[ADissoN's Journal: its Value in History HENRY Colin Campbell IFroo. Proceeding's of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1895) MADISON State Historical Society of Wisconsin 1895 \ \ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/radissonsjournalOOcamp Radisson's Journal: its Value in History Henry Colin Campbell I) [ From Proceedings of the State Historical Societ\' of Wisconsin, 1895] MADISON State Historical Society of Wisconsin 1895 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. RADISSON'S JOURNAL: ITS VALUE IN HISTORY. BY HENRY COLIN CAMPBELL. [Address presented at the Forty-third Annual Meeting of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, December 12, 1895.] Among all the subjects connected with the early history of the Northwest, particularly that of Wisconsin, it would be dif- ficult to find one which is so deeply involved in doubt, confu- sion, and ei-ror as are the careers of Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Medard Chouart des Groseilliers. From a full belief in Radisson 's Journal,' and in what has been published concerning him, to a condition of skepticism on many important points, has been a long and unpleasant road, that I have traveled. For, a year ago, when I began investi- gating this subject, Radisson was to me one of the heroes of our early history who seemed to deserve naught but honor. That vision has been gradually dispelled. I still regard Radis- son and Groseilliers as two of the most daring explorers who penetrated the Western wilderness during the seventeenth century; but I am convinced that Radisson, in his journal, is guilty of gross exaggeration and downright falsehood in regard to the exploration of the territory in and around Wisconsin. He often allows his imagination to run riot. In one place, for instance, Radisson speaks of a little convention of three hundred bears. In another place he minutely describes a reptile that nobody has ever seen on land or sea, a reptile that is absolutely unknown to science.^ He calmly records the killing, during one trip, of six hundred elk by himself, Groseilliers, and one Indian. He tells us, moreover, of the shifting by the wind, within a day, of fifty small sand-mountains from one side of 'See Wis. Hist. Colls., xi., p. 64, for an account of the discovery and publication of Radisson's Journal. ^See Badisson^s Voyages (Prince Society, Boston, 1885), p. 69. r'lo^^ radisson's. journal: its value in history. 89 Lake Superior to the other, the scene of this remarkable occur- rence being not far from Sault Ste. Marie. And, to our still greater astonishment, he tells of sea-serpents in our great lakes. Under the circumstances, I trust I may not seem too severe a critic when I accuse Radisson of drawing the long bow. Radisson's intentionally untruthful statements are almost matched by the unintentionally-untruthful statements regard- ing him and Groseilliers that have been made by some modern writers. Not very much has been written about these two men ; but, in what has been written, the proportion of untruth to truth is surprisingly large. Error has been piled upon error, and hardly two accounts of any of the real or reported achieve- ments of Radisson and Groseilliers agree. What is the historical value of Radisson's narrative of ex- plorations in the West, by himself and Groseilliers, soon after the middle of the seventeenth century? The question is of the. utmost importance, because it involves the discovery of the Upper Mississippi River; indeed, it involves the first explora- tion of that great stream down to Southern climes, — for Radis- son, in unmistakable terms, describes the Mississippi River; he states distinctly that he navigated its waters, and he asserts that he went southward so far that it never snowed nor froze. All this took place, if it did take place, years before Joliet saw the West, years before Marquette reached America. Further- more, there is every reason to believe that Radisson's narrative of the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi River was written several years' before Joliet, accompanied by Marquette, embarked upon his famous voyage down that river, as far as the mouth of the Arkansas. Radisson was a mere youth when, on May 21, 1651, he ar- rived in New France. He was a native of St. Malo, in Brit- tany, the place in which Jacques Cartier, the discoverer of New France, was born. Radisson's father was Sebastien Hayet- Radisson, and his mother was Madeleine Herault.^ Both 1"! hope to embarke myselfe by ye helpe of God this fourth yeare" (meaning 1669), writes Radisson at the conclusion of his fourth voyage, speaking of Hudson's Bay. See his Voyages, p. 245. ^ " Chouart et Radisson," by N. E. Dionne, in Memoirs of Royal Society of Canada^ 1893 and 1894. The author is legislative librarian of the Province of Quebec. 90 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. parents emigrated to New France, for Radisson states in his- Journal that they lived at Three Rivers. Radisson had two sisters, Marguerite and Fran9oise, In 1646, Marguerite mar- ried Jean Veron de Grand-Menil, by whom she had three chil- dren. Veron was killed near Three Rivers by the Iroquois, August 19, 1652, and a year and five days later his widow married Groseilliers. Fran9oise Radisson married Claude Vo- lant de Saint-Claude, and became the mother of eight children. Radisson himself, while he mentions in his Journal his parents, his brother-in-law, and his brother-in-law's children, never mentions having wife or child in New France, yet most writers persist in giving him a family of his own, in that country. There is no evidence that Radisson was married more than once, and that was in after years to a daughter of John Kirke,^ one of the charter members of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany. To be sure, the registers of Three Rivers mention a woman named Elizabeth Radisson, whose father's name was Pierre-Esprit Radisson, his wife being Madeleine Henault;^ but as our explorer was a mere youth when he reached New France in 1651, and as Elizabeth Radisson married Claude Jutras, called Lavallee, in 1657,^ it is plain that she could not be the daughter of our explorer, as some writers have stated. It appears that at that time there was another Pierre-Esprit Radis- son at Three Rivers, and Dionne surmises that he was an uncle of the younger Pierre. Suite,"* writing several years before Dionne, makes it appear that the elder Pierre-Esprit was the 'The Kirkes have been termed renegade French. The fact is, that Gervase Kirke, whose family had resided in North Derbyshire for several generations, was apprenticed to a London merchant, and in the course of business became established for a while at Dieppe, where in 1596 he mar- ried Elizabeth Goudon. David Kirke, who in 1628 attacked Quebec, which surrendered the following year to his brothers Lewis and Thomas, was a son of Gervase Kirke. John Kirke, the father-in-law of Radisson, was a descendant of David Kirke, and is generally designated as Sir John Kirke; but he had not been knighted up to the time that the Hudson's Bay Company was chartered by Charles XL, for in that charter he is set down as "John Kirke, Esquire." ^Dionne, Chouart et Radisson. ^Benjamin Suite, Histoire des Canadie^is-Frangais, v, ^Ibid. jsm.^ RADissoN s journal: its value in history. 91 father of the explorer, and that the former's widow married Sebastieii Hayet, by whom she had three daughters, Marguerite, Francoise, and Elizabeth. But as Marguerite was married for the first, time in 1646,^ and as our explorer was not out of his teens in 1651, he was imdoubtediy younger than she; therefore Suite's position cannot be supported. That there were at Three Rivers two men named Pierre-Esprit Radisson, and that they were not father and son, are made still more certain by the fact that the jjarents of Elizabeth Radisson came from the parish of Saint Nicholas-du-Chardonnet,-' in Paris, whereas Sebastien Hayet-Radisson and his family came from St. Malo, in Brit- tany.'^ It is certainly reasonable to suppose that the young Pierre came from the same part of France that his father did. G-roseilliers was considerably older than his dashing compan- ion. As to the place of his birth, there is some dispute. The Genealogical Dictionary of Canadian Families states that he was a native of Charly-St.