First French Foot Prints Beyond the Lakes. 131 



In 1671 he was interpreter for a dozen nations whose delegates 

 largely through his persuasions then gathered at Mackinaw and 

 acknowledged the sovereignty of France. His influence over 

 them was seen in 1681, and again three years after, when, as I 

 have before stated, he induced five hundred warriors from "Wis- 

 consin, and near it, to paddle their canoes many a hundred miles- 

 in order a? allies of the French to fight against the Iroquois. 

 According to Indian ideas his greatest exploit was delivering, 

 from torture and death a captive whom the savages had resolved 

 to burn. No common miracle was it to make Indians forego the 

 ecstasy of beholding and gloating on an enemy in agony. The 

 French then aimed to make the western chiefs do homage to their 

 king as a suzerain, and fight shoulder to shoulder in his battles. 



But many adventurers from France also sought to become 

 themselves a sort of feudal barons. To this end they secured 

 patents of nobility with land-grants, termed seigniories. Some of 

 these bordered on the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain. But these 

 eastern estates just gave enough to wake the taste for more. At 

 the outlet of Lake Ontario La Salle possessed a domain stretch- 

 ing five leagues along the shore, besides others almost boundless 

 on Lake Michigan, and whatever in other unknown regions he 

 could conquer. As Col. Colt invented a patent revolver, so La 

 Salle expected to hold as a patent-right the realm he had re- 

 vealed. He was sanguine that his principality would be more at- 

 tractive to immigrants than Canada. It was prairie which needed 

 no clearing, — it was more fertile, of milder climate and more 

 varied products, many of them — as salt, grapes and hemp — un- 

 known in Canada. Not a few similar land-claims based on gov- 

 ernmental grants were set up by French occupants when the 

 United States assumed jurisdiction over Wisconsin. The Norman 

 race which centuries before had feudalized all Europe, now meant 

 to master the Mississippi Yalley. French wanderers were not 

 unfrequently elected chiefs of tribes. Perrot was so honored 

 among nine different nations. French officers also came with a 

 retioue of their own countrymen, whom they ruled by martial 

 law, being sometimes judge, jury and executioners all at once. 

 This one-man power, where no law was known but his will, was 



