USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922, Vol. I > Part 4
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Of the groups inhabiting the western part of the present United States, the strongest was the Siouan, whose domain was about the headwaters of the Mississippi and extending westward to the Missouri River. It was composed of
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a number of tribes closely resembling each other in physical appearance and dialect, all noted for their warlike tendencies and military prowess.
South and west of the Siouan country lived the "Plains Indians, " composed of tribes of mixed stock, including the Arapaho, Cheyenne and Pawnee (or Pani) in the north, and the Apache, Comanche and Kiowa in the south. All these tribes were of bold and vindictive disposition, expert horsemen and skilful hunters. West of the Plains Indians dwelt the Shoshonean family, one of the smallest on the continent, the principal tribes of which were the Bannock and Shoshone, and farther southward, in what are now the states of Arkansas and Louisiana, was the Caddoan family, or "hut builders."
Scattered over other parts of the country were numerous minor tribes, which in all probability had separated from some of the great families, but who, at the time they first came in contact with the white man, claimed kinship with none. These tribes were generally inferior in numbers, often nomadic in their habits, and consequently are of little importance historically.
In a history such as this it is not the design to attempt any extended account of the Indian race as a whole, but to notice only those tribes whose history is more or less intimately connected with the region about Detroit, to wit: The Chippewa, Huron, Iroquois, Mascouten, Miami, Pottawatomi, Sac and Fox, Winnebago and some minor tribes that were really only subdivisions or offshoots of the larger ones.
THE CHIPPEWA
This was one of the largest tribes of the Algonquian family. The Indian name was "Ojibwa," meaning "to roast till puckered up," a name conferred by other tribes on account of the Chippewa method of making moccasins with a puckered seam around the edge. Morgan divides the Chippewa into twenty- four clans or gentes, the principal ones of which were the wolf, bear, beaver, bald eagle and sturgeon.
A Chippewa tradition says that at an early date the tribe was closely allied with the other Algonquian subdivisions, especially the Ottawa and Pottawatomi. During this period they inhabited both shores of the northern part of Lake Michigan and the country about the foot of Lake Superior. The French gave them the name of Santeaux, from the Sault Ste. Marie. At Mackinaw the Chippewa withdrew from the alliance and moved westward into what is now the State of Minnesota, ultimately extending their domain to the Turtle River in North Dakota.
Although a large tribe numerically, it was not as prominent in history as some of the smaller ones. Some of the Chippewa lived near the site of Detroit before the coming of Cadillac and became the friends of the French. When the post was surrendered to the English in 1760 they transferred their allegiance to the new power. After the United States came into eontrol, the tribe con- tinued to receive presents from the British until 1820, when a treaty of peace was concluded with them by Gov. Lewis Cass.
THE HURON
The Huron nation was composed of four well organized tribes of Iroquoian stock, commonly called the Bear, Cord, Deer and Rock people, and was known as the Wendat (Vendat) . Confederacy. The name. ITuron is derived from the
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French "hure," signifying "bristly," and was given to these Indians on account of their coarse, bristly hair.
In 1615 Champlain found the four confederated tribes living about the Georgian Bay and along the eastern coast of Lake Huron. He estimated their number at 30,000 and says they had eighteen populous villages, eight of which were fortified with palisades. About forty years after Champlain's visit, they became involved in a war with the Five Nations and were driven to take refuge with the Erie Indians, whom they persuaded to join them in the war. In 1656 they were again defeated and many of their warriors killed. The survivors fled to Christian Island, in the Georgian Bay, but finding that locality unsafe they retired to Michilimackinac, whither they were pursued by their old enemy. The Iroquois advance was then checked by the Chippewa, the Hurons retiring to the vicinity of Green Bay, where they formed an alliance with some of the Ottawa and Pottawatomi.
According to the Jesuit Relations, a Huron settlement was founded in 1670 on Mantoulin Island, where the next year Father Marquette established the mission of St. Ignace. When Cadillac founded the post at Detroit, he adopted the policy of having as many friendly Indians as possible locate near the fort. On June 28, 1703, thirty Huron families from the St. Ignace mission arrived at Detroit and set up their wigwams. They were soon joined by others of the tribe and an old French memoir of 1707 says:
"The Hurons are also near, perhaps the eighth of a league from the French fort. This is the most industrious nation that can be seen. They scarcely ever dance and are always at work; raise a very large amount of Indian corn, peas and beans; grow some wheat. They construct their huts entirely of bark, very strong and solid; very lofty and very long and arched like arbors. Their fort is strongly encircled with pickets and bastions, well redoubted and has strong gates. They are the most faithful nation to the French, and the most expert hunters that we have."
