History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 7

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 7
USA > Michigan > Ingham County > History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan > Part 7

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TIIE JESUITS.

This famous and aggressive order of the Catholic Church was founded by Ignatius Loyola, a soldier who had been badly wounded in previous wars, and, as a consequence, subsequently dedicated himself to the service of the Church. The order assumed the name "Society of Jesus," and was approved by the Pope in 1540.

The first of this brotherhood to arrive at Quebee were Charles Lalemant, Enemond Massé, and Jean de Brebeuf, who came in 1625. They were not well reecived by Caen and the merchants, but the Recollets generously offered them an asylum in their convent. They were soon rein- forced by Fathers Noiret and De la Nouë, who brought twenty laborers and speedily made them as comfortable as circumstances would permit.

In 1628, Brebeuf, accompanied by Father De la Nouë and one of the friars, proceeded to his field of future labors and tragic death among the lurons on the borders of the Georgian Bay.

THE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES.

In 1627, Cardinal Richelieu was the champion of abso- lutism, which had become supreme in France. Under his powerful patronage the control of Canadian matters was

radieally changed. A new company was formed, ealled the " Company of New France," or the " Hundred Assoei- ates," and the sovereignty of the whole of the French possessions in America placed under its control. It was granted a perpetual monopoly of the fur trade, and a mon- opoly of all other commerce for the period of fifteen years, and its entire trade was made free from all duties for the same period.

In return for these favors and immunities the company obligated itself to settle in the colony, previous to the year 1643, 4000 persons, ineluding people of every trade and both sexes, to support them three years, and furnish them cleared lands for subsistence. The colony was to be ex- elnsively French, and every member must be a Catholic.

In 1629, as we have seen, all the possessions of France in America fell into the hands of the English, who held them for about three years, when they were restored by a treaty of peace between the two nations.

During the English occupation the missionary operations of the Jesuits were broken up, though the conquerors treated the few Recollets who still remained at Quebec with much courtesy. With the return of Caen, in 1632, eame also two Jesuits, and from that time on the order continued its operations in the colony.

MISSIONS.

Between 1634 and 1639 missions were established by the Jesuits at seven localities in the Iluron country,-viz., Ste. Marie, St. Louis, St. Ignace,* St. Michel, St. Jean Bap- tiste, St. Joseph, and La Conception, all within a radius of twenty miles around the head of Matchedash Bay.

In this out-of-the-way region the Jesuit Fathers labored with a zeal and self-denial probably never exceeded in the history of the world for the regeneration of a race who but imperfectly comprehended their benevolence and poorly re- eiproeated their good intentions.

Whatever may be said of their doctrines and manner of propagation, their peculiar ceremonies, and the eurious paraphernalia of their order, we must admit that they were sineere in their professions and labored faithfully, in the face of privations, danger, and death, for the benefit of a savage people, and finally perished in horrible tortures amid the universal ruin of those whom they came to raise from degradation, rather than eseape while there was yet time and leave the luekless and doomed Hurons to their fate.

Among the names of these remarkable men were those of Brebeuf, Lalemant, Daniel, Jogues, Chatelain, Garnier, Cabanel, Pijart, and La Mereier, most of whom perished in the onslaught of the Iroquois.

FIRST VISIT TO MICHIGAN.

The first recorded visit of Europeans to the Territory of Michigan was made by Charles Raymbault and Isaac Jogues, two Jesuits, who, in September and October, 1641, made the voyage in a bireh eanoe up the Ottawa River, through Lake Nipissing, across the Georgian Bay and

* This must not be confounded with the St. Ignace of Mackinac, established in 1671.

EARLY DISCOVERIES AND SETTLEMENTS:

Lake Huron, to the Sanlt Ste. Marie, at the foot of Lake Superior .*

In 1642 the permanent settlement of Montreal was ef- fected by a colony under Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Mais- sonneuve, who had been appointed Governor of the post in 1640. The settlement was made by a company resembling that of the Hundred Associates, of fourteen years before, at Quebec, and was designated as " The Forty-five Associates of Montreal." The place had been a trading-post since 1611. Under the new régime it was named " Ville Marie de Montreal," in honor of the Virgin.

DESTRUCTION OF THE HURONS.

A condition of chronic war may be said to have continu- ally existed among the Indian nations of the American continent. In a few instances, as was the case with the Iroquois nations, the Hurons and Tobacco nation, or Dio- nondadies, as they were named by the French, and the Ojibwas, Ottawas, and Pottawattomies, from two to six na- tions or tribes were leagued together, constituting confed- eracies of great power for the purposes of savage warfare.

