232 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [boll. 43 



After resting here a while and recovering somewhat from his 

 wounds, Father Doutreleau departed once more, probably in com- 

 pany with Baron, to act as chaplain of the French army in its cam- 

 paign, a position to which he had been invited by the officers. Later 

 he returned to New Orleans for a rest of six months and finally 

 ascended in safety to his Illinois mission." 



The first information received by the governor of Louisiana, M. 

 Perrier, of this outbreak was as above noted from the Sieur Ricard, 

 on December 2. He was at first hardly credited, but on the folloAV- 

 ing day Couillard arrived and confirmed everything. 



At once (says Charlevoix) [Perrier] dispatched the Sieur le Merveilleux, a 

 Swiss captain, with a detachment to warn all the settlers on both sides of the 

 river to be on their guard, and to throw up redoubts at intervals, in order to 

 secure their slaves and cattle, and this was promptly executed. He then 

 enjoined the same officer to observe closely the small tribes on the river, and 

 to give arms to no Indians, except when and to whom he should direct. He 

 at the same time dispatched a courier to summon to him two Choctaw chiefs, 

 who were hunting on Lake Pontchartrain. The next day a dugout from Illinois 

 reached New Orleans, bringing a Choctaw, who asked to speak to him in 

 private. He admitted him at once, and this man told him that he was greatly 

 affected by the death of the French, and would have prevented it had he not 

 deemed a falsehood what some Chickasaws had told him, namely, that all the 

 Indians were to destroy all the French settlements, and massacre all the men. 

 " What prevented me," he added, " from crediting this story, was their stating 

 that my tribe was in the plot ; but, Father, if you will let me go to my country, 

 I will immediately return to render a good report of what I have done there." 



Mr. Perrier had no sooner left this Indian than others from the smaller 

 tribes came to warn him to distrust the Choctaws, and he learned almost at 

 the same time that two Frenchmen had been killed in the neighborhood of 

 Mobile ; that the perpetrators of the murder had not been discovered, but that 

 throughout the district it was said openly that the Choctaws were to attack 

 the fort and all the dwellings.^ The commandant-general would gladly have 

 concealed this news from the settlers, who were but too panic-stricken already ; 

 but it spread all over in less than no time, and the consternation became so 

 great and so general that 30 Chaouacha, who lived below New Orleans, made 

 the whole colony tremble. This obliged M. Perrier to send negroes and destroy 

 them.'' 



« Le Petit in Jes. Rel., Lxviii, 183-184. 



''This is conflrmed by Dumont, Mem. Hist, sur La Louisiane, ii, 167-168, who even pre- 

 tends to record the attempt in the following words : " They [the Choctaws] were precise in 

 keeping their promise on the day agreed upon. The 1st of December they came to the num- 

 ber of GOO men within siglit of New Orleans, having only Lake St. Louis to cross in order to 

 arrive there, and from there they sent a deputation to the Sieur Perrier to obtain permission 

 to go and present him the calumet. But whatever the advantage the commandant-general 

 might expect from this depulation, he did not think it was prudent to admit such a large 

 number of savages into the capital, and refused to receive tliom. lie had them informed 

 only that if their chief wished to come there with .'iO of his people he was welcome. This 

 i-efusal of the commandant having disconcerted the plan of the Choctaws, they revenged 

 themselves on their return lo their village by killing some cattle which belonged to the 

 grant of the Sieur de Chaumont established among the Pascagoulas." 



"^ A rather poor excuse, one would think, for the murder of an insignificant, inoffensive 

 tribe. This statOTneut is copied from Perrier's own dispatch : See Gayarr6, Hist. Louisiana, 

 I, 422-423. Perrier intimates that by the same means he might have destroyed all the 

 small tribes on the river had he considered it prudent. 



