Roots, mosses and berries, whose edible qualities were known only to the children of the forest, could be gathered by them and added to the fish and game secured by the able men and women.

They lived, and at last well into the summer they reached the Sault where, feasting on the bounties of the rapids, they tarried for a time, then onward again down the swift Ste. Mary. When near the mouth of the river the fleet divided, the Ottawas turning to the left, and going eastward under the shelter of the now Drummond Island, proceeded to Manitoulin Island where Father André was waiting to minister to their spiritual wants and share in their privations. Father Marquette, with the Hurons, passed DeTour, and paddling westward, probably the third day from the Sault, reached Michilimackinac where the St. Ignace Mission had been established the year before.1

Here, too, students differ in their conclusions, both as to the time of Marquette's arrival, and the site where the first mission of St. Ignace was established. Many writers place the flight of the La Pointe Indians in the year 1670, and locate the mission on the mainland.

We are inclined to Thwaites' theory, which is apparently based on a careful study of the Relations, as the most plausible. He says2:

That the mission was first upon the island, and probably within the present village of Mackinac, a careful reading of the Relations should convince any one. That it was afterward moved to the mainland, to the St. Ignace of today, there can be no reasonable doubt; but when and under what circumstances we do not know. It is reasonable to suppose that this removal took place in the year after Marquette's arrival; and there is abundant ground for belief that the St. Ignace monument, which is visited each summer by several thousand 1 Father Marquette, Thwaites, p. 103. 2 Idem., p. 104.

tourists, represents the place where stood his little mainland chapel.

And as to the time:-Father Allouez was, in the spring of 1671, at the mission of St. Francis Xavier on Green Bay, from which he journeyed to the Sault in June to attend the important meeting of the tribes, missionaries, French officials and traders, described in the next chapter. Michilimackinac was in the direct route from Green Bay to the Sault, in fact there was none other, and doubtless Allouez stopped there as did all voyageurs of that day. Had Father Marquette been at the Mission of St. Ignace at that time, he certainly would have accompanied Allouez to the great rendezvous where was enacted the most important drama of the times. All the priests in the region, except Marquette, attended; the only plausible, discoverable reason that he did not, was the fact that at this time he was hastening his flock from the danger threatened at the western extremity of Lake Superior.

CHAPTER XIII

The Pageant of St.-Lusson-The Object of the Ceremony-The Gathering of the Fourteen Tribes-The Shore Line of the Rapids and River in 1671-Location of the First Mission-Lodging and Entertaining the Visitors The Participants-The Ceremony.

In this year of 1671, at Sainte Marie du Sault, was enacted the most interesting drama of the times. In this drama the principal actors were the special envoy of the King of France and his retinue, and four Jesuit Fathers, humble followers of the cross; assisted by donnes, fur traders, coureurs de bois and all the Frenchmen assembled in honor of the event. The spectators of this epochal scene were the men of fantastic garb and stolid mien representing fourteen Indian tribes, gathered from near and far, together with the regular inhabitants of the village and hundreds from neighboring tribes attracted hither through curiosity and the promise of spectacular scenes in which the Indians so thoroughly delight. This event is known as the Pageant of St.-Lusson. Its object was to take formal, legal possession, in the name of the French King, of all the territory about the Great Lakes and vastly more beside; to foster friendship between the Indians and the French and to impress the natives with the importance, magnificence and power of the French King and his subjects.

The project of formally taking possession of the immense territory included in the drainage area of the Great Lakes had long been a pet scheme of Intendant

Talon. He had conceived the design during his first term of office, and, before leaving France to enter upon the second, had written Governor de Courcelle regarding his plans.1

Placing the seal of title and possession on this territory was but a part of the great scheme conceived in the ambitious brain of the Intendant by which he contemplated "nothing less than the establishment of a mighty empire in the western world under the sway of the Grand Monarque."2

The central, commanding position of the Sault, as viewed by this shrewd statesman, is seen in the fact that it was selected in preference to all others as the proper place for the important ceremony.

The necessity for prompt action was made apparent by the encroachment of the Hudson's Bay Company, which already showed its strength in securing a considerable part of the northern fur trade and manifested a design of disputing the rights of the French to the major part of the New World. The English at Boston and the Dutch at Orange and Manhattan, too, were not acting in accordance with the pet theory of the French that they should confine their activities to the Atlantic seaboard. Talon reported that, through the agency of the lawless coureurs de bois and the Iroquois, about 1,200,000 livres worth of beaver had been secured by these interlopers prior to 1670. These independent runners of the woods were lawless because they refused to submit to the edict of the French at Quebec that they secure a license from them to trade, and pay as a tax a substantial part of their gain. They preferred rather to enlist the services of the Iroquois in transporting the peltries to the English and Dutch where generally better prices were paid, and no

' Charlevoix's History of New France, vol. iii, p. 164. 'Canada and its Provinces, vol. i, p. 81.

taxes levied. Something must be done to prevent this lawlessness.

Dollier and Galinée had already, as we have seen,' although not in the strictly legal manner desired, claimed the Lake Erie country for Louis XIV. Possession of the territory was now to be legally asserted and evidence thereof perpetuated with all the pomp and formality possible in this New World.

Simon France Daumont, Sieur de St.-Lusson, a French gentleman who probably came to Canada with Talon in 1670, "was now dispatched to Sault Ste. Marie as royal plenipotentiary to proclaim the King's sovereignty over the vast region whose trade now centered at this point." As the Relations vaguely but comprehensively state, Monsieur Talon chose "Sieur de Saint-Lusson, whom he commissioned to take possession, in his place and in his Majesty's name, of the territories lying between the east and west from Montreal as far south as the South Sea, covering the utmost extent and range possible."3

Nicholas Perrot, one of the earliest western explorers and considered the most capable master of woodcraft in all New France, who, through repeated visits among the western tribes, had gained their confidence and had learned their language, was commissioned to summon representatives of the various tribes of the region to the memorable ceremony. Perrot sent messages to the more distant tribes and personally visited all those within reach, going for this purpose as far west as Wisconsin where his influence was great especially with the Foxes who called him Meta-men-ens (Little Maize). By the last of April, 1671, Perrot had assembled his Indian friends, the tribes of the Green Bay country, including 1 Ante, p. 116. • Canada and its Provinces, vol. i, p. 102.

Relations, vol. lv, p. 105.