USA > Illinois > Illinois, historical and statistical, comprising the essential facts of its planting and growth as a province, county, territory, and state, Vol. I > Part 32
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From Jonesboro: "the Revs. Peck and Green of Rock Springs have great weight with their churches in this county. All here look to these men for information. * * Please attend to this matter. It is right for the good of the country it should be done. Get them to write and keep a writing down here."
"I received from Mr. Cowles, the writing." [A hand-bill prepared for him for circulation as a campaign document.] "I thought it advisable to change some of the expressions more into my lingo. * * I have not concluded if the Cross Canal is not a little too digging. * * I know not how many of these handbills ought to go out. I was thinking of 1000."
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Jackson and anti-Jackson vote, besides securing the support of Gov. Edwards and the State administration, all of which ends he accomplished.
William Kinney was born in Kentucky in 1781 and had come to Illinois early in life. His educational advantages had been of the most limited description, having been taught to read by his wife, after marriage. He possessed, however, naturally a strong intellect, and being an original thinker, and of unin- peached honesty and tried fidelity to his friends, his popularity with the people was unquestioned. He was a preacher of the "regular" or, as sometimes called, "hard-shell, anti-missionary" Baptists, and was accustomed to off-hand speaking, and having a large store of witty anecdotes which he could tell and apply with effect, was no mean antagonist on the stump. His previous service in the legislature, and as lieutenant-governor, had made him well and favorably known throughout the State. He claimed to be the representative of the administration of President Jackson, whose patronage in this State he controlled. So great was his admiration of the old hero that he had under- taken the long journey to Washington to witness his inaugura- tion and to grasp his hand.
Both candidates followed the practice of "treating"-it being said, indeed, that Kinney, not to be behind in this respect, as a clergyman, carried a Bible in one pocket, and as a candi- date, a bottle of whisky in the other.
A large amount of electioneering was done by means of handbills and circulars, many of them being prepared by the friends of each candidate, and circulated without (?) his knowl- edge. The attention of Kinney being called to the fact that in one of these, the I's were all small or lowercase i's, he replied "O, yes, that's all right. Reynolds has used up all the big I's in his circulars."
All sorts of tricks were played with these handbills by both sides. While Matthew Duncan, who distributed for Kinney, was stopping at Jacksonville with his saddle-bags full of docu- ments, some friends of Reynolds, who were also there, during the night exchanged circulars. Duncan went on giving out the latter for sometime before he found out the joke played upon him.
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Gov. Edwards and Senator-elect McLean, with their particu- lar friends, espoused the cause of Reynolds; while Senator Kane, Judge McRoberts, and Joseph Duncan rallied their adherents to the support of Kinney. One interesting fact relating to the contest is that a large amount of money for those days-all that the parties could raise-was used. Gov. Edwards complained in one of his letters that he "had ad- vanced more money than all the other friends of Reynolds put together," but offered to become his indorser for still further funds required, which might be raised by paying twelve and one-half per cent interest .* Reynolds himself says that "large sums of money were expended in the canvass."+
As the day of election approached, party feeling ran high and wagers were freely made on the result, through which the friends of Judge Reynolds, acting upon advices privately received from him, were in a large measure enabled to recoup their outlays during the campaign.+
The counting of the votes showed that there was no cause for the anxiety felt by the friends of Reynolds, he having received of the 21,975 polled, a majority of 3899.
The candidates for lieutenant-governor were Zadoc Casey on the Kinney ticket, and Rigdon B. Slocumb on that of Reyn- olds. Both had served in the legislature, but the former was better known than his opponent, and being an able speaker both in the pulpit and on the stump, made an active canvass .. The latter not having the gift of oratory, remained at home, and was left behind in the race. Joseph Duncan was reelected to congress.
The seventh general assembly met Dec. 6, 1830. There were but four new members in the senate, while twelve of those who had formerly served in the house, were returned. Among the new members were Wm. J. Gatewood, Edmund Dick Taylor, and Thos. J. V. Owen. Wm. Lee D. Ewing, was elected speaker of the house, and David Prickett, clerk. Jesse B. * "Edwards Papers, " 531.
