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The “Real Author” of the Recit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Francis Borgia Steck O.F.M.*
Affiliation:
Quincy College, Quincy, Ill

Extract

Silence must never be allowed to mean consent when truth and justice are at stake. In that case it becomes one’s sacred duty to speak out not only in self-defense but also to prevent the dissemination and perpetuation of error and to remedy as far as possible abuse of confidence and victory over ignorance where the victims are blameless and practically helpless.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1947

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References

1 May I say that it was illness, resulting finally in my resignation from the teaching staff of the Catholic University of America (Washington, D. C.) two years ago, which prevented me at the time from giving Father Delanglez’s essay the attention it is getting now. Barring a brief review of his volume El Rio del Espíritu Santo (New York, 1945) for The Catholic Historical Review (Washington, D. C: The Catholic University of America Press, Vol. XXXII (1946), No. 1 (April), pp. 101-103), this essay and the earlier ones that had been appearing in the pages of Mid-America (Chicago: Published by Loyola University) had to remain unanswered, though I read them all and made abundant notes to statements in which Father Delanglez felt himself called upon to repeat old charges and invent new ones against The Jolliet Marquette Expedition, 1613.

2 The essay appeared in Vol. 17 (new series), pp. 173-258. MA, unless otherwise stated, will refer to this essay with respective page.

3 Published as a dissertation by The Catholic University of America in 1927. It was written under the direction of the late Msgr. Peter Guilday and came out with his approval and that of the University. A market edition appeared the next year (1928) with photographic facsimiles of maps and documents. JME with respective page will refer to this dissertation.

4 In Thought (New York), Vol. IV (1929), Number 1 (June), pp. 32-71.

5 In The Fortnightly Review (St. Louis, Mo.), Vol. XXXVI (1929), November and December, and Vol. XXXVII (1930), January. Reprints of this reply to Father Garraghan are still available for ten cents to cover cost of mailing.

6 Obviously, it should read “and.”

7 It is printed in Bullarium Diplomatum et Privilegiorum Sanctorum Romanorum Fontificum, Taurinensis editio (Neapoli, MDCCCLXXXII), Tomus XVIII, 393-394.

8 It was in this work that the Récit appeared, pp. 5-43.

9 Which map? The so-called “Buade” or the so-called “Colbert” map. There is a noteworthy difference between the two. See The Jolliet-Marquette Expedition, 1613, 170-171 and 182-183; also the photographic facsimiles, nos. 31 and 32, in the market edition of the work.

10 As if he had “written evidence” for the “further talks” that Dablon had with Jolliet and Largilier. There is “written evidence” for only one of the talks, namely, the “Relation” of August 1, 1674, composed by Dablon after his talk with Jolliet.

11 The report of Father Jacques Gravier, S. J., is in the Thwaites edition of The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 65, and also in Shea’s Early Voyages up and down the Mississippi (Albany, 1861), 115-163.

12 Histoire et Description Generale de la Nouvelle France, 3 vols. (Paris, 1744).

13 By the way, Father Delanglez would probably never have gotten to see the St. Sulpice document had I not presented to the Newberry Library (Ayer Collection), Chicago, the photostat copy of it, the one which he used there and to which he refers in one of his earlier essays. In the same library he probably saw also the photostat copy I placed there of the Montreal manuscript of the Récit and of Father Marquette’s journal, though I take it for granted that he also saw and examined the original Montreal manuscript, preserved at St. Mary’s College.

14 A photographic facsimile is in The Jolliet-Marquette Expedition, 1613. See supra,. note 9.

15 Long before, in 1872, Harrisse came to the same conclusion. See his Notes pour servir a l’Histoire, a la Bibliographie et a la Cartographie de la Nouvelle-France et des Pays Adjacentes, 1545-1100 (Paris, 1872). “Elle [pièce],” he states, “est tout entière de la main de Jolliet” (p. 323). It was on the authority of Harrisse that Miss Kellogg wrote that the St. Sulpice manuscript is “in Jolliet’s handwriting” and also declares that the report of August 1, 1674, was prepared by Jolliet for Dablon, “who sent it at once to France.” See her volume The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest (Madison, 1925), 199 and note 26.

16 See The Fortnightly Review (St. Louis, Mo.), Vol. XXXVII (1930), p. 8, or the reprint, p. 11.

17 See Louise Phelps Kellogg, op. cit., 166.

18 Shea, John Gilmary, Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley (Redfield, 1852), lxxviilxxviii Google Scholar. The second edition of this work, published in 1903, repeats both the story and statement (lxxvii-lxxviii).

19 Daenell, Ernest, Die Spanier in Nordamerika, 1513-1824 (Munich and Berlin, 1911)Google Scholar.

20 This real cédula or royal decree was addressed by the king of Spain to the viceroy of Mexico. It is printed in Archivo Ibero-Americano (Madrid), Vol. XX (1923), 424-425. The pertinent passage reads: Peñalosa “pasó a Inglaterra, y de alli a Paris, a donde se alla cinco años a casado con una mujer francesa, y que a dado papel al Rey Christianisimo sobre la Conquista y descubrimiento de las Provincias de Quivira y Tagago…”

21 This map, neatly folded, appears in the Thwaites edition of The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 59, facing page 86. A reproduction of it, not in colors, will be found in the market edition of The Jolliet-Marquette Expedition, 1673, facsimile map, No. 31.

22 In the essays we have been considering {Mid-America, 174, note 4 and page 194), in case the reader cares to see for himself what they amount to.