Ohio History Journal

SIEUR DE LA SALLE,

The Great French Explorer, Along the Maumee and Wabash

Rivers in the years 1669 and 1670.

 

BY CHARLES E. SLOCUM, M. D., PH. D., DEFIANCE, OHIO.

M. Jean Talon, Intendant of New France, wrote to Louis

XIV king of France under date of loth October, 1670, that he

had "dispatched persons of resolution, who promise to penetrate

further than has ever been done; the one to the West and to the

Northwest of Canada, and the others to the South West and

South." (Paris Document I, New     York Colonial Documents,

vol. ix, page 64.)

Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, being thus author-

itatively "dispatched", with a party of twenty-four people started

from La Chine, just above Montreal, on their journey to the south-

west 6th July, 1669, and, the ₃0th September, separated from the

party that was going to the Northwest, near the head of Lake

Ontario; after which, for a period of toward two years, the

journeyings of La Salle, although much discussed by learned

researchers, have not been fully described, nor understood.

La Salle's maps and papers, supposedly descriptive of these

journeyings, were reported by his aged niece to have been in

existence as late as the year 1750; but they have not been found

by his reviewers. In 1674 he returned to France, and while

there had "ten or twelve conversations" with a friend who soon

thereafter wrote, anonymously, a "Histoire de Monsieur de la

Salle," which is reproduced by Pierre Margry in the first volume,

page 376, of his Decouvertes, and from which the following

extract is taken, viz:-

Cependant M. de la Salle continua son chemin par une riviere.

qui va de l'est a l'ouest; et passe a Ononataque, puis a six ou sept

lieues au-dessous du Lac Erie; et estant parvenu jusqu'au 280me ou 83me

degre de longitude, et jusqu'au 41me degre de latitude, trouva un sault

qui tombe vers l'ouest dans un pays bas, marescageux, tout couvert de

vielles souches, dont il y en a quelques-unes qui sont encore sur pied-

1 Vol. XII-2             (107)

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108         Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

II fut donc contraint de prendre terre, et suivant une hauteur qui le pouvoit

mener loin, il trouva quelques sauvages qui luy dirent que fort loin de

la le mesme fleuve qui se perdoit dans cette terre basse et vaste se re-

unnissoit en un lit. Il continua donc son chemin, mais comme la

fatigue estoit grande, 23 ou 24 hommes qu'il avoit menez jusques la le

quitterent tous en une nuit, regagnerent le fleuve, et se sauverent, les

uns a la Nouvelle Hollande et les autres a la Nouvelle Angleterre. Il

se vit done seul a 400 lieues de chez luy, ou il ne laisse pas de revenir,

remontant la riviere et vivant de chasse, d'herbes, et de ce que luy

donnerent les sauvages qu'il recontra en son chemin.

 

This account must have been written from the poor memory

of one evidently not familiar with the full significance of all the

words used, in their relation to country wilds. Possibly it was

done by La Salle's aged niece who affirmed that his maps were

seen about 1750.

A very liberal translation of this excerpt is necessary to make

it intelligible, and such naturally reads as follows:

 

Meantime, M. de la Salle [after parting with the Sulpitians near

the west end of Lake Ontario] continued his way with the Onondaga

[Aborigine, as guide], and up a river [the Maumee River] sixty leagues

beyond Lake Erie. Having attained the 80th degree of longitude, or

possibly the 83rd, and the ⁴1st degree of latitude, he came to a decline

westward through a low, marshy region covered with timber much of

which was dead and fallen, and part standing. He was compelled to

go a long way around on the high land; and there he met savages who

told him that the water flowing from this large marsh soon united in

a good channeled river [the Petite or Little River]. He continued his

way until the distance, cold, hunger, and fears of his men became great,

when his guide and company of twenty-four men left him in the night,

some returning to New Holland and the others to New England. He then

returned up the river, down which he went, living with the savages on

their game, and vegetables.

