History of Kansas (Holloway 1868)/Chapter 1
HISTORY OF KANSAS TERRITORY
CHAPTER I.
HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
As the territory of the State of Kansas is a part of the Louisiana purchase, I will first give a succinct account of the discovery, exploration and settlement of that province; of the many changes in ownership which it underwent, and the final division and organization of its broad domain into territories and states to form integral parts in the American Union.
Forty-four years after the western shores of the Atlantic had been discovered and before any settlements had been effected thereon, the first Europeans traversed the valley of the Mississippi. Ferdinand De Soto, a man of valor, fame, and fortune, headed this expedition. An intimate associate of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru, he shared in the immense ransom of the Inca. Returning to his native land, he enjoyed the admiration and honors of Spain. Charles V. appointed him governor of Cuba, and gave him a grant of Florida. His ambition inflamed by the adulations of the court, his avarice more craving by the taste of riches, he sought to surpass Cortes in glory and Pizarro in wealth by seeking a new field for fame and riches in America. With six hundred chosen men he disembarked in 1538 at Tampa Bay, in Florida, and began his memorable march through the savage wilds of the interior. After two years of wandering through swamps and brush, over ragged hills and swollen torrents, harrassed on every hand by enraged savages, but with hopes inspired, amid all embarrassments, by the ignis fatuus of early adventurers—the El Dorado of North America—he stood upon the banks of the Mississippi, the discoverer of the most majestic river in the world. Crossing this, where the southern boundary of Tennessee touches it, as though it had been a swamped rain, he pressed his vain search for the “gold region,” westward through cane-brakes, marshes and tangled forests, perplexed by the murmurings of his followers, until he reached the head waters of the Arkansas, where Fort Gibson was afterwards located, within one hundred miles of the southern boundary of Kansas. Looking out upon the broad expanse of prairie before him, he saw no prospect of the “land of hope.” Disappointed and disheartened, the little band of adventurers returned to the banks of the Mississippi. There, on the wet lands of the bottoms, surrounded by weeds and cane-brakes, with no one to administer to the sympathies and wants of the sick, De Soto died of fever. “Thus perished,” says Bancroft, “Ferdinand De Soto, the governor of Cuba, the successful associate of Pizarro. His miserable end was the more observed from the greatness of his former prosperity. His soldiers pronounced his eulogy by grieving for his loss; the priests chanted over his body the first requiems that were ever heard on the waters of the Mississippi. To conceal his death, his body was wrapped in a mantle, and, in the stillness of midnight, was sunk in the middle of the stream. The discoverer of the Mississippi slept beneath its waters. He had crossed a large part of the continent in search of gold, and found nothing so remarkable as a burial place.” His followers reduced in numbers to three hundred and eleven, after long wanderings, reached a place of safety in Mexico.[1]
More than a century elapsed before another European visits the Mississippi valley. The French had settled along the St. Lawrence, and around the Great Lakes. Missionaries with pious zeal were planting the Cross among the Indians and subduing the barbarians unto Christ by the gentleness of Love. The most earnest and successful among these was Father Marquette!
The Indians frequently spoke of a great river at the West, flowing south which they called Mississippy, as Marquette wrote it. It was a matter of debate among the French, what course this river pursued to the ocean. Some contended that it continued to flow directly south, and emptied into the Gulf of Mexico; others were of the opinion that it deflected either to the east and discharged itself into the Atlantic, or west, and poured its waters into the Gulf of California.
To settle this difficult question and carry the Gospel to the heathen, Father Marquette determined to make a tour of exploration. Encouraged by the governor of Canada, who gave him M. Joliet as a companion, and five other Frenchmen, he embarked on the 13th of May, 1673, in two bark canoes at Michilimackinac. Reaching Green Bay, the solicitous aborigines besought him with tears to abandon so hazardous an undertaking, portraying to him the frightful dangers of the Meschasebe (Mississippi.) “I thanked them for their good advice,” says Marquette, “but I told them I could not follow it, since the salvation of souls was at stake, for which I would be overjoyed to give my life.” Ascending Fox River and crossing the portage, they gave themselves to the current of the Wisconsin, and were soon carried into the waters of the Mississippi.
Borne upon this mighty stream, they continued to descend, occasionally halting at Indian villages, smoking the calumet of peace and narrating the story of the Cross, until they reached the mouth of the Arkansas. Here, satisfied that the Mississippi continues its course to the Gulf of Mexico, and their provisions well nigh exhausted, they resolved to return.
Father Marquette was the first to observe the muddy waters of the Peketanoni, as he called the Missouri. He represents it as being a very large river, flowing from the north-west, “on which are prodigous nations who use wooden canoes.”[2] From the Indians he gathered the idea that by following this river to its head waters, and crossing a narrow portage, another stream might be found, flowing down through a large lake to the “Red Sea,” or Gulf of California. In the map accompanying his journal he lays down the general course of the Missouri for one hundred miles pretty accurately.
The account of La Hontan's travels through the West, which he dates Feb. 28, 1689, would give him the honor of being the discoverer and explorer of the Missouri, were it entitled to credibility. But it contains so many palpable contradictions and errors that historians refuse to acknowledge its claims.
