another, and which enables them at this day to assume the position of the most numerous and important branch of the Algic race, and the largest tribe residing east of the Mississippi.
The name of this man was John Baptiste Cadotte, and he was a son of the Mons. Cadeau who first appeared in the Ojibway country, as early as in 1671, in the train of the French envoy, Sieur du Lusson, when he treated with the delegates of the northwestern Indian tribes at Sault Ste. Marie.
John Baptist Cadotte[1] (as his name was spelt by the British, and has been retained to this day) had, early in life, followed the example of the hardy western adventurers who had already found their way to the sources of the Great Lakes and the Great River, Mississippi. He went as a "Marchand voyageur," and visited the remotest villages of the Ojibways on Lake Superior, to supply their wants in exchange for their valuable beaver skins. He became attached to one of their women, belonging to the great clan of A-waus-e, and married her according to the forms of the Catholic religion, of which he was a firm believer.
At the breaking out of the war between France and Great Britain, which resulted in the ending of the French domination in America, Mons. Cadotte made it his permanent residence at Sault Ste. Marie, from which point he eventually wielded the salutary influence which we have mentioned. He is the only French trader of any importance whom the Ojibways tell of having remained with them, when the French people were forced to leave the Lake Superior country. And it is said that though he made several attempts to leave the Ojibway people in company with his departing countrymen, such was the affection
- ↑ For a notice of Cadot or Cadotte gleaned from parish and other records, see another article in this volume.—E.D.N.
