A Half Century of Conflict Volume I Part 20

[303] D'Artaguette in Gayarre, _Histoire de la Louisiane_. This valuable work consists of a series of doc.u.ments, connected by a thread of narrative.

[304] _La Mothe-Cadillac au Ministre_, in Gayarre, i. 104, 105.

[305] "Que si M. de Lamothe-Cadillac lui portoit tant d'animositie, c'etoit a cause du refus qu'il avoit fait d'epouser sa fille."--_Bienville in Gayarre_, i. 116.

[306] _Memoire du Cure de la Vente, 1714._

[307] The earlier cargoes of girls seem to have been better chosen, and there was no difficulty in mating them. Serious disputes sometimes rose from the compet.i.tion of rival suitors.--Dumont, _Memoires historiques de la Louisiane_, chap. v.

[308] Prominent officials of the colony are said to have got wives from these sources. Nicolas de la Salle is reported to have had two in succession, both from the hospitals. Benard de la Harpe, 107 (ed. 1831).

[309] _Lettres patentes en forme d'edit portant etabliss.e.m.e.nt de la Compagnie d'Occident_, in Le Page du Pratz, _Histoire de la Louisiane_, i. 47.

[310] _Reglement de Regie, 1721._

[311] Saint-Simon, _Memoires_ (ed. Cheruel), xvii. 461.

[312] _De Cha.s.sin au Ministre, 1 Juillet, 1722_, in Gayarre, i. 190.

[313] A considerable number of the whites brought to Louisiana in the name of the Company had been sent at the charge of persons to whom it had granted lands in various parts of the colony. Among these was John Law himself, who had the grant of large tracts on the Arkansas.

[314] Benard de la Harpe, 371 (ed. 1831).

[315] _Lettre du Pere le Pet.i.t_, in _Lettres edifiantes_; Dumont, _Memoires historiques_, chap. xxvii.

[316] "Nos soldats, qui semblent etre faits expres pour la colonie, tants ils sont mauvais."--_Depeche de Perier, 18 Mars, 1730._

[317] _Memoire de Bienville, 1730._

[318] For a curious account of the discovery of this negro plot, see Le Page du Pratz, iii. 304.

[319] _Depeche de Bienville, 6 Mai, 1740._ Compare Le Page du Pratz, iii. chap. xxiv.

CHAPTER XIV.

1700-1732.

THE OUTAGAMIE WAR.

The Western Posts.--Detroit.--The Illinois.--Perils of the West.--The Outagamies.--Their Turbulence.--English Instigation.--Louvigny's Expedition.--Defeat of Outagamies.--Hostilities renewed.--Lignery's Expedition.--Outagamies attacked by Villiers; by Hurons and Iroquois.--La b.u.t.te des Morts.--The Sacs and Foxes.

The rulers of Canada labored without ceasing in their perplexing task of engrossing the fur-trade of the West and controlling the western tribes to the exclusion of the English. Every day made it clearer that to these ends the western wilderness must be held by forts and trading-posts; and this policy of extension prevailed more and more, in spite of the league of merchants, who wished to draw the fur-trade to Montreal,--in spite of the Jesuits, who felt that their influence over the remoter tribes would be compromised by the presence among them of officers, soldiers, and traders; and in spite of the King himself, who feared that the diffusion of the colony would breed disorder and insubordination.

Detroit, the most important of the western posts, struggled through a critical infancy in the charge of its founder, La Mothe-Cadillac, till, by a choice not very judicious, he was made governor of Louisiana.

During his rule the population had slowly increased to about two hundred souls; but after he left the place it diminished to a point that seemed to threaten the feeble post with extinction. About 1722 it revived again; _voyageurs_ and discharged soldiers settled about the fort, and the parish register shows six or eight births in the course of the year.[320]

Meanwhile, on the banks of the Mississippi another settlement was growing up which did not owe its birth to official patronage, and yet was destined to become the most noteworthy offspring of Canada in the West. It was known to the French as "the Illinois," from the name of the group of tribes belonging to that region. La Salle had occupied the banks of the river Illinois in 1682; but the curious Indian colony which he gathered about his fort on the rock of St. Louis[321] dispersed after his death, till few or none were left except the Kaskaskias, a sub-tribe of the Illinois. These still lived in the meadow below Fort St. Louis, where the Jesuits Marquette, Allouez, Rale, Gravier, and Marest labored in turn for their conversion, till, in 1700, they or some of them followed Marest to the Mississippi and set up their wigwams where the town of Kaskaskia now stands, near the mouth of the little river which bears the same name. Charlevoix, who was here in 1721, calls this the oldest settlement of the Illinois,[322]--though there is some reason to believe that the village of Cahokia, established as a mission by the Jesuit Pinet, sixty miles or more above Kaskaskia, and nearly opposite the present city of St. Louis, is, by a few weeks, the elder of the two.

