USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Discovery and conquests of the Northwest, with the history of Chicago, Vol. I > Part 20
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Major Frasert succeeded Captain Sterling as mil- itary governor, who, after a short term, was succeeded
* Col. Records of Pa., Vol. IX, p. 318.
t Both Peck and Brown erroneously give this commandant's name as Farmer. It should be Fraser, the same who first advanced to the place from Ft. Pitt.
213
Death of Pontiac.
by Col. Reed. The latter made himself odious to the French inhabitants by an oppressive system of legisla- tion, ill-suited to the former subjects of the benevolent St. Ange. The next in command was Col. Wilkins, who arrived at Kaskaskia September 5th, 1768. On the 21st of November following, he received orders from Gen. Gage to establish a court of justice.
Seven judges were immediately appointed, and the first English court ever convened in Illinois held its sessions at Fort Chartres, December 9th, 1768. It is not known how long Wilkins remained in office, or what English governor succeeded him. It is known, how- ever, that St. Ange returned from St. Louis, and again acted as Governor of Illinois, after having acted in a similar capacity over the Spanish town across the river. *
Pontiac attended the great Indian Peace Council, convened at Oswego in 1766, by Sir William Johnson, agreeable to his promise made to Croghan at Detroit.
Here, with eloquence, he resigned his mighty ambi- tions to the "will of the Great Spirit, who had decreed that his race should be friends to the English," and put the seal of sincerity upon his words, with a large belt of wampum. Leaving the council, he started in his canoe for his home on the Maumee, loaded with pres- ents from Johnson to take to his wives.
Three years later he appeared in St. Louis, clad in the full uniform of a French officer, which had been presented him by the celebrated Montcalm ten years before. Thus accoutered, he crossed over to the Illinois shore to attend a social gathering at Cahokia. Here he joined in the tumultuous gaiety of frontier life, to which the whisky bottle contributed its full measure of influence. He soon became intoxicated, when a mis- creant of the Illinois tribe stealthily crept up behind and dispatched him with a hatchet. St. Ange, at this time Governor of St. Louis, conveyed his body over the river and buried it with the honors of war, beside the fort.
A barrel of whisky was the reward which the assassin received for the bloody deed, and an English fur trader,
* Reynold's Hist. of Ill., p. 60.
214
Revenge of the Northern Tribes.
named Williamson, was the infamous giver and instiga- tor of the disgraceful work. The Illinois tribes ap- proved the act under a similar misapprehension, but they soon paid dearly for it. The northern tribes, to whom the name of Pontiac was still dear, were stung to madness, and nearly exterminated them in the fearful vengeance which was soon visited upon their heads. The horrors of Starved Rock grew out of this vengeful war; where, as tradition has it, a large band of Illinois took refuge for safety, but were hemmed in on all sides till the whole band died with the lingering torments of starvation.
The Illinois tribes never recovered from this blow, especially as their potent allies, the French, could no longer protect them as they had done ever since 1685, in the days of La Salle and Tonty, a period run- ning through three generations. In 1736, when the Illinois tribes were in their glory under their alliances with the French, D. Artagutte, the dashing Canadian, applied to them for assistance in their war against the Chickasaws, in the far-off regions of the present State of Mississippi, between whom and the French of New Orleans a sanguinary war was raging.
Chicago, the sapient chief, who was named long after the Chicago portage was known by the same honorable appellation, entered heartily into D. Artagutte's plans, and at the head of 500 braves followed him to the country of the Chickasaws, where they were to join their force to that of Bienville, to act in conjunction against the formidable enemy. Bienville failed to reach the destined place appointed for the junction, but the undaunted Illinois, with the fifty French soldiers who accompanied them, led on by Artagutte, succeeded in taking two Chickasaw forts, but on attacking the third and last, Artagutte fell wounded, and was taken prisoner. Thus repulsed, Chicago led his men back to the Illinois,* and the victorious Chickasaws bore in triumph savage trophies of their victory to Oglethorpe, the Governor of Georgia, with whom they were in alliance.
* Monette's Miss. Val., Vol. I, pp. 286, 287.
