chapter ix

.—ED.]

[456] Young’s “Voyage,” in 4 _Mass. Hist. Coll._, ix. 115, 116.

[457] Le Jeune to Vimont, in the _Relation_ of 1640, writes: “Some Frenchmen call them the ‘Nation of Stinkers,’ because the Algonquin word _Ouinipeg_ signifies ‘stinking water.’ They thus call the water of the sea. Therefore these people call themselves ‘Ouinipegous,’ because they come from the shores of a sea of which we have no knowledge; and we must not call them the Nation of Stinkers, but the ‘Nation of the Sea.’”

In the _Jesuit Relations_ of 1647-48 is the following: “On its shores [Green Bay] dwell a different people of an unknown language,—that is to say, a language neither Algonquin nor Huron. These people are called the Puants, not on account of any unpleasant odor that is peculiar to them, but because they say they came from the shores of a sea far distant toward the west, the waters of which being salt, they call themselves the ‘people of the stinking water.’”

[458] _Relation_ of 1643. [See note on the Jesuit Relations.—ED.]

[459] Outaouacs, or Ottawas, was a name applied to all the upper Indians who came to Montreal or Quebec to trade. The _Relation_ of 1671 gives the origin of the name: “We have given the name of Outaouacs to all the savages of these countries, although of different nations, because the first who have appeared among the French have been Outaouacs.” Francis Assikinach, an Indian, published in 1858-60, various papers on the Odahwah legends and languages in the _Canadian Journal_.

[460] Groseilliers—sometimes written Grozelliers and Groselliers—was born in 1621, and in early life was a pilot. He married his second wife on August 24, 1653, and had a large family by her,—Jean Baptiste, born at Three Rivers, July 25, 1654; Marie Anne, August 7, 1657; Marguerite, April 15, 1659; Marie Antoinette, June 7, 1661.

The Sieur Radisson was the son of Sebastien and Madeleine Hayet Radisson. The St. Croix River of Minnesota is so called because as La Sueur says a Frenchman of that name was drowned in the stream. Before the year 1700 it is on the maps marked Madeleine, perhaps in compliment to Radisson’s mother.

[461] _Relation_ of 1660: “Firent heureusement rencontre d’une belle rivière, grande, large, profonde, et comparable, disent ils, à nostre grande fleuve le Saint Laurent.”

[462] Duchesneau, Intendant of Canada, describes the Ottawas in these words: “The Outawas Indians, who are divided into several tribes, and are nearest to us, are those of the greatest use, because through them we obtain beaver; and although they do not hunt generally, and have but a small portion of peltry in their country, they go in search of it to the most distant places, and exchange it for our merchandise. They are the Themistamens [Temiscamings], Nepisseriens [Nipissings], Missisakis, Amicouës, Sauteurs [Ojibways], Kiskakons, and Thionontatorons [Petun Hurons].”—_N. Y. Coll. Doc._ ix. 160.

[463] Tailhan’s _Perrot_, p. 92.

[464] [See note on Jesuit Relations _sub anno_ 1662-1663.—ED.]

[465] [Given on a later page.—ED.]

[466] [Given on a later page.—ED.]

[467] [See note on the _Jesuit Relations_.—ED.]

[468] Franquelin’s map calls the stream at the extremity of Lake Superior, which now forms a portion of the northern boundary of Minnesota, Groseilliers.

[469] [There is a portrait of Talon in the Hotel Dieu at Quebec. It is engraved in Shea’s _Charlevoix_, iii., and _Le Clercq_, ii. 61. His instructions are dated March 27, 1665. His eagerness was not altogether satisfactory to Colbert, who warns him, April 5, 1666, that the “King would never depopulate his kingdom to people Canada.” Talon in return (_Mass. Archives: Docs. Coll. in France_, ii. 189, 195), advocated the purchase of New Netherland, so as to confine the English to New England; but the English were about settling that question their own way.

_A mémoire (1667) sur l’état présent du Canada_, probably by Talon, is in Faribault’s _Collection de Mémoires sur l’histoire ancienne du Canada_, Quebec, 1840. Faillon (vol iii. part iii.) enlarges upon the zeal of Louis XIV. for the colony. The Bishop of Quebec meanwhile had his apprehensions. He warns the home government against allowing Protestants to come out. “Quebec is not very far from Boston,” he says, “and to multiply the Protestants is to invite revolution.” _Massachusetts Archives: Documents Collected in France_, ii. 233.—ED.]

