USA > Illinois > Atlas of the State of Illinois, to which are added various general maps, history, statistics and illustrations > Part 12
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In the winter of 1674, La Salle went to France, where, in consideration of his services as an explorer, he was raised to the rank of the untitled nobles; received a grant. of the fort which had been named Frontenac, and lands adjacent to the extent of four leagues in front and half a league in depth. La Salle, returning, took possession of the fort, which he used as a base for future enterprises. He was empowered to explore new regions (at his own expense, however) ; to build forts ; and to trade in buffalo robes. With this object in view, he had brought from France sailors, carpenters and laborers, besides materials for equipping a vessel, and merchandise to traffic with the Indians. He had engaged as an assistant Henri de Tonti, an Italian officer, who served him with rare fidelity during his life-time, and went to the reseuo of his little party when his chief was no more. La Salle's first object was to build a vessel for the navigation of the Upper Lakes. Ae- eordingly ho left Fort Frontenae for the Niagara River ; and all the stores and equipment for the vessel were carried around the Falls to the calm waters above, involving a portage of not less than twelve miles. This labor was accomplished by the 22d of January. At the mouth of Cayuga Creek, it is sup- posed that the keel of the Griffin was laid, and she was launched the ensuing spring. It was not until August, how- ever, that she was completed ; and on the 7th of the month her sails were spread to the winds, and she started on her voy- age. Her capacity was forty-five tons, and she was the first sailing vessel that ever navigated the lakes. The number of souls on board was thirty-four, consisting of the chief, together with friars, sailors and mechanics. Early in September, La Salle arrived at one of the islands at the entrance to Green Bay, where he disembarked his stores and sent back the Griffin freighted with furs, with orders to the pilot to return to the head of Lake Michigan ; wbile La Salle, with fourteen men and four canoes heavily laden, proceeded along the Wis- eonsin shore, passed the mouth of tho Chiengo River, eircled the head of the lake, and on the 1st day of November reached the mouth of the St. Joseph, which he called the Miamis. Here Tonti was to bave joined him, but it was some time before he arrived. It was the 3d of December when, despair- ing of the arrival of tho Griffin, La Salle ascended tho St. Joseph to what is now South Bend, Indiana, where, after a long search, they found the portage leading to the Kankakee, then ealled Theakiki or Ilaukiki, about five miles in length. Having conveyed their canoes aeross, they reembarked on the sluggish eurrent which winds its way through a series of swamps, and at length emerged on the almost boundless prairies. Eutering the valley of the Illinois, they found the river fringed with forest trees. Near the present village of Utica, they passed the deserted Indian village-the original Kaskas- kia-where Hennepin counted four hundred and sixty lodges. On the 30th day of January, they reached Peoria Luke, then ealled Pimitoui. The next day they passed the expanded waters to where they again contract within the ordinary limits.
STATE HISTORY.
Here they eneonntered an encampment of Indians, consisting of about eighty wigwams. La Salle succeeded in establishing friendly relations with the Illinois, and the day was spent in feasting and dancing. Nicanope, brother of the head chief, in reply to La Sallo's inquiries as to the character of the Missis- sippi, represented that its banks were beset by savage tribes against whose ferocity their valor would not avail ; that its waters swarmed with snakesand alligators; and that its current, after raging among rocks and whirlpools, finally plunged into an unfathomable abyss. These representations so wrought upon the imagination of La Salle's followers, most of whom were unacquainted with the wilderness, that six of them deserted, preferring to brave the rigors of a northern winter in the woods to the imaginary dangers of the Mississippi. Nor could he trust all those who remained ; for poison, according to Tonti, was placed in the pot in which his food was cooked. But La Salle had n will that no reverses conld subdue. He at onee set about entrenching himself, and for this purpose selected a sito a mile and a half below his camp, on the south- ern bank of the stream, and three hundred yards from the water's edge. It was a knoll intersected on each side by a ravine, while in front the low ground was subject to overflow. Here he built a fort which be named " Crevecoeur," as express- ive of his misfortunes in the loss of the Griffin and the con- sequent failure of supplies. Traces of the embankments thus thrown up are yet discernible. This was the first civilized occupation of Illinois.
