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}} Fort Ouiatenon, built in 1717, was the first fortified European settlement in what is now called Indiana.〔("Fort Ouiatenon History," Tippecanoe County Historical Association )〕 It was a French trading post on the Wabash River located approximately three miles southwest of modern-day West Lafayette.〔 Encyclopædia Britannica Online s. v. "(West Lafayette )," http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9076617?query=Wabash&ct= (Accessed May 17, 2006).〕 The name 'Ouiatenon' is a French rendering of the name in the Wea language, ''waayaahtanonki'', meaning 'place of the whirlpool'. Every year a reenactment of pioneer life is held at the now rebuilt fort called Feast of the Hunters' Moon. ==French period== Fort Ouiatenon was originally constructed by the Government of New France as a military outpost to protect against Great Britain’s western expansion. Its location among the unsettled woodlands of the Wabash River valley also made it a key center of trade for fur trappers. French merchants and trappers from Quebec would arrive at Fort Ouiatenon in search of beaver pelts and to take advantage of trade relations with the native Wea Indian tribes. In 1717, Ensign François Picote de Beletre (related to another Picoté de Bélestre, see Adam Dollard des Ormeaux) arrived at the mouth of the Tippecanoe and Wabash with four soldiers, three men, a blacksmith and supplies to trade with the nearby Wea people, an Algonquian-speaking nation closely related to the Miami people. They built a stockade on the Wabash, eighteen miles below the mouth of the Tippecanoe. François-Marie Bissot, the Sieur de Vincennes assumed command of the fort sometime in the 1720s. The French settled on the north bank, with Wea villages on the south bank.〔Cayton, 5, 7.〕 The boundary between the French colonies of Louisiana and Canada, although inexact in the first years of the settlement, was decreed in 1745 to run between Ouiatenon and Fort Vincennes. In order to convince the Wea to trade exclusively with the French, the Governor-General of New France, Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil, issued permits for trade at Ouiatenon. Traders immediately began to bring a steady flow of goods to the new town.〔Cayton, 5.〕 Soon the officials in Louisiana sent more men to help Vincennes to hold the Wabash River.〔Cayton, 18〕 Ouiatenon was described as "the finest palisaded fort in the upper country," and was one of the most successful trading posts in the region.〔Allison, 25〕 At its peak level of activity during the mid-18th century, Fort Ouiatenon may have supported over 3,000 residents,〔Allison, 26〕 and it was central to a hub of five Wea and two Kickapoo villages.〔Allison, 25–26〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fort Ouiatenon」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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