History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 7

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott
Number of Pages: 761

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Northwestern Indians, he (it is said) connived at their de- termination to make war upon La Salle and the Illinois.

He also seized upon Fort Frontenac, the property of La Salle, under the flimsy pretext that the latter had not lived up to the conditions of his grant. Soon after he sent the Chevalier de Baugis with an armed party to take posses- sion of La Salle's fort on the Illinois.

In the mean time La Salle had left his fort, in the early autumn of 1683, in command of Tonti, and descended to Quebec, intending to sail for France.

On his way he met the Chevalier de Baugis, on his way to take possession of Fort St. Louis. La Salle made no objections, and even wrote to Tonti to receive De Baugis well ; and the two commanders divided the command be- tween them, Tonti representing La Salle and De Baugis the Governor.

In the latter part of March the Iroquois attacked the place, but were easily beaten off.

La Salle sailed for France, where he completely won over the king and court to his interests, and was granted much more than he asked. His lieutenant, La Forest, who had been ejected from Fort Frontenac, was then in Paris ; and he was at once commissioned to return to Canada, and re-occupy, in La Salle's name, both Forts Frontenac and St. Louis. In the place of two ships, which La Salle had asked for, he was supplied with four.

A hundred soldiers were furnished, and a great number of workmen and mechanics, and even women joined the expedition. There were also several priests of various orders, including La Salle's brother, and altogether a com- pany of two hundred and eighty persons. The principal vessel, the "Joly," of the royal navy, carried thirty-six guns. The naval command was given to one Captain Beaujeu, of the royal navy, while La Salle controlled all, except the management of the vessels at sea.

La Salle's grand scheme was to take possession of the whole vast valleys of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi : establish a chain of trading-posts from Quebec to the mouth of the great river ; plant permanent settlements all along the route ; and eventually, drive the Spaniards from the Gulf of Mexico, thus giving the king of the French control of the largest and fairest portions of the North American continent, and confining the English settlements to a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast. He would have united all the Indian tribes of the interior, excepting only the Iroquois confederacy, to the arms of France, and by an immense display of force have kept possession of the coun- try. It was a magnificent plan, but destined never to be consummated.

The expedition sailed from Rochelle on the 24th of July, 1684. La Salle and Beaujeau were at cross-purposes ; everything went wrong; and when the vessels reached the West Indies, La Salle and fifty of the people on board the " Joly" were sick. But the worst trouble of all was the loss of the "St. François," transport, laden with supplies, which was captured by the Spaniards.

Towards the end of November La Salle was sufficiently recovered to resume the voyage, which he did, accompanied by his brother Joutel, the historian of the expedition, and others of his followers, on board the store-ship " Amiable,"

* This name is said to be derived from the fact that a party of Illi- nois Indians, after the assassination of Pontiac, were pursued to this point by the Pottawattomies, who besieged them until they all starved to death. This is a current tradition in the region.

t La Salle, in a memoir addressed to the minister of marine, esti- mates the total number at twenty thousand.

LA SALLE.

which Beaujeu declared he would leave, to follow as best she could.

Crossing the Mexican Gulf, they made land far to the westward of the Mississippi, at Matagorda Bay. The " Joly" soon after arrived, when her commander accused La Salle of deserting him, and they fell into a dispute as to the location of the mouth of the Mississippi ; La Salle con- tending that they had passed it, and Beaujeu threatening to return to France.

La Salle landed a party to explore the adjacent shores, who reported a great river lying to the east of them, which he believed was the western mouth of the Mississippi, but which was in reality the Colorado River, of Texas, and the bay into which it discharged, the present Matagorda Bay, the entrance to which is four hundred and fifty miles in a straight line west by south from the mouth of the Missis- sippi

At this point La Salle determined to land the people and stores, and send the " Joly" back to France. On attempt- ing to make the entrance to the bay, the " Amiable," store- ship, ran on a reef or bar and stuck fast. Attempts were made to unload her cargo, which included all the supplies for the colony ; but a storm arose, and the vessel going to pieces, most of her cargo was lost. It is affirmed by some writers that she was willfully wrecked.

