Outagamies, so called by the Europeans and Algonkins respectively, but whose true name is Musquakkiuk (Red Clay), are in fact but one nation. The French Missionaries on coming first in contact with them, in the year 1665, at once found that they spoke the same language, and that it differed from the Algonkin, though belonging to the same stock; and also that this language was common to the Kickapoos and to those Indians they called Maskontens.* This last nation, if it ever had an existence as a distinct tribe, has entirely disappeared. But we are informed by Charlevoix, and Mr. Schoolcraft corroborates the fact, that the word Mascontenck means a country without woods, a prairie." The name "Mascontens" was therefore used to designate "prairie Indians." And it appears that they consisted principally of Sauks and Kickapoos, with an occasional mixture of Potowotamies and Miamis, who probably came there to hunt the buffalo. The country, assigned to those Mascontens, lay south of the Fox River of Lake Michigan, and west of Illinois River.

The identity of the language has been more recently ascertained by the answers of Masco, a Saukie, and of Wahballo, a Fox chief, recorded in the report of the Rev. Jedidiah Morse.† The last-mentioned chief says, "the Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo nations are related by language ;" and again, "There are only three nations with whom we can converse, the Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo nations."

We have no other vocabulary of the language of those nations, but that of the Sauks taken by Dr. Keating from the Sauk chief Wennebea, inserted in his narrative of Major Long's Second Expedition.

When first discovered, the Sauks and Foxes had their seats toward the southern extremity of Green Bay, on Fox River, and generally farther east than the country which they lately occupied. The Foxes became particularly hostile to the French and their Indian allies. In the year 1712, they, together with the Kickapoos and Mascontens or Sakies, attacked Fort Detroit defended then by only twenty Frenchmen. But it was relieved by the Ottawas, Hurons, Potowotamies, and other friendly Indians, who, after a long resistance, destroyed

* Father Allouez, Relations of New France, 1666. † Appendix, p. 122.

or captured the greater part of the besieging force. The Foxes and Sauks, sustained by some of the Sioux tribes, and by the Chickasaws, turned their arms against the Illinois, and for a while intercepted the communication between Canada and Louisiana. They, together with the Kickapoos, compelled the Illinois to abandon their settlements on the river of that name; and the residue of this nation sought refuge, in the year 1722, in the vicinity of the French settlement at Kaskaskia on the Mississippi.*

The largest portion of the territory of the Sauks and Foxes, even before their late cession, lay on the west side of the Mississippi. At what time they settled beyond that river is not known. They partly subjugated, and finally adınitted into their alliance, the lowas, a Sioux tribe, which is stated by Charlevoix to have been formerly seated on the eastern bank of the Mississippi. By the treaty of 1804, the Sauks and Foxes ceded to the United States all their lands east of that river, bounded, according to their claim, westwardly by the Mississip pi from the mouth of the River Illinois to that of the Wisconsin; eastwardly by Illinois River and the Fox River of the Illinois, up to the small lake called Sakaegan; and northwardly by a line drawn thence to the Wisconsin, and down that river to its mouth.

The Kickapoos by various treaties, 1809 to 1819, have also ceded all their lands to the United States. They claimed all the country between Illinois River and the Wabash, north of the parallel of latitude passing by the mouth of the Illinois, and south of the Kankakee River, the most eastern branch of the Illinois; the southern part of it by right of conquest from the Illinois and fifty years' possession. But, with the exception of a tract on Vermilion River, the whole country watered by the Wabash appears indubitably to have belonged to the Miami

tribes.

The events of the last war with the Sauks are generally known. According to the estimate, they amount to five thousand three hundred souls, the Foxes to thirteen hundred, and the Kickapoos to five hundred. They all now reside west of the Mississippi.

There is no doubt, says Charlevoix, that the Miamis and the Illinois were not long ago (1721) the same people, from the

great affinity between their languages. The same affinity was observed by Father Allouez, who says that their language, though of the Algonkin stock, differed much from that of all the other tribes of that family, and that it was the most difficult for the Missionaries to understand. The appended vocabulary of the Miamis is extracted from those of Volney and Dr. Thornton, both taken from the Interpreter, the late Mr. Wells, and with the assistance of the celebrated chief "Little Turtle.' That of the Illinois, from a manuscript in Mr. Duponceau's collection, is less authentic; the name of the author, who appears to have been a French priest, being omitted. He calls it a "Pi-Illinois-Mi" (Piankishaw, Illinois, Miami,) vocabulary, and considers the three languages as being but one.

The territory claimed by the Miamis aud Piankishaws may be generally stated as having been bounded eastwardly by the Maumee River of Lake Erie, and to have included all the country drained by the Wabash. The Piankishaws occupied the portion bordering on the Ohio. They granted, in 1768, their lands east of the Wabash to the Delawares. On the west they bordered on the Illinois; the boundary line being the dividing ridge, which separates the waters emptying into the Saline Creek and the Kaskaskias River, from those which fall into the Wabash.

