USA > Iowa > Hancock County > History of Winnebago County and Hancock County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 7
USA > Iowa > Winnebago County > History of Winnebago County and Hancock County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 7
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35
Farther northward the French Government, through the discoveries of Jacques Cartier, laid claim to the Valley of the St. Lawrence River and the country about the Great Lakes, from which base they pushed their explorations westward toward the sources of the Mississippi River and southward into the Valley of the Ohio.
Thus at the very beginning of American history, three great European nations were actively engaged in making explorations and establishing dominion over certain portions of the Western Hemisphere. Following the usage of nations, each claimed title to the lands "by right of discovery." It is not surprising that in course of time a controversy arose among these three great powers as to which was the rightful possessor of the soil.
STRENGTHENING SPANISH CLAIMS
In November, 1519, Hernando Cortez landed in Mexico with a strong force of Spanish soldiery, captured Montezuma, the "Mexican Em- peror," and after a two years' war succeeded in establishing Spanish supremacy. It was not long until Cortez fell into disfavor with the Spanish authorities at Madrid, but possession of the country was retained and Mexico was given the name of New Spain. Military governors failed to give satisfaction in controlling the affairs of the conquered province, and in 1535 Antonio de Mendoza was appointed viceroy, with almost unlimited powers. He was known as the "good viceroy." By his diplomacy he succeeded in establishing friendly
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relations with the native inhabitants and did much toward advancing their interests. Under Mendoza and his successors, many of the Indians were converted to the Catholic faith and exploration and settlement were pushed northward into California, New Mexico and Texas.
The grant of the pope to infidel countries was further strengthened in 1540-42 by the expedition of Hernando de Soto into the interior of the continent. De Soto was born in Spain about 1496 and had been connected with some of the early expeditions to Peru, in which service he demonstrated his qualifications to command. Charles I appointed him governor of Florida and Cuba in the spring of 1538 and one of his first official acts was to issue orders for the fortification of the harbor of Havana. About a year later he was ordered by his royal master to explore the interior of Florida.
With about one thousand men, he left Havana on May 12, 1539, and the following month marched his little army into the interior. At a place called Tascaluza he met a large force of hostile Indians and a battle ensued which lasted for several hours, resulting in the defeat of the savages. The Spanish loss was seventy killed and a number wounded, among whom was De Soto himself. This battle delayed the movement of the expedition until the wounded were sufficiently recov- ered to resume the march. Like all the early Spanish explorers, De Soto's chief object was to discover rich mines of the precious metals. After wandering about through the forests until the spring of 1541, he came to the Mississippi River, not far from the present City of Memphis, Tennessee. He then tried to reach the Spanish settlements in Mexico, but was stricken with fever and died in the wilderness, his body being buried in the river he had discovered. A few of his men finally managed to reach Florida and gave an account of the country through which they had passed. Upon their report Spain claimed "all the land bordering upon the Grande River and the Gulf of Mexico."
WORK OF THE ENGLISH
While Spain was operating in the West Indies and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the English were by no means idle. In 1620 the British crown, ignoring Spain's papal grant and the claims based upon the explorations of De Soto, issued to the Plymouth Company a charter which included "all the lands between the fortieth and forty- eight parallels of north latitude from sea to sea." The entire State of Iowa was included in this grant. Eight years later (1628) the Massachusetts Bay Company received a charter from the English Government to a strip of land one hundred miles wide, "extending from sea to sea." Had the lands of the Massachusetts Bay Company
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been surveyed, the northern boundary of this one-hundred-mile strip would have crossed the Mississippi River not far from the present City of McGregor and the southern not far from Davenport.
Thus it was that Iowa, or at least a portion of it, was early claimed by both Spain and England "by right of discovery," though no rep- resentative of either country had ever set foot upon the soil. No efforts were made by either Spain or England to extend settlement into the interior. The Spaniards were so intent upon discovering rich gold and silver mines that no attention was paid to founding permanent settlements, while the English were apparently content with their little colonies at Jamestown, Virginia, and in New England.
