HISTORY ACCORDING TO THE VICTORS

 

The cable news networks have a camera station set up inside the capitol building in Washington D.C. Reporters stand in front of the cameras, microphones in hand, and report the latest happenings from the House and Senate. In the background stands a white marble statue of Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit priest, who in 1673, accompanied by Louis Jolliet, laid eyes upon the mighty Mississippi. The engraving on the base of the statue reads:

 

WISCONSIN’S TRIBUTE

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JAMES MARQUETTE   S.J.,

WHO, WITH LOUIS JOLIET

DISCOVERED THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER

AT PRAIRIE DU CHEIN, WIS.

JUNE 17, 1673

 

Imagine the dialogue at that historic moment. Maybe it went something like this:

 

Marquette: Oh joy, oh rapture! Jolliet, look at this magnificent river. Such power, such potential!

Jolliet: Praise be to God, the creator!

Marquette: [Speaking to his guide and interpreter, a Sioux known as Many Tongues LeBeau] LeBeau, ask our native friends if they are familiar with this mighty stream.

LeBeau: [Speaking to Proud Eagle, a chief of the Menomonee tribe] Chief, the white devil wants to know if you are ‘familiar’ with the river.

Eagle: Is this white mans' humor? Are we ‘familiar’? Our people have lived on this river since time began. Tell him we were here while his ancestors lived in caves and ran from the giant lizards.

LeBeau: [To Marquette] He says he’s never before seen these waters.

Marquette: But how can that be?

LeBeau: There is a legend of a great flood where only a handful of beasts survived. Native people stay far away, on the other side of yonder ridge.

Marquette: Did you hear that, Jolliet? We are the first to stand on this ground.

Jolliet: Praise the Lord!

Marquette: Ask him how far—in legend—the river extends.

LeBeau: He wants to know how far the river runs.

Eagle: It begins upstream at a lake we call Itaska and extends far down river to where it empties into a vast open sea. By canoe, a brave would take a hundred suns to reach the sea.

LeBeau: [to Marquette] He says he has no idea.

Marquette: It appears to be navigable. Think of the commerce, think of the trade, think of great cities rising on its banks! Ask him if legend has given this mighty torrent a name.

LeBeau: What do you folks call the river?

Eagle: We call it Misi-ziibi. It means Big River.

LeBeau: Big River? That’s the best you’ve got?

Eagle: It sounds better when you say Misi-ziibi.

LeBeau: The chief says it is called Misi-ziibi, which means ‘Mother of all waters, flowing swiftly to the heavenly sea’.

Marquette: Oh rapture! Oh joy! Jolliet, we have discovered the Mississippi. I will call it ‘River of the Immaculate Conception’.

Jolliet: Halleluiah!

Eagle: These people are crazy. Why are they so worked up?

LeBeau: They think they discovered the river.

Eagle: Sheesh… Tell him there were other white devils, way down river, who were here in the time of my great great grandfather.

LeBeau: Father Marquette, the chief congratulates you and your friend, Monsieur Jolliet, on this grand discovery.

 

So it is written. So let it be carved in stone. Back to Wolf Blitzer in the studio…

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