Iberville's Gulf Journals

Bibliography

174 Third Voyage to the Mississippi unload the smack into the warehouse I have had built on the little river 1 league from the mouth ofLa Mobile and 11 leagues from the harbor.34 We are naming it Riviere-aux-Chiens. I had the Chaqueta and the Chicacha make a count of the men of their nations, family by family. The Chicacha are 580 huts, 3 to 4 men to the hut, making at least 2 thousand men, of whom 7 to 8 hundred are armed with guns. I am not counting the young men 16 to 18 years old. The Chaqueta, in three different villages, are 1090 huts, at 3 to 4 men to each, making about 3800 to 4000 men. Of these regions they are the Indians that are the best built. They have the Iroquois bearing and the style of warriors. The Chicacha have additional people on the Ouabache River, in two villages, where they have about 120 men. From the main village of the Chicacha to that of the Chaoenons, which is on the bank of the Carolina River,35 40 leagues from the town of Charles Town, the Chicacha reckon six days' journey by the shortest route; from the Chicacha to the mouth of the Ouabache River,36 it is 25 to 30 leagues by land. From the Chicacha to the Chaqueta, it is about 40 to 45 leagues south by west; from the Chaqueta to the Tohomes, 55 to 60 leagues south-southeast. The Chaqueta are possibly at 33°30' north or 34° at most. The 16th. In the morning, I sent the Sieur de Becancour back with the pinnace loaded with the men ofmy crew, whom I am sending back to the Palmier. "The harbor is Port Massacre, between lie Massacre (now Dauphin) and Pelican Island, which made the little harbor that supplied a safe anchorage for big ships from France. Since 1969, after the hurricane Camille struck the Gulf Coast, the only remnant of Pelican Island has been some shoals. From the sand dunes at the Isle Dauphine Country Club-high ones-I cannot even see white water above the shoals. But 270 years have passed since Port Massacre first became the distant harbor for La Mobile at Twenty-Seven-Mile Bluff. "This river, here called Carolina, appears to me to be the Tennessee River, which Crane says both Couture and Bellefeuille took on their journey to Charles Town. Frontier. pp. 43, 66, 70, and 90. '·Because the Ohio River became the Wabash after its confluence with the Wabash, this passage, with its early-eighteenth-century nomenclature, must refer to the main Chickasaw landing on the Mississippi River, called the Chickasaw Bluffs, the site of Memphis. The Journal of the Renommee 175 I then had five Canadians get ready to go with the Chicacha and the Chaqueta back up La Mobile River as far as the place where the Indians want a post established, which is 12 to 15 leagues from their village. I also ordered three ofthe Canadians to go on from there, with two Chicacha, to the Illinois to ask them for the Chicacha held there as prisoners and to notify them to make no further war on the Chicacha, as they are our allies, as well as to tell them I am holding back their tomahawk, which the Governor of Canada sent M. de Courtemanche37 to tell them to raise against the Chaouenons, whom I intend to attract to the Mississipi or La Mobile. They approached me about that through Bellefeuille.38 The Chaouenons are the single nation to fear, being spread out over Carolina and Virginia in the direction of the Mississipi. I shall speak at greater length about that in my separate report. I took advantage ofthis occasion to write the Grand Vicar of Quebec, who is at the Tamaroua, to send missionaries to the Chicacha and the Chaqueta as soon as he can; sending missionaries will help keep them in the alliance. I am writing the same to the Superior of the Jesuits, who is there, in case he has some missionaries there. At the same time I wrote, in like manner, to M. Davion, a missionary priest at the Tonicas, to inform his Indians about the peace in effect between all the nations and to notify the Chaquechouma, who have withdrawn from their territory, to return to their village, which is 3 .7Augustin Le Gardeur de Courtemanche was an ambassador, soldier, and commandant on the...