was sent to punish them they killed several of the French. Beaujeu offered some good advice, but La Salle rejected it; and finally, on the 12th of March the "Joly" sailed, and La Salle was left with his forlorn colony.1 Beaujeu steered, as he thought, for the Baye du St. Esprit (Mobile Bay [?]); but his belief that he was leaving the mouths of the Mississippi made him miss that harbor, and after various adventures he bore away for France, and reached Rochelle about the 1st of July. With him returned the engineer, Minet, who made on the voyage a map of the mouths of the Mississippi doubly interpreted, one sketch being based on the Franquelin map of 1684, as La Salle had found it in 1682; and the other conformed to their recent observations about Matagorda, into whose lagoons he made this great river discharge.2 1 Margry (ii. 564, etc.) prints some letters 2 This map is still preserved in the Archives 227, 228, 256–258, 260, 261, 263, who says he could not find on it the date, Mai, 1685, given by Parkman and Thomassy; Gravier, La Salle; and Delisle, in Journal des Savans, xix. 211. Margry (ii. 591) prints some observations of Minet on La Salle's effort to find the mouth of the Mississippi. 8 This is a reduced sketch from a copy (Barlow Collection) of the original in the Archives of the Marine, giving two plans of the mouth of the river, the one in the body of the map as "La Salle le marque dans sa carte," and the other (here put in the small square), “Comme nous les avons trouvez." It is Harrisse's no. 225. It soon dawned upon La Salle that he was not at the Mississippi delta; and it was imperative that he should establish a base for future movements. So he projected a settlement on the Lavaca River, which flowed into the head of the bay; and thither all went, and essayed the rough beginnings of a post, which he called Fort St. Louis.1 He was also constrained to lay out a graveyard, which received its tenants rapidly. As soon as housing and stockades were finished, La Salle, on the last day of October (1685), leaving Joutel in command, started with fifty men to search for the Mississippi. The first tidings Joutel got of his absent chief was in January (1686), when a straggler from La Salle's party appeared, and told a woful story of his mishaps. By the end of March La Salle himself returned with some of his companions; others he had left in a palisaded fort which he had built on a great river somewhere away. While on his return he detached some of his men to find his little frigate, the " Belle," which he had left at a certain place on the coast. These men also soon appeared, but they brought no tidings of the vessel. The loss of her and of what she had on board made matters very desperate, and La Salle determined on another expedition, this time to the Illinois. country and to Canada, whence he could send word to France for succor. On the 22d of April they started, — La Salle, his brother Cavelier, the Friar Douay, and a score or so others. Joutel was still left in command; and a few days later the appearance of six men, who alone had been saved from the wreck of the "Belle," and reached the fort, confirmed the worst fears of that vessel's fate. Meanwhile La Salle was experiencing dangers and evils of all kinds, the desertion and death of his men, and delays by sickness, and the spending of ammunition. Once again there was nothing for him to do but to return to Joutel, and so with eight out of his twenty men he came back to the fort. The colony had dwindled from one hundred and eighty to forty-five souls, and another attempt to secure succor was imperative. So in January (1687) a new cheerless party set out, Joutel this time accompanying La Salle; and with the rest were Duhaut, a sinister man, and Liotot the surgeon. For two months it was the same story of suffering on the march and of danger in the camp. Then quarrels ensued; and the murder of La Salle's nephew and two others who were devoted to him compelled the assassins to save themselves by killing La Salle himself; and from an ambuscade Duhaut and Liotot shot their chief. The party now succumbed to the rule of Duhaut. They ranged aimlessly among the Indians for a while, and fell in with some deserters of La Salle's former expedition now living among the savages. One of these conspired with Hiens, one of those privy to La Salle's death, and killed the assassins Duhaut and Liotot. Joutel with the few who were left now parted amicably with Hiens and the savage Frenchmen, and pushed their way to find the Great River. At a point on the Arkansas not far from its confluence with the Mississippi, they were rejoiced to find the abode of two of Tonty's men. This sturdy adherent of La Salle's fortunes had been reinstated, as we have seen, by the