This expedition never reached its destination, for differences with the commander of the vessels (Beaujeu) interfered with the direction of the expedition. The mouths of the Mississippi, it seems, were passed, and the ships reached the coast of Texas. Disaster now dogged the leader's footsteps, for Beaujeu ran one of the ships on the rocks, and then deserted with another. La Salle and some of his more trusty followers were left to their fate, which was a cruel one, for disease broke out in the ranks, and famine and savage foes made havoc among the survivors. His colony being reduced to forty persons, La Salle set out overland with sixteen men for Canada to procure recruits. On the way his companions mutinied, put La Salle to death, and but a handful of the party reached Canada, the remainder perishing in the wilderness.

Were we to express in the briefest of terms the motives which induced the leading European races of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries who came to the Americas, we should say that the Spaniards went thither in quest of gold, the English for the sake of enjoying civil and religious freedom, the French in view of propagating the Gospel among the aborigines. Accordingly, we find, from the beginning, in the annals of New France, religious interests overlying all others. The members of the Society of Jesus, becoming discredited among the nations of Europe for their subserviency to power—usually exalting the rights of kings, but at all times inculcating submission, both by kings and their subjects, to the Roman pontiffs—individual Jesuits, we say, whatever may have been their demerits as members of the confraternity in Europe or in South America, did much to redeem these by their apostolic labors in the wilderness of the northern continent; cheerfully encountering, as they did, every form of suffering, braving the cruelest tortures, and even welcoming death as the expected seal of their martyrdom for the cause of Christ and for the advancement of civilization among barbarous nations.

From Quebec as a centre-point the missionary lines of the Jesuit fathers radiated in all directions through every region inhabited by our savages, from the Laurentian Valley to the Hudson's Bay territory, along the great-lake countries, and down the valley of the Mississippi. Scantily equipped, as it seemed to the worldly eye, with a breviary around the neck and a crucifix in hand, the missionary set forth, and became a pioneer for the most adventurous secular explorers of the desert. To such our forefathers owed their best earliest knowledge of vast regions, to whose savage inhabitants they imparted the glad tidings of the Gospel, and smoothed the way for native alliances with their compatriots of the laity, of the greatest after-import to the colony.

Such devotedness, at once heroic and humble, could not but confound worldly philosophy, while it has gained for the members of the order the admiration of many Protestants. Thus we have the candid testimony of Bancroft, the able historian of the English plantations in this continent, that "The annals of missionary labors are inseparably connected with the origin of all the establishments of French America. Not a cape was doubled nor a stream discovered that a Jesuit did not show the way."

On the other hand, there were instances where secular explorers, seeking to illustrate their names by great discoveries or to enrich themselves by traffic, opened a way for the after-labors of the missionary. The most celebrated of such were Champlain, Nicolet, Perrot, Joliet, La Salle, and La Verendrye.

In regions south of the St. Lawrence, Pere Druillettes was the first European who passed overland from that river to the eastern Atlantic seaboard, ascending the Chaudifere and descending the Kennebec in 1646. He did good service to the colony by preserving for it the amity of that brave nation, the only one which the Iroquois were slow to attack.

In another direction, the traffickers and missionaries, constantly moving onward toward the sources of the St. Lawrence, had reached the upper extremity of Lake Huron. Peres Brebeuf, Daniel, Lalemant, Jogues, and Raimbault founded in the regions around its waters the Christianized settlements (villages) of St. Joseph, St. Michel, St. Ignace, and Ste. Marie. The last-named, seated at the point where Lake Huron communicates with Lake Erie, was long the central point of the northwestern missions.

In 1639 Jean Nicholet, following the course of a river flowing out of Lake Michigan at Green Bay, was led within three days' navigation of "the Great Water," such was the distinctive name the aborigines gave to the Mississippi. In 1671 the relics of the Huron tribes, tired of wandering from forest to forest, settled down in Michilimackinac, at the end of Lake Superior, under the care of Pere Marquette, who thus became the earliest founder of a European settlement in Michigan. The natives of the vicinity were of the Algonquin race; but the French called them Sauteurs, from their being near to Sault Ste. Marie.

Between the years 1635 and 1647 communication with the region was little attempted, the hostile feeling of the Iroquois making the navigation of Lake Ontario perilous to adventurers, and obliging them to pass to and from the western mission field by the valley of the Ottawa. The Neuters' territory, visited by Champlain, and the southern lakeboard of Erie beyond Buffalo, were as yet almost unknown.

The new impulse which had been given to Canada by Colbert and Talon began to bear fruit. Commerce revived, immigration increased, and the aborigines, dominated by the genius of civilization, feared and respected everywhere the power of France. Perrot, a famous explorer, was the first European who reached the end of Lake Michigan and the Miamis country, where deputies from all the native tribes of the regions irrigated by the head waters of the Mississippi, the sources of the Red River and the St. Lawrence, responded to his call to meet him at the Sault Ste. Marie, From one discovery to another, as so many successive stages in a journey, the French attained a certainty that "the Great Water" did exist, and they could, in advance, trace its probable course. It appeared certain, from the recent search made for it in northerly and eastern directions, that its waters, so voluminous as the natives asserted, must at last find their sea-vent either in the Bay of Mexico or in the Pacific Ocean. Talon, who took a strong interest in the subject, during his intendancy recommended Captain Poulet, a skilful mariner of Dieppe, to verify the passage from sea to sea, through the Straits of Magellan.

He induced M. de Frontenac to send M. Joliet into the region where the great stream, yet unseen, must take its rise; and follow its course, if found, till its waters reached the sea. The person thus employed on a mission which interested everyone at the time was a man of talent, educated in the Jesuits' College of Quebec, probably in view of entering the Church, but who had gone into the peltry trade. He had travelled much in the countries around Lake Superior and gained great experience of the natives, especially those of the Ottawa tribes. M. Joliet and Pere Marquette set out together in the year 1673. The latter, who had lived among the Potowatami Indians as a missionary, and gained their affections, was forewarned by them of the perils, they alleged, which would beset his steps in so daring an enterprise, admonishing him and his companion that the people of the farther countries would allow no stranger to pass through them; that travellers were always pillaged at the least; that the great river swarmed with monsters who devoured men,[1] and that the climate was so hot that human flesh could not endure it.

[Footnote 1: There was some foundation for this report, as alligators abounded, at that time, in the lower waters of the river.]

Having progressed to the farthest horde, over the Fox River, where Pere Allouez was known, and the extremest point yet touched by any European, the adventurers found the people of the divers tribes living together in harmony; viz., the Kikapoos, Mascoutins, and Miamis. They accorded the strangers a kind reception and furnished guides to direct the party, which was composed of nine persons in all—Joliet, Marquette, with five other whites, and two natives. On June 10th they set out, bearing two light canoes on their shoulders for crossing the narrow portage which separates the Fox River from that of Wisconsin, where the latter, after following a southerly, takes a western, course. Here their Indian guides left them, fearing to go farther.

Arrived at the Lower Wisconsin they embarked and glided down the stream, which led the travellers through a solitude; they remarking that the levels around them presented an unbroken expanse of luxuriant herbage or forests of lofty trees. Their progress was slow, for it was not till the tenth day that they attained the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi. But the goal was surely, if tardily, attained. They were now floating on the bosom of the "Father of Waters," a fact they at once felt assured of, and fairly committed themselves to the course of the doubled current. This event constituted an epoch in American annals.

"The two canoes," says Bancroft, "with sails outspread under a new sky, sped their way, impelled by favoring breezes, along the surface of the calm and majestic ocean tributary. At one time the French adventurers glided along sand-banks, the resting-places of innumerable aquatic birds; at others they passed around wooded islands in midflood; and otherwhiles, again, their course lay through the vast plains of Illinois and Iowa, covered with magnificent woods or dotted with clumps of bush scattered about limitless prairie lands."

It was not till the voyagers had descended sixty leagues of the great stream that they discovered any signs of the presence of man; but at length, observing on the right bank of the river a foot-track, they followed it for six miles, and arrived at a horde (bourgade), situated on a river called by the natives Moingona, an appellation afterward corrupted into "Riviere des Moines." Seeing no one, the visitors hollowed lustily, and four old men answered the call, bearing in hand the calumet of peace. "We are Illinois," said the Indians: "you are our fellow-men; we bid you welcome." They had never before seen any whites, but had heard mention of the French, and long wished to form an alliance with them against the Iroquois, whose hostile excursions extended even to their country. They were glad to hear from Joliet that the colonists had lately chastised those whom no others could vanquish, and feasted the visitors, to manifest their gratitude as well as respect. The chief of the tribe, with some hundreds of his warriors, escorted the party to their canoes; and, as a mark of parting esteem, he presented a calumet, ornamented with feathers of various colors; a safe-conduct this, held inviolable among the aborigines.

