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 22

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 22

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DESECRATION OF HIS BURIAL PLACE.

In July, 1839, Black Hawk's burial place was invaded and his remains carried away. In January, 1840, his tribe made complaint of the vandalism to Governor Lucas, who had been appointed governor of that territory by President Van Buren, and who assumed the duties of the position on the 3d day of July, 1838. The bones were traced to St. Louis, where they had been cleaned, and then in the possession of a dentist at Quincy, Illinois to whom they had been sent to be wired and set up, previons to being sent East. The dentist was notified not to deliver them to any one until a requisition was made by Governor Lucas. In December of that year (1840) the governor issued the necessary order, and in a few days after it was served, the mayor of Quincy, to whom the bones had been turned over, forwarded them to Burlington, where they were placed in the governor's care.

A message was sent to Black Hawk's family, living on the Des Moines river, about ninety miles distant, and an Indian cavalcade, including the widow of the departed war- rior, and a retinue of her friends, was soon in motion towards Burlington. On the even- ing of their arrival, the governor was notified of their readiness to wait upon him, and he fixed an audience hour at 10 o'clock the next morning. The hour came and with it the Indians and a number of white visitors and spectators. The box in which the skeleton remains were packed opened with a lid, and when the parties were assembled and ready

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for the ceremony of delivering them up to the friends of the deceased chieftain, the lid was raised by Governor Lucas, fully exposing all that was earthly of Black Hawk to the gaze of his mourning relatives and the very respectable audience of white people who at- tended to witness the impressive scene.

The governor addressed the widow through John Goodell, interpreter for the Hard- fish band, giving all the details of the removal of the bones from the grave at Ashton (now Eldon) to St. Louis, from St. Louis to Quiney, and from Quincy to Burlington, and assured her that they were the veritable bones of her deceased husband, that he had sincerely sympathised with her in her great affliction, and that he now hoped she would be consoled and comforted by the return of the precious relics to her care, and in full confidence that they would not again be removed from where she might be disposed to re-entomb them.

" The widow then advanced to the box, and," says one who witnessed the scene, " without any seeming emotion, picked up the bones one after another, and examined each one with the apparent curiosity of a child. Replacing each separate bone in its proper place, she turned to the interpreter, and, in reply to the remarks of Governor Lucas, said she fully believed they were the bones of Black Hawk, and that she knew the governor was a good old man, or he never would have taken the trouble he had manifested to oblige her, and for his great benevolence and disinterested friendship, she would leave the bones under his care and protection." She was told the authorities were willing to surrender the bones, but she seemed indifferent and careless to the matter, and no hing was done by her or the tribe towards a re-interment of the remains, and they were left to the care of Governor Lucas.

CREMATION OF THE BONES.

In 1840. General Harrison was elected to the Presidency, and in the change of officers which followed by appointment, Governor Lucas was succeeded by John Cham- bers, of Kentucky. Before vaeating the exeentive chair, Governor Lucas caused the box containing the illustrious warrior's bones to be removed to the office of a Dr. Lowe, who ocenpied rooms adjoining a building, in the third story of which the Historical and Geo- logical Institute was located, and to which institute the skeleton remains had been pre- sented. On the night of the 16th of January, 1853, before the remains were deposited in the institute, the institute and Dr. Lowe's office, with their contents, were destroyed by fire.

Thus, amid fire and tumult, all that was earthly of Black Hawk found a resting place in the ashes of the ruined structure, and thus it came about that the last scene with which his eventful career and mortal remains were associated, was no less dramatic than his first publie appearance, when, a mere boy, he avenged the death of his father, Py - e - sa, who fell in a bloody battle with the Cherokees, by killing three and wounding several others of the enemy with his own hands.

Vale Black Hawk.

KEOKUK.

