The story of the Louisiana purchase

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CHAPTER I. The Louisiana Purchase

What is known in American history as the Louisiana Purchase is a region of vast extent. Its boundaries were long unknown. By the terms of the treaty of Paris, in 1763, the middle of the Mississippi was made the dividingline between the British and Spanish possessions down to where the thirty-first degree of north latitude crosses the river — that is, to the northern boundary of what was then West Florida. This was continued as the dividing line between the United States and the Spanish possessions west of the Mississippi by the treaty of 1783, and confirmed by that of San Lorenzo between Spain and the United States in 1795.

When Spain retroceded Louisiana to France, the third article of the treaty of St. Ildefonso, concluded October t. 1800, declared that Spain ceded Louisiana to France,

'Vith the same extent it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it." Nor were bounds more definitely expressed in the treaty conckided between France and the United States, April 30, 1803. It was then declared that "the French Republic cedes to the United States the Province of Louisiana, with the same extent as it had when France possessed it before and when in the hands of Spain." During the negotiation of this treaty, Robert R. Livingston, one of the American ministers spoke of the indefinite boundaries of the Province, and Napoleon remarked that "if an obscurity did not already exist, it would, perhaps, be good policy to put one there."

Indeed, after the title to the Louisiana Purchase had vested in the United States, the authorities knew almost nothing of its boundaries. It Was spoken of in Congress in 1803, as "This new immense, unbounded world." On the 8th of March, 1804, a resolution of that body declared that "It is believed, besides the tracts on the east side of the Mississippi, to include all the country which lies to the westward between that river and the mountains that stretch from the North to the South, and divide the waters running into the Atlantic from those which empty into the Pacific Ocean ; and beyond that chain between the territories of Great Britain on the one side, and of Spain on the other side to the South Sea" — the Pacific Ocean. Thus early were the States of Idaho, Oregon and Washington claimed by Congress as a part of the Louisiana Purchase.

Some of the members of Congress who were opposed to the ratification of the treaty attacked it because of the vagueness of boundary. John Randolph admitted all that these opponents claimed, and replied that this subject of boundary was one to be discussed and settled with Spain in after years. In this he was correct, for the western boundar}' of tlie Louisiana Purchase was not defined until done by the terms of the treaty between the United States and Spain, concluded February 22, 1819, when the boundary between the two nations, on the west side of the Mississippi, was defined as follows:

''Beginning on the (julf of Mexico, at the mouth of the River Sabine, in the sea, and continuing north along the western Ijank of that river to the 32d degree of latitude ; thence by a line due north to the degree of latitude where it strikes the Rio Roxo of Nachitoches, or Red River; thence following the course of the Rio Roxo westvv'ard to the degree of longitude 100 west from London, and 23 west from Washington ; thence crossing the said Red River, and running thence by a line due north to the River Arkansas ; thence following the course of the southern bank of the Arkansas to its source; thence a Hne due north to the 420! parallel north ; and thence by that parallel of latitude to the South Sea." Thus bv this treaty tiie United States ceded and renounced all claim to territory west and south of this line ; and Spain forever yielded all claim and rights to territory east and north of it. Thus was definitely fixed the western boundary of the Louisiana Purchase, sixteen years after its cession by France.

We have said that the Louisiana Purchase is a region of vast extent, and such it is. From it have been formed all of the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and seven-eighths of Kansas, one-third of Colorado, two-thirds of Minnesota, two-thirds of Wyoming, all of the Indian Territory, and five-sixths of Oklahoma. If a Hne be drawn from the Falls of St. Anthony to the source of the Missouri, it will measure one thousand miles ; drawn from the same point to Pike's Peak, its length will be eight hundred miles ; one extended from the Lake of the Woods to the mouth of the Mississippi will measure thirteen hundred miles, or, if the meanderings of that river be followed, twenty-five hundred miles.

