central New York, and when, in consequence of this alliance, the French
were summoned to take the warpath, Champlain, with a few followers,
went, and on the shore of the lake which now bears his name, not far
from the site of Ticonderoga, he met and defeated the Iroquois tribe of
Mohawks in July, 1609.

The battle was a small affair; but its consequences were serious and
lasting, for the Iroquois were thenceforth the enemies of the French,
and prevented them from ever coming southward and taking possession of
the Hudson and the Mohawk valleys. When, therefore, the French
merchants began to engage in the fur trade with the Indians, and the
French priests began their efforts to convert the Indians to
Christianity, they were forced to go westward further and further into
the interior.

[Illustration: EUROPEAN CLAIMS AND EXPLORATIONS 1650]

Their route, instead of being up the St. Lawrence, was up the Ottawa
River to its head waters, over the portage to Lake Nipissing, and down
its outlet to Georgian Bay, where the waters of the Great Lakes lay
before them (see map on p. 63). They explored these lakes, dotted their
shores here and there with mission and fur-trading stations, and took
possession of the country.

%55. The French on the Mississippi.%--In the course of these
explorations the French heard accounts from the Indians of a great
river to the westward, and in 1672 Father Marquette (mar-ket') and Louis
Joliet (zho-le-a') were sent by the governor of New France to search for
it. They set out, in May, 1673, from Michilimackinac, a French trading
post and mission at the foot of Lake Michigan. With five companions, in