USA > Wisconsin > Winnebago County > History of Winnebago County, Wisconsin, and early history of the Northwest > Part 6
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"Several of the priests set out to follow and console the scattered bands of fugitive Hurons. One embarked in a canoe, and coasted the dreary shores of Lake Huron northward, among the labyrinth of rocks and islets, whither his scared flock had fled for refuge; another betook himself to the forest with a band of half-famished proselytes, and shared their miser- able rovings through the thickets and among the mountains. Those who remained took counsel together at Sainte Marie. Whither should they go, and where should be the new seat of the Mission ? They made choice of the Grand Manitoulin Island, called by them Isle Sainte Marie, and by the Hurons Ekaentoton, It lay near the northern shores of Lake Huron, and by its position would give a ready access to numberless Algonquin tribes along the borders of all these inland seas. Moreover, it would bring the priests and their flock nearer to. the French settlements, by the route of the Ottawa, whenever the Iroquois should cease to infest that river, The fishing, too, was good; and some of the priests, who knew the island well, made a favorable report of the soil. 'Thither, therefore, they had resolved to transplant the mission, when twelve Huron chiefs arrived, and asked for an interview with the Father Superior and his fellow Jesuits. The conference lasted three hours. The deputies declared that many of the scattered ITurons had determined to re-unite, and form a settlement on a neighboring island of the lake, called by the Jesuits Isle St. Joseph ; that they needed the aid of the Fathers; that without them they were helpless, but with them they could hold their ground, and repel the attacks of the Iroquois. They urged their plea in language which Ragueneau describes as pathetic and eloquent ; and, to confirm their words, they gave him ten large collars of wampum, saying that these were the voices of their wives and children. They gained their point. The Jesuits abandoned their former plan, and promised to join the Hurons on Isle St. Joseph.
" They had built a boat, or small vessel, and in this they em- barked such of their stores as it would hold. The greater part were placed on a large raft made for this purpose, like one of the rafts of timber which, every summer, float down the St. Law- rence and the Ottawa. Here was their stock of corn - in part
the produce of their own fields, and in part bought from the Hurons in former years of plenty - pictures, vestments, sacred vessels and images, weapons, ammunition, tools, goods for bar- ter with the Indians, cattle, swine and poultry. Sainte Marie was stripped of everything that could be moved. Then, lest it should harbor the Iroquois, they set it on fire, and saw con- sumed in an hour the results of nine or ten years of toil. It was near sunset, on the fourteenth of June. The houseless band descended to the mouth of the Wye, went on board their raft, pushed it from the shore, and, with sweeps and oars, urged it on its way all night. The lake was calm and the weather fair; but it crept so slowly over the water that several days elapsed before they reached their destination, about twenty miles distant.
" Near the entrance of Matchedash Bay lie the three islands, now known as Faith, Hope and Charity. Of these Charity, or Christian Island, called Ahoendoe by the Hurons, and St. Joseph by the Jesuits, is by far the largest. It is six or eight miles wide; and, when the Hurons sought refuge here, it was densely covered with the primeval forest. The priests landed with their men, some forty soldiers, laborers and others, and found about three hundred Huron families bivouacked in the woods. Here were wigwams and sheds of bark, and smoky kettles slung over fires, each on its tripod of poles, while around lay groups of famished wretches, with dark, haggard visages, and uncombed hair, in every posture of despondency and woe. They had not been wholly idle ; for they had made some rough clearings, and planted a little corn ; the arrival of the Jesuits gave them new hope; and, weakened as they were with famine, they set themselves to the task of hewing and burning down the forest, making bark houses, and planting palisades. The priests, on their part, chose a favorable spot› and began to clear the ground, and mark out the lines of a fort. Their men - the greater part serving without pay - labored with admirable spirit, and before winter, had built a square, bastioned fort of solid masonry, with a deep ditch, and walls about twelve feet high. Within were a small chape', houses for lodging, and 'a well, which, with the ruins of the walls, may still be seen on the southeastern shore of the island, a hundred feet from the water. Detached redoubts were also built near at hand, where French musketeers could aid in defending the adjacent Huron village. Though the island was called St. Joseph, the fort, like that on the Wye, received the name of Sainte Marie. Jesuit devotion scattered these names broadcast over all the fields of their labors,
" The island, thanks to the vigilance of the French, escaped attack throughout the summer; but Iroquois scalping-parties ranged the neighboring shores, killing stragglers, and keeping the Hurons in perpetual alarm. As winter drew near, great numbers, who, trembling and by stcalth, had gathered a miser- ahle subsistence among the northern forests and islands, rejoined their countrymen at St. Joseph, until six or eight thousand expatriated wretches were gathered bere under the protection of the French fort. They were housed in a hun- dred or more hark dwellings, each containing eight or ten families Here were widows without children, and children without parents; for famine and the Iroquois had proved more deadly enemies than the pestilence which, a few years before had wasted their towns. Of this multitude, but few had strength enough to labor, scarcely any had made provision for the win- ter, and numbers were already perishing from want, dragging themselves from house to house like, living skeletons. The priests had spared no effort to meet the demands upon their
1649.]
EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST.
29
charity. They sent men during the autumn to buy smoked fish from the Northern Algonquins, and employed Indians to gather acorns in the woods. Of this miserable food they suc- ceeded in gathering five or six hundred bushels. To diminish its bitterness, the Indians boiled it with ashes, or the priests served it out to them pounded, and mixed with corn.
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" As winter advanced, the Huron houses became a frightful spectacle. The inmates were dying by scores daily. The priests and their men buried the bodies, and the Indians dug them from the earth or the snow and fed on them, sometimes in secret and sometimes openly; although, notwithstanding their superstitious feasts on the bodies of their enemies, their repugnance and horror were extreme at the thought of devour- ing those of relatives and friends. An epidemic presently appeared to aid the work of famine. Before spring, about half of their number were dead.
" Late in the preceding autumn the Iroquois had taken the war-path in force. At the end of November two escaped pris- oners came to Isle St. Joseph with the news, that a band of three hundred warriors was hovering in the Huron forests, doubting whether to invade the island, or to attack the towns of Tobacco Nation, in the valleys of the Blue Mountains. Thc Father Superior, Ragueneau, sent a runner thither in all haste, to warn the inhabitants of their danger.
" There were at this time two missions in the Tobacco Nation, St. Jean and St Matthias, the latter under the charge of the Jesuits Garreau and Grelon, and the former under that of Garnier and Chabanel. St. Jean, the principal seat of the mission of the same name, was a town of five or six hundred families. Its population was, moreover, greatly augmented by the bands of fugitive Hurons who had taken refuge there. When the warriors were warned by Ragueneau's messenger of a probable attack from the Iroquois, they were far from being daunted, but, confiding in their numbers, awaited the enemy in one of those fits of valor which characterize the unstable cour- age of the savage. At St. Jean all was paint, feathers and uproar - singing, dancing, howling, and stamping. Quivers were filled, knives whetted and tomahawks sharpened; but when, after two days of eager expectancy, the enemy did not appear, the warriors lost patience. Thinking, and probably with reason, that the Iroquois were afraid of them, they resolved to sally forth, and take the offensive. With yelps and whoops they defiled into the forest, where the branches were gray and bare, and the ground thickly covered with snow. They pushed on rapidly till the following day, but could not discover their wary enemy, who had made a wide circuit, and was approaching their town from another quarter. By ill-luck, the Iroquois captured a Tobacco Indian and his squaw, straggling in the forest not far from St. Jean; and the two prisoners, to propi- tiate them, told them the defenseless condition of the place, where none remained but women, children and old men. The delighted Iroquois no longer hesitated, but silently and swiftly pushed on towards the town.