This rendering accords with an extract given below that has

been published and termed La Salle's memorial to Count Front-

enac (Parkman, page 24), or with all that can be made out of

it, viz:-

 

L'annee 1667, et les suivantes, il fit divers voyages avec beaucoup

de depenses, dans lesquels il decouvrit, le premier beaucoup de pays au

sud des grands lacs, et entre autres la grande riviere d'Ohio; il la

suivit jusqua'a un endroit ou elle tombe de fort haut dans de vastes

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Sieur de la Salle.                     109   marais, a la hauteur de 37 degres, apres avoir ete grossie par une autre riviere fort large qui vient du nord; et toutes ces eaux se dechargent selon toutes les apparences dans le Golfe du Mexique. Surely La Salle was not the writer of this paragraph, as Parkman and others allege. It was surely the work of a friend or an amanuensis who did not understand clearly what La Salle told him. A literal translation of it, as of the preceding excerpt, is unintelligible. But, with a naturally free rendering, it accords with the preceding translation, viz:- In the year 1667, and the years following, he [La Salle] made several voyages with much expense, in which he was the first to discover a large extent of country south of the great lakes, and the great river Ohio. He came to this by way of a river which rises in a large swamp and is enlarged by other rivers, and with much fall. He followed it throughout its extent, and along another large river until it was enlarged by another very large river from the north, to the latitude of thirty-seven degrees. According to all appearances these waters are discharged into the Gulf of Mexico. This rendering also makes good La Salle's claim     of being the first to discover the Mississippi, it being that "very large river from the north."

It is also significant that the latitude of 41°, named in the first extract, corresponds with that of the large swamp which,

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110       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.   even through the first half of the 19th century, often partook of the nature of a lake, as shown on Franquelin's map herewith sketched. This swamp existed, until the last few years, a few miles southwest of the City of Fort Wayne, Indiana, it being the broad channel which first drained the Glacial Lake Maumee, and which has since been drained by the Aboite and Little River, the first northern tributary to the Wabash. Also it is significant

Anonymous. Sketch of Central Part. Figures refer to Legends that cannot be given here.   that none of the maps preceding this date, 1669, indicated the River Wabash nor the Ohio, though several do show the Mau- mee. In 1672, however, the Ohio appears on the map of The Basin of the Great Lakes, and Joliet's Smaller Map. Further, the stated latitude of thirty-seven degrees in the second extract accords well with the debouching of the Ohio River into the Mississippi. Fortunately we have corroborating evidence of the justness of the foregoing renderings of the befogged French by the writer. In Tract Number Twenty-five of the Western Reserve Historical Society, Mr. C. C. Baldwin then its Secretary, wrote as follows:

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Sieur de la Salle.                     111   Mr. Margry, in a letter addressed to Col. Whittlesey, President of the Historical Society, after expressing in the kindest manner his thanks for the influence exerted here in behalf of his project [the publication of his researches], communicates the following extract of an unpublished letter of La Salle, (no date) which translated reads: The river which you see marked on my map of the southern coast of this lake [Erie] and towards the extremity called by the Iroquois Tiotontaenon, is without

doubt the passage into the Ohio, or Olighira Sipon as it is called in Iroquois, or in Ottawa The Beautiful River. The distance from the one to the other is considerable, and the communication more difficult; but within a day's journey from its mouth at Lake Erie (washing as it flows a beautiful country) and at a musket shot from its banks, there is a little lake [the marsh southwest of Fort Wayne? See Map No. 1] from which flows a stream three or four fathoms wide at the outlet from the lake one fathom in depth. It soon changes, however, into a river by the junction of a number of other streams, which after a course of a hundred leagues, without rapids, [without great fall] receives another

