Part 18
The Conoys and Nanticokes were fragments of Indian tribes which had removed from the South—driven forth by the pressure of English population—and with the consent of the Six Nations had settled on the upper waters of the Susquehanna.
In the third league the author probably intends to include the so-called “Ohio Indians”—the Miamis (Wanamis), Delawares, Mohicans, Munseys (a sub-tribe of the Delawares), the Wapingers (unidentified), and the Mingoes—who were all subordinate to the Six Nations. The Creeks were a powerful confederacy in Alabama, of which Coweta was the principal war-town on the Chattahoochee River.—ED.
Footnote 21:
The Tuscaroras joined the Five Nations between 1712 and 1715. See _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, xvi, p. 321, for a letter from the governor of New France, mentioning this fact.—ED.
Footnote 22:
After the Revolutionary War, nearly thirty thousand Loyalists left the United States to settle in the Canadian provinces. Of these, about ten thousand went from the back settlements by way of Lake Ontario, and founded Upper Canada. General Haldimand was largely instrumental in this movement, and 1784 was the year of its culmination. The Mohawks, also, under the leadership of Brant, removed about the same time to the two reservations mentioned by Long. Descendants of this tribe still live in these two localities, although most of the land has been alienated.—ED.
Footnote 23:
This is a good résumé of the history of Fort Frontenac, which was built in 1673, abandoned during the Iroquois War in 1689, but restored in 1695. La Salle was for several years proprietor of the fort, the revenues from which passed afterwards to the royal treasury. In 1758, Fort Frontenac was captured and destroyed by a British expedition, after which it fell into disuse, until the Loyalists re-garrisoned it about 1784.—ED.
Footnote 24:
This was the site of Father Picquet’s mission and fortified post, La Présentation. This Sulpitian missionary came to Canada in 1734, and after several years’ service in the colonies founded this establishment in 1749, where the city of Ogdensburg, New York, now stands. He was successful in attracting the Iroquois thither, and had in his settlement nearly three thousand Indians, who espoused the French cause in the French and Indian War. In 1760, Picquet retired to New Orleans, and thence to France. The English, on taking possession, changed the name of the post to Fort Oswegatchie. It was garrisoned and maintained until after Jay’s Treaty in 1794.
In 1792, the site had been purchased by Ogden, and the settlement of the modern city was begun four years later.—ED.
Footnote 25:
The Mississagua Indians were first met by the French on the north shore of Lake Huron, and formed part of the Sault Ste. Marie mission (1670–73). Later, they removed to the lower Michigan peninsula, and some settled at Detroit. They now have a reservation in Eastern Ontario, and number about eight hundred.
The other Indians mentioned are those of the Jesuit mission villages. See _Jesuit Relations_ (Thwaites’s ed., Cleveland, 1896–1901), index.—ED.
Footnote 26:
Haldimand fortified Carleton Island at the mouth of Lake Ontario, by sending thither (1778) three companies of the 47th regiment to erect a post.—ED.
Footnote 27:
The mouth of the Oswego River was early noted as an important station in relation to the Iroquois country and the fur-trade. Champlain passed here in 1615, and Frontenac in 1692. In 1721, Governor Burnet of New York secured permission from the Iroquois to erect a trading post at this spot, and despite the protests of the French built a fort in 1726–27. This post of Choueguen (so called by the French) was especially obnoxious to the French fur-traders; all the more so, when (1743) Sir William Johnson built his trading post beneath its walls. Montcalm organized an expedition, and captured it in 1756; but was compelled to retreat when Forbes penetrated Pennsylvania. It was also the rendezvous for the successful British attack on Fort Frontenac in 1758. After the fall of New France, the British garrisoned and repaired the fort, and it was from here that St. Leger started on his expedition up the Mohawk Valley in 1777. It was headquarters for the Indian and Tory scalping parties—Butler, Brant, and Johnson started thence on their raids. It was in British hands at the close of the Revolution, and not delivered to the Americans until 1796. Traces of the British fort were to be seen in 1839.—ED.
Footnote 28:
Fort Niagara, one of the chain of posts established by the French, and later maintained by the British to protect Canada, has had a long and interesting history. Hennepin and La Salle were there in 1679, when a small blockhouse was constructed, which was later burned by the Senecas. Denonville erected a fort here in 1687, which was abandoned September 15, 1688. No permanent establishment was made on the spot until 1726, when Governor Beauharnais ordered a fort built to counteract that of the English at Oswego. This was garrisoned and maintained by the French, until Sir William Johnson captured it in 1759. At Niagara, in 1764, Johnson met the Indian nations in a general treaty of peace. During the Revolution, the post was steadily maintained by the British, and proved an important base of supplies for the Western forts. After the Revolution, it remained in British hands until 1796. In the War of 1812–15, it was captured by the British, and restored to the Americans at the close of the conflict. For further details see Severance, _Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier_ (Buffalo, 1899).—ED.
