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 16

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164

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 16

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The asparagus, the pea-vine and the woodbine preserved the identity of the spot against the encroachments of the returning for- ests until 1822, when Isaac McCoy established among the Pottawat- omies the Baptist mission called Carey, out of respect for the Rev. Mr. Carey, a missionary of the same church in Hindostan. "It is said that the Pottawatomies themselves selected this spot for Carey's mission. it being the site of their old village. This must have been very populous, as the remains of corn-hills are very visible at this time, and are said to extend over a thousand acres. The village was finally abandoned about fifty years ago (1773), but there are a few of the oldest of the nation who still recollect the sites of their respective huts. They are said to frequently visit the establishment and to trace with deep feeling a spot which is endeared to them." +

On a cold winter night in 1833 a traveler was ferried over the St. Joseph at the then straggling village of Niles. " Ascending the bank, a beautiful plain with a clump of trees here and there upon its surface opened to his view. The establishment of Carey's mission, a long, low, white building, could be distinguished afar off faintly in the moonlight, while several winter lodges of the Pottawatomies were plainly visible over the plain. "

Concerning the Pottawatomie village near Detroit, and also some of the customs peculiar to the tribe, we have the following account. It was written in 1718: $

" The fort of Detroit is south of the river. The village of the Pottawatomies adjoins the fort ; they lodge partly under Apaquois,

* Long's Second Expedition, vol. 1, pp. 147, 148.

+ Long's Second Expedition, vol. 1. p. 153, McCoy's History of Baptist Indian Mis- sions.

# Hoffman's Winter in the West, vol. 1, p. 225.

§ Memoir on the Indians between Lake Erie and the Mississippi. Paris Documents, vol. 9, p. 887.

| Apaquois, matting made of flags or rushes; from apee, a leaf, and wigquoiam, a hut. They cover their huts with mats made of rushes platted. . Carver's Travels.

142

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

which are made of mat-grass. The women do all the work. The men belonging to that nation are well clothed, like. our domiciliated Indians at Montreal. Their entire occupation is hunting and dress ; they make use of a great deal of vermilion, and in winter wear buffalo robes richly painted, and in summer either blue or red cloth. They play a good deal at La Crosse in summer, twenty or more on each side. Their bat is a sort of a little racket, and the ball with which they play is made of very heavy wood, somewhat larger than the balls used at tennis. When playing they are entirely naked, except a breech cloth and moccasins on their feet. Their body is completely painted with all sorts of colors. Some, with white clay, trace white lace on their bodies, as if on all the seams of a coat, and at a distance it would be apt to be taken for silver lace. They play very deep and often. The bets sometimes amount to more than eight hundred livres. They set up two poles, and commence the game from the center; one party propels the ball from one side and the others from the opposite, and whichever reaches the goal wins. This is fine recreation and worth seeing. They often play village against village, the Ponx" against the Ottawas or Hurons, and lay heavy stakes. Sometimes Frenchmen join in the game with them. The women cultivate Indian corn, beans, peas, squashes and melons, which come up very fine. The women and girls dance at night ; adorn themselves considerably, grease their hair, put on a white shift, paint their cheeks with vermilion, and wear whatever wampum they possess, and are very tidy in their way. They dance to the sound of the drum and sisiquoi, which is a sort of gourd con- taining some grains of shot. Four or five young men sing and beat time with the drum and sisiquoi, and the women keep time and do not lose a step. It is very entertaining, and lasts almost the entire night. The old men often dance the Medicine.+ They resemble a set of demons; and all this takes place during the night. The young men often dance in a circle and strike posts. It is then they recount their achievements and dance, at the same time, the war dance ; and whenever they act thus they are highly ornamented. It is altogether very curious. They often perform these things for tobacco. When they go hunting, which is every fall, they carry their apaquois with them, to hut under at night. Everybody follows,

* The Pottawatomies were sometimes known by the contraction Poux. La Hontan uses this name, and erroneously confounds them with the Puans or Winnebagoes. In giving the coat-of-arms of the Pottawatomies, representing a dog crouched in the grass, he says: "They were called Puants." Vol. 2, p. 84. + Medicine dance.

143

ORIGIN OF POTTAWATOMIE.

men, women and children. They winter in the forest and return in the spring."

