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.
Vaudreuil to Maurepas
(March 20, 1748)
Vaudreuil in: Archives Nationales, Ministere
des Colonies, C13A 32:28 and in Illinois
Historical Collections, (extract),
French
Series, vol. III, pp. 53-55.
Monseigneur:
The latest news which I have received from the posts of the Illinois has much reassured me after that which reached me last (page 54) year after the departure of the ship Le Chameau. Then M. le Chevalier de Bertet announced to me that all the tribes in the neighborhood of that place and of the Wabash had been stirred up at the instigation of the English who had sent about several belts by the agency of the Iroquois and of the Huron as I had the honor to tell you by that vessel. These belts had worked so efficaciously that all the Illinois tribes with those of the Wabash and the others in the English party were to make an attack upon our posts with promises of rewards proportioned to the brave deeds which each of them designed to do on this occasion. The Chevalier de Bertet, watchful of the movements of the Indian villages near him, discovered the plot. No more was necessary to disconcert the project of our enemies. in order to succeed the better, he induced the principal chiefs of the Illinois tribes to come to see me here, all hoping for the rewards which they received and which sent them away well satisfied after a month's stay here, assuring me that they had never been concerned in the (page 55) plan of the English any more than the Shawnee or the Mascoutens. Because I have always impressed it upon M. de Bertet to beware of these Shawnee settled at the forks of the Wabash, he had regarded them as very culpable in this affair. Since then however a hunter has arrived here who assures me that he had received of them a thousand marks of attachment as they begged him day after day not to hunt in the direction of the enemy. If I get any interesting news I shall have the honor, Monseigneur, to communicate it to you by the king's ship which is due here.
Last year the harvests were abundant in spite of the course which M. de Bertet took at that time of assembling all the French villages in one and surrounding it with good palisades in order to put himself in a state of defense. He has told me that he would return forthwith to his post at least unless he had a new warning to keep himself more carefully on his guard. . . .
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