-Cyr, in Brie, a parish which cannot now be located, but which may have been where now stands the modern market-town of St. Cyr-sur-Morin,* a short distance from Meaux. Suite states that the parents of Groseilliers lived at Charly, parish of St. Cyr, in Brie; but Dionne asserts that Groseilliers was a native of Touraine, and in support of his po- sition he quotes Mother Mary of the Incarnation. " Some time since," the reverend mother wrote to her son in 1670, "a Frenchman of our Touraine, named des Groseilliers, was married in this country. * * * He was very young when he came here, and he cultivated my acquaintance because of our country, and also in consideration of one of our mothers of Tours, with whose father he had lived. " Suite says that before Groseilliers came to America, he served at Tours in the family of Savonniere de la Trouche, whose daughter, Sister St. Bernard, went to Can- ada with Mother Mary of the Incarnation. Groseilliers' service in Tours would, in far-away Canada, entitle him to be called "a Frenchman of our Touraine," and it does not follow from the ' Suite and Dionne. ^ Dionne. ''Ibid. *Ibid. <)2 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. reverend mother's letter, which Dionne quotes, that Groseilliers was a native of Touraine, "the garden of France." The Gene- alogical Dictionary and Suite are probably right in stating that he was a native of Brie. His father was Medard Chouart, and his mother Marie Poirier.^ There is no evidence to show that they accompanied their son to New France, where he arrived not later than 1641, perhaps as early as 1637. He, too, was a youth when he arrived in New France. He entered th'.^ service of the Jesuits in the capacity of donne,-or lay-helper, and he remained with them for a number of years. During this part of his career, he several times traversed the country between the French set- tlements and the villages of the Hurons, and in the course of his journeys acquired the Huron and Algonkin languages. Suite says that Groseilliers, as early as 1645, went as far west as Lake Superior. The next year, he withdrew from the service of the Jesuits, and engaged in the fur-trade with the Hurons. In November of the same year, he became engaged in mar- riage^ to Marie Martin, a daughter of Abraham Martin, a pioneer pilot of the St. Lawrence; but instead of marrjnng her, G-roseilliers, on September 3, 1647, became the husband of her sister Helene, the childless widow of Claude Btienne. It is an interesting fact, that Groseilliers' first wife was not only the daughter of the man whose name the historic Plains of Abra- ham bear to this day, but that she was a god-daughter of the great Champlain himself, who bestowed upon her the Christian name of his child-wife, Helene -Boulle."* By his first wife, Gro- seilliers had two children, one of whom died the day that it was born; while the other, bearing his father's name, has, like him, a place in history. While Radisson was generally known as Radisson, and by no other name, the man with whose fortunes his became linked was indifferently called Groseilliers and Chouart. There is, in the whole province of Quebec, no land, no seignory, bearing the name of Groseilliers,^ although Chouart is often called the Sieur 1 Dionne. 2 Ibid. = Suite. *■ Dionne. ^Dionne, in a personal letter to the writer. RADissoN s journal: its value in history. 95 des Groseilliers. But by purchase, and by his marriage with the widow of Jean Veron, Groseilliers became possessed of consid- erable land in the vicinity of Three Rivers.^ Radisson relates that early in the year (1652) following his arrival in New France, the Iroquois captured him while he was hunting near Three Rivers, and took him to one of their canton- ments in what is now the State of New York. After one futile attempt to escape, for which he was tortured and nearly killed, he succeeded in reaching Albany, known at that time as Fort Orano-t'. He relates that at the fort he met a Jesuit who had been captured by the Iroquois, and that the Jesuit assisted him. In the fall of 1653, Father Poncet, who had been captured by the Iroquois during the previous August, was at b'ort Orange, and he relates a conversation that lie had at that time and place with a young man who had been captured by the Mohawks at Three Rivers. There is no doubt that it was Radisson whom the priest met at Fort Orange; the latter's testimony is im- portant, for not only does it corroborate Radisson s story about his captivity and his escape, but, combined with Radisson' s statement that his capture by the Mohawks occurred the year after he reached Thi-ee Rivers, it proves conclusively that it was in 1651 that Radisson arrived in New France, notwithstanding a statement by Suite that he settled in New France before 1647. From Fort Orange, Radisson went by way of Manhattan (now New Yoi^k) to Holland, thence to France, reappearing in May, 1654, at Three Rivers, where he had been given up for dead. Upon reaching home he found that his sister Marguerite had, during the preceding August, married Groseilliers. The friend- ship between Radisson and Groseilliers, who ever afterward were almost inseparable, dates from that time; their fortunes and their ambitions became one; they could not have been more firmly bound to each other had they been brothers in blood. Radisson calls his captivity among the Mohawks, his " first voyage. " Next in order and in number, in his published Jour- nal, is a voyage which he says he made, as part of the coloniz- ing expedition, and body-guard as well, which accompanied the ' Dionne. 94 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Jesuits Ragueneau aiad Duperon to the Onondaga country, in the spring of 1657. This expedition returned to the French settlements, after an almost miraculous escape from being mas- sacred by the Iroquois, in April, 1658.' Radisson next describes, in detail, two Western voyao-es which he and Groseilliers made after his return from the Onondaga mission. The first voyage, Radisson says, took three years, and during it Radisson claims that they explored th? Mississippi River for a long distance. The second Western voyage was along the south shore of Lake Superior, to the Huron village near the headwaters of the Black River, and to the Sioux Indians in Northern Minnesota. Radisson says that this voyage included a trip to Hudson's Bay, and that it lasted two years. There is a conflict of opinion as to the route that Radisson and Groseilliers followed in coming West, two French-Canadian writers - asserting that they ascended the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, passed Niagai^a Falls, and navigated Lake Erie on their second voyage. Radisson, however, clearly intends to state that on both voyages he and G-roseilliers went up the Ottawa River, crossed Lake Nipissing, and descended French River to ' It is recorded, particularly by Mother Mary of the Incarnation, that a young Frenchman, who had been adopted by a famous Iroquois chief, told his Indian father that he had dreamt that he (the young Frenchman) would die unless a great feast was prepared and everything provided there- for eaten. The chief loved his adopted son, and, to save his life, as he thought, — for Indians are superstitious about dreams, — he consented to the feast. The Indians, encouraged by his son and by other French who were in the colony, so gorged themselves that they fell asleep, allowing the French to steal away in boats, which had been secretly built. Dionne is positive that Radisson was the young hero of this interesting story. But Radisson does not mention figuring as the youthful strategist, and there is no evidence that he was that young Frenchman. It may have been Radisson, or it may have been some one else . French captives among the Iroquois were not rare. ^ Dionne, in Chouart et Radisson^ and L. A. Prud'homme, of St. Bon- iface, Manitoba, in Notes Historiques sur la vie de P. E. JiadissoUy published in 1892. RADISSON S journal: ITS VALUE IN HISTORY. 95 Lake Huron, the same route that Jean Nicolet followed when he visited Wisconsin in 1634.