France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third

F >> Francis Parkman >> France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third

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On the 17th of June, they saw on their right the broad meadows, bounded in
the distance by rugged hills, where now stand the town and fort of Prairie
du Chien. Before them, a wide and rapid current coursed athwart their way,
by the foot of lofty heights wrapped thick in forests. They had found what
they sought, and "with a joy," writes Marquette, "which I cannot express,"
they steered forth their canoes on the eddies of the Mississippi.

Turning southward, they paddled down the stream, through a solitude
unrelieved by the faintest trace of man. A large fish, apparently one of
the huge cat-fish of the Mississippi, blundered against Marquette's canoe
with a force which seems to have startled him; and once, as they drew in
their net, they caught a "spade-fish," whose eccentric appearance greatly
astonished them. At length, the buffalo began to appear, grazing in herds
on the great prairies which then bordered the river; and Marquette
describes the fierce and stupid look of the old bulls, as they stared at
the intruders through the tangled mane which nearly blinded them.

They advanced with extreme caution, landed at night, and made a fire to
cook their evening meal; then extinguished it, embarked again, paddled
some way farther, and anchored in the stream, keeping a man on the watch
till morning. They had journeyed more than a fortnight without meeting a
human being; when, on the 25th, they discovered footprints of men in the
mud of the western bank, and a well-trodden path that led to the adjacent
prairie. Joliet and Marquette resolved to follow it; and, leaving the
canoes in charge of their men, they set out on their hazardous adventure.
The day was fair, and they walked two leagues in silence, following the
path through the forest and across the sunny prairie, till they discovered
an Indian village on the banks of a river, and two others on a hill half a
league distant. [Footnote: The Indian villages, under the names of
Peouaria (Peoria) and Moingouena, are represented in Marquette's map upon
a river corresponding in position with the Des Moines; though the distance
from the Wisconsin, as given by him, would indicate a river farther
north.] Now, with beating hearts, they invoked the aid of Heaven, and,
again advancing, came so near without being seen, that they could hear the
voices of the Indians among the wigwams. Then they stood forth in full
view, and shouted, to attract attention. There was great commotion in the
village. The inmates swarmed out of their huts, and four of their chief
men presently came forward to meet the strangers, advancing very
deliberately, and holding up toward the sun two calumets, or peace-pipes,
decorated with feathers. They stopped abruptly before the two Frenchmen,
and stood gazing at them with attention, without speaking a word.
Marquette was much relieved on seeing that they wore French cloth, whence
he judged that they must be friends and allies. He broke the silence, and
asked them who they were; whereupon they answered that they were Illinois,
and offered the pipe; which having been duly smoked, they all went
together to the village. Here the chief received the travellers after a
singular fashion, meant to do them honor. He stood stark naked at the door
of a large wigwam, holding up both hands as if to shield his eyes.
"Frenchmen, how bright the sun shines when you come to visit us! All our
village awaits you; and you shall enter our wigwams in peace." So saying,
he led them into his own; which was crowded to suffocation with savages,
staring at their guests in silence. Having smoked with the chiefs and old
men, they were invited to visit the great chief of all the Illinois, at
one of the villages they had seen in the distance; and thither they
proceeded, followed by a throng of warriors, squaws, and children. On
arriving, they were forced to smoke again, and listen to a speech of
welcome from the great chief; who delivered it, standing between two old
men, naked like himself. His lodge was crowded with the dignitaries of the
tribe; whom Marquette addressed in Algonquin, announcing himself as a
messenger sent by the God who had made them, and whom it behooved them to
recognize and obey. He added a few words touching the power and glory of
Count Frontenac, and concluded by asking information concerning the
Mississippi, and the tribes along its banks, whom he was on his way to
visit. The chief replied with a speech of compliment,--assuring his guests
that their presence added flavor to his tobacco, made the river more calm,
the sky more serene, and the earth more beautiful. In conclusion, he gave
them a young slave and a calumet, begging them at the same time to abandon
their purpose of descending the Mississippi.

