Iroquois County, Illinois - Chapter 16: The Kickapoos and Mascoutins, 1880

Chapter 16: The Kickapoos and Mascoutins

THE Kickapoos and Mascoutins, if there was more than a nominal difference between the two tribes, are here treated of together, for reasons explained farther on in the chapter. The name of the Kickapoos has been written by the French, "Kicapoux," "Kickapous," "Kikapoux," " Quickapous," " Eickapoos," "Kikabu." This tribe has long been connected with the northwest, and have acquired a notoriety for the wars in which they were engaged with other tribes, as well for their persistent hostility to the white race, which continued uninterrupted for more than one hundred and fifty years. They were first noticed by Samuel Champlain, who, in 1612, discovered the "Mascoutins residing near the place called Sakinam," meaning the country of the Sacs, comprising that part of the state of Michigan bordering on Lake Huron, in the -vicinity of Saginaw Bay.*

Father Claude Allouez visited the mixed village of Miamis, Kickapoos and Mascoutins on Fox River, Wisconsin, in the winter of 1669-70. Leaving his canoe at the water's edge he walked a league over beantiful prairies and perceived the fort. The savages, having discovered him, raised the cry of alarm in their villages, and then ran out to receive the missionary with honor, arid conducted him to the lodge of the chief, where they regaled him with refreshments, and further honored him by greasing his feet and legs. Every one took their places, a dish was filled with powdered tobacco ; an old man arose to his feet, and, filling his two hands with tobacco from the dish, addressed the missionary thus :

* Memoir of Louis XIV, and Cobert, Minister of France, on the French Limits in North America: Paris Documents, vol. 9, p. 378, and note by E. B. O'Callaghan, the -editor, on p. 293.

t Manitou, with very few changes in form of spelling or manner of pronunciation, is the word used almost universally by the Algonquin tribes to express a spirit or God having control of their destinies. Their Manitous were numerous. It was also an expression sometimes applied to the white people, - particularly the missionaries. At first they regarded the Europeans as spirits, or persons possessing superior intelligence to themselves.

smoke. The Nadoiiessious and the Iroquois eat us up ; have pity on us. We often are sick, our children die, we are hungry. Listen, my Manitou, I give thee wherewith to smoke, that the earth may yield us corn, that the rivers may furnish us with fish, that sickness no more shall kill us, that famine no longer shall so harshly treat us." At each wish, the old men who were present answered by a great " O-oh ! " *

The good father was shocked at this ceremony, and replied that they should not address such requests to him. Protesting that he could afford them 110 relief other than offering prayers to Him who was the only and true God, of whom he was only the servant and messenger, f

Father Allouez says in the same letter that four leagues from this village ' ' are the Kikabou and Kitchigamick, who speak the same language with the Machkouteng. "

The Kickapoos were not inclined to receive religious impressions from the early missionaries. In fact, they appear to have acquired their first notoriety in history by seizing Father Gabriel Ribourde, whom they ' ' carried away and broke his head, ' ' as Tonti quaintly expresses it in referring to this ruthless murder. Again, in 1728, as Father Ignatius Guignas, compelled to abandon his mission among the Sioux, on account of the victory of the Foxes over the French, was attempting to reach the Illinois, he, too, fell into the hands of the Kickapoos and Mascoutins, and for five months was held a captive and constantly exposed to death. During this time he was condemned to be burnt, and was only saved through the friendly intervention of an old man in the tribe, who adopted him as a son. While held a prisoner, the missionaries from the Illinois relieved his necessities by sending timely supplies, which Father Guignas used to gain over the Indians. Having induced them to make peace, he was taken to the Illinois missions, and suffered to remain there on parole until Xovember, 1729, when his old captors returned and took him back to their own country ;:£ after which nothing seems to have been known concerning the fate of this worthy missionary.

*The o-oh of the Algonquin and the yo-hah of the Iroquois (Colden's History of the Five Nations) is an expression of assent given by the hearers to the remarks of the speaker who is addressing them, and is equivalent to good or bravo! The Indians indulged in this kind of encouragement to their orators with great liberality, drawing out their o-ohs in unison and with a prolonged cry, especially when the speaker's utterances harmonized with their own sentiments.

committing depredations south of Detroit. A band living at the mouth of the Maumee River in 1T12, with thirty Mascoutins, were about to make war upon the French. They took prisoner one Langlois, a messenger, on his return from the Miami country, whither he was bringing many letters from the Jesuit Fathers of the Illinois villages, and also dispatches from Louisiana. The letters and dispatches were destroyed, which gave much uneasiness to M. Du Boisson, the commandant at Detroit. A canoe laden with Kickapoos, on their way to the villages near Detroit, was captured by the Hurons and Ottawas residing at these villages, and who were the allies of the French. Among the slain was the principal Kickapoo chief, whose head, with those of three others of the same tribe, were brought to De Boisson, who alleges that the Hurons and Ottawas committed this act out of resentment, because the previous winter the Kickapoos had taken some of the Hurons and Iroquois prisoners, and also because they considered the Kickapoo chief tobe a '-'-true Outtagamie " / that is, they regarded him as one of the Fox nation.*

