Pathfinders of the West Part 3

Among the Thousand Islands, the French who had remained behind to gather up the baggage again joined the Onondagas. They brought with them from the Isle of Ma.s.sacres a poor Huron woman, whom they had found lying insensible on a rock. During the ma.s.sacre she had hidden in a hollow tree, where she remained for three days. In this region, Radisson almost lost his life by hoisting a blanket sail to his canoe.

The wind drifted the boat so far out that Radisson had to throw all ballast overboard to keep from being swamped. As they turned from the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario up the Oswego River for Onondaga, they met other warriors of the Iroquois nation. In spite of pledges to the priest, the meeting was celebrated by torturing the Huron women to entertain the newcomers. Not the sufferings of the early Christians in Rome exceeded the martyrdom of the Christian Hurons among the Onondagas. As her mother mounted the scaffold of tortures, a little girl who had been educated by the Ursulines of Quebec broke out with loud weeping. The Huron mother turned calmly to the child:--

"Weep not my death, my little daughter! We shall this day be in heaven," said she; "G.o.d will pity us to all eternity. The Iroquois cannot rob us of that."

As the flames crept about her, her voice was heard chanting in the crooning monotone of Indian death dirge: "Jesu--have pity on us!

Jesu--have pity on us!" The next moment the child was thrown into the flames, repeating the same words.

The Iroquois recognized Radisson. He sent presents to his Mohawk parents, who afterwards played an important part in saving the French of Onondaga. Having pa.s.sed the falls, they came to the French fort situated on the crest of a hill above a lake. Two high towers loopholed for musketry occupied the centre of the courtyard. Double walls, trenched between, ran round a s.p.a.ce large enough to enable the French to keep their cattle inside the fort. The _voyageurs_ were welcomed to Onondaga by Major Dupuis, fifty Frenchmen, and several Jesuits.

The pilgrims had scarcely settled at Onondaga before signs of the dangers that were gathering became too plain for the blind zeal of the Jesuits to ignore. Cayugas, Onondagas, and Senecas, togged out in war-gear, swarmed outside the palisades. There was no more dissembling of hunger for the Jesuits' evangel. The warriors spoke no more soft words, but spent their time feasting, chanting war-songs, heaving up the war-hatchet against the kettle of sagamite--which meant the rupture of peace. Then came four hundred Mohawks, who not only shouted their war-songs, but built their wigwams before the fort gates and established themselves for the winter like a besieging army. That the intent of the entire Confederacy was hostile to Onondaga could not be mistaken; but what was holding the Indians back? Why did they delay the ma.s.sacre? Then Huron slaves brought word to the besieged fort of the twelve Iroquois hostages held at Quebec. The fort understood what stayed the Iroquois blow. The Confederacy dared not attack the isolated fort lest Quebec should take terrible vengeance on the hostages.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Jogues, the Jesuit missionary, who was tortured by the Mohawks. From a painting in Chateau de Ramezay, Montreal.]

The French decided to send messengers to Quebec for instructions before closing navigation cut them off for the winter. Thirteen men and one Jesuit left the fort the first week of September. Mohawk spies knew of the departure and lay in ambush at each side of the narrow river to intercept the party; but the messengers eluded the trap by striking through the forests back from the river directly to the St. Lawrence.

Then the little fort closed its gates and awaited an answer from Quebec. Winter settled over the land, blocking the rivers with ice and the forest trails with drifts of snow; but no messengers came back from Quebec. The Mohawks had missed the outgoing scouts: but they caught the return coureurs and destroyed the letters. Not a soul could leave the fort but spies dogged his steps. The Jesuits continued going from lodge to lodge, and in this way Onondaga gained vague knowledge of the plots outside the fort. The French could venture out only at the risk of their lives, and spent the winter as closely confined as prisoners of war. Of the ten drilled soldiers, nine threatened to desert. One night an unseen hand plunged through the dark, seized the sentry, and dragged him from the gate. The sentry drew his sword and shouted, "To arms!" A band of Frenchmen sallied from the gates with swords and muskets. In the tussle the sentry was rescued, and gifts were sent out in the morning to pacify the wounded Mohawks. Fortunately the besieged had plenty of food inside the stockades; but the Iroquois knew there could be no escape till the ice broke up in spring, and were quite willing to exchange ample supplies of corn for tobacco and firearms.

