Presented to the LIBRARY of the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

by

Ontario Legislative Library

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE

COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY THE PUBLISHING SOCIETY OF NEW YORK

All Rights Reserved

PUBLICATION OFFICE

428 LAFAYETTE STREET NEW YORK, N. Y., U. S. A.

JOLLIET.

WISCONSIN*?

IN THREE CENTURIES

1634-1905

NARRATIVE OF THREE CENTURIES IN THE MAKING OF AN

AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH ILLUSTRATED WITH

NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS OF HISTORIC SCENES

AND LANDMARKS PORTRAITS AND

FACSIMILES OF RARE PRINTS

DOCUMENTS AND

OLD MAPS

IDolume ©ne

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(i.-tiiurito. ,'* »»

THE CENTURY HISTORY COMPANY NEW YORK

BOARD OF EDITORS AND WRITERS

REUBEN GOLD THWAITES Sec. State Historical Society

HON. EMIIv BAENSCH Curator State Historical Society

WILLIAM WARD WIGHT, M. A. President State Historical Society

JOSEPH STEPHEN LABOULE, D. D.

HENRY EDWARD LEGLER Curator State Historical Society

PREFACE

ONE of the most interesting periods of the history of Wisconsin is that which is known as the French regime. It is this period which gives to the State a charm akin to that of romance as well as the dignity of age. For more than a century the fleur-de-lis of the Bourbons floated over the territory that now comprises our State. Jean Nicolet penetrated the inte- rior of Wisconsin in the year 1634, and French priests, coureur des bois, and voyageurs became familiar with every nook and corner of the region between that time and the Conquest of Canada in 1760.

This period of Wisconsin history is little understood. Because recent discoveries of importance regarding the history of that time have been made as the result of dil- igent search among the Government Archives at Paris, a complete narrative of that portion of our history is now possible for the first time. This result is due for the most part to. the efforts and direction of Reuben Gold Thwaites, Secretary of the Wisconsin State Historical Society, who has procured copies of these valuable doc- uments for publication in the Collections of the Society. The author has had the use of all this material in writ- ing this volume. The other authorities consulted in the work have likewise been primary in character, with few exceptions, and every effort has been made to treat the period of the French regime with the care and adequacy that it so well deserves.

HENRY C. CAMPBELL. 3

INTRODUCTION

AT a time when Englishmen had wrested from savagery a belt of Atlantic sea- board scarcely wider than a day's march, a diplomatic agent of New France was treating with the painted tribesmen of Wisconsin, nearly fifteen hundred miles, as the waterways run, distant from Quebec. But back of the English shore lay a rugged country which soon developed into foothills, and these into the then for- bidding barrier of the Appalachians. The rivers drain- ing the costal plain of New England were, not far inland, broken by rapids and waterfalls, which in the fullness of time turned the wheels and spindles of a busy manufacturing people, leading an intensive life, and not much addicted to venturesome wandering. In Vir- ginia, the plain was wide, the falls farther inland, the rivers more ample, and the climate warmer, features combining to produce an isolated and lordly plantation life, and render profitable the labor of slaves — a squire- archy being thus produced, which long was contented with home conditions; although under a later pressure of population, Virginians became transmontane explor- ers of an ambitious type. The dense forests which mantled the eastern slopes of the Alleghanies, the early difficulties of portaging around the falls, and the war- like character of the savages who lurked in the abutting jungles, were hardships which, both north and south, tended to restrain English colonial expansion to the actual necessities of growth.

On the other hand, the French were not only the most

7

8 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

adventurous people of Europe, but the situation of New France kindled in them the spirit of geographical inquiry. Originally settling upon the sea-coast — at St. Croix Island, on the Bay of Fundy, and on Mount Desert Island — they found themselves not only isolated from the great body of natives with whom they desired to trade, but too accessible to marauding English pri- vateers, jealous of these rival colonies. Once estab- lished at Quebec, the French were upon a waterway which gave them easy access to the continental interior ; and the cordial attitude which they assumed toward the majority of their Indian neighbors put them at once on excellent terms with their customers in a vast inland commerce.

Setting the pace in daring exploration, Governor Champlain was not long in personally reaching Lake Huron ; and north and west, by way of the Ottawa River — for he had unfortunately and early offended the New York Iroquois, and Lake Erie was long closed to French enterprise — his compatriot adventurers, lay and cler- ical, braved the perils of an ever widening wilderness streaked with interlacing waterways. The great streams emerging from a mysterious land abounding in strange beasts and singular wildmen, appealed strongly to the vivid imagination of the Norman and the Breton ; with the result that, throughout the entire period of New France, a large proportion of its people were ranging the forests and plains as fur-traders, boatmen (voyage- urs) , soldiers, missionaries, or political agents treating with the tribesmen. As a whole, New France possessed

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE

but a meagre population, not averaging over a small fraction of that found in the English colonies. But while the latter were being closely knit upon the coast, the relatively small body of Frenchmen were roaming at will all over the interior of the continent — from New Foundland and Tadoussac, following the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, the Ottawa, and the Rainy River region, to the far-off waters of the upper Saskatche- wan; from Lake Superior, down the Mississippi to the <julf of Mexico ; and well into the southwest, confront- ing the frontier of Spanish New Mexico.

It was in the course of this feverish desire to explore the interior — to develop its enormous fur-trade, to con- vert the painted and befeathered heathen to the gospel of the cross, and to extend the empire of the great Louis — that Champlain dispatched Nicolet to visit the Wisconsin Indians. It does not appear to have then been understood that Wisconsin occupied a remarkable and unique position in the geography of the continent. But by a quarter of a century later, other Frenchmen had made this important discovery, and thenceforth the region became one of high significance in the develop- ment of New France. The southern rims of the drain- age basins of all of the great lakes are but a few miles inland. At several points along these narrow water- sheds, there flow northward into the lakes, short rivers whose sources closely approach the headspring of streams pouring southerly either directly or indirectly into the Ohio and the Mississippi. Portage paths, early worn by aboriginal canoemen, and soon followed by the

io WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

French, connect these divergent waterways. The port- age routes differ greatly in length and feasibility, and of each might be told an interesting story. Wisconsin pos- sessed three of these fur-trade routes connecting the great drainage systems of the St. Lawrence and the Mis- sissippi ; two were far to the north, between Lake Supe- rior and the great river — the Bois Brule-St. Croix sys- tem, and that of the St. Louis River and the Mille Lacs; the third, that of the Fox-Wisconsin rivers, coursing through the heart of our state. This last was considered by the traders of New France the most prac- ticable of all their gateways to the Mississippi, and for nearly two centuries was of the utmost importance in the development of the fur-trade in North America.

Lying thus at the head of the great lakes, as well as at the head of the Mississippi basin, and containing within her borders the principal trade route between two- vast continental drainage systems, Wisconsin may prop- erly be considered the keystone of the arch connecting Canada with the Illinois and Louisiana. Green Bay guarded the Fox-Wisconsin route, and Chequamegon those of the northwest. It is impossible to understand Wisconsin history without grasping these salient facts in her geography. So long as the Wisconsin routes were free to her traders and missionaries, New France had lit- tle difficulty in maintaining her cordon of garrisons between the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico; but when the Fox Indians, controlling the Fox- Wisconsin waterway, revolted against French over- lordship and blocked the principal road between Canada,

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 1 1

and Louisiana, she was rendered a staggering blow. This accounts for the extreme bitterness of the pro- tracted Fox War, which furnishes a bloody chapter in Wisconsin history.

Because of their position upon this geographical vant- age ground, where widely divergent streams interlace, Wisconsin was for over a hundred years a favorite recruiting ground for the French, whenever they sought savage allies. Wisconsin Indians under Charles de Langlade, figured prominently at Braddock's Defeat, and were conspicuous in Pontiac's War. And later, when the British followed French methods in the Old Northwest, our savages proudly wore London-made uniforms and medals, both in the Revolution and in the War of 1812-15.

When New France fell (1763), the French regime only nominally closed in the region of the upper lakes. British fur companies were in control, but the actual men in the field were still the French bourgeois and voy- ageur of old; the Langlades and their swarthy com- patriots still held sway at Mackinac, Green Bay, Butte des Morts, Portage, and Prairie du Chien, along the shores of Lakes Michigan and Superior, on the upper reaches of the Mississippi, and in the interior forest camps of Wisconsin aborigines. British political mas- tery practically continued until the close of the second war with the Unted States, and the first coming of American troops to Green Bay in 1816 — save for the very brief American occupancy of Prairie du Chien two years before. Even the American invasion at first made

12 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

small impress upon the French fur-trade life of Wiscon- sin. It was not until the opening of the lead mines of the southwest, and the inglorious but far-reaching Black Hawk War, that other interests outweighed the com- merce of the forest, that agricultural settlement seriously began, that the French regime was seen to be fading into history. It had been a picturesque period, and upon it the historian still loves to dwell. Wisconsin's subse- quent career is certainly not lacking in color; but it often seems commonplace compared with the warmth and the romance of the two centuries which preceded the founding of the industrial commonwealth which we know today.

The story of American pioneering in Wisconsin abounds in interest of a far different sort. The inrush of settlers from New York and New England, by way of the Erie Canal, the Great Lakes, the Ohio River, and overland from Detroit or Chicago, had both attractive and pathetic sides. The privations were many and acute; the experiences of the settlers — far removed from their base, and as yet lacking adequate transpor- tation facilities were illumined by many pleasing epi- sodes, but on the whole severely tried the nerve and fibre of the immigrants.

Early in statehood days, aliens began to arrive in considerable numbers. The year when Wisconsin entered the Union ( 1848) was a time of great economic, social, and religious unrest in Europe. General attention was naturally drawn to the budding state; and in due course Germans, Swiss, and Scandinavians came in

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 13

throngs, often in organized communities, which long remained in language, thought, and manners, distinct entities in our body politic. Later, there arrived other distinct groups of Europeans, until this feature of Wis- consin's population attracted marked interest at home and abroad, and made of our state a laboratory for the study of that racial amalgamation from which will in due time be evolved the typical American.

By the opening of the War of Secession, Wisconsin was still in a semi-frontier stage. The original immi- grants from New York and New England were still in chief political and social control ; but the Germans and Scandinavians, as yet dwelling largely in well-accentu- ated clusters, were making themselves felt in every walk of life. The great pine forests of the north had thus far only been trimmed upon the edges; there was but little manufacturing, the state had as yet made no progress in dairying, the fisheries were a minor consideration, and lead and zinc mining, once an important industry, was now on the wane. We still were largely a grain-grow- ing state, in a raw condition, but hopeful and in a meas- ure prosperous. Our sturdy mixed population contained many men, Americans and Europeans, of marked ability and high character. The war was popular in Wiscon- sin ; our fighting quota was always generously furnished, and regiments won high credit at the front. No north- ern state emerged from the struggle with a finer record, few as creditably.

The great contest ended, Wisconsin was not long in rehabilitating her shattered finances. A tremendous

i4 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

stride forward was soon inaugurated. The population grew by leaps and bounds, representing not only every Eastern state but nearly every European nation; the area of cultivation quickly widened, and as the northern forests were fast depleted by the axe and saw of the insatiable timber industry, the ravaged lands were eag- erly settled by European immigrants, who were now not long in suffering themselves to be absorbed into the life and manners of our people — their Americanization being apparently complete in the second generation, which today is taking prominent part in the political and material affairs of the commonwealth. Railroads freely gridironed our map, grain-growing was largely suc- ceeded by stock and dairy farming, the lake and inland fisheries developed apace, iron mines and quarries were opened, the once giant industry of lumbering was in turn supplanted by miscellaneous manufactures. The twentieth century found Wisconsin a state of varied industries and resources, with a virile population repre- senting the best of many lands — prosperous, enterpris- ing, ambitious, and holding high rank among the com- monwealths of the great Middle West, wherein today are centered the wealth and vigor of the nation.

While amassing all this material gain, Wisconsin had not ignored the things of the spirit. On the sides of higher education, of a noticeable political conservatism, and of a wholesome liberality in thought, we owe much to the strong Teutonic strain in our blood as a people. Wisconsin schools, colleges, and university have almost from the first been wisely administered, and as liberally

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 15

supported as our growing resources would allow; and of late years these have stood in the front rank of their kind in America. In the matter of the popularizing and extension of libraries, Wisconsin has recently set an example to the nation; and her system of charities and corrections has long been held as a model.

It is a stirring story, this evolution of the modern Wisconsin from that which Nicolet found, two and and three-quarters centuries ago. His Wisconsin was a dense forest, haunted by naked savages steeped in superstition, cowering at the sight of their first white man, and terror-struck at the report of his firearms. Ours is a lusty commonwealth that is fast losing the raw- ness of the frontier, and becoming permeated with that thirst for genuine culture which Americans usually asso- ciate with far older communities. Yet — the remarkable development of industrial Wisconsin — as disassociated from the more romantic Wisconsin of the fur-trade and the memory of men still living among us.

REUBEN G. THWAITES.

Madison, Wis., March 31, 1905.

SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS

CHAPTER I

THE INDIANS OF WISCONSIN 33

Linguistic Stocks of Aborigines — Winnebago — Iro- quoian Nations — Siouan Nations — Algonkin — Devas- tated by War, Famine and Pestilence — Indian Char- acteristics— Chippewa and Foxes — Natives divided into Clans — Marriage Relations — Civil Government — War Ceremonies — Cannibalism practiced — War Im- plements— Game and Fish Products — Religion — Practice of Polygamy — Superstitions and Feasts— Calumet and other Dances — Habitations and Forts- Agricultural Pursuits — Domestic Arts — Expert Canoe makers — Amusements — Trade Intercourse.

CHAPTER II

WATERWAYS TO WISCONSIN 63

St. Lawrence River the Historic Gateway — Men of New France — French Pioneers — Waterways the means of inter-communication — Canoe a factor in the Dis- covery and Exploration of Wisconsin — Water Traffic Routes — France claims land on Verrazano's and Car- tier's discoveries — Champlain, the Father of New France — His attempts to establish Colonies — Battles between the French and Iroquois — Champlain returns to France — Trading Post established at Montreal — Etienne Brule.

CHAPTER III i

NICOLET'S DISCOVERY OF THE NORTHWEST 8r

Nicolet's birth and early life — Arrival in New France — His first post the Isle des Allumettes — His work amongst the Indians — "Men of the Salt Water" — Nic- olet's Indian Expeditions — Visits the Hurons and Menominees — Lands at Sault Ste. Marie and Michil- imackinac — "People of the Sea" — First white man to visit the Winnebago — Nicolet's Mission a success — His travels extend to the Fox Valley — Death of Champlain — Nicolet returns to Three Rivers — His Marriage — Removes to Quebec — His Death.

M 25

26 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

CHAPTER IV

DISCOVERY OF LAKE SUPERIOR 95

Nicolet followed by Radisson and Groseilliers — Me- moirs of Radisson — Lake Superior country visited — Huts built on the shores of Chequamegon Bay — Hu- rons escort them to their village — Journey extends to the Sioux country — Return to New France — Agree to undertake a Voyage to Hudson Bay — Project aband- oned— Arrival in England — Voyages for Charles II — Hudson's Bay Company chartered — Radisson and Groseilliers reappear in New France — Attempt to plant a French settlement in Hudson Bay Country — British King complains to Louis XIV — They return to Quebec — Later to Paris — Again enter the service of the Hudson's Bay Company.

CHAPTER V

FIRST MISSIONARY TO WISCONSIN 117

Pere Menard the Jesuit — His birth — Early education — His Arrival at Quebec — He learns the Algonkin language — Death of Brebeuf — Menard at Three Riv- ers— His Mission among the Cayugas — Discovery of the Iroquois plot — Menard returns to Three Rivers — • Commences Journey to Lake Superior country — Ar- rives at Keweenaw Bay — The three mooted points in Wisconsin history — Location of Huron Village — Menard's route — The Place of his Death.

CHAPTER VI

WISCONSIN'S FIRST MISSIONS 139

Seeds of Christianity planted by a Jesuit — Mission- ary work of the Recollets and Sulpitians — Early Ap- pearance of the "black robe" — Civilization not ad- vanced by the fur traders — The priest the factor for in- tercourse between the Colonists and Savages — Claude Allouez, the builder of Wisconsin's first Missions — Short sketch of his life — He becomes proficient in the Huron and Algonkin languages — Sets out for Lake Superior country — His first view of Chequamegon Bay — First house of Christian worship erected in Wis-

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 27

consin — Mission named La Pointe du Saint Esprit — Allouez removes from Huron to Ottawa Village — He journeys to head of Lake Superior — The Nipissings welcome Father Allouez — He is succeeded by Jacques Marquette — Allouez founds the Missions of St. Fran- cis Xavier and St. Michael — His subsequent mission- ary work amongst the Mascoutons, Foxes, Meno- minee and Potawatomi — Father Allouez's death.

CHAPTER VII

FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION 159

Formal possession taken of Country of the Great Lakes — Sault Ste. Marie scene of the Ceremony—. Nicholas Perrot an important factor — Father Albanel Missions to supplant the English — Fort erected at Lake Nepigon by Du Luth — Biographical Sketch or Perrot — Courcelles succeeded by Frontenac as Gov- ernor of New France — Marriage of Perrot — Trading expeditions to the Upper Lakes — Appointed to com- mand at Green Bay — His Camp at Trempealeau — Fort built at junction of Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers — The burning of Green Bay — King Louis orders the evacuation of all Western Forts — The death of Perrot.

CHAPTER VIII

DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI 177

An Epoch in History of North America — Jolliet the leader of the Expedition — His early life — Sketch of Marquette's life — His Narrative of the Journey — Ex- plorers attacked by the Mitchigameas — They abandon the attempt to reach the mouth of the Mississippi River — Jolliet loses his Journal and Map — Death of Marquette — Removal of his remains to St. Ignace — Who was the rightful discoverer of the Mississippi River, Jolliet or Marquette?

CHAPTER IX

TO THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI 211

La Salle explores the Mississippi River — His birth and education — La Salle's meeting with Jolliet — His dis-

28 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

coveries of minor importance — Frontenac erects fort on present site of Kingston — La Salle receives a grant of Fort Frontenac — His control of the fur trade . — La Salle plans to find the Mouth of the Mississippi — Henry Tonty and Louis Hennepin — Launching of the Griffon — Her unsuccessful voyage — La Salle's expedi- tion in Canoes — He attempts to reach the Mississippi by the way of the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers — • Fort Cr vecoeur erected — Tonty left in command — Hennepin sent to explore the Upper Mississippi — Fort Crfvecoeur attacked by Iroquois — Death of Father Gabriel — La Salle takes possession of the coun- try in the King's name — The name Louisiana given to the Mississippi Valley — La Salle superseded in com- mand of the Great West — La Salle returns to France — The King places him in supreme command at the Mouth of the Mississippi River — Landing made at Matagorda Bay — Tonty attempts to reach La Salle— Murder of La Salle— Death of Tonty.

CHAPTER X

EXPLORING NORTHWESTERN WISCONSIN 223

Sketch of Du Luth's life — His career as a fur trader- Guns of France planted at Nadouecioux — Knife In- dians— Du Luth visits Issati — Meeting of Hennepin and Du Luth — They ascend the Mississippi River— They travel overland to Mille Lacs — Hennepin cap- tured by the Indians — Du Luth secures Hennepin's release — Du Luth returns to Michilimackinac — Falls of St. Anthony named by Hennepin — Indians friendly toward the Frenchmen — Hennepin spends the win- ter at Green Bay — His return to France — Unfrocked, he removes to England — Accusations of illegal trading made against Du Luth — He returns to France to de- fend himself — He obtains a license to trade in the Sioux Country — His arrival at Green Bay — Defends that outpost against the Iroquois — Du Luth the first white man in region of the Great Lakes to carry out the death penalty for murder — Du Luth establishes Ft. Gratiot — Superseded in command by de Lorndarec — Denonville's expeditions — Frontenac reappointed gov- ernor of New France — Iroquois Massacre at La Chine — Du Luth's reprisal — His death.

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 29

CHAPTER XI

EXPLORING BEYOND THE MISSISSIPPI 239

Le Sueur's explorations — He builds forts at Madelaine Island and on an island above Lake Pepin — Lead mines discovered — Le Sueur ascends the Minnesota River — What was supposed to be Copper ore shipped to France — La Hontan's book — Charlevoix's mission to discover a suitable route to the Pacific Ocean — Verendrye the real originator of Trans-Mississippi Exploration — Merchants of Montreal equip an expe- dition— Joined by Father Messager — Forts St. Pierre and St. Charles built — Fort Maurepas erected at Lake Winnipeg — Forts also built in the Valley of the Up- per Missouri — Verendrye explores the country as far west as the Rocky Mountains — Death of Verendrye at Three Rivers — St. Pierre selected to continue Veren- drye's discoveries.

CHAPTER XII

FRANCE AND THE FUR TRADE 247

Traffic in furs — Indian morals affected by the Trade — Coureurs des bpis — "The Lust of Freedom" — Fur Trade an incentive to Exploration — Chief source of revenue to the Government — Inauguration of the li- cense system — Establishment of Forts St. Antoine and St. Nicholas by Perrot — British Traders interfere" with the French trade with the Indians — The sale of Trading Licenses — Galissoniere's report — The dishon- esty of Bigot — Jonquiere becomes Governor of Can- ada— Green Bay, the most important trading center in the territory — The Rondes at Chequamegon Bay — On surrender of Canada the fur trade passes into the hands of the British.

CHAPTER XIII

A TITANTIC WAR WITH INDIANS 271

War between the French and Fox Indians — Estab- lishment of a post at Detroit — Foxes, Mascoutens, Kickapoo and Sauk Indians remove from Wisconsin to take up their abode near Detroit — Surrender of the Foxes to the French and their Allies — Their Massacre

30 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

a black chapter in the history of the French regime In America — Fox and Sioux commence war upon the Illinois — A War of Extermination decided upon by the French — First Military Expedition commanded by white men to invade Wisconsin — Surrender of the Foxes opposite Neenah — De Louvigny appointed Commandant-General in the Northwest — Charlevoix visits Green Bay — Foxes again threaten the French power in the West — Foxes' campaign against the Peoria — Grand Council held at Green Bay — Foxes again at war with Illinois — De Lignery's Expedition- Foxes final stand at . Rock St. Louis — Great Slaugh- ter of the Foxes — Fort built at Mount Trempealeau — • Marin finally effects the removal of the Foxes.

CHAPTER XIV

FRENCH AND BRITISH IN CONFLICT 317

The Ohio and Mississippi Valleys the bone of con- tention— Control of the Fur Trade an important Factor — British attempts to instigate the Indians against the French — British port at Oswego annoy- ance to the French — Important happenings in the Mis- sissippi Valley — Death of Louis XIV — Law's Mis- sissippi Bubble — Jurisdiction in dispute over the Ohio Valley — Illinois decreed a dependency of Louisiana — Galissoniere Governor of New France — Illinois finally united to New France — The British Expedition — Fall of New France — French domination ~ of the West ceases to be.

CHAPTER XV

LANGLADE AND THE END OF THE FRENCH

REGIME 343

The Langlade Family — First White Settlers in Wis- consin— Langlade's expedition to the Coast of Lake Erie — His wedding — Braddock's defeat — Langlade in command of Grand River district in Michigan — lit takes part in the siege of Fort William Henry and battle on Plains of Abraham — After the war he re- turns to Mackinac — He becomes a subject of Great Britain — Langlade's removal to Green Bay — His death.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Jolliet Frontispiece.

Indian Clay Vessel 43

Indian War Implements 43

Map of the Western Waterways 67

Samuel De Champlain 73

Nicolet's Landing at Green Bay 91

Facsimile of Page from Pierre Radisson's Narrative of Jour- ney to Northern Wisconsin in 1659-60 103

Map of Menard Route 125

Bill Cross Rapids 133

Jesuit Map of Lake Superior (1670-71) 143

Depere Monument and Inscription 155

Ostensorium presented to St. Francis Xavier Mission 165

Site of Perrot's Wintering Post, 1685-86 171

James Marquette 181

Jolliet and Marquette discover the Mississippi River 189

Western portion of Jolliet's larger Map (1674) 197

Map published with Marquette's Journal (1681) 207

Father Hennepin's Map of the Upper Lakes (1697) 231

Relics from an old Fox Trading Post 261

A Fox Chief 279

A Group of Sac and Fox Indians 297

Langlade's Buckskin Pouch 349

Langlade's Silver Mounted Pistols 349

Braddock's Defeat 353

31

CHAPTER I THE INDIANS OF WISCONSIN

IN Wisconsin, at the middle of the Seventeenth Century, there lived nations representing three of the greatest linguistic stocks of the abo- rigines— the Iroquois, the Algonkin and the Siouan. Hurons, of the same blood and language as the Iroquois, had been driven by the latter, once their inferiors in strength, to seek refuge in the forests of Wisconsin. The Winnebago, the easternmost representatives of the Siouan stock, were living at the head of Green Bay when Jean Nicolet made his memor- able journey to that region in 1634. Other Sioux, those of the plains, occupied the upper Mississippi Valley. The Iroquoian nations occupied the country surround- ing Lakes Ontario and Erie and extending east to the Hudson. The Siouan nations occupied the prairies west of the Mississippi, extending as far west as Wyoming, as far south as Arkansas and north beyond what is now the Canadian border.

The most numerous linguistic stock, or division, and the one that covered the largest territory, was the Algonkin, which predominated in Wisconsin. It occu- pied all the territory between Hudson Bay and the northern boundary of Alabama and between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, stretching even to the Rocky Mountains by way of the British Provinces and Montana, where the Blackfeet were its representatives. The Upper Lakes were peopled exclusively, with the one exception of the Winnebago, by Indians of Algon- kin stock. They were strong intellectually as well as numerically. King Philip, Powhattan, Tammany, Pon-

36 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

tiac, Tecumseh and Black Hawk were Algonkins, all of them. The St. Lawrence Valley was probably the seat in early times of the Algonkin division, which appears to have divided into two branches, one taking posses- sion of the Atlantic Coast, even of Newfoundland, and the other of the country bordering upon the Great Lakes. Most of the Algonkin tribes were agricultural. The first white men that visited the New England Coast and the St. Lawrence Valley found fields of maize, often of beans, squash and tobacco, under cul- tivation by these Indians. Corn was raised in Wis- consin, even on the shore of Lake Superior, centuries ago.

The Indians of Wisconsin, like those of other sec- tions of the continent, suffered greatly from war, famine and pestilence. It is difficult to determine which of these factors was most potent in preventing the Indian centers from becoming populous in the sense that the settlements of white men are populous. It is recorded that the Winnebago, attacked by neighboring nations, united in one large village, which contained four thou- sand or five thousand men, but that pestilence, even more than the war itself, reduced the number of war- riors to fifteen hundred men. In this case the ravages of disease were consequential upon war, but in a settle- ment of savage people who knew nothing of sanitation, who fought disease with noise and superstitious offer- ings, fatal epidemics were inevitable.

The popular idea that the aborigines were nomadic is erroneous. Among them love of native soil was deep

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 37

and strong, and relatively their villages were as numer- ous as are the cities of the white men. The Winne- bago, for instance, as well as the Foxes, lived in the same localities for generations, and the Foxes, driven away by the French, tried again and again to return. Other Wisconsin tribes which no longer dwell within the state were removed by force or threats of force. Bands of Chippewa are living to-day at points in Wisconsin, Bad River, Chequamegon Bay, and Courte Orielle, which have been the homes of their ancestors for generations. True, they shifted about some, according as it was the hunting or the fishing season, but in this they are no more nomadic than is their civilized successor, who has his summer home as well as his winter home.

Families often lived by themselves in the forests, but this was always a temporary condition. In their vil- lages the Indians frequently were attacked by epidemics, which destroyed hundreds, and by famine, which was just as fatal. Winter was always the time of famine and one of the earliest of the French explorers of Wis- consin, who spent a winter in a famine-stricken village, describes how, when the winter hunt failed, scores and scores of men, women and children slowly starved to death. The forests of Wisconsin have viewed thou- sands of tragedies compared to which the death of Min- nehaha was insignificant. The improvident Indians let to-morrow take care of itself and in a land where plenty might have been the rule they often escaped death by starvation, when they did escape it, by eating not only

38 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

acorns, but the bark of trees, fur robes and pulverized bones.

The natives were divided into clans, each represented by some beast, bird or reptile, this clan-sign being called a totem in Algonkin. This totemship was not peculiar to the American Indians, it being found among the natives of Senegambia, the aborigines of Australia, and •the Dyacks, as well as among wild peoples in still other parts of the world. Indian clansmen were supposed to be kinsmen, although sometimes not a single drop of blood was common to them; still, on account of the clan relationship, marrying within one's clan was for- bidden. Thus Wolf could not marry Wolf, nor Bear marry Bear, but each might marry into any clan except his own. The same clan ran through different tribes, even through tribes of different languages, the mem- bers being bound together by the closest ties. An Indian afar from home was as welcome in the wigwam of a clansman as he would have been at-home and among his own tribesmen. The figures of bear, deer, reptiles, and so on, that one sees in Indian documents, are simply the clan emblems, or totems, of the chiefs, who use them as sign manuals. These totem figures were often tat- tooed upon the bodies of the clansmen.

Beads made of shells, which they called wampum, were used by the Indians in place of money, as peace offerings and to mark treaties. Thus Pemoussa, a Fox chief, presented to the French commandant at Detroit a belt of wampum, or a "collar of porcelain," as the French called it, when he asked that officer to stop the

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 39

war upon his people. Pemoussa carried many other belts of wampum upon his shoulders and upon his body. "It is the lives of our women and children that I beg of you," he said. "Here are six belts which bind us to you as your true slaves." Wampum belts were also offered in atonement ("to efface the blood") of mur- ders committed by members of one tribe upon those of another. Indian girls used wampum beads to adorn themselves.

The Indians were entirely without rules of govern- ment. Their civil chiefs were simply advisers. Per- sonal influence, respect for their age and the exigencies of the occasion were all that these headmen could depend upon in order to exercise any power whatever. War chiefs were likewise devoid of any real power. A war chief could compel none to join his expedition and those who joined it were not bound to remain in it to the end. There being no real authority, there was no subordination, no discipline. For these reasons a prop- osition to enroll Indians in the militia of New France was promptly rejected in 1708. "Their chiefs," reported the Sieur d'Aigremont, sub-delegate of the Intendant of New France, "cannot say to them: 'Do thus and so,' but merely — 'it would be better to do so and so.' ' To the sub-delegate it appeared "extraordinary to wish to undertake to discipline people who possess no subordination among themselves."

Indian preparations for war formed an interesting ceremony. The war chief, after fasting for several days, would invite the young men of the village to a

40 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

feast of dogflesh at night. He continued to fast while they ate. Suddenly, after they had formed a circle, he would leap into the midst of them, recite in loud tones the heroic deeds performed by himself and his ancestors, at the same time going through the motions of a war- rior engaged in battle. With his tomahawk he would savagely slash a post that served as a substitute for the foe, or he would pretend to deal deadly blows at some of the bystanders. Wrought to frenzy, the warriors would often follow his example, yelling the war whoop at the top of their voices. This was their enlistment. The next morning the warriors, painted and plumed, would depart, whooping and firing guns. Within a short dis- tance their finery would be discarded and sent back to the village, while they, unincumbered, would silently, stealthily, in single file, advance into the territory of the foe.

Those whom they killed in battle they scalped when- ever they could do so. The prowess-of an Indian was measured by the number of scalps that he possessed, and to gather these trophies was his greatest ambition.

Captives taken in war were either tortured to death or held as slaves. Among the Indians of North America slavery was general. The French adopted this practice of the Indians and even followed the example of the sav- ages in burning Indian foes at the stake.

Among Wisconsin Indians, particularly by the Win- nebago, cannibalism was practiced. Early in the Seven- teenth Century the Winnebago had acquired the reputa- tion of putting into the kettle strangers who went among

them. They- ate envoys sent to them during that period by the Ottawa and even a party of Illinois Indians who took to them provisions to save them from famine were butchered, boiled and eaten. While the Hurons and the Ottawa were at Chequamegon Bay, some of the Huron young men were captured by Sioux, into whose country they had gone to hunt. The chief of the Sioux released the prisoners, and with three men and a woman he started to escort them back to Chequamegon Bay. Near the villages of the Hurons and Ottawa, the released captives quietly left the little party of Sioux and hastened to their kinsmen, to whom they misrepre- sented the whole affair. The Sioux deemed it safe to visit the Ottawa village, but their hosts were corrupted by the Hurons by means of presents, with the result that the Sioux chief and his companions, whose mission had been one of mercy, were boiled and eaten by those whom they had sought to befriend. In those days the Sioux, who are now regarded as the crudest of the savages in the Northwest, were far more humane than most of their neighbors. They frequently released captives, never practiced cannibalism, and seldom put prisoners to death by fire except in retaliation for the burning of some of their own people.

The Foxes, also called Renards and Outagamies, burned prisoners, particularly their hated foes, the Illinois, and sometimes ate their flesh.

The Hurons, notwithstanding the long and zealous efforts of Jesuit missionaries, were among the crudest of the savages that made Wisconsin their homes. When

t*

42 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

the Foxes were defeated near Detroit, early in the eigh- teenth century, their women and children were dis- tributed among the Indian allies of the French, many of them being put to death by torture, but it is recorded that the Hurons spared not a single one of their help- less prisoners.

The most effective weapon of the Indian was the tomahawk, known generally in connection with Indian warfare. The blade was originally made of stone, fashioned into the form of a hatchet, and, by means of thongs, securely fastened to a handle made of tough, hard wood. War clubs, used to brain foes in battle, were made in a similar manner. Knives and other imple- ments of stone were made by the natives. Specimens of them are still common all over the state.

Bows and arrows were effectively used in the chase as well as on the warpath. Sioux Indians are credited with using this weapon so dexterously as to transfix ducks on the wing. In war the Indians used arrows not only to slay foes, but to carry lighted fuses into the combustible portions of the enemy's stronghold. The Foxes attempted to destroy Detroit in this way, early in the Eighteenth Century, and in later years the thatched roofs of settlers' homes were burned by means of lighted arrows.

The abundance of game made hunting a pleasure to the Wisconsin Indian. In the western part of the state, particularly along the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers, and on the prairies of Southern Wisconsin, buffaloes were numerous. Their meat was a delicacy and their

INDIAN CLAY VESSEL.

INDIAN WAR IMPLEMENTS.

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 45

hides a protection against the cold of winter. In the forests of the north, elk and moose and even the wood- land caribou were hunted. Deer were found in all parts of the state and were hunted throughout the year. Bear and beaver were mostly objects of the winter chase. Sometimes beaver was slain with arrows, sometimes caught in nets. Its flesh was ranked highest among the good things in the Indian larder and its fur was the most valuable of all the peltries obtained by the savage hunters. The Indians smoked hibernating bears out of hollow trees and out of caves and then slew them.

To hunt large game, the Indians generally formed parties of considerable size, which would sometimes go far from their villages. Often, during their absence, the village would be attacked by enemies, so some- times a force of warriors large enough to defend the women and children would remain in the village.

Small game abounded near home. On the Fox River, for instance, the Indians would stretch nets in the places where wild ducks sought the wild rice, and in this way would often load their canoes with these fowl. In sum- mer the savages, using nets, would snare wild pigeons by the hundreds. They spread the nets in open places in the woods, hid themselves in little huts made of branches, and, at the opportune time, pulled a cord which would close the nets. Swans and geese were ensnared in large numbers. Wild turkeys were not uncommon.

In fishing the Indians likewise used nets to a great extent. They would close the Fox River with a sort of hurdle, leaving open spaces for nets that could be cast

46 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

or closed at pleasure. When a fish swam into the net, a little bell just above the water would ring, and then the savage would pull out his finny prize. Along Lakes Michigan and Superior whitefish were caught in nets, sometimes as many as fifty at a single haul. Trout, some weighing fifty pounds, were caught in the same manner. In some favorable places, like the Sault Ste. Marie, whitefish were speared by the Indians.

Sturgeon were caught throughout the year. When nets were not used, the Indians, standing upright in light, small canoes, speared these monsters of Wiscon- sin waters.

Most of the Indians who in the Seventeenth Century lived in the territory that Wisconsin now comprises were Algonkins. Their gods were countless good and evil spirits, called manitous. The Sun, the Moon, the Lake, the River and the Woods, for example, were beneficent spirits, while the Cold, the Storm, and other things baneful and fearful were evil spirits/ In almost every step that they took, when they went to war, or upon a journey, hunting or fishing, they invoked the aid of a good spirit, or endeavored to propitiate an evil one. To these spirits they would offer sacrifices, at the same time performing some sacrificial ceremony. In the middle of one village, which was being ravaged by disease, Father Allouez saw an idol set up and ten dogs offered in sacrifice to it in an effort to induce it to end the epidemic. During storms the savages would sacrifice a dog by throwing it into the lake, saying to the manitou of the lake as they did so: "That is to appease thee." At

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 47

dangerous places in a river, especially falls and rapids, they would offer presents, often tobacco, to ensure safe passage. To them their manitous were persons. Thus the Sun was a man and the Moon was his wife. The Snow was a man who went away in the Spring and came back in the Winter. The Sun was invoked for aid, it was called upon to witness promises and it was blessed for sending welcome visitors. In the belief of the Indians of Lake Superior, the souls of fishes were immortal, and passed into the bodies of other fishes, and for fear of offending these souls, the Indians would never throw the fish bones into the fire. Many inter- esting stories of Indian superstitions are told. For example, Charlevoix records that in 1721, while he was in Green Bay, a little girl picked up a mouse and prepared to eat it. Her father snatched it from her and lavished caresses upon it. "I do so," he replied to Charlevoix's surprised question, "to appease the Spirit of the Mice, so that he will not torment my daughter after she has eaten it." Then he returned the mouse to the child and she ate it. The Indians venerated the bear more than any other animal, probably because it was the most powerful and dangerous beast with which they came into contact. As soon as they slew a bear, Charle- voix records, they would prepare a feast, marked by singular ceremonies. The bear's head, painted in many colors, would occupy a raised place at the feast, and to it the Indians would sing the praises of the animal while they devoured its body.

Polygamy was general among the Indians. Writing

48 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

of the Upper Algonkin tribes, Allouez says that the "fountain-head of their religion is libertinism," and that "all the devotion of the men is directed toward getting many wives, and changing them whenever they choose; that of the woman toward leaving their husbands, and that of the girls toward a life of profligacy." Cadillac says that the Foxes sold the honor of their daughters for presents so trifling that anybody might give them. Wives were put away at will, particularly for infidelity. The Miami punished unfaithful wives by shaving their heads and cutting off their noses and ears. Debauchery among the Indian women increased with the numbers of French traders. In 1702 Father Carheil wrote that the Indian traders and their liquor had brought the Indian missions to the verge of ruin.

Like most Indians, those of Wisconsin were greatly influenced by dreams. They would feast for a week in the hope of foreseeing, in a dream, the issue of some project of war, or of the chase, and if they saw in their dreams a herd of moose, foes fleeing before them, or anything else that they desired to dream about — and their fasting and the concentration of mind upon the one idea undoubtedly inspired dreams — they went forth upon their mission, whatever it might be, with strong confidence.

Feasts were common among the Indians. The war feasts and the feasts in honor of the bear have already been described. Some of these feasts were called "eat- all" feasts, and when one of these was set before them, it was obligatory upon the guests to eat every morsel.

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 49

If the feast were in honor of the Sun, for instance, one of the elders harangued that orb, thanking it for helping him perform some feat, whether killing an animal or doing one of many other things, and exhorting it to con- tinue its kind care of his family. Father Allouez states that one of these feasts bears a certain resemblance to a holocaust. The guests ate in the meantime, not leaving anything, even a crumb, undevoured, — and when they had finished, a piece of tobacco was broken into two and thrown into the fire, everybody crying aloud while the tobacco burned and the smoke rose.

In the ceremonials of the Indians, and some of them were very elaborate, nothing played a more important part than the calumet, or pipe of peace. It takes its name from the fact that it was always held up in sign of amity. While Jolliet and Marquette were descend- ing the Mississippi River, Illinois Indians gave them a calumet as a safeguard for their passage through hostile savages, it is stated, but probably just to show to the sav- ages, in order to make them understand, by using their own sign, that the party came in friendship. The first calumet used by Wisconsin Indians of which there is any description consisted of a bowl of red stone, with a long stick as a stem. This stick was covered along its whole length with the heads of birds, all colored like flame, while a bunch of red feathers, shaped like a great fan, adorned the middle of the stick. The calumet was presented to a welcome visitor, with a harangue of wel- come.

"Singing the calumet" was a mark of extraordinary

50 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

honor. He upon whom this distinction was conferred became a son of the tribe and obedience was due to him from the people of the tribe. The ceremony even pledged those who had sung it to follow to war the man in whose honor it had been sung, though he was under no obliga- tion in return.

