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CHAPTER IV.
EARLY SETTLEMENTS IN MICHIGAN.
THE Griffin was built during the winter and spring of 1679. In the autumn of 1678 La Salle sent forward some Frenchmen to winter at Detroit, and meet him when he should come up in the next summer. This would indicate a knowledge of the country, and an assurance that there was some place suitable for a winter abode. Allusion has already been made to the fact that the early narratives often make no reference whatever to the existence of posts and Indian villages lying directly in the way of the traveller. The narra- tives of the voyage of the Griffin do not inform us of any sight of human beings between Niagara and Mackinaw. We have no certain means of knowing whether there was any Indian town, or any post of coureurs de bois, upon the Strait at the time. There must have been one or the other in all probability. Tonty was sent up in a canoe in advance of the Griffin, to join the others at "a place called Detroit, 120 leagues from Niagara." This fact appears in Tonty's own narrative or memoir sent to the Government in 1693, where he repeatedly refers to Detroit as a
37
THE STRAIT.
CHAP. IV.]
place that can be identified as at or near where the city of Detroit now stands.' It may have been that the Indian town mentioned by Colden as at " Teuchsa Grondie" was still in existence. The term written by the English and Dutch interpreters in a multitude of different ways more or less resembling it, and by the French as Taochiarontion, Atiochiarontiong, Teiocharontiong, Techaronkion, etc., was applied properly to an undefined region embracing the Strait,2 and according to Hennepin, · it gave a name to Lake Erie. Several of the old maps give it this title. The name given by the Hurons to the place where the city stands was Karontaen, a word closely resembling if not the same as Carantouan, the great stronghold where Champlain's follower, Etienne Brulé, spent a winter with a tribe supposed by Parkman to have been the Eries.3 These men were not sent up to explore, and it is difficult to believe they would have been turned out without a leader in an unknown wilderness.
On the 11th of August, 1679, the vessel weighed anchor and entered the Strait. The party were greatly charmed with all that they saw, and the nar-
I I La. Documents, 53, 68, 69, 70.
2 Taochiarontion. La Côte du Détroit .- Potier MS. " (ote" was used as " coast" was in old English, not merely to mark a hill or water boundary, but a vicinage or border-land.
3 Pioneers of France in the New World, 377-8.
The Jesuit Journal of 1653 (for July) speaks of 800 of the neutral nation wintering at Skenchid'ie, near Teiochanontian. In the New York doc- uments the English and Dutch forms of the name are 19 in number.
38
LAKE ST. CLAIR.
[CHAP. IV.
rative of Hennepin, (like those of La Hontan and Charlevoix,) is almost rapturous in its expressions of admiration for the tall woods and verdant mead- ows, the fruits and vines, and the infinite abundance of birds and beasts. We are informed that La Salle was strongly urged to stop and settle on the Strait, but his real purpose, not then disclosed, was to com- pete with the Spaniards for the Lower Mississippi and Gulf Country, and so early a break in his voy- age was not to be thought of.
On the 12th of August, which is known in the . Calendar as Ste. Claire's day, they entered the Lake formed by an expansion of the Strait, and named it after that Saint. Modern geographers have called it Lake St. Clair, and referred its name to Patrick Sinclair, an English commander of the last century. Its Huron name was Otsiketa, signifying sugar or salt, and probably referring to the salt springs near Clinton River, which were well known in the earliest days of the country." Here they were wind-bound for several days, the current of the upper Strait, (St. Clair River) being too strong to be overcome without a very fair breeze. They finally set out and reached Lake Huron on the 23rd. They were struck by a storm a day or two after, probably off Saginaw Bay, and were for a time in great peril. The gale abating, they reached Mackinaw safely. On the 2nd of Sep-
I This little lake also had various names. One was Lac Chaudiere (kettle) from its round shape. On the Dutch maps it is called Kandekio. On some of the French maps Ganatchio. - See Maps in Michigan State Library.
39
FORT AT ST. JOSEPH RIVER.
CHAP. IV.]
tember La Salle left Mackinaw, and after visiting Green Bay, whence he despatched the Griffin east- ward with a valuable cargo of furs, he coasted down the eastern shore of Lake Michigan and finally landed at the mouth of the St. Joseph River, then called the River of the Miamis. There he built a timber fort or block-house fifty by eighty feet. He subsequently went up that river and crossed over to the Illinois River, and thence worked down to the Mississippi.
