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1800
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
UNDER THE
ominion of France.
BY
tepien S. S. HEBBERD. outhric
MADISON, WIS .: MIDLAND FUBLISHING CO. 1890.
6972 .05
COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY S. S. HEBBERD.
.
TO MY COMRADES OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, DEPARTMENT OF WISCONSIN, THIS EARLY HISTORY OF OUR STATE IS DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
This book deals with one of the most im- portant chapters of American history; and yet one heretofore quite unknown. The story of the French Empire in America has long been invested with a deep dramatic and philosophic interest; for, it has been well understood that upon the downfall of that dominion depended the rise of American liberty. And in these pages I hope to show that the French struggle for supremacy over the continent was, to a large extent, decided by events that took place in Wisconsin. Here was the entering wedge of disaster and ruin. Here happened the real although obscure crisis in a great drama of which the Fall of Quebec was merely the closing scene.
The main reason why these matters. have not been understood is, that the history of the West has yet to be written. Our chief histor- ical works have heretofore come from the far East; and contemplated at that distance, affairs in the West have seemed but dim and trivial
6
PREFACE.
episodes in the story of what has happened on the narrow strip of land between the Allegha- nies and the Atlantic. An adequate history of America can not be written from so one- sided a point of view.
But the materials for the new history are being gathered rapidly and in great abundance. It is surprising how much light has been thrown, within a very few years, upon the early history of the West by such great pub- lications as the Collection de Manuscripts relatifs a la Nouvelle France, the Margry Manuscripts, Brymmers Canadian Reports and Winsor's Narrative and Critical History; also by the invaluable volumes of Faillon, Ferland, Tailhan, Harrisse, Sulte, Shea, Parkman, Neill, Butterfield and others; last but by no means least, by the material printed in the Collections of the Wisconsin and Minnesota Historical Societies or preserved in their libra- ries.
And yet the most important part of this work remains to be done. The State of Wis- consin ought immediately to take measures for the exploration of the Archives at Paris where there are still sealed up many invaluable papers pertaining to her past. Wisconsin, among all her sister states, occupies the central and most
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PREFACE.
important position in the early annals of the country; and her citizens ought to feel a pat- riotic interest in having her history brought fully to the light. It has been my chief hope in writing this book, that it might contribute somewhat to that result.
I have been compelled, in many different parts of this volume, to very decidedly dissent from the conclusions reached by that eloquent and indefatigable historian, Parkman, both in his book upon La Salle and that upon the Conspiracy of Pontiac. But this, however much to be regretted, was unavoidable. Mr. Parkman has been amazingly unfortunate in his choice of La Salle as his hero and "the chief actor in the discovery of the West." The great- est genius, crippled by such misconceptions, could only attain to distorted and deceptive views. Similarly, although not to the same great extent, his account of the Conspiracy of Pontiac is defective; and that striking passage in Western history remains yet to be described from a point of view which has entirely escaped his notice.
I expect and desire to be criticised myself. All but the first quarter of this book is, in every essential respect, entirely new. The history, especially of the period from 1700 to 1763, I
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PREFACE.
have been compelled to construct out of data widely scattered through the different collect- ions of documents; and in work of such a pio- neering kind, errors will inevitably be found. But for every important statement ample reference to authorities has been given. And I now dismiss this book, believing that it con- tains a faithful picture of events with which every citizen of Wisconsin and the West ought to be familiar.
MENOMONIE, WIS.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. NICOLET AND RADISSON - THE DISCOVERY OF THE WEST. 1638-1662.
The Men of the Sea-A Highway to China - Nicolet's Journey -His Disenchantment -Visits the Mascoutins - Radisson -His First Journey to Wisconsin - Discovers the Mississippi - Second Journey - Winters on the Chip- pewa - The Famine-The Sioux - Radisson at Hudson's Bay.
CHAPTER II. GREEN BAY AND THE JESUIT MISSIONS. 1661-1671.
Menard - Lost in the Wisconsin Wilderness - Martyr- dom -- Chequamegon Bay-A Barbaric Emporium - Flight of the Indians and Ruin of the Mission -The Green Bay Region - An Oasis in a Western Desert- Allouez - The Mascoutins and the Gospel - The Foxes - A Jesuit Em- pire.
CHAPTER III. LA SALLE AND THE COUREURS DE BOIS. 1672-1682.
La Salle's Hatred of the Jesuits-His Jealousy of Green Bay - His Pretended Discoveries - His Colony - Fraudu- lent Figures-The Forest Rangers-Their Services to France -Their Accusers-The Pioneers of Wisconsin.
