USA > Illinois > Grundy County > History of Grundy County, Illinois > Part 14
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and children screamed; startled warriors snatched their weapons. There were less than five hun- dred of them, for the greater part of the young men had gone to war." Here Tonti, La Salle's able lientenant, left in charge of the fort, found himself weakened by the early desertion of most of his force, and now an object of suspicion to his allies, in an awkward and dangerous predicament. Undaunted by the untoward circumstances, he joined the Illinois, and when the Iroquois came upon the scene, in the midst of the savage melee, faced the 580 warriors and declared that the Illinois were under the protection of the French King and the Governor of Canada, and demanded that they should be left in peace, backing his
words with the statement that there were 1,200 of the Illinois and 60 Frenehmen across the river. These representations had the effect of checking the ardor of the attacking savages, and a temporary truce was effected. It was evident that the truce was but a ruse on the part of the Iroquois to gain an opportunity to test the truth of Tonti's statements, and no sooner had the Illinois retired to their village on the north side of the river than numbers of the invad- ing tribes, on the pretext of seeking food, crossed the river and gathered in increasing numbers about the village. The Illinois knew the design of their foe too well, and, hastily embarking, they set fire to their lodges, and retired down the river, when the whole band of Iroquois crossed over, and finished their work of havoc at their leisure. The Illinois, in the meanwhile, lulled into a false security, divided into small bauds in search of food. One of their tribes, the Tamoroas, " had the fatuity to remain near the month of the Illinois, where they were assailed by all the force of the Iroquois. The men ffed, and very few of them were killed; but the women and children were captured to the number, it is said, of seven hundred," many of whom were put. to death with horrible tortures. Soon after the retreat of the Illinois, the Iroquois discovered the deception of the Frenehmen, and only the wholesome fear they had of the French Governor's power restrained their venting their rage upon Tonti and his two or three companions, As it was, they were dismissed, and bidden to return to Canada.
It was in the wake of these events that La Salle returned in the winter of 1680 and found this once populous village devastated
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and deserted, surrounded by the frightful evidences of savage carnage. Disheartened but not cast down, he at once set abont re- pairing his fortunes. Discerning at once the means and object of his enemies he set about building up a bulwark to stay a sec- ond assault. Returning to Fort Miami on the St. Joseph, by the borders of Lake Michigan, he sought to form a defensive league among the Indians whom he pro- posed to colonize on the site of the destroyed village of the Illinois. He found ready material at hand in remnants of tribes fresh from fields of King Phillip's war; he visited the Miamis and by his wonderful power won thein over to his plans; and then in the interval, before the tribes could arrange for their emigration, he launched out with a few followers and hurriedly ex- plored the Mississippi to the Gulf. Re- turning to Michillimackinac in September, 1682, where he had found Tonti in May of the previous year, La Salle, after directing his trusty lieutenant to repair to the Illinois, prepared to return to France for further supplies for his proposed colony, but learn- ing that the Iroquois were planning another incursion, he returned to the site of the destroyed village and with Tonti began in December, 1682, to build the Fort of St. Louis on the eminence which is now known in history as "starved rock." Thus the winter passed, and in the meanwhile, La Salle found employment for his active mind in conducting the negotiations which should result in reconciling the Illinois and the Mi- amis and in cementing the various tribes into a harmonious colony. The spring crowned his efforts with complete success. " La Salle looked down from his roeks on a con- course of wild human life. Lodges of bark
and rushes, or cabins of logs, were clustered on the open plain, or along the edges of the bordering forests. Squaws labored, war- riors lounged in the sun, naked children whooped and gamboled on the grass. Be- yond the river, a mile and a half on the left, the banks were studded once more with the lodges of the Illinois, who, to the number of six thousand, had returned, since their defeat, to this their favorite dwelling-place. Scattered along the valley, among the ad- jacent hills, or over the neighboring prairie, were the cantonments of a half score of other tribes, and fragments of tribes, gath- ered under the protecting aegis of the French,-Shawanoes, from the Ohio, Abc- nakis from Maine, and Miamis from the sources of the Kankakee."* In the mean- while, a party was sent to Montreal to seenre supplies and munitions to put the colony in a state of defense, which to the disappoint- ment and chagrin of the sorely beset leader, he learned had been detained by his enemies, who by a change of Governors had come into official power. Devolving the com-
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* "Discovery of the Great West." Third part. Franquelin's map finished in 1684 and reproduced in part in this work, adds some further particulars which may be of local interest. From the location of the tribes on this map, it is ascertaincd that the In- dian colony of La Salle, numbering, according to his representation to the French ministry, "about four thousand warriors or twenty thousand souls,"" occupied the country bordering both sides of the III :- nois, from the present site of Morris to the junction of the Big Bureau Creek. Of the tribes represented, the Illinois proper numbered 1,200 warriors; the Miamis, 1,300; the Shawanoes, 200; the Weas, 500; the Pepikokia, 160; the Kilatica, 300; Onabona, 70; the Piankishaws, 150; in all, 3,880 warriors. This latter tribe occupied the present site of Morris village, while northeastwardly to the margin of the lake, the country was occupied by the Kickapoos, and other friendly tribes.
