- 1 Among many possible examples, Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, who sailed up the Mississippi in 1699, c (...)
1What is the logic behind bringing together the different documents presented in this section, apart from their common status as historical sources bearing on an area - Lower Louisiana - in the early decades of French colonial settlement there, in the 18th century? Although disparate, all these records represent the same operation of giving form to knowledge, here concerning Choctaw Country, from the name of the Native American people living there, inland and to the northwest of Mobile Bay, and whom the French called "Chacta". Lists of villages, censuses, itineraries noting place names and water courses, a short glossary or an attempt at a written sociological and geographical overview: in every case these records constitute "inscriptions" (Latour 1985) that colonial agents produced and circulated, and that were added to an archival repository. Merely intermediary and transitional forms in the order of knowledge, these inscriptions converted very variable experiences of interactions with the Choctaw into visual data. They thus gave them a form of existence that can no doubt be called over-simplified, but that is also compilable, usable and, at least in part, durable. These documents could subsequently orientate the interactions of other colonial actors with the other Native American groups of the region1.
- 2 What Colbert wrote to his son, Seignelay, in 1676, was still valid at the beginning of the 18th cen (...)
2However, it would be over-rating "inscription" to credit it with a capacity to transform itself instantly into an instrument of power and coercion. What we would like to show by presenting these archival records together is that, in fact, most of these documents seem to have been neglected, if not forgotten. A frequently noted paradox is that whereas the Choctaw are presented, in official correspondence and memoirs, as vital allies of the colony of French Louisiana, throughout its existence, they generated – compared to their neighbors, the Natchez - only few inscriptions (Désveaux 2001: 340; Havard 2020: 72; 2024: 66-7). Moreover, the knowledge occasionally produced can hardly be called cumulative, as we wish to stress. Indeed, it would be a mistake to imagine the Navy headquarters as a coldly efficient “center of calculation” (Latour 1985): in the first half of the 18th century, the processes for archiving inscriptions of all kinds sent from the colonies were only beginning to be systematized, at the very best2. Another point to note is the variety of methods used to record the documents presented, beyond the material and formal diversity of the inscriptions themselves. This points us to their conditions and contexts of production, and the colonial actors involved. Lastly, we wish to highlight the gap between the desire for knowledge – variable and relative – and the resources devoted to its production. By presenting the divergent fates of these inscriptions, we suggest they should be viewed, at least in part, as stemming from the absence of a project for the construction of a unified colonial and imperial body of knowledge.
3The first item presented is a word list of "some names in the language of the Bayagoulas" (AN1; document 1). The Bayagoula, identified as such from the very first French reports at the end of the seventeenth century, were one of the many "smaller nations" that lived in the Lower Mississippi Valley (Goddard et al. 2004 : 175-176). They were small in number, and had close relations with the French settlers due to their geographical proximity, but they nevertheless preserved an autonomous identity although not very individualized in the sources (Anonyme 1859 : 14 ; Ellis 2023 ; Goddard et al. 2004 : 175-176). The Bayagoula's name was possibly an exonym (perhaps meaning "group from the river"), and they spoke a Muskogeen language similar to Choctaw. The dominant languages in the region, from the Gulf of Mexico and the Appalachians, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, were indeed from the Muskogean branch.
4This word list, found in the papers of the geographers Claude and Guillaume Delisle, among notes relating to the early years of French settlement in Louisiana, contemporary with Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville's expeditions (Margry [éd.] 1881), has come down to us without the context that would enable us to date it or link it to a specific collector. However, its position in this fonds gives a clue as to its date – around 1701 – although its provenance remains uncertain. The list was in fact copied into a notebook that also contains an unpublished narrative by a midshipman, the chevalier de Bouloc, who took part in Iberville's second expedition, which went up part of the Mississippi to the Bayagoula area. It might have been transmitted by a Jesuit missionary called Paul Du Ru, whose diary entry of 28 February 1700 notes that "I am interested in their language because it is one of the most widespread in these parts; there are eight or ten nations here that speak it" (Villiers 1925 : 124 ; AN 2 ; Ayer Ms 262) ; or by François de Montigny, the priest of the Quebec Seminary's Foreign Missions. Both were in the region in the same period as Iberville and returned to France in 1702 and 1700 respectively (NAF 7485 ; Galloway 1995 : 192 ; Baillargeon 2003 : 73-90). Claude Delisle (1644-1720) or his son, Guillaume (1675-1726), as the "spoken words of m. de montigny" attest, were in contact with this priest after his return (AN 3). Another possible source is the diary of the naval sub-lieutenant Jean de Sauvole – a document also preserved by the Delisle – in which Sauvoie records his activities at the Biloxy Fort, which he commanded, between the departure of Iberville in May 1699 and his return in 1700. It evolves that Sauvoie established friendly relations with the Bayagoula chief Antobiscania, to whom he sent "two [of their] young boys, to learn the language", as he also did to the Houma (Margry [éd.] 1881 : 448).