The voyagers, again on their way, were forewarned of the confluence of the Missouri with the main stream, by the noise of its discharging waters. Forty leagues lower, they reached the influx of the Ohio, in the territory of the Chouanows. By degrees the region they traversed changed its aspect. Instead of vast prairies, the voyagers only saw thick forests around them, inhabited by savages whose language was to them unknown. In quitting the southern line of the Ohio, they left the Algonquin family of aborigines behind, and had come upon a region of nomads, the Chickasaw nation being here denizens of the forest. The Dacotas, or Sioux, frequented the riverain lands, in the southern region watered by the great flood. Thus interpreters were needed by the natives, who wished to parley from either bank of the Mississippi, each speaking one of two mother-tongues, both distinct from those of the Hurons and Algonquins, much of the latter being familiar to Joliet and others of the party.

Continuing their descent, the confluence of the Arkansas with the Mississippi was attained. The voyagers were now under the thirty-third parallel of north latitude, at a point of the river-course reported to have been previously reached, from the opposite direction, by the celebrated Spanish mariner De Soto. Here the Illinois chief's present stood the party in good stead, for on exhibiting his ornate calumet they were treated with profuse kindness. Bread, made of maize, was offered by the chief of the horde located at the mouth of the Arkansas River. Hatchet-heads of steel, in use by the natives, gave intimation that they traded with Europeans, and that the Spanish settlements on the Bay of Mexico were probably not far off. The waxing summer heats, too, gave natural corroboration to the same inferences. The party had now, in fact, attained to a region without a winter, unless as such be reckoned that part of its year known as "the rainy season."

It now became expedient to call a halt, for the stored provisions were beginning to fail, and chance supplies could not be depended upon in such a wilderness as the bold adventurers had already traversed; and they were still more uncertain as to what treatment they might receive from savage populations if they proceeded farther. One thing was made plain to their perceptions: the Mississippi afforded no passage to the East Indian seas. They rightly concluded, also, that it found its sea outlet in the Bay of Mexico, not the Pacific Ocean. They had therefore now done enough to entitle them to the grateful thanks of their compatriots, and for the names of their two leaders to take a permanent place in the annals of geographical discovery.

The task of ascending the great river must have been arduous, and the return voyage protracted. Arrived at the point where it is joined by the Illinois, they left it for that stream, which, ascending for a part of its lower course, Pere Marquette elected to remain with the natives of tribes located near to its banks; while M. Joliet, with the rest of the party, passed overland to Chicago. Thence he proceeded to Quebec, and reported his proceedings to the Governor, M. Talon at that time being in France. This duty he had to perform orally, having lost all his papers when shooting the rapids of the St. Lawrence, above Montreal. He afterward drew up a written report, with a tracing of his route, from memory.

The encouragement the intendant procured for the enterprise fairly entitles him to share its glory with those who so ably carried it out; for we cannot attach too much honor to the memory of statesmen who turn to account their opportunities of patronizing useful adventure. M. Joliet received in property the island of Anticosti as a reward for his Western discoveries and for an exploratory voyage he made to Hudson's Bay. He was also nominated hydrographer-royal, and got enfeoffed in a seigniory near Montreal. Expecting to reap great advantage from Anticosti as a fishing and fur-trading station, he built a fort thereon; but after living some time on the island with his family, he was obliged to abandon it. His patronymic was adopted as the name of a mountain situated near the Rivere des Plaines, a tributary of the Illinois; and Joliet is also the appellation, given in his honor, of a town near Chicago.

Pere Marquette proceeded to Green Bay by Lake Michigan, in 1673; but he returned soon afterward and resumed his missionary labors among the Illinois Indians. Being then at war with the Miamis, they came to him asking for gunpowder. "I have come among you," said the apostolic priest, "not to aid you to destroy your enemies' bodies, but to help you to save your own souls. Gunpowder I cannot give you, but my prayers you can have for your conversion to that religion which gives glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to all men." Upon one occasion he preached before two thousand warriors of their nation, besides the women and children present. His bodily powers, however, were now wellnigh exhausted. He decided to return to Mackinac; but while coasting the lower shores of Lake Michigan, feeling that his supreme hour was nigh, he caused the people in his canoe to set him ashore. Having obtained for him the shelter of a hut formed of branches, he there died the death of the righteous. His companions interred his remains near the river which yet bears his name, and set up a crucifix to mark the spot. Thus ended, amid the solitudes of the Western wilderness, the valuable existence of one whose name, too little known to his own age, will be remembered when hundreds of those which, however loudly sounded in the present, shall have passed into utter oblivion.[1]

[Footnote 1: Guerin observes that, according to some authorities, La Salle, some time between the years 1669 and 1671, descended the Mississippi, as far as the Arkansas, by the river Ohio. There can be no doubt that the story is a mere figment.]

The news of the discovery of the Mississippi made a great sensation in Canada, and eclipsed for a time the interest attaching to other explorations of the age, which were becoming more and more rife every year. Every speculative mind was set to work, as was usual on such occasions, to calculate the material advantages which might result, first to the colonists, and next to their mother-country, from access being obtained to a second gigantic waterway through the territories of New France; serving, as it virtually might in times to come, as a complement, or completing moiety for the former, enabling the colonists to have the command of two seas. Still, as the Gulf of Mexico had not been reached by the adventurers upon the present occasion, some persons had their doubts about the real course of the lower flood. There was therefore still in store credit for those who should succeed in clearing up whatever uncertainty there might be about a matter so important.

"New France," says Raynal, "had among its people a Norman named Robert Cavalier de la Salle, a man inspired with the double passion of amassing a large fortune and gaining an illustrious name. This person had acquired, under the training of the Jesuits, among whom his youth was passed, activity, enthusiasm, firmness of character, and high-heartedness—qualities which that celebrated confraternity knew so well to discern and cultivate in promising natures committed to their care. Their most audacious and enterprising pupil, La Salle, was especially impatient to seize every occasion that chance presented for distinguishing himself, and ready to create such opportunities if none occurred." He had been resident some years in Canada when Joliet returned from his expedition to the Mississippi. The effect of so promising a discovery, upon such a mind as La Salle's, was of the most awakening kind. Joliet's report of what he experienced, and his shrewd conjectures as to what he did not see but which doubtless existed, well meditated upon by his fellow-genius, inspired the latter to form a vast design of exploration and traffic conjoined, in realizing which he determined to hazard both his fortunes and reputation.

Cavalier Sieur de la Salle was born in Rouen, and the son of respectable parents. While yet a young man he came to Canada full of a project he had conceived of seeking a road to Japan and China by a northern or western passage, but did not bring with him the pecuniary means needful even to make the attempt. He set about making friends for himself in the colony, and succeeded in finding favor with the Count de Frontenac, who discerned in him qualities somewhat akin to his own. With the aid of M. de Courcelles and Talon he opened a factory for the fur traffic at Lachine, near Montreal, a name which (China) he gave to the place in allusion to the oriental goal toward which his hopes tended as an explorer.

In the way of trade he visited Lakes Ontario and Erie. While the Canadians were yet excited about the discovery of the Mississippi, he imparted his aspirations regarding it to the Governor-general. He said that, by ascending, instead of descending, that great stream, a means might be found for reaching the Pacific Ocean; but that the outlay attending the enterprise could only be defrayed by combining with it an extended traffic with the nations of the West; that he would gladly make the attempt himself if a trading-post were erected for his use at the foot of Lake Ontario, as a basis for his operations, with an exclusive license to traffic in the Western countries. The Governor gave him the command of Fort Frontenac, to begin with. Obtaining, also, his recommendations to the Court, La Salle sailed for France in 1675, and gained all he wanted from the Marquis de Seignelai, son and successor of the great Colbert as minister of marine. The King bestowed on La Salle the seigniory of Cataraqui (Kingston) and ennobled him. This seigniory included Fort Frontenac, of which he was made the proprietor, as well as of Lake Ontario; conditioned, however, that he was to reconstruct the fort in stone. His majesty also invested him with all needful credentials for beginning and continuing his discoveries.

La Salle, on his return to Canada, actively set about aggrandizing his new possession. Several colonists and some of the natives repaired to the locality, and settled under protection of his fort. He built in its vicinity three decked vessels—the first ever seen upon Lake Ontario. In 1677 he visited France again, in quest of aid to carry out his plans. Colbert and Seignelai got him a royal commission as recognized explorer of Northwest America, with permission to erect fortified posts therein at his discretion. He found a potent protector, also, in the Prince de Conti.

La Salle, full of hope, sailed from La Rochelle in summer, 1678, with thirty seamen and artisans, his vessel freighted with equipments for his lake craft, and merchandise for barter with the aborigines. A brave officer, Chevalier de Tonti, went with him, proposing to share his fortunes. Arrived at Cataraqui, his energy put all his workpeople in activity. On November 18th he set sail from Fort Frontenac in one of his barks, loaded with goods and materials for constructing a second fort and a brigantine at Niagara. When he reached the head of Lake Ontario, his vessel excited the admiration of the savages; while the Falls of Niagara no less raised the wonder of the French. Neither had before seen the former so great a triumph of human art; nor the latter, so overpowering a spectacle of nature.