From the village of Machkoutench, where first Father Claude Allouez, and afterward Father Marquette, found the Kickapoos inhabiting the same village with the Muscotins and Miamis, the Kickapoos and the Muscotins appear to have passed to the south, extending their flanks to the right in the direction of Rockf River, and their left to the southern trend of Lake Michigan. Referring to the country on Fox River about Winnebago Lake, Father Charlevoix says:^: "All this country is extremely beautiful, and that which stretches to the southward as far as the river of the Illinois is still more so. It is, however, inhabited by two small nations only, who are the Kickapoos and the Mascoutins." Father Charlevoix, § speaking of Fox River, says: "The largest of these," referring to the streams that empty into the Illinois, "is called Pisticoui, and proceeds from the fine country of the Mascoutins. "||

* Extract from M. Du Boisson's official report to the Marquis De Vaudreuil, governor-general of New France, of the siege of Detroit, dated June 15, 1712. This valuable paper is published entire in vol. 3 of Wm. R. Smith's History of Wisconsin, a work that contains many important documents not otherwise accessible to the general public. Indeed, the publications of the Historical Society of Wisconsin, of which Judge Smith's two volumes are the beginning, are the repository of a fund of information of great utility, not only to the people of that state, but to the entire Northwest.

I "The Fox River of the Illinois is called by the Indians Pish-ta-ko. It is the same mentioned by Charlevoix under the name of Pisticoui, and which flows as he,

Prior to 1718 the Mascoutins and Kickapoos had villages upon the banks of Rock River, Illinois. "Both these tribes together do not amount to two hundred men. They are a clever people and brave warriors. Their language and manners strongly resemble those of the Foxes. They are the same stock. They catch deer by chasing them, and even at this day make considerable use of bows and arrows."* On a French map, issued in 1712, a village of Mascoutins is located near the forks of the north and south branches of Chicago River.

From references given, it is apparent that this people, like the Miamis and Pottawatomies, were progressing south and eastward. This movement was probably on account of the fierce Sioux, whose encroaching wars from the northwest were pressing them in this direction. Even before this date the Foxes, with Mascoutins and Kickapoos, were meditating a migration to the Wabash as a place of security from the Sioux. This threatened exodus alarmed the French, who feared that the migrating tribes would be in a position on the Wabash to eifect a junction with the Iroquois and English, which would be exceedingly detrimental to the French interests in the northwest. From an official document relative to the "occurrences in Canada, sent from Quebec to France in 1695, the Department at Paris is informed that the Sioux, who have mustered some two or three thousand warriors for the purpose, would come in large numbers to seize their village. This has caused the outagamies to quit their country and disperse themselves for a season, and afterward return and save their harvest. They are then to retire toward the river Wabash to form a settlement, so much the more permanent, as they will be removed from the incursions of the Sioux, and in a position to eifect a junction easily with the Iroquois and the English without the French being able to prevent it. Should this project be realized, it is very apparent that the Mascoutins and Kickapoos will be of the party, and that the three tribes, forming a new village of fourteen or fifteen hundred men, would experience no difficulty in considerably increasing it by attracting other nations thither, which would be of most pernicious consequence, "f That the Mascoutins, at least, did go soon after this date toward the lower Wabash is consays, through the country of the Mascoutins." Long's Second Expedition, vol. 1, p. 176. The Algonquin word Pish-tah-te-koosh, according to Edwin James' vocabulary, means an antelope. The Pottawatomies, from whom Major Long's party obtained the word Pish-ta-ko, may have used it to designate the same animal, judging from the similarity of the two words.

Of The Name Mascoutins

clusively shown by the fact of their presence about Juchereau's trading post, which was erected near the mouth of the Ohio in the year 1700.

It is doubtful if either the Foxes or the Kickapoos followed the Mascoutins to the Wabash country, and it is evident that the Mascoutins who survived the epidemic that broke out among them at Juchereau's post on the Ohio soon returned to the north. The French effected a conciliation with the Sioux, and for a number of years subsequent to 1705 we find the Mascoutins back again among the Foxes and Kickapoos upon their old hunting grounds in northern. Illinois and southern Wisconsin.

