Joutel's Journal of La Salle's Last Voyage, 1684-7Joutel, Henri
History
Joutel's Journal of La Salle's Last Voyage, 1684-7
Joutel, Henri
La Salle, Robert Cavelier, sieur de, 1643-1687; Louisiana -- History -- To 1803; Mississippi River -- Discovery and exploration
Joliet made several maps, showing his discoveries, only one of which
has been edited. Gravier’s “Étude sur une carte inconnue, la première
dressée par L. Joliet en 1674,” contains a fac-simile of the map in
question. A letter from the discoverer to Frontenac is inscribed upon
it. Gravier considers this map, apparently with good reason, to be the
earliest representation of the course of the Mississippi from personal
knowledge.
Frontenac’s letter announcing the successful result of Joliet’s mission
is printed in Margry, vol. i., p. 257, and a translation is inserted in
the “New York Colonial Documents,” vol. ix., p. 116. See the following
for notices of Joliet: Faillon’s “Histoire de la Colonie française en
Canada,” vol. iii.; Ferland’s “Notes sur les régistres de Notre-Dame;”
Margry’s articles in the _Revue Canadienne_, December, 1871, January,
March, 1872. French’s Historical Collections, second series, has a
brief biography. The works hereafter cited upon the history of the
discovery of the Mississippi necessarily include a history of the
Marquette-Joliet expedition.
We now come to La Salle, Hennepin, and Tonty, 1669–87. Margry’s
“Découvertes et établissements des Français dans l’Ouest et dans le sud
de l’Amérique septentrionale, 1614–1698,” Paris, 1879–81, contains the
documents which the editor collected in the archives of France. This
work now comprises four large octavo volumes, three of which are mainly
devoted to documents upon La Salle’s explorations. The contents of
these three volumes are arranged under the following heads: 1re partie,
“Voyages des Français sur les grands lacs et Découverte de l’Ohio et du
Mississipi (1614–1684);” 2me partie, “Lettres de La Salle;” 3me partie,
“Recherche des bouches du Mississipi (1669–1698).” The more important
of these papers are indicated hereafter in their chronological order.
The fourth volume of this collection embraces the documents relating to
D’Iberville’s colony, at the mouth of the Mississippi, 1698–1703.
In 1669 La Salle, accompanied by Dollier and Gallinée, set out from
Montreal to discover the Mississippi. They proceeded in company
to the western extremity of Lake Ontario. At this place La Salle,
professing illness, parted from the missionaries, ostensibly to
return to Montreal. Dollier and Gallinée continued their journey
along the northern shores of Lake Erie, thus taking a course hitherto
untravelled, and reached Sault Ste. Marie in May, 1670, having spent
the winter on the shores of Lake Erie. Gallinée’s journal, entitled
“Récit de ce qui s’est passé de plus rémarquable dans le voyage de MM.
Dollier et Gallinée,” is printed in Margry, vol. i., pp. 112–166. The
Abbé Faillon, who first discovered the records of this journey, gives
a synopsis of Gallinée’s recital, with a fac-simile of his map, in the
third volume of his “Histoire de la Colonie française en Canada.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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