Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/85



was left unburied in the forest. A few of his devoted friends hunted down and killed the murderers and finally reached the Illinois settlements.

The colonists thus left to their fate nearly all died from disease and Indian raids. Finally the survivors were overcome by the natives, captured and reduced to slavery. In 1690 the few who were alive were rescued by a Spanish expedition sent out to destroy the French colony. In 1682 La Salle wrote a lengthy account of Father Hennepin's exploration of the upper valley, and in it makes the first mention of the Ai-o-un-on-ia (Iowa) Indians, and from this tribe our State takes its name.

In 1684 Louis Franguelin published the best map that, up to that time, had been made of Louisiana, which comprised all of the French possessions south, and west, and northwest of the great lakes. On this map first appeared the two rivers bearing their present names, “Mississippi” and “Missouri.”

The Ontavus Indians living along the valley of the great river, called it the Mis-cha-si-pi, and posterity has united in preserving the beautiful Indian name, with a slight change in the orthography.

For forty years French settlers were slowly entering the Mississippi Valley, while trappers, fur traders and missionaries penetrated remote regions exploring the rivers of the territory lying west of the Mississippi. It was from these pioneers that many of our Iowa water courses received their first names, several of which have been retained.

Twelve years elapsed after the disastrous attempt of La Salle to plant a colony in the lower Mississippi Valley, before another movement was made by the French to establish settlements in that region. In 1699 D'Iberville, a distinguished French naval officer, collected a colony at San Domingo for settlement in Louisiana. The company landed west of Mobile Bay, where the ships and most of the settlers remained. D'Iberville, with a party of sailors,