Page 242 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

238 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.
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I are referred to as allies of Foxes, and the fact that since they
have been well known by the whites, they have been in that al-
3 liance, may have led writers, when speaking of the Foxes, to
I associate the Sauks with them, though alluding to events which
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occurred before that alliance took place.
CARVER says: "About eighty years ago the Fox river was
the residence of the united bands of Outagamies (Foxes,) and
the Saukies." This, from 1766, would carry them back to
1686, which agrees with the known occupancy of that point by
the Foxes. But in 1712 and 1714, the Foxes are mentioned
without any reference to the alliance; nor is such alliance men-
tioned until 1746, and then only incidentally, which makes it
probable that it applied only to the Foxes, and that CARVER
associated them, at that back date, by mistake, because they
were associated when he saw them, and it is probable, also,
that other writers who have associated them at a period prior
a
to that fixed by BLACK HAWK for the alliance, have fallen into
I the same error, and from the same cause. After as careful and
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thorough sifting of the matter as tlie means at hand will enable
1
me to do, I am inclined to favor BLACK HAWK'S dates, as to
the time of their coming to Green Bay."
After their alliance with the Foxes, both of them appeared
to have been as t,roublesome to their neighbors as before.
They were driven by the French and Indians from the Fox
to the Wisconsin river in 1746, according to GRIGNON'S Recol-
lections. But it seems from one of CARVER'B dates that they
were on the Wisconsin river as early as 1736. But these dates
go back too far, to agree with the time of emigration from
Quebec, (1759) It was, therefore, either the Foxes alone,
1 referred tb in these last dates, or there is an error in them.
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CARVER found the Sauks on the Wisconsin river in 1766, seven

i *It is not safe, as a general rule. to discard historic records, and give place
1
to mere tradition. It is peculiarly so in this instance. CHA~LBVOIX, a truth-
ful historian, visited Green Bay in 1720, and speaks in his published Letters
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of that date, of the Sauks and their viliages in such a way as to convey the
idea that they had long been occupants of the country. L. C. D.