They entered the former, and found a single room, forty feet square, where, in the dim light, for there was no opening but the door, the chief sat awaiting them on a sort of bedstead, three of his wives at his side, while sixty old men, wrapped in white cloaks woven of mulberrybark, formed his divan. When he spoke, his wives howled to do him honor; and the a.s.sembled councillors listened with the reverence due to a potentate for whom, at his death, a hundred victims were to be sacrificed. He received the visitors graciously, and joyfully accepted the gifts which Tonty laid before him. [Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire_, MS. In the spurious narrative published in Tonty"s name, the account is embellished and exaggerated.
Compare Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 227. La Salle"s statements in the Relation of 1682 (Thoma.s.sy, 12) sustain those of Tonty.] This interview over, the Frenchmen repaired to the temple, wherein were kept the bones of the departed chiefs. In construction it was much like the royal dwelling.
Over it were rude wooden figures, representing three eagles turned towards the east. A strong mud wall surrounded it, planted with stakes, on which were stuck the skulls of enemies sacrificed to the Sun; while before the door was a block of wood, on which lay a large sh.e.l.l surrounded with the braided hair of the victims. The interior was rude as a barn, dimly lighted from the doorway, and full of smoke. There was a structure in the middle which Membre thinks was a kind of altar; and before it burned a perpetual fire, fed with three logs laid end to end, and watched by two old men devoted to this sacred office. There was a mysterious recess, too, which the strangers were forbidden to explore, but which, as Tonty was told, contained the riches of the nation, consisting of pearls from the Gulf, and trinkets obtained, probably through other tribes, from the Spaniards and other Europeans.
The chief condescended to visit La Salle at his camp; a favor which he would by no means have granted, had the visitors been Indians. A master of ceremonies, and six attendants, preceded him, to clear the path and prepare the place of meeting. When all was ready, he was seen advancing, clothed in a white robe, and preceded by two men bearing white fans; while a third displayed a disk of burnished copper, doubtless to represent the Sun, his ancestor; or, as others will have it, his elder brother. His aspect was marvellously grave, and he and La Salle met with gestures of ceremonious courtesy. The interview was very friendly; and the chief returned well pleased with the gifts which his entertainer bestowed on him, and which, indeed, had been the princ.i.p.al motive of his visit.
On the next morning, as they descended the river, they saw a wooden canoe full of Indians; and Tonty gave chase. He had nearly overtaken it, when more than a hundred men appeared suddenly on the sh.o.r.e, with bows bent to defend their countrymen. La Salle called out to Tonty to withdraw. He obeyed; and the whole party encamped on the opposite bank. Tonty offered to cross the river with a peace-pipe, and set out accordingly with a small party of men. When he landed, the Indians made signs of friendship by joining their hands,--a proceeding by which Tonty, having but one hand, was somewhat embarra.s.sed; but he directed his men to respond in his stead.
La Salle and Membre now joined him, and went with the Indians to their village, three leagues distant. Here they spent the night. "The Sieur de la Salle," writes Membre, "whose very air, engaging manners, tact, and address attract love and respect alike, produced such an effect on the hearts of these people, that they did not know how to treat us well enough." [Footnote: Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 232.]
The Indians of this village were the Natchez; and their chief was brother of the great chief, or Sun, of the whole nation. His town was several leagues distant, near the site of the city of Natchez; and thither the French repaired to visit him. They saw what they had already seen among the Taensas,--a religious and political despotism, a privileged caste descended from the Sun, a temple, and a sacred fire. [Footnote: The Natchez and the Taensas, whose habits and customs were similar, did not, in their social organization, differ radically from other Indians. The same principle of clanship, or _totemship_, so widely spread, existed in full force among them, combined with their religious ideas, and developed into forms of which no other example, equally distinct, is to be found.
(For Indian clanship, see "Jesuits in North America," _Introduction_.) Among the Natchez and Taensas, the princ.i.p.al clan formed a ruling caste; and its chiefs had the attributes of demi-G.o.ds. As descent was through the female, the chief"s son never succeeded him, but the son of one of his sisters; and as she, by the usual totemic law, was forced to marry in another clan,--that is, to marry a common mortal,--her husband, though the destined father of a demi-G.o.d, was treated by her as little better than a slave. She might kill him, if he proved unfaithful; but he was forced to submit to her infidelities in silence.