The Huron slaves who carried the corn to the fort acted as spies among the Mohawks for the French.

In the month of February the vague rumors of conspiracy crystallized into terrible reality. A dying Mohawk confessed to a Jesuit that the Iroquois[4] Council had determined to ma.s.sacre half the company of French and to hold the other half till their own Mohawk hostages were released from Quebec. Among the hostiles encamped before the gates was Radisson's Indian father. This Mohawk was still an influential member of the Great Council. He, too, reported that the warriors were bent on destroying Onondaga.[5] What was to be done? No answer had come from Quebec, and no aid could come till the spring. The rivers were still blocked with ice; and there were not sufficient boats in the fort to carry fifty men down to Quebec. "What could we do?" writes Radisson.

"We were in their hands. It was as hard to get away from them as for a ship in full sea without a pilot."

They at once began constructing two large flat-bottomed boats of light enough draft to run the rapids in the flood-tide of spring. Carpenters worked hidden in an attic; but when the timbers were mortised together, the boats had to be brought downstairs, where one of the Huron slaves caught a glimpse of them. Boats of such a size he had never before seen. Each was capable of carrying fifteen pa.s.sengers with full complement of baggage. Spring rains were falling in floods. The convert Huron had heard the Jesuits tell of Noah's ark in the deluge.

Returning to the Mohawks, he spread a terrifying report of an impending flood and of strange arks of refuge built by the white men. Emissaries were appointed to visit the French fort; but the garrison had been forewarned. Radisson knew of the coming spies from his Indian father; and the Jesuits had learned of the Council from their converts. Before the spies arrived, the French had built a floor over their flatboats, and to cover the fresh floor had heaped up a dozen canoes. The spies left the fort satisfied that neither a deluge nor an escape was impending. Birch canoes would be crushed like egg-sh.e.l.ls if they were run through the ice jams of spring floods. Certain that their victims were trapped, the Iroquois were in no haste to a.s.sault a double-walled fort, where musketry could mow them down as they rushed the hilltop.

The Indian is bravest under cover; so the Mohawks spread themselves in ambush on each side of the narrow river and placed guards at the falls where any boats must be _portaged_.

Of what good were the boats? To allay suspicion of escape, the Jesuits continued to visit the wigwams.[6] The French were in despair. They consulted Radisson, who could go among the Mohawks as with a charmed life, and who knew the customs of the Confederacy so well. Radisson proposed a way to outwit the savages. With this plan the priests had nothing to do. To the harum-scarum Radisson belong the sole credit and discredit of the escapade. On his device hung the lives of fifty innocent men. These men must either escape or be ma.s.sacred. Of bloodshed, Radisson had already seen too much; and the youth of twenty-one now no more proposed to stickle over the means of victory than generals who wear the Victoria cross stop to stickle over means to-day.

Radisson knew that the Indians had implicit faith in dreams; so Radisson had a dream.[7] He realized as critics of Indian customs fail to understand that the fearful privations of savage life teach the crime of waste. The Indian will eat the last morsel of food set before him if he dies for it. He believes that the G.o.ds punish waste of food by famine. The belief is a religious principle and the feasts--_festins a tout manger_--are a religious act; so Radisson dreamed--whether sleeping or waking--that the white men were to give a great festival to the Iroquois. This dream he related to his Indian father. The Indian like his white brother can clothe a vice under religious mantle. The Iroquois were gluttonous on a religious principle. Radisson's dream was greeted with joy. _Coureurs_ ran through the forest, bidding the Mohawks to the feast. Leaving ambush of forest and waterfall, the warriors hastened to the walls of Onondaga. To whet their appet.i.te, they were kept waiting outside for two whole days. The French took turns in entertaining the waiting guests. Boisterous games, songs, dances, and music kept the Iroquois awake and hilarious to the evening of the second day. Inside the fort bedlam reigned. Boats were dragged from floors to a sally-port at the rear of the courtyard. Here firearms, ammunition, food, and baggage were placed in readiness. Guns which could not be taken were burned or broken. Ammunition was scattered in the snow. All the stock but one solitary pig, a few chickens, and the dogs was sacrificed for the feast, and in the barracks a score of men were laboring over enormous kettles of meat. Had an Indian spy climbed to the top of a tree and looked over the palisades, all would have been discovered; but the French entertainers outside kept their guests busy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chateau de Ramezay, Montreal, for years the residence of the governor, and later the storehouse of the fur companies.]

