Century history of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Ohio, and representative citizens, 20th, Part 4

Author: Sanderson, Thomas W., comp
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1074

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"The impression usually conveyed by the term 'Mound Builders' will not stand the light of modern science. While it may be more or less of a disappointment to many not to be able to place primitive man in Ohio on an equality with the status of Mexican or South American tribes, yet it is a gratification to know that the vexatious question concerning his movements and everyday life has been very nearly settled. There is a fascination in study- ing him even as a savage, and investigating the numerous remains which attest his occu- pancy of this territory."

CHAPTER III

FRENCH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS

Early French Explorers-Varrazano, Cartier, and Roberval-Expedition of De Monts- Champlain Explores Acadia-Establishment of Missions-First English Opposition- Attacks by the Indians-Exploration of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi.

The French, who early established claims to a large portion of North America, gained access to the interior of the continent by way of the Gulf and the River of St. Law- rence, and the Great Lakes with their connect- ing waterways.

John Verrazano, a native of Florence, sail- ing under authority of Francis I, in 1523, dis- covered the mainland in the neighborhood of Cape Fear, N. C. He then coasted in a north- erly direction as far as Cape Breton, landing at intervals to traffic with the Indians, by whom he was well received. He named the country New France and claimed it in the name of the king.

Jacques Cartier made three voyages to America, between 1534 and 1542, and probably another in 1543. In his first voyage he ex- plored the Gulf of St. Lawrence, after passing through the strait of Belle Isle. The gloomy and inhospitable coast of Labrador he de- scribed as "very likely the land given by God to Cain." Visiting the picturesque Bay of Gaspé he there erected a large cross bearing a shield with the lillies of France, and the in- scription "Vive le Roy de France."

His second voyage. 1535-36, was made with a little fleet of three vessels. Coming to anchor in a small bay he gave to it the name

of St. Laurent, which name was afterward gradually transferred to the whole gulf and to the river itself, which latter he explored as far as the island of Orleans. He was received by the Indians with an enthusiastic display of friendly feeling. Being taken by them to the mountain which overlooked the noble pano- rama of river and forest at the junction of the Ottawa with the St. Lawrence, he gave to it the name "Mont Real," which name was sub- sequently taken and retained by the great city it now overlooks. Cartier made a third voy- age in 1542, in which, however, he made no new discoveries. But in this year, and up to the autumn of 1543, the Saguenay river and the surrounding country were explored by Roberval, who had been appointed by Francis I as his lieutenant in Canada. French fur traders had now found their way to Anticosti Island and to the mouth of the Saguenay, where there was an Indian trading post; but these traders made no attempt to settle the country.

In the spring of 1602, under authority of Henry IV, two vessels left France in charge of Pontgravé, a rich merchant of St. Malo, for the purposes of trade and colonization. Pont- grave was accompanied by Samuel Champlain, who was later to gain lasting fame for himself

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as one of the most indefatigable of French ex- plorers. They ascended the St. Lawrence as far as the island of Montreal, and Champlain explored the Saguenay for a considerable dis- tance. The fruit of the expedition was to add largely to the knowledge which France pos- sessed of Canada and the country around the Gulf.

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EXPEDITION OF DE MONTS.

Soon after the return of this expedition a new company was formed, at the head of which was Sieur Henri de Monts, who re- ceived a royal commission as the King's lieutenant in Canada and adjacent countries, with the special object of exploring the ill- defined region called "La Cadie," now known as Nova Scotia. Champlain was a member of this expedition also. In June, 1604, they sailed into the beautiful harbor of Port Royal, which Champlain called "the most commodi- ous and pleasant place that we had yet seen on the continent." De Monts and his associates explored the Bay of Fundy and discovered the St. John and St. Croix rivers. Champlain re- mained three years in Acadia, making explora- tions and surveys of the southern coast of Nova Scotia, of the shores of the Bay of Fundy and of the coast of New England, from the St. Croix to Vineyard Sound, De Monts, after an unsuccessful attempt to effect a settlement on the St. Croix, removed his colony in the spring to the banks of the Annapolis, where he founded the city of that name.

ESTABLISHMENT OF MISSIONS.

