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.
Journal of M. de la Salle to the River Mississippi
(annexed to the letter of M. de Frontenac of the 9th of November, 1680)
La Salle, Robert, Sieur de In:
Ministere des Colonies. Amerique de Nord.
Enterprises de Cavelier de la Sall. C 13, vol. 3, fol. 23;
Margry, microfilm, vol. II, pp. 95-105.
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(page 96) The basin which you enter to go from the Lake of the Illinois to the River Divine is by no means suitable for a passage way for it has no roadsteads, winds, nor any entrance for a vessel, nor even for a canoe, except when it is very calm. (page 97)The meadows through which it might be intended to make a passage way are swamped whenever it rains by torrents from the neighboring hills so that it is very difficult to make and maintain a channel there which would not immediately be filled up by sand and gravel; you cannot dig in the ground without finding water in it, and there are sand hills between the lake and the meadows. Even if it were possible, at a great cost, to make this channel, it would be useless, for the River Diving is not navigable for 40 leagues. From there to the great village of the Ilinois, canoes cannot go before summer comes, and there is also a great rapid on this side of the village.
. . .
The oxen are becoming scarcer since the Ilinois have been at war with their neighbors, as both sides kill them and hunt them continually.
There is navigation from Fort Crevecoeur to the sea. New Mexico is not more than 20 days' journey to the west of the fort.
The Matontenta came to see M. de La Salle, and brought a horses' hoof from the Spaniards they had killed in their country, distant only ten days' journey from the fort, from which one can get to it by river.
These Indians say that the Spaniards who make war on them use lances more than guns.
(page 98). . .
He [Sieur Jolliet] has not reflected that the Mosopelea, set down in his map, had been entirely destroyed before the daye of his journey.
In the same map he marks a number of tribes which are nothing more than the names of families which make up the tribe of the Ilinois,- the Pronerea, Carcarchia, Tamaroa, Korakoenitanon, Chinko, Caokia, Cheponssea, Amanakoa, Ooukkia, Acansa and several others forming the village of the Ilinois which consists of about 400 huts covered with read mats, without any fortifications. I have counted just about 1800 fighting men there, who are not at war now with anyone except the Iroquois; it would be easy to reconcile them if there were not reason to fear that when they were at peace with them, being able to retreat in their direction, they would determine to make war on the Outaouacs, whom they hate bitterly, and in that way disturb our trade. As long as we can contrive that they shall have need of us, they can be easily kept to their duty, and through them the most distant tribes, who stand in awe of them.
. . .
(page 99)
M. de La Salle saw some Indians belonging to the three tribes which Fernan Soto passed, viz, the Sicachia, the Cascia and the Amynoya, from whose country his men went into Mexico; and they stated that there was good navigation from Crevecoeur to their lands. It is important to complete the exploration; for the river on which the Sicachia live, which is probably the Suskakoua, takes its rise near Carolina, where the English are, three hundred leagues to the East of the River Colbert, in French Florida, near Le Palache, whence the English could come by barque to the Illinois, to the Miamis, and near to the Baye des Puans and the country of the Nadouessioux, and so take away a great part of our trade.
It was colder this year in the Ilinois country than at Fort Frontenac. They sow only once a year, and that in the month of May, as there is frost and ice every year in April. It is true that the mildness of the month of January, which was equal to that at Fort Frontenac, made us believe at first that this country was as mild as Provence; but we afterwards found that their winter was no shorter than it is among the Iroquois, for on the 22nd of March the river was still frozen, and the Lake of the Ilinois on its southern side was as full of ice as Lake Frontenac usually is in the month of January, although Lake Erie was so clear a week after that there appeared to be none at all in the pools and the other. . . on the north side. All the country between the Lake of the Ilinois and Lake Erie, for a distance of a hundred or a hundred and twenty leagues, is occupied by a chain of mountains from which a number of rivers run down westward into the Lake of the Ilinois, North into Lake (page 100) Huron, East into Lake Erie and South into the River Ohio. Their sources are so near together on the summit of these mountains that, in three days' march, we passed twenty-two or twenty-three of them, larger than that of Saurel or Richelieu. The top of the mountains is flat, covered by endless marshes; and as they thawed, they gave us plenty of exercise. . . (page 101). . . You pass in safety through all these tribes if you have a calumet of peace. Most of the tribes where we have to go know it already, and are prepared to receive us well.
The Illinois offered to escort us to the sea, because of the hope we have given them that everything that is necessary for them shall come to them by that way; and the need of the other tribes for knives, hatchets, etc., increases their desire to have us.
The young wild oxen are easy to domesticate and may be of great assistance, as well as the slaves whom these people are accustomed to trade in, whom they compel to work.
There are as many rascals there as elsewhere; there are more women than men, for there is no man who has not several wives, some have as many as ten and, as far as they can, all sisters, so that they may get on better together, as in fact they do.
