USA > Wisconsin > History of Wisconsin under the dominion of France > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
Despite these barbarities on the part of their enemies, the Foxes did not yet despair of peace. Not long after the burning of the three hundred women and children, the great chief of the nation made his way through the wilderness in the depth of winter, to the dis- tant post of St Joseph in southern Michigan. "I look upon myself as dead," he said to the commandant therc. Asking for nothing ex- cept the lives of the women and children, he promised that this people would send deputies to Montreal the next spring to sue for mercy.
I3I
EXTERMINATION BY FIRE.
But the doomed nation might as well have appealed to the pity of the winds. In March, 1730, they were again attacked by a force un- der the command of the afterwards noted Marin. "An action ensued of the warmest kind, and very well supported," says the offi- cial dispatch. Beyond that we know nothing.
One thing about this transaction, however, is noteworthy. The French now began, ap- parently, to feel some slight sense of shame over this persistent malignity toward a foe suing for mercy; and they tried to excuse themselves by casting the blame upon their savage allies. "This expedition was under- taken," we are told, "at the earnest solicita- tion of the Indians."
But if any one doubts who were really at the bottom of these atrocities let him read how these same Ottawas were induced by the French to massacre the forty Iroquois deputies at Mackinaw, in 1695. At first the Ottawas sturdily refused to thus violate the law of na- tions which was just as sacred among the savage as the civilized; but they were plied with liquor by the French until they became a mere mob of drunken madmen, and in this condition they fell upon the unsuspecting dep- uties and slew them all. Frontenac, then gov-
132
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
ernor, narrates all this without the tinge of a blush, and adds boastfully: "Thus we have entirely broken up the inception of peace."'
Two months after Marin's departure, another exterminating expedition, composed of five hundred and fifty Indians and fifty Frenchmen, set out from Mackinaw. Its commander, Du Buisson, declared that "all the nations of the upper country are very much excited against the Foxes; large bodies of Indians have col- lected and urged me to go at their head to fall upon that people and destroy them." But the statement, doubtless, is as false as those which he made, at the time of the betrayal and mas- sacre of the Foxes at Detroit, in 1712.
At any rate, Du Buisson and his allies were foiled of their prey. Even before they were ready to start, the enemy had fled southward beyond reach of pursuit.
When the curtain next rises upon the wretched fugitives, we find them gathered on the Illinois river, not far from Rock St. Louis, and there fortifying themselves as for a desperate resistance. Word was quickly sent to all the commandants in that part of the West -St. Ange in the country of the Illinois, De Noyelles among the Miamis in Indiana, De
(1) Narrative of 1695-6. New York Col. Docts., IX, 640.
I33
EXTERMINATION BY FIRE.
Villiers at Fort St. Joseph in Michigan; and they all assembled their forces and hastened to the spot, determined to sweep the unhappy Foxes from the earth. De Villiers took com- mand of the combined forces which amounted to eleven hundred Indians and one hundred and seventy Frenchmen.
The battle began on the 19th of August, 1730, and lasted twenty-two days. The Foxes had chosen an admirable position in a piece of woods upon a gentle slope by the side of a small river. Although outnumbered four to one, they fought with their usual dash and valor, making many desperate sorties, but were each time driven back by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. The French, on their part, dug trenches, and proceeded with all the caution they had been taught by many cam- paigns against these redoubtable foes. 1
(1) Ferland, Cours d'Histoire du Canada, II, 436, seq. To this historian's heretofore unnoticed account, I am in- debted for my narrative of this battle. Ferland, unfortu- nately, never gives his authorities; but he is known to have been an untiring delver among the manuscripts in the Archives at Paris. The slight reference to De Villiers' ex- pedition, preserved in the New York Col. Docts., so far as it goes, corroborates the account of Ferland. And the Canadian Archives Report, 1886, p. c, lists a dispatch about " the crushing defeat of the Renards by De Villiers." Letter of Beauharnois and Hocquart to the Minister, Nov. 1, 1730.
I 34
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
. After a while the supply of food gave out and famine reigned in both camps. The Foxes and the French, the oppressed and the op- pressor, suffered alike under the calm, cruel impartiality of nature, Two hundred Illinois Indians deserted. But the French persevered, and began the construction of a fort to prevent the besieged from going to the river for water. Further resistance now seemed impossible.
But on the 8th of September, a violent storm arose, accompanied by heavy thunder and tor- rents of rain. The following night was rainy, dark and cold; and under its cover, the Foxes stole away from their fort. Before they had gone far, the crying of their children betrayed them. But the French did not dare to attack them amidst a darkness so dense that it was im- possible to distinguish friend from foe; in the morning, however, they set out in hot pursuit.