John de Biencourt, better known as Baron de Pontricourt, who had accompanied De Monts, and who had returned to France be- fore him, after obtaining a renewed grant from the King, returned to Port Royal in June, 1610. He was accompanied by Father Fléché, a Catholic priest, who, upon landing, at once began the work of converting the Indi- ans. A younger Biencourt, son of the above- named, came out in the following year, bring- ing with him Fathers Biard and Masse, two

Jesuit priests, who engaged with zeal in the conversion of the savages. Other Jesuit fath- ers soon after came out, under the auspices of Mme. de Guercheville, who had bought the claims of de Monts, and who had also received a grant from the King, of the territory ex- tending from Florida to Canada. France be- ing now ruled in reality by the cruel and am- bitious Marie de Medice, as regent during the minority of her son, Louis XIII, the Jesuits were "virtually in possession of North Amer- ica, as far as a French deed could give it away." But in making this liberal grant, the French monarch failed to take into account the English, who laid claim to the same terri- tory by right of the discoveries of the Cabots, and who had already established a colony at Virginia, and made explorations along the coast as far as the Kennebec river.

FIRST ENGLISH OPPOSITION.

Samuel Argal, a young English sea captain from Virginia, who early in 1613 was cruising off the coast of Maine, learning from the In- dians of the presence of the French in that vicinity, attacked and destroyed the settlement of St. Sauveur. Soon after, on a second expe- dition made under the authority of Sir Thomas Dale, governor of Virginia, he destroyed also that of Port Royal. The latter settlement in later years "arose from its ashes, and the fleur- de-lis, or the red cross, floated from its walls, according as the French or English were the victors in the long struggle that ensued for the possession of Acadia.'

In 1608 Samuel Champlain again entered the St. Lawrence, and laid the foundations of the present city of Quebec. This was one year after Captain Newport, representing the great company of Virginia, "to whom King James II gave a charter covering the territory of an em- pire, had brought the first permanent English colony of 100 persons up the James river in Chesapeake Bay. From this time forward France and England became rivals in America."

Champlain, who was now acting as the rep- resentative of De Monts, and who, until his

HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY

death twenty-seven years later, held the posi- · tion of lieutenant-governor, during the summer of 1609 joined a party of the Algonquin and Huron Indians of Canada, in an expedition up the Richelieu river to Lake Champlain, against the Iroquois; an act for which in later years the French had to pay dearly. After another visit to France, for the purpose of consulting with De Monts, Champlain returned in the spring of 1610, to the St. Lawrence. He again assisted the allied Canadian tribes against the Iroquois. He appointed Frenchmen to learn the language and customs of the natives, so as to be of use afterwards as interpreters. He also encouraged the policy of establishing missions. "Such a policy," says Bancroft, "was congenial to the Catholic church, and was favored by the conditions of the charter itself, which recog- nized the neophyte among the savages as an enfranchised citizen of France."

ATTACKS BY THE INDIANS.

In the work of Christianizing the Indians, the Jesuit missionaries were much hampered by the hostility of the powerful Iroquois. The ire of these war-like and omnipresent savages, of whom a fuller account will be given in the succeeding chapter, had been aroused by the part which Champlain had taken in assisting their enemies, the Algonquins and Hurons, against them. They sent out their war parties for long distances in all directions, and tor- ture and death was generally the fate of those who fell into their hands. To avoid them, the missionaries, instead of following the easiest and most direct routes to the interior, were of- ten obliged to make long detours through the primeval forest, wading innumerable streams, and carrying their canoes on their shoulders for leagues through the dense woods, or dragging them through shallows and rapids and by cir- cuitous paths to avoid waterfalls. In spite of these precautions, some of them were cap- tured and fell victims to the relentless savages. Father Jogues, who had been once captured and tortured by the Iroquois, and who, after es- caping and revisiting France, returned in 1647 to America, was killed while endeavoring to ne-

gotiate a treaty with them. But in spite of such events, and although, in 1648, the mis- sionary settlements in Canada were attacked and destroyed by the Iroquois, some of the mis- sionaries, as well as many of their converts, falling victims to the fury of the conquerors, the zeal of the Jesuits could not be daunted. Missionaries in greater numbers entered upon the work so fatefully begun, and continued it through all vicissitudes until at last friendly relations were brought about with their former enemies.

These improved conditions were chiefly due to a large military reinforcement which, in 1665, arrived from France under command of the Marquis de Tracy, who had been sent out by Louis XIV, to inquire into and regulate the affairs of the colony. Within a few weeks more than 2,000 persons, soldiers and set- tlers, arrived in Canada. Existing fortifica- tions were strengthened, and four new forts were erected from the mouth of the Richelieu to Isle La Mothe on Lake Champlain. These measures had a most salutary effect upon the Indians. Four tribes of the Iroquois at once made overtures for peace. The Mohawks, who held back, were punished by a powerful expedition which destroyed their villages and stores, and soon they also were ready to make terms. For twenty years thereafter Canada "had a respite from the raids which had so severely disturbed her tranquility, and was en- abled at last to organize her new government, extend her settlements, and develop her strength for days of future trial."

