The French are an incredibly social people, so they hold numerous parties. After all, they have the grand homes, the leisure, and the income to entertain. I didn’t mind – the food was free and good. So I occupied my evenings going to parties and listening to more gossip about the Jolliets. It was so good to be their biographer. I was hearing lots of things no one had told me in the past. I almost felt it was my duty to drink the wine, eat great food, and listen to juicy tidbits. I loved that fall.
It was in the midst of this string of parties that I met Elise. Or maybe I should say she met me. I never thought for a moment that our meeting was accidental or genuine. The truth is the French are snobs, and French women especially regard Americans as lesser creatures. We are the drudges who work fifty hours a week and live in little houses choked with smog. They are great ladies who live the sensual life of plenty on their estates. What would they want with an American other than to have him negotiate a contract or fix a computer?
French women had been courteous to me, as had the men, especially since my connection to the President had become known. But there had never been anything in word, deed, or posture to hint at any interest in me other than the platonic. Until Elise. Her intentions had been so clear so fast, I assumed she was very drunk and had confused me for a compatriot. After all, I knew these women tallied up their sexual conquests as easy entertainment. Basically, the French have the same sexual mores as rabbits. Or as they say around here, the nights may be long and dark, but they aren’t lonely.
So I talked politely to Elise, assuming she would hear from my accent that I was not one more French boy to take to one more bed. But as we talked, it became clear she was not that drunk and she knew who I was. She claimed to be a graduate student at the national university, but that told me little. Since the French do not charge tuition for college, these places are often the home to those too lazy to work even the meager French thirty-five hour work week. They are also a place the rich put their children until they are marriageable age. In short, telling me she was a student was the same as telling me nothing.
What she wanted, though, was communicated clearly enough by the way she stood. The place was crowded, but not enough to force her as close to me as she stood. She wanted me, and short of wearing a neon sign, she did everything she could to let me know. I certainly enjoyed her looks. She was taller than average, but there was something about the way she stood that made her seem even taller. Can you stand tall? She was wearing a yellow satin, floor-length gown that was pleasantly low in the front and somehow matched her brown skin perfectly. She was obviously part Indian. I could see it in her slightly rounded face, her deep brown eyes, her cascading brown hair. I half wondered if there was a portrait of her mother or grandmother somewhere in the house. She looked like so many of those Indian princesses shown greeting the French. She was in many ways the archetypal Indian mother of the nation. She had the height, the figure, the famous eyes, and the brown skin that the leaders of New France had been marrying for centuries. For some reason I was being greeted by royalty.
Now I had to figure out what to do. I could imagine others at the party even had a pool going. Some would bet I’d jump right into bed with her, grateful for any attention by a French woman. Others would bet my Puritan cultural background would keep me from her. For the moment I decided to keep both groups off balance and just talk with her.
“Do you have much of an interest in history?” I asked.
“Some. My family goes back pretty far. And yours?”
“No, we are relative newcomers to the continent. My family arrived in the 1800s looking for potatoes.”
“So you are Irish? How does it feel to be a minority?” A minority? What a stupid thing to say. Her remark was so crude and so damn French that I was immediately angered. She just one more drunk French woman, believing as they all do, that we Americans can be divided up. But I wasn’t having it.
“Please excuse me. I think it is time for me to leave.” I turned pretty abruptly and took a couple steps toward the door.
“I am sorry.” She immediately jumped in front of me and took my hand. “I have never traveled in the U.S. and so do not understand your country. I am sorry I insulted you in some way.” It was late and I was thinking of leaving, but there she was, so close. And there was something in the way she held my hand. I was reluctant to move. Had she been trained to take a hand that way, or did it come natural to French women?
“Have you ever been to Portage?” I asked. I have no idea where the idea came from. It was like someone else had taken over my body. Portage? Why the hell would I want to go there? It must have been the wine, but it certainly was also her.
“Oh yes. I love the way the old buildings have been renovated. It is like a picture post card from the last century.”
“I am planning to drive down there on Wednesday. Would you like to come with me?” Who was making my mouth say such words? Wednesday in Portage? I would rather spend the day getting hit by lacrosse sticks, and here I was not only deciding to go, but asking her!
“I would love to go.”
The whole idea was insane, but I did have one moment of lucidity. I told her I would pick her up at her dormitory. It was an evil request. If she were not really a student, she would now have to find some way to secure temporary lodgings. Good. Let her struggle with her lie. She gave me a campus address, and I told her I would be by at ten on Wednesday, weather permitting. Given the ugly weather here, it might well give me an excuse to back out of this trip when I sobered up and realized how crazy this whole plan was.
But Wednesday dawned with weather that was outstanding for Green Bay. The sun was out, a small miracle in itself, and the temperature was above freezing – something of a surprise in October. Maybe I could make this trip to Portage and not catch pneumonia.
The National University is on the eastern edge of Green Bay. It is a huge campus overlooking the waters of Green Bay. The campus is so large it has its own golf course plus endless walking paths. To protect the children of the elite, all the building are connected by tunnels so that students need not be exposed to the elements while they walked from class to class. I reminded myself that all the golf courses on campus wouldn’t enable this poor institution to equal the University of Virginia. All the French millions would never outdo Thomas Jefferson.
