The Conquest of New France

Grea

wn in times so recent that their place in history is not yet determined. One of them, the Mackenzie, a mighty stream some two thousand miles long, flows into the Arctic Ocean through what remains chiefly a wilderness. The waters of the other, the Saskatchewan, discharge into Hudson Bay more than a thousand miles from their source, flowing through rich

here now stands the city of Montreal. Cartier was seeking a route to the Far East. He half believed that this impressive waterway drained the plains of China and that around the next bend he might find the busy life of an oriental city. The time came when it was known that a great sea lay between America

s waters are clear, and they become icy cold as they approach the sea and mingle with the tide which flows into the great Gulf of St. Lawrence from the Arctic regions. The Mississippi, on the other hand, is a turbid, warm stream, flowing through soft lands. Its shifting channel is divided at its mouth by deltas created from the vast quantity of soil which the

icago, Duluth, and many other cities and towns, with millions in population and an aggregate of wealth so vast as to stagger the imagination. Step by step had the French advanced from Quebec to the interior. Champlain was on Lake Huron in 1615, and there the Jesuits soon had a flourishing mission to the Huron Indians. They had only to follow the shore of Lake Huron to come to the St. Mary's River bearing towards the sea the chilly waters of Lake Superior. On this river, a much frequented fishing ground of the natives, they founded the mission of Sainte

m the Atlantic to that other mysterious sea beyond the spreading lands of the West. Henceforth at their peril would the natives disobey the French King, or other states encroach upon these his lands. A Jesuit priest followed Saint-Lusson with a description to the savages of their new lord, the King of France. He was master of all the other rulers of the world. At his word the earth trembled. He could set earth and sea on fire by the blaze of his cannon. The priest knew the temper of his savage audience and told o

es talked of a mighty river in the west flowing to the sea. They meant, as we now suppose, the Mississippi. There are vague stories of Frenchmen on the Mississippi at an earlier date; but, however this may be, it is certain th

ance the voyage by sea through the Gulf of Mexico was hardly less difficult. The explorer La Salle tried both routes. In 1681-1682 he set out from Montreal, reached the Mississippi overland, and descended to its mou

irst colony. Spain disliked this intrusion; but Spain-soon to be herself ruled, as France then was, by a Bourbon king-did not prove irreconcilable and slowly France built up a colony in the south. It was in 1718 that Iberville's brother, Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, fou

ing northward to the Ohio and the Missouri, the one river reaching eastward almost to the waters of the St. Lawrence system, the other flowing out of the western plains from its source in the Ro

e and the Ohio Valley. It was not until 1720, a period comparatively late, that the French managed to have a fort at the mouth of the Niagara. On the Detroit River, the next strategic point on the way westward, they were established earlier. Just after Frontenac died in 1698, La Mothe Cadillac urged that there should be built on this river a fort and town which might be made the center of all the trading interests west of Lake Erie. End the folly, he urged, of going still farther afield among the Indians and teaching them the French language and French modes of thought. Leave the Indians to live their own type of life, to hunt and to

Pennsylvania. What happened on the Ohio we shall see in a later chapter. The other great problem, to be followed here, was to explore the regions which lay beyond the Mississippi. These spread into a remote unknown, unexplored by the white man, and might ultimately lead to the Western Sea. We might have supposed that France's farther adventure into the West would have been from the Mississippi up its

awrence or of the Mississippi. These, however, would not solve the mystery. A river flowing westward was still to be sought. Thus, both in pursuit of the fur trade and in quest of the Western Sea, the French advanced westward from Lake Superior. Where

lish on the north and English on the south and did not like it. On Hudson Bay the English showed the same characteristics which they had shown in New England. They were not stirred by vivid imaginings of what might be found westward beyond the low-lying coast of the great inland sea. They came for trade, planted themselves at the mouths of the chief rivers, unpacked their goods, and waited for the natives to come to barter wi

hundred men, led by the Chevalier de Troyes, who had marched overland from Quebec through the wilderness. The English on the Bay, with a charter from King Charles II, the friend of the French, and in a time of profound peace under his successor, thought themselves secure. They now had, however, a rude awakening. In the dead of night the Frenchmen fell

with pride in French naval annals. In 1697 he sailed the Pelican through the ice-floes of Hudson Straits. He was attacked by three English merchantmen, with one hundred and twenty guns against his forty-four.

han attempts to settle and explore. They did no more than the English to ascend the Nelson or other rivers to find what lay beyond; and

d or carried off as prisoners most of the inhabitants. Shortly afterwards we find him a participant in warfare of a less ignoble type. In 1706 he went to France and became an ensign in a regiment of grenadiers. Those were the days when Marlborough was hammering and destroying the armies of Louis XIV. La Vérendrye took part in the last of the series of great battles, the bloody conflict at Malplaquet in 1709. He received a bullet wound t

hips and cannon, and of white-bearded men who lived farther west. In 1720 the Jesuit Charlevoix, already familiar with Canada, came out from France, went to the Mississippi country, and reported that an attempt to find the path to the Western Sea might be made either by way of the Missouri or farther north through the country of the Sioux west of Lake Superior. Both routes involved

