The history of Illinois and Louisiana under the French rule; embracing a general view of the French dominion in North America with some account of the English occupation of Illinois

Preface

"No period in the history of one's owu country," says an elegant historian,* " can be considered altogether uninteresting. Such transactions as tend to illustrate the progress of its constitution, laws or manners, merit the utmost attention. Even remote and minute events are objects of a curiosity, which, being natural to the human mind, the gratification of it is attended with pleasure."

With this conception of the interest and utility of his work, the author undertook to compose the following history. Much has been written and printed at diflerent times (in State, county and general histories), respecting the French in Illinois and Louisiana, but it is mostly in an abridged or detached form, and one rarely finds any connected and consecutive view of the French domination, from its commencement to its close. Although the territory comprised within the limits of the present State of Illinois was ruled by France for ninety years, it was never as a separate colony or province, but always as a dependency of either Canada or Louisiana. Hence, no history of Illinois, during that early period, can be considered complete, which does not embrace that of the Province of Louisiana, of which it so long formed a part.

In the preparation of this volume the writer, without laying claim to what scholars call original research, has ex-

* Robertson. (iii)

iv Preface.

amined every available source of information relating to his tlieme, so as to verify facts, reconcile or explain conflicting dates and accounts, and render it as accurate and trustworthy as possible. No parade need here be made of the various authorities consulted and freely used by him, since they will be disclosed in the progress of the narrative itself.

In writing Indian, French and Spanish proper names, the author has, as a rule, conformed to the received orthography, though it is not always easy to determine just what that is, since standard writers still differ considerably in this particular. Among the early annalists there was no recognized rule, nor could well have been any, in regard to nomenclature, and therefore each writer was a law unto himself. This, together with the different geographical locations often assigned by them to the same aboriginal tribes, gave rise to more or less contradiction in their narratives, which have been a source of perplexity to modern historiographers.

Although this work is primarily confined to the doings of the French in the Mississippi Valley, yet such a general view is taken of their transactions in other parts of the continent as to render it, in some measure, a compendious history of the French Dominion in ISTorth America. Without overlooking any important or familiar fact, the author has introduced much matter that will be new and curious to the general reader. In gleaning so wide a field, and in carrying the book through the press at a distance from his residence, he may have fallen into some errors and inaccuracies, but it is believed these will be found few in number and restricted to minor details.

It might be thought superfluous, at this time and place,

Preface. v

to descant upon the absorbing interest that must ever attach to that pristine period of American history of which "we write, hackneyed as it is. But the new and strange experiences of the early explorers and colonizers of this continent can never be repeated, and the record they made will stand unchanged for all future time. The Indians, too, who then peopled the solitudes of our forests and prairies, have vanished never more to return, leaving behind them, as the only enduring vestiges of their presence, the names which they gave to the physical features of the country.

" Their names remain, but they are fled, For ever numbered with the dead."

There are now no other new continents or large islands to be discovered ; all the habitable globe has been overrun ; and henceforth the business of civilized man upon it will be to possess, enjoy, cultivate and develop its marvelous resources.

To the descendants of the pioneer French colonists in North America, and particularly to those residing within the great Basin of the Mississippi, the theme of this general narrative must have a peculiar and perennial attraction. In the daring and memorable achievements of their heroic predecessors, they may not only cherish a just and laudable pride, but find solace and satisfaction for that inscrutable decree of fate, or Providence, whereby this vast, most fertile and favored region, was wrested from their grasp to ultimately become the geographical center of one of the mightiest, most enlightened and progressive empires on the face of the earth.

In concluding these prefatory observations, it remains for the writer to acknowledge his obligations, in the prosecution of his laborious researches, to the repeated kind offices of the intelligent and efficient librarian of the vi Preface.

Illinois (State) Historical Library, and also to the assistant librarian of the State Library.

The copious and comprehensive index at the close of the work will be found very convenient for reference, and not without occasional use in elucidating the text of the history.

Springfield, Illinois, Scptcmhcr, 1893.

Chapter I. 1497-1690

INTRODUCTORY NARRATIVE ; OR DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OP

CANADA.

