USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Discovery and conquests of the Northwest, with the history of Chicago, Vol. I > Part 51
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The council fire was lighted under a spacious open shed on the green meadow, on the opposite side of the river from that on which the fort stood. From the difficulty of getting all together, it was late in the afternoon when they assembled. There might be twenty or thirty chiefs present, seated at the lower end of the enclosure, while the com- missioners, interpreters, etc., were at the upper. The palaver was opened by the principal commissioner. He requested to know why he and his colleagues were called to the council? An old warrior arose, and in short sentences, generally of five syllables, delivered with a monotonous intonation and rapid utterance, gave answer. His gesticu- lation was appropriate but rather violent. Rice, the half-breed inter- preter, explained the signification from time to time to the audience; and it was seen that the old chief, who had got his lesson, answered one question by proposing another, the sum and substance of his oration being-" that the assembled chiefs wished to know what was the object of their great father at Washington in calling his red children together at Chicago."
This was amusing enough after the full explanation given a week before at the opening session; and particularly when it was recollected that they had feasted sumptuously during the interval at the expense of their great father, but was not making very encouraging progress. A young chief rose and spoke vehemently to the same purpose. Here- upon the commissioner made them a forcible Jacksonian discourse, wherein a good deal which was akin to threat was mingled with exhor- tations not to play with their great father, but to come to an early
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Terms of the Treaty.
determination, whether they would or would not sell and exchange their territory; and this done, the council was dissolved. One or two tipsy old chiefs raised an occasional disturbance, else matters were con- ducted with due gravity.
The relative positions of the commissioner and the whites before the council fire, and that of the red children of the forest and prairie, were to me strikingly impressive. The glorious light of the setting sun streaming in under the low roof of the council house, fell full on the countenances of the former as they faced the west-while the pale light of the east hardly lighted up the dark and painted lineaments of the poor Indians, whose souls evidently clave to their birthright in that quarter. Even though convinced of the necessity of their removal, my heart bled for them in their desolation and decline. Ignorant and degraded as they may have been in their original state, their degrada- tion is now ten-fold, after years of intercourse with the whites; and their speedy disappearance from the earth appears as certain as though it were already sealed and accomplished.
Your own reflection will lead you to form the conclusion-and it will be a just one-that even if he had the will, the power would be wanting, for the Indian to keep his territory; and that the business of arranging the terms of an Indian treaty, whatever it might have been 200 years ago, while the Indian tribes had not, as now, thrown aside the rude but vigorous intellectual character which distinguished many among them, now lies chiefly between the various traders, agents, creditors and half- breeds of the tribes, on whom custom and necessity have made the degraded chiefs dependent, and the government agents. When the former have seen matters so far arranged their self interest and various schemes and claims are likely to be fulfilled and allowed to their hearts' content-the silent acquiescence of the Indian follows of course; and till this is the case, the treaty can never be amicably effected. In fine, before we quitted Chicago on the 25th, three or four days later, the treaty with the Pottawattamies was concluded-the commissioners put- ting their hands, and the assembled chiefs their paws, to the same.
By it, an apparently advantageous "swop" was made for both parties.
By the terms of this treaty the three tribes ceded to the United States the entire remainder of their lands in Illinois that had not already been sold. The ceded tract lay between the Rock river and Lake Michigan, embracing the entire lake shore north of Chicago, and all the lands intervening between the canal cession of 1816 and the Sac and Fox and Winnebago cessions between the Rock and Mississippi rivers of 1830 and 1832.
The consideration for the relinquishment of this land was first 5,000,000 acres granted to them, situated on the east bank of the Missouri river south of the Boyer river, to which they were to be transported at the ex- pense of the government as soon as practicable, and maintained in their new home for one year. One hun - dred thousand dollars was to be paid by the United States to satisfy certain claimants for reservations, and to indemnify the Chippewas for certain lands in Michi- gan, ceded to the United States by the Menomonees,
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Arthur Kinzie's Reminiscences.
to which they laid an equal claim. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars to satisfy private claims made against the three tribes; an annuity of $14,000 per year for twenty years; $150,000 to be applied to the erection of mills, farming tools and other improvements in their new home. Seventy thousand dollars to support the means of education among them, and lastly, $400 per annum was to be added to the annuity of Billy Cald- well, $300 to that of Alexander Robinson, and $200 each to the annuity of Joseph La Fromboise and Shabonee. *
G. B. Porter, Th. J. V. Owen and William Weatherford, in behalf of the United States, negotiated this treaty with
* RECOLLECTIONS OF CHIEF ALEXANDER ROBINSON.