La Salle set about founding his proposed stronghold at Niagara; but the natives, as soon as the defensive works began to take shape, demurred to their being continued. Not caring to dispute the matter with them, he gave his erections the form of a palisaded storehouse merely. During winter following, he laid the keel of a vessel on the stocks, at a place some six miles above the Falls. His activity redoubled as his operations progressed. He sent on his friend Tonti with the famous Recollet, Pere Hennepin, to seek out several men whom he had despatched as forerunners, in autumn preceding, to open up a traffic he intended to carry on with the aborigines of the West. In person he visited the Iroquois and several other nations, with whom he wished to form trading relations. He has the honor of founding the town of Niagara. The vessel he there built he called the Griffin, because, said he, "the griffin has right of mastery over the ravens": an allusion, as was said, to his hope of overcoming all his ill-willers, who were numerous.[1] Be this as it may, the Griffin was launched in midsummer, 1679, under a salute of cannon, with a chanting of Te Deum and shouts from the colonists; the natives present setting up yells of wonder, hailing the French as so many Otkou (or "men of a contriving mind").

[Footnote 1: Some authors say that he named his vessel the Griffin in honor of the Frontenacs, the supporters in whose family coat-of-arms were two Griffins. Where all is so uncertain in an important matter, a third suggestion may be as near the mark as the first two. As the Norse or Norman sea-kings bore the raven for a standard, perhaps La Salle adopted the raven's master-symbol, in right of a hoped-for sovereignty over the American lakes.]

On August 7th the Griffin, equipped with seven guns and loaded with small arms and goods, entered Lake Erie; when La Salle started for Detroit, which he reached in safety after a few days' sail. He gave to the expansion of the channel between Lakes Erie and Huron the name of Lake Ste. Claire, traversing which, on August 23d he entered Lake Huron. Five days later he reached Michilimackinac, after having encountered a violent storm, such as are not unfrequent in that locality. The aborigines of the country were not less moved than those of Niagara had been, at the appearance of the Griffin; an apparition rendered terrible as well as puzzling when the sound of her cannon boomed along the lake and reverberated from its shores.

On attaining to the chapel of the Ottawa tribe, at the mission station, he landed and attended mass. Continuing his voyage, some time in September he reached the Baie des Puants, on the western lake board of Michigan, where he cast anchor. So far the first ship navigation of the great Canadian lakes had been a triumph; but the end was not yet, and it proved to be disastrous, for La Salle, hearing that his creditors had in his absence confiscated his possessions, despatched the Griffin, loaded with peltry, to Niagara, probably in view of redeeming them; but his vessel and goods were totally lost on the way.

Meanwhile he started, with a trading-party of thirty men of different callings, bearing arms and merchandise. Passing to St. Joseph's, at the lower end of Lake Michigan, whither he had ordered that the Griffin should proceed on her proposed second voyage from Niagara, he laid the foundations of a fort on the crest of a steep height, washed on two sides by the river of the Miamis, and defended on another side by a deep ravine. He set buoys at the entrance of the stream for the direction of the crew of the anxiously expected vessel, upon whose safety depended in part the continuation of his enterprises; sending on some skilful hands to Michilimackinac to pilot her on the lake. The vessel not appearing, and winter being near, he set out for the country of the Illinois Indians, leaving a few men in charge of the fort, and taking with him the missionaries Gabriel, Hennepin, and Zenobe, also some private men; Tonti, who was likewise of the party, having rejoined his principal, but without the men he was sent to seek, as he could not find them.

The expedition, thus constituted, arrived toward the close of December at a deserted native village situated near the source of the Illinois River, in the canton which still bears La Salle's name. Without stopping here he descended that stream as far as Lake Peoria—called by Hennepin, "Pimiteoui"—on the margin of which he found encamped a numerous body of the Illinois. These Indians, though naturally gentle, yet turned unfriendly regards at first on the party, but, soon recovering from surprise at the appearance of the French, treated them with great hospitality; one of their attentions to the supposed wants of the visitors being to rub their wearied legs with bear's-grease and buffalo fat. These friendly people were glad to learn that La Salle meant to form establishments in their country. Like the Huron savages of Champlain's time, the Illinois, harassed as they were by the Iroquois, trusted that the French would protect them in future. The visitors remarked that the Illinois formed the sides of their huts with mats of flat reeds, lined and sewed together. All those the party saw were tall, robust in body, and dexterous with the bow. But the nation has been stigmatized by some early reporters as cowardly, lazy, debauched, and without respect for their chiefs.

La Salle's people, hearing no mention of his ship all this while, began first to murmur, and then to leave him: six of them deserted in one night. In other respects events occurred ominous of evil for the termination of the enterprise. To occupy the attention of his companions, and prevent them from brooding on apprehended ills, as well as to guard them against a surprise by any hostile natives, he set them on erecting a fort upon an eminence, at a place four days' journey distant from Lake Peoria; which, when finished, he named Breakheart (Crevecoeur), in allusion to the mental sufferings he then endured. To put an end to an intolerable state of suspense, in his own case he resolved to set out on foot for Frontenac, four hundred or five hundred leagues distant—hoping there to obtain good news about the Griffin; also in order to obtain equipments for a new bark, then in course of construction at Crevecoeur, in which he meant to embark upon his return thither, intending to descend the Mississippi to its embouchure. He charged Pere Hennepin to trace the downward course of the Illinois to its junction with the Mississippi, then to ascend the former as high as possible and examine the territories through which its upper waters flow. After making Tonti captain of the fort in his absence, he set out, March 2, 1680, armed with a musket, and accompanied by three or four whites and one Indian.[1]

[Footnote 1: Charlevoix, by following the relation attributed to Tonti, has fallen into some obvious errors respecting La Salle's expedition to the Illinois River. Hennepin, an ocular witness, is assuredly the best authority, corroborated, as his narration is, by the relation and letters of Pere Zenobe Mambre.]

Pere Hennepin, who left two days before, descended the Illinois to the Mississippi, made several excursions in the region around their confluence; then ascended the latter to a point beyond the Sault St. Antony, where he was detained for some months by Sioux Indians, who only let him go on his promise to return to them next year. One of the chiefs traced on a scrap of paper the route he desired to follow; and this rude but correct chart, says Hennepin, "served us truly as a compass." By following the Wisconsin, which falls into the Mississippi, and Fox River, when running in the opposite direction, he reached Lake Michigan mission station, passing through, intermediately, vast and interesting countries. Such was the famous expedition of Hennepin; who, on his return, was not a little surprised to find a company of fur-traders near the Wisconsin River, led by one De Luth, who had probably preceded him in visiting that remote region.

While Hennepin was exploring the upper valley of the Mississippi, La Salle's interests were getting from bad to worse at Crevecoeur. But, for rightly understanding the events which at last obliged him to abandon that post, it is necessary to explain the state of his affairs in Canada, and to advert to the jealousies which other traffickers cherished regarding his monopolizing projects in the western regions of the continent. He came to the colony, as we have seen, a fortuneless adventurer—highly recommended, indeed; while the special protection he obtained from the Governor, with the titular and more solid favors he obtained at court, made him a competitor to all other commercialists, whom it was impossible to contend with directly. Underhand means of opposition, therefore—and these not always the fairest—were put in play to damage his interests and, if possible, effect his ruin.

For instance, feuds were stirred up against him among the savage tribes, and inducements held out to his own people to desert him. They even induced the Iroquois and the Miamis to take up arms against the Illinois, his allies. Besides this hostility to him within New France, he had to face the opposition of the Anglo-American colonists, who resisted the realization of his projects, for nationally selfish reasons. Thus they encouraged the Iroquois to attack La Salle's Indian allied connections of the Mississippi Valley; a measure which greatly increased the difficulties of a position already almost untenable. In a word, the odds against him became too great; and he was constrained to retire from the high game he wished to play out, which, indeed, was certainly to the disadvantage of individuals, if tending to enhance the importance of the colony as a possession of France.

La Salle's ever-trusty lieutenant, the Chevalier de Tonti, meanwhile did all he could, at Crevecoeur, to engage the Illinois to stand firm to their engagements with his principal. Having learned that the Miamis intended to join the Iroquois in opposition to them, he hastened to teach the use of fire-arms to those who remained faithful, to put the latter on a footing of equality with these two nations, who were now furnished with the like implements of war. He also showed them how to fortify their hordes with palisades. But while in the act of erecting Fort Louis, near the sources of the river Illinois, most of the garrison at Crevecoeur mutinied and deserted, after pillaging the stores of provision and ammunition there laid up.

At this crisis of La Salle's affairs (1680) armed bands of the Iroquois suddenly appeared in the Illinois territory and produced a panic among its timid inhabitants. Tonti, acting with spirit and decision as their ally, now intervened, and enforced upon the Iroquois a truce for the Illinois; but the former, on ascertaining the paucity of his means, recommenced hostilities. Attacking the fort, they murdered Pere Gabriel, disinterred the dead, and wasted the cultivated land of the French residents. The Illinois dispersed in all directions, leaving the latter isolated among their enemies. Tonti, who had at last but five men under his orders, also fled the country.