The calumet dance was one of the most striking of Indian ceremonials. A great pipe, decked with plumes, was placed in the middle of a room, the care bestowed upon it approaching veneration. One of the company, rising, began to dance, and then yielded his place to an- other, he to a third, and so on one at a time. The per- former would make war in rythmic time, preparing him- self for battle, running, discovering the foe, raising the war cry, slaying and scalping the enemy, and return- ing home with a song of victory, all with marvelous exactness and agility. All having danced, the pipe was offered to the chief man in the assemblage, who would smoke it. The others, in succession, would take a few puffs after he had finished.

There were many other dances, including the war dance, the scalp dance, the scout dance and the buffalo dance. Indian music consisted of the beating of drums and the rattling of pellets in gourds. This music was used to invoke spirits, to lament and for war.

The Indians, notwithstanding their stolid character, were often effusive, particularly in welcoming strangers. They would hail them with cries of joy and greet them with caresses. The Sioux would bend over welcome strangers and weep most copiously. The early travel-

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 51

ers lay stress upon this mode of greeting and how un- comfortable it made them. This weeping at will, which they mistook for weakness on the part of the Sioux, en- gendered contempt of them among the Hurons and the Ottawa, and, in a measure, proved the undoing of these nations, for they sought to impose upon the Sioux, who had befriended them, and the Sioux rose in their wrath and Hurons and Ottawa fled.

The Indians greased themselves with the fat of ani- mals and with it they annointed welcome visitors. The Sioux thus treated Radisson and Groseilliers in 1659-60 and the Mascoutens did likewise to Perrot. The giving of presents was another way in which the Indians showed their joy over the arrival of strangers, and in making these presents they would often deprive them- selves of necessaries in order to show their good will to strangers.

The Indians, including those of Wisconsin, not only built roomy cabins in which they lived, but they erected forts as well. Some of these forts were large, many of them six hundred feet or more square, and not a few of them very much larger. Father Allouez, the first Jesuit missionary who visited the Fox Indians at their village upon the Wolf River, has recorded that in the midst of their clearings "they have a fort, where their cabins of heavy bark are situated, for resist- ing all kinds of attack." The Hurons, long residents of Wisconsin, built their cabins entirely of bark, making them high and long, very substantial and rounded like arbors. Each cabin contained a sleeping chamber.

52 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

Their forts consisted of a double row of palisades, with gates. While he was commandant at Mackinac, Cadil- lac, the founder of Detroit, wrote a very interesting description of the manner in which the Hurons and the Ottawa built their forts and cabins. The Indians planted in the ground long poles as thick as one's leg, joined them together by bending them, and fastened them in this position with strips of basswood bark. Cross- pieces as thick as one's arm were then interlaced between these poles and the whole was covered with the bark of fir or cedar trees. There was a door at each end and a raised platform on each side. The cabins were water- tight. They were often a hundred or a hundred and thirty feet long, twenty-four feet wide and twenty feet high. Several families, each having its own little apart- ment, would occupy one of these large cabins.

The forts, according to Cadillac, were made of stakes, planted in three rows. Those in the first row were as thick as one's thigh, and thirty feet high. The second row would be a foot inside the first, which it sup- ported by leaning over at the top. The stakes in the first and second rows were about seven inches apart. The third row, four feet from the first, consisted of sec- tions of very thick trees, fifteen or sixteen feet out of the ground, and driven as closely together as possible. At intervals loopholes were cut in these heavy timbers.

The Sioux built their cabins of a number of buffalo skins, laced and sewed together. Ordinarily two or three families would dwell in one of these cabins. The

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 53

Potawotami and the Illinois constructed their cabins of mats made of reeds.

From the earliest known times the Indians were engaged in agriculture far more extensively than is generally supposed. Their methods were crude, of course, and in consequence crops were limited, but it may well be doubted whether a single tribe that dwelt in Wisconsin at the time of the coming of the first white men, the French explorers, missionaries and fur traders, did not till the soil. At Chequamegon Bay, on the shore of Lake Superior, the Ottawa were raising corn and squashes as early as 1665. Allouez reports that in 1670 the Sauk, Foxes, Potawatomi and Winnebago raised corn, squashes, beans and tobacco. The black soil in the country of the Foxes, upon the Wolf River, yielded corn in abundance. Upon the peninsula which lies between Green Bay and the main body of Lake Michigan, the Potawotami had fields that were covered with corn. Washington Island, at the mouth of Green Bay, was the home of many of these Indians in those early days and it abounded in corn. It is an interesting fact that the French, when they were organizing an expedition against the Fox Indians of Wisconsin, bought a large amount of corn, to serve as food, from the Iroquois. This was in 1715. Cadillac records that in 1718 the Indians near Detroit raised pease and water-melons as well as corn, beans and pumpkins. They soon began raising French wheat, and so did the Illinois Indians, who also cultivated French melons. The Jesuit mis-

54 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

sionaries taught the Illinois Indians to raise domestic poultry, cattle and pigs.

The Indians, although they raised tobacco, did not in this way obtain adequate supplies of it, for it was one of the articles which they most frequently tried to get from the French. The corn which they raised was for the most part hidden in caches, and not eaten until toward spring, hunting being the principal means of subsistence during the early part of winter.

An Indian field, as a rule, was a clearing made in the forest, and these clearings were called deserts by the French. Lac Vieux Desert (Lake of the Old Clearing) , where the Wisconsin River rises — on the line between Michigan and Wisconsin — takes its name from an old Indian corn field on a large island in the lake. Each family marked out its own field. As fertile a spot as possible was always selected. The next step was to cut down the bushes and small trees. The large trees were girdled a few feet above the ground and then the land was burned over. The women tilled and sowed. May was the planting time. An implement of hardwood, shaped at one end like a scraper and flat at the other end, was used to "tickle" the soil and the women are said to have done astonishingly rapid work with this primitive substitute for a plow.

The seed, after having been soaked in water, was sown in irregular rows three or four feet apart, nine or ten grains being put into each hill. The weeds were removed occasionally, but not systematically. Soon after the blades appeared, they were "hilled up." Many of

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 55

these "garden beds" have been found in Wisconsin. The Indians, after a field had become sterile from a succession of crops, simply abandoned it and made a new one.

Wild rice (zizania aquatica) which the French called folles avoines (wild oats) was a staple article of food among the Indians of Wisconsin. It grew in many riv- ers and in countless lakes. The channel of the Fox River, for instance, was almost hidden and choked by it. The crop was harvested by the women. Just before it ripened, they would bind the stocks in clusters, leav- ing sufficient space between them for a canoe to pass. Then, at harvest time, in September, they would guide their canoes through these little waterways, force the clusters into the canoe and pound out the grain. It was dried in the sun or upon a scaffold over a slow fire. Next, it was wrapped securely in deerskin, placed in a ditch made for the purpose and trodden upon until it was freed from the hulls. Then it was put into bark chests and stored for use during the winter. When boiled it swells prodigiously and it is both appetizing and nourishing.

Another article of the Indians was the tuberous root of a species of sun flower. The early French compared these roots to the highly esteemed truffles of their own country.

Maple sugar has been made from time immemorial by the Indians of Wisconsin. They tapped the trees early in March, using vessels of birch bark for storing

56 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

the sap, which, in May, they boiled until it turned to sugar.

Nature provided other good things for the savages. Wild apples, plums and grapes abounded — some of the Indians dried these grapes — and raspberries, blackber- ries, blueberries and cranberries were in profusion.

Of fish and game there was no limit. The skies were often black with wild fowl and the forests yielded larger game. The Indians were peculiar in the use of the fat of elk, deer, moose and buffalo to season food. Dog meat was highly esteemed as food by most of the tribes.

So much for the times of plenty. The savages, either through improvidence, the failure of their crops or the destruction of their stores of grain by hostile tribes, were often reduced to sore straits for food during the winter. Famine was a familiar visitor. Scores, even hundreds, of a tribe would die of starvation during one winter. One famine ration consisted of pulverized fish bones. Acorns were likewise eaten. Still another article of food, if so it may be called, was the bark of oak, birch, linden or whitewood trees, pounded and then mixed with fish oil or boiled in water in which fish had been cooked.

The Indians of Wisconsin appeared to the least advantage in the domestic arts. By some tribes of red men, beautiful pottery has been made for centuries, but pottery of any kind was almost an unknown art of our Indians. Instead they made dishes of bark, and these they supplemented with shells. Their bark dishes could not be used in direct contact with fire, and therefore the

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 57

Indians would fill them with water and into the water put heated stones, which would cause the water to boil.

The Indians made fire in two ways. They struck together two metallic stones, perhaps iron pyrites, and with the sparks thus produced they would light a little piece of tinder — dry, rotten wood, that burns very easily. Then they put the burning punk into pulverized cedar bark, which, aided by gentle blowing, would burst into flames. They would also make fire by rubbing sticks of dry cedar until the friction caused sparks that would ignite tinder. After the coming of the French, flints and steel, as well as "burning mirrors," were much in demand among the Indians.

Until the French came with awls and knives, bodkins of stone and bone were used by the Indian women. Deerskin was of course the principal material used in making garments. The material was plentiful and the women sometimes made large garments composed of several deerskins sewed together. Moccasins and leg- gings, handsomely embroidered, were made from the same material. So were breech-clouts. The Fox women and girls wore waist-clothes of deerskin, colored black or brown, and sometimes adorned around the edges and with little bells or with iron or copper ornaments. These ornaments were used at a later period, after the French had come. Buffalo robes were common, as those ani- mals could be hunted by most of the Indians of the state, and all of them could get them in trade with the more western or more southern tribes. The Illinois women spun the wool of the buffalo. These Indians hunted in

58 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

Wisconsin and they made good use of the skins of deer, wolf, pole-cat, beaver and otter.

Some of the Indians, particularly the Hurons and the Ottawa, wore their hair very short, so as to give their enemies as slight a hold as possible upon their scalps. They always left a lock — the scalp lock — upon the top of their heads. They painted their faces, even their whole bodies, using many colors, but especially reds and green. Charcoal was extensively used for painting their bodies.

The Indian mill was primitive indeed. A fresh log about three feet long would be "hollowed out" for a length of about two feet, making a sort of wooden mor- tar; into this the corn would be put, a pestle about five feet long, made of hardwood, being used to crush it. After being winnowed, the meal was as white as rice. It was cooked by boiling it. Sometimes fish, and even other ingredients, were cooked with it^ and then the dish was called sagamite, meaning "a variety of things mixed together to be eaten."

Most of the Indians of Wisconsin used canoes and were expert in managing them. While the Iroquois of New York, for instance, were compelled to make their canoes of elm bark, the Indians of the Great Lakes had near at hand a wealth of birch bark, an infinitely supe- rior material. Birch bark is light and tough; it is easy to peel, resembling in this respect well-defined layers of paper, and it is so durable that years after the tree falls and rots, the bark is often found intact. It is this material, together with the expert manner in which

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 59

the savages of the Great Lakes have always used it, that permits the Indian birch bark canoe to be so light and graceful. It is not more famous in literature than it has been useful in practical, every-day life. The pro- cess of its manufacture is interesting. The makers selected large birch trees and cut off the bark in as large pieces as possible. The bark was sewed together with the long, thin roots of a species of spruce, which would not rot in water. Pieces of white cedar, light, durable and elastic, were thinned and shaped into ribs, wide in the middle and narrow at the ends. These ribs were tied to cross-pieces running across the top of the canoe, and next all the ribs were fastened to strips that formed a sort of gunwale. The framework being ready, it was placed bottom down, upon the stitched bark, lying upon the ground, and then the bark was turned up over the sides of the canoe. Short posts were driven into the ground, all around the canoe, to keep frame and bark in place; the bark was stitched to the frame, holes and knots were sealed with resin, and then it was ornamented. The bottom was covered with thin slats to protect the delicate shell. The paddle, of cedar or some other light wood, was generally about four feet long and from four inches to six inches wide at the blade. Men shared with women the labor of making these canoes.

In the southern part of Wisconsin, where there was no birch bark, the Indians who used canoes at all — and some of them did not travel by water — used "dugouts," or canoes hollowed out of the trunks of trees. Butternut

60 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

was used. Though heavier than most of the other avail- able kinds of timber, the Indian believed that it resisted more successfully the effects of long contact with water, and that it withstood more effectively the frequent erosion caused by running over bowlders and beds of gravel. Not an unusual size of "dugout" was one twenty feet long, with a diameter across the gunwale at the first inside rib of twenty-one and a quarter inches, and at the second rib of twenty and a quarter inches, with a total height of eleven inches. On the inside of the bottom of the canoe, near each end, a ridge of wood, making a rude rib, was left to give strength to the sides. This support was necessary because the sides and the bottom were only from an inch to one and a half inches thick. The bottom would break very easily without this support.

The game of la crosse was one which the Indians were very fond of playing in summer. The game takes its name from the small racket (crosse) used by each player to manipulate the ball. The ball was of heavy wood, a little larger than a tennis ball, and the racket was a stick between two and three feet long, at one end of which was a small hoop-like arrangement interlaced with thongs. In this receptacle the Indians would catch the ball, and, by means of the racket, throw it with great force. There would be two goals, one at each end of the field, and the players would begin midway between these points and strive to get the ball to their oppon- ents' goal. The game was marked by the celerity of the players and their adeptness in catching and throw-

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 61

ing the ball. The Indian's fleetness of foot stood him in good stead in this game. In playing it the braves would be naked, except for breech clouts and moccasins, and they would paint their bodies in many colors. Often one village would play against another, or one tribe against another, and for large stakes, sometimes.

The Indians were fond of gambling. In the dish game, played by Wisconsin savages, eight little balls, red or black on one side and yellow or white on another, were placed in a dish, and when he who wielded the dish tossed the balls so that seven of the same color turned up, or all eight, he won, and he might continue to manip- ulate the dish until he threw fewer than seven, when his opponent would get into active play. This game was played for stakes, sometimes large stakes.

"Straws" was another game, part skill, part chance. It was played with straws or rushes about ten inches long, which were unequally divided into small bunches and passed to and fro in the hands of the players with inconceivable rapidity. Uneven numbers were lucky, and the number nine was higher than any other. The division of the straws made the game run high or low, according to the different numbers, and bets were increased, according to the different numbers, until the game was won. Sometimes village would play against village, and a game would last two or three days.

Trading was carried on among the Indians them- selves before the white men first appeared in the coun- try. Some kinds of fur were exchanged for others, as moose for buffalo, and articles that one tribe had were

62 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

bartered with some other tribe that did not have them. This trading assisted tribal intercommunication. Thus the French, when they reached the Great Lakes, were told by Indians about the sea into which the Missis- sippi emptied and vessels, or "houses that floated upon the water," which had been seen upon that sea. The Indians of the Great Lakes did not know these things from personal observation — they had simply learned them in the course of intertribal traffic and intercourse. The Indians of the Great Lakes, as soon as trade in furs began with the French, were quick to put them- selves in the position of "middle men" between the French and the more western tribes. They sought the furs of these inland folk in order to sell them to the French at an increased profit. It is an interesting fact, in this connection, that when the French began buying beaver skins, the Indians, who had been used to hunting game more suitable to subsistence, turned with reluct- ance to beaver trapping as a specialty. In the zeal of this new pursuit, with the tempting gew-gaws of the French always before their eyes, they paid less attention to general hunting and they began to depend upon the white men for many necessaries, including clothing, with which they had been wont to supply themselves from the fruits of the chase, and even for tobacco, which is essen- tially an Indian plant.

CHAPTER II WATERWAYS TO WISCONSIN

IT was through the historic gateway of the St. Lawrence River that Wisconsin was discovered and explored. The men of New France, includ- ing dwellers in Quebec, Montreal and Three Rivers, were the pioneers in reaching and in traversing what is now the State of Wisconsin; from New France was first planted in Wisconsin the religion of Christ, and the people of New France were the first to attempt to people Wisconsin.

It is almost three hundred years since the first ray of civilization penetrated into Wisconsin. That ray came from New France, and during almost the entire first half of the long period that has since elapsed, Wiscon- sin was part and parcel of the French colony whose seat was Quebec. For between six score and seven score years, in fact, Wisconsin was closed to access by and to communication with any other people or country. It was ruled, when it was ruled at all, from Quebec and from Versailles. The reign of the Gaul in Wisconsin was almost as long as the government of the Anglo- Saxon has since been.

In Wisconsin the French were in many respects worthy pioneers. They were brave, hardy and enter- prising beyond measure. To them the dangers, the pri- vations and the vastness of the inland seas and of the Western wilderness held no terror. As naturally and almost as rapidly as some birds migrate, these French- men, gay and gallant, pressed westward, ever west- ward, blazing trails that another people was destined to use, finding empires that another people was destined

66 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

to occupy. But the pioneers of that other race, all-con- quering as it was in the end, had hardly landed at Plymouth Rock when a Frenchman was exploring the Fox River in Wisconsin ; and by the time that that other people had explored the western slope of the Alleghany Mountains, Frenchmen had penetrated to the base of the Rocky Mountains. In the region of the Great Lakes, and beyond, the spirit of French civilization was ephemeral, but the spirit of French exploration was marvelous.

There were strong reasons for all this besides the spirit of adventure which the men of New France pos- sessed in so great degree and showed in so many fields of action. In this country, during those days, all travel, all inter-communication, was by water. In the settled portions of New France the farms, long, narrow strips of land, all ran down to a river, just as city houses now front upon some street. And whether it was a hab- itant going to visit a near neighbor, a priest making his round of scattered flocks, or a voyageur bent upon a journey of adventure, it was a canoe that carried him to his destination. The canoe, in brief, was a most material factor in the discovery and the exploration of Wisconsin and of the rest of the region of the Great Lakes. And it is to the general use of the canoe as a means of travel that Wisconsin owes much of its dis- tinctive importance in early history. Not only did the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers, with the Great Lakes, form the highway between Wisconsin and the French settlements near the Atlantic Coast, but in Wisconsin is

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 69

the "divide," on one side of which are the headwaters of the St. Lawrence Basin, and on the other the head- waters of the Mississippi Basin, one emptying into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the other into the Gulf of Mexico. And when it is understood that in those days of water traffic the three most practicable routes from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River ran through or by Wisconsin, it will be seen that Wisconsin was in very truth the key to the West.

One of these routes between the East and the West was up Green Bay and the Fox River to a point near the Wisconsin River at Portage, and thence down the Wisconsin to the Mississippi River. Joillet and Mar- quette followed this route in the journey which resulted in the discovery of the Mississippi River, and many years later, when John Jacob Aster's expedition, which established his ill-fated trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River, on the Pacific Coast, started upon that mission, it followed the same route. The Fox- Wiscon- sin waterway, extending in an irregular way across the State from the northeast to the southwest, was for many years a "trunk line" connecting the East and the West.

Another route to the West lay along the west shore of Lake Michigan — the eastern boundary of Wisconsin — to the vicinity of Chicago, and thence down the Illi- nois River to the Mississippi.

The other course was up the Bois Brule River, whose mouth is near the head of Lake Superior; thence by portage to the St. Croix River, and thence down to the

3

7o WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

Mississippi. Duluth's choice of this route is mem- orable.

It is necessary, in order to learn the history of Wis- consin, to start in the St. Lawrence Valley, a thousand miles away, and even to take excursions occasionally across-seas to France, the tender, careless mother of the vast colony of which Wisconsin was so long a part.

The discovery and the exploration of Canada were steps leading to the discovery and the exploration of Wisconsin and the rest of the region of the Great Lakes. In view of the adventurous character of the pioneers of Canada, and of the trend of the water highways lead- ing from their settlements, the exploration by them of the Northwest was natural, inevitable. The work of exploration, to be sure, was stimulated by the hope of large profit to be made out of the fur trade, and by the dream that a new, short route across the American Continent to the East Indies would be found, but the French settlers in Canada, shut out from the South by the Iroquois, as well as by the Dutch and the English, and not particularly attracted to the bleak and barren north, would in any event have found their way West. It was the natural outlet for their love of wandering and spirit of adventure.

France's claim to the Valley of the St. Lawrence was founded upon the explorations conducted by Giovanni da Verrazano's official expedition in 1524. He sailed along the coast from North Carolina to New Found-

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 71

land, landing at many places, even New York. He had been a corsair and was bent upon finding a way to the Indies. Ten years later Jacques Cartier, bearing France's commission, explored the coasts of Labrador and New Foundland and the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and discovered the St. Lawrence River Even he had his imagination fired by the idea of find- ing a new passage to the East Indies, and he sailed up the St. Lawrence in the hope of achieving this great dis- covery. At Quebec, called Stadeconna by the Indians, he left his three ships and in small boats ascended the river to the Indian town of Hochelaga, now Montreal. In 1534 Cartier took possession of the country in the name of his royal master. The ceremony consisted of raising a cross surmounted by the fleur-de-lis and emblaz- oned with this legend :

"FRANCISCUS PRIMUS, DE GRATIA FRANCORUM REGNAT."

France, under Verrazano's expedition, at first claimed all of the Atlantic coast south of Nova Scotia, but the Huguenot colonies in Carolina and Florida were not successful, and England effectually insisted upon her title, under the Cabot voyages, to that great stretch of coast lying between Canada and Florida. The English for many years afterward confined themselves exclu- sively to the region of tidewater, doing little of the pro- gressive pioneering for which their race is famous throughout the world. By the time that they did blaze

72 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

their way westward across the Alleghanies, their rivals, the French, had explored the Mississippi from source to mouth. The English were almost shut out from the West before they realized its value. They then began that struggle which decided the fate of a continent, which made the Anglo-Saxon the master of North America.

Not only was Samuel de Champlain the father of New France, but it was he who first pointed the way to Wisconsin. Between the time of Cartier's voyages and Champlain's appearance upon the scene, the French had made no progress in colonizing the Valley of the St. Lawrence or any other part of the continent. Cham- plain, skilled in cartography, as well as in the science of navigation, had moreover served as quartermaster in the French army, acquiring valuable experience, and he had spent two years in the West Indies and in Mex- ico, where he learned much about Spain's colonizing methods. With the permission of Henry IV., Cham- plain, in the middle of March, 1603, left Honfleur with an expedition of two vessels fitted out by Aymar de Chastes, an aged governor of Dieppe, who aimed to head a colony in the new land that had been opened to French possession. Champlain did not command the expedition, but he bore the King's command to bring back to court a careful report of the expedition's explo- rations. One of the ships was commanded by Font- grave, who had already made several fur-trading expe- ditions to the New World.

SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN.

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 75

From Tadoussac, the headquarters of the expedition, to Montreal, the bays and the tributaries of the St. Lawrence were carefully explored. The boats used could not ascend Lachine Rapids, above Montreal, but near that place Champlain learned from the Indians of the existence of copper in the region of the Great Lakes. In September, 1603, the expedition returned to Havre de Grace, where Champlain was told that Aymar de Chastes had died. Champlain wrote a report of his explorations and it was soon published with the sanc- tion of the king. It aroused renewed interest in the new land.

Two months later the Sieur de Monts obtained a com- mission to engage in the fur trade with the Indians, and he formed an association of merchants to carry out the enterprise. His expedition consisted of two vessels, one commanded by himself and the other by Pontgrave. Champlain accompanied him as geographer and there were artisans and soldiers to form a colony. This attempt at colonization was unsuccessful, and of no historical importance, but between May, 1604, and the summer of 1607, Champlain explored more than a thousand miles of sea coast. At the time not a single European settlement existed on the Atlantic Coast from New Foundland to Mexico. In recognition of the important work that he had done, Champlain was named lieutenant-governor when the second expedition, organized by De Monts, sailed for the theater of action.

To plant a colony on the River St. Lawrence was one of the chief objects of this exploration, and on July

76 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

3, 1608, Champlain, taking possession of what is now Quebec, established a settlement that soon became the capital of New France. The next spring, with sixty Indian warriors — Montagnais, Hurons and Algonkins — and two French arquebusiers, Champlain ascended the River Richelieu for a distance of about 150 miles. Near Ticonderoga they encountered 200 Iroquois Indians of the Mohawk tribe, who, in elm-bark canoes, were seeking their old-time enemies, the Indians of the North, represented by Champlain's savage escort. A battle was of course the result. Champlain, according to his promise to aide his allies, fired his arquebus at the Indians with deadly effect, and the two other French- men, attacking in flank, did likewise. The Iroquois, wholly unused to the sound of fire arms, were seized by consternation, and fled to escape an enemy who to them seemed supernatural. Champlain, upon returning, gave his name to the lake which still bears it.

This, the first battle between the Frehch and the Iro- quois, was disastrous to the red men, but the price which the French had to pay subsequently made their victory a dear one. For many decades afterward, the Iroquois waged war upon the colony on the St. Lawrence, some- times giving battle under the very walls of the settle- ments and often disheartening the leaders of the colony as to its future. And they became the allies of New France's other enemies, the Dutch and the English of New York.

One other effect of this encounter was a deflection of the course of French exploration in North America.

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 77

The Iroquois occupied the region between the Hudson and Lake Ontario. Not only did their hostility shut out the French from what is now the State of New York, but inasmuch as the Iroquois commanded Lake Ontario and the Upper St. Lawrence River, the French could not seek the West by way of the Lower Lakes. The only route that remained open to them, and even that was often patrolled by Iroquois war parties who massacred Frenchmen and their red allies, was the Ottawa River, and thence, by way of the Mattawan River, Lake Nipissing, and French River, to Georgian Bay and the Upper Lakes. This is one important rea- son why the French reached the Mississippi River before they did the Ohio, why Wisconsin was well explored by the French before they had hardly visited Detroit, and why, when Detroit was founded almost a century after Champlain's battle with the Iroquois, its founder reached its site by way of the Ottawa River and the Upper Lakes.

Champlain arrived in France in October, 1609, to make a report to the King, and when he returned to Quebec in the spring of 1610, it was as lieutenant-gen- eral of the colony. He had planned to conduct an explo- ration up the Ottawa River and toward Lake Superior, but his Indian friends insisted upon his help in another battle with the Iroquois, near Lake Champlain, and once more the latter suffered a crushing defeat.

In 1613 Nicolas de Vignau, a young Frenchman who had spent a winter on the Upper Ottawa, reported that he had gone north to a salt sea (Hudson Bay), where

78 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

he had found the wreck of an English ship whose crew of eighty men had been slain by the Indians. Cham- plain, in order to investigate this statement, proceeded as far up the Ottawa as the Isle des Allumettes, where, from the Indians, and from Vignau's own confession, he discovered that the young man's story utterly lacked truth. Disappointed, Champlain returned to Quebec, but not without having explored the Ottawa for a dis- tance of two hundred miles.

In 161 1 he established a trading post at what is now Montreal.

It was not until 1615 that any important exploration toward the West was accomplished, and then the object of the expedition was war upon the Indians. The allied tribes prevailed upon the French to organize a punitory expedition against the Iroquois. A rendezvous near Lake Simcoe was appointed and on July 9, Champlain, accompanied by a servant, an interpreter and ten sav- ages, ascended the Ottawa and reached Georgian Bay by way of the Mattawan, Lake Nipissing and French River. They coasted Georgian Bay until they reached the present County of Simcoe, where Le Caron, a Recol- lect priest who had gone as a missionary to the Hurons in that vicinity, and eight Frenchmen, members of his company, as well as many scores of Indians, joined Champlain. Crossing Lake Simcoe, they passed to Lake Ontario, near Kingston, and thence by land to Oneida Lake, where the Iroquois had built a great fort, the objective point of the expedition. Although Cham- plain tried to direct the battle, and the French, with their

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 79

firearms, killed and wounded not a few of the Iroquois, the fort was successfully defended and the allies retreated with Champlain, who had been slightly wounded. He passed the winter among the Hurons in Simcoe and he reached Quebec in the spring. This journey had carried him a total distance of fully 1,600 miles, and he had not only done a great deal of explor- ing, but he had opened the door leading to the West.

Among Champlain's companions as far as the Huron villages on this expedition was Etienne Brule. As early as 1 609, an Algonkin chief who visited Quebec showed the French a large piece of copper, saying that it came from the banks of a tributary of a great lake. The Indians of that region, he said, melted the lumps of copper and beat them into sheets. Brule, some years subsequent to Champlain's visit to Lake Huron, traveled still farther West and returned to Quebec with a large piece of copper and with a description of a lake like Lake Superior and falls like those at Sault Ste. Marie. He may have penetrated the interior as far as the Sault.

CHAPTER III

NICOLET'S DISCOVERY OF THE NORTHWEST

STRIKING and attractive in a marked degree is the figure that Jean Nicolet cuts in the early history of Wisconsin. He was the discoverer of the region that now includes the state, and he was its first explorer as well. Few incidents in American history equal in dar- ing and in romantic interest Nicolet's voyage to the very heart of Wisconsin in the year 1634.

Nicolet was born at or near Cherbourg, in France. Thomas Nicolet, his father, was a mail carrier employed between Cherbourg and Paris. His mother's maiden name was Marguerite de la Mer, or Delamer. Young Nicolet arrived in New France in 1618, while he was still a very young man. Champlain, discerning and far- seeing, speedily employed him to assist in spreading French influence among the savage natives. Nicolet was sent to the Algonkins as an interpreter. This was a post of honor as well as of danger. The most prom- ising youths of New France, in fact, were sent to live among the Indians, with instructions to learn their languages, to study their habits and to acquire as much information as possible about their country and its resources. Charles Le Moyne, afterward Lord of Lon- gueuil, founder of one of the greatest of Canada's French families, and father of Iberville and Bienville, began his career as an interpreter. So did the founders of several other noted families.

It was to the Isle des Allumettes, on the Ottawa River, a hundred leagues from Quebec, that Nicolet was first sent. The savages with whom he was to live

83

84 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

were called Algonkins of the Isle. With no companion of his own race, he spent two years among them, shar- ing their hardships and their perils, and never once seeing a white man's face. All Indians are improvident, and during winter, in those early days, not infrequently they were decimated by famine. Nicolet, as the guest of the Algonkins, fared no better and no worse than did many other French pioneers. Bark was his only nour- ishment for one period of seven weeks. One whole week he went without food.

Before he left the Isle des Allumettes, Nicolet accom- panied four hundred of the Indians on a successful mis- sion of peace to the Iroquois. Afterward he was sta- tioned among the Nipissings, in the region of the lake of that name. The Nipissings were sometimes called Sorcerers by the French, and their river — French River — is sometimes called the River of the Sorcerers. Nico- let entered thoroughly into the life of these Indians. He became one of them, taking part in their pow-wows and exercising much influence over them. He prepared notes describing their manner of life and their customs, and these fell into the hands of Father Le Jeune, one of the earliest Jesuit missionaries, to whom they were appar- ently presented by Nicolet himself. Nicolet remained with the Nipissings for many years, including the period, apparently, of the British occupation of Quebec, follow- ing its capture by David Kirke in 1629. Quebec was restored to the French in 1632 and Nicolet returned to that settlement. Of a religious nature, he longed for the sacraments of his Church, and credence may be

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 85

given to a statement that he requested his recall from life among the savages. He became clerk and interpre- ter at Quebec of the Company of the Hundred Associ- ates, which at that time controlled the destinies of New France. Cardinal Richlieu himself was the head of the Company, and Champlain was a member of it and its agent in New France.

The French continued to hear more and more about the country lying beyond Lake Huron. They had a fairly accurate idea of Lakes Superior and Michigan, even of Green Bay, and they listened to stories of strange people (the Winnebago Indians) who dwelt upon a river (the Fox) emptying into Green Bay. These Indians were kinsmen of the Sioux, being, in fact, the eastern branch of the great group of the Dakotahs. Their name is derived from Ouinipeg, an Algonkin word meaning "bad smelling water." It was thus that they termed salt water, and they themselves were called "Men of the Sea," or "Men of the Salt Water." This referred to the origin of the Winnebago, who, according to tradition, once lived about the border of a sea far to the westward.

With such a man as Champlain at the head of New France, with so able a lieutenant as Nicolet to obey his beck and call, it needed only the discovery of the exist- ence of the "Men of the Sea" to dazzle the French with a brilliant dream-picture, the hope of finding a new water-route to the Orient and its fabled riches. It was this hope that had inspired Columbus to his great enter- prise, while Verrazzano, Cartier, Champlain and later

86 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

explorers, even those who founded the Hudson Bay Company, dreamed the same dream. It is a marvelous fact that the discovery of America and the exploration of the interior of North America, particularly of Wis- consin, are the results of the pursuit by many men, in many directions, of this will-o'-the-wisp. Nicolet's expe- dition, however, had practical objects in view as well. Champlain and his employers realized the wealth that could be gained in the trade of furs, and one declared aim of Nicolet was to restore peace between the Win- nebago on one side and the Hurons and other Georgian Bay Indians on the other side. It was to the interest of the French that peace should prevail among the tribes along the water route to the west, even to Wisconsin, for war hurt the fur trade. To the same end it was Nicolet's aim to establish friendly communications and commercial intercourse between the French and the Indians of the strange West. And it is interesting to realize, in this connection, that the only definite, prac- tical result of Nicolet's long and dangerous journey to Wisconsin, the only definite, practical result of the long French regime in the Northwest which followed Nico- let's voyage of discovery, was an accession to the fur trade enjoyed by the French settlements on the Lower St. Lawrence.

Nicolet is supposed to have started for the West early in July, 1634, simultaneously with the establishment of the Jesuit missions among the Hurons. His route was up the Ottawa past his old station, the Isle des Allu- mettes; thence up the Mattawan, a tributary of the

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 87

Ottawa, and, by easy portage, to Lake Nipissing, near the source of the Mattawan ; thence across Lake Nipis- sing and down the French River to the waters of Geor- gian Bay. At this point, instead of preceding directly to the West, Nicolet went out of his way to visit the Huron country, near the head of Georgian Bay. His apparent object was to inform the Hurons, with whose language he was familiar, that the governor of New France desired to establish peace between them and the Winnebago. Re-embarking with seven Indians, prob- ably Hurons, Nicolet went back to the mouth of French River, and thence resolutely began his memorable journey westward to regions never before visited by a white man. Travel by canoe is slow indeed, as he found, but finally, after coasting the north shore of Georgian Bay, he reached Sault Ste. Marie, on the river of that name, which separates Canada from Northern Michi- gan, and connects Lake Superior with Lake Huron. At the foot of the rapids, Nicolet and his Indians rested after their arduous voyage. It has been surmised that Nicolet, while at the Sault, ascended St. Mary's River far enough to get a view of the end of Lake Superior, but had he in any degree explored Lake Superior, there would surely be some record of the fact, especially as his achievements are set forth, in the chronicles of his time, with not a little particularity.

Turning southward once more, Nicolet soon reached

the island of Mackinac, or Michillimackinac, about

which so many Indian traditions clustered, and in which

•so much romantic history has since centered. He was

4

88 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

the first white man to reach the island and from it he saw what no other white man had ever before seen — the blue expanse of Lake Michigan, the great inland sea along whose shores are now four of the most import- ant of American commonwealths.

In its day this lake has had many names, and its present name is simply a form of its earliest name, as the Indians called it Michigonong. At an early day the French called it Mitchiganon, but Lake of the Illinois, Lake St. Joseph and Lake Dauphin were other names they used. Great Algonquin Lake and Lake of the Puants are other names which have also been used to designate Lake Michigan.

Leaving Mackinac, Nicolet coasted the northern shore of Lake Michigan, passed what are now pop- ulous cities, like Manistique and Escanaba, and fin- ally reached the mouth of the Menominee River, the boundary between Northern Michigan and Wisconsin. The Menominee Indians whom Nicolet met at the mouth of the River, within range of the sites of the present cities of Menominee and Marinette, were a rather numerous tribe of Algonkin stock, who have always lived in that region, and who survive in fairly large numbers to this day. Their name comes from the Algonkin word Malhominies, meaning wild rice, which was formerly their principal food. The French called this grain folles avoines — wild oats, and because they subsisted almost entirely upon this grain, the French called the Menominee Les Folles Avoines. The Men- ominee were skilled in the chase and expert in fishing.

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 89

Nicolet is authority for the statement that they were of lighter complexion than any other Indians whom he had ever seen.

Nicolet was now near the mysterious "People of the Sea." He sent one of his Indians ahead to announce his coming and his messenger was well received. Nico- let himself, believing that he was to meet an Oriental people, arrayed himself in a robe of damask cloth he had brought along for the purpose, and strode in among them. In his theatrical costume, he looked supernatural to the Indians, an effect that was heightened by his repeatedly firing his pistol into the air. The Winnebago had never seen a white man, nor heard the noise of fire- arms, and Nicolet's coming formed a new epoch in their history. They feasted him, danced for him and paid him all the honors possible. Meanwhile, undoubtedly, he was recovering from his disappointment in finding squalid savages where he had expected to see opulent and at least semi-civilized folk of the Orient.

Nicolet's mission to the Winnebago proved to be suc- cessful in every way. He not only won from them a promise not to make war upon the Hurons any longer, but, adept as he was in the arts of Indian diplomacy, he did much to inculcate in them a friendly spirit toward the French. The hardy Norman, however, had other work to do before he returned to the St. Lawrence. The Valley of the Fox, he heard, was not only beautiful to see, but it was inhabited by many savage people. In its waters wild rice, a staple of Indian life in Wiscon- sin, grew in profusion; wild fowl disported themselves

,3

'. f

9o WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

in the river in such numbers as to cause wonder; the river teemed with fish, including stupendous sturgeon, and deer and other game abounded in the surrounding forests. Even in those days, almost three hundred years ago, the Fox Valley was just what it is to-day — the most thickly populated valley in Wisconsin. Nicolet quickly realized that he was nearer more and larger Indian tribes than had ever before gathered in so small a terri- tory anywhere, so far as he knew, and he determined not to set his foot toward home until he had learned more about them. After being a guest at many Indian feasts, during one of which six score beavers were served, Nico- let ascended the Fox River still farther to Lake Winne- bago, crossed the lake and re-entered the river, up which he traveled until he reached the village of the Mascoutens, whose name signifies that they came from a land bare of trees — a prairie, in other words. The name, in various forms, is now borne by different places in the Northwest. The Mascouten village was about a league from the Fox River, and probably near Ber- lin, in Green Lake County. It was in a large prairie. The Mascoutens were of Algonkin stock and strong and warlike. While he was among them, Nicolet gained information regarding the Mississippi River, but either he misunderstood the Indians or the author of the Jesuit Relation of 1643 misunderstood him> f°r m tnat account he was credited with saying that "had he sailed three days more," he would have found the sea. What the Indians probably told him was that if he journeyed up the Fox River three days longer, he would reach a trib-

93

utary (the Wisconsin River, at Portage) of "the great water" which flowed into the sea.

But Nicolet attempted to go no farther west. Instead, he descended the Fox River to Green Bay, where he visited the Potawatomi, inhabiting the islands at its mouth, and then went home, stopping in the Huron country, by the route he had followed in coming out into the west.

It was probably in July, 1635, just a year after his departure for the west, when Nicolet returned to the St. Lawrence River settlements. Champlain died the following Christmas. His immediate successors lacked his pioneering spirit and for at least a score of years western explorations were destined to be forgotten, at least not undertaken again. No doubt the warfare waged by the Iroquois Indians upon the French and their Indian allies had some effect in preventing the French from following up Nicolet's achievement in the interior of Wisconsin.

Nicolet resumed his position of commissary and in- terpreter at Three Rivers. "Le Sieur Jean Nicolet" he is repeatedly called in the Jesuit Relations of the period, indicating that the man and his work had won the recog- nition which they merited. He was married on the yth of October, 1637, to Marguerite Couillard, a god-child of Champlain, and a daughter of Guillaume Couillard and Guillamette Hebert. One daughter was born to them.

Early in October, 1642, Nicolet was summoned to Quebec to succeed M. Oliver le Tardiff, his brother-in-

94 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

law, as general commissary of the Company of One Hundred Associates. It was a pleasant change for Nico- let, who, in the prime of manhood, was just beginning to enjoy a life of comparative comfort, when he was drowned in the St. Lawrence River, on the 2 7th day of October, 1642, while hastening in a launch to rescue an Indian prisoner, whom some Algonkin allies of the French were torturing. A tempest suddenly came up and the launch filled with water and sank. Nicolet, who could not swim, went bravely to his death. "I am going to God. I commend to you my wife and daugh- ter," he cried to M. de Savigny, his principal companion. Nicolet and three other men were drowned and M. de Savigny narrowly escaped the same fate. Nicolet's piety, bravery and devotion to duty had won the high esteem of the few hundred people who lived on the St. Lawrence River at that time, and all mourned the loss of the intrepid man from Normandy who had opened the door to the Great West.

CHAPTER IV DISCOVERY OF LAKE SUPERIOR

DARING and hardy far more than most of those voyageurs who have filled the annals of the Northwest with romance and adventure, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Medard Chouart des Groseilliers are to the history of the Lake Superior country what Jean Nicolet is to the history of the Lake Michigan region.

