CHAPTER XVI.

1680.

TONTY AND THE IROQUOIS.

The Deserters.--The Iroquois War.--The Great Town of the

Illinois.--The Alarm.--Onset of the Iroquois.--Peril of Tonty.--A

Treacherous Truce.--Intrepidity of Tonty.--Murder of Ribourde.--War

upon the Dead.

When La Salle set out on his rugged journey to Fort Frontenac, he left,

as we have seen, fifteen men at Fort Crèvecoeur,--smiths,

ship-carpenters, house-wrights, and soldiers, besides his servant

L'Espérance and the two friars Membré and Ribourde. Most of the men were

ripe for mutiny. They had no interest in the enterprise, and no love for

its chief. They were disgusted with the present, and terrified at the

future. La Salle, too, was for the most part a stern commander,

impenetrable and cold; and when he tried to soothe, conciliate, and

encourage, his success rarely answered to the excellence of his

rhetoric. He could always, however, inspire respect, if not love; but

now the restraint of his presence was removed. He had not been long

absent, when a fire-brand was thrown into the midst of the discontented

and restless crew.

It may be remembered that La Salle had met two of his men, La Chapelle

and Leblanc, at his fort on the St. Joseph, and ordered them to rejoin

Tonty. Unfortunately, they obeyed. On arriving, they told their comrades

that the "Griffin" was lost, that Fort Frontenac was seized by the

creditors of La Salle, that he was ruined past recovery, and that they,

the men, would never receive their pay. Their wages were in arrears for

more than two years; and, indeed, it would have been folly to pay them

before their return to the settlements, as to do so would have been a

temptation to desert. Now, however, the effect on their minds was still

worse, believing, as many of them did, that they would never be paid at

all.

[Sidenote: THE DESERTERS.]

La Chapelle and his companion had brought a letter from La Salle to

Tonty, directing him to examine and fortify the cliff so often

mentioned, which overhung the river above the great Illinois village.

Tonty, accordingly, set out on his errand with some of the men. In his

absence, the malcontents destroyed the fort, stole powder, lead, furs,

and provisions, and deserted, after writing on the side of the

unfinished vessel the words seen by La Salle, "_Nous sommes tous

sauvages_."[179] The brave young Sieur de Boisrondet and the servant

L'Espérance hastened to carry the news to Tonty, who at once despatched

four of those with him, by two different routes, to inform La Salle of

the disaster.[180] Besides the two just named, there now remained with

him only one hired man and the Récollet friars. With this feeble band,

he was left among a horde of treacherous savages, who had been taught to

regard him as a secret enemy. Resolved, apparently, to disarm their

jealousy by a show of confidence, he took up his abode in the midst of

them, making his quarters in the great village, whither, as spring

opened, its inhabitants returned, to the number, according to Membré, of

seven or eight thousand. Hither he conveyed the forge and such tools as

he could recover, and here he hoped to maintain himself till La Salle

should reappear. The spring and the summer were past, and he looked

anxiously for his coming, unconscious that a storm was gathering in the

east, soon to burst with devastation over the fertile wilderness of the

Illinois.

[Sidenote: THE IROQUOIS WAR.]

I have recounted the ferocious triumphs of the Iroquois in another

volume.[181] Throughout a wide semi-circle around their cantons, they

had made the forest a solitude; destroyed the Hurons, exterminated the

Neutrals and the Eries, reduced the formidable Andastes to helpless

insignificance, swept the borders of the St. Lawrence with fire, spread

terror and desolation among the Algonquins of Canada; and now, tired of

peace, they were seeking, to borrow their own savage metaphor, new

nations to devour. Yet it was not alone their homicidal fury that now

impelled them to another war. Strange as it may seem, this war was in no

small measure one of commercial advantage. They had long traded with the

Dutch and English of New York, who gave them, in exchange for their

furs, the guns, ammunition, knives, hatchets, kettles, beads, and brandy

which had become indispensable to them. Game was scarce in their

country. They must seek their beaver and other skins in the vacant

territories of the tribes they had destroyed; but this did not content

them. The French of Canada were seeking to secure a monopoly of the furs

of the north and west; and, of late, the enterprises of La Salle on the

tributaries of the Mississippi had especially roused the jealousy of the

Iroquois, fomented, moreover, by Dutch and English traders.[182] These

crafty savages would fain reduce all these regions to subjection, and

draw thence an exhaustless supply of furs, to be bartered for English

goods with the traders of Albany. They turned their eyes first towards

the Illinois, the most important, as well as one of the most accessible,

of the western Algonquin tribes; and among La Salle's enemies were some

in whom jealousy of a hated rival could so far override all the best

interests of the colony that they did not scruple to urge on the

Iroquois to an invasion which they hoped would prove his ruin. The

chiefs convened, war was decreed, the war-dance was danced, the war-song

sung, and five hundred warriors began their march. In their path lay the

town of the Miamis, neighbors and kindred of the Illinois. It was always

their policy to divide and conquer; and these forest Machiavels had

intrigued so well among the Miamis, working craftily on their jealousy,

that they induced them to join in the invasion, though there is every

reason to believe that they had marked these infatuated allies as their

next victims.[183]

[Sidenote: THE ILLINOIS TOWN.]

