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CHAPTER IX. 1677-1678. THE GRAND ENTERPRISE
LA SALLE AT FORT FRONTENAC.—LA SALLE AT COURT.—HIS PLANS APPROVED. —HENRI DE TONTY.—PREPARATION FOR DEPARTURE.
When La Salle gained possession of Fort Frontenac, he secured a base for all his future enterprises. That he meant to make it a permanent one is clear from the pains he took to strengthen its defences. Within two years from the date of his grant he had replaced the hasty palisade fort of Count Frontenac by a regular work of hewn stone; of which, however, only two bastions, with their connecting curtains, were completed, the enclosure on the water side being formed of pickets. Within, there was a barrack, a well, a mill, and a bakery; while a wooden blockhouse guarded the gateway. [Footnote: Plan of Fort Frontenac, published by Faillon, from the original sent to France by Denonville, 1685.] Near the shore, south of the fort, was a cluster of small houses of French habitans; and farther, in the same direction, was the Indian village. Two officers and a surgeon, with half a score or more of soldiers, made up the garrison; and three or four times that number of masons, laborers, and canoe-men, were at one time maintained at the fort. [Footnote: État de la dépense faite par Mr. de la Salle, Gouverneur du Fort Frontenac, MS. When Frontenac was at the fort in September, 1677, he found only four habitans. It appears by the Relation des Découvertes du Sr. de la Salle, that, three or four years later, there were thirteen or fourteen families. La Salle spent 34,426 francs on the fort.—Mémoire au Roy, Papiers de Famille, MSS.] Besides these, there were two Récollet friars, Luc Buisset and Louis Hennepin; of whom the latter was but indifferently suited to his apostolic functions, as we shall soon discover. La Salle built a house for them, near the fort; and they turned a part of it into a chapel.
Partly for trading on the lake, partly with a view to ulterior designs, he caused four small decked vessels to be built: but, for ordinary uses, canoes best served his purpose; and his followers became so skilful in managing them, that they were reputed the best canoe-men in America. [Footnote: Relation des Découvertes, MS. Hennepin repeats the statement.] Feudal lord of the forests around him, commander of a garrison raised and paid by himself, founder of the mission, patron of the church, La Salle reigned the autocrat of his lonely little empire.
But he had no thought of resting here. He had gained what he sought, a fulcrum for bolder and broader action. His plans were ripened and his time was come. He was no longer a needy adventurer, disinherited of all but his fertile brain and his intrepid heart. He had won place, influence, credit, and potent friends. Now, at length, he might hope to find the long-sought path to China and Japan, and secure for France those boundless regions of the West, in whose watery highways he saw his road to wealth, renown, and power. Again he sailed for France, bearing, as before, letters from Frontenac, commending him to the king and the minister. We have seen that he was denounced in advance as a madman; but Colbert at length gave him a favoring ear, and granted his petition. Perhaps he read the man before him, living only in the conception and achievement of great designs, and armed with a courage that not the Fates nor the Furies themselves could appall.
La Salle was empowered to pursue his proposed discoveries at his own expense, on condition of completing them within five years; to build forts in the new-found countries, and hold possession of them on terms similar to those already granted him in the case of Fort Frontenac; and to monopolize the trade in buffalo skins, a new branch of commerce, by which, as he urged, the plains of the Mississippi would become a source of copious wealth. But he was expressly forbidden to carry on trade with the Ottawas and other tribes of the Lakes, who were accustomed to bring their furs to Montreal. [Footnote: Permission an Sr. de la Salle de découvrir la partie occidentals de la Nouvelle France, 12 May, 1678, MS. Signed Colbert; not, as Charlevoix says, Seignelay.]
