A Historical Geography of the British Colonies Part 15

[Sidenote: _The gates of the waterways of Canada._]

It will be noticed, on reference to a map of Canada--or rather of that part of the Dominion which was comprised in New France--not only that there is water communication from end to end, from the extreme west of Lake Superior to the Atlantic, but also that there are very distinct points along the way, which are, so to speak, natural toll-bars, {149} where the waters narrow, where the rivers or lakes meet. Here the explorer must pa.s.s to reach a goal beyond; here the trader could intercept traffic; here the missionary was sure to find Indians to be converted, and _coureurs de bois_ to be reclaimed; these were the places which must be occupied by the would-be sovereigns of North America. Consequently, at these points of vantage along the route, at one time and another, mission stations, trading posts, and forts were planted.

Montreal itself, at the head of the colony, at the beginning of its hinterland, commanded the junction of the Ottawa and the St.

Lawrence. At Cataraqui, where the St. Lawrence leaves Lake Ontario, Fort Frontenac was built. A little above the outlet of the Niagara river into Lake Ontario and below the falls, another French fort was reared, Fort Niagara; while on the channel between Lakes Erie and Huron was the fort of Detroit. The Iroquois, as we have seen, knew as well as the French the value of these positions: they feared and resented the building of the forts, as limiting the range of their power, and taking from them the control of the fur trade. On the upper lakes there were at least two posts of prime importance: one was the Sault St. Marie at the junction of Lake Huron and Lake Superior, the other was Michillimackinac at the junction of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. It must not be supposed that the points mentioned were occupied in chronological order, as they have been enumerated above; or that there was any regular series of occupants, that the explorer came first, followed by the missionary, the trader, and so forth: but the net result was that French enterprise and French statesmans.h.i.+p took and kept the gateways on the highroad of Upper Canada.

[Sidenote: _Lake Michigan._]

[Sidenote: _Michillimackinac._]

[Sidenote: _Green Bay._]

[Sidenote: _The route to the Mississippi from Green Bay,_]

Lake Michigan was known to the French as the 'Lac des Illinois.' The narrows where it joins Lake Huron were the straits of Michillimackinac, now Mackinac or Mackinaw; and on their northern side stood the trading station of the {150} same name, and the mission of St. Ignace. Within the straits on the western side, is a large indentation, forming a sheet of water which runs south-west, nearly parallel to the main lake. This was at first called, after certain Indians who lived on its sh.o.r.es, the Baie des Puans; but it was subsequently named the Grande Baie, and this t.i.tle was corrupted into Green Bay, its present name. The Fox river flows into the head of Green Bay, and, if the upward course of this river is followed through Lake Winnebago and beyond, a point is reached at which the waters of the Wisconsin river are not more than a mile and a half distant. The Wisconsin is a tributary of the Mississippi.

[Sidenote: _and from the end of Lake Michigan._]

A slightly longer portage was needed to reach the Mississippi basin from the end of Lake Michigan. Still it was a matter of very few miles to leave the lake, where the city of Chicago now stands, and to strike one or other of the branches of the Illinois river, the nearest being the stream known as Des Plaines. Canoes launched on that stream were carried down into the Illinois, and so to the Mississippi at a point far south of its confluence with the Wisconsin.

[Sidenote: _The Ohio route._]

For adventurers bold enough to diverge from the line of lakes, and to pa.s.s overland within reach of the dreaded Five Nations, there was yet a third route, more direct than the other two, to the great river. It was a route well known in after years, and followed the course of the Ohio. The Ohio, the 'beautiful river,' for such is the meaning of its name,[1] is formed by the junction of two rivers, the Alleghany and the Monongahela. At their junction, in the middle of the eighteenth century, the French founded Fort Duquesne, and where Fort Duquesne stood is now the city of Pittsburg. The northern branch, the Alleghany, takes its rise near the southern sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie. One of its affluents flows out of Lake Chautauqua, about eight miles south of Lake Erie, at the point where there is now the small town of Portland; {151} another, the Riviere aux Boeufs, now called French Creek, is very little further from the lake, over against Presque ile and the present town of Erie. A day's march through the forest would therefore bring a traveller from Lake Erie to a stream which, when in full volume, would carry his canoe into the Alleghany, the Ohio, and so to the Mississippi far down its course. No wonder the line of the Ohio became, when geographical knowledge had made some way, a central feature in French politics and French strategy in North America.

[Footnote 1: The name was given it by the Iroquois.]

[Sidenote: _The head waters of the Mississippi closely adjoin the St.

Lawrence basin._]

From the above it will be seen how closely the head waters of the Mississippi adjoin the St. Lawrence basin, how short the land journey was from the one to the other. The natives of North America made exploration difficult, but from a geographical point of view, the discoverer's path was comparatively easy.

