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.
Henri Tonty Letters
(Due to length divided here into three parts)
Tonti, Henri de in: Delanglez, John,
Mid-America, 1939, vol. 21, pp. 209-238.
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times in Delisle's papers. It may also be that Bureau overlooked the "V" of the "C. D. V." on Léonard's sketch. The draughtsman added in the title "suivant le croquis de la main du dit Sr. Tonty." At Fort Mississippi, where the letter was written, Tonti was hardly in a position to draw a sketch, an neither he, nor Léonard, nor Delisle make mention of such a croquis. From the wording of the titles of the two sketches, it is clear that both drew the map from the data contained in Tonti's letter. The variants of these three maps are mentioned in the notes to the text.
I
EXTRACT
FROM A LETTER OF M. TONTI TO HIS BROTHER, DATED
FROM THE QUINIPISSA VILLAGE IN MISSISSIPPI, 60 LEAGUES
FROM THE SEA, FEBRUARY 28, 1700.
A small English vessel ascended the river 30 leagues, August 3, 1699.(see fn. 1) M. de Bienville ordered the captain, in the name of the king, to withdraw, which he did, saying, however, he would come back to establish himself on the River.(see fn. 2)
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1In his letter of March 4, infra, Tonti is the first to
give the name which the place was to bear, Détour des Anglais, or Détour aux
Anglais, English Turn, as it is called today. The meaning is 'about face.' In
his second letter, Tonti gives the autumn as the date; the same time of the
year is given by M. de Montigny, in his letter dated New York, July 17, 1700,
BN, Mss. fr. n. a., 7485:130v. He adds that the intruders were coming to found
a colony of French Protestants, cf. Margry, IV, 397. Le Sueur, in his letter
dated Natchez, April 4, 1700, BN, Mss. fr. n. a., 21395:5v, has in the month of
August. Father Léonard in his copy of M. Ricouart's relation, gives September,
BN, Mss. fr., 9097:108. In this manuscript, as well as in Gravier's letter, Jesuit
Relations,
65:170, it is said that Iberville met Captain Bond. Iberville was in France at
the time. The date of the meeting of the representatives of the two great rival
countries is given as September 5, 1699, O. S., in Illinois Historical Collections, IX, 416-417; September
15, N. S., in the journal of Sauvolle, Margry, IV, 456; September 16, in La
Harpe, Journal Historique de l'Etablissement des Français à la
Louisiane,
New Orleans, 1831, 19. The distances given in these various accounts vary
between twenty to thirty leagues, fifty to eighty miles, from the mouth of the
river. English Turn is slightly less than one hundred miles from the Gulf.
Coxe, Description of the English Province of Carolina, . . . London, 1727.
Preface, 3, says that Captain Bond was one hundred miles inland. See the
fanciful account of the meeting in Dumont, Mémoires Historiques sur
la Louisiane, Paris, 1753, I, 6-7, and the still more fanciful narrative in Le Page
du Pratz, Histoire de la Louisiane, Paris, 1758, I, 276.
2Bienville having ordered Captain Bond to withdraw, the Englishman asked the Canadian "si nous avions des habitaons plus hault, Il luy respondit qu'oüy il s'en retourna apres avoir assuré led. Sr DeBienville qu'il reviendroit de voir dans peu et affin quil le put reconnoitre de plus loing, il luy fit present de lunettes d'approches [!]," Le Sueur in BN, Mss. fr. n. a., 21395:6. "Et nous croyant establis en haut, il [Bond] a pris le party de s'en retourner, asseurant les nostres qu'on le reverroit l'année prochaine," Journal of Sauvolle, in Margry, IV, 456. The English captain "ne fist aucune resistance, mais dit jusqu'a l'honneur de vous revoir, car dans (con't.)
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I notified you last year how I had escorted the ecclesiastics of the Foreign Missions(see fn. 3) to the Akanceas, 300 leagues from the sea.(see fn. 4) MM. de Montigny, Davion and Buisson de Saint-Cosme(see fn. 5) made known to the two Bishops of Quebec(see fn. 6) the services I rendered them.(see fn. 7) I received from them congratulatory letters and offers of protection at Court.
Last fall, when I was at Michilimackinac,(see fn. 8) I learned by a let-
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(2 con't.) cinq ou six mois, vous my reverrez pour
etablir une colonie, nous en avons fait la decouverte avant vous, . . .,"
Ricouart's relation in BN, Mss. fr., 9697:106. On the prior rights of the
English, cf. Jesuit Relations, 65:172. Coxe in the preface of his Carolana, inveighs against
Captain Bond for his withdrawal, cf. de Villier's explanation in "La
Louisiane, Histoire de son nom et de ses frontières successives," Journal
de la Société des Américanistes de Paris, n. s., XXI, 1928, 44. Details on this
English expedition will be found in V. W. Crane, The Southern
Frontier,
Durham, 1928, 47-57.
