Ohio History Journal

THE EARLY FRENCH SETTLEMENTS ON THE GREAT

LAKES.

 

 

JOHN M. BULKLEY.

The French emigrants scattered along the northwestern

frontier previous to the year 1760, were chiefly from the prov-

inces of Picardy and Normandy in France. Without aspiring

to the aristocratic rank of the noblesse, who had congregated in

the region of Quebec and Montreal, they were accustomed to

reverence the authority which had before been exercised over

them under the French monarchy in their native land.

The French colonies upon the shores of Michigan had been

founded for the purposes of extending the dominion and prose-

cuting the fur trade into the Indian territory. The Frenchmen

who were sent out from the headquarters of the Colonial govern-

ment were expected to undergo the hardships of the forest in

accomplishing their objects. They consisted of the command-

ants of these posts, merchants, Jesuits, priests, traders, soldiers

and the peasantry. A small part of the population was local.

The inhabitants belonged to a system of machinery in religion

and trade, which was constantly being moved from post to post.

The most important individuals at the trading posts, next to

the Commandants, were the French merchants, who generally

had their houses near the forts, and the half-breeds, the off-

spring of the rangers of the woods and the Indians. The old

French merchant at his post, was the "head man" of the settle-

ment. Careful, frugal, without much enterprise, judgment or

rigid virtue, he was employed in procuring skins from the In-

dians, or traders, in exchange for manufactured goods. In the

absence of any better form of government the merchants were

revered as the patrons of their settlement. Their policy was to

exercise their influence with paternal mildness so as to prevent

rebellion, to keep on good terms with the Indians in order to

secure their trade, and they frequently placed themselves in the

position of adviser and confidential friend.

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The "Courier de Bois" or ranger of the woods, were either

French or half-breeds, a hardy race, accustomed to labor and

privations, conversant with the character and habits of the In-

dians from whom they procured their cargoes of furs. They

were equally skilled in propelling a canoe, fishing, hunting, or

trapping. If of mixed blood, they usually spoke the language

of both parents, French and Indian, and knew just enough of

their religion to be utterly regardless of both. Employed by

the aristocratic French for companies of voyagers as guides,

they were constantly accustomed to the severest training in pro-

pelling their canoes, transporting goods and in outdoor occupa-

tions of various kinds, and were many of them, nearly perfect

specimens of physical development. These men knew every

rock and stream, island and shoal of these western waters. The

half-breeds were demi-savages in their dress, as well as in their

character and appearance. They sometimes wore a sort of sur-

tout, of heavy blue cloth or made from the coarse blankets used

by the Indians or French, reaching nearly down to their knees;

elk or deerskin leggins, the seams of which were trimmed with

fringe, a scarlet woven sash tied around their waist, in which

was stuck a large knife to be used in their hunting expeditions;

a cap or toque made of the same material as the coat or knitted

from scarlet yarn, completed the costume.

Affable, gay, shrewd, these men were employed by the

French merchants as guides, canoe-men, steermen or rangers

to advance in their large light birch canoes, far into the re-

motest wilderness and to traffic their European goods for pel-

tries, depositing them at the several French depots on the lakes

whence they were transported to Quebec and Montreal.

The peasantry, or that portion of the French population

who devoted themselves to agriculture, maintained the habits

which were brought down from the provinces whence they emi-

grated, their costume did not differ materially from that just

described. This singular mixture of character was made still

more strange and grotesque by the Indians, who loitered about

the posts, the French soldiers with their blue and white uni-

forms and by the numbers of black robed priests and Jesuits

who had their stations about the forts. Agriculture was but

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Early French Settlements on the Great Lakes.  343

 

little encouraged or promoted either by the policy of the fur

trade or the industry of the inhabitants. It was limited to a few

patches of corn and wheat which were cultivated in profound

ignorance of the principles of husbandry, and amid obstacles

which would be regarded by our farmers of today as insur-

mountable.

The forest gave them abundance of game, while the lakes

and streams were thickly peopled by the trout, bass, pickerel,

muscallonge and sturgeon.

The Mackinaw trout were of enormous size, and the tooth-

some white fish, of which Charlevoix writes: "Nothing of the

fish kind can excel it," were very abundant.

