USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Discovery and conquests of the Northwest, with the history of Chicago, Vol. I > Part 18
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These aggrieved relatives were on the spot to receive them; and he closed by saying, "I give you twelve days to deliver into my hands, at Wakatamake, all the prisoners in your possession, without exception-Eng- lishmen, Frenchmen, women and children, whether adopted in your tribes, married or living among you under any pretense whatever, together with all negroes. And you are to furnish the said prisoners with clothing, provisions and horses to carry them to Ft. Pitt. When you have fully complied with these conditions, you shall know on what terms you may obtain the peace you sue for ."
The day of humiliation for the Indians had now come, from which there was no escape, and they made haste to do the bidding of Bouquet. Eighteen captives were
189
Rendition of the Captives.
immediately brought in by the Delawares, and the other tribes made preparations to fulfill the required condi- tions, though the Shawanese, in their despair, were tormented between hope and fear, and at one time formed the cruel resolution to kill all the captives in their hands, under an impression that the English had come to destroy their whole tribe. Happily, however, this mistaken idea was corrected, and, on the 12th of the succeeding month, nearly all the captives had been brought in, and the final conference was held, a few miles distant from the place first appointed.
The number of captives brought in was 206, of whom 32 males and 58 females were from Virginia, and 49 males and 67 females from Pennsylvania. Many of them were children who had never known any other but Indian mothers, and were in no wise different from other children of the forest, except a slight distinction in the color of the skin, and even this had been darkly shaded by the sun and wind. They were now brought into the presence of their own mothers, from whose breasts they had been savagely torn during the French and Indian war; and many a mother's heart was filled with joy at the restoration of a long-lost child, whose uncertain fate had, ever since its capture, been a painful image of despair, relieved only by dreams of hope. Other mothers, who looked in vain among the captives for their lost children, were doomed to a redoubled sense of grief, as conviction was forced upon them that they had fallen victims to the tomahawk.
No small amount of tender persuasion was required to reconcile the redeemed waifs to their natural mothers, and when the parting scene came, their adopted mothers gave vent to tears and lamentations, which measured the depths of their affection for these objects of their care. Among the youth who still retained recollections of their native homes, many were unwilling subjects of rendition. Some of them had to be bound and brought in by force, and after they had been returned to civilized society, took the first favorable opportunity to escape from their kindred into savage life.
190
. Return of the Army.
Among the adult captives, some of the young women had married Indian braves, and were living in harmon- ious marital relations with their lords, contented to do the drudgery of the lodge like good squaws. An example of fidelity on the part of a Mingo chief to a young female captive from Pennsylvania, whom he intended to make his wife, is recorded, which, in constancy and devotion, ought to satisfy the most exacting coquetry of courtly etiquette. With melting tenderness, he parted from the object of his affections at the camp where the captives were received, on the banks of the Muskingum, and, impelled by those emo- tions that lovers can understand better than the pen of History can describe, he hung about the camp, with no reasonable hope of ever seeing her again, and every day brought some choice bit of food for her. When the army of Bouquet withdrew, he followed it all the way to the frontiers, continuing his daily supply of choice game for the benefit of the mistress of his affections. Had he entered the settlements, he would have been shot at sight. Of this he was amply warned by the soldiers, and, just before reaching them, he reluctantly lingered behind, while the receding columns of the army that bore away his loved maiden vanished forever from his sight, when he retraced his long and lonesome path to the wilderness lodges of his people.
Bouquet left his camp on the 18th of November, and arrived at Ft. Pitt on the 28th. Here he left a garrison of regulars and withdrew with the volunteers and cap- tives to the settlements. The succeeding January, 1765, the Assembly of Pennsylvania voted him a resolution of thanks for his efficient services. Virginia did the same soon afterward. The next year he went to Pen- sacola, where he died.
