John Long's voyages and travels in the years 1768-1788

Front matter

I

John Long’s Voyages and Travels tPje ilakestDe Classics

John Long’s Voyages and Travels

Preface to Original Edition xxv

1. Removal to America . 3

2. The Village of Caughnawaga . 9

3. Concerning the Iroquois or Five Nations

Indians . 12

4. Scalping and Indian Warfare . 25

5. The Connecedaga or Rondaxe Indians . 34

6. From Montreal to Mackinac . 45

7. Removal to Lake Superior and Adoption by

the Chippewas . 57

8. The Winter at Lac la Mort; Encounter

with the Natives . 71

9. Further Proceedings at Lac la Mort 98

10. Return to Lake Superior . 109

11. Second Winter among the Nipigon Indians . 132

1 2. Famine and Cannibalism: Observations upon

the Hudson’s Bay Company . 148

13. Indian Customs and Beliefs: Return to

Mackinac . 168

14. An Escapade at Mackinac, and Expedition

to Prairie du Chien . 177

15. Expedition to the Saguenay Country 193

16. Further Vicissitudes of the Author 205

Index . 229

vii

Historical Introduction pgtoncal 31nttotwctfon ifEAR ago in the Lakeside Classics series was published the personal narrative of

Alexander Henry, who embarked in the Northwest fur-trade immediately following the English Conquest of Canada, and for sixteen years thereafter passed his life in the wilder¬ ness, at first around the shores of Lake Mich¬ igan and Lake Superior, and later in the far Northwest.

This year, in presenting the Voyages and Travels of John Long, we return to much the same scene of activities in a slightly later period. Long was a native of England who came out to Canada in the year 1768, in the capacity of articled clerk to a merchant of Montreal. The all-absorbing business of Mont¬ real in this period was the Indian trade, and Long’s career in the New World was thus fixed in advance of his migration to it. His course of training for the arduous duties of the new and strange employment is described by our author himself in the opening chapters of his narrative.

Of the first seven years of Long’s sojourn in America the journal tells but little. Then, in the spring of 1775, two events occurred which shaped the further course of the narrative. The one was the expiration of Long’s seven-

XI historical introduction year term of apprenticeship to his employer; the other, the outbreak of the American Rev¬ olution. Long was “naturally of a roving disposition,” and he had just completed an arduous schooling in the arts of savage and wilderness life. The rebellious American colo¬ nists expected as a matter of course to enroll the ancient French colony to the northward in their ranks, and expeditions to this end were among the earliest military enterprises of the Americans in the Revolutionary War.

Canada had need of defenders, therefore, and training and personal inclination alike combined to induce Long to put himself at the head of an Indian raiding party for irregular service in the Royal cause. From the view¬ point of the American colonists the occupation upon which our author thus entered was the most detestable known to man. Generations of frontier contests had imbued them with a horror of Indian warfare which seared their very souls. “The horrors of savage belliger¬ ence,” wrote the townsmen of Detroit in December, 1811, appealing to the government for protection, “ description cannot paint. No picture can resemble the reality. No effort can bring the imagination up to the standard of fact. Nor sex, nor age, have claims. The short remnant of life left to the hoary head, trembling with age and infirmities, is snatched away. The tenderest infant, yet imbibing nu¬ trition from the mammilla of maternal love, xii i^igtorical ^ntrotmction and the agonized mother herself, alike await the stroke of the relentless tomahawk. No vestige is left of what fire can consume. Noth¬ ing that breathes the breath of life is spared. The animals reared by the care of civilized man are involved in his destruction. No hu¬ man foresight can divine the quarter which shall be struck. It is in the dead of the night, in the darkness of the moon, in the howling of the storm, that the demoniac deed is done.”

Perchance the time will come, with the pass¬ ing of the decades, when an American reader can sit calmly down to the perusal of the rape of Louvain or the exploits of a submarine cap¬ tain in the Great War. In such a state of detachment the American of today may peruse the story of Long’s partisan warfare against his forbears. Although our author writes with apparent candor, making no effort to con¬ ceal his genuine liking for the service in which he was engaged, he either took no part in raids upon the American settlements or else he has seen fit to refrain from reciting such exploits.

