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 ihe Illinois i Indiana Indians-^ 
 
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 Hiram W. Beckjvith. 
 
 
 ^° For Catalogue, See Inside and Last Pages of Cover. 
 
FERGUS PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO. 
 
 REYNOLDS' HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 
 My Own Times; Embracing also The History of My Life. By John Reynolds, Late 
 Gov. of III., etc. Portrait Reprint of original edition of 1855, with complete Index added. Cloth boards; 
 Gilt-top; Side and bottom uncut; Antique Paper; Pp 426; 8vo. rS79. Edition of 112. copies. Price, $7.50. 
 
 We are pleased to learn that the Fergus Print- 
 ing Company has undertaken the work of re- 
 printing Che volume of "My Own Times: embrac- 
 ing also the History of My Lite," written by the 
 late Gov. John Beyuolds. * * * Copies ol 
 the volume referred to are exceedingly rare, and 
 hardly could be procured at any price. The 
 Publishers are deserving of thanks for their 
 efforts to rescue from oblivion a meritorious 
 work like the above.— Belleville Advocate, Dec. 
 12, 1879. 
 
 This is a reproduction, In an attractive form, 
 and with the addition of a full index, of a book, 
 the story of which is an illustration of the diffi- 
 culties which all who have devoted themselves 
 to historical investigation have had to encounter 
 in this country. Governor Reynolds was one of 
 the most prominent figures in western public 
 life, and it would be supposed this epitome of 
 the story of the young days of the western 
 country would have commanded a ready sale. 
 Kot so. Completed in 1854, the first edition, 
 probably not more than four hundred copies, 
 was printed in a small job office at Belleville, and 
 taken by a single bookseller of Chicago, at the 
 author's personal instigation. Nearly the ivhole 
 edition was destroyed in the great fire of 1857. 
 
 Practically out of print, the present volume is 
 rather a new work than the reprint of an old ; 
 and a creditable one it is. The extensive range 
 of politics, internal improvement, public life 
 and personal experience, naturally traversed in 
 
 this bulky volume, render even a slight analysis 
 impossible. It is discursive and sketchy, and 
 abounds in details of purely local value, but it 
 contains also a mass of information which the 
 enquirer would look for in vain elsewhere. 
 Above all it is stamped vrith an originality and 
 individuality which set well upon the shoulders 
 of a western man.— Jfag. 0/ Am. ffis(.,Aug, 1880. 
 
 Governor John Reynolds' History of Uliuois, 
 which is out of print and exceedingly hard to 
 get, has been republished by the Fergns Print- 
 ing Company. The original title of the work 
 "My Own Times : embracing also a sketch of my 
 life," is preserved. Governor Reynolds passed 
 nearly halt a century in most prominent public 
 life. As a "Ranger" in 1813 ; as Jndge Advocate 
 in IBII; as an BUnois Supreme Court Judge; as 
 member of the Illinois General Assembly; as 
 Governor of Illinois ; as Representative in Con- 
 gress for seven years, and never absent from his 
 seat during session; as Blinois-Canal Commis- 
 sioner; and finally, as Speaker of the Illinois 
 House ;— and all this from the early part of the 
 present century until beyond its noon ; his 
 strong, aggressive, manly nature and life were 
 most powerful factors in this period of wonder- 
 ful transition to IlUnois and the West. "My 
 Own Times" thus became an epitome of those 
 days, of their remarkable measures, of their 
 marvelous changes, and a record of many of 
 their great men. Iroctuois County Times, Nov. 
 29, 1879. 
 
 REYNOLD'S PIONEER HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 
 Containing the Discovery in 1673 and the History of the Country to the year 1818, 
 when the State Government was organized. By John Rrvnolds, late Governor of Illinois, Member of 
 Congress, State Senator, and Representative, etc., Belleville, 111., 1852. Reprinted firom the original edition, 
 to which have been added Notes and a complete Index. Portrait. Pages 43: 8vo. Cloth Boards; uncut; 
 Toned Paper. 1884. (In Press) 
 
 THE MARTYRDOM OF LOVEJOY. 
 An account of the Life, Trials, and Perils of Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, killed by a Pro- 
 Slavery Mob, at Alton, 111., on the night of Nov. 7, 1837. By Henkv Tannss, of Buf&lo, N.Y., an Eye- 
 witness. Cloth hoards: Gilt-top; Side and bottom uncut; Illustrated; Pp. 233; 8vo. 1881. Price, $2. 
 
 (Vol. I.) HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENT 
 In Edwards County, Illinois : Founded by Morris Birkbeck (portrait) and George Flower 
 (portrait), in 1817 and 1818. By George Flower. With Preface and Foot-Notes by Hon. E. B. Wash- 
 BURNB. Complete Subject and Personal Indexes. Cloth Boards; uncut. Pages 408; 8vo. 1882. Price, $5.00 
 
 (Vol. II.) SKETCH OF ENOCH LONG. 
 
 An Illinois Pioneer (with portrait). By Harvey Reid. Cloth boards; uncut. 
 
 Pages 112; 8vo. 1884. Price, $2.00 
 
 (Vol. III.) THE EDWARDS PAPERS. 
 
 Being a Portion of the Coll. of the MSS. of Ninian Edwards, C.-J. of Ct. of Appeals 
 of Ky. ; first and only gov. of lU. T'y ; one of the first two U. S. senators and third gov. of 111. Presented 
 to the Chic. Hist. Soc, Oct. 16th, 1883, by his son, N. W, Edwards, ex-Att'y-Gen. of lU. Edited by Hon. 
 E. B. Washburne. With Steel Portraits of Gov. Edwards and Dan'l P. Cook ; and 20 fac-simile (litho. 
 graph) letters. Complete Index. Cloth hoards; uncut. Pages 631; 8vo. 1884. Price, $6.00 
 
 iBent; Tt>y mall, post-paid, on. x-eoelpt of. price. 
 
FERGUS' HISTORICAL SERIES, No. 2 7. 
 
 THE 
 
 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS 
 
 HIRAM W. BECKWITH. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 FERGUS PRINTING COMPANY, 
 
 ILLINOIS STREET. 
 
 1884. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by 
 
 Fergus Printing Company, 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 /^. '^S ^ 
 
 V ♦*/ 
 
 X 
 
LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Danville, III., Nov. 5, 1883. 
 
 My Dear Fergus : — Herewith is the wind-up. The Introductory to the 
 <:hapter on " Ilhnois and Indiana Indians ", also a foot-note on Judge Hall, to 
 be put as marked. I could find.no other place where I could place it with 
 any propriety. It cost me more time and labor to chip it out than any other 
 side-spur I have undertaken. I have one of the very few complete sets of his 
 publications extant, which I have been years in collecting, and they contain 
 ^' lots of good things. " I revised and condensed the note two or three times 
 and have, for brevity's sake, squeezed everything out of it except dry facts. 
 Yet I hope that even these may revive or keep in memory the debt Illinois 
 .and the West owe to Judge Hall. The statute of limitations has ran too long 
 against him, John M. Peck, and a. few others who might be named; while 
 semi-annual dividends of praise have been regularly, often in advance, to 
 much less deserving men. 
 
 The proof-slips I return O. K.'d with corrections of my own and the adop- 
 tion, with thanks, of those queried by the proof-reader, whom I take to be 
 your father. I will be obliged if you will lay away the proof-slips and page- 
 proofs for me to have when I come up, which will be about the 21st instant, 
 -when I expect to remain two or three days. 
 
 I hope the work will now soon be out, and that you will get back more than 
 your money and labor on the venture. I feel that the matter is as reliable 
 as to facts, dates, names, places, etc. , as painstaking research can well make 
 it. Every statement has been compared and verified with all original authori- 
 ties, as well as the several collators upon the same subject that I could com- 
 mand for reference. Nothing has been retained that would not bear these 
 tests; and, as a sequence, many pleasing fictions have been discarded. 
 Should you ever subsoil in this field of inquiry, you will be amazed at the 
 ■carelessness and the discrepancies, the prejudices, and the pure fancies of 
 writers upon our aboriginal history that you will unearth on every hand, until, 
 in the course of your investigations, you will come to doubt if much true 
 history is to be found for your pains at last. Yours truly, 
 
 H. W. Beckvi'ITH. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028651010 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The account given of the Indians, in tlie following chapters, is 
 condensed from a volume prepared by the writer .four years ago, 
 with some new matter added in the revision. It is mostly the 
 result of his gleanings over a wide field of antiquated books of 
 travel and maps long since out of print, or copies of manuscript- 
 correspondence of a private or official character, little of which 
 is accessible to the general reader. 
 
 Our knowledge of the aboriginal occupants of this country is 
 fragmentary, at best. They kept no records and had no histori- 
 an's. The little we know of them is to be found in the writings 
 of persons who, if not their natural enemies, had little interest in 
 doing them justice. As a rule, early travelers and observers have 
 alluded to their capabilities, their manners and customs, only in 
 an incidental way. We know but very little of the Indians who 
 formerly occupied the territory between the AUeghanies and Mis- 
 sissippi; and the little information that has been preserved con- 
 cerning them is so scattered through the volumes of authors who 
 wrote from other motives, or at different dates, or of different 
 nations, without taking thought to discriminate, that no satisfac- 
 tory account of any particular tribe is now attainable. The best 
 that may be done is to select such of these disjointed scraps as 
 bear evidence of being the most reliable, and arrange them in 
 something like chronological order. In his endeavor to do this, 
 the writer has had no theories to bolster up or morbid sentiments 
 to gratify. He has only quoted or condensed from authorities 
 regarded as standard; and this without prejudice in favor of or 
 against the people whose history he has attempted to briefly give. 
 
 The mental and physical training of the two races, their habits 
 and purposes of life were so radically different that they could 
 not peaceably occupy the same territory in common. Either the 
 red hunter must quit the chase and give up his nomadic life, or 
 the civilized white must degenerate into a savage. Hence the 
 Indian, being the weaker party, gave away before the operations 
 of an inexorable law, the severity of which could, at best; have 
 been only tempered. It was but obeying a natural law, inherent 
 in humanity everywhere, that he defended his country against the 
 encroachments of another race; and the strife between the two 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 for its possession, furnishes material for many thrilling events con- 
 nected with its history. 
 
 In spite of whatever official injunctions to the contrary, the 
 Indians were as systematically debauched with whisky, contami- 
 nated with vices, and as persistently overreached by the servants 
 of Count Frontenac, governor of New France, over two centu- 
 ries ago, as they have been, from that time until now, by the 
 agents and traders of every successive executive in charge, 
 whether French or British, dictating at Quebec or New York, or 
 American, directing from Washington City. And the complaints 
 of the early Jesuit priests against these wrongs were as unavail- 
 ing in correcting them as the protests of President Jefferson, Gov. 
 Harrison, Gen. Cass, Judge Hall,* and other good-minded men 
 
 * The writer feels it a duty to recur to the obligation the West, and partic- 
 ularly Illinois, owes to the memory of the late Judge James Hall, the pioneer 
 of our early literature, who was born at Philadelphia, Penn., Aug. 19, 1793; 
 served in the war of 1812, on the Niagara frontier; was with Com. Stephen 
 Decatur in the expedition against Algiers in 1815; resuming his law studies 
 at Pittsburg in 1818; and in 1820, located at Shawneetown, 111., and began 
 to practise. The next year, he was made States attorney for the judicial cir- 
 cuit, embracing some ten counties in Southeastern Illinois. This section was 
 at that time overrun with horse-thieves, slave-stealers, counterfeiters, and des- 
 peradoes, many of whom had fled hither from other States to escape punish- 
 ment for their crimes. By their numbers and organized bold actions, they set 
 all law at defiance, and terrorized over honest citizens. Mr. Hall, aided by 
 the law-abiding, prosecuted these criminals with such unrelenting vigor that 
 he broke up their gangs, and restored security tO'Iife and property. In 1825, 
 he was elected judge of the same circuit — hence the prefix to his name. The 
 honor was all the more creditable to his abilities and moral worth, when it is 
 remembered that the legislature (of 1824-5) conferring it, was largely "anti- 
 convention", while he was classed with the "convention-party", as those were 
 •designated who had favored the call of a convention to so amend the consti- 
 tution as to convert Illinois into a slave -state. [Vide "Ford's History ot 
 Illinois."] His term was short; for the next legislative session of 1826-7, 
 repealed the law creating the office and turned out all of the judges holding 
 commissions under it. Within the next two or three years, he removed to 
 Vandalia, then the State capital, where he early associated with Robt. Black- 
 well, State-printer, in publishing The Illinois Intelligencer. The legislature 
 of 1830-1 elected him State treasurer. In the meantime, he and Mr. Black- 
 well arranged to bring out "The Illinois Monthly Magazine", it being the 
 first attempt at periodical literature in the State. 
 
 Judge Hall's reputation as a writer was already established. Beginning in 
 1820, many of his contributions, descriptive of the West and its people, 
 
INTRODUCTION. Vll 
 
 in later times. The chronic "Indian Question'' is no nearer a 
 settlement now than it was in colonial days, and it never will be 
 until either the unfortunate subjects of it are all dead, or we shall 
 have abandoned the prolonged attempt to reconcile the indul- 
 gences of a remorseless greed with the ways of justice and 
 humanity. 
 
 The remnants of tribes, who formerly owned the country east 
 of the Missouri, were sent beyond that river to live, mostly, by^ 
 hunting in competition with other natives in regions where game 
 had already become scarce. The lapse of time has neutralized 
 
 appeared in " The Portfolio ", a monthly, conducted by his brother, John E. 
 Hall, at Philadelphia, from which they were copied by papers in America and 
 England, and received a wide circulation. A residence, afterward, of several 
 years in the country described, so enlarged his opportunities that, to a num- 
 ber of the original ai-ticles was added much new matter, and the whole was 
 published in 1 828 in London, England, in a. volume entitled " Letters from 
 the West. Containing Sketches of Scenery, Manners, Customs, and Anec- 
 dotes connected with the First Settlements of the Western Sections of the 
 United States", etc. 
 
 The first number of the "Illinois Magazine " appeared for October, 1830. 
 It run for two years. The second volume was published in part at St. Louis 
 and part at Cincinnati; owing to the difficulty of getting material and labor 
 at Vandalia, which, at that time, stood on the verge of a primitive popula- 
 tion, isolated from the literary world, and not possessing even the conven- 
 iences of country-roads that were passable for more than a few months during 
 the year. Commencing with January, 1833, Judge Hall resumed his periodi- 
 cal at Cincinnati under the name of "The Western Monthly Magazine; a 
 Continuation of the Illinois Monthly Magazine ", remaining with it here for 
 three years. In 1833, he went to Cincinnati and resided there until his death, 
 July 5, 1868. His other principal literary labors are as follows: "Legends 
 of the West", 1832; second edition the next year; "The Soldier's Bride", 
 1833; "The Harp's Head, a. Legend of Kentucky", 1833; "Tales of the 
 Border", 1835; "Sketches of History, Life, and Manners in the West", 1835; 
 "Statistics of the West", etc., 1836. This last was reissued in 1838 (from 
 the same plates, with a few pages of addenda relating to steamboat naviga- 
 tion), under the better title of "Notes on the Western States. Containing 
 Descriptive Sketches of their Soil, Climate, Resources, and Scenery"; sub- 
 stantially the same matter appeared in 1848, under the name of "The West; 
 its Commerce and Navigation"; "Romance of Western History", 1857; re- 
 published in 1871, by Robert Clarke & Co., Cincinnati, O., with fine portrait 
 of author; "The Wilderness and the War- Path", 1845; republished in Lon- 
 don in 1846. The last two run into previous volumes, embracing much of 
 the same matter; while the whole are largely made up of papers drawn from 
 
viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the bitterness of the conquest that ended with their final removal 
 from our midst; so that now we ought to accord them the even- 
 handed justice to which they are historically entitled. 
 
 When attainable, the writer has preserved the aboriginal names 
 of lakes, rivers, Indian villages, and other historical localities 
 coming within range of the subjects treated. In the choice of 
 material he has also endeavored to make such selections as will 
 .best serve the double purpose of sketches of the. several tribes 
 named, and illustrate characteristics common to them all. 
 
 H. W. Beckwith. 
 
 Danville, III., November, 1883. 
 
 "The Letters frora the West", "The Illinois Monthly Magazine", and its 
 continuation, where many of the originals may be found, or the germs can be 
 traced from which elaborations were subsequently made. The whole, aside 
 from their acknowledged literary merits, possess great historical value, as they 
 present while they preserve a faithful picture of the early West. 
 
 Besides the above, in 1836, he published a life of Gov. Wm. H. Harrison, 
 which, for perspicuity, fidelity, and elegance of diction, is the best of the 
 many that have appeared. In 1848, he prepared a "Memoir of Thos. Posey, 
 Major-General and Governor of Indiana", published in "Sparks' American 
 Biographical Series ". He also wrote the " History of the Indian Tribes of 
 North America", aided by Col. Thomas L. McKenney of the Indian Depart- 
 ment; published 1838-44 and 1858, in three large volumes, with 120 Indian 
 portraits, taken mainly from the Indian Gallery, formerly in the Department 
 of War at Washington. Judge Hall early became identified with our State, and 
 aided its material and intellectual progress with all the warmth of his ardent 
 nature. His pen was busy in praise of its climate, its soil, and its capabili- 
 ties; and prompt and trenchent in defence of the sterling traits of its pioneer 
 people, by whose successors he ought to be remembered. The writer has 
 collated this note, mainly from the above volumes, in his library with such 
 other scraps of information as he could gather elsewhere. The biographical 
 sketch in the American Cyclopedia, to which the writer is likewise indebted, 
 is in error as to the date of publication of the "Letters from the West", as 
 well, also, in alleging the existence of a "uniform edition of Judge Hall's 
 works"; and is defective in that it omits his " Sketches of the West " (the two 
 » volumes possessing more historical value than any of the others), and makes 
 no mention of " The Illinois Monthly Magazine " and its continuation, which, 
 with the "Letters from the West", are measurably the fountains of them all. 
 His writings, except, perhaps, "The Romance of Western History", and a 
 reprint of "The Legends of the West", by Robert Clarke & Co. of Cincin- 
 nati, in 1871 and 1874, respectively, are long since out of print. Many of 
 them are quite rare, and appear only at long intervals in the catalogues of 
 dealers in "Americana". 
 
SOME ACCOUNT 
 
 INDIAN TRIBES 
 
 FORMERLY INHABITING 
 
 INDIANA AND ILLINOIS. 
 
 By HIRAM W. BECKWITH, Danvillj;, III. 
 
THE ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS.' 
 
 THE ILLINOIS. 
 
 THE several Indian tribes, which from time to time occupied 
 parts of Illinois, so far as we have written accounts of them, 
 were the Miamis, Illinois, Winnebagos, Sacs and Foxes, Kicka- 
 pooSj^ Pottawat omies, and, at short intervals, the Wmnebagoes 
 and Shawhees. They, with the exception of the Winnebagoes, 
 who were of the Dakota or Sioux stock, were classed among 
 the Algonquin-Lenape nations on account of the similarity of 
 their dialects and to distinguish them from the Iroquois tribes on 
 the east, the Choctaws, Cherokees, Chickasaws, and others south 
 of the Ohio River, and the Dakotas west of the Mississippi. The 
 different tribes living in Illinois will be referred to in the order of 
 priority of time in which written accounts refer to their respective 
 names. 
 
 The Illinois Indians were composed of five subdivisions : Kas- 
 kaskias, Cahokias, Taraaroas, Peorias, and Metchigamis, the last 
 being a foreign tribe residing west of the Mississippi River, who 
 being reduced to small numbers by wars with their neighbors, 
 abandoned their former hunting-grounds and became incorporated 
 with the Illinois. The first historical mention of this tribe is 
 found in the "Jesuit Relations for the year 1670-1," prepared by 
 Father Claude Dablon, from the letters of priests stationed at 
 LaPointe on the southwest of Lake Superior.t At this place. 
 
 * A more detailed account of these tribes, together with a narration of their 
 manners, customs, and implements (illustrated) will be found in Beckwith's 
 "Historic Notes on the Northwest." 
 
 t " The point" of land extending out into Lake Superior and beyond which 
 are the Apostle Islands, so named by the early Jesuits, because there are or 
 were twelve of them in number. The construction of the mission chapel of 
 the " Holy Ghost " was begun at the Pointe by Father Claudius AUouez in 
 1665; and the place was afterward known by the Jesuits as "Lapoint du Saint 
 
lOO ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 prior to 1670, the French had a trading-post, to which the Indians 
 came for many miles, to barter their pehries for knives, hatchets, 
 kettles, guns, ammmiition, clothes, paints, trinkets, and other 
 articles of European manufacture; and as the Indians that first 
 came to LaPointe from the south called themselves Illinois, the 
 French called them ever afterward by this name. Father Dablon 
 states in the "Relations for the year 1670": "As we have given 
 the name of Ottawas to all the savages of these countries, although 
 of different nations, because the first who have appeared among 
 the French were Ottawas, so also it is with the name Illinois, 
 very numerous, and dwelling toward the south, because the first 
 who came to the Pointe of the Holy Ghost for commerce, called 
 themselves lUinois." In' the Jesuit Relations and in the writings 
 of other French authors, the name lUinois is variously spelled as 
 "Illi-mouek", "Ill-i-no-u-es", "lU-i-ne-wek", "AUini-wek", and "Lin- 
 i-wek". The terminations ones, wek, ois, and otiek were almost 
 identical in pronunciation. Lewis Evans, the great geographer in 
 colonial days, spelled the name Will-i-nis. Major Thomas For- 
 syth, for many years trader and Indian-agent in the Illinois Terri- 
 tory, and stationed at the then French village of Peoria, says the 
 "Illinois confederation call themselves Linni-wek, and by others 
 they were called Min-ne-way." Father James Marquette, who, 
 with Louis Johet, came up the Illinois River in 1673, and Father 
 Louis Hennepin, who descended the same stream in 1679, and 
 both coming in direct contact with the natives dwelling upon the 
 borders of its waters, giving them opportunities of knowing where- 
 of they wrote, in their journals of their respective voyages spell 
 the name Illinois.* Father Marquette, as well as Father Henne- 
 pin, give in their journals the signification that the Illinois Indians 
 gave to their name. The former in his narrative journal observes: 
 "To say Illinois is, in their language, to say 'the men', as if other 
 Indians compared to them were mere beasts." "The word lUi- 
 nois," says Father Hennepin, "signifies a man of full age in the 
 vigor of his strength. This word Illinois comes, as has already 
 been observed, from lUini, which in that language signifies\a 
 
 Esprit" [the point of the Holy Ghost]. By the Algonquin tribes and the 
 ungodly fur-traders, who 'seriously interfered with the good father's mission 
 work, the locality was called " Che-goi-me-gon", or [the place of] " The Sandy 
 Point", which, as is usual with aboriginal names, is highly descriptive, and 
 characterizes its physical features in contrast with prevailing rugged shores of 
 Lake Superior. Upon this tongue of land, in modern atlases, is shown the 
 City of Bayfield, county-seat of Bayfield County, Wisconsin. 
 * Pronounced lU-i-noi, the terminal s being silent. 
 
THE ILLINOIS. lOI 
 
 perfect and accomplished man." Originally the word Illinewek, or 
 Lmnewek, had only a general meaning, and was a word used boast- 
 mgly by other tribes of the great Algonquin family when speaking 
 of themselves. The Delawares, considered the oldest branch o"f 
 this family, called themselves " 'Lenno-Lenape', which," says 
 Albert Gallatin, in his synopsis of Indians tribes of North 
 America, "means original or 'unmixed men'; perhaps, originally, 
 'manly men '." In the Delaware language Lenno means a man and 
 Nape means a male. Again, the tribes that occupied the country 
 about the southern extremity of Hudson Bay, and who belonged 
 to this same family of aboriginals, says Dr. Robertson: "call 
 themselves, as many other Indian tribes do, 'men', ' E-iih-in-yook' , 
 or 'In-ir-i-wrik', prefixing occasionally the name of their especial 
 tribes. Thus the true name of the 'Mon-so-nies' or Swamp 
 Indians who inhabited Moose River is 'Mon-so-a-Eith,.^'u-yook', 
 or 'Moose-deer-men'." Later, and, as it were, by the uniform 
 concurrence of nearly all writers, when referring to the original 
 occupants of this country, the name Ill-i-mouek, lU-i-ne-wek, Len- 
 i-wek, and Ill-i-ni was applied only to the Illinois Confederation. 
 
 From the earliest accounts we have, the principal stream ot 
 this State was called "The River of the Ilhnois"; and a wide 
 region of country, lying north of the mouth of the Ohio and upon 
 both sides of the Mississippi, was called "The Country of the 
 Ilhnois", and "The Illinois". These designations appear in the 
 records and official letters under the administrations and owner- 
 ship of this region under both the French and Spanish Govern- 
 ments. F'or example, letters, deeds, and other official documents 
 bore date at "Kaskaskia of the Illinois", "St. Louis of the Illi- 
 nois", "Chicago of the Illinois", "Vincennes of the Illinois", etc. 
 
 While the Revolutionary war was in progress, Gen. Geo. Rogers « 
 Clark of Virginia (though a resident of Kentucky, which was 9 
 then a county of that colony) wrested the territory, now em- 1 
 braced within the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and | 
 Wisconsin, from the British Government. Afterward and in the 
 spring of 1779, Col. John Todd, commissioned by Virginia as its | 
 lieutenant, went to Vincennes and Kaskaskia and organized Gen. 
 Clark's conquest into a county of Virginia, to which was given 
 the name of "Illi nois County ". Later this domain became the 
 property, by c ession_of|_die_severaI_^tates_£lgin^^ of 
 
 the Unite d States. Onthe_jA_o£JuJyi_jMjjJ]i£_Axt„of jCg 
 gressjfo^tliejllv^ipn, of Jjie .Northwest Territory went.into-effect, 
 D;[_the terms of which all that part lying to th^ westward of the 
 west lioundary'lin e of the State of Ohio was constituted a sepa- 
 rate territor)', under name br'ThSiana Territory", and so remained 
 
I02 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 until when by Act of Conji-ess,J[ebruary 3, 1809, al l that part 
 ofjUying west of "tEeiyaliaiir River,' anH a line drawn due nortli 
 ffom Vmcennes to the 'British possessions, was organized into__a 
 separate territory," to be called the "Illinois Territory" Still later, 
 October 5, i8i-8, was passed an Act for the admission of the 
 Illinois Territory as a state into the Federal Union, to be desig- 
 nated as the "State of Illinois". Such, agreeably to approved 
 authorities, is the origin of the word Illinois; and such are the 
 various uses it has served. A great State perpetuates the name, 
 in memory of a populous and powerful race of redmen, once 
 living in its borders, but now utterly perished from the earth. 
 
 From all accounts, it seems the Illinois Confederation claimed 
 the extensive county bounded on the east By" the nclge"that divides 
 the waters flowing into the Ilhnois from the streams that drain 
 into the Wabash, between the headwaters of Sahne Creek and a 
 point as lar north on the Illinois as the Desplaines, reaching still 
 'northward to the debatable ground between themselves, the Win- 
 nebagoes, the Sacs and Foxes, and the Kickapoos; and extending 
 westward of the Mississippi. Their favorite alid most populous 
 villages were upon the lUinois and its two principal branches, the 
 Desplaines and the Kankakee. 
 
 The area of the original country of the Illinois was soon reduced 
 by continuous wars with their neighbors. The Sioux (Da-ko-ta) 
 pressed them from the west; the Sacs and Foxes and Kickapoos, 
 confederates, encroached upon their territory from the north; 
 while war parties of the fierce Iroquois, coming from the east, 
 rapidly decimated their numbers. These destructive influences 
 were doing their fatal work, and the power of the Illinois was 
 waning when they first came in contact with the French. Their 
 sufferings rendered them pliable to the voice of the missionary; 
 and, in their weakness, they hailed with delight the coming of the 
 Frenchmen, with his promise of protection assured with gifts of 
 guns and powder. The Ilhnois drew so kindly to the priests, the 
 coureurs des bois, and soldiers that the friendship between the two 
 races never abated; and when, in the order of events, the sons of 
 France had departed from Ilhnois, the love of the natives for the 
 departed Gaul was handed down as a precious memory to their 
 children. 
 
 The military establishments at Detroit, Mich., and at Starved 
 Rock, 111.,* for a while checked the incursions of the Iroquois 
 
 * Under his letters patent, granted by the king of France to the seigniory 
 of "The Country of the Illinois," LaSalle [so called after the name of the 
 landed estate, near Rouen, France, belonging to his family, but whose primal 
 
THE ILLINOIS. IO3 
 
 and stayed the calamity that was to befall the Illinois. We give 
 a condensed account of some of these campaigns of the Iroquois 
 into the Illinois country, as embraced in extracts which are 
 taken from a Memoir on Western Indians, by M. DuChesneau, 
 Intendent of Canada, and successor to Jean Tallon, dated at 
 Quebec, September 13, 1681: "To convey a correct idea," says 
 this French officer, "of the present state of all those Indian 
 nations it is necessary to explain the cause of the cruel war waged 
 by the Iroquois for these three years past against the Illinois. 
 The former are great warriors, can not remain idle, and pretend 
 to subject all other nations to themselves, and never want a pre- 
 text for commencing hostilities. The following is their assumed 
 excuse for the present war: going about twenty years ago to 
 attack the Foxes, they met the Illinois, and killed a considerable 
 number of them. This continued during the succeeding years, 
 and finally having destroyed a great many, they forced* them to 
 abandon their country and seek refuge in very distant parts. The 
 Iroquois, haying got rid of the Ilhnois, took no more trouble with 
 them, but went to war against another nation called the 'An-dos- 
 tagues,' [the Fries or Cats, so-called, and who were entirely des- 
 troyed by the Iroquois]. Pending this war, the Illinois returned 
 to their country, and the Iroquois complained that they had killed 
 forty of their people while on their way to hunt beaver in the 
 Ilhnois country. To obtain satisfaction, the Iroquois resolved 
 to make war upon them. Their true motive, however, was to 
 gratify the British at ' Ma-nat-te ' [New York] and 'Orange' 
 [Albany], of whom they are too near neighbors, and who, by 
 means of presents, engaged the Iroquois in this expedition, the 
 object of which was to force the Illinois to bring their beaver to 
 them, so that they may go and trade it afterward to the British; 
 also to intimidate the other Indians, and constrain them to do the 
 same thing. 
 
 name was Rene — Robert Cavelire] erected a fort and trading-post -on the 
 eminence of this rocky height, situated on the south side of, and overlooking, 
 the Illinois River, some eight miles below Ottawa. The fort was called " Fort 
 St. Louis", in honor of his patron Louis IV, and the place Le Rocker [the 
 Rock]. The now generally received name of "Starved Rock" is derived from 
 an alleged starving to death of a party of Indians corraled there by a remorse- 
 less enemy of besiegers. The occurrence is without authority to support it, 
 other than several vague (though charming) traditions drawn from the "won- 
 der-stories" of as many different tribes. One of the most interesting of these, 
 both in matter and the manner of treating it, is preserved in a paper on "The 
 Last of the Illinois, " from the able pen of Hon. Judge Caton, and published _ 
 in Number Three of Fergus' Historical Series. 
 
