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 570 young warrior, who was too impatient; killed the
first one before the second had entered, and thus destroyed all the plans of
his comrades, for the second man escaped and gave the alarm to the Iroquois.
Next day the Illinois were hemmed in on all sides; nevertheless they fought
bravely until nightfall when, their chief Paessa and thirteen or fourteen of
the bravest of them having been killed, and the Iroquois having lost eight men,
the fight was discontinued by both sides. On the following day the Illinois
returned to the charge three times; but as they found they were not strong
enough against such great numbers, they went to kill Iroquois hunters in the
direction of Lake Erie where the Iroquois warriors, who are not so swift as
they, dared not follow them.
This occurrence astonished the Miamis. They saw that the Illinois had not lost their courage, and they feared that when the Iroquois had gone they would vent their anger upon them and would avenge themselves upon them for having aided with their enemies against them.
At the same time a Chaouenon chief, the leader of a hundred and fifty warriors, who lives on the banks of a great river which falls into the River Ohio, learning that the Sieur de La Salle was in the country of the Miamis, sent to ask him for his Majesty's protection. He replied that his district was inaccessible to the French on account of the great distance;. but that, if he would come and join him at the end of the year, to assist him in discovering the mouth of the River Mississippi, he would then be able to assure him of the King's protection and to help him against the Iroquois and other enemies. The chief accepted the Sieur de La Salle's proposals and sent him word that he would not page 571 fail to be at the approach to the River of the Miamis towards the end of autumn.
The Sieur de La Salle, seeing that his affairs were so well in train, decided to go to the Illinois, to treat with them. He left on the first of March, accompanied by fifteen men well equipped with arms and snowshoes, for the frost had hardened the snow so firmly that it was easy to go over it. The weather was very fine, and his dogs killed as many roebucks and other animals as he wished, before his eyes; but the reflection of the sun's rays in those open plains, which he was obliged to cross was so strong, that he was blinded for three days, and the pain he suffered was so great that he could not rest, night or day. This ailment obliged him to stop on the border of a plain whence, in order to lose no time, he sent on all his men except two Frenchmen, Ouiouilamek and two other Indians, whose sight was affected in the same way as his. At the same time he sent off a man named Hunaut to go and look for pine leaves for him, which are a sovereign remedy for the disorder from which he was suffering. Hunaut, on his return, told him that he had found on his way the trails of seven men whose snowshoes were made differently from those of his men. The Sieur de La Salle thought it absolutely necessary to speak to them lest they should attack him by night before they saw that they were Frenchmen; and as he was in a difficulty as to what to do, seeing that he was unable to go himself and would not compel anyone to undertake an errand so dangerous, Hunaut and Ouiouilamek offered of their own accord to undertake it, and he accepted their offer. For two days they followed the trails they had seen; and at last, on the evening of the third day they found eighty huts of the tribe of the Outa- page 572 gamis, who were hunting at that place. The Indians received them very well, and informed them of the Sieur de Tonty's arrival among the Pouteatamis and of the return of Father Louis and two other Frenchmen from the country of the Nadouessious. This news delighted the Sieur de La Salle, whom they found on their return fit to continue his journey.
A few days after, he overtook his men and, the ice having melted, he had canoes made, and they all embarked in them. On the l5th of March, as he was going on in front with four men in a canoe, he saw ten Illinois, who immediately fled; but shortly afterwards they recognized him and came to him with great eagerness, and related to him the full details of their defeat by the Iroquois. The Sieur de La Salle made them a present, to comfort them; and afterwards he exhorted them to make peace with the Miamis, and told them the plan which he had formed of reconciling them to one another. He pointed out to them that, as long as they remained divided, the Iroquois would scorn them and would overthrow them one after the other; but that, if they would re-establish friendly relations with one another, they would become invincible and would be feared by all their enemies; for be would come and settle among them, with other Indians and many Frenchmen.
The Illinois thanked him for the pains he was taking for their preservation, and accepted his proposals. The remainder of the day passed, as usual, in feast and dances.
On the following day he had a hundred minots of Indian corn loaded into his canoes, and went up with all his men, to the place where, on his way back from his second journey, he had left page 573 the Sieur d'Autray and the surgeon in charge of his goods. From there he sent a canoe by the River Divine to go to the Sieur de Tonty in the Pouteatamis' country and bring back his papers, if they had been saved. A few days afterwards he arrived at the river of the Miamis, where he found everything in a satisfactory condition. He sent another canoe from there, in charge of the Sieur de La Forest, with four men, to meet the smith and the others who had wintered on the way, and to request the Sieur de Tonty to await him at Missilimakinak. He also ordered him to go to Fort Frontenac, after carrying out the other two matters, and to load his canoes with ammunition and goods and come and join him at once with a few fresh men at Missilimakinak, where he was to go at the end of May, The Sieur de La Forest learned at Missilimakinak that the Sieur de Tonty was still with the Pouteatamis, and he sent a canoe to him there with some goods, for him to make a present of them to the Indians, in recognition of their kind treatment of him, and in return for the food with which they had supplied him during the winter. This canoe was taken by three of the men whom, the Sieur de La Forest went to look for and found at Missilimakinak, and the others he sent by the shortest way to the River of the Miamis; but the wind was so contrary for the latter party that, when the Sieur de La Salle was returning to Fort Frontenac, some time after, he found them still on the way.
