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A Half Century of Conflict, Volume II

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A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT

BY FRANCIS PARKMAN

VOL. II



CONTENTS


CHAPTER XV.

1697-1741.

FRANCE IN THE FAR WEST.

French Explorers.--Le Sueur on the St. Peter's.--Canadians on the
Missouri.--Juchereau de Saint-Denis.--Bénard de la Harpe on Red
River.--Adventures of Du Tisné.--Bourgmont visits the Comanches.--The
Brothers Mallet in Colorado and New Mexico.--Fabry de la Bruyère.


CHAPTER XVI.

1716-1761.

SEARCH FOR THE PACIFIC.

The Western Sea.--Schemes for reaching it.--Journey of Charlevoix.--The
Sioux Mission.--Varennes de la Vérendrye.--His Enterprise.--His
Disasters.--Visits the Mandans.--His Sons.--Their Search for the Western
Sea.--Their Adventures.--The Snake Indians.--A Great War-Party.--The Rocky
Mountains.--A Panic.--Return of the Brothers.--Their Wrongs and their Fate.


CHAPTER XVII.

1700-1750.

THE CHAIN OF POSTS.

Opposing Claims.--Attitude of the Rival Nations.--America a French
Continent.--England a Usurper.--French Demands.--Magnanimous
Proposals.--Warlike Preparation.--Niagara.--Oswego.--Crown Point.--The
Passes of the West secured.


CHAPTER XVIII.

1744, 1745.

A MAD SCHEME.

War of the Austrian Succession.--The French seize Canseau and attack
Annapolis.--Plan of Reprisal.--William Vanghan.--Governor Shirley.--He
advises an Attack on Louisbourg.--The Assembly refuses, but at last
consents.--Preparation.--William Pepperrell.--George Whitefield.--Parson
Moody.--The Soldiers.--The Provincial Navy.--Commodore Warren.--Shirley as
an Amateur Soldier.--The Fleet sails.


CHAPTER XIX.

1745.

LOUISBOURG BESIEGED.

Seth Pomeroy.--The Voyage.--Canseau.--Unexpected Succors.--Delays.
--Louisbourg.--The Landing.--The Grand Battery taken.--French Cannon turned
on the Town.--Weakness of Duchambon.--Sufferings of the Besiegers.--Their
Hardihood.--Their Irregular Proceedings.--Joseph Sherburn.--Amateur
Gunnery.--Camp Frolics.--Sectarian Zeal.--Perplexities of Pepperrell.


CHAPTER XX.

1745.

LOUISBOURG TAKEN.

A Rash Resolution.--The Island Battery.--The Volunteers.--The Attack.--The
Repulse.--Capture of the "Vigilant."--A Sortie.--Skirmishes.--Despondency
of the French.--English Camp threatened.--Pepperrell and Warren.--Warren's
Plan.--Preparation for a General Attack.--Flag of Truce.--Capitulation.
--State of the Fortress.--Parson Moody.--Soldiers dissatisfied.--Disorders.
--Army and Navy.--Rejoicings.--England repays Provincial Outlays.


CHAPTER XXI.

1745-1747.

DUC D'ANVILLE.

Louisbourg after the Conquest.--Mutiny.--Pestilence.--Stephen
Williams.--His Diary.--Scheme of conquering Canada.--Newcastle's
Promises.--Alarm in Canada.--Promises broken.--Plan against Crown
Point.--Startling News.--D'Anville's Fleet.--Louisbourg to be
avenged.--Disasters of D'Anville.--Storm.--Pestilence.--Famine.--Death of
D'Anville.--Suicide of the Vice-Admiral.--Ruinous Failure.--Return
Voyage.--Defeat of La Jonquière.


CHAPTER XXII.

1745-1747.

ACADIAN CONFLICTS.

Efforts of France.--Apathy of Newcastle.--Dilemma of Acadians.--Their
Character.--Danger of the Province.--Plans of Shirley.--Acadian
Priests.--Political Agitators.--Noble's Expedition.--Ramesay at
Beaubassin.--Noble at Grand-Pré.--A Winter March.--Defeat and Death of
Noble.--Grand-Pré re-occupied by the English.--Threats of Ramesay against
the Acadians.--The British Ministry will not protect them.


