USA > Illinois > Illinois, the story of the prairie state > Part 4
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But the war came directly to Illinois, on account of the Indian attacks incited by English agents all through the northwest. The great leader of the red men was Tecumseh, who with his brother, the Prophet, joined many tribes in a conspiracy, like Pontiac's, to drive the white men east over the mountains, away from the hunting grounds of the whole Mississippi Valley.
In his interviews with Harrison, who had fol- lowed Wayne's plan of securing land by treaties, Tecumseh insisted that none of these agreements was binding, as they had been made by individual
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tribes, instead of with the consent of all the tribes. He offered an alliance, if the Americans would give up all the lands they held by treaty or purchase. But Harrison replied "that the president would put his warriors in petticoats, sooner than give up the country he had fairly acquired, or to suffer his peo- ple to be murdered with impunity."1
"Then the Great Spirit," said Tecumseh, "must decide the matter. It is true the president is so far off that he will not be injured by the war. He may sit still in his town, and drink his wine, while you and I will have to fight it out."2
And fight it out they did, in the battle of Tippe- canoe, a famous Harrison victory.
When war was finally declared, the Americans wanted to conquer Canada, just as in the early days of the Revolution. General Hull crossed at Detroit and encamped on Canadian soil, but soon withdrew his force and surrendered Detroit and the whole ter- ritory of Michigan, while his men wept at the dis- grace. Other posts suffered, too, miserably pro- vided for, through Hull's incompetence, or because his requests for men and supplies were not met at Washington.
Chief of these was the little fort on the Chicago River, which had been built eight years before, "to supply the Indians' wants and to control the In- dians' policy." It consisted of two blockhouses,
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surrounded by a stockade, a subterranean passage from the parade to the river, and three pieces of light artillery. It was named Fort Dearborn, after a general in the United States Army.
This summer of 1812 it had a garrison of seventy- five men under Captain Heald. Hull, commanding the entire northwest, sent a friendly Indian to Heald, with orders "to evacuate the fort at Chi- cago if practicable, and in that event, to distribute all of the United States property contained in the fort, and the United States factory, or agency, among the Indians of the neighborhood, and repair to Fort Wayne."3
If the garrison was not to be reinforced, leaving this isolated fort was perhaps a wise move. Not so, the indiscriminate giving to the Indians !
The messenger urged that the Americans, if they were going, should go without a moment's delay, leaving all things standing, and make their retreat while the savages were busy dividing the spoils. Several of the officers remonstrated with Heald, saying it was little short of madness, urging him to stay in the fort, for they had provisions and am- munition for six months, and it was better to fall into the hands of the English than become the vic- tims of the savages. But Heald was a soldier, with orders from his general, and disregarded this pru- dent advice.
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The Indians were showing distinct signs of un- friendliness, walking boldly into the fort without answering the sentinels. Yet Heald called them to a council and asked their escort to Fort Wayne, promising large rewards on their arrival, in addition to the presents he would give them immediately. To this the red men agreed.
The next day all the goods and provisions in the government store were distributed among the In- dians-blankets, broadcloths, calicoes, paints. But even Captain Heald was struck with the folly of giving them arms and ammunition, and liquor to fire their brains. At night, with the greatest silence and secrecy, the barrels of whisky were rolled through the underground passage and emptied into the stream, the guns and powder thrown into a well.
But the Indians, suspecting the game, approached as near as possible, heard the knocking in of the barrel heads, and saw the whole affair. The river tasted "like strong grog," they said the next morn- ing. Murmurs and threats were heard on every side. They bitterly reproached the Americans for not keeping their pledge. Years later Black Hawk insisted that Heald's broken promise brought on the massacre. 4
But some of the Indians were truly the friends of the white men. One chief warned them that the Pottawatomies could not be trusted. Another,
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Black Partridge, went to Captain Heald after the council, saying, "Father, I am come to deliver up to you the medal I wear. It was given me by your countrymen, and I have long worn it, as a token of our friendship. Our young men are resolved to imbrue their hands in the blood of the whites. I can not restrain them, and will not wear a token of peace when compelled to act as an enemy."5
Notwithstanding all these warnings, on the morn- ing of the fifteenth of August, Captain Heald marched out of the fort at the head of his troops, their families and baggage, and bringing up the rear was a force of five hundred Indians, the escort to Fort Wayne. The long line started down the beach road, near the lake. A mile and a half from the fort, the Indians changed to the prairie road, with sand dunes intervening between them and the Americans.
