The History of Peoria County, Illinois. Containing a history of the Northwest-history of Illinois-history of the county, its early settlement, growth, development, resources, etc., etc., Part 18

Author: Johnson & co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : Johnson & Company
Number of Pages: 932

USA > Illinois > Peoria County > The History of Peoria County, Illinois. Containing a history of the Northwest-history of Illinois-history of the county, its early settlement, growth, development, resources, etc., etc. > Part 18

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Reynolds says that after stopping at the Winnebago camp, "the boatmen inade the Indians drunk -and no doubt were so themselves- when they captured six or seven squaws, who were also drunk. These captured squaws were forced on the boats for corrupt and brutal purposes. But not satisfied with this outrage on female virtue, the boatmen took the squaws with them in the boats to Fort Snelling." Another version given by those who were familiar with the events of that year, is that the boatmen and the Indians had a drunken frolic ; that several squaws were kept on board the boats all night, and put ashore the next morning before any of the tribe had recovered from the effects of their " spree," after which the boats continued on their voyage up the river. These accounts agree as to the main fact that the boatmen committed a gross outrage upon the Indians, and provoked an attack.

When the duped and injured Winnebagoes had slept off the effects of their debauch and became sober enough to comprehend the outrage committed upon their women, and the consequent injury done them, they were intensely exasperated, and resolved to wash out the stain upon their honor in blood. What white people would not have done the same, under similar circumstances ? Runners were sent out in all directions summoning the warriors to the scene of action at once for an attack on the boats when they returned. A war party of the Winnebagoes went from Jo Daviess county, in the vicinity of Galena, to aid their northern brethren in avenging the insult they had received. Capt. D. S. Harris, of Galena, states that at this time a band of 15 or 20 of these Indians stopped at his father's house, on their way up the river, and were very insolent. "Old Curley," a friendly Indian, had notified the family of the intended visit, and the younger members had sought refuge in the neighboring cornfield, leaving only Smith and Seribe in the honse with their mother. "The Indians," says Smith Harris, " were very insolent, as was not unusual for that tribe. They offered no personal injury, for Seribe and I stood by our guns. They did attempt to take some articles of goods we had, but we told them if they didn't let things alone we should shoot, and they knew we meant it. They finally left without doing any harm, and we felt much relieved." This band went north and, it is said, murdered a family near Prairie du Chien. Four Winnebago chiefs called upon the Gratiots, at Gratiot's Grove, and informed them that on account of the action of the whites, they should be unable to restrain their young men from declaring war, and as they did not desire to harm the "Choteaus," (as the Indians always called the Gratiot family) they had come to tell them that they had better remove. But careful inquiry among those who were here during that year fails to develop any evidence that any outrages were committed by the Indians in the mining district at that time, either before or after the insult by those drunken keel-boatmen, and which the injured party intended to avenge upon the guilty parties themselves.

Wakefield says that some of the Indians "came aboard of Lindsey's boat on his way up and showed such signs of hostility that he was led to expect an attack on his return. and provided himself with a few fire arms, so that in case of an attack by them he might be able to defend himself." Other accounts state that the boatmen anticipated an attack upon their return. Why, if they had done nothing to provoke an assault? The Indians were peaceable, and even in the mines, where they had reason to complain of the en- croachments of the whites upon their territory, they had done nothing more than to drive off the trespassers.

Of course the boatmen expected an attack on their return trip, for they knew they deserved it, and the dispassionate judgment of humanity, after the lapse of half a cen- tury, coneurs in that opinion. Knowing this, they attempted to run by the Winnebago village on their return, in the night. The watchful, vengeful Winnebagoes, however, were not thus to be eluded. The boats were forced to approach near the shore in the narrow channel of the river at that point, and there, says Reynolds, "the infuriated savages assailed one boat und permitted the other to pass down" unmolested. The pre-

119

GENERAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

sumption is that the boat assailed contained the offenders whom they wished to punish. Reynolds' account of the fight is as follows :-

The boatmen were not entirely prepared for the attack, although to some extent they were guarded against it. They had procured some arms, and were on the alert to some degree. The Indians laid down in their canoes and tried to paddle them to the boat ; but the whites, seeing this, fired their muskets on them in their canoes. It was a desperate and furious fight for a few minutes, between a good many Indians exposed in open canoes and only a few boatmen, protected to some extent, by their boat. One boatman, a sailor by profession on the lakes and ocean, who had been in many battles with the British during the war of 1812, saved the boat and those of the crew who were

not killed. This man was large and strong, and possessed the courage of an African lion.

