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.
Account of the Discoveries and Journeys
of
the Sieur de la Salle. . .1679-1681
(Due to length divided here into 3 parts)
de La Salle or Father Membré, In:
English Translation of Margry, vol. 1,
pp. 472-586.
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(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 Crevecoeur, 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 Crevecoeur 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 561) these words were written: "We are all Indians, this 15th A. . . 1680." The part which was missing from the last word had been had been carried off with the piece of planking broken by the Iroquois. The Sieur de La Salle recognized the writing of the Parisian and believed that the Sieur de Tonty had had it written in the month of August on retiring with some of the Illinois. But he afterwards learned that the words were written in the month of April before he went to live at the great village of the Illinois. For the rest, the bark was not damaged, and it could have been completed in a short time, but for the loss of the forge and all the tools on the arrival of the Iroquois.
On the 4th of December he continued his journey, and the same day passed four of the camping places of the two armies. From this examination of the last one, he concluded that the two tribes were not very far off, because no rain had fallen upon the ashes of their fires since they had left. He kept on all the following night; and towards noon the next day, when he got near the outfall of the river, he saw a plain on the north side some remains of huts, and figures which seemed like those of men and children, but were motionless. He landed to examine things more closely, and saw all the grass trodden down; and, turning aside a little, he found the body of a woman half burnt and eaten by wolves. This beginning made it easy for him to guess how the matter stood, and the successful issue of this war twelve days before his arrival, as we have said.
The whole plain presented a frightful spectacle, full of proofs of the cruelty of the Iroquois. The mad fury of these (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 whields 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 this 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 (page 563) courage and their devotion, but told them that he would not take an unfair advantage of them; that they were too few in number to undertake to push their way through so many tribes; that such an act would be attributed either to rashness or to despair; that they had not even sufficient ammunition, that they could carry it out more safely the following year and that moreover he could not abandon the three men whom he had left at the great village of the Illinois, nor could he help seeking for the Sieur de Tonty until he had ascertained what had become of him.
On the 7th of December he began to go up the river again, and in three days and a half he arrived at the village where he had left his men, and found them in perfect health. The cold at that time was so unusually severe that on the 13th of December the river was frozen over, a thing which had perhaps never happened before. During the following days he busied himself with gathering Indian corn in the fields, and he hid about 300 minots in the ground for use on his return. He also had sledges made to take his canoes, and his provisions and baggage over the ice.
On the 19th of December he observed the comet for the first time. The village of the Illinois, where he then was, is at latitude 40 degrees and a few minutes, The head of the comet at nightfall appeared on the horizon, and its tail extended through a distance of thirty degrees. He saw it until the 17th of January, when it appeared at the zenith at midnight, but after that he was not able to observe it very exactly.
He also saw mock suns several times during the winter; (page 564) and, among others, he observed one which showed eight suns besides the real one.
The upper semicircle was a little more distant from the middle one, and more to the right of it, than the lower semi-circle, at the right extremity of which there was nothing to be seen.
This phenomenon lasted from half past seven in the morning until a quarter of twelve. The upper arc gradually disappeared first, and then the lower one,, and lastly the circle in the middle.
On the 26th of December, seeing that the frost continued, he set fire to the fort and huts of the Iroquois, as he wished to speak to some of the Indians in order to obtain news of the Sieur de Tonty and to inform them of his departure; so that, if they should come across the tracks which he and his men would leave on the snow, they should not follow them as enemies' but this care was fruitless, although he waited two days longer.
Finally he started on the 28th with three canoes, twenty minots of Indian corn and his baggage, which he and his men dragged over the snow although it weighed altogether forty hundredweight, and on the 6th of January 1681 he arrived at the confluence of the River Divine and the River Teatiki. He decided to follow the former, because he had found an encampment six leagues lower down, where he thought the Sieur de Tonty had passed; and as he had not met him along the River Teatiki, he thought that he must necessarily have followed the River Divine. His wish to overtake him made him determine to leave all his goods at that place, which was far from the routes of the (page 565) Indians, in order to get on faster. He hid them as well as he could, and left the Sieur d'Autray there, who offered to guard them in company with the surgeon.
On the sixth of January he set out with the other five; and, the same day, he found along the river a camping-ground, and knew that the Sieur de Tonty had been there, by the sawn wood; and from various indications he concluded that it was about two months previous. It had snowed all day, and the snow continued for nineteen days, in succession, with very severe cold and a stormy wind which blew over the plains, where they could scarcely find wood enough to warm themselves, and none at all of the kind from which the bark is peeled for making huts. But he was obliged to travel sixty leagues, in spite of all these difficulties, which were so great that the Sieur de La Salle, who seems to be proof against hardships of this kind, states that he has never had to endure such cold nor such suffering. They could have borne these hardships more easily if he and his men had been able to get on faster, making use of their snowshoes; but the snow was as yet too soft and hanging as it were, on the grass, so that the Sieur de La Salle, walking in front as he usually did to encourage his men by showing them the way, found great difficulty, although he was rather tall, in striding over the snow, in which he sank up to his waist, and was often obliged to push it aside with his body to make his way through it.