4
CHAPTER IX.
The English Attempt to Prevent Settlements beyond the Ohio River-Early Commercial Policy-The North- west Annexed to Canada-Battle of Point Pleasant- Logan-Revolutionary Sentiments on the Frontier- Girty, Elliot and McKee-The Continental Congress - The Issue among the Indians-Expeditions against St. Joseph-George Rogers Clark-His Expedition against the Illinois Country and Vincennes-Indian Council at Cahokia-Father Gibault-Francis Vigo -War Declared between England and Spain-Its Effect on the Illinois Country.
With nations as with individuals, a sudden accumula- tion of power or wealth bewilders the senses, at first, till time can reduce the accelerated force applied to the driving wheels, or, in other words, restore tranquillity to the overstimulated brain. Though England has never been conspicuous for such infirmities, yet she was not proof against them, and when her crown became enriched by the acquisition of the Valley of the Missis- sippi, her first determination was to prevent any settlers from appropriating any part of the acquired territory, and to this end King George III issued the following instructions:
"GEORGE, R.
"[L. S.] Instructions to our well beloved John Penn, Esquire, Lieutenant Governor of our Province of Penn- sylvania, in America, given at our Court of St. James, the 24th day of October, 1765, in the Fifth year of our Reign.
216
King George's Proclamation.
"Whereas, it hath been represented unto us that several persons from Pennsylvania and the back settlements of Virginia have migrated to the westward of the Alleghany mountains, and these have seated themselves on lands contiguous to the river Ohio, in express disobedience to our Royal Proclamation of October, 1763, it is there- fore our Will and Pleasure, and you are hereby strictly enjoined and required to use your best endeavors to suppress such unwarrantable proceedings, and to put a stop to these and other the like encroachments for the future, by causing all persons belonging to the province under your government who have thus irregularly seated themselves on Lands to the westward of the Alleghany mountains immediately to evacuate those settlements, and that you do enforce, as far as you are able, a more strict obedience to our commands signified in Our Said Royal Proclamation, and provide against any future Violence thereof. G. R." *
What ambitious end England had in view through this impracticable scheme has never been brought to light, but it is no far-fetched deduction, that in her overweening care to provide for her nobility by birth, as well as those knighted for services to the state, she intended to parcel out the fairest portions of the acquired territory for their benefit. But if such a dream had ever entered the brain of any loyal representative of English power, the illusion was soon dispelled by the wide-spread and irrepressible pioneer spirit of her Colonial subjects along the Atlantic coast. Had these been tempered after the pattern of the Canadian French, such a scheme could have been made a success, but destiny never decreed them to become the willing instruments of their own subordination to any power above that of their own creation, and the allurements of the forest soon became irresistible to the ambitious spirits of young Anglo-Saxon blood, chafing to distinguish themselves by a bold push into the wilderness.
* NOTE .- Besides the Royal Proclamation referred to above in 1765, a proclamation was issued by Gov. Gage as late as 1772, of similar import, which may be found in Dillon's Ind., p. 86. The proclamation to Gov. Penn here quoted is taken from the Colonial Records of Penn., Vol. IX, p. 331.
21 7
The Northwest Annexed to Canada.
Spain now held Louisiana, which consisted of New Orleans, with contiguous territory and the west bank of the Mississippi, and an effort to bring the trade of the Illinois country into northern channels was now con- templated by General Gage and Sir William Johnson, who together represented the head-center of political power. * This consideration now came up for the first time, and later proved to be a source of difficult diplo- macy with Spain. But the extra expense of transporta- tion by the northern routes presented insurmountable obstacles in the way, and was destined still to do so for the next half century.
Meantime, the American Revolution was beginning to cast its shadow before its coming, even on the extreme borders of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and clearly manifested itself in the English policy with the Indians. While these issues were coming to the sur- face, the French towns of the Illinois again reposed in quietude, so welcome to their peaceful disposition.