The first Europeans to reach the shores of America were the Northmen, or Scandinavians, who, during the early middle ages, formed settlements in Iceland and southern Greenland. Those hardy and daring sea-rovers gradually extended their voyages westward from Greenland to the coasts of Labrador and jSTewfoundland, and, by the beginning of the eleventh century, appear to have established themselves on the rocky shores of New England, about Massachusetts and ISTarraganset bays.

They named the new country Winlaiid, or Vinland, from the profusion of wild grapes found growing in its virgin forests. But the Northmen effected no large or durable settlements upon this continent; and when their colony of Vinland was eventually abandoned, or exterminated by the natives, it was, doubtless, soon forgotten. The only remaining traces of their presence on the New England coast are two or three rude monuments,* and a few doubtful Runic inscriptions. The fact of their primal discovery of the continent, however, is attested by the Sagas, or ancient historical records of Iceland.

But the time was not then ripe for the opening of the

'Notably, the old stone tower at Newport, Rhode Island, which is believed to be a relic of the Northmen.

2 Early Voyages to North America.

New World to European coK)iiizatlon and civilization ; nor were the people of western Europe sufficiently advanced in wealth, intelligence and nautical science, to profit by so important a discovery.

To Cristoforo Colombo (Christopher Columbus), must ever be accorded the imperishable honor, of having made known to the nations of the Old World the pathway to the Western Hemisphere ; yet it is b^^ no means certain that he ever touched the continent of North America, and he died in ignorance of the extent and transcendent value of his achievement.

But the true and lasting discovery of Northern America was made by Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot), a Venetian navigator, who had become domiciled in the commercial city of Bristol, England, prior to the year 1493, and who afterward voyaged the North Atlantic under the patronage of King Henry VII. It is a singular fact, and worthy of remark here, that the maritime powers of Europe, with the exception, perhaps, of Portugal, should have owed their early possessions in America to the skill and daring of Italian navigators, although not a single American colony was ever established by the Italians them- Belves.

Within one or two years after the return of Columbus to Spain, from his first renowned voyage of discovei-y, the adventurous spirit of John Cabot induced him to propose to Henry VII., of England, to undertake a similar voyage, with the two-fold object of discovering new lands, and of finding a northwest passage to the Indias. The proposal of the Venetian was received with favor and encouragement by that cautious, yet sagacious monarch. And on the fifth of March, 1496, he issued a commission to Cabot and his three sons (Louis, Sebastian and Sanchez), authorizing them to " sail to all parts of the east, west, and north, to discover countries of the Heathen, unknown to Christians; to set up the king's ensigns there; to occupy and possess, as his subjects, such places as they could subdue, giving them the rule and jurisdiction — to be holden, on paying to the king, one-fifth part of their gains."

Early Voyages to North America. 3

Under this broad commission three ships were at length equipped for the enterprise — partly at the expense of his majesty, and the remainder by private persons. With these vessels, manned by some three hundred seamen, the elder Cabot, and his son Sebastian, sailed from Bristol, in May, 1497. Taking a westerly course over the trackless ocean, the bold commander, on the 24th of June, sighted a shore which he named Terra Primum Visa (land first seen), and which is supposed to have been some part of Newfoundland. He thence steered northward, parallel with the coast of Labrador, as far as to the entrance of Hudson's strait, when he was obliged to turn back on account of the ice and the increasing discontent of his crew. After discovering many islands and coasting the mainland southward to the vicinity of Cape Hatteras, a mutiny is said to have broken out among his sailors, in consequence of which he returned to England. During the ensuing year (1498), Sebastian Cabot was sent out with two ships, on a second voyage of discovery. He again visited Newfoundland, and other points on the eastern coast of North America, but did not attempt any conquest or settlement of tlie country. No authentic journal of these two voyages was ever published, nor were they soon followed up by other like enterprises on the part of the English government or people. Yet, it was upon the discoveries of the Cabots, and the subsequent attempts at colonization under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh (1584-1587), that England based her title to the principal part of the immense territory which she afterward acquired in North America.