After two years of service in the war, chiefly in the capacity of ranger serving with Indian war-parties, our author embarked upon the Northwest fur-trade, going out to Mackinac in the spring of 1777. Six months earlier Alexander Henry had returned to Montreal, concluding thereby his sixteen-year period of service in the trade of the interior upon which Long was just embarking. From Mackinac xiii i^istoncal ^i^oDuctiott our author was sent into the Lake Superior district, being assigned to the forbidding region around Lake Nipigon and extending indefi¬ nitely northward and westward.

Of the manner of life in this region, where Long spent two seasons, his own words afford a plain, yet eloquent, picture. Perusing them, one cannot but agree that something other than the paltry salary received must have animated the spirits of men to induce them to face and endure such hardships.

At the close of his second season in the Lake Nipigon country, Long returned to Mackinac and there joined the combined British and Indian expedition to Prairie du Chien, sent out in the spring of 1780 to carry off the stock of furs which the traders had accumulated there, in advance of an expected attack by the Amer¬ icans. Thus, for a brief space of time, our author comes once more within the circle of warlike activities, and this, too, at an interest¬ ing period of the Revolution in the West. Spain had declared war upon Great Britain in 1779, and with this new enemy to face the British authorities proceeded to develop a com¬ prehensive plan of operations for the year 1780 which should sweep the whole western American frontier from Canada to Florida and effect the overthrow of the power both of Spain and the rebellious colonists in the valley of the Mississippi. From Pensacola in the South and Detroit in the Northwest armies

XIV ilHgtorical introduction were to be launched in a converging attack upon New Orleans, the northern force being expected to capture St. Louis, the Spanish capital of Upper Louisiana, en route.

This far-reaching program, the execution of which might well have sealed the doom of the entire American cause, was frustrated largely through the energetic course of Governor-general Galvez of New Orleans, who assumed the aggressive against the foe and in two sea¬ sons of campaigning cleared the British out of the Southwest, capturing Pensacola in May, 1781. The northern end of the British cam¬ paign of 1780 met with like disaster. With the aid of Matchekewis, who had massacred the British garrison at Mackinac in 1763, and other zealous partisans, a motley force of 1000 men was assembled at Prairie du Chien at the end of April for the descent of the great river to New Orleans. Before St. Louis it was to be joined by another party, which Langlade was to gather at Chicago and lead down the Illinois; while the combined operation was to be covered by still another army, led from Detroit by Cap¬ tain Henry Bird, which was to descend the Wa¬ bash against General Clark at the falls of the Ohio, where now is the metropolis of Kentucky.

On May 26 the Wisconsin contingent ap¬ peared before St. Louis and began an assault upon the town. Driven off by the vigorous defense of the Spaniards, they ravaged the country-side adjoining the town and beat a

XV historical ^fntrotmcticm retreat up river, their haste accelerated, prob¬ ably, by the opportune appearance of their redoubtable foeman, George Rogers Clark, at Cahokia, across the river from St. Louis. Clark took no part in the battle, however, nor in the resulting pursuit, for the arrival of news of Bird’s expedition against his head¬ quarters on the Ohio caused him hastily to return to the defense of that place. He left instructions for Colonel Montgomery, how¬ ever, to follow and harass the British force, and that officer advanced northward as far as Peoria and Rock River, ravaging the hostile Indian towns as he advanced.

Particularly in Indian warfare was rumor wont to magnify actuality, and the retreating British forces carried back to Mackinac and Detroit exaggerated reports of the numbers and movements of the pursuing Americans. The consequent expectation of their appearance at Prairie du Chien, in the heart of the British- Indian country, was responsible for the expedi¬ tion which Long joined and of which he has given us our only detailed account.

It succeeded in its object of preventing the furs from faffing into American hands, but for Long personally the result was disappoint¬ ment. Deprived of his expected remuneration, he returned in the autumn of 1780 penniless to Montreal, leaving forever the western country to which he had devoted three years of stren¬ uous endeavor.

XVI pgtoricai S^trotmction

At Montreal Long found that his old em¬ ployer had died, and under the necessity of earning a living he engaged with a merchant of Quebec to go again among the Indians in charge of a trading outfit.