- Describing the first voyage West, the "third voyage" of his Journal, Radisson says that he and Groseilliers, with some of the Indians that had formed their party as far as the mouth of French River, went toward the South; and that while on this course they passed the place where the Jesuit fathers had lived, meaning the destroyed missions among the Hurons, near the mouth of River Wye, Georgian Bay; and he virtually says that his party made almost a complete circuit of Lake Huron, "after * * * many days" arriving at a "large island, where we found their [Huron - companions] village, their wives & children. You must know that we passed a strait some 3 leagues beyond that place. The wildmen give it a name; it is another lake, but not so bigg as that we passed before. We calie it the lake of the staring hairs, because those that live about it have their hair like a brush turned up. " Several writers, the late Edward D. NeilP^ among the number, contend 'Radisson speaks of ascending the "river of the meadows," of crossing the "lake of the castors," and of going down the "river of the sorcerers," to the ' ' first great lake. ' ' Between the time that it was known as the Grand River of the Algonkins, the name which Champlain gave it, and the time that it became known by its present name, the Ottawa River was called the River of the Prairies, as we learn in the Jesuit Belations. In French, prairie is equivalent to meadow in English, and in writing English, Radis- son used the term "meadow." The " lake of the castors " is Lake Nipiss- ing, which got the name that Radisson gave it, either from the fact that the Amikoue (beaver or castor) Indians dwelt not far from it, or from the abundance of beavers in the lake at one time. Radisson's "river of the sorcerers," upon which he and Groseilliers descended to the "first great lake," is French River, along which dwelt the Nipissing Indians, who, as the Relations inform us, were called sorcerers because they practiced magic moi-e than other Indians. The "first great lake " is of course Lake Huron. See also, Butterfield, Discover!/ of the JVorthwest in 1634, V- 4:7. ^Perrot and the Jesuit delations lead one to believe that the Hurons, after fleeing from their own. country in 1651, spent several years in the vicinity of Mackinac. In 1653 they, or some of them, were at the Huron Islands, also called Pottawattomie Islands, at the mouth of Green Bay. The Hurons had certainly left Manitoulin before Radisson's first Western voyage. 8 Wis. Hist. Colls., X., p. 293. 96 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. that Radisson's large island was Grand Manitoulin, Lake Huron. To me, this theory does not seem reasonable. Manitoulin Island was out of the way of our two voyagers, according to Radisson's description of the voyage. As they were coasting the east shore of the present State of Michigan, just before they reached the " large island, " for them to go to Manitoulin would require a voyage of about forty miles across open water. The " lake of the staring hairs, " that Radisson mentions in his description of the island, is certainly Lake Michigan, where dwelt the Ottawas, who so dressed their hair that it stood erect. The strait which Radisson mentions, to which " the wildmen give a name, " seems to be Michillimackinac, and he apparently intends to limit the term to the narrow points of mainland between Southern and Northern Michigan. Radisson's "large island" is undoubtedly Bois Blanc, which has a shore line of thirty-five miles, and is a few miles east of the two narrow points of the Michigan penin- sulas. Bois Blanc would be on the way to the places which Radisson says that he and C4roseilliers afterward visited; while Manitoulin island was not only out of their way, but to reach it would necessitate a dangerous voyage across open water, and the trip would have taken Radisson and Groseilliers back almost to the place where they had entered Lake Huron before com- mencing to skirt that body of water. From this large island, where both Hurons and Ottawas seem to have been at the time, Radisson says that he and Groseilliers, not caring to stay upon an island, went to the Pottawattomies, with whoni they spent the winter, probably near Green Bay — the bay, not the city of that name. Radisson says that the fol- lowing spring they visited the Escotecke (Fire Nation, also called Maskoutens), who at that time dwelt upon Fox River. ^ That summer they, according to Radisson, explored Lake Mich- igan, " the delightfullest lake in the world," and thence went upon their Southern journey. Radisson, continuing his narra- tive, speaks of visiting a country where the climate is so mild ' Nicolet found them on the Fox River in 163i, and Father Allouez, the *ounder of the first Christian missions in Wisconsin, found them in the same neighborhood in 1670. Their viUage was apparently near Berlin, in Green Lake County; see Thwaites's Story of Wisconsin, p. 34. RADISSON S journal: ITS VALUE IN HISTORY. 97' that the earth brings forth its fruit twice a year, so that "Italy- comes short of it;" and of meeting people that dwelt about the salt water (Gulf of Mexico) who told them of men who came ashore in "great white things" (ships).' He also relates the finding of a barrel, broken as they break barrels in Spain. Rad- isson continues: " We had not as yett scene the nation Nadon- eeeronons. We had hurrons w^^ us. Wee persuaded them to come along to see their owne nation that fled there [the flight of the Hurons to the Sioux on the Upper Mississippi River], but they would not by any means. " Radisson speaks of seeing on this journey the shovel-nosed fish ; also a large bird, with a bill twenty- two thumbs long, which swallows a whole salmon, — probably an exaggerated description of the white pelican, which has a large pouch under its bill; " shee-goats very bigg, " probably antelopes ; "an animal somewhat less than a cow whose meat is exceedingly good, " perhaps wapiti ; and stags, buffaloes, and turkeys. He describes "lemons not so bigg as ours, but sowrer;" grapes " very bigg, greene" — the vines grew by the river-side. " It never snows nor freezes there, but mighty hot. " Radisson and Groseilliers returned to the foot of Lake Mich- igan, visited the Indians of Sault Ste. Marie, and spent the fol- lowing winter on the shore of Lake Superior, not far from the Sault, in the midst of the nation of the Sault, who were Ojib- ways, and in the neighborhood of Christinoes, or Crees. The question of the location of this winter camp is important, on account of a journey that Radisson says that he and Groseilliers made late that winter. Radisson says that, fearing the Iroquois, they retired to the upper lake, nearer the Nadoneceronons. This means that they went along the south shore; for had they gone over to the north shore, they would have gone farther from the Nadoneceronons, or Sioux, instead of nearer to them, ' I am not sure that .Radisson does not go so far as to claim that he and Groseilliers went clear to the Gulf of Mexico. After leaving " the delight- fullest lake in the world," which is apparently Lake Michigan, he says that they went on until they found a climate superior to that of Italy, and he adds: " Being about the great sea, we conversed with people that dwelleth about the salt water." The salt water is clearly the Gulf of Mexico, and it seems that the " great sea " is not Lake Michigan. This is one of many problems, that we find in the third voyage. ■q8 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. as the Sioux were not far from Chequamegon Bay. The fact that they met Christinoes has given rise to a theory that they went West almost to the Montreal River, on the south shore of the lake, during this voyage; but Radisson expressly says that the Christinoes came to them, in order to trade with the nation of the Sault, and to be where they could kill large game during the winter. That Radisson, from his own account, did not go very far west on the south shoi'e of Lake Superior, is made ap- parent by the fact that in his second voyage West he minutely describes the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior and the adjacent ■countiy, and intimates that he had never seen them before. That Christino camp was, therefore, located somewhere on the south shore of Lake Superior, between the Sault and the Pic- tured Rocks, possibly at Whitefish Bay. In connection with this journey to Lake Superior, Radisson makes a statement that is both surprising and confusing. Among the nation of the Sault, he says, " we found some frenchmen y' came up with us, who thanked us kindly for to come & visit them. " Early in his account of this voyage, Radis- son states that the Frenchmen who had started with him and Groseilliers from the French settlements, turned back, affrighted by the Iroquois, leaving him and Groseilliers to contiiiue the voyage with no companions save Indians. Upon Radisson' s own showing, it is difficult to account for the presence of other Frenchmen at the Sault. It is possible, of course, that some of their original companions had afterward developed sufficient •courage to make a flying trip to the vicinity of the Sault, which Nicolet had reached in l6o-t, and the Jesuits Raymbault and Jogues in 1641. We have already seen that Groseilliers him- self is credited by Suite with a trip to Lake Superior in 16 i5. Late that winter, according to Radisson, he and Groseilliers, with a hundred and fifty Indian companions,* walked nearly fifty leagues on snow-shoes, meaning one continuous journey for that distance. They arrived at a river-side, where they stopped for three weeks to make boats, and they then went up that- river for eight days, until they came to " a nation called Pontonatenick & Matonenock; that is, the scrattchers;" here they obtained "some Indian meale or corne from those 2 nations, W^^ lasted us till RADissoN s journal: its value in history. 