[76] Gen. Lewis Cass, on his return from France in 1842, brought certain French manuscripts among which was a census of Indian tribes, compiled by one M. Chauvignerie. Schoolcraft gives this in full in his monumental work on the Indians of North America. (Vol. III, pages 553-557).
[77] There is no authority for this statement. See [note 50.] Le Sueur came to Canada as a young man and became a fur trader. During 1693 and for a few years thereafter he was commandant at Chequamegon and discovering lead mines on the upper Mississippi he made efforts to secure permission to work them, but without success. Little is known of his last years and his death occurred while on the ocean, probably before 1710.
[78] It is doubtful that Le Sueur gave assistance as here stated. The map in question is Carte du Canada ou de la Nouvelle France et des Decouvertes que y Ont Eté Faites. Par Guillaume Del’Isle. Paris, l’auteur 1703. (19-1/2 × 25-1/2). There is a reproduction, reduced, in Neill’s Minnesota, 3d edition, and Milburn’s The Lance, Cross and Canoe, p. 72, on which is to be found the following note:
“The manuscript from which the above Map was prepared, was found in the ‘Bibliotheque du roi,’ in Paris in a volume of La Harpe’s journeys of 1718-1722. It is said to bear date the year 1700. If so, it is evident that after the original preparation and before publication some one has added matter subsequently ascertained, for the Map above contains items of as late a date as 1717. Also is to be noted the fact that while all the other parts of the Map are in the French language, one single English phrase is to be found in the lower right-hand corner, to-wit: ‘De Soto landed 31 May, 1538.’ This would indicate that some one other than the original draftsman had taken part in its creation and at a time subsequent to its original preparation.”
Claude and Guillaume Delisle—father and son—were the most noted French cartographers of their day. There have been reissues of the map in question, corrected to date. For a sketch of Delisle see C. A. Walckenaer, Vies de Plusieurs Personnages Célébres, 1830; and Vincent Dutouret, Examen sur Toutes les Cartes Generales des quatre parties de le Terre, mises au jour, par feu Delisle, dupuis 1700, jus’qu en 1725, pour Servir d’Eclaircissement sur la Geographis, 1728.
[79] Plate 30.
[80] Vol. III, page 262.
[81] For an extended account of the Radisson-Groseillers controversy see Memoirs of Explorations in the Basin of the Mississippi, Vol. VI, Minnesota, by J. V. Brower, and particularly Radisson and Groseilliers, by Henry Colin Campbell, issued as No. 2 of the Parkman Club Publications, Milwaukee, 1896.
Pierre Esprit Radisson was a native of St. Malo in Brittany and in 1651 settled with his parents at Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence. Medard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers, was born in Brie, France, though the exact dates in both cases are not known. It is supposed that these two adventurers died in Great Britain at an advanced age as they had served in the interest of the French and British as policy dictated. In the Minnesota monograph above referred to, Mr. Benjamin Sulte, one of the leading Canadian authorities on the early French explorations, gives in detail a vast amount of highly important material concerning the Radisson-(Chouart) Groseillers connection and a more popular though somewhat biased exposition of the same subject is given by Miss Agnes C. Laut in her Pathfinders of the West, part I.
Radisson’s highly important account of his wanderings are in manuscript in The Bodleian Library, and include the record of his first four voyages, including two journeys westward in company with Groseilliers, and his subsequent Hudson Bay experiences are in the British Museum. In 1885 The Prince Society of Boston published the work in its entirety and to the lasting benefit of American history.