Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery

by N. D'Anvers

Now, for the first time, were heard whispers of the existence, not very far away from St. Esprit, of the great Father of Waters, the Mesipi, which flowed on and on forever to the south between vast prairies, where roamed the buffalo and the deer, where forests were almost unknown, and the wind swept unchecked over the tall whispering grasses.

Convinced that, from all he heard, the people on the Mesipi were ripe for the reception of the Gospel, and little dreaming of the identity of this great river with that of which the mouth had been discovered by De Soto so many years before, Allouez paid a visit to Quebec in 1668 to win recruits to go forth into the prairies. As usual, there were plenty of volunteers. Three short days after his arrival at the capital he was on his way back to Chagwamegan, accompanied by Louis Nicholas, and followed by Claude Dablon and James Marquette, who, as a preliminary step for the work before them, founded the mission of St. Mary’s on the Falls, between Lakes Superior and Huron, close to the spot where the Chippewayans had had their first interview with a white man a few years previously.

From St. Mary’s, which shortly became a rendezvous for young men anxious to help in the great movement, small parties went forth among the tribes dwelling on Lake Michigan, founding new missions on the site of the present Chicago, Milwaukee, etc.; and in 1669, Marquette, who to the zeal of a missionary added that of a geographical explorer, conceived the idea of navigating the great river. The Potawatomies assured him that the natives who dwelt on the Father of Waters would assuredly slay him, or, if he escaped their hands, he would be swallowed up by the monsters which haunted the deep places in the river. The French authorities were loth to consent to what seemed likely to end in a mere useless loss of life; but Marquette was resolute. He turned the long delay, before he could get permission to start, to account by learning something of the Illinois language, and in founding a kind of city of refuge for the scattered Hurons on the northern shores of Lake Michigan, which long formed a “key to the West, and rendezvous to the distant Algonquins under the protection of the French.”

In 1670, leaving Allouez and Dablon to continue their explorations in Eastern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, Marquette at last started for the South, accompanied by Joliet, a trader from Quebec, five young Frenchmen eager for adventure, and two Algonquin guides. Crossing Green Bay in birch-bark canoes, the little band of explorers ascended the Fox river, flowing into Lake Michigan on the west, for some little distance, and then crossed the country to the Wisconsin, on the banks of which they were very kindly received by a number of old men belonging to the Kickapoo, Mascoutin, and other tribes.

Here the guides, afraid to enter the Sioux territories and to face the horrors of the unknown South, returned to their homes, and the Europeans embarked alone upon the Wisconsin, down which they paddled for several days, eagerly scanning the prairies on either side for the first traces of the wild tribes of whom they had heard. Not a sign of human life was seen, however, until they came to the junction of the Wisconsin with the Mississippi itself. They found the great river without difficulty, and, to quote Marquette’s own words, “they happily entered it with a joy that can not be expressed.”

Down the glorious river, between the modern States of Iowa and Illinois, the two little canoes now floated, till, about sixty leagues below the mouth of the Wisconsin, our heroes noticed the trail of men on the western bank of the Mississippi. Determined at once to learn something of the people of the newly-discovered districts, Marquette and Joliet hastened to land, and, crossing one of the beautiful prairies of Iowa, they soon came to a group of three villages, one on the bank of a river, and two on a hill a little distance off. The river was the Moingona, now called Des Moines.

Four old men now advanced from the village on the stream, bearing with them the calumet of peace, a tobacco pipe, with a reed stem some two or three feet in length, ornamented with many colored feathers. Already familiar with this sign of amity, the white men knew they had now nothing to fear. The villagers were Illinois, which is the Indian word for “men;” and men they quickly proved themselves to be. Conducted to the wigwam of an aged chief, the French explorers were plied with eager questions; and when they told of the breaking of the power of the Iroquois by the “great Captain of the French,” the assembled “men” greeted the announcement with shouts of joy. Then followed the usual instruction in the broad truths of Christianity, and again the “men” rejoiced, doubtless connecting in their simple untutored minds the two items of good news. A grand feast was held in honor of those who had brought them, and when it was over, the visitors were escorted to their canoes by the chief and hundreds of his followers.

With a peace-pipe, the parting gift of the Illinois, hung round his neck as a charm against future dangers, Marquette continued his course, which now led him between the present States of Missouri and Illinois, among the weird perpendicular rocks forming so characteristic a feature of this part of the country, till he came to the junction of the Mississippi with its mighty and turbulent affluent, the Missouri, where the city of St. Louis now stands.

THE MISSISSIPPI AT ST. LOUIS. (1885.)