Alexander County IL Archives History - Books .....Chapter II Early French Explorers And Missionary Priests 1910 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com August 15, 2006, 4:52 am Book Title: A History Of The City Of Cairo Illiniois CHAPTER II EARLY FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARY PRIESTS THOUGH so often told, and now getting to be somewhat of an old story, it seems somehow naturally to fall into line with every account of places and points on the Mississippi River; and hence we beg to be allowed to refer briefly to some of the old French explorers. M. Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette, commissioned to accompany him, left the Mission of St. Ignace, May 17, 1673, to find the Mississippi and especially to find into what body of water it flowed. They crossed the lake and entered Green Bay, ascended Fox River, made the portage to the Wisconsin, and passing down that river reached the Mississippi June 17, 1673. Some of the incidents of this voyage on the great river were, their friendly reception by the Indians; their passage of the mouth of the Missouri, whose rushing waters filled them with wonder and some of them with fear; their pause, about July 1st, at the mouth of the Ouabache (Ohio) to reflect that the river was long and came from the country of the Iroquois; their arrival at the mouth of the Arkansas, where they became satisfied the great stream did not flow into the Gulf of California, but into the Gulf of Mexico; their return, July 17th, up the river and their passage again of the mouth of the Ohio about August 1st; and their arrival at Kaskaskia on the Illinois the latter part of that month. Joliet was the leader, intent on discoveries, intent on finding things; Marquette, the chronicler, the observer, the missionary, writing much about the Indians and their superstitions. Father Louis Hennepin has been doubted, from time to time, by a number of writers, some of whom have found themselves in error and acknowledged the same. It would be quite out of place to enter into a controversy here and show why we should omit what he claims to have seen or discovered. We give two or three short extracts: "The next day, being the 10th of March, 1660, we came to a river within forty leagues of the Tamaroa; near which, as the Illinois inform us, there is a nation of savages called Ouadebache. We remained until the 14th, because one of our men killed a wild cow as she was swimming over the river, whose flesh we were obliged to dry with smoke to preserve it. Being thus provided with Indian corn and flesh, we left that place the 14th, and saw nothing worth observation. The banks of the river are so muddy and so full of rushes and reeds, that we had much to do to find a place to go ashore. "They, the Indians, called Sicacha or Chickasas, offered to go and settle themselves upon the river Ouabache to be near Fort Crevecoeur in the country of Illinois, whither they are traveling. This famous river of the Ouabache is fully as large as Meschasipi. A great many other rivers run into it. The outlet where it discharges itself into the Meschasipi is two hundred leagues from the Akansa, according to M. de La Salle's computation. The truth is, it is not so far, across the country, but it may be as much in following the course of the river Meschasipi, which winds about very much. Start over land it is not above five good days' journey. They crossed the river Ouabache August 26, 1687, and found it full sixty leagues along the river Meschasipi to the mouth of the river Illinois." We are told to beware of Baron de La Hontan quite as much if not more than of Father Hennepin; but we must give the little he says about the Ohio river:— "After we had spent two days with them, we pursued our voyage to the River Ouabache, taking care to watch the Crocodiles very narrowly, of which they had told us incredible Stories. The next day we enter'd the Mouth of that River, and sounded it, to try the truth of what the Savages reported of its depth. In effect, we found three Fathoms and a half of Water; but the Savages of our Company alledg'd that 'twas more swell'd than usually. They all agreed that 'twas Navigable an hundred Leagues up, and I wish'd heartily that my time had allow'd me to run up to its Source; but that being unreasonable, I sail'd up against the Stream, till we came to the River of the Illinese, which we made on the gth of April with some difficulty, for the Wind was against us the first two days, and the Currents was very rapid." This was in 1689. (See Thwaites' La Hontan's Voyages, Vol. I, p. 205). Cavelier de La Salle, who, it seems in 1669, four years earlier, had gone as far southward as the Ohio River at the falls, was more interested in the story of the journey of Joliet and Marquette than any one else. It seemed strange to him that they had stopped short of the gulf, but he was thankful for it, no doubt. The deterrent effect of the stories of Indians on the lower Mississippi aroused in him few and slight fears. It was an opportunity not to be lost, an opportunity furnished by others, who should have taken it themselves. La Salle, with Tonti and Membre, left Fort Miami, near where St. Joseph, Michigan, now stands, December 21, 1681, crossed the lake to the Chicago River, and, loading their canoes and baggage on sleds they there made, worked their way on land and frozen rivers down to a point at or below Lake Peoria, and from thence proceeded by water, and on the 6th of February, 1682, they rowed out upon the Mississippi. They were detained at the mouth of the Missouri by the floating ice until February 15th, when they proceeded