Elise’s residence was on the eastern end of campus. Graduate students had small apartments of their own, and she permitted me to look over her shoulder when I arrived so that I could see that it really was her apartment. Then we got into the car and headed down the highway. As you can imagine, there is a major highway joining Green Bay and all the cities along the Mississippi route, but Elise directed me onto a smaller road so we could see more of the countryside. She was going to be an energetic guide.
“We will bypass Oshkosh,” she said, “unless there is something special you want to see there. It is just an industrial city, probably not much different from your cities.” Actually I had been to Oshkosh several times on behalf of my father’s business and I knew the way industry worked here was nothing like industry back in Philadelphia. We had to be careful about anything we had made locally. The French couldn’t put a nut on a bolt without doing it wrong and taking two coffee breaks during the process.
“We will follow the Fox,” she continued. “If it were warmer, we could stop along the river for a picnic, but there is still much we can see from the car.” She went on that way chattering as I drove. I liked it. She had that way some women do of turning and looking directly at you while she spoke. I could feel her eyes on me as she described the sights and told stories about the area. Her talk filled the car. So did her skirts. She had worn long full skirts in what the women call “prairie style.” They flowed past her seat and over the center console so that whenever I reached to change gears I brushed her dress. Then there was her perfume in the air. I began to wonder if I would rem
ember anything of Portage, or think only of her sitting beside me in the car.
We had barely driven west past Oshkosh when I spotted a sign for the Mascoutin Country Club. “Is that what the Mascoutin do now? Run a country club?” I asked.
“Oh, they do many things. They are quite the entrepreneurs. If you would like to see where the Mascoutin used to live, we can take that right turn up ahead.” I turned up a small road and as soon as we passed a small rise I could see Lake Butte des Morts. Elise directed me along a series of small roads on the south edge of the lake. Eventually we came to the point where the Fox flowed into the lake.
“The Mascoutin lived along this stretch of the Fox. Their main village was about ten miles up river,” Elise said. ”In those days we hadn’t built the dams on the lower Fox so the water level on the Butte des Morts was lower. This was mostly swamp with a small river coming in. The Fox is so large when it enters Green Bay that it probably seemed impossible that this small stream to our left was the Fox. But it is. Most of the water in this lake and Lake Winnebago comes not from the Fox, but from the Wolf River. The main currents in this part of the lake come from the Wolf, entering the lake from the northwest.”
“Since the Wolf is the larger river, I suppose most explorers would have stayed with the main stream and gone up the Wolf, ignoring the Fox.”
“Yes,” she answered, “The Mascoutins were among the few peoples who knew the value of the little Fox.” We sat from a few minutes and looked out across the lake. It is not a very impressive spot. The south side of the lake is all marsh and this particular point of land seems to be about two feet above water. The Fox is maybe forty or fifty feet across as it enters the lake. The opposite shore is just a jumble of reeds. There was nothing scenic here, just reeds and water. I couldn’t imagine Americans trading their condos on the banks of the Chesapeake for frontage on this marsh.
The French elite didn’t seem to want this area either. The shore line was so unattractive it had been left to the working class. We could see a dozen or so fishing shacks just to our left. They were tiny places built on top of each other. The object of each place seemed to be to have thirty or forty feet of shore line so they could launch small boats. I hoped they were used solely in the summer, but the smoke coming from several chimneys indicated that some poor souls lived in this wasteland year round.
Elise had nothing to say about the houses. She let me sit there for a few minutes, and then started directing me back onto the road to Omreau. We passed Omreau and several other small towns, all of them nondescript burgs surrounded by alternating farm fields and wood lots. Wisconsin is a flat place and this part is flat even by Wisconsin standards. I was getting bored pretty fast. Elise must have noticed, for she suddenly changed topics.
“Let’s stop in Princeton for lunch.”
“Princeton? You have a town named Princeton? Isn’t that a bit English?”
‘Yes, I suppose it is, but that’s its name. And it has lots of good restaurants and antique stores. You’ll like it.” In truth I loathe antique stores. As an historian I have a mild interest in the furniture of history, but most stores know less history than school children, and others cheat, calling half of the furniture in the place “Louis XIV” when it was no doubt made by drunken farmers in the next county. But Elise did a have a way with her. We were quickly in the town and parked, and I found I did like antique stores as long as she was at my side. She had this old fashioned way of taking my arm with both of hers as we strolled through the stores. She had something to say about everything we saw, and a light tone, as if she was about to burst out laughing at each new item we encountered. Suddenly it was fun to stare at a chest of drawers.
