USA > Michigan > A history of the northern peninsula of Michigan and its people, its mining, lumber and agricultural industries, Volume I > Part 16
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Having noted, comparatively, the development of the claims of the European countries to territory in this new world, and the strifes en- gendered between those countries as having effect upon the early history of the Upper Peninsula, we come now to the time when our own locality was visited by the French. There is no doubt that much had been learned by the French of the resources and the waterways of this locality through interconrse with the Indians of this locality who went to the St. Lawrence to trade; and it may be that unknown and unre- corded French traders had penetrated this section in their dealings with the Indians, but, unfortunately, those early traders seemed content with the experiences and profits of their trade, and paid little attention to the coming wants of the historian, and we are left largely in the dark as to their early movements.
JEAN NICOLET, UPPER PENINSULA VISITOR
The first European known to have visited the Upper Peninsula is Jean Nicolet and the date of his visit is 1634; at which time the entire French population of the St. Lawrence river valley from Gaspe to Three Rivers was scarcely three hundred and fifty people, most of whom were traders in the employ of the Company, and Champlain was the spirit of the entire colony. The great interior of the country was yet unex-
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płored, and he resolved to prosecute the work. His ambitions were at least two-fold; to penetrate the interior in the hope of discovering a northwest passage, and at the same time to extend and develop the fur trade in the interest of his company. To this end he needed to make friends with the Indians, and an emissary suitable to the hour was at hand.
As early as 1618 Champlain sent Jean Nicolet, with a number of other young men, to some of his Indian friends to have them trained for life in the woods, and in the language and customs of the savages. This he did in preparation for his contemplated work of establishing friendly relations with the Indians, and he desired to use these young men as in- terpreters and advisers when the proper time should come. At that time the Indians had not formed a close alliance with the French. Nic- olet had just arrived from France, a young man of good character and religious training. He was sent to the Algonquins of Isle Des Allu- mettes, whom Champlain had visited in 1613. He remained there two years, living the life of the Indian in his wanderings, his dangers, fa- tigue and privations; which fact alone evidenced courage and fortitude such as was necessary in the contemplated frontier work. He is said to have passed several days with nothing but the bark of trees to satisfy his hunger.
At one time during his residence with the Indians Nicolet accompan- ied four hundred of the Algonquins upon a mission of peace to the Iro- quois, which mission was accomplished and he returned in safety. He afterwards took up his residence among the Nippissings, where he re- mained eight or nine years, was recognized by them as one of their na- tion, and frequently entered into their councils. During this life with the Indians he took notes of their habits, manners and customs, which he presented to the missionaries, and which were of great assistance to them. He returned to civilization, being recalled by the government and employed as commissary and Indian interpreter. Quebec having been reoccupied by the French, Nieolet took up his residence there, where he was in high favor with Champlain, who admired his remarkable adapta- tion to savage life. It was in 1629 that he returned from the Indians.
In the month of July, 1632, the French trade with the Indians was largely conducted on the St. Lawrence river where the city of Three Rivers now stands, and the Indians used to come there with a flotilla of bark canoes and would stay from eight to ten days. In that month De Caen arrived in Canada; and by the Indians who had there assembled he was able to send word to the French who were living among the sav- ages upon the Ottawa river and Georgian bay, and he requested their return to the St. Lawrence. In June, 1633, Champlain caused a small fort to be erected about forty miles above Quebec, as a rendezvous for the trading flotilla, to draw the market nearer to Quebee, and to estab- lish the trading at a point less liable to interruption by the Iroquois, than when carried on at Three Rivers. One hundred and fifty canoes eame at this time to the newly established port and it is thought that with this large fleet Nicolet returned to civilization.
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Champlain then desired an emissary to carry on his work of frontier exploration and he knew of no one on whom he could more safely rely. or who was better fitted for the arduous task than was Nicolet; and he prepared to send him forward in the hope that a nearer route to China and Japan might be discovered; and that the fur trade of the Hundred Associates might be made more profitable.
