James Bly Research

Notes for Jean-Baptiste Reaume: Significant new information has recently emerged concerning the location of the 1730 Mesquakie fort besieged by the French and their Indian confederates. The fort was the scene of one of the most important battles in the colonial wars of New France. For more than one hundred years historians and archeologists have debated its location on the prairies of eastern Illinois. The new evidence includes an unpublished narrative of the siege, recovered in the spring of 1989 in Paris from the Archives Nationales. The account is that of Jean-Baptiste Reaume: interpreter, scout, and agent of French interests among the Nations of the River St. Joseph.

The document interpreted as the Reaume Narrative was located in the Inventaire Analytique, Colonies, B 75-189, F3 24-25-50-51-78, D2c 2-3, Canada 1680-1785, COL/06, Colonies F3, Vol. 24, Description et Historique Louisiane 1680-1755, Moreau St. Mery, Folio 196.

Dr. Carl Ekberg, Professor of History, Illinois State University, graciously provided the following translation.

Letter from Monsieur d'Auteuil de Monceaux, dated at Quebec 17 November 1730, concerning the destruction of the Foxes

For several years we had been working without success to destroy this audacious and rebellious tribe [nation]. Monsieur de Beauharnois, with wise and prudent orders, had ordered Sieur Jean-Baptiste Reaume, interpreter for the Indians along the St. Joseph River, under the command of Monsieur le Chevalier de Villiers, lieutenant in His Majesty's troops, to work either for peace or for war with the Foxes. He [i.e. Reaume] spent last winter trying to stir up trouble between them and their allies, the Sacs, the Kickapoos, and the Mascoutens. He had spies everywhere, and finally in May he learned from the Kickapoos and Mascoutens that the Foxes were intending to pass by the Rock in order to go with their families to the Iroquois, which was confirmed by an Illinois Indian. Thereupon, Monsieur de Chevalier de Villiers sent this news to Detroit, to Monsieur de Schaillons [Deschaillons] with the Miamis, to Monsieur de Noyelles with the Ouiatenons, and to Sieur Simon Reaume. Within 24 hours, Monsieur Deschaillons had a party of 350 men, composed of 35 French, some Hurons, some Ouiatenons, and some Potawatomis, commanded by two of his sons. Monsieur de Noyelle was at the head of some Frenchmen and 140 Miamis. Sieur Simon Reaume commanded 400 Ouiatenons and some Frenchmen. The army from Detroit was integrated with that of the Miamis. They all joined together and started out for the Rock. They learned that Monsieur de Villiers had fallen back with 350 men, not knowing how to find the Foxes nor even knowing the route of their march, releasing our warriors after having marched more than 100 leagues. This retreat caused the Foxes to send an envoy to the Illinois to ask for the right to pass through. In the council cabin an angry young man struck out at the envoy with a tomahawk and with a knife. This aggressor was put outside and the council continued. After this envoy retired to his village, five leagues from the Rock, and 5 days later, in order to get revenge he killed or had killed some Illinois. This blocked their passage to the Iroquois. On the road Monsieur de Villiers ran into a Potawatomi chief named Oukia, a sworn enemy of the Foxes, who had not been invited by his tribe to this war; full of resentment and courage he had a small party of 18 men. Passing close to Monsieur de Villiers, who asked to know the reason for their march, he responded that he was going to the Illinois and while on the way he wanted to smash the heads of the Foxes. Sieur Jean-Baptiste Reaume [with Villiers' party] was clever, telling him [Oukia] that it was necessary to get the Mascoutens and Kickapoos involved by reproaching them for forgetting their dead, that he wished to be the revenger of the blood that they had lost, and that he wanted to retrieve the bones of those of them that the Foxes had killed.

These [former] allies of the Foxes, seeing themselves shamed by a stranger, sang the warsong and left with him [Oukia] with 150 men, along with 40 Potawatomis who had joined them. They went to seek out the Foxes 50 leagues southeast of the Rock, where they found them. They [the Foxes] made a retreat to a woods, for that region is only prairie as far as the eye can see. They [the allies] approached and gave battle from noon until evening.

Both sides lost 7 or 8 men and the Foxes had 30 wounded. But our poor General Oukia lost his life after having many times repulsed his enemy. Finally the two armies, very tired, separated. The Foxes fortified themselves in their woods and the allies in the prairie a half a league from each other. The Fox fort was of stakes a foot apart, crossed at the top, all joined together and filled in with earth between them as high up as the crossing. On the outside a ditch ran around on three sides with branches planted to hide it, with pathways of communication for the fort in the ditches and others that ran to the river. Their cabins were complete with joists covered with decking, commonly called straw mats. On top of this there were covered ways such that one could see only an earthwork [terrasse] that would cast a shadow in the fort.

The two enemies having many wounded and neither one daring to attack again proposed a truce. This was accepted and for reciprocal proof of their sincerity they exchanged presents and meat. But the allies profited from their confidence to send runners to ask for help to the St. Joseph River, where Monsieur de Villiers and Reaume had just arrived; also to the Miamis, the Ouiatenons, and the Illinois.

