USA > Minnesota > Dahkotah land and Dahkotah life [microform] : with the history of the fur traders of the extreme northwest during the French and British dominions > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14
1 Perrot in La Potherie.
n I I i
f
n
THE FUR TRADE.'
i 115
7
CHAPTER V.
THE trade in furs has produced a class of men of marked peculiarities. Under the French dominion, military officers, and the descendants of a decayed nobility, were licensed, by authority, to trade in a particular district. These men were well educated, polished in their manners, and fond of control. Living in a savage land, surrounded by a few dependents, they acted as monarchs of all they surveyed. ... The freedom from the restraints of civilized life, and the adulation received from the barbarians, who are so easily im- pressed by tinsel and glare, had a wonderful fascina- . tion, so that a " lodge in some vast wilderness" became preferable to the drawing-rooms of ancient France, and the gay assemblies of Quebec.
These licensed officers did not harass themselves with" the minutes of the Indian trade. In their employ a few clerks, chiefly natives of Canada, who had fe- ceived the rudiments of an education. Upon " these devolved the task of conducting European aristes of merchandise, to the tribes on the various watercourses that radiated from the centre of trade, with whom they wintered, and then returned in the spring or summer 'with the peltries that had been obtained in exchange for powder, lead, rum, and tobacco.
heir the 1 to the heir ding .
n
116
HISTORY OF MINNESOT
Under cach clerk were a few men of no cultivation, the children of poverty or shame, who from their earliest youth had led a roving life, and who acted as catoe men, hewers of wood, and drawers of water.
Mercurial in temperament and with no sense of responsibility, they were a "jolly set" of fellows, in their habits approximating to the savage, rather than the European.
"The labours of the day finished, they danced around the camp fire to the sound of the viol, or they purchased the virtue of some Indian maiden, and engaged in debauch as disgusting as that of sailors sojourning in the isles of the South Sea, or.
4
"Worn with the long day's march, and the chase Of the deer, and the bison, 1
'Stretched themselves on the ground and slept. Where the quivering fire-light Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their Forms wrapped up in their blankets."1
Inured to toil, they arose in the morning "when it was yet dark," and pushing the prow of their light canoes, into the water, swiftly they glided away "like the shade of a cloud on the prairie," and did not break fast until the sur had been above the horizon for several : hours ..
Halting cort period they partook of their coarse fare, and their rude songs; then re embarking, they pursue their course to the land of the beaver and the buffalo, unitsare ," shades of night began to fall." From early with accustomed to descend rapids, and ascend lofty bluffs with heavy burdens, they guided
1 Evangeline.
.1
0
.
0
!
f
€
I
't
t
117
HABITS OF. THE VOYAGEURS.
- their canoes, and carried their packs through places . that would have been impassable to any but the " cou- reurs des bois."1 . When old age relaxed their sinewy joints, they returned to Mackinaw, or some other .. entrepôt, and with an Indian woman obtained, after the manner of the country, to mend their moccasins and hoe their gardens, passed the remainder of life in whiffing the pipe and recounting hair-breadth escapes.
The " bois brule" offspring naturally became enam- oured with the rover's life, a retrospect of which infused fire into the dim. eyes of the old man, and as soon as employment could be obtained they left the homestead to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors.
The voyageur seldom remains in a settled country. As civilization advances he feels cramped and uncom- fortable, and follows the Indian in his retreat. On the confines of Minnesota are many of this class, whose fathers, a generation ago, dwelt at La Pointe, Green Bay, or Prairie du Chien. Before France had taken formal possession of the region of the Lakes, hundreds of "coureurs des bois" had ventured, into the distant North-West. The absence of so many from regular pursuits, was supposed to be disastrous to the interests of the colony, and measures were taken by the French government to compel them to return, which resulted " in only partial success.
/ Du Chesneau, Intendant of Canada, was worried by the lawlessness. of the rovers, and writes to the Minister of Marine' and, Colonies of France :- ,- .
