This article, linked from Wikipedia's page on the Great Raft, offers a much more detailed and informative discussion of European and Native American interaction with the raft: https://www.invasiveswatch.org/site/GreatRaft/History.aspx
That is a better article. I'd have submitted it instead if I'd found it last night.
One interesting fact that neither article mentions but which is mentioned at the end of the Wikipedia article is the impact that the break-up of the Great Raft had on the Mississippi river.
The removal of the log jams hastened the capture of the Mississippi River's waters by the Atchafalaya River and forced the US Army Corps of Engineers to build the multibillion dollar Old River Control Structure.