In vain may the records of progress in civilization be searched for a parallel to the episode presented at the rendition of these captives. Here two extremes came into rivalship with each other, unshackled by the influ- ences which stimulate lazy intellects and feeble purposes by emulation in the world of culture and education. Savage life imposes no restraint upon the individual
19I
Social Indian Life.
except what might come from a loose estimate of social standing. A number of scalps taken from an enemy are essential to the reputation of a warrior, and a bounti- ful supply of game secures fame as a hunter. These honors are hedged in by no monopoly or intricate theo- ries based on precedent, and it is no marvel that the simple child of the forest, whether a renegade from white settlements or an Indian, should stand appalled before the labyrinthine mazes through which a high niche may be attained in the great temple of civilization, and shrink from entering the lists of rivalship for a place in this temple, which appears like a sealed mystery to him.
Under this forlorn duress, he buries himself in the forest and studies the physical features of nature, with no possible clue to its grander beauties revealed by science. His wants are measured by nature's demands only-blind to the unfathomable depths of educated longings for more. Eccentric philosophy peculiar to frontier life, sometimes prefers the savage state, rather than brook the ills of what, with no impropriety, may be called the loose screws in our civilization, which time may tighten up, and perfect the beneficent fabric held together by them, into a great leveler of all dis- tinctions not based on merit.
[NOTE .- Immediately after the return of Bouquet to Philadelphia, a book was published, giving a historical account of his expedition, which had excited universal emotions of gratitude. It was reprinted in London by T. Jefferies, shortly afterward, bearing date of 1766. It forms the basis of the foregoing account.]
CHAPTER VIII.
The Illinois Country-Slavery-The Lead Trade-La- Clede's Grant-Ft. Chartres-Settlement of St. Louis-Louisiana Ceded to Spain-The English under Major Loftus, Attempt to Penetrate to the Illi- mois Country by Way of the Mississippi-Are Re- pulsed-Geo. Croghan-He Advances to the Illinois Country-Is Taken Prisoner-Is Released-Holds a Council with His Indian Captors, and Brings Them to Terms Favorable to the English-Items from His Jour- nal-The Illinois Country Taken Possession of by Captain Sterling-Proclamation of Gen. Gage-Early Governors of the Illinois Country-Pontiac in Council with Sir William Johnson-He Resigns His Am- bitious Designs-His Death and Its Consequences- Chicago, the Indian Chief.
At the extreme verge of the settlements in the great interior the French villages of the Illinois country still nestled, in quietude, among the vine-clad bluffs of the Mississippi. Ever since 1720 the lead mines of Galena had been worked by individual enterprise, in which branch of industry the Indians had been sharers with the French. Philip Francis Reynault had been the prime mover in this trade; the same who in 1720 had introduced slavery among the French inhabitants of Kaskaskia and the adjacent villages, to work the mines under the impression that the country abounded in mineral wealth. The lead trade, besides the trades in peltries and furs, had been turned toward New Orleans since Fort Frontenac had been taken in 1758, during the height of the late war; and now that it had terminated
193
St. Louis Settled.
in despoiling the French of all their American possessions east of the Mississippi, except New Orleans, it was in the natural course of events that they should, by every means in their power, exert themselves to secure the trade of the Upper Mississippi to themselves, by mak- ing New Orleans, which was still a French port, a com- mercial outlet to the sea, for the still immense posses- sions of France west of the Mississippi river.
With this end in view, Pierre Ligueste La Clede, in 1763, obtained a grant for trading in the upper country, from M. D. Abbadie, the French Governor of Louisiana, which territory embraced the entire country on the immediate west bank of the Mississippi, of which New Orleans, on the east bank, was the metropolis. He immediately organized a company under the style of La Clede, Maxon & Co., purchased a stock of goods, and starting up the river, reached a small missionary station named St. Genevieve, on the 3d of November. Here he would have fixed his headquarters, but as he could find no place to store his goods, he crossed the Mississippi and established himself at Ft. Chartres.
Though the place was still in French possession, it was liable at any time to be shadowed by an English flag, according to the treaty of peace; and to establish himself permanently under French rule, he determined to lay out a town on the west bank of the river, as a grand commercial center to which the trade of the Upper Mississippi should tend. Everything was made ready on the 15th of February, 1764, and this was the date when the ground was first scarred for his trading post, where the city of St. Louis now stands. Shortly afterward he laid out streets from which began the great city whose marvelous growth has found no rival in the whole interior, except Chicago; nor did its rivalship begin until a late period, even within the memory of many of her present citizens.