The most bitter animosity seems to have existed between the Iroquois and the Hurons, and, except at long-separated intervals of short duration, a desolating war was carried on, the Iroquois, as indeed they generally were, being the ag- gressors. This state of things had existed since about the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the Iroquois were driven from the north side of Lake Ontario and the river St. Lawrence by their kindred, the Algonquins, or Huron Algonquins.

In 1649-50 the strife culminated in a series of deter- mined attacks by the Iroquois, which resulted in the de- struetion of all the Huron towns and the death, captivity, or expulsion of the wretched inhabitants, though in the aggregate they vastly outnumbered the entire Iroquois con- federacy.t

One after another the missions planted by the Jesuit. Fathers and their surrounding Indian villages were at- tacked and destroyed, and most of the missionarics perished either in the fray or by the most dreadful tortures subse- quently. The story of the terrible martyrdom which these men suffered almost on the borders of Michigan is scarcely known among the people of the State. A few men only, who have had access to the records of those days, have read of the horrors of that wilderness and the savage war- fare which destroyed a nation.

In this connection we cannot forbear making a brief quotation from Francis Parkman's " Jesuits in North America," to show the character of the terrible catastrophe

which befell Indians and missionaries alike, and as a sam- ple of the Iroquois manner of torturing the latter.

The village of St. Ignace, with its Jesnit chapel and native wigwams, was taken and totally destroyed by a large war-party of the Iroquois in March, 1649.

Here were stationed Jean de Brebeuf, the earliest of the Jesuits to begin work among the Hurons, and Gabriel Lalemant. Brebeuf was a powerful man, both physically and mentally, but Lalemant was of a slender make and physi- cally ill fitted to bear even the ordinary privations of the wilderness. They were both taken prisoners after the Hurons were destroyed, and reserved for torture. We quote from Parkman :

"Ou the afternoon of the 16th (of March), the day when the two priests were captured, Brebeuf was led apart and bound to a stake. He secmed more concerned for his captive converts than for himself, and addressed them in a loud voice, exhorting them to suffer patiently and promising heaven as their reward. The Iroquois, incensed, scorched him from head to foot to silence him; whereupon, is the tone of a master, he threatened them with everlasting flames for per- secuting the worshipers of God. As he continued to speak with voice and countenance unchanged, they cut away his lower lip and thrust a red-hot irea dowa his throat. He still held his tall form ercet and defiant, with no sigo er sound of pain; and they tried another means to overcome him. They led out Lalemant, that Bre- beuf might see him tortured. They had tied strips of bark, smeared with pitch, about his naked body. When he saw the condition of his superior, he could not hide his agitation, and called out to him, with a broken voice, in the words of Saint Paul, 'We are made a spec- tacle to the world, to angels, and to men.' Then he threw himself at Brebeuf's feet, upon which the Iroquois seized him, made him fast to a stake, and set fire to the bark that enveloped him. As the flames rose he threw his arms upward, with a shriek of supplication, to heaven. Next, they hung around Brebeuf's neck a collar made of hatchets heated red hot, hut the indomitable priest stood like a rock. A Huron in the crowd, who had been a convert of the mission, but was now an Iroquois by adoption, called out, with the malice of a renegade, to pour hot water ou their heads, since they had poured se much cold water on those of others. The kettle was accordingly slung, and the water boiled and poured slowly ea the heads of the two missionaries. ' We baptize you,' they cried, ' that you may be happy in heaven, for nobody can be saved without a good baptism.' Brebeuf would not fliach, and, in a rage, they cut strips of flesh from his limbs and de- voured them before his eyes. Other renegade Hurons called out to him, 'You told us that, the more one suffers on earth, the happier he is in heaven. We wish to make you happy, we torment you because we love you, and you ought to thank us for it.' After a succession of other revolting tortures they scalped him, when, seeing him dearly dead, they laid open his breast and came in a crowd to drink the blood of so valiant an enemy, thinking to imbibe with it some por- tien of his courage. A chief theo tore out his heart and devoured it.

"Thus died Jean de Brebeuf, the founder of the Huron mission, its truest hero, and its greatest martyr. He came of a noble race,- the same, it is said, from which sprang the English Earls of Arundel, -but never had the mailed barons of his line confronted a fate so appalling with se_prodigious a constancy. To the last he refused to flinch, and his death was the astonishment of his murderers.