This fort does not appear to have been of much consequence originally, and there was never any outside settlement of whites about it. In 1697, when an attempt was made to induce the King to call in all the traders from the North- west, and destroy the posts, an exception was proposed in favor of the forts at" Mackinaw and the River St. Joseph, as necessary to obstruct the
trade of the English and Iroquois with the Western and Northern Indians.1 A few years before (in 1691 or 1692) some English traders were said to have dealt with the Miamis near the latter post,2 and Tonty, Courtemanche, Nicholas Perrot, and other noted leaders, were sent up to keep the Indians in the French interest. When Charlevoix visited the country in 1721, he spent some time at this post, which had then been re-
I 2 Charlevoix Hist., 211-212.
2 In 1670 some Iroquois reached the Ottawa country under the guidance of Frenchmen, on a political mission .- 9 N. Y. Doc., 84.
40
DU LUTH.
[CHAP. IV.
moved some distance up the river into the present State of Indiana.
Meanwhile this region, from its abundance of furs, and from its lying in the path of all who sought to deal in those articles, was assuming considerable importance. The coureurs de bois had become very numerous, and there was great clamor against them. The English in New York were reaching out as far as they could for the Upper Country trade. The company at Quebec, in order to prevent beaver-smuggling, desired to exclude all but their own servants from the woods. We find constant reference to Du Luth, De la Forêt, Durantaye, De Lusigny, and other con- spicuous characters, as not only active in explor- ing, but engaged in unlawful traffic. These men were all useful in defending the posts and holding the savages under control, and without them the close of the seventeenth century would have seen this region in the hands of the English. Du Luth, with great foresight, built a fort on the Kam- inistique River, on the north shore of Lake Superior, which completely shut off access to the Hudson Bay country from below, according to the routes then known. He was the first . also to see the necessity of fortifying on the Strait.
In 1679, while La Salle was preparing for his journey, the Intendant Duchesneau made bitter complaints against Frontenac the Governor and Du Luth, as concerned together. He says that 500 or 600 brave men were in the country own-
41
JEALOUSIES.
CHAP. IV.J
ing Du Luth as commander.1 De Lusigny, Du Luth's brother-in-law, was also charged as im- plicated. In 1680, it was said that every family had friends among the coureurs de bois.
That year an amnesty was granted. The reason appears in the increasing pretensions and incursions of the Iroquois, and the need of soldiers for the posts on Lakes Erie and Ontario to re- strain them.2 In 1682, De la Barre became Governor, and his policy was bold and active. Du Luth was received more openly into favor, and naturally aroused new enmity in certain quarters.3 He was present at a council in Quebec that year, and may have suggested, what was a familiar idea with La Motte Cadillac, that the Lakes needed armed vessels to guard the way to the west. De la Barre proposed to have a fleet stationed on Lake Erie.4 He had a poor idea of the value of La Salle's explorations, and La Salle in turn regarded him and Du Luth and De la Forêt as enemies who had interfered with his interests. La Salle appears to have had some notion that he had pre-empted the country. These trade jealousies were possibly well founded, but they show how demoralizing the whole monop- oly system must have been. Du Luth was so pressed by calumny, that he went to France and there was able to vindicate himself completely, so that no more is heard against him. On his return
1 9 N. Y. Doc., 131, 132, 140. 3 9 N. Y. Doc., 194. 2 9 N. Y. Doc., 147. 4 9 N. Y. Doc., 196.
42
THE ENGLISH AIM AT MACKINAW. [CHAP. IV.
he assumed the defence of Mackinaw, co-operat- ing with De la Durantaye, an old Carignan officer, of great bravery,' but not fortunate in his finances; and these two gentlemen appear to have acted together in many enterprises, until the former was recalled by Frontenac to the east.1 In 1683, Du Luth is declared to be the only person who can keep the Indians quiet. But he continued in bad odor with the Company, and in 1684, De la Barre, Du Luth, De la Chesnaye, and Deschaillons de St. Ours, are paraded in a memoir on the sup- pression of beaver smuggling as prime offenders.2 These incessant attacks upon the best men in the colony, by a set of grasping knaves who would have had no country to prey upon without them, are not edifying.
In 1684, De la Barre, in recognition of the importance of the route through Lake Erie and the Strait, sent an army to Mackinaw that way. About this time disputes arose between him and Governor Dongan of New York on the French pretensions to Michigan, and both De la Barre and his successor Denonville had a sharp corres- pondence with Dongan on the subject. It became evident that the latter was stirring up the Iroquois to dispute possession with the French, and plans were made to send up English traders and agents in the direction of Mackinaw, to deal with the tribes there.3 In 1686, Denonville directed Du
1 9 N. Y. Doc., 201-2. 2 9 N. Y. Doc., 205.
3 9 N. Y. Doc., 297. 1 I.a IIontan, 78, 79. Id., 300.