The customs of the Natchez have been described by Du Pratz, Le Pet.i.t, and others. Charlevoix visited their temple in 1721, and found it in a somewhat shabby condition. At this time, the Taensas were extinct. In 1729, the Natchez, enraged by the arbitrary conduct of a French commandant, ma.s.sacred the neighboring settlers, and were in consequence expelled from their country and nearly destroyed. A few still survive, incorporated with the Creeks; but they have lost their peculiar customs.]
La Salle planted a large cross, with the arms of France attached, in the midst of the town; while the inhabitants looked on with a satisfaction which they would hardly have displayed, had they understood the meaning of the act.
The French next visited the Coroas, at their village, two leagues below; and here they found a reception no less auspicious. On the thirty-first of March, as they approached Red River, they pa.s.sed in the fog a town of the Oumas; and, three days later, discovered a party of fishermen, in wooden canoes, among the canes along the margin of the water. They fled at sight of the Frenchmen. La Salle sent men to reconnoitre, who, as they struggled through the marsh, were greeted with a shower of arrows; while, from the neighboring village of the Quinip.i.s.sas, [Footnote: In St. Charles County, on the left bank, not far above New Orleans.] invisible behind the cane- brake, they heard the sound of an Indian drum, and the whoops of the mustering warriors. La Salle, anxious to keep the peace with all the tribes along the river, recalled his men, and pursued his voyage. A few leagues below, they saw a cl.u.s.ter of Indian lodges on the left bank, apparently void of inhabitants. They landed, and found three of them filled with corpses. It was a village of the Tangibao, sacked by their enemies only a few days before. [Footnote: Hennepin uses this incident, as well as most of those which have preceded it, in making up the story of his pretended voyage to the Gulf.]
And now they neared their journey"s end. On the sixth of April, the river divided itself into three broad channels. La Salle followed that of the west, and D"Autray that of the east; while Tonty took the middle pa.s.sage.
As he drifted down the turbid current, between the low and marshy sh.o.r.es, the brackish water changed to brine, and the breeze grew fresh with the salt breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of the great Gulf opened on his sight, tossing its restless billows, limitless, voiceless, lonely, as when born of chaos, without a sail, without a sign of life.
La Salle, in a canoe, coasted the marshy borders of the sea; and then the reunited parties a.s.sembled on a spot of dry ground, a short distance above the mouth of the river. Here a column was made ready, bearing the arms of France, and inscribed with the words,--
LOUIS LE GRAND, ROY DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE, ReGNE; LE NEUVIeME AVRIL, 1682.
The Frenchmen were mustered under arms; and, while the New-England Indians and their squaws stood gazing in wondering silence, they chanted the _Te Deum_, the _Exaudiat_, and the _Domine salvum fac Regem_. Then, amid volleys of musketry and shouts of _Vive le Roi_, La Salle planted the column in its place, and, standing near it, proclaimed in a loud voice,--
"In the name of the most high, mighty, invincible, and victorious Prince, Louis the Great, by the grace of G.o.d King of France and of Navarre, Fourteenth of that name, I, this ninth day of April, one thousand six hundred and eighty-two, in virtue of the commission of his Majesty, which I hold in my hand, and which may be seen by all whom it may concern, have taken, and do now take, in the name of his Majesty and of his successors to the crown, possession of this country of Louisiana, the seas, harbors, ports, bays, adjacent straits, and all the nations, peoples, provinces, cities, towns, villages, mines, minerals, fisheries, streams, and rivers, within the extent of the said Louisiana, from the mouth of the great river St. Louis, otherwise called the Ohio, ... as also along the River Colbert, or Mississippi, and the rivers which discharge themselves therein, from its source beyond the country of the Nadouessious ... as far as its mouth at the sea, or Gulf of Mexico, and also to the mouth of the River of Palms, upon the a.s.surance we have had from the natives of these countries, that we are the first Europeans who have descended or ascended the said River Colbert; hereby protesting against all who may hereafter undertake to invade any or all of these aforesaid countries, peoples, or lands, to the prejudice of the rights of his Majesty, acquired by the consent of the nations dwelling herein. Of which, and of all else that is needful, I hereby take to witness those who hear me, and demand an act of the notary here present." [Footnote: In the pa.s.sages omitted above, for the sake of brevity, the Ohio is mentioned as being called also the _Olighin_ (Alleghany), _Sipou_ and _Chukagoua_; and La Salle declares that he takes possession of the country with the consent of the nations dwelling in it, of whom he names the Chaouanons (Shawanoes), Kious, or Nadouessious (Sioux), Chikachas (Chickasaws), Motantees (?), Illinois, Mitchigamias, Arkansas, Natches, and Koroas. This alleged consent is, of course, mere farce. If there could be any doubt as to the meaning of the words of La Salle, as recorded in the _Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la Louisiana_, it would be set at rest by Le Clercq, who says, "Le Sieur de la Salle prit au nom de sa Majeste possession de ce fleuve, _de toutes les rivieres qui y entrent, et de tous les pays qu"elles arrosent._" These words are borrowed from the report of La Salle; see Thoma.s.sy, 14. A copy of the original of the _Proces Verbal_ is before me. It bears the name of Jacques de la Metairie, Notary of Fort Frontenac, who was one of the party.]