This chief was no less conspicuous than Black Hawk, save that he refused, and maintained his refusal to join in the war of 1832. He was of the Fox tribe, and possessed great power over his immediate adherents. He knew from the first that the war would end in disaster, and refused to be a party to the invasion of Illinois, and such was his in- Quence that he prevented his band, with a few individual exceptions, from joining Black Hawk and his Sacs. After Stillman's defeat, however, the war feeling ran high among

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his people, and a war-dance was held in which he took a part. When the dance was over, he called a council to prepare for war. In his address he argued the justice of their complaints against the white man, and that to seek redress . was a noble ambition. " I am your chief," he said, " and it is my duty to lead you to battle, if, after fully con- sidering the matter you are determined to go. But before you go it is wise to consider the chances for success." He showed the braves of his band and the members of the council that success was hopeless, and added : " If you determine to go upon the war path I will lead you upon these conditions - that before we go we kill all our old men, and our wives aud children, to save them from a lingering death by starvation, and that we go determined to leave our bones on the other side of the Mississippi." His force of reason- ing, power of oratory and great influence prevailed and saved the Foxes from the fate that came to Black Hawk and the Sacs.

When Black Hawk was defeated at Bad Axe his strength and glory departed and the panoply of power fell upon Keokuk. In 1845 he led his people to Kansas, where he died from poison, administered by one of the tribe, in the early part of 1848. The poisoner was arrested, confessed his guilt and was executed by being shot.

LAST OF THE SACS AND FOXES.

Of the Sac and Fox Indians, less than one thousand remain. Of this number, ac- cording to the last report from the Secretary of the Interior, three hundred and forty-five are located in Tama county, Iowa, and are giving their attention to the arts of civiliza- tion. They have six hundred and ninety-two acres of land purchased with their annuity, which is held in trust for their use and benefit, and upon which they pay taxes. Two hundred and ten acres of this land is under cultivation. Their personal property is esti- mated at $15,000, consisting chiefly of ponies, which is their ideal of wealth. A school house is kept open for their use, but there has been no regular attendance of their child- ren. Another part of the tribe, consisting of four hundred and thirty-three persons, is located on a small reservation in the Indian Territory, " all of whom, with a few excep- tions," said the agent in his report under date of August 2, 1878, " are engaged in agri- cultural pursuits and stock raising. Corn is their principal cereal product. They have done much better than last year in keeping their children in school, and many of the pu- pils that never attended school before have made commendable progress in acquiring a knowledge of the English language. All the pupils that are large enough are instructed in and required to participate in all the domestic industries."

A third remnant of the tribe, consisting of about seventy-five heads, and known as Mo-ko-ko-ko's band, is settled in Kansas.

Among these people there is left but little semblance of the spirit of Black Hawk's time and generation. The death rate exceeds that of births, so that it will not be many years until the tribe will have entirely disappeared.

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CHAPTER X.

SLAVERY IN ILLINOIS-THE BLACK LAWS.

Company of St. Phillips - First Cargo of African Slaves - Prospecting for Minerals - Renault's Return to France - Slavery Agitation - Gubernatorial Contest of 1822 - Coles Elected - Kidnapping - Coles' Message - Black Laws -Slavery and Anti-Slavery Parties - Excitement of the People - Triumph of the Anti-Slavery Element - Indentured Apprentices.

Christopher Columbus made his discoveries in the year 1492. DeSoto, a Spanish explorer, discovered the Lower Mississippi river at or near the present site of Memphis, by crossing the country from Florida, about 1538, nearly fifty years later, and Marquette and Joliet discovered and entered npon the broad bosom of the Upper Mississippi from the Wisconsin river, in June, 1673, nearly two hundred years after Columbus visited the shores of the Western continent. It followed that the Spanish and French people were the first to attempt to occupy and possess the country thus discovered.

When French attention first began to be directed to the country, according to Charle- voix (iii, 389), " the opinion obtained that the wealth of the Western World consisted in its pearl fisheries, its mines of gold and silver and the wool of its wild cattle." Louis XIV, King of France, and the regent Duke of Orleans, attempted to found an empire in the New World, and thus control its resources. The beginning of this attempt was the French settlements at Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, Prairie du Pont. Cahokea, Peoria and Chicago, under the leadership of LaSalle, Iberville, and the priests, Alvarez, Gravier. Piriet, Marest, and others. These settlements were made, says Mr. Ford, more than one hundred and fifty years before the admission of Illinois as a State.

Large companies were formed in France for the purpose of working the supposed pearl fisheries, gold and silver mines, and collecting the wool of the wild cattle. A monopoly of these resources was first granted by the King to Crozat, in 1712, and upon his resignation, in 1717, to the great "Company of the West," of which another com- pany, known as the " Company of St. Phillips," was a branch, with one Renault as agent and business manager.