1 So called because they wandered wood,"- applied to half-breeds be- through the woods, to obtain peltries cause of their dark complexions. from the savages. " Nov. 10, 1679, Paris Documents,
? "This term, meaning "burnt 11. Col. Hist. N. Y. vol. ix. p. 133.
ion, heir d as
of B, in than
ound ased d .in ng in
hen it light " like break everal -
10
coarse rking, er and all." Is, and guided
118
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
in
" Be pleased to bear in mind, my lord, that there was a general complaint, the year previous to my arrival in this country, that the great quantity of people who went to trade for peltries to the Indian country, ruined the colony, because those who alone could improve it, being young and strong for work, abandoned their wives and children, the cultivation of lands, and rear- ing of cattle; that they became dissipated; that their absence gave rise to licentiousness among their wives, as has often been the case, and is still of daily occur- rence; that they accustomed themselves to a loafing and vagabond life, which it was beyond their power to quit; that they derived little Benefit from their labours, because they were induced to waste in drunkenness and fine clothes the little they earned, which was very trifling, those who gave them licenses having the larger part, besides the price of the goods, which. they sold them very dear, and that the Indians would no longer bring them peltries in such abundance to sell to the honest people, if so great a number of young men went in search of them to those very barbarians, who despised us on account of the great cupidity we manifested."
At one period, three-fourths of the revenue of Canada was derived from the fur trade.
Only twenty-five licenses were granted each year; and when a "poor gentleman" or "old officer",did not wish to go West, he disposed of his permit, which was " valued at six hundred crowns, to the merchants of Quebec or Montreal. Each' license allowed the pos- sessor to send two canoes into the Indian countrye, Six " voyageurs" were employed for the canoes, and were furnished with goods valued at one thousand crowns, with an addition of fifteen per cent. The losses and
.
119
PROFITS OF FUR TRADE .- PERROT.
risk were great, but when a venture was successful the profits were enormous.
The two canoes sometimes brought to Montreal beautiful furs valued at eight thousand crowns. The merchants received from the "coureurs des bois" six hundred crowns for the license, one thousand for the goods, and forty per cent. on the balance of sales; the residue was divided among the "coureurs," giving to each five or six hundred crowns, which was disposed of as quickly, and much in the same way, as mariners dis- charged from a ship of war spend their wages.
During the latter part of the seventeenth century, the name of Nicholas Perrot was familiar, not only to the men of business, and officers of government at Montreal and Quebec, but around the council fires of the Hurons, Ottawas, Otchagras, Ojibways, Pottawota- mies, Miamies, and Dahkotahs. A native of Cana accustomed from childhood to the excitement and cidents of border life, he was to a certain extent. pre- pared for the wild scenes witnessed in after days.
If the name of Joliet is worthy of preservation, the citizens of the North West ought not to be willing to let the name of that man die, who was the first of whom we have any account that erected a trading post on the upper Mississippi.
Perrot was a man of good family, and in his youth applied himself to study, and, being for a time in the service of the Jesuits, became familiar with the customs and languages of most of the tribes upon the borders of our. lakes.
Some years before La Salle had launched the " Griffin" on Lake Erie, and commenced his care of discovery, Perrot at the request of the authorities in Canada, who
was l in who ined e it, their rear- their ives, ccur- afing er to ours, sand very arger sold onger o the went spised
:
añada year ;
H/was its of e pos- Six . were rowns, es and
120
معدو
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
looked upon him as a man of great tact, visited the various nations of the North-West, and invited them to a grand council at Sault St. Marie, for the purpose of making a treaty with France. Of mercurial tempera- ment, he performed the journey with great speed, going as far south as Chicago, the site of the present city.
On the 3d of September, 1670, Talon, the Intendant of Canada, ordered Sieur de St. Lusson to proceed to the " countries of the Outaouais, Nez Percés, Illinois, and other nations discovered" near Lake Superior or the Fresh Sea, and search for mines, particularly cop- per. He was also delegated to take possession of all the' countries through which he passed, planting the cross and the arms of France.
In May, 1671, there was seen at the Falls St. Mary, what has been of late, a frequent occurrence. Here was the first convocation of civilized men, with the aborigines of the North-West, for the formation of a compact, for the purposes of trade and mutual assist- ance."
It was not only the custom but policy of the court France to make a great display upon such an occa- h. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that we should see the ecclesiastic and military officers,, sur- rounded "with all of the pomp and circumstance" peculiar to their profession in that age of extravagance in externals.
Allouëz, the first ecclesiastic who saw the Dahkotahs
" The Europeans present, besides De Lusson and Perrot, were the Je- a soldier of the castle of Quebec ; Dennis Masse ; Chavigny ; Chevriot- suits, André, Dreuilletes, Allouez, tiere; Lagillier ; Mayseré ; Dupuis : and Dablon ; also Joliet, the ex- Bidaud Joniel : Portcet; Du Prat : plorer of the Mississippi ; Mogras, Vital Oriol ; Guillaume. of Three Rivers, Canada ; Touppine,
F S 8
f 0 t r
121
TAKING POSSESSION OF THE NORTH-WEST.
face to face, and the founder of the mission among the Ojibways at La Pointe, opened council by detailing to the painted, grotesque assemblage, enveloped in the robes of the beaver and buffalo, the great power of his monarch who lived beyond the seas.