Immediately Baptiste Reaume, with the consent of Monsieur de Villiers, had the warsong performed in the villages of the Sacs. the Potawatomis, and the Miamis, who accepted the tomahawk to the number of 300 savage men. They left 4 days later, Monsieur de Villiers accompanied by two Frenchmen and placing his confidence in the conduct of Sieur Reaume, for nothing was more important than to have a man of experience and influence, as he [Reaume] exercises on the temper of his tribe, in order to persuade them to wage war on their relatives.

Monsieur de Noyelle, commandant with the Miamis, didn't lose a moment in assembling the Miamis, who marched with him to the number of 130, plus 4 Frenchmen.

Sieur Simon Reaume, 66 years of age, who for 4 years had led and maintained under orders from Beauharnois the Ouiatenons, also allies of the Foxes, chanted for war against these rebels, pressed his tribe so hard with his expressions that they dared not refuse his request. He stirred up with his influence and authority blood against blood, and relatives and friends that they were, he turned them into enemies. He marched at the head of 400 Ouiatenons and 28 frenchmen. These gentlemen each left from their own post, 100 leagues apart from one another. They strode off, animated by glory and zeal for the service and by the desire to vanquish; they lost not a moment in seeking out the shortest pathways to arrive for combat.

Monsieur Villiers and Simon Reaume arrived the first and Monsieur de Noyelle some time latter. Together they encircled the fort of the rebels. Monsieur de St. Ange leading 300 Illinois and 90 Frenchmen joined up with them. The Kickapoos, Mascoutens, and Sacs, who had always respected the Foxes, did the same thing, and all these groups together constituted a small army that besieged the enemy. As there were some Frenchmen there, prudence did not require forcing the issue with an assault since their [the Foxes'] defeat was certain and since hunger would make them perish. The besiegers opened the attack trench with axes and knives; they planted cavaliers under cover of gunfire. This siege lasted 18 days, during which time the besieged threw over their palisade more than 300 children in order to touch the hearts of the besiegers their allies, while calling out to them that since they hungered after their own flesh that all they had to do was eat of it and quench their thirst with the blood of their close relatives, although they were innocent of the fault that their fathers had committed. They received with open arms these children, but Sieurs Reaume, whose prudence was based on 40 years of experience, vigorously opposed doing this on grounds that it might be a prelude to a general pardon. They immediately ran throughout the camp reproaching them that they were not warriors since they dared to take some men, and that the orders of their father the governor was not to punish innocents but rather those who had broken the peace treaty by spreading the blood of all those who made up this army. As the commandants and Sieur Reaume perceived that the besieged and the besiegers were engaged in frequent conversations, they judged that it was necessary to keep up a continuous fire in order to destroy any plans that might have been carried out.

The Foxes, seeing a hopeless situation and dying absolutely of hunger, proposed to Sieur Baptiste Reaume that they would surrender themselves to all the tribes in return for their lives. But he did not agree, nor did his brother, foreseeing that they [Foxes] were capable of compromising those with whom they would live. It was decided by the commandants that no quarter would be given.

The night of the 18-19th [sic] was so dark with much thunder and rain that it was impossible to see. The besieged made a large fire inside of their fort. The Sieurs Reaume warned the commandants that they were going to flee but that it was not necessary to oppose this because in the melee the allies would fire upon the French as well as upon the Illinois, the later not being liked by the attacking tribes. Nor was it to be feared that the enemy could go very far; within 9 days the besiegers would be forced to do their duty.

At midnight the besieged left their fort. But the Sieurs Reaume made use of clever orders in saying to the Sacs, who were the most accused of being in league with the Foxes, that it was necessary for them to prove themselves to their father the governor and the entire army by taking prisoners that night. They did that at exactly the same time that the Sieurs Reaume told the tribes that only the Sacs knew how to take slaves. This motivated them to the extent that they took 300 during the night.

At day break they were pursued with so much vigor that those who were furthest away were stopped and killed 8 leagues from the fort. It was said that there were 500 killed, namely: 200 men and 300 women and children. Three hundred women and children were taken prisoner. The warriors followed customary practice. They exchanged the slaves as presents, included among which were 40 men who were burned. Those who lived reported to Sieur Baptiste Reaume that there were no more to take. This would give peace to the colony and would increase its commerce through possession of the lands that they [the Foxes] occupied and of those where our Indians dared not hunt for fear of these fearsome enemies.

Communications will soon be open for the Mississippi as well as for the Sioux settlements. The region around the [Green] Bay will be peaceful and an agreeable settlement will be made there. The settlers at Detroit and Lake Erie will cultivate their gardens in complete security. Finally, there is a general peace, which well merits that the authors [apparently the Reaume brothers] of it should be rewarded.

http://virtual.parkland.edu/lstelle1/len/center_for_social_research/Fox_Fort/idotfx.htm viewed November 29, 2007.

More About Jean-Baptiste Reaume: Occupation: 1726, associasted with Louis Ducharme and Charles Nolan del la Marque at the Post of Le Baye, New France (Green Bay, Wisconsin).11 Residence: 17 Nov 1730, Monsieur d'Auteuil de Monceaux writes their spy Sieur Jean Baptiste Reaume, interpreter, under command of Monsieur Lechevalier de Villiers has been spending the winter stirring up trouble between the Sacs, Kickapoos and the Mascoutens.12