Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
But the craze for gold was now at fever-heat, and they had little notion of keeping faith with mere savages. Outina promised Vasseur, Laudonnière's lieutenant, that if he would join him against Potanou, the chief of a third tribe, each of his vassals would reward the French with a heap of gold and silver two feet high. So, at least, Vasseur professed to understand him.
Outina, taught by Arlac the efficacy of the French fire-arms, begged for ten arquebusiers to aid him on a new raid among the villages of Potanou, again alluring his greedy allies by the assurance, that, thus reinforced, he would conquer for them a free access to the phantom gold mines of Appalache. Ottigny set forth on this fool's errand with thrice the force demanded.
Ragged, squalid, and emaciated, they dragged themselves about the fort, digging roots or gathering any plant that might stay the gnawings of hunger. They had made enemies of their neighbors, Satouriona and his people; and Outina, for whom they had done so much, sent them only a meagre supply of corn, with a demand for more help in fighting his enemies.
The French had been unfortunate in their dealings with the Indians. They had alienated old friends in vain attempts to make new ones. Vasseur, with the Swiss ensign Arlac, a sergeant, and ten soldiers, went up the river early in September to carry back the two prisoners to Outina.
He told them that he was one of the forty vassal chiefs of the great Outina, lord of all the Thimagoas, whose warriors wore armor of gold and silver plate. He told them, too, of Potanou, his enemy, "a man cruell in warre;" and of the two kings of the distant Appalachian Mountains, Onatheaqua and Houstaqua, "great lords and abounding in riches."
His old enemy, Satouriona, keen as a hound on the scent of prey, tried, by great offers, to bribe Laudonniere to give Outina into his hands; but the French captain refused, treated his prisoner kindly, and assured him of immediate freedom on payment of the ransom.
The French officers grew anxious, and urged the chiefs to greater alacrity in collecting the promised ransom. The answer boded no good: "Our women are afraid when they see the matches of your guns burning. Put them out, and they will bring the corn faster." Outina was nowhere to be seen. At length they learned that he was in one of the small huts adjacent.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking