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.
Official Account of the Enterprise
of
Cavelier de la Salle from 1679 to 1681
[Zenobius Membré?]
In: English Translation of Margry,
vol. 1, pp. 472-586.
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page 542 Iroquois had set out to make war against the
Illinois. In order to explain all these matters, we must go back a little.
When the Sieur de La Salle left the Illinois' country, there remained with the Sieur de Tonty only fifteen persons, namely, two Recollet Fathers, the Sieur de Boisrondet, three ships' carpenters, one smith, two joiners, two sawyers, whom he had trained at Crevecoeur, and four soldiers. The Sieur de La Salle promised to send him reinforcements in place of the four Frenchmen he took away. And he did, in fact, as soon as he arrived at Niagara, send off the Sieur d'Autray, a young man both brave and prudent, the son of the first Procureur General of Quebec,(see fn. 1) with four men in two canoes laden with arms and ammunition and all that was required for finishing his barque. He directed him to take with him the men Messier, Hunaut and Crevel, whom he was to find on the way, and two other men whom he had sent to Missilimakinak from the outfall of Lake Huron into Lake Erie, as stated above. From Fort Frontenac he sent the Sieur de la Forest with four or five men. At the same time he sent word to the Sieur de Tonty of the advance of the Iroquois, and advised him to withdraw from their line of march and not to espouse the cause either of one side or of the other; for it was not right to violate the laws of hospitality by making war upon the Illinois who had received them so well, nor yet to take sides against the Iroquois lest he should provoke war against Canada.
These reinforcements would have sufficed to enable him to keep the fort safe and also the barque which had been begun, and to defend him even against the Iroquois; but the desertion of his best men rendered all these precautionary measures useless. page 543 The deserters, having stolen the goods and ammunition, and demolished the fort of Crevecoeur and the fort of the Miamis, met the party whom the Sieur de La Salle was sending to the Illinois country, and disheartened them by a thousand falsehoods. Finally they told them, that the Sieur de Tonty was dead and testified to it in such a manner that the Sieur de La Salle's men dared not go any further, and even the Sieur de la Forest, allowing himself to be convinced and believing that his journey would be useless, also retraced his steps. Thus the Sieur de Tonty was left among the Illinois with Father Gabriel de la Ribourde, a man of great merit and exemplary virtue, who was 63 years of age; Father Zénobe Membré, a most excellent and wise monk; the Sieur de Boisrondet, a young man, loyal and dauntless; and two other young Frenchmen, all so destitute of ammunition that they had only three shots apiece to fire.
A rumour was also circulated among the Illinois that the Sieur de La Salle was dead, and that news was confirmed there some time after. Nevertheless, the Sieur de Tonty never lost heart, and bore with patience his state of destitution. He sent, by two different routes, to warn the Sieur de La Salle of all that was going on; and he acted with so much discretion and determination in the perilous conjunctures in which he found himself involved very soon after, that he acquired very great influence with the Indians.
While these things were happening, the Iroquois were marching against the Illinois. The former dwell to the south of Lake Frontenac, and are divided into five subdivisions, namely, those of the Agnié, who live near New York, the Onneiout, the Oiogouen, the Onnontagué and the Sonnontouan, the most powerful of all. They
page 545 brave warriors and the Miamis from 1200 to 1500, most of them armed with arrows only, but great runners and very well fitted for effecting surprises, the Iroquois proposed to divide them, in order to defeat them one after the other.
The Miamis used formerly to dwell on the west of the Lake of the Illinois, but fear of the Iroquois made them fly to beyond the River Mississippi, where they settled. Some years ago, the Jesuit Fathers sent them presents to induce them to return to their former dwelling places, and they succeeded in bring away of them who established themselves near the source of the River Teatiki, on which the Sieur de La Salle went down on his first journey, as we have said.
As the Illinois were the more numerous and the braver, the Miamis, who often had quarrels with them, feared them little less than they did the Iroquois; and so they listened to the proposals which the latter made to them, and came to an agreement with them, not thinking of the misfortunes to which they would find themselves exposed after the Illinois had been crushed.
When the Iroquois had made their arrangements in this way, they very soon found a pretext for making war on the 111inois in hunting encounters when they often quarrelled with one another, and fell upon one another unawares. They seized upon the first opportunity of this kind, and began to make raids. After that they made their preparations, and they set out in the month of August in order to arrive at the time when the Indian corn would be ripe so that they might not run the risk of being in want of provisions. They went down by rivers to the south of Lake Erie and arrived among the Illinois on the 18th of September, at which time the Sieur
page 551 and at night both sides went into the fields, gathering Indian corn. Finally the Iroquois, who wished to profit by the weakness of the Illinois, brought presents to the Sieur de Tonty to induce him to consent to their destruction; but when he constantly refused them, they advised him, to withdraw, lest he and his men should be killed during the fight, either by their young men or by the Illinois.