" It was two o'clock in the afternoon, of the seventh day of December. Chabanel had left the place a day or two before, in obedience to a message from Ragueneau, and Garnier was here alone. He was making his rounds among the houses, visiting the sick and instructing his converts, when the horrible din of the war-whoop rose from the borders of the clearing. and, on the instant the town was mad with terror. Children and girls rushed to and fro, blind with fright ; women snatched their infants and fled, they knew not whither. Garnier ran to
his chapel, where a few of his converts had sought asylum. He gave them his benediction, exhorted them to hold fast to the Faith, and bade them fly while there was yet time. For him- self, he hastened back to the houses, running from one to another , and giving absolution or baptism to all whom he found. An Iroquois met him, shot him with three balls through the body and thigh, tore off his cassock, and rushed on in pursuit of the fugitives. Garnier lay for a moment on the ground as if stunned ; then, recovering his senses, he was seen to rise in a kneeling posture. At a little distance from him lay a Huron, mortally wounded, but still showing signs of life. With the Heaven that awaited him glowing before his fading vision, the priest dragged himself towards the dying Indian, to give him absolution ; but his strength failed him, and he fell again to the earth. He arose once more, and again crept forward, when a party of Iroquois rushed upon him, split his head with two blows of a hatchet, stripped him, and left his body on the ground. At this time the whole town was on fire. The invaders, fearing that the absent warriors might return and take their revenge, hastened to finish their work, scattering fire brands everywhere, and threw children alive into the burn- ing houses. They killed many of the fugitives, captured many more, and then made a hasty retreat through the forest with their prisoners, butchering such of them as lagged on the way. St. Jean lay a waste of smoking ruins, thickly strewn with blackened corpses of the slain.
" Towards evening, parties of fugitives reached St. Matthias with tidings of the catastrophe. The town was wild with alarm, and all stood on the watch, in expectation of an attack ; but when, in the morning scouts came in and reported the retreat of the Iroquois, Garreau and Grelon set out with a party of converts to visit the scene of havoc. For a long time they looked in vain for the body of Garnier; but at length they found him lying where he had fallen - so scorched and ‹lisfigured that he was recognized with difficulty. The two priests wrapped his body in a part of their own clothing; the Indian converts dug a grave on the spot where his church had stood; and here they buried him. Thus, at the age of forty-four, died Charles Garnier, the favorite child of wealthy and noble parents, nursed in Parisian luxury and ease, then living and dying, a more than willing exile, amid the hard- ships and horrors of the Huron wilderness. His life and his death are his best eulogy. Brebeuf was the lion of the Iluron mission, and Garnier was the lamb; but the lamb was as fear- less as the lion.
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" When, on the following morning, the warriors of St. Jean returned from their rash and bootless sally, and saw the ashes of their desolated homes, and the ghastly rclics of their mur_ dered families, they seated themselves amid the ruin, silent and motionless as statues of bronze, with heads bowed down and eyes fixed on the ground. They thus remained through half the day. Tears and wailing were for women ; this was the mourning of warriors."- Parkman's Jesuits in North America.
Parkman continues: "'It was not without tears,' writes the Father Superior, 'that we left the country of our hopes and our hearts, where our brethren had gloriously shed their blood.' The fleet of canoes held its melan- choly way along the shores where two years before had been the seat of one of the chief sav- age communities of the continent, and where
30
EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST.
[1659.
now all was a waste of death and desolation. Then they steered northward, along the eastern coast of the Georgian Bay, with its countless rocky islets; and everywhere they saw the traces of the Iroquois. When they reached Lake Nipissing. they found it deserted-noth- ing remaining of the Algonquins who dwelt on its shore, except the ashes of their burnt wigwams. A little further on there was a fort built of trees, where the Iroquois who made this desolation had spent the winter; and a league or two below, there was another similar fort. The River Ottawa was a solitude. The Algonquins of Allumette Island and the shores adjacent had all been killed or driven away, never again to return."
The country was, for years after this, one vast battle ground, but the French, making vigorous war against the Iroquois, subdued them, and, in the end, formed an alliance with them.
CHAPTER XI.
Migration of the Algonquin Tribes to the South Shore of Lake Superior, Michilimackinac, and Green Bay - First Com- merce of the Northwest - Allouez, Marquette and Dablon Pioneers in Western Discovery and Settlement - First Western Settlements-The Fox River Valley a Great Centre of Indian Population - Allouez and Dablon Visit the Present Site of Oshkosh and Buttes des Morts, and are Hospitably Entertained -Grand Council of the French and Indians - Count Frontenac - Joliet and Marquette - Lovely Scenery of Lake Winnebago and of the Adjoining Country - The Discovery of the Mississippi - Marquette's Death and Burial.
