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.
1757: Memoir of Bougainville
(June 30, 1757)
Bougainville, Louis Antoine in: Margry,
Pierre, Relations et Memoires Inedits,
Paris, 1867, pp. 39-84 and in
Wisconsin Historical
Collections, XVIII,
pp. 167-195.
Post of the Miamis.- The post of the Miamis (Bellestre lieutenant) situated on the right bank of the river of that name with a fort of upright pickets, is the fort which stands at the beginning of the portage to the waters that flow to the southwest. This post is leased to the commandant for three years and the price of the lease is twelve hundred francs per year. He has the exclusive trade, the king gives neither certificates nor presents to the savages; the farmer is charges with these expenses as well as the wages of the interpreter; there is no gratification. The pay of the garrison is in powder and lead which the farmer takes to [from] Detroit; the savages who most commonly come to trade there are the Miamis and the Tepicomeaux.13 They can furnish a hundred and fifty warriors. In an ordinary year there issues from this post two hundred and fifty to three hundred packages; this is, then a post removed from [free] commerce.
Ouyatanons.- The Ouyatanons (Camet Bayeul, ensign)14 is a post situated on the right bank of the river Ouabache or (page 176) Saint-Jrme, a fort of upright pickets. This post is on the same footing as that of the Miamis, the commandant is its farmer, and the price of the lease is twelve hundred francs per year.
The savages who come to trade there are the Ouyatanons, the Kikapous, the Maskoutins, the Peanguichias,15 they can furnish three hundred and sixty warriors.
There comes from this post and those dependent upon it, in ordinary years, four hundred to four hundred and fifty packages.
Vincennes.- The post of Vincennes is a pretty village dependent upon New-Orleans which sends there the commandant.16 It has three horse mills, and about seventy-five habitants who till the soil and harvest grain.
The Peanguichias trade there. They must produce about eighty packages.
Post of the Illinois.- The Illinois, a post of which the principal entrept is Fort Chartres, is situated on the Mississippi; there are for all these posts six companies of garrison furnished as well as the commandant, by New-Orleans. This post is exploited by licenses whose price is six hundred francs per canoe, the voyageurs having three hundred francs weight in their canoes for the ordinary gratifications. And as they are not bound to convey provisions for the missionaries of the Tam- (page 177) arous,17 the surplus of what they bring is for Michilimakinac if they go by the north, or for Dtroit if they pass by the south. The gratification for the commandant is paid by Louisiana from the state-treasury; the commandant is sent from New-Orleans.
These are the divisions of the Illinois: the Cahos on the borders of the Mississippi, at the left the Metchi, at six leagues the Kas, a little village inhabited by the French. The Cahos and the Metchi are no more than a village of about four hundred warriors. There are about four hundred warriors at the Kas. These three nations are comprised under the name of Illinois, and furnish in ordinary years a hundred packages in beaver, deer, cats, lynx, foxes, otters, stags and bucks.
There is another post on the river of the Illinois, where a commandant resides in a fort named Pimiteoui; the nations who trade there are the Peorias; seven hundred men furnish two hundred and fifty packages, of the same quality of peltries, with less beaver and more cats than the preceding post.
Missouri.- In the Missouri at eighty leagues from its discharge into the Mississippi, are the Osages and the Missouri,
. . .
Saint Joseph River (Monsieur le Verrier)30 is a fort situated on the right of the river of that name, at twenty leagues from its entrance into Lake Michigan. This post is on the same footing as that of La Baye. The commandant is its farmer entirely or in part, at the pleasure of the governor general; it is supported at the expense of the former, he has two thousand (page 185) francs gratification and the interpreter five hundred francs. The price of the lease is * * *
The savages who come there to trade are the Poutwatamis, about four hundred men, and a few Myamis. There may come from there four hundred packages of the skins of cats, bears, lynx, otter, deer, stags.
The Sea of the West is a post that includes the forts Saint- . . .
___________________________
13 Note by Margry- "Je ne connais pas ce nom" (I do not know this name). It is, however, the name of one clan of the Miami, usually written Tepicon; see N. Y. Colon. Docs., x, p. 246; also Jacob P. Dunn, Indiana (Boston, 1888), p. 67, who derives the word Tippecanoe from this clan. Notice also the divisions of the Miami in Wis. Hist. Colls., xvi, p. 152- Pepikokis (Tepikoki.)- ED.
14 Two officers of the Canadian army bore this title, both of them sons of Louis Audet, Sieur de Bailleul, who died in 1739 while lieutenant in the service. The one here mentioned was the younger, Pierre Audet, Sieur de Bailleul Canut, born in 1724 and married Jan. 17, 1757, to Charlotte, youngest daughter of Louis Denis de la Ronde, formerly commandant at Chequamegon. Bailleul the younger, while still a cadet was in command of parties of mission Indians who raided from Montreal in 1747. The following year he was at Crown Point on a similar errand. In 1750 he obtained his commission as second ensign, not becoming full ensign until seven years later. Meanwhile, either he or his brother was with Villiers at the capitulation of Fort Necessity (1754). In 1756 one of them accompanied Montcalm to Oswego, while the other was in command of a detachment of militia near Montreal. Bailleul the younger appears to have returned from his post at the Ouiatanon in 1759, and was employed in the transportation service, for which in 1767 he petitioned the government to reimburse him. Retiring to France after the English conquest, he was pensioned by the French government in 1774, his brother having seven years earlier been likewise pensioned for his wounds and services.- ED.
15 For these tribes see Wis. Hist. Colls., xvii, passim.- ED.
16 For the founding of this post see Ibid., p. 29. The commandant at this time was Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, for whom see ante, p. 109, note 58.- ED.
17 This is a branch of the Illinois tribe that settled near and merged with the Cahokia branch of that tribe. The earliest mission at Cahokia was founded by the Jesuits between 1698 and 1700. It was (about 1702) taken over by the priests of the Sminaire des Missions Etrangres, but again reverted to the Jesuits, who maintained their seat at this village until expelled from Louisiana (1763-64). note on Pierre Gibault, post.- ED.
18 The time when this fort was established does not yet appear; certainly it must have been in the later years of the French regime. Its last commandant was Sieur Toulon, who by the orders of Neyon de Villiers evacuated it in 1763, and returned with his garrison to Fort Chartres. The fort was located on the west bank of Peoria Lake about a mile and a half above its outlet, on high ground with a beautiful view of the river and lake valley. Probably it was on what is now known as Prospect Heights, above the city of Peoria. The name Pimiteoui was the aboriginal name of the Peoria village located near the fort. There was also a considerable French settlement clustered about it.- ED.
30 Louis le Verrier was the son of the procurator-general of the colony, and stepson of Marquis de Vaudreuil, governor of New France. Born in 1705, Le Verrier entered the army while still young, being successively second ensign (1722), lieutenant (1739), and captain (1754). In 1756 he accompanied Lvis to Lake Champlain, and appears to have taken command of Fort St. Josephs (1757), where he remained until the spring of 1759 when he was promoted to the majority of Quebec. He returned to France with Vaudreuil, and does not appear to have again been in Canada.- ED.
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