He seized a part of the

setting pole of the boat, which was about four feet long and had on the end a piece of iron, which made the pole weighty and a powerful weapon in the hands of "Saucy Jack," as the champion was called. It is stated that when the Indians attempted to board the boat, Jack would knock them back into the river as fast as they approached. The boat got fast on the ground, and the whites seemed doomed, but with great exertion, courage and hard fighting. the Indians were repelled. ("Jack," unmindful of the shower of bullets whistling about, seized a pole, pushed the boat into the current and it floated beyond the reach of the assailants.) The savages killed several white men and wounded many more, leaving barely enough to navigate the boat. Thus commenced and ended the bloodshed of the Winnebago War. No white man or Indian was killed before or after this naval engagement.

The arrival of these boats at Galena and the report of their narrow escape, created great alarm, intensified by the arrival, the same day, of a party who had fled to Galena for safety, anticipating war, and by the warning given to the Gratiots. All mining ope- rations ceased ; the miners and scattered settlers hurried to Galena for safety, built stock- ades and blockhouses in their own neighborhoods, or left the country. A little fort was built at Elizabeth, another at Apple river, and still another in Michigan Territory. These forts, although not needed then, were afterwards found " very handy to have in the family."

Governor Edwards received information, on which he relied, that the Winnebago Indians had attacked some keel-boats, that the settlers and miners on Fever river were in imminent danger of an attack from a band of the same and other Indians (although the facts, as reported to him and upon which he acted, have never been made public), and called out the Twentieth Regiment Illinois Militia, under Col. Thomas M. Neale, who were to rendezvous at Fort Clark (Peoria), " and march with all possible expedition to the assistance of our fellow citizens at Galena." The brave citizens of Sangamon rallied to the rendezvous, and, with ten days' rations, marched to Gratiot Grove, and -finding no hostile Indians there, disbanded and marched home.

Gen. Lewis Cass, Governor of Michigan Territory, who had been appointed by the government to hold a treaty with the Lake Michigan Indians, at Geeen Bay, arrived there about this time, and, finding but few there and hearing that the Lake Indians had received war messages from the interior, hastened to communicate the startling intelligence to the military commander at St. Louis. He ascended Fox river from Green Bay, descended the Wisconsin and Mississippi, and in nine days arrived at St. Louis. It is said that " among the Winnebagoes he discovered warlike preparations, but his sudden and unex- pected appearance among them in a birch canoe, of larger size than that used by ordinary traders, filled with armed men, with the U. S. flag flying, led the Indians to suspect that he was accompanied by a superior force. To this fact and the rapidity of his movements may be attributed his safety and the men under his command." A single birch bark canoe, with armed men enough in it to overcome thousands of hostile savages for hun- dreds of miles, must have been worth seeing.

On his way down, Gen. Cass stopped at Galena, where Gen. Henry Dodge and Gen. Whiteside had raised a company of volunteers, ready to march against the terrible foe. An eye witness of his arrival says that in the midst of the alarm then prevailing the ex- cited people heard singing, and thought the Indians were coming, but soon their fears were allayed, for they saw, gliding gracefully up the river, around the point below the village, a large canoe flying the United States flag and containing an American officer and six Canadians dressed in blue jackets and red sashes, with bright feathers in their hats, who were singing the " Canadian Boat Song " as they bent over their oars, and with

120

GENERAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS

measured strokes sent it flying to the bank, when Gen. Cass stepped ashore amid the cheers of the assembled population. Armed men were few and far between in that boat.

Immediately upon receipt of news from Governor Cass, General Atkinson marched with 600 men to the " seat of war," and formed a junction with the Galena Volunteers at Fort Winnebago. "Thus far they had marched into the bowels of the land without impediment." During all this period of alarm, excitement and feverish expectation of a descent of the hostile Indians upon the defenseless frontier settlements in the mining district, what were these Indians doing ? They had had time enough to have swept the white settlers on Fever river out of the country, or out of existence, before the * impos- ing display of such a large number of troops in the heart of their country dampened their war spirit and induced them to surrender their chiefs," but it does not appear that they murdered a single settler or committed any serious depredations after they had punished the keel-boatmen who had so grossly insulted them.

