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.
Memorandum by D'Iberville
(June 20, 1702)
D'Iberville in: Margry, vol. 4, pp. 657-671.
pp. 657, 661, 662.
XVI.
Louisiana recognized
as a separate Government from Canada
___________
D'Iberville's plans for establishing
the new Colony
He wishes to form an army to oppose the English
by the migration of the Indian Tribes.
___________
*Canada claims the monopoly of the beaver trade.
III
Memorandum by d'Iberville
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as to the country of the Mississippi, Mobile and surrounding country, their rivers, the tribes which live there, and the trade which could be done within five or six years, if the country were settled. |
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When the Illinois have left their country, we shall easily get the Maskoutens and the Kikapous to occupy it. That would give us 450 good men, who are now on the streams falling into the Illinois River and the Mississippi. Their only occupation is hunting for beaver skins, which they go and sell at the Bay des Puans and in the Illinois country. They would give up hunting the beaver, as they would have no sale for the skins. I presume that Canada would have no right to send to the Illinois country, to which we should go by the Mississippi only.
The Miamis, who have withdrawn from the banks of the Mississippi and gone to Chicago for the convenience of beaver-hunting, and those at Atihipe-Catouy and St. Joseph's River, would come readily and gladly to the Illinois River, where they would be united with a hundred of their own tribe who are still at Wisconsin on the Mississippi, and another hundred families who are settled at the fork of the Illinois River. That would make another 450 men, armed with guns, who would be taken from the (page 662) beaver-trade and be set to hunt for ox-hides and the skins of roebucks, stags, hinds and small animals; and the King would no longer have to keep a garrison at the fort of the Miamis, 30 leagues up a river, where it has been supposed to be necessary for protecting the wives of sixty Miamis and thirty Hurons who went and settled there. The expense, what with mending canoes and the cost of presents, amounts to over 1000 livres a year. We need only cease to keep a garrison and a French commandant there; they will then move nearer to Detroit or the Mississippi, if not, we should abandon them, and not trouble about it. In speaking of the Miamis, I do so after arguing the matter out with Father Gravier, the Superior of those missions, who knows them well.
By taking these Miamis, Maskoutens and Kickapous, formerly on the Mississippi, from their present stations and placing them on the Illinois River or lower down, the beaver-trade of Canada will be relieved of fifteen thousand skins a year;
The movement of the Illinois, ten thousand;
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