USA > Michigan > A discourse : delivered at the first meeting of the Historical Society of Michigan, September 18, 1829 > Part 1
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肖华小山集真
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01715 3278
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DISCOURSE,
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MICHIGAN, BA LEWIS CASS
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A
DISCOURSE,
DELIVERED AT THE FIRST MEETING
OF THE
- HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MICHIGAN. -
SEPTEMBER 18, 1829.
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PUBLISHED AT THEIR REQUEST.
BY LEWIS CASS.
Detroit.
PRINTED BY GEO. L. WHITNEY.
1830.
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1695707
JULY 3, 1828.
On motion of Henry R. Schoolcraft, Esq.
Resolved, That the celebration of the first Anniversary of the Society, be deferred until the next Session of the Legislative Council, and that the President be requested to deliver a Discourse at that time.
SEPTEMBER 18, 1829.
On motion of the Corresponding Secretary :
Resolved, That Messrs. Schoolcraft, Whiting and Cole, be a Committee to present the thanks of this Society to Gov. Cass, for his very appropriate, interesting and instructive Discourse, this day delivered, and that he be requested to furnish a copy which shall be deposited with its records, and published as soon as it shall direct.
ADDRESS.
GENTLEMEN OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY :
THE association we have formed, and whose first anniversary duties have brought us together, has been instituted for the collection and preservation of such materials, both traditionary and authentic, as may enable us to trace the history of this portion of the United States, and to mark the changes it has undergone. By judicious exertions, we may hope to rescue from oblivion many important documents ; to disclose many facts and transactions, either wholly unknown or imperfectly re- membered ; and to elucidate much that is confused and contradictory in the earlier annals of these regions. The field of labor is sufficiently interesting and extensive for all our industry and zeal. And however rich or ripe the harvest may be, no laborers have preceded us in the vineyard.
I need not dwell upon the utility of associations formed for these objects. In our own country and elsewhere experience has demonstrated the importance of their labors. Individuals, however ardently devoted to such pursuits, can accomplish little by solitary efforts. Unity of action, a generous spirit of emulation, the co-operation
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of the community, and above all, a central point of union. where plans may be proposed and adopted, opinions discussed, and collections and recollections embodied and preserved, are secured by these institutions. Still less need I labor to establish the value of such memorials. In the progress of human life, the present only is felt : the past is recollected, and the future anticipated .- While we recall the one, that we may forctell the other, the mind is withdrawn from those objects of sense, which, however they may supply us with the foundations of knowledge, too often mislead us in its application. The great branches of the human family present various traits of character, various modes of life, and great diversity of changes and incidents in the history and progress of their condition, whether stationary, advan- cing or receding. The history of man must ever be interesting to man; and although where the arts and sciences are cultivated and flourish, this inquiry is most useful and satisfactory ; still, in the rudest condition of society, where nature has done much and cultivation little, there is yet abundant room for observation and contemplation.
There are no proud recollections associated with the earlier history of this region of forests, and lakes, and prairies. No monuments have survived the lapse of ages, to attest at once, the existence of heroic achieve- ments and a nation's gratitude. No names of renown have come down to us, rescued from oblivion by their virtues or their vices. No place is found in all our borders, where the traveller can meditate upon the in- stability of human power, amid the evidence of its existence and decay, nor where the memory of brilliant exploits can be recalled among the scenes of their
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occurrence. Our country is yet fresh and green .- Centuries must roll on, before our arches are broken, our columns dilapidated, our monuments destroyed- before the hand of time shall have impressed upon our high deeds and high places, that sanctity which enables the inhabitants of the Eternal City, even in this day of Roman degeneracy, to look back with pride to the deeds and days of the Republic. Our only monuments are the primitive people around us. Broken and fallen as they are, they yet survive in ruins, connecting the pres- ent with the past, and exciting emotions like those which are felt in the contemplation of other testimonials of human instability.