Two holes were' then dug, in one of which was planted a cedar column, and in the other a cross of the same material. After this the European portion of the assemblage chanted the hymn which was so often heard in the olden time from Lake Superior to Lake Pont- chartrain® :-
"Vexilla regis prodeunt Fulget crucis mysterium, Qua vita mortem pertulit, Et morte, vitam pertulit."
The arms of France, probably engraved on leaden plates, were then attached to both column and cross, and again the whole company sang together the " Exau- diat," of the Roman Catholic service, the same as the 20th Psalm, of the King James' version of the Bible. The delegates from the different tribes having signified their approval of what Perrot had interpreted of the speech of the French Envoy, St. Lusson, there was a grand discharge of musketry, and the chanting of the noble " Te Deum Laudamus."
After this alliance was concluded, Perrot, in a spirit . of enterprise, opened the trade with some of the more remote tribes.
The first trading posts on Lake Superior, beyond Sault St. Marie, were built of pine logs, by Daniel Greysolon du Luth, a native of Lyons, at Kamanisti- goya, the entrance of Pigeon river, Minnesota. On the
621
X
1
he to of ra- ng
nt to is, ór op- all the
Sť ce. ith of sist-
urt cca- we sur- "ce" unce
tahs
ebec ; vriot- puis ; Prat :
1%
122
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
y
1st of September, 1678, he left Quebec, to explore the country of the Dahkotahs and Assineboines.
The next year, on the 2d of July, he caused the king's arms to be planted "in the great village of the Nadouessioux (Dahkotahs), called Kathio, where no Frenchman had ever been, also at Songaskicons, and Houetbatons,' one hundred and twenty leagues distant from the former."
On the 15th of September, he met the Assineboines and other nations, at the head of Lake Superior, for the purpose of settling their difficulties with the Dahkotahs, and was successful.
On this tour he visited Mille Lac, which he called Lake Buade, the family name of Frontenac, governor of Canada .?
Du Chesneau, the intendant of Canada, appears to have been hostile to Du Luth, and wrote to Seignelay, Minister of the Colonies, that he and Governor Fronte- nac were in correspondence, and enriching themselves by the fur trade. He also intimated that the governor clandestinely encouraged Du Luth to sell his peltries to the English. From the tone of the correspondence, Du Chesneau was excitable and prejudiced.3
1 The Chongasketons and Ouade- vernor, having returned this year, . batons of the early French maps. The former were the same as the Sissetoans.
" Coronellis' map, corrected by Tillemon, published at Paris, 1688.5 ' "The man named La Taupine, a famous 'coureur de bois,' who set out in the month of September of last year, 1678, to go to the Ou- tawacs, with goods, and who has always been intere ted with the go-
and I being advised that he had traded in two days, one hundred and fifty beaver robes in a single village of this tribe, amounting in all to nearly nine hundred beavers, which is a matter of public notoriety, and that he left with Du Luth, two men, whom he had with him, considered myself bound to have him arrested and to question him, but having pre- sented a license from the governor
-
123
DU LUTH'S UNCLE.
He attempted to imprison several of Du Luth's friends, among others his uncle, named Patron, who was a mer- chant, and his agent for the sale of furs.
The account that Perrot gave of his explorations be- yond Lake Michigan, attracted the attention of La Salle, and induced him to project those enterprises which have given distinction to his name.
" permitting him and his comrades, and Lieutenant-General of His Ma- Lamonde, and Dupuy, to repair to jesty in New France : the Outawao nation to execute his secret orders, I had him set at li- berty. Immediately on his going out, Sieur Prevost, Town-Mayor of Quebec, came at the head of some soldiers, to force the prison, with written orders in these terms from the governor :-
"Count de Frontenac, Councillor of the King in his Council, Governor
"Sieur Prevost, Mayor of Quebec, is ordered, in case the Intendant ar- rest Pierre Moreau, alias La Tau. pine, whom WE have sent to Quebec as bearer of despatches, upon pre- text of his having been in the bush, to set him forthwith at liberty, and employ every means for this purpose at his peril. Done at Montreal, 5th September, 1679.
FRONTENAC.' "
-
F
-
7
1
.
