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Early in 1679 La Salle and the remainder of his company pushed on through the wilderness and erected on the banks of the Illinois the fourth fort. It was appropriately named Fort Creve-coeur, or Heartbreak. The Griffin had long since been due with much needed supplies. It had either foundered on the lakes or been scuttled by a mutinous crew, and the little party on the Illinois were threatened by both famine and In- dian massacre. It was under these circumstances that the he- roic soul of La Salle formed a resolution that for courage and determination has never been surpassed. Before the ice of win- ter had left the streams, he set out with five companions to walk
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La Salle and New France.
through a dense wilderness, part of it infested with hostile In- dians, over a thousand miles to Montreal; there to obtain sup- plies, return to Creve-coeur, which he left in the hands of his faithful lieutenant, Tonty, and then continue his work.
By the time La Salle and his companions had reached Lake Erie, the hardships had so exhausted them that La Salle alone had to ferry five sick men across to the fort on the Canadian shore. Taking three fresh men, he proceeded to Montreal, only to learn that the ship which was to come from France with sup- plies had been wrecked and everything lost. Moreover, as he was gathering supplies, a message arrived from Fort Heart- break that the garrison had mutinied, driven out Tonty, pulled the block-house to pieces, and that they were now waiting on Lake Ontario to murder him on his return. With iron resolu- tion he set out, captured the whole party, and sent them to the governor in chains; then proceeded on his way to the rescue of Tonty. This was done in the summer of 1680, and the autumn of 1681 saw him again on the road to the Mississippi. He had proved himself superior to his enemies, to the elements, and to a series of calamities that would have appalled any ordinary heart. But fortune now seemed to take up his cause. He set ont by way of Ontario, Lake Michigan, the Chicago river, crossed the portage to the Illinois, descended it to the Mississippi, and floated on, week after week, until at last on April 9, 1682, the fleurs-de-lis were planted at its mouth and the great basin from the Alleghanies to the Rockies was declared to be the possession of the King of France, under the name of Louisiana. The period of discovery was complete; all that remained was to cinch the title by settlement. And this is where the vastness of La Salle's plan had to wait on time and circumstances, and led to his own sad fate.
He returned up the Mississippi, and fortified a new post at Starved Rock on the Illinois, which he named St. Louis. Leaving Tonty in command, he hastened to France, where he was honored by an audience with the haughty Louis XIV. He
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Brief History of the Louisiana Territory.
was thoroughly successful, and a magnificent expedition was fitted out to go by sea to the mouth of the Mississippi, and there establish the long desired fortress. But the fates again began spinning their fatal web in which La Salle was soon enmeshed. Beaugeu was selected as the naval commander, and a period of bickering and strife followed. La Salle rightly felt that his will should be obeyed, and he showed little address in dealing with another who was likewise used to command. The disagree- ment of the commanders was less fatal, however, than the mis- takes of the pilots who missed the mouth of the Mississippi, and passed along the coast of Texas, probably to the Matagorda bay. Here, after the loss of some of the vessels, La Salle and a party landed and built Fort St. Louis of Texas, in 1685, while the fleet searched for the mouth of the river, and finally sailed home to France.
The expedition had left France in 1684 with about four hundred people on board, including several families and a num- ber of girls who were to help found homes in the new land. By the end of 1686 the situation was desperate, and a trip to France was found necessary. La Salle determined to return by way of Quebec, passing up the Mississippi, and getting supplies from Tonty at St. Louis of the Illinois. Early in 1687 he set out with sixteen whites and two Indians, leaving twenty people, includ- ing seven girls, behind. They must find the Mississippi, but knew not where, and started out through the wilderness to the east. Their hunger was soon desperate, and by the time they reached the Trinity river, a mutinous spirit arose in the com- pany.' Three of La Salle's faithful friends were murdered by the mutineers. La Salle had a presentiment that they were planning to take his life, but the vigilance thus aroused was un- availing. Two mutinous wretches skulked in ambush, while a third decoyed La Salle into a fatal spot where he was shot dead.
Thus ended the career of the boldest genius France lent to the New World. After great suffering, six of the remaining party reached Canada, while those left behind at St. Louis of
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La Salle and New France.
Texas were attacked by Indians and nearly all killed. Of the whole of La Salle's party only fourteen ever reached a French settlement.
