USA > Missouri > Missouri the center state, 1821-1915 > Part 24
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53
"Col. Ben Cooper wrote a letter to Gov. Clark, at St. Louis, informing him of the cir- cumstances and of the general conduct of the Miamis, and asking that proper action be taken against them. On receipt of Col. Cooper's letter Gov. Howard at once sent a force of rang- ers to the Miami village. The Indians surrendered and were escorted out of the country after the stolen property had been restored to the settlers.
Fort Cooper's Fighting Garrison,
"In September, 1813, Braxton Cooper, of Fort Cooper, was killed within a mile or so of the fort, as he was cutting logs for a cabin. He was a young man of considerable physical strength and great courage. He had his rifle and knife with him, and the broken bushes, marks on the ground, and other circumstances showed that he had sold his life at the highest possible price. He was found lying on his face. In his clenched right hand was his good knife, bloody from point to hilt ; by his side lay his loaded gun. He was not scalped or mutilated, and everything indicated that he had put the Indians to flight before falling dead from his half dozen bullet wounds. Not far away was found an Indian's buckskin hunting shirt, with two bloody bullet holes in it. Cooper's faithful dog remained by his side, howling as if for help, until David Boggs and Jesse Turner crawled out to him during the night and recovered the body of his master.
"In October of the same year Stephen Cooper, then a boy of 16, and another young man named Joseph Still, both of Fort Cooper and belonging to the rangers, were sent up the Chari- ton River on a scout. They were returning, when, within about twenty-five miles of the fort, they were intercepted by over 100 Sac Indians. There was but one thing to do. The two rangers rode side by side steadily forward, their rifles on the cock, until within 100 yards of the savages, when both fired and then charged. Cooper killed a prominent 'brave' and Still wounded another. Reaching the Indian line Still was shot dead from the saddle, but gallant young Cooper dashed through, waving his rifle and cheering, and succeeded in escaping the shower of bullets, arrows and spears sent after him. As he rode a good horse and the Indians were afoot he was soon safe, and reached the fort in a few hours.
"The same month Wm. McLane was killed near the present site of Fayette. He, his brother Ewing, and four other men, went out to select a good claim for one of them. They came upon at least 100 Indians-presumably the same band encountered by Still and Cooper -and started to return. As they were ascending a slope from a ravine that empties into Moniteau Creek, the Indians fired and McLane fell from his horse with a bullet in his brain. The other members of the party escaped. The Indians scalped McLane, hacked his body to pieces, and from appearances had a war-dance over it. A strong party of rangers went out to punish the Indians if possible, but the crafty red men burned the woods and destroyed their trail so that it could not be followed. A week later, however, Capt. Cooper's rangers came upon five Indians encamped over in the Chariton timber and wiped them all out in a twinkling. On the body of one of the Indians was found a white man's scalp, which was believed to have been McLane's.
160
MISSOURI, THE CENTER STATE
The Perils of the Salt Makers.
"Making salt at Burckhardt's Lick to supply the forts was a perilous business, but it had to be done. In an attack on the salt-makers at this lick in the spring of 1813 James Alcorn, Frank Wood and two other men drove off twenty Indians, killing three and wounding others. Frank Wood killed two, though he was suffering at the time with a severe wound in the arm received from the Indians a week before.
"In another attack on the salt-makers the workmen mounted their horses to retreat. In reining up his horse John Austin brought up the animal's head so as to shield his own person.
"The Indians fired and shot the horse in the head and it fell. Austin was extricating him- self from the dead animal, every moment expecting a bullet or a tomahawk, when a com- panion, George Huff, fired on the advancing warriors and actually killed two of them at a single shot. The other Indians fell back and took to cover, while Austin and Huff took to their heels and escaped to Fort Kincaid.
"Over on the Cooper County side of the river, and especially in the neighborhood of Cole's Fort, there were other murders from time to time. A few months after the fort was built a strong band of Indians came into the neighborhood. At the time there were two par- ties from the fort out hunting. In one of these were two men named Smith and Savage, who on their way to the fort were attacked by the Indians. At the first fire Smith was severely wounded, but he staggered on to within fifty yards of the fort, where he was again wounded, two balls entering his body. He fell, and Savage turned to assist him, but, with the death agony upon him, the stricken man handed his gun to Savage, saying: 'I am done for; take my gun and save yourself, and help the people in the fort.' Savage then ran for the fort, and the Indians fired twenty-five shots after him before he could get inside the walls. The Indians ran up and scalped Smith, shook the gory trophy at his friends, and barbarously mutilated his body in plain view of the inmates of the fort, and then retired into the woods.
"There were only six fighting men in the fort at the time, and they were restrained from firing by old Aunt Hannah Cole, who urged that they could not afford to fight until the hunt- ing parties had all returned. These parties did not all get in until late in the night.
"December 24, 1814, Samuel McMahan, a bold settler in the bottom near Arrow Rock, in what is now Saline County, was killed four miles west of Fort Cole. He was on his way to the fort to bring up his cattle corraled there. Two young men named Cole and Roup, and old Muke Box, were cutting a bee tree near the trail, and it was supposed that the Indians were crawling upon them when McMahan came riding along. They fired on him, shot him through the body, and killed his horse. He sprang up and ran toward the river, but the Indians soon came up with him, and killed him by three savage spear thrusts in the back. They then scalped him, cut off his head, and disemboweled him. Hearing the firing, Cole and Roup ran to the fort and gave the alarm. Muke Box climbed a tree, and as the Indians were returning in great glee from the killing of McMahan he shot one of them. The Indians, in some alarm, caught up the body and bore it off, limp and lifeless, but it was afterward found in a ravine a mile or more away.
Brave Sally Gregg.
"The same Christmas Eve Wm. Gregg, who had ventured to settle in the Big Bottom, on the Saline County side, was killed. He was crossing the river on his return to his cabin from Fort Cooper, and was killed in his canoe as he was paddling to the shore by some Indians in ambush on the south bank. His brave daughter, Sally Gregg, recovered the body and guarded it till help came. The next day the men at Cole's Fort, re-enforced by some of the Howard County Rangers, went out and secured the mangled remains of McMahan. James Cole carried in the body on the pommel of his saddle, and David McGee brought the head, wrapped in a sheepskin. The remains were buried on the site of the old Boonville Fair Grounds.
"The following day all of the settlers living in the vicinity of where Boonville now stands repaired to the house of good old Hannah Cole, in East Boonville, and within a week they had built another good, strong cabin fort. It stood on the edge of the bluff, which was very steep at that point, and on that-the river-side was inaccessible to an attack. Arrangements were made for a plentiful supply of water from the river in case of siege. A huge well bucket was fashioned from a hollow log and a sort of flume constructed from the fort down into the
161
MISSOURI'S INDIAN WARS
water. The bucket was let down and drawn up through this flume by means of a rope and windlass. As soon as the fort at Hannah Cole's was completed, the old fort at Capt. Stephen Cole's a mile away, was abandoned and all the settlers gathered into the new fort. But these precautions proved unnecessary, as the killing of McMahan and Gregg was virtually the end of the Indian war in the Boone's Lick settlements, although small bands of the savages occa- sionally roamed through the country a year or so, running off stock and committing like depredations."
The Council at Portage des Sioux.
The government of the United States, after the acquisition of the country, made Auguste Chouteau a colonel and looked to him to help solve immediate Indian problems. Having stirred up the hostility of the tribes as a part of the campaign of 1812, the British government, under the treaty of Ghent, in 1814, imposed upon the United States the responsibility of making peace among the Indians. And the United States selected Auguste Chouteau as one of the commis- sioners to bring about a general treaty. Always influential with the Indians, Colonel Chouteau achieved his greatest feat in diplomacy with the redmen at the council held at Portage des Sioux, across the Missouri River a few miles above St. Louis. He made a telling talk at that council, using with rare judgment figura- tive speech so effective with Indians. He said: "Put in your minds that as soon as the British made peace with us they left you in the middle of a prairie without shade or cover against the sun and rain. The British left you positively in the middle of a prairie, worthy of pity. But we Americans have a large umbrella which covers us against the sun and rain and we offer you, as friends, a share of it."
