Iowa History
Project
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MAKING OF IOWA
CHAPTER X
THE FIRST WHITE MEN IN IOWA
On June 17, 1673, two canoes bearing seven
Frenchmen swept out of the Wisconsin River onto the bosom of a mighty stream
unknown to voyagers. On the right of these men were the broad meadows,
fringed by hills where now stands the city of Prairie du Chien. Across
the water were lofty cliffs and rugged elevations, with dense woods covering
them and extending clear to the shore.
For the first time, so far as records show, the eye
of a white person rested on the soil of what is to-day Iowa. The pretty
town of McGregor was not then hereabouts; no smoke curled up toward the sky;
not a sign of human life was visible. Only the eagle circled above the
trees, the deer browsed in the valley, and the buffalo was dimly outlined on a
distant prairie.
The Frenchmen were Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit
priest, Louis Joliet, a fur trader, and five companions whose names have not
been handed down. But all were brave, else they would not have started on
a journey which even the friendly Indians who guided them refused to continue.
Marquette was a monk of the Order of St. Francis.
He was a noble missionary, who labored faithfully to teach the Indians
the religion of Christianity, and finally laid down his life for his work.
His station in the New World was at Point St. Ignace, in the present
State of Michigan, on the north shore of the Mackinaw Straits, about half way
between Lakes Huron and Michigan.
Rumors had come to his ears, as to the ears of many
others in New France, of the existence westward some miles of a great river
that perhaps flowed into the South Sea, or into the Pacific Ocean. When
Jacques Cartier has discovered the St. Lawrence, a chief had said to him:
"Still farther toward the setting sun is
another great river, which flows to the land from which the sweet winds of the
southwest bring us health and happiness, and where there is neither cold nor
snow."
Romance has it that in 1528 a Spaniard, by name Cabeza
de Vaca, with a company of adventurers, set out to conquer all the lands on the
northern shore of the Mexican Gulf. He was captured by the Indians, and
was worshiped as a god. It is claimed that going from tribe to tribe he
crossed the continent from ocean to ocean. he must have seen the river;
maybe he was in Iowa; but his reputed journey is not recorded in a manner that
indicates clearly his course.
The Mississippi Valley still awaited exploration.
The Mississippi River still was called the Hidden River and the Inland
Sea. Then, in 1541, Ferdinand de Soto, having resigned his governorship
of Cuba, and having landed an army in Florida and marched from the gulf to this
stream for which he was seeking, died on its banks.
De Vaca and de Soto were but adventurers.
Marquette was inspired solely by a wish to spread the gospel. His
companion, Joliet, was moved by a desire to profit in his trading.
On May 17, 1673, the two leaders and party of five
left St. Ignace, and paddling through the straits of Mackinaw entered Lake
Michigan. In Green Bay they passed into the Menomonic River, which they
ascended. They stopped with the Menomonies, or "Wild Rice
Indians." It was the Menomonies who assisted the Sioux in the
massacre of Pe-ah-mus-ka and his band of Foxes, at the mouth of the Wisconsin,
in 1828, and we have read of the revenge of the remaining Foxes took.
The Menomonies tried to dissuade the Frenchmen from
going to the Mississippi. They said the banks were inhabited by ferocious
people, who put to death every stranger; there was a demon in the river whose
roaring could be heard for miles, and who would swallow all who came near; the
hear of the climate was so great that no one from the north could survive it.
But Marquette told them he was not afraid, and
after he had taught the Indians a prayer he and his men set out again,
southward along the western shore of Lake Michigan. Then they entered the
Fox River. Wild rice surrounded them, birds filled the air and swam on
the water, and on the prairies bordering the stream grazed deer and elk.
The explorers crossed Winnebago Lake, and on the
seventh of June reached a great village of Mas-coutins, Miamies and Kickapoos.
The Mas-coutins, it will be remembered, at one time lived on Muscatine
Island, Iowa.
In three days the party again embarked, having been
furnished with two Indian guides to show the way to the Wisconsin River, which
was said to flow into the big river for which the Frenchmen sought. All
the village flocked to the bank to see the voyagers off and marveled at the
wonderful bravery of the white men. Now on up the Fox they went.
At last Wisconsin-on maps of early date called
Mesconsin and Quisconsin-was attained, the canoes being carried overland across
the strip of country separating it from the Fox. The guides would go no
farther, so unattended by any Indian the little party glided out into the
current. The members of the company did not know what was ahead.
Nobody save Indians had been down the Wisconsin. Marquette and
Joliet had only been informed that it emptied into what they hoped was the
Hidden River. Their followers trusted them.
At night all slept on the shore beneath the canoes
turned bottom up. Smoked meat and Indian corn supplied food. The
scenery that surrounded them, afloat and ashore, was exquisite.
Suddenly, after they had been traveling a week
since leaving the village, they saw before them, through the trees lining the
course of the stream, a broad expanse of water. Quickly, almost without
realizing what they had done, they were out of the Wisconsin and into a current
flowing nearly at right angles with it.
"With a joy," writes Marquette,
"which I cannot express" they turned southward, for they had found
the Mississippi. This was June 17, 1673.
They paddled down the Mississippi for a week.
We can imagine what sights they saw. The river then was much wider
than it is now. Within the memory of living persons the volume of water
has decreased, so what must it have been centuries ago? Possibly the
annual June freshet was raging, and the melting snows of the north had added to
the stage. The tales of the Indians had excited the fancies of the party,
and they were watchful for new sights.
High hills along the banks were interspersed with
meadows and prairies. Buffalo stood and stared at the canoes, and one
savage, yet stupid, old bull attracted especial attention from Marquette.