At his death La Salle was only forty-four years of age. He had been in Canada but twenty-one years; yet his person- ality had been stamped more indelibly upon the fabric of New France than any other character in her history. Reared in a home of refinement and luxury, educated in the best schools of Rouen, he became in America a frontiersman whose lofty pur- pose gave him an endurance surpassing the native coureurs-de- bois and even his Indian guides. He was unselfish and far- seeing, but too autocratic and self-contained to inspire loyalty in mediocre minds. His life seemed inextricably interwoven with fate. Pursued by the ridicule and slander of enemies, harassed by creditors, deserted and betrayed by subordinates, twice poi- soned and more than once marked for destruction by mutineers, he pursued his ends with a singleness of purpose, and a depth of determination never surpassed. He endured his misfortunes in silence, and pinned his faith to his own indomitable will. His plans failed during his lifetime, because it was cut short by the hand of the assassin, and because of their very vastness; but New France continued to develop along the lines marked out by his genius, and the French empire in America which crumbled in the middle of the next century before the onslaught of the United Colonies, backed by the English lion and the cross of St. George, was simply the fruition of his ideal.
CHAPTER II.
NEW ORLEANS AND FRENCH LOUISIANA.
T HE work of La Salle was not destined to perish but to bear fruit in the new century about to begin. He had sown the seed with infinite toil and his very life's blood; but while his bones lay bleaching on the plains of Texas, one of his most persistent enemies was to reap where he had sown. The faithful Tonty, who had been left at St. Louis of the Illinois, applied in 1694 for a commission to fulfill the task left incomplete by the death of his chief, but the commis- sion was refused. In 1698, Le Moyne d'Iberville was more successful, and obtained permission to plant a colony in the gate- way to Louisiana. Iberville was a native Canadian, who had joined the French navy, and by sheer ability forced his way to the rank of post-captain. He had learned on the frontier the value of well-directed guns, and carrying this idea into the navy, he preceded the "stars and stripes" in showing how large a part . markmanship could play in deciding naval battles. Against great odds, he drove an English fleet out of Hudson Bay and established a control in that region that lasted for years. With a splendid reputation for valor he now took up the mantle of La Salle and wore it with honor. In breadth and brilliancy of conception he was La Salle's inferior; but not in energy, fire, and resourcefulness.
Iberville sailed from Brest with two warships and a num- ber of transports in October, 1698. His destination was the mouth of the Mississippi, which he entered in March, 1699. He arrived not any too soon; for England and Spain had both de- cided to occupy the mouth of the river. While coasting along from Florida to the Mississippi, he had come upon two Spanish ships in the harbor of Pensacola, who were bent upon securing
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New Orleans and French Louisiana.
the whole region for the King of Spain. Likewise, before the close of the year, Bienville, a younger brother of Iberville, while on an exploring expedition up the Mississippi, met an English ship under command of Captain Louis Bank, who had been sent out to found a settlement on the Mississippi. They were not quite sure that this was the Mississippi, however, and Bienville readily convinced the too credulous Englishmen that it was an- other stream on which Louis XIV. had several flourishing settle- ments. The ship departed, but not before the French engineer under Captain Bank had given Bienville a petition to be carried to King Louis, signed by four hundred Carolina Huguenots, ask- ing that they be allowed to settle as Frenchmen in Louisiana with liberty of conscience. This petition was spurned and thus was saved to the Carolinas some of their best immigrants and lost to France through bigotry the services of her noblest sons in America.
Iberville built a fort at Biloxi, on the coast of Mississippi, where he left Sieur de Sauville and Bienville in command and returned to France. Through fear of English interference, he was almost immediately sent back with reinforcements. His instructions were to establish pearl-fisheries, bison farms, and to look for mines, which was "la grande affaire." Bienville had been exploring the region round about, and on one excursion had discovered an Indian chief wearing a blue-hooded cloak. He likewise had a letter which had been written on a piece of bark by Tonty thirteen years before, when he had descended the Mis- sissippi from Fort St. Louis to meet La Salle. While the latter was famishing in the barren wilds of Texas, his lieutenant with supplies was wearily waiting for him on the banks of the Mis- sissippi.
