Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Carol Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Francis Parkmanâs Works. NEW LIBRARY EDITION. VOL. VII. [Illustration: Sir William Pepperrell. _Copyright 1897 by Little, Brown, & C^o._ _Goupil & C^o. Paris._] _Sir William Pepperrell._ From the painting by John Smibert. A HALF CENTURY OF CONFLICT, II., _Frontispiece_ A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT. FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA. PART SIXTH. BY FRANCIS PARKMAN. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1898. _Copyright, 1892_, BY FRANCIS PARKMAN. _Copyright, 1897_, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVI. 1716-1761. SEARCH FOR THE PACIFIC. PAGE The Western Sea.--Schemes for reaching it.--Journey of Charlevoix.--The Sioux Mission.--Varennes de la VÃ©rendrye: his Enterprise; his Disasters; visits the Mandans; his Sons; their Search for the Western Sea; their Adventures.--The Snake Indians.--A Great War-party.--The Rocky Mountains.--A Panic.--Return of the Brothers; their Wrongs and their Fate 3 CHAPTER XVII. 1700-1750. THE CHAIN OF POSTS. Opposing Claims.--Attitude of the Rival Nations.--America a French Continent.--England a Usurper.--French Demands.-- Magnanimous Proposals.--Warlike Preparation.--Niagara.-- Oswego.--Crown Point.--The Passes of the West secured 44 CHAPTER XVIII. 1744, 1745. A MAD SCHEME. War of the Austrian Succession.--The French seize Canseau and attack Annapolis.--Plan of Reprisal.--William Vaughan.-- Governor Shirley: he advises an Attack on Louisbourg.--The Assembly refuses, but at last consents.--Preparation.-- William Pepperrell.--George Whitefield.--Parson Moody.--The Soldiers.--The Provincial Navy.--Commodore Warren.--Shirley as an Amateur Soldier.--The Fleet sails 59 CHAPTER XIX. 1745. LOUISBOURG BESIEGED. Seth Pomeroy.--The Voyage.--Canseau.--Unexpected Succors.-- Delays.--Louisbourg.--The Landing.--The Grand Battery taken.--French Cannon turned on the Town.--Weakness of Duchambon.--Sufferings of the Besiegers: their Hardihood; their Irregular Proceedings.--Joseph Sherburn.--Amateur Gunnery.--Camp Frolics.--Sectarian Zeal.--Perplexities of Pepperrell 90 CHAPTER XX. 1745. LOUISBOURG TAKEN. A Rash Resolution.--The Island Battery.--The Volunteers.--The Attack.--The Repulse.--Capture of the âVigilant.â--A Sortie.--Skirmishes.--Despondency of the French.--English Camp threatened.--Pepperrell and Warren.--Warrenâs Plan.--Preparation for a General Attack.--Flag of Truce.--Capitulation.--State of the Fortress.--Parson Moody.--Soldiers dissatisfied.--Disorders.--Army and Navy.--Rejoicings.--England repays Provincial Outlays 117 CHAPTER XXI. 1745-1747. DUC DâANVILLE. Louisbourg after the Conquest.--Mutiny.--Pestilence.--Stephen Williams: his Diary.--Scheme of Conquering Canada.--Newcastleâs Promises.--Alarm in Canada.--Promises broken.--Plan against Crown Point.--Startling News.--DâAnvilleâs Fleet.--Louisbourg to be avenged.--Disasters of DâAnville.--Storm.--Pestilence.-- Famine.--Death of DâAnville.--Suicide of the Vice-Admiral.-- Ruinous Failure.--Return Voyage.--Defeat of La JonquiÃ¨re 145 CHAPTER XXII. 1745-1747. ACADIAN CONFLICTS. Efforts of France.--Apathy of Newcastle.--Dilemma of Acadians: their Character.--Danger of the Province.--Plans of Shirley.--Acadian Priests.--Political Agitators.--Nobleâs Expedition.--Ramesay at Beaubassin.--Noble at Grand-PrÃ©.--A Winter March.--Defeat and Death of Noble.--Grand-PrÃ© reoccupied by the English.--Threats of Ramesay against the Acadians.--The British Ministry will not protect them 169 CHAPTER XXIII. 1740-1747. WAR AND POLITICS. Governor and Assembly.--Saratoga destroyed.--William Johnson.-- Border Ravages.--Upper Ashuelot.--French âMilitary Movements.â-- Number Four.--Nivervilleâs Attack.--Phineas Stevens.--The French repulsed 205 CHAPTER XXIV. 1745-1748. FORT MASSACHUSETTS. Frontier Defence.--Northfield and its Minister.--Military Criticisms of Rev. Benjamin Doolittle.--Rigaud de Vaudreuil: his Great War-party; he attacks Fort Massachusetts.--Sergeant Hawks and his Garrison.--A Gallant Defence.--Capitulation.-- Humanity of the French.--Ravages.--Return to Crown Point.-- Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle 230 APPENDIX. A. France claims all North America except the Spanish Colonies 257 B. French Views of the Siege of Louisbourg 274 C. Shirleyâs Relations with the Acadians 312 INDEX 361 A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT. CHAPTER XVI. 1716-1761. SEARCH FOR THE PACIFIC. THE WESTERN SEA.--SCHEMES FOR REACHING IT.--JOURNEY OF CHARLEVOIX.--THE SIOUX MISSION.--VARENNES DE LA VÃRENDRYE: HIS ENTERPRISE; HIS DISASTERS; VISITS THE MANDANS; HIS SONS; THEIR SEARCH FOR THE WESTERN SEA; THEIR ADVENTURES.--THE SNAKE INDIANS.--A GREAT WAR-PARTY.--THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.--A PANIC.--RETURN OF THE BROTHERS; THEIR WRONGS AND THEIR FATE. In the disastrous last years of Louis XIV. the court gave little thought to the New World; but under the regency of the Duke of OrlÃ©ans interest in American affairs revived. Plans for reaching the Mer de lâOuest, or Pacific Ocean, were laid before the Regent in 1716. It was urged that the best hope was in sending an expedition across the continent, seeing that every attempt to find a westward passage by Hudson Bay had failed. As starting-points and bases of supply for the expedition, it was proposed to establish three posts, one on the north shore of Lake Superior, at the mouth of the river Kaministiguia, another at Lac des Cristineaux, now called Lake of the Woods, and the 4 third at Lake Winnipeg,--the last being what in American phrase is called the âjumping-off place,â or the point where the expedition was to leave behind the last trace of civilization. These posts were to cost the Crown nothing; since by a device common in such cases, those who built and maintained them were to be paid by a monopoly of the fur-trade in the adjacent countries. It was admitted, however, that the subsequent exploration must be at the charge of the government, and would require fifty good men, at three hundred francs a year each, besides equipment and supplies. All things considered, it was reckoned that an overland way to the Pacific might be found for about fifty thousand francs, or ten thousand dollars.