History of Buffalo County Wisconsin 10847607, Part 14

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reached Chicago. River and ascended it about two . leagues. His- malady had returned, and it was. impossible to proceed any. fur- ther. The two men built a log hut by the river, and there the win- ter was spent. There was no scarcity . of . provisions, such as the country and the season afforded, nor were the three companions without neighbors. Although these were not very close, one being an encampment of Illinois, distant two days travel, the other one of " coureurs des bois," those. freebooters, of the fur-trade, who in spite of proscription and persecution flourished to the great annoy- ance of the intendant, or financial agent of the crown in the colony.

One can not help being pleased with the behavior of the Indians and of the Coureurs des, Bois towards Marquette and his men. Both parties not only visited them, but assisted them each in its own manner, to the best of their power. The rest and shel- ter afforded by winter quarters had produced, an abatement of. Marquette's disease, and on the thirtieth day of March they left their hut, carried their canoe and their baggage to the head of Des Plaines River, a tributary to the Illinois, upon which they then descended to the Indian town, which Marquette calls Kaskaskia. Here they were well received, and .Marquette worked diligently in the line of strictly missionary labors. After he thought the minds of the Indians prepared, he called them to a council, which was attended by five hundred chiefs and old men, fifteen hundred youths and warriors, and all the women and children of thetribe. He preached to them and found willing hearers, who begged him to stay among them. This he could or would not do, for he felt that his life was fast ebbing away and he wanted to die under the con- solations of his religion. A fews days after Easter a crowd of Indians escorted him to Lake Michigan. Here he embarked with his two companions for Mackinaw, and followed the eastern shore being the shortest route and involving no long crossing. As his men were urging along their canoe, Marquette was lying with dimmed sight and prostrated strength communing with the Virgin and the angels: On the nineteenth of May, he felt that his hour was near, and, as they passed the mouth of a small river, he re- quested his companions to land. They complied, built a shed of bark: on a rising ground, and carried thither the dying Jesuit. Perfectly resigned to, and glorying in his fate of having been allowed to die a minister, of the Faith, and a member "of

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the brotherhood of Jesuits, he gave directions about his burial and sent his companions to sleep, until he would call them. Two or three hours after they heard his feeble cry, and, hastening to his side, they found him at the point of death. He expired calmly, murmuring the names of Jesus and Mary; with his eyes fixed on the crucifix which one of his followers held before him. They buried him according to his directions; and then set off for Macki- naw to bear the tidings to his brethren at the mission of St. Ignace. In the winter of 1666 a party of Kiskakon Ottawas were hunting on Lake Michigan and in the spring on their return, under the observance of the customs of their people in such cases, took up Marquette's bones and bore them, in a procession of thirty canoes, to' St. Ignace of Michillimackinac (Mackinaw.) As they ap- proached, priests, Indians and traders, all thronged to the shore. The relics of Marquette were received with solemn ceremony, and buried beneath the floor of the little chapel of the mission. The river where he died is a small stream in the west of Michigan, some distance south of the promontory called the "Sleeping Bear." It must be confessed without hesitation, that his actions in all that is known of him, were singularly disinterested, and if, as he must have known from the beginning, he was simply an instrument in the hands of his superiors, for the glory and the benefit of his order, his' personal character was eminently free from personal ambition and the almost fanatical zeal of some of his contempo- rary confreres. Being a superior scholar and especially an aecom- plished linguist he might reasonably hope for the highest distinc. tions his order could confer on any of its members, but this ambi- tion seems never to have influenced his actions. Tradition has. long since enveloped the events of his last voyage into a veil of obscurity, but it is remarkable that his fame attained a marked, preponderance over that of his companion, and that .for a long time he was considered, if not declared, the commanding spirit of the enterprise, while in fact Joliet held both the commission for and the command of it. To. me it is as clear as noon-day, that its success was owing to the decision and perseverance of Joliet, who had no inclination to be detained by any excuses of the necessity of converting the nations visited, and who knew that delays are the most dangerous. foes to any such enterprise.

