USA > Illinois > Bureau County > History of Bureau County, Illinois > Part 6
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with an intervening ditch 20 feet in depth. The remains of a walled town were found near Chillicothe. This was built on a hill 300 feet high, and surrounded by a wall ten feet high, the area inside containing 130 acres. On the south side of it were found the remains of what appeared to have been a row of furnaces, about which cinders were found several feet in depth. In the bed of the creek which runs at the foot of the hill were found wells that had been cut through solid rock. These were three feet, in diame- ter at the top.
One of the most singular of these earth- works was found in the lead-mine region. It resembled some huge animal, the head, ears, nose, tail and legs and general outline being very perfect and easily traced. It was built upon a high ridge in the prairie, the eleva- tion being 300 yards wide and 100 feet in height, and rounded on the top by a heavy deposit of clay. Along the line of the sum- mit and thrown up three feet high, is the out- line of the quadruped, measuring 250 feet from the nose to the tip of the tail, and a width of body of eighteen feet; the head is thirty-five feet in length, ears ten, legs sixty, and tail seventy-five. The curvature in the legs was natural to an animal lying on its side. The general appearance resembled the figure of the extinct megatherium. Why this singular work, involving so much labor, or for what purpose it was intended, cannot now be conjectured, nor by what people it was made. Many similar figures have been found in Wisconsin. Thousands of mounds are found along the Mississippi River and all over northern Illinois.
Mr. Breckinridge, who studied the antiqui- ties of the western country in 1817, referring to the mounds in the American Bottom, says: "The great number and the extremely large size of some of them may be regarded as
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furnishing, with other circumstances, evi- dences of their antiquity. I have sometimes been induced to think that at the period when they were constructed there was a population as numerous as that which once animated the borders of the Nile or the Euphrates, or of Mexico. The most numerous as well as con- siderable of these remains are found in pre- cisely those parts of the country where the traces of a numerous population might be looked for, namely, from the mouth of the Ohio, on the east side of the Mississippi, to the Illinois River, and to the west from the St. Francis to the Missouri. I am perfectly satisfied that cities similar to those of an- cient Mexico, of several hundred thousand souls, have existed in this country." Nearly opposite St. Louis are traces of two such cities, in a distance of five miles.
The largest mound in the United States is in the American Bottom, six and a half miles northeast of St. Louis, known as Monk's Mound. It is over 100 feet high, and 800 yards in circumference at the base. The top contains three and a half acres, and half way down is a terrace, extending the whole width of the mound. Excavations show human bones and white pottery.
Generation after generation lives, moves and is no more; time has strewn the track of its ruthless march with the fragments of mighty empires; and at length not even their names or works have an existence in the spec- ulations of those who take their places.
II.
As many as thirty mounds have been found in Bureau County, none of them large either in height or circumference, and every- thing about them indicates they were not probably built by the same tribes or perhaps nations, that constructed the immense mounds in Southern Illinois or Ohio. A group of
eight mounds is situated in the bottoms of the Illinois River and Bureau Creek, near Bureau Junction. The land on which they are located has been farmed for near half a century, and this cultivation has so changed and moved the surface soil that their true dimensions can only be approximately deter- mined. Three of the smallest of these mounds lie to the northeast at a right angle to the other five, which are somewhat larger and extend in a direct line toward the south- west. They range in distance apart from fifty to one hundred feet, and are in height above the natural surface from two and a half to seven feet.
Mr. A. S. Tiffany made openings in the extreme northeast mound. At a depth of fifteen inches was found a bed of ashes sev- eral inches in thickness, which extended in all directions beyond the opening. At a depth of five feet a few bones, much decomposed, were found. They were parts of two indi- viduals. A small number of bone awls were lying near them. The opening was extended sixteen feet and the remains of two individu- als were found with their heads toward the north. Under the head of the individual lying upon the west side was discovered a porphyry crescent-shaped implement of rare beauty. It is polished on both sides and all its edges are nicely wrought. A flint knife was found in the same place, about where the right hand of the skeleton would rest. At the northeast corner of the excavation, with the decomposed bones of another person, a bone awl or needle was found, about four inches in length, but a portion had been bro- kenoff. It was gracefully tapering and finely pointed.
