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HISTORY

O F

RICE COUNTY

INCLUDING

EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS of MINNESOTA,

OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

By Rev. Edward D. Neill;

ALSO

SIOUX MASSACRE OF 1862,

AND

State EDU(3y\TiON,

BY CHARLES S. BRYANT.

MINNEAPOLIS:

MINNESOT.A. IIISTOKIC.\L COMPANV, 1SS2.

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.

4/'-/

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PREFACE.

In the conipibitioii of the IfisToRY of Rice (Bounty it h.'is been the aim of the I'rm.isHERS to pvfscut ;i local liistorv, eoiiijirisiiio-, in a single volume of convenient form, a varied fuml of information, not only of interest to the present, hut from wliich the comiut^- searcher for historic data may draw without the tedium incurred in its preparation. There is always more or less difficulty, even in a historical work, in selectin.^' tli<jse things which will interest the greatest number of readers. Individual tastes differ so widely, that wliat may be of aljsorbing interest to one, has no attractions for another. Some ai'e inter- ested in that which concerns themselves, and do not care to read of even the most thrilling adventures where they were not participants. Such persons are apt to conclude that what they are not interested in is of no value, and its preservation in history a useless expense. In the settlement of a new Count\' or a new Township, there is no one jierson entitled to all tl>e credit for what has been accomplished. Every individual is a part of the great whole, id this work is prepared for the })urpose of giving a general rcHiime of what has thus far been thine to plant the civilization of the present century in Rice County.

That our work is wholly errorless, or that nothing of interest has been omitted, is more than we dare hope, and more than is reasoaaldi' to e.Kpect. In closing our labors we have the gratifying consciousness of having used our utmost endeavors in securing reliable data, and feel no hesitancy in submitting the result to an intelligent public. The impartial critic, to whom only we look for comment, will, in passing judgment upon its merits, be governed by a knowledge of the manifold duties attending the jirosecution of the under- taking.

We have been especially fortunate in enlisting the interest of Rev. Edward D. Neill and Charles S. Bryant, whose able productions are herewith presented. We also desire to e.xpress our sincere thanks to Prof. J. L. Noyes. who. assisted by Prof. J. J. Dow and Dr. CI. H. Knight, furnished the able sketch of " The Minnesota f nstitute for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind, and the School for Imlieciles and Idiots."' Oui- ac- knowledgements are likewise tendered to the County, Town, and Village officials for their nniform kindness to us in our tedious labors: and in general terms we express our indebted- ness to the Press, the Pioneers, and the Citizens, who have extended universal encourage- ment and endorsement.

That our efforts ma\' prove satisfactory, and this volume receive a welcome commensu- rate with the care bestowed in its preparation, is the earnest desire of the publishers,

ELLIS C. TURNER. F. W. HARRINGTON. B. F. PINKNEY.

CONTENTS,

I'lilfC.

Pbeface . - - . .	III
CHAPTER I-XXIII.
Explnrers and Pioueers uf Minnesota	1-128
CHAPTER XXIV-XXVII.
Oiitliue History of the State of Minnesot;	129-160
CHAPTER XXVIII-XXIX.
State Education . . . .	161-176
CHAPTER XXX-XLIII.
History of the Sioux Massacre	177-256
CHAPTER XLIV.
Chronology . ■ _ _ .	257-262
CHAPTER XLV-XLIX.
Rice County - . . . .	263-817
CHAPTER L-LI.
City of Fariliault - . . .	318-396
CHAPTER LII-LIII.
City of Xorthfield - - - .	396-437
CHAPTER LIV.
Bridgewater Township	437-453
CHAPTER LV.
Wheeling Township	454-464
CHAPTER LVI.
Richland Township	464-470

I'lr;/!'. CHAPTER LVII. Walcott Township - - - 470-477

CHAPTER LVIII. Forest Township - - - - 478-490

CHAPTER LIX. Wells Township . - . . 491-504

CHAPTER LX. Warsaw Township - - - 505-517

CHAPTER LXI. Cannon City Township - - - 518-534

CHAPTER LXII. Webster Township - - - 534-544

CHAPTER LXIII. Wheatland Township - - - 545-553

CHAPTER LXIY. Erin Township - _ . . 554-564

CHAPTER LXV.

Northfield Township - - - 564-574

CHAPTER LXVI. Shieldsville Township - - - 575 -582

CHAPTER LXVII. Morristown Township - - - 583-595 Index 596-603

EXPLORERS

PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

CHAPTER I.

FOOTrKINTS OF CIVILIZATION TOWAUD THE EXTREMITY OF LAKE SUPERIOR.

Minne6otji*s Cenlriil Position.— D'AvaEour's Prediction.— Nicoiefs Visit to (!rcpn Bay.— First White Men in Minnpsota. — Notices of Groselliers and Radisson.— Uurons Flee to Minnesota. — Visited by Frenchmen. — Father Menard Disap- pears.— Groselliers Visits Hudson's Bay, — Father Allouez Describes the Sioux Mission at La Pointe.— Father Marquette.- Sioux at Sault St. Marie. — Jesuit Missions Fiiil,— Groselliers Visits England.— Captain Gillani, ot Boston, at Hud- son's Bay. — Letter of Mother Superior of Vrsulines., at Quebec.- Death oT Groselliers.

The Dako talis, called by the Ojibways, Nado- waysioux, or Sioux (Soos), as abbreviated by the French, used to claim superiority over other peo- ple, because, their sacred men asserted that the mouth of the Minnesota River was immediately over the centre of the earth, and below the centre of the heavens.

While this teaching is very different from that of the modem astronomer, it is certainly true, that the region west of Lake Superior, extending through the valley of the lilinnesota, to the Mis- souri lliver, is one of the most healthful and fer- tile regions beneath the skies, and may prove to be the centre of the republic of the United States of America. Baron D'Avagour, a brave officer, who was killed in fighting the Turks, while he was Governor of Canada, in a dispatch to the French Government, dated August 14th, 1663, after refei-ring to Lake Huron, wrote, that beyond " is met another, called Lake Superior, the waters of which, it is believed. How into Kew Spain, and this, according to general opinion, ought to he the centre of the country.''^

As early as 1635, one of Champlain's interpre- ters, Jean Nicolet (Nicolay), who came to Cana- da in 1618, reached the western shores of Lake Michigan. In the summer of 1634 he ascended

the St. Lawrence, witli a party of Ilurons, and probably during the next winter was trading at Green Bay, in Wisconsin. On the ninth of De- cember, 1635, he had returned to Canada, and on the 7th of October, 1637, was married at Quebec, and the next month, went to Three Rivers, where he lived until 1642, when he died. Of him it is .said, in a letter written in 1640, tliat he had pen- etrated farthest into those distant comitries, and that if he had proceeded " three days more on a great river which flows from that lake [Green Bay] he would have found the sea."

The first white men in Minnesota, of whom we have any record, were, according to Garneau, two persons of Huguenot affinities, Medard Chouart, known as Sieur Groselliers, and Pierre d'Esprit, called Sieur Radisson.

Groselliers (pronoimced Gro-zay-yay) was born near Ferte-sous-Jouarre, eleven miles east of Meaux, in France, and when about sixteen years of age, in the year 1641, came to Canada. The fur trade was the great avenue to prosperity, and in 1646, he was among the Huron Indians, who then dwelt upon the eastern shore of Lake Huron, bartering for peltries. On the second of Septem- ber, 1647, at Quebec, lie was married to Helen, the widow of ('laude Etienne, who was the daugh- ter of a pilot, Abraham Martin, whose baptismal name is still attached to the suburbs of that city, the " Plains of Abraham," made famous by the death there, of General Wolfe, of the English army, in 1759, and of General Montgomery, of the Continental armv, In December, 1775; at the

EXPLOBURS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

commencement of the " War for Independence." His son, Medard, was bom in 1657, and the next year his mother died. The second wife of Gro- selliers was ilarguerite nayet(IIayay) Ratlisson, tlie sister of his associate, m the exploration of the region west of Lalie Superior.

Kadisson was born at St. Malo, and, while a boy, went to Paris, and from thence to Canada, and in 1()56, at Three Rivers, married Elizabeth, the daughter of Madeleine Hainault, and, after her death, the daugliter of Sir David Kirk or Kerkt, a zealous Huguenot, became his wife.

The Iroquois of New York, about the year 1650, drove the Hurons from their villages, and forced them to take refuge with their friends the Tinon- tates, called by the French, Petuns, because they cultivated tobacco. In time the Iliuons and their allies, the Ottawas (Ottaw-waws), were again driven by the Iroquois, and after successive wanderings, were found on the west side of Lake Michigan. In time they reached the Mississippi, and ascending above the Wisconsin, tliey found the Iowa Kiver, on the west side, which they fol- lowed, and dwelt for a time with the Ayoes (loways) who were very friendly ; but l)eing ac- customed to a country of lakes and forests, tliey were not satisfied with the vast prairies. Return- ing to the Mississippi, they ascended this river, in search of a better land, and were met by some of the Sioux or Dakotahs, and conducted to their villages, where they were well received. The Sioux, delighted with the axes, knives and awls of European manufacture, which had been pre- sented to them, allowed the refugees to settle upon an island in the Itlississippi, below the moutli of the St. Croix River, called Bald Island from the absence of trees, about nine miles from the site of the present city of Hastings. Possessed of firearms, the Hurons and Ottawas asserted their superiority, and determined to conquer the country for themselves, and having incurred the hostility of the Sioux, were obliged to flee from the isle in the Mississippi, Descending below Lake Pepin, they reached the Black River, and ascending it, found an unoccupied country around its sources and that of tlie Chippeway. In this region the Hurons established themselves, while their alhes, the Ottawas, moved eastward, till they found the shores of Lake Superior, and set- tled at Chagouamikon (Sha - gah - wah - mik - ong )

near what is now Bayfield. In the year 1659, GroselUers and Radisson arrived at Chagouamik- on, and determined to visit the Hurons and Pe- tuns, with whom the former had traded when they resided east of Lake Huron. After a six days' journey, in a southwesterly direction, they reached their retreat toward the sources of the Black, Chippewa, and AViseonsin Rivers. From this point they journeyed north, and passed the winter of 1659-60 among the "Nadouechiouec," or Sioux villages in the ilille Lacs (Mil Lak) re- gion. From the Hurons they learned of a beau- tiful river, wide, large, deep, and comparalile with the Saint Lawrence, the great JNIississippi, which flows through the city of Mumeapolis, and whose sources are in nortliern Minnesota.

jS'ortheast of Mille Lacs, toward the extremity of Lake Superior, they met the " Poualak," or Assiniboines of the prairie, a separated band of the Sioux, who, as wood was scarce and small, made fire with coal (eharbon de terre) and dwelt in tents of skins ; although some of the more in- dustrious built cabins of clay (terre grasse), like the swallows liuild their nests.

The spring and summer of 1660, Groselliers and Radisson passed in trading aroimd Lake Superior. On the 19th of August they returned to Mon- treal, with three hundred Indians and sixty ca- noes loaded with " a wealth of skins."

" Furs of bison and of beaver, Furs of sable and of ermine."

The citizens were deeply stirred by the travelers' tales of the vastness and richness of the region they had visited, and their many romantic adven- tures. In a few days, they began their return to the far West, accompanied by six Frenchmen and two priests, one of whom was the Jesuit, Rene ile- nard. His hair whitened by age, and his mind ripened by long experience, he heemed the man for the mission. Two hours after midnight, of the day before departure, the venerable missionary Ijenned at " Three Rivers," the following letter to a friend :

'Reverend Father: " Tlie peace of Christ be with you : I write to you probably the last, which I hope will be the seal of our friendship luilil eternity. Love whom the Lord Jesus did not disdain to love, though the greatest of sinners; for he loves whom he

FATHER MENAUD LOST IN WISCONSIN.

loads with bis cross. Let your friendsliip, my good Fatlier, be useful to me by the desii-able fruits of your daily sacrifice.

" In three or foiu' mouths you may remember me at the memento for the dead, on account of my old age, my weak constitution and the hard- ships I lay under amongst these ti'ibes. Never- tlieless, I am in peace, for I liave not been led to this mission by any temporal motive, but I think it was by the voice of God. I was to resist tlie grace of God by not coming. Eternal remorse would have tormented me, had I not come when 1 had the opportunity.

" We have been a little surprized, not being able to provide ourselves with vestments and oth- er things, but he who feeds the little birds, and clothes the lilies of the fields, will take care of his servants; and though it should happen we should die of want, we would esteem ourselves happy. I am burdened with business. \Vliat I can do is to recommend our journey to your daily sacrifice, and to embrace you with the same sen- timents of heart as I hope to do in eternity. " My Eeverend Father,

Your most humble and affectionate servant in Jesus Christ.

E. MENARD. "From the Three Elvers, this 2tith August, 2

o'clock after midnight, 1660."

On the loth of October, the party with which he journeyed reached a bay on Lake Superior, where he foimd some of the Ottawas, who had fled from the Iroquois of New York. For more than eight months, surroimded by a few French voyageurs, he lived, to use his words, " in a kind of small hermitage, a cabin built of fir branches piled one on another, not so much to shield us from the rigor of the season as to correct my im- agination, and persuade me I was sheltered."

During the summer of 1661, he resolved to visit the Ilurons, who had fled eastward from the Sioux of Minnesota, and encamped amid the marshes of Northern Wisconsuj. Some Frenchmen, who had been among the Ilurons, in vain attempted to dis- suade him from the journey. To their entreaties he replied, " I must go, if it cost me my life. I can not suffer souls to perish on the ground of saving the bodily Ufe of a miserable old man like myself. What! Are we to serve (Jod only when there is nothing to suffer, and no risk of Ufe?"

Upon De ITsle's map of Louisiana, published nearly two centuries ago, there appears the Lake of the Ottawas, and the Lake of the Old or De- serted Settlement, west of (ireen J5ay, and south of Lake Superior. The Lake of the Old Planta- tion is supposed to ha\e been the spot occupied by the Hurons at the time when Menard attempt- ed to visit them. One way of access to this seclu- ded spot was from Lake Superior to the head- waters of the Ontanagon River, and then by a port>- age, to the lake. It could also be reached from the headwaters of the Wisconsin, Black and Cliip- pewa Rivers, and some have said that Menard descended the Wisconsm and ascended the Black River.

Perrot, who lived at the same time, writes : " Father Menard, who was sent as missionary among the Outaouas [Utaw-waws] accompanied by certain Frenchmen who were going to trade with that people, was left by all who were with him, except one, who rendered to him until death, all of the sei-vices and help that he could have hoped. The Father followed the Outaouas f Utaw- waws] to the Lake of the Illinoets [Illino-ay, now Michigan] and in theii' flight to the Louisianue, [Mississippi] to above the Black River. There this missionary had but one Frenchman for a companion. This Frenchman carefully followed the route, and made a portage at the same place as the Outaouas. He found himself in a rapid, one day, that was carrying him away in his canoe. The Father, to assist, debarked from his ovra, but did not find a good path to come to him. He en- tered one that had been made by beasts, and de- siring to return, became confused in a labyrmth of trees, and was lost. The Frenchman, after havmg ascended the rapids with great labor, awaited the good Father, and, as he did not come, resolved to search for him. AVith all his might, for several days, he called his name in the woods, hopmg to find him, but it was useless. He met, however, a Sakis [Sauk] who was carrying the camp-kettle of the missionary, and wlio gave him some intelligence. He assured him that he had found his foot -prints at some distance, but that he had not seen the Father. He told him, also, that he had found the tracks of several, who were going towards the Scioux. He declared that he stipposed that the Scioux might have killed or captured him. Indeed, several years afterwards,

EXPLOBEBS AND PIOKEEBS OF MINNESOTA.

there were found among this tribe, his breviary and cassock, which they exposed at their festivals, making offerings to them of food."

In a journal of the Jesuits, Menard, about the seventh oreightli of August, 1661, is said to have been lost.

GroselUers (Gro-zay-yay), whUe Menaid was endeavoring to reach the retreat of the Hnrons which he had made known to tlie authorities of Canada, was pushing through the country of the Assineboines, on the northwest shore of Lake Superior, and at length, probably by Lake Alem- pigon, or Nepigon, reached Hudson's Bay, and early in May, 1662, returned to Montreal, and surprised its citizens vvdth his tale of new discov- eries toward the Sea of the North.

The Hurons did not remain long toward the sources of the Black Kiver, after Menard's disap- pearance, and deserting their plantations, joined their allies, the Ottawas, at La Pointe, now Bay- field, on Lake Superior. While here, they deter- mined to send a war party of one hundred against the Sioux of MUle Lacs (Mil Lak) region. At length they met their foes, who drove them into one of the thousand marshes of the water-shed between Lake Superior and the Mississippi, where they hid themselves among the tall grasses. The Sioux, suspecting that they miglit attempt to es- cape in the night, cut up beaver skins into strips, and hung thereon little bells, which they had ob- tained from the French traders. The Hurons, emerging from their watery hiding place, stumbled over the unseen cords, ringing the bells, and the Sioux instantly attacked, killing all but one.

About the year 1665, four Frenchmen visited the Sioux of Minnesota, from the west end of Lake Superior, accompanied by an Ottawa chief, and in the summer of the same year, a flotilla of canoes laden with peltries, came down to Mon- treal. Upon their return, on the eighth of Au- gust, the Jesuit Father, Allouez, accompanied the traders, and, by the first of October, reached Che- goimegon Bay, on or near the site of the modern town of Bayfield, on Lake Superior, where he found the refugee Hurons and Ottawas. While on an excursion to Lake Alemplgon, now Ne- pigon, this missionary saw, near the mouth of Saint Louis River, in Minnesota, some of the Sioux. He writes : " There is a tribe to the west of this, toward the great river called Messipi.

They are forty or fifty leagues from here, in a country of prairies, abounding in all kinds of game. They have fields, in wliich they do not sow Indian corn, but only tobacco. Providence has provided them with a species of marsh rice, which, toward the end of summer, they go to col- lect in certain small lakes, that are covered with it. They presented me with some when I was at the extremity of Lake Tracy [Superior], where I saw them. They do not use the gun, but only the bow and arrow with great dexterity. Their cabins are not covered with bark, but with deer- skins well dried, and stitched together so that the cold does not enter. These people are above aU other savage and warUke. In our presence they seem abashed, and were motionless as statues. They speak a language entirely unknown to us, and the savages about here do not understand them."

The mission at La Pointe was not encouraging, and Allouez, " weary of their obstinate unbelief," departed, but Marquette succeeded him for a brief period.

The ''Belations" of the Jesuits for 1670-71, alkide to the Sioiix or Dakotahs, and their attack upon the refugees at La Pointe :

" There are certain people called Nadoussi, dreaded by their neighbors, and although they only use the bow and arrow, they use it with so much skill and dexterity, that in a moment they fill the air. After the Parthian method, they turn their iieads in flight, and discharge tlieir ar- rows so rapidly that they are to be feared no less in their retreat than in their attack.

" They dwell on the shores and around the great river Messipi, of which we shall speak. They niunber no less than fifteen populous towns, and yet they know not how to cultivate the earth by seeding it, contenting themselves with a sort of marsh rye, which we call wild oats.

" For sixty leagues from the extremity of the upper lakes, towards sunset, and, as it were, in the centre of the western nations, they have all united their force by a general league, which has been made against them, as against a common enemy.

" Tliey speak a peculiar language, entirely dis- tinct from tliat of the Algonijuins and Hurons, whom they generally surpass in generosity, .since they often content themselves with the glory of

GROSELLIERS AND RADISSON IN THE ENGLISH SER VICE.

5

having obtained the %'ictory, and release the pris- oners they have taken in battle.

" Our Outoiiacs of the Point of the Holy ( iliost [La PoLnte, now Bayfield] had to the present time kept up a kind of peace with them, but affairs havhig become embroiled durinij; last winter, and some murders having been committed on both sides, our savages had reason to apprehend that the storm would soon biu'st upon them, and judged that it was safer for them to leave the place, which in fact they did in the spring."

Marquette, on the 13th of September, 1669, writes : " The Xadouessi are the Iroquois of this country. * * * they lie northwest of the Mission of the Holy Ghost [La Pouite, the modern Bay- field] and we have not yet visited them, having confined ourselves to the conversion of the Otta- was.''

Soon after this, hostilities began between the Sioux and the Hurons and Ottawas of La Pointe, and the former compelled their foes to seek an- other resting place, toward the eastern extremity of Lake Superior, and at length they pitched their tents at Mackinaw.

In 1674, some Sioux warriors came down to Sault Saint Marie, to make a treaty of peace with adjacent tribes. A friend of the Abbe de Galli- nee wrote that a council was had at flie fort to which " the Xadouessioux sent twelve deputies, and the others forty. During the conference, one of the latter, knife in hand, drew near the breast of one of the Xadouessioux, who sliowed siu-jirise at the movement ; when the Indian with the knife reproached him for cowardice. The Nadouessioux said he was not afraid, when the other planted the knife in his heart, and killed him. All the savages then engaged in conflict, and the Xadouessioux bravely defended them- selves, hut, overwhelmed by numbers, nine of them were killed. The two who survived rushed into the chapel, and closed the door. Here they found munitions of war, and fired guns at their enemies, who became anxious to bum do^vii the chapel, but the .lesuits would not permit it, be- cause they had their skins stored between its roof and ceiling. In this extremity, a Jesuit, Louis Le Boeme, advised that a cannon should be point- ed at the door, which was discharged, and tiie two brave Sioux were killed."

Governor Frontenac of Canada, was indignant

at the occurrence, and in a letter to Colbert, one of the Ministers of Louis the Fourteenth, speaks in condemnation of this discharge of a cannon by a Brother attached to the Jesuit Mission.

