USA > Indiana > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, together with historic notes on the Wabash Valley; gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic sources > Part 11
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| The several aboriginal names for white, which we have given above, are taken from the vocabularies of Mackenzie, Dr. Ewin James and Albert Gallatin, which are regarded as standard authorities.
101
ORIGIN OF THE NAME WABASH.
in his publishing, in 1755, a map, accompanied with an extended de- scription of the territory it embraced. In describing the Wabash, Mr. Evans calls it by the name the Iroquois Indians had given it, viz : the "Quia-agh-tena," and says "it is called by the French Ouabach, though that is truly the name of its southeastern branch." Why the White River, of Indiana, which is the principal southeastern branch of the Wabash, should have been invested with the English meaning of the word, and the aboriginal name should have been retained by the river to which it has always properly belonged, is easily explained, when we consider the ignorance and carelessness of many of the early travelers, whose writings, coming down to us, have tended to confuse rather than aid the investigations of the modern historian. The Ohio River below the confluence of the Wabash is designated as the Wabash by a majority of the early French writers, and so laid down on many of the contem- poraneous maps. This was, probably, due to the fact that the Wabash was known and used before the Ohio had been explored to its mouth. So fixed has become the habit of calling the united waters of these two streams Wabash, from their union continuously to their discharge into the Mississippi, that the custom prevailed long after a better knowledge of the geography of the country suggested the propriety of its aban- donment. Even after the French of Canada accepted the change, and treated the Ohio as the main river and the Wabash as the tributary, the French of Louisiana adhered to the old name.
We quote from M. Le Page Du Pratz' History of Louisiana : * "Let us now repass the Mississippi in order to resume a description of the lands to the east, which we quit at the river Wabash. This river is distant from the sea four hundred and sixty leagues; it is reckoned to have four hundred leagues in length from its source to its conflu- ence with the Mississippi. It is called Wabash, though, according to the usual method, it ought to be called the Ohio, or Beautiful River,t secing the Ohio was known under that name before its confluence was known; and as the Ohio takes its rise at a greater distance off than the three others which mix together before they empty them- selves into the Mississippi, this should make the others lose their
* The author was for sixteen years a planter of Louisiana, having gone thither from France soon after the Company of the West or Indes restored the country to the crown. He was a gentleman of superior attainments, and soon acquired a thorough knowledge of the French possessions in America. He returned to France, and in 1758 published his " History of Louisiana," with maps, which, in 1763, was translated into English. These volumes are largely devoted to the experience of the author in the cultivation of rice, indigo, sugar and other products congenial to the climate and soil of Louisiana, and to quite an extended topographical description of the whole Mississippi Valley.
+ The Iroquois' name for the Ohio was " O-io," meaning beautiful, and the French retained the signification in the name of "La Belle Rivière," by which the Ohio was known to them.
102
HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
names; but custom has prevailed in this respect. The first known to us which falls into the Ohio is that of the Miamis (Wabash), which takes its rise toward Lake Erie. It is by this river of the Miamis that the Canadians come to Louisiana. For this purpose they embark on the River St. Lawrence, go up this river, pass the cataracts quite to the bottom of Lake Erie, where they find a small river, on which they also go up to a place called the carriage of the Miamis, because that people come and take their effects and carry them on their backs for two leagues from thence to the banks of the river of their name which I just said empties itself into the Ohio. From thence the Canadians go down that river, enter the Wabash, and at last the Mississippi, which brings them to New Orleans, the capital of Louisiana. They reckon eighteen hundred leagues from the capital of Canada to that of Louisiana, on account of the great turns and windings they are obliged to take. The river of the Miamis is thus the first to the north which falls into the Ohio, then that of the Chaouanons to the south, and lastly, that of the Cherokee, all which together empty themselves into the Mississippi. This is what we (in Louisiana) call the Wabash, and what in Canada and New England is called the Ohio." *
A failure to recognize the fact that the Ohio below the mouth of the Wabash was, for a period of over half a century, known to the French as the Wabash, has led not a few later writers to erroneously locate ancient French forts and missionary stations upon the banks of the Wabash, which were in reality situated many miles below, on the Ohio.t
* On the map prefixed to Du Pratz' history, the Ohio from the Mississippi up to the confluence of the Wabash is called the "Wabash "; above this the Ohio is called Ohio, and the Wabash is called "The River of the Miamis," with villages of that tribe noted near its source. The Maumee is called the "River of the Carrying Place." The Upper Mississippi, the Illinois River and the lakes are also laid down, and, alto- gether, the map is quite accurate.
