Explorers and Travellers

In 1690 Iberville volunteered, under his brother St. Helene, for the retaliatory expedition in mid-winter against Schenectady, wherein a large number of the inhabitants of that unhappy town were ruthlessly massacred by the French and their Indian allies. Iberville seems to have exerted his influence to restrain the savagery of the Indians, and saved the life of at least one Englishman.

It seems that the successes of the young Canadian had attracted attention in France, and when in 1691, through the efforts of the Northern Company, Louis XIV. had decided to recover Port Nelson, Hudson Bay, from the English, Du Tast came to Quebec with fourteen sail, it was with express orders that Iberville should be entrusted with a share of the work and glory. Du Tast objected to such division of honor, and by plausible objections as to the lateness of the season, although it was only the 16th of July, succeeded in delaying the departure of the expedition for that year.

Iberville seemed determined to show the speciousness of the reasons, for he made a trip to the bay and brought back in 1691 two ships loaded with furs, much to the consolation of Frontenac. He immediately went to France to advance the expedition against Port Nelson, which he knew was much favored at court. Iberville found favor with the king, who gave him two ships for the reduction of Port Nelson, and orders to guard it after reduction.

Delays in France and contrary winds on the Atlantic brought Iberville to Quebec only in October, far too late for the safe navigation of Hudson Bay. To fill in his time he set forth to take Pemaquid, but did not make an attack, this being the only instance in his long career where he failed to show extreme daring, even against desperate odds. The delay of the vessels was unfortunate for France as far as Hudson Bay was concerned, for in 1693 three English vessels attacked and captured St. Anne, with fifty thousand peltries, and again the control of the bay passed from France.

In September, 1694, Iberville, with two ships, la Poli and la Charante, the former commanded by his brother, de Serigny, appeared before Port Nelson, which he was six weeks in approaching owing to the heavy moving ice, which nearly destroyed his vessel. The fort had a double palisade, thirty-two cannon and swivels in the main body, and fourteen cannon in outer works, the whole manned by fifty-three men. Iberville landed without hesitation, invested the fort with forty Canadians, worked with his usual energy and skill, and in fourteen days he had his outworks established, his batteries placed and mortars in position. His final summons for surrender resulted in the capitulation of the fort, on condition that personal property should be spared and safe transport be given the garrison to England the coming year. His success was saddened for Iberville by the death of the elder Chateauguay, the third of his brothers to fall in the service of his king, who perished while gallantly repelling a sortie of the beleaguered garrison. The name of Port Nelson was changed to Fort Bourbon, and the river was rechristened St. Therese, because, says Jeremie, in his Relation de la Baie de Hudson, the capitulation was made on October 14th, the day of that holy saint.

The victory did not prove to be cheap, for scurvy, then the dreaded scourge of the sailor, broke out during the long, dark, excessively cold winter, and caused the death of twenty men. Late the next summer, after waiting to the last moment for the English ships he counted on capturing, and leaving a garrison of sixty-seven at Fort Bourbon, Iberville sailed for Quebec; but the winds were so contrary and his crew so debilitated by scurvy, that he turned his prows to France and fortunately arrived at Rochelle, October 9, 1695.

His victories in Hudson Bay so commended him to the king that Iberville was charged with the reduction and destruction of the strong fort which James II. of England had erected at Pemaquid, Maine. While on this cruise our Canadian fell in with three English ships near the mouth of the St. John. He unhesitatingly attacked them, dismasted, fired, and captured the flag-ship of the squadron, the Newport, a ship of eighty men and twenty-four guns.

Reinforced by several hundred Indians, as a land and besieging force, Iberville arrived at Pemaquid, August 13, 1696, and invested the fort the next day. He summoned the commander, Colonel Chubb, to capitulate, but that officer replied that, “if the sea was covered with French vessels and the land with Indians, he would not surrender until compelled to do so.” Iberville promptly landed, and used such expedition that within the short space of thirteen hours he established his batteries in position and opened fire, when the garrison surrendered on honorable terms. Iberville, doubtless mindful of his experiences at Schenectady, took the wise and humane precaution of quartering his prisoners under the guns of the royal ships, so as to secure them from the fury of his bloodthirsty allies, the Indians, who desired to supplement the entire destruction of the fort by the slaughter of the garrison.

