APPENDIX. 579 



neither to break the seal of the cask nor to unroll tlie flag, until 

 they had reached the heart of their own country. This they 

 promised to observe ; but while returning, and after having 

 travelled many days, the chief of the deputation made a feast for 

 the Indians of the band at Fond du Lac, Lake Superior, upon 

 which occasion he unsealed the cask and unrolled the flag for 

 the gratification of his guests. The Indians drank of the liquor, 

 and remained in a state of inebriation during several days. The 

 rioting was over, and they were fast recovering from its effects, 

 ■when several of the party were seized with violent pain. This 

 Avas attributed to the liquor they had drunk; but the pain increas- 

 ing, they were induced to drink deeper of the poisonous drug, and 

 in this inebriated state several of the party died, before the real 

 cause was suspected. Other like cases occurred ; and it was not 

 long before one of the war-party who had visited Montreal in 

 1750, and who had narrowly escaped with his life, recognized the 

 disease as the same which had attacked their party at that time. 

 It proved to be so ; and of those Indians then at Fond du Lac, 

 about three hundred in number, nearly the whole were swept off 

 by it. Nor did it stop here ; for numbers of those at Fond du Lac, 

 at the time the disease made its appearance, took refuge among 

 the neighboring bands; and although it did not extend easterly on 

 Lake Superior, it is believed that not a single band of Chippewas 

 north or west from Fond du Lac escaped its ravages. Of a large 

 band then resident at Cass Lake, near the source of the Mississippi 

 Eiver, only one person, a child, escaped. The others having been 

 attacked by the disease, died before any opportunity for dispersing 

 was offered. The Indians at this day are firmly of the opinion 

 that the smallpox was at this time communicated through the 

 articles presented to their brethren by the agent of the Fur Com- 

 pany at Mackinac ; and that it was done for the purpose of pun- 

 ishing them more severely for their offences. 



The most western bands of Chippewas relate a singular allegory 

 of the introduction of the smallpox into their country by a war- 

 party, returning from the plains of the Missouri, as nearl}^ as in- 

 formation will enable me to judge, in the year 1784. It does not 

 appear that, at this time, the disease extended to the bands east of 

 Fond du Lac; but it is represented to have been extremely flital 

 to those bands north and west from there. 



