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 13
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* On La Hontan's map the place marked is designated by an island in the Missis- sippi, immediately at the mouth of the Des Moines.
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
was over; but the victorious general sent ten or twelve of his mnen to pursue them in one of the canoes that he had taken, and accordingly they were all overtaken and drowned. The Nadonessis having ob- tained this victory, ent off the noses and ears of two of the cleverest prisoners, and supplying them with fusees, powder and ball, gave them the liberty of returning to their own country, in order to tell their countrymen that they ought not to employ women to hunt after men any longer."*
The second tradition is that of a defeat of a war party of Iroquois upon the banks of the stream that now bears the name of " Iroquois River." Father Charlevoix, in his Narrative Journal, referring to his passage down the Kankakee, in September, 1721, allndes to this defeat of the Iroquois in the following language: "I was not a little sur- prised at seeing so little water in the The-a-ki-ki, notwithstanding it receives a good many pretty large rivers, one of which is more than a hundred and twenty feet in breadth at its mouth, and has been called the River of the Iroquois, because some of that nation were surprised on its banks by the Illinois who killed a great many of them. This check mortified them so much the more, as they held the Illinois in great contempt, who, indeed, for the most part are not able to stand before them." +
The tradition has been given with fuller particulars to the author, by Colonel Guerdon S. Hubbard, as it was related by the Indians to him. It has not as yet appeared in print, and is valuable as well as interesting, inasmuch as it explains why the Iroquois River has been so called for a period of nearly two centuries, and also because it gives the origin of the name Watseka.
The tradition is substantially as follows: Many years ago the Iro- quois attacked an Indian village situated on the banks of the river a few miles below the old county seat,- Middleport,-and drove out the occupants with great slaughter. The fugitives were collected in the night time some distance away, lamenting their disaster. A wo- man, possessing great courage, urged the men to return and attack the Iroquois, saying the latter were then rioting in the spoils of the village and exulting over their victory; that they would not expect danger from their defeated enemy, and that the darkness of the night would prevent their knowing the advance upon them. The warriors refused to go. The woman then said that she would raise a party of squaws and return to the village and fight the Iroquois; adding that death or captivity would be the fate of the women and children on the morrow,
* La Hontan's New Voyages to America, vol. 1, pp. 128, 129.
+ Charlevoix' Narrative Journal, vol. 2, p. 199.
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INDIAN LEGEND.
and that they might as well die in an effort to regain their village and property as to submit to a more dreadful fate. She called for volun- teers and the women came forward in large numbers. Seeing the bravery of their wives and daughters the men were ashamed of their cowardice and became inspired with a desperate courage. A plan of attack was speedily formed and successfully executed. The Iroquois, taken entirely nnawares, were surprised and utterly defeated.
The name of the heroine who suggested and took an active part in this act of bold retaliation, bore the name of Watch-e-kee. In honor of her bravery and to perpetuate the story of the engagement, a coun- cil of the tribe was convened which ordained that when Watch-e-kee died her name should be bestowed upon the most accomplished maiden of the tribe, and in this way be handed down from one generation to another. By such means have the name and the tradition been pre- served.
The last person who bore this name was the daughter of a Potta- watomie chief, with whose band Col. Hubbard was intimately associ- ated as a trader for many years. She was well known to many of the old settlers in Danville and upon the Kankakee. She was a person of great beauty, becoming modesty, and possessed of superior intelligence. She had great influence among her own people and was highly re- speeted by the whites. She accompanied hier tribe to the westward of the Mississippi, on their removal from the state. The present county seat of Iroquois county is named after her, and Col. Hubbard advises the author that Watseka, as the name is generally spelled, is incorrect, and that the orthography for its true pronunciation should be Watch-e- kee .*
We resume the narration of the decline of the Illinois: La Salle's fortification at Starved Rock gathered about it populous villages of Illinois, Shawnees, Weas, Piankeshaws and other kindred tribes, shown on Franquelin's map as the Colonie Du Sr. de la Salle.t The Iroquois were barred out of the country of the Illinois tribes, and the latter enjoyed security from their old enemies. La Salle himself, speaking of his success in establishing a colony at the Rock, says : "There would be nothing to fear from the Iroquois when the nations of the south,
* The Iroquois also bore the name of Can-o-wu-ga, doubtless an Indian name. It had another aboriginal name, Mocabella (which was, probably. a French-Canadian cor- ruption of the Kickapoo word Mo-qua), signifying a bear. Beck's Illinois and Mis- souri Gazetteer, p. 90. The joint commission appointed by the legislatures of Indiana and Illinois to run the boundary line between the two states, in their report in 1821. and upon their map deposited in the archives at Indianapolis, designate the Iroquois by the name of Pick-a-mink River. They also named Sugar Creek after Mr. McDon- ald, of Vincennes, Indiana, who conducted the surveys for the commission.
t This part of Franquelin's map appears in the well executed frontispiece of Park- insons Discovery of the Great West.
