Finally sailing westward into Lake Michigan he found near Green Bay[12] several faithful men of the advance party whom he had sent out, who had collected there and on the way thither, a considerable store of furs; which he determined to send back to Niagara, on the Griffin, to satisfy his exacting creditors, with orders to return to the head of Lake Michigan as soon as possible.[13] She set sail on this return voyage on the 18th of September, in the face of a storm, which prevailed for several days. In the same storm, also, La Salle and the fourteen men left to him, by numerous desertions en route, resumed their journey, in four canoes, heavily laden with a forge, tools, merchandise, and arms. It was no pleasure trip; twice they were swamped, and nearly lost the contents of their canoes, as well as their lives: drenched, cold, and without provisions, they suffered much, and distrust of the Indians with whom they met on shore increased their sufferings. But steadily he pushed on along the western coast of Lake Michigan, and circled around its southern end until he reached the mouth of the St. Joseph, called by him the Miami. Here he had expected to meet Tonti with twenty men, coming along the eastern shore of the lake from Michilimackinac. But no Tonti was there. It was the 1st of November, the streams were freezing over, and their provisions were failing. Unless they could reach the villages of the Illinois before the Indians left for their winter hunt, starvation might be their fate. The dissatisfaction of his men presaged mutiny and desertion, but La Salle firmly refused to remove from the place where they were, and affirmed his intention, if they should desert, to remain with his Mohegan hunter and the three friars of his party until the arrival of Tonti. Then, the better to occupy their thoughts, he set them to work on the building of a timber fort. Twenty days later, and when this work was well under way, Tonti appeared, but with only half of his men. Provisions having failed, he had left the remainder thirty leagues behind, to get their living as best they might, by hunting. But La Salle sent him back, with two men, to find and bring them forward. On this return trip, their canoe was swamped in a violent gale, and guns, baggage, and provisions were lost and they returned to the fort on the Miami, subsisting on acorns by the way. The balance of Tonti’s party, except a couple of deserters, came into camp a few days after.
But the Griffin came not back to the waiting party. Nor was her fate ever known; whether she was lost by stress of storm, by Indian attack, or (as La Salle always thought) by treachery of her pilot. Longer delay, however, was impossible: and so, after sending back two of his men to Michilimackinac, and to pilot her, if she still existed, to the Miami fort, his party, numbering 33 in all, was re-embarked, 3rd December, 1679, on the St. Joseph, keeping a sharp lookout along the right-hand shore for the path or portage leading to the headwaters of the Illinois river. This, owing to the absence of the Mohegan hunter, they missed, and La Salle went on shore to look it up, lost his way, and passed a dismal night in a thick snowstorm. Meantime Tonti and Hennepin, growing uneasy, also landed, ordered guns to be fired, and sent out men to find their lost commander, if possible. He was found near morning, and, with the aid of the Mohegan, who had returned, the portage was also found and La Salle, excessively fatigued, turned in, with Hennepin, for a little rest in a wigwam which was covered with mats made of reeds. During the night the cold forced them to kindle a fire, from which the mats caught ablaze, so that before daybreak they were turned out into the cold again, having barely escaped being burned with their shelter. In the morning, shouldering their canoes, they started across the portage to the headwaters of the Illinois—distant some five miles. As the party filed along on their way, a disgruntled man, who walked behind La Salle, raised his gun to shoot him in the back, but was prevented by a companion. Reaching the Kankakee, one of the sources of the Illinois, they floated their canoes on its thin and sluggish stream; and passing through wide areas of swamps, and prairies, glided along at the base of “Starved Rock” near the great town of the Illinois, and on New Year’s Day, 1680, reached the head of the Illinois river, where they landed, and Father Hennepin celebrated the Mass. Four days later they had reached the long expansion—the river now called Peoria Lake, and near its southern end they came upon a large camp of Indians, who received them at first with surprise and enmity. But La Salle and his men leaped ashore, and by his bravery and knowledge of Indian character quelled their fears, so that Frenchmen and Indians were soon seated together at a feast such as the former had not for some time seen. The calumet of peace was exchanged and La Salle explained to his hosts his object and his wish for peace, so that they all retired to sleep in amity. In the morning, however, La Salle found that he was regarded with