Following the footsteps of Nicolet, there came to Wisconsin two nameless voyageurs, who, according to the Jesuit Relations of 1656, returned to Quebec in August of that year from a voyage of two years to the region of Green Bay. There is some reason to suppose that these two men were Radisson and Groseilliers, for Radisson, in his memoirs, claims that he and Groseilliers journeyed to the Far West at about that time. If his claim is true, he and Groseilliers were the two nameless voyageurs of 1654-56, but, unless they were the name- less voyageurs, Radisson's whole story about a voyage made to the Lake Michigan region prior to his authen- ticated voyage to Lake Superior is not to be credited.

Keeping in mind the fact that the voyage of the name- less explorers, chronicled in the Jesuit Relations for 1656 occupied two years, it is necessary to note that Radisson did not reach New France until the spring of 1651 ; that he was captured by the Mohawks in 1652, and did not regain his liberty until the spring of 1654; that Radisson and Groseilliers were members of the French colony which went into the Onondaga country in New York in 1657, and that they, with other colonists,

97

98 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

after barely escaping with their lives, fled to the French settlements. In 1660, Radisson and Groseilliers returned from their voyage to Lake Superior, and it is certain that they never afterward went west. The only period during which they could have visited the region of Green Bay was between the spring of 1654 and the fall of 1656; hence the contention that either they were the explorers of 1654-56, whom the Jesuit Relations mention, though not by name, or that Radisson "drew the long bow" when he described an earlier western voyage than that which he and Groseilliers made to Lake Supe- rior.

The problem presented becomes all the more import- ant in view of the theory, advanced by not a few, that Radisson and Groseilliers, prior to this Lake Superior voyage, actually discovered the Upper Mississippi River. The theory rests solely upon Radisson's unsup- ported statement. The portion of his narrative relat- ing to this discovery lacks the coherence and convinc- ing quality of the corroborated portions of his memoirs. It is apparent, however, that Radisson means to claim that he and Groseilliers explored Lake Michigan; that they visited the Potawatomi and the Mascoutens, as Nicolet had done; that they spent some time on Lake Superior, not far above Sault Ste. Marie, and that they not only discovered the Upper Mississippi River, but that they descended it almost if not quite to the Gulf of Mexico.

The claim of Radisson and Groseilliers to the honor of exploring Lake Michigan and the central part of

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 99

Wisconsin depends entirely upon their being identical with the nameless voyageurs of 1654-6. When com- pared with established history in relation to those unnamed travelers, Radisson's statements are full of contradictions. The men mentioned in the Jesuit Rela- tions report spending only two years in the west, whereas Radisson, three different times, says that he and Groseil- liers did not return until the end of the third year, which would be the summer of 1657. Now, Groseilliers, who was sergeant-major of the garrison of Three Rivers in February, 1654, was again at Three Rivers on Septem- ber 29th, 1656, so that he might have been west during the period of 1654-56, which is that of the nameless voy- ageurs, but it is certain that he was at Three Rivers about a year before the time when, according to Radis- son's statement, he and Groseilliers returned from the West.

There are other weak points in Radisson's narrative, but those already set forth demonstrate that his descrip- tion of a voyage to Lake Michigan is false in its entirety unless he and Groseilliers were really the explorers of Wisconsin (during 1654-56) whom the Jesuit Rela- tions do not name. And, even if the nameless ones who did visit Wisconsin during 1654-56 were Radisson and Groseilliers, Radisson as already pointed out, is con- victed of falsehood in regard to the time that the voy- age occupied, as well as to the extent of country which he and Groseilliers explored during their voyage. Rad- isson's claim of having anticipated Jolliet and Mar- quette in the discovery of the Upper Mississippi River,

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ioo WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

to say nothing of his claim of having descended that stream to its mouth years before La Salle's descent to the Gulf of Mexico, cannot be conceded, except upon strong evidence. As a matter of fact, it is supported by the weakest kind of testimony, the word of a man, who, like many another traveler of his time, related as facts things that he imagined or invented. A perjured witness is not to be believed. Under the most favorable view of the case that the facts warrant, Radisson and Groseillers, if they engaged in a western voyage at all previous to their exploration of Lake Superior, did lit- tle or nothing more, in the way of exploration, than Jean Nicolet had done twenty years before.

Their Lake Superior voyage, however, gives Radis- son and Groseilliers conspicuous places in Wisconsin history. It is a satisfaction to turn from the narrative, more or less false, perhaps wholly so, of a voyage to Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River, to the story of their real achievements a few years later.

In August, 1660, as we learn from the Jesuit Rela- tions of that year, there returned to Quebec two name- less voyageurs who had explored the southern shore of Lake Superior, had visited the Hurons — fugitives first from the Iroquois and then from the Sioux — near the headwaters of the Black River, in northern Wisconsin, and who had been guests of honor in the skin lodges and the mud cabins of the Sioux of northern Minnesota. These men were Radisson and Groseilliers.

Radisson was the son of Sebastien-Hayet Radisson and Madeleine Herault, and he was a native of St.

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 101

Malo, in Brittany. He was a mere youth when on May 2ist, 1651, he settled with his parents at Three Rivers, on the St. Lawrence, nearly midway between Quebec and Montreal.

Groseilliers was born in Brie, France, of humble parents. He came to America some time before he was twenty-one years of age, and entered the service of the Jesuits in the capacity of donne, or volunteer lay helper. He remained in that service a number of years. In 1646, having become familiar with the region lying between the French settlements and Lake Huron, as well as conversant with the Huron and Algonkin languages, he engaged in the fur trade with the Huron Indians.

Groseilliers married twice. On September 3rd, 1647, he married Helene Martin, a daughter of Abraham Martin, whose name is borne by the historic plains of Quebec. She was the widow of Claude Etienne and a goddaughter of the great Champlain, who had given to her the Christian name of his own wife. She died in 1651, and on August 24th, 1653, Groseilliers married Marguerite Hayet, also a widow, sister of the man who was destined to be his almost inseparable com- panion.

Radisson has given us a record of his wanderings, but it was not until 1885 that his Journal was published, the credit for printing this valuable contribution to Ameri- can history being due to the Prince Society of Boston. The manuscript of Radisson's first four voyages, includ- ing two journeys to the West in company with Groseil- liers, are in the Bodleian Library, while narratives of

102 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

subsequent experiences at Hudson Bay are in the Brit- ish Museum. Before they were lodged in these secure places, the Radisson manuscripts were nearly lost at one time, being treated as worthless. They were finally res- cued by collectors.

Radisson and Groseilliers, leaving the French settle- ments contrary to the mandate of the French King's rep- resentatives at Quebec, reached the mouth of the French River and turned westward along Georgian Bay, and were soon at Sault Ste Marie, where they rested and feasted. Radisson says that at that place they found the truth of what the Indians had often said, that they "should make good cheare of fish that they call Assick- mack, which signifieth a white fish. The beare, the cast- ors, and ye Oriniack showed themselves often, but to their cost; indeed, it was to us like a terrestriall para- dise." From the Sault the explorers went to Chequa- megon Bay. Radisson gives us very clear descriptions of the places that they passed on the way, including the Grand Portal, to which he gave his Christian name, and Keweenaw Bay and Keweenaw Point. They portaged across Keweenaw Point. Their Huron companions, who had accompanied them all the way from the lower St. Lawrence, left them at Chequamegon Bay to visit their own nation, which at that time dwelt in northwestern Wisconsin, some distance inland.

On the shore of Chequamegon Bay, near Whittlesey's Creek or Shore's Landing, Radisson and Groseilliers built a little hut, the first structure erected by white men on the shore of Lake Superior. Radisson's description

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WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 105

of it is interesting. He says : "We went about to make a fort of stakes, wch was in this manner. Suppose that the water side had ben in one end ; att the same end there should be murtherers, and att need we made a bastion in a triangle to defend us from an assault. The doore was neare the watter side, our fire was in the midle, and our bed on the right hand, covered. There were boughs of trees all about our fort layed across, one uppon another. Besides these boughs, we had a long cord tyed wth some small bells, wch weare senteryes."

Within two weeks fifty Hurons came and escorted the two white men to their village, which was situate "five great days' journeys" inland. After the usual winter hunt, the Hurons and the explorers met again near a small lake and soon a large number of Ottawa joined them. Five hundred of these Indians died of famine, and Radisson's description of the scenes of horror that were enacted in that dismal winter camp, upon the site of which may now be one of the flourishing towns of northern Wisconsin, would be hard to excel in graphic power. They ate the bark of trees, powder made of bones, filthy furs. "We became the image of death," Radisson writes. "We mistook ourselves very often, taking the living for the dead and ye dead for the liv- ing."

Later in the winter the Frenchmen and their Indian companions wandered into the Sioux country, between the St. Croix and upper Mississippi Rivers, and were vis- ited by the Sioux. Somewhere in that country, according to Radisson, the Indians built a fort 600 by 603 feet.

106 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

Radisson visited the Christinoes, at three days' journey, and he and Groseilliers spent six weeks in a Sioux camp which was seven days' journey from the big fort. They returned to Chequamegon Bay before Lake Superior was free of ice and Radisson says that from that point they went to the Bay of the North, as Hudson Bay was called by the French in those days. Radisson speaks of finding on the shore of Hudson Bay barracks that Euro- peans had built, and there is no doubt that he claims for himself and Groseilliers the honor of reaching Hud- son Bay by an inland route. He says that they returned from the Bay by another river than that by which they had reached it. About the middle of winter they reached the big fort which the Indians had built in north- ern Minnesota and during the following summer they returned to the French settlements.

This voyage terminated in August, 1660, and Radis- son and Groseilliers are the two nameless explorers of Lake Superior whose achievements are "recorded in the Jesuit Relations of that year. Radisson himself says that in returning from the Lake Superior voyage, he and Groseilliers passed the Long Sault, on the Ottawa River, very soon after the massacre of Dollard and his companions by the Iroquois, a memorable event in early Canadian history, which occurred in May, 1 660. More- over, on the outward voyage, when he gave his own name to the Grand Portal, he says that he was the first Christian that had seen it, a statement that would not be true had the Lake Superior voyage taken place at a later date, for Father Menard, the first clergyman to set foot

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 107

upon Wisconsin soil, passed the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior in the fall of 1660. With the exception of his story about going to Hudson Bay, Radisson's narrative of his Lake Superior voyage tallies with what the Jesuit Relations of 1 660 say about the two nameless explorers and the places they saw, the Indians whom they visited and the customs of those Indians.

The situation, summed up briefly, is simply this : The Jesuit Relations tell us of two Frenchmen who went to the head of Lake Superior, visited the Hurons and the Sioux and returned in August, 1660. Radisson des- cribes a similar journey by himself and Groseilliers, and while he makes no direct statement of the time of his return, his narrative shows that it was in the summer of 1660. Finally, The Journal of the Jesuits, a sort of official diary kept by the Jesuit Superior at Quebec, sets at rest any possible doubt on the subject by mentioning the arrival of the same Indian flotilla that brought down to Quebec the two Frenchmen who are nameless in the Jesuit Relations, and by supplying the name of Gro- seilliers as one of them.

It is difficult to accept Radisson's statement that he and Groseilliers, during their Lake Superior voyage, penetrated to Hudson Bay. Pierre-Esprit Radisson, on April 25th, 1659, at Three Rivers, was godfather of a daughter of Groseilliers, Father Menard performing the ceremony, and the Jesuit Relations and the Journal of the Jesuits show that both Radisson and Groseilliers, on their Lake Superior voyage, which ended in August, 1660, were gone only a year, too short a time for them

to cover all the other territory that they really appear to have traveled and to visit Hudson Bay as well.

Radisson and Groseillers had gone to Lake Superior against the Governor's wishes, and when they returned, Radisson says, they lost most of their valuable furs by confiscation, a mode of punishment profitable to the Governor, according to the explorer. Groseilliers, in the fall of 1660, the season that ships usually left for France, went to Paris to obtain justice. He could not have returned before the following spring or early summer. He spent six months in France, unsuccessful at court, but came back with the promise of a Rochelle merchant to send a ship the following spring to take him and Radisson to Hudson Bay, of which, during their Lake Superior voyage, they had heard much, though they had not visited it. Disappointed by the Rochelle merchant, they engaged with some Boston merchants to undertake a voyage to Hudson Bay, and in the spring of 1663 they started for that region, which, on account of its richness in furs, they longed to reach; but at Hudson Straits the captain turned back, his plea being inadequate provision. At Boston they made another engagement to go to Hudson Bay, merchants agreeing to equip two ships for them. The ships were not fur- nished and litigation with the Boston merchants resulted, our adventurers being unsuccessful. This must have been in 1664. The following year some of the Eng- lish commissioners appointed to attend to the evacua- tion of New York by the Dutch induced the two Frenchmen to go from Boston to England and urge the

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 109

establishment of fur-trading centers at Hudson Bay, which, although it had been explored many years before by English navigators, including Hudson and Button, had never been settled by any nation.

In England, Radisson and Groseilliers won the favor of Prince Rupert and were granted an audience by Charles II., who at that time, on account of the plague in London, held court at Oxford. The King granted the adventurers forty shillings a week and chambers at Windsor and promised them a ship in the spring of 1666. But it was not until 1668 that the proposed expedition to Hudson Bay started, and then a storm drove Radisson's ship, (the Eagle, Captain Stannard,) back to England, while the Nonsuch, which bore Gro- seilliers and was commanded by Captain Zachary Gil- lam, went on to Hudson Bay. The result of the expe- dition was the establishment during the same year of a fort at the mouth of the Nemiskau River, now known as Rupert's River, at the head of James Bay, where Fort Rupert stands to-day. The following year Radis- son himself took possession of Port Nelson in the name of the King of England. It was in 1668, after being forced back to England, that Radisson finished his account of his Lake Superior voyage.

Our two adventurers thus became the promoters of the Hudson's Bay company, which was chartered in 1670 by Charles II., Prince Rupert being at the head of it. The company was given exclusive possession of Hudson Bay and of all the territory drained by the streams running into it. In return for this royal grant,

no WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

Charles II. modestly stipulated that the company was to give him every year two elks and two black beavers.

About the time that the Hudson's Bay company was chartered, Radisson married a daughter of John Kirke, one of the charter members of the company, and a descendant of one of the Kirkes who in 1629 forced Champlain to surrender Quebec to the English. Some time after the incorporation of the Hudson Bay's Com- pany, John Kirke was knighted by Charles II.

Radisson and Groseilliers, who meantime had been active at Hudson Bay, in English interests, were par- doned by Louis XIV. and re-appeared in New France in 1678. Frontenac had no employment for them, however, and Radisson joined the French fleet which reduced the island of Tobago and other Dutch posses- sions in the West Indies. Groseilliers remained with his family at Three Rivers. In 1681, after he had twice visited England to persuade his wife to live with him in France, Radisson appeared again at Quebec and entered the service of the Company of the North. He and Groseilliers were placed in command of two ships and sailed for Hudson Bay to plant a French establish- ment. They anchored at Hayes River. They had many adventures, including the capture of the English Governor, one Bridger. The ship which had brought Bridger to the bay was commanded by Captain Zach- ary Gillam, to whom navigation in those northern waters seemed to have no terrors. In the winter of 1682-3 Gillam's ship was crushed by the ice and he was drowned. His son, who had charge of a Boston ship,

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 1 1 1

was captured by the French by strategy and his vessel was seized. Leaving a son of Groseilliers in charge of Fort Nelson, and sending Bridger to James Bay, Radis- son and Groseilliers went to Quebec. De la Barre, the Governor of New France, returned the Boston ship to its owners, and for so doing was reprimanded by Seigne- lay, the French Minister of Marine, who said the Eng- lish would not fail to use the surrender of the ship to strengthen their claim to Nelson River.

On April loth, 1684, Louis XIV. wrote to de la Barre that the British King had complained to him about the acts of Radisson and Groseilliers. The French King suggested to his representative in New France that it would be well to propose to the commandant at Hudson Bay that neither the French nor the English should have power to make any new establishments in that region, the wily monarch adding that the proposition would no doubt be readily accepted, as the English had no power to prevent his subjects from forming establish- ments at Nelson River, at that time a French possession.

It was late in 1683 when Radisson and Groseilliers returned to Quebec from Hudson Bay and a few weeks later they were in Paris. Lord Preston, the English ambassador, who had been complaining about their acts at Hudson Bay, induced them to re-enter the Hud- son's Bay Company's service. Radisson, leaving Gro- seilliers in England, sailed early in the spring of 1684 for Hudson Bay, and took possession for the French post at Nelson River, as well as of a large quantity of valuable furs which the French had obtained since the

ii2 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

previous year. Young Groseilliers, according to Radis- son, promptly surrendered the post. The furs taken from the French were twenty thousand in number and they were sold for £7,000. Radisson went back to London the same year.

For returning to the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, Radisson had been promised £50 a year, £200 of stock in the Company and £20 to equip him for the trip to Port Nelson. Groseilliers was to receive twenty shillings a week. When Radisson, laden with the spoil of the French post at Nelson River, returned to England, the Company rewarded him with a gra- tuity of one hundred guineas. Groseilliers not having joined Radisson in re-entering the Company's service, his stipend of twenty shillings a week was transferred to his son, Radisson's nephew, at Hudson Bay. The younger Groseilliers was engaged by the Company for four years at £100 a year. Shortly afterward, Radisson had a dispute with the Company about his own salary, and it was finally arranged that he should have £100 a year, and that upon his death £300 in cash and £100 in stock should be paid to his wife. The Company seemed desirous of pleasing Radisson, for it sent to him at Hudson Bay a hogshead of claret, "such as Mr. R. shall like." Radisson returned to England October of that year.

It is recorded that in 1685 Radisson and his nephew had gone up Hayes, or St. Theresa River, intending to spend the winter. In 1686 de Troyes and Iberville, with a company of other French-Canadians, marched

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 113

overland from the St. Lawrence and captured Forts Hayes, Rupert and Albany. Denonville, in a letter to his superiors, afterward stated that he had ordered de Troyes to capture only the fort which contained Radisson, for whom a reward had been authorized. The expedition did not capture Radisson, however, for in March, 1687, Louis XIV. himself wrote to Denon- ville that Radisson had done a great deal of harm to the colony and was likely to do more. He advised the capture of Radisson, and if he could not be captured, he suggested that an attempt be made to prevail upon him to leave the service of the English. To this end the King authorized the Governor and the Intendant of New France to make any suitable terms with him.

In October of that year Radisson reached England from Hudson Bay. In June, 1688, he again went to Hudson Bay. He seems to have been successful in mak- ing money for the Company and for himself as well, for in 1688 he received a dividend of £100, being fifty per cent, upon his £200 of stock, and in 1689 a dividend of twenty-five per cent, was paid to him. "The great dividend" of 1690 yielded him £150 on his holding of £200 worth of stock. In 1692, however, owing to French rivalry at the Bay, which reduced the Company's profits, Radisson was being paid only £50 a year. He, in consequence, found himself unable to support his wife and four or five children, as, of the £50, the sum of £24 went for house rent alone. A petition to the Company, in his behalf, states that unless it grants relief to him, he will be compelled to abandon his family and shift for

1 14 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

himself. It is set forth that his shares in the Company cease with his life, and that as France has set a price upon his head, he cannot in safety return to that country or to New France. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that King Charles I. had frequently recommended Rad- isson to the kindness of the Company. This plea in behalf of Radisson was made by William Young, who stated that Radisson was the author of the Company's prosperity, and who asked that a reward offered by the Company, which he had refused, for persuading Radis- son to join the Company, be given to Radisson "in his great necessity."

The Committee of the Company, in reply to this petition, stated that in 1681 or 1682, after receiving £20 from the Company, Radisson and Groseilliers absconded, went to France and thence to Canada. Next year they joined their countrymen in an expedition to Fort Nelson, animated by the report of Mr. Abram to the Company that it was the best "place for a factory." The reply outlines the history of the earlier years of exploiting the fur trade at Hudson Bay. This inter- esting finding regarding Radisson is contained in the reply:

"Never found him accused of cheating and purloin- ing, but breach of contract with the Company, after receiving their money, we do find him guilty of."

This document shows two interesting facts. One is that Radisson, however fickle he might be, was honest in his pecuniary dealings with the master whom he served for the time being. The other is that the Com-

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 1 1 5

pany, as represented by its Committee, was ungrateful to the man whose daring and enterprise had added much to their wealth and likewise much to Great Britain's prestige in North America. All that the Committee did to relieve Radisson's condition was to order that the sum of £50 be advanced to him — "to be repaid out of the next dividend." Young was dropped from the Com- mittee, probably for befriending him. Radisson, indig- nant, and probably influenced by the advice of Young, filed a suit in Chancery against the Company. The Court awarded judgment in his favor for the amount of the arrears in full. The Committee finally com- promised with Radisson upon the basis of £150 in cash and £100 a year for life, though whenever the Company made a dividend, which of course would ben- efit Radisson, his annuity was to be only £50.

In 1698, when the Company asked Parliament to renew its charter, Radisson filed a petition that a clause should be inserted in the new charter protecting him in the regular payments of the amounts due to him from the corporation. He stated in his petition to Parlia- ment that he had four children and that his only means of subsistence is the £100 a year which the Company had agreed to pay him. In 1700, although he received regu- larly, in quarterly installments, the money due him from the Company, he was reduced to the necessity of asking for the position of warehouse keeper of the Company at London. His application was unsuccessful. For the next ten years he continued to live in England. The last payment to him by the Company was made January 6th,

1 1 6 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

1710, and therefore he is supposed to have died early in the year. His children are said to have gone to New France to live. Groseilliers, his brother-in-law, had died in New France in 1698. France could forgive Groseilliers, but Radisson, the more daring and enter- prising adventurer, had wrought much greater harm to France and her interests in North America, and when he died he was still regarded as the foe of his native coun- try.

CHAPTER V FIRST MISSIONARY TO WISCONSIN

HIGH among the brave men, men like Brebeuf, Bressani, Jogues and Gabriel Lalemant, who in the Seventeenth Cen- tury made every sacrifice and faced every danger to labor for the redemp- tion of the savages of North America, stands Pere Menard, Jesuit. He was the pioneer missionary of the Lake Superior country as well as Wisconsin's first mis- sionary. His bones had been whitening in the wild valley of the Upper Wisconsin for five years before the famous Marquette first set foot upon American soil.

The archives of the Society of Jesus record the birth of Menard at Paris on September 7th, 1605. In 1624 he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Paris. Two years later he was sent to the college at La Fleche, where he studied philosophy and the sciences for three years. During the following three years he taught Latin at the College of Orleans. Then, after four years devoted to the study of theology at Bourges, he taught belles-lettres at Mou- lins for a period of three years. Having distinguished himself in theology, in philosophy and in belles-lettres, he spent the final year of probation in the city of Rouen. He was ordered to America almost as soon as he had taken his last vows. He took passage at Dieppe late in March, 1640, and after being detained in the road- stead off that port by storms which raged for a whole month, he, on July 8th, reached Quebec, which at that time was nothing but a frontier hamlet, consisting for the most part of log houses. The fleet consisted of

119

120 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

three ships, and their arrival at Quebec was the occa- sion of a solemn Te Deum.

In order to equip himself for missionary work among the natives, Menard applied himself to the study of the Algonkin language. In 1641 his active missionary career was begun. He was sent to the country of the Hurons, between Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe; and at the Huron missions, or in connection with them, he labored for eight or nine years, until the memorable incursion of the Iroquois, those bitter, unrelenting foes of the Hurons. It was at that time that the Iroquois killed the heroic Brebeuf, the gentle Lalemant, and other French missionaries. Menard was not caught in the slaughter-pens, although he was near the scene of danger.

After being stationed at Three Rivers for a few years, Menard, in 1656, was sent with other mission- aries, and with a number of French colonists, to the country of the Onondaga, one of the Iroquois nations, not far from the present Onondaga Reservation in New York. A short time afterward Menard was detailed to establish a mission among the Cayugas, another Iro- quois nation, among whom he was in constant danger of being murdered. The savages often ran after him, brandishing knives and hatchets. It was a common sight for him to see captives burned and devoured. But these scenes of terror and of horror seemed only to increase the priest's zeal. With death threatening him at every turn, he wrote a brave, even joyful, letter to his

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 121

superior, informing him that he alone had baptized four hundred of the captives held at the Cayuga village.

Soon came the discovery of the Iroquois plot to kill all the French missionaries and colonists. To save themselves, they resorted to strategy. Boats capable of navigating amid floating ice were secretly made within the mission buildings, and one night, after they had feasted the Indians until the latter fell asleep, the priests and their protectors silently departed. When their flight was dis- covered, the Indians, having only bark canoes, which were of little use in waters filled with floating ice, were unable to pursue them. The white fugitives reached Montreal in safety early in the spring of 1658. Menard became superior of the Jesuit residence at Three Riv- ers.

In a letter dated October 29, 1660, Laval, vicar apos- tolic of New France, afterward the first bishop of Que- bec, wrote as follows to Pope Alexander VII.:

"This summer a priest of the Society of Jesus left for a mission more than five hundred leagues from Quebec. That country is inhabited by innumerable nations, who have never even heard of the Catholic faith. Seven Frenchmen joined this apostle; they to buy castors, he to conquer souls. He will surely have to suffer a great deal, and has everything to fear from cold, hunger, dis- ease and the savages. But the love of Jesus Christ and the zeal for souls conquer all. "

The Jesuit priest whom the letter mentions was Men- ard. His destination was the wilderness south of Lake Superior. He had seen the snow of fifty-five winters,

122 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

and in many ways was an old man. Hardship and pri- vation had bent his form, whitened his hair and under- mined his health. But his soul was lofty, his heart stout, his faith steadfast, inspiring. A letter to a reverend friend which he wrote at 2 o'clock in the morning of August 2yth, 1660, only a few hours before his depar- ture for an unknown country from which he was never to return, shows his unfaltering courage as well as his gentle spirit. This is what he says:

"I write you probably the last word, and I desire it to be the seal of our friendship unto Eternity. In three or four months you may put me into the Memento of the dead, considering the manner of living of these people, and my age and weak constitution. Notwithstanding all this, I have felt such a powerful attraction, and have seen so little of nature in this under- taking, that I cannot doubt that I should have had eternal remorse had I missed this opportunity.

"We were taken a little by surprise,- so that we were unable to provide ourselves with clothing and other necessary things. But He who feeds the little birds and clothes the lilies of the valley will take care of his ser- vants. Should we happen to die of misery, that would be for us a great happiness."

It was on August 28th, 1660, that Menard left Three Rivers upon this journey. With him were Charles Albanel, another Jesuit father, who, however, was destined to go overland to Hudson Bay before seeing any part of the West ; Jean Guerin, a noted lay attache, or donne, of the Jesuit order, and for years the devoted

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 123

follower of Menard; and seven Frenchmen. They went in the company of a large flotilla of Ottawa, who had reached the settlements only a few days before, and whose haste to return to the upper country was the rea- son why Menard had had so little time to prepare for the voyage.

Up to that time the Sault was the farthest point west which had been reached by Christian missionaries. Start- ing from the Huron missions, Fathers Isaac Jogues and Charles Raymbault had in the fall of 1641 made a fly- ing visit to the Sault, but, so far as there is any record, they did not pass up into Lake Superior.

Before Menard was a journey of more than a thou- sand miles, toilsome, tedious and dangerous. It was a great undertaking for so old a man, especially when its natural difficulty was augmented by the pangs of hunger and by brutal treatment at the hands of his Indian guides. Albanel, indeed, was compelled, by reason of the hardships, to disembark at Montreal and to return to Quebec. The Indians made Menard, who continued in their company, carry heavy packs over portages and to paddle nearly all the time. They even, from super- stitious fear, threw away his breviary, thinking that he was working some spell by means of it. He was for- tunate enough to find another one in his baggage.

Once, in order not to be left behind, he had to make his way over frightful rocks and precipices, and in doing this he hurt one of his legs, which became swollen and sore, but nevertheless he received no con- sideration from the savages.

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i24 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

The supply of food soon gave out. Indians and Frenchmen appeased their hunger by chewing moose- skins and eating a black, sticky broth made out of a kind of moss growing upon rocks.

While the flotilla was meandering the southern shore of Lake Superior, the canoe containing Menard and three Indians was broken by a falling tree, and they were abandoned by the rest of the party. For six days, as Menard himself records, they lived on offal which they scraped up around an abandoned lodge and on soup made of bones, which they pulverized. They would have perished had not some passing Indians thrown them a few slices of meat as one would throw a bone to a dog. Finally some Indians, who were kinder than the others had been, carried them to the rendezvous, which was Keweenaw Bay, near the little modern town of Baraga, which is named in honor of the famous Cath- olic missionary who labored among the Indians of Lake Superior almost two centuries after Menard had passed away.

Menard arrived at the Ottawa village on Keweenaw Bay on St. Theresa's Day — October i5th — in 1660, and there he spent the winter. His abode was a hut of fir-tree branches, and his food during most of the time consisted of acorns, the remains of fish, and the bark of birch and whitewood. Menard records that the Indians proved to be a vicious, obdurate race, although he baptized a number of infants and converted fifty adults.

Duty soon called him farther into the wilderness.

MAP OF MENARD ROUTE.

s -a

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When the storm of Iroquois wrath had broken upon the Hurons some time before, the Tobacco Hurons fled in terror to Mackinac, thence to the Mississippi River, and thence, partly retracing their steps, up the Black River of Wisconsin to its source. Among these fugitives were some who had been baptized in their own country, and these, when they heard of the presence of the "black gown" at Keweenaw Bay, sent messengers imploring him to go to them. Menard promptly decided to do so, but he took the precaution, before going himself, to send three young Frenchmen to the Hurons, in order to learn their condition. His scouts returned to Keweenaw Bay about the middle of June, 1661. They had found the way difficult and dangerous, there being many rapids, water- falls, portages and precipices, and food being scarce. They endeavored, but in vain, to dissuade the priest from undertaking the journey. Menard set out on July 1 3th, acompanied by one Frenchman — an armorer or blacksmith.

We come to three mooted points in Wisconsin his- tory, as follows:

1. The location of the Huron village in 1661.

2. The route that Menard took to reach it.

3. The place where Menard became lost in the woods and died.

i. Nicholas Perrot, who spent many years in the ter- ritory now known as Wisconsin, states in his "Memoirs" that after leaving the Mississippi River country, where they had become embroiled with the Sioux, the Hurons ascended the Black River to its source, where they

128 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

established a village. They had left the Mississippi River when, in the winter of 1659-60, Radisson and Groseilliers, the two nameless Frenchmen of whom the Relation of 1660 tells us, were in the Lake Superior country, and it is certain that it was not until after Menard's death that the Hurons went on to Chequa- megon Bay, where, just across from the site of the mod- ern city of Ashland, toward the northwest, Pere Allouez found them in 1665 ; for if they had been on the shores of Chequamegon Bay when Menard went to seek them, he would have followed the shore of Lake Superior in order to reach their village, instead of doing which he, according to the Relation of 1663, descended a river for a number of days in the attempt to visit them.

The source of the Black River, where Perrot says that the Hurons established their village, is near Chelsea, in Taylor County, Wisconsin. The air-line distance from Ashland to Chelsea is only one hundred miles, but the early explorers estimated the distance that they actu- ally travelled — not distance as a surveyor or cartog- rapher would measure it. They travelled by land over Indian trails, moreover, and Indian trails were laid out to avoid obstacles to travel, and to pass good camping- places, where fish or game, or both, could be depended upon. The actual travelling distance from Ashland to Chelsea was about one hundred and fifty miles, accord- ing to expert woodsmen who know the country, the old Indian trails, and the habits of the Indians. We learn from the Relation of 1660 that the two nameless explor- ers who returned to Quebec from the Lake Superior

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 129

country during that year had found the Hurons at six days' journey from Chequamegon Bay. An average day's journey for Indian or coureur des bois would be twenty-five miles, so that the total ground covered in six days would be one hundred and fifty miles. This view is fully borne out by the statement in the same Relation that the distance from Lake Superior to the Huron vil- lage was sixty leagues, which would be about one hun- dred and fifty miles, a French league comprising two and fifty-two one-hundredths miles. "Six days' journey" and "sixty leagues," therefore, mean one and the same thing.

Radisson, in his Voyages, speaking of his journey of 1659-60 to Lake Superior, says that the Huron village was "five great days' journeys" from Chequamegon Bay. By making thirty miles a day, the distance between Ashland and Chelsea, which is one hundred and fifty miles by trail, could be made in exactly five days. Rad- isson's statement, therefore, corresponds to the Rela- tion's "sixty leagues" and "six days' journey."

There is another point of view open to us, and from it we get the same result. The Relation of 1663 states that the length of Menard's journey from Keweenaw Bay to the Huron village was one hundred leagues, which would be two hundred and fifty-two miles. This is within a very few miles of the actual travelling dist- ance between Keweenaw Bay and Chelsea by the easiest and most direct route open to Menard. Furthermore, the time that it took Menard's scouts, the three young Frenchmen, to return to Keweenaw Bay from the Huron village, is the time that it would take modern woods-

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men to go from Chelsea to Keweenaw Bay in June, under the conditions that confronted the Frenchmen. And proof to the same effect is furnished by the time that it took Menard and his companion to reach the place, near the Huron village, where Menard got lost. Thus the evidence that the Huron village was near Chelsea is abundant, harmonious and conclusive.

2. His destination being established, it becomes easier to solve the question of the route taken by Menard to reach the Hurons. His course lay by trail from Kewee- naw Bay to Lac Vieux Desert, which is situate on the line that divides Wisconsin and Northern Michigan ; thence it followed the Wisconsin River for many miles, and thence, taking a trail again, it trended westward to the Black River. This is the "easiest and most direct route" which has already been mentioned. Lac Vieux Desert is where the Wisconsin River rises, and Keweenaw Bay is nearer to Lac Vieux Desert than is any other part of Lake Superior. There was communication between these two points at an early day, Anglo-Saxon pioneers finding a trail led from the north shore of Lac Vieux Desert to Keweenaw Bay. It was to Keweenaw Bay, over this trail, that the Indians of Lac Vieux Desert went, in the first half of the present century, to visit Father Baraga, the Catholic missionary.

We have already said that Menard's journey, accord- ing to the Relation of 1663, was one of two hundred and fifty-two miles, and that this estimate tallies almost exactly with the distance from Keweenaw Bay to the headwaters of the Black River. It is seventy miles from

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 131

Keweenaw Bay to Lac Vieux Desert; one hundred and sixty-five miles from Lac Vieux Desert, down the Wis- consin River, to the natural crossing-place to the head- waters of the Black River; and twenty-five miles along this crossing-place to the source of the Black River, making two hundred and sixty miles in all.

In this connection, some of the details of Menard's last journey are interesting. The Relation of 1663 states that the Hurons who set out from Keweenaw Bay with Menard and his companion soon abandoned them, promising, however, to send them succor; that for fif- teen days the priest and his follower waited at a lake for the promised Hurons, who did not come, and that they found at the lake in question a canoe in which they continued their voyage. They were still descend- ing a river, but had nearly reached their destination, when Menard went astray at a portage.

It is clear that the Hurons abandoned them at or near Lac Vieux Desert; that it was at this lake that they waited fifteen days for the Hurons to send help to them; and that it was in the Wisconsin River, rising out of Lac Vieux Desert, that they launched their canoe and continued their journey.

The same Relation, that of 1663, states that the three young Frenchmen, Menard's scouts, had had "to go up the river in returning, whereas they had gone down the river in going to the Huron village." The larger portion of the journey each way was therefore by river. By the Wisconsin River route two-thirds of the journey would be by river, down stream in going and

i32 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

up stream in returning. No other route to the source of the Black River from Keweenaw Bay answers to this description. There is also significance in the fact that the three young Frenchmen, in returning to report to Pere Menard previous to his departure for the Huron village, stopped a day to make a new canoe when they found that their craft had been stolen. They had undoubtedly hidden their canoe near the point where they left the Wisconsin River to go by trail to the head- waters of the Black River. If it had been stolen at the Huron village, they could easily have procured a new canoe there, instead of being compelled to stop a day in order to make one. That they did not go in their canoe direct to the Huron village shows the necessity for their walking the last stage of the journey — which would be from the Wisconsin River to a point near Chelsea. Right in line with this evidence is the experi- ence of the Frenchmen who was with Menard when he got lost. After searching in vain for the priest, he started for the Huron village in order to get help, but he himself went astray, which would not have been likely to happen had he been navigating a river at this stage of his journey. He went beyond the Huron vil- lage, and an Indian whom he met accidentally led him back to it. He reached it the second day after Menard's disappearance. Thus the character of the Wisconsin River route corresponds to the description and the cir- cumstances of Menard's journey.

3. Now to determine the place where Menard became separated from his companion and wandered off into

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the forest. The fact that the Frenchman, notwithstand- ing his delays and mishaps, reached the Huron village the second day after the disappearance of the priest, shows that the accident occurred near the place of cross- ing from the Wisconsin River to the headwaters of the Black River. As early as the last century, it is known, a trail left the Wisconsin River at the mouth of the Copper River, which empties into the Wisconsin where the latter bends to the west and approaches so near to the headwaters of the Black River. The trail crossed the Black near Chelsea, and it was laid out along the natural crossing-place between these two rivers. It undoubtedly was a very old trail.

The Relation of 1663 states that it was at "the end of a portage around a rapid" that Menard was missed by his companion, and it makes a clear distinction between rapids and waterfalls. The statement in the Relation, that the two men become separated and that the rapid was "difficult," indicates that only the priest took the portage trail, and that the Frenchmen "ran" the rapids. On this point Perrot, who is more explicit says:

"One day he (the Frenchman) found himself in a rapid, which carried him along in his canoe. To help him, the father took some of his baggage out of the canoe, and did not take the right path to get to him. He got upon a trail made by animals, and, in endeavoring to get back to the right path, he got entangled in a labyrinth of trees and went astray. The Frenchman, having passed the rapids with great difficulty, awaited

i36 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

the good father, and, as the latter did not come, he deter- mined to go in search of him."

Here are statements that Menard and his companion were still descending the river; that the rapid could be "run," though with difficulty; that a boatman caught in the rapid could effect a landing before the most dan- gerous part of the descent had been .reached, and that there was a portage trail around the rapid. Distinc- tive features, these, and very significant when taken together, and they show the exact spot where Menard became lost. For between Whirlpool Rapids, which are above any possible crossing-place to the headwaters of the Black River, and above Mosinee, which is below any possible crossing-place to the headwaters of the Black River, there is only one place on the Wisconsin River which corresponds to the description so plainly given to us, and that place is Bill Cross Rapids, five or six miles above the trail from the Wisconsin to the head- waters of the Black River. The trail around this rapid is twenty-five miles long. It runs now, as it probably did in the Seventeenth Century, along the west bank of the river, which is low, the east bank being high. When pioneers of Northern Wisconsin first saw these rapids, the surrounding country was heavily timbered with pine and hemlock. In such a place, a few steps in the wrong direction and one was lost.

Perrot says that a kettle which Menard had taken out of the canoe was afterward found in the possession of a Sac Indian, and that some of his vestments were dis- covered in a Sioux wigwam. These remarks, together

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with the statement in the Relation of 1663 that a young Huron sent out to search for the missing priest came back to the village with a cry of "the enemy," probably meaning the Sioux, have been advanced to support a theory that the priest was murdered. But both Perot and the Relation of 1663, speaking of the manner of the priest's death, assert that he was lost in the woods. Death from starvation and exhaustion would be the almost inevitable result of the going astray in that wil- derness of a man so old and feeble as he was. Such, beyond any reasonable doubt, was the fate of Mena-rd, pioneer in bearing the Cross to Wisconsin.

