USA > Illinois > Vermilion County > History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources > Part 12
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"All of these tribes use a vast quantity of vermilion. The women wear clothing, the men very little. The River Ohio, or Beautiful river, is the route which the Iroquois take. It would be of importance that they should not have such intercourse, as it is very dangerous. Atten- tion has been called to this matter long since, but no notice has been taken of it."
* The "Le Gros," that is, The Great (village), was probably "Chip-pe-co-ke," or the town of "Brush-wood," the name of the old village at Vincennes, which was the principal city of the Piankashaws.
t The village here described is Ouatanon, which was situated a few miles below La Fayette, near which, though on the opposite or north bank of the Wabash, the Stockade Fort of "Ouatanon " was established by the French.
CHAPTER XIII.
ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS-THE SEVERAL ILLINOIS TRIBES.
THE Indians who lived in and elaimed the territory to which our attention is directed were the several tribes of the Illinois and Miami confederacies,- the Pottawatomies, the Kickapoos and scattered bands of Shawnees and Delawares. Their title to the soil had to be extin- guished by conquest or treatise of purchase before the country could be settled by a higher civilization ; for the habits of the two races, red and white, were so radically different that there could be no fusion, and they could not, or rather did not, live either happily or at peace together.
We proceed to treat of these several tribes, observing the order in which their names have been mentioned ; and we do so in this eon- nection for the reason that it will aid toward a more ready under- standing of the subjects which are to follow.
The Illinois were a subdivision of the great Algonquin family. Their language and manners differed somewhat from other surround- ing tribes, and resembled most the Miamis, with whom they originally bore a very close affinity. Before Joliet and Marquette's voyage to the Mississippi, all of the Indians who came from the sonth to the mission at La Pointe, on Lake Superior, for the purposes of barter, were by the French called Illinois, for the reason that the first Indians who came to La Pointe from the south " called themselves Illinois." *
In the Jesuit Relations the name Illinois appears as " Illi-mouek," " Illinoues," " Ill-i-ne-wek," " Allin-i-wek " and "Lin-i-wek." By Father Marquette it is "Ilinois," and IIennepin has it the same as it is at the present day. The ois was prononneed like our way, so that ouai, ois, wek and ouek were almost identical in pronunciation.+ " Willinis " is Lewis Evans' orthography. Major Thomas Forsyth, who for many years was a trader and Indian agent in the territory, and subsequently the state, of Illinois, says the Confederation of Illinois
* As we have given the name of Ottawas to all the savages of these countries, al- though of different nations, because the first who have appeared among the French have been Ottawas; so also it is with the name of the Illinois, very numerous, and dwelling toward the south, because the first who have come to the " point of the Holy Ghost for commerce called themselves Illinois."-Father Claude Dablon, in the Jesuit Relations for 1670, 1671.
+ Note by Dr. Shea in the article entitled "The Indian Tribes of Wisconsin," fur- nished by him for the Historical Society of Wisconsin, and published in Vol. III of their collections, p. 128.
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
" called themselves Linneway."- which is almost identical with the Lin-i-wek of the Jesuits, having a regard for its proper pronuncia- tion .- " and that by others they were called Minneway, signifying men," and that their confederacy embraced the combined Illinois and Miami tribes : " that all these different bands of the Minneway nation spoke the language of the present Miamis, and the whole considered them- selves as one and the same people, yet from their local situation, and having no standard to go by, their language became broken up into different dialects." " They were by the Iroquois called "Chick-tugh- icks."
Many theories have been advanced and much fine speculation in- dulged in concerning the origin and meaning of the word Illinois. We have seen that the Illinois first made themselves known to the French by that name, and we have never had a better signification of the name than that which the Illinois themselves gave to Fathers Mar- quette and IIennepin. The former, in his narrative journal, observes : "To say Illinois is, in their language, to say ' the men,' as if other Indians, compared to them, were mere beasts." + "The word Illinois signifies a man of full age in the vigor of his strength. This word Illi- nois comes, as it has already been observed, from Illini, which in the language of that nation signifies a perfect and accomplished man." #
Subsequently the name Illini, Linneway, Willinis or Illinois, with more propriety became limited to a confederacy, at first composed of four subdivisions, known as the Kaskaskias. Cahokias, Tamaroas and Peorias. Not many years before the discovery of the Mississippi by the French, a foreign tribe, the Metchigamis, nearly destroyed by wars with the Sacs to the north and the Chickasaws to the south, to save themselves from annihilation appealed to the Kaskaskias for admission into their confederacy. The request was granted, and the Metchiga- inis left their homes on the Osage river and established their villages on the St. Francis, within the limits of the present State of Missouri and below the month of the Kaskaskia.