This time he proceeded to the mouth of the Saguenay River, and ascending to Lake St. John, passed onward across the “divide” into a country which still, after the lapse of almost a century and a half, is largely unknown. The winter’s trade was productive of satisfaction to Long’s employers, but it brought little of permanent profit to the trader himself. Long seems, indeed, from his own recital of the facts, to have belonged to that numerous band of individuals who are capable of working well under competent direction, but who are totally unable to get on in business for themselves. Upon the vicissitudes of our author’s later career it is unnecessary here to dwell, further than to note the fact that in the autumn of 1788, after twenty years spent in the New World he returned penniless to the land of his birth.

Of Long’s life we know but little other than the pages of his own narrative reveal. This was published in London in 1791, in a hand¬ some volume of 300 pages, with a respectable list of subscribers and dedicated, like Henry’s book, to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society. It seems to have been favor¬ ably received by the public, and was quickly xvii ipi^torical introduction translated into French and German. A second French edition appeared in 1810, and in 1904 the work was reprinted by Reuben G. Thwaites as Volume II of his series of Early Western Travels.

Dr. Thwaites, who was an eminent special¬ ist in the field of early western history, placed a high estimate on Long’s narrative. “His literary style,” says the editor, “while dis¬ cursive, is simple, and as clear as running water. What he wishes to say he says plainly, leaving the reader as a rule to draw his own conclusions. There is an unflinching direct¬ ness in his statements, conveying to the reader the impression that he is concealing nothing, doing naught for effect, but telling a straight¬ forward story of travels and adventures. The book forms a contribution of note to this im¬ portant class of literature, and will always be readable.”

From this high estimate of Long’s work the editor of the present edition does not, in the main, dissent. Yet the study of the book has given rise to an impression which, while not susceptible of demonstration, seems worthy to be called to the attention of the reader. Penni¬ less Long came home to England, and his twenty years’ residence in America together with the manner of his life there must have rendered him peculiarly unfitted for the task of earning a living. He had, however, a story to tell, and the recent success of Jonathan sviii i^igtorical ^ntto&ucticm

Carver’s Travels must have suggested to his mind the possibility of securing an income by publishing his own story. The careful reader of the narrative he produced will be struck by its extreme discursiveness. Simple, sincere, and straightforward the author evidently is. There is no attempt to conceal, or gloss over his failures, and although he has an evident pride in his Chippewa vocabulary, this is fairly matched by the quite unnecessary degree of modesty and self-deprecation which attends the recital of his geographical discoveries.

How are we to account for the discursiveness which characterizes, and to a degree mars, the narrative? Reference to the much-discussed book of Captain Carver suggests the answer. That volume consists of two distinct parts. Approximately one-fourth of it is devoted to Carver’s personal journal of his travels; the remaining three-fourths to a treatise on the manners and customs of the Indian tribes of North America. Although Carver is pro¬ fessedly the author of the entire work, his¬ torical critics have shown that this second part is largely a compilation from earlier and for the most part well-known books on the subject of which it treats. Apparently, in the case of both Carver and Long the exigencies of book¬ making and marketing demanded a larger book than the simple journal of the traveler supplied. The solution of the problem in Carver’s case we have already stated; in the

XIX

I^igtorical introduction case of Long the opposite method is followed of interjecting the matter descriptive of savage life and customs into the midst of his personal narrative. So extensively is this done that no heading can be devised sufficiently inclusive to advertise the contents of the chapter to which it is appended. In the original edition, practically no attempt was made to do this; several of the chapter captions conclude with etc.,” while others list a large variety of topics in the vain effort to include them all.

An interesting question arises at this point. Did Long himself prepare the completed nar¬ rative in the form in which it was published? Or was his personal narrative turned over to some professional writer to expand to the pro¬ portions desired for the forthcoming book? Our existing information does not permit an answer, nor is it, from the historical viewpoint, of much importance. The portions of the story which are not based on Long’s experi¬ ences and observations are confessedly of second-hand authority, and it is not very material whether Long or someone else per¬ formed the task of culling them from the works that are cited. It may be noticed in passing, however, that here is no question of plagiarism, as in the much-mooted case of Carver’s Travels, for Long is commonly careful to state the source of his information, citing definitely in the course of the book no less than seventeen authorities.