5In the first half of the eighteenth century, the workshop of the Delisles, father and son, plays an important role in the development of map making, especially in Louisiana (Dawson 2000). The records of their activity illustrate in more way than one the process by which information from the "distant lands" [“les lointains”] (Martignon 2024) – here, of America – was selected, and sought out through different channels and a variety of sources: apart from copies of letters, hand-written accounts and maps, one can find passages copied out from printed books, interviews with first-hand witnesses, vocabulary lists, and lists of nations and villages, which are often annotated in the margins.
- 3 See, for example, Henri Joutel (Margry 1879: 275)
6The list in question had passed unnoticed until now (Brown and Hardy 2000 ; Goddard et al. 2004 : 175-176). It is of immediate interest to linguists – it is thought to be the only direct confimation of the fact that Bayagoula, considered to be close to Houma, belongs to the Muskogeen branch of languages. It also testifies, from our point of view, to the variety of activities of inscription carried out, as well as to the process of gathering information. Although collecting items of vocabulary is often mentioned in exploration logbooks3, these lists have rarely come down to us. In their form and probable methods of collection they were clearly very similar to other lists, of populations and villages, whether linked to a census or not. Census lists have the advantage of clarifying the practical purpose of these inscriptions, and the military and imperialist motivations that underly them (Havard 2022): They not only pinpoint one's own situation by identifying and locating surrounding groups (who is where), but also enable the forces present to be evaluated– the "number of men capable of bearing arms" is almost always assessed – and thus convert geographical information immediately into geopolitical knowledge, responding to questions such as: what are the power relations? the alliances? the political groupings? who controls the space and the resources? and are rivals already present?
- 4 The list appears in a file of notes attributed to Claude Delisle, which is in fact a later copy by (...)
7In this connection, it is significant that already on his second journey of exploration, Iberville sought to obtain a list of Choctaw villages, which were described as an important and relatively unified demographic whole (AN 5 ; document 2).4 This was to be a recurring topos throughout the French period, since the Choctaw could muster several thousand fighters, and were thus an essential ally for the French colony, which could thus guarantee its security and, especially, protect it from the British to the east.
8This list of villages could have originated in the exchanges Iberville had with the two Choctaw chiefs he met in 1700 near the Tohomé, whom he invited to come on board his ship (Margry [ed.] 1881 : 429 ; 456). But it is more likely that it issued from Henri de Tonti's journey in 1702 (AN4), the first to cross Choctaw Country as far as the Chickasaw villages. (Galloway 1982 : 146-175 ; Galloway 1995 : 193-199 ; Margry [éd.] 1881 : 507). He returned with an embassy, and Iberville exchanged with the Choctaw and Chickasaw chiefs at the new fort of Mobile (Galloway 1995 : 190, 196 ; Margry [éd.] 1881 : 516-519). This list has two parts, with only the first part being devoted to the "Chaqta", while the other part lists the Chickasaw villages. At the time the French were equally interested in both groups, although the Chickasaw were considered to be allies of the English. What Iberville was aiming to achieve, in 1702, was to broker peace between the two Nations and interest them in trading deer hides with the French, rather than trading Indigenous slaves with the English in Carolina. Several names from this list of villages are found again in later lists or diary entries; others are either absent or difficult to match (Swanton 1931 : 59-75).
- 5 Here we are addressing in particular Greg O’Brien's proposal (2002: 16) that we read “Imonklasha”, (...)
- 6 For a comparative discussion of the Creek, Chickasaw and Choctaw cases, see: Balloy 2023: 246-275.
9Patricia Galloway (1995: 197-199) wondered why we have this one single list of Choctaw villages when Iberville noted in his diary at the same time that the Choctaw nation had a tripartite division ("into three different villages": Margry [ed.] 1881: 519). The answer is certainly that all the autonomous Choctaw villages had an integrative form of organization, both territorial and socio-ritual, - and this diary entry shows how ancient the form is. However, it is not easy to grasp what this socio-spatial organization was exactly. This is a persistent problem with French sources from the first half of the 18th century (Balloy 2019). We can do no more than to note the discrepancies and, more radically, the very different ways each observer has of dividing up his findings – as in the lists drawn up around 1730 by the naval officers Régis Du Roullet (tripartite) and Joseph Christophe de Lusser (bipartite). It could be, however, that these divergences are not due solely to confusion on the part of the French, but that they also reflect a certain fluidity in the Choctaw's mode of political integration in the first half of the 18th century; and in the mode of combination (two terms) of a plurality of lower-level entities (three or more) characterizing this fluidity. For this reason, we should not necessarily, retrospectively, take the expression that heads the list of villages – "ougahouslasla chaqueta" – to be clear confirmation of one term or the other (inholahta / imonklasha) by which the Choctaw designated the binary division of their society5: corresponding to what 19th- and 20th-century missionaries and anthropologists would describe - on the level of the individual - as an organization by moities or, as Mary Haas (1940) concluded for the neighboring Muscogee (Creek), a semi-divided organization at the village level (Swanton 1931)6.
