USA > Michigan > A history of the northern peninsula of Michigan and its people, its mining, lumber and agricultural industries, Volume I > Part 18
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It was upon that first expedition that La Salle and his companions turned the first European ears to the roar of the now famous cataract of Niagara. In a neighboring Indian village they also met Joliet, then returning to Quebee after his visit to Lake Superior, and his. report so interested the two Sulpitian priests, Dollier and Galinee, of In Salle's expedition, that they decided to take their course to the Sanlt, which they did, with the results heretofore recorded, La Salle continuing his course at that time to the southward with a view to locating the Ohio river.
In the winter of 1678-9, on the shores above the falls of Niagara, he built the first vessel ever constructed on the great lakes, the "Grif- fin," of forty-five tons burden ; thus named in honor of the armour of Count Frontenac. August 7th of that year he set out with Henri de Tonty, an Italian officer of high standing, and Lonis Hennepin, a Recollet missionary, in further quest of a waterway to the Pacific, and in the work of extending the fur trade and mission field. They fol- lowed up Lake Erie, and Angust 11, 1679, passed through the strait of Detroit, which Hennepin deseribed. and regarding which he said : "Those who will one duy have the happiness to possess this fertile and pleasant strait will be very much obliged to those who have shown them the way."
The explorers kept on the course to the northward and came to anchor at St. Ignace, where the voyageurs visited the chapel and house of the Jesuits. After a few duys sojourn, during which the In-
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dian villages in that vicinity were visited and the country carefully inspected, La Salle founded a fort, the first military establishment in that region. The explorers then travelled forward along the north shore of Lake Michigan and down Green bay (Bay des Puants), where the French had already collected a large quantity of valuable furs, and with these he loaded the "Griffin" and started her upon her return voyage, in care of his pilot and fourteen French sailors. Neither the boat nor the members of that daring crew were ever heard of afterward, and the belief is that the vessel was wrecked and sunk with all on board, in a fierce storm that prevailed about the time they should have been navigating Lake Huron. Fifteen more men thus laid down their lives and passed into history, nameless, yet heroes, playing their part as daringly and heroically as did those who were leaders, and whose names, like that of La Salle, are forever emblazoned in glowing letters on the pages of American history.
After the departure of the "Griffin." La Salle remained a few months at and abont the vicinity of Green bay, hoping for tidings of his fated ship-tidings which never came-when, with Hennepin and several other Frenchmen, he set out on an expedition down Lake Michigan, where, by pre-arrangement. he was to meet Tonty who was to go from Mackinac to meet him at the mouth of the St. Joseph river, there to establish a Fort; and where they established Fort Miamis. From this point they moved on up the lake to its head and into Illi- nois, reaching the Illinois river by portage and camping for the win- ter at a point on that river called Fort Crevecoeur, from which place the following spring La Salle returned to Fontenac (now Kingston), leaving his friend Tonty in charge at that point, and crossing the then unexplored lower peninsula on foot from Fort Miamis, being the first white man, so far as known, to penetrate the interior of the Lower Peninsula. It is thus clearly established, that, from the beginning of the work of exploration west of Lake Huron, Michilimackinac was the center of operations and the base of supplies for the entire west- ern field, including the exploration of the Mississippi from the point of its discovery by Marquette and Joliet, to the southward, and of the entire region around Lake Michigan to the sonthward, including the Southern Peninsula of Michigan, Indiana and Illinois, as well as the region around Lake Superior, including Northern Michigan, Wiscon- sin and Minnesota.
Here. the career of this great explorer comes practically to an end, so far as his personal operations in this section of the country are concerned, but his interesting career elsewhere had direct connection with the French interests here, and it is recorded that in 1681 he was again at Michilimackinac, on his way home to Canada after a visit to his friend Tonty at Fort Miamis. It is further to he noted. as bearing upon the plans of the French government, involving this section, that, in 1684, on the petition of La Salle, that government sent an expedition to the Gulf of Mexico for the purpose of forming
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a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi as a means of securing com- mand of the whole region, and to form a guard against the enlarge- ment of the field of English colonization; and it was in pursuit of this same policy that La Salle, in 1686, set ont from Louisiana with a view to establishing communication across the country with the French settlements of the lake country; failing, in 1687 he made his second attempt to march through to Canada, and was shot, en route, by one of his companions-another martyr, among the many named and nameless who endured privations and hardships while bringing to the attention of civilization the country about which we write, and of which we boast its many advantages.
