The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of
The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton, by Antoine Simon Maillard

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Title: An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton

Author: Antoine Simon Maillard

Release Date: April 6, 2005 [EBook #15567]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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AN

ACCOUNT

OF THE

CUSTOMS and MANNERS

OF THE

MICMAKIS and MARICHEETS

SAVAGE NATIONS,

Now Dependent on the

Government of CAPE-BRETON.

FROM

An Original French Manuscript-Letter,

Never Published,

Written by a French Abbot,

Who resided many Years, in quality of Missionary, amongst them.

To which are annexed,

Several Pieces, relative to the Savages, to Nova

Scotia, and to North-America in general.

* * * * *

LONDON:

Printed for S. Hooper and A. Morley at Gay's-Head,
near Beaufort-Buildings in the Strand. MDCCLVIII.

PREFACE.

For the better understanding of the letter immediately following, it may
not be unnecessary to give the reader some previous idea of the people
who are the subject of it, as well of the letter-writer.

The best account of the _Mickmakis_ I could find, and certainly the most
authentic, is in a memorial furnished by the French ministry in April,
1751, from which the following paragraph is a translated extract:

"The government of the savages dependent on Cape-Breton exacts a
particular attention. All these savages go under the name of
_Mickmakis_. Before the last war they could raise about six hundred
fighting-men, according to an account given in to his most Christian
majesty, and were distributed in several villages established on
Cape-Breton island, island of St. John, on both the coasts of Acadia
(Nova-Scotia) and on that of Canada. All, or most of the inhabitants of
these villages have been instructed in the Christian religion, b