[1] The Regent approved the scheme so far as to order the preliminary step to be taken by establishing the three posts, and in this same year, Lieutenant La Noue, of the colony troops, began the work by building a stockade at the mouth of the Kaministiguia. Little more was done in furtherance of the exploration till three years later, when the celebrated Jesuit, Charlevoix, was ordered by the Duke of OrlÃ©ans to repair to America and gain all possible information concerning the Western Sea and the way to it.[2] In the next year he went to the Upper Lakes, and questioned 5 missionaries, officers, _voyageurs_, and Indians. The results were not satisfactory. The missionaries and the officers had nothing to tell; the voyagers and Indians knew no more than they, but invented confused and contradictory falsehoods to hide their ignorance. Charlevoix made note of everything, and reported to the Comte de Toulouse that the Pacific probably formed the western boundary of the country of the Sioux, and that some Indians told him that they had been to its shores and found white men there different from the French. Believing that these stories were not without foundation, Charlevoix reported two plans as likely to lead to the coveted discovery. One was to ascend the Missouri, âthe source of which is certainly not far from the sea, as all the Indians I have met have unanimously assured me;â and the other was to establish a mission among the Sioux, from whom, after thoroughly learning their language, the missionaries could, as he thinks, gain all the desired information.[3] The Regent approved the plan of the mission; but the hostile disposition of the Sioux and the Outagamies prevented its execution for several years. In 1727 the scheme was revived, and the colonial 6 minister at Versailles ordered the governor of Canada to send two missionaries to the Sioux. But the mission required money, and the King would not give it. Hence the usual expedient was adopted. A company was formed, and invested with a monopoly of the Sioux fur-trade, on condition of building a fort, mission-house, and chapel, and keeping an armed force to guard them. It was specially provided that none but pious and virtuous persons were to be allowed to join the Company, âin order,â says the document, âto attract the benediction of God upon them and their business.â[4] The prospects of the Company were thought good, and the governor himself was one of the shareholders. While the mission was given the most conspicuous place in the enterprise, its objects were rather secular than spiritual,--to attach the Sioux to the French interest by the double ties of religion and trade, and utilize their supposed knowledge to reach the Pacific.[5] Father Guignas was made the head of the mission, and Boucher de la PerriÃ¨re the military chief. The party left Montreal in June, and, journeying to the Mississippi by way of Michilimackinac, Green Bay, Fox River, and the Wisconsin, went up the great river to Lake Pepin, where the adventurous Nicolas Perrot had built two trading-posts more than forty years before. Even if his time-worn tenements were still 7 standing, La PerriÃ¨re had no thought of occupying them. On the north, or rather west, side of the lake his men found a point of land that seemed fit for their purpose, disembarked, cut down trees, and made a square stockade enclosing the necessary buildings. It was near the end of October before they were all well housed. A large band of Sioux presently appeared, and set up their teepees hard by. When the birthday of the governor came, the party celebrated it with a display of fireworks and vociferous shouts of _Vive le Roi_, _Vive Charles de Beauharnois_, while the Indians yelped in fright and amazement at the pyrotechnics, or stood pressing their hands upon their mouths in silent amazement. The French called their fort Fort Beauharnois, and invited the aid of Saint Michael the Archangel by naming the mission in his honor. All went well till April, when the water rose with the spring floods and filled fort, chapel, and houses to the depth of nearly three feet, ejecting the whole party, and forcing them to encamp on higher ground till the deluge subsided.[6] Worse enemies than the floods soon found them out. These were the irrepressible Outagamies, who rose against the intruding French and incited the Sioux to join them. There was no profit for the Company, and no safety for its agents. The stockholders became discouraged, and would not support the enterprise. The fort was abandoned, till in 1731 a new arrangement was made, followed by another attempt.[7] For a time 8 a prosperous trade was carried on; but, as commonly happened in such cases, the adventurers seem to have thought more of utilizing their monopoly than of fulfilling the terms on which they had received it. The wild Sioux of the plains, instead of being converted and turned into Frenchmen, proved such dangerous neighbors that, in 1737, Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, who then commanded the post, found himself forced to abandon it.[8] The enterprise had failed in both its aims. The Western Sea was still a mystery, and the Sioux were not friends, but enemies. Legardeur de Saint-Pierre recommended that they should be destroyed,--benevolent advice easy to give, and impossible to execute.[9] RenÃ© Gaultier de Varennes, lieutenant in the regiment of Carignan, married at Three Rivers, in 1667, the daughter of Pierre Boucher, governor of that place; the age of the bride, Demoiselle Marie Boucher, being twelve years, six months, and eighteen days. Varennes succeeded his father-in-law as governor of Three Rivers, with a salary of twelve hundred francs, to which he added the profits of a farm of forty acres; and on these modest resources, reinforced by an illicit trade in furs, he made shift to sustain the dignity of his office. His 9 wife became the mother of numerous offspring, among whom was Pierre, born in 1685,--an active and hardy youth, who, like the rest of the poor but vigorous Canadian _noblesse_, seemed born for the forest and the fur-trade. When, however, the War of the Spanish Succession broke out, the young man crossed the sea, obtained the commission of lieutenant, and was nearly killed at the battle of Malplaquet, where he was shot through the body, received six sabre-cuts, and was left for dead on the field. He recovered, and returned to Canada, when, finding his services slighted, he again took to the woods. He had assumed the designation of La VÃ©rendrye, and thenceforth his full name was Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la VÃ©rendrye.