CHAPTER VI

WISCONSIN'S FIRST MISSIONS

A JESUIT was first in planting the seeds of Christianity among the Indians of Wisconsin. The priests of New France, particularly the "regulars," as the members of the orders term themselves, were singularly devoted to the work of teaching their faith to the savages. Of the orders rep- resented in New France, including the Recollets and the Sulpitians, the Jesuits were pre-eminent. Their zeal may not have been greater, nor their courage higher, but the chief missionary work done in New France dur- ing the Seventeenth Century was performed by Jesuits. The followers of Loyala in New France, to be sure, enjoyed the protection of Cardinal Richelieu, and to this fact may be ascribed, in part, their ascendency at Que- bec. On the other hand, they did not stand high in the favor of Frontenac, the most powerful of the gover- nors of New France, and yet during his administration the Jesuits bore the Cross farther and farther into the wilds. Not, however, that they were at that time, or at any other time, actual pioneers in discovery and explo- ration. There is hardly an historic site in the whole Northwest which a voyageur or a fur trader did not reach before a "black robe" appeared upon the scene. Thus Nicolet saw Sault Ste. Marie before Jogues and Raymbault did, and Menard skirted the southwestern shore of Lake Superior after Radisson and Groseil- liers had quitted those scenes forever. But the Jesuits were so close upon the heels of the real discoverers and the explorers that they seldom or never traveled in

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i42 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

beaten paths. The hardships that they endured, the perils that they encountered, were no less than those which fell to the lot of the lay voyageurs. Sometimes, indeed, their sufferings and their dangers were greater, for the priest often aroused the hostility of the super- stitious Indians, while the fur trade, appealing to the red man's cupidity, to his love of trinkets and of display, was a welcome visitor. Civilization gained nothing from the voyageur's journeyings. He and the Indian, in fact, were both the worse for their contact with each other, the Indian learning some new vice and the voy- ageur sinking, in some degree, to the other's degraded state. Living the life of the red man, intercourse with the red woman, the squalor of the lodge, the wild, filthy license of it all, made many a Frenchman a savage in fact. The one lasting effect of this commerce of the woods is the intermixture of French and Indian blood that is apparent to this day in the Indians of Wisconsin. Far different it was in the case of the priest and his mission. To redeem the Indians from savagery, to win their souls for Christ, the priest labored, and his work, carried on in the face of starvation, of persecu- tion, of perils in strange forms, was, in the long and intimate intercourse between the French colonists and the natives of the Northwest, the one promise of better things. And in another way, too, the "black robe" served great purposes. The fur trader, back from strange scenes in the wilderness, would at family or neighborhood gatherings simply gossip about what he had seen and heard, but the Jesuit, scholarly, mentally

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 145

alert, would commit to writing everything of importance that he observed or heard, and in time these notes, sent to Quebec and thence to France, were published, that the whole world might know what was transpiring in the wilderness of North America. Thus it is not unlikely that the Jesuit, while not a discoverer himself, and while little of an explorer, would, by whetting the curi- osity of laymen, stimulate them to new discoveries and to farther exploration. Certain it is that we are indebted to the Jesuit for most of the data upon which the history of those early days is based.

Claude Allouez, the builder of Wisconsin's first mis- sions, was a perfect type of Jesuit missionary. He car- ried into the wilderness the faith of Christianity, the light of civilization, and from the wilderness he sent to the civilized world intelligence regarding the barbar- ous people whom he met, their customs and habits. He revealed to the world the secrets of the wild folk.

St. Didier, southwest of Lyons, is where Allouez was born. June 6th, 1622, is given as the date of his birth. A desire to become a priest appears to have developed in him at an early age, for, while still a mere boy, he attended religious instruction given at Puy, the capital of the district that included St. Didier. Deter- mined to enter the Society of Jesus, Allouez, after pass- ing his examinations at Puy, entered the novitiate of that order September 25th, 1639, when he was seven- teen years of age. Three years spent in the novitiate, four years more devoted to higher studies, three years of teaching and finally four years of theological study

i46 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

— such formed his mental training. He received priestly orders about 1655. Then, after a year devoted to the study of self, he began preaching in the Jesuit church at Rhodez, France.

All this time the priest, now thirty-five years of age, was burning with a desire to engage in the work of the missions of his order in New France. Of him, at about this period, his superior, whose duty it was to study him, wrote: "He is possessed of a vigorous con- stitution, of a fine mind and disposition, of good judg- ment and great prudence. He is firm in purpose, pro- ficient in literature and theology, and eminently fitted for missionary work."

Allouez, whose life-work was destined to confirm his superior's high estimate of him, crossed the ocean in the company of Monsieur D'Argenson, the new Governor of New France. He reached Quebec July nth, 1658. At Quebec and Three Rivers he spent some time in studying the Huron and Algonkin tongues, in order to fit himself for missionary work. Finally there came to him an order to take up the work of the mission to the Ottawa, which meant a toilsome, perilous journey to Lake Superior, and the spending of years, perhaps of life itself, in that faraway region. In company with his Indians, he left Three Rivers August 8th, 1665, accom- panying a party of 400 savages who had come from Lake Superior to trade with the French. Without proper food, and compelled to paddle all day long, and often far into the night, Allouez nevertheless, by almost superhuman exertions, managed to keep up with the Indians.

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The savages, in fact, did their utmost to discourage him from carrying out his mission. His hat and his only blanket were taken from him, so that in daytime he suffered from lack of shade for his head, and at night shivered from the cold air of the northern clime. To maintain existence he had to eat "soup of moss," (tripe de roche, ) a filthy mess found on the rocks and used by the early explorers when no other food was to be had. At one time Allouez was compelled by hunger to eat the nauseating flesh of a deer, which, dead four or five days, was found by his party.

Finally, about the ist of September, the flotilla reached Sault Ste. Marie and speedily entered Lake Superior. Allouez and his party skirted the south shore of the lake, passing the site of Menard's rude winter home, and after more toil, though with less suffering, he finally reached the spot which he has helped to make historic.

The missionary must have been enraptured by his first view of Chequamegon Bay. Even to-day, despite man's devastating hand, which has leveled the mighty pines, and despite the disfiguring structures which have been erected in spots which noble trees once deeply shaded, the bay, with its more than a score of islands, most of them large and all of them picturesque, is still one of the most attractive spots in any of the Great Lakes. When, unbroken and illimitable, the dark green forests of pine and hemlock, spruce and fir and balsam, stretched back from the shores of the bay; when the islands were covered everywhere with foli-

i48 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

age, instead of being bare in spots ; and when the only habitations visible on the mainland, rugged here, low lying there, were the primitive lodges of the Indians, which seemed to be in keeping with the savagery of their occupants and the wildness of Nature, Chequamegon Bay no doubt cast the spell of its strength and its loveli- ness upon strangers who beheld it as Allouez did. "It is a beautiful Bay," he wrote to his superiors.

Primitive indeed were Allouez's surroundings. He stood among the first of the Laurentian islands to rise out of the depths of the ancient ocean, and he had come among people who were the descendants or the succes- sors of the ancient miners of copper. The new world in which he found himself was hoary with age. Antiquity marked isle and forest and all.

At the head of the Bay was a large village of Indians of seven different nations. For Allouez's use a chapel of bark was built, the first house of Christian worship erected in Wisconsin, and to it flocked some of the fugi- tive Hurons and Algonkins, who, before they had fled westward from the wrath of the Iroquois, had learned something of the white man's religion.

To his mission Allouez gave the name of La Pointe du Saint Esprit. "La Pointe," like the Indian name of the bay — Chequamegon, which is a corruption of the word Shag-a-waum-ik-ong, describes the most peculiar feature of that part of Lake Superior, a long, low, nar- row, sandy point extending four miles into the lake. Tra- dition has it that, at one time, this point extended to Madelaine Island, the largest of the Apostle group.

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It was not upon the point, however, that Allouez's mis- sion was located, but upon the mainland, near the head of the bay, probably near the mouth of Whittlesey's Creek.

Allouez zealously set to work to convert to Chris- tianity the red men of the surrounding country. Like other Jesuits, he used pictures of the Last Judgment and of Hell to impress them with fear of sin, but he cared for the sick, taught the children to sing the simpler songs of the Church and instructed squaws and braves in prayer. In the Huron village alone he baptized more than 400 infants and adults.

In 1666 Father Allouez moved his cabin and chapel into the Ottawa village, which he called a "Babylon" of libertinism and abomination. In the course of time he baptized several score of these Indians, mostly chil- dren, but on the whole his mission among them was not satisfactory. The children and the women insulted and ridiculed him, and finally the braves razed his chapel and tried to rob him.

The priest, in search of new converts, journeyed to the head of the lake — to Duluth or even farther along the shore. This journey probably took place in the fall of 1666. "There is," he records, "a tribe that dwells to the west of this, toward the great river called Mesipi," the first mention of the name Mississippi made by a white visitor to the country of the Great Lakes. The nation that he mentions was composed of Sioux. He speaks of their raising tobacco, of their living upon wild rice and of their warlike habits. From these Indians

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Allouez learned that toward the setting sun "the earth is cut off and nothing can be seen," except a great salt sea. It is an interesting fact, in view of this Sioux nation's knowledge of the Pacific Ocean, that the Win- nebago, another Sioux nation, are supposed to have come from that same salt sea and were called the "peo- ple of the sea."

In a birch bark canoe, with two Indians as his com- panions, Father Allouez made a most perilous voy- age to the Northern shore of Lake Superior. His object was to reach the Nipissings, some of whom had been baptized twenty years before, while they were among the Hurons. In making this journey Allouez states they voyaged twelve hours without ceasing to paddle. The Nipissings cordially welcomed the priest, who spent two weeks in reviving the faith among them. Feeling the need of help in his work, Allouez made the long and wearisome journey back to Quebec, only to start back to the west two days later — August 6th, 1667. Father Louis Nicolas and a brother of their order came west with him at this time. Father Allouez's subsequent work at Chequamegon Bay consisted of more failures and successes, more baptisms of converts and more rejections of his faith. His baptisms exceeded five hun- dred, but in view of his expressed fondness for the Pot- awatomi and the Illinois, and other more southern nations, representations of which were wont to visit Chequamegon Bay during summer time, Allouez prob- ably did not feel any regret when he received orders to take charge of another field. Jacques Marquette,

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another Jesuit destined to become illustrious, succeeded him at the mission of the Holy Spirit, and Allouez went to what is now Green Bay.

Allouez records that he left Sault Ste. Marie Novem- ber 3rd, 1669, in company with two canoes filled with Patawatomi, who had besought him to visit their coun- try, in the region of Green Bay, in order to mollify some young Frenchmen who, they complained, were ill-treat- ing their people. The journey was typical of the hard- ships endured by the early missionaries. In embarking, Allouez had to enter the canoe in his bare feet, to avoid breaking the canoe, and on the morning of the second day of his journey he awoke to find himself covered with ice. Floating ice threatened to destroy his frail boat, and severe storms made shipwreck imminent. His party soon became so closely pressed by hunger that they received with rejoicing breech-nuts which some Pota- watomi gave them. They reached the head of the Bay of the Puants on the twenty-ninth of November, but the mouth of the Fox River was full of ice which retarded their journey. A fierce wind broke up the ice, however, and on December 2nd, being the eve of the feast of St. Francis Xavier, the patron of Allouez's new mission, they found the Frenchmen who had been molesting the Potawatomi. These Frenchmen were eight in number and the next day, when Father Allouez celebrated mass, they attended the services. Here he found the mission of St. Francis Xavier.

Allouez speaks of the Indian nations including the Sauk, Potawatomi, Foxes, Winnebago and Mascoutens,

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who peopled the Fox River valley, and of their fields of Indian corn, gourds, beans and tobacco. He arrived among them, however, during a period of partial fam- ine, and for some time he suffered from lack of food. That famine should hover near people dwelling in such a region, with its plentiful supply of fish and game and wild rice, and a soil yielding bountifully even to such crude cultivation as it received from them, is a striking illustration of the shiftless character of the Indians among whom Allouez's lot was now cast. In express words Allouez strengthens this impression of Indian indolence and lack of provision for the morrow. "The savages are without industry," he records, "They know not how to make even a bark dish, but use shells instead; they are uncommonly barbarous and having only what they absolutely need, they show great avarice in dis- posing of their little wares."

Father Allouez selected the village of the Sauk, whom he had previously termed "the most savage of all the savages — " for his first work in the Green Bay country. He says that he found them "well disposed." During the winter he visited a village of the Potawa- tomi, on the east shore of Green Bay, and he engaged in other journeyings, at times almost dying of cold or of exhaustion.

In April, 1670, Father Allouez ascended the River St. Francis, as he called the Fox River; crossed Lake Winnebago and continued up the Fox to the mouth of Wolf River, which he ascended to the village of the Foxes. This nation, he reports, was numerous. It

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practiced polygamy, each man having from four to ten wives. Its fighting men numbered four hundred, but several score of them, mostly women and children, had just been massacred, as the result of an unexpected incur- sion by a war party of eighteen Iroquois braves. Allouez preached to the Foxes, who listened to him with respect and attention. He gave the name of St. Mark to his mission among them.

Retracing his steps, Allouez again entered the Fox River, and he ascended it until he encountered the trail leading to the village of the Mascoutens, which he reached by walking "a league over beautiful prairies." This village, the extreme western point reached by Allouez, was located not far from Berlin. The inhab- itants greeted him warmly and prayed to him as to a Manitou to deliver them from their enemies, the Iroquois and the Sioux, as well as from sickness and famine. Allouez told them of "Him who is the only and true God" and he said that it was to God that they should appeal for succor. They seemed very docile and asked him to visit them often. He remained among them until May 2nd, and they told him more of the "Mississippi" and of the numerous nations along its shores.

St. Michael, among the Menominee, was another mission established by Father Allouez before, late in May, he returned to Sault Ste. Marie.

When Father Allouez returned to Green Bay, the fol- lowing September, he was accompanied by Father Claude Dablon, and together they visited the Mascou- tens. At the rapids near the site of what is now the

154 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

City of Kaukauna, the priests found a rock shaped nat- urally in the form of a man's bust. This the Indians, in passing, would paint in their most brilliant colors, and they would offer to it sacrifices of tobacco or arrows. The priests caused the idol to be cast into the river.

In describing the country of the Mascoutens, Father Dablon grows eloquent. It is the most beautful region, he declares, to be seen anywhere. To float through it is to repose. It is prairie land, with large groves of elm and oak, while vines, plum trees and apple trees invite the traveler to loiter. Wild fowl and other game are everywhere. "Wild cows" are met in droves of four hundred and five hundred, while in the rich pastures are found buffaloes, which the Indians call "Pisikiou," whose fur "protects against the cold more than all others in this country."

In this connection a subsequent narrative by Father Dablon is most interesting. Ducks, teal and other fowl, he says, seek the water of the river in the fall, because of the harvest of wild rice, and the Indians spread their nets so skilfully that in one night they sometimes take out a hundred pieces of game, not counting fish. "It is a pleasure," declares this graphic chronicler "to see in a net a duck taken close to a pike and a carp entangled in the same threads with a teal."

From the Mascoutens, who showed joy over their visit, Father Dablon learned still more of the "Mis- sissippi," which he says, flows toward the south until it discharges itself into the sea, "which we judge to be either the Vermilion Sea [Gulf of California] or that

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WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 157

of Florida [Gulf of Mexico.]" Some of the savages told the missionaries that they had descended the great river to the sea, and in that region had seen white men like the French who cleaved trees with large knives and had "houses on the water."

Father Dablon very soon returned to Quebec, Father Henry Nouvel taking his place at Mackinac, and Father . Louis Andre being sent to visit Allouez at Green Bay. They erected, at what became known as Rapids des Peres, which now, in a corrupted form, is the name of the city of Depere, a small chapel and cabin, both of bark. The location was on the east side of the river and near the dam. This was the headquarters for the missionary work carried on among the Mascoutens, Foxes, Menominee and Potawatomi. By the end of 1673 a more substantial church had been built. Pali- sades were erected around the mission and within the enclosure were dwellings, workshops and storehouses. It became the rendezvous of the traders as well as the center from which spiritual life was radiated among the savages of Wisconsin.

In the fall of 1676 Father Allouez, promptly obey- ing an order from his superior, set out on a journey along the east shore of Lake Michigan to the Illinois River, to begin successful missionary work among the tractable Illinois, some of whom visited him long before at Chequamegon Bay. Among them this great mission- ary labored until he died in August, 1689, in the seventy- sixth year of his age.

CHAPTER VII FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION

IN 1671 France formally took possession of the country of the Great Lakes, including what is now Wisconsin. The scene of the ceremony was Sault Ste. Marie, the date of it June 4th, and the most important factor in it was one Nicholas Perrot. Simon Francois Dumont, Sieur Saint- Lusson, planted the arms of France and proclaimed Louis XIV. sovereign of the Northwest. It is an inter- esting fact that this step by France was to offset the influence of Radisson and Groseilliers, those early explorers of Wisconsin, who, at Hudson Bay in the service of the English, were drawing the trade of the Indians beyond Lake Superior.

In November, 1670, Talon, the far-seeing intendant of New France, had written to Colbert, the French Min- ister of Marine, that two ships, which, he supposed, bore Englishmen conducted by Groseilliers, had been seen at Hudson Bay. Talon announced that he intended to send some men of resolution to invite the Kilistinons, who were "in great numbers in the vicinity of the Bay," to visit the French settlements. He explained that the Ottawa, acting as "middle men," made the French pay for the roundabout way of three hundred leagues or four hundred leagues by which the furs of the Kilistinons were brought down from the regions north of Lake Superior. These Kilistinons are the Cristinoes of whom Radisson speaks and the Cree of our own times. They actually sent representatives to the subsequent ceremony at Sault Ste. Marie, and it was Perrot who invited them to do so. Talon had already sent Perrot and Saint-

161

Lusson to the scene of operations when, as already stated, he wrote to the French Minister of Marine that English ships had reached Hudson Bay. Saint-Lus- son's commission was dated September 3rd, 1670, and, in company with Perrot, he had left for Sault Ste. Marie about a month before Talon's writing to Colbert, which was in November, when, as a rule, vessels returned to France from Quebec.

Some other developments showing how closely the French on the St. Lawrence and on the Great Lakes watched the English at Hudson Bay are interesting not only because of the operations of Radisson and Groseil- liers in that northern region, but because the Hudson's Bay Company, which these two men called into being, eventually supplanted the French in all the country north of the Upper Lakes.

In 1671, sent by Talon, Father Albanel, a Jesuit, and Sieur Denis de St. Simon ascended the Saguenay, win- tered at Lake St. John and early during the following spring descended the Nemiskau River to the waters of Hudson Bay, where they planted the arms of France, thus going through the form of taking possession of that region. This mission was devoid of benefit to the French. England's influence continued to spread from Hudson Bay and in May, 1673, Father Nouvel, sta- tioned at Sault Ste. Marie, became so alarmed that he wrote advising Frontenac that the establishment of the English in the "Bay of the North" would work notable detriment to the colony of New France. The Indians north of Lake Superior, he stated, had during the pre-

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 163

vious fall traded with Groseilliers at Hudson Bay, and they had praised the liberality of the English. Father Albanel, who afterward became superior of the mission at Green Bay, was again sent overland to Hudson Bay to counteract the influence of the English, but in practical results this mission was no more successful than his earlier one had been. The English continued to make gains in the fur trade, and the French watched them with jealous eyes. As late as 1684, writing from Lake Nepigon, DuLuth states that he had sent by one Pere a letter from the Governor of New France to Sieur Chouart, son of Groseilliers, apparently intended to detach him from the service of the English. The Indians of the North had promised the writer, he stated, to trade no more with the English. DuLuth added that he had erected a fort at Lake Nepigon, and intended to build another in the country of the Crees. Not long afterward, cunning and diplomacy were abandoned by both sides, and armed conflict for the possession of Hud- son Bay began. The storming of the British forts at the Bay in 1686 by De Troyes and Iberville was only one episode in a struggle that filled out the Seventeenth Century. When the contest terminated, the British flag dominated the big Bay and its tributaries.

All this digression from Perrot himself has been for the purpose of showing the object and the importance of Perrot's work in arranging the great gathering at Sault Ste. Marie in 1671. He was one of the most

intrepid French pioneers in the Northwest, and his his- 8

164 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

tory is full of interest, particularly to the people of Wis- consin.

Perrot was born in France in 1643. The exact place of his birth has never been located, nor is it known in what year he came to America. He was of good fam- ily, and possessed some education. Necessity compelled him to discontinue his studies and to take service, in 1665, as a lay helper, or general factotum, of the Jesuit missionaries.

It was in that year, when he was about twenty-one years of age, that Perrot first came west. The Potawa- tomi around Green Bay welcomed him gladly, feasting him and smoking the pipe of peace with him. They thought that his coming brought them good fortune, and so it did. For he learned that they had become so embroiled with the Menominee that war was imminent, and, to avert it, he went to the Menominee and quickly persuaded them that peace was better than war. This was one of many similar missions that Perrot accom- plished among the natives of the Upper Lakes.

When Perrot wished to visit tribes to the West, the Potawatomi, realizing the advantage of their position and desiring to become intermediaries between the other natives and the French, dissuaded him for a time, but he was too restless and adventurous long to remain in idleness, and in the following spring he set out with some Foxes to visit their village on the Wolf River. Their arrogance and their ill repute caused him to cut short his visit to them.

Perrot next visited the Mascoutens, as well as the

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WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 167

Miami, a tribe of the Illinois. The Potawatomi, still eager for a monopoly of trade with the French, sent agents to prevent the Mascoutens and the Miami from allying themselves with Perrot, but these agents told their lies within the hearing of Perrot, so that he was able to contradict them and to conclude the treaty which the Potawatomi had tried to prevent. For four years longer Perrot remained in the West, mostly in Eastern Wisconsin.

In the spring of 1670 he returned to Montreal, accom- panied by nine hundred Ottawa. He visited Quebec, after his Indian friends had started homeward, and soon he was selected for the task of bringing together the Western Indians at Sault Ste. Marie in order that French sovereignty over them might be proclaimed. The expedition set out in October, 1670. Saint-Lusson stopped at Manitoulin Island, where he spent the win- ter, and Perrot pushed on to fulfil his mission of rallying the tribes of the lakes and the rivers under the Fleur de Us. At Green Bay the Potawatomi and the Miami wel- comed him back and chiefs of the Potawatomi, Sauk, Menominee and Winnebago promised to accompany him to Sault Ste. Marie. The chiefs of the Foxes, Mas- coutens and Kickapoo declined to take part in the cere- mony.

When Perrot reached the Sault, he found assembled, in addition to his own escort, Kilistinons and Monsonis from the vicinity of Hudson Bay, and Napissings and Beavers from the head of Lake Superior, as well as the Chippewa who lived near the Sault.

1 68 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

Strange indeed was that gathering. St. Lusson stood in the center of a throng of black-robed priests, French adventurers and bronzed barbarians. The surround- ings added to the picturesqueness of the scene and so did the pomp with which the French sought to impress the Indians. Father Allouez, speaking in Algonkin, used figures of speech intended to demonstrate to them that Louis XIV. was the mightiest of rulers. St. Lusson, interpreted by Allouez, spoke briefly. Then a cedar pole, bearing a leaden block with the arms of France printed upon it, and a cedar cross were planted in sepa- rate holes, while the French sang Vexilla Regis, and St. Lusson, sword in hand, proclaimed the rule of France's King over the country of the Great Lakes.

Courcelles, the Governor of New France, was recalled that year. Frontenac, who succeeded him, had little love for the Jesuits or for friends of the Jesuits, like Perrot. Soon afterward Perrot" took to wife Made- leine Raclos, one of the three sisters who inherited con- siderable property from Collette Raclos, widow of Andre d'Hain, procureur in the Court of Parliament of Paris. Perrot had several children. The first, a son, was born in 1672. There are in Canada to-day some of his descendants. Not long after his marriage, Perrot obtained from M. de Frontenac one of twenty licenses permitting gentlemen of small means to trade with the Indians of the Upper Lakes. A licensee could take one canoe of merchandise to the Indians and could bring back all the furs that the Indians would give in return for the merchandise. It is not unlikely that almost

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 169

every autumn Perrot came west to trade with the red men, thus increasing his knowledge of them and of their country. When, in September, 1682, M. de La Barre succeeded Frontenac as Governor, he had instructions to withdraw these licenses to trade, but Perrot neverthe- less obtained permission to continue to trade with the Ottawa, as the Upper Lake Indians were termed.

In 1683 Perrot was ordered to enlist France's Indian allies in the West in an expedition which the French were planning again the Iroquois. The next year, at Mac- kinac, found Durantaye, the commandant, and DuLuth himself, vainly endeavoring to persuade the Indians to join de La Barre at Niagara in the proposed expedi- tion against the Iroquois. Dulxith finally asked Perrot to assist him in getting the help of the Indians and Per- rot was so successful that five hundred of them acconv panied five score Frenchmen to Niagara, only to return disgusted upon finding that de La Barre had concluded a treaty of peace with the Iroquois. At this time, owing to the trouble with the Iroquois who infested the Ottawa River and prevented his furs from reaching market, Perrot became embarrassed financially, and there has been preserved a letter in which he authorized one of his creditors to sell the first lot of his furs to "come down" and to pay himself out of the proceeds.

In 1685 Perrot was appointed to command Green Bay and its dependencies, including the country of the Sioux, along the Upper Mississippi. From Green Bay he went to the Mississippi, which he ascended for some distance. He finally camped at "the foot of a high hill,

WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

behind which there was a large prairie." This was about a mile north of the present village of Trempea- leau. He had sent word to the Iowa, a tribe of the Siouan family, that he wished to meet them. The Iowa not only accepted his invitation with celerity, but they wept over him until his head and shoulders were drenched, in the manner that other Frenchmen had been received by other Sioux tribes. Then they feasted him. The principal chief, in order to show how he honored him, placed bits of buffalo tongue in his mouth.

Perrot's camp near Trempealeau was simply a cluster of rude cabins. The ruins of these structures were unearthed in 1888, a little more than two centuries after they had been built. The most important feature of the discovery was a large hearth and fire-place. The hearth was seven and a half feet wide and six feet deep. The fire-place was not so wide nor so deep by two feet. They were laid with flagstones, in clay mortar, and when found were covered with ashes, bones and refuse from the chimney. Of the chimney nothing remained. It had probably been built of sticks, chinked with mud. In all, the ruins consisted of eight small heaps of stones.

In the Mississippi River country, mostly at his camp near Trempealeau, Perrot spent the winter of 1685-6. Late in the winter or early in the spring, he moved up the river to Lake Pepin and upon the east shore of that body of water, about six miles from the outlet, he built a fort which he named St. Antoine. It was a small struc- ture, about forty-five by sixty feet, and was located on slightly elevated land. Perrot apparently built another

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 173

post, of less importance, on the western shore of Lake Pepin.

About the same period Perrot built a fort just north of the junction of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers, upon or near the present site of the city of Prairie du Chien. This post may have been established as early as 1683. I* nad ceased to exist in 1700.

While he was still among the Sioux, orders reached Perrot to rally his Indian followers for another expedi- tion against the Iroquois. With all the French and sav- ages that he could muster, he went to Mackinac and soon caught up to Durantaye's force as well as to Tonty. On the way to Niagara, the French caught two English trading parties, sixty persons in all, and then joined Denonville, who proceeded to destroy the towns and the crops of the Senecas.

While Perrot was engaged upon this expedition, a number of Mascoutens, Foxes and Kickapoo combined in attacking the French at Green Bay. They burned the mission buildings and the warehouses, destroying furs valued at 40,000 francs which Perrot had stored pend- ing the reopening of communication with the French set- tlements on the St. Lawrence, communication that the predatory Iroquois had interrupted. This loss was a heavy blow to Perrot.

On the 8th of May, 1689, at Fort St. Antoine, in the presence of Father Marest, who was a Jesuit, and of Boisguillot, who commanded the French on the Mis- sissippi near the Wisconsin — Fort St. Nicholas; of Pierre Le Seuer, and four other Frenchmen, Perrot, in

i74 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

a ceremony similar to that at Sault Ste. Marie in 1671, formally repeated the act of taking possession of the country.

During the following year some Miami showed him a piece of lead ore and this resulted in the discovery by Perrot of the lead mines of the Mississippi, in Wiscon- sin, Iowa and Illinois. "The lead was hard to work," he has recorded, "because it lay between rocks that required blasting." It had very little dross and was easily melted. The discovery was important to a new- coming people, like the French, that used fire-arms. Opposite the lead deposits, and probably on the east shore and opposite Dubuque, Perrot established another post, for trading with the Miami. This was barricaded, of course, and is often mentioned as a fort.

In 1692 Perrot was sent to the St. Joseph River, on the east shore of Lake Michigan, to pacify the Indians of that region and to counteract the influence of English traders. A fort in that vicinity was soon planned by the French. For the next seven years he was active in quieting restive tribes. At one time early in that period Perrot was ensnared by the Mascoutens and condemned to die because he was deemed guilty of killing one of their warriors, but by what was almost a miracle, he escaped so dire a fate. In 1699 King Louis ordefed the evacuation of all the Western posts, and although the Indians besought his return, chiefs of the Foxes, Ottawa and Potawatomi imploring the Governor to send him back to them, the decree ended his career in the country of the Great Lakes. His claim for time and money

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 175

spent in the service of the King was never allowed, though it was a just one and he was in sore need. In 1708, and again in 1710, he was appointed to a petty office. His last public act was a protest against Lou- vigny's expedition against the Foxes of Wisconsin. He died on the I3th day of August, 1717, in the parish of Becancour.

CHAPTER VIII

DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI

AN epoch in the history of North America was marked on the I7th day of June, 1673, when a party of seven French- men, one of them wearing a priest's garb, emerged from the mouth of the Wisconsin River, just above which the city of Prairie du Chien now stands, and found their frail barks floating in the rapid current of a mighty stream. Wonder-eyed, awe-inspired, they doubtless were, and well they might be, for they were the first of white men to gaze upon the upper reaches of the Mississippi.

The scene matched the occasion. Back of the river banks, on either side, huge bluffs rose hundreds of feet high — a majestic sight in themselves, but hardly attrac- tive enough to keep the eye away from the North, whence the great flood came, winding swiftly and grace- fully; or from the South, whither it went, winding swiftly and gracefully — the main artery in what has since become an empire.

Our seven Frenchmen of that faraway day, realizing that they had actually penetrated to the great stream of which they and theirs had heard so much from the savage natives, unconsciously stopped paddling and with their eyes drank in the alluring beauty and pic- turesqueness of the vistas before them. A feeling of personal pride no doubt added to their enjoyment of the moment, for each of them had helped to perform a great achievement, an achievement which has made undying fame the portion of two of the party. The leader of the expedition was Louis Jolliet, who bore the com-

179

i8o WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

.

mission of the government of New France to explore the Mississippi and to ascertain whether its waters emptied into the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean. The priest in the other canoe was Jacques Marquette — Jesuit, scholar, missionary and hero, even martyr.

Most of the journey was still before them, for they were destined to descend the river to the mouth of the Arkansas River and to pass through many dangers and adventures before returning to Green Bay, France's westernmost outpost on the Great Lakes.

A real son of New France, for he was born in 1645 in the little settlement composed of huts and warehouses that lay under the protection of the fortress surmount- ing the rock of Quebec, Jolliet early gave promise of his later achievements. In youth he was for some years a student in the Jesuit establishment at Quebec, and he even took some of the preliminary vows of that order. However, in 1668, after spending a year in France, the land of his fathers, he resolved to devote himself to exploring the realm lying westward of the French set- tlements in the New World. It did not take him long to become a master of woodcraft and he was equally quick to learn Indian dialects. In their reports the rul- ers of the colony, as well as the missionaries, speak in terms of praise of his discretion, his ability and his intrepidity. As early as 1669 he led a party of French- men to search for copper mines on Lake Superior and to find a shorter route between Montreal and the Great Lakes. In regard to copper, nothing seems to have been accomplished, but in returning from his quest, Jolliet

JAMES MARQUETTE.

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 183

boldly took a new route — going past Detroit to Lake Erie and thence to Lake Ontario by way of the Grand River. Near the head of Lake Ontario, he acci- dentally met another explorer, La Salle, who was accom- panied by two Sulpitians, Dollier de Casson and Rene dc Galinee. La Salle was already in quest of the Missis- sippi and Jolliet, without success, urged him to under- take the journey by way of Lakes Huron and Michigan. La Salle followed his own bent, going toward the Ohio, and failed, while Jolliet was destined to discover the Mississippi by the very route that he had recommended to La Salle. Jolliet continued to be active in the region of the Upper Lakes for the next few years. He was one of the men who attended the ceremony at Sault Ste. Marie, in 1671, when St. Lusson took formal posses- sion of the Northwest in the name of the King of France.

Marquette, descendant of a race of soldiers, was born June ist, 1637, in the old fortified town of Laon, about four score miles northeast of Paris. His was an old family, running back to the year 1137, and by royal decree its members were allowed to place upon their coat-of-arms the three martlets that composed the insig- nia of the city itself. Four members of the family fought with Lafayette for American independence, and three of these laid down their lives for this great cause. On his mother's side Marquette was a relative of Jean Baptiste de La Salle, founder of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, also were devoted to the free education of poor boys. Marquette's own sister Fran-

1 84 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

coise founded the Marquette Sisters, now known as the Sisters of Providence of Laon. It is devoted to the free education of girls. Our missionary, who was the youngest of six children, decided at an early age to enter the army of Loyala. His novitiate was in the Jesuit college of Nancy, not far from Laon, and later his training took him to other schools of the order in France. Accounts of the missionary work of the Jesuits in North America, their courage, their fidelity to duty, and their not infrequent martyrdoms, apparently fired Marquette with zeal to emulate them. He longed to be sent to the colony which France had established across the ocean, and to devote his life to saving the souls of the Indians who had already cruelly put to death several members of his order. In 1666, when he was twenty-nine years of age, he received the welcome order to embark for Quebec. It was the 2Oth of September when he reached that port. Twenty days later his work began — he was sent to Three Rivers, seventy-seven miles above Quebec, to learn from Father Driiillettes the language of the Montagnais, the customs of Indians and the manner of life that he would have to lead as a missionary among the savages. In this way Marquette spent two years, dividing his time between the trading post at Three Rivers and the shifting camps of the Indians. He could not have had a better instructor than Driiillettes, who was a veteran of the Jesuit missions, while Driiillettes could hardly have had an apter pupil. Marquette worked to advantage and became an adept in the use of Six Indian dialects.

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 185

In the spring of 1668 Marquette was ordered to start west with a flotilla of Ottawa and to take up his work in the distant wilderness. For a time he was stationed at Sault Ste. Marie, where, within a year, he baptized eighty children. Late in the following year he was sent to Chequamegon, to relieve Allouez, who had been transferred to Green Bay. Marquette reached his new post on the I3th of September, after a canoe voyage which falling snow made uncomfortable and floating ice rendered somewhat dangerous. His first visit was to the village of the Hurons, whose language he did not know well, but whom he reproached because they had not taken more interest in the prayers that Allouez had tried to teach them. The Hurons, most of whom had been baptized, appeared to be contrite, but the other Indians were far less docile. Many of them would rid- icule prayer and would not listen to the priest when he tried to speak to them upon the subject of religion.

His superior, before sending Marquette to Chequa- megon, had intended that he should establish a mission among the Illinois Indians, beyond the head of Lake Michigan, and he never gave up hope of carrying out that plan. While in his northern station, therefore, he learned all that he could about the Illinois and their country. Some Illinois visited Chequamegon, as was their wont, although the journey, which they made by land, occupied thirty days. From them he heard more about the "Great River." The Illinois, who did not use canoes, stated that down the river, below their own vil- lages, were large nations of Indians, some of whom 9

1 86 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

raised two crops of corn a year. Marquette, from the information which he had derived from the Illinois, formed the opinion that the Mississippi had "its mouth in California." He recorded his own intention to explore the river as far as possible, "in order to open the passage to such of our fathers as have been awaiting this good fortune for so long a time." From a young Indian who had lived among the Illinois Marquette learned the rudiments of their language. Of the Illi- nois themselves, he wrote that they "seem to be of a tolerably good disposition and they promise me to embrace Christianity."

Marquette's labors at Chequamegon ended sooner than he or his superiors had expected. His savage flocks became embroiled with the Sioux, whom the priest aptly calls "the Iroquois of the North." These Indians, numerous and warlike, and only sixty leagues away, to the West, declared war upon the Indians at Chequa- megon, who quickly fled from the destruction that threat- ened them. The Ottawa went to their old place of abode, Manitoulin Island, in Lake Huron, while the Hurons sought refuge at Mackinac. Marquette went with the Hurons. The flight marked the end of the Mission of the Holy Spirit. Fully one and a half cen- turies were to elapse before the work which Allouez had begun and which Marquette had continued would again be taken up.

During the year before the Jesuits had established a mission upon the island of Mackinac. The Indian pop- ulation of the locality was large, a fact due to its advan-

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 187

tageous location as well as to abundance of fish and game. Corn could be raised in the vicinity. The island itself was the key to the West. Marquette's chapel was a long cabin of bark similar to many another in which, as a rule, several Huron families lived. The missionary and his attendants lived in the rear part of it, while the front part was fitted up as a church. From his post Marquette went out among the Indians, sometimes trav- eling by canoe, sometimes afoot. His work was suc- cessful. The Hurons, in particular, submitted to his gentle rule.

Thus he was laboring when, on the 8th of December, 1672, Jolliet reached Mackinac with a momentous mes- sage for him. Jolliet himself bore Frontenac's commis- sion to explore the Mississippi River and to discover "the South Sea," into which it was thought that the river disembogued, and he carried to Marquette instructions from Father Dablon, his superior, to accompany him upon the expedition. It is an interesting coincidence that Jolliet reached Mackinac upon the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day upon which Marquette always invoked the Blessed Virgin "to obtain from God the grace of being able to visit the nations that dwell along the Mississippi River." At this time Jolliet was twenty-eight years of age and the priest eight years older. They spent the winter in planning and preparing for their voyage of discovery and in learning what they could about the vast region whither they were being sent. They set out on the I7th of the following May. They naturally followed the west coast of Lake

i88 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

Michigan and Green Bay, as Nicolet and Perrot and Allouez had done before them, and then they ascended the Fox River to Depere, to which station Marquette had been transferred because it was nearer to the Mis- sissippi, now his field of work. The first Indian vil- lage at which the explorers stopped, after leaving Depere, was one in which Mascoutens, Miami and Kickapoo dwelt together. These Indians Allouez and Dablon had already visited. In the center of this vil- lage the Indians had erected a large cross and had adorned it with pelts and other gifts as offerings to the white men's God, whom they called the Great Manitou. With two Miami as guides, Jolliet and Marquette embarked again, the savages expressing astonishment that so small a party — the French numbered only seven in all — should undertake so long and so dangerous a voy- age. Creeping up the Fox, which in many places began to resemble a channel through a marsh rather than a river, the expedition in a few days reached" the portage which has given its name to the modern city of Portage. Here the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, one part of the St. Law- rence system and the other part of the Mississippi sys- tem, approach so closely to each other that in times of flood the waters of the two great systems have com- mingled sufficiently to float a canoe. At this point Mar- quette began a devotion to the Blessed Virgin, whose aid and protection he asked daily thereafter. At the end of the portage, their Miami guides left them and the Frenchmen began the descent of the Wisconsin. This stream, with its changing sandbars, its high bluffs and

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WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 191

its deep ravines, its water-sculptured rocks, its forests and prairies, formed a marked contrast to the sluggish, weed-choked waters of the Upper Fox.

Along the Wisconsin the explorers began to see buf- faloes. Soon came their first view of the Mississippi and then followed the toilsome, hazardous descent of that river. Marquette's narrative of the journey is full of interest. With some particularity he describes the catfish, "which struck our canoe with such force that I thought it was a great tree"; the tiger-cat, "a monster with the head of a tiger, a sharp nose like that of a wild- cat, with whiskers and straight, erect ears" ; the paddle fish, or spoonbill, the sturgeon, and, near Rock Island, wild turkeys and many more buffaloes than they had seen before. Though they kept strict watch, they saw no Indians for days and days. Toward evening they would land, build a small fire, cook and eat their sup- per, and then, in their canoes, anchored out in the stream, they would sleep until morning — all except one, who stood guard.

On the 25th day of June, at about the forty-first degree of latitude, they discovered the tracks of men and a beaten trail leading to a fine prairie. Leaving the other Frenchmen to protect the canoes, Jolliet and Marquette followed the trail for about two leagues and discovered a village of Indians upon the bank of another river. They shouted as soon as they were near enough to do so, and four old men, two of them bear- ing pipes of peace, started toward them. It was a vil-

1 92 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

lage of Illinois Indians and Jolliet and Marquette spent the night in the cabin of their chief.

Continuing their journey the next day, the Frenchmen near Alton, Illinois, saw painted, in red, green and black, upon the smooth surface of a high cliff, two huge, hideous monsters, the work of some Indian artist. They passed the mouth of the Missouri, whose current almost upset their canoes. "I hope by its means," wrote Marquette with reference to the Missouri, "to discover the Vermillion or California Sea." The wide mouth of the Ohio was passed soon afterward. Still farther down the Mississippi they discovered some Indians, probably Chickasaw, armed with guns, which they had obtained in trade with Spaniards located in the Gulf of Mexico. These Indians, frightened at first, invited the Frenchmen ashore. The explorers found that in addition to guns, the savages possessed hatchets, knives, hoes and other articles of European manufac- ture.

