Angered at this treatment, Groseilliers went to Paris to seek justice from the king; but, obtaining none, he and Radisson offered their services to the English, whom they told of Hudson Bay and its great furtrading possibilities. It took several years, however, for negotiations to be completed; and it was while in London that Radisson, for the information of the English king, wrote his now famous journal of explorations in the Lake Superior country. Finally, after some unfortunate voyages, our explorers, in 1669, reached Hudson Bay in an English ship; and, as a result, there was formed in England the great Hudson Bay Company, which from that day to this has controlled the rich fur trade of those northern waters.
In later years (1678), we find Radisson and Groseilliers, who had been pardoned by Louis XIV., king of France, for their desertion to the English, back again in Paris. But after a time, suspicions as to their loyalty spread abroad, and they again joined the English, to whom they were useful in attracting Indian trade away from the French to the Hudson Bay Company. They died at last, in London, considered by the French as traitors to their own country. They will, however, live in history as daring explorers, who opened to the fur trade the country now known as Wisconsin, the waters of Lake Superior, and the vast region of Hudson Bay.
THE STORY OF JOLIET AND MARQUETTE
In history there are two "discoveries of the Mississippi"; the lower waters were discovered by the Spanish explorer, De Soto (April, 1541); and the upper waters, by Frenchmen from Canada or New France. Nothing came of De Soto's discovery for over a hundred years, for the Spaniards had no love for exploration that gave no promise of mines of precious metals, and it is to the French that we give chief credit for finding the Mississippi; for their discovery immediately led the way to a general knowledge of the geography and the savages of the great valley, and to settlements there by whites.
It is seldom safe to say who was the first man to discover anything, be it in geography, in science, or in the arts; generally, we can tell only who it was that made the first record of the discovery. Now it is quite possible that Frenchmen may have wandered into the Upper Mississippi valley before Radisson and Groseilliers appeared in Wisconsin (1654); but, if they did, we do not know of it. It is still a matter of dispute whether the "great river" described in Radisson's journal was the Mississippi; some writers think that it was, and that to him and to Groseilliers belongs the honor of the first-recorded discovery. Then, again, there are some who think that in 1670 the famous fur trader La Salle was upon the Mississippi; but that is a mere guess, and honors cannot be awarded upon guesswork. We do know, however, that in 1673 Joliet and Marquette set out for the very purpose of finding the Mississippi, and succeeded; and that upon their return they wrote reports of their trip and made maps of the country. Having thus opened the door, as it were, white men were thereafter frequent travelers on the broad waterway. Hence it is idle to discuss possible previous visits; to Joliet and Marquette are due the credit of regular, premeditated discovery.
Louis Joliet, who led this celebrated expedition, was at the time but twenty-eight years old. He was born in Quebec, had been educated at the Jesuit college there, and early in life became a fur trader. He learned several Indian languages, and made numerous long journeys into the wilderness, and, like Jean Nicolet before him, was regarded by the officers and the missionaries at Quebec as a man well fitted for the life of an explorer. In 1671 he went with Saint Lusson, one of the officials of New France, to Sault Ste. Marie. St. Lusson made peace with the Indians of the Northwest, and, in the name of the king of France, took possession of all the country bordering on the upper Great Lakes.
Upon returning to Quebec, Joliet met the famous Count Frontenac, but recently arrived from Paris, where he had been appointed as governor of New France. Frontenac was curious to know more about the Mississippi River, especially whether it flowed into the Pacific Ocean, or the "Southern Sea" as it was then called in Europe. In looking about for a man to head an expedition to the great river, he could hear of no one better prepared for such service than Joliet.
In those early days, no exploring party was complete without a priest; the conversion of the savages to Christianity was quite as important, in the eyes of the king, as the development of the fur trade. Father Jacques Marquette, then thirty-six years of age, was the Jesuit missionary at Point St. Ignace, on the Straits of Mackinac. When Joliet reached that outpost, after a long and weary canoe voyage up the now familiar Ottawa River and Georgian Bay route, he delivered orders to Marquette to join his party. Joliet was a favorite with his old instructors, the Jesuits, so that the two young men were well pleased with being united upon this project, Joliet to attend to the worldly affairs of the expedition, and Marquette to the religious. Both of them had had long training in the hard life of the wilderness, and understood Indian character and habits as well as any men in New France.