study is Arthur C. Neville's "Historic Sites Around Green Bay," in Wis. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, 1905, 142 ff. A valuable study of his work among the Ottawa is Joseph S. Laboule's "Claude Jean Allouez, 'the Apostle of the Ottawas' and the Builder of the First Indian Missions in Wisconsin," Parkman Club Publications, No. 17 (Milwaukee, 1897). Another suggestive study by the same author, entitled "Allouez and La Salle," is published in Wis. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, 1898, 168-82.

CHAPTER V

THE FRENCH TAKE POSSESSION OF WISCONSIN

The personal rule of Louis XIV which began in 1661 marked the opening of a period of great splendor and much apparent prosperity for France. The dominance of Europe seemed hers for the asking, and the brain of the young monarch began to entertain visions of himself as successor to the throne of the ancient Caesars. Nor was his ambition confined to the limits of Europe, for alike in Asia and America France entered into vigorous competition with England and Holland for political and commercial supremacy. Particularly in America it was her good fortune to be served by men of dauntless spirit and imperial vision, who in the closing decades of the seventeenth century pushed the boundaries of New France from the banks of the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. Their deeds and achievements, from the particular viewpoint of the development of Wisconsin, it is the function of the present chapter in part to tell.

The first notable event in the process was the formal extension of the dominion of France over the western country, of which Wisconsin constitutes a part. This act was perhaps instigated by Jean Talon, Intendant of New France, but his project received the hearty support of the home government at Paris. To impress the simple-minded barbarians with the significance of the change they were about to undergo, plans were laid in the summer of 1670 for staging an impressive ceremonial at Sault Ste. Marie the ensuing spring, which the tribesmen of the upper country should be invited to witness.

The man selected to represent the Grand Monarch of France in this enterprise was Simon François Daumont, better known to history by his title of Sieur de St. Lusson. To aid him in securing the attendance of the natives the services of Nicolas Perrot, who had recently. come down to Quebec after a prolonged sojourn in Wisconsin, were enlisted, and to Father Allouez was assigned an important place on the program. Leaving Quebec in the autumn, the expedition made its way as far as the Manitoulin Islands of Lake Huron, where St. Lusson halted for the winter, resuming his journey to the Sault in May, 1671. Meanwhile, word had been sent to the tribesmen for a hundred leagues around concerning the impending ceremony, accom

panied by an urgent invitation for them to assemble at the appointed time and place. Perrot himself carried the message to the tribes around Green Bay, while to the Christineaux and other more distant tribes Indian runners were dispatched with the invitation.

In all, some two thousand savages, representing fourteen different nations, gathered at the Jesuit station of Sault Ste. Marie early in June to learn the will of their Great Father. The spot selected for the ceremony was a height overlooking the Chippewa village, and here on the 14th of June the barbarians were convoked in solemn council. A great wooden cross had been prepared, and after being publicly blessed "with all the ceremonies of the church" was solemnly planted in the ground, while the Frenchmen present chanted the Vexilla. After this the escutcheon of France, fixed to a cedar pole, was planted above the cross, to the singing of the Exaudiat, and a prayer was offered for the "sacred person" of the King. St. Lusson now stepped to the front and amid discharges of musketry and repeated shouts of "Long live the King" held aloft a piece of sod, the while he formally laid claim on behalf of his king to Lakes Huron and Superior, together with all the vast region, "as well discovered as to be discovered" bounded on the one side by the "northern and western seas" and on the other by the Sea of the South, or Pacific.

To Father Allouez was reserved the task of conveying to the minds of the assembled savages some dim perception of the significance of the ceremony they had just witnessed. His address took the form of a panegyric on the "Most Christian King," whose subjects they had become. It is a sad commentary upon over sixteen hundred years of Christian civilization that the greatness of its most powerful ruler must be conveyed to the savage mind chiefly in terms of bloodshed and slaughter. "When he says, 'I am going to war,'" the orator informed them, "all obey him; and those ten thousand captains raise companies of a hundred soldiers each, both on sea and on land. Some embark in ships, one or two hundred in number, like those you have seen at Quebec. Your canoes hold only four or five men, or at the very utmost, ten or twelve. Our ships in France hold four or five hundred, or even as many as a thousand. Other men make war by land, but in such vast numbers that, if drawn up in a double file, they would extend farther than from here to [Mackinac], although the distance exceeds twenty leagues. When he attacks, he is more terrible than the thunder; the earth trembles, the air and the sea are set on fire by the discharges of his cannon; while he has been seen amid his squadrons all covered with the blood of his foes, of whom he has slain so many with his sword that he does not count their scalps, but the rivers of blood which he sets flowing." Much more did the good