander, biog. note,
419 n. 5; at mouth of Mississippi, 420;
receives La Freniere and committee, 420;
takes solemn possession of New Orleans,
421; issues proclamation, 421; arrests
leaders of Rebellion and holds court'
martial, 421-422; 479.
Orleans, Duke of, regent, 170, 189.
Pain Court (nickname for St. Louis), 403.
Palatinates, 186.
Palermo, Illinois, site of PontiaC'Croghan
Treaty, 395 n. 3.
Papachengouya, Illinois chief, addresses
Boisbriand, 196.
Passage to the Orient, 17, 73 n. 2.
Passage to South Sea, 68 n. 1, 72.
Peltrie, Madame de la, 29.
Penicaut, 155, 188.
Pennsylvanians, 482.
Penobscot chiefs, conference with, 377 n. 2.
Pensacola, 113, 199.
Peoria, 63 n. 1, 213.
Perez, Fray Juan, 13.
Perilaud, first murderer tried in Illinois, 225.
Perisseau, Jesuit confessor to Louis XV, 354.
Perrier, Governor of Louisiana, 234, 244,
260.
Perrot, Francpis'Marie, Governor, 42, 46
n. 2.
Perrot, Nicolas, forest trader, 46.
Perruquier, Tonica chief, 387-
Pest ships, 187, 188.
Petit, planter, cuts cable of Spanish packet*
boat, 418.
Petition, of Acadians, 313, 314.
Petticoat Rebellion, 160.
Pharaoh, 312, 313.
Philadelphia, 313.
Philibert, Capuchin missionary, 258.
Philip V, King of Spain, 199.
Philipps, Governor of Nova Scotia, 313.
Phipps, English admiral, 43, 45.
Piasa, 67 n. 1, 139.
Piernas, Don Pedro, Spanish Commandant on
the Missouri, 414.
Pinet, Francois, Jesuit missionary, 136, 148.,
153.
Pitt, British Prime Minister, 344 n. 2, 457;
protests against employing savages, 477-
Pittman, Lieut. Philip, 385.
Pittsburg, 340.
Piziquid, 313.
Plains of Abraham, 344 n. 2.
Pollock, Oliver, 487; aids Clark, 487-
Polo, Marco, 14 n. 1.
Pombal, Marquis de, 352.
Pompadour, Madame de, 337-
Pontbriand, Msgr., Bishop of Quebec, 315.
INDEX
567
Pontchartrain, French Prime Minister, 161 .
Pontiac, 375'378; blocks British advance,
378-396; at Fort de Chartres, 384, 389,
390; character of, 394; makes treaty with
Croghan, 395 n. 3; death of, 433 n. 2.
Portugal, 21.
Post St. Ange, see Post Vincennes.
Post Vincennes, 267 n. 2, 386.
Pot, French liquid measure, 238 n. 2.
Pradel, Jean de, 202, 234.
Pragmatic Sanction, 307.
Prairie du Rocher, 7, 400, 442, 447.
Praslin, Duke of, French Minister of For'
eign Affairs, 415.
Prince Edward Island, 308.
Princesse des Missouris, 214.
Protestant religion in England, 19.
Pulaski, General, 471.
Q.
Quebec, 16, 24 n. 1; fall of, 348.
Quebec Act, 454, 455; grievance to American
colonists, 458.
R.
Raguet, Abbe, 232.
Raphael, Capuchin Father, Vicar-General of
Louisiana, 223. By error the name of
Father Gabriel appears in the text, p. 223.
Rasle, Jesuit missionary, 128.
Rebellion, New Orleans, 411.
Recollects, 26 n. 1.
Reductions (of Paraguay), 352 n. 3.
Reed, Col. John, supersedes Major Farmar
at Fort de Chartres, 425; opinion of Bayn-
ton, Wharton 6? Morgan, 428.
Renaudiere, M., mining engineer, 205.
Renault, Philippe, 195, 206, 284 n. 1.
Rescue Rioters, 464 n. 3.
Revolutionary War, 457; nature of, 470.
Ribourde, Gabriel de la, Franciscan mission-
ary, 80 n. 4, 91; death of, 93.
Richard, Edouard, 318.
Richelieu, Cardinal, 29, 34 n. 1, 336 n. 1.
Richelieu River, 40.
Rivalry: French and British 99, 124, 179,
217, 218, 263, 309; French and Spanish,
113, 116, 179, 199-203; Indians and Whites
333 ff., 339.
River des Peres settlement, 151.
Robertson, Colonel, 374.
Roberval, Sieur de, 23.
Robinet, Jean Louis, 405.
