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 12
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* The account we have given of the manners, habits and customs of the Illinois is compiled from the following authorities : La Hontan, Charlevoix, Hennepin, Tonti, Marquette, Joutel, the missionaries Marest, Rasles and Allouez. Besides, the historic letter of Marest, found in Kip's Jesuit Missions, is another from this distinguished priest, written from Kaskaskia to M. Bienville, and incorporated in Penicaut's Annals of Louisiana, a translation of which is contained in the Historical Collections of Louisi- ana and Florida, by B. F. French. In this letter of Father Marest, dated in 1711, is a very fine description of the customs of the Illinois Indians, and their prosperous condi- tion at Kaskaskia and adjacent villages.
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
below as far as Peoria. The missionary station founded by Father Marquette was, in all probability, near the latter place.
Prior to the year 1700, Father Marest had charge of a mission at the neck, strait or narrows of Peoria lake. In Peoria lake, above Peoria, is a contracted channel, and this is evidently referred to by Father Gravier in his "Narrative Journal" where he states : "I ar- rived too late at the Illinois du Detroit, of whom Father Marest has charge, to prevent the transmigration of the village of the Kaskaskias, which was too precipitately made on vague news of the establishment on the Mississippi. I do not believe that the Kaskaskias would have thus separated from the Peouaroua and other Illinois du Detroit. At all events, I came soon enough to unite minds a little, and to prevent the insult which the Peouaroua and the Mouin-gonena were bent on offering to the Kaskaskias and French as they embarked. I spoke to all the chiefs in full council, and as they continued to preserve some respect and good will for me, we separated very peaceably. But I argue no good from this separation, which I have always hindered, seeing too clearly the evil results. God grant that the road from Chikagoua to this strait " (au Detroit) " be not closed, and the whole Illinois mission suffer greatly. I avow to you, Reverend Father, that it rends iny heart to see my old flock thus divided and dispersed, and I shall never see it, after leaving it, without having some new cause of affliction. The Peouaroua, whom I left without a missionary (since Father Marest has followed the Kaskaskias), have promised me that they would preserve the church, and that they would await my return from the Mississippi, where I told them I went only to assure myself of the truth of all that was said about it." *
The area of the original country of the Illinois was reduced by continuous wars with their neighbors. The Sioux forced them east- ward; the Sac and Fox, and other enemies, encroached upon them from the north, while war parties of the foreign Iroquois, from the east, rapidly decimated their numbers. These unhappy influences were doing
* Father Gravier's Journal in Shea's Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi, pp. 116 and 117. Dr. Shea, in a foot note, p. 116, says: "This designation (Illinois Du Detroit) does not appear elsewhere, and I cannot discover what strait is referred to. It evidently includes the Peorias."
Dr. Shea's conjecture is very nearly correct. The narrows in Peoria lake retained the appellation of Little Detroit, a name handed down from the French-Canadians. Dr. Lewis Beck, in his "Gazetteer of Illinois and Missouri," p. 124, speaks of "Little Detroit, an Indian village situated on the east bank of lake Peoria, six miles above Ft. Clark." On the map prefixed to the Gazetteer prepared in 1820 the contraction of the lake is shown and designated as " Little Detroit."
We have seen from extracts from Father Marquette's Journal, quoted on a preced- ing page, that it was the Kaskaskias at whose village this distinguished missionary promised to return and to establish a mission, and that with the ebbing out of his life he fulfilled his engagement. From Father Gravier's Journal, just quoted, it is appar-
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ATTACK OF THE IROQUOIS.
their fatal work, and the Illinois confederacy was in a stage of decline when they first came in contact with the French. Their afflictions made them accessible to the voice of the missionary, and in their weakness they hailed with delight the coming of the Frenchman with his prom- ises of protection, which were assured by guns and powder. The mis- fortunes of the Illinois drew them so kindly to the priests, the coureurs des Bois and soldiers, that the friendship between the two races never abated; and when in the order of events the sons of France had de- parted from the Illinois, their love for the departed Gaul was inculcated into the minds of their children.
