Odawa

But upon resemblances in language, we divide the Indians of North America, east of the Rocky Mountains, into families, the four most important being called Algonquins, Iroquois, Southern Indians, and Siouan.

like the members of the linguistic families of europe not all of the various tribes included in any of these indian families were alike in physique customs or in degree of civilization indeed taken as a whole the tribesmen differed very greatly in appearance habits and intellect ranging from the southern barbarians some of whose tribes had made good progress towards civilization down to the savage root eaters of the rocky mountain region the algonkins were the most numerous and occupied the greater part of our country from about nashville tenn northward to hudson bay and from the atlantic westward to the mississippi river and northwestward to the sources of the saskatchewan their best-known tribes were the indians of new england those along the lower st lawrence river and northward the delawares miamis shawnees ottawas ojibwas sachs foxes crees pottawatomies and illinois these savages were rough in their life and manners and intensely warlike obtained their living from hunting and fishing and a crude agriculture lived in rude wigwams covered with bark skins or mats made of reeds and although many had permanent villages wandered far and wide in search of fish game and furs or upon the war-path of all our indians we hear most of these in history because through their lands came the largest and most determined movement of white population both french and english it was formerly thought that the algonkins were very numerous but it is now known that probably at no time did they number over ninety-five thousand souls possibly not over fifty thousand there were vast stretches of their territory wholly unoccupied by them had it been otherwise white men would have found the opposition to settlement too great for them to overcome save by slow and painful process the iroquois occupied the greater part of new york state much of pennsylvania the south shores of lakes erie and ontario and the upper st lawrence they were planted like an island in the midst of the great algonkin sea there were five principal tribes in this family mohawks oneidas onondagas cayugas and senecas and these formed a confederacy which bears the name in english history of five nations although they called themselves the long house these five tribes sometimes were at war with one another but usually they acted as a confederacy and being the craftiest most daring and most intelligent indians known to us were the terror of every tribe east of the mississippi they greatly disliked the french and all tribes who befriended the french the jesuits had more trouble with the iroquois than with all other indians combined for the confederates who lived chiefly in central new york with villages guarded by stout walls of logs placed on end called palisades frequently raided lands into which the missionaries had ventured and swept everything before them with fire and tomahawk their war parties sometimes venturing as far west as illinois and wisconsin these are the indians of whom we read in cooper's leather-stocking tales but the noble savage therein described is a creature of the novelist's fancy the real indian even at his best was a far less agreeable being the hurons lying to the east of the great lake of that name had although relatives in sixteen forty nine to fifty been almost wholly exterminated by their cousins of the five nations but in the very year and month of marquette's arrival in canada the french severely punished the confederates who had so long been making life a torment in the colonies on the st lawrence their villages were burned and they were obliged to ask for mercy and for the presence of the jesuits this peace lasted for twenty years the iroquois probably numbered only forty thousand people a remarkably small population to play so important a part as they did in american history the southern muscogee indians occupied the country south of the tennessee river between the mississippi and savannah rivers and the atlantic they were the cherokees chickasaws choctaws creeks and seminoles of a milder disposition than their northern neighbors they were further advanced in civilization indeed by the time of our revolutionary war they were in some respects not far behind the white frontiersmen of that region they numbered not above fifty thousand persons the jesuits did not do much work among these tribes but the blackgowns found it much easier to convert them than the rude nations of the north the siouan siou family occupied for the most part the country beyond the mississippi although the jesuits frequently met them to the east of the great river they were and are a fierce high-spirited people who had little practice in agriculture and wandered as freely as the arab tribes but unlike the arabs they had no flocks and war and hunting were their chief occupations the jesuits went but little among them they met this family chiefly in the persons of the winnebagoes an outlying band which lived in wisconsin and were in alliance with their algonquin neighbours a complete linguistic map of north american indians at the time of european discovery would show several other families east of the rocky mountains the eskimos along the coasts of labrador hudson bay and more northern lands baothicans in newfoundland oochians in georgia timuquanans occupying the greater part of the florida peninsula catowans in texas kansas nebraska and north dakota tonicans in mississippi and louisiana natchezans attacapans titimachans and adayazans in louisiana toncawans caroncawans and coahuiticans in texas kiowans in nebraska wyoming and colorado besides outlying groups of iroquois in virginia north carolina and mississippi and of algonkins in the carolinas and colorado but generally speaking the four principal families first enumerated were those with which the story of new france is most concerned the tribes which the blackgowns sought to bring to the christian faith were then principally the algonkins the hurons and the iroquois and the southern tribes in part the field was enormous being about two thousand miles in width from newfoundland to the head of lake superior and a similar stretch from hudson bay to new orleans it became necessary as their work was extended with each discovery of new lands to the west and south-west to divide it into seven great centres of activity each with several missionaries whose superior reported every year to the superior general of the order in quebec what had been done in his own field these various missions were that to the abenakis of acadia the name given by the french to north-eastern maine nova scotia and new brunswick and of cape breton island that to the montagnes indians as the tribes of the lower st lawrence and the seguin were called tadousac being the central station the several missions at quebec montreal three rivers and in that region were united under common control the mission to the hurons between lake simcoe and georgian bay was during much of its thirty-five years of existence the most dangerous of all because of the stolid barbarism of these cousins of the iroquois and later because the hurons were frequently raided and at last almost annihilated by the long house a troublous period in which seven of the missionaries lost their lives in the work the iroquois mission which had a severe experience its principal martyr being father the ottawa mission about which we shall read in more detail upon later pages because within this great field father marquette was destined to labour and lastly the louisiana mission to which he first pointed the way but which was not established until after his death now that we know something of the task in which the jesuit missionaries were engaged we can better appreciate the work to which marquette had consecrated his life and can with some sympathy accompany him upon his brief but brilliant career chapter five

CHAPTER VI.

