French Pathfinders in North America Part 16

He was born in Belgium, about 1640, and in due time joined the Franciscan monks. When he tells us that he was so pa.s.sionately fond of tales of adventure that he often skulked behind tavern-doors, though he was sickened by the tobacco smoke, eagerly hanging on the words of the old tars spinning yarns to each other, we do not wonder at finding him on his way to the land of wonders, the New World, making the voyage in company with La Salle. The wilderness, full of hardships and haunted by treacherous savages though it was, had a fascination for him, and we soon find him serving as an itinerant missionary on the frontier.

His experience in this work recommended him for appointment as missionary at that loneliest of {291} outposts, La Salle's Fort Frontenac. When La Salle returned successful from his efforts to interest the court in his gigantic scheme of exploration, Father Hennepin was selected to accompany him as the representative of the Church. In preparation for the great undertaking, he was sent ahead with La Motte, an officer in La Salle's service, to Fort Frontenac, whence they proceeded in a small sailing vessel to Niagara River, under orders to build a fort that was intended to be a link in the chain of posts that La Salle purposed establishing.

Niagara Falls--"a vast and prodigious Cadence of Water," he calls it--made a deep impression on the Father, and he proceeded to write in his journal this description, which, when it was printed, was the first published account of the cataract: "This wonderful Downfall is compounded of two great Cross-streams of Water, and two Falls, with an Isle sloping along the middle of it. The Waters which fall from this vast height do foam and boil after the most hideous Manner imaginable, making an outrageous Noise, more terrible than that of Thunder; for when the wind blows from off the South, their dismal roaring may be heard above fifteen Leagues off."

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The Seneca Indians, who regarded the Niagara River as belonging to themselves, were jealous of the intruders and raised so strong objections to the building of a fort, that La Motte and Hennepin made a journey to their chief town, in the hope of overcoming their opposition. Here they met with a hospitable reception from the savages, who, Hennepin says, "wash'd our Feet, which afterwards they rubb'd over with the Oil of Bears." They found here two faithful Jesuit missionaries--members of an order, by the way, not especially friendly to the one to which Hennepin belonged, the Franciscans--and, at their invitation, the father preached to the Indians.

Next came a council with the elders of the tribe. These made a great impression on Hennepin, who writes, "The Senators of Venice do not appear with a graver countenance, and perhaps don't speak with more Majesty and Solidity than those ancient Iroquese." [1]

With many cunning arguments and specious reasons, the white men stated their case through their interpreter, making much of the point that the new enterprise would open an easier {293} trade-route, by which goods could be brought and sold to the natives at rates lower than those of the Dutch, with whom these people were in the habit of dealing at Fort Orange (Albany).

The wary old warriors accepted the presents offered them, listened to the speeches, and reserved their decision until the next day, when they plainly showed that they did not put much faith in the a.s.surances of their white brethren. In the end, La Motte and Hennepin went away disappointed. La Salle, however, on his arrival, with his extraordinary skill in dealing with Indians, secured the concessions he needed and went on with his building and the subsequent exploration.

It would be superfluous to repeat the story of the expedition, down to the building of Fort Crevecoeur. It is not until this point that the journal of Father Hennepin becomes an independent narrative.

From Fort Crevecoeur La Salle dispatched the father, with two excellent men, Accau and Du Gay, to follow the Illinois River to its mouth and, on reaching the Mississippi, to turn northward and explore its upper waters. Accau, who was an experienced _voyageur_ (French for {294} traveler; a term applied to Canadians who traversed the forests and lakes, bartering with the Indians), was the real head of the expedition. But Hennepin, according to his wont, even when he was in company with so great a genius as La Salle, in his account always gives himself the foremost place.

If Father Hennepin had published no other writings than his account of the journey on the Upper Mississippi, his reputation would be that of a traveler who left a most interesting record of his experiences, embellished with fanciful additions--a not uncommon practice, in those days--but in the main reliable. Unfortunately for his good name, he did something more which justly put such a blot upon his character that many persons refused to believe his story in any of its particulars.

We must give a pa.s.sing notice to this daring performance.

Fourteen years after this expedition, when La Salle was dead, and with the evident purpose of robbing him of his just fame as the first white man who explored the Mississippi all the way to the Gulf, Hennepin for the first time put forth the astonishing statement that he and his two companions, on reaching the Great River, turned {295} south and followed its course all the way to the ocean, after which they ascended it and explored its upper waters--a truly marvelous achievement, if it were true, for three lonely men voyaging on an unknown stream among fierce savages.

