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.
La Salle, Letter Covering Period
from August 22, 1680 to the Autumn of 1681
La Salle, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de In:
English Translation of Margry, vol. 2,
pp. 121-166.
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I were dead, to make use of what beaver skin he had with him for making the necessary preparations for carrying out my enterprise. On the third or fourth day of their journey the Reverend Father Gabriel, who had landed to pray to God, was killed by the Kikapous who pierced him with. arrows on land, without our being aware of it. M. de Tonty stopped at noon to wait for him, and seeing that he did not come for a long time. sent to seek him; but he did not find him, and after waiting for him the next day in vain, he continued his journey, and followed the River Divine to get to the Pouteatamis,
In the meanwhile I was stopped at Missilimakinak for want of provisions; and when I had obtained some by means of brandy, I left there on the 4th of October. The winds and rains were so frequent that we were unable to got to the River of the Miamis until the* 4th of November. There were only twelve of us, viz: a ship's carpenter, who was coming to finish the barque near the Ilinois (he was one of the men who had deserted,- named Noël Leblanc); the Sieur d'Autray, who had always been most loyal; the son of the first Procureur General of Quebec; a surgeon, three soldiers, two sawyers, two bricklayers and two labourers. I had left M. de La Forest behind at Missilimakinag, to wait for the blacksmith, two sailors, two soldiers and a ropemaker, who were coming by way of Lake Erie with iron, oakum, pitch, sails and tools for finishing the barque, and three hundred livres of powder, lead and guns for arming us; and as the winds had been stormy during the autumns, although they had started before I did, they had been unable to reach Missilimakinak because the winds on Lakes Erie and Huron are much more dangerous on the south side along the north of Lake Huron, the way I took, which is full of islands by which you can always proceed under shelter. (page 132) But I had made them go by that route because there is a neck, of land to traverse, thirteen leagues broad, from Teioiagon to Lake Taronto, where all one's baggage must be carried over the tops of some very high mountains; and as they had extremely heavy loads they would have found it difficult to do that, and would have lost a great deal of time; moreover, as I thought M. de Tonty might have returned that way, I was very glad not to miss him, which compelled me for my part to take the other route by the north of Lake Huron,- the shorter, but more difficult way, by which it is necessary to live on Indian corn only, for there is no hunting to be done for more than a hundred and fifty leagues. Yet they tried to prevent me from finding any (corn).
As these men had not come, three weeks after my arrival, during which I was at Missilimakinag waiting for Indian corn, and I feared that they might be enticed away from my service if they wintered there, I left M. de La Forest to keep a hold upon them and sent a canoe to meet them, in charge of my letters, to relieve them in case they needed it, and another by the route I had followed, and they left on the 2nd of September; but both of them were stopped by the heavy storms which came on and were obliged to put up for winter on the way. M. de La Forest, contrary to the orders which I had left with him, to set out an the 20th of October and come to join me, went to meet them and did not get back to Missilimakinag until the 4th of November, when the winds prevented him from leaving until the 11th, and the men for whom he was waiting did not arrive. You may imagine my uneasiness, at the mouth of that river,* with (page 133) twelve men, some of whom it was necessary to leave to guard the heaviest of the things we had brought, which we could not take on without delaying ourselves very much, having to leave M. de Tonty still without relief the whole winter among the Ilinois, where I still believed him to be, as I know nothing of the route of the Ilinois. I therefore set out from the mouth of the river on the 8th of November, leaving the ship's carpenter with all the tools, as it was useless to take him without the smith, with orders to rejoin us at once if M. de La Forest arrived before winter. With him I left the five Frenchmen whom I thought least fitted for following me, and an Indian who was a very skilful hunter, to provide them with food. I took another one with me and set out with seven men in three canoes, two of which were loaded with the things I thought would be necessary for M. de Tonty and these with him and the other one with provisions. I had the Sieur d'Autray, who is a very brave young man, a surgeon, the man You, (also a very brave lad)(see fn. 1),Tamisier who has since died, Baron and André Hunaut, who, with me and the Indian, made eight persons.
We went up the River of the Miamis and reached their village on the 15th. There was no one there. We went up a little further, to the portage by which you get to the River of the Ilinois, and there we found their camp, which they had left eight or ten days before, to go after the remnant of the Ilinois whose defeat they had learned from the Iroquois. On the 17th we made the portage, a distance of two leagues when the streams are low; and, coming down the River Téaliki, we arrived on the 23rd at a place called the Iroquois, La Fourche, where the Kikapous had encamped on a hill, to the number of two hundred (page 134) warriors or thereabouts, who were also on the war path without our knowing it, and had killed the Reverend Father Gabriel. We continued our journey, my men having the pleasure of hunting game the most abundant in the world, and I anxious as to what could have prevented the Ilinois from burning the grass on these plains, as usual, for the purpose of hunting the oxen, but I did not reveal my thoughts to anyone, so as not to cause them any concern, for the pleasure of hunting and the abundance of the game prevented them from thinking of the danger.
On the 27th, arriving at the place where the River Divine falls into the Téatiki or Ilinois River, I landed at their confluence to see whether I could not find any signs of M. de Tonty, having followed this route, but there were none. In this he was a little to blame; for if we had found any, we could have foreseen that he was in danger of dying of starvation; but he believe me to be dead, after what he had heard, and had ceased to expect any news now that the season was so far gone, I was rather comforted at not seeing any traces of them for, as those were the only two ways he could have taken on his return, I believed he was still with the Ilinois. We stopped there, hunting, for three days and killed twelve very fat cows, seven or eight roebucks and numbers of turkeys, bustards and swans. As we were only fifteen leagues from the village, I had all this meat dressed for going to find them and for stores for us, for they are thinner in winter time, when they are easily preserved a long while; and I had one canoe loaded with the best parts, in order to feast M. de Tonty on them on our arrival.