Auguste Chouteau was a man of pleasing countenance, light-haired, with high forehead and a straight nose, always smooth shaven and carefully dressed. At Portage des Sioux, while one of these Indian conferences was in progress, a chief, Black Buffalo of the Teton Sioux, died. This might have been interpreted as a bad omen by the Indians. The white men were disturbed over the event. But Bik Elk, chief of the Omahas, averted the danger by an oration. He said :
"Do not grieve-misfortunes will happen to the wisest and best men. Death will come, and always comes out of season; it is the command of the Great Spirit, and all nations and people must obey. What is past and cannot be prevented should not be grieved for. Be not discouraged or displeased then, that in visiting your father here you have lost your chief. A misfortune of this kind may never again befall you, but this would have attended you perhaps at your own village. Five times have I visited this land, and never returned with sorrow or pain. Misfortunes do not flourish particularly in our path-they grow everywhere.
"What a misfortune for me that I could not have died this day, instead of the chief that lies before us. The trifling loss my nation would have sustained in my death would have been doubly paid for by the honours of my burial-they would have wiped off everything like regret. Instead of being covered with a cloud of sorrow-my warriors would have felt the sunshine of joy in their hearts. To me it would have been a most glorious occurrence. Hereafter, when I die at home, instead of a noble grave and a grand procession, the rolling music and the thundering cannon, with a flag waving at my head, I shall be wrapped in a robe, (an old robe, perhaps,) and hoisted on a slender scaffold to the whistling winds, soon to be blown down to the earth-my flesh to be devoured by the wolves and my bones rattled on the plains by the wild beasts.
"Chief of the soldiers-your labors have not been in vain; your attention shall not be forgotten. My nation shall know the respect that is paid over the dead. When I return I will echo the sound of your guns."
Vol. 1 -11
162
MISSOURI, THE CENTER STATE
The British Influence.
In his management of Indian affairs, General William Clark encountered and combatted influences more dangerous than the savage natures of his wards. Gen- eral Clark's jurisdiction extended over tribes anywhere west of the Mississippi River. Near the British border there were the bloody evidences of intrigue in the years when there was supposed to be complete peace between Great Britain and the United States. Benjamin O'Fallon was the United States agent for Indian affairs up the Missouri. He reported to General William Clark at St. Louis. In the sum- mer of 1823 after General Ashley and his party of fur traders had suffered severely. from the attacks of the Arickarees, Captain O'Fallon sent word that General Ashley believed from many circumstances "The British traders (Hudson's Bay Company) are exciting the Indians against us to drive us from that quarter." Captain O'Fallon added his own view to General Ashley's suspicions. He wrote :
"I was in hopes that the British traders had some hounds to their rapacity; I was in hopes that during the late Indian war, in which they were so instrumental in the indiscriminate massacre of our people, that they had become completely satiated with our blood, but it appears not to have been the case. Like the greedy wolf, not yet gorged with the flesh, they guard over the bones ; they ravage our fields, and are unwilling that we should glean them. Although barred by the Treaty of Ghent from participating in our Indian trade, they presumed and are not satisfied, but being alarmed at the individual enterprise of our people, they are excit- ing the Indians against them. They furnish them with the instruments of hell and a passport to heaven-the instruments of death and a passport to our bosoms."
Recollections of John B. Clark.
General John B. Clark in a reminiscent talk at his home in Fayette told of the service against the Indians performed by the Missourians after their own homes were safe. "The troubles that Daniel Boone and Cooper and the other early settlers had around here with the Indians were pretty much over when I came to Fayette. Along in 1812 there was a good deal of fighting in this and in Boone and Cooper counties. They had forts near Fayette. But when we came in 1818 it was pretty safe right around here. I commenced studying law in 1819 in old Judge Tompkins' office and was licensed by the supreme court in 1824 to practice. In 1823 the county seat was moved from Franklin, on the river, to Fayette, and I was appointed county clerk, I held that office for ten years. In '24 they elected me a colonel of militia, and in '27, brigadier-general. That meant service in those days. In 1832 the Black Hawk war broke out. The governor ordered me to take a regiment of mounted men and go under General Scott. We were out three months and must have had forty battles. Scott was fighting Black Hawk and his forces over in Illinois. I was ordered to keep along the west bank of the Mis- sissippi and prevent the Iowas and other tribes from crossing over to join Black Hawk. They kept trying and we were in for a fight almost every day. That service lasted three months. I received a bullet in the foot, a wound in the head and a broken leg before I saw the end of it."