La Salle's next work was to lay the keel of a vessel of forty tons' burden, in which to descend the Mississippi. Meanwhile he directed Father Hennepin, who had accompanied him from Fort Frontenne, to proceed to explore the Upper Mississippi. On the last day of February, 1680, the friar, with two voya- geurs, started in a canoe laden with articles to traffie with the Indians, descended the Illinois to its mouth, and then turned northward up the current of the Mississippi. On the 12tb of April, the party stopped on the bank to pitch their canoe, when they were surprised by a band of Sioux, who first conducted their enptives by the river to tho site of St. Paul, and then they set across the country for their villages near Mille Lae. After undergoing a variety of adventures, the captives were allowed to deseend Rum River to the Mississippi-Father Hennepin, with pious fraud, having told them that he was ex- pecting to meet, at the mouth of the Wisconsin, a party of Frenchmen with goods which the Sioux hoped to obtain. Hennepin and oue of his voyageurs-the other preferring to remain with the hunters -- were furnished with a ennoe and permitted to resume their voyage. They started above the Falls of St. Anthony, aud during the sultry heats of July, paddled down the stream. Pausing in their course, they joined a band of Sioux who were engaged in a grand bunt along the borders of the Mississippi. IIere he fell in with Du Luht, with four well-armed Frenchmen, and the wbole party returned to Mille Lae. Autumn arrived, they took leave of their allies, deseended the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wiscon- sin, and ascended that stream, crossing over to Green Bay. Thus to Father Hennepin is to be ascribed the discovery of the upper portion of the Mississippi Valley.
On the 2d of March, 1680, La Salle, in order to obtain the requisite equipment for his vessel, which was now well under way, started with five attendants for Fort Frontenae, leaving Tonti iu command of the fort, garrisoned by only fourteen or fifteen men. They embarked in two eanoes, and made their way up the stream amid drifting ice. When they arrived at Peoria Lake, they found it elosed, but the crust was too thin to bear the weight of a man, and accordingly they hauled their canoes on sledges around the obstruction to open water; and thus, by the alternate use of sledges and paddles, they at length reached the great Indian village which was still de- gerted. That remarkable and isolated cliff known to the in- habitants of the Upper Illinois Valley as "Starved Rock," arrested La Salle's attention, and he sent word to Tonti, if hard pressed, to take possession and fortify. It is indeed a natural fortress, rising precipitously on three sides above the valley to the height of one hundred and fifty feet, and con- nected with the general line of the bluffs by a narrow isthmus easily defended against a vastly superior foree. This rock, in the light of subsequent events, has become the most interesting historical monument in Illinois.
On the 18th of March, they reached a point below Ottawa, when, secreting their canoe, they struek across the country until they arrived at the Calumet, where they wero forced to
build a raft in order to eross that stream. Those who know the topographical features of the region can conceive of the difficulties of such a journey at the breaking up of winter- cold nights, the soft and spongy prairie, and the marshes full of water and ice, rendering it impossible to keep the limbs dry. In this way they floundered through to Lake Michigan, whose shore they followed until they reached the fort which La Salle had formerly built at St. Joseph. Here he found two of his men whom he had dispatched to learn tidings of the Griffin. They had made the circuit of the Lakes without learning anything of her fate. Whether she foundered with all ou board, or whether she was scuttled by the crew and her contents appropriated, remains a mystery to this day. Many years ago a wreck was found in the sand near Conneaut, wbich some conjectured may have been the Griffin.
La Salle dispatched the two voyageurs to reinforce Tonti, while he pushed on through the thick-set brusb of Lower Michigan. He was dogged by skulking foes, to eludo whom required all his artifice. His party finally reached the banks of a stream, probably the Huron, when they constructed a canoe and for a time floated prosperously down its current. Again taking to the forest, they reached the Detroit River. Here La Salle divided bis little command. He directed two of his men to build a canoe and proceed to Mackinaw, wbile he and two others ferried themselves over the river on a raft, and struek through the forest for Lake Erie, which they reached uot far from Point Pelee. Here they made another canoe. in which they embarked, and reached on Easter Monday the ship-yard of the Griffin. While La Salle was cheered by meeting several of his men whom he had left there the year before, he was pained to have his worst fears as to the fate of the Griffin confirmed, with the additional information that a store-ship of his, with twenty artizans from France, had been wreeked at the mouth ol' the St. Lawrence, and that the men, having heard that he was dead, had dispersed.