Again La Salle's wealthy relatives came to his aid, and large advances of money were made to him. [Footnote: In the memorial which La Salle's relations presented to the king after his death, they say that, on this occasion, "ses frères et ses parents n'épargnèrent rien." It is added that between 1678 and 1683 his enterprises cost the family more than 500,000 francs. By a memorandum of his cousin, François Plet, M.D., of Paris, it appears that La Salle gave him, on the 27th and 28th of June, 1678, two promissory notes of 9,805 francs and 1,676 francs respectively.] He bought supplies and engaged men; and in July, 1678, sailed again for Canada, with thirty followers,—sailors, carpenters, and laborers,—an abundant store of anchors, cables, and rigging; iron tools,—merchandise for trade, and all things necessary for his enterprise. There was one man of his party worth all the rest combined. The Prince de Conti had a protégé in the person of Henri de Tonty, an Italian officer, one of whose hands had been blown off by a grenade in the Sicilian wars. His father, who had been Governor of Gaeta, but who had come to France in consequence of political convulsions in Naples, had earned no small reputation as a financier, and devised the form of life insurance known as the Tontine. The Prince de Conti recommended the son to La Salle; and, as the event proved, he could not have done him a better service. La Salle learned to know his new lieutenant on the voyage across the Atlantic; and, soon after reaching Canada, he wrote of him to his patron in the following terms: "His honorable character and his amiable disposition were well known to you; but perhaps you would not have thought him capable of doing things for which a strong constitution, an acquaintance with the country, and the use of both hands seemed absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, his energy and address make him equal to any thing; and now, at a season when everybody is in fear of the ice, he is setting out to begin a new fort, two hundred leagues from this place, and to which I have taken the liberty to give the name of Fort Conti. It is situated near that great cataract, more than a hundred and twenty toises in height, by which the lakes of higher elevation precipitate themselves into Lake Frontenac [Ontario]. From there one goes by water, five hundred leagues, to the place where Fort Dauphin is to be begun, from which it only remains to descend the great river of the Bay of St. Esprit to reach the Gulf of Mexico." [Footnote: Lettre de La Salle au Prince de Conti, 31 Oct. 1678, MS. Fort Conti was to have been built on the site of the present Fort Niagara. The name of Lac de Conti was given by La Salle to Lake Erie. The fort mentioned as Fort Dauphin was built, as we shall see, on the Illinois, though under another name. La Salle, deceived by Spanish maps, thought that the Mississippi discharged itself into the Bay of St. Esprit (Mobile Bay).
Henri de Tonty signed his name in the Gallicised, and not in the original Italian form, Tonti. He wore a hand of iron or some other metal, which was usually covered with a glove. La Potherie says that he once or twice used it to good purpose when the Indians became disorderly, in breaking the heads of the most contumacious or knocking out their teeth. Not knowing at the time the secret of the unusual efficacy of his blows, they regarded him as a "medicine" of the first order. La Potherie ascribes the loss of his hand to a sabre-cut received in a sortie at Messina; but Tonty, in his Mémoire, says, as above, that it was blown off.]
Besides Tonty, La Salle found another ally, though a less efficient one, in the person of the Sieur de la Motte; and at Quebec, where he was detained for a time, he found Father Louis Hennepin, who had come down from Fort Frontenac to meet him.
CHAPTER X. 1678-1679. LA SALLE AT NIAGARA
FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN.—HIS PAST LIFE; HIS CHARACTER.—EMBARKATION. —NIAGARA FALLS.—INDIAN JEALOUSY.—LA MOTTE AND THE SENECAS.—A DISASTER.—LA SALLE AND HIS FOLLOWERS.
Hennepin was all eagerness to join in the adventure, and, to his great satisfaction, La Salle gave him a letter from his Provincial, Father Le Fèvre, containing the coveted permission. Whereupon, to prepare himself, he went into retreat, at the Récollet convent of Quebec, where he remained for a time in such prayer and meditation as his nature, the reverse of spiritual, would permit. Frontenac, always partial to his Order, then invited him to dine at the chateau; and having visited the Bishop and asked his blessing, he went down to the lower town and embarked. His vessel was a small birch canoe, paddled by two men. With sandalled feet, a coarse gray capote, and peaked hood, the cord of St. Francis about his waist, and a rosary and crucifix hanging at his side, the Father set forth on his memorable journey. He carried with him the furniture of a portable altar, which in time of need he could strap on his back, like a knapsack.