At the end of January he arrived at the mouth of the River of the Miamis. He did not find the Sieur de Tonty there, as he had hoped, but only the Sieur de La Forest and his three soldiers; he informed him that the men whom he had ordered him to wait for (page 566) had wintered at the channel of Lake Erie, and that a canoe had been seen passing Missilimakinak but had not stopped there. The Sieur de La Salle thought, from the time mentioned, that it was the Sieur de Tonty; and as he was anxious to communicate with him, and feared the ill effect which the rumour of the rout of the Illinois might have upon the minds of his men, he asked those who were round him whether they would undertake to convey a letter to the Sieur de Tonty at the, channel of Lake Erie. Two young men, knowing that it was only a third of the distance which he had traveled the winter before; offered to go, and he gave them the necessary instructions and stores and sent them off on the 2nd. of February.
Amidst all these anxieties, he was yet greatly pleased that the men whom he had left at this place had remained loyal to him and had made good use of their time in accordance with his orders. The carpenter had begun to build a bark, which he had intended for use on Lake Erie, as will be explained hereafter, and had squared all the timber required for the side planks; moreover his comrades had cleared a rather large piece of ground, and they had all worked together to prepare materials for building a barn. These preparations pleased him the more because the overthrow of the Illinois made it necessary for him to settle among the Miamis until his exploration was completed; and he was still further induced to take that course by the following occurrence.
Twenty-five or thirty Indians of various tribes who are at war with the English, had arrived at the mouth of the River of the Miamis before him with their wives and children. They had (page 567) left their own district partly because the beaver had become very rare there, and partly on account of their hatred for the English and they had come to hunt in these parts intending to give themselves up to the Iroquois on their return and to be incorporated with that tribe. The Indian named Nanangoucy, whom the Sieur de La Salle had left with his men at the mouth of the River of the Miamis, fortunately belonged to the same district as these Indians. As he was very fond of the Sieur de La Salle he persuaded them to wait for him and speak to him before carrying out the intention which they had formed. A few hours before the Sieur de La Salle arrived, Nanangoucy, who knew that he was near by the return of one of his dogs who ran before him to the house, went to meet him, and told him what he had done, saying that if he would settle among the Illinois or the Miamis these Indians would join him together with thirty others who were to follow them; that he would serve him faithfully in that matter, and that he asked no other reward than that he would make him chief of his tribe.
The Sieur de La Salle had in his company another Indian, called Ouiouilamet, son of the chief of a village near Boston, the capital of New England. He was a wise and prudent young man, and the Sieur de La Salle had great confidence in him. He had followed him for two years most devotedly, and he had acquired considerable knowledge of the languages of the neighbouring tribes during the four years he had lived in that district. The Sieur de La Salle gave him the task of negotiating this matter with Nanangoucy and the other Indians, and directed them*sic to show them that, considering the condition in which (page 568) matters were with the Illinois it would be better than they should settle among the Miamis, because the Iroquois could not object to them settling with their allies; that the Illinois also would be well satisfied when they knew that this choice was made only in order to induce the Miamis to grant them peace; that he hoped to get the Miamis to consent to this by showing them the interest they had in preserving the Illinois, who would be able to keep the Iroquois occupied for a long time, and prevent them from turning their arms against the Miamis, as they would be certain to do as soon an they had wiped out the Illinois; that in order to ensure the success of this plan he wished, before the Miamis came back from their hunting, to go to the Illinois and incline their minds to peace, and prevent them from taking umbrage at his staying among the Miamis; and that while he was on that journey, he and his fellow tribesmen must go to the Miamis and prepare their minds to do, on their part, what he wished.
While he was taking these steps for the safety of the settlements which he was planning, and in order to form a barrier which should hold the Iroquois in check and secure the peace of Canada, an incident occurred which assisted him greatly in carrying out his schemes.