The most interesting moment came as we decided to get lunch. It was nearing one now and the restaurants were crowded, but apparently not for us. We walked into a nicer place and instantly the maitre d’ noticed her. He suddenly stood straighter and appeared about to bow. Elise smiled pleasantly and simply asked for a table, and we were instantly at a beautiful table by the windows. Did he know her? No, there was no conversation between them that indicated friendship. It was all respect. The French are the most class-conscious people left on Earth. For all their babble about “liberty, fraternity, equality,” the nobility do very well here, and he had spotted her as nobility. She was gracious in accepting the table, and in attending to the waiter who instantly appeared to discuss our order. But nothing was said about it between us. She just went back to talking about a table set we had seen and the style of the carvings on the legs. I was rendered speechless. I had nothing to say about the carvings, and what does one say about a French waiter who is actually prompt?
We had the usual drowsy French lunch, complete with wine, and then finally set off again for Portage. It was nearly four by the time we reached there, and the sun was already getting low. Here again I was surprised by how flat the area was. It seemed to me if the Fox were to be separated from The Wisconsin River, there must be a range of hills to divide the two. There wasn’t. If there was six feet of difference in elevation between the two, it was six more feet than I could see.
The meeting of the two rivers is easy to find. The old portage path has long since been converted into a two-mile channel with a small lock at the end joining the two rivers. We followed the channel along Edgewater Street to Lock Street and we were there. I have to admit I was pretty excited. Much had happened at this junction. I was pleased to see it for myself.
Elise, for her part, was suddenly like a little girl. She jumped out of the car the second I was parked, and grabbed my hand to pull me over to the lock. “This is so exciting. Come, let me show you.” And off we went to look at the lock. The French are pretty good with their public history. They had established a small park adjacent to the lock, and had park benches, shade trees, and large displays sheltered from the rain. One display covered the history of the place, with a map showing the original portage route as a dotted line next to the straighter channel that had been constructed. There were drawings of the channel being built, and then photographs of the lock being put in. Various phases of the channel and lock had taken over a century, not surprising given the French work ethic.
We walked around the lock to the very edge where the Fox meets the Wisconsin. There an odd idea hit me. From where I was standing, if a raindrop had fallen on my left shoulder, it would have rolled down into the Fox and then begun the long route through the Great Lakes and ultimately to the North Atlantic. A raindrop rolling down my right shoulder would have hit the Wisconsin, flowed into the Mississippi, and thence to the Gulf of Mexico. What was the distance? Maybe five thousand miles at the end, but just a couple feet here at the beginning. Maybe a poet could have used that as a metaphor for something profound, but just then the wind caught Elise’s skirts and my thoughts turned to the more immediate.
She took my arm and led me around town. On the north side of the channel, Edgewater Street, lay the stores and restaurants and great hotels. This is where travelers had passed the time while their boats had waited to go through the lock, or their luggage was transferred to the larger boats of the Wisconsin. It was a place for fun. Most of the real work of the lock had ended nearly a century ago – the Fox was just too small and the railroads so much faster – but now pleasure boats used the channel to take families on weekend adventures. So the old saloons had been restored and the great hotels had been redecorated and there were shops everywhere. Elise led me from one to another, never letting go of my arm, and never ceasing her running description of anything and everything.
By seven neither of us could walk any further, and we stepped into the restaurant of one of the old hotels. Once again we were seated immediately. I liked the place. It had high ceilings, old wooden features, and it had Elise, who sat beside me and held my hand between courses. I vaguely remember the food and wine were very good and that time seemed to leap ahead. Suddenly it was wel
l past nine and I had enough wine in me to ask what seemed to be the most important question in the world.
“It’s getting late, Elise. Ah, should we get a room?”
“Oh, that would be lovely. But my dissertation advisor is out of the country and I promised to lead his seminar tomorrow morning. I am afraid I must ask you to take me home.” I have been turned down by women before. I just wish the others had done it as nicely. We had a quick cup of coffee and dashed back into the very cold car. She showed me how to get onto the Mississippi Highway, and we made much better time getting back to Green Bay. I had Elise back to her apartment before midnight. My reward was a long, lingering kiss, and a request that I call her again soon. I did.
We had dinner again later that week, and then started going to parties together. Suddenly I appeared on yet another set of invitation lists. Not a single, but part of a couple, we were invited to more formal dinner parties, where Elise was adored and I was treated with reasonable respect. Evenings were marvelous.
Meanwhile, the interviews continued. Picard arranged for me to visit the president in mid-October. Leaves were falling fast and the wind was cold. It was clear we would not be meeting outside that day. And in fact Picard led me into the President’s study, introduced me yet again, and then left me to sit with the President in a pair of wingbacked chairs.
“Should we begin with the Indians?” I asked. “During these years Marquette was learning their language and Louis was beginning to trade with them. What kind of experience were they both having?”
“That is helpful suggestion,” he agreed. “So much has been written about the way Europeans viewed the Indians, let’s turn the tables a bit and review how Europeans must have looked to the Indians, shall we? Here in New France we had several hundred people in Montreal, a somewhat larger population in Quebec, and then dozens of trading posts that might have had one to five Frenchmen in each. My point is that our numbers were so small, we had very limited impact. The country was so vast, we were visible in just a small corner of it. And even when we were present, we often had little influence. When the Iroquois slaughtered the Hurons, for example, there were several Jesuit priests present. The priests were burned with the rest of the tribe.