I04 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 "The improper conduct of Sieur de LaSalle, governor of Ft. 
 Fronteiiac, has contributed considerably to cause the latter to 
 adopt this proceeding; for after he had obtained permission to 
 discover the great river Mississippi, and had, as he alleged, the 
 grant of the [country of the] llhnois, he no longer observed any 
 terms with the Iroquois, and avowed that he would convey arms 
 and ammunition to the Illinois, and would die assisting them." 
 We break the thread 6f Chesneau's official letter to say to the 
 reader that it must be remembered that LaSalle was not exempt 
 from the attacks of that jealousy and envy which is inspired in 
 the souls of httle men toward those who plan and execute great 
 undertakings. We see this spirit manifested in this letter. La 
 Salle could not have done otherwise than supply fire-arms to the 
 Illinois Indians; they were his friends and the owners of the 
 country, the trade of which he had opened up at great hardship 
 and expense to himself 
 
 Proceeding with Chesneau's letter: "The Iroquois despatched 
 in the month of April, of last year, an army consisting of between 
 five and six hundred men, who approached an Illinois village 
 [near the present site of Utica, LaSalle Co., 111.], where Sieur 
 Henry de Tonty, LaSalle's principal officer, happened to be with 
 some Frenchmen and two R.ecollect Fathers [the catholic priests, 
 Fathers Gabriel Ribourde and Zenobe Membre, whom the Iro- 
 quois left unharmed]. One of these, a most holy man [Father 
 Ribourde] has since been k^led by the Indians. But they would 
 listen to no terms of peace proposed to them by Tonty, who was 
 slightly wounded at the beginning of the attack; the Illinois, 
 having fled a hundred leagues, were pursued by the Iroquois, who 
 killed and captured as many as twelve hundred of them, includ- 
 ing women and children, having lost only thirty men.* The victory 
 achieved by the Iroquois rendered them so insolent that Ihey 
 have continued ever since that time to send out divers war parties. 
 The success of the last is not yet known, but it is not doubted 
 they have been successful, because they are very warlike, while 
 the Illinois are but indifferently so. Indeed, there is no doubt, 
 and it is the universal opinion, that if the Iroquois are allowed to 
 proceed, they will subdue the Illinois, and in a short time render 
 themselves masters of all the Ottawa tribes, and direct the trade 
 to the British, so that it is absolutely essential to make them our 
 friends or to destroy them." 
 
 The building of Fort St. Louis upon the heights of Starved 
 Rock by LaSalle, in 1682, gave confidence to the Illinois and 
 
 * In this foray, the Iroquois drove the fugitive Illinois beyond the Mississippi. 
 
THE ILLINOIS. 105 
 
 their scattered remnants who had again returned to their favorite 
 village. They were followed by bands of Weas, Pi-an-ke-shas, 
 and Mi-am-ies, near kinsmen of the Illinois, and by the Shaw- 
 nees and other tribes of remoter affinity; and soon a cordon of 
 populous towns arose about the .fort. The military forces of 
 these villages at the colony of LaSalle, in 1684, was estimated 
 at three thousand six hundred and eighty fighting men, the Illinois 
 furnishing more than one-third of this number. Thus were the 
 Iroquois barred out of the country of the Illinois, who, for a season, 
 enjoyed a respite from their old enemies. The abandonment of 
 Fort St. Louis as a military post, in 1702, was followed by a dis- 
 persion of the tribes and fragments of tribes, except at the Illinois 
 village, where a straggling population retained possession. The 
 Kaskaskias learning, in the year 1700, that France was making a 
 military establishment and colony near the mouth of the Missis- 
 sippi, started thither. They were intercepted on the way, and 
 persuaded to halt above the mouth of the Ohio, and soon there- 
 after made themselves a permanent home on the banks of a stream 
 which since then has borne their name, the Kaskaskia. 
 
 The Iroquois came no more, having war enough on their hands 
 nearer home; but the Illinois were constantly harrassed by other 
 enemies, the Sacs and Foxes, the Kickapoos, and the Pottawato- 
 mies. Their villages at Starved Rock and at Peoria Lake were 
 besieged by the Foxes in 1722, and a detachment of a hundred 
 men, commanded by Chevalier de Artaguiette and Sieur de Tisne', 
 was sent from Fort Chartres to their assistance. The Foxes hav- 
 ing lost more than a hundred of their men, abandoned the siege 
 before the reinforcements arrived. "This success [says Charle- 
 voix, the great French historian] did not, however, prevent the 
 Illinois, although they had lost only twenty men, with some 
 women and children, from leaving the Rock and Pim-i-toey 
 [Peoria Lake] where they were kept in constant alarm, and to 
 proceeding to unite with those of their brethren [the Kaskaskias] 
 who had settled upon the Mississippi. This was a stroke of 
 grace for most of them, the small number of missionaries prevent- 
 ing their supplying so many towns scattered far apart; but, on 
 the other side, as there was nothing to check the raids of the 
 Foxes along the Ilhnois River, communication between Louisiana 
 and New France [Canada] became much less practicable." 
 
 The next fifteen years show a further decline in their numbers. 
 In an enumeration of the Indian tribes connected with the Gov- 
 ernment of Canada, prepared in the year 1736, the name, loca- 
 tion, and number of fighting-men of the Illinois are set down as 
 follows: " Mitchigamias, near Fort Chartres, two hundred and 
 
I06 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 fifty; Kaskaskies, six leagues below, one hundred; Peorias, 
 and the Rock, fifty; the Cahokias and Tamarois, two hun- 
 dred;" making a total of six hundred warriors. The^ killing 
 of Pontiac, some thirty_ years later, at Cahokia, whitHei- helia3. 
 retired after the failure of his hold effoirts to rescue the country 
 from the British, was laid upon the Illinois, a charge which, 
 whether true or false, hastened their destruction. In an official 
 letter. to the secretary of war, of date March 22, 1814, Gen. Wm. 
 H. Harrison says, "When I was first appointed governor of the 
 Indiana Territory [May, 1800], these once powerful tribes were 
 reduced to about thirty warriors, of whom twenty-five were Kas- 
 kaskias, four Peorias, and a single Mitchigamian. A furious war 
 between them and the Sacs and Kickapoos reduced them to that 
 miserable remnant which had taken refuge among the white peo- 
 ple in the towns of Kaskaskia and St. Genieve." Since 1800, by 
 successiyejtreaties^_they ceded their lands J:o the U mted'Stat£s, 
 and were removed to reservations, lying southwest of Kansas 
 City, where, in 1872, they had dwindled to forty persons — men7 
 women, '^and children, all told. 
 
 Thus have wasted away the original occupants of the larger 
 part of Illinois, and portions of Iowa and Missouri. In their 
 single village near Starved Rock, says Father Membr^, who was 
 there in 1680, "there were seven or eight thousand souls;" and, 
 in 1684, their warriors were set down at twelve hundred. In the 
 days of their power, they nearly exterminated the Win-ne-ba-goes. 
 Their war-parties penetrated the towns of the Iroquois in the 
 valleys of 4:he Mohawk and the Genesee. They took the Mitchi- 
 gamies under their protection, giving them security against ene- 
 mies with whom they were unable to contend. They assisted 
 the French in their wars against the Cherokees and the Chicka- 
 saws; and in the bitter struggle between the American colonies 
 and the mother country on the one side, and Canada and France 
 on the other, the lUinois tribes gave bountifully of their braves, 
 who fought heroicly and to the last in the loosing cause of their 
 Father 0-ni-to [the king], across the great water. 
 
 This people who had dominated over surrounding tribes, claim- 
 ing for themselves the name of lUini or Linneway, to distinguish 
 their superior manhood, have disappeared from the earth ; another 
 race, representing a higher civilization, occupy their former do- 
 mains; and, already, even the origin of their name and the places 
 of their villages have become the subjects of antiquarian research. 
 
THE MIAMIS. 107 
 
 THE MIAMIS. 
 
 THE people known to us as the Miarais formerly lived beyond 
 the Mississippi. Their migration from thence eastward 
 through Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, around the southern bend 
 of Lake Michigan to Detroit, thence up the Maumee, and down 
 the Wabash, and eastward through Indiana into Ohio, as far as 
 the Great Miami, can be followed through the writings of officers, 
 missionaries, and travelers connected with the French. Referring 
 to the mixed village of Mascoutins and others upon Fox River, 
 near its mouth, in Wisconsin, Father Claude Dablon, who was 
 there in 1670, says the village "is joined in the circle of the same 
 barriers of another people named Ou-mi-a-mi, which is one of the 
 Illinois nations, which is, as it were, dismembered from the others, 
 in order to dwell in these quarters." "It is beyond this great 
 river [the Mississippi, of which the father had been speaking in 
 the paragraph preceding that quoted] that are placed the Illinois 
 of whom we speak, and from whom are detached those who dwell 
 here with the Five Nations [Mascoutins, or Kickapoos] to form 
 here a transplanted colony." 
 
 From these quotations, there remains little doubt but that the 
 Miamis were a branch of the great lU-i-ni. This theory is not 
 only declared by all French authorities, but is sustained by many 
 British and American writers, among the latter of whom inay be 
 named Gen. Wm. H. Harrison, whose long acquamtance and 
 official relations with the Northwestern Indians, especially the sev- 
 eral sub-divisions of the Miami and lUinois tribes, gave him 
 opportunities of which he availed himself to acquire an intimate 
 knowledge concerning them. He says, "Although the language, 
 manners, and customs of the Kaskaskias make it sufficiently cer- 
 tain that they derive their origin from the same source with the 
 Miamis; the connection had been dissolved before the French 
 had penetrated from Canada to the Mississippi." This assertion 
 of Gen. Harrison that the tribal relations between the lUinois and 
 Miamis had been broken ]3rior to the exploration of the Missis- 
 sippi Valley is sustained with great unanimity by all other authori- 
 ties, and is illustrated in the long and disastrous wars waged upon 
 the lUinois by the Iroquois, Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos, and other 
 enemies, in which there is no instance given^ where the Miamis 
 ever offered assistance to their ancient kinsmen; on the contrary, 
 they often lifted the bloody hatchet against them. 
 
 The Miami confederation was subdivided into four principal 
 bands, since known under the name of Miamis, Eel-Rivers, Weas, 
 
I08 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 and Piankeshaws. French writers, and some of the colonial 
 traders, have given names of two or three other subdivisions ot 
 the bands named; their identity, however, can not be clearly 
 traced, and they figure so little in the accounts which we have of 
 the Miamis that it is not necessary to specify their obsolete names. 
 The Miamis, proper, have by different writers been called "Ou- 
 rai-a-mi", "Ou-mi-am-wek", "Mau-mees", "Au-mi-am-i" (which 
 has been contracted to Au-mi and to "0-mee"), and "Min-e- 
 am-i". The Weas, whose name more properly is "We-we-hah", 
 is called "8y-a-ta-nous", "Oui-at-a-nons", and "Ou-i-as" by the 
 French, and in whose orthography the "8y" and "Ou" are equiv- 
 alent in sound nearly to the letter of the English W. The British 
 and colonial officers and traders spelled the word "Oui-ca-ta-non'", 
 " Way-ough-ta-nies", " Wawi-ach-tens'', and "We-hahs". The 
 name Piankeshaws, in early accounts, figure as "Pou-an-ke-ki-as", 
 "Pe-an-gui-chias", "Pi-an-gui-shaws", "Py-an-ke-shaws", and "Pi- 
 an-qui-shaws ". The Miami tribes were known to the Iroquois of 
 New York as the Twigh-twees, a name generally used by the 
 British as well as by the American colonists when referring to any 
 of the Miami tribes. 
 
 In the year 1684, at LaSalle's Colony, at Starved Rock, the 
 Miamis had populous villages, where the Miamis, proper, counted 
 thirteen hundred warriors, the Weas five hundred, and the Pian- 
 keshaw band one hundred and fifty. At a later day, 17 18, the 
 Weas had a village "at Chicago, but, being afraid of the canoe- 
 people [the Chippeways and Pottawatomies], left it, and passing- 
 around the head of Lake Michigan to be nearer their brethren 
 farther to the east." Father Charlevoix, writing from this vicinity, 
 in 1 72 1, says: "Fifty years ago, the Miamis [/. e. the Wea band] 
 were settled on the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, in a 
 place called Chicago, from the name of a small river which runs 
 into the lake, the source of which is not far distant from that of 
 the river of the Illinois [meaning the Desplaines, which is the 
 name by which it was often called in French authorities]. They 
 are at present divided into three villages, one of which stands on 
 River St. Joseph, tlie second on another river [the Maumee] which 
 bears their name and runs into Lake Erie, and a third upon the 
 River Ouabache, which empties its waters into the Mississippi. 
 The last are better known by the appellation of Ouyatanons." In 
 1694, the governor of New France, in a conference with the 
 Western Indians, requested the Miamis of the Pe-pe-ko-kia band 
 who resided upon the Maramek [Kalamazoo River, in Michigan] 
 to remove and join their tribe located on the St. Joseph of Lake 
 Michigan; the governor giving it as his reason that he wished the 
 
THE MIAMIS. 109 
 
 several Miami bands to unite, " so as to be able to execute with 
 greater facility the commands which he might issue." At that 
 time the Iroquois were making war upon Canada, and the French 
 were trying to induce the western tribes to take up the. tomahawk 
 in their behalf. The Miamis promised to comply with the gov- 
 ernor's wishes; and "late in August, 1696, they started to join 
 their brethren on the St. Joseph. On their way they were attacked 
 by the Sioux, and lost several men. The Miamis of the St. Joseph 
 learning this hostility, resolved to avenge their slaughter. They 
 pursued the Sioux to their own country, and found them entrenched 
 in a fort with some Frenchmen of the class known as coureurs des 
 bois [bush-lopers.] They nevertheless attacked them repeatedly, 
 but were repulsed and were compelled to retire after losing several 
 of their braves. On their way home, meeting other Frenchmen 
 carrying arms and ammunition to the Sioux, they seized all they 
 had, but did them no harm." 
 
 The Miamis were greatly enraged with the French for supply- 
 ing the Sioux with fire-arms. It took all the address of Gov. 
 Frontenac to persuade them from joining the Iroquois. Indeed, 
 they seized Nicolas Perrot, the French trader, who had been com- 
 missioned to lead the Maramek band to the River St. Joseph, and 
 would have burned him alive had it not been for the intercession 
 of the Foxes in his behalf This was the beginning of an aliena- 
 tion of kindly feeling of the Miamis toward the French, which 
 was never restored; and from this period, the movements of the 
 tribe were observed by the French with jealous suspicion. 
 
 The country of the Miamis extended_west to the watershed 
 between the lUmois and~Wabasli_ Rivers, which sej3arated_their 
 possessions from' those of their brethren, the Illinois. On the 
 Htrrrlrwere the PottawatomieVlwIib' were slowly but persistently 
 pushmg their Ime. southward through Wisconsin and around the 
 west shore of Lake Michigan, as we shall see when coming to 
 treat of them in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 Unlike the Illinois, the Miamis held their own until placed on 
 an equal footing with tribes eastward of them, by obtaining pos- 
 session of fire-arras. Their superior numbers and bravery enabled 
 them to extend the limits of their hunting-grounds eastward into 
 Ohio, far within the territory claimed by the Iroquois; and says 
 Gov. Harrison, they "were the undoubted proprietors of all that 
 beautiful country watered by the Wabash and its tributaries, and 
 there remains as little doubt that their claim extended as far east 
 as the Scioto." With implements of civilized warfare in their 
 hands, they maintained their tribal integrity and independence ; 
 and they traded with and fought against the French, British, and 
 
no ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 Americans by turns, as their interests or passions inclined; and 
 made peace with or declared war against other nations of their 
 own race as policy or caprice moved them. More than once they 
 compelled the arrogant Iroquois to beg from the governors of the 
 American colonies that protection which they themselves had 
 failed to secure by their own prowess. Bold, independent, and 
 flushed with success, the Miamis afforded a poor field for mission- 
 ary work, and the Jesuit Relations and pastoral letters of the 
 French priesthood have less to say of the Miamis than of any 
 other westward tribe, the Kickapoos alone excepted. Referring 
 to their military powers. Gen. Harrison says of them that, "sa ving 
 the ten years preceding the Treaty of Greenville [1795] , th e 
 Miamis alone could have brought more than three thpusaniwaj- 
 fiors in the field: that they composed a body of the finest light 
 troops in the world, and had they been under an efficient systern 
 of disciphne, or possessed enterprise equal to their valor,_the 
 seTtlemeht of the country would have been attended witli _a3U£li 
 more difficulty than was encountered in accpmpjishing it and their 
 final subjugation would have for years been delayed. But con- 
 stant wars with our frontier had deprived them of many of their 
 warriors, the ravages of the small-pox, however, was the principal 
 cause of the great decrease in their numbers." 
 
 It was only the Piankeshaw band of the Miamis, however, that 
 occupied portions of Illinois subsequent to the dispersion of La 
 Salle's colony about Starved Rock. The principal villages of the 
 latter were upon the Vermilion River, and at and in the vicinity 
 of Vincennes, Ind. 
 
 Their territory extended eastward to the Ohio River and west- 
 ward to the ridge that divides the waters flowing respectively into 
 the Kaskaskia and the Wabash. They were found by French 
 officers in populous towns upon the Vermilion as early as 17 18; 
 later, they pushed the degenerating Illinois bands to the vicinity 
 of Kaskaskia and neighboring villages, and hunted and dominated 
 over the territory to the Mississippi, as high up, nearly, as the 
 mouth of the Illinois. 
 
 After the conquest of the Northwest Territory by the colonies 
 and the mother country, and the subsequent overthrow of Pontiac 
 the British Government sent out George Croghan to obtain the 
 consent of the Indians to the occupation of Kaskaskia and other 
 forts erected by the French in the western country. Croghan was 
 captured by a war-party of Kickapoos, near the mouth of the 
 Wabash and taken prisoner to Vincennes; from thence he came 
 overland, following the Great Trail leading to Detroit, through 
 the prairies, along the crest of the dividing ridge before named 
 
THE MIAMIS. Ill 
 
 crossing the Vermilion River west of Danville. He describes 
 that part of the hunting-ground of the Piankeshavv'S between Vin- 
 cennes and the Vermilion of the AVabash. That the reader may 
 know how the Illinois country appeared to an eye-witness in 1765, 
 who wrote down his observations at the time, we quote the fol- 
 lowing extracts from Col. Croghan's daily journal, of June i8th to 
 the 2 2d, inclusive: 
 
 "AVe traveled through a prodigious large meadow [prairie] called 
 the Piankeshaw's hunting-ground. Here is no wood to be seen, 
 and the country appears like an ocean. The ground is exceed- 
 ingly rich and partially overgrown with wild hemp. The land- is 
 well watered and full of buffalo, deer, bears, and all khids of wild 
 game. * * * We passed through some very large meadows, 
 part of which belongs to the Piankeshaws on the VermiHon River. 
 The country and soil were much the same as that we traveled over 
 for these three days past. Wild hemp grows here in abundance. 
 Game is very plenty. At any time, in a half an hour, we could 
 kill as much as we wanted.* * * We passed through a part 
 of the same meadow mentioned yesterday; then came to a high 
 woodland, and arrived at Vermilion River, so called from a fine 
 red earth found there by the Indians, with which they paint them- 
 selves. About a half of a mile from where we crossed this river is 
 a village of Piankeshaws, distinguished by the addition of name 
 of the river." 
 
 Next to the Illinois, the Piankeshaws were the mjjst jpeacefully 
 incITiied: toward the whites^ Early intermarriages of .tlieir_jda,ugh- 
 tefs^ with French traders, at Vincennes, and^elsewhere, and with 
 whorn "fills tHl35~ltved"' oh "terms of sbciiQ equality, begat" a genera- 
 tixjnTHatllinFe'dTliem airin a common interest. It was, therefore, 
 tTiaf"Generar"Clark,"in his cohqiiest of the Illinois country, found 
 little trouble in transferring this friendliness of the Piankeshaws 
 ' aTViricennes and the Vermilion towns to the American cause, 
 the "same as he had previously done at Kaskaskia and the neigh- 
 boring mixed French and Indian villages upon the Mississippi. 
 The Piankeshaws, barring individual exceptions, took no part in 
 those bloody wars against the whites that followed the Revolution- 
 ary struggle. It was not they, but war-pardes of theKickapoos, 
 ^ottawatom jes, anrd other northwestern tribes that terrorfzed over 
 
 * There must have been more than one hundred persons in this cortege to 
 provide food for; as the party alone by whom Croghan and his associates 
 were captured, numbered eighty warriors. Hence, it would require a good 
 deal of meat, doubtless their only means of sustinance, to supply their daily 
 wants. 
 
112 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 the white settlements, crystalizing along the Ohio, the Wabash, 
 and their tributaries, and in southwestern lUinois. In the retaha- 
 
 tory_raids^ of_ the Americans into the Indian territory, the innocent 
 T'iankeshaws often suffered^vengiiig^ blp?^s that should have fallen 
 upon the .guilty ones. The pioneer, burning with a sense of his 
 wrongs, only considered that all redskins were Indians, and, 
 without stopping to inquire whether they were of a friendly tribe 
 or not, remorselessly slew upon sight any one of them whom he 
 discovered. This state of affairs grew so bad that the Pianke- 
 shaws appealed to the Government, and General Washington 
 issued his proclamation, especially forbidding the Piankeshaws 
 from being harmed by the white people. 
 
 The capital of the Miami tribe, from earliest times, was at Ft. 
 Wayne. As far back as the year 1700 they were there, and shortly 
 before had assisted Canadians in making the "Portage" — the land 
 carriage from the St. Marys across to Little River, a tributary of 
 the Wabash. The near proximity of the headwaters of the Mau- 
 mee, flowing eastwardly into Lake Erie, and Little River and the 
 Wabash, flowing westward and south into the Mississippi, gave 
 great importance to this Portage, making it the key to and giving 
 it control of the communication between the vast area of country 
 lying upon either side. The Miamis well knew this, and held 
 possession until forced, at last, to yield it to the United States, in 
 179s, by the terms of the treaty at Greenville. At that treaty, 
 Little Turtle, the great orator of the Miamis, protesting against 
 its surrender, said: "Elder brother [meaning Geli. Wayne], when 
 our forefathers saw the French and the English at the Miami vil- 
 lage [as Ft. Wayne was then known], that glorious gate which your 
 younger brothers [the Miamis] had the happiness to own, and 
 through which all the good words of our chiefs had to pass [that 
 is, messages between the several tribes], from north to south, and 
 east to west, the French and the Enghsh never told us they wished 
 to purchase our lands from us." "The next place you pointed 
 out to us was the Little River, and said you wanted two miles 
 square at that place. This is a request that our fathers, the French 
 or British, never made of us ; it was always oicrs. This carrying 
 place has heretofore proved, in a great degree, the subsistence of 
 your brothers. That place has brought us, in the course of one 
 day, the amount of twelve hundred dollars. Let us both own 
 this place, and enjoy in common the advantages it aff"ords." Gen. 
 Wayne was inexorable; and, by the terms of the treaty, a piece 
 of land SIX miles square, near the confluence of the Rivers St. 
 Marys and St. Joseph, at Ft. Wayne, and a piece two miles square 
 at the confluence of Little River with the Wabash, was ceded to 
 the United States. 
 
THE MIAMIS. 113 
 
 The Miamis at Ft. Wayne were regarded as the senior band of 
 the tribe, from their superior intelhgence and numbers; and to 
 whom the other bands, except the Piankeshaws, at a later day, 
 deferred in all matters of peace or war or affairs affecting the 
 common interests of the tribe. The other branches of the great 
 Miami family had extensive villages. and cultivated fields on the 
 Mississineway, near and above Peru, Indiana; along Eel River, 
 near Logansport and above; upon the Wea plains, below Lafay- 
 ette; upon Sugar Creek; and upon the beautiful prairie strip in 
 the neighborhood of Terre Haute. 
 
 Subsequent to the Treaty of Greenville, their demoralization 
 was rapid in its progress and terrible in its consequences. So 
 much so, that when the Baptist missionary, the Rev. Isaac McCoy, 
 was among them between the years 18 17 and 1822, and drawing 
 his conclusions from his own observation, he declared that the 
 Miamis were not a warlike people. At the villages on Sugar 
 Creek, Eel River, and the Mississineway, and particularly at Ft. 
 Wayne, it was a continuous round of drunken debauchery when- 
 ever whisky could be obtained, of which men, women, and chil- 
 dren partook alike; and life was often sacrificed in personal broils, 
 or by exposure of the debauchees to the inclemency of the 
 weather. 
 
 By treaties, entered into at various times from 1795 to 1845, 
 the Miamis ceded their lands in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and 
 removed west of the Mississippi ; going in villages or by detach- 
 ments from time to time. In 1838, at a single cession, they sold 
 the U. S. Government 177,000 acres of land in Indiana, which 
 was only a fragment of their former possessions, still retaining 
 large tracts. Thus they alienated their heritage piece by piece to 
 make room for the incoming white population, while they gradu- 
 ally disappeared from the valleys of the Wabash and Maumee. 
 Few of them clung to their reservations, adapted themselves to 
 the ways of the Americans, and their descendants are now to be 
 m£t with in or about the cities that have sprung up in the locali- 
 ties named. The money received from the sales of their lands 
 proved a calamity, as the proceeds were wasted for whisky. 
 
 The last of the Miamis to go westward was the Mississineway 
 band. This remnant, comprising in all about 350 persons, in 
 charge of Christmas Dazney,* left their old homes, where many of 
 
 * His name was also spelled Dazney, Dashney, and Daynett, the latter 
 being the French orthography. He was born Dec. 25, 1799, at the so-called 
 "Lower Wea Village", or "Old Orchard Town", or "IVe-au-ta-no", [The 
 Rising Sun], within the southern suburbs of the present City of Terre Haute, 
 
114 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 them had farm houses and had made considerable progress irt 
 agriculture, in the fall of 1846, going to Cincinnati. Here they 
 were placed on a steamboat, taken down the Ohio, up the Missis- 
 sippi and Missouri, and landed, late in the season, at Westport, 
 near Kansas City. Ragged men and nearly naked women and 
 
 Ind. His father, Ambrolse Dagney, was a native Frenchman, of Kaskaskia, 
 and served throughout the Tippecanoe campaign, in Capt. Scott's Company 
 of Militia, raised at Vincennes. He received a severe flesh wound at the 
 battle near the Prophet's Town; lived for many years with his daughter, 
 Mary Cott, formerly Mary Shields, on a reservation secured to her by the 
 Treaty of St. Mary's, Oct. 2, 1818, and situated at the ancient Indian village 
 near the "Vermilion Salines", some four miles west of Danville, III., where 
 he died and was buried, in 1848. He was well known to the early citizens 
 of Danville, and of the Wabash Valley from Danville to Vincennes. Upon 
 all convivial occasions, which were by no means infrequent, he indulged his- 
 fondness for telling over the many thrilling incidents and dangerous experi- 
 ences of his wild nomadic life, as hunter, trapper, boatsman, guide, and 
 soldier. He boasted the fact of a personal acquaintance with Gov. Harrison,, 
 whose memory he held in the highest esteem; and anathematized with volu- 
 able profanity, all " bad Inguns ", as he called those who were unfriendly to 
 the whites. 
 
 Ambroise Dagney's wife — the only one he ever had, and the mother of 
 Christmas Dagney and Mary Cott, was Me-chin-quam-e-sha, [The Beautiful 
 Shade Tree], a sister of Jocco, or Jack-ke-kee-kah, [The Tall Oak], head 
 chief of the Wea Band of Miamis, whose old and principal village was- 
 the one we have named near Terre Haute. Later, this band went higher 
 up the Wabash to a secondary village near the mouth of Sugar Creek. 
 
 Under the instruction of Catholic teachers, the son, Christmas Dagnay re- 
 ceived a good education. He spoke the English and French languages with 
 great fluency, and was master of the dialects of the several Indiana and Illi- 
 nois Indians. He served for many years at Fort Harrison [on the east bank 
 of the Wabash, near and above Terre Haute], and elsewhere, as Government 
 interpreter and Indian agent, filling these various positions of confidence and 
 trust efficiently and honestly. Feb. 16, 1819, he was married to Mary Ann 
 Isaacs, an educated Christian woman, of the Brothertown, N.Y. [Mohegan] 
 Indians, whose acquaintance he had made while she was spending a few 
 weeks on a visit at the Mission House of Rev. Isaac McCoy, then situated on 
 Raccoon Creek, near Rosedale, Park Co., Ind. Mr. McCoy performed the 
 marriage ceremony, as he says, "in the presence of our Indian neighbors, 
 who were invited to attend; and we had the happiness to have twenty-three 
 of the natives partake of a meal prepared for the occasion. " 
 
 Christmas Dagney died in 1848, at Cold Water Grove, Kansas, and his- 
 widow subsequently marriedj Baptiste Peoria, mentioned in a note further on. 
 