From this period, the missions of the Church of Rome, near Lake Superior, began to wane. Shea, a devout liistorian of tluil church, writes: "In 1680, Father Enjalran was apparently alone at Green Bay, and Pierson at Mackinaw ; the latter mission still comprising the two villages, Huron and Kiskakon. Of tlie other missions, neither Le Clerq nor Ilemiepin, the Recollect, writers of the West at this time, makes any mention, or in any way alludes to their existence, and La lion- tan mentions the Jesuit missions only to ridicule them."

The Pigeon River, a part of the northern boun- dary of Minnesota, was called on the French maps Grosellier's River, after the first explorer of Min- nesota, whose career, with his associate Radisson, became quite prominent in connection with the Hudson Bay region.

A disagreement occurring between Groselliers a)id his partners in Quebec, he proceeded to Paris, and from thence to London, where he was intro- duced to the nephew of Charles I., who led the cavalry charge against Fairfax and Cromwell at Naseby, afterwards commander of the English fleet.- The Prince listened witli pleasure to the narrative of travel, and endorsed the plans for prosecuting the fur trade and seeking a north- west passage to Asia. The scientific men of Eng- land were also full of the enterprise, in the hope that it would increase a knowledge of uatm'e. The Secretary of the Royal Society wrote to Rob- ert Boyle, the distinguished philosopher, a too sanguine letter. His words were : " Surely I need not tell you from hence what is said here, with great joy. of the discovery of a nortliwest passage; and by two Englislimen and one Frenchman represented to his Majesty at Oxford, and an- swered by the grant of a vessel to sail into Hud- son's Bay and channel into the South Sea."

The ship Nonsuch was fitted out, in charge of Captain Zachary Gillam, a son of one of the early settlers of Boston ; and in this vessel Groselliers and Radisson left the Thames, in June, 1668, and in September reached a tributary of Hudson's Bay. The next year, by way of Boston, they re- turned to England, and in 1670, a trading com-

HXPLOBEIiS Alrv PIONEEBS OF MINNESOTA.

pany was chartered, still known among venerable English corporations as " The Hudson's Bay Company."

The Reverend Mother of the Incarnation, Su- perior of the Ursulines of Quebec, in a letter of the 27th of August, 1670, wi-ites thus :

" It was about this time that a Frenchman of our Tourame, named des Groselliers, married in this coimtiy, and as he had not been successful in making a fortune, was seized with a fancy to go to New England to better his condition. He excited a hope among the English that he had found a passage to the Sea of the North. With this expectation, he was sent as an envoy to Eng- land, where there was given to him, a vessel, with crew and every thmg necessary for the voy- age. With these advantages, he put to sea, and in place of the usual route, which others had ta- ken in vain, he sailed in another direction, and searched so wide, that he found the grand Bay of the North. He foimd large population, and filled his ship or ships with peltries of great value. * * *

He has taken possession of this great region for the King of England, and for his personal benefit A publication for the benefit of this French ad- venturer, has been made in England. He was a youth when he arrived here, and his wife and children are yet here."

Talon, Intendent of Justice in Canada, in a dis- patch to Colbert, Minister of the Colonial Depart- ment of France, WTote on the 10th of November, 1670, that he has received intelligence that two English vessels are approaching Hudson's Bay, and adds : " After reflecting on all the nations that might have penetrated as far north as that, I can aUght on only the EngUsh, who, under the guidance of a man named Des Grozellers, for- merly an inhabitant of Canada, might possibly have attempted tliat navigation."

After years of service on the shores of Hudson's Bay, either with English or French trading com- panies, the old explorer died in Canada, and it has been said that his son went to England, where he was livmg in 1696, in receipt of a pension.

iJATlLV MENTION OF LAKE SUPERIOR COPPER.

CIIAPTKR ir.

EARLY JtKNTION OF LAKE SUPERIOK COrPER.

Sftgard, A. D. 1636, on Copper Mine?.— Boucher, A. D. 1R40, Describes Lake Siipo rior Copper.— Jesuit Relations, A. D. lefirj-^i?.- Copper on Islo Roynls.— Hiilf- Breed Voyageur Goes to France with T.ilon.— Jolliet and Perrot Scnrch for Copper.— St. Lusson Plants the French Arms at Sault St. Marie.— Copper at Outanogon and Head of Lake Superior.

Before white men had explored tlie shores of Lake Superior, Indians had brouglit to the tra- ding posts of the St. Lawrence Elver, specimens of copper from that region. Sagard, in his History of Canada, published in 1636, at Paris, writes : "There are mines of copper whicli miglit be made profitable, if there were inhabitants and worlv- men who would labor faithfully. That would be done if colonies were established. About eighty or one hundred leagues from the Hurons, there is a mine of copper, from which Truchemont Brusle showed me an ingot, on his return from a voyage which he made to the neighboring nation."

Pierre Boucher, grandfather of Sieur de la Ye- rendrye, the explorer of the lakes of the northern boundary of Minnesota, in a volume published A. D. 1640, also at Paris, writes : "In Lake Su- perior there is a great island, fifty oronehimdred leagues in circumference, in which there is a very beautiful mme of copper. There are other places in those quarters, where there are similar mines ; so I learned from four or five Frenchmen, who lately returned. They were gone three years, without finding an opportunity to return; they told me that they had seen an ingnt nf copper all refined which was on the coast, and \\'eighed more than eight himdred poimds, according to their es- timate. They said that the savages, on passing it, made a fire on it, after which they cut off pie- ces with their axes."

In tlie Jesuit Relations of 1666-67, there is this description of Isle Royale : " Advancing to a place called the Grand Anse. we meet with an island, three leagues from land, which is cele- brated for the metal which is found there, and for the thunder which takes place there; for they say it always thmiders there.

" But farther towards the west on the same mirth shore, is the island most famous for copper, Minong (Isle Royale). This island is twenty-five leagues in length ; it is seven from the mainland, and sixty from the head of the lake. Nearly all aromid the island, on the waters edge, pieces of copper are fomid mixed with pebbles, but espe- cially on the side which is opposite the south, and principally in a certain bay, which is near the northeast exposure to the great lake. * * *

" Advancing to the head of the lake (Fon du Lac) and returning one day's journey by the south coast, there is seen on the edge of the water, a rock of copper weighing seven or eight hundred pounds, and is so hard that steel can hardly cut it, but when it is heated it cuts as easily as lead. Near Point Chagouamigong [Sha - gah - wah - mik- ong, near Bayfield] where a mission was establish- ed rocks of copper and plates of the same metal were found. * * * Returning still toward the mouth of the lake, following the coast on the .south as twenty leagues from the place last mentioned, we enter the river called Nantaouagan [Ontona- gon] on which is a hill where stones and copper fall into the water or upon the earth. They are readily found.

"Tliree years snice we received a piece which was brought from this place, which weighed a hundred poiuids, and we sent it to (Quebec to Mr. Talon. It is not certaui exactly wliere this was broken from. We thuik it was from the forks of the river ; others, that it was from near the lake, and dug up."

Talon, Intendent of Justice in Canada, visited France, taking a half-breed voyageur with him, and while in Paris, wrote on the 26th of Febru- ary, 1669, to Colbert, the Minister of the Marine Department, "that this voyageur had penetrated among the western nations fartlier than any other Frenchman, and had .seen the copper mine on Lake Huron. [Superior?] The man oflers to go

8

EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOIA.

to that mine, and explore, either by sea, or by lake and river, the communication supposed to exist between Canada and the South Sea, or to the regions of Hudson's Bay."

As soon as Talon returned to Canada he com- missioned JoUiet and Pere [Perrot] to search for the mines of copper on the upper Lakes. Jolliet received an outfit of four himdred livTcs, and four canoes, and Perrot one thousand Uvres. Muiis- ister Colbert wrote from Paris to Talon, in Feb- ruary, 1671, ajjprovmg of the search for copper, in these words ; " The resolution you have taken to send Sieur de La Salle toward the south, and Sieur de St. Lusson to the north, to discover the South Sea passage, is very good, but the principal thing you ought to apply yourself in discoveries of this nature, is to look for the copper mine.

" Were this mine discovered, and its utility evident, it would be an assured means to attract several Frenchmen from old, to New France."

On the 14th of June, 1671, SaintLusson at Sault St. Marie, planted the ^rms of France, in the pres- ence of Nicholas Perrot, who acted as interpreter on the occasion ; the Sieur Jolliet ; Pierre Moreau or Sieur de la Taupine ; a soldier of the garrison of Quebec, and several other Frenchmen.

Talon, in announcing Saint Lusson's explora- tions to Colbert, on the 2d of November, 1671, wrote from Quebec : " The copper which I send from Lake Superior and the river Nantaouagan [Ontonagon] proves lliat there is a mine on tlie border of some stream, wliich produces this ma- terial as pure as one could wish. More than twenty Frenchmen have seen one lump at the lake, which they estimate weiglis more than eight himdred pounds. The Jesuit Fathers among the Outaouas [Ou-taw-waws] use an anvil of this ma- terial, which weighs about one hundred pounds. There will be no rest until the source from whence these detached lumps come is discovered.

" The river Nantaouagan fOntonagonJ appears

between two high hills, the plain above which feeds the lakes, and receives a great deal of snow, which, in melting, forms torrents which wash the borders of this river, composed of solid gravel, which is rolled down by it.

" The gravel at the bottom of this, hardens it- self, and assumes different shapes, such as those pebbles which I send to Mr. Bellinzany. My opinion is that these pebbles, rounded and carried off by the rapid waters, then have a tendency to become copper, by the influence of the sun's rays which they absorb, and to form other nuggets of metal similar to those which I send to Sieur de Bellinzany, found by the Sieur de Saint Lusfon, about fourhundred leagues, at some distance from the mouth of the river.

" He hoped by the frequent journeys of the savages, and French who are beginning to travel by these routes, to discern the source of nroduc- tion."

Governor Denonville, of Canada, sixteen years after the above circumstances, wrote : " The cop- per, a sample of which I sent M. Arnou, is found at the head of Lake Superior. The body of the mine has not yet been discovered. I have seen one of our voyageurs who assures me that, some fifteen months ago he saw a lump of two hundred weight, as yellow as gold, in a river which falls into Lake Superior. When heated, it could be cut with an axe ; but the superstitious Indians, regarding this boulder as a good spirit, would never permit him to take any of it away. His opinion is that the frost undermined this piece, and that the mine Is in that river. He has prom- ised to search for it on his way back."

In the year 1730, there was some correspond- ence with the authorities in France relative to the discovery of copper at La Pointe, but, practi- cally, little was done by the French, in developing the mineral wealth of Lake Superior.

DV LUTH PLANTS THE FBENCTT ATIMS m MINNESOTA.

CHAPTER III.

DU LUTH PLANTS TnE FKENCII ARMS TN jmra^SOTA

l)ri Luth'a Relatives.— Randin Visits Extremity of Lake Saperior. ~ Du Luth Plants Kings Arras.— Post at Kaministigoya.— Pierre MorcuF, alias LaTaupine. - La Salle's Visit.— A Pilot Deserts to the Sioux Country.— uafTart. Du Luth's Interpreter- — Descent of the River St. Croix.- Meets Father Hennepin. — Crit- tcised hy Ijx S»lle.— Trades with New Kncland. —Visits Franee.— In Command at Mivekinaw.— Frenchmen Murdered at Keweenaw.— Du Luth Arrests and Shoots Miirderere.- Builds Fort above Detroit. — With Indian Allies in the Seneca War.— Du Luth's Brother.— Cadillac Defends the Brandy Trade —Du Luth Disapproves of Selling Brandy to the Indians.— In Command at Fort Frontenac . — Death.

In the year 1678, se-weral prominent merchants of Quebec and Montreal, with tlie support of Governor Frontenac of Canada, formed a com- pany to open trade with the Sioux of JMinnesota, and a nepliew of Pati'on, one of tliese merchants, a brother - in - law of Sieur de Lusigny, an officer of the Governor's Guards, named Daniel Grey- solon Du Luth [Doo-loo], a native of St. Germain en Laye, a few miles from Paris, although Lalion- tan speaks of him as from Lyons, was made the leader of the expedition. At the battle of Seneffe against the Prince of Orange, he was a gendarme, and one of the King's guards.

Du Luth was also a cousin of Henry Tonty, who had been in the revolution at Naples, to throw off the Spanish dependence. Du Luth's name is va- riously spelled in the documents of his day. Hen- nepin writes, "Du Luth;" others, "Dulhut," " Du Lhu," " Du Lut," " De Luth," " Du Lud."

The temptation to procure valuable furs from the Lake Superior region, contrary to the letter of the Canadian law, was very great ; and more than one Governor -ninked at the contraband trade. Randin, who visited the extremity of Lake Superior, distributed presents to the Sioux and Ottawas in the name of Governor Frontenac, to secure the trade, and after his death, DuLuth was sent to complete what he had begun. With a party of twenty, seventeen Frenchmen and three Indians, he left Quebec on the first of September, 1678, and on the fifth of vVpril, 1679, Du Luth writes to Governor Frontenac, that he is in the woods, about nine miles from Sault St. Marie, at the entrance of Lake Superior, and

adds that : he " will not stir from the Nadous- sioux, until further orders, and, peace being con- cluded, he will set up the King's Arms; lest the English and other Europeans settled towards California, take possession of the country."

On the second of July, 1679, he caused his Majesty's Arms to be planted in the great village of the Nadoussioux, called Kathio, where no Frenchman had ever been, and at Songaskicons and Houetbatons, one hundred and twenty leagues distant from the former, where he also set up the King's Arms. In a letter to Seignalay, published for the first time by Harrisse, he writes that it was in the village of Izatys [Issati]. Upon Fran- quelin's map, the Mississippi branches into the Tintonha [Teeton Sioux] country, and not far from here, he alleges, was seen a tree upon which was this legend: " Arms of the King cut on this tree in the year 1679."

He established a post at Kamanistigoya, which was distant fifteen leagues from the Grand Port- age at the westei-n extremity of Lake Superior ; and here, on the fifteenth of September, he held a council with the Assenipoulaks [Assineboines] and other tribes, and urged them to be at peace with the Sioux. During tliis summer, he dis- patched Pierre Moreau, a celebrated voyageur, nicknamed LaTaupine, with letters to Governor Frontenac, and valuable furs to the merchants. His arrival at Quebec, created some excitement. It was charged that the Governor corresponded with Du Luth, and that he passed the beaver, sent by him, in the name of merchants in his in- terest. The Intendant of Justice, Du Cliesneau, wrote to the ]\Iinister of the Colonial Department of France, that " the man named La Taupine, a famous coureur des bois, who set out in the month of September of last year, 1678, to go to the Ou- tawacs, with goods, and who has always been in- terested with the Governor, hiiving returned this year, and I, being ad\ased that he had traded in

10

EXPLOREBS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

two days, one hundred and fifty beaver robes in one village of this tribe, amounting to nearly nine hundred beavers, which is a matter of public no- toriety ; and that he left with Du Lut two men whom he had with him, considered myself bound to liave him arrested, and to inteiTogate him ; but having presented me with a license from the Gov- ernor, permitting him and his comrades, named Lamonde and Dupuy, to repair to the Outawac, to execute his secret orders. I had him set at liberty : and immediately on his going out, Sieur Prevost, Town Mayor of Quebec, came at the head of some soldiers to force the prison, in case he was still there, pursuant to his orders from the Governor, in these terms : " Sieur Prevost, ^Mayor of Quebec, is ordered, in case the Intendant arrest Pierre jSIoreau alias La Taupine, whom we have sent to Quebec as bearer of our dispatches, upon pretext of his having been in the bush, to set him fortln\ith at liberty, and to employ every means for this purpose, at his peril. Bone at Montreal, the 5th September, 1679."

La Tau]iine, in due time returned to» Lake Su- perior with another consignment of merchandise. The interpreter of Du Lutli, and trader with the Sioux, was Faffart, who had been a soldier \mder La Salle at Fort Frontenac, and bad deserted.

La Salle was commissioned in 1678, by the King of France, to exijlore the West, and trade in Cibola, or buffalo skins, and on condition that he did not traffic with the Ottauwaws, who carried their beaver to Montreal.

On the 27th of August, 1679, he arrived at Mackinaw, in the " Griffin," the first saiUng ves- sel on the great Lakes of the West, and from thence went to Green ]5ay, where, in the face of his commission, he traded for beaver. Loading his vessel with peltries, he sent it back to Niag- ara, while he, in canoes, proceeded with his ex- pedition to the Illinois Eiver. The ship was never heard of, and for a time supposed to be lost, but La Salle afterward learned from a Pawnee boy fourteen or fifteen years of age, who was brought prisoner to his fort on the Illinois by some Indians, that the pilot of the " Griffin " had been among the tribes of the Upper Missouri. He had ascended the Mississippi with four others in two birch canoes with goods and some hand grenades, taken from the ship, with the intention of join big Du Luth, who had for months been trading

with the Sioux ; and if their efforts were unsuc- cessful, thgy expected to push on to the English, at Hudson's Bay. Wliile ascending the Missis- sippi they were attacked by Indians, and the pilot and one other only survived, and they were sold to the Indians on the Missouri.

In the month of June, 1680. Du Luth, accom- panied by Faffart, an interpreter, with four Frenchmen, also a Chippeway and a Sioux, with two canoes, entered a river, the mouth o'f which is eight leagues from the head of Lake Superior on the South side, named Nemitsakouat. Peach- ing its head waters, by a short portage, of half a league, he reached a lake which was the source of the Saint Croix River, and by this, he and his companions were the first Europeans to journey in a canoe from Lake Superior to the Mississippi.

La Salle writes, that Du Luth, finding that the Sioux were on a hunt in the Mississippi val- ley, below the Saint Croix, and that Accault, Au- gelle and Hennepin, who had come up from the Illinois a few weeks before, were with them, de- scended until he found them. In the same letter he disregards the truth m order to disparage his rival, and writes:

"Thirty-eight or forty leagues above the Chip- peway they found the river by which the Sieur Du Luth did descend to the Mississippi. He had been three years, contrary to orders, with a com- pany of twenty " coureurs du bois " on Lake Su- perior; he had borne himself bravely, proclaiming everywhere that at the head of his brave fellows he did not fear the Grand Prevost, and that he would compel an amnesty.

'' A\nule he was at Lake Superior, the Nadoue- sioux, enticed by the presents that the late Sieur RancUn had made on the part of Count Fronte- nac, and the Sauteurs [Ojibways], who are the sav- ages who carry the peltries to ilontreal, and who dwell on Lake Superior, wishing to obey the re- peated orders of the Comit, made a peace to unite the Sauteurs and French, and to trade with the Nadouesioux, situated about sixty leagues to the west of Lake Superior. Du Luth, to disguise liis desei-tion, seized the opportunity to make some reputation for himself, sending two messen- gers to the Count to negotiate a truce, during \\nich period their comrades negotiated stUl bet- ter for beaver.

Several conferences were held with the Nar

FAFFART. DV LUTII'S INTFIlPIiETETi.

11

(louessioux, and as he needed an interpreter, he led off one of mine, named Failart, formerly a sol- dier at Fort Frontenap. During this iicriod there were fre(iuent visits between the Sauteiirs [Ojib- ways] and Xadouesioux, and suiiposiiii; that it miRht increase the number of beaver skins, ho sent Faifartby land, with the Nadoncsioiix and Sauteurs [Ojibways]. The young man on his re- turn, having given an account of the (juaiitity of beaver in that region, he wished to proceed thither himself, and, guided by a Sauteur and n Nadoue- sioux, and four Frenchmen, he ascended the river iNemitsakouat, where, by a short portage, he de- scended that stream, whereon he passed through forty leagues of rapids [Upper St. Croix River], and finding that the Xadonesioux were below with my men and the Father, who had come down agaui from the village of the Xadouesioux, he discovered them. They went up again to the village, and from thence they all together came do-mi. They returned by the river Ouisconsing, and came back to Montreal, where I)u Lutli in- sults the commissaries, and the deputy of the 'procureur general,' named d'Auteuil. Count Frontenac had him arrested and imprisoned in the castle of Quebec, with the iutentiou of return- ing him to France for the amnesty accorded to the coureurs des bois, did not release him."

At this very period, another party charges Frontenac as being Du Luth"s particular friend.

Du Luth, during the fall of 16S1, was engaged in the beaver trade at Montreal and Quebec. Du Chesneau, the Intendant of .Justice for Can- ada, on the 13th of November, IG.sl, wrote to the Marquis de Siegnelay in Paris : " Xot content with tlie profits to be derived from the countries under the King's dominion, the desire of making money everywhere, has led the Governor [Fron- tenac], Boisseau, Du Lut and Patron, his luicle, to send canoes loaded with peltries, to tlie En- glish. It is said sixty thou.sand livres' worth has been sent thither ;" and he further stated that there was a very general report that within five or six days, Frontenac and his associates had di- vided the money received from the beavers sent to New England.

At a conference in Quebec of some of the dis- thiguished men in that city, relative to difficulties with the Iroquois, held on the lOth of October, 1682, Du Luth was present. From thence he went

to France, and, early in 1683, consulted with the Minister of Marine at Versailles relative to the interests of trade in the Hudson's Bay and Lake Superior region. ITpon his return to Canada, he departed for jMatHvinaw. Governor De la Barre, on the 9th of Novemlier, 16S3, wrote to the French Government that the Indians west and north of Lake Superior, " when they heard by expresses sent them by Du Lhut, of his arrival at Missili- makinak, that he was coming, sent him word to come quickly an<l they would luiite with him to prevent others going thither. If I stop that pass as I hope, and as it is necessary to do, as the Eng- lish of the Bay [Hudson's] excite against us the savages, whom Sieur Du Lhut alone can quiet."

