USA > Illinois > Stark County > Documents and biography pertaining to the settlement and progress of Stark County, Illinois : containing an authentic summary of records, documents, historical works and newspapers > Part 6
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HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY.
earnest teachings of Marquette and other French missionaries, were finally converted, and were much improved in their conversion. The name of their chief was Chicago. He visited France in 1700, and was highly esteemed and entertained by the French Government officials. A little over two hundred years ago, in the summer of 1680, the Iro- quois Indians made an attack upon the Kaskaskia and Peoria tribes of the Illinois confederation. They drove Lient. Tonti, who was under the command of La Salle, from Creve Coeur Fort, near the outlet of the Peoria lake. The chief object of the Iroquois was to destroy the Illinois Indians and lay claim to their lands, as they had done to those belonging to many other tribes, always fighting their way and leaving their battle-fields -- which extended from the Atlantic coast to the Wabash river, and from the Ohio river to and even north of the Great Lakes-strewn with their victims. It was with a great slanghter that they conquered the hitherto strong and important people. laid waste their great city of Kaskaskia, and drove them from their wigwams to wander in broken bands over their broad domain. Many of the Illinois were murdered and their homes burned to ashes, while as many as 900 were taken prisoners. The young corn in the field was ent down and burned ; the pits which contained the products of the previous year were opened and their contents scattered with wanton waste: the graves had been robbed of their dead and the bodies dragged forth to be devonred by buzzards. In the center of all this devastation and ruin, the spoilers, says La Salle, had built for themselves a lodge, and covered it with human bones and the scalps of the Illinois. A few of the lodge-poles that had escaped the fire and remained standing, were adorned with human skulls, thus presenting a most frightful scene, with all these ghastly relies, where only a few days previous had stood the proud city of the Illinois, the largest ever built by northern natives, its extent being over a mile square. It was a lovely place in the bosom of the beautiful valley, and was well chosen for a home. Just on the opposite side of the river stood the sandstone bluff, tall and stately, its summit overlooking the broad valley of many woodelad islands up and down the river, and the swift current of the water rushing along at its base as it had done for thousands of years gone by. Well had the Illinois looked on this majestic roek as a fit place of refuge in case of danger. But little did they think that it would remain after them as a monument of their last battle, and that it should be the seene of the final extermination of their proud and powerful people. From this great battle the Illinois never fully recovered. They were constantly at war with the Iroquois and Sionx, and later with the Pottawatomies. The allies of Pontiac, the Ottawa chief. after the assassination of that chieftain by the hands of the Illinois, nearly exterminated the latter-a part of them taking refuge on the sandstone bluff. When first visited by the whites, the Pottawatomie confederation numbered nearly 12,000 souls, and were divided into five tribes ; in 1850 only eighty-four of them remained.
In the winter of 1680-81, being the next winter after the destruc- tion of the city of Kaskaskia, La Salle formed a plan of a colony on the sandstone bluff. The design was to include French and Indians of
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INDIANS OF ILLINOIS.
various tribes as a protective coalition against the dreaded Iroquois. This colony was left in charge of Lieut. Tonti.
La Salle made a trip down the Mississippi river, and, when he reached its mouth, on the 6th day of April, 1682. he took formal possession of all land drained by the great river in the name of his sovereign, Louis XIV. of France, and called the new acquisition Louisiana. After his return up the river he and his lientenant, Tonti, began, in December, 1682, the work of clearing off the top of the sandstone bluff to build a fort, which was afterward called Fort St. Louis. The weather was bitter cold, and the wind blew terrifically ; but they worked steadily on, and soon had completed a number of storehouses and dwellings, all of which were inclosed in a stockade. On the bottoms around the rock were domiciled 20,000 Iroquois souls, 4,000 of whom were warriors. In March, 1684, the Iroquois attacked this rocky eitadel ; but, after a six days' fight, withdrew, taking with them a few prisoners, who after- ward made their escape. Tonti commanded Fort St. Louis, upon the rock, until 1702, when, it is said, he was foreibly displaced from the command on account of some alleged irregularity ; after which he wandered through the Southern wilds until 1748, when, shattered in health, he returned to the scene of his former glory-dying in the fort the following spring, and being buried on the west side of the rock. It has been stated that, after his death, the Frenchmen in control of the fort treated the Indian maidens so seurvily that their fathers and brothers destroyed the fort and drove away the Frenchmen. Charle- voix says that in 172t he saw palisades upon the rock, which he sup- posed were built by the Illinois ; but no authentie account is given of the rock being used as a fort other than from 1682 to 1719, previous to the last battle of the Illinois, at which time it was merely used as a place of refuge, and not of fortilication.
