USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Discovery and conquests of the Northwest, with the history of Chicago, Vol. I > Part 7
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The bones of La Salle lay mouldering beneath the luxuriant grasses of Texas prairie, but his plans for the aggrandizement of New France survived his untimely death, and were soon destined to be renewed by Iberville and Bienville.
In 1699, these intrepid Frenchmen, who were born and nurtured among the excitements of life in Canada,
* The history of its destruction was furnished by the Shawanees, for which. see Snea's Discovery of the Mississippi Valley, p. 208.
68
Early Fort at Chicago.
obtained command of a small fleet, and made a French settlement on Dauphin Island, off the Bay of Mobile.
The same year they entered the mouth of the Missis- sippi river, and sailing up its scroll-shaped turnings, landed in the dominions of Tonty's old friend, the chief of the Bayagoulas. It will be remembered that he had left a letter for La Salle with him, when he went down the river fourteen years previously. This letter had been preserved by him during these years, with pious care, and with commendable discretion he now relieved himself of his responsibility by giving it to Iberville.
A permanent French colony was now established at the mouth of the river, out of which, a few years later, grew the city of New Orleans and the settlements of the famous sugar plantations along the river.
This was the southern extremity of the French settle- ments in America. Canada was the northern extremity, and Chicago, the most frequented portage, between them.
There were, however, other portages of intercom- munication; one by the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, an- other by the St. Joseph and Kankakee rivers, both of which had been traveled, the one by Marquette and the other by La Salle, as already related.
The next year after Iberville and Bienville's success- ful settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi, the set- tlements of Kaskaskia and Cahokia were made, and other thriving French villages sprung up near by them a few years later.
Vincennes, on the Wabash, was settled in 1710, and Ft. Chartres, on the Mississippi, not far from Cahokia, in 1720. It was the strongest inland fortress in Amer- ica, costing over $50,000.
A cordon of French forts extended from Canada to New Orleans, at this time, with which to cement the vast extent of New France together, by an unbroken chain.
That one of these forts was built at Chicago there is sufficient evidence, from the fact that mention is made of its existence, by Tonty, while on his way from Can- ada to the Illinois country in 1685, who uses the follow- ing language: "I embarked for the Illinois Oct. 30th, 1685, but, being stopped by the ice, I was obliged to leave my canoe and proceed by land. After going 120 leagues, I arrived at Ft. Chicagou, where M. de la Du-
69
Chicago a French Village.
rantaye commanded."* No record remains as to the time of its construction.
There was a missionary station here in 1699, where the gospel was dispensed to the Miamis.+ There ap- pears also to have been a French village here at that time, as St. Cosme speaks of a lost boy at the time of his passing through the place, and several Frenchmen turning out to hunt for him among the tall grasses. After thirteen days, the boy returned to the village, spent with hunger and fatigue, and almost insensible.t
While these events, so auspicious to the French in the interim, were passing, the English colonists were at work, within a very circumscribed compass, along the eastern fringe of the continent.
The Massachusetts colony was composed of Puritans after the Cotton Mather pattern.
The Connecticut and the New Hampshire colonies were also fashioned after the same model.
The Rhode Island colony was modified somewhat by the liberalism of Roger Williams, Wheelright, Vane and Anne Hutchinson.
The Germans, along the Hudson river, were not unlike this same thrifty people of our day.
On the Delaware were the Swedes and Fins, models of frugality and piety.
In Pennsylvania were the English Quakers, under the leadership of the broad-gauge brain of William Penn.
In Virginia was the true type of English chivalry.
The Puritans may justly be called the conscience of the nation, and the Virginians, with equal propriety, the sword of the nation.
In the Carolinas were Huguenots and Quakers, and in Georgia respectable Englishmen, not conspicuous for any tangent points of character, except the ambitious aims indispensable to American emigrants.
No confederation or bond of union existed between these different colonies, but the exploits of the French in the West, were rapidly hastening an issue, bound to unite them together in a bond or union which was the outgrowth of the French and Indian war.
While this issue is maturing, Chicago must slumber in obscurity.
* Tonty's Memoir, published in Hist. Coll. of Lou., vol. 1, p. 67.
+ Early Voyages, p. 50, published by Joel Munsel, Albany.