The Kickapoos entered the plot of the Mascoutins to capture the post of Detroit in 1712, and the latter had repaired to the neighborhood of Detroit, and were awaiting the arrival of the Kickapoos to execute their purposes, when they were attacked by the confederation of Indians who were friendly toward the French and had hastened to the relief of the garrison. *

The Mascoutins were called uMachkoutench,"f "Machkouteng," " Maskouteins " and "Masquitens," by French writers. The English called them "Masquattimes,":}: " Musquitons," § "Mascoutins," and " Musquitos," a corruption used by the American colonial traders, and ' ' Meadows, ' ' the English synonym for the French word " prairie. "^[

The derivation of the name has been a subject of discussion. Father Marquette, with some others, following the example of the Hurons, rendered it "fire-nation," while Fathers Allouez and Charlevoix, with recent American authors, claim that the word signifies a prairie, or " a land bare of trees," such as that which this people inhabit.** The name is doubtless derived from mus-kor-tence^\ or mus-ko-tia, a prairie, a derivative from skoutay or scote, the word for fire.^ " The Mascos or Mascoutins were, by the French traders of a more recent day, called gens des prairies, and lived and hunted on the great prairies between the Wabash and Illinois Rivers. "§£ That

11 It was some years after the conquest of the northwest from the French before the name "prairie" became naturalized, as it were, into the English language.

the word Muskotia is synonymous with, and has the same meaning as, the word prairie, is further confirmed by the fact that the Indians prefixed it to the names of those animals and plants found exclusively on the prairies.*

Were the Kickapoos and Mascoutins separate tribes, or were they one and the same ? These queries have elicited the attention of scholars well versed in the history of the ISTorth American Indians, among whom might be named Schoolcraft, Gallatin and Shea. Sufficient references have been given in this chapter to show that, by the French, the Kickapoos and Mascoutins were regarded as distinct tribes. If necessary, additional extracts to the same purport could be produced from numerous French documents down to the close of the French colonial war, in 1763, all bearing uniform testimony upon this point.

The theory has been advanced that the Mascoutins and Kickapoos were bands of one tribe, first known to the French by the former name, and subsequently to the English by the latter, under which name alone they figure in our later annals, f This supposition is at variance with English and American authorities. It was a war party of Kickapoos and Mascoutins, from their contiguous villages near Fort Ouitanon, on the Wabash, who captured George Croghan, the English plenipotentiary, below the mouth of that river in 1765. \ Sir William Johnson, the English colonial agent on Indian affairs, in the classified list of Indians within his department, prepared in 1763, enumerates loth the Kickapoos and Mascoutins, locating them "in the neighborhood of the fort at Wawiaghta, and about the Wabash River."§ Captain Imlay, "commissioner for laying out lands in the back settlements,"- - as the territory west of the Alleghanies was termed at that period, - in his list of westward Indians, classifies the Kickapoos (under the name of Vermilions) and the Muscatiiies, locating these two tribes between the Wabash and Illinois Rivers. This was in 1792. | The distinction between these two tribes was maintained still later, and down to a period subsequent to the year 1816. At that time the Mascoutins were residing on the west bank of the Wabash, between Yincennes and the Tippecanoe River, while their old neighbors, the Kickapoos, were living a short distance above

*For example, mus-ko-tia-chit-ta-mo, prairie squirrel; mus-ko-ti-pe-neeg, prairie potatoes. Edwin James' Catalogue of Plants and Animals found in the country of the Ojibbeways. See further references on page 35.

Kickapoos And Mascoutins One People

them in several large villages. At this date the Kickapoos could raise four hundred warriors.* From the authors cited, - and other references to the same eifect would be produced but for want of space, - it is evident that the English and the Americans, equally with the French, regarded the Kickapoos and Mascoutins as separate bands or subdivisions of a tribe.

While this was so, the language, manners and customs of the two tribes were not only similar, but the two tribes were almost invariably found occupying continguous villages, and hunting in company with each other over the same country. "The Kickapoos are neighbors of the Mascoutins, and it seems that these two tribes have always been united in interests, "f There is no instance recorded where they were ever arrayed against each other, nor of a time when they took opposite sides in any alliance with other tribes. Another noticeable fact is that, with but one exception, the Mascoutins were never known as such in any treaty with the United States, while the Kickapoos were parties to many. We have seen that the former were occupying the Wabash country in common with the latter as far back, at least, as 1765, when they captured Croghan, until 1816 ; and in all of the treaties for the extinguishment of the title of the several Indian tribes bordering on the Wabash and its tributaries, the Mascoutins are nowhere alluded to, while the Kickapoos are prominent parties to many treaties at which extensive tracts of country were ceded. 'No man living, in his time, was better informed than Gen. Harrison, - who conducted these several treaties on behalf of the United States, - of the relations and distinctions, however trifling, that may have existed among the numerous Indian tribes with whom, in a long course of official capacity, he came in contact, either with the pen, around the friendly council-fire, or with the uplifted sword upon the field of hostile encounter. In all his voluminous correspondence during the years when the northwest was committed to his charge the General makes no mention of the Mascoutins

* Western Gazetteer, by Samuel R. Brown, p. 71. This work of Mr. Brown's is exceedingly valuable for the amount of reliable information it affords not obtainable from any other source. He was with Gen. Harrison in the campaigns of the war of 1812. In the preface to his Gazetteer he says: "Business and curiosity have made the writer acquainted with a large portion of the western country never before described. Where personal knowledge was wanting I have availed myself of the correspondence of many of the most intelligent gentlemen in the west. ' ' At the time Mr. Brown was compiling material for his Gazetteer, "the Harrison Purchase was being run out into townships and sections," and Mr. Brown came in contact with the surveyors doing the work, and derived much information from them. The book is carefully prepared, covering a topographical description of the country embraced, its towns, rivers, counties, population, Indian tribes, etc., and altogether is one of the most authentic and useful books relative to " the west," which was attracting the attention of emigrants at the time of its publication.

