Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/429

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CHIEFS ENTERTAINED AT MONTREAL.
419

farmer, and other individuals who might have some peltries there, were dying of hunger, with property they did not enjoy. Credit was exhausted, and the apprehension universal, that the enemy would become masters, on the way, of the last resource of the country."

Frontenac came down from Quebec, and on the sixth of September, which was Sunday, he entertained the principal chiefs, and the next day distributed presents, and made arrangements for the reoccupation of the Northwest.

TRADING POST ESTABLISHED AT CHAGOUAMIGON BY LE SUEUR.

Pierre Le Sueur was sent to remain at Chagouamigon, and the Narrative of Occurrences of 1692–93 writes that he was "to endeavor to maintain the peace lately concluded between the Sauteurs and the Sioux. This is of the greatest consequence, as it is now the sole pass by which access can be had to the latter nation, whose trade is very profitable, the country to the south being occupied by the Foxes and the Mascontins, who have already several times plundered the French, under pretence that they were carrying ammunition to the Sioux their ancient enemies. These frequent interruptions would have been punished ere this, had we not been occupied elsewhere. Le Sueur it is to be hoped will facilitate the northern route for us, by means of the great influence he possesses among the Sioux."[1]

  1. Pierre Le Sueur was the son of a Frenchman from Artois, and in 1657 was born. In company with Nicholas Perrot, by way of the Wisconsin, he visited the Upper Mississippi, and in 1689 was at Fort St. Antoine on the Wisconsin side of Lake Pepin, when Perrot took formal possession of the country. In the Proces Verbal the Minnesota River is for the first time called St. Pierre. As the post at the mouth of the Wisconsin in a map of 1688 is called Fort St. Nicolas in compliment to Perrot, and as the Assineboine River was once called St. Charles, in compliment to Charles Beauharnois, Governor of Canada, and the St. Croix after a voyageur of that name, it has been supposed that the St. Pierre River was called after the baptismal name of Pierre Le Sueur. In 1690, he married Marguerite Messier, the first cousin of Pierre Lemoyne, the Sieur D'Iberville, who was the first Governor of Louisiana.