99 we came to the first landing isle. There we weare well re- ceived again. " They tried to prevail upon the Indians of the "first landing isle" to take them down to the French settle- ments ; but, the Indians being afraid of the Iroquois, Radisson says that he and Groseilliers were detained for another year. An incidental remark shows that these Indians were Hurons : " We weare in a great apprehension least that the Hurons should, as they have done often, when the ffathers [Jesuits] weare in their country, kill a ffrenchman. " The Hurons, after leaving the Mackinac and Green Bay regions, went to the Mississippi River country, and some years before 1660 were at Bald Island, Lake Pepin.' Is it possible that Radisson means that he found them there? Did that journey of fifty leagues on snow-shoes, begin- ning at a point west of Sault Ste. Marie, bring them to the mouth of Fox River? Was it up that river that they traveled for eight days? The Pontonatenick were Pottawattomies. Who were the Matonenock'^ Indians, whom they found with the Pot- tawattomies? At this village they had to lay in a stock of corn meal, and this indicates that the journey from that point to the "first landing isle" was of considerable length. And the Hurons, moreover, were the Indians whom they found at the "first landing isle. " Fi'om Radisson 's description of the manner ' The movements of the Hurons are involved in considerable doubt. Ac- cording to the Jesuit Relatione, they were still in the Green Bay country in 1657, but we read that they hved for some years on Bald Island, Lake Pepin. We also know that Radisson and Groseilliers found them in North- western Wisconsin not later than 1659, and at that time the Hurons had been in that vicinity several months at least, because the Hurons who went west with our two explorers knew the way to their village from Lake Su- perior, although the Hurons had gone to that place from the Mississippi River and had not yet reached Lake Superior. Radisson, speaking of their being at the "first landing isle," says that they were "newly there." ''Radisson calls the Maskoutens the Escotecke; he probably does not mean the Maskoutens, when he speaks of the Matonenocks. On a map attached to the Jesuit Relation of 1671, appears the name of the Mantou- oviee, who lived near the Poxes at that time. In the Relation of 1673, they are designated as the Makoueoue, and they were still near the Foxes, in the Fox River region. At the time of Nicolet's visit, in 1634, the Potta- wattomies were near the mouth of Green Bay, and the Mantououee were near Escanaba. lOO WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. in which the "first landing isle" was reached, it is simply im- possible that it was Bois Blanc, Manitouliu, or any other island in that vicinity. Besides, it is known that the Hurons were not near the straits of Mackinac, nor farther east, at the time that Radisson speaks of. Radisson has before this intimated that the Hurons had already gone up the Mississippi River. That journey which began with a tramp of about fifty leagues on snow-shoes was remai'kable; if it actually took place, the occasion for it must have been extraordinary. Radisson makes it plain that the objective point was the place where the Hurons dwelt, and he has already said that he and Groseilliers had pr-e- viously endeavored to prevail upon their Huron companions on that Southern trip to visit the other Hurons in the country of the Sioux. I feel sure, from Radisson's account, that they were only a short distance from Sault Ste. Marie when this journey began. They wanted the Hurons to escort them home, which they wished to reach before another winter set in. Had the Hurons been at Mackinac, or anywhere in that region, Radisson and Groseilliers would not have had to start for their village late in the winter, nor would they have had to walk fifty leagues on snow-shoes, spend eight days in ascending a river, and go still farther, before reaching the dwellings of the Hurons. The distance from^ Whitefish Bay to the mouth of the Fox River is not much more than fifty leagues. Our explorers were dis- appointed when they reached the "first landing isle," for the Indians refused to take them down to the French, and they had to remain West another year, making three years altogether. That summer, Radisson went hunting, and Groseilliers was attacked with the falling sickness, or epilepsy. They reached home, Radisson says, the following year; "at last," he says, "we are out of those lakes. " The Indians with them, he states, num- bered five hundred. He adds that at the Long Sault, near the Ottawa River, they were attacked by Iroquois, whom they finally drove away; that, after reaching Three Rivers, he led an onslaught against the Iroquois, whom he defeated, his force con- sisting of five hundred Indians and some Frenchmen; and that the Western Indians encountered no enemy upon their return journey. radisson's journal: its value in history. IDI Before summing up my conclusions regarding tlie " third voyage," — tlie first voyage West, — I find it necessary to take up the "fourth voyage." The reason therefor will be made appar- ent. The route on this journey was up the Ottawa River, across Lake Nipissing, and along the shores of Georgian Bay to Sault Ste. Marie, where they rested and feasted. Resuming their voyage, they came to an isle "delightful for the diversity of its fruits," which they called the "isle of the four beggars;" and the same night they went over to the mainland, a distance of about six leagues, and found themselves near the mouth of a small river, probably the Little Iron River, near which Radis- son says he saw many pieces of copper. He describes the Grand Portal, at the Pictured Rocks, and adds: "I gave it the name of the portall of St. Peter, because my name is so-called, and that I was the first Christia'i that ever saw it." Rxdisson next describes the Huron Isles, and Keweenaw Bay. They portaged across Keweenaw Point, and five days later they met a company of Christinoes. At the mouth of the Montreal River, some of the Indians — Radisson intimates that they were of the nation of the Sault — left them to take the shortest route to their country, which was inland.' At Chequamegoii Bay, which Radisson de- scribes with clearness, the Hurons who were of the party de- parted for the places where their wives were, " five great days' journeys" inland.^ It was cold, and Radisson says that he and ' Father Chrysostom Verwyst, O. S. F., author of Missionary Labors of Fathers Marquette .1 Menard, and Allouez, and an excellent authority on the early history of Wisconsin, on the topography of the country south of Lake Superior, and on the Chippewa language and Indians, thinks that • the Indians who landed at the mouth of the Montreal River were Chip- pewas bound for Lac du Flambeau. " Even to our day," says Father Verwyst, " an old Indian trail led from Ironton Bay to Penokee Ridge and Lac du Flambeau." ^ Radisson, in describing his voyage to the same place, a few days later, states that after traveling four days, and just a day before they reached the Huron village, they reached a lake "some eight leagues in circuit," which Father Verwyst thinks was Court Oreilles, called Ottawa Lake by the Chippewas, even to this day, there being a tradition among them that long ago Ottawa? perished of starvation at this lake. Radisson de- scribes such a famine in that neighborhood, and Ottawas were among the victims. 