In the midst of these difficulties the Indians proved troublesome, and even hostile, stealing everything they could lay hold off, and at length attacking a small party and kill- ing two men. Finally, taking on board a portion of the colo- nists, who had become anxious to leave the country, Beaujeu made sail and disappeared. It is said, upon good authority, that Beaujeu knew he had passed the mouth of the river, and that before he returned to France he visited it, and caused a map to be made of the region. There is little doubt that he was treacherous to La Salle from the begin- ning.

These occurrences took place in February, 1685. La Salle constructed a temporary fort, and covered it with sails, and here was gathered the heterogeneous colony and what stores they had been able to save from the wreck. The common followers of La Salle were made up of the very scum of Rochelle and Rochefort, and a spirit of insubordi- nation, and even treachery, speedily began to develop itself. Several men deserted; one was caught and hung, and a lot of desperadoes conspired to kill Joutel.

La Salle undertook to explore the country, with the view of finding the Mississippi. In his preliminary explorations he found a better place for the erection of a fort, near the head of Matagorda Bay, on the little river which he named the La Vache, now known as the Lavaca. Removing everything from the first fortification to the new position they laboriously constructed a more elaborate work, inclosed with strong pickets, and in which the colonists lived in tents and hovels. The fort was named St. Louis.

In his extremity the indomitable leader found how wofully he was deceived in regard to his location, and it became ap- parent that he was many hundred miles from where he in- tended to found his settlement, in the midst of a wild and inhospitable region, beyond the probable reach of succor.

In this dilemma it became apparent that relief must be

obtained in some manner, for the miserable colonists were dying daily, and provisions would soon be needed. La Salle could see but one way out of the difficulty, and that was for him or some other person to make his way across the continent to Canada, and procure the means of re- moving the colony to a more favorable region or back to France.

The whole season of 1686 had been spent in a fruitless endeavor to find the " fatal river," as Joutel calls it. Up to the last moment La Salle had relied upon a small vessel, called the " Belle," to transport his followers to the Missis- sippi as soon as its position was determined, but this vessel was unfortunately lost, and nothing remained but the jour- ney to Canada.

It was about the 7th of January, 1687, when La Salle and his little party left Fort St. Louis upon that journey from which he was never to return. He was assassinated by some of his followers on one of the head branches of the Trinity River, on the 19th day of March, 1687, at the age of forty-four years. It was a most brutal murder, and a most unjust requital for all his bitter experiences in the interests of human knowledge.

La Salle was one of the greatest men of his day, and had he lived to the ordinary age of man the value of his early discoveries would no doubt have been greatly en- hanced by the labors and explorations of his later years.

It was a sad day for the followers of La Salle when the bullet of the assassin closed his earthly career. His brother, the Abbé Cavelier, Joutel, and a few others made their way over the country to the Arkansas River, where they met with two Frenchmen, who had followed Tonti in a brave endeavor to rescue his old commander when he heard of his misfortunes in Texas. Tonti had penetrated, at the head of a small party, from the Fort St. Louis of Illinois to the mouth of the Mississippi, where he searched for many miles on either hand, but finding nothing had re- luctantly returned, leaving a part of his men (on his way up the river) near the Arkansas. Of these were the two who had met Joutel and La Salle's brother. The party arrived safely in Canada, and from thence returned to France.

The remainder of the Texas colony were mostly destroyed in one way or another. The assassins quarreled, and shot each other ; the Indians massacred some; a remnant were found and rescued from death by the Spaniards ; and a few spent their lives among the savages.

When Tonti heard of the death of La Salle, which had been studiously kept from him by Joutel and the abbé, he immediately resolved to rescue those who were left behind in Texas ; and in December, 1688, he left Fort St. Louis, on the Illinois, with a party of five Frenchmen, a Shaw- anese warrior, and two Indian servants, paddled down the Illinois and Mississippi, and thence up the Red River to a village of the Caddoes, which he reached at the end of March, 1689. Here he was informed that a portion of those he sought were eighty leagues distant, and he resolved to push on and rescue them ; but his companions refused, with two exceptions, to follow him farther. Nothing daunted, he continued his search with the two men who remained faithful until he was satisfied he could do nothing further, when he reluctantly retraced his steps, and after