About the year 1857, I used frequently to see Chief Alexander Robin- son. He was in receipt of an annuity of $500, as his share of the amount paid to the Pottawattamies and other tribes under his chief- tainship, by the United States government, as payment for their lands ceded to the United States. Every year a check for that amount was sent to my father, John H. Kinzie, who was empowered by Chief Robinson to collect it for him, and I usually carried the money to Robinson at his residence at Casenovia, on the Desplaines river, about twelve miles northwest from Chicago.
I used to hitch up the buggy, and with a companion among the boys of my acquaintance, who was not difficult to secure, set out early in the morning for Casenovia. We usually arrived there about noon, and almost invariably the venerable chief would be sitting on the verandah in a large easy chair, smoking. He was not a large man, rather under the medium height; but what we call wiry and withy, not an ounce of superfluous flesh, yet every muscle capable to its full extent. When we hove in sight he would jump up as supple as a man of twenty years, and
come toward us shouting "Hola!" Shawneeawkee's Son! Bushoo! Bushoo!" (The word " Bushoo " in universal use among the northwest tribes is evidently a corruption of the French "Bon jour.") Then he would sing out for some one to come and attend to the horse, and usher us on to the verandah, and hustle up the female portion of the estab- lishment to prepare dinner. And under the impression that no deni- zen of the city could possibly get along without fresh meat, if none was on hand he would have a calf killed (for only two of us) and a portion served up as tough as newly killed beef usually is before the animal heat has had time to leave the carcass. His house was a two-story frame building, after the usual style of a well-to-do farmer's residence, with substantial outbuildings, and every evidence of a prosperous farm. I do not remember the number of his family, but there were two or three daughters and several men folks always at dinner, but whether they were his sons or not I do not know. He was a lively old man. At that time he was probably eighty-seven years old, but was as lively as a well preserved man of fifty. He was full of humorous remarks, and continually joking with his daughters or whoever of the attendants he happened to speak to, and no one, wherever he was brought up, could be more attentive or polite to his guests than he was to us; not at all ob- trusive, but showing us boys as much attention as if we were the highest in the land. My companion on one of these trips was James McHale, late coroner of Cook county, and I remember a remark he made on our return trip to Chicago: " Why Arth," he said, " that's the finest gentleman I ever saw." And he was. ARTHUR M. KINZIE.
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Rewards for the Indian Lassie.
the Pottawattamies, Chippewas and Ottawas. It bears date of Chicago, September 26, 1833. It was the last great Indian council at this place, around which the red men had lingered in great numbers much longer after be- ing settled by the whites than around other frontier settlements.
The reason of this was obvious; Chicago, after over 100 years of transient French occupation, first grew into importance as an English settlement through Indian trade. Moreover, many of its first settlers were men bred on the frontiers and felt no repugnance toward the Indians, but on the contrary not a few felt a friend- ship for them, strengthened by years of companionship in the fascinating sports of border life, which not only level social distinctions, but accept a good fellowship through a rough exterior intolerable to the uninitiated civilian. Notwithstanding the apparent degradation of the Indian, even after being brutalized by bad whisky, many of them could make nice discriminations in issues where natural rights were at stake, as our government agents found in their councils. They well knew that they were the instruments by which many unjust claims were brought against the government; but of this they said nothing, lest their own rights might be comprom- ised by such an exposure.
The amount of goods dispensed to them at Chicago to fulfill treaty stipulations was often very large, and in order to distribute them equitably men were chosen for the service whose personal acquaintance with the Indians would enable them to do it in the most satisfactory man- ner. On these occasions the huge piles of goods, consist- ing largely of Indian blankets, were dispensed by piece- meal to the different Indian families according to their necessities, but sometimes a discarded Indian lassie, whose place had been substituted by a white wife, came in for an extra share of finery as an offset to lacerated affections.