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
strengthened through their intercourse with the French, shall stop their conquest, and prevent their being powerful by carrying off a great number of their women and children, which they can easily do from the inferiority of the weapons of their enemies. As respects com- merce, that post will probably increase our traffic still more than has been done by the establishment of Fort Frontenac, which was built with success for that purpose ; for if the Illinois and their allies were to cateli the beavers which the Iroquois now kill in the neighborhood in order to carry them to the English, the latter not being any longer able to get them from their own colonies would be obliged to buy from ns, to the great benefit of those who have the privilege of this traffic. These were the views which the Sieur de la Salle had in placing the settlement where it is. The colony has already felt its effects, as all our allies, who had fled after the departure of M. de Frontenac, have returned to their ancient dwellings, in consequence of the confidence caused by the fort, near which they have defeated a party of Iroquois, and have built four forts to protect themselves from hostile incursions. The Governor, M. de la Barre. and the intendant, M. de Muelles, have told Sienr de la Salle that they would write to Monseigneur to inform him of the importance of that fort in order to keep the Iroquois in check, and that M. de Sagny had proposed its establishment in 1678. Monsiegneur Colbert permitted Sieur de la Salle to build it, and granted it to him as a property." #
The fort at Le Rocher (the rock) was constructed on its summit in 1682, and enclosed with a palisade. It was subsequently granted to Tonti and Forest.+ It was abandoned as a military post in the year 1702; and when Charlevoix went down the Illinois in 1721 he passed the Rock, and said of it: "This is the point of a very high terrace stretching the space of two hundred paces, and bending or winding with the course of the river. This rock is steep on all sides, and at a distance one would take it for a fortress. Some remains of a palisado are still to be seen on it, the Illinois having formerly cast up an en- trenchment here, which might be easily repaired in case of any inter- ruption of the enemy."+
The abandonment of Fort St. Louis in 1702 was followed soon after by a dispersion of the tribes and remnants of tribes that La Salle and Tonti had gathered about it, except the straggling village of the Illinois.
*Memoir of the Sieur de la Salle, reporting to Monseigneur de Seingelay the dis- coveries made by him under the order of His Majesty. Historical Collections of Louisiana, Part I, p. 42.
+ Paris Documents, vol. 9, p. 494.
# Charlevoix' Narrative Journal, vol. 2, p. 200.
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DECLINE OF THE ILLINOIS.
The Iroquois eame no more subsequent to 1721, having war enough on their hands nearer home; but the Illinois were constantly harassed by other enemies; the Saes, Foxes, Kickapoos and Pottawatomies. In 1722 their villages at the Rock and on Peoria Lake were besieged by the Foxes, and a detachment of a hundred men under Chevalier de Artaguette and Sienr de Tisné were sent to their assistance. Forty of these French soldiers, with four hundred Indians, marched by land to Peoria Lake. However, before the reinforcements reached their des- tination they learned that the Foxes had retreated with a loss of more than a hundred and twenty of their men. "This success did not, however, prevent the Illinois, although they had only lost twenty men, with some women and children, from leaving the Rock and Pimiteony, where they were kept in constant alarm, and proceeding to unite with those of their brethren who had settled on the Mississippi ; this was a stroke of grace for most of them, the small number of missionaries preventing their supplying so many towns scattered far apart; but on the other side, as there was nothing to check the raids of the Foxes along the Illinois River, communication between Louisiana and New France became much less practicable."*
The fatal dissolution of the Illinois still proceeded, and their ancient homes and hunting grounds were appropriated by the more vigorous Sacs, Foxes, Pottawatomies and Kiekapoos. The killing of Pontiac at Cahokia, whither he had retired after the failure of his effort to rescue the country from the English, was laid upon the Illinois, a charge which, whether true or false, hastened the climax of their destruction.
