6 Interpreters
Interpreters help us communicate with individuals who speak a language different from our own. Interpreters work locally, with police, hospitals and social workers. They work nationally and internationally through Customs, the State Department, the United Nations, as well as within business, industry and tourism. Interpreters are just as important today as they were throughout the colonial period. From the time of Cartier’s arrival in the early 16th century on into the 19th century, interpreters of any number of cultures helped Native peoples and the French communicate through words when possible.
As Marquette and Jolliet journeyed south to meet the Quapaws, they attempted to find an interpreter to help them verbally communicate with this Arkansas nation: “We embarked early on the following day [from the Mitchigameas], with our interpreter; a canoe containing ten [people] went a short distance ahead of us. When we arrived within half a league of the Akamsea [Arkansas], we saw two canoes coming to meet us.” Their hope was that the Mitchigamea man, whom they had recruited, spoke enough Illinois to help them interact peacefully in their first encounter with the Quapaws. But their confidence was quickly dashed as his language skills could not support their translation needs. Though signs quickly became their initial mode of communication, “We fortunately found there a Young man who understood Illinois much better than did The Interpreter whom we had brought from Mitchigamea. Through him, I spoke at first to the whole assembly by The usual presents,” another example of gifts as words. “They admired what I said to Them about God and the mysteries of our holy faith. They manifested a great desire to retain me among them, that I might instruct Them.”[1]
Along the Mississippi, the French often relied on interpreters who spoke the Illinois language to mediate communication between the French and many of those with whom they interacted. Jolliet, “a young man, born in this country [New France],” knew the Illinois language well enough to interact with others who could fluently interpret the language.[2] Even some 30 years after Marquette and Jolliet, Henri de Tonti also turned to an Illinois interpreter when he strove to convince the Chickasaws that he and Iberville longed for regional calm. Initially, de Tonti invited the Chickasaw chief to travel to the French fort at Mobile to secure a peace accord but the Chief refused to comply. Only after the Frenchman secured an Indian who spoke Illinois and could interpret from French to Illinois to the Muskogean language (a form of “chain interpretation) did the Chief became convinced of the legitimacy of de Tonti’s request. Eventually, the Frenchmen and several Chickasaws, Choctaws, Mobilians and Tohomés journeyed south to meet with Iberville. Once at Mobile, all were welcomed with food, gifts and desires for peace.[3]
Chain Interpretation was “a burdensome arrangement in which European explorers depe