Footnote 29:
Fort Stanwix was built by the British at the head of navigation on the Mohawk River (where the city of Rome, New York, now stands), in 1758, at a cost of $266,000. Here was held the treaty of 1768, by which a general purchase of Indian lands was made, and the Iroquois boundaries settled. Early in the Revolution it fell into American hands, and was re-christened Fort Schuyler, which withstood the siege of St. Leger and his Indian braves in 1777. It is claimed that the present national flag, as adopted by Congress in 1777, was first raised over the battlements of Fort Schuyler. After the Revolution, the fort was rebuilt, and reverted to its original name. Here were held important treaties with the Iroquois in 1784 and 1788, in the latter of which much land in the Mohawk Valley was ceded to the whites. The settlement about the fort was made in 1785, by Connecticut emigrants.—ED.
Footnote 30:
For history of Detroit see vol. i of the present series, p. 55, note 18.—ED.
Footnote 31:
For the history of Mackinac, see “Story of Mackinac,” in Thwaites’s _How George Rogers Clark won the Northwest, and Other Essays in Western History_ (Chicago, 1903). By the “isthmus” the author means the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; the “point of land” must signify the island of Mackinac. The “mouth of the Illinois” is the outlet of Lake Michigan.—ED.
Footnote 32:
Grand Portage was the route by the Pigeon River (the present boundary between Minnesota and Ontario) to the lakes and streams of the Northwest. The term was first applied to the carrying place, nine miles long, and later to a landing place somewhat south of the mouth of the river. This route was first explored by La Vérendrye in 1731—(see _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, xvii, for a map of this region drawn by an Indian for La Vérendrye). It became the established fur-trade route to the Northwest, and a place of great importance as a rendezvous for voyageurs. For a description of the route and the traders gathered here in the latter part of the eighteenth century, see Mackenzie, _Voyages through North America_ (London, 1801).—ED.
Footnote 33:
For the British determination to retain the Northern and Western posts, and arguments in regard to their legal right, see “Calendar of Haldimand Papers,” _Canadian Archives_, 1885–89, also McLaughlin, “Western Posts and the British Debts,” in American Historical Association _Report_, 1894.—ED.
Footnote 34:
This action took place September 24, 1775, and was the occasion of the capture and imprisonment of Ethan Allen. For his own narrative of this event, see Hall, _Ethan Allen_ (New York, 1892), pp. 110–119.—ED.
Footnote 35:
General Richard Montgomery, the commander of the American forces at Isle aux Noix—an island in Richelieu River about ten miles from the head of Lake Champlain—wrote September 12, 1775, concerning the skirmish here mentioned: “I went down the river the other day with 800 or 900 men, in order to cut off the communication between St. Johns and Montreal. The detachment marched off from the boats at night, and in less than half an hour, returned in the utmost confusion.”—_Biographical notes concerning General Richard Montgomery_ (Poughkeepsie, 1876), p. 11.
Lieutenant Walter Butler was a New York Tory, son of Colonel John Butler, who led the Indians to the Wyoming Valley massacre. Walter Butler was with St. Leger in 1777, and was captured soon after the siege of Fort Schuyler. Escaping from prison at Albany, he led the Iroquois to the Cherry Valley massacre (1778). He seems to have been despised for his cruelty, even by his own associates. Brant said he was “more savage than the savages themselves.” He was killed and scalped at Butler’s Ford, in the retreat from Johnstown in 1781, by an Oneida, who called out as he fell, “Cherry Valley!”—ED.
Footnote 36:
Long was a member of the party of forty regulars detached from the 8th regiment under command of Captain Foster, with a large body of Indian auxiliaries led by Brant, which descended upon the American detachment at the Cedars, forty-three miles above Montreal, and captured the whole number (April 19, 1776). For further details of this, and the following movements, see Jones, _Campaign for the Conquest of Canada_ (Philadelphia, 1882), pp. 54–65.
Major Gordon, who had recently been made brigadier-general, was shot from ambuscade, July 24, 1776, while returning to his headquarters well within British lines. His fellow officers were exceedingly indignant over it, and Washington appeared to deprecate the matter; although General Gates promoted the American officer involved. See Sparks, _Life and Writings of Washington_ (Boston, 1855), iv, pp. 56–59.—ED.
