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977.339 MATe
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY
Class
Book
Volba
977.339 Mane
Mr10-20M ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY
EARLY ROCK ISLAND
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MA-KA-TAI-ME-SHE-KIA-KIAK. BLACK HAWK.
EARLY ROCK ISLAND
BY
WILLIAM A. MEESE
PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE ROCK ISLAND COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
MOLINE, ILLINOIS PRESS OF DESAULNIERS & CO.
1905
Entered According to the Act of Congress in the Year 1905 By WILLIAM A. MEESE In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington
INTRODUCTION
IN this sketch, EARLY ROCK ISLAND, I have aimed to collect all data and facts relating to this county up to and including the year 1832. I give an account of the Sacs and Foxes, because they were the only redmen of whom we have knowledge who maintained in this county anything like a permanent habitation, and because it was with these people that our government went to war, the cause of that war being possession of the soil of what is now Rock Island County. I have tried to collect all data regarding the early settlements and the part the early settlers took in the Black Hawk war, also the early history of Fort Armstrong. I do not feel warranted in saying that I have collected all that is of interest or that bears on this county during the period I have tried to cover. In this sketch I merely put in print and preserve for those who desire it such data as I have been able to collect, hoping that as each new item is found it will be added to EARLY ROCK ISLAND.
In making my research I have consulted, among others, Black Hawk's autobiography, John W. Spencer's Remi- niscences, Benjamin Goble, Elliott's Black Hawk War Records, Stevens' Black Hawk War, Thwaite's Essays in Western History, Rock Island County Past and Present, The Wisconsin Historical Series, Flagler's Rock Island Arsenal, and the following Histories of Illinois: Breese, Mason, Davidson and Stuve, Ford and Reynolds, besides making some original research in the records of the war department. .
WILLIAM A. MEESE.
December 1, 1905.
192775
· 1
Part I
The First Inhabitants, Sacs and Foxes, Indian Treat- ies, Sac and Fox Customs, Their Homes, the Rock River Village, Its Name, Indian Population, First Explorers, Campbell's Battle, First White Settlers, Land Settlements, Establishment of the County.
Early Rock Island
Part I
THE FIRST INHABITANTS.
T' HE first people of whom we have knowledge, who inhabited the country now known as Rock Island county, were the redmen. What tribes first occupied this ground is not known, but in the first part of the seventeenth century it was the hunting grounds of the once powerful tribes known as the Illini, or Illinois, who were a confedera- tion of several tribes, chief among whom were the Tamoroas, Michigamies, Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Peorias, and with whom were also classed the Mascountins, sometimes called the Sixth tribe. These tribes all were of the great Algonquin nation. Marquette in his journal speaks of meeting the Illini in 1673, when he stopped at the Des Moines River, and afterwards when, on his return, he came by way of the Illinois River from its mouth to Lake Michigan. The scene of the Illinois' main residence was, however, in the central and southern parts of the State.
THE SACS AND FOXES.
About 1680 northwestern Illinois became the home and the hunting ground of the Sacs and Foxes. The word "Ou- Sakis" or "Sau-Kee," now written Sac, is derived from the compound word "A-Sau-we-Kee" of the Chippewa language, signifying yellow earth, and "Mus-qua-Kee," the original name of the Foxes, means red earth. These tribes originally lived on the St. Lawrence River near Quebec and Montreal. The Foxes were the first to migrate west. They settled along the river that bears their name and which empties into Green Bay.
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The Sacs after a long and bloody war with the Iroquois were driven from the St. Lawrence River westward. They were next engaged in war with the Wyandottes, and again were they compelled to hurry towards the setting sun, until at length they reached Green Bay on Lake Michigan, near where the Foxes had made their habitation. Here it seems both tribes were frequently attacked by other tribes, until at last they united, forming an offensive and defensive union, each retaining its tribal name. Through intermarriage and long residence they became substantially one people, an alliance lasting to this day. Both the Sacs and Foxes belong to the Algonquin family.
At what time these two tribes came to Green Bay is not known. Marquette's map of 1673 locates the Foxes on the Fox River between the present Green Bay and Lake Winne- bago. Father Claude Allouez, when he established the mnis- sion of St. Francis Xavier in 1669, found them located near, and in 1672 he commenced preaching the gospel to them. Early in the eighteenth century they were driven from Green Bay and the Fox River by the Menominees, who were aided by the Ottawas, Chippewas and the French.
