|
|
|
|
CAHOKIA: THE DAWN
FIRST HISTORICAL MENTION
THE Peace Treaty held at Sault Sainte Marie strengtened the resolve of Pere Jacques Marquette, S. J. to explore the regions of the Mississippi, and on the tenth day of June, 1673, he entered on the great adventure, accompanied by Sieur Louis Jolliet, chief, and five Frenchmen among them, doubtless, Nicolas Perrot, an adventurous explorer, who later on opened a lead mine in the "Fever River" now called Galena River territory near Galena, Illinois in 1682, and who conduded smelting operations prior, thereto in 1680. Much has been written about the exploits of Pere Marquette, far less about those of Sieur Jolliet, who christened the great river which they discovered "Buade," this being the family name of the Count de Frontenac, and later on he re-christened it the "Colbert," after the great French minister of state. On the other hand Father Marquette in his devotion to the Virgin Mother of God, named it in commemoration of the Immaculate Conception; but nevertheless the name by which the Indians designated this great stream, "The Mississippi" is still the name by which it is now known and will, doubtless, be known in the centuries yet to come. No record tells us that Pere Marquette rested at the site of Cahokia, but conjecture so testifies. Cahokia takes its name from one of the tribes constituting the Indian village of Kaskaskia, near the present Utica, and where he and his companions were received and treated with great kindness. Sieur Louis Jolliet, the chief of this expedition was not only an experienced explorer, but a capable and successful leader of men. Talon, the Intendant of Quebec showed great sagacity in his selection. Jolliet was born in Quebec on or about 1645, and was educated in the Jesuit schools of said community. He remained in these schools until he was educated in the higher branches, including surveying and map-making. He was by birth a natural musician, and often played the organ in the ancient Cathedral of Quebec. (That city already boasted a fine Cathedral church in 1657.) Before he was selected to undertake the discovery of the Mississippi, he had twice visited Sault Sainte Marie, and had earned not only the confidence of his civilian superiors, but that of the Jesuits and the Indians with whom he came in contact. It was on this exploratory trip that Pere Jacques Marquatte, S. J., on the fourth day, Maundy Thursday, April 11, 1675, established the Church in Illinois. A beautiful prairie near the Indian settlement (near the present city of Utica) was chosen for the great event. It was adorned in the fashion of the primitive country, being spread with mats and bearskins, and Father Marqette having hung on cords some pieces of Chinese taffeta, attached to these four large pictures of the Blessed Virgin, which were thus visible from all sides. The auditory was composed of five hundred chiefs and old men seated in a circle around Pere Marquette, while the youth stood without to the number of fifteen hundred, not counting the women and children, who were numerous, the Indian settlement being composed of five or six hundred fires. What an auspicious day for the establishment of the Church in our state, in Illinois and with what righteous pride may we contemplate this earliest event in the existence of the Church on our soil; in the bringing to the Indians the tokens of civilization and religion. It may now be of interest to mention some of the early missionaries who came to Cahokia, after Pere Marquette had opened the missionary work in this territory, in the present Illinois. They are in chronological order as follows:
REV. FATHER CLAUDE JEAN ALLOUEZ, S. J. Of the work and activity of this great missionary among the Tamaroas Illinois Missions much has been chronicled. Pere. Marquette had promised his newly founded congregation that another "Black Robe" would be sent them, and they eagerly awaited him, so that when in March or April, 1677, Father Allouez reached the mouth of the Chicago River, he found a large band of Indians there who came to meet him, some from far distances, and who escorted him to the mission established by Pere Marquette. Arriving there he immediately took up the work of the mission. From this mission station Father Allouez traveled far and near, He spent upward of eleven years in this work and attained marked success. He is credited with having instructed, during his apostolic career, one hundred thousand natives, of whom he personally at least baptized ten thousand. He abundantly earned his second name Xavier, for like St. Xavier, he spent his life in mission work.