Go to the banks of the Illinois where it flows by the village of Utica,

and stand on the meadow that borders it on the north. In front glides

the river, a musket-shot in width; and from the farther bank rises, with

gradual slope, a range of wooded hills that hide from sight the vast

prairie behind them. A mile or more on your left these gentle

acclivities end abruptly in the lofty front of the great cliff, called

by the French the Rock of St. Louis, looking boldly out from the forests

that environ it; and, three miles distant on your right, you discern a

gap in the steep bluffs that here bound the valley, marking the mouth of

the river Vermilion, called Aramoni by the French.[184] Now stand in

fancy on this same spot in the early autumn of the year 1680. You are in

the midst of the great town of the Illinois,--hundreds of mat-covered

lodges, and thousands of congregated savages. Enter one of their

dwellings: they will not think you an intruder. Some friendly squaw will

lay a mat for you by the fire; you may seat yourself upon it, smoke your

pipe, and study the lodge and its inmates by the light that streams

through the holes at the top. Three or four fires smoke and smoulder on

the ground down the middle of the long arched structure; and, as to

each fire there are two families, the place is somewhat crowded when all

are present. But now there is breathing room, for many are in the

fields. A squaw sits weaving a mat of rushes; a warrior, naked except

his moccasins, and tattooed with fantastic devices, binds a stone

arrow-head to its shaft, with the fresh sinews of a buffalo. Some lie

asleep, some sit staring in vacancy, some are eating, some are squatted

in lazy chat around a fire. The smoke brings water to your eyes; the

fleas annoy you; small unkempt children, naked as young puppies, crawl

about your knees and will not be repelled. You have seen enough; you

rise and go out again into the sunlight. It is, if not a peaceful, at

least a languid scene. A few voices break the stillness, mingled with

the joyous chirping of crickets from the grass. Young men lie flat on

their faces, basking in the sun; a group of their elders are smoking

around a buffalo-skin on which they have just been playing a game of

chance with cherry-stones. A lover and his mistress, perhaps, sit

together under a shed of bark, without uttering a word. Not far off is

the graveyard, where lie the dead of the village, some buried in the

earth, some wrapped in skins and laid aloft on scaffolds, above the

reach of wolves. In the cornfields around, you see squaws at their

labor, and children driving off intruding birds; and your eye ranges

over the meadows beyond, spangled with the yellow blossoms of the

resin-weed and the Rudbeckia, or over the bordering hills still green

with the foliage of summer.[185]

This, or something like it, one may safely affirm, was the aspect of the

Illinois village at noon of the tenth of September.[186] In a hut apart

from the rest, you would probably have found the Frenchmen. Among them

was a man, not strong in person, and disabled, moreover, by the loss of

a hand, yet in this den of barbarism betraying the language and bearing

of one formed in the most polished civilization of Europe. This was

Henri de Tonty. The others were young Boisrondet, the servant

L'Espérance, and a Parisian youth named Étienne Renault. The friars,

Membré and Ribourde, were not in the village, but at a hut a league

distant, whither they had gone to make a "retreat" for prayer and

meditation. Their missionary labors had not been fruitful; they had made

no converts, and were in despair at the intractable character of the

objects of their zeal. As for the other Frenchmen, time, doubtless, hung

heavy on their hands; for nothing can surpass the vacant monotony of an

Indian town when there is neither hunting, nor war, nor feasts, nor

dances, nor gambling, to beguile the lagging hours.

[Sidenote: THE ALARM.]

Suddenly the village was wakened from its lethargy as by the crash of a

thunderbolt. A Shawanoe, lately here on a visit, had left his Illinois

friends to return home. He now reappeared, crossing the river in hot

haste, with the announcement that he had met, on his way, an army of

Iroquois approaching to attack them. All was panic and confusion. The

lodges disgorged their frightened inmates; women and children screamed,

startled warriors snatched their weapons. There were less than five

hundred of them, for the greater part of the young men had gone to war.

A crowd of excited savages thronged about Tonty and his Frenchmen,

already objects of their suspicion, charging them, with furious

gesticulation, with having stirred up their enemies to invade them.

