STORIES OF THE BADGER STATE. THE DISCOVERY OF WISCONSIN. ==================================================================== USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Tina S. Vickery ==================================================================== STORIES OF THE BADGER STATE by Reuben Gold Thwaites New York Cincinnati Chicago American Book Company Copyright, 1900, by Reuben Gold Thwaites. Sto. Badger Sta. W. P. 7 page(s) 24-32 THE DISCOVERY OF WISCONSIN In the year 1608, the daring French explorer, Samuel de Champlain, founded a settlement on the steep cliff of Quebec, and thus laid the foundations for the great colony of New France. This colony, in the course of a century and a half, grew to embrace all of what we now call Canada and the entire basin of the Mississippi River. New France grew slowly. This was largely owing to the opposition of the fierce Iroquois Indians of New York; whom Champlain bad greatly angered. Another reason was the changing moods of the Algonkin Indians of Canada and the Middle West; and still another, the enormous difficulties of travel through the vast forests and along streams frequently strewn with rapids. Champlain was made governor of New France, and varied his duties by taking long and painful journeys into the wilderness, thus setting the fashion of extensive exploration. There were two very good reasons for encouraging explorers: in the first place, New France was then largely controlled by a company of merchants, called the Hundred Associates, who desired to push the fur trade far and wide among the savage tribes; in the second place, the French Catholic missionary priests were anxious to reach the Indians, to convert them to the Christian religion. Thus it came about that, during the twenty-five years when the energetic and, enterprising Champlain was governor, there was little talked or thought about in New France but exploration, the fur trade, and the missions to the Indians. In order to carry out his schemes for opening new fields to the traders and missionaries, Champlain found it necessary to train young men to this work. Only those were selected for the task who had a fair education, and were healthy, strong, well-formed, and brave. They were, often when mere boys, sent far up into the country to live among the Indian tribes, to be adopted by them, to learn their habits and languages, and to harden themselves to the rough life and rude diet of the dusky dwellers in the forest. It took several years of this practice, with patient suffering, for a youth to become an expert who could be trusted to undergo any hardship or daring task that might be asked of him. It was one of these forest-bred interpreters who became the first white discoverer of Wisconsin. In those early days of New France, most of its people were from the west and northwest provinces of France. The crews of the ships which engaged in the trade to New France were nearly all from the ports of Rouen, Honfleur, Fecamp, Cherbourg, Havre, Dieppe, and Caen ; in these north-coast cities lived the greater part of the Hundred Associates, and from their vicinity came nearly all of the Jesuit missionaries and the young men who were trained as interpreters. Jean Nicolet was born in or near Cherbourg, and was the son of a mail carrier. He was about twenty years of age when, in 1618, he arrived in Quebec; "and forasmuch as," says an old Jesuit writer of that time, "his nature and excellent memory inspired good hopes of him, he was sent to winter with the Island Algonkins, in order to learn their language. He tarried with them two years, alone of the French, and always joined the Barbarians in their excursions and journeys, undergoing such fatigues as none but eyewitnesses can conceive - he often passed seven or eight days without food, and once, full seven weeks with no other nourishment than a little bark from the trees." These "Island Algonkins" lived on Allumettes Island in the Ottawa River, nearly three hundred miles from Quebec; their language was the principal one then used by the Indians in the country on the north bank of the St. Lawrence and in the great valley of the Ottawa. Although the life was so hard that few white men could endure it, Nicolet, like most of the other interpreters, learned to enjoy it; and, passing from one tribe to another, in his search for new languages and experiences, be remained among his forest friends for eight or nine years. He had been with the Algonkins for three or four years when he went, at the head of four hundred of them, into the Iroquois country, and made a treaty of peace with this savage foe, whom the Algonkins always greatly feared. It is related that thence he went to dwell with the Nipissing Indians, living about Lake Nipissing, "where he passed for one of that nation, taking part in the very frequent councils of those tribes, having his own separate cabin and household, and fishing and trading for himself." Possibly Nicolet might have been recalled from the woods before this, but, between 1629 and j632, Canada was in the hands of the British; and he remained among the Indians, inspiring them to hostility against the strangers. In 1632, when the country was released to France, Champlain and his fellow-officers returned to Quebec, and Nicolet was summoned thither, and was employed as clerk and interpreter by the Hundred Associates. Champlain was eager to resume his explorations. He had once been up the great Ottawa River, and thence had crossed over to Lake Huron, and bad become keenly interested in what were then termed the "upper waters." Of Lakes Ontario and Erie he knew nothing, for the dreaded Iroquois had prevented the French from going that way; and Lakes Superior and Michigan were, as yet, undiscovered by whites. Vague rumors of these unknown regions had been brought to Quebec by bands of strange savages who had found their way down to the French settlements in search of European goods in exchange for furs. Among the many queer stories brought by these 'fierce, painted barbarians was one which told of a certain "Tribe of the Sea" dwelling far away on the western banks of the upper waters," a people who had come out of the West, no man knew whence. In those early days, Europeans still clung to the notion which Columbus had always held, that America was but an eastern projection of Asia. This is the reason that our savages were called ' Indians, for the discoverers of America thought they had merely reached an outlying portion of India; they had no idea that this was a great