The erection of Fort St. Louis on the Illinois, St. Joseph on the stream of that name, and the establishment at Detroit, for a while stayed the calamity that was to befall the Illinois. Frequent allusion has been made to the part the Iroquois took in the destruction of this powerful confederacy. For the gratification of the reader we give a condensed account of some of these Iroquois campaigns in the Illinois country. The extracts we take are from a memoir on the western Indians, by M. Du Chesneau,* dated at Quebec, September 13, 1681 : "To convey a correct idea of the present state of all those Indian na- tions it is necessary to explain the cause of the cruel war waged by the Iroquois for these three years past against the Illinois. The former were great warriors, cannot remain idle, and pretend to subject all other nations to themselves, and never want a pretext for commencing hos- tilities. The following was their assumed excuse for the present war : Going, about twenty years ago, to attack the Outagamis (Foxes), they met the Illinois and killed a considerable number of them. This continued during the succeeding years, and finally, having destroyed a great many, they forced them to abandon their country and seek refuge in very distant parts. The Iroquois having got quit of the Illinois, took no more trouble with them, and went to war against another nation called the Andostagnes.t Pending this war the Illinois re- turned to their country, and the Iroquois complained that they had
ent that the mission had for some years been in successful operation at the combined village of the Kaskaskias, Peorias and Mouin-gouena, situated at the Du Detroit of the Illinois; and also that the Kaskaskias, hearing that the French were about to form es- tablishments on the lower Mississippi, in company with the French inhabitants of their ancient village, were in the act of going down the Mississippi at the time of Gravier's arrival, in September, 1700. All these facts taken together would seem to definitely locate the Mission of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the narrows, six miles above the present city of Peoria, which is upon the site of old Fort Clark, and probably, from the topography of the locality, upon the east bank of the strait. In conclusion, we may add that the Kaskaskias were induced to halt in their journey southward upon the river, which has ever since borne their name ; and the mission, transferred from the old Kaskaskias, above Peoria, retained the name of "The Immaculate Conception," etc.
* Paris Documents, vol. 9, pp. 161 to 166.
t The Eries, or Cats, were entirely destroyed by the Iroquois.
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
killed forty of their people who were on their way to hunt beaver in the Illinois country. To obtain satisfaction, the Iroquois resolved to make war upon them. Their true motive, however, was to gratify the English at Manatte * and Orange,t of whom they are too near neigh- bors, and who, by means of presents, engaged the Iroquois in this ex- pedition, the object of which was to force the Illinois to bring their beaver to them, so that they may go and trade it afterward to the English ; also, to intimidate the other Indians, and constrain them to to do the same thing.
" The improper conduct of Sieur de la Salle, # governor of Fort Frontenac, has contributed considerably to cause the latter to adopt this proceeding ; for after he had obtained permission to discover the Great River Mississippi, and had, as he alleged, the grant of the Illinois, he no longer observed any terms with the Iroquois. He ill- treated them, and avowed that he would convey arms and ammunition to the Illinois, and would die assisting them.
"The Iroquois dispatched in the month of April of last year, 1680, an army, consisting of between five and six hundred men, who ap- proached an Illinois village where Sieur Tonty, one of Sieur de la Salle's men happened to be with some Frenchmen and two Recollect fathers, whom the Iroquois left unharmed. One of these, a most holy man, § has since been killed by the Indians. But they would listen to no terms of peace proposed to them by Sieur de Tonty, who was slightly wounded at the beginning of the attack ; the Illinois having fled a hundred leagues thence, were pursued by the Iroquois, who killed and captured as many as twelve hundred of them, including women and children, having lost only thirty men.
"The victory achieved by the Iroquois rendered them so insolent that they have continued ever since that time to send out divers war parties. The success of these is not yet known, but it is not doubted that they have been successful, because those tribes are very warlike and the Illi- nois are but indifferently so. Indeed, there is no doubt, and it is the universal opinion, that if the Iroquois are allowed to proceed they will subdue the Illinois, and in a short time render themselves masters of all the Ontawa tribes and divert the trade to the English, so that it is absolutely essential to make them our friends or to destroy them."
* New York.
t Albany, New York.
# It must be remembered that La Salle was not exempt from the jealousy and envy which is inspired in souls of little men toward those engaged in great undertakings ; and we see this spirit manifested here. La Salle could not have done otherwise than supply fire-arms to the Illinois, who were his friends and the owners of the country, the trade of which he had opened up at great hardship and expense to himself. § Gabriel Ribourde.
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DEFEAT OF THE IROQUOIS.