Its name, after Louis XIV, is a monument, grand as it is enduring, of early French power in America. That the site was well chosen, her future greatness has proved. Here the hydraulic forces of nature, if rivers may be called such, gather their tributary waters, from
194
Cession of Louisiana to Spain.
the Alleghanies to the Rocky mountains, to a common center, not distant from the site of the city, while below the mouth of the Ohio, not a spot could be found above New Orleans which could command extensive connections by navigable waters, with any large amount of territory.
Many of the inhabitants of the Illinois country crossed the river and joined La Clede's settlement, in order to remain under the rule of their native land, but, alas for their loyalty to the lilies! The French king had already, on November 2d, 1762, by the secret treaty of St. Ildefonso, ceded Louisiana to Spain, and ere a year's residence, they were astonished by the publica- tion of the treaty which made them subjects of Spain- a country which they despised.
When the news came, it was received in New Orleans with a storm of indignation-taxing the utmost efforts of the officers of the French crown to suppress a rebellion on the spot, rather than come under Spanish rule. Abbadie, the governor, was in feeble health, and the universal discontent weighed heavily upon him, when, as if to add to the general turmoil, an importunate delegation of Indians came to him from Pontiac, beg- ging assistance wherewith to renew the war against the English. These could not be turned away without a respectful hearing, which was granted, and a softened reply made by the amiable official, who survived the accumulated agitation but two or three days, passing away with his mind distracted by the vanishing fortunes of French power in America.
The destinies of the immense interior, with its forests and prairies, its rivers and its lakes, spread out in a mysterious expanse on the face of nature, were now, by the fortunes of war, secured to the English; but how to take possession of them was yet a problem not fully solved. In 1764 the English took possession of Florida by virtue of a treaty with Spain of the preceding year, * and from thence an English post was established on
* During the American Revolution in 1781, the Spaniards wrested Florida from the English, and at the Peace of Paris in 1783, it was guaranteed to that power, and retained till it was ceded to the United States by Spain, in 1818.
195
English Repulse on the Mississippi.
Bayou Mancha, on the Mississippi river. From the latter place Major Loftus was ordered to push his way up the Mississippi with a force of 300 men, to take possession of the Illinois country.
While laboring against the current on his way, with his lumbersome barges, he was suddenly attacked by the Tunica Indians, who poured a volley of shot among his men, first from one side of the river and next from the other, when he immediately retreated to Pensacola; and the scheme of reaching the Illinois country by the way of the Mississippi was indefinitely postponed, or rath- er substituted by a more direct approach to it by the way of the Ohio .* and up the Mississippi when it was reached. This route would bring the English direct to Ft. Chartres, the stronghold of the French, without a wilderness march among a people whose love for them and their allies in the late war had become a passion.
The situation was complicated by a triple combination of adverse influences, and required the utmost discretion on the part of those intrusted with it to overcome the obstacles in the way of establishing English authority in this remote frontier, where a unanimous feeling went against it.
The year before Pontiac had been there, and ex- hausted his powers of savage rhetoric to enlist the French in his desperate cause, and renew the attack on the English. The discreet St. Ange, who held military command of the country, was at his wits' end to know
* In a letter from James Rivington, of New York, to Sir Wm. Johnson, dated February 20th, 1764, the following passage occurs, which is inserted to show the forlorn character with which any attempt to penetrate the interior at that time was regarded: "The 22d Regiment, consisting of 300 men under Major An. Loftus, is gone up the Mississippi to take post (if they can) at Fort Chartres, in the Illinois country. Query, how many will return to give accounts of the rest?" At the close of the letter, speaking of Gen Amherst, he says: "The ship New Hope arrived from England on Saturday morning; in her came an officer who affirms that there is an extreme great outcry against Gen. Amherst, wch is sup- ported by all the army that served in America now in England, and that Col. Lee, of ye 44th, is now employing himself in writing upon the conduct of that officer during his command in this country."
MSS. papers of Sir William Johnson; see Doc. Hist. N. Y., Vol. II, p. 809.
[It is evident that the glorious termination of the war was due more to the soldiers than to the leadership of Amherst, whose Procrustean rules were ill adapted to bush fighting .- AUTHOR.]