" Lalemant, physically weak from childhood, and slender almost to emaciation, was constitutionally unequal to a display of fortitude like that of his colleague. When Brebeuf died he was led back to the house whence be had been taken and tortured there all night, until, in the morning, one of the Iroquuis, growing tired of the protracted entertainment, killed him with a hatchet."

Fifteen Huron villages were completely destroyed, and those of their people who escaped death or captivity at the hands of the enemy dispersed through the forest, gaining a seanty livelihood by picking up acorns. Their treasured corn and other provisions were all included in the common ruin.

* It is related that ene Jean Nicollet, a Freochman, who had dwelt among the Indians of Lake Nipissing and Allumette Island, and had mastered their language, was sent ou a mission to the Win- nebagees in 1639, during which expedition he crossed over to the Wisconsin and descended to the Mississippi River, and necessarily passed through the Territory of Michigan, The story lacks confir- matien.

¡ The Hurons were variously estimated by different writers at from 10,000 to 30,000 souls, while the Iroquois were never placed by the best authorities at above 10,000. A vigerous and systematic plan ef warfare would soon have driven the Iroquois from the Hurou country.

HISTORY OF INGHAM AND EATON COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

The missionaries finally abandoned the few posts which remained, and fled, along with their terrified companions, to a little island in the bay varionsly known by its Huron name, Ahoendoé, Charity or Christian Island, and Isle St. Joseph, which latter name the missionaries bestowed upon it. Here a motley and starving crowd of 7000 or 8000 Indians collected together, but half of them died of starva- tion and disease during the winter of 1649, while the blondy and implacable Iroquois infested the adjacent shores even in the depth of winter, watching for their prey.

In the spring of 1630 there was a complete breaking up of all the Indian nations of the peninsula bonnded by the great lakes IIuron, Erie, and Ontario, and a final abandon- ment of the whole country by the Jesuit missionaries. Some of the Indians fled northward, settling among the great islands to the northwest of the Georgian Bay ; some fled to the Nipissing country ; some, very likely, found a refuge in Michigan ; a large colony accompanied some of the Fathers who had escaped the general destruction to the vicinity of Quebec; and some availed themselves of an Indian enstom and became incorporated with their deadliest enemies, the Senecas.

CHAPTER IV.

DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION OF MICHIGAN,

Renewal of the Jesuit Missions-Joliet, Marquette-La Salle-Hen- . nepin-Tenty-Du Lhut.

As before stated, the first authenticated visit to the Ter- ritory of Michigan was made by two Jesuits, Charles Raymbault and Isaac Jogues, in 1641. This was previous to the IInron-Iroquois war, which ended with the destruc- tion of the former. The first visit to its territory suc- ceeding that event was probably made by Father Réné Mésnard, in the autumn of 1660, when he coasted the sonthern shore of Lake Superior and attempted to found a mission at the head of Keweenaw Bay, to which he gave the name of Ste. Theresa. He remained at this point during the following winter, and is said to have perished in the following summer while exploring that wild and rugged region. Some writers have supposed he was cap- tured by the Sioux, and claim that his cassock and breviary were afterwards found among them.

On the 8th of August, 1666, Father Claude Allouez left Three Rivers, accompanied by several hundred Indians, and reached the Sault Ste. Marie in the following month. Ile also visited Lake Superior, which he named " Lac Tracy aux Superienr," in honor of the Viceroy of Canada.

This missionary voyaged along the southern shore of the great lake, and on the first of October landed at Chaqua- megon Bay, which was called by the early voyagers La l'ointe Bay. At this place he resided for a period of two years, and probably visited the spot where Duluth* now

stands, as he speaks in his journal of visiting Fond du Lac, or the head of the lake, and of meeting there the Sioux, from whom he heard of the vast prairies of the West, where roamed immense herds of buffalo, and also of the great river which the Indians ealled Messepi, or Nama Sepee. Allouez also visited and labored among the Nipis- sings living to the north of Lake Huron.

Ile speaks of copper as being quite plenty among the savages. There is no evidence that they ever worked the mines, but they possessed the metal in small masses weighing from an onnce to twenty pounds, evidently found among the drift.

The earliest map of the Lake Superior region was drawn in 1668, and was no doubt the work of Fathers Allouez and Marquette. Considering that all their knowledge was obtained by coasting in bark canoes and from the verbal descriptions of the Indians, it was remarkably accurate and creditably executed.

Allonez visited Quebec in the autumn of 1667, where he procured additional aid and supplies, and again returned to the scene of his early labors.

