Glenn

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.

 

Message to the
Commander at Detroit

(Miamies, May, 1767)


Le Petit Sot & Le Gros Loup in:
The Papers of Sir William
Johnson, vol. 5,
pp. 557-558.

p. 558.

(page 558)

Ntre demande, Nous mettons Nos marques tous d'eux, pour que tu N'impute rien a qui que Ce soitt,-

Marque T du gros loup;

 

marque S du petit sot

 

 

ADDRESSED:

 

A

 

 

 

Monsieur le Comdt,
au detroit
  au detroit

 

 

TRANSLATION

Today [Englishmen  ] of brandy to whom you [have given permission] they [say] to come into [our village] with a quantity of brandy [  ] We are grieved [to see] arriving here two barges [laden] with brandy without having enough to treat us to even a miserable half glass.

The dissension which these brandies cause makes us beg you to have pity on us, on our wives and on our children.

We ask you in the name of the whole village not to permit the English or the French to bring us any more of it.

We are not opposed to your children's coming here to barter. On the contrary; but without brandy. Those of us who will want to drink will go after it to your place, my father.

[    ] [It would be] unfortunate, my father [if] some accident [happened to the] children in our village [which] we have and we can not [live] in drink, [since] it is true that among ourselves we kill one another.

This, my father, is what we had to beg of you and for fear that you may think that it is not ourselves (who ask it), Maisonville will tell you, my father, that it is our (own) request. We both make our marks, in order that you may impute nothing to any one.

 

The mark of

The mark of

 

    le petit sot

 le gros loup

 

 

ADDRESSED: To the Commander
               at Detroit

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