+ A noticeable instance of such a mistake will be found relative to the city of Vin- cennes. On the authority of La Harpe, and the later historian Charlevoix, the French in the year 1700, established a trading post near the mouth of the Ohio, on the site of the more modern Fort Massac, in Massac county, Ill., for the purpose of securing buffalo hides. The neighboring Mascotins, as was customary with the Indians, soon gathered about for the purpose of barter. Their numbers, as well as the expressed wish of the French traders, induced Father Merment to visit the place and engage in mission work. At the end of four or five years, in 1705, the establishment was broken up on account of a quarrel of the Indians among themselves, and which so threatened the lives of the Frenchmen that the latter fled, leaving behind their effects and 13,000 buffalo hides which they had collected. Some years later Father Marest, writing from Kaskaskia, in his letter before referred to, relates the failure of Father Merment to convert the Indians at this " post on the Wabash "; and on the authority of this letter alone, and although Father Marest only followed the prevailing style in calling the lower Ohio the Wabash, some writers. the late Judge John Law being the first, have contended that this post was on the Wabash and at Vincennes. Charlevoix says "it was at the mouth of the Wabash which discharges itself into the Mississippi." La Harpe, and also Le Suere, whose personal knowledge of the post was contemporaneous with its existence, definitely fix its position near the mouth of the Ohio. The latter gives the date of its beginning, and the former narrates an account of its trade and final abandonment. In this way an antiquity has been claimed for Vincennes to which it is not historically entitled.
103
EARLY ACCOUNT OF THE MAUMEE.
We now give a description of the Maumee and Wabash, the location of the several Indian villages, and the manners of their inhabitants, taken from a memoir prepared in 1718 by a French officer in Canada, and sent to the minister at Paris .*
"I return to the Miamis River. Its entrance from Lake Erie is very wide, and its banks on both sides, for a distance of ten leagues up, are nothing but continued swamps, abounding at all times, espe- cially in the spring, with game without end, swans, geese, ducks, cranes, etc., which drive sleep away by the noise of their cries. This river is sixty leagues in length, very embarrassing in summer in consequence of the lowness of the water. Thirty leagues up the river is a place called La Glaise,t where buffalo are always to be found; they eat the clay and wallow in it. The Miamis are sixty leagues from Lake Erie, and number four hundred, all well formed men, and well tattooed ;} the women are numerous. They are hard working, and raise a species of maize unlike that of our Indians at Detroit. It is white, of the same size as the other, the skin much finer, and the meal much whiter. This nation is clad in deer skin, and when a woman goes with another man her husband cuts off her nose and does not see her any more. They have plays and dances, wherefore they have more occupation. The women are well clothed ; but the men use scarcely any covering, and are tattooed all over the body.
"From this Miami village there is a portage of three leagues to a little and very narrow stream,§ that falls, after a course of twenty leagues, into the Ohio or Beautiful River, which discharges into the Ouabache, a fine river that falls into the Mississippi forty leagues from the Cascachias. Into the Ouabache falls also the Casquinampo, [ which communicates with Carolina; but this is far off, and is always up stream.
" The River Ouabache is the one on which the Ouyatanons T are settled.
"They consist of five villages, which are contiguous the one to the other. One is called Oujatanon, the other Peanguichias, ** and another
* The document is quite lengthy, covering all the principal places and Indian tribes east of the Mississippi, and showing the compiler possessed a very thorough acquaint- ance with the whole subject. It is given entire in the Paris Documents, vol. 9; that relating to the Maumee and Wabash on pages 886 to 891.
+ Defiance, Ohio.
# These villages were near the confluence of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph, and this is the first account we have of the present site of Fort Wayne.
§ Little River, that empties into the Wabash just below Huntington. Il The Tennessee River.
"T The " Weas," whose principal villages were near the mouth of Eel River, near Logansport, and on the Wea prairie, between Attica and La Fayette.