When the Sieur de Tonty finding that he received no news of the Sieur de La Salle who- he had been told- was dead; that winter was coming on; that he had neither goods, nor provisions, nor ammunition; and that his safety depended upon the mercy of these two savage nations; at last determined to leave. He embarked with the two Recollet Fathers and the other three Frenchmen; and, as he had a quantity of beaver skins, he abandoned some of them and took the rest, intending, if the Sieur de La Salle was dead to buy arms, ammunition and some goods with them, in order to complete this grand exploration.
He went up the River of the Illinois with great difficulty, because he had no good boatmen. On the third day after they left, Father Gabriel landed in order to pray to God more peacefully and refresh himself by walking along by the river; but he was discovered by some Indians of the Kikapou tribe, and these savages killed him with arrows without anyone seeing it. The Sieur de Tonty stopped at noon, to wait for him; and, finding that he did not come for a long while, he retraced his steps to seek him. He waited for him again the next day, but all his trouble was in vain, and he was obliged to continue his journey, grieving over the loss of a man who was esteemed by all who knew him.
page 552
Shortly after, he reached the place where the River Teatiki, on which the Sieur
de La Salle had gone down, which comes from the country of the Miamis, is
joined by the River Divine. He went up the latter, without leaving anything to
show which way he had gone, thereby making a serious mistake, which caused
great trouble to him and to the Sieur de La Salle, as we shall see later on. He
reached the Lake of the Illinois in a few days, and embarked upon it,
proceeding from south to north along the western shore of the lake. He met with
incredible difficulties on this voyage, and, with all his companions, was
reduced to the last extremity for want of provisions. At last, however, he got
to the district of the Pouteatamis, where he was obliged to winter.
Meanwhile the Iroquois, as soon as the Sieur de Tonty left, vented their rage on the dead bodies of the Illinois, which they disinterred, or threw down from the platforms on which the Illinois leave them exposed for a long time before putting them in the earth. They burned most of them, they even eat some, and cast the rest to the dogs. The heads of these corpses, with flesh half torn off, they fixed upon stakes. They also made havoc in the fields; and in fact neglected nothing which could gratify their desire for vengeance.
They broke up their camp a few days after in order to follow the Illinois, who had taken flight immediately after the departure of the French. Yet they did not dare to attack the Illinois as long as they saw that they were united and resolved to defend themselves; and they contented themselves with desecrating the tombs which they found on their line of march, and encamping always within view of them, with the river between.
page 554
they carried off the rest into slavery.
While all these events were taking place, the Sieur de La Salle was at Missilimakinak, where he found great difficulty in obtaining provisions from the Indians. He was waiting very anxiously for the arrival of a blacksmith, two sailors, a ropemaker and two soldiers who were to bring him three hundred pounds of powder, and some lead, guns, iron, oakum and pitch, sails and tools for completing his barque. He had given them orders to come by Lake Erie, partly in order that they might meet the Sieur de Tonty if he were returning by that route, and partly in order to avoid having to convey such heavy things for a distance of thirteen leagues and over some high mountains which have to be crossed in going from Teioiagon to Lake Taronto, where the Sieur de La Salle had embarked. But the winds, which were violent that autumn, and are very dangerous on Lake Erie and the southern part of Lake Huron, through which they were obliged to pass, prevented them from getting to Missilimakinak. The Sieur de La Salle was therefore obliged to send a canoe by the route which they were taking, to hasten them or to relieve them if they were in need of help, and another by the north of Lake Huron; but both were forced by the weather to winter on their way. He also left the Sieur de La Forest at Missilimakinak with three soldiers to wait for them, but only until the 20th of October.
He left on the fourth of the same month with the remaining twelve men, namely, the Sieur d'Autray, a ship's carpenter who after having deserted, had returned to his service, a surgeon, three soldiers, two sawyers, two masons and two labourers. He was so often delayed by the wind and the rain that he was not able to reach the mouth of the River of the Miamis until the fourth of
page 557
showing what the extent of the village had been, and on most of them, the heads
of corpses had been fixed, and picked by crows. There were others at the gates
of the Iroquois' fort, with a quantity of calcined bones, and a few remains of
the utensils and clothes of the French which he could tell, from various
indications, had been there for some time. In the fields they saw a number of
bodies, half eaten by wolves; the tombs destroyed the bones taken out of the
graves and scattered over the plain; the holes in which the Illinois hide their
belongings when they go hunting all open and their kettles and pots broken.