The project in which La Salle was immediately engaged at the time of his death, was finally accomplished twelve years later, in 1699, by D'Iberville, who established the avenne of trade between the French possessions of Canada and of Louisiana and gave to that people its claim to the great northwest, afterward included in the Louisima Purchase. The names of LaSalle and of his friend and companion, Tonty. are closely interwoven in the early history of this country; they shared together many privations and hardships, and they now share and receive together the honors their dne, and the humble ac- knowledgment of their noble and commendable sacrifice, by m ap- preciative people.
Daniel Greysolon dn Lhnt (Duluth) is also deserving of mention in this connection, for, while history does not accord to him any spe- eifie part directly connected with the Upper Peninsula, his work and traffic covered such a wide field of pioneering, including the Upper Peninsula, that he is entitled to be connected with its recorded his- tory. He came from Lyons, France, to New France in 1676, at- tracted by the business opportunities, and immediately began his travels in the lake country in the interest of the fur trade, going all through the country both north and south of Lake Superior. purchasing furs and peltries; and he must necessarily have been strongly identified with the early fur trade of the Peninsula. While not a missionary, he was of their time and shared like hardships. His work was in that line of trade first recognized as one of the great natural advantages afforded by the lake country, and which was the cause of much strife between France and England, as well as between the people of each of those countries and the Indians.
Mention should also be made of Armand Lonis de Delondarce (Baron de Lahontan ), who came to New France when bnt a boy and took part in a war against the Iroquois when only eighteen years of age. When only twenty-one. in 1687, he was made commandant at Fort St. Joseph, at the lower end of Lake Iluron ; and in 1688, he made a trip to Macki- nae to replenish his supply of provisions, and from whence he also trav- elled northward and visited the Sanlt. Shortly after his return to Fort St. Joseph, on account of the threatening danger from the Indians, he destroyed that fort and removed to Michilimackinae, where he spent
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the winter; that place having become the center of activity of the North- west Fur Company, which had been formed in Montreal in 1783, and which had sent traders throughout the northwest, with Mackinaw as its base of supplies and center of operations generally. During his sojourn there, he met men of La Salle's party who had returned from the Mis- sissippi ; he was aroused by the stories of their adventure and of the country they had traversed, and determined to follow in the course that had first been taken by Father Marquette.
Marquette had recognized the advantages of St. Ignace and Mich- ilimackinac by adopting there a mission at the old town of Michilimack- inae as early as 1671, which had been started the year previous by Father Dablon. La Salle recognized them by the establishment of a fort in 1679, and as early as 1688 La Honton said of the place: "Mich- ilimackinac is certainly a place of great importance, Here the Hurons and Ottawas have each a village, being separated from each other by a single palisade. In this place the Jesuits have a little house, or cottage, adjoining a sort of church and enclosed with pales that separate it from the village of the Hurons. The Coureurs de bois have but a very small settlement, though at the same time it is not inconsiderable, as being the staple of all the goods that they truck with the south and west savages."
THE SAULT AND ST. IGNACE MISSIONS
At the Sault, in 1673. Rev. Henry Nouvel became superior succeeding Father Dablon, who had been promoted to the office of superior general of all the missions in New France. Rev. Nouvel left the work of that mission in charge of Father Druillette, who had already shown his abil- ity and fitness for the task, while he, as superior, went to the St. Ignace mission. Father Pere Druillette continned his service at the Sault until, in 1679, his failing health compelled him to retire and return to Quebec, at which place he died in 1681. Father Bailloquet had been connected with the missions, but gave his time principally to travel among the dif- ferent tribes, and, on the retiring of Father Druillette, became his suc- cessor. In 1683 Rev. Charles Albanel succeeded Father Bailloquet at the Sault, and the latter went to St. Ignace.