Big Neck, Leader of the Iowas.
The "Big Neck war" occurred in the summer of 1829. It was one of the last of the more serious troubles between Missourians and Indians. Big Neck was a leader among the Iowas. His war name was Mo-an-a-hon-ga, which means
ST. LOUIS IN COLONIAL DAYS
AUGUSTE CHOUTEAU
WILLIAM CLARK Governor of Missouri Territory and Indian Agent
163
MISSOURI'S INDIAN WARS
"great walker." The tribe also knew him as "The-man-not-afraid-to-travel." In 1824 Big Neck went to Washington with General William Clark. The party included several chiefs and warriors of the Iowas, headed by White Cloud, the principal chief. The purpose of the trip was to make a treaty. The Iowas had been living in the northwestern part of Missouri along the Chariton. Settlers were coming in. The government desired to obtain the lands of the Iowas and offered in payment the sum of five hundred dollars a year for ten years. The treaty was made, Big Neck participating. According to the terms the Iowa Indians were to move from the land purchased. While he was in Washington Big Neck had his portrait painted. From that he appears to have been a fine specimen physically without anything to indicate why he should have been given the name he commonly bore.
After the Indians came back from Washington, Big Neck disputed that provi- sion of the treaty which required them to move from Northern Missouri. He claimed that his band should be allowed to live in what was known as "the Clinton Country" until the last of the ten annual payments in 1834. The Clinton Country of that day embraced what are now Adair, Sullivan, Putnam and Schuyler counties.
In 1824 settlers began to crowd into the vicinity of Big Neck's band. They formed near the present city of Kirksville a settlement which was called "The cabins of the white folks." There were ten or twelve families in the settlement. Up to that time the Clinton Country had been a favorite region for hunters. The Big Neck war started in July, 1829. Major Holcombe in 1892, as the result of much investigation of records and after gathering the recollections of the oldest inhabitants, wrote this graphic account of the war for the Globe-Democrat :
"Big Neck and his band of about sixty persons came down from the far North and encamped on the Chariton, some miles above the cabins. He asserted that he was on his way to St. Louis to see Gen. Clark, and try to get back his lands. According to the accounts of the old settlers the Indians were very insolent, visiting the cabins, demanding food, threaten- ing the whites, etc. The savages, some of whom spoke English, said: 'This is our country. What are you doing here? You must leave or we will drive you away.' It was alleged that the stock of some of the settlers was killed and their gardens and fields plundered.
"As might be expected the Indians told a different story. 'Ioway Jim,' or 'Maj. Ketcher,' as he was sometimes called-an Indian who spoke good English and who was well known to the early settlers of North Missouri-afterward deposed that his brethren were not the aggressors. He said that while the band was in camp, resting from their long journey, a party of whites came up to them with some kegs of whisky. It was not long until the Indians were helplessly drunk, and then the whites swindled and robbed them of their horses, blankets, and nearly everything else of value, shamefully mistreated some of the women and girls, and then decamped. Recovering from their debanch, the Indians realized how dearly they had paid for the whisky, and being hungry, one of them shot a settler's hog and brought it into camp. Big Neck rebuked this forager, saying: 'That is wrong. It is true we have been robbed and are hungry, but the hog was not ours, and you should not have shot it.'
"The settlers became alarmed. Some of them sent off their wives and children. A messenger was dispatched down into the lower settlements for aid. On the night of July 24 he reached the house of Wm. Blackwell, in Randolph County, with the startling intelligence that the Indians were on the warpath! Before many hours the news had spread throughout that county and into Howard. A company of armed and mounted Randolph men. about seventy-five in number, under Capt. Wm. Trammell, were in the saddle by noon of the follow- ing day and marching for the scene of disturbance; that evening they went into camp on the
164
MISSOURI, THE CENTER STATE
Chariton, at what was known as the Grand Narrows, now in Macon County. The next day they reached the cabins, forty miles or so from the Narrows.