Tonty defended himself in broken Illinois, but the naked mob were but

half convinced. They seized the forge and tools and flung them into the

river, with all the goods that had been saved from the deserters; then,

distrusting their power to defend themselves, they manned the wooden

canoes which lay in multitudes by the bank, embarked their women and

children, and paddled down the stream to that island of dry land in the

midst of marshes which La Salle afterwards found filled with their

deserted huts. Sixty warriors remained here to guard them, and the rest

returned to the village. All night long fires blazed along the shore.

The excited warriors greased their bodies, painted their faces,

befeathered their heads, sang their war-songs, danced, stamped, yelled,

and brandished their hatchets, to work up their courage to face the

crisis. The morning came, and with it came the Iroquois.

Young warriors had gone out as scouts, and now they returned. They had

seen the enemy in the line of forest that bordered the river Aramoni, or

Vermilion, and had stealthily reconnoitred them. They were very

numerous,[187] and armed for the most part with guns, pistols, and

swords. Some had bucklers of wood or raw-hide, and some wore those

corselets of tough twigs interwoven with cordage which their fathers had

used when fire-arms were unknown. The scouts added more, for they

declared that they had seen a Jesuit among the Iroquois; nay, that La

Salle himself was there, whence it must follow that Tonty and his men

were enemies and traitors. The supposed Jesuit was but an Iroquois chief

arrayed in a black hat, doublet, and stockings; while another, equipped

after a somewhat similar fashion, passed in the distance for La Salle.

But the Illinois were furious. Tonty's life hung by a hair. A crowd of

savages surrounded him, mad with rage and terror. He had come lately

from Europe, and knew little of Indians, but, as the friar Membré says

of him, "he was full of intelligence and courage," and when they heard

him declare that he and his Frenchmen would go with them to fight the

Iroquois, their threats grew less clamorous and their eyes glittered

with a less deadly lustre.

[Sidenote: TONTY'S MEDIATION.]

Whooping and screeching, they ran to their canoes, crossed the river,

climbed the woody hill, and swarmed down upon the plain beyond. About a

hundred of them had guns; the rest were armed with bows and arrows. They

were now face to face with the enemy, who had emerged from the woods of

the Vermilion, and were advancing on the open prairie. With unwonted

spirit, for their repute as warriors was by no means high, the Illinois

began, after their fashion, to charge; that is, they leaped, yelled, and

shot off bullets and arrows, advancing as they did so; while the

Iroquois replied with gymnastics no less agile and howlings no less

terrific, mingled with the rapid clatter of their guns. Tonty saw that

it would go hard with his allies. It was of the last moment to stop the

fight, if possible. The Iroquois were, or professed to be, at peace with

the French; and, taking counsel of his courage, he resolved on an

attempt to mediate, which may well be called a desperate one. He laid

aside his gun, took in his hand a wampum belt as a flag of truce, and

walked forward to meet the savage multitude, attended by Boisrondet,

another Frenchman, and a young Illinois who had the hardihood to

accompany him. The guns of the Iroquois still flashed thick and fast.

Some of them were aimed at him, on which he sent back the two Frenchmen

and the Illinois, and advanced alone, holding out the wampum belt.[188]

A moment more, and he was among the infuriated warriors. It was a

frightful spectacle,--the contorted forms, bounding, crouching,

twisting, to deal or dodge the shot; the small keen eyes that shone like

an angry snake's; the parted lips pealing their fiendish yells; the

painted features writhing with fear and fury, and every passion of an

Indian fight,--man, wolf, and devil, all in one.[189] With his swarthy

complexion and his half-savage dress, they thought he was an Indian, and

thronged about him, glaring murder. A young warrior stabbed at his heart

with a knife, but the point glanced aside against a rib, inflicting only

a deep gash. A chief called out that, as his ears were not pierced, he

must be a Frenchman. On this, some of them tried to stop the bleeding,

and led him to the rear, where an angry parley ensued, while the yells

and firing still resounded in the front. Tonty, breathless, and bleeding

at the mouth with the force of the blow he had received, found words to

declare that the Illinois were under the protection of the King and the

governor of Canada, and to demand that they should be left in

peace.[190]

[Sidenote: PERIL OF TONTY.]