Rochambeau, 471-
Rochemore, Intendant, opinion of La Fren-
iere, 417-
Rocheblave, Philippe Francois de Rastel,
Chevalier de, 442; banishes Meurin, 443;
commands at Fort Gage, 487, 514; biog.
note, 515 n. 1.
Rocher, Saint-Louis, 92 n. 1.
Rock of the Cross, 143 n. 1.
Rogers, Captain, in command of Willing,
533 n. 1; arrives at Vincennes, 556 n. 2.
Ross, British officer, 392; reports on attitude
of savages toward English, 393, 395.
Rouensa, Illinois chief, 138, 147 n. 1, 152.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 337 n. 2.
Rui y Morales, Capt. Don Francesco, 413.
Rumsey, Lieut. J., 397, 403.
Sackville, Lord George, English Secretary for
Colonies, 487-
Sagamite, 65.
Saint-Denis, Charles Juchereau de, 118 n. 1.
Saint-Denis, Louis Juchereau de, 163 n. 1.
Saint-Ignace, 50.
Saint-Lusson, 46.
Saint-Pierre, Legardeur de, 328.
Saint- Vallier, second Bishop of Quebec,
131, 132 n. 2, 142, 148, 149, 222, 286, 357
n. 1.
Sainte-Pierre (fieiligenstein), Paul de, priest
at Cahokia, 371.
Sale, of mission property (Cahokia), 364-
372; sale of Jesuit mission property (Kas-
kaskia), 405, 406.
Salic Law, 337 n. 2.
Salmon Falls, 43 n. 3.
Salmon, Edme-Gratien, 285 n. 2.
Sanche, Dona Emanuele, 163 n. 1.
Sanche, Don Remon, 163 n. 1.
San Domingo, 161, 180, 206, 261, 324, 416.
Saucier, Jean-Baptiste, Engineer, Fort de
Chartres, 7, 297-
Schenectady (Corlar), 40, 43 n. 3.
Schools: Industrial, 30, 145; for boys and
girls at New Orleans, 224 n. 1.
Scythians, 246.
Search at Sea, 471 •
Seignelay, French Prime Minister, 98.
Seminary of Foreign Missions, 131, 366.
Seminary of Quebec, 30, 49; sends mission-
aries to the Tamarois, 110, 130, 366, 370.
Senat, Antoine, Jesuit missionary, 276.
Serigny, brother of Bienville, 199.
Settlement, 181 n. 1.
Sheridan, Gen. Philip, 324 n. 1.
Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts, 311,
318 n. 1.
Silk worm industry, 180.
Sillery, 335.
Simon, Colonel, 324 n. 2.
Sinnot, Indian agent ,395.
Six Nations, ultimatum to Virginians and
Pennsylvanians, 474.
Skillman, Rev. Isaac, Baptist minister as-
sails taxation, 463 n. 2.
Slaves, Negro, 174 n. 1, 207, 305, 369.
508
INDEX
Smallpox, 380, 381.
Smith, Captain, 492.
Social life (French), 299-306.
Soeurs donnees, 145.
Sons of Liberty, 464 n. 3.
Source, M. de la, 141 n. 1.
Source, Thaumur de la, Quebec Seminary
missionary, 289.
South Carolina, 164.
Spain, 21.
Spanish, expedition to the Missouris, 200,
201; Forts, 413.
Spotswood, 124.
Stamp Act, 463, 464.
Starved Rock, 92.
St. Ange, Sieur de, 7, 195, 213, 237, 288,
388; holds council with Indians, 392;
commandant at St. Louis, 408, 409 n. 1;
death of, 414 n. 2.
St. Augustine, 16, 22.
St. Anthony Falls, 88.
St. Clair, Arthur, Secretary for Indian Com'
missioners, 474.
St. Cosme, Jean Francois Buisson de, 110,
123, 131, 133, 145.
St. Croix, Lieutenant, recognizes his son,
554.
Ste-Foy, 335; battle of, 348.
Ste-Genevieve (St. Joachim), 287, 357, 375,
440.
St. Louis, Feast of, at New Orleans, 387.
St. Louis (IX), name given to Laclede's
trading'post, 408; hurts British fur trade,
409; record of first baptism, 439; popula-
tion of, 479.
St. Roch, church of, 177 n. 1.
Sterling, Capt. Thomas, takes possession of
Fort de Chartres, 397 ff; leaves the Illi'
nois, 425.
Steuben, Baron von, 471 •
Sueur, M. le, 261.
Sulpicians, 51, 79.
Superior Council (Quebec), 36, 37, 42; S.
P. of New Orleans, decrees expulsion of
Jesuits, 356; demands Ulloa's credentials,
411; demands expulsion of Ulloa, 416,
417, 418.
Swiss emigrants, 185.
