THE OHIO VALLEY-GREAT LAKES ETHNOHISTORY
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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
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indicative of thought in that historical moment during which the document was
published.
Account of Dartaguiette's Campaign
(March 25, 1736)
|
Dartaguiette, "Account of Dartaguiette's Campaign from the Illinois Country Against the Chickasaws" in: Dunn, Caroline and Eleanor, trans., "Indiana's First War," Indiana Historical Society Publications, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 107-127. |
ACCOUNT OF
THE BATTLE FOUGHT BY D'ARTAGUIETTE WITH THE
CHICKASAWS, MARCH 25, 1736
Account of the battle fought by M. D'Artaguiette, Chevalier de St. Louis, Major of New Orleans, and Commandant at the Illinois, with the Chickasaw Indians, March 25, 1736.
M. D'Artaguiette, having received orders from M. de Bienville to come to join him at the Chickasaws with the troops that he was able to take from his garrison, the Illinois Indians, and the habitants of his district whom he was able to assemble, left Fort Chartres the 22nd of February last, with S. de St. Ange, Desgly and Dutisne, lieutenants; De Vincennes, half-pay lieutenant and Commandant at the Ouabache, de Coulange, infantry ensign, and de La Graviere and Frontigny, second (page 109) ensigns, 27 soldiers, 110 habitants, 38 Iroquois, 28 Arkansaws, 100 Illinois, 160 Miamis, which made up a small army of 145 French and 236 Indians.
He left in command at the Illinois in his absence Sieur De la Buissoniere, captain, and Sieur de Montcharvaux, infantry ensign, to assemble the 180 Illinois Indians who were in winter quarters, and lead them to Ecorse a Prudhomme, where he would wait for them. He arrived at Ecorse a Prudhomme the 28th of February, and built there a small palisade fort, where he left 25 men, including three sick soldiers, and a militia captain named Jolibois to command. He left there the fifth of March following for the Chickasaw country.
When he was about 18 leagues from the Chickasaw villages he sent three Illinois Indians and a Miami Indian to find out whether M. de Bienville had arrived. They reported that they had seen nothing. He took counsel with the Iroquois, who, not trusting in the report of the Illinois, induced him, in order to be more certain, to send for reconnoisance four of their people with four Illinois, a Chickasaw adopted by the Miamis, and a Canadian called Framboise, to learn the position of the Chickasaw fort and the number in their cabins. They reported that they had seen about 15 cabins on a little hill, five or six on another, a small fort about 40 feet long by 30 wide, and that they believed that there might be in that village 30 or 35 cabins more.
M. D'Artaguiette took counsel with all the chiefs of the allies, and asked them what they wished to do. The Illinois and Miami chiefs replied to him that they would rely upon what was decided by the Iroquois, who were cleverer than they were. The Iroquois said that they (page 111) would do anything that M. D'Artaguiette judged proper. He then asked for their judgment. "Since you wish," replied the Iroquois, "to know what we think, we shall tell it to you."
"The march which we have just made, having been longer than we expected, has used up our provisions. We have no more of them, and if we intend to wait for M. De Bienville, who perhaps will not come for ten or eleven days, we run the risk of dying from hunger. To prevent this danger, it is necessary to attack the Chickasaw village which we found. When we have taken it we will find there means of subsistence, and we can entrench ourselves in the fort that we have captured while waiting for M. De Bienville." This plan was good, and M. D'Artaguiette, who approved it, made all his little troop march. He arrived March 24th at nine o'clock in the evening, about a league from the fort of the Chickasaws. He sent four Iroquois to reconnoitre; during their absence there were heard fired several gunshots from the direction of the Chickasaw village; a thing which made them think that perhaps M. De Bienville had come up on the other side.
The four Iroquois spies did not come back until three hours after midnight, and reported that all the Chickasaws were very quiet. The little army began marching again, and came within a half-league of the fort. M. D'Artaguiette ordered the horses which carried the baggage to be unloaded, but the Iroquois thought this place of deposit too far from the place where it was necessary to attack. The horses were reloaded and went on to an eighth of a league from the Chickasaws.