The social condition of the French upon the lakes, was of a

less ambitious cast than the colonial establishments at Quebec

and Montreal. At those places were collected all the noblesse,

the bishop, the colleges of the Jesuits; there was concentrated

all the pomp and splendor which belonged to the French gov-

ernment in this part of America, and all that was imposing in

the Canadian state as well as the Church. The emigrants in

the lakes were of more humble origin, who were dispatched to

these posts to build them up and arranging convenient depots

for the trade as it circulated through the whole extent of the

northwestern waters. The volatile and migratory disposition of

the French people increased by the moving habits incident to

the fur trade, was under the rigid surveillance of the Catholic

Clergy.

The Jesuits and the priests exercised an almost unlimited

power over every class of the little commonwealth, upon the

lakes, and the community became thus subjected to their influence

which was artful, though mild and beneficent, and in the absence

of any other restraining law-power save that of the military,

the effect upon the morals was uniformly good.

The priests and Jesuits, however, it would seem, had any-

thing but an agreeable relationship with the savages. By them,

the Clergy were deemed "medicine men" and jugglers. If a

silver crucifix, a carved saint, a rosary, or the satin vestments of

the priests embroidered with flowers, sometimes came before

their eyes, they were believed to be implements and insignia of

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incantation, by which the souls of those on earth, were to be

spirited away, but not to the "happy hunting grounds." There is

an instance of an Iroquois warrior, who threatened the life of a

Catholic priest while ministering beside an aged savage, on the

verge of death, unless he should preserve the dying Indian's

life.

The contrasts presented by the peculiar state of things in

those early days was extraordinary and striking. The lonely

altar, erected from rough stones, under the clustering boughs of

the forest trees, adorned with rude candle sticks, crosses and

censers often wrought from the copper of the upper peninsula

was often surrounded by the Indians arrayed in the rough

though not unpicturesque garb of their tribes, the wrought skin

of the elk, the deer and the buffalo, with the cincture of the war

eagle, only worn by warriors of eminence, crowning their heads,

with necklaces of bear claws, and other trophies while richly

embroidered moccasins covered their feet, and they gazed with

awe, mingled with dread and suspicion at the strange scenes

before them, or listened to the chant of the mass or requiem,

amid the howling of the wolf and panther. The influence of re-

ligion acting upon the rough and savage features of barbarism

stamps the scene with a wild beauty springing from contrast.

No sculptured marble adorned the soil, no golden lamp flamed

upon polished column of grand old cathedral, attesting the pres-

ence of luxury and art: but the solitary log chapels of the mis-

sionaries surmounted by the cross, looked out upon a domain

of forests, prairies, streams and lakes.

 

"The breeze like music wand'ring o'er the boughs,

Each tree a natural harp, each different leaf

A different note, blent in one vast thanksgiving."

Another feature, which seemed to further impress with force

the singularly interesting character of Michigan at that period

was the Indian mythology of the western lakes.

Whether this Indian mythology was founded in the circum-

stance that the region of the lakes had long been the central

point of the Algonquin power, where their systems had been

organized for ages; whether it sprang from the bold and solitary

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Early French Settlements on the Great Lakes.   345

 

features of the lake scenery, inspiring the savage mind with

superstition; or how far it had since been moulded with the

instructions of their teachers, which often assumed the form of

allegory in order to impress the savage minds,-is not now

clearly known. There is no doubt, however, that this mythology

did exist, and has been transmitted to the present time. The

rocks, streams, islands, groves and waterfalls in the wilds of

Michigan had each their presiding genii, good or evil, and the

Indian legends, not only accounted for the creation of the earth

and every prominent object in nature, but also peopled the stars

with spirits. Fairies of the land and the water danced through

the forests and floated along the streams. Spirits or "Manitous"

of darkness performed their orgies and incantations amid thun-

der-storms upon the shores of the great lakes to whom they

offered sacrifices. When Charlevoix visited this region in 1721,

he was told by the Indians that Michabou, was the Manitou of

the lakes, the God of the Waters; that the island of Mackinac

was the place of his birth, and that he it was who formed all

the lakes and streams of the country. Sacrifices were at this

time offered by the Indians to Lake Superior, as it was believed

to have been created by the deity in order to permit the savages

to catch beaver and they believed that the fragments of rock

which broke the Falls of St. Marys and the other rapids in that

quarter, were the remains of a causeway he had erected, to dam

the water of the rivers.

If these forest gods were appeased by the savages, then

they were entitled to the Celestial regions, beyond the moun-

tains; but if they neglected them, they would be consigned to

wander forever amid the dreariest solitudes under the care of

"monsters a hundred feet in height" and to be stung by mos-

quitoes as large as pigeons. It is not certainly known, but the

suggestion is entitled to consideration, that the mosquitoes of

New Jersey are lineal descendants of the above.