3This episode in the history of the missions in the Mississippi Valley may be studied in an unpublished manuscript by the Abbé [later Cardinal] Taschereau, Histoire de Séminaire de Quebec chez les Tamarois ou Illinois sur les bords du Mississippi; in A. Gosselin, Vie de Mgr de Laval, Quebec, 1899, IX, 340 ff.; C. de Rochmonteix, Les Jésuites et la Nouvelle France au XVIIe siècle, Paris, 1896, III, 550 ff.; G. J. Garraghan, "New Light on Old Cahokia," in Illinois Catholic Historical Review, XI, 1928, 98-146; J. H. Schlarman, From Quebec to New Orleans, Belleville, Ill., 1929, 148 ff.; M. B. Palm, The Jesuit Missions of the Illinois Country, 1673-1763, Cleveland, 1931, 33 ff.; a short sketch is in Delanglez, The French Jesuits in Lower Louisiana, 1700-1763, Washington, D. C., 1935, 20-23.
5Francois Jolliet de Montigny, 1699-174? Cf. Gosselin, "M. de Montigny," in Bulletin des Recherches Historiques, XXX, 1925, 171-176; Taschereau, Histoire du Séminaire, 10-11. Antoine Davion, 166?-1726, left Louisiana after 1723, Taschereau, Histoire, 98. Jean-François Buisson de Saint-Cosme, 1667-1706. This missionary was killed by the Chitimacha Indians in the winter of the latter year, cf. The French Jesuits in Lower Louisiana, 63, n. 88; he was the second priest of the Séminaire to meet death at the hands of the natives; four years previously, M. Foucault had been murdered by the Koroa Indians, Ibid., 33-34.
7Cf. L. P. Kellogg, Early Narratives of the Northwest, 343.
8Tonti leaving the missionaries at the mouth of the Arkansas River, returned to the Illinois country, and thence to Michilimackinac, where he wrote the Bishop of Quebec giving his version of the difficulties which had arisen between the Missions Etrangères priests and the Jesuits. Archives du Séminaires de Québec (Laval University), Missions, n. 49, printed below. The addressee "Monseigneur" is Saint-Vallier, as it appears from a letter of Laval to Tremblay of 1699, Archives of the Archbishopric of Quebec, Transcript Letters, Laval, 1659-1705.
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ter brought from New England &c which M. d'Iberville wrote to his brother in Canada that he had entered the Mississippi.(see fn. 9) Thereupon I resolved to go to meet him, hoping to be of service to him, since I have a perfect knowledge of this country, although I could have felt some jealousy seeing another in a country where I had the right to hope for everything after the expenses I underwent for the service of the king. I cam down here and I am well pleased I made 900 leagues for such a purpose. When M. d'Iberville told me he was going to the Cenis [Hasinai],(see fn. 10) I made him offers of service, having formerly visited these people. This pleased him much, as he testifies in a letter he wrote to M. de Maurepas.(see fn. 11) He showed me the particular passage [praising Tonti] of this letter.
As he has long been a friend of mine, he told me the following in confidence. When he was ready to leave for this country, since it was necessary that a number of Frenchmen should come from Canada to meet him, he mentioned me to M. de Latouche. The latter replied that I would not do, that I was a debauchee.(see fn. 12)
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9Iberville reached the Gulf Coast January 24, 1699,
Margry, IV, 96, 105, 140, 227, and entered the Mississippi, March 2, Ibid., 158, 246. M. de
Montigny wrote in August, 1699, that they were surprised, at the end of April,
in the Illinois country, he had not heard of the coming of Iberville. The
reason, says the missionary, was because he had left the Taensa for Chicago at
the beginning of February, one month before Iberville entered the Mississippi.
Montigny to _____, [August 20, 1699], BN, Mss. fr. n. a., 7485:121; this letter
is translated in Calder, Colonial Captivities, Marches and Journeys, New York, 1935,
201-206; it is erroneously said to be addressed to Pontchartrain; from the
context, Monseigneur is either Laval or Saint-Vallier, Montigny's letter
to Monsieur, dated March 3, 1699, AN, K 1374:n. 82, should be
dated May 3, 1699. In it Montigny wrote: "It is said here [Illinois, the
date-line has "de la Louisiane"] that M. d'Iberville . . . is coming
this year, and that he left France in the fall of last year for these places. .
