USA > Illinois > Chapters from Illinois history > Part 8
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time was destined to be of short duration. Tonty decided that it was unsafe to tarry longer, and gathering his party set out for Mackinac on September 2, 1680, despite the opposition of the natives who suspected some design against them. The river, shrunken by summer drought, was too low for the passage of a canoe, and the French- men very unwillingly were obliged to return. On the Ioth the stream was swollen by a sudden rain, and Tonty directed that the canoe should be re-coated with gum and everything in readiness to depart the next morn- ing.9 But strange events were at hand to delay the execution of this purpose.
The following day, while the usual quiet pervaded the village, a friendly Shawnee, who had left it but the night before to go to his home on the Ohio, returned in haste with the startling intelligence that he had met an Iro- quois army, four or five hundred strong, on the march to attack the Illinois. A few hours more would bring them to the village, which at once was all confusion and uproar. The chiefs, coupling the unwelcome announce- ment with Tonty's attempted departure, turned fiercely upon him, and asserted that he was in reality a friend of the Iroquois and was seeking to destroy the Illinois, just as they had been warned by certain Frenchmen who they now knew were speaking the truth.1º It was a critical moment for this much-tried man and his few companions, alone in the wilderness, beyond the hope of aid, with one hostile savage host approaching, and another surround- ing them, eager for their blood. But Tonty never lost courage. Facing his accusers with a steady eye, he simply replied that he would show them that they were wrong by joining them with his young men to do battle against the Iroquois to the death. The fickle
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crowd, rejoicing at the prospect of such support, at once changed their demeanor and hailed him as their leader. In better spirits they sent out their spies, who soon reported that the Iroquois numbered six or seven hun- dred warriors, mostly bearing firearms. The opposing forces were unequal, for many of the Illinois were away, and there remained barely five hundred, the greater part of whom had only bows and arrows. Their young men passed the night in feasting, and their women and children were sent to a place of safety. At daybreak, in battle array, they forded the stream with Tonty, Boisrondet and Renault, and climbed the hills opposite the village to the great prairie lying beyond. L'Esperance remained at their cabin to guard La Salle's papers, which they had brought from Crèvecœur. As they reached the open space they saw the Iroquois, who were massed in front of the woods lining the course of the River Aramoni, now called the Vermilion. The Illinois, realizing their danger, besought Tonty to hasten to their foes with a col- lar of wampum as a sign for a parley, and to make a peace with them. The intrepid soldier did not hesitate, though he could not speak the Iroquois tongue, and crossed the intervening space, accompanied by a single Indian, and leaving his arms behind. At a musket shot's distance he displayed the collar, the meaning of which the Iroquois well knew, but they opened fire notwith- standing. Sending back his companion Tonty pressed on amid the discharge of the guns, and entered the Iroquois lines, resolved to hold his parley and save the Illinois, or die in the attempt.11 A Mohegan chief, a wanderer from far New England, serving with the Five Nations, gave him a friendly embrace, and, taking the collar from his hand, cried out; "It is a Frenchman." At the word other
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Mohegans gathered to protect him, but one of the Onon- dagas, who had been incited against La Salle, either mis- taking the ambassador for him or not recognizing Tonty in his savage garb as a white man at all, gave him a cruel stab in the left breast. Others fell upon him, he received another wound in the side, and was stripped of his cloth- ing and his hat was placed on the end of a gun. The young Illinois whom he had ordered to retire, saw as he looked back the treatment Tonty was receiving, and when the hat was waved aloft fully believed that he had been killed. He so announced to the Illinois, who put them- selves in motion at once, and boldly advanced to avenge the gallant Frenchman, with the brave young Boisron- det and Renault at their head. The chiefs of the Iroquois meanwhile held a council, squatting in a circle on the grass, and Tonty, stunned and bleeding, was brought before them. They seated him among them and pro- ceeded to interrogate him, while one of them at his back, with a knife in his hand, every now and then raised his hair as if to take his scalp. Wounded and half naked as he was, and able to speak to them only through another New England Indian, of the Saco tribe, who acted as interpreter, Tonty dauntlessly reproached them for mak- ing war upon the Illinois, and threatened them with the vengeance of Count Frontenac. 12