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mand of the enterprise upon his faithful lieutenant, La Salle set out in November, 1683. for Canada and France, where he hoped to thwart his enemies and snatch suc- cess from the very jaws of defeat. Trinm- phant over his enemies, he returned to Ameriea in 1685, and after wandering inef- fectually for two years in the inhospitable wilderness of Texas, fell dead, pierced through the brain by the bullet of a treach- erous desperado of his own band. It was not until the latter part of 1688, that Tonti with grief and indignation learned of the death of La Salle. In 1690, Tonti received from the French government the proprie- torship of Fort St. Louis on the Illinois, where he continned in command until 1702, when by royal order the fort was abandoned and Tonti transferred to lower Louisiana. This fort was afterward re-occupied for a short time in 1718, by a party of traders, when it was finally abandoned.
Ilitherto, the Indians, faithful to the French, found vent for their savage nature in warfare upon their fellows, but events were rapidly hurrying forward the time when this state of affairs should be re- versed. In turn the French power here gave way to the English, and they to the Americans; these momentous changes manifesting themselves to the Indian world in little more than the change of the na- tional ensign on Fort Chartres. Upon the savages, however, a subtle change had been wrought. Unwillingly released from their fealty to the French, they became the fatal eats-paw of the warring whites. Ineited by the French to hostilities against the English, they easily turned against the Americans under the influence of British goods and gold. Other influences were
powerfully moving them to fulfill their des- tiny. The success of the American colo- nies in their war with the mother country, brought them in contact with the natives of the "far west." The whole Indian world viewed their conquests with alarm, and when the restless tide of emigration reached the natural boundary of the Ohio, tribal animosities were forgotten in the united struggle to hold the insatiable pale- faces at bay. In the meantime, the abandonment of Fort St. Louis followed by the removal of Kaskaskia and the erection of Fort Chartres had drawn the remnant which their savage enemies had left of the Illinois Confederation, to the southern part of the State, while their deserted lands were oceupied by the Sacs and Foxes, Pot- tawattomies and other tribes which the suceess of the Americans had foreed to find a new home.
The first cession of territory demanded of the tribes here was made by the treaty of Greenville. O., in 1795, consisting of " one piece of land, six miles square, at the mouth of Chicago River, emptying into the southwest end of Lake Michigan, where a fort formerly stood;" one piece 12 miles square near the mouth of the Illinois Riv- er; and one piece 6 miles square, at the old Peoria Fort and Village, near the south end of the Illinois Lake, on the said Illinois River."* In 1803 by a treaty at Vincennes the greater part of southern Illinois was eeded by the Illinois Confederation and other tribes; and by a treaty in the follow- ing year signed at St. Louis, the Sacs and Foxes ceded a great tract of country on
* At these points the National Government subse- quently erected Forts.
