FEB. 4, 1923 SWANTON: HISTORY OF SIOUAN PEOPLES 39 
the subject and to add to its confusion. This is connected with a 
people called by Coxe ‘‘Ouesperies,”’ the similarity of whose name with 
the Tunica name for the Ofo was first suggested by Mr. W. E. Myer. 
After describing the Quapaw villages at the mouth of the Arkansas 
River Coxe says: ‘‘Ten leagues higher is a small river named Cappa, 
and upon it a people of the same name, and another called Ouesperies, 
who fled to avoid the persecution of the Irocois, from a river which still 
bears their name, to be mentioned hereafter.’ The river “Cappa” 
was perhaps the St. Francis but an exact identification of it is here 
unnecessary. The river whence this tribe had come seems to have 
been the Cumberland or a branch of the same, judging from Coxe’s 
description: ‘‘South of the Hohio is another river, which about thirty 
leagues above the lake is divided into two branches; the northerly 
is called Ouespere, and the southerly the Black River; there are very 
few people upon either, they having been destroyed or driven away 
by the aforementioned Irocois.’’* The Tennessee is described imme- 
diately afterward. If Mr. Myer’s suggestion is correct, we must 
then assume a northern origin for the Ofo anda relatively recent 
southward migration on their part. 
Early literature contains no further mention of this tribe under the 
form of the name which Coxe uses, but we know of a tribe in the region 
which had a strikingly similar history and whose identity is shrouded. 
in equal mystery. 
This first appears on Franquelin’s map of 1684 in what is now south- 
ern Ohio in the form ‘‘Mosapelea”’ under which is added “8 Vil. 
detruits.”’ The destruction of these villages must have taken place 
at least five years earlier since the tribe is placed on the eastern bank 
of the Ohio on Marquette’s map, and, as Hanna has shown, it was 
evidently the unnamed tribe visited by Marquette and his party and 
described as having had communication with Europeans and being 
provided with firearms.* This is what the missionary has to say of 
the tribe: . 
‘While thus borne on at the will of the current, we perceived on the shore 
Indians armed with guns, with which they awaited us. I first presented my 
feathered calumet, while my comrades stood to arms, ready to fire on the first 
volley of the Indians. I hailed them in Huron, but they answered me by a 
word, which seemed to us a declaration of war. They were, however, as 
much frightened as ourselves, and what we took for a signal of war, was an 
invitation to come near, that they might give us food; we accordingly 
#2 Thidem, 11, 
14 Tbidem, 13. 
18 Hanna, The Wilderness Trail, II: 99=100. 