Suddenly a volley of musketry poured in upon the soldiers. Brought into line, the troops charged up the bank, and the battle at once became general. The Americans behaved most gallantly, and though they were few in number, sold their lives dearly. But when two-thirds of them had been killed, the remainder surrendered, stipulating for their own safety, and the safety of the women and children.
The wounded soldiers were not specifically men- tioned, and the Indians, insisting they had not been included, tomahawked them during the night. The
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dozen children in one of the baggage wagons were killed. The fort was plundered and burned to the ground. The prisoners were distributed among the savages, and not till a year later ransomed at De- troit.6
This massacre at Fort Dearborn was the greatest that ever occurred in Illinois. Troops were at once enlisted for expeditions against the tribes that had taken part, several of their villages were destroyed and their fields laid waste.
For the rest of the war the frontier was put in a state of defense. Blockhouses and stockade forts were repaired and strengthened. Remote settlers and garrisons were moved to the villages. New companies of "rangers," mounted militia, patroled the border.
In spite of these precautions, the frontier reached so far that the greatest diligence in ranging could not give perfect security. Raids and murders in- creased as the war went on, for the Indians were given additional incentives by the British, who kept up their work of "setting the red men like dogs upon the whites." Perry's victory on Lake Erie and Harrison's at the Thames forced the savages to retreat from Canada, and center their attacks on the Mississippi settlements. North of the Illinois River the Indians kept the upper hand until peace finally brought them to terms.
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Mrs. Kinzie, whose family were among the first settlers at Fort Dearborn, wrote a most interesting story called Waubun, the Early Day in the North- west. You will enjoy her account of the massacre, told partly in the words of an eye-witness, the wife of one of the officers, who was saved by Black Par- tridge. The Wentworth essays, published in the Fergus historical series, and Quaife's Chicago and the Old Northwest are other interesting accounts ; and you will find a good chapter in Parrish's His- toric Illinois.
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X
ILLINOIS BECOMES A STATE
P ROVINCE, county, territory, Illinois was soon ready to ask for a final form of government. After the War of 1812 the number of settlers in- creased very rapidly. The fertility of the soil and the healthful climate attracted many immigrants. The cessation of Indian attacks made life and prop- erty secure. The introduction of steamboats on lakes and rivers made the journey far easier. Best of all, Congress passed an act giving settlers the right of preemption on public lands, protecting them against speculators.1 In ten years the population increased nearly five hundred per cent.
Early in 1818 the legislature of the territory sent a petition to Nathaniel Pope, their delegate at Wash- ington, asking for the admission of Illinois to the Union. A bill for this purpose was introduced in Congress in April.
Pope, looking to the future, suggested two amend- ments. In the other states formed from the North- west Territory three per cent. of the public land
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money was given to the states for building roads and bridges. But in Illinois this was to be used for schools.2
Still more important was the question of the boundary, which had been fixed by the ordinance of 1787 ; but Pope suggested that the line from the Mississippi to Lake Michigan should be moved far- ther north. Illinois, said he, is the keystone in the arch of western states. Her size and the oppor- tunity afforded for supporting a large population will make her an influential state. She will be an important factor in preserving or dissolving the Union, should that question arise. Geography ties her closely to south and west, because of the river commerce on the Mississippi and its tributaries. Now, if we give Illinois a frontage on Lake Mich- igan, where the steamboats will soon increase trade, she will have equally strong business ties with the eastern states. Linked to both south and east, her interests would be conservative, and she will support the federal union.3
Congress agreed unanimously with Pope, and the line was fixed at 42° 30'. Wisconsin made repeated efforts to have her land restored; but her petitions to Congress were tabled and she was admitted to the Union in 1848 with no change in the boundary.