In one of the letters of George Forquer to Gov. Edwards, in which he was taking a despondent view of the prospect, he uses this expression "we will be whipped to death, but I mean to die in the last ditch." This is probably the origin of this expression which came to be so famous in the late civil war .- "Edwards Papers," P. 518.
+ "My Own Times," 2d ed., 189, 190.
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Thomas, jr., was chosen secretary of the senate. The inaugural message of Gov. Reynolds was in marked contrast with that of his predecessor-while the latter had been lengthy and aggressive, the former was brief and non-committal; in dic- tion it was direct and homely, rather than polished and pre- tentious. He outlined no clearly-defined policy, confining his official recommendations to two subjects-the completion of the penitentiary and the winding-up of the affairs of the old State Bank. He also referred favorably to the construction of the Illinois-and-Michigan Canal.
While the relations subsisting between the governor and the legislature were not of that strained character which had marked the early intercourse between his predecessor and the fifth general assembly, a majority of the senate was politically opposed to him and displayed marked cheerfulness in rejecting his nominations. He was, however, able to bring about the election of John Dement as State treasurer, after a heated con- test with Judge Hall, the then incumbent.
The talented and eloquent McLean having died October 4, made it necessary to elect two United-States senators. Hon. E. K. Kane was elected to succeed himself, without very serious opposition. Hon. John M. Robinson was elected to fill the unexpired term of Senator McLean, on the fifth ballot, receiv- ยท ing 34 votes, to 15 for Col. T. Mather, and three votes scatter- ing. He was a brother of Gov. James F. Robinson of Kentucky, in which State he was born April io, 1794. He settled in Carmi in 1817, and devoted himself exclusively to his profes- sion as a lawyer-not having previously filled any civil office except prosecuting attorney. He was of commanding appear- ance, being six feet four inches in height, straight as an arrow, and finely proportioned. His only other office had been that of a brigadier-general of militia. He was a strong Jackson man, and probably owed his success on this occasion to the fact that he had not objectionably identified himself with the personal factions which had heretofore controlled state politics.
Comparatively few measures of general public interest were enacted by this legislature, among the chief of which were the following:
I. The amendment of the criminal code by the substitution
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of confinement in the penitentiary for public whipping, and imprisonment in the pillory.
2. The passage of a law authorizing the borrowing by the State of $100,000, to redeem the outstanding circulation of the old State Bank, which fell due the next year-which resulted in the celebrated Wiggins' loan. Concerning this legislation, Gov. Ford sententiously remarks that "the credit of the State was saved, and the legislature was damned for all time to come."
This was really a measure of necessity, but those who voted for it became unpopular. It was even stated that Wiggins had purchased the entire State, and that the inhabitants "for gene- rations to come had been made over to him like cattle." The members instead of justifying their action as being prompted by a desire to protect the credit of the State, and denouncing the demagogues who thus assailed them, acted upon the defen- sive and pusillanimously apologized for, and tried to excuse, it. As a result, says Gov. Ford, "the destruction of great men was noticeable for many years thereafter."
At this session the State was reapportioned into legisla- :ive districts under the census of 1830, giving the senate twenty-six members and the house fifty-five. And the State, which had heretofore constituted but one congressional district, was divided into three. The legislature adjourned February 16, 1831, after a session of seventy-two days.
The event of most interest to the people during Gov. Reyn- olds' administration was the disturbance familiarly known as the Black-Hawk War; and of all the many Indian embroil- ments which excited the early residents of Illinois to acts of reprisal and hostility none have occupied so large a place in history, or been more unduly magnified.
It is the story of the calling out of eight thousand volunteers, to cooperate with fifteen hundred soldiers of the regular army, in expelling from the State a band of about four hundred Indian warriors with their one thousand women and children, at an expenditure of millions of money and three months of time, besides the loss of over a thousand lives.
It has been made the theme of no little self-glorification on the part of some of the actors, and its chief incidents were for years freely employed to advance the interests of political
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demagogues. In consequence, there are few published accounts of this, the most picturesque and bloody of Indian wars in this State, free from either personal or partisan prejudice; and the vague, popular impression of its stormy incidents and tragic termination is usually far from being correct.
