History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 6

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 772

USA > Michigan > Eaton County > History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan > Part 6
USA > Michigan > Ingham County > History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan > Part 6

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Lieutenant-General in Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, New Foundland, Belle Isle, Carpunt, Labrador, the Great Bay, and Baccalaos."±

Of this expedition Cartier was made captain-general, and he set sail from St. Malo with three of the ships on the 23d of May, 1541. Roberval was to follow with the re- mainder of the squadron as soon as he could collect the necessary supplies. Cartier reached the St. Lawrence in safety, and commenced a settlement a few miles above where Quebec now stands, near Cap Rouge, which he named Charlesbourg Royal. At this point, in two hastily con- structed forts, the little colony passed the winter, which was so long and severe, and their sufferings and hardships were so great, that when at lengthi the welcome spring arrived the disgusted sojourners were glad to go on board their ships and return to their native country. On their way they put into the harbor of St. John, already a great rendezvous for fishing vessels, and there on the 8th of June they were found by Roberval, who had sailed from France on the 16th of April, 1542, with the promised ships and supplies, and having on board 200 colonists to reinforce the settlement of Cartier.

Great was the astonishment of Roberval at beholding his lientenant on his return from the abandoned settlement, and he ordered his immediate return to the St. Lawrence. Whether Cartier had been compelled by the colonists to break up and abandon the settlement, or whether he had become discouraged in the attempt to settle a permanent colony, is not known; but certain it is that, whatever was the cause, he escaped from the harbor under cover of the night, and returned to France, and henceforth seems to have given up a scafaring life.§

Roberval, however, coutinned his voyage with the re- maining vessels, and after an adventurous sail cast anchor at Cap Rouge. On the ground of Cartier's abandoned settlement, the new comers constructed barracks, workshops, and dwellings, sunk a well, built an oven, and even erected two water-mills, but whether they were saw-mills or other- wise is not stated ; it would seem from Parkman's account that they were grain-mills.

But this attempt to colonize Canada soon ended in failure ; the place was abandoned, and not until 1608, more than sixty years later, was a permanent settlement effected.

CHAMPLAIN.

This illustrious man was born at the little sea-port town of Brouage, on the Bay of Biscay, in 1567. He held the rank of captain in the royal navy, and had seen service in the army under St. Luc and Brissac, in Brittany, for which he had been pensioned by Henry IV. In later years he had commanded an exploring-ship in the Spanish marine during more than two years in the West Indies, where he acquired a great amount of geographical knowl- edge, and brought back to France a curiously illustrated

* Cartier says the natives called a region of country lying below Quebec Canada, another lying below that was named Saguenay, and the region ahovo they designated as Hochelaga. They seem to have applied the last name indiscriminately tu river and country, much as the Massachusetts Indians were wont to do, as Agawam, meaning the valley and county of the Agawam River, and the river itself.

The progenitors of the Five Nations had formerly lived along the St. Lawrence, in the neighborhood of Montreal, but had migrated to the south side of Lake Ontario as early as about 1500.

# Norembega included portions of what are now Maine and New Brunswick. Baccalaos was the Basque name for codfish or the place were they went to fish for themn.

¿ According to Parkman, the manor house of Cartier, in the sub- urbs of St. Malo, was standing entiro in 1865.

EARLY DISCOVERIES AND SETTLEMENTS.

journal of his travels. Returning to the French court he became acquainted with Aymar de Chastes, commander of the famous order of St. John, and Governor of the port of Dieppe, on the English Channel. This gray-haired veteran had determined to found a colony in Canada, repair thither in person and spend the remainder of his days. He im- portuned Champlain, then about thirty-six years of age, to accept a position in his company, which Champlain, with the consent of the king, readily agreed to. The veteran De Chastes finally concluded to dispatch a preliminary ex- pedition, at the head of which he placed one Pontgravé, who had made a previous voyage to the St. Lawrence in 1599.

Accoringly in the spring of 1603, Pontgravé and Cham- plain set sail from Ilonfleur with two small vessels, and in due course of time reached the St. Lawrence, which they ascended as far as Montreal, where they found the ancient town of Hochelaga, so populous in Cartier's time sixty- eight years before, abandoned, its people departed, and in their place a miserable village, tenanted by a few wandering Algonquins.