The early European adventurers found these regions in the possession of numerous tribes of savages, divided into separate communities and speaking various langua- ges, but having a general resemblance in their physical relations, their manners and customs, their religion, government and institutions. Much labor and research have been devoted to an inquiry into their origin and migrations. Many idle notions have prevailed respect- ing these topics, unworthy now of serious examination, except as they furnish evidence of the waywardness of the human intellect. That they are branches of the great Tartar stock is generally believed at the present day. Many points of resemblance, both physical and moral, leave little doubt upon the subject. But why, or when, or where the separation occurred, or by what route, or in what manner, they were conducted from the plains of Asia to those of America, it were vain to inquire, and impossible to tell.
Almost three centuries have elapsed, since Jacques Cartier, the first European adventurer, who ascended
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the St. Lawrence, that great artery of these regions, landed upon the Island of Montreal, then called Hoche- lega. He found it in the possession of a branch of the Wyandot stock of Indians, who had not long before subdued the more ancient inhabitants, and established themselves in their place. The slight notices which the historian of this expedition has left, of the appearance and situation of the primitive people who occupied this continent before us, and whose descendants still occupy it with us, leave little room to doubt, that in all the essential features of character and condition, this branch of the human family has been as stationary as any whose records are known to us. That the coming of the white man among them has on the whole been injurious, there is too much reason to believe. But those day dreams of Arcadian innocence and peace, which assigned to the Indian every moral and physical blessing till he was reft of them by the Christian spoiler, exist only where weak heads and warm hearts survey the picture drawn by their own imaginations. The present is not the occa- sion to examine this question. It is only necessary in confirmation of the general position, to state that the various tribes were in a state of active warfare, and of a warfare too, which was without cause in its origin, without mercy in its progress, and with no other termi- nation, but the destruction of one of the parties.
Cartier was the pioncer, but Champlain was the founder of the French power upon this continent. For twenty years succeeding the commencement of the sev- enteenth century, he was zealously employed in planting and rearing upon the banks of the St. Lawrence that infant colony, which was destined to extend its branches to these shores, and finally to contest with its great rival,
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the sovereignty of North America. Champlain display- ed, in his adventurous life, traits of heroism, self-devotion and perseverance, which, under more favorable circum- stances, would have placed him in the rank of those, whose deeds are the landmarks of history.
I shall not attempt to trace the progress of these remote settlements, nor to mark their alternations of prosperity and adversity. They are peculiarly interest- ing to us, only as they exhibit the gradual and successive steps, by which a knowledge of these internal seas, and of the countries around them, was acquired, and the settlements formed and extended. As the tide of French power flows towards this peninsula, we become more anxious to trace its principles and progress, and to inquire into the motives and means of the hardy adventurers, who were every year ascending, still farther and farther, the boundless waters before them. It was early discov- ered, that a profitable traffic in furs could be carried on with the Indians, and the excitement of gain prompted those engaged in it, to explore every avenue, by which the camps and hunting grounds of the Indians could be approached. A better and nobler feeling, too, brought to this work, a body of learned and pious men, who left behind them their own world, with all its pleasures and attachments, and sought, in the depths of remote and unknown regions, objects for the exercise of their zeal and piety. The whole history of human character fur- nishes no more illustrious examples of self-devotion, than are to be found in the records of the establishments of the Roman Catholic missionaries, whose faith and fer- vor enabled them to combat the difficulties around them in life, or to triumph over them in death.
