THE OHIO VALLEY-GREAT LAKES ETHNOHISTORY
ARCHIVES: THE MIAMI COLLECTION
It is noted that the following work from the Miami Archives should be read and
considered within the historical context in which it was composed and printed.
The opinions expressed and the language used do not reflect the opinions or
standards of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, but are, rather,
indicative of thought in that historical moment during which the document was
published.
Official Account of the Enterprise
of
Cavelier de la Salle from 1679 to 1681
[Zenobius Membré?]
In: English Translation of Margry,
vol. 1, pp. 472-586.
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page 520 near the source of the Menitsakouat, which falls
into the lake. This river has been called the River du Tombeau (Tomb River) on
account of the tomb of an Indian Chief which was found there. Continuing to
ascend the Great River for eighty leagues further, the navigation is found to
be interrupted by a cataract which Father Louis called the falls of
Sainte-Antoine de Pade. This cataract is thirty or forty feet high, with a
small island in the middle of the fall. The mountains bordering the river end
at this spot, and it begins to run from the east and northeast, and the Indians
who have gone a very long distance up the stream have not been able to find the
place at which it taken its rise. Eight leagues beyond the falls is the River
of the Nadouessioux, narrow at its junction with the main stream, which you
ascend, going towards the north, for 50 leagues up to the Lake of the Issati in
which it rises. This lake spreads out into extensive marshes where wild oats
grow, as well as in many other places up to the end of the Baye des Puans. This
kind of grain grows of itself on marshy lands without anyone sowing it. It is
like oats but has a better flavour and is much longer; and so is the straw. The
Indians harvest it at the proper season and make their store of it for the
whole year.
The Lake of the Issati is situated 60 leagues to the west of Lake Superior. The islands and the lands surrounding it and the other lakes in the vicinity from which many rivers issue are inhabited by the Issati, the Nadouessans; the Tintonha, the Ouadebaton, the Chougasketon and other tribes who are included under the one name Sioux or Nadouessious. These savages number eight or nine thousand warriors, very brave, great runners and page 521 very good bowmen, and it was a party of this tribe which captured Father Louis and his two companions in the following manner:
They were going up the River Colbert or Mississippi very pleasantly and without any difficulty when, on the 11th of April 1680, they found themselves surrounded by a hundred or a hundred and twenty Nadouessious warriors who were coming down in thirty- three canoes to go and make war on the Tchatchakigouas. Father Louis immediately offered them the Calumet, which they accepted; but they would not smoke it, which is a token of peace, until they had made them go to the other side of the river, where they chased them with loud cries in order, according to their custom, to afford some pleasure to their dead.
However, the savages stole some clothing from them; and although Michel Ako made them a present of two cases of goods, they took the Frenchmen off to their village, where they returned, this adventure having made them break off their journey. But they did not, however, inflict any other ill treatment on the Frenchmen, who were not sorry for this opportunity of continuing their explorations, than making them proceed with them on foot for 50 leagues from the Great River, under great difficulties and with very little food. It is true, however, that on approaching their villages they shared amongst them all the goods, half by consent and half by force, but at the same time they promised to pay for them; and the reason of this apparent outrage was that the band was made up of two different tribes, and that the more distant of them, fearing lest the others, might keep the whole of the goods when they got to their village, wished to take their page 522 share of them beforehand.
Some time after, indeed they offered a part of the payment to Michel Ako, but he would not receive it until they should give him the value of the whole of the goods; and the Sieur de La Salle does not doubt that these Indians will give him payment in full. They also stole Father Louis' church ornaments except the chalice, which they did not dare to touch because, seeing it shine, they said that it was a spirit, which would kill them.
This treatment made the Father believe that they intended to put him to death because they went through many ceremonies which they are accustomed to perform when they mean to burn their enemies, and Michel Ako, who did not then understand their language, though he knew several others, could not come to an explanation with these Indians. Nevertheless, they left the Frenchmen quite at liberty in their village.
Three months after they went with the Indians to hunt oxen along the River Colbert, about 150 leagues away from their village, where they met the Sieur de Luth who was going to the Nadouessious with a man named Faffart as a guide, one of the Sieur de La Salle's soldiers, who had deserted from Fort Frontenac. They all went up together to the villages of the Nadouessious, where they remained about four months, and finally all returned together to Canada by the River Ouisconsing and the Baye des Puans.
During the stay of Father Louis and the two Frenchmen with the Nadouessious they saw Indians who came as delegates, who dwelt nearly 500 leagues to the west; and they learnt that the Assinipoualac, who are seven or eight days' journey to the north- west of the Sioux, and all the other tribes that are known, to page 523 the west and north-west, live on immense prairies where there are a large number of wild oxen and of furs, and they are sometimes obliged to make their fires with dried out ox-dung-- for want of wood.
