t the Spaniards. 2. A
strong fort must be built on the Illinois, to overawe the Indians.

In order to overawe the Indians, La Salle now hurried back to the
Illinois River, where, in December, 1682, near the present town of
Ottawa, on the summit of a cliff now known as "Starved Rock," he built a
stockade which he called Fort St. Louis. In 1684, while on a voyage from
France to plant a colony on the Mississippi, he missed the mouth and
brought up on the coast of Texas; and, landing on the sands of
Matagorda Bay, the colonists built another Fort St. Louis. But death
rapidly reduced their numbers, and, in their distress, they parted. Some
remained at the fort and were killed by the Indians. Others, led by La
Salle, started for the Illinois River and reached it; but without their
leader, whom they had murdered on the way.

SUMMARY

1. After the settlement of Quebec (1608) the French began to explore the
regions lying to the west, discovered the Great Lakes, and heard of a
great river--the Mississippi.

2. This river Marquette and Joliet explored from the mouth of the
Wisconsin to the mouth of the Arkansas (1673).

3. Then La Salle floated down the Mississippi from the Illinois to the
Gulf of Mexico, took formal possession of the valley in the name of his
King, and called it Louisiana (1682).

[Illustration: Starved Rock]

CHAPTER VII

THE INDIANS

[Illustration: A typical Indian]

%57%. When Europeans first set foot on our shores, they found the
country already inhabited, and, adopting the name given to the men of
the New World by Columbus, they called these people "Indians."

They were not "Indians," or natives of Asia, but a race by themselves,
which ages before the time of Columbus was spread over all North and
South America.

Like their descendants in the West to-day, they had red or
copper-colored skins, their eyes and long straight hair were jet black,
their faces beardless, and their cheek bones high.

%58. The Villages.%---East of the Rocky Mountains the Indians lived
in villages, often covering several acres in area, and surrounded by
stockades of two and even three rows of posts. The stockade was pierced
with loopholes, and provided with platforms on which were piles of
stones for the defenders to hurl on the heads of their enemies.
Sometimes the structures which formed the village were wigwams--rude
structures made by driving poles into the ground in a circle, drawing
their tops near to