SWANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 311 



After their departure pirogues were armed, and tbe detachment found itself 

 reenforced by more than 80 Canadians. AH was prepared for this war when 

 M. de Saint Denis changed Iiis mind." 



NeATrtheless. it appears from De Richeboiirg''s memoir that the 

 Koroa chiefs had the murderers of the three Frenchmen killed in 

 payment for the injury,'' and Davion soon afterward resumed his 

 missionary labors, probably in 1705, and continued them uninter- 

 ruptedly for about fifteen years. 



Soon after occurred one of the principal events in Tunica history, 

 their migration from the Yazoo to the mouth of Red river. La Harpe 

 places this in October, ITOG, the same year as the Taensa migration, 

 and states that it was occasioned by an English trader whom they had 

 captured and who took revenge by assembling the Chickasaw, Ali- 

 bamu, and other nations allied with Carolina to war against them. 

 He says: 



The Tonicas, not feelhig themselves strong enough to resist, abandoned their 

 villages and collected again among the Iloumas, who received them trustingly. 

 While [the latter] were reposing on their good faith the Tonicas surprised them 

 and killed more than one-half of their nation.*' 



Penicaut places the Tunica migration in 1709 and represents it as 

 a simple occupancy of the Houma village after its abandonment by 

 the former owners.'' .The Houma evidently suffered less than the 

 Bayogoula at the hands of the Taensa, for they have continued their 

 autonomy in some degree to the present day. 



From this time on the Mobile church registers show that Davion 

 was often at Mobile, but he continued to make his headquarters 

 among the Tiniica." In 1714 St. Denis persuaded the Tunica chief 

 to accompany him on his expedition through Texas with 15 of 

 his warriors. It is probable that the chief himself went no farther 

 than Natchitoches, but the rest continued to the Rio Grande, return- 

 ing the same year.'' The English trader Hughes" visited the Tunica 

 in 1715, and they sang the calumet to him, from which it wOuld ap- 

 pear that they had not as yet adopted all the animosities of the 

 French along with their friendship.'' When the first war with the 

 Natchez broke out, however, in 171G, this tribe furnished an asylum 

 to the La Loires and Penicaut after their escape, and according to 

 the latter their great chief was barely restrained by Davion from 

 killing three Natchez who arrived soon afterward to induce him to 



« La Harpe, Jour. Hist., 86-88. 



"French, Hist. Coll. La., 246, 1851. 



•^ La Harpe, .Jour. Hist., 100-101. 



'' Margry, Decouvertes, v, 48.3. 



« See Hamilton, Colonial Mobile (1st ed.), 53. 



f Margry, Decouvertes, v, 497-305. The date he gives, 1712, is erroneous. 



Spelled by various French writers You. Youx, and Huchi. 



^ Margry, Decouvertes, v, 508. v 