HISTORY OF KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

innumerable hardships reached Fort St. Louis in Septem- ber .*

We have been somewhat particular in tracing the jour- neys, voyages, and explorations of the great discoverer, partly because of the intense interest still centered in them, but chiefly because of La Salle's connection di- rectly and indirectly with the discovery and early settle- ment of Michigan. It is apparent to any one who takes the trouble to investigate closely the movements of the French in the region of the lakes, that the first post es- tablished within the borders of the lower peninsula was the one at the mouth of the St. Joseph River by La Salle, in November, 1679.+

According to the best authority there can be no doubt but La Salle was also the first white man (or one of a party of three) who ever visited the county of Kalama- zoo, which took place in the latter place of March or fore- part of April, 1680, when he was on his way to Canada from Fort Crèvecoeur, on the Illinois ; and the conclusion is ir- resistible that he and his companions encamped for the night on Prairie Ronde. The careful researches of the historian Francis Parkman among the Jesuit and colonial records of France and Canada put these matters beyond a doubt. (See his volume, " Discovery of the Great West." Boston : Brown & Little, publishers.)

CHAPTER VII. MICHILIMACKINAC.

Du Lhut-M. Perot-M. de la Porte Louvigny-M. de la Motte Cadil- lac-Tjugh-sagh-ron-die-Founding of Detroit-" Company of the Colony"-Trouble with Indians, 1703, 1712.

As we have seen, the mission of St. Ignace, of the Straits of Michilimackinac, was founded in 1671. The French gave this name to the adjacent region, and after the establishment of a military post there, which must have been about 1680, it became one of the most important points in the French possessions of North America. Daniel Greysolon Du Lhut seems to have been the first, or at least

* In addition to the services which we have seen Henri De Tonti performed, he led a strong band of French and Indians in Denon- ville's expedition against the Iroquois in 1687. This band was from the Illinois, and Tonti crossed from Fort Miami to Detroit, and prob- ably passed through Kalamazoo County. He was proprietor of Fort St. Louis for several years after La-Salle's death, and carried on the fur-trade extensively until about 1702, when he was transferred to Louisiana. He was sent to Mobile Bay by D'Iberville, Governor of Louisiana, where he made a treaty with the Chickasaw Indians. The date of his death is not known. His brother, Alphonse De Tonti, was for many years commandant at Detroit. Fort St. Louis, on the Illi- nois, was occupied by the French until about 1720.

t The writer who contributed the history of Berrien County to the Pioneer Collections of Michigan undertakes to show that Fathers Allouez, Dablon, and Marquette visited this point between the years 1666 and 1670. Dablon and Allouez visited the Fox and Mascoutin Indians on the west side of the lake, but there is not a particle of evidence to show that they visited the east side of the lake. Father Marquette passed down near the east shore on his way to Mackinaw in May, 1675, but did not land at the mouth of the St. Joseph. Mar- quette died on the eastern shore on the 19th of May, 1675, as spoken of elsewhere. It is probable that a Jesuit mission was established here about the year 1700, when probably Allouez visited the place. (See Parkman's works.)

one of the first military commandants of this important post. At any rate he was there in 1683, and continued until 1686, when he was ordered by M. Denonville, Gov- ernor-General of New France, to establish a fortified post on the " d'etroit," near Lake Erie, which order he pro- ceeded to put in execution ; but he did not build the work on the Detroit River. It was situated on the site of Fort Gratiot,¿ at the foot of Lake Huron, and was only kept up until 1688, when it was abandoned. It was named Fort St. Joseph,§ after the patron saint of New France.

In 1686, M. Perot succeeded Du Lhut in command of Fort Baude, at Mackinac.

M. Perot appears to have remained in command until 1691, when he was succeeded by M. de la Porte Louvigny, who was succeeded by M. de la Motte Cadillac, in 1694. At times this place was almost completely cut off from communication with Montreal and Quebec, but the hold of the French upon it was never relaxed.

In 1695 the place, according to a letter from Cadillac to a friend in Quebec, contained sixty houses,-as he says, " one of the largest villages in all Canada ;" the fort was a strong one, and had a fine garrison of two hundred soldiers ; and there were, besides the regular residents, a great many persons who resided there a part of the year. Cadillac commanded the place from 1694 to 1699.

DETROIT.

