USA > Illinois > Grundy County > History of Grundy County, Illinois > Part 13
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*By J. II. Battle.
* Fo tor's "Prehistoric Races of the United States."
+ " Prehistoric Races, etc."
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uninstructed mind these monnds doubtless seem a very slight foundation upon which to construct the fabric of a national exist- ence, and yet to the archæologist they fur- nish " proofs as strong as Holy Writ; " in them they find as distinctive characteristics as mark the prehistoric remains of the Pelasgi, the "wall-builders " of Europe, a not dissimilar race in many respects, and one who long ago found a place in the realities of history; and while they differ in external form and are scattered over a wide scope of territory, - characteristics in marked contrast with those of the abo- riginal race found here in possession of the country, yet the scientist finds in each mound the never failing marks of a race peculiarity.
The widest divergence from the typical mound is found in Wisconsin. Here in- stead of the circular or pyramidal structure are found forms, for the most part, consist- ing of rude, gigantic imitations of various animals of the region, such as the buffalo, bear, fox, wolf, etc .; of the eagle and night hawk, the lizard and turtle, and in some instances the unmistakable form of man. These, though not raised high above the surface, and even in some cases represented intaglio, attain the largest dimensions; one representing a serpent extending 700 feet and another representing a turtle, had a body 56, and a tail 250 feet long. The significance of these peculiar forms has not been determined, but unmistakable evidences have been discovered which mark thiem as the work of the same race whose structures are found elsewhere, so numer- ous throughont the Mississippi valley. Typical structures are sometimes classi- fied with reference to their purpose as
"Enclosures-1. For defense; 2. Sacred; 3. Miscellaneous. Mounds-1. Of sacrifice; 2. For temple sites; 3. Of sepulture; +. Of observation." Of the first class, the enclosures for defense seem to have been constructed simply for protection against hostile attack. The locations chosen are those best adapted naturally to repel a military attack. The only approach is generally by a steep and narrow way, re- quiring the assailant to place himself at immense disadvantage, while the garrison provided with parapets often constructed of rubble stone, could fight under cover and may be found in these stones, his store of ammunition. The " sacred " enclosure included within its lines, the mounds of the three leading classes, as the nses to which they were put, were all sacred to this people, and yet in the " American Bottom " in Illinois, where the mnound systemu reaches, perhaps its highest devel- opment, the monnds of these classes are not enclosed. The mounds of sacrifice or altars, as they are variously termed, are generally characterized by the fact " that they occur only within the vicinity of the enclosures or sacred places; that they are stratified; and that they contain symmet- rical altars of burned clay or stone, on which were deposited various remains, which in all cases have been more or less subjected to the action of fire."* In relation to this latter characteristie it should be said, that it is not at all plain that the nse of fire was intended for the purpose of cre- mation. A thin coating of moist clay was applied to the body nnde, or wrapped in cloth, and upon this a fire was maintained
* Squier and Davis' "Ancient Monuments," etc.
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for a more or less prolonged period, but in many cases the heat was not sufficient to destroy the cloth sometimes found in a good state of preservation. This evidently did not result from a lack of knowledge, as cremation and urn burial was also practiced.
Temple mounds are described by Squier and Davis as " distinguished by their great regularity of form and general large dimen- sions. They consist chiefly of pyramidal strnetures, truncated and generally having graded avennes to their tops. In some in- stances they are terraced or have snecessive stages. But whatever their form, whether round, oval, oetangular, square, or oblong, they have invariably flat or level tops," and upon these were probably constructed their temples, but which, constructed of perisha- ble materials, have left no trace of their existenee. This elass of mounds are not found along the lake region or that line which seems to mark the farthest advance of this people. The principal structures of this elass are found at Cahokia in Illi- nois, near Florence and Claiborne in Ken- tucky, at Seltzertown, Mississippi, at Mari- etta, Newark and-Chillicothe in Ohio, and at St. Louis, Missouri. The mound at Ca- hokia, " the monarch of all similar struct- ures in the United States," may well serve as a type. When in all its integrity, this mound formed a huge parallelogram with sides at the base, respectively 700 and 500 feet in length, towering to the height of 90 feet. On the southwest there was a terrace 160 by 300 feet, which was reached by a graded way, and the summit was truncated, affording a platform 200 by 450 feet. This structure, upon which was probably reared a spacious temple, perhaps the principal one in the empire, covered an area of about
six acres, while in close proximity were four elevated platforms, varying from 250 to 300 feet in diameter. The great mound of St. Louis reached a height of thirty-five feet, and that at Marietta to about the same height.