Patrick Kennedy, who made a voyage up the Illinois river in 1773, speaks of the French as residing on an island at Joliet, and of their making salt from the salt ponds on the south bank of the Illinois river opposite Buffalo Rock, which is about three miles above the sandstone bluff. A few of the principal actors in the Black Hawk war of 1832 were considered by the whites to be of French and Indian aneestry; and there are families living yet in the Illinois valley that trace their lineage as far back as to the days of Tonti.
The earliest accounts I find of the Pottawatomie Indians south of Lake Michigan is in 1674, when Marquette met them on his return with La Salle from the Mississippi, on a part of which journey he was attended by a band of Illinois and also a band of Pottawatomie Indians. So far as I can learn, they were the first of the tribe who ever saw the country south of Lake Michigan, as their former home was about Green Bay. In the following year, 1675, Marquette, after spending the winter at Chicago, established at Kaskaskia on Easter Sunday, his mission, which was called by its zealous founder, "The Immaculate Conception." This mission was continued here until 1690, when it was moved to Southern Kaskaskia, on the Kaskaskia river, which empties into the Mississippi river in St. Clair county.
From 1675 it is probable that the Pottawatomies emigrated very
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HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY.
fast from their old home on Green Bay into the more hospitable regions south of Lake Michigan. As they were found in their southern homes in different bands and under different names and leaders, the prob- abilities are that they left in parties. The number of the Pottawato- mies is hard to determine ; but as near as I can discover there must have been 1,800 of them at the time of the assembly of the Algonquin Confed- eration at Niagara in 1783. when there were 450 Pottawatomie warriors present. The fraternal relations existing between the Potta- watomies and Ottawas were of the most harmonious character ; they lived almost as one people, and were joint owners in their hunting grounds. Their relations were scarcely less intimate and friendly with the different bands of the Sioux tribe. Nor were the Chippewas more strangers to the Pottawatomies and Ottawas than the latter were to each other : they claimed an interest in the lands occupied to a certain extent by all jointly, so that all three tribes joined in the joint treaty for the first sale of their lands ever made to the United States, which was made in Chicago in 1821. when the tribes named, except the Sioux, ceded to the United States 5,000,000 acres in Michigan. Northern Illinois was particularly the possession of the Pottawatomies; but. as before stated, it is impossible to fix the time when they first settled here. They undoubtedly eame by degrees, and by degrees established themselves, encroaching at first upon the Illinois tribe, advancing more and more. sometimes by good-natured tolerance and sometimes by actual violence. But they did not come into exclusive possession here until the final extermination of the Illinois tribes, which must have been some time between 1766 and 1770, when all Imt eleven were destroyed in the siege of " Starved Rock." The only authentic account of this great tragedy that is obtainable is from Meachelle, an old Pottawatomie chief, through Judge J. D. Caton, who was an intimate acquaintance of the chief. Meachelle associated his earliest recollec- tions with their occupancy of the country. He remembered well the battle of "Starved Rock," and the final extinction of the Illinois tribe of Indians. He was present at the siege and final catastrophe : and although but a boy at the time, and used to the war and bloodshed that were continually going on between the tribes, the terrible event made such a strong impression upon his young mind that it ever remained fresh and vivid.
The cause of the dreadful destruction of the Illinois tribe is attributed to the death of Pontiac, the great Ottawa chief. which occurred in 1766. Ile was the idol of his people, and was beloved and obeyed scareely less by the Pottawatomies. They believed the Illinois Indians were at least accessory to his murder and so held them respon sible : consequently the Ottawas and Pottawatomies in connection with the Chippewas, united all of their forces in an attack upon those whose deadly enemies they had now become.
The Illinois Indians had never fully recovered from the great catastrophe they had suffered nearly a century before at the hands of the terrible Iroquois. Their spirit and their courage seemed broken, and they submitted to encroachments from the north by their more enterprising neighbors-with an ill-will, no doubt, but without pro
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INDIANS OF ILLINOIS.
teeting their rights by force of arms, as they would have done in for- mer times-and sought to revenge themselves upon those whom they regarded as their actual enemies, in an underhanded and treacherous way. In the war thus waged by the allies against the Illinois the latter suffered disaster after disaster, till the sole remnant of that once proud nation, whose name had been mentioned with respect from Lake Supe- rior to the month of the Ohio, and from the Mississippi to the Wabash river, now found sufficient space upon the half acre of ground which erowns the summit of " Starved Rock."