The Sacs and Foxes made depredations on the French trad- ers and exacted tribute from them, whereon the French commandant of the post at Green Bay took a party of his men in covered boats, and while distracting the attention of the Indians, opened fire on them at the same time that his Menominee allies attacked the Fox River, Sac and Fox village from the rear. Those who survived the slaughter removed to the Mississippi River. On arriving there they found that country inhabited by the Sauteaux, a branch of the Chippewa tribe. Upon these they commenced war, finally driving them out of the country, which they then took possession of and occupied. This was about 1722.
These tribes next waged war upon the Mascoutins and in a battle opposite the month of the Iowa River defeated and almost exterminated this tribe. They then forined an alliance with the Pottawattomies, Menominees and Winne- bagoes, and together attacked the Illinois and gradually drove these people further southward. In 1779, on the 26th
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of May, these allied tribes made an attack upon the Spanishi post and village, now St. Louis, killing a large number of the citizens and almost capturing this post.
The Sacs and Foxes have warred with the Sioux, the Pawnees, Osages and other Indians, and their record shows that they ranked among the fiercest and most warlike tribes. Drake said of them: "The Sacs and Foxes are a truly courageous people, shrewd, politic and enterprising, with not more of ferocity and treachery of character than is com- mon among the tribes by whom they were surrounded."
TREATIES WITH THE SACS AND FOXES.
The first recognition by our government of the Sacs and Foxes was in the treaty made at Ft. Harmar, January 9, 1789, which guaranteed : "The individuals of said nations shall be at liberty to hunt within the territory ceded to the United States, without hindrance or molestation, so long as they demean themselves peaceably and offer no injury or annoyance to any of the subjects or citizens of the said United States." .
In 1804 William Henry Harrison, governor of Indiana territory, and afterwards President of the United States, was instructed by President Jefferson to institute negotiations with the Sacs and Foxes to purchase their lands. At this time, Black Hawk had risen to the position of war chief of the Sac tribe. Four chiefs or headmen of the Sacs and two chiefs of the Foxes went to St. Louis, and November 3, 1804, made a treaty with Governor Harrison. By this treaty the Indians ceded all their lands, comprising the eastern third of the present state of Missouri and the territory lying between the Wisconsin River on the north, the Fox River of Illinois on the east, the Illinois on the southeast, and the Mississippi on the west, in all fifty million acres. For this grant the United States guaranteed to the Indians "friendship and protection," paid them $2,234.50 in goods, and guaranteed them goods each year thereafter to the amount of $1,000, $600 of which was to be paid to the Sacs and $400 to the Foxes. By this treaty it was provided in Art. 7:
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"As long as the lands which are now ceded to the United States remain their property, the Indians belonging to the said tribes shall enjoy the privilege of living and hunting upon them." This article in the treaty caused much trouble between the government and the Sacs and Foxes, and was the main cause of the Black Hawk war. Black Hawk was not present at its making, and always denied the right of the headmen of the Sac tribe to sign such a treaty for his people.
In the spring of 1804 a white person (a man or boy) was killed in Cuivre settlement by a Sauk (Sac) Indian. A party of United States troops was sent from St. Louis to the Rock River village to demand the murderer. The Sacs surrendered and delivered him to the soldiers and he was conveyed to St. Louis and turned over to the civil authorities. During the latter part of October, 1×04, Quash-quame, one of the Sac chiefs, together with others of his tribe and some of the Foxes, went to St. Louis to try and secure the release of the Sac murderer who was a relative of Quash-quanie. It is an Indian custom and usage that if one Indians kills another, the matter is generally compromised with the murdered man's relatives for a property consideration, as Black Hawk said : "The only means with us for saving a person who killed another was by paying for the person killed, thus covering the blood and satisfying the relatives of the murdered man," and the Sacs believed that by the giving of ponies and pelt- ries to the whites they could secure the Indian's release.
