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.
Narrative of the Expedition. . .
April 9, 1682
de la Salle, Robert Cavelier, Sieur in: B. F. French,
Historical Collections of Louisiana and Florida,
Second Series, 1875.
pp. 18, 19.
On the 27th of December, 1681, M. de La Salle departed on foot to join M. de Tonty, who had preceded him with his followers and all his equipage forty leagues into the Miamis country,(see fn. 1) where the ice on the river Chicagou, in the country of the Mascoutens, had arrested his progress, and where, when the ice became stronger, they used sledges to drag the baggage, the canoes, and a wounded Frenchman through the whole length of this river, and on the Illinois, a distance of seventy leagues.
At length, all the French being together on the 25th of January, 1682, we came to Pimiteoui.(see fn. 2) From that place, the river being frozen only in some parts, we continued our (page 19) route to the River Colbert (Mississippi(see fn. 3)), sixty leagues or thereabouts from Pimiteoui, and ninety leagues or thereabouts from Pimiteou (Peoria) to the village of the Illinois.(see fn. 4) We reached the banks of the River Colbert on the 6th of February, and remained there until the 13th, waiting for the Indians, whose progress had been impeded by the ice. On the 13th, all having assembled, we renewed our voyage, being twenty-two Frenchmen, carrying arms, accompanied by the Reverend Father Zenobe Membre(see fn. 5) and one of the Recollect missionaries, and followed by eighteen New England savages and several women, Algonquins, Otchepose, and Hurons.
On the fourteenth, we arrived at the village of Maroa,(see fn.
6) consisting of a hundred cabins, without inhabitants. Proceeding about
one hundred leagues down the River Colbert, we went ashore to hunt, on the 20th
of February. . .
________________________
1 The Miamis Indians were settled, when Marquette explored the Mississippi River, at the south end of Lake Michigan.
2 Lake Pimiteoui. (Peoria, on the Illinois River), where M. de la Salle had previously built forts St. Louis and Crevecour.
3 The name of Colbert was given to this river by Governor Frontenac of Canada in honor of the great French minister Colbert who died soon after its exploration by Marquette and Joliet in 1673.
4 The present city of Peoria is not upon the site of the old Indian village or mission of Peoria, but upon the old site of La Villa de Maillet.
5 Father Zenobe was afterward massacred by the Indians at Fort St. Louis, on St. Bernard's (now Matagorda) Bay, Texas, in 1689.
6 Maroa or Tamaroa, an Illinois village, where Cahokia was afterwards built.
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