OUR WESTERN EMPIRE.

HISTORICAL SKETCH.

May, 1539, Ferdinand de Soto, the governor of Cuba, landed at Tampa Bay with six hundred followers. He marched into the interior, and on the 1st of May, 1541, discovered the Mississippi; being the first European who had ever beheld that mighty river.

Spain for many years claimed the whole of the country bounded by the Atlantic to the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the north, all of which bore the name of Florida. About twenty years after the discovery of the Mississippi, some Catholic missionaries attempted to form settlements at St. Augustine and its vicinity; and a few years later a colony of French Calvinists had been established on the St. Mary's, near the coast. 1565 this settlement was annihilated by an expedition from Spain, under Pedro Melendez de Aviles, and about nine hundred French, men, women and children, cruelly massacred. The bodies of many of the slain were hung from trees, with the inscription, "Not as Frenchmen, but as here

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Having accomplished this bloody errand, Melendez founded St. -Augustine, the oldest town by half a century of any now in the Union. Four years after, Dominic de Gourges, burning to avenge his countrymen, fitted out an expedition at his own expense, and surprised the Spanish colonists on the St. Mary's, destroying the ports, burning the houses, and ravaging the settlements with fire and sword, finishing the work by also suspending some of the corpses of his enemies from trees, with the inscription, "Not as Spaniards, but as murderers." Unable to hold possession of the country, De Gourges retired to his fleet. Florida, excepting for a few years, remained under the Spanish crown, suffering much in its early history from the vicissitudes of war and piratical incursions, until 1819, when, vastly diminished from its original boundaries, it was ceded to the United States, and in 1845 became a State.

In 1535 James Cartier, a distinguished French mariner, sailed with an exploring expedition up the St. Lawrence, and taking possession of the country in the name of his king, called it "New France." In 1608 the energetic Champlain created a nucleus for the settlement of Canada by founding Quebec. This was the same year with the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, and twelve years previous to that on which the Puritans first stepped upon the rocks of Plymouth.

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To strengthen the establishment of French dominion, the genius of Champlain saw that it was essential to establish missions among the Indians. Up to this period "the far west" had been untród by the foot of the white man. In 1616 a French Franciscan, named Le Caron, passed through the Iroquois and Wyandot nations to streams running into Lake Huron; and in 1634, two Jesuits founded the first mission in that region. But just a century elapsed from the discovery of the Mississippi ere the first Canadian envoys met the savage nations of the northwest at the Falls of St. Mary's, below the outlet of Lake Superior. It was not until 1659 that any of the adventurous fur traders wintered on the shores of this vast lake, nor until 1660 that Rene Mesnard founded the first missionary station upon its rocky and inhospitable coast. Perishing soon after in the forest, it was left to Father Claude Allouez, five years subsequent, to build the first permanent habitation of white men among the northwestern Indians. In 1668 the mission was founded at the Falls of St. Mary's, by Dablon and Marquette; in 1670 Nicolas Perrot, agent for the intendant of Canada, explored Lake Michigan to near its southern termination. Formal possession was taken of the northwest by the French in 1671, and Marquette established a missionary station at Point St. Ignace, on the main land north of Mackinac, which was the first settlement in Michigan.

Until late in this century, owing to the enmity of the Indians bordering the Lakes Ontario and Erie, the adventurous missionaries, on their route west, on pain of death, were compelled to pass far to the north, through "a region horrible with forests," by the Ottawa and French Rivers of Canada.

As yet no Frenchman had advanced beyond Fox River, of Winnebago Lake, in Wisconsin; but in May, 1673, the missionary Marquette, with a few companions, left Mackinac in canoes, passed up Green Bay, entered Fox River, crossed the country to Wisconsin, and, following its current, passed into and discovered the Mississippi; down which they sailed several hundred miles, and returned in the autumn. The discovery of this great river gave great joy in New France, it being "a pet idea" of that age that some of its western tributaries would afford a direct route to the South Sea, and thence to China. Monsieur La Salle, a man of indefatigable enterprise, having been several years engaged in the preparation, in 1682 explored the Mississippi to the sea, and took formal possession of the country in the name of the King of France, in honor of whom he called it Louisiana. In 1685 he also took formal possession of Texas, and founded a colony on the Colorado; but La Salle was assassinated, and the colony dispersed.