The Iroquois were not always successful in their western forays. Tradition records two instances in which they were sadly discomfited. The first was an encounter with the Sioux, on an island in the Missis- sippi, at the mouth of the Des Moines. The tradition of this engage- ment is preserved in the curious volumes of La Hontan, and is as fol- lows : " March 2nd, 1689, I arrived in the Mississippi. To save the labor of rowing we left our boats to the current, and arrived on the tenth in the island of Rencontres, which took its name from the defeat of four hundred Iroquois accomplished there by three hundred Nadonessis (Sioux). The story of the encounter is briefly this: A party of four hundred Iroquois having a mind to surprise a certain people in the neighborhood of the Otentas (of whom more anon), marched to the country of the Illinois, where they built canoes and were furnished with provisions. After that they embarked upon the river Mississippi, and were discovered by another little fleet that was sailing down the other side of the same river. The Iroquois crossed over immediately to that island which is since called Aux Rencontres. The Nadouessis, i. e., the other little fleet, being suspicious of some ill design, without knowing what people they were (for they had no knowledge of the Iroquois but by hear-say) - upon this suspicion, I say, they tugged hard to come up with them. The two armies posted themselves upon the point of the island, where the two crosses are put down in the map,* and as soon as the Nadovessis came in sight, the Iroquois cried out in the Illinese language: 'Who are ye?' To which the Nadouessis answered, 'Somebody'; and putting the same question to the Iroquois, received the same answer. Then the Iroquois put this question to 'em : 'Where are you going ?' 'To hunt buffalo,' answered the Na- douessis ; 'but, pray,' says the Nadouessis, ' what is your business ?' ' To hunt men,' reply'd the Iroquois. "Tis well,' says the Nadonessis ; ' we are men, and so you need go no farther.' Upon this challenge, the two parties disembarked, and the leader of the Nadouessis cut his canoes to pieces, and, after representing to his warriors that they be- hoved either to conquer or die, marched up to the Iroquois, who received them at first onset with a cloud of arrows. But the Nadou- essis having stood their first discharge, which killed eighty of them, fell in upon them with their clubs in their hands before the others could charge again, and so routed them entirely. This engagement lasted for two hours, and was so hot that two hundred and sixty Iro- quois fell upon the spot, and the rest were all taken prisoners. Some of the Iroquois, indeed, attempted to make their escape after the action
* On La Hontan's map the place marked is designated by an island in the Missis- sippi, immediately at the mouth of the Des Moines.
8
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
was over; but the victorious general sent ten or twelve of his men to pursue them in one of the canoes that he had taken, and accordingly they were all overtaken and drowned. The Nadouessis having ob- tained this victory, cut off the noses and ears of two of the cleverest prisoners, and supplying them with fusees, powder and ball, gave them the liberty of returning to their own country, in order to tell their countrymen that they ought not to employ women to hunt after men any longer."*
The second tradition is that of a defeat of a war party of Iroquois upon the banks of the stream that now bears the name of "Iroquois River." Father Charlevoix, in his Narrative Journal, referring to his passage down the Kankakee, in September, 1721, allndes to this defeat of the Iroquois in the following language: "I was not a little sur- prised at seeing so little water in the The-a-ki-ki, notwithstanding it receives a good many pretty large rivers, one of which is more than a hundred and twenty feet in breadth at its mouth, and has been called the River of the Iroquois, because some of that nation were surprised on its banks by the Illinois who killed a great many of them. This check mortified them so much the more, as they held the Illinois in great contempt, who, indeed, for the most part are not able to stand before them." +
The tradition has been given with fuller particulars to the author, by Colonel Guerdon S. Hubbard, as it was related by the Indians to him. It has not as yet appeared in print, and is valuable as well as interesting, inasmuch as it explains why the Iroquois River has been so called for a period of nearly two centuries, and also because it gives the origin of the name Watseka.
The tradition is substantially as follows: Many years ago the Iro. quois attacked an Indian village situated on the banks of the river a few miles below the old county seat,- Middleport,-and drove out the occupants with great slaughter. The fugitives were collected in the night time some distance away, lamenting their disaster. A wo- man, possessing great courage, urged the men to return and attack the Iroquois, saying the latter were then rioting in the spoils of the village and exulting over their victory; that they would not expect danger from their defeated enemy, and that the darkness of the night would prevent their knowing the advance upon them. The warriors refused to go. The woman then said that she would raise a party of squaws and return to the village and fight the Iroquois; adding that death or captivity would be the fate of the women and children on the morrow,
* La Hontan's New Voyages to America, vol. 1, pp. 128, 129.