The fugitives marched with the women, children and old men at the head, the warriors in the rear to protect their flight; thus cum- bered they advanced but slowly and were soon overtaken. The warriors were without ammuni- tion,' enveloped on every side by a vastly su-
(1) Even during the siege, the Foxes had been supplied with ammunition, only by the help of some of the French al- lies who secretly favored them. Ferland, Cours d'His- torie, II.
I35
EXTERMINATION BY FIRE.
perior and well-armed force, entangled in crowds of helpless women and children whom they were striving to defend. Under such conditions the battle soon became a massacre. Only fifty or sixty men escaped; three hundred "were killed or burned after being taken pris- oners,"I Six hundred women and children also perished either under the tomahawk or by fire.
The proportion of women and children to that of men slaughtered is here not so great as in previous massacres. The reason was that many of the savages, notably the Miamis and Sauks, recoiled from this wholesale murdering of the defenseless. The French complained that even during the siege, "their allies, un- der various pretexts, helped a large number of the women and children to escape from the fort and thus saved them from the massacre of their nation.2"
Still nine hundred men and women had been massacred, either by the knife or by the slower and more horrible doom of fire; and despite the escape of a few, the French were cheerful. "Behold," wrote the Canadian governor to the
(1) N. Y. Col. Documents, IX. This dispatch puts the number at 200, Ferland at 300.
(2) Ferland, II, 438.
136
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
king, "a nation humiliated in such a fashion that they will nevermore trouble the earth." '
Happily we are now permitted a slight breathing-spell midst this recital of horrors. The curtain suddenly falls, for two years, upon the wanderings and miseries of the indomitable Foxes. There is indeed one report of an at- tack made upon them by the young warriors of Illinois,? and other similar enterprises are vaguely mentioned.3 But in the main it is an interval of peace. The French availed them- selves of it to re-establish the fort on Lake Pepin which they had been compelled to aban- don; 4 and rejoiced in other "happy results from the defeat of the Foxes." 5
When, on the 17th of October, 1732, the curtain again rises, the remnant of the Foxes are dwelling peaceably upon the borders of the Wisconsin. But the wrath of the implaca- ble French had flamed forth anew. A body of Christian Iroquois from the St. Lawrence,
(1) M. de Beauharnois 'a M. de Maurepas., Ibid., 18 Mar., 1731.
(2) Beauharnois to the Minister, Oct. 12, 1731. Cana- dian Archives. 1886, p. CVII.
(3) Ferland, II, 439.
(4) Lettre de Beauharnois. Margry, VI, 569.
(5) Ibid. Canadian Archives, CVII.
137
EXTERMINATION BY FIRE.
and of Hurons from Detroit, had been dis- patched from the latter place to once more exterminate the people who had been so piti- lessly pursued for twenty years. The invaders pushed on until they reached the basin of the Wisconsin. Ascending one day the summit of a hill, they looked down and beheld their prey dwelling quietly in the vale beneath. It was the work of but a moment to discharge their guns, and tomahawk in hand swoop down upon the village. The Foxes expecting no danger were but poorly prepared for battle, and after a short contest three hundred of them - men, women and children-were cap- tured and massacred. 1
The rest dispersed among the neighboring nations. One party, consisting of thirty or forty men and as many women, wended their way in despair to Green Bay and threw them- selves upon the mercy of the French command- ant, De Villiers. In this party was the grand chief of the Foxes, Kiala, who was soon sent to Quebec, and thence hurried off into slavery under the blazing skies of Martinique. His wife followed him as far as Quebec; but there
(1) Ferland, II, 438, alone gives the narrative of this ex- pedition. But he is very fully corroborated by the lists and abstracts of despatches in the Report of Canadian Archives, 1886, p. CxI, et seq. No less than five are given.
I38
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
she lingered for some time, distracted between her wifely affection and her horror of bondage. At last woman's love conquered, and she went to join her husband in the slave-gang.
The historian may well rejoice in this little bit of savage romance, sad but sweet, that comes to relieve the blackness of all these civ- ilized iniquities.