While stationed at Mackinaw he was a partici- pant in a tragic occurrence. During the summer of 1683 Jacques le Maire and Colin Berthot, while on their way to trade at Keweenaw, on Lake Su- perior, were suri)rised by three Indians, robbed, and murdered. Du Luth was prompt to arrest and punish the assassins. In a letf er from Mack- inaw, dated April 12, 1684, to the Governor of Canada, he writes: "Be pleased to know. Sir, that on the 24th of October last, I was told that Folle Avome, accomplice in the murder and rob- bery of the two Frenchmen, had arrived at Sault Ste. Marie with fifteen families of the Sauteurs [Ojibways] who had fled from Chagoamigon [La Pointe] on account of an attack wlucli they, to- gether with the people of the land, made last Spruig upon the Nadouecioux [Dakotahs.J

" He believed himself safe at the Sault, on <ic- count of the number of allies and relatives he had there. Rev. Father Albanel informed me that the French at the Saut, being only twelve in num- ber, had not arrested him, believing themselves too weak to contend with such numbers, espe- cially as the Sauteurs had declared that they would not allow the French to redden the land of their fathers with the blood of their brothers.

" On receivmg this information, I immediately resolved to take with me six Frenchmen, and em- bark at the da^^^l of the next day for Saidt Ste. Marie, and if possible obtain possession of the murderer. I made known my design to the Rev. Father Engalran, and, at my request, iis he had some business to ari'ange with Rev. Father Al- banel, he placed himself in my canoe.

'• Having arrived within a league of the village

12

EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

of the Saut, the Eev. Father, the Chevalier de Fourcllle, Cardonnierre, and .1 disembarked. I caused the canoe, in wliieh were Baril)aud, Le Mere, La Fortune, and Macons, to proceed, while we went across the wood to the honse of the Rev. Father, fearing that the savages, seeing me, might SHspect the object of my visit, and ca<ise Folle Avoine to escape. Finally, to cut the matter short, I arrested him, and cansed him to be guarded day and night by six Frenchmen.

" I then called a council, at which I requested all the savages of the place to be present, where I repeated what I had often said to the Hurons and Ottawas since the departure of M. Fere [Per- rot], giving them the message you ordered me. Sir, that in case there should be among them any spirits so evil disposed as to follow tlie example of those who have murdered the Fi'encli on Lake Superior and Lake Micliigan, they must separate the guilty from the innocent, as I did not wish the whole nation to suffer, unless they protected the guilty. * * * The savages held several councils, to which I was invited, b:.t tlieir only object seemed to be to exculpate the prisoner, in order that I might release him.

" All united in accusing Achiganaga and his children, assuring themselves with the beUef that M. Pere, [Perrot] with his detachment would not be able to arrest them, and wishing to persuade me that they apprehended that all the Frenchmen might be killed.

" I answered them, * * * ' As to the antici- pated death of ^L Pere [Perrot]. as well as of the otlier Frenchmen, that would not embarrass me, smce I believed neither the allies nor the nation of Achiganaga would wish to have a war witli ns to sustain an action so dark as that of which we were speaking. Having only to attack a few murderers, or, at most, those of their own family, I was certain tliat the French would have them dead or alive.'

" This was the answer they had from me during the three days that the councils lasted ; after which I embarked, at ten o'clock in the morning, sustained by only twelve Frenchmen, to show a few unruly persons who boasted of taking the prisoner away from me, that the French did not fear them.

" Daily I received accounts of tlie number of savages that Achiganaga drew from his nation to

Kiaonan [Keweenaw] under pretext of going to war in the spring against the Nadouecioux, to avenge the death of one of his relatives, son of Ou- enaus, but really to protect himself against us, in case we should become convinced that liis chil- dren had killed the Frenchmen. This precaution placed me between hope and fear respecting the expedition which M. Pere [Perrot] had under- taken.

"On the 24th of November, [1683], he came across the wood at ten o'clock at night, to tell me that he had arrested Achiganaga and four of his children. He said they were not all guilty of the murder, but had thought proper, in this affair, to follow the custom of the savages, which is to seize all the relatives. Folle Avoine, whom I had ar- rested, he considered the most guilty, being with- out doubt the originator of the mischief.

" I immediately gave orders that Folle Avoine sliould be more closely confined, and not allowed to speak to any one ; for I had also learned that he had a brother, sister, and imcle in the village of the Kiskakons.

" M. Pere informed me that he had released the youngest son of Achiganaga, aged about thirteen or fourteen years, that he might make known to their nation and the Sauteurs [Ojibways], who are at Nocke and in tlie neigliborhood, the reason why the Frencli had arrested his father and bro- thers. M. Pere bade him assure the savages that if any one wished to complain of what he had done, he would wait for them with a firm step ; for he considered himself in a condition to set them at defiance, having found at Kiaonan [Keweenaw] eighteen Frenchmen who had wintered tliere.

" On the 2.5tli, at daybreak, M. Pere embarked at the Sault, with four good men whom I gave him, to go and meet tlie prisoners. He left them four leagues from there, under a guard of twelve Fren'chmen ; and at two o'clock in the afternoon, they arrived. I had prepared a room in my house for the prisoners, in wliich they were placed under a strong guard, and were not allowed to converse with any one.

" On the 26th, I commenced proceedings; and tliis, sir, is tlie course I pursued. J gave notice to all the chiefs and others, to appear at the council which I had appointed, and gave to Folle Avoine the privilege of selecting two of his tela

IXDTANS CONDEMNED TO BE SHOT.

13

tives to support his interests ; aiid to tlie other prisoners I made the same offer.

" The council being assembled, I sent lor ToUe Avome to be interrogated, and caused Ids answers to be written, and afterwards th(\v were read to him, and inquiry made whether they were not, word for word, what he had said. lie was then removed under a safe guard. I used the same form with tlie two eldest sons of Acliiganaga, and, as i'oUe Avoiue liad indirectly charged the father with being accessoiy to the murder, I sent for him and also for Folle AvoLne, and bringing them into the council, confronted the four.

" FoUe Avoiue and the two sons of Achiganaga accused each other of committing the murder, without denying that they were participators in the crime. Achiganaga alone strongly maintained that he knew nothing of the design of Folle Avoine, nor of his children, and called on them to .say if he had advised them to kill the French- men. They answered, ' Xo.'

" This couf routatiou, which the savages did not expect, surprised them; and, seeing the prisoners had convicted themselves of the murder, the Chiefs said: 'It is enough; you accuse your- selves; the French are masters of your bodies.'

" The next day I held another council, in which I said there could be no doubt that the French- men had been murdered, that the murderers were known, and that they knew what was the prac- tice among themselves upon such occasions. To all this they said nothing, which obliged us on the following day to hold another council in the cabin of Brochet, where, after having spoken, and seeing that they w ould make no decision, and that all my councils ended only in reducing tobacco to ashes, I told them that, since they did not wish to decide, I should take the responsibility, and that the next day I woidd let them know the deter- mination of the French and myself.

" It is proper. Sir, you should know that I ob- served all these forms only to see if they would feel it their duty to render to us the same justice that lUey do to each other, having liad divers ex- amples in which when the tribes of those who liad <'ommitted the murder did not wish to go to war with the tribe aggrieved, the nearest rela- tions of the murderers killed them themselves; that is to say, man for man.

" On the 29th of November. I gathered together

the French that were here, and, after the interro- gations and answers of the accused had been read to them, tlie guilt of tlie lhic(! appeared so evi- dent, from their own (unifessions, that the vote was unanimous that all should die. Ihit as the French who remained at Kiaonan to pass the win- ter had written to Father Engalran and to myself, to beg us to treat the affair with all possible len- iency, the savages declaring that if they made the prisoners die they would avenge themselves, I told the gentlemen who were with me in coun- cil that, this being a case without a precedent, I believed it was expedient for the ^safety of the French who would pass the winter in the Lake Superior country to put to death only two, as that of the third might bring aljout grievous conse- quences, while the putting to death, man for man, could give the savages no complaint, since this is their custom. M. de la Tour, chief of the Fathers, who had served much, sustained my oiiinions by strong reasoning, and all decided that two should be shot, namely, Folle Avoine and the older of the two brothers, while the younger should be released, and hold his life. Sir, as a gift from you.

" I tl;en returned to the cabin of Brochet with Messrs. Boisguillot, Fere, De Repentigny, De Maiitliet, De la Ferte, and ]Macons, where were all the chiefs of the Outawas du Sable, Outawas Sinagos, Kiskakons, Sauteurs, D'Achiliny, apart of the Hurons, and Oumamens, the chief of the Amikoys. I informed tliem of our decision *

* * that, the Freuclimen having been killed by the different nations, one of each must die, and that the same death they had caused tlie French to suffer they must also suffer. * * * This decision to put the murderers to death was a hard stroke to them all, for none had believed that I would dare to undertake it. * * * I then left the council and asked the Rev. Fathers if they wished to baptize the prisoners, which they did.

"An hour after, I put myself at the head of forty-two Frenchmen, and, in sight of more than four hundred savages, and within two hundred paces of their fort, I c<iused tlie two murderers to be shot. The impossibility of keeping them until spring made me hasten their death. * *

* "WTien M. Pere made the anest, those who had committed the murder confessed it; and when he asked them what they Lad done with our good*

14

EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

they answered that they were ahnost all con- cealed. He proceeded to the place of conceal- ment, and was very much surprised, as were also the French with him, to find tliem, in fifteen or twenty Uiilereut places. By the carelessness of the savages, the tobacco and powder were entire- ly destroyed, having been placed in the pinery, under the roots of trees, and being soaked in the water caused by ten or twelve days' continuous Klin, which inundated all the lower country. The season for snow and ice having come, they had all the trouble in the world to get out the bales of cloth.

" They then went to see the bodies, but could not remove them, these miserable wretches hav- ing thrown them into a marsh, and thrust them down into holes which they had made. Not sat- isfied with this, they bad also piled branches of trees upon the bodies, to prevent them from float- ing when the water should rise in the spring, hoping by this precaution the French would find no trace of those who were killed, but would think tliem drowned; as they reported that they had foiuid in the lake on the other side of the Portage, a boat with the sides all broken in, which they believed to be a French boat.

"Those goods which the French were able to secure, they took to Kiaonau [Keweenaw], where were a number of Frenchmen who had gone there to pass the winter, wlio knew nothing of the death of Colin Berthot and Jacques le Maire, vuitil il. Pere arrived.

''The ten who formed M. Pere's detachment having conferred together concerning the means they should take to prevent a total loss, decided to sell the goods to the highest bidder. The sale was made for 1100 livres, which was to be paid in beavers, to M. de la Chesnaye, to whom I send the names of the purchsers.

" The savages who were present when Achiga- naga and his children were arrested wished to pass the calumet to M. Pere, and give him cap- tives to satisfy him for the murder committed on the two Frenchmen ; but he knew their inten- tion, and would not accept their offer. He told them neither a hundred captives nor a hundred packs of beaver woukl give back the blood of his lii'others; that the murderers must be given np to me, and I would see what I would do.

" I caused M. Pere to repeat these tilings in the

coimcU, that in future the savages need not think by presents to save those who commit similar deeds. Besides, sir, M. Pere showed plamly by his conduct, that he is not strongly inclined to favor the savages, as was reported. Indeed, I do not know any one whom they fear more, yet who flatters them less or knows them better.

" The criminals being in two different places, M. Pere being obliged to keep four of them, sent Messrs. de Repentigny, Manthet, and six other Frenchmen, to arrest the two who were eight leagues in the woods'. Among others, M. de Re- pentigny and M. d(^ Manthet showed that they feared nothing when their honor called them.

" M. de la Chevrotiere has also served well in person, and by his advice, having pointed out where the prisoners were. Achiganaga, who had adopted him as a son, had told him where he should hunt during the winter. ***** It still remained for me to give to Acliiganaga and his three childi-en the means to return to his family. Their home from which they were taken was nearly twenty-six leagues from here. Know- ing their necessity, I told them you would not be satisfied hi giving them life ; you wished to pre- serve it, by giving them all that was necessary to prevent them from dying with himger and cold by the way, and that your gift was made by my hands. I gave them blankets, tobacco, meat, hatchets, knives, twine to make nets for beavers, and two bags of com, to supply them till they could kill game.

" They departed two days after, the most con- tented creatm-es in the world, but God was not ; for when ouly two days' journey from here, the old Achiganaga fell sick of the quinsy, and died, and his children returned. When the news of his death arrived, the greater part of the savages of this place [Mackinaw] attributed it to the French, saying we had caused him to die. I let them talk, and laughed at them. It is only about two months since the children of Achiganaga retumei to Kiaonan."

Some of those opposed to Du Luth and Fron- tenac, prejudiced the King pf France relative to the transaction we have described, and in a letter to the Governor of Canada, the King writes : " It appears to me that one of the princii^al causes of the war arises from one I)u Luth having caused two to be killed who had assassinated two French-

ENGLISH TRADERS CAl'TUREl).

lo

men on Lake Superior; and you snlliciently see now niiicli this man's voyage, wliich can not pro- duce any advantage to the colony, and wliirh waa permitted oidy in the interest of sonu' i)ri\ate persons, lias contributed to distract llie peace of the colony."'

Du Luth and his yoimg brother appear to have traded at the western extremity of Lake Superior. and on the north shore, to Lake Nipegon.

In June, 1(584, (iovernor l)e la Barre sent (iuil- let and llebert from ^loutreal to request Du Liith and I>urantaye to bring down voyageurs and In- dians to assist in an expedition against the Iro- quois of New Y(u-k. Early in September, they reported on the St. Lawrence, with one hundred and lifty coureurs des bois and three hundred and lifty Indians ; but as a treaty liad just been made with the Senecas, they returned.

De la Barre 's successor, Governor Denonville, in a dispatch to the French Government, dated November 12tli. I(i8.5, alludes to Du Luth being in the far West, in these words : ■• I likewise sent to M. De la Durantaye, who is at Lake Superior imder orders from M. De la Barre, and to Sieur Du Luth, who is also at a great distance in an- other direction, and all so far beyond reach that neither the one nor the other can hear news from me this year ; so that, not being able to see them at soonest, before next July, I considered it best not to think of undertaking anything during the whole of next year, especially as a great number of our best men are among the Outaouacs. and cannot return before the ensuing summer. * * * In regard to Sieur Du Luth, 1 sent him orders to repair here, so that I may learn the number of savages on whom I may depend. He is accredit- ed among them, and rendered great services to M. De la Barre by a large nimiber of savages he brought to Niagara, who would have attacked tlie Senecas, was it not for an express order from JI. De la Barre to the contrary."

In 1686, while at Mackinaw, he was ordered to establish a post on the Detroit, near Lake Erie. A portion of the order reads as follows : " After having given all the orders that you may judge necessary for the safety of this post, and having well secured the obedience of the Indians, you will return to Miehilimackinac, there to await Rev. Father Engelran, by whom I will commu- nicate what I wish of you, there."

Tlie design of this post was to block the pas- sage of tlin lOnglisli to tlie upper lakes. Before it was established, in the fall of 1686, Thomas liosebodiu, a daring trader from Albany, on the Hudson, hail found his way to the viciinty of Mackinaw, and by the proffer of brandy, weak- ened the allegiance of the tribes to the FifMuIi.

A canoe coming to Mackinaw with dispatches for the French and their allies, to march to the Seneca country, in New York, perceived tins New York trader and associates, and, giving the alarm, tlu'y were met by three hundred coureurs du bois and captured.

In the spring of 1687 Du Lutli, Durantaye, and T-)nty all left the vicinity of Detroit for Ni- agara, and as they were coasthig along Lake Erie they met another English trader, a Scotchman by birth, and by name Major Patrick McGregor, a person of some intluence, going with a number of traders to ^Mackinaw. Having taken him ]ii'is- oner, he was sent with Ilosebo<im to .Montreal.

Du Luth, Tonty, and Durantaye arrived at Ni- agara on the :27tli of June, 1687, with one hun- dred and seventy French voyageurs, besides In- dians, and on the loth of July joined the army of Denonville at the mouth of the (ieuesee Kiver, and on the 13th Du Luth and his associates had a skirmish near a Seneca village, now the site of the town of Victor, twenty miles southeast of the city of Rochester, New Y'ork. Governor Denon- ville, in a report, writes: " On the 13th, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, having pas.sed through two dangerous detiles, we arrived at the third, where we were vigorously attacked by eight hun- dred Senecas, two hundred of whom tired, wish- ing to attack our rear, wlule the rest would attack our front, but the resistance, made produced such a great consternation that they soon resolved to fly. * * * We witnessed the p^iinful sight of the usual cruelties of the savages, who cut the dead into quarters, as is done in slaughter houses, in order to put them into the kettle. The greater numlier were opened while .still warm, that the blood might be drunk. Our rascally Otaoas dis- tinguished tliemselves particularly by these bar- barities. * * * We had live or six men killed on the spot, French and Indians, and aliout twenty wounded, among the first of whom was the Rev. Father Angelran, superior of all the Otaoan Missions, by a very severe gun-shot. It is a great

16

EXPLORERS A ND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

misfortune that this wound will prevent him go- jng back again, for he is a man of capacity."

In the orcter to Du Luth assigning him to duty at tho post on the site of the modern Fort Gra- tiot, above the city of Detroit, the Governor of Canada said: " If you can so arrange your affairs that your brother can be near you in tlie Spring, I shall be very glad. He is an intelligent lad, and might be a great assistance to you; he might also be very serviceable to us."

This lad, Greysolon de la Tourette, during the winter of 1686-7 was trading among the Assina- bouies and other tribes at the west end of Lake Superior, but, upon receiving a dispatch, hastened to his brother, journeying in a canoe without any escort from Mackinaw. He did not arrive until after the battle with the Senecas. Governor Den- onville, on the 25th of August, 1687, wrote:

" Du Luth's brother, who has recently arrived from the rivers above the Lake of the Allempi- gons [Nipegon], assures me that he saw more than fifteen hvmdred persons come to trade with him, and they were very sorry he had not goods suffi- cient to satisfy them. They are of the tribes ac- customed to resort to the English at Port Nelson and Kiver Bourbon, where, they say, they did not go this year, through Sieur Du Lhu's influence."

After the battle in the vicinity of Rochester, New York, Du Luth, with his celebrated cousin, Henry Tonty, returned together as far as the post above the present city of Detroit, Michigan, but this point, after 1688, was not again occupied.

From this period Du Luth becomes less prom- inent. At the time when the Jesuits attempted to exclude brandy from the Indian country a bit- ter controversy arose between them and the traders. Cadillac, a Gascon by birth, command- ing Fort Buade, at Mackiaiaw, on August 3, 1695, wrote to Count Frontenac: "Now, what reason can we assign that the savages should not drink brandy bought with their own money as well as we? Is it prohibited to prevent them from- be- coming intoxicated? Or is it because the use of brandy reduces them to extreme .misery, placing it out of their power to make war by depriving them of clothing and arms? If such representa- tions in regard to the Indians have been made to the Count, they are very false, as every one knows who is ac(iuainted with the ways of the savages. * * * It is bad faith to represent to the Count

that the sale of brandy reduces the savage to a state of nudity, arfd by that means places it out of his power to make war, since he never goes to war in any other condition. * * » Perhaps it will be said that the sale of brandy makes the labors of the missionaries unfruitful. It is neces- sary to examine this proposition. If the mission- aries care for only the extension of commerce, pursuing the course they have hitherto, I agree to it; but if it is the use of brandy that hinders the advancement of the cause of God, I deny it, for it is a fact which no one can deny that there are a great number of savages who never drink brandy, yet who are not, for that, better Chris- tians.

I "All the Sioux, the most numerous of all the tribes, who inhabit the region along the shore of Lake Superior, do not even like the smell of brandy. Are they more advanced in religion for that? They do not wish to have the subject men- tioned, and when the missionaries address them they only laugh at the foolishness of preiiching. Yet these priests boldly fling before the eyes of Europeans, whole volumes fdled with glowing descriptions of the conversion of souls by thou- sands in this country, causing the poor missiona- ries from Europe, to run to martyrdom as flies to sugar and honey."

Du Luth, or Du Lhut, as he wrote his name, d>iring this discussion, was found upon the side of order and good morals. His attestation is as follows : " I certify that at different periods I have lived about ten years among the Ottawa nation, from the time that 1 made an exploration to the Nadouecioux people until FoTt Saint Jo- seph was estabUshed by order of the Monsieur Marquis DenonvUle, Governor General, at the head of the Detroit of Lake Erie, which is in the Iroquois country, and which I had the honor to command. During this period, I have seen that the trade in eau-de-vie (brandy) produced great disorder, the father kiUing the son, and the son throwing his mother into the fire; and I mamtain tliat, morally speaking, it is impossible to export brandy to the woods and distant missions, with- out danger of its leading to misery."

Governor Frontenac, in an expedition against the Oneidas of New York, arrived at Fort Fron- tenac, on the 19th of July, 1695, and Captain Du Luth was left in command with forty soldiers,

DU LIJTH AFFLICTED WITH GOUT.

17

ami masons and carpenters, with orders to erect new buildings. In about foiir weeks lie erected a building one hundred and twenty feet in leugtli, containing officers' quarters, store-rooms, a bakery and a chapel. Early in 1097 ho ■was still in com- mand of the post, and in a report it is mentioned that " everybody was then in good health, except Captain Dnlliut the commander, who was unwell of the gout."

It was just before this period, that as a member of the Eoman Catholic Cluirch, he was firmly impressed that he had been helped by prayers which he addressed to a deceased Iroquois girl, who had died in the odor of sanctity, and, as a thank offering, signed the following certificate : " I, the subscriber, certify to all whom it may concern, that having been tormented by the gout, for the space of twenty-three years, and with such

severe pains, that it gave me no rest for the spac of three months at a time, I addressed myself to Catherine Tegahkouita, an Inxpiois virghi de- ceased at the Sault Saint Loins, in the reputation of sanctity, and I promised her to visit her tomb, if God should give me health, through her uiter- cession. I have been as perfectly cured at the end of one novena, which I made in her honor, tliat after five months, I have not perceived the slightest touch of my govit. Given at Fort Fron- tenac, this ISth day of August, 1696."

