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ascending, it is necessary to make a portage, sometimes a quarter of a league, at others half or three-quarters of a league, according as the waters rise or fall. He formed the same opinion which Jolliet had come to at the same place, that it would be easy to make a junction between the two rivers which we know as the Chicago and the Des Plaines, since the intervening ground was flat and readily excavated. But Joutel says that it would require a con- siderable settlement there to justify such an expense. 113
The travelers embarked upon Lake Michigan and after a ten days' halt at the Pottawattamie village, midway to Mackinac, landed on the roth of May at the latter place, where Juchereau remained. Cavelier and the others were delayed here by fear of the Iroquois, who were taking every opportunity to revenge themselves for Denonville's attack of the previous year.114 This very spring a gallant soul, whose name stands high among the early explorers of Illinois, had fallen a victim to their arms. The Sieur d'Autray, the same whom La Salle described as "always very faithful and very brave," after his adventurous jour- neys had established himself upon the concession granted him at Fort St. Louis. When the summons came to march against the Senecas in 1687, he accompanied Tonty and did good service in that campaign. The fol- lowing winter he passed in Canada, and set out in the spring to return to his Illinois "house and seignory." He escorted a convoy to Fort Frontenac and proceeding thence, probably almost alone, while en route for his western home was set upon and slain by the merciless Iroquois. 115
The return to Quebec of the Sieur de Portneuf, who had just brought dispatches from Denonville to the West with a small force, gave Cavelier's people protection for
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their further journey. Four canoes conveying twenty- nine persons set out June 20th, and by the route of the French and Ottawa Rivers came to Montreal without inis- hap. Cavelier's party met here the Governor and the Intendant, Champigny, to whom they told their tale of hardship, but still concealed La Salle's death; and passed on to Quebec, whence they sailed with their five Indians, and disembarked at Rochelle, October 9, 1688. Eight- een months had elapsed since these few men, illy equipped for such an undertaking, left the Texas coast to go by the way of the Mississippi, the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic, and to cross to the shores of France. Joutel well said that God had aided them to accomplish this journey. Boisrondet went to his native city of Orleans, taking with him the young Indian from the Missouri. Father Douay set out alone for Paris; Joutel and the two Illinois Indians stayed at Rouen, whence Cavelier proceeded to Paris to inform the Mar- quis de Seignelay of all that had happened to them, having pledged his comrades to secrecy as to the death of La Salle, until he had made this official report.116
Tonty meanwhile kept anxious watch at Fort St. Louis hoping each day to see La Salle's canoe ascending the stream. But on September 7th, while the men who had concealed their leader's fate were tossing on the Atlantic, Couture, with two natives, arrived at the fort, and revealed the sad truth as heard from the lips of Cavelier at the Arkansas post. Tonty's generous heart burned with indignation at the injustice to himself, but more at the wrong to the luckless persons left on the gulf coast. He resolved to rescue them, and at the same time strike a blow at the Spaniards in Mexico with the aid of the southwestern tribes, who had urged Cavelier to lead
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them against that people. He only needed the authority of Denonville to undertake the expedition, and sent Couture to Mackinac to obtain the latest dispatches from the Governor. A hundred leagues from Fort St. Louis, the messenger was wrecked on the shore of Lake Mich- igan, and losing everything, with difficulty made his way back. In the meantime, however, Tonty received a letter from Denonville informing him that he was to do nothing against the Iroquois, and that war had been declared with Spain. This relieved the Illinois commandant from the duty of making forays upon the Five Nations and the danger of reprisals by them, and left the way open to carry out his plan. Once more he prepared to descend the Mississippi, and set out on December 3d in a pirogue, or canoe hollowed from a tree trunk, with five Frenchmen, one of the faithful Shawanoes, and two native slaves. His cousin had pre- ceded him hunting in advance of the expedition, which he was to accompany. La Forest was expected at Fort St. Louis about this time, and Tonty intended to leave him in command. But as he did not appear, Tonty was obliged, when he overtook his cousin, to send him back to take charge of the post. 117 This young commander of the Illinois country, the Sieur Greysolon de La Tourette, is described in the correspondence of the time as "an intelligent lad." That he was of the same stock as his famous elder brother is evidenced by the fact that in the preceding year he led a trading expedition far to the north of Lake Superior, and on hearing of the outbreak of the war with the Iroquois, came all the way from Lake Nipigon to the Niagara River with a single canoe to join the army, a feat considered most hazardous by those engaged in that campaign.118
