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 28
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. Men and Warriors, -Pay attention to my words: You informed me yesterday that the Great Spirit had brought us together, and that you hoped, as he was good, that it would be for good. I have also the same hope, and expect that each party will strictly adhere to whatever may be agreed upon, whether it be peace or war, and hence- forward prove ourselves worthy of the attention of the Great Spirit. I am a man and a warrior, - not a counsellor. I carry war in my
* The early border men of Virginia and her county of Kentucky usually carried very large knives. From this circumstance the Virginians were called, in the Illinois (Miami) dialect, She-mol-sea, meaning the "Big Knife." At a later day the same appellation, under the Chippewayan word Che-mo-ko-man, was extended, by the Indians, to the white people generally,-always excepting the Englishman proper, whom they called the Sag-e-nash, and the Yankees to whom they gave the epithiet of Bos-to-ne-ly, i.e., the Bostonians. The term is derived from the Miami word mal-she, or mol-sea, a knife, or the Ojibbeway mo-ko-man, which means the same thing. The prefix che or she emphasizes the kind or size of the instrument, as a huge, long or big knife. Such is the origin of the expression "long knives," frequently found in books where Indian characters occur.
255
CLARK'S SPEECH TO THE INDIANS.
right hand, and in my left, peace. I am sent by the great council of the Big Knife, and their friends, to take possession of all the towns possessed by the English in this country, and to watch the motions of the red people ; to bloody the paths of those who attempt to stop the course of the river, but to clear the roads from us to those who desire to be in peace, that the women and children may walk in them without meeting anything to strike their feet against. I am ordered to call upon the Great Fire for warriors enough to darken the land, and that the red people may hear no sound but of birds who live on blood. I know there is a mist before your eyes. I will dispel the clouds, that you may clearly see the canse of the war between the Big Knife and the English, then you may judge for yourselves which party is in the right, and if you are warriors, as you profess to be, prove it by adhering faithfully to the party which you shall believe .to be entitled to your friendship, and do not show yourselves to be squaws.
' The Big Knives are very much like the red people. They don't know how to make blankets and powder and cloth. They buy these things from the English, from whom they are sprung. They live by making corn. hunting and trade, as you and your neighbors, the French, do. But the Big Knives, daily getting more numerous, like the trees in the woods. the land became poor and hunting scarce, and having but little to trade with, the women began to cry at seeing their children naked, and tried to learn how to make clothes for themselves. They soon made blankets for their husbands and chil- dren, and the men learned to make guns and powder. In this way we did not want to buy so much from the English. They then got mad with us, and sent strong garrisons through our country, as you see they have done among you on the lakes, and among the French. They would not let our women spin, nor our men make powder, nor let us trade with anybody else. The English said we should buy everything of them, and since we had got saucy we should give two bueks for a blanket, which we used to get for one ; we should do as they pleased ; and they killed some of our people, to make the rest fear them. This is the truth, and the real cause of the war between the English and us, which did not take place until some time after this treatment.
. But our women became cold and hungry and continued to cry. Our young men got lost for want of counsel to put them in the right path. The whole land was dark. The old men held down their heads for shame, because they could not see the sun ; and thus there was mourning for many years over the land. At last the Great
256
HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
Spirit took pity on us, and kindled a great council fire, that never goes out, at a place called Philadelphia. He then stuck down a post, and put a war tomahawk by it, and went away. The sun immediately broke out, the sky was blue again, and the old men held up their heads and assembled at the fire. They took up the hatchet, sharpened it, and put it into the hands of our young men, ordering them to strike the English as long as they could find one on this side of the great waters. The young men immediately struck the war post and blood was shed. In this way the war began, and the English were driven from one place to another until they got weak, and then they hired you red people to fight for them. The Great Spirit got angry at this, and caused your old father, the French king, and other great nations, to join the Big Knives, and fight with them against all their enemies. So the English have be- come like deer in the woods, and you may see that it is the Great Spirit that has caused your waters to be troubled, because you have fought for the people he was mad with. If your women and chil- dren should now cry, you must blame yourselves for it, and not the Big Knives.