While the Chevalier, in his passage from Crevecoeur, was descending the north side of Lake Michigan, La Salle was moving along its southern side with a reenforcement of men, and rigging for the bark he left in course of construction at the above-named post, where, having arrived, he had the mortification to find it devastated and deserted. He made no attempt to refound it, but passed the rest of the year in excursions over the neighboring territories, in which he visited a great number of tribes; among them the Outagamis and Miamis, whom he persuaded to renounce an alliance they had formed with the Iroquois. Soon afterward he returned to Montreal, taking Frontenac on his way. Although his pecuniary losses had been great, he was still able to compound with his creditors, to whom he conceded his own sole rights of trade in the Western countries, they in return advancing moneys to enable him to prosecute his future explorations.

Having got all things ready for the crowning expedition he had long meditated, he set out with Tonti, Pere Mambre, also some French and native followers, and directed his course toward the Mississippi, which river he reached February 6, 1682. The mildness of the climate in that latitude, and the beauties of the country, which increased as he proceeded, seemed to give new life to his hopes of finally obtaining profit and glory.[1] In descending the majestic stream, he recognized the Arkansas and other riverain tribes visited by Marquette; he traversed the territories of many other native nations, including the Chickasaws, the Taensas, the Chactas, and the Natchez—the last of these rendered so celebrated, in times near our own, by the genius of Chateaubriand.

[Footnote 1: "A vessel loaded with merchandise belonging to La Salle, valued at 22,000 livres, had just been lost in the Gulf of St. Lawrence; several canoes, also loaded with his goods, were lost in the rapids of the same river. On learning these new misfortunes [in addition to others, of his enemies' procuring], he said it seemed to him that all Canada had risen up against his enterprises, with the single individual exception of the Governor-general. He asserted that the subordinates, whom he had brought from France, had been tempted to quit his service by rival traders, and that they had gone to the New Netherlands with the goods he had intrusted to their care; and as for the Canadians in his hire, his enemies had found means to detach them, also, from his interests."—Yet, "under the pressure of all his misfortunes," says a missionary, "I have never remarked the least change in him; no ill news seemed to disturb his usual equanimity: they seemed rather to spur him on to fresh efforts to retrieve his fortunes, and to make greater discoveries than he had yet effected."]

Halting often in his descent to note the outlets of the many streams tributary to the all-absorbing Mississippi, among others the Missouri and the Ohio—at the embouchure of the latter erecting a fort—he did not reach the ocean mouths of the "Father of Waters" till April 5th, that brightest day of his eventful life. With elated heart, he took formal possession of the country—eminently in the name of the reigning sovereign of France; as he gave to it, at the same time, the distinctive appellation of Louisiana. Thus was completed the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi, from the Sault St. Antony to the sea; a line more than six hundred leagues in length.



%KING PHILIP'S WAR%

A.D. 1675

RICHARD HILDRETH

This was the most extensive and most important of the Indian wars of the early European settlers in North America. It led to the practical extermination of the red men in New England.

Various policies toward the natives were pursued by different colonists in different parts of the country. In New England the first white settlers found themselves in contact with several powerful tribes, chief among which were the Mohegans, the Narragansetts, and the Pequots.

Some attempt was made to convert and civilize these savages, but it was not long before the English colonists were at war with the Pequots, the most dreaded of the tribes in southern New England. This contest(1636-1638) was mainly carried on for the colonists by the settlers of Connecticut. It resulted in the almost complete extermination of the Pequot tribe.

After the union of the New England colonies (1643), formed principally for common defence against the natives, there was no considerable conflict between whites and Indians until the outbreak of King Philip's War, here described by Hildreth.

Except in the destruction of the Pequots, the native tribes of New England had as yet undergone no very material diminution. The Pokanokets or Wampanoags, though somewhat curtailed in their limits, still occupied the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay. The Narragansetts still possessed the western shore. There were several scattered tribes in various parts of Connecticut; though, with the exception of some small reservations, they had already ceded all their lands. Uncas, the Mohegan chief, was now an old man. The Pawtucket or Pennacook confederacy continued to occupy the falls of the Merrimac and the heads of the Piscataqua. Their old sachem, Passaconaway, regarded the colonists with awe and veneration. In the interior of Massachusetts and along the Connecticut were several other less noted tribes. The Indians of Maine and the region eastward possessed their ancient haunts undisturbed; but their intercourse was principally with the French, to whom, since the late peace with France, Acadia had been again yielded up. The New England Indians were occasionally annoyed by war parties of Mohawks; but, by the intervention of Massachusetts, a peace had recently been concluded.

Efforts for the conversion and civilization of the Indians were still continued by Eliot and his coadjutors, supported by the funds of the English society. In Massachusetts there were fourteen feeble villages of these praying Indians, and a few more in Plymouth colony. The whole number in New England was about thirty-six hundred, but of these near one-half inhabited the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.

A strict hand was held by Massachusetts over the Narragansetts and other subject tribes, contracting their limits by repeated cessions, not always entirely voluntary. The Wampanoags, within the jurisdiction of Plymouth, experienced similar treatment. By successive sales of parts of their territory, they were now shut up, as it were, in the necks or peninsulas formed by the northern and eastern branches of Narragansett Bay, the same territory now constituting the continental eastern portion of Rhode Island. Though always at peace with the colonists, the Wampanoags had not always escaped suspicion. The increase of the settlements around them, and the progressive curtailment of their limits, aroused their jealousy. They were galled, also, by the feudal superiority, similar to that of Massachusetts over her dependent tribes, claimed by Plymouth on the strength of certain alleged former submissions. None felt this assumption more keenly than Pometacom, head chief of the Wampanoags, better known among the colonists as King Philip of Mount Hope, nephew and successor of that Massasoit, who had welcomed the Pilgrims to Plymouth. Suspected of hostile designs, he had been compelled to deliver up his fire-arms and to enter into certain stipulations. These stipulations he was accused of not fulfilling; and nothing but the interposition of the Massachusetts magistrates, to whom Philip appealed, prevented Plymouth from making war upon him. He was sentenced instead to pay a heavy fine and to acknowledge the unconditional supremacy of that colony.

A praying Indian, who had been educated at Cambridge and employed as a teacher, upon some misdemeanor had fled to Philip, who took him into service as a sort of secretary. Being persuaded to return again to his former employment, this Indian accused Philip anew of being engaged in a secret hostile plot. In accordance with Indian ideas, the treacherous informer was waylaid and killed. Three of Philip's men, suspected of having killed him, were arrested by the Plymouth authorities, and, in accordance with English ideas, were tried for murder by a jury half English, half Indians, convicted upon very slender evidence, and hanged. Philip retaliated by plundering the houses nearest Mount Hope. Presently he attacked Swanzey, and killed several of the inhabitants. Plymouth took measures for raising a military force. The neighboring colonies were sent to for assistance. Thus, by the impulse of suspicion on the one side and passion on the other, New England became suddenly engaged in a war very disastrous to the colonists and utterly ruinous to the native tribes. The lust of gain, in spite of all laws to prevent it, had partially furnished the Indians with fire-arms, and they were now far more formidable enemies than they had been in the days of the Pequots. Of this the colonists hardly seem to have thought. Now, as then, confident of their superiority, and comparing themselves to the Lord's chosen people driving the heathen out of the land, they rushed eagerly into the contest, without a single effort at the preservation of peace. Indeed, their pretensions hardly admitted of it. Philip was denounced as a rebel in arms against his lawful superiors, with whom it would be folly and weakness to treat on any terms short of absolute submission.

A body of volunteers, horse and foot, raised in Massachusetts, marched under Major Savage, four days after the attack on Swanzey, to join the Plymouth forces. After one or two slight skirmishes, they penetrated to the Wampanoag villages at Mount Hope, but found them empty and deserted. Philip and his warriors, conscious of their inferiority, had abandoned their homes. If the Narragansetts, on the opposite side of the bay, did not openly join the Wampanoags, they would, at least, be likely to afford shelter to their women and children. The troops were therefore ordered into the Narragansett country, accompanied by commissioners to demand assurances of peaceful intentions, and a promise to deliver up all fugitive enemies of the colonists—pledges which the Narragansetts felt themselves constrained to give.

Arrived at Taunton on their return from the Narragansett country, news came that Philip and his warriors had been discovered by Church, of Plymouth colony, collected in a great swamp at Pocasset, now Tiverton, the southern district of the Wampanoag country, whence small parties sallied forth to burn and plunder the neighboring settlements. After a march of eighteen miles, having reached the designated spot, the soldiers found there a hundred wigwams lately built, but empty and deserted, the Indians having retired deep into the swamp. The colonists followed; but the ground was soft; the thicket was difficult to penetrate; the companies were soon thrown into disorder. Each man fired at every bush he saw shake, thinking an Indian might lay concealed behind it, and several were thus wounded by their own friends. When night came on, the assailants retired with the loss of sixteen men.

