An account of a French settler

I found an account of colonisation by Sieur Daniel Greysolon Duluth, I got this from www.americanjourneys.org.

Duluth was a Frenchman who in 1678 decided to go to a French colony in America and explore the Sioux country (and other tribes) in the North West.

Firstly he describes how everyone thought it would be impossible for him to explore the Sioux country ‘because of their distance, which is 800 leagues from our settlements, and because they are at war generally with all sorts of tribes’. He then says that he didn’t feel worried because they had already ‘assured [him] of their friendship’ and that the Sioux Indians, as proof, had given him 3 slaves. This section surprised me because it differs so much from Percy’s account of the Native Americans: in Percy’s account there seems to be severe mistrust between the colonists and the Indians; whereas in this account not only is Duluth certain of their friendship but the Indians show their trust in him by giving him 3 of their people. Duluth then states that he wants to bring peace between all the nations around Lake Superior; this shows that he wants to help them. Later on, he describes how this did happen. He then appears to change his view when describing how a reverend and two other Frenchmen had been kidnapped by the Indians; this contrasts with the earlier view on Indians and shows that things between colonists and Indians aren’t entirely friendly. After this point, he starts calling the Indians ‘savages’. After this he goes about letting the Indians know of his resentment against them. However he doesn’t seem to purely hate them, it seems that he’s more disappointed in them. Another thing which surprised me when I read this account was that he never seems to be amazed at what the Inidans are like and how they live (unlike other accounts) he seems to just view them as people (who are perhaps in his view slightly inferior and in need of help).

‘Having made with the Assenipoulaks and all the other nations of North America a rendezvous ... they all appeared there, where I had the good fortune to gain their esteem and their friendship, to bring them together, and in order that peace might last longer among them, I believed that I could not better cement it than buy causing marriages to be made mutually between the different nations. This I could not carry out without much expenditure. During the following winter I caused them to hold meeting in the forest, at which I was present, in order to hunt together, feast, and thus draw closer the bonds of friendship’.

This I feel is the most revealing section because it shows how influential Duluth, a colonist, was to the many Indian tribes living in the North West. Again, as I said earlier, this greatly contrasts to Percy’s account because in that account the settlers and the Indians were locked in constant conflict and (even at the start when they sometimes helped the colonists) they were never close to being friends. Yet here not only is Duluth a friend to them but he is instrumental in bringing all the tribes together in peace. The very thought of the Indians in Percy’s account listening to a colonist seems ridiculous, yet here it is shown to be possible.