“The French did some modest farming, and of course hunted for food, so we competed with the Indians for resources, but our environmental impact was rather small. I don’t think any Indians starved because we happened to be in the neighborhood.
“The biggest impact we had was on trade goods. We could weave cloth and manufacture metal tools. The Indians could make simple stone weapons, and they did some farming, but they had no ability to create metal tools. So that is what we were to the Indians – a source of hatchets and knives and cloth. A metal knife was easier to use than a stone knife, so it had much greater value. Once an Indian had used a metal tool he never wanted to go back to stone tools. He became dependent upon us as the source.
“What we often don’t talk about is the elaborate trade system Indians had among themselves. Whatever goods local Indians got from us, they quickly traded to more distant Indians at a great profit. It was valuable to have access to the French, and it was even more valuable if your enemies or your trading partners did not have access to the French. By the way, this created a constant problem on the trip down the Mississippi. Every tribe Louis met wanted him to stop and go no further. If they were the last point of trade with the French, then they could profit from bartering goods down the river. If Louis kept going, then they had no advantage over the next tribe the French encountered. The result was every tribe warned Louis about terrible dangers from bad Indians or bad water or some other horror. Having traded with tribes for years, Louis understood what the Indians were doing. A novice group would have been terrified around every bend.
“The other thing we don’t talk about is trade and the economics of empire. If you think about the Spanish, who beat us all to the New World, their economic policy was theft and slavery. By the time they were done they had killed every single Indian in the Caribbean and thousands more in Mexico and Peru while they stole gold and silver. The result was not only the death of the Indian empires, but the death of Spain. The gold created an incredible leisure class of prancing dons who spent two centuries dueling and dancing until the gold was used up. Then the Spanish disappear from history.
“We French earned our money through trading. This created thousands of small manufacturers to make the metal tools we sold in New France, and thousands of apparel companies to turn the beaver pelts into hats and coats and the rest. The result was that there was an entire middle class in France that benefited from the empire. The New World helped us industrialize, while it held back industrialization in Spain until it was too late for them to catch up.
“I would say that the English model was similar to the French,” I interjected. “Would you not agree?”
“Yes, you also traded. In the end that made you much more serious competition than the Spanish.” There was a bit of a smile on his face, but I wasn’t sure whether that meant he was enjoying the conversation, or enjoying the comparison to the English, where he knew the French had emerged victorious. I decided to move the conversation along.
“So we have traders like Louis who are the middle men between a long manufacturing and shipping system in France, and an elaborate trading network among the Indians. Where do the Jesuits fit in? If my histories are correct, they were the only order in New France. What was the system they and Marquette fit into?”
“Ah, here is where the world has some great conspiracy theories. Most are some variation of DeFoe’s Three Musketeers and the battle with the evil Cardinal Richelieu. In these theories the cardinal is the real king and the Jesuits are his soldiers, doing his political will around the world. They even point to the creation of the Hospital in Quebec by Richelieu as part of his master plan to conquer the planet. Thank God for that hospital and the good sisters who ran it. Many received care there, including most of my ancestors.
“I thought Mazarin was Cardinal under Louis the 14th.” My grasp of French politics may not be perfect, but I could read history and recall dates. This was also a chance for me to show I was not a complete fool.
“Yes, Richelieu died just before Louis the 13th did. Too bad. Since Louis the 14th was just five at the time, Richelieu could have really run France, and he would have done a fine job. But Mazarin ran France adequately for a decade until Louis 14th came of age. Then Mazarin conveniently died and Louis was able to take command of his country. This man would rule France with an iron hand for more than half a century. And he would rule the church too. Did you know he appointed all Bishops in France, not the Pope? He controlled all church property and all church publications. He used to say “I am the state.” He was actually being modest. He could have said, “I am the state and the church and the empire.”
“So the Jesuits worked for him.” I interjected.
“No,” the President replied, “that is too simple. Louis was the absolute ruler of the largest empire on earth, but his power was enhanced by three groups. First, he had a large standing army. This intimidated any nobles who might care to object to his policies, and kept neighboring countries on their best behavior. Then he had the middle class. As long as he could guarantee markets for their products, he could guarantee profits, which meant happy subjects and lots of tax revenue. But he also needed the church. If he was king by divine right, his power flowed from God, as mediated by the church. So he needed to control the church, but the church also had power over him. Whenever he sent Jesuits over seas, he was doing his job as head of the church, spreading the world of God and saving souls from eternal damnation, and he was also currying favor with the church by supporting the church in its greatest goals.
“So when Father Marquette is appointed to join the explorers of the Mississippi, “ I offered, “he was going both as representative of the church
, and as representative of the King.”
“That is one way to explain it, “ Claude seemed to like my interpretation. “You could say he was doing the work of the church and the work of the King. After all, as God’s leader on Earth, it was Louis 14th’s job to spread the word of Christ.”
