History of Houston County, Including Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 5

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 547

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In the Franciscan's possession was an iron pot with feet like lions', which the Indians would not touch unless their hands were wrapped in buffalo skins. The women looked upon it as "wakan," and would not enter the cabin where it was.

" The chiefs of these savages, seeing that I was desirous to learn, frequently made me write, naming all the parts of the human body ; and as I would not put on paper certain indelicate words, at which they do not blush, they were heartily amused."

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HENNEPIN'S VISIT TO FALLS OF SAINT ANTHONY.

They often asked the Franciscan questions, to answer which it was necessary to refer to his lex- icon. This appeared very strange, and, as they had no word for paper, they said, "That white thing must be a spirit which tells Pere Louis all we say."

Hennepin remarks : "These Indians often asked me how many wives and children I had, and how old I was, that is, how many winters; for so these natives always count. Never illu- mined by the light of faith, they were surprised at my answer. Pointing to our two Frenchmen, whom I was then visiting, at a point three leagues from our village, I told them that a man among us could only have one wife; that as for me, I had promised the Master of life to live as they saw me, and to come and live with them to teach them to be like the French.

"But that gross people, till then lawless and faithless, turned all I said into ridicule. 'How,' said they, 'would you have these two men with thee have wives? Ours would not live with them, for they have hair all over their face, and we have none there or elsewhere.' In fact, they were never better pleased with me than when I was shaved, and from a complaisance, certainly not criminal, I shaved every week.

" As often as I went to visit the cabins, I found a sick child, whose father's name was Mamenisi. Michael Ako would not accompany me; the Picard du Gay alone followed me to act as spon- sor, or, rather, to witness the baptism.

"I christened the child Antoinette, in honor of St. Anthony of Padua, as well as for the Picard's name, which was Anthony Auguelle. He was a native of Amiens, and nephew of the Procurator- General of the Premonstratensians both now at Paris. Having poured natural water on the head and uttered these words : 'Creature of God, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' I took half an altar cloth which I had wrested from the hands of an Indian who had stolen it from me, and put it on the body of the baptized child; for as I could not say mass for want of wine and vest- ments, this piece of linen could not be put to bet- ter use than to enshroud the first Christian child among these tribes. I do not know whether the softness of the linen had refreshed her, but she was the next day smiling in her mother's arms,

who believed that I had cured the child ; but she died soon after, to my great consolation.

"During my stay among them, there arrived four savages, who said they were come alone five hundred leagues from the west, and had been four months upon the way. They assured us there was no such place as the Straits of Anian, and that they had traveled without resting, except to sleep, and had not seen or passed over any great lake, by which phrase they always mean the sea.

"They further informed us that the nation of the Assenipoulacs [Assiniboines] who lie north- east of Issati, was not above six or seven days' journey ; that none of the nations, within their knowledge, who lie to the east or northwest, had any great lake about their countries, which were very large, but only rivers, which came from the north. They further assured us that there were very few forests in the countries through which they passed, insomuch that now and then they were forced to make fires of buffaloes' dung to boil their food. All these circumstances make it appear that there is no such place as the Straits of Anian, as we usually see them set down on the maps. And whatever efforts have been made for many years past by the English and Dutch, to find out a passage to the Frozen Sea, they have not yet been able to effect it. But by the help of my discovery aud the assistance of God, I doubt not but a passage may still be found, and that an easy one too.

" For example, we may be transported into the Pacific Sea by rivers which are large and capable of carrying great vessels, and from thence it is very easy to go to China and Japan, without cross- ing the equinoctial line; and, in all probability, Japan is on the same continent as America."

Hennepin in his first book, thus describes his first visit to the Falls of St. Anthony : " In the beginning of July, 1680, we descended the [Rum] River in a canoe southward, with the great chief Quasicoude [Wauzeekootay] that is to say Pierced Pine, with about eighty cabins composed of more than a hundred and thirty families and about two hundred and fifty warriors. Scarcely would the Indians give me a place in their little flotilla, for they had only old canoes. They went four leagues lower down, to get birch bark to make some more. Having made a hole in the ground, to hide our silver chalice and our papers, till our

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EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

return from the hunt, and keeping only our bre- viary, so as not to be loaded, I stood on the bank of the lake formed by the river we had called St. Francis [now Rum] and stretched out my hand to the canoes as they rapidly passed in succession.

