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The Sauks and Foxes, the Mascoutins, Kickapoos and Miamis, as has been described, held the Fox and Wisconsin route to the West, the natural and easy highway to the Mississippi, as La Hontan calls it. Green Bay commanded this route, as La Pointe de Chagouamigon commanded the Lake Superior route to the Bois Brulé and the St. Croix.
The eminent intendant, Talon, appears to have immediately understood the importance of the discovery which had been made by the interpreter and trader, Jean Nicolet, of Three Rivers, who, before the death of Champlain, probably in 1634, ventured into the region of the lakes, and heard of "a great water" no doubt the Mississippi while among the Mascoutins, a branch of the Algonquin stock, whose villages were generally found in the valley of the Fox River.
Jesuit Relations, 1660, and Radisson's Journal. These "people of the fire," or Mascoutins, were in three regions, Wisconsin, Nebraska, on the Missouri. Benjamin Sulte unequivocally states that the river was the Mississippi. Of writers contemporaneous with Radisson, the Jesuits, Marie de l'Incarnation, and Charlevoix corroborate Radisson's account.
Two of the most noteworthy of these coureurs de bois, or wood-rangers, were Radisson and Groseilliers. In 1660 they returned to Montreal with 300 Algonquins and sixty canoes laden with furs, after a voyage in which they visited, among other tribes, the Pottawattomies, Mascoutins, Sioux, and Hurons, in Wisconsin. From the Hurons they learned of the Mississippi, and probably visited the river.
This must have been a country far west of the Mandans and Mascoutins and within sight of at least the Bad Lands, or that stretch of rough country between the prairie and outlying foothills of the Rockies.
It is ignorance of this fact that has created such bitter and childish controversy about the exact direction taken by Radisson west-north-west of the Mascoutins. The exact words of the document in the Marine Department are; "In the lower Missipy there are several other nations very numerous with whom we have no commerce who are trading yet with nobody.
He addressed a word into the crowd of indistinguishable figures, and an Indian came forward. Dim as the light was I was impressed with the dignity of his carriage, the firm character of his facial outline. "I am Sequitah, Chief of the Mascoutins," he said gravely, "for whom the white chief sent." De Artigny stepped forth, standing as erect as the other.
The Menomonies were on the river which bears their name; the Pottawattamies and Winnebagoes were near the borders of the bay; the Sacs on Fox River; the Mascoutins, Miamis, and Kickapoos, on the same river, above Lake Winnebago; and the Outagamies, or Foxes, on a tributary of it flowing from the north.
Among the tribes enumerated as dealing with the Ottawas are the Sioux, Satiks, Pottawattomies, Winnebagoes, Menomonees and Mascoutins all Wisconsin Indians at this time.
In 1692 the Mascoutins, who attributed the death of some of their men to Perrot, plundered his goods, and the Foxes soon entered into negotiation with the Iroquois. Frontenac expressed great apprehension lest with their allies on the Fox and Wisconsin route they should remove eastward and come into connection with the Iroquois and the English, a grave danger to New France.
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