Rev. Albanel continued his ministrations at the Sault until the time of his death which ocenrred at that place in 1696, and is, so far as the records disclose, the last of the Jesuit missionaries to preside over that mission. The mission had for years been in feeble condition because of the Indian troubles that had occurred there, as before related, and to this weakness the added embarrassment imposed upon the missionaries by the traffic in liquors that was carried on by the traders, seems to have discouraged the Jesuits and led them to conclude that the mission at the Sault was no longer worthy of their efforts. They continued, from time to time to pass and repass the Sault during their work in other fields, but we can learn of no workers being assigned to that mission, or having been there engaged for more than a century thereafter: and for a long time that section of the country seems to have been practically deserted
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by both Indians and French, though there were at all times, as far as can be learned, a few wigwams.
The glory that was the Sault's faded, and seems only to have revived with the last hundred years. As late as 1820 there were only twenty houses there, with only five or six French and English families, and the earliest record of a revival of ecclesiastical work there is in 1815, when a baptism was recorded as having been made by Father Dumoulin of one Elizabeth Lallonde.
The mission at St. Ignace was established in 1670 by Father Dablon, and Marquette came there from La Point St. Esprit the following sea- son, and was there active in the work of the mission until his departure in his expedition for the discovery of the Mississippi river. Up to the year 1674 the buildings at this mission were only of logs which served to satisfy the absolute necessities.
In 1672, Father Marquette wrote of this mission to Father Dablon (or D'Ablon) as to conditions at that place, and the nature of the work of the missionaries; and the character of the Indians they had to con- tend with cannot be better described than by a quotation therefrom :
" My Reverend Father: The Hurons, called Tionnontateronnous, or the tobacco nation, who composed the mission of St. Ignace at Michilimakinang, began last summer a fort near the chapel, in which all their enbins were inclosed. They have been more assiduous at prayer, have listened more willingly to the instructions that I gave them, and have acceded to my requests for preventing grave misconduct and their abominable customs. One must have patience with savage miuds who have no other knowledge than the devil, whose slaves they are, and their forefathers have been; and frequently relapse into those sins in which they have been reared. God alone can give firmness to their fickle minds, and plnce and maintain them in grace, and touch their hearts while we stammer into their ears. This year the Tiounonta- teronnous were here to the number of three hundred and eighty souls, and they were joined by over sixty souls of the Outaquasinagaux. Some of the latter came from the mission of Saint Francois Xavier (Green Bny), where Reverend Father Andre spent last winter with them; and they appeared to me to be very different from what they were when I saw them at the point of St. Esprit. The zeal and patience of the father have won over to the faith hearts which seemed to us to be very ad- verse to it. They desire to be Christians, they bring their children to the chapel to be baptized, and they are very assiduous in attending prayers.
". Last summer, when I was obliged to go to the Sault with Rev. Father Allouez, the Hurons enme to the chapel during my absence, as assiduously as if I had been there, and the girls sang the hymns that they knew. They counted the days that passed after my departure, and continuously asked when I was to return. I was absent only fourteen days, and, on arrival, all proceeded to the chapel, to which many came expressly from the fields, although these were very far away. I cheerfully at- tended their feasts of squashes, at which I instructed them and called upon them to thank God, who gave them food in abundance while other tribes, who had not yet embraced Christianity, had great difficulty in preserving themselves from hunger. I cast ridicule on their dreams and encouraged those who had been baptized to acknowledge Him whore children they were. Those who gave feasts, although still idolators, spoke most honorably of Christianity; and they were not ashamed to minke the sign of the cross before everyone.