on their journey. They reached the mouth of the Ohio about February 20th, the bluffs north of Memphis the 24th, and the Gulf April 9, 1682. There they erected the standards of Louis XIV and of the Church, and proclaimed the whole country of the great valley part of the dominions of the great French king. Joutel, writing after the death of La Salle, speaks as follows of the Ohio:— "The 19th of August (1687), we came to the mouth of the river, called Houabache, said to come from the country of the Iroquois toward New England. That is a very fine river. Its waters are extraordinary clear and the current of it gentle. Our Indians offered up to it, by way of sacrifice, some tobacco and beefstakes, which they fixed on forks and left them on the bank, to be disposed of as the river saw fit." Father Jean Francois de St. Cosine, a Canadian Seminarian Priest, writing to the Bishop of Quebec, speaks of this place as follows:— "We left Cape St. Antoine (Grand Tower) on the 14th of December (1699), and on the 15th, we halted for the night one league below the Wabache (Ohio), a large and beautiful river, which is on the left of the Mississippi and comes from towards the north, and is, they say, five hundred leagues long, and rises near the Sonontuans (Senecas). They go by this river to the Chananous (Shawnees) who traded with the English. On the 16th we started from the Wabache and nothing special befell us nor did we find anything remarkable until we reached the Acansias (Arkansas)." Father Jacques Gravier left Michilimackinac September 8, 1700. His journey was by the Illinois and the Mississippi, and with his canoes and companions he reached the mouth of the Ohio about October 15, 1700. Here they were detained by the illness of one or two of their number until October i6th, when they resumed their voyage to the Gulf. While here Father Gravier was chiefly concerned about the illness of his companions, who seemed to have been taken with what the Father called the tertian fever, a fever coming on every third day, and for this severe disease he relates how he discovered a most excellent remedy. He says little about the two rivers or their junction, but like the few others who had preceded him, he looked forward anxiously to what was still to be found ahead of him. One point is reached only to arouse concern as to what is to be seen or met with further on. His account should be read, first to see his care for the Indians, who were then leaving their loved home on the Illinois for their new one on the Mississippi, where they established the second Kaskaskia, and, second, for the description of the wild game they saw and some of which they killed here and there. He speaks of the bears, and says those along the Mississippi were lean and those of and from the Ohio were fat, and that all of them seemed to be moving from the south to the north. The day they reached here they saw fifty of them, only four of which they killed—all they needed. It is interesting to read the whole account, found in Vol. LXV, Jesuit Relations, pp. 105-111. Of his remedy for the tertian fever, he says: "I found an excellent remedy for curing our French of their fever. A small piece of Father Francois Regis' hat, which one of our servants gave me, is the most infallible remedy that I know of for all kinds of fever." He speaks also of the fine weather. It was about the middle of the month of October, 1700. October is, perhaps, the finest month of our year. Sieur Charles Juchereau de St. Denis, of France, and afterwards of Canada, obtained a concession from his government, and came hither with thirty other Frenchmen, in about the year 1702, and built a fort and a tannery here or within a few miles of the junction of the rivers. Pontchartrain had sought the establishment of a fort and post at this point. The French on the lower Mississippi claimed jurisdiction over everything adjoining that river on the east, throughout its entire length. Juchereau was, in modern phrase, a business Frenchman and prosecuted trade in this region with diligence and enterprise. The Canadian French were not friendly to his pursuits in this latitude. They wanted everything in the Illinois country made tributary to their St. Lawrence course of trade and traffic. The country here must have been swarming with buffaloes; for in the course of a year or two, Juchereau and his thirty Frenchmen had killed and skinned thirteen thousand of them and had their skins in store and ready for shipment. What a time they must have had hunting in this region! The country abounded in game of all kinds besides buffaloes. Think of the bears, the deer, the turkeys, the geese and ducks, and many other kinds of game. Father Gravier, in 1700, said the bears on the Mississippi were lean, but those on the Ohio were fat and well favored. Juchereau no doubt came down this far to be .on the Wabash (Ohio) as well as on the Mississippi. They hunted in all three of these states, over in Bal-lard County (Ky.), Mississippi County (Mo.), and in our own Alexander County, and much further and in all directions. There were no game laws. No licenses were required nor descriptions of the hunters, and all seasons were hunting seasons. They were probably located on the little river north of us, and it is altogether probable they gave it the name of Cache. This name, Cache River, appears on an old map of 1755, but it no doubt bore that name long before it obtained a place on any one's map. The Indians did not give the river one of their names. The French named it, and if there is any truth in the statements of numerous historical writers as to Juchereau, and his fort and tannery, his buffaloes