A few pieces of pottery, all of the same character generally obtained from mounds, occurs or has been frequently found in this locality. The crania of the skeleton found
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were too fragile to be preserved. A few unio shells and water-worn pebbles had been de- posited in different parts of the mound.
In another one of the small mounds was found the much decayed bones of a youth. In the other mounds no remains of especial interest were found.
Another group of twenty mounds are situ- ated on the bluffs near Bureau Junction. This group varies in height from eighteen inches to three feet. They are systematically arranged and are from eighteen to three hun - dred feet apart. Explorations in this group revealed one skull, decayed wood and coal, and pebbles. On one is an oak stump, show- ing 450 annular rings; another similar stump shows 160 rings. On another stands a large white oak tree.
The Indians have no traditions that give any reliable account of who built these mounds or who used them for burial places.
In Arizona are to be found many remarka- ble evidences of prehistoric peoples whose history has never been written. It is only told by the empty irrigating canals, the ruins of populous towns, vacant cliff dwellings, inscribed rocks, and broken pottery found in many parts of the Territory. Before the Euro- pean saw this continent two races had lived and died in Arizona. The earliest people built their houses in valleys that are now deep ravines, and the cliff dwellings that are seen to-day resting in the sides of deep arroyos two hundred feet above the bottom of the gorge once stood upon solid ground, and yet so many years have elapsed since then that now the houses are high and dry and accessible only to hardy climbers. Time has dug away the foundations as well as scarred and chipped the inhabitations. Between the age of the cliff-dwellers and that of the white man come the race who built the canals and formed the valleys. Dry and parched and barren as a
great part of Arazona is to-day, there was a time, of which abundant proof exists, when the valleys were rich and fertile, and when great cities were populated by an active, capable, and energetic people. Who were those industrious beings? No one can tell. Toltec or Aztec, black or white; from Egypt or Peru, none can say. Time has nearly de- stroyed evidences of their existence. In the lapse of ages their history has grown almost a mythology. What a race they were, though! No farming for them, if you please, on any small scale. They had ditches to bring water to their crops that would astonish the soil-tillers of to-day, and their houses were castles.
Perhaps the most extensive of their ruins now, are at the place called Casa Grande, in the Gila River Valley, six miles below Florence and five miles south of the river. When first discovered by the Spaniards, in 1540, the largest building of the group was four stories high, and had walls six feet in thick- ness. A hundred years ago one house still remained which was 420x260 feet. To-day there is but a suggestion left of the former magnificence of the houses, but one may still see that the walls were made of mud and gravel, held together by a hard cement, and rooms are still coated with cement. Near Casa Grande are the remains of an irrigating canal which has been traced for forty miles, and which must have watered thousands of acres which to-day are dry, neglected wastes. Miles of these wide canals can be seen scat- tered over the Territory. Everywhere are the evidences of a prehistoric occupation of the land. In building the city of Prescott, workmen unearthed not only household and farming implements, but discovered old foun- dations as well, and as Arizona is settled and explored there may yet be found more traces of the people who lived and died here, leav.
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ing suggestion as to who they were, where they came from, whither they went. What care we for Pompeii ? We have a vaster, richer field in which to search for treasures hid for untold ages.
III.
