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.
Letter to Vaudreuil with Comments
(August 27, 1706)
Cadillac, Lamothe in: Michigan Historical
Collections, XXXIII, pp. 272-285.
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(Con't. of List of People Who Came to Detroit in 1706, from p. 271, which ends with the entry Lescuyer, Jean.)
Lescuyer, Paul- brothers-
They brought 10 head of cattle and 3 horses to Detroit in 1706. These were the
first domestic animals in the west
Laurent Leveille- Panis Indian
Antoine Levroir dit Laferte
Jean Baptiste Magdeleyne dit Ladouceur
François Marquet and his wife Louise Galerneau, who were
married April 26, 1706 at Quebec
Claude Martin
Jacques Maurisseau
Jacques Maurivan
Louis Maurivan
Marie Melain, wife of Blaise Fondurose
Blaise Fondurose
Jacques Minville, came with Paul and Jean Lescuyer
Louis Morisseau
Louis Normand, dit Labriere
Joseph Parent
Yves Pinet
Nicolas Rabillard
Louis Renaud dit Duval
François Robert
__________
CADILLAC'S LETTER TO MARQUIS DE VAUDREUIL.
The beginning of this letter from Mons. de la Mothe shows that the Outaouas have always been attached to the French; & although he maliciously says that they have never declared themselves openly as making war on us, it is a fact that they have never done so, and that it is by misfortune that they have begun this year.
The councils held by the Sr. Bourgmont on the 8th of March and following days are proofs that the affair of the Missisaguez was not settled; and (page 273, I) although it appeared that the Sr. de Bourmont had composed it, that was an Indian ruse to induce the Miamis not to mistrust them, and to come and fall into the snare of the Outaouas, who have already been connected in interest with the Missisaguez. A proof of that is that, in the continuation of this letter, Mons. de la Mothe himself agrees that these Missisaguez, to the number of one hundred, came to the aid of the Outaouas, which is confirmed by the letter of Father Marest of the 14th of August last.
To pursue this matter it appears at first sight that the Outavois wanted to attack the French as well as the Miamis, but on looking into the reports of the soldiers who came to bring this news, they all agree that the Outaouas called to the French not to fire; and that, although the Father and the other soldier were killed, it was only after there had been firing on both sides, from the fort and from without. However that may be it does not make the Outaouas any less to blame, but it does not prove that they had any intention of attacking the fort when they began. And, with regard to the Father having been stabbed, those who came down only speak of his having been shot twice, which agrees with what Miscouaky said.
Miscouaky, the brother of Jean le Blanc, explains these points and says that it was the young men who came and fired while the elders were in council. The real fact is that they did not fight against the Fort any more after this affair; and if there was any fighting at Detroit afterwards, it was the Hurons and Miamis, who attacked the Outaouas, as appears from a council held on the 2nd of July by the Sieur de Bourgmont, and not the Outaouas who came to attack the Fort; and this is confirmed by Maurisseau, an Iroquois interpreter who came down from Detroit a few days ago, as well as by what Miscouaky told Mons. de Vaudreuil about the snares prepared by the Hu- (page 274, I) rons for the Outaouas. Yet M. de la Mothe says briefly that fighting continued for 40 or 50 days and does not say how the matter took place, thus maliciously leaving it to be understood that it was the Outaouas who kept coming to attack the Fort, which is not so, but it was the Hurons and Miamis who went to attack them.
This paragraph is much more malicious. M. de la Mothe would almost wish to give us to understand from what Jean le Blanc said, that the Outavouas acted as they did only on the order of Monsieur de Vaudreuil, as if what Jean Blanc said when he brought the flag, which Monsieur de Vaudreuil had given him at Montreal some time ago, did not mean that by coming to speak under the auspices of that flag he had nothing to fear, and that Monsieur de Vaudreuil had so assured him when he gave it to him.
What the Sr. de la Mothe says about the two Forts which the Outaouas and the Hurons made would seem very reasonable if the Sr. de Tonty and he had not agreed upon them in order to keep the Outaouas from quitting the post. It is for the Sr. de Tonty to defend this point, as well as that of the accusation against him of having forced Frenchmen to work at them. But as regards the powder, which the Sr. de la Mothe accuses him of having got rid of on purpose, Mons. de Vaudreuil must do him this justice. The Sr. de la Mothe knows, and so do all the French who were at Detroit at that time, that the Sr. de Tonty did not dispose of the King's powder in the interests of the Company, but in order to keep the savages from going to the English for it, as they threatened to do, and so as not to let them know how short a supply we had of it. However by the report of the Company's agent at that time there was still a barrel remaining and 20# in the Company's magazine for (page 275, I) real necessity when the Sr. de Bourmont arrived, who indeed had left 200# of powder in a hiding place, and of this he did not lose a single livre, for he sent to look for it in the early spring. This shows that the Sr. de la Mothe does not care what statements he makes, provided what he says has an appearance of probability. It is the same with the remark he makes, out of malice, that there were only fifteen men in the fort, without explaining that, up to the 20th of April, there have always been nearly forty men and that, although they were reduced to this number, that was the fault of the Sr. de Bourmont for not having retained the Company's servants or the soldiers he gave to the Sr. de Tonty to go down with him until he had received help from below. It is also the fault of Mons. de la Mothe for not having sent five boats in the early spring, as he had promised to do, for they could have got to Detroit more than a month before the trouble with the Outaouas happened.
