JONATHAN CARVER AND THE NAME OREGON 347
falls of St. Anthony before returning to ascend the Saint Peter River two hundred miles to winter with the Sioux Indians there. Saint Peter River has been called the Minnesota River since 1852, and at its mouth the United States military post, known as Fort Snelling, is now located, between Saint Paul and Minneapolis. The narrative goes on to state that, in the spring of 1767, after returning to Prairie du Chien for awhile he again ascended the Mississippi River to the Chippe- way, and followed one of the regular routes of Indian travel north to Lake Superior, then skirted the western, northern and eastern shores of that lake, around to the Sault Sainte Marie and Mackinac, where he arrived the first of November, 1767. 7 It states that he rested for some time at a Chippeway town; also, at the Grand Portage on the northwest shore of the Lake, where the traders going to Lake Winnipeg and the regions beyond foregathered, and Indians from those distant districts visited. Thus it appears that not more than eight months were spent in the regions of the Mississippi River and of Lake Superior where he could have obtained information from the Indians or traders as to the River Oregon, and the geog- raphy of the continent and habitats and customs of the various tribes of Indians, and learned to speak the language of the Sioux. One is tempted to inquire whether the title of his book was not disingenuously worded.
It is hardly necessary to enlarge upon the facts of the ex- ploration and trade and missionary effort, during the French regime in the Mississippi Valley and around the Great Lakes for more than one hundred years prior to the time of Captain Carver's journey through those regions. Suffice it to say that a French officer, Nicholas Perrot, in 1689 at the Post Saint Anthony in the presence of witnesses publicly proclaimed the sovereignty of the King of France over all lands and waters and peoples of that entire region. One of the witnesses to that ceremonial was Pierre Charles Le Sueur, who was already quite well acquainted with the country, and who later, in 1700-1702, ascended the Mississippi River from New
7 The dates given by Carver in his Travels cannot be relied up; manifestly wilful alterations appear.