Footnote 37:
This was probably Captain Guillaume Lamothe, who during this period led so many Indian scalping parties from Detroit while Hamilton commanded at that place. Lamothe accompanied Hamilton on the latter’s expedition to Vincennes, and was captured there by George Rogers Clark (February, 1779). After the surprise of Vincennes he was sent in irons to Virginia, and kept in close confinement. In April, 1780, he accepted a parole, and returned to Canada.—ED.
Footnote 38:
The Lake of Two Mountains is an enlargement of the Ottawa River, near its mouth, above Montreal. On this lake is situated the Sulpitian mission town of Oka. This is a union of two early missions—one, founded about 1677 on Montreal Island for Iroquois converts, weakened during the Iroquois War, and removed in 1704 to the Sault au Récollet, being finally located on the Lake of Two Mountains about 1720; the second, or Algonkin mission, was first called La Présentation and situated on Montreal Island near Lachine; the site was abandoned in 1685, and the remnants of the mission Indians gathered at Bout de l’Isle (the other end of the same island), where the mission was called St. Louis. Again removed (1706–07) to the Isle aux Tourtres, it was permanently located on the Lake of Two Mountains between 1721 and 1726. There are still about four hundred Indians located on the reserve at the lake. See Canadian Department of Indian Affairs _Report_, 1901, p. 49. The account given by Long in the following pages, of the Chippewa division of this mission, is the best known—their intermarriage with the Indians of the other mission villages at Caughnawaga and St. Regis, their cultivation of the soil, and their semi-civilized habits.—ED.
Footnote 39:
Peter Kalm, Swedish naturalist and botanist, was sent to America to study its flora, and travelled extensively between 1748 and 1751. The English edition of his travels was published in London in 1772.—ED.
Footnote 40:
James Adair, a trader among the Cherokee and Chickasaw Indians, 1735–75. He published a _History of the American Indians_ (London, 1775), which attempts to prove their relationship to the Jews. It contains, notwithstanding, much valuable information, particularly in regard to the Southern tribes.—ED.
Footnote 41:
This was Rev. John Sargent, missionary to the Stockbridge Indians, in Western Massachusetts.—ED.
Footnote 42:
On the subject of Indian dances see _Jesuit Relations_, index. Also Grant, in Masson, _Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest_, ii, pp. 335–337.—ED.
Footnote 43:
This origin of the name La Chine is generally accepted by historians. See Girouard, _Lake St. Louis and La Salle_ (Montreal, 1893), pp. 32, 33.—ED.
Footnote 44:
The “bourgeois” was the chief trader, to whom the voyageurs were bound by engagements for service. The term was also often applied to the trader’s agent or clerk, when the latter was in command of the expedition. See Turner, “Fur Trade in Wisconsin,” Wisconsin Historical Society _Proceedings_, 1889, pp. 77–82.—ED.
Footnote 45:
For a description of the trade route by way of Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing, Georgian Bay, and Lake Huron to Mackinac, see H. H. Bancroft, _History of the Northwest Coast_ (San Francisco, 1886), i, pp. 561–564. Also, for a personal narrative, see that of Captain Thomas G. Anderson, in _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, ix, pp. 138–143.—ED.
Footnote 46:
On the habits and uses of the beaver (_castor Canadensis_), see Martin, _Castorologia_ (Montreal and London, 1892).—ED.
Footnote 47:
The normal food of those who wintered in the woods was Indian corn and tallow. See Turner, “Fur Trade in Wisconsin,” pp. 78, 79.
The Falls of St. Mary, or Sault Ste. Marie, were visited by traders as early as 1616. The _Jesuit Relation_ of 1640 gives a partial description of this place. Radisson and Groseilliers were here between 1658 and 1660; and here (1669) a Jesuit mission was established by Allouez and Dablon. After 1689, the mission and trading post were abandoned in favor of Mackinac; but Sault Ste. Marie continued to be a station on the Northwestern fur-trade route; and in 1750 the land thereabout was granted to De Repentigny on condition that he erect a fort at that place. After the English occupation, a French Canadian, J. B. Cadot, had a trading post here, which was probably the one mentioned by Long. Later, the North West Company occupied the spot; but in 1814 its post was burned by a detachment of American troops, commanded by Major Holmes, who afterwards fell at the unsuccessful attack on Mackinac. The first military post and Indian agency of the United States at Sault Ste. Marie was established in 1822.
