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
Joliet gives the name Miskonsing to the river, and marks the portage;
while Marquette gives no names. The country south of Lake Superior and
west of Lake Michigan in Marquette is blank. In Joliet it is marked
‘La Frontenacie.’ West of Lake Superior in Marquette is a blank; in
Joliet are several lakes and the tribe of Madouesseou. Joliet calls
the Mississippi, Rivière de Buade, and Marquette names it R. de la
Conception.”
The original French of the narrative as Shea found it at Montreal was
printed for Mr. Lenox in 1855,[576] and bears the following title:
_Récit des voyages et des découvertes du P. J. Marquette en l’année
1673, et aux suivantes_;[577] and the copy being defective in two
leaves, this matter was supplied from the print of Thevenot, next to be
mentioned.
The copy which Dablon sent to Paris was used by Thevenot, who gives
it, with some curtailment, in his _Recueil de voyages_, published in
Paris in 1681,[578] with the caption: “Voyage et découverte de quelques
pays et nations de l’Amérique septentrionale par le P. Marquette et Sr.
Joliet.”[579]
The Jesuits about this time made a map, which, from having been given
in Thevenot as Marquette’s, passed as the work of that missionary
till Shea found the genuine one in Canada. What was apparently the
original of this in Thevenot is a manuscript which Harrisse[580] says
was formerly in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, but cannot now
be found. Mr. Parkman has a copy of it, and calls it “so crude and
careless, and based on information so inexact, that it is of little
interest.”[581]
[Illustration: MARQUETTE’S GENUINE MAP.]
As engraved in Thevenot, this map differs a little, and bears the
title: “Carte de la découverte faite l’an 1673, dans l’Amérique
septentrionale. Liebaux fecit.” Sparks followed this engraving in
the map in his _Life of Marquette_, and calls it, with the knowledge
then current, “the first that was ever published of the Mississippi
River.”[582]
* * * * *
Marquette’s later history is but brief. In the autumn of the next year
(1674) he started to found a mission among the Illinois; but being
detained by illness near Chicago, he did not reach the Indian town
of Kaskaskia till the spring of 1675. His strength was ebbing, and
he started with his companions to return to St. Ignace, but had only
reached a point on the easterly shore of Lake Michigan, when he died,
and his companions buried him beside their temporary hut. The next year
some Ottawas who had been of his flock unearthed the bones and carried
them to Michillimackinac, where they were buried beneath the floor of
the little mission chapel.[583]
[Illustration: MISSISSIPPI VALLEY, 1672-1673.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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