This is part of a section of Cousin Sam that I wasn’t planning to enter into until after finishing some other sections. However, a course on Microsoft® Office 2010 included an exercise using the Library of Congress website. From the Home page, clicking on the topic, American History, led to links to selected collection content available online at the Library of Congress, arranged by broad categories. One of those is “Colonization and Settlement (1585-1763), under which is “France in America.” Click on “Collections” on that page, then “[Browse]” after “Selections from the General Collections” next to “Books and Other Printed Material,” and this book is to be found. Since my interest at this time is primarily the expedition involving Louis Jolliet, I have omitted the first part of this history, and also a Life of Father Marquette. I may find reason to post additional parts of this book at a later time.
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HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER XXVlll
The course of the Mississippi, its great features, the nature of the country, were all known to the western missionaries and the traders, who alone with them carried on the discovery of the west. Among the latter was Jolliet, who in his rambles also penetrated near the Mississippi.* As the war seemed an obstacle to so hazardous an undertaking, the missionaries, it would appear, urged the French court to set on foot an expedition. Marquette held himself in readiness to leave Mackinaw at the first sign of his superior's will, and at last on the 4th of June, 1672, the French minister wrote to Talon, then intendant of Canada: "As after the increase of the colony, there is nothing more important for the colony than the discovery of a passage to the south sea, his majesty wishes you to give it your attention."† Talon was then about to return to France, but recommended Jolliet to the new governor Frontenac, who had just arrived. The latter approved the choice, and Jolliet received his proper instructions from the new intendant. "The Chevalier de Grand Fontaine," writes Frontenac, on the 2d of November, "has deemed expedient for the service to send the sieur Jolliet to discover the south sea by the Maskoutens country, and the great river Mississippi, which is believed to empty in the California sea. He is a man of experience in this kind of discovery, and has already been near the great river, of which he promises to see the mouth."‡
Of the missionaries, two seemed entitled to the honor of exploring the great river, Allouez, the first to reach its waters, and Marquette named for some years missionary to the Illinois. The latter was chosen, and since his departure from Chegoimegon, he had constantly offered up his
* Mem. of Frontenac, N. Y. Paris Doc, vol. i., p. 274.
† Ibid, vol. i., p. 267.
‡ Mem. of Frontenac, N. Y. Paris Doc, vol. L, p. 274
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devotions to the blessed Virgin Immaculate, to obtain the grace of reaching the Mississippi. What was his joy when on the very festival dearest to his heart, that of the Immaculate Conception, Jolliet arrived bearing the letters of his superiors which bid him embark at last, in his company to carry out the design so long, and so fondly projected.
"The long-expected discovery of the Mississippi was now at hand, to be accomplished by Jolliet of Quebec, of whom there is scarce a record but this one excursion that gives him immortality and by Marquette, who, after years of pious assiduity to the poor wrecks of Hurons, whom he planted near abundant fisheries, on the cold extremity of Michigan, entered, with equal humility, upon a career which exposed his life to perpetual danger, and by its results affected the destiny of nations."*
The winter was spent in preparation, in studying over all that had yet been learned of the great river, in gathering around them every Indian wanderer, and amid the tawny group drawing their first rude map of the Mississippi, and the water courses that led to it. And on this first map traced doubtless kneeling on the ground they set down the names of each tribe they were to pass, each important point to be met. The discovery wa9 dangerous, but it was not to be rash; all was the result of calm, cool investigation, and never was chance less concerned than in the discovery of the Mississippi.
In the spring they embarked at Mackinaw in two frail bark canoes, each with his paddle in hand, and full of hope, they soon plied them merrily over the crystal waters of the lake. All was new to Marquette, and he describes as he went along the Menomonies, Green bay, and Maskoutens,
* Bancroft.