The subdivision of the Illinois proper into cantons, as the French writers denominate the families or villages of a nation. like that of other tribes was never very distinct. There were no villages exclu- sively for a separate branch of the tribe. Owing to intermarriage, adoption and other processes familiar to modern civilization, the sub-
* Life of Black-Hawk, by Benjamin Drake, seventh edition. pp. 16 and 17.
t Shea's Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley. p. 25.
* Hennepin's Discovery of America. pp. 35 and 119, London edition, 1698.
$ Charlevoix's " Narrative Journal. "Vol. II. p. 228. Also note of B. F. French, p. 61 of Vol. III. First Series of Historical Collections of Louisiana.
t
107
LOCATION OF VILLAGES.
tribal distinctions were not well preserved; and when Charlevoix, that acute observer, in 1721 visited these several Illinois villages near Kas- kaskia, their inhabitants were so mixed together and confounded that it was almost impossible to distinguish the different branches of the tribe from each other .*
The first accounts we have of the Illinois are given by the Jesuit missionaries. In the "Relations " for the year 1655 we find that the Lin-i-onek are neighbors of the Winnebagoes; again in the " Rela- tions " for the next year, " that the Illinois nation dwell more than sixty leagues from here, t and beyond a great river, # which as near as can be conjectured flows into the sea toward Virginia. These people are warlike. They use the bow, rarely the gun, and never the canoe.
When Joliet and Marquette were descending the Mississippi, they found villages of the Illinois on the Des Moines river, and on their return they passed through larger villages of the same nation situated on the Illinois river, near Peoria and higher up the stream.
While the Illinois were nomads, though not to the extent of many other tribes, they had villages of a somewhat permanent character, and when they moved after game they went in a body. It would seem from the most authentic accounts that their favorite abiding places were on the Illinois river, from the Des Plaines down to its confluence with the Mississippi, and on the Mississippi from the Kaskaskia to the mouth of the Ohio. This beautiful region abounded in game; its riv- ers were well stocked with fish, and were frequented by myriads of wild fowls. The elimate was mild. The soil was fertile. By the mere turning of the sod, the lands in the rich river bottoms yielded bountiful crops of Indian corn, melons and squashes.
In disposition and morals the Illinois were not to be very highly commended. Father Charlevoix, speaking of them as they were in 1700, says: " Missionaries have for some years directed quite a flour- ishing church among the Illinois, and they have ever since continued to instruct that nation, in whom christianity had already produced a change such as she alone can produce in morals and disposition. Before the arrival of the missionaries, there were perhaps no Indians in any part of Canada with fewer good qualities and more vices. They have
* " These tribes are at present very much confounded, and are become very inconsid- erable. There remains only a very small number of Kaskaskias, and the two villages of that name are almost entirely composed of Tamaroas and Metchigamis, a foreign nation adopted by the Kaskaskias, and originally settled on a small river you meet with going down the Mississippi."-Charlevoix' " Narrative Journal," Letter XXVIII, dated Kaskaskia, October 20, 1721; p. 228. Vol. II.
t The letter is sent from the Mission of the Holy Ghost, at La Pointe.
# The Mississippi.
108
HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
always been mild and docile enough, but they were cowardly, treach- erous, fickle, deceitful, thievish, brutal, destitute of faith or honor, selfish, addicted to gluttony and the most monstrous lusts, almost un- known to the Canada tribes, who accordingly despised them heartily, but the Illinois were not a whit less haughty or self-complacent on that account.
"Such allies could bring no great honor or assistance to the French : yet we never had any more faithful, and, if we except the Abénaqui tribes, they are the only tribe who never sought peace with their ene- mies to our prejudice. They did, indeed, see the necessity of our aid to defend themselves against several nations who seemed to have sworn their ruin, and especially against the Iroquois and Foxes, who, by con- stant harrassing, have somewhat trained them to war, the former taking home from their expeditions the vices of that corrupt nation." *
Father Charlevoix' comments upon the Illinois confirm the state- ments of Hennepin, who says : "They are lazy vagabonds, timorous, pettish thieves, and so fond of their liberty that they have no great respect for their chiefs."+
Their cabins were constructed of mats, made out of flags, spread over a frame of poles driven into the ground in a circular form and drawn together at the top.