As soon as cold weather returned, his old mal- ady again appeared. He diedearly in A. D. 1710. Marquis de Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada, im- der date of first of ]SIay of that year, wrote to Count Pontchartrain, Colonial Minister at I'aris, " Captain Du Lud died this winter. lie was a very honest man."

18

EXl'LOliEliS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

CHAPTER IV.

FIKST WHITE SIETST AT FALLS OF SAINT ANTHONT OF PADUA.

Falls of St. Anthony Visited by White Men.— La Salle Gives the Fiist Description of Upper Mississippi Valley.— Accault, the Leader, Accompanied by Avipelle and Hennepin, at Falls of Saint Anthony.— Hennepin Declared Unreliable by La Salle.— His E.arly Life.—His First Book Criticised by Abbe Eernou and Tronson- — Deceptive Map. — First Meeting with Sioux ;— Astonishment at Reading His Breviary,— Sioux Name lor Guns. —Accault and Hennepin at Lake Pepin.— Leave the River Below Saint Paul.— At Mille Lacs.— A Sweating Cabin.— Sioux Wonder at Mariner's Compass.— Fears of an lion Pot.— Making a Dictionary.- Infant Baptised.— Route to the Pacific— Hennepin Descends RumRiver.— First Visitto Falls of Saint Anthony.— On a Buffalo Hnnt.-Meets Du Luth.— Returns to Mille L.acs.- With Du Luth at Falls of S(. Anthony.— Returns to France. — Subsequent Life.—His Books Examined.- Denies in First Book His Descent to the Gulf of Mexico.— Dispute with Du Luth at Falls of St, Anthony.— Patronage of Du Luth.— Tribute to Du Luth.- Heunepin's Answer to {'riticisras.— Denounced by D'Iberville and Father Gravier.— Residence in Rome.

In the summer of 1680, ISIicliael Accault (Ako), Heiuiepiu, the Frauciscan missionary, Augelle, Du Luth, and FafCart all visited the Falls of Saint Anthony.

The fast description of the valley of the iipper Jlississippi was written by La Salle, at Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, on the 22d of Au- gust, 16S2, a month before Hennepin, in Paris, obtained a license to print, and some time before the Franciscan's first work, was issued from the press.

La Salle's knowledge must have been received from Alichael Accault, tlie leader of the expedi- tion, Augelle, his comrade, or the clerical attache, the Franciscan, Hennepin.

It differs from Hennepin's narrative in its free- dom from bombast, and if its statements are to be credited, tlie Franciscan must be looked on as one given to exaggeration. The careful student, however, soon learns to be cautious m receiving the statement of any of the early explorers and ecclesiastics of the Northwest. The Franciscan depreciated the Jesuit missionary, and La Salle did not hesitate to misrepresent l>u Luth and others for his Gwn exaltation. La Salle makes statements which we deem to be wide of the truth when his prejudices are aroused.

At the very time that the Intendant of Justice in Canada is complaining that Governor Fronte- nac is a friend and correspondent of Du Luth,

La Salle writes to his friends in Paris, thatDii Luth is looked upon as an outlaw by the governor.

AMiile official documents prove that Du Luth was in Jliimesota a year before Accault and asso- ciates, yet La SaUe wTites: " Moreover, the Na- donesioux is not a region which he has discov- ered. It is known that it was discovered a long time before, and that the Eev. Father Hennepin and Michael Accault were there before him."

La Salle in this communication describes Ac- cault as one well acquamted with the language and names of the Indians of the Illinois region, and also " cool, brave, and prudent,'' and the head of the party of exploration.

■\\'e now proceed wfth the first description of the country above the "Wisconsin, to which is given, for the first and only time, by any writer, the Sioux name, lileschetz Odeba, perhaps in- tended for ^Meshdeke "Wakpa, River of the Foxes.

He describes the Upper Mississippi in these words : " Followuig the windings of the Missis- sippi, they found the river Ouisconsing, "Wiscon- sing, or Meschetz Odeba, which flows between Bay of Puaus and the Grand river. » * * About twenty-three or twenty-four leagues to the north or northwest of the mouth of the Oiiisconshig. * * * they found the Black river, called by tlie Nadouesioux, Chabadeba [Chapa "Wakpa, Beaver i-iver] not very large, the mouth of which is bor- dered on the two shores Viy alilers.

" Ascending about thixty leagues, almost at the same point of the compass, is the Buffalo river l^Chippewa], as large at its mouth as that of the Illinois. They follow it ten or twelve leagues, where it is deep, small and without rapids, bor- dered by liiUs which widen out from time to time to form prairies."

About three o'clock in the afternoon of tlie 1 Uh of April, 1680, the travelers were iiet by a war party of one hundred Sioux in thirty-three birch bark canoes. "Michael Accault, who was the

HE^'NE^IX CRITICISED BY LA SALLE.

19

leader," says La Salle, " presented the Calumet." The Indians were presented by Accanlt with twenty knives and a fathoni and a half of tobacco and some goods, rrocceding with the Indians ton days, on the 22d of April the isles in the ^lis- sissippi were reached, where the Sioux had killed some Maskoutens, and they halted to weep over the death of two of their own number; and to assuage their grief, Accanlt gave them in trade a box of goods and twenty-four hatchets.

AVhen they were eight leagues below the Falls of Saint Anthony, they resolved to go by land to their village, sixty leagues distant. They were well received ; the only strife among the villages was that which resulted from the desire to have a Frenchman in their midst. La Salle also states that it was not correct to give the impression that Du Lnth had rescued his men from captivity, for they could not be properly called prisoners.

He continues: " In going up the Mississippi again, twenty leagues above that river [Saint CroixJ is found the falls, which those I sent, and who passuig there first, named Saint Anthony. It is thirty or forty feet high, and the river is nar- rower here than elsewhere. There is a small island m the midst of the chute, and the two banks of the river are not bordered by high hills, which gradually diminish at this point, but the country on each side is covered with thin woods, such as oaks and other hard woods, scattered wide apart.

" The canoes were carried three or four hun- dred steps, and eight leagues above was found the west [east?] bank of the river of the Xailoue- sioux, eniling in a lake named Issati, which ex- pands into a great marsh, where the wild rice grows toward the mouth."

In the latter part of his letter La Salle uses the following language relative to his old chaplain:

" 1 believed that it was appropriate to make for you the narrative of the adventures of this canoe, because I doubt not that they will speak of it, and if you wish to confer with the Father Louis Hen- nepin, KecoUect, who has returned to France, you must know him a little, because he will not fail to exaggerate all things; it is his character, and to me he has written as if he were about to be burned when lie was not even in danger, but he believes that it is honorable to act in this manner,

and he speaks more confornial)ly to that wliich he wishes than to that which he knows."

Ilemiepin was born in Ath, an inland town of the Nethei'lands. From boyhood he longed to visit foreign lands, and it is not to be wondered at that he assumed the priesfs garb, for ne^xt to the soldier's life, it suited one of wandering pro- pensities.

At one time he is on a begging expedition to some of the towns on the sea coast. In a few months he occupies the post of chaplain at an hospital, where he shrives the dying and admin- isters extreme unction. From the quiet of the hospital he proceeds to the camp, and is present at the battle of Seueffe, which occurred in the year lfi74.

His whole mind, from the time that he became a priest, appears to have been on " things seen and temporal," rather than on those that are '• un- seen and eternal." AVhile on duty at some of the ports of the Straits of Dover, he exhibited the characteristic of an ancient Athenian more than that of a professed successor of the Apostles. He sought out the society of strangi>;:"s " who spent their time in nothing else bat either to tell or to hear some new thing." "With perfect non- chalance he confesses that notwithstanding the nauseating fumes of toliacco, he used to slip be- hind the doors of sailors" taverns, and spend days, without regard to the loss of his meals, listening to the adventures and hair-breadth escapes of the mariners in lands beyond the sea.

In the year 1676, he received a welcome order from his Superior, recpiiring him to embark for Canada. Unaccustomed to the world, and arbi- trary in his disposition, he rendered the cabin of the ship in which he sailed any thing but heav- enly. As in modern days, tlie passengers in a vessel to the new world were composed of hete- rogeneous materials. There ^\•ere young women going out in search for brothers or husbands, ec- clesiastics, and those engaged in the then new, but profitable, commerce in furs. One of his fellow passengers was the talented and enterpri- prising, though unfortunate. La Salle, with whom he was afterwards associated. If he is to be credited, his intercourse with La Salle was not very pleasant on ship-board. The young women, tired of being cooped up in the narrow accommo- dations of the ship, when the e\'eniug was fair

20

EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOIA.

sought the deck, and engaged in the rude dances of the French peasantry of that age. Hennepin, feeling that it was improper, began to assume the air of the priest, and forbade the sport. La Salle, feeling that his inteirference was uncalled for, called him a pedant, and took the side of the girls, and during the voyage there were stormy discussions.

Good humor appears to have been restored when they left the ship, for Hennepin would oth- erwise have not been the companion of La Salle in his great western journey.

Sojourning for a short period at Quebec, the adventure-loving Franciscan is permitted to go to a mission station on or near the site of the present town of Kingston, Canada West.

Here there was much to gratify his love of novelty, and he passed considerable time in ram- blhig among the Iroquois of XewYork. In 1678 he returned to Quebec, and was ordered to join the exiiedition of Eobert La Salle.

On the 6th of December Father Hennepin and a portion of the exploring party had entered the Niagara river. In the vicinity of the Falls, the winter was passed, and while the artisans were preparing a ship above the Falls, to navigate the great lakes, the Recollect wliiled away the hours, in studying tlie manners and customs of the Sen- eca Indians, and in athnirrng the sublimest han- diwork of God on tlie globe.

On the 7th of August, 1679, the ship being completely rigged, unfurled its sails to the breezes of Lake Erie. The vessel was named the " Grif- fin," hi honor of the anns of Frontenac, Governor of Canada, the first ship of European construc- tion tliat had ever ploughed the waters of the great inland seas of Korth America.

After encounteruig a violent and dangerous storm on one of the lakes, during which they had given up all hope of escaping shipwreck, on the 27th of tbe month, they were safely moored in the harbor of " MissiUmackinack." From thence the party proceeded to Green Bay, where they left the ship, procured canoes, and continue<l along the coast of Lake Michigan. By the mid- dle of January, 1680, La Salle had conducted his expedition to the Illinois Kiver, and, on an emi- nence near I^ake Peoria, he commenced, with much heaviness of heart, the erection of a fort,

which he called Crevecoeur, on account of the many disappointments he had experienced.

On the last of February, Accault, Augelle, and Hennepin left to ascend the Mississippi.

The first work bearing the name of the Rev- erend Father Louis Hennepin, Franciscan Mis- sionary of the Recollect order, was entitled, "De- scription de la Louisiane," and in 1683 published in Paris.

As soon as the book appeared it was criticised. Abbe Bernou, on the 29th of February, 1684, writes from Rome about the "paltry book"' (mes- hcant livre) of Father Hennepin. About a year before the pious Tronson, imder date of ilarch 13, 1683, wrote to a friend: " I have interviewed the P. Recollect, who pretends to have descended the Mississippi river to the Gulf of Mexico. I do not know that one leill helieve ivhat he speaks any more than that whicli is in the printed relation of P. Louis, which I send you that you may make your own reflections."

On the map accompanymg his first book, he boldly marks a Recollect Mission many miles north of the point he had visited. In the Utrecht edition of 1697 this deliberate fraud is erased.

Tlu'oughout the work he assumes, that he was the leader of the expedition, and magnifies trifles into tragedies. For uistance, Mr. La SaUe writes that Michael Accault, also written Ako, who was the leader, presented the Sioux with the calu- met ;" but Hennepm makes the occurrence more formidable.

He writes : " Oiu- prayers were heard, when on the 11th of April, 1680, about two o'clock in the afternoon, we suddenly perceived thirty -tliree bark canoes manned by a hundred and twenty Indians coming dowii with very great speed, on a war party, against tlie JSIiamis, Illinois and Maro- as. These Intlians surroimded us, and while at a distance, discharged some arrows at us, but as they approached our canoe, the old men seeing us with the calumet of peace in oiu' hands, iirevent- ed the young men from kilUng us. These sava- ges leaping from their canoes, some on land, others into the water, with frightful cries and yells approached us, and as we madfe jio resist- ance, being oidy three against so great a number, one of them wrenched our caltimet from our hands, while our canoe and theirs were tied to the shore. We first presented to them a iiiece of

IfEJ^Nl^PIN'S DIFFICULTY WITll I'llAYEli-BOOK.

21

rrencli tobacco, better for smoking tliau tlieirs' ami the eldest among them uttered the words' " Miamiha, Miamiha."

" As we did not nnderstand their language, we took a little stick, and by signs which we made on the sand, showed them that their enemies, the Miamis, whom they sought, had fled across tlie river Colbert [Mississippi] to join the Isliiiois; when they saw themselves discovered and unable to surprise their enemies, three or four old men laying their hands on my head, wept in a mourn- ful tone.

" With a spare handkerchief I had left I wiped away their tears, but they woidd not smoke our Calimiet. They made us cross tlie river with great cries, while all shouted with tears in tlieir eyes; they made us row l)efore them, and we heard yells capable of striking tlie most resolute with terror. After landing our canoe and goods, part of which had already been taken, we made a fire to boil our kettle, and we gave them two large ■wild turkeys which we liad killed. These Indians having called an assembly to deliberate what they were to do with us, the two head chiefs of the party approachmg, showed us by signs that the warriors wished to tomahawk us. This com- pelled me to go to the war cliiefs -nith one yoimg man, leaving the other by our property, and throw into theu- midst six axes, fifteen kiuves and six fathom of our l)lack tobacco ; and then brmging dowi my head, I showed them with an axe tliat they might kill me, if they thought proper. This present appeased many individual members, who gave us some beaver to eat, put- ting the three first morsels into our mouths, accor- tling to the custom of the country, and blowing on the meat, which was too hot, before puttuig the bark dish before us to let us eat as we liked. We spent the night in anxiety, because, before reti- ring at night, they had returned us our peace calumet.

" Our two boatmen were resolved to sell their lives dearly, and to resist if attacked ; theii- arms ami swords were reafly. As for my own part, I determined to allow myself to be killed without any resistance ; as I was going to amiounce to them a God who had been foully accused, un- justly condemned, and cruelly crucified, without showmg the least aversion to those who put him to death. We watched in turn, in oiu- anxiety,

so as not to be suqirised asleep. The n«xt morn- ing, a chief named Narrhetoba asked for the peace calumet, filled it with willow bark, and all smoked. It was then signified that the white men were to return with them to their villages."

In his narrative the Francdscan remarks, "I foinid it difiicidt to say my ofllco before these Indians. Many seeing me move my lips, said in a fierce tone, ' Ouakanche.' Michael, all out of countenance, told me, that if I continued to say my breviary, we should all three be killed, and the Pieard begged me at least to pray apart, so as not to provoke them. I followed the latter 's advice, but the nwu-e I concealed myself the more I had the Indians at my heels ; for when I en- tered the wood, they thought I was going to hide some goods imder ground, so that I knew not on what side to turn to pray, for they never let me out of sight. This obliged me to beg pardon of my canoe -men, ass\iring them I could not dis- pense with saying my office. By the word, ' Ou- akanche,' the Indians meant that the book I was readhig was a spirit, but by their gesture they nevertheless showed a kind of aversion, so that to accustom them to it, I chanted the litany of the Blessed Virgin in the canoe, with my book opened. They thought that the breviary was a spirit which taught me to sing for their diversion ; for these people are naturally fond of singing."

This is the first mention of a Dahkotah word m a European book. The savages were aimoyed rather than enraged, at seeing the white man reading a book, and exclaimed, " Wakan-de !" this is wondei-ful or supernatural. The war party was composed of several bauds of the M'de- wahkantonwan Dahkotahs, and there was a di- versity of opinion in relation to the disposition that should be made of the white men. The relatives of those who had been killed by the Miamis, were in favor of tiikhig their scalps, but others were anxious to retain the favor of the French, and open a trading intercourse.

Perceiving one of the canoe-men shoot a wild turkey, they called the gim, " Manza Ouackange," iron that has miderstanding ; more coiTectly, " iSIaza Wakande," this is the supernatiu'al metal.

Aqnipaguetui. one of the head men, resorted to the following device to obtam merchandise. Says the Father, " This M'ily savage had the bones of some distinguished relative, which he

22

EXPLOBEBS AND PIONEEBS OF MINNESOTA.

preserved with great care in some skins dressed and adorned witli several rows of black and red porcupine qiulls. From time to time he assem- bled his men to give it a smoke, and made us fome several days to cover the bones with goods, and by a present wipe away t!ie tears he had shed for him, and for his own son killed by the Miamis. To appease this captious man, we threw on the bones several fatlioms of tobacco, axes, knives, beads, and some black and white wampum brace- lets. * * * We slept at the point of the Lake of Tears [Lake Pepin], which we so called from the tears which this chief shed all night long, or by one of his sons whom he caused to weep when he grew tired."

The next day, after four or five leagues' sail, a chief came, and telling them to leave their canoes, he pulled up three piles of grass for seats. Then taking a piece of cedar full of little holes, he placed a stick into one, which he revolved between the palms of his hands, until lie kintlled a fire, and informed the Frenchmen that they would be at Mille Lac in six days. On the nmeteenth day after their captivity, they arri\ed in the vicinity of Saint I'aul, not fai", it is ])robable, from the marshy ground on which the Kaposia band once lived, and now called Pig's Eye.

The journal remaiks. '■ Having arrived on the nineteenth day of our navigation, live leagues below St. Anthony's Falls, these Indians landed us in a bay, broke our canoe to nieces, ahd se- creted their own in tlie reeds."

They then followed the traU to Mille Lac, sixty leagues distant. As they approached their villa- ges, tlie various bands began to show their spoils. The tobacco was highly jirized, and led to some contention. The chalice of the Father, which glistened in the sun, they were afraid to touch, supposing it was "wakan." After five days' walk tliey reached the Issati [Dahkotali] settle- ments in the valley of the Rum or Knife river. The different bands each conducted a Frenchman to their village, the cliief Aquipaguetin taking charge of Hennepin. After marching through the marshes towards the sources of I?um river, five wives of the chief, m three bark canoes, met tliem and took them a sliort league to an island where tlieir cabins were.

An aged Indian kindly rubbed dovm the way- worn Franciscan; placing him on a bear- skin

near the fire, he anointed his legs and the soles of his feet with wildcat oil.

The son of the chief took great pleasure in car- rying upon his bare back the priest's robe with dead men's bones enveloped. It was called Pere Louis Chiunen. In the Dahkotah language Shin- na or Shinnan signifies a buffalo robe.

Hennepin's description of his life on the island is m these words :

" The day after our arrival, Aquipaguetin, wlio was the head of a large family, covered me with a robe made of ten large dressed beaver skhis, trimmed with porcupine qiulls. This Indian showed me five or six of his wives, telling them, as I afterwards learned, that they shoid-' in fu' ture regard me as one of their children.

'•He set before me a bark dish full of fish, and seeing that I could not rise from the ground, he had a small sweatmg-cabiu made, in wloich he made me enter with four Indians. Tliis cabin he covered with Ijuffalo skins, and inside he put stones red-hot. He made me a sign to do as the others before beginning to sweat, but I merely concealed my nakedness with a handkerchief. As soon as these Indians had several times breathed out quite violently, he began to sing vo- ciferously, the others putting their hands on me and rubbing me while they wept bitterly. I be- gan to faint, but I came out and could scarcely take my habit to put on. "When he made me sweat thus three times a week. I felt as strong as ever."

The marmer's compass was a constant source of wonder and amazement. Aquipaguetin hav- ing assembled the braves, would ask Hennepin to show his compass. Perceiving that the needle turned, the chief harangued his men, and told them that the Europeans were spirits, capable of doing any thing.

In the Franciscan's possession was an iron pot with feet like lions', which the Indians would not touch luiless tlieir hands were wrapped in buffalo skins. The women looked upon it as "wakan," and would not enter the cabm where it was. ' " The chiefs of these savages, seeing that I was desirous to learn, frequently made me write, naming all the jiarts of the Innnan body ; and as I would not put on paper certain indelicate words, at ^\■hich they do not blush, they were heartily amused."

HENNHPIN'S VISIT TO FALLS OF SAINT ANTHONY.

23

They often asked the Franciscan questions, to. answer wliich it was necessary to refer to his lex- icon. This appeared very strange, and, as tliey liad no word lor paper, they said, "Tliatwlute tiling must be a spirit wliicli tells Pere Louis all we say."'

Hennepin remarks: "Tliese Indians often asked me how many wives and children I had, and how old 1 was, tliat is, how many winters; for so these natives always count. Never illu- mined by the light of faith, they were surprised at my answer. Pointing to oiu- two Frenchmen, whom I was then visiting, at a point three leagues from our village, I told them that a man among us could only have one wife ; that as for me, I had promised the Master of life to live as they saw me, and to come and live with them to teach them to be like the French.

" But that gross people, till then lawless and faithless, turned all I said into ridicule. ' How,' said they, ' would you have these two men with thee have wives? Ours would not live with them, for they have hair all over their face, and we have none there or elsewhere.' In fact, they were never better pleased with me than when I was shaved, and from a complaisance, certainly not criminal, I shaved every week.

'■ As often as I went to \asit the cabins, I found a sick child, whose father's name was Mamenisi. Michael Ako would not accompany me ; the Picard du Gay alone followed me to act as spon- sor, or, rather, to \\'itness the baptism.