This moving of the northern line and the pro- vision for the support of schools were urged by
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Pope without special instructions from the legisla- ture. Illinois was being built better than the people knew. Without Pope's line the entire history of state and nation would have to be changed. For it added to Illinois a strip of land, sixty-one miles wide, from which fourteen counties were made. It gave her the lead mines of Galena, a generous share of the lake front, the site of Chicago. It made pos- sible the Illinois-Michigan Canal and the Illinois Central railroad.
And when you learn that the vote of these north- ern counties, in later years, kept Illinois a free state, carried the state Republican in 1856 and made Lin- coln a presidential possibility, and gave him the vote of Illinois in 1860, you may well marvel at Pope's suggestion as that of a prophet, foreseeing the dan- ger to the nation in slavery and state sovereignty, and placing Illinois squarely in the right. Forty- two years later the prophecy was fulfilled. The south did secede, but Illinois remained in the Union, setting an example of loyalty to Missouri and Ken- tucky, her neighbors on the border.
During the summer of 1818 a convention met at Kaskaskia, to make a constitution for the new state of Illinois. It divided the government into three parts, just like the federal plan : legislative, with two branches, executive and judicial. The governor, lieutenant-governor and senators were to be elected
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every four years, the representatives every two. The supreme court was to have four judges, who heard cases in the circuit courts also.
The governor must be at least thirty years of age, a resident of the United States for thirty years and of Illinois for two years before his election. The same requirements were made for the lieutenant- governor, but after the constitution was completed and signed by the delegates, this was changed. The clause, "a citizen of the United States for thirty years," was stricken out from the qualifications for lieutenant-governor, that Pierre Menard, a French- man in Kaskaskia who had just been naturalized, might hold this office.4
This first constitution for Illinois had several pe- culiar features. The legislature, not the governor, appointed almost all the officials for counties and state. Hordes of place hunters went to the capital at every session and besieged members for offices. The legislature had the right to grant divorces. Worst of all, it could pledge the state's credit with- out limit, a fact that later brought Illinois to the verge of bankruptcy. It had one splendid provi- sion-no imprisonment for debt, Illinois being one of the first states to do away with this practise.
A draft of the new constitution was sent to Con- gress and that body passed a resolution on the third
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of December, 1818, declaring Illinois to be "one of the United States of America, and admitted to the Union on an equal footing with the original states in all respects."
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XI
EARLY YEARS OF STATEHOOD
O UR state history begins, then, in the winter of 1818, with Kaskaskia as the capital. But almost the first thing done by the legislature, follow- ing the example of Congress in making Washington the capital of the nation, was to choose a new cap- ital for Illinois.
Congress, when petitioned, granted the state four sections of land, and commissioners were appointed to select the site and lay out a town, to be the capital for twenty years. They were considering Carlyle, a place on the river just above Kaskaskia, and a high bluff belonging to Nathaniel Pope, when a noted hunter and trapper named Reeves came into town. Still farther up the river, twenty miles from any settlement, he had a cabin, and spoke in the most glowing terms of the beauty of the country there. "Pope's bluff nor Carlyle wasn't a primin' to his bluff !" and that won over the commissioners, who voted for Reeves's home.1
Though in the midst of a wilderness, it was a beautiful spot, covered with gigantic trees. The
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site selected, the commissioners must have a name, euphonious and historic. The story goes that a wag said the Vandals were once a powerful nation of Indians on the Kaskaskia River. Without troubling themselves about history the officials adopted this suggestion and the new capital was named Van- dalia.2
A town was laid out, with a handsome public square and broad streets. Lots were sold at auction, for fabulous prices, as high as seven hundred and eighty dollars. The people proved themselves Van- dals indeed, for their first act was to cut down the forest trees! The plans for a fine state house ended in a plain two-story frame building, with a rough stone foundation, set in the center of the square.
In December, 1820, the archives of Illinois were moved from Kaskaskia to Vandalia, making one wagon load. It was indeed a pioneer trip, for part of the way the clerk of the secretary of state had to cut a road through the woods.
