Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/80

 50 HISTOEY OF GOODHUE COUNTY t who bore the same name as the chief alluded to iu the travels of Hennepin." Le Sueur had visited Prairie Island and established a trading post in 1695, after having' prevailed upon the Dakota and Chip- pewa Indians to recognize the island as neutral ground, bury the hatchet, and live together in friendly intercourse, for the purpose of amusement and trade. Of this post. La Harpe, in the introduction of his narrative of Le Sueur's mining expedition in 1700. wrote as follows, according to Shea's translation: "M. Le Sueur, by order of the Count de Frontenac, Governor General of Canada, built a fort on an island in the Mississippi, more than 200 leagues above the Illinois, in order to effect a peace between the Santeurs nations (Ojibways), who dwell qc I lie shores of a hike of five hundred leagues circum- ference Lake Superior), one hundred leagues east of the river, and the Sioux, posted on the upper Mississippi. The same year, according to his orders, he went down to Montreal in Canada with a Sauteur chief named Chingouabe and a Sioux named Cioscate Tioscate i. who was the first of his nation who had seen Canada." Penicaut wrote of Prairie Island, as translated by Hill: "At the end of tin- lake (Pepin) yon come to Paid Island, so called because there arc no treeson it. It is on this island that the French from Canada established their fort and storehouse when they come to trade for furs and other merchandise, and they also winter here because game is very abundant in the prairies on both shores of the river. In the month of September they bring their store of meat there procured by hunting, and after having skinned and (leaned it. place it upon a sort of raised scaffold near the cabin, in order that the extreme cold, which lasts from the month of September to the end of March, may hinder it from cor- rupting during the winter, which is very severe in that country. During the whole winter they do not go out except for water, when they have to break the ice every day; and the cabin is gen- erally built on the bank, so as not to have to go far. When spring arrives the savages come to the island, bringing their merchan- dise, which consists id' all kinds of furs, as beaver, otter, marten, lynx and many others — the bear skins are generally used to cover the canoes of the savages and < 'anadians. There are often savages who pillage the French Canadian traders, among others the sav- ages of a village composed of the five different nations, and which have each their own name: that is. the Sioux, the people of the big village; the Mententons, the Mencouacantons. the Ouyates- pony and other Sioux of the plains. Three leagues higher up. after leaving this island, you meet on the right the river St. Croix." From Charlevoix, in the third volume of this history of New