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Title: When Canada was New France
Author: George H. Locke
Release date: May 12, 2026 [eBook #78668]
Language: English
Original publication: Toronto: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd, 1919
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78668
Credits: Jamie Brydone-Jack and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN CANADA WAS NEW FRANCE ***
WHEN CANADA
WAS NEW FRANCE
BY
GEORGE H. LOCKE
CHIEF LIBRARIAN OF THE
PUBLIC LIBRARY, TORONTO
[Illustration]
_Love of country is born
of a knowledge of its institutions,
its traditions and history
wherein are revealed
the lives of its people
and their heroic achievements._
WITH SEVEN
ILLUSTRATIONS
PUBLISHED AT THE END OF THE
GREAT WAR BY
TORONTO: J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD.
PARIS: J. M. DENT ET FILS
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
J. M. DENT & SONS
Published September, 1919
[Illustration: THE LANDING OF THE CANADIANS IN FRANCE, 1915.]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 7
I. CARTIER AND THE ST. LAWRENCE 13
II. CHAMPLAIN AND THE GREAT LAKES 25
III. JOLIET, MARQUETTE AND THE RIVER OF A HUNDRED THOUSAND STREAMS 40
IV. LA SALLE AND THE GREATER NEW FRANCE 48
V. RADISSON AND THE GREAT NORTH WEST 59
VI. MONTCALM AND THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE 72
VII. PONTIAC AND THE LAST HOPE OF INDIAN SUPREMACY 82
VIII. THE GRAY GOWNS AND THE BLACK 96
IX. THE IROQUOIS AND THE HURONS 111
X. THE COUREUR-DES-BOIS AND THE VOYAGEUR 126
XI. THE SEIGNIOR AND THE HABITANT 134
XII. STORIES WHICH ILLUSTRATE REFERENCES IN THIS BOOK. 143
XIII. POEMS WHICH ILLUSTRATE REFERENCES IN THIS BOOK. 151
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE LANDING OF THE CANADIANS IN FRANCE, 1914 _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
SENECA HUNTER GROUP 16
THE RETURN OF THE WARRIORS 34
COUNCIL OF THE TURTLE CLAN 68
THE CAYUGA FALSE FACE CEREMONY 86
THE CORN HARVEST 104
TYPICAL IROQUOIS INDUSTRIES 122
INTRODUCTION.
The Great War has had a special meaning for Canadians. Soldiers from our
shores, citizen-soldiers, have been landing on the northern coast of
France in tens of thousands, and passing through the same seaport towns
whence nearly four hundred years ago men sailed forth to the westward to
discover a fabled land.
This country, discovered by the French and colonized by them and by the
English, this land which was now French and now English as the fortune
of war changed in Europe as well as in America, has become a nation, and
when the time of trial came and danger threatened the ancestral homes
in the two Motherlands, Canada hesitated not a moment but offered her
services in the cause of freedom.
Canada has been fighting more truly perhaps than any other nation in what
we speak of as “the common cause,” and it is to make clear to ourselves
as well as to others the great meaning of this in the development of
nationality in our Dominion that this story of the two centuries when
Canada was New France has been told and in this form.
The early history of Canada is a history of men, and if Canada is
to become a great nation, its future history will depend upon the
development of men who can and will inspire, guide and lead us to the
greater things.
This is not intended for children only, but for the youth of every age,
those who are young enough to enjoy a story and who know not, or know
but dimly, our wonderful history during the two hundred years of our
country when its history was bound up with that of the two great empires
of France and England, France of the times of Henry of Navarre and of
Richelieu, England of the days of the Tudors and of the Pitts.
The frontispiece of this little book illustrates a dramatic incident in
our history. The landing of the Canadians at St. Nazaire in 1915 to help
Old France against the ruthless invader brings to one’s mind the landing
of a French exploring expedition under Cartier nearly three hundred years
ago when the flag of France was raised high upon the cliff of Gaspé and
the newly discovered land was called New France. Our thanks are due to
the Canadian War Memorials Committee for permission to reproduce this
picture.
To the kindness of Dr. John M. Clarke, the Director of the New York
State Museum, himself a contributor to the history of New France, we
are indebted for the great privilege of reproducing the illustrations
of the Iroquois Indian Groups which form the Myron H. Clark Memorial
in the Museum at Albany. They portray the aboriginal activities of the
Confederacy of the Six Nations.
GEORGE H. LOCKE.
WHEN CANADA WAS NEW FRANCE
OLD FRANCE.
Le Gaulois semble au saule verdissant:
Plus on le coupe et plus il est naissant,
Et rejetonne en branches davantage,
Prenant vigueur de son propre dommage.
—RONSARD.
The Gaul is like the verdant willow-bush:
The more you prune, the more it’s lithe and lush,
Shooting a crown of branchy twigs all round,
And draws new life and vigour from a wound.
CHAPTER I.
CARTIER AND THE ST. LAWRENCE
“He told them of the river, whose mighty current gave
Its freshness for a hundred leagues to ocean’s briny wave;
He told them of the glorious scene presented to his sight
What time he reared the cross and crown on Hochelaga’s height,
And of the fortress cliff that keeps of Canada the key,
And they welcomed back Jacques Cartier from his perils over sea.”
—HON. T. D’ARCY MCGEE.
Almost four hundred years ago, when bluff King Hal ruled over Merry
England and Francis over Sunny France, there were strange stories told in
the ports of the west of England and the north of France of lands away to
the Westward. The voyage of Columbus was the talk of Europe, and while
the Spaniards were joyfully telling how he had come to the edge of a
great new world which would give them a new route to the marvellous East
with all its treasures, John Cabot, of the port of Bristol, the pioneer
of English adventurers, sailed off to the west and it is likely saw
the continent itself as soon as did Columbus. Both Columbus and Cabot
discovered islands first, Columbus on his way to the west, Cabot after he
had passed along the coast.
So, from the northern country of England, as well as from the southern
land of Spain, the men of the seaports talked of nothing as much as the
great land over the sea. It was but natural that the hardy mariners of
the northern French ports should join in the search, and for nearly half
a century vessels manned by the more adventurous spirits visited the cod
banks of Newfoundland and brought back cargoes of fish.
One can picture the interest that would be aroused in a port like Bristol
in England or St. Malo or Dieppe in France when a vessel came back to
harbour after an absence of many months and the mariners spun their tales
of adventure to an eager audience. It was in this kind of an atmosphere,
hearing these stories and wishing that he would grow old quickly so
that he too could go and see these lands, that Jacques Cartier grew up.
He was a clever and ambitious boy and when he became a master mariner
had made such a reputation that the King sent for him to discuss the
possibility of finding an opening in the coast of America in the vicinity
of Newfoundland, which was then thought to be but a projection of the
eastern coast of Asia. There is no doubt that Cartier had made trips to
the fishing banks many times in company with his fellow fishermen of
Brittany, whose enterprise is preserved to us in the name of Cape Breton.
King Francis was anxious that France should have a share in the great
discoveries that so far had been made by England and by Spain. Indeed,
the whole land had been claimed by the King of Spain and Francis is said
to have been so annoyed by this statement that he exclaimed:
“I should like to see the clause in our father Adam’s will which
bequeathed to him this fine heritage.”
It was on an April day in 1534 that Cartier set sail in two ships of 60
tons each to find what was beyond the shores known to the sailors, and in
the hope that he would be able to penetrate to India and the treasures of
the East by a shorter route. On his way out, and in what are known now as
the Straits of Belle Isle, he passed a great ship which had sailed from
Rochelle, thus proving that those straits and the adjacent waters were
known to the French mariners.
[Illustration: SENECA HUNTER GROUP
This group represents a Seneca family clustered about the door-yard
of their hunting lodge, each individual being engaged in his allotted
duties. The old father, who no longer goes to war (indicated by his
clothing and hair), is bringing in a fawn. The mother is busy skiving
a dry deer skin, while the daughter is cutting strips of venison for
“jerking.” The elder son is a hunter and warrior and the younger son is
burning down a tree which obstructs the yard. The wad of clay about the
tree trunk confines the flames. The exterior of the hunting cabin is
shown on the left.
The scene depicts Canandaigua lake with Ganundewa, the sacred hill of the
Senecas, in the distance.
The time is early morning and the season midspring.
The purpose of this group is to depict a Seneca family during the hunting
season. The activities represented show the utility of the deer as a
source of raw material. Deer meat was a favorite food, the skin furnished
leather for mats, bags, clothing and thongs. The antlers and bones were
used for tool material, the jaws for scrapers, the hoofs for ornaments
and the hair for stuffing cushions. The group also faithfully represents
the various costumes ornamented with hair embroidery.]
Cartier and his ships kept on westward, and we can imagine his feelings
when they passed from the cold straits where doubtless he had seen
icebergs, into a part of what is now the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where
the heat of July was so oppressive that he called it the Bay of Chaleur
(heat), a name preserved to this day. On these shores they found
gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries and roses growing in abundance
and the rivers were full of salmon. They reached what we call Gaspé on
July 24th, and at once raised a great cross with a shield on which were
the lilies of France and “Vive le Roi de France.”
The Indians (for Cartier thought and hoped that he was on the road to
India) were friendly, and Cartier persuaded two sons of the chief to go
back to France with him. Being unprovided for a longer stay and fearful
of the stormy weather, he set sail for home and entered the harbour of
St. Malo early in September.
For a person of his imagination and daring and with the two Indian
princes to show to the court of France, there were no difficulties in
getting ready an expedition for the next year, and in July, 1535, he left
St. Malo with three small vessels. One can picture the excitement in
that seaport town when the vessels weighed anchor and stood out to sea,
vessels commissioned by the King and commanded by a son of St. Malo who
had proved his worth already, and who had on board the evidence of his
discoveries in the persons of the Indian princes now on their way back
home with him.
In August he was in the great Gulf, and aided by the knowledge of these
princes, he sailed boldly on until he saw the banks drawing together
and he realized that he was going out of the gulf into a great river.
They stopped at the narrows where Quebec now stands and met the Indian
chief, Donnaconna, in his village of Stadacona, which in the language of
the Huron-Iroquois, means “wing,” the formation of land between the St.
Lawrence and St. Charles rivers. This chief they saluted as the Lord of
Canada, the chief of the village or collection of huts. This is the first
time we meet the word “Canada,” a collection of huts, for Cartier had
taken possession of the country as New France.
Nearly four hundred years afterwards, from the same port went forth great
vessels bearing tens of thousands of troops from Canada to help old
France against the ruthless invader.[1]
Cartier was told of the great river which stretched on for miles and that
after many days’ journey there was a large town. He gave the river the
name “St. Lawrence,” and up it he made his way, astonished at the beauty
and grandeur of the ever-changing scene. And in those days it must have
been wonderful, for he tells us that he was impressed with the great
trees on the banks, the oak, the walnut, birch and willow and with the
vines heavy with grapes. It was September, and even to this day with so
many of those features gone, it would be difficult anywhere to find a
more impressive and beautiful journey than from the ancient Quebec to the
almost as ancient Montreal, when autumn tints the trees.
It was in the last days of this autumn month that he entered the
expansion of the river, which is now called Lac St. Pierre, so named
nearly a century afterwards by Champlain and known to many to-day by
Drummond’s famous poem.[2]
Landing on October 2nd he found the well-built town of Hochelaga, and was
welcomed by the inhabitants, the first white man they had ever seen. The
reception must have been impressive to both parties, and was made still
more so by the Indians taking Cartier up on the great hill to which he
gave the name of Mount Royal, and from which he looked over fields of
maize and beans and peas and wild fruits, with the silver river winding
its way among the beautiful foliage of the autumn, and away in the
distance the faint outline of what now are known as the Adirondacks of
New York State and the Green Mountains of Vermont. His men were full of
wonder and it is interesting to read that what attracted them most was “a
great pile of rats, which live in the water and are as large as rabbits
and are wonderfully good to eat.”[3]
He returned to Quebec, where he built huts in which to spend the winter.
Unaccustomed to so severe a climate and not well provisioned, disease
broke out and so many of his men died that when spring came and he set
sail for France he had to abandon one of his vessels, “La Petite Hermine.”
Cartier had a story worth telling. Whereas Columbus had touched the New
World and Cabot had sailed along its shores, Cartier had penetrated
a thousand miles into the continent—“Up the greatest river without
comparison that is known to have ever been seen,” as Cartier told the
King, and when he stood on Mount Royal on that October day he was the
only white man in all that country now known as Canada and the United
States of America. It makes one think of another great adventurer who, at
almost the same time, upon the same continent, is depicted as standing
“silent upon a peak in Darien.”[4]
This was Cortez of Spain and so we have the French and the Spanish in the
North American continent.
To confirm his story and to illustrate the transfer of the land to
France, Cartier took back with him Donnaconna and two other chiefs who
were presented to the King. They really were kidnapped, and sad to tell
they did not live to return to their own land.
When Cartier reached France there were serious political troubles
which prevented the authorities from acting at once, and so it was not
until 1538 that Francis took up the question of New France overseas.
He organized an expedition of which Lord Roberval was to be chief and
Cartier captain-general, and with a crew recruited mainly from the
prisons Cartier left St. Malo in 1541, sailed up the St. Lawrence,
explored the rapids (afterwards known as La Chine), spent a miserable
winter and returned to St. Malo a disappointed man. The Indians had lost
faith in him, for when they welcomed him and asked for their chiefs,
whose loss they had felt keenly, Cartier told them that the chiefs had
stayed in France, whereas they had died. Superseded at home by political
favourites, and distrusted in New France by the natives, Cartier retired
from the sea, his name passes from history and the first chapter of the
history of New France comes to an end.
CHAPTER II.
CHAMPLAIN.
“There are few chapters in history so full of romantic
interest, so compelling in their demands for sympathy and
admiration, as the record of the century and a half that began
with the wooden fortress of Champlain under the bluff at
Quebec, and ended with the fall of Montcalm on the Heights of
Abraham.”
—HON. ELIHU ROOT.
CHAMPLAIN AND THE GREAT LAKES.
On the Bay of Biscay, on the west coast of France, and not very far from
Rochelle, there is a small village now some miles from the sea, but
which in the days of Cartier and for some years after was a flourishing
seaport. This is called Brouage, and is almost a deserted village to-day,
the sea having receded and the railway passed it by. The great salt
marshes are still there to remind one of the time when cargoes of salt
were shipped from this harbour, and where ships, then considered great,
found safe anchorage.
In this seaport, with its face to the great mysterious Western land,
young Samuel de Champlain, son of a sea captain, grew up during the
stirring times of civil war in France. When a boy of nine[5] his city was
captured by Henry of Navarre, who, after years of struggle, during which
were many mighty deeds of valour, finally overcame his enemies, entered
Paris in triumph, and was crowned King of France. Indeed, the struggle
was so long that Champlain grew up sufficiently to be accounted a gallant
officer in Henry’s army.
When peace was declared and the country had settled down, Champlain in
his love for adventure entered the service of the King of Spain, and made
trips to the West Indies, going inland in America even to the city of
Mexico.
On his return he made a report to the King of France, concerning this
Western land, in the hope that his own country might once more send
expeditions of discovery. In this report he says: “One might judge if the
territory four leagues in extent, lying between Panama and the river were
cut through, he could pass from the South Sea to that on the other side,
and thus shorten the route by more than fifteen hundred leagues. From
Panama to Magellan would make an island and from Panama to the Newlands
(Newfoundland) would make another, so that the whole of America would be
in two islands.”
Three hundred years afterwards this was done, and by the people of a
country then undiscovered, and supplies from the Pacific Coast of that
great nation passed through that canal to help the cause of the France
which Champlain loved and served so well.
During the years of civil strife in France, the exploration of the
Western world was being pushed forward by the merchant adventurers of
England, and especially of Spain. Spies from the court of Spain watched
every port and sent home the news of prospective sailings so that these
rivals might be intercepted and America be preserved for Spain.
But now that peace was established enterprising mariners of the northern
seaports of France remembered the expeditions of Cartier, and so the
governor of Dieppe induced Champlain to undertake a voyage to New France.
They left that port in March, 1603, and after coasting along the shores
of Newfoundland, Anticosti and Cape Breton, sailed up the St. Lawrence
and anchored at Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay. Thence Champlain
made a journey up the great river to Hochelaga, which in Cartier’s time
was a flourishing town. Now all was deserted and nothing remained of what
had been a great Indian community. Gathering up what furs they could,
Champlain and his party sailed for home, which they reached in September.