As the sides are perpendicular, except on the southeast, where one may ascend with difficulty by means of a sort of natural stairway, and where some of the steps are only a few inches wide and as much as three feet in height. not more than two persons can ascend abreast, and ten men conld easily repel ten thousand with the means of warfare then at their command. Of late, as was probably the case when Lient. Tonti commanded Fort St. Louis upon the rock, a broad stairway has been erected over the worst places, so that it may be easily ascended by tourists.
The length of time that the Illinois were confined upon the rock it is hard to determine : but it is easy to imagine that they had not pre- pared provisions enough for a very extended encampment, and that their enemies depended upon their lack of the same, which we can read- ily appreciate must oeeur soon to a savage people who rarely antici- pate the future by storing up supplies. On the north or river side the upper rock overhangs the water somewhat, and tradition tells us how the confederates placed themselves in canoes under the cornice-like rocks, and cut the thongs of the besieged when they lowered their ves- sels to obtain water from the river, and so redneed them by thirst as well as by starvation. At last the time came when the unfortunate remnant of the onee honored Illinois Nation could hold out no longer, and they awaited but a favorable opportunity to attempt their escape. This was at last afforded by a dark and stormy night, when, led by their few remaining warriors, all stole in profound silence down the steep and narrow declivity, to be met by a solid wall of their enemies. The horrible scene that then ensned is easier to imagine than to describe. No quarter was asked and none was given. For a time the howling of the tempest was drowned by the vells of the combatants and the shrieks of their dying victims. It is difficult to judge of the number of the Illinois that were quartered upon the rock. During this awful battle the braves fell one by one, fighting like very fiends : and fearfully did they avenge themselves upon their enemies. The few women and children, whom famine had left bnt enfeebled skel- etons, fell easy victims to the war clubs of the terrible savages, who deemed it almost as much a glory to slanghter the emaeiated women and helpless children as to strike down the men who were able to make resistance with arms in their hands. They were bent npon the utter extermination of their hated enemies, and most successfully did they bend their savage energies to the bloody task.
Soon the vietims were stretched upon the sloping ground south and west of the rock : there their bodies lay stark upon the sand which had
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HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY.
been thrown up by the wild prairie-winds. The wails of the feeble and the shouts of the strong had ceased to fret the air, and the night- wind's mournful sighs through the neighboring pines sounded like a requiem, the flash of the lightning in the dark and clouded sky lit up the awful scene like tall funeral tapers. Here was enacted the fitting finale to the work of death which had been commenced by the de- struction of the city of Kaskaskia -scarcely a mile away on the oppo- site side of the river - nearly a century before by the still more say- age and terrible Iroquois. Yet all were not destroyed, for, in the dark- ness and confusion of the fight, eleven of the most athletic warriors broke through the besieging lines. From their high perch on the iso- lated rock they had marked well the little nook below into which their enemies had moored at least a part of their canoes, and to these they rushed with headlong speed, unnoticed by their foes. They threw themselves into the boats, and rowed hurriedly down the rapids below. They had been trained to the use of the paddle and the canoe, and knew every intricaey of the channel, so that they could safely navigate it even in the dark and boisterous night. They knew their deadly enemies would soon be in their wake, and there was no safe refuge for them short of St. Louis. They had undoubtedly been with- out food for many days, and had no provisions with them to sustain their waning strength ; and yet it was certain death to stop by the way. Their only hope was in pressing forward by night and by day, without a moment's pause -searcely looking back, vet ever fearing that their pursuers would make their appearance from around the point they had last left behind them. If they could reach St. Louis, there they would be safe ; if overtaken they would perish, as had the rest of their tribe. It was truly a race for life, and, as life is sweeter than revenge, we may safely presume that the pursued were impelled to greater exertions than the pursuers.
Until the morning light revealed that their canoes were gone the confederates believed that their sanguinary work had been so thor- oughly done that not a living soul of the Illinois people remained. But as soon as the escape was discovered a hot pursuit was commenced. But those who ran for life won the race. They reached St. Louis before their enemies came in sight, and told their appalling tale to the commandant of the fort, from whom they received protection and a generous supply of food, which their famished condition so much re- quired. This had barely been done when their enemies appeared and fiercely demanded their victims, that no drop of human blood might longer circulate in the veins of their hated enemies. This was re- fused, and they retired with threats of future vengeance upon the fort- which, however, they never had the means of executing.