The people who came down to bring the news of the occurrences at Detroit told Monsieur de Vaudreuil so; and as regards what Monsieur de Vaudreuil wrote to the Sr. de la Mothe about his finding no Outaouas at Detroit, nothing was so probable, as Monsieur de Vaudreuil explains in his letter.
What Mons. de la Mothe writes, as to the departure of Father Marest is no less malicious than all the rest of his writings.
He knows and is perfectly aware that this missionary was to set out with two (page 276, I) boats to go up to his mission. Yet he feigns ignorance of it and says that he can never tire of admiring the zeal of this Missionary who, in spite of the news from Detroit, hastens with the zeal of the seraphim to go to Missilimakina after having abandoned it last year with at least as much zeal, and that that is a good many movements in one year for this missionary, meaning to insinuate that that covers some hidden design. The letter from Father Marest to Monsieur de Vaudreuil will explain this point.
The remainder of this letter is in the same strain. The Sr. de la Mothe agrees, because he cannot deny, that if he, or the Sr. de la Forest had been at Detroit, the affair with the Outaouas would perhaps never have happened; and at the same time throws the blame on the fact that he was kept at Quebec, as if Mons. de Vaudreuil could help arresting him on the request of Mons. de Beauharnois, and as if what happened in 1706 was a necessary consequence of the suit he held with the Company in 1704. And by way of proving his allegation he says that Mons. de Vaudreuil, after his case was decided, refused to allow him to go up to his post. But he does not say that his trial was not concluded until the 15th of June, 1705, and he did not go up to Montreal until a long time after; that from there he went down again to Quebec, on account of the illness of his wife, and did not go up finally until the 15th of August. Then, he did, indeed, ask permission from Monsieur de Vaudreuil to return to his post; but as there were already letters giving notice that the Court granted Detroit to him, Monsieur de Vaudreuil told him he must await the arrival of the King's ship which, no doubt, would not be long in coming. The Sr. de la Mothe does not state all these circumstances nor does he say . . .
Copy of the letter written to the Marquis De Vaudreuil by the Sieur de la Mothe Cadillac from Detroit Pontchartrain of 27th of August 1706.
Sir,
I received on the way, the two letters which you did me the honor of writing to me on the 27th of June and 3rd of July. You tell me in the first that you are not surprised at the wrongful attack which the Outaouas have made on us and on the Miamis. It was not so with me for I openly confess that I was extremely surprised at this proceeding on the part of a tribe which has never declared itself as making war upon us openly.
The affair of the Missisaguez, of which you speak, was a disturbance between this tribe and the Miamis which had nothing to do with the Outaouas, (page 273, II) more especialy as the commandant of this post had composed and settled it; and in fact, as soon as the Outaouas had made their attack, the Missiaguez withdrew from Detroit so that they could not be suspected of having given any help to the Outaouas. They even came here, after I had arrived, to mourn over our dead, according to the custom. It appears that the action of the Outaouas against the Miamis was premeditated. But, in continuation of M. de Bougmont's letter, a copy of which he showed me, and concerning which you write to me. It appears that they bore ill-will also against the French, for it would have been very easy for them to have killed the former [?the Miamis] without killing the R. P. Constantin, and La Riviere the soldier who was outside the Fort; for they went and bound the former in his garden where he was stabbed with a knife which he could not ward off, and afterwards shot three or four times while he was escaping and approaching very slowly to the door of the Fort.
Who is there who does not know that savages employ stratagems and treachery. Our old men- say the Outaouas had no hand in this business, it was they young men. A fine excuse truly. And it would be a convenient one if we were foolish enough to accept it.
How comes it, then, Sir that after they had committed this wicked deed Jean le Blanc came to ask for peace, with a stick of porcelain, from Mons. de Bourmont who received him, granting his request and referring him to you as to what should be done about it, or to me on my arrival; and yet Jean le Blanc, who is the second chief and the elder of the village, four hours after, attacked the fort with a large number of his men, and that they fired and kept up a good fire on the Fort from five o'clock in the evening until midnight, and that in fact the fighting continued for forty or fifty days, up to the day of their retreat.