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sometimes dissembled, often came to the surface, and which was gratified, after La Salle's death, in the second edition of Henne- pin's book, 1697. On arriving in Canada he was sent up to Frontenac, La Salle's fort on Lake Ontario. This afforded a most convenient opportunity for the study of Indian languages, especi- ally 'Algonquin and Iroquois, a colony of the latter being situated under the protection of the fort. His restless disposition mani- fested itself in his many excursions both by canoe in' the summer, and on snow-shoes in the winter. Of these excursions one is re- markable for its extent; as during the same he visited the Onon- dagas, the Oneidas and the Mohawks, three of the Iroquois na- tions, and met three Dutchmen from New York colony, who in- vited him to visit the settlement of Orange, now Albany, which, however, he declined. They were pleased with him, he says, be- cause he spoke Dutch. On the eighteenth of November, 1678, he went with La Motte, an officer of La Salle's, and twenty-three men to the mouth of the Niagara River, where La Salle intended to build a fortified post and storehouse. This was the expedition which resulted. during the same winter in the building of the schooner Griffin, the first vessel that ever sailed on the Upper Lakes, and in the following summer or autumn brought La Salle and his party to Green Bay. The description and enumeration of the disappointments, dangers, labors and adventures of La Salle and his followers, or companions, among them three Recollect fathers or friars, of which Hennepin was one, is not a part of this friar's history, as far as it belongs to the discovery of the Upper Mississippi, although related by him at length. After great hard- ships the party reached the mouth of the St. Joseph's River in what is now .Michigan where they were joined by Tonty and such of his men as had not deserted. A fort had been built there called Miamis, probably after the Indians of the neighborhood. From this fort the party set out during the winter, made the por- tage to the Kankakee River, which may be considered as one of the headwaters of the Illinois, which they reached a few days before New Years Day 1680. Four days after the celebration of that day they reached Peoria Lake, then called Pimitoui. The next day they reached the town of the Illinois. Their adventures there. and their construction of the fort called Crevecoeur, are interesting to a degree, but space is wanting for the relation of them in this

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place. So far Hennepin had acted no very prominent part, except perhaps by frequently attending to what was none of his business. He had abundant time for the purpose, since beside his occasional preaching, which could and would sometimes be done by the two other friars, there certainly was nothing that he could do, or could be expected of him. La Salle had tarried so long on the shores of the lake to receive tidings of the Griffin, which had been sent to the fort at the entrance to Niagara River with furs and hides and was to bring material, rigging and anchors for a vessel to be built on the Illinois River, to be used in the descent of the Mississippi and final departure from the mouth of the river to the French possession in the West Indies. The Griffin was never heard of again. Her loss finally compelled La Salle to return to Canada by way of marching through the wilderness as chances might offer, to Lake Erie, thence by canoe to Niagara and finally to Frontenac.

This voyage had however nothing to do with the subject of this sketch, except that La Salle before his departure for Canada sent Micheal. Accau, and Antoine Anguel nicknamed Du Gay or Picard, because he was from Picardy to explore the Illinois River to its mouth and also to explore the Mississippi. It may be sup- posed that La Salle and Tonty knew of the voyage made nearly seven years before by Marquette and Joliet, but exactly how much is not stated. The purpose of the expedition despatched by La Salle seems to have been an exploration of the Upper Mississippi though instructions can not have been very definite. This expe- dition Hennepin was requested to join. After its return he wrote its history and arrogated to himself all the credit it deserved, and in subsequent editions of his narrative much more than was due to its actual achievements. But when requested to join it, he was not very willing. He wanted the younger one of his two confreres, Zenobe Membre to go in his place, but the latter refused; to send Ribourde, then sixty-four years old, was out of the question. So Hennepin made a virtue of necessity and on the last day of Feb- ruary the expedition started, well provided with arms and ammu- nition and with such goods as might be suitable for trading, and ·making presents to Indians on their route. Hennepin, with his usual modesty, says: " Anybody but me would have been very .much frightened at the dangers of such a journey; and in fact, if