by that name, but often refers to "the Kickapoos of the prairies,'* to distinguish them from other bands of the same tribe who occupied villages in the timbered portions of the Wabash and its tributaries.*

At a subsequent treaty of peace and friendship, concluded on the 27th of September, 1815, between Governor Ninian Edwards, of Illinois Territory, and the chiefs, warriors, etc., of the Kickapoo nation, Wash-e-own, who at the treaty of Vincennes signed as a Mascoutin, was a party to it, and in this instance signed as a Kickapoo. No Mascoutins by that name appear in the record of the treaty, f

The preceding facts, negative and direct, admit of the following inferences : that there were two subdivisions of the same nation, known first to the French, then to the English, and more recently to the Americans, the one under the name of Kickapoos and the other as Mascoutines ; that they spoke the same language and observed the same customs ; that they were living near each other, and always had a community of interest in their wars, alliances and migrations ; and that since the United States have held dominion over the territory of the northwest the Kickapoos and Mascoutines have considered themselves as one and the same people, whose tribal relations were so nearly identical that, in all official transactions with the federal government, they were recognized only as Kickapoos. And is it not apparent, after all, that there was only a nominal distinction between these two tribes, or, rather, families of the same tribe ? Were not the Mascoutins bands of the Kickapoos who dwelt exclusively on the prairies ? It seems, from authorities cited, that this question admits of but one answer.

The destruction that followed the attempt of the Mascoutins to capture Detroit was, perhaps, one of the most remorseless in which white men took a part of which we have an account in the annals of Indian warfare. As before stated, the Muscotins in 1712 laid siege to the Fort, hearing of which the Pottawatomies, with other tribes friendly to the French, collected in a large force for their assistance.

*The only treaty which the Mascoutins, as such, were parties to was the one concluded at Vincennes on the 27th of September, 1792, between the several Wabash tribes and Gen. Rufus Putnam, on behalf of the United States. Two Mascoutins signed this treaty, viz, Waush-eown and At-schat-schaw. Three Kickapoo chiefs also signed the parchment, viz, Me-an-ach-kah, Ma-en-a-pah and Mash-a-ras-a, the Black Elk, and, what is singular, this last person, although a Kickapoo, signs himself to the treaty as "The Chief of The Meadows.'" This treaty was only one of peace and friendship. The text of the treaty is found in the American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. 1, p. 388; in Judge Dillon's History of Indiana, edition of 1859, pp. 293, 294, and in the Western Annals, Pittsburg edition, pp. 605, 606. The names of the tribes and of the individual chiefs who participated in it are not given in any of the works cited. They only appear in the copy on file at the War Department and in the original manuscript journal of Gen. Putnam. The author is indebted to Dr. Israel W. Andrews, president of Marietta College, for transcripts from Gen. Putnam's journal.

The Muscotines, after protracted efforts, abandoned the position in which they were attacked, and fled, closely pursued, to an intrenched position on Presque Isle, opposite Hog Island, near Lake St. Clair, some distance above the fort. Here they held out for four days against the combined French and Indian forces. Their women and children were actually starving, numbers dying from hunger every day. They sent messengers to the French officer, begging for quarter, offering to surrender at discretion, only craving that their remaining women and children and themselves might be spared the horror of a general massacre. The Indian allies of the French would submit to no such terms. "At the end of the fourth day, after fighting with much courage," says the French commander, "and not being able to resist further, the Muscotins surrendered at discretion to our people, who gave them no quarter. Our Indians lost sixty men, killed and wounded. The enemy lost a thousand souls - men, women and children. All our allies returned to our fort with their slaves (meaning the captives), and their amusement was to shoot four or five of them every day. The Hurons did not spare a single one of theirs."*

We find no instance in which the Kickapoos or Muscotins assisted either the French or the English in any of the intrigues or wars for the control of the fur trade, or the acquisition of disputed territory in the northwest. At the close of Pontiac's conspiracy, the Kickapoos, whose temporary lodges were pitched on the prairie near Fort Wayne, notified Captain Morris, the English ambassador, on his way from Detroit to Fort Chartes, to take possession of " the country of the Illinois" ; that if the Miamis did not put him to death, they themselves would do so, should he attempt to pass their camp.'f-

Still later, on the 8th of June, 1Y65, as George Croghan, likewise an English ambassador, on his route by the Ohio River to Fort Chartes, was attacked at daybreak, at the mouth of the Wabash, by a party of eighty Kickapoo and Mascoutin warriors, who had set out from Fort Ouiatanon to intercept his passage, and killed two of hi& men and three Indians, and wounded Croghan himself, and all the rest of his party except two white men and one Indian. They then made all of them prisoners, and plundered them of everything they j The narrative, Journal of Col. George Croghan, ''who was sent, at the peace of 1768, etc., to explore the country adjacent to the Ohio River, and to conciliate the Indian nations who had hitherto acted with the French." [Reprinted] from Featherstonhaugh Am. Monthly Journal of Geology, Dec. 1831. Pamphlet, p. 17.