The descriptions of the beauty and magnificence of the Valley of the Mississippi, given by these explorers, led many adventurers from the cold climate of Canada to follow the same route, and commence settlements. About the year 1680 Kaskaskia and Cahokia, the oldest towns in the Mississippi Valley, were founded. Kaskaskia became the capital of the Illinois country, and in 1721 a Jesuit college and monastery were founded there.

A peace with the Iroquois, Hurons, and Ottawas, in 1700, gave the

French facilities for settling the western part of Canada. In June, 1701, De la Motte Cadillac, with a Jesuit missionary and a hundred men, laid the foundation of Detroit. All of the extensive region south of the lakes was now claimed by the French, under the name of Canada, or New France. This excited the jealousy of the English, and the New York legislature passed a law for hanging every Popish priest that should come voluntarily into the province. The French, chiefly through the mild and conciliating course of their missionaries, had gained so much influence over the western Indians, that, when a war broke out with England in 1711, the most powerful of the tribes became their allies; and the latter unsuccessfully attempted to restrict their claims to the country south of the lakes. The Fox nation, allies of the English, in 1713 made an attack upon Detroit, but were defeated by the French and their Indian allies. The treaty of Utrecht, this year, ended the war. By the year 1720, a profitable trade had arisen in furs and agricultural products between the French of Louisiana and those of Illinois, and settlements had been made on the Mississippi, below the junction of the Illinois. To confine the English to the Atlantic coast, the French adopted the plan of forming a line of military posts, to extend from the great northern lakes to the Mexican Gulf; and, as one of the links of the chain, Fort Chartres was built on the Mississippi, near Kaskaskia; and in its vicinity soon flourished the villages of Cahokia and Prairie du Rocher.

The Ohio at this time was but little known to the French, and on their early maps was but an insignificant stream. Early in this century their missionaries had penetrated to the sources of the Allegany. In 1721, Joncaire, a French agent and trader, established himself among the Senecas at Lewistown, and Fort Niagara was erected, near the falls, five years subsequent. In 1735, according to some authorities, Post St. Vincent was erected on the Wabash. Almost coeval with this was the military post of Presque Isle, on the site of Erie, Penn., and from thence a cordon of posts extended on the Allegany to Pittsburg, and from thence down the Ohio to the Wabash.

In 1749 the French regularly explored the Ohio, and formed alliances with the Indians in Western New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The English, who claimed the whole west to the Pacific, but whose settlements were confined to the comparatively narrow strip east of the mountains, were jealous of the rapidly increasing power of the French in the west. Not content with exciting the savages to hostilities against them, they stimulated private enterprise by granting six hundred thousand acres of choice land on the Ohio to the "Ohio Company."

By the year 1751 there were in the Illinois country the settlements of Cahokia, five miles below the site of St. Louis; St. Philip's, forty-five miles farther down the river; St. Genevieve, a little lower still; and on the east side of the Mississippi, Fort Chartres, Kaskaskia, and Prairie du Rocher. The largest of these was Kaskaskia, which at one time contained nearly three thousand souls.

In 1748 the Ohio Company, composed mainly of wealthy Virginians, dispatched Christopher Gist to explore the country, gain the good will

of the Indians, and ascertain the plans of the French. Crossing overland to the Ohio, he proceeded down it to the Great Miami, up which he passed to the towns of the Miamies, about fifty miles north of the site of Dayton. The next year the company established a trading post in that vicinity, on Loramie's Creek, the first point of English settlement in the western country; it was soon after broken up by the French.

In the year 1753, Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, sent George Washington, then twenty-one years of age, as commissioner, to remonstrate with the French commandant, who was at Fort le Bœuf, near the site of Erie, Penn., against encroachments of the French. The English claimed the country by virtue of her first royal charters, the French by the stronger title of discovery and possession. The result of the mission proving unsatisfactory, the English, although it was a time of peace, raised a force to expel the invaders from the Ohio and its tributaries. A detachment under Lieutenant Ward erected a fort on the site of Pittsburgh; but it was surrendered shortly after, in April 1754, to a superior force of French and Indians under Contrecœur, and its garrison peaceably permitted to retire to the frontier post of Cumberland. Contrecœur then erected a strong fortification at "the fork," under the name of Fort Duquesne.