When a huge cat fish rose under Marquette's craft, nearly capsizing it,
he was considerably startled, and all were amazed when in the net they caught a
"spade fish"-a sturgeon, or maybe a spoonbill cat fish-an animal of
which they never had heard.
At night they landed, made a fire just long enough
to cook with, and quickly extinguished it lest it should draw attention from
enemies. They then paddled away from the spot, and anchored in the
stream, and slept, with one man on watch. Where they landed, we do not
know. Without doubt some places were on the west bank of the river, in
Iowa.
By June 25 they had almost reached the southern boundary
of Iowa, where the Des Moines River empties into the Mississippi. Thus
far they had not encountered a human being. The whole country seemed
deserted. Marquette was looking out for Indians with whom he could
converse, and to whom he could teach Christianity. On this day on the
west bank they found in the mud prints of feet, and saw a path leading inland
through the grass. Joliet and Marquette, leaving the other five to guard
the canoes, started along this path.
The spot of land in Lee County. River men say
that taking Marquette's description of the vicinity and the journey, the mouth
of Lemoiliese Creek, or Bloody Run, is the only place that answers in all
particulars. Old settlers assert that an Indian path, similar to the one
followed by Marquette and Joliet, was here when the earliest settlements were
made. Montrose also has been selected as a probable point of landing, and
Sandusky is a third location spoken of. Whatever the exact spot, history
marks it as the first bit of Iowa soil pressed by the foot of a white man.
The two Frenchmen walked inland for six miles,
through forest and over prairies, ever peering ahead to see Indians, or a
village. They did not know but that they might even find an entirely new
race of beings. Finally they came to a place where they beheld an Indian
village on the banks of a river. A mile and a half away were two other
towns, on a hill.
Marquette and Joliet were greatly excited, and
quite nervous, because they could not foretell the kind of reception they would
get. But they boldly advanced until they could hear the Indians talking
among the huts. The Frenchmen stood forth in plain sight and shouted.
Instantly the village was in an uproar. The inhabitants poured out
of their houses.
Four chiefs came forward to meet the visitors.
They held in their extended hands calumets, or peace pipes, gay with
feathers.
Marquette was rejoiced to see French cloth in the
clothing of the chiefs, and he was still more rejoiced when he ascertained he
could talk with them. He spoke the dialects of the Algonquins, and the
chiefs were of this family. They said they were Illini, an Algonquin
confederacy.
Marquette named the village Moingoeuna; one of the
other villages he christened Peouaria. From the first word comes
Moingona, and Iowa town; Peoria, Illinois, has its derivation from the other
word, which refers to the Peorias, a tribe in the Illini. The river on
which this village stood was the Des Moines.
Marquette and Joliet were royally treated.
After smoking the pipe of peace they went with their friendly hosts into
the village. The chief stood naked at the entrance to his wigwam, and
pretended to shield his eyes with his hands. While so doing he exclaimed:
"Frenchmen, how bright the sun shines when you
come to visit us! All our village awaits; and you shall enter our wigwams
in peace."
The two explorers were very glad to hear such
hospitable greeting. They were escorted by the chief into the wigwam, and
in the midst of a dense crowd of savages, who gazed at them in silence, they
smoked again, this time with the old men and other dignitaries. Then they
were taken to the great chief of all the Illini, in one of the villages on the
hill.
Here they smoked once more, the Indians gathering
around in throngs. All the people from all three villages seemed to be
collected in that spot, and were very curious. The chief was asked by
Marquette for information concerning the Mississippi, and replied with a speech
full of flowery compliment. He said the guests made his tobacco taste
better, made the river calmer, the sky more serene and the earth more
beautiful. He presented them with a slave and a peace pipe, but he did
not tell them what they wanted to know. On the contrary he begged them
not to descend farther.
A feast of four courses was set before the
Frenchmen. A master of ceremonies fed the visitors as though they were
babies, by dipping a large spoon into a porridge of Indian meal, boiled with
grease, contained in a wooden bowl. From a platter of fish he picked
pieces, removed the bones, blew on the morsels to cool them, and thrust them
into the mouths of the priest and the fur trader. Dog and buffalo meat
concluded the entertainment.
After spending the night with the Indians the two
Frenchmen departed, the chief and six hundred of his men attending them to
their canoes.
Marquette never again saw this region. He and
his companions proceeded past the Missouri and the Ohio and reached the
Arkansas. The peace pipe proved a valuable protection. At the
Arkansas they were forced to turn back. The weather was proving
weakening, and they had ascertained the river discharged, not into the Gulf of
California, but into the Gulf of Mexico. They entered the Illinois, and
having ascended this river, were guided by Indians to Lake Michigan.
Joliet went on to Quebec. Marquette remained behind at Green Bay,
to recover from an illness. He made a trip into the interior of Illinois,
and soon after died in the woods of Western Michigan. For a long time the
Indians worshiped his memory. Voyageurs crossing Lake Michigan, when
caught in a storm, called on his name, and it was claimed the waters became
still.
Marquette called the Mississippi the Conception.
De Soto referred to it as the Great River, or the river of the Holy
Ghost. La Salle christened it the Colbert River. Later it was
styled the River St. Louis. From the lips of the Indians of the Algonquin
language it has come to be known as the Mississippi (missisepe)-the Big River,
a word compounded of missi, big, and sepe, or sepo, river. For some years
after the partial settlement of the territory adjoining it the stream was
termed in books of the day "Missisipi."
Thus Iowa was discovered, but over a century
elapsed ere white men sought a home within her borders.