After some years at Detroit, a portion of the tribe went to Sandusky, Ohio. In 1745 the French commandant at Detroit provoked the enmity of the chief Orontony (or Nicholas), who, with his following, left Detroit and joined those at Sandusky. There he began the formation of a conspiracy for the destruction of the French posts at and above Detroit, but a Huron woman revealed the plot to a Jesuit priest, who in turn notified Longueuil, the commandant at Detroit. Orontony then destroyed his village near Sandusky and with his warriors and their families established a new one on the White River in Indiana, where he died in the fall of 1748.
Upon the death of their chief the Indians returned to Detroit and Sandusky, where they took the name of Wyandot instead of Huron. As the Wyandot nation they laid claim to the greater part of what is now the State of Ohio. During the War of 1812 they supported the English cause and by the peace of 1815 the tribe was granted a large tract of land in Ohio and Michigan. Most of this tract was ceded to the United States in 1819, the Indians accepting two reservations, one near Upper Sandusky and the other on the Huron River, not far from Detroit. These reservations were sold in 1842 and the occupants re- moved to what is now Wyandotte County, Kansas, where they lived for twenty- five years, when they were removed to the Indian Territory. The remnant of the once great Huron nation now lives on a reservation in the northeast corner of Oklahoma.
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THE IROQUOIS
Strictly speaking there were no Iroquois Indians, that name being applied in a general way to all the tribes of the same linguistie stoek, ethnologically known as the Iroquoian family. In 1534 Jacques Cartier found these Indians on the shore of the Gaspe Basin and on both banks of the St. Lawrence River between Quebee and Montreal, which was their first acquaintance with the white race.
The word Iroquois means "We are of the extended lodge," and was given to the confederacy formed about 1570 by the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onon. daga and Seneca tribes, after wars with other tribes led them to unite for their common defense. This confederacy was known to the early settlers of New York as the "Five Nations." At that time the allied tribes claimed nearly all the St. Lawrence Valley, the basins of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, the eastern shore of Lake Huron, especially the country about the Georgian Bay, and all the present State of New York except the lower Hudson Valley.
In this confederaey each tribe was an independent politieal unit, which sent delegates to a general couneil. The Five Nations were second to none north of Mexico in political organization, statecraft and military prowess. Their chiefs were diplomats of ability and nearly always proved a match for the white men, when the two races met in council for the negotiation of treaties, etc. In 1722 the Tuscarora tribe was added to the confederacy, which then took the name of the "Six Nations."
Champlain, in one of his early expeditions, joined a party of Canadian Indians at war with the Five Nations, who thereby became bitter and lasting enemies of the French. Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries tried in vain to win them to the Catholie faith and in the French and Indian war they fought on the side of the British.
About 1650 French travelers estimated the Iroquois population at 20,000. They were nearly always at war with the neighboring tribes, from New England to Lake Michigan, where their westward advance was checked by the Chippewa. These wars depleted their ranks and at the close of the French and Indian war they numbered about 10,000, with fifty villages. They sometimes were repre- sented in the councils held at the Huron or Wyandot village, near the mouth of the Detroit River, but as a rule they were the enemies of all the Indians about Detroit, particularly those on friendly terms with the French. They were eruel in war and it is stated on apparently good authority that they often ate the flesh of their enemies killed in battle.
THE MASCOUTEN
Some ethinologists classify this tribe as part of the Sae and Fox confederacy and others as the "Prairie Band" of the Pottawatomi. This is probably due to the confused accounts concerning their early history. In 1616 Champlain met with a tribe that he designated as the Asistagueronon, which inhabited the country south and west of Lake Huron. Twenty years later, Sagard stated that the Mascouten country was nine or ten days' journey west of the south end of the Georgian Bay. In 1634 Nicolas Perrot found them living on the Fox River in Wisconsin, and the Jesuit Relation for 1646 says that up to the time of Perrot's visit no white man had seen them and no missionaries had been among them. They called themselves the "little prairie people."