# Early Voyages, pp. 56-8.
CHAPTER IV.
First Passage through the Detroit River-A Stone Status found there-English on the Upper Lakes-Settlement of Detroit-The foxes attack the place-Mission of Father Marquette at Michilimackinac-Cahokia and Kaskaskia settled-Ft. Chartres-Vincennes settled- Comparison of the English with the French colonies- The Paris convention to establish the line between the English and French in America-Convention at Albany-The Ohio company-The French build forts on French Creek-Gov. Dinwiddie sends Washington to warn them out of the country-The Ohio company send Trent to build a fort where Pittsburgh now stands- He is driven away by the French-Washington sent to the frontier-He attacks the French-Retreats-Builds Ft. Necessity-The fort taken by the French-General Braddock arrives in America-Plan of the first cam- paign- Baron Dieskau reaches Canada - Braddock marches against Ft. Duquesne-His defeat-Expedition to Acadia-Shirley starts to take Ft. Niagara-John- son's campaign on the shores of Lake George-Defeat of Dieskau.
Detroit stands foremost among the cities of the Northwest, in local historic interest, although the place was unknown to the French, even for some years after Lake Superior had been explored to its western ex- tremity, and missions established along its southern waters.
The Ottawa river of Canada, Lake Nippising and the northern waters of Lake Huron were the channels by which the great West was first reached by the French, and nearly the only ones used till La Salle had secured Lakes Ontario and Erie as a highway from Canada to the West, as told in the previous chapter.
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71
Discovery of Detroit.
In the autumn of of 1669, at the Indian village of Ganastogue, at the western extremity of Lake Ontario, two distinguished explorers, La Salle and Joliet, met by chance. Joliet was on his return from a trip to the Upper Lake, as Lake Superior was then called, for the purpose of discovering the copper mines. In reaching this place from Lake Superior, he must have passed down the river, then without a name, now called Detroit: river, and first called by the French "The Detroit" (The Straits). It is a matter of record that an old Indian village, called Teuchsa Grondie, stood originally there, but no mention is made of it by Joliet.
The next spring, 1670, two priests, Galinee and Dab- - lon, on their way from Canada to the mission of Sainte: Marie, which had been established at the Sault the pre- vious year, landed at or near the present site of Detroit. The first object of interest they beheld was a barbarous piece of stone sculpture in the human form. This was quite sufficient to unbalance the equilibrium of the two fathers, whose zeal had been whetted, into an extrava- gant pitch, by the hardships they had encountered on their way. With pious indignation they fell upon the "impious device" with their hatchets, broke it in pieces, and hurled the fragments into the river .*
The place would have been brought to light long be- fore but for the Iroquois, who guarded the passage of the lower lakes, with bull-dog tenacity, to preserve their own nation and protect their fur trade.t
That a fort was built at Detroit between this time and 1687 is inferred from Tonty's Memoir,t in which, while on the way down the lakes, he says: "The Seur de la Forest was already gone with a canoe and thirty French- men, and he was to wait for me at Detroit till the end of May." Farther along he continues: "We came, on the 19th of May ,(1687), to Ft. Detroit. We made some canoes of elm, and I sent one of them to Ft. St. Joseph."
*Jesuit Relations, 1670.
j Father Paul Raguneau, in the Jesuit Relations of 1650, uses the follow- ing language:
[Translation.] "All the Algonquin nations who dwell to the west of the ancient country of the Hurons, and where the faith has not yet been able to find its way, are people for whom we cannot have enough compassion. If it be necessary that the name of God be adored, and the cross be planted there, it shall be done in spite of all the rage of hell and the cruelty of the Iroquois, who are worse than the demons of hell."-Pages 30 and 31.
Į See Hist. Coll. of Lou., vol. 1, p. 69.
72
English on the Upper Lakes Captured.
During the few years which succeeded Frontenac's recall from the governor's chair of Canada, La Barre and next Denonville supplied his place. Both of their administrations were ushered in with promises of great results, but terminated in utter failures. They had measured their strength against the Iroquois, who proved too much for them, both in the forum and in the field.
Thos. Dougan was then colonial governor of New York, whose vigorous and ambitious policy, assisted by the Iroquois, contemplated the establishment of a trading post at Michilimackinac, for the mutual inter- ests of both, and, in 1687, English agents started up the lakes for that purpose,* under protection of the Iroquois and Foxes.