At this juncture the assembly was interrupted by the intelligence that the Illinois with their French allies had driven back the left wing of the Iroquois and wounded nine and slain one. This fortunate diversion changed the situation. The chiefs, who a moment before had been ready to slay Tonty, now hurriedly assured him that he had nothing to fear, and eagerly asked the numbers of their opponents. Making the best of the matter, he gave
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them to understand that eleven hundred Indians and fifty of the French were arrayed against them. With such odds they thought it useless to contend, and begged him forthwith to carry a wampum collar from them to the Illinois, to urge them to return to their village, to send corn to their hungry foes and to make peace. In great joy at this unexpected ending of his perilous adven- ture, Tonty regained the Illinois lines, though so weak from loss of blood that he could hardly stand. The truce which both parties desired was readily agreed upon; the Iroquois pretended to retrace their steps, and the Illinois moved towards the river, bearing Tonty with them. A league from the village they met the good priest Mem- bré, who in his secluded retreat had been late to hear of Tonty's danger, and was now hurrying to stanch his wounds or render him the last offices of the Church, if he were mortally hurt. The wily Iroquois were meanwhile following closely upon the rear detachment of the Illinois and becoming mingled with them. Their leaders entreated Tonty to prevent this, and, too much exhausted to go in person, he sent Membré to deliver his com- mands that they should advance no further. They halted for the moment, and the man who alone had stayed the battle that day struggled through the ford, and, bleeding from side and breast and mouth, lay down in the nearest cabin.13
It was not long before the Iroquois, in constantly increasing numbers, began to find their way to the vil- lage on the pretext of needing provisions. The Illinois, distrusting them, withdrew and went to join their wives and children. Their foes burned most of the cabins to guard against surprise, and built a rude fort with the materials of the others. The Frenchmen at first were
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suffered to remain in a cabin some distance away, per- haps the same in which the priests were dwelling, but soon were suspected of communicating with the Illinois, and compelled to remove to the Fort. Tonty and Mem- bré, with an Iroquois hostage, were sent to induce the Illinois to make peace, for Tonty's story of their strength was still believed. A young Illinois hostage, however, who came to the Iroquois in return, revealed the truth to them, and owned that his people had only four hun- dred warriors and would gladly give many beaver skins and release their Iroquois captives, if only peace could be made. The leaders of the Iroquois host, in great wrath at the deception practiced upon them, summoned Tonty to the fort and upbraided him for his stratagem, asking in fine scorn for the eleven hundred warriors and fifty Frenchmen of whom he had told them. He admits that he had much difficulty in explaining the matter, and doubtless many in that throng were ready to take his life.14 But there was something in his utter fearlessness which impressed even these ferocious creatures, and his appeal to Count Frontenac had weight. It may be, too, that the tales of the strange might of his right arm invested him in their eyes with supernatural power. Never did old Baldwin of Flanders so truly deserve the name of Bras de Fer as did this slender, quiet man, who had more than once on this perilous journey restored order among brawling savages by blows so weighty that the recipients with one accord hailed him as a "great ined- icine," and spread far and wide the fame of him to whom they gave a name in their own tongue meaning the man with the iron arm.15 The Iroquois did not harm him, and decided to make a false peace with the Illinois, which they concluded in their usual fashion with gifts, signify-
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ing that Count Frontenac and La Salle were angry at their coming to molest their brethren, and that there- after they would act towards them as brothers should. They secretly offered presents to Tonty for his consent to the overthrow of the Illinois. These he spurned, and warned the intended victims to put no faith in their ene- mies, who were covertly constructing canoes of elm bark16 in order to follow them more easily, and urged them to fly to distant parts before they were betrayed.
