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A Half Century of Conflict, Volume II

F >> Francis Parkman >> A Half Century of Conflict, Volume II




Early in 1721 two hundred mounted Spaniards, followed by a large body of
Comanche warriors, came from New Mexico to attack the French at the
Illinois, but were met and routed on the Missouri by tribes of that region.
[Footnote: _Bienville au Conseil de Régence, 20 Juillet, 1721._] In
the next year, Bienville was told that they meant to return, punish those
who had defeated them, and establish a post on the river Kansas; whereupon
he ordered Boisbriant, commandant at the Illinois, to anticipate them by
sending troops to build a French fort at or near the same place. But the
West India Company had already sent one Bourgmont on a similar errand, the
object being to trade with the Spaniards in time of peace, and stop their
incursions in time of war. [Footnote: _Instructions au Sieur de
Bourgmont, 17 Jan. 1722._ Margry, VI. 389.] It was hoped also that, in
the interest of trade, peace might be made between the Comanches and the
tribes of the Missouri. [Footnote: The French had at this time gained a
knowledge of the tribes of the Missouri as far up as the Arickaras, who
were not, it seems, many days' journey below the Yellowstone, and who told
them of "prodigiously high mountains,"--evidently the Rocky Mountains.
_Mémoire de la Renaudière_, 1723.]

Bourgmont was a man of some education, and well acquainted with these
tribes, among whom he had traded for years. In pursuance of his orders he
built a fort, which he named Fort Orléans, and which stood on the Missouri
not far above the mouth of Grand River. Having thus accomplished one part
of his mission, he addressed himself to the other, and prepared to march
for the Comanche villages.

Leaving a sufficient garrison at the fort, he sent his ensign, Saint-Ange,
with a party of soldiers and Canadians, in wooden canoes, to the villages
of the Kansas higher up the stream, and on the 3d of July set out by land
to join him, with a hundred and nine Missouri Indians and sixty-eight
Osages in his train. A ride of five days brought him again to the banks of
the Missouri, opposite a Kansas town. Saint-Ange had not yet arrived, the
angry and turbid current, joined to fevers among his men, having retarded
his progress. Meanwhile Bourgmont drew from the Kansas a promise that their
warriors should go with him to the Comanches. Saint-Ange at last appeared,
and at daybreak of the 24th the tents were struck and the pack-horses
loaded. At six o'clock the party drew up in battle array on a hill above
the Indian town, and then, with drum beating and flag flying, began their
march. "A fine prairie country," writes Bourgmont, "with hills and dales
and clumps of trees to right and left." Sometimes the landscape quivered
under the sultry sun, and sometimes thunder bellowed over their heads, and
rain fell in floods on the steaming plains.

Renaudière, engineer of the party, one day stood by the side of the path
and watched the whole procession as it passed him. The white men were about
twenty in all. He counted about three hundred Indian warriors, with as many
squaws, some five hundred children, and a prodigious number of dogs, the
largest and strongest of which dragged heavy loads. The squaws also served
as beasts of burden; and, says the journal, "they will carry as much as a
dog will drag." Horses were less abundant among these tribes than they
afterwards became, so that their work fell largely upon the women.

On the sixth day the party was within three leagues of the river Kansas, at
a considerable distance above its mouth. Bourgmont had suffered from
dysentery on the march, and an access of the malady made it impossible for
him to go farther. It is easy to conceive the regret with which he saw
himself compelled to return to Fort Orléans. The party retraced their
steps, carrying their helpless commander on a litter.

First, however, he sent one Gaillard on a perilous errand. Taking with him
two Comanche slaves bought for the purpose from the Kansas, Gaillard was
ordered to go to the Comanche villages with the message that Bourgmont had
been on his way to make them a friendly visit, and though stopped by
illness, hoped soon to try again, with better success.