- 7 For the letter, see Anom 4. An English translation was published in Rowland and Sanders (eds.) 1973 (...)
10These hesitations, and the discussions they generate, are signs of the limits of our knowledge of the principles of social, political, ritual and territorial organization of Choctaw groups, in particular for the first half of the eighteenth century. This confronts us with the paradox of the insubstantiality of the knowledge concerning the Choctaw that the colonial administration intentionally gathered, while the former were forever being described as the colony's most powerful ally and safeguard. Moreover, this intriguing neglect is not restricted to the colonial administration, but extends to the missionaries, such as the Jesuit Michel Beaudouin (or Baudouin), who lived no less than twenty full years in the Choctaw village of Chicachaé (1728-1751), situated on the banks of the river that bears the same name today, the Chickasawhay (O’Neill 2003). We have chosen to reproduce an extract from a letter written by Beaudoin, dated 23 November 1732 (document 3)7. It opens with a historico-sociological overview of the Choctaw, in response to the not disinterested questions addressed to him by the French royal commissaire-ordonnateur Edmé Gatien Salmon, who had arrived in the colony in 1731. In analyzing this fragment, we can immediately grasp the state of the knowledge possessed around the 1730s about the Choctaw, by someone very closely bound up with this group. Additionally, it illustrates a particular configuration within which knowledge was produced: the investigation and information required by a newly arrived administrator. These intentions make it necessary to explain and formalize knowledge elements that are in fact constantly mobilized by the protagonists, but that would normally be largely inaccessible to historians due to lack of sources. However Beaudouin's testimony does not so much open a window transparently onto an novel reality, as reveal an uncertain knowledge. His response necessarily completes and anticipates the unformulated expectations of his interlocutor, projecting contingent motivations and assuming tactical stakes onto them - for example, the divisions between governors and those who act as intendants, or the rivalries between religious orders, priests of foreign missions, Capuchins and Jesuits. Although these motivations and stakes are external and overarching, they nonetheless shape the text.
- 8 For Du Roullet's journals, see Anom 1; Anom 3; AN 6. For partial or complete editions in translatio (...)
- 9 See the article of Musco, Ellis, and Spring in this issue.
11This type of description leads us to the diaries of officers commissioned to explore Choctaw country, and in particular, those of Du Roullet and Lusser, around 17308. Their missions, ordered by Governor Étienne de Perier, thus took place at the time of the massacre perpetrated by the Natchez in November 1729 against the French who had settled on their lands near Fort Rosalie; then during the period of military repression against the Natchez and their Chickasaw allies in particular, supported by the Choctaw, in the ensuing years (Havard 2024). Setting out from Mobile at the end of 1729, Du Roullet describes this first diplomatic itinerary in response to complaints from Choctaw chiefs regarding their disadvantageous conditions of trade, for which the commander at Mobile, Diron d’Artaguiette, seems to have been partly responsible9. Perier saw this as an opportunity to revoke the latter’s monopoly, and planned to open a permanent store for the Company in one of the Choctaw villages. Learning of the Natchez massacre, and without news of Du Roullet, Perier sent Lusser to travel through Choctaw Country and complete Du Roullet's mission, in January 1730. In the spring of 1730, Du Roullet and Lusser finally set up a trading post in the village of Haiyowʋni, the southernmost village in Choctaw Country. Du Roullet managed it until he left the colony in 1733. In 1732, Du Roullet received a new, more strictly hydrographic mission from Perier. He confirmed - for the French - the connection between the sources of the Pearl River, in the northwest of Choctaw Country, and Lake Pontchartrain, and consequently, of the latter with New Orleans. That is when Du Roullet recorded its course using a compass. The mission confirmed above all that the river was so shallow that it was unsuitable for navigation and the transport of goods for much of the year.
12These missions took place during a period of tension between the French and the Choctaw, but also between villages, which the diaries of Lusser and Du Roullet, who recount various meetings, assemblies and conversations with chiefs, allow us to follow in very fine detail, at the village or even sub-village level (Havard 2022). These tensions, while the colony was being retroceded to the Crown, were linked to the recurring difficulties experienced by the French colony in acquiring trade goods.The Choctaws' awareness of their situation as a strategic ally for the colony was, at the time, exacerbated by the decisive role they adopted against the Natchez. Thanks to them, the French would recover some of their captives - especially women and children - in the months following the massacre. In addition to the constant complaints of the chiefs - regarding the price of goods exchanged for deer skins and the annual distribution of diplomatic gifts - there were also demands for payment per piece - Natchez scalps or returned slaves - which the French considered excessive. By bluntly revealing the state of the balance of power, the Choctaws seriously damaged the French image of their own situation. On the Choctaw side, the Louisiana authorities' demand for the return of all slaves recaptured from the Natchez at all costs, on the grounds that their capture did not affect their status as servile "property," was a significant source of tension. It evolved that, in the eyes of the Choctaw, this demand was exorbitant. Between the lines, this dispute revealed very different ways of understanding captivity, spoils of war, and the practices supposedly prevailing in a balanced relationship between allies. Lastly, the presence of British traders among the Chickasaw and the increasingly insistent economic and diplomatic overtures they relayed from the colonial government of Carolina provided the Choctaw with a powerful strategic leverage for negotiation. This added to the resentment of the French colonial authorities and officers.