On the evening of the second day a great fire was kindled in the outer enclosure, between the two walls. The trumpets blew a deafening blast.

The Mohawks answered with a shout. The French clapped their hands.

The outer gates were thrown wide open, and in trooped several hundred Mohawk warriors, seating themselves in a circle round the fire.

Another blare of trumpets, and twelve enormous kettles of mincemeat were carried round the circle of guests. A Mohawk chief rose solemnly and gave his deities of earth, air, and fire profuse thanks for having brought such generous people as the French among the Iroquois. Other chiefs arose and declaimed to their hearers that earth did not contain such hosts as the French. Before they had finished speaking there came a second and a third and a fourth relay of kettles round the circle of feasters. Not one Iroquois dared to refuse the food heaped before him.

By the time the kettles of salted fowl and venison and bear had pa.s.sed round the circle, each Indian was glancing furtively sideways to see if his neighbor could still eat. He who was compelled to forsake the feast first was to become the b.u.t.t of the company. All the while the French kept up a din of drums and trumpets and flageolets, dancing and singing and shouting to drive off sleep. The eyes of the gorging Indians began to roll. Never had they attempted to demolish such a banquet. Some shook their heads and drew back. Others fell over in the dead sleep that results from long fasting and overfeeding and fresh air. Radisson was everywhere, urging the Iroquois to "Cheer up! cheer up! If sleep overcomes you, you must awake! Beat the drum! Blow the trumpet! Cheer up! Cheer up!"

But the end of the repulsive scene was at hand. By midnight the Indians had--in the language of the white man--"gone under the mahogany." They lay sprawled on the ground in sodden sleep. Perhaps, too, something had been dropped in the fleshpots to make their sleep the sounder. Radisson does not say no, neither does the priest, and they two were the only whites present who have written of the episode.[8] But the French would hardly have been human if they had not a.s.sured their own safety by drugging the feasters. It was a common thing for the fur traders of a later period to prevent ma.s.sacre and quell riot by administering a quietus to Indians with a few drops of laudanum.

The French now retired to the inner court. The main gate was bolted and chained. Through the loophole of this gate ran a rope attached to a bell that was used to summon the sentry. To this rope the mischievous Radisson tied the only remaining pig, so that when the Indians would pull the rope for admission, the noise of the disturbed pig would give the impression of a sentry's tramp-tramp on parade.

Stuffed effigies of soldiers were then stuck about the barracks. If a spy climbed up to look over the palisades, he would see Frenchmen still in the fort. While Radisson was busy with these precautions to delay pursuit, the soldiers and priests, led by Major Dupuis, had broken open the sally-port, forced the boats through sideways, and launched out on the river. Speaking in whispers, they stowed the baggage in the flat-boats, then brought out skiffs--dugouts to withstand the ice jam--for the rest of the company. The night was raw and cold. A skim of ice had formed on the margins of the river. Through the pitchy darkness fell a sleet of rain and snow that washed out the footsteps of the fugitives. The current of mid-river ran a noisy mill-race of ice and log drift; and the _voyageurs_ could not see one boat length ahead.

To men living in savagery come temptations that can neither be measured nor judged by civilization. To the French at Onondaga came such a temptation now. Their priests were busy launching the boats. The departing soldiers seemed simultaneously to have become conscious of a very black suggestion. Cooped up against the outer wall in the dead sleep of torpid gluttony lay the leading warriors of the Iroquois nation. Were these not the a.s.sa.s.sins of countless Frenchmen, the murderers of women, the torturers of children? Had Providence not placed the treacherous Iroquois in the hands of fifty Frenchmen? If these warriors were slain, it would be an easy matter to march to the villages of the Confederacy, kill the old men, and take prisoners the women. New France would be forever free of her most deadly enemy.

Like the Indians, the white men were trying to justify a wrong under pretence of good. By chance, word of the conspiracy was carried to the Jesuits. With all the authority of the church, the priests forbade the crime. "Their answer was," relates Radisson, "that they were sent to instruct in the faith of Jesus Christ and not to destroy, and that the cross must be their sword."