This was a journey of inspection, spying out the land, and the King
was so impressed by Champlain’s account that he gave his patronage to
a larger expedition. This was under the command of Sieur de Monts, a
nobleman, with Champlain as the King’s geographer, and was sent out in
the hope that a colony might be established, and so actual possession of
New France might be maintained against European nations who were claiming
parts of the New World.
De Monts became the first Lieutenant-Governor of New France, and with
nobles, soldiers, priests, and peasants, about 120 in all, his little
fleet discovered and entered the harbour and river of St. John on the
24th of June, 1604, exactly to the day one hundred and seven years
after the discovery of Newfoundland by Cabot; and there on the island
of St. Croix (Holy Cross) established a colony, the only settlement of
Europeans north of Florida. It was an exceptionally severe winter and the
colonists suffered almost as much as Cartier’s men so many years before
at Quebec.
In the spring Champlain set out to find some place for the settlement
which might have a more congenial climate. Although he went south and
passed the islands at the mouth of what is now the harbour of Portland,
Maine, and even entered the harbour of Boston, he returned to Port Royal
in Nova Scotia, the situation of which had appealed to him, and there the
colony moved.
It was a prosperous settlement, and it is of interest in these days of
grain growing, hydro-power development and ship building in Canada to
know that these settlers raised the first wheat grown in America; here
was used the first wheel to turn a millstone upon this continent; and in
this harbour in 1606 the first Canadian vessel was built.
The position on the sea, with fertile soil and great forests near by, was
very attractive, and perhaps is best described by Longfellow centuries
afterwards:
“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.”
To-day in its loneliness it reminds one of Brouage and it is difficult to
think that it has been the most besieged city in America.
But it was when Champlain came back from France in 1608, after a year’s
absence from the colony, that our great interest begins, for then he
determined to press inland and re-assert the sovereignty claimed for
France by Cartier. The bold headland where Cartier had spent the winter
had attracted his attention upon his previous voyage, and so he founded
there in 1608 a town, really the capital of New France, and to it he gave
the native Algonquin name, “Quebec,” which means “the narrowing of the
stream.”
In the following year he went up the St. Lawrence, and finding a party
of Huron and Algonquin Indians about to set out on an expedition against
their great enemy, the Iroquois, who were encroaching upon Algonquin
territory near what is now Lake Champlain, he joined with them, thinking
thereby to establish friendly and profitable relations with such
powerful tribes. The result was that he made the fighting Iroquois the
everlasting and unrelenting enemies, not only of himself but of France.
This was one of the great fights of history, full of meaning in the after
years of Canadian life. When the Algonquins came within fighting distance
of their adversaries they opened ranks, and Champlain, steel armour on
breast and thighs, a plumed helmet on his head, a sword at his side, and
a musket in his hands, stepped out to the front, and for the first time
the Indians saw the death-dealing firearms of the white man.[6]
In his own words:
“I looked at them and they looked at me. When I saw them getting ready to
shoot their arrows at us, I levelled my arquebus which I had loaded with
four balls and aimed straight at one of the chiefs. The shot brought down
two and wounded another.”
This day of fateful beginnings was two months before Hudson discovered
the river that bears his name and eleven years before the Pilgrim
Fathers landed upon the stern and rock-bound coast of America. One of our
own poets, Bliss Carman, pictures the setting out of the expedition:
“On such a day three hundred years ago
By toilsome trails, and slow,
But with the adventurer’s spirit all aflame
The great discoverer came
Finding another Indies that he guessed
To reward his darling quest
And fill the wonder-volume of Romance,
The sailor of Little Brouage, the founder of New France,
Sturdy, sagacious, plain
Samuel de Champlain.”
During the next few years Champlain crossed the sea almost annually and
arranged for the development of the fur trade, for which he established a
post on the site of the ancient Hochelaga and where Montreal now stands.
Then he resumed his search for the great “Western Sea” which lured on
these early adventurers, or some outlet through the great continent to
the fabled land beyond; and in 1613 he followed up the waterway of the
St. Lawrence by going up the Ottawa beyond where now is the capital of
the Dominion of Canada. His journey really began when he left the end
of the island of Montreal at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and
the Ottawa, where St. Anne de Bellevue now stands and where, many years
after, Tom Moore, the famous Irish poet, lived for a short time and wrote
the Canadian Boat Song.[7]
He soon came back, his information having proved unreliable, and he
returned to France to make his report on the fur trade and the state
of the country. He set sail again in 1615 for New France, having with
him four Franciscan Fathers called Récollet friars from the convent in
Brouage, who were anxious to convert to Christianity the savages of this
great new world of which Champlain had told them.
He stayed but a short time at Quebec as he wished to follow up a party
of Huron and Algonquin Indians who had gone up the Ottawa to gather the
tribes for a raid against the Iroquois. With them went Father Le Caron,
one of the Récollets who had come out from Brouage with Champlain.
[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE WARRIORS
The advance party of a Mohawk war expedition has returned to Theonondiogo
(Two Noses), the Mohawk capital (1634). They have brought with them two
Mahikan Indian captives from the vicinity of Skanehtade (Albany).
One prisoner in defiance has thrown down his burden and his captor is
about to strike him when a chief woman of the village coming up the steep
hill interposes by holding up a string of white ransom wampum saving the
captive from death. Another warrior examines the bag of booty dropped by
the prisoner. To the right near the stockade wall is seen a Mohawk war
chief in full regalia leading a captive Mahikan, who bends beneath his
burden. In the background is a figure calling the rest of the warriors to
the hilltop council.
The scene is laid on the hill overlooking the ancient Mohawk site of Two
Noses, just above the present village of Sprakers in the Mohawk valley,
and the observer is looking north toward the foothills of the Adirondacks.
The purpose of this group is to illustrate (1) the treatment of
prisoners, (2) the authority of the Iroquois woman, (3) the difference
between the Mohawks and the Hudson river Mahikans, (4) an Iroquois
village with its stockade wall, (5) a typical Mohawk valley landscape in
Indian times.]
Accompanied by Etienne Brulé, his interpreter, a brave and skilful
woodsman, Champlain’s party went up the Ottawa, crossed over the divide
from the Upper Ottawa and launched their canoes on Lake Nipissing. Thence
they paddled down the French River into Lake Huron. One can imagine the
joy of Champlain when he saw this great body of water stretching away
beyond his vision and which he christened Mer Douce (Fresh Water Sea).
This was the first of the Great Lakes to be discovered by a white man,
and Champlain, with Le Caron and Brulé, were the first white men to sail
on its waters.
Down the shore they went for more than a hundred miles until the Indians
came to the outlet of a well-known trail leading into the heart of the
territory of the Hurons, to the palisaded town of Otoucha. This part of
the country had many permanent Indian villages whose inhabitants were
more agricultural than those in the east, and Champlain was greatly
impressed with the fields of maize and pumpkins and sun flowers. Here he
found Le Caron, who had preceded him on the journey, and on August 12th,
1615, the first mass, the first religious service in what was afterwards
known as Upper Canada, was celebrated in what is now the township of
Tiny, near Penetanguishene, in the county of Simcoe. This event was
commemorated three hundred years later by the Archbishop of Toronto, who
celebrated mass as nearly as possible on the same spot, and to mark which
a monument has been erected.
The Indians gathered up their warriors and started southward. When the
expedition reached Lake Simcoe, Brulé left Champlain that he might go
directly south and persuade an Indian tribe who lived in that part of the
country west and south of where Buffalo now stands, to join them against
the Iroquois. Brulé paddled up the Holland river, crossed over the height
of land and thence down the Humber river until he came to its mouth where
the city of Toronto now stands. He was the first white man who saw Lake
Ontario; and this was some five years before the landing of the Pilgrim
Fathers.
Champlain in the meantime crossed Lake Simcoe, portaged to Balsam Lake,
thence through the Otonabee River, Rice Lake, and the Trent River, into
Lake Ontario, which he too saw for the first time, and with his Huron
companions crossed over to the country of the Iroquois. The raid was a
failure, and Champlain, himself wounded, returned with the retreating
Hurons and spent the winter with them in Huronia on the Georgian Bay.
The remaining years of Champlain’s life were spent in trying to build up
this little colony[8] in a vast country and reconciling the conflicting
elements in it. The most important event was the capture of Quebec in
1629 by an English fleet under Sir David Kirke, a descendant of French
Huguenots who had taken refuge in England. Those were times when news
travelled slowly, and much to their mutual surprise it was found that a
peace had already been signed between England and France, and so Quebec
was restored to France in 1632 and Champlain, who had been taken to
England as a prisoner, was released and restored to his governorship.
But his spirit was failing, and on Christmas Day, 1635, one hundred years
after Cartier had first sailed up to the great rock at the narrowing of
the stream, this brave soldier, resourceful general, and true gentleman,
passed away in the country which he loved and in the city he had founded.
CHAPTER III.
JOLIET, MARQUETTE AND THE RIVER OF A HUNDRED THOUSAND STREAMS.
“The first French followers of the river courses were devotees
of a religion for the salvation of others, bearers of advancing
banners for the glory of France, and lovers of nature and
adventure.”
—PRESIDENT J. H. FINLEY.
JOLIET AND MARQUETTE.
Frontenac landed at Quebec in 1672 as governor of New France, full
of plans for the development of the country, the extension of its
boundaries, and the exploration of “the fabled West that is charted
dim but certain in the volume of the breast,” as our own Bliss Carman
phrases it. He found among the coureurs des bois (runners of the woods) a
native Canadian, Louis Joliet, the son of a wagon-maker in Quebec, a man
reputed to be courageous, enterprising, of good nature and endowed with
common sense. Him he commissioned to go up to Sault Ste. Marie and thence
explore for the great South Sea. This was an exceedingly wise choice and
due to the advice of the Intendant, M. Talon, a very able man, who knew
of Joliet’s previous exploits.
Some three years previously the governor of the time, Courcelles,
sent Joliet to learn the truth about the reputed copper deposits on
Lake Superior. He went by the great highway of the Ottawa river, Lake
Nipissing and French River to Georgian Bay, and thence to the Sault. On
his return he went down Lake Huron from the Sault through what we now
call St. Clair and Detroit, and then along the north shore of Lake Erie
and up the Grand River. The reason for leaving the lake at this point was
the fear of his Indian guide for the warlike tribes at the end of the
lake.
Joliet was the first white man known to have passed through Lake Erie and
this lake was the last of the Great Lakes to be discovered. Leaving the
Grand River he was making his way eastward when in an Indian village in
what is now known as the Beverley Swamp, near the present city of Galt,
he met La Salle, Galinée and his Sulpician companion, Father Dollier. La
Salle, greatly impressed by the dashing Joliet, who was much more to his
taste than his priestly companions, turned back with him.
It was to this seasoned explorer that the commission was given and
he left for the Sault, near which he was told he would find Father
Marquette, who would be his companion. Marquette was of a noble family
of Laon, a city of Northern France, associated with nearly all the
epoch-making incidents in the history of France, and which has been one
of the great centres of fighting on the Western Front in the Great War
of to-day. His mother was Rose de la Salle of Rheims. Marquette had
been in the country about five years, and after two years of training
in the mission at Three Rivers had been sent to the remnants of the
Huron nation driven north-westward by the Iroquois, until near the
western end of Lake Superior they established themselves in a village
where they hoped to be far enough away from their great enemy to recover
themselves. Hither in the summer came wandering Indians of a tribe called
the Illinois, who told Marquette of the great river which flowed through
their country, of the fertile lands, and how glad they all would be if he
would visit them. After the village was broken up by the Sioux Indians,
the Hurons determined to go back to more familiar haunts and settled at
Michillimackinac, fifty miles to the south-west of the Sault. Marquette
accompanied them and there he was found by Joliet.
They spent the winter making their plans for the journey, and in May,
1673, they started westwards with their party of Frenchmen and Indians,
through Lake Michigan to Green Bay. Thence up the bay they went and up
the Fox River to its source. A short portage over a narrow strip of
prairie and they dropped their canoes into water flowing southwards, now
the Wisconsin River, and after about 40 leagues they glided out into the
great river, the Mississippi, first christened by a religious name, then
called by a statesman’s name and finally back to its Indian name, with
the significant meaning of “great water.”[9]
Down they floated through the land of the buffalo and the wild turkey,
until seeing upon the bank traces of men, they landed and came to the
villages of the Indian tribe who had invited Marquette to visit them.
The Black Gown, the distinctive garb of the Jesuit brotherhood, was at
once recognized and here they stayed for some days, exchanging gifts and
courtesies and making enquiries about the further reaches of the river.
Before leaving these friendly Indian villages the Illinois Indians
gave them a calumet, or pipe of peace, as a safeguard for them in their
passage through hostile savages, probably just to show to the savages by
using their own sign that they were coming in friendship. The calumet
used by these Indians was made of a bowl of red stone with a long stick
as a stem. This stick was covered along its whole length with heads of
birds all coloured like flame, while a bunch of red feathers shaped like
a great fan adorned the middle of the stick.
Southwards again they went as far as the Arkansas, where, fearing the
Spaniards, who were in that part of the country, they turned northwards,
and following the advice of the Indians, they entered the Illinois River.
Marquette was greatly impressed with the fertility of that wonderful
valley, and well he might be, for his experience hitherto in New France
had not been in very fertile regions. “I have seen,” said he, “nothing
like this river for the fertility of the land, its prairies, woods, wild
cattle, stag, deer, wild cats, bustards, swans, ducks, parrots and even
beaver, its many little lakes and rivers.”
On that river, in the great Indian village of Kaskaskia, seven miles
below the present city of Ottawa, Illinois, Marquette was so kindly
treated that he promised to return to them as soon as he could.
Following up one of the branches of the river they portaged across only
about 1,000 paces and put their canoes into a little stream that emptied
into Lake Michigan. That portage is where stands to-day the city of
Chicago, the great city of the State called after the Indians for whom
Marquette had made the journey. Along the shore they went, across the
portage at Sturgeon Bay, and at the end of September reached the mission
at Green Bay, where they spent the winter.
Early in the spring they separated, Marquette to return to his mission
to recruit his strength that he might redeem his promise to his Indian
friends at Kaskaskia, Joliet to report to Frontenac the result of his
voyage. Unfortunately, Joliet’s canoe was upset in the Lachine rapids and
all his papers, including the map of the discovered region, were lost.
In his report he said, with the insight of the prophet: “We could easily
go to Florida in a ship, and with very easy navigation. It would only be
necessary to make a canal by cutting through but half a league of prairie
to pass from the foot of the lake of the Illinois (Michigan) to the River
St. Louis (Des Plaines),”—and we have lived to see that done in the
great sanitary and ship canal connecting the Chicago River with the Des
Plaines River at the present city of Joliet. Joliet held minor positions
until 1680, when he was granted fishing rights in the lower St. Lawrence
and later the island of Anticosti was included. But in 1690 the English
invasion under Phips destroyed his establishment and ten years later he
died in poverty.
Marquette, weak in body but with a giant spirit, was preparing himself
to fulfil his promise and in the fall of the next year, 1674, he started
for Kaskaskia. Bad weather and his physical weakness made him halt so
many times that it was April before he reached the village. Here he was
welcomed as an angel from heaven, and on the Easter Sunday, before an
altar erected on the prairie at the edge of the great wood, he preached
to thousands of the Indians as they squatted in a semi-circle, chiefs,
young men, women and children, to hear the impressive words of the
black-robed missionary.
Leaving them that he might get treatment for his ailment and promising
that he never would forget them, he started for home, but he succumbed
on the banks of the Great Lake on May 18th, 1675. In compliance with
his request, he was buried there, but a year later the Ottawa Indians,
finding the grave, opened it, and took the remains to St. Ignace in
a great procession of canoes and buried under the chapel the great
priest with solemn ceremonies. Early in the next century the chapel
was destroyed by fire. In 1877 the remains of a burned building were
discovered at the site of the old mission and the remains wrapped in
birch bark were discovered.
Small wonder it is that his name lives throughout that great fertile
valley, drained by the river of a hundred thousand streams, the man
of courage, kindliness of heart and speech, of unselfish devotion and
high ideals, a fitting hero for a land that becoming fabulously rich in
material wealth needs the inspiration of the life of the simple, zealous
priest who put the good of others above his own pleasure and comfort.
CHAPTER IV.
LA SALLE AND THE GREATER NEW FRANCE.