"At a council on the morning of the 27th the whites determined to expel the Indians from the country, and, recruited by the men at the cabins, Capt. Trammell again set out. In the meantime Big Neck and his band had retired some miles up the Chariton and had again gone into camp. The whites advanced to the camp, and after a reconnaissance of the situation, Capt. Trammell swung his men around to the northward and coming up formed a line in the rear of the Indians. Dismounting his men 100 yards away, leaving every fourth man to hold horses, the Captain, followed by his men, advanced to the wigwams and called for an inter- preter. 'Ioway Jim' stepped forward, gun in hand, and Capt. Trammell said : 'You must all leave this country at once, and stay away. The land belongs to the whites and you have no right here.' Big Neck, through the interpreter, answered : 'The land is ours. We will leave when we please. I am going to see the Red Headed Governor (Gen. Clark) about it, and he will say I am right.'
"Ioway Jim asserted that Big Neck had his pipe with him in token of his friendly dis- position, and the Indians were certainly not in condition to fight. Capt. Trammell was a man of reasonable prudence and good judgment, and doubtless the difficulty would have been amicably arranged then and there, but for the reckless and reprehensible conduct of a hot- headed settler at the Cabins named James Myers.
"Hardly had Big Neck spoken, when Jim Myers fired his rifle and shot dead the chief's brother. The Indian fell backward, shot through the breast, giving a terrific war-whoop as he tumbled to the ground. Another settler named Owenby fired, and his bullet killed a little Indian child, the daughter of the Indian killed by Myers.
"The Indian squaws, with characteristic shrieks and yells, now began to fly; the Indian men came forward, loading their guns and stringing their bows as they advanced, and the battle was on. They raised a terrible yelling and whooping, and their battle cries were actually so unearthly that they demoralized some of the whites. Only fifteen men, it is said, obeyed Capt. Trammell's order to fire. The remainder broke for their horses and away from the field. Only two or three of Trammell's men fired more than once. The Indians, however, fought well, using their rifles and bows to good advantage, considering the wooded character of the ground. The fight was soon won, and Big Neck, supported by Mau-she-mo- ne (the 'Big Flying Cloud'), rallied the Indians for pursuit, and chased the whites for a mile or more.
"During the fight a settler named Wm. Winn shot a squaw, the wife of the Indian and the mother of the child killed by Myers and Owenby, and the sister-in-law of Big Neck. As she fell she called out : 'My brother, I am going to die innocent ; avenge my blood !' Ioway Jim leveled his rifle and shot Winn in the thigh, fracturing the bone and bringing him to the ground. Big Neck himself jerked a gun from the hands of one of his men and shot and killed Jim Myers, who had opened the fight. Owenby, who shot the Indian child, was also killed. Several other whites were wounded. Capt. Trammell received an arrow in his body, which was not extracted for some days, or until he had reached home, and he died from the wound a day or two later. He had ridden a hundred miles with the weapon in his vitals, but with uncommon fortitude bore his sufferings without a murmur, and busied himself in caring for his men, especially for the wounded, though none were so badly wounded as he. A few of the Indians were wounded, among them being the wife or squaw of Big Neck; she had a severe scalp wound from a bullet. Four or five of the white men's horses were either killed or captured.
"When the Indians returned from the brief pursuit of the whites they scalped the bodies of Myers and Owenby and otherwise mutilated them. Winn was found on the battleground, with his thigh broken and unable to escape. Preparations were immediately made to burn him. He begged for his life, but his appeals were unheeded. A pile of sticks was soon raised and fired, and the body thrown upon it. As the flames rose Big Neck came forward, and, pointing to the Indian dead and wounded, addressed the dying victim in these bitter terms :
"'See there! Look! You have killed those dear to me-my brother, his wife and her child. See the blood as it runs before you. Look at that woman you have killed; her arm was never raised against a white man. That child never wronged any one. They have gone to the Great Spirit. I came to meet you with the pipe of peace in my mouth. I did no wrong.
165
MISSOURI'S INDIAN WARS
You fired on me, and see what you have done! See my own squaw with her head bleeding ; though not dead she is wounded. Now, listen. You are not a brave; you are a dog. If you were a brave, I would treat you as a brave ; but as you are a dog, I will treat you as a dog !'
"Here Big Neck paused, and, with his knife drawn, sprang upon the writhing body of the fated white man, dragged him from the fire, scalped him, and then cut open his breast, tore out his heart, bit off a piece and ate it, and threw the remainder back into the flames. This incident was related by Ioway Jim to Gen. Hughes, and was corroborated by finding the half- burned and mangled body of the unfortunate Mr. Winn.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.