Even at the time of its publication, there were those who disallowed this amazing claim. "Why has he so long kept silence about this heroic feat?" they naturally asked. Hennepin had a ready answer: he was afraid of the wrath of La Salle, who would have been furious if any doubt had been cast upon his claim of being the first explorer.

How, then, do we know the story to be false? In several ways. First, and chiefly, because what Hennepin alleged that he had done was simply impossible. In his first book, which was published, let us remember, during La Salle's lifetime, Hennepin said that he left the mouth of the Illinois on March 12, and that he was captured by the Sioux, near the mouth of the Wisconsin, five hundred miles above, on April 11. This looks reasonable, and no doubt it was true. But, in the second story, published fourteen years later, he stated that in that same interval of time he had descended the Mississippi {296} to the Gulf, then, returning, had traced its course as far as the mouth of the Wisconsin.

One month to accomplish a distance of 3,260 miles! An average of over one hundred miles a day for three men paddling a canoe, up-stream for the greater part of the distance! Surely, we may dismiss the whole story as a colossal falsehood.

But if he did not go below the mouth of the Illinois, how did Hennepin become possessed of the information which he gives in his usual interesting way about the places and peoples all the way down the river to the Gulf? His descriptions have all the appearance of truth. He "cribbed" them. We are able to put our finger on a source from which he drew without stint. It will be remembered that Father Membre accompanied La Salle on his descent of the Mississippi, in 1681. He kept a journal of their experiences. This journal was afterward published by another friar, Le Clerc, but was suppressed by the French government, because it gave offence to the Jesuits. A few copies, however, are in existence to this day. Those who have examined one of these say that Membre's journal is the original of Hennepin's stolen narrative, sometimes whole pages agreeing word for word. Hennepin seems {297} to have taken it bodily, with a few necessary alterations, such as would make himself, not La Salle, the hero of the expedition.

This pirated account, written in Hennepin's picturesque style, met with great success in Europe and was translated into several languages. We are reminded of the sensation which was made by Amerigo Vespucci's fanciful tales of the New World. (See "Pioneer Spaniards in North America," p. 44.)

One more question. If Hennepin lied in saying that he descended the Great River, how do we know that he really ascended it? Because this part of his story is confirmed by an independent witness. The famous trader and leader of fur-traders, Du Lhut, testified that he found Hennepin and his two companions prisoners among the Sioux and rescued them, precisely as we shall find Hennepin relating in his story of the expedition.

We shall, therefore, reject the later-published account of the imaginary journey down the Mississippi and confine our attention to the probably authentic story of his adventures on the upper waters.

Hennepin and his two a.s.sociates followed the Illinois to its mouth and then turned their canoe {298} toward the head-waters of the Great River. For a time all went well. Game was abundant, and the travelers fared sumptuously on buffalo, deer, turkeys, and fish. Suddenly they encountered a war-party of Sioux in a number of canoes. These fierce rovers, members of the great Dakota family, whose range extended westward a thousand miles from the Mississippi, enjoyed a reputation which caused them to be called "the Iroquois of the West." Immediately they surrounded the Frenchmen with a hideous clamor. Hennepin held up the calumet; but one of them s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him. Then he offered some fine Martinique tobacco, which somewhat mollified them. He also gave them two turkeys which were in the canoe. But, for all this, it was evident that the Sioux were about to treat their prisoners with their wonted ferocity. In fact, one of the warriors signified to the friar in dumb show that he was to be brained with a war-club. On the spot he hastened to the canoe and returned loaded with presents which he threw down before them. This had the effect of so far softening the savage b.r.e.a.s.t.s that the prisoners were given food and were allowed to rest in quiet that night.

In quiet, indeed, but not sleeping, we may be {299} sure, for can a more trying situation be imagined than that of knowing that one's life or death is under debate, while one has not a chance to say a single word of defence or argument? Some of the Indians, they gathered, favored killing them on the spot and taking their goods. Others contended that when they all wished to attract French traders to come into their country and bring guns, blankets, and other such commodities, it would be unwise to discourage them by killing these prisoners.

Imagine the Frenchmen's joy, when, in the early morning, a young warrior in full paint came to them, asked for the pipe which had previously been rejected, filled and smoked it, and then pa.s.sed it to his companions to do the same. This pipe was the famous calumet, which we have seen to be so efficacious in the case of Joliet and Marquette.

Smoking it was an intimation to the Frenchmen that there was to be peace. They were also informed that they would be taken by the Sioux to their village.

Shortly afterward the friar had a comical experience. When he took out his breviary and began to read his morning devotions in a low tone, the savages gathered around him with looks {300} of terror and frantically signed to him to put away the book. They mistook it for some kind of a fetish, that is, an object inhabited by a powerful spirit, and his muttering they supposed to be a magic incantation. Then a happy thought struck him. He began to sing the service in a loud and cheerful voice. This delighted the savages, who fancied that the book was teaching him to sing for their entertainment.