General Harrison stated that "the Illinois confederacy was com- posed of five tribes: the Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Peorians, Michiganians and the Temarois, speaking the Miami language, and no doubt branches of that nation. When I was first appointed Governor of the Indiana Territory (May, 1800), these once powerful tribes were re- duced to about thirty warriors, of whom twenty-five were Kaskaskias, four Peorians, and a single Michiganian. There was an individual lately alive at St. Louis who saw the enumeration made of them by the Jesuits in 1745, making the number of their warriors four thou- sand. A furious war between them and the Sacs and Kickapoos reduced them to that miserable remnant which had taken refuge amongst the white people in the towns of Kaskaskia and St. Genieve."+
* History of New France, vol. 6, p. 71.
+ Official letter of Gen. Harrison to Hon. John Armstrong, Secretary of War, dated at Cincinnati, March 22, 1814: contained in Captain M'Afee's "History of the Late War in the Western Country."
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
By successive treaties their lands in Illinois were ceded to the United States, and they were removed west of the Missouri. In 1872 they had dwindled to forty souls-men, women and children all told.
Thus have wasted away the original occupants of the larger part of Illinois and portions of Iowa and Missouri. In 1684 their single vil- lage at La Salle's colony, could muster twelve hundred warriors. In the days of their strength they nearly exterminated the Winnebagoes, and their war parties penetrated the towns of the Iroquois in the valleys of the Mohawk and Genesee. They took the Metchigamis under their protection, giving them security against enemies with whom the latter could not contend. This people who had dominated over the surround- ing tribes, claiming for themselves the name Illini or Linneway, to rep- resent their superior manhood, have disappeared from the earth : another race, representing a higher civilization, occupy their ancient domains, and already, even the origin of their name and the location of their cities have become the subjects of speculation.
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CHAPTER XIV.
THE MIAMIS-THE MIAMI. PIANKESHAW, AND WEA BANDS.
THE people known to us as the Miamis formerly dwelt beyond the Mississippi, and, according to their own traditions, came originally from the Pacific. "If what I have heard asserted in several places be true, the Illinois and Miamis came from the banks of a very distant sea to the westward. It would seem that their first stand, after they made their first descent into this country, was at Moingona .* At least it is certain that one of their tribes bears that name. The rest are known under the name of Peorias, Tamaroas, Caoqnias and Kaskaskias."
The migration of the Miamis from the west of the Mississippi, eastward through Wisconsin and northern Illinois, around the sonth- ern end of Lake Michigan to Detroit, and thence up the Maumee and down the Wabash, and eastward through Indiana into Ohio as far as the Great Miami, can be followed through the mass of records handed down to us from the missionaries, travelers and officers connected with the French. Speaking of the mixed village of Maskontens, situated on Fox River, Wisconsin, at the time of his visit there in 1670, Father Clande Dablon says the village of the Fire-nation "is joined in the circle of the same barriers to another people, named Onmiami, which is one of the Illinois nations, which is, as it were, dismembered from the others, in order to dwell in these quarters.t It is beyond this great river # that are placed the Illinois of whom we speak, and from whom are detached those who dwell here with the Fire-nation to form here a transplanted colony."
From the quotations made there remains little doubt that the Mi- amis were originally a branch of the great Illinois nation. This theory is confirmed by writers of our own time, among whom we may men- tion General William H. Harrison, whose long acquaintance and official connection with the several bands of the Miamis and Illinois gave him
* Charlevoix' Narrative Journal, vol. 2, p. 227. Moingona, from undoubted authorities, was a name given to the Des Moines River; and we find on the original map, drawn by Marquette, the village of the Moingona placed on the Des Moines above a village of the Peorias on the same stream.
t Father Dablon is here describing the same village referred to by Father Mar- quette in that part of his Journal which we have copied on page 44.
# The Mississippi, of which the missionary had been speaking in the paragraph preceding that which we quote.
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
the opportunities, of which he availed himself. to acquire an intimate knowledge concerning them. "Although the language. manners and customs of the Kaskaskias make it sufficiently certain that they derived their origin from the same source with the Miamis. the connection had been dissolved before the French had penetrated from Canada to the Mississippi. "# The assertion of General Har- rison that the tribal relation between the Illinois and Miamis had been broken at the time of the discovery of the Upper Mississippi valley by the French is sustained with great unanimity by all other authorities. In the long and disastrous wars waged upon the Illinois by the Iroquois. Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos and other enemies. we have no instance given where the Miamis ever offered assistance to their ancient kinsmen. After the separation, on the contrary, they often lifted the bloody hatchet against them.