+ Charlevoix' Narrative Journal, vol. 2, p. 199.
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INDIAN LEGEND.
and that they might as well die in an effort to regain their village and property as to submit to a more dreadful fate. She called for volun- teers and the women came forward in large numbers. Seeing the bravery of their wives and daughters the men were ashamed of their cowardice and became inspired with a desperate courage. A plan of attack was speedily formed and successfully executed. The Iroquois, taken entirely unawares, were surprised and utterly defeated.
The name of the heroine who suggested and took an active part in this act of bold retaliation, bore the name of Watch-e-kee. In honor of her bravery and to perpetuate the story of the engagement, a coun- cil of the tribe was convened which ordained that when Watch-e-kee died her name should be bestowed upon the most accomplished maiden of the tribe, and in this way be handed down from one generation to another. By such means have the name and the tradition been pre- served.
The last person who bore this name was the daughter of a Potta- watomie chief, with whose band Col. Hubbard was intimately associ- ated as a trader for many years. She was well known to many of the old settlers in Danville and upon the Kankakee. She was a person of great beauty, becoming modesty, and possessed of superior intelligence. She had great influence among her own people and was highly re- spected by the whites. She accompanied her tribe to the westward of the Mississippi, on their removal from the state. The present. country seat of Iroquois county is named after her, and Cola!riubbard advises the author that Watseka, as the name is generally spelled, is incorrect, and that the orthography for its true pror aunciation should be Watch-e- kee .*
We resume the narration of thrie decline of the Illinois: La Salle's fortification at Starved Rock gathered about it populous villages of Illinois, Shawnees, Weas, Pian, keshaws and other kindred tribes, shown on Franquelin's map as the GColonie Du Sr. de la Salle.t The Iroquois were barred out of the cowjantry of the Illinois tribes, and the latter enjoyed security from their old enemies. La Salle himself, speaking of his success in establishing a colony at the Rock, says : "There would be nothing to fear from the Iroquois when the nations of the south,
* The Iroquois also IWore the name of Can-o-wa-ga, doubtless an Indian name. It had another aboriginal · +name, Mocabella (which was, probably, a French-Canadian cor- ruption of the Kickapoo word Mo-qua), signifying a bear. Beck's Illinois and Mis- souri Gazetteer, p. 90.ve The joint commission appointed by the legislatures of Indiana and Illinois to run tl ie boundary line between the two states, in their report in 1821, and upon their map deposited in the archives at Indianapolis, designate the Iroquois by the name of Piclev-a-mink River. They also named Sugar Creek after Mr. McDon- ald, of Vincennes, Ir ndiana, who conducted the surveys for the commission.
t This part of Atr'ranquelin's map appears in the well executed frontispiece of Park- insons Discovery ofW the Great West.
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
strengthened through their intercourse with the French, shall stop their conquest, and prevent their being powerful by carrying off a great number of their women and children, which they can easily do from the inferiority of the weapons of their enemies. As respects com- merce, that post will probably increase our traffic still more than has been done by the establishment of Fort Frontenac, which was built with success for that purpose; for if the Illinois and their allies were to catch the beavers which the Iroquois now kill in the neighborhood in order to carry them to the English, the latter not being any longer able to get them from their own colonies would be obliged to buy from us, to the great benefit of those who have the privilege of this traffic. These were the views which the Sieur de la Salle had in placing the settlement where it is. The colony has already felt its effects, as all our allies, who had fled after the departure of M. de Frontenac, have returned to their ancient dwellings, in consequence of the confidence caused by the fort, near which they have defeated a party of Iroquois, and have built four forts to protect themselves from hostile incursions. The Governor, M. de la Barre, and the intendant, M. de Muelles, have told Sieur de la Salle that they would write to Monseigneur to inform hin of the importance of that fort in order to keep the Iroquois in check, and that M. de Sagny had proposed its establishment in 1678. Monsiegneur Colbert permitted Sieur de la Salle to build it, and granted it to him as a property." *
The fort ac not a. +, To Rocher (the rock) was constructed on its summit in 1682, and enclosed witme a palisade. It was subsequently granted to Tonti and Forest.+ It was abandoned as a military post in the year 1702; and when Charlevoix went down the Illinois in 1721 he passed the Rock, and said of it: "This is the point of a very high terrace stretching the space of two hundred -paces, and bending or winding with the course of the river. This rocks is steep on all sides, and at a distance one would take it for a fortress. 1 Some remains of a palisado are still to be seen on it, the Illinois having formerly cast up an en- trenchment here, which might be easily repaired in case of any inter- ruption of the enemy."+
The abandonment of Fort St. Louis in 1702 was followed soon after by a dispersion of the tribes and remnants of trib es that La Salle and Tonti had gathered about it, except the straggling village of the Illinois.
