CHARLES DIEL (2) and MARIE ANNE PICARD were the parents of:

CHARLES JOSEPH DIEL (4)

dob: 29 JAN 1722
pob: Lapririe, Quebec
dom: 15 JAN 1746
pom: Ste. Anne de Bellevue Parish, Montreal
dod: 1757 or 1759
spouse:FELICITE SAUVE dit LAPLANTE

father: Pierre Sauve Laplante
mother: Marie Louise Ranger Laviolette
dob: 21 JUL 1727
pob: Bout-de-l'Ile, Québec
dod: 16 OCT 1759
pod: Bout-de-l'Ile
buried: 17 OCT 1759
text: Felicite Sauve Laplante married Jean Baptiste Crete 08 JAN 1757 and died 16 OCT 1759. If Charles Diel (4)
died in 1757, it could not have been more than a week before Felicite's marriage to Jean Baptiste on 08 JAN 1757. text:  Charles Joseph was hired on several occasions to go west as a voyageur or engagé in the traite des fourrures or fur trade to acquire pelts from the Indians in exchange for goods manufactured in France as the two previous generations of Diels had done. Charles Joseph's two brothers, Antoine and Eustache, were also very active the the fur trade.

These are some of Charles Joseph's expeditions:

• 01 MAY1747, he signed up with Pierre Julien Trotier to go to Ouatanon (Ouiatenon), Indiana along the Wabash River.
• 01 JUN 1751, he signed up with Louis St. Ange Charly to go to the outpost at Michilimackinac, better known today as
                          Mackinac, Michigan. The original fort at Michilimackinac was moved to Mackinac.
• 06 MAY 1755, he signed up with Francois Joliet to return to the outpost at Michilimackinac.

CHARLES DIEL (4) and FELICITE SUAVE dit LAPLANTE were the parents of:

(1) Charles Diel (5)

dob: 16 OCT 1746
dod: 08 JUL 1813
dom: about 1773
spouse: Elisabeth Clermond Dubord

This is probably the Charles Guiele/Guaile/Diel listed by the George Rogers Clark Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, Vincennes, Indiana, as "one of the Patriots buried in the Old Cathedral French and Indian Cemetery, Knox County, Vincennes, Indiana".

(2) Marie Louise, b. 01 DEC 1748
(3) Marie Genevieve, b. 20 APR 1750
(4) Marie Charlotte, b. ???

Were there more children?

CHARLES DIEL (5) and Elisabeth Clermond Dubord were the parents of:

1) Charles Diel (Guielle) (6),

The second entry on Page 1 of the St. Francis Xavier Parish Register, volume 1774-1786 states:

"The same year (1774), the 5th of September, I baptised privately with the intention of our mother Church, Charles (6), born the same day of the legitimate wedlock of Charles (5) Guielle and Elizabeth Clarmond. He had for godfather Thomas La Riviere and for godmother Marguerite Clermond, who said they could not sign..."

dob: 05 SEP 1774
pob: St. Francis Xavier Parish, Vincennes, Indiana
dod: ?
pod: ?
dom: 04 APR 1796
pom: Vincennes, Knox, Indiana.
spouse: Marie Helene Cara (Jacqneau) (Jacob) Marie Helen Cara (Jacqneau) (Jacob)

dob: 1782
pob: Vincennes, Knox, Indiana
dom: 4 Apr 1796
pom: Vincennes, Knox, Indiana
dod: 01 NOV 1796
spouse: Charles Guiel
father: Etienne JACQNEAU (Jacco) (Jacques)
mother: Marie Louise Carron Cara
Child: Charles, born 02 MAY 1796.
text: * see 'More about Charles (6)' below

2) Genevieve,  b. 21 AUG 1776 Fort Vincennes
3) Eustache,    b. 16 SEP 1778 Fort Vincennes
4) Louis,          b. 21 SEP 1781 Fort Vincennes
5) Dominique,  b. 12 JAN 1784 Fort Vincennes
6) Ursule,        b. 12 JAN 1784 Fort Vincennes
7) Josephine Guelle is listed on Familysearch.org (LDS) as the daughter of Charles and Elisabeth Clermond
    Dubord with no date of birth and also as the spouse of Francois Joseph Turpin, b. 20 OCT 1777. They
    were married 14 JUL 1805 in St. Francois Xavier Church, Vincennes.

*More about Charles Guiel (6) and Marie Helene Cara (Jacqneau) (Jacob)

According to research by Bridgett Williams-Searle, Department of History, College of St. Rose, Albany, NY, who specializes in the history of southern Indiana, Charles (6) married Marie Helene Cara 04 APR 1796 as recorded in the register of St. Francis-Xavier Parish, page 359.

On 02 MAY 1796, Charles and Marie Helene had a son also named Charles (7). Charles (5), the grandfather, acted also as godfather. The godmother was Marie Louise Cara, a Piankshaw woman and mother of the bride. Marie Helene died 01 NOV 1796, seven months after marrying Charles. (St. Francis-Xavier Parish Records, vol. 1796 - 1808, p. 12)

Marie Louise Cara was a Piankshaw woman who had been enslaved but became free in the early 1780s, certainly before Marie Helene was born in 1782. Marie Louise was apparently very pious and much respected, since she often appears in the parish register as godmother.

Marie Helene took her mother's name -- Cara, not Carron -- as was the fashion among the Piankshaw. There was a Marie Louise Carron in Vincennes as well, but that's a different person altogether. (I was making the same mistake for a while until they both showed up at someone's baptism...) Marie Helene is never listed as Jacqneau.

The father of the bride was Etienne Jacques, also known as Jacco or Jacques Panis^*. He was also an Indian slave who had belonged to Jean Baptiste Vaudry in the 1770s. He had received his freedom in 1781 and had gotten a land concession in 1785 from the Vincennes court. He received a Donation Tract (#13) from Acting Governor Winthrop Sargent in 1790 because he was the head of a family in Vincennes in 1783.

* NOTE: Panis became the word for Indian slave early in the 18th century when French traders started trading guns along the Missouri in exchange for slaves. Apparently the Pawnee being agriculturalists were easy pickings compared to the more war-like tribes. So many of them were transported to the eastern side of the Mississippi that their name became the generic term for an Indian slave held by a Francophone resident.

** MY NOTE: Concerning the use of "Panis" as a generic term for Indian slaves and the characterizaton of the Pawnee as " easy pickings", Kansas historical documents indicate that neither is correct.

That tract was not subsequently confirmed, however, because St. Clair (Arthur St. Clair, first governor of the Northwest Territory) thought it was a hustle advanced by the French on the part of an "old Negroe." (The American State Papers, Public Lands, v. 1, p. 7 has his name as one of the original donees. The dismissal of his claim can be found in the Albert Gallatin Porter Papers in the William Henry Smith Memorial Library, Indiana Historical Society.

St. Clair was definitely mistaken about his ethnicity -- (I guess he just couldn't get his head around the idea that Indians were enslaved in the Northwest Territory and so jumped to the conclusion that Jacco had to be black.)