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, Feb. 3, 1743)
Bienville, Jean Baptiste le Moyne,
Sieur de in: (AC,
C13, Gen. Corr. Louisiana, vol. XXVII: 87-89)
and in Mississippi Provincial Archives,
vol. III, pp. 773-779.
. . . By a canoe that was dispatched to me by Mr. de Bertet, the commandant at the Illinois, I have learned that he had brought to a successful conclusion the convoy which I had set out under his command on the nineteenth of August and which arrived at its destination on the twenty-seventh of November without any accident and without having perceived any trace of enemies. This officer writes to me that he has found the post in perfect tranquillity and that when he wished to examine thoroughly the motives of the alarm that had been felt there last year about some evil speeches of an Indian Chief he had not found the least rations foundation for the suspicion that had been entertained of a secret understanding between the Illinois Indians and the Chickasaws, and that on the contrary the former (p. 33) in order to dissipate the bad opinion that was held of their fidelity had raised a force against the others, which to tell the truth had not had great success because that party had been discovered by the enemies who had taken flight toward (page 775) their villages and had abandoned to them their horses, which they killed, and their baggage.
Mr. de Bertet writes me furthermore that some voyageurs who arrived this autumn from Canada reported that the Sioux, not content with having violated the peace that they themselves had gone to ask of the Marquis de Beauharnais, had brought the Foxes over to their side but that the Sauks, not having been willing to accede to their proposition, had separated from the latter.
I have learned from the same source that (p. 33 v.) two of the Frenchmen who had been captured by the Cherokees as they went up to the Illinois with the convoy of the preceding year, having escaped from their village with a third of whom I have had the honor of speaking to your Lordship in my letter of the fifth of August, had been met by a party of Weas and taken to the post of that name whence one of the two went to the Illinois and placed there in the hands of the commandant a statement of what happened to them. I have the honor of addressing a copy of it to my lord who will find it in agreement with what I have always had the honor of writing him in regard to the different attacks which have been made on our voyageurs [and] which were attributed to the Chickasaws.
According to what is written me from the Illinois (p. 34)_ we shall not obtain much flour from that quarter this year. The continual rains that occurred during the harvest spoiled such a large quantity of wheat that hardly enough remains to provide for the subsistence of the inhabitants and the garrison.
Return to
TOC, p. 10
Continue
to next part of Miami Collection
[return to Miami
Collection Menu]
[return to Glenn A. Black
Laboratory of Archaeology List of Publications]
[return to Glenn A. Black
Laboratory of Archaeology Home]
Last updated: 20
November 2000
URL: http://www.gbl.indiana.edu/home.html
Comments: webmaster@www.gbl.indiana.edu
Copyright 1996, Glenn Black Laboratory of Archaeology and The Trustees of Indiana University