A feast of four courses now followed. First, a wooden bowl full of a
porridge of Indian meal boiled with grease was set before the guests, and
the master of ceremonies fed them in turn, like infants, with a large
spoon. Then, appeared a platter of fish; and the same functionary,
carefully removing the bones with his fingers, and blowing on the morsels
to cool them, placed them in the mouths of the two Frenchmen. A large dog,
killed and cooked for the occasion, was next placed before them; but,
failing to tempt their fastidious appetites, was supplanted by a dish of
fat buffalo-meat, which concluded the entertainment. The crowd having
dispersed, buffalo-robes were spread on the ground, and Marquette and
Joliet spent the night on the scene of the late festivity. In the morning,
the chief, with some six hundred of his tribesmen, escorted them to their
canoes, and bade them, after their stolid fashion, a friendly farewell.

Again they were on their way, slowly drifting down the great river. They
passed the mouth of the Illinois, and glided beneath that line of rocks on
the eastern side, cut into fantastic forms by the elements, and marked as
"The Ruined Castles" on some of the early French maps. Presently they
beheld a sight which reminded them that the Devil was still lord paramount
of this wilderness. On the flat face of a high rock, were painted in red,
black, and green a pair of monsters,--each "as large as a calf, with horns
like a deer, red eyes, a beard like a tiger, and a frightful expression of
countenance. The face is something like that of a man, the body covered
with scales; and the tail so long that it passes entirely round the body,
over the head and between the legs, ending like that of a fish." Such is
the account which the worthy Jesuit gives of these _manitous_, or Indian
gods. [Footnote: The rock where these figures were painted is immediately
above the city of Alton. The tradition of their existence remains, though
they are entirely effaced by time. In 1867, when I passed the place, a
part of the rock had been quarried away, and, instead of Marquette's
monsters, it bore a huge advertisement of "Plantation Bitters." Some years
ago, certain persons, with more zeal than knowledge, proposed to restore
the figures, after conceptions of their own; but the idea was abandoned.

Marquette made a drawing of the two monsters, but it is lost. I have,
however, a fac-simile of a map made a few years later by order of the
Intendant Duchesneau; which is decorated with the portrait of one of them,
answering to Marquette's description, and probably copied from his
drawing. St. Cosme, who saw them in 1699, says that they were even then
almost effaced. Douay and Joutel also speak of them; the former, bitterly
hostile to his Jesuit contemporaries, charging Marquette with exaggeration
in his account of them. Joutel could see nothing terrifying in their
appearance; but he says that his Indians made sacrifices to them as they
passed.] He confesses that at first they frightened him; and his
imagination and that of his credulous companions were so wrought upon by
these unhallowed efforts of Indian art, that they continued for a long
time to talk of them as they plied their paddles. They were thus engaged,
when they were suddenly aroused by a real danger. A torrent of yellow mud
rushed furiously athwart the calm blue current of the Mississippi; boiling
and surging, and sweeping in its course logs, branches, and uprooted
trees. They had reached the mouth of the Missouri, where that savage
river, descending from its mad career through a vast unknown of barbarism,
poured its turbid floods into the bosom of its gentler sister. Their light
canoes whirled on the miry vortex like dry leaves on an angry brook. "I
never," writes Marquette, "saw any thing more terrific;" but they escaped
with their fright, and held their way down the turbulent and swollen
current of the now united rivers. [Footnote: The Missouri is called
Pekitanoui by Marquette. It also bears, on early French maps, the names of
Riviere des Osages, and Riviere des Emissourites, or Oumessourits. On
Marquette's map, a tribe of this name is placed near its banks, just above
the Osages. Judging by the course of the Mississippi that it discharged
into the Gulf of Mexico, he conceived the hope of one day reaching the
South Sea by way of the Missouri.] They passed the lonely forest that
covered the site of the destined city of St. Louis, and, a few days later,
saw on their left the mouth of the stream to which the Iroquois had given
the well-merited name of Ohio, or, the Beautiful River. [Footnote: Called
on Marquette's map, Ouabouskiaou. On some of the earliest maps, it is
called Ouabache (Wabash).] Soon they began to see the marshy shores buried
in a dense growth of the cane, with its tall straight stems and feathery
light-green foliage. The sun glowed through the hazy air with a languid
stifling heat, and, by day and night, mosquitoes in myriads left them no
peace. They floated slowly down the current, crouched in the shade of the
sails which they had spread as awnings, when suddenly they saw Indians on
the east bank. The surprise was mutual, and each party was as much
frightened as the other. Marquette hastened to display the calumet which
the Illinois had given him by way of passport; and the Indians,
recognizing the pacific symbol, replied with an invitation to land.
Evidently, they were in communication with Europeans, for they were armed
with guns, knives, and hatchets, wore garments of cloth, and carried their
gunpowder in small bottles of thick glass. They feasted the Frenchmen with
buffalo-meat, bear's oil, and white plums; and gave them a variety of
doubtful information, including the agreeable but delusive assurance that
they would reach the mouth of the river in ten days. It was, in fact, more
than a thousand miles distant.

