Family Ties: the Chartiers of Pennsylvania

At the same time as Madame Montour began a trading and interpreting career that would sustain her descendants for a generation, another Metis family was putting down roots in Pennsylvania.

Martin Chartier (1655-1818) was born in France and learned the glove-making trade.  He immigrated to Quebec and decided that exploring the frontier was more exciting.  In 1674, he accompanied Joliette on the first of several expeditions into Illinois.  He later joined La Salle's expedition and helped build Forts Miami and Crevecoeur.  In 1680, a mutiny broke out at Crevecouer, which was burned to the ground.  Chartier was implicated in the mutiny and fled.

He found refuge with the Shawnee, the Pekowi band led by Straight Tail Meaurroway Opessa. Through another line, Opessa would be an ancestor of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa. Opessa gave his daughter Sewatha as Martin's wife and she bore him, among others, his son Pierre (1690-1759).

Martin and Sewatha migrated with their family, keeping up with her Shawnee relatives and following the fur trade.  He eventually established a trading post with his son Pierre. Pierre married another Opessa woman, with the unusual name of Blancniege, which literally means Snow White.  They had several children of their own.

Throughout his life on the frontier, Pierre had seen the terrible effects of alcohol on Natives. Unscrupulous trsders and Indian agents plied Natives with alcohol and used their inebriated state to force agreements to unfavorable trade or even land concessions.  Responsible Shawnee leaders saw it, too, and asked Martin to approach Colonial authorities and put a stop to the practice.

Martin stepped into a political perfect storm. Colonial officials benefitted as much from the fur trade as anyone else, through kickbacks from traders to encourage politicians to turn a blind eye to what was going on.  Martin's stance also angered traders themselves, for whom alcohol was one of their more lucrative items. Unlicensed traders poured into Shawnee country.  Some Native leaders tried confiscating and smashing liquor kegs, which only increased the tension.

Martin realized the Colonial officials in Pennsylvania would never do more than pass a law permitting Native leaders to destroy alcohol if they objected to it.  Authorities were unwilling to stop the illegal traders from smuggling in whiskey in the first place.  Martin led his mother's people from Pennsylvania to Kentucky to escape the more unscrupulous traders, finally settling in Old Shawneetown in Illinois.

He offered his services to the French during the French and Indian War and his sons led Shawnee warriors on behalf of the French and against the British during Pontiac's War. Chartier descendants are spread throughout Canada and the Northeastern United States today.