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across the forest towards a prairie. Leaving their canoes in charge of the others, Marquette and Joliet set out to follow the path. They walked until they saw seven Indian villages in the distance. Then creeping cautiously along, they came near enough to hear talking in the wigwams. With a shout they made themselves known, and paused in anxious doubt whether their reception would be that of friends or foes. The Indians swarmed out of their wigwams like wasps out of their nests. For an instant all was wild excitement and confusion. Then calumet bearers were seen advancing with their peace pipes. Marquette and Joliet received them thankfully.
The Indians proved to be the Illinois. Far from being foes they were most friendly to the French. A grand reception was at once held, which all the warriors, squaws and children attended. Marquette, standing forth among them, pro- claimed his sacred message of the Christian faith, and the nature of the enterprise upon which he and Joliet were en- gaged. The chief of the tribe responded in a speech, in which he expressed his joy at seeing the white men and his admiration of them, but implored them to proceed no fur- ther in their hazardous undertaking.
All sat down now to a great feast, served in the highest Indian style. First there was a wooden bowl of sagamity or hominy, seasoned with bits of meat and grease, which the Indians fed to their guests with wooden spoons, as though they were infants. Then came fish. The Indians carefully removing the bones and blowing on the morsels to cool them, placed them with their own fingers in the mouths of their guests. The greatest savage luxury, roast dog, was then presented, but learning that it was not palatable to the priest, the Indians politely substituted buffalo meat in its stead. The night was passed talking and sleeping on buffalo skins stretched over the ground. The next morning an escort of six hundred followed Marquette and his friend to
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
their canoes, and waved them farewell as they pushed from the bank and paddled out of sight down the stream.
The canoes passed the mouth of the Illinois, and shortly afterwards came to a huge towering rock, on the face of which the Indians had painted hideous monsters in red, green and yellow. The good priest, terrified at what he considered the work of the devil, hurried away from it, with many prayers and signs of the cross.
And now, the great, rushing, yellow torrent of the Missouri poured into the stream before the travelers, turning the cur- rents into a muddy brown. Their canoes almost upset in the sudden whirlpool and eddies. On they paddled, past the site of the present city of St. Louis and the mouth of the Ohio. The highland scenery changed into lowland scenery ; mosquitoes made their appearance. A few miles above the month of the Arkansas they came to the village of the Kap- pas Indians, who at first sight gave furious war cries and seized bows and arrows and made most terrific demonstra- tions. They were pacified, however, and feasted the voy- agers and permitted them to pursue their way unharmed.
At the mouth of the Arkansas was a large village of the Arkansas Indians. These received the travelers well and entertained them hospitably.
Marquette and Joliet decided that this should be the end of their exploration. They had found out that the Missis- sippi flowed south, not west, and that it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico, not into the Gulf of California. Thinking themselves much nearer the mouth of it than they really were, they feared if they went further they might fall into the hands of the Spaniards or of some hostile Indians, and so not be able to return at all.
The canoes being headed up stream, they retraced their course to the Illinois, which they entered and so reached Lake Michigan and the mission house at Green Lake. But mid- summer heat and the long voyage were too much for the deli-
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cate body of the priest. He fell ill, and on reaching Green Bay was too weak to continue the journey. It was then the end of September. Joliet proceeded to Quebec alone. He gave the governor the account of his and Mar- quette's voyage. Frontenac, delighted with the success of it, ordered public rejoicings, and, in sign of the French triumph, changed the name of the great river from Missis- sippi to Colbert, after the enlightened minister of Louis XIV.
The saintly Marquette remained at Green Bay a year. Thinking then that his health was sufficiently restored, he re- turned to the beautiful country of the Illinois to found a mission there. He was received like an angel from heaven by the Indians, and was entering on his pious work, when his disease came upon him again. He hastened his departure, but he was not able to arrive at Green Bay; his sufferings increased so violently that he was forced to stop on the shores of Lake Michigan, where he expired and was buried.
QUESTIONS.