13In the context of this section devoted to selected documents, the status of the mission diaries as inscriptions, self-evident in itself, can be grasped more precisely from the angle of their close relationship with lists. First, because the diaries - both Du Roullet's and Lusser's - contain lists of villages, but also because the diary functions from the outset as a quasi-list. The daily entry, and the constant repetition of the same information - where? passing through which places? having exchanged with whom? - call for the list, seem to demand it as their condensed visual extension, stripped down and therefore easier to use.
14We have chosen to reproduce several of these lists of villages here. The one that concludes the mission diary of the Swiss-born Captain de Lusser (12 January – 23 March 1730) has the particularity of being divided into two parts (document 4). It is contemporary with the description provided by Beaudouin, and it appears to confirm it. Such a conclusion is, however, made problematic by the existence of another list, also reproduced here, associated with Du Roullet's diary of 1732 (document 5). This list describes a tripartite territorial organization of the Choctaw, which recalls the observation made by Iberville as early as 1702. To highlight the difficulties of interpretation raised by these lists, we propose to compare them with two other lists of Choctaw villages: one, associated with a memoir by an anonymous person – who presents himself as an Englishman who had settled in Louisiana – whose content seems to date from the 1730s (document 6; Ayer Ms 530: f. 117-118, 110-11; Swanton 1918; 1931); and the other accompanying a French map of Choctaw Country now held in Madrid, of which we know almost nothing except that it constitutes one of the most accomplished attempts at geographical representation of the villages, and was probably made around 1740 (document 7; see below).
15Lusser's list is unique in clarifying a lower territorial level, the group of villages, which is only partially echoed in the diary's text. Moreover, the list spells out most clearly the hierarchy linking the villages within a particular group. Many villages are thus characterized both as autonomous entities in their own right—possessing a chief, in particular, unlike hamlets—and as subordinate units, attached to a main village with which they form an intermediate unit.
16We also wished to highlight the toponymy or more precisely the substantial hydronymy (names given to water courses) recorded by Du Roullet and Lusser in their diaries. By making a list from the terms we extract from the latter's account (document 8), we are performing a sort of visual translation of the diary, or better, its schematic reduction, since the list form already inhabited the daily entry, virtually. It is then easier to recombine and appropriate these dissociated fragments of Choctaw discourse, for example to establish the habitual itineraries and to identify places, because, as a list, they appear more clearly as such, in their independence from the discourse that surrounds them. Thus, and partly contrary to the intentions of the French officers who recorded and preserved them, these fragments of Choctaw texts are shown to possess a linguistic and cultural value in their own right.
- 10 This is the subject of a current research project in the framework of the CNHPD.
17The list form also makes it possible to compare the place names recorded by Lusser and Du Roullet. This comparison was carried out systematically by Ryan Spring and Ian Thompson at the Choctaw Nation Historic Preservation Department (CNHPD), in order to identify as precisely as possible, via the toponyms, the itineraries and routes taken to travel between Mobile and Choctaw Country around 1730. These paths appear to have been relatively stable, which is confirmed, for later periods, by the reasearch which has identified the main Native American paths taken, on the scale of the Choctaw lands or on a regional scale (Carleton 1989 cited in Galloway 1995: 195; Halbert 1902; Brown 1902; Myer 1928). By comparing the diaries of Lusser and Du Roullet we can also deduce that the naming system for water courses was probably stable and socialized. However, within this overall stability, some historical adaptations were possible, as testified by place names referring to the horse, an animal which, in 1730, had only been introduced into Choctaw Country a couple of decades earlier at most10.
18And what justifies the omission of maps from this documentary series of inscriptions, which extends from the legible to the visible, when maps in the first half of the eighteenth century precisely seek to give form to Choctaw Country, and make it visible? When passing from text to map, part of the information is lost, but regained in part in lists. And although the simplification that occurs when passing to the more legible form of the list brings with it greater visibility, one must nonetheless concede that this is always less than what a map provides.
- 11 Gilles Havard, personal communication, March 21, 2025.
- 12 The date of 14 July must be corrected; he embarked on the Pearl River on 4 July, according to his d (...)