The latter held supreme sway on those waters at that time, and were more friendly to the English than the French, as the French had, by some misdirection, made enemies of them at their first interview.
After Tonty with his men had left Detroit, as just told in his Memoir, as he was continuing his course along the lake shore toward Canada, he fell in company with Durantaye and Du Lhut, with their commands.
They had in their custody thirty English prisoners, whom they had captured on the shore of Lake Huron.
Farther along in the Memoir, Tonty states that he took thirty more English prisoners, who were on their way to Michilimackinac, under command of Major Gregory-that they had with them several Huron and Ottawa captives, who had been taken by the Iroquois and consigned to their charge --- that they also had a "great quantity of brandy" with them, which Tonty congratulated himself for having taken, inasmuch as it would have (in his own words) "gained over our allies, and thus we should have all the savages and the English upon us at once."
A war was going on at this time, between the Iroquois and the French, of which the English probably took ad- vantage to attempt to gain a foothold on the upper lakes.
Before the war was ended, all Canada was overrun by the Iroquois, Montreal burned, and two hundred per- sons captured and taken into the wilderness lodges of their conquerors, in the present State of New York.
* Paris Doc. III., published in Doc. Hist. N. Y., vol. 1, p. 229.
73
Settlement of Detroit.
They were treated so kindly, however, that more than half of them refused to return to their home in Mon- treal, after peace had been made, even though the French king commanded them to return.
The following September, 1689, commissioners from the New York and New England colonies met the Iro- quois deputies at Albany in convention, when one of the chiefs congratulated the English colonists, that their chain of friendship was strengthened by their burning of Montreal.
Frontenac was now restored to power in Canada, and under his vigorous administration the Iroquois were obliged to evacuate the French provinces, and the war was transferred to the territory of the English colonists, by the burning of Schenectady and the slaughter of its inhabitants. The original plan of this expedition was to capture Albany, the headquarters from which the Eng- lish had fitted out their expedition to Michilimackinac,* but on their way they were informed that there was too large a force there for them to encounter, and they at- tacked Schenectady instead.
Had the English scheme to establish a post at Mich- ilimackinac proved a success, the limits of New France would have been confined to the present limits of Can- ada; and the whole western country have been opened immediately to English colonization, which must have hastened its settlement; at least a generation. But the whole plan miscarried, if not on account of Tonty's seizure of the brandy, at least owing to the great distance of the post from the English settlements, and to the allied action of the French and western tribes against the Foxes, whose immediate protection was necessary to the English cause on the upper lakes.
This English attempt to gain a foothold in the West, doubtless, stimulated the French to hasten to completion their own designs to accomplish the same purpose.t To this end a council was called at Montreal, a few years later, to which the Canadian and western tribes were invited, nor were their ancient enemies the Iroquois for- gotten. The latter now disclaimed any intention to allow either the French or English to erect forts on the upper waters; but the western tribes favored the plan, of course. Meantime the French had already made preparations to establish a post on the Detroit.
* Paris Doc. IV.
t Lanman's Mich., p. 40.
74
Land Grants Around Detroit.
Antoine de la Motte Cadillac, Lord of Bouaget and Mountdesert, was on the spot, with a commission from Louis XIV., as commandant of Detroit. He started from Montreal in June, 1701, with one hundred men and all the necessary appliances, both religious and secular, to form a colony, and the next month safely landed, tented upon the spot, built Ft. Pontchartrain, and commenced the settlement of the place.
The settlement was a permanent one, although for many years it was often reduced to the verge of ruin. The aimless character of the settlers was the chief cause of this, but there were other hindrances in the way of progress. The Iroquois looked, with jealous eyes, upon them, but not more so than did the English settlements along the Hudson; and three years after the settlement of Detroit, an Indian convention of the tribes bordering on the lakes was summoned to meet at Albany .*
Here the brains of those vacillating French allies, particularly the Ottawas, were temporarily turned over to the English interest; and on their return they set fire to the town, but the flames were soon extinguished.
A second attempt to burn the place while it was under command of Tonty, met with no better success. Mean- time Cadillac succeeded in getting some Indians from Michilimackinac and other places, whose friendship was of a more abiding character. to form a settlement near by, who acted as a sort of picket guard about the place.
