The Man with the Iron Hand

by John Carl Parish

THE BLACK GOWN

In the valley of the Mississippi it was summer again. Father Marquette, still sick, had not come back to the Illinois tribes. The Peorias and Kaskaskias, in their two villages on the Illinois River, lived comfortable, happy lives, for theirs was a beautiful and fertile valley in these sunny summer months. In the rich soil of the prairies the Indian women had planted seeds which had been carefully preserved from the year before. And now in the fields the young girls were working among the long rows of Indian corn and tending the bean-vines. In their season melons and squashes grew plentifully. The woods along the river were full of game; and in the quiet water of the Illinois, fish by the hundred swam to and fro, an easy target for the swift-winged arrow of the Indian youth. Far back on the plains roamed great herds of buffalo, which afforded both sport and food for the Indians. When fall came, the Indians would surround a herd of buffalo and then set fire to the prairie, taking care to leave an open space by which the frightened animals could escape. As the big animals passed out through this break in the circle of fire, they were easily shot by the Indian hunters.

All up and down the river and over on the Lake of the Illinois, the winter of 1674 fell upon the land with stinging fierceness. The air was so cold that it was almost brittle. The winds howled and swept through the valley with gusts that drove the Indians chilled to their firesides; while the snow, as it piled higher and higher, often brought despair to the men scattered far and wide on their long winter hunts. Sometimes the deer were so lean as to be scarcely worth the shooting. From the Mississippi to the cold shores of the Lakes the men of the Illinois tribes were hunting and trapping and trading furs.

One day during this bleak winter there came striding into the village of the Kaskaskias an Indian of great note among the Illinois. He was Chassagoac, the famous Kaskaskia chief and fur trader. Having just come from the upper shores of Lake Michigan, he reported that near Green Bay he had come upon Father Marquette with two Frenchmen, setting out at last for the villages of the Illinois. Coming into camp with a deer on his back, he had shared his meat with these white men and on the next day had set out with them down the west shore of the Lake. The courageous priest was still far from well, but he was determined to keep his promise to the Illinois Indians. Accompanied by a number of Illinois men who were out on the winter hunt, and by the Illinois women who had packed the canoes and equipments across the portage from Green Bay to the Lake, the party made their way slowly southward along the shore.

Father Marquette spent part of the time teaching the Indians; while his two men, Pierre and Jacques, mended the guns of the Indian hunters and went out with them in search of game. Their canoes were too frail to stand much of the weather that now hung about the edge of the Lake. Floating ice drove them ashore again and again. Rain, sleet, and fierce, chilling winds kept them off the water for days at a time, while deep snows impeded their progress on land.

Early in December, they reached the mouth of the Chicago River, where, moving inland a few leagues, the white men built a rude cabin and made ready to encamp for the winter. Marquette still suffered greatly and could go no farther. Here Chassagoac and his Illinois followers left the party and came on to the village; but not before they had bought of the whites, for three fine beaver skins, a cubit of the French tobacco. Then they had journeyed on to bring the news that the Black Gown would come in the spring. Great was the rejoicing among the Illinois.

Weeks had passed when Jacques, the priest’s servant, came to one of the Illinois camps and told of how the Black Gown lay sick in the cabin near the Lake. Thereupon the Indians sent back a delegation with corn and dried meat and pumpkins and beaver skins. With these presents they asked for powder and other merchandise. The priest replied that he had come to encourage peace—that he did not wish them to make war upon the Miamis—and so he could not send them powder; but he loaded them down for their twenty-league journey with hatchets and knives and beads and mirrors.

Now it happened that there were two white traders who had also ventured into the land of the Illinois; and from their cabins they brought supplies to the sick priest. One of these men, who called himself a surgeon, stayed awhile at the lonely cabin of Marquette, glad to hear mass and do what he could to relieve the sufferings of the black-gowned father.

It was with exceeding great joy that the white men in their cabin near the Lake and the Indians in their hunting-camps and villages along the river welcomed the warmer winds from the south that broke up the ice in the river and unlocked the wintry hold that had bound the land. Wild animals appeared and meat became plentiful once more. The snow melted down into rushing streams or sank into the friendly earth. As the sun became warmer at midday, the Indian women prepared for the season of planting.

On the 8th day of April, in the year 1675, a shout of welcome went up in the Kaskaskia village, for the long-expected priest had come. This quiet man, kind of face and gentle of manner, found himself among friends who looked with sorrow at the signs of sickness graven upon his patient face. They knew as well as he that he had not many months to live. But they saw also upon his face a wonderful joy, for the priest had accomplished the one great purpose that had upheld him in the weary weeks of suffering—he had come again to preach to the Illinois Indians.