Part 13

Réné-Robert Cavelier, better known by his territorial patronymic of La Salle, was born at Rouen, in Normandy, some time in the year 1643. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but his baptism took place on the 22nd of November of that year, at which time it is probable that he was only a few days old. His family had long been wealthy burghers of Rouen, and there were no obstacles in the way of his receiving a liberal education. He early displayed an aptitude for science and mathematics, and, while still young, entered a Jesuit Seminary in his native town. By this act, which constituted the first step towards taking holy orders, he forfeited the inheritance which would otherwise have descended to him--a forfeiture which does not seem at any time to have weighed very heavily on his mind. He seems to have occupied for a short time the position of a teacher in the Seminary. After profiting for several years by the discipline taught in the establishment he requested and obtained his discharge, obtaining high praise from the directors of the Seminary for the diligence of his studies and the purity of his life. "The cravings of a deep ambition," says Mr. Parkman, "the hunger of an insatiable intellect, the intense longing for active achievement, subdued in him all other passions; and among his faults the love of pleasure had no part." His father had died a short time before La Salle quitted the Seminary, and he would then have at once succeeded to a large patrimony but for his connection with the Jesuits. A small sum--amounting to several hundred livres--was handed over to him, and in the spring of 1666 the young adventurer embarked for fame and fortune in New France, towards which the attention of all western Europe was at that time directed. He had already an elder brother in this country--the Abbé Jean Cavelier, a Sulpician priest at Montreal. The Sulpicians had established themselves there a few years before this time, and had already become proprietors and feudal lords of the city and island. They were granting out their lands to settlers on very easy terms, and La Salle obtained a grant of a large tract of land a short distance above the turbulent current now known as the Lachine Rapids. Here he became a feudal proprietor and fur trader on his own account. Such a pursuit, however, was far from satisfying the cravings of his ambition. Like Champlain and all the early explorers, he dreamed of a passage to the South Sea, and a new road for commerce to the riches of China and Japan. Indians often came to his secluded settlement; and on one occasion he was visited by a band of Seneca Iroquois, some of whom spent the winter with him, and told him of a river called the Ohio, rising in their country and flowing into the sea, but at such a distance that its mouth could only be reached after a journey of eight or nine months. Evidently the Ohio and the Mississippi are here merged into one. In accordance with geographical views then prevalent, La Salle conceived that this great river must needs flow into the "Vermilion Sea;" that is, the Gulf of California. If so, it would give him what he sought--a western passage to China, while, in any case, the populous Indian tribes said to inhabit its banks might be made a source of great commercial profit. His imagination took fire. His resolution was soon formed; and he descended the St. Lawrence to Quebec, to gain the countenance of the Governor for his intended exploration. Few men were more skilled than he in the art of clear and plausible statement. Both the Governor (Courcelle), and the Intendant (Talon) were readily won over to his plan; for which, however, they seem to have given him no more substantial aid than that of the Governor's letters patent authorizing the enterprise. The cost was to be his own; and he had no money, having spent it all on his seigniory. He therefore proposed that the Seminary, which had given it to him, should buy it back again, with such improvements as he had made. Queylus, the Superior, being favourably disposed towards him, consented, and bought of him the greater part; while La Salle sold the remainder, including the clearings, to one Milot, an ironmonger, for twenty-eight hundred livres. With this he bought four canoes, with the necessary supplies, and hired fourteen men. This being accomplished, he started on his expedition, in the course of which he explored the southern shore of Lake Ontario, and visited the Senecas in Western New York. Continuing his journey, he passed the mouth of the Niagara River, where he heard the roar of the mighty cataract, and passed on to an Indian encampment near the present site of Hamilton. After much delay he reached a branch of the Ohio, and descended at least as far as the rapids at Louisville, where he was abandoned by his attendants, and was compelled to return, his problem being yet unsolved.