A young Iroquois snatched Tonty's hat, placed it on the end of his gun,

and displayed it to the Illinois, who, thereupon thinking he was

killed, renewed the fight; and the firing in front clattered more

angrily than before. A warrior ran in, crying out that the Iroquois were

giving ground, and that there were Frenchmen among the Illinois, who

fired at them. On this, the clamor around Tonty was redoubled. Some

wished to kill him at once; others resisted. "I was never," he writes,

"in such perplexity; for at that moment there was an Iroquois behind me,

with a knife in his hand, lifting my hair as if he were going to scalp

me. I thought it was all over with me, and that my best hope was that

they would knock me in the head instead of burning me, as I believed

they would do." In fact, a Seneca chief demanded that he should be

burned; while an Onondaga chief, a friend of La Salle, was for setting

him free. The dispute grew fierce and hot. Tonty told them that the

Illinois were twelve hundred strong, and that sixty Frenchmen were at

the village, ready to back them. This invention, though not fully

believed, had no little effect. The friendly Onondaga carried his point;

and the Iroquois, having failed to surprise their enemies, as they had

hoped, now saw an opportunity to delude them by a truce. They sent back

Tonty with a belt of peace: he held it aloft in sight of the Illinois;

chiefs and old warriors ran to stop the fight; the yells and the firing

ceased; and Tonty, like one waked from a hideous nightmare, dizzy,

almost fainting with loss of blood, staggered across the intervening

prairie, to rejoin his friends. He was met by the two friars, Ribourde

and Membré, who in their secluded hut, a league from the village, had

but lately heard of what was passing, and who now, with benedictions and

thanksgiving, ran to embrace him as a man escaped from the jaws of

death.

The Illinois now withdrew, re-embarking in their canoes, and crossing

again to their lodges; but scarcely had they reached them, when their

enemies appeared at the edge of the forest on the opposite bank. Many

found means to cross, and, under the pretext of seeking for provisions,

began to hover in bands about the skirts of the town, constantly

increasing in numbers. Had the Illinois dared to remain, a massacre

would doubtless have ensued; but they knew their foe too well, set fire

to their lodges, embarked in haste, and paddled down the stream to

rejoin their women and children at the sanctuary among the morasses. The

whole body of the Iroquois now crossed the river, took possession of the

abandoned town, building for themselves a rude redoubt or fort of the

trunks of trees and of the posts and poles forming the framework of the

lodges which escaped the fire. Here they ensconced themselves, and

finished the work of havoc at their leisure.

Tonty and his companions still occupied their hut; but the Iroquois,

becoming suspicious of them, forced them to remove to the fort, crowded

as it was with the savage crew. On the second day, there was an alarm.

The Illinois appeared in numbers on the low hills, half a mile behind

the town; and the Iroquois, who had felt their courage, and who had

been told by Tonty that they were twice as numerous as themselves,

showed symptoms of no little uneasiness. They proposed that he should

act as mediator, to which he gladly assented, and crossed the meadow

towards the Illinois, accompanied by Membré, and by an Iroquois who was

sent as a hostage. The Illinois hailed the overtures with delight, gave

the ambassadors some refreshment, which they sorely needed, and sent

back with them a young man of their nation as a hostage on their part.

This indiscreet youth nearly proved the ruin of the negotiation; for he

was no sooner among the Iroquois than he showed such an eagerness to

close the treaty, made such promises, professed such gratitude, and

betrayed so rashly the numerical weakness of the Illinois, that he

revived all the insolence of the invaders. They turned furiously upon

Tonty, and charged him with having robbed them of the glory and the

spoils of victory. "Where are all your Illinois warriors, and where are

the sixty Frenchmen that you said were among them?" It needed all

Tonty's tact and coolness to extricate himself from this new danger.

[Sidenote: IROQUOIS TREACHERY.]

The treaty was at length concluded; but scarcely was it made, when the

Iroquois prepared to break it, and set about constructing canoes of

elm-bark, in which to attack the Illinois women and children in their

island sanctuary. Tonty warned his allies that the pretended peace was

but a snare for their destruction. The Iroquois, on their part, grew

hourly more jealous of him, and would certainly have killed him, had it

not been their policy to keep the peace with Frontenac and the French.

Several days after, they summoned him and Membré to a council. Six packs

of beaver-skins were brought in; and the savage orator presented them to

Tonty in turn, explaining their meaning as he did so. The first two were

to declare that the children of Count Frontenac--that is, the

Illinois--should not be eaten; the next was a plaster to heal Tonty's

wound; the next was oil wherewith to anoint him and Membré, that they

might not be fatigued in travelling; the next proclaimed that the sun

was bright; and the sixth and last required them to decamp and go

home.[191] Tonty thanked them for their gifts, but demanded when they

themselves meant to go and leave the Illinois in peace. At this, the

conclave grew angry; and, despite their late pledge, some of them said

that before they went they would eat Illinois flesh. Tonty instantly

kicked away the packs of beaver-skins, the Indian symbol of the scornful

rejection of a proposal, telling them that since they meant to eat the

governor's children he would have none of their presents. The chiefs,

in a rage, rose and drove him from the lodge. The French withdrew to

their hut, where they stood all night on the watch, expecting an attack,

and resolved to sell their lives dearly. At daybreak, the chiefs ordered

them to begone.

[Sidenote: MURDER OF RIBOURDE.]