[10] In 1728, he was in command of a small post on Lake Nipigon, north of Lake Superior. Here an Indian chief from the river Kaministiguia told him of a certain great lake which discharged itself by a river flowing westward. The Indian further declared that he had descended this river till he reached water that ebbed and flowed, and, terrified by the strange phenomenon, had turned back, though not till he had heard of a great salt lake, bordered with many villages. Other Indians confirmed and improved the story. âThese people,â said La VÃ©rendrye to the Jesuit Degonnor, âare great liars, but now and then they tell the 10 truth.â[11] It seemed to him likely that their stories of a western river flowing to a western sea were not totally groundless, and that the true way to the Pacific was not, as had been supposed, through the country of the Sioux, but farther northward, through that of the Cristineaux and Assiniboins, or, in other words, through the region now called Manitoba. In this view he was sustained by his friend Degonnor, who had just returned from the ill-starred Sioux mission. La VÃ©rendrye, fired with the zeal of discovery, offered to search for the Western Sea if the King would give him one hundred men and supply canoes, arms, and provisions.[12] But, as was usual in such cases, the King would give nothing; and though the governor, Beauharnois, did all in his power to promote the enterprise, the burden and the risk were left to the adventurer himself. La VÃ©rendrye was authorized to find a way to the Pacific at his own expense, in consideration of a monopoly of the fur-trade in the regions north and west of Lake Superior. This vast and remote country was held by tribes who were doubtful friends of the French, and perpetual enemies of each other. The risks of the trade were as great as its possible profits, and, to reap these, vast outlays must first be made: forts must be built, manned, provisioned, 11 and stocked with goods brought through two thousand miles of difficult and perilous wilderness. There were other dangers, more insidious, and perhaps greater. The exclusive privileges granted to La VÃ©rendrye would inevitably rouse the intensest jealousy of the Canadian merchants, and they would spare no effort to ruin him. Intrigue and calumny would be busy in his absence. If, as was likely, his patron, Beauharnois, should be recalled, the new governor might be turned against him, his privileges might be suddenly revoked, the forts he had built passed over to his rivals, and all his outlays turned to their profit, as had happened to La Salle on the recall of his patron, Frontenac. On the other hand, the country was full of the choicest furs, which the Indians had hitherto carried to the English at Hudson Bay, but which the proposed trading-posts would secure to the French. La VÃ©rendryeâs enemies pretended that he thought of nothing but beaver-skins, and slighted the discovery which he had bound himself to undertake; but his conduct proves that he was true to his engagements, and that ambition to gain honorable distinction in the service of the King had a large place among the motives that impelled him. As his own resources were of the smallest, he took a number of associates on conditions most unfavorable to himself. Among them they raised money enough to begin the enterprise, and on the eighth of June, 1731, La VÃ©rendrye and three of his sons, together with his 12 nephew, La Jemeraye, the Jesuit Messager, and a party of Canadians, set out from Montreal. It was late in August before they reached the great portage of Lake Superior, which led across the height of land separating the waters of that lake from those flowing to Lake Winnipeg. The way was long and difficult. The men, who had perhaps been tampered with, mutinied, and refused to go farther.[13] Some of them, with much ado, consented at last to proceed, and, under the lead of La Jemeraye, made their way by an intricate and broken chain of lakes and streams to Rainy Lake, where they built a fort and called it Fort St. Pierre. La VÃ©rendrye was forced to winter with the rest of the party at the river Kaministiguia, not far from the great portage. Here months were lost, during which a crew of useless mutineers had to be fed and paid; and it was not till the next June that he could get them again into motion towards Lake Winnipeg. This ominous beginning was followed by a train of disasters. His associates abandoned him; the merchants on whom he depended for supplies would not send them, and he found himself, in his own words, âdestitute of everything.â His nephew, La Jemeraye, died. The Jesuit Auneau, bent on returning to Michilimackinac, set out with La VÃ©rendryeâs eldest son and a party of twenty Canadians. A few days later, they were all found on an island in the Lake of the Woods, 13 murdered and mangled by the Sioux.