In 1668, Claude Dablon and James Marquette estab- lished the first permanent mission and settlement within the bounds of Michigan, at the Sault Ste. Marie.t It remained simply a mission of the Jesnits until 1750, when the Chevalier de Repentigny erected a fort there for the better protection of the traders.

In 1669, Father Marquette succeeded Allonez at Cha- qnamegon, though whether the mission had been contin- uously maintained since its founding in 1666 does not cer- tainly appear; if it had it was an older settlement than that of the Sault Ste. Marie. The mission at Green Bay, of Lake Michigan, was founded in 1670 by Allouez and Dablon. This last was named St. Francis Xavier. An- other mission was founded among the Ottawas, on the Grand Manitoulin Island, in Lake Huron, in 1671, by Father Louis André, who named it the mission of St. Simon.

The mission at Chaquamegon or La Pointe was called St. Esprit. It was broken up the Sioux in 1671, and the fugitive Hnrons, who comprised its inhabitants, fled to the islands in Lake Huron, and gathered around the mission of St. Simon.

The first recorded visit of Europeans to the site of the city of Detroit was in the spring of 1670, made by two Sulpitian priests, Dollier de Casson and Galiuće, who had joined an expedition fitted ont by La Salle in the summer of 1669 for the purpose of exploring the upper lakes, and, if found practicable, the Mississippi River also. The expedition had been stopped at the head of Lake On- tario by the illness of La Salle and the differences of opin- ion between the great explorer and the priests, the former desiring to make it purely a voyage of discovery, and the latter wishing to divert it to the establishment of mission posts and the conversion of the Indians to Christianity.

The two priests had pushed on to Lake Erie, but, the winter overtaking them, they were compelled to remain at

* This place probably received its name from Daniel Greyselen du Lhut, a famous leader of the coureurs de bois, and a native of Lyons, France. Ile was a cousin of the Tontys, and visited the place in tho autumn of 1679.

+ This name rendered into English literally means the "leap of Saint Mary." It refers to tho leaps or plunges of the water over the rapids.

DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION OF MICHIGAN.

Long Point until the succeeding spring, when they again embarked, and, proceeding up the lake, passed through the strait over Lake St. Clair and on into Lake Huron, and thence to the Sault Ste. Marie, where they arrived on the 25th of May, 1670. This is the first recorded passage of the straits between Lakes Erie and Huron, though there is no doubt that Joliet had made the passage on his way back from an exploring expedition during the preceding year. Ile had met La Salle and these two priests at the western end of Lake Ontario the previous autumn, on his return.

In May, 1671, there was a great gathering of the north- western Indians at the Sault Ste. Marie, where M. de Lus- son, who had been sent out by Talon, the intendant, met them and held a grand council, at which, with much pomp and ceremony and many speeches, the country was taken possession of in the name of the King of France, and all the Indians of the Northwest were declared to be his sub- jects and taken under his protection. Father Claude Al- louez was present at this council and delivered a panegyrie upon the king, and many presents were made to the na- tives. At this council a famous interpreter was present, Nicholas Perrot, a voyageur, who had been in the employ of the Jesuits. He was twenty-six years of age, and un- derstood and spoke the Algonquin tongue fluently. De Lusson was accompanied by fifteen Frenchmen, among whom was Louis Joliet.

Among the nations present at this remarkable council were the Ojibwas, a band of whom, called by the French Saulteurs, had their village on the council-ground ; Potto- wattomies, whose principal abode was then about Green Bay; Ottawas, from the northern part of the southern peninsula and the Lake Huron region ; Miamis, then living in Southern Wisconsin ; Menominees ; Crees, from beyond Lake Superior ; Nipissings, and many more, representing no less than fourteen prominent nations. The Jesuit Fathers Claude Dablon, superior of the missions of the lakes, Gabriel Druillites, and Louis André were also present.

In 1671, Father Marquette founded the mission of St. Ignace* on the north shore of the strait, opposite the island of Mackinae,t and, in company with Allouez and Dablon, explored the country lying south of Lake Superior and west of Lake Michigan, penetrating, according to some writers, to the site of the city of Chicago.

JOLIET AND MARQUETTE.

The French authorities were not satisfied with the mere formality of taking possession of the country. Talon re- solved to explore the whole lake region, the country lying around the upper watershed of the Mississippi, and, if found practicable, the great river itself.