Indians .- Vast number of Indian tribes were all over the continent when it was dis- covered. Some were numerous, powerful and warlike, and others were feeble remnants of once great communities, and all were with- out cultivation or any refinement or the sem- blance of a literature, and were far behind in the early advance of civilization of the Mound Builders. Ethnologists are not agreed that they were an original race of men, indigen- ous to the Western Hemisphere. The hair of the red man is round ; in the black man flat, and the white man's is oval. These dis- tinctive traits are unvarying and are strong evidences of original different races of men. In the pile of the European's hair the color- ing matter is distributed by means of a cen- tral canal, but in the Indian and black it is incorporated in the fibrous structure of the hair. The differences, therefore, in the hair of the European, Indian and Negro, are rad- ical, and indicates three distinct races of men, or branches of the human family, and a tri- nary origin. A religious bent of mind char- acterized all the tribes, but it was of the rudest order of ignorant and childish su perstitions and horrid ceremonies. There was no progress in them from their low sav- agery, and they would, had they never been disturbed by the white man, have probably remained perpetually in their degrading savagery and ignorance. And their tradition says of the coming of the white man and civilization : "The Indians had long dis. cerned a black cloud in the heavens coming from the east, which threatened them with disaster and death. Slowly rising at first, it
seemed a shadow, but soon changed to sub- stance. When it reached the summit of the Alleghanies it assumed a darker hue; deep murmurs, as of thunder were heard; it was impelled westward by a strong wind and shot forth forked tongues of lightning." Pontiac saw this coming storm and said to the Saxon: "I stand in thy path." To his assembled chiefs he exclaimed: "Drive the dogs who wear red clothing into the sea." Fifty years after the defeat of Pontiac, his follower, Tecumseh, plotted the conspiracy of the Wa- bash. For years the forest haunts of his clansmen rang with his stirring appeals, and the valleys of the West ran with blood of the white invaders. In the south the Appalachian tribes waged cruel wars under Tuscaloosa.
The Algonquins and Iroquois were the great tribes who figured in the history of Illi- nois. The former occupied most of the coun- try between the 35th and 65th parallels of lat- itude.
The Illinois Confederacy was the five tribes: the Tamaroas. Michigamies, Kaskaskias, Cahokias and Peorias. The Illinois, Miamas and Delawares, are of the same stock. Tra- dition says they came from the far West. In 1670 their chief town was on the Illinois River, seven miles below Ottawa. It was then called Kaskaskia, and according to Mar- quette at that time contained seventy. four lodges, each of which domiciled several fam- ilies. It was visited in 1679, by La Salle; the town then counted 60 lodges and the tribes numbered 6,000 to 8,000 souls. Their chief towns were burned by the Iroquois, and their extensive patches of beans, pumpkins and corn destroyed, and the Iroquois pursued the fugitives down the Illinois River. They became involved in the Pontiac conspiracy, but through many defeats and contact with civilization, their war-like spirit was gone, and they did not yield to Pontiac's solicitations when he 3
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threatened to " consume their tribes as the fire doth the dry grass of the prairie." Fi- nally, when Pontiac lost his life at the hands of an Illinois, the tribes which had followed his fortunes descended from the north and the east to avenge his death and almost annihilated them. And tradition says, that a band of fugitives, to escape slaughter, took refuge on the high rock which had been the sight for Fort St. Louis. They were besieged by a superior force of the Pottawattomies, which the great strength of this natural fort- ress enabled them easily to keep at bay. But starvation, however, soon was a more cruel foe than the savage, and accomplished what the enemy could not. Their provisions were soon gone and their supply of water was stopped by the enemy severing the cords attached to the vessels by which they elevated it from the river below. From their high point of view they could look for the last time upon their beautiful hunting-grounds and then chant their death-songs, and with Indian sto- icism lie down upon the rocks and die, where for many years their bones were seen whiten- ing on the summit of "Starved Rock," by which name it will in all future time be known. Thus perished the Kaskaskias and Peorias, of whom at one time Du Quoin was chief, and of the once powerful tribes but a score are now left in the world. The little remnant of them left are in the Indian Ter- ritory.
The Sacs and Foxes dwelt in the northern portion of Illinois. The word "Sau-kee," now written "Sac," is derived from the com- pound word "A-saw-we-kee," of the Chip- ewa language, signifying yellow earth, and "Mus-qua-kee," the original name of the Foxes, meaus red earth. These two tribes by long residence contiguous to each other, had become substantially one people. They came originally from near Quebec and Montreal.
The Foxes came first and established them- selves on the river that bears their name. They warred with the French on Green Bay and were signally defeated.
The Sacs became involved in a long and bloody war with the Iroquois, and were driven west. Starting west they encountered the Wyandottes, by whom they were driven far- ther and farther along the lake shores until they reached their relatives and friends, the Foxes, on Green Bay. Here the two tribes united for self-protection against surround- ing tribes. The Jesuit, Allouez, visited them in the winter of 1672, and also extended his labors from the Sacs to the Foxes; the later remembering some cruel outrages at the hands of the French treated the gentle missionary with rude contempt, but by great patience, he eventually procured a respectful hearing, and they were converted, after the fashion of ignorant barbarians, and it is said every one in the village could soon make the sign of the cross. And they painted this sign on their shields and started upou the war-path and gained sigual victories and firmly believed the sign of the cross was a powerful talisman in battles of conquering power.