"Our Frenchmen also had one for themselves, which the Indians had given them. They would not take me in, Michael Ako saying that he had taken me long enough to satisfy him. I was hurt at this answer, seeing myself thus abandoned by Christians, to whom I had always done good, as they both often acknowledged; but God never having abandoned me on that painful voyage, in- spired two Indians to take me in their little canoe, where I had no other employment than to bale out with a little bark tray, the water which entered by little holes. This I did not do with- out getting all wet. This boat might, indeed, be called a death box, for its lightness and fragility. These canoes do not generally weigh over fifty pounds, the least motion of the body upsets them, unless you are long accustomed to that kind of navigation.

"On disembarking in the evening, the Picard, as an excuse, told me that their canoe was half- rotten, and that had we been three in it, we should have run a great risk of remaining on the way. * * * Four days after our departure for the buffalo hunt, we halted eight leagues above St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, on an eminence opposite the mouth of the River St. Francis [Rum] * The Picard and myself went to look for haws, gooseberries, and little wild fruit, which often did us more harm than good. This obliged us to go alone, as Michael Ako refused, in a wretched canoe, to Quisconsin river, which was more than a hundred leagues off, to see whether the Sieur de la Salle had sent to that place a re- inforcement of men, with powder, lead, and other munitions, as he had promised us.

"The Indians would not have suffered this voyage had not one of the three remained with them. They wished me to stay, but Michael Ako absolutely refused. As we were making the portage of our canoe at St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, we perceived five or six of our Indians who had taken the start; one of them was up in an oak opposite the great fall, weeping bitterly, with a rich dressed beaver robe, whitened inside, and trimmed with porcupine quills, which he was

offering as a sacrifice to the falls; which is, in it- self, admirable and frightful. I heard him while shedding copious tears, say as he spoke to the great cataract, 'Thou who art a spirit, grant that our nation may pass here quietly, without acci- dent; may kill buffalo in abundance; conquer our enemies, and bring in slaves, some of whom we will put to death before thee. The Messenecqz (so they call the tribe named by the French Outa- gamis) have killed our kindred; grant that we may avenge them.' This robe offered in sacrifice, served one of our Frenchmen, who took it as we returned."

It is certainly wonderful, that Hennepin, who knew nothing of the Sioux language a few weeks . before, should understand the prayer offered at the Falls without the aid of an interpreter.

The narrator continues : " A league beyond St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, the Picard was obliged to land and get his powder horn, which he had left at the Falls. * * As we descended the river Colbert [Mississippi] we found some of our Indians on the islands loaded with buffalo meat, some of which they gave us. Two hours after landing, fifteen or sixteen warriors whom we had left above St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, en- tered, tomakawk in hand, upset the cabin of those who had invited us, took all the meat and bear oil they found, and greased themselves from head to foot,"

This was done because the others had violated the rules for the buffalo hunt. With the Indians Hennepin went down the river sixty leagues, and then went up the river again, and met buffalo. He continues :

" While seeking the Ouisconsin River, that savage father, Aquipaguetin, whom I had left, and who I believed more than two hundred leagues off, on the 11th of July, 1680, appeared with the warriors." After this, Hennepin and Picard continued to go up the river almost eighty leagues.

There is great confusion here, as the reader will see. When at the mouth of the Rum River, he speaks of the Wisconsin as more than a hun- dred leagues off. He floats down the river sixty leagues; then he ascended, but does not state the distance; then he ascends eighty leagues.