THE MIAMIS. 115 
 
 children, forming a motley group, were huddled upon the shore 
 of a strange land, without food or friends to relieve their wants 
 and exposed to the bitter December winds that blew from the 
 chilly plains of Kansas. 
 
 From Westport the Mississineways were conducted to a place 
 near the present village of Lewisburg, Kansas, in the county since 
 narned Miami. They suffered gready and nearly one-third of 
 their number died the first year. Mrs. Mary Babtiste Peoria, then 
 wife of Christmas Dazney, the agent having these unfortunate 
 people in charge, and who accompanied her husband in this work, 
 stated to the writer "that strong men would actually cry when 
 they thought about their old homes in Indiana, to which many of 
 them would make journeys bare-footed, begging their way and 
 submitting to the imprecations hurled upon them from the door 
 of the white man as they asked for a crust of bread. I saw 
 fathers and mothers give their little children away to others of the 
 tribe for adoption, and then singing their funeral songs and join- 
 ing in the solemn dance of death. Afterward go calmly away 
 from the assemblage, never again to be seen alive." 
 
 In 1670, the Jesuit father, Claude Dablon, introduces to our 
 notice the Miamis at the village of Maskoutench; where, as we 
 have already shown, the chief was surrounded by his officers of 
 state in all the routine of barbaric display, to whom the natives 
 of other tribes paid the greatest deference. Advancing eastward, 
 in the rear line of their valorous warriors, the Miamis pushed 
 their villages through Illinois into Michigan and Indiana, and as 
 far into Ohio as the river still bearing their name. Coming in 
 collision with the French, the British, and the Americans; reduced 
 by constant wars; and decimated, more than all, by vices con- 
 tracted by intercourse with a superior race, whose virtues they 
 failed to emulate, they make a westward turn ; and having in the 
 progress of time described the round of a most singular journey, 
 we at last behold the miserable remnant on the same side of the 
 Mississippi from whence their warlike progenitors had come nearly 
 two centuries before. 
 
 The Wea and Piankeshaw band had preceded the Mississine- 
 way to the westward; they too had become reduced to about two 
 hundred and fifty persons. They, with the Miamis and remain- 
 ing fragments of the Kaskaskias, the latter containing under that 
 name what yet remained of the several subdivisions of the old 
 mini confederacy, were collected by Baptiste Peoria and consoli- 
 dated under the title of The Confederated Tribes.* This little 
 
 * This remarkable man was the son of a daughter of a sub-chief of the 
 
Il6 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 confederation sold out their reservations in Miami County, Kan- 
 sas, and retired to a tract of reduced dimensions within the Indian 
 
 Peoria Tribe, and was born, according to the best information, in 1793, near 
 the confluence of the Kankakee and Maple, as the DesPlaines River was 
 called by the Illinois Indians. His reputed father's name was Baptiste, a 
 French Canadian and trader, among the Peoria Band. Young Peoria was 
 called Batticy, by his mother; later in life, he was known as Baptise "the 
 Peoria ", and finally, as Baptiste Peoria. The people of his tribe gave the 
 name a liquid sound, pronouncing the name as if it were spelled Paola. The 
 county-seat of Miami Co., Kansas, is named after him. He was a man of 
 large stature, and possessed of great strength, activity, and courage; and, like 
 Keokuk, the great chief of the Sac-and-Fox Indians, a fearless and expert 
 horseman. Having a ready command of the French and English languages, 
 and being familiar, as well, with the several dialects of the Pottawatomies, 
 Shawnees, Delawares, Miamis, Illinois, and Kickapoos; these qualifications 
 as a linguist soon brought him into prominence among the Indians, while his 
 known integrity as readily commended his services to the United States. 
 From the year 1821 to 1838, he was employed in assisting the removal of the 
 above tribes from Indiana and Illinois to their respective reservations west- 
 ward of the Missouri. His duties in these relations brought him in contact 
 with many of the early settlers on the Illinois, the Kaskaskia, and the Wa- 
 bash Rivers and their constituent streams. He represented his tribe at the 
 Treaty of Edwardsville, 111., September 25, t8i8. By this treaty, at which 
 there were present representatives from each of the five Tribes comprising the 
 Illinois or lUini nation, it appears that for a period of years anterior to that 
 time, the Peoria band had lived and were then living separate and apart from 
 the others. 
 
 Baptiste Peoria was in the service of the General Government for nearly 
 thirty years, in the Indian" Department; and in 1867, became head chief of 
 the consolidated Miami and Illinois tribes, and went with them to their newly- 
 assigned reservation in the north-east part of the Indian Territory, where he 
 died at an advanced age, Sept. 13, 1873. Some years before, he married 
 Mrs. Mary Dagney, widow of Christmas Dagney, and to this lady is the author 
 indebted for copies of the " Western Spirit ", and the " Fort Sco.tt Monitor ", 
 newspapers published at Paola and Ft. Scott, Kansas, respectively, containing 
 biographical sketches and obituary notices of her late husband, from which 
 this note has, in the main, been collated. 
 
 It may well be said that Baptiste was "The Last of the Peorias". By 
 precept and example he spent the better portion of a busy life in persistent 
 efforts to save the fragment of the Illinois and Miamis by encouraging them 
 to adopt the ways of civilized life. His widow, Mary Baptiste, nee Dagney, 
 survives, and is living in her elegant homestead 'at Paoli, Kansas, in com- 
 fortable circumstances. 
 
THE MIAMIS. 117 
 
 Territory. Since this last change of location, in 1867, they have 
 made but little progress toward a higher civilization. Those that 
 remain of the once numerous lUini and Miami tribes are now 
 reduced to less than two hundred persons, and for the most part 
 are a listless, idle people, possessing none of the spirit that had 
 inspired the breasts of their ancestors. 
 
 THE KICKAPOOS. 
 
 The Kickapoos and Mascoutins are treated here as but one 
 tribe, for the difference between them was only nominal at best. 
 The name is found written in French authorities as "Kic-a- 
 poux", " Kick-a-pous ", "Kik-a-poux", "Kik-a-bou", "Quick-a- 
 pous", and "Kick-a-pous". Some authors claim the name to 
 have been derived from the Algonquin word Nee-gig [the otter, 
 or the spirit of an otter]. Prof. Henry R. Schoolcraft, a recog- 
 nized authority on the ethnology of the northwestern tribes, 
 alluding to the Kickapoos, says, they are "an erratic race, who, 
 under various names, in connection with the Sacs and Foxes, 
 have, in good keeping with one of their many names, which is 
 said, by one interpretation, to mean 'Rabbits-Ghost' [Wah- 
 boos, with little variation in dialect, being the word for rabbit], 
 skipped over half the continent, to the manifest discomfort of 
 both German and American philologists and ethnographers, who, 
 in searching- for the so-called 'Mascontens', have followed, so far 
 as their results are concerned, an ignis fain us''. 
 
 This tribe has been long connected with the history of the 
 Northwest, in which they acquired great notoriety, as well for 
 the wars in which they were engaged with other tribes, as for 
 their presistent hostility to the white race throughout a period of 
 nearly one hundred and fifty years. They are first noticed by 
 the French explorer, Samuel Cham plain, who, in 161 2, discovered 
 the "Mascoutins residing near the place called Sak-in-am'", — or, 
 rather, Sac-e-nong, meaning, in Chippeway, the country of the 
 Sacs, which, at this time, comprised that part of the State of 
 Michigan, lying between the head of Lake Erie and Saginaw 
 Bay, on Lake Huron. In 1669-70, as seen in an extract from 
 Father AUouez, quoted in the chapter relating to the Miamis, 
 the Kickapoos and Mascoutins were found in connection with 
 the Miamis, near the mouth of Fox River, Wisconsin. In the 
 same letter. Father Allouez says that "four leagues from this 
 
Il8 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 mixed village are the Kickabou, who speak the same language 
 with the Mascoutench".* 
 
 This people were not pliant material in the hands of the mis- 
 sionaries. In fact, they appear to have acquired early notoriety 
 in history by seizing Father Gabriel Ribourde as he was walking 
 near the banks of the Illinois River, absorbed in religious medi- 
 tation, and whom they "carried away, and broke his head", as 
 Henry de Tonti quaintly expresses it, in referring to this ruthless 
 murder. Again, in 1728, as Father Ignatius Guignas, compelled 
 to abandon his mission among the Sioux, on account of a victory 
 which the Foxes had obtained over the French, was attempting 
 . to reach the Illinois, he, too, fell into the hands of the Kicka- 
 poos and Mascoutens, and for five months was held a captive, 
 and constantly exposed to death. During this time he was con- 
 demned to be burned, and was only saved through the kindly 
 intervention of an old man in the tribe, who adopted him as a 
 son. While a prisoner, his brother missionaries of the Illinois 
 relieved his necessities by sending timely supphes, which Father 
 
 * The Mascoutins, in the works of French authors, appear as " Mascou- 
 tench", "Mackkoutench", "Machkouteng", "Masqutins", and "Maskou- 
 teins". English and American called them "Masquattimies", "Mascoutins", 
 " Musquitons ", "Musquitos", a corruption used by American colonial traders, 
 and "Meaows", which was the English synonym for the French -norA prairie, 
 before the latter had become naturalized into the English language. 
 
 The derivation of the name was a subject of discussion among the early 
 French missionaries. Father Marquette, with some others who followed the 
 Huron Indian rendition of it, says, "Maskoutens in Algonquin may mean 
 Fire Nation", and this is the "name given them"; while Fathers AUouez 
 and Charlevoix (whose opportunities to know were better), together with the 
 still more recent American authors, claims that the word signifies a prairie or 
 "a land bare of trees". The Ojebway word for prairie h^' Mush-koo-da"- 
 Bands of the same tribe on the upper Mississippi, on the authority of Dr. 
 James, call it Mus-ko-tia. Its derivitive or root is Ish-koo-ta, skoutay, or 
 scote (ethnologists differ as to its orthography), and which is the algonquin 
 word for fire. The great plains westward of the Wabash and the lakes, was 
 truly "a land barren of trees", kept so by the annually recurring fires that 
 swept over through the tall grass in billows of flame and smoke; and this dis- 
 tinguishing feature is aptly preserved in the name the Indians gave it. Major 
 Forsyth, long a trader at Peoria, in his manuscript account of the Indian 
 tribes of his acquaintance, quoted by Dr. Drake in his Life of Black Hawk, 
 says, "The Mascos or Mascoutins were, by French traders of a more recent 
 day, called gens des frairies [men of the prairie], and lived and hunted on 
 the great prairies between the Wabash and Illinois Rivers ". 
 
THE KICKAPOOS. II9 
 
 •Guignas used to gain over the good will of his captors. Having 
 induced them to make peace, he was taken to one of the Illinois 
 missions, where he was suffered to remain or parole until Nov., 
 1729, when his captors returned and took him back to their own 
 country; since which it seems nothing has ever been heard of 
 him. 
 
 The Kickapoos early incurred the displeasure of the French 
 by depredations south of Detroit. In 17 12, a band of them, 
 living in a village near the mouth of the Maumee River, in com- 
 pany with about thirty Mascoutens, were about to make war 
 Tipon the French Post at Detroit. They took prisoner one Lang- 
 lois, a messenger, on his return from the Miami country, whither 
 he was bringing many letters from the Jesuit fathers of the sev- 
 eral Illinois villages, as well, also, despatches from Louisiana. 
 The mauraders destroyed the letters and despatches, which gave 
 much uneasiness to M. Du Boisson, commandant at Detroit. 
 As a result of this act, a canoe, laden with Kickapoos on their 
 ■way to the villages near Detroit, was captured by the Hurons 
 and Ottawas, residing near by, and who were allies of the French. 
 Among the slain was the principal Kickapoo chief, whose head, 
 with three others of the same tribe, were brought to Du Boisson, 
 ■who informs us "that the Hurons and Ottawas committed this 
 act for the alleged reason, that the previous winter the Kicka- 
 poos had taken some of the Hurons and Iroquois prisoners, and 
 also because they had considered the Kickapoo chief a "true 
 Outtagamis"; that is, they regarded him as one of the Fox nation. 
 
 From the village of Machkoutench, on Fox River, Wis., the 
 Kickapoos seemed to have passed to the south, extending their 
 right flank in the direction of Rock River, and their left toward 
 the southern trend of Lake Michigan. Prior to 17 18, they had 
 villages on Rock River and in the vicinity of Chicago. Indeed, 
 JRock River appears as Kickapoo River on cotemporaneous 
 French maps. 
 
 In 17 1 2, the Mascoutins entered the plot formed for the cap- 
 ture of the post of Detroit; their associates repaired to the 
 neighborhood, and, whereas they were awaiting the arrival of the 
 Kickapoos, they were attacked by a confederation of Indiatis, 
 Tvho were friendly to the French and had hastened to the relief 
 ■of the garrison. The destruction that followed this attempt 
 against Detroit, was, perhaps, one of the most remorseless, in 
 which white men took a part, of which we have an account in 
 ■the annals of Indian warfare. The French and Indian forces, 
 after protracted efforts, compelled the enemy to abandon their 
 position and flee to Presque Isle, opposite Hog Island, near 
 
120 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 Lake St. Clair, some distance above the fort. Here they held 
 out for four days; their women and children, in the meantime, 
 actually starving, numbers of whom were dying every day from 
 hunger. Messengers were sent to the French commander, beg- 
 ging for quarter, and offering to surrender at discretion, only 
 craving that the remaining survivors might be spared the horrors 
 of a general massacre. Perpetual servitude as the slaves of vic- 
 tors; anything rather than a wholesale destruction. The Indian 
 allies of the French would listen to no terms. "At the end of 
 fourth day", says the French commander, "after fighting with 
 much courage, and not being able to resist further the Muscotins 
 surrendered at discretion to our people, who gave them no quar- 
 ter. Our Indians lost sixty men, killed and wounded. The 
 enemy lost a thousand souls — men, women, and children. All 
 our allies returned to our fort [at Detroit] with their slaves [cap- 
 tives], and their amusement was to shoot four or five of them 
 every day. The Hurons did not spare a single one of theirs ". 
 
 From references given, it is apparent that this people, like the 
 Miamis and Pottawatomies, were progressing south and eastward. 
 This movement was probably caused by the Sioux, whose fierce 
 warriors were pressing them from the northwest. As early as 
 1695, the Foxes, with the Kickapoos and Mascoutins, were 
 meditating a migration toward the Wabash as a place of security. 
 From an official document sent from Quebec, relating to the 
 occurrences in Canada during that year, the department at Paris 
 is advised "that the Sioux,- who have mustered some two thou- 
 sand warriors for the purpose, would come in large numbers and 
 seize their village. This has caused the Outagamies to quit their 
 country and disperse themselves for a season, and afterward to 
 return and save their harvest. They are then to retire toward 
 the Wabash and form a settlement so much the more permanent, 
 as they will be removed from the incursions of the Sioux, and in 
 a position to easily effect a junction with the Iroquois and Eng- 
 hsh, without the French being able to present it. Should this 
 project be realized, it is very apparent that the Mascotins and 
 the Kickapoos will be of the party, and that the three tribes, 
 forming a new village of fourteen or fifteen hundred men, would 
 experience no difficulty in considerably increasing it by attracting 
 other nations thither, which would be of most pernicious con- 
 sequences". That the Mascoutins, at least, did go soon after 
 this toward the lower Wabash, is shown by the fact of their 
 presence about Juchereau's trading-post, which erected near the 
 mouth of the Ohio, in the year 1700. It is questionable, how- 
 ever, if either the Foxes or Kickapoos followed the Muscoutins 
 
THE KICKAPOOS. 121 
 
 to the Wabash country, and it is evident that the Mascoutins, who 
 survived the epidemic that broke out among them while at 
 Juchereau's post, returned to the north. The French liaving 
 effected a concihation with the Sioux, we find that, for a number 
 of years subsequent to 1705, the Mascoutins were again back 
 among their affinities, the Foxes and Kickapoos upon their com- 
 mon hunting grounds in northern IHinois and southern Wisconsin. 
 Later, and by progressive approaches, the Kickapoos worked 
 further southward, and estabhshed themselves in the territory 
 lying between the Illinois and Wabash Rivers, and south of the 
 Kankakee. This migration was not accomphshed without oppo- 
 sition and blood shed in punishing the Piankeshaws east and 
 south to the Wabash, and the Illinois tribes south and west upon 
 the lower waters of the Kaskaskia. We are without authentic 
 data as to the period of the time when this conquest was con- 
 sumated. At the treaty, ocncluded at Edwardsville, III, July 30, 
 1819, between Augusta Chouteau and Benjamin Stephenson, 
 commissioners on the part of the United States, and the prin- 
 cipal chiefs and warriers of the Kickapoo tribe, the latter ceded 
 the following lands, residue of their domain until then undis- 
 posed of, viz.: "Beginning on the Wabash, at the upper point of 
 their cession made by the second Article of their Treaty at Vin- 
 cennes, on the 9th day of December, 1809;* running thence 
 northwestwardly to the dividing line between the State of Illinois 
 and Indiana; thence north along said line to the Kankakee; 
 thence with said river to the Illinois River; thence down the 
 latter to its mouth; thence with a direct line to the mrthivest cor- 
 ner of the Vincejines tract, as recognized in the Treaty with the 
 Piankashaw tribe of Indians at Vincennes, on the 30th day of 
 December, 1805 ;t and thence with the western and northern 
 
 * The beginning point here referred to is " on the Wabash ", at the mouth 
 of the Big Vermilion River. By previous cessions it appears that the 
 acknowledged territory of the Kickapoos extended Sown the Wabash nearly 
 as far as Vincennes. Vide 9th Article of the Treaty of September 30, 1809, 
 concluded at Ft. Wayne, between the United States and the Delewares, Pot- 
 tawatomies, Miamis, and Eel River tribes; Treaty of Vincennes of Dec. 9, 
 1809, between the United States and the Kickapoos. 
 
 + The boundaries of " the Vincennes tract " were settled by the terms of the 
 treaty at Ft. Wayne, July 7, 1803, between Gov. Harrison of the Indiana 
 Territory (which, at that time, embraced all of the present States of Michigan, 
 Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin), and the several Deleware, Shawnee, Pot- 
 tawatomie, Miami, Eel River, Wea, Piankeshaw, Kickapoo, and Kaskaskia 
 tribes within his jurisdiction. The first Article of this treaty also explains 
 
122 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 boundaries of the cessions heretofore made by the said Kickapoo 
 tribe of Indians,* to the beginning. Of which last described tract 
 of land, the said Kickapoo tribe claim a large portion by descent 
 from their ajicestors, and the balance by conquest from the Illinois 
 7iation, and uninterrupted possession for more than half a century^'. 
 The claim of the Kickapoos to the country referred to does not 
 rest alone upon the assertion of the Kickapoos, but is supported 
 by officers of the French, English, and American governments, 
 when they respectively asserted dominion over it. Under date 
 of April 2ist, 1752, M. de Longueil, commandant at Detroit, 
 incorporates in an official report upon the condition of Indian 
 affairs in his department, that he had received advices from 
 "M. de Lingeris, commandant at the Oy-a-ta-nons,+ who beheves 
 that great reliance is not to be placed on the Mascoutens, and 
 
 the reasons that led to its consumation. It is as follows : " Whereas, it is 
 •declared by the 4th Article of the Treaty of Greenville, that the United 
 States reserve for their use the post of Vincennes, and all the lands adjacent, 
 to which the Indian titles have been extinguished. And, whereas, it has been 
 found difficult to determine the precise limits of said tract as held by the 
 French and British Governments; it is hereby agreed, that the boundaries of 
 said tract shall be as follows: Beginning at Point Coupee ["cut-ofif" or noted 
 bend in the river some eighteen miles above Vincennes], on the Wabash, and 
 running thence, by a north seventy-eight degrees west, twelve miles [into Illi- 
 nois]; thence [south by west] by a line parallel to the general course of the 
 Wabash, until it shall be intersected by a line at right angles to the same, 
 passing through the mouth of White River [about eighteen miles below Vin- 
 cennes]; thence, by the last mentioned line [east by south], across the Wabash 
 and toward the Ohio River, seventy-two miles; thence by a line north twelve 
 ■degrees west, until it shall be intersected by a line at right angles with the 
 same, passing through Point Coupee, and, by the last mentioned line, to the 
 place of beginning." The boundaries of "the Vincennes tract", as thus 
 defined, appear on many of the early maps, and displays a tract of land in 
 the shape of a parallelogram, some thirty-six miles wide, by seventy-two 
 long, lying, for the most part, on the east side of the Wabash and in Indiana, 
 an average width of about ten miles, only, off of the west end of it being in 
 Illinois, the northwest corner of which, referred to in the text, is about 
 twenty miles north, and some ten miles west of Vincennes. 
 
 * By previous treaties, the Kickapoos had ceded to the United States their 
 claims to the territory from " the Vincennes tract " as high up the Wabash as 
 the mouth of Pine Creek, Warren Co., Ind., and extending west of the same 
 stream an average width of thirty miles. 
 
 + Fort Ouiatanon situated on the west bank of the Wabash River, a few 
 miles above Attica, Ind. 
 
THE KICKAPOOS. 1 23 
 
 that their remaining neutral is all that is to be expected from 
 them and the Kickapoos." Later, and after the northwest terri- 
 tory had been lost to France and ceded to Great Britain as the 
 fruit of the French colonial war, and after the failure of the 
 Indian confederation under Pontiac to reconquer the same terri- 
 tory. Sir William Johnson, having in charge the Indian affairs of 
 the western nations, sent his deputy, George Croghan, to the 
 Ilhnois to pacify the Indians "to soften their antipathy to the 
 English, to expose the . falsehood of the French, to distribute 
 presents, and prepare a way for the passage of troops"* who 
 were preceding westward to take possession of Fort Charles and 
 other military establishments within the ceded territory. Croghan 
 left Fort Pitt on May tyth, 1765, starting down the Ohio in two 
 batteaux, having with him several white persons, and a number 
 of Deleware, Iroquois, and Shawnee Indians, as deputies of 
 tribes inhabiting the upper waters of the Ohio, with whom 
 Croghan had already concluded treaties of reconciliation toward 
 the British. On the evening of the 6th of June, Croghan 
 reached the mouth of the Wabash. They dropped down the 
 river six miles, "and came to a place called the old Shawnee 
 village, some of that nation having previously lived there". He 
 remained here the next day, occupying his time in preparing and 
 sending despatches to P'ort Chartes. We quote from his journal: 
 "On the 8th, at daybreak, we were attacked by a party of Indi- 
 ans, consisting of eighty warriors of the Kickapoos and Musqua- 
 timies, who killed two of my men and three Indians, wounded 
 myself and all the rest of my party, except two white men and 
 one Indian; then made myself and all the white men prisoners, 
 plundering us of everything we had. A deputy of the Shawnees, 
 who was shot through the thigh, having concealed himself in the 
 woods for a few minutes after he was shot — not knowing but that 
 they were southern Indians, who were always at war with the 
 northward Indians^after discovering what nation they were, 
 came np to them and made a very bold speech, telling them that 
 the whole northward Indians would join in taking revenge for 
 the insult and murder of their people. This alarmed those sav- 
 ages very much, who began to excuse themselves, saying, their 
 fathers, the French, had spirited them up, telling them that the 
 Indians were coming with a large body of southern Indians to 
 take their country from them and enslave them ; that it was this 
 that induced them to commit this outrage. After dividing the 
 plunder (they left a great part of the heaviest efi'ects behind), they 
 set off with us to their village of Ou-at-to-mn in a great hurry, 
 
 * Vide Parkman's History Conspiracy of Pontiac. 
 
124 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 being in dread of a large party of Indians, which they suspected 
 were coming after me. Our course was through a thick woody 
 country, crossing a great many swamps, morrasses, and beaver 
 ponds."* From the data given, taken with the well-estabHshed 
 historical fact that the Kickapoos approached the Wabash from 
 the northwest, it is evident that, prior to 1752, they had driven 
 the Illinois tribes from the hunting grounds lying eastward and 
 south of the Illinois River. In this conquest they were assisted 
 
 * The war party continued up the river the 9th, loth, nth, 12th, 13th, and 
 14th; and on the 15th reached Vincennes. "On my arrival there", says 
 Croghan, " I found a village of eighty or ninety French families, seated on 
 the east side of the river, being the one of the finest situations that can be 
 found. The country is level and clear, the soil very rich, producing wheat 
 and tobacco. I think the latter preferable to that of Maryland or Virginia. 
 The French inhabitants hereabouts are an idle, lazy people, a parcel of rene- 
 gades from Canada, and much worse than the Indians. They took a secret 
 pleasure at our misfortunes, and the moment we arrived they came to the 
 Indians, exchanging trifles for their valuable plunder. As the savages took 
 from me a considerable quantity of gold and silver, the French traders ex- 
 torted ten half Johnies from them for one pound of Vermilion. Here is 
 likewise an Indian village of the Pyan-ke-shaws [in their language called 
 ' Chip-kaw-kay', rendered the town of Brushwood. Dillon's History of Indi- 
 ana,] who were much displeased with the party that took me, telling them 
 that 'our and your chiefs are gone to make peace, and you have begun a war 
 for which our women and children will have reason to cry.' * * * Port 
 Vincent is a place- of great consequence for trade, being a fine hunting coun- 
 try along the Wabash, and too far for the Indians, which reside hereabouts, 
 to go enter to the Illinois, or elsewhere, to fetch their necessaries. " On the 
 17th, Croghan and his captors crossed the Wabash, and came up through the 
 prairies referred to in the chapter on the Miamis, and on the 23d entered a 
 large bottom on the Wabash, within six miles of Fort Gui-a-ta-non, Croghan 
 further says: "The Kickapoos and Musquatamies, whose warriors had taken 
 us live nigh the fort, on the same side of the river, where they have two vil- 
 lages." Croghan's Journal continues a daily account of his movements np 
 the Wabash to Ft. Wayne, down the Maumee, and up the lakes to Detroit, 
 and from thence to Niagara Falls; and gives a fair insight into the appear- 
 ance and topography of the extensive country he traversed as it then appeared, 
 and illustrates the temper of the Indians who inhabited it. The original 
 manuscript diary was obtained by Mr. Featherstonhough, and first published 
 in his " American Journal of Geology", and in December, 1831, a reprint of 
 100 copies was issued in pamphlet form. It may also be found in the appen- 
 dix of Mann Butler's valuable History of Kentucky, in either of the editions 
 of 1834 or 1836. 
 
THE KICKAPOOS. . 1 25 
 
 by the Sacs and Foxes, and Pottawatomies, who made a common 
 cause of warfare upon the lOmois tribes. "Tradition (says the 
 Pioneer Historian of lUinois, the Rev. John M. Peck) tells us of 
 many a hard fought battle between the original owners of the 
 country and these intruders. Battle Ground Creek is well-known 
 on the road from Kaskaskia to Shawneetown, twenty tive miles 
 from the former place, where the Kaskaskias and their allies 
 were dreadfully slaughtered by the united forces of the Kicka- 
 poos smd Pottawatomies."* 
 
 Within the limits of the territory defined by the treaty at 
 Edwardsville in 1819, the Kickapoos, for generations before that 
 time, had many villages. The principal of these were Kickapo- 
 go-oui, on the west bank of the Wabash, near Hudsonville, Craw- 
 ford Co., 111., and known, in the early days of the Northwest 
 Territory, as Musquiton [Mascoutine] ; another on both sides of 
 the Vermilion River, at its confluence with the AVabash. This 
 last village was destroyed by Maj. John F. Hamtramck, in Oct., 
 1790, whose mihtary forces moved up the river from Vincennes 
 to create a diversion in favor of Gen. Harmer, then leading the 
 main attact against the Miami town at Fort Wayne and other 
 Indian villages in that vicinity. Higher up the Vermilion were 
 other Kickapoo towns, particularly the one some four miles west 
 of Danville, and near the mouth of the Middle Fork. The 
 remains of one of the most extensive burial-grounds in the 
 Wabash Valley, still attest the magnitude of this once populous 
 Indian city; and, although the village site has been in cultivation 
 for over fifty years, every recurring year the ploughshare turns up 
 flint arrow-points, stone-axes, gun-flints, gun-locks, knives, silver 
 brooches, or other mementoes of its former inhabitants. These 
 people were greatly attached to the country watered by the Ver- 
 mihon and its tributaries; and Gov. Harrison found a difficult 
 task to reconcile them to ceding it away. In his letter to the 
 secretary of war, of Dec. 10, 1809, referring to his efforts to in- 
 duce the Kickapoos to part with it, the governor says he "was 
 extremely anxious that the extinguishment of title should extend 
 as high up as the Vermilion River, but it was objected to because 
 
 * " An Historical Sketch of the early American settlements in Illinois, from 
 1780 to 1800. Read before the Illinois State Lyceum, at its Anniversary, 
 August 16, 1832. By J. M. Peck." Published in No. 2 of Vol. i, of The 
 Western Monthly Magazine for February, 1833. Other accounts fix the date 
 of this last great battle about the year 1800, and ascribe its planing and exe- 
 cution to the great Pottawatomie warrior and medicine man known as Wah- 
 bun-ou We-ne-ne or '■'■ The Juggler" . 
 