Shouts of _Vive le Roi_ and volleys of musketry responded to his words.
Then a cross was planted beside the column, and a leaden plate buried near it, bearing the arms of France, with a Latin inscription, _Ludovicus Magnus regnat_. The weather-beaten voyagers joined their voices in the grand hymn of the _Vexilla Regis_:--
"The banners of Heaven"s King advance, The mystery of the Cross shines forth;"
and renewed shouts of _Vive le Roi_ closed the ceremony.
On that day, the realm of France received on parchment a stupendous accession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of the Gulf; from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks of the Rocky Mountains,--a region of savannahs and forests, sun-cracked deserts, and gra.s.sy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers, ranged by a thousand warlike tribes, pa.s.sed beneath the sceptre of the Sultan of Versailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at half a mile.
CHAPTER XXII.
1682-1683.
ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
LOUISIANA.--ILLNESS OF LA SALLE.--HIS COLONY ON THE ILLINOIS.-- TOUT ST. LOUIS.--RECALL OF FRONTENAC.--LE FeVRE DE LA BARRE.
--CRITICAL POSITION OF LA SALLE.--HOSTILITY OF THE NEW GOVERNOR.
--TRIUMPH OF THE ADVERSE FACTION.--LA SALLE SAILS FOR FRANCE.
Louisiana was the name bestowed by La Salle on the new domain of the French crown. The rule of the Bourbons in the West is a memory of the past, but the name of the Great King still survives in a narrow corner of their lost empire. The Louisiana of to-day is but a single State of the American republic. The Louisiana of La Salle stretched from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains; from the Rio Grande and the Gulf to the farthest springs of the Missouri. [Footnote: The boundaries are laid down on the great map of Franquelin, made in 1684, and preserved in the Depot des Cartes of the Marine. The line runs along the south sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie, and thence follows the heads of the streams flowing into Lake Michigan. It then turns north-west, and is lost in the vast unknown of the now British Territories. On the south it is drawn by the heads of the streams flowing into the Gulf, as far west as Mobile, after which it follows the sh.o.r.e of the Gulf to a little south of the Rio Grande, then runs west, north-west, and finally north along the range of the Rocky Mountains.]
La Salle had written his name in history; but his hard-earned success was but the prelude of a harder task. Herculean labors lay before him, if he would realize the schemes with which his brain was pregnant. Bent on accomplishing them, he retraced his course, and urged his canoes upward against the muddy current. The party were famished. They had little to subsist on but the flesh of alligators. When they reached the Quinip.i.s.sas, who had proved hostile on their way down, they resolved to risk an interview with them, in the hope of obtaining food. The treacherous savages dissembled, brought them corn, and, on the following night, made an attack upon them, but met with a b.l.o.o.d.y repulse. They next revisited the Natchez, and found an unfavorable change in their disposition towards them. They feasted them, indeed, but, during the repast, surrounded them with an overwhelming force of warriors. The French, however, kept so well on their guard, that their entertainers dared not make an attack, and suffered them to depart unmolested. [Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.]