[Sidenote: _Early exploration on the upper lakes._]

The upper lakes, Lakes Huron and Superior, were visited and explored before there was any adequate knowledge of Lakes Ontario and Erie, and there is no record of white men pa.s.sing from Lake Erie to Lake Huron by the strait of Detroit before the year 1670. The Five Nations barred the upper St. Lawrence, and the Niagara river and portage; but they did not control to the same extent the alternative route from Montreal to Lake Huron by the Ottawa river. Thus it was that the Jesuits found their way to the Hurons, on Georgian Bay, long before any mission enterprise was attempted on the lower lakes, and as early as 1640 there were Jesuit missionaries at the outlet of Lake Superior, the Sault St. Marie. Later, after the dispersion of the Hurons, there was for a while a mission at the western end of Lake Superior, the place being known as La Pointe, and the mission as the mission of St. Esprit.

[Sidenote: _Jean Nicollet._]

The first white man to reach Lake Michigan was Jean Nicollet. He was a native of Cherbourg, and had come to Canada as early as 1618.

Sojourning among the Nip.i.s.sing {152} Indians, he heard from them of the western tribes; and, listening to Indian tales, seems to have conjectured that a people might be reached in the far West who could be none other than Chinese. With these pictures in his mind, he went, about 1635, as an amba.s.sador of peace to the Puans or Winnebagos, who dwelt on the Green Bay of Michigan, and arrived among them, so the story goes, in an embroidered dress of Chinese damask, as being appropriate to the people whom he hoped to find. He did not find Chinamen, but came near finding the Mississippi; and a claim was made in after years on his behalf that he actually was the first discoverer of that river. The claim however must be disallowed, and the honour of discovering the great river belongs to the two Frenchmen, Joliet and Marquette, who did not reach it till 1673.

[Sidenote: _Promoters of discovery._]

After the destruction of the Huron missions, it was difficult enough for some years to keep life in the struggling colony of New France; and it was not until the King had taken Canada in hand, had sent out soldiers and settlers, had commissioned Tracy and Courcelles to curb the Iroquois, and the Intendant, Talon, to introduce order and system, that progress was made in exploring and opening up the West.

The promoters of exploration were Talon himself, before he returned to France; and subsequently the Governor, Frontenac; the Sulpician and Jesuit missionaries, especially the latter; and laymen adventurers, the foremost of whom was Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. La Salle's name is for all time connected with the Mississippi, but Joliet and Marquette were before him in reaching the main river.

[Sidenote: _Joliet and Marquette._]

Of these two companions in travel, Louis Joliet was a layman, though connected with the Jesuits by early training. Born in Canada, he had been sent by Talon to look for copper by Lake Superior, and was subsequently picked out to discover the mysterious river. Jacques Marquette was a Jesuit priest, of the earlier and purer type--a saintly man, {153} humble and single in mind, who early wore his life away in labouring for his faith. He had come out from France in 1666, and about the year 1668 was sent as a missionary to the upper lakes.

On the sh.o.r.es of Lake Superior he ministered to Huron and Ottawa refugees at the mission of St. Esprit, where he heard from Illinois visitors of the great river, and from which point, though he knew it not, one feeder of the Mississippi, the St. Croix river, is at no great distance. A Sioux raid broke up the mission, and with the retreating Hurons he established himself at Michillimackinac, where, about 1670, he founded the mission of St. Ignace. About the same time, a mission was also established at the head of Green Bay, and from this point the two travellers, at the end of May, 1673, went forward to the Mississippi.

[Sidenote: _They reach the Mississippi._]

The course up the Fox river and across Lake Winnebago had already been taken by other missionaries, who had not, however, gone as far as the Wisconsin. That river was now reached, and on June 17 it carried the explorers' canoes out into the Mississippi. Down stream they went, past the mouths of the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Ohio, until they came to the confluence of the Arkansas river. There they turned, a.s.sured in their own minds that the outlet of the Mississippi was in the Gulf of Mexico--not, as had been supposed, in the Gulf of California--and fearing lest, if they lost their lives at the hands of Indians or of Spaniards,[2] the tale of their discovery might be lost also. They came back by way of the Illinois and Des Plaines rivers, made the portage to Lake Michigan, and reached Green Bay at the end of September, having made known to white men the great river of the West.

[Footnote 2: The lower Mississippi had long been known to the Spaniards.]

[Sidenote: _Their return._]

[Sidenote: _Marquette's second journey and death._]

Joliet went back to Quebec to report to the Governor, losing all his papers by the way in the rapids of Lachine. He lived to visit Hudson Bay and the coasts of Labrador. Marquette, in broken health, stayed rather more than a year {154} at the Green Bay mission. Then, in the winter of 1674-5, accompanied by two French _voyageurs_, he revisited the Illinois river, carrying for the last time his message of Christianity to savages, who heard him gladly, and followed him back, a dying man, as far as Lake Michigan. In the month of May he embarked on the lake, making for Michillimackinac; but, as he went, the end came, and he was put on sh.o.r.e to die. His companions buried him at the lonely spot where he died, but at a later date his bones were brought to Michillimackinac by Indians who had loved him well, and were laid to rest with all reverence in the chapel of his own mission.