His followers had become utterly prostrated by tho privations and sufferings of this journey, and were accordingly left be- hind; hut La Salle was superior to the occasion, and taking with him tbree fresh men, he pushed on to Fort Frontenac, where he arrived on the 6tb of May, 1680. The journey oc- eupied sixty-five days, along a route a thousand miles in ex- tent, and beset with obstaeles which, to an ordinary voyageur, would have been insurmountable. Pausing for a short time at Fort Frontenac, he hastened to Montreal, when, having pro- cured the needed supplies for his Illinois garrison, he re- turned; but hore the news of a misfortune greater than any which had befallen him, awaited bis arrival. Tonti, wbo, as we bave seen, had been left in charge of Fort Crevecœur, wrote that, soon after La Salle's departure, nearly all the men de- serted, having first destroyed the fort, plundered the maga- zine, and thrown into the river such goods as they could not earry off. La Salle succeeded in capturing nine of the mu- tineers, after killing two, as they were returning to the settle- ments.
On the 10th of August, he reembarked for Illinois by way of Lake Simcoe and the Georgian Bay. Anxious to com- munieato with Tonti, he left La Forest, his lieutenant, at Mackinaw, with instructions to follow, while he hastened on with twelve men to St. Joseph, which he found had been plun- dered; but, leaving five men in charge of the heavy stores to await the arrival of La Forest, with the remainder he erossed by the Kankakee portage, and descended the Illinois River. Arrived at the "Starved Roek," which he called the " Roek of St. Louis," he scanned its summit in vain for any evidences of' palisades. The Indian town had been swept out of exist- ence, and the desolation of fire was everywhere. The charred poles in many places were crowned with human skulls, and he scared the wolves and birds of prey from their human repast. He searched among the mutilated remains to learn whether Tonti had been involved in this terrible havoe; but he had the satisfaction, if satisfaction it could be called, of finding that in every instance the corpses were Indians. This was the work of the Iroquois; and La Salle, conjecturing that Touti and those of his followers who had remained faithful were yet alive, resolved to push on and rescue them. He then directed threo ol' his followers to remain ; to secrete themselves on an island ; to conceal their fire at night, and to seeure their stores in a fissnro of the rocks; while he, with four men thoroughly armed, proceeded down the river. As they passed on, they met many abandoned camps of the Illinois, and on the opposite bank the eamps of the invaders. Arrived at Crevecœur, they
168
STATE HISTORY.
found the fort pillaged, as they had reason to expect, but the vessel on the stocks was entire, except that the Iroquois had contrived to draw out and appropriate many of the iron bolts. Gaining no information of Tonti, he descended the stream to its mouth ; and so thorough and all-consuming had beeu the desolation which had swept through this fair valley, to which the hulk of the population were wont to resort, that in his whole journey he saw not one human being, not one human habitation. As they approached the mouth of the river, on the verge of a meadow to the right, they desoried several human figures, apparently motionless, which proved to be the half-consumed bodies of women tied to a stake. Arrived at the mouth, La Salle beheld tho hroad current of the Missis- sippi, not turbulent and discolored as after its junetion with the Missouri, hut clear and placid, rolling on amid a stately forest which approached to the water's edge. It was a sight which for years he had longed to see, and we can well imagine what emotions it awakeued in his mind. Here was tho great highway which he had sought for years to make available to eommeree, and to accomplish which he had undergone toil, dangers and privations, and sunk what would havo forwed many private fortunes. Leaving a letter for Tonti suspended from a tree stripped of its hark, and at the same time resorting to a pictorial representation of himself and crew seated in a canoe, he rejoiucd his followers at the desolated village. That night, which was elear, he recorded the appearance in the heavens of the great comet of 1680, hut for him it had no superstitious terrors. From this point he retraced his steps to St. Joseph, where be arrived in midwinter, and was gratified to find La Forest, hut failed to obtain tidings of Touti.