“Thank you,” I was talking with a politician so I knew Claude was enjoying this analysis of the King’s role. And I found it helpful. But I wanted to move the conversation back to specific events in 1668. “This is very helpful background. Should we now discuss the actions of Marquette and Louis Jolliet as they began their careers?”
“Yes, but you know these were dark years for both of them. Shall we start with Louis or Father Marquette?”
“Let’s start with Louis. I am fascinated with how a man barely over twenty would launch himself out into the wilderness.”
Jolliet
“Ah, that’s easy,” Claude laughed. “He did it with borrowed money and borrowed experience. We know from shop records of the time that he took forty pounds of tobacco, hatchets, metal bells (Indian women loved them), canvas, and lots of cloth. That was all pretty standard. History tells you that Bishop Laval loaned him the money, but if you dig a bit deeper you find that his mother had to co-sign the note. There was real risk Louis would disappear into the interior and never be seen again, and Laval wanted to protect church funds.
But the biggest protection was Adrien. Louis’ older brother had been in the business for years and was the most able explorer in the colony. He led Louis up to Sault St. Marie and established the trading post there. It was there Louis spent most of the time until he was called to explore the southern reaches of the empire.
The Sault was a major trading point for the Indians. They had been meeting there for centuries. You have all of Lake Superior to the west, and the waters of Lake Huron to the east. It was a natural junction for the waterways in either direction. What none of the French knew yet, was that there was a third lake, Lake Michigan, just southwest, so even more traffic was in the vicinity. All traders knew was that whenever they set up in the Sault, there was plenty of business.
But getting there was hard. From Quebec to the Sault was a thousand miles of open water, roaring rapids, and sweltering portages. Whatever they were going to make on furs, they earned every sou just getting to the Sault. The first hundred miles up the Saint Lawrence was hard enough fighting the current and portaging the rapids, but at least at the end of that stretch they would arrive at the island city of Montreal, and could find friends and a little wine when they arrived.
Once past Montreal, they were on their own. They might join up temporarily with a group of Indians that was traveling west, or they might just make the trip alone. There were many water routes to take west, but all were up stream, and all had rapids that could not be traversed in birch bark canoes. By this time the colonists had a couple generations of experience in building or buying birchbark canoes, so they were getting pretty good with them, but it is no surprise you only see aluminum canoes on the water today. They had to repitch the seams every night and any rock could puncture the canoe in an instant and swamp the entire load of trade goods.
So for much of the journey they actually walked, carrying over a hundred pounds of goods on their backs as they pushed through the forest to yet another body of water. We think of these people as paddling canoes. It would be more appropriate to say these men spent their time loading and unloading and carrying and patching canoes. When they did paddle, it was against the current, and half the time they were not sure which way to go. There were standard Indian trails, but you can’t assume the Indians knew all the best trails. Some tribes would go one way, some another. Adrien was shown an Iroquois route on the Huron that saved two weeks of travel. The Huron Indians had no idea you could go that way. Later Louis would be famous for his maps and would teach map making. I doubt it took him more than two days on the trail to realize how crucial good maps were.
What always surprises me about these journeys is the weight they put in the canoes. Did you know on his last trip to Sault St. Marie Louis actually brought along a forge? Think of the strain on the canoe, and then the strain on the men as they carried it over dozens of portages or fought to keep the canoe balanced as waves crashed against the hull. And they had weight going both ways. They portaged trade goods west (usually put in oak barrels to keep dry, but then you added the weight of the barrel), and pelts going east. A typical pelt bundle was eighty pounds and some of these men would take three at a time as they portaged their loads! No wonder they were all so short.”
“Then add storms. Much of the route they hugged the shoreline of the great lakes, but even along the edge, these lakes have three and four foot waves that can swamp a canoe in an instant. A major storm could double the size of the waves and add a hellish wind that soaked them all to the skin and poured rain into the canoes. It is astonishing that any of them made it to the Sault alive. Eventually, of course, storms killed all of them, but they managed to survive the first few trips.
“When they arrived at the Sault, they moved into a small stockade that had been built in past years. It wouldn’t hold out the Iroquois, but it did keep petty thefts down and provided a little security. The log huts inside were mostly dry, and of course incredibly hot once July rolled around. The Indians trickled in all summer bringing the pelts they had gathered over the winter. They came to the settlement for days to see the men, and bargain for goods, and maybe have some drinks.
“Here we usually have arguments over whether the traders bargained fairly, or whether they just got the Indians drunk and then stole their pelts when they were too drunk to understand. Personally, I think it is silly to claim that no trader ever got an Indian drunk. I am sure many did, and many profited from the Indian’s state. But I would also point out that any alcohol would also have to be carried all the way from Quebec, so it is unlikely that there were huge amounts available to debauch the Indians. Brandy is just too heavy.
“But let’s move on. Adrien took Louis with him in 1668 for the usual summer trading. They gathered pelts all summer, and then in early September they bailed the pelts, loaded the canoes, and headed back east. The eight hundred miles took them over a month of back-breaking effort, but now they could sell their furs, pay back their loans, and have enough left over to support their families. Actually it was just Adrien who had a wife and children. That was still a few years off for Louis.