By the operation of these causes, a knowledge of the
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great features of the continent was gradually acquired, and the circle of French power and influence enlarged. As early as 1632, seven years only after the foundations of Quebec were laid, the missionaries had penetrated to Lake Huron, by the route of Grand River, and Father Sagard has left an interesting narrative of their toils and sufferings, upon its bleak and sterile shores. The Wyandots had been driven into that region, from the banks of the St. Lawrence, by their inveterate enemies the Iroquois, whose valor, and enterprize, and success constitute the romance of Indian history. The good priests accompanied them in this expatriation, and if they could not prevent their sufferings, they shared them. No portion of these wide domains was secure from the conquering Iroquois, and they pursued their discomfitted enemies with relentless fury. Little would be gained by an attempt to describe the events of this exterminating warfare. The details are as afflicting, as any recorded in the long annals of human vengeance and human sufferings. Villages were sacked; men, women and children murdered ; and by day and by night, in winter and in summer, there was neither rest nor safety for the vanquished. The character of the missionaries did not exempt them from a full participation in the misfortunes of their converts, and many of them were murdered at the foot of the altar, with the crucifix in their hands, and the name of God upon their lips. Some were burned at the stake, with all those horrible accompaniments of savage ingenuity, which add intensity to the pangs of the victims, and duration to their sufferings. But nothing could shake the fortitude of these apostles of benevo- lence. They lived the life of saints, and died the death of martyrs. The feeble remnant of the once powerful
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Wyandots sought and found refuge among the Sioux. in the country west of Lake Superior. Here they remained, until the power of their enemies was reduced by their contests with the French, when they descended the Upper Lakes, and established themselves in this quarter.
It is now difficult to conceive, what however is well authenticated, that a century and a half ago, the great central point of Indian influence and intelligence was upon the southern shore of Lake Superior, and far towards its western extremity. This was the seat of the Chippewa power, and here was burning that eternal fire, whose extinction foretold, if it did not occasion, some great national calamity. No fact is better estab- lished in the whole range of Indian history, than the devotion of some, if not all the tribes, to this character- istic feature of the ancient superstition of the Magi. And it proves their separation from the primitive stock at an early day, when this belief was prevalent among the eastern nations. All the ceremonies, attending the preservation of this fire, yet live in Indian tradition, and it was still burning, when the French first appeared among them. There were male and female guardians, to whose care it was committed ; and when we recollect the solemn ritual and dreadful imprecations, with which the same pledge of Roman safety was guarded and pre- served, it ought not to surprise us, that such importance was attached by the Indians to the ceaseless endurance of this visible emblem of power, whose duration was to be coeval with their national existence. The augury has proved but too true. The fire is extinct, and the power has departed from them. We have trampled or the one, and overthrown the other.
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The circumstances of another custom have survived the general wreck, in which so much of their tradition has perished. Upon the Sandusky river, and near where the town of Lower Sandusky now stands, lived a band of the Wyandots, called the Neutral Nation. They occupied two villages, which were cities of refuge, where those, who sought safety, never failed to find it. During the long and disastrous contests, which preceded and followed the arrival of the Europeans, and in which the Iroquois contended for victory, and their enemies for existence, this little band preserved the integrity of their territories, and the sacred character of peace-makers. More fortunate than the English monarch, who, seated upon the shore of the ocean, commanded its waves to come no farther, they stayed the troubled waters, which flowed around, but not over them. All, who met upon their threshold, met as friends, for the ground, on which they stood, was holy. It was a beautiful institution ; a calm and peaceful island, looking out upon a world of waves and tempests.
As the course of the French trade first took the route of the Ottawas river, their establishments upon the upper Lakes, preceded their settlement on our strait. Soon after the middle of the seventeenth century, trading posts were established at Michillimackinac, at the Sault Ste Marie, at Green Bay, at Chicago, and at St. Joseph. It was soon known, from the reports of the Indians, that a great river flowed through the country beyond the Lakes, in a southerly direction, and it became an object with the French authorities to ascertain its source, its outlet, and its features. Joliet, an inhabitant of Quebec, and Father Marquette, were employed by the French Intendant to prosecute this discovery. They ascended
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the Fox river, crossed the Portage, descended the Ouis- consin, and entered the Mississippi, the 17th of June, 1673. They followed the current to the Arkansas river, when they were induced by untoward circumstances to return, leaving unsolved, the great question of the place of discharge of this mighty stream, where it was suppo- sed the French interests would require a powerful and permanent establishment. They returned by the Illi- nois, and re-entered Lake Michigan at Chicago.