Turning their faces eastward, the voyagers descended the river and returned to France. On their arrival at Ilavre de Grace they learned that De Chastes was dead. In his place was Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, au officer of the king's household and Governor of Pons.

This nobleman petitioned the king for permission to colonize Acadie, as the French designated Nova Scotia, where La Roche had met with disastrous failure in at- tempting, in 1598, to establish a colony on Sable Island.

De Monts was a Calvinist, but in gathering the materials for his projected colony he was forced to allow the Catholic Church a share in the enterprise ; and when on the 7th of April, 1604, he departed from Havre de Grace a motley crowd of Catholic priests, Calvinistic ministers, Franciscan friars, and all the riff-raff of a sea-port accompanied him.

The next three years were spent by Champlain, along with many others, in exploring the coasts of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and New England, as far as Nantucket, and in endeavoring to plant colonies, and transplant the feudalism of Europe to thew ilderness shores of America. As might have been forescen, the incongruous elements as- sorted together in the enterprise made success impossible, and, after many years of sufferings and quarrels, soldier and sailor, priest, friar, and minister, abandoned the profitless specula- tion.

But, notwithstanding these miserable failures, Champlain still clung to the project of establishing the power of France on the St. Lawrence. De Monts shared his views, and fitting out once more a squadron of two ships, he placed them under the command of Pontgrave and Champlain with orders to proceed to the St. Lawrence, found a new settlement, and open trade with the natives.

In the summer of 1608, Samuel de Champlain founded the city of Quebec, and thus, after a series of spasmodic efforts continued through a period of seventy-three years, was the first permanent settlement established on the spot now covered by a great city, and renowned as one of the world's strongest fortresses. It was the third permanent settlement on the Atlantic coast, those of St. Augustine, by the Spaniards, in 1565, and Jamestown in Virginia, by the

English, in 1607, having preceded it. Of the three the one planted in the northern wilderness is the only one to- day of any importance. Jamestown was long ago a ruin, and St. Augustine is a poor, dilapidated village. The latter may, under the influences of republican institutions, become a place of some importance, but the Jamestown settlement will scarcely be revived.

In the following year Champlain explored the long nar- row lake lying between the Green Mountains and the Adi- rondacks, which bears his name; and in the wilderness near the outlet of Lake George with his allies, a band of Algon- quin Indians, first encountered and gave battle to that famous people, the Iroquois, which unfortunate occurrence laid the foundation for the long and bloody wars between them and the French, lasting, with intervals of repose, for more than 150 years, and proving one of the principal causes of the ruin of the French dominion in Canada and of its final overthrow in 1760. The terrible consequences of that forest adventure could not have been anticipated by Champlain. He deemed it an easy matter to league the northern Indians with his own people, and wrongfully judged that the combination would overawe and if necessary destroy those fierce warriors of the Ho-den-o-sau-nee.

In 1610, Champlain fought another fierce battle with the Iroquois near Montreal, and in 1611 he established a trad- ing-post on the site of the modern city. In the latter year he made a voyage up the Ottawa River in canoes as far as the island of Allumette, in a vain effort to discover a water route to Hudson's Bay. A swarm of Indians in their bark canoes followed him on his return to the trading-post at Montreal.

In the spring of 1615 he organized another expedition, and penetrated to the borders of Lake Huron by way of the Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing, and the French River. A great concourse of the western Indians, Hurons, Ojibwas, Ottawas, and others, assembled at Montreal early in the sea- son, and Champlain held a grand council with them, enter- ing into a treaty offensive-defensive, pledging eternal warfare with the Iroquois. On the breaking up of the council the Franciscan friar, Joseph le Caron, and twelve French soldiers accompanied the Indians into their wilderness home, while Champlain returned to Quebec to prepare for a great expedition. He shortly after followed the Indians in two canoes, accompanied by an interpreter, Étienne Brulé, one other Frenchman, and a half-score of the natives.

His journey was over the same route which be bad pur- sued two years previously, -- up the swift-flowing Ottawa, over the portage to Lake Nipissing, and thence down the French River to Georgian Bay, which he named " Mer Douce," -- the fresh-water sea of the Hurons.