“In 1969 Adrien and Louis traveled as far as the Sault together again, but then Adrien paddled on. He had been given a royal commission by Jean Talon to determine if there was copper in the Keewenaw Peninsula of Lake Superior. As it turned out there was, and Adrien brought back a chunk of it along with a map of the southern shore of the Lake. The empire was ready now to spread west. But Adrien never saw the west again. As he took one of the final rapids of the Saint Lawrence, almost within sight of his home, his canoe swamped and he drowned. Louis shared what profits there were from the summer’s trading with Adrien’s widow, reported to Talon what he could remember of Adrien’s journey to the Keewenaw, and settled in for another winter in Quebec. He was now the oldest surviving brother, and the most knowledgeable man in New France about the lands to the west. He turned twenty four that fall.
For the next three years he traded in the west each summer, usually in or around Sault St. Marie. He ventured west into Lake Superior and south into the upper reaches of Lake Michigan. He returned alive each fall, not a small accomplishment in itself. By late 1672 when Talon was forming up a group to explore this great river that might extend the empire to the south, the choice of leader was easy.
Marquette
“During this time Marquette was also learning about the regions to the west, and in fact even went farther west that Jolliett. He was saving souls and learning languages, and more importantly, learning how to explain Jesus Christ to Indians. This was not an easy task. Many mission
aries were frustrated by what they saw as mercurial conversions. It would appear a whole tribe believed one day, and the next it was as if they had never heard the word of God.
“The missionaries suffered greatly so that their “flocks” might be saved. They lived in the same simple bark huts, ate the same food as the Indians, drank the same water, shivered in the same cold, and caught the same diseases. And they grew old before their time. They only had their faith to sustain them, and their faith was challenged every day by the Indians.
“Father Marquette very quickly moved up river about fifty miles to Three Rivers. This gave him a taste of life in a trading village, and a chance to learn Algonquin. This was his first Indian language and he not only had to learn it, but he had to learn how to learn. There was no formal grammar book that he could use as he had in school. He needed to sit and listen to Indians – men, women, and children – and struggle to use their words and understand their meaning. Even some of the smartest Jesuits could never master the strategies necessary. It hurt their pride – to look stupid in front of children where in France they had argued brilliantly in Latin with leading scholars. Now they could point to a tool, try to say its name, and be laughed at by small children amused by their accent. To suddenly be so helpless was more humbling than the formal Jesuit exercises they had endured when first joining the order. At least when they walked penniless across France, they could speak with their countrymen and understand what people were saying around them.
“He also learned how difficult conversion would be. There had been a Jesuit mission in Three Rivers for over thirty years when he arrived, but the small village of Indian converts was hardly grounds for celebration. Too many of the men had joined the French traders in their love of wine, and the consequences were ugly indeed. As for religious dogma, their grasp was slight despite all the patient instruction of a series of missionaries.
“Marquette spent two years in Three Rivers, learning to paddle a canoe, walk in snow shoes, and deliver the catechism in Algonquin. It turned out he had the necessary virtues for missionary work – he was very strong, and he could learn native languages. While he assisted an older priest in the first months, he was gradually able to work more independently as his knowledge of Indian customs and Indian language improved.
“Three Rivers was also a good place for him to talk with missionaries heading back to Quebec from journeys into the unknown interior. They stopped at the Jesuit house for days, and described months or even years of travels out into the countryside. The most dramatic arrival was that of Father Allouez in 1667. He had been traveling in the west for two years and many had already given him up for dead. Numerous times they had nearly been right. In his time he had paddled a canoe all the way to Chequamegon Bay on the southwest shore of Lake Superior. This was farther west than any Frenchman had gone before – almost to the land of the Sioux.
“What he found was a town of a thousand Ottawa – a great new audience for his preaching. Unfortunately they had no interest in his religion and stole his things. Soon he had to resettle with a nearby tribe of Hurons, some of the last survivors of a major settlement that had been massacred by the Iroquois. They treated him with more respect and helped him return from Chequamegon after two years. Now back with his Jesuit brethren, he was startlingly thin, but excited about all he had seen and done.
“It was Allouez who learned of the Mississippi. In his travels in the west he found three new tribes and evaluated their receptivity to the gospel. The Potawatomie and the Sac were idolatrous and no more willing to listen than the Ottawa. But to their south he learned there was a tribe called the Illinois. They were numerous and appeared open to this new religion. He also learned that they lived near a huge river that might flow all the way to Virginia. Allouez said it was called the “Mesippi” by the Indians. It would take Marquette six more years to see the river for himself.
“Will you permit a minor digression about Allouez? You would think that after two years on the verge of starvation, he would get back to Quebec and spend at least one long winter eating everything he could find. He arrived back in August and surely had earned some time to rest and refill his lanky frame. But no. He reported all his activities to his superiors and explained that he needed to return immediately so that he could reach Lake Superior before the cold began. His total time in Quebec? Two days! This after being absent for two years! What a man.
