USA > Missouri > Missouri the center state, 1821-1915 > Part 11
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That the Indian population of Missouri was numerous and lived in this region many generations before the white man came, Walter B. Douglas, Dr. H. M. Whelpley, Gerard Fowke and all other investigators agree. One Indian mound in Missouri has yielded more than a thousand pieces of pottery. The capitol of Missouri was built upon an Indian burial mound. When the excavation for the foundations was made the workmen uncovered many human bones and much pottery. Indian graves were found on most of the high bluffs of Cole County overlooking the Missouri. Arrow-heads and stone implements, tons of them, have been picked up within the limits of the county.
Some of the Indian communities of Missouri were much more civilized than others. They had industries. The Missouri Historical Society has a great clay bowl three feet in diameter and six inches deep. It was found at Montesano, twenty miles south of St. Louis, where there are fourteen mineral springs. An Indian town of considerable size was located at Montesano. The bowl was one of many used in the manufacture of salt by evaporation. Gerard Fowke, the archaeologist, said: "This bowl may be 300 or it may be 3,000 years old. How long the Indian settlement remained there will never be any more definite to us than the word ancient implies. The deposits at Montesano give us no clew as to this question. We know that as recently as 100 years ago the Indians made
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salt and sold it to white settlers and traders. But whatever the age of this settlement, we do know there was an Indian village at the spot now called Montesano. They were a tribe inclined to manufacture and had an extensive salt industry. They were naturally attracted to the spot by the springs, and the fact that they could keep an eye on the surrounding country from the bluff on which the springs are located. Possibly they caught the salt-making idea from watching their animals lick the rocks over which the salt water flowed."
Vice-President Walter B. Douglas of the Missouri Historical Society, who has devoted much study to the traces of the aboriginal Missourians, said : "Many Indian relics are found in pits which the Indians used for storing grain. They dug large holes in the ground and built fires in them to bake the sides and bottom. The baking process made the pits as hard and dry as though walled with brick. Into these pits the Indians poured their grain to keep it through the winter. They were great granaries. But after a certain time moisture in the ground would find its way to the grain, and the pits became useless as store- houses. Then the Indians used them as dumps into which they would throw refuse of all kinds, broken arrow-heads, pottery and bones. Wherever there was an Indian village of any size these pits can be found. I believe we can find some of these pits at Montesano, and believe they will show the size of the Indian city, whose remains are buried there, and give up many interesting relics."
Laclede's Indian Policy.
With practical tact Laclede treated an Indian crisis before St. Louis was two months old. At the same time he established an important policy for the com- munity. Auguste Chouteau and "the first thirty" had built the great shed for the temporary storage of the goods. They had put together cabins for them- selves. They were assembling the rock and the timbers for Laclede's house, which was to serve for headquarters for the fur company. The Missouris arrived from the West. There were 125 warriors and the complement of squaws and pappooses. No hostility was shown. On the other hand, there was embarrassing friendliness. The Missouris announced that they would build a village and live beside the white men. They begged food. They helped themselves to tools. Some of the intending settlers who had come over from Cahokia to join the settlement showed alarm and began to move back to the east side. Auguste Chouteau sent word of the emergency to Laclede at Fort Chartres. Meanwhile he put the squaws to work for pay in paint and beads digging the cellar for Laclede's house and carrying away the dirt. The founder came quickly in response to Auguste Chouteau's call and with due formality went into council with the Missouris. The chiefs repeated their decision to become part of the settlement and to depend upon the white men for protection against their enemies, the Illinois nation. Laclede listened and promised an answer the next day.
Auguste Chouteau remembered that diplomatic speech and wrote it into his diary. It was a speech which averted a crisis and which laid the foundation of an Indian policy of long and far-reaching advantage to Missouri. Laclede called the chiefs together, as he had promised. He went over the reasons they had given for joining his settlement. He reminded them that by moving to the bank of the Mississippi they would be placing themselves within reach of their hered- itary enemies, the Illinois nation. He pictured an awful fate, which he, with
THE BIG MOUND AT BROADWAY AND MOUND STREETS, ST. LOUIS From a daguerreotype taken in 1850
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the best of intentions, could not avert, if they, the Missouris, came to live where they could be so easily attacked from the east side of the river.
