Mascouten
The mascouten (also Mascoutin , Mathkoutench or Musketoon were called) one of the Algonquian- scoring Indian tribe on the Mississippi near the present border between Wisconsin and Illinois . Their self-designation is not known. The name Mascouten, small prairie people , was given to them by the Fox . They were weakened in the course of the Beaver Wars and split up into two groups.
Around 1670 the French estimated the Mascoutes to be around 2,000 tribesmen, but it can be assumed that their number had already been decimated by half to two thirds by that time. Around 1760/70 500 of them lived on Lake Michigan , 800 on Wabash together with Piankashaw and Vermilion- Kickapoo . US reports of 1813 and 1825 only mention them as a tribe merged with the latter.
Culture
The traditional living and hunting area of the Mascouten east of Lake Michigan consisted of extensive grassy areas and forests. In the spring they renewed the huts in the large summer village and planted corn and vegetables in the gardens. In summer they hunted buffalo together with other tribes they were friends with, and in autumn they separated into small groups. They moved into winter camp and hunted bears and deer from there. Around 1728 they took part in the fur trade with the French and took canoes to the trading centers. The Jesuits' records also show that they owned peace and war chiefs and that the tribe consisted of five or six "nations", presumably made up of different clans. They believed in personal animal guardian spirits, whom they met through visions and practiced dog sacrifice. The few cultural characteristics that can definitely be attributed to the Mascoutes confirm the assumption that their way of life and culture corresponded to that of the Kickapoo and Fox. The language of the Mascouten is practically unknown and was probably a dialect of the Sauk-Fox-Kickapoo language .
identity
After multiple moves and a significant population decline due to epidemics and wars, they lost their tribal identity after 1800 by uniting with the Kickapoo. The strain is considered relatively unknown, so some scientists have suggested that the Mascouten may be mistaken for a better known strain. Indeed, the few sources may lead one to believe that the available records point to the portion of another, better known tribe that merged with the Kickapoo in historical times. The Wyandot called the Mascouten "Atsistaehronon", which means "Nation of Fire" (French "Nation du Feu"). The claim that the Mascouten would be confused with the Potawatomi could be refuted by numerous arguments. This assumption is based on the false hypothesis that the name Potawatomi (in Ojibwa : Po-te-wa-tami) means "people at the place of fire" and similar names in different languages could only refer to this tribe.
The entire history of the Mascouten does not contain any concrete evidence that they could possibly belong to the Shawnee or Sauk . The thesis that Mascouten is the name of a tribe of the Algonquin that the French have not identified has also been refuted.
history
First mentions, escape from Iroquois
As Asistagueroüon they first appear on a map of Champlains from 1616. Their residential area was then south and west of Lake Huron . Gabriel Sagard says they lived ten days' voyage west of the southern end of Georgian Bay .
They were mentioned again by French Jesuits in 1639/40 when Jean Nicolet von Winnebago had heard of them in 1638 - provided that Rasaouakoueton's identification with Mascouten is correct. At the time, they lived in southern Michigan . In the 1640s they were at war with Ottawa and the tribal group referred to by the French as neutrals (fr. Neutrals ). Even if the identification of the Assistaeronon in the report about atrocities against Indians with the Mascoutes is correct, a considerable number of these were killed by 2000 warriors of the Iroquois and neutrals. In the 1650s, they finally ousted the Iroquois from their tribal territory, much as the Hurons (1649), Tionontati , neutrals and other tribes were destroyed. They moved to the south end of Lake Michigan and on to southeast Wisconsin around 1655 . But there they were driven out by the Winnebago, so that the Mascouten moved from Michigan to Wisconsin in the direction of the Mississippi .
division
So they had to continue their escape. In addition to a lower group, an upper group came to the south end of Lake Winnebago and settled with the Wea ( Miami ) together, was able to stay in Green Bay for a short time in 1658 , where the Winnebago themselves had to flee, but they had to again in 1660 Iroquois give way and go to Lake Winnebago. Here they got into insurmountable difficulties. Subjected to constant attacks by the Iroquois and Dakota , too far north to still be able to live from growing maize as usual , in 1665 they met a French fur trader group of 400 men, including their Indian allies, in complete dissolution. In the same year they had to flee towards Mississippi , but a peace treaty between the Iroquois and the French meant that they could return.
