Mr. Sulte's
explanation is as follows: Sebastien Hayet of St. Malo married Madeline
Henault. Their daughter Marguerite married Chouart, known as
Groseillers. Madeline Henault then married Pierre Esprit Radisson of
Paris, whose children were Pierre, our hero, and two daughters.
[4] A despatch from M. Talon in 1666 shows there were 461 families in
Three Rivers. State papers from the Minister to M. Frontenac in 1674
show there were only 6705 French in all the colony. Averaging five a
family, there must have been 2000 people at Three Rivers. Fear of the
Iroquois must have driven the country people inside the fort, so that
the population enrolled was larger than the real population of Three
Rivers. Sulte gives the normal population of Three Rivers in 1654 as
38 married couples, 13 bachelors, 38 boys, 26 girls--in all not 200.
[5] At first flush, this seems a slip in _Radisson's Relation_. Where
did the Mohawks get their guns? _New York Colonial Documents_ show
that between 1640 and 1650 the Dutch at Fort Orange had supplied the
Mohawks alone with four hundred guns.
[6] One of many instances of Radisson's accuracy in detail. All tribes
have a trick of browning food on hot stones or sand that has been taken
from fire. The Assiniboines gained their name from this practice: they
were the users of "boiling stones."
[7] I have asked both natives and old fur-traders what combination of
sounds in English most closely resembles the Indian war-cry, and they
have all given the words that I have quoted.
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