The other fugitives who fled to Green Bay were more fortunate; for nearly a year they were permitted to remain undisturbed in the village of the Sauks, across the river from the fort. But the French government finally de- termined to demand their surrender; and to enforce this demand, M. de Repentigny, the commandant at Mackinaw, was secretly sent with sixty Frenchmen and two hundred In- dians to the aid of De Villiers, who had been promoted to the command at Green Bay; after a consultation between the two officers, this force was ordered to lie concealed about a mile from the fort until three gun-shots should be heard, which was to be the signal for an im- mediate advance. This arranged, De Villiers returned to the fort, and sending for the Sauk chiefs, laid his demands before them.
Life, he said, had been accorded by the government to the Fox fugitives, but only on
1 39
EXTERMINATION BY FIRE.
condition that they should deliver themselves to him, in order to be carried to Montreal; if they were not forthcoming at a certain hour, he further declared, he himself would go to the Sauk village and take them. The chiefs lis- tened gravely and then withdrew to consult with their people. One can readily imagine the results; the Foxes having in view the fate of their great chief, Kiala, and the horrors of Martinique, were quite unwilling to go to Mon- treal; the Sauks, with whom, as with all sav- ages, the rites of hospitality were sacred, having once welcomed the fugitives into their cabin, would not betray them. The hour passed; but the Foxes did not appear at the fort. De Villiers taking with him De Repen- tigny and eight other Frenchmen, hastened to the palisaded village of the Sauks to carry out his threat. Enraged by the contempt of the savages for his authority, and maddened, according to the traditions, by strong drink, he attempted to force an entrance. The prin- cipal chief entreated him to desist, saying that the young men could not be controlled, and that if he did more, he was a dead man.'
(1) Ferland. Cours d' Histoire, II, 440. He is abun- dantly corroborated by no less than five lengthy dispatches devoted to this affair that are listed in Brymner's Report. 1886.
140
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
The furious Frenchman not only persisted, but drew up his gun and shot the chief dead. With unabated fury he slew another chief, and then a third. For a moment the Sauks were stupefied, and the first to recover himself was a brave boy, only twelve years of age, who leveled his gun and killed the brutal comman- dant.' Then a general melee ensued, in which De Repentigny and all the Frenchmen except one were slain.
In this account I have followed the French reports except in regard to the first firing, which they claim was done by the Indians. But herein the carefully preserved tradition is intrinsically more credible; besides, it is cor- roborated by the admission of the official dis- patches, that "the disaster was caused by the rash courage of De Villiers."? And which- ever account may be true, it is plain enough that the outrageous Frenchman met only his just deserts.
But the French thought only of revenge.
(1) Grignon's Recollections. Wis. Hist. Colls., III, 204. So far as known to me, this noted tradition recorded by Grignon, has never before this been corroborated and its date fixed by reference to Ferland or to the Canadian Re- ports. Another version of the tradition is given in Wis. Hist. Colls, VIII, 207.
(2) Letter of Beauharnois to the minister, Oct. 13, 1733. Canadian Archives, 1886, p. Cxx.
I4I
EXTERMINATION BY FIRE.
The governor writing to the minister recounts "the perfidy of the Sauks, who have killed De Villiers and others;" and declares that it is necessary to avenge them.' The Sauks, fore- seeing the storm of vengeance that was to burst upon them, prepared to abandon their country forever, and after three days set out in the darkness of the night. The French, who had not dared attack them behind their pali- sades, pursued and overtook them about twen- ty miles away. There a fierce battle was fought with heavy losses on both sides. The Sauks then continued on their way.
The exiles wandered far and long, gathering up the fragments of the Fox nation as they went. In their extremity they sought an asy- lum among the Iowas, but were refused. Then they turned to the Sioux and Winnebagoes settled around Fort Beauharnois. But these prudent savages were solicitous for their trade; vowed eternal friendship with the French and asked to be led to battle against the Sacs and Foxes. Linctot, the commandant, however, doubted the depth of their devotion, and wisely refused to head another crusade .? The
(1) Report of Beauharnois and Hocquart, Nov. 11, 1733, Ibid, CXIX.
(2) Margry, VI, 570. Extract d'une Lettre Mme. de Beauharnois et Hocquart au de Ministre de la Marine. 7 Oct. 1734.
142
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
wanderers, left to themselves, finally fixed their abode on the Wapsipinacon river about two or three day's journey southwest from the mouth of the Wisconsin.