How many years after De Soto before the Mississippi was again visited by white men? Describe the advance of the French into Canada. How did they hear of the Mississippi? Who was La Salle? How did the idea of exploring the west come to him? What country did he think to reach in crossing the continent to the west? Relate what followed. Who was Joliet ?. Continue with La Salle's expedi- tion. Did he get into the Mississippi? Who was the new governor of Canada? Who was named to accompany Joliet? Who was Mar- quette? How did Marquette and Joliet get into the Mississippi? What Indian village did they pass? What did the Indians tell them of the Indians along the Mississippi? Describe the upper Missis- sippi. Relate the journey of Joliet and Marquette. Arrival of Joliet in Canada? Death of Marquette? After whom did Frontenac name the Mississippi?
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
CHAPTER III. FRENCH EXPLORERS CONTINUED.
La Salle meanwhile had not been idle. Having thor- oughly explored the two ways to the Mississippi, he had set about to make his plans and preparations to take possession of the river itself. His plans, as a look at the map will show, were very grand and of vast importance to France. He pro- posed not only to explore the Mississippi to its mouth, but to build forts and trading posts as he went along in all favorable places, particularly at the mouths of those great rivers that flowed into the Mississippi.
As France already possessed the great lakes at the north, this would make her inistress of all the great waterways of the country and give her the monopoly of all its trade. It was a scheme that instantly found favor with Frontenac, and as a first step toward accomplishing it he gave to La Salle the new fort he had just built, Fort Frontenac, and all the trading privileges attached to it. But to carry out such a scheme required a great outlay of money. La Salle went to France, where he secured the favor of the king and raised money for the enterprise, and in addition gained a friend and companion whose loyal faithfulness was never to swerve from him. This was Henri de Tonty, an Italian officer, surnamed the " Iron Hand," from an artificial hand of metal which he wore to replace the one he had lost in the wars .*
For a year after his return to Canada La Salle was busily en- gaged making his preparations. An expedition of this size could not be carried in canoes ; large vessels were needed to convey the supplies of men, arms, ammunition, provisions and building material across the great lakes, and to bring back to Canada the large stores of furs which La Salle ex-
* Tonty wore a glove over it, and made good use of it afterwards to astonish and keep the Indians in awe of him ; sometimes, with a slight tap from it cracking their skulls or knocking out their teeth.
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pected to get from the Indians. He got his party together and started from Frontenac, and advanced to Niagara river, where they stopped to build a fort, and a vessel which was named the Griffin. They embarked again, and, sailing through Lakes Erie and Huron, and Lake Michigan, came to the mouth of the St. Joseph river. Here they stopped and built a fort, Fort Miami.
But it is one thing to plan expeditions and another to carry them out. La Salle, for all his courage and fortitude, was no leader. Proud, haughty, reserved and suspicious, his men, instead of loving him, learned to dislike and fear him. They deceived him, and stole from him; they deserted at every opportunity ; they even tried to assassinate him.
From Fort Miami the Griffin was sent back to Canada loaded with a wealthy cargo of furs gathered from the Indians.
Nothing was ever afterward heard of the vessel or cargo. La Salle always thought that the captain had scuttled her and made away with the furs, which in those days were as good as gold. He pushed on in canoes up the St. Joseph to its end, and carried his canoes over the portage to the Kankakee, which flowed into the Illinois. But the Illinois Indians, so gentle and hospitable to Marquette, were distrustful of and savage to La Salle. French traders, jealous of La Salle's fur monopoly, had poisoned the minds of the natives against him. He built his third fort on the Illinois river, a few miles above the Indian village on Lake Peoria. Messengers from Canada here brought him the news that, besides the loss of the Griffin, his creditors had seized his property at Fort Frontenac. In his grief and disappointment he gave his new stronghold the appropriate name of " Creve-Cœur" (Broken Heart).
