'Iron Hand' helped lead La Salle expedition

Henri de Tonti was 'born for the life of adventure'

by Jim Bradshaw

Henri de Tonti, according to historian Timothy Severin, who studied the early exploration of the Mississippi River, "was one of those people who seems to have been born for a life of adventure." The Indians called him "the man with the iron hand," because he had a metal claw at the end of his right arm that replaced a hand blown off in battle.

His father was Lorenzo de Tonti, an Italian banker from whom we get the word "tontine." Lorenzo was involved in internal wars in Italy and fought with distinction, but on the losing side. As a result, he was forced, penniless, into exile in France where Henri was born. Luckily for Lorenzo, an Italian, Cardinal Jules Mazarin ,was head of the French state at the time, standing in for Louis XIV, who was only 12 years old. Mazarin's biggest problem was finding the money to run the French empire. Lorenzo, the outcast Italian banker, gave him a way to fill the royal treasury.

Lorenzo's scheme was a primitive form of life insurance by which the Crown could hold money for a group of investors. Each participant's share increased as other participants died. The final survivor received all of the money that the entire group had put in. France, meanwhile, had use of the money and kept interest earned on it.

France used the tontine as a money-maker for many years. Unfortunately for Lorenzo, there were some kinks to be worked out in the plan. When the first tontine did not work just the way he said it would, he was called a swindler and thrown into prison, where he stayed for eight years. He never regained royal favor.

Henri's brother may have inherited their father's wiles. According to Severin, Alphonse de Tonti, Henri's older brother "was one of the first swindlers in the history of Canada." Alphonse emigrated to New France with a sufficiently good reputation to be made commandant at the French fort at Detroit. But French trade laws kept him from making the kind of money he wanted to make, so, Severin tells us, "He hit upon the happy idea of swapping his fort's supply of gunpowder for furs brought by the Indians."

According to Severin, "The scheme was a huge success and Alphonse did such a roaring trade with the savages, that settlers, at Detroit began to worry that if the Indians ever decided to attack the fort, the garrison would not have enough powder to fire a single cannon. After numerous complaints by the settlers he was supposed to protect, Alphonse was removed from Detroit. Shortly afterward he wrangled the post of commandant at Fort Frontenac and enjoyed two more years of inglorious peculation before he was dismissed in disgrace for extortion and illicit trading with the Indians. Alphonse then redeemed his reputation by fighting gallantly against the Iroquois until he was reappointed to his old command at Detroit. He was still at the fort in 1727 when he died. Needless to say, it was found after his death that he had returned to his old ways, the financial affairs at the fort were in shambles."

Alphonse's reputation also tarnished that of his brother but, in Severin's words, "Henri was heavyweight caliber, while his brother was not.... Again and again the same adjectives are used to describe (Henri): brave, faithful, loyal, energetic, courageous, devoted. ... Tonti was more than the classic 'faithful lieutenant.' For 17 years after La Salle's death, Tonti carried on the dream of the 'Great Plan,' and came nearer to putting the idea into practice than did La Salle."

Henri de Tonti became a cadet in the French army in 1668 and, since France was regularly occupied with a war for or against somebody, he had plenty of opportunity to fight and to gain battlefield promotions. His right hand was blown off by a grenade during one of those battles and he was taken prisoner by the Spanish. He was freed in a prisoner exchange and made his way back to Paris, where he equipped himself with his iron hand and went back to battle.

Despite his record, he was discharged in 1678 when the French war with Spain came to a temporary end. Things looked bleak for him until he met several men who were supporters of La Salle's first expedition to Louisiana.

"Thus when La Salle visited in Paris in the year of the peace, looking for men, money and royal support," Severin writes, "his arrival was a windfall for Tonti ... On July 12,1678, he traveled to La Rochelle where he found La Salle... The two men ... took an instant liking to each other. It was a friendship that lasted until La Salle's death."

La Salle left Tonti behind when he went back to France to promote his plan to establish a Gulf coast settlement, so Iron Hand was not with his friend at the ill-fated Matagorda settlement.

According to Severin's history, "Tonti stayed behind in the Illinois country. His task was to establish and hold a French settlement that would secure (the region drained by the Illinois River), but had to fend off determined attacks from his Canadian rivals and the officials in Montreal who did not like to see a semi-autonomous colony arising in the heartland. To make matters worse, the English were becoming a real threat. They were ruthlessly inciting the Iroquois Confederacy to attack all outlying French settlements and were backing their word with bribes of guns, ammunition, powder and rum.

Tonti built Fort St. Louis on the Illinois River at a place called Starved Rock and began to find Indian allies among the nearby Illinois, Miami and Chouanon tribes. He also brought Frenchmen to the settlement with grants of hunting, fishing, and trading rights.

When he was not commanding the fort on the Illinois or fighting the Iroquois, Tonti was traveling. He Made regular canoe trips to Montreal, and also explored to the south. He believed in La Salle's idea of a southern port for the furs and buffalo hides of the Mississippi Valley and thought that he could make the dream come true. Besides, Tonti had promised to meet La Salle at the mouth of the Mississippi River in the spring of 1686. As Severin reports it, "Tonti took 25 Frenchmen, five Illinois, and four Shawnees down the main river to the Gulf. But La Salle was many miles away on the Texas coast and there was no sign of a Louisiana colony. The pillar with the king's arms, which he and La Salle had set up on the beach four years earlier, had been knocked down by the waves. Tonti had it re-erected out of reach of the tide and sent canoes east and west to look for La Salle. But his scouts came back with nothing to report and Tonti reluctantly returned upstream to the Illinois country. He left behind a letter for La Salle saying that he had descended the river to look for his patron and would try to come back as soon as possible. This letter Tonti gave to the Indians of the delta with instructions that they were to deliver it to the white man who came in 'the house on the water.' Fourteen years later when Le Moyne d'Iberville sailed into the mouth of the Mississippi to found a new colony for France, an aged Indian chieftain in a coat of blue French broadcloth carefully handed over the letter to the visitors."

Tonti mounted an expedition to find La Salle in late 1689. He searched for 10 months and apparently got close to the Matagorda settlement. But he did not find the settlement nor any survivors from it. He made several more trips down the Mississippi to establish contact with friendly Indian tribes and set up fur trading posts. He sank all of his own money into the search for La Salle and into building his trading posts. He applied for reimbursement from the government, but got none. Henri finally reached the point where he wrote to his brother, "All the voyages I have made for the success of the country have ruined me."

In 1702, he set off down the Mississippi for the sixth and last time.

Severin reports, "With a handful of loyal followers he paddled to the delta which he and La Salle had discovered. There, at the new French colony of Louisiana, he offered his services to the commandant, Pierre le Moyne d'Iberville. His offer was accepted, and for the next two years Tonti continued to serve France, advising the settlers and campaigning against the Indians of the lower river. Then, in the summer of 1704, the supply ship Pelican arrived with a cargo of marriageable young women for the colonists. The Pelican also brought with her the deadly germs of yellow fever. In the epidemic that followed, several settlers contracted the disease and died; among them was Henri de Tonti."

He was 64 years old and had spent, more than half of, his life in he Now World.