Coasting for a hundred miles along the shores of the Georgian Bay, among its innumerable islands, he at length landed at the little inlet now known as Thunder Bay, a few miles west of the present port of Penetanguishine, between the Matchedash and Nottawassaga Bays. This is about 150 miles from the nearest point of land in Michigan .*

# It has been claimed by some writers that Champlain explored the waters of Lake 1Iuron and visited portions of Michigan as early as 1610, but there is no evidence corroborating the statement.

HISTORY OF INGHAM AND EATON COUNTIES, MICIIIGAN.

Pushing inland in a southeasterly direction he reached the Indian village of Car-ha-gou-ha, where he found Le Caron and his companions. Here the friar erected a rude altar, and on the 12th of August, 1615, celebrated the first mass in the country of the Hurons.

Champlain, with his now fast accumulating followers, reached the Inron metropolis, which was called Ca-hai-gue, situated in what is now the township of Orilla, about ten miles west of the river Severu, the outlet of Lake Simcoe, on the 17th of August. He found a palisaded town con- taining two hundred lodges and swarming with people.

At this point, according to agreement, were soon assembled the savage bands who, under the leadership of Champlain, were to march against the Iroquois and teach them a lesson in war amid the smoking ruins of their own villages.

On the Sth of September the motley army, consisting, according to Champlain's estimate, of about 2500 men, was ready for the expedition. An agreement had been entered into between the Hurons and another nation, most probably the Eries, living along the southeast shore of Lake Erie, to furnish a contingent of 500 men. At his own request Brulé, the interpreter, was allowed to go forward from Lake Simcoe with a band of twelve Indians to hasten the Eries towards the rendezvous on Lake Ontario. Brulé met with adventures more strange than the imaginings of romance among the Eries, and while a prisoner to the vengeful Senecas; and it was three years before he suc- ceeded in escaping from the savages and rejoining his friends, who had long given him up for dead. According to Parkman he was treacherously murdered in 1632, at Penetanguishine, by the Hurons.

The grand army under Champlain and its native chiefs took the route over Lake Simcoe, up the river Talbot, and across the portage to the head lakes of the river Trent, which latter stream they followed in its devious windings to its embouchure into Lake Ontario. The days were warmn but the nights were often frosty, and the army frequently stopped by the way to replenish its commissariat with fish and game. At one point 500 of the savages formed in a long, thin line, and drove the game to a wooded point of land which jutted into the stream, and when forced to take the water, the canoe men killed them with arrows and spears.

Towards the last of September the great fleet of canoes issued from the Trent upon the broad waters of Lake Ontario,* then first seen by Europeans, and steering near the islands at its northeastern extremity, crossed it in safety and landed, quite probably in one of the many inlets of the Black River Bay, the Niaourha of the Iroquois. Secreting their canoes and leaving a guard, the army took up its march southward along the sandy beach, crossing the Sandy Creeks, and the Salmon and Onondaga (Oswego) Rivers, and, after a march of four days, found itself far advanced in the country of the Iroquois.

The host at length reached an Iroquois town, which, according to Champlain's account, belonged to the Seneca uation, or, as he designated them, the Ontouoronons, from

which has been derived the word Ontario. There has been much disagreement among prominent writers. as to the loca- tion of the town attacked by Champlain. Dr. O'Callaghan places it on Lake Canandaigua. Brodhead, Marshall, and Clark locate it on Lake Onondaga, near the present city of Syracuse, or possibly within its limits.

It was defended by four concentric rows of palisades, made of trunks of trees, standing thirty feet high and firmly bedded in the ground. They intersected each other at the top, being set in a leaning position, and here was constructed a platform, or gallery, from which the besieged could send their various defensive missiles-arrows, spears, stones, etc .- against the enemy. This gallery was defended by a parapet of heavy timber, and had a long gutter or trough to carry water for the purpose of quenching fire. The water was derived from a small lake near by.

To aid in reducing the place Champlain constructed a great movable tower, high enough to overlook the palisade, from which his few arquebusiers could annoy the defenders on the gallery. Ile also built huge wooden shields, behind which the Indians could work their way close to the town.t

When the formidable inventions were completed, 200 of the strongest warriors dragged them forward towards the walls, and the assault began.