The first act on the part of England showing a dis- trust of American loyalty took place on the 2d of June, 1774, when the British Parliament passed an act which extended the limits of Canada, so as to include all the territory north of the Ohio River to the lakes. This extraordinary measure was regarded by the English Colonies as a bid for Canadian loyalty, in the event of an open rupture. But it was soon followed by other British measures, which gave proofs that, in such an event, the British intended to make the most out of an alliance with the Indians that their services could bring to the cause, and an opportunity soon followed which confirmed these suspicions.
Early in 1773, Lord Dunmore, Colonial Governor of Virginia, withdrew the troops from Fort Pitt. The next year, owing to some cold-blooded and unprovoked murders, committed by Cresap, Greathouse and others against peaceable Indians, the war-whoop again rang along the border, and a large army was raised to protect the frontier against the exasperated savages.
* Doc. Hist. N. Y., Vol. II, pp. 340-342.
218
Battle of Point Pleasant.
A large detachment of it were ordered to advance down the Ohio river, under command of Col. Lewis. Reaching Point Pleasant, at the mouth of the Kanha- way, while the army lay encamped, October 10th, 1774, it was attacked by a heavy force of Indians, under the celebrated chiefs Cornstalk, Red Hawk and Logan. The battle raged from sunrise to one o'clock with unflinch- ing courage on both sides. The loss of the whites was double that of the Indians, but the desperate resolution of the former finally prevailed, and the Indians, mostly Shawanese, withdrew during the succeeding night.
The family of Logan were among the murdered victims of Cresap, which fired the resentment of the hitherto peaceable hero to desperation, and drew from him the speech that gave him imperishable fame.
The following extract from the American Pioneer, gives the speech verbatim, together with the circum- stances connected with its immediate reception :
"In the spring of the year 1774, a robbery was committed by some Indians on certain land adventurers on the river Ohio. The whites in that quarter, accord- ing to their custom, undertook to punish this outrage in a summary way. Captain Michael Cresap, and a certain Daniel Greathouse, leading on these parties, surprised, at different times, traveling and hunting parties of the Indians, having their women and children with them, and murdered many. Among these were unfortunately the family of Logan, a chief celebrated in peace and war, and long distinguished as the friend of the whites. This unworthy return provoked his vengeance. He accordingly signalized himself in the war which ensued. In the autumn of the same year a decisive battle was fought at the mouth of the Great Kanhaway, between the collected forces of the Shawanese, Mingoes and Delawares, and a detachment of the Virginia militia. The Indians were defeated and sued for peace. Logan, however, disdained to be seen among the suppliants. But lest the sincerity of a treaty should be disturbed, from which so distinguished a chief absented himself, he sent, by a messenger, the following speech to be delivered to Lord Dunmore:
219
Logan's Speech.
"""'I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance; for my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.'"
Mr. Jefferson wrote his Notes on Virginia, as he states, in 1781-82. They were first published in Paris, and afterward in the United States. In 1797, great excitement was raised against him by the Cresap inter- est, in which it was, among other things, insinuated that he wrote the speech himself. Mr. Jefferson defended himself in an appendix to his Notes.
The Indian towns were now at the mercy of the victors, especially when the main body advanced across the Ohio, under Dunmore himself. But instead of pushing the defeated Indians to extremities, he convened a council and made peace with them on generous terms.
At Fort Gower, near the mouth of the river Hock- hocking, on the 5th of November, 1774, the officers of Dunmore's army held a meeting, at which one of them spoke as follows: "Gentlemen: Having now con- cluded the campaign, by the assistance of Providence, with honor and advantage to the colony and ourselves, it only remains that we should give our country the strongest assurance that we are ready at all times, to the utmost of our power, to maintain and defend her just rights and privileges. We have lived about three
220
The American Revolution Begins.