There M. D'Artaguiette placed his powder, munitions (page 113) and baggage, under the guard of Sieur de Frontigny, ensign, with five soldiers and fifteen habitants. The Reverend Jesuit Father Senat, who acted as Chaplain, also remained at this place. By ground well-sheltered, about 6 to 7 o'clock in the morning of March 25, 1736,m M. D'Artaguiette at the head of his officers and his soldiers, numbering 26 men including himself, formed with habitants to the number of 73 the center of the army. The Iroquois, at the head of the Miamis, were at the left, and the Arkansaws, at the head of the Illinois, were at the right.
They marched in this order against the fort of the Chickasaws. At about a gunshot from it, the Illinois and Miamis gave a great war-whoop, and attacked a hill where they thought they saw a few cabins, but there were more beyond on another hill. As the army approached the fort, a chief of the Chickasaws came out with three peace pipes, but the Illinois and Miami Indians fired on him without listening to him, and killed him. Four or five cabins were taken possession of, and the fort was attacked. Immediately the Chickasaws in the fort and the other cabins did not show themselves. They defended themselves wholly through the loopholes. The Iroquois took one scalp, and captured a Tonica woman who was a prisoner among the Chickasaws. The Miamis captured a woman, and the Arkansaws a child.
At the end of a quarter of an hour there appeared on the hills four or five hundred Chickasaws who came to the rescue of their people, which so frightened the Illinois and Miamis that they took flight, in spite of the remonstrances of their chiefs. M. D'Artaguiette, seeing (page 115) himself abandoned at one stroke by more than 250 Indians, was obliged to call a retreat to the place where the baggage and munitions were. In retiring he had three fingers of his right hand cut off by a bullet. The Chickasaws, encouraged by the flight of the Illinois and Miamis, pursued our little army with great fury, and surrounded it.
M. D'Artaguiette received a second bullet-shot in his thigh, which obliged him to lean against a tree, and there he strove by words to rouse his troops. Many of those who were near him advised him to save himself. His servant, called Pantaloon, led his horse to him, and tried, with some of the habitants, to induce him to mount, but he insisted on staying to encourage his officers, soldiers and Indians to repulse the Chickasaws. While he was exhorting them he received a third gunshot wound in the abdomen, from which he fell dead.
Despite the death of M. D'Artaguiette, M. De St. Ange, first lieutenant, and the other officers tried hard to repulse the Chickasaws, but they succumbed to the force of numbers, and were most of them killed near the body of M. D'Artaguiette; the greater part of the officers of the militia perished here also. The small number of soldiers of the troops and militia who remained, seeing themselves without leaders and without officers, were obliged to save themselves. The Chickasaws pursued them for nearly four leagues, and would without doubt have overtaken them and killed them all, if the rain, which fell in great quantity, and which began at ten o'clock in the morning, had not prevented them.
This combat lasted from between six and seven in the morning until nine o'clock. The Iroquois and the Arkan- (page 117) saws behaved splendidly, and there are, owing to their valor and to their care during the retreat, more than twenty wounded soldiers and habitants who would have been killed or made prisoners, whom they aided in carrying to Ecorse a Prudhomme, where the remnant of the army arrived, part on the 29th and the rest on the 30th of March following.
The day after the defeat our people met Sieur de Montcharvaux, who was coming to join M. Artaguiette with 180 Illinois, five soldiers and eight habitants. He turned back and came to Ecorse a Prudhomme. The Illinois, who were the first to take flight, crossed the Mississippi river and returned to their home through the country of the Arkansaws, and have gone by the river to their villages, and the Iroquois accompanied by water our French to the post of the Illinois.
The Tonica woman was interrogated as to the number of the Chickasaws. She said they may be 1000 men in number, 100 Natchez, and 80 Shawnees; that M. D'Artaguiette has been misled by the reports of the spies into supposing that the villages of the Chickasaws were all grouped in one place, where they would be able to give reciprocal aid in case of attack; that what had deceived the spies was that all these villages were on hills which conceal one another, which are surrounded by forests, and of which one cannot learn the number until he is in the midst of them. This woman also said that there were perhaps eight or ten English traders in the fort which M. D'Artaguiette had attacked.
During the attack an Iroquois planted his flag in the ground in the middle of the village; two Englishmen made a sortie from the Chickasaw fort and trampled it (page 119) under foot. The Iroquois fired on them; some say they were killed on the field, and others that they withdrew.
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