66

fied post at the mouth of the Mississippi, thus securing to the French an outlet for the trade of the interior." These schemes, or at least the first two, after years of effort, attended with great sufferings and loss of life and property, ended in failure. How far the third was successful we will relate. 67. The summer of 1681 was spent when La Salle reached Lake Huron, and December was nearly gone when he crossed to the little river Chicago. His party, composed of twentythree Frenchmen, was increased by the addition of some new friends, savages, whose midnight yells had started the border hamlets of New England; who had danced around Puritan scalps, and whom Furitan imaginations painted as incarnate fiends. They insisted on taking their women with them to cook for them and do other camp work. Thus the expedition included fifty-four persons, of whom some were useless and others a burden. It was the dead of winter, and the streams were frozen. They made sledges, placed on them the canoes, the baggage, and a disabled Frenchman; crossed from the Chicago to the northern branch of the Illinois, and filed in a long procession down its frozen course. They reach ed the site of the great Illinois village, found it tenantless, and continued their journey, still dragging their canoes, till at length they reached open water below Lake Peoria.

68. La Salle had abandoned his original plan of building a vessel for the navigation of the Mississippi. Bitter experience had taught him the difficulty of the attempt, and he resolved to trust to his canoes alone. They embarked again, floating prosperously down between the leafless forests that flanked the tranquil river, till, on the sixth of February, they issued forth on the majestic bosom of the Mississippi. Here for a time their progress was stopped; for the river was full of floating ice. La Salle's Indians, too, had lagged behind; but within a week all had arrived, the navigation was once more free, and they resumed their course. Towards evening they saw on their right the mouth of a great river; and the clean current was invaded by the headlong torrent of

1682 La Salle descends the Mississippi.

45

the Missouri, opaque with mud. They built their camp-fires in the neighboring forest; and at daylight, embarking anew on the dark and mighty stream, drifted swiftly down towards unknown destinies.

69. With every stage of their adventurous progress the mystery of this vast New World was more and more unveiled. More and more they entered the realms of spring. The hazy sunlight, the warm and drowsy air, the tender foliage, the opening flowers, betokened the reviving life of Nature. For several days more they followed the writhings of the great river on its course through wastes of swamp and cane-brake, till they found themselves wrapped in a thick fog. Neither shore was visible; but they heard on the right the booming of an Indian drum, and the shrill outcries of the war-dance. La Salle at once crossed to the opposite side, where, in less than an hour, his men threw up a rude fort of felled trees. Meanwhile the fog cleared, and from the farther bank the astonished Indians saw the strange visitors at their work. Some of the French advanced to the edge of the water, and beckoned them to come over. Several of them approached in a canoe to within the distance of a gun-shot. La Salle displayed the calumet, and sent a Frenchman to meet them. He was well received; and the friendly mood of the Indians being now apparent, the whole party crossed the river.

70. On landing they found themselves at a town of the Kappa band of the Arkansas, a people dwelling near the mouth of the river which bears their name. The inhabitants flocked about them with eager signs of welcome, built huts for them, brought them firewood, gave them corn, beans, and dried fruits, and feasted them for three days. They are a lively, civil, generous people,' says one of the missionaries who accompanied the expedition, 'very different from the cold and taciturn Indians of the North.' They showed, indeed, some slight traces of a tendency towards civilization; for domestic fowls and tame geese were wandering among their rude cabins of bark. La Salle and his lieutenant, at the head of their followers, marched to the open area in the midst of the

village. Here, to the admiration of the gazing crowd of warriors, women, and children, a cross was raised bearing the arms of France. The Frenchmen shouted Vive le Roi (veeve leh rouah-long live the king); and La Salle, in the name of Louis XIV., took formal possession of the country.

