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.
Letter to Cadillac
(June 4, 1702)
Aveneau, Cl. in: Michigan Historical
Collections, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 123-124.
pp. 123.
This 13th letter [is] from Father d'Avenaut, missionary to the Miamis. He acknowledges having received one from M. de Calliere, and [says] that he read it to the Miamis, having invited them to go and settle at Detroit. M. de Lamothe knows the contrary from the Frenchmen who were present there, having told the savages [before] them to remain steady in their village. And this agrees with what one of the chiefs of the Miamis told M. de Lamothe at the council of the 27th of June, 1702. On the last point, the Father relied on the speech which M. de Calliere had made to the Miamis at Montreal at the general assembly which was held there on the 6th of August, 1701, in which he begins in these terms at para. 6.
As regards what you ask me, Chichikatelo, that the other villages of the Miamis should form one only with us at the St. Joseph river, you may assure all those of your tribe that they will give me pleasure by joining you there, for I am convinced that as soon as peace is concluded they will live much better there than in all the other places where they [now] are.
It is agreed that this speech would have been a reason for dissuading the Miami savages from coming to settle at Detroit, if the letter which the Governor wrote to him to invite them to come there, had not been later.
From the St. Joseph River the 4th of June, 1702.
Thirteenth
Sir,
I no sooner received last summer the letter which the Governor did me the honor of writing to me as to the settlement of the French at Detroit, in which he invites the savages including the Miamis to come and settle near the French at the post of Detroit, than I read it to them in their tongue without concealing anything of the contents of the aforesaid letter from them. And now, when I remind them of it, they tell me that it is true that I read it to them, and that I added that, if they went and settled at Detroit I would not fail to go there also, not being willing to abandon them; they answered me that, amidst so great a number of people, they feared to be reduced in a short time to starvation, although the goods which they are encouraged to hope they will get cheap do not fail to shake their [resolution] greatly. The news of 100 or 200 Iroquois who were to come here this summer to speak to them, which St. Michel told me to tell them for you, has surprised them strangely and has given them occasion to doubt the truth of the peace, thinking they were not included, especially when they were told, also from you, that they were to stand upon their guard, which nevertheless did not prevent a few young men from setting out a few days ago on the warpath against the Si8s in spite of all that the old men and I could say to them to make them at least delay their march for some time till they should learn news of Onontio their father. You know still better than I the disposition of the savages, I mean their way of acting, they always pursue their own points, so that if they really wish to go to Detroit, they will go without fail; if not, they will remain just where they are, or at least they will make no great stir to change their dwelling place. I pray God that he will give us and them the grace to do ever and in all things his
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