Even into this far country the hate of the French pursued them. In August, 1734, De Noyelles, with eighty' Frenchmen and the usual contingent of converted savages, set out from Montreal to reach the exiled Sacs and Foxes. This expedition from the first, was strangely mismanaged; several months were consumed in the march; in the meantime the enemy had fled farther westward and strongly fortified themselves on the banks of the Des Moines. The French arriving at last, carried on a desultory and farcical kind of siege for several weeks. Their Indian allies grew dis- gusted and many deserted. As all hopes of success dwindled away, the French smothered their wrath and began to negotiate. They succeeded in cajoling the Sauks into some sort of a promise that they would separate from the Foxes and relight their fires at Green Bay. Then the French set out on their inglorious re- turnª
(1) 60 were regular soldiers, according to the army re port of Beauharnois, Oct., 1734. New York Coll Docs, IX, 1046.
(2) Ferland, II, 441. Also N. Y, Coll. Documents, IX, 1051. Three dispatches devoted to this expedition are listed in Can. Archives, p. CXX to CXVII.
143
EXTERMINATION BY FIRE.
'The ill-success of De Noyelle's expedi- tion," wrote the governor apologetically, "was due to the bad conduct of the Indians, and especially the Hurons." But the French themselves had lost all stomach for any further fight with their indomitable foes, and the dis- patch just quoted proceeds to point out the "great danger of pushing the Sacs and Foxes to extremity." The next year it was announced that peace had at last been established with those nations.2
Thus the war against the Foxes was ended, after having lasted just a quarter of a century. During that time these savages confronted an array of horrors which has no counterpart in history. The triple agencies of the sword, starvation and the stake were evoked to destroy them. They were betrayed by their friends, and entrapped by the matchless per- fidy of their foes. Their homes were burned, their lands laid waste, and they themselves driven forth, like wild beasts from their dens.
In four states of this Union, Michigan, Illi- nois, Iowa and Wisconsin, they were hunted, besieged and slaughtered. Wherever they went their trail could almost be traced by the dripping of their blood. Two thousand of them
(1) Letter of Beauharnois, Oct. 17, 1736.
(2) Ibid., Oct. 16, 1737. C. A. p. CXXXI.
I44
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
-if the French did not over estimate their own baseness-were left in a single winter to die of cold and hunger. Out of their small numbers twenty-five hundred were burned to death at slow fires.
The story of it all affects us like the visions of Dante's Inferno; one is incredulous rather than horrified. But every item of the story rests upon the admissions, or rather the boasts, of the French themselves. The Indian version of it has never been told.
And these wonderful savages were not ex- terminated. According to a French memoir of 1736, they still had one hundred warriors- seven or eight hundred souls in all. Nor were they ever subjugated. That same year, 1736, Boulanger, a French missionary, wrote to the colonial minister: "They have deceived the king in making him believe that the Foxes are destroyed The only result has been to augment expenditures and render that na- tion more insolent then before."" It makes one think better of poor humanity to read that.
The Foxes, although reduced to a little band of exiles, were as undaunted and defiant as ever. But in attempting to destroy them, the French Dominion in the West had received a blow from which it never recovered.
(1) Ferland, II, 441.
CHAPTER X.
THE WEST IN REVOLT.
1738-1752.
We have described in a former chapter the policy of cajolery and intimidation by which the French hoped to secure the allegiance of the Indians and the control of the continent. Up to 1712 this policy had been successful. Drawn by their desire for trade and their re- spect-almost reverence-for the mysterious power of the whites, the Indians were, in the main, friendly to the French. But at the end of the Fox war all this had changed. The splen- did resistance of the Wisconsin savages, and the revelation of the white man's weakness and wickedness had disenchanted the Indians. The prestige of the French was gone. The larger part of their trade had been diverted either to Hudson's Bay or, through the Iroquois, to the English settlements on the coast. Indian friend- ship had given way to turbulence, sullenness and contempt. In trying to stamp out the Wisconsin fires the French had only scattered the sparks in every direction.
10
146
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
The Sioux, the ruling nation beyond the Mississippi, became refractory and hostile. In 1736 they massacred a part of Verendrie's force and put an end to his explorations in the remote West; about the same time they began a fierce war against the Chippewa allies of the French;' and the next year became so riotous around Fort Beauharnois on Lake Pepin - burning the buildings and pillaging the traders -that the post had to be abandoned.2 Thus the French were cast off from the West.
Simultaneously the flames of revolt burst forth in the South, and the French suffered frightful disasters in their vain attempt to sub- jugate the Chickasaws. Eastward also the fires spread. Even those humble servants of the French, the Hurons and Ottawas around De- troit, became turbulent and for three years made ceaseless trouble.3 In 1740, the Cana- dian governor wrote to the court lamenting the "drunkenness and insolence of the Indian allies in the West."4 Discontent and tumult reigned everywhere.