The adventures of this faithful lieutenant may be briefly summed up : After the culmination of the mutiny, he was left with three men aud two Recollet friars, in the midst of a horde of savages who were hy no means well disposed toward his party. In order to disarm their jealousy, he took up his abode among them. Here he remained during the spring and sun- mer of 1680, awaiting the arrival of La Salle; but he came not. Then there hurst upon the Illinois, without the least pre- monition, a storm which rendered desolate their wigwams and for a time expelled them from their hunting grounds. This was the invasion of five hundred Iroquois warriors, the fiercest aud most bloodthirsty of all the North American Indians. Near the village of Utica was the great Illinois town, and here were assembled, on the 10th of September, thousands of that tribe, and among them were Tonti, young Boisrodent, and two other men, with the two friars, Membre and Rihourde. Sud- denly a Shawnee rushed in with the tidings that he had seen a large hand of Iroquois advancing to attack them. All was confusion and excitement. There were less than five hun- dred warriors to meet the advancing foe, who were armed with guns procured from the English, while the Illinois had less than one hundred pieces to oppose them. The Indians helieved that the invasion was instigated hy Tonti aud his followers, and accordingly they gathered ahout the little party with men- acing gestures, seized bis forge and goods, and cast them into the river. The women and children were conveyed to an island down the stream, and a guard of sixty warriors was left to defend them. With the morning came the Iroquois, and as they stole out from the forest-helt of the Vermilion to make the attack, Tonti alone advanced with the wampum helt and received a stab for his hardihood. By declaring that tbe Illi- nois were under the protection of the French King, with whom the Iroquois were at peace, and that it was not good policy in them to break it, as such an act would he sure to call down vengeance, he succeeded in arresting the attack. When ques- tioned as to the strength of the enemy, he declared that they were twelve hundred strong with sixty Frenchmen as their allies. This information so far cooled their ardor that they consented to treat. Tonti himself was subjected to many in- dignities, and it was only through the influence of an Onondaga chief, a friend of La Salle, that he was allowed to depart carry- ing with him a helt of peace. The Illinois, convinced of the inequality of the strife, fired their dwellings and paddled down the stream to rejoin the women and children ; while the Iro- quois crossed over and commenced the demolition of everything that was left. Tonti and his companions remained in a hut at the deserted village; hut the Iroquois, suspicions of him and convinced that he had deceived them, drove him and his follow- ers from the lodge. They emharked in a leaky canoe and as- cended the river, when, after paddling for five leagues, they landed to repair damages and dry their luggage. Here Father
Ribourde strolled off, breviary in hand, to indulge an hour in pious meditation. While thus employed, he was surprised hy a hand of Kickapoos, murdered and scalped. After the good Father was missed, Tonti and his party remained searching for him until noon of the next day, when they resumed their journey. Crossing to Lake Michigan by the Chicago portage, they traversed the western shore of the lake to Green Bay, where they were hospitahly received by a Pottawattomie chief, with whom they passed the winter. Had he taken the eastern route, he would have met La Forest und gathered uews of La Sallo; and, on the other hand, La Salle, returning to St. Joseph and meeting Tonti, would have heen relieved of a world of anxiety.
After Tonti left the Indian town, the Iroquois proceeded to wreak their vengeance. They unearthed the slumbering dead; they hurned or threw the carcasses to their dogs, and mounted the skulls on poles ; and then pursued the Illinois in their retreat down the river, enacting those scenes of which La Sallo saw the cvidenees as, two weeks later, he followed their track.
While passing the winter at St. Joseph, La Salle revolved the scheme of uniting the Westeru Indians in a comuon league, aud of colouizing them around his fort in the valley of tho Illinois. He could furnish them goods in exchange for furs, and the Frauciscan friars could minister to their spiritual wants. He would also be in position to explore the Mississippi to its mouth, and make use of that chanuel to reach with his furs the markets of the world. With these vast projects in view, he opened negotiations with the Miamis in his immediate neighborhood; with the Ahenikis aud Mohegans, who had heen driven out of New England during King Philip's war; with the Shawanoes of the Ohio Valley ; and with the Illinois, somo of whom had returned to their country. In the prosecu- tion of these sehemes, he learned from a band of Outagamies, or Foxes, of the safety of Tonti.