The full completion of this discovery was reserved for La Sale. He was a man of genius and cultivated talents. Firm in his resolutions, persevering in his efforts, full of resource, he seemed destined to enlarge the geographical knowledge, and to extend the dominion of his countrymen. He built the first vessel, that ever . navigated these Lakes. She was launched at Eric, and called the Griffin. La Sale embarked in her, with every thing necessary for the prosecution of his undertaking, and in 1679, ascended this river. He reached Michilli- mackinac, where he left his vessel, and coasted Lake Michigan in canoes, to the mouth of the St. Joseph. The Griffin was despatched to Green Bay for a cargo of furs, but she was never more heard of, after leaving that place. Whether she was wrecked, or captured and destroyed by the Indians, no one knew at that day, and none can tell now. La Sale prosecuted his enter- prise with great vigor, amid the most discouraging circumstances. By the abilities he displayed, by the successful result of his undertaking, and by the melan- choly catastrophe, which terminated his own carcer, he is well worthy a place, among that band of intrepid adventurers, who, commencing with Columbus, and ter- minating with Parry and Franklin, have devoted them-
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selves, with noble ardor, to the extension of geographical knowledge, and have laid open the recesses of this con- tinent. Among these, there is none, whose bearing was more lofty, or whose adventures, even now, excite a more thrilling interest, than those of Robert de La Sale. , Time will not allow us to trace the incidents of his expedition. It is enough to observe, that he reached the Gulf of Mexico, and saw the mingling of the great waters. From that time, the French government con- ceived the splendid project of establishing a cordon of posts from Quebec, along these lakes and rivers, to the Delta of the Mississippi, by which the Indian tribes might be overawed, the fur trade secured, and the colo- nies of their rival confined within comparatively narrow limits. This plan was matured, and in the process of rapid execution, before it attracted the attention of the British government. Our own Washington commenced his eventful public life, by an embassy to the command- ing officers of the French posts upon the Ohio and Alleghany, remonstrating against their advancing estab- lishments ; and his journal evinces the sagacity, with which he foresaw their plan, and its consequences .- How different might have been the destiny of our coun- try, had this scheme been accomplished.
It is difficult, at this day, to trace the causes of the attachment and aversion, which were respectively man- ifested by the various tribes, for the French and English. The interest of the former generally predominated, and they seem to have had a peculiar facility in identifying themselves with the feelings of the Indians, and in gain- ing their affections. But even in this quarter, the seeds of disaffection were early sown, and ripened, as we shall sec, into an abundant harvest. The Fox or Outa-
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gami Indians, who then occupied this strait, evinced a restless disposition from their first acquaintance with the French, and a determined predilection for the English. This was cultivated by the usual interchange of mes- sages and presents, and an English trading expedition actually reached Michillimackinac in 1686.
During such a contest for supremacy, both in power and commerce, the great advantages, offered by an es- tablishment upon this river, could not escape the obser- vation of the contending parties. In fact, it is difficult to conceive, why it was so long postponed, and we can only account for it by recollecting, that the French had another and safer way, by which they could commu- nicate with the north-western regions. If the English entered the country at all, they must enter by this route, and a position here, was in fact the key of the whole region above us. Influenced by these motives, the English government seriously contemplated its oc- cupation, but they were anticipated by the decisive movement of their rivals. A great Council was conve- ned at Montreal, at which were present all the distin- guished Chiefs of the various tribes occupying the country from Quebec to the Mississippi. It is described by the French historians, as the most numerous and imposing assemblage, ever collected around one council fire, and it was attended by the Governor-general, and all that was noble and powerful in New France. Its discussions, and proceedings, and result were fully recorded, and have come down to us unimpaired. The whole policy of the French intercourse with the Indians was consid- ered, and the wants and complaints of the various parties made known. The Iroquois stated, that they had un- derstood the French General was about to establish a
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post upon the Detroit river, and objected strenuously to the measure, because the country was theirs, and they had already prevented the English from adopting the same step. The Governor-general, in answer, informed them, that neither the Iroquois nor the English could claim the country, but that it belonged to the King of France ; and that an expedition, destined for this service, had already commenced its march. And we collect from the narrative of the proceedings, that in June, 1701, Mons. de la Motte Cadillac, with one hundred men and a Jesuit, left Montreal, carrying with them every thing necessary for the commencement and support of an es- tablishment, and reached this place in the month of July, one hundred and twenty-nine years since.
