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 Maurepas
(New Orleans, June 18, 1736)
Bienville, Jean Baptiste Le Moyne,
Sieur de in:
(AC, C13, V21, Gen. Corr. of Louisiana,
pp. 207-212 v.) and in Mississippi
Provincial Archives, vol. 1,
pp. 311-314.
My Lord:-
The circumstances of the defeat of the detachment that Mr. D'Artaguette led against the Chickasaws are reported so variously that I have difficulty in reconciling all the accounts that I have received on this subject and find myself somewhat embarrassed in preparing myself to inform your Lordship of it. What is certain is that upon the orders that (f. 207 v.) I had sent this officer to lead to the Prudhomme Bluffs all the Frenchmen and Indians whom he could withdraw from the Illinois post without stripping it, in order to form a junction of the forces of this quarter with those of the lower part of the colony before the Chickasaws where I was expecting to proceed toward the end of March- in consequence of these orders Mr. D'Artaguette went to the Prudhomme Bluffs on the fourth of March, as I learn by a letter from him that I have received since my return in which he informs me that he has in his company thirty soldiers, one hundred voyageurs and colonists and almost all the Indians of the village of the Kaskaskias; that he is expecting from day to day (f. 208) those of the Cahokias and of the Michigameas who were to come under the leadership of Sieur de Monchervaux who had gone to find them in their winter quarters; that Mr. De Vincennes was likewise to arrive on the first day with the Indians of the Wabash River and forty Iroquois. He adds furthermore that he is going to send scouts to the Chickasaws to learn the time of my arrival as I had recommended to him, and that to be in a position to wait for me he had brought large stores of food.
However, it appears by the accounts that a few days afterward, the reenforcement that (f. 208 v.) Mr. De Vincennes was bringing him having arrived, he had started on the march; that in truth he proceeded by short stages (page 312) in order to give time to Sieur de Monchervaux to join him and in order to wait for Sieur de Grandpr who was to bring all the Arkansas and who had even sent him twenty-eight of these Indians who were to return to a meeting place that he had designated for them to inform him of the arrival of Mr. D'Artaguette at the Prudhomme Bluffs, but these same Indians having found the army on the march followed it so that Sieur de Grandpr waited in vain for their return.
The scouts whom Mr. D'Artaguette had sent to learn news of me (f. 209)
returned and reported to him that they had seen no trace of our party. The day
following this day Mr. D'Artaguette received letters by couriers that had been
sent to him in which I informed him that the delay of the King's ship and of
the preparations necessary for our expedition would delay my departure, and
that I foresaw that I should not be able to arrive in front of the Chickasaws
before the end of April at the very earliest, urging him to take his measures
accordingly on receiving these letters. I am assured that Mr. D'Artaguette
assembled a council composed of the officers who were marching (f. 209 v.)
under his command and of the chiefs of the different nations who were in his
party; that all the Indian chiefs, among others those of the Iroquois, called
his attention to the fact that the Indians, having very few provisions, would
find themselves forced to abandon him if he waited longer to attack the enemy,
adding that the scouts who had returned the day before reported that on the
margin of the large prairie of the Chickasaws there was a village separated
from the others where there were no more than thirty cabins which would not be
difficult to take; that they would infallibly find in it provisions that would
put them in a position to wait protected (f. 210) by the intrenchments that
they would make in this same village. Almost all the officers were of the same
opinion so that it was decided to go and attack this village. They marched with
greater haste than before without being discovered, as they maintain, and when
Mr. D'Artaguette arrived within a quarter league of the prairie it was Palm
Sunday. He left all the baggage under the guard of a detachment of thirty men
commanded by Sieur de Frontigny, a second lieutenant, and took the road to the (page 313) village which he attacked with great
vigor, but the engagement had hardly begun when he saw coming from a hill
nearby four or five hundred Indians who had (f. 210 v.) come to the help of
this village under the protection of a hill and who fell upon the attackers
with a rapidity that made the Illinois and Miamis lose courage and made them
take flight. Mr. D'Artaguette seeing himself abandoned in this way by these
Indians who constituted the strongest part of his little army started back to
the place where he had left his baggage in order to prevent, if it were
possible, the munitions that he had brought there from falling into the hands
of the enemies. I am even assured that his intention was to set fire to the
powder in case he could not save it. He was followed with such fury by the
Chickasaws that in spite of the firmness that was shown on this occasion by all
the officers, the majority (f. 211) of the soldiers and a part of the
colonists, and in spite of the stubborn resistance that was made by
thirty-eight Iroquois and twenty-eight Arkansas, who alone of all the Indians
had remained with the French, Mr. D'Artaguette was killed as well as all the
other officers except three who were captured of which number were Sieur Du
Tisn and Father Snat. After this the munitions and the baggage remained in the
power of the enemies who did not abandon the pursuit of the fugitives until after
they had killed forty men and wounded several. Furthermore their retreat is
attributed to a violent storm that arose, but everybody agrees that except for
the firmness of the Iroquois and of the Arkansas not a single Frenchman would
have returned from this unhappy campaign. Two days' march (f. 211 v.) from the
Chickasaws the remnants of this party met Sieur de Monchervaux who was marching
with one hundred and seventy Indians and fourteen Frenchmen on the trail of Mr.
D'Artaguette. Having gathered all the fugitives he led them back to the
Illinois after sending me a courier from the Prudhomme Bluffs to inform me of
this catastrophe.
_______________
1 The Cahokias and Michigameas were tribes belonging to the Illinois confederacy.
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