Having thrown such obstacles as were within their power against the French and English, the Kickapoos were ready to offer the same treatment to the Americans ; and, when Col. Rogers Clark was at Kaskaskia, in 1778, negotiating peace treaties with the westward Indians, his enemies found a party of young Kickapoos the willing instruments to undertake, for a reward promised, to kill him.

As a military people, the Kickapoos were inferior to the Miamis, Delawares and Shawnees in movements requiring large bodies of men, but they were preeminent in predatory warfare. Parties consisting of from five to twenty persons were the usual number cornprising their war parties. These small forces would push out hundreds of miles from their villages, and swoop down upon a feeble settlement, or an isolated pioneer cabin, and burn the property, kill the cattle, steal the horses, capture the women and children, and be off again before an alarm could be given of their approach. From such incursions of the Kickapoos the people of Kentucky suffered severely. *

A small war party of these Indians hovered upon the skirts of Gen. Harmer's army when he was conducting the campaign against the upper Wabash tribes, in 1790. They cut out a squad of ten regular soldiers of Gen. Harmer by decoying them into an ambuscade. Jackson Johonnot, the orderly sergeant in command of the regulars, gave an interesting account of their capture and the killing of his companions, after they were subjected to the severest hunger and fatigue on the march, and the running of the gauntlet on reaching the Indian villages, f

The Kickapoos were noted for their fondness of horses and their skill and daring in stealing them. They were so addicted to this practice that Joseph Brant, having been sent westward to the Maumee River in 1788, in the interest of the United States, to bring about a reconciliation with the several tribes inhabiting the Maumee and Wabash, wrote back that, in his opinion, ' ' the Kickapoos, with the Shawnees and Miamis, were so much addicted to horse stealing that it would be difficult to break them of it, and as that kind of business was their best harvest, they would, of course, declare for war and decline giving up any of their country.":};

*0ne of the reasons urged to induce the building of a town at the falls of the Ohio was that it would afford a means of strength against, and be an object of terror to, "our savage enemies, the Kickapoo Indians." Letter of Col. Williams, January 3, 1776, from Boonsborough, to the proprietors of the grant, found in Sketches of the West, by James Hall.

t Sketches of Western Adventure, by M'Lung, contains a summarized account, taken from Johonnot's original narrative, published at Keene, New Hampshire, 1816.

Kickapoos Destroy The Illinois

Between the years 1786 and 1796, the Kickapoo war parties, from their villages on the Wabash and Vermilion Rivers, kept the settlements in the vicinity of Kaskaskia in a state of continual alarm. Within the period named they killed and captured a number of men, women and children in that part of Illinois. Among their notable captures was that of William Biggs, whom they took across the prairies to their village on the west bank of the Wabash, above Attica, Indiana.*

Subsequent to the close of the Pontiac war, the Kickapoos, assisted by the- Pottawatomies, almost annihilated the Kaskaskias at a place since called Battle Ground Creek, on the road leading from Kaskaskia to Shawneetown, and about twenty-five miles from the former place. f The Kaskaskias were shut up in the villages of Kaskaskia and Cahokia, and the Kickapoos became the recognized proprietors of a large portion of the territory of the Kaskaskias on the west, and the hunting grounds of the Piankeshaw-Miamis on the east, of the dividing ridge between the Illinois and Wabash Rivers. The principal Kickapoo towns were on the left bank of the Illinois, near Peoria, and on the Yermilion, of the Wabash, and at several places on the west bank of the latter stream. +

The Kickapoos of the prairie had villages west of Charleston, Illinois, about the head-waters of the Kaskaskia and in many of the groves scattered over the prairies between the Illinois and the Wabash and south of the Kankakee, notable among which were their towns at Elkhart Grove, on the Mackinaw, twelve miles north o£ Bloomington, and at Oliver's Grove, in Livingston county, Illinois.

These people were much attached to the country along the Yermilion River, and Gen. Harrison had great trouble in gaining their consent to cede it away. The Kickapoos valued it highly as a desirable home, and because of the minerals it was supposed to contain. In a letter, dated December 10, 1809, addressed to the

* Biggs was a tall and handsome man. He had been one of Col. Clark's soldiers, and had settled near Bellefountaine. He was well versed in the Indians' ways and their language. The Kickapoos took a great fancy to him. They adopted him into their tribe, put him through a ridiculous ceremony which transformed him into a genuine Kickapoo, after which he was offered a handsome daughter of a Kickapoo brave for a wife. He declined all these flattering temptations, however, purchased his freedom through the agency of a Spanish trader at the Kickapoo village, and returned home to his family, going down the Wabash and Ohio and up the Mississippi in a canoe. Historical Sketch of the Early Settlements in Illinois, etc., by John M. Peck, read before the Illinois State Lyceum, August 16, 1832. In 1826, shortly before his death, Mr. Biggs published a narrative of his experience "while he was a prisoner with the Kickapoo Indians." It was published in pamphlet form, with poor type, and on very common paper, and contains twenty-three pages.