* Memoir of the Sieur de la Salle, reporting to Monseigneur d'e Seingelay the dis- coveries made by him under the order of His Majesty. Historical Collections of Louisiana, Part I, p. 42.
+ Paris Documents, vol. 9, p. 494.
# Charlevoix' Narrative Journal, vol. 2, p. 200.
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DECLINE OF THE ILLINOIS.
The Iroquois came no more subsequent to 1721, having war enough on their hands nearer home; but the Illinois were constantly harassed by other enemies; the Sacs, Foxes, Kickapoos and Pottawatomies. In 1722 their villages at the Rock and on Peoria Lake were besieged by the Foxes, and a detachment of a hundred men under Chevalier de Artaguette and Sieur de Tisné were sent to their assistance. Forty of these French soldiers, with four hundred Indians, marched by land to Peoria Lake. However, before the reinforcements reached their des- tination they learned that the Foxes had retreated with a loss of more than a hundred and twenty of their men. "This success did not, however, prevent the Illinois, although they had only lost twenty men, with some women and children, from leaving the Rock and Pimiteony, where they were kept in constant alarm, and proceeding to unite with those of their brethren who had settled on the Mississippi; this was a stroke of grace for most of them, the small number of missionaries preventing their supplying so many towns scattered far apart ; but on the other side, as there was nothing to check the raids of the Foxes along the Illinois River, communication between Louisiana and New France became much less practicable."*
The fatal dissolution of the Illinois still proceeded, and their ancient homes and hunting grounds were appropriated by the more vigorous Sacs, Foxes, Pottawatomies and Kickapoos. The killing of Pontiac at Cahokia, whither he had retired after the failure of his effort to rescue the country from the English, was laid upon the Illinois, a charge which, whether true or false, hastened the climax of their destruction.
General Harrison stated that "the Illinois confederacy was com- posed of five tribes: the Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Peorians, Michiganians and the Temarois, speaking the Miami language, and no doubt branches of that nation. When I was first appointed Governor of the Indiana Territory (May, 1800), these once powerful tribes were re- duced to about thirty warriors, of whom twenty-five were Kaskaskias, four Peorians, and a single Michiganian. There was an individual lately alive at St. Louis who saw the enumeration made of them by the Jesuits in 1745, making the number of their warriors four thou- sand. A furious war between them and the Sacs and Kickapoos reduced them to that miserable remnant which had taken refuge amongst the white people in the towns of Kaskaskia and St. Genieve."+
* History of New France, vol. 6, p. 71.
+ Official letter of Gen. Harrison to Hon. John Armstrong, Secretary of War, dated at Cincinnati, March 22, 1814: contained in Captain M'Afee's "History of the Late War in the Western Country."
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
By successive treaties their lands in Illinois were ceded to the United States, and they were removed west of the Missouri. In 1872 they had dwindled to forty souls-men, women and children all told.
Thus have wasted away the original occupants of the larger part of Illinois and portions of Iowa and Missouri. In 1684 their single vil- lage at La Salle's colony, could muster twelve hundred warriors. In the days of their strength they nearly exterminated the Winnebagoes, and their war parties penetrated the towns of the Iroquois in the valleys of the Mohawk and Genesee. They took the Metchigamis under their protection, giving them security against enemies with whom the latter could not contend. This people who had dominated over the surround- ing tribes, claiming for themselves the name Illini or Linneway, to rep- resent their superior manhood, have disappeared from the earth ; another race, representing a higher civilization, occupy their ancient domains, and already, even the origin of their name and the location of their cities have become the subjects of speculation.
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