But the time was not far distant when he was to make a much more extended voyage than he had hitherto accomplished, and with somewhat more important results. In 1672 Count Frontenac came over to Canada and succeeded Courcelle as Governor of the colony. A friendship sprang up between him and La Salle, and they began to form schemes of western enterprise. Erelong we find the latter paying a flying visit to France, and receiving from the King, mainly through his patron's influence, a patent of nobility and a grant of Fort Frontenac--which had just before been founded by the new Governor with imposing ceremonies--together with a large tract of the contiguous territory. Then La Salle's serious troubles may be said to have begun. His grant involved the exclusive right of fur-traffic with the Indians on Lake Ontario, and though trade was a secondary object with him, he nevertheless engaged in it as a means of furthering his more ambitious schemes of exploration. The merchants of Canada, envious of his influence and success, leagued themselves against him, and resolved to accomplish his downfall. The Jesuits also placed themselves in opposition to him, for his avowed projects conflicted with theirs. La Salle aimed at the control of the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and the usufruct of half a continent. The Jesuits were no longer supreme in Canada. In other words, Canada was no longer simply a mission. It had become a colony. Temporal interests and the civil power were constantly gaining ground. Therefore the Jesuits looked with redoubled solicitude to their missions in the West. They dreaded fur-traders, partly because they interfered with their teachings and perverted their converts, and partly for other reasons. La Salle was a fur-trader, and moreover aimed at occupation and settlement. In short, he was a stumbling block in their path, and they leagued themselves against him. Many of them engaged in underhand dealings with the Indians, and while they refused absolution to all Europeans who sold brandy to the natives, they turned a good many dishonest pennies by selling it themselves. They laid all kinds of traps for La Salle, and did not escape the suspicion of attempting to poison him. It is certain that an attempt to destroy him in this fashion was made, though he himself exonerates the Jesuits from participation in the attempt. In the autumn of 1677 he again sailed for France, and while there procured Royal letters patent authorizing him to prosecute his schemes of western discovery, to erect forts at such places as he might deem expedient, and to enjoy the exclusive right of traffic in buffalo skins. With Henri de Tonty, an Italian officer, as his lieutenant, he soon afterwards returned to Fort Frontenac, whence, in the autumn of 1678, he set out for the Great West.

The historian of this expedition was a mendacious Recollet friar, Father Louis Hennepin, a name which has attained some notoriety in early Canadian annals. Father Hennepin had come out to Canada three years before the date at which we have arrived. Upon landing at Quebec he was at once sent up to Fort Frontenac, as a missionary. He found that wild spot in the western wilderness very much to his liking. He had not been there long before he erected a gigantic cross, and superintended the building of a chapel for himself and his colleague, Father Luke Buisset. He seems to have discharged his duties with a reasonable amount of zeal. He for some time gave himself up to instructing and endeavouring to convert the Indians of the neighbourhood. Later on he visited other Indian settlements, and made a noteworthy journey into the interior of what is now the State of New York, where he preached the Gospel to various tribes of the Five Nations, with indifferent success.

Upon receiving intelligence of La Salle's projected western journey, in 1678, Father Hennepin felt and expressed great eagerness to accompany the expedition. Permission to do so having been obtained from his Provincial, as well as from La Salle, he set out in advance of the latter from Fort Frontenac, early in November, accompanied by the Sieur De La Motte and a crew of sixteen sailors, embarked in a brigantine of ten tons. They skirted the northern shore of Lake Ontario, and in due time arrived at the Indian village of Taiaiagon, situated at the mouth of a river near the present city of Toronto. The river was probably the Humber, and the village was doubtless a collection of wigwams which have left no trace behind them. From this point the explorers crossed the lake to the mouth of the Niagara River, which they entered on the morning of the 6th of December. They landed on the eastern side of the stream, where the old fort of Niagara now stands. The site was then occupied by a small village inhabited by Seneca Indians, many of whom probably then beheld for the first time those wondrous pale-faces, the fame of whose exploits had preceded them into the wilderness. As the vessel rounded the opposite point the entire crew burst forth into sacred song, and chanted "Te Deum Laudamus" until the anchor was cast into the river. Later in the day they ascended several miles farther up the stream, until they reached the present site of Lewiston, where they built a rude dwelling of palisades. After remaining for some time, waiting for La Salle to join them, they set off on an expedition into the interior of New York, to pay a visit to a village of the Senecas.

