Pre-Columbian Voyages--What Came of Them--Voyages and Discoveries of Columbus and Others--Explorations, Etc.

With the information at present in possession of the reading workd concerning the early discovery of this continent, it will scarcely be claimed that Columbus was, the first to cross the Atlantic from the eastward, in the direction of America. That he visisted this continent in the manner and under the circumstances narrated in the current histories of the day, will not be disputed, for those accounts are sufficiently authenic to be accepted without a peradventure. Admitting this, however, does not affect the question whether earlier navigators had not performed a similar task, anticipating his discovery by many centuries.

"About the middle of the ninth century, the spirit of European adventure is known to have directed its course to the westward, across the Atlantic. In the year 860, A. D., the Scandinavians discovered Iceland, and in 874-75 colonized it, and less than one hundred years later they discovered and colonized Greenland." [Encl. Brit. I, 706. Chamb. Encl. I, 198]. "On the authority of M. Rafn, a Danish historian well versed in the narratives of those early voyageurs, it is stated, also, that America was discovered by them in A. D. 985, shortly after the discovery and colonization of Greenland; that early in the following century, and repeatedly afterward, the Icelanders visited the embouchure of the St. Lawrence, the bay of Gaspe being their principal station, that they had penetrated along the coast as far south as Carolina; and that they introduced a knowledge of Christianity among the natives." [Encl. Brit. I, pg 706. Note.]

"Subsequently, to the Scandinavian discoveries, and previous to that of Columbus, America is believed by some to have been visited by a Welsh prince. In Cardoe's History of Cabria, it is stated that Madoe, son of Owen Gwynnedd, Prince of Wales, set sail westward in 1170 with a small fleet, and, after a voyage of several weeks, landed in a region totally different both in its inhabitants and production from Euope. Madoe is supposed to have reached the coast of Virginia." [Chamb. Encl. I, pg 198.]

"However the facts may have been, as stated in these several accounts, it is apparent that the period had not elapsed when the Old World, ripe with the experiences of the past, was ready for the appropriation of the New; hence, it was reserved for the enterprise of the fifteenth century to transmit the civilization of that age to the new continent across the Atlantic." "The discovery of a continent so large that it may be said to have doubled the habitable world, is an event so much the more grand and interesting that nothing parallel to it can ever occur again in the history of mankind. America had of course been known to the barbarous tribes of Eastern Asia for thousands of years; but it is singular that it should have been visited by one of the most enterprising nations of Europe five centuries before the time of Columbus without awakening the attention of either statesmen or philosophers." [Encl. Brit. I, 706.]

"One of the primary inducements for the voyages of Columbus, and of his predecessors as well, was the desire to find a more direct route to the East Indies and China, by sailing westward. These were the object points in all the voyages of discovery, during the centuries preceding, to which European enterprise gave origin. With this purpose to view, Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, under the patronage of the united kingdoms of Castile and Leon, on the 3d of August, 1492, started on the voyage which resulted in the discovery of the North American Continent." "It was toward the east that his hopes directed his westward course, hopes whose supposed fulfillment still lives in the misapplication to the New World of the terms Indians and Indies. Much of our subsequent knowledge of America has been owing to the same desire of reaching the East Indies that led to its discovery."

With the discovery of America by the expedition projected by Columbus, for all the purposes of this work, the subsequent history of pioneer adventures in the Western World, may, with propriety, commence, notwithstanding those antecedent devlopments. Subsequently, then, on the 20th of April, 1534, Jacques Cartier sailed from St. Malo, in France, on his first voyage of discovery the result of which was a somwhat careful reconnaissance of the northern coast of Newfoundland, thus acquiring a prestige which, upon his return to France, induced a second expedition consisting of three vessels. He accordingly embarked on this voyage May 15, 1535. After reaching the Gulf of St. Lawrence, he sailed up the stream as far as the island of Orleans, reaching that point in the month of September, of the same year. Later in the fall, he ascended the river to the present site of Montreal, where inducements were offered by the native to go still further westward, with the promise that the country abounded in gold, silver and copper. He did not accept the proffer, however, but, on the 5th of October, he returned, and went into winter quarters on the St. Croix River. The following summer he went back to France.