And now, in a career of unwonted success and antic.i.p.ated triumph, La Salle was sharply arrested by a foe against which the boldest heart avails nothing. As he ascended the Mississippi, he was seized by a dangerous illness. Unable to proceed, he sent forward Tonty to Michillimackinac, whence, after despatching news of their discovery to Canada, he was to return to the Illinois. La Salle himself lay helpless at Fort Prudhomme, the palisade work which his men had built at the Chickasaw Bluffs on their way down. Father Zen.o.be Membre attended him; and, at the end of July, he was once more in a condition to advance by slow movements towards the Miami, which he reached in about a month.
His descent of the Mississippi had been successful as an exploration, and this was all. Could he have executed his original plan, have built a vessel on the Illinois and descended in her to the Gulf of Mexico, he would have been able to defray in some measure the costs of the enterprise, by means of a cargo of buffalo hides collected from Indians on the way, with which he would have sailed to the West Indies, or perhaps to France. With a fleet of canoes, this was of course impossible; and there was nothing to offset the enormous outlay which he and his family had made. He proposed, as we have seen, to found, on the banks of the Illinois, a colony of French and Indians, of which he should be the feudal lord, and which should answer the double purpose of a bulwark against the Iroquois and a depot for the furs of all the Western tribes; and he hoped, in the following spring, to secure an outlet for this colony, and for all the trade of the Mississippi and its tributaries, by occupying its mouth with a fort and a dependent colony. [Footnote: "Monsieur de la Salle se dispose de retourner sur ses pas a la mer au printemps prochain avec un plus grand nombre de gens, et des familles, pour y faire des etabliss.e.m.e.ns." Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 248. This was written in 1682, immediately after the return from the mouth of the Mississippi.] Thus he would control the valley of the great river of the West.
He rejoined Tonty at Michillimaekinac in September. It was his purpose to go at once to France to provide means for establishing his projected post at the mouth of the Mississippi; and he ordered Tonty, meanwhile, to collect as many men as possible, return to the Illinois, build a fort, and lay the foundations of the colony, the plan of which had been determined the year before. La Salle was about to depart for Quebec, when news reached him that changed his plans, and caused him to postpone his voyage to France. He heard that those pests of the wilderness, the Iroquois, were about to renew their attacks on the western tribes, and especially on their former allies, the Miamis. [Footnote: _Lettre de La Barre au Ministre_, 14 Nov. 1682, MS.] This would ruin his projected colony. His presence was indispensable. He followed Tonty to the Illinois, and rejoined him near the site of the great town.
The cliff called "Starved Rock," now pointed out to travellers as the chief natural curiosity of the region, rises, steep on three sides as a castle wall, to the height of a hundred and twenty-five feet above the river. In front, it overhangs the water that washes its base; its western brow looks down oil the tops of the forest trees below; and on the east lies a wide gorge or ravine, choked with the mingled foliage of oaks, walnuts, and elms; while in its rocky depths a little brook creeps down to mingle with the river. From the rugged trunk of the stunted cedar that leans forward from the brink, you may drop a plummet into the river below, where the cat-fish and the turtles may plainly be seen gliding over the wrinkled sands of the clear and shallow current. The cliff is accessible only from behind, where a man may climb up, not without difficulty, by a steep and narrow pa.s.sage. The top is about an acre in extent. Here, in the month of December, La Salle and Tonty began to entrench themselves. They cut away the forest that crowned the rock, built storehouses and dwellings of its remains, dragged timber up the rugged pathway, and encircled the summit with a palisade. [Footnote: "Starved Rock" perfectly answers In every respect to the indications of the contemporary maps and doc.u.ments concerning "Le Rocher," the site of La Salle"s fort of St. Louis. It is laid down on several contemporary maps, besides the great map of La Salle"s discoveries, made in 1684. They all place it on the south side of the river; whereas Buffalo Rock, three miles above, which has been supposed to be the site of the fort, is on the north. The rock fortified by La Salle stood, we are told, at the edge of the water; while Buffalo Rock is at some distance from the bank. The latter is crowned by a plateau of great extent, is but sixty feet high, is accessible at many points, and would require a large force to defend it; whereas La Salle chose "Le Rocher," because a few men could hold it against a mult.i.tude. Charlevoix, in 1721, describes both rocks, and says that the top of Buffalo Rock had been occupied by the Miami village, so that it was known as _Le Fort des Miamis_. This explains the Indian remains found here. He then speaks of "Le Rocher," calling it by that name; says that it is about a league below on the left or south side, forming a sheer cliff, very high, and looking like a fortress on the border of the river. He saw remains of palisades at the top which he thinks were made by the Illinois (_Journal Historique, Let._ xxvii), though his countrymen had occupied it only three years before. "The French reside on the Rock (Le Rocher), which is very lofty and impregnable."--_Memoir on Western Indians_, 1718, in _N.Y. Col.