FRENCH EXPLORATIONS
In the matter of extending her explorations and planting colonies, France was perhaps more aggressive than England and Spain put together. Port Royal was settled in 1604 and Quebec and founded by Samuel. Champlain in 1608. As early as 1611 Jesuit missionaries from the French settlements in Canada were among the Indian tribes along the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. In 1616 a French explorer named Le Carron visited the country of the Iroquois and Huron Indians. The reports of Le Carron and the missionaries showed the possibilities of opening up a profitable trade with the natives, especially in furs, and French explorations were extended still farther westward. In 1634 Jean Nicollet, agent of the "Company of One Hundred," which was authorized by the King of France to engage in the Indian trade, explored the western shore of Lake Michigan about Green Bay and went as far west as the Fox River country, in what is now the State of Wisconsin. He is said to have been the first white man to make a report upon the region west of the Great Lakes.
Early in the year 1665 Claude Allouez, one of the most zealous of Jesuit missionaries, visited the Indians in the vicinity of what is now known as Ashland Bay, on the southern shore of Lake Superior. In the fall of the same year he held a council with representatives of several of the western tribes at the Chippewa village, not far from Ashland Bay. At this council Chippewa, Sioux, Sac, Fox, Potawatomi and Illini chiefs were present. To them and their people Allouez promised the protection of the great French father and paved the way for a profitable trade. Here Allouez also learned from some of the Sioux and Illini chiefs of a great river farther to the westward, "called by them the Me-sa-sip-pi, which they said no white man had yet seen (they knew nothing of De Soto's discovery of the river more than twenty years before), and along which fur-bearing animals abounded."
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Three years later Father Allonez and Claude Dablon, a Jesuit asso- ciate, founded the mission of St. Mary's, the oldest white settlement within the present State of Michigan. The French authorities in Canada, influenced by the reports of Nicollet and the missionaries, sent Nicholas Perrot as the accredited agent of the French Government into the country to arrange for a grand council with the Indians. The council was held at St. Mary's in May, 1671. Before the close of that year Father Jacques Marquette, one of the most influential of the Jesuit Fathers in America, founded the mission at Point St. Ignace for the benefit of the Huron Indians. For many years this mission was regarded as the key to the great unexplored West, and its founder was destined to play an important part in the early history of the country.
MARQUETTE AND JOLIET
Father Marquette had heard the reports concerning the great river to the westward and was filled with a desire to discover it, but was deterred from making any attempt in that direction until after Perrot's council in 1671, which placed the French and Indians upon a more friendly footing. Even then he was delayed for nearly two years with his preparations and in obtaining the consent of the Canadian officials. In the spring of 1673, armed with the proper credentials, he went to Michilimackinac to complete his arrangements for the voyage. It is said the friendly Indians, who had formed an attachment for the mis- sionary, tried to dissuade him from the undertaking by telling him that the Indians living along the great river were cruel and bloodthirsty, and that the stream itself was the abode of terrible monsters that could easily swallow a canoe loaded with men.
Such stories had no effect upon the intrepid priest, unless it was to make him the more determined, and on May 13, 1673, accompanied by Louis Joliet, an explorer and trader, and five voyageurs, with two large canoes, the little expedition left the mission. Passing up the Green Bay to the mouth of the Fox River, they ascended that stream to the portage, crossed over to the Wisconsin River, down which they floated until June 17, 1673, when their canoes shot out upon the broad bosom of the Mississippi. That bright June morning white men beheld for the first time the bluffs of Iowa, near the present City of McGregor. Turning their canoes down stream they descended the great Father of Waters until the 25th, when they landed on the west bank, "sixty leagues below the mouth of the Wisconsin River," where they noticed footprints in the soft earth. Sixty leagues below the mouth of the Wisconsin would throw this landing place about twelve miles above the present City of Keokuk, Iowa. There is little doubt that Marquette
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and Joliet and their voyageurs were the first white men to set foot upon Iowa soil.