" Their villages," says Father Hennepin,+ "are open, not enclosed with palisades because they had no courage to defend them ; they would flee as they heard their enemies approaching." Before their acquaint- ance with the French they had no knowledge of iron and fire-arms. Their two principal weapons were the bow and arrow and the club. Their arrows were pointed with stone, and their tomahawks were made out of stag's horns, cut in the shape of a cutlass and terminating in a large ball. In the use of the bow and arrow, all writers agree, that the Illinois excelled all neighboring tribes. For protection against the missles of an enemy they used bucklers composed of buffalo hides stretched over a wooden frame.
In form they were tall and lithe. They were noted for their swift- ness of foot. They wore moccasins prepared from buffalo hides ; and, in summer, this generally completed their dress. Sometimes they wore a small covering, extending from the waist to the knees. The rest of the body was entirely nude.
The women, beside cultivating the soil, did all of the household drudgery, carried the game and made the clothes. The garments
* Charlevoix's " History of New France," vol. 5, page 130.
+ Hennepin, page 132, London edition, 1698.
# Page 132.
109
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
were prepared from buffalo hides, and from the soft wool that grew upon these animals. Both the wool and hides were dyed with bril- liant colors, black, yellow or vermilion. In this kind of work the Illinois women were greatly in advance of other tribes. Articles of dress were sewed together with thread made from the nerves and ten- dons of deer, prepared by exposure to the sun twice in every twenty- four hours. After which the nerves and tendons were beaten so that their fibers would separate into a fine white thread. The clothing of the women was something like the loose wrappers worn by ladies of the present day. Beneath the wrapper were petticoats, for warmth in winter. With a fondness for finery that characterizes the feminine sex the world over, the Illinois women wore head-dresses, contrived more for ornament than for use. The feet were covered with moccasins, and leggings decorated with quills of the porcupine stained in colors of brilliant contrasts. Ornaments, fashioned ont of clam shells and other hard substances, were worn about the neck, wrists and ankles ; these, with the face, hands and neck daubed with pigments, completed the toilet of the highly fashionable Illinois belle.
Their food consisted of the scanty products of their fields, and prin- cipally of game and fish, of which, as previously stated, there was in their country a great abundance. Father Allouez, who visited them in 1673, stated that they had fourteen varieties of herbs and forty-two varieties of fruits which they use for food. Their plates and other dishes were made of wood, and their spoons were constructed out of buffalo bones. The dishes for boiling food were earthen, sometimes glazed .*
From all accounts, it seems that the Illinois claimed an extensive traet of country, bounded on the east by the ridge that divides the waters flowing into the Illinois from the streams that drain into the Wabash above the head waters of Saline creek, and as high up the Illi- nois as the Des Plaines, extending westward of the Mississippi, and reaching northward to the debatable ground between the Illinois, Chippeways, Winnebagoes, Sacs and Foxes. Their favorite and most populous cities were on the Illinois river, near Starved Rock, and
* The account we have given of the manners, habits and customs of the Illinois is compiled from the following authorities : La Hontan, Charlevoix, Hennepin, Tonti, Marquette, Joutel, the missionaries Marest, Rasles and Allouez. Besides, the historic letter of Marest, found in Kip's Jesuit Missions, is another from this distinguished priest, written from Kaskaskia to M. Bienville, and incorporated in Penicaut's Annals of Louisiana, a translation of which is contained in the Historical Collections of Louisi- ana and Florida, by B. F. French. In this letter of Father Marest, dated in 1711, is a very fine description of the customs of the Illinois Indians, and their prosperous condi- tion at Kaskaskia and adjacent villages.
110
HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
below as far as Peoria. The missionary station founded by Father Marquette was, in all probability, near the latter place.
Prior to the year 1700, Father Marest had charge of a mission at the neck, strait or narrows of Peoria lake. In Peoria lake, above Peoria, is a contracted channel, and this is evidently referred to by Father Gravier in his " Narrative Journal" where he states : "I ar- rived too late at the Illinois du Detroit, of whom Father Marest has charge, to prevent the transmigration of the village of the Kaskaskias, which was too precipitately made on vague news of the establishment on the Mississippi. I do not believe that the Kaskaskias would have thus separated from the Peouaroua and other Illinois du Detroit. At all events, I came soon enough to unite minds a little, and to prevent the insult which the Peonaroua and the Monin-gouena were bent on offering to the Kaskaskias and French as they embarked. I spoke to all the chiefs in full council, and as they continued to preserve some respect and good will for me, we separated very peaceably. But I argue no good from this separation, which I have always hindered, seeing too clearly the evil results. God grant that the road from Chikagoua to this strait " (au Detroit) "be not closed, and the whole Illinois mission suffer greatly. I avow to you, Reverend Father, that it rends my heart to see my old flock thus divided and dispersed, and I shall never see it, after leaving it, without having some new cause of affliction. The Peonaroua, whom I left without a missionary (since Father Marest has followed the Kaskaskias), have promised me that they would preserve the church, and that they would await my return from the Mississippi, where I told them I went only to assure myself of the truth of all that was said about it." *
The area of the original country of the Illinois was reduced by continuous wars with their neighbors. The Sioux forced them east- ward ; the Sac and Fox, and other enemies, encroached upon them from the north, while war parties of the foreign Iroquois, from the east, rapidly decimated their numbers. These unhappy influences were doing
* Father Gravier's Journal in Shea's Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi, pp. 116 and 117. Dr. Shea, in a foot note, p. 116, says: "This designation (Illinois Du Detroit) does not appear elsewhere, and I cannot discover what strait is referred to. It evidently includes the Peorias."