" I christened the child Antoinette, in honor of St. Anthony of Padua, as well as for the Picard's name, which was Anthony Auguelle. He was a native of Amiens, and nephew of the Prociu-ator- General of the Premonstrateusians both now at Paris. Having i)oin-ed natural water on the head and uttered these words : ' Creature of God, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' I took half an altar clotli which I had wrested from the hands of an Indian who had stolen it from me, and put it on the body of the baptized child; for as I C(udd not say mass for want of wine and vest- ments, this piece of linen could not be put to bet- ter use than to enshroud the. first Chiistian child among these tribes. I do not know whether the softness of the linen had refreshed her. luit she was the next day smiling in her mother's arms.

who believed that I bad cTired the child ; but she died soon after, to my great consolation.

" During my stay among them, tliere arrived fo\ir savages, who said they were come alone live hundred leagues from tlie west, and bad been four months upon tlie way. They assured us there was no such place as the Straits of Anian, and that they had traveled witliout resting, except to sleep, and had not seen or passed ov.er any great lake, by which phrase they always mean the sea.

" They further informed us that the nation of the Assenipoulacs [Assiniboines] who lie north- east of Issati, was not above six or seven days' journey ; that none of the nations, within their knowledge, who lie to the east or northwest, had any great lake about their countries, which were very large, but only rivers, which came from the north. They further assured us that there were very few forests in the coiuitries through which they passed, insomuch that -now and then they were forced to make fires of buffaloes' dung to boil their food. All these circumstances make it appear that there is no such jilace as the Straits of Anian, as we usually see them set down on the maps. And whatever efforts have been made for many years past by the English and Dutch, to find out a passage to the Frozen Sea, they have not yet been able to effect it. But by the help of my discovery and the assistance of God, I doubt not but a passage may still be found, and that an easy one too.

" For example, we may be transported into the Pacific Sea by rivers which are large and capable of carrying great vessels, and from thence it is very easy to go to China and Japan, witho%d cross- ing the. equinoctial line; and, in all prohahility, Japan is on the same continent as America."

Hennepin in his first book, thus describes his first visit to the Falls of St. Anthony : '• In the beginning of July, 1680, we descended the [Rum] River in a canoe southward, with the great chief Ouasicoude [AVauzeekootay] that is to say Pierced Pine, with about eighty cabins composed of more than a hundred and thirty families and about two hundretl and fifty warriors. Scarcely would the Indians give me a place in their little flotilla, for they had only old canoes. They went four leagues lower down, to get birch bark to make some more. Having made a hole in the ground, to hide our silver chalice and our papers, till our

24

EXPLOBEBS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

return from the liimt, and keeping only our bre- viary, so as not to be loaded, I stood on the bank of the lake formed by the river we had called St. Francis [now Kum] and stretched out my hand to the canoes as they rapidly passed in succession.

"Our Frenchmen also liad one for themselves, which the Indians had given tliem. Tliey would not take me in, IMichael Ako saying that he liad taken me long enough to satisfy him. I was hurt at tliis answer, seeing myself thus abandoned by Christians, to whom I had always done good, as they both often acknowledged; but God never having abandoned me on tliat painful voyage, in- spired two Indians to take me in their little canoe, where I had no other employment than to bale out with a little bark tray, the water which entered by little holes. This 1 did not do with- out getting all wet. This boat might, indeed, be called a death box, for its lightness and fragility. These canoes do not generally weigh over fifty pounds, the least motion of the body upsets them, unless you are long accustomed to that kind of navigation.

" On disembarking in the evening, the Picard, as an excuse, told me that their canoe was half- rotten, and that had we been three in it, we should have run a great risk of remaining on the way. * * ■ * Four days after our departure for the buffalo hunt, we halted eight leagues above St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, on an emmence opposite the mouth of the River St. Francis [Rum] * * * The Picard and myself went to look for liaws, gooseberries, and little wild fruit, which often did us more harm than good. This obliged us to go alone, as Michael Ako refused, in a \\Tetched canoe, to Ouiscousin river, which was more than a himdred leagues off, to see whether the Sieur de la Salle had sent to that place a re- inforcement of men, with powder, le;ul, and other munitions, as he had promised us.

" Tlie Indians would not have suffered this voyage had not one of the three remained witli them. They wished me to stay, but JMiohael Ako absolutely refused. As we were making the portage of our canoe at St. Anthony of Padua"s Falls, we perceived five or six of our Indians wlio had taken the start •, one of them was up in an oak opposite the great fall, weeping bitterly, with a rich dressed beaver robe, whitened inside, and trimmed with porcupine qmlls, which he was

offering as a sacrifice to the faUs; which is, in it- self, admirable and frightful. I heard him while shedding copious tears, say as he spoke to the great cataract, ' Thou wlio art a spirit, grant lliat our nation may pass here quietly, without acci- dent ; may kill buffalo in abundance ; conquer our enemies, and bring in slaves, some of wliom we will put to death before thee. The Messenecqz (so they call the tribe named by the French Outa- gamis) have killed our kindred ; grant that we may avenge them.' This robe offered in sacrifice, served one of our Frenchmen, who took it as we returned."

It is certainly wonderful, that Hennepin, who knew nothing of the Sioux language a few weeks before, should understand the prayer offered at the Falls without the aid of an interpreter.

The narrator contmues : " A -league beyond St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, the Picard was obliged to land and get his powder horn, which he had left at the Falls. * * * As we descended the river Colbert [Mississippi] we found some of our Indians on the islands loaded with buffalo meat, some of which they gave us. Two hours after landing, fifteen or sixteen warriors whom we had left above St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, en- tered, tomakawk in hand, upset the cabin of those who had invited us, took all the meat and bear oil they found, and greased themselves from head to foot,"

Tliis was done because the others had violated the rules for the buffalo hunt. With the Indians Hennepin went down the river sixty leagues, and then went up the river again, and met buffalo. He continues :

""While seeking the Oulsconsin River, that savage father, Aquipaguetin, whom I had left, and who I believed more than two hinidred leagues off, on the 11th of July, 1680, appeared with the waiTiors." After this, Hennepin and Picard continued to go up the river almost eighty leagues.

There is great confusion here, as the reader will see. "When at tlie mouth of the Rum River, he speaks of the Wisconsin as more than a hun- dred leagues off. He floats down the river sixty leagues ; then he ascended, but does not state the distance; then he ascends eighty leagues.

He continues : " The Indians whom he had left with Michael Ako at Buffalo [Chippeway] Eiver,

HENNEPIN MEETS SIEUR DU LUTIL

25

with the flotilla of canoes loaded with meat, came down. * * * All tilt' Indian women had their stock of meat at the mouth of Uuffalo Kiver and on the islands, and atjain we went down the Col- hert [JSIississippi] about eighty leagues. * * * We liad another alarm in our camp : the old men on duty on the top of the mountains announced that they saw two warriors in the dislance; all the bowmen hastened there witli speed, each try- ing to outstrip the others; butthey bronght back <iuly two of their enemies, who came to tell them that a party of their people were hunting at the extremity of Lake Conde [Superior] and had found four Spirits (so they call the French) who, by means of a slave, had expressed a wish to come on, knowing ns to be among them. * * * On the 25th of July, IbSO, as we were ascending the river Colbert, after the buffalo hunt, to the In- dian villages, we met Sieiu- du Luth, who came to the Nadouessious with live French soldiers. They joined us about two hundred and twenty leagues distant from the country of the Indians who had taken us. As we had some knowledge of the language, they begged us to accompany them to the villages of these tribes, to which I readily agreed, knowing that these two French- men had not approached the sacrament for two years."

Ilere again the munber of leagues is confusing, and it is impossilile to believe that I)u Luth and his interpreter Faffart, who had been trading with the Sioux for more than a year, needed the help of Hennepin, who had been about three months with these people.

We are not told by what route Hennepin and Du Luth reached Lake Issati or Mille Lacs, but Hennepm says they arrived there on the 11th of August, 1680. and he adds, " Toward the end of September, having no implements to begin an establishment, we resolved to tell these people, that for their benefit, we would have to return to the French settlements. The giand Chief of the Issati or Nadouessiouz consented, and traced in pencil on paper I gave him, the route I should take for four hundred leagues. AVith tins chart, we set out, eight Frenchmen, in two canoes, and descended the river St. Francis and Colbert [Rum and Jilississippi]. Two of our men took two bea- ver roljes at St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, which the Indians had hung in sacrifice on the trees."

Tlie second work of Hennepin, an enlargement of the first, appeared at Utrecht in the year 1697, ten years after La Salle's death. During the in- terval between the pvdjlication of the first and second book, he had passed three years as Supin- inf endent of the Ilecollects at Reny in the province of A rtois, when Fiither Hyacinth Lefevre, a friend of La Salle, and Connnissary Provincial of Ilecol- lects at Paris, wished hi!u to return to Canada. He refused, and was ordered to go to Rome, and upon his coming back was sent to a convent at St. Omer, and there received a dispatch from the Minister of State in France to return to the coun- tries of tlie King of Spain, of which he was a subject. This order, he asserts, he afterwards learned was forged.

In the preface to the English edition of the New Discovery, published in 1698. in London, he writes :

"The pretended reason of tliat violent order was because I refused to return into America, where I had been already eleven years ; though the particular laws of our Order oblige none of us to go beyond sea against his will. I would have, however, returned very willingly liad I not known the malice of M. La Salle, who woidd have ex- posed me to perish, as he did one of the men w ho accompanied me in my discovery. God knows that I am sorry for his unfortunate death ; but the judgments of the Almighty are always just, for the gentleman was killed by one of his own men, who were at last sensible that he exposed them to visible dangers without any necessity and for his private designs."

After this he was for about five years at Gosse- lies, in Brabant, as Confessor in a convent, and from thence removed to his native place, Ath, in Belgium, where, according to his narrative in the preface to the " Nonveau Decouverte," he was again persecuted. Then Father Payez, Grand Commissary of Recollect^i at Louvain, being in- formed that the King of Spain and the Elector of Bavaria recommended the step, consented that he should enter the service of William the Third of (ireat Britain, who had been very kind to the Roman Catholics of Netherlands. By order of Payez he was sent to Antwerp to take the lay habit in the convent there, and subsequently went to Utrecht, where lie finished his second book known as the New Discovery.

26

EXPLOBEBS AND PIONEEBS OF MINNESOTA.

His first volume, printed in 1683, contains 312 pages, witli an appendix of 107 pages, on tlie Customs of tlie Savages, wliile the Utrecht bools of 1697 contains 509 pages -witliout an appendix.

On page 249 of the Kew Discovery, he begins an account of a voyage alleged to have been made to the mouth of the Mississippi, and occupies over sixty pages in the narrative. Tlie opening sentences give as a reason for concealing to this time his discovery, that La Salle would have re- ported him to his Superiors for presuming to go down instead of ascending the stream toward the north, as had been agreed ; and that the two with him threatened that if he did not consent to de- scend the river, tliey would leave him on shore during tlie night, and pursue their own course.

He asserts that he left the Gulf of Jlexico, to return, on the 1st of April, and on the 24th left the Arkansas ; but a week after this, lie declares he lauded with the Sioux at the marsh about two miles below the city of Saint Paul.

The account has been and is still a puzzle to the historical student. In our review of his first book we have noticed that as early as 1683, he claimed to have descended the Mississippi. In the Utrecht publication he declares that wliile at (Quebec, upon his retin-n to France, he gave to Father Valentine Roux, Commissary of Recol- lects, his journal, upon the promise tliat it would be kept secret, and that tliis Father made a copy of liis whole voyage, including the visit to the Gulf of Mexico ; but m his Description of Louis- iana, Hennepin wrote, " We had some design of going to the mouth of the river Colbert, which more probably empties into thei Gulf of Mexico than into the Red Sea, but the trilies that seized us gave us no time to sail up and down the river."

The additions in his Utrecht book to magnify his importance and detract from others, are many. As Sparks and Parkman have pointed out the plagiarisms of this edition, a reference here is unnecessary.

Du Luth, who left Quebec in 167S, and had been in northern ^Minnesota, with an interpreter, for a year, after he met Ako and Hennepin, be- comes of secondary importance, in the eyes of tlie Franciscan.

In the Description of Louisiana, on page 280, Hennepin speaks of passing the Falls of Saint Anthony, upon his return to Canada, in these

few words : " Two of our men seized two beaver robes at the Falls of St. Anthony of Padua, which the Indians had in sacrifice, fastened to trees."' But in the Utrecht edition, commencing on page 416, there is much added concerning Du Lnth. After using the language of the edition of 16S3, already quoted it adds: "Hereupon there arose a dispute between Sieur du Luth and myself. I commended what they had done, say- ing, ' The savages might judge by it that they disliked the superstition of these people.' Tlie Sieur du Luth, on the contrary, said that they ought to have left the robes where the savages placed them, for they would not fail to avenge the insult we had put upon them by this action, and that it was feared that they would attack us on this journey. I confessed he had some foun- dation for wliat he said, and that he spoke accor- ding to the rules of prudence. But one of the two men flatly replied, the two robes suited them, and they cared nothing for the savages and their superstitions. The Sieur du Luth at these words was so greatly enraged that he nearly struck the one who uttered them, but I intervened and set- tled the dispute. The Pieard and Michael Ako ranged themselves on the side of those who liad taken the robes in question, which might have resulted badly.

" I argued with Sieur duLuth that the savages would not attack us, because I was persuaded that their great chief Ouasicoude would have our interests at heart, and he had great credit with his nation. The matter terminated pleasantly.

" When we arrived near tlie river Ouisconsin, we halted to smoke the meat of the buffalo we had killed on the journey. During our stay, three savages of the nation we had left, came by the side of our canoe to teU us that their great chief Ouasicoude, having learned that another chief of these people wished to pursue and kill us, and that he entered the cabin where he was consult- ing, and had struck liLm on the head with such violence as to scatter his brains upon his associ- ates ; thus preventing the executing of this inju- rious project.

" We regaled the three savages, having a great abundance of food at that time. The Sieur du Luth, after the savages had left, was as enraged as before, and feared that they would pursue and attack us on oiu- voyage. He would have pushed

TBIBUTE TO DAMEL GBETSOLON IJU LTJTIl.

27

tlie matter further, but seeing that one man would resist , and was not in the humor to be imposed uiion, lie moderat('<l. and I api)easecl lliem in the end with the assuninec that God would notaljan- don us in distress, anil, jirox ided avo cunlidcd in Ilim, ho would deliver us from our foes, because lie is the proteetor of men and angels."

After describing a conference with the Sioux. he adds, " Thus the savages were very kind, wilhdut mentioning the beaver robes. The chief Ouasicoude told me to offer a fathom of ISIarti- nico tobacco to the chief Aquipaguetin, who had adopted me as a son. This had an admirable effect upon the barbarians, who went off shouting several times the word ' Louis.' [Ouis or We] which, as he said, means the sun. AVithout van- ity, I uuist say that my name will be for a long time among these people.

"The savages having left us, to go to war against the jNIessorites, the Maroha, the Illinois, and other nations which live toward the lower part of the ^Mississippi, and are irreconcilable foes of the people of the North, the Sienr du Lutli, who iqion many occasions gave me marks of his friendship, could not forbear to tell our men that I had all the reason in tlie world to believe that the Viceroy of Canada would give me a favorable reception, should we arrive before winter, and that lie wished with all his heart that he had been among as many natives as myself."

The style of Louis Hennepin is unmistakable in this extract, and it is amusing to read his pa- tronage of one of the fearless explorers of the Northwest, a cousin of Tonty, favored by Fron- tenac, and who was in Minnesota a year before his arrival.

In 1691, six years before the Utrecht edition of Ilemiepin, another Recollect Franciscan had pub- lished a book at Paris, called " The First Estab- lishment of the Faith in New France," in which is the following tribute to Du Luth, whom Hen- nepin strives to make a subordinate : " In the last years of M. de Frontenac's administration, iSieur DuLuth,a man of talent and experience, opened a way to the missionary and the Gospel in many different nations, turning toward the north of that lake [Superior] where he even built a fort, he advanced as far as the Lake of the Issati, called Lake Buade, from the family name of M.

de Frontenac, plantmg the arms of his Majesty in several nations on the right and left."

In the s(n-oud volume of his last book, which is called "A Gonlinuanct^ of the JSlew Discovery of a vast Country in America," etc., Ileiiucpiii no- ticed some criticisms.

To the objection that his work was dedicated to "William the Third of (Jreat Ihitain.he rei)lies : " My King, his most Catholic Majesty, his Elec- toral Iliglmess of Bavaria, the consent in writing of the Superior of my order, the integrity of my faith, and the regular observance of my vows, which his Britannic Majesty allows me, are the l)est warrants of the uprightness of my inten- tions."

To the q<iery, how he could travel so far upon the Mississippi in so little time, he answers with a bold face, " That we may, with a canoe and a pair of oars, go twenty, twenty-live, or thirty leagues every day, and more too, if there be oc- casion. And though we had gone but ten leagues a day, yet in thirty days we might easily have gone three hundred leagues. If during the time we spent from the river of the Illinois to the mouth of the Mescliasii]i. in the Gulf of ^Mexico, we had used a little more baste, we might have gone the same -twice over."

To the .objection, that he said, he nad passed eleven years in America, when he had been there but about four, he evasively replies, that '■ reck- oning from the year 1074, when I first set out, to the year 1688, when I printed the second edition of my ' Louisiana,' it appears that I have spent fifteen years either in travels or prmthig my Discoveries."

To those who objected to the statement in his first book, in the dedication to Louis the Four- teenth, that the Sioux always call the sun Louis, he writes : " I repeat what I have said before, that being among the Issati and Nadouessans, Ijy whom I was made a slave in America, I never heard them call the smi any other than Louis. It is true these savages call also the moon Louis, but with this distinction, that they give the moon the name of Louis Bastache, which in their lan- guage signifies, the sun that shines in the night."

The Utrecht edition called forth much censure, and no one in France doubted that Hennepin was the author. DTberville, Governor of Lou- isiana, while in Paris, wrote on July 3d 1699, to

28

UXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

the Minister of Marine and Colonies of France, in these words : " Very much vexed at the Rec- ollect, whose false narratives had deceived every one, and cansed our sufferinj^ and total failure of our enterprise, by tlie time consimied in the search of things which alone existed in his imag- ination."

The Rev. Father .James Gravier, in a letter from a fort on the Gulf of Mexico, near the Mis- sissippi, dated February 16th, 1701, expressed the sentiment of his times wlien lie speaks of Hen- nepin '• who presented to King William, the Rela- tion of the Mississippi, where he never was, and after a tliousflud falsehoods and ridiculous boasts,

* * * he makes Mr. de la Salle appear in his Relation, wounded with two balls in the head, turn toward the Recollect Father Anastase, to ask him for absolution, having been killed in- stantly, without uttermg a word • and other like false stories."

Hennepin gradually faded out of sight. Bru- net mentions a letter written by J. B. Dubos, from Rome, dated ISIarch 1st, 1701, which men- tions that Ilennepui was Uving on the Capitoline Hill, in the celebrated convent of Ara Coeli, and was a favorite of Cardinal Spada. The time and place of his death has not been ascertained.

NICHOLAS PEBIiOT, FOUNDER OF FIRST POST ON LAKE PEPIN.

29

CHAPTER V.

NICHOLAS PEEROT, FOUNDER OF FIRST POST ON LAKE I'EriN.

£&rly Life. — Searches for Copper.— Interpreter at Sault St. Marie, Employed by La Salle. — Bmlds Stocltade at Lake Pepin. — Hostile Indians Reliulced. — A Silver Ostensorium Given to a Jesuit Chapel. — Perrot in the Rattle against Senecas, in New York. — Second Visit to Sioux Country. — Taking Possession by "Proces Verbal." — Discovery of Lead Mines. — Attends Council at Montreal. — Establishes a Post near Detroit, in Michigan.— Perrot's Death, and his Wife.

Nicholas Perrot, sometimes written Pere, was one of the most energetic of the class in Canada known as "coureurs des bois," or forest rangers. Born in 1644, at an early age he was identified with the f nr trade of the great inland lakes. As early as 1665, he was among the Outagamies [Foxes], and in 1667 was at Green Bay. In 1669, he was appointed by Talon to go to the lake re- gion in search of copper mines. At the formal taking possession of that country in the name of the King of Prance, at Sault St. Marie, on the 14th of May, 1671, he acted as interpreter. In 1677, he seems to have been employed at Port Prontenac. La Salle was made very sick the ne.xt year, from eating a salad, and one Nicholas Perrot, called Joly Ca?ur (Jolly Soul) was sus- pected of havuig mingled poison with the food. After this he was associated with Du Lutli in the execution of two Indians, as we have seen. In 16X4, he was appointed by I)e la Barre, the tJovernor of Canada, as Commandant fur the West, and left Montreal with twenty men. Ar- riving at (ireen Bay in AVisconsin, some Indians told him that they had visited countries toward the setting sim, where they obtained the blue and green stones suspended from tlieir ears and noses, and that they saw horses and men like Frenchmen, probably the Spaniards of New Mex- ico ; and others said that they had obtained hatch- ets from persons who lived in a house that walked on the water, near the uiouth of the river of the Assiniboines, alluding to the English estabhshed at Hudson's Bay. Proceeding to the portage be- tween the Fox and Wisconsin, thirteen Ilurons Wfrt^ met, who were bitterly opposed to the es- tablishment of a post near the Sioux. After the

Mississippi was readied, a party of Winnebagoes was employed to notify the tribes of Northern Iowa that the French had ascended the river, and wished to meet them. It was further agreed that prairie fires would be kindled from time to time, so that the Indians could follow the French.

