GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 151 



Chaouanons from the banks of the Ohio and Cumberland Rivers to the country of 

 Illinois. 



The narratives of the early French explorers contain numerous allusions to the 

 bloody and desolating wars carried on by the Iroquois. Thus, Father Louis Hen- 

 nepin, in his "Account of the Discovery of the Eiver Mississippi, and the Adjacent 

 Country," says of the Iroquois, " they are an insolent and barbarous nation, and have 

 shed the blood of more than two millions of people in that vast expanse of country." 

 Daniel Coxe, in his "Description of the English Province of Carolina, by the 

 Spaniards called Florida, and by the French La Louisiana, and also of the great 

 and famous river Meschachebe or Mississippi," says, with reference to the Hohio 

 (Ohio) River, " Formerly, divers nations dwelt on this river, as the Chawanoes 

 (Shawnees), a mighty and very populous people, who had about fifty towns, and 

 many other nations, who were totally destroyed or driven out of their country by 

 tlie Trucois, this river being their usual road, when they make war upon the nations, 

 who live to the south and west." 



On the valuable map reproduced from the original, and published in the second 

 part of French's Historical Collections of Louisiana, the Cliaouanons are repre- 

 sented as inhabiting the banks of the Cumberland River, wliich is called the river 

 of the ancient Chaouanons. What is now called the Savannah River in Georgia, 

 appears upon this map as the river of the Chaouanons, and a town of the Chaoua- 

 nons is represented near where Augusta now stands. The Chaouanons are also 

 represented as occupying the country between the two branches of the Alibamou, 

 or Coosa. The position of the Fries, or Chat nation, is also indicated on this 

 map, and, if the Chaouanons and the Fries were the same people, it is evident that 

 the ancient, powerful, and populous nation of the Chaouanons occupied an immense 

 extent of country, reaching from the southern borders of Lake Erie to the mouth 

 of the Savannah River (R. des Chaouanons) on the Atlantic Coast.^ 



Charlevoix's great work, " Histoire de la Nouvelle France," published in Paris 

 in 1744, contains, as is well known, a number of most valuable maps of various 

 portions of North America. Upon his map of the great lakes, the countries 

 formerly occupied by the Petuns, by the Neuter nation, and the Fries are indi- 

 cated. The large map of Louisiana embraces the entire territory at present 

 occupied by the United States ; and upon this chart the region of country between 

 the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers is assigned to the Chaouanons, and the Cumberland 

 River of Tennessee and Kentucky is called " Riviere des Anciens Chaouanons. " A 

 village or town of the Chaouanons is marked on the I'Oyo, ou Belle Riviere, directly 

 south of Lake Erie and the country formerly inhabited by the extinct Eries.'-^ 



In the map of the American Indian Nations adjoining the Mississippi, West 

 and East Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, etc., published 

 by James Adair, 1775, in his "History of the American Indians," the Cumber- 

 land River is called the Old Shuanon River, and the Tennessee, the Cherakee 



' Carte de la Louisiana et dii cours du Mississippi, dresse sur un grand nombre de Memoires, 

 entre autres sur ceux de M. le Maire, Par Guiliaume de I'Isle de I'Aeademie R'le des Sciences. 

 ' Hist, de la Nouvelle France, vol. vi, p. 14L 



