USA > Illinois > Chapters from Illinois history > Part 12
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plied with permits and protections from the Governor himself, of whose orders in regard to La Salle they were undoubtedly well advised. Hunting by the way, they progressed slowly, and by December 4th only gained the Kankakee River, where they were compelled to winter. They were visited by a small party of Iroquois, who departed apparently for their own country, professing most friendly intentions, and on May 8th the party resumed the descent of the Kankakee on the way to Fort St. Louis. At the passage of a rapid they fell into the hands of two hundred Iroquois, who to their extreme sur- prise pillaged their merchandise and took their canoes, contemptuously tearing in pieces the Governor's permits and his letters to Durantaye and De Baugy which Beau- vais produced. The white men were compelled to march along the river bank for nine days, until they reached the Des Plaines, where they were dismissed without provi- sions or canoes, and with only two wretched muskets and a little ammunition. They were saved from starvation by a fortunate meeting with a band of Mascoutens, who gave them guides to Green Bay, and they ultimately reached Quebec, where they made a very long and indig- nant protest on the subject of their unwarranted misfor- tunes. 39 It is some satisfaction to know that La Barre had provided the outfit for this expedition, having a large share in the venture, and that the entire loss fell upon him.40
When the Iroquois were leading these captives along the Kankakee, they asked them whether Tonty, whom they called Le Bras Coupé, or Cut Arm, was in the fort, and how many men he had, and if La Salle were not there also. When they were told that La Salle had been recalled, and that there was another commandant in
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his place, they said they knew it well, and inquired only to see whether the white men spoke the truth; and that they were on their way to attack the fort." On March 20th Tonty and De Baugy heard of the approach of the Iroquois, and sent a canoe to Durantaye at Mackinac for aid, and made every preparation to give them a warm reception.4? The next day they appeared,43 and De Baugy's prediction to his brother was realized. He and Tonty forgot their differences, and fought side by side during the six days' siege that followed. Around the good Fort St. Louis the crafty savages seized every coign of vantage, searching the palisades with musketry by day, and arousing the garrison with repeated alarms by night. They even attempted to storm the defenses, but the trained soldiers within were more than a match for the forest chieftains, whose forces were repulsed with signal loss." They sullenly withdrew, humiliated by the check which they had received, resolved upon revenge, and took with them some native prisoners, who all escaped and made their way back to the fort.45 Hard upon the trail of the retreating Iroquois came war parties from the tribes at the fort, who slew a number of their enemies, and returned in triumph with their scalps. 46
The story of the Iroquois capture of the trading party was brought to the Mission of St. François Xavier at Green Bay by the victims, and even before their arrival dispatches came from the fort narrating its successful defense against the Iroquois.47 . Beauvais' party carried these to Quebec with a letter to La Barre from the Jesuit Father Nouvel, dated April 23, 1684, in which it is not difficult to detect the sympathy of his order with the opponents of La Salle.48 Nouvel tells La Barre that Monsieur le Chevalier de Baugy, seconded by some
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Frenchmen whom he had with him and some savages, had valiantly defended the fort. Not a word is said of Ton- ty's part in the affair, but could we refer to any Iroquois accounts of the siege we may be sure that these would not ignore Le Bras Coupé's share in their defeat. The letter also says that Durantaye is just setting out for his twelfth trip towards the Illinois country, for the purpose of aiding Monsieur le Chevalier de Baugy. And we likewise learn from this epistle that Father Allouez, whose visits to the land of the Illinois usually coincided with La Salle's departures from it, would accompany Dur- antaye to perform the offices of his faith among the French and savages on the route. 49
The 21st of May there arrived at Fort St. Louis Allouez and Durantaye, who led some sixty Frenchmen, osten- sibly for the relief of the post, although the Iroquois had retired nearly two months before.50 The real reason was that La Barre had determined to remove Tonty, and Dur- antaye brought force enough to quell any opposition to this arbitrary act among the colonists. Upon the 22d Durantaye presented to Tonty the Governor's commands that he should leave Fort St. Louis, putting De Baugy in possession of all that had belonged to La Salle, and report at Quebec.51 Tonty, mindful of La Salle's advice, promptly obeyed the distasteful order, and surrendered his charge to De Baugy,5ª leaving in disgrace, as it were, the place to which he was to return in honor. His tried comrade, Boisrondet, and a few other faithful ones gath- ered around him one May morning as he pushed off from the landing below the fort, while his opponents looked down in triumph from the parapets above.58 Almost alone, he urged his solitary canoe against the stream, and then by portage, lake and river went steadily onward