In 1540, under a charter granted by Signeur de Ruberval to Francis de la Roque, Admiral Cartier was place in command of a squadron of five vessels, supplied with all the necessaries, men and provisions for forming a new colony on the Ruberval possessions in New France. A fort was erected upon their arrival, with Cartier as Commandant. Subsequently, in 1603, an expedition was fitted out by a company of Rouen merchants, and sent over to the same territory, in charge of Samuel Champlain, a member of the company. One of the results of this expedition was the founding of Quebec, in 1608. Shortly afterward, Champlain was appointed Governor of New France, and remained such until his death, which occurred in 1635. During the period of his Governorship, he visited various parts of the territory embraced in his jurisdiction, which included the valleys of the Miami, White River, and the Wasbash. His explorations did not, probably, reach this immediate locality, but farther to the northward, along the borders of the lakes and the larger streams, traversing the same from the southward.

Chasteaufort was the immediate successor of Champlain, in the governorship of New France. His tenure of office, however, was short, for, in 1636, he was superseded by De Montmagny, under who administration there was a noticeable change in the policy of the new government, the fur-trade becoming the principal object of attention. One of the consequences of this new motive agency was the extension of territory adapted to this object, and the enlargement of the arena of trade. Incidental to this, "rude forts were erected, as a means of defense to the trading-houses," and the protection of trading interest generally. "Gradually, these explorations extended westward and southward along the margin of the lakes and their tributaries." Wherever trading-houses were erected, "not far remote was a never-failing auxiliary, the chapel of the Jesuit, surmounted by a cross."

When Charles Raymbault and Claude Pijart were appointed to missionary labor among the Algonquin tribes of the North and West, in 1640," their avenue to the West was by the way of the Ottawa and French Rivers, so that the whole coast of Ohio and Southern Michigan remained unknown, except as seen by missionaries from the stations in Canada."* The inference might be readily drawn, therefore, that these intermediate localities had been priviously visited, though by a different route than that contemplated. That they were so visited, there is now scarcely a doubt, because, at a date more than twenty years in advance of this, explorations had been made to localities but little to the northward. If the missionaries had traversed this territory at the time indicated, the traders had been there before, since the missionaries were the followers rather than the forerunners of the fur-traders.

     *Bancroft's U. S., Vol II, p. 306.

During the period from 1640 to 1654, continued advances had been made in extending the avenues of trade, and the domain of missionary enterprise was developed in a like ratio. On the 6th of August, 1654, "two young fur-traders, smitten with the love of adventure, joined a band of Ottawas, or other Algonquins, and, in their gondolas of bark, ventured on a voyage of 500 leagues. After two years, they reappeared, accompanied by a fleet of fifty canoes." The remote nations visited by these young traders were those beyond Lake Superior, who demanded commerce with the French, and that missionaries be sent them. They sought this alliance from the apparent necessities of trade. The Western Indians demanded this alliance also, that they might thereby secure the means of successful resistance to the Iroquois, who were making continual inroads upon their territory, having already exterminated the Eries and approached the Miamis and their kindred, the Illinois. Missionaries were sent out as suggested. Among the first of these was Father Mesnard, who was directed to visit Green Bay and Lake Superior. This mission was established in 1660. On the 8th of August of that year, Father Claude Allouez embarked on a mission to the Far West. Two years afterward, he returned to Quebec, where he successfully urged the establishment of permanent missions, to be accompanied by colonies of French emigrants. On his return westward, he was accompanied by Claude Dablon and James Marquette, then recently from France. Their field of labor embraced the region of country extending from Green Bay to the head of Lake Superior, and southward to the countries of the Sacs, Foxes, Miamis and Pottawatomies, whither, also, the traders had preceded them.

Again, in 1671, Father Marquette* "gathered the remains of one branch of the Huron nation round a chapel at Point St. Ignace, on the continent north of the peninsula of Michigan," and the year following, "the countries south of the village founded by Marquette, were explored by Allouez and Dablon, who bore the cross through Wisconsin and the north of Illinois, visiting the Mascoutins and the Kickapoos, on the Milwaukee, and the Miamis, at the head of Lake Michigan."

