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.
Macarty to Rouille
(May 20, 1753)
Macarty in: Archives Nationales, Ministere
des Colonies, C13A 37:188-190 and in
Pease and Jenison, French Series,
III, pp. 814-821.
MONSEIGNEUR
On the orders which I have received from MM. Longueuil and Bigot for a supply of provisions for a detachment which was to leave Canada this spring to bring to reason the tribes of the Ohio River as well as for supplying the post of Ouiatanon, I sent off on March 6 the half of this supply, not having been able to find enough transportation to send everything. This has given me the occasion for a second convoy, having had few people left me here because the convoy coming up from New Orleans wintered at the Arkansas.
Half of these provisions reached their destination the first of this month. One boat which had caught on an obstacle was obliged to remain behind the convoy; having entered into a little river and thinking themselves in safety, the thirteenth of last month, eight men were killed, a man was wounded, and a girl who was going to join her relatives was carried off as a prisoner. I (page 815) only learned of this attack five days afterwards. I sent French and Indians who found the trail at a point on the Wabash opposite the Tennessee River from which it is believed that these enemies have descended in boats which were found with baggage a league below the Wabash. M. Leonardy, commanding that convoy, having waited twenty-four hours thought the boat had returned here and continued the journey on which they several times perceived trace of the enemy. On the twenty-seventh, having passed White River, two men who were ahead of the boat a little more than a gunshot were attacked by six or seven scouts who killed the man called Le Conte. The other one retreated to the boats and cried, "To arms." The enemies abandoned their boats after having taken the scalp of the dead man. A Kickapoo and Mascouten party going to war with the Chickasaw are positive by the marks that they were rebel Piankashaw. The Illinois say the marks of the party that made the attack on the thirteenth are Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Delaware. These tribes seem to be in a kind of quiet (page 816) from fear of this detachment. The commandants of the Wabash posts inform me there is reason to fear that the tribes will band together if the plan of M. de Longueuil is not carried out. I am told here that the Iroquois have sold the Ohio River to the English and that the latter have set about making settlements there. M. Joncaire, captain commanding at La Paille Coupee, should have informed M. the general of Canada of this. An Illinois chief assures me that two or three hundred men of the rebel tribes are spread upon the rivers by which the French will pass.
Our domiciled Indians are moderately reassured with respect to us and acknowledge their fault. I have not yet been able to have peace made with the Foxes and the Sauk, having not been able to assemble them all since they have been scattered throughout their winter camps. It is necessary they should be at peace in order to make them act for us. Four parties of different tribes are carrying on war against the Chickasaw. Twenty Potawatomi (page 817) arrived here with a prisoner and a scalp. The twentieth of March last there arrived here two prisoners and an Englishman from the Chickasaw who reported to us that it is this tribe and the Cherokee who have made all the attacks for the last eighteen months on the Mississippi and the Wabash on which they have taken or killed about thirty people and wounded several. There is some appearance that the tribes of the Ohio River are joining the Cherokees and the Chickasaw. The difficulties of the tribes of the Ohio River and of our domiciled Indians have prevented sending parties there against them, and, seeing themselves secure in their own territory, they have come without fear while we thought they were parties of the rebels.
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