The Portuguese were the next to engage in this inviting maritime enterprise. In 1500, one Caspar de Cortereal sailed from Lisbon with two well-manned caravels. He visited Labrador, ranged along its inhospitable coast for six hundred miles, and entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Returning the same year to Portugal, he set sail on a second voyage of discovery in May, 1501, but was never again heard of. His brother Michael sailed with two ships in search of him, but he also failed to return. It is conjectured that both they and their unfortunate crews fell victims to the savage

4 Early Voyages to North America.

vengeance of the natives of Labrador, some of whom had been seized and carried off as slaves by Gaspar de Cortereal, in his first voyage. Upon the strength of these northwestern voyages, however, the Portuguese set up a claim to the discovery of the whole continent.

The business of oceanic discovery in this part of the New World, was afterward taken up by the French government. During the active reign of Francis I., an expedition was fitted out, the command of which was given to Juan Yerrazano, or Verrazani, a Florentine navigator of great skill, who had signalized himself by his successful cruises against the Spaniards. He sailed from France in January, 1524, with four vessels, but three of them becoming disabled in a storm, he completed the voyage in a single ship. After touching at the Maderia Islands, he hel<l a due westerly course, and encountered heavy seas, but at length sighted land on the 7th of March, in the latitude of North Carolina. Finding no secure harbor, he anchored in the open sea, and sent his boats ashore to open traffic with the natives. He next sailed southward some distance, and then turned his course to the north, exploring the eastern coast of the continent for six hundred leagues, and naming it New France, in compliment to his royal patron, When he reached the fog-laden banks ot Newfoundland, his provisions began to fail, and he bore away for home, whither he arrived late in July, 1524. Of the subsequent career of A^errazano, but little is known.

It was not until the lapse of ten years that the French renewed these hazardous enterprises ; when Jacques Cartier, or Quartier, a bold and experienced mariner of St. Malo, in Brittany, having proposed another expedition, was supplied by the vice-admiral of the king with two ships and one hundred and twenty seamen. Cartier put to sea from the port of St. Malo, on the 20th of April, 1534, and after four weeks of successful navigation reached tlie eastern shore of Newfoundland, which, though visited by fishermen, was still for the most part a terra incognita. He sailed nearly all round that great island, coasted the mainland for a long distance, discovered and named the Golfe

Cartier's Voyages and Discoveries. 5

de St. Lorent, or Gulf of St. Lawrence, and entered the Bay of Clialeurs. Bnt by this time the season was well advanced, and our navigator returned with his ships to France, without having ascended the St. Lawrence River, or even knowing that it was a river. He opened trade relations with the natives of the country, and carried home with him two young Indians, who afterward served a useful purpose as interpreters.

The degree of success that attended this initial voyage encouraged the French monarch to further effort in the field of trans- Atlantic discovery. Three ships were now fitted out for a second expedition, which was joined by some of the young nobility, and Cartier was given the command thereof, with the designation of " captain and pilot to the king." On the 19th of May, 1535, after a solemn mass at the cathedral in St. Malo, the three vessels put to sea, but were soon separated by a tempest. After a boisterous and tedious passage they all arrived safely in the Strait of Belle Isle, to the north of ISTewfoundland, in the last week of July. From this point of rendezvous tlie captain took a southwesterly course, and, having navigated the channel between the south coast of Labrador and the large island of Anticosti, sailed slowly up that long and broad estuary, afterward named St. Lawrence. By the 1st of September he reached the mouth of the Chicoutimi, orSaguenay, coming in from the northwest ; and on the 14th, after passing several low islands, including that of Orleans, dropped anchor near the entrance of a small river on his right, to which he gave the name of St. Croix, now St. Charles.

This was immediately below that bold and striking promontory which rises in the angle formed by the confluence of the two rivers, and which the natives of the country called Quelibec (Quebec), from the sudden contraction of the St. Lawrence at that point. While anchored in the river opposite the present village of Beauport, Cartier was visited on shipboard by one Donnacona, a neighboring Indian potentate, who resided at the village of Stadacona, on the peninsula of that name, and who came with a numerous retinue of his braves in pirogues.^ The French captain received his copper-colored visitors with due formality, and held converse with them through the two interpreters from the coast of Gaspe, whom he had taken with him to France in his voyage of the year before.

