Chapter 5
V. Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley by John Gilmarie Shea. Part II. The Life of Fr. James Marquette.
one day instructing the old people in my cabin and speaking of the creation of the world and various stories from the old testament they told me what they had formerly believed but now treat as fable they have some knowledge of the tower of babel saying that their ancestors had related that they had formerly made a great house but that a violent wind had thrown it down they now despise all the little gods they had before they were baptized they often ridicule them and wonder at their stupidity in sacrificing to these subjects of their fables i baptized an adult after a long trial seeing his assiduity at prayer his frankness in recounting his past life his promises especially with regard to the other sex and his assurance of good conduct i yielded to his entreaty he has persevered and since his return from fishing comes regularly to the chapel after easter all the indians dispersed to seek subsistence
They promised me that they would not forget the prayer, and earnestly begged that a father should come in the fall when they assemble again. This will be granted, and if it please God to send some father, he will take my place, while I, to execute the order of our Father Superior, will go and begin my Illinois mission. The Illinois are thirty days' journey, by land from La Pointe, by a difficult road. They lie south-southwest of it. On the way you pass the nation of the Ketchigamins, who live in more than twenty large cabins.
They are inland, and seek to have intercourse with the French, from whom they hope to get axes, knives, and ironware. So much do they fear them, that they unbound from the stake two Illinois captives, who said, when about to be burned, that the Frenchman had declared he wished peace all over the world.
You pass then to the Miamiweck, and by great deserts reach the Illinois, who are assembled chiefly in two towns containing more than eight or nine thousand souls. These people are well enough disposed to receive Christianity. Since Father Eluz spoke to them at LaPointe to adore one God, they have begun to abandon their false worship, for they adored the sun and thunder. Those seen by me are of apparently good disposition. They are not nightrunners like the other Indians.
A man kills his wife if he finds her unfaithful. They are less prodigal in sacrifices, and promise me to embrace Christianity and do all I require in their country. In this view, the Ottawa's gave me a young man recently come from their country, who initiated me to some extent in their language during the leisure given me in the winter by the Indians at La Pointe. I could scarcely understand it, yet there is something of the Algonquin in it,
and I hope by the help of God's grace to understand and be understood if God by His goodness leads me to that country. No one must hope to escape crosses in our mission, and the best means to live happy is not to fear them, but in the enjoyment of little crosses hope for others still greater. The Illinois desire us, like Indians, to share their miseries,
and suffer all that can be imagined in barbarism. They are lost sheep to be sought amid woods and thorns, especially when they call so piteously to be rescued from the jaws of the wolf. Such really can I call their entreaties to me this winter. They have actually gone this spring to notify the old men to come for me in the fall.
The Illinois always come by land. They sow maize, which they have in great plenty. They have pumpkins as large as those of France, and plenty of roots and fruit. The chase is very abundant in wild cattle, bears, stags, turkeys, duck, bustard, wild pigeon, and cranes. They leave their towns at certain times every year to go to their hunting grounds together,
so as to be better able to resist if attacked. they believe that i will spread peace everywhere if i go and then only the young will go to hunt when the illinois come to la point they pass a large river almost a league wide it runs north and south and so far that the illinois who do not know what canoes are have never yet heard of its mouth they only know that there are very great nations below them some of whom raise two crops of maize a year east-southeast of the country is a nation they call chawanon which came to visit them last summer the young man given me who teaches me the language saw them they wear beads which shows intercourse with europeans they had come thirty days across land before reaching their country this great river can hardly empty in virginia and we rather believe that its mouth is in california
If the Indians who promise to make me a canoe do not fail to keep their word, we shall go into this river as soon as we can with a Frenchman and this young man given me, who knows some of these languages, and has a readiness for learning others. We shall visit the nations which inhabit it, in order to open the way to so many of our fathers, who have long awaited this happiness. This discovery will give us a complete knowledge of the southern or western sea. Six or seven days below the Eloi, sick, is another great river, Missouri, on which are prodigious nations who use wooden canoes. We cannot write more till next year, if God does us the grace to lead us there.
