La Salle Dreams Big

He had been resident some years in Canada when Joliet returned from his expedition to the Mississippi. The effect of so promising a discovery, upon such a mind as La Salle’s, was of the most awakening kind.

Continuing La Salle Explores Length of Mississippi River,
our selection from Histoire du Canada by François Xavier Garneau published in 1848. The selection is presented in seven easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in La Salle Explores Length of Mississippi River.

Time: 1673-1682
Place: Mouth of the Mississippi River

The encouragement the intendant procured for the enterprise fairly entitles him to share its glory with those who so ably carried it out; for we cannot attach too much honor to the memory of statesmen who turn to account their opportunities of patronizing useful adventure. M. Joliet received in property the island of Anticosti as a reward for his Western discoveries and for an exploratory voyage he made to Hudson’s Bay. He was also nominated hydrographer-royal, and got enfeoffed in a seigniory near Montreal. Expecting to reap great advantage from Anticosti as a fishing and fur-trading station, he built a fort thereon; but after living some time on the island with his family, he was obliged to abandon it. His patronymic was adopted as the name of a mountain situated near the Rivère des Plaines, a tributary of the Illinois; and Joliet is also the appellation, given in his honor, of a town near Chicago.

Père Marquette proceeded to Green Bay by Lake Michigan, in 1673; but he returned soon afterward and resumed his missionary labors among the Illinois Indians. Being then at war with the Miâmis, they came to him asking for gunpowder. “I have come among you,” said the apostolic priest, “not to aid you to destroy your enemies’ bodies, but to help you to save your own souls. Gunpowder I cannot give you, but my prayers you can have for your conversion to that religion which gives glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to all men.” Upon one occasion he preached before two thousand warriors of their nation, besides the women and children present. His bodily powers, however, were now well-nigh exhausted. He decided to return to Mackinac; but while coasting the lower shores of Lake Michigan, feeling that his supreme hour was nigh, he caused the people in his canoe to set him ashore. Having obtained for him the shelter of a hut formed of branches, he there died the death of the righteous. His companions interred his remains near the river which yet bears his name, and set up a crucifix to mark the spot. Thus ended, amid the solitudes of the Western wilderness, the valuable existence of one whose name, too little known to his own age, will be remembered when hundreds of those which, however loudly sounded in the present, shall have passed into utter oblivion.*

[* Guérin observes that, according to some authorities, La Salle, some time between the years 1669 and 1671, descended the Mississippi, as far as the Arkansas, by the river Ohio. There can be no doubt that the story is a mere figment.]

The news of the discovery of the Mississippi made a great sensation in Canada, and eclipsed for a time the interest attaching to other explorations of the age, which were becoming more and more rife every year. Every speculative mind was set to work, as was usual on such occasions, to calculate the material advantages which might result, first to the colonists, and next to their mother-country, from access being obtained to a second gigantic waterway through the territories of New France; serving, as it virtually might in times to come, as a complement, or completing moiety for the former, enabling the colonists to have the command of two seas. Still, as the Gulf of Mexico had not been reached by the adventurers upon the present occasion, some persons had their doubts about the real course of the lower flood. There was therefore still in store credit for those who should succeed in clearing up whatever uncertainty there might be about a matter so important.

“New France,” says Raynal, “had among its people a Norman named Robert Cavalier de la Salle, a man inspired with the double passion of amassing a large fortune and gaining an illustrious name. This person had acquired, under the training of the Jesuits, among whom his youth was passed, activity, enthusiasm, firmness of character, and high-heartedness — qualities which that celebrated confraternity knew so well to discern and cultivate in promising natures committed to their care. Their most audacious and enterprising pupil, La Salle, was especially impatient to seize every occasion that chance presented for distinguishing himself, and ready to create such opportunities if none occurred.” He had been resident some years in Canada when Joliet returned from his expedition to the Mississippi. The effect of so promising a discovery, upon such a mind as La Salle’s, was of the most awakening kind. Joliet’s report of what he experienced, and his shrewd conjectures as to what he did not see but which doubtless existed, well meditated upon by his fellow-genius, inspired the latter to form a vast design of exploration and traffic conjoined, in realizing which he determined to hazard both his fortunes and reputation.

Cavalier Sieur de la Salle was born in Rouen, and the son of respectable parents. While yet a young man he came to Canada full of a project he had conceived of seeking a road to Japan and China by a northern or western passage, but did not bring with him the pecuniary means needful even to make the attempt. He set about making friends for himself in the colony, and succeeded in finding favor with the Count de Frontenac, who discerned in him qualities somewhat akin to his own. With the aid of M. de Courcelles and Talon he opened a factory for the fur traffic at Lachine, near Montreal, a name which (China) he gave to the place in allusion to the oriental goal toward which his hopes tended as an explorer.

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