The swamp continued to be watched and guarded, but Philip broke through, not without some loss, and escaped into the country of the Nipmucks, in the interior of Massachusetts. That tribe had already commenced hostilities by attacking Mendon. They waylaid and killed Captain Hutchinson, a son of the famous Mrs. Hutchinson, and sixteen out of a party of twenty sent from Boston to Brookfield to parley with them. Attacking Brookfield itself, they burned it, except one fortified house. The inhabitants were saved by Major Willard, who, on information of their danger, came with a troop of horse from Lancaster, thirty miles through the woods, to their rescue. A body of troops presently arrived from the eastward, and were stationed for some time at Brookfield.

The colonists now found that by driving Philip to extremity they had roused a host of unexpected enemies. The River Indians, anticipating an intended attack upon them, joined the assailants. Deerfield and Northfield, the northernmost towns on the Connecticut River, settled within a few years past, were attacked, and several of the inhabitants killed and wounded. Captain Beers, sent from Hadley to their relief with a convoy of provisions, was surprised near Northfield and slain, with twenty of his men. Northfield was abandoned, and burned by the Indians.

"The English at first," says Gookin, "thought easily to chastise the insolent doings and murderous practice of the heathen; but it was found another manner of thing than was expected; for our men could see no enemy to shoot at, but yet felt their bullets out of the thick bushes where they lay in ambush. The English wanted not courage or resolution, but could not discover nor find an enemy to fight with, yet were galled by the enemy." In the arts of ambush and surprise, with which the Indians were so familiar, the colonists were without practice. It is to the want of this experience, purchased at a very dear rate in the course of the war, that we must ascribe the numerous surprises and defeats from which the colonists suffered at its commencement.

Driven to the necessity of defensive warfare, those in command on the river determined to establish a magazine and garrison at Hadley. Captain Lathrop, who had been despatched from the eastward to the assistance of the river towns, was sent with eighty men, the flower of the youth of Essex county, to guard the wagons intended to convey to Hadley three thousand bushels of unthreshed wheat, the produce of the fertile Deerfield meadows. Just before arriving at Deerfield, near a small stream still known as Bloody Brook, under the shadow of the abrupt conical Sugar Loaf, the southern termination of the Deerfield Mountain, Lathrop fell into an ambush, and, after a brave resistance, perished there with all his company. Captain Moseley, stationed at Deerfield, marched to his assistance, but arrived too late to help him. Deerfield was abandoned, and burned by the Indians. Springfield, about the same time, was set on fire, but was partially saved by the arrival, with troops from Connecticut, of Major Treat, successor to the lately deceased Mason in the chief command of the Connecticut forces. An attack on Hatfield was vigorously repelled by the garrison.

Meanwhile, hostilities were spreading; the Indians on the Merrimac began to attack the towns in their vicinity; and the whole of Massachusetts was soon in the utmost alarm. Except in the immediate neighborhood of Boston, the country still remained an immense forest, dotted by a few openings. The frontier settlements could not be defended against a foe familiar with localities, scattered in small parties, skilful in concealment, and watching with patience for some unguarded or favorable moment. Those settlements were mostly broken up, and the inhabitants, retiring toward Boston, spread everywhere dread and intense hatred of "the bloody heathen."

Even the praying Indians and the small dependent and tributary tribes became objects of suspicion and terror. They had been employed at first as scouts and auxiliaries, and to good advantage; but some few, less confirmed in the faith, having deserted to the enemy, the whole body of them were denounced as traitors. Eliot the apostle, and Gookin, superintendent of the subject Indians, exposed themselves to insults, and even to danger, by their efforts to stem this headlong fury, to which several of the magistrates opposed but a feeble resistance. Troops were sent to break up the praying villages at Mendon, Grafton, and others in that quarter. The Natick Indians, "those poor despised sheep of Christ," as Gookin affectionately calls them, were hurried off to Deer Island, in Boston harbor, where they suffered excessively from a severe winter. A part of the praying Indians of Plymouth colony were confined, in like manner, on the islands in Plymouth harbor.

Not content with realities sufficiently frightful, superstition, as usual, added bugbears of her own. Indian bows were seen in the sky, and scalps in the moon. The northern lights became an object of terror. Phantom horsemen careered among the clouds or were heard to gallop invisible through the air. The howling of wolves was turned into a terrible omen. The war was regarded as a special judgment in punishment of prevailing sins. Among these sins the General Court of Massachusetts, after consultation with the elders, enumerated: Neglect in the training of the children of church members; pride, in men's wearing long and curled hair; excess in apparel; naked breasts and arms, and superfluous ribbons; the toleration of Quakers; hurry to leave meeting before blessing asked; profane cursing and swearing; tippling-houses; want of respect for parents; idleness; extortion in shopkeepers and mechanics; and the riding from town to town of unmarried men and women, under pretence of attending lectures—"a sinful custom, tending to lewdness."

Penalties were denounced against all these offences; and the persecution of the Quakers was again renewed. A Quaker woman had recently frightened the Old South congregation in Boston by entering that meeting-house clothed in sackcloth, with ashes on her head, her feet bare, and her face blackened, intending to personify the small-pox, with which she threatened the colony, in punishment for its sins.

About the time of the first collision with Philip, the Tarenteens, or Eastern Indians, had attacked the settlements in Maine and New Hampshire, plundering and burning the houses, and massacring such of the inhabitants as fell into their hands. This sudden diffusion of hostilities and vigor of attack from opposite quarters made the colonists believe that Philip had long been plotting and had gradually matured an extensive conspiracy, into which most of the tribes had deliberately entered for the extermination of the whites. This belief infuriated the colonists and suggested some very questionable proceedings.

It seems, however, to have originated, like the war itself, from mere suspicions. The same griefs pressed upon all the tribes; and the struggle once commenced, the awe which the colonists inspired thrown off, the greater part were ready to join in the contest. But there is no evidence of any deliberate concert; nor, in fact, were the Indians united. Had they been so, the war would have been far more serious. The Connecticut tribes proved faithful, and that colony remained untouched. Uncas and Ninigret continued friendly; even the Narragansetts, in spite of so many former provocations, had not yet taken up arms. But they were strongly suspected of intention to do so, and were accused by Uncas of giving, notwithstanding their recent assurances, aid and shelter to the hostile tribes.

An attempt had lately been made to revive the union of the New England colonies. At a meeting of commissioners, those from Plymouth presented a narrative of the origin and progress of the present hostilities. Upon the strength of this narrative the war was pronounced "just and necessary," and a resolution was passed to carry it on at the joint expense, and to raise for that purpose a thousand men, one-half to be mounted dragoons. If the Narragansetts were not crushed during the winter, it was feared they might break out openly hostile in the spring; and at a subsequent meeting a thousand men were ordered to be levied to cooeperate in an expedition specially against them.

The winter was unfavorable to the Indians; the leafless woods no longer concealed their lurking attacks. The frozen surface of the swamps made the Indian fastnesses accessible to the colonists. The forces destined against the Narragansetts—six companies from Massachusetts, under Major Appleton; two from Plymouth, under Major Bradford; and five from Connecticut, under Major Treat—were placed under the command of Josiah Winslow, Governor of Plymouth since Prince's death—son of that Edward Winslow so conspicuous in the earlier history of the colony. The Massachusetts and Plymouth forces marched to Petasquamscot, on the west shore of Narragansett Bay, where they made some forty prisoners.

Being joined by the troops from Connecticut, and guided by an Indian deserter, after a march of fifteen miles through a deep snow they approached a swamp in what is now the town of South Kingston, one of the ancient strongholds of the Narragansetts. Driving the Indian scouts before them, and penetrating the swamp, the colonial soldiers soon came in sight of the Indian fort, built on a rising ground in the morass, a sort of island of two or three acres, fortified by a palisade and surrounded by a close hedge a rod thick. There was but one entrance, quite narrow, defended by a tree thrown across it, with a block-house of logs in front and other on the flank.

It was the "Lord's day," but that did not hinder the attack. As the captains advanced at the heads of their companies the Indians opened a galling fire, under which many fell. But the assailants pressed on and forced the entrance. A desperate struggle ensued. The colonists were once driven back, but they rallied and returned to the charge, and, after a two-hours' fight, became masters of the fort. Fire was put to the wigwams, near six hundred in number, and all the horrors of the Pequot massacre were renewed. The corn and other winter stores of the Indians were consumed, and not a few of the old men, women, and children perished in the flames. In this bloody contest, long remembered as the "Swamp Fight," the colonial loss was terribly severe. Six captains, with two hundred thirty men, were killed or wounded; and at night, in the midst of a snow-storm, with a fifteen-miles' march before them, the colonial soldiers abandoned the fort, of which the Indians resumed possession. But their wigwams were burned; their provisions destroyed; they had no supplies for the winter; their loss was irreparable. Of those who survived the fight many perished of hunger.

Even as a question of policy this attack on the Narragansetts was more than doubtful. The starving and infuriated warriors, scattered through the woods, revenged themselves by attacks on the frontier settlements. Lancaster was burned, and forty of the inhabitants killed or taken; among the rest, Mrs. Rolandson, wife of the minister, the narrative of whose captivity is still preserved. Groton, Chelmsford, and other towns in that vicinity were repeatedly attacked. Medfield, twenty miles from Boston, was furiously assaulted, and, though defended by three hundred men, half the houses were burned. Weymouth, within eighteen miles of Boston, was attacked a few days after. These were the nearest approaches which the Indians made to that capital.