     *Bancroft's U. S., Vol. II, pg 327-28.

Count de Frontenae was appointed by the French King, in 1672, Governor General of the province of New France, and with this appointment commenced an epoch noted for the energy manifested by him in reviving the spirit of discovery, and for the judicious management of the affairs of the province. "His first efforts were directed to the extension of the French interests in the regions of the great lakes. Under his guidance and encouragement, the posts of Michillimackinac and Sault Ste. Marie were established, former explorations perfected, and conciliatory treaties made with the immense hordes of Indians who roamed through that far-off wilderness." These discoveries extended not only over territory afterward known as Canada, but over the whole of New France, including the valley of the Maumee and St. Mary's, the valley of the White River and of the Wabash, for all this area was then a part of the dominions of France in North America.

In May, 1671, a grand council of all the adjacent Indian tribes, "including the Miamis, previously visited or communicated with, was held at Sault Ste. Marie, in whose presence and with whose consent the Governor General of New France took 'possession, in the name of His Majesty, of all the lands lying between the East and West, and from Montreal to the South, so far as it could be done.' "

"Meanwhile, Allouez had been pursuing his labors among the Miamis, and extending the beneficent influence of his holy faith, but it appears to have been reserved to Marquette to establish a mission among them and erect ther the standard of the Cross, in the year 1673. On the 18th of May, 1675, Marquette died on the river that has since taken his name, near the margin of the lake in Southwestern Michigan. Allouez died also, soon after, in the midst of his labors among the Miamis. According to the account given by Hennepin, of the progress made in Christianizing the Indians, it appears that the mission on the St. Joseph's, of Lake Michigan, was not established until 1679." The following is his account of the establishment of a post at the mouth of the river, afterward called Fort Miami:

"Just at the mouth of the river Miamis, there was an eminence with a kind of platform, naturally fortified. It was pretty high and steep, of a triangular form, defended on two sides by the river, and on the other by a deep ditch which the fall of the water had made. We felled the trees that were on the top of the hill, and having cleared the same from bushes for about two musket shot, we began to build a redoubt of eighty feet long, and forty feet broad, with great square pieces of timber, laid one upon another, and prepared a great number of stakes, of about twenty-five feet long, to drive into the ground, to make our fort more inaccessible on the river side. We employed the whole month of November (1679) about that work, which was very hard, though we had no other food but the bear's flesh our savage killed. These beasts are very common in that place because of the great quantity of grapes that abound there; but, their flesh being too fat and luscious, our men began to be weary of it, and desired to leave to go a-hunting and kill some wild goats. M. de La Salle denied them that liberty, which caused some murmurs among them, and it was but unwillingly that they continued the work. This, together with the approach of the winter, and the apprehension that M. de La Salle had that his vessel (the Griffin) was lost, made him very melancholy, though he concealed it as much as he could. We made a cabin, wherein we performed divine service every Sunday, and Father Gabriel and I, who preached alternately, took care to take such texts as were suitable to our present circumstances, and fit to inspire us with courage, concord and brotherly love."

The year following, this same Father, having visited the villages of the Miamis, in the vicinity and on the Illinois River, gives some of his experiences among them, with something of their habits and mode of thought. He said: "There were many obstacles that hindered the conversion of the savages, but in general the difficulty proceeds from the indifference they have to everything. When one speaks to them of the creation of the world, and of the mysteries of the Christian religion, they say we have reason, and they applaud in general all that we say on the great affair of our salvation. They would think themselves guilty of a great incivility, if they should show the least suspicion of incredulity in respect to what is proposed. But, after having approved all the discourses upon these matters, they pretend, likewise, on their side, that we ought to pay all possible deference to the relations and reasonings that they may make on their part." Superstition, he says is one of the great hinderances to conversion, and the custom of traders, in common with themselves, to make the most of the bargain by cheating, lying and artifice, to promote personal gain, thus encouraging fraud and injustice. On the other hand, "the best accounts agree that it was through the agency and perservering exertions of missionaries, combined with the active and enterprising movements of traders, that amicable, relations and a moderate trade were brought about between the colonists of Canada and the Miami Indians in the seventeenth century."