"I warn you, as a good father," he said, "that there are 600 or 700 warriors at Fort de Chartres, who are there to make war against the English, which occupies them fully at this moment, for they turn all of their attention below Fort de Chartres, from whence they expect the English; but if they learn you are here, beyond the least doubt they will come here to destroy you. See now. warriors, if it be not prudent on your part to leave here at once rather than to remain to be massacred-your wives and your children to be torn to pieces and their limbs thrown to dogs and birds of prey. Recollect. I speak to you as a good father. Reflect well upon what I have told you and give me your answer this evening. I can not give you any longer time. for I must return to Fort de Chartres."
That night the Missouris departed, going up the river of their name to their old home. Laclede sent to Cahokia and brought over corn to give them for food.
Traditions of the Missouris.
The Missouris were so called because they lived in the Missouri River country. The name had been given by the Illinois or Illini nation of red men. In an earlier time the Missouris were known as the Nudarches. They had established a record of friendliness with white people long before Missouri was permanently settled. Marquette was welcomed by them nearly a century before the coming of Laclede. The good disposition of the Nudarches or Missouris was reported by other early explorers. It is history that in 1;12 this tribe was one of several which marched to the relief of the white settlement at Detroit. But the Mis- souris distinguished between white nations. They were kindly disposed toward the French. For the Spaniard they had a different feeling. They ambushed and destroyed a Spanish expedition sent up from Mexico by way of Santa Fe to the Missouri country. An account of this affair is given in the History of Missouri by Davis & Durrie:
"As early as 1719 the Spaniards, alarmed at the rapid encroachments of the French in the Upper and Lower Mississippi valleys, made strenuous exertions to dispossess them: in order to accomplish which they thought it necessary to destroy the nation of the Missouris. then situated on the Missouri river, who were in alliance with the French and espoused their interests. Their plan was to excite the Osages to war with the Missouris, and then take part with them in the contest. For this purpose an expedition was fitted out in Santa Fe for the Missouri in 1;20. It was a moving caravan of the desert-armed men, horses, males. families, with herds of cattle and swine to serve for food on the way. and to propagate in the new colony. In their march they lost the proper route. the guides became bewil- dered and led them to the Missouri tribe instead of the Osages. Unconscious of their mistake. as both tribes spoke the same language. they |the Spaniards) believed themselves among the Osages, instead of their enemies, and without reserve disclosed their designs against the Missouris and supplied them with arms and ammunition to aid in their exter- mination. The chief of the nation perceived the fatal mistake but encouraged the error. He showed the Spaniards every possible attention, and promised to act in concert with them. For this purpose he invited them to rest a few days after their tiresome journey. till he had assembled his warriors and held a council with the old men. The Spanish captain imme- diately distributed several hundred muskets among them, with an equal number of sabres. pistols and hatchets. Just before the dawn upon which the company had arranged to march the Missouris fell upon their treacherous enemies and dispatched them with indiscriminate Tel. 1-5
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slaughter, sparing only a priest whose dress convinced them that he was a man of peace rather than a warrior. They kept him some time a prisoner, but he finally made his escape, and was the only messenger to bear to the Spanish authorities the news of the just return upon their own heads of the treachery they intended to practice upon others."
There is a tradition that a selected party of the Missouris was taken to France in order that their loyalty might be rewarded and they might return with impressions of the white men's ways. The daughter of the chief who was in the party became converted, was baptized and married a French officer. After the return of these Missouris to the Mississippi Valley, the tribe joined other Indians in an attack on a French post and massacred the people. Auguste Chouteau may have known of this tradition, and that may have increased his alarm. The bad name given the Missouris by the tradition was not borne out by the events of that day on the site of St. Louis. Subsequent relations between the white people and the Missouris were friendly. The French tried to instruct them. The priests directed missionary efforts toward them. But the Missouris did not accept civilization.
Pontiac's Funeral.
