FEB. 4, 1923 SWANTON: HISTORY OF SIOUAN PEOPLES 41 
“The next day a chief of the Mosopellea, who after the defeat of his village 
has asked the chief of the Tahensa for permission to dwell with him, and 
dwelt there with five cabins, went to see M. de la Salle, and having said that 
he was a Mosopellea, M. de la Salle restored to him a slave of his nation, and 
gave him a pistol.’”’18 
From this time on the tribe of the Monsopelea, unless disguised 
under some other name, disappears from history as absolutely as if 
the earth had opened and swallowed it up. My belief is that neither 
did the earth open for its accommodation nor did later explorers 
manage to pass it by without notice, but that, after having moved 
from one place to another, it finally drifted to the lower Yazoo to 
reappear in the records of French Louisiana under the name of 
Ofogoula. 
This view is supported by the following facts: 
1. The name Ofogoula does not make its appearance until after 
that of Monsopelea disappears, and where Tonti employs the word 
Chonque he does not use any synonymous term known to have been 
applied to the Ofogoula. With the exception of the use of Ouispe 
alongside of Ofogoula by three early authorities, a circumstance 
already explained, the names which I have supposed to be intended for 
the Ofo are introduced simultaneously only in the work and on the 
map of Coxe. Coxe enters on his map the Monsopelea, Ouesperie, 
and Chongue and he speaks of the two last in his text. However, 
by his own statement his data were collected from many sources and 
the same tribe may hence have been entered under different names 
especially if, as was the case with the Ofo, it was frequently changing 
its location. So far as the name Monsopelea is concerned there is 
reason to think that Coxe obtained his information from French 
sources, and at all events he places it erroneously above the mouth 
of the Ohio instead of below it. It should be added that only one of 
the names of the seven tribes which he locates upon Yazoo River 
might possibly refer to the tribe under discussion, the rest being other- 
wise identified, and this one must almost certainly be excluded also. 
2. The history of the Ouesperie of Coxe and the Monsopelea of 
the French is very similar. Both once lived on or near the Ohio; 
both were driven away, in the one case by the Iroquois, in the other 
presumably by the same people; and both fled in the same direction 
and disappear from history in the same general region. 
3. All of the names given to this tribe may be explained as synonyms 
of two which are known to have been employed for the Ofo. The 
18 Margy, Dec., I: 610. 