Tonty, with admirable fidelity and courage, had done all in the power of

man to protect the allies of Canada against their ferocious assailants;

and he thought it unwise to persist further in a course which could lead

to no good, and which would probably end in the destruction of the whole

party. He embarked in a leaky canoe with Membré, Ribourde, Boisrondet,

and the remaining two men, and began to ascend the river. After paddling

about five leagues, they landed to dry their baggage and repair their

crazy vessel; when Father Ribourde, breviary in hand, strolled across

the sunny meadows for an hour of meditation among the neighboring

groves. Evening approached, and he did not return. Tonty, with one of

the men, went to look for him, and, following his tracks, presently

discovered those of a band of Indians, who had apparently seized or

murdered him. Still, they did not despair. They fired their guns to

guide him, should he still be alive; built a huge fire by the bank, and

then, crossing the river, lay watching it from the other side. At

midnight, they saw the figure of a man hovering around the blaze; then

many more appeared, but Ribourde was not among them. In truth, a band of

Kickapoos, enemies of the Iroquois, about whose camp they had been

prowling in quest of scalps, had met and wantonly murdered the

inoffensive old man. They carried his scalp to their village, and danced

round it in triumph, pretending to have taken it from an enemy. Thus, in

his sixty-fifth year, the only heir of a wealthy Burgundian house

perished under the war-clubs of the savages for whose salvation he had

renounced station, ease, and affluence.[192]

[Sidenote: ATTACK OF THE IROQUOIS.]

Meanwhile, a hideous scene was enacted at the ruined village of the

Illinois. Their savage foes, balked of a living prey, wreaked their fury

on the dead. They dug up the graves; they threw down the scaffolds. Some

of the bodies they burned; some they threw to the dogs; some, it is

affirmed, they ate.[193] Placing the skulls on stakes as trophies, they

turned to pursue the Illinois, who, when the French withdrew, had

abandoned their asylum and retreated down the river. The Iroquois,

still, it seems, in awe of them, followed them along the opposite bank,

each night encamping face to face with them; and thus the adverse bands

moved slowly southward, till they were near the mouth of the river.

Hitherto, the compact array of the Illinois had held their enemies in

check; but now, suffering from hunger, and lulled into security by the

assurances of the Iroquois that their object was not to destroy them,

but only to drive them from the country, they rashly separated into

their several tribes. Some descended the Mississippi; some, more

prudent, crossed to the western side. One of their principal tribes, the

Tamaroas, more credulous than the rest, had the fatuity to remain near

the mouth of the Illinois, where they were speedily assailed by all the

force of the Iroquois. The men fled, and very few of them were killed;

but the women and children were captured to the number, it is said, of

seven hundred.[194] Then followed that scene of torture of which, some

two weeks later, La Salle saw the revolting traces.[195] Sated, at

length, with horrors, the conquerors withdrew, leading with them a host

of captives, and exulting in their triumphs over women, children, and

the dead.

After the death of Father Ribourde, Tonty and his companions remained

searching for him till noon of the next day, and then in despair of

again seeing him, resumed their journey. They ascended the river,

leaving no token of their passage at the junction of its northern and

southern branches. For food, they gathered acorns and dug roots in the

meadows. Their canoe proved utterly worthless; and, feeble as they were,

they set out on foot for Lake Michigan. Boisrondet wandered off, and was

lost. He had dropped the flint of his gun, and he had no bullets; but he

cut a pewter porringer into slugs, with which he shot wild turkeys by

discharging his piece with a fire-brand, and after several days he had

the good fortune to rejoin the party. Their object was to reach the

Pottawattamies of Green Bay. Had they aimed at Michilimackinac, they

would have found an asylum with La Forest at the fort on the St. Joseph;

but unhappily they passed westward of that post, and, by way of Chicago,

followed the borders of Lake Michigan northward. The cold was intense;

and it was no easy task to grub up wild onions from the frozen ground to

save themselves from starving. Tonty fell ill of a fever and a swelling

of the limbs, which disabled him from travelling, and hence ensued a

long delay. At length they neared Green Bay, where they would have

starved, had they not gleaned a few ears of corn and frozen squashes in

the fields of an empty Indian town.

[Sidenote: FRIENDS IN NEED.]

This enabled them to reach the bay, and having patched an old canoe

which they had the good luck to find, they embarked in it; whereupon,

says Tonty, "there rose a northwest wind, which lasted five days, with

driving snow. We consumed all our food; and not knowing what to do next,

we resolved to go back to the deserted town, and die by a warm fire in

one of the wigwams. On our way, we saw a smoke; but our joy was short,

for when we reached the fire we found nobody there. We spent the night

by it; and before morning the bay froze. We tried to break a way for our

canoe through the ice, but could not; and therefore we determined to

stay there another night, and make moccasins in order to reach the town.