Early in September, Bourgmont, who had arrived safely at Fort Orléans,
received news that the mission of Gaillard had completely succeeded; on
which, though not wholly recovered from his illness, he set out again on
his errand of peace, accompanied by his young son, besides Renaudière, a
surgeon, and nine soldiers. On reaching the great village of the Kansas he
found there five Comanche chiefs and warriors, whom Gaillard had induced to
come thither with him. Seven chiefs of the Otoes presently appeared, in
accordance with an invitation of Bourgmont; then six chiefs of the Iowas
and the head chief of the Missouris. With these and the Kansas chiefs a
solemn council was held around a fire before Bourgmont's tent; speeches
were made, the pipe of peace was smoked, and presents were distributed.

On the 8th of October the march began, the five Comanches and the chiefs of
several other tribes, including the Omahas, joining the cavalade. Gaillard
and another Frenchman named Quesnel were sent in advance to announce their
approach to the Comanches, while Bourgmont and his followers moved up the
north side of the river Kansas till the eleventh, when they forded it at a
point twenty leagues from its mouth, and took a westward and southwestward
course, sometimes threading the grassy valleys of little streams, sometimes
crossing the dry upland prairie, covered with the short, tufted dull-green
herbage since known as "buffalo grass." Wild turkeys clamored along every
watercourse; deer were seen on all sides, buffalo were without number,
sometimes in grazing droves, and sometimes dotting the endless plain as far
as the eye could reach. Ruffian wolves, white and gray, eyed the travellers
askance, keeping a safe distance by day, and howling about the camp all
night. Of the antelope and the elk the journal makes no mention. Bourgmont
chased a buffalo on horseback and shot him with a pistol,--which is
probably the first recorded example of that way of hunting.

The stretches of high, rolling, treeless prairie grew more vast as the
travellers advanced. On the 17th, they found an abandoned Comanche camp.
On the next day as they stopped to dine, and had just unsaddled their
horses, they saw a distant smoke towards the west, on which they set the
dry grass on fire as an answering signal. Half an hour later a body of wild
horsemen came towards them at full speed, and among them were their two
couriers, Gaillard and Quesnel, waving a French flag. The strangers were
eighty Comanche warriors, with the grand chief of the tribe at their head.
They dashed up to Bourgmont's bivouac and leaped from their horses, when a
general shaking of hands ensued, after which white men and red seated
themselves on the ground and smoked the pipe of peace. Then all rode
together to the Comanche camp, three leagues distant. [Footnote: This
meeting took place a little north of the Arkansas, apparently where that
river makes a northward bend, near the 22d degree of west longitude. The
Comanche villages were several days' journey to the southwest. This tribe
is always mentioned in the early French narratives as the Padoucas,--a name
by which the Comanches are occasionally known to this day. See Whipple and
Turner, _Reports upon Indian Tribes,_ in _Explorations and Surveys
for the Pacific Railroad,_ (Senate Doc., 1853,1854).]

Bourgmont pitched his tents at a pistol-shot from the Comanche lodges,
whence a crowd of warriors presently came to visit him. They spread
buffalo-robes on the ground, placed upon them the French commander, his
officers, and his young son; then lifted each, with its honored load, and
carried them all, with yells of joy and gratulation, to the lodge of the
Great Chief, where there was a feast of ceremony lasting till nightfall.

On the next day Bourgmont displayed to his hosts the marvellous store of
gifts he had brought for them--guns, swords, hatchets, kettles, gunpowder,
bullets, red cloth, blue cloth, hand-mirrors, knives, shirts, awls,
scissors, needles, hawks' bells, vermilion, beads, and other enviable
commodities, of the like of which they had never dreamed. Two hundred
savages gathered before the French tents, where Bourgmont, with the gifts
spread on the ground before him, stood with a French flag in his hand,
surrounded by his officers and the Indian chiefs of his party, and
harangued the admiring auditors.