The Illinois are warriors. They make many slaves whom they sell to the Ottawas for guns, powder, kettles, axes, and knives. They were formerly at war with the Naduasi, but having made peace some years since, I confirmed it, to facilitate their coming to La Pointe where I am going to await them, in order to accompany them to their country. The Naduasi are the Iroquois of this country beyond La Pointe, but less faithless, and never attack till attacked. They lie southwest of the mission of the Holy Ghost, and are a great nation that we have not yet visited them, having confined ourselves to the conversion of the Atuas.
They fear the Frenchman, because he brings iron to their country. Their language is entirely different from the Huron and Algonquin. They have many towns, but they are widely scattered. They have very extraordinary customs. They principally adore the Calumet.
They do not speak at great feasts, and when a stranger arrives, give him to eat with a wooden fork as he would a child. All the lake tribes make war on them, but with small success. They have false oaths, use little canoes, and keep their words strictly. I sent them a present by an interpreter, to tell them to recognize the Frenchman everywhere,
and not kill him or the Indians in his company. That the black gown wished to pass to that country of the Asenpuars, to that of the Kalistino, that he was already at Utagamis, and that I was going this fall to the Illinois, to whom they should leave a free passage. They agreed, but as for my present, waited till all came from the chase, promising to come to La Pointe in the fall,
to hold a council with the Illinois and speak to me. Would that all these nations loved God as much as they fear the French! Christianity would soon flourish. The Asenipuars, whose language is almost that of the Naduisi, are toward the west from the mission of the Holy Ghost. Some are fifteen or twenty days off on a lake where they have false oats and abundant fishery.
I have heard that there is in their country a great river running to the western sea, and an Indian told me that at its mouth he saw Frenchmen, and four large canoes with sails. Footnote. This is not the first indication of the Columbia. End of footnote. The Calistino are a nomad people, whose rendezvous we do not yet know.
It is northwest of the mission of the Holy Ghost. They are always in the woods, and live solely by their bow. They passed by the mission where I was last fall, in two hundred canoes, coming to buy merchandise and corn, after which they go to winter in the woods. In the spring I saw them again on the shore of the lake.
Such is the substance of his letters as it has reached us, and shows us the hopes which Marquette entertained of reaching in the fall of that year, the Illinois mission to which he had been appointed, and for which he is now prepared by his knowledge of their language. If the Sioux and the Illinois met him at a point in the fall, nothing was concluded.
and the missionary did not begin his overland journey to the lodges of the illinois it is not however probable that the meeting took place for early in the winter the sioux provoked by the insolence of the hurons and the ottawas declared war and first sent back to the missionaries the pious pictures which he had sent them as a present their war-parties now came on in their might and the indians of la pointe trembled before the fierce dakota with his knives of stone stuck in his belt and his long black hair in the spring both huron and ottawa resolved to leave so dangerous a neighbourhood the latter were the first to launch upon the lake and they soon made their way to a kentuton island Father Marquette, whose missionary efforts had been neutralized by the unsettled state of his neophytes, and the concentration of their thoughts on the all-engrossing war, was now left alone with the Hurons.
With both, he had more to suffer than to do, and now he was at last compelled to leave La Pointe, and turn his back on his beloved Illinois to accompany his Hurons in their wanderings and hardships. The remnant of a mighty nation resolved once more to commit themselves to the waves and seek a new home. With their faithful missionary, they all embarked in their frail canoes, and now for the first time turned toward their ancient home. Fain would they have resisted the scenes of Huron power, the land of the fur-lined graves of their ancestors.
Fain, too, would the missionary have gone to spend his surviving years on the ground hallowed by the blood of Daniel, Brebeuf, L'Alemant, Garnier, and Chabanel. But the power of the Iroquois was still too great to justify the steppe, and, remembering the rich fisheries of Mackinac, resolved to turn to that pebbly land. But who, the reading may ask, were the Hurons with whom the missionary's career seems thus linked, yet who at first were not the special object of his care? It is a tale worthy of a historian.
