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The reputation of the
missionary and explorer Louis Hennepin is very bad indeed. A
companion and protégé of Robert Cavelier de La Salle, who despised
the Jesuits and surrounded himself with the Récollets, Hennepin
followed the explorer from 1676 to 1680. He was not highly thought
of in the colony where he lived for a few months at the beginning
and end of his sojourn, but he painted a portrait of himself as a
daring and courageous missionary.
An exceptional promoter of the territories of North America in
Europe, he lied in describing himself as La Salle's equal in the
1678 expedition to the Baie des Puants (Green Bay). Worse still,
after the death of his leader, he actually claimed to have
discovered the mouth of the Mississippi two years before La Salle.
By claiming for himself a merit that is still disputed to this day,
the author of the first description of Niagara Falls threw discredit
on his own contributions to the exploration of North America.
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The
Military Chaplain |
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Louis Hennepin was
born in Ath, Belgium, on May 12, 1626, to a family which,
without being rich, nonetheless allowed him to pursue his
studies. These ended in 1643 with his entrance into the
order of Franciscan Récollets. Years of apostolate in Italy,
Germany and Holland were followed by a stint on the French
Atlantic coast, where he collected for his order. " My
greatest passion," he wrote, concerning his stay in
Calais, "was to hear the stories ships' captains told of
their long voyages [...]I would have spent entire days and
nights without sleeping, listening to them, because I always
learned something new."
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Plunged back into the
" regulations of pure and severe virtue ", he travelled in
Holland where he was caught in the midst of the Franco-Dutch war
that began in 1672. As chaplain among the injured and ill soldiers,
he showed true devotion. At the battle of August 11, 1674 in Seneffe,
Belgium, he encountered Daniel Greysolon Dulhut who would come to
his rescue in July 1680.
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A Dream of
Adventure |
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In 1675, there was no shortage of new lands to discover.
Designated by his superiors along with four of his fellow priests
for missions in New France, Hennepin arrived in Quebec City on June
16. The journey enabled him to meet Monseigneur de Laval and Robert
Cavelier de La Salle who was returning from Versailles with titles
of nobility and full ownership of the fort and the seigneurie of
Cataracoui created for him.
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We don't know at
exactly what moment the alliance between the missionary and La Salle
the explorer was sealed, but it seems it was already settled that
Hennepin would be part of the next expedition. While awaiting
adventure, he performed his religious duties in the posts and
missions of the North Shore, from Pointe-Claire (Montreal) to Cap-Tourmente
(Beaupré). |
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Towards
Niagara |
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In early spring 1676, Hennepin was sent to Fort Cataracoui,
renamed Frontenac in honour of the governor. There he built a chapel
and a residence for the missionaries. Two years later, he was back
in Quebec City. He met Cavelier de La Salle, back from France in
September 1678 with the authorization to further explore as far as
Florida and New Mexico. The explorer had also obtained permission
for Hennepin and two of his colleagues to come along and perform
their duties in the wake of the discoveries.
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Hennepin
Arrives at Niagara Falls |
Hennepin and a party of
La Salle's men left Quebec City on November 18, 1678. They were
joined by the explorer at Fort Frontenac, and the group travelled to
the junction of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, marked by the incredible
cataract of Niagara Falls. Arriving there in the first days of
December 1678, the group began the construction of Fort Conti and of
a brig, the Griffon. La Salle reserved Hennepin the honour of
"setting the first peg in the vessel."
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On the
Great Lakes |
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The first ship ever
to navigate on Lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan set sail on
August 7, 1679. After a stop at Sault Sainte-Marie, at the
junction of Lake Huron and Lake Superior, the brig headed
toward Michillimakinac and Lake Michigan. At the end of the
fall, it stationed in Baie des Puants (Green Bay) before
being sent towards Niagara: "against our wishes," wrote
Hennepin, "Sieur de la Salle, who never took advice from
anyone, resolved to send the ship on and continue the route
by canoe." |
| Things were
going badly at Fort Crèvecoeur, built in January 1680, on
the site of the present-day city of Peoria, Illinois.