He slowly made his way up the St. Lawrence, stopping here and there, where a clearing and a few log houses marked the feeble beginning of a parish and a seigniory. The settlers, though good Catholics, were too few and too poor to support a priest, and hailed the arrival of the friar with delight. He said mass, exhorted a little, as was his custom, and, on one occasion, baptized a child. At length, he reached Montreal, where the enemies of the enterprise enticed away his two canoe-men. He succeeded in finding two others, with whom he continued his voyage, passed the rapids of the upper St. Lawrence, and reached Fort Frontenac at eleven o'clock at night, of the second of November, where his brethren of the mission, Ribourde and Buisset, received him with open arms. [Footnote: Hennepin, Description de la Louisiane (1683), 19. Ibid., Voyage Curieux (1704), 66. Ribourde had lately arrived.] La Salle, Tonty, La Motte, and their party, who had left Quebec a few days after him, soon appeared at the fort; La Salle much fatigued and worn by the hardships of the way, or more probably by the labors and anxieties of preparation. He had no sooner arrived, than he sent fifteen men in canoes to Lake Michigan and the Illinois, to open a trade with the Indians and collect a store of provisions. There was a small vessel of ten tons in the harbor; and he ordered La Motte to sail in her for Niagara, accompanied by Hennepin.
This bold, hardy, and adventurous friar, the historian of the expedition, and a conspicuous actor in it, has unwittingly painted his own portrait with tolerable distinctness. "I always," he says, "felt a strong inclination to fly from the world and live according to the rules of a pure and severe virtue; and it was with this view that I entered the Order of St. Francis." [Footnote: Hennepin, Nouvelle Découverte (1697), 8.] He then speaks of his zeal for the saving of souls, but admits that a passion for travel and a burning desire to visit strange lands had no small part in his inclination for the missions. [Footnote: Ibid., Avant Propos, 5.] Being in a convent in Artois, his superior sent him to Calais, at the season of the herring-fishery, to beg alms, after the practice of the Franciscans. Here and at Dunkirk, he made friends of the sailors, and was never tired of their stories. So insatiable, indeed, was his appetite for them, that "often," he says, "I hid myself behind tavern doors while the sailors were telling of their voyages. The tobacco smoke made me very sick at the stomach; but, notwithstanding, I listened attentively to all they said about their adventures at sea and their travels in distant countries. I could have passed whole days and nights in this way without eating." [Footnote: Ibid., Voyage Curieux (1704), 12.]
He presently set out on a roving mission through Holland; and he recounts various mishaps which befell him, "in consequence of my zeal in laboring for the saving of souls." "I was at the bloody fight of Seneff," he pursues, "where so many perished by fire and sword, and where I had abundance of work, in comforting and consoling the poor wounded soldiers. After undergoing great fatigues, and running extreme danger in the sieges of towns, in the trenches, and in battles, where I exposed myself freely for the salvation of others, while the soldiers were breathing nothing but blood and carnage, I found myself at last in a way of satisfying my old inclination for travel." [Footnote: Ibid., 13.]
He got leave from his superiors to go to Canada, the most adventurous of all the missions; and accordingly sailed in 1675, in the ship which carried La Salle, who had just obtained the grant of Fort Frontenac. In the course of the voyage, he took it upon him to reprove a party of girls who were amusing themselves and a circle of officers and other passengers by dancing on deck. La Salle, who was among the spectators, was annoyed at Hennepin's interference, and told him that he was behaving like a pedagogue. The friar retorted, by alluding—unconsciously, as he says—to the circumstance that La Salle was once a pedagogue himself, having, according to Hennepin, been for ten or twelve years teacher of a class in a Jesuit school. La Salle, he adds, turned pale with rage, and never forgave him to his dying day, but always maligned and persecuted him. [Footnote: Ibid., Avis au Lecteur. He elsewhere represents himself as on excellent terms with La Salle; with whom, he says, he used to read histories of travels at Fort Frontenac, after which they discussed together their plans of discovery.]
On arriving in Canada, he was sent up to Fort Frontenac, as a missionary. That wild and remote post was greatly to his liking. He planted a gigantic cross, superintended the building of a chapel, for himself and his colleague, Buisset, and instructed the Iroquois colonists of the place. He visited, too, the neighboring Indian settlements, paddling his canoe in summer, when the lake was open, and journeying in winter on snow-shoes, with a blanket slung at his back. His most noteworthy journey was one which he made in the winter,—apparently of 1677,—with a soldier of the fort. They crossed the eastern extremity of Lake Ontario on snow-shoes, and pushed southward through the forests, towards Onondaga; stopping at evening to dig away the snow, which was several feet deep, and collect wood for their fire, which they were forced to replenish repeatedly during the night, to keep themselves from freezing. At length they reached the great Onondaga town, where the Indians were much amazed at their hardihood. Thence they proceeded eastward, to the Oneidas, and afterwards to the Mohawks, who regaled them with small frogs, pounded up with a porridge of Indian corn. Here Hennepin found the Jesuit, Bruyas, who permitted him to copy a dictionary of the Mohawk language [Footnote: This was the Racines Agnières of Bruyas. It was published by Mr. Shea in 1862. Hennepin seems to have studied it carefully; for, on several occasions, he makes use of words evidently borrowed from it, putting them into the mouths of Indians speaking a dialect different from that of the Agniers, or Mohawks.] which he had compiled, and here he presently met three Dutchmen, who urged him to visit the neighboring settlement of Orange, or Albany, an invitation which he seems to have declined. [Footnote: Compare Brodhead in Hist. Mag., x. 268.]
They were pleased with him, he says, because he spoke Dutch. Bidding them farewell, he tied on his snow-shoes again, and returned with his companion to Fort Frontenac. Thus he inured himself to the hardships of the woods, and prepared for the execution of the grand plan of discovery which he calls his own; "an enterprise," to borrow his own words, "capable of terrifying anybody but me." [Footnote: "Une entreprise capable d'épouvanter tout autre que moi."—Hennepin, Voyage Curieux, Avant Propos (1704).] When the later editions of his book appeared, doubts had been expressed of his veracity. "I here protest to you, before God," he writes, addressing the reader, "that my narrative is faithful and sincere, and that you may believe every thing related in it." [Footnote: "Je vous proteste ici devant Dieu, que ma Relation est fidèle et sincère," etc.– Ibid., Avis au Lecteur.] And yet, as we shall see, this Reverend Father was the most impudent of liars; and the narrative of which he speaks is a rare monument of brazen mendacity. Hennepin, however, had seen and dared much: for among his many failings fear had no part; and where his vanity or his spite was not involved, he often told the truth. His books have their value, with all their enormous fabrications. [Footnote: The nature of these fabrications will be shown hereafter. They occur, not in the early editions of Hennepin's narrative, which are comparatively truthful, but in the edition of 1697 and those which followed. La Salle was dead at the time of their publication.]
La Motte and Hennepin, with sixteen men, went on board the little vessel of ten tons, which lay at Fort Frontenac. The friar's two brethren, Buisset and Ribourde, threw their arms about his neck as they bade him farewell; while his Indian proselytes, learning whither he was bound, stood with their hands pressed upon their mouths, in amazement at the perils which awaited their ghostly instructor. La Salle, with the rest of the party, was to follow as soon as he could finish his preparations. It was a boisterous and gusty day, the eighteenth of November. The sails were spread; the shore receded,—the stone walls of the fort, the huge cross that the friar had reared, the wigwams, the settlers' cabins, the group of staring Indians on the strand. The lake was rough; and the men, crowded in so small a craft, grew nervous and uneasy. They hugged the northern shore, to escape the fury of the wind which blew savagely from the north-east; while the long, gray sweep of naked forests on their right betokened that winter was fast closing in. On the twenty-sixth, they reached the neighborhood of the Indian town of Taiaiagon, [Footnote: This place is laid down on a manuscript map sent to France by the Intendant Duchesneau, and now preserved in the Archives de la Marine, and also on several other contemporary maps.] not far from Toronto; and ran their vessel, for safety, into the mouth of a river,—probably the Humber,—where the ice closed about her, and they were forced to cut her out with axes. On the fifth of December, they attempted to cross to the mouth of the Niagara; but darkness overtook them, and they spent a comfortless night, tossing on the troubled lake, five or six miles from shore. In the morning, they entered the mouth of the Niagara, and landed on the point at its eastern side, where now stand the historic ramparts of Fort Niagara. Here they found a small village of Senecas, attracted hither by the fisheries, who gazed with curious eyes at the vessel, and listened in wonder as the voyagers sang Te Deum, in gratitude for their safe arrival.