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112        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.   small river that comes from near the Miamis, and five or six others quite as large, and flowing with greater rapidity along the declivity of a mountain [higher ground] and discharging into the Illinois [Ohio] two

leagues below a village and from there thence into the River Colbert. It is called the Quabachi or Aramoum. The original of this letter was sent to Mr. Parkman, who kindly returned it with the following note:     JAMAICA PLAINS, MASS., 9 Sept., 1872. DEAR SIR: With regard to the extract from La Salle's letter, one or two points are worth attention. It looks like an account made from hearsay. On the map described on pp. 406-7 of Discovery of the Great West, [map No. 2 above] the Maumee River is clearly laid down, with a portage direct to the Ohio, which is brought close to Lake Erie. This map is clearly anterior to 1680. On the map of Franquelin, 1864, made after data furnished by La Salle, the Maumee is also laid down, with a branch [tributary] to the Wabash, designated as R. Agonasake, closely approaching it. Now I have little doubt that 'la riviere que vous avez vue marquee dans ma carte,' is the Maumee, the natural route 'pour aller a la riviere Ohio ou Oleghin (Allegheny) Sipon.' The distance to the portage at Fort Wayne is certainly far more than 'une journee,' but accuracy is scarcely to be ex- pected. After crossing the protage, La Salle speaks of a stream 'qui se change bientot en riviere par la jonction de quantite de semblabies (et) qui apres le cours de plus de 100 lieues sans rapides recoit une autre petite riviere qui vient de proche celle des Miamis.' Such a 'petite riviere' is laid down on Franquelin's map. It flows into the Wabash, and answers to the Tippecanoe. The 'riviere des Miamis, an Franquelin's and other contemporary maps, is the St. Joseph of Lake Michigan. La Salle goes on to say that the main river in question, called by him 'Ouabache or Aramoni,' 'constant le long au penchant d' une montagne, se descharger dans celle des Illinois deux lieues an dessous du village et de la dans le fleuve Colbert' [Mississippi]. He begins by professing to indicate the way to the Ohio, but ends with bringing the traveler not to the Ohio but to the Illinois. I can see no other explanation of the passage, than that of a slip of the pen on La Salle's part, (or that of some copyist,) writing Illinois for Ohio. [See map No. 1, above.] I can think of no other way of making the passage intelligible. This solution derives some support from the circumstance that on Franquelin's map an Aborigine village Taarsila, is laid down a little above the mouth of the Wabash (Ouabache). La

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Sieur de la Salle.                      113

 

Salle, you remember, says that the mouth of this river is two leagues below the

village.

The river is called by him 'Aramoni ou Ouabache.' He speaks a few years

later of another Aramoni, identical with the Big Vermillion a branch [tributary]

of the Illinois. One of the branches [tributaries] of the Wabash is also now called

Big Vermillion, and the name Vermillion is given to the county of Indiana where

this branch [tributary] joins the main stream. The coincidence is worth remarking.

Vermillion is mentioned in La Salle's time as among the chief articles of Aborigine

trade, and possibly Aramoni may be the Illinois or Miami name for it.

Yours very truly,

F. PARKMAN.

Summing up the question, it is presumed by the writer that

La Salle's route to the Ohio River was along the south shore of

Lake Erie, thence up the Maumee to its source, thence to and

down the Little River to the Wabash. After being forsaken by

his company, he turned his attention more to the Aborigines,

first for the supply of his immediate wants and, secondly, for

the investigation of trade possibilities. While returning up the

Wabash and down the Maumee in the winter and spring of

1669-70, he undoubtedly met many Miami Aborigines from whom

he may have learned not only of the River St. Joseph of Lake

Michigan, which he afterwards called the Riviere des Miamis,

but of the Kankakee, Desplaines, and Illinois Rivers, which he

explored ten years later after, and with, great difficulties, but

intent upon determining the outlet of the Great River - the Mis-

sissippi - and the best route to it. He visited and associated

with many tribes of Aborigines, and formulated broad plans of

trade with them from his observations and experiences. Accord-

ing to the writing of Nicolas Perrot, the author voyager, La

Salle explored the Ottawa River of Canada in the summer of

1670 with a party of Iroquois.

Could La Salle have accomplished his ambitions and his

plans, he would have led not only the van of discoverers at all

times, but he would have controlled the fur trade of the Great

Lakes, and of the rivers of the Mississippi Basin.        But those

high in authority, as well as the petty dealers, were jealous,

watchful and hampering- while the quiet plottings of assassins

ended his career in the year 1687 at the age of forty-four years.

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