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Tonty encountered on the 17th of the month a band of the Illinois at the mouth of their river, who during the cessation of Iroquois warfare had been carrying on hos- tilities with the Osages of the Missouri. They were returning from one of these conflicts in which they had lost thirteen men and taken one hundred and thirty prison- ers. Amid the noisy farewells of these redoubtable war- riors Tonty pushed out into the strong current of the Mississippi. Three months or more of arduous travel by river and through forest brought his little party to the villages of the Caddoes on the Red River, where four of his Frenchmen refused to go farther. They defied his authority, and he was compelled to leave them behind, while with one white man and the faithful redskin he made his way to a village eighty leagues away, where some of the conspirators against La Salle were reported to be. Arriving there Tonty soon satisfied himself that they had met the fate they deserved at the hands of the natives. These refused him guides, and his ammunition was nearly exhausted. For these reasons he found him- self obliged to abandon his project at a point eighty leagues distant from La Salle's post on the Gulf, and three days' journey from the place of his murder. Of this dastardly deed Tonty obtained further particulars which are preserved in his Memoir addressed to the Min- ister Pontchartrain, in 1693. From this and from Joutel's journal, it appears that after La Salle had by mistake gone beyond the mouth of the Mississippi in his attempt to reach it by sea, and had located his post on the Texas coast, loss of supplies through the shipwreck of a vessel, and other misfortunes, compelled him to set out for the Illinois country by land, with a small party to bring back aid to the others. Two of his men, disaffected because of
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the failure of the enterprise in which they had a pecun- iary interest, and falsely charging La Salle with having caused the death of a comrade, plotted their leader's life. "And as," to use Tonty's words, "in long journeys there are always discontented persons, they easily found par- tisans." They determined to dispatch also La Salle's nephew, Moranget, who was likewise obnoxious to them, and an opportunity occurring when he, with La Salle's devoted Shawnee hunter Nika and his servant Saget, were encamped apart from the others, these three were murdered in their sleep. At daybreak the villains heard the reports of pistols which were fired as signals by La Salle, who was coming with Father Douay in search of the rest of the party. The wretches laid in wait for him, placing one of their number in sight. When La Salle came near he asked where his nephew was. The man, keeping on his hat and showing no sign of respect to his commander, answered that Moranget was behind. As La Salle advanced to remind the insolent fellow of his duty, those in the ambuscade discharged their pieces, and the great explorer fell dead with three bullets in his brain. With ferocious exultation the assassins rushed to the spot, their leader repeating again and again; "There thou liest, great bashaw, there thou liest." They stripped the corpse, dragged it naked among the bushes, and left it exposed to the ravenous wild beasts, refusing the request of the Abbé Cavelier that he might go and bury the body of his brother. Tonty closes his brief and feeling account with this noble tribute to the man whom he had served so well, which Margry has fitly made the motto of his great volumes relating to La Salle: "Behold the fate of one of the greatest men of the age; of wonderful ability, and capable of accomplishing any enterprise. " 119
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On May 10th Tonty with his two faithful followers reached the villages of the Caddoes, and thence shaped their course towards the Mississippi. After forty leagues march and crossing seven rivers, they came to one which had burst its banks and overflowed the whole country.