Under Louis XIV Canada became a royal province, and its political and social con- ditions began to assume those forms which, with but slight modifications, they retained during the whole of the French regime.

EXPLORATION OF THE GREAT LAKES AND THE MISSISSIPPI.

But French discovery and enterprise were not destined to halt upon the banks of the St. Lawrence and its tributary waterways. In 1667 Father Claude Allouez, while engaged in missionary work among the Chippewas, first

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heard of a river to the westward called by the natives "Messippi," or great river. This river had also been heard of by Jean Nicolet, a trader and interpreter, who, sometime before the death of Champlain, had ventured into the region of the Great Lakes, and as far as the valley of the Fox river. He is considered to have been the first European who reached Sault Ste. Marie.

In 1671, Simon Francois Daumont, Sieur St. Lusson, under a commission from the gov- ernor of Quebec, and accompanied by Nicholas Perrot and Louis Jolliet, took possession at Sault Ste. Marie of the basin of the lakes and the tributary rivers. A mission had been es- tablished here some two years previously by Claude Dablon and James Marquette, it thus being the oldest settlement by Europeans with- in the present limits of Michigan.

In the spring of 1673, Louis Jolliet, a pioneer trader of great courage, coolness, and resolution, and Father Marquette, a zealous and self-sacrificing missionary, were chosen to explore the West and find the great river of which so many vague accounts had reached the settlements. With five companions, and two canoes, they crossed the wilderness which stretched beyond Green Bay, ascended the Fox river, then with Indian guides, traversed the portage to the Wisconsin, thus reaching the lower "divide" between the valleys of the lakes and that of the Mississippi. Launching their frail canoes on the Wisconsin, they followed its course, until, on the 17th of June, 1673, they found themselves, "with a great and in- expressible joy," on the bosom of a mighty river which they recognized as the Mississippi. Descending its current to the mouth of the Ar- kansas, they there gathered sufficient informa- tion from the Indians to assure them that the great river emptied its waters, not into the Gulf of California, but into the Gulf of Mexico. Returning by way of the Illinois and Desplains rivers, they crossed the Chicago portage, and at last found themselves on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. Jolliet reached Canada in the following summer. Marquette remained to labor among the Indians, and died in the spring of 1675, by the banks of a small tream which

flows into Lake Michigan on the western shore. Before the end of the seventeenth century, the portages at the head of Lake Michigan had become widely known, and there had been a trading post for some fifteen years at the Chicago river.

The work, so well begun by Marquette and Jolliet, of solving the mystery that had so long surrounded the Mississippi river, was com- pleted by René Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, a native of Rouen, who had come to Canada when a young man. Of an adventur- our disposition, he had been greatly interested by the reports of the "great water" in the West, which, in common with many others at that time, he thought might lead to the Gulf of California. In the summer of 1668, while on an expedition with two priests, to the ex- treme western end of Ontario, he met and con- versed with Jolliet. Leaving his companions, he plunged into the wilderness, and for two years thereafter was engaged in independent exploration of which we have very little ac- count. In 1677 he visited France, and received from the King letters-patent authorizing him to build forts south and west in that region "through which it would seem a passage to Mexico can be discovered."

In the following year, with the encourage- ment and support of Frontenac, then governor of Canada, and accompanied by Henri de Tonty and Father Louis Hennepin, he made an expedition to the Niagara district, and built on Lake Erie the first vessel that ever ventured on the Lakes, which he called the "Griffin." This vessel was lost while return- ing from Green Bay with a cargo of furs, a calamity that was only the beginning of many misfortunes that might well have discouraged a man of less resolute and indomitable nature. Soon afterwards he had to contend with the disaffection of his own men, who in his ab- sence and that of Tonty, destroyed a fort which he had built on the Illinois river, near the site of the present city of Peoria. For this act the men were subsequently punished. Father Hennepin, while on an expedition to the upper Mississippi, had been captured by a wandering tribe of Sioux. The Iroquois

HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY

now began to be troublesome, their war parties attacking the Illinois and burning their vil- lages. Tonty had disappeared, having been obliged, while on an expedition, to take refuge from the Iroquois in a village of the Potta- watamies at the head of Green Bay. La Salle subsequently found him at Mackinac, while on his way to Canada for men and supplies.

