18 Expeditions of Marquette and La Salle.-Murder of La Salle. discovered on the natal day of that saint. The French made a settle- As early as about the middle of the seventeenth century, missionary and trading stations were established at Mackinac, or Mackinaw, near the point of junction between Lakes Huron and Michigan. From this point, Father Marquette, a zealous French missionary, and Monsieur Joliet, from Quebec, with five boatmen, set out in 1763, to explore the region south of Mackinac, hitherto untrodden by the foot of the white. man. They passed down the lake to Green bay, thence crossed over to the Wisconsin river, and followed its windings down to its junction with the Mississippi. They floated down this mighty stream a thousand miles, to the mouth of the Arkansas river, and then returning to Quebec, by the same route, they urged upon the agents of the French government the immediate occupation of the vast region watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries. Their views were seconded, and on the 7th of August, 1679, M. de La Salle, the French commandant of Fort Frontinac, on Lake Ontario, started with a few followers, on an expedition in the track (or nearly so) of Marquette. He launched a small vessel upon Lake Erie, at a point nearly opposite where Buffalo now stands, and, in company with Louis Hennepin, a friar, and thirty-four followers, proceeded along the shore of the lakes, as far as the mouth of the Maumee river, where they built a fort, and wintered. The next spring they pushed forward into the country of the Illinois Indians, to Peoria lake, where they also built a fort. There they remained until 1680, when La Salle started for the Mississippi. He sailed up that river to the falls of St. Anthony, and then, by the same route, they returned home. In 1683, La Salle reached the Mississippi the second time, and then sailed down it to the gulf of Mexico. After his return, he went to France. He returned again to America in 1686, and while preexploring the country in the vicinity of the mouth of the Mississippi, he was basely murdered by one of his own countrymen. He had viously given the name of Louisiana to the whole vast region of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and by this name it was known until the breaking out of the "French and Indian war," in 1756. Erection of Forts by the French.-The Ohio Company. Having taken formal possession of this region, by virtue of the right of discovery, the French prepared for its defence and maintenance. For this purpose they commenced building a line of forts all the way from New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi, to Quebec on the St. Lawrence. This was in a great degree accomplished in 1730, and the French even ascended the Ohio, and prepared for the erection of forts. Prior to this period, the French colony west of the Alleganies, was divided into quarters, each having its local governor, or commandant; and they flourished considerably. One of these quarters was established northwest of the Ohio river, and was known by the English settlers as the northwest territory. They erected forts on the Maumee, and upon the lakes, and previous to 1750, a fortress was established at the mouth of the Wabash. The English monarch, in granting charters to the London, Virginia, and Plymouth companies, defined their respective limits north and south, but made them extend east and west, from "sea to sea." Of course there were clashings in the claims of the English and French settlers, and when the latter built Fort Du Quesne, the former considered it an absolute and direct encroachment upon their territory. Chiefly with a view to establish a fur trade with the Indians, and partly to check the farther encroachments of the French, a trading company, called the " Ohio company, " was formed in 1749, consisting chiefly of English and Virginia merchants.* They at once proceeded to open a trade with the Indians upon the Ohio, and during the first year they built a trading-house upon the Great Miami, at a place subsequently called Loramie's Store. The French, on hearing of the erection of the trading-house, sent a party of soldiers to the Twightee Indians, and demanded the surrender of the traders, as intruders upon French territory. The Indians refused, and the soldiers, in connection. with some Ottawas, proceeded to take them by force. They demolished the trading-house, took the traders prisoners, and carried them off to Canada. This was the end of the first English settlement in Ohio, of which we have any record. The jealousy of the French was now fairly aroused, and they determined to prevent the extension of English settlements west of the Alleganies. They regarded the formation of the Ohio company as a scheme of the English to break up their line of communication between the Mississippi and Canada. They at once began the erection of forts south of Lake Erie, and on the waters of the Ohio, which called forth the com They received from the crown a grant of six hundred thousand acres, upon the Ohio river, the English monarch not at all doubting his right to the soil thus granted. The principal ground upon which the English claimed jurisdiction over the Ohio valley, was the fact that the six nations of Indians who owned it, had placed it, with their other lands, under the protection of the English. The British had also actually purchased from the Indians a large tract, in 1744. Capture of Fort Necessity.-Expedition under Braddock.