BOUT the time that Champlain founded Quebec, the Ojibewas (Chip- pewas), a powerful Algonquin nation of Canada, began their migration to the south shore of Lake Superior, and commenced contesting with the Sioux for the possession of that territory; and were now occupying the Sault St. Maric, and the coun- try between that point and Michilimackinac. Thither, now, went many of the bands of the scattered Hurons and Ottawas, for the purpose of finding homes adjacent to the Chippewas, and where they could unite with the latter in resisting the attacks of the Iroquois.
By the year 1659, the country around the Straits of St. Marie and Straits of Mackinaw, and from those points to Green Bay, was in possession of the Algonquins.
In 1659, two French traders passed the win- ter on the shores of Lake Superior, and came to Quebec in the spring, with sixty canoes loaded with furs, and paddled by three hun-
dred Algonquins. This was the first commerce of the northwest. That region, now . being fast peopled by tribes, partially civilized, was a promising scene of labor for the Jesuits; and notwithstanding that the ruin of the Huron mis- sions had been a terrible blow to the courageous disciples of Loyola, they renewed their labors with great vigor; and, undismayed by the fate of Brebeuf, Jouges and their three other com- rades, they still occupied the post of danger. Says Bancroft, in his history of the United States, "It may be asked if these massacres quenched enthusiasm. 1 answer that the Jesuits never receded one foot; but, as in a brave army, new troops press forward to fill the places of the fallen, there were never want- ing heroism and enterprise in behalf of the cross and French dominion."
In all this dark and trying period, not one of those soldiers of the cross flinched. They met death under circumstances of the most terrifying form. In every direction their mis- sion houses were sacked and burned, and the inmates slaughtered; but they would not desert the field of duty; and new vietims eagerly sought to take the places of those who fell in the cause.
Their converts, now settled in the northwest, needed their services, and they must follow them to this new scene of hardship and danger. But, in their new enterprise, they united the ends of discovery, settlement and commerce, with that of Christianizing the Indians. Wc consequently find them mapping out the geography of the country, tracing its lakes and rivers, to many of them giving the names they now bear, examining the soil, mineral and vegetable productions of the country, and giv- ing to the civilized world its first knowledge of the physical features and resources of the Great West.
Their industry was unremitting, and the records of their daily journal furnish us with the only reliable history of the earlier discov- cries in the West, and of the first intercourse of the Indians with the whites; and it is they who have left us the most faithful description of the manners and habits of the original inhabitants before they were modified by long social con- tact with civilized beings. It was from the Jesuits that the Indians learned to believe in the existence of a Great Spirit. Prior to the advent of the missionaries, Indians believed in amultiplicity of manitous. There was a manitou of fire, of water, of animals and of almost every physical thing .*
*NOTE I. There is no more reliable and valued historical authority than that of the " Jesuit Relations," and as such it is
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST.
1665-68.]
The Algonquins of the West being desirous of commerce with the French, and of the assist- ance of the latter in resisting the Iroquois, it was decided to establish missions and trading posts among them.
In 1665, Father Claude Alloucz embarked on the Ottawa for Lake Superior. In Septem- ber he reached the Straits of St. Mary, and carrying his canoe around the rapids, was soon paddling along the shore of the great lake. In silent admiration he gazed at the pictured rocks and the sublime scene of the vast expanse of waters, as he glided over their sur- face. At last he reached the great village of the Chippewas, on Che-goc-me-gon Bay. At the time of his arrival, there was a grand coun- cil of various Algonquin tribes, to determine the question of the expediency of taking up the hatchet against the warlike Sioux. He was admitted to an audience and, in the name of the great French Father, commanded peace. The "French soldiers would smooth the path between the Chippewas and Quebec, and punish all the piratical tribes who disturbed the peace. " On the shore of the bay a chapel soon arose, and thither thronged the scattered tribes to listen to the teaching of the mission- ary. After residing two years on the shores of Lake Superior, he went to Quebec for the purpose of urging the establishment of perma- nent missions on Lakes Superior and Michigan, to be accompanied by little colonies of French emigrants. His endeavors were successful; and he returned with Fathers Dablon and Mar- quette, whose name was soon to become famous as the discoverer of the Upper Missis- sippi. The two latter went to the Straits of St. Mary in 1668, and established the mission at that place. In the same year the Sioux resisting the intrusion on what they claimed as their territory, Father Allouez abandoned the mission at La Pointe, and moved to Green Bay, and,on the present site of Depere, built a chapel. A few years afterwards Nicholas Per- rot was commissioned by the Governor of New France "to manage the interests of commerce of the Indian tribes and people of La Baye des Puants (Green Bay) and the western nations
regarded by Bancroft and other eminent Amcrican historians, who consider it truthful and accurate in the highest degree. It is simply the journals of the several missions, in which each recorded the events of their daily lives and the history of the times, with discoveries-explorations and descriptions of the several sections of the country - their classification of Indian tribes, Indian wars -their relations with the Indians, and in fact everything appertaining to the history of the country dur- ing that period. Each mission was required to keep a journal and send a copy to the Father Superior at Quebec. The whole collectively form what is known as the "Jesuit Rela- tions " of the American missions, a work that is now highly valued by the historical associations of this country.