"Sepulchral mounds," says Mr. Foster in his volume on the Prehistorie Races, "con- sist, often, of a simple knoll, or group of knoils, of no considerable height, without any definite arrangement. Examples of this character may be seen at Dubuque, Merom, Chicago, and Laporte, which, on exploration, have yielded skulls differing widely from the Indian type. *
The corpse was alnost invariably placed near the original surface of the soil, enveloped in bark or coarse matting, and in a few in- stanees fragments of cloth have been ob- served in this connection. Sometimes a vault of timber was built over it, and in others it was enclosed in long and broad flags of stone. Sometimes it was placed in a sitting position, again it was extended, and still again it was compressed within contracted limits. Trinkets were often strung about the neck, and water jugs, drinking eups, and vases, which probably contained food, were placed near the head. Over the corpse thus arrayed, a circular mound was often raised, but sometimes nothing more than a .hilloek." Other monuds have been found that favored the theory that many of these structures were used for miscellaneous burial. A notable example is the "Grave Creek Mound," in- West Virginia, twelve miles below Wheel- ing. This mound is something over 70 feet high, of circular form, with a circum- ference at the base of about 900 feet. In the center of this mound, on a level with
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the original surface, was found a vault with twelve human skeletons, and thirty-four feet above this was found a similar vault, enelosing a skeleton which had been deco- rated with a profusion of shell-beads, copper rings, and plates of mniea. In a mound at Vincennes "a bed of human bones, arranged in a circle eighteen feet in diameter, elosely packed and pressed together." In another at Merom, three tiers of vaults were found, in each of which were found from five to seven human skeletons. Mounds of obser- vation is a rather fanciful classification intended to mark mounds found on elevated points of land. The authors of this classi- fieation think that these may have been used as platforins on which to build signal fires, and such is their elevation and out- look that sneh signals could have been seen at great distance. This theory of a special purpose, however, has not been accepted, as supported by any special evidence. They inay have been so used, or simply as an eligible site for residence.
There is in addition to these monnds a large number which are not embraced in this classification, which following Mr. F. W. Putnam, whom Mr. Foster quotes at length, may be called "Habitation Monnds." A large number of these are described as located at 'Merom, Indiana, and " a group of fifty-nine monnds " at Hutsonville, Illi- nois, a few miles above the former place and across the Wabash River. These mounds were carefully examined " to ascer- tain if they were places of burial," without discovering a single bone or implement of any kind, but, on the contrary, the exeava- tions " showed that the mounds had been made of various materials at hand, and in one case ashes were found which had prob-
ably been scraped up with other material and thrown upon the heap." In the an- cient fort at Merom, in depressions found within the earthworks, were found striking evidences of food having been cooked and eaten there, and the conclusion drawn by Mr. Putnam is, " that these pits were the - houses of the inhabitants or defenders of the fort, who were probably further pro- tected from the elements and the arrows of assailants, by a roof of logs and bark, or boughs." Another writer,* in a paper read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science at their Boston meeting, Angnst, 1880, says: "There is in this region a peculiar class of mounds that was for a long time a puzzle to me. They are usually found in groups of from two or three to twenty or thirty, and even more, and are generally on some pleasant knoll or rising ground in the vicinity of a spring or watercourse, especially in the vicinity of our prairies or level areas of land. These monnds are from one to three, and in a few instances, even four feet in height, and from twenty to fifty feet in diameter. One mound of the group is always larger than the rest, and always ocenpies the commanding position. Sometimes the group is arranged in a circle; other groups have no apparent design in arrangement. Numbers of these mounds can be seen in the cultivated fields.