After entering Lake Pepin, near its mouth, on the east side, Perrot found a place suitable for a post, where there was wood. Tlie stockade was built at the foot of a bluff beyond which was a large prairie. La Potherie makes this statement, which is repeated by Penicaut, who writes of Lake Pepin : " To the right and left of its shores there are also prairies. In that on the right on the bank of the lake, there is a fort, which was built by Nicholas Pen'ot, whose nimieityet[1700] bears."

Soon after he was established, it was announced that a band of Aiouez [loways] was encamped above, and on the way to visit the post. The French ascended in canoes to meet them, but as they drew nigh, the Indian women ran up the bluffs, and hid in the woods ; but twenty of the braves mustered courage to advance and greet Perrot, and bore him to the chief's lodge. The chief, bending over Perrot, began to weep, and allowed the moisture to fall upon his visitor. After he had exhausted himself, tlio principal men of the party repeated the slabbering process. Then buffalo tongues were boiled in an earthen pot, and after being cut into small pieces, the chief took a piece, aiul, as a mark of respect, placed it in Perrot's mouth.

During the winter of 1684-85, the Frencli tra- ded in Minnesota.

At the end of the beaver hunt, the Ayoes [loways] came to the post, but Perrot was absent ^^siting the Nadouaissioux. and they sent a chief to notify him of their arrival. Four Illinois met him on the way, and were anxious for the return of foiu' children held by the French. When the

30

JEXPLOBEBS AND PI0NEEB8 OF MINNESOTA.

Sioux, who were at war with the Illinois, per- ceived them, they wished to seize their canoes, but the Prench vo^'ageurs who were giiardins; them, pushed into the middle of the river, and the French at the post coming to their assistance, a reconciliation was effected, and four of the Sioux took the Illinois upon their shoulders, and bore them to the shore.

An order having been received from Denon- ville, Governor of Canada, to bring the Miami?, and other tribes, to the rendezvous at Niagara, to go on an expedition against the Senecas, Per- rot entrusting the post at Lake Pepin to a few Frenchmen, visited the Miamis, who were dwel- ling below on the Mississippi, and with no guide but Indian camp fires, went sixty miles into the country beyond the river.

Upon his return, he perceivea a great smoke, and at first thought that it was a war party pro- ceeding to the Sioux country. Ft)rtunately he met a Maskouten chief, who had been at the post to sec him, and he gave the intelligence, that the Outagamies [Foxes], Kikapous [Kickapoos], and Mascoutechs [Maskoutens], and others, from the region of Green Bay, had determined to pillage the post, kill the French, and then go to war against the Sioux. Hurrying on, he readied the fort, and learned that on that very d;iy three spies had been there and seen that there were only SIX Frenchmen in charge.

The next day two more spies appeared, but Perrot had taken the precaution to put loaded guns at the door of each hut, and caused his men frequently to change their clothes. To the query, '• IIuw many French were thereV"' the reply was given, " Forty, and that more were daily expected, who had been on a builalo hunt, and that the guns were well loaded and knives well sharpened." They were then told to go back to their camp and bring a chief of each nation represented, and that if Indians, in large numbers, came near, they would be lired at. In accordance with this mes- sage six chiefs presented themselves. After their bows and arrows were taken away they were in- vited to Perrot 's cabin, who gave something to eat and tobacco to smoke. Looking at Perrot "s loaded guns they asked, '• If he was afraid of his children?" He replied, he was not. They con- tinued, "Yon are displeased." Tie answered, " I have good reason to be. The Spirit has warned

me of your designs; you will take my things away and put me in the kettle, and proceed against the Nadouaissioux, The Spirit told me to be on my guard, and he would help me." At this they were astonished, and confessed that an attack was meditated. That night the chiefs slept in the stockade, and early the next morn- ing a part of the hostile force was encamped in the vicinity, and wished to trade. Perrot had now only a force of fifteen men, and seizing the chiefs, he told them he would break their heads if they did not disperse the Indians. One of the chiefs then stood up on the gate of the fort and said to the warriors, " Do not advance, young men, or you are dead. The Spirit has warned ^letaminens [PerrotJ of your designs." They fol- lowed the advice, and afterwards Perrot present- ed them with two guns, two kettles, and some tobacco, to close the door of war against the Na- douaissioux, and the chiefs were all permitted to make a brief visit to the post.

Returning to Green Bay in 1686, he passed much time in collecting allies for the expedition against the Iroquois in Kew York. During this year he gave to the Jesuit chapel at Depere, five miles above Green Bay, a church utensil of silver, fif- teen inches high, still in existence. The stand- ard, nine inches in height, supports a radiated circlet closed with glass on both sides an<l sur- mmnited with a cross. This vessel, weighuig about twenty ounces, was intended to show the consecrated wafer of the mass, and is called a soleil, monstrance, or ostensoriimi.

Around the oval base of the rim is the follow- ing inscription:

V

.^

■S^

%.

4'

%.

c«^'

Si"'

,^'

In 1802 some workmen in digging at Green Bay, \\'isconsin, on the old Langlade estate dis-

A err OF Jih'Ayj))- AM> wateh detects a riiiKF.

31

covered this relic, which is now kept in the vault of the Konirtii Catholic bishop of that diocese.

During the spring of IBs; I'errot, with J)e Lii- th and Tonty, was witli the Indian allies and tlie Fren(;h in the expedition against the Senecas of the (tenesseo Yalley in Xew York.

The next year Denonville, Governor of Canada, again sent Terrot with forty rrcnchmen to tlie Sionx who, says Potheric, " were very distant, and wlio would not trade witli ns as easily as the other tribes, the Outagamis [Foxes] having boasted of having cut off the passage tliereto."

"Wlien Perrot arrived at ^lackinaw, tlie tribes of that region were much excited at tlie hostility of tlie Outagamis [Foxes] toward the Sautenrs [Cliippeways]. As soon as Perrot and his party readied Green Bay a deputation of the Foxes sought an interview. He told them that he had nothing to do with this quarrel with the t!hippe- ways. In justification, they said that a party of their young men, in going to war against the Xadouaissioux, had found a young man and three Chippeway gii'ls.

Perrot was silent, and continued his journey towards the Nadouaissioux. Soon he was met by live chiefs of the Foxes in a canoe, who begged him to go to their village. Perrot consented, and when he went into a chiefs lodge they placed be- fore him broiled venison, and raw meat for the rest of the French. He refused to eat because, said he, "that meat did not give him any spirit, but he would take some when the Outagamis [Foxes] were moi'e reasonable." He then chided them for not having gone, as requested by the (iovernor of Canada, to the Detroit of Lake Erie, and during the absence of the French tiglit- ing witli the Chippeways. Having ordered tliem to go on their beaver hunt and only light against tlie Iroquois, he left a few Frenchmen to trade and proceeded on his journey to the Sioux couii- t ry . Arriving at the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin lUvers they were impeded by ice, but wiUi tlie aid of some Pottawattomies they trans- ported tlieir goods to the "Wisconsin, which they found no longer frozen. The Chippeways were iufornied that their daughters had been taken from tlie Foxes, and a deputation came to take tlieni bac-k. but being attacked by the Foxes, wlio did not know their errand, they fled without se- curing the three girls. Perrot then ascended the

Mississippi to the pust which in l(;s4 lie liad erected, just above the iiiiiuni, and on the east side of Lake Pepin.

As soon as the rivers were navigable, tlie Na- douaissioux came down and escorted Perrot to one of their villages, where he was welcomed with niiicli entliusiasm. He was carried upon a lieaver robe, followed by a long line of warriors, earh iieariiig a pipe, and singing. After taking liinianiiuid the village, lie was borne to the chief's lodge, when several came in to weep over 'lis head, witli the same tenderness that tlie Ayoes ( loways) did, when Perrot several years before arrived at Lake Pepin. " These weepings," says an old clironicler " do not weaken tlieir souls. They are very good warrims, and reported the bravest in that region. They are at war with all the tribes at present except the Saulteurs [Cliippeways] aiiG Ayoes [loways], and even with these they have quarrels. At the break of day the Nadouaissioux liatlie, even to the youngest. Tliey have very line forms, but the women are not comely, and they look upon them as slaves. They are jealous and suspicious about them, and lliey are the cause of quarrels and blood-shedding.

"The Sioux are very dextrous with their ca- noes, and they fight unto deatli if surrounded, Tlieir country is full of swamps, which shelter them in summer from lieing molested. One must be a Nadouaissioux, to find tlie way to tlieir vil- lages."

While Perrot was absent in Xew York, fight- ing the Seuecas, a Sioux chief knowing tliat few Frenchmen were left at Lake I'epiu, came witli one hundred warriors, and endeavored to jiillage it. Of this complaint was made, and tlie guilty leader was near being put to deatli by his associ- ates. Amicable relations having been formed, preparations were made by Perrot to return to his post. As they were going away, one of tlie Frenchmen complained tliat a box of his goods had been stolen. Perrot ordered a voyageur to bring a cup of water, and into it he poured some brandy. He tlien addressed the Indians iuid told them he would dry up their marshes if tlie goods were not restored ; and then he set on fire the liiaudy in tlie cup, Tlie savages were astonished and terrified, and supposed that he possessed su- pernatural powers ; and in a little "■'^'ie the goods

32

HXPLOREBS AND PIONJEIJRS OF MINNESOTA.

were found and restored to the owner, and the French descended to their stockade.

The Toxes, wliile Perrot was in the Sioux coinitry, changed their village, and settled on the Mississippi. Coming up to visit Perrot, they asked him to establish friendly relations between them and the Sioux. At the time some Sioux were at the post trading furs, and at first they supposed the French were plotting with the Foxes. Perrot, however, eased them by present- ing the calumet and saying that the French con- sidered the Outagamis [Foxes] as brothers, and then adding: "Smoke in my pipe; this is the manner with which Onontio [Governor of Can- ada] feeds his children." The Sioux replied that they wished the Foxes to smoke first. This was reluctantly done, and the Sioux smoked, but would not conclude a definite peace until they consulted their chiefs. This was not concluded, because Perrot, before the chiefs came down, received orders to return to Canada.

About this time, in the presence of Father Jo- seph James ^Slarest, a Jesuit missionary, 15oisguil- lot, a trader on the Wisconsin and Mississippi, Le Sueur, who afterward built a post below the Saint Croix Itiver, about nine miles from Hastings, the following document was prepared:

" Nicholas Perrot, commanding for the King at the post of the Nadouessioux, commissioned by the Alarqiiis Denonville, Go\'ernor and Lieuten- ant Governor of all New France, to manage the interests of commerce among all the Indian tribes and people of the Bay des Puants [Green Bay], Nadouessioux, Mascoutens, and other western na- tions of the Upper Mississippi, and to take pos- session in the King's name of all the places where he has heretofore been and whither he will go:

" We this day, the eighth of ilay, one thousand six hundred and eighty-nine, do, in tlie presence of the Reverend Father Marest, of the- Society of Jesus, Missionary among the Nadouessioux, of Monsieur de Boisgiiillot, commanding the French in the neighborliood of the Ouiskonche, on the Mississippi, Augustin Legardeur, Esquire, Sieur de Canmout, and of Messieurs Le Sueiu", Ilebert, Lemire and Blein.

" Declare to all whom it may concern, that, be- ing come from the Bay des Puants, and to the Lake of the Ouiskonches, we did transport our- selves to the country of the Nadouessioux, on the

border of the river St. Croix, and at the mouth of the river St. Pierre, on the bank of which were the Mantautans, and further up to the interior, as far as the Menehokatonx [Med-ay-wah-kawn- twawn], with whom dwell the majority of the Songeskitons [Se-see-twawnsj and other Nadou- essioux who are to the northwest of the lilissis- sippi, to take possession, for and in the name of the King, of the countries and rivers inhabited by the said tribes, and of which they are proprietors. The present act done in our presence, signed with our hand, and subscribed."

The three Chippeway girls of whom mention has been made were still with the Foxes, and Perrot took them with him to ilackinaw, upon his return to Canada.

While there, the Ottawas held some prisoners upon an island not far from the mainland. The Jesuit Fathers went over and tried to save the captives from harsh treatment, but were unsuc- cessful. The canoes appeared at length near each other, one man paddling in each, while the war- riors were answering the shouts of the prisoners, who each held a white stick in his hand. As they neared the shore the chief of the party made a speech to the Indians who lived on the shore, and givhig a history of the campaign, told them that they were masters of the prisoners. The warriors then came on land, and, according to custom, abandoned the spoils. An old man then ordered nine men to conduct the prisoners to a separate place. The women and the young men formed a line with big sticks. The young pris- oners soon foiuid their feet, but the old men were so badly used they spat blood, and they were con- demned to be burned at the Mamilion.

The Jesuit Fathers and the French officers were much embarrassed, and feared that the Iro- (juois would complain of the little care which had been used to prevent cruelty.

Perrot, in this emergency, walked to the place where the prisoners were singing the death dirge, in expectation of being burned, and told them to sit down and be silent. A few Ottauwaws rudely told them to sing on, but Perrot forbade. He then went back to the Council, where the old men bad rendered judgment, and ordered one prisoner to be burned at Mackinaw, one at Sault St. Marie and another at Green Bay. Undaunted he spoke as follows : "I come to cut the strings of the

PERh'or VISITS 'I'lll-J LKM) MIXES.

dogs. I will not sulftT llii'in to be eaten . I have pity on them, since my Father, Onontio, has com- numded me. You Oulaoiiaks [Oltawaws] are like tame bears, who will not reco{,'iii/.e them who hasliriiimiit tlicm up. Yon have forgotten Onon- tio's in-otet-tion. When he iisks your obedience, yon want to rule over hini, and eat the flesh of those children he does not wish to give to you. Take care, tliat, if oyu swallow them, Onontio will tear them with violence from between your teeth. I speak as a brother, and I think I am showing pity to your children, by cutting the bonds of your prisoners."

His bolihiess had the desired effect. The pris- oners were released, and two of them were sent with him to JNhintreal, to be returned to the Iro- quois.

On tlie 22nd of May, 1600, with one liuudred and forty-three voyageurs and si.x Indians, Per- rot left Montreal as an escort of Sieur de Lou- viguy La Porte, a half-pay captain, appointed to succeed Durantaye at Mackinaw, by Frontenac, the new Governor of Canada, who in October of the previous year had arrived, to take the place of Denonville.

Perrot, as he approached Mackinaw, went in advance to notify the French of the coming of the commander of the post. As he came in sight of the settlement, he hoisted the white flag with the lleur de lis and the voyageurs shouted, " Long live the king! " Louvigny soon appeared and was received by one huudi-ed '' coureur des bois "' under arms.

From Mackinaw, Perrot proceeded to Green Bay, and a party of Miamis there begged him to make a trading establishment on the Mississippi towards the Ouiskonsing (Wisconsin.) The chief made him a present of a piece of lead from a mine which he had found in a small stream ^\•hich flows into the Mississippi. PeiTot promised to visit him within twenty days, and the chief then returned to his village below the d'Ouiskonche (iAVsconsm) Eiver.

Having at length reached his post on Lake Pepm, he was informed that the Sioux were forming a large war party against the Outaga- mis (Foxes) and other allies of the French. He gave notice of his arrival to a party of about four hundred Sioux who were on the Jlississippi.

They arrested the msssengers and came to the post for the puri)ose of pimidcr. Perrot asked them why tliey acted in lliis manner, and said that the Foxes, Miamis, Kickapoos, Illinois, and Maskoutens had united in a war party against them, but tliat he had iiersuaded them to give it up, and now he wished them to return to their families and to their beaver. The Sioux declared that they had started on the war-path, and that they were ready to die. After they had traded their furs, they sent for Perrot to come to their camp, and begged that he would not hinder them from searching for their foes. Perrot tried to dis- suade them, but they insisted that the Spirit had given them men to eat, at three days' journey from the post Then more powerful influences were used. After giving them two kettles and some merchandise, Poerrt spoke thus: " I love your life, and I am sure you will be defeated. Your Evil Spirit has deceived you. If yon kill the Outagamis, or their allies, you must strike me first; if you kill them, you kill me just the same, for I hold them under one wing and you under the other." After this he extended the calumet, which they at first refused; but at length a chief said he was right, and, making invocations to the sun, wished Perrot to take him back to liis arms. This was granted, on condition that he would give up his weapons of war. The chief tlien tied them to a pole in the centre of the fort, turning them toward the sun. He then persuaded the other chiefs to give up the expedition, and, send- ing for Perrot, he placed the calumet before him, one end in the earth and the other on a small forked twig to hold it firm. Then he took from his own sack a ])air of his cleanest moccasins, and taking off Perrofs shoes, put on these. After he had made him eat, presenting the calumet, he said: " AVe listen to you now. Do for us as you do for our enemies, and prevent them from kill- ing us, and we will separate for the beaver hunt. The sun is the witness of our obedience."

After this, Perrot descended the Mississippi and revealed to the Maskoutens, who had come to meet him, how he had pacified the Sionx. He, about this period, in accordance with his prom- ise, visited the lead mines. He found the ore almndant " but the lead hard to work because it lay between rocks which required blowing up. It had very Little dross and Avas easily melted."

31

EXPLOREBS AND PIONEERS OF illNNESOTA.

Penicaut, who ascended the Mississippi in 1700, wrote tliat twenty leagues below the Wisconsin, on both sides of the Mississippi, were mines of lead called " Nicolas Perrot's."' Early French maps indicate as the locality of lead mines the site of modern towns, Galena, in Illinois, and Du- buque, in Iowa.

In August, U393, Jibout two hundred French- men from ilackinaw, with delegates from the tribes of the West, arrived at Montreal to at- tend a grand council called by Governor Fronte- nac, and among these was Perrot.

On the first Sunday in September the governor

gave the Indians a great feast, after which they and the traders began to return to the wilder- ness. Perrot was ordered by Frontenac to es- tablish a new post for the Miamis in Michigan, in the neighborhood of the Kalamazoo River.

Two years later he is present again, in xlugust, at a council in Montreal, then returned to the West, and in 1609 is recalled from Green Bay. In 1701 he was at Montreal acting as interpreter, and appears to have died before 1718: his wife was Madeline Eaclos, and his residence was in the Seigneury of Becancourt, not far from Three Kivers, on the St. Lawrence.

B.inU^ LA HO.XTAN'S FAIWLOVS VOYAdE.

;!o

CIIArTEK VI.

HAUOX l.\ IIONTAN S FAliULOtS A'DVAfiH.

Lt lioiitan, a Gascon by Birth. — Early Life. — Description of Kux and Wisconsin Rivers — IiH'.ian Kcast.— Alleged Ascent of Long River. — Bobc Kxposes tile Deception. — Route to the Pacific.

The ■' Travels'" of Baron La Ildntuii appearetl in ^V. I). 1703, both at London and at Ila.ane. and were as saleable and readal lie as tliose of Hennepin, which were on the counters of booksellers at the same time.

La Hontan, a Gascon liy birth, and in style of writing, when about seventeen years of age, ar- rived in Canada, in 1683, as a private soldier, and was with Gov. De la Barre in his expedition of 1684, toward Niagara, and was also in the Viattle near Rochester, Xew York, in 1087, at which ])u Luth and Perrot, explorers of Minnesota, were present.

In 1688 lie appears to have been sent to Fort St. Joseph, which was built by l)u Lutli, on the St. Clare Elver, near the site of Fort (iratiot, Michigan. It is possiljle that he may have accc mi- panied Perrot to Lake Pepin, who came aliout this time to reoccnpy his old post.

From the following extracts it will be seen that his style is graphic, and that he probably had been in 1688 in the valley of the Wisconsin, ^Vt Mack- inaw, after his return from his pretended voyage of the Long River, he writes:

" I left here on the 24th September, with my men and five Outaouas, good hunters, whom I have before mentioned to you as luuing been of good service to me. All my brave men being provided with good canoes, filled with provisions and ammunition, to.getber with goods for the In- dian trade, I took advantage of a north wind, and in three days entered the Bay of tlie Pouleouata- mis, distant from here about forty leagues. The entrance to the bay is full of islands. It is ten leagues wide and twenty-five in length.

" On the 29th we entered a river, which is (juite deep, whose waters are so affected by the lake that they often rise and fall three feet in twelve

Lours. Tills is an observation that I made dur- ing these three or four days that I passed here. The Sakis, the Poutonatamis, ami a few of the Malominis have their villages on the border of this river, and the Jesuits have a house there. In the place there is carried on fpiite a commerce in furs and Indian corn, which the Indians traflic with the ' coiu'eurs des bois" that go and come, for it is their nearest and most convenient passage to the Mississippi.

'■ The lands here are very fertile, anil produce, almost without culture, the wheat of our Europe, peas, beans, and any (iiiaiitity of fruit imknown in France.

" The moment I landed, the warriors of three nations came by turns to my cabin to entertaui me with the pipe and chief dance ; the first in proof of peace and friendship, the second to indi- cate their esteem and consideration for me. In return. I gave them several yards of tobacco, and beads, with which they trimmeil their capots. The next morning, I was asked as a guest, to one of the feasts of this nation, and after having sent my dishes, which is the custom, I went towards noon. They began to compliment me of my arrival, and after hearing them, they all, one after the other, i)egan to sing and dance, in a manner that I will detail to you when I have more leisure. These songs antl dances lasted two hours, and were sea- soned with whoops of joy, and iiuiblilcs that they have woven into their ridiculous niusiiiiie. Then the captives waited upon us. The whole troop were seated in the Oriental custom, Kach one had his portion before him, like our monks in their refectories. They commenced by placing four dishes before me. The first consisted of two white fish simply boiled in water. The second was chopped meats with tlie boiled tongue of a bear ; the third a beaver's tail, all roasted. They made me drink also of a synip, mixed with water, made out of the maple tree. The feast lasted two

36

EXPLOBERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

hours, after which, I requested a chief of the nation to sing for me ; for it is tlie custom, wlien we have business with them, to employ an uiferior for self in all the ceremonies they perform. I gave him several pieces of tobacco, to oblige liim to keep the party till dark. The next day and the day following, I attended the feasts of the other nations, where I observed the same formalities."