With the Griffin and all his furs lost, his property in Can- ada seized, his men deserting and mutinous, provisions ex- hausted and no means at hand to replace them, La Salle saw himself forced to go to Canada for new supplies. He left
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Fort Creve-Cœur in command of Tonty and set out with four men and an Indian guide. It was in early spring, the deep snow lay white upon the ground, the rivers and lakes were frozen over. He raade the journey, over a thousand miles, mostly on foot with snow shoes, dragging his canoe after him .*
HIe hastened through his business in Canada, and in the autumn he once more paddled his canoe through the waters of the St. Joseph, towards his fort. But what a different scene met his eye as he advanced! Fort Miami deserted and destroyed ; the great towns of the Illinois a shocking sight of rapine, cruelty and outrage ; blood and corpses, fire and havoc everywhere. He pushed on to Fort Creve-Cœur and Tonty. The fort was demolished, no human being visible. The bloody Iroquois had passed over the country, and noth- ing but the silent forests were left to bear witness to the thoroughness of their work.
But the indefatigable explorer was only the more resolved not to give up. He had to return to Canada again and make a new start on his journey. He searched in every direction for traces of Tonty. He had given him up as massacred, when from some Indians on Green Bay he heard that the " Iron Hand " was still alive among the Indians of Lake On- tario. La Salle sped on, found him, and together they com- menced at the very beginning again to form their expedition.
Success of La Salle. 1682 .- They set out in the early winter, fifty-four of them, in canoes. Following the route with which they were now familiar, they got into the Illinois, and from it into the Mississippi.
* Before starting from the fort, La Salle sent a priest named Hennepin to explore the Illinois river and upper Mississippi. Hennepin was captured by the Sioux Indians and carried far up in the northwest. At the Falls of St. Anthony, which he named after his patron saint, he was rescued by a Canadian "coureur de bois" (adventurer). Hennepin did not return to Fort Creve-Cœur, but went on to Canada, where he published an account of his adventures. After La Salle's death, he claimed that besides discovering the head of the Mississippi, he had gone to the mouth of the river, and that he, not La Salle, was entitled to the honor of its first exploration. His claim was proved to be false, and he untrustworthy,
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They paddled down the Mississippi, gazing, as Marquette and Joliet had done, with awe and wonder on the mighty stream turning and twisting before them through its forest- covered heights and slopes. Camping on the Chickasaw bluffs they built a fort which they named Fort Prudhomme, after one of the men who went hunting in the woods and did not return. After six days' continual searching for him, La Salle concluded he must have been killed and was proceed- ing without him, when he was found and brought to camp, almost dead from hunger and fatigue.
They stopped at the Kappas and Arkansas villages at the mouth of the Arkansas river, which had formed the limit of Marquette and Joliet's explorations. The In- dians showed themselves gentle, kind hearted and hospitable. When the smoking, feasting and entertainment following their reception were over, La Salle, with great pomp and ceremony, erected a cross bearing the arms of the king of France. The priest chanted a Latin hymn, the soldiers shouted " Vive le roi!" and La Salle in a loud voice pro- claimed that he took possession of the whole country in the name of the king of France. The Indians standing around stared in wonder and admiration.
Arkansas guides piloted the party the rest of their way down the river. They showed La Salle on the right hand side of the river the path that led to the great Tensas village, on Lake Tensas, a few miles inland. While the rest of the expedition waited at the river landing, Tonty with some of the men went on a visit to it.
Great Tensas Village. 1682 .- It was indeed a great village ; greater and handsomer than any Tonty had ever seen in America. The wigwams were large and well built ; their shape round. The walls were of pickets plastered with mortar, made of clay and moss; the roofs were conical shaped, formed of split canes fastened together, with a hole in the pointed centre for a chimney. The temple of the sun
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and the lodge of the chief were built like the other wigwams, only larger and handsomer. On the roof of the temple and on each side the entrance were daubed rude pictures of animals. The inside was a dark, gloomy bare room, in which stood a kind of altar ; before it burned a perpetual fire from three logs placed end to end. The temple was sur- rounded by a palisade on which were stuck the heads of the victims sacrificed to the sun god ; and before the door was a block of wood on which lay braids of hair, also from the sac- rificed. The chief and the dignitaries of the village wore white mantles woven from the bark of the mulberry tree. They all came in state to visit La Salle at the bank of the river and returned loaded with presents which the generous French- man had bestowed upon them.
Down to the Mouth of the Mississippi. 1682 .- The explorers next stopped at the Natchez village, which in size and appearance was very like the Tensas. La Salle erected another cross here. The Houmas village, which came next, was passed in a fog without being seen.