. ." "It was believed at the Outaouacs that M. d'Iberville had come
by sea at the mouth of the Mississippi, but we heard nothing of it, except what
I have just told you." Thaumur de la Source to the Reverend Mother ______,
April 18, 1699, ASH, 115-10:n. 13. The letter printed in Shea, Early
Voyages,
is from a different copy found in the papers of Father Léonard, AN, K 1374:n.
84.
12Perhaps an explanation of this passage is to be found in a letter of Father Gravier to Cabart de Villermont, a protector and a correspondent of the two Tontis, Henry and Alphonse. Villermont should not expect too much from the missionary, Alphonse de Tonti will give him the news of what is taking place in Canada, for in the Illinois wilderness there is little of interest, wrote Gravier. "I have notified M. his brother [Henry], who is captain and commandant of Fort St. Louis, Illinois, . . . of the (con't.)
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I don't know who they are who painted such an ugly portrait of me. I have had a few quarrels with the Jesuits about matters which had nothing to do with debauchery. I can only accuse them of the bad services rendered me, directly or indirectly, in the [colonial] office, or M. the Intendant of Canada who has always opposed us.(see fn. 13)
M. Le Sueur(see fn. 14) gladdened me much when he told me that the king gave you a 200 pistoles pension.
When we return from the Cenis you will learn what we have discovered. When I was there(see fn. 15) the Indians assured me I was at 7 days journey from the mines of the Spaniards,* and if my men had not abandoned me,(see fn. 16) I would have succeeded. Forty Spaniards pursued me as far as the village of the Cadodaquios [Ka-
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(12 con't.) obliging manner you did me the honor of
writing to me. Without mentioning you, he wrote me in a manner showing that he
does not reprove of the scandalous conduct of M. dilliettes, his cousin
[Desliettes, Deliette, de Liette, the French form of the Italian de Lietto, or
Delietto; the maiden name of Tonti's mother was Isabella de Lietto]."
Gravier asked Villermont to let Tonti know of his interest in the welfare of
the mission and how he would be pleased should Tonti help the missionary in his
work of evangelization of the Illinois. "Since he is in this country, he
[Tonti] has forgotten nothing to disparage the Jesuit missionaries in the mind
of the Illinois Indians. I must not be more specific, this is the first time I
have the honor of writing to you, but what I can say is that M. Dilliette, his
cousin, whom he left here [in command] during the two years he has been absent,
did more both by his debauchery and his impious talk to disparage the truths of
the Gospel than can be imagined." Gravier had informed the Bishop of
Quebec and his superior of what was talking place. Since Tonti has so much
consideration for Villermont, the missionary asked his correspondent to
expostulate with the commandant. "M. de Tonti having been unable to obtain
from my Lord the Bishop a Recollect Father, told me on arriving here, that he
was going once more to Quebec to get one. Utinam omnes prophetant! As one finds it hard
to do one's duty, one finds it hard to let me do mine." Gravier to
Villermont, March 17, 1694, "de la mission de l'immaculée conception de N.
D. au fort St. Louis des Ilinois," BN, Mss. fr., 22804:59-60v. It took two
years and a half for Villermont's letter to reach Gravier; the missionary's
letter may not have reached Paris before 1696. Keeping in mind how much
Villermont liked to talk, he very likely spoke of the contents of the letter in
the Paris Colonial Office. Tonti himself was not a debauchee, his failure to
reprove the bad conduct of his cousin seems to have led Latouche, the head
clerk of the Colonial Office, to make Tonti morally responsible.
13Jean Bochart de Champigny, Intendant of New France 1686-1702.
15Tonti is here referring to his southwestern journey, 1689-1690; see his account in Margry, Relations et Mémoires inédits pour servir a l'histoire de la France dans les pays d'outre-mer, Paris, 1867, 28 ff., translated in Kellogg, Early Narratives of the Northwest, 312 ff.
16The account of this desertion, in Kellogg, Early Narratives, 315-316.
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dohadacho], 80 leagues from the Cenis,(see fn. 17) but fortunately I had left a few days before.