The Pottawatomies swarmed from their prolific hives about the islands of Mackinaw, and spread themselves over portions of Wis- consin, and eastward to their ancient homes in Michigan. At a later day they extended themselves upon the territory of the ancient Illinois, covering a large portion of the state. From the St. Joseph River and Detroit their bands moved southward over that part of Indiana north and west of the Wabash, and thence down that stream. They were a populous horde of hardy children of the forests, of great stamina, and their constitutions were hardened by the rigorous climate of the northern lakes.

Among the old French writers the orthography of the word Pottawatomies varied to suit the taste of the writer. We give some of the forms: Poutouatimi, " Ponteotatamis, + Poutouatamies. # Pou- tewatamis. § Pautawattamies, Puttewatamies, Pottowottamies and Pottawattamies.| The tribe was divided into four clans, the Golden Carp, the Frog, the Crab, and the Tortoise." The nation was not like the Illinois and Miamis, divided into separate tribes, but the different bands would separate or unite according to the scarcity or abundance of game.

The word Pottawatomie signifies, in their own language, we are making a fire, for the origin of which they have the following tradi- tion : " It is said that a Miami, having wandered out from his cabin, met three Indians whose language was unintelligible to him; by signs and motions he invited them to follow him to his cabin, where they were hospitably entertained, and where they remained until after dark. During the night two of the strange Indians stole from the hut, while their comrade and host were asleep ; they took a few embers from the cabin, and, placing these near the door of the hut. they made a fire, which, being afterward seen by the Miami and remaining guest, was understood to imply a council fire in token of peace between the two nations. From this circumstance the Miami called them in his language Wa-ho-na-ha, or the fire-makers, which, being translated into the language of the three guests, produced the term by which their nation has ever since been distinguished."

After this the Miamis termed the Pottawatomies their younger brothers ; but afterward, in a council, this was changed, from the

* Jesuit Relations.

$ Charlevoix.

+ Father Membre.

¿ Joutel's Journal.

| Paris Documents.

TEnumeration of the Indian tribes, the Warriors and Armorial Bearings of each Nation, made in 1736. Published in Documentary History of New York.

144

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

circumstance that they resided farther to the west; "as those nations which reside to the west of others are deemed more ancient."*

The Pottawatomies were unswerving in their adherence to the French, when the latter had possession of the boundless Northwest. In 1712, when a large force of Mascoutins and Foxes besieged De- troit. they were conspicuous for their fidelity. They rallied the other tribes to the assistance of the French, and notified the besieged garrison to hold out against their enemies until their arrival. Mak- is-abie, the war chief of the Pottawatomies, sent word through Mr. de Vincennes. "just arrived from the Miami country, that he would soon be at Detroit with six hundred of his warriors to aid the French and eat those miserable nations who had troubled all the country." The commandant, M. du Buisson, was gratified when he ascended a bastion, and looking toward the forest saw the army of the nations issuing from it; the Pottawatomies, the Illinois, the Missouris, the Ottawas, the Sacs and the Menominees were there, armed and painted in all the glory of war. Detroit never saw such a collection. " My Father." says the chief to the commandant, "I speak to you on the part of all the nations, your children who are before you. What you did last year in drawing their flesh from the fire, which the Ou- tagamies (Foxes) were about to roast and eat. demands we should bring you our bodies to make you the master of them. We do not fear death, whenever it is necessary to die for you. We have only to request that you pray the father of all nations to have pity on our women and our children, in case we lose our lives for you. We beg you throw a blade of grass upon our bones to protect them from the flies. You see. my father, that we have left our villages, our women and children to hasten to join you. Have pity on us ; give us some- thing to eat and a little tobacco to smoke. We have come a long ways and are destitute of everything. Give us powder and balls to fight with you."

Makisabie, the Pottawatomie, said to the Foxes and Mascoutines: " Wicked nations that you are. you hope to frighten us by all the red color which you exhibit in your village. Learn that if the earth is covered with blood, it will be with yours. You talk to us of the English, they are the cause of your destruction. because you have listened to their bad council. . . . The English, who are cowards, only defend themselves by killing men by that wicked strong drink, which has caused so many men to die after drinking it. Thus we shall see what will happen to you for listening to them." +

* Long's Expedition to the Sources of the St. Peter's River, vol. 1, pp. 91, 92, 93.

t The extracts we have quoted are taken from the official report of Du Buisson,

145

WARS AGAINST THE WHITES.

