got firm hold of it. They were thus forced out of the channels nature had laid down, for many years to come. 1 The French rebuilt Fort Niagara in 1726, in pretended retaliation for the seizure of Oswego, by the English, on the same spot where Denonville's and La Salle's forts had stood.-Doc. Hist. N. Y., i., 446. THE GATES OF THE WEST Michilimackinac, Detroit, and Niagara Of all the early missions in the Northwest, Michilimackinac was doubtless the most important. Sainte Marie of the Sault, and La Pointe, were, indeed, earlier in point of time, and excellently placed, too, for reaching all the vast region tributary to Lake Superior; yet neither was so well situated for carrying on trade or exploration south of the lakes. Hence Michilimackinac always plays a leading part in the early history of the Northwest. Marquette was in charge of the mission here (St. Ignace), when, with Joliet, he started off to find the Mississippi. La Salle also made it his rendezvous, on his various trips to and from that river. Yet when we look at its place on the map, and glance over the frightful distances to be travelled, we cannot help asking ourselves, what manner of men were these, who thought no more of traversing the great lakes in a frail bark canoe than we do to-day in a luxurious palace steamer? Ever quick to detect a resemblance, the Indians seem to have been struck with that of this bold island to a swimming tortoise; and that is just what the name means in their tongue. It soon came also to be applied to the adjacent shores, though belonging, first of all, to the island itself. Then again, Michilimackinac was the regular rendezvous for the multitudes who every year came there to spear the white fish, or to make their annual canoe voyages to Montreal with the winter's catch of peltries. In a little time it was the traders who came to the Indians to buy and sell, thus turning Michilimackinac into a trading-post. This was neither more nor less than cutting off the Indian trade from the colony for the benefit of a few licensed traders, and it gave rise to endless bickerings. When, however, these traders began coming up the lakes, the Indians still came here to exchange their peltries for goods. There were always two opinions in Canada as to which was for the best interests of the colony, one party being as strongly in favor of the old way as the other was of the new. And sometimes one, sometimes the other got the king's ear. So we see that all were not agreed upon the policy of extension by any manner of means. Indeed the two parties were bitterly hostile. Within a very few years, the importance of its trade caused the sending of soldiers there for its protection, and Michilimackinac then became a military trading-post, with a mission attached. Baron La Hontan says it was so chosen on account of its security from Iroquois raids, as even these tigers dared not venture across the rough waters of Lake Huron in their frail canoes. The same writer describes the place as he saw it in 1688 as follows: "It is," he says, "not more than half a league from the outlet of Lake Michigan. Hurons and Ottawas have each a village here, separated by a single palisade, but the Ottawas are beginning a fort at some twelve hundred paces off. They take this precaution on account of the murder of a certain Huron by four young Ottawas. The A.Village der Francois B.Maison des MICHILIMACKINAC IN 1688, FROM LA HONTAN. [EXPLANATION.-A, French village; B, Jesuit mission; C, Huron village; D, cornfields; E, Ottawa village.] Jesuits have a little house by the side of a sort of church, inclosed by palisades, which separates them from the Huron village. All their missions are subordinate to this one." The roving traders, he adds, had only a very trifling establishment there, though he thought it must increase with the growing importance of the trade. This account will equally stand for most of the early French settlements. La Hontan's rough sketch of Michilimackinac is here inserted, rude as it is, because it is the earliest known picture of the place, besides conveying a tolerably accurate idea of what it was like in its infancy. There was an auxiliary mission (St. Simon), founded at the same time at Great Manatoulin Island, where a band of Ottawas had made their residence, after being driven from their old homes. In some six years more (1694), Michilimackinac had six or seven thousand Indian residents at certain seasons, a fort with two hundred soldiers, and a village of about sixty houses, occupied by traders or bush-rangers, besides the mission. La Motte-Cadillac was now in command. It must be understood, however, that these houses were nothing more than rude log-cabins, chinked with mud. He The French now felt themselves strong enough to take a bold step. This was nothing less than the seizure of the outlet of Lake Huron, so as to keep the English traders from passing up into the lakes that way. In 1686 Du Lhut had been sent there, with fifty men. built a stockade at the west side of the Detroit Strait, whence he led a mongrel band of French and Indians, the scrapings of western posts, to help Denonville chastise the Senecas, or rather to secure a foothold at Niag ara, the real object of the campaign. The Senecas were driven from their villages as we have seen. Denonville then sent La Hontan to relieve Du Lhut, at Detroit, but after wintering there, La Hontan set fire to his fort, upon hearing that Niagara had been abandoned. So this attempt proved a dismal fail ure. Detroit (The Strait), on the spot where it now stands, was one of the first fruits of the peace of 1697, known as the peace of Ryswick. Almost immediately (1701), La Motte - Cadillac was ordered down from Michilimackinac to begin another establishment, at the narrows of the beautiful deep-flowing river, uniting Lake St. Clair with Lake Erie. Cadillac landed there on July 24th, laid out the ground, and set his men to work building a fort against the winter. One early result was seen in the speedy desertion of Michilimackinac by the Indians, who mostly followed the French to this new abode. We have now very briefly reviewed about all that the French had done in the West, to the close of the seventeenth century. INTER-OCEAN ROUTES By seizing Detroit the French got full control of the three great lakes from which the various inland routes branched off to the Mississippi. It is to these we must now turn. Mention has been made of the trading-post founded by La Salle on the Illinois, called The Rock, where the explorer had meant to gather a colony of his own. Unfortunately he did not live to realize his hopes. After his untimely end, The Rock became a bone of contention |