On the 1st of December, towards evening, we reached the village, where we found nothing but the remains of the fire and (page 145) too soft and, as it was still hanging, as it were, upon the grass, we had it up to the waist; so that, although I am rather tall, as I walked on in front, which I have always done, in order to encourage my men by making a path for them, I often had a difficulty in striding over the snow, which I pushed before me with my body.
That lasted for sixty leagues, to the River of the Miamis where I did not find M. de Tonty, as I had hoped, but only M. de La Forest with his three soldiers, who informed me that the men he had been waiting for has wintered at the strait of Lake Erie, and that a canoe had been seen passing Missilimakinak, going towards Lake Erie which had not landed at Missilimakinak. I thought, from the time reported, that it was M. de Tonty; and as it was important for me to overtake him, and I was very anxious to know that he was in good health, I told my men that I should be exceedingly pleased if anyone would undertake to go to the Strait, to take him news of me, and to prevent the news of the rout of the Illinois from disheartening my men who had wintered there. Two young men, seeing that it was less than a third of the journey I had made the previous winter, undertook it willingly, and set out on the 2nd of February, after receiving from me all the information I could give them and the necessary baggage.
However, in my state of uncertainty and anxiety as to the fate of M. de Tonty, I determined that, as he had not come to the Miamis, I would go and look for him among the Pouteatami, and would send the rest of those who were with me to the Ilinois country to join the Sieur d'Autray, who was guarding our goods, and to bring them back as soon as the ice melted, and afterwards (page 146) the corn which we had stored, to feed the men I had decided to leave to pass the summer among the Miamis, to build a fort there. The ship's carpenter, in my absence and by my orders, had commenced to build a barque which was of wood bent into shape and already all the side planks were prepared. He could have finished it if the smith had arrived and the saws had not been lost, for he had almost all that was required and all the rigging was already on Lake Erie to help in transport from Niagara to Tiotontaracton, at the end of Lake Erie, towards the Miamis. They had also made a clearing and prepared materials suitable for building a barn, on account of the determination I had come to, to settle at that place, in view of the rout of the Illinois, who apparently were not coming back, as they had so many enemies.
Moreover, on my arrival from the journey I had just made, I found, at the mouth of the River of the Miamis, twenty or thirty Indians of various tribes among those who are at war with the English, with their wives and children, who were going to hunt beavers in the direction where the Iroquois were with the Miamis, to give themselves up to the former and incorporate themselves with them. The man I had left with Noel Leblanc came from the very same country, and was very fond of me. He advised them to wait for me and speak with me before carrying out their plan, which they did as soon as I returned. Nanangoucy (as my Indian is called) came to meet me, concluding that I was near because one of my dogs ran on before us to the house. He told me what he had done, and said that, if I wished to settle either among the Ilinois or the Miamis, these men would join me together with about thirty more who were to follow (page 147) them; that he would assist me in that matter, and that all he asked of me was to make him chief of his tribe. I had with me another Indian named Ouiouilamech, son of the chief of another village near Boston, a very sensible and prudent young man who had followed me for two years; he was extremely attached to me, and had obtained an extensive knowledge of these languages during, the four years he had lived in these parts. I spoke to him of that matter, and left him to deal with it, intimating to him that to stay among the Ilinois appeared to me to be dangerous until the sea had been found, as they were hemmed in by these small rivers; that it was safer to stay with the Miamis, as the Iroquois could have no reason to complain of our settling among their allies; that the Miamis would be delighted, on account of the convenience of having a smith there; and the Ilinois would not be angry at it when they learned that we were staying there to compel the Miamis to grant them peace, which I hoped to obtain from them easily, by showing them that their interest lay in leaving the Ilinois to keep the Iroquois at bay, for the latter had become overbearing after their victory, and might turn their axes against the Miamis; and that I would go to the Ilinois before the return of the Miamis, who were away hunting, to tell them of my intention and prevent any jealousy they might feel about it. In the meantime, I advised them to go and find the Miamis, and prepare them for that.
While this was being arranged where I was, something happened which assisted its execution. The Iroquois, who had slaughtered a great many of the Ilinois, whom they attacked separately, killing or capturing over seven hundred women and children and about thirty men, returned by the River Ohio or (page 148) Baudrane, laden with booty and bringing three or four hundred slaves. They met with two families of the Miamis, and destroyed them, killing or capturing all of them, to the number of twenty, and thence came and encamped near the Miamis' country, where winter overtook them. They built three forts there, at a distance of two leagues from one another, forming a triangle, and went into them in separate divisions. The Miamis, who had heard of the defeat of their men, sent to demand satisfaction from the Iroquois, who mocked at them; afterwards, in fear at their being so near to them, they tried to gain them over by a present of three thousand beaver skins, which they gave them in order to get back such of their men as the Iroquois were taking away as slaves. It is the custom of all these tribes to grant the requests when they accept the presents. The Iroquois violated that custom, taking the beaver skin without giving up the slaves.
The Miamis understood clearly what that
meant, and that the Iroquois were nothing but traitors who would some day treat
them in the same way as they had done the Ilinois. At the same time the latter,
to the number of a hundred, belonging to the Cascaschia district, under the
leadership of one of their bravest chiefs, called Paessa, who, when the
Iroquois arrived, had gone on the war path in another direction, returned to
their country bringing the prisoners they had made, and found the remains of
the slaughter by the Iroquois; they determined to avenge themselves, although
there was only a small number of them, and they followed the Iroquois up to
their forts. The snow, unfortunately for them, was prodigiously deep, and they
had no snow-shoes while the Iroquois had plenty. Nevertheless they came and
encamped
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* i. e. the River of the Miamis. (Translator's note).
1 This struck out
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