He continues : " The Indians whom he had left with Michael Ako at Buffalo [Chippeway] River,

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HENNEPIN MEETS SIEUR DU LUTH.

with the flotilla of canoes loaded with meat, came down. * * * All the Indian women had their stock of meat at the mouth of Buffalo River and on the islands, and again we went down the Col- bert [Mississippi] about eighty leagues. * * * We had another alarm in our camp : the old men on duty on the top of the mountains announced that they saw two warriors in the distance; all the bowmen hastened there with speed, each try- ing to outstrip the others ; but they brought back only two of their enemies, who came to tell them that a party of their people were hunting at the extremity of Lake Conde [Superior] and had found four Spirits (so they call the French) who, by means of a slave, had expressed a wish to come on, knowing us to be among them. * * On the 25th of July, 1680, as we were ascending the river Colbert, after the buffalo hunt, to the In- dian villages, we met Sieur du Luth, who came to the Nadouessious with five French soldiers. They joined us about two hundred and twenty leagues distant from the country of the Indians who had taken us. As we had some knowledge of the language, they begged us to accompany them to the villages of these tribes, to which I readily agreed, knowing that these two French- men had not approached the sacrament for two years."

Here again the number of leagues is confusing, and it is impossible to believe that Du Luth and his interpreter Faffart, who had been trading with the Sioux for more than a year, needed the help of Hennepin, who had been about three months with these people.

We are not told by what route Hennepin and Du Luth reached Lake Issati or Mille Lacs, but Hennepin says they arrived there on the 11th of August, 1680, and he adds, "Toward the end of September, having no implements to begin an establishment, we resolved to tell these people, that for their benefit, we would have to return to the French settlements. The grand Chief of the Issati or Nadouessiouz consented, and traced in pencil on paper I gave him, the route I should take for four hundred leagues. With this chart, we set out, eight Frenchmen, in two canoes, and descended the river St. Francis and Colbert [Rum and Mississippi]. Two of our men took two bea- ver robes at St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, which the Indians had hung in sacrifice on the trees."

The second work of Hennepin, an enlargement of the first, appeared at Utrecht in the year 1697, ten years after La Salle's death. During the in- terval between the publication of the first and second book, he had passed three years as Super- intendent of the Recollects at Reny in the province of Artois, when Father Hyacinth Lefevre, a friend of La Salle, and Commissary Provincial of Recol- lects at Paris, wished him to return to Canada. He refused, and was ordered to go to Rome, and upon his coming back was sent to a convent at St. Omer, and there received a dispatch from the Minister of State in France to return to the coun- tries of the King of Spain, of which he was a subject. This order, he asserts, he afterwards learned was forged.

In the preface to the English edition of the New Discovery, published in 1698, in London, he writes :

"The pretended reason of that violent order was because I refused to return into America, where I had been already eleven years; though the particular laws of our Order oblige none of us to go beyond sea against his will. I would have, however, returned very willingly had I not known the malice of M. La Salle, who would have ex- posed me to perish, as he did one of the men who accompanied me in my discovery. God knows that I am sorry for his unfortunate death; but the judgments of the Almighty are always just, for the gentleman was killed by one of his own men, who were at last sensible that he exposed them to visible dangers without any necessity and for his private designs."

After this he was for about five years at Gosse- lies, in Brabant, as Confessor in a convent, and from thence removed to his native place, Ath, in Belgium, where, according to his narrative in the preface to the "Nouveau Decouverte," he was again persecuted. Then Father Payez, Grand Commissary of Recollects at Louvain, being in- formed that the King of Spain and the Elector of Bavaria recommended the step, consented that he should enter the service of William the Third of Great Britain, who had been very kind to the Roman Catholics of Netherlands. By order of Payez he was sent to Antwerp to take the lay habit in the convent there, and subsequently went to Utrecht, where he finished his second book known as the New Discovery.

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EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

His first volume, printed in 1683, contains 312 pages, with an appendix of 107 pages, on the Customs of the Savages, while the Utrecht book of 1697 contains 509 pages without an appendix.

On page 249 of the New Discovery, he begins an account of a voyage alleged to have been made to the mouth of the Mississippi, and occupies over sixty pages in the narrative. The opening sentences give as a reason for concealing to this time his discovery, that La Salle would have re- ported him to his Superiors for presuming to go down instead of ascending the stream toward the north, as had been agreed ; and that the two with him threatened that if he did not consent to de- scend the river, they would leave him on shore during the night, and pursue their own course.

