Слике страница
PDF
ePub

Political Science Quarterly. New York.

Presbyterian and Reformed Review. (q.) Philadelphia.

Princeton College Bulletin. (q.) Princeton, N. J.
Providence (R. I.) Public Library, Bulletin. (m.)

Public Opinion. (w.) New York.

Publishers' Weekly. New York.

Putnam's Monthly Historical Magazine. Salem, Mass.

Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Quarterly Review. London.

Queen's Quarterly. Kingston.

Boston.

Review of Reviews. (m.) New York.

Rhode Island Historical Society, Publications. (q.) Providence.

Round Table. (s.-m.) Beloit.

Salem (Mass.) Public Library, Bulletin. (m.)

San Francisco (Cal.) Public Library, Bulletin. (m.)

Scottish Review. (q.) Paisley.

Scribner's Magazine. (m.) New York.

Searcher. (s.-m.) Phila.

Skolen og Hjemmet. (s.-m.) Story City, Iowa.

Sound Currency. (s.-m.) New York.

Spirit of Missions.

(m.) New York.

Spirit of '76. (m.) New York.

Tennessee, State Board of Health, Bulletin. (m.) Nashville.

Tradesman. (s.-m.) Chattanooga, Tenn.

Travelers Record. (m.) Hartford, Conn.

Twentieth Century. (w.) New York.

United States Dept. of Agriculture, Library, Bulletin. (m.)

Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. (q.) Richmond. Week. (w.) Toronto.

Westminster Review. (m.) London.

Whist. (m.) Milwaukee.

Wisconsin Ægis. (m.) Madison.

Wisconsin Journal of Education. (m.) Madison.

Yale Review. (q.) Boston.

[blocks in formation]

TABULAR SUMMARY OF FOREGOING LISTS.

Where published.

Wisconsin
Baltimore

Boston

Chicago

d. s-w. w. bi-ws-m m. bi-m q. ann irr. Total.

25

25

[ocr errors]

1222

[ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

1

1 5

19

1

6

2

2

27

Minneapolis

8

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

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 difficult to find one which is so deeply involved in doubt, confusion, and error as are the careers of Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard 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 investigating 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 Radisson 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.

2

See Radisson's Voyages (Prince Society, Boston, 1885), p. 69.

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 regarding 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 achievements of Radisson and Groseilliers agree.

What is the historical value of Radisson's narrative of explorations 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 exploration of that great stream down to Southern climes, - for Radisson, 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. Furthermore, 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 arrived in New France. He was a native of St. Malo, in Brittany, the place in which Jacques Cartier, the discoverer of New France, was born. Radisson's father was Sébastien HayetRadisson, and his mother was Madeleine Hérault.2 Both

"I 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.

parents emigrated to New France, for Radisson states in his Journal that they lived at Three Rivers. Radisson had two sisters, Marguerite and Françoise. In 1646, Marguerite married Jean Véron de Grand-Menil, by whom she had three children. Véron was killed near Three Rivers by the Iroquois, August 19, 1652, and a year and five days later his widow married Groseilliers. Françoise Radisson married Claude Volant 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 Company. 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 Hénault; but as our explorer was a mere youth when he reached New France in 1651, and as Elizabeth Radisson married Claude Jutras, called Lavallée, 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 Radisson at Three Rivers, and Dionne surmises that he was an uncle of the younger Pierre. Sulte, writing several years before Dionne, makes it appear that the elder Pierre-Esprit was the

2

'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 married 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 II., for in that charter he is set down as 64 John Kirke, Esquire."

Dionne, Chouart et Radisson.

'Benjamin Sulte, Histoire des Canadiens-Français, v.

« ПретходнаНастави »