CHAPTER VI.

EARLY DISCOVERIES.

HAVING given a description of the lakes and rivers, and noticed some of the more prominent features that characterize the physical geography of the territory within the scope of our inquiry, and the parts necessarily connected with it, forming, as it were, the outlines or ground plan of its history, we will now proceed to fill in the framework, with a narration of its discovery. Jacques Cartier, as already intimated in a note on a preceding page, ascended the St. Lawrence River in 1535. He sailed up the stream as far as the great Indian village of Hoc Lelaga, situated on an island at the foot of the mountain, styled by him Mont Royal, now called Montreal, a name since extended to the whole island. The country thus discovered was called New France. Later, and in the year 1598, France, after fifty years of domestic troubles, recovered her tranquillity, and, finding herself once more equal to great enterprises, acquired a taste for colonization. Her attention was directed to her possessions, by right of discovery, in the new world, where she now wished to establish colonies and extend the faith of the Catholic religion. Commissions or grants were accordingly issued to companies of merchants, and others organized for this purpose, who undertook to make settlements in Acadia, as Nova Scotia. was then called, and elsewhere along the lower waters of the St. Lawrence; and, at a later day, like efforts were made higher up the river. In 1607 Mr. De Monts, having failed in a former enterprise, was deprived of his commission, which was restored to him on the condition that he would make a settlement on the St. Lawrence. The company

he represented seems to have had the fur trade only in view, and this object caused it to change its plans and avoid Acadia altogether. De Monts' company increased in numbers and capital in proportion as the fur trade developed expectations of profit, and many persons at St. Malo, particularly, gave it their support. Feeling that his name injured his associates, M. De Monts retired; and when he ceased to be its governing head, the company of merchants recovered the monopoly with which the charter was endowed, for no other object than making money out of the fur trade. They cared nothing whatever for the colony in Acadia, which was dying out, and made no settlements else

where. However, Mr. Samuel Champlain, who cared little for the fur trade, and whose thoughts were those of a patriot, after maturely examining where the settlements directed by the court might be best established, at last fixed on Quebec. He arrived there on the 3d of July, 1608, put up some temporary buildings for himself and company, and began to clear off the ground, which proved fertile.*

The colony at Quebec grew apace with emigrants from France; and later, the establishment of a settlement at the island of Montreal was undertaken. Two religious enthusiasts, the one named Jerome le Royer de la Dauversiere, of Anjou, and the other John James Olier, assumed the undertaking in 1636. The next who joined in the movement was Peter Chevirer, Baron Fancamp, who in 1640 sent tools and provisions for the use of the coming settlers. The projectors were now aided by the celebrated Baron de Renty, and two others. Father Charles Lalemant induced John de Lauson, the proprietor of the island of Montreal, to cede it to these gentlemen, which he did in August, 1640; and to remove all doubts as to the title, the associates obtained a grant from the New France Company, in December of the same year, which was subsequently ratified by the king himself. The associates agreed to send out forty settlers, to clear and cultivate the ground; to increase the number annually; to supply them with two sloops, cattle and farm hands, and, after five years, to erect a seminary, maintain ecclesiastics as missionaries and teachers, and also nuns as teachers and hospitalers. On its part the New France Company agreed to transport thirty settlers. The associates then contributed twenty-five thousand crowns to begin the settlement, and Mr. de Maisonneuve embarked with his colony on three vessels, which sailed from Rochelle and Dieppe, in the summer of 1641. The colony wintered in Quebec, spending their time in building boats and preparing timber for their houses; and on the 8th of May, 1642, embarked, and arrived nine days after at the island of Montreal, and after saying mass began an intrenchment around their tents.+

Notwithstanding the severity of the climate, the loss of life by diseases incident to settling of new countries, and more especially the

*History of New France.

From Dr. Shea's valuable note on Montreal, on pages 129 and 130, vol. 2, of his translation of Father Charlevoix' History of New France. Mr. Albach, publisher of Annals of the West," Pittsburgh edition, 1857, p. 49, is in error in saying that Montreal was founded in 1613, by Samuel Champlain. Champlain, in company with a young Huron Indian, whom he had taken to and brought back from France on a previous voyage, visited the island of Montreal in 1611, and chose it as a place for a settlement he designed to establish, but which he did not begin, as he was obliged to return to France; vide Charlevoix' "History of New France," vol. 2, p. 23. The American Clyclopedia, as well as other authorities, concur with Dr. Shea, that Montreal was founded in 1642, seven years after Champlain's death.

destruction of its people from raids of the dreaded Iroquois Indians, the French colonies grew until, according to a report of Governor Mons. Denonville to the Minister at Paris, the population of Canada, in 1686, had increased to 12,373 souls. Quebec and Montreal became the base of operations of the French in America; the places from which missionaries, traders and explorers went out among the savages into countries hitherto unknown, going northward and westward, even beyond the extremity of Lake Superior to the upper waters of the Mississippi, and southward to the Gulf of Mexico; and it was from these cities that the religious, military and commercial affairs of this widely extended region were administered, and from which the French settlements subsequently established in the northwest and at New Orleans were principally recruited. The influence of Quebec and Montreal did not end with the fall of French power in America. It was from these cities that the English retained control of the fur trade in, and exerted a power over the Indian tribes of, the northwest that harassed and retarded the spread of the American settlements through all the revolutionary war, and during the later contest between Great Britain and the United States in the war of 1812. Indeed, it was only until after the fur trade was exhausted and the Indians placed beyond the Mississippi, subsequent to 1820, that Quebec and Montreal ceased to exert an influence in that part of New France now known as Illinois and Indiana.