In withdrawing from the demolished post, while doubling the island at the mouth of the Penobscot, he had an opportunity of justifying his reputation as the most skilful officer in the French service; for, falling in with an English squadron of seven sail, he successfully evaded them by bold seamanship along the very coast line of that dangerous and rock-bound shore.

His capacity as a military commander was now to be tested. Charged by the king to co-operate in the reduction of Newfoundland to French power, Iberville found himself viewed with jealousy by his colleague, Brouillan, governor of Placentia, who assumed entire command, interfered with Iberville’s contemplated movements, and declared that his own troops, the Canadians, should not accompany him on the opening campaign.

Iberville realizing the necessity of zealous and concerted action in an enterprise of such importance, decided to leave the field free to Brouillan, and so announced his intention of returning to France. Immediately the Canadians declared to a man that they were bound to him alone, that Frontenac’s orders recognized Iberville as commander, and finally, that they would return to Quebec sooner than accept another. Brouillan recognizing that Iberville was the idol of his Canadian countrymen, and unable to deny that the king had confided all the enterprises to be undertaken during the winter to Iberville, made such concessions as brought about reconciliation; nevertheless the campaign undertaken against St. John’s was marked by dissension. Iberville displayed his usual energy and gallantry in the advance and subsequent skirmishes which ultimately resulted in the surrender of St. John’s, which was abandoned and destroyed by fire. The campaign was pursued with such energy and success that at the end of two months the English had nothing left in Newfoundland except Bona Vista and Carbonniere Island. During these operations Iberville displayed marked ability in handling troops, both in the field and during siege operations. His eagerness to share every danger, and willingness to undergo every hardship in common with his troops, endeared him to all and contributed much to the enthusiasm with which his men followed him or obeyed his orders.

In May, 1697, his brother Serigny arrived at Placentia with four vessels, destined for the command of Iberville in a proposed attempt to again reduce Hudson Bay. With these ships – le Pelican, fifty guns; le Palmier, forty guns; le Profond, le Vespe, and a brigantine – Iberville entered the mouth of Hudson Strait on August 3d, and was immediately beset with heavy ice. The floes were driven hither and thither with such violence by the currents that Iberville directed, as the best means of safety, that each vessel should moor itself to the largest attainable iceberg. This expedient saved four of the ships, but an unexpected movement of two large bergs crushed so completely the brigantine that she sank instantly, the crew barely escaping with their lives.

After a besetment of twenty-four days, Iberville succeeded in extricating his vessel from the ice and passed into the bay. He was alone and in utter ignorance of the fate of his consorts, which had been hidden from view by the ice for the past seventeen days. Iberville was not the man to turn back, nor indeed to delay in an expedition which demanded haste, so he pushed on alone and reached Port Nelson on September 4th.

The next morning he discovered three ships several leagues to the leeward, tacking to enter the harbor. He hoped that they were his consorts, and he at once made signals, which being unanswered showed that the ships were English. It was indeed an English squadron, consisting of the Hampshire, fifty-two guns and two hundred and thirty men; the Hudson Bay, thirty-two guns, and the Deringue, also of thirty-two guns, against which force Iberville had but one ship of fifty guns. It was with reason that, as Jeremie says, “they flattered themselves with the idea of capturing Iberville, seeing that they were three to one, and they were amazed at the boldness with which he attacked them.”

Indeed, almost any other officer in the French navy would have considered an attack as simply madness, but such desperate odds only served to stimulate to the highest degree the known courage and skill of Iberville. He cleared his decks for action, and instantly quitting the shelter and supposed advantage of the harbor, attacked the English squadron in the open sea, where Iberville doubtless counted that his skill in handling ship would inure to his benefit.

Charlevoix thus describes this desperate fight:

“The cannonade opened about half-past nine in the morning and was kept up incessantly till one with great vigor on both sides. Meanwhile the Pelican had only one man killed and seventeen wounded. Then Iberville, who had kept the weather-gauge, bore down straight on the two frigates, pouring in several broadsides at close quarters in order to disable them. At that moment he perceived the third, the Hampshire, coming on with twenty-six guns in battery on each side, with a crew of two hundred and thirty men.