“The fertile plains of Texas, the vast basin of the Mississippi
from its frozen springs to the sultry borders of the gulf; from
the wooded ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks of the
Rocky Mountains,—a region of savannas and forests, sun-cracked
deserts and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers,
ranged by a thousand warlike tribes.”
—PARKMAN.
LA SALLE AND THE GREATER NEW FRANCE.
With the exception of Champlain, the most romantic figure in the history
of New France is that of La Salle, the young adventurer from Rouen. He
landed at Quebec in 1666, the same year as Marquette, and went at once to
Montreal where he had relatives among the Sulpician order of priests, to
whom most of the island of Montreal belonged. Here he purchased from them
an estate or seigniory, as it was called. This was but a few miles west
of Montreal, and was called in derision by his friends “La Chine,” having
reference to La Salle’s dream of finding a road to China by following
westward.
In preparation for his explorations he settled down to acquaint himself
with the Indian languages, and hearing from some Seneca Indians that
there was a great river called the Ohio, which he thought might lead him
to the great Western Sea, he joined the expedition of Galinée and Father
Dollier, the Sulpician, who were setting out to establish a mission
in the Far West. With nine canoes and twenty-one men they skirted the
eastern and southern shores of Lake Ontario, and about the middle of
September reached the mouth of a river which Galinée describes: “We
discovered a river one-eighth of a league wide and extremely rapid.” The
Indians told them of a great cataract up this river which was “higher
than the highest pine trees,” and indeed he tells us he could hear the
roar. But they had a set purpose and pressed on their way, thus losing
the opportunity to be the first white men to visit the Falls of Niagara.
Indeed this is the first description of the river by any one who is known
to have reached it.
They passed on to Burlington Bay and leaving it about where Hamilton now
stands, they struck across the country, and on the 24th of September,
in an Indian village in what is known as the Beverley Swamp, near the
present city of Galt, they met Joliet returning from his search for the
copper mines on Lake Superior. La Salle was so attracted by Joliet, a
kindred adventurer in spirit, that he turned back and left Dollier and
Galinée to go on to the West, guided as to their course by the advice of
Joliet, who told them of the Pottawatomies, a tribe of Indians to whom no
missionary had yet come.
They went down the Grand River and as the season was so far advanced
they built a shelter on the lake shore near where Port Dover now stands,
erected a cross and took formal possession of the Lake Erie country in
the name of Louis the Magnificent.[10]
Here they spent the winter and are enthusiastic in their praise of the
mildness of the climate and the luscious autumn fruit. This is of great
interest to many of us who to-day look upon that county (Norfolk) as one
of the greatest fruit centres of the province of Ontario.
La Salle returned east, and we know that during the next few years he was
with Frontenac, and doubtless made many exploration trips. But in 1675
he received from the French Government a grant on Lake Ontario similar
to the seigniory at La Chine, and so at Cataraqui, where Kingston now
stands, he built a fort to control the trade coming east and to prevent
it from going to the English colony in New York. This he called “Fort
Frontenac.” He was raised to the nobility and was given a commission in
1678 to discover the “Western part of New France” and “to construct forts
in the places you may think necessary.” This meant that he would seek
out the mouth of the great Mississippi and erect a chain of forts which
would connect and hold for France the country from the mouth of the St.
Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi.
Here was the great chance for which this adventurous man had longed and
for which he had toiled, and so in November of that year he began to
gather men and material for the great project. He threw himself into this
work with energy and was backed up by Frontenac, whose policy had ever
been the extension of the boundaries of New France. Indeed, Frontenac had
advised the Home Government as early as 1673 that a fort at the mouth of
the Niagara River and a vessel on Lake Erie would enable the French to
command the Great Lakes. Like many other Home Governments when urged to
progressive measures, Colbert, the Colonial Minister, advised caution.[11]
When La Salle arrived from Rochelle with these wonderfully indefinite
powers these two men saw great possibilities and went to work at once.
Ship carpenters, blacksmiths, and other artisans were gathered at the
Niagara River, and while a fort was being built at the mouth of the river
to cut off the trade of the English, a store house was erected below the
Falls near where Lewiston now stands, and a shipyard was planned above
the Falls, where a large boat was to be built for the great western
expedition. This was the work of La Salle’s lieutenant, Henry Tonty. With
La Salle was a Récollet priest, Father Hennepin, and to him we owe our
first written account of Niagara Falls.
After many disappointments, the Griffon, named after Frontenac’s armorial
bearing, was launched, equipped, and set sail. Tonty rejoined La Salle
on board the Griffon at Detroit. He has an interest for us to-day in
that his name is preserved to us in the Tontine plan of insurance, which
was the invention of his father, a Neapolitan nobleman. And in a greater
sense this Henry Tonty was a nobleman, for through all his wandering and
discouragements La Salle found in him a sincere and trustworthy friend.
At Mackinac they were to meet with advance guards of traders sent on
by La Salle, but most of them had deserted. Gathering up a few whom he
thought would be loyal, La Salle made his way to the Illinois River,
where a fort was built and a boat begun by Tonty for exploration of the
great river. The Griffon was sent home from Green Bay, loaded with furs,
and there our knowledge of her ends.
In the meantime La Salle determined to return to Fort Frontenac to get
more material and more men to undertake the great journey. By canoe
and on foot they crossed Southern Michigan and passed over the Detroit
on a raft, thence on foot along the shores of Lake Erie (in the month
of March), and utterly worn out he, his faithful hunter, and two white
companions reached the Falls, only to hear heart-breaking news. He had
travelled more than a thousand miles in 65 days in the very worst season
of the year. There was no news of his ship—his fortune and his hope.
Deceived and even robbed by his men, in addition to all his other
disappointments, La Salle, undaunted and undismayed, sent Dautray, one
of the white men who had accompanied him, with four others, to reinforce
Tonty, and pushed on to Fort Frontenac. As if he had not already enough
bad news, just as he arrived at the Fort, messengers from Tonty told
him that the men who were building the vessel in the Illinois River had
stolen what they could and had deserted. These precious rascals, joined
by other deserters, must have been following close behind the messengers,
as we hear of them breaking into La Salle’s storehouse on the Niagara,
looting everything they could and setting out for the East. La Salle
heard of it, intercepted some of them, killed two, and took the rest
prisoners to Fort Frontenac.
But Tonty must be rescued and the exploration go on, so La Salle gathered
men and supplies and started for the West. With twelve men he went up the
Humber River, crossed to Lake Simcoe, and thence down the Severn River to
the Georgian Bay; the others with the heavier freight went by Niagara and
Lake Erie. They were to meet at Mackinac, but La Salle could not wait,
and hastened on with a foreboding that something awful may have happened
to Tonty at his Fort Crevecoeur (broken heart) in the Illinois country.
And when they arrived it was to see where once had been the chief town
of the Illinois, nothing but ashes, skulls, and mangled corpses. The
Iroquois had been there. Down the river he went looking for Tonty, even
into the Mississippi. Discouraged, they turned back to the St. Joseph
River and there at Fort Miami, where La Forest was in charge, they
settled down for the winter. In the meantime, Tonty, after trying in vain
to prevent the battle between the Iroquois and the Illinois, had escaped
and after weeks of suffering had reached Green Bay.
La Salle in the spring set out for Fort Frontenac to refit and went
by Michillimackinac. We can imagine his joy when he found Tonty, who
accompanied him to the East. By October they had arranged their affairs
and arrived at Fort Miami in November. Here they organized their
expedition of 18 Indians and 23 Frenchmen, and in Christmas week, 1681,
they set out. Across Lake Michigan to the Chicago River, thence portaging
to the north branch of the Illinois, they entered the Mississippi on
February 6th, but saw no human beings until March 13th, near the mouth
of the Arkansas River. Landing there La Salle raised the banner of
France, planted a cross, and took possession of the country in the name
of the King.
Thence down the river they went for three hundred miles to the Taensas
Indians, who lived in large square houses built of mud and straw with a
high roof of cane and surrounding a large open court. Soon they came to
the mouth or delta of the Mississippi, and going in different parties
down the channels they joined together on an island at the mouth, erected
a column, and took possession of all Louisiana from the mouth of the
Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico. And so from Lake Erie west and north to the
Rocky Mountains and the Canadian North West, and south from Lake Erie to
the Gulf, and west to the Rio Grande was added to the New France whose
capital was at the narrowing of the stream of the mighty St. Lawrence.
La Salle had realized his dream, and against obstacles which would have
staggered any ordinary man; and New France now extended from the Gulf
of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. They retraced their way up the
Mississippi and after a long illness he reached Mackinac, whither he had
sent Tonty to announce their success. It was too late to go to Quebec,
and there was a rumour that the Iroquois were on the warpath, so La Salle
and Tonty returned to the Illinois and spent the winter of 1682-3 in
fortifying Starved Rock, which was to be one of the chain of forts to
hold the new country.
But in the meantime Frontenac was recalled, the forward policy entirely
changed, and La Salle’s own possessions at Fort Frontenac seized. This
seemed the cap stone of all his troubles, and he passed eastward in the
fall of 1683, reached Quebec in November, and finding his case hopeless,
sailed for France to lay his case personally before his King.
He was a wonderful man. His vessels had been wrecked, his goods lost,
his possessions confiscated. He had been deserted by his men, been
robbed, and yet he retained that faith in himself and in his cause, and
so impressed the King that he was given command of an expedition to sail
for the mouths of the Mississippi to drive the Spaniards out of North
America. They landed somewhere near where Galveston, Texas, now stands,
having missed the Mississippi. Again through wrecks and desertion La
Salle found his numbers depleted. Added to this, dreadful sickness broke
out. La Salle determined to seek a way out to the Mississippi and thence
up to New France. He made repeated attempts, and at last, deserted by
nearly all his men who despaired of ever seeing home again, he was shot
by one of his own followers on March 18th, 1687.
Thus perished one of the most remarkable men in our history, the first
great Imperialist, who had an empire in his brain, and who if he had been
given backing would have made a New France greater than Old France could
ever hope to be. And the map of North America would have been greatly
changed!
Tonty, the faithful friend and companion of La Salle, stayed for some
years in the country of the Illinois, joined Iberville in Louisiana
in 1702, and died near where Mobile now stands about 1704. Faithful,
not only to the erratic La Salle, but also to the Home Government, he
received no recompense in any form, but has left for us an undying
picture of how true and faithful a friend can be, and under the most
trying circumstances.
CHAPTER V.
RADISSON AND THE GREAT NORTH WEST.
“If he had not had his faults, if he had not been as impulsive,
as daring, as reckless, as inconstant, as improvident of the
morrow as a savage or a child, he would not have accomplished
the exploration of half a continent. Men who weigh consequences
are not of the stuff to win empires. He went ahead and when the
way did not open he went around, or crawled over, or carved his
way through.
“Memorial tablets commemorate other discoverers. Radisson needs
none. The Great Northwest is his monument for all time.”
—AGNES C. LAUT.
RADISSON AND THE GREAT NORTH WEST
Before Joliet, Marquette, or La Salle had made their memorable
expeditions in search of the Western Sea, a man unattached to any
religious order, and under the protection of no government, had traversed
these unknown wilds for the sheer joy of exploration and excitement. The
hair-breadth escapes of the hero of modern fiction cannot compare in
thrills to the marvellous adventures of this man to whom the country from
Quebec to the prairies of the great North West were alike his hunting
and his playground.
This was Pierre Radisson, who left his native St. Malo about a century
after the great Cartier, and settled at Three Rivers, which then was a
comparatively large place, having a population of about 200 souls.
With the enthusiasm and recklessness of youth he disregarded the warnings
of his friends and went duck shooting with a couple of equally reckless
and youthful companions. They were but boys and were at the age when
Indians had no terrors for them. Separated in the chase, Radisson had
splendid luck, and returning to where they had agreed to meet, he found
his two companions dead among the rushes. When he looked about, the heads
of Indians appeared everywhere. They set upon him, and after a game
struggle he was disarmed, stripped, tied around the waist with a rope and
brought to the camp fire.
The very recklessness of the youth compelled the admiration of the
Indians, who spared his life, gave him his clothes, dressed his hair and
daubed his face as of an Indian brave. Though but a boy he showed the
coolness in the face of danger which was to characterize him throughout
his adventurous life. We are told that he slept that night between
two warriors under a common blanket and so soundly that he was with
difficulty awakened at the break of day.
Taking no chances, they tied him to the cross bar of a canoe when the
party set off for the Indian village many miles distant. On the fourth
day he was released from the cross bar, and being given a paddle, entered
with zest into the work of helping onward the canoe. He was a cheerful
lad, and the Indians, instead of allowing him to work himself out in
his awkward manner, taught him how to give the light feather strokes of
the true canoe man. He, in turn, took his share of the burdens, and was
always eager to help. Their village was near Lake George in what is now
New York State, and there they prepared to make merry with their captives
and their plunder. He had to run the gauntlet of the braves, and was so
successful that he was sought for adoption by a captive Huron squaw who
had been adopted by the tribe. She pleaded for his life before the Great
Council and was allowed to take him as her son. He was now a Mohawk of
the Iroquois nation.
Watching his opportunity, and with an Algonquin captive, they made their
escape, after killing three of the Mohawks; and after wandering many
days, they were within sight of Three Rivers when the Iroquois overtook
them, killed the Algonquin, and Radisson was again a prisoner. He was
recognized and subjected to tortures, his thumb being thrust into a
pipe of live coals, and the soles of both feet burned. Still worse was
in store for him, but his adopted father, a chief among them, and his
adopted mother, purchased his freedom by a recital of their own deeds of
valour and by gifts of wampum.
This seventeen year old lad seemingly had won the hearts of all. He
accompanied them on their expeditions and visited the lodges of the
Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, and Cayugas in their wanderings about what
is now known as the Niagara district. Indeed, he won the confidence of
his Mohawk friends to such an extent that they took him with them when
they visited the white man’s village of Orange (Albany), and he justified
their confidence by returning with them, even though the Dutch offered to
pay a great ransom to free him.
He wanted to make himself free and was ever on the alert for the suitable
moment. It came in 1653, and alone he made his way back to Orange after
many hair-breadth escapes. Here he was befriended—indeed he seemed
always and everywhere to make friends—by a Jesuit priest who gave him
enough money to enable him to sail down the Hudson to New York, whence he
took boat for Amsterdam, which he reached in 1654, and thence he made his
way home to France.
This adventure I have dwelt upon in some detail, because it is an
illustration in miniature of his eventful life. One would think there had
been enough crowded into these months to suffice for a life time, but the
lure of the West was upon him, and his relatives, like himself, had gone
overseas.
Therefore he joined the fishing fleet that was sailing for the Banks of
Newfoundland, and made his way back to Three Rivers in May of 1654, just
two years after he had disappeared.
His sister, Marguerite, had lost her husband in a fight with the Mohawks,
and had married Chouart, a famous fur trader. This man was a widower, his
wife having been a daughter of Abraham Martin, whose farm near Quebec
City was in another century to become famous as the scene of the battle
of the Plains of Abraham.
These two men, Radisson and Chouart, became not only fast friends, but
inseparable companions in a life of adventure. The traders coming East to
dispose of their furs told of a great country beyond the Great Lakes,
and these two lovers of the wild set off up the Ottawa across Lake Huron
and Michigan, over what is now Wisconsin, and came to a “mighty river,
great, rushing, profound, and comparable to the St. Lawrence.” This
undoubtedly was the Upper Mississippi, and these two white men were the
first to see it and the “farflung, fenceless prairie, where the quick
cloud-shadows trail,” which make up what we call the Great North West.
The Indians told them of a great river to the south which divided itself
in two, the Forked River, the junction of Missouri and Mississippi,
but the adventurers decided to make their way back again, and crossing
through what is now Nebraska, North Dakota, and Minnesota, they came to
Lake Superior and the Sault. Here the Crees told Radisson of a great
sea to the north, Hudsons Bay, where there were quantities of furs.
So alluring was the description that he set off on snow shoes, but
the season was too late and he returned and made his way east. At the
rapids of the Long Sault his large party came upon the Iroquois who had
massacred Dollard and his noble band of Frenchmen. These they put to
flight and as deliverers they made a triumphant journey to Montreal,
Three Rivers and Quebec.
Their one thought was when could they resume their explorations in the
North, and as they could not come to terms with the Governor, who wanted
all the profits without assuming any of the risks, they stole away and in
October reached Lake Superior. Pressing on they came to where Duluth now
stands, and there they established a fur trading post, the first between
the Missouri River and the North Pole. This marks the opening of the
Great West as truly as when the railway passing through unknown portions
of our Great West established a station as a centre of influence and
trade.
