USA > Wisconsin > Buffalo County > History of Buffalo County, Wisconsin > Part 16
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of what in part he could hardly have very closely observed on ac- count of his malady. There were secret causes, which made it de- sirable that Count Frontenac should not learn too much of the western country, and Joliet was almost as much under the control of those who might have acted according to the circumstances in -. dicated, as Marquette or any other member of the order. This fin- ishes the story of the exploration of the Mississippi between the mouth of the Wisconsin and that of the Arkansas. It will how- ever be desirable for most readers, to learn a little more of the lives of the two persons who had carried this hazardous undertak- ing to such a successful end.
Louis Joliet
was the son of a wagon-maker in the service of the Company of the Hundred Associates then owners of Canada. He was born, at Quebec in 1645 and educated by the Jesuits. When still very young, he resolved to be a priest, and received the minor ordina- tions at the age of seventeen. Four years later he distinguished himself at what seems to have been a public examination. Soon after he renounced his clerical vocation and turned fur-trader. He remained a protege of the Jesuits, and paid for their preference in kind.
There was nothing extraordinary about the man, but he filled his place as a fur-trader, a merchant in general, well, and it must be admitted that the expedition undertaken and carried out with Marquette was very prudently managed, and, with the exception of the capsizing of his canoe, remarkably successful. In October 1675 Joliet married Claire Bisset. His father-in-law traded with the northern Indians and Joliet made a journey to Hudson's Bay in 1677, where he found three English forts, also an armed vessel of twelve guns, and several smaller trading crafts. On his return to : Quebec he sounded the alarm on account of his observations, and a company was formed to compete in the northern trade with the . English. During the year of this journey Joliet received the grant of the islands of Mignon and in 1680 that of the large island of Anticosti in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In 1681 he was established here with his wife and six servants. He was engaged in fisheries and made a chart of the St. Lawrence. In 1790 his wife and mother-in-law were taken prisoner and his establishment burnt by an English fleet under Sir Wm, Phipps. In 1694 Joliet explored
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ncia
the coast of Labrador in the employ of a company formed: for whale and seal fishery. He was made royal pilot of the. St. Law- rence and hydrographer of Quebec. It is supposed that he died poor in 1699 or 1700 and was buried on one of the Mignon islands, which lie north of Anticosti near the main land. .
Like those of Nicolet, so were Joliet's services forgotten, and his fame partially eclipsed by that of his companion, and some- what tainted by his subserviency to the Jesuit factions, which in- volved ungratefulness to Count Frontenac. The labors of Shea in this country and Margry in France have rescued his fame from oblivion.
Father Jaques Marquette, S. J.
Marquette was born in 1637 of an old and honorable family at Laon in the north of France. He joined the Jesuits at the age of seventeen, his motives being purely religious. In. 1666 he was sent to the mission of Canada, where his first station was at Tadousac on the Lower St. Lawrence, where he studied the Montagnais language, a branch of the Algonquin. In 1668 he was sent to the Upper Lakes, where he remained until his voyage with Joliet. He was for some time at Esprit the station of Allouez at the Apostle Islands, afterwards at Green Bay, then again at Point St. Ignace, ' from which he started, but to which he never returned. We have seen that at the termination of the voyage of discovery he stayed, or had to stay, at Green Bay, where his malady still continued to trouble him, until about a year after his return he felt himself well enough, and was permitted by his superiors, to return to the Illi- nois river and nation. During his stay at Green Bay he must have written his report of the expedition and made those maps, which were afterwards published as his. He himself never published anything, and if in the report published as his there was anything ; calculated to throw his companion into the shade, we may excul- pate himself entirely. On the twentyfifth of October Marquette set out with two Frenchmen, named Pierre and Jaques, one of whom had been with him on his great journey of discovery, and a .. small band of Pottawatamies and one similar one of Illinois In- dians. They followed the east shore of Green Bay, made the por- tage at Sturgeon Cove, now Sturgeon Bay, to the lake and thence proceeded southwards. The lake was stormy and they consumed more than a month in coasting along the western shore. They
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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 accom- plished linguist he might reasonably hope for the highest distinc- tions his order could confer on any of its members, but this anıbi- 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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LOUIS HENNEPIN.