Iu tho spring he dispatched La Forest to Green Bay to eouimunicate with that officer and direct him to await his eoming. Toward the end of May, 1681, he proceeded to Mackinaw, where, to his great joy, he met Tonti and the friar Mewhre, when, without loss of time, they all embarked for Fort Frontenac. He succeeded in appeasing his creditors hy parting with a portion of his monopolies, collected his scattered resources, made his will, mustered his men, and again started on his return in canoes heavily laden, and it was late in the seasou beforo they were drawn up on the friendly beach of Fort Miami. At this point he completed his plans for the exploration of the Mississippi River to its mouth. He had twenty-three Frenchmen, and out of his new allies, the Mohe- gans, he selected eighteen " all inured to war." They iusisted on taking their women with them, who amounted to ten, hesides three children ; aud thus the expedition cousisted of fifty-four persous. It was the dead of winter when they set out. La Salle placed the canoes on sledges, and thus they were conveyed around the head of the lake to Chicago, thenee across the port- age to the Des Plaines and eveu to Peoria Lake, where opeu water was reached. Here the canoes were launched, and La Salle and his party floated down the river as it wound its way through the leafless forests. On the 6th of February, 1682, they reached the Mississippi, which was full of floating ice. After a few days, the navigation became free, and they resumed their journey. They uoted a great river coming in on the right, the Missouri, and soveral days afterward auother large river ou tho left, which was called the Ouabache (Wabash), the original name for the lower portion of the Ohio. On the 24th of February, they eneamped near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs, when a portion of the party went out to hunt. One of the men became lost, hut after more than a week's search he was found and brought in. On the 13th of March, La Salle fell in with a large party of Arkansas Indians, aud between them eur- dial relations were soon established. As was the custom, several days were passed in festivities.
Uuder the guidance of two of the Arkansas, Tonti and Membre visited the Tensas trihe, residing a short distance from the western bank of the river, below Grand Gulf, and oeeupy- ing large square buildings of sunburnt hrick and straw, and altogether exhibiting greater evidenees of eivilization than they had observed amoug any of the tribes iu America. The chief, with mueh harharie pomp, eondescended to return the courtesy hy visiting La Salle, hy whom he was courteously received. He also visited tho Natehez, tho Coroas, and several other tribes, one of which saluted him with a shower of arrows.
On the 6th of April, they arrived whero the river divided itself into three wide branches. La Salle took the western, Dautray the eastern, and Tonti the middle hranch; and as La Salle glided down the current, he noted the brackish eharacter of the water, snuffed the salt breath of the ocean, and ere long caught a glimpse of the hroad expanso of the gulf spread out before him. The party reunited, landed on a dry spot near the mouth of the river, and there, with religious ceremonies, a column was erected and decorated with the arms of France; and upon it was carved this inscription :
LOUIS LE GRAND, ROY DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE, REGNE: LE NEUVIEME AVRIL, 1692.
Thus was the great vision which had formed the subject of his revolving thoughts for many years realized. Thus was a vast accession made to the domain of France ; and in compli- ment to her monarch, the territory embracing the great basin of the Mississippi, with the subordinate hasins of the Ohio and Missouri, received the name of Louisiana.
And now La Salle proceeded to retrace lis steps, but, arrested at the Chickasaw Bluffs by a dangerous illness, he directed Tonti to hasten to Mackinaw and dispatch the news to Canada, At the end of July, he had so far recovered that he was enabled to resume his journey, and in September he rejoined Tonti at Mackinaw. They then returned to Illinois, when La Salle pro- ceeded to fortify " Starved Rock"-a project entertained by him the first time his eye caught sight of that remarkable natural fortress. The forest which crowned the summit was cut away, storehouses and dwellings were erected, and a line of palisades was stretched across the isthmus. The fort received the name of St. Louis. At the hase of the cliff he gathered ahout bim the Indian inhabitants, who were sheltered in log cabins and bark lodges. The resident aboriginal inhabitants in the region amounted to ahout four thousand warriors or twenty thousand souls.
Meanwhile Frontenac, the Governor of Canada, had heen reealled and La Barre had been substituted, who was hostile to La Salle. He not only detained his messengers with supplies of goods for his infant colony, but wrote to the French minis- ter that his discovery was fictitious, and told the Iroquois that they were at liberty to plunder and kill him. He went so far even as to take possession of Fort Frontenac, and dispatched De Baugis, a French officer, to assume command of Fort St. Louis. La Salle was summoned to Quebeo, to which place he repaired. From this point he again proceeded to the French court, where, by his representations, he was soon restored to favor. He gained the ear of the Colonial minister and im- pressed him with the vastness and grandeur of his designs. He was furnished with means for estohlishing a fort and colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, and the aets of La Barre in taking possession of the forts were annulled. Four vessels were provided, and a colony made up of soldiers, mechanics and laborers was gathered, and not less than four spiritual guides were added, including La Salle's brother, Cavalier.
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