Consequent upon the changes occurring in the administration of Canadian affairs, from the death of Champlain, in 1635, to the year 1672, when Count de Frontenac was appointed Governor General, a manifest want of judicious management was apparent in the conduct of administrative officers and subordinates intrusted with the direction of under-colonial affairs. The effect of this was to excite distrust, induce insubordination and retard the operations incident to the prosperity of frontier settlements. At this latter date, and subsquently, there was an advance in the regulatory system, and greater activity in the extensions of trade and settlements. Military posts were established and garrisoned, as a means of protecting those engaged in them, at the principal points designated, as warranted by the demands of these developing interests.

In 1672, a considerable trade had grown up among the Miamis and their allies in the country watered by the St. Joseph's and Maumee, the Wabash and White Rivers, encouraged and promoted by the French, which, in the near future, promised so auspiciously, that the attention of the colonial authorities was directed to the necessity of protection, as a means of securing the large revenue to be derived therefrom. In common, therefore, with other points of no greater commercial value, the home government established and maintained military posts at leading points in the territory. One of these posts, as has been before shown, was erected in 1679, by Robert Cavalier de La Salle, at the mouth of the St. Joseph's (Miami) of Lake Michigan, ostensibly for the purpose of protecting trade, but really for another purpose, then equally apparent--defense against the incursions of the Iroquois, who, at that time, and for two years previously, had been engaged in a destructive war with the Miamis and Illinois. While this war had been in progress, bands of the Iroquois were passing to and from their own territory away to the eastward, along the old trails south of Lake Erie, across the valleys watered by the Muskingum, Miami and White Rivers, toward the ancient capital of the Twightwees, long known as the center of the Miami confederacy, and thence south of Lake Michigan to the country of the Illinois. The notoriety of Ke-ki-ong-a (Fort Wayne) as a valuable trading-point, and as the chief source of information from all the surrounding territory--being so readily approachable by the Iroquois especially--illy adapted it to the purposes of local trade during seasons of aggressive warfare. Hence, the location of Fort Miami, as we have seen, being outside the route traversed by those invading bands, was most judicious and opportune, furnishing also a circumstance tending to show why La Salle had not continued to occupy his position at the head of the Miami of Lake Erie (Maumee), in the most direct line of trade from the lakes to the Mississippi, which he had several years before discovered and utilized in the course of his trading enterprises.

In a communication to the French King, dated November 2, 1681, Count de Frontenac, the King's representative in his North American colonies, speaking of the relation existing in his department, between the Iroquois and the Western tribes, says: "The Mohawks have done nothing in violation of the promises of the ambassadors whom they sent last autumn; but the Onondagas and Senecas have not appeared, by their conduct, to be similarly minded and disposed. The artifices of certain person, to which the English, perhaps, have united theirs, have induced them to continue the war against the Illinois, notwithstanding every representation I have made to them. They burnt one of their villages and took six or seven hundred prisoners, though mostly children and old women. What is more vexatious is, that they wounded with a knife Sieur de Tonty, who was endeavoring to bring about some arrangement between them, and who had been left by Sieur de La Salle, in the same village, with some Frenchmen, to protect the post he had constructed there. A Recollet Friar, aged seventy years, was also found to have been killed while retiring. So that, having waited the entire of this year to see whether I shoud have any news of them and whether they would not send to offer me some satisfaction, I resolved to invite them to repair next year to Fort Frontenac, to explain their conduct to me. Though of no consideration, they have become, Sire, so insolent since this expedition against the Illinois, and are so strongly encouraged in these sentiments, in order that they be induced to continue the war, under the imprssion that it will embarrass Sieur de La Salle's discoveries, that it is to feared they will push their insolence farther, and, on perceiving that we do not afford any succor to our allies, attribute this to a want of power, that may create in them to come and attack us."

