The Canadian Civil War: Volume 3 - West to the Wall

by William Wresch

Chapter 17

  A history lesson

  I think I would have sat against that gym wall all afternoon, but deMille came and got me.

  “We should talk, now while we have time.” He motioned me towards the library. I followed. The room had been trashed a bit, with some of the books pulled off shelves and some graffiti on one of the walls, but the damage looked half-hearted, like maybe they started when they got bored, and then got bored with the vandalism too. We found a couple chairs and sat.

  “I am pleased you were not hurt.” He began. For a man who had to be 80, I was astonished at how well he held himself as he sat. His back was straight, his eyes were steady on me, there was no sign of fatigue, though I doubt he had slept all night.

  “It appears we lost no people.”

  “Unfortunately, that is not true. One man was killed, and two were wounded. But I think the wounds are not too severe.

  “I am sorry to hear that. But at least this is now over.”

  “I think not. We will know better when we speak with this Foster, but I think there were will be more angry men, and now maybe the French as well.”

  “I can try to explain it was all self-defense.”

  “That would be good, but sometimes these things take on a life of their own, and the facts do not determine the outcome.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We talk, and we hope, and we plan. But that is not what I wanted to tell you about. I wanted to talk about our history.”

  “Do we have time for this?”

  “We have this afternoon, and maybe we have tomorrow, but then I need you to go to DeSmet.”

  “I would be happy to go.”

  “Thank you. But first, you should understand us a bit more. We have a history, and it may affect what the French do. More importantly, it may affect what the Jolliets do.” At this point he sat silently, apparently trying to determine how best to tell the story. I waited, wishing I had a tape recorder or even a notebook.

  “You know our first contact with the French came with Father Marquette up along Lake Superior.”

  “Yes, I know that story. He was camped with some Hurons and having a terrible winter there. Finally he gave up on them and went back to Sault St, Marie. Soon after he left, the Hurons got into a fight with some Sioux, and the Sioux attempted to broker a peace. They sent ten chiefs to speak with the Hurons, but the Hurons killed all ten. Then the Huron took off and ran to the French at Sault St. Marie. Marquette ended up taking many of them to Mackinac Island to hide them. Others stayed behind, and when the Sioux sent ten chiefs to try a second time to negotiate for peace, the Hurons killed them too.”

  “Yes, they were not a very honorable tribe. No one mourns their loss. But not all the interactions between the French and the Sioux have been honorable either.”

  “Do you mean the Verendrye massacre?”

  “No, Jean Baptiste was a swine and deserved to die. He cheated our men in trade. He got them into his fort at Lake of the Woods, got them drunk, and got them to trade their pelts for more drink. When he and his men started east with those pelts, the local tribe killed them all and took the pelts back. Jan Baptiste’s father, Pierre, knew about his son, and understood the attack. He traded with the Sioux honorably and lived among us for another generation.”

  “So you concern is with the Jolliets?”

  “Yes. Those deaths are not so easy to explain.” He paused again. Clearly, this was not a story he enjoyed telling. “You know about the Fox Wars?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is called a ‘war,’ but it was really an annihilation. The Fox and Mascutin had been French allies for many years – trading partners and guides. But the French pushed on. They founded their new city at Kaskaskia, and the river trade with New Orleans left the Fox as a bit of a backwater. The Fox wanted more trade, but they became less and less important. When they started to block French traders to force more trade, the French killed a few, and then a few more, and finally they killed all of them. It was all about trade and the Fox getting in the way.”

  “I saw the order from the French King approving the war and the massacres.”

  “Yes, there is a trail of evidence, and none of it looks very good centuries later. But few peoples have an unblemished history. The French do not, and neither do the Sioux. They killed over trade. We killed over geography. This is what I have to explain to you, so you understand why we may not have a good relation with the Jolliets. You know they call the mountains The Wall.”

  “Yes.”