Capt. D. S. Harris, who was a volunteer in the Galena company commanded by Gen. Dodge, says : "We marched to Fort Winnebago, where Red Bird was brought in a prisoner, and that was the end of it." The Winnebagoes surrendered Red Bird and We- Kaw, the two chiefs who had led the attack upon the keel-boats, when Gen. Atkinson made the imposing military display in " the heart of their country." Red Bird was im- prisoned at Prairie du Chien, where he was to be kept as a hostage for the good behavior of his nation, but his proud spirit was broken by confinement that he felt was unjust, and he soon died.

Thus ended the Winnebago War, which was really only an attack upon some keel- boatmen, provoked by the outrages upon the Indians by the boatmen themselves. There was no war elsewhere, but the prosperity of the mining region was temporarily checked by the alarm and consequent suspension of mining and business.

Whether, had the Indians succeeded in their attempt to murder the offending crew of the boat they attacked while they permitted the other to pass down the river un- molested, they would have entered upon the war path against all the white settlements in this region, must forever be a matter of conjecture, and while there were and are differences of opinion, the most of the survivors of that period of excitement coincide in the belief that had not the Indians been stung to fury by these drunken boatmen there would have been no trouble. The mineral lands could have been bought, as they were. subsequently, by treaty. If the government, when it demanded the surrender of Red Bird and kept him as a hostage, had arrested those boatmen and imprisoned them for life, both for the outrage they committed and for recklessly disturbing the peace, and de- stroying for a time the prosperity of the frontier settlements, and causing so much dam- age to the innocent settlers, or had delivered them to the Indians to be kept as hostages for the good behavior of their class, it would have been only even-handed justice.

Soon after this disgraceful, and in some respects Indierous, affair, a Treaty was made with the Winnebagoes by which for twenty thousand dollars paid in goods and trinkets at fabulous prices, they were satisfied for the damages sustained by them in consequence of the trespasses on their lands, and relinquished a large tract of these lands to the miners.

121

GENERAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

CHAPTER IX.

BLACK HAWK AND THE BLACK HAWK WAR.

Personal and Tribal Sketch - Black Hawk's Version of the Treaty of 1804- Bad Faith - Removal Across the Mississippi - Hunger and Want - Return to Illinois. FIRST CAMPAIGN : Where the History of the War Be- longs - General Gaines - Back to Iowa - Black Hawk's Movements in Iowa - Second Return to Illinois - Black Hawk's Purpose - Bearing of His Braves - Colonel Davenport. SECOND CAMPAIGN : Governor Reynolds - Call for Troops - Stillman's Rout - Back to Dixon - Council of War - "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground " - General Scott - A New Enemy - Indian Creek Massacre - Hunting the Indians. THIRD CAMPAIGN : Skirmishing -Striking the Trail - The First Battle - Wisconsin Heights- Strength of the Indians - The Tomahawk Buried - Prayer for Peace - Battle of Bad Axe. AFTER THE BATTLE: Scenes and Incidents - Flight of Black Hawk - His Surrender - Remarkable Speech - Captivity and Release - IIis Death and Burial - Desecration of His Burial Place - Cremation of His Bones - Last of the Sacs and Foxes.

PERSONAL AND TRIBAL SKETCHES - TREATY OF 1804- BAD FAITH.

For the following sketch of Black Hawk, whose name and history is so intimately associated with the early history of Illinois, and of the Sac and Fox Indians, the writer is indebted to Colonel Patterson, of the Oquawka (Illinois) Spectator. Colonel Patterson was among the early settlers on what is known in history as the Black Hawk's purchase or " Forty Mile Strip," on the eastern slope of Iowa, and after the close of the Black Hawk War, and Black Hawk's release from captivity, of which full mention will be made in the course of these pages, he published a book entitled the "Life of Black Hawk." In collecting the material for that volume, Colonel Patterson necessarily be- came familiar with the great war chief of the Sacs and Foxes and their traditions, so that this sketch is entitled to be received as reliably anthentic.