When Iberville returned to Louisiana, he went up stream as far as Natchez, but later descended, and in January, 1700, built a wooden redoubt on one of the mouths of the Mississippi. He called it Fort La Boulaye, and its purpose was to serve as a 2
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Brief History of the Louisiana Territory.
barricade against the English. This fear of the English was well founded. A quarter of a century before Joliet had found English goods on the banks of the Mississippi, and it was known that they were now in constant communication with the Chicka- saws. Iberville next ordered the feeble establishment at Biloxi to be removed (1701) to Mobile Bay. This drew a protest from the Spanish, which availed nothing, and a third settlement was soon made at Dauphin Island. The strategic point at the mouth of the Mississippi was neglected in order to erect a barrier on the Spanish frontier; but its importance was not forgotten.
Louisiana thus established, drifted on in turbulence and peril. Recruits were occasionally sent out by the French gov- ernment. These recruits consisted of marriageable girls, ques- tionable in quality, religious overseers, male and female, soldiers, workmen, and vagabond adventurers. They were, as a whole, rather a worthless lot, who had not the initiative to hunt for mines, nor the stability to settle down as planters, nor even the ability to govern themselves and live in peace and harmony. They depended on the paternalism of the French government for everything. Idleness and vice were common, and quarrels perpetual. Animals sent out for propagation were slaughtered and eaten by the improvident colonists, while famine and pesti- lence made annual visitations. By 1711, the population had reached the grand total of 380 souls, 170 of whom were in the King's pay, living in the four settlements of Mobile, Biloxi, Dauphin Island, and Ship Island.
Moreover Louis had tired of a dependency which had been a constant drain upon his resources for thirteen years, without yielding any revenue in return and decided to try the disastrous expedient of turning it over to a merchant adventurer. A wealthy business man, named Anthony Crozat, offered to send out two ship-loads of colonists a year, and continue the settlement in return for a monopoly of trade for fifteen years in the whole region drained by the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Ohio, and their tributaries, as far north as the Illinois. The officers were
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New Orleans and French Louisiana.
still to be selected and paid by the King, and a garrison of sol- diers was to be maintained for nine years. La Mothe-Cadillac, the turbulent governor of Detroit, was transferred to Louisiana to take the place of the capable Bienville, and things steadily drifted from bad to worse. By 1717 Crozat had sickened of his bargain and gladly surrendered his contract to the King.
While the grinding monopoly of Crozat was in general harm- ful, it was not without some good results. The population had grown more discontented because they were forbidden to leave Louisiana-thus adding prison bars to misery-and to carry on individual trade; "freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, of trade,'and of action, were alike denied" says Parkman; but their numbers had increased, and some explorations had been made. In 1714, Juchereau de Saint-Denis had been sent out to explore western Louisiana. He had ascended far up the Red river, es- tablished a post at Natchitoches, and crossed to the Spanish set- tlements in Mexico. An effort was made to open trade with the Spaniards, but it was unsuccessful. Trading stations had been established on the present sites of Natchez and Nashville. Coureurs-de-bois had been sent out to search for mines, but their .failure and faithlessness doubtless inspired Governor Cadillac to send to France the despairing note that "this colony is a monster without head or tail, and its government is a shapeless absurdity."
The failure of Crozat was not enough for the French gov- ernment, and the whole region was next turned over to that notor- ious financial charlatan, John Law. He organized the Missis- sippi Company, the shareholders in which were to fatten on the gold mines of Louisiana. Huge ingots of gold from this distant Eldorado were displayed in shop windows by the side of diamonds which were crystallized in a single night by the magic of the Louisiana atmosphere, from the liquid in the petals of certain flowers. Speculation became hysterical and men fought for places in the line to the bank where shares were sold. The com- pany's ships were flooded with volunteers to emigrate.
But disillusion was speedily to follow. The emigrants
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Brief History of the Louisiana Territory.
learned the miserable truth, and in their fury sent exaggerated re- ports of hardships and suffering back to France. The dazzling bubble soon burst, scattering ruin in its wake, while John Law was forced by the infuriated bankrupts to flee for his life.
The rule of the Mississippi Company in Louisiana was short but energetic. Bienville was again made governor and allowed to carry out a scheme long contemplated. The redoubt at the mouth of the Mississippi had been abandoned, and a port was desired higher up the stream. Bienville consequently searched out the best location and in February, 1718, laid the foundation of New Orleans, ever to remain the idolized Mecca of the Creoles. It soon became the center of the Louisiana settlement, and formed a basis for the exploration and trade of the West.