During Father Louis' journey, the Sieur de La Salle was exposed to new difficulties and to hardships which would perhaps seem incredible. He had finished his fort, and prepared all the wood necessary for building his barque, but he had no iron, no rigging and no sails; he received no news of the other barque, and, the men whom he had sent to find out what had become of it, had not returned.
However, he reflected that summer was approaching, and that if he went on waiting to no purpose for some months longer, his enterprise would be delayed for a year and perhaps for two or three; for, being so far away, he could not in any way direct his affairs, nor get the things he needed sent to him.
In this great strait, he came to a decision as extraordinary as it was difficult to carry out, namely to go on foot to Fort Frontenac, a distance of more than 500 leagues.
They were then at the end of the winter, which had been as severe in America as in France;(see fn. 1) the ground was covered with snow which, though it had not melted, was not firm enough to bear a man on snow shoes. He had to burden himself with the usual equipment for these journeys, that is to say, a blanket, linen, a pot, a hatchet, a gun, powder, and lead, and some dressed skins for making Indian shoes, which last only one day, the shoes we wear in France being of no use in that country; moreover he had page 524 to make up his mind to pushing on through bushes and thickets, to walking in water, in marshes, and in melted snow, sometimes up to the waist and for whole days, to sleeping on the ground, sometimes without eating, for he could carry no provisions and must rely upon what he could kill with his gun for his subsistence, and the water he might meet on his way; and finally to being daily exposed, and especially at night-time, to the surprise attacks of four or five tribes which were making war on one another. Yet all these obstacles did not daunt him, and his only trouble was to find among his men a few resolute enough to accompany him, and to prevent the others whose loyalty was already much shake, from all deserting after his departure.
Fortunately, a few days after, he found means of removing the false impressions which the Illinois had given his men at the instigation of Monso. Some Indians belonging to five distant tribes arrived at the village and confirmed the knowledge he already possessed of the beauty of the Great River from the reports of several Indians and from what the Illinois themselves had told him on his arrival. Nevertheless, this account did not suffice to undeceive his men; and, in order to completely reassure them, he wished to make the Illinois confess it themselves, although he had been informed that they had resolved at a council to continue to say the same thing; and, a short time after, a favourable opportunity presented itself.
One day when he was more than two leagues from the fort, laden with four turkeys which he had killed when hunting, he met a young Illinois warrior who had just made some prisoners from southward and had preceded his comrades in order to warn page 525 the village of their return. As he was very tired and hungry, he asked the Sieur de La Salle for something to eat and he gave him one of his turkeys.
The Indian lit a fire and put it in the pot which he carried. While it was cooking the Sieur de La Salle questioned him about his journey and asked him for news of the country at the lower part of the river, of which he pretended to know a good deal. The young man drew for him a fairly correct map, with charcoal on a piece of bark; assured him that he had gone everywhere in his pirogue, that there were neither falls nor rapids right down to the sea, but that, as it became very broad, there were sand-banks and mud-banks in a few places which obstructed a part of it. He also told him the names of the tribes which dwell on its banks and of the tributaries it receives, which the Sieur de La Salle wrote down. Then he thanked him, by a small present, for having revealed the truth to him, which the chiefs of the tribe had misrepresented. He requested him not to tell them that he had spoken to him; and he gave him a hatchet to close his mouth, which is the way in which the Indians express themselves in recommending secrecy.
Early the next day he went to the village, where he found the Indians assembled in the hut of one of the most important men who was feasting them on a bear, a meat which they esteem highly. He placed himself in the midst of them and told them that he wished to show hem that he who made everything takes special care of the French; that he had shown favor to him by teaching him the condition of the Great River, of which matter he was very anxious to know the truth since they had page 526 given him a terrible description of it; and then he told them what he had learnt the day before. The savages believed that he had learned all these things by some extraordinary means; and, having closed their mouths with their hands, which is the Indians' way of showing their wonder, they told him that their only wish was to stop him, and that had compelled them to conceal the truth from him. They then acknowledged to him all that he had learned from the young warrior, and since then they have constantly expressed the same opinions.
This occurence cured the minds of the Sieur de La Salle's men of some of their fears; and they were completely delivered from them by the arrival of many Osages, Sicacas and Akansas who came from the south to see the French and to buy hatchets. They all testified that the river was navigable to the sea; and that, as the coming of the French had been made known everywhere, they would be very well received. The Sieur de La Salle made all of them small presents to show to their fellow tribesman; and promised to bring them hatchets, knives, needles and awls, which are the goods they value most; and he told them that our nation had a very large quantity of them, and would therefore supply them to their neighbours also, to whom he requested them to make him known.
