offending village, and falling upon them in cold-blooded treachery, obliged them to give up their aged chief, whose head he had demanded of his people.
Some years after this affair, the tyranny and injustice of the Sieur de Chopart, who commanded the post of Natchez, had nearly proved fatal to the whole of the French settlement in Louisiana. Soon after arriving at the post, he projected forming an eminent settlement, in order to gratify his ambition, and amongst all the situations which he examined, none could satisfy him but the village of the White Apple, which was not less than a square league in extent. The commandant, without further ceremony, ordered the chief to remove his huts and his people, as soon as possible, to some other quarter. To which the Sun of the Apple deliberately replied, that his ancestors had lived in that village for almost as many years as there were hairs in his head, and that therefore they had a just right to continue there unmolested.
The Sun, without making any impression on the mind of the inexorable Chopart, withdrew, and assembled the council of his village, who represented to the commandant that, at present, their corn was only shooting, and if now neglected, would be lost both to themselves and the French, who were not numerous enough to tend it. But this excuse, though just and reasonable, was menacingly rejected.
At length, the old men proposed to the commandant, to be allowed to remain in their village until harvest, and to have time to dry their corn, on condition, that each hut of the village should pay, at a time appointed, a basket of corn and a fowl, a measure which would also afford them {280} time to deliberate on some method of delivering themselves from the tyranny of the French.