  “It is a wall with a hole in it. We killed because of the hole – a pass. The French were busy in the Mississippi Valley for generations. They had trade down out of Illinois, creating Kaskaskia and St. Louis as the colony of Canada gradually merged with the colony of New Orleans. Bigger boats brought grain down from Illinois and rice and shrimp up from New Orleans. Both colonies were strengthened. Trade with the local tribes continued, but got less important. And the tribes along the river got smaller. Small pox killed thousands. Old allies like the Fox got in the way. Old enemies like the Arkansas were bought off by treaties, by trade goods, and weakened by pox. The Mississippi Valley became French.”

  “Some traders came west as well, up the Missouri, but they were few. They found little of value up the river. North, west of Lake Superior, there were beaver pelts to trade, but the winters were bad, the mountains were high, the plains went on for endless miles, so generations passed and few French ventured west. Why should they, when the Mississippi Valley had so much to offer?”

  “The Verendryes traveled all over the west, but never crossed the mountains. They went back with tales of the heights, the distances, the cold, and the legend of The Wall grew. It became established fact that the mountains could not be crossed. So we were left alone. We were at the edge of the French world. There was no reason to push past us, after all, the route past us was impenetrable. So we survived, and prospered. We traded for horses and metal tools, even for guns, and a few French lived among us, but only a few. Our world was our villages and our buffalo. Life was as we had known it for centuries, and it was a good life.”

  “But there are some who will not rest. The Jolliets had given France the Mississippi Valley. Each generation of Jolliets wanted to give the French more. They founded Kaskaskia and traded south and strengthened the valley. They traveled west on the Missouri and the Platte. Each generation got a little farther west, closer to the mountains. And we knew sooner or later they would find the secret of the mountains. You see there is a hole in the Wall. There is a pass so wide and level even wagons could cross it. You know it now as South Pass. There is even a highway that goes up there and a ski hill near the top. Our people had used the pass for generations, so we knew its location, and we understood its importance. Once the French knew of it, there would be a steady stream of French going over the mountains to the Pacific. We would be along the way, and eventually we would be in the way, and we would share the fate of the Fox.”

  “And that is why we killed the Jolliets. By 1780 one Jolliet after another had come west, and they got closer and closer. We succeeded in tricking two of them up the wrong route and left them to starve in the high country when a storm came through and trapped them. Five years later another Jolliet expedition came through, and these we killed, saying they had ventured into our holy lands. That caused problems, but no open warfare. A decade went by and they tried again, but this time far to the north. They lost half their men to starvation and cold, and we were safe for a while longer.”

  “But there seems to be no end of Jolliet men. In 1803 they came again, and this time they seemed to know where the pass was. They came straight for it. They were well armed and ready to fight. We lost over a hundred men in our attack. But we prevailed. There were consequences – other fights in other places, and we lost more men that summer, but we held off the French.”

  “Then we got lucky
. There were other wars in other places and the French were drawn there. We were forgotten. Meanwhile, you English began to come around South America and settle both California and Oregon. By the time the European wars were over, you had thousands of farmers and merchants on the Pacific coast, and the French drive to the Pacific was over. Essentially you became the cork in the bottle.”

  “I have never heard of those countries described quite that way, but I guess I see your point. With little to be gained now by trying to pass the mountains, The Wall became permanent – a boundary for the Canada.”

  “Yes. The boundary was established -- in part by the new English countries, and in part by us. But you can see that the Jolliets might not be too happy with the role the Sioux played in creating that boundary.”

  “That was nearly two centuries ago.”

  “Yes, but some memories are long, and I suspect Foster will try to remind the right people of these events.”

  “I don’t think the Jolliets need more enemies right now.” I offered. “They are too concerned about Louisiana.”

  “Maybe so, but why was Foster here?” He left that question hang in the air. There was no good answer to it. But he was right, the answer was important. There was a reason those men had been brought here. Foster was after something, and he was smart enough to push in the right place. Why here, and why now?

  “We can ask him, but I doubt we will hear any truth from him.”

  “No, there will be little truth, but we should talk.” And with that, deMille got up. My history lesson was over. Apparently we would now head back to Marc’s village. I went in search of my hat and coat and my snowmobile. The day was not yet over.