Black Hawk, whose Indian name was Muck - a - tan - wish - e - ki - ack - ke - ak - ack (meaning a black hawk), was born at the Sac village, on Rock river, near the present site of Milan, at the crossing of the Peoria and Rock Island Railroad, in the year 1767. His father's name was Py -e-sa. His great-grandfather, Na - na - ma - kee (Thunder), was born near Montreal, Canada, and was placed at the head of the Sac Nation by a Frenchman, who claimed to be a son of the then reigning King of France. He gave them many presents, such as guns, powder, lead, spears and lances, and showed them how to use them in peace and in war ; also cooking utensils, and many other presents of dif- ferent kinds. He-afterwards embarked for France, promising to return at the close of the twelfth moon. The Sacs continued to trade with the French for a long time, and until the latter were overpowered by the British. After that event, several tribes united and drove the Sacs from Montreal to Mackinac, and thence to Green Bay, where they formed an alliance with the Fox nation and then retreated to Wisconsin, and finally to Rock Island, from which they drove the Kaskaskias and commenced the erection of a village at the place already mentioned.

Py - e - sa succeeded Na - na - ma - kee as war chief, and was killed in an engagement with the Cherokees, who largely outnumbered the Sacs and Foxes. On seeing him fall, Black Hawk assumed command and fought desperately until the enemy retreated. In this battle, he killed three men and wounded several others with his own hand, the enemy's loss being twenty-eight and Black Hawk's only seven. After this engagement he fell heir to the great medicine bag of the tribe, and after a season of five years' mourning with blackened faces, they determined to avenge the death of Py - e - sa, by the annihi- lation, if possible, of the whole Cherokee tribe, and took out a strong army for that pur- pose. Black Hawk succeeded in killing many of them, and in finally driving them to their own country in the Carolinas.

The remnant of the Cherokees now occupy a part of the Indian Territory, which

122

GENERAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

lies south of Kansas and west of Arkansas. They are naturally an intellectual people, and many of them are highly educated. They have their schools, churches, colleges, courts and court-house, legislature, capitol building, etc. Their capital is Tal - e - qua. where they have a newspaper which is conducted by a member of the Boudinot family. one of the oldest families in the tribe or Nation, which latter they prefer to be called. A curious feature of their newspaper is, that while three of its pages are printed in our tongue, the fourth page is printed in the Cherokee dialect. The letters (or alphabet ) used to print this page were invented by an old man of the Nation, or tribe, who, it is said, could not read. The characters of this alphabet look something like Greek letters. The Cherokees have many excellent and highly-cultivated farms, maintain an agricultural society, and the more advanced of them live in a style equal to the best farmers in Peoria county. They are accounted the wealthiest tribe of Indians on the American continent.

Black Hawk's next movement was against the Chippewas, Kaskaskias and Osages, with whom he had seven regular engagements, with a loss of several hundred of his braves. The enemy retired, and Black Hawk and his warriors returned to their village.

During the occurrence of the events here narrated, St. Louis and all the country South and West, was under the dominion of Spain." In 1801 the Spanish government ceded the country back to France. and on the 30th day of April. 1>03. the first Consul of the French Republic ceded the country to the United States. This transaction is known in American history as the Louisiana purchase. After this purchase the foreign authori- ties withdrew from St. Louis, and the Americans took possession. Soon afterwards, Lieutenant (subsequently General ) Zebulon M. Pike, with an escort of soldiers, went up the Mississippi river. visiting the chiefs of the various tribes that lived along the banks of the Father of Waters, and making them presents in the name of their Great Father, the President of the United States, who, he told them, would always treat them well if they would listen to his advice. A few moons later, a Sac Indian killed an American, for which offense he was arrested and confined in prison at St. Louis. As soon as inte lli- gence of the murder and arrest reached Black Hawk. he called a council of the head men of his tribe at the Sac village to talk the matter over, and consider what was best to be done. They resolved to send four of their braves to St. Louis to compromise with the authorities by paying the relatives of the man killed, the only way known to them for saving one person who had killed another. Quash - qua - me and three other men of the tribe were chosen to go on this mission, the result of which was thus related by Black Hawk :

Quash - qua - me and his party remained a long while absent. They finally returned, dressed in fine coats and wearing medals, and encamped near the village. Early next morning the council was convened, and Quash - qua - me and his associates came in and reported the result of their mission. On their arrival at St. Louis they reported to the American chief, and urged the release of their friend. The American chief said his government wanted more land, and if the Sacs and Foxes would give him some in Illinois, opposite Jefferson (barracks), they would release the imprisoned Sac. Quash - qua - me and his party assented to this, and signed a paper by making their marks. When they were ready to leave, their friend was released, but as he was let out of the prison, he was shot dead.