The Saulteurs were a Chippewa tribe, so called by the French from having been first encountered at the Sault. The name afterwards was employed to designate all the Chippewa nation. A pretty Indian legend of the origin of these falls, is found in _Jesuit Relations_, liv, p. 201.—ED.
Footnote 48:
On the offering of tobacco to “Manitous,” see _Jesuits Relation_, x, p. 324. See, also, caption “Manitou,” in index thereto.—ED.
Footnote 49:
Probably the “Athabasca,” one of the first schooners of the North West Company on Lake Superior. See Masson, _Bourgeois_, ii, p. 149. The French had a sailing vessel on Lake Superior as early as 1735. See _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, xvii.—ED.
Footnote 50:
Pays Plat was the fur-trade station near the Nipigon River, about one hundred miles east of Grand Portage. It was situated on one of the islands of Nipigon Bay, and so named because of the low land and shoal water in the vicinity. See Bigsby, _Shoe and Canoe_ (London, 1850), p. 223.—ED.
Footnote 51:
For a history of the Chippewa Indians, see _Minnesota Historical Collections_, v.
This noted chief, Matchekewis, was the captor of Mackinac during Pontiac’s War. For a sketch of him, see _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, vii, pp. 188–194.—ED.
Footnote 52:
For a description of Indian pipes and smoking habits, see U. S. National Museum _Report_, 1897, pp. 351 ff. The material for the red calumets is called “catlinite,” from George Catlin, who described it in 1836. It is found in the pipestone quarries of Pipestone County, in Southwestern Minnesota. See _Jesuit Relations_, lix, p. 310.—ED.
Footnote 53:
For a description of the rattle called “sysyquoy,” see _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, xvi, p. 367; and Masson, _Bourgeois_, ii, p. 333.—ED.
Footnote 54:
The Nipigon River is the largest and most northerly tributary of Lake Superior, and the outlet for Lake Nipigon. Its region, until the building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, was almost as wild and unknown as when visited by the French explorers in the seventeenth century. Perrot mentions this river and lake in his _Mémoire_ (1658); and Duluth (1684) wrote to De la Barre of the “fort which I have constructed near the River à la Maune, at the bottom [the north end of Lake Alemipigon,” as a barrier to the English trade from Hudson Bay. In 1687, Duluth’s brother traded with fifteen hundred Indians in the Lake Nipigon region. The furs from this district were especially rich and valuable, and the trading post on the lake appears to have been maintained throughout the French occupation. La Vérendrye was commandant here in 1728, when he became fired by the reports of the savage Ochagach, with zeal for Western exploration. See _Northern and Western Boundaries of Ontario_ (Toronto, 1878), pp. 68–80.
In 1757, Bougainville describes this post as follows: “Les Népigons, a post established to the north of Lake Superior; the commandant is its farmer and pays for that privilege about 4,000 francs; it includes the Lake à la Carpe.... The post produces generally every year from eighty to one hundred bundles of fur.” After the British occupation the productiveness of the region declined. Duncan Cameron says that when he first went to this country (1785), the whole district produced but fifty-six packs of fur, although it had no opposition from Hudson Bay, and part of the Lake Winnipeg department was included in the Nipigon district. See Cameron, “The Nipigon Country,” in Masson, _Bourgeois_, ii, pp. 231–300. The North West Company considered this to be its territory, but later the Hudson’s Bay Company built a post at Red Rock, near the mouth of the river—now a station on the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Hudson’s Bay Company still maintains a wintering post, known as Poplar Lodge, on the east shore of Lake Nipigon. See Canadian Bureau of Mines _Report_, 1901, p. 212. The Nipigon River is now noted as a fisherman’s paradise. For a description of the route from the mouth of the river to the lake, see Canadian Geological Survey _Report_, 1867–69, p. 336.—ED.
Footnote 55:
This is the game of lacrosse, a modification of which has become the Canadian national game. For an historical account of this game, see _Jesuit Relations_, x, pp. 326–328; Henry’s _Travels_ (Bain’s ed.), p. 77; Masson, _Bourgeois_, ii, pp. 337, 338.—ED.
Footnote 56:
For a similar game with slight modifications, see Masson, _Bourgeois_, ii, p. 340.—ED.
Footnote 57:
Mr. Shaw was an independent trader, father of Angus Shaw, partner and agent of the North West Company.—ED.
Footnote 58:
This is a citation from the _New Discovery_ of Hennepin, who gives the first account of the tribe, apparently a branch of the Sioux, whose custom of weeping he so fully describes in connection with his captivity among the Issati Indians.—ED.