The chiefs of the Five Nations, suspecting this inter- ference with their plans, but hardly daring to make away with Tonty, resolved that his party should leave. Call- ing him and Membré to a council, they gave them seats and placed before them six packets of beaver skins. 17 The first two were to inform Count Frontenac that they would not eat his children, and to assuage his wrath for what they had already done; the third was a plaster for Tonty's wound, which they said had been inflicted by a heedless youth; the fourth was oil for his and Membre's limbs after their lung journeys; the fifth betokened that the sun was bright; and the sixth meant that they should take advantage of that fact and leave the next day for Canada. Tonty sturdily demanded to know when they themselves were going away. Their anger rose at this implied defiance. Murmurs were heard, and some of them replied that they would first devour some of the Illinois. Upon this he thrust away their gifts with his foot, saying that he would have none of them, since they desired to eat the children of Onontio. This, according to savage etiquette, was an almost unpardonable affront, and so he was told by an Abenaki Indian among them, who spoke French. One of the offended dignitaries seized Tonty by the arm, and ordered him to retire, and the
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others rising drove him from the council. At once they began to sing their war songs as at the opening of a bat- tle. Tonty and his comrades went to their cabin and passed the night on guard, believing that no quarter would be given them, and that they would not live till morning, but resolved to make some of their assailants bite the dust before their own lives should be taken. But again the danger passed by, and at daybreak the Iro- quois contented themselves with a peremptory order to depart forthwith, only requiring a letter to Count Fron- tenac to show that the white men had suffered no harm at their hands. This Tonty gave them, taking advantage of this means of communication to send to the Governor a brief account of what had taken place in the Illinois country. 18
On September 18th Tonty, with the two priests and three soldiers, for Boisrondet, Renault and L'Esperance had well earned that title, embarked to ascend the river. He had done all that mortal could do in most trying times, with a valor and a loyalty beyond praise, and only withdrew under compulsion and after he had rendered every possible service to his allies. Even now his pros- pects were far from promising. The party of six had but one wretched bark canoe, with little ammunition or pro- visions. Tonty believed La Salle to be dead, but desir- ing still the success of his plans, took all the beaver skins he could carry, to use them in the accomplishment of his leader's great project of discovery.19 Father Ribourde threw several of these to the Iroquois, saying that he was not there to amass furs, but was persuaded to leave the cargo in charge of the secular members of the expedi- tion.20 The next day their sorry craft striking a rock and breaking, they were compelled to land about noon
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to repair it, and to dry their clothes and peltries.21 Father Ribourde, seeing before him a beautiful stretch of prairie swelling into hills clad with groves of noble trees stand- ing in as regular order as if planted by man, bethought himself to seek amidst their shades a quiet place for prayer and meditation. Setting forth with his breviary in his hand, he told Tonty of his purpose, and was warned not to stray far away, because they were not yet safe from their enemies. The others were busy with the canoe until evening, when, alarmed at their companion's failure to return, they went in search of him, and fired their guns repeatedly to direct him to them. Tonty fol- lowed his footprints for a mile or more, until these were lost among the fresh tracks of a number of persons, and no further trace could be found. Returning with this sad news, all felt that the good priest had been killed or taken prisoner, and that they themselves were in danger. They crossed the river in the canoe, leaving its lading on the bank, and keeping watch through the night, saw sev- eral human forms prowling about their camp fire on the opposite shore. In the morning they re-crossed and waited until noon, but no one came. Upon searching the woods they found signs of ambuscades, which made it perilous to remain longer. At three in the afternoon they embarked, designing to proceed by short journeys, in the hope that the missing one might escape or might only have lost his way, and would be able to overtake them. It was barely possible, too, that he had preceded them along the bank, but they looked in vain for the familiar form at every bend of the stream. Later they learned that their comrade had met his fate soon after leaving them, at the hands of some cowardly Kickapoos, skulking in the rear of the Iroquois, with whom they professed to
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be at war. Three of them in the advance came upon the venerable man at his devotions in the woods, and cruelly pierced him with arrows and took his scalp. This they bore in triumph to their village, pretending it was that of an Iroquois, and carried thither also his breviary and rosary, which ultimately fell into the hands of a Jesuit missionary, who ascertained the particulars of the death of Ribourde. His body, hidden by his slayers, was found by some of the Illinois, who bore it reverently to their village, where they buried it in their manner, doing honor to him who had gone among them for their good.22 So perished the first martyr upon Illinois soil, Gabriel de La Ribourde. He was in the sixty-fourth year of his age, the only male child and heir of a gentleman of Burgundy, and noted in France and in Canada for his saintliness and devotion to the mission cause, for which he gave up home and friends, fortune and life. He had for a long time, in his extreme grief at the utter blindness of the natives, declared that he longed to be sacrificed for their salva- tion. His colleague, mourning his loss, yet believed that he would not have wished for a happier fate than to die in the exercise of his apostolic functions, by the hands of those to whom he had been sent. Somewhere on the south bank of the Illinois River, midway between the Fox and the Des Plaines, is the place where closed the noble career of this Apostle of the West.