One of the notable days of the administration of St. Ange de Bellerive at St. Louis was the military funeral given to an Indian. Pontiac was a chief of three tribes in his youth. He ruled over the Ottawas, the Ojibways and the Pottawattomies. He consistently sided with the French and fought the British. In one of his orations he called the English "dogs dressed in red who have come to rob you of your hunting grounds and to drive away the game." That was the year that Laclede came up the Mississippi to found St. Louis. France was surrendering by treaty her possessions east of the Mississippi to England. Pontiac led an uprising against the new authority. "Pontiac's war" continued until 1766. The chief was compelled to make a treaty with the English. He came west to the Illinois country and found a congenial retreat in the French community of St. Louis. He was still in his prime but disappointed; he became a hard drinker. St. Ange de Bellerive had known the chief in better days and treated him kindly. While in his cups Pontiac was enticed across the river to the vicinity of Cahokia by a Kaskaskia Indian and killed from ambush. It is tradition that an English trader bribed the Kaskaskian with a barrel of rum to get Pontiac out of the way. St. Ange went after the body of the chief. Upon the return to St. Louis, Pontiac was dressed in the uniform of a French general, a gift to him by Montcalm. The body lay in state, guarded by the French soldiers who had come from Fort Chartres after the evacuation. At the hour of burial military honors were paid. Pontiac had never been baptized. His body could not be placed in consecrated ground. A grave was dug for him a short distance west of the cemetery. Its precise location, as determined by the Missouri Historical Society, was twenty feet east of Broadway and fifty feet south of Market street. The full garrison paraded at the funeral and the entire population of the settlement attended.
The good will of the Indians toward the French pioneers of Missouri was shown in substantial ways. A locality known as Chouteau Springs, in Cooper County, obtained its name from a gift of land made by the Osages to Major Pierre Chouteau, the son of Laclede, as early as 1792. The Spanish government
PONTIAC
A TYPE OF THE SHAWNEES WEL- COMED TO MISSOURI BY SPANISH GOVERNORS
AN INDIAN CAMP
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approved the grant and the United States later confirmed it. Pierre Chouteau spent most of his time for thirty years among the Indians. How he won their confidence was shown in the words of the land gift, which was signed by the principal men of the Osages:
"Brother: As thou hast, since a long time, fed our wives and our children, and that thou hast always been good to us, and that thou hast always assisted us with thy advice, we have listened with pleasure to thy words, therefore, take thon on the River La Mine, the quantity of land which may suit thee, and anywhere thou pleasest. This land is ours; we do give it to thee, and no one can take it from thee, neither to-day nor ever. Thou mayest remain there, and thy bones shall never be troubled. Thon askest a paper from us, and our names; here it is. If our children do trouble thee, you have but to show this same paper ; and if some nation disturbs thee, we are ready to defend thee. At the fort of Grand Osages, this 19th of March, 1792."
The Spaniards and the Indians.
If the French fur traders and merchants accepted Spanish sovereignty easily, the same was not altogether true of their Indian constituents. Down the Mis- souri came a thief of the Osages about 1770 to see the new flag and its repre- sentative. Governor Piernas had established cordial relations with Laclede and with St. Ange. It didn't occur to the Spanish don that the red chief expected the courtesy of one governor to another. Governor Piernas was dignified. The Osage went home and returned with a band. He met a Shawnee chief who was in St. Louis to see the governor about moving to some land south of St. Louis. The Shawnee looked inquiringly at the war bonnet. The Osage was drinking. He confided to the Shawnee his intention to avenge the slight the Spanish governor had put upon him; he was going to kill him at the first opportunity. The Shawnee saw the way to win favor for himself. He provoked the Osage to quarrel and killed him with a blow of the knife. The Osage chief was buried on Grand Terre, or Big Mound, which gave the name to Mound street, and there the Osages came year after year in the colonial period to mourn and to decorate the grave.