months in the woods, without any intelligence from Boston, or from the delegates from Philadelphia. * It is possible, from the groundless reports of designing men, that our country may be jealous of the use such a body would make of arms in their hands at this critical juncture. That we are a respectable body is certain, when it is considered that we can live weeks without bread or salt; that we can sleep in the open air without any covering but that of the canopy of heaven; and that our men can march and shoot with any in the known world. Blessed with these talents, let us solemnly engage to one another, and our country in particular, that we will use them to no purpose but for the honor and advantage of America in general, and of Virginia in particular. It behooves, us, then, for the satisfaction of our country, that we should give them our real sentiments, by way of resolves, at this very alarming crisis." The following resolutions were then adopted by the meeting, without a dissenting voice, and ordered to be published in the Virginia Gazette :
" Resolved, That we will bear the most faithful alle- giance to his majesty, King George the Third, while his majesty delights to reign over a brave and free peo- ple; that we will, at the expense of life and everything dear and valuable, exert ourselves in support of the honor of his crown, and the dignity of the British Em- pire. But as the love of liberty, and attachments to the real interests and just rights of America, outweigh every other consideration, we resolve that we will exert every power within us for the defense of American liberty, and for the supporting of her just rights and privileges; not in any precipitate, riotous and tumultu- ous manner, but when regularly called forth by the unanimous voice of our countrymen."
These words may be taken as a representative type of the back-woods feeling which two years later declared itself in an open Declaration of Independence; but yet there were among these headstrong borderers a few men, intensified in their hatred to civilized society, who
* The Continental Congress, which convened on the 5th September, 1774.
22I
Buckongahelas' Speech.
cast their lot among the Indians as a choice, and allied themselves to the English cause, not from principle, but as a means wherewith to ventilate their spite against anything that stood in the way of their low-bred ambition. Simon Girty, George Elliot and Alexander McKee were noted examples of this kind of nondescript waywardness, destined to exert a potent influence in the coming struggle.
In 1774 the first Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia. The next year, 1775, Gen. Gage, awakening one morning in his quarters in Boston, beheld with astonishment the heights of Bunker Hill fortified. A fierce battle followed. Canada was invaded the same year by Arnold and Montgomery.
The same year, while the Continental Congress was holding its second session in Philadelphia, Commis- sioners were appointed to occupy Ft. Pitt for the pur- pose of making treaties with the Indians in favor of the forthcoming government. To offset this policy, the British inaugurated a similar one for their own benefit from Detroit. As a result, two prominent Delaware chiefs, Buckongahelas and White Eyes, took the stump among the denizens of the forest as exponents of the rival claims of the belligerents to savage support. Buckongahelas, the friend of the English, spoke first, as follows:
"Friends! listen to what I say to you! You see a great and powerful nation divided! You see the father fighting against the son, and the son against the father! The father has called on his Indian children to assist him in punishing his children, the Americans, who have become refractory. I took time to consider what I should do-whether or not I should receive the hatchet of my father to assist him. At first I looked upon it as a family quarrel, in which I was not interested. How-
ever, at length, it appeared to me that the father was in the right, and his children deserved to be punished a little. That this must be the case, I concluded from the many cruel acts his offspring had committed, from time to time, on his Indian children, in encroaching on their land, stealing their property, shooting at and
222
Speech of White Eyes.
murdering, without cause, men, women and children. Yes, even murdering those who, at all times, had been friendly to them, and were placed for protection under the roof of their father's house-the father himself standing sentry at the door at the time .* Friends! often has the father been obliged to settle and make amends for the wrongs and mischiefs done us by his refractory children, yet these do not grow better. No! they remain the same and will continue to be so as long as we have any land left us. Look back at the murders committed by the Long-knives on many of our relations, who lived peaceable neighbors to them on the Ohio. Did they not kill them without the least provocation ? Are they, do you think, better now than they were then?"
To this speech White Eyes, the friend of the new government, then without a name, replied:
"Suppose a father had a little son whom he loved and indulged while young, but, growing up to be a youth, began to think of having some help from him, and, making up a small pack, bade him carry it for him. The boy cheerfully takes the pack, following his father with it. The father, finding the boy willing and obedient, continues in his way; and, as the boy grows stronger, so the father makes the pack in proportion larger-yet as long as the boy is able to carry the pack, he does so without grumbling. At length, however, the boy, having arrived at manhood, while the father is making up the pack for him, in comes a person of an evil disposition, and, learning who was the carrier of the pack, advises the father to make it heavier, for surely the son is able to carry a large pack. The father, listening rather to the bad adviser than consulting his own judgment and the feelings of tenderness, follows the advice of the hard-hearted adviser, and makes up a heavy load for his son to carry. The son, now grown up, examining the weight of the load he is to carry, addresses the parent in these words: 'Dear father, this pack is too heavy for me to carry-do pray, lighten
* Alluding to the murder of the Conestoga Indians .- See Gordon's History of Pennsylvania, page 405.
