French Pathfinders in North America

by William Henry Johnson

Still La Salle might have settled down in his seigniory, commanded his soldiers, lorded it over his colony, controlled the trade of the Lakes, paid off his debts, and have grown enormously rich within a few years from the profits of the fur-trade. But he flew at higher game than money, and cared for it only as it might serve his ambition. He was dreaming of the Gulf of Mexico and in imagination ruling a Southwestern New France many times larger than the old.

Therefore he took ship again for France. This time he went crowned with success. He had done all and more than all that he had engaged to do. He had torn down the wooden fort and replaced it with one of stone, surmounted with nine cannon. He had erected a forge, a mill, a bakery, barracks, and officers' quarters. He had gathered about him a village of Iroquois, who were under the teaching of two Recollet friars. Some French families had been settled on farms. Land had been cleared and planted. Cattle, fowls, and swine had been brought up from Montreal. Four small vessels had been built for use on the lake and river. Altogether, French civilization was handsomely represented at this lonely outpost; and La Salle had shown what he was capable of doing as an organizer and ruler. Now he went to ask another grant.

Fancy the dismay of his opponents when he came back, in the following year, with an extraordinary commission that gave him authority to "labor at the discovery of the western parts of New France, through which, to all appearance, a way may be found to Mexico." The last words show its true purpose. Louis aimed a blow at his enemy, Spain, the mistress of Mexico, and La Salle was the arm through which he meant to strike. The document gave him authority to build forts wherever he saw fit, and to own and govern them under the same conditions as Fort Frontenac. In short, he had a roving commission to go wherever he pleased between the eastern end of Lake Ontario and the borders of Mexico, and to exercise the authority of a royal governor anywhere in all that vast region. But he must do all at his own expense, and he must do it all within five years.

His most serious need was that of money. But, with his usual success in drawing other men's means into his schemes, he obtained a large sum, on which he was to pay interest at the rate of forty per cent. We can see that he was piling up debts fast enough to meet the wishes of his heartiest haters.

Now La Salle was in a position to enter on his grand undertaking, the dream to which he devoted his life. His first step was to send a party of men ahead in canoes to Lake Michigan, to trade with the Indians and collect provisions against his coming, while another party, one of whom was the famous Father Hennepin, started in a small vessel up Lake Ontario, to await La Salle's coming at Niagara. In due time they reached the Niagara River, and the earliest published account of the great cataract is Father Hennepin's.[1]

This advance party had orders to begin a fort on the Niagara River, but the distrust of the Senecas proved to be an obstinate barrier. This famous tribe, occupying the Genesee Valley northward to the shore of Lake Ontario, while on the west its territory extended to Lake Erie, was fiercely jealous of white men's coming to plant themselves in their country.

When La Salle arrived, however, with his usual tact in managing Indians, he succeeded in securing their consent to his putting up, not a fort, but a fortified warehouse at the mouth of the Niagara River and building a vessel above the Falls.

Now the first of a series of misfortunes befell him in the loss of the little vessel that had brought him to Niagara. She was freighted with the outfit for his great exploration and with goods for barter. But everything was lost, except only the anchors and cables intended for the vessel that was to be built. He bore the loss with his unvarying fortitude.

At last all difficulties were so far overcome that the keel of the little vessel was laid. While the work was going on, Indians were hanging around watching it sullenly, and a squaw told the French that her people meant to burn it. The weather was cold, and the men of the party themselves had little heart in the enterprise. The loss of provisions in the wrecked vessel had put them on short allowance. Only the skill of two Mohegan hunters kept them supplied with food. It was hard work, too, for the builders needed to bring loads from the other vessel on their backs, a distance of some twelve miles.