The Pottawatomies sustained their alliance with the French con- tinnonsly to the time of the overthrow of their power in the north- west. They then aided their kinsman, Pontiac, in his attempt to recover the same territory from the British. They fought on the side of the British against the Americans throughout the war of the revolution, and their war parties made destructive and frequent raids upon the line of pioneer settlements in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. In the war of 1812 they were again ranged on the side of the British, with their bloody hands lifted alike against the men, women and children of "the States."

In the programme of Pontiac's war the capture of Post St. Joseph, on the St. Joseph's river of Lake Michigan, was assigned to the Pottawatomies, which was effected as will be hereafter narrated.

It was also the Pottawatomies who perpetrated the massacre at Chicago on the 15th day of Angust, 1812. Bands of this tribe, from their villages on the St. Joseph, the Kankakee and the Illinois rivers, whose numbers were angmented by the appearance of Metea with his warriors, from their village westward of Fort Wayne, fell upon the forces of Captain Heald, and the defenseless women and chil- dren retreating with him after the surrender of Fort Dearborn, and murdered or made prisoners of them all. Metea was a conspicuous leader in this horrible affair .*

Robert Dixon, the British trader sent out among the Indians during the war of 1812 to raise recruits for Proctor and Tecumseh, gathered in the neighborhood of Chicago, which after the massacre was his place of general rendezvous, nearly one thousand warriors of as wild and cruel savages as ever disgraced the human race. They were the most worthless and abandoned desperadoes whom Dixon had been enabled to collect from among all the tribes he had visited. These accomplices of the British were to be let loose upon the re- mote settlements under the leadership of the Pottawatomie chief, Mai-pock, or Mai-po, a monster in human form, who distinguished himself with a girdle sewed full of human scalps, which he wore around his waist, and strings of bear's claws and bills of owls and hawks around his ankles, worn as trophies of his power in arms and as a terror to his enemies. +

relating to the siege of Detroit. The manuscript copy of it was obtained from the archives at Paris, by Gen. Cass, when minister to France, and is published at length in volume III of the History of Wisconsin, compiled by the direction of the legislature of that state by William R. Smith, President of the State Historical Society ; a work of very great value, not only to the State of Wisconsin but to the entire Northwest, for the amount of reliable historical information it contains.

* Hall and McKenney's History of the Indian Tribes of North America, vol. 2, pp. 59, 60.

t McAfee's History of the Late War, pp. 297, 298.

146

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

Their manners, like their dialect, were rough and barbarous as compared with other Algonquin tribes. They were not the civil. modest people, an exceptional and christianized band of whom the Jesuits before quoted drew a flattering description.

" It is a fact that for many years the current of emigration as to the tribes east of the Mississippi has been from the north to the south. This was owing to two causes : the diminution of those animals from which the Indians derive their support, and the pressure of the two great tribes, - the Ojibbeways and the Sioux. - to the north and west. So long ago as 1795, at the treaty of Greenville. the Potta- watomies notified the Miamis that they intended to settle upon the Wabash. They made no pretensions to the country, and the only excuse for the intended aggression was that they were tired of eating fish and wanted meat."# And come they did. They bore down upon their less populous neighbors, the Miamis. and occupied a large portion of their territory, impudently and by sheer force of numbers, rather than by force of arms. They established numerous villages upon the north and west bank of the Wabash and its tributaries flowing in from that side of the stream above the Vermilion. They, with the Sacs. Foxes and Kickapoos. drove the Illinois into the vil- lages about Kaskaskia. and portioned the conquested territory among themselves. By other tribes they were called squatters, who justly claimed that the Pottawatomies never had any land of their own. and were mere intruders upon the prior rights of others. They were foremost at all treaties where lands were to be ceded. and were clam- orous for a lion's share of presents and annuities. particularly where these last were the price given for the sale of others' lands rather than their own. + Between the years 1789 and 1837 the Pottawato- mies. by themselves, or in connection with other tribes. made no less than thirty-eight treaties with the United States. all of which. - excepting two or three which were treaties of peace only .- were for cessions of lands claimed wholly by the Pottawatomies. or in con- mon with other tribes. These cessions embraced territory extending from the Mississippi eastward to Cleveland. Ohio, and reaching over the entire valleys of the Illinois, the Wabash. the Maumee and their tributaries. +

They also had villages upon the Kankakee and Illinois rivers. Among them we name Minemaung, or Yellow Head, situated a

* Official letter to the Secretary of War, dated March 22, 1814.

t Schoolcraft's Central Mississippi Valley, p. 358.