I saw three children baptized, to whom that sacrament was given when they were in very good health. One is called Pierre, another Joseph and the third Marie, sons of the brother Sichagois. They are in great danger of living like their father, who has three sisters for wives, since there is but little probability of them receiving any further teaching, for Father d'Allouez, who baptized them, has left the Islinois, unless his staff, which he has left well wrapped up in token that this land belongs to him, possesses some extraordinary virtue. Those are the only Christians I know of, and they cannot have attained to it except in fide Ecclesiae.
Father d'Allouez has withdrawn to a village made up partly of Miamis and partly Mascoutens and Ochiatinens, who have deserted their old village and most of their relatives to form an alliance with the Iroquois and make war, with them, against the Ilinois. For that purpose they sent five of their number last summer, and a woman, as an embassy, with a letter from Father d'Allouez.
The object of their embassy was to rouse the Iroquois to join them and make war on the Illinois. They had been in negotiation concerning this for 24 days when I arrived at Tanochioragon, a village of the Sonnontouans; but when it was known that I was at Cannargaro, where Father Raffeix was, there came a woman from that village on the following night, who had formerly been captured by the Miamis, to tell the delegates that they were going to be killed, and that they must fly,- perhaps for fear that I, being there, might learn the object of the embassy.
It is, however, the fact that the Iroquois had no wish to do them any harm, for although their flight must have caused them to be suspected, they were well received when they had been caught; but they would not speak as long as I was there.
Afterwards, when I found these same envoys in their own country, one of whom spoke Huron, I learned certain things about it which I wish to believe proceeded from the invention of the malignity of the savage. Nevertheless, as soon as the news of my arrival among the Ilinois was brought to the village where Father d'Allouez is, the man Monceau, one of the chiefs, was despatched to the Illinois, bringing four large pots, twelve hatchets and 20 knives secretly to tell them that I was the brother of the Iroquois, that I breathed his breath, that I eat the snakes of his country, that they had given me a net to close them in on one side while the Iroquois came on the (page 103) other, that I was hated by all the Black Robes, who abandoned me, looking upon me as no more than an Iroquois, that I had already tried to kill the Miamis, that I had taken two of them prisoners, and that I had medicine for poisoning everyone.
It was easy for me to demolish all these falsehoods, and the poor Monceau very nearly came to grief over it, for I replied that it was he who had the Iroquois serpent under his tongue, that his comrades who had been there on an embassy had brought some back, and that they could not have smoked in the same calumet without breathing the breath of the Iroquois.- If I had not opposed it, the Islinois would have killed this man Monceau.
Here is another matter in which I suspect a snare which is apparently a result of their desire that the Comte de Frontenac should make war against the Iroquois. When it was seen that he abandoned the Ilinois, the eagerness of the Iroquois to make war against them immediately slackened, although in fact some of them went on the war path there. This is concealed from the Outaouacs, so that they may continue to go trading there, and that the Iroquois, taking them for Ilinois, may kill them, the object being to sow dissension between them. A much more important matter is that negotiations were conducted with a view to the greater part of the Miamis, who are allies of ours, going to settle among the Ilinois, so that the Iroquois could not attack one without the other, and the Count should be compelled either to abandon his allies or to make war on the Iroquois to prevent them from going to war (page 104) against the Ilinois.
Perhaps this is a rash opinion; but however the small number of Miamis among whom Father d'Allouez went to live, seeing that the Iroquois did not begin the war against the Illinois soon enough, killed some Iroquois this winter in order to hasten it, and cut off the fingers of a Sonnontouan whom they afterwards sent back to his country, to say that the Miamis were uniting with the Illinois to kill Iroquois.
It may be that it is the knowledge which Father d'Allouez would have of the evil disposition of these Indians, and their treachery, that is compelling him to leave them, as he is to do next Spring. However, I feel sure of stopping this war, especially if the Count comes this year to mourn for the dead of the Onnontaez, for I have prevented the Illinois from starting off in search of the Iroquois, and have obtained their promise to give up some slaves which they have to me; and when the Iroquois learned this from me, they seemed to be very pleased.
We ought not to be surprised that the Iroquois speak of going to war against our allies, for they are insulted by them every year. At Missilimakinac, and among the Pouteatamis and the Miamie, I saw the spoils and the scalps of several Iroquois whom the Indians of those places have killed treacherously while hunting this last Spring and the previous one. This is not unknown to the Iroquois, our allies having been so rash as to sing of it in their presence, when they were trading among them; this I saw at Missilimakinac with the Pouteatamis who, dancing with the calumet, boasted of these acts of treachery, having the scalps hung on their arms, in the presence of three Agniez, who were trading there.
I cannot omit my meeting with an Indian of the Loup tribe, and his reasons for the difficulty he had in making up his mind as to choosing between our religion and that of the English, on account of two differences he finds between the Apostles, some missionaries in this country and the English ministers, seeing that the latter do not imitate the chastity of the Apostles, while the former are very far from attaining their disinterestness, on account of their seeking after riches; and lastly the consolation he felt on learning how the Recollet Fathers love poverty, which decided him to come and seek baptism, choosing our religion.
In the Ilinois country, there are numbers of green parrots, smaller than those in the Islands, the size of the African parrots.
Annexed to the letter of M. de Frontenac of the 9th of November, 1680.
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