We made some out of Father Gabriel's cloak. I was angry with Étienne

Renault for not finishing his; but he excused himself on account of

illness, because he had a great oppression of the stomach, caused by

eating a piece of an Indian shield of raw-hide, which he could not

digest. His delay proved our salvation; for the next day, December

fourth, as I was urging him to finish the moccasins, and he was still

excusing himself on the score of his malady, a party of Kiskakon

Ottawas, who were on their way to the Pottawattamies, saw the smoke of

our fire, and came to us. We gave them such a welcome as was never seen

before. They took us into their canoes, and carried us to an Indian

village, only two leagues off. There we found five Frenchmen, who

received us kindly, and all the Indians seemed to take pleasure in

sending us food; so that, after thirty-four days of starvation, we found

our famine turned to abundance."

This hospitable village belonged to the Pottawattamies, and was under

the sway of the chief who had befriended La Salle the year before, and

who was wont to say that he knew but three great captains in the

world,--Frontenac, La Salle, and himself.[196]

THE ILLINOIS TOWN.

The Site of the Great Illinois Town.--This has not till now been

determined, though there have been various conjectures concerning it.

From a study of the contemporary documents and maps, I became satisfied,

first, that the branch of the river Illinois, called the "Big

Vermilion," was the _Aramoni_ of the French explorers; and, secondly,

that the cliff called "Starved Rock" was that known to the French as _Le

Rocher_, or the Rock of St. Louis. If I was right in this conclusion,

then the position of the Great Village was established; for there is

abundant proof that it was on the north side of the river, above the

Aramoni, and below Le Rocher. I accordingly went to the village of

Utica, which, as I judged by the map, was very near the point in

question, and mounted to the top of one of the hills immediately behind

it, whence I could see the valley of the Illinois for miles, bounded on

the farther side by a range of hills, in some parts rocky and

precipitous, and in others covered with forests. Far on the right was a

gap in these hills, through which the Big Vermilion flowed to join the

Illinois; and somewhat towards the left, at the distance of a mile and a

half, was a huge cliff, rising perpendicularly from the opposite margin

of the river. This I assumed to be _Le Rocher_ of the French, though

from where I stood I was unable to discern the distinctive features

which I was prepared to find in it. In every other respect, the scene

before me was precisely what I had expected to see. There was a meadow

on the hither side of the river, on which stood a farmhouse; and this,

as it seemed to me, by its relations with surrounding objects, might be

supposed to stand in the midst of the space once occupied by the

Illinois town.

On the way down from the hill I met Mr. James Clark, the principal

inhabitant of Utica, and one of the earliest settlers of this region. I

accosted him, told him my objects, and requested a half hour's

conversation with him, at his leisure. He seemed interested in the

inquiry, and said he would visit me early in the evening at the inn,

where, accordingly, he soon appeared. The conversation took place in the

porch, where a number of farmers and others were gathered. I asked Mr.

Clark if any Indian remains were found in the neighborhood. "Yes," he

replied, "plenty of them." I then inquired if there was any one spot

where they were more numerous than elsewhere. "Yes," he answered again,

pointing towards the farmhouse on the meadow; "on my farm down yonder by

the river, my tenant ploughs up teeth and bones by the peck every

spring, besides arrow-heads, beads, stone hatchets, and other things of

that sort." I replied that this was precisely what I had expected, as I

had been led to believe that the principal town of the Illinois Indians

once covered that very spot. "If," I added, "I am right in this belief,

the great rock beyond the river is the one which the first explorers

occupied as a fort; and I can describe it to you from their accounts of

it, though I have never seen it, except from the top of the hill where

the trees on and around it prevented me from seeing any part but the

front." The men present now gathered around to listen. "The rock," I

continued, "is nearly a hundred and fifty feet high, and rises directly

from the water. The front and two sides are perpendicular and

inaccessible; but there is one place where it is possible for a man to

climb up, though with difficulty. The top is large enough and level

enough for houses and fortifications." Here several of the men

exclaimed: "That's just it." "You've hit it exactly." I then asked if

there was any other rock on that side of the river which could answer to

the description. They all agreed that there was no such rock on either

side, along the whole length of the river. I then said: "If the Indian

town was in the place where I suppose it to have been, I can tell you

the nature of the country which lies behind the hills on the farther

side of the river, though I know nothing about it except what I have

learned from writings nearly two centuries old. From the top of the

hills, you look out upon a great prairie reaching as far as you can see,

except that it is crossed by a belt of woods, following the course of a

stream which enters the main river a few miles below." (See _ante_, p.