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until, perhaps two months later, he saw the little town of Montreal, which he had last visited nearly six years before. After a brief respite he proceeded to Quebec, where he found little favor at the court of the Governor. 54
La Salle was now in France. He had reached Quebec, accompanied by Nicolas de La Salle, November 13, 1683, and sailing for Europe soon after, they had landed at La Rochelle January 17, 1684.55 While still in Canada, how- ever, the Governor had contrived to do him another wrong. La Salle's seignory of Fort Frontenac he had always carefully maintained, and in October, 1682, when prevented from going there by the threatened Iroquois invasion of the West, he had sent a petition to Count Frontenac from Mackinac, begging him to increase the garrison, if necessary, at La Salle's expense. The Count handed the petition to his successor, La Barre, who prom- ised to attend to it, but, instead of so doing, recalled all the soldiers at the post, which would have been aban- doned had not François Noir, a merchant of Montreal, reoccupied it in La Salle's behalf. La Barre neverthe- less forced Noir to surrender the property to two of the Governor's associates, Le Chesnaye and Le Vert, who took possession of it, and refused to permit La Salle's lieutenant, La Forest, to return to command there unless he became their partner. This La Forest declined to do, knowing what injustice they were committing towards La Salle and his creditors, and returned to France.56 By the time La Salle appeared at Quebec, La Barre had become convinced that in this case at least he had gone too far, and was ready to promise restitution of Fort Frontenac57 and to advance to La Salle the sum of four thousand livres for his present necessities, taking secur- ity, however, upon his stock of beaver skins at Fort St.
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Louis. Winter and spring passed, midsummer came, and still nothing was heard from La Salle's appeal to the King. The Governor took courage, and regretting his improvident loan, determined to collect it by summary process. On the 26th of July, 1684, La Barre, being then in camp at Lachine at the inception of his fruitless cam- paign against the Iroquois, found time to issue an order to the Chevalier de Baugy, reciting that La Salle had obtained the loan by false pretenses, such as that he had left at Fort St. Louis of the Illinois beaver enough to pay the sum lent, which had been found to be untrue; and commanding that all of La Salle's effects at the fort should be seized and applied to this debt, without regard to the demands of any other creditors. 58
La Barre evidently believed that there could be no redress for this despotic action, but soon had reason to change his opinion in this regard. La Salle's new scheme for the control of the Mississippi by a fort and colony near its mouth, communicating directly with the Illinois country, had received the approval of the King, who listened with ready sympathy to the story of his wrongs.59 The minister Seignelay wrote La Barre April 10, 1684, that the King wished him, if the accounts received of his acts at Fort Frontenac were true, to attend to the reparation of the wrong done La Salle and to restore all the property belonging to him to Sieur de La Forest, who was returning to Canada by His Majesty's order. 60 The King himself wrote the Governor to the same effect four days later, and on the same day issued a new commission to La Salle as Commandant of the whole region from Fort St. Louis on the River of the Illinois unto New Biscay (the northern province of Mexico).61 And again, on July 31, 1684, the King addressed the Governor,
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reiterating his former commands, and warning him to do nothing adverse to the interests of La Salle, whom he had taken under his particular protection.62 The trem- bling La Barre could only marvel at the good fortune of the man whom he had so deeply wronged, and await the coming of his representative, to whom he must make full restitution. La Forest sailed from La Rochelle in the latter half of July, 1684.63 63 When he landed at Quebec two months later he was warmly greeted by Tonty. To him he brought the well deserved commission of a cap- tain of foot in the French army, which La Salle had obtained for him, and the appointment of Governor of Fort St. Louis.64 La Forest also brought a positive order from the King, dated April 15, 1684, for the return to La Salle's officers of Forts St. Louis and Frontenac, and departed in the autumn to assume command of the lat- ter. 65 He had taken measures with Tonty to procure an outfit costing twenty thousand livres for the replenishing of Fort St. Louis, so long deprived of necessary supplies. As soon as this was ready Tonty embarked with it for the Illinois country, expecting to be there the same season, but the ice forming early in the St. Lawrence barred his path, and he was obliged to halt at Montreal, where, after a visit to Quebec, he passed the winter.