[14] The Assiniboins and Cristineaux, mortal foes of that fierce people, offered to join the French and avenge the butchery; but a war with the Sioux would have ruined La VÃ©rendryeâs plans of discovery, and exposed to torture and death the French traders in their country. Therefore he restrained himself and declined the proffered aid, at the risk of incurring the contempt of those who offered it. Beauharnois twice appealed to the court to give La VÃ©rendrye some little aid, urging that he was at the end of his resources, and that a grant of thirty thousand francs, or six thousand dollars, would enable him to find a way to the Pacific. All help was refused, but La VÃ©rendrye was told that he might let out his forts to other traders, and so raise means to pursue the discovery. In 1740 he went for the third time to Montreal, where, instead of aid, he found a lawsuit. âIn spite,â he says, âof the derangement of my affairs, the envy and jealousy of various persons impelled them to write letters to the court insinuating that I thought of nothing but making my fortune. If more than forty thousand livres of debt which I have on my shoulders are an advantage, then I can flatter myself that I am very rich. In all my misfortunes, I have the consolation of seeing that M. de Beauharnois enters into my views, recognizes the 14 uprightness of my intentions, and does me justice in spite of opposition.â[15] Meanwhile, under all his difficulties, he had explored a vast region hitherto unknown, diverted a great and lucrative fur-trade from the English at Hudson Bay, and secured possession of it by six fortified posts,--Fort St. Pierre, on Rainy Lake; Fort St. Charles, on the Lake of the Woods; Fort Maurepas, at the mouth of the river Winnipeg; Fort Bourbon, on the eastern side of Lake Winnipeg; Fort La Reine, on the Assiniboin; Fort Dauphin, on Lake Manitoba. Besides these he built another post, called Fort Rouge, on the site of the city of Winnipeg; and, some time after, another, at the mouth of the river Poskoiac, or Saskatchewan, neither of which, however, was long occupied. These various forts were only stockade works flanked with blockhouses; but the difficulty of building and maintaining them in this remote wilderness was incalculable.[16] He had inquired on all sides for the Pacific. The Assiniboins could 15 tell him nothing. Nor could any information be expected from them, since their relatives and mortal enemies, the Sioux, barred their way to the West. The Cristineaux were equally ignorant; but they supplied the place of knowledge by invention, and drew maps, some of which seem to have been made with no other intention than that of amusing themselves by imposing on the inquirer. They also declared that some of their number had gone down a river called White River, or River of the West, where they found a plant that shed drops like blood, and saw serpents of prodigious size. They said further that on the lower part of this river were walled towns, where dwelt white men who had knives, hatchets, and cloth, but no firearms.[17] Both Assiniboins and Cristineaux declared that there was a distant tribe on the Missouri, called Mantannes (Mandans), who knew the way to the Western Sea, and would guide him to it. Lured by this assurance, and feeling that he had sufficiently secured his position to enable him to begin his western exploration, La VÃ©rendrye left Fort La Reine in October, 1738, with twenty men, and pushed up the river Assiniboin till its rapids and shallows threatened his bark canoes with destruction. Then, with a band of Assiniboin Indians who had joined him, he struck across the prairie for the Mandans, his Indian 16 companions hunting buffalo on the way. They approached the first Mandan village on the afternoon of the third of December, displaying a French flag and firing three volleys as a salute. The whole population poured out to see the marvellous visitors, who were conducted through the staring crowd to the lodge of the principal chief,--a capacious structure so thronged with the naked and greasy savages that the Frenchmen were half smothered. What was worse, they lost the bag that held all their presents for the Mandans, which was snatched away in the confusion, and hidden in one of the _caches_, called cellars by La VÃ©rendrye, of which the place was full. The chief seemed much discomposed at this mishap, and explained it by saying that there were many rascals in the village. The loss was serious, since without the presents nothing could be done. Nor was this all; for in the morning La VÃ©rendrye missed his interpreter, and was told that he had fallen in love with an Assiniboin girl and gone off in pursuit of her. The French were now without any means of communicating with the Mandans, from whom, however, before the disappearance of the interpreter, they had already received a variety of questionable information, chiefly touching white men cased in iron who were said to live on the river below at the distance of a whole summerâs journey. As they were impervious to arrows,--so the story ran,--it was necessary to shoot their horses, after which, being too heavy to run, they were easily caught. This was probably suggested by the armor of the Spaniards, who 17 had more than once made incursions as far as the lower Missouri; but the narrators drew on their imagination for various additional particulars. The Mandans seem to have much declined in numbers during the century that followed this visit of La VÃ©rendrye. He says that they had six villages on or near the Missouri, of which the one seen by him was the smallest, though he thinks that it contained a hundred and thirty houses.[18] As each of these large structures held a number of families, the population must have been considerable. Yet when Prince Maximilian visited the Mandans in 1833, he found only two villages, containing jointly two hundred and forty warriors and a total population of about a thousand souls. Without having seen the statements of La VÃ©rendrye, he speaks of the population as greatly reduced by wars and the small-pox,--a disease which a few years later nearly exterminated the tribe.[19] La VÃ©rendrye represents the six villages as surrounded with ditches 18 and stockades, flanked by a sort of bastion,--defences which, he says, had nothing savage in their construction. In later times the fortifications were of a much ruder kind, though Maximilian represents them as having pointed salients to serve as bastions. La VÃ©rendrye mentions some peculiar customs of the Mandans which answer exactly to those described by more recent observers. He had intended to winter with the tribe; but the loss of the presents and the interpreter made it useless to stay, and, leaving two men in the village to learn the language, he began his return to Fort La Reine. âI was very ill,â he writes, âbut hoped to get better on the way. The reverse was the case, for it was the depth of winter. It would be impossible to suffer more than I did. It seemed that nothing but death could release us from such miseries.