“He at once proceeded to meet her, all his guns pointed to sink her, ran under her lee, yard-arm to yard-arm, and having brought his ship to, poured in his broadside. This was done so effectively that the Hampshire, after keeping on about her own length, went down. Iberville at once wore and turned on the Hudson Bay, the ship of the remaining two that could most easily enter St. Teresa River; but as he was on the point of boarding her, the commandant struck his flag and surrendered.

“Iberville then gave chase to the Deringue, the third, which was escaping to the northeast, and which was only a good cannon-shot off; but as that vessel was as good a sailor as his own ship he soon gave up the chase, not daring to crowd sail, having had much of his rigging cut, two pumps burst, his shrouds considerably injured, hull cut up by seven cannon-balls and pierced at the water’s edge, with no way of stopping the leak. He accordingly veered and sent the Sieur de la Sale in his boat with twenty-five men to man the prize. He then proceeded to repair damage, and having done so with great expedition, he renewed the chase of the enemy, who was now three leagues off.

“He began to gain on him when, in the evening, the wind changed to the north, and a thick fog suddenly rising, he lost sight of the Deringue. This accident compelled him to rejoin the Hudson Bay, and he anchored near the Hampshire, now almost out of sight, and from which not a soul had been saved.”

In this fight with an enemy more than twice his superior in guns and men Iberville had sunk one ship, captured another, and put the third to flight; but this was followed by other experiences, which at the outset presented conditions apparently not less desperate and discouraging. Two days later, pending his siege operations against Port Nelson, a violent gale arose, in which, says Charlevoix, “In spite of all d’Iberville’s efforts to ride it out – and there was not, perhaps, in the French navy one more skilful in handling a ship – he was driven ashore with his vessel, the Pelican, and his prize, the Hudson Bay. The misfortune happened at night, the darkness increasing the horrors of the storm and preventing them from beaching the vessels at a favorable place and so saving them, and before the break of day they broke up and filled.”

Both vessels were crowded with wounded men and prisoners, who endeavored as best they could to reach the shore in the storm and darkness. Twenty-three perished in the attempt, but fortunately the receding tide left such shallows that the rest reached shore, and most of the prisoners successfully sought the friendly shelter of Fort Nelson.

Iberville now found himself in most desperate plight – shipwrecked on a barren coast, with a hostile garrison on land, the return of the English ship at sea possible, and destitute of provisions. He turned to the wrecked vessels and found that it was possible to obtain from them cannon and other munitions of war, and, undismayed, he set his cold, wet, and hungry crew at this task, resolved to obtain food by carrying the English fort by assault. At this juncture his missing vessels, having extricated themselves from the ice of Hudson Strait, appeared, and the fort surrendered without putting Iberville to the last proof of his courage.

As might be expected, Iberville became the hero of the day on his return to France in 1697; but true to himself and his career, he sought the influence of friends at court only to obtain other difficult and dangerous service that might add to the glory of France. He was now to enter on a new career as an explorer, colonizer, and administrator, where, if he was to perform less brilliant deeds than in earlier life, he was destined to open up to settlement by his countrymen the fertile lands of Louisiana, and thus lay the foundations of its future greatness.

It was now twelve years since the tragic fate of La Salle’s colony on the coast of Texas had spread dismay and terror among all who had been especially interested in the scheme of French colonization on the Mississippi River. The sentiment seemed to be that the mouth of the great river could never be found and that further effort would only result in useless sacrifice of life and vessels. With the march of time, however, these impressions of doubt and disaster had faded out of mind, and as now the attention of the ministry was especially turned to that part of Louisiana which could be reached from the St. Lawrence, it appeared to Iberville to be a suitable season to revive the project of discovering the mouth of the Mississippi and of planting a colony.