The _voyageurs_, _coureurs de bois_, and other roving Canadians made these young settlements their resort, took to wife converted squaws,[323] and ended with making the Illinois their home. The missions turned to parishes, the missionaries to cures, and the wigwams to those compact little Canadian houses that cause one to marvel at the ingenuity which can store so mult.i.tudinous a progeny within such narrow limits.

White women from Canada or Louisiana began to find their way to these wilderness settlements, which with every generation grew more French and less Indian. The river Mississippi was at once their friend and their enemy. It carried their produce to New Orleans, but undermined their rich alluvial sh.o.r.es, cut away fields and meadows, and swept them in its turbid eddies thirteen hundred miles southward, as a contribution to the mud-banks of the delta.

When the Mississippi Company came into power, the Illinois, hitherto a dependency of Canada, was annexed to Louisiana. Pierre Dugue de Boisbriant was sent to take command of it, and under his direction a fort was built on the bank of the Mississippi sixteen miles above Kaskaskia. It was named Fort Chartres, in honor of the Duc de Chartres, son of the Regent, who had himself once borne the same t.i.tle. This work, built at first of wood and earth, was afterwards rebuilt of stone, and became one of the chief links in the chain of military communication between Canada and Louisiana.

Here, with the commandant at its head, sat the council of three which ruled over the little settlement.[324] Here too was a garrison to enforce the decrees of the council, keep order among the settlers, and give them a protection which they greatly needed, since they were within striking distance of the formidable Chickasaws, the effects of whose hostility appear year after year on the parish register of deaths at Kaskaskia. Worse things were in store; for the gallant young Pierre d'Artaguette, who was appointed to the command in 1734, and who marched against the Chickasaws with a band of Frenchmen and Indians, was defeated, captured, and burned alive, astonishing his torturers by the fort.i.tude with which he met his fate. The settlement had other foes not less dangerous. These were the Outagamies, or Foxes, between whom and the tribes of the Illinois there was a deadly feud. We have seen how, in 1712, a band of Outagamies, with their allies, the Mascoutins, appeared at Detroit and excited an alarm, which, after a savage conflict, was ended with their ruin. In 1714 the Outagamies made a furious attack upon the Illinois, and killed or carried off seventy-seven of them.[325] A few years later they made another murderous onslaught in the same quarter. They were the scourge of the West, and no white man could travel between Canada and Louisiana except at the risk of his life.

In vain the French parleyed with them; threats and blandishments were useless alike. Their chiefs would promise, sometimes in good faith, to keep the peace and no more offend their father Onontio; but nearly all the tribes of the Lake country were their hereditary enemies, and some b.l.o.o.d.y revenge for ancient wrongs would excite their young warriors to a fury which the elders could not restrain. Thus, in 1722 the Saginaws, a fierce Algonquin band on the eastern borders of Michigan, killed twenty-three Outagamies; the tribesmen of the slain returned the blow, other tribes joined the fray, and the wilderness was again on fire.[326]

The Canadian authorities were sorely perplexed, for this fierce inter-tribal war threatened their whole system of western trade.