These consisted of Ottawas, whose village was on the river, above the town, and the Hurons and Pottawatto- mies, whose villages were below. Comparative safety thus secured, in 1707 Cadillac parceled out the adjacent lands to his unambitious subjects on the following terms:
"By the conditions of a grant, made by Cadillac, at Detroit, March 10th, 1707, the grantee, Francois Fafard Delorme was bound to pay a reserved rent of fifteen francs a year to the crown, for ever, in peltries, and to begin to clear and improve the land within three months from the date of the grant. All the timber was reserved to the crown, whenever it might be wanted for fortifica- tions, or for the construction of boats or other vessels. The property of all mines and minerals was reserved to the crown. The privilege of hunting rabbits, hares, part- ridges, and pheasants was reserved to the grantor.
* Cass' Discourse.
-
75
Detroit Saved by a Converted Indian.
The grantee was bound to plant, or help to plant, a long May-pole before the door of the principal manor-house, on the first day of May in every year. All the grain raised by the grantee was to be carried to the mill of the manor to be ground, paying the tolls sanctioned by the custom of Paris. On every sale of the land a tax was levied; and, before a sale, the grantee was bound to give information to the government, and if the gov- ernment was willing to take the land at the price offered to the grantee, it was to have precedence as a pur- chaser. The grantee could not mortgage the land without the consent of the government. For a term of ten years, the grantee was not permitted to work, or - cause any person to work, directly or indirectly, at the profession and trade of a blacksmith, locksmith, ar- morer, or brewer, without a permit. All effects and articles of merchandise, sent to or brought from Mon- treal, were to be sold by the grantee himself, or other person who, with his family, was a French resident; and not by servants or clerks or foreigners or strangers. The grantee was forbidden to sell or trade spirituous liquors to Indians. He was bound to suffer on his lands such roads as might be thought necessary for public use. He was bound to make his fences in a certain manner, and, when called upon, to assist in making his neighbors' fences."*
As might be supposed, little progress could be made by the inhabitants, shackled as they were by such op- pressive restrictions, and environed by the warlike Foxes, liable at the slightest provocation to attack them. In May, 1712, incited by a blood-thirsty spirit or possibly by a promise of a reward from the Iroquois or their patrons, the English colonists, they laid, as they supposed, their secret plans to attack the place.
The occupants of the three friendly Indian villages adjoining were absent, and but for the disclosures of a converted Indian of the Fox nation, the place must have been taken, for there was but a slender garrison to defend it. The savage disciple to the Catholic faith, whose newly-bred conscience impelled him to act the apostate to his own people, obtained an interview with M. Du Buison, the commandant, and revealed the secret to him in time to make preparation for the impending blow.
* Am. State Papers, Public Lands, v. 1, p. 261.
1
76
Michilimackinac Settled.
Cadillac was now Intendant of Louisiana and busy with Crozat, in a butterfly chase, after supposed gold mines, and the entire responsibilities rested upon Du Buison. He immediately sent deputies to the various tribes to the south and west, whose jealousy of the ferocious Foxes made them his ready allies. "Yes, we will come and defend you, and all we ask is, that you cover the bodies of such of us as are slain, with a little earth, to keep the flies away," was their reply .*
The zealous allies came, and were received within the gates of the fort, and on the 13th of May the attack was commenced from an entrenchment hastily thrown up by the determined Foxes, commanding the outworks of the French defences. To drive them from their posi- tion, the besieged erected a block-house commanding it.t
The strife soon became desperate. For nineteen days the battle raged, the victory alternating from one side to the other, till the Foxes withdrew under cover of night. They were followed, and the fiercest battle of the war ensued, in which the Foxes were routed and · driven from the country to Green Bay.}
This danger passed, the inhabitants of Detroit basked in the sunshine of peace and security from further alarms, till the French and Indian war had spent its force along the far-off eastern frontier, and an English garrison had taken quiet possession of the town. Then again the desolations of Pontiac's war rolled over their heads fiercer than ever; but till then the peasant hab- itant of the peace paid his annual rental, cultivated his garden patch, and lived a thoughtless life, like the population of other French towns in the wilderness solitudes of New France.