In the spring they set off with their hosts of the winter, the Crees, to
find the Great Sea, and it is possible that they were successful, but
after great hardships. However, we know that they returned in 1663 with
costly furs, and instead of the welcome which might reasonably be looked
for, they were heavily fined by the French governor for trading without
a license, and most of their furs were confiscated. They tried to get
redress in France, but utterly failed, and so with no support in either
Old France or New France they sought out new friends and joined the
English in an expedition against Port Royal. This was unsuccessful, and
being taken prisoners by the Dutch they were landed in Spain, whence they
made their way to England. This was in 1666, when the great plague was
raging in London, and Charles II. and his court were at Oxford.
They met at the court a man who was greatly impressed with their stories,
and whose name was to be intimately associated with the great Northland.
This was Prince Rupert, the dashing cavalry leader of the Stuarts, who
became their patron, outfitted them for exploration, and they set off for
Hudsons Bay. Chouart was successful, but Radisson, shipwrecked, returned
to England where, in 1670, on the return of Chouart, a “company of
adventurers trading with Hudsons Bay” was formed through the influence of
Prince Rupert, who became the first governor of the Hudsons Bay Company,
to whom was given an empire.
In the following spring ships were sent out, posts established, and so
successful was their venture that the French not only sent expeditions
and exploring parties northward, but the great gathering of the Indian
tribes at the Sault Ste. Marie, which Perrot organized, was to strengthen
the French against the English traders who were trying to divert trade
from the posts of the French.
But negotiations in England fell through and Radisson made more
satisfactory terms with his old allies, the French, and sailed under that
flag to Hudsons Bay, outwitted both the officials of the Hudsons Bay
Company and the free traders from New England and France became supreme
in the Bay. But again the government of New France threw away the prize,
for when Radisson and Chouart arrived at Montreal they were prosecuted
for trading without a license. They were summoned to France to explain
the circumstances to the Home Government, but when they arrived they
found that Colbert, the minister who summoned them, was dead. Chouart,
thoroughly discouraged, retired to end his days in quietness, for the
outlook was anything but encouraging.
However, Radisson, looking with eagerness still for the life of
adventure, and having a family to support, played French against English
offers until at last he went across to England and in 1684 he sailed for
Hudsons Bay under the flag of the Company. Here he found young Chouart,
the son, who had been holding the Bay for France, who, when he heard of
the treatment given his father and Radisson, surrendered the fort and
the furs to Radisson, who thereupon gathered the Indian tribes and made
a treaty with them and the Hudsons Bay Company, which in essence lasts
unto this day. Returning to England they received a great welcome, and
for five years Radisson made annual visits to the Bay and the Company
flourished.
[Illustration: COUNCIL OF THE TURTLE CLAN
The Turtle Clan chiefs of the Onondagas are discussing some important
tribal subject within the private bark lodge of their fire-keeper. The
presiding chief must give the decision. The chief woman of the clan feels
that the council’s action is adverse to her interests and requests her
secretary, a young man, to register her protest.
The bark cabin is a typical Iroquois lodge of the individual type.
All the furnishings of the council lodge are of genuine Indian make and
typical of prehistoric times in an Onondaga village. The figures are cast
from living Onondaga models.
The purpose of this group is to illustrate (1) one of the political units
of the Iroquois Confederacy, which had a stable government and a definite
code of law, (2) the interior of a bark cabin (many of which were more
than 100 feet in length), (3) the four Turtle clan sachems in council,
(4) the method of recording by wampum the transactions of a council, (5)
the privilege of the Iroquois woman to voice her opinions in the highest
or lowest councils of the nation, (6) typical Onondaga Indians and a
scene in the Onondaga country.]
The great Seven Years’ War between France and England broke out in 1688
with the accession of William and Mary, and the Bay was invaded by the
French, the fur trade badly disorganized, and the profits of the Company
greatly decreased.
As is too often the case with corporations, gratitude for what had been
accomplished was wiped out by the disappointment of the present, and
Radisson, who had done so much for the company, was ignored; too old to
be of aggressive service to them, he drops out of sight, and is forgotten
except for the record of the payment of a small pension up to the year
1710.
His was a wonderful life. Impulsive, yet cool-headed at critical times,
daring, reckless and inconstant, but generous and brave, he was the true
adventurer who, with no thought of himself, braved danger for the very
love of it, and whose memory is preserved among the Indians as one who
was untainted by the vices of the white man, who never was cruel and who
was admired for his sheer bravery.
CHAPTER VI.
MONTCALM AND THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE.
“The history of French America is far more picturesque than the
history of British America in the period of 1608-1754. But the
English were doing work more solid, valuable and permanent than
their northern neighbours. The French took to the lakes, rivers
and forests; they cultivated the Indians; their explorers were
intent on discovery, their traders on furs, their missionaries
on souls. The English did not either take to the woods or
cultivate the Indians, they loved agriculture and trade, state
and church, and so clung to the fields, shops, politics and
churches. As a result while Canada languished, the English
states grew up on the Atlantic plain modelled on the Saxon
pattern, and became populous, rich and strong. At the beginning
of the war there were 80,000 white inhabitants in New France,
1,160,000 in the British colonies.”
—PROFESSOR B. A. HINSDALE.
MONTCALM AND THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE.
What the gold mines of Mexico and Peru were to the Spaniards the fur
trade of New France was to the French, and until the furs arrived in
Montreal or Quebec, they could not be considered safe, for in the Ohio
country and especially at the Niagara portage, and even on the way to
Frontenac, they were liable to attack from the English and their Indian
allies.
To protect this trade the French built a strong fort at the mouth of the
Niagara River, part of which may be seen to-day in what is known as Fort
Niagara on the American side of the river. At the head of the portage,
above the Falls, there was a smaller fort called Fort Little Niagara.
This was the great trading centre, not only for the district immediately
tributary to it, such as Toronto (at the mouth of what is now called
the Humber River, and which in summer was very busy) but for all the
north-west country which with the development of Detroit had increased in
wealth and inhabitants. Toronto was really an outpost of Niagara and was
established with the great French forward movement in 1749. It had been
officially named Fort Rouillé after the Colonial Minister of the day, who
was also a man of letters, and the head of the Royal Library. However,
this name was too artificial to survive and the old name for the bay and
river, Toronto, maintained its hold upon the people.
In 1749 the French determined upon a great expedition to show their power
and assert their sovereignty over the Ohio country and to warn off all
strangers from trading on French territory. So in June of that year with
23 canoes and 250 men they left Lachine, passed through Niagara in July,
and made their triumphal way through the Ohio country to Detroit, and
thence back to Montreal in November.
The headquarters of the English on the Lakes was at Oswego. This was
the great rival of Niagara as a trading centre. When the war had raised
the prices in France the French traders at Niagara raised their prices
correspondingly—and even more. The Indians grumbled and went on to
Oswego, where they could trade with the English to better advantage. The
French, feeling that their trade with the Indians was being endangered
urged an expedition against Oswego, and in 1756 Montcalm took the place
by storm in the greatest battle which up to that time had been fought
between the French and the English for control of the Lakes.
This disaster followed closely upon the defeat of Braddock at Duquesne,
made especially famous because of the presence of George Washington,
the colonial, as junior officer, who, accustomed to the Indian manner
of fighting, warned General Braddock, but whose advice the haughty
English general thought beneath notice; and still more was heaped upon
the unfortunate English when Montcalm defeated them at Ticonderoga. It
certainly looked as if there must needs be a vigorous policy on the part
of the English if they were to have any of the trade on the great inland
waters.
Pitt, the Premier of England, saw this and made plans for an aggressive
campaign. In 1758 Colonel Bradstreet, with American provincials, captured
Fort Frontenac, burned and sank seven vessels of war, captured sixty
cannon and destroyed the Fort and incidentally the shipyard, which was
the first upon the Great Lakes. This success greatly heartened the
English and made them think how simple might be the conquest of other
places if they had ships of war. It was the awakening of the English to
the importance of “sea power” on the Lakes.
Now Niagara was the centre of French power and influence, situated on the
great portage which practically controlled the great trade from the West.
The fort had been greatly strengthened during 1756-7, and the English
carefully gathered a strong force. It was a real siege, in which the
assailing force used trench warfare to make steady and safe advances.
After nineteen days the garrison surrendered to Sir William Johnson, who
was ranking commander on account of the deaths of the superior officers
during the siege. Sir William had joined the investing force with 900
Indians, the largest number ever led into battle by a white man. When he
entered the fort one of the most interesting of his companions was Joseph
Brant, a Mohawk lad of 17, destined to become one of the most renowned
men of his day. And now the English for the first time had access to the
great fur trade.
While speaking of this fort it will be of interest to note that in the
common English speech of that day the pronunciation of the name of the
fort was Niagàra. Our present pronunciation would have been impossible to
the Iroquois tongue, which requires that each syllable should end in a
vowel.
While these disasters were overtaking the French on the Lakes, the
English under Wolfe had sailed up the St. Lawrence after clearing the
coasts below, and were preparing to attack Quebec. Indeed the news of
the capture of Niagara, which came at a very opportune moment, greatly
heartened the English and correspondingly depressed the French.
The situation was perilous. Fort Frontenac was destroyed, Fort Niagara in
the hands of the English, Amherst was advancing, as part of Pitt’s plan,
through New York State by way of Oswego, against Montreal, and a strong
English force under Wolfe, selected specially for this work by Pitt, was
before the capital city of Quebec.
The internal affairs of the country were not promising. Montcalm, the
general of the French forces, an able military man of good experience,
was not supreme, but had to take his orders from Vaudreuil, the governor,
a weak and jealous man, fatal failings in a position of authority. And
with almost the powers of the governor, was the Intendant, a man called
Bigot, to whose looseness in matters of morals and money may be partially
ascribed the loss of New France. The defects of the rulers were to be
seen in the officials under them, and it was a difficult task that
confronted Montcalm.
The advance against Quebec was made by water, and up to the battle
itself the movements were those of a fleet. The commander of the army
was General Wolfe, selected by Pitt, the Prime Minister of England, and
to him was given what was then the extraordinary privilege of selecting
most of his staff and thus providing for unity of aim and community of
interest. Saunders was Admiral of the fleet.
At first they lay below the city and tried sundry attacks by land, but
without success. Then they made a skilful movement up the river and in a
better position to make a direct attack.
Quebec is a natural stronghold, and had to depend largely upon this
for protection. Large sums of money had been assigned for the greater
development and strengthening of the fortifications, but in those days of
corruption and thoughtlessness the money had doubtless been squandered.
Its great cliffs might have presented a hopeless appearance to the enemy
if properly guarded, but Wolfe knew through his capable Intelligence
Department, that there was but little ammunition and little food in the
garrison. Above all, there was a lack of intelligence and co-operation
among the rulers of the French, an evidence of which was the fact that
a great fleet could make its way up the dangerous St. Lawrence with
practically no opposition.
Wolfe studied out the situation and, emboldened by the good news from
the Lakes, planned an assault by night. Carefully selecting the place,
he told no one but the admiral and the captain who was to lead the great
procession of boats to the assault. Shortly after midnight on September
12th, 1759, the boats in line dropped down the river with Wolfe and his
staff in the leading boat. They passed successfully a French sentry who
thought they were a French convoy, and about four o’clock on that autumn
morning Wolfe leaped ashore at a cove about a mile and a half above the
city, and led his men up the steep path which he had already carefully
investigated. Again they successfully answered the challenge of a sentry
and by six o’clock the whole landing force was on the heights.
It was a surprise to the French, but even then the chance for recovery
would have been greater if Montcalm had not been hampered by having to
consult the governor on all details. This was a national crisis. Half a
continent was at stake and yet the man whose training had been for this
purpose, whose business it was to know what to do at such a crisis, had
to lay his plans before a political appointee, who in turn used his power
for the humiliation of the expert military leader.
But Montcalm was a patriot, and he made the best of the situation. By
nine o’clock the French marched out in battle array against Wolfe’s army,
which by this time had reached the level known as the Plains of Abraham.
The armies were almost equal in numbers, approximately 5,000 each, and
as the French advanced to the attack, which was their best policy, Wolfe,
advancing his men so that the action would be close, gave the order that
no shot was to be fired until the enemy was within forty paces. It was
a difficult matter to remain steady and resist the temptation to fire,
but they did, and when at forty paces a volley was let loose, followed
immediately by a second, the French line wavered and Wolfe gave the order
to charge.
The French could not withstand the shock and the battle was won. Wolfe,
already wounded, received a death wound in the first moment of the
charge. While being carried to the rear he heard some one say, “They run,
they run!” Wolfe roused himself and asked, “Who run?” “The French, sir!
Egad! they give way everywhere!” “Then I die content.” And so passed
away the young intrepid general, who had recognized fully the great
issues involved in this encounter and on the previous evening had made a
disposition of all his belongings.
And Montcalm, while trying to rally the fugitives, was stricken down, and
when told that he could not live, replied calmly, “So much the better. I
am happy not to live to see the surrender of Quebec.”
The battle lasted until mid-day, and the result was a triumph for Wolfe’s
tactics, for it was a carefully planned attack, and nothing was left
to chance. Quebec surrendered, the French troops marched out with the
honours of war, and the reign of France was virtually over in the New
World.
Montcalm was buried in the Ursuline chapel at Quebec, while Wolfe’s body
was carried on the Royal William to Portsmouth in charge of Sergeant
Donald MacLeod, of the Black Watch, all his years a soldier and with
twelve sons in the army and navy.
Years afterwards, to these two great generals, noble and self-sacrificing
men, each doing his duty to his country even to the sacrifice of his
life, a monument was erected in the city for whose possession they had
fought. On one side is the word Montcalm; on the other Wolfe; and on the
pedestal between these words:
MORTEM VIRTUS COMMUNEM
FAMAM HISTORIA
MONUMENTUM POSTERITAS
DEDIT.
CHAPTER VII.
PONTIAC AND THE LAST HOPE OF INDIAN SUPREMACY.
“For a mausoleum a city has arisen above the forest hero; and
the race whom he hated with such burning rancour trample with
unceasing footsteps over his forgotten grave.”
—PARKMAN.
PONTIAC AND THE LAST HOPE OF INDIAN SUPREMACY.
We sometimes speak of the victory of Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham
and the subsequent surrender of Quebec as having involved the transfer
of Canada or New France from the French to the English. It really was
the first and most important in the series of events which led to this
transfer.
The situation at Quebec presented many difficulties. England had but a
small force, and had barely defeated the French. It was the Fall of the
year with the cold winter approaching which proved a terrible time for
the English, unaccustomed to so severe a climate, and in a city much
of which was in ruins. Unity of purpose and decisive action on the part
of the French might have cut off the English, but in the dread of being
separated from their base of supplies the French retreated to Montreal.
Early in the spring Chevalier de Levis, second in command to Montcalm,
gathered an army in Montreal of 7,000 men and reached Quebec in April.
Murray, the English commander, marched out to the attack, but was badly
defeated and retreated into the city.
And now the fate of New France was in the balance. Quebec was not in
condition to stand a siege. The English forces had met with a decided
reverse. The French were heartened by the victory, but were not strong
enough to follow it up vigorously. Word was received that ships were
coming up the river. Were they French or English? It was an anxious
moment, and when at last the English flag was seen floating at the
masthead the French fell back upon Montreal and the fate of New France
was practically settled.
Against Montreal Murray led the forces from Quebec expecting there to
make connections with Amherst, who was on his way from New York by way of
Oswego and the St. Lawrence. The junction of forces was so well managed
that Vaudreuil surrendered, and was able to make excellent terms with his
generous conquerors.
And so from Louisbourg to Quebec, to Montreal, to Frontenac (taken by
Bradstreet) to Niagara (taken by Sir William Johnson) New France was in
the possession of the English.
But New France extended far beyond Niagara, and the forts at Pitt (where
Pittsburg now stands), Detroit, Michillimackinac, Sault Ste. Marie,
and the strongly fortified Fort Chartres near the present city of St.
Louis, had heard nothing of the happenings in the Far East; and in this
connection it must be remembered that all the Indians except the Iroquois
were allies of the French or friendly disposed towards them, and none but
an Englishman of that day could have imagined, as Amherst did, that the
Indians were hardly worth considering and that the fighting was now over.
These outposts of the French were to be formally taken over and Major
Robert Rogers, of Rogers’ Rangers, was despatched to Detroit. He sent a
messenger ahead to acquaint the commander with what had taken place at
Montreal, so to give him time to consider the question of surrendering
the fort.