His late associates went sorrowfully forward, but ere they reached their journey's end they almost rejoiced that he had been spared the terrible sufferings they were forced to endure. The next evening they heard a shot in the woods near them, and stood to their arms all night, believing that they were pursued. Arriving at the junc- tion of the Kankakee and the Des Plaines, they took the
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latter stream, which they called the Divine, as Jolliet had done. Tonty left no mark there of their passing, for which he was afterwards blamed, but he doubtless thought it useless, because so certain that his commander was dead, and that no other man could come to his relief. La Salle and La Forest were at this very time at Mack- inac, urgently preparing an expedition to the Illinois. Had Tonty taken the route of the Kankakee and St. Joseph and the eastern shore of Lake Michigan to Mack- inac, as he first intended, he would have met them by the way. But he had no means of knowing this, and the lateness of the season and his scanty equipment naturally led him to think it best to make for the nearest French settlement, the Mission of St. François Xavier at Green Bay. Soon after entering the Des Plaines need of food obliged Tonty, although suffering from a severe attack of fever, to seek for game. He was fortunate enough to kill a buffalo, and laden with its meat returned to camp exhausted. A little rest was necessary, but the best canoeman, Renault, alarmed at the prospect of delay, wished to leave the others and push forward by land alone. Tonty nobly gave him full permission, but Father Membré would not suffer it, and shamed him into remain- ing. The party soon moved onward along the winding Des Plaines, until they reached a shallow valley leading eastward, and through it came to Mud Lake, and by a portage to the south branch of the Chicago River,23 pass- ing on its waters the hillock on which Marquette had wintered six years before. This was Tonty's first visit to the site of Chicago, and on the roll of the early explor- ers associated with it his name comes next after those of Jolliet and Marquette and La Salle. Doubtless more than one enterprising coureur de bois, or voyageur, by
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this time knew the place well, but their names have not come down to us.
The little band followed the Chicago River, also known like the Des Plaines as the Divine, by its long southward bend to the waves of Lake Michigan. Then turning northward they coasted the western shore, while Tonty's increasing fever and swollen limbs made him almost help- less. On the evening of November Ist a sudden gale wrecked their canoe on the beach. Too feeble to carry their peltries, they placed them in a cache or underground hiding place, which Boisrondet, with food for ten days, was left to guard. The other four sought to go afoot to the Pottawattamie village, believed to be but eight leagues distant. It was really twenty leagues away, and their provisions soon gave out. They lived on acorns and wild garlic found under the snow, and Tonty's con- dition made their progress very slow, especially through the great ravines which crossed their path. Saint Mar- tin's Day, the 11th of November, they came upon the skin and feet of a deer left by the wolves, and made a feast of these at the Pottawattamie village, which they reached only to find it deserted. Halting here, they devoured the leather straps of the lodge poles, and even a shield of buffalo hide discarded by some savage warrior. By good fortune they discovered a quantity of frozen squashes and stored them for future use in a cabin by the lake. They took for their habitation another cabin in the woods on a hill, where they found a little Indian corn and roasted it for food. Disappointed at not meeting the friendly tribe on which they had relied for aid to reach Green Bay, they determined that their only course was to go to Mackinac, and to leave Boisrondet to his fate, since it was impossible to return with supplies to him.