The Wendats, whom the French called Hurons, and the English Wyandots, are a nation of the same stock as the Iroquois. footnote champlain calls the hurons le bois iroquois as distinguished from the other iroquois enemies they were one of the first tribes known to the french to whom they always remained closely united they were a trading people and their many fortified towns lay in a very narrow strip on georgian bay a territory smaller than the state of delaware between the west and south-west lay in the mountains the kindred tribe of the industrious tionontites whose luxuriant fields of tobacco won them from the early french the name of pittuun while south of both from lake st clair to niagara and even slightly beyond were the allied tribes which from the connection between their language and that of the hurons were called by the latter atiwanderunc but neutral by the french from their standing aloof in the great war waged by the iroquois against the hurons and algonquins no sooner had the french founded quebec than the franciscan missionaries attempted the conversion of the hurons
father joseph le caron the founder of that mission wintered among them in sixteen fifteen and in subsequent years other recollects did their best to prepare them for the faith the jesuits were at last called in by the recollects to aid them and laboring together in harmony they looked forward with sanguine hope to the speedy conversion of the hurons and the neuters for they too were visited when all their prospects were blasted by the english conquest of canada in sixteen twenty nine on its restoration the french court offered the canada missions to the capesans but on their recommendation committed it to the jesuits alone barbeuf for the second time reached upper canada and labored zealously until the huron nation was annihilated by the iroquois twenty-one missionaries at different times came to share his toils and of these eight like himself perished by hostile hands martyrs to their faith and zeal a nobler body of heroes than any other part of our country can boast on the deaths of brebeuf and garnier in sixteen fifty the ruin of the hurons and pétounes was consummated the survivors fled and blended into one tribe soon divided into two great parties one composed entirely of christians repairing to quebec to settle on orleans island
whose descendants are still lingering at loret the other part christians part pagans fled at last to mackinac but pursued constantly by the iroquois they settled on some islands at the mouth of green bay where they seemed to have been in menard's time Later still, after roaming to the lodges of the Sioux on the Mississippi, they came to pitch their cabins by the mission cross planted by Alouz, at Chaguemigan, and here Marquette had found them. Such is the tale of their wanderings till the period of our narrative. Footnote. Their subsequent wanderings are to Detroit, Sandusky, and at last to Indian Territory, where the descendants of Marquette's flock still exist, the smallest but wealthiest band of deported Indians. End of footnote. Mackinac, where they now rested, was indeed
a bleak spot to begin a new home. It was a point of land almost encompassed by wind-tossed lakes, icy as Siberian waters. The cold was intense and cultivation difficult, but the waters teemed with fish, and the very danger and hardships of their capture gave it new zest. Besides this, it was a central point for trade, and so additionally recommended to the Huron, who still, as of old, sought to advance his worldly prospects by commerce. Stationed in this new spot, Father
Marquette's first care was to raise a chapel. Rude and unshapely was the first sylvan shrine raised by Catholicity at Mackinac. Its sides of logs, its roof of bark, had nothing to impress the senses, nothing to win by a dazzling exterior, the wayward child of the forest. All was as simple as the faith he taught. Such was the origin of the mission of St. Ignatius, or Michilimackinac, already in a manner begun the previous year by missionary labors on the island
of that name. The Hurons soon built near the chapel a palisade fort, less stout and skillful indeed than the fortresses found in among their kindred Iroquois by Cartier and Champlain, but in their declining state sufficient for their defense. No details of Marquette's labors during the first year have reached us. He wrote no letters to recount his wanderings. But of the second year we are better informed. An unpublished manuscript gives us the following
letter addressed to Father de Blon. Reverend Father, the Hurons, called Tianan-Tataranans, or Patoon Nation, who composed the mission of St. Ignatius at Mishilimackinong, begun last year near the chapel of a fort enclosing all their cabins. They have come regularly to prayers, and have listened more readily to the instructions I gave them, consenting to what I required to prevent their disorders
and abominable customs. We must have patience with untutored minds, who know only the devil, who, like their ancestors, have been his slaves, and who often relapse into the sins in which they were nurtured. God alone can fix these fickle minds, and place and keep them in his grace and touch their hearts while we stammer at their ears. The Tianan Tataranans number this year 380 souls, and besides 60 Aotaua Synagons have joined them. Some of these came from the mission
of St. Francis Xavier, where Fr. Andre wintered with them last year. They are quite changed from what I saw them at La Pointe. The zeal and patience of that missionary have gained to the faith those hearts which seemed to us most averse to it. They now wish to be Christians. They bring their children to the chapel to be baptized, and come regularly to prayers. Having been obliged to go to St. Marie de Sault with Father Alouz last summer, the Hurons came to the chapel during my
absence as regularly as if I had been there, the girls singing what prayers they knew. They counted the days of my absence, and constantly asked when I was to be back. I was absent only fourteen days, and on my arrival all assembled at chapel, some coming even from their fields, which are at a very considerable distance. I readily went to their pumpkin feast, where I instructed them and invited them to thank God, who gave them food and plenty, while other tribes that had not yet embraced Christianity were actually struggling with famine. I ridiculed dreams and urged those who had been baptized to acknowledge him whose adopted children they were.