King's order, in the command of the fortified rock on the Illinois, and had in due time, after the return of Beaujeu to Rochelle. got the news of La Salle's landing on the Gulf. In February, 1686, he had started down the river with a band of French and Indians to join his old commander. He reached the Gulf, but of course failed to find La Salle; and returning, had left several men in the villages of the Arkansas, of whom Couture and another now welcomed Joutel and his weary companions. After some delay the wanderers floated their wooden canoe down the Arkansas, and then began their weary journey up the Great River, and by the middle of September they reached the Fort St. Louis of the Illinois. They found Tonty absent, and Bellefontaine in command. They foolishly thought to increase their welcome by presenting themselves as the forerunners of La Salle, who was on the way, tidings which kept all in good spirits except the Jesuit Allouez, who happened to be in the fort, and was ill, for he was conscious of his machinations against La Salle, and dreaded to encounter 2 1 Dr. Shea puts the settlement on Espirito Bay, where Bahia now is. 2 See his Relation of this voyage in Fal coner's Discovery of the Mississippi, etc. him.1 Cavelier and Joutel soon started for the Chicago portage. A storm on the lake impeded them subsequently, and they came back to the fort to find Tonty returned from Denonville's campaign against the Senecas.2 The same deceit regarding La Salle's fate was practised on Tonty, and he gave them money and supplies as to La Salle's representatives, only to learn a few months later, when Couture came up from the Arkansas, of La Salle's murder. The wanderers, however, had now passed on, had reached Quebec in safety, still concealing what they knew, and not disclosing it till they reached France; and even in France there is a suspicion that Cavelier held his peace till he had secured some property against the seizure of La Salle's creditors. Why Joutel connived at the deception is less comprehensible, for otherwise he bears a fair name. No representations of his, however, could induce the King to send succor to the hapless colony; and all the result, so far as known, of the tardy acknowledgment of La Salle's death was an order sent to Canada for the arrest of his murderers. The story which Couture told to Tonty in September inspired that hero with a determination to try to rescue La Salle's colony on the Gulf. So in December he left his fortified rock, with five Frenchmen and three others. Late in March he was on the Red River, where all but two of his companions deserted him. He was himself finally, by the loss of his ammunition, compelled to turn back, but not till he had learned of the probable death of Heins. In September he reached his fort on the Illinois; and here, with La Forest, he continued to live, holding the seigniory jointly under a royal patent, and trading in furs, till 1702, when the establishment was broken up. Tonty now joined D'Iberville in Louisiana, and of his subsequent years nothing is known. The French again occupied his rocky fastness; but when Charlevoix saw it, in 1721, it was only a ruin. 4 The fate of the Texan colony is soon told. The Spaniards who had searched for it by sea had always missed it, though they had found the wrecked vessels. A Frenchman, probably a deserter from La Salle, fell into the Spaniards' hands in New Leon. From him they learned its position, and despatched under the Frenchman's guidance a force to capture it. They found the fort deserted, and three dead bodies a little distance off. From the Indians they learned of two Frenchmen who were living with a distant tribe. They sent for them under a pledge of good treatment; and when they came, they proved to be L'Archevêque, one of Duhaut's accomplices, and one of the stray deserters whom Joutel had discovered after the murder. They told a story of ravages from the small-pox and of slaughter by the savages. A few of the colonists had been saved by the Indian women; but these were subsequently given up to the Spaniards, and they added their testimony to the sad and ignominious end of the colony. It is necessary to define the historical sources regarding this hapless Texan expedition, about the purpose of which there have been some diverse views lately expressed. It is clear that under cover of a grand plan of Spanish conquest, La Salle had dazed the imagination of the King in memorials," which may possibly have been only meant to induce the royal espousal of his more personal schemes. Shea contends that La Salle's real object was not to settle in Louisiana, but to conquer Santa Barbara and the mining regions in Mexico, and to pave the way for Peñalosa's expedition." For the broader relations