XX

^i-Storical ^ntrotmction

It will perhaps be evident from the foregoing that the present edition of the work is in no sense a facsimile of the original. As in previous volumes of the Lakeside Classics, I have con¬ ceived it to be my function as editor to bring the present-day reader as close to the author himself as circumstances permit. It is quite improbable that Long was responsible for the punctuation, typography, etc., of the first edition, these details being determined as a matter of course by the publishers. So, too, in the present volume the editor is responsible for the typography, punctuation, chapter and running heads, table of contents, and index. In some cases, too, the spelling has been modernized, and some evident misprints in the original edition have been corrected. The map and title page are engraved from photo¬ graphic reproductions made from the 1791 edition of the work.

Milo M. Quaife.

Madison, Wisconsin.

xxi

VOYAGES AND TRAVELS

OF AN

INDIAN INTERPRETER AND TRADER,

DESCRI B! NG

The Manners and Customs

OF THE

NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS;

WITH

AN ACCOUNT OF THE POSTS

SITUATED ON

THE RIVER SAINT LAURENCE, LAKE ONTARIO, &c.

TO WHICH IS ADDED,

A VOCABULARY

O F

The Chippeway Language.

Names of Furs and Skins, in English and French.

A LIST OF WO R D S

IN THE

IROQUOIS, MOHEGAN, SHAWANEE, AND ESQUIMEAUX TONGUES,

AND A TABLE, SHEWING

The Analogy between the Algonkin and Chippeway Languages.

BY J. LONG.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR; AND SOLD BY ROBSON, BOND-STREET; DEBRETT, Piccadilly; t.and j.egerton,charing-cross; white and son, fleetstreet; SEWE L L, CORN H I LL ; EDWARDS, PALL-MALL; AND MESSRS. TAY¬ LORS, HOLBORN, LONDON; FLETCHER, OXFORD; AND BULL, BATH.

M,DCC,XCI.

preface to t^e #ttgtnal tuition

THE reader will naturally expect some account of this work.

With regard to the historical part, I have endeavored to explain the situation of the posts which, by Mr. Oswald’s Treaty,1 were stipulated to be surrendered to the Americans, and pointed out their convenience to Great Britain in a political and commercial point of view. I have also given a description of the Five and Six Nation Indians, and endeavored to show the usefulness, as well as necessity, of a strict alliance with them as long as we retain any possessions in Canada.

With respect to the descriptions of lakes, rivers, etc., which lie beyond Lake Superior, from Lake Nipigon to Lake Arbitibis, I have given them as accurately as possible, either from my own knowledge or the most authentic Indian accounts; and when it is considered that interpreters in the commercial line seldom have occasion for any geographical knowledge, the want of better information will be ex¬ cused.

'The Treaty of Paris of 1783, which formally ter¬ minated the Revolutionary War.

xxv

The vocabulary which is subjoined,2 and on which I have bestowed some pains, it is hoped will not only afford information to such as may be desirous of attaining a knowledge of the Chippewa language, but prove useful to those who are already engaged in traffic with the Indians.

As the mode of spelling a language which has never been reduced to a grammatical system must be arbitrary, and principally depend on the ear, I have endeavored to use such letters as best agree with the English pronunciation, avoiding a multiplicity of consonants, which only perplex: and to enable the reader to speak so as to be understood by the natives, it is necessary to observe that a is generally sounded broad, and e final never pronounced but in monosyllables.

The following are the motives which induced me to make the vocabulary in the Chippewa language so copious:

In the first place it is, strictly speaking, one of the mother tongues of North America, and universally spoken in council by the chiefs who reside about the Great Lakes, to the west¬ ward of the banks of the Mississippi, as far south as the Ohio, and as far north as Hudson Bay; notwithstanding many of the tribes,

2 The extensive Indian vocabulary which Long pro¬ vided as an appendix to his work bears no relation to the narrative journal, and it is therefore omitted from the present edition of the work.

xxvi within the space of territory I have described, speak in common a different language. This observation is confirmed by authors of estab¬ lished repute, and further proved by the con¬ current testimony of the Indian interpreters.