126 » ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 it would include a Kickapoo village. This small tract of about 
 twenty miles square* is one of the most beautiful that can be 
 conceived, and is, moreover, believed to contain a very rich cop- 
 per mine. I have myself frequently seen specimens of the cop- 
 per; one of which I sent to Mr. Jefferson in 1802. The Indians 
 were so extremely jealous of any search being made for this 
 mine, that traders were always cautioned not to approach the 
 hills which were supposed to contain the mine."t 
 
 The Kickapoos had other villages on the Embarras, some 
 miles west of Charlestown, and still others about the headwaters 
 of the Kaskaskia. During the"" period when the territory west of 
 the Mississippi belonged to Spain, her subjects residing at St. 
 Louis "carried on a considerable trade among the Indians east- 
 ward of the Mississippi, particularly the Kickapoos near the head- 
 waters of the Kaskaskia. "J Further northward they had still 
 other villages, among them one toward the headwaters of Sugar 
 Creek, a tributary of the Sangamon River, near the southwest 
 corner of McLean County. § The Kickapoos had, besides, vil- 
 lages west of Logansport and Lafayette, in the groves upon the 
 prairies, and finally, a great or capital village near what is well- 
 known as "Old Town" timber, in West Township, McLean Co., 
 111. These last were especially obnoxious to the pioneer settlers 
 of Kentucky, because the Indians living or finding a refuge in 
 them, made frequent and exasperating raids across the Ohio, 
 where they would murder men and women, and carry off captive 
 children, to say nothing of the lesser crimes of burning houses 
 and stealing horses. So annoying did these offences become, 
 that several expeditions were sent out in retaliation. That, com- 
 
 * It extended up the Vermilion River a distance of twenty miles in a direct 
 line from its mouth. 
 
 + The specimens referred to were doubtless "drift copper", now supposed to- 
 have drifted in from their native beds in the neighborhood of Lake Superior. 
 Since the settlement of the Vermilion county by the whites, many similar 
 specimens have been found. Only within the present year, 1883, some work- 
 men, while engaged in digging a cellar in Danville, unearthed, from near the 
 surface of the ground, a piece of pure copper, weighing eighty-seven pounds. 
 It was secured by Dr. J. C. Winslow of Danville, for Prof. John CoUett, 
 state geologist of Indiana, who has deposited it in the State Cabinet at Indi- 
 anapolis. 
 
 t Sketches of Louisiana, by Maj. Amos Stodard. 
 
 § This village was burned in the fall of 1812, by a part of Gov. Edwards' 
 forces, while on their march from Camp Russell to Peoria Lake. Vide Gov 
 Reynolds' My Own Times. 
 
THE KICKAPOOS. 12/ 
 
 manded by Gen. Chas. Scott, in the month of May, 1791, de- 
 stroyed the Kickapoo town near Oui-a-ta-non [referred to in con- 
 nection with the capture of Croghan]. In the month of August of 
 the same year, a second expedition, lead by Gen. Jas. Wilkinson, 
 left Kentucky on a similar mission. In the instructions given by 
 Gov. St. Clair (then the executive head of the military as well as. 
 of the civil affairs of the Northwest Territory) to Gen. Wilkinson, 
 we find the following: "Should the success attend you at 
 L'Anguile,* which I wish and hope, you may find yourself equal 
 to the attacking the Kickapoo town situated in the prairie not 
 far from Sangamon River, which empties itself into the Illinois 
 River. By information, that town is not distant from L'Anguile 
 more than three easy days' marches. A visit to that place will 
 be totally unexpected, and most probably attended with decided 
 good consequences; neither will it be hazardous, for the men, at 
 this season, are generally out hunting beyond the Illinois country. 
 Should it seem feasible from circumstances, I recommend the 
 attempt in preference to the towns higher up the Wabash, and 
 success there would be followed by great eclat." The general 
 did not reach the great Kickapoo town. His troops, jaded by 
 forced marches, and the effectual destruction of the Eel River 
 village, and encumbered with prisoners,+ "launched westward 
 through the boundless prairies", only to become "environed on 
 all sides with morasses, which forbade his advancing". They 
 were compelled, toward tha end of the day, to return. On their 
 way back, however, they struck the Kickapoo town west of 
 Lafayette, and destroyed it. 
 
 The people of Kentucky were not the only sufferers from 
 depredations of this tribe. From their towns near the Wabash,, 
 the Kickapoo war parties lurked upon the skirts of the settle- 
 ments on the American Bottom from Kaskaskia to Cahokia, bent 
 on the murder or capture of any unprotected person that fell in 
 their way, excepting alone those of French blood, who, with their 
 property, were, with rare exceptions, exempt from molestation. 
 So strong was the regard of the Kickapoos, in common with all 
 other Algonquin tribes, for the Frenchman. 
 
 * The Eel River town on Eel River, some six miles above Logansport^ 
 Ind., and whicli was to be attacked. 
 
 + His prisoners consisted mostly of women and children, and numbered 
 thirty-four in all. His instructions, like those issued to Gen. Scott, required 
 him to take all women and children they could, and turn them over to the 
 officer in command at Ft. Washington (now Cincinnati), in the hope that by 
 thus paying the Indians back in kind, they would cease their cruel forays. 
 upon helpless and unoffending non-combatalnts. 
 
128 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 Mr. Peck's historical sketch of the early American settlements 
 in lUinois, before quoted, is largely taken up with narrations of 
 the killing and capture of white settlers in the neighborhoods 
 named, and the destruction or the plunder of their property. 
 We summarize a few paragraphs from his address, by way of 
 illustration ; 
 
 "The Kickapoos were numerous and warlike, and had their 
 principal towns on the Illinois and the Vermilion of the Wabash. 
 They were the most formidable and dangerous neighbors to the 
 whites, and, for a number of years, kept the settlements [on the 
 American Bottom] in continual alarm." The address then takes 
 up a narration of yearly events from 1783 to 1795, showing the 
 sufferings and dangers to which the white population was ex- 
 posed on account of Indian depredations, inflicted in the main 
 iiy Kickapoos. 
 
 Among the most notable captures was that of Wm. Biggs, in 
 1788. On the morning of March 28 of that year, while he, in 
 company with young John Vallis, was going from Bellefountaine 
 to Kahokia, they were surprised by a war party of sixteen Kicka- 
 poo Indians. Vallis was wounded in the thigh, and, being 
 mounted on a fine horse, was soon beyond reach of the flying 
 balls, and made his escape only to die, however, of his wounds. 
 Four bullets were shot into Biggs' horse; and the animal became 
 so frantic with pain, and frightened, more than all, with the yells 
 of the savages, that it became unmanageable; Biggs' "gun was 
 thrown from his shoulder, and twisted out of his hands"; in try- 
 ing to recover his gun, and being incumbered "with a large 
 bag of beaver fur, which prevented him from recovering his 
 saddle, which had neither 'girth or crupper', it turned and fell 
 off of the horse, and Biggs 'fell with it'." The rider held on to 
 the horse's mane, and was soon upon his feet, making ineffectual 
 attempts to remount, as his terrified horse dragged him along for 
 some "twenty or thirty yards", when his "hold broke, and he fell 
 on his hands and knees, and stumbled along four or five steps 
 beforfe he could recover himself" "By the time I got fairly on 
 my feet", continues the narrator, "the Indians were about eight 
 or ten yards off me. I saw there was no other way to make my 
 escape but by fast running, and I was determined to try it, and 
 had but little hopes at first of being able to escape, I ran about 
 one hundred yards before I looked back — I thought almost every 
 step I could feel the scalping-knife cutting my scalp off. I found 
 that I was gaining ground on them, I felt encouraged, and ran 
 about three hundred yards further, and looking back, saw that I 
 had gained about one hundred yards, and considered myself 
 
THE KICKAPOOS. 1 29 
 
 •quite out of danger.'' Biggs' hopes, however, were not well 
 grounded. The morning was cold, and before setting out from 
 home on his journey, he had clothed himself in a heavy under- 
 coat, over which was a greatcoat, securely tied about the waist 
 with a large, well-worn silk handkerchief, tied, in the hurry of the 
 moment, in a double hard knot. Anticipating a long race, he 
 endeavored to divest himself of all surplus garments; the knotted 
 handkerchief would not imtie; he pulled his arms out of the 
 ■sleeves of his greatcoat, which, trailing on the ground, would 
 "wrap around his legs and throw him down", so that he "made 
 110 headway at running". His pursuers, seeing his predicament, 
 renewed the chase with more vigor, and soon overtook and secured 
 him. His captor, says Biggs, "took the handle of his tomahawk, 
 and rubbed it on my shoulder and down my arm, which was a 
 token that he would not kill me, and that I was his prisoner." 
 
 At the risk of "traveling further out of the record" of the gen- 
 eral scope of this chapter, we quote a few more extracts from Mr. 
 Biggs' Narrative, as they admirably illustrate some of the caprices 
 and traits of Indian character. At the first evening's encamp- 
 ment, and the Indians having finished their eating, one of them 
 sat, "with his back against a tree, with his knife between his legs. 
 I, says Biggs, was sitting facing him with my feet nearly touching 
 his. He began to inquire of me what nation I belonged to. I 
 was determined to pretend that I was ignorant and could not 
 understand him. I did not wish them to know that I could 
 ■speak some Indian languages, and understood them better than I 
 could speak. He first asked me, in Indian, if I was Mat-to-cush 
 (that is, in Indian, a Frenchman); I told him no. He then 
 asked me if I was a Sag-e-nash (an Englishman); I told him no. 
 He again asked if I was a She-mol-sea (that is, a long knife or 
 Virginian); I told him no. He then asked me if I was a Bos- 
 tonely* (that is an American) ; I told him no. About a minute 
 afterward, he asked me the same questions over again, and I 
 answered him yes! He then spoke English, and catched up his 
 
 knife, and said, 'You are one d — son of a b '. I really 
 
 thought he intended stabbing me with his knife. I knew it would 
 not do to show cowardice. I, being pretty well acquainted with 
 their manners and ways, jumped up on my feet, and spoke in 
 Indian, and said, ' Man-e-t-wa, Kien-de-pa-way' (in English it is, 
 ^No! I am very good'); and clapped my hands on my breast 
 
 * Mr. Biggs' interpretation is a liltle too broad. Boston-e-ly -was an epithet 
 obtained by the Indians from the Canadian French, who applied it to the New 
 Englanders or Yankies. 
 
 9 
 
I30 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 when I spoke, and looked very bold. The odier Indians all set 
 up such a ha ! ha ! and laughter, that it made him look very fool- 
 ish, and he sat still and became quite sulky." 
 
 The Kickapoos took their prisoner across the prairies of Illi- 
 nois, reaching their village on the west bank of the Wabash, near 
 old Fort Weaoatanon (which, at the time of this occurrence, was 
 merely a trading-post), on the tenth day of his capture. Remain- 
 ing several weeks with the Kickapoos and at the trading-post, 
 Mr. Biggs effected his release through the kindly interference of 
 the traders at the latter place, prominent among whom was an 
 Englishman, Mr. McCauslin, and Mr. Bazedone, a Spaniard, with 
 whom Biggs "had an acquaintance in the Illinois country", and 
 who paid the Indians in trade an equivalent of $260 for his ran- 
 some, for which sum Biggs "gave his note, payable in the Illinois 
 country." Later, he passed down the Wabash and the Ohio, 
 and up the Mississippi, in a pirogue or large canoe, and safely 
 reached his family. 
 
 Mr. Biggs was greatly liked by his captors and their kinsmen, 
 who complimented for his bravery, his fleetness of foot, his. 
 shapely limbs, long and beautiful hair, and handsome physique. 
 They adopted him into their tribe, giving him the name of Moh- 
 cos-se-a, after the name of a chief who had been killed by the 
 whites the year before. After which he "was to be considered 
 one of that Kickapoo family, in place of their [slain] father." He 
 was also offered, in marriage, a handsome Indian girl, a relation 
 of the same family, who, encouraged by her parents, exhausted 
 her arts, in a manner of becoming modesty, to win his consent; 
 Mr. Biggs protesting that he was already a married man, the 
 father of three children, whose mother was his wife, and that it 
 was against the laws of his country for a man to have more than 
 one wife at a time. This Indian girl had prepared his first regu- 
 lar meal after his arrival at the Wabash. Says Biggs, "it was. 
 hominy, beat in a mortar, as white as snow, and handsome as I 
 ever saw, and very well cooked. She fried some dried meat, 
 pounded very fine in a mortar, in oil, and sprinkled it with sugar. 
 She prepared a very good bed for me, with bear-skins and blank- 
 ets." She brought him "hot water in a tin cup, and shaving 
 soap, and more clean water in a basin", and a cloth to wipe his 
 hands and face after the process of shaving was done with. 
 "She then told me to sit down on a bench. I did so. She got 
 two very good combs— a coarse and a fine one. It was then 
 the fashion to wear long hair. Mine was very long and thick, 
 and much tangled and uiatted — I traveled without any hat or 
 anything else on my head, and that was the tenth day it had not 
 
THE KICKAPOOS. I3I 
 
 been combed. She combed out -my hair ver}' tenderly, and then 
 took the fine one and combed and looked my head nearly one 
 hour. She went to a trunk and got a ribbon, and greased my 
 hair very nicely. The old chief [father of the girl, as we learn 
 elsewhere] gave me a fine regimental blue cloth coat, faced with 
 yellow buff cloth; the son-in-law gave me a very good beaver 
 Mackinaw hat. These they had taken from some officers they. 
 had killed. Then the widow squaw took me into her cabin and 
 gave me a new ruffled shirt and a very good blanket." All these 
 he put on, and, at the request of the donors, he walked the floor 
 to their delight. The girl followed him to the abode of the 
 widowed and orphaned family to whom he had been given, and 
 which was in another neighborhood, where she took her place at 
 his cabin door, silently waiting, in the hope he would relent and 
 invite her in. "She stood by my door for sometime after dark — I 
 did not know when she went away. She stayed two days and 
 three nights before she returned home. I never spoke to her 
 while she was there. She was a very handsome girl, about 18 
 years of age, a beautiful full figure, and handsomely featured, and 
 very white for a squaw. She was almost as white as dark com- 
 plexioned women generally are ; and her father and mother were 
 very white skinned Indians."'^ 
 
 To resume. In the desperate plans of Tecumthe, the Kicka- 
 poos took an active part. This tribe caught the infection at an 
 early day of those troubles; and in 1806, Gov. Harrison sent 
 Capt. Wm. Prince to the Vermilion towns with a speech addressed 
 to all the warriors and chiefs of the Kickapoo tribe; giving Capt. 
 Prince further instructions to proceed to the villages of the prai- 
 
 * Mr. Biggs had been one of Gen. Clark's soldiers in the conquest of the 
 Illinois, and liking the country, early after the close of the Revolutionary- 
 War, he returned and settled at the Bellefountaine, the name of an early set- 
 tlement in Monroe Co., 111., ten miles north of Kaskaskia. He held several 
 territorial and state offices, and filled them with honor and ability. In 1826, 
 shortly before his death, he published " a narrative " of his capture by and his 
 experience while with the Kickapoos, It is a pamphlet of twenty-three 
 pages, printed with poor type on very common paper. But few copies were 
 issued, and scarcely any of these seem to have been preserved. It was only 
 after a search of several years that the writer was so fortunate as to get sight 
 of one. Gov. Reynolds, in his Pioneer History of Illinois, gives a fair sketch 
 of Mr. Biggs. That given in the text is condensed or quoted directly from 
 the "Narrative", and differs from J. M. Peck's, as it makes no mention, 
 -whatever, of the Ogle Brothers being in company with Biggs and Vallis at the 
 time of the capture. 
 
132 ILLINPIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 rie bands, if, after having delivered the speech at the Vermihon 
 towns, he discovered there would be no danger to himself in pro- 
 ceeding beyond. The speech, which was full of good words and 
 precautionary advice, had little effect; and "shortly after the 
 mission of Capt. Prince, the Prophet found means to bring the 
 whole of the Kickapoos entirely under his influence." [ Vide 
 Memoirs of Gen. Harrison. We produce extracts of Gov. Har- 
 rison's "talk", referred to, to show the style of such addresses. 
 Gen. Harrison, being an adept in this kind of literature, could 
 suit such papers to the occasion, and draft them within the range 
 and to the understanding of the people for whom they were in- 
 tended, better, perhaps, than any other agent the Government 
 ever had in the troublesome field of Indian diplomacy. "Wm. H. 
 Harrison, Gov., etc., Supt. of Indian affairs, etc., etc., to his chil- 
 dren, the chiefs and warriors of the Kickapoo tribe." My chil- 
 dren: I lately sent you a message by one of your warriors, but 
 I have not yet received an answer. The head chief of the We-as 
 has, however, been with me, and has assured me that you still 
 keep hold of the chain of friendship, which has bound you to 
 your father since the treaty made with Gen. Wayne [referring to 
 the Treaty of Greenville, of 1795]. 
 
 "My children, this information has given me great pleasure, 
 because I had , heard that you had suffered bad thoughts to get 
 possession of your minds. 
 
 "My children, what is it you wish for? Have I not often told 
 you that you should inform me of all your grievances, and that 
 you should never apply to your father in vain. 
 
 " My children : Be wise, do not follow the advise of those who 
 would lead you to destruction; what is it they would persuade 
 you to? — to make war upon your fathers, the Seventeen Fires? 
 [The United States, then seventeen in number.] — What injury 
 has your father done you? — If he has done any, why do you not 
 complain to him and ask redress? — Will he turn a deaf ear to 
 your complaints? He has always Hstened to you, and will listen 
 to you still; you will certainly not raise your arm against him. 
 
 "My children, you have a number of young warriors, but when 
 compared to the warriors of the United States, you know they 
 are but as a handful. My children, can you count the leaves 
 on the trees, or the grains of sand in the river banks? So numer- 
 ous are the warriors of the Seventeen Fires. 
 
 "My children, it would grieve your father to let loose his war- 
 riors upon his red children; nor will he do it, unless you compell 
 him; he had rather that they would stay at home and make corn 
 for their women and children; but he is not afraid to make war; 
 he knows that they are brave. 
 
THE KICKAPOOS. 1 33 
 
 "My children, he has men armed with all kinds of weapons; 
 those who live on the big waters [the sea coast] and in the big 
 towns, understand the use of muskets and bayonets [of which 
 last the Indians had become very much afraid since their disas- 
 trous encounter with Gen. Wayne in the engagement on the 
 Maumee, in 1794, where the bayonet was used with terrible 
 effect], and those who live on this side the mountains [the Alle- 
 ghanies] use the same arms that you do [long range rifles]. 
 
 "My children: The Great Spirit has taught your fathers to 
 make all the arms and ammunition which they use; but you do 
 not understand this art; if you should go to war with your fathers, 
 who would supply you with those things? The British can not; 
 v/e have driven them beyond the lakes, and they can not send a 
 trader to you without our permission. 
 
 "My children, open your eyes to your true interest; your father 
 wishes you to be happy. If you wish to have your minds set at 
 ease, come and speak to him. My children, the young man 
 [Capt. Prince] who carries this is my friend, and he will speak to 
 you in my name; listen to him as if I were to address you, and 
 treat him with kindness and hospitality.'' 
 
 The Kickapoos fought in great numbers and with frenzied 
 courage at the battle of Tippecanoe. They early sided with the 
 British in the war that was declared between that power and the 
 United States the following June; and sent out many war parties, 
 that kept the settlements in Indiana and Illinois in constant 
 peril; while other warriors of their tribe participated in almost 
 every battle fought during this war along the western frontier. 
 
 As a mihtary people, the Kickapoos were inferior to the Mia- 
 mis, Delawares, and Shawnees, in movements requiring large 
 bodies of men; but they were preeminent in predatory warfare. 
 Small parties, consisting of from five to twenty or more, were the 
 usual number comprising their war parties. These would push 
 out hundreds of miles from their villages, and swoop down upon 
 a feeble settlement, or an isolated pioneer cabin, and burn the 
 property, kill the cattle, steal the horses, capture the women and 
 children, and be off again before an alarm could be given. 
 
 While the Pottawatomies and other tribes, in alliance with the 
 British, laid siege to Ft. Wayne, the Kickapoos, assisted by the 
 Winnebagoes, were assigned to the capture of Ft. Harrison.'* 
 
 * Finished Oct. 28, 181 1, and situated on the east bank of the Wabash, 
 about two miles above the lower Wea Town of " Wa-au-ta-no ", and a mile 
 or more above the present City of Terre Haute, Ind. It was erected by the 
 forces under Gov. Harrison, while on their way from Vincennes to the Proph- 
 
134 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 They nearly succeeded, and would have taken it but for the most 
 heroic and determined defence, that gave its commander, Capt. 
 Zachary Taylor, a national renown. 
 
 The plan of the attack was matured by the Kickapoo war chief, 
 Pa-koi-shee-can,* who, in person, undertook the execution of the 
 most difficult and dangerous part of it. First the Indians loi- 
 tered about the fort, having a few of their women and children 
 with them, to induce a belief that their presence was friendly, 
 while the main body of warriors were secreted at a distance wait- 
 ing for favorable developments. Pretending they were in want 
 of provisions, the men and women were allowed to approach 
 near the fort, and were thus given opportunity to inspect the fort 
 and its defences. A dark night, giving the appearance of rain, 
 favored the plan which was at once executed. The warriors were 
 brought to the front, and women and children sent to the rear. 
 Pa-koi-shee-can, with a large butcher knife in each hand, threw 
 himself at length upon the ground. He drove a 'knife, held in 
 one hand, into the ground, and drew his body up against it; 
 then reached forward with the knife in the other hand, and driv- 
 ing that into the ground, again drew himself along. In this way, 
 like a sna,ke in the grass, he approached the lower block-house. 
 He heard the sentinels on their rounds on the inside of the pali- 
 sade. As the guards advanced toward that part of the works 
 where the lower block-house was situated, Pa-koi-shee-can would 
 lie still; and when the guards made the turn and moved in the 
 opposite direction, he again crawled nearer. In this way the 
 crafty savage gained the very walls of the block-house. There 
 was a crack between the logs of the block-house, t and through 
 this opening the Kickapoo placed a quantity of dry grass, bits of 
 wood, and other combustibles, brought for the purpose in a 
 blanket, tied pouch fashion upon his back. While the prepara- 
 tion for this incendiarism was in progress, the sentinels, in their 
 
 et's Town, during the memorable Tippecanoe campaign; and, by unanimous 
 request of all the officers, christened after the name of their commander. It 
 was enclosed with palisades, and officers and soldiers barracks, and defended ' 
 at two angles with two block-houses, similar to that seen in illustrations of 
 old Forts Wayne and Dearborn. 
 
 * The Blackbury Flmoer, abreviated by the French to La Farine [The 
 Flower], the name by which he was generally known among the white people. 
 
 + Gen. Harrison also mentions this fact, and adds that this building was 
 used for the storage of whisky and salt; that the cattle had licked the chink- 
 ing out to get at the salt, and that the opening between the logs was made in 
 this way. 
 
THE KICKAPOOS. I35 
 
 rounds on the opposite side of the block-house, passed within a 
 few feet of th'e pjace where the fire was about to be hghted. All 
 "being in readiness, and the sentinels at the further side of the 
 enclosure, Pa-koi-shee-can struck a fire with his flint, and thrust 
 it within, and threw his blanket quickly over the opening, to pre- 
 vent the blaze from flashing outside, alarming the garrison before 
 the building was well on fire. When assured that the fire was 
 well under way, he fell back and gave the signal, when the attack 
 ■was immediately begun by the Indians at the opposite extremity 
 of the fort with great fury. The lower block-house burned down 
 in spite of all the efforts of the garrison to prevent it; and, for a 
 while, the Indians were exultant, feeling assured of a complete 
 victory. Capt. Taylor constructed a barricade with material taken 
 from another building; and, by the time the block-house had 
 consumed, the Indians, to their great disappointment, discovered 
 a new line of defence, closing the breach through which they had 
 expected to effect an entrance. [The Indian account of the 
 attack on Ft. Harrison, as above given, was first published in 
 1879, i'^ the writer's "Historic Notes", etc. It is in harmony 
 with official reports, except that the latter, for want of information 
 on the part of those who wrote them, contain nothing as to plans 
 of the Indians, nor how the block-house was fired. The account 
 given in the text was narrated to the writer by Mrs. Mary A. 
 Baptiste, as it was told to her by Pa-koi-shee-can himself This 
 lady, with Christmas Dagney, her first husband, were at Ft. Har- 
 rison in 182 1, where the latter was assisting in the disbursement 
 of annuities to the Indians then assembled there to receive them. 
 The business and spree that followed, occupied two or three days. 
 Pa-koi-shee-can was present with some of his people, to receive 
 their share of the annuities; and the old chief, having leisure, 
 edified Mr. Uagney and his wife with a minute account of his 
 attempt to take the fort, pointing out the positions and move- 
 ments of himself and his warriors. As he related the story, he 
 warmed up, and indulged in a great deal of, pantomime, which 
 gave force to, as it heightened the effect of, the narration. The 
 particulars are given substantially as Mrs. Baptiste repeated them 
 to the writer. She had never read an account of the engagement] 
 We find no instance in which the Kickapoos were allied with 
 either the French or the British, in any of the intrigues or wars 
 for the control of the fur trade, or the acquisition of disputed 
 territory, in the Northwest. They did not mix or mingle their 
 blood with French or other white people; and, as compared m 
 this regard with other tribes, in the voluminous treaties with the 
 Federal Government, there is a singular absence of land reserva- 
 
136 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 tions in favor of half-breed Kickapoos. Unlike, the Illinois, the 
 Miamis, and other tribes living upon the lines of the early com- 
 merce of the country, or whose villages were marts of the fur 
 trade, the Kickapoos kept at a distance, and escaped the demor- 
 alization which this trade, and a contact with its unscrupulous, 
 emissaries, inflicted upon the tribes coming within their baneful 
 influence.* As compared with other Indians, the Kickapoos 
 were industrious, intelligent, and cleanly in their habits, and were 
 better armed and clothed. As a rule, the men were tall, sinewy, 
 and active; the women lithe, and many of them by no means, 
 lacking in beauty.t Their dialect is soft and liquid when con- 
 trasted with rough, guttural language of the Pottawatomies. 
 
 With the close of the war of 181 2, the Kickapoos ceased their 
 hostilities toward the whites, and a few years later, disposed of 
 the residue of their lands in Illinois and Indiana, and, with the 
 exception of a few bands, emigrated west of the Mississippi. 
 Gov. Reynolds says of them, "They disliked the United States 
 so much, that they decided when they left Illinois, that they 
 would iiot reside within the limits of our Government, but would 
 settle in Texas."t A large body of them did go tp Texas; and 
 when the Lone Star .Republic became a member of the Federal 
 Union, these Kickapoos retired to New Mexico; and later, some 
 of them went even to old Mexico. Here, on these frontier bor- 
 ders, these wild bands have, for years, maintained the reputation 
 of their sires, and enterprising race. Col. R. B. Marcy, in 1854, 
 found one of their bands upon the Chocktaw reservation, near 
 the Witchita River. He says of them, "They, like the Dela- 
 wares and Shawnees, are well armed with good rifles, in the use 
 of which they are very expert, and there are no better hunters 
 or warriors upon the borders. They hunt together on horseback, 
 and after a party of them have passed through a section of coun- 
 try, it is seldom that any game is left, in their trace. They are- 
 intelligent, active, and brave, and frequently visit and traffic with 
 
 * Says Maj. Stoddard, in his Sketches of Louisiana, "There is a striking, 
 difference between those Indians who live in the neighborhood of the whites 
 and those Who reside at a distance from them. The former, especially if 
 accustomed to a long intercourse, have wonderfully degenerated. They have 
 gradually imbibed all the vices of the whites, and forgotten their own virtues. 
 They are drunkards and thieves, and act on all occasions with the most con- 
 sumate duplicity." The observations of Maj. Stoddard are corroborated hj 
 Gov. Harrison, Judge Jacob Burnett, and other eminent men, speaking from, 
 their own experience. 
 
 + Gov. Reynolds' Pioneer History of Illinois. 
 
THE KICKAPOOS. 1 37 
 
 the prairie Indians, and have no fear of meeting those people in 
 battle, providing the odds are not more than six to one against 
 them."* 
 
 The Kickapoos of the Vermihon, comprising the bands of 
 Mac-ca-naw, or Mash-e-naw {The Elk-Horn), Ka-an-a-kuck, and 
 Pa-koi-shee-can, were the last to emigrate. They lingered in 
 lUinois upon the waters of the Embarrass, the Vermilion, and 
 its northwest tributaries, until 1832 and 1833; when they joined 
 a body of their people upon a reservation set apart for their use 
 west of Fort Leavenworth, and within the limits of Brown and 
 Jackson Counties, Kansas, where the survivors and the descen- 
 dants of those who have died now reside upon their farms. 
 Their good conduct, comfortable homes, and well - cultivated 
 fields, attest their steady progress in' the ways of civiHzed> life. 
 The wild bands have always been troublesome along the south- 
 western borders; every now and then their depredations form 
 the subject of some item of current newspaper notices. For 
 years the Government failed in its efforts to induce these bands 
 to remove to some place within the Indian Territory, where they 
 might be restrained from annoying the border settlements of Texas 
 and New Mexico. Some years ago, a part of the semi-civilized 
 Kickapoos in Kansas, preferring their old, wild life, left their 
 reservations; and joined the bands to the Southwest. After years' 
 wanderings in quest of plunder, they were persuaded to return, 
 and in 1875, settled in the Indian Territory, and suppHed with 
 the necessary implements and provision?, to enable them to go 
 to work and earn an honest living. In this effort toward reform, 
 they are now making commendable progress.t In 1875, the 
 civilized Kickapoos in the Kansas Agency numbered 385; while 
 the wild or Mexican band numbered 420, as appears from the 
 official report on Indian affairs for that year. Their numbers 
 were never great, as compared with the Miarais, or Pottawato- 
 mies; however, they made up for this deficiency by the energy 
 of their movements. In language, manners, and customs, the 
 Kickapoos bear a very close resemblance to the Sac and Fox 
 Indians, whose allies they generally were, and with whom they 
 have, by some writers, been confounded. J. 
 