New France now had two capitals: the one on the banks of the St. Lawrence controlling the frigid regions to the north; the other commanding the lazy bayous at the mouth of the Missis- sippi. From Canada and Louisiana proceeded simultaneously the enterprises that were to explore in detail and settle the basin of the Mississippi. From Canada went out Le Sueur who vis- ited the Sioux about the headwaters of the Mississippi as early as 1683. Ten years later he built a fort on the banks of Lake Pepin, after which he went to France and secured a monopoly of the, fur trade for ten years. An expedition was fitted out in France, but La Sueur was captured by the English on the way to Canada. He next decided to make Louisiana his base of operations, and in April, 1700, started up the Mississippi with twenty-five men for the Sioux region in Minnesota. In the autumn they ascended Blue Earth river and built a strong fort which they named Fort l'Huillier. Here they spent the winter, and in the spring descended the Mississippi and sailed to France with a cargo of beaver skins and four thousand pounds of worth- less blue earth, which they imagined would prove a valuable com- modity. The indefatigable La Sueur afterwards fitted out an- other expedition, but died on the road to America.
In 1719 Benard de la Harpe set out from Louisiana, as-
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New Orleans and French Louisiana.
cended the Red river, left a few men at Natchitoches, passed along the northern border of Texas, thence overland north and west to the Arkansas, and finally rested among the Nassonite Indians. They told him that by ascending their river he could reach the Spanish settlements, which indicates that he was in the neighborhood of a tributary of the Rio Grande. Two years after his return he started out to explore the Arkansas, but soon gave up the attempt.
While La Harpe was ascending the Red river in 1719, Du Tisne went up the Missouri river beyond the center of the present State of Missouri. Later he started overland from the Missis- sippi near the southern boundary of the state and penetrated the forest beyond the Osage towards the western border of the State.
In 1722 Bourgmont went up the Missouri and built Fort Orleans near the mouth of the Grand. He then proceeded west- ward, passed along the Kansas river, thence west and south to the Arkansas, where he managed to assemble the chiefs of all the Indian tribes of the region, and exact a treaty of peace whereby the French were to be allowed a free passage through the country to trade with the Spaniards in Mexico. Some fifteen years later, the Mallet brothers explored the Platte river, went up its south fork, thence across the plains of Colorado and south to Santa Fé, where they arrived in 1739.
Meanwhile, the Canadians were plunging into the wilder- ness far to the northwest. Pierre la Verendrye, with Montreal as headquarters, between 1731 and 1740, erected a chain of forts from Lake Superior to the Dakotas-Fort Pierre, on Rainy Lake; Fort St. Charles, on the Lake of the Woods; Fort Maurepas, at the mouth of the Winnipeg river; Fort Bourbon, on Lake Win- nipeg; Fort La Reine, on the Assiniboin; and Fort Dauphin, on Lake Manitoba. La Verendrye had two sons, Pierre and Chev- alier de la Verendrye, no less daring than himself. Using Fort I.a Reine as headquarters, they set out in 1742 in search of the Pacific ocean. They struck out boldly to the west, crossed the Missouri into Dakota, passed just north of the Black Hills,
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Brief History of the Louisiana Territory.
crossed the "Bad Lands," threaded the defiles of the Powder River mountains, and at last descried in the distance the rugged, snow-capped peaks of the Rockies. This Parkman pronounces the discovery of the Rocky mountains proper, although their southern extension had long been known to the Spaniards. . This gigantic wilderness trip had been made with only two followers, without any government aid, and antedated by sixty-two years the expedition of Lewis and Clark.
Practically the whole of Louisiana had now been traversed by the hardy and intrepid French explorers. In the meanwhile New Orleans had passed through numerous vicissitudes. The Mis- sissippi Company had sent out various ship-loads of reinforce- ments. One was a cargo of twenty marriageable girls who were all happily mated within thirty days. In June, 1719 a company of 800 arrived at New Orleans. In October, 200 Germans, valuable as colonists because they were willing to work, settled what was later known as the German coast on the banks of the river twenty miles above New Orleans. Before the close of the year, 500 negro slaves were brought out to swell the force of laborers. New Orleans was drained and palisaded; a levee con- fined the Mississippi to its banks; warehouses were built. A Jesuit station was founded which experimented with various fruits and farm products. A company of Ursuline nuns founded a school for girls, 1727, and established a hospital for the care of the sick.