Still farther down the river, near the mouth of the St. Francis, in Arkansas, other Indians, the Mitchi- gameas, attacked the explorers, but Marquette displayed a calumet, the elders calmed the turbulent young men and the Frenchmen passed the night among them. Ten of these escorted the white men about ten leagues farther down the river, opposite the mouth of the Arkansas, where the Arkansas Indians received them most hospitably. Some of the villagers plotted to mur- der the visitors for the sake of the trinkets which they carried with them, but the chief learned of the conspir-

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 193

acy and foiled it. During the night Jolliet and Mar- quette, convinced that the Mississippi discharged its waters into the Gulf of Mexico, decided to retrace their way, so as to carry back to civilization all the knowledge which they had gained, instead of attempting to go through to the mounth of the Mississippi, which would give hostile Indians, armed with guns, an opportunity to massacre them and thus rob the world of the fruits of their expedition. They had approached within 700 miles of the Gulf. On the iyth day of July, 1673, they began the difficult ascent. When they reached the mouth of the Illinois River, the fact that it was a shorter route to Lake Michigan attracted them, and they followed it. They visited an Illinois Indian village just below Ottawa and Marquette promised its inhabitants to return and to establish a mission among them. Several of the Indians, headed by a chief, escorted the Frenchmen to Lake Michigan, probably by way of the Des Plaines and Chicago Rivers, though from the Des Plaines the expedition might have portaged to the Calumet, which empties into Lake Michigan just south of Chicago. Down the west shore of the lake, passing Kenosha, Racine, Milwaukee, Sheboygan and Manitowoc, the Frenchmen paddled, camping on shore at night or dur- ing storms. Across the Sturgeon Bay portage, now a large canal, they made their way, and by the end of Sep- tember they reached the Jesuit mission at Depere. Dur- ing the winter each wrote his narrative of the expedi- tion down the Mississippi, and each made a map of the country which they had traversed. In the spring Jolliet

i94 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

started for Quebec. He had reached LaChine Rapids, just above Montreal, when his canoe was upset, his boat- men as well as his journal and map being lost in the flood. His own escape from drowning was almost a miracle. When he reached Quebec, he was sore at heart, for the loss of the records of his discovery was a heavy blow to him.

In New France Jolliet held minor offices until 1680, when he was granted fishing rights in the Lower St. Lawrence. To him, some years later, was given the Island of Anticosti, but in 1690, while he was begin- ning to enjoy the fruits of prosperity, the English expe- dition under Phips destroyed his establishment. Ten years later Jolliet died in poverty.

His voyage down the Mississippi River probably was the indirect cause of Marquette's death, which occurred before he reached his prime. The germs of disease had been planted in his system and he was obliged to remain at Depere until October, 1674." On the 25th of that month, with two Frenchmen, he started to return to the Illinois. The route that he took was along the lake shore, past Milwaukee. It was not until early December that he reached the Chicago River. Mean- while exposure to cold and to storm had brought about a return of his ailment and he was compelled to spend the winter in a wretched Indian hut not far from Chi- cago. He became weaker, but in the spring he revived somewhat and finally succeeded in reaching the great vil- lage of the Illinois, which was located upon the river of that name. To his words the Indians listened most

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 195

attentively, but just as it seemed that he was on the point of achieving a great triumph for his Church, his condi- tion became more serious than ever. He realized that his end was near and he started to return to Mackinac, this time along the east shore of Lake Michigan. Two ser- vants accompanied him. The priest was so weak that he lay in the bottom of the canoe most of the time, while his companions carried him whenever it was necessary for him to move by land. The cold winds of the lake added greatly to his discomfort and undoubtedly hast- ened the progress of his disease. He began to sink rap- idly. At last, close to midnight of Saturday, May 1 8th, 1675, at or near Ludington, he quietly passed away, after first thanking God for the opportunities as a mis- sionary which had been his. His companions reverently buried his body and marked his grave with a cross.

A year later some Ottawa of the Kiskakon tribe, whom Marquette had instructed before his departure for the Mississippi, found the grave. They opened it, and, in accordance with their custom, they cleaned and dried the bones, wrapped them in birch bark and car- ried them back to St. Ignace, whither the mission at Mackinac had been removed. Fathers Nouvel and Pierson, chanting De Profundis, met the funeral flotilla as it neared the shore, and, with imposing ceremonies, buried the relics under the new chapel. Early in the next century the chapel was destroyed by fire and for almost two centuries Marquette's grave was lost to the ken of men. In September, 1877, the ruins of a burned building were found at St. Ignace. The ruins were

196 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

undoubtedly those of Marquette's chapel. After a most diligent search of the ruins, the Rev. Father Jacker, who was the village priest, found, amid fragments of decayed birch bark, some pieces of human bones. There is every reason to suppose that they are the remains of Mar- quette. Some of these bones are treasured in Mar- quette College, Milwaukee, a Jesuit institution of dis- tinction that proudly bears the name of one of the great- est missionaries who have labored in North America.

Much of Marquette's missionary work was done in Wisconsin, or adjacent to Wisconsin, and it was upon the border of Wisconsin that his wish to reach the Mis- sissippi River was realized. An idealized statue of him, a tribute from the State of Wisconsin, adorns the Cap- itol at Washington. A replica of this is to be seen at Mar- quette, on the shore of Lake Superior. At St. Ignace a monument marks the spot where his grave was found.

Some writers claim for Marquette the honor of dis- covering the Mississippi River. Prominent among these is the Rev. Henry S. Spalding, vice presi- dent of Marquette College, Milwaukee, a scholar of high rank who has for years made a special study of Marquette's life and labors. In order that this claim in behalf of Marquette might be fairly stated, the Editor requested Father Spalding to outline the reasons for the ground he takes, and this he has done as follows :

"Why has not posterity given to Jolliet the honors of a discoverer of the Mississippi? Why has he not at least shared the honors with Father Marquette? If we

WESTERN PORTION OF JOLLIET'S LARGER MAP [1674].

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 199

turn to the records of the times, we shall find an answer to these questions. It is true that only Jolliet received from Frontenac the official appointment to undertake the voyages of discovery, but he was to make use of the information furnished by the missionaries. They had already penetrated far into the solitudes of the western world: Two years before Jolliet's appointment, Mar- quette had reached the western shore of Lake Superior; Allouez had stood upon the banks of the tributaries of the great river; Dablon had written so accurate an account of the Mississippi that it reads to-day like a description of one who had navigated the river from its source to its mouth. As superior of the Ottawa Mis- sions and in constant communication with his subjects, he transmitted to Quebec from his station at Mackinac not only the information gathered by personal experi- ence, but also that obtained from the other missionaries. He knew the Indian name of the stream, and the direc- tion in which it flowed ; he knew its width, he knew of the treeless plains stretching to the east and west and supplanted by the tropical forests of the distant south; he knew that the Mississippi poured its waters into the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of California.

"Speaking of explorations which the missionaries completed making, Father Dablon writes: 'At some days' journey from the mission of Saint Francis Xavier, which is on the Bay of Puans, [Green Bay] is found a great river more than a league in width. This, com- ing from the regions of the north and flowing south, extends to such a distance that the savages who have

200 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

navigated it, in going to seek for their enemies, after many days' journey, have not found its mouth, which can only be the sea of Florida or the Sea of California. Mention will be made hereafter of a very considerable nation living in the direction of that river, and of the journey we hope to make there this year to carry the Faith and at the same time to gain a knowledge of the countries.' (Relations, Vol. 54, page 136-7.)

"In the Relation of 1670-1671, Father Dablon not only refers to the same subject, but gives the name of the river. 'A southward course is taken by the great river, called by the natives the Mississippi, which must empty some where in the regions of the Florida Sea, and more than four hundred leagues hence. Fuller mention will be made of it hereafter. Beyond that great river lie the eight villages of the Illinois, a hundred leagues from the Mission of the Holy Spirit.' (Relations, Vol. 55, page 97; also 169.)

"Writing of the Illinois whom he and Father Allouez visited, he says : 'These people are situated in the midst of that beautiful region mentioned by us, near the great river named Mississippi, of which it is well to note here what information we have gathered. It seems to form an enclosure, as it were, for all our lakes, rising in the regions of the north and flowing towards the south, until it empties into the sea — supposed by us to be either the Florida Sea or the sea of Vermillion, as there is no knowledge of any large rivers in that direction except those which empty into these two seas.

" 'Some savages have assured us that this is so noble

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 201

a river that at more than three hundred leagues from its mouth it is larger than the one flowing before Quebec, for they declare that it is more than a league wide. They also state that all this vast stretch of country con- sists of nothing but treeless prairies until we come within twenty leagues of the sea, where the forests begin to appear again. Some warriors who declare that they made their way hither from this country tell us that they saw men there resembling the French, who were splitting trees with knives, and that some of them had their houses on the water, for thus they expressed themselves in speaking of sawed boards and of ships. They stated further that all along that great stream are various tribes of different nations and dissimiliar languages and customs, and all at war with each other.' (Relations, Vol. 55, page 209; also Vol. 56, page 147.)

"Such in brief is the information garnered by the scat- tered 'Black Robes' and sent to Quebec and even to France before Jolliet received his commission to under- take the discovery. The Jesuits held the key to this unknown land, this far-famed river; Jolliet entered the door which they unlocked, he followed the way which they pointed out to him. He went to decide upon the strategic and commercial value of the country ; he went as a government official, a surveyor, a topographer, faithful to his charge and prepared by education and experience to fulfil the important trust committed to him. It is true that other Frenchmen had heard of this great river, but they had neither the education nor the inclination to make a record of what they saw and

202 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

heard and send it to Quebec. It was from the Jesuits that the Canadian Government received by far the greater part of its information in regard to the Missis- sippi. None of this information came from Jolliet.

"It was not by chance or any casual meeting that Marquette accompanied Jolliet. This we learn from a letter written by Father Dablon after the return of Jol- liet from the voyage. "On arriving in the Ottawa country he (Jolliet) joined Father Marquette, who awaited him for the voyage, and who had long pre- mediated the undertaking, 'I'ayant bien des fois con- certee ensemble.' (Relation, Vol. 58, page 95.) And writing fifty years later Charlevoix claimed that Mar- quette had been sent by Talon to undertake the discov- ery. He confined this exploration to Father Marquette, who had already traversed almost all the countries of Canada and who was highly esteemed by the Indians. Jolliet, a citizen of Quebec, a man of ability and experi- ence, was associated with him. Frontenac does not men- tion Marquette in his official message in regard to the discovery ; but this is not strange, for he made no secret of his animosity towards the Jesuits, and it is not prob- able that he would concede the honor of so great a dis- covery to a member of the order. If Jolliet held the official appointment from the Canadian government, Marquette was duly appointed by his superiors to under- take the discovery. Marquette led the way. The great river was found. Jolliet reported the success of the expedition to Frontenac. The Mississippi Valley was claimed and occupied by France. Jolliet received the

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 203

island of Anticosti for his services and history awarded the glory of the enterprise to the Jesuit missionary. Future histories confirmed the title. Wisconsin has carved the record in marble. The verdict of the past will not be changed."

With only one object in view, and that to present the truth fairly and correctly, the Editor feels impelled to claim that to Jolliet instead of to Marquette, his companion, is due the honor of discovering the Missis- sippi. In considering this question, the evidence of his- tory should be investigated carefully and interpreted impartially. To the saintly Marquette, as priest and scholar, too much credit can hardly be given. His is oneof the noblest figures in the history of North America. Deeply pious, as well as brave and self-sacrificing, he labored faithfully and effectively for his Church and for the cause of civilization. Learned, observing and highly intellectual, he has contributed much to the annals of Wisconsin and of the West. His memory should always be held in high regard and grateful appreciation by the people of the land which he helped to civilize.

But to give him the chief credit for the discovery of the Mississippi is to give him credit which belongs to Jolliet. The expedition that resulted in the discov- ery of the Mississippi was planned and executed by the authorities of New France. Its inception was due to Talon, the exceedingly able Intendant. Its object is stated in a note written to Talon, June 4th, 1672, by the King's Minister; "since for the increase of the colony

204 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

there is nothing more desirable than the discovery of a passage to the South Sea," read the note, "His Majesty wishes you to give it your attention." The hope of find- ing a water-way to the Pacific was the mainspring of this as well as of most French explorations to the westward, and that hope was not abandoned until far into the fol- lowing century. "The increase of the colony" means the extension of its territory, of France's influence, and the expedition was governmental in its inception and object. Talon, before returning to France, which he did because his health was failing, recommended Jolliet to Frontenac, who had just assumed the position of Governor, for the important task of exploration. "I have deemed it expedient for the service," wrote Fron- tenac to the Minister, in November, after Jolliet had started for the West, "to send the Sieur Jolliet to dis- cover the South Sea by the Maskoutens country, and the great river Mississippi, which he believed to empty into the California Sea. He is a man of experience in this kind of discovery, and has already been near the great river, of which he promises to see the mouth."

This note shows clearly that Jolliet was selected for the position because of his fitness to carry out the prac- tical work of discovery and exploration. Moreover, Father Dablon, who was Marquette's superior, wrote an introduction to Marquette's account of the voyage to and down the Mississippi River, and in it he states that in 1672 Frontenac and Talon, recognizing the importance of discovering whether the Mississippi dis- charges into the Pacific Ocean, appointed for this un-

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 205

dertaking the Sieur Jolliet, whom they considered very fit for so great an enterprise. Dablon adds that they were all pleased that Marquette should be of the party, and he continues: "They made no mistake in choosing the Sieur Jolliet, for he is a young man, born in this country, who possesses all the qualifications that could be desired for such an undertaking. He has experience and knows the language spoken in the country of the Ottawa, where he has passed several years. He possesses tact and prudence, which are the qualities necessary for the success of a voyage as dangerous as it is difficult. Finally, he has the courage to dread nothing where everything is to be feared. Consequently, he has ful- filled all the expectations entertained of him, and if, after having passed through a thousand dangers, he had not unfortunately been wrecked in the very harbor, — his canoe having upset below the Sault St. Louis, near Mon- treal, where he lost his men and his papers, and whence he escaped only by a sort of miracle, — nothing would remain to be desired in regard to the success of his voy- age."

Thus Dablon, the superior of Marquette, recognizes Jolliet as the head of the expedition and as a man emi- nently fit for that leadership. Marquette himself quotes in his journal, with tacit approval, a statement made by Jolliet, speaking to the Mascouten, Miami and Kicka- poo, at their village upon the Fox River, "that he [Jol- liet] was sent by Monsieur our Governor to discover new countries, while I [Marquette] was sent to illumine

them with the light of the Holy Gospel." 10

206 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

Jolliet was the head of the expedition, responsible for its fate. It was successful and for its success his con- temparies, including Marquette's own superior, gave him credit. Jolliet was the explorer and Marquette the missionary. Jolliet commanded the expedition and Mar- quette was its chaplain. In his sphere each was equally brave, equally enterprising. To give either his due it is not necessary to take any deserved credit from the other.

The ill fortune that caused Jolliet to lose his notes made Marquette, in large measure, the chronicler of the expedition. His journal is the most exhaustive record of the voyage of discovery, but all the essential facts of the discovery were made known before Marquette's journal saw the light. Jolliet returned to Quebec in August, 1674. Dablon at once interviewed him in re- gard to the expedition and from him obtained a report which he sent to his superior in France. This report describes the extent and the course of the great river, the savages along the shores, the beauty and fertility of the soil, the mildness of the climate and the abundance of game. Dablon, as a result of information obtained from Jolliet, remarks that the Mississippi, beyond rea- sonable doubt, empties into the Gulf of Mexico, but that the Missouri River, a tributary of the Mississippi, prob- ably leads to some river that flows into the Pacific. The French had hoped that the Mississippi would give them a clear route to the Pacific. They were disappointed to learn that it did not do so, but they were quick to realize the possibilities of the new theory that the Missouri

•v •';' tl . •

* ;&* '' •: *>

MAP PUBLISHED WITH MARQUETTE JOURNAL, 1681.

\

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 209

might point the way to the East's fabled wealth. Thus the two principal facts virtually established by the expe- dition were made known by Jolliet in his conversation with Dablon. Not only that, but Dablon, as a result of what Jolliet told him, mentioned at that early day the possibility of connecting the waters of Lake Michigan and the Mississippi by means of a canal to be dug across the Chicago portage. Dablon's report was published in France while Marquette was dying near the shore of Lake Michigan. Marquette's own journal was not pub- lished until six years later. In the meantime Jolliet's success had become known in other ways. Frontenac, in November, 1674, wrote as follows to the Minister: "Sieur Jolliet . . . returned three months ago, and found some very fine countries, and a navigation so easy, through the beautiful rivers, that a person can go from Lake Ontario and Fort Frontenac in a bark to the Gulf of Mexico, there being only one carrying place, half a league in length, where Lake Ontario communicates with Lake Erie. A settlement could be made at this post, and another bark built upon Lake Erie. . . . He has been within ten days' journey of the Gulf of Mexico, and believes that water commu- nication could be found leading to the Vermillion and California Sea, (the Pacific Ocean) by means of the river that flows from the west, with the great river which he discovered, which rises from north to south, and is as large as the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec. I send you, by my secretary, the map he has made of it,

210 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

and the observations that he has been able to recollect, as he lost all his minutes," etc.

The map of which Frontenac writes gives a reason- ably good idea of the situation of the Great Lakes and of the course of the Mississippi. Jolliet's report, writ- ten from recollection, is enclosed in a tablet on the left hand side of the map. In it he describes the prairies, groves and forests along the Mississippi, and he speaks in particular of the possible route to the Pacific by way of the Missouri River. He states that he saw a village which was not more than five days' journey from a tribe that traded with the tribes of California.

Jolliet made other maps of the newly-discovered ter- ritory and the results of his expedition, as gleaned from him, were made public in several different forms.

Thus it is plain that Jolliet was the head of the expe- dition of discovery and that to him the chief honor of the discovery is due. In Marquette he had a most able and loyal associate. The priest's knowledge and influ- ence, as well as his zeal and his yearning to reach the Father of Waters, made him a fitting companion to the practical explorer who directed the expedition. Two men better suited to the work that each had to do it is difficult to imagine.

CHAPTER IX

To THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI

OF not a little consequence is the role that Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, explorer of the Mississippi River after Jolliet and Marquette, and the French discoverer of the mouth of that stream, plays in the history of Wisconsin. To Wisconsin he brought the first sailing vessel that ever navigated the Great Lakes, and it was along Wisconsin's eastern boundary, the coast of Lake Michigan, that he went on his way to the Gulf of Mexico.

His family, one in high respect at Rouen, where hi» ancestors had lived for generations, owned an estate named La Salle, and thus he is known most commonly as Sieur de La Salle, instead of his family name of Cavelier. He was born at Rouen in 1643 and was edu- cated by the Jesuits. He was drawn to New France, perhaps, by the presence in that country of his brother, Jean Cavelier, a Sulpitian priest. He accepted a grant of land on the St. Lawrence, above Montreal, and began studying Indian languages. One day, two or three years after his arrival in America, some Seneca Indians who visited his seignory told him about the Ohio River and its great length — for they regarded the Ohio and the Lower Mississippi as one stream — and he concluded that it must empty into the Gulf of California and thus open a route to China. From that time he dreamed of little else than tracing this new route to the Orient, and in derision his estate became known as La Chine — China. The rapids near his seignory bear the name of La Chine to this day. So eager became his desire to

213

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explore the West that he sold his estate in order to raise funds to fit out an expedition, which started July 6th, 1669. It was during this journey, while accompanied by two Sulpitians, de Casson and Galinee, that La Salle met Joliet, who, as told in a preceding chapter, was returning from Lake Superior. The Sulpitians set out for Sault Ste. Marie. What La Salle did after part- ing from them is a mystery. One account takes him down the Ohio River as far as Louisville. Margry, the French archivist, thinks that he even reached the mouth of the Ohio at the Mississippi. The next year, 1670, La Salle is credited by some historians with entering Lake Michigan, finding the Chicago portage and reach- ing the Mississippi River by way of the Illinois. Park- man is of the opinion that La Salle reached the upper waters of the Illinois at this time, but did not descend that stream. There is no conclusive evidence that in 1669 La Salle reached the Mississippi by way of the Ohio, or that in 1670 he reached the Mississippi by way of the Illinois. What he did short of these achievements is of little consequence in view of the fact that no tangible results, no revelations of the secrets of the West, followed from his wanderings during the period in question.

When, in 1673, Frontenac visited what is now the site of Kingston, and there erected a wooden fort designed to bar the Dutch and the English from the fur trade of the Upper Lakes, he left La Salle in command of the post. In 1675 La Salle, visiting France, obtained from the King, upon the recommendation of Colbert,

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 215

the Minister of Marine, a grant of Fort Frontenac and of the lands adjacent to it, upon condition that he repay to Frontenac the money expended in establishing the post, and that he maintain a garrison in the fort at his own expense. The next year La Salle strengthened Fort Frontenac. His ownership of the post carried with it control of a vast fur trade, a privilege that aroused the enmity of the merchants of New France. He added to his trading privilege in 1677 when, again returning to France, he obtained a permit allowing him to explore the western part of New France, even to penetrate to Mexico, at his own expense, and with the privilege of trading in buffalo skins. It was expressly stipulated, however, that he should not trade with the Upper Lake Indians, who carried their beavers to Montreal.

La Salle soon began the carrying out of his mighty project, to find the mouth of the Mississippi and to establish at that point a post that would rival any of Spain's seaports in Mexico or in the West Indies, and to establish a chain of forts along the Illinois and the Mississippi from the Upper Lakes to the Gulf. Thus would the Spaniard of the Gulf and the Englishman east of the Alleghanies be barred from the great Valley of the Mississippi. France was to dominate a new and vast territory.

In the fall of 1678, accompanied by Henry Tonty, a brave officer who had served the French King, and whose father, an Italian banker, originated what has become known as tontine insurance, and by Louis Hen- nepin, a Recollet friar, La Salle returned from France.

216 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

He brought with him thirty men, including ship-carpen- ters, and a supply of cordage, anchors and other mate- rial used in ship-building. At the mouth of Cayuga Creek, above Niagara Falls, a ship of forty-five tons, carrying five small cannon, was built under the direc- tion of Tonty. In May the vessel was launched. La Salle named it the Griffon, after the famous animal — half lion, half eagle, symbol of strength and swift- ness— called the griffin, two of which supported the Frontenac escutcheon. A carved image of the Griffon adorned the boat's prow. The Griffon set sail on the yth of August and reached Detroit on the loth, and Mac- kinac on the zyth. Thence the Griffon proceeded to Washington Island, at the mouth of Green Bay, where La Salle loaded it with furs and sent it back to his post, just above Niagara Falls. The craft never reached its destination. It probably sank with all on board dur- ing a severe storm. It was late in September, a period of gales on the lakes. Indians afterward said that they saw it near Mackinac, tossing in a tempest. Hennepin chronicled a frightful storm that threatened La Salle's own party, bound down the west coast of Lake Michi- gan, about that time. There is an Indian tradition that the crew of the Griffon pillaged the ship and then started for Hudson Bay, where the English were established, but the fact that no authentic trace of any of the crew was found indicates that what has since become an appalling list of disasters on the Great Lakes began with the loss of the Griffon.

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 217

Skirting the east side of the peninsula of Green Bay, so as to avoid the portage at Sturgeon Bay, La Salle's expedition, now in canoes, journeyed on toward the Mis- sissippi. They camped at night, perhaps, at the sites of what are now Manitowoc, Sheboygan, Port Wash- ington, Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha; at some of them, certainly, for the best camping places were found at the mouths of rivers, and so were Indian vil- lages, at which it was necessary to obtain corn and other food. At a place supposed to be Milwaukee, the Frenchmen were forced by a storm to land, and from a village, which its inhabitants had deserted in alarm, they took corn, leaving in payment articles of barter, of which Indians were fond. The Indians, soon reappear- ing, found courage to make friendly advances, but La Salle, apprehensive of attack, had trees -felled to make a barricade. Behind it the Frenchmen passed that night under arms. The next day the Indians feasted the French and La Salle made presents to their chiefs.

La Salle, reaching the head of the lake, continued around it until he encountered the mouth of the St. Joseph River, where he built a rude stockade. Leaving men at the new fort, La Salle, with Tonty and Henne- pin, started for the Mississippi by way of the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers. On the shores of Lake Peoria, in the midst of the Illinois Indians, La Salle erected a fort to which he gave the name of Crevecceur, "Broken Heart." It was a time of extreme anxiety to him, as no word regarding the Griffon had been received, and his selection of a name for the fort has been taken as show-

2i 8 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

ing that he had become despondent, at least temporarily. La Salle finally set out afoot for the Lower Lakes, to ascertain the fate of the Griffon. He left Tonty in com- mand of the fort on the Illinois, and sent Hennepin and two other white men down the Illinois and up the Mis- sissippi.

At the post disaster speedily followed. Part of the Frenchmen deserted Tonty, and soon afterward an Iroquois war party made a sudden descent upon the Illi- nois Indians, Tonty almost losing his life in trying to prevent the frightful butchery of his allies which fol- lowed. Tonty and five remaining companions made for Green Bay, and one day, while their leaking canoe was being repaired, Father Gabriel, one of the two Recollet priests in the party, was killed at prayer, while alone in a leafy arbor, by Kickapoo Indians. Later, the Sieur de Boisrondet was lost in the forest for ten days and almost starved to death. The whole party was soon in danger of death from starvation as well as from exposure. They had been reduced to eating the dead priest's fur robe when they reached the abode of the Potawatomi, on the Green Bay peninsula. With these Indians they spent the winter.

In the spring, that of 1681, Tonty hastened to Mac- kinac, where he met La Salle, and they condoled with each other. La Salle, after hearing of the loss of the Griffon, had obtained supplies and reinforcements, and while Tonty was traversing the west shore of Lake Michigan, La Salle was ascending the east shore, only to find Fort Crevecceur abandoned.

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With a fleet of canoes La Salle, still accompanied by Tonty, started in the autumn from Fort Frontenac, journeyed to the head of Lake Michigan and reached the Mississippi by way of the Chicago portage and the Illinois River. This was on the 6th of February, 1682. Down the Mississippi they went — fifty-four persons, Frenchmen and Indians, including some squaws. At one of the Chickasaw bluffs they built a small stockade and named it after Prudhomme, who was assigned to command it. They stopped at the Arkansas, where La Salle took possession of the country in his King's name. On the 6th of April, La Salle divided the expe- dition into three parts, each of which followed one of the three arms of the Mississippi which lead to the Gulf. On the 9th of April, at a reunion at one of the mouths of the river, La Salle erected a column, and took possession of the whole Mississippi Valley, to which he gave the name of Louisiana. La Salle and Tonty, the latter in the lead, returned to Mackinac. Thence Tonty was sent back to the Illinois, where La Salle soon rejoined him, and they built Fort St. Louis upon Starved Rock, in the midst of thousands of Illinois Indians.

La Salle, disappointed at not getting supplies from Quebec, started for that place. On the way he met an officer appointed by De la Barre, the new Gover- nor of New France, to supersede him in command of the Great West. In quest of justice, La Salle went to France. The King sided with him and sent a naval expedition, with La Salle in supreme command, to the mouth of the Mississippi River, there to plant a col-

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ony. Failure to find the outlet of the great river, the landing by mistake at Matagorda Bay, the deaths of the French from disease and from Indian attacks, La Salle's desperate efforts to save his party, and, finally, his assassination by several of his own followers, while he was trying to reach the Illinois, whence he could go to France for succor, are familiar events in history.

Meanwhile Tonty, reinstated by the King's order in the command of Starved Rock, had obtained intelligence of La Salle's landing in the Gulf of Mexico. In Feb- ruary, 1686, he started down the river with a band of Franch and Indians to rejoin his old commander, but he failed to find him. Leaving a few men at the mouth of the Arkansas, he returned to the country of the Illi- nois. Survivors of La Salle's party — the assassins them- selves had been killed before this — encountered two of Tonty's men among the Arkansas Indians. Pushing northward, they reached the fort on the Illinois, where they represented themselves as the forerunners of La Salle. It was some months later, after they had reached Quebec, that Tonty learned of the murder of his friend and chief.

In the hope of rescuing La Salle's colony on the Gulf, Tonty, with five Frenchmen and three Indians, started down the Mississippi in December. In March, while he was on the Red River, earnestly engaged in his quest, all except two of his companions deserted him. After heroic attempts to reach the lost colony, he was forced to return to Starved Rock. At that place he remained for ten years or longer, all the time urging the French

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government to carry out La Salle's project for colon- izing Louisiana. He realized the possibilities of that vast empire, the necessity of securing and holding it, and he showed his faith in the future of Louisiana by join- ing Iberville's colony at Old Biloxi. To that gallant son of New France Tonty was a welcome aide. Under Iber- ville he made peace with Indian tribes near the mouth of the Mississippi and he made war upon those who would not make peace, including the Alabamas. Tonty, brave, loyal and steadfast, while helping to bury the vic- tims of yellow fever, a ship with supplies from Havana having carried that dread scourge to Iberville's settle- ment, contracted the disease himself and died in Sep- tember, 1704. He was one of the most lovable pio- neers among the French. In fidelity to duty and in courage under adversity his life is eloquent.

CHAPTER X

EXPLORING NORTHWESTERN WISCONSIN

11

ONE of the strangest incidents in Wiscon- sin history was the accidental meeting, on the Mississippi River, in the year 1680, of Louis Hennepin, Franciscan friar, and Daniel Greysolon Du Luth, "gentleman of the King's guard." The strangeness of this meeting, which — considering the vastness of the territory and the few white men in it — was like one needle finding another in a haystack, lay partly in the fact that at the bloody battle of Seneffe, in the war against William, Orange's youthful prince, and his allies, Friar Hennepin had served as an almoner in the French army, and Du Luth, serving as squire to the young Marquis de Lassay, had stood with the rest of the King's household troops during the frightful carnage that claimed 27,000 victims in dead alone. From bat- tle-cursed Hainault to the east shore of the Upper Mis- sissippi River was a far cry indeed, particularly in those days, but it was in that part of Wisconsin that the friar and the soldier of Seneffe first met each other again after the Grand Monarch's victory over the House of Orange.

Du Luth was born about the year 1 647 at Saint-Ger- man-en-Laye, a village and royal residence fifteen miles northwest of Paris. In later years he was designated "a gentleman of Lyons," by Baron La Hontan, but this was because his family, one of the petty nobility, had removed to Lyons after intermarriage with the Patron family, wealthy merchants of that city. As soon as he was old enough, Du Luth was enrolled as a

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member of the Royal Guard, composed exclusively ot gentlemen of France, but, either tired of waiting for promotion, or becoming desirous of adventure in a new field, he not long afterward obtained a commission as captain in the Marines and departed for New France to join his command.

Called back to France by personal matters, Du Luth found his country engaged in war with the Dutch, and he immediately volunteered for service in his old regi- ment, the Royal Guards. The battle of Seneffe, during which his superior, the Marquis de Lassay, was wounded three times, was fought in the autumn of 1674. Du Luth must have started back to New France soon after this, because he was living quietly in Montreal early in the summer of 1675, having, while keeping his rank, retired from his command on half pay.

His real career in the new world, that of fur trader, soon began. He became favored of Frontenac, the Gov- ernor, and his commercial venture prospered. With success came a desire for a larger field in which to oper- ate. On the first of September, 1678, with seven French- men and three slaves, he left Montreal for the head of Lake Superior, his intention being to explore the coun- try of the Sioux Indians lying beyond that inland sea. July 2nd, 1679, he planted the arms of France in the great village of the Nadouecioux — its name was Izatys — where "no Frenchmen had ever been before," he records. This statement is open to question. Radisson and Groseilliers, it should be remembered, visited the Mille Lac region of Minnesota in the winter of 1659-

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60, and it is more than likely that they visited the Indians described by Du Luth. These were known as Knife Indians, perhaps because they made and sold stone knives. Izatys is a variation of Issati or Isanti, and means Knife Indians. From the Knife Indians, Du Luth went westward one hundred and twenty leagues to the villages of the Sissetons and the Houet- batons, other Sioux nations. In their territory, too, he planted the French King's arms. Du Luth met the Assiniboines and other northern tribes and arranged a peace between them and the Sioux.

In June, 1680, Du Luth again visited the Issati, but this time he went thither by water and incidentally explored much of the northwest border of Wisconsin. He ascended the Bois Brule and made a short portage to the headwaters of the St. Croix River, which stream he descended to the Mississippi. His remarkable meet- ing with Hennepin soon followed. The friar had been sent by La Salle from the French fort on the Illinois to ascend the Mississippi River. With Hennepin on this expedition were one Michael Accault, who was really in command, and Anthony Auguelle, called the Picard. They started from the Illinois late in the winter of 1679-80, but were delayed by ice. They had passed the mouth of the Wisconsin River, where Prairie du Chien is now located, and the mouth of the Black River, the future site of La Crosse, and had proceeded twenty leagues or more still farther up the river when they encountered a war party of Sioux going south. Accault offered the calumet to the Indians and gave them some

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tobacco and twenty knives. The Sioux, abandoning the idea of war upon more southern tribes, retraced their course and took the Frenchmen to their village. On the 22nd of April, having reached the isles of the Missis- sippi, the Indians learned that two of their tribe had been killed by the Mascoutens. The Sioux gave vent to their grief. They wept like children, as was their wont in joy as well as in grief, in welcoming a guest as well as in mourning the death of a loved one. Accault gave them, among other things, twenty-four hatchets to assuage their sorrow. Their journey was finally resumed. Their destination was the Mille Lacs and they reached it by traveling overland after hiding their canoes just below the modern city of St. Paul. One of the Indian chiefs adopted Hennepin. He was a cap- tive, almost a slave. He and Auguelle tried to escape, but were captured under such circumstances that for a few moments Hennepin expected that his last hour had come. Hennepin was afterward taken by the Indians on a great buffalo hunt, probably along the Wisconsin shore of the Mississippi. He records that during this hunt the Indians, at different times, killed as many as six score buffaloes.

When Du Luth reached the mouth of the St. Croix River, he learned that some Frenchmen were among the natives who were hunting buffalo two hundred and forty miles below. Du Luth was essentially a man of action. He had with him only four men, but taking two of them in a canoe, he hastened down the river. On the morning of the third day he boldly entered the Indian

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camp, declared that Hennepin was his brother, sternly condemned the Indians for their treatment of him and demanded the instant surrender of the white prisoners. Du Luth's influence over the Indians was always strong, and in this case it was strikingly illustrated by the prompt release of the Frenchmen.

Du Luth's companions on this expedition were named Le Maitre, Bellegarde, Masson and Pepin. The name of the last is perpetuated in that expansion of the Mis- sissippi River which is now generally known as Lake Pepin.

Du Luth, after spending a week with the Sioux at their village, where, despite their large numbers and the mere handful of his companions, he lost no opportunity to show them that he was offended by their course toward Hennepin, finally decided to take the friar to Green Bay. To do this Du Luth was forced to aban- don a pet idea of his own for western exploration. Some time before Indians had given salt to three of his Frenchmen, and had added the information that it had come from a great lake only twenty days' journey away, whose waters were unfit to drink. Whether the Indians were giving Du Luth's men a confused idea of the Pacific Ocean, which Du Luth had in mind, or meant to indicate Salt Lake, is not clear. The Pacific Ocean was far more than twenty days' journey from the Mississippi Valley, while, on the other hand, Salt Lake, instead of being in a "west-northwesterly direction," as Du Luth describes the body of salt water in question, lay to the southwest. Du Luth became convinced that it was

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possible for him to reach the "sea of salt" and he earnestly desired to go in quest of it, but he finally decided to return to Michilimackinac by way of the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers.

While homeward bound, the Frenchmen found at the Falls of St. Anthony — so named by Hennepin — two dresses of beaver skins, richly ornamented with porcupine quills, which the Indians had offered to appease the Spirit of the Falls. One of the French- men stole these offerings, an offense for which Du Luth would have severely punished him but for the interference of Father Hennepin. In some way the news of the sacrilege, as they deemed it, quickly reached the Sioux, one of whose chiefs proposed that the Frenchmen be pursued and slain. The principal chief brained the one who urged this bloody plan. The Frenchmen, however, had hardly reached the mouth of the Wisconsin River when they were over- taken by three Indians, who said that the Sioux were hot upon their heels and eager for revenge. Hennepin says that two days later a fleet of seven score canoes appeared before Du Luth's camp, which had not been changed. The Indians were friendly to the Frenchmen, however, and soon departed down the Mississippi River on a war expedition. The Frenchmen thereupon ascended the Wisconsin River, portaged to the Fox, and soon arrived at Green Bay, where Hennepin found in Father Pier- son, the Jesuit missionary, "the son of the Royal Receiver in our town of Ath, in Hainault." At Green Bay Hennepin spent the winter and enjoyed once more

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the sport of his boyhood, skating. He returned to France in 1682. His subsequent career was one of mendacity and vicissitude. He wrote and re-wrote books of adventure, making his own figure larger with each publication. He proved false to La Salle, claim- ing credit for much of that explorer's work, and was ungrateful to Du Luth, his rescuer, whom he actually portrayed as his ward while they were among the Sioux. Unfrocked in France, Hennepin went to England, where he gave his imagination full vent. The last ever heard of him he was in a convent at Rome. What his contemporaries thought of him may be gathered by this memorandum written on the I3th of March, 1683, by M. Tronson, Superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice: "I have seen le Pere Recollet who pretends to have descended the Mississippi."

At Michilimackinac Du Luth learned of machina- tions against him at Montreal. He was accused of illegal trading in fur and of being at the head of a con- siderable band of conreurs des bois. M. Duchesneau, the intendant of New France, estimated that eight hun- dred of these wild traders were ranging the forests. He accused Frontenac, the Governor, of giving his pro- tection to some of these traders, hinting particularly at Du Luth. Not long afterward he accused not only Du Luth, but his uncle, Jean-Jacques Patron, and likewise Nicholas Perrot, of sending peltry-laden canoes to the English.

The result of the charges was that Du Luth went to France to defend himself. Before the Minister of

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Marine he denied that he had engaged in the fur trade against the Jaw and he declared that he had given his own goods to the Indians in order to win them over to French interests. He afterward wrote that up to 1685 he had never had a following of more than eight men. Upon his return from France, Du Luth obtained a license to trade in the Sioux country, by way of Green Bay, notwithstanding La Salle's protest that to allow Du Luth to use the Wisconsin River route, to trade with the Sioux in beaver skins, would ruin La Salle's mo- nopoly of the trade in buffalo hides. Upon the 8th day of May, 1683, Du Luth, with thirty followers, reached the head of Green Bay. There was an Iroquois incur- sion soon afterward. Du Luth, without engaging the enemy in battle, protected the outpost so ably that the Governor, in a letter to Seignelay, the Minister of Marine, warmly commended him. From Green Bay, Du Luth went to the north shore of Lake Superior in order to prevent trade between the Indians of that region and the English at Hudson Bay. From his fort at Kaministiquia, now Fort William, he built another fort northeast of Lake Nepigon, on a stream leading to Hudson Bay, calling it La Tourette, a family name.

In the summer of 1683 two Frenchmen, Colin Berthat and Jacques Le Maire, had been killed and robbed near Keweenaw by Indians. While Du Luth was at Mac- kinac, he heard that Folle Avoine, one of the murderers, had arrived at Sault Ste. Marie with fifteen Chippewa families. Twelve Frenchmen who were at the Sault hesitated to endeavor to arrest Folle Avoine, but Du

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Luth, as soon as he became acquainted with the situa- tion, embarked with six men, arrested the Indian at the Sault and told the Chippewa that the murderers must be punished. The Indians told him that one Achiga- naga and his sons were the guilty ones. These were arrested at Keweenaw and taken to the Sault.

Du Luth called the Indians at the Sault into council and the murderers were convicted by their own state- ments. The Frenchmen decided that two of them should die — Folle Avoine and one of Achiganaga's sons. Du Luth informed the Indians of the verdict and then the two condemned men were led to the top of a hill and shot by the French in the presence of four hundred Indians. Thus Du Luth was the first white man to carry out in the region of the Great Lakes the death penalty for murder. His course was not only heroic, but wise, for its moral effect upon the red men must have been deep.

In 1686 Du Luth, under orders from Quebec, estab- lished a fort near Detroit, the exact location probably being nearer what is now Ft. Gratiot. He had to victual and garrison the fort at his own expense. Dongan, Governor of New York, desirous to carry out his pros- pect of trade and communication with the Upper Lakes, tried to push through by way of Lake Huron, but Du Luth successfully guarded French interests at that point. Finally Du Luth was relieved of the command at Detroit by Armond Louis de Lorndarec, otherwise Baron de la Hontan and Herleche, who has written of Du Luth as "a gentleman of Lyons who has many

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good parts and has rendered important services to the King of the country." The two men served together on Denonville's expedition of 1687 against the Iroquois, in which Indians enlisted by Du Luth and Tonty took part. During this expedition Denonville had permitted the French to capture and ship to France as galley slaves sixty friendly Iroquois. It was to avenge this great wrong that four hundred Iroquois fell upon La Chine, near Montreal, on the night of August 4th, 1689, laid the hamlet in waste, massacred many men, women and children and took captive many whom they afterward put to torture. For weeks the crafty savages hid around Montreal, looking for more prey, and the people of that town were in terror.