Docs._, ix. 890. St. Cosme, pa.s.sing this way in 1699, mentions it as "Le Vieux Fort," and says that it is "a rock about a hundred feet high at the edge of the river, where M. de la Salle built a fort, since abandoned."-- _Journal de St. Cosme_, MS. Joutel, who was here in 1687, says, "Fort St.
Louis is on a steep rock, about two hundred feet high, with the river running at its base." He adds, that its only defences were palisades. The true height, as stated above, is about a hundred and twenty-five feet.
A traditional interest also attaches to this rock. It is said, that in the Indian wars that followed the a.s.sa.s.sination of Pontiac, a few years after the cession of Canada, a party of Illinois, a.s.sailed by the Pottawattamies, here took refuge, defying attack. At length they were all destroyed by starvation, and hence the name of "Starved Rock."
For other proofs concerning this locality, see _ante_, p. 221.]
Thus the winter was pa.s.sed, and meanwhile the work of negotiation went prosperously on. The minds of the Indians had been already prepared. In La Salle they saw their champion against the Iroquois, the standing terror of all this region. They gathered around his stronghold like the timorous peasantry of the middle ages around the rock-built castle of their feudal lord. From the wooden ramparts of St. Louis,--for so he named his fort,-- high and inaccessible as an eagle"s nest, a strange scene lay before his eye. The broad flat valley of the Illinois was spread beneath him like a map, bounded in the distance by its low wall of woody hills. The river wound at his feet in devious channels among islands bordered with lofty trees; then, far on the left, flowed calmly westward through the vast meadows, till its glimmering blue ribbon was lost in hazy distance.
There had been a time, and that not remote, when these fair meadows were a waste of death and desolation, scathed with fire, and strewn with the ghastly relics of an Iroquois victory. Now, all was changed. La Salle looked down from his rock on a concourse of wild human life. Lodges of bark and rushes, or cabins of logs, were cl.u.s.tered on the open plain, or along the edges of the bordering forests. Squaws labored, warriors lounged in the sun, naked children whooped and gambolled on the gra.s.s. Beyond the river, a mile and a half on the left, the banks were studded once more with the lodges of the Illinois, who, to the number of six thousand, had returned, since their defeat, to this their favorite dwelling-place.
Scattered along the valley, among the adjacent hills, or over the neighboring prairie, were the cantonments of a half-score of other tribes, and fragments of tribes, gathered under the protecting aegis of the French,--Shawanoes from the Ohio, Abenakis from Maine, Miamis from the sources of the Kankakee, with others whose barbarous names are hardly worth the record. [Footnote: This singular extemporized colony of La Salle, on the banks of the Illinois, is laid down in detail on the great map of La Salle"s discoveries, by Jean Baptiste Franquelin, finished in 1684. There can be no doubt that this part of the work is composed from authentic data. La Salle himself, besides others of his party, came down from the Illinois in the autumn of 1683, and undoubtedly supplied the young engineer with materials. The various Indian villages, or cantonments, are all indicated, with the number of warriors belonging to each, the aggregate corresponding very nearly with that of La Salle"s report to the minister. The Illinois, properly so called, are set down at 1,200 warriors; the Miamis, at 1,800; the Shawanoes, at 200; the Ouiatenons (Weas), at 500; the Peanqhichia (Piankishaw) band, at 150; the Pepikokia, at 160; the Kilatica, at 800; and the Ouabona, at 70; in all, 3,880 warriors. A few others, probably Abenakis, lived in the fort.