CHAPTER XXIII.

1740-1747.

WAR AND POLITICS.

Governor and Assembly.--Saratoga destroyed.--William Johnson.--Border
Ravages.--Upper Ashuelot.--French "Military Movements."--Number
Four.--Niverville's Attack.--Phineas Stevens.--The French repulsed.


CHAPTER XXIV.

1745-1748.

FORT MASSACHUSETTS.

Frontier Defence.--Northfield and its Minister.--Military Criticisms of
Rev. Benjamin Doolittle.--Rigaud de Vaudreuil.--His Great War-Party.--He
attacks Fort Massachusetts.--Sergeant Hawks and his Garrison.--A Gallant
Defence.--Capitulation.--Humanity of the French.--Ravages.--Return to Crown
Point.--Peace of Aix-la Chapelle.

APPENDIX.

A. FRANCE CLAIMS ALL NORTH AMERICA EXCEPT THE SPANISH COLONIES.

B. FRENCH VIEWS OF THE SIEGE OF LOUISBOURG.

C. SHIRLEY'S RELATIONS WITH THE ACADIANS.




A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT.



CHAPTER XV.

1697-1741.

FRANCE IN THE FAR WEST.

FRENCH EXPLORERS.--LE SUEUR ON THE ST. PETER'S.--CANADIANS ON THE
MISSOURI.--JUCHEREAU DE SAINT-DENIS.--BÉNARD DE LA HARPE ON RED
RIVER.--ADVENTURES OF DU TISNÉ.--BOURGMONT VISITS THE COMANCHES.--THE
BROTHERS MALLET IN COLORADO AND NEW MEXICO.--FABRY DE LA BRUYÈRE.


The occupation by France of the lower Mississippi gave a strong impulse to
the exploration of the West, by supplying a base for discovery, stimulating
enterprise by the longing to find gold mines, open trade with New Mexico,
and get a fast hold on the countries beyond the Mississippi in anticipation
of Spain; and to these motives was soon added the hope of finding an
overland way to the Pacific. It was the Canadians, with their indomitable
spirit of adventure, who led the way in the path of discovery.

As a bold and hardy pioneer of the wilderness, the Frenchman in America has
rarely found his match. His civic virtues withered under the despotism of
Versailles, and his mind and conscience were kept in leading-strings by an
absolute Church; but the forest and the prairie offered him an unbridled
liberty, which, lawless as it was, gave scope to his energies, till these
savage wastes became the field of his most noteworthy achievements.

Canada was divided between two opposing influences. On the one side were
the monarchy and the hierarchy, with their principles of order,
subordination, and obedience; substantially at one in purpose, since both
wished to keep the colony within manageable bounds, domesticate it, and
tame it to soberness, regularity, and obedience. On the other side was the
spirit of liberty, or license, which was in the very air of this wilderness
continent, reinforced in the chiefs of the colony by a spirit of adventure
inherited from the Middle Ages, and by a spirit of trade born of present
opportunities; for every official in Canada hoped to make a profit, if not
a fortune, out of beaverskins. Kindred impulses, in ruder forms, possessed
the humbler colonists, drove them into the forest, and made them hardy
woodsmen and skilful bushfighters, though turbulent and lawless members of
civilized society.

Time, the decline of the fur-trade, and the influence of the Canadian
Church gradually diminished this erratic spirit, and at the same time
impaired the qualities that were associated with it. The Canadian became a
more stable colonist and a steadier farmer; but for forest journeyings and
forest warfare he was scarcely his former self. At the middle of the
eighteenth century we find complaints that the race of _voyageurs_ is
growing scarce. The taming process was most apparent in the central and
lower parts of the colony, such as the Côte de Beaupré and the opposite
shore of the St. Lawrence, where the hands of the government and of the
Church were strong; while at the head of the colony,--that is, about
Montreal and its neighborhood,--which touched the primeval wilderness, an
uncontrollable spirit of adventure still held its own. Here, at the
beginning of the century, this spirit was as strong as it had ever been,
and achieved a series of explorations and discoveries which revealed the
plains of the Far West long before an Anglo-Saxon foot had pressed their
soil.