Then came Red river, rolling from the west, churning up the Mississippi into eddies and whirlpools and emptying into it great floating trees and masses of driftwood. The canoes glided unknowingly over the spot where the dead body of the unfortunate De Soto had been sunk in midnight burial, and sped unmolested between the banks from which the am- bushed warriors had sent their deadly arrows into Muscoso's flying band. At the Quinipissas village, warlike sounds broke into their peaceful, calm advance. But La Salle, anxious to avoid strife and bloodshed, hastened by unheed- ing. He stopped at a village he saw on the left bank of the river. It was deserted, and some of the cabins were filled with corpses. It was the village of the Tangipahoas, destroyed by their enemies only a few days before.
Now the river divided into three channels. The canoes paddled into them- and now the bright gleaming gulf
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opened out before them. Eyes gladdened-Voices rose in shouts-The journey was ended-The task at last accom- plished-The Mississippi explored to its very mouth !
Taking Possession of the Mississippi. 1682 .- La Salle jumped to the land. By the grace of God and his own in- domitable will the plans formed at La Chine thirteen years before, while his eyes looked across the forest toward the set- ting sun, had been realized.
After sounding and exploring all around the mouth of the river, the canoes filed up stream again and paddled along until they came to where the banks rose dry and firm above the muddy current. Here all landed-La Salle, Tonty, priests, Frenchmen, Canadians, Indians. After prayers and hymns of thanksgiving and praise, a great column was made and erected, bearing the arms of the king of France. La Salle, standing beside the column, made the following proc- lamation in a loud voice :
"In the name of the most high, mighty, invincible and victorious " Prince, Louis the Great, by the grace of God King of France and of " Navarre, fourteenth of that name, I, this 9th day of April, 1682, in " virtue of the commission of his Majesty, which I hold in my hand, and " which may be seen by all whom it may concern, have taken, and do " now take in the name of his Majesty and of his successors to the crown, " possession of this country of Louisiana, the seas, harbors, ports, " bays, adjacent straits, and all the nations, peoples, provinces, towns, " cities, villages, mines, minerals, fisheries, streams and rivers within " the extent of the said Louisiana, from the mouth of the great river, " St. Louis, otherwise called the Ohio, as also along the river Colbert, " or Mississippi, and the rivers which discharge themselves thereinto, . . from its source as far as its mouth at the sea or Gulf of
" Mexico . from the assurance we have from the natives of " this country that we were the first Europeans who have descended " or ascended the said river Colbert; thereby protesting against all " who may hereafter undertake to invade any or all of these aforesaid " countries or lands to the prejudice of the rights of his Majesty, ac- " quired by consent of the natives dwelling therein; of which and " of all else that is needful, I hereby take to witness those who hear " me, and demand an act of the notary, here present.
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
The cross was then planted with further ceremonies and near it was buried a leaden plate engraved with the arms of the king of France, and the inscription, Ludovicus Magnus regnat : Louis the Great reigns.
La Salle fell ill on the return voyage and was forced to stop at Fort Prudhomme, while Tonty carried the report of the expedition to Canada. By the middle of summer he was able to go to Fort Miami. There he remained for a year with Tonty, arranging plans for a new expedition. He then went to Canada and sailed to France.
QUESTIONS.
What was La Salle doing meanwhile? Give an account of his schemes? What friend did he gain in France? Continue La Salle's operations, start and journey? What fort did he build on the St. Joseph? Continue account of journey? What was the location and name of his third fort? Why was La Salle forced to return to Canada? Relate his return? Who and what was Hennepin? Continue account of La Salle? Where is Fort Prudhomme? Describe Kappas and Arkansas village? Describe the great Tensas village? Quinipissas village? The deserted Tangipahoa village? Describe the act of taking possession?
CHAPTER IV.
FRENCH EXPLORERS CONTINUED.