He alleges that, on the 23d of October, he reached the Mississippi River, and, ascending, on tho 3d of November he entered into a river, a tributary from the west, that was almost without a current, and at its mouth filled with rushes. He then descrilies a journey of five hundred miles up this stream. He declares he fomid upon its banks three great nations, the Eokoros, Essa- napes, and Gnacsitares, and because he ascended it for sixty days, he named it Long River.

For years his wondrous story was believed, and geographers hastened to trace it upon their maps. But in time the voyage up the Long River was discovered to be a fabrication. There is extant a letter of Bobe, a Priest of the Congregation of the Mission, dated Versailles, March 15, 1716, and addressed to De L'Isle, the geographer of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, which exposes the deception.

He writes: " It seems to me that you might give the name of Bourbonia to these vast coun- tries wliich are between the Missouri, Mississippi, and the "Western Ocean. "Would it not be well to efface that great river which La Hontan says he discovered^

"All the Canadians, and even the Governor General, have told me that tliis river is unknown. If it existed, the French, wlio are on the Illinois, and at Ouabache, would luiow of it. The last volume of the ' Lettres Ediflantes' of the Jesuits, in which there is a very fine relation of the IJlinois Country, does not speak of it, any more than the letters which I received this year, which tell won- ders of the beauty and goodness of tlie country. They send me some quite pretty work, made by the wife of one of the principal chiefs.

" They tell nie, that among the Scioux, of the Mlssissipi)i, there are always Frenchmen trading; that the course of the Mississippi is from nortli to west, and from west to south; that it is known that toward the source of the Mississippi there is a river ui the liighlands that leads to the western

ocean; that the Indians say that they have seen bearded men with caps, who gatlier gold-dust on the seashore, but that it is very far from this coimtry, and that they pass through many nations unknown to the French.

" I have a memoir of La ilotte Cadillac, form- erly Governor of Missiliniackinack, who says that if St. Peters [MiuuesotaJ Ri\'er is ascended to its source they will, according to all appearance, find in the highland another river leading to the "West- ern Ocean.

"For the last two years I have tormented exceedingly the Governor-General, M. Raudot, and M. Duche, to move them to discover this ocean. If I succeed, as I hope, we shall hear tidings before three years, and I shall have the pleasure and the consolation of having rendered a good service to Geography, to Rehgion and to the State."

Charlevoix, in Ms History of New France, al- luding to La Ilontan's V(jyage, writes: " The voyage up the Long River is as fabulous as the Island of Barrataria, of which Sancho Panza was governor. Nevertheless, in France and else- where, most people have received these memoirs as the fruits of the travels of a gentleman who wrote bacUy, although quite lightly, and who had no religion, but who described pretty sincerely what he had seen. The consequence is that the compilers of historical and geographical diction- aries have almost always followed and cited them in preference to more faithful records."

Even in modern times, Nicollet, employed by the United States to explore the Upper Mississ- ippi, has the followng in his report:

"Having procured a copy of La Ilontan's book, in which there is a roughly made map of his Long River, I was struck with the resem- blance of its coiu'se as laid dovni wth that of Cannon River, which I had previously sketched in my owai field-book. I soon convinced myself that the principal statements of the Baron m ref- erence to the coimtry and the few details he gives of the physical character of the the river, coin- cide remarkably with what I had laid down as belonging to Cannon River. Then the lakes and swamps corresponded; traces of Indian villages mentioned by him might be foimd by a growtli of wild grass that propagates itself around all old Indian settlernents."

LE SVEVn, EXPLORER OF TUK .VJXXESijT.l UIVEH.

37

CHAPTER Vn.

LE STJEtm, EXPLOKEli OF THE MINNESOTA KIVER.

Le Sueur Visits Lafce Pepm. — Stationed at La Pomte. — Establishes a Post on an Island Al'ove Lake Pepin.— Island Described by Pcnicant.— Kirst S-oux Chief at Montreal.— Ojibw-ay Chiefs' Speeches, — Speech of Sioux Chief. — Teeoskah- tay's Death. — he Sueur Goes to France. — Posts Kest of Mackinaw Abandoned — Le Sueur's License Revoked.— Second Visit to France. — Arrives in Gulf of Mexico with D'Iberville. — Ascends the Mississippi. — Lead Mines. — Canadians Fleeing from the Sioux. — At the Mouth of the Wisconsin.— Sioux Robbers, — Elk Hunting. — Lake Pepin Described. — Rattlesnakes. — La Place Killad. — St. Croix Biver Named After a Frenchman. — Le Sueur Reaches St. Pierre, now Minne* sota River.— Enters Mankalito, or Blue Earth, River.- Sioux of the Plains.— Fort L'Huillier Completed. — Conferences with Sioux Bands — Assinaboincs a Separated Sioux Band. — An Indian Feast. — Names of the Sioux Bands. — Char- levoix's Account. — Le Sueur Goes with D'Iberville to France. — D'Iberville's Memorial.- Early Census of Indian Tribes.— Penic.aut's Account of Fort L'Huil lier. — Le Sueur's Departure fioiii the Fort. — D'Evaqe Left in Charge. — Return' to Mobile.— Juehereau at Mouth of Wisconsin.- Bondora Montreal Merchant. — Sioux Attack Miainis.— Boudor Robbed by the Sioux.

Le Sueur was a native of Canada, and a rela- tive of D"lber\ille, the early Governor of Louis- iana. He came to Lake Pepin in 1683, -with Nicholas Perrot, and liis name also appears at- tached to the document prepared in !May, 16S9, after Perrot had re-occupied his post just above the entrance of the lake, on the east side.

In 1692, he was sent by Governor Frontenac of Canada, to La Pouite, on Lake Superior, and m a dispatch of 1693, to the French Government, is the following : '• Le Sueur, another voyageiu-, is to remain at Chagmiamagon [La Poiiite] to en- deavor to maintain the peace lately concluded be- tvs'een tlie Saulteurs [Chippeways] and Sioux. This is of the greatest consequence, as it is now the sole pass by which access can be had to the latter nation, whose trade is very profitable ; the comitry to the south being occupied by the Foxes and ilaskoutens, who several times plundered the French, ou the ground they were carrying ammu- nition to the Sioux, their ancient enemies."

Entering the Sioux country in 1694, he estab- lislied a post upon a prairie island in the Missis- sippi, about nine miles below the present towni of Hastings, according to Bellin and others. Peni- caut, who accompanied him hi the exploration of the Minnesota, writes, " At the extremity of the lake [PepinJ you come to the Isle Pelee, so called because there are no trees ou it. It is on this island

that the French from Canada established their fort and storehouse, and they also winter here, because game is very .ibundant. In the month of September they bring their store of meat, obtained by hunting, and after having skinned and cleaned it, hang it upon a crib of raised scaffolding, in order that the extreme cold, which lasts from September to JIarcli, may preserve it from spoil- ing. During the whole winter they do not go out except ftu- water, when they have to break the ice every day, and the oabin is generally built upon the bank, so as not to have far to go. "When spring arrives, the savages come to the island, bringing their merchandize."

On the fifteenth of July, 169.5, Le Sueur arrived at ilontreal with a party of Ojibways, and the first JJakotah brave that had ever visited Canada.

The Indians were much impressed with the power of France by the marching of a detach- ment of seven hunilred picked men, under Chev- alier Cresali, who' were on their way to La Chine.

On the eighteenth, Frontenac, in the presence of CalUeres and other persons of distinction, gave them an audience.

The first speaker w^as the chief of the Ojibway band at La Pomte, Shmgowahbay, who said:

" That he was come to pay his respects to Onon- tio [the title given the Ciovernor of Canada] in the name of the young warriors of Point Chagouami- gon, and to thank him for having given them some Frenchmen to dwell with them; to testify their sorrow for one Jobin, a Frenchman, who was killed at a feast, accidentally, and not ma- liciously. "We come to ask a favor of you, which is to let us act. "We are allies of the Scion. Some Out<agamies, or JMascouthis, have been killed. The Sciou came to mourn with us. Let us act, Father; let us take revenge.

" Le Sueur alone, who is acquamted -with the language of the one and the other, can serve us. "We ask that he return with us."

38

EXPLOBEBS AND PIONEEBS OF MINNESOTA.

Another speaker of the Ojibways was Le Bro- chet.

Teeoskahtay, the Dahkotah chief, before he spoke, spread out a beaver robe, and, laying an- otlier with a tobacco pouch and ytter sldn, began to weep bitterly. After dryiug his tears, he said:

" All of the nations had a father, who afforded them protection; all of them have iron. B'lt he was a bastard m quest of a father; he was come to see him, and hopes that he will take pity on him."

He then placed upon the beaver robe twenty- two arrows, at each arrow naming a Dahkotah village that desired Frontenac's protection. Re- suming his speech, lie remarked:

" It is not on account of what I bring that I hope him who rules the earth will have pity on me. I learned from the Sauteurs that he wanted nothing; that he was the Master of the Iron; that he had a big heart, hito which he could receive all the nations. This has induced me to abandon my people and come to seek his protection, and to beseech bim to receive me among the number of his children. Take com'age, Great Captain, and reject me not; despise me not, though I ap- pear poor in yoiu' eyes. All the nations here present know that I am rich, and the Uttle they offer here is taken from my lands."

Count Frontenac in reply told the chief that he would receive the Dahkotahs as his children, on condition that they woidd be obedient, and that he would send back Le Sueur with him.

Teeoskahtay, taking hold of the governor's knees, wept, and said: " Take pity on us; we are well aware that we are not able to speak, be- ing children; but Le Sueur, who imderstands our language, and has seen all oiu- villages, will next year inform you what will have been achieved by the Sioux nations represented by those arrows be- fore you."

Having finished, a Dahkotah woman, the wife of a great chief whom Le Sueur liad purchased from captivity at Mackinaw, approached those in authority, and, with downcast eyes, embraced their knees, weeping and saying:

" I thank thee. Father; it is by thy means I have been liberated, and am no longer captive."

Then Teeoskahtay resumed:

" I sjieak like a man penetrated with joy. The Great Captain; he who is the Master of Iron, aif-

sures me of his protection, and I promise him that if he condescends to restore my children, now prisoners iimong the Foxes, Ottawas and IIiu'ous, I will return hither, and bring with me the twen- ty-two villages whom he has just restored to life by promising to send them Iron."

On the 14th of August, two weeks after the Ojibway chief left for his home on Lake Superior, Nicholas Perrot arrived with a deputation of Sauks, Foxes, Menomonees, Miamis of Maramek and Pottowatomies.

Two days after, they had a councU wdth the governor, who tlms spoke to a Fox brave:

" I see that you are a young man; your nation has quite tiu'ned away from my wishes; it has pillaged some of my yoiuig men, whom it has treated as slaves. I know that your father, who loved the French, had no hand in the indignity. You only imitate the example of your father who had sense, when you do not co-operate with those of your tribe who are wishing to go over to my enemies, after they grossly insulted me and defeated the Sioux, whom I now consider my son. I pity the Sioux; I pity the dead whose loss I deplore. Perrot goes up there, and he will speak to your nation from me for the release of their prisoners; let tliem attend to liim."

Teeoshkahtay never returned to his native land. While in Monti-eal he was taken sick, and in thirty-three days he ceased to breathe; and, fol- lowed by white men, his body was interred in the white man's grave.

Le Sueur instead of going back to Minnesota that year, as was expected, went to France and received a license, in 1697, to open certain mines supposed to exist in Minnesota. The ship in which he was returning was captured by the Eng- lish, and he was taken to England. After his release he went back to France, and, in 1698, ob- tained a new commission for mining.

AVhile Le Sueur was in Europe, the Dahkotas waged war against the Foxes and Miamis. In retaliation, the latter raised a war party and en- tered the land of the Dahkotahs. Finding their foes intrenched, and assisted l)y " coureurs des bois," they were mdignant; and on their return they had a skirmish with some Ficnchmen, who were carrying goods to the Dahkotahs.

Shortly after, they met Perrot, and were about to burn him to death, when prevented by some

LE SUUUB ASCENDS THE MISSISIPPI lilVER.

39

friendly Foxes. Tlie Jliamis, after this, were disposed to be friendly to the InKjuois. In 169(>, the year ]irevious, the authorities at Quebec de- cided that it was expedient to abandon all the posts west of Mackinaw-, and withdraw the French from Wiseonsin and ]Miiniesota.

Tlie voyageurs were not disjiosed to leave the country, and the governor wrote to Pontcbar- train for instructions, in October, 1608. In his dispatch be remarks:

" III this conjunctiire, and nnder all these cir- cumstances, we consider it our duty to posti)one, imtil new instructions from the court, the execu- tion of Sieur Le Sueur"s enterprise for the mines, though the promise had already been given him to send two canoes in advance to ilissilimackinac, for the purpose of purchasing there some pro- visions and other necessaries for his voyage, and that he would be permitted to go and join them early in the spring with the rest of his bands. ■\\niat led ns to adopt this resolution has been. that the French who remained to trade off with the Five Xations the remainder of their merch- andise, might, on seeing entirely new comers arriving there, consider themselves entitled to dispense with coming do'mi, and perhaps adopt the resolution to settle there; whilst, seeing no arrival there, with permission to do what is for- bidden, the rellection they will be able to make during the winter, and the apprehension of being guilty of crime, may oblige them to return in the spring.

" This would be very desirable, in consequence of the great difficulty there will Ije in constraining them to it. should they be inclined to lift the mask altogether and become buccaneers; or should Sieur Le Sueur, as he easily could do, furnish them with goods for their beaver and smaller peltry, which he might send down by tlie return of other Frenchmen, whose sole desire is to obey, and who have remained only because of the impossi- bility of getting their effects down. This would rather induce those who would continue to lead a vagabond life to remain there, as tlie goods tliey would receive from Le Sueur's people would afford them the means of doing .so."

In reply to tliis communication, Louis XI \'. answered that —

" Ills majesty has approved that the late Sieur <ie Fronteuacand De Champigny suspended the

execution of the license granted to the man named Le Sueur to proceed, with fifty men, to explore some mines on the banks of the Mississi]ipi. He has revoked said license, and desires that tlie said Le Sueur, or any other person, be prevented from leaving the colony on ]iretence of going in search of mines, without his majesty's express permis- sion."

Le Suenr, undaunted by these drawbacks to the prosecution of a favorite project, again visited France.

Fortimately for Le Suenr, D'Iberville, who was a friend, and closely connected by marriage, was appointed governor of the new territory of Louis- iana. In the month of December be arrived from France, v\dth thirty workmen, to proceed to the supposed mines in Jlinnesota.

On the thirteenth of .July, 1700, with a felucca, two canoes, and nineteen men, having ascended the Mississippi, he had reached the mouth of the Missouri, and six leagues above this he passed the Illinois. He there met three Canadians, who came to join him, with a letter from Father Mar- est, who had once attempted a mission among the Dahkotabs, dated .July 1.3, Mission Immaculate (.'onception of the Holy Virgin, in Illinois.

" I have the honor to write, in order to inform you that the Sangiestas have been defeated 1 ly the .Scioux and Ayavois [lowas]. The people have formed an alliance with the Qiiincapous [Kicka- poos], some of the Mecoutins, Renards [Foxes], and Iiletesigamias, and gone to revenge them- selves, not on the Scioux, for they are too much afraid of them, but perhaps on the Ayavois, or very likely upon the Paoutees, or more probably upon the Osages, for these suspect nothing, and the others are on their guard.

"As you will probably meet these allied na- tions, you ought to take precaution against their plans, and not allow them to board yom- vessel, since tlicij arc tmilnrs, and utterly faithless. I pray (iod to accompany you in all your designs.''

Twenty-two leagues above the Illinois, he passed a small stream which he called the River of Oxen, and nine leagues beyond this he passed a small river on the west side, where he met four (,'ana- dians descending the Mississipi)i. on their way to the Illinois. On the 30th of -Inly, nine leagues above the last-named river, he met seventeen Scioux, in seven canoes, who were going to re-

40

EXPLOREBS AND PIONEEBS OF MINNESOTA.

venge the death of three Scioux, one of whom had been burned, and the others killed, at Tamarois, a few days before liis arrival in that village. As he had promised the chief of the IlUnois to ap- pease the Scioux who should go to war against his nation, he made a present to the chief of the party to engage him to turn back. He told them the King of France did not msh them to make this river more bloody, and that he was sent to tell them that, if they obeyed the king's word, they would receive in future all things necessary for them. The chief answered that he accepted the present, that is to say, that he would do as had been told him.

From the 30th of July to the 25th of August, Le Sueur advanced fifty-ttoee and one-fourth leagues to a small river which he called the River of the Mine. At the mouth it runs from the north, but it turns to the northeast. On the right seven leagues, there is a lead mine iu a prairie, one and a half leagues. The river is only navigable in high water, tliat is to say, from early spring tUl the month of June.

From the 2.5tli to the 27th he made ten leagues, passed two small rivers, and made himself ae- quauited with a mine of lead, from wliich lie took a supply. From the 27th to the 30th he made eleven and a half leagues, and met five Canadians, one of wliom had been dangerously wounded in the head. They were naked, and had no ammu- nition except a miserable gun, with five or six loads of powder and balls. They said they were descending from the Scioux to go to Tamarois, and, when seventy leagues above, tliey perceived nine canoes in the Mississippi, in which were ninety savages, wlio rol)bed and cruelly beat tliem. Tills party were going to war against the Scioux, and were composed of. four different nations, the Ontagamies [Foxes], Poutouwatamls [Pottowatta- mies], and Puans [Winnebagoes], who dwell in a connti'y eighty leagues east of the Mississippi from where Le Sueur then was.

Tl le ( 'anadians determined to follow the detach- ment, which was composed of twenty-eight men. This (lay they made seven and a half leagues. On the 1st of September he passed the Wisconsm river. It runs into the Mississippi from the north- east. It is nearly one and a half miles wide. At about seventy-five leagues up this river, on the right, ascenduig, there is a portage of more than

a league. The half of this portage is shaking ground, and at the end of it is a small river which descends into a bay called AVimiebago Bay. It is inhabited by a great nmuber of nations who carry their fiu-s to Canada. Monsieiu: Le Sueur came by the Wisconsin river to the ^Mississippi, for the first time, in 1683, on his \\ay to the Scioux coun- try, where he had already passed seven years at different periods. The Mississippi, opposite the month of the Wisconsm, is less than half a mile wide. From the 1st of September to the -ith, our voyageur advanced fourteen leagues. He passed the river " Aux Canots," which comes from the northeast, and then the Quincapous, named from a nation which once dwelt iipou its banks.

From the 5th to the 9th he made ten and a half leagues, and passed the rivers Cachee and ^Vux Ailes. The same day he perceived canoes, filled with savages, descending the river, and the five Canadians recognized them as the party who had robbed them. They placed sentinels in the wood, for fear of being surprised by land, and when they had approached within hearing, they cried to them that if they approached farther they would fire. They then drew up by an island, at half the distance of a gun shot. Siion, four of the princi- pal men of the band approached in a canoe, and asked if it was forgotten that they were our brethren, and with what design we had taken arms when we perceived them. Le Sueur replied that he had cause to distrust them, since they had robbed five of his party. Jfevertheless, for the sm-ety of his trade, being forced to ))e at peace with all the tribes, he demanded no redi'ess for the robbery, but added merely that the king, their master and his, wished that his sulijects should na\'igate that river without insult, and that they had better beware how they acted.

The Indian who had spoken was silent, but an- other said they had been attacked by the Scioux, and that if they did not have pity on them, and give them a little jjowder, they should not be able to reach their villages. The consideration of a missionary, who was to go up among the Scioux, and whom these savages might meet, mduced them to give two pounds of powder.

M. Le Sueur made the same day three leagues; passed a stream on the west, and afterward an- other river on the east, which is navigable at aU times, and which the Indians call Ked River.

BATTLESNAKES ON SHOBES OF LAKE I'El'IX.

41

On the 10th, at daybreak, they heard an elk whistle, on the other side of the river. A Cana- dian crossed in a small Scioux canoe, which they had found, and shortly retimied with the body of the animal, which w'as very easily killed, '■ (juand 11 est en rut," that is, from the beginnhig of Sep- tember nntil the end of October. The hunters at this time made a whistle of a i)iece of wood, or reed, and when they hear an elk whistle they an- swer it. The animal, lielieviiiij; it to be another elk, ajiproaclies, and is killed with ease.

From the 10th to the 14th, ]M. Le Sueur made seventeen and a half leagues, passing the rivers Eaisin and Paquilenettes (perhaps the Wazi O/.u and Buffalo.) The same day he left, on the east side of the ^lississippi, a beautiful and large river, which descends from the very far north, and called Bon Secours (Chippeway), on account of the great quantity of buffalo, elk, bears and deers which are found there. Three leagues up this river there is a mine of lead, and seven leagues above, on the same side, they found another long river, in the vicinity of which there is a copjjer mine, from A^hich he had taken a lump of sixty pounds in a former voyage. In order to make these mines of any account, peace must be ob- tained between the Scioux and Ouatagamis (Fox- es), because the latter, who dwell on the east side of the Mississippi, pass this road continually when going to war against the Sioux.

Penicaut, in his journal, gives a brief descrip- tion of the ilississippi between the AMsconsin and Lake Pepin. He writes: "Above the Wis- consin, and ten leagues higher on the same side, begins a great prairie extending for sixty leagues along the bank; this prairie is called Aux Ailes. Opposite to Aux Ailes, on the left, there is another prairie facmg it called Paquilanet which is not so long by a great deal. Twenty leagues above these prairies is found Lake Bon Secours " [Cood Help, now Pepin.]