Most of the Indian corn was still standing, and in several places they saw
heaps of it half burned. Lastly the wolves and the crows added to the horror of
the scene by their howls and croaking. It is easy to understand the
consternation of the Sieur de La Salle at this sight. He went all round the
fort of the Iroquois and found no mark of gun shots nor of arrows, nor anything
to show that the French had been prisoners there. He examined one by one all
the heads set up there, and saw by their hair that they were those of women or
Indians, whose heads are all very large and very short. It was a most
melancholy task; but he was obliged to perform it, notwithstanding, so that he
might ascertain what had become of the Sieur de Tonty and his men. At last,
going by chance to their garden, which he easily recognized, a league from the
village, near the banks of the river, he found six stakes set up there, painted
red, with a drawing on each of a black man with his eyes bandaged; and he then
thought since it is the custom of the Indians to put up such stakes at the
places where they have captured or killed some of their enemies, that the
Iroquois had found the six
page 559
He passed the whole of it without sleeping, with an uneasiness that may readily
be imagined, fearing the most disastrous consequences from so many unforeseen
misfortunes and not knowing what course to decide upon. Finally he resolved to
continue his journey with four men, leaving some of his party with the goods,
so that those who were to follow them might obtain news of him. And, in order
that he might not be inconvenienced on his journey if winter overtook him
before his return, he had everything he was leaving behind concealed in a place
very difficult to get at, in a hollow in a rock which he closed in such a
manner that nothing could get damaged; and he gave orders to the three men who
were remaining to withdraw to a neighbouring island, to light no fire during
the daytime, not to fire a single shot, and to conceal the canoes in the grass.
He enjoined them to observe all these rules strictly, which would absolutely
ensure their safety; for the Indians of these parts have no canoes, and they
would not undertake to go by swimming to attack men whose numbers they did not
know; moreover the island was between two rapids, and they could not go there
except in daylight, and only by the eastern point, where he also directed them
to keep careful watch.
On the following day the 2nd of December, about three o'clock in the afternoon, he embarked with the Sieur d'Autray, the men You and Hunaut and an Indian. Each of them had two guns, a pistol and a sword, bullets, powder, and a few hatchets and knives for presents. He went six leagues before nightfall, and arrived at the place to which the Illinois had first sent the women and children. It was a tongue of land fifteen or twenty paces wide and half a league in length. It was protected by the page 560 river and by a marsh of vast extent, full of mire, leaving only a passage-way four paces wide, closed by great overturned trees, The whole of this peninsula was full of the huts of the Indians who had made a sort of breastwork with their pirogues on the river side, from which alone they could be assailed.
The Sieur de La Salle examined the whole of this piece of land, hoping to find some writing or some sign that his men had been there. He found no trace of any fight, at that place, nor at the next seven or eight encampments, although the Iroquois had always encamped facing the Illinois. He crossed the river to examine the Iroquois huts also. There were 113 of them at the foot of a hill, on a level piece of high ground, where he found on the bark of the trees the portraits of their chiefs and the number of men under the command of each. There were five hundred and eighty-two of them, and one appeared to have been killed by a bullet and nine wounded by arrows. They also saw there a drawing of an Illinois woman and of the scalps of eleven others, whom they had killed; but there was no trace of the Frenchmen.
He slept at this last camp, leaving it early in the morning, and that day he went about thirty leagues, which took him to Pimiteoui or Crèvecoeur, after passing and examining six encampments of the Illinois and the same number of Iroquois camps, the latter all in positions facing the former.
Since the 28th of November the cold had been extreme, and all the marshes were already frozen over.
At Crèvecoeur he found that the fort had been almost entirely demolished by the deserters and that the Iroquois had torn out some nails from the bark to show that they had been there, and had broken a plank in the side of the vessel on which
page 562
savages, and the torments which they had inflicted on the wretched Tamaroa are
beyond description. There were some still in the pots which the Iroquois had
left full on the fires which had since died down. They had put these
unfortunate creatures to death by tearing out their nerves, by mutilating them,
flaying them, and putting them to a thousand other kinds of torture. The
objects which he had seen in the distance were the heads and whole bodies of
women and children impaled, and burned, and left erect on the plain. He also
saw shields hanging on rods to serve as trophies of the Iroquois. Finally,
after a careful and melancholy search, he found nothing to make him think that
the Frenchmen had been involved in that disaster. Nevertheless, in order to
omit nothing from which he might obtain any enlightenment, he went on as far as
the Great River, but found no further traces either of the French or of the
Indians.
Then he had the branches cut off a small tree on the rock on the left of the outfall of the River of the Illinois, and nailed on it a piece of board which he had brought on purpose. Upon that he depicted his canoe, and a calumet as a token of peace, and attached to it a letter informing the Sieur de Tonty that he was returning to the village, and that he had hidden near there some hatchets and knives and a few other things which were necessary if he was with the Indians, not doubting that, if any of those savages passed by the place, he would take him the letter, which would be of great assistance to him.
His men then proposed to him that they should
go down as far as the sea, offering to risk their lives to gratify his eager
desire to complete that exploration. He praised their
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1 Bourdon.
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