In the meantime La Salle and Tonty had started from Fort Frontenac, with a band of men and a goodly store of supplies for the expedition. After encountering rough weather and being nearly wrecked off the Bay of Quinté, they crossed the lake and landed at the mouth of the Genesee River. Here they disembarked, and after a brief delay, started on a visit to the same Indian village which had just been visited by Hennepin and La Motte, and which was a short distance south-east of the present site of the city of Rochester. La Salle called a council of the natives, and did his utmost to conciliate them, for they looked upon his proceedings with no friendly eye, and were not slow in expressing their disapproval. They were wise enough to know that European exploration would be but the forerunner of European settlement, and that European settlement must be the "sullen presage of their own decay." La Salle, however, had a great deal of personal magnetism and force of character, and contrived to gain the good-will of several of the chiefs. After much argument and cajoling, he succeeded in gaining their consent to the conveyance of his arms and ammunition by way of the portage at Niagara. They also acquiesced in his proposal to establish a fortified warehouse at the mouth of the river, and to build a vessel above the falls in which to prosecute his researches in the west. Having accomplished so much--and considering the jealousy of the Indians, it is surprising that he should have obtained such concessions--he set out to join Hennepin and La Motte in the Niagara River, which had been appointed as their place of meeting.

Father Hennepin and La Motte had not long taken up their quarters on the banks of the Niagara River before they ascended the stream to regale themselves with a view of the mighty cataract of which they had so often heard with awe and astonishment. To the skill of the mendacious priest we are indebted for the first verbal description of the falls by an eye-witness, as well as for the first artistic delineation of them. The friar had a keen eye for the beauties and grandeur of natural scenery; but, like other travellers before and since his time, he was much given to dealing in the marvellous. His view is drawn in direct violation of the laws of perspective, and the proportions are not correctly preserved. It must be remembered, however, that during the two hundred years which have elapsed since the sketch was made, nature has been steadily at work, and that the external appearance of the falls has undergone many changes in that time. It is probable, too, that the cross-fall depicted in his sketch as pouring over what has since been called "Table Rock" really existed in 1678. Upon the whole, there is no reason for doubting that in its general outlines the sketch made by Father Hennepin pourtrayed the scene more faithfully than did his written description, of which the following is a literal translation: "Betwixt the Lake Ontario and the Lake Erie there is a vast and prodigious cadence of water, which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel. This wonderful downfall is about six hundred feet, and is composed of two great cross-streams of water, and two falls, with an island sloping across the middle of it. The waters which fall from this horrible precipice do foam and boil after the most hideous manner imaginable, making an outrageous noise, more terrible than that of thunder; for when the wind blows out of the south their dismal roaring may be heard more than fifteen leagues off."

Hennepin and La Motte were soon afterwards joined by La Salle and Tonty, accompanied by a party consisting of mechanics, labourers and voyageurs, who arrived in a small schooner. After a short exploration of the country thereabouts La Salle set about the construction of a large vessel of forty-five tons, for the prosecution of his western voyage. The ship-yard was located six miles above the Falls, near the mouth of Cayuga Creek, where the work of shipbuilding was carried on throughout the winter, spring, and early summer. At last the new vessel--the ill-fated _Griffin_ (the first European craft that ever navigated the waters of the upper lakes)--was completed, and on the 7th of August, 1679, the adventurers embarked and sailed into Lake Erie--"where sail was never seen before." They passed on to the westward end of the lake, and up between the green islands of the stream now known as the Detroit River; crossed Lake St. Clair, and entered Lake Huron. In due course, after encountering a furious tempest, they reached Michillimackinac, where was a Jesuit Mission and centre of the fur trade. Passing on into Lake Michigan, La Salle and his company cast anchor in Green Bay. The _Griffin_ was forthwith laden with rich furs, and sent back to Niagara, with orders to turn over the cargo to La Salle's creditors, and return immediately. This is the last item respecting her which history affords. Whether she foundered or was captured by the Jesuits or Indians remains an open question to this day, and no certain tidings of her, subsequent to her departure eastward from Green Bay, ever reached the ears of her commander.

