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.

Memoir of La Salle to Frontenac,
Nov. 9, 1680


In: The Historical Magazine, and Notes and Queries Concerning
the Antiquities, History and Biography of America, Vol. V,
New York: Charles B. Richardson & Co.;
London: Trübner & Co., 1861.

pp. 1 (Title page), 196, 197, 198, 199.

THE

HISTORICAL MAGAZINE,

AND

NOTES AND QUERIES

CONCERNING THE

ANTIQUITIES, HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY

OF

AMERICA.

VOL. V.

NEW YORK: CHARLES B. RICHARDSON & CO.,
^{LONDON:TRÜBNER &CO.
1861.}

_______________

MEMOIR OF LA SALLE TO FRONTENAC,
NOV. 9, 1680.

THE following is translated from this document as given in Thomassy's "Géologia Pratique de la Louisiane:"             s.

Niagara river is almost unnavigable for ten leagues from the falls to the entrance of Lake Erie, it being impossible to get a bark up, except by having people enough to keep it under sail, pole, and tow, all at once; and even then with such excessive circumspection that you cannot always hope to succeed.

The entrance to Lake Erie is so traversed by sand-bars, that not to risk a vessel every voyage, it must be left in a river, which is six leagues up the lake, there being no port or anchorage nearer the end of the lake.

There are on Lake Erie three great points,* two of which run out more than ten leagues. They are sand-banks on which you run, before you see them, unless you take great precaution.

You change direction to enter the strait† from Lake Erie to Lake Huron, where there is more water and a great current. Great difficulty at the Straits of Missilimakinac to enter from Lake Huron to that of the Illinois;‡ the current is there ordinarily against the wind, and the channel narrow on account of the sandbars which run out from both sides.

Very little or no anchorage in Lake Huron; no harbors, any more than on the Lake of the Illinois on the north, west, and south side. Many islands in both; dangerous, in that of the Illinois, on account of the sand-banks in the lake.

The lake is shallow, and subject to terrible gales, without shelter, and the sand-banks preventing an approach to the islands. But it may be that with more frequent navigation the difficulties will be less, and the ports and harbor better known, as has occurred on Lake Frontenac, the navigation of which is now both sure and easy.

The basin into which you enter to go from the Lake of the Illinois to the Divine river* is no way suited for communication, there being no anchorage, wind, or entrance, for a vessel, nor even a canoe, except in a great calm; the prairies, by which a communication is spoken of, being flooded whenever it rains, by the waters from the neighboring hills. It is very difficult to make and keep up a channel there that will not at once fill up with sand and gravel, and you cannot dig into the ground without finding water; and there are sand-hills between the lake and the prairies. And were this channel possible at great expense, it would be useless, because the Divine river† is not navigable for forty leagues from there to the great village of the Illinois. Canoes cannot pass there in summer, and there is even a great rapid this side of the village.

No mines have been seen yet, although pieces of copper are found in several places when the waters are low. There is excellent hemp, and mineral coal. The Indians say they have sold‡ (seen?) yellow metal near the village, but they describe it as too pure to be gold ore.

Buffalo have become scarcer since the Illinois are at war with their neighbors; both killing and hunting them continually.

There is navigation from Fort Crèvecoeur to the sea; New Mexico is not more than twenty days' journey to the west of this fort. The Matontenta came to see M. de la Salle, bringing the hoof of a Spanish horse, which they had killed in their own country, only ten days distant from this fort, where we can easily go by river.

These Indians relate that the Spaniards who make war on them, use lances more than guns.

There are no Europeans at the mouth of the great river Colbert, and the monster of which the Sieur Jolliet brought a representation, is a grotesque, painted by some Indian of that river, of which no one ever saw the original. It is a day and a half from Crèecoeur, and if Sieur Jolliet had gone a littler further down, he would have seen a more frightful one. He did not reflect that the Mosopelea, whom he marks

*Long Point, Pointe aux Pins, Point Pelée.

† Detroit river.

‡ Michigan.

* This name is applied to the Chicago, but from subsequent reference is evidently here the Desplaines.

† The Desplaines.

‡ The word is vendu, but it is evidently an error.

on his map, were utterly destroyed before his voyage.