Dr. Shea's conjecture is very nearly correct. The narrows in Peoria lake retained the appellation of Little Detroit, a name handed down from the French-Canadians. Dr. Lewis Beck, in his "Gazetteer of Illinois and Missouri," p. 124, speaks of "Little Detroit, an Indian village situated on the east bank of lake Peoria, six miles above Ft. Clark." On the map prefixed to the Gazetteer prepared in 1820 the contraction of the lake is shown and designated as " Little Detroit."
We have seen from extracts from Father Marquette's Journal, quoted on a preced- ing page, that it was the Kaskaskias at whose village this distinguished missionary promised to return and to establish a mission, and that with the ebbing out of his life he fulfilled his engagement. From Father Gravier's Journal, just quoted, it is appar-
111
ATTACK OF THE IROQUOIS.
their fatal work, and the Illinois confederacy was in a stage of decline when they first came in contact with the French. Their afflictions made them accessible to the voice of the missionary, and in their weakness they hailed with delight the coming of the Frenchman with his prom- ises of protection, which were assured by guns and powder. The mis- fortunes of the Illinois drew them so kindly to the priests, the coureurs des Bois and soldiers, that the friendship between the two races never abated ; and when in the order of events the sons of France had de- parted from the Illinois, their love for the departed Gaul was inculcated into the minds of their children.
The erection of Fort St. Louis on the Illinois, St. Joseph on the stream of that name, and the establishment at Detroit, for a while stayed the calamity that was to befall the Illinois. Frequent allusion has been made to the part the Iroquois took in the destruction of this powerful confederacy. For the gratification of the reader we give a condensed account of some of these Iroquois campaigns in the Illinois country. The extracts we take are from a memoir on the western Indians, by M. Du Chesneau,* dated at Quebec, September 13, 1681 : " To convey a correct idea of the present state of all those Indian na- tions it is necessary to explain the cause of the cruel war waged by the Iroquois for these three years past against the Illinois. The former were great warriors, cannot remain idle, and pretend to subject all other nations to themselves, and never want a pretext for commencing hos- tilities. The following was their assumed excuse for the present war : Going, about twenty years ago, to attack the Outagamis (Foxes), they met the Illinois and killed a considerable number of them. This continued during the succeeding years, and finally, having destroyed a great many, they forced them to abandon their country and seek refuge in very distant parts. The Iroquois having got quit of the Illinois, took no more trouble with them, and went to war against another nation called the Andostagnes.+ Pending this war the Illinois re- turned to their country, and the Iroquois complained that they had
ent that the mission had for some years been in successful operation at the combined village of the Kaskaskias, Peorias and Mouin-gonena, situated at the Du Detroit of the Illinois; and also that the Kaskaskias, hearing that the French were about to form es- tablishments on the lower Mississippi, in company with the French inhabitants of their ancient village, were in the act of going down the Mississippi at the time of Gravier's arrival, in September, 1700. All these facts taken together would seem to definitely locate the Mission of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the narrows, six miles above the present city of Peoria, which is upon the site of old Fort. Clark, and probably, from the topography of the locality, upon the east bank of the strait. In conclusion, we may add that the Kaskaskias were induced to halt in their journey southward upon the river, which has ever since borne their name; and the mission, transferred from the old Kaskaskias, above Peoria, retained the name of " The Immaculate Conception," etc.
* Paris Documents, vol. 9, pp. 161 to 166.
t The Eries, or Cats, were entirely destroyed by the Iroquois.
