names; but custom has prevailed in this respect. The first known to us which falls into the Ohio is that of the Miamis (Wabash), which takes its rise toward Lake Erie. It is by this river of the Miamis that the Canadians come to Louisiana. For this purpose they embark on the River St. Lawrence, go up this river, pass the cataracts quite to the bottom of Lake Erie, where they find a small river, on which they also go up to a place called the carriage of the Miamis, because that people come and take their effects and carry them on their backs for two leagues from thence to the banks of the river of their name which I just said empties itself into the Ohio. From thence the Canadians go down that river, enter the Wabash, and at last the Mississippi, which brings them to New Orleans, the capital of Louisiana. They reckon eighteen hundred leagues from the capital of Canada to that of Louisiana, on account of the great turns and windings they are obliged to take. The river of the Miamis is thus the first to the north which falls into the Ohio, then that of the Chaouanons to the south, and lastly, that of the Cherokee, all which together empty themselves into the Mississippi. This is what we (in Louisiana) call the Wabash, and what in Canada and New England is called the Ohio."* A failure to recognize the fact that the Ohio below the mouth of the Wabash was, for a period of over half a century, known to the French as the Wabash, has led not a few later writers to erroneously locate ancient French forts and missionary stations upon the banks of the Wabash, which were in reality situated many miles below, on the Ohio.† *On the map prefixed to Du Pratz' history, the Ohio from the Mississippi up to the confluence of the Wabash is called the "Wabash "; above this the Ohio is called Ohio, and the Wabash is called "The River of the Miamis," with villages of that tribe noted near its source. The Maumee is called the "River of the Carrying Place." The Upper Mississippi, the Illinois River and the lakes are also laid down, and, altogether, the map is quite accurate. † A noticeable instance of such a mistake will be found relative to the city of Vincennes. On the authority of La Harpe, and the later historian Charlevoix, the French in the year 1700, established a trading post near the mouth of the Ohio, on the site of the more modern Fort Massac, in Massac county, Ill., for the purpose of securing buffalo hides. The neighboring Mascotins, as was customary with the Indians, soon gathered about for the purpose of barter. Their numbers, as well as the expressed wish of the French traders, induced Father Merment to visit the place and engage in mission work. At the end of four or five years, in 1705, the establishment was broken up on account of a quarrel of the Indians among themselves, and which so threatened the lives of the Frenchmen that the latter fled, leaving behind their effects and 13,000 buffalo hides which they had collected. Some years later Father Marest, writing from Kaskaskia, in his letter before referred to, relates the failure of Father Merment to convert the Indians at this "post on the Wabash "; and on the authority of this letter alone, and although Father Marest only followed the prevailing style in calling the lower Ohio the Wabash, some writers, the late Judge John Law being the first, have contended that this post was on the Wabash and at Vincennes. Charlevoix says "it was at the mouth of the Wabash which discharges itself into the Mississippi." Harpe, and also Le Suere, whose personai knowledge of the post was contemporaneous with its existence, definitely fix its position near the mouth of the Ohio. The latter gives the date of its beginning, and the former narrates an account of its trade and final abandonment. In this way an antiquity has been claimed for Vincennes to which it is not historically entitled. La EARLY ACCOUNT OF THE MAUMEE. 103 We now give a description of the Maumee and Wabash, the location of the several Indian villages, and the manners of their inhabitants, taken from a memoir prepared in 1718 by a French officer in Canada, and sent to the minister at Paris.* "I return to the Miamis River. Its entrance from Lake Erie is very wide, and its banks on both sides, for a distance of ten leagues up, are nothing but continued swamps, abounding at all times, especially in the spring, with game without end, swans, geese, ducks, cranes, etc., which drive sleep away by the noise of their cries. This river is sixty leagues in length, very embarrassing in summer in consequence of the lowness of the water. Thirty leagues up the river is a place called La Glaise,† where buffalo are always to be found; they eat the clay and wallow in it. The Miamis are sixty leagues from Lake Erie, and number four hundred, all well formed men, and well tattooed ;+ the women are numerous. They are hard working, and raise a species of maize unlike that of our Indians at Detroit. It is white, of the same size as the other, the skin much finer, and the meal much whiter. This nation is clad in deer skin, and when a woman goes with another man her husband cuts off her nose and does not see her any more. They have plays and dances, wherefore they have more occupation. The women are well clothed; but the men use scarcely any covering, and are tattooed all over the body. "From this Miami village there is a portage of three leagues to a little and very narrow stream, that falls, after a course of twenty leagues, into the Ohio or Beautiful River, which discharges into the Ouabache, a fine river that falls into the Mississippi forty leagues from the Cascachias. Into the Ouabache falls also the Casquinampo, which communicates with Carolina; but this is far off, and is always up stream. "The River Ouabache is the one on which the Ouyatanons are settled. 66 They consist of five villages, which are contiguous the one to the other. One is called Oujatanon, the other Peanguichias,** and another *The document is quite lengthy, covering all the principal places and Indian tribes east of the Mississippi, and showing the compiler possessed a very thorough acquaintance with the whole subject. It is given entire in the Paris Documents, vol. 9; that relating to the Maumee and Wabash on pages 886 to 891. † Defiance, Ohio. These villages were near the confluence of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph, and this is the first account we have of the present site of Fort Wayne. Little River, that empties into the Wabash just below Huntington. [The "Weas," whose principal villages were near the mouth of Eel River, near Logansport, and on the Wea prairie, between Attica and La Fayette. **The ancient Piankashaw town was on the Vermilion of the Wabash, and the Miami name of the Vermilion was Piankashaw. 