He told them that he had come to bring them a message from the King, his
master, who was the Great Chief of all the nations of the earth, and whose
will it was that the Comanches should live in peace with his other
children,--the Missouris, Osages, Kansas, Otoes, Omahas, and Pawnees,--with
whom they had long been at war; that the chiefs of these tribes were now
present, ready to renounce their old enmities; that the Comanches should
henceforth regard them as friends, share with them the blessing of alliance
and trade with the French, and give to these last free passage through
their country to trade with the Spaniards of New Mexico. Bourgmont then
gave the French flag to the Great Chief, to be kept forever as a pledge of
that day's compact. The chief took the flag, and promised in behalf of his
people to keep peace inviolate with the Indian children of the King. Then,
with unspeakable delight, he and his tribesmen took and divided the gifts.

The next two days were spent in feasts and rejoicings. "Is it true that you
are men?" asked the Great Chief. "I have heard wonders of the French, but I
never could have believed what I see this day." Then, taking up a handful
of earth, "The Spaniards are like this; but you are like the sun." And he
offered Bourgmont, in case of need, the aid of his two thousand Comanche
warriors. The pleasing manners of his visitors, and their unparalleled
generosity, had completely won his heart.

As the object of the expedition was accomplished, or seemed to be so, the
party set out on their return. A ride of ten days brought them again to the
Missouri; they descended in canoes to Fort Orléans, and sang Te Deum in
honor of the peace. [Footnote: _Relation du Voyage du Sieur de Bourgmont,
Juin-Nov._, 1724, in Margry, VI. 398. Le Page du Pratz, III. 141.]

No farther discovery in this direction was made for the next fifteen years.
Though the French had explored the Missouri as far as the site of Fort
Clark and the Mandan villages, they were possessed by the idea--due,
perhaps, to Indian reports concerning the great tributary river, the
Yellowstone--that in its upper course the main stream bent so far southward
as to form a waterway to New Mexico, with which it was the constant desire
of the authorities of Louisiana to open trade. A way thither was at last
made known by two brothers named Mallet, who with six companions went up
the Platte to its South Fork, which they called River of the Padoucas,--a
name given it on some maps down to the middle of this century. They
followed the South Fork for some distance, and then, turning southward and
southwestward, crossed the plains of Colorado. Here the dried dung of the
buffalo was their only fuel; and it has continued to feed the camp-fire of
the traveller in this treeless region within the memory of many now living.
They crossed the upper Arkansas, and apparently the Cimarron, passed Taos,
and on the 22d of July reached Santa Fé, where they spent the winter. On
the 1st of May, 1740, they began their return journey, three of them
crossing the plains to the Pawnee villages, and the rest descending the
Arkansas to the Mississippi. [Footnote: _Journal du Voyage des Frères
Mallet, présenté à MM. de Bienville et Salmon_. This narrative is meagre
and confused, but serves to establish the main points. _Copie du
Certificat donné à Santa Fé aux sept [huit] Français par le Général
Hurtado, 24 Juillet, 1739. Père Rébald au Père de Beaubois, sans date.
Bienville et Salmon au Ministre, 30 Avril_, 1741, in Margry, VI.
455-468.]

The bold exploit of the brothers Mallet attracted great attention at New
Orleans, and Bienville resolved to renew it, find if possible a nearer and
better way to Santa Fé, determine the nature and extent of these mysterious
western regions, and satisfy a lingering doubt whether they were not
contiguous to China and Tartary. [Footnote: _Instructions données par
Jean-Baptiste de Bienville à Fabry de la Bruyère, 1 Juin, 1741_.
Bienville was behind his time in geographical knowledge. As early as 1724
Bénard de la Harpe knew that in ascending the Missouri or the Arkansas one
was moving towards the "Western Sea,"--that is, the Pacific,--and might,
perhaps, find some river flowing into it. See _Routes qu'on peut tenir
pour se rendre à la Mer de l'Ouest,_ in _Journal historique_,
387.] A naval officer, Fabry de la Bruyère, was sent on this errand, with
the brothers Mallet and a few soldiers and Canadians. He ascended the
Canadian Fork of the Arkansas, named by him the St. André, became entangled
in the shallows and quicksands of that difficult river, fell into disputes
with his men, and after protracted efforts, returned unsuccessful.
[Footnote: _Extrait des Lettres du Sieur Fabry._]

While French enterprise was unveiling the remote Southwest, two indomitable
Canadians were pushing still more noteworthy explorations into more
northern regions of the continent.