" This," continues Colonel Patterson, " was the treaty of 1804, as rendered by Black Hawk, by which all their country in Illinois was ceded to the United States for one thousand dollars a year, and the great first cause of the Black Hawk war, as he claimed that no one but the chiefs and head men hud authority to make a treaty of the kind."

From the fact that this treaty was considered in at least two subsequent treaty con- ferences, or negotiations, it would seem that the Government was not fully reconciled as to its manner of validity. The first of the subsequent treaties at which it was so consid- ered, was held at l'ortage des Sioux, on the 13th of September, 1815, and ratified December 16, 1815, at which the Government was represented by William Clark, Ninian Edwards

*From 1673 10 1763 France claimed jurisdiction over the country discovered by Marquette and Joliet. In the latter year that Government ceded all the country West of the Mississippi River to Spain.

GENERAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS

123

BONS-CHANDLER, CML

BLACK HAWK, THE SAC CHIEF.

124

GENERAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

and Auguste Choteau, as Commissioners. At that conference, the treaty of 1804 was re- affirmed, and the chiefs and head men of the Sacs present, for themselves and the bands they represented, promised to keep entirely separate from the Sacs of Rock River, who, under Black Hawk, had joined the British in the war then lately closed. A separate treaty of peace was made with the Foxes at the same place on the 14th of September, 1815, wherein the treaty of Quash-qua-me (made at St. Louis on the 3d day of Novem- ber, 1804), was re-affirmed by that tribe, and in which they stipulated to deliver up all their prisoners to the officer in command at Fort Clark.

The second treaty with the Sacs (of Rock River) was made at St. Louis by the same Commissioners on the 13th day of May, 1816. At this time the treaty of 1804 was again re-established and confirmed by twenty-two chiefs and head men of the tribe, in- eluding Black Hawk, who, as he expressed it, "touched the goose-quill." This treaty was ratified on the 30th day of December, 1816.

These subsequent treaties to the contrary notwithstanding, Black Hawk always ad- hered to his first decision, that the treaty of 1804, was null and void, for the reason al- ready stated, and that even if it had been valid, the killing of the prisoner for whom Quash-qua-me bartered away their lands broke the contract and rendered it void. To say the least, the killing of that prisoner, under the circumstances related by Black, was an instance of remarkably bad faith on the part of the authorities in command at St. Louis.

REMOVAL ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI.

Under the terms of the Quash-qua-me treaty of 1804, according to Black Hawk, the Indians were granted to remain in possession of the land until notified by the Gov- ernment that the country was wanted for white occupaney. Be this as it may, the In- dians were not disturbed of their possession until 1830, when they were notified to quit and move across the Mississippi river. They complied with the notice, crossed over the Father of Waters and took up their abode on the eastern slope of Iowa.

RETURN TO ILLINOIS.

Hunger and want came to his people, and still rankling under what he regarded as bad faith on the part of the Government authorities at St. Louis and a wrongful disposses- sion of their lands, Black Hawk and his band determined to reeross the Mississippi River and to repossess their old homes and corn-fields. This determination was carried into execution in the Spring of 1831. The movement excited great alarm among the few white people who had settled on different parts of the land in dispute, and complaint against their presence was made to the authorities of the United States. These com- plaints represented that the Indians were insolent, and that they had committed and were committing, many acts of violence. If these complaints were founded in fact, the acts of violence were, in all likelihood, not unprovoked.

FIRST CAMPAIGN.

WHERE THE HISTORY OF THE WAR HELONGS.

The history of the Black Hawk War has generally been conceded to belong to the history of Illinois. It is true that the great first cause of the war was in, what Black Hawk and most of his band believed, to be a fraudulent and wrongful dispossession of their lands in Illinois, but before the commencement of active hostilities, the Saes and Foxes were occupants of the lower part of the eastern slope of lowa. They started on the war path from Puck-e-she-tuek, (foot of the falls, ) now the city of Keokuk, rendez-

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

The History of Peoria County, Illinois. Containing a history of the Northwest-history of Illinois-history of the county, its early settlement, growth, development, resources, etc., etc., Part 18

Author: Johnson & co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago : Johnson & Company Number of Pages: 932

Author: Johnson & co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : Johnson & Company
Number of Pages: 932