They crossed fifty leagues of flooded land on a raft, finding only one little island of dry land on which they killed a bear and dried his flesh. It rained day and night; they were obliged to sleep on tree trunks placed side by side, to make their fires on these platforms, to build new rafts again and again, to eat their dogs, and to carry their equipage on their backs through interminable cane brakes. "In short," says Tonty, "I never suffered so much in my life as in this journey to the Mississippi, where we arrived the 11th of July." The last day of that month they came to the haven of rest near the mouth of the Arkansas so providentially established by Tonty on his preceding Mississippi voyage. He was detained here by a sudden fever, but rose from his sick bed on the eleventh day of August, and pushed onward until he landed once more at his own Illinois post in the month of September, 1689.120
It was while Tonty was absent on this expedition, if at all, that the readable but untrustworthy author, Baron La Hontan, visited the land of the Illinois. This young Gascon came to Canada in 1683, as an officer in one of the companies of troops sent to take part in La Barre's abortive campaign against the Iroquois in the following year. He served also in Denonville's more successful expedition, and afterwards, as we have seen, accompanied Tonty to Fort St. Joseph, at the foot of Lake Huron, and relieved Duluth in the command of that post. In April, 1688, he went to Mackinac, and was there when Cavelier,
.
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with what La Hontan calls his "parti-colored retinue" of Frenchmen and savages, disembarked at that place. The Baron shrewdly surmised that La Salle was dead, because he did not return with the others, although they asserted that he was alive and well. From Mackinac La Hontan professed to have made a journey beyond the Mississippi, and to have discovered there the remarkable Long or Dead River, with singular tribes on its banks, by which canoes could go to the Rocky Mountains, and thence, by a stream flowing westward, to the Pacific. His account is entertaining, but has been long since wholly discredited. After making this mythical expedi- tion he alleges that he descended the Mississippi to the Missouri, and made a three days' journey up that stream and returned, continued his route to the mouth of the Ohio, and then ascended the Mississippi to the Illinois River, which he entered April 10, 1689. Six days later he says he arrived at Fort Crèvecœur, where he met with Monsieur de Tonty, who received him with all imaginable civility. 121 But Fort Crèvecœur had been abandoned and burned seven years before, and Tonty at this time was far away in the southwest journeying towards the gulf. La Hontan goes on to recount that he arrived April 20th at the village of the Illinois, engaged four hundred men to transport his baggage, and on the 24th reached "Chek- akou," which place he left the next day for the river St. Joseph.122 The falsity of his preceding statements pre- vents our giving full credence to these. The fact, furthermore, that his map places Fort Crèvecœur upon the wrong side of the Illinois River, and entirely omits the Des Plaines and Chicago rivers, which he must have traversed to make such a journey, makes his story still more doubtful. The probability is that this part of his
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book was carelessly made up from the accounts or writ- ings of others, and that Baron La Hontan should not be included among the early visitors to the land of the Illinois. 123
Fortunately we have more reliable accounts of matters concerning the land of the Illinois during this period. The relations of La Salle's colony at Fort St. Louis with the government of Canada were not altogether pleasant under the administration of Denonville. Soon after he took his seat in 1685 he complained to the Minister that Tonty would not permit the French to trade in the direc- tion of the Illinois, and asked if the King had granted the whole of that country to Sieur de La Salle. Seignelay replied with some asperity that this was a ridiculous pre- tence on Tonty's part, and he should write him sharply on the subject, as it was the King's intention to preserve to the French the liberty of going to the Illinois to trade. 124 The preparations for the Iroquois war seem to have pre- vented any action in this regard, but after peace was declared, Denonville returned to the charge, and in his letter of August 25, 1687, complained that La Salle had made grants at Fort St. Louis to a number of Frenchmen who had resided there several years without desiring to return, that they were all young men, who had intermar- ried among the Indians, and pretended to be independent and masters of those lands, and had even planned to join the English. The Governor recommended that all those distant grants should be revoked by the King, the garri- sons to such posts changed every two years, and better discipline introduced under commandants having more authority.125 The King replied from Versailles, March 8, 1688, that the concessions made by La Salle in the neighborhood of Fort St. Louis, since they caused such
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disorders, might be revoked, and such power given to the commanders of fortified posts as might be needed. 126 A certain jealousy of La Salle, perhaps because of the royal favor he had won, seems to be evinced by the Canadian official in this correspondence, and Tonty falls under his censure, chiefly by reason of his loyal devotion to his absent leader's interests. Denonville apparently took no further action in this matter, possibly in consequence of the border troubles with the colonists of New England, which soon engrossed his attention. His term of office, moreover, was drawing to a close, as a firmer hand was needed at the helm. The King could find none so fit as that of the bold soldier who had once ruled the destinies of New France. Although now in his seventieth year, he accepted his old position at his sovereign's request, and on October 15, 1689, Denonville was relieved by Count Frontenac, who proudly resumed his former duties, amid the acclamations of the people of Quebec. 127
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NOTES
I. DISCOVERY
1 Carte de la Nouvelle France. "Champlain's Voyages" (Prince Society Publications), cited as "Champlain's Voyages," vol. i, p. 305. 2 "La Salle, and the Discovery of the Great West," by Francis Parkman, eleventh edition, p. 450, cited as "Parkman's La Salle."
3 "Discovery of the North West, by John Nicolet" (C. W. Butter- field), cited as "Discovery of the North West," p. 70, n. 2. "Relation de Henri de Tonty" (1684), Margry, i, p. 582, " (Le Pays des Illinois) est où l'on trouve les premiers boeufs sauvages." This Relation, cited as "Tonty," 1684, is printed in "Découvertes et Établissements des Français dans l'ouest et dans le sud de l'Amérique Septentrio- nale," 1614-1698, par Pierre Margry, Paris, Maissonneuve," cited as "Margry."
4 Champlain to the Queen Regent. "Champlain's Voyages," ii, p. xiii.
5 Ibid., iii, p. 158.
6 Ibid., iii, p. 159.
7 Ibid., iii, p. 215, note. "Discovery and Exploration of the Mis- sissippi Valley," cited as Shea's "Mississippi," p. xx. "Discovery of the North West," pp. 40 seq. "Relations des Jésuites," ii. l'Année 1643, p. 3, Quebec Edition, 1858, cited as "Relations des Jésuites."
8 For argument to show that Nicolet's visit to the Wisconsin country was in 1638, see "Wisconsin under French Dominion" (S. S. Heb- berd), p. 14, note a.
9 "Relations des Jésuites, i, l'Année 1640, p. 35.
10 "Discovery of the North West," p. 70.
11 "Relations des Jésuites, iii, l'Année 1656, pp. 38, 39.
12 Ibid., p. 39.
13 Ibid., iii, Table Alphabétique, p. 17.
14 Ibid., iii, l'Année 1658, p. 21.
15 "Relations des Jésuites," iii, l'Année 1660, p. 12.
16 "Wisconsin under French Dominion," p. 22.
17 Radisson's "Voyages" (Prince Soc. Pub.), Preface.
18 Ibid., p. 167. "Wisconsin under French Dominion," p. 20.
192
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NOTES
19 "Relations des Jésuites," iii, l'Année 1667, p. 12; p. 21
20 Ibid., pp. 21, 22.
21 Cf. Projets d'extension sous Jean Talon, Margry, i, pp. 75 seq.
22 Margry, i, 96. Parkman's "La Salle," ch. iv.
23 "Procès Verbal," Margry, i, p. 97.
24 Ibid., i, p. 99.
25 "Relation of Father Dablon," August 1, 1674. "Historical Mag- azine," v, p. 237.
26 "Dictionaire Généalogique" (Tanguay), v, p. 14.
27 Parkman's "La Salle," p. 48.
28 Letter of Archbishop Taché, Chicago Historical Society MSS. "Discovery of the North West," p. 96. Parkman's "La Salle," pp. 48, 49. "Journal des Jésuites." "Shea's Mississippi," 1xxix. Kingsford's "Canada," i, p. 400.
