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.
Letters of Cavalier de La Salle and
Correspondence
Relative to his Undertakings (1678-1685)
Margry, Volume II, Bibliotheque Nationale,
fonds Clairambault 1016; (pp. 198-206: fol. 188, No. 1).
|
pp. |
|
|
|
|
|
(page 168) Part V,
Chapter II. Description of the country as far as the junction of the Missouri with this river, which the explorer called the River Colbert.
(page 180). . .
All these things are found all through the country which we have traversed; and, as they are to be found from the source of the River of the Illinois, which the Indians call Teiatiki, I will not go over it again. After we had followed the stream for about five leagues across these plains, it receives, on the left side as you go down, another river almost as large, which is called the River of the Iroquois; and then still continuing rapid for a distance of twenty five leagues along the same (page 181) plains, where it is swollen by a few other less important streams, it receives on the right the River of Checagou. This river comes from the neighbourhood of the Bay des Puants and is a torrent rather than a river, although it has a course of more than sixty leagues, for it has no water at all the greater part of the year. The village of the Maskoutens, who are called the Fire Tribe, is near it, they having retired there out of fear of the Iroquois. From its confluence to the portage by which you go to the Lake of the Illinois is about fifteen leagues, all plains, behind the country fringing the river, which is at intervals covered with woods and surrounded by swamps. From the portage of Checagou it is about eight leagues from the village of the Maskoutens towards the Northwest. Following the River Teatiki from its junction with the Checagou, you find for a distance of about nine leagues the most beautiful country in the world. The Indians call it Massane, on account of the large quantity of hemp there. Nothing could be better intersected by streams and diversified with meadows, islands, clumps of trees, hills, valleys and plains where the land is excellent and, best of all, the river; but, since there is no navigation in the summertime, and even when the waters are high, the rapid at the end of these nine leagues makes it very difficult, I would not settle there. Below this rapid, on the left hand going down, there are a number of pieces of ore, and in summer all the stones are coated with saltpetre. There are also a number of slate quarries and a quantity of coal. Four leagues lower down, on the right, in the River of the Pestegonki, in which I found a piece of copper and a sort of metal which I sent two (page 182) years ago to M. de Frontenac, from whom I have had no answer, which metal I believe to be bronze, if that is found in mines.
Two leagues lower down is the old village of the Kaskaskia, Ilinois who had deserted the village after the rout caused three years ago by the Iroquois. They news of the fort which I have had built there has brought them back together with many other tribes. It is situated half a league below the said village, on the left side going down the river, on the top of a rock steep on almost every side, the foot of which is bathed by the stream so that water can be drawn from the top of the rock, which is about 600 feet in circumference. It is accessible on one side only, where the ascent is still rather steep. This side is inclosed with a palisade of white oak stakes eight to ten inches in diameter and twenty-two feet high, flanked by three redoubts made of squared beams set one above another to the same height, so placed that they all protect one another. The rest of the inclosure of the rock is surrounded by a similar palisade, only fifteen feet high because it is not accessible, flanked by four other redoubts, like the others behind the palisade. There is a parapet of great trees laid lengthwise one upon another to the height of two men, the whole filled up with earth; and at the top of the palisade is a sort of cheval-de-frise, with the points tipped with iron, to prevent escalade. The rocks near are all lower than that one, and the nearest is two hundred paces off, and the others further still; and between them and Fort Saint Louis a great valley extends on both sides, with a brook dividing it about the middle and flooding it when it rains. On the other side (page 183) there is a meadow bordering the river in which, at the foot of the fort, there is a fine island formerly cleared by the Ilinois, in which I and my settlers have sown our seed within musket shot of the fort, so that the labourers can be defended from within the fort, and enemies prevented from landing on the island. The ground bordering on the rocks which surround the fort, as I have just said, is covered with oaks over an area three or four arpents wide, after which there are vast plains of very good land. The other side of the river is bordered by a great meadow which the Ilinois formerly cultivated. It abuts on a hill which extends all along, the slope of which is covered with woods in some parts, and in other leaves large openings through which are seen plains which stretch out beyond for more than four hundred leagues, to our certain knowledge. Two leagues below the fort, on the same side, is the river which the Indians call Aramoni, not a large one, and very rapid. There are some very good slate quarries; and the Indians say that they have often found copper there, but they do not know the mine. The River of the Ilinois, as it comes down, is fringed with virgin woods, and the hills behind are also covered with them, but with the plains still stretching away behind them and coming, in places, quite near to the river bank from which they are distant scarcely a league at the most. From there downwards, navigation is always good, and the plains are rarely seen up to the water's edge, except fifteen leagues or thereabouts below the fort, on the right going down, and after passing the small river Chassagoach, ten leagues away. Five leagues further down is the River Moyngoane, traversing a fine plain which is seen. . .
(page 198): Part V, Chapter VI. River and Natives of the Countries explored.
Detached sheet, containing neither the beginning nor the end, in the handwriting of La Salle.
(page 203). . .The advent of the Cisoa and Chaouenon was followed by the return of the Ilinois tribe, the Peoueria, Kaskaskia, Moingoana, Taponero, Coiraccentanon, Chinkoa, Cheperssea, Maroa, Caeckia and Tamaroa. All those tribes were included under the name Ilinois because they are allies, and there were some families of each in the village of Kaskaskia (who are the real Ilinois), although they had their separate villages, distant more than a hundred leagues from one another. The village of the Tamaroas (page 204) alone is made up of three hundred huts. Now all these tribes are uniting and are coming to settle here. The village of Matchinkoa, of three hundred fires (each fire consists of two families), is thirty leagues from the Fort to which it is also about to come; and a party of the Emissourites, the Peanghichia, Kelatica, Megancockia, Melomelinoia, making together a village of from two to three hundred fires have made their fields four leagues from the Fort. The Oiatenon, to the number of a hundred and twenty huts, are there now, having come away from their villages with me. On that. . .
Return
to TOC, p. 4
Continue
to next part of Miami Collection
[return to Miami
Collection Menu]
[return to Glenn A. Black
Laboratory of Archaeology List of Publications]
[return to Glenn A. Black
Laboratory of Archaeology Home]
Last updated: 18 October 2000
URL: http://www.gbl.indiana.edu/home.html
Comments: webmaster@www.gbl.indiana.edu
Copyright 1996, Glenn Black Laboratory of Archaeology and The Trustees of Indiana University