La Point was one of the trading posts, and here, at one

time, the Chippewas assembled to receive their annuities from

the "GREAT FATHER" the President, in exchange for the

untold acres ceded to the government by this tribe. The sum

then allotted to each was four dollars in money, one blanket and

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346       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

a sufficient quantity of cloth to make a pair of leggins, together

with a few yards of high-colored calico; this was all, yet many

of these poor wretches had paddled their canoes hundreds of

miles to obtain this meager allowance. The number congregated

in the summer of 1846 according to Lanman was about 3,000

Chippewas. The great majority had reached the Point in a state

of destitution and in many cases of starvation, so that they

were immediately compelled to transfer their money into the

open hands of the American Fur Co., for pork at $50 per barrel

and flour at $15 per hundred. It was generally understood,

however, that when the red barbarians should start for their

distant homes, the traders would furnish them with sufficient

provisions to take them a day's journey.

Of the countless Indian legends, the most singular and uni-

versal have reference to a noted personage named Men-a-bou-

jou, who was generally believed to have been created by Manitou

for the special purpose of acting as ruler of men, and guardian of

lake Superior in particular, while some affirmed that he was

Manitou himself. The Indians described him as of immense

size, who could stride across the widest rivers and grasp the

lightning in his hands, and whose voice was like the roar of

Superior in a storm. They also say that he excelled in all the

arts of war and the chase, that the Chippewa nations are his

lineal descendants, and that he died at the somewhat advanced

age of a thousand winters. There is not a headland of Lake

Superior or a river emptying into it which is not hallowed in

Indian story by his wonderful exploits. The revolving seasons

were at his command. He covered the earth with snow and

fettered the streams with ice. At his mandate the mountains

were covered with verdure and northern flowers bloomed in sur-

passing beauty. In fine, the attributes of this legendary person-

age were as numerous as they seem incongruous and heathen-

ish. These glimpses into the mythology of the aborigines have

always an interest and a certain fascination, but which con-

sidered with other characteristics of the red man, seem the most

strangely paradoxical of anything in their nature, or their wild

and savage life. But the changes wrought by the coming white

man were soon noticed, and gradually the sense of security felt by

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Early French Settlements on the Great Lakes.    347

 

the settlers gave place to distrust of their dusky neighbors, and

the feeling that the open declaration of enmity and hostility could

not be far distant. Some of the more timid left the country to

return to the Canadian provinces or the better protected districts

near military posts. Those who remained discreetly employed

conciliatory measures and friendly modes in their intercourse

with the Indians.

But in spite of all their precautions and care the clouds

gathered. In the darkness of midnight, in the silence of the

wilderness, the tomahawk and scalping knife were forged for

their work of death, and the war song echoed along the shores

of lakes, where had never been heard the footsteps of civilized

man. Then followed the horrors of war, and in the beautiful

valley of the Raisin, which Charlevoix described as one of the

most charming on earth, were enacted scenes of savage cruelty

and barbarism, the details of which make one's blood run cold,

and which for a time defied further attempts at increasing or

extending the settlements on that frontier. This was quite in

accordance with the wishes if not actually instigated and brought

about by those unscrupulous emissaries and agents of yet more

unscrupulous principals, whose policy it was to prevent and

destroy all white settlements in the northwest, and continue it

rather as a trading oligarchy, for the prosecution of their barter-

ing schemes hesitating at nothing to accomplish these ends.

There is nothing on record to surpass in wickedness the

atrocity of some of these agents, the very mention of whose

names even at this long interval is sufficient to arouse our bor-

ders to a glow of anger.

It was not the policy of those who controlled the trade of

this region to keep the British Government advised of its wealth

and importance; and its remoteness and the exclusion of in-

quisitive settlers made it easy to conceal the true state of things.

But the result was unexpected; for although we had never

gained any strong foothold here, no serious difficulty was raised

against making the lakes our national boundary. But as soon

as it was discovered what a mistake had been made, pretexts

were sought for evading the treaty, and intrigues were begun

tO win back to the British rule the country which contained the

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348        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications. source of their great profits and the hordes of their savage allies. The results of this intriguing and the failure of Great Britain to perform its promises, was the war of 1812; and with it came the train of evils to the inhabitants of this great north- western territory,-and which delayed its settlement many years.

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