+ Treaties between the United States and the several Indian tribes, from 1778 to 1837: Washington. D.C., 1837.

147

THEIR VILLAGES.

few miles north of Momence, at a point of timber still known as Yellow Head Point; She-mar-gar, or the Soldier's Village, at the mouth of Soldier Creek, that runs through Kankakee City, and the village of " Little Rock " or Shaw-waw-nas-see, at the mouth of Rock Creek, a few miles below Kankakee City .* Besides these, the Pot- tawatomies had villages farther down the Illinois, particularly the great town of Como, Gumo, or Gumbo as the pioneers called it, at the upper end of Peoria Lake. They had other towns on the Milwaukee River, Wisconsin. On the St. Joseph, near Niles, was the village of To-pen-ne-bee, the great hereditary chief of the Pottawatomie nation ; higher up, near the present village of White Pigeon, was situated Wap-pe-me-me's, or White Pigeon's town. Westward of Fort Wayne, Indiana, nine miles, was Mus-kwa-wa-sepe-otan, "the town of old Red Wood creek," where resided the band of the distinguished war- rior and orator of the Pottawatomies, Metea, whose name in their language signifies kiss me.

Finally, the renowned Kesis, or the sun, the old friend of Gen- eral Hamtrauck and the Americans, in a speech to General Wayne at the treaty of Greenville in 1795, said that his village "was a day's walk below the Wea towns on the Wabash," referring, doubtless, to the mixed Pottawatomie and Kickapoo town which stood on the site of the old Shelby farm, on the north bank of the Vermilion, a short distance above its mouth. +

The positions of several of the principal Pottawatomie villages have been given for the purpose of showing the area of country over which this people extended themselves. As late as 1823 their hunting grounds appeared to have been " bounded on the north by the St. Joseph (which on the east side of Lake Michigan separated them from the Ottawas) and the Milwacke, ; which, on the west side of the lake, divided them from the Menomonees. They spread to the south along the Illinois River about two hundred miles; to the west

* The location of these three villages of Pottawatomies is fixed by the surveys of reservations to Mine-maung, Shemargar and Shaw-waw-nas-see respectively, secured to them by the second article of a treaty concluded at Camp Tippecanoe, near Logans- port, Indiana, on the 20th of October, 1832, between the United States and the chiefs and head men of the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians of the prairie and of the Kanka- kee. The reservations were surveyed in the presence of the Indians concerned and General Tipton, agent on the part of the United States, in the month of May, 1834. by Major Dan W. Beckwith, surveyor. The reservations were so surveyed as to include the several villages we have named, as appears from the manuscript volumes of the surveys in possession of the author.

t Journal of the Proceedings at the Treaty of Greenville: American State Papers on Indian Affairs, vol. 1, p. 580. The author has authorities and manuscripts from which the location of Kesis' band at the mouth of the Vermilion may be quite confi- dently affirmed.

# Milwaukee.

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150

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

commissary department was wretchedly supplied. The Indians begged for food at the houses of the citizens. Others, in their extremity, killed rats at the old mill on the North Fork and ate them to appease their hunger. Without tents or other shelter, many of them, with young babes in their arms, walked on foot, as there was no adequate means of conveyance for the weak, the aged or infirm. Thus the mournful procession passed across the state of Illinois.