The Fort St. Louis is placed on the map at the exact site of Starved Rook, and the Illinois village at the place where, as already mentioned, (see p.
221), Indian remains in great quant.i.ties are yearly ploughed up. The Shawanoe camp, or village, is placed on the south side of the river, behind the fort. The country is here hilly, broken, and now, as in La Salle"s time, covered with wood, which, however, soon ends in the open prairie. A short time since, the remains of a low, irregular earthwork of considerable extent were discovered at the intersection of two ravines, about twenty-four hundred feet behind, or south of, Starved Rock. The earthwork follows the line of the ravines on two sides. On the east, there is an opening, or gateway, leading to the adjacent prairie. The work is very irregular in form, and shows no trace of the civilized engineer. In the stump of an oak-tree upon it, Dr. Paul counted a hundred and sixty rings of annual growth. The village of the Shawanoes (Chaouenons), on Franquelin"s map, corresponds with the position of this earthwork. I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. John Paul, and Colonel D. F. Hitt, the proprietor of Starved Rock, for a plan of these curious remains, and a survey of the neighboring district. I must also express my obligations to Mr. W. E. Bowman, photographer at Ottawa, for views of Starved Rock, and other features of the neighboring scenery.
An interesting relic of the early explorers of this region was found a few years ago at Ottawa, six miles above Starved Rock, in the shape of a small iron gun, buried several feet deep in the drift of the river. It consists of a welded tube of iron, about an inch and a half in calibre, strengthened by a series of thick iron rings, cooled on, after the most ancient as well as the most recent method of making cannon. It is about fourteen inches long, the part near the muzzle having been burst off. The construction is very rude. Small field-pieces, on a similar principle, were used in the fourteenth century. Several of them may be seen at the Musee d"Artillerie at Paris. In the time of Louis XIV. the art of casting cannon was carried to a high degree of perfection. The gun in question may have been made by a French blacksmith on the spot. A far less probable supposition is, that it is a relic of some unrecorded visit of the Spaniards; but the pattern of the piece would have been antiquated even in the time of De Soto.] Nor were these La Salle"s only dependants. By the terms of his patent, he held seigniorial rights over this wild domain; and he now began to grant it out in parcels to his followers. These, however, were as yet but a score; a lawless band, trained in forest license, and marrying, as their detractors affirm, a new squaw every day in the week.
This was after their lord"s departure, for his presence imposed a check on these eccentricities.
La Salle, in a memoir addressed to the Minister of the Marine, reports the total number of the Indians around Fort St. Louis at about four thousand warriors, or twenty thousand souls. His diplomacy had been crowned with a marvellous success, for which his thanks were due, first, to the Iroquois, and the universal terror they inspired; next, to his own address and unwearied energy. His colony had sprung up, as it were, in a night; but might not a night suffice to disperse it?
The conditions of maintaining it were twofold. First, he must give efficient aid to his savage colonists against the Iroquois; secondly, he must supply them with French goods in exchange for their furs. The men, arms, and ammunition for their defence, and the goods for trading with them, must be brought from Canada, until a better and surer avenue of supply could be provided through the entrepot which he meant to establish at the mouth of the Mississippi. Canada was full of his enemies; but, as long as Count Frontenac was in power, he was sure of support. Count Frontenac was in power no longer. He had been recalled to France through the intrigues of the party adverse to La Salle; and Le Fevre de la Barre reigned in his stead. [Footnote: La Barre had formerly held civil offices.
He had been Maitre de Requetes, and afterwards Intendant of the Bourbonnais. He had gained no little reputation in the West Indies, as governor and lieutenant-general of Cayenne, which he recovered from the English, who had seized it, and whom he soon after defeated in a naval fight. Sixteen years had elapsed since these exploits, and meanwhile he had grown old.]
