[60] For the original documents pertaining to La Salle's work see Margry's collection. For standard secondary accounts see the works of Parkman and Winsor. I have drawn freely upon these in preparing this portion of my own narrative.
At last Tonty arrived, bringing news which rendered probable the loss of La Salle's sailing vessel, the "Griffin," with her cargo of furs. Early in December the combined party ascended the St. Joseph River to the portage leading to the Kankakee, near the site of the modern city of South Bend. Down the latter river they passed and into the Illinois, until they came to the great Indian village, in the vicinity of Starved Rock, where Marquette and Allouez had labored as missionaries during the past five years. The place was deserted, however, the inhabitants having departed for their annual winter hunt. The journey was resumed, therefore, as far as Lake Peoria, near which place a village of the Illinois was found.
A parley was held with the Indians, in the course of which La Salle unfolded his design of building a fort in their midst, and a "great wooden Canoe" on the Mississippi, which would go down to the sea, and return thence with the goods they so much desired. La Salle was successful in overcoming alike the suspicions of the natives, the intrigues of his enemies, and the disloyalty of his own men. A site suitable for a fort was selected, and here in the dead of winter was constructed the first civilized habitation of a permanent character in the modern state of Illinois; the Indians gave to the fort the name of Checagou, but by La Salle it was christened Fort Crevecoeur.
La Salle had thus established himself in the heart of the Mississippi Valley, and had initiated the work of carving out what was to become the imperial domain of French Louisiana. But the major portion of that work lay yet before him, and difficulties were to succeed one another in its prosecution until the leader's death at the hands of a hidden assassin was to terminate his life in seeming failure. It is not our purpose here to attempt a history of La Salle's career; rather our aim is to sketch such of its salient features as may be pertinent to the unfolding of the story of the genesis of Chicago. The loss of the "Griffin" imposed upon La Salle the necessity of returning to Fort Frontenac for supplies. Having urged forward the construction of his fort and arranged for the departure of Hennepin and his associates on what eventuated in their famous exploration of the upper waters of the Mississippi, La Salle left Tonty in command at Fort Crevecoeur, and himself, in March, 1680, set forth on his long and terrible journey. In its course he again paused near Starved Rock, noted the ease with which it might be defended, and passing on to Fort Miami, dispatched orders to Tonty to occupy and fortify it. He then crossed on foot the trackless waste of southern Michigan in the season of spring floods, and came at last to his destination. He spent some months in setting his affairs in order, and in August, 1680, set out on the return to Illinois, passing by way of Mackinac and thence down the eastern side of Lake Michigan to Fort Miami.
Meanwhile, what of Tonty and affairs at Fort Crevecoeur? Faithful to his orders, Tonty, on receipt of the dispatch which La Salle had sent forward from Fort Miami, set forth to occupy Starved Rock. In his absence the men left at Fort Crevecoeur, spurred on by the tales of financial disaster to La Salle related by the new arrivals, rose in mutiny. They destroyed the fort, stole its provisions, and writing on the side of the unfinished vessel the legend Nous sommes tons sauvages—"We are all savages"—departed. Upon the heels of this disaster succeeded a still greater menace to La Salle's designs. It was essential to their success that the Illinois Indians should retain peaceable possession of their territory. But now came against them a war party of the terrible Iroquois. They assailed and destroyed the village at the Rock and pursued the fleeing Illinois until the scattered survivors found refuge across the Mississippi.
The indomitable Tonty, almost alone in this sea of savagery, had done what he could to save the Illinois from destruction. His efforts proved vain, and with his few followers he fled from impending destruction. Their goal was distant Mackinac, and their route was up the Illinois and the Des Plaines to Lake Michigan and thence northward along its western shore. Doubtless the forlorn little party passed by Chicago, though we have no direct details as to this portion of their journey. Hardships and dangers in abundance were endured before the survivors found refuge with a band of friendly Pottawatomies at some point to the southward of Green Bay.
Shortly after the destruction of the Illinois La Salle, in ignorance of what had happened, came from Fort Miami to the relief of Tonty. In the ghastly remains of the village at Starved Rock he read the story of this new disaster to his plans. Failing to find the bodies of Tonty and his companions among them, he followed in the track of the pursued and pursuing savages until he reached the Mississippi. Concluding at last that Tonty had not come this way he retraced his steps to the junction of the Kankakee with the Des Plaines, and turning up the latter stream soon found traces of Tonty's party. It was now the dead of winter. Convinced of Tonty's escape, La Salle abandoned the canoes, which he had dragged with him on sledges thus far and made his way overland through extreme cold and deep snow to Fort Miami, where he arrived at the end of January.
The design was now conceived by La Salle of welding the western tribes into a confederation, which, under the guidance of himself and his French followers, should oppose the marauding incursions of the Iroquois into the West. The year 1681 was devoted to the furthering of this project and to the gathering of La Salle's scattered resources for a renewal of his attempt at establishing himself in the Mississippi Valley. Late in the year he was again at Fort Miami with a considerable party of French and Indians, ready for the exploit which has given him his greatest fame—the descent of the Mississippi to its mouth.
From Fort Miami the route followed led around the foot of Lake Michigan to Chicago; thence across the portage and down the Des Plaines, the Illinois, and the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. The expedition set forth in two divisions, Tonty with the first crossing over to the Chicago River in the closing days of December, 1681, where he prepared sledges for transporting the canoes and equipment on the ice, and awaited the arrival of his chief. La Salle with the second division arrived early in January, and after a detention of a few days, occasioned by unfavorable weather, the united party set out, dragging their sledges on the surface of the frozen rivers until open water was reached below Lake Peoria. There they embarked, and three months later, on April 9, 1682, at the mouth of the Great River he had descended La Salle took formal possession, under the name of Louisiana, of all the vast country drained by it and by its tributaries, stretching "from the Alleghenies to the Rocky Mountains; from the Rio Grande and the Gulf to the farthest springs of the Missouri."[60]
[60] Parkman, La Salle, chap. xxi.