distrust, and soon learned that Indian emissaries from another tribe had been tampering, over-night, with his hosts—who now appeared quite indisposed to friendship. He saw, in this sudden change of front, the hand of the Jesuits, and when, at a second feast, tendered by one of the chiefs, he was urged to desist from his plan of descending the Mississippi, by arguments of the number, valor, and ferocity of the tribes inhabiting its valley, the terrors of alligators, serpents, and unnatural monsters, and the fearful nature of the river itself, he was fully confirmed in his opinion. In a strong, but temperate address, La Salle declared his disbelief in those marvelous tales, and affirmed that they were lies, inspired by French jealousy of his project, and sent them through Iroquois sources. A few days later, a band of Mississippi Indians visited the camp, from whom he learned the utter falsity of these stories and also had the assurance that the tribes along that river would receive the white men with favor. On this he took the first opportunity, at another feast, of confronting the Illinois chiefs with so full a description of the river (which he said had been communicated to him by “the Great Spirit”) its course and its final meeting with the sea, that his savage hearers “clapped their hands to their mouths,” in astonishment, and conceiving him to be a sorcerer, confessed that what they had said was false and inspired only by their desire to retain him amongst them.
Meanwhile, he had determined to fortify himself for the winter (it was now the middle of January) in a position where he could face an Illinois outbreak, or an Iroquois invasion, better than he could do in the Indian camp where he was then a guest. Taking advantage of a thaw, which temporarily reopened the frozen river, he with Hennepin, in a canoe, sought and soon found the site he had chosen. on a low hill, or knoll, half a league from the camp and about 200 yards from the southern bank. In front of this knoll was a marsh, overflowed at high tide, and on either side a ravine. A ditch was dug behind this knoll, connecting these two ravines, and thus isolating it from the mainland. On each side of the hill, which was nearly square, an embankment was thrown up and its sloping sides were guarded by chevaux-de-frise, and a 25-foot palisade surrounded the whole. The buildings within this area were of musket-proof timber. This fort, the first civilized act of occupation in the present State of Illinois, he named Fort Crèvecœur.
“La Salle’s men,” says Parkman, “were for the most part raw hands, knowing nothing of the wilderness, and easily alarmed at its dangers, * * * it was to the last degree difficult to hold men to their duty. Once fairly in the wilderness, completely freed from the sharp restraints of authority in which they had passed their lives, a spirit of lawlessness broke out among them with a violence proportioned to the pressure which had hitherto suppressed it. Discipline had no resources and no guarantee; while these outlaws of the forest, the courriers des bois, were always before their eyes, a standing example of unbridled license.” Desertions and disaffections among his followers were, at this time, a heavy burden to La Salle; and he even barely escaped from another attempt to poison him. Finally, however, having apparently placated the Indians of the vicinity, and checked, as he hoped, the disposition to mutiny and desertion among his men, which had been a constant menace to his plans,[14] he built, in an incredibly short time, a vessel of 40 tons’ burden with which to descend the river to the Mississippi. He also sent Hennepin and two others in a canoe to explore the Illinois to its junction with the larger river. He himself, having now given up all hopes of the Griffin, began a return to Canada, for needed supplies, in canoes, with four Frenchmen and an Indian hunter, leaving the faithful Tonti, with a dozen or so men to hold the fort and guard the half-finished ship. It was a desperate journey, but he felt that unless the articles lost in the Griffin were replaced without delay, the expedition would be retarded for a full year, and probably utterly foiled by the additional expense which would be incurred for the support of his men. On the way he met the two men whom he had sent back to Michilimackinac in search of the Griffin, but they brought him no tidings of her fate, and ordering them to join Tonti at Fort Crèvecœur, he pressed firmly on. He also took occasion to examine the capabilities of the “Starved Rock” upon the Illinois, and sent back word to Tonti to make it a stronghold of defense in case of necessity. His journey occupied sixty-five days of incessant toil, danger, and accidents that rendered it “the most adventurous one ever made by a Frenchman in America;” he himself was the only one of the party who did not break down, either from fatigue or illness, and when Lake Erie was reached, it was his arm alone which ferried their canoe over to the blockhouse at Niagara. They reached Fort Frontenac on the 6th of May, and he pushed on directly to Montreal.