Secretary of War, by Gen. Harrison, the latter, - referring to the treaty at Fort Wayne in connection with his efforts at that treaty toinduce the Kickapoos to release their title to the tract of country bounded on the east by the Wabash, on the south by the northern line of the so-called Harrison Purchase, extending from opposite the mouth of Raccoon Creek, northwest fifteen miles ; thence to a point on the Vermilion River, twenty-five miles in a direct line from its mouth; thence down the latter stream to its confluence, - says "he was extremely anxious that the extinguishment of title should extend as high up as the Vermilion River. This small tract [of about twenty miles square] is one of the most beautiful that can be conceived, and is, moreover, believed to contain a very rich copper mine. The Indians were so extremely jealous of any search being made for this mine that the traders were always cautioned not to> approach the hills which were supposed to contain it."*

In the desperate plans of Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet, to unite all of the Indian tribes in a war of extermination against the whites, the Kickapoos took an active part. Gen. Harrison made extraordinary efforts to avert the troubles that culminated in the battle of Tippecanoe. The Kickapoos were particularly uneasy ; and in 1806 Gen. Harrison dispatched Capt. Win. Prince to the Vermilion towns with a speech addressed to all the chiefs and warriors of the Kickapoo tribe, giving Capt. Prince further instructions to proceed to the villages in the prairies, if, after having delivered the speech at the Vermilion towns, he discovered that there would be no danger in proceeding beyond. The speech, which was full of good words, had little effect, and "shortly after the mission of Capt.*

* General Harrison's Official Letter: American State Papers of Indian Affairs, vol. 1, p. 726. It was not copper, but a mineral having something like the appearance of silver, that the Indians so jealously guarded. Recent explorations among the bluffs on the Little Vermilion have resulted in the discovery of a number of ancient smelting furnaces, with the charred coals and slag remaining in and about them. The furnaces are crude, consisting of shallow excavations of irregular shape in the hillsides. These basins, averaging a few feet across the top, were lined with fire-clay. The bottoms of the pits were connected by ducts or troughs, also made of fire-clay, leading into reservoirs a little distance lower down the hillside, into which the metal could flow, when reduced to a liquid state, in the furnaces above. The pits were carefully filled with earth, and every precaution was taken to prevent their discovery, a slight depression in the surface of the ground being the only indication of their presence. The mines are from every appearance entitled to a claim of considerable antiquity, and are probably "the silver mines on the Wabash " that figure in the works of Hutchins, Imlay, and other early writers, as the geological formation of the country precludes there being any of the metals as high up or above "Ouiatanon," in the vicinity of which those authors, as well as other writers, have located these mines. The most plausible explanation of the use to which the metal was put is given by a half-breed Indian, whose ancestors lived in the vicinity and were in the secret that, after being smelted, the metal was sent to Montreal, where it was used as an alloy with silver, and converted into brooches, wristbands, and other like jewelry, and brought back by the traders and disposed of to the Indians.

Pa-Koi-Shee-Can

Prince, the Prophet found means to bring the whole of the Kickapoos entirely under his influence. He prevailed on the warriors to reduce their old chief, Joseph Renard"* s son, to a private man. He would have been put to death but for the insignificance of his character. "*

The Kickapoos fought in great numbers, and with frenzied courage, at the battle of Tippecanoe. They early sided with the British in the war that was declared between the United States and Great Britain the following June, and sent out numerous war parties that kept the settlements in Illinois and Indiana territories in constant peril, while other warriors represented their tribe in almost every battle fought on the western frontier during this war.

As the Pottawatomies and other tribes friendly to the English laid siege to Fort Wayne, the Kickapoos, assisted by the "Winnebagoes, undertook the capture of Fort Harrison. They nearly srucceeded, and would have taken the fort but for one of the most heroic and determined defenses under Capt. (afterward Gen.) Zachary Taylor.

Capt. Taylor's official letter to Gen. Harrison, dated September 10, 1812, contains a graphic account of the affair at Fort Harrison. The writer will here give the version of Pa-koi-shee-can, whom the French called La Farine and the Americans The Flour, the Kickapoo chief who planned the attack and personally executed the most difficult part of the programme. f

First, the Indians loitered about the fort, having a few of their women and children about them, to induce a belief that their presence was of a friendly character, while the main body of warriors were secreted at some distance off, waiting for favorable developments. Under the pretense of a want of provisions, the men and