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which he reached on the 7th of June, 1673. He had now attained the limit of former discoveries, the new world was before them; they looked back a last adieu to the waters, which great as the distance was, connected them with Quebec and their countrymen; they knelt on the shore to offer, by a new devotion, their lives, their honor, and their undertaking, to their beloved mother the Virgin Mary Immaculate; then launching on the broad Wisconsin, sailed slowly down its current amid its vine-clad isles, and its countless sand-bars. No sound broke the stillness, no human form appeared, and at last, after sailing seven days, on the 17th of June, they happily glided into the great river. Joy that could find no utterance in words filled the grateful heart of Marquette. The broad river of the Conception, as he named it, now lay before them, stretching away hundreds of miles to an unknown sea. Soon all was new; mountain and forest had glided away; the islands, with their groves of cotton-wood, became more frequent, and moose and deer browsed on the plains; strange animals were seen traversing the river, and monstrous fish appeared in its waters. But they proceeded on their way amid this solitude, frightful by its utter absence of man. Descending still further, they came to the land of the bison, or pisikiou, which, with the turkey, became sole tenants of the wilderness; all other game had disappeared. At last, on the 25th of June, they descried footprints on the shore. They now took heart again, and Jolliet and the missionary leaving their five men in the canoes, followed a little beaten path to discover who the tribe might be. They travelled on in silence almost to the cabin-doors, when they halted, and with a loud halloa proclaimed their coming. Three villages lay before them; the first, roused by the cry, poured forth its motley group, which halted at the sight of the newcomers, and the well-known dress of the missionary.
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Old men came slowly on, step by measured step, bearing aloft the all-mysterious calumet. All was silence; they stood at last before the two Europeans, and Marquette asked, "Who are you?" " We are Illinois," was the answer, which dispelled all anxiety from the explorers, and sent a thrill to the heart of Marquette; the Illinois missionary was at last amid the children of that tribe which he had so long, so tenderly yearned to see.
After friendly greetings at this town of Pewaria, and the neighboring one of Moing-wena, they returned to their canoes, escorted by the wandering tribe, who gave their hardy visitants a calumet, the safeguard of the West. With renewed courage and lighter hearts, they sailed on, and passing a high rock with strange and monstrous forms depicted on its rugged surface, heard in the distance the roaring as of a mighty cataract, and soon beheld Pekitanoui, or the muddy river, as the Algonquins call the Missouri, rushing like some untamed monster into the calm and clear Mississippi, and hurrying in with its muddy waters the trees which it had rooted up in its impetuous course. Already had the missionaries heard of the river running to the western sea to be reached by the branches of the Mississippi, and Marquette, now better informed, fondly hoped to reach it one day by the Missouri. But now their course lay south, and passing a dangerous eddy, the demon of the western Indians, they marked the Waboukigou, or Ohio, the river of the Shaw-neesi, and still holding on their way, came to the warm land of the cane, and the country which the mosquitoes might call their own. While enveloped in their sails as a shelter from them, they came upon a tribe who invited them to the shore. They were wild wanderers, for they had guns bought of Catholic Europeans to the east.
Thus far all had been friendly, and encouraged by this
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second meeting, they plied their oars anew, and amid groves of cotton-wood on either side, descended to the 33d degree, where, for the first time, a hostile reception seemed promised by the excited Metchigameas. Too few to resist, their only hope on earth was the mysterious calumet, and in heaven the protection of Mary, to whom they sent up those fervent prayers, which none but one who has called on her in the hour of need can realize. At last the storm subsided, and they were received in peace; their language formed an obstacle, but an interpreter was found, and after explaining the object of their coming, and announcing the great truths of Christianity, they embarked for Akamsea, a village thirty miles below on the eastern shore.
Here they were well received, and learned that the mouth of the river was but ten days' sail from this village; but they heard, too, of nations there trading with Europeans, and of wars between the tribes, and the two explorers spent a night in consultation. The Mississippi, they now saw, emptied into the gulf of Mexico, between Florida and Tampico, two Spanish points; they might by proceeding fall into their hands. They resolved to return. Thus far only Marquette traced the map, and he put down the names of other tribes of which they heard. Of these in the Atotchasi, Matora, and Papihaka, we recognize Arkansas tribes; and the Akoroas and Tanikwas, Pawnees and Omahas, Kansas and Apiches, are well known in after days.