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Marest, writing of this tribe, says that in 1712 he found a number of them living on the Ohio River, near the mouth of the Wabash, where they had located only a short time before. It was part of this band who, with some of the Kickapoo, joined in the Fox attack on Detroit in May, 1712, which may have had something to do with the theory that the Mascouten were a branch of the Fox tribe.
THE MIAMI
Among the great tribes of the Algonquian family, the Miami (called Twight- wees by the early English settlers) occupied a large territory in Southern Michigan, Western Ohio and Central Indiana. Some idea of the extent of the tribal claims may be gained from the following extract from the speech of their great chief, Little Turtle, at the council of Greenville, Ohio, in August, 1795: "My fathers kindled the first fire at Detroit; thence they extended their lines to the headwaters of the Scioto; thence to its mouth; thence down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash; thence to Chicago and over Lake Michigan."
The Miami was one of the first tribes to establish friendly relations with the French under Cadillac. As early as 1703 there was a considerable Miami colony at Detroit, but their principal settlement at that time was on the shore of Lake Michigan, near the present City of St. Joseph. Later the tribal head- quarters were established at the head of the Maumee River, where the City of Fort Wayne, Indiana, now stands.
Agriculture was practiced in a primitive way, the women, as in other tribes doing the work of the field and wigwam, while the men engaged in hunting or "went on the war path." They were less treacherous than many of the tribes and appear to have had a higher sense of honor. When the peace treaty of Greenville was concluded on August 3, 1795, some of the Miami chiefs were opposed to certain provisions, but finally yielded to the majority. As Little Turtle "touched the goose quill" he said: "I am the last to sign it and I will be the last to break it." He kept his word and remained on terms of peace with the white people until his death at Fort Wayne, Indiana, on July 14, 1812.
THE OTTAWA'
The name Ottawa was a term common to a number of Algonquian tribes, notably the Cree, Chippewa, Nipissing and Ottawa proper. The first mention of these Indians in history was in 1615, when Champlain met about 300 of them and gave them the name of "les cheveux releuez." In his description of them he says:
"Their arms consisted only of a bow and arrows, a buckler of boiled leather and the club. They wore no breech clouts, their bodies were tattooed in many fashions and designs, their faces painted and their noses pierced."
From their pierced noses an ornament consisting of a small pebble or shell was suspended, which doubtless led some of the early writers to conclude that the term Ottawa signified "the nation with a hole in the nose." This theory is not sustained by the United States Bureau of Ethnology, the "Handbook" of which says the name was applied to the Ottawa "because in early traditional times and also during the historic period they were noted among their neigh- bors as intertribal traders and barterers, dealing chiefly in corn meal, sun- flower oil, furs and skins, rugs and mats, tobacco, and medicinal roots and herbs."
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The Jesuit Relation for 1667 says that they claimed the country along the Ottawa River and that no other nation was permitted to navigate that stream without their consent. About the same time Claude Allouez, the Jesuit mis- sionary, wrote: "They are little disposed toward the faith, for they are too much given to idolatry, superstitions, fables, polygamy, looseness of the mar- riage tie and to all manner of license, which causes them to drop all native decency."
Until about 1670 the Ottawa and Huron lived together. Then the latter removed to the west side of Lake Huron, part of the tribe locating near the present City of Detroit and others going to Michilimackinac to escape from their old enemy, the Iroquois. A little later it seems that a portion of the Ottawa also gained a foothold on the west side of Lake Huron, in the vicinity of Saginaw Bay, where the Pottawatomi were probably in close union with them. In 1703 Cadillac invited them to settle near Detroit and they established a village on the opposite side of the river, where Sandwich now stands. There they built a picket fort, similar to that of the Huron stockade.
For more than half a century the Ottawa were the steadfast friends of the French and on numerous occasions assisted them in repelling the attacks of hostile tribes. After Detroit was surrendered to the British in 1760, the tribe became dissatisfied with the new power. The celebrated chief, Pontiac, was a member of this tribe, and Pontiac's war of 1763, an account of which is given in another chapter, was a prominent event in Ottawa history.
