Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

of the Hurons, they reached the Sault, where they found about two thousand souls, and obtained information about a great many other sedentary nations who have never known Europeans and have never heard of God, among others, of a certain nation, the Nadouessis situated at the Northwest, or west of the Sault eighteen days journey farther away. The first nine days are occupied in another great lake that commences above the Sault; during the last nine days one has to ascend a river that traverses those lands. These people (Sioux) till the soil in the manner of the Hurons, and harvest Indian corn and tobacco. Their villages are larger and in a better state of defense, owing to their continued war with the Kiristonons, the Irinions, and other great nations who inhabit the same country. Their language differs from the Algonquins and Huron tongues. The captains of this nation of the Sault invited our Fathers to take up their abode with them. They were given to understand that this was not impossible, provided they were well disposed to receive their instruction. After having held a council they replied that they greatly desired that good fortune,-that they would embrace us as their brothers, and would profit by our words. But we need laborers for that purpose; we must first try to win the peoples that are nearest to us, and meanwhile pray Heaven to hasten the moment of their conversion.

The fact that the Pottawattomies had been driven from their homes on Lake Michigan, to take temporary refuge at the Sault, shows that the bloodthirsty Iroquois had broken the truce, and renewed the war on the tribes north and west of them, which was not to be abated until the

' Nadouessi-more commonly Nadouessioux-now known by the last syllable of the original name—Sioux. The chief tribe of the Dakota stock, who occupied the region of the Upper Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. They were usually hostile to the Algonquin tribes.

• Kiristonons—the Oree tribes which occupied territory north of Lake Superior.

Irinions—the Illinois tribe which occupied the valley of the river of the same name of Algonquin stock.

object of their enmity had been exiled and their lands made desolate.

It is evident that Jogues and Raymbault tarried but a few weeks, two or three at most, at the Sault, as they returned to their home mission that season.

They started on their trip the last of September; the journey to the west occupied seventeen days, which would make their arrival at the Sault about the middle of October. Ice begins to form in the quiet places in the river early in November. Even thin ice is ruinous to a birchbark. They must have hastened their return trip.

No permanent mission was established at the Falls at this time, which probably accounts for the brevity accorded the journey of Jogues and Raymbault in the Relation. Had it not been for the devastating onslaught of the Iroquois, a mission which was deferred for thirtyseven years doubtless would have been established soon after this visit.

A number of writers have affirmed that these Fathers conferred the name on the location at the rapids which it now bears. This is clearly an error which will be established as we proceed. The name-Sault-was evidently bestowed by the early French visitors, probably by Brule and his companion, for, as previously stated, the word Sault appears on Champlain's map of 1632 correctly indicating the location of our rapids. The latter part of the name was affixed much later, as will be seen.

Father Raymbault's missionary work was terminated by his death which occurred the next year. Father Jogues' subsequent career affords one of the most shining examples of steadfastness of faith and fortitude even unto death, suffered during that reign of terror. In the Spring of 1642, he started from Ste. Marie on the Wye for the Lower St. Lawrence, and in August was taken prisoner by the Iroquois, tortured almost to death, escaped and

made his way to Albany, was thence taken to England and to France. Returning to Canada he was sent “as a peace envoy to the Iroquois, by whom he was murdered."

The old saying, "See Rome and die," was literally and tragically true of the first Europeans who visited the Falls of St. Mary. Brule was clubbed to death at Toanchi; Nicollet was drowned at Three Rivers while attempting to save an Indian from death by torture, and Father Jogues, after being tortured near unto death, recovered and was afterward slain by the Iroquois whom he sought to benefit.

Of the tortures suffered by Father Isaac Jogues-the Relation, vol. xxiv, p. 299, recites: "Having taken him (Jogues) the 2nd day of August 1642—the savages dragged him into their country with shouts and hootings of demons who carry off their prey. He was greeted with a hundred beatings at the entrance of the village, where he was first conducted; there was no good mother's son who did not fling his cords, others with blows of sticks, some pulled and carried away the hair of his head; others in derision, tore out the hairs of his beard. A woman, or rather a Megera, takes his arm and cuts off or rather saws off, with a knife, the thumb of his left hand; she cuts a gash and goes in quest of the joint, with less skill, but with more cruelty than a butcher exercises upon a dead beast; in short, she lacerates and removes the whole mass of the thumb.

"Another bites one of the fingers of the right hand, injures the bone and renders that poor finger crippled and useless; others tear out his nails then put fire to those poor fingers—laid bare, in order to make the martyrdom more keenly felt. For all these pains the poor Father had no other physician or other surgeon than patience; no other salve than pain, no other cover than air which surrounds his wounds."

CHAPTER VIII

Iroquois Desire to Monopolize Fur Trade Furnishes New Motive for Extermination of Hurons-Inhabitants of Ontario Peninsula Slain or Exiled-Hurons as a Nation Cease to Exist-Fur Trade down Ottawa Route Discontinued Temporarily-Partially Reopened in 1654Radisson and Groseilliers Accompany Flotilla of Fifty Canoes from the Far West-The Iroquois Defied-The Trade Route ReopenedThe Adventurers Undertake another Journey to the West in 1658Perils of the Ottawa Route-Hurons View their Devastated HomesRadisson Describes St. Mary's River and Falls.

IF the Iroquois needed any further incentive to reopen active hostilities against the Hurons, Algonquins and French than their ancient enmity toward the people of their own race, and their hatred of the French engendered by Champlain's attack upon them in 1609 and 1615, it was furnished by their desire to dominate and control the fur trade.

Previous to the coming of the Europeans, the Indians had procured sustenance and prosecuted their wars with the rude implements which they were able to manufacture themselves. The introduction of the implements and utensils pertaining to a higher civilization soon changed their ways of living and increased their primitive wants to the extent that certain articles introduced by the whites became a necessity. They must have kettles, knives, hatchets, needles and awls. They much desired firearms, steel traps, bright colored fabrics, and, above all, that which more than all else contributed to their misfortunes in after years, the demon fire-water. They

soon learned that the only way to secure the desired articles was through the barter of furs and peltries. In the fur business, the Algonquins had many advantages over the Iroquois; most of all was the fact that the Northwest and Upper Lake Country, the land of the Hurons and Algonquins, was much more productive of fur bearing animals, than the territory of the Iroquois, and the furs were of better quality

The Algonquins had as their customers their friends the French, who devoted all their energies in extending and increasing the fur trade. The fortified posts of Montreal, Quebec and Three Rivers were the marts to which they annually carried their produce over the great Ottawa canoe route.

The Iroquois had as their customers the Dutch and English at Albany and New Amsterdam, who divided their energies between the fur trade, agriculture and

commerce.

The only way the Iroquois could add to the furs taken in their own country, was to use the Petuns and Neutrals' as middlemen to procure the furs from the northern and western Indians.

This roundabout method of trade was slow and difficult, and the Iroquois soon learned that by far the greater part of the trade, in the hands of their ancient enemies, was going by the Ottawa route to the French posts on the St. Lawrence.

While occasional bands of Iroquois had for some time haunted the trails and canoe routes of the Algonquins and their allies, and had picked off many stragglers, open and avowed warfare did not break out until the year

The Petuns, otherwise known as the Tobacco Nation, and the Neutrals lived south and west of the Hurons. The Neutrals took side with neither the Iroquois nor the Hurons, but were among the first to be destroyed by the Iroquois.

« AnteriorContinuar »