^ The total area of the Louisiana Purchase is eight hun-

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v\ ^ dred and eighty-four thousand, five hundred and fortysquare miles — in round numbers, about nine hundred thousand.* Thus it is seen that it is one-eighth of the whole of North America ; nearly a third of the whole continental area of the United States ; nearly three times as large as the Thirteen Original States of the American Union ; more than three times as large as Texas ; more than thirteen times as large as all New England ; twenty -one times as large as Virginia; and one hundred and eight times as large as Massachusetts. It is nearly three-fourths as large as China ; nearly one-fourth as large as Europe ; and one-fifth larger than Mexico. When

*A hundred years ago it was asserted that the Louisiana Purchase included all of the region lying between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, and in addition thereto, the present states of Idaho, Washington and Oregon. Congress, in 1S04, expressed its belief in this; Lewis and Clark exploring it in 1804-5-6 did not stop at the Rocky Mountains but went on to the Pacific Ocean, and, by the United States census of 1810, its a-rea was estimated at 1,115,335 square miles, which evidently included the three states named. Many maps have been issued — some of them by the American Gov ernment — showing its western boundary north of California to be the Pacific Ocean; whilst others — some of them published under the authority of the Government — have fixed its limits in that direction at the Rocky Mountains. But ever since 1819 the line fixed by the treaty with Spain in that year has been recognized as the boundary from the mouth of the Sabine River northward to the forty-second degree of latitude, while that further to the northward was long in doubt. In more recent years, however, the crest of the main range of the Rocky Mountains, extending from the forty-second degree northwesterly and crossing the northern boundary of Montana about ninety miles east of its northwest corner, has been and is now regarded as the northwestern limit of the Louisiana Purchase. This excludes the three states named above and the Purchase may be bounded thus: On the east by the Mississippi and a line drawn from its source to the Lake of the Woods; on the north by British America; on the west by the line fi.xed by the treaty with Spain in 1819 and the Rocky Mountains; on the south and southwest by Texas and the Gulf of Mexico. Within these bounds is an area of about 900,000 square miles, as stated in the text.

its population has become as dense as that of Massachusetts, it will contain more than three hundred millions of people within its borders.

Throughout this wide expanse there once dwelt a people now extinct, and who have left but few traces of their existence. These consist of mounds which dot the landscape, and implements, weapons, and ornaments, scattered over the surface, or dug from the sands and gravel beds of the rivers. However interesting they may be to the antiquarian and the student of ethnography, they have no place in history, for neither in blood, manners, speech, nor laws, have these people left a mark in all the land in which they lived. Over this same region in all its parts, white men found Indian nations roaming everywhere, but claiming no property in land, and existing in all stages of savage and barbarian life, from that of the Digger Indians of the Columbia River, to that of the Sun Worshippers on the banks of the Mississippi. They, too, have but slight connection with our subject, which deals rather with the discovery, exploration, and settlement of the region by white men, and with the changes of sovereignty of different nations over it. These with an account of th.e planting of civilization, and the founding of States within its borders furnish the material for The Story of the Louisiana Purchase.

CHAPTER 11.

Early Spaniards in the Louisiana Purchase.

In the year 1492, Columbus, the great Genoese navigator, made known to Europe the existence of a New World, and thus prepared the way for two centuries of the most active prosecution of voyage and adventure in the whole history of the human race. Immediately after the announcement of the discovery, all the nations from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia engaged in trans- Atlantic exploration. North America was partitioned among three of them — Spain, England and France. The former occupied the southern part ; England, the middle portion ; while France took possession of the region lying along the St. Lawrence, and around the Great Lakes.

Spain hastened to profit by the finding of a New World, and encouraged her navigators and merchants to engage in exploring and colonizing her vast possessions beyond the Atlantic. This they did. Ponce de Leon sought for gold and a fountain of perpetual youth on the shorelands of Florida. Nunz de Balboa, from an eminence on the Isthmus of Darien, discovered the Pacific Ocean. Hernando Cortez landed on the coast of Tobasco

22 THE STORY OP THE

in 1 5 19, and in three years conquered the Mexican Empire, reduced its people to vassalage, and changed the name of the country to that of New Spain. Francisco Pizarro built a ship on the west side of Darien, and in 1524 despoiled the Empire of Peru.