After their enemies had gone, the Ilinois, who never afterwards claimed that name, thanked their white friends for their kind enter- tainment, and, full of sorrow that words cannot express, they slowly paddled their way across the river to seek a new home and new friends among the tribes who then occupied the southern part of Illinois, and who listened to their sad story with sympathy and kindness. This is the last that we really know of the last of the Illinois. We do not
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INDIANS OF ILLINOIS.
know that a drop of their blood now animates a human being; but their name is perpetuated in this great state, of whose record in the past all are so proud, and as to whose future the hopes of all are so sanguine.
Proclamations affecting the Indian tribes here were issued as early as 1764, land sales registered as early as 1773, and the regulation Indian treaties in 1795.
On December 30. 1764, General Thomas Gage issued his proclama- tion respecting lands in Illinois. It provided liberty for the Catholic religion, for the removal of the French inhabitants should they not desire to become subjects of the British, etc., etc., and other stipula- tions entirely foreign to the spirit of the British.
In 1773 the Indian deeds to the Illinois company were made. The tracts deeded to the Illinois company included lands along the Illinois river to Chicago, or Garlick creek, and thence fifty leagues north to the battle-ground of the Pewaria and Renard Indians in 1727.
By the treaty of Greenville, 1795, 640 acres where Chicago now stands, 1,280 acres at the mouth of the Illinois, 640 acres at the old Piorias village, near the south end of Illinois lake, were reserved to the savages concerned in that treaty.
On August 13, 1803. the United States negotiated a treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians, at Vincennes, with the remnant of several Illinois tribes then grouped under the name of Kaskaskias. By this treaty all their lands were ceded except 350 acres near the town (which was secured to them by Congress in 1791), and also 1,280 acres, to be selected by them. The annuity promised was $1,000, or $500 more than allowed in the Greenville treaty of 1795: $100 per annum toward the support of a priest who would also act as school teacher; $300 toward the erection of a church, and $580 to pay off their debts. This cession comprised all lands from the mouth of the Ohio to twelve miles below the mouth of the Wabash, to the ridge between the head waters of the Wabash and Kaskaskia and along this ridge until it reaches the waters flowing into the Illinois, to the mouth of that river, and thence down the Mississippi to the Ohio.
The treaty of St. Louis between the United States and the Saes and Foxes made November 3, 1804, provided for the cession of all the country bounded by the Mississippi, Wisconsin, Fox and Illinois rivers, on condition of the first party paying in goods $2,234.50, and an annuity of $600 to the Sacs and $400 to the Foxes. It was also stipu- lated that their wars with the Great and Little Osages should forever cease, and that amity should forever exist between the first and second parties. The chiefs signing were Layanvois, Pashepahoe or The Giger, Quashquame or Jumping Fish, Outchequaha or Sun Fish, Hahshe- quaxhiqua or the Bear. The witnesses were Pierre Choteau, Aug. Choteau, Charles Gratiot, John Griffin, Win. Prince, secretary to General Harrison, who signed for the United States.
The treaty of Portage des Sioux, of September 14. 1815, was signed by Black Hawk, May 13, 1816, at St. Louis. It was simply a renewal of the treaty of 1804. and the chief declared he was wheedled into signing it.
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HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY.
At the Council of Chicago, held Angust 17. 1821. General Louis Cass defined the Pottawatomie country as extending along both sides of the Illinois river and all its tributaries and along the western shore of Lake Michigan to Green Bay, with other possessions south of Lake Erie. This treaty was concluded after much delay and five millions acres of land became the property of the United States. The last treaty with the Pottawatomies prior to their removal was made at Chicago, September 26, 1833. At this treaty the Indians were actu- ally made drunk, and signed away their possessions in this condition. In 1835 they received their last annuity in Illinois, and shortly after were removed to Northwestern Missouri.
In 1831 a missionary. Rev. Jesse Hale, was sent into the military tract to labor among the Indians. Louis Bailey was his interpreter. llale delivered his sermon all right ; so did Bailey interpret it correctly. Shaubena then said : "To what white preacher say, I say, maybe so ! Are all white men good ? I say, maybe so. Do white men cheat Indian ? I say, maybe so. Governor Cole gave me, Shaubena, hunt- ing grounds and told me to hunt. Your big White-sides (Gen. White- side) come along and tell Shanbena puck-a-chee (clear out)." Having said this he tore and tramped upon Governor Cole's agreement with him. Hale adopted conciliatory measures, and stated: " Whiteside is a bad white man." Shaubena replied : " If white man steal Indian's land, hang him !" This last sentence settled Hale's life among the tribes. Running toward Hennepin, he arrived there safe, continned his return trip east, and Shaubena never heard of him again.