1
-
-
--
the .the the e no and stant
oines r the tahs,
alled or of
rs to elay, onte- elves ernor Itries ence,
s year, he had ·ed and village all to ,which ty, and o men, sidered rrested ng pre- vernor
124
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
0
CHAPTER VI.
THE same autumn that Du Luth left Montreal for the region west of Lake Superior, La Salle was at Fort Frontenac, the modern Kingston, busily engaged in maturing his plans for an occupation of the Mississippi valley. During the winter and the following spring his employees were occupied in building & vessel to navi- gate the lakes. Among those who were to accompany him on the voyage was Louis Hennenin, a Franciscan priest; of the Recollect order.
The first European to explore the Mississippi above . .. the mouth of the . Wisconsin ; the first to name and describe the Falls of Saint Anthony; the first to pre- sent an engraving of the Falls of Niagara to the literary world; the Minnesotian will desire to know something of the antecedents and subsequent life of this individual,
The account of Hennepin's early life is chiefly ob- tained from the introduction to the Amsterdam edition of his book of travels. He was born in Ath, an inland town of the Netherlands. From boyhood he longed to visit foreign countries, and it is not to be" wondered at that he: assumed the priestly, office, for next to the army, it was the road, in that age, to distinction. For several years he led quite a wandering life. A member :
t
125
-
HENNEPIN'S FONDNESS OF ADVENTURE.
of the Recollect branch of the Franciscans, at one time he is on a begging expedition to some of the towns on the sea coast. In a few months he occupies the post of chaplain at an hospital, where he shrives the dying and administers extreme unction. From the quiet of the hos- pital he proceeds to the camp, and is present at the battle of Seneffe, which occurred in the year 1674.
His whole mind, from the time that he became a . priest, appears to have been on "things seen and tem- poral," rather than on those that are "unseen and eternal." While on duty at some of the ports on the Straits of Dover, he exhibited the characteristic of an ancient Athenian more than that of a professed successor of the Apostles. He sought out the society of strangers "who spent their time in nothing else but either to tell "or to hear some new thing." With perfect nonchalance he confesses that notwithstanding the nauseating fumes of tobacco, he used to slip behind the doors of sailors' taverns,; and spend days, without regard to the loss of his meals, listening to the adventures and hair-breadth escapes of the mariners in lands beyond the sea:
In the year 1676 he received a welcome order from his Superior, requiring him to embark for Canada. Un- accustomed' to the world, and arbitrary in his disposi- tion, he rendered the cabin of the ship in which he" sailed anything but heavenly. As in modern days, the passengers in a vessel to the new world were. composed of heterogeneous materials: There were young women going out in search for 'brothers or husbands, ecclesias .tics, and those engaged in the the new, but profitable, commerce in furs. One of his fellow passengers was the. talented,and enterprising, though unfortunate, La Salle; . Lywith whom he afterwards associated. If he is to be.
-
I for Fort d in sippi g his navi- pany iscan® bove and pre- rary thing® dual- y. ob- lition aland onged® dered o. the For ember
126
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
credited, his intercourse with La Salle was not very pleasant on ship-board. The young women, tired of being cooped up in the narrow accommodations of the ship, when the evening was fair sought the deck, and engaged in the rude dances of the French peasantry of that age. Hennepin, feeling that it was improper, began to assume the air of the priest, and forbade the sport. La Salle, feeling that his interference was un- called for, called him a pedant, and took the side of the girls, and during the voyage there were stormy discus- sions.
Good humour appears to have been restored when they left the ship, for Hennepin would otherwise have not been the companion of La Salle in his great Western journey.
Sojourning for a short period at Quebec, the adven- ture-loving Franciscan is permitted to go to a mission station on or near the site of the present town of Kings- ton, Canada West.
Here there was much to gratify his love of novelty, and he passed considerable time in rambling among the Iroquois of New York, even penetrating as far eastward as the Dutch Fort Orange, now the city of. Albany.
In 1678 he returned to Quebec, and was ordered to join the expedition of Robert La Salle.
On the 6th of December Father Hennepin and a por- tion of the exploring party had entered the Niagara river. In the vicinity of the Falls, the winter was . passed, and while the artisans were preparing a ship above the Falls, to navigate the great lakes, the Recol- lect wiled away the hours in studying the manners and
L
h
a
t
C
n
0 b t.
0 c e
.
c
p E 0 s t
1
i
127 -
THE SHIP GRIFFIN .- HENNEPIN.
customs of the Seneca Indians, and in admiring the sublimest handiwork of God on the globe. .