American historians have charged Cortez and Pizarro and other Spaniards with atrocious treatment of the Indians. They have never given credit where due for the tactful course pursued toward the natives by white men who settled and governed in Missouri for more than sixty years. In all of the relations with Indians during the pioneer generations of this country, there is no period, no place which can offer comparison with the record established in Missouri. In the years of Spanish dominion at St. Louis there were times when financial stringency was felt. Salaries were reduced. Soldiers were not paid for months. Retrenchment was ordered. But the annual presents or "gratifications," as they were called, for the Indian nations were not passed by. At the time of the American occupation the presents made by the Spanish government to the Indians in Upper Louisiana amounted to $12,000 a year. An official gunsmith was located at St. Louis to repair the guns of the Indians. He received $140 a year from the government. The Indians made visits to St. Louis to have their fire- arms put in order.
When Louis Lorimer came in 1794 to found Cape Girardeau on the Spanish grant given him, he was welcomed by the Indians. There were three Indian villages up Apple Creek, twenty miles above its mouth. These Indians made
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considerable progress toward civilization. They lived in cabins of hewn logs with shingles on the roofs.
One of the schemes of Spanish governors was the settlement of Shawnee and Delaware Indians near St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve. They thought these Indians could be partially civilized and made useful as allies to ward off attacks from wilder tribes in the west. The Shawnees and Delawares professed to like the arrangement. They formed villages and raised corn. But the young bucks would get out and commit depradations. One day a band of these Indians came upon a St. Louis settler named Duchouquette, who was alone in the vicinity of what is now Lafayette Park. They killed the white man. Francis Duchou- quette was some distance away, and saw the attack. He ran to the village and gave the alarm. Officer Tayon called for help and led a posse in pursuit. The Frenchmen came upon the Indians. Duchouquette saw the one who had killed his brother and who was wearing the fresh scalp tied to his belt. He shot him. Four other Indians were killed. This discouraged the Spanish governors. Dela- wares and Shawanoes, or Shawnees, as commonly called, to the number of 3,000 Indians, remained in Perry County until 1825.
Execution of Tewanaye.
To illustrate how discreet the St. Louisans had been in their Indian relations, Captain Stoddard, who raised the American flag, told of the speech made by a truculent chief at a peace conference in St. Louis a few years previously. This chief said: "We have come to offer you peace. We have been at war with you many moons, and what have we done? Nothing. Our warriors have tried every means to meet you in battle; but you will not ; you dare not fight us. You are a parcel of old women. What can be done with such a people but to make peace since you will not fight? I come therefore to offer you peace, and to bury the hatchet ; to brighten the chain, and again to open the way between us."
The treatment of Tewanaye, the Mascutin, is an illustration of the Indian policy which prevailed in the early days. When the Osages had delivered to Governor Delassus the band of Mascutins responsible for the massacre of David Troter and his son and for the burning of their home on the Meramec, investi- gation showed that Tewanaye was guilty and that five others who were brought in were not guilty. Tewanaye confessed his participation. His execution took place in January, 1803. It was attended by a great demonstration. The militia companies of half a dozen posts marched under command of Governor Delassus to New Madrid. Tewanaye was unshackled. The sentence of death was read and translated for him in his own language. The militia paraded in front of the standard. The execution was by shooting. The other Indian prisoners were so placed that they could see all that occurred. The body of Tewanaye was placed in the coffin. The soldiers, with drums beating, marched by. The Indian prisoners were unshackled, taken to the governor's headquarters and turned over to their chief, Agyponsetchy of the Mascutin nation. The governor returned to St. Louis. The militia companies marched back to Cape Girardeau, Ste. Genevieve, New Bourbon and Platin. There was no more trouble.
Delassus to the Tribes.