' You can now judge who is in the right. I have already told you who I am. Here is a bloody belt and a white one, take which you please. Behave like men, and don't let your being surrounded by the Big Knives cause you to take up the one belt with your hands while your hearts take up the other. If you take the bloody path, you shall leave the town in safety, and may go and join your friends, the English. We will then try, like warriors, who can put the most stumbling-blocks in each other's way, and keep our clothes longest stained with blood. If, on the other hand, you should take the path of peace, and be received as brothers to the Big Knives, with their friends, the French ; should you then listen to bad birds that may be flying through the land, you will no longer deserve to be counted as men, but as creatures with two tongues, that ought to be destroyed without listening to anything you might say. As I am convinced you never heard the truth before, I do not wish you to answer be- fore you have taken time to counsel. We will, therefore, part this evening, and when the Great Spirit shall bring us together again, let us speak and think like men, with but one heart and one tongue.'
"The next day after this speech a new fire was kindled with more than usual ceremony; an Indian speaker came forward and said : They ought to be thankful that the Great Spirit had taken pity on them, and opened their ears and their hearts to receive the truth. He had paid great attention to what the Great Spirit had
257
CLARK TREATS WITH THE INDIANS.
put into my heart to say to them. They believed the whole to be the truth, as the Big Knives did not speak like any other people they had ever heard. They now saw they had been deceived, and that the English had told them lies, and that I had told them the truth, just as some of their old men had always told them. They now believed that we were in the right; and as the English had forts in their country, they might, if they got strong enough, want to serve the red people as they had treated the Big Knives. The red people onght, therefore, to help us, and they had, with a cheer- ful heart, taken up the belt of peace, and spurned that of war. They were determined to hold the former fast, and would have no doubt of our friendship, from the manner of our speaking, so different from that of the English. They would now call in their warriors, and throw the tomahawk into the river, where it could never be found. They would suffer no more bad birds to fly through the land, disquieting the women and children. They would be careful to smooth the roads for their brothers. the Big Knives, whenever they might wish to come and see them. Their friends should hear of the good talk I had given them; and they hoped I would send chiefs among them, with my eyes, to see myself that they were men, and strictly adhered to all they had said at this great fire, which the Great Spirit had kindled at Cahokia for the good of all people who would attend it."
The sacred pipe was again kindled, and presented, figuratively, to the heavens and the earth, and to all 'the good spirits, as witness of what had been done. The Indians and the white men then closed the council by smoking the pipe and shaking hands. With no ma- terial variation, either of the forms that were observed, or with the speeches that were made at this council, Col. Clark and his officers concluded treaties of peace with the Piankeshaws, Oniatenons, Kick- apoos, Illinois, Kaskaskias, Peorias, and branches of some other tribes that inhabited the country between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi.
Gov. Henry soon received intelligence of the successful progress -of the expedition under the command of Clark. The French inhab- itants of the villages of Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Post Vincennes took the oath of allegiance to the State of Virginia.
In October. 1778, the General Assembly of the State of Virginia passed an act which contained the following provisions, viz : All the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia " who are already settled or shall hereafter settle on the western side of the Ohio, shall be in- cluded in a distinct county, which shall be called Illinois county ; 17
258
HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
and the governor of this commonwealth, with the advice of the council, may appoint a county lieutenant, or commandant-in-chief, in that county, during pleasure, who shall appoint and commission so many deputy commandants, militia officers and commissaries as he shall think proper in the different districts, during pleasure ; all of whom, before they enter into office, shall take the oath of fidelity to this commonwealth and the oath of office, according to the form of their own religion. And all civil officers to which the inhabit- ants have been accustomed, necessary for the preservation of the peace and the administration of justice, shall be chosen by a major- ity of the citizens in their respective districts, to be convened for that purpose by the county lieutenant, or commandant, or his deputy, and shall be commissioned by the said county lieutenant or com- mandant-in-chief."
Before the provisions of the law were carried into effect, Henry Hamilton, the British lieutenant-governor of Detroit, collected an army, consisting of about thirty regulars, fifty French volunteers, and four hundred Indians. With this force he passed down the River Wabash, and took possession of Post Vincennes on the 15th of December, 1778. No attempt was made by the population to defend the town. Capt. Helm was taken and detained as a prisoner, and a number of the French inhabitants disarmed.