On the 7th of August, 1679, the ship being . com- pletely rigged, unfurled its sails to the breezes of Lake Erie. The vessel was named the '"Griffin," in honour of the arms of Frontenac, Governor of Canada, the first ship of European construction that had ever ploughed the waters of the great inland seas of North America.
After encountering a violent and dangerous storm on one of the lakes, during which they had given up all hopes of escaping shipwreck, on the 27th of the month, they were safely moored in the harbour of " Missili- mackinack." From' thence the party proceeded to Green Bay, where they left the ship, procured canoes, and continued along the coast of Lake Michigan." By the middle of January, 1680, La Salle had conducted his expedition to the Illinois river, and on an eminence near Lake Peoria, he commenced, with much heaviness of heart, the erection of a fort, which he called Creve- cœur, on account of the many disappointments he had experienced.
La Salle, in the month of February, selected Henne- pin and. two traders, for the arduous and dangerous undertaking of exploring the unknown regions of the upper Mississippi.
Daring and ambitious of distinction as a discoverer, he was not averse to such a commission, though per- hạps he may have shrunk from the undertaking at so inclement a season as the last of February is, in this. portion of North America ...
On the 29th of February, 1680, with two voyageurs,“ named Picard du Gay and Michael Ako, Hennepin em barked in a canoe on the voyage of discovery ..
ery . of the and 7 of per, the un- the cus-
hen ave tern ven- sion ngs- 1 elty, long far . y of. d to . . por- gara was ship ecol- and
128
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
The venerable Ribourde, a member of a Burgundian family of high rank, and a fellow Franciscan, came down to the river bank to see him off, and, in bidding him farewell, told him to acquit himself like a man, and be of good courage. His words were, " Viriliter age et confortetur cor tuum."
The canoe was loaded with about one hundred and fifty dollars' worth of merchandise for the purpose of trade with the Indians, and in addition La Salle, pre- sented to Hennepin ten knives, twelve awls or bodkins, a parcel of tobacco, a package of needles, and a pound or two of white or black beads.
The movements of Hennepin, during the month of March, are not very clearly related. He appears to have been detained at the junction of the Illinois with the Mississippi by the floating ice, until near the mid- dle of that month. He then commenced the ascent of the river for the first time by civilized man, though Marquette had, seven years before, descended from the Wisconsin.
Surrounded by hostile and unknown natives, they cautiously proceeded. On the 11th" of April, 1680, thirty-three bark canoes, containing a Dahkotah; war party against the Illinois and Miami nations, hove in sight, and commenced discharging their arrows at the canoe of the Frenchmen .- Perceiving the calumet of peace, they ceased their hostile demonstrations and "ap- proached. The first night that Hennepin and his. com- panions passed with the "Dahkotah party was one of" anxiety: The next morning, a chief named Narrhetoba asked for the peace calumet, filled it with willow bark and all smoked; . It was then signified that the white men were to return with them to their villages.
č
.
4.
-
D
th fa
. 'of di
E th
ar
m th ur to ok th th b th ac V th - to fo
.4.
na
it se an if be a] la
129
FRANCISCAN'S ATTEMPT TO PRAY.
In his narrative the Franciscan remarks :- " I found it difficult to say my office before these Indians. Many seeing me move my lips, said in a fierce tone, 'Ouak- anche.'. Michael, all out of countenance, told me, that if I continued to say my breviary, we should all three be killed, and the Picard begged me at least to pray apart, so as not to provoke them. I followed the latter's advice, but the more I concealed myself, the' more I had the Indians at my heels, for when I entered the wood, they thought I, was going to hide some goods under ground, so that I knew not on what side to turn to' pray, for they never let me out of sight. This obliged me to beg pardon of my canoe-men, assuring them I could not dispense with saying my office. By the word 'Ouakanche,' the Indians meant that the book I was reading was a spirit, but by their gesture they nevertheless showed a kind of aversion, so. that to accustom them to it, I chanted the Litany of the Blessed Virgin in the canoe, with my book opened. They thought that the breviary was a spirit which taught me to sing for their diversion, for these people are naturally fond of singing."
. 4. This is the first mention of a Dahkotah word in a European book. The savages were annoyed rather. " than enraged, at seeing the white man reading a book, and exclaimed " Wakan-de .! " this is wonderful or super- natural. The war party was composed of several bands . of the M'dewakantonwan Dahkotahs, and there w a diversity of opinion in relation to the disposition that should be made of the white men. The relatives of those who had been killed by the Miamis, "were in favour of taking their scalps, but others were anxious
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.