Meanwhile the English and Dutch of New York were sending wampum belts to the Indians of the upper lakes, inviting them to bring their furs to Albany; and Ramesay, governor of Montreal, complains that they were all disposed to do so. "Twelve of the upper tribes," says Lord Cornbury, "have come down this year to trade at Albany;" but he adds that as the Indians have had no presents for above six years, he is afraid "we shall lose them before next summer."[327] The governor of Canada himself is said to have been in collusion with the English traders for his own profit.[328] The Jesuits denied the charge, and Father Marest wrote to the governor, after the disaster to Walker's fleet on its way to attack Quebec, "The protection you have given to the missions has drawn on you and the colony the miraculous protection of G.o.d."[329]

Whether his accusers did him wrong or not, Vaudreuil felt the necessity of keeping the peace among the western Indians and suppressing the Outagamie incendiaries. In fact, nothing would satisfy him but their destruction. "They are the common enemies of all the western tribes," he writes. "They have lately murdered three Frenchmen and five Hurons at Detroit. The Hurons ask for our help against them, and we must give it, or all the tribes will despise us."[330]

He put his chief trust in Louvigny, formerly commandant at Michilimackinac. That officer proposed to muster the friendly tribes and march on the Outagamies just as their corn was ripening, fight them if they stood their ground, or if not, destroy their crops, burn their wigwams, and encamp on the spot till winter; then send out parties to hara.s.s them as they roamed the woods seeking a meagre subsistence by hunting. In this way he hoped to cripple, if not destroy them.[331]

The Outagamies lived at this time on the Fox River of Green Bay,--a stream which owes its name to them.[332] Their chief village seems to have been between thirty and forty miles from the mouth of the river, where it creeps through broad tracts of rushes, willows, and wild rice.

In spite of their losses at Detroit in 1712, their strength was far from being broken.

During two successive summers preparations were made to attack them; but the march was delayed, once by the tardiness of the Indian allies, and again by the illness of Louvigny. At length, on the first of May, 1716, he left Montreal with two hundred and twenty-five Frenchmen, while two hundred more waited to join him at Detroit and Michilimackinac, where the Indian allies were also to meet him. To save expense in pay and outfit, the Canadians recruited for the war were allowed to take with them goods for trading with the Indians. Hence great disorder and insubordination, especially as more than forty barrels of brandy were carried in the canoes, as a part of these commercial ventures, in consequence of which we hear that when French and Indians were encamped together, "h.e.l.l was thrown open."[333]

The Outagamies stood their ground. Louvigny says, with probable exaggeration, that when he made his attack their village held five hundred warriors, and no less than three thousand women,--a disparity of s.e.xes no doubt due to the inveterate fighting habits of the tribe. The wigwams were enclosed by a strong fence, consisting of three rows of heavy oaken palisades. This method of fortification was used also by tribes farther southward. When Bienville attacked the Chickasaws, he was foiled by the solid wooden wall that resisted his cannon, being formed of trunks of trees as large as a man's body, set upright, close together, and made shot-proof by smaller trunks, planted within so as to close the interstices of the outer row.[334]

The fortified village of the Outagamies was of a somewhat different construction. The defences consisted of three rows of palisades, those of the middle row being probably planted upright, and the other two set aslant against them. Below, along the inside of the triple row, ran a sort of shallow trench or rifle-pit, where the defenders lay ensconced, firing through interstices left for the purpose between the palisades.[335]

Louvigny had brought with him two cannon and a mortar; but being light, they had little effect on the wooden wall, and as he was provided with mining tools, he resolved to attack the Outagamie stronghold by regular approaches, as if he were besieging a fortress of Vauban. Covered by the fire of three pieces of artillery and eight hundred French and Indian small-arms, he opened trenches during the night within seventy yards of the palisades, pushed a sap sixty feet nearer before morning, and on the third night burrowed to within about twenty-three yards of the wall. His plan was to undermine and blow up the palisades.

The Outagamies had made a furious resistance, in which their women took part with desperation; but dreading the threatened explosion, and unable to resist the underground approaches of their enemy, they asked for a parley, and owned themselves beaten. Louvigny demanded that they should make peace with all tribes friendly to the French, give up all prisoners, and make war on distant tribes, such as the p.a.w.nees, in order to take captives who should supply the place of those they had killed among the allies of the French; that they should pay, in furs, the costs of the war, and give six chiefs, or sons of chiefs, as hostages for the fulfilment of these conditions.[336]

On the twelfth of October Louvigny reached Quebec in triumph, bringing with him the six hostages.