Other enterprises were begun and new settlements planned. The monopoly of Crozat had left the Illinois region where La Salle had planted Fort St. Louis, in the possession of Canada; but that of the Mississippi Company had been made to include the whole Mississippi basin to the Lakes. Jesuit missionaries had never ceased to labor among the Indians on the Illinois, and in 1700, Father Marest led some of the Kaskaskias to the Mis- sissippi at the mouth of the Kaskaskia river, and there founded a settlement. Within a few weeks of the same date, Father Pirret founded Cahokia, across the river opposite the present site of
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New Orleans and French Louisiana.
St. Louis. Kaskaskia and Cahokia were the oldest permanent settlements in Illinois, Cahokia probably being the senior by a few weeks. Here came roving Canadians, coureurs-de-bois, and occasional stragglers from the Gulf. The earliest settlers mar- ried Indian squaws and built rude little huts of logs or bark to house their numerous progeny. Later, white women from Can- ada or Louisiana reached these settlements and gradually French began to replace the Indian homes.
In 1720 Pierre Boisbriant was sent up from New Orleans with 100 men and founded Ft. Charters, sixteen miles above Kaskaskia. It was built of wood, but afterwards replaced by stone and made the capital of upper Louisiana. Here resided the commandant and the three councillors who ruled the settle- ment and maintained the military connexion between Canada and Louisiana.
A Jesuit monastery was established at Kaskaskia in 1721. During the same year Philip Renault brought 200 miners and 500 slaves and opened lead mines at Galena, Illinois. Prospect- ing parties were sent across into Missouri, where the Mine La- motte and the Potosi mines were opened up. Fur traders pen- etrated the forests and prairies far and near, and hunters found a paradise of delight in the deer, wild turkeys, bear and other game in abundance. Nor was the more stable occupation of agriculture wanting; for, in 1745, Upper Louisiana sent to New Orleans 400,000 pounds of grain. About 1735 a settlement was . made on the Missouri side of the river at St. Genevieve which formed the oldest permanent settlement in the present State of Missouri. The population of the whole region by 1745 had reached nine hundred. But after all is said, the growth of upper Louisiana was slow. The population was worthless and dissolute, and when the Treaty of Paris turned it over to the Spanish it showed little prospect of future greatness.
The new era of enterprise begun with the advent of John Law's Mississippi Company, continued under its guidance until November, 1731, when Louisiana again reverted to the King.
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Brief History of the Louisiana Territory.
New Orleans was progressing slowly, and gradually drawing to itself the radiating lines of industry throughout the whole prov- ince. Indigo, rice, tobacco, and lumber were exported in small quantities. By 1745, the population of the whole territory had grown to 4,000 French and 2,000 negroes. But nothing could preserve from dire threats of starvation a population composed of vagabonds kidnapped in the streets of Paris, convicts swept from the jails of France, profligate adventurers, male and female, a heterogeneous polyglot of confirmed idlers, tale-bearers and gen- eral delinquents, preserved from utter inaninity by an occasional officer of real merit or an unfortunate of noble spirit-all cast together by force of circumstances into the midst of a wilderness demanding toil and fortitude and reeking with hardship and peril. In 1730 the whole New Orleans settlement had to live on the seeds of wild grass and reeds for three months. Food from the Illinois region or from the home government stood, more than once, between the garrison and famine. Moreover, pesti- lence crept into the filthy huts while fevers hovered about the dank atmosphere, and hastened the peopling of the new-born cemeteries.
But amidst the general gloom and perpetually impending disasters, there were compensating features. The vision of em- pire that fired the heart of La Salle still warmed the pride of the Frenchmen. Great schemes to cut off the Englishmen, who were slipping through the gaps of the Appalachian mountains and reaching out with grasping fingers to seize the latent wealth of the west, were being matured. The French leaders were dot- ting the extremities of the Ohio and St. Lawrence regions with forts and garrisons. Parties were sent out to the English bor- ders to plant the fleurs-de-lis and to sink leaden tablets bearing the arms of France as a warning to all intruders. At the junc- tion where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers unite to form the Ohio, one of these parties came upon a sober and dignified youth, bearing an important commission from Governor Dinwid- die, of Virginia. Business of great moment was transacted. A
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