** The ancient Piankashaw town was on the Vermilion of the Wabash, and the Miami name of the Vermilion was Piankashaw.
104
HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
Petitscotias, and a fourth Le Gros. The name of the last I do not recollect, but they are all Oujatanons, having the same language as the Miamis, whose brothers they are, and properly all Miamis, having the same customs and dress .* The men are very numerous; fully a thousand or twelve hundred.
"They have a custom different from all other nations, which is to keep their fort extremely clean, not allowing a blade of grass to remain within it. The whole of the fort is sanded like the Tuilleries. The village is situated on a high hill, and they have over two leagues of improvement where they raise their Indian corn, pumpkins and melons. From the summit of this elevation nothing is visible to the eye but prairies full of buffaloes. Their play and dancing are inces- sant.+
"All of these tribes use a vast quantity of vermilion. The women wear clothing, the men very little. The River Ohio, or Beautiful river, is the route which the Iroquois take. It would be of importance that they should not have such intercourse, as it is very dangerous. Atten- tion has been called to this matter long since, but no notice has been taken of it."
* The "Le Gros," that is, The Great (village), was probably "Chip-pe-co-ke," or the town of "Brush-wood," the name of the old village at Vincennes, which was the principal city of the Piankashaws.
The village here described is Ouatanon, which was situated a few miles below La Fayette, near which, though on the opposite or north bank of the Wabash, the Stockade Fort of "Ouatanon " was established by the French.
CHAPTER XIII.
ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS-THE SEVERAL ILLINOIS TRIBES.
THE Indians who lived in and claimed the territory to which our attention is directed were the several tribes of the Illinois and Miami confederacies,- the Pottawatomies, the Kickapoos and scattered bands of Shawnees and Delawares. Their title to the soil had to be extin- guished by conquest or treatise of purchase before the country could be settled by a higher civilization ; for the habits of the two races, red and white, were so radically different that there could be no fusion, and they could not, or rather did not, live either happily or at peace together.
We proceed to treat of these several tribes, observing the order in which their names have been mentioned; and we do so in this con- nection for the reason that it will aid toward a more ready under- standing of the subjects which are to follow.
The Illinois were a subdivision of the great Algonquin family. Their language and manners differed somewhat from other surround- ing tribes, and resembled most the Miamis, with whom they originally bore a very close affinity. Before Joliet and Marquette's voyage to the Mississippi, all of the Indians who came from the south to the mission at La Pointe, on Lake Superior, for the purposes of barter, were by the French called Illinois, for the reason that the first Indians who came to La Pointe from the south " called themselves Illinois." *
In the Jesuit Relations the name Illinois appears as "Illi-mouek," " Illinoues," "Ill-i-ne-wek," " Allin-i-wek " and "Lin-i-wek." By Father Marquette it is "Ilinois," and Hennepin has it the same as it is at the present day. The ois was pronounced like our way, so that ouai, ois, wek and ouek were almost identical in pronunciation.t " Willinis" is Lewis Evans' orthography. Major Thomas Forsyth, who for many years was a trader and Indian agent in the territory, and subsequently the state, of Illinois, says the Confederation of Illinois
* As we have given the name of Ottawas to all the savages of these countries, al- though of different nations, because the first who have appeared among the French have been Ottawas; so also it is with the name of the Illinois, very numerous, and dwelling toward the south, because the first who have come to the " point of the Holy Ghost for commerce called themselves Illinois."-Father Claude Dablon, in the Jesuit Relations for 1670, 1671.
t Note by Dr. Shea in the article entitled "The Indian Tribes of Wisconsin," fur- nished by him for the Historical Society of Wisconsin, and published in Vol. III of their collections, p. 128.
106
HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
"called themselves Linneway,"-which is almost identical with the Lin-i-wek of the Jesuits, having a regard for its proper pronuncia- tion,-" and that by others they were called Minneway, signifying men," and that their confederacy embraced the combined Illinois and Miami tribes; " that all these different bands of the Minneway nation spoke the language of the present Miamis, and the whole considered them- selves as one and the same people, yet from their local situation, and having no standard to go by, their language became broken up into different dialects." * They were by the Iroquois called "Chick-tagh- icks."