He marks on that same map a number of nations which are merely the names of the families which compose the Illinois nation: the Pronereas, Carcarchias, Tamaroa, Korokoenitanon, Chinko, Caokia, Cheponssea, Amanakoa, Ooukia, Acansa, and several others forming the village of the Illinois, composed of about 400 cabins, covered with rush mats, without fortification.* I counted there nearly 1800 combatants, who have no war except with the Iroquois, with whom it would be easy to reconcile them, were there not reason to apprehend that being at peace with them, and able to fall back on their side, they would want to make war on the Outaouacs, whom they hate extremely, and so trouble our trade; but so long as we can make them feel a need of us they can easily be kept in duty, and by these means the more remote nations also, by whom they are feared.

There is very good ship-building timber along seven or eight rivers that empty into the Colbert; the least of which has a course of three hundred leagues without a fall.

M. de la Salle has seen Indians of three nations through which Fernando Soto passed, namely; Sicachia, Casein, and Aminoya, whence his people went into Mexico, and who declare that the navigation from Crèvecoeur to them is fine. It is important to carry out this exploration, because the river on which the Sicachia dwell, and which is probably the Sukakoüa, takes its source near Carolina, where the English are, 300 leagues River Colbert in French Florida near Palache,† whence the English could come in boats to the Illinois, to the Miamis and near the Bay of the Puans,‡ and the country of the Nadouessioux, and thereby draw off a great part of our commerce.

It has been colder this year at the Illinois than at Fort Frontenac. They sow only once a year, and then at the May moon, it freezing hard every year in the month of April. It is true that the mildness of the month of January, which was equally at Fort Frontenac, at first led us to believe that this country was as mild as Provence; but we have since seen that the winter was not less severe than in the Iroquois country, since the river was still frozen on the 22d of March, and the Lake of the Illinois§ on the south side as full of ice as Lake Frontenac* is ordinarily in the month of January, although Lake Erie was so clear eight days after, that none was seen in the pools and holes on the north side. The whole country between the Lake of the Illinois and Lake Erie, for the space of a hundred or a hundred and twenty leagues, is nothing but a chain of mountains, from which a number of rivers descend on the west into the Lake of the Illinois, on the north into the Lake of the Hurons, and on the south into the Ohio river. Their sources are so near each other on the summit of these mountains, that in three days' time we passed twenty-two or twenty-three larger than the Saurel or Richelieu. The top of these mountains is flat, covered with perpetual marshes, which not being frozen, gave us plenty of exercise.

There are, also, some dry fields, and very good land, filled with an incredible number of bears, deer, and turkeys, on which the wolves make stubborn war, and which have so little ferocity, that we were several times in danger of not being able to defend ourselves by fire-arms.

At the extremity of Lake Erie, ten leagues beyond the strait,† there is a river‡ by which the road to the Illinois may be greatly shortened, being navigable for canoes to within two leagues of that by which we go there.§ But there is another river, shorter and better, which is that of Ohio, which is navigable for barks, and by which the difficulty of the basin at the end of the Lake of the Illinois and that of making a communication with the Divine river and making it navigable to Fort Crèvecoeur would be avoided.

It must not be imagined that these fields in the Illinois country of which men talk, are lands into which you have only to stick a plough, for most of them are flooded at the least rain; others are too dry, and the best require labor yet to clear the poplars with which they are covered, and drain the marshy spots which are scattered all over.

You can pass securely through all these nations, if you have a peace calumet. Most of those by which we must go, know it already, and are preparing to receive us well.

The Illinois have offered to escort us to the sea, in the hope that we have given them, that all they require will come that way; and the need the other nations have of knives, axes, &c., increases their desire to have us.

The young bisons are easily tamed, and may be of great help, as well as the slaves, in which the natives are accustomed to trade, and whom they force to work.

* If he means that he saw these names on Joliet's map, it is not that in Thevenot. On that map are the Pesanea, Cachouach8ia; the first two in the above list, but none of the rest. If it means only that these are the Illinois families, we recognize the Peorias, Kaskaskias, Tamaroas, and Cahokia, as well-known divisions, but cannot trace the others. To include the Acansa as Illinois, seems very strange.

† Apalachicola.

‡ Green Bay.

§ Lake Michigan.

* Lake Ontario.

† Detroit river.

‡ If this is the Maumees, the writer speaks from Illinois, and means by beyond, east.

§ St. Joseph's.

There are as many rascals there as elsewhere; more women than men, there being no man but has several wives; some as many as ten; and as many sisters as they can, that they may agree better, as in fact they do.