The Ottawa were good farmers and experts in handling their canoes. At the close of the Revolutionary war a small portion of the tribe refused to submit to the authority of the United States and removed to Canada. Subsequently they, with some of the Chippewa and Pottawatomi Indians, were settled on Walpole Island in Lake St. Clair. All the lands in Michigan claimed by the Ottawa were ceded to the United States by various treaties, ending with the Chicago treaty of September 26, 1833, when they accepted a reservation near Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
THE POTTAWATOMI
When first met by the white men, this tribe was one of the greatest of the Algonquin group. The name Pottawatomi signifies "the people of the place of fire," or "nation of fire." The first authentic account of these Indians is that given by Jean Nicollet, who found them in 1634 living with the Winnebago and some other tribes about the Green Bay. Thirty years later the main body of the tribe inhabited the islands about the mouth of the Green Bay. The Jesuit Relation for 1671 says: Four nations make their abode here, namely: "Those who bear the name of Puans (Winnebago), who have always lived here as m their own country, and who have been reduced to almost nothing from being a very flourishing and populous people, having been exterminated by their enemies, the Illini; the Pottawatomi, the Sank and the Nation of the Fork also live here, but as strangers or foreigners, driven by the fear of the Iroquois from their own lands which are between the lake of the Hurons and the country of the Illini."
This would indicate that the original habitat of the Pottawatomi was some- where about the foot of Lake Huron. When the Relation of 1671 was written, the tribe was moving toward the south and east. Soon after Cadillac founded Detroit a Pottawatomi village was established near the month of the little
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stream afterward known as Knagg's Creek and within a short distance of the fort. An old French colonial memoir of 1707 says:
"The village of the Pottowatamies adjoins the fort. The women do all the work. The men belonging to that nation are well clothed, like our domiciliated Indians at Montreal; their entire occupation is hunting and dress; they make use of a great deal of vermilion, and in winter wear buffalo robes richly painted and in summer either blue or red cloth. They play a good deal at la crosse in summer, twenty or more on each side. Their bat is a sort of little racket and the ball with which they play is made of very heavy wood, somewhat larger than the balls used at tennis; when playing they are entirely naked, except a breech cloth and moccasins on their feet. Their bodies are completely painted with all sorts of colors. Some, with white clay, trace white lace on their bodies, as if on all the seams of a coat, and at a distance it would be apt to be taken for silver lace. They play very deep and often. The bets sometimes amount to more than eight hundred livres. They set up two poles and commence the game from the center; one party propels the ball from one side and the other from the opposite, and whichever reaches the goal wins. This is fine recreation and worth seeing. * * * The women cultivate Indian corn, beans, peas, squashes and melons, which come up very fine."
The Pottawatomi were the loyal friends of the French, but after the French and Indian war they joined Pontiac in his conspiracy for the destruction of the English posts. Their burial place at Detroit was on the tract later known as the Brevoort farm. In 1771 they granted part of their lands near Detroit to Isadore Chene and Robert Navarre, on condition that the two white men would keep in order the resting places of their dead.
In the Revolutionary war they fought on the side of the British, with whom they had made friends, and at the council of Greenville in 1795 they notified the Miami that they intended to move down upon the Wabash River, which they did soon afterward, in spite of the protests of the Miami, who claimed practically the whole Wabash Valley. At the beginning of the Nineteenth Century the Pottawatomi were in possession of the country around the head of Lake Michigan from the Milwaukee River to the Grand River in Michigan, extending eastward across the Lower Peninsula, southwest over a large part of Northern Illinois, and southward to the Wabash River. Within this territory they had about fifty populous villages.
In the War of 1812 they again took the side of the British, which was their undoing. Between the years 1836 and 1841 they ceded their lands in Indiana. Illinois and Michigan to the United States and in 1846 removed to a reservation in what is now the State of Kansas.
Morgan divides the Pottawatomi into fifteen clans or gentes, the most im- portant of which were the wolf, bear, beaver, fox and thunder. Early writers describe them as "docile and affectionate" in their relations with the white people. Polygamy was common among them when the first missionaries visited the tribe. In their mythology they had two spirits-Kitchemonedo, the Great Spirit, and Matchemonedo, the Evil Spirit-and they were sun worshipers to some extent. Their principal annual festival was the "Feast of Dreams," at which dog meat was served as the leading dish.