â He reached Fort La Reine on the eleventh of February, 1739. His iron constitution seems to have been severely shaken; but he had sons worthy of their father. The two men left among the Mandans appeared at Fort La Reine in September. They reported that they had been well treated, and that their hosts had parted from them with regret. They also declared that at the end of spring several Indian 19 tribes, all well supplied with horses, had come, as was their yearly custom, to the Mandan villages to barter embroidered buffalo hides and other skins for corn and beans; that they had encamped, to the number of two hundred lodges, on the farther side of the Missouri, and that among them was a band said to have come from a distant country towards the sunset, where there were white men who lived in houses built of bricks and stones. The two Frenchmen crossed over to the camp of these western strangers, among whom they found a chief who spoke, or professed to speak, the language of the mysterious white men, which to the two Frenchmen was unintelligible. Fortunately, he also spoke the language of the Mandans, of which the Frenchmen had learned a little during their stay, and hence were able to gather that the white men in question had beards, and that they prayed to the Master of Life in great houses, built for the purpose, holding books, the leaves of which were like husks of Indian corn, singing together and repeating _JÃ©sus, Marie_. The chief gave many other particulars, which seemed to show that he had been in contact with Spaniards,--probably those of California; for he described their houses as standing near the great lake, of which the water rises and falls and is not fit to drink. He invited the two Frenchmen to go with him to this strange country, saying that it could be reached before winter, though a wide circuit must be made, to avoid 20 a fierce and dangerous tribe called Snake Indians (_Gens du Serpent_).[20] On hearing this story, La VÃ©rendrye sent his eldest son, Pierre, to pursue the discovery with two men, ordering him to hire guides among the Mandans and make his way to the Western Sea. But no guides were to be found, and in the next summer the young man returned from his bootless errand.[21] Undaunted by this failure, Pierre set out again in the next spring, 1742, with his younger brother, the Chevalier de la VÃ©rendrye. Accompanied only by two Canadians, they left Fort La Reine on the twenty-ninth of April, and following, no doubt, the route of the Assiniboin and Mouse River, reached the chief village of the Mandans in about three weeks. Here they found themselves the welcome guests of this singularly interesting tribe, ruined by the small-pox nearly half a century ago, but preserved to memory by the skilful pencil of the artist Charles Bodmer, and the brush of the painter George Catlin, both of whom saw them at a time when they were little changed in habits and manners since the visit of the brothers La VÃ©rendrye.[22] Thus, though the report of the two brothers is too concise and brief, 21 we know what they saw when they entered the central area, or public square, of the village. Around stood the Mandan lodges, looking like round flattened hillocks of earth, forty or fifty feet wide. On examination they proved to be framed of strong posts and poles, covered with a thick matting of intertwined willow-branches, over which was laid a bed of well-compacted clay or earth two or three feet thick. This heavy roof was supported by strong interior posts.[23] The open place which the dwellings enclosed served for games, dances, and the ghastly religious or magical ceremonies practised by the tribe. Among the other structures was the sacred âmedicine lodge,â distinguished by three or four tall poles planted before it, each surmounted by an effigy looking much like a scarecrow, and meant as an offering to the spirits. If the two travellers had been less sparing of words, they would doubtless have told us that as they entered the village square the flattened earthen domes that surrounded it were thronged with squaws and children,--for this was always the case on occasions of public 22 interest,--and that they were forced to undergo a merciless series of feasts in the lodges of the chiefs. Here, seated by the sunken hearth in the middle, under the large hole in the roof that served both for window and chimney, they could study at their ease the domestic economy of their entertainers. Each lodge held a _gens_, or family connection, whose beds of raw buffalo hide, stretched on poles, were ranged around the circumference of the building, while by each stood a post on which hung shields, lances, bows, quivers, medicine-bags, and masks formed of the skin of a buffaloâs head, with the horns attached, to be used in the magic buffalo dance. Every day had its sports to relieve the monotony of savage existence, the game of the stick and the rolling ring, the archery practice of boys, horse-racing on the neighboring prairie, and incessant games of chance; while every evening, in contrast to these gayeties, the long, dismal wail of women rose from the adjacent cemetery, where the dead of the village, sewn fast in buffalo hides, lay on scaffolds above the reach of wolves. [Illustration: PARTS OF MONTANA AND NORTH DAKOTA, showing approximately the ROUTE of CHEVALIER DE LA VÃRENDRYE in 1742, 1743.] The Mandans did not know the way to the Pacific, but they told the brothers that they expected a speedy visit from a tribe or band called Horse Indians, who could guide them thither. It is impossible to identify this people with any certainty.