Eskippakithiki, The Last Indian Town in Kentucky - The Filson ...

Vol. 6 ] The Filson Club History Quarterly 369
first taste of the power of the French over the western Algonquians,
and stimulated defensive measures everywhere. The
history of this affair had become so forgotten and misunderstood
by the nineteenth century that even so learned a historian of
Western affairs as Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites, in his Early Western
Travels, says Peter Chartier took his Shawnees to the neighborhood
of Detroit. In this Dr. Thwaites has doubtlessbeen
misled by a letter written on October 28, 1745, by Governor Beauharnois
to the French Ministry, which says:
"The emigration of Chartier has at length taken place; they
have removed from their former location to the place I allotted
them at the Prairie of the Mascoutins; they have even tied and
plundered the English traders on la Belle Riviere to the number of
eight, and advise M. Longueville to send in search of them. But
the detachment of fifteen or sixteen Canadians, despatched
thither by that officer, discovered only one, and the Chaouanons
-have said that they carried the others along with them to their
winter quarters, and would bring them to me themselves next
year."1,
The Prairie of the Mascoutins was in southern Michigan and,
had our renegade Shawnees gone there, Dr. Thwaites' location
would have been correct, but they did not go there. On August
24 and 25, 1747, Longueville wrote the governor of Canada:
"The Chaouanons of Chartier's tribe, so far from coming to
Detroit, according to invitation, have surprised some distant establishments
[the Chickasaws] on the River of the Cheraquis and
Alabanons [Tennessee]; though this Chartier, who has much influence
over his tribe, excuses that evasion, assuring that it will
not be prejudicial to the attachment of these Indians towards the
French. It is to be feared either that he is not able to control
them, or that he will himself change his opinion."
The attack on the "distant establishments" on the Tennessee
River will be given later. Beauharnois letter shows how Charger
was toying with the French. The winter quarters therein mentioned
were, of course, Esldppakithiki, where Longueville's detachment
of Canadians visited them, finding only one of the despoiled
traders. What a picture the conference between Chartier
and the Canadians would make!
Contemporary records of the years 1745 and 1746 are almost
silent about Eskippakithiki and Chartier. This is additional rea-