Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 4 (of 8): French Explorations and Settlements in North America and Those of the Portuguese, Dutch, and Swedes 1500-1700
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 4 (of 8): French Explorations and Settlements in North America and Those of the Portuguese, Dutch, and Swedes 1500-1700
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
Afterward Guérin met a Sauk Indian with Menard’s kettle, which he said
he found in the woods, near footprints going in the direction of the
Sioux country.[463] His breviary and cassock were said to have been
found among the Sioux, and it is supposed that he was either killed,
or died from exposure, and that his effects were taken by wandering
Indians.[464] Perrot writes: “The Father followed the Ottawas to the
Lake of the Illinois [Michigan], and in their flight to Louisiana
[Mississippi] as far as the upper part of Black River.” Upon a map
prepared by Franquelin, in 1688,[465] for Louis XIV., there is a
route marked by a dotted line from the vicinity of Keweenaw Bay to the
upper part of Green Bay. If Perrot’s statement is correct, Menard and
his devoted attendant Guérin saw the Mississippi twelve years before
Joliet and his companion looked upon the great river. The reports
of Nicolet and Groseilliers led to a correction and enlargement of
the charts of New France. On a map[466] accompanying the _Historia
Canadensis_, by Creuxius, Lake Michigan is marked as “Magnus Lacus
Algonquinorum, seu Lacus Fœtetium,” and a lake intended for Nepigon is
called “Assineboines,” near which appear the nations Kilistinus and
Alimibegôecus. The lake of the Assineboines is connected by a river
with an arm of Hudson’s Bay called “Kilistonum Sinus;” and west of this
is Jametus Sinus, or James’s Bay.
Pierre Boucher, an estimable man, sent by the inhabitants of Canada to
present their grievances to the King of France, in a little book which
in 1663 he published at Paris,[467] wrote: “In Lake Superior there is
a great island which is fifty leagues in circumference, in which there
is a very beautiful mine of copper.” He also stated that he had heard
of other mines from five Frenchmen lately returned, who had been absent
three years, and that they had seen an ingot of copper which they
thought weighed more than eight hundred pounds, and that Indians after
making a fire thereon would cut off pieces with their axes.
Groseilliers[468] returned to Canada, and on the 2d of May, 1662,
again left Quebec, with ten men, for the North Sea, or Hudson’s Bay.
His journey satisfied him that it was easy to secure the trade of
the North by way of Lake Superior; but the Company of Canada, which
had the monopoly of the fur traffic, looked upon Groseilliers’ plans
for securing the peltries of distant tribes as chimerical. Thus
disappointed and chagrined, Groseilliers next went to Boston, and
presented his schemes to its merchants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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