In the springtime La Forest descended the river to Montreal, arranged La Salle's affairs there in conjunc- tion with Tonty, and returned to Fort Frontenac. Tonty accompanied him as far as that post, and rejoiced that it was no longer in the possession of those who had used its advantages to the prejudice of La Salle. Thence the new Governor of Fort St. Louis pushed forward to his own command.66 He bore an order from La Barre to De Baugy, issued at Quebec September 29, 1684, directing
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the latter by the command of the King to restore the fort to Tonty as La Salle's representative, with all of La Salle's property, and to return with his men to Mackinac. 67 Late in June the little flotilla, as it descended the River Illinois, was sighted from the lookout of Fort St. Louis; and soon the trusty soldier resumed the position of which he had been so unjustly deprived the year before. He niay well have worn an air of quiet triumph as he saluted De Baugy within the enclosure of the fort, while won- dering savages and expectant white men gathered around him as he presented the order which it had wrung La Barre's soul to sign. The original Tonty retained in his own hands, but gave De Baugy a copy. He also gave him a formal receipt, in which Tonty, describing himself as first seigneur of the Isle of Tonty, captain of a com- pany detached from the marine, sub-delegate of Monsieur de Meulle, Intendant of New France, to the country of the Ottawas and other nations, and Governor of Fort St. Louis, certified that Chevalier de Baugy had restored the fort to him by order of Monsieur de La Barre, Governor- General of Canada, which he had received from the King. He also certified that he had found the fort in the same condition in which he had left it the 22d of May the pre- ceding year,68 when obliged to go down to Quebec by the order of the said Monsieur de La Barre. There were at the fort some military supplies which the Governor had sent thither by one Sieur Vital, while De Baugy was in command, although such aid had been steadily refused in La Salle's time. La Barre did not choose that these should benefit Tonty, and so directed De Baugy to remove them with his own possessions, after he had col- lected the four thousand livres loaned La Salle. These were the last orders which the Governor had the oppor-
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tunity to issue in regard to Fort St. Louis, and pre- sumably were complied with. The papers delivered by Tonty to De Baugy were dated June 26, 1685, and the latter with his men doubtless set out on that day for Mackinac where he was instructed to report for further orders. 69 Tonty found that under De Baugy's adminis- traiion differences had arisen between the Illinois and the Miami tribes.70 The latter suddenly attacked the former, and the quelling of the outbreak taxed Tonty's resources to the utmost. It cost him a thousand crowns worth of presents and infinite toil and persuasion to heal the breach between these nations, whose separation meant the destruction of both by the Iroquois.1 When this was accomplished and autumn had come, startling rumors concerning La Salle began to fill the air. The story reached Fort St. Louis that its founder had landed on the coast of Florida in April, 1685, that one of his vessels had been wrecked, and that he was fighting with the savages and was in need of provisions.72 Tonty sent some of his Indian allies to the Mississippi to seek for further news, and determined to go in person to Mackinac to obtain the latest reliable advices of La Salle. He desired also to counteract the malice of La Barre who had actu- ally issued an order to Durantaye to confiscate supplies going to Fort St. Louis. Arriving at Mackinac Tonty rejoiced to hear that La Barre was no longer in power.73 His shameful peace with the Iroquois concluded in Sep- tember, 1684, in which he had abandoned the Illinois tribes to the fury of the Five Nations, had so incensed the King that he had recalled the recreant Governor. His successor the Marquis de Denonville, had taken his seat August 13, 1685, and one of his first acts was to send a letter to Tonty telling him that he wished to see him to
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concert measures for a war with the Iroquois, and that La Salle had gone by sea to search for the mouth of the Mississippi." This letter was entrusted to the trader Rolland who had touched at Mackinac and passed on westward before the arrival of Tonty. But he learned of it there and also heard some confirmation of the dis- quieting accounts concerning La Salle.75 The faithful lieutenant therefore resolved to go with a party of his Canadians in search of his chief, to whom he felt he owed his first duty, and, having found him and relieved his wants, to retrace his steps and report to Denonville. The toilsome canoe journey of more than three thousand miles commencing in late autumn on Lake Michigan's storm-tossed waters, had no terrors for this brave and loyal soul whom nothing could turn from the discharge of his duty. On the day of St. Andrew the Apostle, November 30th, in the year 1685, his little craft sped forth from the shore at Mackinac, and began