Renault sailed from France in 1719, with a view to carrying out the objects of the company and possessing and controlling the resources already mentioned. He left France with some two hundred mechanics, miners and laborers ; and touching at San Domingo, he purchased five hundred slaves, and from thence sailed to the country of Illinois, and founded the village of St. Phillips, in the southeast corner of the present county of Mon- roe. From there he sent ont prospecting parties to different sections of Illinois and Missouri, to search for mines, etc. To Renault, then, the agent and business manager for the " Company of St. Phillips," belongs the odium of planting negro slavery on the soil of Illinois.

In 1744, Renault returned to France. Before his departure, in closing up the busi- ness of the company, he sold his slaves to the French colonists at Kaskaskia and other settlements ; and they became the progenitors of the French slaves in Illinois, and a source of strife and agitation for many years after Americans came to inhabit the country. We quote from Stuve's Illinois :

" The question of slavery entered largely into the gubernatorial campaign of 1822. There were four candidates in the field - Joseph Phillips, the Chief Justice ; Thomas C. Brown, one of the Supreme Court Judges; Major-General James B. Moore, and Edward Coles. Mr. Coles was a Virginian by birth, born December 15, 1786. Ilis father was a

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planter and owner of a large number of slaves. During the college life of Edward Coles, the question of property in man presented itself to his mind, and he graduated and re- turned home with well-settled convictions of its moral wickedness and political impolicy, and with the resolution that when he should become the owner of his share of his father's slaves, he would set them free. "Apprehending," says Mr. Stuve, "that these sentiments would meet with no countenance at home, he kept them sacred to himself. At the death of his father, in 1808, he became entitled to twenty-five slaves and one thousand acres of land. In 1816 he was sent in the sloop of war, 'Prometheus,' on a special mission to Russia, as the bearer of important dispatches to the American Ambassador at St. Peters- burg. Before his return home he made a tour of Europe, and soon after his arrival de- termined to come West, and spent the Summer of 1818 in Illinois, and witnessed the labors of the convention at Kaskaskia to frame the first constitution. In the following Spring he removed with his slaves to Illinois. On the trip hither, made mostly on flat boats down the Ohio, the negroes, being ignorant of their destination, were, on one clear moonlight evening in the month of June, called together, and by their master addressed in a plain, short'speech, in which he pronounced them all free. Their gratitude was so profound that they tendered him one year's service at their new home. But, while touched at this manifestation of their attachment, he refused their offer. He gave, be- sides, to each head of a family one hundred and sixty acres of land in Illinois, in the neighborhood of Edwardsville, aided them with money, and for many years exercised a paternal care over them."*

General Moore was also opposed to slavery, his sentiments on that subject being well known and understood. The other two candidates, Joseph Phillips and Thomes C. Brown, were pro-slavery in sentiment. The result of the election was as follows :

Coles, free State 2,810

522

3,332

2,760

2,543

5,303

8,635

Total vote. Majority in favor of slavery 1,971

Mr. Coles having received a greater number of votes than either of the other candi- dates, was entitled to the gubernatorial seat, and was duly inaugurated. In his first message to the General Assembly, December 5, 1822, he called especial attention to the subject of kidnapping, which had become quite frequent. He argued " that the peculiar situation of the State, bordering on three rivers communicating with a country where there was always a demand for slaves, afforded a great temptation and facility to the lawless and inhuman to engage in this crime, and that more efficient measures were required to prevent the kidnapping of free blacks." This recommendation, coupled with his suggestions in regard to the emancipation of the French slaves and for a revision of

*The law of 1819 respecting free negroes required the emancipator to give bond that they should not become a county charge. Having provided his emancipated slaves with one hundred and sixty acres of land to each head of a family, Coles neglected to give bond, and thereby became liable to a fine of $200 for each negro. During the heat of the convention struggle the Commissioners of Madison county were instigated to bring suit against him for this amount, and a verdict of $2,000 for setting his negroes at liberty without giving bond as required by law was entered against him. Pending a motion for a new trial, in January, 1825, the legislature released all penalties incurred under the act, including those of Coles. At the next term of court he plead this release in bar of judgment against hin, but Judge McRoberts decided that the legislature had no power to take from a municipal corporation its vested right in a fine, any more than from an individual, and rendered judgment on the verdict. The decision was believed to have been influenced by the feelings growing out of the slavery contest the year before, and caused no little popular excitement. The case was finally taken to the Supreme Court and reversed, the power of the legislature being held to be ample in the premises. The opinion of the Court, Chief Justice Wilson, says: "It is said the King can not remit an informer's interest in a popular action after suit is brought ; this is no doubt true, but it is equally true that the Parliament can. It is not pretended that the executive could remit the penalty in this case, but the legislature may."