"On the 6th of February, 1682," says Bourinot, in "The Story of Canada," "La Salle passed down the swift current of the Missis- sippi, on that memorable voyage, which led him to the Gulf of Mexico. He was accom- panied by Tonty and Father Membré, one of the Recollet order, whom he always preferred to the Jesuits. The Indians of the expedition were Abenakis and Mohegans, who had left the far-off Atlantic coast and Acadian rivers, and wandered into the great West after the unsuccessful war in New England which was

waged by the Sachem Metacomet, better known as King Philip. They met with a kindly reception from the Indians encamped by the side of the river, and, for the first time, saw the villages of the Taensas and Natchez, who were worshippers of the sun. At last on the 6th of April, LaSalle, Tonty and Dautrey, went separately in canoes through the three chan- nels of the Mississippi, and emerged on the bosom of the Great Gulf." Near the mouth of the river they raised a column with an in- scription, taking possession of the country in the name of the King of France. "It can be said," says Bourinot, "that Frenchmen had at last laid a basis for future empire from the Lakes to the Gulf. It was for France to show her appreciation of the enterprise of her sons, and make good her claim to such vast imperial domain. The future was to show that she was unequal to the task."

CHAPTER IV

INDIAN OCCUPANCY

The Iroquois-Their Famous League, Habits, and Costumes-The Algonquins, Their Com- merce, Picture-Writing, and Religion-Indian Warfare-Iroquois Conquests-Exter- mination of the Eries-The Chahta-Muskoki Stock.

The Indian tribes which at the time of the first European discoveries occupied that part of North America east of the Mississippi, and between Hudson's Bay and the Gulf of Mex- ico, were embraced, with some few exceptions, in two generic divisions-the Algonquins and the Iroquois. These two great families were separated from each other by radical differ- ences of language, rather than by any special racial or physical characteristics. To the Iro- quois linguistic stock belonged the Eries, who inhabited the country immediately south of Lake Erie; the Hurons, or Wyandots, whose home lay between Lakes Ontario and Huron; the Andastes or Conestogas and the Susque- hannocks, of the lower Susquehanna; the Cherokees, who were found on the upper Ten- nessee : the Tuscaroras of Virginia and North Carolina; the Neutral Nation, who lived to the west of the Niagara river ; the Mohawks, One- idas, Onondagas, Senecas, and Cayugas, who occupied almost the entire area of New York, except the lower Hudson. Of the five tribes last named, the Mohawks occupied the Mo- hawk valley and the vicinity of Lakes George and Champlain, while the other four tribes were found in the region south of Lake Oon- tario.

THE IROQUOIS.

The name Iroquois, though French in form, is said to have been derived from "Hiro" (I have spoken )-the conclusion of all their harangues -- and "Koué;" an exclamation of sorrow when it was prolonged, and of joy when pro- nounced shortly. The Iroquois were an inland people, whose original home was probably in the district between the lower St. Lawrence and Hudson's Bay. They possessed an intelli- gence superior to that of most of the Indian tribes. This was exemplified in the famous league or confederation between the five tribes of New York, above mentioned (long known as the Five Nations), which was effected about the middle of the Fifteenth century by Hiawatha, a sagacious chief of the Onondagas, and the subject of Longfellow's poem of that name. Says Horatio Hale, in his work entitled "The Iroquois Book of Rites." "The system he devised was not to be a loose or transitory league, but a permanent government. While each nation was to retain its own council and management of local affairs, the general con- trol was to be lodged in a federal senate, com- posed of representatives to be elected by each nation, holding office during good behavior.

HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY

and acknowledged as ruling chiefs throughout the whole confederacy. Still further, and more remarkably, the federation was not to be a limited one. It was to be indefinitely expansible. The avowed design of its proposer was to abolish war altogether. That this beneficent and farsighted plan failed of its ultimate object was due less to any inherent defects than to the fact that that object was too far advanced for the comprehension of those for whose benefit it was designed. Though retaining its govern- mental value in the regulation of tribal affairs, the league was soon perverted into a means of conquest and aggression until the name of Iro- quois became a terror to all the surrounding nations. It included, besides the five New York tribes above mentioned, some portions of the Neutral Nation, and, at a later date, the Tuscaroras, who, about 1712, were driven from North Carolina by the British, the confedera- tion after this date being known as the Six Nations. It was to these tribes only that the name Iroquois was applied by the early French and English settlers.