When Marquette and Joliet saw the footprints they decided to follow them and learn something of the natives. Leaving the voyaguers to guard the canoes and supplies, they followed the trail for several miles, when they came to an Indian village and noticed two other vil- lages in the vicinity. The Indians informed the two Frenchmen that they belonged to the Illini tribe and that the name of their village, as well as the river upon which it was located, was "Moingona." After a visit of several days among the Indians Marquette and Joliet were accompanied back to the river by the chiefs and a large party of braves. As they were about to reëmbark, one of the chiefs addressed Marquette as follows :
"I thank the black-gown chief for taking so much pains to come and visit us. Never before has the earth been so beautiful nor the sun so bright. Never has the river been so calm and free from rocks, which your canoe has removed. Never has the tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it today. Ask the Great Spirit to give us life and health, and be you pleased to come and dwell among us."
One of the chiefs then presented Marquette with an elaborately decorated calumet, or peace pipe, as a token of the tribe's good wishes, after which the canoes were pushed out into the stream and the voyage was continued. They descended the Mississippi to the month of the Arkansas River, where they met with a tribe of Indians whose language they could not understand, when they turned back up the river. They reached the French settlement at Michilimackinac after an absence of some four months, during which time they had traveled about two thousand five hundred miles. Joliet was a good topographer and he prepared a map of the country through which they had passed. The reports of their voyage, when presented to the French governor of Canada, made the knowledge of the Missis- sippi's existence a certainty and steps were soon afterward taken to claim the country it drained in the name of France.
LA SALLE'S EXPEDITIONS
In 1674 Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was granted the seig- nenry of Fort Frontenac, where the City of Kingston, Canada, is now situated, and on May 12, 1678. Louis XIV, then King of France, granted him a permit to continue the explorations of Marquette and Joliet. "find a port for the King's ships in the Gulf of Mexico, discover the western parts of New France. and find a way to penetrate Mexico."
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La Salle's ambition was to follow the Mississippi from its source to its mouth. Late in the year 1678 he made his first attempt to reach and descend the river, but it ended in failure, chiefly because his preparations had not been made with sufficient care. Affairs at Fort Frontenac then claimed his attention until December, 1681, when he started upon what proved to be his successful expedition. He was accompanied by his lieutenant, Henri de Tonti; Jacques de la Metarie, a notary: Jean Michel, who was surgeon; Father Zenobe Membre, a Recollet missionary, and a "number of Frenchmen bearing arms." It is not necessary here to follow this little expedition through all its vicissitudes and hardships in the dead of winter in a wild, unexplored country. Suffice it to say that on April 8, 1682, La Salle and Tonti passed through two of the channels at the mouth of the Mississippi, both reaching the Gulf of Mexico. The next day La Salle formally took possession of "all the country drained by the great river and its tributaries in the name of France, and conferred up the territory the name of Louisiana, in honor of Louis XIV, the French King." Under this claim, which was afterward acknowledged by the European powers, Iowa became a dependency of France.
In the meantime La Salle had sent Father Louis Hennepin in 1680 on an expedition from the mouth of the Illinois River to the headwaters of the Mississippi. In April of that year Hennepin reached the Falls of St. Anthony, where the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota, now stands, and on April 8, 1689, Nicholas Perrot took formal pos- session of the upper Mississippi Valley. He built a trading post on a river which he named the St. Nicholas.
SETTLEMENT OF LOUISIANA
Before the close of the year 1682, immediately after La Salle reached the mouth of the Mississippi, small trading posts were estab- lished by the French at Kaskaskia and Cahokia-the oldest settlements on the river. Soon after the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, France decided to send colonists to Louisiana. Consequently, in 1712 a charter was granted to Antoine Crozat, a wealthy merchant of Paris, giving him exclusive control of the Louisiana trade under certain con- ditions, one of which was that he should send a given number of colonists to the province within three years. When Crozat's agents arrived in America to carry out his orders they found the Spanish ports closed against his vessels, for Spain, while recognizing France's claims to the province, as based upon the explorations of La Salle, was jealous of French ambitions. At the end of five years, tired of combatting this Spanish opposition and the many other difficulties encountered, Crozat surrendered his charter.