Clark was aware that Gov. Hamilton, now that he had regained possession of Vincennes, would undertake the capture of his forces, and realizing his danger, he determined to forestall Hamilton and capture the latter. His : plans were at once formed. He sent a por- tion of his available force by boat, called The Willing, with instruc- tions to Capt. Rogers, the commander, to proceed down the Missis- sippi and up the Ohio and Wabash, and secrete himself a few miles below Vincennes, and prohibit any persons from passing either up or down. With another part of his force he marched across the country, through prairies, swamps and marshes, crossing swollen streams - for it was in the month of February, and the whole country was flooded from continuous rains - and arriving at the banks of the Wabash near St. Francisville, he pushed across the river and brought his forces in the rear of Vincennes before daybreak. So secret and rapid were his movements that Gov. Hamilton had no notice that Clark had left Kaskaskia. Clark issued a notice requiring the people of the town to keep within their houses, and declaring that all persons found elsewhere would be treated as enemies. Tobacco's Son tendered one hundred of his Piankashaw braves, himself at their head. Clark declined their services with thanks, saying his
259
SURRENDER OF HAMILTON.
own force was sufficient. Gov. Hamilton had just completed the fort, consisting of strong block-houses at each angle, with the cannon placed on the upper floors, at an elevation of eleven feet from the surface. The works were at once closely invested. The ports were so badly cut, the men on the inside could not stand to their cannon for the bullets that would whiz from the rifles of Clark's sharp- shooters through the embrasures whenever they were suffered for an instant to remain open.
The town immediately surrendered with joy, and assisted at the siege. After the first offer to surrender upon terms was declined, Hamilton and Clark, with attendants, met in a conference at the Catholic church, situated some eighty rods from the fort, and in the afternoon of the same day, the 24th of February, 1779, the fort and garrison, consisting of seventy-five men, surrendered at discretion .* The result was that Hamilton and his whole force were made prison- ers of war. + Clark held military possession of the northwest until the close of the war, and in that way it was secured to our country. At the treaty of peace, held at Paris at the close of the revolutionary war, the British insisted that the Ohio River should be the northern boundary of the United States. The correspondence relative to that treaty shows that the only ground on which "the American commis- sioners relied to sustain their claim that the lakes should be the boundary was the fact that Gen. Clark had conquered the country, and was in the undisputed military possession of it at the time of the negotiation. This fact was affirmed and admitted, and was the chief ground on which British commissioners reluctantly abandoned their claim."+
* Two days after the Willing arrived, its crew much mortified because they did not share in the victory, although Clark commended them for their diligence. Two days before Capt. Rogers' arrival with the Willing, Clark had dispatched three armed boats, under charge of Capt. Helm and Majors Bosseron and Le Grass, up the Wabash, to intercept a fleet which Clark was advised was on its way from Detroit, laden with supplies for Gov. Hamilton at Vincennes. About one hundred and twenty miles up the river the British boats, seven in number, having aboard military supplies of the value of ten thousand pounds sterling money and forty men, among whom was Philip De Jean, a magistrate of Detroit, were captured by Capt. Helm. The writer has before him the statement of John McFall, born near Vincennes in 1798. He lived near and in Vincennes until 1817. His grandfather, Ralph Mattison, was one of Clark's soldiers who accompanied Helm's expedition up the Wabash, and he often told McFall, his grandson, that the British were lying by in the Vermilion River, near its mouth, where they were surprised in the night-time and captured by Helm without firing a shot.
+ This march, from its daring conception, and the obstacles encountered and over- come, is one of the most thrilling events in our history, and it is to be regretted that the limited space assigned to other topics precludes its insertion.
# Burnett's Notes on the Northwest Territory, p. 77.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY-THE ORDINANCE OF 1787-BILL OF RIGHTS-FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM-PROVISIONS FOR STATES-OLD BOUNDARIES BETWEEN CANADA AND LOUISIANA-INDIAN WARS- THE INDIAN COUNTRY RAVAGED.