Two years elapsed after the Indians had sold out their interest in the country before they were removed. This was effected by Col. J. B. F. Russell, whose widow is still living in Chicago, 1880. This lady, who
594
Removal of the Indians.
is descended from the Peytons, of Virginia, has in her possession autograph letters of Washington and other fathers of our country, besides many valuable relics of early Chicago, among which is the journal kept by her husband during his public service. To her courtesy the writer is indebted for much valuable information, among which are the following items from Mr. Russell's journal:
"The first party of Indians left Chicago, September 21, 1835, with the chiefs, Robinson, Caldwell and La Framboise, and proceeded to their place of rendezvous, on the Desplaines, twelve miles from Chicago, a place of meeting usual on such occasions. I met them in council and presented to them the objects of the meeting and the views of the government relative to their speedy removal to their new country. They wished to defer answering what I had said to them for two days, to which I consented. Sunday, 28th. Provided teams and transporta- tion for the removal of the Indians." The journal next proceeds to detail the particulars of his thankless toil in satisfying the real and whimsical necessities of his captious charge, who honored him with the appellation of father, and vexed him with complaints continually. Their first stopping place was Skunk river, in Iowa. Patogashah started with his band to winter at this place, which was the first party to start independent of government assistance. Robinson had command of a separate party, Caldwell another, Waubansie another, and Holliday another, and Robert Kinzie and Mr. Kerchival assisted Mr. Russell in superintending the whole.
Fort Des Moines, on the Mississippi river, lay on their route to Fort Leavenworth, which was their des- tination, on the Missouri river, from whence they were to draw their supplies, as stipulated by the government at the treaty, as they settled themselves in their new home adjacent. The whole tribe were not removed to their new home till the next year, 1836, when the last remnant of them took their leave of the country around the head of Lake Michigan, which they had occupied for two centuries, as shown in foregoing pages.
Two years after their settlement near Fort Leaven- worth, owing to feelings of hostility which the frontier settlers felt toward them, they were removed to Council Bluffs, from whence, after remaining a few years, they were removed to where they now live (1880), dimin- ished in numbers from 5,000, at the time they were removed from Chicago, to less than half that number. *
* The report from the office of Indian affairs in Kansas, September 1, 1878, says: "The Pottawattamies are advancing in education, morality, Christianity and self support. A majority of them have erected sub- stantial houses, planted fruit trees, and otherwise beautified their sur-
-
595
J. B. F. Russell.
Mr. Russell's success in removing them was the result of his frontier military experiences on the borders of Maine, together with his habits of activity, tempered with patience. He deserves mention among the early settlers of Chicago, because his name is interwoven with its history. He was born in Boston in 1800, well descended from revolutionary stock, his father being a patriot editor, and his uncle (Major Ben. Russell), was stationed at West Point at the time of Arnold's treason. Mr. Russell's first arrival at Chicago was July 21, 1832, he having been ordered to join Gen. Scott here. His wife did not come to the place till the summer of 1835, when, in company of Gen. Cass and his two daughters she arrived, and they were guests at the Sagaunash. They were from this time permanent residents of Chi- cago, well known by all the early settlers. Mr. Rus- sell's death took place January 3, 1861. His remains rest at Rose Hill.
roundings. The average attendance at a school which the government provides for them is twenty-nine, from an enrollment of forty-four. The school buildings are well supplied with facilities for boarding and lodging the pupils, and also for teaching the females household duties. Their reservation contains 77,357 acres of land in Jackson county. Their wealth in individual property amounts to $241,650. On their farms they have reapers, mowers, planters, cultivators and other agri- cultural machinery, all of the most modern patterns.
GREEN TREE HOTEL, BUILT 1833, CANAL AND LAKE STREETS.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Beaubiens-Pioneer Hotel-Ingenious Device for Lodgings-The Pioneer Newspaper-Its Subscription List - Wolff's Point - Its Inhabitants - Alexander Robinson-His Character-His Wonderful Age- Shabonee-His Character-Chicago in 1834-Chicago in 1835-Turning the First Sod for the Canal --- Celebration of the Event-Its Consequences -- The Last Records of Chicago as a Town.