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I had not placed all my trust in God, I should not have been the dupe of the Sieur de la Salle, who exposed my life rashly." It is most probable that La Salle, who had determined to leave Tonty in command at Crevecoeur, while he himself had to go to Canada, took the precaution to send the officious monk out of Tonty's way. The canoe of the three travelers, heavily laden as it was, de- scended to the mouth of the Illinois, about two hundred and fifty miles. As they had to hunt, and to cook on shore, it is not proba- ble that they exceeded twenty-five miles per day on an average. Being unacquainted with the river they could not have traveled at night. They would naturally rest and investigate at the junc- tion of the two rivers, and then, when they began the ascent of the Mississippi, they could not expect to make much progress against its current. Hennepin seems to insinuate that Accau and Du Gay intended to use the merchandise of La Salle for trading to their own advantage, but there seems to have been but little or no chance for such a scheme. One thing scared the self-confident friar, and his prayer was constantly that he might escape from it, or that it might happen in daylight and not in the night-time. This was a meeting with the Sioux.

The word Nadewessioux, of which Sioux is an abreviation, was of Ojibway or Chippewa origin and meant enemies. That it was only applied to the Dakotas is not probable, nor certain, but that with the French of that time it was, or shortly became syno- nymous with Dakota is equally sure. To the extent of meeting them in daylight Hennepin was gratified. For on the twelfth day of April, while they stopped in the afternoon to repair their canoe, they were surprised and surrounded by a war-party of one-hund- red and twenty Sioux. Hennepin held out the peace-pipe, but some one snatched it from him. He then offered some Martin- ique tobacco, which was better received. They told that they were on their way to attack the Miamis, but Hennepin made them understand by signs, and marks which he drew with a stick, that the Miamis had gone acrosse the Mississippi, beyond their reach. This can only mean, that a party of the Miamis had crossed to the eastside within the knowledge of the three Frenchmen, and ascended the Wisconsin River to join their tribe, whom we found on the Fox River seven years previous. (Marq. and Jol.) If so, the capture of the three men took place above the mouth of the

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believe that his life was wanted to atone for the lost revenge. Aqui- paguetin and some other old savages kept up an unearthly howl over Hennepin, who was thereby induced to believe that his life was in danger. One night the three captives had to build their fire at the end of the camp, where they were beset by a crowd of the Indians, who told them that Aquipaguetin had finally resolved to tomahawk them. Hennepin hastened to appease them with presents, and the old rogue Aquipaguetin, having found the way to extort what he was prevented by others from stealing, practiced on the credulity and cowardice of the friar. On one occasion Aquipaguetin killed a bear, and invited the crowd to feast upon it. After that feast they danced the " medicine dance " and the pipe of war was handed round and smoked, while the old chief harangued them in order to induce the killing and robbing of the captives. He did not, however, succeed. Every morning they started at daybreak, some- times without breaking their fast. Sometimes they stopped for a buffalo hunt on the prairies, and provisions: were plenty. They passed Lake Pepin, which Hennepin called Lake of Tears, for it seems that Aquipaguetin and his confederates had done something extra by way of howling in that neighborhood.

Nineteen days after their capture they landed near the pres- ent site of St. Paul. It seems that the moment of parting was too much for the generosity of the band of Sioux, and that the pris- oners and their goods were divided, without any particular quar- rel, however. Even the priestly vestments of Hennepin were divided. Whether the savages admired their splendor, as Henne- pin says, or not, matters but little, since his chasuble was used in the conveyance of some bones of a dead Indian, as soon as they had appropriated it. From the place of landing they began their march towards their villages, to the northeast, to the neighborhood . of Lake Buade, now and probably soon after, called Mille Lacs or a thousand lakes. The Sioux, being tall and active, marched very rapidly, and Hennepin could not have followed, or kept up with them, if they had not sometimes assisted him. The ice of the marshes and ponds, which formed every night, although the month of May had begun, cut his bare feet, and after swimming the cold streams, he nearly perished from cold. His French companions being unable to swim, were carried across streams on the shoul- ders of the Indians. Being both rather small men, they neverthe.