Havino; moored his two lart^er vessels inside the mouth of the St. Croix, our brave and determined mariner, contrary to the entreaty of Donnacona not to go further, continued his voyage in the third vessel up the St. Lawrence. Arrived in that expansion of the river since known as Lake St. Peter, and tinding the further advance of his ship impeded by obstructions in the channel, he quit it and proceeded in a boat, rowed by three of his men. On the 2d of October he reached the Indian village of Hochelaga,t situate on the island of that name, which he denominated Mont. Koyal (Montreal), from the insulated mountain that rises from the plain two miles behind it. After spending a few days at Hochelaga, and opening an amicable intercourse with the inhabitants of the place, Cartier returned to his ship, and descending the river rejoined his other ships at the mouth of the St. Croix. Here, at the foot of the rugged promontory of Quebec, his sailors had already begun the erection of a temporary wooden structure, which was soon finished, and in which they passed the ensuing winter months, suffering greatly, not only from the rigor of the climate, but from the ravages of the scurvy. Twenty-five men died before the opening of spring, and out of one hundred and ten then remaining very few were free from that disease.!

Before sailing on his return to France, Cartier, according to the custom of navigators in that age, took possession of the country of the St. Lawrence in the name of his sove-

* Pirogue (Sp. Piragua), originally an Indian word, signifying a dugout canoe.

tThis was also the original Indian nanio of the 8t. Lawrence, and the French sometimes spoke of it as the Grand fl,euve da Hochelaga.

t Upon the site of the temporary structure occupied hy Cartier and his men was long afterward huilt the church of Notre Dame des Victoirefi, which fronts the market place in the Lower Town of (iiu^bec.

Cartier's Voyages and Discoveries. 7

reign, by erecting a high wooden cross bearing the arms of France, with this Latin inscription, Franciscus -primus, Dei gratia Francorum rex, regna. Leaving one of his ships that had been shattered by the ice in the little liarbor of the St. Croix, he sailed for home with the other two on the 6th of May, 1536, and arrived at St. Malo on the 16th of July. During the preceding winter Cartier's friendship with Donnacona had become strained, and on his departure he took with him that chief and several of his braves, whose persons he had seized partly by force and partly by stratagem, and who subsequently died in captivity in France.

Some five years later, a scheme of regular colonization was devised by the French government, in which Cartier was associated with Jean Francois de la Roque, Sieur de Roberval, who had been commissioned hj the crown lieutenant-general and viceroy of his American possessions. Accordingly, on May 1, 1541, Captain Cartier sailed with five ships on his third voyage to America, and arrived at his former winter quarters on the St. Lawrence early in August. Sending two of his ships home, he proceeded with the rest to search the neighboring shores for a better haven than that of the St. Croix, and found one to his liking nine miles above it, at the mouth of Cape Rouge River. Here he landed and built a fort which he named Charlesbourg Royal, and waited the coming of his coadjutor with colonists to begin a settlement. In the meantime he again ascended the St. Lawrence to Hochelaga, and examined the nature of the obstructions to navigation in the river above that place. Owing to the long delay in the arrival of Roberval, and to his impatience and jealousy of that officer, who outranked him, Cartier at length relinquished the attempt to make a settlement, and set sail on his return to France in May, 1542. Meeting with Roberval's ships at the harbor of I^ewfoundland, he avoided their commander and held on his homeward course. But, according to Lescarbot's history, he was sent back to Canada * in the autumn of that year, by King Henry II., to

* The name of Canada is believed to have been derived from the Huron word Kan-na-ta, meaning a collection of wigwams. According to Cartier, it is an Indian word, signifying town. For he wrote : " J?'s bring home Roberval and liis colony. They appear to have wintered together on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and finally quitted it in June, 1543.