Baron de Lahontan3 asserts that the Algonkin is a mother tongue, and that it is in as much estimation in North America as Greek and Latin in Europe: this being admitted, I am persuaded the Chippewa language possesses as much, if not greater merit, as it is in every respect better understood* by the Northwest Indians. But as the knowledge of both may not only be useful, but necessary, I have given a comparative table of about two hundred and sixty words in both tongues, that the reader may use either as he shall find it best under¬ stood by the tribes with whom he may have occasion to trade; though he will find, in a variety of instances, a perfect accordance.

The table of words in the Muhhekaneew, or Mohegan, and Shawnee tongues, are extracted

3 Baron de Lahontan was a French officer who spent the ten years from 1683 to 1693 in New France. Re¬ turning to his native land, he published in 1703 a read¬ able and vivacious account of his travels in America', which obtained widespread popularity. Although long regarded as an authoritative work, it later became evident that Lahontan, like Father Hennepin, did not in fact visit some of the country he claimed to have explored, and the work fell into disrepute among scholars. Lahontan’s fiction of a non-existent Long River in modern Minnesota, which he claimed to have ascended, long disfigured the maps of this region.

xxvii from the Rev. Mr. Edwards’ publication,4 and are inserted to show their analogy with the Chippewa language; and as he observes that the language of the Delawares in Pennsylvania, of the Penobscots on the borders of Nova Scotia, of the Indians of St. Francis, in Canada, of the Shawnees on the Ohio, and many other tribes of savages radically agree, I judged the tables of analogy would not be unacceptable.

In the course of the historical part, several speeches in the Chippewa language are intro¬ duced, and at the end of the vocabulary a num¬ ber of familiar phrases, which not only serve to show the mode of speech, but give a better idea of the language than single words.

The numeral payshik, or one, is frequently used to express the articles a and the; and woke is the general word for the plural number, though not always used.

Mr. Carver’s vocabulary5 will, in many in¬ stances, be found to differ from the Chippewa;

4 The allusion is to the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, the famous New England preacher and scholar.

5 Jonathan Carver was a native of Connecticut who came west to Mackinac in 1776, and from there made a journey into Minnesota and the Lake Superior region. Returning, he went to England, where he published a book of Travels in 1778 and died in utmost poverty two years later. The book proved widely popular, and went through numerous editions, but like Lahontan’s nar¬ rative, serious question has arisen concerning its reliability. To the present editor, the first part of Carver’s book, devoted to the narrative journal of his

xxviii but when it is considered that though he calls it the Chippewa vocabulary, on page 414 of his work he says, “The Chippewa, or Algonkin,” which evidently proves that he believes them the same language: — but with regard to the usefulness of the tongue, there is a perfect corroboration of sentiment; for he remarks that the Chippewa tongue appears to be the most prevailing of all the Indian languages.

It may not be amiss to observe that the Chippewa tongue as spoken by the servants of the Hudson’s Bay Company is somewhat dif¬ ferent, though not essentially so, and is called by them the Home-Guard language.

With regard to the Iroquois, or Mohawk tongue, which is peculiar to the Five and Six Nation Indians, it is not necessary in the fur trade beyond Michilimackinac; and if it were, there are not wanting printed authorities sufficient to instruct. This consideration has induced me to give only the numerals, and a few words in the language.

I have not anything further to add, but a sincere wish that my labors may prove useful to the world; and that whatever defects may be found in the following work, the public will

travels, seems worthy of credit. The second part on the manners and customs of the Indian tribes is clearly a compilation from earlier and in the main unacknowl¬ edged sources. It is greatly to Carver’s credit that he foresaw, and in eloquent language foretold, the great¬ ness of the upper Mississippi Valley as the seat of a future English civilization.

xxix look on them with candor, and will recollect that they are perusing, not the pages of a professed tourist, but such observations as a commercial man flatters himself may be found acceptable to the merchant and the philosopher.