43
CHAP. IV.] FORT ST. JOSEPH ON ST. CLAIR RIVER.
Luth to fortify the Strait. This was at once done, and the latter established a post ("or castle," as it was termed by the English agents,) at the head of the Strait, at or very near the present Fort Gratiot. He began his work with a garrison of fifty men, well equipped, and all coureurs de bois." This fort was called Fort St. Joseph. In November of that year, in the memoir sent to France by the Governor, he refers to it with great satisfaction as having turned out to be an important defence." It also appears that Dongan had given reason to believe he would take meas- ures to attack it.2 Rigid orders were sent out to shoot any Frenchman found among foreign tra- ders who might be met in the country.3
Governor Dongan reports the fact that the French had built one or two wooden forts on the way to the far Indians, who, he says, were inclined to trade in New York, because the French could not protect them from the Iroquois.+ But as the Iroquois represented to the English that they were unable to cope with the French, and as the Mackinaw and other Michigan Indians were not disturbed by the Iroquois, this statement may pass for a pretext. The Governor also informed his superiors that he was about sending a Scotch gentleman called McGregor (McGregory) to open communications with the distant tribes, adding (which was also under the circumstances a very
1 9 N. Y. Doc., 306. 2 Id., 309.
3 Id., 315.
4 3 N. Y. Doc., 395.
44
CAPTURE OF ENGLISH PARTY.
[CHAP. IV.
curious statement) that McGregory had orders not to meddle with the French, and he hoped they would not meddle with him.
. This expedition, consisting of sixty English and Dutch traders and a considerable escort of Iro- quois, left for Mackinaw, a part in 1686 and a part very early in 1687. It was divided into two nearly equal companies, a Dutch trader named Roseboom going first, and McGregory following him with orders to take supreme command. It does not appear very plainly what course Rose- boom took, but he seems to have got into Lake Huron without being seen from Fort St. Joseph. The men who were with him stated he had gone to a distance of a day and a half's journey from the castle, when he was captured by a force of French and Indians. The capture appears to have been made by a party under De la Duran-
taye.' Whether casually or by agreement, there happened at this very juncture a remarkable gathering of distinguished officers. The Chevalier de Tonty, in April, 1687, (after returning with orders from the Governor General,) had taken measures to gather the Indians in Western Michi- gan and in the Illinois Country, and to declare war against the Iroquois. La Forêt had gone on by way of the Lakes from Fort St. Louis with thirty Frenchmen, to wait at Detroit until Tonty arrived over-land; and he reached Fort St. Joseph at or about the same time when Durantaye came
I [ La Hontan, 115.
45
McGREGORY TAKEN.
CHAP. IV.]
in with his captives. Tonty left Sieur de Belle- fontaine to command at the fort on St. Joseph River, and came across Michigan with 150 Illinois Indians, arriving at "Fort Detroit" on the 19th of May. He remained at this point, which was the present site of the city of Detroit, and sent up word of his coming to his cousin Du Luth at Fort St. Joseph. In a few days he was joined by Beauvais de Tilly (or more properly Tilly de Beauvais)' and soon after by La Forêt, who was followed by Durantaye and Du Luth with their prisoners. They joined forces and went down Lake Erie in canoes, and on their way captured McGregory with thirty Englishmen and some allied Indians, and some French and Indian cap- tives. The depositions of McGregory's party state that the French party consisted of 1500. The Governor's report puts them at 400. Tonty does not mention the number. They were going to Niagara, expecting to fight the Iroquois,2 and the officers who were engaged were the prominent leaders of the Northwest.3 A large amount of booty was captured with the two companies. Tonty who was senior in command sent forward La Forêt to report to the Governor, and he reached Frontenac, where the Governor was in camp, about the end of June. The army from below joined the Western forces at a point on the south shore of Lake Ontario, where they
3 3 N. Y. Doc., 436.
I I La. Doc., 69.
2 9 N. Y. Doc., 332.
46 .
SENECA CAMPAIGN.
[CHAP. IV.
built a fort known as Fort les Sables. Here they shot a Frenchman named Lafontaine Marion, (according to La Hontan, - Abel Marion in the depositions), who was acting as guide to the English company." La Hontan refers to this with some indignation as an act of cruelty, the trade regulations giving no chance to get a living in the colony, and there being peace with the English.2 After a short but sharp campaign in the Seneca country, the troops returned to the fort, and Tonty and Du Luth went homeward accompanied by Baron La Hontan, who was sent up to take command at Fort St. Joseph, Du Luth being needed elsewhere. Tonty left the others at this fort, and went on with Father Crévier to Mack- inaw,3 and thence to his own Fort St. Louis. Here Tonty found the brother of La Salle, Cav- elier, with the rest of his company on their way eastward. To him as to others they said La Salle was living; and Cavelier committed a gross fraud on Tonty, by obtaining a considerable ad- vance on his brother's credit.