In March, 1804, three days after he had absolved the habitants of St. Louis from further allegiance to Spain, Governor Delassus formally told the Indians
GEN. WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON Governor of Northwestern Territory in 1803
DON CARLOS DE HAULT DELASSUS Last Spanish Governor
GOVERNMENT HOUSE AT ST. LOUIS AS REMODELED BY AUGUSTE CHOUTEAU
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assembled at St. Louis of the change. He did so at the request of Captain Stoddard. The American captain knew how well Upper Louisiana had fared' with the Indians. He appreciated the friendliness that had existed between Spanish authority and the nations of the Missouri. He asked Governor Delassus to make known in his own way to the Indians that they had a new father. The governor complied. To a formal assemblage of Indians in front of the govern- ment house, in the presence of Captain Stoddard and Meriwether Lewis, Gov- ernor Delassus delivered in a very impressive manner this address:
"Delawares, Abenakis, Saquis and others :
"Your old fathers, the Spaniard and the Frenchman, who grasp by the hand your new father, the head chief of the United States, by an act of their good will, and in virtue of their last treaty, have delivered up all of these lands. The new father will keep and defend the lands and protect all of the white and red skins who live thereon. You will live as happily as if the Spaniard was still here.
"I have informed your new father, who here takes my place, that since I have been here the Delawares, Shawnees and Saquis have always conducted themselves well; that I have always received them kindly; that the chiefs have always restrained their young men as much as possible. I have recommended thee, Takinosa, as chief of the natives; that thou hast always labored much and well to maintain a sincere friendship with the whites and that, in consequence of thy good services, I recently presented to thee a medal with the portrait of thy great father, the Spaniard, and letters patent reciting thy good and loyal services. For several days past we have fired off cannon shots that we may announce to all the nations your father, the Spaniard, is going, his heart happy to know that you will be protected and sustained by your new father, and that the smoke of the powder may ascend to the Master of life, praying him to shower on you all a happy destiny and pros- perity in always living in good union with the whites."
The American occupation was followed by an act which did much toward. retaining Indian good will. In April, 1806, Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike, back from his exploration of the Upper Mississippi, was ordered to get ready for an expedition westward. The object was to escort to their tribes fifty-one Osages and Pawnees. These Indians had been taken prisoners by the Pottawattomies. They had been redeemed by the United States government. They were to be restored to their people with military escort. At the same time that he went on this diplomatic mission, Pike was to conduct an exploration to the far south- west. The Osages and Pawnees never forgot Pike. For many years any St. Louisan was sure of welcome among them.
Manuel Lisa, the Frontier Diplomat.
The faith which St. Louis kept with the Indians from Laclede's day was worth more than an army when war came in 1812. British influence was directed to the border, and was at work among the tribes from the headwaters of the Mississippi to the Upper Missouri long before a gun was fired. To Governor William Clark in St. Louis, Manuel Lisa, far up the river, more than a year before the war, sent word "the wampum was being carried along the banks of the Missouri." The British scheme, Lisa said, was "a universal confederacy" of the Indian nations preparatory to an overwhelming movement on Missouri when war came.
A grand character was William Clark in many ways. But even his share in the expedition of Lewis and Clark to the Pacific was not a greater service to
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his country than his management of the Indian situation in the Northwest during the war of 1812. One of the first acts of Clark was to make Manuel Lisa a sub-agent of the tribes. No man had such influence over the Indians. Lisa was an American by acquisition. He came under the United States flag when Upper Louisiana did in 1804. He was thoroughly American. "I have suffered enough in person and property under a different government," he wrote, "to know how to appreciate the one under which I now live."
"Captain Manuel," as the Indians called him, began the organizing and arming of the tribes to fight, not against "The Republic," as he liked to call the United States, but against the Indian allies of Great Britain. When the war ended Lisa was fairly ready to begin. He had forty chiefs and several thousand warriors ready to go against the British Indians on the Upper Mississippi. The Missouri frontier had been saved from the Indian nations on the Upper Mississippi. Governor Clark sent trusted representatives with messages of conciliation. Among these emissaries was the One-Eyed Sioux, a famous chief who visited St. Louis frequently and was a great admirer of General Pike, the explorer. The One- Eyed Sioux came to St. Louis with the information that a party had been made up to attack the American frontier. He undertook, at Governor Clark's request, to visit a number of tribes and to use his influence against the British. He was imprisoned, maltreated and threatened with death by the British, but was true to the confidence Clark placed in him. When the war was over the One-Eyed Sioux came back to St. Louis and was honored. As long as he lived he treasured and showed with great pride the commission he received to represent Governor Clark in his diplomatic efforts with the Upper Mississippi tribes.
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