19Ultimately, if we only consider the instrumental aspect of the various documents presented, we can forget that whatever the potential of these tools, they do not operate in isolation. What is surprising, when we consider the case of Choctaw Country, is precisely the absence of coordinated application or imperialist reduction of all these graphic traces, in order to produce a ready-to-use synthesis. This point could be made, moreover, about other colonial spaces, signifying a more general failure to systematize information in ancien régime France. Local knowledge derived from impromptu or ephemeral inscriptions is never combined with imperial knowledge11. Beyond the unresolved discrepancies between the lists of villages, mentioned earlier, the lack of interest in integrating the network of located villages in Choctaw Country into regional maps (Galloway 1995: 205-264) is striking. We know of two handwritten maps derived directly from the hydrographic mission of 1732: one ,"of the route from Fort Mobile to the villages of the Tchaktas, surveyed by dead reckoning in 1732 on July 14 by Mr. Regis Du Roullet, Officer in the Colony" (SHD R68-71); the other, a "Map of the course of the Pearl River from Boukfouka to its mouth which is at the Dion pass opposite the Isle aux Oyes surveyed by dead reckoning on July 14, 1732 by Mr. Regis Du Roullet, Officer in the Colony" (SHD, R69-41) (document 9)12. A map from the same collection (SHD R69-42), which undoubtedly represents a later but unfinished state, should be associated with this one. Du Roullet's "report on his service record", dated April 1747 (Anom 6), states:
Mr. Perier […] instructed Sr. de Regis to explore the Pearl River […] he had a map made of it upon his arrival in Paris in 1733. This map was presented to the Count of Maurepas by the Count of Caylus, with the route from Mobile to the Pearl River, passing through the Tchactas nation that he had surveyed and which he attached to his logbook of the Pearl River, with the census of this nation which he still keeps, with the one he wrote concerning everything that happened during the five years [1729-1733] that he stayed with the Tchactas.
- 13 In Crénay's (Cresnay's) personal file, however, 1 September 1734 is the date mentioned for him taki (...)
- 14 A handwritten map by Jean-Baptiste d'Anville (BNF GE C-9905) from June 1732, however, situates Choc (...)
20Indeed, it is not clear that the SHD maps were in Du Roullet's hand; it is more probable that he had them made. We know that he "embarked with Mr Perier and Crenay in June 1733 and stayed in France" (ibid.). Du Roullet appears to have maintained close ties with the Baron of Crenay, who was lieutenant of the Mobile Fort in 1732 and until 1733. The two officers would meet up again on the boat that took them to Cayenne in 1735 (ibid.)13. It is likely that they had already established ties in Louisiana and particularly during the period when Du Roullet was on mission there, in 1732. A map attributed to the commander at Mobile, the Baron of Crenay, produced in March 1733 (Anom 7), shows the course of the Pearl River, as Du Roullet had noted it a few months earlier, passing, notably, near the village of Boucfouca. This map is certainly the result of their collaboration. It is also remarkable for its depiction of Choctaw lands. The way in which the names of the villages are transcribed does not, however, correspond at all to that used, in a relatively consistent manner, by Du Roullet in his various lists. Due to the breadth of its coverage, Crénay's map also implies a greater variety of sources used, relating to Chickasaw or Muscogee villages upstream of the Alabama River14.
- 15 The Library of Congress (Washington) holds a copy of this map made in New Orleans by Demarigny on 1 (...)
21It is in any case evident that a slightly later map, dated June 21, 1740 (SHD R69-15), produced in Louisiana by other officers - Broutin, Vergés, and Saucier - at the time of the conflict with the Chickasaw, does not include a survey of the course of the Pearl River, which flows into Lake Pontchartrain (document 10)15. Despite leaving the exact location of some of the Choctaw villages unclear, in relation to the upstream portion of the river as it is depicted, the map is one of the most accomplished attempts at transcribing knowledge of the Choctaw country onto a map in a regional perspective, even if the description of the villages is less precise than in Crénay's map.
- 16 The two cartouches in the upper corners provide a summary of the memoir.
- 17 Broutin's commentary on the map contradicts his memoir and what is otherwise known. There are in fa (...)
- 18 A map (SHD R69-43) dated 25 August 1750 is thus presented as a "reduced map based on the one that P (...)
22The section of the route calculated by dead reckoning between the Mississippi River and Fort Tombecbé, on the present Tombigbee River, via the Yazoo River and Choctaw Country, is based on a reconnaissance mission by the draftsman Saucier in January 1738, accompanied by "four soldiers and two savages" (AN 7). The diaries kept on this occasion unfortunately seem to have been lost. However, thanks to Broutin's long commentary in a memoir dated 10 June 1740, which accompanied this map16, we know that Saucier, after traveling through Choctaw Country from west to east as far as Fort Tombecbé, returned there and went down the Chickasawhay River ("Pascagoula River") to the sea "in a dugout". In 1740, In 1740, after traveling from Fort de l’Assomption to the Chickasaw villages,, Saucier went back down through Choctaw Country17. Concerning the map that Régis Du Roullet wanted, we may wonder whether it ever really circulated, since hardly had it been drawn in France when the mapmaker and academician Philippe Buache proposed his own map directly on the basis of Du Roullet's diary, and this as early as 173718.
- 19 The map is preserved in Madrid (Servicio Histórico Militar 1989, pl. 102). We do not know by which (...)