[24] The two travellers waited for them in vain till after midsummer, and then, as the season 23 was too far advanced for longer delay, they hired two Mandans to conduct them to their customary haunts. They set out on horseback, their scanty baggage and their stock of presents being no doubt carried by pack-animals. Their general course was west-southwest, with the Black Hills at a distance on their left, and the upper Missouri on their right. The country was a rolling prairie, well covered for the most part with grass, and watered by small alkaline streams creeping towards the Missouri with an opaque, whitish current. Except along the watercourses, there was little or no wood. âI noticed,â says the Chevalier de la VÃ©rendrye, âearths of different colors, blue, green, red, or black, white as chalk, or yellowish like ochre.â This was probably in the âbad landsâ of the Little Missouri, where these colored earths form a conspicuous feature in the bare and barren bluffs, carved into fantastic shapes by the storms.[25] For twenty days the travellers saw no human being, so scanty was the population of these plains. Game, however, was abundant. Deer sprang from the tall, reedy grass of the river bottoms; buffalo tramped by 24 in ponderous columns, or dotted the swells of the distant prairie with their grazing thousands; antelope approached, with the curiosity of their species, to gaze at the passing horsemen, then fled like the wind; and as they neared the broken uplands towards the Yellowstone, they saw troops of elk and flocks of mountain-sheep. Sometimes, for miles together, the dry plain was studded thick with the earthen mounds that marked the burrows of the curious marmots, called prairie-dogs, from their squeaking bark. Wolves, white and gray, howled about the camp at night, and their cousin, the coyote, seated in the dusk of evening upright on the grass, with nose turned to the sky, saluted them with a complication of yelpings, as if a score of petulant voices were pouring together from the throat of one small beast. On the eleventh of August, after a march of about three weeks, the brothers reached a hill, or group of hills, apparently west of the Little Missouri, and perhaps a part of the Powder River Range. It was here that they hoped to find the Horse Indians, but nobody was to be seen. Arming themselves with patience, they built a hut, made fires to attract by the smoke any Indians roaming near, and went every day to the tops of the hills to reconnoitre. At length, on the fourteenth of September, they descried a spire of smoke on the distant prairie. One of their Mandan guides had left them and gone back to his village. The other, with one of the Frenchmen, went towards the smoke, and 25 found a camp of Indians, whom the journal calls Les Beaux Hommes, and who were probably Crows, or Apsaroka, a tribe remarkable for stature and symmetry, who long claimed that region as their own. They treated the visitors well, and sent for the other Frenchmen to come to their lodges, where they were received with great rejoicing. The remaining Mandan, however, became frightened,--for the Beaux Hommes were enemies of his tribe,--and he soon followed his companion on his solitary march homeward. The brothers remained twenty-one days in the camp of the Beaux Hommes, much perplexed for want of an interpreter. The tribes of the plains have in common a system of signs by which they communicate with each other, and it is likely that the brothers had learned it from the Sioux or Assiniboins, with whom they had been in familiar intercourse. By this or some other means they made their hosts understand that they wished to find the Horse Indians; and the Beaux Hommes, being soothed by presents, offered some of their young men as guides. They set out on the ninth of October, following a south-southwest course.[26] In two days they met a band of Indians, called by them the Little 26 Foxes, and on the fifteenth and seventeenth two villages of another unrecognizable horde, named Pioya. From La VÃ©rendryeâs time to our own, this name âvillagesâ has always been given to the encampments of the wandering people of the plains. All these nomadic communities joined them, and they moved together southward, till they reached at last the lodges of the long-sought Horse Indians. They found them in the extremity of distress and terror. Their camp resounded with howls and wailings; and not without cause, for the Snakes, or Shoshones,--a formidable people living farther westward,--had lately destroyed most of their tribe. The Snakes were the terror of that country. The brothers were told that the year before they had destroyed seventeen villages, killing the warriors and old women, and carrying off the young women and children as slaves. None of the Horse Indians had ever seen the Pacific; but they knew a people called Gens de lâArc, or Bow Indians, who, as they said, had traded not far from it. To the Bow Indians, therefore, the brothers resolved to go, and by dint of gifts and promises they persuaded their hosts to show them the way. After marching southwestward for several days, they saw the distant prairie covered with the pointed buffalo-skin lodges of a great Indian camp. It was that of the Bow Indians, who may have been one of the bands of the western Sioux,--the predominant race in this region. Few or none of them could ever have 27 seen a white man, and we may imagine their amazement at the arrival of the strangers, who, followed by staring crowds, were conducted to the lodge of the chief. âThus far,â says La VÃ©rendrye, âwe had been well received in all the villages we had passed; but this was nothing compared with the courteous manners of the great chief of the Bow Indians, who, unlike the others, was not self-interested in the least, and who took excellent care of everything belonging to us.â The first inquiry of the travellers was for the Pacific; but neither the chief nor his tribesmen knew anything of it, except what they had heard from Snake prisoners taken in war. The Frenchmen were surprised at the extent of the camp, which consisted of many separate bands. The chief explained that they had been summoned from far and near for a grand war-party against that common foe of all,--the Snakes.[27] In fact, the camp resounded with war-songs and war-dances. âCome with us,â said their host; âwe are going towards the mountains, where you can see the great water that you are looking for.