From Green Bay they came to northern Illinois, and drove out the Sauteaux, a branch of the Chippewas. They eventually formed alliances with the Pottawattomies, and warred to extermination with different tribes of the Illinois south of them. They and the Win- nebagoes, Menomonees and other tibes at- tempted to destroy the village of St. Louis, and were only prevented by the timely arri- val of George Rogers Clark, with five hundred men, from carrying out their designs. Fi- nally their names became known to the world, and the history of these people culmi- nated in the events of the Black Hawk war, where the volunteer soldiery of the State of Illinois, in 1832, closed the last of the Indian
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wars in the West by the decisive battle of Broad Axe.
IV.
Black Hawk War .- As this condensed ac- count of the Indians brings us to the time of this war, and as this was the last combined act of the Indians in the valley to beat back the white race, we deem it best to conclude what we may have to say of the Indians by a short account of the Black Hawk war.
Edwards' History of Illinois says: "Dur- ing Gov. Edwards' administration, the In- dians on the Northwestern frontier became troublesome. The tribes were at war among themselves about their boundary lines, and soon hostilities were extended to the whites. Before serious war had occurred with the whites, a treaty of peace was signed at Prairie du Chien, on the 19th of August, 1825, in which the whites acted more the part of mediators than otherwise between the Win- nebagoes and Sioux, Chippewas, Sanks, Foxes and other tribes, defining the boundaries of each. But this failed to keep them quiet. Their depredations and murders continued frequent, and in the summer of 1827 the acts of the Winnebagoes especially became very alarming. A combination was formed by the different tribes, under Red Bird, to kill or drive off all the whites above Rock River. And oper. ations were commenced by the Winnebagoes and Pottawattomies making a foray and kill- ing two white men in the vicinity of Prairie du Chien, on the 24th day of July, 1827, and on the 30th of the same month they attacked two keel-boats which had, on their upward trip, conveyed military stores to Fort Snelling, killing two of the crew and wound- ing four others before they were repulsed. They threatened seriously the settlers at the lead mines, as they had always resented the act of the people in taking possession of these mines. Gov. Edwards, July 14, or-
dered Gen. Hanson's brigade (then located on the east side of the Illinois River) to be in readiness for immediate service. On the same day he ordered Col. T. M. Neal's Twen- tieth Regiment (from Sangamon) to receive 600 volunteers and rendezvous at Fort Clark, and march forthwith to Galena. Under this call Col. Neale recruited one cav- alry company, Capt. Edward Mitchell; four companies of infantry, by Capts. Thomas Constant, Reuben Brown, Achilles Morris and Bawlin Green; Adjutant, James D. Hen- ry. The command marched to Peoria, Red Bird and six of his principal chiefs had sur- rendered and the volunteers returned from Peoria to their homes
The surrender of Red Bird had been se- cured before this force reached the grounds, largely by the action of the Galena miners, who had an order from Gov. Edwards to or- ganize and place themselves under the com- mand of Gen. Henry Dodge, and thus formed a valuable auxiliary force to Gen. Henry Atkinson's command of 600 regulars. These had marched into Winnebago country and captured Red Bird, by his voluntarily com- ing into camp and giving himself up. Red Bird and his companions were placed in con- finement, where he soon died, and some of his warriors were tried, convicted and hanged for complicity in the murder of white set- tlers, on the 26th of December, 1827. Black Hawk was one of the captured party; upon trial he was acquitted. The death of Red Bird ended the Winnebago war. The tribe was thoroughly humbled and showed only the most peaceable disposition for some time. Edwards says: "A talk was subsequently had with them in which they abandoned all the country south of the Wisconsin River. Af- ter this there was a general peace with the Indians throughout the Western frontier." But the Indians continued to occupy the
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lands they had ceded, and Gov. Edwards urged constantly their removal by the War Department, beyond the limits of the State, as their presence was a constant menace and retarded the immigrants from occupying the lands the Indians had ceded. The Govern- ment, impelled by the appeals of Edwards and the terrors of the settlers, brought the subject to the attention of the Indians, and urged them to go to their own lands beyond the Mississippi River. It was finally arranged they should be allowed to remain twelve months.