The expedition of one Le Sueur to what is now the State of Minnesota may be
taken as the starting-point of these enterprises. Le Sueur had visited the
country of the Sioux as early as 1683. He returned thither in 1689 with the
famous _voyageur_ Nicolas Perrot. [Footnote: _Journal historique de
l'Etablissement des Français à la Louisiane_, 43.] Four years later,
Count Frontenac sent him to the Sioux country again. The declared purpose
of the mission was to keep those fierce tribes at peace with their
neighbors; but the Governor's enemies declared that a contraband trade in
beaver was the true object, and that Frontenac's secretary was to have half
the profits. [Footnote: _Champigny au Ministre, 4 Nov._ 1693.] Le
Sueur returned after two years, bringing to Montreal a Sioux chief and his
squaw,--the first of the tribe ever seen there. He then went to France, and
represented to the court that he had built a fort at Lake Pepin, on the
upper Mississippi; that he was the only white man who knew the languages of
that region; and that if the French did not speedily seize upon it, the
English, who were already trading upon the Ohio, would be sure to do so.
Thereupon he asked for the command of the upper Mississippi, with all its
tributary waters, together with a monopoly of its fur-trade for ten years,
and permission to work its mines, promising that if his petition were
granted, he would secure the country to France without expense to the King.
The commission was given him. He bought an outfit and sailed for Canada,
but was captured by the English on the way. After the peace he returned to
France and begged for a renewal of his commission. Leave was given him to
work the copper and lead mines, but not to trade in beaver-skins. He now
formed a company to aid him in his enterprise, on which a cry rose in
Canada that under pretence of working mines he meant to trade in
beaver,--which is very likely, since to bring lead and copper in bark
canoes to Montreal from the Mississippi and Lake Superior would cost far
more than the metal was worth. In consequence of this clamor his commission
was revoked.

Perhaps it was to compensate him for the outlays into which he had been
drawn that the colonial minister presently authorized him to embark for
Louisiana and pursue his enterprise with that infant colony, instead of
Canada, as his base of operations. Thither, therefore, he went; and in
April, 1700, set out for the Sioux country with twenty-five men, in a small
vessel of the kind called a "felucca," still used in the Mediterranean.

Among the party was an adventurous youth named Penecaut, a ship-carpenter
by trade, who had come to Louisiana with Iberville two years before, and
who has left us an account of his voyage with Le Sueur. [Footnote:
_Relation de Penecaut_. In my possession is a contemporary manuscript
of this narrative, for which I am indebted to the kindness of General J.
Meredith Reade.]

The party slowly made their way, with sail and oar, against the muddy
current of the Mississippi, till they reached the Arkansas, where they
found an English trader from Carolina. On the 10th of June, spent with
rowing, and half starved, they stopped to rest at a point fifteen leagues
above the mouth of the Ohio. They had staved off famine with the buds and
leaves of trees; but now, by good luck, one of them killed a bear, and,
soon after, the Jesuit Limoges arrived from the neighboring mission of the
Illinois, in a canoe well stored with provisions. Thus refreshed, they
passed the mouth of the Missouri on the 13th of July, and soon after were
met by three Canadians, who brought them a letter from the Jesuit Marest,
warning them that the river was infested by war-parties. In fact, they
presently saw seven canoes of Sioux warriors, bound against the Illinois;
and not long after, five Canadians appeared, one of whom had been badly
wounded in a recent encounter with a band of Outagamies, Sacs, and
Winnebagoes bound against the Sioux. To take one another's scalps had been
for ages the absorbing business and favorite recreation of all these
Western tribes. At or near the expansion of the Mississippi called Lake
Pepin, the voyagers found a fort called Fort Perrot, after its builder;
[Footnote: Penecaut, _Journal. Procès-verbal de la Prise de Possession du
Pays des Nadouessioux, etc., par Nicolas Perrot_, 1689. Fort Perrot
seems to have been built in 1685, and to have stood near the outlet of the
lake, probably on the west side. Perrot afterwards built another fort,
called Fort St. Antoine, a little above, on the east bank. The position of
these forts has been the subject of much discussion, and cannot be
ascertained with precision. It appears by the _Prise de Possession_,
cited above, that there was also, in 1689, a temporary French post near the
mouth of the Wisconsin.] and on an island near the upper end of the lake,
another similar structure, built by Le Sueur himself on his last visit to
the place. These forts were mere stockades, occupied from time to time by
the roving fur-traders as their occasions required.