A sudden change occurred. Back from France came Frontenac, once more made Governor, and from the West arrived Du Luth and a band of coureurs des bois. Du Luth's wit was matched against Iroquois craft. Tak- ing thirty picked men with him, in their canoes, this "gentleman of the King's Guard," now one of New France's forest leaders, ascended to the Lake of the Two Mountains. Most of the men were hidden in the bottoms of their canoes, and the Iroquois, as Du Luth had expected, thought that they were a party of traders bound west with goods for barter. Four canoes, with seven or eight braves in each, put forth to capture them. The Frenchmen who were paddling put about in feigned flight and the Indians redoubled their effort to overhaul them. Suddenly, when the pursuers were within easy range, there was a sharp call from Du Luth, and the

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French canoes seemed suddenly to fill with men, who in turn became the pursuers. The French did not fire a single shot until they were close to their prey. Then all of Du Luth's men fired with deadly effect. The river was full of wounded and dying Iroquois. Some were brained with paddles as they rose to the surface, but a few, all that remained of the first three canoes, were taken back to the settlement and burned alive as a meas- ure of reprisal for the massacre of La Chine. Such was the spirit in which the Iroquois and the French warred upon each other.

Du Luth spent most of his remaining days at Mon- treal. In 1695 he accompanied Frontenac's expedi- tion against the Iroquois, but was left in command of Fort Frontenac. In February, 1697, he was promoted to a captaincy, and in 1700 he was in command of Fort Holland, at LaChine. Later he went west as far as Detroit, which post he commanded for some time, until Tonty succeeded him.

The hardships and exposure of many years of wild life, combined with gout, had been telling upon him for years. He died in 1709. Wrote M. Vaudreuil to the Minister of Marine, in announcing his death: "He was a very, honest man."

CHAPTER XI

EXPLORING BEYOND THE MISSISSIPPI

4

SOON came the period of trans-Mississippi exploration. Du Luth and Hennepin were followed by other noted travelers and most of them penetrated farther to the westward. One of these was Pierre Charles le Sueur. A native of France, he had settled in Canada at an early age and had engaged in the fur trade. In the year 1693, while he was commandant of the post at Chequa- megon Bay, he erected two forts, one on Madelaine Island, and the other upon a large island above Lake Pepin. His object in building these posts was to pro- tect the Bois Brule and St. Croix River route between Lake Superior and the Upper Mississippi. Later, hav- ing discovered lead mines on the shores of the Missis- sippi, he went to France and obtained permission to operate them. But Frontenac prevented him from going west at that time and in this action the ruler of New France was upheld by the government at home. Frontenac contended that Le Sueur's mining enterprise was only a cloak that he was using to get control of a large trade in furs. In 1699 Le Sueur went to Louis- iana, where he was beyond the jurisdiction of the Gov- ernor of Canada, and during the following year Iber- ville sent him to discover copper mines along the Upper Mississippi. He ascended the Minnesota River for about a hundred miles. Above the mouth of the Blue Earth River, where they built a fort, Le Sueur's party found what they took to be a copper mine. They went to work and in twenty-two days they mined thirty-three

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thousand pounds of "ore." About four thousand pounds of it was transported down the Mississippi to Biloxi and thence shipped to France. It was nothing more than marl colored by silicate of iron. The Indians used it as paint. Le Sueur was greatly disappointed, of course, and he ceased to be an active factor in explora- tion of the Northwest. He died on the ocean in the year 1710.

In 1703 Baron La Hontan, an efficient officer who had commanded at Detroit, published at The Hague a book in which he related that fifteen years before he had found, near Lake Pepin, a river which entered the Mis- sissippi from the west, and that he had followed its slug- gish waters until he came to a large lake, situate near the mountains, beyond which were the headwaters of another river that emptied into the Pacific Ocean. This tale was utterly untrue, but it received some credence at the time, and several cartographers placed his "Long River" upon their maps of North America.

One object of Father Charlevoix's mission to Can- ada and Louisiana in 1721, when he visited Wisconsin, was to obtain information as to the most suitable route to the Pacific Ocean. The Regent, Philip of Orleans, had commissioned him to look into the question and to report to him. Charlevoix, after his voyage down the Mississippi, actually recommended that an expedition be sent up the Missouri River to its source and beyond. The government never adopted the plan. It remained for Pierre Gaultier de Varenne, Sieur de la Verendrye, to begin the real work of trans-Mississippi exploration.

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He was the son of a French officer and a native of Three Rivers. After being wounded at the Battle of Mal- plaquet, during the War of the Spanish Succession, he was not treated to his liking, and soon returned to Amer- ica, where he adopted the free life of the woods. While he was commanding the post at Lake Nepigon, north of Lake Superior, in 1728, an Indian chief, using a piece of birch bark, drew for him a rough map of the route by which that large body of fresh water now known as Lake Winnipeg could be reached. Verendrye, full of enthusiasm, went to Quebec and told the Governor that an inland voyage of five hundred leagues from Lake Superior would take one to the Pacific Ocean. The Governor thought well of attempting to reach across the continent. He was unable to give any assistance in money, however, so he granted to Verendrye a monopoly of the fur trade in the new country. Verendrye enlisted the aid of merchants of Montreal in equipping the expe- dition and then hastened westward. At Mackinac he was joined by Father Messager, a Jesuit. By the lat- ter part of 1731 the expedition, which included Veren- drye's two sons and his nephew De La Jemeraye, had reached Rainy Lake. They built a fort, St. Pierre, at the head of Rainy River, and going back to Lake Supe- rior wintered at Kaministiquia. In the spring they started westward again, passed Fort St. Pierre, and erected Fort St. Charles, on the southwest shore of the Lake of the Woods. Already, however, the cost of the expedition had reached the sum of forty-three thou- sand livres, while the fur trade was not sufficient to jus-

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tify further exploration. An attempt to induce the King to bear the expense of an expedition to the Pacific Ocean failed. For some time no progress was made. In 1 734 Verendrye built a fort, which he named Maurepas, at Lake Winnipeg. In the meantime his nephew had died and not long afterward one of his sons and a Jesuit missionary were murdered by Sioux. Verendrye, dis- couraged and grief-stricken, wrote to the Minister in 1737 that he would have to abandon the project in hand, but his enthusiasm returned in some measure and before the end of the following year he had built a fort upon the Assiniboine at a point where a portage led to Lake Manitoba. Thence he struck out for the Valley of the Missouri and actually reached a village of the Man- dans December 3rd, about six weeks after leaving Fort De La Reine, his new post on the Assiniboine. His force consisted of fifty men. His stay among the Mandans was short. He detailed two men to remain with them, in order to learn their language, while he started back to La Reine, which he reached after suffering severe hardships. The two men whom he had left among the Mandans rejoined him during September, 1739. One of his sons, in April, reached Lake Manitoba, where he built Fort Dauphin, and then pushed onward to the Valley of the Saskatchewan. His business required Verendrye's presence in Montreal during the following year. He found himself involved in litigation and in debt to the extent of forty thousand livres. Beauharnois, the Governor, gave him aid and comfort, however, and he returned to La Reine in 1741. The next year he

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 245

sent his two surviving sons upon a most hazardous jour- ney to the west. On the first day of January following they came within view of some of the outlying hills of the Rocky Mountains, very likely the Big Horn Range, a hundred miles or so east of the Yellowstone Park. They did not attempt to go any farther. During the homeward journey they planted the arms of France in the Valley of the Upper Missouri, probably among the Sioux. They never realized how near they had been to the Pacific. After that, misfortune and disappointment became the lot of father and sons. At one time the elder was relieved of his command, but was finally sent back, only to meet with failure once more. His sons tried in vain to enlist the aid of the government, or that of the merchants of Montreal, in the enterprise to which their family had given everything that they had to give. The father died at Three Rivers in December, 1749.

Legardeur de St. Pierre, a great grandson of Jean Nicolet, and prominent himself in the affairs of the Wisconsin of that day, he having commanded the posts at Chequamegon Bay and Lake Pepin, was selected to follow the discoveries made by the Verendryes. St. Pierre was absent three years upon this mission, but he never penetrated farther west than Fort de la Reine. However, his lieutenant, the Chevalier de Niverville, ascended the Saskatchewan River to the Rocky Moun- tains and built a fort three hundred miles above the mouth of the river. St. Pierre was in Quebec again in the summer of 1753. The war with the British, which soon began, put an end to French exploration of the

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West. St. Pierre himself was sent into the Ohio Val- ley, where he and George Washington soon faced each other in the struggle that terminated only with the end of French rule.

CHAPTER XII FRANCE AND THE FUR TRADE

POTENT indeed was the fur trade in drawing to what is now Wisconsin the Frenchman, the Englishman, the British colonist and the American citizen, all in turn. For almost two hundred years the traffic in furs was the only commerce carried on in Wisconsin. It flourished under the Fleur de Lis, under the Cross of St. George and under the Stars and Stripes. The trade forwarded the work of civilization; not that it put the Indians on a higher plane, but because it spread knowl- edge of the fertility of the territory and in time made known the advantages that the region offered to set- tlers. The moral effect of the trade upon the savages was far from good. The French, the first comers, tried to meet the Indian half way by adopting his habits and customs to a great extent, and the result was that both degenerated. In time the voyageur became as shiftless and unlicensed as the Indian. Many a voyageur had a dusky wife in every Indian village that he was wont to visit. The morals of the Indians, never good, became worse by reason of intercourse with the French traders. Some virtues, wild and primitive, the Indians had pos- sessed, but these suffered as a result of the white man's coming. Gradually they lost even their independence, for they came to lean upon the trader as the source of many of their wants ; in fact, to supply the demand for beaver skins, they neglected agriculture, one of the few things that stood between them and starvation, and they came to depend less and less upon the fruits of the chase, and more and more upon what the trader

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brought in his canoe. Implements of war and of peace they obtained from him ; they began to wear cloth trans- ported from Montreal, instead of warm furs such as their forbears had always worn. Worst of all, they acquired a strong appetite for brandy, and this, more than any one other thing, abetted the work of debauch- ery among them.

More remarkable men than the coureurs des bois, who, in defiance of King and of law, penetrated the innermost recesses of the western wilderness, seeking the Indian and bartering baubles for furs, no country has ever seen. They consisted of the most adventurous spirits of the French colony on the shores of the St. Lawrence. They included peasants as well as members of the best families of New France. Brave in the face of many dangers, inured to hardship in its severest forms, they stood for natural rights, for freedom of trade, as against the petty restrictions .of a King who by edict sought to extend his rule to the vast forests and wide stretches of water, thousands of miles away. For these men farming was too peaceful, life in the settle- ments too tame. Out in the west, where they seldom met any of their fellows, they defied the King. Many laws were enacted against them, but few of them were ever enforced. They treated threats of punishment and offers of clemency with indifference. They became as wild as their surroundings and man's law stopped short of them. Their numbers increased rapidly. At a time when the total population of New France was less than ten thousand, the King's Intendant at Que-

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bee reported to him that eight hundred of the men were engaged illicitly in the fur trade. The King threatened them with whip and brand for the first offence there- after, and with the galleys for life for the second offence, but the coureurs des bois kept right on doing the thing that he so severely interdicted. At this traf- fic some of the King's own representatives connived and in the profits from it they shared. The adventurous free traders did not marry, as other young men did, and were noted for their indifference to law and decency. Dressed as much like Indians as like white men, some of them hardly dressed at all, they would return to Mon- treal every year or so, and plunge into the wildest kind of debauchery. Even the Church's hold upon them was slight. As a rule, however, they would seek absolution after their long round of dissipation, and then they would depart again for wild and wigwam, for uthe lust of freedom," as Parkman calls it.

The fur trade followed the waterways, as a rule, and it was the greatest incentive to exploration. The colony of New France was never a profitable investment to the mother country. The fur trade was the chief source of revenue to the government and the King's agents extended it as rapidly and as widely as possible in order to increase the revenue from it. The fur trade was a monopoly, generally in the hands of some company created by the King, and it levied tribute upon all those who engaged in the commerce of the forest. In the early days of the trade, this tax or duty amounted to a fifth of the whole in each case. Later the duty was

252 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

reduced considerably. Many methods of regulating the fur trade were adopted. The government, particularly during the Seventeenth Century, actually participated in the fur trade. It would send an officer to a remote post and give him the trade connected with the estab- lishment in payment of the expense of maintaining it. This system often led to abuses. And in later years, when it was changed and licenses to trade were issued to merchants, officers were suspected of being secretly interested in the traffic. Trading privileges were some- times granted to individuals to cover the expenses of military expeditions. For aiding in the crusade against the Fox Indians of Wisconsin in 1716, the volunteers were permitted to trade with the Indians for two years, but they not only had to fight if there were fighting to be done, but they were obliged to transport munitions of war and supplies from Montreal to the seat of the expected war. The cost of gathering the Indian nations together at Sault Ste. Marie in 1671, when Sieur de St. Lusson, in the name of the King, took possession of the Northwest, was paid by that officer out of the proceeds of the sale of furs which he received from the Indians in return for the presents which he had given them. Talon, the greatest of the Intendants of New France, reports this fact to the government at home as if it were some- thing very creditable. The cost of exploring expedi- tions, like La Salle's down the Mississippi River, and Le Sueur's up the Mississippi and into Minnesota, were paid for out of the proceeds of the trade in furs in which those adventurers were authorized to engage. The

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King himself knew of these arrangements and sanc- tioned them.

The license system of regulating the fur trade was inaugurated in 1681. The government decided to issue annual licenses for twenty-five canoes, each to contain three men, for trade with the Indians. At the same time amnesty to the coureurs des bois was proclaimed. Nich- olas Perrot was placed in chief command at Green Bay. He established Fort St. Antoine, on the Wisconsin side of Lake Pepin, as well as Fort St. Nicholas, near the mouth of the Wisconsin River, and great activity in the fur trade followed.

At an early day the British of New York began mak- ing serious inroads upon the French trade with the Indians. British traders had penetrated as far west as Mackinac as early as 1687, and some of them were cap- tured by Du Luth. At the British trading posts a beaver skin had two or three times more purchasing power than it had among the French. For a beaver skin the French, at Montreal, would give an Indian two pounds of gunpowder, or thirteen pounds of lead, while at Albany, the same article would command ten pounds of gunpowder or forty pounds of lead. One reason for this was that the English were free traders in their forest commerce, while the French fur trade was a monopoly, the regular traders being bound by many restrictions, while the only free traders among the French, those daring adventurers termed coureurs des bois, were hunted down as outlaws. Many of these for- est runners did what Du Luth had been accused of doing

254 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

— they opened trade with the English. Just before the founding of Detroit, some of them began dealing with the English of Carolina. They even took their furs to Louisiana, the new French colony, and sold them. In October 1700, Callieres, the Governor of New France, wrote a letter to Comte de Pontchartrain, the King's Intendant of Finance, complaining that at least thirty traders who had been fitted out by merchants of New France had descended the Mississippi in ten canoes laden with beaver skins, which they disposed of at the seat of that other colony, getting from 1,200 to 1,500 pounds of powder from the Sieur D'Iberville himself and dif- ferent kinds of goods from merchants under Iberville's jurisdiction. Callieres condemned Iberville's course in this affair and made an earnest plea that the King cause the arrest of the runaway Frenchmen in order that they might be sent to the galleys, according to the terms of the royal declaration issued in May, 1696. It is inter- esting to learn, in this connection, that in 1715 five score Frenchmen, after using goods which merchants of New France had supplied to them, went to live among theThamarois Indians, on the Mississippi River, where almost fifty forest outlaws had preceded them. Their settlement became a retreat for the lawless men both of New France and Louisiana. They raised grain and cattle, built a grist mill and even procured slaves from the Missouri Valley. The King's representatives in New France saw no way of breaking up the settlement and so they proposed to the ministry that if they sent a

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garrison to the place, the Frenchmen would at least be kept under control.

Once in a great while the French, at posts where the license system was used, sold goods at low prices. The one notable instance of this is furnished by De Noyan, commandant at Detroit, who in 1741 wrote to the Min- ister of Marine that about one hundred French fam- ilies were living in Detroit and in the surrounding coun- try and that about half of the heads of these house- holds were traders and the others tillers of the soil. Those engaged in agriculture had no market for their produce and hence raised little beyond what sufficed for their own needs. "The traders," wrote De Noyan, "ruin themselves by the low prices at which they sell their goods, being just what they actually cost in Que- bec. . . . They cannot meet their engagements to the Montreal merchants, of whom they buy, and their goods and houses are sold every day for the bene- fit of the latter, who hold more mortgages upon Detroit than Detroit is worth."

In a memorial by the King in 1742 a plan to sell the privilege of trading at each post to the highest bidder was announced. Beauharnois, the Governor of New France, opposed the carrying out of any such plan. It would conflict, he said, with promises which he had made to the Indians, particularly to license more than one store at each post. He declared that the Indians, if they heard of the proposed new order of things, would fear high prices and be very likely to go to the British post at Oswego. The plan was put into practice, how-

256 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

ever, and in accordance therewith, at an auction held at the Chateau St. Louis, Quebec, the trade at the Bay, including that with the Sioux, was "farmed out" to the Sieur de la Gorgendiere, who paid 8,100 livres for the lease. He immediately transferred it, undoubtedly at a profit, to the Sieur Daillabout and other traders. The next year M. de Lusignan, commandant at the Bay, reported to Beauharnois that the "farmers" at his post had entered into a compact with eight or ten coureurs des bois by which, for 6,000 livres in beaver skins, they were to sell goods to the wild adventurers and permit them to engage in trade within the jurisdiction of the post. Having no garrison, Lusignan adds, he has not only been unable to secure the coureurs des bois, but like- wise to repress the licenses issued by the "farmers," who are flatly disobeying His Majesty's ordinances. Beau- harnois directed Lusignan to oppose the carrying out of the compact and in particular to command the Sieur St. Auger, who appears to have been the worst of the mutinous ones, to go down to Montreal, in case he should give any more trouble.

In 1746, out of twelve trading licenses granted at Detroit, one of them brought the small sum of 500 livres, while it was difficult to induce voyageurs who had some goods in private warehouses to accept the others, even upon condition of remitting the entire price of each license and of omitting the usual obligation to trans- port munitions required in the government's service. The King George war had broken out in 1 744 ; it was becoming difficult to get goods from Montreal and the

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policy was to offer the Indians as large a supply of articles of commerce as could be obtained, even if the government did not receive any revenue from the trade. Thus the offer to grant to the traders the privilege of selling without restriction the goods which they might have in store. The state of affairs prevailing at Mac- kinac was similar to that at Detroit. At the Bay the annual leases went begging. The last one executed in favor of M. de la Gorgendiere had expired and he did not desire to renew it nor did anybody else wish to suc- ceed him as lessee. Goods became very scarce at the Bay, and in consequence M. de la Corne, commanding at Mackinac, allowed two private individuals to fit themselves out at that place to trade at the Bay upon condition that each pay 1,000 livres for the privilege.

In 1747 the Sieurs de Clignancourt, Moniere and 1'Eschelle obtained licenses to exploit the trade at the Bay and its dependencies. They were to pay the gov- ernment 5,000 livres a year, and, until 1750, they were to possesses the exclusive rights of trade so far as the French at the post and the Menominee, Winnebago, Fox, Sauk and Sioux Indians were concerned. In time of war, it was provided, they were to be limited to the number of engages that they actually needed. It was stipulated that for every canoe which they used in trade, they were to get the Governor's approval, and likewise should obtain his formal approval of the roll of their engages. The amount of brandy that. the engages were to receive was limited by the terms of the lease, and so was the amount that the lessees were allowed to use in

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258 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

trade at the post. The commandant at the Bay was strictly prohibited from engaging in trade. The les- sees, or "farmers," bound themselves to supply the com- mandant with fuel and lodgings as well as with the pres- ents that it might be advisable for him, in accordance with the diplomacy of the day, to give to the savages. The commandant was cautioned to be moderate in mak- ing these gifts. On the other hand, it was stipulated that the presents of furs that the Indians might give to the commandant should revert to the "farmers," to compensate them for whatever draft the commandant might make upon them for goods used in making pres- ents to the Indians. This provision was characteristic of the government. No detail escaped the attention of the King's representatives, no method of making money or saving money seemed to be overlooked. Thus, again, the next provision of the contract requires that the com- mandant shall pay for his own food, but that the lessees shall transport his food and his baggage, and such goods as it might be necessary to carry to the post to aid in buying food like meat and produce from the French and the Indians at the post. In case of its being neces- sary to incur extraordinary expenditures, such as might be caused by war or the removal of an Indian village, the lessees were required to furnish to the commandant such goods as he might need, but they were to be reim- bursed by the King at the rate of 30 per cent, in excess of what they themselves had paid for the goods. The government made the concession that if during the pending war with Great Britain ships failed to reach the

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French settlements from France, thereby entailing scar- city of merchandise, the regular sum of 5,000 livres should be reduced to 3,000 livres while those condi- tions lasted, but it was further provided that if peace were declared, and goods became abundant again, the annual payment was to be increased to 6,000 livres. The document is an interesting one because of the light that it throws upon the fur trade in those days.

The war had a depressing effect upon commerce between France and her colony. In 1747 only six canoes of merchandise left Montreal for the Bay, and only four left for Chequamegon Bay. Even the pay- ment of the salaries of the commandants of the posts became uncertain. The shortage of supplies and the other conditions resulting from the war caused general uneasiness throughout the region of the Great Lakes. Disturbances occurred, disturbances for which, in some measure, the coureurs des bois must have been responsi- ble, as about this time M. de la Galissoniere, the new Governor, declared that he knew of only one remedy for the offenders, and that was to ship them to Mar- tinique and forbid their return either to Canada or to Louisiana.

A report written late the next year by Galissoniere stated that some years before the officers of the posts, with respect to the fur trade, had been like lessees under the new system. The government at home, he added, afterward directed that the posts be given to the officers at low rates, to enable them "to satisfy the savages" in the way of goods and prices. "Some fortunes were

26o WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

made" is the Governor's significant comment upon this system. Still later, he continued, the posts were "farmed out" to the highest bidders, and the idea that gained currency regarding the profits that might be made caused the rentals to reach much higher figures than had been exacted from the officers. The lessees, having paid large sums of money for these exclusive privileges, aimed to make the business yield them large profits. Their first step was to raise the prices of goods "beyond all reason," as the Governor expressed it, and they lim- ited the amount of merchandise transported to the Indian markets. The savages, reduced to despair by the scarcity of goods and the prohibitive prices charged by the French, went to the British post at Oswego and at that place obtained goods which the English, -accord- ing to Galissoniere, "could not have sold as cheaply as we could if it had not been for the exclusive right of trade in the French settlements and the high prices that were paid for these exclusive privileges." Then the war broke out. The prices of goods were actually doubled and the savages everywhere seemed ready to rebel. Expenses increased to unusual proportions, and it is doubtful, the Governor wrote, if the proceeds of the most profitable ten years of the post could have paid the expenses of the last two years. On one hand, the savages protested against any more "fanning out" of the fur trade at the posts and, upon the other hand, several "farmers," during the previous spring, had given up their leases or asked for a reduction of three- fourths of the rental. Galissoniere reported that he had

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determined to "farm out" as few posts as possible, and instead, as the leases expire, to exploit the trade at the posts by means of licenses, after the plan followed so long at Detroit and at Mackinac. Competition among several traders at each post, he explained, would lower prices and bring back the Indian trade, now headed for Oswego. From the operation of his plan he excepted Chequamegon Bay and other posts on Lake Superior, as the savages of those places were not so likely to engage in commerce with the British.

The Intendant of New France at this time was Bigot, who became notorious because of his dishonesty and immorality. He wrote to the Minister of Marine that under the plan proposed by Galissoniere, the licensees would simply agree upon uniform prices and then would maintain them. He reported that for goods bought recently at Montreal, the traders had paid at least 150 per cent, more than the prices that had prevailed before the war. The traders charged the Indians in propor- tion, he stated, but in spite of this they were partly ruined, as the savages did not pay the debts which they incurred. More recently, Bigot reported, the prices had become lower and the outlook had improved. The plan advocated by Galissoniere prevailed. Bigot, who had been so hostile to it, took pains, as soon as he discovered that the King had approved it, to write that in his opinion it was the best system for ensuring abundance of goods for the Indian trade and for maintaining low prices. From the proceeds of licenses and leases, Bigot stated, 10,000 livres would be retained to aid the poor

264 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

families of the colony, and the surplus would be placed in the treasury. The new plan excepted from the license system the trading posts on Lake Superior and those west of that lake. The exploitation of trade by an officer was strictly prohibited.

Admiral Jonquiere, now become Governor of Can- ada, and Bigot too, are upon record, in a report written in October, 1749, to the effect that they had carried out Galissoniere's promise that the post at the Bay should not be "farmed out" again. They stated at the same time that upon the recommendation of the Sieur Marin, the elder, they had granted a request by the Sioux for the establishment of a trading post in the territory occu- pied by that people, and that in addition to furnishing to Marin some canoes for the purpose of opening trade with the Sioux in their own country, they had sent by him some presents for the Sioux and had provided a number of soldiers to guard the fort that he was to erect. The Governor and the Intendant sent word to the com- mandants at Detroit, Niagara and Fort Frontenac to see to it that the merchants at those posts sell their goods, "for two or three years," at the same prices that the British charge, so that "by this means the savages will get out of the habit of going to Oswego." This habit had grown upon the Indians during the war which had ended the year before and now the chiefs of the French colony proposed to get back the trade by trickery.

During the period of the French regime, Green Bay was the most important trading center in the territory that now composes the state of Wisconsin, hence most

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of the facts which have been cited relate to the post. The only other important market in the state that was maintained with a reasonable degree of continuity was that at Chequamegon Bay. After the visit to that spot made by Radisson and Groseilliers in 1659-60, and after the missionary labors of Allouez and Marquette, the Sieur Raudin, La Salle's agent, flitted through that region, in 1673; Du Luth exploited the head of Lake Superior a few years later, and in 1693 Le Seuer built a trading stockade upon Madelaine Island. Other trad- ers followed at intervals. After Captain Paul Legar- weur St. Pierre, whose service at the post began in 1718, and Ensign Linctot had commanded in turn, the Sieur Denys de la Ronde assumed command of the station. His son succeeded him. What the Marins, father and son, were to Green Bay, the Rondes, father and son, were to Chequamegon Bay. The elder Ronde, who became commandant at the post in 1727, was a redouta- ble warrior. His services to his King in building a bark of forty tons for use on Lake Superior and his efforts to find copper mines upon the shores of that lake have already been described. It is with him as a trader and an officer that we have now to do. Many interesting facts in regard to him have recently come to light, and they tend to show the character of the men who, in the dual capacity of traders and officers, had charge of their country's outposts in Wisconsin in those early days. M. de la Ronde was a knight of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis, be it understood, and his life was one long chapter of gallant fighting and enterprising

266 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

adventure on land and sea. As early as 1687 he had risen to the rank of first captain and commandant in the Detachment of Marines. Two years later he was serv- ing under Vice Admiral Goberet and was on board the St. Michel when it carried King James II. to Ireland and landed him at Kinsale. Later in the same year he took part in the sea fights of Bantry Bay and Beachy Head, in which the British were defeated. He was with the French naval force which, in 1694, captured Palamos and Girone, in the Mediterranean. Not long afterward, while he was serving in Acadian waters, M. Belair, a post captain whose lieutenant had been killed, accepted his services in that position. During the run home they captured a British ship of sixteen guns, the command of which was given to M. de la Ronde. Near the French coast, almost within sight of port, the ship was recaptured by a British squadron and the future commandant of Chequamegon Bay was sent to Ire- land, where he spent thirteen months in prison. He was a lieutenant under Iberville when that brave and dar- ing son of New France, in a remarkable battle, defeated a British fleet at Hudson Bay and captured the British posts. In 1700, still with Iberville, he spent five months surveying the mouth of the Mississippi River. The next year he commanded the Enflame, sent to the settlement of Louisiana with munitions of war. The cruise occu- pied seventeen months. In 1702, while second in com- mand of the Loire, he was wounded in the shoulder dur- ing an engagement at night with an English ship. Two years later, while on the ship Seine as second lieutenant,

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 267

he was captured by the enemy and sent to England. The rigging of his ship had been entirely shot away and there was six feet of water in the hold when it sur- rendered. In 1705 he commanded a fourteen-gun fri- gate. While he was in the harbor of Port Royal in 1707, a British fleet sailed in. He thereupon ran his little frigate ashore, under the guns of the fort, and then, going ashore, he placed himself at the head of a hundred and thirty men and twice repulsed Colonel March, with a force of fifteen hundred men, >in his attempt to cross a little river near the fort. He was fin- ally driven back, but he retreated slowly and in order and fought every inch of the ground. The siege by the British failed and it was his pleasant duty to carry the news to the King. With the ship Venus and one hun- dred and sixty men, he took Fort St. John in 1709. During the following winter, by carrying provisions to Placentia in time, he saved the garrison of that post from starvation. In 1 7 1 1 he went to Boston to endeavor to prevail upon the colony of Massachusetts to remain neutral in the war between France and Great Britain. From 1714 to 1720 he held the position of commandant of Tolouse. In 1727, after he had served in America continuously for seven years, he was appointed com- mandant at Chequamegon Bay.

On October I2th, 1740, while still commandant at Chequamegon Bay, he wrote to the Minister of Marine that with one exception he was the senior officer in the colony, and, as a reward for his fifty-three years of ser- vice, he asked for the brevet rank of major, "to which

268 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

the senior captain of the companies is entitled and which my predecessor enjoyed." He prayed for the Minister's protection for his four sons, the eldest of whom, thirty years of age, was commanding at Che- quamegon Bay during his temporary absence. The age of the youngest son was given at eighteen years. The father was refused the brevet rank of major, it being explained that His Majesty did not wish to re-estab- lish that rank, but a commission as second ensign was granted to his second son.

By 1744 the old warrior had died and the privilege of trading at Chequamegon Bay was "farmed out" to his widow for a period of three years. It was recited that this step had been taken because of the dead man's services in developing copper mines and on account of his family, but it is just as plainly stated that the widow was required to pay 3,000 livres a year for the privi- leges which had been granted to her. - For several years the post yielded little profit and in 1746 it yielded none at all. Mme. La Ronde asked for an extension of her lease for three years. Galissoniere, the Governor, and Hocquart, the Intendant, endorsed her request, and in the fall of 1747, she posted across sea to urge it. Nobody offering to buy the lease of the post, Galis- soniere permitted the widow's agent to return to it. It was expressly provided that if the post were farmed to somebody else during the following year, 1748, Madame, under orders from France, was to get a third of the proceeds of the sale of the lease.

In a letter to the Minister, dated November 4th,

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1749, Jonquiere, the Governor, conveyed the informa- tion that the Sieur Denys de la Ronde, "a full ensign," who had just arrived from his post at Chequamegon, represented that fifteen officers, all his juniors, had been promoted over him, "which," the Governor declared, "is the more unfortunate because he was a cadet for fourteen years with Aigillettes and eight years a sec- ond ensign." The Governor asked for the first lieu- tenancy that might become vacant. "His mother," the Governor adds, "is a poor widow, with no other means of livelihood than the pay which her sons get in the King's service." If any of the sons were still in the Northwest at the beginning of the struggle that cul- minated in the fall of Quebec, they were of course called to Quebec to fight against the British. One of these sons, Pierre Francois Paul, laid down his life at Quebec, in 1760, while fighting for his King.

With the surrender of Canada the fur trade passed into the hands of the British, who thus won what they had for generations been striving for.

CHAPTER XIII A TITANTIC WAR WITH INDIANS

I

most remarkable development grow- ing out of French assumption of sover- eignty over what is now Wisconsin was a war which broke out between the French and the Fox Indians. The war was remarkable in several respects. For one thing, it con- tinued over a period of a half century. Its battle fields were spread over an immense territory, now in Wiscon- sin, now in Michigan, now in Illinois, and even across the Mississippi, in Iowa. To the advance of French power beyond Lake Michigan the Foxes, by their cour- age, their stubbornness and their craftiness, interposed a barrier that was never easy and that sometimes was impassable. To crush these Indians, France concen- trated her energies, put forth every effort, but again and again in vain. The savage enemy, apparently van- quished, would suddenly show new life, menace anew the power of France and of France's King. At times they gave that monarch almost as much concern as his enemies on the Continent or his traditional foe over channel. Indeed, with the latter's colonies, through the dreaded Iroquois, it was believed that the Foxes were leagued against New France. Bloody and long and terrific was the struggle, far-reaching were its develop- ments and never creditable was it, even in victory, to France's glory or to her fair name.

Allouez, the Jesuit missionary, was the first white man to visit the Foxes at their own village on the Wolf River and to record his impressions of them. On the occasion of his first visit, in 1672, he was hopeful of winning

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274 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

many to his faith, but after getting to know them bet- ter, he changed his opinion in this respect. "These peo- ple are arrogant," he wrote afterward. He termed the nation "a Babylon of lasciviousness." Some of the chiefs had as many as eight wives and into their cabins he could not enter except with a feeling of horror, as if visiting a seraglio.

It is explained in the Jesuit Relations that when Allouez visited them the second time, the Foxes had decided to avenge themselves for bad treatment received at the French habitations during the previous summer, and that they were prepared to go to the length of kill- ing some of the French. For this reason none of the French traders dared to set foot into the territory of the Foxes, particularly as traders visiting the Foxes even before the friction which manifested itself at the French post had so conducted themselves toward their hosts as to precipitate the trouble, which kept increasing in bit- terness. Thus it was that even Perrot, who had rescued the daughter of a Fox chief from their enemies, was unable to persuade them> after they had gone as far as Green Bay, to proceed with him to the great French gathering at the Sault in 1671, when France formally took possession of the region of the Upper Lakes. In 1684, to be sure, a war party of Foxes did accompany a French expedition into the Iroquois country, but the motive that impelled them to that act was not love of the French ; it was hatred of the Iroquois, at whose hands they had suffered not a little. And before the end of that decade, the Foxes, becoming uneasy as to the power

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of the French, turned their eyes toward an alliance with the Iroquois, and they planned to kill the French traders who were about to return from the Sioux villages beyond the Mississippi. But peace was kept on both sides for some time longer, although the other Indian tribes repeatedly told the French that the Foxes hated them and meant treachery.

About the end of the Seventeenth Century, the French became alarmed over a report that the Foxes intended to move in a body to the Valley of the Wabash, or to that of the Ohio, where they would be close to the Iro- quois and likewise to the English. Holding such a country, the Foxes would be in a position to dominate the Mississippi Valley and to do great harm to French interests, military and commercial. The French, in order to shut the English out of the Lake Erie country, decided to establish a post at Detroit. This project meant the abandonment of the post of Michilimackinac, and included the erection of new posts, mostly for trade, on the Miami River; at the mouth of the Wabash; at the mouth of the Wisconsin River, and in the country of the Sioux. It was the plan to make Detroit the gen- eral headquarters for all these posts and to induce all the Indians who did not go directly to Montreal to carry their pelts to Detroit.

Conditions were threatening and the French were alarmed. The machinations of the Iroquois, the encroachments of the English, particularly toward the Valley of the Mississippi, and the threatened migration of the restless Foxes to a strategic position in that Val-

14

276 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

ley, were bad enough in themselves, but, what was still worse, many of the Indian allies of the French, Wis- consin tribes among them, were becoming dissatisfied with the French because the traders of that nationality, when compared with English traders, gave so little in return for peltries obtained in barter from the Indians. The establishment of the post at Detroit was intended as much to keep French traders and French allies from going to the English as it was to bar the English from reaching the West. The founder of the post was the Sieur Antoine de Lamothe Cadillac, who had been com- mandant at Mackinac and possessed influence over the Indians of the Upper Lakes. He proceeded to bring about the removal to Detroit of his followers at Mac- kinac and the missionaries stationed at that post, as well as the Indians, the Hurons and the Ottawa, of that region, and those of Wisconsin, including the Pota- watomi, the Foxes, the Sauk, the Mascoutens and the Kickapoo. He succeeded in a surprising degree. In 1712 the Foxes, Mascoutens, Kickapoo and part of the Sauk, leaving the fruitful lands and the rare hunting grounds of the region of the Fox River, took up their abode close to the new establishment at Detroit. They reached Detroit early in the spring and went into camp within a very short distance of the French fort. M. Dubuisson, who had become the temporary Gover- nor of Detroit, states that he protested against the action of the Wisconsin Indians in living so near the fort, but he declares that they simply became more inso- lent and helped themselves to the Frenchmen's fowl and domestic stock.

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There were only thirty Frenchmen at the post, so that if the Foxes desired to exterminate the garrison, a con- spiracy with which they are charged, the time to do it was at hand. They made no move in that direction, however, but remained quiet until the arrival of the Indian allies of the French, allies whose coming they had expected. Moreover, the Foxes had brought with them their women and children, which would have been a strange proceeding had they at the outset planned war upon the French post. The Hurons and the Ottawa arrived and would listen to nothing except war upon the Foxes. They even told Dubuisson that it was the inten- tion of the Governor of New France, as they had learned at Montreal, to destroy the Foxes. Yielding to the general sentiment, Dubuisson gave orders to man the redoubt and to load the two cannon. All was ready for battle when a host of Illinois, Missouri, Osage, Pot- awatomi and Menominee Indians, all allies of the French, arrived upon the scene. The stockade of the Foxes, with whom were some Sauk and a number of Mascoutens, was attacked. For nineteen days the French and their allies laid siege to the Fox village, whose inhabitants had at first protested against the attack upon them and then, protest availing naught, had bravely endeavored to return blow for blow. Finally, under stress of thirst and hunger, Pemoussa, the Fox war chief, offered to surrender on condition that the lives of the women and children be spared. Pemoussa and the three other chiefs with him were dimsissed by the French without any answer whatever to the pro-

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posal, and fighting was resumed more fiercely than ever.

A change came on the night of the nineteenth day of the siege. It was dark and stormy and the desperate Foxes, men, women and children, gaunt from lack of food, feverish from thirst, stole quietly away from what had been a hell indeed. They stopped at Presque Isle, near Lake St. Clair, about four leagues from the fort. They were pursued thither and again attacked. A score of their enemies who led a rash assault were killed. Thus taught discretion, the allies once more invested the suffering tribesmen and a second siege began. On the fourth day thereafter the Foxes and the Sauk and Mas- coutens with them surrendered at discretion. Their fate is a black chapter in the history of the French regime in America. All the men except a hundred who escaped after they had been bound were at once put to death and the women and children were .distributed among the various savage nations as slaves. Four or five of these slaves were tortured to death each day. The Hurons did not spare a single one of their slaves. The Governor of Detroit is authority for the statement that a thousand of these Wisconsin Indians, men, women and children, lost their lives during the sieges and in the mas- sacre.

But the Fox nation was not annihilated. One hun- dred of their warriors had escaped from the slaughter pens of Detroit, there were two hundred more braves at Green Bay, and still others among the Iroquois. These, with the Sauk, Mascouten and Kickapoo war-

A FOX CHIEF.

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riors, in all several hundred more, formed a host that gave the French not a little uneasiness and carried ter- ror into the hearts of the French allies. The Foxes, wary from necessity, husbanded their strength for a while, though they did not always avoid acts of hostility. At Green Bay, in the spring of 1713, they killed a Frenchman named 1'Epine; they killed three French men and five Hurons close to the very walls of Fort Ponchartrain, near Detroit, and a little later they slew five Frenchmen who were carrying corn from Detroit to Mackinac. But soon it became apparent that the Foxes sought to match statecraft against the power of the French and the numbers of the French allies. Already friendly with the Iroquois, they formed an alli- ance with their old enemies, the Sioux. Fox and Sioux began war upon the Illinois, long the foes of the Sioux and among the slayers of the Foxes at Detroit. Slowly but surely the Illinois were being driven from their haunts on the river that bore their name, a river that was of strategic importance to the French, for it was an important highway between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. The Foxes already commanded the other principal route to the Mississippi, the Fox- Wiscon- sin waterway, and thus the French were in danger of being shut out of the Mississippi Valley, of which the English were sure to take possession as soon as their line of approach and retreat by way of the Ohio River could be made secure. Under these conditions the French had the alternative of establishing free trade in furs, which, by giving them cheaper goods, would have won

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back most of the Indians to their cause, or of waging war upon the Foxes.

War, one of extermination, was decided upon in 1715. French officers were sent to rally the friendly Indians, including the Illinois and the Miami, to aid the French in the work of destroying an entire people. Lieutenant de Maunoir, eldest son of the Sieur de Rame- zay, the acting Governor of New France, and Ensign Dudoncour, second son of Baron de Longueuil and a nephew of Iberville, were sent to Chicago to take charge of the Illinois and Miami, who were to be joined at that place by the savages from Detroit, the entire force to march upon the fort of the Foxes, on the Fox River, "sixty-five leagues from Chicagou." The Sieur de Lignery planned to assemble the Ottawa and other Northern nations at Mackinac and thence proceed to the country of the Foxes, which he expected to reach about the last of August, simultaneously with the other force from Chicago. These plans, which would have brought a thousand Indians, together with a number of French- men, into Wisconsin on a most warlike expedition, could not be carried out. The Miami were decimated by the measles, and sent only thirty men, who, when going to the rendezvous with the Sieur Dudoncour, and find- ing no Illinois on hand to meet them, turned back in dis- gust. Maunoir, who took 450 Illinois to the rendez- vous, went back with them to Starved Rock after waiting in vain for Dudoncour and his Miami. At the other end of the field a convey of provisions intended for the Sieur de Lignery's force failed to reach Mackinac in

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time and he abandoned the plan of invading the Fox country. But the magnitude of the proposed operations demonstrate French fear of the Foxes and respect for their prowess.