Locking the sally-port, the company--as the Jesuit father records--"shook the dust of Onondaga from their feet," launched out on the swift-flowing, dark river and escaped "as the children of Israel escaped by night from the land of Egypt." They had not gone far through the darkness before the roar of waters told them of a cataract ahead. They were four hours carrying baggage and boats over this _portage_. Sleet beat upon their backs. The rocks were slippery with glazed ice; and through the rotten, half-thawed snow, the men sank to mid-waist. Navigation became worse on Lake Ontario; for the wind tossed the lake like a sea, and ice had whirled against the St.

Lawrence in a jam. On the St. Lawrence, they had to wait for the current to carry the ice out. At places they cut a pa.s.sage through the honeycombed ice with their hatchets, and again they were compelled to _portage_ over the ice. The water was so high that the rapids were safely ridden by all the boats but one, which was shipwrecked, and three of the men were drowned.

They had left Onondaga on the 20th of March, 1658. On the evening of April 3d they came to Montreal, where they learned that New France had all winter suffered intolerable insolence from the Iroquois, lest punishment of the hostiles should endanger the French at Onondaga. The fleeing colonists waited twelve days at Montreal for the ice to clear, and were again held back by a jam at Three Rivers; but on April 23 they moored safely under the heights of Quebec.

_Coureurs_ from Onondaga brought word that the Mohawks had been deceived by the pig and the ringing bell and the effigies for more than a week. Crowing came from the chicken yard, dogs bayed in their kennels, and when a Mohawk pulled the bell at the gate, he could hear the sentry's measured march. At the end of seven days not a white man had come from the fort. At first the Mohawks had thought the "black robes" were at prayers; but now suspicions of trickery flashed on the Iroquois. Warriors climbed the palisades and found the fort empty.

Two hundred Mohawks set out in pursuit; but the bad weather held them back. And that was the way Radisson saved Onondaga.[9]

[1] The uncle, Pierre Esprit Radisson, is the one with whom careless writers have confused the young hero, owing to ident.i.ty of name.

Madeline Henault has been described as the explorer's first wife, notwithstanding genealogical impossibilities which make the explorer's daughter thirty-six years old before he was seventeen. Even the infallible Tanguay trips on Radisson's genealogy. I have before me the complete record of the family taken from the parish registers of Three Rivers and Quebec, by the indefatigable Mr. Sulte, whose explanation of the case is this: that Radisson's mother, Madeline Henault, first married Sebastien Hayet, of St. Malo, to whom was born Marguerite about 1630; that her second husband was Pierre Esprit Radisson of Paris, to whom were born our hero and the sisters Francoise and Elizabeth.

[2] I have throughout referred to Medard Chouart, Sieur des Groseillers, as simply "Groseillers," because that is the name referring to him most commonly used in the _State Papers_ and old histories. He was from Charly-Saint-Cyr, near Meaux, and is supposed to have been born about 1621. His first wife was Helen Martin, daughter of Abraham Martin, who gave his name to the Plains of Abraham.

[3] This is the story of Onondaga which Parkman has told.

Unfortunately, when Parkman's account was written, _Radisson's Journals_ were unknown and Mr. Parkman had to rely entirely on the _Letters of Marie de l'Incarnation_ and the _Jesuit Relations_. After the discovery of _Radisson's Journals_, Parkman added a footnote to his account of Onondaga, _quoting_ Radisson in confirmation. If Radisson may be quoted to corroborate Parkman, Radisson may surely be accepted as authentic. At the same time, I have compared this journal with Father Ragueneau's of the same party, and the two tally in every detail.

[4] See _Jesuit Relations_, 1657-1658.

[5] _Letters of Marie de l'Incarnation_.

[6] See Ragueneau's account.

[7] See _Marie de l'Incarnation_ and Dr. Dionne's modern monograph.

[8] This account is drawn mainly from _Radisson's Journal_, partly from Father Ragueneau, and in one detail from a letter of _Marie de l'Incarnation_. Garneau says the feasters were drugged, but I cannot find his authority for this, though from my knowledge of fur traders'

escapes, I fancy it would hardly have been human nature not to add a sleeping potion to the kettles.