71. After touching at several other towns of this people, the voyagers resumed their course, and now, on the sixth of April, they are near their journey's end. The river separated itself into three broad channels. One division of the party followed that of the west, another that of the east, while the third took the middle. As La Salle drifted down the turbid current between the low and marshy shores, the brackish water changed to brine, and the breeze grew fresh with the salt breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of the great Gulf opened on his sight, tossing its restless billows, limitless, voiceless, lonely, as when born of chaos, without a sail, without a sign of life. La Salle, in a canoe, coasted the marshy borders of the sea; and then the reunited parties assembled on a spot of dry ground, a short distance above the mouth of the river.

72. Here a column was made ready, bearing the arms of France; and while the New England Indians and their squaws stood gazing in wondering silence, the Frenchmen chanted a song of the church. Then, amid volleys of musketry and shouts of Vive le Roi, La Salle planted the column in its place, and standing near it, proclaimed in a loud voice, in the name of his king, Louis XIV. of France, that he took possession of all this country of Louisiana, the seas, harbors, ports, bays, and all the nations, peoples, provinces, cities, towns, villages, mines, minerals, fisheries, streams, and rivers, within the extent of the said Louisiana.' Shouts of Vive le Roi and volleys of musketry responded to his words. Then a cross was planted beside the column. realm of France received on parchment a stupendous accession; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at half a mile. Louisiana was the name bestowed by La Salle

On that day the

1682 How the Lands were disposed of.

47

on the new domain of the French crown. The rule of the Bourbons in the West is a memory of the past, but the name of the Great King still survives in a narrow corner of their lost empire. The Louisiana of to-day is but a single State of the American Republic. The Louisiana of La Salle stretched from the Alleghanies to the Rocky mountains (1682)." 1

1

73.The right of the Indian natives to the soil in their possession was founded in nature. Unfounded, therefore, as the claims of European sovereigns to America were, they severally proceeded to act upon them. By tacit consent, they decided that the countries which each explored should

disposed of.

be the property of the explorer." In keeping How the with this law, Spain claimed all the southern lands were part of North America from ocean to ocean. The French claim extended from the Atlantic, in the latitude of Nova Scotia, westward to the region of the great lakes, and then southward through the entire valley of the Mississippi. England's claim embraced all the country from Labrador to Florida, westward to the Pacific, including a large tract to which the Dutch possessed a title by reason of exploration and settlement. It would be impossible to make a single map showing these several claims, inasmuch, as it is seen, they lapped over one another. While, then, "the nations of Europe sported with the rights of the unoffending natives of America, they could not, it is evident, agree in their respective shares of the common spoils."

2

1 La Salle never carried out his plan. He returned to Canada, and thence to France, where he was received with great honors. Four vessels were given to him, with soldiers and settlers, and he sailed in 1684 to establish a settlement on the Mississippi; but instead of landing at the mouth of the river, by mistake the voyagers passed it, and landed in Texas. A vain search by land was afterward made for the river, and, after much suffering and wandering, La Salle was treacherously shot by one of his men (1687).

2 The Dutch claim was founded on the explorations of Henry Hudson, an Englishman, sailing in the service of the "Dutch East Indies Company," who (in 1609) discovered the Hudson river, and sailed up it more than a hundred miles (see p. 80).

Spain.

England.

France.

Holland.

CLAIMS.

By reason of the discoveries of Columbus, De Leon, and De Soto, and the explorations of Cortez, Coronado, and others, Spain claimed the southern part of North America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The northern limits were indefinite.

By reason of the discoveries of the Cabots, and the explorations of Gosnold, Smith, and Drake, with those made by the expeditions sent by Raleigh, England claimed all the heart of North America-from the latitude of Labrador to that of Florida-from ocean to ocean.

By reason of the discoveries of Cartier, Champlain, and others, in connection with the explorations of Marquette and La Salle, and the planting of military, missionary, and trading stations at different points, France claimed the valleys of the St. Lawrence, Ohio, and Mississippi, and the country, including the islands, in the region of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

By reason of the discoveries and explorations of Hudson, the Dutch claimed the valley of the Hudson, with all the country from the Connecticut river, and even further east, to Delaware bay on the south.