Sieur de La Salle, in a letter to one of his particular friends, bearing date October, 1682, gives his own reasons for not occupying the site of Ke-ki-ong-a in his trading expeditions, and why the route by way of the Maumee was not then, and had not for a time been, traversed by him. This is the extract: "I can no longer go to the Illinois, except by the Lakes Huron and Illinois, because the other ways which I have discovered, by the head of Lake Erie and by the southern coast of the same, becoming too dangerous by frequent encounters with the Iroquois, who are always on these coasts."*

     *Margry's Desc. Amer., II, p. 296

Notwithstanding this temporary interruption of trade along the short route to the Mississippi, above indicated, it was, neverthless, resumed soon after the obstructions were removed, if not before that time, and the necessary defenses were erected for its maintenance. Accordingly, a Commandant was appointed for that post prior to the 15th of October, 1697, in the person of Sieur de Vincennes; and the terms of the appointment would seem to indicate that the fort had had a prior existence. Subsequently, in 1704, the same officer was again appointed Commandant of that post, as is shown by the following official relation thereof, bearing date November 16, 1704: "Dispatched Father Valliant and Sieur de Joncaire to Seneca, and I sent Sieur de Vinsiene to the Miamis with my annexed order and message to be communicated to them."

"Sieur de Vinsiene, my lord, has been formerly Commandant at the Miamis (1697), by whom he was much beloved; this led me to select him in preference to any other, to prove to that nation how wrong they were to attack the Iroquois--our allies and theirs--without any cause; and we--M. de Beaucharnois and I--after consultation, permitted said Sieur de Vinsiene to carry some goods, and to take with him six men and two canoes." Again, on the 19th of October, 1705, in a communication from M. de Vandrueil to Pontchartrain, the following corroborative passage occurs: "I did myself the honor to inform you last year that I regarded the continuance of the peace with the Iroquois as the principal affair of this country, and, as I have always labored on that principle, it is that also which obliged me to send Sieur de Joncaire and Sieur de Vinsiene to the Miamis."+

     +N. Y. Col. Doc., Vol. IX, pp. 296, 759, 766.

The representatives of the English Government, in the early part of the eighteenth century, while manifesting a dispositon to discredit the antiquity claimed by the French in the discovery of the line of direct communication by water between the lakes and the Mississippi, awarded them great credit for their method and enterprise in conducting these discoveries. Speaking this particular discovery, they say: "And, perhaps, such a one as no nation less industrious than the French, would have attemped; but it must be allowed that they have a great advantage over us in this particular, to which even the nature of their religion and government do greatly contribute; for their missionaries, in blind obedience to their superiors, spent whoe years in exploring new countries; and the encouragement the late French King gave to the discoverers and planters of new tracts of land doth far exceed any advantage your Majesty's royal predecessors have hitherto given to their subjects in America."

During a period of eight or nine years prior to the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, which gave peace to the dependencies of France and Great Britain in America, a continual warfare prosecuted by these two powerful nations had prevented the progress of discoveries and settlements in the territories of the Great West. While this treaty gave to Great Britain some advantages over the French, in settling the matters in controversy between them, neverthless, the French King, Louis XIV, began immediately after to perfect plans for the more complete colonization of the Louisiana Territory by sending numerous colonists who were protected by garrisons maintained among them at the expense of the government. Desiring to secure to these colonist all the means, all the privileges, of citizenship, he established a local government among them, and appointed Lemoine de Ibberville Governor, and M. de Bienville, Lieutenant Commandant. These early colonies were located at Biloxi, on the northern shores of Lake Borgne, between Mobile Bay and Lake Pontchartrain. These settlements gradually extended northward along the tributaries of the Mississippi and the Ohio, which movement naturally excited the jealousy and aroused the fears of the English Government, which was not long in manifesting the prevailing dissatisfaction. One of the English officials--Dr. D'Avenant, Inspector General of Customs--gave utterance to the following pertinent language concerning the same: "Should the French settle at the disemoguing of the Mississippi River, they would not be long before they made themselves masters of that rich province, which would be an addition to their strengh very terrible to Europe, but would more particularly concern England, for, by the opportunity of that settlement, by erecting forts along the several lakes between that river and Canada, they may intercept all the trade of our northern plantations."