" Although I have made excavations in them, and dug trenches entirely through then, I have found nothing but ashes, ehar- coal, deeayed portions of bones of fishes and animals partially burned, shells from the adjacent streams, flint chippings, and
* Hon. Wm. McAdams, Jr., of Otterville, Ills.
i.Astamptrong
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HISTORY OF GRUNDY COUNTY.
in one or two instances a flint implement of a rude character.
"After examining many of these struetures I am induced to believe that they are pos- sibly the remains of aneient dwellings, made by placing in an upright position the trunks of young trees in a eirele, or in parallel rows, the tops of the poles inelining inward and fastened together, the whole being covered with earth and sod to form a roof, or in the same manner as many Indian tribes make their mud lodges; as for instance, the Mandans and the Omahas. Such a structure, after being repaired from time to time by the addition of more earth on top, would finally, by the deeay of the poles, fall inward and the ruins would form a slight mound.
" Conant and Putnam deseribe such mounds in Missouri and Tennessee, some of the largest of these ancient towns being provided with streets and highways. They are also found in Southern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Putnam has deseribed an en- closed town in Tennessee, in which were many low mounds, or rather, as he calls them, earth circles, that he has pretty con- clnsively shown to be sites of the lodges or houses of the people."
To which of these elasses the mounds found at Morris shall be referred, is difficult to determine. There were nineteen of these mounds, eireular in form, from two to four feet high, and from seventeen to thirty in diameter at the base. These were superfi- cially explored and evidences of the intru- sive burials of Indians found, but nothing bearing upon their ancient origin. The growth of the village has eneroached upon these ancient relies and their site so oblit- erated as to afford little indueement for any
seientifie investigation. There are mounds along the southern margin of the river that offer better prospects of reward to a proper- ly eondueted research, but at best such ex- ploration is likely to develop little more than to connect their origin with this an- eient people.
These mounds, with the implements formed in stone, metal and pottery (of which the scope of this work allows no mention ), forin the data upon which is founded the historical speculation concerning this peo- ple. Onee having reasonably established the former existence of this extinct raee, the absorbing question presents itself-who were the Mound Builders? The limited space devoted to this subjeet, however, for- bids any extended consideration of the in- teresting seientifie deduetions made from this data, though the conclusion arrived at may be briefly stated in the language of Mr. Foster,* as follows: "Their monu- ments indicate that they had entered upon a career of civilization: they lived in sta- tionary communities, cultivating the soil and relying on its generous yield as a means of support; they elothed themselves in part at least, in garments regularly spun and woven; they modeled clay and carved stone, even of the most obdurate character, into images representing animate objeets, even the human face and form, with a close adherence to nature; they mined and east copper into a variety of useful forms; they quarried mniea, steatite, ehert, and the novae- ulite slates, which they wrought into arti- eles adapted to personal ornament, to domes- tie nse, or to the chase; unlike the Indians who were ignorant of the eurative proper-
*" Prehistoric Races, " etc., p. 350.
-
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HISTORY OF GRUNDY COUNTY.
ties of salt, they collected the brine of the sa- lines into earthen vessels moulded in baskets which they evaporated into a form which admitted of transportation; they erected an elaborate line of defense, stretching for many hundred miles, to guard against the sudden irruption of enemies; they had a national religion, in which the elements were the objeets of supreme adoration; tem- ples were erected upon the platform mounds, and watchfires lighted upon the highest summits; and in the celebration of the mysteries of their faith, human sacrifiees were probably offered up. The magnitude of their structures, involving an infinitude of labor, such only as could be expended except in a community where cheap food prevailed, and the great extent of their commercial relations reaching to widely separated portions of the continent, imply the existence of a stable and efficient gov- ernment, based on the subordination of the masses. As the civilizations of the old world growing out of the peculiar conditions of soil and climate developed certain forms of art which are original and unique, so on this continent we see the erude conception in the truncated pyramid, as first displayed in Wisconsin, Ohio and Illinois, and the accomplished result in the stonefaced foun- dations of the temples of Uxmal and Palen- que. And finally, the distinctive character of the Mound Builder's structures, and also the traditions which have been preserved, would indicate that this people were ex- pelled from the Mississippi Valley by a fierce and barbarous race, and that they found refuge in the more genial elimate of Central America, where they developed those gernis of civilization, originally planted in their northern homes, into a
perfection which has elicited the admiration of every modern explorer."