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.


In the disastrous last years of Louis XIV, the court gave little thought to
the New World; but under the regency of the Duke of Orléans interest in
American affairs revived. Plans for reaching the Mer de l'Ouest, or Pacific
Ocean, were laid before the Regent in 1716. It was urged that the best hope
was in sending an expedition across the continent, seeing that every
attempt to find a westward passage by Hudson Bay had failed. As
starting-points and bases of supply for the expedition, it was proposed to
establish three posts, one on the north shore of Lake Superior, at the
mouth of the river Kaministiguia, another at Lac des Cristineaux, now
called Lake of the Woods, and the third at Lake Winnipeg,--the last being
what in American phrase is called the "jumping-off place," or the point
where the expedition was to leave behind the last trace of civilization.
These posts were to cost the Crown nothing; since by a device common in
such cases, those who built and maintained them were to be paid by a
monopoly of the fur-trade in the adjacent countries. It was admitted,
however, that the subsequent exploration must be at the charge of the
government, and would require fifty good men, at 300 francs a year each,
besides equipment and supplies. All things considered, it was reckoned that
an overland way to the Pacific might be found for about 50,000 francs, or
10,000 dollars. [Footnote: _Mémoire fait et arresté par le Conseil de
Marine, 3 Fév. 1717; Mémoire du Roy, 26 Juin, 1717._]

The Regent approved the scheme so far as to order the preliminary step to
be taken by establishing the three posts, and in this same year, Lieutenant
La Noue, of the colony troops, began the work by building a stockade at the
mouth of the Kaministiguia. Little more was done in furtherance of the
exploration till three years later, when the celebrated Jesuit, Charlevoix,
was ordered by the Duke of Orléans to repair to America and gain all
possible information concerning the Western Sea and the way to it.
[Footnote: _Charlevoix au Comte de Morville, 1 Avril_, 1723.]

In the next year he went to the Upper Lakes, and questioned missionaries,
officers, _voyageurs,_ and Indians. The results were not satisfactory.
The missionaries and the officers had nothing to tell; the voyagers and
Indians knew no more than they, but invented confused and contradictory
falsehoods to hide their ignorance. Charlevoix made note of everything, and
reported to the Comte de Toulouse that the Pacific probably formed the
western boundary of the country of the Sioux, and that some Indians told
him that they had been to its shores and found white men there different
from the French.

Believing that these stories were not without foundation, Charlevoix
reported two plans as likely to lead to the coveted discovery. One was to
ascend the Missouri, "the source of which is certainly not far from the
sea, as all the Indians I have met have unanimously assured me;" and the
other was to establish a mission among the Sioux, from whom after
thoroughly learning their language, the missionaries could, as he thinks,
gain all the desired information. [Footnote: The valuable journal of
Charlevoix's western travels, written in the form of letters, was published
in connection with his _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_. After his
visit to the Lakes, he went to New Orleans, intending to return in the
spring and continue his inquiries for the Western Sea; but being unable to
do this, he went back to France at the end of 1722. The official report of
his mission is contained in a letter to the Comte de Toulouse, 20 Jan.
1723.]