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About that time John Law organized the Mississippi Company as a branch of the Bank of France. This company succeeded Crozat in the control of the Louisiana trade and in 1718 Law sent some eight hundred colonists to the province. The next year Philipe Renault went up the Mississippi to the Illinois country with about two hundred immigrants, his object being to establish posts and open up a trade with the Indians. Law was a good promoter but was lacking in exec- utive ability to carry out his ideas. In 1720 his whole scheme col- lapsed, and so disastrous was the failure that his company is known in history as the "Mississippi Bubble." For a few years he tried to reorganize it, but finally on April 10, 1732, he surrendered his charter and Louisiana again became a crown province of France. The white population at that time did not exceed three hundred and fifty.
CONFLICTING INTERESTS
In the meantime the English had been gradually pushing the frontier of their civilization farther toward the west. On May 2, 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company was chartered in London, being the first of the great trading associations. Within a short time its trappers and traders were operating among the Indian tribes of the interior, in spite of the French claim to the Mississippi Valley and oblivious to French protests against their trespasses. Its agents were generally English or Scotch, though a few Frenchmen entered the employ of the company. Many of the representatives and employees of the Hudson's Bay Company intermarried with the Indians, which placed them upon a more friendly footing with the natives. A. F. Chamberlain, of Clark University, says: "The method of the great fur companies, which had no dreams of empire over a solid white population, rather favored amalgamation with the Indians as the best means of exploiting the country in a material way. Manitoba, Minnesota and Wisconsin owe much of their early development to the trader and the mixed blood."
What is true of Manitoba, Minnesota and Wisconsin is also true in a lesser degree of every northwestern state. Agents of the North- West, Missouri and American fur companies, as well as the "free trappers and traders," intermarried freely with the Indians. The rivalry between the French and English traders soon brought on a conflict of interests that embroiled their mother countries. In 1712 the English traders incited the Fox Indians to hostilities against the French. Again in 1730 the English and Dutch traders joined in an effort to drive the French out of the country by inciting some of the Indian tribes to acts of hostility. The first open rupture between France and England did not come, however, until 1753, when the
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French began building a line of forts from the Great Lakes down the Ohio Valley to prevent the English from extending their settlements west of the Allegheny Mountains. One of these forts was located upon land claimed by Virginia and the Governor of that colony sent George Washington, then only twenty-one years of age, to demand of the French commandant an explanation of this invasion of English terri- tory while the nations were at peace. The reply was insolent and unsatisfactory, and in 1754 Washington, who had been promoted to lieutenant-colonel in the Virginia militia, was sent with a detachment of troops into the disputed territory.
A few years prior to this time a charter had been granted by the British Government to an association called the Ohio Company, in- eluding a grant to a large tract of land on the Great Miami River and the right to trade with the Indians. In 1750 the Ohio Company built a fort and established a trading post near the site of the present City of Piqua, Ohio. Regarding this as an encroachment upon French territory, the Canadian authorities sent a detachment of French sol- diers and Indians to break up the post. The Ohio Company then began a new post at the head of the Ohio River, where the City of Pittsburgh now stands, but again they were driven out by the French. Part of Washington's instructions in 1754 was "to complete the fort already commenced by the Ohio Company at the forks of the Ohio, and to capture, kill or drive out all who attempted to interfere with the English posts."
FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
The order given to Washington naturally aronsed the indignation of the French people and in May, 1756, that nation formally declared war against Great Britain. The conflict which followed is known in European history as the "Seven Years' War," and in America as the "French and Indian War." This war was concluded by the treaty of Fontaineblean on November 3, 1762, by which France ceded to Great Britain all that part of Louisiana lying east of the Mississippi River, "except the City of New Orleans and the island upon which it is situated." The treaty of Fontaineblean was ratified by the treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763, at which time it was announced that, by an agreement previously made in secret, "the city and island of New Orleans, and all that part of Louisiana lying west of the Missis- sippi, including the whole country to the headwaters of the great river and west to the Rocky Mountains," was ceded to Spain. Thus ended France's jurisdiction in that part of North America now included in the United States and Iowa became a Spanish possession. Most of the French people living in New Orleans and west of the Mississippi
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River remained in the province as Spanish subjects and took an active part in business and public affairs. East of the Mississippi a different feeling prevailed. Many of the French in that region refused to acknowledge allegiance to Great Britain and removed to the west side of the river.
