MIGRATIONS—ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY 169 
Huron interpreter for the colony of New France. In the year 1639 he 
visited the lake of the Winnebagos, or Green Bay, in the present state of 
Wisconsin, and concluded a friendly alliance with the Indians on Fox 
River. In the next year, Paul le Jeune, writing of the tribes who dwelt 
on Lake Michigan, says, “Still farther on dwell the Ouinipegon, who are 
very numerous.” And, “In the neighborhood of this nation are the 
Naduessi and the Assiniponais.” This appears to be the first mention made 
by voyagers of the Dakota and Assiniboin. Le Jeune’s information was 
obtained from Nicolet, who claimed to have visited them in their own coun- 
tries. 
In 1641, at the Sault Ste. Marie, Jogues and Raymbault, of the 
“Society of Jesus,” met Pottowattomies flying from the Dakota, and were 
told that the latter lived “about eighteen days’ journey to the westward, 
nine across the lake, and nine up a river which leads inland.” 
Two adventurous Frenchmen, in 1654, went to seek their fortunes in 
the region west of Lake Michigan, and returning to Quebec two years 
afterwards, related their adventures among “the numerous villages of the 
Sioux.” And in 1659, it is related that the two traders, as they traveled 
six days journey southwest from La Pointe in Lake Superior, came upon a 
Huron village on the shores of the Mississippi. These Hurons had fled 
from a fierce onslaught of the Iroquois, and for the time had taken refuge 
among the Dakota. In the vicinity of the Huron they saw the Dakota 
Villages, “in five of which were counted all of 5,000 men.” 
From the beginning of the intercourse of white men with Indians on 
this continent the fur trade has been the chief stimulus to adventure and 
the great means by which the location and condition of the aboriginal pop- 
ulations were made known to the civilized world. Two other subsidiary 
motives operated to bring white men into connection with the great Dakota 
nation, viz, the desire to discover the great river on which they were said 
to dwell. and the zeal of the church of Rome to convert the savages. 
In the summer of 1660 René Menard, the aged, burning with an 
apostolic desire to make converts from among the pagans, bore the standard 
of the cross to the shores of Lake Superior. At La Pointe, which was 
already a trading port, he wintered. But in the following spring he started 
on foot with a guide to visit “four populous nations” to the westward. 
By some means he beeame separated from his guide while passing through 
the marshes of northwestern Wisconsin and was lost. Many years after- 
wards a report was current in Canada that “his robe and prayer-book 
were found in a Dakota lodge,” and were regarded as “wakan” or sacred. 