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less showed considerable endurance. Hennepin complains that he was very faint from hunger, as they gave him but a small piece of smoked meat every day, probably, however, as much as they had themselves. On the fifth day they reached their homes, which were to be those of the captives also. Though they were not tor- tured, it seems they were made fun of, as Du Gays had to sing and dance for the amusement of the crowd, which Hennepin took for an intention of killing his comrade. They were presently seated in the lodge of a chief and there fed with a mess of wild rice and whortleberries, the best thing Hennepin says, he received since their captivity. The distribution of the three captives resulted in a vehement dispute among the Indians, but ended with giving the friar to his old enemy Aquipaguetin, who adopted him on the spot as a son. Du Gay, afraid of being sacrificed confessed himself to Hennepin, but Accau did not have any great fear, or but little con- fidence in the friar. The latter had to accompany his self-styled father to his village, not very far off. Five of Aquipaguetin's wives conveyed them to an island in Lake Buade. At the entrance of the chief's lodge Hennepin was met by a decrepit old Indian, who offered him the peace-pipe and placed him on a bear-skin spread before the fire. A small boy anointed his limbs with the fat of a wild-cat, to relieve his fatigue. The chief fed him with fish, covered him with a buffalo robe, and showed him to his six or seven wives, who were told to regard him as a son. Little as the new relationship pleased the friar, it was his only safety, and, much against his temper,he submitted with some grace. The Indians notie- ing his feebleness, prepared sweating baths for him, by which he was very much benefited. The fare of the whole band was scanty, and the squaws attended to their natural children, in preference to an adopted son, who was old enough to take care of himself. Hen- nepin was something of a medicinal practitioner, administering orvietan, which was at that time considered as a famous panacea, bled asthmatics, and shaved the heads of the children, according to the fashion of the tribe. He was regarded as a man of occult powers, for which he seems to have been indebted to a pocket compass and a small metal pot the feet of which resembled the heads of lions. His missionary labors did not oppress his con- science much, and the only thing indicative of any exertions in that direction was the beginning of a vocabulary of the Sioux

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language. He attributed his ill success at conversion to the na- tion stupidity of the Indians.

The love between him and his Indian father was not very great, but Quasicoudi (Wassicoody) the principal chief of the Sioux of this region was the friend of the three Frenchmen, and told Aquipaguetin and the rest, in full council, that they were like a dog who steals a piece of meat from a dish and runs away with it. When Hennepin complained of hunger, the Indians promised him that early in the summer he should go on a buffalo hunt with them, and have food in abundance. But when the time came he objected, partly for fear of Aquipaguetin's revenge for what the great chief had said, partly for other reasons. He gave out that he expected "spirits," that is Frenchmen, to meet him at the mouth of the Wisconsin, bringing a supply of goods for trading with the Indians. He insists, and letters of La Salle seem to confirm, that the latter promised to send traders to that place. The Indians believed him and by good luck the assertion answered its purpose and was verified, at least as far as the ap- pearance of Frenchmen was concerned. The Indians went down Rum River, the outlet of Mille Lac, and encamped across the Mis- sissippi near the junction of the two rivers. Hennepin, afraid of being left alone, begged the Indians, as they passed him, canoe after canoe, to take him along, but they would not do it. Neither would Accau and Du Gay do so, and the former told the mis- sionary, that he had paddled him long enough already. Finally two Indians took compassion on him and brought him to the en- campment, where Du Gay tried to excuse himself but Accau did not. In spite of its being a hunting camp starvation reigned in it, and the three white men had nothing to live on but unripe ber- ries, which made them sick.

By the favor of the chief Quasicoude already mentioned, Hen- nepin and Du Gay were permitted to look after the expected Frenchmen; Accau preferred to stay with the Indians. The two men were furnished with a gun, a canoe and a knife, also a robe or cover of beaver-skin.