On the way up from Niagara, and near Buffalo, Tonty and his companions met a brother of Du Luth, Grisolon de la Tourette, who is said by La Hontan to have come down from Mackinaw to join the army, having but one canoe ;+ and the Baron speaks of his rashness in running such a risk when the Iroquois were hostile. This gentle-
1 3 N. Y. Doc., 430, 436.
2 I La Hontan, 117.
3 La Hontan, 126, 134 I La. Doc , 70 4 La Hontan, 128
47
GRISOLON DE LA TOURETTE
CHAP. IV.]
man's name is not generally found in the histories. Great confusion has arisen from the fact that some times the family name is used, and sometimes other titles, and they are occasionally reversed so that the family name is made to represent the estate. Du Luth's family name was Grisolon, and La Hontan speaks of him as a gentleman from Lyons. He was a cousin of Tonty, who as already mentioned was of Italian extraction. Charlevoix mentions as connected with La Forêt and Tonty, and as having been long and honorably employed in the Illinois country, and as having great influ- ence over the Indians, the Sieur Delietto, who is said to have been a cousin of Tonty.1 This men- tion is late in the seventeenth century, and was near its close. The similarity of name to Du Luth and the same relationship to Tonty, give rise to a query whether there may not have been some confusion between the Grisolons, and whether this name may not belong to one of them. The only other reference in Charlevoix to any Delietto is found in the statement of the valuable services rendered by a post commander of that name sev- eral years after, in obtaining from the Head Chief of the Natchez the surrender of a brother who had been very troublesome to the French.2 This officer died in 1722, a long time after Daniel Grisolon du Luth, whose death occurred in 1709.3
I 2 Charlevoix H., 265.
2 2 Charlevoix II., 460.
3 Parkman's Discovery of the Great West, 254, note.
A name which belongs to one of these persons is given variously as Deliatto, Deslietten and Deliette. The name DeSiette in the Wisconsin collection is 'evidently a misprint of DeLiette .- 3 Wis. His. Sod'y Col , 148.
48
TERRITORIAL DISPUTES
[CHAP. IV.
It is much to be regretted that any of those brave men should drop out of history. Their services were brilliant, and their personal merits were such as in most countries would have marked them among the paladins.
This assertion of dominion over the Strait by the French had important results. An acrimoni- ous correspondence followed between the Canadian and New York Governors,' and Governor Dongan and the Iroquois had various discussions as to which of them should pull the chestnuts out of the fire, each being anxious that the other should dis- lodge the French. The Iroquois urged strenuously that the Governor should remove the French from Niagara, Cataraqui, and Tyschsarondia, "which is the place where wee goe a bever huntinge, for if those forts continue in French hands wee are always besieged."2
The French Governor refused to release McGregory and his associates until finally ordered to do so by the home authorities, in October, 1687. It became evident that sooner or later there would be a struggle for the country, unless precluded by secure possession.
Up to this time no fort or post in Michigan had any French farming population about it. Mackinaw was the great centre, but here the coureurs de bois, who frequented and garrisoned the post, had their own stronghold and stores on
1 3 N. Y. Doc., 436, 532, 536, 905, 906. 2 3 N. Y. Doc., 536
49
FORT ST. JOSEPH BURNED.
CHAP. IV. |
the Island, which was uncultivated.' After that post was founded, the Hurons and Ottawas settled near it, and contrary to the modern theories of our Indian hating statesmen, the civilized men de- pended for their supplies on the barbarians. The Ottawas both at Mackinaw and Detroit, as late as Pontiac's time, paid some attention to agriculture. The Hurons raised much more than they needed for themselves, and supplied their neighbors ; and Charlevoix gives them credit not only for being diligent farmers, but for the civilized quality of knowing how to get a fair price for their surplus stores.ª Baron La Hontan was obliged to go to Mackinaw in the spring of 1688, to purchase provisions for his fort from the Indians there.'
It was soon discovered that Fort St. Joseph might be dispensed with, and it was burned by La Hontan in 1688.4 The Fort at Detroit, which was afterwards put on the footing of a settle- ment, continued as a military post until 1701. References are made to the policy of continuing it in 1689 and 1691 ; and in 1700 M. de Longueuil was in command, and held an important council with the Indians.5 It was probably nothing more than a block-house, and may have been at times unoccupied.