112
HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
killed forty of their people who were on their way to hunt beaver in the Illinois country. To obtain satisfaction. the Iroquois resolved to make war upon them. Their true motive, however, was to gratify the English at Manatte # and Orange, + of whom they are too near neigh- bors, and who, by means of presents, engaged the Iroquois in this ex- pedition, the object of which was to force the Illinois to bring their beaver to them, so that they may go and trade it afterward to the English ; also, to intimidate the other Indians, and constrain them to to do the same thing.
" The improper conduct of Sieur de la Salle. + governor of Fort Frontenac, has contributed considerably to cause the latter to adopt this proceeding ; for after he had obtained permission to discover the Great River Mississippi, and had. as he alleged, the grant of the Illinois, he no longer observed any terms with the Iroquois. He ill- treated them, and avowed that he would convey arms and ammunition to the Illinois, and would die assisting them.
"The Iroquois dispatched in the month of April of last year, 1680, an army, consisting of between five and six hundred men, who ap- proached an Illinois village where Sieur Tonty, one of Sieur de la Salle's men happened to be with some Frenchmen and two Recollect fathers, whom the Iroquois left unharmed. One of these, a most holy man, § has since been killed by the Indians. But they would listen to no terms of peace proposed to them by Sienr de Tonty, who was slightly wounded at the beginning of the attack : the Illinois having fled a hundred leagues thence, were pursued by the Iroquois, who killed and captured as many as twelve hundred of them, including women and children, having lost only thirty men.
"The victory achieved by the Iroquois rendered them so insolent that they have continued ever since that time to send out divers war parties. The success of these is not yet known, but it is not doubted that they have been successful, because those tribes are very warlike and the Illi- nois are but indifferently so. Indeed. there is no doubt, and it is the universal opinion, that if the Iroquois are allowed to proceed they will subdue the Illinois, and in a short time render themselves masters of all the Ontawa tribes and divert the trade to the English. so that it is absolutely essential to make them our friends or to destroy them."
New York.
t Albany. New York.
# It must be remembered that La Salle was not exempt from the jealousy and envy which is inspired in souls of little men toward those engaged in great undertakings : and we see this spirit manifested here. La Salle could not have done otherwise than supply fire-arms to the Illinois, who were his friends and the owners of the country. the trade of which he had opened up at great hardship and expense to himself. $ Gabriel Ribourde.
113
DEFEAT OF THE IROQUOIS.
The Iroquois were not always successful in their western forays. Tradition records two instances in which they were sadly discomfited. The first was an encounter with the Sionx, on an island in the Missis- sippi, at the mouth of the Des Moines. The tradition of this engage- ment is preserved in the curious volumes of La Hontan, and is as fol- lows : " March 2nd, 1689, I arrived in the Mississippi. To save the labor of rowing we left our boats to the current, and arrived on the tenth in the island of Rencontres, which took its name from the defeat of four hundred Iroquois accomplished there by three hundred Nadouessis (Sioux). The story of the encounter is briefly this: A party of four hundred Iroquois having a mind to surprise a certain people in the neighborhood of the Otentas (of whom more anon), marched to the country of the Illinois, where they built canoes and were furnished with provisions. After that they embarked upon the river Mississippi, and were discovered by another little fleet that was sailing down the other side of the same river. The Iroquois crossed over immediately to that island which is sinee called Aux Rencontres. The Nadouessis, i. e., the other little fleet, being suspicious of some ill design, without knowing what people they were (for they had no knowledge of the Iroquois but by hear-say) - upon this suspicion, I say, they tugged hard to come up with them. The two armies posted themselves upon the point of the island, where the two crosses are put down in the map,* and as soon as the Nadonessis came in sight, the Iroquois cried out in the Illinese language : . Who are ye?' To which the Nadonessis answered, 'Somebody'; and putting the same question to the Iroquois, received the same answer. Then the Iroquois put this question to 'em : 'Where are you going ?' 'To hunt buffalo,' answered the Na- douessis ; ' but, pray,' says the Nadouessis, ' what is your business ?' ' To hunt men,' reply'd the Iroquois. . 'Tis well," says the Nadouessis ; ' we are men, and so you need go no farther.' Upon this challenge, the two parties disembarked, and the leader of the Nadouessis cut his canoes to pieces, and, after representing to his warriors that they be- hoved either to conquer or die, marched up to the Iroquois, who received them at first onset with a cloud of arrows. But the Nadou- essis having stood their first discharge, which killed eighty of them, fell in upon them with their clubs in their hands before the others conld charge again, and so routed them entirely. This engagement lasted for two hours, and was so hot that two hundred and sixty Iro- quois fell upon the spot, and the rest were all taken prisoners. Some of the Iroquois, indeed, attempted to make their escape after the action
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