La Barre was an old naval officer of rank, advanced to a post for which he proved himself notably unfit. If he was without the arbitrary pa.s.sions which had been the chief occasion of the recall of his predecessor, he was no less without his energies and his talents. Frontenac"s absence was not to be permanent: dark days were in store for Canada. In her hour of need, she was to hail with delight the return of the haughty n.o.bleman; and all his faults were to be forgotten in the splendor of his services to the colony and the crown. La Barre showed a weakness and an avarice for which his advanced age may have been in some measure answerable. He was no whit less unscrupulous than his predecessor in his secret violation of the royal ordinances regulating the fur-trade, which it was his duty to enforce. Like Frontenac, he took advantage of his position to carry on an illicit traffic with the Indians; but it was with different a.s.sociates.
The late governor"s friends were the new governor"s enemies; and La Salle, armed with his monopolies, was the object of his especial jealousy.
[Footnote: The royal instructions to La Barre, on his a.s.suming the government, dated at Versailles, 10 May, 1682, require him to give no farther permission to make journeys of discovery towards the Sioux and the Mississippi, as his Majesty thinks his subjects better employed in cultivating the land. The letter adds, however, that La Salle is to be allowed to continue his discoveries, if they appear to be useful. The same instructions are repeated in a letter of the Minister of the Marine to the new Intendant of Canada, De Meules.]
Meanwhile, La Salle, buried in the western wilderness, remained for the time ignorant of La Barre"s disposition towards him, and made an effort to secure his good-will and countenance. He wrote to him from his Rock of St.
Louis, early in the spring of 1683, expressing the hope that he should have from him the same support as from Count Frontenac; "although," he says, "my enemies will try to influence you against me." His attachment to Frontenac, he pursues, has been the cause of all the late governor"s enemies turning against him. He then recounts his voyage down the Mississippi; says that, with twenty-two Frenchmen, he caused all the tribes along the river to ask for peace; speaks of his right, under the royal patent, to build forts anywhere along his route, and grant out lands around them, as at Fort Frontenac.
"My losses in my enterprises," he continues, "have exceeded forty thousand crowns. I am now going four hundred leagues south-south-west of this place, to induce the Chickasaws to follow the Shawanoes, and other tribes, and settle, like them, at St. Louis. It remained only to settle French colonists here, and this I have already done. I hope you will not detain them as _coureurs de bois_, when they come down to Montreal to make necessary purchases. I am aware that I have no right to trade with the tribes who descend to Montreal, and I shall not permit such trade to my men; nor have I ever issued licenses to that effect, as my enemies say that I have done." [Footnote: _Lettre de la Salle a La Barre, Fort St.
Louis, 2 Avril_, 1683, MS. The above is somewhat condensed from pa.s.sages in the original.]
Again, on the fourth of June following, he writes to La Barre, from the Chicago portage, complaining that some of his colonists, going to Montreal for necessary supplies, have been detained by his enemies, and begging that they may be allowed to return, that his enterprise may not be ruined.
"The Iroquois," he pursues, "are again invading the country. Last year, the Miamis were so alarmed by them that they abandoned their town and fled; but, at my return, they came back, and have been induced to settle with the Illinois at my fort of St. Louis. The Iroquois have lately murdered some families of their nation, and they are all in terror again.
I am afraid they will take night, and so prevent the Missouries and neighboring tribes from coming to settle at St. Louis, as they are about to do.
"Some of the Hurons and French tell the Miamis that I am keeping them here for the Iroquois to destroy. I pray that you will let me hear from you, that I may give these people some a.s.surances of protection before they are destroyed in my sight. Do not suffer my men who have come down to the settlements to be longer prevented from returning. There is great need here of reinforcements. The Iroquois, as I have said, have lately entered the country; and a great terror prevails. I have postponed going to Michillimackinac, because, if the Iroquois strike any blow in my absence, the Miamis will think that I am in league with them; whereas, if I and the French stay among them, they will regard us as protectors. But, Monsieur, it is in vain, that we risk our lives here, and that I exhaust my means in order to fulfil the intentions of his Majesty, if all my measures are crossed in the settlements below, and if those who go down to bring munitions, without which we cannot defend ourselves, are detained under pretexts trumped up for the occasion. If I am prevented from bringing up men and supplies, as I am allowed to do by the permit of Count Frontenac, then my patent from the king is useless. It would be very hard for us, after having done what was required even before the time prescribed, and after suffering severe losses, to have our efforts frustrated by obstacles got up designedly.