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Father Louis Vivier, a Jesuit missionary at Kaskaskia, wrote in 1750 that "the brandy sold by the French, especially by the soldiers, in spite of the King's repeated prohibitions, and that which is sometimes distributed to them under the pretext of maintaining them in our interest, has ruined this mission, and has caused the majority of them to abandon our holy Religion. The Savages - and especially the Illinois, who are the gentlest and most tractable of men - become, when intoxicated, madmen and wild beasts. Then they fall upon one another, stab with their knives, and tear one another. Many have lost their ears, and some a portion of their noses, in these tragic encounters." (389) "The Depopulation of the Illinois Indians. Part 2, Concluded" (1956) |