Hennepin, with several others, now ascended the river, in a canoe, to the foot of the mountain ridge of Lewiston, which, stretching on the right hand and on the left, forms the acclivity of a vast plateau, rent with the mighty chasm, along which, from this point to the cataract, seven miles above, rush, with the fury of an Alpine torrent, the gathered waters of four inland oceans. To urge the canoe farther was impossible. He landed, with his companions, on the west bank, near the foot of that part of the ridge now called Queenstown Heights, climbed the steep ascent, and pushed through the wintry forest on a tour of exploration. On his left sank the cliffs, the furious river raging below; till at length, in primeval solitudes, unprofaned as yet by the pettiness of man, the imperial cataract burst upon his sight. [Footnote: Hennepin's account of the falls and river of Niagara—especially his second account, on his return from the West—is very minute, and on the whole very accurate. He indulges in gross exaggeration as to the height of the cataract, which, in the edition of 1683, he states at five hundred feet, and raises to six hundred in that of 1697. He also says that there was room for four carriages to pass abreast under the American Fall without being wet. This is, of course, an exaggeration at the best; but it is extremely probable that a great change has taken place since his time. He speaks of a small lateral fall at the west side of the Horse Shoe Fall which does not now exist. Table Rock, now destroyed, is distinctly figured in his picture. He says that he descended the cliffs on the west side to the foot of the cataract, but that no human being can get down on the east side.
The name of Niagara, written Onguiaahra by Lalemant in 1641, and Ongiara by Sanson, on his map of 1657, is used by Hennepin in its present form. His description of the falls is the earliest known to exist. They are clearly indicated on the map of Champlain, 1632. For early references to them, see "The Jesuits in North America," 143. A brief but curious notice of them is given by Gendron, Quelques Particularitez du Pays des Hurons, 1659. The indefatigable Dr. O'Callaghan has discovered thirty-nine distinct forms of the name Niagara.—Index to Colonial Documents of New York, 465. It is of Iroquois origin, and in the Mohawk dialect is pronounced Nyàgarah.]
The explorers passed three miles beyond it, and encamped for the night on the banks of Chippewa Creek, scraping away the snow, which was a foot deep, in order to kindle a fire. In the morning they retraced their steps, startling a number of deer and wild turkeys on their way, and rejoined their companions at the mouth of the river.