â At length the camp broke up. The squaws took down the lodges, and the march began over prairies dreary and brown with the withering touch 28 of autumn. The spectacle was such as men still young have seen in these western lands, but which no man will see again. The vast plain swarmed with the moving multitude. The tribes of the Missouri and the Yellowstone had by this time abundance of horses, the best of which were used for war and hunting, and the others as beasts of burden. These last were equipped in a peculiar manner. Several of the long poles used to frame the teepees, or lodges, were secured by one end to each side of a rude saddle, while the other end trailed on the ground. Crossbars lashed to the poles just behind the horse kept them three or four feet apart, and formed a firm support, on which was laid, compactly folded, the buffalo-skin covering of the lodge. On this, again, sat a mother with her young family, sometimes stowed for safety in a large open willow basket, with the occasional addition of some domestic pet,--such as a tame raven, a puppy, or even a small bear-cub. Other horses were laden in the same manner with wooden bowls, stone hammers, and other utensils, along with stores of dried buffalo-meat packed in cases of rawhide whitened and painted. Many of the innumerable dogs--whose manners and appearance strongly suggested their relatives the wolves, to whom, however, they bore a mortal grudge--were equipped in a similar way, with shorter poles and lighter loads. Bands of naked boys, noisy and restless, roamed the prairie, practising their bows and arrows on any small animal they might find. 29 Gay young squaws--adorned on each cheek with a spot of ochre or red clay, and arrayed in tunics of fringed buckskin embroidered with porcupine quills--were mounted on ponies, astride like men; while lean and tattered hags--the drudges of the tribe, unkempt and hideous--scolded the lagging horses, or screeched at the disorderly dogs, with voices not unlike the yell of the great horned owl. Most of the warriors were on horseback, armed with round white shields of bull-hide, feathered lances, war-clubs, bows, and quivers filled with stone-headed arrows; while a few of the elders, wrapped in robes of buffalo-hide, stalked along in groups with a stately air, chatting, laughing, and exchanging unseemly jokes.[28] âWe continued our march,â says La VÃ©rendrye, âsometimes south-southwest, and now and then northwest; our numbers constantly increasing by villages of different tribes which joined us.â The variations of their course were probably due to the difficulties of the country, which grew more rugged as they advanced, with broken hills, tracts of dingy green sage-bushes, and bright, swift streams, edged with cottonwood and willow, hurrying northward to join the Yellowstone. At length, on the first of January, 1743, they saw what was probably the Bighorn Range of the Rocky Mountains, a hundred and 30 twenty miles east of the Yellowstone Park. A council of all the allied bands was now called, and the Frenchmen were asked to take part in it. The questions discussed were how to dispose of the women and children, and how to attack the enemy. Having settled their plans, the chiefs begged their white friends not to abandon them; and the younger of the two, the Chevalier, consented to join the warriors, and aid them with advice, though not with arms. The tribes of the western plains rarely go on war-parties in winter, and this great expedition must have been the result of unusual exasperation. The object was to surprise the Snakes in the security of their winter camp, and strike a deadly blow, which would have been impossible in summer. On the eighth of January the whole body stopped to encamp, choosing, no doubt, after the invariable winter custom of western Indians, a place sheltered from wind, and supplied with water and fuel. Here the squaws and children were to remain, while most of the warriors advanced against the enemy. By pegging the lower edge of the lodge-skin to the ground, and piling a ridge of stones and earth upon it to keep out the air, fastening with wooden skewers the flap of hide that covered the entrance, and keeping a constant fire, they could pass a winter endurable to Indians, though smoke, filth, vermin, bad air, the crowd, and the total absence of privacy, would make it a 31 purgatory to any civilized white man. The Chevalier left his brother to watch over the baggage of the party, which was stored in the lodge of the great chief, while he himself, with his two Canadians, joined the advancing warriors. They were on horseback, marching with a certain order, and sending watchmen to reconnoitre the country from the tops of the hills.[29] Their movements were so slow that it was twelve days before they reached the foot of the mountains, which, says La VÃ©rendrye, âare for the most part well wooded, and seem very high.â[30] He longed to climb their great snow-encumbered peaks, fancying that he might then see the Pacific, and never dreaming that more than eight hundred miles of mountains and forests still lay between him and his goal. Through the whole of the present century the villages of the Snakes were at a considerable distance west of the Bighorn Range, and some of them were even on the upper waters of the Pacific slope. It is likely that they were so in 1743, in which case the war-party would not have only reached the Bighorn Mountains, but have pushed farther on to within sight of the great Wind River Range. Be this as it may, their scouts reached the chief winter camp of the Snakes, and found it 32 abandoned, with lodges still standing, and many household possessions left behind. The enemy had discovered their approach, and fled. Instead of encouraging the allies, this news filled them with terror, for they feared that the Snake warriors might make a circuit to the rear, and fall upon the camp where they had left their women and children. The great chief spent all his eloquence in vain, nobody would listen to him; and with characteristic fickleness they gave over the enterprise, and retreated in a panic. âOur advance was made in good order; but not so our retreat,â says the Chevalierâs journal. âEverybody fled his own way. Our horses, though good, were very tired, and got little to eat.