Many theories have been advanced and much fine speculation in- dulged in concerning the origin and meaning of the word Illinois. We have seen that the Illinois first made themselves known to the French by that name, and we have never had a better signification of the name than that which the Illinois themselves gave to Fathers Mar- quette and Hennepin. The former, in his narrative journal, observes : "To say Illinois is, in their language, to say 'the men,' as if other Indians, compared to them, were mere beasts." + "The word Illinois signifies a man of full age in the vigor of his strength. This word Illi- nois comes, as it has already been observed, from Illini, which in the language of that nation signifies a perfect and accomplished man." #
Subsequently the name Illini, Linneway, Willinis or Illinois, with more propriety became limited to a confederacy, at first composed of four subdivisions, known as the Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Tamaroas and Peorias. Not many years before the discovery of the Mississippi by the French, a foreign tribe, the Metehigamis, nearly destroyed by wars with the Saes to the north and the Chickasaws to the south, to save themselves from annihilation appealed to the Kaskaskias for admission into their confederacy.§ The request was granted, and the Metchiga- mis left their homes on the Osage river and established their villages on the St. Francis, within the limits of the present State of Missouri and below the mouth of the Kaskaskia.
The subdivision of the Illinois proper into cantons, as the French writers denominate the families or villages of a nation, like that of other tribes was never very distinet. There were no villages exelu- sively for a separate branch of the tribe. Owing to intermarriage, adoption and other processes familiar to modern civilization, the sub-
* Life of Black-Hawk, by Benjamin Drake, seventh edition, pp. 16 and 17.
+ Shea's Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, p. 25.
# Hennepin's Discovery of America, pp. 35 and 119, London edition, 1698.
§ Charlevoix's " Narrative Journal," Vol. II, p. 228. Also note of B. F. French, p. 61 of Vol. III, First Series of Historical Collections of Louisiana.
107
LOCATION OF VILLAGES.
tribal distinctions were not well preserved ; and when Charlevoix, that acute observer, in 1721 visited these several Illinois villages near Kas- kaskia, their inhabitants were so mixed together and confounded that it was almost impossible to distinguish the different branches of the tribe from each other .*
The first accounts we have of the Illinois are given by the Jesuit missionaries. In the "Relations" for the year 1655 we find that the Lin-i-ouek are neighbors of the Winnebagoes; again in the " Rela- tions" for the next year, "that the Illinois nation dwell more than sixty leagues from here, t and beyond a great river, # which as near as can be conjectured flows into the sea toward Virginia. These people are warlike. They use the bow, rarely the gun, and never the canoe.
When Joliet and Marquette were descending the Mississippi, they found villages of the Illinois on the Des Moines river, and on their return they passed through larger villages of the same nation situated on the Illinois river, near Peoria and higher up the stream.
While the Illinois were nomads, though not to the extent of many other tribes, they had villages of a somewhat permanent character, and when they moved after game they went in a body. It would seem from the most authentic accounts that their favorite abiding places were on the Illinois river, from the Des Plaines down to its confluence with the Mississippi, and on the Mississippi from the Kaskaskia to the mouth of the Ohio. This beautiful region abounded in game; its riv- ers were well stocked with fish, and were frequented by myriads of wild fowls. The climate was mild. The soil was fertile. By the mere turning of the sod, the lands in the rich river bottoms yielded bountiful crops of Indian corn, melons and squashes.
In disposition and morals the Illinois were not to be very highly commended. Father Charlevoix, speaking of them as they were in 1700, says: " Missionaries have for some years directed quite a flour- ishing church among the Illinois, and they have ever since continued to instruct that nation, in whom christianity had already produced a change such as she alone can produce in morals and disposition. Before the arrival of the missionaries, there were perhaps no Indians in any part of Canada with fewer good qualities and more vices. They have
* " These tribes are at present very much confounded, and are become very inconsid- erable. There remains only a very small number of Kaskaskias, and the two villages of that name are almost entirely composed of Tamaroas and Metchigamis, a foreign nation adopted by the Kaskaskias, and originally settled on a small river you meet with going down the Mississippi."-Charlevoix' " Narrative Journal," Letter XXVIII, dated Kaskaskia, October 20, 1721; p. 228, Vol. II.
t The letter is sent from the Mission of the Holy Ghost, at La Pointe. # The Mississippi.