Again, what did this same Jean le Blanc mean when he returned to the Fort with a flag, and a walking stick in his hand and, approaching the bastion, said to Mons. Bourgmont "With what I hold in my hand I fear nothing because that comes from Monsieur de Vaudreuil. It will not be you who will arrange this affair, it will be he; I hearken to his words and do what he has told me to do." After which he entered the fort, having asked permission of M. de Bourmont to do so, and there he repeated the same thing. What language is that? Who indeed can understand it. Was it the young men or the old who were concerned in this act?(Return)
The whole course pursued by the elders, or rather by this tribe, proves only too clearly that this was not a resolution taken at the moment, nor would this scheme even have been carried out if Monsieur de Tonty had not been careful to plan and to have drawn out two large forts, one for this tribe and the other for the Hurons, at which he made the Frenchmen work against their will, contrary to the advice I had given him before I left Detroit to do nothing in the matter as it was not prudent to raise fortifications on his right hand and on his left for people on whom no reckoning can be made; on the contrary it was our Fort which should have held them in subjection. It was a great mistake, but there was a means of remedying it; and I had proposed to myself an expedient for making them abandon these forts. But the wisest precaution the Sieur de Tonty took was to denude this fort of powder, and have it sold to the Outaouas for the Company's benefit. The inventory which he signed at- (page 275, II) tests that he had left only 31 pounds, and this again was priming-powder which Mons. de Bourmont had to have sifted to enable him to make use of it; and had it not been for the 50 pounds which M. de Bourmont saved out of what he had buried last autumn when he came to Quebec, all the rest being spoiled, would not the fort have been taken, Sir; and whose fault would it have been? A royal fort, a post established by the King's orders to be denuded of powder! And the Outaouas were well informed of that. Lastly, there was a garrison of 15 men who had to defend themselves with axes! But, Sir, however it may be; whether the savages were fortified or not; even if there were only 15 men in the garrison; whether there was any powder or not; why did these savages kill Frenchmen, why attack our fort, why kill the Miamis who had been there for five hundred years, who had eaten and drunk with them every day, who had been at war [with them] for twenty or perhaps thirty years, who had no quarrel with them. Was it the attack made upon the Missisaguez? O! it was the Missisaguez, who would not avenge themselves, who withdrew, who would not take part in the evil action of the Outaouas, and disapprove of it!
No Sir, the Outaouas did not offer themselves as hostages as you did me the honor to write and tell me, to remain in the Fort until my arrival; they were not sufficiently well-disposed to display such devotion. You believed very justly, when you wrote to me that I should not find any Outaouas here on my arrival. I was of the same opinion as soon as I learnt, on my way, while I was still two days journey from Montreal, of the attack on the fort, and of the death of this poor Father, the soldier, and the Miamis.
Nor did I fail to admire the zeal of the Rev. Father Marest in hastening with so much eagerness to repair to Michilimakina, accompanied by only four boats, at a time when he is informed that the Outaouas have beseiged (page 276, II) the Fort at Detroit, and that the Recollet Father, who was there, has been cruelly massacred and assassinated. That could only be in order to dispute with him the crown of martyrdom. It is true that this zealous return to that tribe seemed strange to me after his having abandoned it last year, and having reduced their church, their dwelling and possessions to ashes by fire; after they had themselves, with their own hands set fire to their church, and had gone down to Quebec. Such consuming zeal to leave! the zeal of the cherubim and seraphim for going up again! That makes a lot of movements for these holy missionaries, especially within one year.
It may also be, Sir, as you very well say, that if I or M. de la Forest had been on the spot this affair would not have happened. Let us both agree in some manner that that may be so; we should perhaps have seen through the plots which were not observed by Mons. de Bourmont. But if the disposition of the savages had changed so much for the worse, it might well, perhaps, be attributed to my unjust detention at Quebec by your orders, on the pretext of a complaint cleverly got up by the Company of the Colony. I am well aware that you may have believed me guilty; but after I had been absolved by the decision of the Intendant, I had the honor to demand of you, with all possible urgency, leave to return and to continue my duty at my post, for which the King had intended me (for I was not chosen for it by any Governor); and as you refused me at the time, I am bound to believe that you had reasons for doing so- it is not for me to wish to divine them.
Let us also confess that you gave orders for Mons. de la Forest and me to go up to this place. But when? It was on the 25th of Septm., but your order was opposed to that of Monseigneur who did me the honor of writing to me to go down to Quebec, if I was at Detroit. It is only necessary to glance at
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