When nearing Detroit Major Rogers was stopped by Pontiac, an Indian chief
of the Ottawa nation, who demanded of him by what right he was entering
upon the territory of the Ottawas and allied tribes. He was given a
friendly answer; they smoked the pipe of peace and seemingly parted good
friends; but the English made no further efforts to conciliate him by
presents or friendly overtures. In other words, they were not diplomatic
in their dealings, and the Indians resented the lack of tact and
consideration shown them, the original inhabitants of the country.
There is nothing which so hurts a sensitive man or a sensitive nation as
contempt, and Pontiac, gathering about him a great council of the Indians
of that region, spoke in an impassioned and eloquent manner of this
opportunity, perhaps the last, to drive out the white man.
Pontiac was the Napoleon of the Indian tribes of New France. He was not
only courageous in battle but he was a genius in the art of war and was
eloquent in council, with a power of winning others to his cause. It is
said that he was in command of the Indians on the occasion of Braddock’s
famous defeat at Fort Duquesne, made especially noteworthy because of
the presence of George Washington on Braddock’s staff. At any rate it is
known that Pontiac had been the guest of Montcalm at Quebec, certainly a
tribute to his greatness, and that he proudly wore a uniform presented to
him by that general.
[Illustration: THE CAYUGA FALSE FACE CEREMONY
This is the midwinter purification rite, when evil spirits are driven
from all the houses of the Iroquois village. Grotesquely clad and masked
medicine men burst into the cabins throwing open the doors and windows
and commence to scatter the ashes of the hearth and to kindle a new
fire. Then they sprinkle white ashes on the heads of the people, blowing
through their hands. This is supposed to cure any disease. The medicine
man’s reward is a pipe bowl of tobacco, which one dancer is begging from
the frightened boy.
The Indian cabin is genuine and typical of the period (1687-1850) when
New York Indians had traders’ cloth and tools. The figures are life casts
of Cayuga Indians.
The purpose of this group is to show the changes wrought by the
acquisition of European metallic tools, cloth and other articles.
Material culture was greatly changed by the giving up of native tools
and materials. The methods of labor to a degree also changed, but the
religious, social and civil organization yet remained and was more slowly
disintegrated. The false face ceremony is one of the more spectacular
rites common among all the Iroquois.]
This, then, was the man who in 1763 assembled a council near Detroit,
at which were present Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawatomies, Miamis, Sacs,
Foxes, Menominees, Wyandots, Mississagas, Shawnees and Delawares,
representing nearly 2,000 warriors, and told them that he had received a
wampum belt from their father, the King of France, who commanded his red
children to fight the English.
When Major Rogers reached Detroit the city at once surrendered and Rogers
planned to go to Mackinac, but it was too late in the year and he had to
return to New York.
In the spring Pontiac laid out his great plan of campaign by which
Detroit was to be the first fort to be assailed. Having obtained
permission to hold a peace dance at Detroit, his braves had carefully
spied out the fort, and after consultation with him fifty warriors were
selected who were to saw off their gun barrels, so that the weapons
might be hidden under the blankets, and in this fashion were to ask for
a parley with the English commander. Fortunately for the garrison, the
commander was informed of these plans by a spy, and when Pontiac and his
fifty followers entered the fort they were surprised to see the warlike
preparations. With a bland innocence which often had served him well,
Pontiac asked why so many of the young men were in the streets with guns.
“Just for exercise and discipline,” said the equally bland commander, and
asked Pontiac to state his case. Just as the Indian was about to present
the wampum belt in the reverse way—which was to be the signal for the
massacre—the commander made a sign, the war drums of the garrison crashed
out a charge and Pontiac saw that he was detected. He then presented it
in the usual way and the English commander told him that as long as they
behaved they would be taken care of and peace would be maintained. He
then approached Pontiac, pulled open his blanket and disclosed the short
rifle concealed beneath. There was nothing for Pontiac to do but retire,
which he did with his fifty braves.
This was really the beginning of the contest and Detroit was in a state
of siege. The fort was in the midst of what was a military colony
extending from twelve to sixteen miles along the west bank of the river.
It had been founded in 1701 by Cadillac, who was virtually a feudal lord,
owning the fort, the church, the gristmill, the brewery, warehouses, barn
and the very fruit trees themselves, which had been brought from France.
Cadillac was a remarkable organizer, and against great difficulties and
severe opposition from forts already established, he had been able to
persuade the French Government to support him in the development of this
colony.
Indeed, this is one of the earliest instances in Canada of assisted
immigration and subsidies to settlers, such as we are accustomed to think
of as belonging to modern times. In 1748 the French Government offered
any settler who would go to Detroit one spade, one axe, one plough, one
large and one small wagon, a cow, and a pig. Seed would be given to be
returned after the third harvest. The women and children were supported
for one year after coming to the colony. In this way Detroit had come to
be a place of about 2,500 people.
The plan now was to starve out the garrison by killing all the settlers
outside the fort who were in any way sympathetic with the English cause.
At the same time they waylaid all relief expeditions sent from the
East, and at first were very fortunate, as the English officers did
not understand the Indian method of warfare and were easily led into
ambuscades. For five months this little garrison had been surrounded by
a thousand or more savages, but notwithstanding various successes the
Indians were becoming tired.
Siege warfare long continued was not congenial to them, and little by
little they began to desert until by October there were only the Ottawas,
his own tribe, left. When, therefore, at the end of that month the French
governor at Fort Chartres sent a message to Pontiac that the Great Father
in France had given up all his possessions over here to the English, the
great chief raised the siege in disgust and left for the south. There he
hoped to rally the Indians for a final stand, but when he found it could
not be done he reluctantly made terms of peace with the representative
of Sir William Johnson at Detroit in August of 1764. On that occasion he
spoke in the Peace Council as follows:
“Father, we have all smoked out of this pipe of peace. It is
your children’s pipe; and as the war is over and the Great
Spirit and Giver of Light who has made all the earth and
everything therein has brought us all together this day for
our mutual good, I declare to all nations that I have settled
my peace with you before I came here, and now deliver my pipe
to be sent to Sir William Johnson that he may know I have
made peace and taken the King of England for my father in the
presence of all the nations now assembled; and whenever any of
these nations go to visit him they may smoke out of it with him
in peace. Fathers, we are obliged to you for lighting up our
old council fire for us and desiring us to return to it, but we
are now settled on the Miami river not far from hence. Whenever
you want us you will find us there.”
In 1766 Pontiac visited Sir William Johnson at his castle on the Mohawk
and smoked the pipe of peace with that great warrior. Thence he went
south to Fort Chartres, the last place in New France where floated the
lilies of France, that flag which for over two centuries had been the
symbol of sovereignty from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of
Mexico. There he became embroiled in a quarrel and was killed by one of
the Illinois in a cowardly manner, an act for which that tribe had to pay
dearly in the vengeance exacted by the friends of the great old chief.
But this story would hardly be complete if we did not point out that
Pontiac’s plot for the surprise of Detroit was not a merely local
attack, but was part of a comprehensive plan for the surprise of all
the forts held by the English against which, as far as possible, a
simultaneous attack was to be made so that it would be difficult for the
English to help the garrisons and impossible for the forts to help one
another.
The most striking of these attacks was that on Fort Michillimackinac. On
June 4th the English garrison planned to celebrate the anniversary of the
birthday of George III. Games were to be held on the plain outside the
fort and the Chippewas and Sacs asked that they be allowed to take part
and give the garrison the pleasure of seeing the great Indian national
game of lacrosse played by experts. This was granted and a great crowd
gathered.
The game was well played and so warmly contested that the excitement was
intense. Player pursued player, tripping and slashing in true Indian
fashion. When the game was at its height a player threw the ball at a
point near the gate of the fort. There was a wild rush for the ball, and
when they reached the gate lacrosse sticks were thrown aside and the
closely blanketed squaws who were there in large numbers opened their
blankets and threw out tomahawks and knives to the braves. Madly they
rushed in, took possession of the fort, fell upon the garrison and the
traders, butchered some and carried off the others as prisoners.
Smaller trading posts were taken in like fashion by cunning or by direct
attack when cunning failed, and for a short time it looked as if the
English would have a difficult task to capture and hold the Mississippi
Valley. But the rebellion ceased with the fall of the genius who had
conceived it, the last great Indian chief of New France.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GRAY GOWNS AND THE BLACK.
“My boatmen sit apart,
Wolf-eyed, wolf-sinewed, stiller than the trees.
Help me, O Lord, for very slow of heart
And hard of faith are these.
Cruel are they, yet Thy children. Foul are they,
Yet wert Thou born to save them utterly.
Then make me as I pray,
Just to their hates, kind to their sorrows, wise
After their speech, and strong before their free
Indomitable eyes.”
MARJORIE PICKTHALL.
THE GRAY GOWNS AND THE BLACK.
When Champlain on his return from New France to his native village of
Brouage told of the vast country which lay beyond the seas, with its
thousands of inhabitants who knew nothing of Christianity, the priests of
the monastery in that village were so impressed with the magnitude of the
work and the necessity for having Christianity presented to these heathen
and savages, that four volunteered to accompany him to New France. They
reached Quebec in May, 1615. They were Franciscans of the Récollet
Order, and were distinguished in dress by the gray robe girt with the
white cord. Hence they are often referred to as the priests of the Gray
Gown.
The most prominent of these was Le Caron, who joined a band of Hurons
returning after a successful sale of their winter’s hunting. Their route
was up the Ottawa, Lake Nipissing and French River to Lake Huron. This
was a memorable trip in many ways, but especially because Le Caron was
the first white man to see what we now call Lake Huron—indeed the first
of the Great Lakes to be discovered by a white man—or to sail upon its
waters. Down among the islands of what is now Georgian Bay they went
until they came near where Penetanguishene now stands, and at a large
Huron village he awaited the coming of Champlain.
On the 12th August Le Caron celebrated mass and held the first religious
service in all this territory, which afterwards was known as Upper
Canada. Three hundred years afterwards this event was remembered by mass
being celebrated as nearly as known on the same spot, and a monument
erected.
Champlain and he spent most of the winter with the Hurons and made visits
to their neighbours, the Petuns, or Tobacco Indians, along the south
shore of Nottawasaga Bay, and at the foot of the Blue Hills near where
the town of Collingwood now stands.
After returning to Quebec to consult with the other members of the Order
who had come out to reinforce the small number of missionaries, Le Caron
in 1623 returned to his Hurons with Father Viel and Brother Sagard. To
the industry of the latter we owe a dictionary of the Huron language.
They laboured on with zeal but without making much lasting impression and
they realized that the field was too large and the priests were too few.
The Récollets had been in New France for about ten years and had founded
missions in Acadia in the east, Huronia in the west, Nipissing and Upper
St. John. They now realized that the Order was not equipped with the
machinery or organization necessary to deal with so great a problem and
in their despair they sent a deputation to the Jesuits in France to state
the problem and ask their aid.
The invitation to come to their help was accepted by the Jesuits and in
1625 three of these priests of the “Black Gown” landed at Quebec. They
were met by the Récollets, who became their hosts and took care of them
until the work of organizing the mission could be undertaken. Two of
these were Brebeuf and Lalemant, the former of whom set off for Huronia
but turned back when he heard of the death of the Gray Robe, Father Viel,
who was on his way from Huronia to Quebec. He was drowned in what is
known as the Riviere des Prairies near Montreal, where the rapids are
known to this day as the Sault au Récollet—The Récollet Rapids.
Champlain granted to the Jesuits land for their headquarters, where
they might build their mission, and establish their farm in connection
therewith, for they were practical men. Indeed, so firmly did they
believe in having a definite investment in the country in which they were
labouring that by the end of the French rule in this country the Jesuits
were the largest land owners in New France. In planning their missionary
labours Brebeuf was assigned to Huronia, the field which for nearly
twenty-three years was to be his home.
When Quebec was taken by Kirke four years afterwards, the priests with
the other official inhabitants were taken away as prisoners, and when the
country was restored to France and the conduct of affairs given over to
the Company of 100 Associates, the Récollets were not allowed to return.
The excuse was that one Order was all that could be supported by the
Company, and the Jesuits were the better organized. Thus passed away the
Brethren of the Gray Robes except in some isolated cases in later days,
when as in 1669, under the Intendant Talon, some few returned.
And now commences the romantic story of the Jesuits, the priests of the
Black Robe, to whose mission journals called “Relations,” we owe most of
our information of the early history of our country. From 1632 to 1673
there appeared annually in Paris a volume called a Relation, in which the
work of the Jesuits in New France for the twelve months was described and
reports from the missionaries incorporated or quoted.
These were very popular for they were interesting, romantic, full of
information that was new and strange, and often were the means of
stimulating wealthy people to help the cause of evangelisation; in some
cases impelling persons to offer themselves as helpers in the great work,
and still others to come out to this great land for the sheer adventure.
All the work of the Jesuits was characterized by the spirit of
self-sacrifice on the part of the individual and by the efficiency of
machinery. This is noticeable in the Relation or Annual Report published
each year and which in form and method furnishes even to-day a model
for the annual report of great institutions. Another aspect of their
efficiency is seen in the way in which they prepared their missionaries
for the task before them. There was a training period of two years during
which the Jesuit studied the languages of the tribes among whom he was
likely to live and became accustomed to the methods of living and the
customs of the new country.
A striking illustration of the worldly wisdom of the superior officers of
the Order is found in a circular issued to the missionaries who were to
go up with the Indians to Huronia:
“You should love the Indians like brothers with whom you are
to spend the rest of your life. Never make them wait for you
when embarking. Take a flint and steel to light their pipes
and kindle their fires at night; for these little services win
their hearts. Try to eat their sagamité, as they cook it,—bad
and dirty as it is. Fasten up the skirts of your cassock
that you may not carry water or sand into the canoe. Wear no
shoes or stockings in the canoe, but you may put them on in
crossing the portages. Do not make yourself troublesome even
to a single Indian. Do not ask them too many questions. Bear
their faults in silence and appear always cheerful. Buy fish
for them from the tribes you will pass; and for this purpose
take with you some awls, beads, knives, and fish hooks. Be not
ceremonious with the Indians; take at once what they offer you.
Ceremony offends them. Be very careful when in the canoe that
the brim of your hat does not annoy them. Perhaps it would
be better to wear your night cap. There is no such thing as
impropriety among Indians. Remember it is Christ and His cross
that you are seeking; and if you aim at anything else you will
get nothing but affliction for body and mind.”
There were some, of course, who had not the gift of learning languages.
These returned to France or were employed in the missions in the white
settlements. It was from such training and with the motto of the Order
animating every thought and action they went forth: “Ad majorem Dei
gloriam,”—for the greater glory of God.
Naturally, the first great mission was to the Hurons, who had been the
firm friends of the French, and who had been introduced to Christianity
already by the Récollets; and who, moreover, lived in permanent
settlements, and cultivated their fields. So the Jesuits followed the
trail of Le Caron and for nearly a quarter of a century Brebeuf and his
companions worked faithfully in Huronia, that part of what is now known
as the province of Ontario called the county of Simcoe and bordering upon
the Georgian Bay. His brother priest in this great missionary enterprise
was Lalemant. Headquarters with a school were now established in a
well-planned fort, which they built on the eastern bank of the Wye and
from which missionaries were sent out to some twelve stations in Huronia,
and among the neighbouring tribes. This was really a model settlement for
the Hurons, who could see fields of corn, beans, pumpkins and wheat, with
pigs and cattle outside, and shops of useful trades inside where were the
men at the forge, the shoe shop, the laundry and the carpenter shop.
The Hurons, however, were ignorant and superstitious and the medicine men
took advantage of epidemics of sickness, which arose from the unsanitary
living, to blame the missionaries, who indeed must have been men of
infinite patience and unselfish devotion to their work.
[Illustration: THE CORN HARVEST
Among the Iroquois the cultivation of maize, beans, squashes and other
garden produce was extensive and furnished a large portion of their food
supply. The women of each village were organized in companies to plant
and harvest the grain. The men cleared the land and provided the meat
supply, but they seldom worked in the fields.
This group depicts a harvest scene in the Genesee valley on the flats
near Squakie hill at Mount Morris. The activities are gathering and
braiding corn, shelling beans, pounding corn for meal and baking corn
bread. The man has just come from his canoe and reaches the field in time
for lunch.
The figures are life casts of Seneca Indians.]