Champlain had theretofore stood npon the shores of Georgian bay of Lake Huron, and had heard from western Indians numerous reports of the distant lake regions, but the information thus gathered from the Indians was indefinite and uncertain, and his knowledge of the western country was consequently exceedingly limited. He had heard of Niag- ara, but supposed it was a rapid such as the St. Louis in the river St. Lawrence. He was wholly uninformed concerning Lake Erie, Lake St. Claire and Lake Michigan; of Lake Huron he knew very little and of Lake Superior still less, but he was assured there was a connection be- tween Lake Superior and the St. Lawrence river, and he supposed a river flowed directly from Lake Huron to Lake Ontario. This is surely the opinion he had in 1632, as shown by a map made by him in that year. He had been told by the Indians that there were copper mines near the borders of one of these "fresh-water seas": an Algonquin had shown him copper as early as 1610, and had told him there were large quantities of the metal on a river where he had found that, near a great lake. He was also informed that the Indians gathered it in lumps, melted it and spread it in sheets, and smoothed it with stones.
SEARCHING FOR A NORTHWEST PASSAGE
Champlain had theretofore also been told by the Indians of a nation · dwelling in the far-off lake country which had once lived on the borders of a distant sea ; and they were called by the Algonquins "Men of the Sea." They were said to live less than four hundred leagues away. He was also informed that there was still another nation, without hair or beards, whose customs and manners resemble the Tartars, who came from farther west to trade with this "Sea Tribe." They were said also to make their journeys by canoes upon a great water, and Champlain thought this "great water" must be a western sea leading to Asia. Some of the Indians who came to the St. Lawrence to trade with the French were also accustomed to going occasionally on a five or six weeks journey to trade with "The People of the Sea." The French imagined that the hairless traders of the west were Chinese or Japanese, though they were in fact the Sioux, while the "Sea Tribe" was the nation since known as the "Winnebagoes," then having their home along the shores of Green bay. It can thus readily be understood that Champlain, and the mis- sionaries then engaged in frontier work, fondly anticipated the discovery of a direct water route to China.
Nicolet must have heard these stories of the Western tribes and from them he must have acquired that faith in the theory of a north- western passage which encouraged him to undertake and to endure the
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hardships which were then in store for him in the work of the discovery of the northwest, including the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. With his experience, as well as his natural ability, it is no wonder that Cham- plain selected Nicolet as his representative, and the representative of the Hundred Associates, to visit the People of the Sea "La Nation des Puants," as they were called by Champlain; and while it is probably true that they expected him to develop more extensive trade relations with the nations to whom he was sent, it is undoubtedly true that the main purpose of that journey was to try and solve the problem of a near route to China. During the latter part of June, 1634, Nicolet was ready to set out from Quebec upon his eventful journey. At that time there were in all Canada but six Jesuits-Le Jeune, Masse, DeNoue, Daniel, Devost and Brebeuf; to the last three the Huron mission was assigned, and they were accompanied. at least as far as the Isle Des Allumettes, by Nicolet on his way to the Winnebagoes. At that time there were many savages from the west at that point and it was difficult to get them to permit so many white men to accompany them on the return journey, and many hardships and privations had to be endured, even in the early part of the journey ; for there was a scant diet, many portages had to be made, and the savages required a large share of the labor to be performed by the whites. Nicolet could not tarry long with the Al- gonquins of the isle with whom he had lived so long, as he was to go to the Huron villages on the borders of Georgian bay before entering upon his journey into the unexplored country on his mission to the Winnebagoes. He made his way up the Ottawa to the Mattawan ; thence to Lake Nipissing; and thence down French river to Georgian bay, upon which he coasted southward in a canoe along the shore to the vil- lages of the Hurons. This trip to the Hurons was far out of his course from the Ottawa to the Winnebagoes; and it is evident that he went there on a mission from Champlain to inform the Hurons of the desire of the governor of Canada to have amicable relations established be- tween them and the Winnebagoes, and to secure a few of the Hurons to accompany him on his mission of peace.
After his ceremonies with the Hurons had been completed, Nicolet struck boldly out into undiscovered regions where he was to encounter savage nations never before visited by white men, so far as the records show. It was a voyage full of danger, and one that would require great tact, courage, and the constant facing of difficulty. No Frenchman, however, was better adapted to the occasion. Nicolet had brought with him presents with which to conciliate the tribes he should meet. Seven Hurons accompanied him, and a birch baik canoe bore a white man for the first time along the northern shore of Lake Huron and upon St. Mary's river to the Falls-Sault Ste. Marie: thence again down the river, many miles on Lake Michigan and up Green bay to the home of the Winnebagoes; and that first eanoe was the leader of a van of a mighty commercial fleet that has since developed upon the great in- land seas.