In this region, at one and a half leagues on the northwest side, commenced a lake, which is six leagues long and more than one broad, called Lake Pepin. It is bounded on the west by a chain of mountains; on the east is seen a prame; and on the northwest of the lake there is another prairie two leagues long and one wide. In the neighborhood is a chain of mountains quite two hundred feet high, and more than one and a half

miles long. In these are found several caves, to which the bears retire in winter. Most of the caverns are more than seventy feet in extent, and two hundred feet high. There are several of which the entrance is very narrow, and qinte closed up with saltpetre. It woidd be dangerous to enter them in summer, for they are filled with rattlesnakes, the liite of which is very dangerous. Le Sueur saw some of these snakes which were six feet in length, but generally they are about four feet. They have teeth resembling those of the pike, and their gums are full of small vessels, in which their poison is placed. The Scioux say they tqke it every mornin ;, and cast it away at night. They have at the tail a kind of scale which makes a noise, and this is called the rattle.

Le Sueur made on this day seven and a half leagues, and passed another river, called Iliam- bouxeeate Ouataba, or the Elver of Flat Rock. [The Sioux call the ("aiuion river Inyanbosndata.]

On the loth he crossed a small river, and saw in the neighborhood several canoes, fdled with Indians, descending the ^lississippi. lie sup- posed they were Scioux, because he could not dis- tinguish whether the canoes were large or small. The arms were placed in readiness, and soon they heard the cry of the savages, which they are ac- customed to raise when they rush upon their en- emies. He caused them to be answered in the same mamier; and after having placed all the men behind the trees, he ordered them not to fire until they were commanded. He remained on shore to see what movement the savages woidd make, and perceiving that they placed two on shore, on the other side, where from an eminence they could ascertain the strength of his forces, he caused the men to pass and rejiass from the shore to the wood, in order to make them believe that they were numerous. Tliis ruse succeeded, for as soon as the two descended from the eminence the chief of the party came, bearing the calumet, which is a signal of peace among the Indians. They said that having never seen the French navi- gate the river with boats like the felucca, they had supposed them to be English, and for that reason they had raised the war cry, and arranged them- selves on the other side of the Mississippi; but having recognized their flag, they had come with- out fear to inform them, that one of their num- ber, who was crazy, had accidentally killed a

42

EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

Frenchman, and that they would go and brhig his comrade, who would tell how the mischief had happened.

The Frenclunan they brought was Denis, a Ca- nadian, and he reported tliat his companion was accidentally killed. His name was Laplace, a de- serthig soldier from Canada, ^\■ho liad tahen ref- uge in this country.

Le Sueur replied, that Onontio (the name they give to all the governors of ('anada), being their father and his, they ought not tt) seek justification elsewhere than before him; and he advised them to go and see him as soon as possible, and beg him to wipe of£ the blood of tliis Frenchman from their faces.

The party was composed of forty-seven men of different nations, who dwell far to the east, about the forty-fourth degree of latitude. Le Sueur, discovering who tlie chiefs were, said the king whom they had spoken of in Canada, had sent him to take possession of the north of the river; and that he wished the nations who dwell on it, as well as those under his protection, to live in peace.

He made this day three and tin-ee-fourtlis leagues; and on the Kith of September, he left a large river on tlie east side, named St. Croix, he- cause n FnnrliDian (if tliat name icris nhipa-ricJced at its mouth. It comes from the north-northwest. Four leagues higher, in going up, is foinid a small lake, at the mouth of which is a very large mass of copper. It is on the edge of the water, in a small ridge of sandy earth, on the west of this lake. [One of La Salle's men was named St. Croi.\.]

From the liitli to the 19th, he advanced thir- teen and tliree-fourths leagues. After liaving made from Taniarois two hundred and nine and a half leagues, he left the navigation of the Missis- sippi, to enter the river St. I'ierre, on the west side. By the 1st of October, he had made in this river forty-foui- and one-fourth leagues. After he entered I'jlue river, thus named on account of the mines of blue earth found at its mouth, he fomid- ed his post, situated in forty-four degrees, thir- teen minutes north latitude. He met at this place nine Scioux, wlio tol<l liim tliat the river belonged to the Seiotix of the west, the Ayavois (lowas) and Otoctatas (Ottoes). who lived a little farther off: that it was not their custom to hunt

on ground belonging to others, unless invited to do so by the owners, and that when they would come to the fort to obtain provisions, they would be in danger of being killed in ascending or de- scending the rivers, v.'hich were narrow, and that if they woidd show their pity, he must establish iiimsclf on the llississippi, near the mouth of the St. Pierre, where the Ayavois, the Otoctatas, and the other Scioux could go as well as they.

Having finished their speech, they leaned over the head of Le Sueur, according to their custom, crying out, "Onaechissou ouaepanimanabo," that is to say, " Have pity upon us." Le Suenr had foreseen that the establishment of Blue Earth river would not please the Scioux of the East, who were, so to speak, masters of the other Scioux and of the nations wliich will 1)6 hereafter men- tioned, hec(tuse they icere the first with whom trade leas commenced, and in consequence of which they had already quite a number of guns.

As he had commenced his operations not only with a view to the trade of beaver but also to gain a knowledge of the mines which he had pre- viously discovered, he told them that he was sor- ry that he had not known their intentions sooner, and that it was .iust, since he came expressly for them, that he sh(udd establish himself on their land, liut tliat the season was too far advanced for him to return. He then made them a present of powder, balls and knives, and an armful of to- bacco, to entice them to assemble, as soon as pos- sible, near the fort he was about to construct, that when they should be all assembled he might tell them the intention of the king, their and his sovereign.

The Scioux of the "West, according to the state- ment of the Eastern Scioux, have more than a thousanil lodges. They do not use canoes, nor cultivate the earth, nor gather wild rice. They remain generally on the prairies which are be- tween the Upper Mississippi and jNIissouri rivers, and live entirely by the chase. The Scioux gen- erally say they have three souls, and that after death, that which has done well goes to the warm country, that which has done evil to the cold regions, and the other guard.s the body. I'oly- gamy is common among them. They are very jealous, and sometimes fight in duel for their wives. Tliey manage the bow admirably, and have been seen several times to kill ducks on the

BLrj!J EARTH ASSAYED BY VHVLLlEli IN I'AUIS.

4a

wmft. They make their lodges of a imnilier of bulTalo skins interlaced and sewed, ami cany them wlierever they go. They are all great smo- kers, but their manner of smoking differs from that of other Indians. There are some Sciou.x who swallow all the smoke of the tobacco, and others who, after having keiit it some time in their mouth, cause it to issue from the nose. In each lodge there are usually two or three men witli their families.

On the third of October, they received at the fort several Scioux, among whom was AVahkan- lape, cliief of the village. Soon tu-o Canadians arrived wlio liad been hunting, and who had been robbed by the Scioux of the Kast. who had raised their guns against the establishment which M. Le Sueur had made on IJhie Karth river.

On the fourteenth the fort was linished and named Fort L'lluillier. and on Die twenty-second two Canadians were sent out to invite the Aya- vois and Otoctatas to come and establish a vil- lage near the fort, because tliese Indians are m- dustrious and accustomed to cultivate the earth, and they hoped to get provisions from them, and to niake them work in the mines.

On the twenty-fourth, six Scioux Oujalespoi- tons wished to go into tlie fort, but were told that they did not receive men who had killed Fi'enclmien. This is the term used when they have instdted tliem. The next day Ihey came to the lodge of Le Sueur to beg liim to have pity on them. They wished, according to custom, to weep over his head and make him a present of packs of beavers, which he refused. He told them he was surprised that people who had rol)- bed should come to him ; to which they replied that they liad heard it said that two Frenchmen had been robbed, but none from their village had l)eeu present at tliat wicked action.

Le Sueur answered, that he knew it was tlie Mendeoncantons and not the Oujalespoitons : " but." continued he, "yon are Scioux; it is the Scioux who have robbed me. and if I were to fol- low your manner of acting I should break yom- heads; for is it not true, tiiat when a stranger (it is thus they call the Indians wlio are not Scioux) has insulted a Scioux, ilendeoucanton. ( )ujale.spoitons. or others — all the villages revenge upon the lirst one they meetV" As they had nothing to answer to what he said

to them, they wept and rejieated, ac('oi'ding to custom, " Ouaecliissou I ouaepanimaual)o !"' Le Sueur told them to cease crying, and added that the French had good liearts, and tliat they had come into tlie country to have pity on tliem. At the same time lie made them a present, saying to them. ■• Carry liack your beavers and say to all the Scioux. that tliey will have from me no more powder or lead, and they will no longer smoke any long pipe until they have made satisfaction for robbing the Frenchman.

Tlie same day the Canadians, who had been sent off on the 22d. arrived without liaving found the road which led to the Ayavois and Otoctatas. On the 26tli, Le Sueur went to the river with three canoes, which he tilled with green and blue earth. It is taken from the hills near which are very abundant mhies of copper, some of which was worked at Paris in IH'.id. liy I/IIuillier. one of the chief collectors of the king. Stones were also found there wliicli would be curious, if worked.

On the ninth of Novemlier, eight iSIautanton Scioux arrived, who had been sent li\- their chiefs to say that the Mcndcoucantona wci-e still at their hdr on tin east of tlie Mississiiqji- and they could not come for a long time ; and that for a single village wliich had no good sense, tlie otliers ought not to bear the punishment ; and that they were willing to make reparation if tliey knew how. Le Sueur replied that he was glad that they had a disposition to do so.

On the loth the two Mantanton Scioux. wlio had been sent expiessly to say that all of the Scioux of the east, and part of those of the west, were joined together to come to the French, be- cause they had heard that the Christiaiiaux and the Assiniiioils were making war on them. These two nations dwell aliove llie fort on the east side, more than eiglity leagues on tlie Upper Mississippi.

Tlie xVssinipoils speak Scioux, and are certainly of that nation. It is only a few years since that they became enemies. The enmity thus origi- nated: The Cliristianaiix, having the use of arms before the Scioux, through tlie English at Hud- son's Bay, they constantly warred upon the As- siuipoils, wlio were their nearest neighbors. The latter, being weak, sued for peace, and to render it more lasting, married the Christianaux

44

EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

women. The other Scioux, who had not made the compact, continued tliewar; and, seeing some Christianaux with the Assinipoils, broke tlieir heads. The Christianaux furnished the Assini- poils with arms and merchandise.

On the l(5th the Scioux returned to their vil- lage, and it was reported that tlie Ayavois and Otoctatas were gone to establish themselves to- wards the jNIissouri River, near the Maha, who dwell in tliat region. On the 2{5th the Mantan- tons and Oujalesi)oitons arrived at the fort; and, after they had encamped in the woods, Wah kantape came to beg Le Sueur to go to his lodge. He there finuid sixteen men willi women and children, with their faces daubed with black. In the middle of the lodge were several buffalo skins wliicli were sewed for a carpet. After mo- tioning liim to sit down, they wept for the fourth of an liour, and the chief gave him some wild rice to eat (as was their custom), putting the first three spoonsful to his mouth. After which, he said all present were relatives of Tioscate, whom Le Sueur took to Canada in 1695, and who died there in 1696.

At the mention of Tioscate they began to weep again, and wipe tlieir tears and heads upon the shoulders of Le Sueur. Tlien AVabkantape again spoke, and said tliat Tioscate liegged him to for- get the insult done to the Frenchmen by the Mendeoucantons, and take pity on his brethren by giving them powder and balls whereby they could defend tliemselves, and gain a living for their wives and clnldren,who languish in a coun- try fidl of game, because they had not the means of killing them. " Look," added the chief, " Be- hold tliy cliildreu, thy brethren, and thy sisters; it is to thee to see wlietlier tliou wisliest them to (lie. They will live if thou givest them powder and Ijall; they will die if thou refusest."

Le Sueur granted them tlieir request, but as the Scioux never answer on the spot, especially in matters of importance, and as he had to speak to them aliout his establishment he went out of tlie lodge witliout saying a word. The chief and all tliose witliiu followed liim as far as tlie door. of the fort; and wlieu he had gone in. tliey went around it tlirce times, crying with all their strengtli, " Atlicouanaii! " that istosay, " Father, have pity on us."' [Ate unyanpi, means Our Father.]

The next day, he assembled in the fort the principal men of both villages; and as it is not possible to subdue the Scioux or to hinder them from going to war, unless it be by inducing them to cultivate the earth, he said to them that if they wished to render themselves worthy of the protection of the king, tliey must abandon tlieir erring life, and form a village near his dwelling, where they would be shielded from the insults of of their enemies; and that they might be happy and not hungry, he would give them all the corn necessary to plant a large piece of ground; that the king, their and his chief, in sending liim, had forbidden bira to purchase beaver skins, knowing that tliis kind of liunting separates tliem and ex- poses tliem to their enemies; and that in conse- quence of tliis he had come to establish himself on Blue River and vicinity, where they had many times assured him were many kinds of beasts, for the skins of which he would give tlietn all tilings necessary; that they ought to reflect that they could not do without French goods, and that tlie only way not to want them was, not to go to war with our allied nations.

As it is customary with the Indians to accom- pany their word with a present proportioned to the affair treated of, he gave them fifty pounds of jiowder, as many ball's, six guns, ten axes, twelve armsful of tobacco, and a hatchet pipe.

On tlie first of December, the JIantantons in- vited Le Sueur to a great feast. Of four of their lodges they liad made one, in which were one hundred men seated around, and every one his dish before him. After the meal, Wahkantape, llie chief, made them all smoke, one after another, in the hatchet pipe which had been given them, lie then made a present to Le Sueur of a slave and a sack of wild rice, and said to him, showing him his men: " Behold the remains of this great village, which thou hast aforetimes seen so nu- merous! All the others have been killed in war; and the few men whom thou seest in this lodge, accept the present thou hast made them, and are resolved to oliey the great chief of all nations, of whom tliou hast spoken to us. Thou ouglitest not to regard us as Scioux, but as French, and in- stead of saying tlie Scioux are miserable, and liave no mind, and are fit for nothing but to rob and steal from the French, thou shalt say my breth- ren are miserable and have no mind, and we must

D'IBEBVILLE'S MEMOITt ON THE MlSSISSIl'}' I 'I'IHHES.

45

try to procure some for tliem. They rob us, but I will take care that they do not lack iron, that is to say, all kinds of goods. If thou dost this, 1 as- sure thee that in a little time the Mantantons will become Frenchmen, and they will have none of those vices, with which thou reiiroachest us."

Having finished his speech, he covered his lace with his garment, and the others imitated him. They wept over their companions who had died in war, and chanted an adieu to their country in a tone so gloomy, that one could not keep from partaking of their sorrow.

Wahkantape then made them smoke again, and distributed the presents, and said that he was go- ing to the ^lendeoueantons, to inform them of the resolution, and invite them to do the same.

On the twelfth, three Mendeoucauton chiefs, and a large number of Indians of the same vil- lage, arrived at the fort, and the next day gave satisfaction for robbing the Frenchmen. They brought four hundred pounds of beaver skins, and promised that the summer following, after their canoes were built and they had gathered their wild rice, that they would come and establish themselves near the French. The same day they returned to their village east of the Mississippi.

NAMES OF TUE BANDS OF SCIOUX OF THE EAST, WITH THEIK SICiNIFICATION.

Mantantons— That is to say, A'illage of the Great Lake which empties into a small one.

Mendeouacantons— Village of Spirit Lake.

QuioPETONS — Village of the Lake with one River.

PsiouMANiTONS— Village of "Wild Rice Gath- erers.

OuADEBATONs— The River Village.

OuAETEMANETONS— Village of the Tribe who dwell on the Point of tlie Lake.

SONUASQUITONS — The Brave Village,

THE SCIOUX OF THE WEST.

ToucHOUAESixTONs— The Village of the Pole.

PsiNCHATOXs— Milage of the Red Wild Rice.

OujALESPOiTOXS — Village divided into many small Bands.

PsiNouTANHiNHixTONS — The Great AVild Rice Village.

TiNTANGAOUGHiATONs — The Grand Lodge Village.

OUAEPETONS — Village of the Leaf.

OUGHETGEODATONS— Dung Village.

OuAPEONTETONs — Village of those who shoot in the Large Pine.

IIiNHANETONS — ^'illage of the Ri^d Stone (Juarry.

The above catalogue of villages (^includes the extract that La Ilarpe has made from Le Sueur's journal.

In the narrative of Major Long's second expe- dition, there are just as many villages of the Gens du Lac, or M'dewakantimwan ScioiLX mentioned, though the names are different. After leaving the iliUe Lac region, the divisions evidently were different, and the villages known by new names.

Charlevoix, who visited the valley of the Lower Mississippi in 1722, says that Le Sueur spent a winter in his fort on the banks of the Blue Earth, and that in the following April he went up to the mine, about a mile above. In twenty-two days they obtained more than Uiirty thousand pounds of the substance, four thousand of which were se- lected and sent to France.

On the tenth of February, 1702, Le Sueur came back to the post on the Gulf of Mexico, and fomid DTben-ille absent, who, however, arrived on the eighteenth of the next month, with a ship from France , loaded with supplies. After a few weeks, the Governor of Louisiana sailed again for the old coiintry, Le Sueur being a fellow passenger.

On board of the ship, DTberville wrote a mem- orial upon the Mississippi valley, with sugges- tions for carrying on commerce therein, which contains many facts furnished liy Le Sueur. A copy of the manuscript A\ns in jiossession of the Historical Society of Minnesota, from which are the followmg extracts:

"If the Sioux remain in their own countiy, they are useless to us, being too distant. We could have no commerce with them except that of the beaver. M. Le Sueur, tcho goes to France to give an account of this country, is the proper per- son to make these movements. He estimates the Sioux at four thousand famiUes, who could settle upon the ^Missouri.

"He has spoken to me of another which he calls the Mahas, composed of more than twelve hundred famiUes. The Ayoones (loways) and the Octoctatas, their neighbors, are about three hundred families. They occupy the lands be-

46

EXPLOBEJRS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

tween the Mississippi and the Missouri, about one hundred leagues from the lOinois. Tiiese savages do not Isuow the use of arms, and a de- scent might be made upon them in a river, Mhicli is beyond ttie AVabash on the west. * * *

" The Assmibouel, Quenistinos, and people of the north, who are upon the rivers which fall into the Mississippi, and trade at Fort Kelson (Hud- son Bay), are about four hundred. We could prevent them from going there if we wish."

" In four or five years we can establish a com- merce with these savages of sixty or eighty thou- sand buffalo skins; more than one hundred deer skins, AAliidi 'will produce, delivered in France, more than two million four hundred thousand livres yearly. One might obtain for a Iniffalo skin four or five pounds of wool, which sells for twenty sous, two potinds of coarse hair at ten sous.

"Besides, from smaller peltries, two hundred thousand livres can be made yearly.''

In the third \-olume of the " History and Sta- tistics of the Indian Tribes," prepared under the direction of the Commissioner of Indian affairs, by Mr. Schoolcraft, a manuscript, a copy of which was in possession of General Cass, is referred to as containing tlie first enumeration of the Indians of the Mississippi A'alley. The following was made thirty-fo>ir years earlier by DTberville:

"The Sioux, Families, 4,000

Mahas, 12,000

Octata and Ayoues, 300

Causes [Kansas], I,o00

Missouri, 1,500

Akansas, &c., 200

:Mant()n piandanj 100

Panis [Pawnee], 2.000

Illinois, of the great village and Cama-

roua [Tamaroa], soo

!Meosigamea [^Nletchigamias], .... 200 Kikapous and jNlascouteus, .... 4o0

Miamis, . , 500

Chaclas, 4,000

Chicaclias, 2,000

Mobiliens and Chohomes, 350

Concaques [Conchas], 2,000

Ouma [Iloumas], 150

Colapissa, 2-50

Bayogoula, 100

People of the Fork, 200

Counica, &c. [Tonicas], . .

Xadeclies,

Belochy, [Biloxi] Pascoboula,

300

1,500

100

Total, 23,850

" The savage tribes located in the places I have . marked out, make it necessary to establish three posts on the Mississippi, one at the Arkansas, another at the AVabash (Ohio), and the third at the ilissouri. At each post it would be proiJer to have an officer with a detachment of ten sol- diers with a sergeant and corporal. All French- men should be allowed to settle there with their families, and trade with the Indians, and they might establish tanneries for properly dressmg the buffalo and deer skins for transportation.

" Xo Frenclunan Khali be allnwcd to folloic the Indians on their hunts, as it tends to keep tlumi hunters, as is seen in Canada, and when they are in the woods, they do not desire to become tilters of the soil. *******

" I have said nothing in this memoir of which I have not personal knowledge or the most relia- ble sources. The most of what I propose is founded upon personal reflection in relation to what might be done for the defence and advance- ment of the colony. ***** * * * It will be absolutely necessary that the long should define the limits of this country in relation to the government of Canada. It is important that the commandant of the Mississippi should have a report of those who inhabit the rivers that fall into the Mississippi, and principally those of the river Illinois.

" The Canadians intimate to the savages that they ought not to listen to us but to the governor of Canada, who always speaks to them with large presents, that the governor of JSIississippi is mean and never sends them any thing. This is true, and what I cannot do. It is iinjirudent to accus- tom the savages to be spoken to by presents, for, with so many, it would cost the king more than the revenue derived from the trade. AVhen they come to us, it will be necessary to bring them in subjection, make them no presents, and compel them to do wliat we wish, ((.s if they were French- men.

" The Spaniards have divided thb Indians into parties on this point, and we can do tlie same. AVlien one nation does wrong, we can cease to

PENICAUT DEtiClUBES LIFE AT FORT L'lIUILLlER.