221, _note_.) "You are exactly right again," replied Mr. Clark; "we call

that belt of timber the 'Vermilion Woods,' and the stream is the Big

Vermilion." "Then," I said, "the Big Vermilion is the river which the

French called the Aramoni; 'Starved Rock' is the same on which they

built a fort called St. Louis, in the year 1682; and your farm is on the

site of the great town of the Illinois."

I spent the next day in examining these localities, and was fully

confirmed in my conclusions. Mr. Clark's tenant showed me the spot where

the human bones were ploughed up. It was no doubt the graveyard violated

by the Iroquois. The Illinois returned to the village after their

defeat, and long continued to occupy it. The scattered bones were

probably collected and restored to their place of burial.

FOOTNOTES:

[179] For the particulars of this desertion, Membré in Le Clerc, ii.

171, _Relation des Découvertes_; Tonty, _Mémoire_, 1684, 1693;

_Déclaration faite par devant le Sr. Duchesneau, Intendant en Canada,

par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque cy-devant au service du Sr.

de la Salle, Aoust, 1680_.

Moyse Hillaret, the "Maître Moyse" of Hennepin, was a ring-leader of the

deserters, and seems to have been one of those captured by La Salle near

Fort Frontenac. Twelve days after, Hillaret was examined by La Salle's

enemy, the intendant; and this paper is the formal statement made by

him. It gives the names of most of the men, and furnishes incidental

confirmation of many statements of Hennepin, Tonty, Membré, and the

_Relation des Découvertes_. Hillaret, Leblanc, and Le Meilleur, the

blacksmith nicknamed La Forge, went off together, and the rest seem to

have followed afterwards. Hillaret does not admit that any goods were

wantonly destroyed.

There is before me a schedule of the debts of La Salle, made after his

death. It includes a claim of this man for wages to the amount of 2,500

livres.

[180] Two of the messengers, Laurent and Messier, arrived safely. The

others seem to have deserted.

[181] The Jesuits in North America.

[182] Duchesneau, in _Paris Docs._, ix. 163.

[183] There had long been a rankling jealousy between the Miamis and the

Illinois. According to Membré, La Salle's enemies had intrigued

successfully among the former, as well as among the Iroquois, to induce

them to take arms against the Illinois.

[184] The above is from notes made on the spot. The following is La

Salle's description of the locality in the _Relation des Découvertes_,

written in 1681: "La rive gauche de la rivière, du coté du sud, est

occupée par un long rocher, fort étroit et escarpé presque partout, à la

réserve d'un endroit de plus d'une lieue de longueur, situé vis-à-vis du

village, ou le terrain, tout couvert de beaux chênes, s'étend par une

pente douce jusqu'au bord de la rivière. Au delà de cette hauteur est

une vaste plaine, qui s'étend bien loin du coté du sud, et qui est

traversée par la rivière Aramoni, dont les bords sont couverts d'une

lisière de bois peu large."

The Aramoni is laid down on the great manuscript map of Franquelin,

1684, and on the map of Coronelli, 1688. It is, without doubt, the Big

Vermilion. _Aramoni_ is the Illinois word for "red," or "vermilion."

Starved Rock, or the Rock of St. Louis, is the highest and steepest

escarpment of the _long rocher_ above mentioned.

[185] The Illinois were an aggregation of distinct though kindred

tribes,--the Kaskaskias, the Peorias, the Kahokias, the Tamaroas, the

Moingona, and others. Their general character and habits were those of

other Indian tribes; but they were reputed somewhat cowardly and

slothful. In their manners, they were more licentious than many of their

neighbors, and addicted to practices which are sometimes supposed to be

the result of a perverted civilization. Young men enacting the part of

women were frequently to be seen among them. These were held in great

contempt. Some of the early travellers, both among the Illinois and

among other tribes, where the same practice prevailed, mistook them for

hermaphrodites. According to Charlevoix (_Journal Historique_, 303),

this abuse was due in part to a superstition. The Miamis and Piankishaws

were in close affinities of language and habits with the Illinois. All

these tribes belonged to the great Algonquin family. The first

impressions which the French received of them, as recorded in the

_Relation_ of 1671, were singularly favorable; but a closer acquaintance

did not confirm them. The Illinois traded with the lake tribes, to whom

they carried slaves taken in war, receiving in exchange guns, hatchets,

and other French goods. Marquette in _Relation_, 1670, 91.

[186] This is Membré's date. The narratives differ as to the day, though

all agree as to the month.

[187] The _Relation des Découvertes_ says, five hundred Iroquois and one

hundred Shawanoes. Membré says that the allies were Miamis. He is no

doubt right, as the Miamis had promised their aid, and the Shawanoes

were at peace with the Illinois. Tonty is silent on the point.