(1) Letters of La Ronde, Comd'tat Chequamegon, June 28 and July 21, 1738. Can. Archives, 1886, p. CXXXIV.
(2) Margry, VI, 575.
(3) Beauharnois to the Minister, Sept. 17, 1741. Can. Archives, 1886, p. CXLIX.
(4) Ibid, July 6, 1740, p. CXLIV.
I47
THE WEST IN REVOLT.
The Foxes, although seemingly crushed and cut to pieces, needed only a little breathing spell and then they too were ready for revolt. Peace had been made with them in 1737 as we have seen. But it could not have lasted long; for in 1739 the French were forced to make another peace with these irrepressible savages.1 This proved also a very fleeting affair. The Foxes renewed their ancient alliance with the Sioux, and in 1741 both were again warring against the French allies, the Chippewas in the north and the Illinois in the south.2 In 1742, however, the Canadian governor announces "the submission of the Sioux, Sauks and Foxes."3 But the next year he makes another report in a more subdued strain concerning "the measures taken to prevent a union be- tween the Sioux and the Foxes." 4
A somewhat later dispatch apologizes for the increase of colonial expenditures by the plea that they had been obliged that "year to give so many presents to the Sioux, the Sauks and Foxes."5 To that condition the French Do-
(1) Ibid, June 30, 1739, p. CXXXVII.
(2) Ibid, Sept. 24, 1741, p. CXLIX.
(3) Ibid, Sept. 24, 1742, p. CXLII.
(4) Ibid, Sept. 18, 1743, p. CXLVI.
(5) Letter to Count Maurepas, Oct. 13, 1743. N. Y. Col. Documents, IX, 1099,
148
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
minion in the West had been reduced. It ex- isted at the sufferance of these truculent sav- ages who could be pacified only by presents.
During these turbulent times, the Chippe- was began to form settlements in the interior of Northern Wisconsin; having finally lost the friendship and trade of the Sioux, their posi- tion on the shore of Lake Superior became less valuable and many of them withdrew to better hunting grounds on the head waters of the Chip- pewa and other rivers. Tradition preserves a graceful story concerning the origin of one of these new villages. While a hunting party was encamped on the shore of a lake in the forest, a little child died and was buried by the water- side. The party pressed on. But the hearts of the father and mother still clung to the child and the next summer they came back to grieve by the grave. Unable to tear themselves away, they built their lodge there, alone in the woods, on the war-path of their enemies, but close to the precious ashes. But their grief was sacred and no one molested them. From time to time other Chippewas came and built their lodges likewise by the side of the lake. Thus began the still existing village of Lac Court Oreilles. 1
(1) Warren, History of the Ojibways. Minnesota Hist. Il., V. 127.
149
THE WEST IN REVOLT.
The story has no sponsor except tradition. But it is of historic value for the light it throws upon the Indian nature-that tangled incon- gruity of good and bad which underlies the red skin and the white.
Still the whirligig of war and peace went on. Iu 1747 the Canadian governor wrote to the colonial minister that "there is a great change of feeling among the Indians of the West, and that the state of affairs there is very bad."1 In 1747, Marin, commanding at St. Joseph in Western Michigan, reports that the savages in that quarter, heretofore so faithful to the French, "are being debauched by the English." 2 The same year another commandant writes concerning "the great revolt in the Detroit region." Of this revolt, notable as arising among the chief allies of the French, Pontiac spoke in 1763, saying that "seventeen years ago the Northern nations combined under the great chief, Mackinac, and came to destroy the French at Detroit; and that he (Pontiac) aided the French in fighting their battles with Mack- inac and driving him home to his country." 4
(1) Beauharnois to the Minister Oct. 29, 1745. Cana- dian Archives, 1887, p. CLVII.
(2) New York Col. Documents, X, 139.
(3) M. de Raymond to the Minister, Nov. 2, 1747. Cass, Archives, 1887, p. CLXV.
(4) Smith. History of Wisconsin, I, 361,
150
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
The next year the Miamis, then the most powerful and peaceful confederacy east of the Mississippi, revolted, pillaged a French fort and committed other acts of violence.' The French began to see the handwriting on the wall. Startling rumors arose of a vast con- spiracy among all the Western Indians to de- stroy the trading posts and drive the white man from the country .? Even the Chippewas, so long faithful to the French, were now drawn into the fiery circle of revolt. In 1748, Galis- soniere, the governor, reports that the voy- ageurs had been robbed and maltreated at Sault Ste Marie and elsewhere on Lake Superior. "In fine," he adds, "there appears to be no security anywhere."3
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.