* Memoirs of Gen. Harrison, p. 85. A foot-note on the same page is as follows: ' ' Old Joseph Renard was a very different character, a great warrior and perfectly savage - delighting in blood. He once told some of the inhabitants of Vincennes that he used to be much diverted at the different exclamations of the Americans and the French while the Indians were scalping them, the one exclaiming Oh Lord! oh Lord! oh Lord! - the other Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! mon Dieu! " fThe account here given was narrated to the author by Mrs. Mary A. Baptiste, substantially as it was told to her by " Pa-koi-shee-can." This lady, with her husband, Christmas Dagney, was at Fort Harrison in 1821, where the latter was assisting in disbursing annuities to the assembled Indians. The business, and general spree which followed it, occupied two or three days. La Farine was present with his people to receive their share of annuities, and the old chief, having leisure, edified Mr. Dagney and his wife with a minute description of his attempt to capture the fort, pointing out the position of the attacking party and all the movements on the part of the Indians, La Farine was a large, fleshy man, well advanced in years and a thorough savage. As he related the story he warmed up and indulged in a great deal of pantomime, which gave force to, while it heightened the effect of, his narration. The particulars are given substantially as they were repeated to the author. The lady of whom he received it had never read an account of the engagement.

women were permitted to approach the fort, and had a chance to inspect the fort and its defenses, an opportunity of which the men fully availed themselves. A dark night, giving the appearance of rain, favored a plan which was at once put into execution. The warriors were called to the front, and the women and children retired to a place of safety. La Farine, with a large butcher knife in each hand, extended himself at full length upon the ground. He drove one knife into the ground and drew his body up against it, then he reached forward, with the knife in the other hand, and driving that into the ground drew himself along. In this way he approached the lower block-house, stealthily through the grass. He could hear the sentinels on their rounds within the fortified enclosure. As they advanced toward that part of the works where the lower block-house was situated, La Farine would lie still upon the ground, and when the sentinels made the turn and were moving in the opposite direction, he would again crawl nearer.* In this manner La Farine reached the very walls of the block-house. There was a crack between the logs of the block-house, and through this opening the Kickapoo placed a quantity of dry grass, bits of wood, and other combustible material, brought in a blanket tied about his back, so as to form a sack. As the preparation for this incendiarism was in progress, the sentinels passed within a very few feet of the place, as they paced by on the opposite side of the block-house. Everything being in readiness, and the sentinels at the farther end of the works, La Farine struck a fire with his flint and thrust it between the logs, and threw his blanket quickly over the opening, to prevent the light from flashing outside, and giving the alarm before the building should be well ablaze. When assured that the fire was well under way, he fell back and gave the signal, when the attack was immediately begun by the Indians at the other extremity of the fort. The lower block-house burned up in spite of all the efforts of the garrison to put out the fire, and for awhile the Indians were exultant in the belief of an assured and complete victory. Gen. Taylor constructed a barricade out of material taken from another building, and by the time the block-house burned the Indians discovered a. new line of defenses, closing up the breach by which they expected to effect an entrance, f

* Capt. Taylor, being suspicious of mischief, took the precaution to order sentinels to make the rounds within the inclosure, as appears from his official report.

fThe Indians, exasperated by the failure of their attempt upon Fort Harrison, made an incursion to the Pigeon Roost Fork of White River, where they massacred twenty-one of the inhabitants, many of them women and children. The details of some of the barbarities committed on this incursion are too shocking to narrate. They in 1819, at a treaty concluded at Edwardsville, Illinois, they ceded to the United States all of their lands. Their claim included the following territory: "Beginning on the Wabash River, at the upper point of their cession, made by the second article of their treaty at Vincennes on the 9th of December, 1809 ;* thence running northwestwardlyf to the dividing line between the states of Illinois and Indiana ;:}; thence along said line to the Kankakee River ; thence with said river to the Illinois River ; thence down the latter to its mouth ; thence in a direct line to the northwest corner of the Vincennes tract, § and thence (north by a little east) with the western and northern boundaries of the cessions heretofore made by the Kickapoo tribe of Indians, to the beginning. Of which tract of land the said Kickapoo tribe claim a large portion by descent from their ancestors, and the balance by conquest from the Illinois Nation and uninterrupted possession for more than half a century '." An examination, extended through many volumes, leaves no doubt of the just claims of the Kickapoos to the territory described, or the length of time it had been in their possession.

With the close of the war of 1812, the Kickapoos ceased their active hostilities upon the whites, and within a few years afterward disposed of their lands in Illinois and Indiana, and, with the exception of a few bands, went westward of the Mississippi. "The Kickapoos," says ex-Go v. Reynolds, "disliked the United States so much that they decided, when they left Illinois that they would not reside within the limits of our government," but would settle in Texas. || A large body of them did go to Texas, and when the are given by Capt. M'Affe in his History of the Late War in the Western Country, p. 155. The garrison at Fort Harrison was cut off from communication with Vincennes for several days, and reduced to great extremity for want of provisions. They were relieved by Col. Russell. After this officer had left the fort, on his return to Vincennes, he passed several wagons with provisions on their way up to the fort under an escort of thirteen men, commanded by Lieut. Fairbanks, of the regular army. This body of men were surprised and cut to pieces by the Indians, two or three only escaping, while the provisions and wagons fell into the hands of the savages. Vide M'Affe, p. 155.