They accordingly set out from Akensea on the 17th of July to return. Passing the Missouri again, they entered the Illinois, and meeting the friendly Kaskaskias at its upper portage, were led by them in a kind of triumph to Lake Michigan, for Marquette had promised to return and instruct them in the faith. Sailing along the lake, they crossed the
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outer peninsula of Green bay, and reached the mission of St. Francis Xavier, just four months after their departure from it.
Thus had the missionaries achieved their long-projected work. The triumph of the age was thus completed in the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi, which threw open to France, the richest, most fertile, and accessible territory in the new world. Marquette, whose health had been severely tried in this voyage, remained at St. Francis to recruit his strength before resuming his wonted missionary labors, for he sought no laurels, he aspired to no tinsel praise.
Jolliet, who had, like Marquette, drawn up a journal and map of his voyage, set out (probably in the spring) for Quebec, to report to the governor of Canada the result of his expedition, and took with him an Indian boy, doubtless the young slave given them by the great chief of the Illinois. Unfortunately, while shooting the rapids above Montreal, his canoe turned, and he barely escaped with his life, losing all his papers and his Indian companion. What route he had followed from Mackinaw, we do not know; but he seems to have descended by Detroit river, Lake Erie, and Niagara, as Frontenac announcing his return to the government in France, says, " he has found admirable countries, and so easy a navigation by the beautiful river which he found, that from Lake Ontario and Fort Frontenac, you can go in barks to the gulf of Mexico, there being but one discharge to be made at the place where Lake Erie falls into Lake Ontario."
Separated as he was from Marquette, and deprived of his papers by the accident, Jolliet drew up a narrative of his voyage from recollection, and also sketched a map which Frontenac transmitted to France in November, 1674, three
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months after Jolliet's arrival at Quebec.* The loss of Jolliet's narrative and map now gave the highest importance to those in the hands of the missionaries; these Frontenac promised to send, and Father Marquette, as we find by his autograph letter, transmitted copies to his superior at his request, prior to October ; and the French government was, undoubtedly, possessed, in 1675, of Marquette's journal and map, and fully aware of the great advantage to be derived
* As Frontenac's memoir completely refutes the assertion of Hennepin, that Jolliet made no report to the government, and is a monument of no little importance, as substantiating the voyage of Marquette and Jolliet we insert it in the original, from vol. i., p. 258, of the Paris Documents at Albany.
"Quebec le 14 Novemb., 1674.
"§ VI. Retour du Sr. Joliet de son voyage à la découverte de la mer du sud.
"Le Sr. Joliet que M. Talon m'a conseillé d'enoyer à la découverte de la mer du sud, lorsque j'arrivai de France, en est de retour depuis trois mois et a découvert des pays admirables et une navigation si aisie par les belles rivières qu'il a trouvées que du lac Ontario et du fort Frontenac on pourrait aller en barque jusque dans le golfe du Mexique, n'y ayant qu'une seule décharge a faire dans l'endroit ou le Lac Erie tombe dans le Lac Ontario.
"Ce sont des projets a quoi l'on pourra travailler lorsque la paix sera bien établie et quand il plaira au roi de pousser ces découvertes.
"Il a été jusqu'à dix journées du golfe du Mexique et croit que les rivières que du coté de l'ouest tombent dans la grande rivière qu'il a trouvée, qui va du nau S ... et qu'on trouveroit des communications d'eaux qui méneroient à la mer Vermeille et de la Californie.
"Je vuos envoie par mon secrétaire la carte qu'il en a faite te les rémarques dont il s'est pu souvenir, ayant perdu tous ses mémoires et ses journaux dans la naufrage qu'il fit à la vue de Montreal, où il pensa se noyed, après avoir fait un voyage de douze cents lieues et perdit tous ses papiers et un petit sauvage qu'il ramenoit de ces pays là.