It was La Salle's purpose to build a palisade fort at the mouth of the Niagara; and the work was now begun, though it was necessary to use hot water to soften the frozen ground. But frost was not the only obstacle. The Senecas of the neighboring village betrayed a sullen jealousy at a design which, indeed, boded them no good. Niagara was the key to the four great lakes above, and whoever held possession of it could in no small measure control the fur-trade of the interior. Occupied by the French, it would, in time of peace, intercept the trade which the Iroquois carried on between the Western Indians, and the Dutch and English at Albany, and in time of war threaten them with serious danger. La Motte saw the necessity of conciliating these formidable neighbors, and, if possible, cajoling them to give their consent to the plan. La Salle, indeed, had instructed him to that effect. He resolved on a journey to the great village of the Senecas, and called on Hennepin, who was busied in building a bark chapel for himself, to accompany him. They accordingly set out with several men well armed and equipped, and bearing at their backs presents of very considerable value. The village was beyond the Genesee, south-east of the site of Rochester. [Footnote: Near the town of Victor. It is laid down on the map of Galinée, and other unpublished maps. Compare Marshall, Historical Sketches of the Niagara Frontier, 14.] After a march of five days, they reached it on the last day of December. They were conducted to the lodge of the great chief, where they were beset by a staring crowd of women, and children. Two Jesuits, Raffeix and Julien Garnier, were in the village; and their presence boded no good for the embassy. La Motte, who seems to have had little love for priests of any kind, was greatly annoyed at seeing them; and when the chiefs assembled to hear what he had to say, he insisted that the two fathers should leave the council-house. At this, Hennepin, out of respect for his cloth, thought it befitting that he should retire also. The chiefs, forty-two in number squatted on the ground, arrayed in ceremonial robes of beaver, wolf, or black squirrel skin. "The senators of Venice," writes Hennepin, "do not look more grave or speak more deliberately than the counsellors of the Iroquois." La Motte's interpreter harangued the attentive conclave, placed gift after gift at their feet,—coats, scarlet cloth, hatchets, knives, and beads,– and used all his eloquence to persuade them that the building of a fort at the mouth of the Niagara, and a vessel on Lake Erie, were measures vital to their interest. They gladly took the gifts, but answered the interpreter's speech with evasive generalities; and having been entertained with the burning of an Indian prisoner, the discomfited embassy returned, half-famished, to Niagara.
A few days after, Hennepin was near the shore of the lake, when he heard a well-known voice, and to his surprise saw La Salle approaching. This resolute child of misfortune had already begun to taste the bitterness of his destiny. Sailing with Tonty from Fort Frontenac, to bring supplies to the advanced party at Niagara, he had been detained by contrary winds when within a few hours of his destination. Anxious to reach it speedily, he left the vessel in charge of the pilot, who disobeyed his orders, and ended by wrecking it at a spot nine or ten leagues west of Niagara. [Footnote: Tonty, Mémoire envoyé en 1693 sur la Découverte du Mississippi et des Nations voisines, par le Sieur de la Salle, en 1678, et depuis sa mort par le Sieur de Tonty. The published work bearing Tonty's name is a compilation full of misstatements. He disowned its authorship. Its authority will not be relied on in this narrative. A copy of the true document from the original, signed by Tonty, in the Archives de la Marine, is before me.] The provisions and merchandise were lost, though the crew saved the anchors and cables destined for the vessel which La Salle proposed to build for the navigation of the Upper Lakes. He had had a meeting with the Senecas, before the disaster; and, more fortunate than La Motte,—for his influence over Indians was great,—had persuaded them to consent, for a time, to the execution of his plans. They required, however, that he should so far modify them as to content himself with a stockaded warehouse, in place of a fort, at the mouth of the Niagara.
The loss of the vessel threw him into extreme perplexity, and, as Hennepin says, "would have made anybody but him give up the enterprise." [Footnote: Description de la Louisiane (1683), 41. It is characteristic of Hennepin, that, in the editions of his book published after La Salle's death, he substitutes for "anybody but him," "anybody but those who had formed so generous a design," meaning to include himself, though he lost nothing by the disaster, and had not formed the design.] The whole party were now gathered within the half-finished palisades of Niagara; a motley crew of French, Flemings, and Italians, all mutually jealous. Some of the men had been tampered with by La Salle's enemies. None of them seem to have had much heart for the enterprise. La Motte had gone back to Canada. He had been a soldier, and perhaps a good one; but he had already broken down under the hardships of these winter journeyings. La Salle, seldom happy in the choice of subordinates, had, perhaps, in all his company but one man in whom he could confidently trust; and this was Tonty. He and Hennepin were on indifferent terms. Men thrown together in a rugged enterprise like this quickly learn to know each other; and the vain and assuming friar was not likely to commend himself to La Salle's brave and loyal lieutenant. Hennepin says that it was La Salle's policy to govern through the dissensions of his followers; and, from whatever cause, it is certain that those beneath him were rarely in perfect harmony.