CLARK'S CONQUEST OF THE NORTHWEST
During the twelve years following the French and Indian war the British established several military posts in the territory acquired from France by the treaties of Fontainebleau and Paris. The most important of these posts were the ones at Detroit, Michigan; Vincennes, Indiana; and Kaskaskia and Cahokia, Illinois. Then came the Revolu- tionary war, which again changed the map of Central North America. At the beginning of the Revolution Detroit had about two hundred houses, Vincennes and Kaskaskia about eighty each, and Cahokia about fifty. As soon as it became certain that the English colonies were to be involved in a war with the mother country, a large number of the French who had gone over into the Spanish possessions recrossed the Mississippi and joined the colonists in their struggle for inde- pendence.
Virginia then claimed a large expanse of country extending west- ward and including the British posts in what are now Indiana and Illinois. In 1778 the Legislature of that colony, upon the recommenda- tion of Gov. Patrick Henry, authorized an expedition under Gen. George Rogers Clark for the reduction of the posts upon Virginia territory. The expedition was successful and all the British establish- ments in the Northwest, except the one at Detroit, fell into the hands of the Americans. One of the most thrilling campaigns of the War for Independence was Clark's conquest of the Northwest.
At first glance it may seem that this expedition of Clark's had little or no effect upon the fate of the country now included in the State of Iowa. But this is another case of "The Seen and the Unseen." It must be borne in mind that the capture of the British posts by General Clark resulted in the western boundary of the United States being fixed at the Mississippi River by the treaty of 1783, which ended the Revolutionary war and established the independence of the American colonies. Had it not been for Clark's successful campaign, the territory of the United States would in all probability have been confined to the thirteen original colonies, in which case the history of the great Mississippi Valley can only be conjectured. But by extending the limits of the new republic westward to the great Father of Waters the way was opened for the acquisition of the country west of that river, and in time Iowa became one of the sovereign states of the American Union.
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NAVIGATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI
Soon after the independence of the United States was established the new nation became involved in a controversy with the Spanish authorities of Louisiana over the free navigation of the Mississippi River. The final settlement of this controversy had a direct and im- portant influence upon that part of the country now comprising the State of Iowa. By the treaty of September 3, 1783, which ended the Revolutionary war, the western boundary of the United States was fixed at the Mississippi, though the lower course of that river passed through Spanish territory. Having possession of the outlet, the Spanish assumed control of the navigation of the entire river. Posts were established at various places along the stream and every boat descending was compelled to land at such posts and submit to arbi- trary revenue charges. As the Mississippi constituted the natural outlet for a large part of the commerce of the United States, it was a humiliation to the American citizen to see it controlled by a foreign power. Moreover, the system of revenue duties inaugurated by the Spanish authorities materially decreased the profits of the American trader. After much discussion and diplomatic correspondence, the question was finally settled, temporarily at least, by the treaty of Madrid, which was concluded on October 27, 1795. One article of the treaty provided that "The Mississippi River, from its source to the Gulf, for its entire width, shall be free to American trade and com- merce, and the people of the United States shall be permitted, for three years, to use the port of New Orleans as a port of deposit, without payment of duty."
During the three years that the Americans were allowed the free use of the port of New Orleans the commerce of the states bordering on the Mississippi River showed a marked increase in volume. At the expiration of that period Spain manifested a disposition to return to the old order and the free navigation of the river again became a subject of vital importance to the people of the United States. Presi- dent Adams and his cabinet pointed out to the Spanish officials that the language of the treaty of Madrid we such that the three years' provision applied only to the use of the port of New Orleans, and not to the navigation of the river. While the question was under discussion the secret treaty of San Ildefonso, between France and Spain, was concluded on October 1, 1800, by which Spain agreed to cede Louisiana back to France, under certain conditions. The recession of Louisiana to France changed the whole situation, inasmuch as the United States must now negotiate with France for the free navigation of the Missis- sippi.
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