23The map by Broutin, Saucier, and Vergés clearly consolidates and integrates preparatory maps, even if it simplifies the information, particularly due to the change in scale. A stylistically very similar map, entitled "Figured plan of Tchactas villages," could well be one of these preparatory works. A handwritten remark - "this plan was made only to give an idea of the position of the villages" - and Broutin's signature, top right, suggest that he was its author19. The way in which the names of the villages are transcribed, the translations proposed, and the names of the "medalled chiefs" noted down, all point to the list compiled by Du Roullet in 1732. However, the organization of the villages into two "parts", instead of the three parts of Du Roullet's survey, remains unexplained. As we have said, the process of giving form to Choctaw Country is discontinuous and dispersed, rather than being strictly cumulative.
24So these diverse and scattered - although partly interconnected - inscriptions, that we have found in the archival repositories and presented here, speak of Choctaw Country. They refer to it, describe it, situate it, express it in maps, and give voice to its language, partly transliterated in the place names. Yet do they illustrate a process of accumulating knowledge, to serve the imperial project piloted from the headquarters of the French Navy, and which colonial agents, Navy officers, and missionaries, would carry out? Taken singly, these inscriptions are just so many signs of the attempts to acquire knowledge, and to condense it into visual or graphic form. Taken together, they reveal an incomplete, fragmentary process of knowledge building, which was tentative and never ascertained. This is due in part to the qualities, the knowledge and the methods of those who were in the field, but more fundamentally, it suggests that knowledge of Choctaw Country, its description and its representation in maps, never constituted a particular objective of French colonial power in the first half of the 18th century.
25The ship Pinachitou, the Counitouma Sea, the Great River Aquia Balbanchia, Mapoa stream, an Ianaché ox, an Issée deer, an ouloupa wolf, a nita bear, a Soulouhouba crocodile, of the Silquiy race, Tamaja village, the North Tolomé, the South oujamé, the West Scantoula, the East oucoulchac, a Lake Barta, the boat Pina" (AN 1)
26Transcription
"Since your zeal, Sir, for the good of this Colony does not confine itself to New Orléans and to the French settlements which depend upon it, but reaches to the farthest-flung forests of Louisiana in order to learn what is occurring there with the Indians, it shall be my endeavor to assist your views in this and tell you about the Choctaw amongst whom I have for many years been a missionary. To start with, I shall reply in the briefest terms to the questions you have been so good as to ask me, while anticipating that I may (218v) satisfy them at greater length and with my own voice in New Orléans where I hope shortly to pay you my most humble Respects [...].
27The Choctaw nation is the one that occupies the most territory on this continent, numbering 42 villages in which the people speak entirely the same language. All these villages are divided into two bands that the Choctaw distinguish by calling some Villages on the near side, and the others, Villages on the yonder side, of the flat marsh; however, it is not a marsh, but a large Stream, which separates all the Choctaw villages in two almost equal parts. Since this Stream runs North and South, in order to distinguish the Villages more (219) easily, we call those which are on this side of the Stream Villages of the East part, and those which are on the other side, Villages of the West Part. These villages are very strung out and distant from each other;
28Some of them are 4 or 5 leagues long. Ordinarily they are two leagues, one and a half leagues, and the smallest ones are at least half a league long; the Huts are separated by a very long stretch of Space, which is why sometimes people from the same village hardly know each other, and either because they do not know how to count, or because they enjoy deluding themselves, they have at all times and still today made themselves out to be much (219v) more numerous than they are [...].
29An interpreter who has been with them for 25 to 30 years estimates that there are 5,000 Choctaw bearing arms. But for my part, I have traveled through the largest number of Choctaw villages, and the one in which I reside is frequently visited by the Chiefs of the Nation who pass through there Continually, either to go and fetch their presents at Mobile or to go and trade in Haiyowʋni Country where they have a storehouse. And this has given me frequent opportunities to question them, and I find that according to my Calculation and the analysis I have made of the Warriors in Every Village, there are no more than 1,466 Choctaw capable of waging a Campaign.
30As for the authority (220) of the Great Chief of the Choctaw it is not of the most absolute and his power is far from despotic in his nation; each of the Villages are like little Republics in which each person does as he chooses, and moreover this dignity of the great chief of the Choctaw is not very old. It was established only 20 to 25 years ago, and in order to give the person invested with this title greater Credit he was given a very Large present every year, which he shared with the different Chiefs of the main Choctaw Villages, whom he thereby bound to him, and kept them supporting his interests. But ever since the French began multiplying their (220v) presents, those who receive them directly from the French no longer care much about the great Chief of their nation, whose power they do not fear [...].
31The Choctaw seem well disposed toward us, especially the Chickasaw and Conchas, who will never abandon the loyalty they owe the French.