COL. CLARK having captured Gov. Hamilton's forces at Vin- cennes, and reestablished the authority of Virginia over the north- west territory, Col John Todd, commissioned as lieutenant for the county of Illinois, in the spring of 1779 proceeded to Kaskaskia and Vincennes, and organized a government under the act of the Gen- eral Assembly of Virginia of October, 1778, for the establishing of "Illinois County." Col. Todd formed courts of justice, and pro- vided other machinery to secure peace and good order among the inhabitants. The court was comprised of several magistrates, who dispensed justice, in the absence of statutes specifically defining their powers, pretty much according to their own unrestrained no- tions of equity, applied according to the emergency of each partien- lar case, as it would come before them, much after the manner of the early French commandants .*
The northwest territory soon became a source of trouble to the continental congress. Besides the claims of Virginia, New York, · Massachusetts and Connecticut asserted title to portions of it by virtue of their ancient charters.+ These conflicting claims were the subjects of much discussion and legislative action in the states named, and by congress as well. Congress, on the 6th of Septem- ber, 1780, requested the several states "having claims to waste and unappropriated lands in the western country to cede a portion
*"The court " was one of high authority, and among the powers it arrogated to itself was the right of disposing of the public lands. After having granted some twenty-two thousand acres to private individuals, by orders entered from time to time upon their records, "the court " partitioned large tracts among themselves; the recip- ient member would, out of modesty, absent himself from "court " on the day the entry was made on the journal by his associates in his favor, "so that it might appear to be the act of his fellows only." Official letter of Gen. Harrison, January 19, 1802. The evil grew to such proportions that Gen. Harner, in 1787, issued a military order suppressing it.
t Connecticut, claiming through her charter granted on the 23d of April, 1662, by King Charles the Second, passed a resolution in 1783, to the effect "That all the land lying west of the western limits of Pennsylvania and east of the Mississippi, and be- tween the forty-first and forty-second parallels of latitude," was hers.
260
261
CESSION OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.
thereof to the United States .* Virginia, on the 2d of January, 1781. released her claim to the northwest territory, reserving one hundred and fifty thousand acres near the falls of the Ohio, which she had promised to Gen. Clark, and the officers and soldiers of his regiment who marched with him, and preserving to the French and Canadian inhabitants of Kaskaskia. Vincennes and neighboring villages their titles to the lands claimed by them. + However, owing to conditions imposed by the terms of cession, further legislation intervened, and the Virginia delegates did not execute the deed of release until the 1st of March, 1784. New York followed Virginia, and ceded her claim on the 1st of March, 1781; then Massachusetts, on the 18th of April, 1785, executed her release, and on the 14th of September, 1786, the Connecticut delegates delivered a deed of cession from that state, reserving a strip of territory west of Pennsylvania, and bordering on the lakes, since known as the Western Reserve.+
Before these disputes were settled it was proposed in congress to divide the territory into states by parallel lines of latitude and merid- ians of longtitude. $ It seems that the States of Virginia and Mas- sachusetts had made their grants with reference to a previous reso- lution of congress, limiting the area of the states, to be formed out of the territory named, to a hundred and fifty miles square, and therefore further legislation by these states became necessary. In July, 1786, congress passed another resolution, looking to a division of the territory into not less than three nor more than five states, and Massachusetts and Virginia gave their assent to this modification. All differences and conflicts of title being now settled, congress, on the 13th day of July, 1787. adopted unanimously, "An ordinance for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio." The act, when considered with respect to the times in which it was adopted, was a most radical document. It made sweeping changes in the whole theory of social laws as practiced in Europe, and contravened the prevailing opinions of many of our own people, emerging, as they then were, from the accumulated prejudices of the old world into the daydawn of a new and experimental government. " For the purpose of extending the fundamental principles of civil
* Old Laws of the U. S. +XI Hen. Statutes of Virginia, p. 326.