Talon, Jean, 38, 39, 48, 52.
Tamarois, 131, 145.
Tamarois, chief of Kaskaskias, tells Ross to
leave their lands, 392, 393.
Taschereau, E. A., 149.
Terre Haute, 219.
Thirty Years' War, 184.
Thwaites, Reuben Gold, 10 n. 1.
Tobacco, 180.
Tomahaw\ Title, 481 n. 3.
Tonti, Henri de, 84; at Crevecoeur, 91, 92;
goes in search of La Salle, 107, HO, 117,
132, 133, 140, 143.
Tories, 324 n. 2; origin of name, 458 n. 3.
Toscanelli, Paolo, 13 n. 1.
Townshend, Charles, British Minister of
Finance, 464; taxes, 464.
Tracy, Marquis de, 37, 40.
Trade routes to Orient, 15.
Trades, 30; trading, 369.
Tranchepain, Mere, Superior of Ursulines
at New Orleans, 224.
Transylvania Company, 481.
Treaty of Fontainebleau, 350, 375, 410.
Treaty of Paris, 350.
Treaty of Utrecht, 124, 312.
Trent, Captain, 329.
U.
Ulloa, Don Antonio, Spanish Governor of
Louisiana, 411, 417; departs for Spain,
418; opinion of La Freniere, 418.
Union, of United States and Canada, improb'
able, 470 n. 2.
Unzaga, Don Luis, Gov. of Louisiana, 479.
Ursuline Convent, New Orleans, 224, 235
n. 2; Quebec, 29.
Valdeterre, Drouot de, 220.
Valentine, Capuchin missionary at St. Louis,
447.
Valley Forge, Washington at, 480.
Varlet, Dominique'Marie, 286.
Vasco da Gama, 17-
Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada, 265, 292 n.
1, 345 n. 1, 346.
Vaudreuil, M. de, Gov. of Louisiana, 278,
284.
Vera Cruz, 123, 163.
Vercheres, Marie Madelaine de, 32.
Verrazano, 18, 22.
Vespucci, Amerigo de, 18.
Vicar'General, of Louisiana, Father de
Beaubois, Jesuit; Father Raphael, Capu-
chin, 223 (The name Father Gabriel
was erroneously inserted for Father
Raphael). Father Baudoin, Jesuit, 357
n. 1; Father Dagobert, Capuchin, 357 n. 1.
Vigo (Vague), reports Hamilton's capture of
Vincennes, 525.
Villere, Joseph Roy de, 416 n. 1; arrests
Maxent, 417; death of, 422 n. 2.
Villiers, Coulon de, 215, 340.
Villiers, Neyon de, 292 n. 3, 364, 375, 381;
vacates Fort de Chartres, 386.
Vincennes, Francois-Marie Bissot de, 264;
baptismal record, 268 n. 1, 276.
INDEX
569
Vincennes, Jean-Baptiste Bissot de, 135, 268.
Virginia, committed to maintain western
charter jurisdiction, 484.
Voltaire, 336 n. 1, 337 n. 2, 349, 353.
W.
Wabash, 69, 263 n. 3.
Wabashes, Little, 532.
War, French and Indian, 328-347-
War, against the Chickasaws, 272-278.
War, against Natchez, 260-262.
War, against the Fox, 211-216.
War of the Roses, 307.
War, of Spanish Succession, 122-125.
War, Lord Dunmore's, 482.
War of Paraguay, 353.
War, Pontiac, 378-396; causes of, 396 n. 2.
War, Revolutionary, 457; nature of, 470.
Washington, George, 328; capitulates, 331;
authorized to employ Indians, 471, 473,
485.
Watrin, Jesuit Superior, Kaskaskia, 355; gives
account of expulsion of Jesuits from Louisi-
ana and Illinois country, 355-363.
Wedding, French, 304.
Whigs, origin of name, 458 n. 3.
White Apple, Natchez village, 247-
White Mans War, 473.
Wilkins, Lieut.-Col., at Fort de Chartres,
428; resigns from army, 434 n. 2; suggests
small post at Kaskaskia, 436; friend of
Gibault, 446, 448.
William and Mary, 44, 108, 115 n. 2.
Williams, Captain, receives scalping party,
553, 554.
Willing, Clark's galley, 429.
Winslow, Col. John, 317-
Winslow's Journal, 319 ff.
Wolfe, Gen. James, 344 ff.
Wolfe and Montcalm, joint monument, 347-
Wood, Col. William, opinion on deportation
of Acadians, 326 n. 2; describes lack of
union between American Colonies, 463;
describes Congress juggling Quebec Act,
468 n. 1.
Worthington, Captain, 535.
Yazous (Yazoo), 259, 260.
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