CHAPTER III

EARLY EXPLORATIONS-PREPARATION

SPANISH, ENGLISH AND FRENCH EXPLORATIONS IN AMERICA--CLAIMS OF THE THREE NATIONS TO TERRITORY-THE JESUIT MISSIONARIES -MARQUETTE AND JOLIET THE FIRST WHITE MEN IN LEE COUNTY -LA SALLE-THE PROVINCE OF LOUISIANA-CROZAT AND LAWTHE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE CONFLICT BETWEEN ENGLISH AND FRENCH TRADERS FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR-IOWA UNDER SPANISH DOMINATION-THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION-CLARK'S CONQUEST OF THE NORTHWEST—FREE NAVIGATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI-THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE-IOWA UNDER VARIOUS JURISDICTIONS ITS ORGANIZATION AS A TERRITORY--ADMITTED AS A STATE.

The old saying, "Rome was not built in a day," applies with equal appropriateness to every political division or subdivision of the civilized countries of the world. Long before Lee County was even dreamed of, the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus started a chain of events that led to the establishment of the Republic of the United States and the division of the central portion of North America into states and counties. It is therefore deemed advisable to give a brief account of these events, in order that the reader may form some idea of the evolution of the State of Iowa and Lee County.

In 1493, the year following the first voyage of Columbus to the New World, the pope granted to the King and Queen of Spain "all countries inhabited by infidels." At that time the extent of the continent just discovered by Columbus was not known, but, in a vague way, this papal grant included the present State of Iowa.

Henry VII of England, in 1496, granted to John Cabot and his sons a patent of discovery, possession and trade "to all lands they may discover and lay claim to in the name of the English crown." During the next three years the Cabots explored the Atlantic Coast and made discoveries upon which England, at the close of the Fifteenth Century, claimed all the central part of North America.

Farther northward the French, through the discoveries of Jacques Cartier, claimed the Valley of the St. Lawrence and the region about

the Great Lakes, from which they pushed their explorations westward toward the headwaters of the Mississippi and southward into the Valley of the Ohio.

Following the usage of nations, by which title to land was claimed by right of discovery, it is not surprising that in course of time a controversy arose among these three great European nations as to which was really the rightful possessor of the soil. The grant of the pope was strengthened in 1541-42 by the expedition of De Soto into the interior and the discovery of the Mississippi River, by which Spain claimed all the land bordering on the great river and the Gulf of Mexico. The charter granted by the English Government to the Plymouth Company in 1620 included "all the lands between the fortieth and forty-eighth parallels of north latitude from sea to sea." In 1628 the Massachusetts Bay Company received a charter from the English authorities that included a strip about one hundred miles wide through the central part of Iowa. The northern boundary line of this grant crossed the Mississippi not far from the present city of Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin. Thus Iowa, or at least a portion of it, was claimed by both England and Spain "by right of discovery." No efforts were made by either nation, however, to extend their explorations into the interior, the English being content with the colonies established in Virginia and New England, while the Spaniards were so intent on discovering rich gold or silver mines that they made no attempt to found permanent settlements.

As early as 1611 Jesuit missionaries from the French settlements in Canada were among the Indians along the shores of Lakes Michigan and Superior. In 1634 Jean Nicollet passed still farther to the westward and reached the country about the Fox River in Wisconsin. In the fall of 1665 Claude Allouez, one of the most zealous of the Jesuit fathers, held a council with representatives of several of the leading western Indian tribes at the Chippewa Village on the southern shore of Lake Superior. At this council were chiefs of the Chippewa, Sioux, Sacs, Foxes, Pottawatomi and Illini. Allouez promised the Indians the protection of the great French father and thus opened the way for a profitable trade with the natives. At the council some of the Sioux and Illini chiefs told the missionary of a great river farther to the westward, "called by them the Me-sa-sip-pi, which they said no white man had yet seen, and along which furbearing animals abounded."

In 1668 Allouez and another missionary, named Claude Dablon, founded the mission of St. Mary's, the oldest white settlement within the present State of Michigan. The accounts of the region carried

back by Nicollet and the missionaries led the French authorities in Canada to send Nicholas Perrot as the accredited agent of the Government to arrange for a grand council with the Indians. The council was held at St. Mary's in May, 1671, and before the close of that year Jacques Marquette, another Jesuit missionary, founded the mission among the Huron Indians at Point St. Ignace, which mission was for many years regarded as the key to the great unexplored West.

Marquette had heard the reports concerning the great river and was filled with a desire to discover it, but was deterred from doing so until after Perrot's council, which resulted in the establishment of friendly relations between the French and Indians. In the spring of 1673, having received authority from the Canadian officials, he began his preparations at Michilimackinac for the voyage. It is said the friendly Indians there tried to dissuade him from his undertaking by telling him that the Indians along the great river were cruel and vindictive, and that the river itself was the abode of terrible monsters that could swallow both canoes and men.