IO
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV. NICOLAS PERROT - FRANCE TAKES POSSES- SION OF THE WEST. 1689.
Perrot Sent to the Wisconsin Indians -Accused of Pois- oning La Salle - Made Governor of Wisconsin - The Raid on Green Bay- Fort St. Antoine - Perrot's Subsequent Career- The Chippewas Return to Wisconsin - The Fur- Trade - The Secret of Iroquois Glory.
CHAPTER V.
THE BETRAYAL OF THE FOXES. 1700-1712.
The French Policy -The Curse of Canada - Chafing under the Yoke-The Foxes Propose to Emigrate - En- ticed to Detroit- Attack by the French - Horrors of the Siege - Escape - Pursuit -- Two Thousand Massacred.
CHAPTER VI. THE GAUNTLET TAKEN UP. 1712-1716.
Vengeance upon the Illinois-Alarm of the French - Their Plan - Perrot's Protest - De Louvigny's Expedition - The Foxes Waiting their Doom - The Siege - The Sur- render - Death of the Chiefs- Mourning for the Dead - The One-eyed Hostage.
II
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VII. THE GREAT CONFEDERACY. 1716-1726.
The Continent at Peace-John Law and the Mississippi Bubble -Diplomacy of the Foxes-The Wisconsin Tribes United -- Alliance with the Sioux - Rival Traders Arm the Indians-The Wisconsin Tribes-The Iowas-The Chick- asaws-The Illinois Gibraltar- Besieged by the Foxes- Last Remnant of the Illinois flee.
CHAPTER VIII. EXTERMINATION BY FAMINE. 1726-1728.
Grand Council at Green Bay -The French Conciliatory - Fort Beauharnais Built-The Mask Thrown Aside -- De Lignery's Expedition - Tigers at their Devotions- Unaccountable Delay - Flight of the Prey -The Country Laid Waste -The Cold Winter - Glee of the French.
CHAPTER IX. BY FIRE. 1728-1736.
Four Thousand Exiles - False Friends - Burning of Women and Children - Expeditions of Marin and De Buis- son -De Villiers-Foxes Besieged at Rock St. Louis- Massacre - A Lull in the Storm - Another Massacre - A Woman's Devotion - The Tragedy at Green Bay - Sauks and Foxes Expelled - De Noyelle's Expedition - The French Fiasco.
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER X. THE WEST IN REVOLT. 1736-1752.
Spreading Flames -Presents for the Foxes- The Chip- pewa Chief and his Son-Story of Lac Court Oreilles- The Reign of Discontent - Michigan - The Miamis - Ruin of French Trade -Political Corruption - The Green Bay "Ring"- Marin's Slaughter of the Foxes.
CHAPTER XI.
THE FALL OF THE FRENCH EMPIRE. 1752-1763.
The Exiles on the Wisconsin - Prairie du Chien - A Barbarie Metropolis - Indian Miners - The Younger Marin at Green Bay - Langlade - Splendid Services - Defend- ers of a Lost Cause.
CHAPTER XII. THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC.
English Policy in the West-Extent of Pontiac's Con- spiracy - The English at Green Bay - Delight of the Wis- eonsin Tribes - Capture of Mackinac - The Ottawas Overawed-The Death of Pontiac-A Marvellous Blun- der - Wisconsin's Part in the Struggle for Liberty - The End.
CHAPTER I.
NICOLET AND RADISSON-THE DISCOVERY OF THE WEST.
1638-1662.
The gaze of the French colonists in America was, from the very first, drawn to Wisconsin as the chief centre of interest in the West. Within twenty-five years after the founding of the colony at Quebec, some knowledge had been gained of Lakes Superior and Winnebago, and of the Fox river. The Mascoutins dwell- ing upon the river just named had been heard of, also another nation living near Lake Win- nebago-"the men of the sea," a strange people of altogether different language and habits from other Indians. Thus Wisconsin had emerged into a certain dim light, while all the rest of the vast interior was wrapped in darkness.
The story of "the men of the sea" above all else fired the imagination of the French. The little band of traders and missionaries gathered at Quebec, had no conception of the vastness of the continent which they were seeking
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
to control and to convert. As late as 1654, the Jesuit, Mercier, declared that it was about nine days journey, or a hundred leagues from the strange people on Lake Winnebago to the sea that separated America from China. I And that people, it was reported had not only come from the ocean but closely resembled the Orientals in speech and customs. To the eager fancy of the French, Eastern Wisconsin had thus be- come the threshold of a fairy-land; and Fox river the long sought highway to the riches and splendors of the Orient.