A plan for the colonization of Louisiana was formally submitted to the French Government by M. de Remonville, while Iberville for his part pledged his reputation as a navigator both to find the mouth of the Mississippi and to successfully plant there a colony. The ministry were easily persuaded that the scheme was practicable and advantageous, their decision being doubtless affected by the knowledge that both Spain and England contemplated the early settlement of the northern coasts of the Gulf of Mexico. It was even reported, as afterward transpired to be the truth, that colonizing expeditions were already en route, and in order to insure protection should Iberville first reach the ground, Count Pontchartrain projected and arranged for the construction of a fort at the mouth of the Mississippi.

As was always the case, schemes of trade were interwoven with the policy of colonization and extension of the royal domain. The principal objects of the trade proved fanciful or chimerical, being, first, the idea of making bison wool an article of trade, a scheme fostered in France by La Salle, and, second, in the hope that valuable pearl fisheries might be found. In Iberville’s instructions we find that “one of the great objects proposed to the king, when he was urged to discover the mouth of the Mississippi, was to obtain wool from the cattle (buffalo) of that country, and for this purpose these animals must be tamed and parked and the calves sent to France.”

Iberville worked with his usual energy, and the expedition, consisting of two small frigates, the Badine, the Marin, and two Norman fishing-boats, sailed from Brest, October 4, 1698. It was Friday, but Iberville no more than Columbus minded the day, and in the reluctance of the other vessels, himself led in the Badine.

A storm off Madeira caused the disappearance of one of the fishing-boats, but after a short search Iberville tarried no more than he did in the Hudson Straits for his missing consort, but pushed on and reached San Domingo early in December. Here the governor, Ducasse, was so impressed with Iberville’s elucidation of his projects that he expressed to the home government his opinion that the views and genius of Iberville seemed to equal his valor in war.

English vessels had been cruising in the neighborhood of San Domingo, which led Iberville to believe that it was a colonizing expedition, so he worked day and night in completing his preparations, and on January 1, 1699, sailed for the Gulf of Mexico. On the afternoon of the twenty-third day, Iberville as usual leading, land was sighted in the northeast. It proved to be the harbor of Pensacola, where Iberville was chagrined to find himself preceded by a Spanish colony under command of Don Andres de la Riola. There were two frigates yet in the harbor, which four months before had brought up three hundred colonists from Vera Cruz. The half-finished fort, the dissatisfied garrison, and the uncertainty of the future explorations to the westward were so many inducements for Iberville to drive out the Spaniards and secure the harbor. Iberville made arrangements to enter the harbor, but was notified by the Spanish governor that he had formal orders from Spain to permit no foreign ships to enter the harbor. Under pretence that he feared heavy weather the French fleet sounded the entrance to the harbor and prepared to enter. The Spanish commander, however, begged that they would retire, and fortunately having been given information by the Spanish pilot, Iberville decided to sail to the west. Iberville, exploring the coast, anchored at the eastern point of the entrance to Mobile Bay, where violent gales nearly destroyed the squadron.

Reconnoitring boats giving such unsatisfactory reports of the depth of the channel, Iberville determined, with his usual energy, to survey it himself. Taking his younger brother Bienville and a crew of his faithful Canadians he started, despite approaching darkness, so as to begin work at day-light; the storm breaking with great violence, Iberville’s efforts to make headway over the billows were in vain. Finally, his rowers exhausted, the boat was turned to the nearest land, but the sea was so high and the wind so violent that unceasing efforts were needful to prevent the boat from swamping. It was due to Iberville’s great skill that the boat was finally beached in a favorable spot on the sandy beach, which the crew reached with difficulty, so exhausted were they with their struggles. Here they were weather-bound three days, and so had an opportunity to explore the island. It was with horror that they discovered in one place ghastly piles of human bones and skulls, mute witnesses of a scene of slaughter, which terrified many of the crew until they found the island to be uninhabited. The island, now known as Dauphin, was called Massacre by Iberville, who, undisturbed by the sight, visited the mainland with a few of his men and made every effort to discover the inhabitants, of whom he found recent traces.