About the same time, the hostility of the Five Nations "defeated the attempts which were made by the French to establish trading post in the regions which lie adjacent to the souther shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie; but, in the month of June 1701, Antoine de Lamotte Cadillac, accompanied by a missionary and 100 men, left Montreal, and, in the month of July, arrived at the site of Detroit, where the party founded a permanent settlement." In the progress of this settlement and as a means of perpetuation the same, grants of land were made to permanent settlers upon certain conditions. By these conditions, "The grantee was bound to pay a reserved rent of fifteen francs a year to the Crown, forever, in peltries, and to begin to clear and improve the land within three months from the date of the grant. All the timber was reserved to the Crown, whenever it might be wanted for fortifications, or for the construction of boats or other vessels. The property of all mines and minerals was reserved to the Crown. The priviliege of hunting rabbits, hares, partridges, and pheasants, was reserved to the grantor. The grantee was bound to plant, or help to plant, a long Maypole before the door of the principal manor-house, on the first day of May in every year. All the grain raised by the grantee was to be carried to the mill of the manor to be ground, paying the tolls sanctioned by the custom of Paris. On every sale of the land a tax was levied; and, before a sale, the grantee was bound to give information to the government, and, if the government was willing to take the land at the price offered to the grantee; it was to have precedence as a purchaser. The grantee could not mortgage the land without the consent of the government. For a term of ten years, the grantee was not permitted to work, directly or indirectly, at the profession or trade of a blacksmith, locksmith, armorer, or brewer, without a permit. All effects, and articles of merchandise, sent to, or brought from, Montreal, were to be sold by the grantee himself, or other person who, with his family, was a French resident; and not by servants or clerks or foreigners or strangers. The grantee was forbidden to sell or trade spirituous liquors to Indians. He was bound to suffer on his lands such roads as might be thought necessary for public use. he was bound to make his fences in a certain manner, and, when called upon, to assist in making his neighbors' fences."* These were contingencies attending the settlement of those early French colonies. These conditions attended the grants of land not only in the vicinity of Detroit, but generally in the western dependencies of the province of Canada. Some of the French emigrants from Canada, instead of forming permanent settlements preferred rather to lead a rambling life among the Indians, adopting their habits and mode of life. Many of these latter subsequently occupied territory northwest of the Ohio, on White River, the Miamis and the Wabash, and adopted the profession of traders in furs and peltries, from which large profits were derived. This trade was carried on by means of men who hired to manage small vessels on the lakes, and canoes along the shores of the lakes and on the rivers, and to carry burdens of merchandise from the different trading-posts to the principal villages of the Indians who were at peace with the French. At those places, the traders exchanged their wares for valuable furs,with which they returned to the places of deposit.

     *Amer. State Papers, V, p. 261.

The civilized population of the province of Louisiana, under the grant to Sieur Crozat, in 1713, and embracing the entire area from Lakes Michigan and Erie to the Gulf of Mexico, consisted of about four hundred French colonists, a large proportion of whom succeeded in a profitable traffic with the Indians, while a small proportion of them engaged in agricultural pursuits. After the death of Louis XIV, in 1717, Crozat, disappointed in his ambitious expectations, surrendered his grant to the crown of France, and in August of the same year, letters patent were issued to the Western or Mississippi Company, offering certain inducements, embraced in the fifth article of the siad letters: "In order to provide the said Western Company with the means of making a permanent establishment, and to execute all the plans they may form, we have granted and conceded, and, by these presents, do give, grant and concede, to them forever, all the lands, coasts, ports, havens and islands which form our province of Louisiana, as well and with the same extent as we had granted it to M. Crozat, by our letters patent dated the 14th of September, 1712, to enjoy the same in full properety, lordship and justice--reserving to ourselves but only fealty and homage, which the said Company shall render to us, and the Kings our successors, with a crown of gold of the value of twenty marcs."

In 1719, this Company, by permission of the French Government, obtained an exclusive right to trade with the Eastern Indies and China, in consequence of which the Company came to be known as the "Company of the Indies." Two years aferward, the Directors induced their colonists to exchange their visionary search for gold and the other precious metals for agricultural pursuits and the practice of the mechanic arts, when the colony was subdivided into nine districts. Of these districts, the Illinois included the territory now embraced in the State of Indiana. These changes were productive of much good to the colonists. In 1744, a war broke out between England and France, which extended also to the settlements of these two nation, in the territory of North America, especially those along the Atlantic Coast, but not materially affecting the French population in the Illinois country. this state of thing continued until the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, which, however, did not settle the questions of boundary in the colonies of the Mississippi Valley. Subsequently, the English made such inroads into the Indian policy of the French as to secure an alliance with the Miamis, and a treaty of alliance and friendship was concluded between the English and the Twightwees, at Lancaster, Penn., on the 23d day of July, 1748. This treaty had the effect to keep alive the former controversies between the two nations.