His sudden reappearance there caused the greatest astonishment; and he was met on every hand with news of disaster. Both Man and Nature seemed in arms against him; his agents had plundered him, creditors had seized upon his property, a vessel from France, laden with stores valued at over 10,000 crowns, had been lost at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and of twenty men hired in Europe, some had been detained by the Intendant Duchesneau, and all but four of the remainder had been told that he was dead, and had returned home. Yet, undaunted by these staggering blows of Fortune, he went vigorously to work; and, within a week, succeeded in gaining the supplies he so much needed for the forlorn band he had left behind him on the Illinois. Finally, on the very eve of his embarkation from Fort Frontenac, a letter from Tonti informed him that most of the men left at Fort Crèvecœur had deserted, plundered the fort, and destroyed all the arms, goods, etc., which they could not carry away with them; and this was followed by a letter from two friendly lake traders which told him that the deserters had also destroyed his fort at St. Joseph, seizing a quantity of furs belonging to him at Michilimackinac,[15] and plundered the magazine at Niagara; and that, largely reinforced by others, they were seeking him along the northern shore of Lake Ontario, with the design of killing him, if they met, in order to escape punishment for their misdeeds. La Salle’s courage rose promptly to the occasion. Choosing nine of his trustiest men, he started out, in canoes, to face them, met and captured four of them in one canoe and killed two and captured three others in another canoe. His prisoners he placed in custody at Fort Frontenac, to await the coming of Governor-General Frontenac; and immediately put out on his return to the Illinois, and the relief of his gallant lieutenant Tonti. He took with him a new lieutenant, one La Forest, a surgeon, ship-carpenter, joiners, masons, soldiers, voyageurs and laborers, 25 men in all, with full outfits of all needed tools for the building of the vessel and a new fort. By a shorter route than that of the previous year, they arrived at Michilimackinac, pushed on with 12 men to the ruined fort at St. Joseph, where he left the heavy stores, under a small guard, to await the arrival of La Forest. His anxiety to reach Tonti, of whom, thus far, he had heard nothing, was greatly increased by a rumor of an impending invasion of the Illinois country, by the Iroquois, which foreboded a new disaster to his enterprise. And as the party passed down the Illinois, it met with evidences everywhere that the two savage tribes had indeed met in combat, to the utter rout of the Illinois; but their anxiety in regard to Tonti was not relieved by any word or sign. The vessel, however, which he had left unfinished at Fort Crèvecœur was still entire, and but slightly damaged. Once more taking to their canoes, they descended the river (250 miles) to its junction with the Mississippi, which they first saw about the 7th of December, 1681.[16] There was now nothing left for him, except to retrace his way up the Illinois to relieve the men whom he had left at the fort on the St. Joseph.[17] And, though to his surprise he learned no tidings of Tonti, he found that his men under La Forest’s orders had restored the fort, cleared a place for planting, and prepared the timber and plank for a new vessel.