-His Defeat. Washington pushed forward with his handful of daring men, and erected a small fort, which he named Fort Necessity. Being joined by some troops from New York and Carolina, he proceeded, with four hundred men, toward Fort Du Quesne, but learning that a large body of French and Indians were on their march to meet him, he returned to Fort Necessity, which was soon after attacked by the enemy, fifteen hundred strong. They made an obstinate resistance for ten hours, but were obliged to yield to overwhelming numbers, and agreed to a capitulation, by the terms of which they were allowed to return to Virginia unmolested. Notwithstanding this defeat, the campaign was highly approved of, and the house of burgesses of Virginia passed resolutions of thanks to Colonel Washington and his officers. In February, 1755, General Braddock arrived from Ireland with two regiments of troops, to co-operate with the Virginia force against the French on the Ohio. Washington had left the army on account of a regulation by which the colonial officers were made to take lower rank than those of the regular army; but, at the solicitation of General Braddock, he consented to serve as his aid-de-camp, but as a volunteer. The expedition was long delayed by the tardiness of the Virginia contractors to furnish the wagons necessary to transport baggage, arms, and ammunition. On the tenth of June, Braddock set out from Fort Cumberland with a force of about two thousand men. At the earnest request of Washington, it was determined to press forward with twelve hundred men, leaving the balance, under Colonel Dunbar, behind, to take charge of the artillery and baggage. As they approached the vicinage of the enemy, Washington desired to lead the provincials in advance, as they were much better acquainted with Indian warfare than the regular troops. But the proud Braddock would not listen to a provincial officer. What," said he, "a young buskin teach a British general how to fight!" and then pressed forward. A profound silence reigned in the wilderness and no enemy was to be seen, when suddenly a most destructive fire opened upon them in front and on the right, from an invisible army. The vanguard fell back in confusion, and Braddock, instead of allowing his troops to rush behind the trees and into the ravines, where the enemy were concealed, formed them in platoons, in accordance with English discipline, and their bullets were wasted upon the trees and hillocks. The French and Indians kept up such an incessant fire from the ravines and trees, that a general flight of the regulars ensued. General Braddock had three horses killed under him, and was finally mortally wounded, when the troops, seeing every mounted officer fall, except Washington, fled in dismay. The provincial troops were rallied by their intrepid leader, and covering the retreat of the regulars, saved the army from total destruction. In this defeat 22 PICTORIAL DESCRIPTION OF OHIO. Expedition against the Indians.-Fort du Quesne abandoned by the French.-General Bradstreet. more than two thirds of all the officers and nearly half the privates, were either killed or wounded. Washington rode in every direction, and was a conspicuous mark for the enemy's sharp-shooters. The enemy made no pursuit, as the Indians, satiated with blood, preferred to remain on the battle-field, and the French were too few in number to venture to follow. Elated with their success in the defeat of General Braddock, the Indians afterward pushed their incursions as far east as the Blue ridge. Major Lewis, with a considerable force, was sent against them in January, 1756. He succeeded in driving them back, and then he marched against the Shawnee towns upon the Ohio, three miles above the mouth of the Great Kanawha. But the streams were so swollen, that the attempt proved fruitless. In August of this year, Colonel Armstrong attacked and destroyed the Indian village of Kittaning, on the Allegany river; and in 1758, General Forbes, with an army of nine thousand men, marched against Fort The English took posdu Quesne. The French, deserted by their Indian allies, abandoned the fort, and fled down the Ohio in their boats. session of the station, and named it Fort Pitt, in honor of William Pitt, then the British prime minister. The city that has sprung up like magic upon the locality of this fort, is called Pittsburg. Post after post, belonging to the French, fell into the hands of the English, upon both the Ohio and the lakes, and also in Canada, and at the beginning of 1762, nothing, in Canada or along the lakes, was left to the French, but Montreal. A treaty of peace was concluded at Paris, in 1763, by which France surrendered to Great Britain all of her possessions in North America eastward of the Mississippi, from its source to the river Iberville, and thence through Lakes Maurepas and Ponchartrain, to the gulf of Mexico. The English had nothing more to oppose their settlements in the valley of the Ohio and along the borders of the lakes, but the hostile Indians, who, indeed, seemed determined (and justly too) to of the soil with them. the lake the occupancy the Indians dispute upon upon In 1764, General Bradstreet marched frontier, and took possession of the fort at Detroit. Here he was besieged by the Indians, but succeeded in dispersing them,. He then pushed forward into the Wyandot country, by the way of Sandusky bay, and having ascended the river as far it was navigable for his boats, he encamped and opened negotiations with the Indians. He formed a "By the all-powerful dispensation of Providence," said he, in a letter to his brother, "1 have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet I escaped unhurt, although death was levelling my companior, on every side of me." the French and Indian war." War was this year formally declared by Great Britair against France, and then commenced that bloody act in the drama of American history called the |