and new continent. Governor Champlain, and after him Governor Frontenac, and the great explorer La Salle, all supposed that they could reach India and China, already known to travelers to the east, by persistently going westward. When, therefore, Champlain heard of these strange Men of the Sea, he at once declared they must be the long-sought Chinese. lie engaged Nicolet, in whom he had great confidence, to go out and find them, wherever they were, make a treaty of peace with them, and secure their trade. Upon the first day of July, 1634, Nicolet left Quebec, a passenger in the second of two fleets of canoes containing Indians from the Ottawa valley, who had come down to the white settlements to trade. Among his fellow passengers were three adventurous Jesuit missionaries, who were on their way to the country of the Huron tribe, cast of Lake Huron. Leaving the priests at Allumettes Island, he continued up the Ottawa, then crossed over to Lake Nipissing, visited old friends among the Indians there, and descended French Creek, which flows from Lake Nipissing into Georgian Bay, a northeastern arm of Lake Huron. On the shores of the great lake, he engaged seven Hurons to paddle his long birch-bark canoe and guide him to the mysterious "Tribe of the Sea." Slowly they felt their way along the northern shores of Lake Huron, where the pine forests sweep majestically down to the water's edge, or crown the bold cliffs, while southward the green waters of the inland sea stretch away to the horizon. Storms too severe for their frail craft frequently detained them on the shore, and daily they sought food in the forest. The savage crew, tiring of exertion, and overcome by superstitious fears, would fain have abandoned the voyage; but the strong, energetic master bore down all opposition. At last they reached the outlet of Lake Superior, the forest-girt Strait of St. Mary, and paddled up as far as the falls, the Sault Ste. Marie as it came to be called by the Jesuit missionaries. Here there was a large village of Algonkins, where the explorer tarried, refreshing his crew and gathering information concerning the "Tribe of the Sea." The explorers do not appear to have visited Lake Superior; but, bolder than before, they set forth to the southwest, and passing gayly through the island-dotted Straits of Mackinac, now one of the greatest of the world's highways, were soon upon the broad waters of Lake Michigan, of which Nicolet was probably the first white discoverer. Clinging still to the northern shore, camping in the dense woods at night or when threatened by storm, Nicolet rounded far-stretching Point Detour and landed upon the shores of Bay de Noquet, a northern arm of Green Bay. Another Algonkin tribe dwelt here, with him the persistent explorer smoked the pipe of peace, d they gave him further news of the people he sought. Next he stopped at the mouth of the Menominee River, now the northeast boundary between Wisconsin and Michigan, where the Menominee tribe lived. Another council was held, more tobacco was smoked, and one of Nicolet's Huron companions was sent forward to notify the Winnebagoes at the mouth of the Fox River that the great white chief was approaching; for the uncouth Winnebagoes were the far-famed "Tribe of the Sea" whom Nicolet had traveled so far to find. The manner of their obtaining this name, which had so misled Champlain, is curious. The word was originally "ouinepeg," or "ouinepego," and both Winnipeg and Winnebago are derived from it. Now "ouinepeg" was an Algonkin term meaning "men of (or from) the fetid (or bad-smelling) water." Possibly the tribe, far back in their history, once dwelt by a strong-smelling sulphur spring. The French, in their eagerness to find China, fancied that the fetid water must necessarily be salt water, hence the Western Ocean or " China Sea; " that is why they called the Winnebagoes the Tribe of the Sea," and jumped at the conclusion that they were Chinese. By this time, Nicolet had his doubts about meeting Chinese at Green Bay. As, however, he had brought with him "a grand robe of China damask, all strewn with flowers, and birds of many colors," such as Chinese mandarins are supposed to wear, he put it on; and when he landed on the shore of Fox River, where is now the city of Green Bay, strode forward into the group of waiting, skin-clad savages, discharging the pistols which he held in ether hand. Women and children fled to the wigwams; and the warriors fell down and worshiped this Manitou (or spirit) who carried with him thunder and lightning. " The news of his coming," says the old Jesuit chronicler, " quickly spread to the places round about, and there assembled four or five thousand men. Each of the Chief men made a feast for him, and at one of these banquets they served at least six-score Beavers." There was a great deal of oratory at these feasts, with the exchange of belts of wampum, and the smoking of pipes of peace, and no end of assurances on the part of the red men that they were glad to become the friends of New France and to keep the peace with the great French father at Paris. Leaving his new friends at Green Bay, the explorer ascended the Fox River as far as the Mascoutins, who had a village upon a prairie ridge, near where Berlin now lies. He made a similar treaty with this people, and learned of the Wisconsin River which flows into the Mississippi, but did not go to seek it. He then walked overland to the tribe of the Illinois, probably returning to Quebec, in 1635, by way of Lake Michigan. Nicolet had proceeded over nearly two thousand five hundred miles of lake, river, forest, and prairie; bad been subjected to a thousand dangers from man and beast, as Well as from fierce rapids and storm-tossed waters; had made treaties with several heretofore unknown tribes, and had widely extended the boundaries of New France. For various reasons, it was nearly thirty years before another visit was made by white men to Wisconsin. Nicolet himself soon settled down at the new town of Three Rivers, on the shores of the St. Lawrence, between Quebec and Montreal, as the agent and interpreter there of the great fur trade company. He was a very useful man both to the company and to the missionaries; for he had great influence ' over the Indians, who loved him sincerely, and he always exercised this influence for the good of the colony and of religion. He was drowned in the month of October, 1642, While on his way to release a poor savage prisoner who was being maltreated by Indians in the neighborhood.