102 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Groseilliei-s were nearly starved. ^ Near Whittlesey's Creek, or Shore's Landing,- they built a small rude fort, the first structure built by white men in Wisconsin or on Lake Superior. Twelve days later, fifty Hurons came and escorted the Frenchmen to their village. Soon the Hurons separated for the winter's hunt- ing. They met again at a small lake, and during the winter hundreds of them died of famine. Late in the winter, they wandered westward into the country of the Sioux, between the St. Croix River and the Upper Mississippi River ; and in tliat country, between a small lake and a meadow, the latter four leagues long, a fort covering a space six hundred by six hundred and three feet was built — of course the first structure erected with the aid of white men in Minnesota. Radisson went three days' journey to the country of the Christinoes, and wlaile re- turning to the fort he records that lie passed a lake that was still frozen hard. At seven days' journey from the fort, Radis- son and Groseilliers visited a village of the Sioux, or " nation of the beef," who claimed to number seven thousand men. After six weeks, the explorers returned to Lake Superior, accompanied by some of the Sioux, and found ice in Chequamegon Bay. They again built a fort, and afterwards, Radisson says, he and Gro- seilliers, accompanied by Christinoes, went to the waters of Hudson's Bay. Radisson says that tliey returned from the " bay of the north," as he calls it, "by another river." While re- turning, they received gifts from messengers sent by the Sioux, and in the middle of winter returned to the big fort which had been erected by them in Northern Minnesota. They returned home in the summer. ^ There is a tradition among the Chippewas, recorded by W. W. Warren in Minn. Hist. Coifs., v., that one morning early in winter two Frenchmen, the first white men to visit Chequamegon Bay, were found in a starving condition on Madelaine Island . It has been surmised that these two men were Radisson and Groseilliers, and the surmise may be correct . But the tradition has it that these Frenchmen spent the winter in the Chippewa village on the mainland, while Radisson and GroseiUiers spent the winter inland, with the Hurons and the Ottawas, and Radisson does not even men- tion being on Madelaine Island . ■•'Verwyst, "Historic Sites on Chequamegon Bay," Wis. Hist. Colls., xiii., p. 433. RADissoN s journal: its value in history, 103 In what year did this voyage end? There is a conflict of opinion on this point, but really there is no room for doubt. The voyage of Radisson and Groseilliers to Lake Superior, to the Huron village in Northwestern Wisconsin, and to the Sioux in Northern Minnesota, terminated in August, 1660, although many writers claim that it was the voyage to the vicinity of G-reen Bay that terminated at that time. The Jesuit Relation for 1660 states, in brief, that there ar- rived at Quebec, in August of that year, two Frenchmen, with three hundred Algonkins, in sixty canoes laden with furs ; that the two Frenchmen had spent the previous wiater on the shores of Lake Superior; that they had baptized two hundred children of the Algonkin tribe with whom they first lived, the children having suffered from disease and starvation, and forty of them dying; that the Frenchmen, at six days' journey from Lake Su- perior, toward the southwest, found the remnants of the Petun tribe of Hurons, and that the daring explorers visited the country of the Sioux — Nadwechiwea, the Relation states, mean- ing Nadouessioux, — -among whom they saw women with their noses cut off, and round pieces of their scalps torn off, in punishment of adultery. The Relation records that in five of these villages the two Frenchmen counted five thousand men It is also stated in the Relation that the exp.orers went to the habitations of another nation, called "Bwalaks, or warriors," who, living in a country where timber was scai'ce, made fire with miner-al coal, and covered their huts with skins, or made dwellings of clay. Radisson, it will be remembered, speaks of visiting the Huron village at five great days" journey from Lake Superior- ^ays that he and Groseilliers spent the winter with the Hurons ana ,.ith a hundred and fifty Ottawa braves, who, with their families, joined them during the winter, and that before spring five hundred died of hunger. He mentions finding in the Sioux country great cabins covered with skins and mats, and he records that the Sioux cut off noses, and re- moved the scalps at the crown, in punishment of adultery. These Indians,' relates Radisson, who calls them "Nadonecero- ' Father Verwyst is of the opinion that these Sioux corresponded to the Bwalak of the Relations, and were Assiniboines. 04 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. nons" and also "nation of the beef," — meaning buffalo, — had no wood, and used moss for fuel. Radisson's statements, and the account in the Relation, of the two nameless Frenchmen who returned to Quebec from Lake Superior in August, 1660, agree in almost every partic- ular that is essential to the theory that Radisson and Groseil- liers and the two nameless Frenchmen were identical. Radis- son, however, says that they spent the first -winter with the Hurons, a considerable distance inland from Lake Superior, whereas the Relation states that they spent, the winter on the shore of the lake. Radisson states that on this voyage he and Groseilliers spent two winters near Lake Superior, the second one at the large fort built in Northern Minnesota ; but the Rela- tion does not mention more than one winter that they spent away from home on this voyage. The Relation, moreover, does not make the slightest allusion to the voyage to the Hudson's Bay region, which Radisson asserts that he and Groseilliers made while they were in the Lake Superior country. The Relation mentions the return of these two Frenchmen from their Lake Superior voyage, in August, 1660, but does not give their names. The following entry is found in the Journal des Jesuites,^ for 1660: "On the 17th [August] Monseigneur of Petrea [Laval, the first bishop of Quebec] left upon his visit and arrived at Montreal on the 21st, where the Ottawas had already arrived on the 19th. They numbered three hundred. Des Gro- seilliers was in their company, who had gone to them the year before. They had departed from Lake Superior with one hun- dred canoes; forty turned back, and sixty arrived, loaded with peltry to the value of 200,000 livres. At Montreal they left to the value of 50,000 livres and brought the rest to Three Rivers. They come in twenty-six days, but are two months in going back. Des Groseilliers wintered with the Boeuf tribe, who were about 4,000, and belonged to the sedentary Nadoueseronons. Father Menard,- Fa^iher Albanel and six other Frenchmen went ^Journal des. Jesuites, par MM. les Abbes Laverdiere et Casgrain (Quebec, 1871). '^When the Journal des Jesuites says that Father Menard " went back with them," it means that he went back with the Indians only. But in RADissoN s journal: its value in history. 105 back with them. Albanel was soon abandoned by the Indians, and he retui^ned to the settlements. Radisson himself furnishes conclusive evidence that the voyage which he and Groseilliers made to the Lake Superior country during which they visited the Huroas in Northwestern Wiscoa sin and the Sioux in Northern Minnesota, terminated in 1660. He records that, in returning from this voyage, his party passed the Long Sault, on the Ottawa River, shortly after the defeat of Dollard and his little band of heroes, one of the most thrilling and memorable events in early Canadian history. The massacre of Dollard's command occurred on May 21, 1660. Furthermore, speaking of passing along the south shore of Lake Superior, at the beginning of this voyage, Radisson clearly describes the Pictured Rocks near Munising; and he states that he called Neill's chapter on " Discovery Along the Great Lakes " in Winsor's J^ar- rative and Critical History of America, iv., p. 170; in Winsor's From Cartier to F-ontenac, and in other books too numerous to mention, we find the statement that Father Menard went back with Radisson and Groseilliers. An erroneous statement was never more widely circulated, upon such excellent authority . So far as I have been able to learn, Neill was originally responsible for it. Most of the writers who assert that Father Menard went west with our two explorers, imagine that it was the first Western voyage, from which Radisson and Groseilliers returned in Augvist, 1660; but even admitting, for a moment, such an unwarrant- able view of the matter, this theory that the Jesuit and the two explorers went West together is exploded by Radisson's own statement that he and Groseilliers rested for a year after their first Western voyage: while Menard made haste to join the flotilla that had brought them home. Some writers, with Radisson's year of rest in mind, start Father Menard