REV. FATHER SEBASTIAN RALE, S. J. On the death of Father Allouez, Father Sebastian Rale, S. J., was selected as his successor, and he arrived at the Illinois Mission in the Spring of 1692. Father Rale was but two years in the Illinois Mission when he was called to the East where he gained much renown. It was of Father Rale that Whittier wrote so feelingly in his "Mogg Magone." Father Rale was a remarkable linguist and translated several Indian dialects. During the time he was in Illinois, the mission services were conducted with great regularity and the Indians attended very faithfully, as also the French coureurs,de-Bois, and the trappers. The seed planted by the saintly Pere Marquette and tended by the martyred Father Rale and the eloquent Father Allouez flourished and in 1690 the Illinois Church was of such importance that the Bishop of Quebec, Right Reverend John Baptiste de La Croix Chevalier de Vallier, in selecting a successor, appointed Reverend Father James Gravier, S. J. and made him his Vicar-General for the Illinois country.
REVEREND FATHER JAMES GRAVIER, S. J. Father Gravier began his missionary labors in the Illinois Missions, of which Cahokia was an integral part, on March 20, 1693. Father Gravier was one of the ablest and most successful of all the Illinois missionaries. He thoroughly mastered the Indian language and reduced it to grammatical form. He compiled the great manuscript, "Dictionary I of the Peoria Language," which is now at Harvard University, a literary monument to the extinct Illini. Among his converts was the daughter of an Indian Chief of the Peoria tribes. Her saintly life aided Father Gravier in a spiritual triumph of unprecedented proportions. This convert was the mother of Princess Potosi, daughter of Chief Peosta, who became the wife of Sieur Julien Dubuque, the founder of Dubuque, Iowa, in the Fall of 1783. In "St. Sulpice's little chapel,". she knelt, counting her beads and ever repeating the simple "Aves" translated into the Indian tongue by the learned Father Sebastian Meurin, S. J., who so gently guided the French immigrants and the Indian habitants on the paths of rectitude and virtue.
REVEREND FATHER ST. COSME, C. F. M. On the fifth day of December, 1699, the intrepid explorer Tonti in company with Father Francois Busion de St. Cosme, C. F. M., reached the Mississippi from the Illinois River, and the next day which would be the sixth of December, 1699, he and his voyageurs reached the settlement of the Tamaroas Indians, the village of Cahokia. A few days later they erected a cross on the high bluff on the right bank of the Mississippi River and prayed "that God might grant the cross which had heretofore been but little known in these regions might triumph there." Father Joliett de Montigny, C. F. M., superior of the missions of the Semarist priests spent some time there in 1696. An interesting surmise has been made that the bald spot on Signal Hill, just east of East St. Louis, and of Cahokia, may have been the historic spot at which this cross was erected, for from said height signal fires could be seen across the entire Bottoms.
REVEREND FATHER FRANCOIS PINET, S. J. So fascinating has become the delving into old tomes and other sources of historical information, anent the early life of the Illinois Mission, of which Cahokia formed so splendid a part, that we can scarce refrain from writing on and on. But we must hasten to the close of this chapter. Father Francois Pinet, S. J., may be looked upon as the real founder of the Holy Family Parish or Mission, now known as "Holy Family Parish" of Cahokia, Illinois. Of him a fellow missionary, Rev. Father Gabriel Marest, S. J., in a letter written to Father Lamberville in July 1702, says: "Father Pinet, a very holy and zealous missionary, has left the Mission of the Tamaroa in accordance with your directions to me ... and now has charge of the Kaskaskias." Father Pinet died at Chicago, July 16, 1704, and he was succeeded in the Tamaroa Mission by Reverend Father Francis Buisson de St. Cosmo, and Reverend Father John Bergier, priests of the Seminary of Foreign Missions, and the Tamaroa Mission, Cahokia, was thereafter until 1763 conducted under the care of that order of priests.
REVEREND FATHER GABRIEL MAREST, S. J. In 1694 Reverend Father Marest, S. J., accompanied the expedition of the renowned D'Iberville from Montreal to Hudson Bay, directed against the English, and after D'Iberville's success began a mission there. In 1695 the forts were retaken by the English and Father Marest was taken a prisoner to Plymouth, England. But he return and in 1699 was again in the Illinois Missions, first at Peoria and afterwards until 1712 at Kaskaskia, from which he frequently visited Cahokia. And thus we have viewed the Dawn of Cahokia, a Catholic community, as an outpost of civilization, a source of development the influence of which should cast its rays of light into the hitherto dark places of our loveland. Cahokia in 1694-1712 a French-Canadian village then had seen the Dawn of a New Day.
|
|
|
