Jacques Marquette Lieu de Naissance - Laon, France
N 49° 33.918 E 003° 37.181
31U E 544809 N 5490485
[FR] Le père Jacques Marquette était un explorateur et missionnaire jésuite français. [EN] Father Jacques Marquette S.J. was a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Ste. Marie.
Waymark Code: WMBDYJ
Location: Hauts-de-France, France
Date Posted: 05/10/2011
Views: 10
[FR] Né à Laon le 10 juin 1637, Jacques Marquette est le sixième enfant de Nicolas Marquette de La Tombelle, conseiller élu de Laon et de Rose de La Salle. Sa famille très pieuse éveille en lui une vocation apostolique. Après ses études dans les écoles laonnoises, Jacques Marquette entre à dix-sept ans dans la Compagnie de Jésus. Moins d’une année après avoir terminé ses études, il est ordonné prêtre à vingt-neuf ans et sollicite d’être envoyé en mission "ad exteras nationes".
Jacques Marquette embarque à La Rochelle au début du mois de juin 1666 et arrive à Québec le 20 septembre. Il passe un an à Trois-Rivières à étudier le montagnais et d’autres langues indiennes, en 1673 il en parlera couramment une demi-douzaine. En 1668, il rejoint le Père Claude Dablon au Sault-Sainte-Marie, mission dont dépendent environ 2 000 Algonquins. En 1669, il fonde une mission à la Pointe du Saint-Esprit et dans le courant de l’été 1671, fonde la mission Saint-Ignace sur le détroit de Mackinac.
Le 2 juillet 1671, il prononce ses vœux perpétuels au Sault-Ste-Marie.
C’est à St-Ignace que, le 8 décembre 1672, il reçoit Louis Jolliet, chargé par le nouveau gouverneur de la Nouvelle-France Louis de Frontenac d’aller explorer la vallée du Mississippi à la recherche du passage direct vers l’océan Pacifique. Ils prennent tout l’hiver pour préparer leur grand voyage. Ils interrogent des Indiens nomades, esquissent des cartes du pays. Vers la mi-mai, ils se mettent en route à bord de deux canots accompagnés de cinq autres Français. L’expédition traverse le lac Michigan, remonte la rivière aux Renards et entre dans un pays inconnu aux Européens. Là, ils décident de prendre le chemin du retour en raison de la présence des Espagnols dans les territoires dont ils approchent. Ils se séparent fin septembre 1673 ayant constaté que le Mississippi coule inexorablement vers le sud et non vers l’ouest comme on l’espérait.
L'observation du Mississippi a conforté Jacques Marquette dans son désir d’étendre vers l’ouest et le sud du continent l’influence missionnaire. Au mois d’octobre 1674, il quitte la baie des Puants pour aller fonder une mission chez les Illinois que Jolliet et lui sont les premiers Européens à avoir visités.
En décembre, son état de santé l’oblige à s’arrêter à la hauteur de Chicago d’où il repart le 30 mars 1675. Le 8 avril, il s’arrête dans un village où il fonde la mission de la Conception immaculée de la Sainte-Vierge. Jacques Marquette est décédé le 18 mai 1675 "au milieu des forests", près de l’actuelle ville de Ludington, au Michigan. Il avait 38 ans. Un an plus tard, ses restes étaient exhumés et transportés à la mission Saint-Ignace.
[EN] Jacques Marquette was born in Laon, France, on June 10, 1637 and joined the Society of Jesus at age seventeen. After he worked and taught in France for several years, the Jesuits assigned him to Quebec in 1666 as a missionary to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. He showed great proficiency in learning the local languages, especially Huron. In 1668 Father Marquette (French: Père Marquette) was redeployed by his superiors to missions farther up the St. Lawrence River in the western Great Lakes region. He helped found a mission at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan in present-day Michigan; and at La Pointe, on Lake Superior near the present-day city of Ashland, Wisconsin. Here he encountered members of the Illinois tribes, who told him about the important route of the Mississippi River. They invited him to teach their people, whose settlements were mostly further south. Because of wars between the Hurons at La Pointe and the neighboring Lakota people, Father Marquette left the mission and went to the Straits of Mackinac; he informed his superiors about the rumored river and requested permission to explore it.
Leave was granted, and in 1673, Marquette was joined by Louis Jolliet, a French-Canadian explorer. They departed from St. Ignace on May 17, with two canoes and five voyageurs of French-Indian ancestry (now recognized as the ethnic group Métis). They followed Lake Michigan to Green Bay and up the Fox River, nearly to its headwaters. From there, they were told to portage their canoes a distance of slightly less than two miles through marsh and oak plains to the Wisconsin River. At that point the French later built the trading town of Portage, named for its location. From the portage, they ventured forth, and on June 17, they entered the Mississippi near present-day Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
The Jolliet-Marquette expedition traveled to within 435 miles (700 km) of the Gulf of Mexico but turned back at the mouth of the Arkansas River. By this point they had encountered several natives carrying European trinkets, and they feared an encounter with explorers or colonists from Spain. They followed the Mississippi back to the mouth of the Illinois River, which they learned from local natives provided a shorter route back to the Great Lakes. They reached Lake Michigan near the site of modern-day Chicago, by way of the Chicago Portage. In September Marquette stopped at the mission of St. Francis Xavier, located in present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin, while Jolliet returned to Quebec to relate the news of their discoveries.
Marquette and his party returned to the Illinois Territory in late 1674, becoming the first Europeans to winter in what would become the city of Chicago. As welcomed guests of the Illinois Confederation, the explorers were feasted en route and fed ceremonial foods such as sagamite.
In the spring of 1675, Marquette traveled westward and celebrated a public mass at the Grand Village of the Illinois near Starved Rock. A bout of dysentery which he had contracted during the Mississippi expedition sapped his health. On the return trip to St. Ignace, he died at age 38 near the modern town of Ludington, Michigan.
A Michigan Historical Marker at this location reads:
“ "Father Jacques Marquette, the great Jesuit missionary and explorer, died and was buried by two French companions somewhere along the Lake Michigan shore on May 18, 1675. He had been returning to his mission at St. Ignace which he had left in 1673 to go exploring in the Mississippi country. The exact location of his death has long been a subject of controversy. A spot close to the southeast slope of this hill, near the ancient outlet of the Pere Marquette River, corresponds with the death site as located by early French accounts and maps and a constant tradition of the past. Marquette's remains were reburied at St. Ignace in 1677."”
The Ojibway Museum on State Street in downtown St. Ignace is in a building that was constructed over Marquette's gravesite during urban development.
Qui a placé ce repère historique ? / Who placed this historical marker ?:
L'Association Marquette–Jolliet
Site internet / Internet Website: [Web Link]
Eléments cryptés / Encrypted elements:
[decrypt]
Conditions de visite alternatives / Alternative visit requirements:
Date de placement / Date of establishment: Not listed
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Visit Instructions:
[FR] Une preuve de votre visite est demandée. Joignez à votre log une photo du repère historique et culturel ou répondez à la question alternative proposée par l'owner quand elle existe (si vous ne pouvez joindre de photo).
[ENG] A proof of your visit is needed. Join a picture from the historical and cultural marker to your log or respond to the alternative question proposed by owner if available (if you can't provide a picture).