Here then, commences the history of Detroit, and with it, the history of the Peninsula of Michigan. How numerous and diversified are the incidents, compressed within the period of its existence! No place in the United States presents such a series of events, interest- ing in themselves, and permanently affecting, as they occurred, its progress and prosperity. Five times its flag has changed, three different sovereignties have claimed its allegiance, and since it has been held by the United States, its government has been thrice transferred ; twice it has been besieged by the Indians, once captured in war, and once burned to the ground. Identified as we are with its future fate, we may indulge the hope, that its chapter of accidents has closed, and that its advancement will be hereafter uninterrupted.
We have no where a connected account of the pro- gress of this colony ; occasional notices are interspersed through the French historians, and detailed descriptions are given of a few of the more important events, but
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the whole subject is involved in much obscurity. The statistical facts are altogether neglected. We have no comparative estimates of population or production ; none of those severe investigations into the character and condition of the country, which render modern history so valuable and satisfactory. A small stockaded fort was erected, extending from the present arsenal to Griswold street, and enclosing a few houses, occupied by the per- sons attached to the post, and the traders. The whole establishment was slight and rude, intended rather to overawe, than seriously to resist, the Indians. Only the third year after the position was taken, the Indians in its vicinity were invited to Albany, and many of the Chiefs of the Ottawas actually visited that place. They returned, disaffected to the French interest, and persua- ded that the post was established here to restrain, and eventually to subduc them. They set fire to the town, but it was fortunately discovered and extinguished, be- fore much injury was done. In the same spirit, and about the same time, a war party, on their return from a successful expedition against the Iroquois, paraded in front of the Fort, and attempted to induce the other Indians to join them in an attack. Monsieur de Tonté, who then held the command, detached the Sieur de Vincennes to repulse them. That officer executed the duty with so much valor and ability, that the Ottawas were defeated, and in their precipitate flight, abandoned their prisoners, who fell into the hands of the French, and were restored to their countrymen.
At that time, there were three villages in the vicinity of the Fort. One was a Huron village, the site of which was upon the farm now owned by Col. Jones. Another was a Potawatamie village, upon the farm of Mr. Na-
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varre, and the third was a village of Ottawas, on the opposite shore and above the town. These were perma- nently occupied, but great numbers occasionally resorted here; and it is evident from many circumstances, that the country was populous, and the people well supplied. Charlevoix, who visited it in 1721, represents it as the most desirable part of New France. Game was abun- dant, and herds of buffalo were then ranging upon the prairies about the River Raisin.
The first serious calamity, which threatened the infant colony with destruction, arose from an unexpected quar- ter. Until this time, the Ottogamies or Foxes were little known, and no striking event had directed the attention of the French towards them. We are there- fore unable to trace the causes, which induced them to take up arms, or the means they had provided for the accomplishment of their daring enterprise. They appear to have been connected with the Iroquois, and with them, to have embraced the English interest. Their history, for fifty years succeeding this period, is a history of desperate efforts, directed against the French and many of the tribes around them, evincing a firmness of purpose, a reckless valor, and a patient endurance of misfortunes, worthy of a better cause and a better fate.
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