 * Marcy's " Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border. " 
 
 t Report of Commrs. on Indian Affairs. 
 
 t Corroborative of this, Geo. Catlin, in his admirable work on the North 
 American Indians, says, "The Kickapoos had long lived in alliance with 
 Sacs and Foxes, and their language was so similar, that the two seemed to be 
 almost one family. " Dr. Jediah Morse, Albert Gallatin, and other American 
 authorities could be cited to the same effect, were it at all necessary. 
 
138 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 THE WINNEBAGOS. 
 
 In "The Jesuit Relations", for the years 1653 to 1670, inclu- 
 sive, this tribe are alluded to under various narnes, as Ouimbe- 
 gouc, Ouimpegouec, and Ouinibegoutz — the French "Ou" being 
 nearly synonymous in the sound of its pronunciation with the 
 English letter W, — and was a name given them by the Algon- 
 quins, with whom the meaning was Fetid, translated by the French 
 as Puants. The Algonquin tribes called the Winnebagoes, say 
 the missionary fathers, by this name because the latter came from 
 the westward ocean, or salt water, which the Indians designated 
 as the "Fetid Water".* The Winnebagoes called themselves 
 Hochungara [0-chun-ga-ra], or Ochungarand, which is to say, 
 on the authority of Dr. Schoolcraft, "the trout nation, or Horoji 
 [fish eaters]." They were of the Dacota, or Sioux stock, to 
 whose language their own assimilated as nearly as it differed 
 radically from that of their Algonquin neighbors. Their incur- 
 sion into the ancient territory of the Illinois was strenuously 
 opposed by the latter; and the disputed boundary line between 
 the two shifted north, or south, as the fortune of war favored the 
 one or the other. The final chances, however, w.ere with the 
 Illinois, whose greater numbers and equal bravery were more 
 than a match for their adversaries, who, for the most part, were 
 driven well back within the present limits of Wisconsin, and 
 where, in more modern times, they have been regarded as a tribe 
 
 * The Winnebagoes were first met with by the Jesuit fathers, near the 
 mouth of Fox River — originally called the Kan-kan-lin — at the head of Green 
 Bay, Wis. Their presence here gave to the waters of Green Bay the first 
 name, by which it was designated in the Jesuit Relations, and the early maps, 
 " Lac-des- Puants ", and " Ze Baye des Puants "- As early as 1 647 and 1 648, 
 it is referred to in "The Relations" as follows: A peninsula, or strip of land, 
 quite small, seperates this Superior Lake [referring to Lake Superior] from 
 another third lake, called by us 't/ie lake of the Puants', which also discharges 
 itself into our fresh-water sea, about ten leagues more toward the west than 
 the Sault," — /. e., the Sault de Ste. Marie, connecting Lake Superior with 
 Lake Huron. "On its shores", continues this "Relation", "dwell a different 
 people, of an unknown language; that is to say, a language that is neither 
 Algonquin nor Huron. These people are called Puants [stinkards], not on 
 account of any unpleasant odor that is peculiar to them, but because they say 
 they came from the shores of a sea far distant tov^ard the West, the waters of 
 which being salt, they call themselves ' the people of the sea '. " 
 
THE WINNEBAGOES. 1 39 
 
 of that State. Still, the territorial claims of the contestants was 
 not finally settled until 1825, when, after a nearly continuous 
 warfare of almost two centuries with the Illinois or their succes- 
 sors, it was agreed at a treaty, held at Prairie du Chien, between 
 the United States, the Winnebagoes, the Sacs and Foxes, the 
 Pottawatomies, and other attending tribes, that "the Winnebago 
 country should be bounded as follows: Southeasterly, by Rock 
 Rivfer, from its source near the Winnebago Lake [in Central- 
 eastern Wisconsin], to the Winnebago Village, about forty miles 
 above its mouth," etc., etc.; [near the mouth of the Peck-a-ton- 
 o-kea, Jo Daviess Co., 111.] A map will indicate what portion of 
 Illinois this boilndary describes. 
 
 As compared with the Algonquin tribes, history records but 
 few complaints against the Winnebagoes in the predatory war- 
 fare upon the white settlements. The bravery of their warriors 
 is fully attested, however, in the several engagements with the 
 forces of Gov. St. Clair and Gen. Wayne, in which they fought 
 with conspicuous courage. The whole tribe were fairly carried 
 by Tecumthe and his brother, the Prophet, and gave hearty sup- 
 port to all the nefarious schemes of these agitators. Naw-kaw, 
 the principle chief of their nation, and Hoo-tshoop-kaw, of lesser 
 note, were two of Tecumthe's personal attendants, and followed 
 him in all his .extended missions of proselytism among the nations 
 of the Mississippi Valley. In the war of 18 12, these two Win- 
 nebagoes were members of the sacred band, that guarded 
 Tecumthe's person; they were near him when he fell, with mor- 
 tal wounds, at the battle of the Thames, and assisted in bearing 
 his dead body from the field to a place of secure interment.* 
 
 * At the Treaty of Prairie du Chien, concluded Aug. I, 1829, at which the 
 Winnebagoes ceded their lands in Illinois and Wisconsin to the United 
 States, Caleb At water, Esq., one of the commissioners acting on the part of 
 the latter, there met Sfaw-kaw, who, he says, " complained to me that, in all 
 of our accounts of Tecumthe, we had only said of him that, ' Winnebago, who 
 always accompanies Tecumthe', without calling the Winnebago by his name, 
 Naw-kaw Caromaine."—"Atwater's Tour to Prairie du Chien." The same 
 author, in his " History of Ohio ", says, in this connection, while at Prairie 
 du Chien, in 1829, " Naw-caw [Wood] and Hoo-tshoop-kaw [Four legs] were 
 with him; and that, from statements of these constant companions of Tecum- 
 the, during nearly twenty years of his life, we proceed to state, that Tecumthe 
 lay with his warriors in a thick underbrush, on the left of the American army; 
 that these Indians were at no period of the battle out of their thick under- 
 brush; that Naw-caw saw no officer between them and the American army; 
 that Tecumthe fell [at] the very first fire of the Kentucky dragoons, pierced by 
 
I40 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 At the engagement at Tippecanoe, the conduct of the Winne- 
 bago braves was a matter of especial mention. We quote from 
 Gen. Harrison's Memoirs: "A Winnebago chief approached the 
 exterior [camp] fire of Capt. Barton's company, where the lines 
 had been considerably drawn in, and pushing up the brands to 
 make a light, squatted down to peck his [gun] flint, or to do 
 something with his gun. He was, however, immediately fired at 
 from Capt. Cook's company, which was not more than twenty 
 yards from him, and. fell dead into the fire. One of the men 
 asked the captain's permission to go and scalp him; and, as no 
 attack had been made on that part of the line for some time, he 
 was allowed to go. The Yankee, however, being inexperienced 
 in the business, it took him some time to effect it; he was fired 
 at, and returned to his company with the scalp in his hand, 
 indeed, but with a ball through his body, which caused his death 
 in a few hours after. In the course of the battle, the Indian was 
 taken off, without being observed by Captain Cook, and conveyed 
 to the [Prophet's] town, where his body was found and known 
 by its having been scalped and much burned. The body had 
 been taken away without Capt. Cook's perceiving it, and is an 
 instance of the care with which the Indians remove the dead 
 bodies of their friends in action. At Tippecanoe, they rushed 
 up to the bayonets of our men, and in one instance, related by 
 Capt. Snelling, an Indian adroitly put the bayonet of a soldier 
 aside, and clove his head with a war-club — an instrument on 
 which there is fixed a triangular piece of iron, broad enough to 
 project several inches from the wood." "Their conduct on this 
 occasion, so different from what it usually is, was attributed to a 
 confidence of success, with which their Prophet had inspired 
 them, and to the distinguished bravery of the Winnebago warriors." 
 
 The only disturbances with which this people seem to- have 
 been connected, subsequent to the war of 1812, was that of the 
 so-called Winnebago War [or scare] of 1827. Several acts of 
 reciprocal hostihty had been committed between individual Win- 
 nebagoes and whites along the upper Mississippi, which soon 
 defected the whole tribe, and, for a while, threatened the peace 
 of the entire northwestern frontier. Gov. Reynolds, in his "My 
 Own Times", gives the following account of the cause that pro- 
 voked the breach of the peace: "About the last of July, 
 
 thirty bullets, and was carried four or five miles into the thick woods, and 
 there buried by the warriors, who told the story of his fate. This account 
 was repeated to me three several times word for word, and neither of the 
 relaters ever Icnew the fictions to which Tecumthe's death has given use. " 
 
THE WINNEBAGOES. I4I 
 
 1827,* the Winnebago War occurred in the country around and 
 north of Galena, in this State. The cause of this small speck of 
 of war was a great outrage committed by the whites on the 
 Indians, which was of such brutality, that it is painful to record. 
 Two keel-boats, of the contractor to furnish provisions for the 
 troops at the Falls of St. Anthony, stopped at a large camp of' 
 the Winnebago Indians, on the river not far above Prairie du 
 Chien. The boatman made the Indians drunk — and, no doubt, 
 were so themselves — when they captured some six or seven 
 squaws, who were also drunk. These squaws were forced on the 
 boat for corrupt and brutal purposes." [The words are put in 
 Italics by the Governor.] "But not satisfied with this outrage on 
 female virtue, the boatmen took the squaws with them in the 
 boats to ^'ort Snelling, and returned with them. When the Indi- 
 ans became sober, and knew the injury done them in this delicate 
 point, they mustered all their forces, amounting to several hun- 
 dreds, and attacked the boats in which the squaws were confined. 
 The boats were forced to approach near the shore in a narrow 
 pass of the river,t and thus the infuriated savages assailed one 
 boat, and permitted the other to pass down in the night. The 
 boatmen were not entirely prepared for the attack, although to 
 some extent they were guarded against it. ■ They had procured 
 some arms, and were on the alert to some degree. The Indians 
 laid down in their Canoes, and tried to paddle them to the boat; 
 but the whites, seeing this, fired their muskets on those in the 
 canoes. It was a desperate and furious fight, for a few moments, 
 between a good many Indians exposed in open canoes, and only 
 a few boatmen, protected to some extent by their boats. One 
 boatman, a sailor by profession on the lakes and ocean, who had 
 been in many battles with the British during the war of 181 2, 
 saved the boat and those of the crew who were not killed. The 
 man was large and strong, and possessed the courage of an 
 African lion. He seized a part of the setting-pole of the boat, 
 which was about four feet long, and having on the eiid a piece of 
 iron, which made it weighty, and a powerful weapon in the hands 
 of Saucy Jack, as this champion is called. It is stated that when 
 
 * Gov. Reynolds errs as to the time. The attack on the keel-boat, men- 
 tioned a little further on, was on the evening of June 26; and the grievances 
 which induced the assault, occurred some days before that. Vide a valuable 
 paper on the " Early Times in Wisconsin ", contributed by Hon. James H. 
 Lockwood, of Prairie Hu Chien, and published in.Vol. 2, Wis. Hist. Col. 
 
 + The place was near the mouth of Bad- Ax River; and the attack was 
 made near sunset. Judge Lockwood's paper, before quoted. 
 
142 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 the Indians attempted to board the boat, Jack would knock 
 them back into the river as fast as they approached. The boat 
 got fast on the ground, and the whites seemed doomed, but with 
 great exertion, courage, and hard fighting, the Indians were 
 repelled. The savages killed several white men and wounded 
 many more, leaving barely enough to navigate the boat. It is. 
 said that Jack had four Indian scalps, which he took from the 
 same number of Indians that he killed himself In the battle 
 the squaws escaped to their husbands, and, no doubt, the whites- 
 did not try to prevent it. Thus commenced, and thus ended the 
 bloodshed of the Winnebago War." 
 
 The effusion of blood would not have ended here, but for the 
 prompt measures taken by Gen. Lewis Cass to prevent it. The 
 latter, with Col. Thos. L. McKenney, as commissioners ^n behalf 
 of the United States, were at Butte des Morts"* on a day fixed 
 for a treaty to be held, in part, to settle some matters as to boun- 
 daries that were "left undefined by the treaty of Aug. 19, 1825, 
 at Prairie du Chien", and to establish the boundaries of "the 
 tract claimed by the former French and British Governments" at 
 Green Bay. We quote the following from an article on "Early 
 Times in Wisconsin", written by Hon. H. A. Tenneyit "On the 
 day fi.x:ed for the council, not an Indian appeared. Alarmed at 
 this and other hostile signs, Gen. Cass rapidly descended the 
 river [Wisconsin] to Prairie du Chien, where the people had all 
 taken shelter in the garrison, J and where he heard of the attack 
 on the government boat. Hastening to Galena, he notified the 
 citizens there of their danger, and advised them to build a block- 
 house for their protection. From Galena Gen. Cass proceeded 
 to Jefferson Barracks [a few miles below St. Louis]. A large 
 force, under Gen. [Henry] Atkinson, immediately came up the 
 
 * The "Butte des Morts" — hill of the dead — near the banks of Fox River, 
 in Winnebago Co., Wis.; a large and apparently artificial mound, said to- 
 contain the remains of Indian warriors, killed in ancient battles. Its notoriety- 
 dates back of all written history, however early, of this part of the Northwest, 
 and gathers about it the charms of many traditions. 
 
 + Published in Vol. i, of the "Wisconsin Historical Collections." 
 t Fort Crawford, Wis., on the left bank of the Mississippi, just above the- 
 the, mouth of the Wisconsin, and so named in honor of Wm. H. Crawford, 
 Secretary of War. Previous to this, June, 1814, during the war of i8l2, 
 Prairie du Chien was captured, from emissaries of the British, by an expedi- 
 tion sent up the Mississippi by Gov. Wm. Clark of Missouri, under command 
 of Capt. Z. Taylor; and sixty of the latter's men, in charge of Lieut. Perkins, 
 remained there and erected a fort, which they named Fort Shelby. 
 
THE WINNEBAGOES. 1 43 
 
 river in boats as far as the portage at Fort Winnebago,* Generals 
 Dodge and Whitesides, with companies of volunteers, following 
 along each side on land, and scouring out the lurking savages. 
 A force from Green Bay concentrated on the same spot; and the 
 Indians beheld, with dismay, a formidable army in the midst of 
 their country. The result was a treaty of peace, and the giving 
 up of Red Bird [a Winnebago chief], who had, a year previous, 
 massacred a family near Prairie du Chien." 
 
 While these events wei-e taking place on the Mississippi and 
 in Wisconsin, then a part of the Territory of Michigan, matters 
 were by no means quiet in northern Illinois. The inhabitants at 
 Fort Dearborn, alarmed at the quite apparent unfriendly demeanor 
 of the Indians frequenting that Post, and from which the United 
 States military forces had been withdrawn, dispatched messengers 
 to the Pottawatomie village of Big-Foot, at Geneva Lake, to learn 
 the purposes of the Winiiebagoes, and ascertain if Big-Foot's 
 band intended joining them. The report brought back was not 
 favorable, and the excited citizens, at the suggestion of Gurdon 
 S. Hubbard, looked toward the Wabash for assistance. Accord- 
 ingly, Mr. Hubbard, leaving Chicago about four o'clock in the 
 evening, following an Indian trail, a distance of a hundred and 
 twenty -seven miles, through an uninhabited country, reaching 
 the settlements two miles south of Danville in the early afternoon 
 of the next day. Within the next twenty-four hours, the Vermil- 
 ion-County Battalion, as the inhabitants capable of bearing arms 
 
 * Erected near the head of Fox River, at the Portage, or land carriage, 
 between it and the Wisconsin, which, at the time referred to, was right in 
 the heart of the "Winnebago country"- This "carrying place" is a noted 
 spot in the discovery and exploration of the Northwest. Here Father Mar- 
 quette and Louis Joliet, on the loth day of June, 1673, with the assistance of 
 their two friendly Miami guides, transported their canoes a distance of " twenty- 
 seven hundred paces" from the scarcely-discernible channel of Fox River, 
 choked as it was with a rank and tangled growth of wild oats, to the broad 
 current of the Wisconsin; down which they voyaged, says the good father, 
 "alone in an unknown country, in the hands of Providence"; and we may 
 add, on a journey that immortalized him an unsought fame, and first gave the 
 Mississippi River the name it bears, and (to that part of the stream above the 
 mouth of the Arkansas) a place in geography. Mrs. John H. Kinzie, in her 
 "Wau-Bun" — a volume replete with valuable historical matter entertainingly 
 arranged, relating to "The Early Day in the Northwest "—gives a beautiful 
 sketch of Fort Winnebago, drawn by her own pencil, as it appeared in 1831, 
 while she resided there, her husband having charge of the Indian agency at 
 that station. 
 
144 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 were called, were assembled at Butler's Point, the then county- 
 seat; and a volunteer force of fifty men organized; and on the 
 next day — having dispersed, in the meantime, to their homes to 
 cook up five-days' rations — were on their way to Fort Dearborn, 
 where they and Mr. Hubbard arrived on the seventh day after 
 his departure. Several days later, word was received of the^ suc- 
 cess of Gen. Cass' movements, and the termination of hostilities.* 
 
 In the so-called Black-Hawk War, in lUinois and Wisconsin in 
 1832, "it was feared", say Judge Jas. Hall and Col. Thos. L. 
 McKenney, in their History of the Indian Tribes of North 
 America, "that the Winnebagoes, inhabiting the country immedi- 
 ately north of the hostile Indians, would unite with them, and, 
 forming a powerful combination, would devastate the defenceless 
 before our Government could adopt measures for its relief. The 
 opportunity was a tempting one to a savage tribe naturally dis- 
 posed to war, and always prepared for its most sudden exigen- 
 cies; and many of the Winnebagoes were eager to rush into the 
 contest. But the policy of Naw-caw was decidedly pacific, and 
 his conduct was consistant with his judgment and his professions. 
 To keep his followers from temptation, as well as to place them 
 under the eye of an agent of our Government, he encamped with 
 them near the agency, under the charge of Mr. [John H.] Kinzie, 
 expressing on all occasions his disapprobation of the war, and 
 his determination to avoid all connection with those engaged in 
 it. The Indian tribes are often divided into parties, having their 
 respective leaders, who alone can control their partisans in times 
 of excitement. So among the Winnebagoes; a few restless and 
 -unprincipled individuals, giving loose to their propensity for blood 
 and plunder by joining the war parties, while the great body of 
 the tribe remained at peace, under the influence of their vener- 
 able chief." 
 
 Immediately on the close of the Black-Hawk War, by a treaty 
 concluded Sept. 15, 1832, at Ft. Armstrong, at Rock Island, 111., 
 the Winnebagoes ceded to the United States all of their lands 
 lying south and east of the Wisconsin River and the Fox River 
 of Green Bay; and, by a subsequent treaty concluded Nov. i, 
 1837, they parted with the residue of their lands lying east of 
 the Mississippi. By the terms of this last treaty, they were to 
 remove beyond the river named within eight months thereafter, 
 an engagement they did not comply with until some three years 
 
 * A more detailed account of the Winnebago War, as it manifested itself 
 in the vicinity of Chicago, will be found in Number Ten of Fergus' Historical 
 Series. 
 
THE WINNEBAGOES. I45 
 
 after. After being unceremoniously changed about from one 
 reservation to another, by the United States Government, with 
 little regard for its solemn stipulations, to suit cajjrices and avarice 
 of the ever-encroaching white immigration, we find the Winneba- 
 goes, in 1865, settled (let us trust permanently) on the Omaha 
 Reservation in Nebraska, where the superintendent of Indian 
 affairs, in his report for that year, says of them: "This tribe is 
 ■characterized by frugality, thrift, and industry to an extent 
 tinequaled by any other tribe of Indians in the Northwest. 
 Loyal to the Government, and peaceful toward their neighbors, 
 they are entitled to the fostering care of the General Govern- 
 ment." It seems that the shifting of them about for a number of 
 preceding years had been their means of education and religious 
 instruction; for, in December, 1864, we find they addressed the 
 President as follows: "It is our sincere desire to have again 
 •established among us such schools as we see in operation among 
 your Omaha children. Father, as soon as you find a permanent 
 home for us, will you not do this for us? And, father, as we 
 would like our children ' taught the Christian religion as before, 
 we would like our schools placed under the care of the Presby- 
 terian Board of Foreign Missions. And last, father, to show you 
 our sincerity, we desire to have set apart for its establishment, 
 erection, and support, all of our school funds, and whatever more 
 is necessary." 
 
 Again; the Government agent, in his report for 1866, says, 
 •concerning the Winnebagoes: "There has returned to the tribe, 
 within the few past weeks, about one hundred soldiers, who have 
 served, with credit to themselves and to their tribe, in defence of 
 their county. I consider the Winnebagoes one of the best tribes 
 of Indians in the country, and, with proper treatment, they will 
 soon become a self-sustaining, prosperous people." In 1863, their 
 fighting men were estimated at three hundred aijd sixty. The 
 census report of their numbers in 1865 gave them nineteen hun- 
 dred, omitting those still remaining in Wisconsin. "They are a 
 vigorous, athletic race, and received from the Sioux the name of 
 0-ton-ka, which is said to mean 'the large and strong people'."* 
 They have given a name to a lake, a fort, a town, and county in 
 Wisconsin, and to a county in northern Illinois. 
 
 * Geo. Gale's " Upper Mississippi. " 
 
146 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 THE FOX AND SACS. 
 
 The Foxes called themselves Mosk-wah-ha-kee, a name com- 
 pounded from the two words in their language, Mosk-wah [red] 
 and Ha-kee [earth], Red Earths, or, they of the Red Earth. 
 Their totem or armorial device was a fox,* and it is, doubtless, 
 from this circumstance that they were called Outagamies (accord- 
 ing to French orthography) or Foxes by neighboring tribes, and 
 the signification of which French writers have preserved in the 
 translation "Les Renards". Like the Illinois, Miamis, and Kick- 
 apoos, already treated of, the Foxes were, also, a subdivision of 
 the great Algonquin family; and their differences in dialect, man- 
 ners, and customs from those of other tribes of the same stock, 
 were caused by the differences of their surroundings.t 
 
 We first hear of the Foxes on the north shore of Lake Ontario, 
 engaged in an unnatural alliance with the Iroquois in the exter- 
 minating war then being waged by the latter upon the Hurons; 
 and, "by attempting to keep terms with both parties, pleased 
 neither. They soon drew upon themselves the enmity of their 
 kindred tribes, and the execrations of the French, who heaped 
 upon them and their vacillating policy every term of reproach. 
 And later they were driven from old Toronto through the straits 
 of Niagara to Detroit.''^ From Detroit they seem to have run 
 the gauntlet of neighboring and hostile tribes around the shores of 
 Lake Huron to Mackinac, and from thence to the river which 
 has ever since borne their name, where, near its debouchment 
 with the southern extremity of Green Bay, "\'\'isconsin, they found 
 a refuge from their enemies that was only temporary at best. 
 Here we leave them, for the moment, to notice their brethren,, 
 the Sacs, and give the brief account, which meager historical 
 mention has preserved of the latter, down to the period of time 
 
 * Official report of M. de la Chauvignerie on the " Indian Tribes connected 
 with the Government of Canada, the Warriors and armorial bearings of each 
 Nation, 1736." 
 
 + "The Foxes speak a well-characterized dialect of the Algonquin; a not- 
 able difference being the substitution of the letter 1 wherein the Chippewas 
 use the letter n. " Address (and note appended) of Hon. Henry R. School- 
 craft on "The Origin and Character of the North American Indians", etc.,. 
 etc. Delivered before the Historical Society of Michigan. 
 
 % Schoolcraft's same Address. 
 
THE FOX AND SACS. 1 47 
 
 when the two tribes again met, this time upon the waters of Fox 
 River, Wisconsin, and united in a bond of fellowship that was 
 never after broken. 
 
 Ousakis; Sakys; Sauks; 0-sauk-ies; Ou-sa-ki-uek [the uek 
 giving the plural number to the noun] ; 0-sau-kee ; and, by cus- 
 tom of modern writers, abbreviated to Sacs, are the appellations 
 by which this people were known. The name seems to have ' 
 originated with the tribe, and to have been derived from two 
 words in their tongue, viz.: Os-sa-wah [yellow] and Ha-kee 
 [earth or land] ; which is to say, the Yellow Earths, or they of 
 the Yellow Land. French writers have very little to say of the 
 Sacs — and for the matter of that, the Foxes, too — prior to the 
 time when they effected a lodgment in Wisconsin. 
 
 The great chief. Black Hawk, distinguished alike as a warrior 
 and a historian, well learned in the traditions of his tribe, in his 
 autobiography gives the following early account of his people : * 
 
 "I was", says Black Hawk, "born at the Sac village, on Rock 
 River, in the year 1767, and am now in my 67th year. My 
 great-grandfather, Na-na-ma-kee, or Thunder (according to the 
 tradition given me by my father, Py-e-oa), was born in the vici- 
 nity of Montreal, where the Great Spirit first placed the Sac 
 nation, and inspired him with a belief that, at the end of four 
 years, he would see a tuhite mati [alluding to the coming of tlie 
 French] who would be to him a father." * * * "After a 
 long time, the British overpowered the French (the two nations 
 being at war), drove them away from Quebec, and took posses- 
 sion of it themselves.t The different tribes of Indians around 
 our nation envying our people, united their forces against them, 
 and succeeded, by their great strength, to drive them to Mon- 
 treal, and from thence to^Mackinac. Here our people first met 
 our British father, who furnished them with goods.!. Their ene- 
 
 * The contents of this little book was dictated by Black Hawk himself, in 
 1833, to Antoine Le Clair, U. S. Interpreter for the Sacs and Foxes at Rock 
 Island, Illinoi.s, in presence of J. B. PE^tterson of the same place, and by the 
 latter written down at the time, and by whom it was, the next year, 1834, 
 copyrighted and published. 
 
 + Black Hawk doubtless refers here to the surrender of Quebec by M. de 
 Champlain to the British fleet commanded by the brothers Sir David, Louis, 
 and Thomas Kertk, or Kirke, in 1629. 
 
 + Taken in the sense that the Fox and Sacs went to Mackinac for the pur- 
 poses of barter; Black Hawk's statement as to meeting British traders there 
 is confirmed by official documents, both French and English. Otherwise, and 
 owing to an infirmity common to a race having no written records and giving 
 
148 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 mies still pursued them, and drove them to different places on 
 the lake, until they made a village near Green Bay, on what is 
 now called Sac River, having derived its name from this circum- 
 stance. Here they held a council with the Foxes, and a national 
 treaty of friendship and alliance was concluded upon. The 
 Foxes abandoned their village and joined the Sacs. This ar- 
 rangement being mutually obligatory upon both parties, as nei- 
 ther was sufficiently strong to meet their enemies with any hope 
 of success, they soon became as one band or nation of people." 
 On their way up the lakes, the Sacs remained in Northeastern 
 Michigan a sufficient time to give their name to Saginaw Bay, as 
 the word is now spelled; the orthography of early French writers 
 being Sac-e-nong [the place of the Sacs]; Sak-i-nau; Sag-i-nau, 
 in all which its derivation is more nearly preserved. They could 
 not, however, have occupied that vicinity long enough to make 
 it "the principal seat of their power", as affirmed by Judge 
 James Hall and Col. Thos. L. McKinney, in their "History of 
 the Indian Tribes of North America"; elsewise French authori- 
 ties would contain a more extended mention of them in this con- 
 nection.* 
 
 little care to chronology, there is a confusion as to dates. Traders from the 
 British Colony of New York were at Mackinac with Indian goods in 1685, 
 where they made so profitable a venture as to invite a larger expedition in the 
 fall of 1686. This last, the following year, paddling their canoes up the lakes 
 by way of Niagara, in two detachments, one commanded by Roseboom, an 
 Albany Dutchman, in advance, the other by McGregory, were intercepted 
 and captured by the watchful French and their Indian allies; the former, on 
 • Lake Huron, by Durantaye, and McGregory's party by LaSalle's lieutenant, 
 the Chevalier Henry de Tonty, on Lake Erie, "at the distance", says Tonty, 
 " of twenty leagues from Niagara ". The immediate building of a fort at the 
 mouth of the Niagara River, and the establishment of a similar defence near 
 Detroit shortly after, effectually barred British subjects out of the Western 
 country. Vide "Tonty's Account, etc., of LaSalle", "Francis Parkman's 
 Frontenac", and "New France under Louis XIV.", and authorities there 
 ■cited. It will be seen further on that the Jesuit fathers make mention of the 
 Foxes and Sacs as living about the upper extremity of Green Bay in 1666, 
 some twenty years l>e/ore the breaking up of the British trade upon the upper 
 lakes. 
 