of the Upper Mississippi, and to take posses- sion in the King's name of all the places where he has heretofore been and whither he will go." He established his headquarters at Rapide des Peres, which place, for more than a century, was the initial point of the travel and traffic of the great West. Here, then, two centuries ago, was the first permanent habitation of civilized man in the upper valley of the Mississippi.
At this period the continent was one vast, barbarous solitude, with the exception of a few little settlements scattered at long intervals apart in the wilderness; for besides the little English and Dutch settlements on the sea-coast, and the French at Acadia and on the St. Law- rence, there were no others in all that illimitable territory, stretching away from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, except our pioneer missionaries and their attaches, who, undismayed at the fate of their comrades, had pushed their way into the very heart of the continent, exploring the majestic lakes and rivers, the broad prairies and vast forests over which rested the silence of primeval solitude, and where the adven- turous traveler frequently journeyed for weeks without meeting a human being. The whole Indian population, according to reliable author- ity, in all the territory cast of the Mississippi, did not exceed two hundred thousand-not much more than half the present population of Chicago-and that so widely diffused, that uninhabited tracts of hundreds of miles fre- quently intervened between the villages and planting-grounds of the several tribes.
Marquette says, that on his voyage down the Mississippi, he journeyed two weeks with- out meeting a human being.
The Sioux having made war on the Algon- quins, whom they largely outnumbered, the latter abandoned their settlement at La Pointe, and the Hurons took up their abode at Michili- mackinac, whither Marquette accompanied them and established a mission on the main- land at Point St. Ignace. Many of the Otta- was went to the Manitouline Islands; and in the following year some of them returned to their old homes on the shore of Lake Huron and the country on the Ottawa, which had remained a desolation since the time it was ravaged by the Iroquois. The French, in the mean time, had partially suppressed these ferocious tribes; their invasions had been checked, and the fugitives began to return to their former country.
The Sault St. Marie and Michilimackinac, with their Ojibewas, Hurons and Ottawas; Green Bay, with its tribes of Menominees and Sauks; the Fox River, with its tribes of Foxes and Miamis and the adjacent Lake Winne-
32
EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST.
[1671-73.
bago, with the Winnebagoes, now became a great center of Indian population. Being one of the most favored regions for game and fish, while the lovely country around Lake Winnebago and on the Upper Fox afforded sites for the most productive planting-grounds, the tribes increased in numbers, and enjoyed a full share of Indian prosperity.
The locality, embracing the junction of the Great Lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron, and the adjacent Green Bay, with its Fox River, affording a water communication with the Mississippi, by the easy portage between the Fox and Wisconsin, became a great center of Indian travel and commerce-the Indian metropolis of the Northwest - and hither flocked at seasons, for the purpose of fishing and barter, the Pottawattamies and Illinois. These tribes, all being of the Algonquin family, were on friendly terms.
When Father Allouez established his mission at Green Bay, he was accompanied by Dablon, who writes that, "the country is an carthly paradise." He says that the Indians so honored them that a squad of warriors paraded up and down before them, in imitation of the guard they had seen before the Governor's tent at Montreal. He says: "We could hardly keep from laughing, though we were discours- ing on the most important subjects, namely, the mysteries of our religion."
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