Captain Gartier's services as a navigator and discoverer were recompensed by a patent of nobility, and also by a seignorial mansion at the village of Limoilou, near St. Malo. The latter years of his stirring life were mostly passed at his seat of Limoilou, where he died childless about anno 1555, aged sixty. The printed journals of his American voyages are presei'ved by the Quebec Historical Society, but whether originally written by himself or not is undetermined. It is said that he advised the first French colonists in Canada to cultivate the good will of the natives by every means in their power, and even to form matrimonial alliances with them, in order to advance their material interests. It is evident that this last advice was subsequently adopted, though with ephemeral rather than permanent advantage.

The discoveries made by Cartierand his associate mariners turned the attention of France to the extensive Valley of the St, Lawrence and its capabilities, and established her claim to the country according to that peculiar international code by which the maritime powers of Europe were wont to apportion among themselves the territories of the Western World.

Although Canada exhibited scarcely any of that smiling and luxuriant aspect pertaining to the middle and southern sections of the continent, it opened into regions of indefinite extent, and the tracing of its vast chain of fresh-water seas to their distant fountains presented more than ordinary attractions to human curiosity and adventure. But for the next sixty years, owing to internal dissensions and factional and religious wars, French colonization in America was virtually abandoned.

It is true that in the yeai's 1562 and 1564, Admiral Coappellant tme rille Canada." Another early French authority makes the word mean terre, or land. The name seems to have been primarily applied only to the Valley of the St. Lawrence.

The Huguenots in Florida. 9

ligny undertook to plant some Huguenot colonies in East Florida ; but the two expeditions sent tliittier under the separate leadership of Jean Ribaut and Rene Laudoniere ended in utter failure. After suffering deeply from shipwreck and sickness, their settlements at Port Royal and near the mouth of the St. John's River were attacked and destroyed by the Spaniards under the stern Don Pedro de Menendez.* Ribault and his followers were massacred, after a pledge of safety had been given them, and their bodies were treated with the most shocking indignities — " not," it was averred, " because they were Frenchmen, but because they were heretics and enemies of God." Two years later (1567), this barbarous massacre was fully avenged by a Huguenot soldier named Dominique de Gourgues, who sailed from Bordeaux with one hundred and lifty armed men for that purpose. Aided by some Florida Indians, he took and demolished the little Spanish forts on the river St. Johns, and hanged all of his prisoners, not because they were Spaniards, but that they were " traitors, robbers, and murderers." After accomplishing this deed of savage retaliation, De Gourgues made no effort to retain his conquest? or to revive the French colony, but having secured all that was of value at the forts, he re-embarked his troops and sailed back to France. If the efforts of the French Protestants to form settlements in East Florida had been countenanced and sustained by the crown, it is believed that France might have had a flourishing colony there long before England effected a single permanent settlement in America.

We come now to describe the first successful attempts of the French to form durable settlements in the cold and inclement districts of New France. The most conspicuous figure of his day in these arduous and uncertain enterprises was SaiQuel de Champlain. Born at Brouage, in the province of Saintonge, about the year 1567, he belonged to a noted family of mariners. His father was a sea captain, and he himself was early schooled in the art and practice of navigation. After spending several years in the military

Who founded St. Augustine, Fla., in 1565.

service of his country, he went with an uncle, who held a high post in the Spanish navy, on a long voyage to Mexico. Returning to France in 1601, he was urged by De Chastes, Governor of Dieppe, to explore and prepare to found a colony in the French possessions of JSTorth America, the governor having received a concession from the king for that purpose. This was an undertaking well suited to the enterprising genius of Champlain, and he accordingly embarked at Honfleur on March 15, 1603, in a ship commanded by Captain Pontgrave, an experienced mariner of St. Malo.

On the 24th of May, after a rough and protracted passage, they dropped anchor at Tadousac, where the deep and dark waters of the Saguenay enter the estuary of the St. Lawrence. Leaving their large ship here, Pontgrave and Champlain, with five seamen, continued their voyage in a shallop up the St. Lawrence to the rapids, above Hochelaga. As they slowly retraced their course, Champlain examined and noted the rocky and wooded shores on both sides of the river down to Tadousac. He then drew up a map of the country, collected information about Acadia * (afterward called by the British Nova Scotia), and in the following autumn returned to France, where he immediately published a narrative of his voyage and observations, entitled Dcs Sauvages.

His patron, J)e Chastes, had meantime deceased, and the exclusive privileges that had been granted to him by Henry IV. were transferred to Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, a gentleman of Saintonge, and an officer of the king's household. Letters-patent were issued to the latter in November, 1608, nominating liim vice-admiral and lieutenant-general of his majesty in the country of La Cadie (Acadia), with full and exclusive power to trade in peltries, and to make war and peace with the natives, from the 40th to the 46th parallel of north latitude ; also to make grants of land to French settlers. His patent embraced the whole

■This old poetic name, written Acadie in r'rench, appears to be an abbreviation of the Imlian name for one of the rivers of that conntrv.

French Settlement of Acadia. 11

coast of N^ew England, no part of which had as yet been occupied by the English. The Sieur de Monts was a Calvinist, and had stipulated for the free exercise of his own form of religion, but this was inconsistently enough coupled with an agreement that the Indians of the country should be instructed in the mysteries of pure Catholicism. Having resolved to plant an extensive colony in his new domain, De Monts now engaged the active assistance of Champlain in his enterprise. They at once proceeded to hire and equip a number of vessels, large and small, with which they set sail from Havre de Grace on the 7th of April, 1604, carrying numerous colonists, traders, and stores. The commander arrived with a part of his fleet off Sable Island in the first week of May, and thence stood along the south and western shores of Acadia for several weeks, being undecided where to make a permanent landing. At length, after exploring the Bay of Fundy, he determined to begin a settlement on the Island of Sainte Croix, in the estuary of that name, lying between the present Maine and New Brunswick. But this location proved unfavorable from the lack of building timber and fresh water, and during the next summer the colony was removed across the bay to a place called Port Royal, now Annapolis. When this transfer had been effected, De Monts found it necessary to return to France, leaving Pontgrave in charge of the new settlement. The cold, damp, and sterile peninsula of Acadia, or Nova Scotia, fulfilled none of those hopes of speedy wealth that had allured the French colonists hither. It yielded with difficulty the common necessaries of life, and the fur-trade was too limited to be profitable. Its mineral resources long remained unknown.

In the meantime Champlain diligently explored the rock-bound coast to the southward, as far as the sandy beach of Cape Cod, making surveys and charts of the same, and in 1607, re-embarked for France. His patron, De Monts, was accused of abusing his ample commission, by capturing and confiscating all vessels that approached the American coast within the bounds of his territorial jurisdiction, and of interfering with the rights and endangering the safety of the cod fishermen on the shores of Newfoundland.* Nevertheless, he had sufficient influence at court to get his privileges renewed for a time, on condition that his company should form an establishment on the river St. Lawrence, As now reorganized, the company was composed principally of merchants, who had only the fur trade in view, and this led to a change in their plans and to the gradual abandonment of Acadia as the seat of their operations.

In pursuance of this change of policy, the company caused to be fitted out two ships at Hpnfleur, and confided them to the charge of Messieurs Champlain and Pontgrave, with instructions to proceed to the St. Lawrence, and there establish a trading post. They accordingly sailed in the spring of 1608, taking out with them a sufficient number of soldiers, traders and adventurers to form a settlement. Arriving in the Lower St. Lawrence, about the middle of June, they first touched at Tadousac, and thence continued their course up the river. Having fixed upon Quebecf as the most eligible site for the projected establishment, Champlain landed his company of adventurers there on July 3, 1608. This was one year after the settlement of Jamestown, Va., by the English, and twelve years before the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. The spot thus chosen was on the north side of the St. Lawrence liiver, just above its junction with the St. Charles, and about one hundred and twenty leagues from the sea. No sooner had the commander begun to clear the ground for a settlement here, than he discovered a plot among five of the men to take his life ; but this was hap-