I La Hontan, 144-5. Charlevoix, Letter 19.
2 Letter 17.
4 1.a Hontan, 171.
5 9 N. Y. Doc., 399, 511, 647, 704, 713.
3 La Hontan, 139. 1
50
LA MOTTE CADILLAC.
[CHAP. IV.
In 1692 La Motte Cadillac, who had become a man of note among the colonists, and who had devised intelligent plans for commanding the country by fleets as well as forts, was sent to France to give his views to the King and his ministers.' On his return he assumed an import- ant place in the management of western affairs. In his memoir on Iroquois affairs, in 1694,2 he vindicated the coureurs de bois, and was severe on their maligners, whom he charged with giving false statements of fact concerning Mackinaw and other matters. He was very influential among the Indians, and in 1695 especial mention is made of his good qualities, and of his shrewdness in Indian affairs. Frontenac, who at this period was Governor, and who had returned in that capacity in 1689, was in sympathy with him. But at this time the war against the traders was very warmly pushed by the missionaries, and they procured an order from France to have the military post of Mackinaw and all others but Fort St. Louis abandoned. Frontenac, however, prevented this, but the trade in furs was more rigidly confined to licensed traders, and the Canada Company. Twenty-five licenses were granted yearly, mostly to widows and orphans of deserving persons, who sold them to traders.3 These allowed goods of a certain amount and value to be carried into the Indian country, and
1 9 N. Y. Doc., 530, 543, 546, 549. 2 Id., 577.
3 Charlevoix, Letter 4.
51
PLANS FOR HOLDING DETROIT.
CHAP. IV.]
bartered or sold to the Indians; and the profits were very great. Special permissions were given to post commanders and others, and the licenses were extended liberally so as to give the owner opportunities for extensive traffic. The war with England (declared in the spring of 1689, and not ended until the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697,) suspended the operations of the English in the Northwest, and confined the more severe hostilities to the regions further east.
As soon, however, as the peace was declared, under the pretext that the Western Lake Coun- try was not really French territory, the New York authorities began to lay plans for getting into possession. In 1699, Robert Livingston laid before Lord Bellomont a project for taking pos- session of Detroit. He proposed sending 200 Christians, and 300 or 400 Indians of the Five Nations, "to make a fort at a place called Wawijachtenok [ Waweatanong, the name of Detroit in the Chippewa tongue,] where a party of Christians are to be left, being a place plenty of provisions, many wild beasts using there," etc. He remarks on the disposition of the French to claim everything.1
In the same year La Motte Cadillac first proposed to the French Government to make a settlement for habitation at the same place .? He did not immediately succeed.
1 4 N. Y. Doc., 501.
2 Conversation with Count Pontchartrain .- Sheldon, 143.
52
DETROIT TO BE SECURED.
[CHAP. IV
In 1700 Livingston renewed his project more earnestly. He declares that we "can never ran- counter the French unless we have bushlopers as well as they." He then points out the course to be pursued. "To build a fort at Wawyachtenok, cal'd by the French De Troett, the most pleasant and plentiful inland place in America by all rela- tion, where there is arable land for thousands of people, the only place of bever hunting for which our Indians have fought so long and at last forced the nations to fly. Here you have millions of elks, bevers, swans, geese, and all sorts of fowl. The fort to be between Sweege Lake and Otta- wawa' Lake, which place lyeth by computation southwest from Albany seven hundred and forty- four miles, viz : From Albany to Terindequat at the Lake of Cadaraqui four hundred miles, from thence to Onyagara where the great fall is eighty miles, from thence to the beginning of Sweege Lake forty miles, and from the Sweege Lake to the place called Sweege, being a creek which comes into Sweege Lake, sixty-four miles, and from thence to Wawyachtenok one hundred and sixty miles," etc .?
La Motte Cadillac, finding his scheme likely to fail, went to France and laid his plans before Count Pontchartrain. His conversation was re- duced to writing, and copied, with other documents, for General Cass, from the French archives. The
I Huron.
2 4 N. Y. Doc., 650.
53
CADILLAC'S PLANS.
C'HAP. IV.|
interesting work of Mrs. Sheldon on the Early History of Michigan copies it at length."
His object was, in the first place to make it a permanent post, not subject to frequent changes; -(the official documents show that previous posts on the Strait had been subject to these mutations.) To secure permanence it was necessary to have numerous Frenchmen, both traders and soldiers, and to induce the friendly Indians to gather around it, and so become able to meet the Iro- quois with less difficulty. He pointed out the fact that as this was the only way to the fur country, it would intercept the English trade, and by pla- cing the post at Detroit it would open a trade further to the southwest than could be reached from above.
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