The Fighting Governor: A Chronicle of Frontenac

by Charles W. Colby

Bound up with the success of Frontenac's Indian policy is the exploration of the West—an achievement which adds to this period its chief lustre. Here La Salle is the outstanding figure and the laurels are chiefly his. None the less, Frontenac deserves the credit of having encouraged all endeavours to solve the problem of the Mississippi. Like La Salle he had large ideas and was not afraid. They co-operated in perfect harmony, sharing profits, perhaps, but sincerely bent on gaining for France a new, vast realm. The whole history of colonial enterprise shows how fortunate the French have been in the co-operation of their explorers with their provincial governors. The relations of La Salle with La Barre form a striking exception, but the statement holds true in the main, and with reference to Algiers as well as to Canada.

La Salle was a frank partisan of Frontenac throughout the quarrel with Perrot and Fénelon. On one occasion he made a scene in church at Montreal. It was during the Easter service of 1674. When Fénelon decried magistrates who show no respect to the clergy and who use their deputed power for their own advantage, La Salle stood up and called the attention of the leading citizens to these words. Frontenac, who was always a loyal ally, showed that he appreciated La Salle's efforts on his behalf by giving him a letter of recommendation to the court in which La Salle is styled 'a man of intelligence and ability, more capable than any one else I know here to accomplish every kind of enterprise and discovery which may be entrusted to him.'

The result of La Salle's visit to Versailles (1674) was that he gained privileges which made him one of the most important men in Canada, and a degree of power which brought down on him many enemies. He received the seigneury of Fort Frontenac, he was made local governor at that post, and, in recognition of services already performed, he gained a grant of nobility. It is clear that La Salle's forceful personality made a strong impression at court, and the favours which he received enabled him, in turn, to secure financial aid from his wealthy relatives at Rouen.

What followed was the most brilliant, the most exciting, and the most tragic chapter in the French exploration of America. La Salle fulfilled all the conditions upon which he had received the seigneury at Fort Frontenac, and found financial profit in maintaining the post. The original wooden structure was replaced by stone, good barracks were built for the troops, there were bastions upon which nine cannon announced a warning to the Iroquois, a settlement with well-tilled land sprang up around the fort, schooners were built with a draught of forty tons. But for La Salle this was not enough. He was a pathfinder, not a trader. Returning to France after two years of labour and success at Fort Frontenac, he secured a royal patent authorizing him to explore the whole continent from the Great Lakes to Mexico, with the right to build forts therein and to enjoy a monopoly of the trade in buffalo skins. The expenses of the undertaking were, of course, to be borne by La Salle and his associates, for the king never invested money in these enterprises. However, the persuasiveness which enabled La Salle to secure his patent enabled him to borrow the necessary funds. At the close of 1678 he was once more at Fort Frontenac and ready for the great adventure.

How La Salle explored the country of the Illinois in company with his valiant friend, Henri de Tonty 'of the iron hand,' and how these two heroic leaders traversed the continent to the very mouth of the Mississippi, is not to be told here. But with its risks, its hardships, its tragedies, and its triumphs, this episode, which belongs to the period of Frontenac's administration, will always remain a classic in the records of discovery. The Jesuits, who did not love La Salle, were no less brave than he, and the lustre of his achievements must not be made to dim theirs. Yet they had all the force of a mighty organization at their back, while La Salle, standing alone, braved ruin, obloquy, and death in order to win an empire for France. Sometimes he may have thought of fame, but he possessed that driving power which goes straight for the object, even if it means sacrifice of self. His haughtiness, his daring, his self-centred determination, well fitted him to be the friend and trusted agent of Frontenac.

Another leading figure of the period in western discovery was Daniel Greysolon du Lhut. Duchesneau calls him the leader of the coureurs de bois. There can be no doubt that he had reached this eminence among the French of the forest. He was a gentleman by birth and a soldier by early training. In many ways he resembled La Salle, for both stood high above the common coureurs de bois in station, as in talent. Du Lhut has to his credit no single exploit which equals La Salle's descent of the Mississippi, but in native sagacity he was the superior. With a temperament less intense and experiences less tragic, he will never hold the place which La Salle securely occupies in the annals of adventure. But few Frenchmen equalled him in knowledge of the wilderness, and none displayed greater force of character in dealing with the Indians.

What the mouth of the Mississippi was to La Salle the country of the Sioux became to Du Lhut—a goal to be reached at all hazards. Not only did he reach it, but the story of how he rescued Father Hennepin from the Sioux (1680) is among the liveliest tales to be found in the literature of the wilderness. The only regrettable circumstance is that the story should have been told by Hennepin instead of by Du Lhut—or rather, that we should not have also Du Lhut's detailed version instead of the brief account which he has left. Above all, Du Lhut made himself the guardian of French interests at Michilimackinac, the chief French post of the Far West—the rendezvous of more tribes than came together at any other point. The finest tale of his courage and good judgment belongs to the period of La Barre's government—when, in 1684, at the head of forty-two French, he executed sentence of death on an Indian convicted of murder. Four hundred savages, who had assembled in mutinous mood, witnessed this act of summary justice. But they respected Du Lhut for the manner in which he had conducted the trial, and admired the firmness with which he executed a fair sentence.

Du Lhut's exploits and character make him the outstanding figure of the war which Duchesneau waged against the coureurs de bois. The intendant certainly had the letter of the law on his side in seeking to clear the woods of those rovers who at the risk of their own lives and without expense to the government were gaining for France an unequalled knowledge of the interior. Not only had the king decreed that no one should be permitted to enter the forest without express permission, but an edict of 1676 denied even the governor the right to issue a trading pass at his unrestrained discretion. Frontenac, who believed that the colony would draw great profit from exploration, softened the effect of this measure by issuing licences to hunt. It was also within his power to dispatch messengers to the tribes of the Great Lakes. Duchesneau reported that Frontenac evaded the edict in order to favour his own partners or agents among the coureurs de bois, and that when he went to Montreal on the pretext of negotiating with the Iroquois, his real purpose was to take up merchandise and bring back furs. These charges Frontenac denied with his usual vigour, but without silencing Duchesneau. In 1679 the altercation on this point was brought to an issue by the arrest, at the intendant's instance [Transcriber's note: insistence?], of La Toupine, a retainer of Du Lhut. An accusation of disobeying the edict was no trifle, for the penalty might mean a sentence to the galleys. After a bitter contest over La Toupine the matter was settled on a basis not unfavourable to Frontenac. In 1681 a fresh edict declared that all coureurs de bois who came back to the colony should receive the benefit of an amnesty. At the same time the governor was empowered to grant twenty-five trading licences in each year, the period to be limited to one year.