The Piankishaws are the only tribe in that quarter not mentioned by the French Missionaries, who probably considered them as part of the Miamis. That they were closely connected is certain. For at a conference, held at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1753, with the Ohio Indians and the Six Nations, the Miamis or Twightees recommended to the other Indian nations, and to the English, the infant son of the late chief of the Piankishaws, whom they call "one of their tribes."

The name of Twightees is that given by the Six Nations to the Miamis, who, independent of the Piankishaws, are subdivided into three kindred and allied tribes, viz. Miamis Proper, Eel River, and Ouitanons or Weas. Though already diminished. by wars, they were still a numerous nation, when first visited by the French missionaries in 1669; and they continued a long while in alliance with the French and at war with the Six Nations. But they appear to have, at least for a while, formed a connexion with the last-mentioned nation. They sent deputies to the treaty of Lancaster of 1748, who were presented by the Six Nations, in order that they might be admitted into

the British alliance as they had been into theirs. This connexion appears to have been dissolved in consequence of the removal of the Delawares and Shawnoes to the Ohio. The Miamis have taken an active part in all the wars against the United States. They have now ceded the greater part of their lands, and are said including the Piankishaws to amount to less than two thousand souls.

The Illinois consisted of five tribes, to wit, the Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Tamaronas, Peorias, and Mitchigamias. This last was a foreign tribe admitted into their confederacy, and which originally came from the west side of the Mississippi, where they lived on a small river that bore their name.* They were formerly the most numerous of the western tribes, amounting, in 1670, to ten or twelve thousand souls. But, attacked on all sides by the Five Nations, by the Chickasaws, and principally by the Sauks, Foxes, and Kickapoos, they were ultimately almost entirely exterminated.

Originally they occupied the whole country between the Mississippi and the Ohio, including both sides of Illinois River, and bounded eastwardly by the Piankishaws and Miamis. By the treaties of 1803 and 1818, reduced to about three hundred souls, they ceded all their lands or claims to the United States. They had then abandoned every pretension to the territory west of Illinois River which had been conquered by the Sauks and Foxes. But they included in their cession all that lay east of that river, as high up as the junction of the Kankakee and Maple Rivers. The northern part of that country was, as has been seen, claimed by the Kickapoos by right of conquest. Their claim to the territory lying south. of the parallel of latitude, passing by the mouth of Illinois River, was not disputed by any other Indian tribe.

The French had at an early date established themselves at Vincennes, and at Kaskaskias, and some neighbouring villages on the Mississippi. But the grants of land obtained by them from the Indians were of very moderate extent; and the western tribes, heretofore mentioned under this head, had not before the present century been disturbed in their possessions. The diminution in their numbers was owing to their intestine wars, and to those of the Iroquois, the Sioux, and the Chickasaws against them.

* Charlevoix.

+ Relations of New France, 1671.

**

Although the Shawnoes have been well known to us since the year 1680, their previous history is very uncertain, and the various notices we have of them difficult to be reconciled. The first mention we have of them is by De Laet in 1632. After having enumerated the various tribes on both sides of Delaware River, he says, some persons add to them the Shawanoes, Capitanasses &c." They are mentioned by the French under the name of Chaouanons, in the year 1672, as being neighbours and allies of the Andastes, an extinct Iroquois tribe, lying southwest of the Senecas, by whom they were destroyed or incorporated in that year. Their original seats are uniformly placed, in all the ancient French maps, on the south side of the Ohio and extending southerly to the Cumberland River, which, in all the French and English maps, as late as that of Hutchins, bears also their name. That name which means "Southern," accords with that position. The Sauks and Foxes say, that they were originally of the same stock with themselves, and had migrated to the south. The account given by the Five Nations corroborates the fact of their having been in alliance with the enemies of the Senecas, and that they were but late comers north of the Ohio. In the year 1684, in answer to the complaint of the French, that they had attacked the Twightees or Miamis, the Five Nations assigned as one of the causes of war, that the Twightees had invited into their country the Satanas, in order to make war against them. It is also well known that, when the Shawnoes of Pennsylvania began, in the year 1740, to migrate to the Ohio, they were obliged to obtain a grant or permission to that effect from the Wyandots. And, in a memorandum annexed to the treaty of Fort Harmar with the Wyandots, of January, 1789, they declare that the country north of the Ohio, then occupied by the Shawnoes, is theirs (the Wyandots') of right, and that the Shawnoes are only living upon it by their permission.

Lawson, in his account of Carolina, (1708,) speaking of the erratic habits of the Indian nations, says, that the Savanoes formerly lived on the banks of the Mississippi, that they removed to the head of one of the rivers of South Carolina, since which most of them had gone to the Iroquois country

*Charlevoix.

+ Morse's Report.

Satanas is the name given by the Five Nations to the Shawnoes. – Colden, chap. V. pp. 69, 70.