 * Professor Schoolcraft and Dr. E. B. O'Callyhan— the able editor of the 
 Documentary, as well "The Colonial History of New York"— both adepts 
 in this special field of enquiry, concur with the traditions given by Black 
 Hawk of his people as having formerly lived along the north shore of Lake 
 Ontario. Dr. John Gilmary Shea— of equal high standard authority in the 
 
THE FOX AND SACS. I49 
 
 The years 1669-1670 bring the Fox and Sac fairly within the 
 range of reliable historical mention, although they had been 
 referred to, two years before, in definite terms in the "Jesuit 
 Relations" of 1666 and 1667. Father Claude Allouez, who had 
 already, early in December, 1666, established a mission at the 
 mixed village of Ottawas, Pottawatoraies, Foxes and Sacs, near 
 the site of the present city of Green Bay, calling it "The Mis- 
 sion of St. Francis Xavier", for the reason that he said his first 
 mass there on the festival day of that saint.* In a pastoral 
 letter sent from this mission to his rev'd father superior, says: 
 "The i6th of April [1670], I embarked to go and commence 
 the mission of the Outagamis, a people well known in all these 
 parts.+ We were lying at the head of the bay, at the entrance 
 of River of the Puants [Fox River], which we have named the 
 
 whole department of aboriginal history — on the contrary, dissents and says he 
 "can find nothing in early French writers to support the assertion." And 
 that "the Sacs certainly were never much to the eastward of Lake St. Clair." 
 Vide a valuable paper on "The Indian Tribes of Wisconsin", contributed by 
 him to and published in Vol. III., of the "Historical Collections of that, 
 State". This conflict of opinion may be readily reconciled on the theory 
 that the absence of mention of the Foxes and Sacs as dwelling along Lake 
 Ontario, by early French writers, may be owing to the fact that they may 
 have been referred to under some other name, as was the case with the Ojeb- 
 ways or Chippeways about Lake Superior. It is notorious that the Jesuit 
 fathers, whose principal missions were in that quarter, in their many enumer- 
 ations of the surrounding Indian nations, say the " Chippeways are never once 
 mentioned by that name, " although they were the most numerous, and the 
 tribe with which the fathers had most to do, and in the very heart of whose 
 country their sacred altars were erected. Vide Albert Gallatin's " Synopsis of 
 the Indian Tribes of North America". 
 
 * Father Claude Allouez's Journal and Dr. Shea's Catholic Missions. 
 
 tHall and McKinney, in their "History of N. A. Indians", not having 
 access to rehable data, erroneously state that after their defeat and almost 
 destruction near Detroit, already referred to in the chapter on the Kickapoos, 
 "the remainder of the Foxes, with the Sauks, migrated to the country be- 
 tween Green Bay and the Mississippi, and established themselves upon Fox 
 River." The official report of the officer, Buisson, who commanded the 
 French and their Indian allies, shows that this attack upon Detroit took place 
 in 1 712; while, as is clearly seen from Father Allouez's letter, the Foxes and 
 Sacs were "a people well known" about Green Bay and up Fox River nearly 
 a half of a century before the time assigned by Hall and McKinney as the 
 date of their migration thither. 
 
I50 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 St Francis; in passing we saw clouds of swans, bustards, and 
 ducks; the savages take them in nets at the head of the bay, 
 where they catch as many as fifty in a night; this gartie in the 
 autumn seek the wild-rice that the wind has shaken off in the 
 month of September. The seventeenth, we went up the River 
 St. Francis, which is two and sometimes three arpents wide.* 
 After having advanced four leagues, we found the village of the 
 savages named Saki, who began a work that merits well to have 
 its place here. From one side of the river to the other, they have 
 made a barricade, planting great stakes, two fathoms from the 
 water, in such a manner that it is, as it were, a bridge above [the 
 stream] for the fishers, who, by the aid of a little bow-net, easily 
 take sturgeons and all other kinds of fish which this barricade 
 stops, while it permits the vVater to fiow between the stakes. 
 They call this device Mitch-i-can, and make use of it in the 
 spring and a part of the summer. TJie eighteenth, we made the 
 portage which they call Ke-kal-ing [the first or little rapids of 
 Fox River]; our sailors drew the canoe through the rapids; while 
 I walked along the bank of the river, where I found appletrees 
 and vine-stocks in abundance. 
 
 "The nineteenth, our sailors ascended the [second] rapids, by 
 using poles, for two leagues. I went by land as far as the other 
 portage, which they call Ou-ko-ci-ti-ming, which is to say, the 
 highway. We observed this day the eclipse of the sun predicted 
 by the astrologers, which lasted from mid-day until two o'clock. 
 The third, or near it, of the body of the sun appeared eclipsed; 
 the other two-thirds formed a crescent. We arrived in the even- 
 ing at the entrance of the Lake of the Puants [Lake Winnebago], 
 which we have called Lake Francis; it is about twelve leagues 
 long and four wide; it is situated from northeast to southwest, 
 and abounds in fish; but is uninhabited on account of the Nad- 
 oue-cis [Sioux] who are here dreaded.t The twentieth, which 
 
 * The arpeht is, primarily, a French acre of land, the sides of which are in 
 m length one hundred and eighty Paris feet, equal to one hundred and ninety- 
 two feet and nearly three inches English measurement. 
 
 + This fact, stated by Father Allouez, illustrates the extent to which the 
 Dak-co-tas pushed their incursions, for game and scalps, eastward. Indeed, 
 they claimed as their exclusive hunting-grounds the territory clear up to the 
 shores of Lake Superior and Green Bay; and the history of the Ojebways, 
 not within the scope of this volume, and who made common cause with the 
 Fox and Sac, is but the story of a continuous warfare of nearly one hundred 
 and fifty years duration against the Sioux, which resulted finally in driving 
 them permanently westward beyond the Mississippi. 
 
THE FOX AND SACS. 151 
 
 was on Sunday, I said mass, after having navigated five or six 
 leagues in the lake; after which we arrived in a river that comes 
 from a lake [Pahwaikan Lake] of wild-rice, into which we came, 
 and at the foot of which we found the river [Fox] which leads, 
 on the one side, to the Outagamis, and on the other, the stream 
 [Wolf River] that leads to the Machkoutenck [Mascoutins]. We 
 entered the former, which comes from a lake where we saw two 
 wild turkeys perched on a tree, male and female, exactly like, 
 in size, color, and cry, those of France. The bustards, ducks, 
 swans, and geese are of great numbers in all these lakes and 
 rivers, attracted thither by the wild-rice, . which is their food. 
 There is also to be found here large and small deer, bears, and 
 beavers in sufficient numbers. The twenty-fourth, after many 
 turns and windings in the different lakes and rivers,* we arrived 
 at the village of the Outagamis. 
 
 "This nation is renowned for being numerous. They have 
 more than four hundred men bearing arms. The number of 
 women and children is greater on account of polygamy which 
 exists among them — each man having commonly four wives, some 
 of them six, and others as high as ten. * * «? These sav- 
 ages have retreated to these parts to escape the Iroquois; they 
 are settled in an excellent country; the soil, which is here black, 
 yields them Indian-corn in abundance. In the winter, they live 
 by the chase; about the end of it they return to their cabins, and 
 there live on Indian-corn, which they had put in cache [the name 
 of pits prepared in the ground for that purpose] in autumn, and 
 which they season with fish. They have a fort in the midst of 
 their forest, where their cabins of thick bark are, to resist all 
 kinds of attacks. In traveling they lodge themselves with mats. 
 They are at war with the Nadiouecious, their neighbors.t They 
 
 * For many miles below the portage to the Wisconsin, Fox River expands 
 into several little lakes; and the crooked meanders of the stream through the 
 prairies well justifies the tradition of the Winnebagoes, related by Mrs. Kin- 
 zie in her " Wau-bun ", concerning its origin. A great serpent, living in the 
 waters of the Mississippi, took a notion to visit the lakes; he left his trail 
 where he crossed over the prairie, which, collecting the rains as they fell from 
 heaven, in time became Fox River! And, that lady adds, "the little lakes 
 along its course were, probably, the places where he flourished about at night 
 in his uneasy slumbers. " 
 
 t Nadioue-cioiis, or Nadous-sioux, was in general terms a word signifying 
 enemies, and was especially applied, by all the westward tribes, to the Daco- 
 tas (as the latter have always called themselves); and by common custom of 
 writers in later times, only the terminal part of the word, Sioux, is used. 
 
IS2 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 do not make use of canoes; for this reason they do not make 
 war upon the Iroquois, although they are often killed by them. 
 They are very much disparaged, and reputed by other nations as 
 penurious, avaricious, thievish, and quarrelsome. They have a 
 small idea of the French since two traders in beaver-skins have 
 appeared among them. If they had conducted themselves there 
 as they ought, I would have had less trouble to give these poor 
 people other ideas of the French nation, whom they began to 
 esteem since I explained to them the principal and only motive 
 which brought me among them."* 
 
 The Foxes and Sacs had no more than secured a firm lodg- 
 ment in their fortified villages in Wisconsin, until we find their 
 marauding parties stirring up mischief in every direction. One 
 of these, October 28, 1679, struck LaSalle, who, on his voyage 
 of exploration of the Mississippi, had navigated the western 
 shore of Lake Michigan, and, reaching its southern extremity, 
 was compelled, by stress of weather, to land his canoes upon the 
 sand-hills not a great way east of South-Chicago. LaSalle, see- 
 ing a footprint, enjoined his men to be on their guard and to 
 make no noise. Says Father Hennepin (who is the historian of 
 this expedition — from the time of its organization at Fort Fron- 
 tenac, as Toronto, Canada, was then called, in the fall of 1678, 
 until the time of its abandonment at the foot of Peoria Lake, 
 Illinois, early in January, 1680): "All of our men obeyed for a 
 time, but one of them, perceiving a bear, could not restrain him- 
 self from firing his gun at the animal, which, being killed, rolled 
 from top to bottom of the mountain [as he calls the sand-hill] to 
 the very foot of our cabins. The report of the gun discovered 
 to us one hundred and twenty-five Indians of the nation of the 
 Outonagamies, living near the extremity of the Bay of the Puants, 
 and who were cabined in our vicinity." That LaSalle, to guard 
 against surprises, placed a sentinel over his upturned canoes, 
 under which he had sheltered his goods against the rain. Not- 
 
 * It is difficult to locate, with any degree of certainty, the site of the forti- 
 fied village of the Foxes, visited by Father Allouez. From the statement in 
 his journal of his having passed through several of the lakes or expansions of 
 Fox River before reaching the town, it may be assumed that it was situated 
 not a great way northeast of Portage City, and probably in Marquette County, 
 Wisconsin. It could not have been in the near vicinity of the Portage; or 
 else the Father's journal— so replete with details of the topography of the 
 country through which he traveled, as well that laying adjacent to his route — 
 would have contained some reference to the Portage, and, more than all, to 
 the Wisconsin River flashing its broad current onward to the Mississippi. 
 
THE FOX AND SACS. 
 
 153 
 
 withstanding these precautions, thirty of these Foxes, under the 
 dark cover of a rainy night, sneaked along on their bellies, one 
 behind the other, making, as it were, a chain from their comrades 
 stationed at a safe distance to the canoes, from which they passed 
 their stolen plunder backward from hand to hand. The negli- 
 gent sentinel finally aroused the camp to arms; which stopped 
 further depletion of the canoes. The rogues, finding themselves 
 discovered, their spokesman called out that "he was a friend." 
 In answer he was told "that it was an unseasonable hour, and 
 that people did not come in that way by night except to steal or 
 kill those who were not on their guard. He replied that, in truth, 
 the shpt that had been fired had made his countrymen all think 
 that it was a party of Iroquois, their enemies, as the other Indi- 
 ans, their neighbors, did not use such fire-arms, and that they 
 had accordingly advanced with the intent of kilHng them; but 
 having discovered that they were Frenchmen, whom they regarded 
 as their brethren, the impatience which they felt to see them had 
 prevented their waiting for daylight to visit us and to smoke in 
 our calumet with us, which is the ordinary complement of these 
 Indians and the greatest mark of affection." Nothing short of 
 LaSalle's skilful, prompt, and daring measures would have saved 
 his party from wholesale robbery and total destruction. Feign- 
 ing assurance of the Foxes' friendl}- intentions, until morning, 
 when, with pistol in hand, he seized one of their braves, and — 
 through another whom he captured and released — notified the 
 band that he would kill him unless restitution of the stolen pro- 
 perty was made. The Foxes would have complied on the spot, 
 but for the dilemma they found themselves in from the circum- 
 stance that among the property taken was the coat of LaSalle's 
 attendant, which they, in making a fair division of the spoils, had 
 torn in pieces and cut off the buttons. Therefore they resolved 
 to rescue their comrade at the hazard of a fight. They advanced 
 in full force upon the camp of LaSalle, who boldly went out to 
 meet them, his men having blankets half rolled about their left 
 arms as a shield against their enemies' arrows. The savages 
 wavered; and having no stomach for an encounter upon a fair 
 field in the glare of daylight, a parley ensued. They agreed to 
 give back all except the coat, and to pay for that. 
 
 The bad name of the Foxes among their neighbors clung to 
 them in later times; and Judge James Hall, drawing his conclu- 
 sions from sources reviewed while preparing his volumes on the 
 North American Indians, fitly characterizes them as "always [the] 
 restless and discontented Ishmaelites of the lakes; their hand 
 against every man, and every man's hand against them." Of all 
 
154 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 the Western Algonquin tribes they alone (and their immediate 
 kinsman, the Kickapoos) were the solitary exception, in their 
 irreconcilable enmity toward the French, who — barring the single 
 instance during a brief interval of the French Colonial War, 
 where twenty Foxes and thirty- three Sacs, influenced, probably, 
 out of motives of plunder, or a personal regard for the Canadian 
 traders who recruited them, assisted in the capture of Forts 
 George and William Henry — had no permanent peace and never 
 any alliance with them. The fur- trade with tribes along the 
 upper Mississippi had no more than been fairly established, until 
 the Foxes effectually blockaded its passage through their country 
 by way of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, by far the most feasible 
 route, and compelled the coureurs de bois to take the more cir- 
 cuitous and difficult one around the south and western shore of 
 Lake Superior.* 
 
 We have seen from official documents referred to in the chap- 
 ter on the Kickapoost that, in 1694, the Foxes, fearing the Sioux 
 would come and seize their village, meditated a migration to the 
 Wabash. Three years later, Aug. 29th, 1697, M. de la Motte 
 Cadillac — illustrious for eminent services other than that of being 
 the layer of the foundation of Fort Ponchartrain, in 1701, in the 
 present city of Detroit — arrived at Montreal with several canoes 
 of French traders, and a large delegation of Indians from the 
 upper lakes, whose several tribes the intendant (as the French 
 provincial governor was called) was trying to induce to cease 
 their warfare upon each other, and join the French in a grand 
 effort to break the power of the Iroquois, the dreaded enemy of 
 all. Four days later, Cadillac repaired to Quebec with the prin- 
 cipal chiefs, and appeared with them before the intendant. Count 
 Frontenac. Among the deputation was a Fox, who, on behalf of 
 
 * In a lengthy resume of the occurrences in Canada in 1692-3 (and of 
 which the' whole of the Northwest was then a part), the crown is officially 
 advised that " Le Sueur, another voyager \coureur de bois or trader], is to 
 remain at Chagouamigon, and to endeavor to maintain the peace lately con- 
 cluded between the Saulteurs \i.e., the Ottawas and others living at the Sault 
 de Sainte Marie] and the Scioux. " " This is of the greatest consequence, as it 
 IS now the soli pass by which access can be had to the latter nation, whose 
 trade is very profitable, the country to the south, being occupied by the Foxes 
 and the Masscoutins, who have already, several times, plundered the French 
 under pretence that they were carrying ammunition to the Scioux, their an- 
 cient enemies. These frequent interruptions would have been punished ere 
 this, had we not been occupied elsewhere. " 
 
 + Page 117. 
 
THE FOX AND SACS. 1 55 
 
 his tribe, addresses the intendant thus : "What shall I say to my 
 father? I have come all naked to see him; I can give no assist- 
 ance; the Sioux ties my arms; I kill him because he began; 
 father, be not angry with me for doing so. I have come here 
 only to hear you and execute your will." To which Count Fron- 
 tenac replies; "Fox! I now speak to you. Your young' men 
 have no sense. You have a bad heart, and mine was beginning 
 to be worse disposed than yours, had you not come to hear my 
 word and do my will. I had resolved to send M. de la Motte 
 [Cadillac] with a party of my young men on a visit to your vil- 
 lage; and that would have been unfortunate, for, no doubt, your 
 women and children would have been frightened by them. * * * 
 I am not wilhng you should return home naked, as you would have 
 probably done if you had not conhe to see me. * * * Here 
 are some guns, powder, and ball that I give you. Make good 
 use of them; not in killing your allies; not in kiUing buffalo or 
 deer; but in killing the Iroquois, who is in much greater want of 
 powder and iron [meaning guns, hatchets, knives, and other 
 implements manufactured from this metal]. Remember, it is 
 "war alone that causes true men to be distinguished; and that it 
 is owing to war that I, this day, \x\ovr you by your name. Noth: 
 ing gives me greater pleasure than to see the face of a warrior. 
 Here is what I give you, and you can now depart as soon as 
 you please." After the presents had been distributed, Frontenac 
 added: "No more powder and iron will be conveyed to the 
 Sioux; and if my young men {i.e., subordinates, traders] carry 
 any thither, I will punish them severely."* 
 
 The Fox and Sacs were blamed as being the principals who 
 induced British traders to come up the lakes; and their hatred 
 was the more inflamed toward the French because the latter, in 
 1 70 1, erected a permanent garrison on the Detroit River in order, 
 
 * In the diplomacy of words, uttered to disguise rather than to express, the 
 true sentiments of the spealiers, the honors between the Indian and the 
 Frenchman were even. There was no sincerity in either. Indeed, we are 
 informed, further on in the document from which these speeches are taken, 
 that Frontenac, expecting no peace wit,h them, was merely talking to gain 
 time to withdraw his traders out of the reach of the Foxes, having already 
 resolved not to send any more goods to their country. The war with the 
 Sioux was a circumstance from which the spokesman of the Foxes could 
 frame a pretext for their declining to let their enemies nearer home, alone, to 
 join in a war upon the Iroquois; and had there been no war at his cabin 
 doors, the wiley speaker would have as readily framed some other excuse, for 
 the conduct of his people, in its stead. 
 
156 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 among other reasons, to shut those traders out. For several 
 years after, their busy marauding bands infested the coast line of 
 northern Ohio and eastern Michigan, from the Mauniee to Lake 
 Huron; intercepting the postal -route communication with "the 
 Illinois country;" plundering French traders; and harassing the 
 French settlement, then crystallizing about the fort at Detroit. 
 Affairs went op at this rate for ten or eleven years, until 1 7 1 2, 
 when the Foxes and their brethren, the Kickapoos and embold- 
 ened Mascoutins, by the war between England and France, 
 massed their warriors for the purpose of capturing Detroit and 
 driving the French out of the country. And they would have 
 succeeded but for the timely arrival of Indian alhes, who hastened 
 to the succor of the beleaguered garrison. What terrible retribu- 
 tion befell the aggressors in this attack is shown in that part of 
 the French commander's report already quoted. Father Charle- 
 voix, in his "History of New France",* says: "They [the Iro- 
 quois] had shortly before [171 1] raised up against us a' new 
 enemy as brave as themselves, less politic, much fiercer, whom 
 we have never been able to tame or subdue; and who, like those 
 insects that seem to have as many lives as parts of their body, 
 spring to life again, so to say, after their defeat, and reduced 
 almost to a handful of brigands, appear everywhere, aroused the 
 hatred of all the nations on this continent, and, for the last 
 twenty-five years and more, have interrupted commerce, and ren- 
 dered the roads almost impracticable for more than five hundred 
 leagues around. These arfe the Outagamis, or commonly called 
 the Foxes. * » * They had recently confederated with Iro- 
 quois, and had apparently, through them, just formed an alliance 
 with the British. They had promised the latter to burn the fort 
 of Detroit, to massacre all the French, and introduce British 
 troops into the fort," etc. Charlevoix then describes the siege 
 and its results, after which he says: "However, the Outagamis 
 incensed rather than subdued by the severe loss sustained at 
 Detroit in 17 12, infested with robberies and filled with murders 
 not only the neighborhood of The Bay [Green Bay], their natu- 
 ral territory, but almost all the routes communicating with the 
 remote colonial posts, as well as those leading from . Canada to 
 Louisiana. Except the Sioux, who often joined them, a,nd the 
 
 * We quote from this most extended and authentic history of the coloniza- 
 tion of the French upon the North American continent ever published, and 
 only recently (in 1871) translated into the English language by Prof. John 
 Gilmary Shea, whose addition of copious foot-notes to the text has greatly 
 enhanced its value. 
 
THE FOX AND SACS. 
 
 IS7 
 
 Iroquois, with whom they had formed an alliance but who did 
 not seem to help them, at least openly, all the nations in com- 
 merce with us suffered greatly from their hostilities; and there 
 was reason to fear that, unless a remedy was promptly applied, 
 most of them would make terms with these Indians to our detri- 
 ment. This induced the Marquis de Vaudreuii [governor-gen- 
 eral of New France] to propose to the neighboring tribes that they 
 should join him in exterminating the common enemy. All con- 
 sented, and the general raised a party of Frenchmen, assigning 
 the command to Louvigny, who was then the king's lieuten- 
 ant at Quebec. Many Indians joined this commandant on the 
 route, and he soon found himself at the head of eight hundred 
 men, firmly resolved not to lay down their arms as long as an 
 Outagamie was left in Canada. All supposed that tribe on the 
 brink of utter destruction; and the tribe itself judged so too, 
 when it saw the storm gathering against it, and they only thought 
 of selling their lives as dearly as possible." 
 
 We here leave off Charlevoix's account, and quote from M. de 
 Louvigny's official report of the action, which, ior the first time, 
 appears printed in a late volume of the ''Wisconsin Historical 
 Collections". 
 
 On reaching the principal fortified town of the Foxes — a 
 stronghold on Fox River, Wisconsin, and located, according to 
 Judge Wm. H. Smith of that State, at Butte des Marts, or hill bt 
 the dead — a theory, too, that is supported by several traditions 
 of the Foxes themselves; and, says S.ouvigny, "after three days 
 of open trenches, sustained by a continuous fire of fusil'eers, with 
 two pieces of cannon and a grenade mortar, they were reduced 
 to ask for peace, although they had five hundred warriors in the 
 fort, who fired briskly, and more than three thousand women; 
 they also expected shortly a reinforcement of three hundred 
 men. But the promptness with which my officers pushed for- 
 ward the trenches that I had opened at only seventy yards from 
 the fort, made the enemy fear, the third night, that they would 
 be taken. As I was now only twenty-four yards from their fort, 
 my aim was to reach their triple-oak stakes by a ditch of a foot 
 and a-half. in the rear. Perceiving very well that my balls had 
 not the effect I anticipated, I decided to take the place at the 
 first outset, and to explode two mines under their curtains. The 
 boxes being in place for this purpose, I did not Hsten to the ene- 
 mies' first proposition. They having made a second one, I sub- 
 mitted it to my allies, who consented to it on the conditions : that 
 the Foxes and their allies would make peace with all Indians 
 who are submissive to the king, and with whom the French are 
 
158 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 engaged in trade. That they would return to me all the French 
 prisoners that they have, and those captured during the war from 
 all our allies (all which was complied with immediately). That 
 they would take slaves from distant nations and deliver them to 
 our allies to replace their dead. That they would hunt to pay 
 the expenses of this war. And, as a security for keeping their 
 word, they were required to deliver me six of their chiefs, or chil- 
 dren of chiefs, as hostages, until the entire execution of our 
 treaty; which they did, and I took them with me to Quebec." 
 
 Having already occupied more space than is allotted to the 
 Fox and Sacs, we forbear further quotations from authorities and 
 copies of official manuscripts at hand to show the troublesome 
 relations between them and the French colonies for the following 
 fifty years; but from these sources of information we summarize 
 the statement that the Foxes and Sacs were far from being either 
 subdued or exterminated; that, in 17 18, they had gained a firm 
 footing upon Rock River, Illinois; and four years later, without 
 yielding their hold of the territory conquered in. Wisconsin, 
 they and the Kickapoos and Mascoutins had driven the last rem- 
 nants of the Illinois tribes south beyond the Illinois, leaving 
 nothing to check their raids along that river, and rendering com- 
 munication between the lower-Mississippi settlements and those 
 of Canada almost impracticable. Black Hawk says the Sacs 
 and Foxes "were driven, by the combined forces of their ene- 
 mies, to the Wisconsin. They remained there some time, until 
 a party of their young men *(who had descended Rock River to 
 its mouth) returned and made a favorable report of the country; 
 when they all descended Rock River,* drove the Kas-kas-kias 
 from the country, and commenced the erection of a village 
 [shortly above Rock Island] determined never to leave it; and 
 at this village I was born," etc. 
 
 It may be inquired how the Foxes and Sacs repaired the in- 
 cessant drain on their numbers caused by their constant wars 
 east, west, and south against neighboring tribes, who always had 
 the mqral support and often the direct assistance of the French. 
 Their polygamous practices would aid only in a degree ; while the 
 real explanation will be found in their custom — borrowed, per- 
 haps, from their friends, the Iroquois — of adopting their prisoners 
 of war, and incorporating them into their tribe, instead of killing 
 
 * In the Algonquin Usin-e [stony] See-be [river], meaning the rocky river, 
 and designated on early French maps as '■^Riviere de la Roch ", which has the 
 same signification. 
 
THE FOX AND SACS. 
 
 159 
 
 or making women [slaves] of them, as was the general rule 
 among other Indians.* 
 
 Having taken no hand in the border wars that began westward 
 of the Alleghanys with the near close of the Revolutionary War, 
 and ended with Gen. Wayne's victory over the confederated 
 tribes at Maumee rapids in 1794, the Sacs and Foxes were not 
 represented at the resulting treaty of Greenville the followini> 
 year. Previous to this, they had subdued the lowas, and incor- 
 porated them in their own tribe, and extended their domain up 
 the Des Moines River in the present State of Iowa; thence 
 northwestwardly, says Judge Hall, "beyond Council Bluffs and 
 into the immense prairies periodically visited by the buffalo." 
 They claimed the country for a distance on both sides of the 
 Mississippi from Rock River up to Prairie-du-Chien, which in- 
 cluded all the valuable mines of lead ore in. that region. The 
 principal village of the Foxes was at Dubuque's mine, some 
 seventy-five miles below the former place. They had another at 
 Rock -River rapids; while, on the east bank of the Mississippi, 
 near the foot of the island (known as Rock Island), was a village 
 of "Foxes and Sacs, living promiscuously together; it being (says 
 Schoolcraft, writing in 1820) one of the largest and most popu- 
 lous Indian villages on the continent." 
 
 From these villages the Foxes and Sacs warred upon the 
 nations to the west, particularly the Great and Litde Osages, 
 against whom they waged a contest that would have been one of 
 extermination had not the United States authorities, through 
 Gov. Wm. H. Harrison, interfered and put a stop to it. In 
 181 1, when the Indian disturbances, egged on by Tecumthe and 
 his followers, foreshadowed the war declared by the United States 
 against Great Britain the following year, the Foxes and Sacs sent 
 a committee of their chiefs to Washington City to offer the ser- 
 vices of their tribe to President Madison; and when the war had 
 actually begun, they sent a second delegation to St. Louis, and 
 again tendered their warriors to the Government. While these 
 offers were politely declined, as it was decided, at that time, not 
 
 * Wan-e-bea Na-mo-eta (Spinning Top), a Sac, whose village, in 1823, 
 was upon the Pek-tan-non (meaning, in the Sac dialect, muddy), as the Peek- 
 a-ton-o-kee River, a tributary of Rock River, was called by the Foxes and 
 Sacs, stated to Maj. Long that in his estimate his tribe enumerated nearly 
 one thousand able-bodied and middle-aged men; that not more than two hun- 
 dred of these were, in his opinion, of pure Sac extraction; while the others 
 were principally of a foreign stock obtained in the way we have stated. Vide 
 " Long's Expedition to the Source of the St. Peters River. " 
 
l6o ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 to employ such auxiliaries, the Foxes and Sacs were sorely puz- 
 zled to comprehend how a fight should be going on without their 
 taking a hand in it. Divided councils ensued; a majority, mainly 
 Foxes, remained neutral, while a brigade estimated at from two 
 to four hundred, mostly Sacs, easily seduced by the presents and 
 promises of Robt. Dickson,* went over to the British. They 
 were commanded by the Sac chief, Ma-ka-tia-me-she Kia-kiak, — 
 the Black Sparrow-Hawk. abbreviated, through common consent, 
 to Black Hawk — whom Col. Dickson commissioned as a general 
 in the miKtary services of his king. From these circumstances 
 this division of the Foxes and Sacs were afterward known as the 
 "British band". 
 
 The writer has neither the space or desire now or here to nar- 
 rate occurrences relating to the so-called Black-Hawk War of 
 1832. That war and the events that lead up to it are given by 
 several authors, whose volumes are easily accessible to the inquir- 
 ing reader.-t At the conclusion of this war, the Foxes and Sacs, 
 
 * A subject of Great Britain, and a fur-trader, whose depot of supplies was 
 at Prairie du Chien. For many years before, without warrant or authority, 
 he trafficked within the acknowledged boundaries of the United States along 
 the upper Mississippi, where, it seems, lie was as industriously engaged, all 
 the while, in distributing British flags and medals of King George III. among 
 the Indians as he was in collecting peltries. This pernicious practice kept 
 alive in their untutored breasts their love for their " British father across the 
 big water", and fanned their hatred of the "Americans who had thrown him 
 on his back." The seed of his teachings was all too ripe for the harvest 
 when the war broke out. He visited all the tribes on the Mississippi and 
 Illinois rivers and their tributaries, from Prairie du Chien to Green Bay; 
 and, early in June, 1813, had collected, at the ruins of Fort Dearborn (now 
 Chicago), a horde numbering nearly one thousand of the most cruel and 
 abandoned desperadoes he could find. From Chicago he led them in separ- 
 ate bodies to Detroit and Maiden, and turned them over to Gen. Proctor; 
 and the latter sought in vain to find a gap in Gov. Harrison's lines through 
 which he might hurl these fiends upon our border settlements. Instead of 
 finding the promised cabins to burn, children to brain, and women to disem- 
 bowel, they were confronted everywhere by men armed with guns and bayo- 
 nets. A few months' campaigning against such implements of war, and their 
 thirst for the blood of defenceless victims waned; they deserted in squads of 
 from three to a score in number, and started back to their several countries, 
 cursing, as they journeyed, the name of Dickson, who had so wofuUy deceived 
 them. 
 
