Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/705

Minor Notices 695 Paul, Reprint from volume X. of the Society's Publications, 1905, pp. iv, 146.) When, in 1885, the Prince Society of Boston published the manuscripts of Peter Esprit Radisson — manuscripts that had been pre- served by Samuel Pepys and afterward rescued from the wrapping- paper stocks of London tradesmen, finally to enrich the collections of Oxford University and the British Museum — that worthy organization could not have foreseen the apple of discord it was about to toss among the historians of the Old Northwest. Did Radisson and his companion Groseilliers actually discover the upper Mississippi seventeen years be- fore Marquette and Joliet explored the great river ? Were the two trader brothers-in-law from Three Rivers the first white men to sail the waters of Lake Superior? Did they also make an overland journey from the Great Lakes to Hudson Bay, thereby getting their first actual knowledge of the region where later they established the great trad- ing company which persists to this day? These are a few of the many queries, on various sides of which scores of investigators have ranged themselves. Without professing to have said the last word on the sub- ject, Mr. Warren Upham, secretary of the Minnesota Historical Society, has gathered a large amount of evidence to prove that Radisson and Groseilliers did actually come upon the Mississippi at Prairie Island, Minnesota, and that they were the first white men in the present state of Minnesota. Adopting the chronology carefully worked out by Henry Colin Campbell with the aid of the Jestiit Relations and the Journal of the Jesuits, Mr. Upham reaches the conclusion that the Frenchmen spent the time from April or May, 1655, to June, 1656, at Prairie Island, in the Mississippi, a few miles above Red Wing, without, however, being conscious that they had reached the great river. In his wander- ings Radisson came upon the Illinois River, and from the Indians there- abouts he gained his knowledge of the Mississippi. The second journey to the West took place between 1658 and 1660. In neither journey did the Frenchmen reach either the Gulf of Mexico or Hudson Bay. as some writers have been led to believe. Because they themselves failed to discern the geographical importance of the great river they had come upon; and because, so far as possible, they concealed from their country- men all knowledge of their travels, Radisson and Groseilliers are not entitled, according to Mr. Upham, to be ranked as the discoverers of the Upper Mississippi. It was Marquette and Joliet who literally dis- covered that river by making known to the world that they had found the great waters of which many had heard, and for which they were searching. This judgment has both common sense and historical re- search to commend it. At the same time it reduces Radisson and Groseilliers to their proper proportions ; they were mere traders, who blundered upon the Mississippi without discovering it. Even the fact that they looked upon its waters has remained unknown for more than two centuries. There is a wealth of bibliographical and chronological information in Mr. Upham's paper, which adds to its value to students. Charles Moore.