He asserts that he left the Gulf of Mexico, to return, on the 1st of April, and on the 24th left the Arkansas ; but a week after this, he declares he landed with the Sioux at the marsh about two miles below the city of Saint Paul.

The account has been and is still a puzzle to the historical student. In our review of his first book we have noticed that as early as 1683, he claimed to have descended the Mississippi. In the Utrecht publication he declares that while at Quebec, upon his return to France, he gave to Father Valentine Roux, Commissary of Recol- lects, his journal, upon the promise that it would be kept secret, and that this Father made a copy of his whole voyage, including the visit to the Gulf of Mexico; but in his Description of Louis- iana, Hennepin wrote, " We had some design of going to the mouth of the river Colbert, which more probably empties into the Gulf of Mexico than into the Red Sea, but the tribes that seized us gave us no time to sail up and down the river."

The additions in his Utrecht book to magnify his importance and detract from others, are many. As Sparks and Parkman have pointed out the plagiarisms of this edition, a reference here is unnecessary.

Du Luth, who left Quebec in 1678, and had been in northern Minnesota, with an interpreter, for a year, after he met Ako and Hennepin, be- comes of secondary importance, in the eyes of the Franciscan.

In the Description of Louisiana, on page 289, Hennepin speaks of passing the Falls of Saint Anthony, upon his return to Canada, in these

few words : "Two of our men seized two beaver robes at the Falls of St. Anthony of Padua, which the Indians had in sacrifice, fastened to trees." But in the Utrecht edition, commencing on page 416, there is much added concerning Du Lnth. After using the language of the edition of 1688, already quoted it adds : "Hereupon there arose a dispute between Sieur du Luth and myself. I commended what they had done, say- ing, 'The savages might judge by it that they disliked the superstition of these people.' The Sieur du Luth, on the contrary, said that they ought to have left the robes where the savages placed them, for they would not fail to avenge the insult we had put upon them by this action, and that it was feared that they would attack us on this journey. I confessed he had some foun- dation for what he said, and that he spoke accor- ding to the rules of prudence. But one of the two men flatly replied, the two robes suited them, and they cared nothing for the savages and their superstitions. The Sieur du Luth at these words was so greatly enraged that he nearly struck the one who uttered them, but I intervened and set- tled the dispute. The Picard and Michael Ako ranged themselves on the side of those who had taken the robes in question, which might have resulted badly.

" I argued with Sieur du Luth that the savages would not attack us, because I was persuaded that their great chief Quasicoude would have our interests at heart, and he had great credit with his nation. The matter terminated pleasantly.

" When we arrived near the river Ouisconsin, we halted to smoke the meat of the buffalo we had killed on the journey. During our stay, three savages of the nation we had left, came by the side of our canoe to tell us that their great chief Quasicoude, having learned that another chief of these people wished to pursue and kill us, and that he entered the cabin where he was consult- ing, and had struck him on the head with such violence as to scatter his brains upon his associ- ates; thus preventing the executing of this inju- rious project.

" We regaled the three savages, having a great abundance of food at that time. The Sieur du Luth, after the savages had left, was as enraged as before, and feared that they would pursue and attack us on our voyage. He would have pushed

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TRIBUTE TO DANIEL GREYSOLON DU LUTH.

the matter further, but seeing that one man would resist, and was not in the humor to be imposed upon, he moderated, and I appeased them in the end with the assurance that God would not aban- don us in distress, and, provided we confided in Him, he would deliver us from our foes, because He is the protector of men and angels."

After describing a conference with the Sioux, he adds, "Thus the savages were very kind, without mentioning the beaver robes. The chief Quasicoude told me to offer a fathom of Marti- nico tobacco to the chief Aquipaguetin, who had adopted me as a son. This had an admirable effect upon the barbarians, who went off shouting several times the word 'Louis,' [Ouis or We] which, as he said, means the sun. Without van- ity, I must say that my name will be for a long time among these people.

"The savages having left us, to go to war against the Messorites, the Maroha, the Illinois, and other nations which live toward the lower part of the Mississippi, and are irreconcilable foes of the people of the North, the Sieur du Luth, who upon many occasions gave me marks of his friendship, could not forbear to tell our men that I had all the reason in the world to believe that the Viceroy of Canada would give me a favorable reception, should we arrive before winter, and that he wished with all his heart that he had been among as many natives as myself."