They resumed their course, and again floated down the interminable
monotony of river, marsh and forest. Day after day passed on in solitude,
and they had paddled some three hundred miles since their meeting with the
Indians; when, as they neared the mouth of the Arkansas, they saw a
cluster of wigwams on the west bank. Their inmates were all astir, yelling
the war-whoop, snatching their weapons, and running to the shore to meet
the strangers, who, on their part, called for succor to the Virgin. In
truth they had need of her aid; for several large wooden canoes, filled
with savages, were putting out from the shore, above and below them, to
cut off their retreat, while a swarm of headlong young warriors waded into
the water to attack them. The current proved too strong; and, failing to
reach the canoes of the Frenchmen, one of them threw his war-club, which
flew over the heads of the startled travellers. Meanwhile, Marquette had
not ceased to hold up his calumet, to which the excited crowd gave no
heed, but strung their bows and notched their arrows for immediate action;
when at length the elders of the village arrived, saw the peace-pipe,
restrained the ardor of the youth, and urged the Frenchmen to come ashore.
Marquette and his companions complied, trembling, and found a better
reception than they had reason to expect. One of the Indians spoke a
little Illinois, and served as interpreter; a friendly conference was
followed by a feast of sagamite and fish; and the travellers, not without
sore misgivings, spent the night in the lodges of their entertainers.
[Footnote: This village, called Mitchigamea, is represented on several
contemporary maps.]

Early in the morning, they embarked again, and proceeded to a village of
the Arkansas tribe, about eight leagues below. Notice of their coming was
sent before them by their late hosts; and, as they drew near, they were
met by a canoe, in the prow of which stood a naked personage, holding a
calumet, singing, and making gestures of friendship. On reaching the
village, which was on the east side, [Footnote: A few years later, the
Arkansas were all on the west side.] opposite the mouth of the river
Arkansas, they were conducted to a sort of scaffold before the lodge of
the war-chief. The space beneath had been prepared for their reception,
the ground being neatly covered with rush mats. On these they were seated;
the warriors sat around them in a semi-circle; then the elders of the
tribe; and then the promiscuous crowd of villagers, standing, and staring
over the heads of the more dignified members of the assembly. All the men
were naked; but, to compensate for the lack of clothing, they wore strings
of beads in their noses and ears. The women were clothed in shabby skins,
and wore their hair clumped in a mass behind each ear. By good luck, there
was a young Indian in the village, who had an excellent knowledge of
Illinois; and through him Marquette endeavored to explain the mysteries of
Christianity, and to gain information concerning the river below. To this
end he gave his auditors the presents indispensable on such occasions, but
received very little in return. They told him that the Mississippi was
infested by hostile Indians, armed with guns procured from white men; and
that they, the Arkansas, stood in such fear of them that they dared not
hunt the buffalo, but were forced to live on Indian corn, of which they
raised three crops a year.

During the speeches on either side, food was brought in without ceasing;
sometimes a platter of sagamite or mush; sometimes of corn boiled whole;
sometimes a roasted dog. The villagers had large earthen pots and
platters, made by themselves with tolerable skill,--as well as hatchets,
knives, and beads, gained by traffic with the Illinois and other tribes in
contact with the French or Spaniards. All day there was feasting without
respite, after the merciless practice of Indian hospitality; but at night
some of their entertainers proposed to kill and plunder them,--a scheme
which was defeated by the vigilance of the chief, who visited their
quarters, and danced the calumet dance to reassure his guests.

The travellers now held counsel as to what course they should take. They
had gone far enough, as they thought, to establish one important point,--
that the Mississippi discharged its waters, not into the Atlantic or sea
of Virginia, nor into the Gulf of California or Vermilion Sea, but into
the Gulf of Mexico. They thought themselves nearer to its mouth than they
actually were,--the distance being still about seven hundred miles; and
they feared that, if they went farther, they might be killed by Indians or
captured by Spaniards, whereby the results of their discovery would be
lost. Therefore they resolved to return to Canada, and report what they
had seen.