29 Association de Jolliet et al pour les Otahak. Chicago Hist. Soc. MSS.
30 The Récollet friars, Ribourde, Hennepin and Membré, who accom- panied La Salle in Le Griffon in 1679, named the body of water between lakes Erie and Huron Lake Sainte Claire, of which the present name, Saint Clair, is a corruption. Margry, i, p. 445- Parkman's "La Salle," p. 139, note I.
31 Lettre du Sieur Patoulet à Colbert, Margry, i, p. SI. Relation de l'Abbé Galinée, Margry, i, pp. 143, 144. Parkman's "La Salle," p. 16. Kingsford's "Canada," i, p. 400.
32 "Relation de l'Abbé Galinée," pp. 144-146.
33 Ibid., p. 166.
34 Dablon, 1674. Margry, i, p. 99.
35 Shea's "Mississippi," p. 5.
36 Dablon, 1674.
37 Lettre de Frontenac à Colbert, 2 Nov., 1672, Margry, i, p. 255.
38 Dablon, 1678 in Shea's "Mississippi," p. 5.
39 Lettre de Frontenac, supra, et lettre de Frontenac à Colbert, Margry, i, p. 257.
40 Kingsford's "Canada," i, p. 393.
41 Shea's "Mississippi," pp. 5, 6.
42 Ibid., p. 5, note.
43 Dablon, 1674, supra.
# It is related that to distinguish these armorial bearings from those of the city and from each other, the Provost was given three martlets without claws and with a beak, and the Alderman three with claws, but without a beak; and the latter insignia were formally confirmed to the family of Marquette, as its coat of arms, by the French official genealogists three hundred years after the original grant ("Devisme,
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Histoire de la Ville de Laon," i, p. 391). The martlets (merlettes, in French) were always considered the apanage of such genteel fam- ilies as had taken part in the Crusades, like crosses or escallops (pil- grims' shells). It is traditional that these little birds, which are a sort of small swallow, were found in large quantities by some almost famished Crusaders, who were thus saved from actual starvation. In a spirit of gratitude many of these warriors placed the representa- tion of these birds in their coats of arms (Letter of Cte. E. de Val- court-Vermont, author of "America Heraldica").
45 "Devisme Histoire," supra, i, p. 391 ; ii, pp. 23, 83, 356-358.
" Shea's "Mississippi," Life of Father Marquette, p. xlii.
47 "Devisme Histoire," ii, p. 356.
48 Ibid., ii, pp. 130, 177, 356, 358.
49 Shea's "Mississippi," Life of Father Marquette, xliii.
50 Letter of Archbishop Taché, Feb. 20, 1883, Chicago Historical Society MSS. Shea's "Marquette," supra, xlvi, seq. Kingsford's
"Canada," i, p. 400. "Relations des Jésuites," 1670, p. 87.
51 Ibid., p. 90.
52 Ibid., p. 91.
53 Ibid., p. 91.
54 Ibid., p. 92.
55 Shea's "Mississippi, Life of Father Marquette," pp. Iviii, lxi.
56 Ibid., Narrative of Father Marquette, Section i, p. 6.
57 Ibid, pp. 7, 8.
58 Ibid.
59 This positive statement of Marquette, whose attention had for years been directed to the subject, as to the extent of French explora- tions in this direction, seems to show conclusively that Nicolet did not reach the Illinois country proper, and also that the assertion that two priests had reached that region before the journey of Jolliet and Marquette, is entirely without foundation. (See Parkman"s "La Salle," p. 72, n.)
60 Shea's "Mississippi," Narrative of Father Marquette, p. 20.
61 Ibid., pp. 21 seq. See Appendix A.
62 Parkman's "La Salle," pp. 59, 431.
63 Narrative of Father Marquette, Shea's "Mississippi," p. 41.
64 Beck's "Gazeteer of Illinois and Missouri," p. 72. Reynolds'
"Pioneer History of Illinois," p. 138.