The Iroquois, after the defeat of the Tamaroa, one of the Illinois tribes, returned to their country with 400 slaves by the River Ohio which, taking its rise thirty or forty leagues to the south of Niagara, flows towards the west for more than two hundred leagues and throws itself into the River Colbert twenty-five leagues below its confluence with the River of the Illinois. They came across two huts of the Miamis, who were (page 569) hunting at that place, and they captured or killed the whole party, and afterwards came and encamped near the country of the Miamis; and, winter having overtaken them there, they built three forts at a distance of two leagues from one another, forming a triangle. The Miamis, learning of the defeat of their men, sent envoys to the Iroquois to demand reparation, and to take a present of three thousand beaverskins in order to obtain more easily the release of those of their tribe whom they had made slaves. But the Iroquois, contrary to the custom among all those tribes, who never accept presents without granting what they are asked, kept the beaverskins and did not send back the prisoners. This extraordinary action showed the Miamis plainly enough that the Iroquois were nothing but traitors, and that they need expect no better treatment from them than their neighbours.
At the same time a hundred Illinois of the Cascacia tribe, led by one of their chiefs called Paessa, who had been on the warpath when the Indians came to their village, returned to their own country with the prisoners they had made. They found the savage tokens of the defeat of the Tamaroas, and resolved, although few in number, to take vengeance on them; they followed the Iroquois, and came by night and stationed themselves in the midst of their three forts, intending to attack one of them on the following day. It even appears that they would have succeeded, but for a mischance which happened to them. Two Iroquois who were returning from hunting came by the spot where the Illinois were encamped, and they pretended that they belonged to the tribe of the Miamis. The two hunters were deceived and went to place themselves in their hands; but a (page 570) young warrior, who was too impatient; killed the first one before the second had entered, and thus destroyed all the plans of his comrades, for the second man escaped and gave the alarm to the Iroquois. Next day the Illinois were hemmed in on all sides; nevertheless they fought bravely until nightfall when, their chief Paessa and thirteen or fourteen of the bravest of them having been killed, and the Iroquois having lost eight men, the fight was discontinued by both sides. On the following day the Illinois returned to the charge three times; but as they found they were not strong enough against such great numbers, they went to kill Iroquois hunters in the direction of Lake Erie where the Iroquois warriors, who are not so swift as they, dared not follow them.
This occurrence astonished the Miamis. They saw that the Illinois had not lost their courage, and they feared that when the Iroquois had gone they would vent their anger upon them and would avenge themselves upon them for having aided with their enemies against them.
At the same time a Chaouenon chief, the leader of a hundred and fifty warriors, who lives on the banks of a great river which falls into the River Ohio, learning that the Sieur de La Salle was in the country of the Miamis, sent to ask him for his Majesty's protection. He replied that his district was inaccessible to the French on account of the great distance;. but that, if he would come and join him at the end of the year, to assist him in discovering the mouth of the River Mississippi, he would then be able to assure him of the King's protection and to help him against the Iroquois and other enemies. The chief accepted the Sieur de La Salle's proposals and sent him word that he would not (page 571) fail to be at the approach to the River of the Miamis towards the end of autumn.
The Sieur de La Salle, seeing that his affairs were so well in train, decided to go to the Illinois, to treat with them. He left on the first of March, accompanied by fifteen men well equipped with arms and snowshoes, for the frost had hardened the snow so firmly that it was easy to go over it. The weather was very fine, and his dogs killed as many roebucks and other animals as he wished, before his eyes; but the reflection of the sun's rays in those open plains, which he was obliged to cross was so strong, that he was blinded for three days, and the pain he suffered was so great that he could not rest, night or day. This ailment obliged him to stop on the border of a plain whence, in order to lose no time, he sent on all his men except two Frenchmen, Ouiouilamek and two other Indians, whose sight was affected in the same way as his. At the same time he sent off a man named Hunaut to go and look for pine leaves for him, which are a sovereign remedy for the disorder from which he was suffering. Hunaut, on his return, told him that he had found on his way the trails of seven men whose snowshoes were made differently from those of his men. The Sieur de La Salle thought it absolutely necessary to speak to them lest they should attack him by night before they saw that they were Frenchmen; and as he was in a difficulty as to what to do, seeing that he was unable to go himself and would not compel anyone to undertake an errand so dangerous, Hunaut and Ouiouilamek offered of their own accord to undertake it, and he accepted their offer. For two days they followed the trails they had seen; and at last, on the evening of the third day they found eighty huts of the tribe of the Outa- (page 572) gamis, who were hunting at that place. The Indians received them very well, and informed them of the Sieur de Tonty's arrival among the Pouteatamis and of the return of Father Louis and two other Frenchmen from the country of the Nadouessious. This news delighted the Sieur de La Salle, whom they found on their return fit to continue his journey.
A few days after, he overtook his men and, the ice having melted, he had canoes made, and they all embarked in them. On the 15th of March, as he was going on in front with four men in a canoe, he saw ten Illinois, who immediately fled; but shortly afterwards they recognized him and came to him with great eagerness, and related to him the full details of their defeat by the Iroquois. The Sieur de La Salle made them a present, to comfort them; and afterwards he exhorted them to make peace with the Miamis, and told them the plan which he had formed of reconciling them to one another. He pointed out to them that, as long as they remained divided, the Iroquois would scorn them and would overthrow them one after the other; but that, if they would re-establish friendly relations with one another, they would become invincible and would be feared by all their enemies; for be would come and settle among them, with other Indians and many Frenchmen.