 ■\ Brown's and Ford's " History of Illinois ", Gale's " Upper Mississippi ", 
 and Dr. Benj. Drake's "Life of Black Hawk". The more rare, miscellane- 
 
THE FOX AND SACS. l6l 
 
 by the treaty made Sept. 21st, 1832, at Rock Island, ceded all 
 their lands along the Mississippi, covering nearly the whole east- 
 ern h3,lf of Iowa and a large tract of country on the east side of 
 that river not embraced in previous treaties; further agreeing to 
 leave them and to quit hunting and fishing upon them after the 
 June then next following. This treaty opened the door to a press 
 of emigration, whose daily swelling volume quickly poured itself 
 across the Mississippi into Iowa, and spread the newly-acquired 
 •domain with golden fields, fragrant orchards, happy cottage-homes, 
 nestled amid shady groves, churches, and school-houses, and 
 other evidences of the highest type of civihzation. Still the 
 hardy emigrant from the elder States* required more room; and 
 by subsequent treaties, in 1837 and 1842, the Foxes and Sacs, 
 and other tribes that may have claimed any title, the whole coun- 
 try to the Missouri River was given up to him. The sounding 
 axe is again heard everywhere; everywhere is seen the straining 
 team turning up the tough prairie-sod; and on March 3d, 1845, 
 Iowa, said to mean in the Algonquin language, 'V/z^ beautiful 
 land", became a State, the fifteenth of the sisterhood admitted 
 under the federal constitution. 
 
 After the treaty of 1842, the Mississippi bands of the Foxes 
 and Sacs were placed on a reservation of 435,200 acres located 
 on the Osage River; while the Missouri band was placed on the 
 south side of Ne-ma-ha River, near the northeast corner of Kan- 
 sas. They of the Kansas agency, in 1865, raised 7500 bushels 
 of corn, and owned 1700 horses; and the estimated value of 
 their personal eff'ects was $71,910. By the enumeration of their 
 
 ous and historical writings of Judge Jas. Hall; the statements of Col. Thos. 
 Forsyth (preserved in Mrs. Kinzie's " Wau-bun ", and who, for many years 
 prior to 1830, was a trader or United States Indian agent among the Foxes 
 and Sacs) contain many interesting facts, as does Black Hawk's account of 
 his own life; while the publications of the Wisconsin Historical Society of 
 Wisconsin abound with crude material upon the same subject. When the 
 varient biases and prejudices of the respective writers shall have been elimi- 
 nated from these and other sources of information, and a fair average of truth 
 is formed from the residuum, it will show that the manner in which the treaty 
 of 1804, for the cession of a large body of lands of the Foxes and Sacs east of 
 the Mississippi, including Black Hawk's ancient village, was negotiated, 
 reflects little credit for fair dealing on the part of the dominant race; while 
 the manner in which the war was conducted, that arose out of conflicting con- 
 structions of this treaty, reflects still less upon their military fame. 
 
 * There was little of the foreign element in the early settlement of Iowa as 
 compared with the native. 
 II 
 
102 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 numbers taken the same year, there were 364 men and 441 
 women of the Mississippi band in Kansas, and only 44 men and 
 51 women of the Missouri band remaining on the Nemaha. If 
 the census taker had gone further west out upon the great plains 
 toward the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, he would, doubt- 
 less, have found many more, engaged there in hunting and fight- 
 ing, the employment of men, instead of hoeing corn, a drudgery, 
 according to their ethics, fit only to be endured by women. 
 
 Judge Hall, who enjoyed a long and extended personal acquaint- 
 ance with this people, says: "The Foxes and Sacs are remark- 
 able for the symmetry of their form and fine personal appearance. 
 Few of the tribes resemble them in these particulars; still fewer 
 equal their intrepidity. They are, physically and morally, among 
 the most striking of their race. Their history abounds with dar- 
 ing and desperate adventures and romantic incidents far beyond 
 the usual course of Indian exertion." 
 
 THE POTTAWATOMIES. 
 
 This people was one of the three subdivisions of the Ojibbe- 
 ways, a numerous family of the Algonquin tribes, the other two 
 members, and of whom it is not the present purpose to write, 
 being the Chippeways, or Ojibbeways, who retained the family 
 name, and the Ottaways. From causes, not here necessary to 
 name, they early became separated; and, in the progress of time, 
 the Chippeways extended themselves westward and south of Lake 
 Superior to the eastward sources of the Upper Mississippi River. 
 The Ottaways spread south to Grand River, in the State of Michi- 
 gan, down the western extremity of Lake Erie, and for quite a 
 distance up the Maumee River (one of the early names by which 
 that stream was known was the Ottaway); while the Pottawato- 
 mies advanced by way of the islands at the entrance of Green 
 Bay to the south into the country along the west shore of Lake 
 Michigan. That these three tribes were originally one people is- 
 evidenced, says Mr. Schoolcraft, in that one of his journals en- 
 tided, "The Central Mississippi Valley,"derives additional "weight 
 from their general resemblance in person, manners, customs, and 
 dress, but, above all, by their having one council-fire and speaking 
 one language. Still there are obvious characteristics which will 
 induce an observer, after a general acquaintance, to pronounce 
 
THE POTTAWATOMIES. 1 63 
 
 the Pottawatomies tall, fierce, -haughty; the Ottaways thick-set, 
 good-natured, industrious; the Chippevvays war-like, daring, etc. 
 But the general lineaments, or to borrow a phrase from natural 
 history, 'the suite features are identical.'" Confirmatory of the^ 
 above statement, we have the speeches of distinguished chiefs of 
 each of the three sub-tribes, at the treaty of Chicago, August 29th, 
 182 1, when the question of ownership of a large domain, south 
 of Grand River, sought to be purchased, was under discussion. 
 Kee-way-goosh-kum, a learned man among the Ottaways, said: 
 
 "The Chippeways, the Pottawatomies, and the Ottaways were 
 originally one nation. \^c separated from each other near Michi- 
 Hmackinac. We were related by the ties of blood, language, and 
 interest; but in the course of a long time these things have been 
 forgotten." 
 
 After which Michel, an aged chief of the Chippeways, arose 
 and, among other things, said: 
 
 "My Brethren — you have heard the man who has just spoken. 
 We are all descended from the same stock, the Pottawatomies 
 and the Chippeways. We consider ourselves as one. AMij- 
 should we not always act, in concert?" 
 
 Metea, the orator and historian of the Pottawatomies, and a 
 chieftain renowned for his knowledge of the traditions of his tribe, 
 gave his assent to these declarations in this language : 
 
 "Brothers, Chippeways and Ottaways, we consider ourselves as 
 one people, which you know, as also does our father here (alluding 
 to Gov. Lewis Cass, the principal commissioner in the negotia- 
 tions of this treaty), who has travelled over our country." 
 
 The declaration of Metea carries more weight from the fact 
 that his tribe alone had been the occupants of by far the greater 
 portion of the territory about to be purchased, the Chippeways, 
 so far as is known, never having lived upon it, while the Ottaways 
 never resided upon but a small part of it, in common with the 
 Pottawatomies, in the vicinity of Detroit and about the head of 
 the Maumee Bay.* 
 
 * To the same effect was the speech of the Chippeway chief Mas-sass at the 
 treaty of Greenville, in 1795, who, as the journal of that council states, "arose 
 and spoke in behalf of the three Fires, the Ottaways, Chippeways, and Pot- 
 tawatomies." In his speech he constantly alludes to the Ottaways, Chippe- 
 w^s, and Pottawatomies, as "We the Three Fires. " Later on he is followed 
 by the great Kesis (the sun), who lived upon the V/abash, a day's journey 
 below old Fort Ouiatenon, and who said to Gen. Wayne : 
 
 "Elder Brother, if my old chiefs were living, I would not presume to speak 
 in this assembly, but as they are dead, I now address you in the name of the 
 
164 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 In the writings left by early French authors, the word Potta- 
 watomies was spelled, as is the case with the names of other 
 tribes, to suit the arbitrary tastes of the various authors. Some 
 of the forms are Poutouatimi, Pouotatamis, Poutouaraies, Poute- 
 watamis, Pautawattamies, Pouttewatamies, Pottawattamies, and 
 Poux. The tribe was divided into four clans: the golden-carp, 
 the frog, the crab, and the tortoise. 
 
 Unlike the Illinois, Miamis, and several others, the Pottawa- 
 tomies were not divided into separate tribes, but their different 
 bands would separate and unite according to the abundance or 
 scarcity of game, or the emergencies of war. The name Potta-' 
 watomie, in their own language signifies we are making a fire; 
 and for the origin of which Joseph Barron, Gov. Harrison's In- 
 dian interpreter, related to Prof W. H. Keating, at Fort Wayne, 
 Ind., in 1824, this tradition: "A Miami, having wandered out 
 from his cabin, met three Indians whose language was unintelli- 
 gible to him; by signs and motions he invited them to follow him 
 to his cabin, where they were hospitably entertained, and where 
 they remained until dark. During the night, two of the strange 
 Indians stole from the hut, while their comrade and the host were 
 asleep. They took a few embers from the cabin, and placing these 
 near the door of the hut, they made a fire, which, being afterward 
 seen by the Miami and his remaining guest, was understood to 
 imply a council-fire between the two nations. From this circum- 
 stance the Miami called them, in his language, Wa-ho-na-ha, or 
 fire-makers, which, being translated into the other language, pro- 
 duced the term by which the Pottawatomies have ever since 
 been distinguished, and the pronunciation of which, as spoken by 
 themselves, is Po-ta-wa-to-me, in their language. We are making 
 a fire. * 
 
 Pottawatomies, as Massas has spoken in the name of the Three Fires, of 
 which we are one. * * * It is two years since I assisted at the treaty of 
 Vincennes (referring to the treaty concluded at that place by Gen. Rufus 
 Putnam, and the several Wabash River and Illinois tribes, Sept. 27th, 1792, 
 nearly three instead of two years before the treaty at Greenville); my voice 
 then represented the Three Fires." 
 
 * " Major Long's Expedition to the Sources of the St. Peter's River ". Prof. 
 Keating adds a foot-note to the effect that the above tradition was narrated 
 to him by the Indian "agent's interpreter, Mr. Joseph Barron, a man whose 
 long residence among the Indians, extensive acquaintance with their character, 
 together with his unimpeachable veracity, confer much value upon all the 
 information obtained from him.'' Joseph Barron for many years was the 
 interpreter, friend, and constant companion of Gen. Harrison during all his 
 
THE POTTAWATOMIES. 165 
 
 The first mention we find of the Pottavvatomies is in the "Jesuit 
 Relations" for the years 1639-40; where they- are referred to as a 
 tribe dwelling beyond the River St. Lawrence, and to the north 
 of Lake Huron. Twenty-six or seven years later, in 1666, in the 
 journal of Father Allouez, as preserved in the "Jesuit Relations", 
 they are described as "a people whose country is about the lake 
 of the Ill-i-mouek, a great lake that has not come to our knowl- 
 edge, adjoining the lake of the Hurons and that of the Puants 
 [Green Bay], between the east and the south." * "They are a 
 warlike people, hunters and fishers. Their country is good for 
 Indian-corn, of which they plant fields, and to which they repair 
 to avoid the famines that are too frequent in these quarters. They 
 are in the highest degree idolaters, attached to ridiculous fables, 
 and devoted to polygamy. * * * Of all the people that I 
 have associated with in these countries, they are the most docile 
 and affectionate toward the French. Their wives and daughters 
 are more reserved than those of other nations. They have a kind 
 of civility among them, and make it quite apparent to strangers, 
 which is very rare among our barbarians." 
 
 The Pottawatomies formed an early attachment to the French 
 
 official career, as Governor of the Indiana Territory and Commander of the 
 military forces of the Northwest, in the war of 1812, assisting, as interpreter, 
 at all of the treaties conducted by Gov. Harrison, and acting as spy, guide, 
 and confidential messenger in the many perilous movements of his principal, 
 during these times of troublesome Indian difficulties. He was a native French- 
 man, of Detroit, and died July 31, 1843, at the home of his son, on the 
 Wabash, near Logansport, Indiana. 
 
 * In the " Relations ", for the same year, Lake Michigan is again referred to 
 as "Lake Ill-e-aouers," and "Lake lU-i-ni-oues, as yet unexplored; * * 
 and that the Fox Indians call it Match-i-hi-gan-ing." Father Hennepin, 
 writing at a period some thirteen years later, in 1679, when its general coast- 
 line had become better ascertained, says: "The lake is called by the Indians 
 lU-i-nouck, and by the French Illinois, and adds in the same paragraph that 
 'it is called by the Miamis Misch-i-gon-ong, that is, the Great Lake.' Father 
 Marest, in his letter written from Kaskaskia, Illinois, Nov. 9, 1712, and 
 which has become famous on account of the valuable historical matter it con- 
 tains, drops the o«^{the place of) and contracts the word to Mkfiigan, and is, 
 perhaps, the first writer who ever spelled it in the way that has become uni- 
 versal. He naively says that "on the maps this lake has the name, without 
 any authority, of the 'Lake of the Illinois,' since the Illinois do not dwell in 
 its neighborhood. " The name is derived from the two Algonquin words, Mich-i 
 (Missi or Missi), which signifies great, as it does also several or many ; and Sag- 
 ay-i-gan, a lake. — FiV* "Henry's Travels." 
 
l66 IL-LINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 that remained unbroken through all the vicissitudes of good and 
 bad fortune attendant upon their exploration and attempted hold- 
 ing of the great Northwest. This friendship was so uniform and 
 reliable that the Pottawatomies figure much less in official docu- 
 ments than the Miamies, the Foxes, or other erratic tribes with 
 whom the French had to do. Whatever speculations might arise 
 as to what these latter might do, no concern was had as to the 
 Pottawatomie; he was always ready to bloody his hatchet on 
 the enemies of his Father's children, the French, be they white 
 Britishers, or red natives of his own race. While Nicholas 
 Perrot was on his way from Saulte de Ste. Mary to the head of 
 Green Bay, in 1671, engaged in notifying the several nations to 
 meet St. Lusson, the king's deputy at the former place, and hear 
 the king's will, and give their assent to the act of taking formal 
 possession of the country, the Pottawatomies supplied Perott 
 with an escort of their braves, as he passed one of their villages 
 on the east shore of Green Bay, to ensure his safety, the route 
 being considered dangerous on account of a threatened war 
 between the Sioux and the Mascoutins. As Perott approached 
 the village of the Miamis, he sent forward a troop of young men 
 from his escort to announce his arrival. The great Miami chief, 
 Te-tin-choua, wished to "give the envoy of the general of the 
 French a reception that would attest his own power. He sent out 
 a detachment to meet him, giving it orders to receive him in mili- 
 tary style. The detachment advanced in battle order, all the 
 braves adorned with feathers, armed at all points, uttering war-cries, 
 from time to time. The Pouteouatamis who escorted Perrot, 
 seeing them come in this guise, prepared to receive them in the 
 same manner, and Perrot put himself at their head. When the 
 two troops, were in face of each other, they stopped as if to take 
 breath, then all at once Perrot's took the right, the Miamis the 
 left, all running in Indian' file, as Hhough they wished to gain 
 an advantage to charge. But the Miamis, wheeling in the form 
 of an arc, the Pouteouatamis were invested on all sides. Then 
 Doth uttered loud yells, which were the signal for a kind of a 
 combat. The Miamis fired a volley from their guns, which were 
 loaded only with powder, and the Pouteouatamis returned it in 
 the same way; after this they closed, tomahawk in hand, all the 
 blows being received on the tomahawk. Peace was then made ; 
 the Miamis presented the calumet to Perrot, and led him with all 
 his escort into the chief town, where the great chief assigned him 
 a guard of fifty men, and regaled him splendidly after the custom 
 of the country."* 
 
 * Charlevoix's "New France." 
 
THE POTTAW ATOMIES. 167 
 
 Prior to 1670, the Pottawatomies had collected upon the 
 islands in Lake Michigan lying westward of the Straits of Macki- 
 nac and on those near the entrance of Green Bay; dwelling there, 
 as appears from a letter written that year by Father Claude Dab- 
 Ion from the mission of St. Francis Xavier, at Green Bay, "but 
 as strangers, the fear of the Iroquois having driven them from 
 their lands, which are between the Lake of the Hurons and that 
 of the Illinois"; \i.e., the Peninsula of Michigan.] 
 
 From these islands they advanced southward between the 
 shores of Green Bay and Lake Michigan, populating both with 
 their villages. Father Hennepin's narrative of La Salle's voyage 
 mentions the fact, that, the year prior to LaSalle's coming west- 
 ward, 1678, he had sent out a party of traders in advance; who, 
 having bartered successfully with the Pottawatomies at the islands 
 named, were anxiously waiting for La Salle at the time of his 
 arrival there in the Griffon. The same author notes the further 
 fact that LaSalle's party, as they coasted southward, traded at 
 another village of the same tribe, situated, probably, at She- 
 bovgan, "Wisconsin, certainly not south of Milwaukee. When 
 LaSalle reached the St. Josephs of Lake Michigan there were 
 no Pottawatomies in that vicinity. Shortly after this time, 1678, 
 they seem to have swarmed from their prolific hives on the 
 islands named, and advanced southward to the head of the lake, 
 from which, in time, they spread out like a great fan ; their left 
 extreme covering that part of the State of Michigan lying south 
 ■of Grand River and a line drawn from its source to the mouth of 
 Lake Huron ; their right extending over that portion of Illinois 
 lying north of the Kankakee and Illinois rivers, as far west as 
 the territory claimed by the Winnebagoes and the Sacs and 
 Foxes; while their front was pushed eastward into the country 
 of the Miamis to the banks of the Wabash and the Maumee. 
 Father Charlevoix who visited the localities in 172 1 says, "the 
 Pottawatomies possessed only one of the small islands at the 
 mouth of Green Bay, but had two other villages, one on the 
 St. Joseph * [of Lake Michigan] and the other at ' the Narrows ' " 
 [Detroit.] 
 
 Concerning the village near Detroit, and also some of the 
 customs of its occupants, we have the following account, taken 
 
 * The Pottawatomie villages were on the west side of the river, in the near 
 vicinity of Niles. Old Fort St. Joseph and the Jesuite Mission from which 
 the stream and the fort were named, stood on the same shore, while the 
 great Miami's town, for whom the river was originally called, was upon the 
 opposite bank. 
 
l68 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 from an official "Memoir, prepared in 1718, on the Indians 
 between Lake Erie and the Mississippi: "The port of Detroit is 
 south [west] of the river. The village of the Pottawatomies ad- 
 joins the fort; they lodge partly under apaquois * which are 
 made of mat-grass." 
 
 " The women do all the work. The men belonging to that 
 nation are well clothed, like our domiciliated Indians at Montreal. 
 Their entire occupation is hunting and dress. They make use of 
 a great deal of vermilion, and in winter wear buffalo robes richly 
 painted, and in summer either blue or red cloth. They play a 
 good deal at LaCrosse t in summer, twenty or more on a side." 
 
 * Uh-pu/i-guiiy, in the Ojebway dialect, meaning a mat for the floor or 
 covering of a wigwam ; made by plaiting or weaving reeds together, like a 
 carpet. The cat-tail flag furnished a popular material for this purpose; and 
 they were so skilfully fastened together by the women, who made them, that 
 when new, the rain would "not penetrate them." — Fz'n'f? Father Marest. The 
 frame of the wigwam was made with poles fastened in the ground, in a 
 circular form, the tops drawn together in a cone, and over these the mattings 
 were placed. 
 
 + The Indian game of ball, or cricket, known among the Algonquin tribes 
 by the name of Bag-gat-i-way, called by the Canadians le jeii de la crosse, 
 (the game of the bat) from the bat used in the play. It was popular among 
 the aborigines as base-ball is with the whites at the present day, and is still 
 played among them substantially as described nearly two centuries ago by the 
 author quoted in the text. George Catlin, the great Indian portrait painter, 
 in his interesting and -finely illustrated "History of the North American 
 Indians, " says, " I made it an uniform rule while in the Indian country to 
 attend every ball-play I could hear of, if I could do it by riding a distance 
 of twenty or thirty miles. * * * It is no uncommon occurence for six or 
 eight hundred or a thousand young men to engage in a game of ball, with 
 more than that number of spectators — men, women, and children — surround- 
 ing the ground and looking on. * * * In the game every player is- 
 dressed alike, that is, divested of all dress, except the girdle, etc. And in the 
 desperate struggles for the ball when it is up, where hundreds are running 
 together and leaping, actually over each others head, and darting between 
 their adversaries legs, tripping and throwing, and foiling ^each other in every 
 possible manner, and every voice raised to the highest key, in shrill yelps and 
 barks, there are rapid successions of feats and of incidents, that astonish and 
 amaze far beyond the conception of any one who has not had the singular 
 good luck to witness them." In Pontiac's war, the capture of the British 
 garrison at Mackinac was assigned to the Ojebways, who effected an entrance 
 to the fort through the stratagem of a game of bag-gat-i-way. Notice was 
 
THE POTT AW ATOMIES. 1 69 
 
 " Their bat is a sort of a little racket,* and the ball with which 
 they play is made of very heavy wood, somewhat larger than the 
 balls used at tennis. They are entirely naked except a breech- 
 cloth, and moccasins on their feet. Their bodies are completely 
 painted with all sorts of colors. Some, with white clay, trace 
 white lace on their bodies, as if on all the seams of a coat, and, 
 at a distance, it would be taken for silver lace. They play very 
 deep and often the bets sometimes amounting to more than eight 
 hundred livres. They set up two poles, and commence the game 
 from the centre ; one party propels the ball from one side, and 
 the others from the opposite ; and whichever reaches the goal 
 wins. It is a fine recreation well worth seeing. They often play 
 village against village. The Poux [a nickname for the Potta- 
 watomies] against the Ottawas, or Hurons, and at heavy stakes. 
 Sometimes the French join in the game with them. 
 
 "The women cultivate Indian-corn, beans, squashes, and melons, 
 which come up very fine. The women and girls dance at night. 
 They adorn themselves considerably ; grease their hair, paint 
 their faces with vermilion, put on a white chemise, wear what- 
 ever wampum they possess, and are very tidy in their way. 
 They dance to the sound of the drum and si-si-quoi, which is a 
 sort of gourd containing some grains of shot. Four or five young 
 men sing and beat time with the drum and rattle, and the women 
 keep time, and do not lose a step. It is very interesting, and 
 lasts almost the entire night." 
 
 "The old men often dance the medicine. [The medicine or 
 sorcerer's dance.] They resemble a set of demons ; and all this 
 takes place during the night. The young men often dance in a 
 circle, and strike posts. It is then they recount their achieve- 
 ments, and dance, at the same time, the war-dance; and when- 
 ever they act thus they are highly ornamented. It is altogether 
 
 given that on King George's birthday, June 4, 1763, the Chippewas would 
 play against the Sacs for a high wager. And when the excitement of the 
 game was at its height, the ball, as if by chance, was thrown over the 
 palisade,; the players, as if only eagerly intent on the game, rushed, pell- 
 mell, by the unsuspecting soldiers, through the open gate, and, dropping 
 their bats, seized the knives and tomahawks concealed under the blankets of 
 their squaws, who were already within the fort, and at once, says Alexander 
 Henry, an eye-witness, "began cutting down and scalping every Englishman 
 they foand."— Vide Henry's "Travels and Adventures in Canada." 
 
 * The sticks are bent into an oblong hoop at the end, with a sort of sleight 
 web of small thongs tied across to prevent the ball from passing through. 
 — Cati.in. 
 
I/O ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 very curious. They often perform these things for tobacco. 
 When they go hunting, which is every fall, they carry their 
 apaquois with them, to hut under at night. Everybody follows — 
 men, women, and children. They winter in the forest and return 
 in the spring." 
 
 In all the broils, growing out of the bitter competition for the 
 fur-trade, between French and British adventurers, and in the 
 intrigues of the respective executives of New France and the 
 British colonies to win over the Indian tribes, or incite them to 
 acts of hostility against the other, and in which neither the 
 French nor the British ever once consulted the welfare of the 
 Indians themselves, the Pottawatomies maintained an unswerving 
 alhance with the French. When these troubles in the American 
 provinces, with many years of accumulated grievances, at length 
 provoked a formal declaration of hostilities between France and 
 Great Britian, and the French Colonial War was began, the 
 Pottawatomies fought it through to the end under the flag of 
 their old friends. After the Northwest, with its military estab- 
 lishments, was turned over to the victor, they were ready to join 
 the chief (and their own kinsman), Pontiac, in his bold attempt 
 to capture these posts and drive the British from the country.* 
 Fort St. Joseph being in the country of the Pottawatomies, it was 
 given over for them to take. Ensign Schlosser was in command 
 at the time, with only fourteen soldiers to support him. He was 
 confronted on the 25th of May, 1763, by a horde of Pottawato- 
 
 * Pontiac was the great chief of the Ottawas. "His plans were matured, 
 and late in 1762, his messengers carried black wampum belts and red toma- 
 hawks'' — ensignas of war — "to the villages of the Ottawas, Ojibwas, Potta- 
 watomies, Sacs, Foxes, Menomonies, Illinois, Miamis, Shawnees, Delawares, 
 Wayandots [Hurons], Senecas, " etc. On a certain day, in the next year, 
 said the messengers, all the tribes were to rise, seize all the British posts and 
 at once attact the whole British border. " — Vide " Western Annals. " Accord- 
 ingly, the several forts were nearly simultaneously attackecjl. Fort St. Joseph, 
 on the river of that name in Michigan; Fort Ouatanon, on the Wabash, near 
 La Fayette, Indiana ; Miamis, at Ft. Wayne, in the same State ; Sandusky, 
 near the city of the same name in Ohio; Presque Isle, at Erie, Penn. ; Forts 
 Le Boeuf and Venango, on the water route between Erie and Pittsburg ; and 
 Fort Mackinac, as stated in a previous note, were all s^irprised and captured. 
 The forces at the Saulte de Ste. Mary, at the outlet of Lake Superior, had 
 been withdrawn and were among the massacred at Mackinac; while the gar- 
 rison at Green Bay, ftirough the concilatory and brave conduct of their com- 
 manding officer, Lieut. James Gorrell, escaped to a place of safety; leaving 
 both these places to fall into the hands of the enemy. Only three of the 
 
THE POTTAWATOMIES. 171 
 
 mies from Detroit, ostensibly on a friendly visit to their kinsman 
 living on the St. Joseph. The commandant was apprised that 
 the fort was surrounded by hostile Indians. At this, Schlosser 
 ran out of his apartment, and crossed the parade grounds, which 
 were full of Canadians and Indians. He entered the barracks,' 
 and these were also crowded with disorderly and insolent savages. 
 He called his sergeant to get the soldiers under arms; and, hurry- 
 ing back again to the parade, endeavored to muster the unwilling 
 Canadians. All at once a wild cry came from within the barracks, 
 when the Indians in the fort rushed to the gate, where they killed 
 the sentinel, and opened the gate for ingress to their friends with- 
 out. In less than two minutes, as the officer declares, the fort 
 was plundered, eleven men were killed, and himself, with the 
 three survivors, made prisoners and bound fast* 
 
 In the border troubles preceding the Revolutionary War; dur- 
 ing the latter contest, and throughout the Indian difficulties that 
 followed it, down to the close of Gen. Wayne's successful cam- 
 paign against the confederated Indian tribes in 1 794, war-parties 
 of the Pottawatomies made frequent and destructive raids along 
 the lines of the settlements in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, 
 and Indiana. However, those of this tribe living upon the 
 Wabash and in near communication with Vincennes, were much 
 less annoying in this regard; and several of their chiefs and 
 bands manifested an early friendship for the Americans, whom 
 they called their brother, the Big-Kinfe.\ 
 
 thirteen posts were saved. Forts Detroit and Pitt, after withstanding severe 
 sieges, were relieved by forces timely sent to their succor; while the rertiain- 
 ing one, Fort Niagara, at the mouth of Niagara River, was assailed by the 
 Senecas, who shortly, after abandoned the attempt, fearing the hostility of 
 the other tribes of their own nation, the Iroquois,. whose sympathies were 
 always with the British. 
 