The St. Joseph band were removed westward the same year. So strong was their attachment to southern Michigan and northern Indiana, that the Federal government invoked the aid of troops to coerce their removal. The soldiers surrounded them. and. as prison- ers of war, compelled them to leave. At South Bend, Indiana, was the village of Chichipe Outipe. The town was on a rising ground near four small lakes, and contained ten or twelve hundred christian- ized Pottawatomies. Benjamin M. Petit, the Catholic missionary in charge at Po-ke-ganns village on the St. Joseph, asked Bishop Bruté for leave to accompany the Indians, but the prelate withheld his consent. not deeming it proper to give even an implied indorsement of the cruel act of the government. But being himself on their route, he afterward consented. The power of religion then appeared. Amid their sad march he confirmed several, while hymns and prayers, chanted in Ottawa, echoed for the last time around their lakes. Sick and well were carried off alike. After giving all his Episcopal bless- ing. Bishop Brute proceeded with Petit to the tents of the sick, where they baptized one and confirmed another, both of whom ex- pired soon after. The march was resumed. The men, women and elder children. urged on by the soldiers in their rear. were followed with the wagons bearing the sick and dying. the mothers. little chil- dren and property. Thus they proceeded through the country. tur- bulent at that time on account of the Mormon war, to the Osage River, Missouri, where Mr. Petit confided the wretched exiles to the care of the Jesuit Father J. Hoecken. *

In the year 1846 the different bands of Pottawatomies united on the west side of the Mississippi. A general treaty was made, in which the following clause occurs : " Whereas, the various bands of the Pottawatomie Indians, known as the Chippeways, Ottawas and Pottawatomies, the Pottawatomies of the Prairie, the Pottawatomies of the Wabash, and the Pottawatomies of Indiana, have, subsequent to the year 1820, entered into separate and distinct treaties with the

* Extract from Shea's Catholic Missions, p. 397.

151

THE POTTAWATOMIE NATION.

United States, by which they have been separated and located in different countries, and difficulties have arisen as to the proper distributions of the stipulations under various treaties, and being the same people by kindred, by feeling and by language, and having in former periods lived on and owned their lands in com- mon. and being desirous to unite in one common country and again become one people and receive their annuities and other benefits in common, and to abolish all minor distinctions of bands by which they have heretofore been divided. and are anxious to be known as the POTTAWATOMIE NATION, thereby reinstating the national character ; and whereas, the United States are also anxious to restore and concentrate said tribes to a state so desirable and necessary for the happiness of their people, as well as to enable the government to arrange and manage its intercourse with them ; now, therefore. the United States and said Indians do hereby agree that said people shall hereafter be known as a nation, to be called the POTTAWATOMIE NATION. "

Pursuant to the terms of this treaty, the Pottawatomies received $850,000, in consideration of which they released all lands owned by them within the limits of the territory of Iowa and on the Osage River in Missouri. or in any state or place whatsoever. Eighty- seven thousand dollars of the purchase money coming to them was paid. by cession from the United States, of 576,000 acres of land lying on both sides of the Kansas River. The tract embraces the finest body of land within the present state of Kansas, and Topeka, the state capital, has since been located nearly in the center of the reservation. While the territory was going through the process of organization, adventurers trespassed upon the lands of the Potta- watomies, sold them whisky, and spread demoralization among them. The squatters who intruded upon the farmer-Indians killed their stock and burned some of their habitations, all of which was borne without retaliation. Notwithstanding the old habendum clanse inserted in Indian treaties (as a mere matter of form, as may be in- ferred from the little regard paid to it) that these lands should inure to Pottawatomies, " their heirs and assigns forever," the squatter sovereigns wanted them, and resorted to all the well-known methods in vogue on the border to make it unpleasant for the Indians, who were progressing with assured success from barbarism to the ways of civilized society. The usual result of dismemberment of the re- serve followed. The farmer-Indians, who so desired, had their por- tions of the reserve set off' in severalty; the uneivilized members of the tribe had their proportion set off in common. These last, which

152

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

were exchanged for money. or lands farther southward, fell into the possession of a needy railroad corporation.

We gather from the several reports of the commissioners on In- dian affairs that, in 1863, the tribe numbered 2,274. inclusive of men, women and children, which was an alarming decrease since the cen- sus of 1854. The diminution was caused, probably. aside from the casualties of death. by some having returned to their former homes east of the Missouri. while many of the young and wild men of the tribe went to the buffalo grounds to enjoy the exciting and unre- strained freedom of the chase. The farmers raised 3, 720 bushels of wheat, 45,000 of corn, 1,200 of oats and 1,000 tons of hay, and had 1,200 horses. 1,000 cattle and 2,000 hogs, as appears from the offi- cial report for 1863.

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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 16

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903 Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company Number of Pages: 1164

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164