In 1829 the President issued a proclama- tion, and in pursuance theroof, all the country above the mouth of Rock River (the ancient seat of the Sac nation) was sold to American families, and in 1830 it was taken possession of by many of them. To avoid further threatened troubles, another treaty was entered into with the Sacs and Foxes, on the 15th day of July, 1830, by the provisions of which they were to remove peacefully beyond the Mississippi. With those who remained at the Indian village at the mouth of Rock River, an arrangement was made by the settlers by which they were to live together peaceably, and as good neighbors; the Indians cultivating their old fields as formerly. Black Hawk, however, a restless and uneasy spirit, who had ceased to recog. nize Keokuk as Chief, and who was known to be still under pay of the British, emphati - cally refused either to remove from the lands or respect the rights of the settlers. He insisted that Keokuk had no authority to make such a treaty, and he proceeded to gather around him a large body of warriors and young men of the tribe who were eager to put on the war paint and to adorn their belts with the white men's scalps. He deter- mined to dispute the rights of the whites to their possessions in the heart of the ancient
seat of the nation. He had conceived the gigantic scheme of uniting all the nations, from the Rock River to the Gulf of Mexico; and thus once more and for the last time was made the effort to combine all the Indians and " drive the white dogs into the sea."
On the 9th day of December, 1830, Hon. John Reynolds became Governor of Illinois.
April, 1831, Black Hawk at the head of from three to five hundred warriors, recrossed the river. He also had a large number of allies from the Kickapoos and Pottawattomies. He formally notified the whites to leave, and upon their refusing to comply with his order, he commenced a general destruction of their property. Governor Reynolds declared war and called for volunteers. This call was made May 27, 1831. and all this north- western portion of Illinois at once was resounding with the clamors of war. The call was for 700 men, to report at Beardstown in fifteen days. So many re- sponded that the Governor had to accept the services of 1,600 men. They were moved to Rushville and organized into two regiments and two battalions. The army arrived at Rushville June 25. Six companies of regn- lar troops, under Gen. Gaines, from Jefferson Barracks, arrived at Fort Armstrong. Thus completed, the army encamped eight miles below the Sac village, on the Mississippi River, and Gens. Gaines and Duncan concerted measures of attack. But Black Hawk, realiz- ing the danger of his position, on the night of the 25th quietly recrossed the river, leav- ing his village deserted. The soldiers thus found it the next day. and completely de- stroyed it. Governor Ford says: "Thus per- ished this ancient village, which had been the delightful home of 6,000 to 7,000 Indians, where generation after generation had been born, had died and been buried." Gen. Gaines had to send the second peremptory
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demand to Black Hawk requiring him and his band to return and enter into a treaty. On the 30th day of June, 1831, he, with about thirty Chiefs of the Sacs came, and in full council with Governor Reynolds and Gen. Gaines, signed an agreement, stipu- lating that "no one or more shall ever be permitted to recross said river to the usual place of residence, nor any part of their old hunting-grounds east of the Mississippi River, without permission of the President of the United States, or the Governor of the State of Illinois." The troops were disbanded and their surplus provisions given to the Indians, who had by their foolish invasion made it impossible to raise any crop for that season. Thus ended without bloodshed the first campaign of the Black Hawk war in 1831.
1832-SECOND CAMPAIGN.
This treaty with Black Hawk brought but a short respite of peace to the country. The next spring he again recrossed the river, and commenced his march up Rock River Valley, with 500 warriors mounted on their ponies, while the squaws and papooses went by way of the river in canoes. Gen. Atkin- son, stationed at Fort Armstrong, warned him to return, but the savages pushed on to the country of the Winnebagoes and Pottawatto- mies, and here engaged to make a crop of corn. The Chief's purpose in this was to enlist these tribes in his aid in the war, but they would not yield to his entreaties.
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