The same year, an association was formed for the planting of a colony west of the Alleghany Mountains called the Ohio Company, and received a grant, in 1749, from George II, of 1,500,000 acres of land, lying on and near the Ohio River, the result of which was the extension of English settlements and marts of trade in territory before under control of the French. In consequence, the Governor General of Canada sent out an expedition under command of Louis de Celeron, for purposes of exploration and the deposit of medals of lead with appropriate inscriptions at the mouths of the principal rivers; thus, in the name of Louis XV, taking formal possession of the country.

Capt. Celeron, in a letter to Gov. Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, about the close of the year 1749, expressed surprise at finding English traders from that State occupying territory to which England had no claim whatever, and requested the Governor to forbid further intrusions, advising them of the danger of thus trepassing upon French right. The Ohio Company, however, so far from refraining in consequence, prosecuted its original design, extending settlements with unabated continuity, employing Christopher Gist "to explore the country, examine the quality of the lands, keep a journal of his adventures, draw an accurate a plan of the country as his observation would permit, and report the same to the Board." Sometime in the year 1752, the Company, by its agents, established a trading house in the country of the Twightwees or Miamis. This fort was situated some forty-seven miles to the northward from the present site of Dayton, Ohio. These movements naturally induced controversy between the French and English Governments, and preparations began to be made in Virginia and elsewhere, to raise a military force sufficient for the protection of the frontier English settlements. "Maj. George Washington was sent by Gov. Dinwiddie to the West as the bearer of an official letter to the Commandant of the French forces in this quarter. The letter, which required the French forces to withdraw from the dominions of Great Britain, was delivered by Washington to M. Le Guardner de St. Pierre, who was the Commandant of a post on the western branch of French Creek." In reply to this message of the English Colonial Governor, the French officer said: "It was not his province to specify the evidence and demonstrate the right of the King, his master, to the lands situated on the River Ohio, but he would trasmit the letter to the Marquis du Quesne, and act according to the answer received from that nobel man. In the mean time, he said, he did not think himself obliged to obey the summons of the English Governor--that he commanded the fort by virture of an order from his General, to which he was determined to conform with all the precision and resolution of a good officer."*

     *Smollett's History of England.

In addition to this post on French Creek, the French then had in their possession numerous trading-posts in the great valley of the Mississippi, on the Miami, Wabash, and the Ohio. In localities where these posts were situated, the influence of the French was exerted in securing the co-operation of the Indians. Among the various Indian tribes, the Iroquois and a branch of the Miamis, were, perhaps, the only Indian allies of the English; so strong was the hold of the French upon them, being connected by ties of interest and friendship with nearly all, the tribes of the North and West.

From 1750 forward, during a period of twelve or thirteen years, continued acts of hostility between the English and the occupants of the various French trading-posts manifested unequivocally the purpose of the former to possess by force the territory northwest of the Ohio River. Day by day these acts of hostility became more determined and sanguinary, until, in 1754-55, the controversy was general, involving all the border settlements. One by one the French posts succumbed to the inevitable, and passed into the hands of the English. Finally, on the 10th of February, 1763, a definitive treaty of peace between France and England was concluded at Paris, the preliminary articles having been considered, adjusted and signed on the 3d of November, preceding. By the terms of this treaty, all subjects of dispute between the belligerent parties were removed forever, growing out of the occupancy of this territory by the French, and a complete cession by the latter of all their territory formerly claimed by them in North America, and a complete opening of navigation on the Mississippi along its entire length was secured. About the same time, by a secret convention, France ceded to Spain all that part of Louisiana which lies westward of the Mississippi River, but it was not until the 17th of August, 1769, that Spain came into actual possession, notwithstanding the convention ceded the territory in November, 1762.