The real cause of the war existed in that almost universal detestation in which the Indians were held by the pioneers. Their presence could not be tolerated, and whether the lands occupied by them were needed by the whites or not, the cry was "the Indians must go."
The alleged origin of the struggle, however, arose out of a question of interpretation of certain provisions of the treaty of November 3, 1804, between the general government and the tribes of the Sac and Fox Indians. As was not unusual in such compacts, most of the advantages were on the side of the whites. The United States assumed the payment to the two confederated tribes of the sum of $1000 per annum in per- petuity, and in consideration thereof the Indians ceded all the territory lying between the Wisconsin River, the Fox River of Illinois, the Illinois and the Mississippi rivers, together with a tract comprising about the eastern third of the State of Mis- souri. The land thus cheaply acquired amounted, in round numbers, to about 50,000,000 acres. The treaty, however, con- tained a provision that as long as the ceded lands remained the property of the United States, the "Indians belonging to said tribes should enjoy the privilege of living or hunting upon them." It was without doubt the construction of this article, so vague in wording, which formed the ostensible cause of the war. In order to a clear comprehension of the nature of the conflict, it will be necessary briefly to survey the situation as it actually existed in 1831, the year of the outbreak.
Not far from Rock Island, three miles above the mouth of the Rock River was situated the chief seat of the Sacs, which tribe had for nearly one hundred years dwelt along the eastern bank of the Mississippi, roaming at will between the mouths of the Wisconsin and the Missouri. Their principal village, called Saukenuk, comprised some five hundred families, a number then almost without parallel among Indian villages. Here were the nation's graves, and at this point focused the
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interests and affections of the entire tribe. About three thou- sand acres of rich alluvial soil had been placed under a rude sort of cultivation, and the crops garnered therefrom were a source of no little pride to the semi-savage agriculturists.
The Sacs may be said to have been split into two parties. One of these was friendly to the American government, while the other, from its attachment to British interests, agents and traders, came to be known as "the British band." At the head of the latter element was Makabaimeshekiakiak, the significa- tion of which appellation is "the Black Sparrow Hawk," com- monly abbreviated into Black Hawk, who was the central figure in these disturbances. In the characteristics of his moral nature were exhibited some strange incongruities. He was brave, ambitious, but without the higher qualities fitting him to command; easily influenced, and peculiarly susceptible to flattery, he became the ready dupe of designing men, while he was strangely suspicious of those who wished him no harm. It had been the policy of the British, during the period be- tween the close of the Revolution and the outbreak of the war of 1812, to incite and foster a spirit of hostility to the United States among the Indians of the Northwest Terri- tory, and the restless nature of Black Hawk made him a fit subject for the blandishments of the British military agent at Malden. In the war of 1812, he served with his band on their side, and engaged in a series of depredations against the Americans until a date nearly eighteen months after the con- clusion of the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States.
As early as 1823, the fame of the fertility of the lands of the Sacs had come to the ears of that restless class of squatters who were always reaching out for the farthest frontier. The lands had not been surveyed and were more than fifty miles in advance of regular settlements, where millions of acres just as good, were open to legal entry and sale. But from this time on for the next five or six years portions of the lands already cultivated by the red men were squatted upon, without a shadow of right, and continuously occupied.
The whites taking advantage of the absence of the Indians on their annual hunts, even went so far as to fence in and
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cultivate their cornfields, and drive off the squaws and children who ventured upon the claims thus marked out-in some instances burning their lodges over their heads. Each year when the Sacs returned to their village in the spring the evidence of the increasing encroachments of these intruders became more apparent.
Complaints, recriminations, and actual collisions between the whites and Indians naturally followed this state of things until in 1828, Gov. Edwards demanded the expulsion of the Indians, and as the result of his persistent efforts, President Jackson made an order for their removal across the Mississippi in 1829; but upon the personal application of Col. George Davenport, Indian trader on Rock Island, the time was extended to April 1, 1830.
