La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West Part 20

[Sidenote: THE NATCHEZ.]

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 friends.h.i.+p 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."[240]

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.[241] 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.

[Sidenote: HOSTILITY.]

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,[242] 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.[243]

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 Dautray 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 looked on 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,--

[Sidenote: POSSESSION TAKEN.]

"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 thereinto, from its source beyond the country of the Nadouessioux ... 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."[244]

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 s.h.i.+nes 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 savannas 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[231] La Salle, _Relation de la Decouverte_, 1682, in Thoma.s.sy, _Geologie Pratique de la Louisiane 9; Lettre du Pere Zen.o.be Membre, 3 Juin, 1682; Ibid., 14 Aout, 1682_; Membre in Le Clerc, ii. 214; Tonty, 1684, 1693; _Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la Louisiane, Feuilles detachees d'une Lettre de La Salle_ (Margry, ii. 164); _Recit de Nicolas de la Salle_ (Ibid., i. 547).

The narrative ascribed to Membre and published by Le Clerc is based on the doc.u.ment preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine, ent.i.tled _Relation de la Decouverte de l'Embouchure de la Riviere Mississippi faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l'annee pa.s.see_, 1682. The writer of the narrative has used it very freely, copying the greater part verbatim, with occasional additions of a kind which seem to indicate that he had taken part in the expedition. The _Relation de la Decouverte_, though written in the third person, is the official report of the discovery made by La Salle, or perhaps for him by Membre.

[232] Called by Membre the Ouabache (Wabash).

[233] La Salle, _Relation de la Decouverte de l'Embouchure, etc._; Thoma.s.sy, 10. Membre gives the same date; but the _Proces Verbal_ makes it the twenty-sixth.

[234] Gravier, in his letter of 16 Feb., 1701, says that he encamped near a "great bluff of stone, called Fort Prudhomme, because M. de La Salle, going on his discovery, intrenched himself here with his party, fearing that Prudhomme, who had lost himself in the woods, had been killed by the Indians, and that he himself would be attacked."

[235] La Salle, _Relation_; Thoma.s.sy, 11.

[236] _Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession du Pays des Arkansas, 14 Mars, 1682._

[237] The nation of the Akanseas, Alkansas, or Arkansas, dwelt on the west bank of the Mississippi, near the mouth of the Arkansas. They were divided into four tribes, living for the most part in separate villages.

Those first visited by La Salle were the Kappas, or Quapaws, a remnant of whom still subsists. The others were the Topingas, or Tongengas; the Torimans; and the Osotouoy, or Sauthouis. According to Charlevoix, who saw them in 1721, they were regarded as the tallest and best-formed Indians in America, and were known as _les Beaux Hommes_. Gravier says that they once lived on the Ohio.

[238] In Tensas County, Louisiana. Tonty's estimates of distance are here much too low. They seem to be founded on observations of lat.i.tude, without reckoning the windings of the river. It may interest sportsmen to know that the party killed several large alligators, on their way.

Membre is much astonished that such monsters should be born of eggs like chickens.

[239] Tonty, 1684, 1693. In the spurious narrative, published in Tonty's name, the account is embellished and exaggerated. Compare Membre in Le Clerc, ii. 227. La Salle's statements in the _Relation_ of 1682 (Thoma.s.sy, 12) sustain those of Tonty.

[240] Membre in Le Clerc, ii. 232.

[241] 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 clans.h.i.+p, or _totems.h.i.+p_, 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 clans.h.i.+p, see "The 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, Penecaut, 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.

[242] In St. Charles County, on the left bank, not far above New Orleans.

[243] 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.

[244] 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, Natchez, 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 Louisiane_, it would be set at rest by Le Clerc, 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 _Proces Verbal_ is before me. It bears the name of Jacques de la Metairie, Notary of Fort Frontenac, who was one of the party.

CHAPTER XXI.

1682, 1683.

ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.

Louisiana.--Illness of La Salle: his Colony on the Illinois.--Fort St. Louis.--Recall of Frontenac.--Le Febvre 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.[245]

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 accomplis.h.i.+ng 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. The party next revisited the Coroas, 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.[246]

[Sidenote: ILLNESS OF LA SALLE.]

And now, in a career of unwonted success and antic.i.p.ated triumph, La Salle was 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 Michilimackinac, 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 Fort Miami, which he reached in about a month.

In September he rejoined Tonty at Michilimackinac, and in the following month wrote to a friend in France: "Though my discovery is made, and I have descended the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, I cannot send you this year either an account of my journey or a map. On the way back I was attacked by a deadly disease, which kept me in danger of my life for forty days, and left me so weak that I could think of nothing for four months after. I have hardly strength enough now to write my letters, and the season is so far advanced that I cannot detain a single day this canoe which I send expressly to carry them. If I had not feared being forced to winter on the way, I should have tried to get to Quebec to meet the new governor, if it is true that we are to have one; but in my present condition this would be an act of suicide, on account of the bad nourishment I should have all winter in case the snow and ice stopped me on the way. Besides, my presence is absolutely necessary in the place to which I am going. I pray you, my dear sir, to give me once more all the help you can. I have great enemies, who have succeeded in all they have undertaken. I do not pretend to resist them, but only to justify myself, so that I can pursue by sea the plans I have begun here by land."

This was what he had proposed to himself from the first; that is, to abandon the difficult access through Canada, beset with enemies, and open a way to his western domain through the Gulf and the Mississippi.

This was the aim of all his toilsome explorations. Could he have accomplished his first intention of building a vessel on the Illinois and descending in her to the Gulf, he would have been able to defray in good measure the costs of the enterprise by means of the furs and buffalo-hides collected on the way and carried in her to France. With a fleet of canoes, this was impossible; and there was nothing to offset the enormous outlay which he and his a.s.sociates had made. He meant, as we have seen, to found on the banks of the Illinois a colony of French and Indians to answer the double purpose of a bulwark against the Iroquois and a place of storage for the furs of all the western tribes; and he hoped in the following year to secure an outlet for this colony and for all the trade of the valley of the Mississippi, by occupying the mouth of that river with a fort and another colony. This, too, was an essential part of his original design.

But for his illness, he would have gone to France to provide for its execution. Meanwhile, he ordered Tonty to collect as many men as possible, and begin the projected colony on the banks of the Illinois. A report soon after reached him that those pests of the wilderness the Iroquois were about to renew their attacks on the western tribes. This would be fatal to his plans; and, following Tonty to the Illinois, he rejoined him near the site of the great town.

[Sidenote: "STARVED ROCK."]