The Illinois thanked him for the pains he was taking for their preservation, and accepted his proposals. The remainder of the day passed, as usual, in feast and dances.
On the following day he had a hundred minots of Indian corn loaded into his canoes, and went up with all his men, to the place where, on his way back from his second journey, he had left (page 573) the Sieur d'Autray and the surgeon in charge of his goods. From there he sent a canoe by the River Divine to go to the Sieur de Tonty in the Pouteatamis' country and bring back his papers, if they had been saved. A few days afterwards he arrived at the river of the Miamis, where he found everything in a satisfactory condition. He sent another canoe from there, in charge of the Sieur de La Forest, with four men, to meet the smith and the others who had wintered on the way, and to request the Sieur de Tonty to await him at Missilimakinak. He also ordered him to go to Fort Frontenac, after carrying out the other two matters, and to load his canoes with ammunition and goods and come and join him at once with a few fresh men at Missilimakinak, where he was to go at the end of May, The Sieur de La Forest learned at Missilimakinak that the Sieur de Tonty was still with the Pouteatamis, and he sent a canoe to him there with some goods, for him to make a present of them to the Indians, in recognition of their kind treatment of him, and in return for the food with which they had supplied him during the winter. This canoe was taken by three of the men whom, the Sieur de La Forest went to look for and found at Missilimakinak, and the others he sent by the shortest way to the River of the Miamis; but the wind was so contrary for the latter party that, when the Sieur de La Salle was returning to Fort Frontenac, some time after, he found them still on the way.
After the departure of the Sieur de La Forest, the Sieur de La Salle set to work to make new clearings and to sow French wheat, Indian corn, and all kinds of vegetables and pot-herbs, which have been a complete success, all of them having yielded (page 574) twice as well as they do in Europe on the best land.
Two canoes then came to him, from the Indians of New England, to tell him that they were waiting, for him at the village of the Miamis to complete the negotiations which he had proposed.- He left some of his men, to work at cultivating the land, and embarked with the remainder.
On reaching the village he found three Iroquois there, who had remained to urge the Miamis to keep up the war against the Illinois. They visited the Sieur de La Salle at once and expressed great friendship and respect, for him; but, as he had learned that they had spoken of the French most scornfully and insolently, he received them coldly and told then that they had spoken ill concerning a nation which they ought to have respected, which would know how to teach them to behave properly if they should fail to do so; that he did not believe that they would dare, now that he had come, to speak as they had done in his absence. They saw that the Sieur de La Salle was accompanied by Frenchmen and by Indians from New England; and these words of his so confounded them that they fled the next night through the woods. Their flight had a very good effect on the minds of the Miamis, who were surprised to see that these Iroquois, who had not been afraid of the twelve or fifteen hundred men composing the Miami tribe, nor of the fifty Indians from New England, had been so frightened at the sight of a small number of Frenchmen who were incensed against them, that they had escaped by night almost entirely naked, leaving behind their beaver skins and everything they most valued.
In these favourable circumstances, the Sieur de La Salle (page 575) called together, first, the Indians from New England. There were some from seven or eight different tribes from the neighbourhood of Bristol, Manathe or New Amsterdam, and the frontiers of Virginia. Their principal chiefs were Ouiouilamec, Nangoucy, Klas, Togren and Kouas. He represented to them, at the council, how fertile the plains of the Miamis and the Illinois were, and the abundance of beavers, wild oxen and all sorts of hunting and fishing; that they would enjoy complete peace there, away from their enemies the English, and under the protection of the greatest monarch in the world; that, as soon as he had discovered the mouth of the Great River, he would supply them with all kinds of goods very cheaply, and would bring oxen, horses and all the other conveniences which they had had in New England; that, in order to enjoy this happiness in peace, it was necessary that they should all assist one another, and that they should work together to reconcile the Illinois and the Miamis because, if those two nations continued at war with one another, they would not be able to hunt in safety, nor to get the goods they were in need of; and that, if they wished to gratify their warlike disposition, they should attack their old enemies, against whom they had just causes for complaint, rather than people who had never offended them. These Indians accepted at once all the Sieur de La Salle's proposals and welcomed with delight the opportunity he was creating for them, for the success of which they took all the necessary steps during the remainder of the day.
Next day he summoned the Miamis to the hut of their principal chief, from which they removed all the bark covering it and
*(sic Query, should be 'directed him')- Translator's note.
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