108
HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
always been mild and docile enough, but they were cowardly, treach- erous, fickle, deceitful, thievish, brutal, destitute of faith or honor, selfish, addicted to gluttony and the most monstrous lusts, almost un- known to the Canada tribes, who accordingly despised them heartily, but the Illinois were not a whit less haughty or self-complacent on that account.
" Such allies could bring no great honor or assistance to the French ; yet we never had any more faithful, and, if we except the Abénaqui tribes, they are the only tribe who never sought peace with their ene- mies to our prejudice. They did, indeed, see the necessity of our aid to defend themselves against several nations who seemed to have sworn their ruin, and especially against the Iroquois and Foxes, who, by con- stant harrassing, have somewhat trained them to war, the former taking home from their expeditions the vices of that corrupt nation." *
Father Charlevoix' comments upon the Illinois confirm the state- ments of Hennepin, who says: "They are lazy vagabonds, timorous, pettish thieves, and so fond of their liberty that they have no great respect for their chiefs."+
Their cabins were constructed of mats, made out of flags, spread over a frame of poles driven into the ground in a circular form and drawn together at the top.
"Their villages," says Father Hennepin,} "are open, not enclosed with palisades because they had no courage to defend them ; they would flee as they heard their enemies approaching." Before their acquaint- ance with the French they had no knowledge of iron and fire-arms. Their two principal weapons were the bow and arrow and the club. Their arrows were pointed with stone, and their tomahawks were made out of stag's horns, cut in the shape of a cutlass and terminating in a large ball. In the use of the bow and arrow, all writers agree, that the Illinois excelled all neighboring tribes. For protection against the missles of an enemy they used bucklers composed of buffalo hides stretched over a wooden frame.
In form they were tall and lithe. They were noted for their swift- ness of foot. They wore moccasins prepared from buffalo hides; and, in summer, this generally completed their dress. Sometimes they wore a small covering, extending from the waist to the knees. The rest of the body was entirely nude.
The women, beside cultivating the soil, did all of the household drudgery, carried the game and made the clothes. The garments
* Charlevoix's " History of New France," vol. 5, page 130.
+ Hennepin, page 132, London edition, 1698.
# Page 132.
109
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
were prepared from buffalo hides, and from the soft wool that grew upon these animals. Both the wool and hides were dyed with bril- liant colors, black, yellow or vermilion. In this kind of work the Illinois women were greatly in advance of other tribes. Articles of dress were sewed together with thread made from the nerves and ten- dons of deer, prepared by exposure to the sun twice in every twenty- four hours. After which the nerves and tendons were beaten so that their fibers would separate into a fine white thread. The clothing of the women was something like the loose wrappers worn by ladies of the present day. Beneath the wrapper were petticoats, for warmth in winter. With a fondness for finery that characterizes the feminine sex the world over, the Illinois women wore head-dresses, contrived more for ornament than for use. The feet were covered with moccasins, and leggings decorated with quills of the porcupine stained in colors of brilliant contrasts. Ornaments, fashioned out of clam shells and other hard substances, were worn about the neck, wrists and ankles ; these, with the face, hands and neck daubed with pigments, completed the toilet of the highly fashionable Illinois belle.
Their food consisted of the scanty products of their fields, and prin- cipally of game and fish, of which, as previously stated, there was in their country a great abundance. Father Allouez, who visited them in 1673, stated that they had fourteen varieties of herbs and forty-two varieties of fruits which they use for food. Their plates and other dishes were made of wood, and their spoons were constructed out of buffalo bones. The dishes for boiling food were earthen, sometimes glazed .*
From all accounts, it seems that the Illinois claimed an extensive tract of country, bounded on the east by the ridge that divides the waters flowing into the Illinois from the streams that drain into the Wabash above the head waters of Saline creek, and as high up the Illi- nois as the Des Plaines, extending westward of the Mississippi, and reaching northward to the debatable ground between the Illinois, Chippeways, Winnebagoes, Sacs and Foxes. Their favorite and most populous cities were on the Illinois river, near Starved Rock, and
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