[9] The _festins a tout manger_ must not be too sweepingly condemned by the self-righteous white man as long as drinking bouts are a part of civilized customs; and at least one civilized nation has the gross proverb, "Better burst than waste."

CHAPTER III

1658-1660

RADISSON'S THIRD VOYAGE

The Discovery of the Great Northwest--Radisson and his Brother-in-law, Groseillers, visit what are now Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, and the Canadian Northwest--Radisson's Prophecy on first beholding the West--Twelve Years before Marquette and Jolliet, Radisson sees the Mississippi--The Terrible Remains of Dollard's Fight seen on the Way down the Ottawa--Why Radisson's Explorations have been ignored

While Radisson was among the Iroquois, the little world of New France had not been asleep. Before Radisson was born, Jean Nicolet of Three Rivers had pa.s.sed westward through the straits of Mackinaw and coasted down Lake Michigan as far as Green Bay.[1] Some years later the great Jesuit martyr, Jogues, had preached to the Indians of Sault Ste. Marie; but beyond the Sault was an unknown world that beckoned the young adventurers of New France as with the hands of a siren. Of the great beyond--known to-day as the Great Northwest--nothing had been learned but this: from it came the priceless stores of beaver pelts yearly brought down the Ottawa to Three Rivers by the Algonquins, and in it dwelt strange, wild races whose territory extended northwest and north to unknown nameless seas.

The Great Beyond held the two things most coveted by ambitious young men of New France,--quick wealth by means of the fur trade and the immortal fame of being a first explorer. Nicolet had gone only as far as Green Bay and Fox River; Jogues not far beyond the Sault. What secrets lay in the Great Unknown? Year after year young Frenchmen, fired with the zeal of the explorer, joined wandering tribes of Algonquins going up the Ottawa, in the hope of being taken beyond the Sault. In August, 1656, there came from Green Bay two young Frenchmen with fifty canoes of Algonquins, who told of far-distant waters called Lake "Ouinipeg," and tribes of wandering hunters called "Christinos"

(Crees), who spent their winters in a land bare of trees (the prairie), and their summers on the North Sea (Hudson's Bay). They also told of other tribes, who were great warriors, living to the south,--these were the Sioux. But the two Frenchmen had not gone beyond the Great Lakes.[2] These Algonquins were received at Chateau St. Louis, Quebec, with pompous firing of cannon and other demonstrations of welcome. So eager were the French to take possession of the new land that thirty young men equipped themselves to go back with the Indians; and the Jesuits sent out two priests, Leonard Gareau and Gabriel Dreuillettes, with a lay helper, Louis Boesme. The sixty canoes left Quebec with more firing of guns for a G.o.d-speed; but at Lake St. Peter the Mohawks ambushed the flotilla. The enterprise of exploring the Great Beyond was abandoned by all the French but two. Gareau, who was mortally wounded on the Ottawa, probably by a Frenchman or renegade hunter, died at Montreal; and Dreuillettes did not go farther than Lake Nip.i.s.sing.

Here, Dreuillettes learned much of the Unknown from an old Nip.i.s.sing chief. He heard of six overland routes to the bay of the North, whence came such store of peltry.[3] He, too, like the two Frenchmen from Green Bay, heard of wandering tribes who had no settled lodge like the Hurons and Iroquois, but lived by the chase,--Crees and Sioux and a.s.siniboines of the prairie, at constant war round a lake called "Ouinipegouek."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Cree brave, with the wampum string.]

By one of those curious coincidences of destiny which mark the lives of nations and men, the young Frenchman who had gone with the Jesuit, Dreuillettes, to Lake Nip.i.s.sing when the other Frenchmen turned back, was Medard Chouart Groseillers, the fur trader married to Radisson's widowed sister, Marguerite.[4]

When Radisson came back from Onondaga, he found his brother-in-law, Groseillers, at Three Rivers, with ambitious designs of exploration in the unknown land of which he had heard at Green Bay and on Lake Nip.i.s.sing. Jacques Cartier had discovered only one great river, had laid the foundations of only one small province; Champlain had only made the circuit of the St. Lawrence, the Ottawa, and the Great Lakes; but here was a country--if the Indians spoke the truth--greater than all the empires of Europe together, a country bounded only by three great seas, the Sea of the North, the Sea of the South, and the Sea of j.a.pan, a country so vast as to stagger the utmost conception of little New France.