I have seen three baptized children to whom this sacrament was given in perfect health, one is called Peter, another Joseph, and the third, Mary, daughter of the brother (of) Sichagoist, who are in great danger of living like their father, who has three sisters as wives, there being little probability of their having other instructions, in as much as Father d'Allouez, who baptized them, has left the Illinois; unless his staff which he left well wrapped up, as a mark that the land belonged to him, has some extraordinary virtue. These are the only Christians that I know that can be so only in fide Ecclesiae.

Father d'Allouez has retired to a village composed partly of Miamis, partly of Mascoutens and Ochiatinens,* who have abandoned the former village and the greater number of their kindred, to go and form all alliance with the Iroquois and with them make war on the Illinois. For this end, they sent five last summer, and a woman as an embassy, with a letter from Father d'Allouez.

The object of the embassy was, to excite the Iroquois to unite with them to make war on the Illinois. This affair had been in negotiation twenty-four days when I arrived at Tanachioragon, a village of the Sonnontouâns; but then they knew that I was at Cannagaro, where Father Rafeix was, there came the next night a woman from that village, who had been formerly captured by the Miamis, to tell these ambassadors that they would be tomahawked, and that they must fly, for fear perhaps that I, being present, should learn the object of that embassy.

It is nevertheless true, that the Iroquois had no intention of injuring them; for though the flight could not but render them suspected, they were well received when they were overtaken, but they would not speak as long as I was there.

Having afterwards met these same ambassadors in their country, one of whom spoke Huron, I learned what I must deem an invention of Indian malice. Nevertheless, as soon as the news reached the village, where Fattier d'Allouez was, that I had arrived at the Illinois, one of the chiefs named Monceau, was deputed, who brought underground four kettles, twelve axes, and twenty knives, to tell the Illinois that I was a brother of the Iroquois; that I breathed his breath; that I eat the serpents of his country; that they had given me a seine to envelop them on one side, while the Iroquois came on the other, that I was hated by all the blackgowns, who abandoned me, regarding me only as an Iroquois; that I had already wished to kill the Miamis; that I had taken two prisoners, and that I had medicine to poison all the world.

It was easy for me to destroy all these falsehoods, and this poor Monceau came near being kept to pay for it, they telling him that he was the one that had the Iroquois serpent under his tongue; that his comrades who had been on the embassy had brought some back, and had not been able to smoke the same calumet without breathing the Iroquois breath. Had I not interposed, the Illinois would have killed the Monceau.

Here is another affair in which I suspect a snare, which is apparently a sequel of their desire to have my lord, the Count de Frontenac, make war on the Iroquois, when they saw that he abandoned the Illinois. The ardor with which the Iroquois wished to make war on him, immediately cooled, although in fact some took the warpath. This is concealed from the Outaouacs, that they may continue to go there to trade, and that the Iroquois taking them for Illinois, may kill them in order to make trouble. Still more, it has been negotiated that the greatest number of the Miamis, who are our allies, may come to live with the Illinois, so that the Iroquois cannot strike one without the other, and my lord count be forced either to abandon his allies, or make war on the Iroquois to prevent their making it on the Illinois.

Perhaps this is a rash judgment. Yet this small body of Miamis, among whom Father d'Allouez retired, seeing that the Iroquois do not begin war against the Illinois soon enough, have this winter killed some Iroquois to hasten it, and cut off the fingers of a Sonnontoûan (Seneca), whom they afterwards sent back to his country to say, that the Miamis joined the Illinois to kill the Iroquois.

It may be, that the knowledge which Father d'Allouez may have of the real inclination of these Indians and their treason, is what obliges him to leave them, as he is to do in the spring. Yet I am sure of stopping this war, especially if my lord count comes this year to weep for the dead of the Onontaez (Onondagas). Having prevented the Illinois from setting out to come in search of the Iroquois, and induced them to give back some slaves that they have; which the Iroquois learning from me, seemed very well pleased.*

* The writer probably used the Greek s, here represented by ch, the tribe being the Ouiatanon or Weas.

*Father Claude Allouez was one of the earliest western missionaries. He succeeded Marquette in the Illinois mission, and was at Kaskaskia in 1677 and 1678 ("Rel. 1673-9," pp. 120-134), but 1677 and 1678 ("Rel. 1673-9," pp. 120-134), but apparently on the breaking out of the war with the Iroquois, retired to a Miami village. To understand the difficulty between La Salle and the Jesuit missionaries at Seneca and the west, is not easy. The party of Frontenac was at issue with the bishop, his clergy, and the Jesuits, and La Salle was a warm partisan of Frontenac; but in some (cont.)