104 Petitscotias, and a fourth Le Gros. The name of the last I do not recollect, but they are all Oujatanons, having the same language as the Miamis, whose brothers they are, and properly all Miamis, having the same customs and dress.* The men thousand or twelve hundred. are very numerous; fully a "They have a custom different from all other nations, which is to keep their fort extremely clean, not allowing a blade of grass to remain within it. The whole of the fort is sanded like the Tuilleries. The village is situated on a high hill, and they have over two leagues of improvement where they raise their Indian corn, pumpkins and melons. From the summit of this elevation nothing is visible to the eye but prairies full of buffaloes. Their play and dancing are incessant.+ "All of these tribes use a vast quantity of vermilion. The women wear clothing, the men very little. The River Ohio, or Beautiful river, is the route which the Iroquois take. It would be of importance that they should not have such intercourse, as it is very dangerous. Attention has been called to this matter long since, but no notice has been taken of it." *The "Le Gros," that is, The Great (village), was probably the town of "Brush-wood," the name of the old village at Vincennes, which was the principal city of the Piankashaws. Chip-pe-co-ke," or The village here described is Ouatanon, which was situated a few miles below La Fayette, near which, though on the opposite or north bank of the Wabash, the Stockade Fort of "Ouatanon was established by the French. CHAPTER XIII. ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS-THE SEVERAL ILLINOIS TRIBES. THE Indians who lived in and claimed the territory to which our attention is directed were the several tribes of the Illinois and Miami confederacies, the Pottawatomies, the Kickapoos and scattered bands of Shawnees and Delawares. Their title to the soil had to be extin guished by conquest or treatise of purchase before the country could es be settled by a higher civilization; for the habits of the two races, red and white, were so radically different that there could be no fusion, and they could not, or rather did not, live either happily or at peace together. We proceed to treat of these several tribes, observing the order in which their names have been mentioned; and we do so in this connection for the reason that it will aid toward a more ready understanding of the subjects which are to follow. The Illinois were a subdivision of the great Algonquin family. Their language and manners differed somewhat from other surrounding tribes, and resembled most the Miamis, with whom they originally bore a very close affinity. Before Joliet and Marquette's voyage to the Mississippi, all of the Indians who came from the south to the mission at La Pointe, on Lake Superior, for the purposes of barter, were by the French called Illinois, for the reason that the first Indians who came. to La Pointe from the south "called themselves Illinois." * In the Jesuit Relations the name Illinois appears as "Illi-mouek," "Illinoues," "Ill-i-ne-wek," "Allin-i-wek" and "Lin-i-wek." By Father Marquette it is "Ilinois," and Hennepin has it the same as it is at the present day. The ois was pronounced like our way, so that ouai, ois, wek and ouek were almost identical in pronunciation.† "Willinis" is Lewis Evans' orthography. Major Thomas Forsyth, who for many years was a trader and Indian agent in the territory, and subsequently the state, of Illinois, says the Confederation of Illinois. *As we have given the name of Ottawas to all the savages of these countries, although of different nations, because the first who have appeared among the French have been Ottawas; so also it is with the name of the Illinois, very numerous, and dwelling toward the south, because the first who have come to the "point of the Holy Ghost for commerce called themselves Illinois."-Father Claude Dablon, in the Jesuit Relations for 1670, 1671. Note by Dr. Shea in the article entitled "The Indian Tribes of Wisconsin," furnished by him for the Historical Society of Wisconsin, and published in Vol. III of their collections, p. 128. "called themselves Linneway," which is almost identical with the Lin-i-wek of the Jesuits, having a regard for its proper pronunciation," and that by others they were called Minneway, signifying men," and that their confederacy embraced the combined Illinois and Miami tribes; "that all these different bands of the Minneway nation spoke the language of the present Miamis, and the whole considered themselves as one and the same people, yet from their local situation, and having no standard to go by, their language became broken up into different dialects." They were by the Iroquois called "Chick-tagh icks." Many theories have been advanced and much fine speculation indulged in concerning the origin and meaning of the word Illinois. We have seen that the Illinois first made themselves known to the French by that name, and we have never had a better signification of the name than that which the Illinois themselves gave to Fathers Marquette and Hennepin. The former, in his narrative journal, observes: "To say Illinois is, in their language, to say the men,' as if other Indians, compared to them, were mere beasts."+"The word Illinois signifies a man of full age in the vigor of his strength. This word Illinois comes, as it has already been observed, from Illini, which in the language of that nation signifies a perfect and accomplished man.” ‡ Subsequently the name Illini, Linneway, Willinis or Illinois, with more propriety became limited to a confederacy, at first composed of four subdivisions, known as the Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Tamaroas and Peorias. Not many years before the discovery of the Mississippi by the French, a foreign tribe, the Metchigamis, nearly destroyed by wars with the Sacs to the north and the Chickasaws to the south, to save themselves from annihilation appealed to the Kaskaskias for admission into their confederacy. The request was granted, and the Metchigamis left their homes on the Osage river and established their villages on the St. Francis, within the limits of the present State of Missouri and below the mouth of the Kaskaskia. The subdivision of the Illinois proper into cantons, as the French writers denominate the families or villages of a nation, like that of other tribes was never very distinct. There were no villages exclusively for a separate branch of the tribe. Owing to intermarriage, adoption and other processes familiar to modern civilization, the sub *Life of Black-Hawk, by Benjamin Drake, seventh edition, pp. 16 and 17. Hennepin's Discovery of America, pp. 35 and 119, London edition, 1698. $ Charlevoix's "Narrative Journal, Vol. II, p. 228. Also note of B. F. French, p. 61 of Vol. III, First Series of Historical Collections of Louisiana. |