[188] Membré says that he went with Tonty: "J'étois aussi à côté du

Sieur de Tonty." This is an invention of the friar's vanity. "Les deux

pères Récollets étoient alors dans une cabane à une lieue du village, où

ils s'étoient retirés pour faire une espèce de retraite, et ils ne

furent avertis de l'arrivée des Iroquois que dans le temps du

combat."--_Relation des Découvertes_. "Je rencontrai en chemin les pères

Gabriel et Zenobe Membré, qui cherchoient de mes nouvelles."--Tonty,

_Mémoire_, 1693. This was on his return from the Iroquois. The

_Relation_ confirms the statement, as far as concerns Membré: "II

rencontra le Père Zenobe [_Membré_], qui venoit pour le secourir, aiant

été averti du combat et de sa blessure."

The perverted _Dernières Découvertes_, published without authority,

under Tonty's name, says that he was attended by a slave, whom the

Illinois sent with him as interpreter. In his narrative of 1684, Tonty

speaks of a Sokokis (Saco) Indian who was with the Iroquois and who

spoke French enough to serve as interpreter.

[189] Being once in an encampment of Sioux when a quarrel broke out, and

the adverse factions raised the war-whoop and began to fire at each

other, I had a good, though for the moment a rather dangerous,

opportunity of seeing the demeanor of Indians at the beginning of a

fight. The fray was quelled before much mischief was done, by the

vigorous intervention of the elder warriors, who ran between the

combatants.

[190] "Je leur fis connoistre que les Islinois étoient sous la

protection du roy de France et du gouverneur du pays, que j'estois

surpris qu'ils voulussent rompre avec les François et qu'ils voulussent

_attendre_ [_sic_] à une paix."--Tonty, _Mémoire_, 1693.

[191] An Indian speech, it will be remembered, is without validity if

not confirmed by presents, each of which has its special interpretation.

The meaning of the fifth pack of beaver, informing Tonty that the sun

was bright,--"que le soleil étoit beau," that is, that the weather was

favorable for travelling,--is curiously misconceived by the editor of

the _Dernières Découvertes_, who improves upon his original by

substituting the words "par le cinquième paquet _ils nous exhortoient à

adorer le Soleil_."

[192] Tonty, _Mémoire_; Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 191. Hennepin, who hated

Tonty, unjustly charges him with having abandoned the search too soon,

admitting, however, that it would have been useless to continue it. This

part of his narrative is a perversion of Membré's account.

[193] "Cependant les Iroquois, aussitôt après le départ du Sr. de

Tonty, exercèrent leur rage sur les corps morts des Ilinois, qu'ils

déterrèrent ou abbattèrent de dessus les échafauds où les Ilinois les

laissent longtemps exposés avant que de les mettre en terre. Ils en

brûlèrent la plus grande partie, ils en mangèrent même quelques uns, et

jettèrent le reste aux chiens. Ils plantèrent les têtes de ces cadavres

à demi décharnés sur des pieux," etc.--_Relation des Découvertes_.

[194] _Relation des Découvertes_; Frontenac to the King, _N. Y. Col.

Docs._, ix. 147. A memoir of Duchesneau makes the number twelve hundred.

[195] "Ils [_les Illinois_] trouvèrent dans leur campement des carcasses

de leurs enfans que ces anthropophages avoient mangez, ne voulant même

d'autre nourriture que la chair de ces infortunez."--_La Potherie_, ii.

145, 146. Compare _note, ante_, p. 211.

[196] Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 199. The other authorities for the

foregoing chapter are the letters of La Salle, the _Relation des

Découvertes_, in which portions of them are embodied, and the two

narratives of Tonty, of 1684 and 1693. They all agree in essential

points.

In his letters of this period, La Salle dwells at great length on the

devices by which, as he believed, his enemies tried to ruin him and his

enterprise. He is particularly severe against the Jesuit Allouez, whom

he charges with intriguing "pour commencer la guerre entre les Iroquois

et les Illinois par le moyen des Miamis qu'on engageoit dans cette

négociation afin ou de me faire massacrer avec mes gens par quelqu'une

de ces nations ou de me brouiller avec les Iroquois."--_Lettre (à

Thouret?), 22 Août, 1682_. He gives in detail the circumstances on which

this suspicion rests, but which are not convincing. He says, further,

that the Jesuits gave out that Tonty was dead in order to discourage the

men going to his relief, and that Allouez encouraged the deserters,

"leur servoit de conseil, bénit mesme leurs balles, et les asseura

plusieurs fois que M. de Tonty auroit la teste cassée." He also affirms

that great pains were taken to spread the report that he was himself

dead. A Kiskakon Indian, he says, was sent to Tonty with a story to this

effect; while a Huron named Scortas was sent to him (La Salle) with

false news of the death of Tonty. The latter confirms this statement,

and adds that the Illinois had been told "que M. de la Salle estoit venu

en leur pays pour les donner à manger aux Iroquois."