â The Chevalier was one day riding with his friend, the great chief, when, looking behind him, he missed his two French attendants. Hastening back in alarm, he found them far in the rear, quietly feeding their horses under the shelter of a clump of trees. He had scarcely joined them when he saw a party of fifteen hostile Indians stealthily creeping forward, covered by their bull-hide shields. He and his men let them approach, and then gave them a few shots; on which they immediately ran off, firearms being to them an astounding novelty. The three Frenchmen now tried to rejoin the great chief and his band, but the task was not easy. The prairie, bare of snow and hard as flint, showed no trace of foot or hoof; and it was by rare good fortune that they succeeded, on the second day, not in overtaking the chief, but in reaching the camp where the women and children had 33 been left. They found them all in safety; the Snakes had not attacked them, and the panic of the warriors was needless. It was the ninth of February. They were scarcely housed when a blizzard set in, and on the night of the tenth the plains were buried in snow. The great chief had not appeared. With such of his warriors as he could persuade to follow him, he had made a wide circuit to find the trail of the lost Frenchmen, but, to his great distress, had completely failed. It was not till five days after the arrival of the Chevalier and his men that the chief reached the camp, âmore dead than alive,â in the words of the journal. All his hardships were forgotten when he found his white friends safe, for he had given them up for lost. âHis sorrow turned to joy, and he could not give us attention and caresses enough.â The camp broke up, and the allied bands dispersed. The great chief and his followers moved slowly through the snowdrifts towards the east-southeast, accompanied by the Frenchmen. Thus they kept on till the first of March, when the two brothers, learning that they were approaching the winter village of a people called Gens de la Petite Cerise, or Choke-Cherry Indians, sent one of their men, with a guide, to visit them. The man returned in ten days, bringing a message from the Choke-Cherry Indians, inviting the Frenchmen to their lodges. The great chief of the Bow Indians, who seems to have regarded his 34 young friends with mingled affection, respect, and wonder, was grieved at the thought of losing them, but took comfort when they promised to visit him again, provided that he would make his abode near a certain river which they pointed out. To this he readily agreed, and then, with mutual regret, they parted.[31] The Frenchmen repaired to the village of the Choke-Cherry Indians, who, like the Bow Indians, were probably a band of Sioux.[32] Hard by their lodges, which stood near the Missouri, the brothers buried a plate of lead graven with the royal arms, and raised a pile of stones in honor of the governor of Canada. They remained at this place till April; then, mounting their horses again, followed the Missouri upward to the village of the Mandans, which they reached on the eighteenth of May. After spending a week here, they joined a party of Assiniboins, journeyed with them towards Fort La Reine, and reached it on the second of July,--to the great relief of their father, who was waiting in suspense, having 35 heard nothing of them for more than a year. Sixty-two years later, when the vast western regions then called Louisiana had just been ceded to the United States, Captains Lewis and Clark left the Mandan villages with thirty-two men, traced the Missouri to the mountains, penetrated the wastes beyond, and made their way to the Pacific. The first stages of that remarkable exploration were anticipated by the brothers La VÃ©rendrye. They did not find the Pacific, but they discovered the Rocky Mountains, or at least the part of them to which the name properly belongs; for the southern continuation of the great range had long been known to the Spaniards. Their bold adventure was achieved, not at the charge of a government, but at their own cost and that of their father,--not with a band of well-equipped men, but with only two followers. The fur-trading privilege which was to have been their compensation had proved their ruin. They were still pursued without ceasing by the jealousy of rival traders and the ire of disappointed partners. âHere in Canada more than anywhere else,â the Chevalier wrote, some years after his return, âenvy is the passion _Ã la mode_, and there is no escaping it.â[33] It was the story of La Salle repeated. Beauharnois, however, still stood by them, encouraged and defended them, and wrote in their favor to the colonial minister.[34] It was 36 doubtless through his efforts that the elder La VÃ©rendrye was at last promoted to a captaincy in the colony troops. Beauharnois was succeeded in the government by the sagacious and able GalissoniÃ¨re, and he too befriended the explorers. âIt seems to me,â he wrote to the minister, âthat what you have been told touching the Sieur de la VÃ©rendrye, to the effect that he has been more busy with his own interests than in making discoveries, is totally false, and, moreover, that any officers employed in such work will always be compelled to give some of their attention to trade, so long as the King allows them no other means of subsistence. These discoveries are very costly, and more fatiguing and dangerous than open war.â[35] Two years later, the elder La VÃ©rendrye received the cross of the Order of St. Louis,--an honor much prized in Canada, but which he did not long enjoy; for he died at Montreal in the following December, when on the point of again setting out for the West. His intrepid sons survived, and they were not idle. One of them, the Chevalier, had before discovered the river Saskatchewan, and ascended it as far as the forks.[36] His intention was to follow it to the mountains, build a fort there, and thence push westward in
{'title': 'France and England in North America, Part VII, Vol 2: A Half-Century of Conflict', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}