and Radisson and Groseilliers West together as late as the autumn of 1661, regardless of the fact that Menard wrote his famous farewell letter, before starting on this voyage, on August 27, 1660, at 2' o'clock in the morning, that it is known that he started West at that tim-?, and that he died in the wilds of Northwestern Wisconsin during August, 1661. Thus he had actu- ally died before, according to these latter writers, he started West. Win- sor, to whom I took the liberty of writing when I saw the statement in his histories about Menard's coming West with our adventurers in 1660, re- plied in part as follows: " I think you * * * may be right. I find in my interlined copy of my history (iv., p. 170) that there is a ? against the passage." Verwyst, the historian of Menard, in a personal letter to the writer, utterly discredits the theory that the priest and Radisson and Gro- seilliers came West together. I06 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. what is now known as the Grand Poi'tal, the " portal of St. Peter, " because Peter was his name, aiid because he was the first Christian who ever saw it. Father Menard, the first mis- sionary to reach Lake Superior, passed the Pictured Rocks in the autumn of 1660;' thus he, not Radisson, would have been the first Christian to see the Grand Portal, if those writers are correct who assert that the second voyage, the one to Lake Superior, did not end until after 1660. The dates that these writers give, run all the way from late in 1662 to 1664. To show how erroneous all these theories are, it is only necessary to mention the fact that the Journal cles Jesuites xiotes the pres- ence of Groseilliers at Quebec in May, 1662.^ Did Radisson and Groseilliers really reach Hudson's Bay by an inland voyage? Radisson says explicitly that they did so^ and it is one of the most important achievements claimed foi" the two explorers. But the claim is a doubtful one. Radisson says that this voyage, to Like Supsrior and beyond, lasted two years. It must have taken fully that time, if the two explorers, in addition to spanding a winter anywhere near Lake Su- perior, and to visitiiig the Sioux in Northern Minnesota, made a journey to the waters of Hudson's Bay. From reading the Jesuit Relations, one gets the impression that the two advent- urers spent but one winter in the West; and that impression is strengthened by the Journal des Jesuites, which, in mentioning the arrival of the Indian flotilla from Lake Superior in August, 1660, states that "Des Groseilliers was in their company, which he had joined the year before." It has been ascertained that on April 15, 1659, Pierre-Esprit Radisson was at Three Rivers, as godfather of Marguerite, daughter of Groseilliers, Father Menard performing the ceremony.^ We have seen that there were, then residing at Three Rivers, two men named Pierre- Esprit Radisson; therefore, it cannot be stated with certainty 'Jesuit Eelations, 1663. - Under May, 1662, the following entry is found: ' ' I departed from Quebek on the 3rd for Three Rivers; there met GroseiUiers, who was going to the Sea of the North. He left Quebek the night before with ten men." During the same year Groseilliers and Radisson entered the service of Boston merchants. ^ Suite, Histoire des Canadiens-F'rangais. RADISSON S journal: ITS VALUE IN HISTORY. 10/ that the godfather was our explorer, although it would have been natural for him to stand sponsor for his sister's child. The only contemporary writer who confirms the Hudson's Bay story, in Radisson's Journal, is Noel Jeremie, who, in his Relation of Hudson Bay^ where late in the seventeenth century he commanded for the French, states that Groseilliers had pen- etrated inland to Hudson's Bay, and had also reached Mani- toba. Tending to coifirm what Jeremie says, is the fact that, on at least one of the early French maps of the West, what is now known as Pigeon River, at the Grand Portage, on the north shore of Lake Superior, bears the name of Groseilliers.' Grand Portage is on the route to Hudson's Bay, and the fact that more than two hundred years ago Pigeon River bore the name of Groseilliers, indicates that our explorer had gone at least thus far, during his voyage which ended in 1660; for it is cer- tain that he never visited that region after that year. His presence at Grand Portage, at that time, can only be accounted for by the theory of an attempt, at least, to reach Hudson's Bay from Lake Superior. Radisson not only says that he and Gro- seilliers reached the "sea of the north," as he calls it, but he speaks of barracks which he saw on the shore of the bay, bar- racks that Europeans had built; and he also states that the Indians of the bay told him that various white men had reached the place before, by water. Radisson states that the journey to and from tlie bay was made in canoes, and that the explorers returned from the bay on a different river from the one by wliich they went thither. He says that they went direct from Lake Superior to Hudson's Bay; the statements that the Sioux sent gifts to them, by "ambassadors, " and that they spent part of the second winter at the large fort in Nortliern Minnesota, indicate that the more westerly route was that by which they returned from the bay. Radisson is at times most untruthful. There is good reason, on this account alone, to doubt his Hudson's Bay story. On the other liand. he and Groseilliers seem to have started upon that voyage with the intention of trying to reach the "bay of the ' Franquelin's map, 1688. For de.scriptive and historical account of Grand Portage, see Wis. Hist. Colls., xi., pp. 123-125, note. I08 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. north," and we know that with both of them Hudson's Bay was a ruling passion. It being established that the second westward voyage of Radis- son and G-roseilliers terminated in August, 16l30, this question assumes large proportions: Whea did their first Western voy- age, which has been assigned by most writers to the period actually covered by their last Western voyage, come to an end? The question is vital, because of Radisson's claim that his dis- covery of the Mississippi River took place during the first West- ern voyage. If Radisson and G-roseilliers were not the two nameless French- men mentioned in the Relation of 1656, who had spent the pre- vious two years in the vicinity of Green Bay, I contend that the Mississippi River voyage which Radisson describes, — I mean the first Western voyage, from beginning to end, — never took place. In his account of the Lake Superior voyage, Radisson speaks in several places of the other voyage to the West; and in so many words says that he and Groseilliers rested for a year from their first Western voyage, before they embarked upon their second Western voyage, — the one to Lake Superior, which was their last expedition to the West. The two voyages are arranged in this order, in Radisson's Journal; the Lake Michigan voyage being called his third, and the Lake Superior voyage his fourth. He could not declare more plainly, that the Lake Superior voyage was the next one after that to Lake Michigan. In doing this, Radisson is caught in his own snare. We have his own statement that he went to the Onondaga oplony, accompanying the expedition which started in the spring of 1657, returning to Thres Rivers in the spring of 1658. It is therefore plain that this Onondaga voyage took place between his two Western journeys; so that if the first Western voyage took place at all, it was undertaken at an earlier date than Radisson indirectly gives it. Radisson did not arrive in New France until 1651. One year later he- was captured by the Iroquois, and did not re- turn to Three Rivers from captivity until the spring of 1654. If Radisson ever made a Western voyage previous to his Lake RADissoN s journal: its value in history. 