The subject of this sketch, probably the first man who wrote a book, which related, at least in part, to those regions on the Mis- sissippi that were left unexplored by Marquette and Joliet, was by his vocation a missionary. He was not a Jesuit, nor did he ever like or praise that order; he was a Recollect, a bare-footed Franciscan of the gray habit. He was not a Frenchman by na- tionality, and among Frenchmen was called a Flamand, or in English, Fleming, which means a native of Flanders. I can find no authentic statement which gives his birthplace, and it is im- possible to decide, whether he was not actually born under the scepter of Louis XIV, since during the reign of this monarch some parts of Flanders may have been, either permanently or tempo- rarily, annexed to France. Nor is this point incontrovertibly de- cided by his admission into Canada, where only Frenchmen and Roman Catholics were to be admitted, since the fact of having been in a French monastery may have been considered equivalent to naturalization. It is certain that he spoke Dutch, for he says that himself, and that he died in Holland, and it may be re- marked that his mother-tongue may have been the Flemish, which is not a dialect but a near relation of the Dutch. ' Hennepin had been in a convent in the province of Artois, between Flanders and Picardy in the north-eastern part of the kingdom, and being sent by his superior to Calais to solicit alms, as was the custom of his order, he fell into the company of sailors, who, being on shore were to be found in taverns, and indulged largely in their habit of telling yarns, to the great edification of the friar, who, according to his own narrative, sometimes even hid for hours behind tavern doors, in order to listen unobserved. His credulity seems to have been equal to his curiosity, and the adventures he heard related at Calais, and at Dunkirk stirred up his disposition, which seems to have been naturally of a restless complexion. He set out on a roving mission through Holland, probably only the Catholic parts of the Netherlands and he recounts various mishaps which befell him "in consequence of my zeal in laboring for the salvation of souls." Having returned to his convent he got leave from his "superiors to go to their missions in Canada. He sailed in the same ship with La Salle and by his meddlesomeness incurred the cen- sure of the latter, against whom he took a spite, which, though
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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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Wisconsin. The Sioux, who were great hypocrites, and otherwise cruel like most Indians, extorted from Hennepin's fears all they wanted. It seems that a proposition had been made to kill the prisoners, but it was rejected, because the Sioux, having already seen some of the French and being desirous of having them come and trade among them, deemed it unwise to kill the prisoners of this trade. At length a young chief asked for the pipe, which Hennepin gladly gave him. He filled it, smoked it, made the war- riors do the same and having thus given the customary assurance of safety, told the Frenchmen, that, since the Miamis were out of reach, the war-party would return home and that they would have to accompany it. Whether Hennepin agreed to the proposition or not there was no chance to escape the opportunity for the pro- posed exploration of the upper river, although the circumstances were not very fortunate. This the friar soon became aware of, for when he opened his breviary and began to mutter his morning- devotion, his new companions in great terror gave him to under- stand, that he would not be allowed to have any intercourse with the bad spirit, as they called the book. The Indians thought he was invoking their destruction. Accau and Du Gay also remon- strated, that he was endangering the lives of all three of them, but Hennepin boasts that he meant to repeat his prayers at all hazards, though he asked the pardon of his two friends for imperiling their lives. It seems that he stopped his mutterings and began to sing his prayers with a loud voice, whereupon the Indians, being more amused than terrified, did no longer object.
These Sioux, it may be observed, were the ancestors of those who committed the massacres of 1862. Hennepin complains bit- terly of their treatment of him, but considering general Indian customs, one might be surprised, that it was no worse. To enable him to keep up with them, as his canoe was heavy and slow, some of the warriors had to assist him and his companions in paddling. They kept on their way from morning till night, building huts for their bivouac when it rained, but sleeping on the open ground in fair weather. The three, Frenchmen slept near the young chief, who had been the first to smoke the peace pipe, and who seemed to be their protector. But there was another chief, Aquipaguetin, a crafty old savage, who had lost a son by a fight with the Miamis, considered himself cheated out of his revenge and made Hennepin
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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 day break, 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 notic- 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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