After La Salle had established Fort Crèvecœur among the Illinois, on the 29th of February, 1680, he sent Michel Accault (often spelt Ako) on a trading and exploring expedition to the Upper Mississippi. He took with him Anthony Augelle, called the Picard, and the Franciscan priest Louis Hennepin, in a canoe, with goods valued at about a thousand livres. In ascending the Mississippi the party was hindered by ice near the mouth of the Illinois River until the 12th of March, when they resumed their voyage. Following the windings of the Mississippi, La Salle mentions in a letter written on the 22d of August, 1682, at Fort Frontenac,[499] that they passed a tributary from the east called by the Sioux Meschetz Odéba,[500] now called Wisconsin, and twenty-three or twenty-four leagues above they saw the Black River, called by the Sioux Chabadeba.[501] About the 11th of April, at three o’clock in the afternoon, a war-party of Sioux going south was met, and Accault, as the leader, presented the calumet,[502] and gave them some tobacco and twenty knives. The Sioux gave up their expedition, and conducted Accault and his companions to their villages. On the 22d of April the isles in the Mississippi were reached, where two Sioux had been killed by the Maskoutens, and they stopped to weep over their death, while Accault, to assuage their grief, gave them in trade a box of goods and twenty-four hatchets. Arriving at an enlargement of the river, about three miles below the modern city of St. Paul, the canoes were hidden in the marshes, and the rest of the journey to the villages of Mille Lacs was made by land. Six weeks after they reached the villages, the Sioux determined to descend the Mississippi on a buffalo hunt, and Hennepin and Augelle went with the party.
When Du Lhut reached the Mississippi from Lake Superior, he found eight cabins of Sioux, and learned that some Frenchmen were with the party hunting below the St. Croix River. Surprised by the intelligence, leaving two Frenchmen to guard his goods, he descended in a canoe with his interpreter and his other two men, and on the morning of the third day he found the hunting camp and the Franciscan Hennepin. In a letter to Seignelay, written while on a visit in France, Du Lhut writes:—
“The want of respect which they showed to the said Reverend Father provoked me, and this I showed them, telling them he was my brother. And I had him placed in my canoe to come with me into the villages of the said Nadouecioux, whither I took him; and a week after our arrival I caused a council to be convened, exposing the ill treatment which they had been guilty of, both to the said Reverend Father and to the other two Frenchmen who were with him, having robbed them and carried them off as slaves,[503] and even taken the priestly vestments of said Reverend Father.
“I had two calumets, which they had danced to, returned, on account of the insults which they had offered, being what they hold most in esteem to appease matters, telling them I did not take calumets from the people who, after they had seen me and received my peace presents, and had been for a year always with Frenchmen, robbed them when they went to visit them. Each one in the council endeavored to throw the blame from himself, but their excuses did not prevent my telling the Reverend Father Louis that he would have to come with me towards the Outagamys [Foxes], as he did; showing him that it would strike a blow at the French nation, in a new discovery, to suffer an insult of this nature without manifesting resentment, although my design was to push on to the sea in a west-northwesterly direction, which is that which is believed to be the Red Sea [Gulf of California], whence the Indians who had gone to war on that side gave salt to three Frenchmen whom I had sent exploring, and who brought me said salt, having reported to me that the Indians had told them that it was only twenty days’ journey from where they were to find the great lake, whose waters were worthless to drink. They had made me believe that it would not be absolutely difficult to find it, if permission were given to go there.
“However, I preferred to retrace my steps, exhibiting the just indignation I felt, rather than to remain, after the violence which they had done to the Reverend Father and the other two Frenchmen who were with him, whom I put in my canoes and brought back to Michelimakinak.”
It was not until some time in May, 1681, that Du Lhut arrived at Montreal, and although he protested that his journey had only been in the interest of discovery and of peace-making with the tribes, the Intendant of Justice accused him of violating the King’s edict against trading with the Indians, and Frontenac held him for a time in the castle at Quebec, more as a friend than as a prisoner. It was but a little while before an amnesty came from the King of France to all suspected of being “coureurs des Bois,” and authorizing Governor Frontenac to issue yearly twenty-five licenses to twenty-five canoes, each having three men, to trade among the savages.
Duchesneau, the Intendant of Justice, still complained that the Governor winked at illicit trade, and on the 13th of November, 1681, he wrote to Seignelay, who had succeeded his father as Minister for the Colonies:—
“But not content with the profits to be derived within the countries under the King’s dominion, the desire of making money everywhere has led the Governor, Sieurs Perrot, Boisseau, Du Lhut, and Patron, his uncle, to send canoes loaded with peltries to the English. It is said that sixty thousand livres’ worth has been sent thither; and though proof of this assertion cannot be adduced, it is a notorious report.... Trade with the English is justified every day, and all those who have pursued it agree that beaver carried to them sells for double what it does here, for that worth fifty-two sous, six deniers, the pound, duty paid, brings eight livres there, and the beaver for Russia sells there at ten livres the pound in goods.”
On grounds of public policy Frontenac in 1682 was recalled, and De la Barre, his successor, in October of this year held a conference with the most influential persons, among whom was Du Lhut, who afterward sailed for France, and early in 1683[504] there wrote the letter to Seignelay from which extracts have been made.
The Iroquois having found it profitable to carry the beavers of the northwest to the English at Albany, determined to wage war against the tribes of the upper Lakes, seize Mackinaw, and drive away the French. Governor de la Barre, to thwart this scheme, in May, 1683, sent Oliver Morrel, the Sieur de la Durantaye, with six canoes and thirty good men, to Mackinaw, and the Chevalier de Baugy was ordered to the fort established by La Salle on the Illinois River, in charge of Tonty. As soon as Durantaye reached Mackinaw, he immediately sent parties to Green Bay to take steps to humble the Pottawattamies for the hostility exhibited toward the French. He afterward went down the west side of Lake Michigan, and Chevalier de Baugy proceeded on the other side, hoping to meet La Salle, who was expected to go to Mackinaw by following the eastern shore.