The two travelers soon reached the falls, which Hennepin named after the patron saint he had selected, St. Anthony of Padua. Hennepin's. . description of the falls is brief but sufficiently accu- rate. In the first edition, of his book he estimates their height as.

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They now resolved to join a party of Sioux hunting on what they call the Bull River, now the Chippewa. By this they would avoid falling in with straggling parties of Indians, and secure a supply of meat. Accau, their companion, was with this party, whom they followed on their hunt along the Mississippi. The hunt proved successful. One day an alarm was given. The warriors rushed toward the supposed point of danger, but found only two women of their own tribe, who brought some news. A war-party of Sioux on their way towards Lake Superior had met "five spirits" that is five Europeans. The curiosity of the white men to find out to what nationality each of the separate parties belonged was mutual. Hennepin and Du Gay returned with the Indians up the river, and near St. Anthony they met Daniel Greysolon Du Lhut with four well-armed Frenchmen.

As I shall devote an extra chapter to Du Lhut, I will here say but so much of him as relates to his meeting with Hennepin and his companions. While the latter were in June, 1680, in the Sioux village at Mille Lac, Du Lhut set out from Lake Superior with four men, by ascending the Bois Brule or Burnt Wood River and after having cut some trees and opened about one hundred beaver dams reached the head of navigation, (by canoe of course), made a portage to what was most probably the Upper St. Croix Lake, descended its outlet and came to the St. Croix River, which he de- scended, and where he must have met the war party mentioned above. He was afraid that the three white men, .of whom he had heard were either Spaniards or Englishmen, who were rivals with the French in the Indian trade. When he saw Hennepin, his mind was at rest, and the meeting was mutually cordial. They followed the Indians to their villages where a feast of honor was given to them, at which one hundred naked guests were seated - and where Quasicoude placed before Hennepin a bark dish contain- ing a mess of smoked meat and wild rice.

The travelers staid for some time, but with the approach of Autumn they departed. The Sioux did not object, since they were now reasonably sure of their return with goods for trading. As the party passed the falls of St. Anthony, the men stole two buf- falo robes hung up in honor of the spirit (wa-kon) of the cataract. Du Lhut reproached them because they endangered by this fool- ish act the safety of the whole party, but the men pleaded their

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need and were refractory. The party proceeded in ill humor but were soon diverted by the excellent hunting on the way. But once they were scared, when, some distance above the mouth of the Wisconsin they saw a war-party of the Sioux approach, while the French were just smoking the meat of a buffalo they had killed. On this occasion Hennepin, according to his own state- ment, displayed his habitual officiousness by instructing Du Lhut, who knew much more about such matters than the meddlesome friar, how to behave towards the Indians. Everything, however, passed off peaceably and the Sioux went down the river after some enemy or other without even mentioning the stolen buffalo robes. After various minor adventures Green Bay mission, a station 'of the Jesuits, was reached. Its existence is wholly ignored by Henne- pin, who was too much bigoted in favor of his own order, to men- tion the rival missionaries, although it is very probable that he enjoyed their hospitality. Equally ill-mannered he behaved in regard to the Jesuit establishment at Michillimackinac, which they soon after reached and where they spent the winter. Of those stationed there he mentioned only the Jesuit Pierson, who was a Fleming like himself and who skated with him and kept him com- pany in fishing through a hole in the ice. In the spring Henne- pin descended Lake Huron, followed the Detroit to Lake Erie, and proceeded thence to the Niagara, where he made a closer examina- tion. of the falls, and then proceeded to Lake Ontario, and then' finally to Fort Frontenac. His brother missionary there, Buisset, had been told Hennepin had been hanged with his own cord of St. Franciscus. From Frontenac he went to Montreal, where he met Count Frontenac, the governor, who treated the friar, whom everybody seems to have considered.as lost, with great civility and condescension.

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History of Buffalo County Wisconsin 10847607, Part 14

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