Towards the end of September, Le Sueur and his followers reached the mouth
of the St. Peter, which they ascended to Blue Earth River. Pushing a league
up this stream, they found a spot well suited to their purpose, and here
they built a fort, of which there was great need, for they were soon after
joined by seven Canadian traders, plundered and stripped to the skin by the
neighboring Sioux. Le Sueur named the new post Fort l'Huillier. It was a
fence of pickets, enclosing cabins for the men. The neighboring plains were
black with buffalo, of which the party killed four hundred, and cut them
into quarters, which they placed to freeze on scaffolds within the
enclosure. Here they spent the winter, subsisting on the frozen meat,
without bread, vegetables, or salt, and, according to Penecaut, thriving
marvellously, though the surrounding wilderness was buried five feet deep
in snow.

Band after band of Sioux appeared, with their wolfish dogs and their sturdy
and all-enduring squaws burdened with the heavy hide coverings of their
teepees, or buffalo-skin tents. They professed friendship and begged for
arms. Those of one band had blackened their faces in mourning for a dead
chief, and calling on Le Sueur to share their sorrow, they wept over him,
and wiped their tears on his hair. Another party of warriors arrived with
yet deeper cause of grief, being the remnant of a village half exterminated
by their enemies. They, too, wept profusely over the French commander, and
then sang a dismal song, with heads muffled in their buffalo-robes.
[Footnote: This weeping over strangers was a custom with the Sioux of that
time mentioned by many early writers. La Mothe-Cadillac marvels that a
people so brave and warlike should have such a fountain of tears always at
command.] Le Sueur took the needful precautions against his dangerous
visitors, but got from them a large supply of beaver-skins in exchange for
his goods.

When spring opened, he set out in search of mines, and found, not far above
the fort, those beds of blue and green earth to which the stream owes its
name. Of this his men dug out a large quantity, and selecting what seemed
the best, stored it in their vessel as a precious commodity. With this and
good store of beaver-skins, Le Sueur now began his return voyage for
Louisiana, leaving a Canadian named D'Éraque and twelve men to keep the
fort till he should come back to reclaim it, promising to send him a
canoe-load of ammunition from the Illinois. But the canoe was wrecked, and
D'Éraque, discouraged, abandoned Fort l'Huillier, and followed his
commander down the Mississippi. [Footnote: In 1702 the geographer De l'Isle
made a remarkable MS. map entitled _Carte de la Rivière du Mississippi,
dressée sur les Mémoires de M. Le Sueur_.]

Le Sueur, with no authority from government, had opened relations of trade
with the wild Sioux of the Plains, whose westward range stretched to the
Black Hills, and perhaps to the Rocky Mountains. He reached the settlements
of Louisiana in safety, and sailed for France with four thousand pounds of
his worthless blue earth. [Footnote: According to the geologist
Featherstonhaugh, who examined the locality, this earth owes its color to a
bluish-green silicate of iron.] Repairing at once to Versailles, he begged
for help to continue his enterprise. His petition seems to have been
granted. After long delay, he sailed again for Louisiana, fell ill on the
voyage, and died soon after landing. [Footnote: Besides the long and
circumstantial _Relation de Penecaut_, an account of the earlier part
of Le Sueur's voyage up the Mississippi is contained in the _Mémoire du
Chevalier de Beaurain_, which, with other papers relating to this
explorer, including portions of his Journal, will be found in Margry, VI.
See also _Journal historique de l'Etablissement des Français à la
Louisiane_, 38-71.]