Measures were now taken by both nations for the struggle that was to ensue. On the 28th of May, a strong detachment of Virginia troops, under Washington, surprised a small body of French from Fort Duquesne, killed its commander, M. Jumonville, and ten men, and took nearly all the rest prisoners. He then fell back and erected Fort Necessity, near the site of Uniontown. In July he was attacked by a large body of French and Indians, commanded by M. Villiers, and after a gallant resistance, compelled to capitulate, with permission to retire unmolested, and under the express stipulation that further settlements or forts should not be founded by the English west of the mountains for one year.

On the 9th of July, 1755, General Braddock was defeated within ten miles of Fort Duquesne. His army, composed mainly of veteran English troops, passed into an ambuscade formed by a far inferior body of French and Indians, who, lying concealed in two deep ravines each side of his line of march, poured in upon the compact body of their enemy volleys of musketry, with almost perfect safety to themselves. The Virginia provincials under Washington, by their knowledge of border warfare and cool bravery, alone saved the army from complete ruin. Braddock was himself mortally wounded by a provincial named Fausett. brother of the latter had disobeyed the orders of the general, that the troops should not take positions behind the trees, when Braddock rode up and struck him down. Fausett, who saw the whole transaction, immediately drew up his rifle and shot him through the lungs, partly from revenge and partly as a measure of salvation to the army, which was being sacrificed to his headstrong obstinacy and inexperience.

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The result of this battle gave the French and Indians a complete ascendency on the Ohio, and put a check to the operations of the English, west of the mountains, for two or three years. In July, 1758, General

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Forbes, with seven thousand men, left Carlisle, Penn., for the west. corps in advance, principally of Highland Scotch, under Major Grant, were, on the 13th of September, defeated in the vicinity of Fort Duquesne, on the site of Pittsburg. A short time after, the French and Indians made an unsuccessful attack upon the advanced guard, under Colonel Boquet.

In November the commandant of Fort Duquesne, unable to cope with the superior force approaching under Forbes, abandoned the fortress, and descended to New Orleans. On his route he erected Fort Massac, so called in honor of M. Massac, who superintended its construction. It was upon the Ohio, within forty miles of its mouth, and within the limits of Illinois. Forbes repaired Fort Duquesne, and changed its name to Fort Pitt, in honor of the English prime minister.

The English were now for the first time in possession of the Upper Ohio. In the spring they established several posts in that region, prominent among which was Fort Burd, or Redstone Old Fort, on the site of Brownsville.

Owing to the treachery of Governor Lyttleton, in 1760, by which twenty-two Cherokee chiefs on an embassy of peace were made prisoners at Fort George, on the Savannah, that nation flew to arms, and for a while desolated the frontiers of Virginia and the Carolinas. Fort Loudon, in East Tennessee, having been beseiged by the Indians, the garrison capitulated on the 7th of August, and on the day afterwards, while on the route to Fort George, were attacked and the greater part massacred. In the summer of 1761 Colonel Grant invaded their country, and compelled them to sue for peace. On the north the most brilliant success had attended the British arms. Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Fort Niagara, and Quebec were taken in 1759, and the next year Montreal fell, and with it all of Canada.

By the treaty of Paris, in 1763, France gave up her claim to New France and Canada, embracing all the country east of the Mississippi from its source to the Bayou Iberville. The remainder of her Mississippi possessions, embracing Louisiana west of the Mississippi, and the Island of Orleans, she soon after secretly ceded to Spain, which terminated the dominion of France on this continent, and her vast plans for empire.

At this period Lower Louisiana had become of considerable importance. The explorations of La Salle in Lower Mississippi country were renewed in 1697 by Lemoine D'Iberville, a brave French naval officer. Sailing with two vessels, he entered the Mississippi in March, 1698, by the Bayou Iberville. He built forts on the Bay of Biloxi, and at Mobile, both of which were deserted for the Island of Dauphine, which for years was the head-quarters of the colony. He also erected Fort Balize, at the mouth of the river, and fixed on the site of Fort Rosalie; which latter became the scene of a bloody Indian war.

After his death, in 1706, Louisiana was but little more than a wilderness; and a vain search for gold, and trading in furs, rather than the Lubstantial pursuits of agriculture, allured the colonists, and much time was lost in journeys of discovery, and in collecting furs among distant