Thomas Forsyth, for many years an Indian trader and from 1816 until 1830 the agent of the Sacs and Foxes, in a manuscript written in 1832 says of this matter: "Quash- quame, a Sauk chief, who was the head man of this party, has repeatedly said, 'Mr. Pierre Choteau, Sen., came several times to my camp, offering that if I would sell the lands on the east side of the Mississippi River, Governor Harrison would liberate my relation (meaning the Sauk Indian then in prison as above related), to which I at last agreed, and sold the lands from the mouth of the Illinois River up the Missis- sippi River as high as the mouth of Rocky River (now Rock River), and east to the ridge that divides the waters of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, and I never sold any more
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lands.' Quash-quame also said to Governor Edwards, Governor Clark and Mr. Auguste Chouteau, commissioners appointed to treat with the Chippewas, Ottawas and Potto- wattamies of Illinois River, in the summer of 1816, for lands on the west side of Illinois River : 'You white men may put on paper what you please, but again I tell you, I never sold my lands higher up the Mississippi than the mouth of Rock River.' "
It is claimed that the Indians were drunk most of the time they were in St. Louis, a thing not unlikely. Forsyth said the Indians always believed the annuities they received were presents, and when he in 1818 informed them it was part of the purchase price of their lands, "they were astonished, and refused to accept of the goods, denying that they ever sold the lands as stated by mne, their agent. The Black Hawk in particular, who was present at the time, made a great noise about this land, and would never receive any part of the annuities from that time forward."
When it became known that certain chiefs and headmen liad without authority sold their lands, Quash-quamne and his companions were degraded from their ranks, Tiama, the son-in-law of Quash-qname, being elected to his father-in- law's place.
In 1815 a part of the Sacs and Foxes had migrated to the Missouri River, and September 13, 1815, these Indians sent representatives to the Portage des Sioux, where each tribe made a separate treaty with the government, agreeing to ratify the treaty of November 3, 1804, and to remain separate from, and render no assistance to, the Sacs and Foxes then living on Rock River.
O11 the 13th day of May, 1816, another treaty was entered into at St. Louis. This treaty was between the "Sacs of Rock River " and the government. It reaffirmed the treaty of 1804 and all other contracts heretofore made between the parties. To this treaty is attached the mark of Ma-Ka-tai- me-She-Kia-Kiak, or "Black Sparrow Hawk," as Black Hawk was also called. Yet Black Hawk said in 1832 : "Here, for the first time, I touched the goose quill to the treaty not knowing, however, that by the act I consented to
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give away my village. Had they explained to me I should have opposed it and never would have signed their treaty as my recent conduct will clearly prove."
In the treaty of 1804 the government had agreed, in order to put a stop to the abuses and impositions practiced upon the Indians by private traders, to establish a trading house or factory where these Indians could be supplied with goods cheaper and better than from private traders. This the government concluded it was best not to continue, and a new treaty was made by which the United States paid the Indians $1,000 to be relieved from this obligation. Black Hawk signed this treaty. Another treaty was made August 4, 1824, which reaffirmed and recognized all former treaties. Each treaty left the Sacs and Foxes with less land and fewer rights.
For years there had existed a bitter feeling between the Sioux and the Sacs and Foxes, and August 19, 1825, William Clark and Lewis Cas- on behalf of the government assembled these tribes, together with the Chippewas, Menominees, Win- nebagoes, Iowas, Ottawas and Pottawattomies, at Prairie du Chien, and entered into a treaty whose object was to end the wars between these nations. In this treaty it was agreed that the United States should run a boundary line between the Sioux and the Sacs and Foxes. It seems that this treaty proved unsatisfactory to the Indians, for July 30, 1830, another treaty was entered into at Prairie du Chien in which the Sacs and Foxes ceded to the United States a tract of land twenty miles in width lying south of the line established by the treaty of August 19, 1825. The Sioux also ceded a strip twenty miles wide along the north line of said boundary. This forty mile strip was neutral territory, open to all for hunting and fishing, and was along the Iowa River.
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SAC AND FOX CUSTOMS.
The Sacs and Foxes had many peculiar customs, one being that each male child was marked at birth with either white or black color, the Indian mother alternating the colors so that the nation was evenly divided between black and white. This distinction was kept alive during life, the object being to create rivalry and a spirit of emulation between the mem- bers of the tribe. Thus black was the competitor of white in their games and social customs, and each side tried to outdo the other, and in war to take more scalps.
