[8] Jesuit Relations, 1660, and Radisson's Journal. These "people of the fire," or Mascoutins, were in three regions, (1) Wisconsin, (2) Nebraska, (3) on the Missouri. See Appendix E.
[9] Benjamin Sulte unequivocally states that the river was the Mississippi. Of writers contemporaneous with Radisson, the Jesuits, Marie de l'Incarnation, and Charlevoix corroborate Radisson's account. In the face of this, what are we to think of modern writers with a reputation to lose, who brush Radisson's exploits aside as a possible fabrication? The only conclusion is that they have not read his Journal.
[10] I refer to Radisson alone, because for half the time in 1659 Groseillers was ill at the lake, and we cannot be sure that he accompanied Radisson in all the journeys south and west, though Radisson generously always includes him as "we." Besides, Groseillers seems to have attended to the trading, Radisson to the exploring.
[11] If any one cares to render Radisson's peculiar jumble of French, English, Italian, and Indian idioms into more intelligent form, they may try their hand at it. His meaning is quite clear; but the words are a medley. The passage is to be found on pp. 150-151, of the Prince Society Reprint. See also Jesuit Relations, 1660.
[12] It will be noted that what I claim for Radisson is the honor of discovering the Great Northwest, and refrain from trying to identify his movements with the modern place names of certain states. I have done this intentionally—though it would have been easy to advance opinions about Green Bay, Fox River, and the Wisconsin, and so become involved in the childish quarrel that has split the western historical societies and obscured the main issue of Radisson's feat. Needless to say, the world does not care whether Radisson went by way of the Menominee, or snow-shoed across country. The question is: Did he reach the Mississippi Valley before Marquette and Jolliet and La Salle? That question this chapter answers.
[13] I have refrained from quoting Radisson's names for the different Indian tribes because it would only be "caviare to the general." If Radisson's manuscript be consulted it will be seen that the crucial point is the whereabouts of the Mascoutins—or people of the fire. Reference to the last part of Appendix E will show that these people extended far beyond the Wisconsin to the Missouri. It is ignorance of this fact that has created such bitter and childish controversy about the exact direction taken by Radisson west-north-west of the Mascoutins. The exact words of the document in the Marine Department are; "In the lower Missipy there are several other nations very numerous with whom we have no commerce who are trading yet with nobody. Above Missoury river which is in the Mississippi below the river Illinois, to the south, there are the Mascoutins, Nadoessioux (Sioux) with whom we trade and who are numerous." Benjamin Sulte was one of the first to discover that the Mascoutins had been in Nebraska, though he does not attempt to trace this part of Radisson's journey definitely.
[14] The entire account of the people on "the Forked River" is so exact an account of the Mandans that it might be a page from Catlin's descriptions two centuries later. The long hair, the two crops a year, the tobacco, the soap-stone calumets, the stationary villages, the knowledge of the Spaniards, the warm climate—all point to a region far south of the Northern States, to which so many historians have stupidly and with almost wilful ignorance insisted on limiting Radisson's travels. Parkman has been thoroughly honest in the matter. His La Salle had been written before the discovery of the Radisson Journals; but in subsequent editions he acknowledges in a footnote that Radisson had been to "the Forked River." Other writers (with the exception of five) have been content to quote from Radisson's enemies instead of going directly to his journals. Even Garneau slurs over Radisson's explorations; but Garneau, too, wrote before the discovery of the Radisson papers. Abbé Tanguay, who is almost infallible on French-Canadian matters, slips up on Radisson, because his writings preceded the publication of the Radisson Relations. The five writers who have attempted to redeem Radisson's memory from ignominy are: Dr. N. E. Dionne, of the Parliamentary Library, Quebec; Mr. Justice Prudhomme, of St. Boniface, Manitoba; Dr. George Bryce, of Winnepeg, Mr. Benjamin Sulte, of Ottawa; and Judge J. V. Brower, of St. Paul. It ever a monument be erected to Radisson—as one certainly ought in every province and state west of the Great Lakes—the names of these four champions should be engraved upon it.
[15] This claim will, I know, stagger preconceived ideas. In the light of only Radisson's narrative, the third voyage has usually been identified with Wisconsin and Minnesota; but in the light of the Jesuit Relations, written the year that Radisson returned, to what tribes could the descriptions apply? Even Parkman's footnote acknowledged that Radisson was among the people of the Missouri. Grant that, and the question arises, What people on the Missouri answer the description? The Indians of the far west use not only coal for fire, but raw galena to make bullets for their guns. In fact, it was that practice of the tribes of Idaho that led prospectors to find the Blue Bell Mine of Kootenay. Granting that the Jesuit account—which was of course, from hearsay—mistook the use of turf, dry grass, or buffalo refuse for a kind of coal, the fact remains that only the very far western tribes had this custom.
[16] Letters of Marie de l'Incarnation.
[17] Jesuit Relations, 1658.