Michilimackinac was settled more than a quarter of a century before Detroit. Its name is of Indian origin, the language of which is, The Place of the Dancing Spirits.| It had a history before the white man ever visited it, of which a volume might be written, from the traditions of the red man. Its first settlement by the
* Monette's Miss. Val.
Cass' Discourse.
Į From Green Bay they next emigrated to Rock river, in Illinois, and re- mained till 1832, the time of the Black Hawk war, at which time the early settlers of Chicago took refuge from them in Fort Dearborn.
| This is Schoolcraft's version. Others equally authoritative, say it meant a turtle. The discrepancy probably comes from the word having different significations in different Indian dialects.
.
77
Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes Settled.
French was made about the year 1671, at which time converted Hurons fled to the place as a refuge of safety from their demon-like persecutors, the Iroquois; and here the good Father Marquette followed them, im- pelled not by any wordly motive, but by the love of God and man, and obedience to the will of his patron saint, "the Blessed Virgin."
For many years the place had no permanent settlers, but served as a transient stopping place for itinerating priests and erratic fur-traders.
Of the little cluster of early French towns in the southern part of the Illinois, Cahokia was settled first, by Father Pinet and St. Cosme, in 1700 .* Kaskaskia was settled a few months later. These and other smaller places, close by, soon became thriving French villages; all the more so as they were in no danger of hostile in- vasion from any quarter.
Ft. Charters was a substantial fortress, built of stone, with bastions and towers. It was finished in 1720, and would have stood for centuries, but for the wearing away of the Mississippi river's east bank, on which it stood, half way between Cahokia and Kaskaskia. As late as 1820, much of it remained, but a few years later the spot on which it stood became the channel of the river.
Vincennes was settled by Father Mermet in I710.+ This was an isolated French post, buried in the depths of the gigantic forests of the lower Wabash. Here the French lived and grew in an atmosphere of Indian social life, till the fires of the American Revolution, kindled afar off, soon came to their doors, as will appear in a succeeding chapter.
Sharp lines of contrast, in religion and government,. between the English and French colonies of America, were everywhere visible. The fairest portions of the country were in the hands of the French, and almost the entire Indian population of the vallies of the Miss- issippi and the St. Lawrence were their allies. Through- out this immense territory, including also the entire
*A tract, reprinted by Shea in 1859, entitled "Relation ou Journal du voyage du R. P. Gravier, de la Compagnie de Jesus en 1700 de puis le pays des Illinois jusq'a l'embouchere du Mississippi, Ecrit ou Pere de Lambec- ville et envoye du fort de Mississippi a 17 lieues de sa decharge dans le Golfe ou Mer Mexique le 16 Fevrier, 1701," is the authority from which the above is taken.
+Law's History of Vincennes, p. 12.
78 Contrast between the English and French Colonies.
lake country, the flag of France waved in security among the confiding natives, without the least appre- hension of future danger from its patronage. They cultivated their scanty patches of corn, just enough to keep them in hominy, and in the winter gathered in a rich harvest of furs, wherewith to spread their tents with mats and to barter with the French traders for guns, kettles, knives, hatchets, vermillion with which to paint their faces, and the inevitable whisky.
The fur trade was the great interest of the country, and those engaged in it were men of no ordinary capacity for accomplishing large results with slender means. Their every-day routine was a heavy strain upon their physical as well as mental powers, as far as sharp bargain and sale was concerned. Yet they were but servile instruments in the hands of their superiors. The same might with equal propriety have been said of the entire French population of the country, who lived by industry, if the average of a day's labor in a week could be called such.
Farming was of but secondary interest, and but few of those engaged in it owned the land they tilled, nor had they the least desire to own it.
The French villages in the Illinois country, as well as at most other places, were each under the government of a priest, who, besides attending to their spiritual wants, dispensed justice to them, and from his decisions there was no appeal. Though this authority was abso- lute, the records of the times show no abuse of it, but, on the contrary, prove that it was always used with paternal care. It could hardly be otherwise in their wilderness isolation, uniting, as it did, the interests of all on one common level. Nevertheless, it was a modi- fied form of feudalism, subordinating everything to the will of the Church and State combined, and could not have been perpetuated, into the maturity of the State, with the same happy results that followed its beginning.
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