"Il avoit laisée dans le Lac Supérieur au Sault Ste. Marie chez les Peres des copies de ses journaux, que nous ne saurions avoir que l'année prochaine, par où vous apprendrez plus de particularités de cette découverte, dont il s'est très bien acquitté.
"Frontenac"
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from the discoveries made, either for communicating direct with France from Illinois, or of seeking the nearest road to the gulf of California and the Pacific, by the western tributaries of the Mississippi. "These," says Frontenac, " are projects we can take in hand when peace is well established, and it shall please his majesty to carry out the exploration."
The court allowed the whole affair to pass unnoticed. Marquette's narrative was not published, and the Jesuit Relations apparently prohibited; so that it would not, perhaps, have seen the light of other days, had not Thevenot obtained a copy of the narrative and a map which he published in 1681.* France would have derived no benefit from this discovery, but for the enterprise and persevering courage of Robert Cavalier de la Salle. When Jolliet passed down Lake Ontario, in 1674, he stopped at Fort Frontenac where La Salle was then commander under Frontenac. He was thus one of the first to know the result of Jolliet's voyage, and, perhaps, was one of the few that saw his maps and journal which were lost before he reached the next French post. At the time it does not seem to have made much impression on La Salle; his great object then was to build up a fortune, and the next year he obtained a grant of Fort Frontenac and the monopoly of the lake trade and a patent of nobility. His plans failed, and instead of acquiring wealth, he found himself embarrassed by immense debts. He now looked for some new field, and by reading the accounts of the Spanish adventurers, seems to have been the first to identify the great river of Marquette, and Jolliet with the great river of De Soto. The vast herds of bison seemed to him to afford an easy means of realizing all that he could hope, by enabling him to ship from the banks of the Missouri
* There is a copy of this original edition in the library of Harvard College. An exact copy was printed by Mr. Rich, a few years ago.
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and Illinois direct to France by the gulf of Mexico, cargoes of buffalo-skins and wool. In 1677, he repaired again to France, and by the help of Frontenac's recommendation, obtained a patent for his discovery, and a new monopoly in the following May, and by September was in Canada with Tonty and a body of mechanics and mariners, with all things necessary for his expedition. The plan traced by Jolliet in Frontenac's dispatch of 1674, seems to have been followed by him without further investigation. As it would be necessary to unload at the falls of Niagara, the Onghiara, of the old missionaries, he resolved to build a new fort "there, and construct vessels above the cataract to ply on the upper lakes, and thus connect his trading-houses on the Mississippi with Fort Frontenac, his chief and most expensive establishment. Such was his celerity that, by the 5th of December, the first detachment of his party entered the Niagara River, and a site was soon selected for a fort, and for the construction of a vessel above the falls. Difficulties with the Senecas finally compelled him to relinquish the fort, and a mere shed or storehouse was raised. The vessel, however, went on, and he at last saw it glide down into the rapid current of Niagara in August, 1679, amid the admiring crowd of Indians who had gathered around the French.