The next explorer of the Mississippi was the celebrated Robert De La Salle. Though of noble family, on being educated a Jesuit, he lost his patrimony. Obtaining an honorable discharge from this order, he came to Canada in 1667 a penniless, yet ambitious adventurer. While the single hearted Marquette was floating upon the western waters, he was engaged in the fur traffic, revolving plans for future achievements. To discover a short route to China across the western continent was his favorite scheme. When he learned Marquette's discoveries, he conceived the design for the future greatness of France and his own glory of colonizing the valley of the Mississippi and connecting Canada and the Gulf of Mexico by a chain of fortifications. What a mighty undertaking for a poor, unknown wanderer! But this idea that sprung from the warm and fertile brain of La Salle ultimately electrified all France. He lays his plans before the Governor of Canada who recommends him to the favor of the King. Repairing to the courts of France, he obtains the sanction and encouragement of his sovereign. He returns to Canada and applies himself, like an enthusiast and a philosopher, a skilful financier and an importunate mumper, to the prosecution of his plans. He raises money without security, builds a ship sixty tons burthen, and crosses the waters of Lake Michigan to Green Bay. Returning his barge, laden with furs, to Niagara for the benefit of his creditors, he with others coasts the lake in canoes to the mouth of St. Joseph River where he erects a fort. Ascending this stream he crosses the portage and glides down the Kankakee into the Illinois. He descends with the current of this smooth flowing river as far as Peoria and erects another fort. His means are now exhausted and he is compelled to return, while Henepin, his associate, sets out in a northwest direction and explores the Mississippi for some distance above the mouth of the Wisconsin.
On the 4th of January, 1682, La Salle enters upon his second expedition. Descending the river Chicago, across the portage, down the Illinois, by the 6th of February he glides upon the waters of the Mississippi; yielding to its swift current, occasionally halting to smoke the calumet with the natives, and erecting Fort Prudhomme, on Chicasaw Bluffs, in three months he explores it to its mouth. Here, with due solemnity and in a formal manner, he takes possession of the country, by the name of Louisiana, in behalf of the King of France. Erecting a column with a cross, he has inscribed upon it Louis the Great, King of France and Navarre, reigns the 9th of April, 1682. He now resolves to return to Canada, collect a number of emigrants, convey them down the Mississippi and plant a colony at its mouth. His journey back was long delayed by illness, and this plan was never executed. He determines to accomplish his object in a different way. Placing his faithful associate Tonty, in command of Fort St. Louis at Peoria, which by this time was completed, on the 13th of December, 1683, he repairs to France. In 1684, with four vessels and two hundred and eighty-four emigrants, he sets sail from the shores of his native land for the Gulf of Mexico. Early in the following year, he reaches his point of destination. After vainly searching for the mouths of the Mississippi, he anchors his vessels in the Bay of Matagorda and disembarks his little colony upon the sandy shore. But here he experiences sad disasters. One by one, he loses all his vessels by shipwreck and desertion. After making scanty provisions for his colony, he explores the country. He searches for the mouths of the Mississippi and for his lost ship, Belle, but with ill success. He now pursues in ecstacy golden visions for the mines of St. Barbe, but in a few months, he returns in rags and sadness to his dejected colony—diminished by fatal fevers and savage massacres. Cut off from France by the loss of his ships, misfortune constantly attending him, he resolves to seek assistance in Canada. Having made arrangements for his colony during his absence, he sets out for the northern lakes with a company of twenty men. He had not proceeded far when a mutiny sprang up among his followers, and he was the victim of assassination. His little colony which had cost him so much labor, solicitude and misfortune, was soon visited by the Spaniards and all of its members killed, save five, who were spared on account of their youth, and a few men who escaped to the woods and were never heard of more.
During the next five years, France is too much engaged in war to turn her attention to her distant possessions. After the peace of Ryswick, another colony was sent out under her auspices. Early in 1699, Lemoine De Iberville, a distinguished Canadian officer, established a little settlement near the Bay of Baloxi. While exploring one of the mouths of the Mississippi he obtained Tonty's letter to La Salle from the wandering savages. It will be recollected that this was the individual whom La Salle had left in charge of Fort St. Louis on his going to France the last time. Tonty supposing that La Salle had returned with his intended colony to the mouth of the Mississippi, had descended, to visit him. But not being able to find him, Tonty had left this letter in the hands of the natives who had carefully preserved it for thirteen years.
The little daughter of France, thus cast upon the burning sands of the Mexican Gulf, struggled through a miserable infancy. The men, many of whom were of a reckless character, instead of pursuing the slow, but sure way of acquiring a subsistence, wealth and independence, by opening farms and tilling the fertile soil and raising stock, spent their time in roving over the country in search of game and gold mines. Whenever game failed, or supplies from France, the colony was in a suffering condition.
In 1712, France being plunged again in war was unable to lend assistance to her “infant child” across the waters. For the benefit of the colony, she sells the monopoly of Louisiana to Crozat, a merchant prince, who hoped by discovering and working mines, and by opening a traffic with Mexico, to make a wonderful speculation. But in this he was doomed to disappointment. In 1717, having lost his fortune—though he had labored more for his own aggrandizement than the good of the colony—he surrenders his privileges.
But other speculators were not intimidated by the failure of Crozat. Louisiana passed the same year into the hands of the western company. This corporation had absolute sovereignty over Louisiana, except homage and fealty to the King of France. The association was headed by John Law, a notorious gambler and swindler, and was organized just on the eve of his financial glory with a charter for twenty-seven years.
- ↑ Some writers discredit the account of De Soto's journey, but I have followed the readings of Bancroft and Schoolcraft. The latter has been over the country west of the Mississippi, and finds it to corroborate the description of it in the alleged account of De Soto's journey.
- ↑ Among them were the “Kansas.”