Louis Joliet was the son of a wagonmaker in the em-

ploy of the Ilundred Associates of Canada, and was born at Quebec in 1645. He was educated by the Jesuits and studied for the priesthood, but when about twenty-two years of age he gave up his clerical vocation and engaged in the fur trade. In 1669, as we have seen, he was sent by the intendaut to explore the copper mines of Lake Su- perior, but returned without being able to accomplish the undertaking.}

Father James (or Jacques) Marquette was born in 1637, at Laon, in the north of France, was also educated by the Jesuits, and subsequently joined the order. In 1666 he was sent to the Canadian mission field, where his first work was to master the language of the Montagnais, that branch of the Algonquin family living around and below Quebec, which a Franciscan writer denominated the " paupers of the wilderness." Ile probably taught among that people at the trading-port of Tadoussac, situated at the mouth of the Saguenay River, where it unites with the St. Lawrence, beneath its tremendous granite walls, rising to a height of 1500 feet. But at any rate he did not long remain, for in 1668 he was sent to the lakes, where he remained until called by Talon to accompany Joliet upon an exploring ex- pedition. He was last stationed at St. Ignace.

Count Frontenae§ had been appointed governor-general of New France in 1672, and under his powerful patronage these two remarkable men, Joliet and Marquette, left Maekinac on the 13th of. May, 1673. Their outfit was simple, consisting of two birch canoes, a supply of dried meat and Indian corn, and five men as assistants. Making their way over the broad waters of Lake Michigan, | they entered Green Bay and passed to its southern extremity, and thence up the Fox River, which gave them no little trouble with its numerous rapids, and on over Lake Win- nebago, and through the devious windings of the river beyond to the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, which they crossed, and, launching their canoes on the latter, descended it to the Mississippi, the long sought for object of many voyages and explorations. They entered the great river on the 17th of June, 1673, " with a joy," as Marquette wrote, which he could not express.

The Indian nations or tribes which they had encountered on their way were the Me-nom-i-nees or Wild Rice Indians, which the French called " Folles Avoines," from the name

# Judge Campbell, in his admirable werk, Outlines of the Politi- cal History of Michigan, states that a mission was founded on the island of Mackinac in 1668, but removed soon after.

+ The word Michilimackinac is said, by Rev. Peter Jones, an Ojihwa, to be derived from an Ojibwa word, Mesh-e-ne-mah-ke- noong, the Great Tartle. Others interpret it te mean the place of giant fairies.

# In 1675, Joliet married the daughter of a Canadian merchant, who was trading with the Northern Indians. In 1679 his attention was drawn towards Hudson's Bay, and in that year he made a journey thither, ria the Saguenay River. In the same year he was granted the Mignon Islands, and in 1680 he received a grant of the great isl- and of Anticosti, where, in 1681, he established his residence. lle engaged in the fisheries, and made a chart of the river. In 1690 his property was destroyed by the English under Sir William Phips, and his family captured. In 1694 he explored the coast of Labra- dor. He was made royal pilot of the St. Lawrence by Count Fron- tenac, and royal hydrographer by the French government. IIe died about 1700, and was buried on one of the Mignon Islands .- Parkman.

¿ The count's full name and titles were Louis de Buade, Count of Pallaan and Frontenac.

|| This lake was called by the French Lac des Illinois, and by the Indians Miteliganon, or Michihiganing. Allenez called it Lae St. Joseph, and others Lac Dauphin. Green Bay was named by the French Le Baye de Eaux Puantes.

3₺

IIISTORY OF INGHAM AND EATON COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

of the plant upon which they fed,* the Mascoutins, the Miamis, f and the Kickapoos.

The party descended the Mississippi as far as the mouth of the Arkansas, discovering during the voyage the Des Moines, the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Ohio Rivers.t They returned via the Illinois, Des Plaines, and Chicago Rivers, and this was the first authenticated visit of Euro- peans to the site of Chicago.

From this point they coasted the western shore of Lake Michigan, and reached Green Bay in the latter part of Sep- tember. Marquette, never a rugged man, had been at- tacked with dysentery on the Mississippi, and was wellnigh exhausted. The fatal malady which finally ended his life less than two years later also showed itself, and when the party reached Green Bay he was obliged to remain, while Joliet, with the journals and documents of the expedition, descended to Quebec to acquaint the governor-general with the results of their explorations. At the La Chine Rapids, above Montreal, his canoe was upset and all his papers lost in the seething waters, and Joliet narrowly escaped drowning. Two of his companions and an Indian boy were lost.

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History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 7

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