SAC AND FOX
Although these two tribes are nearly always spoken of as one, they were originally separate and distinct organizations, both belonging to the Algonquian
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family. After many migrations and vicissitudes they united and became one of the powerful Indian nations of the Mississippi Valley.
The Sac (Indian name Sauk or Osa-ki-wug ) signifies "people of the outlet." Their earliest known habitat was on the western shore of Lake Huron, where they were found by missionaries in 1616 associated with other tribes. They are first mentioned as an independent tribe in the Jesuit Relation of 1640. In 1667 Father Claude Allouez found them a populous tribe with no fixed dwelling place and deseribes them as "more savage than all the other tribes I have met. * * * If they find a person in an isolated place they will kill him, espe- eially if he be a Frenchman, for they cannot endure the sight of the whiskers of the European."
The tribe was divided into thirteen gentes, viz: Bass, bear, eagle, elk, fox, great lynx, grouse, sea, sturgeon, swan, thunder, trout and wolf. From the country about Saginaw Bay they retreated toward the northwest, by way of Mackinaw, and thence southwest to Green Bay, and in 1721 their principal village was near the mouth of the Fox River in Wisconsin.
Concerning the Fox nation, Dr. William Jones of the United States Bureau of Ethnology, says that a hunting party of these Indians was met by some French, who asked to what tribe they belonged and was told the Mesh-kwa-ki-hug. The name being difficult of pronunciation, the French gave them the name of Renard, or Fox. The Indian name, Mesh-kwa-ki-hug, means "people of the red earth." It was often shortened into Musquakie. The Chippewa ealled them Utagamig, which the white people corrupted into Outagamie. The Chip- pewa name means "people of the other shore," and from this fact Warren, in his "History of the Ojibwa Indians," draws the eonelusion that the earliest known habitat of the Fox was on the southern shore of Lake Superior until driven out by the Chippewa.
There is a striking similarity in the social organization of the Sac and Fox nations, in that each had thirteen gentes, the names of which were almost identical. The Fox clans were the bass, bear, big lynx, buffalo, eagle, elk, fox, pheasant, sea, sturgeon, swan, thunder and potato. The celebrated chief Black Hawk was a member of the thunder clan of the Sac tribe, but was recognized as chief by the Fox after the two had formed their confederacy.
Ineited by the English, the Fox Indians became the enemies of the French and made several attaeks upon the French posts. In 1733, after one of their forays, Sieur de Villiers was sent against them with an armed force from Canada. They sought refuge in the Sac village on the Fox River. De Villiers demanded the surrender of the fugitives, but it was refused and in the fight that ensued the Indians lost twenty-nine and the French fifteen, De Villiers being one of the killed. The Ottawa and Chippewa, allies of the French, lost respectively nine and six of their warriors. Marquis de Beauharnois, then governor of Canada, sent more troops into the Indian country. It was at this time that the Sae and Fox confederacy was formed, the allied tribes retreating southward to the Rock River Valley in Illinois.
The mythology of both the Sac and Fox was full of superstition and fable, which, like the similarity of their social organization, indicates that they were of the same stock. Both had many festivals and after the confederacy was formed both participated in the rites of the secret Grand Medicine Society known as the Mi-de-wi-win. Also both tribes are described as "stingy, warlike. thieving and quarrelsome."
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THE WINNEBAGO
The first mention of the Winnebago Indians in the white man's history was that made by Jean Nicollet, who found them in 1634 living along the shores of the Green Bay, where they were associated with other tribes. A Winnebago tradition says they were once a powerful nation, living along the shores of Lake Superior until they were driven out by the Chippewa. They really belonged to the Siouan group, but by long association with Algonquian tribes they acquired the speech and habits of that family.
In their social organization the Winnebago had two phratries called the Air Phratry and the Earth Phratry. In the former were four elans-eagle, pigeon, thunderbird and war people-and in the latter there were eight elans --- bear, buffalo, deer, elk, fish, snake, water-spirit and wolf. The bear and thunder- bird were the leading clans, from which came most of their great chiefs. In marrying a man always ehose a wife from some other elan than his own.
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