The Regent approved the plan of the mission; but the hostile disposition of
the Sioux and the Outagamies prevented its execution for several years. In
1727 the scheme was revived, and the colonial minister at Versailles
ordered the Governor of Canada to send two missionaries to the Sioux. But
the mission required money, and the King would not give it. Hence the usual
expedient was adopted. A company was formed, and invested with a monopoly
of the Sioux fur-trade, on condition of building a fort, mission-house, and
chapel, and keeping an armed force to guard them. It was specially provided
that none but pious and virtuous persons were to be allowed to join the
Company, "in order," says the document, "to attract the benediction of God
upon them and their business." [Footnote: _Traité de la Compagnie des
Sioux, 6 Juin, 1727._] The prospects of the Company were thought good,
and the Governor himself was one of the shareholders. While the mission was
given the most conspicuous place in the enterprise, its objects were rather
secular than spiritual,--to attach the Sioux to the French interest by the
double ties of religion and trade, and utilize their supposed knowledge to
reach the Pacific. [Footnote: On this scheme, _Vaudreuil et Bégon au
Ministre, 4 Oct. 1723; Longueuil et Bégon au Ministre, 31 Oct. 1725;
Beauharnois et Dupuy au Ministre, 25 Sept. 1727._]

Father Guignas was made the head of the mission, and Boucher de la Perrière
the military chief. The party left Montreal in June, and journeying to the
Mississippi by way of Michillimackinac, Green Bay, Fox River, and the
Wisconsin, went up the great river to Lake Pepin, where the adventurous
Nicolas Perrot had built two trading-posts more than forty years before.
Even if his timeworn tenements were still standing, La Perrière had no
thought of occupying them. On the north, or rather west, side of the lake
his men found a point of land that seemed fit for their purpose,
disembarked, cut down trees, and made a square stockade enclosing the
necessary buildings. It was near the end of October before they were all
well housed. A large band of Sioux presently appeared, and set up their
teepees hard by. When the birthday of the Governor came, the party
celebrated it with a display of fireworks and vociferous shouts of _Vive
le Roi, Vive Charles de Beauharnois,_ while the Indians yelped in fright
and amazement at the pyrotechnics, or stood pressing their hands upon their
mouths in silent amazement. The French called their fort Fort Beauharnois,
and invited the aid of Saint Michael the Archangel by naming the mission in
his honor. All went well till April, when the water rose with the spring
floods and filled fort, chapel, and houses to the depth of nearly three
feet, ejecting the whole party, and forcing them to encamp on higher ground
till the deluge subsided. [Footnote: _Guignas à Beauharnois, 28 Mai,
1728._]

Worse enemies than the floods soon found them out. These were the
irrepressible Outagamies, who rose against the intruding French and incited
the Sioux to join them. There was no profit for the Company, and no safety
for its agents. The stockholders became discouraged, and would not support
the enterprise. The fort was abandoned, till in 1731 a new arrangement was
made, followed by another attempt. [Footnote: _Beauharnois et Hocquart au
Ministre, 25 Oct. 1729; Idem, 12 Oct. 1731._] For a time a prosperous
trade was carried on; but, as commonly happened in such cases, the
adventurers seem to have thought more of utilizing their monopoly than of
fulfilling the terms on which they had received it. The wild Sioux of the
plains, instead of being converted and turned into Frenchmen, proved such
dangerous neighbors that in 1737 Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, who then
commanded the post, found himself forced to abandon it. [Footnote:
_Relation du Sieur de Saint-Pierre, 14 Oct. 1737._] The enterprise had
failed in both its aims. The Western Sea was still a mystery, and the Sioux
were not friends, but enemies. Legardeur de Saint-Pierre recommended that
they should be destroyed, benevolent advice easy to give, and impossible to
execute. [Footnote: "Cet officier [Saint-Pierre] a ajouté qu'il seroit
avantageux de detruire cette nation." _Mémoire de Beauharnois, 1738._]