Moore, '

Phillips, pro-slavery

Brown, "

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the black laws in accordance with the dictates of humanity. was enough to fan the smnouldering embers of the slavery question into fiercest flames.

It is very clear that, but for the restraining ordinance of 1787, or the enabling act 10 form a State convention, the convention would have reported a constitution recogniz- ing and establishing slavery ; and if that constitution had been submitted to the people for approval or rejection, there can be no doubt but it would have been adopted by the people by a large majority.

The slavery party were only beaten in their choice for governor by a division in their own ranks. They succeeded in electing a majority of the legislature, and when Governor Coles recommended the emancipation of the French slaves, this majority and their party constituents, determined upon a vigorous fight to maintain their supremacy and carry their purpose of perpetuating slavery at all hazards.

Slavery could not be introduced. " nor was it believed," says Mr. Ford, " that the French slaves could be emancipated, without an amendment to the constitution ; the con- stitution could not be amended without a new convention, to obtain which, two-thirds of each branch of the legislature must concur in recommending it to the people ; and the voters at the next election had to sanction it by a majority of all the votes given for members of the legislature. When the legislature assembled, it was found that the Sen- ate contained the requisite two-thirds majority ; but in the House of Representatives, by deciding a contested election case in favor of one of the candidates, the slave party would have one more than two-thirds ; while by deciding in favor of the other, they would lack one vote of having that majority. These two candidates were John Shaw and Nicholas Hanson, who claimed to represent the county of Pike, then including all the mili- tary tract and all the country north of the Illinois river to the northern limits of the State.

" The leaders of the slavery party were anxious to re-elect Jesse B. Thomas to the United States Senate. Hanson would vote for him, but Shaw would not : Shaw would vote for the convention. but Hanson would not. The party had use for them both, and determined to use them both, one after the other. For this purpose they first decided in favor of Hanson, admitted him to a seat, and, with his vote, elected their United States Senator, and then, towards the close of the session, with mere brute force, and in the most bare-faced manner, they reconsidered their former vote, turned Hanson out of his seat, and decided in favor of Shaw, and with his vote carried the resolution for u con- vention.

" The night after this resolution passed, the convention party assembled in triumph in a great earousal. They formed themselves in a noisy, disorderly and tumultuous pro- cession, headed by Judges Phillips, Smith, Thomas Reynolds (afterward governor of Missouri), and Lieutenant-Governor Kinney, and followed by the majority of the legisla- ture, the hangers-on and rabble, marched, with the blowing of tin horns, beating of drums and tin pans, to the residence of Governor Coles, and the boarding-houses of their prin- cipal opponents, towards whom they manifested their contempt and displeasure by a con- fused medley of groans, wailings and lamentations." The object of this ku-klux proces- cession was to intimidate all opposition at once.

The object failed, however, and served, on the other hand, to infuse the anti-conven- tion party with new life and more determined resolution. They rallied to a man. Newspapers were established to oppose the convention. One of these State papers was started at Shawneetown, with Henry Eddy as editor ; one at Edwardsville, with Hooper Warren as editor ; and one at Vandalia, edited by David Blackwell ; and Governor Coles, Thomas Lippencott, George Churchill and Judge Lockwood as special and principal contributors.

The pro-slavery party established a newspaper at Kaskaskia, under the direction of Mr. Kane und Chief Justice Reynolds, with Judge Smith as editor. Both parties ap-

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pealed to the interests, passions and intelligence of the people. Under such circumstan- ces the contest was attended with a great deal of personal abuse, and a regular torrent of detraction and vituperation was poured out by each party against the leaders of the opposite party. It is impossible, as well as foreign to a volume of this character, to fol- low in detail all the maneuvers incident to that campaign. It was a long and bitter one, lasting from the Spring of 1823 until the election of 1824. Almost every stump in the settled portions of the country had its howling, bellowing orator on one side or the other. For the space of eighteen months the whole people did scarcely any thing else but read newspapers, handbills and pamphlets, attend public meetings, argue, quarrel and wrangle with each other whenever and wherever they met.