In 1527, Pamphilo de Narvaez sailed from Spain with three hundred men and fifty horses, for the purpose of exploring the region between Florida and the Rio Grande. His vessels, three in number, arrived at Apalachee Bay the next year, where the army was landed. One of the vessels returned to Cuba for supplies, and the others, having unloaded their cargoes, sailed away to the westward and were never afterward heard of. Then the men began the march to the Rio Grande. There was great suiTfering ; the horses were killed and eaten ; then the spurs and stirrups were forged into nails ; five small boats were constructed on which the troops embarked ; two of these were lost at the mouth of the Mississippi, and the others dashed to pieces on the coast of Texas, where all on board perished, except Cabeza de Vaca, and four companions, one of whom was Estevan — Stephen — a negro, the first of his race that ever trod the soil of the southwestern part of the United States.

These survivors journeyed over Texas, ascended the Rio Grande to its source, and thence traversed the vast extent of country to the westward, and, in 1536, after years of wandering and untold suffering, arrived at Sinaloa, on the Gulf of California. From here they proceeded to the City of Mexico, where they informed Mendoza, the Governor-General of New Spain, that in their wanderings they had learned of the existence of rich countries, in which were "populous towns and very large houses," away to the northward. Mendoza had himself heard of the "Seven Cities of Cybola," said to be far away in that direction, and Francisco de Coronado, the Captain-General of New Galicia, the northwestern province of New Spain, was called to the city and given command of an army of three hundred Spaniards and eight hundred natives, with which to go in search of these cities.

This force assembled at Compostella, near the Pacific coast of Mexico, early in 1539, and marched to Culiacan. Hernando Alarcon transported the supplies in two ships to the head of the gulf of California. The army left Culiacan on the 7th of March, and on the 26th of August arrived at the mouth of the Colorado River. Here Coronado failed to find Alarcon, who had gone a hundred miles up that stream, and, without his supplies, he began his march to the eastward across Arizona. The spring of 1 541 found the army encamped near the source of the Rio Grande, and Coronado had learned that the fabled cities of Cibola were but the communal villages of stone and mud inhabited by the Zuni Indians of Arizona and New Mexico — the Pueblas of a later day. But he was told that Ouiaviri, an opulent city, stood on a great plain away to the north.east, and he began his march in that direction in search of it. Onward the army proceeded over mountains and across prairies of vast extent into tlie Louisiana Purcliase, where the far-famed city proved to be but a large Indian town near tlie site of the present city of Wichita, in Kansas. "Here," says Coronado, "the army marched across mighty plains and sandy heaths, smooth and wearisome, and bare of wood. All that way the plains are as full of crooked-backed oxen as the mountain Serena, in Spain, is of sheep." Such is the first description of the prairies of the Louisiana Purchase. None can identify the line of march of Coronado. It is believed that he visited eastern Colorado, and he probably reached the Missouri River, between the sites of the present Kansas City and Council Bluffs. These first European adventurers in the Louisiana Purchase returned to New Spain, and thus ended in failure one of the most important enterprises ever undertaken in the unexplored solitudes of inland America.

By a singular coincidence, another Spanish army was wandering over the wilds of the southern part of the conliiient, and penetrated the Louisiana Purchase at the same time that Coronado was on the plains of Kansas. On the 31st day of May, 1539, ^^^^ ^^^^ o^ eleven ships of Hernando de Soto cast anchor in the Bay of Santo Espiritu, on the west coast of Florida. That clay there were landed eight hundred infantry, and three hundred and fifty cavalry. The former were composed of armed knights ; the latter of the best lancers of Spain. The commander had been a captain in the army of Pizarro in his conquest of Peru. Many men had sold their estates to engage in an enterprise which, in its results, promised to eclipse the conquest of Mexico. Among them were many of the first captains of Spain, the foremost of whom was Muscoso de Alvarado, who ranked next to De Soto himself. To the historian Garcillasco, one of the most scholarly men of his time, we are indebted for the account of the expedition.