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196
Croghan's Expedition.
how to answer the importunate hero whose schemes were as impracticable as his popularity was universal; but, by dint of much circumspection, managed to preserve his good fellowship with the Indians by a very respectful demeanor toward Pontiac, while he declined any aid to his cause. The irresponsible traders, however, did not share this wise policy which would bring no grists to their mill, whatever it might do for the public good; for when the English came, they would have to either take a subordinate interest under them, or quit their calling. Under this contingency, they did their utmost to inflame the minds of the Indians against the English.
Even in those primitive times commercial rivalship between the northern route to the sea, by the way of the Ohio, in competition with the already established thoroughfare of the Mississippi, was not without its in- fluence; and a double precaution became necessary in the next attempt to penetrate these outermost bounds of French settlements, which had as yet enjoyed an uninterrupted peace during the past ten years of san- guinary war.
Sir William Johnson, who was Superintendent of Indian affairs, had in his employ an able officer named George Croghan, who acted as his deputy at distant points beyond his reach, and he was selected by Gen. Gage, as the fittest person known to advance into the country still held by the French, and influence both them and the Indians in favor of the English, as a preparatory step to pave the way for the force which was soon to follow. Fort Pitt was the place from which he was to embark on his dangerous mission, but he was detained here a month to receive the last installment of captives from the Shawanese, which had been promised to Bouquet the year before, and who could not be de- livered to him at that time on account of their absence on a hunt.
Meantime, inauspicious news came to hand from the interior, which admonished Croghan that the sooner he arrived among the conquered but vacillating subjects of the king in the Illinois country, the less difficult would be the task of reconciliation. In his command was a cele-
197
Croghan Attacked and Taken Prisoner.
brated frontierer named Fraser-the same who had pushed across the mountains in 1753, and established a trading station on the Alleghany river. He volunteered to start in advance of Croghan, as an emissary of English power at the place in question, and with a hardihood seldom equaled, pushed his canoe, with a few attendants, down the Ohio river to Ft. Massac; thence he made his way across the country to the French villages of the Illinois country. He was well received at first. but he had not remained long till the French traders conspired to take his life by means of exciting the Indians against him, and would certainly have accomplished their purpose, but for the interposition of Pontiac, who was there, and whose potent influence was barely sufficient to save him from being tomahawked.
Early in May, true to their agreement, the faithful Shawanese brought in the promised captives, and delivered them to Croghanat Ft. Pitt; and all things now being ready, he embarked on the 15th, 1765, with a few white companions and a "number of friendly Indians," says his journal.
On the 19th, while on his way down the river, he sent a message to the Shawanese villages to order them to bring the French traders who were among them to the mouth of the Scioto river, as they could no longer be suffered to trade there without a permit from " His Excellency," Gen. Gage. On his arrival at the place, which was on the 26th, the Indians were promptly on the spot with the traders, seven in number, for the lesson Bouquet had taught them, the year before, was too impressive to be soon forgotten, and they dared not disobey. After delivering the Frenchmen into the custody of Croghan, they declared that nothing should be left undone on their part to convince the English of their sincerity in the interests of peace. Having satis- factorily arranged his official business with the sub- missive Shawanese, he proceeded on his way, and arrived at the mouth of the Wabash river on the 6th of June, where he made a halt for some prudential pur- pose, not stated in his journal.
198
Croghan Meets Old Acquaintances.
No English delegation had ever before penetrated so far down the river, except Fraser's party, and he soon found that the Indians in these deep recesses of the forest had not yet been tempered into that submissive frame of mind that had but recently manifested itself among the Shawanese. Here he remained encamped till the 8th, when he was attacked at daybreak by eighty Kickapoo and Musquatamie warriors.