In 1829, Col. Davenport, and Davenport & Farnham, purchased from the United States the site of Saukenuk and nearly all the lands cultivated by the Sacs, the ulterior object being to permit their continued and unmolested occupancy by the Indians. Black Hawk, when he learned of the purchase, failing to understand the motive which prompted it, was greatly incensed against the colonel, who thereupon offered with the consent of the government, to exchange these lands for others, or even cancel the sale, and allow the Indians to remain in peaceable possession. A deputation headed by Keokuk, pro- ceeded to Washington, to endeavor to effect such an arrange- ment. But President Jackson would not consent to it, and notified the Indians that all the lands, embodied in the treaty of 1804, must be surrendered and they remove to the west side of the Mississippi, as had been previously ordered.
Keokuk, acting in concert with the United-States Indian agent at Fort Armstrong, advised submission. But Black Hawk, moody and discontented, and feeling that injustice had been done his band, upon the advice of White Cloud, the Prophet, who exercised a controlling influence over him, and after consulting with his "British father" at Malden, determined not to abandon his ancient village and lands, but to insist upon his right to occupy them.
On the return of the Sac chief and his braves in the spring of 1830 from their annual hunt, it was found that the settlers,
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emboldened by the action of the government, had practically taken possession of his farms, had nearly ruined his town by burning many lodges, and had obliterated even the graves of his dead by the plow. Still, no actual outbreak occurred until the return of the Indians in 1831. The winter had been severe and the chase unsuccessful, and on reaching the village the disheartened aborigines were ordered to depart in terms full of menace. This quickly precipitated the climax. Quietly, but with native dignity, Black Hawk replied that the land was his, and that if any one were to withdraw it must be the white interlopers, and that to secure this end he was prepared to use force.
The white settlers, now numbering about forty inhabitants, who had come to believe that under no circumstances need they apprehend resistance or retaliation, construed these words in accordance with their fears and promptly appealed to Gov. Reynolds for protection against the "blood-thirsty savages." Although Black Hawk himself subsequently declared that he contemplated only "muscular eviction without bloodshed," whatever that may mean, the whites assured the governor that he had thrown down their fences, destroyed their grain, demolished their houses, driven off their cattle, and made threats against their persons. Two petitions were sent to Gov. Reynolds setting forth the grievances of the settlers, one dated April 30, and one May 19, in response to which on May 26, the governor issued a call for seven hundred militia "to remove the band of Sac Indians now residing about Rock Island." At. the same time he notified Gen. Edmund P. Gaines, in command of the military district, of his action and requested his coopera- tion. Gen. Gaines replied that he had ordered six companies of regular troops, stationed at Jefferson Barracks, to repair forthwith to Rock Island, and promised if necessary, that he would add four companies more from Prairie du Chien. With this force, the general informed the governor, he was satisfied he would be able to repel the alleged invasion of the Sacs and protect the frontier; and that he did not think it "necessary or proper to require militia, or any other force" besides the regular army for that purpose.
The militia assembled, however, at Beardstown, early in:
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June, as directed, but in double the number called for. Two regiments one commanded by Col. James D. Henry, and the other by Col. Daniel Leib, an odd battalion, and a spy battal- ion were organized, and all placed under command of Gen. Joseph Duncan. The governor's principal aides, Cols. Milton K. Alexander, Enoch C. March, and Samuel C. Christy, were appointed quartermasters, and Col. E. C. Berry adjutant- general .*
On June 5, Gen. Gaines notified Gov. Reynolds that having learned that the Sacs had invited the support of the Winne- bagos, Pottawatomies, and Kickapoos in a determined resist- ance, requested of his excellency the assistance and coopera- tion of "the battalion of mounted men" previously offered.
