GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 149 



quette and Sieur Jollict, are similar to those just quoted from the " Relation," of 

 Father Claudius Dablon. It is evidently from the statements of llenne[)in, wlio 

 visited the Mississippi liiver in IGSO, that its banks and tributaries were occupied 

 by several populous and powerful nations. 



Two maps of the voyage and discoveries of Marquette have been published ; the 

 first copied and published by Shea, in his work on the " Discovery and Exploration 

 of the Mississippi Valley," is said to be a reproduction of the original as it came 

 from the hands of the great explorer. The map published by Thevenot in 1681, 

 as Marquette's, difiers from the original, not only in certain names of rivers and 

 Indian tribes, but also in the delineation of the course of the Mississippi River. 



In the original map of Marquette, the Mississippi River descends only to the 

 Akansea, the limit of his exploration. The map published by Thevenot in his 

 " Recueil de Voyages de M. Thevenot dedie au Roy, Voyage et decouverte du P. 

 Marquette et St. Jolliet dans TAmerique Septentrionale, Paris, IGGl," extends the 

 Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. 



In the map of Baron Lahontan (which I have carefully examined and compared 

 with the older maps), published in 1705, at Amsterdam, although his voyage of ex- 

 ploration on the Mississippi and Missouri was commenced on the 2Sth of May, 

 1699, the course of the Mississippi is not traced beyond the river " Ouabache," or 

 Ohio. 



It is thus established by the testimony and maps of Father Marquette and 

 others, that in 1673 the Chaouanons (Shawnees) were a populous nation inhabit- 

 ing both banks of the Ohio (Ouaboukigou); and that this nation had been engaged 

 for a number of years in bloody and disastrous wars with the Iroquois, who, in 

 consequence of their possession of firearms, were superior to the Chaouanons. 



Shea, who translated the " Relation of the Voyages, Discoveries, and Death of 

 Father James Marquette, and the subsequent Voyages by Father Claudias Allouez, 

 by Father Claudius Dablon," gives, in a note on the portion of the work relating 

 to the Chaouanons, some interesting observations, which appear to have been the 

 result of his study of the early French authorities, both printed and in manuscript.^ 



Charlevoix places the final destruction of the Fries by the Iroquois about the 

 year 1655. In his "Histoire de la Nouvelle France" (vol. ii, p. 6-2), Charlevoix 

 calls the Fries, Chats, and writes the name of this tribe, both Eriez and Fries ; 

 and states that the destruction of this nation was so complete that nothing 

 remained but the name which they gave to the great lake upon the borders of 

 which they once lived. 



The Andastes, a more formidable nation, are said to have been situated below^ the 

 Fries, and extended to the Ohio. After many years of disastrous wars, they were 

 finally destroyed in 1672. By a letter of Father Le Moyne's of 1653 (Relacions), 

 the war with the nation of the Fries, or Cat nation, was then newly broken out. 



It is scarcely credible that the Iroquois could have utterly exterminated the 

 entire nation. It is more reasonable to suppose that the Fries were a powerful and 

 populous nation, occupying a wide extent of country south of Lake Frie, and that 



' Discovery and Exiilonition of the Mississippi Yalley, etc., by John Gilmary Shea, pp. 41-42. 