XXX

John Long’s Voyages and Travels

Chapter i REMOVAL TO AMERICA

HAVING engaged myself at an early period of life to go to North America, in the quality of an articled clerk, I left Graves¬ end on the tenth of April, 1768 on board the Canada, Captain Smith, bound to Quebec and Montreal. We had a pleasant voyage till we reached the coast of America, when the weather proving unfavorable, we were obliged to put into Newfoundland, where we stayed fourteen days. Nothing remarkable occurred here, ex¬ cept that a party went on shore to hunt, and one of them, Mr. Jordan, who was a passenger bound to Montreal, finding himself much fatigued, remained in the woods. The rest returned on board in the evening, anxiously expecting their companion; but after four days’ painful solicitude, not being able to obtain any intelligence of him, we gave up all hopes of seeing him again; and as the snow was deep on the ground and the wild animals numerous, we supposed him to be either frozen to death or devoured by the beasts. Just as the Captain proposed setting sail an Indian came on board, to whom we endeavored to communi¬ cate our distress. On this occasion he seemed to understand us, and made signs of his inten-

‘Jofm Song tion to go in search of him; and being fur¬ nished with some rum by way of encourage¬ ment, he got into his canoe and paddled ashore. The Captain, with great humanity, deferred prosecuting the voyage for some time: but the Indian not returning, we left New¬ foundland, and after a tedious passage of near eleven weeks, arrived at Quebec, the capital of Canada.

When the Spaniards (who first discovered this northern clime) sailed past Cape Rosiers at the entrance of the River St. Lawrence, the mountains now called the Mountains of Notre Dame were covered with snow. Such a pros¬ pect, in the summer season, gave them a very unfavorable opinion of the country, and they were deterred from going up the river, sup¬ posing the land to be too barren to recompense their labors at present, or afford any future advantages; and the same impressions induced them to call it Capo di Nada, or Cape Nothing, by which name it is described in their charts, and from whence, by corruption of language, it has derived its present name of Canada.6

The River St. Lawrence takes its rise from Lake Nipissing, northeast of Lake Superior, about the distance of 2,000 miles from

6 The real origin of the word Canada is involved in uncertainty and dispute. The version here presented serves to call attention to the extensive early explora¬ tions and claims of the Spaniards along the Atlantic coast of North America.

Bopage£ anti

Quebec.7 The breadth of it is 90 miles at the entrance, and it is navigable nearly 500 miles from the sea.

The Isle of Orleans, which is but a small dis¬ tance from the city, is a beautiful spot of ground, about twenty miles in length and six in breadth. The fertility of the soil makes it a useful and valuable garden, insomuch that it supplies the capital with vegetables and grain in great abundance. The opposite village of Beauport also charms the eye, and very much height¬ ens the scene, which is rich, romantic, and magnificent.

The Fall of Montmorenci particularly at¬ tracted my notice, as it is perhaps the most pleasing natural cascade in the world; and though its height and width are not to be com¬ pared in point of awful grandeur with the stupendous cataract of Niagara, it is sufficient¬ ly wonderful to show the power of the great Architect of the Universe, and its effects are more pleasing than the latter; for while it pro¬ duces wonder and pleasure in the highest de¬ gree, it does not strike the beholder with such tremendous ideas.

As our ship was bound to Montreal as well as Quebec, and I was under the Captain’s care

7 The St. Lawrence, of course, takes its rise in the Great Lakes, whose remotest source may perhaps be logically regarded as the source of the river. Appar¬ ently Long chose to regard Lake Nipissing, which lies to the northeast of Lake Huron, as the source of the St. Lawrence.

S

^oljn Song and direction, he did not allow me to go on shore at the latter place; but in a few days, to my great joy, we arrived safe at Montreal, the place of our last destination.

Montreal, formerly called Ville Marie, has nothing remarkable in it at present. It was formerly famous for a great fair, which lasted near three months, and was resorted to by the Indians, who came from the distance of many hundreds of miles to barter their peltry for English goods.8 It will give pleasure to the reader to be informed that we received here the agreeable intelligence that Mr. Jordan was found in the woods, two days after our de¬ parture from Newfoundland, though with the loss of his feet, occasioned by the severity of the weather; he went afterwards in a vessel to Trois Rivieres, where he settled in an iron foundry.

Trois Rivieres is so called from the junction of three currents which empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence. About a league from the town there is an iron foundry, which was erected by private persons in the year 1737 and