There was now no obstacle to his further progress, but we must here regret that he had not studied former discoveries more narrowly. One of his clear and comprehensive mind would have seized at once the great western branch of the Mississippi, already known to the missionaries and the Iroquois. By his present plans he had to build one vessel above the falls of Niagara, and a second on the Illinois River; one on the Ohio, so easily reached by the Alleghany would have carried him to the gulf, and he would thus have avoided
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the various troubles which so long retarded his reaching the mouth of the Mississippi. He sailed to Green bay, but found that he had arrayed against him all the private traders of the west, by sending men to trade, contrary to his patent, which expressly excepted the Ottawa country. Of this he soon felt the effects, his men began to desert, and to crown all his misfortunes, his new vessel, the Griffin, was lost on her way back to Niagara. Before this catastrophe he had set out to descend Lake Michigan. He built a kind of fort at the mouth of the St. Joseph's and sounded its channel, and, at last, in December, proceeded to enter the Kankakee, a branch of the Illinois, by a portage from the St. Joseph's. Disheartened by the desertion and disaffection of his men, and by the want of all tidings of his vessel, he began the erection of Fort Crevecceur, and of a vessel near the Illinois camp below Lake Peoria. The vessel he had finally to abandon for want of proper materials to complete it, and he set out almost alone for Fort Frontenac by land, after sending Father Hennepin to explore the Illinois to its mouth. That missionary went further; voluntarily or as a prisoner of the Sioux, he seems to have ascended as far as St. Anthony's falls, which owe their name to him. His exploration of the Mississippi between the Illinois river and St. Anthony's falls, took place in 1680, between the months of March and September, when, delivered by De Luth, he returned to Mackinaw, and thence in the spring almost direct to Quebec and Europe. By 1683, he published, at Paris, an account of his voyage under the title of Description de la Louisiane, which after the Relations, and Marquette's narrative, is the next work relative to the Mississippi, and contains the first printed description of that river above the mouth of the Wisconsin, from actual observation.
La Salle returned to Illinois in 1681, and, to his surprise,
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found his fort deserted. He soon after met the survivors of his first expedition at Mackinaw, and set about new preparations for his great work. In January, 1682, he was again with his party at the extremity of Lake Michigan, and entering the Chicago river, followed the old line of Father Marquette, reached Fort Crevéc ur once more, and at last began in earnest his voyage down the Mississippi. He had abandoned the idea of sailing down in a ship, and resolved to go in boats, ascertain accurately the position of its mouth, and then return to France and sail direct with a colony for the mouth, and ascend to some convenient place. On the 6th of February, the little expedition, apparently in three large boats or canoes, conducted by La Salle and his lieutenants, Tonty and Dautray, with Father Zenobius Membre, as their chaplain, and Indians as hunters and guides, entered the wide waters of the Mississippi, which henceforward, in the narratives of La Salle's companions assumes the name of Colbert. They passed the mouth of the muddy Missouri, and further on, the deserted village of the Tamaroas, and next the Ohio, where the marshy land began that prevented their landing. Detained soon after by the loss of one of his men, La Salle encamped on the bluff, and fell in with some Chickasaws, then proceeding on, at last, on the 3d of March, was aroused by the war-cries, and the rattling drums of an Arkansas village. He had reached the limit of Jolliet's voyage; henceforward, he was to be the first French explorer. Warlike as the greeting was, La Salle soon entered into friendly relations1 with them, and several days were spent in their village. Here a cross was planted with the arms of the French king, and the missionary endeavored, by interpreters and signs to give some idea of Christianity.
On the 17th, La Salle embarked again, and passing two
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HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER XXXIX
more Arkansas towns, reached the populous tribe of the Taensas, in their houses of clay and straw, with roofs of cane, themselves attired in mantles, woven of white pliant bark, and showing Eastern reverence for their monarch, who in great ceremony visited the envoys of the French.
Pursuing his course, the party next came to the Natchez, where another cross was planted, and visiting the Koroas proceeded on till the river divided into two branches. Following the westerly one, they sailed past the Quinipissas, and the pillaged town of another tribe, till they reached the delta, on the 6th of April. La Salle and his two lieutenants, each taking a separate channel, advanced, full of hope, the brackish water, growing salter as they proceeded, being a sure index of the sea, which they reached at last on the 9th of April, 1682, sixty-two days after their entering the Mississippi.
The French had thus, at last, in the two expeditions of Jolliet and La Salle, completely explored the river from the falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico. La Salle now planted a cross with the arms of France amid the solemn chant of hymns of thanksgiving, and in the name of the French king took possession of the river, of all its branches, and the territory watered by them; and the notary drew up an authentic act, which all signed with beating hearts, and a leaden plate with the arms of France, and the names of the discoverers was amid the rattle of musketry deposited in the earth.