The Outagamie question was settled for a time. The tribe remained quiet for some years, and in 1718 sent a deputation to Montreal and renewed their submission, which the governor accepted, though they had evaded the complete fulfilment of the conditions imposed on them. Yet peace was not secure for a moment. The Kickapoos and Mascoutins would not leave their neighbors, the Illinois, at rest; the Saginaws made raids on the Miamis; and a general war seemed imminent. "The difficulty is inconceivable of keeping these western tribes quiet," writes the governor, almost in despair.[337]

At length the crisis came. The Illinois captured the nephew of Oushala, the princ.i.p.al Outagamie war-chief, and burned him alive; on which the Outagamies attacked them, drove them for refuge to the top of the rock on which La Salle's fort of St. Louis had been built, and held them there at mercy. They would have starved to death, had not the victors, dreading the anger of the French, suffered them to escape.[338] For this they took to themselves great credit, not without reason, in view of the provocation. At Versailles, however, their attack on the Illinois seemed an unpardonable offence, and the next ship from France brought a letter from the colonial minister declaring that the Outagamies must be effectually put down, and that "his Majesty will reward the officer who will reduce, or rather destroy, them."[339]

The authorities of Canada were less truculent than their masters at the court, or were better able to count the costs of another war. Longueuil, the provisional governor, persisted in measures of peace, and the Sieur de Lignery called a council of the Outagamies and their neighbors, the Sacs and Winnebagoes, at Green Bay. He told them that the Great Onontio, the King, ordered them, at their peril, to make no more attacks on the Illinois; and they dutifully promised to obey, while their great chief, Oushala, begged that a French officer might be sent to his village to help him keep his young warriors from the war-path.[340] The pacific policy of Longueuil was not approved by Desliettes, then commanding in the Illinois country; and he proposed to settle accounts with the Outagamies by exterminating them. "This is very well," observes a writer of the time; "but to try to exterminate them and fail would be disastrous."[341]

The Marquis de Beauharnois, who came out as governor of Canada in 1726, was averse to violent measures, since if an attempt to exterminate the offending tribe should be made without success, the life of every Frenchman in the West would be in jeopardy.[342] Lignery thought that if the Outagamies broke the promises they had made him at Green Bay, the forces of Canada and Louisiana should unite to crush them. The missionary, Chardon, advised that they should be cut off from all supplies of arms, ammunition, and merchandise of any kind, and that all the well-disposed western tribes should then be set upon them,--which, he thought, would infallibly bring them to reason.[343]

The new governor, perplexed by the mult.i.tude of counsellors, presently received a missive from the King, directing him not to fight the Outagamies if he could help it, "since the consequences of failure would be frightful."[344] On the other hand, Beauharnois was told that the English had sent messages to the Lake tribes urging them to kill the French in their country, and that the Outagamies had promised to do so.

"This," writes the governor, "compels us to make war in earnest. It will cost sixty thousand livres."[345]

Dupuy, the intendant, had joined with Beauharnois in this letter to the minister; but being at the time in a hot quarrel with the governor, he soon after sent a communication of his own to Versailles, in which he declares that the war against the Outagamies was only a pretext of Beauharnois for spending the King's money, and enriching himself by buying up all the furs of the countries traversed by the army.[346]

Whatever the motives of the expedition, it left Montreal in June, under the Sieur de Lignery, followed the rugged old route of the Ottawa, and did not reach Michilimackinac till after midsummer. Thence, in a flotilla of birch canoes carrying about a thousand Indians and five hundred French, the party set out for the fort at the head of Green Bay.[347] Here they caught one Outagamie warrior and three Winnebagoes, whom the Indian allies tortured to death. Then they paddled their canoes up Fox River, reached a Winnebago village on the twenty-fourth of August, followed the channel of the stream, a ribbon of lazy water twisting in a vague, perplexing way through the broad marsh of wild rice and flags, till they saw the chief village of the Outagamies on a tract of rising ground a little above the level of the bog.[348] It consisted of bark wigwams, without palisades or defences of any kind. Its only inmates were three squaws and one old man. These were all seized, and, to the horror of Pere Crespel, the chaplain, were given to the Indian allies, who kept the women as slaves, and burned the old man at a slow fire.[349] Then, after burning the village and destroying the crop of maize, peas, beans, and squashes that surrounded it, the whole party returned to Michilimackinac.[350]

The expedition was not a success. Lignery had hoped to surprise the enemy; but the alert and nimble savages had escaped him. Beauharnois makes the best of the miscarriage, and writes that "the army did good work;" but says a few weeks later that something must be done to cure the contempt which the western allies of the French have conceived for them "since the last affair."[351]