Flagg's The Far West, 1836-1837, part 2; and De Smet's Letters and Sketches, 1841-1842. Flagg Edmund
the noble La Salle is unknown to this day. Marquette, "the apostle of the wilderness," died under circumstances of touching interest on the lonely shores of Lake Michigan while upon his mission. Charlevoix, the historian, throws an interest of melancholy romance over the fate of this venerable man. According to this writer, Father Joseph Marquette was a native of Laon, in Picardy, and of distinguished family. About two years after his discovery of the Mississippi, while engaged in his missionary labours among the savages, he was journeying from Chicago to Michillimackinac, and on the 8th of May, 1675, entered the mouth of a small river emptying into Lake Michigan upon its eastern side, which now bears his name. Here he landed, erected an altar, and said mass. After this ceremony he retired a short distance, and requested the two voyageurs who conducted his canoe to leave him alone for half an hour, while in private he returned thanks. The period having expired, they went to seek him, and found him dead in the attitude of devotion:16 the circumstance then recurred to them, that, on entering the river, he had dropped an intimation that he should there end his days. The distance was too great to Michillimackinac to convey there his remains, and the voyageurs accordingly buried them near the bank of the stream, which they called by his name. From that time the river, as if from reverence for the missionary's relics, has continued to retire, and his grave is yet pointed out to the traveller. Thus did the venerable Marquette, at an advanced age, alone with his God, yield up his blameless life to its giver, while engaged in his holy errand of peace to the savage, and amid the magnificent solitudes of the land of his discovery.
Subsequent to these explorations, colonies from Lower Canada rapidly settled the recent villages of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Peoria.17 But their designs seem not to have been those of the speculators of our own day. Their sole anticipation was to amass opulence by mining in a country then supposed incalculably rich in the precious metals, from its resemblance to the silver region of South America; and we find exclusive grants of extensive tracts bearing this date to Cruzat, Renault, and other individuals.18 In pursuit of this golden chimera, many expeditions were fitted out at vast expense. In 1699 M. de Seur, an enterprising traveller, with ninety men, descended the Mississippi to a spot six hundred miles above the Illinois, and erected a fort upon the present site of Fort Armstrong for the purpose of exploring a mine of terre verte, said to have been discovered in that beautiful region.19 It need hardly be said that all these adventurers were disappointed: but the buoyant hilarity of the race did not forsake them, and as boatmen, hunters, couriers du bois, Indian traders, and small farmers,20 they gained a comfortable subsistence, and merrily did they enjoy it. Most of their lives were passed upon the broad prairies, and in penetrating every section of this vast valley in their birch pirogues wherever a stream presented to them its bosom; and yet with the violin, the grape-juice, and a short pipe, they seemed the blithest mortals on the face of the earth. It was by men such as these that the village of Kaskaskia, in old French chronicles styled "Notre dame de Cascasquias," originating in the name and residence of an Indian tribe, first was settled; and in a few years it had become an extensive depôt for the trade in furs. It was probably by the same Indian tribe which originally possessed the site of Kaskaskia that a party of the unfortunate expedition of Ferdinand de Soto, by whom Florida was partially conquered, was almost destroyed about the year 1539. Indeed, there was a tradition still extant upon the arrival of the French, of their having exterminated the first white faces they had ever seen. For three years did the chivalrous De Soto, with his nine hundred steel-clad warriors, scour the land in search of the reality of his golden dreams: at length he died; he was an object of hatred and terror to the Indians; and to conceal his death, or to preserve from violation his remains, his followers enclosed them in a coffin constructed from the section of a hollow tree, and sunk them beneath the floods of the eternal river. His followers, reduced to only two hundred and fifty, returned to Spain. And so the burial-places of the first explorers of the Mississippi are unknown.21