Jean Nicolet was sent, in the year 1638 probably,? to negotiate a peace between this
(1) Relation, 1654. The idea had thus persisted long after Nicolet's trip.
(2) Those able investigators, Sulte and Butterfield have put this date in 634. But I am forced to dissent from their generally accepted conclusion, for the following reasons:
(a) " There is no probability," Sulte says (Wis. Hist. Coll. VIII, 193,) " that Nicolet went to Wisconsin in that short period of less than ten months- in 1638." The trip each way, he asserts, would consume ten weeks. But let us see. De Lignery's expedition left the Winnebago vil- lage on Doty's Island, August 24; ascended the river farther than Nicolet did, employed some days in laying waste the country, then turned about and reached Montreal September 28 -a period of just thirty-five days. (Cres- pel. De Lignery's Expedition, Wis. His. Coll. X., 51-3.) Nicolet could have done his work and returned as quickly,
1 5
NICOLET AND RADISSON.
mysterious Wisconsin people and some tribes living farther eastward. Having already passed some ten or twelve years of his life among the Indians, he was well fitted for this perilous trip of a thousand miles into the depths of the wilderness. Going first to the Huron country and thence embarking for Wis- consin with an escort of but seven savages, he safely reached his destination. The strange people came forth to greet their visitor with a delight tempered with awe. They believed him to be a manitou or spirit; and when Nico- let discharged his pistols, the women and chil- dren fled in dismay, "seeing a man carry thunder in both hands."
Nicolet, on his part, was also the victim of
the facilities of travel being precisely the same. What time now would the trip from Three Rivers to the Winne- bagoes have demanded? In 1634 Bre'beuf made the trip, an average one, from Three Rivers to the Huron country in thirty days. (Parkman, Jesuits in N. America, 55.) Add- ing now fifteen days, a large estimate, as consumed in go- ing from the Hurons to the Winnebagoes, we have forty- five days. Or for the trip both ways and the doing of all that was done, eighty days, instead of the thirty weeks that Sulte claims as necessary. I do not by any means say that the trip was made in eighty days; Sulte's church register leaves much larger intervals. But the whole basis of his argument is thus overthrown. Again, Dablon in 1670 made an equally difficult journey of 1,500 miles in 40 days (Relation, 1671); Nicolet's journey was not one half
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
illusions. Believing that he was about to meet a people from the stately Orient, he had clothed himself, as a dress of ceremony, with a large garment of China damask embroidered with flowers and birds of various colors. Thus arrayed, and with a pistol in each hand he ad- vanced to meet "the men of the sea." In a moment all his dreams vanished. He saw be- fore him only a mob of savages, plumed but naked, differing in no essential respect except language, from the red men with whom he had dwelt for years. They were in fact, the Win- nebagoes, a detached branch of the Sioux or Dakota race.
In spite of these mutual misapprehensions the business of the embassy went on well.
longer. Consult also as to a day's journey, Tailhan in Per- rot, Memoire, 240.
(b) The plain indication of great haste. If Nicolet had nearly a year to spend in Wisconsin, as Sulte thinks, would he not have made that " three days journey to the Great Waters?" Instead, he concludes his treaties and sets out or home.
(c) The Relations of the dispnted years, constantly refer to Nicolet, but with no hint of his discoveries-no less than twelve such references in 1636 and 1637. Bre'beuf's silence is also utterly incredible if Nicolet was then really bound for the West.
(d) " Nicolet had nothing to do with the Jesuits," says Sulte. On this consult allusions referred to above. The argument about Nieolet's marriage need not detain us.
NICOLET AND RADISSON. I7
"The news of Nicolet's coming spread to the surrounding places; four or five thousand men assembled." Each of the chiefs gave a grand banquet in honor of their guest; and after the feasting the terms of peace were arranged to the satisfaction of all.
Nicolet then made a flying trip up the Fox river to the land of the Mascoutins; and there heard of the not distant waters of the Missis- sippi. "The Sieur Nicolet," writes Vimont, "who has penetrated farthest into those dis-
(e) "Epoch of discovery closed in 1635." But Nicolet was sent not to discover but to negotiate a peace- a mat- ter his employers were specially interested in.
(f) Butterfield's additional arguments; first, that the Ot- tawa was closed in 1638, by Iroquois raids. Rather, com- munications better than usual. Early that year 12 arti- sans and laborers came up from Quebec to work at Huron Missions. (Parkman, Jesuits, 127 and 132.) Missionaries also came at different times. But 1634 was the very worst of years. "Hurons appeared at Three Rivers this year in small numbers and in a miserable state of dejection and alarm." (Ibid., 52.) Also the colony then in the chaos of its re-establishment.