32The Choctaw were previously called the Choctaw of the Prairie, and numbered ten large villages; then the English waged a cruel war against them through their allies, whom they gave firearms whereas the Choctaw and Conchas only had bows and arrows. Since the parties were unequal (221) they lost more than two thousand warriors, and would have been totally defeated if they had not abandoned their former Villages and had not implored the protection of M de Bienville who was the commander at Mobile and who received them with kindness, and gave them presents of firearms and munitions. With this help they managed to fight off their enemies; but M de Bienville did not only give them the means to defend themselves, he also wished to establish peace in the Choctaw nation, which the English had completely divided. To this end, he sent an interpreter to the main village of the Choctaw to tell the Beloved men of the nation (for [221v] at that time there was not yet a great Chief) that he was taking the Conchas and the Chicachaé under his protection, and had given them his friendship, and that although they were not large in number, sure of the protection of the French they could hold their heads high and would not be laid low by the efforts of the English, nor of their allies, nor even of the Choctaw if they persisted in harrassing them; and that he did not understand what their intentions could be in thus making War on those of their own Nation.
33This speech intimidated the Tchacta and strengthened the courage of the Conchas who resolved (222) to go to Coentchito, the main Choctaw village, to pillage the English who had established a storehouse there, which they carried out without the partisans of the English daring to oppose this. They went from there to Castacha where the English had a second storehouse and they did the same thing. The Choctaw understood that the Conchas were no longer minded to be accomodating if they continued to receive the English, and fearing that there would be war with the French if they did not adhere to the sentiments of M. de Bienville, and in order to deserve his goodwill it was decided to cut off the head of Conchak Emikko, the most eminent (222v) man among the Choctaw, who had brought the English there and absolutely wanted to keep them in his nation. Chikacha Oulacta (an uncle of the great Chief of the Choctaw currently in office) took on this mission and executed it successfully. He went to find M. de Bienville, promised him inviolable loyalty and the head of Conchak Emikko, assuring him that the latter was the only person in the Nation who had been opposed to his sentiments, and that from now on he would always find the Choctaw perfectly submissive to French orders; Chicacha Oulakta was made great Chief of the Nation and this was the first great Chief to be created and recognized (223) as such by the French.
34Great generosity was extended to the Choctaw leaders who had accompanied him, and all returned perfectly content [...]."
Du 12 janvier au 25 janvier 1730
|
Date in De Lusser’s journal
|
Place name recorded by De Lusser
|
French translation (in quotation marks) or description of each place name given by De Lusser
|
Type of place
|
|
12 janvier 1730
|
La Mobile
|
|
Fort français
|
|
Chactaële
|
|
|
|
13 janvier
|
toponyme non relevé
|
Cedrière
|
|
|
non relevé
|
Fourche des deux chemins des Ouanis
|
|
|
14 janvier
|
Boucchito
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Loucfeata
|
|
|
|
15 janvier
|
Boucchito
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
non relevé
|
Prairie de cannes
|
|
|
Kintabouc
|
« Bayou du Castor »
|
|
|
non relevé
|
« Bayou au gros cyprès »
|
|
|
Petit Scatapé
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
16 janvier
|
Grand Scatapé (12 toises de large)
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Iteatchaco
|
« Le bois bleu »
|
|
|
non relevé
|
Butte
|
|
|
17 janvier
|
non relevé
|
Prairies où les chasseurs allument des feux
|
|
|
Inafalacto
|
« Les deux chemins »
|
|
|
18 janvier
|
Yanache founichiny
|
« Os des natchez » (sic, yanatche signifie bison)
|
|
|
Kalebichakalé
|
« Les neuf sources d’eau »
|
|
|
non relevé
|
Pinière
|
|
|
Ouctaaymoulanya
|
Prairie tremblante
|
|
|
Chouchoubachoulouc
|
« Le trou au crococodille (sic) »
|
|
|
19 janvier
|
non relevé
|
15 cours d’eau sans noms
|
|
|
Bacatané
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
non relevé
|
Prairie de cannes très hautes (1/2 l de longueur)
|
|
|
20 janvier
|
|
|
Pinière
|
|
non relevé
|
15 cours d’eau sans noms
|
|
|
non relevé
|
« La mauvaise eau »
|
Bayouc
|
|
21 janvier
|
Ouanis
|
|
Village
|
|
24 janvier
|
|
|
|
|
Ouskichito
|
« Les grosses cannes »
|
|
|
Ayayabouc
|
|
|
|
25 janvier
|
non relevé
|
« Cannes jaunes »
|
Bayouc
|
|
Konapa
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Apeleboucouchi
|
Abattis de bois (tempête)
|
|
|
Octibya
|
|
Bayouc, petite rivière