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

The Iroquois called themselves in general Ho-de-no-saunee, "The people of the long house," each tribe living in a separate village of long houses, large enough to hold from five to twenty families each. "Each family was a clan or kin resembling the gens of the Romans -a group of males and females, whose kin- ship was reckoned only through females-the universal custom in archaic times in America." As the marriage tie was loosely regarded, all rank, titles, and property were based upon the rights of the woman alone. The child belonged to the clan, not of the father, but of the mother, Each of the long houses was occupied by re- lated families, the mothers and their children belonging to the same clan, while the husbands and fathers belonged to other clans ; conseque- quently the clan or kin of the mother predomi- nated in the household. Every clan had a name, derived from the animal world, as a rule, which was represented in the "totem," or coat- of-arms, of the kin or gens, found over the

door of a long house, or tattooed on the arms or bodies of its members. Being originally a nation of one stock and each tribe containing parts of the original clans, "all the members of the same clan, whatever tribe they belonged to, were brothers or sisters to each other in virtue of their descent from the same common female ancestor." No marriage could take place between members of the same clan or kin. Yet while the Iroquois woman had so much importance in the household and in the regulation of inheritance, as well as a voice in the councils of the tribe, she was almost as much a drudge as the squaw of the savage Micmacs of Acadia.

Besides building better cabins and strong- holds than other tribes the Iroquois also culti- vated more maize. Although they had devised no method of recording history, they had many myths and legends, which were handed down with great minuteness from generation to gen- eration. In remembering them they were aided by the wampum belts and strings, which served by the arrangement and design of the beads to fix certain facts and expressions in their memory. "The Iroquois myths," says Brinton, "refer to the struggle of the first two brothers, the dark twin and the white, a familiar sym- bolism, in which we see the personification of the light and darkness, and the struggle of day and night."

THE ALGONQUINS.

The Algonquin stock was both more num- erous and more widely scattered than that of the Iroquois. Their various tribes, according to linguistic identification, were distributed as follows: Abnakis, in Nova Scotia and on the south bank of the St. Lawrence; Arapahoes, head waters of Kansas river; Blackfeet, head waters of the Missouri river ; Cheyennes, upper waters of Arkansas river; Chippeways, shores of Lake Superior ; Crees or Sauteux, southern shores of Hudson's Bay; Delawares or Len- apes, on the Delaware river; Illinois, on the Illinois river; Kaskaskias, on the Mississippi below the Illinois river; Kickapoos, on the upper Illinois river ; Meliseets, in Nova Scotia

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and New Brunswick; Miamis, between the Miami and Wabash rivers; Micmacs, in Nova Scotia ; Menominees, near Green Bay; Mohe- gans, on lower Hudson river; Manhattans, about New York bay; Nanticoke, on Chesa- peake bay; Ottawas, on the Ottawa river and south of Lake Huron; Pampticokes, near Cape Hatteras; Passamaquoddies, on the Schoodic river; Piankishaws, on the middle Ohio river ; Pottawattomies, south of Lake Michigan; Sacs and Foxes, on the Sac river; Secoffies, in La- brador; Shawnees, on Tennessee river ; Weas, near the Piankishaws. The Crees, one of the most important tribes, retained the original language of the stock in its purest form; while the Nanticokes of Maryland, the Powhatans of Virginia, and the Pamticokes of the Caro- linas spoke dialects which diverged more or less widely from it. The traditions, customs, and language of these tribes seem to point to some spot north of the St. Lawrence, and east of Lake Ontario, as the original home of the stock. The totemic system prevailed among the Algonquins, as also descent in the female line, but not the same communal life as among the Iroquois. "Only rarely do we meet with the 'long house' occupied by a number of kin- dred families." Most of the tribes manufac- tured pottery, though of a coarse and heavy kind. They employed copper in the manufac- ture of ornaments, knives and chisels, though their arrowheads and axes were usually of stone. They also carried on an extensive com- merce in various articles with very distant parts, their trading operations extending even as far as Vancouver Island, whence they ob- tained the black slate, ornamented pipes of the Haidah Indians. Some tribes, as the Lenapés and the Chippeways, had developed the art of picture writing from the representative to the symbolic stage, as had been done by the Aztecs and kindred races of Mexico; it was employed to preserve the national history and the rites of the secret societies. The religion of the Algonquins "was based upon the worship of light, especially in its concrete manifestations, as the sun and fire ; of the four winds as typical of the cardinal points, and as the rain-bringers ; and of the totemic animal." They also, like the

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Century history of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Ohio, and representative citizens, 20th, Part 4

Author: Sanderson, Thomas W., comp Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1074

Author: Sanderson, Thomas W., comp
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1074