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They had repaired an old canoe left in the village by the Pottawattamies, and were preparing to depart when a noise was heard in the cabin by the lake, and their miss- ing comrade suddenly appeared. He had set out to follow his companions, missed the way, and wandered for ten days in the wintry wastes. He had exhausted his supply of bullets and lost his gun flint, but melted a pewter cup into slugs and discharged his piece with a firebrand, and so managed to kill some wild turkeys, on which he sub- sisted until he came to the village. At the shore cabin he fancied that the store of provisions had been left for him by his friends at their departure, and had regaled himself with these for three days before he discovered their proximity. They felt great joy at seeing him, and great sadness at the diminution of their small supply of portable food.24
The recruited party once more embarked and paddled northward for a few hours, when a great wind compelled them to land. Fresh footprints and a beaten trail showed them the way to a portage of about a league, over which they with difficulty dragged their canoe and its contents the next day. They followed Sturgeon Creek into Green Bay, and went northward again in the hope of finding the savages, who seemed ever just before them. At the distance of two leagues some cabins were seen which apparently had been but recently abandoned. The next day they made five leagues more, but a northeast wind, with a heavy fall of snow, stayed their progress for five days, in which their scanty stock of provisions was entirely consumed. Despairing of overtaking the natives they determined to return to the Pottawattamie village, where there was wood and shelter, so that they could at least die warm. Re-entering Sturgeon Creek, they saw
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the smoke of a fire, and joyfully hastened to it, to be again disappointed, as there was no one there. They encamped, thinking to follow the elusive savages back to the village in the morning, but the creek froze in the night so solidly that they could not use their canoe. To go on foot it was necessary to replace their wornout shoes, and they set about making these from poor Father Gabriel's cloak. Tonty reproved Renault for delaying his portion of the task, which prevented their starting as soon as they had expected. He excused himself because of indigestion resulting from his breakfast of a piece of the rawhide shield. The next day, December 4th, while Tonty was pressing him to finish his shoes, and he was still excusing himself on the score of illness, it proved that this delay was the cause of their being saved. Two Kiskakon Indians, on their way to the place where the Pottawattamies were encamped, noticed the smoke of the Frenchmen's campfire, and landed to investigate. When the poor wretches saw them they made a great rejoicing, and most gladly went with them to the Pottawattamies, who were only two leagues distant. Had the white men gone to the deserted village they must have perished there for lack of food. Now they found themselves among friends, and some of their own race, for five French hunters, who were wintering with these Indians, vied with them in ministering to the wants of this forlorn company. The chief, Onanghisse, well known among all the tribes of that region, welcomed them most cordially and harangued his people in their behalf. He was the same who met La Salle at the entrance of Green Bay the year before, and was so impressed by him that he used to say that he knew only three great captains, Monsieur de Frontenac, Monsieur de La Salle and himself.
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Thus, as Tonty says, from the dire need in which they had been, they came at once into abundance after thirty- four days of terrible want. Since the wreck of their first canoe until now they had suffered everything but death.
We may well believe Father Membré when he tells us that not one of thein could stand for weakness; that they were all like skeletons, and that Tonty was extremely ill. When recruited a little the priest joined some natives going to the Mission of St. François Xavier, and after further great hardships reached the home of the Jesuit Fathers, who received him very kindly. Tonty spent the winter with the friendly Pottawattamies, who cared for him assiduously, and seems later to have followed Membré to the little mission settlement at the head of Green Bay.25 Thus was completed another of those ardu- ous journeys which characterize the early history of Illi- nois, and one which resulted directly from the first attempt to establish civilization within its borders. For heroic endurance it can hardly be surpassed in any annals.
While Tonty and his companions were toiling north- ward, the great Illinois village had become a scene of desolation. Even before his departure the Iroquois had begun to destroy the corn stored there and to desecrate its burial places. They continued their ghoulish work until they set out to follow the fleeing Illinois down the river. Later a band of Kickapoos, dogging the steps of the Iroquois as jackals those of a lion, and probably the same who had slain the blameless Ribourde, completed the devastation which La Salle found there in the suc- ceeding December. Some of the Illinois fugitives, among whom apparently was the native assistant of Mem- bré and Ribourde, in their rude chapel near the great vil-
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