ired his imagination. Incessantly he questioned the savages with whom he traded about what lay in the unknown West. His zeal was kindled anew by the talk of an Indian named Ochagach. This man said that he himself had been on a great lake lying west of Lake Superior, that out of it flowed a river westward, that he had paddled down this river until he came to water which, as La Vérendrye understood, rose and fell

eat enterprise in the West. The Governor did what he could but was unable to move the French court to give money. The sole help offered was a monopoly of the fur trade in the region to be explored, a doubtful gift, since

d like those of Columbus. His men not only disliked the hard work which was inevitable but were haunted by superstitious fears of malignant fiends in the unknown land who were ready to punish the invaders of their secrets. The route lay across the rough country beyond Lake Superior. There were many long portages over which his men must carry the provisions and heavy store

lt another post, Fort St. Charles. It must have seemed imposing to the natives. On walls one hundred feet square were four bastions and a watchtower; evidence of the perennial need of alertness and strength in the Indian country. There were a chapel, houses for the commandant and the priest, a powder-magazine, a storehouse, and other buildings. La Vérendrye cleared some land and planted

future. The going was laborious and the distances seemed long, for on their return they reported that they had gone a hundred and fifty leagues, though in truth the distance was only a hundred and fifty miles. Then at last they stood on the shores of a vast body of water, ice-bound and forbidding as it lay in the grip of winter. It opened out illimitably west

with furs which, after a long and difficult journey, reached Montreal. The traders to whom the furs were consigned sold them and kept the money as their own on account of their outlay. La Vérendrye in the far interior could not pay his men and would soon be without goods to trade with the Indians. After having repeatedly begged for help but in vain, he made a rapid journey to Montreal and implored the Governor to aid an enterprise which might change the outlook of the whole

verwork, and had been laid in a lonely grave in the wilderness. Nearly all pioneer work is a record of tragedy and its gloom lies heavy on the career of La Vérendrye. A little later came another sorrow-laden disaster. La Vérendrye sent his eldest son Jean back to Rainy Lake to hurry the canoes from Montreal which

nged to paddle with the stream towards the west. The Red River flows from the south into Lake Winnipeg at a point near the mouth of the Winnipeg River. Up the Red River went La Vérendrye and found a tributary, the Assiniboine, flowing into it from the west. At the point of junction, where has grown up the city of Winnipeg, he built a tiny fort, called Fort Rouge, a name still preserved in a suburb of the modern Winnipeg. The explor

ind him at Fort La Reine, rich for the moment in goods with which to trade, keen and competent as a trader, and having great influence with the natives. All through the West he found Indians who went to trade with the English on Hudson Bay, and he constantly urged them no

mn winds were already chill, there was a striking little parade at Fort La Reine. The drummer beat the garrison to arms. What with soldiers brought from Canada, the voyageurs who had paddled the great canoes, and the Indians who dogged always the steps of the French traders, there was a muster at the

d much of a people, the Mandans, dwelling in well-ordered villages on the banks of a great river and cultivating the soil instead of living the wandering life of hunters. Such wonders of Mandan culture had been reported to La Vérendrye that he half expected to fi

resumed their journey, this whole village followed them. The prairie Indians had a more developed sense of order and discipline than the tribes of the forest. La Vérendrye admired the military regularity of the savages on the march. They divided the company of more than six hundred into three columns: in front, scouts to look out for an enemy and

ed in dressing leather. They were also cunning traders, for they duped La Vérendrye's friends, the Assiniboines, and cheated them out of their muskets, ammunition, kettles, and knives. Great eaters were the Mandans. They cultivated abundant crops and stored them in cave cellars. Every day they brought their visitors more than twenty dishes cooked in earthen pottery of their own handicraft. There was incredible feasting, which La Vérendrye avoided but which his sons enjoyed. The Mandan language he could not understand and close questioning as to the route to the Western Sea was thus impossible. He learned enough to discredit the vague tales of white men in armor and

patient creditor. The report had gone abroad that he was amassing great wealth, when, as he said, all that he had accumulated was a debt of for

of the natives. When they started, the prairie was turning from brown to green and the rivers were still swollen from the spring thaw. In three weeks they reached a Mandan village on the upper Missouri and were well received. It was after midsummer when they set out again and pressed on westward with a trend to the south. The country was bare and desolate. For twenty days they saw no human being. They had Mandan guides who promised

ey found excitedly preparing for a raid on their neighbors farther west, the Snakes. They were going, they said, towards the mountains and there the Frenchmen could look out on the great sea. So the story goes on. The brothers advanced ever westward and the land became more rugged, for they were now climbing upward from the prairie country. At last, on January 1, 1743, they saw what both cheered and discouraged them. In

r further progress was checked by an unexpected crisis. One day they came upon an encampment of the dreaded Snake Indians which had been abandoned in great haste. This, the Bow Indians thought, could only mean that the Snakes had hurriedly left their camp in order to slip in behind the advance guard of the Bows and massacr

at their village and then headed for home. By the 20th they were encamped with a friendly tribe on the banks of the Missouri. Here, to assert that Louis XV was lord of all that country, they built on an eminenc