223
Tom Brady Takes St. Joseph.
it. I am willing to do what I can, but I am unable to carry this load.' The father's heart having, by this time, become hardened, and the bad adviser calling to him, 'Whip him, if he disobeys and refuses to carry the pack,' now in a peremptory tone orders his son to take up the pack and carry it off, or he will whip him, and already takes up a stick to beat him. 'So!' says the son, 'am I to be served thus for not doing what I am unable to do? Well, if entreaties avail nothing with you, father-and it is to be decided by blows whether or not I am able to carry a pack so heavy-then I have no other choice left me but that of resisting your unrea- sonable demand by my strength; and so, striking each other, we may see who is the strongest.'"
This absurd metaphor was considered worth preserv- ing by both governments, as models of that gushing style of logic wherewith to influence the Indian mind. Buckongahelas' speech was printed by officers in the British Indian Department, and White Eyes' speech was printed by a committee appointed by the Conti- nental Congress on the 13th of July, 1775 .*
The British had strong garrisons at Detroit and Michilimackinac at this time, and a small garrison at St. Joseph, to preserve their interests at the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, for even in that early day this locality was regarded with favor. But St. Joseph was looked upon as a place of more promise than Chicago, on account of the superiority of her river as a harbor.
While the brains and the muscle inherited from the ancient Britons were laying the dimension stone on the Atlantic coast for a new nation, the French inhabitants of Vincennes and the Illinois country, in blissful ignor- ance of the ruling policy of the country, were cultivating their fields in common, and sharing the harvest of a summer's toil with the harmony of bees. By the year 1777, however, one year after the Declaration of Inde- pendence, an erratic emigrant from Pennsylvania, named Tom Brady, who had settled at Cahokia, planned an expedition against the British post of St.
*American Archives, 4th S., Vol. II, p. 1880.
224
George Rogers Clark.
Joseph. The place was garrisoned by twenty-one soldiers, but Brady's party, relying upon the prestige of a surprise, felt confidence in their ability to take it, although their own force numbered but sixteen men. Accordingly they took advantage of night to come upon the place, when the astonished garrison gave themselves up as prisoners. On returning, the invaders had pro- ceeded no further than the Calumet river, when they were attacked by a party of British and Indians, number- ing 300. Two of Brady's party were killed, and Brady, with the remainder of his party, taken prisoner. Not long afterward he managed to make his escape, and threaded the forest back to his native place in Pennsyl- vania. Subsequently he returned to Cahokia, where he became sheriff of St. Clair county in 1790 .*
Early the next spring a daring Frenchman named Paulette Maize enlisted a force of sixty-five men from the French towns of the Illinois, and from St. Louis, and marched against the same place, to re-take it. The expedition was successful, and all the furs and peltries in the fort were taken from the British as the spoil of war. Many of the most prominent citizens of Cahokia were in this expedition. +
Returning to the frontier of English settlements, we find such dauntless spirits as Dr. Walker, Boone, Ken- ton, Zane, Harrod, McAffee and others, pushing into the wilderness realms of Kentucky, building stockades and making settlements, while the forest was infested with British emissaries, urging the Indians to take up the tomahawk against the Americans.
Prominent among these pioneer spirits was Col. Geo. Rogers Clark, a native of Albemarle county, Va. All these backwoodsmen were conspicuous for their loyalty to the cause of American independence, and the field they had chosen wherewith to bring aid to that cause was adapted to their frontier accomplishments, and proved effectual, both as a diversion and a palliation, to diminish the force of Indian invasion on the frontier. This was the immediate incentive of Clark, in a plan of
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