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
(September 5, 1736)
Bienville, Jean Baptiste Le Moyne,
Sieur de in:
(Ministry of the Colonies, C13, V21, Gen.
Corr. of Louisiana, pp. 218-221
v.)
and in Mississippi Provincial
Archives, vol. 1, pp. 326-329.
From a courier of Mr. De La Buissonnire, who arrived here two weeks ago with letters of July 15th I learned that a party of four hundred men, Cherokees and Chickasaws, has come to settle and fortify itself on the Ohio River eighty leagues from its mouth. It is believed that Englishmen are not lacking among them; if they are not, at least one cannot doubt that it is at the solicitation of these English that they (f. 219) are making this settlement by the aid of which these traders will try to make one for themselves to interrupt our commerce on the Wabash and the Mississippi and to win over as a result the nations of that region. It is of extreme importance to strangle such audacious plans at their birth. I have sent orders to Mr. De La Buissonnire to arouse by all possible means all the nations of his department against these newcomers and to harass them so that they will be forced to go back. A party of these Cherokees and Chickasaws met six French voyageurs twelve leagues from the mouth of the Ohio. Four were killed and two escaped to the Illinois. (f. 219 v.) But this same party was met a little while later by another of one hundred Weas and Miamis who wounded one of their men and captured three among whom is a Natchez, and it is from these prisoners that we learned that they were fortified to remain and settle on the Ohio as I have mentioned above. Another party of Kickapoos and Maskoutens has since met on the Wabash a Natchez party from which it took (page 328) two scalps and three prisoners who confirmed what the first had said.
I have also learned from this courier that the Iowa parties that had joined the Foxes have all left them and have come to present calumets and two slaves to Sieur de St. Ange, the younger, to atone for the death of two Frenchmen whom they had killed nine years ago, but that when Sieur de St. Ange had told them that these deaths could be atoned for only by the scalps of our enemies, a party of thirty of their warriors had been raised on the spot and had gone against the Foxes. The Missouris assure us that these Foxes who now number only about sixty (f. 220) men had gone in the direction of the Sioux as a result of the information that they had received about a party from Canada that was coming against them, but that the Sioux had completely defeated them. This last statement requires confirmation, but what is certain is that at the Illinois one no longer hears any talk about that nation.
Although in the last expedition the junction of our forces with those of the Illinois could not be made, I think that if I am informed early of your Lordship's intentions, in case he orders a second campaign, I could avoid the misfortunes that were incurred the first time in this junction, whether I return by way of Mobile of by the Mississippi, and I could give such positive orders for the collecting and transportation of the (f. 220 v.) provisions and troops that infallibly I should be in the territory of the enemy in the time that I should indicate. I shall have the honor to inform your Lordship when I shall have sounded the Choctaws about the route that I think the most suitable and least expensive. It is very much to be desired that Mr. Beauharnais might be able to send there at that time all the nations of the North, who are already very much disposed to it.
The thirty Iroquois who were with Mr. D'Artaguette have so roused to vengeance the nations through which they passed as they returned home that two hundred Hurons and Ottawas were expected to be in the territory of the Chickasaws at the date of Mr. De La Buissonnire's letters, and that the parties from the North were already passing so frequently to the Piankashaws that he had sent there Sieur de St. Ange, the younger, who is very (page 329) well known and (f. 221) very well liked by those nations to receive them as they passed in the best manner that would be possible for him. . .
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