Marriage among the Sacs and Foxes required only the con- sent of the parties and their parents. The husband could at any time divorce his wife or add another if he deemed best, and although the marriage ties were not strong, the ties of consanguinity were rigidly preserved. Hereditary rights were traced through the female line. This was accomplished by means of the Totem, an institution or emblem which served as a distinction for the different clans or families. The family surname was represented by some bird or animal, such as Eagle, Hawk, Heron, Deer, Bear, etc. Each Indian was proud of his Totem-in fact it represented a fraternity or secret society. As the different members of a clan were connected by ties of kindred, they were prohibited from intermarriage. A Bear might not marry a Bear, but could marry an Eagle, Hawk, or member of any other clan. This Totem system furnished the means of tracing family lineage through all their years of wandering and preserved their hereditary rights.
The Sacs and Foxes had from the early part of the eight- eenth century occupied the banks of the Mississippi between the mouth of the Missouri and the Wisconsin, the Sacs occupying the eastern side of the river, and the Foxes its western banks.
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THE HOMES OF THE SACS.
The Sac's house or wigwam was made by setting posts in the ground and siding it with bark. On top of the posts small poles were laid for rafters upon which strips of bark were laid. These wigwams were about eighteen feet wide and from twenty to sixty feet long. West of the Rock River village the Indians cultivated nearly two thousand acres, raising corn, beans, squashes and melons. The Sacs and Foxes planted their corn in the same hill year after year. They would dig up the hill each year and plant the corn in the middle, cultivating it with a primitve hoe and hoeing it three or four times during a season. These corn hills were quite large, many of them being still visible a few years ago. The farming was done principally by the women assisted by the old men and children. From the year 1780 to about 1820, the traders at Prairie du Chien came to the Sac village for all the corn they used. After the crops were harvested, the Sacs would prepare to leave for their winter hunt. Before going they would dig a round hole in the ground about eighteen inches in diameter. Carefully remov- ing the sod and digging five or six feet they would enlarge it so that it would hold many bushels. These holes they would line with bark and dry grass and then fill up with their grains and vegetables. When full they would replace the sod and remove all traces of earth, often building a fire over it so that no enemy could find the place and steal the supply they had laid np for the next spring and summer. When this was done the Sacs and Foxes would go off into Iowa and Missouri where they would hunt. In the winter their houses were made by sticking poles in the ground and bending them over so as to form a half circle about twelve feet in diameter. These were covered with rugs woven of grass and with hides.
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THE ROCK RIVER VILLAGE.
Tlie chief Sac village was located on the north bank of Rock River abont three miles from its mouth, and was built about 1730. It was one of the largest Indian towns on the continent and had a population often as high as three thousand. It was the summer home of the Sacs. Here was located the tribal burying ground, a spot more revered by an Indian than anything else on earth. Here reposed the bones of a century of the Sac warriors, their wives and children, and here each Sac came once each year to commune with his friends and family who had departed to the "happy hunt- ing grounds." On these occasions all vegetation was removed from the mound and the mourner addressed words of endearment to the dead, inquiring how they fared in the land of spirits, and placed food npon the graves. The Sacs were particular in their demonstrations of grief. They darkened their faces with charcoal, fasted and abstained from the use of vermilion and ornaments of dress.
Black Hawk said, "With us it is a custom to visit the graves of our friends and keep them in repair for many years. The mother will go alone to weep over the grave of her child. After he has been successful in war, the brave, with pleasure, visits the grave of his father, and repaints the post that marks where he lies. There is no place like that where the bones of our forefathers lie to go to when in grief. Here, prostrate by the tombs of our forefathers, will the Great Spirit take pity on us."
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NAME OF THE VILLAGE.
The old Indian town is by some called "Saukenuk." How this name originated is not known. The first to use it was Armstrong in his "Sauks and the Black Hawk War," published in 1887. Catlin refers to it in 1837 as "Saug-e- nug," yet none of our pioneer settlers mention it except as the "Sac Village," or "Black Hawk's Village." Judge Spencer in his "Reminiscenses," in speaking of the year 1829, says: "We were here but a few days when two Indians came, the first we had seen. One of them commenced talk- ing in a loud voice in the Indian language of which we could not understand a word. By pointing to the wigwam, saying, 'Saukie wigeop,' then pointing to the ground say- ing, 'Saukie-Aukie,' and repeating this many times we understood he claimed the land and the wigwam belonged to the Indians." Caleb Atwater, who was the commissioner employed by the United States to negotiate with the Indians of the upper Mississippi for the purchase of their mineral lands in 1829, was unable to learn the name of the Sac town, whether because it had none or because the Indians did not care to name it, is not known.