But Champlain found a vast difference between a horde of naked, undisciplined savages and the trained troops of Europe. They were fitted for bush-fighting and skulking, predatory warfare, but when they were asked to march boldly up in open sight and attack a fortified town, behind whose ramparts was ensconced their most dreaded enemy, they were found utterly useless. Without commissary supplies a lengthy siege was impossible. For three hours, however, they kept up a constant discharge of arrows, ac- companied by an infernal din of screeches and yells; but they paid no attention to commands.

A few daring ones approached near enough to build a fire at the foot of the palisade, but it was speedily extin- guished by torrents of water from above, amid the derisive shouts of the Iroquois. At length, in true Indian fashion, the Hurons became exhausted and tired of the fray, and fell back to a fortified camp which they had constructed, and no efforts or promises of Champlain could persuade them to return to the attack. The furore had been ex- pended and the Iroquois were safe. The ardor of the Ilnrons had also been checked by the loss of seventeen warriors wounded, and even the redoubtable chief of the white men, whom the Indians supposed invulnerable, had received an arrow in his knee, and been carried from the field on the back of one of his allies.

In their camp the Hurons waited for their allies, but the Eries failed to appear, and after the lapse of five days the whole army broke camp and commenced its return march, bearing the wounded, including Champlain, in huge wicker- baskets. Crossing Lake Ontario, the great war-party divided into hunting-hands and disappeared in the forest, and thus

+ This tower was perhaps the only thing of the kind ever used in America, certainly tho only one ever used against the Indians. It was a common means of assaulting fortified places before the inven- tion of firearms. To construct these huge machines Champlain must have carried with him a supply of the necessary tools.

* This body of water was called by the Hurons the Lake of the Onlouoronons, a name by which they designated the Seneca nation.

EARLY DISCOVERIES AND SETTLEMENTS.

ended the most famous Indian expedition probably ever undertaken by the tribes living.within the French territory.

Champlain had been promised an escort to Quebec on the return of the expedition, but its utter failure had dis- couraged the savages and rendered them fearful of reprisals ; their promise was forgotten, and the wounded commander was forced to return with his fickle allies to their wilderness homes on the borders of Lake Huron.

Ilis wound does not seem to have been very serious, for we find him engaged in hunting during the winter, and, in company with Le Caron, visiting the various villages of the confederacy. It is quite probable that during these journeyings he may have penetrated near to the borders of Michigan, but he undoubtedly never reached the St. Clair or Detroit Straits, as he makes no mention of such an im- portant event.

In the spring of 1616, Champlain returned with his French followers to Quebec, where he was welcomed as one from the dead amid great rejoicings. Le Caron had pre- ceded him, and also arrived in safety.

Champlain had now twice tested the mettle of the Iro- quois confederacy, once in the country of the Mohawks, on their extreme eastern flank, and a second time in the region of the Senecas, near the western flank. The first encounter had resulted favorably, the second was an entire failure. These unfortunate aggressions were repaid upon the people of Canada by a century and a half of merciless warfare, during which the daring savages penetrated more than once to the vicinity of Quebec and ravaged nearly all the settlements with fire and tomahawk.

A memorable inroad was the one made in 1622 when the Iroquois warriors hovered around Quebec, attacked the convent of the Recollets, and after doing all the damage in their power outside the fortifications decamped as suddenly as they had appeared.

Champlain remained at Quebec, its nominal Governor, though the merchants divided with him the control of affairs. The place grew slowly, but in 1628 it was so dis- tressedly poor that it was a serious question whether it had not best be abandoned. Nothing but the indomitable en- ergy of its founder kept the frail settlement from extinction .*

The stumbling-block which finally ruined the colonies of New France was religious intolerance and bigotry. The Huguenots were among the best sailors and the most en- terprising people in France, and eagerly would have colo- nized the Canadas, but they were Protestants, and the bigoted king forbade them an entrance into the country. Had they been allowed to settle along the St. Lawrence a different result would have been witnessed, and to-day New England and a large portion of the Northern States might have been inhabited by the descendants of French pro- genitors.