Now the journey up the river began. On the whole, the Frenchmen fared tolerably well. They took care always to sleep near the young warrior who had been the first to smoke the peace-pipe, and whom they regarded as their protector. The hostile party among the Indians was headed by a wily old fellow who frequently threw the prisoners into a panic by frenzied appeals to the warriors to let him avenge on the white men the death of his son, who had been killed by the Miamis. The Frenchmen invariably met this excitement by fresh gifts. Thus, while they were not openly robbed, they were gradually relieved of their earthly possessions by a sort of primitive blackmail.

Day after day the paddles plied by sinewy arms drove the canoes up the stream. A lake {301} was pa.s.sed, which later was called Lake Pepin, in honor of one of a party of their countrymen whom they met a short time afterward.[2] On the nineteenth day after their capture, the prisoners landed, along with their masters, on the spot where St. Paul now stands.

The three Frenchmen's troubles now began in real earnest. First they must see their canoe broken to pieces, to prevent their escape, then the remainder of their goods divided. After this their captors started out for their abodes, which lay to the north, near the lake now called Mille {302} Lacs. It was a hard experience for the Frenchmen to tramp with these athletic savages, wading ponds and marshes glazed with ice and swimming ice-cold streams. "Our Legs," says Hennepin, "were all over Blood, being cut by the Ice." Seeing the friar inclined to lag, the Indians took a novel method of quickening his pace. They set fire to the gra.s.s behind him and then, taking him by the hands, they ran forward with him. He was nearly spent when, after five days of exhausting travel, they reached the homes of the Sioux.

Entering the village, Hennepin saw a sight that curdled his blood.

Stakes, with bundles of straws attached to them seemed in readiness for burning himself and his comrades.

Imagine their amazement when, instead of being roasted, they were taken into a lodge and treated to a kind of whortle-berry pudding _a la sauvage_!

The next matter of interest was a noisy wrangle among the warriors as to the distribution of the prisoners. To his great terror, Hennepin was a.s.signed to Aquipagetin, the wily old villain who had insisted on the death of the Frenchmen and had persistently blackmailed them.

"Surely now {303} my time has come," the friar said to himself.

Instead, to his great surprise, he was immediately adopted by his new master as a son, to replace the one whom the Miamis had lately killed, a procedure quite in accordance with Indian custom. Hennepin thus found himself separated from his two countrymen, who had other masters, much to the relief of Accau, who heartily hated him.

The friar was now conducted by his adopted father to his lodge, which stood on an island in a lake, was introduced as his son to some six or seven of his wives, was given a platter of fish and a buffalo-robe, and altogether was treated quite as a member of the family.

Now he had a period of rest in the Sioux village. The Indians subjected him, greatly to his advantage, to a treatment such as seems to have been in very general use on this continent and to have been the most rational feature of Indian medical practice, which relied mainly on charms and incantations. It was administered by placing the patient in a tightly closed lodge and pouring water on heated stones, thus producing a dense vapor which induced copious sweating, after which he was vigorously rubbed.

The Sioux had a certain respect for him, on {304} account of magic powers which he was supposed to possess, and his pocket-compa.s.s inspired them with unbounded awe. On his side, he made himself useful in various ways, such as shaving the children's heads and bleeding the sick. The children had good reason to be thankful for having the friar for their barber, since the native method, he says, was "by burning off the Hair with flat Stones, which they heat red-hot in the Fire."

"Many a melancholy Day," says Hennepin, "did I pa.s.s among these Savages." His coa.r.s.e, filthy food was often of the scantiest, and his work, which he was compelled to do with squaws and slaves--for, of course, no warrior would stoop to labor--was of the hardest. Besides his useful services, one thing that helped greatly to keep him alive was the superst.i.tion of his masters. One of his belongings inspired them with wholesome dread. "I had," he says, "an Iron Pot about three foot round, which had the Figure of a Lion on it, which during our Voyage served us to bake our Victuals in. This Pot the Barbarians durst never so much as touch, without covering their Hands first in something of Castor-Skin. And so great a Terror was it to the women, {305} that they durst not come or sleep in the Cabin where it was.

They thought that there was a Spirit hid within, that would certainly kill them."

At length the time came for the Indians to go on their annual hunt, and they took Hennepin along. His countrymen were also of the party, and thus he was again thrown with them. The friar gives this indignant account of their outfit: "Our whole Equipage consisted of fifteen or twenty Charges of Powder, a Fusil [gun], a little sorry Earthen Pot, which the Barbarians gave us, a knife between us both, and a Garment of Castor [beaver]. Thus we were equipped for a voyage of 250 Leagues."