The leaders of the convention party were Judges Brown, Phillips and John Reynolds ; Jesse B. Thomas and ex-Governor Edwards, U. S. Senators ; Lieutenant Governor Kinney, Judge Smith, Chief Justice Thomas Reynolds, John McLean, Elias K. Kane, Judge McRoberts and Governor Bond. The principal men and leaders of the anti-con- vention or free State party, were Morris Birbeck, Governor Coles, Daniel P. Cook, then member of Congress, David Blackwell, George Churchill, Samuel D. Lockwood, Thomas Lippincott, Hooper Warren, George Forquer, Thomas Mather and Henry Eddy. The question of slavery was thoroughly discussed. The people took an undivided and ab- sorbing interest in it. They were made to understand it completely ; and as this was long before the abolition excitement of more modern times, Illinois may justly be claimed as the original battle-ground between freedom and slavery. The introduction of slavery was resisted, not so much on the ground of principle as from policy and expediency. The free State party triumphed, as the people decided by a majority of 1,668 votes in favor of a free State. The vote was as follows :

Against the convention and in favor of a free State 6,640

For the convention and slavery. 4,972

Total vote cast .. 11,612

Majority against the convention and slavery 1,668

BLACK LAWS.

Pending the six years agitation of this vexed question under State jurisdiction from 1818 to 1824, some very stringent and inhuman laws were passed regarding the black people. The first laws under State organization were enacted in 1819. Under them no negro or mulatto, with or without a family, was permitted to settle in the State until he produced a certificate of freedom properly attested before some court, with a description of the person producing it, and of his family, if any, which was required to be entered on record in the county where he settled. Even under this protection, the overseers of the poor were authorized to expel such persons at their discretion. Any one coming into the State to emancipate his slaves, was required to give bond in the sum of one thousand dollars as a guarantee that they should not become a public charge; for neglecting or refusing to make such bond, a penalty of two hundred dollars was at- tached. All resident negroes or mulattoes, except slaves, were required to enter their names and the names of every member of their family with the circuit clerk, before the first of June ensuing (1819), together with their evidence of freedom. No person was allowed to employ any negro or mulatto without such certificate, under a penalty of one dollar and fifty cents for each day employed, to be recovered before a justice of the peace, one-third of the amount to go to the informant and the rest to the owner or to the county. Harboring any slave or servant, or hindering an owner from re- taking a slave, was declared to be a felony, punishable by restitution or a fine of two- fold value, and whipping not to exceed thirty stripes. Black and mulatto persons not having a proper certificate, were held to be runaway slaves, subject to arrest and com- mitment by a justice, then to be described and advertised for six weeks by the sheriff,

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when, if not reclaimed, or their freedom established. they were to be sold for one year, at the end of which time, they were entitled to a certificate except as against their owner. No one was permitted to buy or sell to, or trade with any servant or slave, without the consent of his master, under penalty of forfeiting to the master four times the value of such transaction. A slave or servant found ten miles from home without a permit was subject to arrest and thirty-five stripes, on the order of a justice of the peace ; or, if he appeared at any dwelling or plantation without leave of his master, the owner of the place was entitled to administer, or cause to be administered. ten lashes on the bare back. For being lazy, disorderly or misbehaving to his master or his family, on the order of a justice, he was to be corrected with stripes, and for every day he refused to work. he was to serve two. Riots. routs, unlawful assemblies, trespass, seditious speeches by slaves or servants, were punishable with stripes not exceed thirty- nine. Any one suffering three or more slaves or servants to assemble on their premises for dancing, reveling, etc., were liable to a fine of twenty dollars. It was made the duty of coroners. sheriffs, judges and justices of the peace, having knowledge of such assemblages, to have the offenders committed to jail, and after judgment to order thirty- nine stripes. In cases where free persons were punishable by fine, slaves or servants were chastised by whipping at the rate of twenty lashes for every eight dollars of the fine, not to exceed forty stripes at any one time.

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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 22

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