6

INFORMATION SUPPRESSED.

[CHAP. I.

This is readily understood, when it is known that the first public printing press in Canada was set up after the English conquest, about 1764; and no such thing as public opinion was known an influence in the affairs of government. News could only get abroad as rumor or gossip.

as

The only books which criticised the conduct of the church or state authorities, or which vindicated the reputation of those who were out of favor were published abroad. No writer could publish in France any account which was not satisfactory, as the press was rigidly watched. The writings of Hennepin and La Hontan, printed in Holland, were assailed and denounced as the work of renegades and traitors, and generally discredited, without discriminating between what was claimed to be invention and the rest. Many of the most important documents, which in any other country would have been made public, never saw the light until our time.

The eminent author of the Commentary on the Marine Ordinance of Louis XIV., M. Valin, complains of the labor of delving in the chaos of edicts and public documents in the office of the Admiralty, relating to maritime affairs, which he speaks of as a prodigious multitude. The collection of public reports and private letters relating to colonial affairs, from civil and ecclesiastical officers and from persons of all occupations, gathered together from all parts of the world, during a regime when every one was suspected, and

CHAP. I.]

COLONIAL DOCUMENTS.

7

when colonial gossip was as keenly scrutinised as colonial business, must be enormous. The Dominion of Canada has drawn largely upon these deposits, and the State of New York has published a valuable selection from them. Further excerpts have been secured at different times by General Cass and others. We may hope that when this material has been thoroughly sifted our early history may be made complete.

CHAPTER II.

EARLY EXPLORATIONS.

It

THE State of Michigan is a part of the territory colonised by the French, and held under the government of New France and Louisiana. was never properly a part of Louisiana as a separate province, although in some of the ancient maps it appears to have been included in that region. Its affairs were always under the super

vision of the authorities in what was afterwards known as Lower Canada, until the British conquest of 1760-1763, after which it remained under military control, until by an act of Parliament passed in 1774 it was annexed to the province of Quebec. From its first discovery until the close of the French supremacy its history is a part of the history of Canada, and most of its French inhabitants were Canadians by birth or connections.

This dependence on Canada was a principal cause why Michigan was not settled earlier, and why after settlements were begun they were not allowed to be multiplied. It was early known that the lands were exceptionally good, and that farming could be made very profitable. But the colonial policy adhered to for a long period did not encourage the pursuit of agriculture. A wil

CHAP. II.]

THE HURONS.

9

derness was more precious in the eyes of the authorities at Quebec than fields and farms. The change in sentiment, if it ever came, came too late, and one prominent cause for the loss of the American possessions of France, was lack of people.

It is impossible to determine, with any precision, at what time this country was first discovered by the French. It must have been visited by travellers or roving traders long before its settlement. The fur trade, and especially the trade in beavers, was the chief and earliest branch of commerce in the colony, and began with its beginnings. The Lake country was considered by Indians and whites as the chief source of supply for beavers, and for most of the more valuable furs and peltries. Long before the Iroquois extended their incursions so far to the west, the peninsula of Upper Canada was a favorite seat of the Ouendats or Hurons,' who were more civilized and less nomadic than any of their western neighbors. The undefined region called the Saghinan, or Saginaw country, which seems to have been sometimes spoken of as identical with the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, was famous for its wealth in beasts of the chase; and de

The term Huron is French, and was given to these Indians because of the appearance of their hair, which was rough and ridged like the bristles of a wild boar—“hure." Cheveux Relevés was another name of the same meaning-i. e. with hair standing up-applied by Champlain as is supposed to the Ottawas. The name of the Hurons used among themselves was Ouendât, anglicised into Wyandot. Huron was an old name for miners.2 Mezeray, 148.

10

EARLY MISSIONS.

[CHAP. II.

scriptions of it reached the first visitors at Montreal and were heard by Jaques Cartier.

It is possible that the wandering traders may have had temporary stations on the borders, but the earliest establishments of which we have any unquestioned record were the missions. There are vague references to companies of French passing up and down the strait now known as the Detroit River; and there seems much reason to believe that a village of Hurons existed at or near the present site of Detroit very early in the seventeenth century. There is nothing to indicate that at that period the passage was dangerous. The Huron villages, if the accounts of early travellers are correct, were not much, if any, inferior in their defensive arrangements, or in their habitations, to some of the first trading posts and missions. That people, both in language and in habits, showed evidences of aptitude for civilization beyond the ordinary savages. The earliest missions in the neighborhood of Michigan are supposed to have been those of the Récollêt Fathers in Upper Canada, near and on Lake Huron and its affluents, which were founded during the time of Champlain, who is reported, but perhaps on doubtful authority, to have passed through the strait on one of his journeys, and is claimed by the official memoirs to have discovered this region in 1612.'

1 Champlain's maps show that he knew the connection between Lake Huron and the lower lakes, though not depicting it with geographical

accuracy.