Three years later the state house burned in the night, not a piece of furniture being saved. Imme- diately the citizens of Vandalia started a subscrip- tion to rebuild it, and raised three thousand dollars in three days. Using this sum, and state funds in addition, a large brick building was erected, serving as the capitol till 1839 and since then as the county building.
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And now, what kind of place was Illinois, what people lived here, in those early days? What were their occupations and their interests?
The settlements were all in the south, below Al- ton, and near the rivers. There were large tracts of wilderness country inhabited only by the wolves and Indians. But there was constant change, the number of people increasing with phenomenal ra- pidity. See what the census reported each decade- 12,000 people, 57,000, 72,000, 157,000, and then 480,000, with an increase in wealth in nearly the same proportion.
Immigration came in waves, flowing in in a great tide, ebbing, and flooding in again. After Wayne's treaty, after the conflict with England, after the election in 1824, after the Black Hawk war, large numbers of people arrived to settle in Illinois. In 1825 the current set toward the center of the state. In Vandalia alone, in three weeks' time, two hun- dred and fifty wagons were counted, all going north- ward.3 And one fortnight saw four hundred immi- grants passing through the capital, bound for the Sangamo country. Five years more saw people liv- ing as far north as Peoria, and by 1840 practically the whole state was settled.
Scarcely a twentieth part of the inhabitants of Illinois were of French descent. Nineteen-twenti- eths were American, first Clark's sturdy soldiers,
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then groups from Kentucky and Virginia, stamping the social customs of the south on all of southern Illinois. The settlers in the north were Yankees -so enterprising, so restless, so industrious that the north soon went ahead in farms and villages, in roads and bridges, in churches and schools. For a while the southern part of the state, being older and better cultivated, "gathered corn as the sand of the sea." And people in the center and north, after the manner of the children of Israel, went "thither to buy and bring from thence that they might live and not die." And so the southern part of Illinois was named Egypt, and is so called to this day.4
But the fame of the agricultural advantages of Illinois had spread far beyond the Atlantic states. It had attracted the attention of Europeans.5 A German colony called "Dutch Hollow" was started in St. Clair County. A Swiss colony was planted near by. And in Edwards County was the flourish- ing town of Albion, founded by two Englishmen, Flower and Birkbeck. From the British Isles they brought out several hundred families-artisans, la- borers and farmers-and this community became one of the most prosperous in the state. Morris Birkbeck had met Edward Coles in London. Two years later they were both in Illinois, where one became governor, the other secretary of state.
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Many men of the East, hearing tales of the western country, made extensive journeys through the interior on horseback, by boat, or on foot, in order to see the region for themselves or to pick out future homes for themselves and their families
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These settlers from the east brought money with them. This was quite a novelty in Illinois.6 Deer and raccoon skins had been the standard of ex- change, and answered every need. Three pounds of shaved deer skin was considered a dollar.
The people were farmers and hunters and stock- men. They raised their own provisions and supplied most of their own wants. Every settler was his own carpenter., The houses were mostly log cab- ins, with no glass, nails, hinges or locks. The fur- niture was made by hand, as were the carts and wagons, yokes for the oxen, harness for the horses. Though they were often rough and unrefined, these pioneers had sterling qualities; they were brave and energetic and hospitable.
Nearly all of the immigrants had come to this new country to acquire some property. But among them were adventurers and fugitives from justice. For a year or two the state was overrun with bands of horse thieves, so numerous and so well organized that they defied the authority of the law. Indeed, many of the police, the sheriffs and justices of the peace, even some judges, were connected with the thieves. If they were arrested they would be let off by some friends on the jury or through false witnesses. In one county the rogues, by voting all one way, even elected their own sheriff !7
Finally the citizens became so enraged that they
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organized companies called "regulators." Despair- ing of enforcing the laws in the customary way, judges, and even the governor, gave them every possible encouragement unofficially. Armed, the regulators would assemble at night, march to a thief's house, arrest him, thrash him soundly and expel him from the state. And gradually Illinois was rid of the scoundrels.