Meanwhile, his creditors, from whom he had purchased his supplies, and with whom he was heavily involved, were selling his effects at Montreal. He himself, with his company in scattered groups, repaired in bark canoes to the head of Lake Michigan; and at the mouth of the St. Joseph he constructed a trading-house with palisades, known as the Fort of the Miamis. Of his vessel, on which his fortunes so much depended, no tidings came. Weary of delay, he resolved to penetrate Illinois; and leaving ten men to guard the Fort of the Miamis, La Salle himself, with Hennepin, Tonty, and about thirty followers, ascended the St. Joseph, and by a short portage over bogs and swamps made dangerous by a snow storm, entered the Kankakee. Descending this narrow stream, before the end of December, 1679, the little company had reached the site of an Indian village on the Illinois, probably not far from Ottoway, in La Salle county. The tribe was absent, passing the winter in the chase. On the banks of Lake Peoria Indians appeared, who, desirous to obtain axes and firearms, offered the calumet of peace, and agreed to an alliance. They described the course of the Mississippi, and they were willing to guide the strangers to its mouth. The spirit and prudence of La Salle, who was the life of the enterprise, won the friendship of the natives. But clouds lowered over his path. The _Griffin_, it seemed certain, was wrecked, thus delaying his discoveries as well as impairing his fortunes. His men began to despond. He toiled to revive their courage, and assured them that there could be no safety but in union. "None," he added, "shall stay after the spring, unless from choice." But fear and discontent pervaded the company; and when La Salle, thwarted by destiny, and almost despairing, planned and began to build a fort on the banks of the Illinois, four days' journey below Lake Peoria, he named it Crèvecoeur (Heart-break). Yet even here the immense power of his will appeared. Dependent on himself, fifteen hundred miles from the nearest French settlement, impoverished, harassed by enemies at Quebec and in the wilderness, he inspired his men with resolution to saw trees into plank and prepare a barque. He despatched Hennepin to explore the Upper Mississippi; he questioned the Illinois and the captives on the course of that river; he formed conjectures respecting the course of the Tennessee. Then, as new recruits and sails and cordage for the barque were needed, in the month of March, with a musket and pouch of powder and shot, with a blanket for his protection and skins of which to make moccasins, he, with three companions, set off on foot for Fort Frontenac, to trudge through thickets and forests, to wade through marshes and melting snows; without drink, except water from the running brooks; without food, except such precarious supplies as could be provided by his gun. After enduring dangers and hardships which would have effectually damped the ardour of any one but a French adventurer of that time; after narrowly escaping a plot to poison him; after being deserted by some of his followers, and threatened with all sorts of unknown penalties by the savages, he finally, after sixty-five days' journeying, arrived at Fort Frontenac on the 6th of May, 1680. But "man and nature seemed in arms against him." He found that during his absence his agents had plundered him, that his creditors had seized his property, and that several of his canoes, richly laden, had been lost in the rapids of the St. Lawrence. Another vessel which had been despatched with supplies for him from France had also been shipwrecked. Instead of sitting down to mourn over these mishaps, however, they seemed to inspire him with fresh vigour. Descending to Montreal, he in less than a week procured what supplies he needed, and returned to Fort Frontenac. Just as he was about to embark for Illinois, messengers arrived with intelligence that Tonty had been abandoned by his companions, and had been compelled to take shelter with a band of Pottawatomie Indians.