50 E. Petitot on the Athabasca District. 



Only after some years of harsh captivity, did she discover that 

 the " Agayasieu " (the Cree name for the English), who supplied 

 the Crees and Savanois, belonged to an entirely strange race, 

 good-natured and generous, friendly with all the aborigines, and 

 coming from the far east to trade with them. Her mind was 

 then soon made up. She succeeded in reaching Fort Churchill 

 alone, and as she had learned enough of the Algonquin dialect to 

 make herself understood by the interpreters of the fort, she was 

 enabled to let the Hudson's Bay Company's officers know that she 

 belonged to the great nation of "Men" (Tinneys), living far off 

 in the west, and professing honesty and fair behavior like the 

 English. She expressed her determination of returning to her 

 own people and begged for assistance on the way home, promising 

 to establish friendly relations between her countrymen and the 

 officers of the company, who, glad of the opportunity of extending 

 the sphere of their commercial transactions, gave her a sledge and 

 dogs, with various presents, and a safe conduct through the land 

 of the Killini. Attracted by these presents, the Chipewyans at 

 once undertook the long voyage from the Peace River to the 

 mouth of the Churchill, calling the fort " The-ye" (stone house), 

 and its inhabitants "The-ye Ottine" (men of the stone house), 

 a name by which the English are still known among the Tinneys. 

 These relations continued to the time when Joseph Frobisher 

 established Fort Chipewyan, on the shores of Lake Athabasca, in 

 1778, for the North-west Company, at which date there were as 

 many as 1200 Redskins settled on the Lake. But the white man 

 brought with him the horrible disease of small-pox, till then 

 unknown to the Americans, which made great ravages among the 

 Tinneys, and more than decimated the Crees, driven to the southern 

 part of the lake by the warlike attitude of the Chipewyans. 

 Influenza, an epidemic catarrhal affection, attacking the tribes at 

 regular intervals of about seven years, completed the work of the 

 small-pox. Reduced to a very small number, the Crees ceased 

 all hostile action against the Chipewyans, who had become their 

 superiors, both in number and in strength ; so that the possession 

 of the lake, and indeed of the territory of Athabasca, remained with 

 the Tinneys, who permitted a few Crees and Savanois to remain 

 among them. 