109 Superior journey, the earlier voyage took place some time be- tween the spring of 1654, when he returned from captivity among the Iroquois, and the spring of 1657, when he went to the Onondaga country. At that period, the population of New France was so small, ^ that no two men — especially two men like Radisson and Gro- seilliers, one of whom had had a remarkable adventure with the Iroquois, and the other of whom was already looked upon as one of the most enterprising of explorers — could leave the French settlements for the far West, and return after a long absence, without attracting attention, especially on the part of the Jesuits, who, faithful chroniclers that they were, would of course have recorded what the explorers had seen and heard. Before this, Groseilliers himself had been for years in the service of the Jesuits. Hence I maintain that if Radisson and Groseilliers made a voyage to the West, between the spring of 1654 and the .spring of 1657, they were the two nameless explorers of Lake Michigan and the Fox River country who are mentioned in the Relation for 1656. It may be asked why, if Groseilliers was one of these two nameless French explorers, the Jesuits, his former masters, did not mention his name In their Relations. With safety It can be asserted, In view of the small popula- tion of New France at that period, that no matter who those two explorers of 1654-56 were, the Jesuits knew their names; that some of the Jesuits even knew them personally, and that they withheld their names for reasons of their own. It has been seen that the Relation for 1660 does not give the names of the two explorers of Lake Superior who returned In August of that year; but we know that they were Radisson and Groseil- liers, because the Journal cles Jesuites supplies the name of Groseilliers. The Journal was a more private record than the Relations,'- and was not published until 1871; while the Relations ' Garneau, in his History of Canada, says that, even at a later period than this, the population of New France did not eseeed 2,500. '^ For an account of the Jesuit Relations, see Winsor, Narrative and Critical Hist, of Amer., iv.; also, Neiv England 3Iagazine for May, 1895. The only complete collection, in America, of the original Rela- tions, published in Paris, is contained in the Lenox Library, New York. no WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. were sent to the court of France, and published soon after they were written. The apparent disagreement between Radisson and the Jesuit Relations, as to the duration of the Lake Superior voyage, has been noted. Radisson's assertion as to the time that his first Western voyage took place, and the statement of the Jesuit Re- lations, as to the time that the two nameless explorers of 1654-56 spent in the West, differ in even a more pronounced manner. Radisson, early in his account of this voyage,^ says that it took three years; further on, he says that two years had gone by, and that he and Groseilliers would not be able to return home for another year; -^ while, near the conclusion, he says that the voyage had lasted three years and a few months.'^ The Relation states that the two nameless explorers of 1654-56 started West on August 6, 1654, and returned toward the end of August, 1656. Radisson says that he started West with G-roseiliiers, on the first Western voyage, about tlie middle of June (no year given); but a little further on, he contradicts this statement, for he says that, just before they reached Lake Nipissing, they picked some blackberries " not as yett full ripe, " which they boiled with some tri2?e de i-oche.^ In the upper-lake region, blackbei'ries ripen about September 1. By July 1, — which, if they started about the middle of June,' must have been about the time that Radisson and Groseilliers reached the spot where he says that he and Groseilliers picked the blackberries, — this fruit, instead of being nearly ripe, would have been so green that nobody would think of using it for food. If Radisson and Groseilliers had been the two nameless explorers who left the French settlements August 6, they would, when they reached the region of Lake Nipissing, have found blackberries in the state described by Radisson, for they would have reached that spot about August 20, at which time blackberries are nearly ripe. Radisson's statement about the blackberries disproves his statement that ip. 134. "^ P. 157. 'P. 170. ''A kind of lichen growing on rocks, and used by early explorers as food. *This part of his journey took Father AUouez two weeks. RADISSON S journal: its value in history. Ill he and Groseilliers started for the West, ou this voyage, about the iiiiddle of June; and it proves that if they did make such a voyao-e, they started at .the same time that the two nameless Frenchmen did, and that they were in fact identical with the latter. It is a significant fact, in this connection, that Radisson and Groseilliers cannot be accounted for at the French settlements during the period that the two nameless Frenchmen of the Re- latio-is were exploring the Lake Michigan region. Radisson gives no accoiuit of himself between the spring of 1654, when he arrived home after his captivity, and the spring of 1657, when he joined the Onondaga colony. On February 24, 1654, according to Suite, Gl-roseilliers was sergeant-major of the gar- rison of Three Rivers, and there is evidence of his presence at Three Rivers on September 29, 1656. Between these two dates, which is the period during which the two nameless Frenchmen were exploring Lake Michigan and the Fox River country, there is no record of the presence of Groseilllers at the French settlements on the St. Lawrence. There are some striking points of resemblance between the experiences of the two nameless Frenchmen of 1654-56 and those described by Radisson in his account of his first Western voyage. Both mention visits to the Pottawattomies and to the Maskoutens; both parties were disappointed by delay in return- ing home. In both cases, mention is made of the joy which the return of the explorers caused, salvos of artillery being fired from the fort at Quebec. Radisson says that the furs which he brought down on this voyage were a boon to the French colony; and, as a matter of fact, the condition of New France at that time was even worse than one would suppose from Radisson's words. ' Between Radisson's tale and the Jesuit Relations there are 'Concerning the state of Canada in 1653, we read in the Relations that the keeper of the store at Montreal had not bought a beaver skin in a year; that the Hurons kept away from Canada: and that the Algonkin country was dispeopled. The Quebec store-house was empty. "And thus," the Relatious state, " everybody has reason to be malcontent. There is not wherewithal in the treasury to meet the claims upon it, or to supply public needs." 112 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. some points of difference almost equally striking. The Relations, for instance, do not mention twenty-nine other Frenchmen start- ing westward and then turning back. The nameless exjDlorers told the Jesuits about the People of the Sea — the Puants, or Stinkards — our modern Winnebagoes; also, about the large nation of the Illinois; while Radisson, who, if liis account be true, must have seen both of these nations, says not a word about either of them. Ravlisson mentions an encounter with the Iroquois, on the Ottawa, while returning from this voyage; and he describes a battle that some Frenchmen and five hun- dred Indians under his command fought near Three Rivers with the Iroquois, whom they defeated. As to both these events, the Relations are silent. Radisson says that the Indians who went down to the French settlements with him and Groseilliers numbered five hundred; while the Relations state that two hun- dred and fifty Indians accompanied the two nameless explorers to the French settlements. Radisson says that the Western Indians, in going back, did not encounter the enemy; while we know from the Relations that the Indians who went to Quebec with the two nameless explorers were attacked by the Iroquois, and that Father Garreau, who, with Father Druiliettes, had been sent westward with the Indians, was mortally wounded, and the thirty Frenchmen in the party were obliged to return home. But, if Radisson and Groseilliers were the two nameless Frenchmen who explored Lake Michigan between 1654 and 1656, it is apparent that Radisson mixed fiction with facts, adding, for instance, fourteen months to the period of his voyage; hence, a few more falsehoods by him are not surprising. If Radisson and Groseilliers. were not the two nameless ex- plorers of 1654-56, that Western voyage which included the navigation of the Mississippi River never took place. And even if they were the nameless explorers, Radisson's claim to the honor of discovering the Mississippi must be rejected; for while it is possible that under these ciixumstances Radisson ajid Groseilliers did reach the Mississippi, the Relations contain no al- lusion to the fact, nor is he supported by any contemporaneous authority. Radisson, who fraudulently extended the period of this voyage, if he did not invent the entire story, must have RADissoN s journal: its value in