La Salle now ascended again to Illinois, and dispatched Father Zenobius Membre to France to lay an account of his voyage before the government. He sailed from Quebec on the 15th of November with Frontenac, and the course of the
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HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER XL
Mississippi was known in France before the close of 1682.*
The next year La Salle himself reached France, and set out by sea to reach the mouth of the Mississippi; he never again beheld it; but Tonty seeking him, had again descended to the mouth, and it was soon constantly travelled by the adventurous trader, and still more adventurous missionary. A Spanish vessel under Andrew de Pes, entered the mouth soon after; but, on the 2d of March, 1699, the Canadian Iberville, more fortunate than La Salle, entered it with Father Anastasius Douay, who had accompanied that unfortunate adventurer on his last voyage,† Missionaries from Canada soon came to greet him, and La Sueur ascended the Mississippi to St. Peter's river, and built a log fort on its blue-earth tributary.
Henceforward all was progress; we might now trace the labors of those who explored each mighty tributary, and watch the progress of each rising town; we might follow down the first cargo of wheat, or look with the anxiety of the day at the first crop of sugar and of cotton; but this were to write the history of the Mississippi valley, and we undertook only that of its discovery. Our work is done. We turn now to trace the life of its first French explorers.
* The works on La Salle's voyages, besides Hennepin already noticed, are, 1. Etablissement de la Foi, &c, par le P. Chretien Le Clercq, Paris, 1691. 2. Der nieres découvertes, &c, par le Chev. de Tonty, Paris, 1697. 3. Journal Historique, &c, par M. Joutel, Paris, 1713.
† Historical Collections of Louisiana, vol. iii., p. 14.
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I find it a bit curious that the author of this history seems to have such little knowledge of Louis Jolliet's dissapearance and presumed death in May of 1700, considering that such information has long been widely available. – C. S.
NOTICE ON THE SIEUR JOLLIET.
After so extended a notice on Father Marquette, it would seem unjust to say nothing of his illustrious companion in his great voyage. It would be doubly interesting to give a full account of Jolliet, as he was a native of the country, but unfortunately our materials are scanty and our notices vague.
Neither his birthplace nor its epoch has, as far as the present writer knows, been ascertained. His education he owed to the Jesuit college of Quebec, where, unless I am mistaken, he was a class-mate of the first Canadian who was advanced to the priesthood. Jolliet was thus connected with the Jesuits, and apparently was an assistant in the college. After leaving them, he proceeded to the west to seek his fortune in the fur-trade. Here he was always on terms of intimacy with the missionaries, and acquired the knowledge and experience which induced the government to select him as the explorer of the Mississippi.
This choice was most agreeable to the missionaries, and he and Marquette immortalized their names. They explored the great river, and settled all doubts as to its course. On his return Jolliet lost all his papers in the rapids above Montreal, and could make but a verbal report to the government. This, however, he reduced to writing, and accompanied with a map drawn from recollection. On the transmission of
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these to France, he, doubtless, expected to be enabled to carry out such plans as he had conceived, and to profit to some extent by his great discovery. But he was thrown aside by more flattered adventurers. The discoverer of Mississippi was rewarded as if in mockery with an island in the gulf of St. Lawrence. This was Anticosti, and here Jolliet built a fort and a dwelling for his family, and houses for trade. They were not, however, destined to be a source of emolument to him. His labors were devoted also to other fields. Thus we find him, in 1689, in the employment of the government, rendering essential services in the west.
Two years after his island was taken by the English fleet, and he himself, with his wife and mother-in-law, probably while attempting to reach Quebec, fell into the hands of Phipps, the English commander. His vessel and property were a total loss, but his liberty he recovered, when the English retired from the walls of Quebec.
Of his subsequent history there are but occasional traces, and we know only that he died some years prior to 1737.
Authorities: Charlevoix, La Hontan, vol. L, p. 323; ii., p. 10. MS. Journal of the Superior of the Jesuits. Bouchetfs Topograph. Die. Canada. Titles:
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