[470] This may be the Péré, or Perray, whose name is given on Franquelin’s map of 1688 to the Moose River of Hudson’s Bay. Bellin says that it was named after a Frenchman who discovered it. In 1677 the Sieur Péré was with La Salle at Fort Frontenac. Frontenac, in November, 1679, writes to the King that Governor Andros of New York “has retained there, and even well treated, a man named Péré, and others who have been alienated from Sieur de la Salle, with the design to employ and send them among the Outawas, to open a trade with them.” The Intendant, Duchesneau, writes more fully to Seignelay, “that the man named Péré, having resolved to range the woods, went to Orange to confer with the English, and to carry his beavers there, in order to obtain some wampum beads to return and trade with the Outawacs; that he was arrested by the Governor of that place, and sent to Major Andros, Governor-General, whose residence is at Manatte; that his plan was to propose to bring to him all the _coureurs de bois_ with their peltries.” After this he seems to have been “a close prisoner at London for eighteen months” (_N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 479). Governor Dongan, on Sept. 8, 1687, sends Mons. La Parre to Canada “with an answer to the French Governor’s angry letter.” Nicholas Perrot in the old documents is sometimes called Peré, and this has led to confusion.

[471] Father Allouez, the first Jesuit to visit Green Bay, writes: “We set out from Saut [Ste. Marie] the 3d of November [1669], according to my dates; two canoes of Ponteouatamis wishing to take me to their country, not that I might instruct them, they having no disposition to receive the faith, but to soften some young Frenchmen who were among them, for the purpose of trading, and who threatened and ill-treated them.”

[472] Bancroft, giving reins to the imagination, wrote in his early editions of “brilliantly clad officers from the veteran armies of France” being present (_Hist. of the United States_, iii. 154).

[473] The “Procès Verbal” of Talon, as given by Margry and Tailhan, mentions fourteen nations; among others: 1. Achipoés [Ojibways or Chippeways]; 2. Malamechs; 3. Noquets; 4. Banabeoueks [Ouinipegouek, or Winnebagoes?]; 5. Makomiteks; 6. Poulteattemis [Pottowattamies]; 7. Oumalominis [Menomonees]; 8. Sassassaouacottons [Osaukees or Sauks?]; 9. Illinois; 10. Mascouttins. The Hurons and Ottawas, at a later period, conferred with the French and assented to the treaty; and this would account for Talon’s assertion, as given in his report quoted in the text, that there were seventeen tribes.

[474] Margry, i. 367.

[475] Margry, i. 322. La Salle writes in August, 1682: “The brother Louis le Bohesme, Jesuit, who works for the Indians in the capacity of gunsmith at Sault Ste. Marie, advised him [a deserter] to hide in the house of the Fathers the goods which he stole from me.” (Margry, ii. 226.)

[476] [Cf. _Courcelles au lac Ontario_, in Margry’s _Découvertes et établissements des Français dans l’Amérique septentrionale_, part i. p. 169; and _Relation du Voyage de M. de Courcelles au lac Ontario_, in Brodhead’s _New York Colonial Documents_, vol. ix. p. 75.—ED.]

[477] Letter to Frontenac.

[478] [Given on a later page.—ED.]

[479] Shea, _Charlevoix_, iii. 177; Parkman, _Discovery of the Great West_, p. 154.

[480] Mount Joliet is about sixty feet in height. The summit is two hundred and twenty-five feet wide, and thirteen hundred long. It is forty miles southwest of Chicago, in the vicinity of the city of Joliet, Illinois.

[481] Joliet, in his letter written on the map prepared for Frontenac, speaks of passing the years 1673 and 1674 in explorations of the Mississippi valley. [See this letter in fac-simile on a later page.—ED.]

At the conclusion of his note to Frontenac, he alludes to the disaster which happened a quarter of an hour before his arrival at the point from which, in September, 1672, he had departed, in these words: “I had avoided perils from savages, I had passed forty-two rapids, and was about to land, with full joy at the success of so long and difficult an enterprise, when, after these dangers, my canoe upset. I lost two men and my box (_cassette_) in sight of, at the door of, the first French settlements which I had left almost two years before.”

Marquette conveys the impression that Joliet returned with him to Green Bay in September, 1673; but when, in a few weeks, he went back to the Illinois country between Chicago and Lake Peoria, he found several Frenchmen trading with the Indians, and among others mentions La Taupine, or Pierre Moreau, who in 1671 was with Joliet at Sault Ste. Marie. Near one of the upper tributaries of the Illinois on Joliet’s map appears Mont Joliet. May Joliet not have traded in this vicinity during the winter of 1673-1674, and may not Taupine and others have been his associates?

[482] [Cf. narrative in