They left the Arkansas village, and began their homeward voyage on the
seventeenth of July. It was no easy task to urge their way upward, in the
heat of midsummer, against the current of the dark and gloomy stream,
toiling all day under the parching sun, and sleeping at night in the
exhalations of the unwholesome shore, or in the narrow confines of their
birchen vessels, anchored on the river. Marquette was attacked with
dysentery. Languid and well-nigh spent, he invoked his celestial mistress.
as day after day, and week after week, they won their slow way northward.
At length they reached the Illinois, and, entering its mouth, followed its
course, charmed, as they went, with its placid waters, its shady forests,
and its rich plains, grazed by the bison and the deer. They stopped at a
spot soon to be made famous in the annals of western discovery. This was a
village of the Illinois, then called Kaskaskia,--a name afterwards
transferred to another locality. [Footnote: Marquette says that it
consisted at this time of seventy-four lodges. These, like the Huron and
Iroquois lodges, contained each several fires and several families. This
village was about seven miles below the site of the present town of
Ottawa.] A chief, with a band of young warriors, offered to guide them to
the Lake of the Illinois; that is to say, Lake Michigan. Thither they
repaired; and, coasting its shores, reached Green Bay at the end of
September, after an absence of about four months, during which they had
paddled their canoes somewhat more than two thousand five hundred miles.
[Footnote: The journal of Marquette, first published in an imperfect form
by Thevenot, in 1681, has been reprinted by Mr. Lenox, under the direction
of Mr. Shea, from the manuscript preserved in the archives of the Canadian
Jesuits. It will also be found in Shea's _Discovery and Exploration of the
Mississippi Valley_, and the _Relations Inedites_, of Martin. The true map
of Marquette accompanies all these publications. The map published by
Thevenot and reproduced by Bancroft is not Marquette's.

The original of this, of which I have a fac-simile, bears the title _Carte
de la Nouvelle Decouverte que les Peres Jesuites out fait en l'annee 1672,
et continuee par le Pere Jacques Marquette, etc_. The return route of the
expedition is incorrectly laid down on it. A manuscript map of the Jesuit
Raffeix, preserved in the Bibliotheque Imperiale, is more accurate in this
particular. I have also another contemporary manuscript map, indicating
the various Jesuit stations in the west at this time, and representing the
Mississippi, as discovered by Marquette. For these and other maps, see
Appendix.]

Marquette remained, to recruit his exhausted strength; but Joliet
descended to Quebec, to bear the report of his discovery to Count
Frontenac. Fortune had wonderfully favored him on his long and perilous
journey; but now she abandoned him on the very threshold of home. At the
foot of the rapids of La Chine, and immediately above Montreal, his canoe
was overset, two of his men and an Indian boy were drowned, all his papers
were lost, and he himself narrowly escaped. [Footnote: _Lettre de
Frontenac au Ministre, Quebec_, 14 _Nov._ 1674, MS.] In a letter to
Frontenac, he speaks of the accident as follows: "I had escaped every
peril from the Indians; I had passed forty-two rapids; and was on the
point of disembarking, full of joy at the success of so long and difficult
an enterprise,--when my canoe capsized, after all the danger seemed over.
I lost two men, and my box of papers, within sight of the first French
settlements, which I had left almost two years before. Nothing remains to
me but my life, and the ardent desire to employ it on any service which
you may please to direct." [Footnote: This letter is appended to Joliet's
smaller map of his discoveries. See Appendix. Joliet applied for a grant
of the countries he had visited, but failed to obtain it, because the king
wished at this time to confine the inhabitants of Canada to productive
industry within the limits of the colony, and to restrain their tendency
to roam into the western wilderness. On the seventh of October, 1675,
Joliet married Claire Bissot, daughter of a wealthy Canadian merchant,
engaged in trade with the northern Indians. This drew Joliet's attention
to Hudson's Bay, and he made a journey thither in 1679, by way of the
Saguenay. He found three English forts on the bay, occupied by about sixty
men, who had also an armed vessel of twelve guns and several small
trading-craft. The English held out great inducements to Joliet to join
them; but he declined, and returned to Quebec, where he reported that,
unless these formidable rivals were dispossessed, the trade of Canada
would be ruined. In consequence of this report, some of the principal
merchants of the colony formed a company to compete with the English in
the trade of Hudson's Bay. In the year of this journey, Joliet received a
grant of the islands of Mignan; and in the following year, 1680, he
received another grant, of the great island of Anticosti in the lower St.
Lawrence. In 1681, he was established here with his wife and six servants.
He was engaged in fisheries; and, being a skilful navigator and surveyor,
he made about this time a chart of the St. Lawrence. In 1690, Sir William
Phips, on his way with an English fleet to attack Quebec, made a descent
on Joliet's establishment, burnt his buildings, and took prisoners his
wife and his mother-in-law. In 1694, Joliet explored the coasts of
Labrador under the auspices of a company formed for the whale and seal
fishery. On his return, Frontenac made him royal pilot for the St.
Lawrence; and at about the same time he received the appointment of
hydrographer at Quebec. He died, apparently poor, in 1699 or 1700, and was
buried on one of the islands of Mignan. The discovery of the above facts
is due in great part to the researches of Margry.]

