Part 8

It might have been expected that one who had made so magnificent a discovery--who had braved so much and endured so much--would wish to announce in person, to the authorities in Canada, or in France, the results of his expedition. Nay, it would not have been unpardonable had he desired to enjoy, after his labors, something of the consideration to which their success entitled him. And, certainly, no man could ever have approached his rulers with a better claim upon their notice than could the unpretending voyageur. But vainglory was no more a part of his nature, than was fear. The unaspiring priest remained at Green Bay, to continue, or rather to resume, as a task laid aside only for a time, his ministrations to the savages. Joliet hastened on to Quebec to report the expedition, and Marquette returned to Chicago, for the purpose of preaching the gospel to the Miami confederacy; several allied tribes who occupied the country between Lake Michigan and the Des Moines river. Here again he visited the Illinois, speaking to them of God, and of the religion of Jesus; thus redeeming a promise which he had made them, when on his expedition to the South.

But his useful, unambitious life was drawing to a close. Let us describe its last scene in the words of our accomplished historian:--

"Two years afterward, sailing from Chicago to Mackinac, he entered a little river in Michigan. Erecting an altar, he said mass, after the rites of the Catholic church; then, begging the men who conducted his canoe to leave him alone for a half hour,

"----'In the darkling wood, Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down, And offered to the mightiest solemn thanks And supplication.'

"At the end of the half hour they went to seek him, and he was no more. The good missionary, discoverer of a world, had fallen asleep on the margin of the stream that bears his name. Near its mouth, the canoe-men dug his grave in the sand. Ever after, the forest rangers, in their danger on Lake Michigan, would invoke his name. The people of the West will build his monument."

The monument is not yet built; though the name of new counties in several of our western states testifies that the noble missionary is not altogether forgotten, in the land where he spent so many self-denying years.

Such was the voyageur priest; the first, in chronological order, of the succession of singular men who have explored and peopled the great West. And though many who have followed him have been his equals in courage and endurance, none have ever possessed the same combination of heroic and unselfish qualities. It ought not to be true that this brief and cursory sketch is the first distinct tribute yet paid to his virtues; for no worthier subject ever employed the pen of the poet or historian.

NOTE.--Struck with the fact that the history of this class of men, and of their enterprises and sufferings, has never been written, except by themselves in their simple "Journals" and "Relations"--for the resume given of these by Sparks, Bancroft, and others, is of necessity a mere unsatisfactory abstract--the writer has for some time been engaged in collecting and arranging materials, with the intention of supplying the want. The authorities are numerous and widely scattered; and such a work ought to be thoroughly and carefully written, so that much time and labor lies between the author and his day of publication. Should he be spared, however, to finish the work, he hopes to present a picture of a class of men, displaying as much of true devotion, genuine courage, and self-denial, in the humble walk of the missionary, as the pages of history show in any other department of human enterprise.

FOOTNOTES:

In common use, this word was restricted so as to indicate only the boatmen, the carriers of that time; but I am writing of a period anterior, by many years, to the existence of the Trade which made their occupation.

Joutel, who was one of La Salle's party, and afterward wrote an account of the enterprise, entitled Journal Historique, published in Paris, 1713. Its fidelity is as evident upon its face, as is the simplicity of the historian.

This was in the winter of 1679-'80; and the Five Nations, included in the general term Iroquois, had not then made the conquest upon which the English afterward founded their claim to the country. They were, however, generally regarded as enemies by all the Illinois tribes.

A collective name, including a number, variously stated, of different tribes confederated.

Annals of the West, by J. H. Perkins and J. M. Peck, p. 679. St. Louis. 1850.

The substance of the Journal may be found, republished by Dr. Sparks, in the second edition of Butler's Kentucky, p. 493, et seq., and in vol. x. of his American Biography.

Miscellanies, "Review of Ranke's History of the Popes."

In a book which he published at Utrecht, in 1697, entitled A New Discovery of a Vast Country, he claims to have gone down the Mississippi to its mouth before La Salle. The whole book is a mere plagiarism. See Sparks's Life of La Salle, where the vain father is summarily and justly disposed of.

Most of these dates may be found in Bancroft's United States, vol iii.

The legend of the Piasau is well known. Within the recollection of men now living, rude paintings of the monster were visible on the cliffs above Alton, Illinois. To these images, when passing in their canoes, the Indians were accustomed to make offerings of maize, tobacco, and gunpowder. They are now quite obliterated.

June 10, 1673.

I mean, of course, the upper Mississippi; for De Soto had reached it lower down one hundred and thirty-two years before.

It was announced, some months since, that our minister at Rome, Mr. Cass, had made discoveries in that city which threw more light upon this expedition. But how this can be, consistently with the fact stated in the text (about which there is no doubt), I am at a loss to divine.

The place of Marquette's landing--which should be classic ground--from his description of the country, and the distance he specifies, could not have been far from the spot where the city of Keokuk now stands, a short distance above the mouth of the Des Moines. The locality should, if possible, be determined.

It was by virtue of a treaty of purchase--signed at Fort Stanwix on the 5th of November, 1768--with the Six Nations, who claimed the country as their conquest, that the British asserted a title to the country west of the Alleghenies, Western Virginia, Kentucky, etc.

The geographical mistakes of the early French explorers have led to some singular discussions about Western history--have even been used by diplomatists to support or weaken territorial claims. Such, for example, is the question concerning the antiquity of Vincennes, a controversy founded on the mistake noticed in the text. Vide Western Annals. 2d Ed. Revised by J. M. Peck.

In 1541, De Soto crossed the Mississippi about the thirty-fifth parallel of latitude, or near the northern boundary of the state of that name. It is not certain how far below this Marquette went, though we are safe in saying that he did not turn back north of that limit.

Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. iii., p. 161, et seq., where the reader may look for most of these dates.

III.