[Sidenote: _La Salle._]

[Sidenote: _His Seigniory at Lachine._]

Marquette, like David Livingstone at a later date, was a missionary explorer. He was carried forward by a faith which could remove mountains. La Salle was cast in another mould. His gift was not religious enthusiasm, but the set purpose of a resolute, masterful man, who made a life-study of his subject. He was born at Rouen, the birthplace of much western enterprise, and went to Canada in the same year as Marquette, the year 1666. An elder brother, who was a Sulpician priest, had gone out before him; and from the Sulpicians, as feudal lords of the island of Montreal, La Salle obtained a grant of the Seigniory of Lachine, eight miles higher up the river than Montreal itself. Here he laid out a settlement, but, as the name 'La Chine' testifies,[3] his mind was set on finding a route to China and the East, and in 1669 he gave up his grant, receiving compensation for improvements, and spent what little money he had in beginning his work of discovery.

[Footnote 3: See above, p. 53.]

[Sidenote: _He reaches the Ohio._]

His early wanderings have not been clearly traced, but there is no reason to doubt that, in the years 1669-71, he found his way from Lakes Ontario and Erie through the Iroquois country to the Ohio. It was perhaps a more difficult feat to accomplish than the subsequent discovery of {155} the Mississippi by way of the lakes. The land journey was longer, and took the explorer well within range of the Five Nations. His success proved his capacity for treating with natives--a quality in which he resembled his staunch friend and supporter Count Frontenac.

[Sidenote: _His character._]

Among white men he had, like Frontenac, many enemies, suspicious priests and jealous merchants. The Jesuits had little love for a man who had no love for them; and the Canadian merchants regarded him as a dangerous rival, recognizing no doubt the element of tenacity in his character. It was the character of one who could hold as well as find, and who was not likely to rest content with the barren honours of discovery. There were in him contradictory elements, and his strength was balanced by failings, which became more conspicuous in the later stages of his adventurous career. He was not in all points a typical Frenchman. He had, it is true, address in dealing with North American Indians; he could lay his case well before the Court and the ministers of France. He enjoyed the friends.h.i.+p and countenance of Count Frontenac, and from more than one of his companions in travel, notably Henri de Tonty, he won unbounded devotion. But he was wanting, as a leader, in tact and sympathy.

Solitary and self-contained, facing all dangers, enduring all privations, he spared neither himself nor others. Mutiny and desertion were in consequence rife amongst those who served him, and in the end he lost his life at the hands of his own followers. He had statesmanlike conceptions. He mapped out New France, in his own mind, as extending from sea to sea, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to that of Mexico. Like other Frenchmen, he went too far and tried to do too much; but, if he made mistakes, he was at least no visionary. Until the last stage of his career, his ends were clearly kept in view, and he measured the means to attain them, though he did not always measure aright.

[Sidenote: _La Salle at Fort Frontenac._]

He gave up one Seigniory to find the Ohio. It was not {156} long before he obtained another. Count Frontenac came out to govern Canada, for the first time, in 1672; and determined, as has been told,[4] to build a fort at the outlet of Lake Ontario. Guided, it would seem, by La Salle's advice, he built it in 1673, at the mouth of the Cataraqui river. In 1675, La Salle, who had paid a visit to France in the autumn of the previous year, became by royal grant Seignior of the new fort and settlement, to which he gave the name of Fort Frontenac. It was a strong position to hold, whether for making money by trade or for prosecuting westward discovery; and bitter was the jealousy against the young Frenchman, who, at thirty-two years of age, and after no more than nine years' residence in Canada, had in spite of strong opposition achieved so much.

[Footnote 4: See above, p. 108.]

[Sidenote: _His plans for Western discovery._]

Two years he remained at Cataraqui, rebuilding and strengthening the fort, clearing the ground and constructing small vessels for trading purposes on Lake Ontario: then, ready to move forward again, he went back to France in 1677, and laid before the King and Colbert a further memorial for permission to discover and colonize the countries of the West. He asked to be confirmed in his Seigniory at Fort Frontenac, to be allowed to establish two other stations, and to be given rights as Seignior and Governor over whatever lands he might discover and colonize within twenty years. He promised, if his request were granted, to plant a colony at the outlet of Lake Erie, and to waive all claim to any share in the trade between the Indians of the western lakes and Canada.

[Sidenote: _He is given a royal patent._]

These conditions are worth special note. La Salle was prepared to a.s.sure to France one more link in the chain of rivers and lakes: he was prepared too to disarm trading jealousy by renouncing any plans for intercepting the existing fur trade. He asked in return for a free hand to the south-west, in the lands of the Ohio, the Illinois, and the Mississippi. The answer of the King, given in May, 1678, was permission 'to labour at the discovery of the western parts of New France {157} ... through which to all appearance a way may be found to Mexico,'[5] and for that purpose to build forts and enjoy possession of them as at Fort Frontenac. The concession was limited to five years; and, while a monopoly in buffalo skins was granted to the pet.i.tioner, he was prohibited, as he had contemplated, from trading with the tribes whose furs came down to Montreal.

[Footnote 5: Quoted by Parkman in his _La Salle_ (11th ed.), p. 112.]

[Sidenote: _Henri de Tonty._]

[Sidenote: _Father Hennepin._]