Workers and coureurs des bois had deserted, food was scarce
and they were lacking the necessary materials for
navigation. This was the context in which Cavelier de La
Salle decided to return to Niagara. Hennepin apparently
refused to give up, and even proposed to set out ahead on
the Mississippi : "In this extreme situation, we both took a
decision that was both extraordinary and difficult: myself
to head out with two men into unknown territory, and La
Salle to return on foot to Fort Frontenac, more than five
hundred leagues away." The two men would never see each
other again. |
Hennepin Claims to Have Made His Way to the Mouth of the
Mississippi. |
At
the Source of the Mississippi |
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Two coureurs des
bois, Michel Accault and Antoine Auguel dit Le Picard Du
Guay, accompanied Hennepin. In Description de la
Louisiane nouvellement découverte au Sud Ouest de la
Nouvelle-France [...] published in Paris in 1683,
Hennepin is clear that he did not discover the mouth of the
Mississippi: "We had plans to travel to the mouth of the
Colbert (Meschasipi), but the nations did not give us the
time to navigate up and down this river."
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If the missionary's tale is
to be believed, between February 29 and March 10, the three men
affronted the ice and travelled down the Illinois River as far as
the Mississippi. From there, remounting the tumultuous river, they
passed present-day Minneapolis where a waterfall was named St.
Anthony Falls. Advancing toward the north and west of Lake Superior,
the three men reached Lac des Issatis (Leech Lake), source of the
Mississippi River.
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companions then returned toward Fort Crèvecoeur. They were still a
good distance from the mouth of the Illinois when, in the early
afternoon of April 11, 1680, they were captured by the Sioux who
took them toward the Mille Lacs region, south of Lake Superior.
Adopted by the village chief, the three men were confined there. On
July 25 Daniel Greysolon Dulhut,who had negotiated the alliance of
the French and the Western tribes against the Iroquois, came to
demand the liberation of Hennepin, Accault and Auguel, who were only
freed in September.
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A Strange
Silence |
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After
wintering in Michillimakinac, Dulhut and Hennepin returned to the
colony. Curiously, the missionary, who then travelled from Montreal
to Quebec City with Frontenac, told him of his expedition, but kept
silent on the details of his purported voyage toward the south of
the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. He maintained the same
silence with Monseigneur de Laval. On his return to France at the
end of 1681, Hennepin began writing his first book. His
Description de la Louisiane [...] is inspired by the tales of
one of his colleagues, who took part in Cavelier de La Salle's
possession of Louisiana on April 9, 1682. Dedicated to Louis XIV,
the work was an enormous success. It was translated and re-edited in
its original form on three occasions.
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Description of
La Salle's misadventures by Hennepin |
The Secret
Plans of La Salle |
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In
1697, Louis Hennepin placed himself under the protection of the King
of England, William III, to whom he dedicated the Nouvelle
Découverte d'un très grand Pays Situé dans l'Amérique [...],
published in Utrecht, Holland. La Salle, assassinated ten years
earlier, was no longer there to contradict Hennepin who for the
first time evoked the misunderstanding that he claimed characterized
their relations. Nor could La Salle expose the absurdity of his
claim to have travelled the length of the Mississippi, in only
thirty days before being captured by the Sioux : "If we had wanted
to travel more quickly by canoe, we could have made the trip twice."
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Justifying his earlier
silence about an exploit that would have placed him among the
world's great explorers, Hennepin did not hesitate to take swipes at
La Salle: "This is where I would like all the world to know the
mystery of this discovery that I have hidden until now so as not to
inflict sorrow on Sieur de La Salle, who wanted all the glory and
secret knowledge of this discovery for himself alone. This is why he
sacrificed several persons to prevent them from publishing what they
had seen and from foiling his secret plans."
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Louis Hennepin published
his third work in 1698. Nouveau Voyage d'un Pais plus grand que
l'Europe [...] reaffirmed his contribution to the discovery of North
America. The missionary/author was then an undesirable subject in
his own community. Due to circumstances and his thirst for fame, he
had been a subject of both France and England. He was authorized to
return to France in 1698, but on May 27, 1699, Louis XIV ordered
that he be arrested if he ever attempted to return to New France.
Louis Hennepin died after 1705 and it is not known whether he was
still a Récollet priest.
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Route
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Louis Hennepin
(1678-1680)
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