+2 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLL. 69 
site of Fort Chartres, planned and erected by the French in 1720 and 
in 1756 rebuilt and greatly strengthened, later to be destroyed by the 
encroachment of the waters of the Mississippi. Early in February, 
1682, La Salle reached ‘‘the Village of the Tamaoas, where we met 
with no body at all, the Savages being retired into the Woods to 
Winter.” (Tonti, (1), p. 77.) This was on the left or east bank of 
the Mississippi, 10 leagues below the mouth of the Illinois and 
opposite the present city of St. Louis. In the autumn of 1721 
another French explorer, Pére Charlevoix, while passmg down the 
Mississippi, reached the same locality and there remained over night 
at the ‘‘village of the Caoquias and the Tamarouas, two Illinois 
tribes which have been united.” (Charlevoix, (1), II, p. 218.) The 
village was on the small creek which now bears the name of the 
first of the tribes, and which is likewise perpetuated by having been 
applied to the great mound a few miles distant from the site of the 
ancient settlement. 
The Illinois tribes were closely connected linguistically with the 
Ojibway, while quite distinct were the Shawnee and the allied Sauk 
and Fox,who spoke dialects with slight variations, so similar as to 
indicate their having been closely associated or virtually having 
lived together for some generations. When first known to the 
French, the Fox were evidently living on the lower Michigan penin- 
sula, east of Lake Michigan. The majority of the Shawnee were then 
south of the Ohio, their principal settlement being in the vicinity of 
the present city of Nashville, Tenn. The time or cause of their 
removal southward can not be determined, although it may have been 
forced by the aggressiveness of the Neutrals, who, during the first 
part of the seventeenth century and probably earlier, were engaged 
in attacking the Algonquian tribes to the westward of their territory. 
But in 1651 the Neutrals in turn suffered a crushing defeat by the 
Troquois. From their new home in the valley of the Cumberland one 
or more bands of the Shawnee appear to have moved eastward, 
probably passing south of the Cherokee, and thus reaching the valley 
of the Savannah, where they established themselves in several small 
villages But within a generation some had again turned westward 
and settled for a few years on the Chattahoochee, near the Uchee 
town. Here, however, their stay was of short duration and they 
soon removed to the Tallapoosa, probably to be near the French 
post at Fort Toulouse. Others who had not joined in this movement 
from the Savannah soon began moving northward along the foot of 
the mountains. This movement was evidently hastened by the 
trouble which culminated in the ‘‘Yamasee War,” in 1715. Passing 
through the Carolinas, they reached the valley of Virginia, where they 
established several small villages, with other settlements north of the 
Potomac. Soon becoming associated with remnants of the Delaware 