to skirt the coast. Soon floating ice was encountered, and later the frozen surface held fast the canoe. Its intrepid occupant and his few companions were obliged to abandon it, and make their way to the shore which they traversed on foot for nearly three hundred miles. They suffered greatly for want of provisions, as the severe weather had driven away the game; but they plodded stoutly on for full twenty weary days and came at last to the fort of Chi- cago.76 This was a new structure, apparently built during the summer of 1685.77 When Fort St. Louis was restored to the representative of La Salle, the Jesuits, ever at odds with him, ceased their attempts to gain a foothold there. They determined to have a post of their own in the Illinois country and as La Salle's latest royal com- mission made him commandant of the region from Fort
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St. Louis to New Biscay, it was apparently assumed that his jurisdiction no longer extended to Lake Michigan.7% The present Chicago River was one of the natural routes to the interior, and a location upon it was accordingly selected as the headquarters of this powerful organization in the land of the Illinois. A fort was erected there, but it seems to have occupied a different position from that of La Salle's stockade of 1683.79 The latter is spoken of as at the Chicago portage, but the former as the fort of Chicago.80 Franquelin's map of 1684 shows an Indian village of eighty warriors, representing a population of perhaps four hundred souls, situated just west of the junction of the two branches of the River Chicago.81 These are said to have been Miamis persuaded by Allouez to leave the neighborhood of Fort St. Louis in 1683.82 The Jesuits usually established themselves near the Indian habitations, and it is not improbable that their fort was established at this junction. This structure or a successor upon the same site was doubtless that referred to more than a hundred years later in Wayne's treaty with the North Western Indians, which identifies the Chicago River as the place where a fort formerly stood.83 Other savages were induced to remove from Fort St. Louis to the new settlement, and the favor of La Barre made it a royal post. Durantaye was placed in command, and this was the beginning of civilized gov- ernment where the western metropolis now stands. The name of Olivier Morel, Sieur de La Durantaye, should be remembered in this connection as that of a brave and able officer who was the first commandant at Chicago.
With him Tonty made a brief stay and proceeded thence to his own Fort St. Louis where he arrived the middle of January, 1686. He set forth again by a differ-
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ent route to seek for the trader Rolland, whom he met, and received from him the letter from Denonville whose favor made an agreeable change in affairs at the fort. The colonists felt themselves now to be under the pro- tection of a friendly Governor, and readily volunteered for the expedition down the Mississippi. The Indian scouts returned in February with no further news, and Tonty felt that he must again and forthwith go to the sea.84 La Forest, leaving Dorvilliers, one of Denonville's staff in charge at Frontenac, came to Fort St. Louis to command the garrison of thirty-one white men during Tonty's absence. On February 16th, twenty-five French- men with Tonty at their head descended from the rocky citadel to the frozen river, and manned the drag ropes of the sledges laden with their equipage. In this hardy band were some who had accompanied La Salle from the Illinois country to the Gulf of Mexico, one of whom was the surgeon Jean Michel; and we note also the name of René Cuillerier, prominent in the annals of Lachine and Montreal, and an ancestor of the Beaubiens, so well known in the early days of Chicago. Four Shawnee Indians were hired to go with the party who tracked the ice-clad stream to a point forty leagues below where open water appeared. Forty leagues beyond they found the Illinois in their winter quarters and distributed presents and invitations from Denonville to march in the spring, to unite with the French from Canada in a war upon the Iroquois. The savages willingly agreed to do their part, and five of them joined Tonty at once, and descended the river with him. The natives were friendly along the whole route, and in Holy Week they were at the mouth of the Mississippi just three years to a day after La Salle's former occupation of the region. They explored
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the shore thirty leagues in either direction, but found no trace of the lost leader. Denonville's urgent commands weighed upon Tonty and he made the daring proposal to his men that the party should follow the Atlantic coast to Manhatte (New York) and go thence to Montreal. He could not unite them in this project, and so was obliged to return the way he came. At the Isle of St. Henry by the coast of the sea of Florida, opposite the western mouth of the River Colbert, on April 13, 1686, a formal procès verbal of their voyage was executed by or in behalf of Tonty and his twenty-five Frenchmen, four Shawanoes and five Illinois, thirty-four men in all.