65 Narrative of Father Marquette, Shea's "Mississippi," p. 51.
66 Unfinished letter of Father Marquette, Shea's "Mississippi,"
p. 258.
67 Shea's "Discovery," etc., p. xxxii.
68 N. & C. History America, iv, p. 179, n.
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NOTES
69 Extracts from Memoir of Frontenac to Colbert, Quebec, Nov. 11, 1674, translated in N. Y. Colonial Documents, ix, p. 121; part of original text in Shea's "Mississippi," xxxiii, and Margry, i, p. 257. The original is in the Archives du Ministère de la Marine, at Paris.
70 Relation of Dablon, Aug. 1, 1674 (Hist. Mag., v, p. 238). Details sur le Voyage de Louis Jolliet (Margry, i, pp. 259 seq.), in Biblio- thèque Nationale, at Paris; Relation de la Descouverte de plusieurs Pays situés au Midi de la Nouvelle France, faite en 1673 (Margry, i, pp. 262, 263, 268-270), in Dépôt des Cartes, Plans et Journaux de la Marine, at Paris. These are based upon oral accounts given by Jol- liet. See also Jolliet's Letter from Quebec, Oct. 10, 1674 (Harrisse Notes, p. 322), in the Archives of the Seminary of St. Sulpice at Paris, and his letter to Frontenac, appended to Jolliet's smaller map (Mag- azine American History, 1883; same published separately in Griffin's "Discovery of the Mississippi," and N. & C. History of America, iv, pp. 208, 210).
71 Memoir of Frontenac, supra.
72 Jolliet's letter to Frontenac, supra.
73 Jolliet's letter of Oct. 10, 1674, and letter to Frontenac, supra.
74 Unfinished letter of Father Marquette, Shea's "Mississippi,"
p. 258.
75 N. & C. History of America, iv, p. 217. Historical Magazine, v, p. 237.
76 'Thevenot also published it as an independent work, entitled "Voy- age et Découverte de quelques Pays et Nations de l'Amérique Sep- tentrionale." In the latter form it was reproduced by Rich at Paris in 1845 (Griffin's "Discovery of the Mississippi," p. 5).
77 N. & C. History of America, iv, pp. 219-220. The return route of the explorers is incorrectly laid down on this map, probably from the endeavor of the editor to make them again meet the Peorias on the west bank of the Mississippi, where they saw them on their south- ward journey. He was not aware of the custom of these Indians to go in a body to hunt, and that thus they might easily have been found on the Illinois River (Shea's "Mississippi," 1xxv).
78 Shea's "Mississippi," pp. lxxvii, lxviii. Griffin's "Mississippi," p. 5. N. & C. Hist. America, iv, pp. 217, 219, 220, 315. The Ste. Marie text was reprinted for Mr. Lenox in 1855, with important annotations by Shea, under the title "Récit des Voyages et des Découvertes de R. P. J. Marquette," etc. Shea says: "The narrative is a very small quarto, written in a very clear hand, with occasional corrections, comprising in all sixty pages. Of these thirty-seven con- tain his voyage down the Mississippi, which is complete, except a
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hiatus of one leaf in the chapter on the calumet ; the rest are taken up with the account of his second voyage, death and burial, and the voyage of Father Allouez. The last nine lines on page 60 are in the handwriting of Father Dablon, and were written as late as 1678." (Shea, supra.) The missing leaf was supplied from the print of Thevenot. (N. & C. Hist., supra.)
79 Extracts from Memoir of Frontenac, supra.
80 Jolliet's letter of Oct. 10 1674, supra.
81 Margry, supra.
82 Ibid. i, p. 270.
83 Griffin, supra.
NN. &. C. Hist., iv, p. 210.
85 Ibid., pp. 211-216. Parkman's "La Salle," pp. 452, 453.
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