of the expedition to the earlier explorations of 1682, we must go to a source of the first importance preserved in the Archives of the Marine. It is entitled Mémoire envoyé en 1693 sur la découverte du Mississipi et des nations voisines par le Sieur de la Salle, en 1678, et depuis sa mort par le Sieur de Tonty, and is printed by Margry;1 and Parkman calls it excellent authority. Out of this and an earlier paper, written in Quebec in 1684,2 a book, disowned by Tonty, as Charlevoix tells us, was in part fabricated, and appeared at Paris in 1697 under the title of Dernières découvertes dans l'Amérique septentrionale de M. de la Salle, mises au jour par M. le Chevalier Tonti, gouverneur du Fort St. Louis, aux Islinois. Parkman calls it "a compilation full of errors," and does not rely upon it. Shea says of it that, "although repudiated by Tonti, it must have been based on papers of his." It has been held apocryphal by Iberville and Margry; but Falconer, La Harpe, Boimare, and Gravier put trust in it. 6 It is thought that a Journal by Joutel was written in part to counteract the statements of the Dernières découvertes. This Joutel paper was given first in full by Margry,5 and Parkman says of it that it seems to be "the work of an honest and intelligent man. It was printed in Paris in 1713, but abridged and changed in a way which Joutel complained of, and bore the title, Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de la Salle fit dans le Golfe du Mexique, pour trouver l'embouchure du Mississipi. Par M. Joutel.8 annotates the narrative of La Salle's Gulf of Mexico experiences, and makes some identifications of localities different from those of other writers. Cf. also Historical Magazine, xiv. 308 (December, 1868). 1 There is an English translation in Falconer's Discovery of the Mississippi, and in French's Historical Collections of Louisiana, i. 52. 2 Margry, i. 571.* 3 Joutel says it had a map; but later authorities have not discovered any. Cf. Harrisse, Notes, etc., no. 174; Leclerc, no. 1,027 (130 francs); Dufossé (70 and 100 francs); CarterBrown, vol. ii. no. 1,522. It was reprinted as "Relation de la Louisiane" in Bernard's Recueil des voyages au Nord, Amsterdam, 1720, 1724, and 1734, also appearing separately. An English translation appeared in London, in 1698, called An Account of Monsieur de la Salle's last Expedition and Discoveries in North America, with Adventures of Sieur de Montauban appended. (Harrisse, no 178; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,542; Brinley, no. 4,524.) This version was reprinted in the N. Y. Hist. Coll., ii. 217-341. 4 La Salle, p. 129. 5 See vol. iii. pp. 89-534, and p. 648, for an account of the document. and 9,171 (55 and 50 francs); O'Callaghan, no. 1,276. The book should have a map entitled Carte nouvelle de la Louisiane et de la Rivière de Mississipi . dressée par le Sueur Joutel, 1713. A section of this map is given in the Magazine of American History, 1882, p. 185, and in A. P. C. Griffin's Discovery of the Mississippi, p. 20. In 1714 an English translation appeared in Paris, as A Journal of the last Voyage perform'd by Monsr. de la Sale to the Gulph of Mexico, to find out the Mouth of the Mississipi River; his unfortunate Death, and the Travels of his Companions for the Space of Eight Hundred Leagues across that Inland Country of America, now call'd Louisania, translated from the Edition just publish'd at Paris. It also had a folding map showing the course of the Mississippi, with a view of Niagara engraved in the corner. Cf. Harrisse, no. 751; Lenox, in Historical Magazine, ii. 25; Field, Indian Bibliography, no. 808; Menzies, no. 1,110; Stevens, Historical Collections, vol. i. no. 1,462; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 55; Brinley, no. 4,498 (with date 1715). There are copies in the Boston Public, the Lenox, and Cornell University libraries. This 1714 translation was issued with a new title in 6 La Salle, 397; cf. Shea's Charlevoix, i. 1719 (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 244; Field, no. 88-90. 