After the departure of the Sieur de La Forest, the Sieur de La Salle set to work to make new clearings and to sow French wheat, Indian corn, and all kinds of vegetables and pot-herbs, which have been a complete success, all of them having yielded page 574 twice as well as they do in Europe on the best land.
Two canoes then came to him, from the Indians of New England, to tell him that they were waiting, for him at the village of the Miamis to complete the negotiations which he had proposed.- He left some of his men, to work at cultivating the land, and embarked with the remainder.
On reaching the village he found three Iroquois there, who had remained to urge the Miamis to keep up the war against the Illinois. They visited the Sieur de La Salle at once and expressed great friendship and respect, for him; but, as he had learned that they had spoken of the French most scornfully and insolently, he received them coldly and told then that they had spoken ill concerning a nation which they ought to have respected, which would know how to teach them to behave properly if they should fail to do so; that he did not believe that they would dare, now that he had come, to speak as they had done in his absence. They saw that the Sieur de La Salle was accompanied by Frenchmen and by Indians from New England; and these words of his so confounded them that they fled the next night through the woods. Their flight had a very good effect on the minds of the Miamis, who were surprised to see that these Iroquois, who had not been afraid of the twelve or fifteen hundred men composing the Miami tribe, nor of the fifty Indians from New England, had been so frightened at the sight of a small number of Frenchmen who were incensed against them, that they had escaped by night almost entirely naked, leaving behind their beaver skins and everything they most valued.
In these favourable circumstances, the Sieur de La Salle page 575 called together, first, the Indians from New England. There were some from seven or eight different tribes from the neighbourhood of Bristol(see fn. 1), Manathe or New Amsterdam, and the frontiers of Virginia. Their principal chiefs were Ouiouilamec, Nangoucy, Klas, Togren and Kouas. He represented to them, at the council, how fertile the plains of the Miamis and the Illinois were, and the abundance of beavers, wild oxen and all sorts of hunting and fishing; that they would enjoy complete peace there, away from their enemies the English, and under the protection of the greatest monarch in the world; that, as soon as he had discovered the mouth of the Great River, he would supply them with all kinds of goods very cheaply, and would bring oxen, horses and all the other conveniences which they had had in New England; that, in order to enjoy this happiness in peace, it was necessary that they should all assist one another, and that they should work together to reconcile the Illinois and the Miamis because, if those two nations continued at war with one another, they would not be able to hunt in safety, nor to get the goods they were in need of; and that, if they wished to gratify their warlike disposition, they should attack their old enemies, against whom they had just causes for complaint, rather than people who had never offended them. These Indians accepted at once all the Sieur de La Salle's proposals and welcomed with delight the opportunity he was creating for them, for the success of which they took all the necessary steps during the remainder of the day.
Next day he summoned the Miamis to the hut of their principal chief, from which they removed all the bark covering it and page 576 around it, in order that everyone might hear what was said.
The Sieur de La Salle was accompanied by ten Frenchmen and thirty of his Indians from New England, one of whom he sent for the presents he required for making his speech. So necessary are these presents on these occasions that, if the speeches are not accompanied by them, and do not refer to them, everything that is said is considered merely idle talk. The custom also is that the Indians should reply by other presents, worth at least as much as the first. The style which they employ at these meetings is full of allegory, in accordance with their custom; and accordingly the Sieur de La Salle, who may be considered the greatest orator of this kind in North America, and knows exactly how to adapt himself to their ways, began in this manner.
He First presented them with a roll of
tobacco, telling them that he was giving them this tobacco because it was their
custom to use it when they wished to discuss any important matter, in order to
disperse the evil vapours which might cloud their minds, and because the French
did not need this remedy, their minds being always strong and filled with all
kinds of knowledge, as they could see from the goods which they brought to
them. He next gave them a piece of blue stuff, telling them that, as they were
distressed by the loss of their kinsman, recently slain by the Iroquois, and
the sight of their half-burned bodies might prevent them from listening with
pleasure to what he wished to say to them, he covered them with this piece of
stuff in order to turn aside their eyes which were fixed upon their dead and
make them raise them to the heavens which peace
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1 The district of the Indian chief Ohilippe, so much feared by colonists of Massachusetts.
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