BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY


whom was one of the murderers of St. Cosme. He was made an
example of by being beaten to death and having his body thrown into
the sea after the scalp had been removed.a
 According to Penicaut, St. Denis in 1705 made another expedition
against the Chitimacha, accompanied by 15 French soldiers and 80
Acolapissa and Natchitoches Indians. They ascended Bayou La
Fourche, "the river of the Chitimachas," as it was then called, but
on the way fell in with a party of Chitimacha, of whom they took
20 women and children prisoners. The rest escaped, however, and
carried the alarm to their village, rendering it necessary for the
expedition to return without proceeding farther.b
 No such expedition is referred to by La Harpe at or near the time
given by Penicaut, but bearing in mind the complete jumble of
P6nicaut's chronology the writer is inclined to believe that this
statement really applies to an event which happened much earlier;
in fact, five years before the Chitimacha war broke out. La Harpe
narrates it as follows:
 The 10th of August M. de Bienville learned that M. de Saint-Denis, in con-
cert with some Canadians and savages, had made an attack on one of the na-
tions allied to us in order to procure slaves. Hle gave orders for them to be
restored, but these orders were badly executed.c
 This would perhaps explain P6nicaut's statement immediately fol-
lowing that some time afterward M. de Saint-Denis, whether he
had received some cause for discontent or did not like to be shut up,
went with 12 Frenchmen to live at Biloxi." On the other hand, it
might have been connected with the sudden abandonment by Saint-
Denis of his projected expedition against the Koroa and Yazoo, which
belongs to the year 1704,d the year before that in which P6nicaut
places this retirement of Saint-Denis.
 Although no more French expeditions are recorded against this
tribe, it appears that they were continually harried by war parties of
Indians in alliance with the French, and retired into the most inac-
cessible parts of their country near the sea, which is intersected by a
network of bayous. On account of this long-drawn-out war the
greater portion of the Indian slaves in Louisiana in early days be-
longed to the Chitimacha nation. Finally, in 1718, the annoyances
occasioned settlers by Chitimacha war parties determined Bienville
to put an end to the disturbance. The manner in which peace was
effected is told with most detail by P6nicaut, who claims to have
performed a principal part in bringing it about. His narrative is
as follows:
 SLa Harpe, Jour. Hist., 102; Decouvertes, Margry, v, 433-435. La Harpe says they
carried away ten cabins."
 b Margry, Decouvertes, v, 460.
 SLa Harpe, Jour. Hist., 73.
 d See pp. 310-311.


[BULL. 43