Among the pioneers of Chicago the Beaubiens de- serve a place, for without them a chasm would be left unabridged between the old French and Indian regime and the Anglo-American of to-day.
In the year 1817 Conant & Mack, a Detroit fur com- pany, established a house at Lee's place on the Chicago river, South Branch, under the general superintendence of Mr. John Crafts, as already stated in a previous chapter, and Mr. John Baptiste Beaubien was in his service as local agent, which was the means of bringing him to the place to settle. A few months later the American Fur Co. bought out the house established at Lee's place and established one at Chicago, at the same time imposing upon Mr. Crafts the entire duties of the Chicago house, which of course displaced Mr. Beaubien .* He still remained at the place, having purchased of Mr. Dean, an army contractor, the house and enclosure containing a garden and field adjacent to the fort, known as the Dean house, for $1, 000.
Col. Beaubien built another house upon this place, and continued the occupant of it till 1836. In 1823 the factory houses adjoining, or on the same premises, were sold by order of the secretary of the treasury, to
* Gurdon S. Hubbard.
596
597
Indian School.
William Whiting, who sold the same to the American Fur Co., and of whom Col. Beaubien purchased the buildings of the factory for the sum of $500. Mr. Beaubien by these purchases became the owner and occupant of all the premises of the so called reservation, outside of the fort, and claimant to the lands not covered by the buildings of the government. Upon these facts Mr. Beaubien set up his claim as a pre- emptioner to the southwest fractional quarter of section ten, township thirty-nine north, range fourteen east, as being the sole occupant and in actual possession on the 9th of May, 1830, the date of the pre-emption law. He therefore applied on the 7th of May, 1831, to the land office at Palestine, for a pre-emption, which was rejected; though on the same day a pre-emption was granted to Robert A. Kinzie, for the north frac- tional quarter of the same section, which was the part occupied by the Kinzie family, since defined as Kinzie's addition to Chicago. He applied again in 1834 to the land office at Danville for a pre-emption, and was again refused. On the 28th of May, 1835, Col. Beaubien applied to the land office in Chicago-the office in the meantime having been established here-and having proved to the satisfaction of the register and receiver that he was entitled to pre-emption, he entered the same and received his certificate therefor. The lands had been retained and his applications resisted on the ground of the tract being claimed by the United States for military purposes. The land had been surveyed by government in 1821, and in 1824, at the instance of the Indian agent, the secretary of war requested the commissioner of the general land office to reserve this land for the accommodation and protection of the prop- erty of the Indian agency; and the commissioner did inform the secre- tary that he had reserved it from sale for military purposes. Beaubien had received the registrar's certificate-but his title to the property was resisted, and the case traversed the courts to the supreme bench of the United States, and the land was finally held by the United States, and was surveyed into lots and sold by order of the president, in 1839. Mr. Beaubien was allowed as a special favor some of the lots which had been covered by his homestead, which has proved a fortune equal to the original expectation of the whole tract of the reservation.
Within a short time he has made some changes in his estate in Chi- cago, and has removed with his family to his farm on the Desplaines, near the reservation of Alexander Robinson, the late chief of the united tribes of the Pottawattamies, Ottawas and Chippewas."-Zebina East- man's History of Chicago, Published in the Chicago Magazine, May, 1857.
About this time he married a half breed, named Josette La Fromboise, who had been in the employ of John Kinzie previous to the massacre. During this time her parents lived in a log house at the head of the south branch of the Chicago river, at which place she took refuge after the massacre and remained till her marriage, the ceremony being performed by Father Rechere. Her father, J. B. La Fromboise, was a man of education. His wife, an Ottawa girl, the mother of Josette, soon learned to read and write, and taught an Indian school at Chicago .* A son of this union, Alexander Beaubien, is now a resident of Chicago, from whom the facts have been learned. Medard B. Beaubien, an older son, cast his lot with the Indians
*Schoolcraft's Thirty Years.
