Pathfinders of the West: Being the Thrilling Story of the Adventures of the Men Who; Discovered the Great Northwest: Radisson, La Vérendrye,; Lewis and ClarkLaut, Agnes C.
History
Pathfinders of the West: Being the Thrilling Story of the Adventures of the Men Who; Discovered the Great Northwest: Radisson, La Vérendrye,; Lewis and Clark
Laut, Agnes C.
Hearne, Samuel, 1745-1792; La Vérendrye, Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de, 1685-1749; Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806); Mackenzie, Alexander, Sir, 1763-1820; Northwest, Canadian -- Discovery and exploration; Radisson, Pierre Esprit, approximately 1636-1710
[9] I have throughout followed Mr. Sulte's correction of the name of
this governor. The mistake followed by Parkman, Tanguay, and
others--it seems--was first made in 1820, and has been faithfully
copied since. Elsewhere will be found Mr. Sulte's complete elucidation
of the hopeless dark in which all writers have involved Radisson's
family.
[10] If there were not corroborative testimony, one might suspect the
excited French lad of gross exaggeration in his account of Iroquois
tortures; but the Jesuits more than confirm the worst that Radisson
relates. Bad as these torments were, they were equalled by the deeds
of white troops from civilized cities in the nineteenth century. A
band of Montana scouts came on the body of a comrade horribly mutilated
by the Indians. They caught the culprits a few days afterwards.
Though the government report has no account of what happened, traders
say the bodies of the guilty Indians were found skinned and scalped by
the white troops.
[11] Radisson puts the Senecas before the Cayugas, which is different
from the order given by the Jesuits.
[12] The fact that Radisson confessed his sins to this priest seems
pretty well to prove that Pierre was a Catholic and not a Protestant,
as has been so often stated.
CHAPTER II
1657-1658
RADISSON'S SECOND VOYAGE
Radisson returns to Quebec, where he joins the Jesuits to go to the
Iroquois Mission--He witnesses the Massacre of the Hurons among the
Thousand Islands--Besieged by the Iroquois, they pass the Winter as
Prisoners of War--Conspiracy to massacre the French foiled by Radisson.
From Amsterdam Radisson took ship to Rochelle. Here he found himself a
stranger in his native land. All his kin of whom there is any
record--Pierre Radisson, his father, Madeline Henault, his mother,
Marguerite and Francoise, his elder and younger sisters, his uncle and
aunt, with their daughter, Elizabeth--were now living at Three Rivers
in New France.[1] Embarking with the fishing fleet that yearly left
France for the Grand Banks, Radisson came early in the spring of 1654
to Isle Percee at the mouth of the St. Lawrence. He was still a week's
journey from Three Rivers, but chance befriended him. Algonquin canoes
were on the way up the river to war on the Iroquois. Joining the
Indian canoes, he slipped past the hilly shores of the St. Lawrence and
in five days was between the main bank on the north side and the muddy
shallows of the Isle of Orleans. Sheering out where the Montmorency
roars over a precipice in a shining cataract, the canoes glided across
St. Charles River among the forests of masts heaving to the tide below
the beetling heights of Cape Diamond, Quebec.
[Illustration: One of the earliest maps of the Great Lakes.]
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