Father Dablon. in the narrative from which we have quoted, + gives a detailed account of the civility of the Miamis at Mascouten, and the formality and court routine with which their great chief was surrounded. "The chief of the Miamis, whose name was Tetin- choua, was surrounded by the most notable people of the village, who, assuming the role of courtiers, with civil posture full of defer- ence, and keeping always a respectful silence. magnified the great- ness of their king. The chief and his routine gave Father Dablon every mark of their most distinguished esteem. The physiognomy of the chief was as mild and as attractive as any one could wish to see : and while his reputation as a warrior was great. his features bore a softness which charmed all those who beheld him."
Nicholas Perrot, with Sieur de St. Lussin. dispatched by Talon, the intendant, to visit the westward nations, with whom the French had intercourse, and invite them to a council to be held the follow- ing spring at the Sault Ste. Marie, was at this Miami village shortly after the visit of Dablon. Perrot was treated with great consider- ation by the Miamis. Tatinchona " sent out a detachment to meet the French agent and receive him in military style. The detach- ment advanced in battle array. all the braves adorned with feathers. armed at all points, were uttering war cries from time to time. The Pottawatomies who escorted Perrot. seeing them come in this guise. prepared to receive them in the same manner, and Perrot put him- self at their head. When the two troops were in face of each other. they stopped as if to take breath. then all at once Perrot took the right. the Miamis the left. all running in Indian file, as though they wished to gain an advantage to charge.
* Memoirs of General Harrison, by Moses Dawson, p. 62.
t Relations, 1670, 1671.
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OF THE NAME MIAMI.
" But the Miamis wheeling in the form of an arc, the Pottawat- omies were invested on all sides. Then both uttered loud yells, which were the signals for a kind of combat. The Miamis fired a volley from their guns, which were only loaded with powder, and the Pottawatomies returned it in the same way; after this they closed, tomahawk in hand, all the blows being received on the tom- ahawks. Peace was then made ; the Miamis presented the calumet to Perrot, and led him with all his chief escort into the town, where the great chief assigned him a guard of fifty men, regaled him mag- nificently after the custom of the country, and gave him the diver- sion of a game of ball."# The Miami chief never spoke to his subjects, but imparted his orders through some of his officers. On account of his advanced age he was dissuaded from attending the council to be held at Ste. Marie, between the French and the Indians ; however, he deputized the Pottawatomies to act in his name.
This confederacy called themselves . Miamis, " and by this name were known to the surrounding tribes. The name was not bestowed upon them by the French, as some have assumed from its resem- blance to Mon-ami, because they were the friends of the latter. When Hennepin was captured on the Mississippi by a war party of the Sioux, these savages, with their painted faces rendered more hideous by the devilish contortions of their features, cried ont in angry voices, ". Mia-hama ! Mia-hama !' and we made signs with our oars upon the sand. that the Miamis, their enemies, of whom they were in search, had passed the river upon their flight to join the Illinois. "+
"The confederacy which obtained the general appellation of Miamis, from the superior numbers of the individual tribe to whom that name more properly belonged," were subdivided into three principal tribes or bands, namely, the Miamis proper, Weas and Piankeshaws. French writers have given names to two or three other subdivisions or families of the three principal bands, whose identity has never been clearly traced, and who figure so little in the accounts which we have of the Miamis, that it is not necessary here to specify their obsolete names. The different ways of writing
* History of New France, vol. 3, pp. 166, 167. Father Charlevoix improperly locates this village, where Perrot was received, at "Chicago, at the lower end of Lake Michigan, where the Miamis then were," page 166, above quoted. The Miamis were not then at Chicago. The reception of Perrot was at the mixed village on Fox River, Wisconsin, as stated in the text. The error of Charlevoix, as to the location of this village, has been pointed out by Dr. Shea, in a note on page 166, in the "History of New France," and also by Francis Parkman, in a note on page 40 of his " Discovery of the Great West."
+ Hennepin, p. 187.