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As Nicolet came westward, entering St. Mary's river, his canoes were pushed onward to the foot of the falls. Sault Ste. Marie was reached; and then Nicolet, the first white man, set foot upon what is now the state of Michigan," but what for more than a century and a half there- after was a part of what was called "The territory northwest of the Ohio." That territory included Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin and that part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi river, and it passed under the successive dominions of France, England and the United States.
Nicolet and his seven Huron companions rested from their strenu- ous voyage with the "People of the Falls" at their principal village on the south side of the strait, at the foot of the rapids, in what is now Michigan. They were still with tribes of the Algonquins. From Lake Huron they had threaded their way-first through narrow rapids, then into and across placid lakes and around beautiful islands, until they had finally come to within fifteen miles of the largest fresh water sea in the world, stretching away in its grandeur a distance to the westward of over four hundred miles. It is not recorded that Nicolet ever as- cended the river above the falls, or set eyes upon Lake Superior. Where he rested amid a cluster of wigwams, indicating the center of the com- merce of savagery, now stands the beautiful and business-like city of Sault Ste. Marie, overlooking the finest of all commercial waterways.
After a brief rest at the Falls, Nicolet returned down the strait, and it is thought he passed through the western "detour" and through "the second fresh water sea" (Lake Michigan), being the first white man to set eyes upon its beautiful and broad expanse and to the straits of Mackinac, and the island of that name. He continued along the north shore of the lake, stopping on the southern coast of the Upper Penin- sula, from time to time, until he reached the Bay of Noquet-the north- ern arm of Green bay.
That the "small lake" visited by Nicolet was, in fact. Bay du No- quet, or Nogue, is rendered probable by the phraseology employed by Vimont in the "Relations of 1640," page 35. He says: "Passing the small lake (from the Sault Ste. Marie) we enter into the second fresh water sea (Lake Michigan and Green bay)." He speaks of it as being "beyond the falls," which, in his course, must have meant "nearer the Winnebagoes." Here upon its northern border he visited another Al- gonquin tribe, also one living to the northward of the "small lake." The first called the Roquai by Vimont ("Relations of 1640," page 34), were probably the Noquets, afterwards classed with the Chippewas. The second, in the "Relations" just cited, called the Mantone, were probably the Mantoue in "Relations of 1671," where they are men- tioned as living near the Foxes.
Making his way up Green bay Nicolet finally reached the Menom- inee river, its principal northern affluent. The earliest location on a
"Some authorities claim that Brule preceded Nicolet by five years and passed on to Lake Superior.
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WHERE NICOLET LANDED AT THE SOO (1634)
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map of a Menominee village is that given by Charlevoix on his "Carte des Laes du Canada." accompanying his "Histoire et Description Gen- erale de la Nouvelle France" (Vol. 1, Paris, 1744). The village ("des Malonines") is placed at the month of the river on what is now the Michigan side. In the valley of the Menominee, Nieolet met a popu- lous tribe of Indians, the Menominees, described elsewhere herein. While resting at Menominee and becoming acquainted with the Indians there, he sent forward one of his Hurons to carry the news of his com- ing and of his mission of peace.
The message was well received by the Winnebagoes, who dispatched several of their young men to meet the "wonderful man"; and they met him, escorted him, and carried his baggage. "Two days journey from this tribe (the Winnebagoes) he sent one of his savages." This was just the distance from the Menominees.
As Nicolet met the Winnebagoes he was clothed in a large garment of Chinese damask, sprinkled with flowers and birds of different col- ors; possibly thus attired because he thought he had reached the far east, but he was really at Green bay, in the state of Wisconsin. This robe (dress of ceremony) was undoubtedly brought with him all the way from Quebec, in anticipation of his being able through the great rivers and lakes of which he had been told, to find a passage to China, and he was prepared then to meet the mandarins who might welcome him to Cathay. As he landed, he carried in each hand a small pistol, and when he discharged these the women and children fled to escape the inan who, they said, "carried the thunder in both his hands."