The style of Louis Hennepin is unmistakable in this extract, and it is amusing to read his pa- tronage of one of the fearless explorers of the Northwest, a cousin of Tonty, favored by Fron- tenac, and who was in Minnesota a year before his arrival.

In 1691, six years before the Utrecht edition of Hennepin, another Recollect Franciscan had pub- lished a book at Paris, called "The First Estab- lishment of the Faith in New France," in which is the following tribute to Du Luth, whom Hen- nepin strives to make a subordinate : " In the last years of M. de Frontenac's administration, Sieur Du Luth, a man of talent and experience, opened a way to the missionary and the Gospel in many different nations, turning toward the north of that lake [Superior] where he even built a fort, he advanced as far as the Lake of the Issati, called Lake Buade, from the family name of M.

de Frontenac, planting the arms of his Majesty in several nations on the right and left."

In the second volume of his last book, which is called " A Continuance of the New Discovery of a vast Country in America," etc., Hennepin no- ticed some criticisms.

To the objection that his work was dedicated to William the Third of Great Britain, he replies : " My King, his most Catholic Majesty, his Elec- toral Highness of Bavaria, the consent in writing of the Superior of my order, the integrity of my faith, and the regular observance of my vows, which his Britannic Majesty allows me, are the best warrants of the uprightness of my inten- tions."

To the query, how he could travel so far upon the Mississippi in so little time, he answers with a bold face, " That we may, with a canoe and a pair of oars, go twenty, twenty-five, or thirty leagues every day, and more too, if there be oc- casion. And though we had gone but ten leagues a day, yet in thirty days we might easily have gone three hundred leagues. If during the time we spent from the river of the Illinois to the mouth of the Meschasipi, in the Gulf of Mexico, we had used a little more haste. we might have gone the same twice over."

To the objection, that he said, he nad passed eleven years in America, when he had been there but about four, he evasively replies, that " reck- oning from the year 1674, when I first set out, to the year 1688, when I printed the second edition of my 'Louisiana,' it appears that I have spent fifteen years either in travels or printing my Discoveries."

To those who objected to the statement in his first book, in the dedication to Louis the Four- teenth, that the Sioux always call the sun Louis, he writes : "I repeat what I have said before, that being among the Issati and Nadouessans, by whom I was made a slave in America, I never heard them call the sun any other than Louis. It is true these savages call also the moon Louis, but with this distinction, that they give the moon the name of Louis Bastache, which in their lan- guage signifies, the sun that shines in the night."

The Utrecht edition called forth much censure, and no one in France doubted that Hennepin was the author. D'Iberville, Governor of Lou- isiana, while in Paris, wrote on July 3d 1699, to

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EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

the Minister of Marine and Colonies of France, in these words : " Very much vexed at the Rec- ollect, whose false narratives had deceived every one, and caused our suffering and total failure of our enterprise, by the time consumed in the search of things which alone existed in his imag- ination."

The Rev. Father James Gravier, in a letter from a fort on the Gulf of Mexico, near the Mis- sissippi, dated February 16th, 1701, expressed the sentiment of his times when he speaks of Hen- nepin " who presented to King William, the Rela- tion of the Mississippi, where he never was, and after a thousand falsehoods and ridiculous boasts,

* * * he makes Mr. de la Salle appear in his Relation, wounded with two balls in the head, turn toward the Recollect Father Anastase, to ask him for absolution, having been killed in- stantly, without uttering a word . and other like false stories."

Hennepin gradually faded out of sight. Bru- net mentions a letter written by J. B. Dubos, from Rome, dated March 1st, 1701, which men- tions that Hennepin was living on the Capitoline Hill, in the celebrated convent of Ara Coeli, and was a favorite of Cardinal Spada. The time and place of his death has not been ascertained.

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NICHOLAS PERROT, FOUNDER OF FIRST POST ON LAKE PEPIN.

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History of Houston County, Including Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 5

Author: Edward D. Neill Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Number of Pages: 547

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 547