“Marquette, meanwhile was hoping to be sent to the Iroquois. This is where the excitement was for missionaries. After having been threatened by the Iroquois for generations, the new peace treaty meant that the Iroquois would accept a few missionaries. Here were thousands of souls to be saved! And would it not be marvelous to convert these heathens who had been so destructive in the past – to forgive their transgressions and treacheries – and help them find everlasting life? All the missionaries vied to be sent on this mission.
“But Marquette wasn’t selected. He met with them when they passed through Three Rivers on their trip to the Iroquois lands, but once again he stayed behind while other missionaries went on into the wilderness. It must have seemed to him like his time in France – always requesting a mission and always having to wait. Here he was in New France, and he was still waiting.
“It was another year before his call came. Father Allouez returned the next summer with hundreds of Indians bound for Quebec and the summer’s trading. Once in Quebec he persuaded his superiors that additional missionaries should be sent west – there were so many opportunities, so many souls to save. Marquette was assigned to join Allouez. He would finally get his chance.
“His first voyage was to Sault Ste. Marie. He and three other missionaries made the thousand-mile trek in canoes loaded with all the goods they would need for the new mission. Every bit of their baggage had to be portaged time and again over portages up to six miles long. They endured the rapids and the storms and the fear of roving Iroquois, and the exhaustion of so many miles of paddling and portaging. They reached the Sault in mid August.
“Louis Jolliet wasn’t at the Sault yet, but thirty or forty French traders were. The missionaries spent the fall and winter building a house, a chapel, barns, and a twelve-foot high stockade fence. They even began clearing land to grow vegetables. This was going to be an important mission. With this as a foundation of their efforts, they knew they could not only Christianize the local Chippewas, but reach many more adjacent tribes. So they built large structures meant to last.
“It was here that Marquette first heard personally about a major river running to the “South Sea.” Unfortunately, what he learned was more about Indian wars than about geography, but the story goes something like this: Forty Iroquois are out raiding hundreds of miles from home. They pillage a Shawnee band and take captives. One is still alive as they head home, only to be captured by Ottawas who take them all to the Sault where they intend to kill all the Iroquois. This would be madness since the Iroquois were still the strongest tribe in the eastern area of the continent, and they would retaliate. The missionaries understand this, the Ottawas are slow to get the idea. They have captives and want to do what they have always done to captives. Claude Allouez shows up in the nick of time and spends three days talking to the council of chiefs. He gets them to release the Iroquois.
“The Shawnee is freed, given food, and sent on his way, but first he describes his lands to the missionaries. This is the first Indian that the missionaries have found from that far south, so they are eager to learn. They use sign language, they use translators, they draw pictures, all to learn more. How far away is this “South Sea?” Where does the river come from? Is this the river other Indians call the Mesippi? You can imagine all the hand waving and dust drawing going on as they try to figure out where the Indian is from. It could be he is telling them about an important geographic feature, or it could be he is telling them about a river and “sea” that are big to him, but hardly important.
As for how his geography fits into the other geographies they have other from other tribes, who’s to know?
“In any event, what he tells them is enough for Allouez to pass the word on to the authorities when he travels on to Quebec. They have learned about a new tribe and there is additional talk about a big river. This one flows to the sea. You can imagine the reaction of the Governor who listens to one more story about one more river that flows to one more sea. The Governor does nothing. He doesn’t have the men or the time to follow up every tale he hears.
“In August Allouez returned from Quebec with another missionary and with a plan of his own. Claude Dablon was going to take over the mission at the Sault. Allouez was going to explore south to see where further missions might be established, and Marquette was to head west to the mission at Saint Esprit – almost to the far end of Lake Superior. They were going to save souls, but they were also going to learn much more about this region of New France. Learning geography would help them save souls.
“As it turned out, Marquette fared the worst of the three of them. No doubt Allouez warned him since he had already spent three years at Saint Espirt – what we now call Chequamegon Bay. The Indians there were impossible. At one point they paid so little attention to his message that Allouez had threatened to leave them and never come back. Maybe they didn’t want to lose him or maybe they didn’t want to lose trade with the French, but in either case they treated him marginally better – but it was a small margin.
“Why send Marquette there? Because many tribes traveled through the area, including the Sioux. The Sioux were the power of the West just as the Iroquois were the power of the East. A treaty and missions with them would open up countless miles of the continent. It was worth the chance to send Marquette up there to give the mission one more try. As it turned out it was Marquette’s one failure in life.
“I know you think Green Bay is cold, and you call it the Frozen Tundra, but we know it is really just a moderate climate. Truly. It gets just cold enough in the winter to kill off the mosquitoes, and to freeze the lakes for what God truly intended them for – ice hockey. If you want cold, go up to Lake Superior. On the north shore you have the wind out of the arctic. On the south shore you have the wind out of the arctic after it has passed over ice water. Even with natural gas to warm our homes, there are probably fewer people living around Lake Superior today than there were three centuries ago. It is a very tough place to live.