And now just when it seemed as if they might see some result of their
long and unselfish labour the Iroquois began to make raids upon this
northern country. There were constant encounters on the trading journeys
to Quebec, but in 1642 a great Huron village near where the town of
Orillia now stands was wiped out by a marauding party of Iroquois.
And yet the Hurons would not take seriously the warnings of their
missionaries and made no preparations against their unrelenting enemies.
Watching for the departure of the great canoe fleet to Quebec in 1648,
the Iroquois made a sudden attack on Huronia and Father Daniel and his
village of St. Joseph were slaughtered. Next spring they returned, put
St. Ignace to the sword, took the village of St. Louis and stripped and
bound to stakes the Fathers Brebeuf and Lalemant. The tortures to which
these good men were put before they were killed can hardly be imagined
and cannot be described, all of which they stood with amazing fortitude.
Indeed, even the Indians, stolid as they were, could not help admiring
the courage of these martyrs for they drank the blood of Brebeuf that
they might be as brave as he.
The spirit of these men can be understood in the description given us
by Marjorie Pickthall, one of our own poets, of Father Lalemant, on a
missionary journey:
“My hour of rest is done;
On the smooth ripple lifts the long canoe;
The hemlocks murmur sadly as the sun
Slants his dim arrows through.
Whither I go I know not, nor the way,
Dark with strange passions, vexed with heathen charms,
Holding I know not what of life or death;
Only be Thou beside me day by day,
Thy rod my guide and comfort, underneath
Thy everlasting arms.”
And so the Iroquois went through Huronia burning and scalping until there
was only a mass of ruins, and the remnant of the Hurons fled to St.
Joseph, on Christian Island, in Georgian Bay. Here they built a fort, but
soon realized that in such an isolated position they could be starved
out. Part of the nation went to Quebec, where they were protected and
given some land, and part went to Michillimackinac, and thence to Lake
Superior, where Father Marquette found them. Driven out by fear of the
Sioux they returned to Mackinac, and thence some of them settled near
Detroit, where under the name of Wyandots, they took part in the rising
against the English known as Pontiac’s war, just after the capture of
Quebec by Wolfe.
This story of Huronia has been told in some detail because it illustrates
the work of the men of the Black Robe who shrank from no sacrifice, who
knew no fear, and for whom there could be no earthly reward. Huronia was
the greatest of the missions of the Jesuits, for there were twenty-five
members of the Order working among these people.
But there were other missions. That among the fickle and warlike
Iroquois, with Jogues and Le Moyne, that at Ville Marie (Montreal),
afterwards given over to Sulpicians, who to this day are an extremely
powerful Order in this great city, and that at Sault Ste. Marie, where
Allouez, Dablon and Marquette had a mission which exercised a powerful
influence southwards to Michillimackinac and the country of the Illinois,
and westwards to where Fort William, Duluth, and even Winnipeg, now
stand. It was from this mission that Joliet, the Government official, and
Marquette, the Black Robe, set out on their journey to discover the great
Southern Sea, and which resulted in the discovery of the Mississippi.
And so from Nova Scotia to the southern Mississippi and northwards to
Hudsons Bay, wherever there were Indian settlements of importance there
were Black Robes ministering to the wandering tribes, teaching methods
of greater production and less waste in the more settled places, and
everywhere endeavouring to show the benefits of law, order, and settled
government. There were seven churches or missions of the Jesuits in
New France—Acadia (Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Cape Breton);
Tadoussac (lower St. Lawrence and Saguenay); Quebec, Montreal and Three
Rivers as one; Huronia; to the Iroquois; the Ottawa or Sault Ste. Marie
(Ojibways, Beaver, Crees, Ottawas, Menominees, Pottawatomies, Sacs,
Foxes, Winnebagoes, Miamis, Illinois and refugee Hurons), Louisiana.
What they have left to us is not material wealth, but something
infinitely greater, the record of self devotion, self sacrifice, fearless
zeal and unflinching bravery even to a lingering death in a cause which
they put above all renown.
CHAPTER IX.
THE IROQUOIS AND THE HURONS.
“Stripped to the waist, his copper-colored skin
Red from the smouldering heat of hate within,
Lean as a wolf in winter, fierce of mood—
As all wild things that hunt for foes, or food—
War paint adorning breast and thigh and face,
Armed with the ancient weapons of his race,
A slender ashen bow, deer sinew string,
And flint-tipped arrow each with poisoned tongue,—
Thus does the Red man stalk to death his foe,
And sighting him strings silently his bow,
Takes his unerring aim, and straight and true
The arrow cuts in flight the forest through,
A flint which never made for mark and missed,
And finds the heart of his antagonist.
Thus has he warred and won since time began,
Thus does the Indian bring to earth his man.”
From the poem, “The Archer,” by the late Pauline
Johnson, of the Mohawk tribe of the Iroquois.
THE IROQUOIS AND THE HURONS.
When Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence nearly four hundred years ago the
Indians whom he met were of the Algonquin nation, one of the four great
divisions of Indians east of the Rocky Mountains in North America. The
others were the Iroquois, the Maskoki or Southern, and the Siouan of the
West.
The Algonquin country extended from Tennessee to Hudsons Bay and from
the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and included the Delawares, Miamis,
Ojibways, Ottawas, Sacs, Foxes, Pottawatomies, and Illinois. They
lived in wigwams covered with bark or skins and were a warlike nation,
subsisting on hunting and fishing. There were probably 100,000 in number
when at the height of their prosperity.
The Iroquois occupied the territory now known as Pennsylvania, New York,
the south shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and on the Upper St.
Lawrence. They were known as the Five Nations, the Mohawks, Oneidas,
Ononadagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, to which were added in 1715 the
Tuscaroras, who came north from Carolina and whose speech even to this
day differs much from the other Iroquois tongue. These made up what we
know so well as the Six Nations. They never numbered more than 40,000,
but they were mobile and made forays from their towns in New York,
sweeping over the country like a scourge and returning to their villages
for feasting. A Jesuit, describing the raids of the Iroquois, said “They
approach like foxes, they attack like tigers, disappear like birds.”
Algonquin was the general name for the tribes enumerated, but there was
no bond of union except a likeness of language, while, on the other hand,
the tribes of the Iroquois were in a real confederacy, which enabled them
to join together against a common enemy. It was this power of organized
and sustained warfare that made them so formidable. Even as early as the
time of the coming of the white man they had reached a comparatively
high stage of social development and government, so that they lived in
villages, and the Long House or community dwelling in which many families
lived under one roof, indeed in one room, was being displaced by the
separate hut. In the centre of the village was the Council House, the
place of meeting, of ceremonials and of trade, just as the Town Hall and
Market are to-day in many a town.
We are given an interesting picture of the Council in a Mohawk village in
New York:
“Sixty old men sat on a circle of mats smoking around the central fire.
Before them stood the captives.... After passing the Council pipe from
hand to hand in solemn silence, the Sachems prepared to give their views.
One arose, and offering the smoke of incense to the four winds of
heaven, to invoke witness to the justice of the trial, gave his opinion
on the matter of life and death. Each of the chiefs in succession spoke.
Without any warning whatever one chief rose and tomahawked three of the
captives. That had been the sentence. The rest were driven to lifelong
slavery.”
When the palisaded or stockaded village life was abandoned for the freer,
more independent life of the great village, the location was generally
upon the banks of a stream so that there might be a plentiful supply of
water, and in many cases easier transportation. While not an agricultural
people they had always enough women and captives to provide the means of
living, for the warriors and the hunters returning with game. Fields of
corn, pumpkins, and squashes, orchards of plum and apple, and small herds
of hogs and cattle were to be found in these villages; for the handling
of the fruit and water, baskets and pots were made with great skill by
the women.
The Iroquois were great travellers, and a thousand mile journey was
little to them if the object to be attained seemed worth while. They were
intelligent in the making of trails so as to get the shortest and easiest
route, an illustration of which may be seen to-day in the fact that the
New York Central Railway from Lake Erie to the Hudson River follows an
Iroquois trail.
Their principal ceremonies were in honour of the season, the Maple Sugar
Festival at the going of the snows of winter, and the Green Corn Dance,
and the Harvest Home Festival of the autumn.
The legend of Hiawatha, the most popular of all poems relating to Indian
life, was told by Longfellow as if Hiawatha were an Ojibway, whereas it
is likely that the story in its original form was from the Ononadaga
nation of the Iroquois, and Hiawatha is the very wise man who formed a
plan of universal peace among the nations of the Iroquois. However, it
may have been because the Iroquois and the Ojibways were very friendly up
to the middle of the seventeenth century, when the Ojibways sympathized
with the Hurons whom the Iroquois had driven from Huronia on the Georgian
Bay. They afterwards made peace and became as brothers. So much so
indeed that when many, many years afterward the Mississagas, a band of
the Ojibways, were forced to give up their reserved lands on the River
Credit, near Toronto, the Iroquois on the Grand River Reservation took
them in and gave them a tract of valuable land. Longfellow took many
phases of the legend and grouped them so as to give the atmosphere of
Indian life and interpret the meaning of its ceremonies. The leading
thought in all the legends is:
“How he prayed and how he fasted,
How he lived, and toiled, and suffered.
That the tribes of men might prosper,
That he might advance his people!”
This is the great legend of the Indians of New France told in every
winter lodge, and told in a somewhat different form among different
tribes. It gets local colour from the traditions of the particular tribe.
How they became the unrelenting enemy of the French we are told in the
story of Champlain, who joined the Hurons and Algonquins in 1609, when
they were on an expedition against the Iroquois, who lived near Lake
Champlain. It was in that battle the Iroquois first saw and experienced
the effect of the death dealing musket of the white man, and they never
forgot that it was used against them by the French.
Each nation was divided into tribes or clans with names such as Wolf,
Bear, or Turtle, and as the same tribes were in all the nations, the
section in each nation was related to the corresponding section in all
the other nations. So the Seneca Turtle was a brother to the Mohawk
Turtle. The families belonging to the Turtles were the most respected and
were accorded the highest honours.
Each of the nations had its own government for local affairs and elected
sachems to sit in the Great Council of all the Nations, where fifty
sachems dealt with national affairs. It is not too much to say that the
Iroquois were the most intelligent of the Indians of New France, for
they were always ready, well organized, and watchful, and knew how to
take defeat. When pressed back by the French and village after village
destroyed by a great expedition organized to severely punish them, they
retired in good order, and when things had calmed down they returned,
rebuilt their villages, replanted their fields and planned revenge.
The Hurons are said to have been relatives of the Iroquois, but if so
they must in some earlier time have ceased to be even friendly, for we
find them allied with the Algonquin, and from the time of Champlain on
the side of the French in the great international conflict. They lived
on the shores of the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, in what is called now
the County of Simcoe. This district was known as Huronia, and at the
height of their power there were about 30,000 inhabitants, almost as
many as live in the corresponding district to-day. They traded with the
French at Quebec by sending each year a fleet of canoes up the Bay and
by the French River, Lake Nipissing and the Ottawa River to the St.
Lawrence. This was the route by which Le Caron and Champlain entered this
great northern country in 1615, and were the first white men to see the
Great Lake, afterwards called Huron, the first of the Great Lakes to be
discovered by the French. The route by the Great Lakes was unknown, and
indeed all that southern country was dangerous because of the presence of
the dreaded Iroquois.
They were more of an agricultural nation than were the Iroquois. Possibly
they were not better farmers, but they were poorer warriors and so
remained on the land more than their fighting relations. They raised
pumpkins, sunflowers and rye. The corn they planted in hills higher,
larger, and much further apart than we do to-day.
They lived in villages in the Long Houses or community dwellings which
were to be found among the Iroquois in their early days. These were built
by bending saplings and tying them together to form the frame, which they
sheathed with bark. Down the centre were the fires, each of which was
shared generally by two families. The smoke was supposed to go out by a
hole in the roof. On either side of the fire and stretching from end to
end were platforms on which the families slept, while underneath were the
stores of clothing and provisions. No wonder the dogs, dirt and disease
impressed the missionaries to these people, and made them plan for huts
rather than a share in these dwellings.
Some of the greater villages were palisaded for protection, but the
smaller ones were not permanent, being moved about at the will of the
people or because of the unsanitary condition of the land that had been
occupied. The villages became large when the necessity for protection
became greater and some had as many as 2,000 inhabitants. The favourite
site for a village was on high ground near springs or an inland lake,
so that there would be a good water supply. There was a village Council
or Assembly, which dealt with local matters and a tribal assembly for
matters of general importance but there was no union for offence and
defence well organized and ready for action, as among the Iroquois.
The Hurons were smaller in stature than the Iroquois, the largest men
being about five feet eight inches in height. They had their feast
days, which resembled those of other nations in being associated with
the seasons, but their custom of burying the dead has a somewhat marked
character. The body was wrapped and placed on a platform away from
marauding animals and every ten years or thereabouts there was a great
Feast and Dance for the Dead, when, after preparing a great pit, the
bodies were placed in it sometimes in rows, sometimes in circles and
sometimes in parcels of bones of those who had been long dead.
Into the pit were cast pottery, implements of warfare and kettles which
were first rendered useless so that the graves might not be desecrated.
This is in contrast to some other nations of Indians who bury with the
deceased the things which they think will be useful to him in the “happy
hunting ground” to which he has gone. This pit is called an Ossuary, and
to the excavation of these we owe much of our knowledge of this nation.
This communal burial with the Hurons corresponded to the communal life
which preceded the era of the individual burial and the individual wigwam.
This Huronia county enjoyed great prosperity during the first half of
the seventeenth century with constantly increasing immigration, growing
villages, better implements for increased comfort in living, great
production and skill in handicraft owing to the influence and example of
the Jesuit mission. Into this peaceful country, unprepared for war, there
came in the last decade of this first half of the century the Iroquois
much as the Assyrian, “like the wolf on the fold.” In a series of well
planned, vigorous attacks the Hurons were massacred or driven out of the
country, the villages burned, the Jesuit missionaries slaughtered in the
fight, or reserved for a death by torture.
First on one of the Christian Islands off the shore they built a fort,
but soon realized that the important question of food supply could not
be met as long as the Iroquois remained on the mainland and intercepted
all messengers. Part of the nation then set off for Quebec, and there
threw themselves upon the kindness of their friends, the French, who
gave them a grant of land and their protection. Others went north
to Michillimackinac, and in their fear went even well up into Lake
Superior, where they were ministered unto by Father Marquette. But they
were not long there until the warlike Sioux became so great a menace
that with their protector, the great Marquette, they went back again
to Michillimackinac. Afterwards many of them went still further south
and under the name of Wyandottes they settled near Sarnia and Windsor,
opposite the present city of Detroit.
[Illustration: TYPICAL IROQUOIS INDUSTRIES
This group depicts a company of Oneida Indians gathered in a sheltered
spot in their capital village on Nicols pond, township of Fenner, Madison
county. This was the fort unsuccessfully stormed by Champlain in 1615.
The arrow maker is telling an amusing tale while he chips his flints. To
his right are a basket maker and a belt weaver. To his left are a wood
carver, a moccasin maker and a potter, all engaged at their trades as
they listen to the arrow maker’s tale.
In aboriginal times among the Iroquois each person had an occupation and
was by necessity industrious. Both men and women had their special forms
of labor, which with the men was often arduous.
The figures are casts of Oneida Indians made upon the New York and
Canadian reservations.
The purpose of this group is to show six typical Iroquois industries and
to indicate the social nature of the workers. The Iroquois at home among
his own folk is social in habits and full of humor. To the stranger he
appears taciturn and diffident and oftentimes indolent.]
These are typical nations of Indians of the days of New France, the
crafty, strong, nomadic, warlike and well organized Iroquois on whom
the missionaries could make little or no impression, the allies of the
English and the most feared of all the nations; and the less intelligent
and more domesticated, the traders and the canoemen, the hunter and
fisher, the unorganized Hurons, who suffered the missionaries to settle
among them and pretended to be converted because it did not interfere but
rather increased their comfort, the allies of the French, with little
initiative and no cohesion.
CHAPTER X.
THE COUREUR DES BOIS AND THE VOYAGEUR.
“I have passed the warden cities at the Eastern watergate,
Where the hero and the martyr laid the cornerstone of State,
The habitant, coureurs-des-bois, and hardy voyageur,
Where lives a breed more strong at need to venture or endure.”
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
THE COUREUR DES BOIS AND THE VOYAGEUR.