Father Claude Allouez, coasting westward from Sault Ste. Marie, reached Chegoimegon, as the Indians called the bay south of the Apostle Islands and near La Pointe on the southwestern shore of Lake Superior, in October, 1665. Here he found ten or twelve fragments of Algonquin tribes assembled and about to hang the war kettle over the fire preparatory for an incursion westward into the territory of the Sioux. The good father persuaded them to give up their intended hostile expedition. He set up in their midst a chapel, to which he gave the name of the "Mission of the Holy Ghost," at the spot afterward known as "Lapointe du Saint Esprit," and at once began his mission work. His chapel was an object of wonder, and its establishment soon spread among the wild children of the forest, and thither from great distances came numbers all alive with curiosity, the roving Pottawatomies, Sacs and Foxes, the Kickapoos, the Illinois and Miamis,— to whom the truths of christianity were announced.*

Three years later Father Jaines Marquette took the place of Allouez, and while here he seems to have been the first that learned of the Mississippi. In a letter written from this mission by Father Marquette to

*Shea's History of Catholic Missions, 358.

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his Reverend Father Superior, preserved in the Relations for 1669 and 1670, he says: "When the Illinois come to the point they pass a great river, which is almost a league in width. It flows from north to south, and to so great a distance that the Illinois, who know nothing of the use of the canoe, have never as yet heard tell of the mouth; they only know that there are great nations below them, some of whom, dwelling to the east-southeast of their country, gather their Indian-corn twice a year. A nation that they call Chaouanon (Shawnees) came to visit them during the past summer; the young man that has been given to me to teach me the language has seen them; they were loaded with glass beads, which shows that they have communication with the Europeans. They had to journey across the land for more than thirty days before arriving at their country. It is hardly probable that this great river discharges itself in Virginia. We are more inclined to believe that it has its mouth in California. If the savages, who have promised to make me a canoe, do not fail in their word, we will navigate this river as far as is possible in company with a Frenchman and this young man that they have given me, who understands several of these languages and possesses great facility for acquiring others. We shall visit the nations who dwell along its shores, in order to open the way to many of our fathers who for a long time have awaited this happiness. This discovery will give us a perfect knowledge of the sea either to the south or to the west."

These reports concerning the great river came to the knowledge of the authorities at Quebec and Paris, and naturally enough stimulated further inquiry. There were three theories as to where the river emptied; one, that it discharged into the Atlantic south of the British colony of Virginia; second, that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico; and third, which was the more popular belief, that it emptied into the Red Sea, as the Gulf of California was called; and if the latter, that it would afford a passage to China. To solve this important commercial problem in geography, it was determined, as appears from a letter from the Governor, Count Frontenac, at Quebec, to M. Colbert, Minister of the navy at Paris, expedient "for the service to send Sieur Joliet to the country of the Mascoutines, to discover the South Sea and the great river they call the Mississippi- - which is supposed to discharge itself into the Sea of California. Sieur Joliet is a man of great experience in these sorts of discoveries, and has already been almost to that great river, the mouth of which he promises to see. We shall have intelligence of him, certainly, this summer.* Father Marquette was chosen to accompany Joliet on account of the information he had already ob

* Paris Documents, vol. 9, p. 92.

SPANISH EXPLORATIONS.

41

tained from the Indians relating to the countries to be explored, and also because, as he wrote Father Dablon, his superior, when informed. by the latter that he was to be Joliet's companion, "I am ready to go on your order to seek new nations toward the South Sea, and teach them of our great God whom they hitherto have not known."

The voyage of Joliet and Marquette is so interesting that we introduce extracts from Father Marquette's journal. The version we adopt is Father Marquette's original journal, prepared for publication by his superior, Father Dablon, and which lay in manuscript at Quebec, among the archives of the Jesuits, until 1852, when it, together with Father Marquette's original map, were brought to light, translated into English, and published by Dr. John G. Shea, in his "Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi." The version commonly sanctioned was Marquette's narrative sent to the French government, where it lay unpublished until it came into the hands of M. Thevenot, who printed it at Paris, in a book issued by him in 1681, called "Receuil de Voyages." This account differs somewhat, though not essentially, from the narrative as published by Dr. Shea.

Before proceeding farther, however, we will turn aside a moment to note the fact that Spain had a prior right over France to the Mississippi Valley by virtue of previous discovery. As early as the year 1525, Cortez had conquered Mexico, portioned out its rich mines among his favorites and reduced the inoffensive inhabitants to the worst of slavery, making them till the ground and toil in the mines for their unfeeling masters. A few years following the conquest of Mexico, the Spaniards, under Pamphilus de Narvaez, in 1528, undertook to conquer and colonize Florida and the entire northern coast-line of the Gulf. After long and fruitless wanderings in the interior, his party returned to the sea-coast and endeavored to reach Tampico, in wretched boats. Nearly all perished by storm, disease or famine. The survivors, with one Cabeza de Vaca at their head, drifted to an island near the present state of Mississippi; from which, after four years of slavery, De Vaca, with four companions, escaped to the mainland and started westward, going clear across the continent to the Gulf of California. The natives took them for supernatural beings. They assumed the guise of jugglers, and the Indian tribes, through which they passed, invested them with the title of medicine-men, and their lives were thus guarded with superstitious awe. They are, perhaps, the first Europeans who ever went overland from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They must have crossed the Great River somewhere on their route, and, says Dr. Shea, "remain in history, in a distant twilight, as the first Europeans known to have stood on the banks of the Mississippi." In 1539,