# Vol. 16, Am. S. Papers, p. 94.
§ Old Congressional Journals, vol. 4, pp. 379 and 380; Land Laws, p. 34. The prospective states were to be named as follows: Washington, Illinoia, Michigania, Sylvania, Saratoga, Pelisipia, Metropotamia, Polypotamia, Chersonisus and Assenispia. The act for such division of the territory, and naming of the states to be formed out of it, was passed unanimously, with the exception of the vote of South Carolina, on the 23d of March, 1784.
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
and religious liberty forever, and to fix and establish those principles as a basis of all laws, constitutions and governments which should thereafter be formed within the territory," the ordinance impressed conditions upon every acre of the soil, prohibited certain arbitrary practices of power, and enjoined beneficial acts to be performed, which have resulted in the largest measure of happiness and pros- perity. The act was a " compact between the original states and the people and states within the territory, to remain unalterable un- less changed by common consent." It is, therefore, in the nature of a bill of rights-a Magna Charta-to every inhabitant of the five several states since formed out of the territory to which the ordi- nanee was applied .* The act forever prohibited slavery or involun- tary servitnde, thus ennobling honest labor, and endowing it with a dignity it could not have attained in competition with the unrequited toil of human chattels.
Heretofore the plan of governments was one of force, in which the intelligent few dominated over the ignorant many. The Ameri- can Declaration of Independence announced the new theory that all men should be free, and that the people should govern them- selves. This they could not be, or do unless they possessed an enlarged intelligence, a requirement that rendered a system for the general education of the masses necessary. Happily, congress real- ized the force of this, and nobly provided the means. Subsequent to the cession by Virginia of the northwest territory to the United States, and at the time congress passed the act of May 20, 1785, relative to the disposition and sale of the public lands northwest of the Ohio, one thirty-sixth part of the whole of this vast domain was reserved and set apart for the maintenance of public schools; and so determined was congress that the educational system to be inau- gurated in the northwest territory should not be balked by any unwise legislation of the future states to be formed therein, that the great plan was carried into the ordinance of 1787, where it was further declared that "religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and happiness of mankind, schools and the means
* The act, among other things, fixes the law of descent upon the just and equitable terms of equality in the division of real estate among the heirs of the ancestor, thus cutting up by the roots the European doctrine of primogeniture; it provides for perfect liberty of conscience, and declares that no person demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner should ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiment; it secures to every one the writ of habeas corpus, and the right of trial by jury; it makes all offenses bailable except capital crimes, and while it provides that all fines shall be moderate, it prohibits the infliction of cruel or unusual punish- ments; it declares that no person shall be deprived of his liberty or property but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land, and prevents the body politic from taking his property or demanding his services without making full compensation, etc.
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SUBDIVISION OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.
· of education shall forever be encouraged."" The act of May 20, 1785, is the quarry from whence was procured the " corner-stone " laid by our forefathers deep in the ordinance of 1787, upon which the states, since formed out of the old northwest territory, have, with most generous hand, established a system of public schools which is a guarantee of our national life and the citadel of our lib- erties.
The provision - the ordinance of 1787 - contains relative to a subdivision of the territory is, "that there shall be formed in said territory no less than three nor more than five states; the western state to be bounded by the Mississippi, the Ohio and the Wabash Rivers ; a direct line drawn from the Wabash and Post St. Vincent due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada, and [west] by said territorial line to the Lake of the Woods and Mississippi.+ The middle state shall be bounded by the said direct line, the Wabash from Post St. Vincent to the Ohio; by the Ohio, and by a direct line drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami to said territorial line. The eastern state shall be bounded by the last-mentioned direct line, the Ohio, Pennsylvania and the said territorial line.", The act provided "that the boundaries of these three states should be subject to alteration if congress should find it expedient," with "authority to form one or two states in that part of the territory lying north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan."| The wording of the pro- viso, and a want of means for a correct geographical knowledge of the lake region, led to a sharp controversy in adjusting the boundaries of the two additional states. When the ordinance was passed, the current maps of the day represented the "southern bend" of Lake Michigan as being quite far north of its true position. While the convention was in session at Chillicothe, in 1802, a hunter. well acquainted with the country, told some of the members that Lake Michigan extended much farther south than was generally supposed. This caused the convention to alter the bound- ary prescribed by congress, so that the line between the then terri-
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