An island just where the Ottawa River joins the St. Lawrence always
suggests to me in its name a Frenchman who, in the days following
Champlain, penetrated beyond the Mer Douce (Lake Huron) and was one of
the first white men to sail on Lake Superior. This was Perrot,[12] who,
like Etienne Brulé with Champlain, was known as a coureur des bois, a
runner of the woods, a trader, a guide, a hunter, a woodsman. Without him
and his companion, the voyageur, the efforts of priest and noble alike
to penetrate the great forests would have been all in vain.
They followed the trails of the deer and other wild animals who were the
ancient roadmakers, and took advantage of all the waterways in their
light canoes. These journeys were not only full of danger, but were
attended by much hardship. In one of the journals of a missionary priest
from Quebec to the Huron Indians who lived on the south-eastern shore of
Georgian Bay, we read:
“Of two difficulties regularly met with, the first is of rapids
and portages for these abound in every river throughout these
regions. When a person approaches such cataracts, or rapids,
he has to step ashore and carry on his back through forests
or over high, vexatious rocks not only his baggage, but also
the canoe. This is not accomplished without much labour, for
there are portages of one, two, and three leagues, each of
them requiring several journeys if one has ever so small a
number of packages. At some places where the rapids are not
less swift than at the portages, but of easier access, the
Indians, plunging into the water, drag their canoes and conduct
them with their hands with utmost difficulty and danger for
sometimes they are up to their necks in the current, so that
they have to let go their hold upon their canoes and save
themselves as best they can from the rapidity of the water
that snatches the canoe out of their hands and carries it off.
I have computed the number of portages and find that we carried
thirty-five times and dragged at least fifty times. The second
ordinary difficulty is that of food. A person is often obliged
to fast, especially if he happens to lose the places where he
stored away provisions on his down-river course. (Note.—The
familiar word to this day for such a hidden store is ‘cache.’)
Even when he finds them his appetite remains none the less
keen for having regaled himself with their contents, for the
usual repast is only a little corn broken between two stones,
and sometimes simply taken in fresh water, which is insipid
food. Sometimes he has fish, but this is mere chance unless he
happens to pass some tribe from whom he can buy it. Add to this
that a person must sleep upon the bare ground, perhaps on a
hard rock.”
Such was the experience of the missionary, new and hard and very real to
him, whom the voyageurs carried on his apostolic way. But the coureurs
and the voyageurs were traders and explorers and, as one might infer,
they were always young men and in the prime of life, because of the
hardship they had to endure in making their long hazardous journeys
through trackless forests. Father Tailhan gives a graphic description of
their life. He says:
“As all Canada is only one vast forest without any roads
they could not travel by land; they make their journeys on
the rivers and the lakes in canoes that ordinarily contain
each three men. These canoes are made of sheets of birch-bark
smoothly stretched over very light and slender ribs of cedar
wood. They are divided into six or seven or eight sections
by light wooden bars which strengthen and hold together the
sides of the canoe.... As an entire canoe cannot be made with
a single sheet of bark the pieces which compose it are sewed
together with the roots of the spruce tree, which are more
flexible and white than the osier, and these seams are coated
with a gum which the savages obtain from the spruce.... The
savages, and especially their women, excel in the art of
making these canoes, but few Frenchmen excel in it.... The
coureurs des bois themselves propel their canoes with small
paddles of hard wood, very light and smooth; the man at the
rear of the canoe guides it, which is the part of their calling
which requires skill. The two other men paddle ahead. A canoe
properly manned can make more than fifteen leagues a day in
still water.... When they meet rapids or waterfalls which
cannot be passed they go ashore and unload the bales.... These,
as well as the canoe, are carried on their backs and shoulders
until they have passed the falls or rapids and find the river
suitable for again embarking on it; and this is called ‘making
portages.’... In such a canoe these three men embark at Quebec
or Montreal to go three hundred, four hundred, and even five
hundred leagues from the colony to procure beaver skins among
savages, whom very often they have never seen.”
As the fur trade was supposed to be a monopoly controlled by the King of
France and granted by him to a Trading Company, many of these coureurs
were in the service of the company on a commission basis, but there
were others who took the risk of disposing of their furs to a greater
advantage, and so were known as “free traders.” If one were to make any
distinction between the coureurs and the voyageurs he would speak of the
former as the hunters and the latter as those who transported the furs by
water, but in general there was not a distinct difference except in large
trading companies where the work was highly organized.
They were picturesque in their dress and fond of striking colours.
A bright cotton shirt, cloth trousers, leather leggings, deer skin
moccasins and a small scarlet cloak or capot made up their attire with
a wide worsted belt with flowing ends (such as we see worn with the
blanket suit of the snowshoers of to-day) a stout knife and a tobacco
pouch. Cheerful, careless, heedless of danger and fond of adventure the
hardy descendants of the Breton or Norman fishermen sang their chansons,
keeping time with their paddles, the quickened notes for the dangerous
places, the slower for the easy passage across the placid lake.
One of the greatest of all these coureurs des bois and voyageurs was
Nicholas Perrot who, at the age of sixteen, was the companion of the
missionary priests on their journeys from Quebec to the Indian tribes,
and thus gained for himself not only experience in woodcraft and
knowledge of the country, but what was still more important he developed
his natural aptitude for languages by close study of the Indian dialects,
and thus made himself valuable, not only to himself but to his country.
Many other coureurs had had similar opportunities but did not improve
these opportunities and so remained mere coureurs des bois, and average
ones at that, until the end of their days.
This ambitious youth soon became an independent trader, but without the
selfishness that was usually attached to that name. He was a man of some
education and certainly of vision. He saw clearly that it was to the
interests of New France that there should be united feeling and action
among Indians and French against their common enemy, the Iroquois, and
this was ever in his mind in the negotiations which at various times
took him to the tribes of the Chippewas, the Foxes, the Hurons, the
Dakotas, the Iowans, the Mascoutens, the Miamis, the Pottawatomies and
the Sioux, as well as the Iroquois.
To him was entrusted by the governor the arrangement and management of
the great gathering of the Indian tribes at Sault Ste. Marie where, on
the fourteenth of June, 1671, the tribes for a hundred leagues were
gathered in a great council that the Deputy Governor might formally
take possession of that country in the name of the King of France. In a
spectacular manner—that it might impress the Indians by its grandeur—a
cross was erected and the arms of France were raised on a great pole and
Perrot, doubtless in a loud voice, acting as herald and interpreting to
the Indians, proclaimed three times over that “in the name of the Most
High, Most Powerful, and Most Redoubtable Monarch, Louis XIV. of name,
most Christian King of France and Navarre, we take possession of said
place Ste. Marie du Sault, as also of Lake Huron and Superior, the island
of Manitoulin, and of all the lands, rivers, lakes and streams contiguous
to and adjacent here as well, discovered as to be discovered, which are
bounded on the one side by the seas of the North and on the other side
by the seas of the South in its whole length and breadth,”—and at the
end of each time of reading the proclamation he took up a sod of earth
calling out “Vive le Roi,” which was repeated in a great shout by all
the people. The demonstration was intended to offset the influence of
Radisson and Chouart, who, at Hudsons Bay in the service of the English,
were drawing the trade of the Indians beyond Lake Superior.
Perrot was especially useful to Frontenac, the next great governor after
Champlain, in that he acted as ambassador to the ever-restless tribes
and maintained harmony and peace. He seems to have been a welcome man in
every Indian village, and was the best informed man of his time in regard
to the affairs of New France. He was in command at Green Bay and over the
Mississippi Valley country in the winter of 1685-6, when he discovered
the lead mines. In 1699 the King of France closed many of the western
posts and Perrot retired and wrote his memoirs, which have proved of
such great value to us in giving us knowledge of our own country during
the latter half of the seventeenth century. He was a brave, loyal, and
devoted man who gave much of his life to the public service and who
deserves to be remembered among the heroes of New France.
CHAPTER XI.
THE SEIGNIOR AND THE HABITANT.
“The original tillers of the soil in Lower Canada, who first
assumed the title of ‘Habitants’ while holding their land
under feudal tenure, would not accept any designation such as
‘censitaire’ which carried with it some sense of the servile
status of the feudal vassal in Old France, but preferred to be
called a Habitant or inhabitant of the country—a free man and
not a vassal.”
—SIR LOMER GOUIN.
THE SEIGNIOR AND THE HABITANT.
The colony of New England was planted by men who protested against the
kind of government under which they had lived and it was to be expected
that customs of government in their new home would differ materially from
those under which they had suffered. On the other hand the colony of New
France was essentially a part of France subsidized and supported by the
Government of that country. Hence we can understand how the customs of
government of New France in practically all respects would be like the
customs at home.
It is hardly worth while to speak of government or social life in New
France until after the restoration of Quebec and the return of Champlain
in 1633. Valued at home merely as a possible revenue producer through
the fur trade, the Home Government gave over the general direction of
the affairs of New France into the hands of a company known generally as
the Company of One Hundred Associates. In return for fulfilling certain
obligations this Company was to have exclusive control of the fur trade
and have power to govern, create trade, grant lands and bestow titles of
nobility. The chief obligation laid upon it was to furnish to the colony
each year at least two hundred settlers and give them support until they
should get a fair start. In this way the Home Government thought the
country would gradually have a number of people on the land who could be
looked upon as permanent settlers in contrast to the wandering hunters
and traders.
This method of governing a colony by means of a chartered company was
not unique. India was governed by the East India Company for many years,
Java by a Dutch trading company, and the incident of the Jameson Raid
illustrated some aspects of the great Company of South Africa.
To further encourage settlement the Government recognized the title of
seignior given to the man who, taking up a fair amount of land, undertook
to settle persons upon it, live upon it himself, and thus develop an
estate. In return for this social and political distinction he engaged to
serve his country with his men about him in time of need. In other words,
the idea of it was an adaptation of the feudal system of holding lands in
return for national service.
This system was more or less in operation for over a quarter of a
century, but the company was so intent on making money out of the fur
trade that they neglected their obligations in regard to settlement on
their land, and there were less than 2,000 people and not more than 4,000
acres of cultivated land in this great country.
When this state of affairs was brought to the attention of King Louis
XIV., who was genuinely interested in the colony, he cancelled the
charter of the company, and in 1663 New France was made a crown colony
under a governor who represented the dignity and military power of the
Crown, an Intendant, who was something more than a Minister of the
Crown and less than a Governor, and who looked after the details of
government, and the Bishop who as head of the church shared the problems
of government in this triumvirate.
While much depended upon the Governor, much more to help or hinder
progress was in the power of the Intendant, and the colony was very
fortunate in the earliest years in having such a capable man as Talon,
just as we shall find she was equally unfortunate in the last years in
having Bigot, a corrupt holder of that office. It is interesting to
notice that the two holders of this office who are of such prominence
as to be remembered in anything other than name, were the first and the
last, to the one the colony owing much of the stability of government, to
the latter much that led to the loss to France of her greatest colony.
Talon was the real organizer of the seigniorial system and was perhaps
the most capable man who ever administered the affairs of the colony.
On his own farm on the St. Charles River he gave this country the first
scientific farming, rude as it was in that early time, and this was
the first of the model farms which we think of as comparatively modern
institutions. He encouraged ship-building at Quebec by actually building
ships; he distributed looms in the farmhouses that the settler might
be independent in the matter of clothing, a very important matter in a
country with such a climate; and he built a tannery that the precious
commodity of leather might be available for protection of men and
equipment of beast.
Under the Intendant in the actual working out of the Government came
the seigniors, and hence the real social and political life of the
colony. True, it was before the governor in the Chateau St. Louis in
Quebec, seated upon the throne under the clustered white flags stamped
with the golden lilies of France, the seignior appeared and on bended
knee presented his homage and oath of allegiance, but it was with the
Intendant that he transacted his business, and it was the report of the
Intendant to the King of France which the neglectful seignior had cause
to fear.
The Home Government at once undertook to help emigration and the
Council of New France gave seigniories with a lavish and not always
discriminating hand. During this century of royal rule there were about
three hundred seigniories granted. In size these differed greatly but
practically nothing could be called by that name which had not at least a
dozen square miles. This land the seignior was expected to have surveyed
into farms and to place settlers upon them.
As the St. Lawrence was the roadway of the colony and the means of
communication, the seigniories were granted first along its shores and
the farms were as close to the river as possible. The shape of a farm was
that of a parallelogram with the short end fronting the river. Usually
this frontage was nearly a quarter of a mile, and the depth from about
a half to three miles with an orchard, meadow, grain and woods. So for
purposes of protection, as well as access to fish and water supply,
the shores of the St. Lawrence showed a row of whitewashed cottages in
contact with the highway, even as it does to-day.
This brought about a very interesting land problem, for when the habitant
died, his property, according to the French law known as Custom of
Paris, was divided into equal parts among his children. Each of these
was anxious to have a part of the river front, so that soon some farms
were divided into ribbons of perhaps fifty to sixty feet frontage. The
habitant each year paid a small fee in money to his seignior and brought
him some of the produce of the farm. It was generally on St. Martin’s Day
in November and they gathered at the seigniory for a genuine harvest home
with games and feasting.
The seignior’s house, or the manor house, as it was often called, was the
centre of his estate. It was generally built of stone, with four rooms
and an attic. Behind the house was a great store room and root house.
Nearby was the bake-oven built of stones, mortar and earth, into which
the wood was thrust until the oven was heated sufficiently, when the
ashes were pulled out and the bread pans inserted. Even to this day in
some parts of the Province of Quebec one may see the bake-oven near the
roadway and sometimes upon its roof the brown crusted loaves put out to
cool. Sometimes there was an oven common to the village, so that even the
idea of communal cooking, about which we hear so much these days, is a
reversion to early practices in our country. Somewhere near was the grist
mill to which all habitants must bring their grain to be ground, and of
which the seignior took every fourteenth bushel as his pay.
The habitant’s house followed the general plan of that of the seignior’s,
long and narrow with projecting eaves and high peaked dormer windows,
whitewashed each year, a red roof, and among the green trees it is
decidedly picturesque even to this day. There were but few windows as
glass was a rarity. The cooking as well as heating was by the open
fireplace. The habitant was, and in some respects still is, a very
independent person, for the family wove its own cloth, made its own shoes
and the knitted toque of many colours, and grew its own tobacco, besides
the general produce of the farm. Happy and contented in disposition, fond
of music, especially that of the ballad and the dance, they enjoyed the
long winter evenings.
The other great man of the seigniory was the curé, or priest, for
generally the parish and the seigniory had the same boundaries. The
church was near the seignior’s manor house and often in the early days
the curé and the seignior lived together. It was supported by a tax by
which each habitant brought to the curé one-twenty-sixth of the grain he
raised. In every way the church was the centre of the community life. In
it all children were baptised, all marriages performed, and all burial
services held. It was the source of all information on secular, as
well as religious affairs, and the curé was the general counsellor of
the parish as the seignior was the judge. Matters of local or national
importance which could not be discussed in the church were explained
after mass in front of the church, a custom which prevails to this day.
The seigniory was sometimes held, not by one man, but by a church
corporation such as the Order of the Jesuits, the Franciscans, or the
Sulpicians. This reminds us of the feudal days in England when the Abbey
was often as powerful a part of the man power of the army as was the
Castle.
There were but two seigniories granted outside of what is known as the
Province of Quebec. One of these was that given to La Salle at Frontenac
(Kingston) and one granted to Repentigny at Sault Ste. Marie, both French
settlements of importance. Cadillac, who founded Detroit, asked to be
granted one on Lake Erie along the banks of the Grand River, and to have
conferred upon him the title of Marquis, but he was unsuccessful in both
requests.
CHAPTER XII.
STORIES WHICH ILLUSTRATE REFERENCES IN THIS BOOK
Where possible the name of the publisher in England is given first, in
America second.
THE LIFE AND SPIRIT OF OLD ENGLAND AND OLD FRANCE DURING THESE TWO
CENTURIES, AS TOLD IN STORY FORM:
OLD ENGLAND:
STRANG, HERBERT
With Drake on the Spanish Main.
(Frowde: Bobbs, Merrill.)
BARNES, JAMES
“Drake and His Yeoman: a true account of the Character and
Adventures of Sir Francis Drake as told by Sir Matthew
Maunsell, his friend and follower.”
(Macmillan.)
BULLEN, FRANK T.
“Sea Puritans:” the romance of the life of Admiral Blake.
(Hodder.)
HAVENS, HERBERT
“For Rupert and the King.”
(S.P.C.K.)
MCCHESNEY, DORA G.