In his Journal (1805), Lieutenant Pike says: "I was informed by a Mr. James Aird," an English trader who came to this country about 1778, that this Sac village "was burnt in the year 1781-2 by about 300 Americans, although the Indians had assembled 700 warriors to give them battle." Black Hawk makes no mention of such event which, had it happened, he would have known. Yet, as Indian character always prompted them to proclaim their victories and to remain silent as to their defeats, such an event may have happened. The village probably was destroyed by Don Eugenio Pourre on his return march from St. Joseph, Michigan, to St. Louis. Pourre in the winter of 1781 left St. Louis with a small army consisting of sixty-five Spanish and French militiamen and about sixty Sioux and other Indians, and marched across Illinois to capture the small British post at St. Joseph. This was taken in January, 1781. The Span- ish troops remained at St. Joseph but a few days and then returned to St. Louis. It is not known by what route
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either march was made, yet if the burning did happen, it undoubtedly was this Spanish expedition that made the attack in retaliation for the attack of the Sacs and Foxes on the Spanish post of St. Louis in 1779, and, as the sacking and burning was in the winter, no large number of Indians would have been at the Rock River village, the tribe at this time being absent on its winter hunt.
POPULATION OF THE SACS AND FOXES.
In 1805 Lieutenant Zebulon Pike on behalf of the United States government made an expedition from St. Louis to the sources of the Mississippi River. He says that the Sacs had three villages, one at the head of the Des Moines rapids, the second on a prairie about two miles from the Mississippi at Oquawka, and the third on Rock River about three miles from its mouth. The Foxes or Reynards also had three villages, one on the Illinois side above the Rock Island rapids, one at Dubuque, and one near Prairie du Chien. Pike estimated that the Sacs numbered 2,850 souls, of whom 1,400 were children, 750 women and 700 warriors. The Foxes numbered 1,750, of whom 400 were warriors, 850 children, 500 women. In 1825 the Secretary of War esti- mated the entire number of Sacs and Foxes at 4,600, an increase of over one thousand in twenty years. In 1831, at the commencement of Indian hostilities preceding the Black Hawk war, there were twenty families of whom twelve were Sacs and eight were Foxes, and their total number is esti- mated to have been five thousand souls, this number including those living in Iowa and Missouri.
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BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK.
At the commencement of the nineteenth century and up to the Black Hawk war, the principal and central figure of the redmen in the Upper Mississippi valley was the Sac chief, Black Hawk, who was born at the Indian village on Rock River in 1767. Black Hawk was of middling size and as Catlin says, "with a head that would excite the envy of a phrenologist, one of the finest that heaven ever let fall on the shoulders of an Indian." Another Sac chief who had risen from the ranks was Keokuk. His advancement was due to his raising a war party to defend his nation from an expected attack of the Americans during the War of 1812, but which attack never occurred. Although polygamy was practiced among the Sacs and Foxes, Black Hawk had but one wife while Keokuk had seven. Keokuk was also born at the Sac village on Rock River in 1783, and died in April, 1848, at the Sac and Fox Agency in Kansas.
Early in the nineteenth century there seems to have arisen a difference between the Sacs and Foxes. Lieutenant Pike, writing in 1805, says :
"But recently there appears to be a schism between the two nations, the latter (Foxes) not approving of the inso- lence and ill will which has marked the conduct of the former (Sacs) towards the United States on many late occur- rences." This disagreement continued to grow, and while some of the Foxes held with the Sacs, most of the Foxes were inclined to be well disposed to the Americans, as were some of the Sacs, and these friendly Indians arrayed them- selves under Keokuk's standard while the war party held to Black Hawk. Black Hawk and Keokuk were thus rival chiefs. Keokuk had never done anything that entitled him to leadership. The Indian standard of character and honor made it the duty of an Indian to be foremost in the ranks of the war party. Keokuk had few victories to his credit, but he was diplomatic. In 1828 he moved with his following across the Mississippi and built a village on the Iowa.
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