PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD: FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN, O.F.M., AND SIEUR DE LA BORDE “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project People of Cape Cod: Father Louis Hennepin HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD CAPE COD: Our host said that you would be surprised if you were PEOPLE OF on the beach when the wind blew a hurricane directly on to it, to CAPE COD see that none of the drift-wood came ashore, but all was carried directly northward and parallel with the shore as fast as a man can walk, by the inshore current, which sets strongly in that direction at flood tide. The strongest swimmers also are carried along with it, and never gain an inch toward the beach. Even a large rock has been moved half a mile northward along the beach. He assured us that the sea was never still on the back side of the Cape, but ran commonly as high as your head, so that a great part of the time you could not launch a boat there, and even in the calmest weather the waves run six or eight feet up the beach, though then you could get off on a plank. Champlain and CHAMPLAIN Poitrincourt could not land here in 1606, on account of the swell POITRINCOURT (la houlle), yet the savages came off to them in a canoe. In the Sieur de la Borde’s “Relation des Caraibes,” my edition of which DE LA BORDE was published at Amsterdam in 1711, at page 530 he says:– “Couroumon a Caraibe, also a star [i.e. a god], makes the great lames à la mer, and overturns canoes. Lames à la mer are the long vagues which are not broken (entrecoupees), and such as one sees come to land all in one piece, from one end of a beach to another, so that, however little wind there may be, a shallop or a canoe could hardly land (aborder terre) without turning over, or being filled with water.” But on the Bay side the water even at its edge is often as smooth and still as in a pond. Commonly there are no boats used along this beach. There was a boat belonging to the Highland Light which the next keeper after he had been there a year had not launched, though he said that there was good fishing just off the shore. Generally the Life Boats cannot be used when needed. When the waves run very high it is impossible to get a boat off, however skilfully you steer it, for it will often be completely covered by the curving edge of the approaching breaker as by an arch, and so filled with water, or it will be lifted up by its bows, turned directly over backwards and all the contents spilled out. A spar thirty feet long is served in the same way. I heard of a party who went off fishing back of Wellfleet some years ago, in two boats, in calm weather, who, when they had laden their boats with fish, and approached the land again, found such a swell breaking on it, though there was no wind, that they were afraid to enter it. At first they thought to pull for Provincetown, but night was coming on, and that was many miles distant. Their case seemed a desperate one. As often as they approached the shore and saw the terrible breakers that intervened, they were deterred. In short, they were thoroughly frightened. Finally, having thrown their fish overboard, those in one boat chose a favorable opportunity, and succeeded, by skill and good luck, in reaching the land, but they were unwilling to take the responsibility of telling the others when to come in, and as the other helmsman was inexperienced, their boat was swamped at once, yet all managed to save themselves. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD 1626 May 12, Friday (Old Style): On this day Louis Hennepin was born (or, was baptized as “Antoine”), at Ath in the Spanish Netherlands southwest of Brussels (it’s now Belgium and he would always refer to himself as a Fleming). NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project People of Cape Cod: Father Louis Hennepin HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD 1659 Béthune (the town in the Spanish Netherlands where Louis Hennepin lived) was captured by the army of Louis XIV of France. Shortly after his ordination to the priesthood, Hennepin’s superior sent him off on a tour of the great churches and most important convents of the Franciscan Order in Italy and Germany. Then, however, “Having returned to the Netherlands, the Reverend Father William Herenx, late bishop of Ypres, manifested his averseness to the resolution I had taken of continuing to travel by detaining me in the convent of Halles in Hainaut, where I was obliged to perform the offices of preacher for a year.” Afterward his superior would send him to Artois, France, and thence to Calais “to act the part of a mendicant ... in time of herring-salting.” LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project People of Cape Cod: Father Louis Hennepin HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD 1673 At Maastricht, in the midst of the war then in progress between the French and the Spanish, Père Louis Hennepin reported that: “During the eight months I administered the sacraments to over eight thousand wounded men. In which occupation I ventured many dangers among the sick people, being taken ill both of a spotted fever and of a dysenterie which brought me very low and near unto death; but God at length restored me my former health by the care and help of a very skillful Dutch physician.” Fathers Jacques Marquette, S.J. (1636-May 19, 1675) and Louis Joliet (baptized September 21, 1645-1700) became the 1st people of European descent, which is to say, the 1st people we are interested to know anything about, to traverse the northern parts of the Mississippi valley, including the area now known as Chicago.1 Father Marquette noticed, among the Nadouessi and the Illinois, cross-dressers. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT 1. From the most numerous Indian tribe in the Southwest, the Choctaw, the name “Mississippi” was derived for the largest river of the North American continent. In that language, simple adjectives such as Missah and Sippah were used when describing the most familiar things; but those two words —though they are employed thus familiarly when separated— when compounded form the most characteristic name of that river: missah, literally, indicating “old big,” and sippah, “strong.” HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD 1674 Original publication at Paris of Sieur de La Borde’s RELATION CURIEUSE DES CARAIBES SAUVAGES DES ISLES ANTILLES DE L’AMERIQUE, under the title RELATION EXACTE DE L’ORIGINE, MOEURS, COÛTUMES, RELIGION, GUERRES & VOYAGES DES CARAIBES (unless “1674” be a misprint for “1694,” a theory which I am tempted to embrace). August 11, Tuesday (Old Style): Samuel Sewall received the degree of Master of Arts from Harvard College. Père Louis Hennepin tended the wounded after the Battle of Seneffe between the forces of Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé and a Dutch/German/Spanish army under William III of Orange (there were 8,000 dead or wounded on the one side, 11,000 on the other; both sides claimed victory). He would afterward receive orders from his superiors to go to Rochelle, France, to embark there for Canada as a missionary. While waiting for the sailing of his ship, he would perform for nearly two months at a place near Rochelle the duties of a curate at the request of the local pastor, who had occasion to absent himself. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project People of Cape Cod: Father Louis Hennepin HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD 1675 July 14, Wednesday (Old Style): At the request of King Louis XIV, four missionaries of the Récollets (a French branch of the Franciscan Order), including Père Louis Hennepin, set sail as part of the company of René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, who had been recently endowed with a title, and had been appointed to the governorship of Fort Frontenac, one of the principle outposts of “Le Nouvelle France” — as the French dominions in America were then called. CANADA September: The ship conveying Père Louis Hennepin arrived in Québec, after successfully holding off Turkish, Tunisian, and Algerian pirates. His first experience in the New World would be to serve for four years as a preacher in Advent and Lent in the cloister of St. Augustine in the hospital in Québec. He would employ his leisure time by traveling to regions within 20 or 30 leagues of that city –often on snow-shoes, his luggage being transported upon sledges drawn by dogs, sometimes travelling in a canoe– to learn the local languages and customs and thus prepare himself for mission work.