those who gave the feast though still idolaters spoke in high terms of christianity and openly made the sign of the cross before all present some young men whom they had tried by ridicule to prevent from doing it persevered and made the sign of the cross in the greatest assemblies even when i am not present an indian of distinction among the hurons having invited me to a feast where the chiefs were called them severally by name and told them that he wished to declare his thoughts that all might know it namely that he was a christian and that he renounced the god of dreams and all their lewd dances that the black gown was the master of his cabin and that for nothing that might happen would he forsake his resolution delighted to hear this i spoke more strongly than i had ever yet done telling them that my only design was to put them in the way of heaven that for this alone i remained among them that this obliged me to assist them at the peril of my life as soon as anything is said in an assembly it is immediately divulged through all the cabins as i saw in this case by the assiduity of some in coming to prayers and by the malicious efforts of others to neutralize my instructions severe as the winter is it does not prevent the indians from coming to the chapel some come twice a day be the wind or cold what it may
last fall i began to instruct some to make general confessions of their whole life and to prepare others who had never confessed since their baptism i would not have supposed that indians could have given so exact an account of all that had happened in the course of their life but it was seriously done as some took two weeks to examine themselves since then i have perceived a marked change so that they will not go even to ordinary feasts without asking my permission i have this year baptized twenty-eight children one of which had been brought from st marie du salt without having received that sacrament as the reverend father at henry nouvelle informed me to put me on my guard without my knowing it the child fell sick but god permitted that while instructing my cabin two important and sensible indians one asked me whether such a sick child was baptized i went at once baptized it and it died the next night some of the other children too are dead and now in heaven these are the consolations which god sends us which make us esteem our life more happy as it is more wretched this reverend father is all i give about this mission
where minds are now more mild tractable and better disposed to receive instructions than in any other part i am ready however to leave it in the hands of another missionary to go on your order to seek new nations toward the south sea who are still unknown to us and to teach them of our great god whom they have hitherto unknown such was the laborious post to which this talented yet humble missionary condemned himself daily subjected to the caprices of some the insults and petty persecution of others looking only to another world for the reward of labors which crowned with the most complete success would in the eyes of the world seem unimportant but motives are the test of merit and convinced by the studies of riper years no less than by the early teachings of a mother that the baptismal promises were a reality he sought to open by that sacrament the doors of bliss to the dying infant or more aged but repenting sinner to him the salvation of a single soul was more grand and noble than the conquest of an empire and thus borne up he laboured on this letter of which the date is not given nor the closing words must have been written in the summer of sixteen seventy two and transmitted to the quebec by the ottawa flotilla the same conveyance doubtless brought him back the assurance that his prayers had been heard that the government had at last resolved to act in the matter and that he was the missionary selected to accompany the expedition
his heart exulted at the prospect though he foresaw the danger to which he was exposed a health already shaken by his toils and hardships a difficult and unknown way the only nation known the fierce dakota now hostile to the french and their allies with many another tribe noted an indian story for deeds of blood closed up their path but this did not alarm him the hope of a glorious martyrdom while opening the way to future heralds of the cross buoyed him up though in his humility he never spoke of martyrdom to him it was but a death to cease to offend god this now engrossed his thoughts and he waited with anxiety the coming of juliet named to undertake the expedition at last he arrived and by a happy coincidence on the feast of the immaculate conception of the blessed virgin whom says the pious missionary i had always invoked since my coming to the ottawa country in order to obtain of god the favor of being able to visit the nations on the mississippi river end of section five