Footnote 59:
The early cradles of the Chippewa Indians are described in more detail by Grant, “The Sauteux Indians,” in Masson, _Bourgeois_, ii, pp. 322, 323.—ED.
Footnote 60:
This is true not only of the St. Croix River (Wisconsin) Chippewas, but of nearly all the tribe up to the present time. The “woods Indian” north of Lake Superior is usually a Chippewa (Ojibwa), and a large portion of those under the care of the Canadian government are still hunters. The Canadian Department of Indian Affairs, in its _Report_ for 1900, represents the modern Ojibwa as little changed, except from general inability to obtain liquor as freely as in the olden days of the fur-trade.—ED.
Footnote 61:
For the hereditary enmity between the Chippewas and the Sioux, and the particularly fierce encounters of this period, see Warren, “History of the Ojibways,” in _Minnesota Historical Collections_, v, pp. 72, 95, 222–241.—ED.
Footnote 62:
Indian slavery among the French was first practiced in the Illinois country, and (1709) was authorized by edict for Canada. Slavery was abolished for Upper Canada in 1793; and by 1800 had ceased in Lower Canada. See Lafontaine, “L’ésclavage en Canada,” Montreal Historical Society _Proceedings_, 1858; Canadian Institute _Transactions_, 1889–90 (Toronto, 1891); and _Proceedings_, 1897, p. 19.—ED.
Footnote 63:
In the language of James Bain, Jr., librarian of the Toronto Public Library, “Long is the most indefinite of travellers, and English names of lakes and rivers unstable.” It seems an almost hopeless task to localize several of his geographical names by the aid of modern maps. As a matter of fact this part of Northwestern Ontario from Lake Nipigon to Lake Abittibi is still almost _terra incognita_. For the best current maps and descriptions, see Canadian Department of the Interior _Report_, 1890, part v; also Ontario Bureau of Mines _Report_, 1900.—ED.
Footnote 64:
Lake Savanne lies northwest of Lake Nipigon, on a tributary of the Albany River. A brief account of a voyage thither is given by Duncan Cameron, in Masson, _Bourgeois_, ii, p. 271. Cameron also says that four out of eight traders starved there in one year (_ibid._, p. 242).—ED.
Footnote 65:
Long was the first to apply the word “totamism” to that system of beliefs and family relationships, now recognized as the basis of primitive society. The theory of clan relationships, as expressed by totems, was first developed by M’Lennan in a series of articles published in the _Fortnightly Review_, 1869–71. On the general theory, see Lang, _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_ (London, 1887), i, pp. 58–81. On the totemism of the American Indian there is a large literature. The following are useful: Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes of the United States_ (Philadelphia, 1851–57); Brinton, _Myths of New World_ (Philadelphia, 3d ed., 1896).—ED.
Footnote 66:
This was the grant made to Sir William Johnson in 1760, of sixty-six thousand acres, now within Little Falls Township on the Mohawk River. The grant was confirmed by the crown in 1769, and Johnson Hall, a large portion of which is still standing, was built thereupon. See vol. i of this series, p. 88, note 48.—ED.
Footnote 67:
Henry says, “In North America there is no _partridge_; but the name is given to more than one species of grouse.” This was probably the _Canace_ or _Dendragapus Canadensis_, black or spotted grouse.—ED.
Footnote 68:
The loup-cervier is the Canadian lynx; the beaver eater, the wolverine (_gulo luscus_), or “carcajou.” For a description of the latter, see Martin, _Castorologia_, pp. 147–151.—ED.
Footnote 69:
The grizzly bear (_ursus ferox_), was first adequately identified and described by Lewis and Clark. See Thwaites’s ed. of _Original Journals of Lewis and Clark_ (New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1904).—ED.
Footnote 70:
Dobbs, _Account of the Countries adjoining Hudson’s Bay_ (London, 1744), gives a map of these regions “as described by Joseph La France, a French Canadese Indian, who Traveled thro those Countries and Lakes for 3 years from 1739 to 1742,” on which he places “Ouassi Indians” between the Michipicoten and Nipigon rivers on the north shore of Lake Superior. He also says (p. 32), “There are two Indian Nations upon this North Coast, the Epinette ... and the Ouassi, both tribes of the Sauteurs.” The tribe designated by this term seems to have disappeared in the nineteenth century.—ED.
Footnote 71:
The Rat Indians are those of Rat Portage, on the Lake of the Woods, apparently a branch of the Chippewas. Their name is taken from the muskrat (_ondatra zibethicus_). See Coues, _Henry-Thompson Journals_ (New York, 1897), i, p. 26.—ED.
Footnote 72: