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.
Raymond to La Jonquiere
(January 5, 1750)
Raymond in: Illinois Historical
Collections, French Series,
vol. III, pp. 149-156.
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Letter of January 5, 1750 |
Monsieur:
From what I hear La Demoiselle appears very far indeed from keeping the word which he gave by the wampum belts which M. de Celoron sent you, to return to the Miamis post with his band. This Indian has sent messages into all the winter quarters of the Miami of the bands of Le Pied Froid and Le Gris and in those of the Potawatomi of St. Joseph and the Wea to induce them to go to the Great Miami River. They have all promised to carry their peltry there. The general report is that a party of Wea is to go there to settle. Le Pied Froid fears lest all the Indians of his band adopt this course. None of those who went in that direction last fall have returned.
Since the departure of M. de Celoron from the Great Miami River a number of English have come into those regions who have brought a great quantity of arms. All the Indians say that (page 150) this spring they are to build on the Great Miami and that all the tribes have promised to support them there. It is certain that all the tribes are ranging themselves in those regions and that the country is lost to us if the English establish themselves there and even if they remain there longer. It is they who completely corrupt all the Indians of the upcountry. Before there were English in those regions the Indians were always faithful to us, and we did what we wished with them. It is useless to believe that we shall attain the end of making return to their villages the various tribes who have gone off to the Ohio River, and the Sandusky River, and the Great Miami River so long as there is a single Englishman there. None of the tribes will leave there, and very shortly they will abandon all the French posts.
The details of what I have learned and of everything that has come to my notice are annexed.
As to what the Indians say that the English are to build this spring on Great Miami River, I will send French there to learn (page 151) the truth of it. I shall have the honor to report to you regarding it.
1749
January 13 the persons called Dufour and Joseph Ancy, fils, Indian slaves who were going to Detroit, arrived here from Ouiatanon. From them I have learned that some days before Christmas the persons named Beauchesne and Buot arrived at Ouiatanon, coming from the Illinois; they reported to M. de Carqueville that some days before their departure from the Illinois, two couriers had come who had been detached by the officer commanding the convoy coming from the Mississippi to the Illinois to ask a reinforcement. The commandant of the Illinois had sent off fifty men to go to meet the convoy. The two couriers reported to the commandant of the Illinois that the Chickasaw, the Shawnee, and another tribe whose name my informants could not tell me had sent the man named Jacques, an Abnaki who has been a fugitive for about eight years from the (page 152) mission of St. Francis at Three Rivers, and his comrade, an Iroquois, to hire themselves out to the French who were taking the Mississippi convoy up to the Illinois; the tribes that sent them had directed them to take only powder and bullets in payment; when the convoy was at such and such a place they would send for their ammunition as a signal and to use in the execution of the project on which they were agreed, namely to cut off the convoy. Fortunately on the way the Abnaki and the Iroquois got drunk and talked in their drunkenness of the attack which they were to make with the Chickasaw and Shawnee on the convoy. A Frenchman who was on guard and who understands Iroquois heard all their conversation. He feigned drunkenness, drank some cups with them, led them on little by little in their conversation, and seemed to approve it. By this means he discovered all that was about to befall. He warned the commandant of the convoy, who had the two Indians bound and killed. The Abnaki, who spoke French and saw that he was about to die, avowed everything and said that he had no regret in dying since he had (page 153) caused the death of many Frenchmen; it was he who had led the Indians who had killed all those who had been killed on the Wabash.
These two couriers also reported that the Chickasaw, Shawnee, and other tribes had attacked five houses at Pointe Coupee, had killed many and had carried off a man of Detroit named Mallet, with his wife and children. The Germans who live in the neighborhood of Pointe Coupee having heard of the defeat of the French, their neighbors, had laid an ambush of three hundred men where another hostile party of these Indians was to pass. Twenty-one fell into the ambush, of whom they killed twenty and let the twenty-first go wounded to carry to his tribe the news of their defeat.
At Ouiatanon they awaited letters from the Illinois after the arrival of the convoy to confirm this news. M. de Carqueville writes me nothing of it. All this news arrived last September. The Piankashaw having abandoned the post at Vincennes, M. de (page 154) St. Ange, commandant at that post, has gone to the Illinois to see if he had received the orders he was expecting from M. de Vaudreuil to go and raise the Missouri to establish them at his post instead of the Piankashaw.
Le Porc Epic, who was the first chief of the band of La Demoiselle, who had retired to the Illinois in order to have no part in the treason of that band, has returned here. All the Frenchmen who know him have told me much good of him. He is to go to Great Miami River this spring, and he has promised me to do his utmost to bring back La Demoiselle and his band. To engage him to this I have made him a present of a blanket, a shirt, and a breechcloth. This Indian assures me that before two years have passed the French will have a cruel war with the English and all the Indian tribes who are to be of that party; he thinks it useless to flatter oneself, for La Demoiselle and his band would not return here; part of the Wea were to go and establish themselves on Great Miami River, and the English directed all the tribes to settle there with them. Further, although (page 155) the French had made peace with the English they had not made it with the Indian tribes; there was a wampum belt which circulated secretly and which was against the French.
The night of the thirteenth a young man of the band of La Demoiselle arrived here and reported to Le Pied Froid that La Demoiselle would not return to the Miamis as he had promised; that he Shawnee had torn down and trampled underfoot with contempt the placards that M. de Celoron had set up on the Ohio River, and the English had told them that they had done well. The latter had brought a great quantity of arms to the Ohio and Great Miami rivers; there were twenty English traders on these rivers who had brought goods in abundance which they gave at a low price; they have sent considerable presents into the winter quarters of three various Indian tribes to induce these tribes to come to them and have had the tribes told that they would give them all that they desired provided that they sustained the English on the Ohio and Great Miami rivers against the French; this the (page 156) tribes have promised them. Further, the Flatheads and the English speaking for them and with them have asked of the Shawnee and of La Demoiselle a free passage to go and attack the Huron and La Demoiselle, and the Shawnee have accorded it to them. (This I do not believe.)
In addition to the twenty English who were traversing the winter quarters there were twenty others living at the fort of La Demoiselle. The Delaware have been with this Indian and have told him, "The Iroquois of the Sault and the other Indians of the party of M. de Celoron have said, 'We may come next year with the French. If they march against you we give you our word to abandon the French and to put ourselves on your side in order to destroy them.'" The different tribes who are in the regions where M. de Celoron passed stand on their guard and should increase considerably. Accordingly they count on the French marching against them next summer and expect to defeat them. This is what the Indian of the band of La Demoiselle told Le Pied Froid.
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