Five of his men were killed, three of whom were his Shawanese allies, and he himself was slightly wounded. He had with him an amount of gold and silver, which, with his goods, was taken by his captors. The Indians were released, but Croghan with his men was taken to Vincennes. They arrived there on the 15th, where was a French village of eighty houses, and an Indian village of the Pyankeshas close by. Here, for half a cen- tury, the two races had been living in loving relations with each other, in this wilderness recluse, under the dense shades of the beech, sugar, oak and elm forest trees that attain unusual heights in the rich bottoms of the Wabash, shutting out the rays of the sun from the black, alluvial soil. Here he found old acquaintances among the Indians, who, aware of his official position, severely reprimanded his captors, though his journal does not inform us that either the goods or money of which he had been robbed were restored; but though a captive, he was treated with respect.
Wishing to write to St. Ange, who held command of the Illinois towns, he applied to the French inhabitants of the place for paper, which they gave him, but not till the consent of the Indians had been obtained. After writing the letter and dispatching it by an Indian messenger, his Indian friends, in whose custody he now was, conducted him up the Wabash river to Ouatanon, arriving there on the 23d.
Here he found more Indian acquaintances, who were very civil to the distinguished captive. But on the first of July a Frenchman arrived from the Illinois villages with a belt and speech from an unrelenting Shawanese savage, who, instead of submitting to the peace his tribe had made with Bouquet, had fled to this
199
Croghan Released.
distant post in the vain hope that he was out of the reach of the English. The substance of the speech was that the prisoner should be burnt. But instead of lis- tening to such counsels they immediately set him at liberty, with assurances that they despised the message. The liberated captive now held counsels with the various Indian tribes of the country, including those who had captured him, and obtained their consent for the English to take possession of any posts in the country held by the French.
On the 18th he set out for the Illinois villages, but on the way met an important delegation of Six Nation and Shawanese chiefs, among whom was the distinguished Pontiac. The whole party now returned to Ouatanon, and Croghan succeeded in explaining everything to the entire satisfaction of all the chiefs, Pontiac himself not dissenting from the all-prevailing sentiment in favor of submission to the English.
It appears from various items in his journal that some of the inconsolable French of the country had told the Indians that the English intended to take their country from them and give it to the Cherokees, but Croghan happily succeeded in dispelling this mistaken appre- hension; and notwithstanding the unpropitious beginning of his mission, it proved a decided success, and owing to his able method of influencing the savage mind, he managed to turn his defeat to good account, as the result of that natural recoil which is shown alike in the savage and the cultured mind, when inconsiderate and hasty action has gone beyond the median line of a just or a practicable policy.
Having then accomplished all for which his mission was intended without going to the Illinois country he wrote to Gen. Gage, Sir William Johnson and Major Murray, who then held command of Fort Pitt, inform- ing them of the pacific temper of the Indian mind, and on the 25th set out for Detroit, arriving there on the 17th of August. Here he met two Frenchmen named Dequanu and Waobicomica, with a deputation of Indians from Sir William Johnson, as the bearers of messages to Pontiac and the western tribes. Col. Campbell, who
200
Croghan's Journal.
now held command of Detroit, convened a council of various tribes, whose representatives were already on the spot in obedience to council belts which had been sent to each tribe in the country by Bradstreet the year before, while on his mission to relieve the place from siege.
Complete submission to the English was the universal policy now. The Miami Pyankeshas and Kickapoos begged to be forgiven for the inconsiderate action of their young men, and hoped their English fathers would have pity on their necessities and give them a little cloth- ing and a little rum to drink on the road, as they had come a great way. The Wyandots asked for no rum or any other favors, but with a commendable spirit of states- manship, exhorted the western tribes to behave well toward their "English fathers, who had taken them under their protection," and by so doing, become "a happy people"; that "all nations toward the rising sun had taken them by the hand, and would never let slip the chain of friendship so happily renewed."
The following items in the journal of Croghan are inserted verbatim, as no other words could be chosen of equal historic value, to show the situation at that time : "24th. We had another meeting with the several nations, when the Waweotonans, Tawightwis, Pyan- keshas, Kickapoos and Musquatamies made several speeches to Colonel Campbell and me, in presence of all the other nations, when they acknowledged them- selves to be the children of the king of Great Britain; and further acknowledged that they had at Weotonan, before they came here, given up the sovereignty of their country to me for his majesty, and promised to support his subjects in taking possession of all the posts given up by the French, their former fathers, to the English, now their present fathers ; all which they confirmed with a belt.
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