Elaborate, too, was the campaign mapped out and followed during the following year. M. de Louvigny, a brave, able officer, left Montreal May ist, 1716, with a force of 225 Frenchmen, bent upon war against the Foxes. These Frenchmen were permitted to take canoes half filled with merchandise for trade with the Indians, the understanding being that they could remain in the West for two years and during that time trade in furs as a reward for their services against the Foxes. The regular trading licenses — they were limited to fifteen at that time — had no market while these new licenses, issued as a makeshift to pay for the services of French volunteer soldiers, were in force. The Frenchmen with de Louvigny agreed to carry from Quebec to Wiscon- sin, at their own expense, the munitions of war and the provisions for the expedition against the Foxes. On the road Indian allies joined the French. When he invested the Fox fort, de Louvigny had a force of eight hundred men, the first military expedition commanded by white men to invade what is now Wisconsin. The position held by the Foxes was upon the summit of Lit- tle Butte des Morts, an inconsiderable hill on the bank of the Fox River, almost opposite Neenah. It was defended by three rows of palisades, all of wood, with a ditch running around the inside. Five hundred braves and six times as many women and children were within

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the fort. The Foxes fought desperately against a foe who, in addition to outnumbering them, brought artil- lery and military engineering to aid in the task of reduc- ing their frail fortification. Under cover of the fire of musketry, of two pieces of cannon and of a hand gren- ade, the French, officers vicing with men in the ranks, dug trenches which, starting at seventy yard, steadily approached to within twenty-four yards of the palisades. The Foxes, realizing what this meant, and disappointed in regard to expected reinforcements of three hundred men, Mascoutens or Kickapoo, made a desperate sortie, but were driven back. Just as the French were ready to spring two mines under the palisade, preparatory to storming the position, the Foxes offered to surrender. De Louvigny at first refused to consider the proposal, but accepted it when it was renewed, recording that his allies, who had for years been bent upon exterminating the Foxes, consented to it. Some five years later, how- ever, these Indians declined to take part in another expedition against the Foxes, alleging that in the cam- paign just described the French, although the total destruction of the Foxes was the object of the expedi- tion, had concluded peace without consulting their allies. By the terms upon which they surrendered their fort, the Foxes were to pay the expenses of the war by hunting; to give up their prisoners ; to make peace with the French allies ; to induce or to compel the Kickapoo and the Mascoutens to make peace with the French, and to capture from distant nations slaves with whom to replace French allies slain in war by the Foxes. For his

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conduct of the campaign the King granted Louvigny a gratuity of three thousand livres. In 1720 Louvigny was appointed commandant-general in the Northwest.

The year after De Louvigny's treaty with the Foxes, they, by joining with the Mascoutens and the Kickapoo in waging war upon the Illinois, disregarded their prom- ise to keep the peace with the French and their allies, as well as to compel their own allies to do likewise. Sev- eral of the Fox chiefs, including Pemoussa, their brave leader at Detroit, had in the meanwhile died at Quebec, where they had been held as hostages. The warlike habits of the Foxes compelled Governor Vaudreuil to complain to the King that they were the only obstacles in the way of general peace among the Indians of the West. "The natural fierceness of these savages, soured by the ill treatment which they have received, some- times without cause, and their alliance with the Iro- quois, have rendered them formidable," wrote Charle- voix in 1721, speaking of the Foxes. "They have since made a strict alliance with the Sioux, a numerous nation inured to war, and this union has rendered the naviga- tion of the upper part of the Mississippi almost imprac- ticable to us. It is not quite safe to navigate the river of the Illinois unless we are in a condition to prevent surprise, which is a great injury to the trade between the two colonies." Charlevoix, who was a noted Jesuit, had been commissioned in 1720 by the French govern- ment to find a route to the Pacific Ocean. He visited Green Bay in 1721 and the quoted statement is that of a candid man who had investigated the subject-matter at first hand.

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At this time the Mississippi River was of more importance than ever to the French. John Law's gigantic enterprise had attracted the attention of the world to the great valley and its possibilities. The exploiting of its resources was the order of the day. There were rumors of pearl fisheries in the Mississippi River. From Louisiana there were sent two hundred miners and other artisans to unearth deposits of gold and silver that were said to exist in the region of the Upper Mississippi. A French trading post had been established at the Illinois Indian village of Kaskaskia, on the Mississippi River, and soon a little settlement of white people grew up at that place. In 1720 the French built a stone fort, Chartres, in the vicinity of Kaskaskia. It was one of the chief links in the chain of forts by means of which the French expected to support their claim to the whole valley of the Mississippi.

This whole fabric of French power in the West was threatened by the Foxes. Their craft was remarkable. They not only kept their old allies, the Mascoutens and Kickapoo, but they won over other Wisconsin tribes, including the Sauk, the Winnebago, and even the Men- ominee ; their close friendship with the Sioux continued ; they appear to have had a thorough understanding with the powerful Chickasaw, in the Lower Mississippi, and they almost attracted to their cause those old-time allies of the French in the East, the Abenakis. An Abenaki chief named Nenangoussik went from St. Francois, the Jesuit mission among the Abenakis, spent some time among the Foxes, as their guest, and took back with him

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an invitation to the young men of his nation "to eat the beaver's tail — " that is, to hunt and to live, in the Fox country, to remove from New Brunswick to Wisconsin. Going back to St. Francois, he started West again with forty young men, but at Montreal they were induced by Governor Vaudreuil to return to their village. The King, upon receiving this information, announced to the Governor of New France that he would suitably reward any officer who would destroy the Foxes, which "His Majesty expressly desires."

The French decided to erect a fort on the Mississippi River, in the Sioux country, in order to intimidate that nation, allied to the Foxes, De Lignery was sent to Green Bay in 1724 to effect peace among the warring tribes, but the Foxes declared that although, as provided by the treaty of 1716, they had returned the Illinois whom they held as slaves, the Illinois had not returned their Fox slaves. "The Illinois have attacked us too often to allow of our staying our war clubs," their spokesman declared to De Lignery. They had already driven all the Illinois tribes except the Peoria to the shelter of the guns of Fort Chartres and soon afterward they attacked the Peoria themselves, although they were intrenched upon the summit of the Rock St. Louis, or Starved Rock, the site of La Salle's fort. This rock overhung the Illinois River, and rose to a height of one hundred and twenty-five feet, being accessible only by a narrow path in the rear. In the fighting which fol- lowed, the Peoria lost a score of their men and the Foxes six times as many. The figures tell of desperate valor,

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of well-nigh hopeless attacks. In the end the Rock proved impregnable even to the wild courage of the Foxes, but they did not abandon the siege until they learned that a hundred and forty Frenchmen and four hundred savages from Fort Chartres were marching to the relief of the beleaguered Peoria. The Peoria had enough of Fox fighting, however, and they, as the other tribes of their nation had done, retreated to the shelter of Fort Chartres, so that in a measure the Foxes were victorious in this campaign.

More alarmed than ever in regard to the prospect of keeping open the highways to the Mississippi River, the French, while contemplating war, took steps to restore peace. M. de Lignery, together with D'Amariton, the commandant at Green Bay, and Chardon, the Jesuit missionary at that post, held a grand council at the Bay June 7th, 1726, with the Sauk, Foxes and Winnebago. Peace, in form, was patched up. The records show that the French officers, even the King himself, preferred a war of extermination, but that they did not adopt this course because of the great expense of such an undertak- ing— and the disastrous effect upon French Interests in case the war should fail. So bitter was the feeling on both sides that lasting peace was impossible. And yet, a French expedition headed by La Perriere de Boucher, and including Father Guignas, taking advantage of the truce to ascend the Fox River on their way to Lake Pepin, on the shores of which they established a post among the Sioux, were welcomed by the Foxes with lighted calumets and permitted to go on their way, a

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way which had long been closed against them. The new post was called Fort Beauharnois. Father Guignas says it was located about the middle of the northern shore of the lake. It is generally supposed to have been on the Wisconsin side, but some Minnesota historians claim that it was in that state.

Soon afterward the French, charging that the Foxes had again made war upon the Illinois and had accepted belts from the English, who had erected a fort at Oswego, Lake Ontario, made other plans to destroy the Foxes. Without even waiting for the King's permis- sion, a most extraordinary proceeding when it is remem- bered that His Majesty paid attention to minute details of colonial affairs in America and that no important step was taken without first obtaining his sanction, the Gov- ernor of France, the Marquis de Beauharnois, ordered war upon the Fox nation. Soon afterward he received a letter from the King expressing regret that war had been declared without his orders. Its success was prob- lematical, and if the Foxes, instead of accepting battle, retreated to the Sioux country, they would cause even more trouble than they would have done if they had not been disturbed; while in case of failure, other nations might become more insolent toward the French. The expedition, formed ostensibly to attack the English station at Oswego, had been promptly headed, when all was ready, directly for Wisconsin. It consisted of four hundred Frenchmen and nine hundred Indians, mostly converted Iroquois and Hurons, the others being Indians who joined the force after it had left Montreal, June

29o WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

5th, 1728. It included Pierre Francois Rigaud, Mar- quis de Vaudreuil, afterward Governor of Louisiana and New France. He was serving as commissary under De Lignery. Nine days were wasted in waiting at Mackinac, a delay that has been explained by M. de Lignery's love of convivialty, but a court-martial acquitted him of all charges of misbehavior. In later years, however, Montcalm condemned his love of drink.

When De Lignery's expedition reached the village of the Menominee, near the mouth of the river of that name, it landed, according to the Recollet priest Crispel, who served as chaplain to the French soldiers, with a view to provoking the Menominee to oppose their progress. "They fell into the trap," writes Crispel, "and were entirely defeated."

The French so timed their arrival at Green Bay that it was midnight when they reached that post and they at once sent a detachment around to the rear of the Sauk village, in which there were said to be a number of Foxes, while the main force marched directly upon the village. The French had been so slow, however, that the Indians — Sauk as well as Foxes, had fled. In the cabins were found only four Indians, too old or too sick to flee, and these were tortured to death by the savage allies of France.

Reaching the Winnebago village August 24th, only to find it deserted, De Lignery burned the huts and destroyed the harvest of corn upon which the Indians depended for subsistence during winter. A few women found in the village were made slaves and one old man,

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who had been unable to make his escape, was tortured to death.

The villages of the Foxes were likewise deserted except for a few more helpless Indians, including two women and a girl, who were tortured to death. Several days were spent in laying waste the country, "to deprive the enemy of the means of subsistence." Peas, beans, corn and gourds, a plentiful crop that stood between the Foxes and starvation, were ruined. "It is certain," wrote Beauharnois, who some time before, at Quebec, had congratulated a band of Chippewa upon having had a young Fox to eat, "that one half of these nations [the Foxes and their allies] will die of hunger and that the rest will sue for mercy."

But De Lignery, not so sure of the subjugation of the Foxes, not only warned the Sioux not to give refuge to the fugitives, but, before returning to Mackinac, he destroyed the fort at Green Bay, "because, being so near the enemy, it would not afford a secure retreat to the French who must be left as a garrison."

The Sauk, Foxes and Winnebago, fleeing before the French and their allies, descended the Wisconsin River and sought help from the Sioux, but in vain. Their old allies, the Mascoutens and the Kickapoo, deserted them. The Winnebago found refuge among their kinsman, the Sioux, near Fort Beauharnois, and the Sauk, submitting to the French, returned to the vicinity of Green Bay. The Foxes, after finding asylum among the Iowa, returned to Wisconsin and begged for peace. It was denied them. French Indians lost no time in attacking

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the Fox village. Another expedition that included Win- nebago, ambuscaded a party of Foxes, killed or captured about eighty warriors and captured three hundred women and children. These helpless ones "were all burned to death," wrote Beauharnois to the King, at the same time expressing his pleasure at being able to com- municate the good news.

The Winnebago, in the belief that the Foxes had gone away, returned to Lake Winnebago and camped upon a small island below what is now known as Doty Island. The Foxes, however, together with some Sauk, were occupying two different forts at or near Buttes desMorts, and they promptly laid siege to the Winnebago strong- hold. The Winnebago, to appease the Foxes, surren- dered to them four Menominee, in place of two Foxes that the Winnebago had delivered to the Ottawa and Menominee. They had been compelled to give the two Foxes to their allies, they said, but "to show their affec- tion" for the Foxes, they not only gave them the four Menominee, but they beheaded two of them. The Fox chief, however, refused to be satisfied with anything less than the surrender of the four Winnebago who had delivered the two Foxes to the Ottawa and Menominee, and the Winnebago, rather than yield to so humiliating a demand, defended themselves for six weeks. Marin, afterward a noted partisan, had very recently repaired a trading post at the mouth of the Menominee, and he was at that place when he learned from Menominee Indians the straits to which the Foxes were reducing the Winnebago. He took five Frenchmen and about thirty-

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293

five Menominee and set out at once for the scene of the trouble. When near the Winnebago fort, Marin, so he has recorded, started to dig intrenchments in order to protect his party from the Foxes until he could take them with him into the Winnebago fort. Before he could carry out this work, he was attacked by the Foxes, but he drove them back to the very gates of their own fort. The Foxes, wily as they were brave, told how the Win- nebago had surrendered the four Menominee to them, even beheading two of them, and thereupon the Meno- minee, who had come to aid the Winnebago, were so enraged at their mean-spirited allies that Marin had difficulty in preventing them from giving battle to them instead of to the Foxes. Marin's force was not suf- ficient to cope effectively with the Foxes, who at last quietly evacuated their forts at night. The total casual- ties in this engagement were few. Two months later Du Boisson, with fifty Frenchmen and five hundred and fifty Indians, planned to set out from Mackinac, where he commanded, to destroy the Foxes, but the lat- ter fled in time. Du Boisson, however, gleefully reported to his superiors, that they had been harassed on all sides, were burdened with women and children, and had not had time to sow any seed. He predicted that they would die of hunger.

When next heard of, the Foxes were near Rock St. Louis, or Starved Rock, on the Illinois River, preparing to make a final stand. The French were more bent than ever upon exterminating them. "The Foxes," reads one official report, "have waged open war upon us and

15

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upon our savage allies for many years; they have sur- prised our detachments, carried off our voyageurs, frus- trated all our plans and harassed us even in our settle- ments, where we cannot cultivate our fields except with weapons at hand." The report adds that the Foxes once more purposed to join the Iroquois, which was the thing above all others that the French sought to prevent. With the Foxes and Iroquois united, and backed by the British, who had been looking longingly toward the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley, the French realized that their hold upon the Northwest would be weaker than ever. Therefore the French of the Lower Illinois, as well as those of St. Joseph, in Michigan, and of the Wabash, together with their Indian allies, lost no time in preparing to crush the Foxes at their new abode near the Rock. The French numbered one hundred and seventy and their Indian allies twelve hundred. The Foxes had three hundred warriors, and two or three times as many women and children. The Foxes had for- tified themselves in a grove on the bank of a small river. On the left bank of the stream, St. Ange, the com- mandant at Fort Chartres, built redoubts to prevent the Foxes from obtaining water. The Foxes thereupon excavated underground passages leading to the river. Sieur de Villiers, who was commandant at St. Joseph, built two forts on the right of the Foxes in order to drive them back into their own and to prevent them from using the ditches which they had dug to aid in getting water from the river. He also had an approach dug to the Fox fort, as a step toward undermining it.

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The first fighting took place August i9th, 1730. The Foxes fought bravely, desperately, but finally, suffering from thirst and hunger, and outnumbered almost five to one, they fled on the night of September 29th, which was cold, dark and rainy. In the morning the French and their savage allies overtook the fugitives and what followed was little more than a massacre. With war clubs and other rude weapons, their ammunition being exhausted, the Foxes, weak from hunger, fought val- iantly against their foes, so superior in numbers and in weapons. Their valor was in vain. Two hundred braves were killed, or captured and afterward burned to death. Six hundred woman and children were butch- ered outright or tortured to death by fire. In all not more than three score of the Fox warriors escaped the shambles.

The French were less merciful than some of their Indian allies. Villiers himself records that during a parley, previous to the unsuccessful flight of the Foxes, Sauk under his command surreptitiously rescued some Fox children from the imperiled fort and even supplied food to the besieged Foxes. One account is that the Sauk supplied ammunition to the Foxes and tried to aid their escape. For this the Sauk were exposed and "put to shame." Some of the other Indians wanted to pun- ish the Sauk severely. "Our tribes were very eager," says Villiers, "to spare the Foxes' lives and they proposed

. . . that I should make them come out and then they would fall upon them. It was in nowise their inten-

296

tion to do so; their only object was to get captives. I opposed this, seeing that it could only result in sparing the lives of those wretches." After the flight, he states, two hundred warriors were killed, and "the others were made prisoners and placed in the hands of the Cahokias, "who will assuredly not spare their lives." The Caho- kias were Illinois Indians, closely allied to the French — the prisoners, including hundreds of helpless ones, women and children, were not to be trusted to more humane allies of the French.

As a result of this defeat of the Foxes, Beauharnois authorized the Sioux Company to re-establish a post in place of the one at Lake Pepin, abandoned soon after Perriere had erected it. M. de Linctot, unable to reach Lake Pepin in the autumn of 173 1, built a fort at Mount Trempealeau, near the present town of that name. Vil- liers was ordered to restore the post at Green Bay. The Sauks rebuilt their village at that pkce and traders were once more allowed to go thither and supply their wants. The King, under date of April 22nd, 1732, wrote to his representatives in New France that the defeat of the Foxes had given him great satisfaction and he expressed the hope that they would never rise again.

In the early winter of 1731-2, forty-seven Iroquois from Montreal went to Detroit, joined seventy- four Hurons and four Ottawa, and, by way of St. Joseph and Chicago, marched against the small number of Foxes that remained, who were living quietly on the Wisconsin River. Hunger and the depth of the snow caused many of the elders to turn back, but at least forty

o

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Hurons and thirty Iroquois pushed onward and finally reached the Fox village on Wisconsin River, which they attacked. They killed seventy warriors and eighty women and children on the spot. The invaders wore snow shoes, in the use of which the Foxes were not skilled, and as the battle was fought in the deep snow, the Wisconsin Indians were at a great disadvantage. Fourteen Fox warriors and one hundred and forty women and children were taken prisoners. Ten who fled naked died of exposure. It was the most complete defeat of the Foxes, in view of the numbers engaged on both sides, of which there is any record. Only five Hurons were killed and a few wounded. The Iroquois seem to have suffered no casualties. The Hurons killed three score of their captives on the way back to Detroit. The commandant at Detroit, Boishebert, had supplied the Iroquois with ammunition for this expe- dition, and when Beauharnois reported the result of this winter crusade against the Foxes, the King not only approved the plan and work of the expedition, but he stated that as his savage allies seem to be disposed to destroy the remainder of the Foxes, the Governor should encourage them in doing so. Beauharnois replied that only about fifty or sixty Fox warriors had survived the war waged against their nation, and that twenty of these, with thirty or forty women, had gone to the Bay and thrown themselves upon the mercy of Villiers, the commandant, while the others were wanderers upon the face of the earth, repulsed by every nation of whom they sought shelter and in danger of death at the hands

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of any or all of them. They were no longer in condi- tion to cause any anxiety, he said, but nevertheless the nations friendly to the French were actually in the field with the purpose of exterminating them.

But the Foxes had not fought their last battle. A report made by Boishebert in May, 1733, states that late in the preceding autumn, Hurons, Ottawa and Pota- watomi from Detroit, after a march that occupied twenty-two days, came upon and attacked the surviv- ing Foxes upon the "shore of Lake Marameek" — prob- ably in the Fox River Valley, in Northern Illinois. The Foxes were within a stockade, surmounted by a watch tower, and with an earthen rampart about six feet high inside. The fort lay between the lake and an impas- sable swamp, and it could be approached only over a tongue of land. In a sortie five Foxes were killed, but on the whole they held their own well, and the Indians from Detroit finally raised the siege, with the under- standing among themselves that the Hurons and the Iroquois of Canada were to be invited to take part the following year in a movement to exterminate the Foxes.

These remnants of the Foxes, forty warriors and ten boys, followed the example of the other survivors of their nation and threw themselves upon the mercy of Villiers at the Bay. He took some of them, including Kiala, their leader, and two former chiefs, to Quebec. Beauharnois not only kept them, but he sent Villiers back to the Bay with orders to transport all the Foxes to Mon- treal or to destroy them. His idea, in case they were taken to Montreal, was to distribute them among the

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"settled" savages of that region. He concluded, how- ever, that there would always be danger of their desert- ing to the British, and he suggests, in preference, that they be sent to France and thence distributed "among the islands." Kiala, the chief, was actually sent into slavery on the island of Martinque and thither his wife voluntarily followed him. The Chickasaw had been making a great deal of trouble for the French and by getting rid of the Foxes, Beauharnois hoped to unite all the Indians of the Great Lakes in a movement against the unruly Southern Indians, who attacked French traders and interrupted commerce and communi- cation between the Illinois country and Louisiana by way of the Mississippi.

The plan formed by Beauharnois met with failure. Villiers returned to Green Bay September i6th, 1733, prepared to execute his orders. He left the Sieur de Repentigny with two hundred savages — Ottawa, Chip- pewa, and Menominee, — a half league behind, with directions to hurry on as soon as he heard three gun- shots, and he sent his son, an ensign, with ten French- men and fifty savages, toward Little Kakalin, with a view to preventing the escape of the Foxes in that direc- tion. Villiers, at his own fort, then told the Sauk chiefs of his government's intentions regarding the Foxes. As these chiefs made no definite reply, he sent four of them to tell their people that if they did not sur- render the Foxes within a certain time, he would go and take them. The Sauk, allies of the Foxes for many years and regardful of their duties as hosts, did not

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comply with his demand. Villiers, accompanied by Repentigny, who had rejoined him, with two of the commandant's sons, and by the Sieur Douville, his son- in-law, and seven or eight Frenchmen, went to the Sauk fort, which stood on what is now the business center of Green Bay, to demand the instant surrender of the Foxes. When Villiers attempted to enter the fort, a Sauk approached him with uplifted tomahawk and at the same moment three shots were fired. A son of Vil- liers fell dead at his side, and Villiers was killed a moment later. A Sauk boy twelve years old, Blackbird by name, afterward a noted chief, is said to have fired the shot that killed the Commandant. Three other Frenchmen were wounded. Repentigny, who had been guarding the approaches to the Sauk fort, ran up to assist his comrades and was killed at once. The Sieur Duplessis, a cadet, and six other Frenchmen met the same fate. The two hundred savages who had accom- panied Villiers to the Bay hastened over from the oppo- site side of the river, in order to help the French, and the Sauk withdrew into their own fort with a loss of only three killed. Three days later they and the Foxes abandoned the fort and fled. Ensign Villiers, leading all the Frenchmen whom he could muster and followed by his Indian allies as well, overtook them some eight leagues westward and killed twenty Sauk and six Foxes, besides mortally wounding nine more and wounding an unknown number of others. Several of the Frenchmen, including a brother of Ensign Villiers, were wounded and two were killed, while their savage allies lost seven- teen men in killed alone.

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Writing to his superior in October, 1734, Beauhar- nois blames the disaster at the Sauk fort upon Villiers. The Governor states that he had directed Villiers to take every precaution and in particular to make sure of the Sauk. To help carry out this policy, he had given to Villiers belts of wampum, as well as presents and med- als, for the two most noted Sauk chiefs. He declared that Villiers, by disregarding the instructions to pro- ceed carefully and diplomatically, by holding his main force back at too great a distance, and by his rashness, had brought on the catastrophe that followed.

At the same time, Beauharnois, the Governor, and Hocquart, the Intendant, reported to the Minister that the Sauk and Foxes, after the affair at the Bay, had sought refuge in vain among the Sioux and among the Iowa, and had finally established themselves, each nation in a separate fort, upon the Wapsipincon River, in Iowa, two or three days' journey below the mouth of the Wisconsin River. Yielding to the demands of France's savage allies, the Governor detailed eighty-four French- men, including seven officers, to attack the Foxes and Sauk in their new quarters, and persuaded a hundred and thirty Indians from Montreal to join the expedi- tion, which was placed under the command of the Sieur de Noyelle. The force left Montreal August Hth, 1734, expecting to pick up reinforcements at Mackinac and Detroit. At the former place the Ottawa, who are represented as having clamored for the blood of the fugitive Foxes, refused to start upon the warpath. At Detroit, however, Noyelle enlisted about a hundred

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more Indians, Hurons and Potawatomi, and thence he resumed the march westward. On the road seventy Hurons and ten Potawatomi abandoned the expedition in order to "eat up" six cabins of Sauk who had taken refuge at St. Joseph. Forty Kickapoo, who pretended to guide him, purposely led him astray, so that his force traveled a longer distance than was necessary. At one time, in fact, the expedition was actually marching away from the Foxes and the Sauk. Noyelle threatened the Kickapoo with death at the stake if they should mislead him again. He finally reached the Fox fort, but it was deserted. The pursuit was continued. Noyelle's fol- lowers, who were suffering from hunger as well as from cold, sometimes waded through water up to their waists. After enduring severe hardships, they finally reached the Fox camp, which consisted of fifty-five cabins, but it was on the opposite side of a rapid river and the stream was filled with floating ice. The French and their allies were somewhat scattered when a Huron chief proposed that those at hand should swim across the river and attack the foe without waiting for the rest of their own force. Noyelle would not consent to do so, deeming the enterprise too hazardous. In consequence, ill feel- ing arose between him and the Huron chief, with the result that forty Hurons, all of them being from the vicinity of Montreal, deserted on the spot. Some of the scattered members of the command, including a number of Frenchmen, had already gained the opposite side of the river, and in a fight which followed, one French- man, the Sieur de Croisalle, was killed and another, the

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Sieur Chabert, was mortally wounded after Noyelle himself had crossed the river and joined in the fighting. Insubordination among his Indians, together with the many desertions, had materially weakened Noyelle's force, while the forty treacherous Kickapoo, who were watching the fighting from a near-by hill, were suspected by the French of a desire to reinforce the Foxes and the Sauk, their old allies. The French finally fell back in order to intrench themselves against a counter-attack. For four days the French and their allies had had noth- ing to eat except twelve dogs and a horse which had been killed near the deserted fort of the Foxes. Several soldiers ate their own moccasins. The inadequacy of his force and the lack of provisions compelled Noyelle to treat with the Sauk, who were promised forgiveness if they would leave the Foxes and return to the Bay. This they promised to do, but the Foxes, desperate and at bay, threatened that if they attempted to desert them, they would eat the Sauk women and children. Noyelle with- drew from the scene without having accomplished the defeat of the Foxes. He claimed that he had lost only two Frenchmen and one Indian and that thirty of the enemy were slain.

Four hundred Missouri and Kansas Indians, inspired by the French, afterward attacked the Foxes and the Sauk, but without marked success. The Sauk, however, took advantage of this diversion to separate from the Foxes. Some of the Sauk went to St. Joseph and others returned to Green Bay. The King was displeased with the result of this expedition and so stated in writing. He

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appears to have expressed his surprise at the strength of the Foxes, in view of the frequent and heavy losses which, according to the reports which had been sent to France year after year, they had suffered in battle. The Governor, in reply, stated that the information which he had forwarded to the Minister about the sorry condition of the Foxes, after the attack made upon them near LeRoche by Villiers, was gathered from the various posts under his jurisdiction. He explained the surprising recuperative powers of the Foxes by stating that Foxes held as captives or slaves by other nations had been voluntarily yielded to their kinsmen. The savage nations were often at war and none more so than the Foxes, so that it is not surprising that they, who took so many captives, suffered similar losses in turn. Beau- harnois, furthermore, made this pointed statement to the King: "As a rule, the savages fear the French, but do not love us. ... They have their policy, as we have ours, and they are not greatly pleased at see- ing a nation destroyed, for fear that their time may come next." This is probably one reason why the Foxes not infrequently received shelter and even active aid when they sorely needed it.

When the Sauk went to St. Joseph to make peace with the French, the Foxes formed an alliance with the Sioux of the Prairies. Both Sauk and Fox, at least some of each, implored the French to spare their lives. Other nations, allies of the French, took up the cause of the hunted ones. Ottawa and Potawatomi went down to Montreal and pleaded for the lives of the surviving

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Foxes. Menominee and Winnebago presented a sim- ilar petition in behalf of the Foxes. Beauharnois held a council with the savage petitioners and acceded to their request. He officially reported that the condition exist- ing did not permit of hesitation over the question, and he gave his consent all the more readily because the Sauk and Foxes had not committed any hostile acts against the French since the Noyelle episode, and because leniency accorded with the interests of the Colony. The prin- cipal reason for his new policy of mercy, however, and it is probably what he hints at when he says that he was not in a position to hesitate over the petition of his sav- age allies, was his fear of offending them by refus- ing to grant their request. And well might the French Governor be alarmed. Discontent among the savages was becoming more general. Insurrection was in the air. Disaster began to overtake the French. A party of them from the Wabash and the Illinois, led by Pierre d'Artaguette, made an attack upon the Chicka- saw, and were overwhelmingly defeated, twenty-two Frenchmen being taken prisoners and most of them being burned at the stake.

The Shawnees, who had settled among the Miami, were suspected, even by the King, of being under Eng- lish influence. The Miami themselves, those long-time allies of the French, had for several years taken the greater portion of their furs to the English. Cherokee and Chickasaw, hostile to the French, had actually set- tled upon the Ohio River. No wonder that the King states that "a mild and moderate policy is always pref-

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arable." He had only recently learned that twenty-one Frenchmen, who were escorting Father Audreau, a Jesuit missionary, from his post at the Lake of the Woods, northwest of Lake Superior, to Mackinac, were massacred by Sioux of the Woods, aided by several Sioux of the Prairie. The detachment was commanded by the eldest son of the Sieur de le Verendrye, one of the most noted French explorers of that time and region. This young man was among the victims. Beauharnois, writ- ing to the Minister, declared that it would be a boon "if we could destroy the Sioux, because they occupy the finest hunting grounds." This illustrates the cruel sel- fishness of the French policy. But the Sioux were not destroyed. Instead the French were compelled to burn and evacuate their post at Lake Pepin, in the Sioux country, as a result of a war that broke out between the Sioux on one side and the Chippewa of Chequamegon Bay and the Winnebago on the other side. The Sioux burned the Winnebago fort, which was near the French post, and they not only told Sieur St. Pierre, who com- manded for the French, that they had committed this act designedly, but they killed several Frenchmen and menaced the French fort. Chippewa from Wisconsin hastened to the aid of the French, but St. Pierre feared that they would simply aggravate the situation and he persuaded them not to attack the Sioux. Finally, after a little skirmishing with the Sioux, the Wisconsin Indians, Chippewa and Winnebago, departed for their homes and soon afterward the French evacuated their position without having to fight a pitched battle with the Sioux.

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At Quebec, in June, 1740, a representative of the Sauk and Foxes begged Beauharnois for the lives of his people. Marin, he said, had told him during the past summer that the Sauk and Foxes had gone too far from their lands, but he had told Marin that they had simply chosen a place where food was abundant. "You are our master," said the spokesman, "and we place our wives and children under your protection. We ask life of you and we promise to be faithful to you." Winnebago, Ottawa and Menominee, who were present, spoke, though half heartedly, in favor of leniency to Sauk and Fox. "If all that has just been said is true sincere," remarked a Menominee, alluding to the submission of the Foxes, "it pleases us greatly."

During the following August, Marin, at the request of the Sauk and Foxes, left the Bay for Mackinac in order to request the Ottawa and the Chippewa of that region not to travel by way of the Bay if they again made war upon the Sioux, as they feared some mischief on one side or the other if this route were used any longer for such a purpose. A little later the Foxes are reported to be with the Sioux on the Wisconsin River. A hundred of these Indians, Sioux and Foxes, marched against the Peoria — Illinois Indians, who lived near the city that bears their name — but the latter were warned in time by the Sauk. About the same time Beauharnois wrote to the Minister that at the mouth of the Wiscon- sin River, early in the year, the Sioux had complained that they had been "killed three or four times" by the Chippewa of Chequamegon and Sault Ste. Marie, and

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that they did not know what to make of these attacks upon them, in view of the fact that the French Gover- nor had granted them their lives. For some time after- ward, Marin did not dare to leave the Sioux for fear that they would begin war upon one or another of the nations. From the Sieur L'Ecuyer, coming from Che- quamegon Bay, and from the eldest son of the Sieur de la Ronde, who had charge of that post as a result of his father's death, Marin learned that the Chippewa had attacked and killed quite a number of the Sioux.

Marin, while among the Sioux and the Foxes, endeav- ored to prevail upon the latter to remove to their old home near the Bay. The Foxes replied that some of their warriors and old men had been greatly alarmed because Frenchmen at Chicago and Milwaukee (spelled Meolaki) had secretly warned them not to abandon the Rock River, as harm would befall them if they returned to the Bay. Reassured, however, or feigning to be, they promised to try to induce their young men to consent to the proposed removal. Later, according to a letter from Marin to Beauharnois, it seemed impossible to bring the Foxes to an immediate decision upon this ques- tion, "as they still fear the Bay on account of what has occurred at that place." And well they might fear that locality. For many years their blood had been shed in profusion upon the shores of the Lower Fox River, and, seat of their ancient home as it was, some of the mem- ories that it recalled were as sad as others were tender. However, by the end of the year 1742, most of the Foxes had returned to the Bay, but some of them

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remained at the Rock River and still others took up their abode at Chicago and Milwaukee.

From France the Minister wrote to Beauharnois questioning Marin's ability and stating that it had been reported to him that Marin did "a great deal more in matters that concern his own interests" than — this is implied — he did for the service. "I know, Monseig- neur," Beauharnois replied, "that the Sieur Marin has enemies, due to envy and jealousy, as is usual in this country. Upon his arrival he was recommended to me as a good man who had been among the savages all his life. I have some letters of the late M. de Vaudreuil stating that M. Marin always commanded respect in a post. He has drawn the Winnebago out of the hands of the Foxes and he has always been ready to expose his life for the good of the service."

Marin it was who finally effected the removal of the Foxes from the Rock River to the Bay and it was he also who induced Sioux, Chippewa, Foxes, Sauk, Meno- minee and Winnebago to send representatives to Que- bec, where Beauharnois held pow-wows with them. In September, 1742, Beauharnois writes that these achieve- ments ought to confirm his favorable opinion of Marin. Two months later, he requested a leave of absence, dur- ing the following year, for Marin, whom he designates as a lieutenant, in order to permit him to revisit France. Marin's son, he adds, has served in the Chickasaw campaign and he had led the Sioux to the Bay some time before, very likely the time that the elder Marin had in turn taken the Sioux and other Indians to Quebec. Beau-

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harnois terms the son a "strong and vigorous young man of great promise" and he expresses hope that this youth- ful fighter of France's battles will be appointed to an ensignship of the second class.

Pierre Paul, Sieur Marin, was born in 1692. In 1727 he was at the Sioux post, on the shore of Lake Pepin, and in 1730 he was stationed among the Menominee. He probably spent most of the next ten years in Wis- consin and the Northwest, and it is known that he was at the Bay and in the Rock River country during 1739 and 1740. In 1745, during the war with the British colonies, he commanded an expedition against Sara- toga. In 1747 he was in command at St. Joseph River, and in 1750 he re-occupied the post among the Sioux, where he remained for two years. Then he took com- mand in the Ohio Valley and built Fort le Boeuf, on French Creek, along the route to the Alleghany River. This expedition would have penetrated farther into the heart of the Ohio Valley if, in the following year, Marin had not been taken ill and died. His son Joseph, ensign in 1756, and lieutenant in 1756, was in command of Chequamegon in 1749, and in 1752 he succeeded his father in command among the Sioux and at the Bay. In 1756, after being called East to serve against the British colonies, he commanded an attack upon a con- vey at Fort Oswego and the following year he showed marked valor at Fort William Henry. At the fall of Quebec he was taken prisoner. As soon as he could do so, after the consummation of the British conquest, he went to France to spend the remainder of his days.

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To return to the Foxes. M. de Bienville, Governor of Louisiana, became uneasy when he learned of the alliance between the Sioux and the Foxes and he expressed fear that from it more trouble might result. This was communicated to Beauharnois, who replied that both nations had been behaving well since their recent visit to him. To break up the union between them, as Bienville had suggested, or to attempt to do so, would be unwise, he said. "We are not in a position to make the Foxes any more sincere by force," he wrote, "and if, on the other hand, they are dissembling their resentment, and have no other object in view than the steps which they have taken to unite with the Sioux, any precaution on my part to prevent this would be useless. ... I might add that if no reliance can be placed upon the promises of the Foxes to remain quiet, much less could any be placed in promises that they might make to break off their friendship with a nation such as the Sioux, whom they regard as a safe refuge if they have any evil designs." Nevertheless, he added, he had instructed M. de Lusignan, Marin's suc- cessor in command at the Bay, to maintain a close watch upon the Foxes, all of whom, except ten cabins at Chi- cago and two at Milwaukee, were near the Bay, together with the Sauk. The French, it will be noticed, still had a wholesome respect for the Foxes. This is shown again by a letter in October, 1743, in which Beauharnois answers a complaint from France, in regard to increased expenses of his administration during the past year, by explaining that he had been obliged to make many pres- ents to the Sioux, Sauk and Foxes.

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From that time until the fall of New France the Foxes do not seem to have taken the warpath again. There is a tradition that they began exacting tribute from French traders who used the Fox River as a high- .way and that Marin reappeared upon the scene and virtually exterminated them. To do this he, acording to the tradition, ascended the Fox River in large boats, which were covered with tarpaulin and thus appeared to contain merchandise, while in fact they were full of armed men. The Foxes, when they sprang into the water to intercept the flotilla, were taken by surprise when he opened fire upon them with muskets as well as with a swivel gun. And when they fled, the tradition runs, it was to find their village in flames and a flanking party in the line of their retreat. Hundreds of the Foxes, almost all of them, are said to have met death in the encounter. The story has been told again and again, and is often cited as the principal "incident of the Fox war, but it is probably untrue. The affairs of the Foxes were the subject of painstaking correspondence among the French officers and their superiors and the fact that the French archives, which have recently been made so accessible to students of history, do not mention any such exploit, takes from the story all reasonable claim to verity.

During the last years of the French regime the Foxes do not appear to have been active. Some of them, it is said, did join Langlade's standard and fight side by side with their old enemies the French against the Brit- ish, but no considerable number of them appear to have

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fought for France, and those who did so were probably actuated by esteem for Langlade, not by love of the French.

The Iroquois Indians of New York are generally pointed out as the strongest foe which the French had among the natives of North America, but man for man the Fox was at least as formidable. In craft, in cour- age and in diplomacy the Fox was fully the equal of the Iroquois. The Iroquois became formidable among the Indian races, but it was partly because, after the com- ing of white men, they early obtained guns from the Dutch at Albany. The Foxes, faring no better in respect to firearms than did the nations which sur- rounded them, nevertheless became pre-eminent among those nations by reason of their fighting ability. The Foxes, to adopt a term used by Parkman in speaking of the Iroquois, were in verity the Romans of the West. Had they been as numerous as the Iroquois, had they numbered thousands of warriors instead of hundreds, they would probably have driven the French out of the West long before the English did so. As it was, the Fox nation was a source of constant menace to French power in the West, and hastened the day of its end.

CHAPTER XIV FRENCH AND BRITISH IN CONFLICT

ONE of the most obvious factors in connec- tion with the wars between the French and the British, which eliminated the French as a factor in the future of North America, was the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley just as much as it was the Valley of the Ohio. The British sought the Ohio Valley for itself and because it opened a way to the West. The French fortified the Ohio Valley because it was desirable terri- tory in itself and because it presented a barrier to the progress of the British toward the Mississippi. A pre- ceding chapter, descriptive of the French fur trade, shows the immediate cause of the clash between the two peoples. It will be the scope of the present chapter to trace this phase of history more directly and more minutely and to show the great part that the Wisconsin of that day played in the war.