The combined armies numbering some twenty-five hundred troops, appeared before the village occupied by the Sacs, June 25, 1831. Black Hawk perceiving his inferiority in point of numbers, not having over three hundred warriors present, successfully evacuated the fort during the night, effecting a withdrawal to the west bank of the Mississippi about twelve miles below. After burning the deserted town, the whites proceeded to Rock Island, where Gen. Gaines declared his intention to pursue and attack the fugitives, and so notified their chief. This had the desired effect of bringing Black Hawk back to the general's headquarters, where, on June 30, a treaty was signed, by which he obligated himself and band to remain away from the east side of the river unless their return was permitted by the United States. Whether or not this compact was reported to the president, as other Indian treaties had been, or whether it was inherently defective, it was never rati- fied by congress, and does not appear among the published
* The officers of the regiments and companies were as follows: Ist regiment, Col. James D. Henry, Lieut .- Col. Jacob Fry, Major John T. Stuart, Adjutant Thomas Collins; captains : Adam Smith, Wm. F. Elkin, A. Morris, Thomas Carlin, Samuel Smith, John Lorton, and Samuel C. Pease; 2d regiment, Col. Daniel Leib, Lieut. - Col. (unknown), Major Nathaniel Butler; captains: H. Matthews, John Hanes, George Bristow, Wm. Gillham, James Kinkead, Alexander Wells, Wm. Weather- ford. The "odd battalion," Major Nathaniel Buckmaster, Adjutant James Semple, Paymaster Joseph Gillespie; captains: Wm. Moore, John Laramie, Solomon Miller. The "spy battalion," Major Samuel Whitesides, Adjutant Samuel F. Kendall, Quartermaster John S. Greathouse, Paymaster P. H. Winchester; captains: Wm. Bolin Whiteside, Wm. Miller, and Solomon Prewitt.
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collection of such treaties. And thus without bloodshed ter- minated the campaign of 1831: 1
"The King of France, with all his men,
Marched up the hill, and then marched down again."
Black Hawk and his followers now realized the hardships and sufferings incident to a forced expatriation, at a season of the year before the hunt began, and when it was too late to raise any crops for their sustenance. Although they received some corn and other assistance under the treaty, his band passed a wretched summer.
Smarting under a sense of humiliation and want, as if to complicate the difficulties surrounding him, he engaged in a raid against the Menominees in retaliation for an attack by that tribe and some Sioux upon the Sacs the previous year, in which a number of the latter had been killed. The Menominees were encamped upon an island opposite Prairie du Chien, where they were savagely assailed by Black Hawk, and but one of the band of twenty-eight, escaped mutilation or massacre. Upon demand by Gen. Joseph M. Street, Indian agent, to deliver up the murderers, Black Hawk unhesitatingly refused, contending that his foray was one of justifiable reprisal.
In the meantime Neapope, second in command of the Hawk's band, had again visited "the British father" at Malden, and had interviewed the Winnebagos and Pottawatomies, from all of whom he brought back glowing assurances of sympathy, and support. Relying upon these, and in pursuance of the advice of the Prophet, Black Hawk once more resolved to reoccupy his old village and farms if permitted; or in case of refusal by the proper authorities, to proceed to the Prophet's town and raise a crop with the Winnebagos. Of course this step was in direct violation of the treaty of the year before, if that agreement, extorted from him as it was under the threat of an immediate attack, was of binding force. He apparently regarded it as having been already violated through the failure of the whites to provide adequate supplies for his band.
However this may be, Black Hawk with his band of five hundred warriors, their squaws, children, and household effects, crossed the Mississippi, April 6, 1832, at the Yellow Banks on
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his way to the Rock River-his design being as subsequently avowed by himself, to proceed peaceably to the country of the Winnebagos for the purpose of raising a crop.
At this time northern Illinois was almost an uninhabited wilderness. There was a settlement of some thirty farmers on Bureau Creek, and a few cabins at Peru, LaSalle, Ottawa, Newark, Holderman's Grove, and on Indian Creek, besides the towns of Galena and Chicago. There were many Indian trails, but there was only one wagon-road north of the Illinois River, sometimes called Kellogg's trail, between Peoria and Galena, over which daily traveled the mail-coach, carrying the news, and often loaded with passengers going to the mines. Along this route houses of entertainment were kept by "old man" Kellogg at Kellogg's Grove, Mr. Winter on Apple River, John Dixon at Dixon's Ferry, on Rock River "Dad Joe" at the grove of that name, Henry Thomas on West-Bureau Creek, and Charles S. Boyd at Boyd's Grove. An Indian trail con- nected Galena with Chicago by way of Lake Geneva, and what was denominated the great Sac trail extended across the State from Rock Island to the south shore of Lake Michigan and thence to Malden.
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