"A savage of note among the Hurons invited me to his fenst, at which the chiefs were present. After calling each of them by name, he told them that he wished to state his intentions to them, so that all might know it ;- namely, that he was a Christian; thnt he renounced the God of Dreams and all their dances replete with lasciviousness; that the black gown was the master of the cabin and that he would not abandon that resolution, whatever might happen. I felt pleasure in hearing him, and at the same time I spoke more strongly than I had hitherto done, telling them
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that I had no other design than to place them on the road to Paradise; that that was the sole object that detained me with them and compelled me to assist them, at the risk of my life. As soon as anything has been said at a meeting, it is at once spread among all the cabins. This I soon recognized, through the assiduity of some at prayers and through the malice of others who endeavor to render our instructions useless.
"Over two hundred souls, left last fall for the chase. Those who remained bere asked me what dances I prohibited. I replied in the first place that I would not permit those which God forbids, such as indecent ones; that, as regards the others, I would decide about them when I had seen them. Every dance has its own name; but I did not find any harm in any of them, except that called 'the bear dance.' A woman, who became impatient in her illness, in order to satisfy both her God and ber imagination, caused twenty women to be invited. They were covered with bear skins and wore fine porcelain collars; growled like bears. Meanwhile the sick woman danced and from time to time told them to throw oil on the fire, with certain superstitious observances. The men who acted as singers had great difficulty in carrying out the sick woman's design, not having as yet heard similar airs, for that dance was not in vogue among the Tionnontateronnous. I availed myself of this fact to dissuade them from the dance. I did not forbid others that are of no importance for I considered that my winter's sojourn among them had been profitable, inasmuch as, with God's grace, I had put a stop to the usual indecencies. . Although the winter was severe, it did not prevent the sav- ages from coming to the chapel. Many came thither twice a day, however windy and cold it might be. In the autumn I began to give instructions for general con- fession of their whole lives, and to prepare others who had not confessed since their baptism, to do the same. I would not have believed that savages could render so exact an account of all their lives. " As the savages have vivid imaginations, they are often cured of their sickness when they are granted what they desire. Their medicine men, who know nothing about their diseases, propose a number of things to them for which they might have a desire. Sometimes the sick person mentions it, and they fail not to give it to him. But many, during the winter, fearing that it might be a sin, always replied with constancy that they desired nothing, and that they would do whatever the black gown told them.
"I did not fail, during the autumn, to go and visit them in their fields, where I instructed them and made them pray to God, and told them what they had to do. . . ' A blind woman who had formerly been instructed by Rev. Father Brebeauf, had not during all these years forgotten her prayers; she daily prayed to God that she might not die without grace, and I admired her sentiments. Other aged women, to whom I spoke of hell, shuddered at it, and told me they bad no sense in their former country, but that they had not committed so many mins since they had been instructed.
"God had aided, in a special manner, the Hurons who went to hunt; for be led them to places where they killed a great number of bears, stags, beavers and wild- cats. Several bands failed not to observe the directions I had given them respecting prayers. Dreams, to which they formerly had recourse, were looked upon as illu- sions; and, if they happened to dream of bears, they did not kill any on account of that; on the contrary, after they had recourse to prayer, God gave them what they desired.
"This, my Reverend Father, is all that I can write to your Reverence respecting this mission, where men's minds are more gentle, Iractable and better disposed to receive the instructions that are given them than in any other place. Meanwhile I am preparing to leave it in the hands of another missionary, to go by your Rev- erence's Order and seek toward the South Sea new nations that are unknown to us, to teach them to know our great God, of whom they have hitherto been ignorant."
Father Marquette, while still at La Point de Esprit, had heard of the Indian tribes in Illinois and his ambitious spirit cast for him a louging to go to them and preach to them.
On December 8, 1672, Sieur Joliet arrived at St. Ignace bearing let- ters from the governor general. Count de Frontenac, addressed to Father Marquette and requesting him to go on an exploring expedition
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to the Mississippi; and the following May, as soon as the lakes could be safely traversed, he was ready to carry out his cherished ambition, and left St. Ignace fated never to return,
Rev. Father Phillip Pierson succeeded to the charge of this mission, which grew by the acquisition of many more Ottawas and other Algon- quins. Rev. Father Nouvel came to this mission in the fall of 1673, and, being impressed with the importance of the mission and seeing the inadequacy of the old chapel. promptly began arrangements for a new chapel which he erected in 1674.