Nicolet now having reached the Winnebagoes with his Hurons, rested from the fatigue of the long journey. The news of the coming of the Frenchman spread through the country, and three thousand to five thousand Indians from different tribes assembled to meet him and each chief gave a banquet. Vimont says "A Frenchman told me some time ago that he had seen three thousand men together in one assem- blage, for the purpose of making a treaty of peace in the country of the People of the Sea." One of the sachems regaled his guest with at least one hundred and twenty beavers. Many speeches were made, and Nicolet, in the interest of peace, urged the advantages of an alliance, rather than war, with the nations to the eastward of Lake Huron. They agreed to keep peace with the Hurons, Nez Perces and possibly others, but soon after Nicolet's return, they sent ont war parties against the Beaver nation.
Nieolet's Norman courage was undaunted by his hardships. He was not yet satisfied, and he determined to push on and visit the neigh- boring tribes; so he ascended the Fox river to Lnke Winnebago, where he heard of the Wisconsin river, only three days' journey further up the tortnons Fox. It was called the Great Water by the savages, and he believed it was really the sea to which he was seeking a waterway. It seems strange that Nicolet did not follow up this course, but for some unexplained reason he took a course to the southward. The Jes-
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uits consoled themselves, when they heard of his abandoning the sup- posed short course to the sea, with the hope that some day the great western sea would be reached by one of their order. Upon the beauti- ful prairies to the south lived the Illini, and thither Nicolet went on his mission of peace, and there he is supposed to have spent the winter of 1634-5.
In the spring of 1635. Nicolet, after having made his bold and suc- cessful trip upon the lakes and along the borders of great forests; hav- ing visited many nations hitherto not seen by white men, and with them made friends for his country; having discovered Lake Michigan and "The territory Northwest of the Ohio," and having traveled four hundred leagnes beyond the Huron village, theretofore the western boundary of exploration by the white people, set out with his seven dusky companions upon the homeward return journey, via Mackinac and the Great Manitoulin islands and back to the St. Lawrence, through the route of the Nipissing trail, reaching Three Rivers as nearly as can be learned about July 20, 1635.
DEATHS OF CHAMPLAIN AND NICOLET
Imagination only can picture the enthusiasm that must have been rekindled in the breast of Champlain on receiving the report of Nico- let as to his many accomplishments. His resolutions as to the acquisi- tions.open to his country may well be pictured, but fate prevented their realization, and Champlain died Christmas day, 1635. Great ambi- tions died with him, and the explorations so vigorously inaugurated by him, through Nicolet, received a check.
After this Nicolet was continued in the office of commissary and interpreter, for on the 9th of December, 1635, he "came to give advice to the missionaries, who were dwelling at the mission, that a young Algonquin was sick and that it would be proper to visit him. He per- formed his labors to the great satisfaction of both French and Indian. by whom he was sincerely beloved. He constantly assisted the mission- aries in their work of conversion and his kindness won their esteem." He was drowned on the St. Lawrence by the capsizing of his boat in a squall October 27, 1642.
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CHAPTER VIII MISSIONARY, TRADER AND SOLDIER
JESUIT FATHERS IN THE UPPER PENINSULA-LUSSON AT SAULT STE. MARIE-THE MARQUETTE-JOLIET VOYAGE-LA SALLE AND TONTY- THE SAULT AND ST. IGNACE MISSIONS-COMING OF FRENCH SOLDIERY -INDIANS LOSE FAITH IN FRENCH-WHY MISSIONS WERE DE- STROYED-THE FALL OF ST. IGNACE-POSTS PASS TO THE BRITISH- MICHILIMACKINAC ABANDONED BY THE FRENCH-BRADDOCK AND WASHINGTON.
The Jesuits being in control in New France. it was the missionaries of that order that, a few years after the pioneer visit of Nicolet, again penetrated the wilderness in and around what is now the Northern Peninsula of Michigan. These Jesuit Missionaries were gentlemen of influence who had been reared and educated within the cloisters of the church, and in New France their powers were paramount, as to the shaping of colonial policy. Le Hontan says of them: "They sought to dive down into the bottom of men's minds-artful, accomplished, learned, polished-they were what the Jesuits have been in every age; striving to mould the affairs of the colony to their own purposes, and thus to wield a political influence for ecclesiastical ends, they watched with lynx-eyed vigilance all the affairs and relations of individuals in the state as well as the church." They were the most active pioneer explorers in the regions of the great lakes.