For a time the neighborhood of the Narragansett country was abandoned. The Rhode Island towns, though they had no part in undertaking the war, yet suffered the consequences of it. Warwick was burned and Providence was partially destroyed. Most of the inhabitants sought refuge in the islands; but the aged Roger Williams accepted a commission as captain for the defence of the town he had founded. Walter Clarke was presently chosen governor in Coddington's place, the times not suiting a Quaker chief magistrate.

The whole colony of Plymouth was overrun. Houses were burned in almost every town, but the inhabitants, for the most part, saved themselves in their garrisons, a shelter with which all the towns now found it necessary to be provided. Captain Pierce, with fifty men and some friendly Indians, while endeavoring to cover the Plymouth towns, fell into an ambush and was cut off. That same day, Marlborough was set on fire; two days after, Rehoboth was burned. The Indians seemed to be everywhere. Captain Wadsworth, marching to the relief of Sudbury, fell into an ambush and perished with fifty men. The alarm and terror of the colonists reached again a great height. But affairs were about to take a turn. The resources of the Indians were exhausted; they were now making their last efforts.

A body of Connecticut volunteers, under Captain Denison, and of Mohegan and other friendly Indians, Pequots and Niantics, swept the entire country of the Narragansetts, who suffered, as spring advanced, the last extremities of famine. Canochet, the chief sachem, said to have been a son of Miantonomoh, but probably his nephew, had ventured to his old haunts to procure seed corn with which to plant the rich intervals on the Connecticut, abandoned by the colonists. Taken prisoner, he conducted himself with all that haughty firmness esteemed by the Indians as the height of magnanimity. Being offered his life on condition of bringing about a peace he scorned the proposal. His tribe would perish to the last man rather than become servants to the English. When ordered to prepare for death he replied: "I like it well; I shall die before my heart is soft or I shall have spoken anything unworthy of myself." Two Indians were appointed to shoot him, and his head was cut off and sent to Hartford.

The colonists had suffered severely. Men, women, and children had perished by the bullets of the Indians or fled naked through the wintry woods by the light of their blazing houses, leaving their goods and cattle a spoil to the assailants. Several settlements had been destroyed and many more had been abandoned; but the oldest and wealthiest remained untouched. The Indians, on the other hand, had neither provisions nor ammunition. While attempting to plant corn and catch fish at Montague Falls, on the Connecticut River, they were attacked with great slaughter by the garrison of the lower towns, led by Captain Turner, a Boston Baptist, and at first refused a commission on that account, but, as danger increased, pressed to accept it.

Yet this enterprise was not without its drawbacks. As the troops returned, Captain Turner fell into an ambush and was slain with thirty-eight men. Hadley was attacked on a lecture-day, while the people were at meeting; but the Indians were repulsed by the bravery of Goffe, one of the fugitive regicides, long concealed in that town. Seeing this venerable unknown man come to their rescue, and then suddenly disappear, the inhabitants took him for an angel.

Major Church, at the head of a body of two hundred volunteers, English and Indians, energetically hunted down the hostile bands in Plymouth colony. The interior tribes about Mount Wachusett were invaded and subdued by a force of six hundred men, raised for that purpose. Many fled to the north to find refuge in Canada—guides and leaders, in after-years, of those French and Indian war parties by which the frontiers of New England were so terribly harassed. Just a year after the fast at the commencement of the war, a thanksgiving was observed for success in it.

No longer sheltered by the River Indians, who now began to make their peace, and even attacked by bands of the Mohawks, Philip returned to his own country, about Mount Hope, where he was still faithfully supported by his female confederate and relative, Witamo, squaw-sachem of Pocasset. Punham, also, the Shawomet vassal of Massachusetts, still zealously carried on the war, but was presently killed. Philip was watched and followed by Church, who surprised his camp, killed upward of a hundred of his people, and took prisoners his wife and boy.

The disposal of this child was a subject of much deliberation. Several of the elders were urgent for putting him to death. It was finally resolved to send him to Bermuda, to be sold into slavery—a fate to which many other of the Indian captives were subjected. Witamo shared the disasters of Philip. Most of her people were killed or taken. She herself was drowned while crossing a river in her flight, but her body was recovered, and the head, cut off, was stuck upon a pole at Taunton, amid the jeers and scoffs of the colonial soldiers, and the tears and lamentations of the Indian prisoners.

Philip still lurked in the swamps, but was now reduced to extremity. Again attacked by Church, he was killed by one of his own people, a deserter to the colonists. His dead body was beheaded and quartered, the sentence of the English law upon traitors. One of his hands was given to the Indian who had shot him, and on the day appointed for a public thanksgiving his head was carried in triumph to Plymouth.

The popular rage against the Indians was excessive. Death or slavery was the penalty for all known or suspected to have been concerned in shedding English blood. Merely having been present at the Swamp Fight was adjudged by the authorities of Rhode Island sufficient foundation for sentence of death, and that, too, notwithstanding they had intimated an opinion that the origin of the war would not bear examination. The other captives who fell into the hands of the colonists were distributed among them as ten-year servants. Roger Williams received a boy for his share. Many chiefs were executed at Boston and Plymouth on the charge of rebellion; among others, Captain Tom, chief of the Christian Indians at Natick, and Tispiquin, a noted warrior, reputed to be invulnerable, who had surrendered to Church on an implied promise of safety.

A large body of Indians, assembled at Dover to treat of peace, were treacherously made prisoners by Major Waldron, who commanded there. Some two hundred of these Indians, claimed as fugitives from Massachusetts, were sent by water to Boston, where some were hanged and the rest shipped off to be sold as slaves. Some fishermen of Marblehead having been killed by the Indians at the eastward, the women of that town, as they came out of meeting on a Sunday, fell upon two Indian prisoners who had just been brought in, and murdered them on the spot.

The same ferocious spirit of revenge which governed the contemporaneous conduct of Berkeley in Virginia toward those concerned in Bacon's rebellion swayed the authorities of New England in their treatment of the conquered Indians. By the end of the year the contest was over in the South, upward of two thousand Indians having been killed or taken. But some time elapsed before a peace could be arranged with the Eastern tribes, whose haunts it was not so easy to reach.

In this short war of hardly a year's duration the Wampanoags and Narragansetts had suffered the fate of the Pequots. The Niantics alone, under the guidance of their aged sachem Ninigret, had escaped destruction. Philip's country was annexed to Plymouth, though sixty years afterward, under a royal order in council, it was transferred to Rhode Island. The Narragansett territory remained as before, under the name of King's Province, a bone of contention between Connecticut, Rhode Island, the Marquis of Hamilton, and the Atherton claimants. The Niantics still retained their ancient seats along the southern shores of Narragansett Bay. Most of the surviving Narragansetts, the Nipmucks, and the River Indians, abandoned their country and migrated to the north and west. Such as remained, along with the Mohegans and other subject tribes, became more than ever abject and subservient.

The work of conversion was now again renewed, and, after such overwhelming proofs of Christian superiority, with somewhat greater success. A second edition of the Indian Old Testament, which seems to have been more in demand than the New, was presently published, revised by Eliot, with the assistance of John Cotton, son of the "Great Cotton," and minister of Plymouth. But not an individual exists in our day by whom it can be understood. The fragments of the subject tribes, broken in spirit, lost the savage freedom and rude virtues of their fathers without acquiring the laborious industry of the whites. Lands were assigned them in various places, which they were prohibited by law from alienating. But this very provision, though humanely intended, operated to perpetuate their indolence and incapacity. Some sought a more congenial occupation in the whale fishery, which presently began to be carried on from the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Many perished by enlisting in the military expeditions undertaken in future years against Acadia and the West Indies. The Indians intermarried with the blacks, and thus confirmed their degradation by associating themselves with another oppressed and unfortunate race. Gradually they dwindled away. A few hundred sailors and petty farmers, of mixed blood, as much African as Indian, are now the sole surviving representatives of the aboriginal possessors of Southern New England.

On the side of the colonists the contest had also been very disastrous. Twelve or thirteen towns had been entirely ruined and many others partially destroyed. Six hundred houses had been burned, near a tenth part of all in New England. Twelve captains, and more than six hundred men in the prime of life, had fallen in battle. There was hardly a family not in mourning. The pecuniary losses and expenses of the war were estimated at near a million of dollars.



%GROWTH OF PRUSSIA UNDER THE GREATELECTOR%

HIS VICTORY AT FEHRBELLIN

A.D. 1675

THOMAS CARLYLE

It was the good-fortune of Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, who is known in history as the "Great Elector," to lay a firm foundation for Prussian monarchy. Under his father, George William, the Tenth Elector, Brandenburg had lost much of its former importance. When Frederick William came into his inheritance in 1640 he found a weak and disunited state, little more than a group of provinces, with foreign territories lying between them, and governed by differing laws.