The whole band, some two hundred and fifteen in number, descended Rum River, the outlet of Mille Lacs, and encamped opposite its mouth, on the bank of the Mississippi. Food was scarce. The whole camp was on short rations, and the three Frenchmen could get little to eat but unripe berries.

This condition of things was scarcely endurable, and Hennepin was happy in securing permission from the head chief, who always acted in a very friendly manner, to go with his countrymen to {306} the mouth of the Wisconsin, where he said that he had an appointment to meet some French traders who were coming thither with goods--a piece of pure invention which, however, served its purpose very well. Accau refused to go, preferring the savage life to traveling with the friar. But Du Gay gladly joined him, and the two set off in a small canoe that had been given them. They went swiftly down the river, and soon came to a famous cataract, between the sites of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which Hennepin called the Falls of St. Anthony, in honor of the saint whom he particularly reverenced, St. Anthony of Padua. The name remains to this day and keeps alive the memory of the eccentric friar.[3]

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We shall not follow the travelers through their wanderings and adventures. Once, when they had been on very scant fare for several days, they were almost trampled by a herd of buffalo rushing down the bank to cross the river. Du Gay shot a young cow, and they feasted so bountifully that they were taken ill and could not travel for two days.

In the meantime the weather was warm, their meat spoiled, and they were soon again nearly famished, depending on catfish and an occasional turtle. Hennepin thus describes one of their encounters: "I shewed Picard [Du Gay] a huge Serpent, as big as a Man's Leg, and seven or eight Foot long. She was working herself insensibly up a steep craggy Rock, to get at the Swallows Nests which are there in great Numbers.

We pelted her so long with Stones, till at length she fell into the River. Her Tongue, which was in form of a Lance, was of an extraordinary Length, and her Hiss might be heard a great way."

At last the two Frenchmen joined a band of hunters and among them found our friend Accau. {308} The hunt was very successful. But Hennepin's attention was drawn in another direction by a strange story of five "Spirits," that is to say, Europeans, who were in the neighborhood. A few days later he met them at a little distance below the Falls of St.

Anthony.

The leader of the party was one of the most notable men among the early pioneers. His name was Daniel Greysolon Du Lhut, or Du Luth. He was leagued with Count Frontenac and some others in the fur-trade and was equally noted for his success in that line of business, for his coolness and skill in managing Indians and rough _coureurs de bois_, and for his achievements as an explorer. He had come to the head of Lake Superior, where a city perpetuates his name, and thence had crossed to one of the tributaries of the Mississippi, when he heard of the three Frenchmen and came to meet them. The encounter was a joyful one on both sides, especially for the prisoners, whose release Du Lhut secured by gifts to the Sioux.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Falls of St. Anthony]

The eight Frenchmen now accompanied the Sioux back to Mille Lacs and were treated with great honor. Then they started east and, in due time, reached the Jesuit missions at Green {309} Bay. And here we take leave of Father Hennepin.[4]

[1] Hennepin's language in the pa.s.sages which have been quoted is given as it appears in an old English translation.

[2] Jonathan Carver, who journeyed up the river in 1766, was the earliest traveler who made mention of ancient monuments in this region.

He says that a few miles below Lake Pepin his attention was attracted by an elevation which had the appearance of an intrenchment. He had served in the recent war between Great Britain and France and had an eye to such matters. He says, "Notwithstanding it was now covered with gra.s.s, I could plainly discern that it had once been a breast-work of about four feet in height, extending the best part of a mile and sufficiently capacious to cover five thousand men." It was semi-circular in form, and its wings rested on the river, which covered the rear. His surmise that it was built for the purpose of defence is undoubtedly correct. He wonders how such a work could exist in a country inhabited by "untutored Indians" who had no military knowledge beyond drawing a bow. Since his time we have gained far more knowledge of the aborigines, and it is ascertained beyond reasonable question that, at one period, they reared extensive earth-works, probably for the permanent protection of their villages.

[3] Jonathan Carver, who visited the Falls about a hundred years after Hennepin, and from whose works the accompanying ill.u.s.tration is taken, writes thus: "At a little distance below the falls stands a small island, of about an acre and a half, on which grow a great number of oak-trees, every branch of which, able to support the weight, was full of eagles' nests." These birds, he says, resort to this place in so great numbers because of its security, "their retreat being guarded by the Rapids, which the Indians never attempt to pa.s.s," and because of the abundant supply of food furnished by fish and animals "dashed to pieces by the falls and driven on the adjacent sh.o.r.e."