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both sides of the Mississippi, extending on the east bank from the mouth of the Illi- nois River to the head of that river, and thenee to the Wisconsin River. In 1816 a treaty was eoneluded with the "united tribes of Ottawas, Chippewas and Potta- wattomies," at St. Louis. The treaty reeites: "Whereas, a serious dispnte has for some time existed between the contraet- ing parties relative to the right to a part of the lands ceded to the United States by the tribes of Saes and Foxes, on the third of November, 1804, and both parties being desirous of preserving a harmonions and friendly intereourse, and of establishing permanent peace and friendship, have for the purpose of removing all difficulties, agreed to the following terms:" ete. The boundaries established by this treaty are the only ones that have found a place upon the published county maps of the State. The territory ceded is marked by lines drawn from a point on Lake Michigan ten miles north, and south of the mouth of Chi- cago Creek, and following the general di- rection of the Desplaines to a point north of the Illinois on the Fox River, ten miles from its mouth, and similarly on the south on the Kankakee River. This treaty, it will be observed, ceded only that part of Grundy County north of the river. In 1818, however, the Pottawatomies ceded the larger part of their remaining posses- sions in Illinois, and with other territory, the balance of Grundy County. The Indians did not at once abandon the territory thus ceded, but under a provision of these trea- ties lived and hunted here for years, while numerous reservations in favor of individuals and families made these rel- ies of a peculiar raee, like the dying embers
of a great fire, a familiar sight for years to many of the present generation.
The Indians found in and about Grundy County by the first settlers, were bands of the Pottawatomie tribe, and while owning but little allegiance to any chief, recognized in Shabbona and Wauponsee the represent- atives of tribal authority. The band of the latter made their home at one time on the Illinois River, near the month of Ma- zon Creek, in Grundy Connty, but in 1824 they moved to Paw Paw Grove. Waupon- see is represented as a large, muscular man, fully six feet and three inches in height. His head presented an unusual feature for an Indian, being entirely bald save a small scalp lock at the crown. In manner he was markedly reserved and gave frequent evidenees of an untamed savage disposition that needed only an opportunity to lapse into the cruel barbarity of earlier years.
He was a war-chief and claimed to be one hundred years old, though this statement was but little eredited by the whites. With the rest of his nation he was engaged in the battle of Tippecanoe and other Indian demonstrations in the following years. He is eredited by some as being the Wauban- see who befriended the family of Kinzie after the massacre at Fort Dearborn, but while such action, inconsistent as it is with the part he would naturally take in the attack upon the retreating garrison, it is not without parallel in Indian history. However, the strong impression is that these are two individuals. He moved with his band to the government reservations in the "far West" in 1839, signalizing his departure with a deed of barbarous cruelty that characterizes his memory here. This occurred in October, 1839, and is deseribed
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by L. W. Claypool, who had ample facili- ties for learning the truth, as follows: "James MeKeen residing on the north bank of the Kankakee River, a mile above the mouth, with a hired man, John Byers, had been burning logs in the afternoon. Some Indians asked the privilege of camp- ing there for the night, which was readily granted. In the evening they gathered in to the eamp to the number of some fifty, bringing a supply of whiskey. Soon Wan- ponsee and his family eame, having eamped the night before near our place (S. W. Sec. 20, 33, 7). My father and visited his camp, as he was leaving in the morning, and curiously observed their prep- arations for moving. His family con- sisted of one wife, of middle age-very attentive to his wants, adjusting pillows on his pack-saddle and assisting him on a stump to mount his pony; an old sqnaw- a wife evidently not in favor; a son, sixteen or cighiteen years old; son-in-law with wife and two or three children; and two slave sqnaws, poor, miserable, forlorn-looking wretehes in every respect.
" After supper McKeen and Byers went out to the fires where the Indians were having a drunken frolic. On approaching the Indians, they found a crowd of savages abont a log heap, with one of the slave squaws lying on the ground near the fire, Wauponsee stooping over her and talking in a low voice. Immediately after he gave a signal when the other slave came up, and buried a squaw-ax into the brains of the unfortunate victim. The body was re- moved to a pile of rails lying near, and being joined by other Indians the orgie was continued far into the night. In the morning the Indians broke camp and went
on their way, when MeKeen and Byers buried the unfortunate squaw on the banks of the Kankakce.