Finally came good weather, and with it the continued voyage to the west brought the fleet to safe anchorage on a bright February morn off Ship Island. The live-stock landed, Iberville gave his freight consorts permission to return to France, while he explored the mainland that now lay fair and bright before him. The Indians were communicated with, after many failures, but, beyond the discovery of the Pascagoula and reports of a larger river to the west, which the Bayagoula Indians called Malbouchia, no valuable information was obtained. Iberville planned to reach the great river by one of its reported outlets, and, following the main channel down, thus learn the way for his vessel; but, the Indians giving him the slip, it only remained to search every foot of the coast until the river was gained. He was thus thrown on his own resources, which had never failed and were not to do so now. Iberville, with his brother Bienville and fifty picked men, largely Canadians, and twenty days’ provisions, started February 27th, on two Biscayennes or barges, for his difficult task, the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi.

It is useless to detail this journey of Iberville through an apparently endless maze of islets, mud-banks, sand-banks, reefs, and marshy shoals, which go to make up the great level delta of the Mississippi. It would, even to-day, be a difficult search for most mariners without a chart, but then well-nigh impossible. Iberville’s skill and patience were tasked to the utmost, and, when he did find the mouth of the great river, it almost seemed to be by the intervention of Providence. On the eve of March 3, 1699, while struggling along the mainland, to which they persistently clung, the violence of an increasing gale threatened to swamp their barges, despite every effort, if they kept off shore, while every approach to watch the shore-line, and thus make certain of the river-mouth, incurred danger of beaching and destruction. Darkness came on and the gale increased, making certain, as it seemed to them, that they must choose death at sea or death on land. Suddenly Iberville put his barge before the wind, and into the face of death as his followers thought, but it shot between huge piles of interlaced drift-wood into a turbid stream of whitish water. Iberville put out his hand and tasted. The water was fresh, and the Mississippi was rediscovered.

The Spaniards had spoken of the river as La Palisada, which Iberville thought most appropriate when he saw the bristling barricades of huge jagged trees with outstretched limbs and contorted roots borne incessantly onward by the strong current.

Iberville camped that night at the edge of the dense rank sedge-growth, saying: “Stretched on the sedges and sheltered from the gale, our pleasure is so much the greater that we feel our escape from a great peril. It is a very lively business, this exploring the unknown shores of a sea in shallops too small to carry sail in the open sea, too tiny to anchor, and yet so large that they strand and ground half a league from land.”

The next morn was that of Mardi-Gras, when our devout explorers celebrated mass, sang joyfully the Te Deum and raised a commemorative cross before voyaging further.

Never in their wildest dreams could the hardy Canadian explorers from their marshy camp in the delta of the Mississippi ever have presaged, that in the coming time, from the many millions of future inhabitants in the Valley of the Mississippi should be gathered tens of thousands to celebrate the merry day of carnival in the metropolitan city that was to spring up from their memorable voyage.

The Mississippi was near its high stage, so that travel was tediously slow, mostly by oar. The land rose somewhat, the sedge gave way first to cane and willows, and later to richly foliaged trees with graceful festoons pleasing to the eye and fruitful of promise in the coming autumn. The country, largely flooded, would have seemed uninhabited save for the Indian ferry-boats, bundles of cane pointed at both ends and fastened together by crossbars of wood, and an occasional column of smoke rising in the distant blue. The rapid current obliged the oarsmen to hug the bank closely, while diminishing food and increasing piles of drift-wood discouraged them; but the indomitable Iberville cheered on his Canadians, and on the fifth day, some thirty-five leagues from the river’s mouth, six pirogues, or canoes, full of Indians were seen. The savages fled, but one was captured, and through him communication and friendly overtures were established with the Annochys. Through these Indians Iberville was taken to the present site of New Orleans and was shown the portage over which the Indians travelled to Lake Pontchartrain, and thence to the bay where the ship was at anchor. Farther up the stream Iberville visited the village of the Bayougoulas, which consisted of about two hundred souls. The men, well made, with short hair and painted faces, stalked around most unconcernedly in a naked state. The women blackened their teeth, tied up their hair in a top-knot, tattooed their faces and breasts, and wore girdles woven of bark fibre, dyed red or bleached white, with pendulous fringes reaching to the knee. The ornaments of the women were metal bracelets and bangles and fancy articles made of feathers, while the young braves wore sashes of feathers, which, weighted with bits of metal, made merry sound as they danced. In short, they were an inoffensive folk, content with the simple fruits of the earth, which largely served as their sustenance.