7 Joutel, according to Lebreton (Revue de Rouen, 1852, p. 236), had served since he was seventeen in the army. 8 Harrisse, no. 750. The book is rare; there are copies in the Boston Public, Lenox, CarterBrown (vol. iii. no. 117), and Cornell University (Sparks's Catalogue, no. 1,387) libraries. Cf. Sabin, vol. ix. p. 351; Brinley, no. 4,497; Leclerc, no. 925 (100 francs); Stevens, Bibliotheca Historica, 1870, no. 1,036; Dufossé, nos. 1,999, 3,300, 809), and was reprinted in French's Historical Collections of Louisiana, part i. p. 85. A Spanish translation, Diario historico, was issued in New York in 1831. Dumont's Mémoires historiques sur la Louisiane, Paris, 1753, with a map, was put forth by its author as a sort of continuation of the Journal published by Joutel in 1713. To these there are various supplemental narratives, with their interest centring in the death of La Salle.1 Joutel gives an account of the scene as he learned it at the time.o Tonty's account was at second hand. Douay saw the deed, and what he reported is given in Le Clercq's Etablissement de la Foi. A document in the Archives of the Marine Relation de la mort du Sr. de la Salle, suivant le rapport d'un nommé Couture, à qui M. Cavelier l'apprit en passant au pays des Akansa — is given by Margry; and Harrisse thinks that it merits little confidence. Cavelier is known to have made a report to Seignelay; and his rough draft of this was recovered in 1854 by Parkman, who calls it "confused and unsatisfactory in its statements, and all the latter part has been lost," the fragment closing several weeks before the death of his brother.6 The character of Beaujeu has certainly been put in a more favorable light by the publication of Margry, and the old belief in his treachery has been somewhat modified." 9 The Spanish account of the fate of the colony is translated from Barcia's Ensayo cronologico de la Florida,8 in Shea's Discovery of the Mississippi; and Margry 10 adds to our knowledge, as does Buckingham Smith in his Coleccion." It remains now to speak of the Collections which have been formed, and the theories regarding these Western explorations which have been maintained, by M. Pierre Margry, who has occupied till within a few years the office of archivist of the Marine and Colonies in Paris, having been for a long period assistant and principal. Margry may be said Americana; and of course in Shea's Hennepin ; cf. Western Magazine, i. 507. 1 The Library of Parliament Catalogue, p. 1616, no. 30, gives a map, copied from the original in the French Archives, which shows the spot of La Salle's assassination. La Salle's route is traced on Delisle's map, which is reproduced by Gravier. 2 This portion of his Journal is translated in the Magazine of American History, ii. 753; and Parkman thinks it is marked by sense, intelligence, and candor. 3 Translated into English in Shea's Discovery of the Mississippi, p. 197, and in his edition of Le Clercq, where he compares it with Joutel. Parkman cannot resist the conclusion that Douay did not always write honestly, and told a different story at different times. La Salle, p. 409. 4 Vol. iii. p. 601. 5 La Salle, p. 436. 6 Shea printed it from Parkman's manuscript in 1858, and translated it, with notes, in his Early Voyages up and down the Mississippi. It is called Relation du voyage entrepris par feu M. Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. Par son frère, M. Cavelier, l'un des compagnons de voyage. Shea says of it in his Charof it in his Charlevoix, iv. 63, that "it is enfeebled by his acknowledged concealment, if not misrepresentation; and his statements generally are attacked by Joutel." Cf. Margry, ii. 501. 7 Cf. Joutel, Charlevoix, Michelet, Henri Martin, and Margry in his Les Normands dans les vallées de l'Ohio et du Mississipi. Parkman modified his judgment between the publication of his Great West and his La Salle. VOL. IV. - 31 8 Page 294. 9 Page 208. 10 Vol. iii. p. 610. 11 Page 25. Cf. French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, 2d series, p. 293. A few miscellaneous references may be preserved regarding La Sallé and the Western discoveries: The paper by Levot in the Nouvelle biographie générale; one by Xavier Eyma, in the Revue contemporaine, 1863, called "Légende du Meschacébé; " Th. Le Breton's "Un navigateur Rouennais au xviie siècle," in the Revue de Rouen et de Normandie, 1852, p. 231; a section of Guerin's Les navigateurs Français, 1846, p. 369; the Letters of Nobility given to La Salle, printed by Gravier in his Appendix, p. 360; where is also his Will (p. 385), dated Aug. 11, 1681, which can also be found in Margry, and translated in Magazine of American History, September, 1878 (ii. 551), and in Falconer's Discovery of the Mississippi; a picture of his 1684 expedition, by Th. Gudin, in the Versailles Gallery; a paper on the discoveries of La Salle as affecting the French claim to a western extension of Louisi ana, in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, xiii. 223; paper by R. H. Clarke in the Catholic World, xx. 690, 833; "La Salle and the Mississippi," in De Bow's Review, xxii. 13. Gravier has furnished an introduction (69 pages) on "Les Normands sur le Mississipi, 1682-1727," to his fac-simile edition (1872) of the Relation du voyage des dames Ursulines de Rouen à la Nouvelle Orléans (100 copies) of Madeleine Hachard, following the original printed at Rouen in 1728 (Maisonneuve, Livres de fond 1883, p. 30). |