“Marquette didn’t leave the Sault until late August. By the time they had paddled any distance, it was September, and the winds were howling. Picture their little line of birch bark canoes hugging the south shore of this great inland sea. They are always halfway between getting swamped in eight-foot waves, or being dashed up against the rocky shore. At night the wind blows their fires out and they huddle together in the rain. They make so little progress against the wind that it takes them a month to cover the five hundred miles of the trip, and by that time the snow is everywhere. We still lose ships on that lake as you know. To be out there in a canoe is madness. A lesser man would have never made it. Even with all his strength, Marquette just barely got there alive.
“His reward was a winter of disappointment. Of the three Ottawa tribes there, only one had any interest in Christ. The other two treated him badly. Even the tribe that would listen required constant encouragement to keep the new Christians from backsliding. Marquette had a winter of constant, small frustrations. Meanwhile, the tribes were fooling with the Sioux. Talk about twisting the lion’s tail. This was insanity. But the young braves would look for any excuse to travel by the Sioux villages and insult every person they could find. Where this was leading was obvious to any person with basic intelligence, but we are talking about teenagers here, and foresight tends not to be one of their strong points. Marquette knew he was being insulted by people who were just months away from being corpses.
“The one blessing for him was the presence of a young Illinois brave who had been taken captive and brought to Saint Esprit years earlier. The boy’s owner loaned him to Marquette so Marquette was able to learn a bit of his language, some of his customs, and some sense of his geography. Ultimately the Jesuits knew that the Illinois would be an important part to the puzzle. They seemed to occupy an important location between the Iroquois and the Sioux, they seemed to be peaceful and stable, and if there really was an important river leading to the sea, everyone said they were located along it. So Marquette spent as much time as he could with the boy and learned language and customs. This was the one part of the winter that paid off for him. All the rest was frustration.”
“When the winter finally ended, Marquette paddled the five hundred miles back to the Sault and reported in. Yes, one tribe had some interest in Christ, no the other two could not be approached. He had baptized some children and tried to preach and teach. He also explained the impending Sioux problem.”
“He needn’t have bothered. Within weeks, hundreds of Ottawa came running to the Sault looking for protection. They had committed the unforgivable. A Sioux chief and some of his braves had come to camp to try to make peace between the tribes. The Ottawas had welcomed him and then killed his entire party. Only after they had killed the chief did it suddenly dawn on these folks that they had just committed suicide. As soon as word got back to the other Sioux, any Ottawa within range of a Sioux raiding party was dead. Their only chance at life was to run faster than the Sioux, and that is what they were doing. Some paddled night and day for the Sault, while others headed north to say out of sight. They had to hope the Sioux would never find them.”
“There was not a lot of sympathy for the Ottawa at Sault St. Marie. After all, these folks were murderers. And they were fools. And since the French had some ties to them, there was a real possibility that the Sioux would now war on the French as well. While the Ottawa now cringed and begged at the Sault, most traders (and probably most missionaries) would be happy to see them sent back to their fate. On the other hand, one of the three tribes had at least professed to be Christian, and the missionaries felt they needed to demonstrate that they would side with fellow Christians.”
“But they didn’t want them around the Sault. That would be inviting a powder keg into the trading post. They needed to get this bunch out of here, but to some place safe. Allouez had the answer. He had spent the last year in Wisconsin, exploring Green Bay and going up the Fox River to a place almost exactly twenty miles due west of where we sit today. On his way back north, he happened to see several islands, including Mackinac. His guides told him Indians tribes had lived there in the past as they tried to escape the Iroquois. If the island could protect a tribe from the Iroquois, it might also protect a tribe from the Sioux.”
“Marquette was to accompany the tribe there and start a mission on the island. So he joined the flotilla of men, women, and children, who slowly paddled south out of the Sault to the island. Once they finally got to the island, they were all happy for about three months. It turned out the island made a great fortress, with a high hill that would let them see miles out into Lake Huron, but the soil was too poor to grow corn. By the time they learned that, the fall harvest had failed, and the hunters in the tribe had killed off all the game on the island. In short, they would be safe on the island, but they would starve to death.”
“Moving again was hard on everyone, but they had no choice. They found fertile land just opposite the island at what is now St. Ignace, and rebuilt their village – complete with a very strong stockade just in case the Sioux had learned of their new location. Marquette built a small chapel there and served as the village parson for three years – until Louis came by in 1673 with three canoes and an order to paddle to the sea.”
Claude stopped speaking at that point and it was clear we were done for the day. He changed his posture and began the preliminary moves people do to indicate he was about to stand. Before he could push back his chai
r, however, I decided to get in one more question for the day.
“Why Marquette?” I asked. “Allouez had already been up the Fox. He had already met the Mascoutens who would be their most useful guides. Why not take Allouez?”
“That, my friend, is an excellent question. But it will have to wait until our next conversation.” He stood and extended his hand and I knew there was no more delaying my departure. “Picard will find a time for us to meet again.”
I expressed my thanks, spoke briefly with Picard, and then got back into my shiny new Citroen. Only then did I look at my watch and realize how many hours we had been sitting and talking. It had been a long afternoon.
Chapter 6
LaSalle