The extent of the territory of Kaskaskia was originally very great, stretching from the Kaskaskia River to the Mississippi, a breadth of about two miles, and comprising the area from the confluence of the streams, seven miles below, to the present site of the place. The tract below the town is incalculably fertile, abounding in the plum, the persimmon, the cherry, the delicate pecan, the hickory, and the hazel-nut; and for the most part was comprised in one vast "common field," over which herds of wild horses, introduced by the emigrants, long roamed in undisturbed possession. This common, consisting of seven thousand acres, was granted "to Kaskaskia and inhabitants for ever" by Vaudreuil, governor of the Province of Louisiana, as early as 1743.22 In this arrangement we observe a striking feature in the policy both of the French and Spanish governments, in their early settlements on the Mississippi. The items of door-yards, gardens, stable-yards, etc., and of settling colonies in the compact form of towns and villages, as a protection from the savages and to promote social intercourse, were all matters of special requisition and enactment; while to each settlement was granted two tracts of land for "common fields" and "commons." This distinction was not, however, invariably observed. The former consisted of several hundred acres, conveniently divided among the individual families, and the whole enclosed by the labour of all the villagers in common. If the enclosure opposite any plat was suffered to become ruinous, the right to the common was forfeited by the offending individual. The seasons, also, for ploughing, sowing, reaping, etc., were by public ordinance simultaneous: yet with these restrictions, each individual, so long as he complied with the necessary regulations, possessed his lot in franc allieu– fee simple, subject to sale and transfer. The "common" was a far more extended tract, embracing in some instances several thousand acres without enclosure, and reserved for the purpose of wood and pasturage. Here there was no grant of severalty, and no individual portion could be appropriated without the special and unanimous consent of the whole village. To the indigent who came to settle among them, and to young married pairs, donations from this tract were often made by the villagers, and, if conveniently situated, might subsequently become a portion of the "common field."23 That such an arrangement, under all the circumstances of the period when instituted, and with such a people as the early French settlers, was the best that could have been made, no one can doubt. But how such a regulation would suit a race of enterprising Yankees, fidgeting eternally for improvements, or a squad of long-sided Kentuckians, grumbling about elbow-room, is problematical.
The proceedings of our national government towards these ancient villages have been characterized by generosity, whatever may be said of the conduct of individuals. In 1788, an extensive tract lying along the Mississippi was by act of Congress granted to the French inhabitants east of that river; and to those of Kaskaskia was secured for a common field twenty thousand acres. It is under direction of the trustees of the town by provision of the state legislature.24
Unlike the policy of all other Europeans who have planted themselves upon the Western continent, that of the French emigrants towards the aborigines, with the single exception of the extermination of the Natchez in the South, has invariably been conciliatory, peaceable, and friendly.25 This has been the effect rather of debasing themselves than of elevating the natives. Surrounded by everything which could fascinate the eye or delight the fancy, we find these inoffensive foreigners, therefore, unlike the English settlers along the Atlantic and in the elder Western states, at peace with all their savage neighbours; unambitious, contented, and happy, increasing and flourishing; and in a few years, they tell us, Kaskaskia, "the terrestrial paradise," numbered a population of eight thousand souls!26 Blessed with a soil of boundless fertility, and prolific in all Nature's luxurious stores to a degree of which less-favoured climes can form no conception: subsisting solely by culture of the little homesteads around their own thresholds, by hunting the wild denizens of their noble forests, or angling upon the calm bosom of their beautiful stream: simple-hearted and peaceful, almost without the terms of law, gently ruled by the restraints of a religion they venerated
Father Marquette died May 18, 1675, on the present site of Ludington, Michigan. – Ed.
For the settlement of Peoria, see our volume xxvi, p. 133, note 93. – Ed.
