French Pathfinders in North America

William Henry Johnson

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• Publié par: onde
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 60
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of French Pathfinders in North America, by William Henry Johnson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: French Pathfinders in North America Author: William Henry Johnson Release Date: May 20, 2007 [EBook #21543] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRENCH PATHFINDERS *** Produced by Al Haines Jacques Cartier French Pathfinders in North America By William Henry Johnson Author of "The World's Discoverers," "Pioneer Spaniards in North America," etc. With Seven Full-Page Plates Boston Little, Brown, and Company 1912 Copyright, 1905, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. All rights reserved {v} FOREWORD The compiler of the following sketches does not make any claim to originality. He has dealt with material that has been used often and again. Still there has seemed to him to be a place for a book which should outline the story of the great French explorers in such simple, direct fashion as might attract young readers. Trying to meet this need, he has sought to add to the usefulness of the volume by introductory chapters, simple in language, but drawn from the best authorities and carefully considered, giving a view of Indian society; also, by inserting numerous notes on Indian tribal connections, customs, and the like subjects. By selecting a portion of Radisson's journal for publication he does not by any means range himself on the side of the scholarly and gifted writer who has come forward as the champion of that picturesque scoundrel, and seriously proposes him as the real hero of the Northwest, to whom, we are told, is due the honor which we have mistakenly lavished on such commonplace persons as Champlain, Joliet, Marquette, and La Salle. While the present writer is not qualified to express a critical opinion as to the merits of the controversy about Radisson, a careful reading of his journal has given him an impression that the greatest part is so vague, so wanting in verifiable details, as to be worthless for historical purposes. One portion, however, seems unquestionably valuable, besides being exceedingly interesting. It is that which recounts his experiences on Lake Superior. It bears the plainest marks of truth and authenticity, and it is accepted as historical by the eminent critic, Dr. {vi} Reuben G. Thwaites. Therefore it is reproduced here, in abridged form; and on the strength of it Radisson is assigned a place among the Pathfinders. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE INDIAN RACE II. SOMETHING ABOUT INDIAN SOCIAL LIFE III. THE IROQUOIS LEAGUE IV. ACHIEVEMENTS OF FRENCHMEN IN THE NORTH OF AMERICA V. JACQUES CARTIER, THE DISCOVERER OF CANADA VI. JEAN RIBAUT: THE FRENCH AT PORT ROYAL, IN SOUTH CAROLINA VII. RENÉ DE LAUDONNIÈRE: PLANTING A COLONY ON THE ST. JOHN'S RIVER VIII. SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN IN NOVA SCOTIA IX. SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN (continued): THE FRENCH ON THE ST. LAWRENCE AND THE GREAT LAKES X. JESUIT MISSIONARY PIONEERS XI. JEAN NICOLLET, LOUIS JOLIET, AND FATHER JACQUES MARQUETTE; THE DISCOVERERS OF THE MISSISSIPPI XII. PIERRE ESPRIT RADISSON AND MÉDARD CHOUART EXPLORE LAKE SUPERIOR XIII. ROBERT CAVELIER, SIEUR DE LA SALLE, THE FIRST EXPLORER OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI XIV. LA SALLE AND THE FOUNDING OF LOUISIANA [SUPPLEMENT: THE EXECUTION OF HIS PLAN BY BIENVILLE] XV. FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN XVI. THE VÉRENDRYES DISCOVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS BOOKS FOR REFERENCE INDEX PAGE 3 15 27 45 53 67 77 101 119 147 169 187 225 261 278 289 313 329 335 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS JACQUES CARTIER From the original painting by P. Riis in the Town Hall of St. Malo, France Indian Family Tree Frontispiece 23 FORT CAROLINE From De Bry's "Le Moyne de Bienville" SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN From the Ducornet portrait FORT OF THE IROQUOIS From Laverdière's "Oeuvres de Champlain" THE MURDER OF LA SALLE From Hennepin's "A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America" LE MOYNE DE BIENVILLE From the original painting in the possession of J. A. Allen, Esq., Kingston, Ont. FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY From Carver's "Travels Through the Interior Parts of North America" 82 104 129 278 284 309 {3} French Pathfinders in North America Chapter I THE ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE INDIAN RACE America probably peopled from Asia.—Unity of the American Race.