Some time in the year 1700, Cadillac, who had become convinced of the necessity of a strong fort on the Detroit, proceeded to France, and in a personal interview with the Count Ponchartrain, || minister for the colonies, readily en- listed him in behalf of the project. Under the commission of the king, Cadillac returned to Canada, arriving at Quebec on the 8th of March, 1701. On the 5th of June he left La Chine with fifty soldiers, and about the same number of Canadian merchants and mechanics. Under him, with the rank of captain, went M. Alphonse de Tonti, a brother of Henri de Tonti, and two lieutenants. A Jesuit accom- panied the expedition as missionary to the Indians, and a Récollet priest as chaplain. The command safely arrived at Detroit on the 24th of July, 1701.

Here he constructed a small stockaded work with two bastions at the angles, and inclosing sufficient space to con- tain a few log buildings for barracks. The roofs were thatched with grass. This work Cadillac named "Fort Ponchartrain," in honor of the French minister.

# Fort Gratiot was built by an American officer of that name, in 1814.

¿ In the next year (1687) Baron La Hontan succeeded Du Lhut in command of Fort St. Joseph. He burned and evacuated the fort in 1688. There is considerable uncertainty about the name Du Lhut. Some writers speak of two brothers. The family name seems to have been Greysolon, or Grisolon, and Du Lhut the name of the estate, near Lyons.

| This name is written Pontchartrain in Sheldon's History of Mich- igan.

T There is at least the probability that there was a French fort at Detroit many years previous to 1701, though it may have been a post of the coureurs des bois, and not recognized by the government. From statements in the New York colonial documents it would appear that it was in existence as early as 1679. It is referred to in 1689 and 1691. Judge Campbell says it may not have been continuously oc- cupied, and was probably never garrisoned by a regular military force until Cadillac's time, 1701.

MICHILIMACKINAC.

In the autumn of this year a company was formed, called the " Company of the Colony of Canada," composed of merchants and traders interested in the fur trade of the country. A contract was drawn up and signed, of which the following is a true copy, from "Sheldon's History of Michigan" :

COMPANY OF THE COLONY OF CANADA.

" Contract made with the Company of the Colony of Canada concerning Fort Frontenac and Detroit, to enable said Company to traffic for beaver and other peltries, in conformity to the agreement made in a convention held at Quebec, Oct. 31, 1701

" Before the royal notaries at Quebec, in New France, appeared M. le Chevalier Callieres, lieutenant-governor for the king in this country of New France, and Monsieur Champigny, administrator of justice, police, and revenue of the said country, who testify that, in conse- quence of orders which they have this year received from his majesty, to entrust to the Company of the Colony of this said country the posts of Detroit and Fort Frontenac, there was held at the Chateau St. Louis, in this city, on the eighth of the present month, a general as- sembly of all the inhabitants of this country who have a deliberative voice in the said company, that all the arrangements might be made in their presence, if the company should decide to accept the said posts of Detroit and Fort Frontenac.

"There were present at this assembly the seven directors-general of the said company, the governors of Montreal and Three Rivers, many civil and military officers, and the merchants and other inhabitants interested in the company.

" After mature deliberation, the result was declared to be the ac- ceptance of these posts by the company, for the purposes of trade in beaver and other peltries, to the entire exclusion of all private indi- viduals who are now, or may hereafter become, residents of that country ; and that the act of said acceptance shall be passed between the governor-general and intendant and the directors-general of the said company.

"In consequence of said decision, the following articles of agree- ment have been made between the governor-general and intendant on the one part, and Messrs. d'Auteuil, procureur-general of the king in the sovereign council of this country, Lotbinieres, lieutenant-general of this city of Quebec, Irazeur, Gobin, Macart, and Pierre, gentlemen, merchants of this city of Quebec, all directors-general of the said company, on the other part.

" Be it known, that the governor-general and intendant, in conse- quence of the express orders which they have this year received from the king, do, by these presents and acceptances, in the name of His Majesty, cede and convey to the directors of the said Company of the Colony of the said posts of Detroit and Fort Frontenac, giving into the possession of the said Company of the Colony, from this day forth, the said posts in the State in which they now are, for their use to traffic in furs, to the exclusion of all other inhabitants of said country, so long as it shall please His Majesty.