and buffalo skins, it is highly probable our little river received its name from him. But Juchereau was not permitted to enjoy the fruits of his labors and self-imposed exile here in the wilds of North America. The Indians were here, too, as well as abundant game. They waited until Juchereau had accumulated a large stock and store of skins and furs, of every kind and description, and selecting a convenient occasion and with united forces, they made an attack upon him and his men and killed almost all of them and seized the whole of their valuable collections. Juchereau himself escaped and reached Kaskaskia, then but recently established, where it is said he died in 1705. The news of what had befallen him was carried to all parts of New France. It reached Mobile and all the southern country and much was said about expeditions to the Wabash to check, if possible, the depredations of the Indians. In another part of the book is a list of the old maps showing a fort at this place. One rather peculiar feature of the matter is that one or two of the old maps made some years before Juchereau came here show a fort on the point between the rivers. Father Gabriel Marest wrote from "Cascaskias, November 9," 1712, to Father Germon as follows:— "About eighty leagues below, on the side of the river Illinois, that is to say, on the eastern side, (for the general course of the Mississippi is from north to south), is the mouth of again another fine river called Ouabache. It comes from the east-northeast and has three branches, one of which extends to the country of the Iroquois, another towards Virginia and Carolina, and the third even to the Miamis. It is said that silver mines have been found there. This, however, is certain, that there are in that country mines of lead and tin, and should some miners by profession come to make excavations in these lands, they might perhaps find mines of copper and other metals. "Besides these large rivers which water the country to such an extent, there are also a great number of those which are smaller. It is on one of these rivers that our village is situated, on the eastern side, between the rivers Ouabache and Pekitanoui (Missouri). We are in the 38th degree of latitude. Large numbers of buffaloes and bears can be seen, which feed on the banks of the river Ouabache. The flesh of the young bears is a very delicate meat." Father Xavier de Charlevoix's journey was from Quebec, via Montreal, Niagara, Erie, Detroit, Michilimackinac and Lake Michigan to St. Joseph, thence a portage to the Kankakee, thence by the Illinois and the Mississippi to Kaskaskia. Here at "Kaskasquias," October 20, 1721, he writes as follows:— "The 10th of October, about nine in the morning, after we had gone five leagues on the Mississippi, we arrived at the mouth of the Missouri, which is north northward and south southeast. I believe this is the finest confluence in the world. The two rivers are much of the same breadth, each about a half league; but the Missouri is by far the most rapid, and seems to enter the Mississippi like a conqueror, through which it carries its white waters to the opposite shore without mixing them. Afterwards it gives its color to the Mississippi, which it never loses again, but carries it on down to the sea. "It was about the 10th of November, at sun set, that I embarked on the little river of Kaskaskia. I had but two leagues to the Mississippi; nevertheless, I was obliged to encamp at about half way; and the next day I could make but six leagues on the river. "The 15th, the wind changed to the north and the cold increased. We went four leagues to the south; then we found that the river turned four leagues to the north. Immediately after this reach, we passed on the left by the river Ouabache, by which one may go on up to the Iroquois when the waters are high. Its entrance into the Mississippi is a little less than a quarter of a league wide. There is no place in Louisiana more fit, in my opinion, for a settlement than this, nor where it is of more consequence to have one. All the country that is watered by the Ouabache (Ohio) and by the Ohio (Wabash) that runs into it, is very fruitful. It consists of vast meadows, well watered, where the wild buffaloes feed by thousands. Furthermore, the communication with Canada is as easy as by the river of the Illinois, and the way much shorter. A fort with a good garrison would keep the savages in awe, especially the Cherokees, who are at present the most numerous nation of this continent." Accompanying Charlevoix's journal is a map, upon which is found a mark or X on the point between the two rivers, and the words, "A ruined old fort." Father Vimer, in a lengthy letter of November 17, 1750, written no doubt at Kaskaskia, and to another Father of the Society of Jesus, spoke of the need of a fort at this place as follows:— "The distance from the Akansas to the Illinois is nearly one hundred and fifty leagues; through all that extent of country there is not a single settlement. Nevertheless, to ensure us its possession, it would be well if we had a good fort upon the Ouabache, the only place where the English can enter the Mississippi." Before getting too far along, let me note here how this immediate region of country was dealt with a century or more ago. ILLINOIS LAND COMPANY OF 1773.