Owing to the exhaustion of France following the War of the Spanish Succession, Louis XIV, determined to develop the resources of the vast Louisiana territory, granted (September 14, 1712) to Antoine Crozat, a wealthy merchant, the exclusive right of trade in Louisiana for a term of fifteen years. Among other privileges, Crozat was permitted to send one ship a year to Africa for a cargo of negroes; to possess and operate all mines of precious metals in the territory, on the condition that a fourth of the metal be turned over to the king; and to possess in perpetuity all buildings and manufactories erected by him in the colony. On the other hand, Crozat was obliged to import two shiploads of colonists each year, and after nine years to assume all the expenses of the government. In the meantime the king was to furnish fifty thousand livres annually. Crozat did all in his power to develop the resources of the country; but owing to discord among the subordinate officials, in despair he surrendered the charter to the prince regent (August 13, 1717). See Charles Gayarré,
Pierre Charles le Sueur went to Canada when a young man, and engaged in the fur-trade. In 1693, while commandant at Chequamegon, he erected two forts – one on Madelaine Island, in Chequamegon Bay (Lake Superior), and another on an island in the Mississippi, near Red Wing, Minnesota. Later he discovered lead mines along the upper Mississippi. In 1699 he returned from a visit to France, and under Iberville's directions searched for copper mines in the Sioux country, where Le Sueur had earlier found green earth. Le Sueur reached the mouth of Missouri River (July 13, 1700) with nineteen men, according to Bénard de la Harpe's manuscript, compiled from Le Sueur's Journal – with twenty-nine men, as related by Pénicaut, a member of the expedition. The company was later increased to perhaps thirty or forty, but not ninety, as Flagg says. Le Sueur ascended the Mississippi, and its tributary the Minnesota, and erected a fort in August, 1700, one league above the point where the Blue Earth River (St. Peter's River, until 1852) empties into the Minnesota. This fort he named l'Huillier, in honor of his patron in France. Flagg has confused this site with that of Fort Armstrong at Rock Island, Illinois. In May, 1701, Le Sueur left the fort in care of d'Eraque, who remained in charge until 1703, when he abandoned the place. For extracts from original documents relating to Le Sueur's activities, consult: "Le Sueur's Mines on the Mississippi," "Le Sueur's Voyage up the Mississippi," and "Le Sueur's Fort on the Mississippi," in
"
The battle of Mauilla, to which Flagg is referring, was fought in October, 1540, between De Soto's men and the Mobilian Indians, near the present site of Mobile. Our author is mistaken in supposing that these Indians were the Kaskaskia. De Soto reached the Mississippi in May, 1541, and died May 21, 1542. He started on the expedition with less than seven hundred men, instead of one thousand. According to Herrera, his body was laid in a hollow live-oak log, and lowered into the Mississippi; but it seems more probable that the corpse was wrapped in mantles made heavy by a ballast of sand, and thus lowered into the water. See John G. Shea, "Ancient Florida," in Justin Winsor,
Annexed is a copy of the grant of the celebrated
"Pierre de Rigault de Vaudreuil, Governor and Edme Gatien Salmon Commissary orderer of the Province of Louisiana, seen the petition to us presented on the sixteenth day of June of this present year by the Inhabitants of the Parish of the Immaculate Conception of Kaskaskia dependence of the Illinois, tending to be confirmed in the possession of a common which they have had a long time for the pasturage of their cattle in the Point called
"First, That the concessions heretofore granted either by the India Company either by our predecessors or by us in the prairie of Kaskaskia on the side of the point which runs to the entrance of the river, shall terminate at the land granted to a man named
"Secondly, on the road vulgarly called the
"Thirdly, To facilitate to the inhabitants the means of making their autumnal harvest, and prevent its being damaged by the cattle, we forbid all persons to leave their cattle range upon cultivated lands – they are, notwithstanding, permitted to graze upon their own proper lands on having them diligently watched.
"Fourthly, Willing that the wood which is on the land granted belong to the proprietors of the said lands, we forbid all persons to cut down any elsewhere than on their own lands, and as to the wood which may be found in the commons to cut down for their own use, either for building or for fire wood, and this shall be the present regulation.
"Read, published and affixed to the end that no person may be ignorant thereof. Given at New-Orleans the fourteenth day of August, 1743.
"Under the old management all the inhabitants had equal access to the commons for pasturage and fuel. By an act of the legislature passed in 1854, the citizens were authorized to elect five trustees every two years, who should exercise the charge of the commons, lease portions thereof, and apply the proceeds to church and school purposes only. The common fields were also originally owned jointly by the villagers, though each resident was assigned an individual portion. The United States commissioners, in 1809, determined the rights of each citizen, and the lots have since been held in fee simple." See
For the memorial of George Morgan, upon these lands along the Mississippi River, the report of the committee to which the above had been referred, and the resolutions of Congress thereon (August 28, 29, 1788), see
For an account of the extermination of the Natchez, see F. A. Michaux's
Doubtless an exaggeration. – Flagg.