"It shall be the duty of the said company to complete the construc- tion of the fort at Detroit, and the buildings properly belonging thereto ; and the company shall in future keep said fort and buildings in good repair, that they may be maintained and rendered in the same state in which they are now, and better, if possible, whenever His Majesty shall judge proper to receive them, if in the course of time he so order.

" The Company of the Colony is also to take charge of the goods which have been sent to the said places, obeying the conditions that have been agreed upon,-Messrs. Radisson and Arnault to be overseers of the storehouse of the said goods which the intendant has placed in the hands of the directors of the company. They are also to have charge of the advances made by the king for this establishment, and to make payment for the said goods, and advances to the intendant, from the first bills which shall be returned from Detroit ; and in case said bills shall not be sufficient, on the 1st of October, 1702, the said overseers shall give bills of exchange for the remainder, which shall be drawn upon the directors and commissioners of said company in Paris, payable to the securities and overseers of the storehouses, for the purpose of liquidating the claims against the said company, con- formably with the agreement made with the said lord-lieutenant.

"The intendant shall deduct from the amount due six thousand 5

livres, French money, being the gift ordered by His Majesty for the support of the honest families in this country who may need assist- ance.

"The payment of the said sum of six thousand livres shall be made by the company every year, on the said first of October, so long as it shall enjoy the commerce of the said post of Detroit.

" It is also agreed that the king shall support, at his expense, the garrison which the Governor shall order for the protection of the said fort of Detroit, and that the commandant and one other officer only shall be maintained by the company.

"The said commandant and soldiers shall not make any trade for furs with the savages nor French, directly nor indirectly, under any pretext whatever, under pain of confiscation of the said furs, and other punishment prescribed by the king.

" Moreover, the said company binds itself to cause to be conveyed from Montreal to Detroit, at its own expense, the provisions and other articles which His Majesty shall furnish to the said garrison, with the help of fifteen livres per hundred-weight, which the intendant shall cause to be paid from the treasury of His Majesty to the company.

" In regard to Fort Frontenac, it will remain as it now is, fully and entirely at the disposal of His Majesty, unless the company can ad- vance some better claim than that of placing deputies there to make commerce in furs for their profit, to the exclusion of all others.

"Until His Majesty's orders shall be received, the deputies shall be lodged and their goods stored in the store-houses of the fort, as the magazine guard and the goods of the king have been heretofore.

"There shall be made an inventory of all the effects which shall be found at the said fort, for the commerce of the said place, after the return of the last convoy for this year, which effects shall remain for the company, who shall be bound to pay for them at the price ex- pressed in the invoice and statement which is in the hands of the intendant. The said amount to be paid during the year 1702, from the returns of the commerce; and in case that the said returns shall not be sufficient, the balance shall be paid in bills of exchange, which shall be drawn upon the said commissioners of the said company, and its director in Paris.

"The said company shall be required to pay the sum of seven livres and ten sous, French money, per hundred-weight, for the transporta- tion of effects from Montreal to the said fort; and the said company enjoying, as hereinbefore stated, the privilege of trading for furs at the said place of Fort Frontenac, exclusive of all others, will be re- quired to transport to the said Fort Frontenac the articles necessary for the subsistence of the garrison of the said place, conformably to the orders of the king, contained in his dispatches of the present year. The commandant, officers, and soldiers which the governor- general shall hold there in garrison shall make no trade, directly or indirectly, on pain of confiscation of their furs and other punishments prescribed by the laws of the king, until the government be revoked.

"Executed and conveyed at Quebec, Chateau St. Louis, in the fore- noon of the thirty-first day of October, 1701, the said gentlemen in- terested and the notaries having signed at the time, the agreements remaining in the office of M. de Chamblon, one of the notaries."

Thus it appears that the original and principal cause of the establishment of a French post at Detroit was the de- sire to control the fur trade of the Upper Lake region,-a trade which, in the outset of the settlement, was placed under the control of a company of merchants, who were guaranteed a monopoly by both the colonial and home gov- ernments. The importance of the post from a military point of view, while of considerable moment, was subordi- nate to its commercial consequence, and, lastly, the estab- lishment of missions in its vicinity was also a factor in the general plan.

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History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 7

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott Number of Pages: 761

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott
Number of Pages: 761