oon near the High School in the town of Pierre, South Dakota, stumbled upon a projecting corner of this tablet, which was in an excellent state of preservation. Th

rom the time in January when they turned back? It seems doubtful; and in spite of the long-cherished belief that the brothers reached the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, it may be that they had not penetrated beyond the barrier which we know as the Black

ters melted on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. It was by this route up the Saskatchewan that fifty years later was solved the tough and haunting problem of going over the mountains to the Pacific Ocean. La Vérendrye now ascended the Saskatchewan for some three hundred miles to the forks where it divides into two great branches. He was going deeper into debt

d appointed another officer, Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, to lead in the search for the Western Sea. Fran?ois hurried to Quebec. The Governor met him with a bland face and seemed friendly. Fran?ois urged that he and his brothers claimed no pre?minence and that they were ready to serve under the orders of Saint-Pierre. The Governor was hesitant; but at last told Fran?ois frankly that the new leader desired no help either from him or from his brothers

noe. When Saint-Pierre found that Fran?ois had gone, he claimed damages for the intrusion on his monopoly and secured an order to pursue Fran?ois and bring him back. He caught him at Michilimackinac. The meeting between the t

d not carry on his trade with success and in the end he returned to Montreal a ruin

s the result of all that my father, my brothers and myself have done.… There are in the hands of your Lordship resources of compensation and of consolation. I venture to appeal to you fo

was killed in the siege of Quebec in 1759. After the final surrender of Canada the Auguste, a ship laden for the most part with refugees returning to France, was wrecked on the St. Lawre

e Niverville was ready. He started apparently from Fort Maurepas, on snowshoes, his party dragging their supplies on toboggans. Before they reached Paskoya on the Saskatchewan (the modern Le Pas) they had nearly perished of hunger and were able to save their lives only by catching a few fish through the ice. Niverville was ill. He sent forward ten men by canoe

ke the task and he turned back. As it was, he tells a dramatic story of how Indians crowded into Fort La Reine in a threatening manner and how he saved the fort and himself only by rushing to the magazine with a lighted torch, knocking open a barrel of powder, and threatening to blow up everything and everybody if the savages did not withdraw at once. He was eager to leave the country. In 1752 he handed ove

ut the servants of the Company knew that to buy and sell at a profit was their chief aim. They had been on the whole content to wait for trade to come to them. By 1740 the Indians, who made the long journey to the Bay by the intricate waters which carried to the sea the flo

a very genteel manner" invited him into their house. With all courtesy they asked him, he says, if he had any letter from his master and where and on what design he was going inland. His answer was that he had been sent "to view the Country" and that he intended to return to Hudson Bay in the spring. The Frenchmen were sorry that their own master, who was apparently the well-known Canadian leader, St. Luc de la Corne, the successor of Saint-Pierre, had gone to Montreal with furs, and added their regrets that they must de

he traveled twenty-four miles on an empty stomach and then, to his delight, found a supply of ripe strawberries, "the size of black currants and the finest I ever eat." The next day his Indians killed two moose. He then met natives who, when he asked them to go to Hudson Bay to trade, replied that they could obtain all they needed from the French posts. The tact and skill of the French were suc

since his daily march occasionally went beyond twenty-five miles. Sometimes for days he saw no living creature. At other times wild life was prolific: there were moose in great abundance, bears, including the dreaded grizzly-one of which killed an Indian of his company and badly mutilated another-beaver, wild horses, and, above all, the buffalo. "Saw many herds of Buffalo grazing like English cattle," he says, on the 13th of September, and the next day he goes buffalo hunting. Guns and ammunition were costly. His Indians, who used only bows and arrows, on this day killed seven-"fine sport," says Hendry. Often the Indians took only the tongue, leaving the carcass for the wolves, who naturally abounded in such advantageous conditions.

ssage between the tents to the big tent of the chief of whom he had heard much. Not a word was spoken. The chief sat on a white buffalo skin. Pipes were passed round and each person was presented with boiled buffalo flesh. When talk began, Hendry told the chief that his great leader had sent him to invite them to come to trade at Hudson Bay where his people would get powder,

ns who would remain in their huts all day and never stir to lay up a store of food even when game was abundant. Conjuring, dancing to the hideous pounding of drums, feasting and smoking, were their amusements. On his way back Hendry revisited the French post on the Saskatchewan. The leader, no doubt St. Luc de la Corne, had returned from Montreal and now had with him nine men. "The master," says Hendry, "invited

ttle line from Acadia to the Ohio and the Mississippi was already forming, and the fate of France's eager efforts to hold the West was soon

a Scotch trader from Montreal, starting from Lake Athabasca, north of the farthest point reached by Hendry, was pressing still onward into an unknown region to find a river which might lead to the sea. This river he found; we

e sea. After nine months of rugged travel, across mountain streams and gorges, in peril daily from hostile savages, on July 22, 1793, he reached the shore of the Pacific Ocean, the first white man to go by land o

been obliged to turn back. The party began the ascent of the Missouri on May 14, 1804, and arrived in the Mandan country in the late autumn. Here they spent the winter of 1804-05. Not until November 15, 1805, had they completed the hard journey across the Rocky Mountains