It should be remembered that the government, as well as the trade of the country, was in the absolute control of the Jesuit Company of the Hundred Associates, and, as a consequence, these missionaries who exercised the controlling influence were interested not only in the con- version of the savages to the Jesuit faith (thus to maintain Jesuit dom- ination), but likewise to develop trade, promote the financial interests of the company, and thereby strengthen its monopoly of affairs in gen- eral.
JESUIT FATHERS IN THE UPPER PENINSULA
After the death of Champlain, which occurred within a few months after the return of Nicolet with his glowing report of these regions,
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it was some years before other emissaries followed the course that Nico- let had taken in 1634; but in 1641 Fathers Rambault and Jogues came from the Huron country escorted by the Chippewas who had gone there to trade. Their mission was one of exploration with a view to acquaint themselves with the fields for future work and trade. It is written that on reaching the rapids of St. Mary's river they found about two thou- sand Indians assembled there, of whom nearly all were visitors from va- rious parts of the interior; the local village having a population of only about two hundred. These priests spent several months at that village and in its vicinity, where they prosecuted their religious work among the Indians and where they erected a eross; after which they re- turned to their assignments-their mission among the Hurons. The in- troduction of missionary work thus pushed to such a great distance into the wilderness, seems to have met a fateful handicap, for in the following year Father Rambault was taken ill and died, and Father Jogues was soon thereafter captured by the Mohawks who. after hold- ing him for a time in captivity, put him to death-a death which he met as a martyr to his country and his church.
The next of the missionaries to come to this section was Father Pierre Rene Menard, who renched St. Mary's river in October, 1660. He came in company with some Ottawa Indians. Starting from Three Rivers, Canada. he came via the Nipissing trail, and then, traveling by canoe down French river to the headwaters of Lake Huron, passed on and up the St. Mary's river into Lake Superior and along the southern shore of that lake on a mission to the Indians, in what is now the Up- per Peninsula of Michigan and northern Wisconsin. He camped for the winter on the east side of Keweenaw bay among a band of Ottawas, the first white man so far as the records show to penetrate that portion of the peninsula. His own account of this trip is a most interesting exhibition of the hardships endured by, and the impelling faith of the missionary pioneers. He writes as follows: "Our journey has been very fortunate. Thanks be to God !- in-as-much as our Frenchmen all arrived in good health about the middle of October. But to accomplish that, we had to suffer much and avoid great risks-from the lakes which were very stormy; from the torrents and waterfalls, fearful to behold, which we were forced to eross in a frail shell; from hunger. which was our almost constant companion; and from the Iroquois, whe made war upon us.
"Between Three Rivers and Montreal we luckily met Monseigneur, the Bishop of Petraea. He uttered to me the following words, which entered deep into my heart, and will be to me a great source of consola- tion amid all the vexations and accidents which shall befall me: 'My Father, every reason seems to retain yon here; but God, more power- ful than aught else. requires you yonder.' Oh, how I have blessed God since that fortunate interview, and how sweetly those words from the lips of so holy a prelate have re-entered my soul at the height of our hardships, sufferings and desolation-God requires me yonder! How
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often have I repeated those words to myself amid the noise of our tor- rents and the solitude of our great forests!
"The savages who had taken mne on board with the assurance that they would assist me, in view of my age and infirmities, did not, how- ever, spare me, but obliged me to carry very heavy burdens on my shoulders at all, or nearly all the water-falls which we passed; and, although my paddle did not greatly hasten their progress, being phied by arms so fechle as mine, yet they could not endure that I should be idle. . . . I found my advantage at the meeting of other canoes, for then our savages stopped for some time to talk about their routes, and the courses which they were to take. They compelled me, on oc- casion, to disembark in a very bad place, where I had to pass over rocks and frightful precipiees in order to rejoin them. The places through which I had to go were so eut up with abysses and steep mountains that I did not think I could extricate myself from them, and as it was nee- essary to hasten, if I did not wish to be left behind on the way, I wounded myself in the arm and in one foot. The latter became swol- len and gave me much trouble all the rest of my journey, especially when the water began to be cold, and it was necessary to remain bare- foot all the time, ready to jump into the water when the savages judged it fitting in order to lighten the canoe. Add to this that they are peo- ple who have no regular meals; they eat up everything at once and keep nothing for the morrow.
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