ARRIVAL

AT THE OTTAWA MISSION upon the twenty first of april sixteen sixty eight good father lemercier the jesuit superior-general entered in the journal kept by the missionaries at their house upon the cliff of quebec the fact that several of them were going to embark to go up the river to montreal among the number were father marquette two men and a young lad to await an opportunity of going to the ottawa country the tribes included in the ottawa mission were the ojibwas at sault de saint-merry the beavers the crees the ottawas and refugee hurons on lake superior the menominees pottawatomies sachs foxes winnebagoes miamis illinois and those of the sioux who lived on or near the banks of the mississippi the ottawas were the first indians from the upper great lakes to trade with the french hence the vast district west of lake huron became known early as the country of the ottawas in order to reach his new field of labor it would be necessary for marquette to wait at montreal until he could join a party going thither either of fur traders or of indians who were returning home after a visit to the french settlements on the st lawrence such an expedition would necessarily proceed in bark canoes by the laborious route of the ottawa and matawan rivers the french river and georgian bay of lake huron the question may naturally be asked why did the french pursue so laborious a path to the west as that of the ottawa river why did they not take the natural route of the great lakes as is done to-day we have read in the preceding chapter that the dread iroquois hated the french now the iroquois from their palisaded towns in new york held firm control of lake erie indian tribes wishing to trade with the dutch and the english at albany then called fort orange who were the friends of the long-house might upon this lake paddle their fleets of fur-laden canoes without hindrance and no doubt many white traders from albany were similarly favoured but frenchmen and french-loving indians must keep off the result was that huron was so far as known records show the first great lake seen by the french next ontario next superior then michigan and lastly erie in the very next year after marquette went to the ottawa country the iroquois first allowed french traders to use the lake which had so long been closed to them but it was not until thirty years later that the ottawa ceased to be the principal trade route to the west No details have come down to us of the journey of Father Marquette to the Ottawa country.

He and his three white companions, having joined a fleet bound thither, probably made the trip without particular incident, otherwise the Jesuit's journal or some letter of the period would most likely have chronicled the event.

The country of the Hurons through which they passed had, as we have seen, been swept by Iroquois several years before, and was now almost without inhabitants.

of father marquette by reuben gold thwaites at la pointe mission near the southwest corner of lake superior there is a deep notch cut in the line of shore this arm of the great lake has from the earliest historic times been known as chequamegon bay to the east of the bay a natural breakwater separating it from the outer sea lies a narrow spit of sand and gravel some six miles long called by the french from its shape la upon the north several rocky wooded islands the apostles group hem in chequamegon and serve as a windbreak the western shores are often steep cliffs of brown sandstone crowned with a dark forest of pine this graceful land-locked harbour in size about twelve miles long by five wide is one of the beauty spots of the western waters to the shores of chequamegon numerous indian tribes habitually resorted especially in the fishing seasons partly because here as at the sioux fish were unusually plentiful but also because the bay was isolated and seemed to afford a secure refuge against the iroquois of the east and the sioux of the west here too were portage trails leading over to the headwaters of several south-flowing streams the st croix black chippewa and wisconsin rivers and we shall see that at chequamegon bay marquette met indians from the mississippi which is not far distant to the southwest and gained his first information regarding the great waterway with which his name will forever be associated When the Hurons fled before the Iroquois raids in Huronia, they first tarried at the Straits of Mackinac.

And what it does is it means you can have an Ojibwe speaker in your pocket and right in front of your face to learn from and engage with full proper Ojibwe, not just kind of cut down into very simple talking flashcard type applications.

And all of that is really a welcome contribution to the growing efforts to stabilize and revitalize Ojibwe interrelated dialect groupings and is closely related to Ottawa and Potawatomi so you'll find amongst Ottawa Potawatomi Ojibwe even Cree the word Anishinaabe is a word of self-reference.

So it's a broader label.

Ojibwe is a little more tribally specific.

So after the end of the Seven Years' War, American Indians organized an armed revolt.

In 1763, Indians, particularly from the Ottawa and Delaware tribes, launched what has come to be known as Pontiac's Rebellion.

Now of course, the rebellion ultimately failed to dislodge the British, but the Native Americans did manage to besiege Detroit and kill hundreds of settlers.

And that convinced the British that if they wanted to avoid future conflicts, they should slow down the colonists' settlements into the territories.

Ally, where are you?

I'd like to acknowledge that I am recording on the traditional territory stewarded by the Anishinaabeg, Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi, and Wyandot people as part of the Treaty of Detroit.

Their relationship with the land continues today.

Thanks, Ally.

And suddenly, a massive war party descends on the town.

Yeah, we are talking roughly 250 Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi warriors.

Right, and they're being led by a French-Canadian partisan named Charles de Langlade.

They sweep through the village, they scatter the British traders who had recently set up shop there, and they kill the village leader.

He was activating enduring pre-existing social relationships.

Precisely.

And the article makes a very sharp point here about the native nations themselves, the Odawa, the Potawatomi, the Abenaki.

They were absolutely not French proxies.