Now began the march into the wilderness, which has no parallel in the history of adventure in America. Beneath the dark shades of the southern forest the splendid pageant moved on, cheered by martial music and Castilian songs. These steel-clad warriors pressed their way through the marshes of the lowlands of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Alississippi. Winter and summer were one to them. On the banks of the Alabama, a short distance below Selma, they fought the battle of Mavilla with the

Chickasaw Indians, in which the latter were defeated with great slaughter, but not until the Spaniards had eighteen men killed and one hundred and forty wounded. The winter of 1540 was spent in a deserted village of the Chickasaw Indians in northern Mississippi, and early in April the march was resumed and continued until the first day of May, 1541, when the adventurers halted on the banks of the Mississippi River. The "Father of Waters" lay spread out before them, and they were the first Europeans that ever looked upon it. De Soto and his companions stood for a time entranced, and then gazing across the mighty river, they beheld the shoreland of the Louisiana Purchase, which the imagination now painted as a land where was to be found vast treasures of gold and silver and precious stones, all ready to be gathered by the hands of the first adventurers who should reach its borders and penetrate its wild retreats. Barges were speedily constructed, and the army crossed to the western bank, a landing being effected not far from where Helena, Arkansas, now stands.

The exact route of De Soto's army, like that of Coronado's west of the Mississippi — then a primeval solitude — cannot be determined with any degree of certainty ; but if it could be traced in detail it would not serve any good purpose to follow it through the then trackless region, a.

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HI Q across plains and over mountains, through tangled hrakc and brier. For more than a year the army moved aimlessly about. It was probably at the mouth of the Arkansas ; then up the Mississippi as far as New Madrid ; then westward over the Ozark mountains to the plain beyond, where it spent the winter of 1541, in western Missouri. Then it wandered into western Arkansas among the Boston mountains, and thence to the valleys of the White, the Arkansas, and the Red Rivers, down the last of which it followed to its confluence with the Mississippi, now in the State of Louisiana. Here, on the first day of May, De Soto died of fever caused by exposure and fatigue. His dying words were: "Spain expects a richer harvest of glory and more ample domains for her children." True it is that —

**The path of glory leads but to the grave."

His body was placed in an oaken trunk, and at midnight his companions rowed it out upon the stream and sunk it beneath the turbid waters of the mighty river which he himself had discovered.

The survivors, now numbering but little more than three hundred, chose Alvarado as their leader, and began the journey across Texas to ^Mexico. But when they reached the Rio Grande, they beheld the towering mountains beyond, and returned to the mouth of the Red River.

There they constructed several small boats, and descending the Mississippi, followed by a thousand hostile warriors in canoes, reached its mouth on the i8th of June, 1543. From here they coasted around the gulf to the westward, and fifty days thereafter reached the mouth of the Little Panuco River in Mexico, whence they made their way to the capital of that country, and from there some returned to Spain.

From the day that the little brigantines of the survivors of De Soto's army left the mouth of the Mississippi River, no other vessels save the Indian canoes plowed its waters again for more than a hundred and thirty years. Even the very existence of the river was forgotten save in Spanish chronicle and vague tradition. The curtain of oblivion was, as it were, again stretched from sky to sea, and the great Mississippi Valley lay hidden in its shadows.

Chapter III

Exploration and Settlement of New France — First Attempt to Colonize the Louisiana Purchase.

It has been stated that in the occupation and settlement of North America, France took possession of the region along the St. Lawrence and around the Great Lakes. In the year 1624, John De Verazzano, sailing under the flag of that country, crossed the Atlantic, reached Cape Fear, North Carolina ; sailed northward along the coast of Newfoundland, claimed the country north of the English possessions for his king, bestowed upon it the name of Francesca, and then returned to France, reaching Dieppe in July of the following year.

Ten years thereafter, James Cartier, having a commission from Francis I., King of France, sailed for America ; discovered the Strait of Belle Isle; entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence; and then proceeded up the river of that name as far as Hochelaga, now Montreal, where he took formal possession of the countrv in the name of his kino-, calling it New France. Here he spent the winter, and in the spring of 1536, began the homeward voyage. Francis la Roche and others continued to visit these northern seas.

and in 1579, there were one hundred and fifty French vessels engaged in the Newfoundland fisheries.

In 1603, Henry IV., the French King, made Samuel Champlain Lieutenant-General of New France, and the next year, De Monts founded Port Royal in Acadia, now Nova Scotia. Henceforth there was great activity in the French colony. Champlain explored the islands and coast north of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and then, sailing up the river of that name, founded Quebec in 1608. Here he joined the Huron Indians in a war against the Five Nations, and, while thus eng-aged, discovered the lake which bears his name. In 161 3, a French settlement was made at St. Xavier, on Mount Desert Island, and the next year Le Caron went from Quebec and penetrated the country of the Mohawks southwest of Lake Ontario. In 1620, Champlain laid the foundation of Fort St. Louis, at Quebec, a fortification to be known in later years as the Gibraltar of America.

The boundless region to the west of the St. Lawrence lay all unexplored, but, in 1659, ^wo fur traders spent the winter on the shores of Lake Superior, and the next spring, arrived at Quebec with sixty canoes laden with furs, and rowed by three hundred Algonquin warriors. These told the story of Indian population in that distant country, and Rene Mesnard, an aged missionary, was selected to establish a mission thereon as a place of assembly for the Indians of the surrounding nations. On the 15th of October, 1661, he reached the straits of Keweenaw Bay, in northern Michigan, where he called his station St. Theresa. There he remained nearly a year, and then departed for the Apostle's Islands, but while on his journey, was lost on Keweenaw peninsula, and never seen again. He. w^as followed in the mission work of the wilderness by Claude Allouez, who embarked at Quebec in 1665, and on the first of October, arrived at La Pointe, the great village of the Chippewas, on the Bay of Chegoi-rnei-gon, in Michigan. Here he met deputations of ten or twelve of the neighboring nations assembled in council to concert means against their common enemy, the Sioux. Allouez secured an audience, and in the name of his sovereign, Louis XIV., offered them peace and alliance with France. This was joyfully received, and the mission station of the Holy Spirit was there founded. Here Allouez remained two years, and then returned to Quebec. His successor was James Marquette, a name ever to be prominent in the history of the Mississippi Valley.

Marquette was joined by Claude Dablon, another missionary, and in 1668, they established the first permanent settlement in Michigan at the Falls of St. Mary — Sault

Ste. Marie. An Indian congress was held here, and nearly all of the nations of the lake region were placed under the protection of Louis XIV. Marquette gathered the remnant at Point St. Ignace, north of Mackinaw Strait, where a post was long maintained as the key to the West. Thus was the whole lake region made known to France, and M. Talon, the Viceroy of New France, sent Nicholas Perrot, in 1671, with a military force to propose a congress of Indians at Sault Ste. Marie the following spring. Here, at the appointed time, many chiefs and warriors assembled, and Sieur St. Lusson, the representative of France, was charged to take possession of all the country to the westward, and to receive the Indians under the protection of the French king. Thus was an alliance formed between the barbarous nations of the American wilderness on the one side, and France on the other, which continued for nearl\- a hundred years. The same year, Dablon and Allouez explored the country west of Lake Michigan, that is, what is now western Michigan and northern Illinois.

As early as 1666, Indians from the far west visited Quebec, and told the story of a mighty river beyond the Great Lakes. This aroused an interest in that of which the very existence had long been but a vague tradition. Some thought that, if there be such a river, it flowed away into the north Pacific Ocean, then called the "South Sea," and that it would open trade with China; others believed that it found its way into the Gulf of California, and would thus form a means of communication with New Spain; and still others insisted that it poured its mighty flood into the Gulf of Mexico, and that its exploration would give to France the possession of the whole interior of the continent of North America. The authorities at Quebec determined to know the whole truth. Count Frontenac arrived as Governor of New France, in 1672, and M. Talon, the late Intendant, recommended to him Louis Joliet, a native of Canada, and a resident of Quebec, as a suitable person to entrust with the exploration, and he was selected for the enterprise. James Marquette, the missionary, had come to New France in 1666, since which time he had been engaged in mission work among the Indians, and was at this time pastor of the church of St. Ignace at Mackinaw Strait, where, on the 8th of December, 1672, Joliet arrived, having orders to take Marquette with him as a companion on his expedition. At this place the remainder of the winter was spent, and on the 17th of May ensuing, the two set out, with their attendants, on the voyage to Green Bay.

From its shore they ascended the Fox River until, on the loth of June, they reached its source. Then, lifting their light canoes on their shoulders, they carried them across the narrow portage which separates the waters of the Fox River from the Wisconsin. "From here the guides returned," writes Marquette, ''leaving us alone in this unknown land." Embarking on the broad Wisconsin, with the wide bosom of its blue waters spread out before them, they rowed down the stream until, on the 17th day of June, 1673, they "entered happily on the great river with a joy that could not be expressed." Europeans had found the Mississippi again. A hundred and thirty years had come and gone since white men had beheld it, and they were the first Frenchmen who ever saw it. Now they began its descent, and the dipping of their oars kept time with the measured cadence of their songs. They went on shore near the site of the present city of Davenport, where they were the first white men in lovv'a, and the first Frenchmen ever within the Louisiana Purchase. On the 25th of June, when further down the river, they saw footprints of men on the western shore. Landing, they followed these for six miles into the interior, where they came to an Indian town, and were hospitably entertained. Embarking again, they continued their journey until they reached the Indian town of Quapaw, at the mouth of the Arkansas River. Here they learned, beyond a doubt, that the Mississippi flows into the Gulf of Mexico. On the 17th of July they began the return voyage by way of the Illinois River and Lake Michigan to Mackinaw, where both remained during the winter. Then Marquette resumed his missionary labors, and, early in the spring of 1674, Joliet proceeded to Quebec, where his report of the exploration and discovery of the Mississippi produced great joy, and the bells of the cathedral were rung from morning till night in celebration of the event. Now the bounds of New France might be extended to the Gulf of Mexico.

The greatest explorer of the Mississippi Valley was now in New France, but, as yet, unknown. This was Robert Cavalier de la Salle, who came from France to Quebec in 1666, when but twenty-three years of age. He settled at La Chine, near Montreal, and from here, in 1669, set out on a tour of western exploration to find the Ohio River, the existence of which he had learned from the missionary Dollier de Casson. He traveled with two missionaries bound for the western lakes until he came to Presque Isle on the southern shore of Lake Erie, where, leaving them, he, with several companions, crossed the highlands to the Allegheny River, and then descended the Ohio as far as the falls — now Louisville, Kentucky. He returned to Quebec, and the next year made a tour of the Great Lakes, and visited the site of the present city of Chicago. Patronized by the Governor, he built Fort Frontenac, where Kingston, Ontario, now stands, and was there ni command until 1677. He had proposed to explore the Mississippi to its mouth, and Frontenac sent him to France, where he explained to Colbert, the Minister of Marine, the boundless resources of the Mississippi Valley, and the advantages that France would derive from its exploration and settlement. This he asked permission to undertake. Not only did he obtain that concession, but, with other privileges, he was granted a monopoly of the fur trade for a series of years. A ship laden with supplies for his use sailed from Rochelle, June 14, 1678, and cast anchor at Quebec, on the I5tli of the ensuing September. La Salle brought with him as his lieutenant the Cavalier de Tonti, whose name was to be coupled, henceforth, with that of his own in the dramas and tragedies of the wilderness. The expedition was fitted out at Fort Frontenac, passed over Lake Ontario, ascended the Niagara above the Great Falls, and at Tonawanda creek, on the upper course of that river, built the ''Griffin," a vessel of forty tons, so named from the coatof-arms of Count Frontenac. She was launched and began the voyage with forty men on board, among them Tonti and Louis Hennepin. This was the first vessel built by white men that ever plowed the blue waters of the Great Lakes. Over Lake Erie, through Detroit Strait, across Lake St. Clair, to which La Salle gave its name, and on across Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, the voyage was continued to Green Bay. Here the "Griffin" was freighted with the choicest furs, and sent back to Quebec. From that day to this, none know her fate, for it is still a secret of these inland seas.