I am very sorry to see a relation [published] under my name to which much has been added and in which the memoirs I sent you were not followed point by point.(see fn. 18) It is disagreeable to pass for a liar. It would please me if you could retrieve my memoirs and exhibit them when necessary. My letter having been found at the Quinipissa village by M. d'Iberville,(see fn. 19) I think there will be no doubt of my having come several times to the sea and to the lower part of this river.(see fn. 20)
Let the minister know the importance of the voyage I am about to undertake, although my business requires my presence in the Illinois country, where I think La Forest(see fn. 21) has arrived; when M. de Denonville was in this country, I led overland nearly 300 Indians from the Illinois country. I made 400 leagues* and joined him in the Sonnontouan [Seneca] country.(see fn. 22) It cost me nearly 800 pistoles(see fn. 23) to equip them and I have never been reimbursed anything. The petition for reimbursement has been useless(see fn. 24) and I think that that is the cause of the enmity of M. de Champigny Intendant of Canada. M. de Denonville can testify to it. However ask nothing for me until you receive some of my letters through M. d'Iberville. I think the Gentlemen of the Foreign Missions will help me because I have been strongly recommended to them.
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17Cf. Delisle's marginal note, infra.
18Tonti is here referring to the notorious Derniers decouvertes dans l'Amérique Septentrionale de M. de la Sale; Mises au jour par M. de chevalier Tonti gouverneur de Fort Saint Louis, aux Islinois, Paris, 1697; on this pseudo-Tonti, cf. Delanglez, The Journal of Jean Cavelier, Chicago, 1938, 20-24.
19Margry, IV, 190. This letter dated "Du Village des Quinipissas, le 20 avril, 1685 (1686)," was given to Sauvolle, Ibid., 274, and was brought to Iberville by Bienville.
21François Daupin, Sieur de la Forest (1649-1714), Tonti's partner in the Illinois trade monopoly.
*400 l. from the Illinois to Sonnontouan.
22Tonti narrated this expedition in his memoir of 1693, Kellogg, Early Narratives, 308-311.
23An ordinance of Callières and Champigny, September 24, 1700, fixed the value of the "Louis d'or ou pistole" in Canada at 17 livres, 13 sols, 4 deniers, its value in France was 13 livres, 5 sols. Cf. Royal Society of Canada, Proceedings and Transactions, third series, XI, 1917-1918, Section 1, 174.
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M. d'Iberville having built a fort on the [Mississippi] river, 18 leagues from the sea,(see fn. 25) * he went ahead on his way to the Cenis. I am sending you this by a launch he is dispatching to the ships. I shall be with him tomorrow. For the present I did not think I ought to send any memoir to the court about this country. It will suffice to tell M. d'Iberville all I know; he will notify the Court. I am sure of his friendship; he will do all he can for me.
II
SECOND LETTER WRITTEN BY M. DE TONTI TO HIS BROTHER, FROM
FORT MISSISSIPPI, MARCH 4, 1700.
I wrote you a letter [the 28 of last] month in which I informed you that I was to accompany M. d'Iberville to the Cenis. When I arrived at the Quinipissa village, I found everything changed.(see II, fn. 1) M. d'Iberville told me he wished me to go to the Chicachas [Chickasaw] to arrest an Englishman who has settled among them(see II, fn. 2) . . . [sic] with the said Canadians . . . [sic] when
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25Fort Mississippi, cf. The French Jesuits in Lower
Louisiana,
12-13, MID-AMERICA, XIX, 1937, 155-156.
*Fort Mississippi, 18l. from the sea.
1Tonti's progress can be followed almost day by day during these few weeks. The chronology explains the date of the two letters and disposes of his suspicions as to the cause of Iberville's change of plan. Tonti was evidently piqued because his trip to the West and he cast about for a Jesuit on whom to put the blame- quite a common explanation for untoward happenings among officials and adventurers of New France and Louisiana. Tonti left the Illinois country early in 1700. He arrived at Fort Mississippi, February 16, at night, Margry, IV, 404; The Journal of Paul Du Ru, R. L. Butler, ed., Chicago, 1934, 12. Three days later, he left for the north with Iberville, Margry, IV, 405. Near the sight of present day New Orleans, Iberville went ahead alone, cf. Le Sueur's letter, BN, Mss. fr. n. a., 21395:5, wishing to go to the Huma before ascending the Red River, Margry, IV, 367. On arriving at the Bayogoula village, Iberville sent back a launch to the ships at anchor off the coast. Tonti sent his first letter by this launch. Bad news reached Iberville on his return to the Bayogoula village. An Englishman was urging the Chickasaw to make war against the Mississippi tribes and kill M. Davion. He was also carrying on a brisk slave trade. Iberville asked Tonti to go to arrest the Englishman, a task which he accepted. In the end Tonti did not go to the Chickasaw country, but returned to the Illinois. Cf. Le Sueur's letter, BN, Mss. fr. n. a., 21395:12, Margry, IV, 406, 418; Journal of Paul Du Ru, 31; and Iberville cancelled his own trip up the Red River, because of an ailment that prevented him from walking, Margry, IV, 416; he sent his brother Bienville instead.
