Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-07-04

dian villages in the valley OF the Rum river,
and there the captives were separated, each
band conducting Frerchman to it's village.
They seem to have been treated with rude
kindness. Hennepin now endeavored to &C.
quire the Indian language and TO- in
struct the savages in the ialth,
but they were Indifferent and he made no con-
verts. He baptised and christened by the
name of Antoinette sick Indian infant who
shortly afterward died. He seems to have in
spired his captors with certain feeling OF awe
and yet at the same time to have been regard
ed by them quite contemptuously.
He settled, however, an important geograph-
ical question. The hope of a direct westerly
ocean route to the East Indias which inspired
Columbus and resulted in the discovery of Amer
lea in the search for India, was at this time an
inspiring cause Of the persistent intrusion of
the French into this region. 1t was supposed
that the Mississippi river emptied into the
Gulf of California. The northwest passage
was laid down on maps as through the Straits
of Anian, which were represented to be not
far from the water system which has its source
in Minnesota.
While Hennepin was detained in this vicini-
ity of Mile Lac four Indians came to tine village
who stated that they had come from the west
fifteen hundred miles, and that their journey
had occupied four months. They were ques-
toned by Hennepin and told him truly that
they had seen no sea nor any great water.
They described the Icountry northwest of here
with general accuracy, saying that 1T con-
tanned no great lakes, that it had many riv-
ers. and that there were very few forests in that
region. From this narrative Hennepin con-
cluded that the straits of Anian as delineated
upon the maps of that time had no existence,
and he conjeetured that the route to the Pacific
was by the rivers of which these Indians told.
The time came in June for the departure of
the Indians to the hunting grounds west of the
Mississippi river. The assemblage of the bands
for this purpose brought Hennepin and his
companies together again. They descended
the Rum river and encamped where Dayton is
now. Starvation threatened them and
Hennepin was of course anxious to be released /.
By stating to them that he expected to meet
party Of Erenchmen at the mouth of the Wis =
oonsiu river with goods for the Indians he pre-
vailed upon the savages to allow him and his
companions to go to meet them. One of the
Frenchmen preferred to remain with the In
disns, and staid. A small birch canoe was
given Hennepin and Du Guy: they started
down the river and came to the falls of St.
Anthony.
1t was sacred spot with the tribes. Indians
were there invoking the spirit of the waters in
voices of lamentatioa and hanging offerings of
beaver skins upon the trees.
Hennepin named the cataract in the
Falls of st. Anthony in honor OF st. Anthony
of Padua. He proceeded on his journey
and at some distance below the falls encoun-
tered Daniel GreysGlon, Duluth and four other
Frenchmen who had made their way from
the head of Lake Superior to the Mississippi
river. The Frenchmen then returned to Mile
Lac with party of Indians, remained there
till the following autumn, and then resumed
their southwark journey by the way of Bum river
and the falls of st. Anthony. They proceeded
to Green Bay by ascending the Wisconsin
river. From thence Hennepin made his way
to Europe aud in 1858 published at Paris an
account of his adventures.
After the death of La Sale and about four
teen years after the publication of this book,
Hennepin published in Utrecht another edi-
ton of his travels, in which ne pretended for
the first time that before he started up the
Mississippi river, he had followed its
course from the Illinois to the sea and return
ed in time to art northward from the mouth
of the Illinois river by the eleventh of March,
1880. The dates in the two narratives show
that he must have done all this IN month and
of course conclusively establish the falsity
of this portion of his second narrative. The
first narrative, published in 1858 is, however.
undoubtedly true one. His topography,
capable of yerifcation to-day, and his use
of Sioux words, fully establish the fact.
The edition of 1894 was dedicated to the
King of England and the surprising claim
which Hennepin then advanced was doubtless
due to some political reason, for it is stated
sells to the Gulf of Mexico to euter the river,
and Callieres, the Governor of Canada. wrote a
letter to Pontchartrain, the French minister,
warning him that William WAS about to take
possession of Louisiana upon the relation
of Hennepin. Louis XIV was greatly incens-
ed at Hennepin, and hearing that he intended
to revisit Canada. directed Callieres in that
- h 30
Rochefort. He died, probably in Italy, after
the year 1701.
Hennepin's experience as discoverer was
small compared with that of other adventur-
GUS Frenchmen. The most illustrious of those
men whit. two hundred years ago followed the
Mississippi valley from the falls of st. Anthony
to the Gulf of Mexico was undoubtedly Robert
Cavelier La Sale. This heroic man starting
from Montreal ascended the st. Lawrence, sail
ed the great lakes, made the portage to the
Illinois river, and descending thence into the
Mississippi reached its mouth in The year 1852
after years of incredible hardships. In the
month of April of that year, standing where
jetties now spring from the unstable shore,
and through which the commerce of the
world passes rejoicing in stately ships, he
planted the cross, took possession of vast
country for and in the name of Louis XIV,
while the voices of the great hearted com panions
of his quest Joined in the Ve1illa Regis.
The region thus claimed was the entire val
ley of the Mississippi and of all its tributaries.
It stretched from the Alleghanies to the Rocky
Mountains. 1t was the most imperial domain
which ever accrued to king by the claim Of
discovery. Far seeing men of that age fore
told that it would in its time be what it is
now. It's military importance and commercial
and agricultural capacities were quite well un-
derstood. The energies of a church whose sons
have set their feet in tropic jungles, on polar
SHOWS, in Saharas of sand-on every place on
earth where there are souls to be saved-the
sagacity and power of the greatest king and
the wisest statesman of that age-the adventur-
GUS private spirit inspired by the hope of
gain-the romantic CLEANS of Ell Dorados
which even then shone in the west like golden
sunsetsSthe colonial policy then cardinal with
the great European powers-all these confeder-
ated to make this imperial domain province
of France.
Had it remained SO the French
possessions would haye extended
from the mouth of the st. Lawrence nearly
to the Bio Grande; the domain of England
wouId have been east of the Alleghanies
Spain would have had only the province of
Florida and the whole of all the remainder of
North America, east of the Rocky
mountains excepting Mexico, would have
belonged to France to colonize and civilize by
way Of the Mississippi rive; instead OF by that
painful and slow process overland from east to
west by which this country has been occupied.
Why France did not succeed in SO doing is
8 most recondite yet instructive question.
There was at that time every reason why she
should have done all this Louis XIV was then