Before 1700, the year when Le Sueur visited the St. Peter, little or
nothing was known of the country west of the Mississippi, except from the
report of Indians. The romances of La Hontan and Matthieu Sagean were
justly set down as impostures by all but the most credulous. In this same
year we find Le Moyne d'Iberville projecting journeys to the upper
Missouri, in hopes of finding a river flowing to the Western Sea. In 1703,
twenty Canadians tried to find their way from the Illinois to New Mexico,
in hope of opening trade with the Spaniards and discovering mines.
[Footnote: _Iberville à ----, 15 Fév. 1703_ (Margry, VI. 180).] In
1704 we find it reported that more than a hundred Canadians are scattered
in small parties along the Mississippi and the Missouri; [Footnote:
_Bienville au Ministre_, 6 _Sept._ 1704.] and in 1705 one Laurain
appeared at the Illinois, declaring that he had been high up the Missouri
and had visited many tribes on its borders. [Footnote: Beaurain, _Journal
historique_.] A few months later, two Canadians told Bienville a similar
story. In 1708 Nicolas de la Salle proposed an expedition of a hundred men
to explore the same mysterious river; and in 1717 one Hubert laid before
the Council of Marine a scheme for following the Missouri to its source,
since, he says, "not only may we find the mines worked by the Spaniards,
but also discover the great river that is said to rise in the mountains
where the Missouri has its source, and is believed to flow to the Western
Sea." And he advises that a hundred and fifty men be sent up the river in
wooden canoes, since bark canoes would be dangerous, by reason of the
multitude of snags. [Footnote: Hubert, _Mémoire envoyé au Conseil de la
Marine._]

In 1714 Juchereau de Saint-Denis was sent by La Mothe-Cadillac to explore
western Louisiana, and pushed up Red River to a point sixty-eight leagues,
as he reckons, above Natchitoches. In the next year, journeying across
country towards the Spanish settlements, with a view to trade, he was
seized near the Rio Grande and carried to the city of Mexico. The
Spaniards, jealous of French designs, now sent priests and soldiers to
occupy several points in Texas. Juchereau, however, was well treated, and
permitted to marry a Spanish girl with whom he had fallen in love on the
way; but when, in the autumn of 1716, he ventured another journey to the
Mexican borders, still hoping to be allowed to trade, he and his goods were
seized by order of the Mexican viceroy, and, lest worse should befall him,
he fled empty handed, under cover of night. [Footnote: Penecaut,
_Relation_, chaps, xvii., xviii. Le Page du Pratz, _Histoire de la
Louisiane_, I. 13-22. Various documents in Margry, VI. 193-202.]

In March, 1719, Bénard de la Harpe left the feeble little French post at
Natchitoches with six soldiers and a sergeant [Footnote: For an interesting
contemporary map of the French establishment at Natchitoches, see Thomassy,
_Géologie pratique de la Louisiane._]. His errand was to explore the
country, open trade if possible with the Spaniards, and establish another
post high up Red River. He and his party soon came upon that vast
entanglement of driftwood, or rather of uprooted forests, afterwards known
as the Red River raft, which choked the stream and forced them to make
their way through the inundated jungle that bordered it. As they pushed or
dragged their canoes through the swamp, they saw with disgust and alarm a
good number of snakes, coiled about twigs and boughs on the right and left,
or sometimes over their heads. These were probably the deadly
water-moccason, which in warm weather is accustomed to crawl out of its
favorite element and bask itself in the sun, precisely as described by La
Harpe. Their nerves were further discomposed by the splashing and plunging
of alligators lately wakened from their wintry torpor. Still, they pushed
painfully on, till they reached navigable water again, and at the end of
the month were, as they thought, a hundred and eight leagues above
Natchitoches. In four days more they reached the Nassonites.

These savages belonged to a group of stationary tribes, only one of which,
the Caddoes, survives to our day as a separate community. Their enemies the
Chickasaws, Osages, Arkansas, and even the distant Illinois, waged such
deadly war against them that, according to La Harpe, the unfortunate
Nassonites were in the way of extinction, their numbers having fallen,
within ten years, from twenty-five hundred souls to four hundred.
[Footnote: Bénard de la Harpe, in Margry, VI. 264.]