2Le Sueur wrote in his journal that Tonti was sent to "arrest an Englishman from Carolina who made several presents to the Chickasaw to murder M. Davion, the Tunica missionary. For the past ten or twelve years this Englishman has been carrying on a slave trade. He sends the Chickasaw to get the slaves on the banks of the Mississippi. M. de Tonti assured me that, to his knowledge, the Englishman caused the destruction of 2,000 souls. He only buys women and children paying 100 écus [300 livres] apiece, and breaks the heads of the men," BN, Mss. fr. n. a., (con't.)
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it was known that I was to accompany him, since, should something happen to him, the [leadership of the] voyage he was about to undertake would fall upon young men. I thought this change could only come because of a letter he received from a Jesuit who is in the Illinois country.(see II, fn. 3) He was given a Bayogoula. I think that being entirely devoted to those people [Jesuits] he did not wish to offend the Company [of Jesus] who is very an-
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(2 con't.) 21395, g. For English activities on the
Mississippi at this time consult: AN, K 1374: n. 82; ASH, 115-10: n. 13,
115-32:n. 4; Jesuit Relations, 65:116-118; Margry, IV, 362, 402, 545, 35c.
3"Poor M. de Tonti became the victim of the resentment of the Jesuits. He had gone down to meet M. d'Iberville, 500 leagues below the Tamarois, and had at first been well received. M. d'Iberville had promised to take him along to the Senis and to the mines of Santa Barbara; but suddenly a letter from Father Bineteau effected a change in the dispositions of the commandant. M. de Tonti was ordered to go to Chicago take an Englishman from Carolina who had settled there and to bring or send him to Fort Maurepas. It was a hard and dangerous expedition which Tonti only agreed to undertake with much repugnance." Histoire du Séminaire, 11. Taschereau is here quoting a letter of Tremblay to Laval, dated June 12, 1700. M. Tremblay was extremely prejudiced against the Jesuits and hence his statements cannot be readily accepted. Whether the name of Bineteau was in the original Tonti letter cannot be ascertained; it is more probable that it was not, otherwise Delisle would had copied it. Because of his stand in the controversy, Father Bineteau was the bête noire or Tremblay. After seeing the addition about the mines of Santa Barbara, and Chicago substituted for Chickasaw, one is entitled to be very skeptical about the other statements of the abbé. The only worthwhile information in Tremblay's communication to Laval is the fact that Tonti's letters had reached Paris in June, 1700. Tonti's assumption that he was sent to the Chickasaw because of a letter received from a Jesuit in the Illinois country is gratuitous. Iberville mentions no letter received from a Jesuit at this time in his Journal; Du Ru who was with Iberville, knew nothing of the letter sent by his Illinois confrère to the commandant of the expedition. A Jesuit, Father Marest, and not Father Bineteau as asserted by Tremblay, wrote to Iberville four months later, on July 10, 1700, cf. AN, JJ, 75-265. The information which determined Iberville to send Tonti to the East rather than to the West came, not from the Jesuits, but from Tonti's friends, the Gentlemen of the Foreign Missions, the confrères of M. Tremblay, cf. the letter of Iberville to the Minister, February 26, 1700, AC, C 13A, 1:306; Margry, IV, 306; and the letter of M. de Montigny, BN, Mss. fr., n. a., 7485:122v. With Iberville the safety of the missionary and the protection of the Indians on the banks of the Mississippi against the Chickasaw raids outweighed the likes and dislikes of Tonti. In July, 1699, Tonti had written from Michilimackinac to Saint-Vallier that he kept aloof from the jurisdictional difficulties between the Jesuits and the Gentlemen of the Foreign Missions. The truth is that he added fuel to the fire. The letter of Gravier quoted above and Tonti's own letter showed that he and the Jesuits were not the best of friends. In the summer of 1699, he told the Jesuits at Michilimackinac that he was to build a church for M. de Montigny near that of the Jesuits at Fort St. Louis, Letter of Laval to Tremblay, [end of 1699], in the Archives of the Archbishopric, Quebec, Transcript Letters, Laval, 1659-1705, copie sur copie faite d'après l'original conservé au Séminaire de Québec et disparu. In March, 1700, Tonti was conscious that his talk of the preceding summer did not please the Jesuits, and now, probably as an excuse for such talk, he chose to see in the commission sending him to the Chickasaw a token of the resentment of the Jesuits.
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