(g) Butterfield's argument from the message sent to the Hurons in 1635, is self destructive. The tribes were ever- lastingly making treaties between themselves and one of these being broken, the whites were appealed to; and as soon as possible Nicolet was sent to negotiate. This, in- finitely more probable than that his treaty should have been broken, and war begun almost before he had started home- ward.
2
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
tant countries, says that if he had gone three more days up a great river that leads out of Green Bay, he would have reached the Great Waters."
Why did this daring man turn back when he thus stood on the verge of so great a discov- ery? The reasons are not stated but may be readily surmised. He had been sent not as an explorer, but as an envoy to negotiate peace, and his mission was now accomplished. His time was evidently limited. Possibly, too, when his visions of Chinese mandarins and Asiatic pomp had vanished, the Wisconsin wilderness had lost its charms.
Nevertheless Nicolet deserves the highest honors. At a time when the English had hardly ventured a day's journey from the coast, this Frenchman had penetrated almost to the heart of the continent. He had lifted the veil of mystery that hung over the great West. That it so quickly fell again, was the fault of the times and not of Nicolet.
More than twenty years elapsed after Nicol- et's journey before another white man reached Wisconsin. The fury of the Iroquois had put a stop to such distant expeditions. The ruin of the Huron missions had, for a time at least, par-
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NICOLET AND RADISSON.
alyzed the missionaries. Trade languished on account of the war and the still more baleful influence of monopoly. The work of explor- ation and expansion was at a stand-still.
But in 1658 Radisson and his brother-in-law, Groseilliers, began their explorations. For two centuries nothing was known of their travels except through some obscure mention by co- temporary writers. But Radisson had himself written an account for the use of the King of England, into whose service he had passed; and his manuscript, after passing through strange fortunes, was finally published in 1885. It is written in a curious style, such as might be expected from an unscholarly Frenchman struggling with the eccentricities of English speech; but at every point its truthfulness is manifest.
The travellers, after tarrying for a while among the Huron and Ottawa refugees on the Manitoulin islands, came to the Pottawattam- ies then dwelling on the islands at the entrance of Green Bay. Among them they wintered and the next spring proceeded to the Mascou- tins, who still dwelt on the upper Fox river, where Nicolet had found them twenty years be- fore. Radisson admiringly describes these Mascoutins as "a faire, proper nation; they
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
are tall and big and very strong." The sav- ages, on their part, regarded the adventurer with mingled emotions of delight, amazement, and awe. They were astounded, above all else by the guns which they "worshipped by blow- ing smoke of tobacco instead of sacrifice."
These reverential savages carried Radisson in their canoes up and down the water-courses of Wisconsin, whithersoever he desired, and in this way, some time during the summer of 1659, he discovered the Mississippi river.
"We are fourmonths on our voyage," Rad- isson writes,' "without doing anything but go from river to river. We met several sorts of people. By the persuasion of some of them, we went into ye great river that divides itself in 2, where the hurrons with some Ottanaks? and the wild men that had warrs with them had retired. This nation (the Mascou- tins) have warrs against those of the forked river. It is so called because it has 2 branches, the one towards the West, the other towards the South, wch we beleeve runs tow- ards Mexico by the tokens which they gave us."
(1) Voyages of Radisson, 168.
(2) Hurons and Ottawas who had fled to an island in the Mississippi, above Lake Pepin.
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NICOLET AND RADISSON.
After some other details Radisson gives an account of "that nation that lives on the other river"-evidently meaning the western branch, that is, the Missouri. This account is in some of its parts, quite mythical; but Radisson does not claim to have descended to the Missouri or to be here narrating except from hearsay. "This," he says, "I have not seene, therefore you may beleeve as you please."
But his description of what he did see, de- monstrates that "the great river" on which he travelled, was the Mississippi. And if a doubt were possible, it would be set at rest by the description of Radisson's discovery given at the time by the Jesuits:1 "A beautiful river, grand, wide, deep and comparable to our own great river, the St. Lawrence."
Radisson was alone on this voyage of dis- covery. "The summer I went a hunting, " he writes,? "my brother stayed where he was wel- come and put up a great deal of corne that was given him." But this inactive life of his brother, he says, brought on a fit of sickness; and some pages further on he ends his account of the discovery of the great river by saying: "When I came back I found my brother sick
(1) Margry, I, 54.
(2) Voyages, 158.
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
as I said before."' That this fact should have heretofore gone unnoticed must be ascribed to the amazingly entangled style of the careless young Frenchman.
