USA > Wisconsin > History of Wisconsin under the dominion of France > Part 4
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(1) Parkman. Pioneers of New France.
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NICOLAS PERROT.
In 1690, Perrot was once more in Quebec whence he returned to Wisconsin charged with high civil duties. He went as an envoy, with presents and messages, to the nations of the Northwest, seeking to dissuade them from the alliance which they were on the eve of con- cluding with the Iroquois and the English.'
While employed upon this commission he discovered the lead mines which so long went by his name. Traveling on the Wisconsin, he was met by a delegation of Miamis who brought him presents of beaver skins and a specimen of lead ore from a rivulet flowing into the Mississippi; and in compliance with their request he soon after built a trading establishment across the river from the mines, probably not far from the site of Dunleith.2 Thence he hastened to Fort St. Antoine to mediate between the Sioux and the Wisconsin tribes, once more in a hostile mood; then back again to his new establishment among the Miamis. Next, he is heard of as commanding in Western Michigan, but soon returned to Wis- consin. 3 Thus year after year passed in an end- less round of private cares and public duties.
(1) Collection de Manuscripts, Canada, III, 495.
(2) La Potherie, II, 260.
(3) Still, however, retaining his command in Michigan, according to Tailhan, 330.
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
Life, for him, bristled with strange perils. As a mediator between warring tribes, he was always liable to fall a victim to the jealousies, the suspicions, the phrensy of the infuriated savages amidst whom he flung himself. In 1692 the Mascoutins inveigled him into their town, robbed him of all his merchandise, con- demned him to death as a sorcerer and led him to "the place of fire;" but he escaped almost miraculously.' Four or five years later, the Miamis accused him of aiding their enemies, robbed him of everything, bound him to the stake, from which at the last moment he was rescued by his ever faithful friends, the Foxes.2 Still Perrot clung to the wilderness, fascinated by its very perils and undesponding despite so many disasters.
But in 1699 his career was summarily closed. The king issued an order absolutely suppress- ing all licenses, commanding the evacuation of the Western posts and recalling all traders and soldiers to the St. Lawrence. This sweeping proclamation was a death blow to the hopes of Perrot. Shut out from the employment of his life-time, without resources, harassed by his creditors, he was condemned to an old age of
(1) La Potherie, II, 284-6.
(2) Lettre de Frontenac, 15 Sept., 1697, 331. Also La Potheric, II, 343, and Charlevoix.
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NICOLAS PERROT.
poverty and humiliation. In vain the colonial authorities appealed to the king in his behalf. "He is very poor and very miserable," wrote Callieres, the governor; 1 "large sums are justly due him for his services to the colony." But such homely virtues as justice and gratitude did not thrive amidst the splendid vanities of Versailles.
The savages, however, although they did not love their enemies, never forgot a friend. In the great council of the Indian tribes held at Montreal in 1701, the Foxes complained bit- terly about the removal of Perrot; "we have no more sense," said the honest savages, "since he has left us."? The Ottawas for once were agreed with the Foxes and earnestly re-echoed the demand for his return. 3 "He is the most highly esteemed," declared the grand chief of the Pottawattamies, "of all the Frenchmen that have ever been among us."+
Nevertheless, this tried servant of the crown languished in neglect and poverty. During these years of inaction he wrote his Memoir upon the Indians and other works-not in the highest style of literary art, but keen and
(1) Lettre de Callieres, 1702.
(2) Charlevoix, V, 144. Tailhan, 267.
(3) Ibid., V, 153. La Potherie, IV, 257.
(4) La Potherie, IV, 213.
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honest-the best original sources for the his- tory of the French Rule in the West, especially in Wisconsin, during the latter part of the 17th Century. 'His last work was a memoir addressed to the colonial authorities, about 1716. It was an appeal, not for himself, but for a wiser and humaner treatment of his old friends, the Foxes, then just beginning that tremendous re- volt which was to prove so disastrous to the French Dominion. With this kindly and characteristic act, the bowed figure of Perrot vanishes from the dimly lighted stage of West- ern History.
The withdrawal of the garrisons and traders from the West at the close of the century does not indicate any feeling of weakness on the part of the French, but rather of strength. Universal peace was now dawning, and the time seemed ripe for thoroughly carrying out what had always been the favorite policy of the French government. The trade of the Northwest was to be concentrated at Montreal. A few tribes, that had fully proved their docil- ity and submissiveness, were to be installed as middlemen between the French and the more independent nations of the interior. Chief among these intermediaries were to be the
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NICOLAS PERROT.
Hurons, Ottawas, Pottawattamies and Chippe- was-all people that had been ground into subjection by exile, misery and constant con- tact with the whites. The first three tribes named have already been sufficiently noticed, the last demands a moment's attention.
The Chippewas, according to their own tra- ditions, had dwelt in Northern Wisconsin for ages before the coming of the white man. We cannot stop to tell the strange story of their flight eastward; suffice it that about 1640, the French found them crouching around Sault Ste. Marie whither they had been pursued by the Sioux.' In the next decade, as we have seen, the Hurons and Ottawas, fleeing from the wrath of the Iroquois, had sought an asylum in these deserted Wisconsin forests, but they too, were finally put to flight by the Sioux. Then the exiled Chippewas began to creep back to their old homes; as early as 1676, some of them were settled on Chequamegon Bay;2 and before many years the most of the nation had return- ed, building their council-house and relighting their sacred fire at Madeleine Island.3 For a
(1) Margry, I, 46.
(2) Memoire sur le Canada. Collection de Manuscripts, I, 252.
(3) Bronson. Early History of Wisconsin. Wis. Hist. Coll., IV, 232.
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
time there was much warfare with the Sioux, but finally the interests of trade prevailed over hereditary hate;' about 1695, a firm friendship was established between the two nations ;? and henceforth the Chippewas prospered abund- antly as brokers for the savage multitude be- yond the Mississippi.
The commerce which thus united the French and the Indians had its main-spring in the eagerness of the latter for guns and amunition. The savages saw-what our modern historians have strangely failed to see -that their strength, their ability to cope with their rivals, their very existence depended upon their pos- session of the white man's weapons.
History and romance have united to exalt the Iroquois, for instance, above all other American savages. The Iroquois, we are told, were wiser and braver than the rest; their po- litical organization was of a higher type; their skulls, it is gravely asserted,3 had a greater admeasurement. It is an old fault of this giddy world to thus mistake luck for merit.
(1) Warren. History of the Ojibways. Minu. Hist. Coll., V, 163-7.
(2) New York Col. Documents, IX., 609. Le Sueur, to promote this peace, was sent to build a fort on the Mis- sissippi above Lake Pepin.
(3) Parkman. Jesuit Missions. Introduction.
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NICOLAS PERROT.
The fact is that the Iroquois had been driven from their old homes on the St. Lawrence by the superior prowess of the Algonquin tribes. 2 In the latter part of the sixteenth century, they fled to New York and there they were soon lavishly supplied with guns by the careless and irresponsible Dutch traders at Albany.3 The French, on the contrary, for a long time re- fused to furnish guns to their Algonquin and Huron allies;4 and so the Iroquois soon rose from the role of refugees to that of conquerors over other races as yet unarmed. Thus fully equipped for battle they easily crushed the Hurons whom the frugal French had supplied with hardly anything but iron kettles and mis- sionaries. Almost without an effort the Iro-
(1) Hale. Book of Iroquois Rites, 10. Also Le Jeune, Relation, 1636. "Les sauvages m'ont montre quelques endroits ou les Iroquois ont autrefois cultive la terre." Also, La Chernage, Ferland, Sulte, etc.
(2) "La superiorite des Algonquins se manifesta des les premieres rencontres," etc. Sulte, Melanges d'Histoire, 190.
(3) Journal of New Netherlands. N. Y. Col. Docs., I, 179. The Dutch supplied the Mohawks alone with 400 guns. Also, Parkman, Jesuits, 212.
(4) Ferland, Cours d'Histoire du Canada. "Le Fran- cais enterent pendant longtemps de fournir des fusils a leur allies." Memoire, 1676, in Coll. de Manuscripts, I, 254. "Le grand nombre (Algonquins) ne fut arme que de fort longtemps apres que les Hollandois eurent arme les Iroquois."
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quois also annihilated the defenseless Eries; but for a long time they were defied by a mere handful of the Andastes who had been armed by the Swedes of Delaware. The Illinois fought with bows and arrows; and of course, they were driven before the armed Iroquois like chaff before the wind. And so everywhere it was bullets, not excess of brains or of brav- ery that made the Iroquois triumphant.
CHAPTER V. THE BETRAYAL OF THE FOXES.
1700-1712
When the eighteenth century opened, the French Empire in America was at the flood- tide of its prosperity. But let us be sure that we understand the policy upon which that prosperity was based. The French did not de- sign to make settlements in the West. The few forts were slightly garrisoned, and hardly more than palisaded trading posts; nothing was permitted that might awaken the jealousy of the Indians. The savages were to be left in undisturbed possession of the whole vast do- main, on condition that they allowed the French to control the continent and to monop- olize its trade.
" France," wrote the English governor of Can- da, Sir Guy Carleton, in 1768, "did not depend on the number of her troops, but on the discretion of officers who learned the language of the na- tives, * * distributed the king's presents, excited no jealousy and gained the affections of an ignorant, credulous but brave people, whose ruling passions are independence, gratitude
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
and revenge. '" It was a wise policy and had been crowned with signal success. At the be- ginning of the century the Indian nations were at peace with each other and with France .. Even the Iroquois, who for more than eighty years had nursed the fiercest hatred of the French, were at last reconciled and henceforth maintained an unquiet neutrality in the great struggle for the possession of the continent. The destiny of America seemed already decided. Protestant England held a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast, but the lilies of France floated without opposition over the entire ex- panse from Quebec to the mouth of ihe Missis- sippi and from the Alleghanies almost to the base of the Rocky Mountains.
But already there were the mutterings of a distant storm along the horizon. The curse of Canada was the spirit of monopoly. The com- merce of the colony was at the mercy of a vast trading corporation; the bold, enterprising coureurs de bois, despite their great services to the crown, were hunted down as outlaws; cor- rupt rings formed by the chief officials at Que- bec added the burden of their rapacity and ex- tortion; above all, because the same system of
(1) Report to Lord Shelburne, March 2, 1768 in Cana- dian Archives, 1887.
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THE BETRAYAL OF THE FOXES.
monopoly and restriction prevailed throughout France, the prices of French merchandise were ruinously high. The consequence was that the English traders, less absurdly fettered, could offer the Indians three or four times more for their furs than the French could. One beaver skin, according to a French memoir of 1689, would buy at Albany eight pounds of gun- powder, at Montreal only two; or forty pounds of lead at the one place against thirteen at the other; or six times as much of the indispensable brandy, and other goods in similar propor- tions. 1
The savages were not slow to discover this difference, and they began to chafe under the yoke of French monopoly and extortion. Even those humblest vassals of France, the Ottawas, became restless; and Perrot says that they were at heart traitors to the crown.2 The dis- content spread. In 1706 M. de Vaudreuil, Governor General of New France, declared that the cheapness of English goods was the Gordian knot and chief difficulty in all the In- dian troubles. "The English," he writes mournfully, "give powder and lead exceeding- ly low. The French government must some-
(1) Collection de Manuscripts, I, 476.
(2) Perrot, Memoire, Notes, 314.
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
how manage to do the same or all will be lost."
But the French held all the avenues of trade; they managed their savage vassals with infinite address; the most skillful politicians in the world, they humored the weakness and gained the favor of the people whom they were bent upon plundering, and whatever discontent was felt by the Indians went no further than mut- tered eomplaints and occasional outbursts of childish fury. One nation, however, - the Foxes of Wisconsin-was an exception. Their discontent flamed into a resistance whch grew all the fiercer amidst the most frightful calami- ties and distresses. And this fire of Fox re- sistance did not burn itself out until the French empire in the west had become a mere shell, ready to fall into ruins.
It has been customary to explain the enmity of the Foxes against the French as excited by the machinations of the English and the Iro- quois; but the facts do not in the least support this theory. The resentment began, as we have seen, with their first meeting with the French, and at a time when they, like all the western nations, were at war with the Iroquois. It continued-and in fact did not rise into its fiercest fury-until long after the Iroquois had
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THE BETRAYAL OF THE FOXES.
made peace with the French. £ It was a hatred spontaneously springing up in the breasts of a people passionately fond of independence and wise enough to foresee the results of French domination. 'Other Algonquin nations-Hu- rons Ottawas, Illinois, etc. - cowed and crushed by the Iroquois and their guns, had flung themselves under the protection of the French; the Foxes, on the contrary, haughty and untamed, had received them at first with suspicion and dislike, at last with undying ha- tred.
So early as 1694, the French were made aware that the Foxes were secretly hostile. In that year, Perrot, with ten or twelve ca- noes filled with deputies from the different Wisconsin tribes, made the long journey to Montreal to have an interview with the govern- or. Fox deputies were with the rest, but as if feeling that they were distrusted, they had en- gaged a Pottawattamie chief to speak for them in the council. But this very chief after- wards came privately to the governor and de- nounced his clients. "Put no faith," said he "in the Foxes. They are a proud people; They despise the French and all other nations also; they have a bad heart, and the Mascou- tins have a still worse heart than they." Oth-
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
ers gave the same warning. Last spring, so Frontenac was told, the Foxes had some Iro- quois prisoners presented to them by the Otta- was, but they had spared the captives to use them in negotiating with the enemy.
Frontenac was also informed that the Foxes were planning a singular and suspicious enter- prise. They had resolved to forsake their country. Already through fear of a Sioux inva- sion, they had left their villages and dispersed far and wide through the forests. But they expected to return after a while to secure their harvests. Then they would seek a new home on the banks of the Wabash or the Ohio.
Frontenac felt that this was indeed a grave peril. The Foxes, he wrote to the king, are a fierce and discontented people in secret alliance with the English. If they remove to the Wa- bash with their affiliated tribes, the Kickapoos and Mascoutins, they will form there a nation of 1500 warriors. Far away from their ene- mies the Sioux, and in close contact with their Iroquois and English allies, they will prosper as never before. Other Indian malcontents will gather around them. They will beeome a great people holding the key to the valley of the Mississippi. The fur-trade will pass into the hands of the English, and French suprem- acy in the West will be at an end.
8 1
THE BETRAYAL OF THE FOXES.
The Foxes, for reasons not necessary to dwell upon, put aside at that time their pro- ject of emigration eastward. But eighteen years afterward the plan was revived and car ried into execution. In the meantime the French, in order to shut the English out from the Upper Lakes, had established a fort at Detroit, and around it they had induced their ever faithful vassals, the Pottawattamies, the Hurons and a part of the Ottawas to settle. And in the year 1712, the Foxes, Mascoutins, Kickapoos, and a part of the Sauks, forsaking their land of beauty and abundance along the Fox river, wended their way to the new estab- lishment on Detroit river.
The French official reports pretend that the Wisconsin Indians, being in secret alliance with the Iroquois and the English had come to Detroit with the express purpose of besieging the fort and reducing it to ruins; and their statement has heretofore been unsuspectingły accepted by all historians.' But there is little doubt that the charge is a shameful falsehood. The Fox Indians had rendered themselves very obnoxious to the French. Firmly lodged on
(1) Bancroft, II, 383. Smith, History of Wisconsin, 91. Lanman. History of Michigan, 42. Strong, Wisconsin Hist. Collections, VIII, 242.
6
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
the Fox River they controlled the chief high- way to the West; a haughty, independent and intractable people, they could not be cajoled into vassalage. It was necessary for the suc- cess of the French policy to get them out of the way. They were enticed to Detroit in order that they might be slaughtered.
The proof seems direct and conclusive. In the Collection de Manuscripts relatifs a la Nou- velle France published recently by the Cana- dian government, it is declared that La Motte Cadillac, the first commandant at Detroit, "wishing to draw the commerce of all the nations to his post, had sent belts to the Mas- coutins and Kickapoos to invite them to settle there and that they having accepted the offer, came and built a fort at the place which had been assigned them." The Memoir containing this is contemporaneous with the events and of high authority.1
Father Marest, Jesuit missionary, in a letter to the Governor General, De Vaudreuil, dated June 21, 1712, states that the French were the first movers in the war, having joined with the Ottawas to destroy the Foxes. This is the declaration of an unprejudiced witness, writing in a semi-official way to the very man who,
(1) Coll. de Manuscripts, III, 622, seq.
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THE BETRAYAL OF THE FOXES.
above all others, would know the truth or fal- sity of the charge.1
Even the official report of Du Buisson, tem- porarily commanding at Detroit during the siege, contains statements strangely over- looked, which disclose a plot to destroy the Wisconsin Indians. "The Indians said in the council," writes Du Buisson, "that they knew the desire of the governor to exterminate the Foxes." "And just as soon as the siege was over," he adds in another place, "the allies set out for Quebec to get the reward which they say, Sir, that you promised them."?
Nor does the Governor General himself, pre- tend, in his despatches to the Colonial Minis- ter, that the Wisconsin Indians had come to Detroit with any hostile designs. On the con- trary, he lays the whole blame on the Indian allies of the French. "Saguima did it all. He not only destroyed many in their winter- ing place, but having found means to win over almost all the other tribes, pursued these unfor- tunate people as far as Detroit, and there killed or captured nearly a thousand of both sexes."3 Finally: on the very face of the accounts of
(1) Sheldon, Early History of Michigan, 299.
(2) Smith, History of Wisconsin.
(3) New York Coll. Documents, IX, 863.
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
the siege, given both by Du Buisson and Char- levoix, it is manifest that the Wisconsin In- dians had not come for war. They reached Detroit early in the spring; the Indian allies of the French did not arrive until the IIth of May. During all the intervening time the fort was virtually defenseless, being garrisoned by only twenty Frenchmen. Then, if ever, would have been the time for the Foxes to have destroyed Detroit. But they waited tranquilly until Du Buisson, had had time to send forth runners as far as the Illinois river and even to the banks of the Missouri, to gather in his allies. When all had gathered the pretended siege of Detroit began.
The French opened fire upon the unsuspect- ing Foxes. The latter, overwhelmed with surprise, cried out indignantly: "What does this mean? My father! You invited us a little while ago to come and settle around you and now you declare war against us. What have we done? But we are ready. Know ye that the Fox is immortal." And with this yell of defiance the betrayed savages retreated behind their palisades.'
The valor of the Foxes was a terror to all.
(1) Collection de Manuscripts relatifs a la Nouvelle France, III, 623.
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THE BETRAYAL OF THE FOXES.
And although the French Indians were there in overwhelming numbers-Hurons, Ottawas, Pottawattamies, Illinois, even tribes from the Missouri and the Menominees from Wiscon- sin-they did not dare to attack the enemy in his stronghold. They preferred to fight at a safe distance, hoping to reduce the Foxes by famine and thirst. The battle went on for days. The French built two rough scaffolds about twenty-five feet high from which they poured such a galling fire day and night that the Foxes were cut off from their supply of water. Tormented by thirst and by hunger-for their provisions were almost exhausted -they were still as haughty and defiant as ever. To taunt the French, they raised rude flag-staffs above their camp and ran up red blankets as their colors, shouting: "We have no Father but the English."
The French allies on their part, were zeal- ous for France and the Catholic faith. "The English," so they shouted back, "are cowards; they destroy the Indians with brandy and are enemies of the true God." It was a veritable crusade-a battle of religion against the im- pious Foxes, who had flung the red flag of Eng- land and heresy to the breeze.
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
The Foxes, ready to perish with hunger and thirst, began to make desperate sorties. Once they swept all before them and gained a lodg- ment in a house near the fort where they forti- fied themselves; but the French cannon, at such close quarters, ploughed through and through the frail structure, and its defenders were finally forced to retire. Then they wished to negotiate; but their proposals not being listened to, they made another tremen- dous onslaught. This time they shot up hun- dreds of blazing arrows which fell upon the thatched roofs of the houses and set them on fire; the whole town and the fort would soon have been destroyed if the French had not checked the flames by covering the roofs with wet skins. Amid the smoke and flames the savages fought hand to hand, yelling like de- mons, their faces hideous with paint and fury, their tomahawks dripping with blood.
At last the French Indians became discour- aged and wished to go away. "We shall never conquer these people," they said. "We know them well, and they are braver than any other people."
Du Buisson, seeing himself about to be de- serted, prepared to sail away to Michillimack-
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inac. But before surrendering Detroit, he made one morc effort; gathering his confeder- ates in council, he tried to revive their droop- ing courage; he appealed to their hatred of the Foxes and loaded them down with presents until he "had given away everything he had." But all this would have availed nothing if treachery had not come to his aid. A part of the Sauk tribe had come with the other Wis- consin Indians, and they now deserted to the French, telling a frightful story of what was going on in the camp of the enemy. "The Foxes," they said, "are worn out with famine, sickness and constant fighting; great numbers have already fallen. More than eighty dead bodies are now lying unburied in the camp; the air is filled with a horrible stench; pesti- lence abounds." When the French Indians heard all this, their courage rose and they were eager for battle. The story of the deserters was too true. The unhappy Foxes had now lost all hope of successful resistance, and they soon raised the white flag of surrender. Pem- oussa, their great war chief, spoke like a genu- ine hero. "Do not believe," he said, "that I am afraid to die. It is the life of our women and children that I ask of you." But the French refused even this, and the Foxes, de-
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