|
|
Chacchibou
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Acéhouchy
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Chicachaé
|
|
Rivière
|
|
Chicachaé
|
|
Village
|
Du 16 février au 24 février 1730
|
Date du journal de Lusser
|
Toponymes relevés par Lusser
|
Traduction du toponyme (entre guillemets) ou description données par Lusser
|
Type de lieu
|
|
16 février 1730
|
Chicachaé
|
|
Village
|
|
non relevé
|
Chênière
|
|
|
17 février
|
non relevé
|
Montagne (sic, pour contourner Octibya)
|
|
|
|
|
Nombreux cours d’eau « faciles », sans noms
|
|
Cipsi
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Ouscoubo
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
18 février
|
Chaouacha
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
non relevé
|
(terrain marécageux, l’oblige à descendre de cheval, sur 1/2 l)
|
|
|
Accipanya
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
|
|
Ruisseaux sans nom
|
|
Concha
|
|
Village
|
|
20 février
|
Concha
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Okeloussa
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Okeloussa
|
|
Village
|
|
Yajoux
|
|
Village
|
|
Oulictacha
|
|
Village
|
|
Chukinatcha
|
Affluent de rivière chicachaé, à 1 journée de là
|
bayou
|
|
Bouctoucoula
|
|
Village
|
|
22 février
|
Loucfeata
|
Au milieu d’une plaine
|
Village
|
|
Couenchito
|
|
Village
|
|
non relevé
|
Cyprière
|
|
|
Yanabe
|
|
Village
|
|
Okeloussa
|
|
Village
|
|
23 février
|
Bachalouccha
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Accipanya
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Itechouca
|
« Rat de loin »
|
Bayouc
|
|
|
Pays de châtaigniers, noyers, collines et terre noire
|
|
|
24 février
|
non relevé
|
Plaine
|
|
|
non relevé
|
Montagnes
|
|
|
Appellé
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Inalechas
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
non relevé
|
Montagnes de pierre à chaux
|
|
|
Petit Octibya
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Grand Octibya
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Chicachaé
|
|
Rivière
|
|
Chicachaé
|
|
Village
|
Du 5 mars au 23 mars 1730
|
Date du journal de Lusser
|
Toponymes relevés par Lusser
|
Traduction du toponyme (entre guillemets) ou description données par Lusser
|
Type de lieu
|
|
5 mars 1730
|
Chicachaé
|
|
Village
|
|
Souloüe
|
Bords vaseux, à pic
|
Petite rivière
|
|
Nitabouc
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Natchoubananya
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Natchoubananya
|
|
Village (sur la gauche)
|
|
non relevé
|
« Un conchac difficile pour les chevaux »
|
Prairie de cannes
|
|
Cheniacha
|
|
Village
|
|
Cannes jaunes
|
|
Village
|
|
non relevé
|
Chez Ougoulapissania, chef
|
Cabane
|
|
6 mars
|
Cannes jaunes
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Oucchouty
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Boucfilamé
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
non relevé
|
« La boue qui donne son nom au village de Tala »
|
Marais ?
|
|
Tala
|
|
Village
|
|
Faktlapalé
|
|
?
|
|
Okeata
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
7 mars
|
Tchanké
|
|
|
|
non relevé
|
Petit bayou, difficile, terre tremblante
|
|
|
Bistacha
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Bistacha
|
|
Village
|
|
Mougoulacha
|
Sur une éminence, entouré de prairies
|
Village
|
|
Okeoullou
|
Sur un coteau, en prairie
|
Village
|
|
Boucfouca
|
« Grand village entouré de quantité de Bayoucs »
|
|
|
8 mars
|
Kastacha
|
|
Village
|
|
9 mars
|
non relevé
|
Bois, prairies, collines, très agréable
|
|
|
Kafetalaya
|
|
Village
|
|
10 mars
|
Mougoulacha
|
|
Village
|
|
Chanké
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
11 mars
|
Fokettélapalé
|
|
Village
|
|
Okeata
|
|
Village
|
|
Tala
|
|
Village
|
|
Cheniacha
|
|
Village
|
|
12 mars
|
Chicachaé
|
|
Village
|
|
13 mars
|
Cheniacha
|
|
Village
|
|
14 mars
|
Cannes jaunes
|
|
Village
|
|
non relevé
|
Grande place (assemblée)
|
|
|
Nacchoubanonanya
|
|
Village
|
|
non relevé
|
Ravine
|
|
|
Nacchoubananya
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Nitaboue
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
15 mars
|
Chicachaé
|
|
Village
|
|
17 mars
|
non relevé
|
Grosses cannes
|
|
|
18 mars
|
Ouanis
|
|
Village
|
|
19 mars
|
Loucfeata
|
|
Village
|
|
20 mars
|
Bacatanée
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
non relevé
|
Prairie tremblante
|
|
|
21 mars
|
non relevé
|
« Bois bleu »
|
|
|
Grand Scatapé
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
Petit Scatapé
|
|
Bayouc
|
|
22 mars
|
Boucchito
|
|
|
|
23 mars
|
non relevé
|
Grande cedrière
|
|
|
La Mobile
|
|
Fort français
|
The author wishes to thank the editors of this issue, Paz Nuñez-Regueiro and Jonas Musco, as well as Gilles Havard for their advice and generous feedback on earlier versions of this text.
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