The great problem before the Elector was how to become actual ruler of his ill-joined possessions, and his first aim was to weld them together, that he might make himself absolute monarch. By forming an army of mercenaries he established his authority. His whole life was occupied with warlike affairs. He remained neutral during the last stages of the Thirty Years' War, but was always prepared for action. He freed Prussia from Polish control and drove the Swedes from Brandenburg.

This last was his most famous success. It was won by his victory over the Swedes under Wrangel, at Fehrbellin. Carlyle's characteristic narrative and commentary on this and other triumphs of the Great Elector place him before the reader as one of the chief personages of the Hohenzollern race and a leading actor in European history.

Brandenburg had sunk very low under the Tenth Elector, in the unutterable troubles of the times, but it was gloriously raised up again by his Son Friedrich Wilhelm, who succeeded in 1640. This is he whom they call the "Great Elector" ("Grosse Kurfuerst"), of whom there is much writing and celebrating in Prussian Books. As for the epithet, it is not uncommon among petty German populations, and many times does not mean too much: thus Max of Bavaria, with his Jesuit Lambkins and Hyacinths, is by Bavarians called "Maximilian the Great." Friedrich Wilhelm, both by his intrinsic qualities and the success he met with, deserves it better than most. His success, if we look where he started and where he ended, was beyond that of any other man in his day. He found Brandenburg annihilated, and he left Brandenburg sound and flourishing—a great country, or already on the way toward greatness: undoubtedly a most rapid, clear-eyed, active man. There was a stroke in him swift as lightning, well aimed mostly, and of a respectable weight withal, which shattered asunder a whole world of impediments for him by assiduous repetition of it for fifty years.

There hardly ever came to sovereign power a young man of twenty under more distressing, hopeless-looking circumstances. Political significance Brandenburg had none—a mere Protestant appendage dragged about by a Papist Kaiser. His Father's Prime Minister was in the interest of his enemies; not Brandenburg's servant, but Austria's. The very Commandants of his Fortresses, Commandant of Spandau more especially, refused to obey Friedrich Wilhelm on his accession—"were bound to obey the Kaiser in the first place." He had to proceed softly as well as swiftly, with the most delicate hand, to get him of Spandau by the collar, and put him under lock and key, as a warning to others.

For twenty years past Brandenburg had been scoured by hostile armies, which, especially the Kaiser's part of which, committed outrages new in human history. In a year or two hence Brandenburg became again the theatre of business. Austrian Gallas, advancing thither again (1644) with intent "to shut up Tortenson and his Swedes in Jutland," where they had been chastising old Christian IV, now meddlesome again for the last time, and never a good neighbor to Sweden, Gallas could by no means do what he intended; on the contrary, he had to run from Tortenson what feet could do, was hunted, he and his Merode-Bruder (beautiful inventors of the "Marauding" Art), "till they pretty much all died (crepirten)," says Kohler. No great loss to society, the death of these Artists, but we can fancy what their life, and especially what the process of their dying, may have cost poor Brandenburg again.

Friedrich Wilhelm's aim, in this as in other emergencies, was sun-clear to himself, but for most part dim to everybody else. He had to walk very warily, Sweden on one hand of him, suspicious Kaiser on the other; he had to wear semblances, to be ready with evasive words and advance noiselessly by many circuits. More delicate operation could not be imagined; but advance he did, advance and arrive. With extraordinary talent, diligence, and felicity, the young man wound himself out of this first fatal position; got those foreign Armies pushed out of his country, and kept them out. His first concern had been to find some vestige of revenue, to put that upon a clear footing, and by loans or otherwise to scrape a little ready money together, on the strength of which a small body of soldiers could be collected about him, and drilled into real ability to fight and obey. This as a basis; on this followed all manner of things, freedom from Swedish-Austrian invasions as the first thing.

He was himself, as appeared by and by, a fighter of the first quality when it came to that, but never was willing to fight if he could help it; preferred rather to shift, manoeuvre, and negotiate, which he did in a most vigilant, adroit, and masterly manner. But by degrees he had grown to have, and could maintain it, an Army of twenty-four thousand men, among the best troops then in being. With or without his will, he was in all the great Wars of his time—the time of Louis XIV—who kindled Europe four times over, thrice in our Kurfuerst's day. The Kurfuerst's Dominions, a long, straggling country, reaching from Memel to Wesel, could hardly keep out of the way of any war that might rise. He made himself available, never against the good cause of Protestantism and German Freedom, yet always in the place and way where his own best advantage was to be had. Louis XIV had often much need of him; still oftener, and more pressingly, had Kaiser Leopold, the little Gentleman "in scarlet stockings, with a red feather in his hat," whom Mr. Savage used to see majestically walking about, with Austrian lip that said nothing at all. His twenty-four thousand excellent fighting-men, thrown in at the right time, were often a thing that could turn the balance in great questions. They required to be allowed for at a high rate, which he well knew how to adjust himself for exacting and securing always.

When the Peace of Westphalia (1648) concluded that Thirty-Years' Conflagration, and swept the ashes of it into order again, Friedrich Wilhelm's right to Pommern was admitted by everybody, and well insisted on by himself; but right had to yield to reason of state, and he could not get it. The Swedes insisted on their expenses; the Swedes held Pommern, had all along held it—in pawn, they said, for their expenses. Nothing for it but to give the Swedes the better half of Pommern—Fore-Pommern so they call it, ("Swedish Pomernia" thenceforth), which lies next the Sea; this, with some Towns and cuttings over and above, was Sweden's share. Friedrich Wilhelm had to put up with Hinder-Pommern, docked furthermore of the Town of Stettin, and of other valuable cuttings, in favor of Sweden, much to Friedrich Wilhelm's grief and just anger, could he have helped it.

They gave him Three secularized Bishoprics, Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Minden with other small remnants, for compensation, and he had to be content with these for the present. But he never gave up the idea of Pommern. Much of the effort of his life was spent upon recovering Fore-Pommern; thrice eager upon that, whenever lawful opportunity offered. To no purpose, then; he never could recover Swedish Pommern; only his late descendants, and that by slowish degrees, could recover it all. Readers remember that Burgermeister of Stettin, with the helmet and sword flung into the grave and picked out again, and can judge whether Brandenburg got its good luck quite by lying in bed.

Once, and once only, he had a voluntary purpose toward War, and it remained a purpose only. Soon after the Peace of Westphalia, old Pfalz-Neuburg, the same who got the slap on the face, went into tyrannous proceedings against the Protestant part of his subjects in Juelic-Cleve, who called to Friedrich Wilhelm for help. Friedrich Wilhelm, a zealous Protestant, made remonstrances, retaliations; ere long the thought struck him, "Suppose, backed by the Dutch, we threw out this fantastic old gentleman, his Papistries, and pretended claims and self, clear out of it?" This was Friedrich Wilhelm's thought, and he suddenly marched troops into the Territory with that view. But Europe was in alarm; the Dutch grew faint. Friedrich Wilhelm saw it would not do. He had a conference with old Pfalz-Neuburg: "Young gentleman, we remember how your Grandfather made free with us and our august countenance! Nevertheless, we—" In fine, the "statistics of Treaties" was increased by One, and there the matter rested till calmer times.

In 1666 an effective Partition of these litigated Territories was accomplished; Prussia to have the Duchy of Cleve-Proper, the Counties of Mark and Ravensberg, with other Patches and Pertinents; Neuburg, what was the better share, to have Juelich Duchy and Berg Duchy. Furthermore, if either of the Lines failed, in no sort was a collateral to be admitted; but Brandenburg was to inherit Neuburg, or Neuburg Brandenburg, as the case might be. A clear Bargain this at last, and in the times that had come it proved executable so far; but if the reader fancies the Lawsuit was at last out in this way, he will be a simple reader. In the days of our little Fritz,[1] the Line of Pfalz-Neuburg was evidently ending; but that Brandenburg, and not a collateral, should succeed it, there lay the quarrel open still, as if it had never been shut, and we shall hear enough about it.

[Footnote 1: Frederick the Great]

Friedrich Wilhelm's first actual appearance in War, Polish-Swedish War (1655-1660), was involuntary in the highest degree; forced upon him for the sake of his Preussen, which bade fair to be lost or ruined without blame of his or its. Nevertheless, here too he made his benefit of the affair. The big King of Sweden had a standing quarrel, with his big cousin of Poland, which broke out into hot War; little Preussen lay between them, and was like to be crushed in the collision. Swedish King was Karl Gustav, Christina's Cousin, Charles XII's Grandfather: a great and mighty man, lion of the North in his time; Polish King was one John Casimir; chivalrous enough, and with clouds of forward Polish chivalry about him, glittering with barbaric gold. Friedrich III, Danish King for the first time being, he also was much involved in the thing. Fain would Friedrich Wilhelm have kept out of it, but he could not. Karl Gustav as good as forced him to join; he joined; fought along with Karl Gustav an illustrious Battle, "Battle of Warsaw," three days long (July 28-30, 1656), on the skirts of Warsaw; crowds "looking from the upper windows" there; Polish chivalry, broken at last, going like chaff upon the winds, and John Casimir nearly ruined.