It must not surprise any one to see the Iroquois talk of going to war against our allies, because they receive insults from them every year. At Missilimakinac, among the Pouteatamis, the Miamis, I saw the spoils and scalps of several Iroquois, whom the Indians of those parts had treacherously killed while hunting last spring and the spring before; and this is not unknown to the Iroquois, our allies having the imprudence to chant it in their presence, when they were among them in trade, as I saw at Missilimakinac and among the Pouteatamis some who, dancing with the calumet, boasted of these acts of treachery, with these scalps dangling on their arms, in the presence of three Agniers (Mohawks) who were trading there.

I cannot omit my meeting with a Mohegan Indian (Loup), and the reason of his difficulty in deciding his choice between our religion and that of the English by the two differences which he found between the Apostles, some missionaries of this country, and the English ministers; seeing that these last do not imitate the chastity of the Apostles, and the former being far from their attachment by the pursuit of wealth, and finally the consolation he felt on learning the love which the Recollect Fathers bear to poverty; which has determined to come and seek baptism, in the choice of our religion.

There are in the Illinois country many green parrots, smaller than those of the West Indies, about the size of those from Africa.

____________________

MASON AND DIXON'S LINE.

CHANGE has thrown into my hands for a period sufficient to allow of making copious notes therefrom, a manuscript document which, a few years since, might have proved of great value in determining a question of boundary between three of the United States. It consists of the field-notes by Mr. Charles Mason, one of the two eminent mathematicians, who were employed from 1763 to 1768, in surveying the boundary lines between Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware.

During the lapse of nearly a century from the completion of Mason and Dixon's survey, many of the boundary marks had become unknown or accidentally removed, and the uncertainty concerning their former position was so great, that one gentleman, who for years enjoyed a seat in the Delaware Legislature, is recently found to reside half a mile within the State of Pennsylvania. In the year 1812, therefore, three commissioners were employed, representing each of the States concerned, who examined all the accessible records bearing upon the subject, and resurveyed a portion of the line.

Their report, a pamphlet published in 1850, pp. 88, with an outline map, is valuable as embodying concisely, all that is known of the surveys previous to 1763. In respect to that of Messrs. Mason and Dixon, they unfortunately had access only to a document in which they announce to their employers the conclusions at which they had arrived. The more important record of the processes by which these conclusions were reached, was not then known to exist.

The writer being the only American who has enjoyed the privilege of perusing this record since it was carried to England, in 1768, deems it of sufficient interest to warrant a description. The manuscript recrossed the ocean to the British provinces at some unknown period, and is now in possession of a gentleman in Nova Scotia.

The record is in the handwriting of Charles Mason, as is evident from very numerous passages, and from his signature at the conclusion. It consists of about five quires of paper, or between four and five hundred pages, unbound but strongly stitched together. It is in excellent preservation, and is nearly all written over in a neat, legible hand. By far the larger portion is occupied with the statistical details of their survey and the astronomical observations which they took at intervals of five miles from their boundary stones. Interspersed, however, with the field-notes, are chronicled the adventures, haps, and mishaps of each day's proceedings. The name of every halting-place is chronicled, and that of every person whose hospitality they shared on their route. Frequent remarks upon the nature of the country; its flora and fauna, agricultural capabilities, and geological structure, attest that Mr. Mason was a man of science and observation, and worthy of the honor announced to him by the following certificate, the original of which is stitched into his MSS. :

"Mr. Charles Mason is duly admitted a corresponding member of the AMERICAN SOCIETY, held at Philadelphia, for promoting useful knowledge.

Signed by order of the Society.

"15th day of April, A. D. 1768."

The original letters of instruction from the governors of Pennsylvania and Maryland, from Lord

(con't. * from p. 198) transactions at La Chine, he seems to have had a personal quarrel with the Jesuits at Sault St. Louis. As to the actual merits of the matter in the text, it is difficult to tell. La Salle evidently wished to control the Illinois for peace or war to suit his own ends, and in this manner seems to hesitate whether it were better policy to keep the war alive or check it. The missionaries were absolutely for peace, and peace would have saved La Salle's party from a great disaster.

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