In 1628-29 the bigoted treatment extended to the Hu- guenots by the French government returned to plague its inventors. The oppressed people took up arms in behalf of their violated rights, and Charles I., of England, es- poused their cause, not from love of the principles for which

they eontended, but through jealousy of the old rival of England. Many Huguenots took service under the British banner, and among these were David, Louis, and Thomas Kirk, Calvinists, of Dieppe, who advised the English king to attack the French colony in Canada. David Kirk was accordingly made admiral of a powerful fleet and sent to the St. Lawrence, where in July, 1628, he captured a num- ber of transports laden with supplies for the starving peo- ple of Quebec, and, appearing before the latter place, sent a polite notice to Champlain to surrender. But, notwith- standing the straits to which he was reduced, the veteran Governor was not frightened, and as politely declined.

The losses of the much-needed supplies reduced the inhabitants to the verge of starvation, and when, on the 19th of July, 1629, Louis Kirk, brother of the admiral, appeared with his squadron before the place, Champlain was compelled to accept the alternative, and it passed into the hands of the English.

The bitterest reflection fell to the lot of the Jesuits, who beheld themselves and their property the spoil of the hated Calvinists after a short occupation of about four years.

This surrender carried with it all the French posts in Canada; but it does not seem that the English valued the conquest very highly, for at the treaty of Suza, in April, 1629, which had been actually concluded previous to the surrender of Champlain, all their possessions were restored to the French, though an English garrison remained in the place until July, 1632, when Emery de Caen appeared be- fore it in a French ship and received the keys from the English commander.

Caen held the post and its franchises for nearly a twelve- month to indemnify him for losses in the war; and on the 23d of May, 1633, Champlain returned from France, whither he had been sent by Kirk, and resumed the duties of Governor, which he continued until his death, on the 25th of December, 1635, at the age of sixty-eight years.

RELIGIOUS ORDERS.

With almost every expedition fitted out for discovery in the ports of Christendom went representatives of the Church. They accompanied the voyagers to Acadie in 1603, and un- derwent all the hardships experienced by the first settlers of the bleak and barren shores.

Their first appearance in Canada was in 1615, when the Franciscans led the way under the leadership of Champlain. This order was founded by St. Francis of Assisi, in the thirteenth century, and has upon its records the names of many high officers of the Roman Church.

The Recollets, a reformed branch of the order, with the assistance of a generous subscription taken up among the cardinals, bishops, and nobles of the Church, assembled for the States-General, fitted out four friars of their order at the earnest request of Champlain, himself a zealous Catholic, to begin the great work of Christianizing the Indians of America. These four were Denis Jamet, Jean Dolbeau, Joseph le Caron, and Pacifique du Plessis, who embarked at Honfleur in the spring of 1615, and arrived at Quebec in the latter part of May.

These four individuals had come to America for the ex- press purpose of dividing up the vast region of Canada

# The total resident population of Quebec in 1628 was only 105 persons.

IIISTORY OF INGIIAM AND EATON COUNTIES, MICIIIGAN.

and evangelizing the whole Indian population. Their first business at Quebec was to construct a convent and decide upon a plan of operations. They finally decided to assign Le Caron to the Hurons and Dolbeau to the Montagnais, wbom a French writer aptly named "the paupers of the wilderness." Jamet and Du Plessis were, for a time at least, to remain at Quebec.

We have already seen that Le Caron accompanied Cham- plain's expedition to the country of the Hurons. IIe had, between the time of his arrival and departure for the West, repaired to Montreal and diligently studied the In- dian languages, the better to prepare himself for bis duties as a missionary. He remained nearly a year among the Hurons around the Matchedash Bay, and then returned to Quebec in 1616.

It was the wish of both the French government and its commanders and Governors in Canada to establish a re- ligious and politieal dominion, or rather an ecelesiastieal and a feudal despotism. Champlain, who was one of the most far-seeing and liberal men of his time, considered the salvation of a soul of greater consequence than the found- ing of an empire, and under his powerful patronage the work of settling the country and Christianizing the savages was slowly carried forward. The eross was planted beside the Golden Lilies, and wherever the government estab- lished a post or a trading-station, there arose the little chapel and there toiled the gray-froeked friar.

But, like many another enterprise apparently well ar- ranged in theory, this hereulean undertaking of the Récol- lets proved too mighty for their feeble numbers, and after struggling manfully among the Indians of the lower St. Lawrence until about 1625, they were reluctantly obliged to acknowledge that they were unequal to the work, and were succeeded by the powerful and wealthy order of the Society of Jesus, better known as

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History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 6

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co. Number of Pages: 772

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 772