MME8] THE DOWNFALL OF THE HURON NATION 329 



day after day. It resembles a tree that ha^ never taken firm root in 

 the soil to which it has been transplanted. Deprived of its life-giving 

 sap, its withered leaves drop off one by one without which it cannot hope 

 for a new spring time to renew the freslmess of its youth. There will 

 soon remain no other trace of this powerful Nation than a name justly 

 renowned in our annals." 



4. Another band crossed from Christian Island to Manitoulin, 

 but the Iroquois were on their trail, and after a sojourn of a few years, 

 they loajded their canoes and headed for the mouth of the French Eiver 

 — they were off' for Quebec to join their brethren who had precedeldJ 

 them. 



5. The last section of the fugitives sought a home at Michili- 

 mackimac Island, whence, lon pressure from the Iroquois, they fled to 

 the forests of the west. After much wandering they returned and 

 settled on the shores of Lake Superior. Here a new home was 

 established at St. Esprit alongside a, band of the Ottawas. Another» 

 enemy came to worry them, an enemy from the west this time, the Sioux. 

 Father Marquette now ooraes upon the scene and enters into their 

 history. The home upon Lake Superior is broken up; the Ottawas go 

 down to Manitoulin and Father Marquette and the Hurons form a, new 

 settlement and mission opposite the Island of Mackinac in 1670, to 

 which the cherished name of St. Ignace is given. It may be interesting 

 to note that it was probably some of these Huron Indians who ajccom- 

 panii'd Marquette in his discovery of the Mississippi.^ 



The story of this band, however, is not yet told. St. Ignace still 

 remains a mission upon the Straits of Mackinac, but the wanderings of 

 the Hurons were not yet done. Towards the end of the 17th century a 

 consideraible portion of the Hurons lof this mission moved southward 

 towards the Detroit Eiver and formed three settlements, one on the east 



* My attention has been called by Mr. Benjamin Suite to the sug-gestion 

 that these refugee Hurons had in their western wandering's found the 

 Mississippi and told Marquette of the great river of the west. The following' 

 extract is from the Relation of 1659-1660. It is taken from p. 235, vol XLV 

 of the Burrows edition. 



" During the winter season our two Frenchmen (Radisson and Groseilliers) 

 made divers excursions to the surrounding tribes. Among other things, they 

 said, six days' journey beyond the lake (Superior) toward the southwest, a 

 tribe composed of the remnants of the Hurons of the Tobacco Nation, who 

 have been compelled by the Iroquois to forsake their native land, and bury 

 themselves so deep in the forests that they cannot be found by their enemies. 

 These poor people — fleeing and pushing their way over mountains and rocks, 

 through these vast unknown forests — fortunately encountered a beautiful 

 river, large, wide, deep and worthy of comparison, they say, with our great 

 river, St. Lawrence. On its banks they found a great nation of the Alimimec 

 which gave them a very kind reception. This Nation comprises sixty 

 villages — which confirms us in the knowledge that we already possessed, con- 

 cerning many thousands of people who fill all these western regions.'" 



