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
In August, 1679, La Salle having completed his arrangements and
obtained letters patent from the king for another attempt upon the
Mississippi, set sail in the Griffon, upon Lake Erie, and arrived at
Michilimackinac about two weeks later. The Illinois was reached in
January, 1680, but owing to adverse circumstances, La Salle being
compelled, for want of supplies and other causes, to make twice the
journey between the Illinois and Canada, the exploration of the
Mississippi was not accomplished until April, 1682. The adventures of
La Salle’s party upon the great lakes and in the Illinois country,
previous to the voyage down the Mississippi in 1682, are recounted with
minute detail in the “Relation des Descouvertes et des Voyages du Sieur
de La Salle, 1679–81,” printed in Margry’s Collection, vol. i., pp.
435–594.
Margry considers this paper to be the official report drawn up by the
Abbé Bernou from La Salle’s letters. The account of the journey to Fort
Crevecœur in 1679–80, given in this narrative, is nearly identical
with the description of the same voyage in Hennepin’s “Description de
la Louisiane.” For this reason Margry charges Hennepin with plagiary,
which calls out a defence of the latter by Shea, in his edition of
Hennepin’s “Louisiana,” where the two narratives are compared. Membré’s
journal in Le Clercq’s “Premier Établissement de la Foy,” Paris, 1691,
which is reproduced in English in Shea’s “Discovery and Exploration
of the Mississippi,” and Tonty’s Memoirs, which will be more fully
described farther on, also report this stage of the explorations.
Hennepin’s spurious “Nouvelle Découverte” also contains an account,
which does not differ materially from that given in the “Description de
la Louisiane.”
Mathieu Sâgean, who claimed to have been with La Salle in 1679–80,
dictated from memory, in 1701, a report of his adventures in Canada.
See Parkman’s La Salle, p. 658, concerning Sâgean’s pretensions. Shea
published Sâgean’s narrative in 1863, with the title, “Extrait de la
Relation des avantures et voyage de M. Sâgean.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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