La Harpe stopped among them to refresh his men, and build a house of
cypress-wood as a beginning of the post he was ordered to establish; then,
having heard that a war with Spain had ruined his hopes of trade with New
Mexico, he resolved to pursue his explorations.

With him went ten men, white, red, and black, with twenty-two horses bought
from the Indians, for his journeyings were henceforth to be by land. The
party moved in a northerly and westerly course, by hills, forests, and
prairies, passed two branches of the Wichita, and on the 3d of September
came to a river which La Harpe calls the southwest branch of the Arkansas,
but which, if his observation of latitude is correct, must have been the
main stream, not far from the site of Fort Mann. Here he was met by seven
Indian chiefs, mounted on excellent horses saddled and bridled after the
Spanish manner. They led him to where, along the plateau of the low,
treeless hills that bordered the valley, he saw a string of Indian
villages, extending for a league and belonging to nine several bands, the
names of which can no longer be recognized, and most of which are no doubt
extinct. He says that they numbered in all six thousand souls; and their
dwellings were high, dome-shaped structures, built of clay mixed with reeds
and straw, resting, doubtless, on a frame of bent poles. [Footnote:
Beaurain says that each of these bands spoke a language of its own. They
had horses in abundance, descended from Spanish stock. Among them appear to
have been the Ouacos, or Huecos, and the Wichitas,--two tribes better known
as the Pawnee Picts. See Marcy, _Exploration of Red River._] With them
were also some of the roving Indians of the plains, with their conical
teepees of dressed buffalo-skin.

The arrival of the strangers was a great and amazing event for these
savages, few of whom had ever seen a white man. On the day after their
arrival the whole multitude gathered to receive them and offer them the
calumet, with a profusion of songs and speeches. Then warrior after warrior
recounted his exploits and boasted of the scalps he had taken. From eight
in the morning till two hours after midnight the din of drums, songs,
harangues, and dances continued without relenting, with a prospect of
twelve hours more; and La Harpe, in desperation, withdrew to rest himself
on a buffalo-robe, begging another Frenchman to take his place. His hosts
left him in peace for a while; then the chiefs came to find him, painted
his face blue, as a tribute of respect, put a cap of eagle-feathers on his
head, and laid numerous gifts at his feet. When at last the ceremony ended,
some of the performers were so hoarse from incessant singing that they
could hardly speak. [Footnote: Compare the account of La Harpe with that of
the Chevalier de Beaurain; both are in Margry, VI. There is an abstract in
_Journal historique._]

La Harpe was told by his hosts that the Spanish settlements could be
reached by ascending their river; but to do this was at present impossible.
He began his backward journey, fell desperately ill of a fever, and nearly
died before reaching Natchitoches.

Having recovered, he made an attempt, two years later, to explore the
Arkansas in canoes, from its mouth, but accomplished little besides killing
a good number of buffalo, bears, deer, and wild turkeys. He was confirmed,
however, in the belief that the Comanches and the Spaniards of New Mexico
might be reached by this route.

In the year of La Harpe's first exploration, one Du Tisné went up the
Missouri to a point six leagues above Grand River, where stood the village
of the Missouris. He wished to go farther, but they would not let him. He
then returned to the Illinois, whence he set out on horseback with a few
followers across what is now the State of Missouri, till he reached the
village of the Osages, which stood on a hill high up the river Osage. At
first he was well received; but when they found him disposed to push on to
a town of their enemies, the Pawnees, forty leagues distant, they angrily
refused to let him go. His firmness and hardihood prevailed, and at last
they gave him leave. A ride of a few days over rich prairies brought him to
the Pawnees, who, coming as he did from the hated Osages, took him for an
enemy and threatened to kill him. Twice they raised the tomahawk over his
head; but when the intrepid traveller dared them to strike, they began to
treat him as a friend. When, however, he told them that he meant to go
fifteen days' journey farther, to the Padoucas, or Comanches, their deadly
enemies, they fiercely forbade him; and after planting a French flag in
their village, he returned as he had come, guiding his way by compass, and
reaching the Illinois in November, after extreme hardships. [Footnote:
_Relation de Bénard de la Harpe. Autre Relation du même. Du Tisné à
Bienville._ Margry, VI. 309, 310, 313.]

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