The exploration of Radisson was fourteen years prior to that of Marquette. At that time there was no mission, not even another white man except Groseilliers west of the Alleghan- ies. Alone, unaided, with no resources save his own skill and courage, he found his way into the very depths of the wilderness and ex- plored the great river a thousand miles above the point reached by De Soto and his army of Spaniards. Radisson will be famous when his achievement is understood.
The following year the two travellers re- turned to the St. Lawrence; and in the sum- mer of 1661 set out on a new exploration. This time they proceeded to Lake Superior and skirted its southern shore until they reached Chequamegon Bay; thence they went five days journey in a south-east direction to the village of the Hurons. These unhappy refugees, driven westward by the Iroquois, had settled, some years before, on an island in the Missis- sippi above Lake Pepin, but they had been forced back by the Sioux and had now found
(1) Ibid., 169.
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NICOLET AND RADISSON.
a second asylum in the dense forests around the head waters of the Chippewa. I Among this poor people, the travellers were received like beings from another planet. There were great feastings and rejoicings in their honor. "We were demi-gods," says Radisson.
But soon winter set in with an extraordinary depth of snow. The Hurons, an agricultural people, were poor hunters at best, and now hunting was impossible. A frightful famine ensued. The wretched refugees, already a dispirited and demoralized people, succumbed almost without an effort to these new horrors. Their only food was the bark of trees or vines and old beaver skins dug out from the filth of their cabins. "We became the very image of death," writes Radisson. "Here are above 500 dead, men, women and children."
After two months the famine ended and life became less forlorn. Soon the travelers were visited by a large body of the Sioux who then occupied Northwestern Wisconsin and North-
(1) The village was nearer the mouth of Montreal river than to Chequamegon Bay (Radisson, Voyages, 193.) It was three days journey from Chequamegon and seven or eight from Green Bay, (Tailhau in Perrot. Moeurs des Sauvages, 240.) It was near a little lake about eight leagues in circuit.
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
ern Minnesota. The Sioux, gathered in coun- cil, said that they had come to make a sacrifice to the French, who were masters of all things. They asked for aid against their enemies, the Christinos, and pledged themselves to fidelity even unto death. Above all, they begged for guns. "The true means to get the victory," they said, "was to have a thunder."
The two explorers soon afterward visited the Sioux in their Minnesota homes and also the Christinos, living to the northwest of Lake Superior. Everywhere they were welcomed with that delight and awe which always char- acterized the first meeting of the red man with the white. Finally, late in the summer of 1662, they returned to the St. Lawrence with sixty canoes and furs to the value of 200, 000 livres-the well-earned reward of splendid labors.
But the governor of the colony was bent upon robbing them. Even when they set out on their second journey of exploration they had been compelled, in order to escape his ex- tortions, to slip away at mid-night like crim- inals bent upon some base design. His rapacity was now greatly increased by the sight of their riches; and they, becoming tired of his plun-
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NICOLET AND RADISSON.
dering, fled to Boston and thence sailed for England. ™ There they were grandly received, became honored guests in lordly mansions, and Radisson married the daughter of Sir John Kirk. In 1667 the two explorers, at the head of an English expedition, sailed for Hudson's Bay and established trading posts there, with the design of drawing the rich fur trade of the Northwest away from Canada. They thus be- came the founders of the famous Hudson's Bay Company.
After a while, having quarreled with some of the officers of the company, they returned to the service of France, and in 1682 re- appeared at Hudson's Bay, seized an English ship, captured their former associates and raised the French flag over Port Nelson. 2 But on their return to Paris, the English ambassador urgently entreated them to go back to England. Radisson's wife was still there and the two Frenchmen were soon persuaded 3 to re-enter the English service. In 1684, they again sailed for
(1) Colonie Francaise, III, 311. Lettre de Marie d' In- carnation, 27 Aout, 1670. Groseillier's wife and chil- dren remained in Canada.
(2) Rapport de M. de Meules au Ministre, 4 Nov., 1683. Collection de Manuscripts relatifs a la Nouvelle France, II, 302-4.
(3) Neill. Minnesota, Hist. Collections, V. 414.
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
Hudson's Bay, lowered the lilies of France and hoisted the English flag, which ever since has floated over half the continent.
Radisson, reviewing these many changes, stoutly avers that he does not "in the least deserve to be taxed with lightness or incon- stancy. "I It matters but little: French des- potism and an English wife are a full excuse for all such aberrations. This gay, rollicking Frenchman was a wise, brave, honest and great man. Few careers have blended so much of romance and solid service as his. The discov- ery of the Mississippi, the first exploration of Lake Superior, the founding of a vast com- mercial enterprise which for two centuries con- trolled half the continent-how many among the famous have done so much as this ?
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