La Salle's new expedition was to be an entirely different enterprise from the last. Instead of undertaking again the long, difficult and dangerous journey from Canada, La Salle decided to sail direct from France, and found a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, fetching at once all the settlers and materials necessary. When the colony was fairly es- tablished he intended to open communications with Canada, and build his line of forts and trading posts along the way to it. The Mississippi, it is true, did not lead to the west
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and to China, but it flowed south, leading to the mines of Mexico and the trading centres of Spanish America and the West Indies. He had visions of discovering in Louisiana gold and silver mines as rich as those in Mexico, and of monopolizing all the commerce of the Gulf of Mexico and the Carribean Sea. He even looked forward, in case of a war between France and Spain, to the invading and captur- ing of Mexico itself.
The court of France granted all that was needed for the new colony and forts, and La Salle, confident and full of hope, sailed with two hundred and eighty colonists, in four ships, from La Rochelle, in July, 1684. But from its be- ginning the enterprise seemed doomed to disaster and mis- fortune.
The same unhappy faults of temper which made La Salle unpopular with his subordinates and companions before, produced dissensions again. His jealousy and tyranny be- came unbearable. Before he was half way across the ocean his men hated him; he was in dispute with every officer in the squadron, and in open quarrel with Mr. de Beaujeu, the officer of the royal navy sent to escort him. At St. Domingo many of his men deserted. The rest suffered cruelly from an epidemic of fever then raging there. La Salle himself fell dangerously ill of it, and while he was slowly recovering he heard of the capture of one of his vessels and valuable cargo by the buccaneers. The news gave him a relapse, from which he came near dying. Finally he was able to set sail in the month of December.
On the Gulf Coast. 1685 .- On New Year's day, 1685, they came to anchor in sight of land.
When he was at the mouth of the Mississippi, La Salle had taken its latitude, but not its longitude ; consequently he had to steer his ships with only half knowledge of the loca- tion of the point he was steering for. Had he sailed due north from the channel into the gulf, he would have hit it,
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
but he heard such exaggerated accounts of the easterly cur- rents of the Gulf of Mexico that he thought he must take a westerly course to counteract them. A look at the map will show the result of his error. Instead of landing near the mouth of the Mississippi he landed four hundred miles away on the coast of Texas.
The low sandy shore was the same as the shore around the Mississippi, and its configuration was not unlike the delta. La Salle was convinced that it was the delta of the Mississippi and would hear no contrary opinion from any of his officers. The ships sailed along the coast until they came to Mata- gorda Bay ; there the colony disembarked. One of the freight vessels was wrecked entering the harbor and most of her cargo was lost. De Beaujeu, the royal escort, with his vessel, sailed back to France. A fort was built named Fort St. Louis, and the emigrants struggled along heroically for two years in their forlorn condition, building lodgings and fortifications and tilling the ground. But the seasons were against them, pro- visions and the supplies of clothing gave out, and sickness attacked them. The little graveyard filled, fuller and fuller. Worst of all, the last remaining vessel was wrecked and lost, and all communication with the mother country, all hope from the outside world, was cut off. Despair settled over the fort and its inmates. During this trying period, La Salle, always great in misfortunes, showed marvelous patience, courage and fortitude, day and night devoting himself to to those who had trusted their future to him. He was the last of the band, however, to open his eyes to the facts of his desperate situation, that instead of being on the Missis- sippi, he and his colony were castaways on an unknown and unexplored shore, out of reach of help of any French set- tlement.
End of La Salle. 1687 .- La Salle adopted the only re- source left him-to go on foot to Canada and fetch back help to the colony. He assembled what was left of his
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wretched companions, only about forty now, and announced his resolution to them. He selected those who were to ac- company him, about twenty, among them his brother, the Abbe Cavelier, and his nephew, with a priest, and the young Frenchman, Joutel, who afterward wrote an account of the journey. The parting was sad and solemn, the women and young girls weeping bitterly.
La Salle, still, notwithstanding the desperate nature of his mission, could not lay aside his haughty demeanor to his companions. The men under him, naturally lawless, had be- come savage with suffering and disappointment. They were not disposed to stand any discipline from their superiors. A dispute between some of them and La Salle's nephew re- sulted in the assassination of the nephew. The assassins then, for their own safety, forced all the men to join them, and to make themselves perfectly secure, and satisfy their long hatred against La Salle, they waylaid and murdered him.
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