 * Vide Parkmen's "History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac," from which the 
 foregoing details are taken ; Ensign John Joseph Schlosser, a native German, 
 capt.-lieut. 60 Reg't Royal Americans, May 12, 1756; capt. July 20, 1758; 
 at the siege of Ft. Niagara in 1759; after its surrender, commanded a post on 
 American side of the river about a mile above the Falls and below the mouth 
 of Gill Creek, which, in honor of him, has since borne the name of " Old 
 Fort Schlosser." In command of and taken prisoner at Ft. St. Joseph, JMichi- 
 gan, May 25, 1763; taken to Detroit shortly after, and exchanged; was serv- 
 ing with same regiment at Philadelphia in 1772.-" Army Lists"; "Penn. Ar- 
 chives"- "Parkman's Pontiac"; Military Map of Niagara frontier m Wm. 
 James' (British) "Account of Occurrences of the Late War (of 1812) between 
 Great Britain and the United States. " , . j 
 
 t The Virginians, Kentuckians, and other early border-men usually earned 
 
172 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 They were greatly influenced, for a while, by the schemes of 
 Tecumthe and his brother, the Prophet, in a much less prolonged 
 degree, however, than the Kickapoos and several of the other 
 tribes; and a fair representation of their warriors took part in 
 the battle of Tippecanoe.* 
 
 very large knives, and Gen. Geo. Rogers Clark's campaigners were notably 
 equipped in this way. From this circumstance the Western hunters and fighters 
 were called, in the Miami-IUini dialect, She-mol-sea, meaning the big-knife. 
 At a later day, the same name under the Chippewayan word Che-nio-ko-mon 
 was extended by kindred tribes to the white people generally — always except- 
 ing the Englishmen proper, whom they called the " Sag-e-nash ", and the New 
 Englanders, whom they styled "■ Bos-to-ne-ly'\ i. e., the Bostonians. The term 
 is derived from the Miami word, Mal-shea, or Mol-sea, a knife, or the Ojeb- 
 way Moo-ko-man, which means the same thing; while the prefix she or che 
 seems to emphasize the character of the instrument as a huge or long knife. 
 Such is the origin of the expression "long-knives" and "big-knife", frequently 
 met with in Indian discourses, and in books where Indian characters appear. 
 * Wa-bun-see, The Looking-glass, principal war-chief of the prairie band 
 of Pottawatomies, residing on the Kankakee River in Illinois, distinguished 
 himself, the last of October, 1811, by leaping aboard of one of Gov. Har- 
 rison's supply boats, loaded with corn, as it was ascending the Wabash, five 
 miles above Terra Haute, and killing a man, and making his escape ashore 
 without injury. — Official letter of Gov. Harrison; Reynolds' "My Own 
 Times. " This chief's name is notably connected with the massacre at Chi- 
 cago. While he approved and participated in the deed, through the stronger 
 regards of personal friendship, he tried to save the wounded and heroic Capt. 
 Wm. Wells from a pursuing savage of his own nation by whom the death- 
 stab was given; and he was one of the five Indians who stood at the door of 
 Kinzie's house, at the peril of their lives, guarding its inmates from a terrible 
 fate that would have surely followed but for their timely intervention. He 
 and his band were embraced in the treaty of peace concluded at Greenville, 
 July 22, 1 814; and ever after were on terms of friendship with the people of the 
 United States. In the so-called Black-Hawk War of 1832, he and his war- 
 riors volunteered their services to the whites, and campaigned and fought by 
 the side of the Illinois militia. The chief bore conspicuous parts in the 
 several treaties conducted at Chicago, and was well known and is still remem- 
 bered by many of its early citizens. In 1836, his people, having ceded all 
 their lands in Indiana and Illinois, he went with them to their reservation 
 near Council Bluffs. A fine portrait of him is preserved in the Indian gal- 
 lery at Washingtou. A copy of it would be appropriate in the collections of 
 the Historical Society of the great city of the West, whose aboriginal remi- 
 niscences this society, besides a wide field of other meritable labor, is engaged 
 in gathering and storing for future reference. 
 
THE POTT AW ATOMIES. 1 73 
 
 The official letters of the governors of the Indiana and Illi- 
 nois Territories; the current news items of the day, published in 
 the Vincennes Sun, the Missouri Gazette at St. Louis, and Niles' 
 Weekly Register at Washington, sufficiently illustrate the threaten- 
 ing attitude of the Pottawatomies (along with other tribes) before 
 and subsequent to the collision of arms at the Prophet's Town; 
 and show that subjects of Great Britain, or from its Province ot 
 Canada, engaged in the Indian trade within our borders, were 
 but so many busy and influential agents in supplying the Indians 
 with munitions of war, and stirring up a discontent among them 
 that would burst into aggressive hostility as soon as war should 
 be declared between the two powers. And when the war was 
 declared, the Pottawatomies went over to the standard of Great 
 Britain in a body. Their first blood was that of innocent vic- 
 tims, mingled with the slaughter of a body of brave soldiers, 
 whose too-confiding officer, against the admonitions of those 
 better acquainted with the treacherous ways of Indians, left the 
 fortress and exposed his men, and the women and children under 
 his care to their savage fury. The horrors of the massacre at 
 Chicago, August 15, 181 2, have been so often told and published 
 in so many books, as to render their repetition wholly unneces- 
 sary here. It was Pottawatomies (assisted probably by a few 
 Winnebaoges) who did it; and their several bands from the Illi- 
 nois and Kankakee rivers; from the St. Joseph of the Lake, and 
 the St. Joseph of the Maumee, and those of the Wabash and its 
 tributaries were all represented in the despicable act.* 
 
 Their hostility ceased with the war of 181 2, after which their 
 relations were uniformly peaceable; and they endured the many 
 impositions and grievances put upon them by not a few of their 
 unprincipled and unfeehng white neighbors, with a forbearance 
 that ought to have aroused public sympathy. 
 
 * The statement in the text as to the participants in the Chicago massacre, 
 is given in harmony with all contemporaneous and subsequent accounts, the 
 single exception being the version of Walter Jordan, who (in a letter to his 
 wife, dated at Ft. Wayne, Oct. 19, 1812, and which appeared in Niles' Weekly 
 Register for May 8, 1813) says the retreating garrison "were attacked by 600 
 Kickapoo and Wynabago Indians." He is as clearly mistaken in this as he 
 is in several other statements in his letter. He says Capt. Wells had with 
 him one hundred confute [Miami] Indians, and that tfiese joined the enemy. 
 Capt. Heald, the commanding officer, says Wells had about thirty Miamis, a 
 part of whom were placed in front, while the remainder brought up in the 
 rear as an escort; and that they refused assistance when the fight came on. 
 Samuel R. Brown, in his valuable history, published in 1815, concurs; while 
 Mrs John H. Kinzie (in "Wau-Bun"), drawing her material from several 
 
174 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 After their migration from the islands near the outflow of Green 
 Bay southward, they seem to have multipHed with wonderful 
 fecundity. The time of this movement is not definitely known. 
 Their advance line had reached the St. Joseph as early, probably, 
 as the year 1700. The same writer whose description of the 
 Pottawatoraies of the village at Detroit in 17 18 we have quoted, 
 says they came from the St. Joseph River, their former residence. 
 They were the most populous tribe between the lakes and the 
 Ohio, the Wabash and the Mississippi; they claimed Southeastern 
 Wisconsin from long occupation, and crowded themselves into 
 the ancient territory of the Miamis, "their younger brothers," in 
 Southern Michigan and Northwestern Indiana, taking possession 
 through sheer force of superior numbers, rather than by gage of 
 battle. Always on friendly terms with the Kickapoos, with whom 
 they frequently lived in mixed villages, they joined the latter and 
 the Sacs and Foxes in the exterminating war upon the Illinois 
 tribes, and afterward obtained their allotment of the despoiled 
 domain. By other tribes the Pottawatomies were called "squat- 
 ters", charged with never having had any lands of their own, and 
 being mere intruders upon the prior estates of others. "They 
 were foremost at all treaties where lands were to be ceded, clam- 
 oring for a lion's share of -the presents and annuities, particularly 
 where these last was the price paid for the sale of others' lands 
 rather than their own."* Between the years 1789 and 1837, 
 they, by themselves, or in connection with other tribes, made no 
 less than thirty-eight treaties with the United States, all of which, 
 excepting two or three, which were treaties of peace only, were 
 for alienations of lands claimed wholly by them or in common 
 with other tribes. These cessions embraced territory extending 
 from Cleveland, Ohio, westward to the Mississippi; portions of 
 Wisconsin and Michigan east of Green Bay and south of Mil- 
 eye-witnesses, and whose opportunities for acquiring the details in all their 
 minutla: were better, perhaps, than those of any other person who has ever 
 written on the subject, says: Capt. Wells had only fifteen Miamis, who y?«/ 
 at the outset; and that their chief "rode tip to the Pottawatomies and said: 
 ' You have deceived the Americans and us. You have done a bad action and 
 (brandishing his tomahawk) I will be the first to head a party of Americans 
 to return and punish your treachery.' So saying, he galloped after compani- 
 ons who were now scouring across the prairies. " Mr. Jordan says he went 
 from Ft. Wayne to Chicago with Capt. Wells, was taken prisoner, and made 
 his escape. His whole letter is colored with exaggeration, and those parts of 
 it that stand contradicted by writers more competent than he to know the 
 facts, are not to be relied on. 
 
 * Schoolcraft's " Central Mississippi Valley. " 
 
THE POTTAWATOMIES. 175 
 
 waukee; the mouth of Grand River and the south end of Lake 
 Huron ; and covermg a large part of the valleys of the Illinois, 
 the Wabash, the Maumee, and their tributary waters. Contem- 
 poraneous maps and government surveys display their numerous- 
 villages, and indicate their many reservations throughout this 
 vast area of country.* 
 
 The Indians themselves were not bhnd to the ultimate result 
 of the relentless demands of the white people for more and more 
 of their lands. On several occasions when they confronted the 
 agents of the general government, who had invited them to coun- 
 cil for the purpose of buying still another part of their posses- 
 sions, they protested, as best they could, against making further 
 sales. A notable instance of this occurred at the treaty con- 
 cluded Aug. 29, 1 82 1, at Chicago, 111., with the Pottawatomie, 
 Ottawa, and Chippeway tribes. By this treaty the United States 
 proposed to extinguish the Indian title to, substantially, all that 
 country lying south of Grand River, from its source to its mouth; 
 and east of Lake Michigan, between its southern extremity and 
 Grand River; bounded on the south by a line drawn from the 
 south end of the lake east, through Northern Indiana, to the 
 
 * Besides the villages already referred to in tjiis volume, the Pottawatomies 
 had others of historical interest, namely : a large settlement on the " M il-le- 
 wac-kie" (as they called the Milwaukee) River; on the "Schip-i-co-ten", or 
 Root River, at the confluence of which with the lake is the city of Racine; at 
 " Wah-kuh-e-gun" (the fort), or Waukegan; a scattering village upon both 
 the north and south branches of the " Chicago ", the name of the stream sig- 
 nifying a skunk in its primary, and a wild onion in its secondary sense; others, 
 on the " She-shick-ma-o-shi-ke " (the tree from which the water flows), or the 
 River des Plaines, from French- Canadian word Plaine or Plein, meaning a., 
 variety of maple growing along its borders; and still other towns upon the 
 DuPage, so called from a Frenchman who formerly lived and died on its banks, 
 and the Pottawatomie name for which was "O-to-ka-ke-nog" (the uncovered 
 breast). .Westward of these was the village of "Shaw-way-ne-be-nay" (con- 
 tracted to Shab-eh-nay and Shau-be-nay), at " As-sim-in-eh-kon", or Pawpaw 
 Grove. On the Illinois River and its northern tributaries above Peoria were 
 still others; among them Como or Gomo's town, near the head of the lake;. 
 " Wabunsee's ", or " Wau-pon-eh-see ", near the mouth of " Pish-ta-ka ", or 
 " Poish-tah-te-/^otf.j/i " (antelope), as the Natives called the Fox River of the 
 Illinois; while "Muck-e-te-po-kee's" (the black partridge) town was near the 
 mouth of the "Au .Sable" (French for Sandy Creek), three miles below the 
 junction of the des Plaines and the Kankakee. Higher up the last-named river, 
 some twenty miles, stood the town of the notorious "Main-poc", "Mai-pock", 
 or " Mai-po ", as his name is variously spelled. At the mouth of Rock Creek, 
 
1/6 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 mouth of the Au Glaze River at Defiance, Ohio, and thence north 
 by the west boundary-hne of a previous cession to the source of 
 Grand River in Michigan. As the proceedings of this treaty 
 fairly illustrate the manner in which such affairs are conducted, a 
 portion of them are 'given here, as taken down at the time by 
 Hon. Henry R. Schoolcraft, who was officially connected with 
 the commission, and preserved in one of the more scarce vol- 
 umes of his several narrative journals.* 
 
 "Aug. 14, 182 1. * * * On crossing the Desplaines, we 
 found the opposite shore thronged with Indians, whose loud and 
 obtrusive salutations caused us to make a few moments' halt. 
 From this point we were scarcely ever out of sight of straggling 
 parties, all proceeding to the same place. Most commonly they 
 were mounted on horses, and apparelled in their best manner, 
 decorated with medals, silver bands, and feathers. The gaudy 
 and showy dresses -of these troops of Indians, with the jingling 
 caused by the striking of their ornaments, and their spirited man- 
 ner of riding, created a scene as novel as it was interesting. 
 Proceeding from all parts of a very extensive circle of country, 
 
 at Kankakee City, and Yellow-Heads Point, a few miles north of Momence, 
 were the respective villages of " Shaw-waw-nay-see " (the Shawnee); "She- 
 mar-ger" (the soldier); and "Min-ne-mung" (the yellow head). The latter's 
 sister was the wife of Billy Caldwell, whose name is so intimately connected 
 with early Chicago. — Vide paper by the Hon. Wm. Hickling, published in 
 No. 10 of the Fergus Historical Series. Reservations at the three last- 
 named villages were secured to the above presiding chiefs by the Treaty of 
 Camp Tippecanoe, held near Logansport, Ind., October 20, 1832; and, with 
 other reserves in those neighborhoods, were surveyed off in the presence of 
 the beneficiaries and Gen. Tipton, Indian agent, by the writer's father, Major 
 Dan. W. Beckwith, U. S. Deputy Surveyor, in May, 1834. 
 
 More numerous and populous villages of the Pottawatomies were in South- 
 ern Michigan and Northern Indiana, on the St. Joseph, the Kalamazoo (these 
 Indians called it Kek-a-la-ma-zoo, signifying a "boiling pot"), and the several 
 streams flowing into the Detroit River and Maumee Bay, between Detroit and 
 Toledo. Of these may be named that of "To-pen-ne-bee", their great heredi- 
 tary chief, at "Pare aux Vaches" (the cow- pen), as the Canadian- French 
 traders facitiously nick-named the vicinity of old Fort St. Joseph; " Chip-pe- 
 outi-pe ", at South Bend; and the villages of the Five Medals and " Wap-pe- 
 me-me" (the white pigeon), higher up the river. North and westward of the 
 Wabash were others; "Chit-cha-ko?" on the Tippecanoe, and "Chip-poy", 
 twenty-five miles below the mouth of the latter stream. Others might be 
 named, but enough have been given to illustrate the assertion of the text. 
 
 * His "Travels, etc., la the Central Mississippi Valley." 
 
THE POTT AW ATOMIES. 1 77 
 
 like rays converging to a focus, the nearer we approached, the 
 more compact and concentrated the body became; and we found 
 our cavalcade rapidly augmented. Consequently, the dust, con- 
 fusion, and noise increased at every by-path that intersected our 
 way. After crossing the south-fork of the Chicago, and emerg- 
 ing from the forest that skirts it, nearly the whole number of 
 those who had preceded us appeared on the extensive and level 
 plain that stretches along the shore of the lake, while the refresh- 
 ing and noble spectacle of the lake itself, with 'vast and sullen 
 swell', appeared beyond. We found, on reaching the post, that 
 between two and three thousand Indians were assembled — chiefly 
 Pottawatomies, Ottawas, and Chippeways. Many arrived on the 
 following days; and provisions were daily issued by the Indian 
 department, to about three thousand, daily, during the treaty. 
 To accommodate the large assemblage mentioned, an open 
 bower, provided with seats for the principal chiefs and headmen, 
 had been put up on the green, extending along the north bank 
 of Chicago Creek. [Near the old John Kinzie house.] This 
 site, being at some distance from the principal encampments, 
 and directly under the guns of the fort, ensured both safety and 
 order for the occasion. The formalities which custom has pre- 
 scribed in negotiations of this kind, occupied the first two or 
 three days after our arrival, during which the number of Indians 
 was constantly augmenting. It was not until the 17th that they 
 were formally met in council, when Governor [Lewis] Cass, on 
 behalf of the commissioners [Solomon Sibley was then the asso- 
 ciate-commissioner], stated to them the following proposition ; — 
 "Your father [referring to the president of the United States] 
 has observed that you possess an extensive country about the St. 
 Joseph, which you do not cultivate nor appear to want. He has 
 instructed us to come here for the purpose of making a purchase 
 of a part of that land, and to pay you a liberal price for it, which 
 we shall agree upon. The quantity of game you now kill m that 
 part of the country is very little— almost nothing: and we can 
 give you for it that which will be more valuable and serviceable 
 to yourselves. We have brought with us a large amount of goods 
 to be distributed among you; and we shall also stipulate to pay 
 you a certain sum of money annually. It was agreed by the 
 Treaty of St Marys to pay you an annuity of one thousand two 
 hundred and fifty dollars, and by the Treaty of— , one thou- 
 sand dollars; both of which sums of money are now here and ready 
 to be paid to you.* Should we conclude an agreement for the 
 
 * The St Marys referred to was a stockade erected in 1794 by Gen. Wayne 
 as a depot for his mihtary supphes, at the Portage of the St. Marys' River, 
 12 
 
178 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 purchase of the lands on the St. Joseph, we feel willing that such 
 reservations shall be made as may be proper. It will be many- 
 years before the country will be settled by the Americans; during 
 all that time you will retain possession of the lands, at the same 
 time that you are drawing your annuities for them. * * * 
 You can take time to consider the proposition we have now 
 made. Counsel among yourselves, and deliver your answer as 
 soon as you can agree. Above all, let me entreat you to refrain, 
 from whisky during the treaty, that you may be able to see justice 
 done to yourselves. * * ^ " 
 
 Each sentence, being distinctly translated, was received with a 
 Ho-ahl — a term that on these occasions merely indicates atten- 
 tion. The interjection (subjoins Mr. Schoolcraft in a foot-note), 
 when strongly emphasized and responded by many voices, also 
 denotes approbation — and is nearly equivalent to our "hear him!" 
 and it is an easy matter to perceive by the maimer of its enuncia- 
 tion whether the matter spoken excites pleasure, indifference, or 
 disapprobation. 
 
 A short pause ensued, during which the customary presents 
 were issued, when Me-te-a, a Pottawatomie chief from the 
 Wabash,* made the following laconic reply: — 
 
 "My Father: — We have Hstened to what you have said. 
 We will now return to our camps and consult upon it. You will 
 hear nothing more from us at present." 
 
 The council being again convened on the 19th, the same Pot- 
 Mercer Co., Ohio; and last commanded by Capt. John Whistler, who succes- 
 sively commanded at Forts St. Mary, Wayne, and old Fort Dearborn at Chi- 
 cago; the latter he built in 1803. 
 
 The blank space in Gen. Cass' address before the words "one thousand 
 dollars ", should be supplied by inserting the " Treaty of Edwardsville ", 111. , 
 Aug. 24, 1816, by which the United States, for the purpose of controlling the 
 water communication, since improved as the " Illinois and Michigan Canal", 
 purchased from the united Pottawatomie, Ottawa, and Chippeway tribes, 
 " residing on the Illinois and Milwaukee rivers and their waters, and the south- 
 western parts of Lake Michigan", a strip of land ten miles wide on both 
 sides oltJu same, and extending from the mouth of Fox River at Ottawa, III, 
 easterly to the confluence of Chicago Creek with Lake Michigan. 
 
 * Mus-qua Was-e-peo-tan (the old town of Redwood or Cedar Creek), of 
 which Me-te-a was presiding war and civil chief, was situated near the con- 
 fluence of that stream with the St. Joseph of the Maumee, some nine miles 
 northeast of Ft. Wayne, Ind.— "Long's Second Expedition"; other accoimts; 
 and contemporaneous maps, etc. 
 
THE POTTAW ATOMIES. 1/9 
 
 awatomie was delegated by the three tribes to deHver their reply 
 to Gen. Cass' speech. Me-te-a arose and said : — 
 
 "My Father: — We meet you here today, because we had 
 promised it, to tell you our mind and what we have agreed 
 among ourselves. You will listen to us with a good mind, and 
 believe what we say. My father, you know that we first came to 
 this country a long time ago, and sat ourselves down upon it; 
 we met with a great many hardships and difficulties [referring to 
 their wars with its former occupants]. Our country was then 
 very large; but it has dwindled away to a small spot; and you 
 wish to purchase that I- This has caused us to reflect much upon 
 what you have told us; and we have, therefore, brought along all 
 the chiefs and warriors, and the young men, and women, and 
 children of our tribe, that one part may not do what the others 
 object to; and that all may be witnesses of what is going forward. 
 
 "My Father: — You' know your children. Since you first 
 came among them,* they have always hearkened to your coun- 
 cils. ^^'henever you have had a proposal to make us — whenever 
 you have had a favor to ask of us, we have always lent a favor- 
 able ear; and our invariable answer has been 'Yes.' This you 
 know. 
 
 "My Father: — A long time has passed since we first came 
 upon our lands; and our old people have all sunk into their 
 graves. They had sense. We are all young and foolish, and do 
 not wish to do anything that they would not approve, were they 
 living, '\^'e are fearful we shall offend their spirits if we sell our 
 lands; and we are fearful we shall offend jvi??/! if we dont sell them. 
 This has caused us great perplexity of thought, because we have 
 counselled among ourselves, and do not know how we can part 
 with the land. My Father: — Our country was given us by the 
 Great Spirit, who gave it to us to hunt upon; to make our corn- 
 fields upon; to live upon; and to make down our beds upon 
 when we die. And he would never forgive us, should we now 
 bargain it away. When you first spoke to us for lands at St. 
 Marys,+ we said we had a little, and agreed to sell yqu a piece of 
 
 * Gen. Cass had been in charge of government affairs over these tribes for 
 many years, and acquired an extensive acquaintance; had conducted a number 
 of treaties with them; and was highly esteemed by them for his uniformly kind 
 and honorable treatment in all official and social relations with them. 
 
 + At St. Marys, Ohio, mentioned in a previous note, where, Oct. 2, 1818, 
 Gen. Cass, with Jonathan Jennings and Capt. Benj. Park of Indiana, con- 
 cluded a treaty with the Pottawatomie tribe for the purchase of a large tract 
 
l8o ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 it; but we told you we could spare no more. Now you ask 
 us agaifi I You are never satisfied ! 
 
 "My Father: — We have sold you a great tract of land* 
 already; but it is not enough! We sold it to you for the benefit 
 of your children, to farm and to live upon. We have now but 
 little left; and we shall want it for ourselves. We know not how 
 long we may live, and we wish to have some lands for our chil- 
 dren to hunt upon. You are gradually taking away our hunting- 
 grounds. Your children are driving us before them. We are 
 growing uneasy. What lands you have you may retain forever; 
 but we shall sell no more. 
 
 "My Father: — You think, perhaps, that I speak in anger; but 
 my heart is good toward you. I speak like one of your children. 
 I am an Indian — a red-skin, and live by hunting and fishing. 
 My country is already too small; and I do not know how to 
 bring up my children if I give it all away. We sold you a fine 
 tract of land at St. Marys, t We said then to you, it was enough 
 to satisfy your children, and the last we would sell; and we 
 thought it would be the last you would ask for. 
 
 " My Father : — -We have now told you what we had to say. It 
 was determined on in council among ourselves; and what I have 
 spoken is the voice of my nation. On this account all of our 
 people have come here to listen to me; but do not think we have 
 a bad opinion of you. Where should we get a bad opinion of 
 you? We speak to you with a good heart and the feelings of a 
 friend. 
 
 "My Father: — You are acquainted with this piece of land — 
 the country we live m.% Shall we give it up? Take notice, it is 
 
 of country lying in Central-western Indiana and Eastern Illinois, fronting on 
 the Wabash from the mouth of the Tippecanoe to the mouth of the Vermilion, 
 and extending westward to a line drawn as nearly parallel with the Wabash 
 as practicable, so as to strike the two latter streams twenty-five miles from 
 their respective confluence with the Wabash; and now embraced in parts of 
 Tippecanoe, White, Benton, all of Warren, the north half of Vermilion 
 countie.s in Indiana, and the greater portion of Vermilion County in Illinois. 
 
 * Referring to the several other treaties at which extensive tracts of land 
 claimed by them had been ceded. 
 
 + Me-te-a participated at the Treaty of St. Marys, and his name appears 
 among the signers of the treaty. 
 
 X Through the war of 1812, and during his long relations as governor of 
 Michigan Territory, and at the head of the Western Indian Department, 
 there was, perhaps, no one better acquainted with this suburb country in 
 question than Gen. Cass. 
 
THE POTTAWATOMIES. l8l 
 
 a small piece of land, and if we give it up, what will become of 
 us? The Great Spirit, who has provided it for our use, allows us 
 to keep it to bring up our young men and support our famiHes. 
 We shall incur his anger if we barter it away. If we had more 
 land, you should get more ; but our land has been wasting away 
 ever since the white people became our neighbors, until now we 
 have hardly enough left to cover the bones of our tribe. 
 
 " My Father : — You are in the midst of your red children. 
 What is due to us in money, we wish and will receive it at this 
 place.* 
 
 "My Father: — We all shake hands with you.t Behold our 
 warriors, our women and children. Take pity on us and on our 
 words." 
 
 Mr. Schoolcraft says in a note at this place: "I wish it to be 
 distinctly understood, that in my reports of these speeches I have 
 adhered, literally, to the spirit and form of expression of the 
 interpreters, and have seldom ventured to change the particular 
 phraseology. This will be apparent on perusal, and will account 
 for the familiar cast of many of the sentences. Authenticity was 
 deemed a paramount object, and to the attainment of this, I have 
 sacrificed all attempt at ornament or embellishment. By this 
 course, undoubtedly, great injustice is done to the spirit of the 
 original; but it must be recollected that it is not the original, but 
 the verbal interpretation that I have undertaken to preserve." 
 The foot-notes of the writer to Me-te-a's speech, are supplied to 
 give clearness to passages or allusions that, to the reader of 
 today, might otherwise seem vague or lacking in force. Consid- 
 ered as a categorical reply to Gen. Cass' address, and as a resume 
 of the relations of the white people toward the red man on the 
 North American Continent, particularly the tribes in question, 
 involving the ultimate destruction of the latter, as the inexorable 
 result of the contact; the speech of Me-te-a, mangled as it was 
 and shorn of its strength and imagery in rendering it into Eng- 
 lish, is logical, persuasive, pithy, and to the point; and shows that 
 this uneducated savage, like many others of his race, possessed 
 a capacity of mind and gifts of oratory not inferior to those of 
 the white people. :{; 
 
 * By the terms of the treaty at Edwardsville, the annuity was to be paid at 
 some place on the IlUnois River not lower down than Peoria; while the 
 moneys agreed to be given yearly, under the provisions of the Treaty of St. 
 Marys, were to be paid half at Detroit and the residue at Chicago. Me-te-a 
 accepts Gen. Cass' offer to receive it at Chicago, instead, 
 t " A figurative expression", says Schoolcraft, "much used." 
 % Chicago was familiar ground to Me-te-a, and his hands were stained with 
 
1 82 ILLINOIS AND INDIANA INDIANS. 
 
 The Pottawatomies were among the last to close out their 
 reservations and retire beyond the Mississippi. They were loth 
 to give up their old homes; and for years mingled on friendly 
 terms with the early white settlers. The final emigration from 
 the Wabash and St. Joseph was deferred until 1838. Coercive 
 measures were required in the removal of the bands from the 
 latter river. The Kankakee and some of the other Illinois bands, 
 as stated in a former foot-note, went westward some two years 
 before. 
 
 In 1846, the scattered families of the Pottawatomies, Ottawas, 
 and Chippeways were united to be thereafter known as the Potta- 
 watomie Nation. For $850,000, to be paid them by the United 
 States, they released all claims to their several reservations in 
 Iowa, Missouri, or in any other place whatever. In lieu of 
 $87,000 of the above sum, they took 576,000 acres of land of 
 the general government, situated on both sides of the Kansas 
 River, Topeka, Kansas, being very nearly in the centre of the 
 tract. While Kansas was going through its territorial stages, the 
 so-called "squatter sovereigns" intruded upon these lands, sold 
 the Pottawatomies whisky and spread a general demoralization 
 among them. ^The white trespassers killed the stock of the 
 farmer Indians, burned some of their habitations, end resorted 
 to all the well-known methods practised on the borders, time out 
 of mind, to make it unpleasant for the Indians who were here 
 struggling up successfully from barbarism to the ways of civilized 
 society. The usual result, a dismemberment of the reservation, 
 followed. The farmer Indians, so desiring, had their portions set 
 off in severalty; the wilder members of the tribe had their share 
 allotted in common. For the most part, the squatters got the 
 lands of the first, while an alleged needy railroad corporation* 
 was subsidized with the latter. 
 
 From the several reports of the commissioners of Indian affairs 
 
 the blood of the massacre there in i8i2. The same autumn, his right arm 
 was shattered, and ever after hung a withered limb at his side, from a bullet 
 wound received, near Ft. Wayne, from a skirmisher in advance of Gov. Har- 
 rison's forces marching to the relief of that place. The last council he 
 attended, says G»n. John Lipton of Indiana, was at Ft. Wayne in 1827, 
 where the dignity and propriety of his conduct was a subject of remark. The 
 business at an end, he remarked that he must have a frolic. He got drunk, 
 and roamed the village in a frenzy, demanding more liquor. At last, as was 
 supposed, he took a bottle of aqua fords from a shop-window, and drank it, 
 and died from its effects within half-an-hour afterward. 
 * The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. R, Co. 
 
THE POTTAW ATOMIES. 1 83 
 
 for the year 1863, it appears that there was 2274 m the tribe, all 
 told; that the farmers among them raised 3720 bushels of wheat; 
 45,000 of corn; 1200 of oats; and 1000 tons of hay; and that 
 they owned 1000 cattle, 1200 horses, and 2000 hogs. The same 
 year, there were ninety-five boys and seventy-five girls; and in 
 1866 a total of two hundred and forty scholars attending the 
 Catholic school at St. Marys, a few miles north of Topeka, where 
 they were making gratifying progress. 
 
 Some seventy-five of their young warriors volunteered on the 
 union side during the late civil war, and faithfully served "their 
 country." There was no way of computing their numbers accu- 
 rately — so inany of the young and adventurous having strayed 
 away in quest a more exciting Hfe; — still, in 1867, out of a popu- 
 lation of 2400, 1400 elected to become citizens of the United 
 States under an enabling act passed by Congress. Some did 
 well by the change; while others squandered their lands, and 
 went away and joined the wild bands or mixed with other tribes 
 out upon the plains. There are still a few left in Indiana and 
 Michigan, and over a hundred in Wisconsin. 
 
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