\ The state line had not been run at this time, and when it was surveyed in 1821 it was discovered to be several miles west of where it was generally supposed it would be. The territory of the Kickapoos extended nearly as far east as La Fayette, as is evident from the location of some of their villages.

§ By the terms of the fourth article of the treaty of Greenville the United States reserved a tract of land on both sides of the Wabash, above and below Vincennes, to cover the rights of the inhabitants of that village who had received grants from the French and British governments. In 1803, for the purpose of settling the limits of this tract, General Harrison, on the 7th of June, 1803, at Fort Wayne, concluded a treaty with the Miamis, Kickapoos, Shawnees, Pottawatqmies and Delawares. This cession of land became known as the Vincennes tract, and its northwest corner extends twelve miles into Illinois, crossing the Wabash at Palestine.

Lone Star Republic became one of the United States the Kickapoos retired to New Mexico, and subsequently some of them went to Old Mexico. Here on these isolated borders the wild bands of Kickapoos have for years maintained the reputation of their sires as a busy and turbulent people.*

A mixed band of Kickapoos and Pottawatomies, who resided on the Yermilion River and its tributaries, became christianized under the instructions of Ka-en-ne-kuck. This remarkable man, once a drunkard himself, reformed and became an exemplary Christian, and commanded such influence over his band that they, too, became Christians, abstained entirely from whisky, which had brought them to the verge of destruction, and gave up many of the other vices to which they were previously addicted. Ka-en-ne-kuck had religious services every Sunday, and so conscientious were his people that they abstained from labor and all frivolous pastimes on that day.f

Ka-en-ne-kuck' s discourses were replete with religious thought, and advice given in accordance with the precepts of the Bible, and are more interesting because they were the utterances of an uneducated Indian, who is believed to have done more, in his sphere of action, in the cause of temperance and other moral reforms, than any other person has been able to accomplish among the Indians, although armed with all the power that education and talent could confer.

Ka-en-ne-kuck' s band, numbering about two hundred persons, migrated to Kansas, and settled upon a reservation within the present limits of Jackson and Brown counties, where the survivors, and the immediate descendants of those who have since died, are now residing upon their farms. Their well-cultivated fields and their uniform good conduct attest the lasting effect of Ka-en-ne-kuck's teachings.

The wild bands have always been troublesome upon the southwestern borders, plundering upon all sides, making inroads into the settlements, killing stock and stealing horses. Every now and then

* In 1854 a band of them were found by Col. Marcy, living near Fort Arbuckle. He says of them: "They are intelligent, active and brave; they frequently visit and traffic with the prairie Indians, and have no fear of meeting these people in battle, provided the odds are not more than six to one against them." Marcy 's Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border, p. 95.

fOne of Ka-en-ne-kuck's sermons was delivered at Danville, Illinois, on the 17th of July, 1831, to his own tribe, and a large concourse of citizens who asked permission to be present. The sermon was delivered in the Kickapoo dialect, interpreted into English, sentence at a time as spoken by the orator, by Gurdeon S. Hubbard, who spoke the Kickapoo as well as the Pottawatomie dialect with great fluency. The sermon was taken down in writing by Solomon Banta, a lawyer then living in Danville, and forwarded by him and Col. Hubbard to Judge James Hall, at Vandalia, Illinois, and published in the October number (1831) of his " Illinois Monthly Magazine."

their depredations form the subject of items for the current newspapers of the day. For years the government has failed in efforts to induce the wild band to remove to some point within the Indian Territory, where they might be restrained from annoying the border settlements of Texas and New Mexico. Some years ago a part of the semi-civilized Kickapoos in Kansas, preferring their old wild life to the ways of civilized society, left Kansas and joined the bands to the southwest. These last, after twelve years' roving in quest of plunder, were induced to return, and in 1875 they were settled in the Indian Territory and supplied with the necessary implements and provisions to enable them to go to work and earn an honest living. In this commendable effort at reform they are now making very satisfactory progress.* In 1875 the number of civilized Kickapoos within the Kansas agency was three hundred and eight-five, while the wild or Mexican band numbered four hundred and twenty, as appears from the official report on Indian affairs for that year.

As compared with other Indians, the Kickapoos were industrious, intelligent, and cleanly in their habits, and were better armed and clothed than the other tribes, f The men, as a rule, were tall, sinewy and active ; the women were lithe, and many of them by no means lacking in beauty. Their dialect was soft and liquid, as compared with the rough and guttural language of the Pottawatomies.:}; They kept aloof from the white people, as a rule, and in this way preserved their characteristics, and contracted fewer of the vices of the white man than other tribes. Their numbers were never great, as compared with the Miamis or Pottawatomies ; however, they made up for the deficiency in this respect by the energy of their movements.

In language, manners and customs the Kickapoos bore a very close resemblance to the Sac and Fox Indians, whose allies they generally were, and with whom they have by some writers been confounded.

* Report of C9mmissiqner on Indian Affairs for the year 1875. t Reynolds' Pioneer History of Illinois. \ Statement of Col. Hubbard to the writer.