150 ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



only the towns immediately on the lake, or for some distance south, were destroyed 

 by their vindictive and powerful enemies. This view must necessarily be held, if 

 it be true, that the Eries, Chats, Cats, Outoiigaunha, Savanos, Chaouanons, and 

 Shawnees, were essentially one and the same people, who once occupied the country 

 from the southern border of Lake Erie to the banks of the Tennessee Kiver, and 

 even beyond, to the mouth of the Savannah River. 



The Chaouanons (Shawnees) spoke a dialect of the Algonquin language, which 

 was one of the original tongues of the North American continent; and was spoken 

 by every tribe from the Chesapeake to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and westward to 

 the Mississippi and Lake Superior: the Anakis, Algonquins proper, Moutagnais, 

 Ottawas, Nipissings, Nez Perces, Illinois, Miamis, Sacs, Foxes, Mohegans, Dela- 

 wares, Shawnees, and Virginia Indians, as well as the minor tribes of New Eng- 

 land, all spoke dialects of this wide-spread language ; the only exception in this 

 vast strip of territory being the Huron-Iroquois language, spoken by the Hurons, 

 Petuns, Neuters, and Iroquois, which is distinct from the Algonquin. 



At the time of the explorations of Father Marquette, the Chaouanons, in their 

 home within the basin of the Cumberland River, and along the banks of the Ohio, 

 connected the southeastern Algonquins with those of the west. South, and south- 

 west of the Chaouanons, were the Chickasas, a warlike and powerful tribe of sav- 

 ages, extending from the banks of the Mississippi eastward, to the mussel shoals of 

 Tennessee River. These tribes were visited by Marquette, and again by La Salle, 

 in liis explorations of the lower Mississippi. At first they were the friends of the 

 French, but having been won to the English by traders and emissaries from Caro- 

 lina, they became most constant and successful enemies of the French colonies in 

 Louisiana. 



That friendly relations were established at an early day between the Chaouanons 

 (Shawnees) and the French is evident from the statement made by Father Membre, 

 that La Salle, in 1680 and 1681, not only drew into his interest and united with 

 the Illinois the Outagami chiefs, and detached by presents and arguments the 

 Miamis from the Iroquois ; but he also sent presents to the Shawnees and invited 

 them to come and join the Illinois against the Iroquois, who carried their wars, at 

 that time, even to them. La Salle succeeded in uniting these nations before he 

 left the Illinois, on the 22d of May, 1681, and returned to the Missilimakinac. 

 Father Membre thus explains the object of La Salle's efibrt to combine these 

 nations against the Iroquois : " If we wish to settle these parts, and see the faith 

 make any progress, it is absolutely necessary to maintain peace and union among 

 all tliese tribes, as well as among others more remote, against the common enemy, 

 that is, the Iroquois, who never makes a real peace with any whom he has once 

 •beaten, or whom he hopes to overcome by the divisions which he artfully excites, 

 so that we should be daily exposed to results like that to which we were subject 

 last year. La Salle, convinced of this necessity, has since our return purchased the 

 whole Illinois country, and has given cantons to the Shawnees, who there colonize 

 in large families." 



The year 1681, therefore, marks the commencement of the immigration of the 