history. J13 drawn upon his imagination for some of the territory that he claims to have explored, hence impeaches his own testimony. Why did Radisson lay claim to the discovery of the Missis- sippi? Certainly not to rob Joliet and Marquette of the honor, for Radisson 's account of this voyage was written several years before Joliet and Marquette started upon their trip down that river. Radisson and Groseilliers entered the service of Boston merchants during the year 1662, and in 1663 went in a Boston ship as far as Hudson's stra,its, the captain refusing to go any farther. After litigation with Boston parties, who violated a contract to furnish them with two ships for a voyage to Hud- son's Bay, — a litigation in which our adventurers were unsuc- cessful, — ■ they went to England at the solicitation of Col. Robert Carr and Col. George Carteret, two of the commissioners who in 1664 had taken possession of New York in the name of the British king. It may be that Radisson's account of his first Western voyage was written in 1665, for the purpose of making an impression upon King Charles II., or upon Prince Rupert; but it is certain that the journal of his fourth voyage was not finished in 1665, because at the end of it he describes the voyage of the ship "Eagle," in which, in 1668, he started for Hudson's Bay. This vessel was forced by a terrible stoi^m .to put back, while Groseilliers, in the ship "Nonsuch," which started at the same time, continued on to Hudson's Bay. It was the first voyage of our adventurers under the protection of England. Radisson finished his report of his fourth voyage immediately after his vessel had been driven back to England. It appears to me that Radisson not only wanted the prestige of Western discovery, in addition to the honor of discovery in extreme Northern latitudes, but he tried to impress the English with the desirability of acquiring possession of the fertile West, as well as of Hudson's Bay. In speaking of his experiences in 1658, when he was about to make his escape from the Iroquois, with the other French colonists in the Onondaga country, he says: " It's sad to tend from such a place that is compassed with those great lakes that compose the Empire that can be named the greatest part of the knowne world. " Prophetic words, these. 114 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. The key-note of his third voyage seems to be a desire to have the English seize the region of the Great Lalves. It was not until 1671 that the French formally took possession of the West, and the suggestion of English seizure, was not altogether chi- merical. Radisson's language, when he describes the far West, is seductive:^ "The country was so pleasant, so beautifull & fruitfull that it grieved me to see y' ye world could not discover such enticing countrys to live in. This I say because that the Europeans fight for a rock in the sea against one another, or for a sterill land or horrid country. * * * Contrarywise, those kingdoms are so delicious & under so temperat a climat, plentifull of all things, the earth bringing forth its fruit twice a yeare, the people live long & lusty & wise in their way. What conquest would that bee att litle or no cost; what laborinth of Pleasure should millions of people have, instead that millions complaine of misery & poverty! * * * it's true, I confesse, that the accesse is difficult, but must say that we are like the Coxcombs of Paris, when first they begin to have wings, imagining that the larks will fall into their mouths roasted; but we ought remember that vertue is not acquired wthout labor & taking great paines. * * * xhe further we sojourned the delightfuller the land was to us. I can say that [in] my lifetime I never saw a more incomparable country, for all I have been in Italy; yett Italy comes short of it." Radisson heard much about the Mississippi River, from the Indians whom he met. He relates that an Iroquois chief told him, during the voyage to the Onondaga country in 1657, that he had once been captain of thirteen man who had gone against the Nation of the Fire, and against the Staring Hairs, and on this campaign had spent three winters away from home. Rad- isson says that the scene of the chief's story was in the " upper Country of the Iroquoits, neere the great river that divides itself in two." - The Iroquois chief, according to Radis- son, told him of natives of that country who were of extraor- dinary height, two feet taller than he, and of tree fruit that is "as big as the heart of an oriniack. " In his third voyage, Radis- ^jRadisson^s Voyages (Prince Society, Boston), pp. 150, 151. »P. 106. RADISSON S journal: ITS VALUE IN HISTORY. II5 son describes the Mississippi as the river that " divides itself in two," and speaking of the "other river" he says: "These were men of extraordinary heiglit & biggness. * * * They have fruit as bigg as the heart of an Oriniacli:, wcii grows on vast trees wch in compasse are three armeful in compasse. " ^ The language attributed to the Iroquois chief, and that used by Radisson, are suspiciously similar. I have never read anything more confusing than Radisson 's description of his third voyage.- It does not compare in clear- ness with any of his other narratives, and the chief reason for this is that Radisson has invented at least part of it. To sum up: The voyage of Radisson and Groseilliers to the head of Lake Superior, and beyond, without doubt ended in August, 1660. If Radisson's first Western voyage, the " third voyage " of his Journal, took place at all, he and Groseilliers were the two nameless Frenchmen who, during the period be- tween 1654 and 1656, penetrated into the interior of Wisconsin, by way of the Fox River, their voyage being almost identical with that of Jean Nicolet in 1634:. But even if Radisson and Groseilliers were those two nameless explorers, the honor of discovering the Mississippi River, which is claimed by Radisson, cannot be bestowed upon them, because part of Radisson's third voyage is clearly a fabrication; so that, in effect, his own unsupported testimony in regard to the discovery of the Missis- sippi is impeached by himself. " False in one thing, false in all. " Especially should this rule be applied to the statements regarding the discovery of the Mississippi, an attractive enter- prise which offered the strongest temptation to falsehood. Radisson's claim to the discovery of Hudson's Bay, by an in- land route from Lake Superior, has a stronger basis, but even that is in doubt. 1 P. 168. - In justice to Radisson, I have proceeded upon the theory that his ac- count of the third voyage is at least in part trvie. I have tried to locate the places that he describes, and to follow him in his wanderings, or in what he says were his wanderings. But it is almost impossible to bring order out of this chaos. The one point upon which I feel positive is, that if Radisson and Groseilliers were not the nameless explorers of 1654-56, the third voyage described by Radisson never took place. Il6 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. But without regard to the discovery of Hudson's Bay by an inland route, and without regard to the discovery of the Missis- sippi River, Radisson and Groseilliers ' were two of the most daring explorers that have ever penetrated our North American wilderness. They were the first explorers of Lake Superior, of Northern Wisconsin, and of Northern Minnesota; and they were the "promoters" of the Hudson's Bay Company. Few of the in- trepid explorers of New France are entitled to so much honor as we know is the meed of Radisson and Groseilliers. Their names must ever remain inseparably connected with the history of Wisconsin, of the old Northwest, and of much more of the North American continent. ' Mother Mary of the Incarnation describes Groseilliers as a man of spirit, and one who knew how to make himself valued. Noel Jeremie says that he was high and enterprising. Suite, in " Le Pays des Grands Lacs," published in iyg Canada- Frangais, for July, 1889, declares that he occupies a large place in the history of his time. Further on, Suite thus speaks of Radisson: " Few figures of the seventeenth century have so much importance as his, in our annals. Gifted with an exceptional cour- age, with an ambition that was never satisfied, of an astounding initiative spirit, he was connected with grand enterprises." "Radisson and Groseil- liers," says Dionne, in Chouart et JSadisson, "occupy a large place in our primitive history." / / /' LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 017 374 082 7 ^