The obvious inquiry suggested by these eonelusions is, who succeeded this extinct race ? To this question seienee offers no an- swer. Two hypotheses are entertained as to the origin of Mound Builders here, the one supposes them to be of antothionic origin, and that semi-civilization originat- ing here flowed southward and culminated in the wonderful developments of the Tol- tecs of Mexico ; the other supposes to have originated in the Sonth American continent or in Central America, and to have emi- grated northward from natural canses, and later to have returned to Mexico, driven from their northern empire by an irresist- ible foe or by a powerful political irruption among themselves. Upon any theory, the line of their most northward advance is pretty clearly define l, and writers upon this subject generally agree that the line of defenses "extending from sources of the Alleghany and Susquehanna, in New York, diagonally across the country, through central and northern Ohio, to the Wa- bash," accurately indicates the region from whence attacks were made or expected, and marks the farthest extent of the Mound Builders' empire. But what was the char- acter of the foe, what his action on the retreat of the Mound Builders, and what his final destiny, is an unwritten page of science, and for which there exists no known data. It is a late suggestion, that the North American Indian may be a degenerate but legitimate descendant of the dominant race, but there is a broad chasm to be bridged before the Mound Builder or his successful assailant can be linked with these aboriginal tribes. With-
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ont making any such attempt, however, the Indian naturally succeeds this people in reg- ular historical order, and passing over the vexed question of his origin, it is sufficient for the purposes of this work that the whites found him everywhere in full possession of the country.
With the advent of the white man in America, began an " irrepressible conflict" which was destined never to eease so long as the red man retained a vestige of power. In this struggle, the absence of national organization or affiliations on the part of the Indians, made the final success of the whites inevitable from the beginning. Taking each tribe or section of country in succession, the little band of adventurers conquered this vast country in detail, and planted here one of the mighty nations of the world. It was due to this lack of any bond of union that the Illinois tribes were allowed to rest so long undisturbed in their fancied security. Rumors of the conflict waging on the Atlantic border were borne to their ears by chance visitors from other tribes, and later by remnants of vanquished tribes who sought with them an asylum from their foes, but still no apprehension of impending disaster dawned upon their superstitions ignorance, while the reflection that the Iroquois, the enemy which their experience had taught them most to fear, had met an overpowering foe, gave them no little satisfaction.
The great family to which these tribes were allied by language, physical and men- tal peenliarities, was the Algonquin. Be- fore the encroachments of the whites the numerous tribes of this family occupied most of the territory now embraced in the United States, between the 35th and 60th
parallels of latitude, and the 60th and 105th meridians of longitude. According to Davidson,* the starting point in the wander- ings of the Algonquin tribes on the conti- nent as determined by tradition and the cul- tivation of maize, their favorite cereal, was in the southwest. Passing up the western side of the Mississippi valley, they turned eastward across that river, the southern margin of their broad tract reaching about to the 35th parallel, while the center prob- ably covered the present territory of Illi- nois. On reaching the Atlantic coast they seem to have moved northeasterly along the seaboard to the mouth of the St. Law- rence; thence ascending this river and the shores of the great lakes, they spread north- ward and westward to Hudson Bay, the basin of Lake Winnipeg and the valley of the upper Mississippi; and thence the head of the migratory column circling around the source of the great river, re- crossed it in a sontheasterly direction above the Falls of St. Anthony, and passing by way of Green Bay and Lake Michigan came into the present limits of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Thus after revolving in an ir- regular ellipse of some 3,000 miles in diam- eter, they fell into the original track cast- ward. This extended course of migration induced by a variety of causes and circum- stances, continued through a long period, the original stock probably receiving con- siderable accessions from the nomadic tribes of the Pacific slope, and leaving be- hind large numbers at each remove, until the head of the column eame to rest from sheer lack of momentum or other moving influences. Thus scattered over a large
*Davidson and S'ueve's "History of Illinois."