" The prevailing opinion here as to the reason for the deed, was that Wauponsee, realizing the truth of the old adage, 'Dead men tell no tales,' and that as their new reservation in the west joined that of the Winnebagos, to which tribe the squaw orig- inally belonged, fearing that her relatives might be moved to avenge her ill treatment received at his hands, ordered her execu- tion, and thus ' took a bond of fate.' " Wau- bonsie is said to have been killed by a party of the Sacs and Foxes for opposing them in the " Black Hawk War." " His sealp was taken off, the body mutilated, and left on the prairie to be devoured by wolves. " *
Shabbona, who shares with Shakespeare the distinction of having his name spelled in an endless number of ways, was born of Ottawa parents, on the Kankakee river in Will County, about 1775. In his youth he married the daughter of a Pottawatomie chief, who had his village on the Illinois a short distance above the mouth of the Fox River. Here at the death of Spotka, his father-in-law, he succeeded to the chieftain- ship of the band, which soon sought a more salubrious spot, and settled in De Kalb County, where he was found by the early settlers. Shabbona seems to have lacked none of those qualities which were required to command the respect and confidence of his band and yet he was possessed of rare dis- cernment and decision of character, which led him early to see that war with the whites was hopeless, and that the only hope
*" Memories of Shaubena, " by N. Matson.
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of the savage was to make the best terms possible with the inevitable. To this pol- iey, he was one of the first of his people to give earnest support, and onee committed to this line of action, he allowed no influ- ence, however strong, to swerve him from it for a moment.
Ile was easily influenced by the elo- qnence of Tecumseh, and became an ardent admirer and devoted personal attendant of that celebrated warrior. IIe was absent from the battle of Tippecanoe with Teeum- seh, and returned only to hear of the mas- saere at Fort Dearborn, and to assist in the defense of Kinzie on the following night. Believing that his nation would join the British in the war of 1812, he joined his hero-warrior, and aeted as aid to Teenmseh until the latter was killed. In the general pacification of the tribes after this war, Shabbona seems to have imbibed his peace poliey, to which he ever afterward adhered- While not gifted as an orator, his reputa- tion for honesty, fidelity to his nation, and good judgment, gave him a wide influence among the more warlike of his people, and in 1827, he rendered valuable service to the whites in dissuading the Pottawatomie nation from joining the Winnebago war. In 1832, when Black Hawk strove to unite the Indian nations in a combined attaek upon the whites, he met a fatal obstaele in the influence of Shabbona for peace. Not- withstanding every influence and induee- ment brought to bear upon him, the "white man's friend " stood firm, and was largely influential in bringing the aid of the Pottawatomies to the white forces. Subsequently, when " Black Hawk was be- trayed into hostilities, and the news of the Indians' first blow and snecess reached him,
he sent his son and nephew in different directions, while he went in still another, to warn the settlers of the impending dau- ger, thus saving the lives of many in the isolated settlements, a service for which he suffered the loss of his son and nephew at the hand of the enraged Saes and Foxes years afterward. In the military opera- tions which followed with Waubonsie, " Billy Caldwell " and a considerable num- ber of warriors, he enlisted with the army under Gen. Atkinson, who at onee placed him in command of the Indian contingent. After performing valued service, he retired with his band at the elose of the war, to his village in De Kalb County, where they remained to the date of their removal to the West in 1836.
In consideration ofhis services the nation- al government, beside many other tokens of esteein, reserved a traet of land for his use at Shabbona's Grove, and granted him a pension of $200 per annum. In the summer of 1836, however, the Indian agent notified him that his band must go to the lands assigned them in the West, as none but himself and family eould remain on the reservation. Much as he regretted to leave the scenes of his manhood, about which gathered his dearest memories, he could not consent to a separation from his band, and so in September, the whole band came to Main Burean Creek, and camping at the erossing of the Peoria and Galena road, they remained here about six weeks hunting and fishing. The government pro- posed to bear the expense of their removal as in the ease of other tribes, but Shabbona rejecting this offer, set out one October day with his band of about one hundred and forty-two souls and one hundred and six-
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ty ponies, for their lands in Western Kansas. Not long after this the government moved the Saes and Foxes from the reser- vation in Iowa to lands adjoining the Pot- tawatomies. These tribes entertained thie bitterest hostility against Shabbona for the part he took in the Black Hawk War, and Neopope, a chief of these tribes, had sworn to accomplish the destruction of the "white man's friend," together with his son and nephew. In the fall of 1837, Shabbona with his son and nephew and a few hunters went ont on the plains to hunt buffalo, when without the slightest appre- hension of danger they found themselves attacked by a band of the Sacs. Shabbona with his son Smoke and four hunters es- caped, but knowing that a relentless Nemesis was on his track, he left his band and returned with his family to his reservation in De Kalb County; this consisted of 1,280 aeres, most of which was fine timbered land. A clause of the treaty conveyed this, and other reservations granted them in fee simple, but the Senate struck out this clause making the property only a reservation. This faet escaped the notice of Shabbona, and in 1845 lie sold the larger part of his land and re- turned to Kansas to visit his band. It was soon discovered by designing persons that this transfer was illegal, and on the strength of representations made at Washington, the authorities declared the reservation vacant and the transfer void. On his return in 1851, he found his whole property seques- tered and himself homeless. This grove had been his home for nearly fifty years; here he had made the grave of his first squaw and two papooses, and here he had expected to lay his own bones. It was
natural that he should feel a deep sense of injury at this ungrateful requital of de- votion to the white race; but this was a new generation, the reservation had been technically abandoned, and none were greatly wronged save the Indian, who had not yet excited the romantie or humanita- rian interest of a later day, and broken- hearted he went out to a retired place to implore the Great Spirit, after the fashion of his tribe.