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
Miamis are : Oumiamwek. # Oumamis, + Maumees, + Au-Miami § (contracted to Au-Mi and Omee) and Mine-ami.[
The French called the Weas Ouiatenons, Svatanons. Ouvatanons and Quias : the English and Colonial traders spelled the word, Onicatanon," Way-ough-ta nies, ** Wawiachtens. ++ and Wehahs. ++
For the Piankeshaws, or Pou-an-ke-ki-as, as they were called in the earliest accounts, we have Peanguichias, Pian-gui-shaws, Pyan- ke-shas and Pianquishas.
The Miami tribes were known to the Iroquois, or Five Nations of New York, as the Twight-wees, a name generally adopted by the British, as well as by the American colonists. Of this name there are various corruptions in pronunciation and spelling. examples of which we have in "Twich-twichs," "Twick-twicks." "Twis-twicks," "Twigh-twees." and "Twick-tovies." The insertion of these many names, applied to one people, would seem a tedious superfluity. were it otherwise possible to retain the identity of the tribes to which these different appellations have been given by the French, British and American officers, traders and writers. It will save the reader much perplexity in pursuing a history of the Miamis if it is borne in mind that all these several names refer to the Miami nation or to one or the other of its respective bands.
Besides the colony mentioned by Dablon and Charlevoix, on the Fox River of Wisconsin, Hennepin informs us of a village of Miamis south and west of Peoria Lake at the time he was at the latter place in 1679, and it was probably this village whose inhabit- ants the Sioux were seeking. St. Cosmie, in 1699, mentions the "village of the . Peanzichias-Miamis, who formerly dwelt on the
of the Mississippi, and who had come some years previous and settled ' on the Illinois River, a few miles below the confluence of the Des Plaines." $$
The Miamis were within the territory of La Salle's colony. of which Starved Rock was the center, and counted thirteen hundred warriors. The Weas and Piankeshaws were also there, the former having five hundred warriors and the Piankeshaw band one hundred and fifty. This was prior to 1687." At a later day the Weas " were
at Chicago, but being afraid of the canoe people, left it." Sieur de Courtmanche, sent westward in 1701 to negotiate with the tribes in that part of New France, was at " Chicago, where he found some
* Marquette. + La Hontan. # Gen. Harrison. § Gen. Harmar. | Lewis Evans. George Croghan's Narrative Journal. ** Croghan's List of Indian Tribes.
John Heckwelder, a Moravian Missionary. ## Catlin's Indian Tribes.
$$ St. Cosmie's Journal in "Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi," p. 58. Parkman's Discovery of the Great West, note on p. 290.
[ Memoir on the Indian tribes, prepared in 1718: Paris Documents, vol. 9, p. 890.
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AT WAR WITH THE SIOUX.
Weas (Quiatanons), a Miami tribe, who had sung the war-song against the Sioux and the Iroquois. He obliged them to lay down their arms and extorted from them a promise to send deputies to Montreal." *
In a letter dated in 1721, published in his " Narrative Journal," Father Charlevoix, speaking of the Miamis about the head of Lake Michigan, says : " Fifty years ago the Miamis were settled on the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, in a place called Chicagou, from the name of a small river which runs into the lake, the source of which is not far distant from that of the river of the Illinois ; they are at present divided into three villages. one of which stands on the river St. Joseph. the second on another river which bears their name and runs into Lake Erie, and the third upon the river Ouabache, which empties its waters into the Mississippi. These last are better known by the appellation of Onyatanons." +
In 1694, Count Frontenac, in a conference with the Western In- dians, requested the Miamis of the Pepikokia band who resided on the Maramek.# to remove, and join the tribe which was located on the Saint Joseph, of Lake Michigan. The reason for this request, as stated by Frontenac himself, was, that he wished the different bands of the Miami confederacy to unite, " so as to be able to exe- cute with greater facility the commands which he might issue." At that time the Iroquois were at war with Canada, and the French were endeavoring to persuade the western tribes to take up the tom- ahawk in their behalf. The Miamis promised to observe the Gov- ernor's wishes and began to make preparations for the removal. § " Late in August, 1696, they started to join their brethren settled on the St. Joseph. On their way they were attacked by the Sioux, who killed several. The Miamis of the St. Joseph, learning this hostility, resolved to avenge their slaughter. They pursued the Sioux to their own country, and found them entrenched in their fort with some Frenchmen of the class known as coureurs des bois (bush- lopers). They nevertheless attacked them repeatedly with great res- olution, but were repulsed, and at last compelled to retire, after losing several of their braves. On their way home, meeting other Frenchmen carrying arms and ammunition to the Sioux, they seized all they had, but did them no harm."
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