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expanse of country, and broken into numer- ons tribal organizations, they lost much of their family affiliations and characteristics, and the early whites found the Algonquins everywhere possessing the border lands, and waged with them their first and bloodiest wars. Situated within the ellipse above described, were the nations of the Iroquois family, who held together by circumstances and posted advantageously on the inner side of the circle, able at any time to mass their forces upon a single point of the cir- eumference, soon proved a devastating scourge to the Indian world, and especially so to the Algonquins.
Of the tribes of this latter family this history has to do only with the tribes of the "Illinois Confederation." This was made up of the Tamaroas, Michigamies, Kaskaskias, Cahokias and Peorias. The name of the confederation, as explained by Gallatin, one of the ablest writers on the structure of Indian languages, is derived from the Dela- ware word Leno, and variously written Leni or Illini, meaning " superior men." Its present termination is of French origin. The Algonquin family, so far as cranial in- dieations, were marked by a larger intellect- ual lobe than their great adversaries, the Iroquois, and their whole history adds force to these indieations. While not so ferocious or fiendish in their warfare, they exhibited no less bravery and skill in their savage en- counters, and were rewarded with no less success when circumstances admitted an equal contest. In courageous resistance to the superior numbers and arms of the whites and in savage strategy and diplo- macy, the history of our Indian wars bears ample testimony to their high mental and physical qualities. Of the Illinois Confed-
eration, however, this ean not be said with- ont qualification. Exposed like the rest of the Algonquin family to the powerful at- taeks of their ferocious enemy, though gain- ing some notable victories, they had been forced to leave their earlier location near Lake Michigan and settle west of the Mis- sissippi, from whence, about 1670-73, they migrated to the Illinois River. Here they seem to have stood in great fear of their hereditary foe, and while proving their warlike superiority to other tribes, their only sure defense against the Iroquois ap- peared to be in flight. The early association of this confederacy with the whites was of an unusually peaceable and pleasant nature and did much to confirm their unwarlike character. As early as 1670, the Jesuit Mis- sionary, Marquette, stationed at the western extremity of Lake Superior, mentions the visit of members of these tribes who ear- nestly requested that missionaries might be sent among them. When, therefore, Joliet and Marquette, returning from their explo- ration of the Mississippi, found the tribes on the banks of the Illinois in 1673, they were hailed with joy by the natives, who from that day never wavcred in their allegiance to the French. In 1675, Marquette re- turned and established the " Mission of the Immaculate Conception " at their village, located near the present site of Utica. In December of 1679, La Salle * with his little band of adventurers found here a town of 400 lodges temporarily deserted, and passing on to where the city of Peoria now is, found another village of about eighty lodges, where he landed and soon established amieable and permanent relations. With the consent of the tribes, La Salle soon built the fort of
* René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle.
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Crevecœur, a half a league below, and then early in March of 1680, set out for Fort Frontenac in Western New York, and thence to Montreal to repair the loss of his vessel, the Griffin.
In the meanwhile the Jesuit faction, engaged in fierce competition with him in securing the peltry trade of the Indians, and jealous of La Salle's success, and the English of the Atlantic border, striving to overreach the French in securing both territory and trade, united in stirring up the Iroquois to assault La Salle's Illinois allies in his absence. "Suddenly," says Parkman, " the village was awakened from its lethargy as by the crash of a thunderbolt. A Shawanoe, lately here on a visit, had left his Illinois friends to return home. He now reappeared, crossing the river in hot haste with the announcement that he had met on his way an army of Iroquois approaching to attack them. All was panie and con- fusion. The lodges disgorged their fright- ened inmates; women
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