In April. 1676, Father Pierson, who still continued at this mission, wrote: "God has hitherto granted and still grants every day, so many blessings to my Huron mission of Lionontate that I have the satisfaction of seeing this little church gradually increase in number and grow strong in faith." Of it, and its future dangers, he also wrote: "The Iroquois from Sonnontwan came here this winter on an embassy, and gave valuable presents to the Hurons, under the pretext of wishing to join them that they might go together to fight the Nadouessions, with whom they were at war. But we greatly fear that under that precious semblance they conceal another design, which is to lure all our savages to their country; and that would, without doubt, be the ruin of this church. I pray our Lord to avert that calamity from us."
In 1683, Father Pierson, left St. Ignace and went as a missionary to the Sioux, then commonly called the Nadonessions, in Minnesota, and he was sncceeded by Rev. Nicholas Potier; Father Enjalran became superior and Father Bailloquet came from the Sault and took the place of Father Nouvel, who, at the same time went to Green bay ; thus mak- ing a complete change of that ministration at St. Ignace, which mission had then become so prosperous as to require the attention of the three priests who ministered to the French village and three separate and dis- tinet Indian villages then located in that immediate vieinity.
COMING OF THE FRENCH SOLDIERY
The apparent prosperity was not of long duration. The establish- ment of the fort, which was a fortified trading post, in 1679, brought with it the soldiers and the voyageurs, and the trade in brandy; and the corruption thus introduced seemed more than to offset the good teachings of the missionaries. An Indian cheated in trade was thor- oughly aroused to a sense of the wrong done him, and it was not possi- ble to meet and counternet the atrocious practices and examples of the traders by simply moral teaching and exhortation. To these dire condi- tions were added the wide-spread spirit of war, against the approach of which the mission was afforded little protection.
The Jesnits had at first welcomed the soldiery, believing them to be the representatives of a government that was in sympathy with their ecelesiastieal labors, and that their presence would be an addition to their working foree, an example of their teachings and a safeguard against the ever-imminent danger of the Indian wars. Finding them-
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selves deceived, and coming to the conclusion that, in reality, the pres- ence of the soldiery had almost the opposite effect, and that the main object of those in charge was to promote a profitable trade in furs re- gardless of moral consequences, the missionaries, after years of hard- ship, privation, endurance and toil, and the daily facing of danger at the hands of the savages, were unable to cope with the dissoluteness and corruption introduced by the government through the traders and the soldiers, and became discouraged. Their pleadings met with eriti- cism and opposition at the hands of the commandants, and they learned, to their sorrow, that the colonial government they had so strongly sup- ported was out of harmony with their wants.
The French soldiery remained in command, and in 1686 there ap- peared an expedition of twelve Dutch and English traders from New York, who landed at Michilimackinac and offered their wares at lower prices and yet at a good profit. Another and larger expedition of some thirty people carrying the English flag soon followed, but just before reaching their destination they were met by fifty Frenehmen, who, under orders of the commander of the fort, LaDurantage, confiscated the wares of the Dutch and English and divided their spoils among themselves. A third expedition under similar circumstances met a sim- ilar fate, even though carrying passports from the governor of New York.
Various results attended these high-handed operations of the French. The local Indians naturally regretted the loss of the opportunity to ob- tain cheaper goods, and become more nneasy and dissatisfied; while. at the same time, the English were instigated to more determined ac- tion and promptly set about instigating the Iroquois to war upon the French, and upon the tribes under their protection, to which action, in a large measure at least, may be aseribed the long series of aggravating instances that, on the 5th day of August, 1689. culminated in the La- chine massacre, wherein four hundred people met death at the hands of the Iroquois. This horrible massaere and the operations around Montreal, aroused the fury of all the savages including those under the charge of the mission of St. Ignace,
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