René Gaultier de Varennes, lieutenant in the regiment of Carignan, married
at Three Rivers, in 1667, the daughter of Pierre Boucher, governor of that
place; the age of the bride, Demoiselle Marie Boucher, being twelve years,
six months, and eighteen days. Varennes succeeded his father-in-law as
governor of Three Rivers, with a salary of twelve hundred francs, to which
he added the profits of a farm of forty acres; and on these modest
resources, reinforced by an illicit trade in furs, he made shift to sustain
the dignity of his office. His wife became the mother of numerous
offspring, among whom was Pierre, born in 1685,--an active and hardy youth,
who, like the rest of the poor but vigorous Canadian _noblesse_,
seemed born for the forest and the fur-trade. When, however, the War of the
Spanish Succession broke out, the young man crossed the sea, obtained the
commission of lieutenant, and was nearly killed at the battle of
Malplaquet, where he was shot through the body, received six sabre-cuts,
and was left for dead on the field. He recovered, and returned to Canada,
when, finding his services slighted, he again took to the woods. He had
assumed the designation of La Vérendrye, and thenceforth his full name was
Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la Vérendrye. [Footnote: M. Benjamin Sulte
has traced out the family history of the Varennes in the parish registers
of Three Rivers and other trustworthy sources. See _Revue Canadienne_,
X. 781, 849, 935.]

In 1728, he was in command of a small post on Lake Nipegon, north of Lake
Superior. Here an Indian chief from the River Kaministiguia told him of a
certain great lake which discharged itself by a river flowing westward. The
Indian further declared that he had descended this river till he reached
water that ebbed and flowed, and terrified by the strange phenomenon, had
turned back, though not till he had heard of a great salt lake, bordered
with many villages. Other Indians confirmed and improved the story. "These
people," said La Vérendrye to the Jesuit Degonnor, "are great liars, but
now and then they tell the truth." [Footnote: _Relation du Père Degonnor,
Jésuite, Missionnaire des Sioux, adressée à M. le Marquis de
Beauharnois_.] It seemed to him likely that their stories of a western
river flowing to a western sea were not totally groundless, and that the
true way to the Pacific was not, as had been supposed, through the country
of the Sioux, but farther northward, through that of the Cristineaux and
Assinniboins, or, in other words, through the region now called Manitoba.
In this view he was sustained by his friend Degonnor, who had just returned
from the ill-starred Sioux mission.

La Vérendrye, fired with the zeal of discovery, offered to search for the
Western Sea if the King would give him one hundred men and supply canoes,
arms, and provisions. [Footnote: _Relation de Degonnor: Beauharnois au
Ministre, 1 Oct_. 1731.] But, as was usual in such cases, the
King would give nothing; and though the Governor, Beauharnois, did all in
his power to promote the enterprise, the burden and the risk were left to
the adventurer himself. La Vérendrye was authorized to find a way to the
Pacific at his own expense, in consideration of a monopoly of the fur-trade
in the regions north and west of Lake Superior. This vast and remote
country was held by tribes who were doubtful friends of the French, and
perpetual enemies of each other. The risks of the trade were as great as
its possible profits, and to reap these, vast outlays must first be made:
forts must be built, manned, provisioned, and stocked with goods brought
through two thousand miles of difficult and perilous wilderness. There were
other dangers, more insidious, and perhaps greater. The exclusive
privileges granted to La Vérendrye would inevitably rouse the intensest
jealousy of the Canadian merchants, and they would spare no effort to ruin
him. Intrigue and calumny would be busy in his absence. If, as was likely,
his patron, Beauharnois, should be recalled, the new governor might be
turned against him, his privileges might be suddenly revoked, the forts he
had built passed over to his rivals, and all his outlays turned to their
profit, as had happened to La Salle on the recall of his patron, Frontenac.
On the other hand, the country was full of the choicest furs, which the
Indians had hitherto carried to the English at Hudson Bay, but which the
proposed trading-posts would secure to the French. La Vérendrye's enemies
pretended that he thought of nothing but beaver-skins, and slighted the
discovery which he had bound himself to undertake; but his conduct proves
that he was true to his engagements, and that ambition to gain honorable
distinction in the service of the King had a large place among the motives
that impelled him.

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