Shortly after which, Friedrich Wilhelm, who had shone much in the Battle, changed sides. An inconsistent, treacherous man? Perhaps not, O reader; perhaps a man advancing "in circuits," the only way he has; spirally, face now to east, now to west, with his own reasonable private aim sun-clear to himself all the while.

John Casimir agreed to give up the "Homage of Preussen" for this service; a grand prize for Friedrich Wilhelm. What the Teutsch Ritters strove for in vain, and lost their existence in striving for, the shifty Kurfuerst has now got: Ducal Prussia, which is also called East Prussia, is now a free sovereignty, and will become as "Royal" as the other Polish part, or perhaps even more so, in the course of time—Karl Gustav, in a high frame of mind, informs the Kurfuerst that he has him on his books, and will pay the debt one day.

A dangerous debtor in such matters, this Karl Gustav. In these same months, busy with the Danish part of the Controversy, he was doing a feat of war which set all Europe in astonishment. In January, 1658, Karl Gustav marches his Army, horse, foot, and artillery, to the extent of Twenty thousand, across the Baltic ice, and takes an island without shipping—Island of Fuenen, across the Little Belt—three miles of ice, and a part of the sea open, which has to be crossed on planks; nay, forward from Fuenen, when once there, he achieves ten whole miles more of ice, and takes Zealand itself, to the wonder of all mankind: an imperious, stern-browed, swift-striking man, who had dreamed of a new Goth Empire: the mean Hypocrites and Fribbles of the South to be coerced again by noble Norse valor, and taught a new lesson; has been known to lay his hand on his sword while apprising an Embassador (Dutch High Mightiness) what his royal intentions were: "not the sale or purchase of groceries, observe you, Sir! My aims go higher." Charles XII's Grandfather, and somewhat the same type of man.

But Karl died short while after; left his big, wide-raging Northern Controversy to collapse in what way it could. Sweden and the fighting parties made their "Peace of Oliva" (Abbey of Oliva, near Dantzig, May 1, 1660), and this of Preussen was ratified, in all form, among other points. No Homage more; nothing now above Ducal Prussia but the Heavens, and great times coming for it. This was one of the successfulest strokes of business ever done by Friedrich Wilhelm, who had been forced, by sheer compulsion, to embark in that big game. "Royal Prussia," the Western Polish Prussia—this too, as all Newspapers know, has in our times gone the same road as the other, which probably after all, it may have had in Nature, some tendency to do? Cut away, for reasons, by the Polish sword, in that Battle of Tannenberg, long since, and then, also for reasons, cut back again: that is the fact, not unexampled in human History.

Old Johann Casimir, not long after that Peace of Oliva, getting tired of his unruly Polish chivalry and their ways, abdicated, retired to Paris, and "lived much with Ninon de l'Enclos and her circle" for the rest of his life. He used to complain of his Polish chivalry that there was no solidity in them, nothing but outside glitter, with tumult and anarchic noise; fatal want of one essential talent, the talent of Obeying; and has been heard to prophesy that a glorious Republic, persisting in such courses, would arrive at results which would surprise it.

Onward from this time Friedrich Wilhelm figures in the world, public men watching his procedure, Kings anxious to secure him, Dutch Printsellers sticking up his Portraits for a hero-worshipping Public. Fighting hero, had the Public known it, was not his essential character, though he had to fight a great deal. He was essentially an Industrial man; great in organizing, regulating, in constraining chaotic heaps to become cosmic for him. He drains bogs, settles colonies in the waste places of his Dominions, cuts canals; unweariedly encourages trade and work. The Friedrich-Wilhelm's Canal, which still carries tonnage from the Oder to the Spree, is a monument of his zeal in this way; creditable, with the means he had. To the poor French Protestants in the Edict-of-Nantes Affair, he was like an empress Benefit of Heaven: one Helper appointed, to whom the help itself was profitable. He munificently welcomed them to Brandenburg; showed really a noble piety and human self-pity, as well as judgment; nor did Brandenburg and he want their reward. Some twenty thousand nimble French souls, evidently of the best French quality, found a home there; made "waste sands about Berlin into pot-herb gardens"; and in the spiritual Brandenburg, too, did something of horticulture, which is still noticeable.

Certainly this Elector was one of the shiftiest of men; not an unjust man either; a pious, God-fearing man rather, stanch to his Protestantism and his Bible; not unjust by any means, nor, on the other hand, by any means thin-skinned in his interpretings of justice: Fairplay to myself always, or occasionally even the Height of Fairplay. On the whole, by constant energy, vigilance, adroit activity, by an ever-ready insight and audacity to seize the passing fact by its right handle, he fought his way well in the world; left Brandenburg a flourishing and greatly increased Country, and his own name famous enough.

A thickset, stalwart figure, with brisk eyes, and high, strong, irregularly-Roman nose. Good bronze Statue of him, by Schlueter, once a famed man, still rides on the Lange-Bruecke (Long Bridge) at Berlin; and his Portrait, in huge frizzled Louis-Quatorze wig, is frequently met with in German Galleries. Collectors of Dutch Prints, too, know him; here a gallant, eagle-featured little gentleman, brisk in the smiles of youth, with plumes, with truncheon, caprioling on his war-charger, view of tents in the distance; there a sedate, ponderous wrinkly old man, eyes slightly puckered (eyes busier than mouth), a face well plowed by Time, and not found unfruitful; one of the largest, most laborious potent faces (in an ocean of circumambient periwig) to be met with in that Century. There are many Histories about him, too, but they are not comfortable to read. He also has wanted a sacred Poet, and found only a bewildering Dryasdust.

His two grand Feats that dwell in the Prussian memory are perhaps none of his greatest, but were of a kind to strike the imagination. They both relate to what was the central problem of his life—the recovery of Pommern from the Swedes. Exploit First is the famed Battle of Fehrbellin (Ferry of Belleen), fought on June 18, 1675. Fehrbellin is an inconsiderable Town still standing in those peaty regions, some five-and-thirty miles northwest of Berlin, and had for ages plied its poor Ferry over the oily-looking, brown sluggish stream called Rhin, or Rhein in those parts, without the least notice from mankind till this fell out. It is a place of pilgrimage to patriotic Prussians ever since Friedrich Wilhelm's exploit there. The matter went thus:

Friedrich Wilhelm was fighting, far south in Alsace, on Kaiser Leopold's side, in the Louis XIV War—that second one, which ended in the Treaty of Nimwegen. Doing his best there, when the Swedes, egged on by Louis XIV, made war upon him; crossed the Pomeranian marshes, troop after troop, and invaded his Brandenburg Territory with a force which at length amounted to sixteen thousand men. No help for the moment; Friedrich Wilhelm could not be spared from his post. The Swedes, who had at first professed well, gradually went into plunder, roving, harrying at their own will; and a melancholy time they made of it for Friedrich Wilhelm and his People. Lucky if temporary harm were all the ill they were likely to do; lucky if—— He stood steady, however; in his solid manner finishing the thing in hand first, since that was feasible. He then even retired into winter-quarters to rest his men, and seemed to have left the Swedish sixteen thousand autocrats of the situation, who accordingly went storming about at a great rate.

Not so, however; very far, indeed, from so. Having rested his men for certain months, Friedrich Wilhelm silently, in the first days of June, 1675, gets them under march again; marches his Cavalry and he as first instalment, with best speed from Schweinfurt, which is on the River Mayn, to Magdeburg, a distance of two hundred miles. At Magdeburg, where he rests three days, waiting for the first handful of Foot and a field-piece or two, he learns that the Swedes are in three parties wide asunder, the middle party of them within forty miles of him. Probably stronger, even this middle one, than his small body (of "Six thousand Horse, Twelve hundred Foot, and three guns")—stronger, but capable, perhaps, of being surprised, of being cut in pieces before the others can come up? Rathenau is the nearest skirt of this middle party: thither goes the Kurfuerst, softly, swiftly, in the June night (June 16-17, 1675); gets into Rathenau by brisk stratagem; tumbles out the Swedish Horse regiment there, drives it back toward Fehrbellin.

He himself follows hard; swift riding enough in the summer night through those damp Havel lands, in the old Hohenzollern fashion; and, indeed, old Freisack Castle, as it chances—Freisack, scene of Dietrich von Quitzow and Lazy Peg long since—is close by. Follows hard, we say; strikes in upon this midmost party (nearly twice his number, but Infantry for most part); and after fierce fight, done with good talent on both sides, cuts it into utter ruin, as proposed; thereby he has left the Swedish Army as a mere head and tail without body; has entirely demolished the Swedish Army. Same feat intrinsically as that done by Cromwell on Hamilton and the Scots in 1648. It was, so to speak, the last visit Sweden paid to Brandenburg, or the last of any consequence, and ended the domination of the Swedes in those quarters—a thing justly to be forever remembered by Brandenburg; on a smallish modern scale, the Bannockburn, Sempach, Marathon of Brandenburg.