The first direct contact with the French came here in 1668. The lower group stayed on the Mississippi. In 1669 the Jesuit Claude-Jean Allouez identified the Mascoutes as a separate tribe for the first time. The Mascoutes confirmed to him that they were indeed the tribe that the Hurons called "Assistaeronon". While they were now trading with the French again, especially in furs, several Algonquin tribes in the region, such as the Kitchigami, Assegun (Bone), Mundua and Noquet, disappeared in this turmoil. They were probably partially taken up by the Mascoutes. When Jacques Marquette came to them in 1673 , the Wea had separated from them again and had moved to a village near what is now Chicago . The Mascouten moved to the Milwaukee , in their own village, but kept in contact with the French in Green Bay , French la Baye .
In 1679 and 1680 the Mascouten were drawn into conflicts between various French trading groups. When Robert Cavelier de La Salle tried to establish direct contact with the tribes of the Illinois Confederation in the south, the French of Green Bay hindered him and did not hesitate to let the Mascouten and others obstruct him. Nevertheless, LaSalle managed to build Fort Crèvecoeur in Upper Illinois in 1680 . The Mascouten chief Manso tried to induce the confederation to expel the French - also on behalf of the Iroquois. The dispute over the furs that z. Some were brought from neighboring tribal areas, escalated, and there was open fighting that was extremely brutal even for the time of the Beaver Wars . From 1682 the Mascouten near Chicago were drawn into this war. The Iroquois tried to conquer Fort St. Louis , but failed in 1684 and had to withdraw.
A lower group settled on the Milwaukee River with Fox and Kickapoo . It was driven to the Mississippi by the Iroquois , as it was in contrast to the now somewhat better protected upper group. Meanwhile, the French tried to forge an alliance between the Algonquians on the Great Lakes and the Iroquois, an alliance that was a sideline to the war between England and France, the King William's War (1688–96). Although the French were quite successful and led the Iroquois to a peace treaty, an initial drop in fur prices meant that numerous licenses to trade fur were not renewed. The fur trade on the western Great Lakes ended abruptly in 1696. Nicolas Perrot , the commander of La Baye, had other forts built, such as Fort St. Nicolas near Prairie du Chein and Fort St. Antoine on Lake Pepin on the Mississippi ( 1685 and 1686). But in 1691 there were again armed conflicts between Mascouten, Fox, Kickapoo and Dakota. The Mascouten felt cheated by the French, who could no longer pay the prices, as they did a few years ago, and at the same time felt threatened by the arms deliveries to their enemies. They robbed Perot and several French traders were killed. He owed his life only to the intercession of the Kickapoo.
Wabash Alliance
The Chicago Mascouten followed the Wea in 1695 and moved to western Indiana . In 1701 they sat on the Ohio in southern Illinois , where they fell victim to a smallpox epidemic the following year . They were also harassed by their British allies, the Chickasaw , so that they formed an alliance with the Miami tribes of the Wea and Piankashaw . These became known as the Wabash tribes. Around 1710 malaria raged for the first time in Ohio and Mississippi and decimated Wabash tribes.
Fort Pontchartrain and Fox Wars
Another turn in the fur trade - despite numerous petitions, the government in Paris wanted to invest as little as possible in this - brought about the appearance of Antoine Cadillac , who opened Fort Pontchartrain near Detroit to trade with all tribes of the Great Lakes. Then thousands of them moved into the area.
The lower group of Mascouten also moved to the area of Fort Detroit (Détroit) around 1712 . But Potawatomi, Hurons and Ottawa asked the approximately 1000 Fox and Mascouten to withdraw. But they didn't want to give up their old home again.
It came to the Fox Wars from 1712 to 1716 and from 1728 to 1737, which almost led to the extermination of the Mascoutes. After a raid on a hunting party by Ottawa and Potawatomi near the St. Joseph River , the French tried to mediate, but soon found themselves under siege by Fox, Kickapoo and Mascouten. But a little later the besiegers were slaughtered by the Hurons, Ottawa, Potawatomi and Mississauga (Ojibwe). Around a thousand of them died. The surviving Kickapoo and Mascouten fled to Wisconsin and fought with the French for three years of raids and campaigns of revenge. Although there was a peace treaty in 1716, but Fox and Peoria (Illinois) fought disputes that led the Fox to a war alliance with Winnebago and Dakota.