—The Eskimo, possibly, an Exception. —Range of the Several Groups. In an earlier volume, "Pioneer Spaniards in North America," the probable origin of the native races of America has been discussed. Let us restate briefly the general conclusions there set forth. It is the universal opinion of scientific men that the people whom we call Indians did not originate in the Western World, but, in the far distant past, came upon this continent from another—from Europe, some say; from Asia, say others. In support of the latter opinion it is pointed out that Asia and America once were connected by a broad belt of land, now sunk beneath the shallow Bering Sea. It is easy, then, to picture successive hordes of dusky wanderers pouring over from the old, old East upon the virgin soil of what was then emphatically a new world, since no human beings roamed its vast plains or traversed its stately forests. Human wave followed upon wave, the new comers pushing the older ones on. Some wandered eastward and spread themselves in the region surrounding Hudson Bay. Others took a southeast course and were the ancestors of the Algonquins, Iroquois, and other families inhabiting the eastern territory of the United States. Still others pushed their way down the Pacific coast and peopled Mexico and Central America, while yet others, driven no doubt by the crowding of great numbers into the most desirable regions of the isthmus, passed on into South America and gradually overspread it. Most likely these hordes of Asiatic savages wandered into America during hundreds of {4} {5} years and no doubt there was great diversity among them, some being far more advanced in the arts of life than others. But the essential thing to notice is that they were all of one blood . Thus their descendants, however different they may have become in language and customs, constitute one stock, which we call the American Race. The peoples who reared the great earth-mounds of the Middle West, those who carved the curious sculptures of Central America, those who built the cave-dwellings of Arizona, those who piled stone upon stone in the quaint pueblos of New Mexico, those who drove Ponce de Leon away from the shores of Florida, and those who greeted the Pilgrims with, "Welcome, Englishmen!"—all these, beyond a doubt, were of one widely varying race. To this oneness of all native Americans there is, perhaps, a single exception. Some writers look upon the Eskimo as a remnant of an ancient European race, known as the "Cave-men" because their remains are found in caves in Western Europe, always associated with the bones of arctic animals, such as the reindeer, the arctic fox, and the musk-sheep. From this fact it seems that these primitive men found their only congenial habitation amid ice and snow. Now, the Eskimo are distinctly an arctic race, and in other particulars they are amazingly like these men of the caves who dwelt in Western Europe when it had a climate like that of Greenland. The lamented Dr. John Fiske puts the case thus strongly: "The stone arrow-heads, the sewingneedles, the necklaces and amulets of cut teeth, and the daggers made from antler, used by the Eskimos, resemble so minutely the implements of the Cave-men, that if recent Eskimo remains were to be put into the Pleistocene caves of France and England, they would be indistinguishable in appearance from the remains of the Cave-men which are now found there." Further, these ancient men had an astonishing talent for delineating animals and hunting scenes. In the caves of France have been found carvings on bone and ivory, probably many tens of thousands of years old, which represent in the most life-like manner mammoths, cavebears, and other animals now extinct. Strangely enough, of all existing savage peoples the Eskimo alone possess the same faculty. These circumstances make it probable that they are a remnant of the otherwise extinct Cave-men. If this is so, their ancestors probably passed over to this continent by a land-connection then existing between Northern Europe and Northern America, of which Greenland is a survival. {6} {7} From the Eskimo southward to Cape Horn we find various branches of the one American race. First comes the Athapascan stock, whose range extends from Hudson Bay westward through British America to the Rocky Mountains. One branch of this family left the dreary regions of almost perpetual ice and snow, wandered far down toward the south, and became known as the roaming and fierce Apaches, Navajos, and Lipans of the burning southwestern plains. Immediately south of the Athapascans was the most extensive of all the families, the Algonquin. Their territory stretched without interruption westward from Cape Race, in Newfoundland, to the Rocky Mountains, on both banks of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. It extended southward along the Atlantic seaboard as far, perhaps, as the Savannah River. This family embraced some of the most famous tribes, such as the Abnakis, Micmacs, Passamaquoddies, Pequots, Narragansetts, and others in New England; the Mohegans, on the Hudson; the Lenape, on the Delaware; the Nanticokes, in Maryland; the Powhatans, in Virginia; the Miamis, Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos and Chippeways, in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys; and the Shawnees, on the Tennessee. {8} This great family is the one that came most in contact and conflict with our forefathers. The Indians who figure most frequently on the bloody pages o