—"On the 5th of July, 1773, at a public council held at the village of Kaskaskia, an association of English traders and merchants, who styled themselves, 'the Illinois Land Company,' obtained from ten chiefs of the Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Peoria tribes, a deed for two very large tracts of land on the east side of the river Mississippi. The first tract was bounded thus: 'Beginning at the mouth of the Huron creek, called by the French the river of Mary, being about a league below the mouth of the Kaskaskia river; thence a northward of east course, in a direct line back to the Hilly Plains, eight leagues, or thereabouts, be the same more or less; thence, the same course, in a direct line to the Crabtree Plains, seventeen leagues, or thereabouts, be the same more or less; thence, the same course, in a direct line to a remarkable place, known by the name of the Big Buffalo Hoofs, seventeen leagues, or thereabouts, be the same more or less; thence, the same course, in a direct line to the Salt Lick creek, about seven leagues, be the same more or less; thence, crossing the said creek, about one league below the ancient Shawanees town, in an easterly or a little to the north of east course, in a direct line to the river Ohio, about four leagues, be the same more or less; then down the Ohio, by the several courses thereof, until it empties itself into the Mississippi, about thirty-five leagues, be the same more or less; and then up the Mississippi, by the several courses thereof to the place of beginning, thirty-three leagues, or thereabouts, be the same more or less.' The purchase of these territories was made for the Illinois Land Company, by a certain William Murray, who was then a trader in the Illinois country; and from the deed of conveyance it appears that the price which the Indians by agreement received, was two hundred and fifty blankets, two hundred and sixty strouds, three hundred and fifty shirts, one hundred and fifty pair of stroud and half thick stockings, one hundred and fifty stroud breechcloths, five hundred pounds of gunpowder, four thousand pounds of lead, one gross of knives, thirty pounds of vermillion, two thousand gunflints, two hundred pounds of brasskettles, two hundred pounds of tobacco, three dozen gilt lookingglasses, one gross gun worms, two gross awls, one gross of firesteels, sixteen dozen of gartering, ten thousand pounds of flour, five hundred bushels of Indian corn, twelve horses, twelve horned cattle, twenty bushels of salt, twenty guns, and five shillings in money. The Indian deed was attested by ten persons, and recorded, on the zd of September, 1773, in the office of a notary public at Kaskaskia."—Dillon's History of Indiana, pages 102-104. SOLDIERS' RESERVATION] OF 1787.— By an act of congress under the articles of Confederation, dated October 22, 1787, a tract of land was "reserved and set apart for the purpose of satisfying the military bounties due the late army," and the same was described as follows: "Beginning at the mouth of the Ohio river; thence up the Mississippi to the river Au Vause (Big Muddy); thence up the same until it meets a west line from the mouth of the little Wabash; thence easterly with the said west line to the great Wabash; thence down the same to the Ohio, and thence with the Ohio to the place of beginning." INDIAN RESERVATION OF 1803.—By the Indian treaty of August 13, 1803, made by William Henry Harrison and the Kaskaskia tribe of Indians, which tribe represented the remnants of the Mitchigamias, Cahokias and Tamarois, respectively, the following described territory was set apart to the said tribes:— "Beginning at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi; thence up the Ohio to the mouth of the Saline Creek, about twelve miles below the mouth of the Wabash; thence along the dividing ridge between the said creek and the Wabash until it comes to the general dividing ridge between the waters which fall into the Wabash and those which fall into the Kaskaskia river; and thence along the said ridge until it reaches the waters which fall into the Illinois river; thence in a direct course to the mouth of the Illinois river, and thence down the Mississippi to the beginning." Then follows the sixth article of the treaty, which is in the following words:— "As long as the lands which have been ceded by this treaty shall continue to be the property of the United States, the said tribe shall have the privilege of living and hunting upon them in the same manner as they have hitherto done." This treaty is an exceedingly interesting one, considered in. the light of what had already taken place and what followed its conclusion, concerning the Indians. I need scarcely say that almost all of the foregoing quotations in this chapter are from Thwaites' Jesuit Relations. I have consulted also the following named authors and have also quoted from some of them here and elsewhere:—Bancroft, Parkman, Winsor, Shea, Hinsdale, Spears, and others writing of the Valley of the Mississippi. I may here also state that I have had occasion to consult many state histories, among them Edwards, Reynolds, Ford, Breese, Davidson and Stuve, Blancherd, Moses, Lusk, Dillon's Indiana, Collins' Kentucky, Houck's Missouri, and English's Conquest of the Northwest. Much that I have said, not of a strictly local nature, pertains to such general history of the country that citation of authors or other bibliographical reference seems almost out of place. Additional Comments: Extracted from: A HISTORY OF THE CITY OF CAIRO ILLINOIS BY JOHN M. LANSDEN WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS CHICAGO R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 1910 COPYRIGHTED, 1910 BY JOHN M. LANSDEN The Lakeside Press R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY CHICAGO File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/alexander/history/1910/ahistory/chapteri76nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/ File size: 22.8 Kb