The case excited the interest of his early friends, who purchased a small tract of im- proved land, with house, ont-buildings and fencing, situated on the bank of the Illi- nois near Seneca in Grundy County. Here he lived in a wigwam, his family occupy- ing the house, until his death, at the age of eighty-four, on July 17, 1859. His re- mains were laid in lot 59, block 7, in the Morris cemetery with elaborate ceremony and grateful regard of the whole county. IIere rest also eight of his family, five of whom were his children or grandehildren.
Shortly after his death his family re- moved to their nation in the West, and while his land is held by the County Court in trust for the benefit of his heirs, there is no monument to mark the memory* of one whom General Cass onee introdneed to a distinguished audienec at Washington as, "Shabbona, the greatest red man of the
*There is in the Court House at Morris, a fine life sized oil portrait of Shabbona, representing him stand- ing and arrayed in a dress coat, presented to him at Washington -supplemented by Indian finery, which gives him a picturesque but noble appearance. This pietore is still the property of the artist, and it is to be regretted that the State or National authori- ties do not see fit to place it in a position to which its artistic merit and the high character of the subject richly entitle it.
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West." His grandson, Sinoke, is supposed to be acting as chief of his nation at this time.
An Indian relie which has given rise to many conjectures, is a cedar pole about six inehes in diameter at the base, and from twenty to twenty-five feet in height standing in the center of the largest of the ancient mounds found in the village of Morris. The pole stands at the lower end of Wan- ponsee street, its base protected by a close fitting piece of flagging, and surrounded by an iron fence. The universal respect on the part of the citizens for this monument of the past is, however, its surest protection. None of the Indians with whom the early settlers eame in contact could give satis- factory accounts of its erection (indeed they did not claim to know), until the engineers who surveyed the line of the canal made some investigations in this mound. Some members of this party made some unau- thorized explorations, and were rewarded by the discovery of some interesting Indian remains. The engineering party was sub- sequently joined by an Indian named Clark, who evidently belonged to the extinct Illinois nation, and of him Mr. A. J. Mat- thewson, the engineer in charge, obtained much valuable information, which he has embodied in a letter to L. W. Claypool, of Morris. By permission, the portion bear- ing upon matters of interest to this county is given as follows: Speaking of Clark,"when asked, he said-' Yes, the bones dug up at the cedar pole belonged to Nuequette, a celebrated chief who was killed upon the ground and buried in a dug-out'-a kind of rude trough which our boys found in 1837, and from which they took the bones, a bit of red rust which had once been a
knife blade, and circular ornaments in silver. His squaw, who died years after, lay beside him, her blanket intact, with a profusion of silver brooches and silver rings with green glass sets, upon the bones of two or three fingers of each hand. The threads of the blanket would crumble upon toneh, and yet the teeth and hair seemed nearly perfeet. The pole, a red cedar, was very old, full of curious euts and marks, giving in a rude way, as Clark said, the exploits of Nnequette. This brute had a story of his cruelties noted upon that pole, but the poor slave of a squaw lay there without a word being said of her. She was laid in her blanket,-nothing more.
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