Marquette spent the winter and the following summer at the mission of
Green Bay, still suffering from his malady. In the autumn, however, it
abated, and he was permitted by his superior to attempt the execution of a
plan to which he was devotedly attached,--the founding, at the principal
town of the Illinois, of a mission to be called the Immaculate Conception,
a name which he had already given to the river Mississippi; He set out on
this errand on the twenty-fifth of October, accompanied by two men, named
Pierre and Jacques, one of whom had been with him on his great journey of
discovery. A band of Pottawattamies and another band of Illinois also
joined him. The united parties--ten canoes in all--followed the east shore
of Green Bay as far as the inlet then called Sturgeon Cove, from the head
of which they crossed by a difficult portage through the forest to the
shore of Lake Michigan. November had come. The bright hues of the autumn
foliage were changed to rusty brown. The shore was desolate, and the lake
was stormy. They were more than a month in coasting its western border,
when at length they reached the river Chicago, entered it, and ascended
about two leagues. Marquette's disease had lately returned, and hemorrhage
now ensued. He told his two companions that this journey would be his
last. In the condition in which he was, it was impossible to go farther.
The two men built a log-hut by the river, and here they prepared to spend
the winter, while Marquette, feeble as he was, began the spiritual
exercises of Saint Ignatius, and confessed his two companions twice a
week.

Meadow, marsh, and forest were sheeted with snow, but game was abundant.
Pierre and Jacques killed buffalo and deer and shot wild turkeys close to
their hut. There was an encampment of Illinois within two days' journey;
and other Indians, passing by this well known thoroughfare, occasionally
visited them, treating the exiles kindly, and sometimes bringing them game
and Indian corn. Eighteen leagues distant was the camp of two adventurous
French traders,--one of them a noted _coureur de bois_, nicknamed La
Taupine, [Footnote: Pierre Moreau, _alias_ La Taupine, was afterwards
bitterly complained of by the Intendant Duchesneau for acting as the
Governor's agent in illicit trade with the Indians.] and the other a self-
styled surgeon. They also visited Marquette, and befriended him to the
best of their power.

Urged by a burning desire to lay, before he died, the foundation of his
new mission of the Immaculate Conception, Marquette begged his two
followers to join him in a _novena_, or nine days' devotion to the Virgin.
In consequence of this, as he believed, his disease relented; he began to
regain strength, and, in March, was able to resume the journey. On the
thirtieth of the month, they left their hut, which had been inundated by a
sudden rise of the river, and carried their canoe through mud and water
over the portage which led to the head of the Des Plaines. Marquette knew
the way, for he had passed by this route on his return from the
Mississippi. Amid the rains of opening spring, they floated down the
swollen current of the Des Plaines, by naked woods, and spongy, saturated
prairies, till they reached its junction with the main stream of the
Illinois, which they descended to their destination,--the Indian town
which Marquette calls Kaskaskia. Here, as we are told, he was received
"like an angel from Heaven." He passed from wigwam to wigwam, telling the
listening crowds of God and the Virgin, Paradise and Hell, angels and
demons; and, when he thought their minds prepared, he summoned them all to
a grand council.

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