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Beaubien's Log Tavern.
when they were removed from Chicago, and is now with them at Silver Lake, Kan. There are numerous other children and descendants of the Beaubiens living among us. The interest of Mr. J. B. Beaubien being attached to Chicago, he induced his brother Mark to come from Michigan, their original residence, who arrived at the town in 1826. Soon after his arrival he bought a small log house which John Kinzie had built, about at the present corner of Lake and Market streets, for $100. Here he opened a tavern, if his hut deserved such a name. The manner in which he entertained his guests, according to his own statement when inter- viewed by a Times reporter in 1876, affords a specimen of ingenious audacity which could only be condoned by that brimming exuberance of jollity and good fellowship that ever abided around him and disarmed criticism. Says this incarnation of comedy :
I had no ped, but when traveler come for lodging, I give him planket to cover himself up in on de floor, and tell him to look out, for Ingun steal it. Den when he gits to sleep I take de planket way carefully an give it to noder man and tell him same, so I always have peds for all dat want em.
This device was certainly not the result of any nig- gardly disposition on his part; but a necessary expedient by which no guest should be rejected from his enter- tainment. From this small beginning he rose in re- spectability, until in 1831 he enlarged his tavern to a two-story building with green blinds, and in honor of Billy Caldwell, whose Indian name was Sagaunash, thus named the house. *
He was the father of twenty-three children, sixteen by his first wife, whom he married at Detroit, Mich., and seven by his second. His home in 1881 was in Newark, Ill., where he was enjoying a green old age, not yet forsaken by that excess of good humor that has carried him so easily through a life that, without it, must have been full of perplexity. A single look at the ingenuous old man might for the moment lift the burden from a sorrowing heart. +
* See picture of the Sagaunash, page 568.
* The writer called on him when he lived near Naperville, in 1860. His old-fashioned French furniture seemed to still link him back to his own early age.
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Robert Kinzie.
Equally allied to what may with propriety be called the medieval period of Chicago's history, is Mr. Robert Kinzie (younger brother of John H.) Both were here at the time of the massacre, and rescued with their father, John Kinzie, and returned to the place in 1816, since which time Chicago has been their home the most of the time till their deaths. That of John H. took place June 21, 1865, as stated in foregoing pages. Robert survived him till December 13, 1873, when he passed away and was buried in Graceland. He was lieutenant- colonel and paymaster United States army, and was on the staff of Gen. Sheridan at the time of his death. His wife died about 1896. Her maiden name was Gwinthlean H. Whistler. Her grandfather was the same who built Fort Dearborn in 1803. She was born at Fort Howard, and spent her infantile years in that wild frontier till eleven years old, when she went with her father to Fort Niagara, from which place, after a three years' residence, he came to Chicago to take command of Fort Dearborn, she accom- panying him. Here she married Mr. R. Kinzie in 1834. Ellen Marion and Maria Indiana, daughters of John Kinzie, were born in Chicago, the former in 1805 and the latter in 1807. Both were rescued from the massa- cre with their older brothers, John H. and Robert. Maria Indiana became the wife of Gen. David Hunter. Both she and her husband lived in Washington till their deaths. He was born in 1802, and died February 2, 1896; and his wife was born in 1807, and died February 21, 1887.
Volumes could be written on the experiences of these male and female pioneers. It is refreshing to be in their presence and commune with them on the age that has just preceded the one in which we live. They were educated in a school that transcended the average solicitudes of our day in utilitarian conditions. The problem with them, how they were to secure the posi- tive wants of the mind and body, was ever foremost of that as to how they should obtain the fictitious ones; hence their efforts were not wasted in the pursuit of the unattainable, for the destined goal of him who seeks
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First Newspaper.
the fulfillment of capricious and selfish purposes only vanishes in the distance as age begins to shorten the step and check the force of his career; and he dies under the painful conviction that he has lived in vain. The antidote to this last despair is found in an active life, with our mental joints (if the metaphor is admissi- ble) lubricated with that kind of magnanimity that pioneer life is almost sure to beget, and which is by no means a lost art, even in this age of sharp rivalship, though it is not too much to say that newly settled countries are more favorable to its growth.
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