In early years it was the custom of the Indians to spend a part of the year along the streams in this part of Putnam county. Indeed they were known to visit Ilarris W. Miner's cabin in herds, stay several days, complete a series of trades, and purchase meal. He remembers seeing the chief rolled in his blanket, sleeping or loating for days, while the young men of the band were engaged in foraging or hunting.
In 1830 the band moved from Walnut to Indian ereek, and for a short time made what is now Stark county their main hunting ground.
The Ottawa chief, Pontiac, and the remnant of his tribe, who, after the Franco-British war, selected the country in the vieinity of Wil- mington for his principal village, and there located in 1764-5. In 1769. he was killed by a chief of the Illinois, Kineboo, during the council of Joliet Mound, held that year. In this Indian village, the first full- blood Indian friend of the whites, Shabbonee, was born about 1776. Although an Ottawa, he married a daughter of the Pottawatomie chief, Spotka, at the month of Fox river. At that village he was declared chief of the Pottawatomies, and shortly after removed the tribe to the head of Big Indian creek, in DeKalb county. In 1807 he visited Tecumseh. which visit was returned in 1810. In 1811 he was present at the council of Vincennes, presided over by General Harri- son. In 1812, the couriers of Tecumseh arrived in Illinois, offering largesses to the tribes who would aid the British against the United States. Shabbonee resisted the offer until the fall of 1812, when he and twenty-two of his warriors left to aid Tecumseh. He was present
BAKER-CO-CHI
STARVED ROCK.
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INDIANS OF ILLINOIS.
at the battle of the Thames, in Canada. as was also Billy Caldwell or Nanganash. During the Winnebago and Black Hawk war, he rendered incalculable good to the settlers, and died regretted in Grundy county, Inly 17, 1859. Ilis wife. Pokanoka, was drowned in Mazen creek. Grundy county, November 30, 1864. It is related that in 1832 he visited this part of the military traet, warning the people to leave. Acting on this information, John Essex. David Cooper, Thomas Essex. Sr .. and Thomas. JJr., with their families set out for the fort near Pekin. but all returned to their pioneer homes with the exception of Thomas Essex, Jr., who settled near Peoria.
It is related that one of the primary causes of the Black Hawk war was from an ineident that happened in Liverpool township, Fulton county. Joseph Farris. Asa Smith, and Bird Ellis, while out hunting, espied a young Indian, caught him, eut switches and whipped him with them. He attempted to escape and while doing so one of the party struck him on the head with a gun, and they left him near the Indian camp. He recovered so as to get to his friends, but died just as they arrived at Peoria. where they had carried him on a litter.
The immediate eanse of the Indian ontbreak in 1830 was the occu- pation of Black Hawk's village, on the Rock river, by the whites, during the absence of the chief and his braves on a hunting expedition, on the west side of the Mississippi. When they returned. they found their wigwams occupied by white families, and their own women and children were shelterless on the banks of the river. The Indians were indignant, and determined to repossess their village at all hazards, and early in the spring of 1831 reerossed the Mississippi and menacingly took possession of their own cornfields and cabins. It may be well to remark here that it was expressly stipulated in the treaty of 1804. to which they attributed all their troubles, that the Indians should not be obliged to leave their lands until they were sold by the United States, and it does not appear that they occupied any lands other than those owned by the government. If this was true, the Indians had good cause for indignation and complaint. But the whites, driven out in turn by the returning Indians, became so elamorous against what they termed the encroachnents of the natives, that Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, ordered General Gaines to Rock Island with a military force to drive the Indians again from their homes to the west side of the Mississippi. Black Hawk says he did not intend to be provoked into war by anything less than the blood of some of his own people; in other words. that there would be no war unless it should be commenced by the pale faces. But it was said, and probably thought by the mili- tary commanders along the frontier, that the Indians intended to unite in a general war against the whites, from Rock river to the Mexican borders. But it does not appear that the hardy frontiersmen them. selves had any fears. for their experience had been that, when well treated, their Indian neighbors were not dangerous. Black Hawkand his band had done no more than to attempt to repossess the old homes of which they had been deprived in their absence. No blood had been shed. Black Hawk and his chiefs sent a flag of truce, and a new treaty was made, by which Black Hawk and his band agreed to remain for-
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