Tonti, meanwhile, finding himself caught in the very midst of the terrible war between the Iroquois and the Illinois—from which he extricated himself and his party only by the supreme exercise of his wisdom and courage, against odds almost unsurmountable, had reached Lake Michigan, near Chicago, and following its borders northward had reached Green Bay, in a starved and half-frozen condition, from which they were relieved by a friendly tribe of Pottawatomies. In March, La Salle heard of the safety of Tonti, and in May, to their great joy, these two brave men were reunited.[18]
La Salle passed the winter at his fort on the Miami, on the St. Joseph, by the border of Lake Michigan, planning how to meet the old disappointments and difficulties which still surrounded him, as well as the new contingencies which he foresaw would soon arise. Of these latter, the most formidable was the enmity of the ferocious Iroquois nation, which had already terrorized the Illinois, and shown a disposition to interfere with his own plans. To this end, he conceived the idea of a confederation of the Illinois with some of the Western tribes, and some from the New England, and Atlantic borders of the East, which, under his leadership and the protection of France, would be a mutual defense against the incursions of the Iroquois. This bold project he speedily carried into effect, by his tact, personal address, and superb oratory—for he was a natural-born diplomat, especially in all his dealings with Indians. This done he returned to Canada, to compose his own disturbed affairs, collect his scattered resources, and placate his creditors. By the beginning of autumn he was again on his way to complete the task—already twice defeated—of discovering the mouth of the Mississippi. For, though he had satisfied himself that it really existed, he had still to determine its course, and navigability, and the nature of its exit into the ocean[19] as well as to acquaint himself with its resources, and its savage inhabitants. When he reached his fort at the Miami in October, he found there some of his new Indian allies from the East, and with 18 of them and 23 of his own Frenchmen, started for the headwaters of the Illinois—dragging their canoes and baggage on sledges, as the streams were frozen. They reached the Mississippi on the 6th of February, launched their little fleet of canoes, and—delayed a few days by floating ice—resumed their course, passing successively the mouths of the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Arkansas rivers, and making visits to many tribes along their course, by whom they were well received. As they reached the end of their journey, on the 6th of April, sixty-two days from the time of entering the river, they saw that the river divided into three broad channels, or mouths, of which La Salle followed the western one, Dautray the eastern, and Tonti the middle one.
After La Salle had located, in his canoe, the nearby borders of the great sea, or gulf (of Mexico) which spread before them, the three parties reassembled (April 9th, 1682) at a spot where a column was erected and near it a plate was buried bearing the arms inscribed with the words of France, and “Louis Le Grande, Roy de France et de Navarre, Règne, Le Neuvième, Avril, 1682.” Then while the Te Deum, the Exaudéat and the Domine Salvum fac Regem were chanted, the volleys of musketry discharged by the men under arms, with cries of “Vive le Roi;” a cross was planted beside the column and Le Sieur de Salle, sword in hand, proclaimed the new-found territory as Louisiana, and Louis XIV as its King and rightful Lord.
The vast domain thus secured, after the manner of those times, to the French Crown, extended from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, and from the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico to the farthest springs of the Missouri; but the name—Louisiana—which he gave it is now confined to a single commonwealth in the great sisterhood of states forming the United States of America.
Now, in the culmination of his triumph he was seized by an illness so severe as to threaten his life; and was unable to reach Fort Miami, even by slow stages, before August, and to rejoin Tonti, whom he had dispatched with news of his success to Canada. It seems to have been about this time that he began to abandon the difficult access which he had hitherto found, through Canada, with all its dangers and enemies, both whites and Indians; and to reach the region of his hopes and toils more directly by way of the Gulf of Mexico and the mouth of the Mississippi. His plans of descending that river by means of a vessel had twice been thwarted by disasters which proved its futility; and to attempt his purpose with canoes would be fraught with much difficulty and an enormous expense. He purposed now, in view of all his past experiences, to form on the banks of the Illinois a colony of French and Indians, as a place of storage of the furs which could be gathered by the various Western tribes; and as a defense against the Iroquois, who were alike inimical to the French and their Illinois allies. And rumors of an impending renewal of attack upon these allies urged him to greater speed; so he and Tonti repaired at once to “Starved Rock,” before mentioned.[20] This was a cliff, rising to a height of 125 feet, on the southern bank of the Illinois, presenting on three sides a sheer perpendicular wall, and on its other side a deep ravine; and it was accessible only by a difficult climb from behind. Its area was about an acre. This rock, in December, 1662, they cleared of the forest which crowned it, dragged timber up the ragged pathway, built storehouses and dwellings, and surrounded the summit with palisades. In this eyrie, which he christened Fort St. Louis of the Illinois, the winter was passed by La Salle’s company, and by tactful management he secured the friendship of the neighboring tribes.[21]