THE FRENCH HALF-BREEDS OF THE NORTHWEST. 313 



and the tribes' friendship secured, families began to emigrate into the 

 northwest. A great number settled at Detroit, others at Mackinac and 

 Sault Ste. Marie; some even as far as Green Bay, in Lake Michigan, 

 and the Mississippi settlements. It was only in 1818 that one or two 

 Canadian families moved to Fort Garry, and it appears that when 

 Bishop Toche arrived at that place in 1845 there had been so far but 

 four Canadian women on the Bed River. 



At the present day it seems certain that of the descendants of these 

 numerous families very few, if any, can boast of pure white blood. The 

 admixture proceeded very slowly, but surely. It was immediate, of 

 course, in the case of the wandering coureurs and voyageurs ; it ad- 

 vanced more gradually in colonies formed of emigrant families. Detroit 

 had still a preponderance, and Kaskaskia a large proportion, of incon- 

 taminate families at the time of the conquest. 



Afterwards Detroit and its environs increased considerably by new 

 accessions from Canada, but through Indian alliances the French there 

 eventually lost their identity as a white race, to such an extent that 

 there is scarcely any portion of the large Canadian-descended popula- 

 tion of Eastern Michigan not infused with Indian blood. 



The French colonies on the Illinois shore of the Mississippi, at Kas- 

 kaskia, Cahokia, Fort Chartres, &c, had acquired considerable import- 

 ance in 1703, and counted several thousand inhabitants. Speaking of 

 the Illinois mission, the historian, John G. Shea, says: "More than in 

 any other part the settlers intermarried with the Indians, and there are 

 few of the French families in Illinois and Missouri that cannot boast 

 their descent from the noble tribe which has given its name to the 

 former State." Michael Ako, one of the members of the La Salle's ex- 

 pedition, married, in 1093, the daughter of the chief of the Kaskaskias. 



II. 



TnE OFFSPRING OF INTERMARRYING- RACES. 



The blood of intermarrying races becomes mixed in various propor- 

 tions. A white man marrying a squaw begets half-breeds; these by 

 successive marriages with either white or red blood will procreate 

 quarter-breeds or quadroons in the second, and eighth-breeds or octo- 

 roons in the third generation. Marriages between the first and second 

 generations are common, producing three-eighth breeds, either white or 

 red. Of course, marriage between the offspring of the same generation, 

 as between hall' breeds, would not alter the relative proportion of either 

 blood. 



From these possible combinations it is seen that the caste of Indian 

 mixed-bloods is neither fixed nor well defined. Like all hybrid races, it 

 is liable to many changes, and generally tends to approximate one or the 

 other of the types of its progenitors. If a district, inhabited by half 

 breeds or quarter-breeds, becomes settled by white people, and corre- 