Now, for their part, the French feared a British-inspired turn of the alliance against their interests. Therefore, they released the Winnebago and Dakota from the alliance and isolated the Fox, which ultimately only had the Kickapoo and Mascouten as allies. When they refused to kill French prisoners, the Fox fell out with them too. The battle of 1730, in which the Fox were almost exterminated, saw the two former allies on the victorious side.
smallpox
In 1746, Potawatomi, Menominee and Ojibwe joined forces against the Peoria to drive them out of their last territory in southern Wisconsin. In 1751 and 1754, the Mascouten, Kickapoo and Potawatomi territories in northern Illinois occupied. But in 1751 the Mascouten was hit again by a smallpox epidemic that only left around 300 of them alive.
Mixing with Wabash tribes, British
The other branch of the Mascouten, the Wabash-Mascouten, meanwhile increasingly merged with the tribes on the Wabash River . How strongly these tribes were already mixed, shows the case of the Miami chief Le Loup, released by the French in 1750, whose father was a Kickapoo and whose mother a Mascouten.
During the Anglo-French War, the Mascouten traded with the French from Fort Ouiatenon ( Lafayette , Indiana ) until Québec fell to the English in 1759 . The fort became British in 1760, and the new masters forced the surrounding tribes to continue trading. Commander Jeffrey Amherst raised the prices of merchandise, reduced the issue of gunpowder and also stopped gifts to the chiefs. In connection with a hot and dry summer, this made the supply of the Mascouten into great difficulties.
Pontiac, continuation of the war against the British
It was in this situation that Neolin emerged , a Delaware prophet who preached the abandonment of commodities and a return to the traditional way of life. At the same time, Pontiac prepared his uprising, which brought six of the nine British forts in the region into his hands from May 1763. Fort Ouiatenon was also captured, but Pontiac's uprising collapsed two years later.
In 1764, when the French had long since had to end the war, Mascouten, Wea, Piankashaw, Miami and Kickapoo came to Fort de Chartes to ask Pierre de Villiers , the last French commanding officer in Illinois, for supplies to wage war against the British to be able to continue - but he had to refuse. Only Mascouten and Kickapoo continued the war anyway.
When Colonel George Croghan wanted to accept the delivery of French forts, his troops were attacked by 80 of their men at the mouth of the Wabash River in June 1765. Two Shawnee chiefs were killed. Now all the tribes that had long been in peace negotiations with the British tried to prevent a new war between the tribes. Indeed, the two tribes were now ready to accept the takeover of the forts.
The Wisconsin Mascouten was last mentioned in a 1768 report by Thomas Hutchins . They were absorbed by the Kickapoo or Potawatomi prairie tribes in northern Illinois. The Wabash Mascouten were still held in 1774 by the British with threats of violence from participating in the Lord Dunmore's war , which Shawnee and Mingo waged against the Americans.
United States
When in 1778 200 Americans, led by George Rogers Clark, contested the territory against the British, the Wabash offered him support, but he refused it with the greatest contempt. In doing so, he drove the Wabash tribes into an alliance with the British and even after the war they continued to fight Americans who were illegally settling in the Ohio Valley. The hostilities that began in 1786 did not end until 1791 after Colonel John Hardin captured 52 women and children. The Mascouten left the western, anti-American tribal alliance and signed the Putnam Treaty in 1792 . Of the 31 chiefs who signed, two were Mascouten. The fact that after diplomatic steps by the USA they were no longer able to find supplies in St. Louis because the Spaniards stopped this aid will also have contributed to the conclusion of peace . After Louisiana was acquired by the USA (1803), the Mascouten are only mentioned twice as part of the Kickapoo .
literature
- Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978. ISBN 0-16004-575-4
- M. Johnson / R. Hook: The Native Tribes of North America. Compendium Publishing 1992, ISBN 1-872004-03-2
See also
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast, p. 670
- ↑ a b Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 15: Northeast, p. 671