The courts were very simple. The people did not require the judges to be men of great learning, but of good common sense. Court was held in a log house, in a store or an inn, with temporary seats for judge, lawyers and jurors. At the opening of the first circuit court held by Judge Reynolds, who was afterward governor of the state, the sheriff, sitting astride a rude bench, called out, "Boys, come in-our John is going to hold court."
And another judge said to the lawyers, asking for instructions to the jury, "Why, gentlemen, the jury understand the case. No doubt they will do justice between the parties."8
Some of the legislators were simple, uneducated men. One of them, John Grammar, was chosen first to the territorial, then to the state legislature, for nearly twenty years. When first elected, being ut- terly destitute of civilized clothing, he and his sons gathered a large quantity of hickory nuts which they traded for blue strouding. The women of the neigh-
-- Pioneer Life in the West
Type of early Illinois cabin dweller's home
Preparing a meal over the camp fire
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borhood met to make up the garments he needed, but found that he had picked too few nuts. In every possible way they tried the pattern. The cloth was too scant! So they made a bob-tailed coat and a long pair of leggings, and arrayed in these he ap- peared at Kaskaskia, and patiently waited for the passing of a bill for the members' salaries. Then he set out to buy a pair of fashionable "unmention- ables."
Here is the speech of an early candidate :
"Fellow citizens, I offer myself as a candidate before you for the office of governor. I do not pre- tend to be a man of extraordinary talents; nor do I claim to be equal to Julius Cæsar or Napoleon Bonaparte, nor yet to as great a man as my oppo- nent, Governor Edwards. Nevertheless, I think I can govern you pretty well. I do not think it will require a very extraordinary smart man to govern you; for to tell you the truth, fellow citizens, I do not believe you will be very hard to govern, no how."9
But Ninian Edwards, who had been governor of Illinois Territory, arrayed in his broadcloth coat, ruffled shirt and high-topped boots, made his canvass over the state, traveling in his carriage or on horse- back attended by his colored servant. His friends feared people would be driven away by his aristo- cratic appearance. But this attracted them, and they
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thought it an honor to support "such a high-toned, elegant old gentleman." So Edwards was elected, for in that early day personal considerations counted as all-important with the voters.
The legislature re-enacted the territorial laws, with all the old punishments. But until 1827 they were changed at every session, and men said it was "a good thing that the Holy Scriptures did not have to come before the legislature, for that body would . be certain to alter or amend them, so that no one could tell what was or was not the word of God, any more than could be told what was or was not the law of the state."10
The very word tax was odious to the people ; and when a bill was passed levying a tax on prop- erty, to support the schools and repair the roads, it was promptly repealed. For men said they'd rather work on the roads themselves and let their children grow up in ignorance !
Indeed, the people were parsimonious with state funds. In 1824 provision was made for five cir- cuit judges, to receive six hundred dollars a year, while the supreme court judges were to have eight hundred. This was considered a most extravagant outlay of public moneys, practically pensioning the supreme court judges. And such a clamor was- raised that the next legislature repealed the act and
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ordered the supreme court judges to hold both courts.
Would you like to read more about these early days? George Flower, when an old man, wrote the story of the English colony in Edwards County. It is full of picturesque descriptions of scenes and events, of the struggles and labors of the early set- tlers. You will especially enjoy his account of their journey on horseback from Pittsburgh to Vincennes and the ever-receding prairies; of how Albion was located; of their blooded English cattle and sheep; of the pioneer churches and the camp meeting; and the beauty of the prairies in different seasons.
In other books you may read of interesting types among the early settlers : the Yankees, cordially dis- liked in the southern part of the state; the Irish school-teacher; the singing master; the circuit-rid- ing lawyers; and the pioneer missionaries, like John Mason Peck and the eccentric Peter Cartright.
XII
SLAVE OR FREE?
Y OU remember that the ordinance of 1787 ex- pressly states that there should be no slavery in the Northwest Territory? But the question came up constantly. Settlers from the southern states, coming into Illinois, were allowed to bring their slaves with them. The constitution prohibited the further introduction of slaves, but "indentured serv- ants" could be held for the whole term of their con- tracts-and this was generally ninety-nine years !1
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