“Rupert, by the Grace of God.”
(Macmillan.)
KINGSLEY, CHARLES
“Westward Ho! or Voyages and Adventures of Sir Aymas Leigh.”
(Dent, _Everyman_.)
DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN
“Micah Clarke:” a rattling story of fights and adventures in
the time of James II. and the Monmouth Rebellion (1685).
(Longmans.)
HENTY, G. A.
“A Cornet of Horse:” a tale of Marlborough’s wars.
(Low: Scribner.)
STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS
“Treasure Island.” The nearest approach to a book for the youth
of every age. Time of action supposed to be just before the
fall of New France.
(Cassell: Scribners.)
OLD FRANCE:
DUMAS, ALEXANDRE
“Marguerite de Valois.”
(Dent: Little, Brown.)
CROCKETT, S. R.
“The White Plumes of Navarre.”
(Dodd, Mead.)
JAMES, G. P. R.
“Richelieu: Or a Tale of France.”
(Dent, _Everyman_.)
WEYMAN, STANLEY
“A Gentleman of France.”
(Longmans.)
“Under the Red Robe.”
(Longmans.)
SOME STORIES WHICH HELP TO MAKE THE LIFE OF THESE TWO HUNDRED YEARS IN
CANADA MORE VIVID AND REAL:
ALTSHELER, J. A.
“A Soldier of Manhattan.” Seven Years’ War, Royal American
Regiment of New York, and Wolfe’s Victory at Quebec.
(Smith Elder: Appleton.)
AUBERT DE GASPÉ, PHILIPPE
“Canadians of Old.”
(Appleton.)
“Cameron of Lochiel.” A good account of French Canadians,
translated by C. G. D. Roberts.
(Page.)
BESANT, SIR WALTER AND JAMES RICE
“Le Chien d’Or.” The same legend is in “The Golden Dog,” by
Kirby. It is in “’Twas in Trafalgar’s Bay; and other stories.”
(Chatto: Dodd, Mead.)
BRERETON, CAPTAIN F. S.
“How Canada Was Won: A Tale of Wolfe and Quebec.”
(Blackie.)
BROWNE, G. W.
“With Rogers Rangers.” Seven Years’ War.
(Page.)
BURTON, J. E. BLOUNDELLE
“The Hispaniola Plate.” A treasure hunt in the West Indies by
Sir William Phips, afterwards governor of Massachussetts.
(Cassell.)
CANAVAN, M. J.
“Ben Comee: A Tale of Rogers Rangers.” Attack on Fort
Ticonderoga.
(Macmillan.)
CATHERWOOD, MRS.
“The Romance of Dollard.” Dollard, with his Hurons repulsing
the Iroquois.
(Unwin: Century.)
“The White Islander.” A romance of the old Indian wars.
(Unwin: Century.)
“The Chase of St. Castin.” Seven tales of French Indian and
English in the latter days of New France.
(Houghton.)
“The Story of Tonty.”
(McClurg.)
“The Lady of Fort St. John.” A story of Acadia.
(Low: Houghton.)
COOPER, J. FENIMORE
“The Deer Slayer.”
“The Path Finder.”
“The Last of the Mohicans.”
Famous romances noted for the wonderful description of forest,
lake and prairie.
(Dent, _Everyman_.)
CRADDOCK, C. E.
“A Sceptre of Power.” The struggles of the French and English
in the Mississippi Valley.
(Houghton.)
CROWLEY, MARY C.
“A Daughter of New France: With some Account of the Gallant
Sieur Cadillac and his Colony in Detroit.” Brilliant picture of
New France.
(Little, Brown.)
DICKSON, HARRIS
“The Black Wolf’s Breed: A Story of France in the Old World and
the New happening in the Reign of Louis XIV.” Principal scene
in Louisiana, and the main action is the capture by French and
Indians of Pensacola from the Spaniards.
(Methuen: Bobbs, Merrill.)
DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN
“The Refugees: A Tale of Two Continents.” Of the time of Louis
XIV.
(Longmans: Harper.)
ELLIS, E. S.
“Pontiac, Chief of the Ottawas: A Tale of the Siege of Detroit.”
(Cassell: Dutton.)
FOOTE, MARY H.
“The Royal Americans.” Seven Years’ War.
(Houghton.)
FOX, ALICE WILSON
“A Regular Madam.” Two young ladies, one French, the other
English, on their way from Europe to Quebec during Seven Years’
War.
(Macmillan.)
GORDON, W. J.
“Englishman’s Haven: A Tale of Louisburg.”
(Warne: Appleton.)
GREEN, E. EVERETT
“The Young Pioneers: or with La Salle on the Mississippi.”
(Nelson.)
“French and English.” Ticonderoga to capture of Quebec by Wolfe.
(Nelson.)
GROSVENOR, JOHNSTON
“Strange Stories of the Great River.” Stories of exploration on
the Mississippi by Marquette and La Salle.
(Harper.)
HENHAM, E. G.
“The Plowshare and the Sword: A Tale of Empire”. Quebec, New
England and Acadia.
(Cassell.)
HAWORTH, P. L.
“The Path of Glory.” Culminating with Wolfe’s victory.
(Ham Smith: Little, Brown.)
HENTY, G. A.
“With Wolfe in Canada: Or the Winning of a Continent.”
Braddock’s defeat, to Quebec.
(Blackie: Scribner.)
KALER, J. O.
“Boys of 1745 at the Capture of Louisburg.”
(Estes.)
KIRBY, WILLIAM
“The Golden Dog: A Romance of the Days of Louis Quatorze in
Quebec.” Historical romance rich in local colour.
(Montreal News Co.)
LAUT, AGNES C.
“Heralds of Empire; Being the Story of one Ramsay Stanhope,
Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade.”
(Appleton.)
LIGHTHALL, W. D.
“Master of Life.” An aboriginal romance, the early scene being
at Hochelaga, the great Indian town visited by Cartier. There
are no white men in the story. Later scenes are laid in the
Mohawk country and the origin of the League of Nations (five,
afterwards six) is developed in an interesting manner.
(Musson)
MACHAR, AGNES M., AND T. G. MARQUIS.
“Stories of New France.” Seventeen stories of historical
interest.
(Lothrop.)
MCLENNAN, WILLIAM AND JEAN N. MCILWRAITH
“The Span o’ Life.” 1745 Rebellion in Scotland; Louisbourg and
Quebec.
(Harper.)
MCPHAIL, ANDREW
“The Vine of Sibmah.” Romance of a Cromwellian captain in
Restoration times in quest of a London merchant’s daughter in
New England and New France.
(Macmillan.)
MERWIN, SAMUEL
“The Road to Frontenac.”
(Murray: Doubleday.)
MOTT, LAWRENCE
“Jules of the Great Heart.” In the early days of the Hudson’s
Bay Company.
(Heineman: Century.)
MUNROE, KIRK
“At War with Pontiac: A Tale of Redcoat and Redskin.”
(Blackie: Scribner.)
OXLEY, J. MACDONALD
“Fife and Drum at Louisburg.”
(Little, Brown.)
PARKER, SIR GILBERT
“The Seats of the Mighty.” The memoirs of Captain Robert Moray,
some time an officer in the Virginia Regiment, and afterwards
of Amherst’s Regiment. Romance culminating in battle of Quebec.
(Methuen: Appleton: Copp, Clark, Toronto.)
PARKER, SIR GILBERT
“The Trail of the Sword.” Romance of struggle between French
and English, d’Iberville being central figure.
(Methuen: Appleton: Copp, Clark, Toronto.)
POLLARD, ELIZA F.
“Roger the Ranger: A story of Border Life among the Indians.”
Fort William Henry, to capture of Quebec (1759).
(Partridge.)
PARRISH, RANDALL
“A Sword of the Old Frontier: A Tale of Fort Chartres and
Detroit.”
(Putnam: McClurg.)
ROBERTS, C. G. D.
“The Forge in the Forest.” Acadia in the times of French and
English wars.
(Paul: Silver, N.Y.)
“A Sister to Evangeline: The Story of Yvonne de Lamourie.” At
the time of the expulsion of the Acadians.
(Lane: Silver, N.Y.)
ROBERTS, THEODORE
“Brothers of Peril.” A story of Old Newfoundland.
(Nash: Page.)
RICHARDSON, MAJOR JOHN
“Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy.”
(McClurg: Musson, Toronto.)
SEAWELL, MOLLY E.
“The Virginia Cavalier.” The youth of George Washington.
(Harper.)
SMITH, MRS. A. P.
“Montlivet.” He was a chivalrous Frenchman who rescued the
English heroine from the Indians in the days of Frontenac.
(Constable: Houghton.)
STEVENSON, B. E.
“A Soldier of Virginia: A Story of Colonel Washington and
Braddock’s Defeat.” The defeat by the French at Fort Duquesne.
(Duckworth: Houghton.)
STRANG, HERBERT, AND G. LAWRENCE
“Roger, the Scout.” England in the ’45 and New England and New
France during French wars.
(Frowde.)
STRANG, HERBERT
“Rob, the Ranger: A Story of the Fight for Canada.”
(Frowde: Bobbs, Merrill.)
THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE
“The Virginians.” George Washington appears in this story.
(Dent, _Everyman_.)
TOMLINSON, E. T.
“A Soldier of the Wilderness.” The fall of Fort Frontenac.
(Wilde, Boston.)
VAN ZILE, E. S.
“With Sword and Crucifix.” Adventures of La Salle.
(Harper.)
WILSON, R. A.
“A Rose of Normandy.” La Salle and Tonty in Mississippi Valley.
(Little, Brown.)
CHAPTER XIII.
POEMS WHICH ILLUSTRATE REFERENCES IN THIS BOOK
NOTE.—The author, title and first lines of the poems are given, except in
the case of “Richelieu.”
MILLER, JOAQUIN
COLUMBUS.
Behind him lay the gray Azores
Behind the Gates of Hercules,
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said, “Now must we pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave admiral, speak, what shall I say?”
“Why, say ‘Sail on! sail on! and on!’”
MCGEE, HON. THOMAS D’ARCY
JACQUES CARTIER.
“In the seaport of Saint Malo, ’twas a smiling morn in May,
When the Commodore Jacques Cartier to the westward sailed away;
In the crowded old Cathedral, all the town were on their knees
For the safe return of kinsmen from the undiscovered seas;
And every autumn blast that swept o’er pinnacle and pier
Filled manly hearts with sorrow, and gentle hearts with fear.”
Songs of the Great Dominion, edited by W. D. Lighthall. (Walter
Scott.)
DRUMMOND, W. H.
THE WRECK OF THE “JULIE PLANTE”.
On wan dark night on Lac St. Pierre
De win’ she blow, blow, blow,
An’ de crew of de wood-scow “Julie Plante,”
Got scar’t an’ run below.
The Habitant (Putnam.)
KEATS, JOHN
ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN’S HOMER.
Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft, of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH
EVANGELINE.
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
CARMAN, BLISS (Mitchell Kennerley)
CHAMPLAIN.
“When the sweet summer days
Come to New England, and the south wind plays
Over the forests, and the tall tulip trees
Lift up their chalices
Of delicate orange green
Against the blue serene,” etc.
The Rough Rider and other Poems.
LYTTON, SIR EDWARD BULWER
RICHELIEU.
Adrien de Mauprat, men have called me cruel,—
I am not; I am just! I found France rent asunder—
The rich men despots, and the poor, banditti;—
Sloth in the mart, and schism within the temple;
Brawls festering to Rebellion; and weak laws
Rotting away with rust in antique sheaths,—
I have re-created France; and, from the ashes
Of the old feudal and decrepit carcass,
Civilization on her luminous wings
Soars, phœnix-like to Jove!—What was my art.
MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON
THE BATTLE OF IVRY (1590)
Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!
And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of Navarre!
Now let there be the merry sound of music and of dance,
Through thy corn fields green, and sunny vines,
oh, pleasant land of France!
MOORE, THOMAS
CANADIAN BOAT SONG.
Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time,
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We’ll sing at St. Ann’s our parting hymn.
Row, brothers, row! the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight’s past.
HEMANS, FELICIA
THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS—(1620)
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed,
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o’er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.
BROWNING, R.
HERVE RIEL (1692)
On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,
Did the English fight the French—woe to France!
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,
Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,
With the English fleet in view.
PICKTHALL, MARJORIE
PERE LALEMANT.
I lift the Lord on high,
Under the murmuring hemlock boughs, and see
The small birds of the forest lingering by
And making melody.
These are mine acolytes and these my choir,
And this mine altar in the cool green shade.
The Drift of Pinions. (Lane.)
SULLIVAN, ALAN
BREBEUF AND LALEMANT.
Came Jean Brebeuf from Rennes in Normandy
To preach the written word in Sainte Marie—
The Ajax of the Jesuit enterprise,
Huge, dominant and bold—augustly wise.
JOHNSON, PAULINE
THE ARCHER.
Stripped to the waist, his copper coloured skin
Red from the smouldering heat of hate within,
Lean as a wolf in winter, fierce of mood—
As all wild things that hunt for foes, or food.
Flint and Feather (Musson, Toronto.)
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH
THE SONG OF HIAWATHA.
Should you ask me whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?
FOOTNOTES
[1] Colonel George Nasmith in his book, “On the Fringe of the Great
Fight,” tells of the departure of this first contingent of the Canadian
Expeditionary Force in the autumn of 1914 within six weeks of the
outbreak of the Great War.
“Imperceptibly the pier and the lights of the city receded and we steamed
down the mighty St. Lawrence to our trysting place on the sea. The second
morning afterwards we woke to find ourselves riding quietly at anchor
in the sunny harbour of Gaspé with all the other transports about us,
together with four long grey gunboats, our escort upon the road to our
great adventure.... Never before had there been gathered together a fleet
of transports of such magnitude—a fleet consisting of 33 transports
carrying 33,000 men, 7,000 horses, and all the motors, wagons, and
equipment necessary to place in the field not only a complete infantry
division and a cavalry brigade, but in addition to provide for the
necessary reserves.”
[2] “The Wreck of the Julie Plante”:
“On wan dark night on Lac St. Pierre,” etc.
[3] These are known to us as muskrats, the Algonquin name being
mooskovesson, from which we get the name of the fur, musquash.
[4] Keats: “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.”
[5] There is in the museum of the Chateau de Ramezay in Montreal a part
of the rock that formed the key stone of the arch over the doorway (which
is reproduced) of the house, in which it is said Champlain was born.
This was presented by President J. H. Finley, of the University of the
State of New York, who visited Brouage when writing his famous book, “The
French in the Heart of America.”
[6] Three hundred years afterwards this battle scene was reproduced on
Lake Champlain by descendants of the Iroquois, and this illustration of
the great matters which are kindled by little fires was portrayed by the
Indians with a zest that drew great audiences and held them spellbound.
[7]
“Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time,
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We’ll sing at St. Ann’s our parting hymn.
Row, brothers, row! the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight’s past.”
[8] When Quebec was taken in 1629 the white population in that city was
only 60, and in the whole of Canada, less than 100, whereas the English
colony of Virginia had more than 4,000 souls.
[9] River of the Holy Ghost, Colbert, and finally Mississippi.
[10] The pomp and splendour of the armies of Louis XIV. was worthy of a
prince in a fairy tale. Every campaign ended in a sort of royal pageant;
coaches of crystal and gold, horses draped in cloth of gold, courtiers
and conquerors dazzling with diamonds, ladies all silks and plumes and
laces.
He built Versailles where two hundred years afterwards the Conference
following the Great War of 1914-18 met to settle the terms of peace—“a
palace such as the world had never seen, glittering with mirrors and
gold, paved and lined with precious marbles, decorated with paintings
representing the battles and triumphs of the great monarch and looking
over an immense park peopled with bronze and marble statues and reflected
in vast sheets of water where lovely fountains played.”—DUCLAUX.
[11] Colbert had troubles of his own in trying to provide money for the
extravagances of his king, Louis XIV. Colbert was the son of a merchant
of Rheims, a hard-working, economical minister, a hater of waste and
profusion. He was a marvellous administrator; in ten years he doubled
the king’s revenues. But his factories and model farms, his canals and
his colonies, his fleet, his finance could not bring money in as fast as
Louis could spend it. Colbert was at once Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Minister of Agriculture, Director of the Board of Trade, Chief Lord of
the Admiralty, Home Secretary and Colonial Secretary. It was in this last
capacity that he had special connection with New France.
[12] As a matter of history the island is called after another Perrot
much less distinguished.
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