A few days before, on the 17th of February, two of the chief men of the tribe of the Matoutenta, 80 or 100 leagues from the Great River towards the west, came to see the Frenchmen.
One of them had at his girdle, a horse's hoof with part of the skin of the leg which served as a tobacco pouch. He said that he had brought it from a country five days' journey from
page 528
The winter, as above stated, was longer than usual; the fort was beginning to
be in want of provisions, and the ice covering the river destroyed the means of
communication with the large village where the Indians' store of corn was.
Nevertheless, the Sieur de La Salle resolved to go up to the village and to
make use of that opportunity to go and find out what news there was of his
barque. He gave his orders to the Sieur de Tonty who did not disappoint the
good opinion which he had formed of his conduct and courage; and he set out on
the first of March with six of his strongest man and one Indian in two canoes.
The current, which was rather strong, kept the river free from ice near the fort. But after rowing a league, at the entrance to a widening of the streams or a lakes eight leagues in length formed by the river, they found it frozen. The Sieur de La Salle, who did not wish to abandon his canoes, intending to send them back to the fort laden with Indian corn, told his men that the current would have melted the ice at the end of this lake, and would open up a passage for them. They therefore determined to make two sledges, on which they put their canoes and all their luggage, and dragged them over the snow to the end of the lake. There they found, the next day, that the river was covered with ice, too thin to walk upon but too substantial to expose bark canoes to it. They were therefore compelled to carry the canoes and all the other things for four leagues, always in the snow up to the middle of the leg, and through the woods. In the evening they arrived at some Indian huts, where they took shelter from the heavy rains which fell all the night.
On the third of March they embarked on the river which they page 529 found frozen over in seven or eight places, where they broke the ice with poles to make a passage way. About four o'clock in the afternoon, the ice being more than a foot thick with so many uneven places and holes that they could not walk on it, they were obliged to go round a distance of nearly two leagues, dragging their canoes over frozen marshes, at the further end of which the river was free. They rowed upon it until noon, when the masses of ice floating all over the river compelled them from time to time to take to the land until they passed and then return to the water; and this they did several times before the evening. On the following day they made a portage of half a league, after which they continued their journey on a small channel or branch of the river for two leagues, sometimes rowing, sometimes breaking the ice with flails, or hatchets, or dragging their canoes knee- deep in the water. After that they dragged them over the snow in the woods until the evening of the next day when the snow, which fell heavily, forced them to stop. On the 9th, the frost having hardened the snow, they set off on their snow shoes which are used to keep them from sinking in it. That day they made seven or eight leagues; and the next day, after going ten leagues more they arrived at the village.
The heavy rain which fell on the next two days separated the blocks of ice with which the river was covered. But as the blocks were stopped by the islands and sand banks which they met below the village and formed great masses, which were carried up one on top of another with an extrordinary noise, the Sieur de La Salle lost all hope of being able to send provisions to the fort very soon. He did not even find anyone from whom he could page 530 buy any, and it was not at all likely that any Illinois would return to the village at such an inclement season. Nevertheless, as he had observed trails on the snow, he thought there were some Indians hunting in the neighbourhood, and in that belief he set fire to some reeds which the frost had dried, hoping that the smoke, which would show along way off, on those plains, would attract some Indian; and the plan succeeded.
The next day the Sieur de La Salle, went out while his men were buccaning, or drying by smoke, the flesh of an ox which they had killed, and he saw two Indians coming, followed at a short distance by Chassagoac, the most important chief of the Illinois, and the one who was most fond of our nation. He first made him present of a red blanket, a pot, some hatchets, and some knives; and then he told him that the Frenchmen whom he had left at the fort were in want of provisions and begged him to supply them with some, saying that on his return from the journey he was about to make, he would reward any service he might render him on this occasion.
Chassagoac promised to use all his influence
in favour of the French, and to load the boat with corn which the Sieur de La
Salle was leaving, with two men to take it back to the fort. Afterwards they
had a long colloquy in which the Sieur de La Salle related to him all that had
taken place at the other village where Chassagoac had not been present. He told
him also the object of his journey; that his intention was to bring about a
good understanding again between them and the Iroquois; that he would very soon
come back, with a quantity of arms and goods and a greater number of Frenchmen,
with the object of
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1 This comparison would incline one to believe that the narrative was written in France.
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