Such stories had no effect upon the intrepid priest, unless it was to make him more determined, and on May 13, 1673, accompanied by Louis Joliet, an explorer and trader, and five voyageurs, or boatmen, in two large canoes, the little expedition left Michilimackinac. Passing up Green Bay to the mouth of the Fox River, he ascended that stream, crossed the portage to the Wisconsin River, floated down. that river and on June 17, 1673, first saw the Mississippi, opposite the present town of McGregor, Iowa. Turning their canoes southward, they descended the Mississippi, carefully noting the landmarks as they passed along. On the 25th they landed on the west bank, "sixty leagues below the mouth of the Wisconsin River," where they noticed footprints in the soft earth. Sixty leagues from the mouth of the Wisconsin would throw this landing somewhere near the present town of Montrose, in Lee County. This is the earliest account of any white men having been within the present State of Iowa.

Leaving the five boatmen to guard the canoes and supplies, Marquette and Joliet followed the trail westward until they came to an Indian village, and noted two other villages in the vicinity. They were received with hospitality and a dinner of four courses was served. The first course consisted of a stew of coarse corn meal, cooked in oil, which the Indians called "tagamity"; the second course was of fish, which the visitors enjoyed; the third was of roast dog, but this the Frenchmen declined and it was taken out, and the fourth was roast buffalo, cooked in a way that rendered it quite palatable.

After dinner the calumet, or pipe of peace, was tendered to the visitors.

Marquette and Joliet remained for several days among the Indians, who were a part of the great Illini tribe or nation. They informed Marquette and Joliet that the name of their village was Moingona and that the river upon which it was built bore the same name. Some authorities state that the explorers went back from the Mississippi a distance of six miles to the Indian village, but it was probably farther, as nowhere does the Des Moines (Moingona) River run within six miles of Montrose. At the conclusion of their visit, they were accompanied back to their canoes by the chiefs and a large party of warriors, who watched them reembark for the continuance of their voyage down the river. One of the chiefs, on behalf of the band, presented Marquette with a finely decorated calumet as a token of the good wishes of the tribe. The explorers then descended the river to the mouth of the Arkansas. There they came to some Indians whose language they could not understand and returned to Canada.

In 1678 Louis XIV, then King of France, granted to Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, a patent to explore the western part of New France. After several unsuccessful attempts to reach and descend the great river to its mouth, La Salle finally carried out his purpose, and on April 9, 1682, at the mouth of the Mississippi, claimed all the territory drained by that river and its tributaries, to which region he gave the name of Louisiana, in honor of the French king. This claim was afterward acknowledged by other European nations and Iowa became recognized as part of the French possessions in the New World.

On April 8, 1689, Nicholas Perrot took formal possession of the upper Mississippi Valley in the name of France and built a fort and trading post on a river, to which he gave the name of St. Nicholas. Eleven years later Le Sueur went up the river seeking lead mines, which Indian traditions said existed somewhere along the river, but it was not until many years afterward that the mines were discovered by white men. Thus matters stood at the close of the Seventeenth Century.

During the next century the frontier of civilization was pushed gradually westward. The Hudson's Bay Company had been organized by the English in 1667 and its trappers and traders went into all parts of the interior in spite of the French claim to the territory. In 1712 the French Government granted to Antoine Crozat a charter fixing his control of the trade of Louisiana. Crozat, who was a wealthy

merchant of Paris, sent agents to America, but found the Spanish. ports on the Gulf of Mexico closed to his vessels, because Spain, while recognizing the claim of France to the Territory of Louisiana, was jealous of French ambitions. At the end of five years Crozat surrendered his charter and was succeeded by John Law, who organized the Mississippi Company as a branch of the Bank of France. Law sent some eight hundred colonists to Louisiana in 1718 and the next year Philipe Renault went up the Mississippi to the Illinois country with about two hundred more, the intention being to establish posts and open up a trade with the Indians. In 1720 Law's whole scheme collapsed. It has become known in history as the "Mississippi Bubble." On April 10, 1732, he surrendered his charter and Louisiana again became subject to the jurisdiction of the French Government.

In the meantime the English traders had been extending their operations into French territory and in 1712 incited the Fox Indians to hostilities against the French. The first open conflict between the English and French did not come, however, until in 1753, when the latter nation began building a line of forts from the Great Lakes to the Ohio River to prevent the English from extending their settlements west of the Allegheny Mountains. The territory upon which these forts were built was claimed by Virginia and Governor Dinwiddie of that colony sent George Washington, then just turned twenty-one, to demand of the French commandant an explanation for this invasion of English domain while the nations were at peace. The reply was insolent and the following year Washington, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, was again sent into the disputed territory. This time he was furnished with a detachment of troops and instructed "to complete the fort already commenced by the Ohio Company at the forks of the Ohio, and to capture, kill or drive out all who attempted to interfere with the English posts. This incident aroused the indignation of France and in May, 1756, that nation formally declared war against Great Britain. The conflict that followed, known as the "French and Indian War," kept the American colonies of both nations and Indian tribes in a state of turmoil for several years.

On November 3, 1762, the French and Indian war was concluded by the preliminary treaty of Fontainebleau, by which France ceded all that part of Louisiana lying east of the Mississippi River, except the city and island of New Orleans, to Great Britain. The treaty was ratified by the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763, and on the same day it was announced that, by an agreement previously made