As they ascended the mighty stream, they halted at the point where the royal arms erected by La Salle had been thrown down by a flood, and replanted them on a more elevated site. In an augur hole in a tree near by Tonty placed a letter for La Salle. At the Quinnipissa village a hundred and fifty leagues from the coast he left another, recounting what had been done and expressing the greatest regret at the unsuccessful search.85 This epistle the chief sacredly preserved and gave to D'Iber- ville when he entered the Mississippi fourteen years later.86 From these savages and some Illinois captives in another village near by, accounts of La Salle's arrival on the coast were received, but it was said that he had put to sea in the spring, whether for France or the West India Islands or for further exploration no one could tell. It was useless to linger and Tonty uttering a prayer for La Salle's safety, proceeded northward. At the Arkan- sas River ten of his men besought him for concessions in the seignory there which La Salle had given him when he descended the Mississippi. He made grants to some who remained at this point, and set about the construc-
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tion of a house protected by palisades. The rest of the party kept on their way to Fort St. Louis, arriving on June 24th, after an absence of a little more than four months. The Frenchmen were glad to rest, but Tonty knew not the meaning of the word. He persuaded two Illinois chiefs to embark with him, and pressed forward to Montreal, where he landed at the end of July. Re- maining during August to hold the necessary conferences with Denonville, he left again for the Illinois country at the commencement of September, and beached his canoe at the foot of the rock of Fort St. Louis early in Decem- ber. One year before he had left Mackinac to go to the sea, and during ten of the ensuing twelve months, he had been journeying constantly on foot or in a canoe, covering a distance of more than five thousand miles and twice traversing the continent between the Gulf of Mexico and the lower St. Lawrence. 87
Preparations were going on apace for the war with the Iroquois. Their fierce determination to destroy the Illinois tribes to which La Barre had yielded in his dis- graceful treaty, their pillage of Beauvais' party, and their attack upon Fort St. Louis were among the reasons for the French King's resolve to humble the pride of the Five Nations.88 The Marquis de Denonville, from the day he assumed office, had been actively engaged in the necessary arrangements. His letters to La Forest's successor at Frontenac; to Duluth who was placed this year in command of a palisaded fort at the foot of Lake Huron with a garrison of fifty men; and to Durantaye who had returned from Chicago to Mackinac; disclose the plan of campaign. As large a force as possible was to proceed from Canada to the south shore of Lake Ontario where they were to meet as many coureurs de
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bois, colonists and savages as could be gathered at the western posts, and together they were to attack the villages of the Senecas, the most powerful and the most troublesome tribe of the Iroquois.89 To La Forest as commandant at the Illinois, the Governor wrote on the 6th of June, 1686, to impress upon him the importance of having the Illinois force in readiness to march, and himself at their head, as soon as the signal should be given. If Tonty should return, it would be well for him to take the lead, but if the poor man had perished on his voyage to the sea, which the Governor seemed greatly to fear, then La Forest was to choose the best man for the place, if he himself were unable to command. The Governor promised to send muskets for the Illinois con- tingent to Duluth's fort, and again expressed his solici- tude for Tonty concerning whom alarming rumors had reached him. And La Forest was instructed to com- municate with the Jesuit Father Engelran of the Green Bay Mission, who was Denonville's principal adviser.90 But ere this letter arrived at Fort St. Louis, the man who had been almost given up for lost appeared there in such health and spirits that he was able, as we have seen, to go at once to Montreal to reassure the Governor and give him most valuable aid and counsel for the approach- ing campaign.
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