In the latter part of the Seventeenth Century the English began to take active measures to obtain a share of the fur trade of the Great Lakes, and this movement was soon followed by attempts upon the forest com- merce of the Mississippi Valley. In 1679 Frontenac reported that Governor Andros of New York had detained and even treated well one Pere, a noted adven- turer of the wilderness, and others who had been alien- ated from La Salle, with a view to employing them in opening trade between the English and the Ottawa of the Upper Lakes. In the same year DuLuth planted the arms of France in the region of the Mille Lacs, in Min- nesota, "lest the English and other Europeans settled

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toward California take possession of the country." Two years later DuLuth, his uncle Patron, Perrot himself and even Frontenac were accused by Duchesneau, the Intendant of New France, of sending peltries to the English. As early as 1685 Governor Dongan of New York licensed several persons, including La Fontaine Marion, a Canadian renegade, to trade among the Indians of the Northwest. In consternation Governor Denonville of New France reported to his superiors that these traders had actually gone to Mackinac and had been well received by the Huron and the Ottawa Indians, for whose furs they had paid much higher prices, in merchandise, than the French were paying. DuLuth was forthwith instructed to erect upon the St. Clair River, between Lakes Huron and Erie, a post that would serve as a barrier to English traders. In 1687 twenty-nine English traders, commanded by Captain Thomas Roseboome of Albany and accompanied by La Fontaine Marion as interpreter, were captured by Durantaye, a French officer, on Lake Huron, within twenty leagues of Mackinac. During the same year Durantaye, who had been joined by DuLuth and Henry Tonty, captured twenty-one Englishmen and six Indians, in the St. Clair River, near France's new post, which was called St. Joseph. This was another expedition from Albany and it was commanded by Captain Thomas Macgregory, a native of Scotland. The British, how- ever, continued to push onward to Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and it was soon seen that a conflict for the pos- session of the territory of the Great Lakes was inevit-

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able. The Chevalier de Callieres, as a counter measure, proposed that war should be carried into New York, particularly Albany and Manhattan. War did follow, the French sending three expeditions against the Brit- ish colonies and the British under Sir William Phips making an unsuccessful attack upon Quebec.

For a few years afterward the British were not active factors in the Northwest. But the French well knew from what quarter danger would come and they prepared to meet it. La Mothe Cadillac, who had commanded at Mackinac, conceived the project of build- ing a strong fort and settlement at the strait — detroit — which connects Lakes Erie and Huron. It was a point of great importance from a strategic point of view. The French, by commanding it, could shut off the English from the Upper Lakes, while if the English should seize and hold it, they would work havoc to the French fur trade. Robert Livingston, in fact, had urged the Governor of New York to take this step. Cadillac pressed his plan upon Callieres, the Governor, and Champigny, the Intendant. Not being able to win them over to his views, he sailed for France and presented the matter to Ponchartrain, the colonial minister. In order to found a substantial settlement, he asked for fifty sol- diers and fifty Canadians at once and for at least twenty families and two hundred picked artisans the following year, together with priests and nuns. His plan was approved and in 1701 he took out a hundred men and built Fort Ponchartrain where the present city of Detroit stands. A company that had been formed to

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control the fur trade was to bear all the expenses of the new establishment, though the King was to maintain the garrison. The trade in furs was to be restricted to Detroit and Fort Frontenac. Detroit did not flourish, however, and Cadillac obtained its rights to the fur trade of the post by agreeing to reimburse the company for the expenses which had been incurred by reason of the enterprise. Still Detroit languished. For a time the effect of the establishment of the post was alarm over it among the Iroquois. Those Indians, old ene- mies of the French, appealed for protection to their ally the King of England, and to him they executed a deed conveying a territory eight hundred miles long and four hundred miles wide, extending from Lake Ontario north to Lake Superior and west as far as Chicago. This included Detroit itself and most of the Upper Lake region. The English placed the deed on file and after- ward based their claim to the region of the Lakes upon it. The French continued to occupy Detroit, however.

By the establishment in 1725 of a post upon Lake Ontario, at the mouth of Oswego River, the British suc- ceeded in getting a large share of the fur trade. The low prices which prevailed at the post and the good quality of the goods that they could procure in that market attracted many Indians, including some of those dwelling upon the Upper Lakes. The French were alarmed by the effect of this measure upon their trade and at a council of war at Quebec it was decided to send a force of two thousand men to destroy Oswego. In the end, however, the Governor of New France, the Mar-

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quis de Beauharnois, learned that his King did not desire another war with the British, and so he simply sent to the British a demand for the evacuation of the post. The British paid no attention to the demand and Oswego became a great trading center. In 1725 there were two hundred armed traders at Oswego, and Bur- net, Governor of New York, sent thither eighty soldiers to protect the workmen engaged in strengthening the post. Before long a large force was established at the fort.

In a letter written in February, 1731, and apparently instigated by De Noyan, the commandant at Detroit, it is stated that the Miami, then dwelling near the present city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the Weas, living near what is now Lafayette, in Indiana, were taking most of their furs to the British at Oswego. To provide against this it was recommended that French posts at Frontenac and Niagara should always be well supplied with trading goods, as the journey between Detroit, France's prin- cipal post, and the Miami and Wea villages was difficult on account of portages. The letter gives warning that the British will establish themselves at any post that the French may abandon.

Ten years later, in a message to the Ottawa at Mack- inac, Beauharnois, the Governor, told them that he had heard that they had gone to Oswego "to get bad milk" — that is, brandy. "There is good milk here," he added. "Why do you not come and get some since you like it so much. You have never been refused any and my breasts are full."

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De Noyan, during the same year, advised the Min- ister that for a number of years the British had been active in the vicinity of his post and working to corrupt the savages within his jurisdiction. It was his intention, he announced, to give orders to pillage the British adven- turers. He intimated that he had stopped trade between the French and the British through the medium of the savages. Almost simultaneously, the Sieur Coulon de Villiers wrote that the Illinois of his post had visited Oswego and he expressed the fear that they would get into the habit of going to that post to trade. One year later, in 1742, Beauharnois wrote that the British gov- ernor of New York had written to Father de la Rich- ardie, stationed at Detroit, that if the Hurons would set- tle within his jurisdiction, they might continue to practice their religion and the priest might remain their mission- ary. "There is nothing that the British do not practice to attract our savages to them," added Beauharnois, in bitter complaint.

That the British were industriously inciting the In- dians against the French is apparent from several reports made by French officers. Thus the Sieur Benoist, commanding at Fort Chartres, in Illinois, announced in 1742, the discovery of a plot of the Illinois, instigated by the British and the Chickasaw, to attack his post. He passed the word to the other posts in that region and urged the Indian allies of the French to take the war- path against the Chickasaw and at the same time to in- timidate the Illinois. In 1745 M. de Longueil, who had become commandant at Detroit, reported to Beau-

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harnois that the British commander at Oswego had presented to each Indian village represented at his post, including villages of French allies, a cask of brandy, at the same time telling them that in the future they must look to Oswego for supplies, as the British were going to take Canada from the French. The Indians began leaving Detroit, in consequence of the British manoeuvre, and when Longueil protested, they said that they must have brandy, and that cloth and beads were too dear at Detroit and at Niagara — in the French markets, in other words.

The discovery of a plot among the Hurons of De- troit and the Iroquois to make themselves master of De- troit and to massacre the inhabitants, was announced in a letter written in November, 1747, by M. de Raymond, town major of Quebec, formerly commandant at Niag- ara. The plot, which was discovered in time, was at- tributed by Raymond to the influence of the British. He declared that the Ottawa and the Chippewa of Mack- inac had planned to capture the post at that place, and had actually massacred several Frenchmen. He sug- gested that in making terms of peace at the end of the war then in progress, which did not terminate until the following year, the French compel the British to aban- don Oswego, to renounce all relations with the Iroquois and to abandon all trade and communication with the Indians of the Ohio Valley and of the Great Lakes. The next year some of the Indian nations at Mackinac and Detroit, "instigated by the British," attacked the French. The chapel mission at Detroit was destroyed by the savages. The Count de la Galissoniere, the Gov-

326 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

ernor of New France, sent strong detachments to those posts to punish the Indians. They begged forgiveness, but two chiefs of the Mackinac Indians were by his orders sent to Quebec in charge of a sergeant and eight men. Between Montreal and Quebec the troops were massacred, apparently by friends of the prisoners, who at any rate disappeared.

During the same year, 1748, Galissoniere sent to De- troit forty-six persons, men, women and children, in or- der to strengthen that settlement as a barrier against British encroachment. It was provided that these new settlers were to be supplied with flour free of charge for a period of two years, and that all implements neces- sary to till the soil were to be given to them. It is char- acteristic of French policy that even before the settlers were sent to Detroit, it was planned that their houses were to be built at fixed distances apart. These settlers promptly claimed that inasmuch as they were expected to till the soil, the character of the land should be taken into consideration in locating their homes, and hence they insisted that the concessions of land made to them should include good soil and other advantages that they individually desired. M. de Celeron, a capable, enter- prising officer, who at the time was engaged in planting the arms of France in the Valley of the Ohio, was appointed commandant at Detroit at this critical period.

The British post at Oswego continued to give the French a great deal of annoyance, and it was decided to build a post at Toronto in the expectation of attracting the Upper Lake Indians on the way to Oswego to trade.

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The fort was built and in addition the French con- structed two armed vessels to control the navigation of Lake Ontario. These conditions lasted without any material change until the final war between the French and the British broke out.

In the meantime the Mississippi Valley was the scene of important happenings. In 1699, seventeen years after La Salle, in the name of his King, had taken pos- session of the basin of the Mississippi River, stretching from the Alleghanies on the east to the Rocky Moun- tains on the west, Lemoine d'Iberville planted at Biloxi the germ of the colony of Louisiana. His post, much to the discomfiture of the Canadians, soon attracted trade from the Illinois country. Three or four years later the French post was removed to Mobile. In 1706, when Iberville died, the colony numbered only about three hundred inhabitants, and they were in peril from savage neighbors as well as from British and Spaniards. D'Ar- taguette, who succeeded Iberville, recommended the construction of a fort upon the Ohio River in order to defend the new colony from attack by the British. In 1713 Cadillac, founder of Detroit, became Governor of Louisiana. The following year the Sieur Antoine Crozat, who had greatly helped to replenish the coffers of the French King, was given the right to farm the trade of Louisiana for a period of fifteen years. Cro- zat's monopoly covered the Ohio and Missouri Valleys and all of the Mississippi River country except that part lying eastward of it between the Illinois and its source. Crozart's agents could open mines and import negroes

17

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from Guinea as well as control the fur trade with the In- dians. He was obliged, however, to recruit the colony and to send to it every year two ships loaded with sup- plies. Trading posts were established, including one in the Illinois country, and Crozat expected to make a large fortune out of his monopoly. His trade in furs was seriously injured by the fact that British and Spaniards paid better prices for peltries and so got much of the traffic, the British being particularly successful in the Red River Valley, and in the mid-Mississippi region. To make matters worse for Crozat, the Treaty of Utrecht gave the control of the slave trade to Great Britain.

Louis XIV. died in 1715. France had been humbled among the nations and was deeply in debt. Two years later, in the hope of helping the nation out of its financial difficulties, the Company of the West, more popularly known as the Mississippi Company, with a capital stock of a hundred million livres, was chartered in France and all the privileges which Crozat had held were trans- fered to it. John Law, a Scotchman, brilliant but unprincipled, a rake and a gamblert was at the head of the company. The exploitation of Louisiana was car- ried on in a most energetic manner. In the next five years the seven hundred settlers of that colony were reinforced by seven thousand new immigrants from France. Large concessions of land were made to those who would send out settlers to Louisiana and in the haste to take advantage of these terms many vagrants and criminals were shipped to the colony until the gov- ernment enjoined greater care.

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About sixteen months before the new company had been chartered, Law had opened in Paris a private bank of issue, which the government had favored because the enterprise was to absorb in its capital seventy-five per cent, of the Billets d'Etat. On the first day of 1719 his bank became the Banque Royale of France, with the Regent as its sole owner and Law as its director. He was given authority to issue notes without limit and the Company of the West was to float them. The gov- ernment had guaranteed four per cent, dividends upon the company's capital. France was in a fever of specu- lation. This increased when the Company of the West absorbed the Company of the East and took the name of Company of the Indies. A plan for selling stock on a basis of installments was introduced. Hundreds of thousands of foreigners invested in the stock and speculators visited Paris in innumerable crowds. The capital stock, though greatly increased, advanced won- derfully in value. At one time the stock represented an investment of three thousand millions of livres. In Jan- uary, 1720, Law became Comptroller General of the Kingdom and a month later the Company absorbed the Banque Royale. Law had power to tax everything that was bought or sold. In his hands was concentrated all the money power of the country. But signs of dis- aster appeared. In May, in an attempt to tide over the trouble that he knew was coming, Law issued a royal decree to reduce values. It was a blunder, and he revoked the decree within a week, but it was too late. Things became blacker than ever. In December the

330 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

Bubble burst. But Law had put eight hundred livres in his pockets and had disappeared. The burtsing of the Bubble was a severe blow to France and to her people, as well as to Louisiana, where much of the Company's paper was held. In 1722, when he went down the Mis- sissippi to New Orleans, which in 1720 had been laid out as the capital of Louisiana, Charlevoix stated that the eight hundred fine houses and five parishes which had been described as existing two years before were reduced to one hundred cabins, two or three mean dwell- ings and an unfinished warehouse.

The original grant to Crozat did not include the Illi- nois country, which may be roughly described as that part of the present States of Indiana and Illinois lying between the Illinois Valley, and the Wabash. Its north- ern limits were never very clearly described. In 1717, however, a royal decree provided that the Illinois coun- try should be annexed to Louisiana. - A year later Pierre Dugue Boisbrant, a cousin of Bienville, ascended the Mississippi with a hundred men and took command of Kaskaskia. Fourteen miles above that place, on the left bank of the Mississippi, but a mile inland, he built Fort Chartres. Its site is now partly covered by the current of that eccentric stream. In 1721 Kaskaskia became a parish, which is proof that it was a permanent settle- ment. Ten score of miners were taken thither by one Philippe Francois Renault and lead mines near Galena were opened. The families of the miners were an important addition to the population of the Illinois coun- try.

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There was some question, however, as to whether the Ohio Valley was within the jurisdiction of New France or of Louisiana. Vaudreuil held that the Upper Wabash, which he wished to protect, was within Can- ada. The post on the Lower Wabash, which in 1734 became a permanent settlement, known as Vincennes, was within the jurisdiction of Louisiana. In October, 1731, Beauharnois, and Hocquart, the Governor and Intendant respectively of New France, reported that the Sieur de Vincennes, commanding among the Weas, would devote all his attention to frustrating any attempt by the British to cut off communication between New France and Louisiana and would enlist the savages of his post in the work of aiding the Sieur Perier, Governor of Louisiana, in any war that he might decide to wage against the Chickasaw.

In the report in which Beauharnois and Hocquart mention Perier, considerable is said in favor of once more attaching all of the Illinois country to New France. The Governor of New France, it was urged, was in a better position than the Governor of Louisiana to administer the affairs of the Illinois country and to get information in regard to the Indians of that region. The King, next year, wrote Beauharnois that the ques- tion as to the Illinois country would be decided in the manner that might seem most expedient, but that in any event Beauharnois must give attention to its affairs. "The British are trying in every way to conciliate Choc- taw and Chickasaw," the King stated, "and for the sake of the peace of the colony, it is most important to pre-

332 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

vent this." Beauharnois is urged to consider measures to meet the emergency. It is suggested by the King that other nations might be urged to join the Illinois and the French in dealing a severe blow to the Chickasaw and Beauharnois began to incite the Indian allies of the French to attack the Chickasaw as well as the Foxes.

In May, 1733, the King decreed that the Illinois should remain a dependency of Louisiana, but Beau- harnois was again told to bestow attention upon the mid- dle colony. The decision caused disappointment in New France and the Governor and the Intendant united in a rather strong protest against it. They wrote: "They are not aware of the reasons that have induced his majesty to do this. The request made by the savages to the Sieur de Beauharnois to be dependents of this government, owing to the difficulty that they would have in supplying their needs from the Mississippi, seemed to be worthy of some consideration." -These were force- ful words for a courtier to use to his King.

Much light is thrown upon the Illinois colony and its needs and dangers by Galissioniere, who in 1 747 became Governor of New France. He was deformed and unsightly, but his was a master mind, and had the affairs of New France been administered by men as wise and far-seeing as he was, French power in America might for many years have avoided the ruin that was now beginning to confront it. His correspondence shows that in statecraft he was the equal of Frontenac, the greatest of the rulers of New France. In September, 1748, Galissoniere wrote to Paris that for a consider-

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 333

able period the Illinois country would yield no revenue to the King, no fortune to private individuals, but it was far from his intention to recommend that it be aban- doned. It was one of the best barriers that could be presented to the ambition of the English, as it shut them out of the French trading regions and even from Mex- ico. Well settled, it would make the French formida- ble to the savages along the Lower Mississippi. Its pro- duce would attract savages whose alliance and trade would benefit the French. If in the present war with the British, for example, the French had in the Illi- nois country four hundred or five hundred men capable of bearing arms, the small posts of the French on the Wabash and in that region would not have been dis- turbed. On the contrary, such a force would have led into the heart of the English colonies the very natives who have attacked the French because they were weak where they should have been strong. The French col- onies in the interior, he declared, could never be on a par in respect to wealth with the neighboring colonies of Great Britain, because, except furs, the quantity of which was limited and the prices of which would decrease more and more, the French colonies could fur- nish no commodities except such as were similar to those of Europe, while they possessed no outlets except two rivers, both constituting difficult and perilious routes. "This colony of the Illinois," asserted Galissoniere, "will for a long time produce nothing except men, but it will produce so large a number of these that, far from fearing the English or the savage nations, it will be in a

334 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

position to dictate to them." "If the French colony of the Illinois were strong enough to menace Great Britain's colonies," adds Galissoniere, "fear of such a step would prevent the English from abusing their power upon the sea — as they so often do now." As it was, the Governor added, the Illinois country was the only district whither the British could go easily with a small force. The danger of a hostile force getting between New France and Louisiana is cited. "I see," he stated, "few settlements more urgent than the Illinois country. It is much coveted by our neighbors. A fairly large number of French families are already set- tled in that region and those that will gradually go thither in the future will be able to live upon the labor of others while awaiting the fruits of their own." He urged peopling the Illinois country by way of Canada, sending more soldiers, encouraging married soldiers to locate in the country and helping residents of Canada to remove to the inland colony.

In November, 1748, the uniting of Illinois to New France having again been agitated, M. de Vaudreuil, who had become the Governor of Louisiana, advised the Minister that the change could not be affected with- out seriously injuring his colony and without great inconvenience, perhaps ruin, to the Illinois settlement. He admitted that the settlement had been founded by Canadian voyageurs, but he declared that until Louis- iana had assumed control of it, the little colony had languished almost to the verge of ruin. It could com- municate more easily with Louisiana, distant only from

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three hundred to three hundred and fifty leagues, far more easily than it could with Canada, eight hundred leagues away and along a route including difficult port- ages. From the Illinois, Vaudreuil stated, he could get a message in from two to three weeks, and could send a reply by land in two months, while the way to Canada is much longer, more difficult and open only part of the year. This easier communication, he declared, was necessary to Illinois. Louisiana, moreover, needed the Illinois country, its flour as well as its fur trade. To replace the two companies of troops from Louisiana, stationed in the Illinois, with a small detachment of troops from Canada, would be to leave the Lower Mis- sissippi, the road to New Orleans, a prey to British enterprise. The dangers of navigating the river under such condition would deter the Illinois settlers from making the journey. The result would be a neglect of their farms and of the fur trade, and then the Indians, unable to get supplies from the French, would have recourse to the British. British and Indians combined, would, in time of war, find it easy to seize the French settlements in the Illinois country, and, in time of peace, to establish British settlements on the Wabash or any other locality that might please them. The Illinois habitants, to be sure, were numerous enough to protect themselves against attack, if they were united, but con- nected with the settlements were half breeds and cour- eurs des bois whom it would be impossible to keep under any kind of control if the troops available consisted of only ten or twenty men.

336 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

At that time the population of the Illinois country consisted of between two thousand and three thousand white people, congregated at Kaskaskia, St. Philippe, Cahokia and Prairie du Rocher. They were a happy, contented lot. The soil supported them; indeed, they sold flour and even pork to New Orleans, and brought back cotton, rice, sugar and tobacco. The descent was easy, but the homeward journey was different and toil- some in the extreme. Over the shallows they "poled" their barges and through the deeper water, when the current was strong, they took turns in pulling their craft up stream by means of ropes fastened along the banks.

The Indians of the Illinois country showed, more and more, a tendency to make friends of the British. The latter had been established on the Wabash as early as 1748, in which year the Miami, after a conference at Lancaster, had committed themselves to an alliance with the foes of the French. Vaudreuil, the Governor of Louisiana, forseeing this danger, had urged the con- struction of a fort on the Wabash, fifteen miles from its mouth, to keep the British away. Others thought that on the Ohio, either at the mouth of the Tennessee or at the Falls near Louisville, would be a better place. The fort was not built at all. The French, however, received some comfort from the fact that the Shawnees, who were under their influence, had settled as far west as the Wabash. On the other hand, nations long friendly to the French were showing hostility to them, even attack- ing them and planning to capture their forts. British traders had erected trading houses at Sandusky Bay and

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 337

in 1748 they established a post at Pickawillany, upon the Big Miami, one hundred and fifty miles above the Ohio. Three hundred traders from the British colon- ies, it was estimated, were entering the Ohio Valley every year with their packs. Celeron's expedition into the Ohio Valley, where he planted the French coat of arms, produced no other practical result than to arouse still more the enmity of the tribes, who feared that France's taking formal possession of the region meant the loss of their land.

In 1750 Galissoniere, who had returned to France, warned the home government that communication between New France and Louisiana was in danger. The farming and home life of the British, he pointed out, prompted a growth that threatened to overcome all opposition and to gain for them the Valley of the Ohio. Once the enemy had free access to the Mississippi, he stated, they would alienate the Indians who remained friendly to the French and would find their way to Louis- iana, and, in the end, to Mexico. Galissoniere proposed to settle ten thousand French peasants in the Ohio Val- ley. Galissoniere realized that the end of King George's war, in 1748, meant armed truce, not peace, and he sought to prepare France for the titantic struggle that he foresaw. Effected in time, it would have kept the British out of the West, but the King's government at Paris paid little attention to his plan. In its American affairs the Court of France had seldom followed a wise policy even when officials able and honest enough to do

338 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

so pointed it out and now the fall of its power was at hand.

The new war determined one thing of great import- ance, and that was that Anglo-Saxon self-government should prevail in Wisconsin. A greater change it would have been impossible to bring about by any war. The loss of Canada meant much to France, its accession meant much to Great Britain^ but in neither of these respects is it comparable in importance with the effect that it has had upon the United States. When the war broke out, France controlled most of the region of the Great Lakes, a great part of the Ohio Valley and all of the Upper Mississippi Valley. After the war had ended, this vast empire was ceded, together with Canada proper, to Great Britain, and thereafter its fate was bound up with that of the original colonies by whose aid the war had been won. Wisconsin, Michi- gan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio have been carved out of the territory that France ceded to Great Britain when she released forever her weakened grasp upon Canada and its dependencies.

When that war broke out, France had a chain of forts extending from the settlements of the St. Lawrence clear to the mouth of the Mississippi River by way of the Great Lakes. Frontenac, built originally by La Salle, stood where Kingston now stands and it guarded the pas- sage from Lake Ontario to the St. Lawrence. The fort at Niagara commanded the passage between Lakes Ontario and Erie just as Detroit guarded the passage between Lakes Erie and Huron. Mackinac, where a

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 339

post had been re-established in 1714, was the gate to the Northwest, while at Green Bay, in Wisconsin, passage by water cross the state to the Mississippi was barred by another fort. La Salle's route to the Mississippi, by way of the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, was closed by a fort at the mouth of the St. Joseph River. A post on the Maumee guarded the carrying place between that river and the Wabash and another commanded the Wabash at the site of Vincennes. Fort Chartres threat- ened any force that might elude these barriers and attempt to descend the Mississippi River. In addition, the French maintained several forts, some of them for- midable as frontier posts went. Upon the Lower Mis- sissippi a fort at the mouth of the Arkansas River, another at Natchez and another below the mouth of the Red River guarded the line of French communication against savage or civilized foe.

On the Great Lakes the first fort to fall was the British stronghold at Oswego. Montcalm invested it during the summer of 1756 and it soon surrendered. The French, who had sent reinforcements to the posts at Frontenac and Niagara, were elated over the taking of Oswego. They had feared that the British might cap- ture Frontenac and Niagara and thus isolate them at Duquesne, on the Ohio. Two years later, General Bradstreet took Frontenac, and, in addition, captured nine armed vessels, which were lying in the harbor. This feat gave the British command of Lake Ontario and prevented the French from sending supplies to Niagara or to Duquesne. The latter fort was aban-

340 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

doned during the following November. Early in the next year General Prideaux advanced upon Niagara, by capturing which the British planned to make sure of the Ohio Valley. Prideaux met his death during the siege, but Sir William Johnson, who succeeded him, defeated a relieving force from Fort Le Boeuf, which had been abandoned, and then compelled the garrison at Niagara to surrender. At Presque Isle the survivors of the garrison of Le Boeuf met the garrison of Venango, which had been abandoned, and they and the Presque Isle troops fell back upon Detroit. France had lost the Ohio Valley and all hope of retaining the Great Lakes and the Valley of the Mississippi.

The next year New France ceased to be. It is not within the scope of this history to give the details of the various battles which brought about British mastery. It is interesting, however, to follow the achievements of the French officers who had served in Wisconsin. Their experience in the wilderness of the West peculiarly quali- fied them for border and partisan warfare and some of them, most of them, in fact, gained distinction during the war with Great Britain. The exploits of Charles de Langlade with his Indian followers are described in another chapter. Marin, the elder, who had long com- manded at Green Bay, led the expedition which in 1753 entered the Ohio Valley and erected a fort at Presque Isle and then built Fort Le Boeuf. His son was active in the fighting at Fort William Henry, Fort Edward and Ticonderoga. Legardeur Saint Pierre, who had com- manded the post at Chequamegon and on Lake Pepin,

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 341

succeeded the elder Marin in command of the French troops in the Ohio Valley. It was he who received Washington when that young Virginian visited Lort Le Boeuf bearing Governor Dinwiddie's declaration that the French had built their forts upon British territory and suggesting immediate evacuation. Coulon de Vil- liers, who had waged war upon the Fox Indians of Wis- consin, defeated Washington at Fort Necessity in 1754, after Washington had destroyed a small French force near Little Meadows. Jumonville, a brother of Villiers, had been killed in the earlier action, and it was this blow by Washington that began the war. Beaujeu, who had served under De Lignery in the war against the Foxes, commanded the forces that defeated Braddock, and thus dealt a staggering blow to Great Britain and the colonies as well.

The period of French domination, extending from 1634 to 1763, is one of the most interesting and pic- turesque in the history of Wisconsin. French folk thrived in Wisconsin, however; the customs survived and their care-free lives were spent here, long after the fleur de Us had been hauled down.

CHAPTER XV LANGLADE AND THE END OF THE FRENCH REGIME

18

A SON of Wisconsin's pioneer family, his father a Canadian gentleman and his mother an Ottawa squaw, not only struck the first hard blow against Eng- lish power in the Ohio Valley, but after- ward figured most conspicuously in the defeat of Gen- eral Braddock; led Wisconsin Indians in battle on the Plains of Abraham ; led them again in the fight at Ste. Foy, and later, acknowledging the British as his mas- ters, commanded Wisconsin Indians in General Bur- goyne's campaign against the cause of the Colonies.

The Langlade family was descended from Pierre Mouet, Sieur de Moras, an ensign in the regiment of Carignan-Salieres, which was sent to New France in 1665 to protect the colonists against the war-loving Iro- quois. Mouet was born in 1639 at Castel-Sarrasin, in Lower Guienne. Four years after his arrival in New France, Mouet was married at Three Rivers to Marie Toupin, a Canadienne, and they reared a family of seven children, five of whom were sons. Their home was in the seignory of Nicolet, named after the pioneer explorer of Wisconsin. The King had granted this siegnory to Arnold Loubias, Mouet's captain, but he returned to France and it passed to Michel Cresse, who induced Mouet and the heads of other families to set- tle upon it. The seignory was located at the outlet of Lake St. Pierre. An island at the mouth of the Nico- let River bears the name of Moras to this day.

It became quite customary in Canada for the sons of families of gentle blood, except the eldest, who took his

345

346 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

father's name and title, to receive ancestral or geo- graphical names. For instance, sons of Le Moyne, including Iberville and Bienville, are not known to the casual reader by their own family names. Mouet's eld- est son, Pierre, took his father's name and title, but one of the younger Pierre's sons, Augustin, assumed the name of Langlade, which has been preserved in the nomenclature of Wisconsin counties.

Augustin, like so many sons of New France's famil- ies, became a fur trader. In this pursuit he went to Mackinac as early as 1727. Soon afterward he married Domitilde, an Ottawa woman, who was the widow of Daniel Villeneuve, and a sister of Nissowaquet, the head chief of her nation. Charles Michael Langlade was born of this union in May, 1729. Thanks to the Jesuit priest stationed at Mackinac, probably Father Jaunay, Charles received religious instruction and a smattering of education, including writing. His Indian instinct led him to prefer woodcraft and the warpath to books. When he was only eleven years of age, his uncle, the Ottawa chief, dreamed that he would surely be victor- ious over a hostile tribe, the Weas, on the Wabash, if he took the little fellow with him. This foe, which had twice defeated the Ottawas, was vanquished in the fight that now followed, and by his savage kinsmen the credit for this result was given to Charles. It was the begin- ning of an influence over the Indians which steadily grew and lasted until his death.

The Langlades, father and son, visited Green Bay as early as 1745. After that year they went to the Bay

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 347

frequently, probably every year, to trade in furs, and they laid claim to a large tract of land on the Fox River. It was young Langlade who led the French traders at the Bay against the Sauk in the fighting which followed the shooting of Captain de Villiers by Blackbird, the twelve-year-old Sauk boy.

Charles and his father had hardly become per- manently located at Green Bay, a step that made them the first white settlers in Wisconsin, when the young man was called to play his part in a struggle for the con- tinent. In the war in which the French, striving to drive the English out of the Valley of the Ohio, lost in the end every foot of their territory on the continent of North America, Langlade struck the first real blow. On the Miami River, near the mouth of Loraine Creek, was a great village of Miami Indians, a town which was an eyesore to the French, as it contained several English traders. Its chief was so friendly to the English that they themselves called him Old Britain. The French, for what reason is not apparent, named him La Demoi- selle. The village was known as Pickawillany, and also as Pique Town and as Picktown. The French officials decided that the village should be destroyed. Their Indian allies in the Upper Lakes, the Ottawa and the Chippewa, were the most available force for the pur- pose, and therefore they were chosen. Langlade, half Indian himself, and having the confidence of these Indians, was chosen to command the expedition. In June, 1752, he left Mackinac with a force of two hun- dred and fifty Indians, and made a hurried voyage to

348 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

the mouth of the Miami River by way of Lake Huron, Detroit and the coast of Lake Erie. Up the Miami they went until they reached the portage and thence they fol- lowed a trail through the woods. About 9 o'clock in the morning of June 2ist, they attacked the town. Many of La Demoiselle's braves were absent upon their summer hunt and his defense was not stubborn. Four- teen of the Miamis, including the chief, were slain; eight English traders were captured, and the town was looted and burned. Langlade's Indians boiled and ate the body of the chief.

English prestige in the Valley of the Ohio suffered from this feat, and the French were elated in conse- quence. Yet a low price was placed upon Langlade's services. "As he is not in the King's service, and has married a squaw," wrote Duquesne, the Governor, "I will ask for him a pension of two hundred francs, which will flatter him exceedingly."

Bancroft says that at Pickawillany "began the con- test which was to scatter death broadcast throughout the world."

For the next three years Langlade's pursuits were peaceful. Most of that period he spent at Green Bay, managing his fur trade. At Mackinac, on August 1 2th, 1754, he became the husband of Charlotte Ambroisine Bourassa, a young woman of pure French blood. There is no evidence that he had ever married a squaw, as Duquesne reports, but by a squaw at Mackinac he had a natural son, who took his name. Charlotte, his wife, was a daughter of Rene Bourassa, a retired voyageur.

Ir1r*?r %'m$

JLr *^L-*

fcjt*

• V sW l^flS»J

>7^ ^.'M

c &•*

LANGLADE'S BUCKSKIN POUCh.

LANGLADE'S SILVER MOUNTED PISTOLS.

WISCONSIN AS A PROVINCE 351

Her graces of mind and of person form one of the tra- ditions of Green Bay.

A few months after his wedding Langlade was called upon to take part in another expedition against the Eng- lish. General Braddock and his regulars were prepar- ing to attack Fort Duquesne, which the French had erected at the point where the Alleghany and the Mo- nongahela become the Ohio River. Early in July, Lan- glade, whose force consisted of some Frenchmen, together with Ottawa, Chippewa and Potawatomi, arrived at Fort Duquesne, and, with Indians from other parts of New France, went into camp near the post. Among the Canadians with Langlade were Gautier de Verville, Amable de Gere and Machar, names that fig- ure in the history of Wisconsin for those and subsequent days. Pontiac, afterward famous, is said to have been in the Ottawa contingent.

The story of Braddock's defeat is a familiar one. His force was superior to that of the French, — strong enough, in fact, to sweep the French out of the Ohio Valley, even from Niagara. Contrecoeur, who com- manded the French fort, might in the end have been obliged to surrender, as Washington, now with Brad- dock, had done a year previous. Expected reinforcements from New France had not reached him and his Indians were dismayed by the magnitude of Braddock's army.

One of the French captains, M. de Beaujeu, asked leave to make a stand against Braddock at the passage of the Monongahela. The commandant consented, — somewhat reluctantly, it is said, — and then Beaujeu

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started to enlist the aid of the Indians. They hesitated, and the next day, in the morning, even told Beaujeu that they would not help him dispute the passage of the ford. They had hardly announced their decision when an Indian scout brought the news that Braddock was close to the Monongahela. Beaujeu turned to the Indians with the announcement that he would go forth against the enemy in any event and he reproachfully asked them if they would suffer him to go alone. Quick as a flash, the savages changed their minds, and, after being sup- plied with powder and bullets, they hurried toward the ford. Beaujeu led the way. It had been the intention to surprise the English at the ford, but valuable time had been wasted and when the French officers and their followers found the English, the latter had crossed the ford and were lounging in the shade, eating and resting. Beaujeu, eager for the fray, leaped out into the path, making a strange figure, as he was partly in Indian dress. He at once gave a signal, and Indians and French, from behind trees and the edges of ravines, began picking off the enemy, who, as the savages were invisible, could inflict little damage in return. The British soldiers, many of whom had unwillingly enlisted just before their regiments sailed for America, became demoralized, and shot one another and their own officers. Their rout became general. One estimate of the British loss is five hundred and eight killed and four hundred and seventy- four wounded, more than the combined force of French and Indians which inflicted the heavy loss upon them. Not only Braddock, but Beaujeu, the French leader,

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received a death-wound during the battle. Langlade was in the thick of the fight and to him is credited the conception of the plan carried out by Beaujeu to meet the enemy on the road, and, if possible, to take him by surprise. General Burgoyne afterward wrote to Lord Germain of Langlade as "the very man who . projected and executed Braddock's defeat." Anburey, an officer in Burgoyne's army, wrote in similar terms of Langlade. De Peyster, who commanded at Mackinac, made record of Langlade as a "French officer who had been instrumental in defeating Braddock." Grignon's Recollections, published by The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, give quite circumstantially Lan- glade's own account of the battle, as repeated by Lan- glade's grandson, and this narrative is evidence in sup- port of the Langlade claim. The French records are silent on the subject, but this may be due to the habitual slighting of partisan leaders by regular military authori- ties.

Langlade, who returned to Green Bay after the defeat of Braddock, was for some time in command of the Grand River district in Michigan, with supervision over Indian affairs. In the summer of 1756 he joined a scouting expedition to Fort Cumberland, on the Poto- mac River, a considerable distance southeast of the scene of Braddock's defeat. Langlade's services were ren- dered particularly in behalf of Fort Duquesne, the French fearing another British movement against it. In 1758 General Forbes did lead such an expedition against the fort, and the garrison, whose supplies had been cut

356 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES

off by a British attack upon Fort Frontenac, was forced to abandon it. Langlade is said to have taken part in the movement by which Major Grant and his eight hundred men, attached to General Forbes' command, were sur- prised and decimated, previous to the evacuation of Fort Duquesne.

Remaining in the vicinity of Fort Duquesne only a few months during 1756, Langlade next appeared at Mackinac, where, late in the year 1757, he was made second officer at the post. A few months afterward he organized a party of Indians, including more than three hundred Ottawa, and took them to join General Mont- calm. From Montreal they went to Lake George to aid in the siege of Fort William Henry. It was Lan- glade's Ottawa who attacked and sank the British barges on Lake George, an encounter that cost the enemy a loss of a hundred and fifty-one in prisoners, and not a few in killed and wounded.

Langlade was of course present at the capture of Fort William Henry. Just what part his Indian fol- lowers played in the massacre of many of the English prisoners, some of them previously wounded, is not known. It is probable that they, like the other Indians, glutted their appetite for blood, but that Langlade in any way countenanced the butchery of helpless prisoners may well be doubted when it is remembered that his first care in reaching Braddock's camp had been to destroy all the liquor to be found, in order to prevent the Indians from becoming uncontrollable.

At the head of two hundred Indians, Langlade left

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Mackinac in the spring of 1759 and at Quebec joined the forces under Montcalm. When three thousand British soldiers crossed the Montmorenci, using a ford which, Levis declared, did not exist, it was Langlade, with four hundred Indian followers, who discovered the British force, while it was intrenching itself on the heights, near the cataract. He quickly sent word to Vaudreuil, who ordered Langlade not to make any move until he himself could examine the situation. It took him two hours to reach the scene and meanwhile the Indians, getting impatient, fired on the British, driv- ing the rangers nearest them back upon the regulars, who stood their ground and repulsed the French Indians. The latter, however, carried thirty-six British scalps back with them across the Montmorenci. Had Vau- dreuil acted promptly and sent a large force to the at- tack, the British might have been dealt a much more serious blow.

In the great battle on the Plains of Abraham, Sep- tember 1 3th, Langlade fought desperately to save New France. There is authority for the statement that in that action two of his brothers met death. After the fall of Quebec, he returned to Mackinac, but early in the year 1760 he again appeared on the St. Lawrence. In the meantime, Louis XV., in recognition of Lan- glade's important services, had commissioned him a lieutenant. He probably did his share toward win- ning the fruitless victory achieved by Levis over Mur- ray at Ste. Foy, close to the walls of Quebec, during the month of April. Early in the fall, Langlade, at the

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instance of Governor Vaudreuil, returned to Mackinac, to hold the Indians steadfast to the interests of the French. Within a week, however, Langlade received from the French Governor a dispatch announcing the capitulation of the French army to General Amherst and the end of New France.

In 1761 the fort at Mackinac, on the south side of the Strait, where the city of Mackinac now stands, was occupied by the British, Captain George Etherington taking command. Langlade and his father took the oath of allegiance, going to Mackinac for the pur- pose. Charles was designated to continue in the posi- tion of superintendent of Indian affairs at Green Bay and was made commander of the militia. Green Bay was occupied by a small force under the command of Lieutenant James Gorrell.

Langlade was at Mackinac when Pontiac hatched his conspiracy. He learned of it and warned Captain Eth- erington, but that officer discredited the story. While the massacre was in progress, Alexander Henry, a noted trader, sought safety by asking for shelter in the Lan- glade home, but Langlade, he says, simply declared that he could do nothing for him. However, a Pawnee woman, held by the Langlades as a slave, secreted Henry for a time in the attic of the house. The Lan- glades soon surrendered him to the Indians, Madame Langlade fearing for her children if the ire of the Indian savages were aroused by their harboring an Eng- lishman, but by this time the Indians had satiated their appetite for killing, so that Henry was made their cap-

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tive. When the Indians took the Englishman away in a canoe, Langlade, he says, refused to trust him even for a blanket.

In 1763 the Langlades, father and son, returned to Green Bay, which was their only home during the years that followed. The father died about the year 1764.

In the War of the Revolution, Charles Langlade helped the British in much the same way as he had helped the French in the war with the British. For his services the British government granted him an annuity of $800 and a tract of three thousand acres of land in Canada, and confirmed his title to the farm at Green Bay. His home was on the shore of the Fox River. Under the rule of the British, his duties as Indian Agent, added to the management of his trade with the Indians, kept him fairly busy. He was the chief figure at Green Bay during the latter part of the Eighteenth Century and was held in high esteem by the French traders and habitants of that happy, contented settlement. Early in May, on the occasion of his birthday, the settlers always gathered and saluted him with cheers and the firing of guns. He died at Green Bay about the year 1800.

Two children, both daughters, were born of his union with Mile. Bourassa, who died in 1818. One, who became the wife of a settler named Barcellou, died childless. The other married Pierre Grignon, a Cana- dian of good family, who located at the Bay in 1763, and managed the Langlade farm.

His grandson, Augustus Grignon, has described Lan-

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glade as a man of medium height, with large, black eyes, and a somewhat full but expressive countenance. His eyebrows were heavy and close together. He was quick to show either pleasure or anger. The Indians called him Au-ke-win-ge-tau-so, which literally means uHe who is fierce for the land." Among the Indians his bravery became a proverb.

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