Peoria County, Illinois - Chapter 8: Northwestern Indian Troubles, 1880

Chapter 8: Northwestern Indian Troubles

The Winnebago War - Just Provocation - Opinion of Gov. Reynolds - Gov. Edwards - Gen. Lewis Cass - Generals Dodge and Whiteside - The Indian Chiefs Red Wing and We Kaw.

The year 1827 is memorable in the history of the Northwestern part of the State as being the period when the first serious troubles were experienced by the settlers of that region with their Indian neighbors, and afterwards dignified by the title of the "Winnebago War." At that time all the Territory north of the line established by the Ordinance of 1787, was in the undisputed possession of the Indians, except the reservations at the mouth of the Wisconsin and on Fever river, and the mining districts of Jo Daviess county and Michigan Territory. Early in 1827, miners, settlers and adventurers flocked thither in great numbers, and inevitably extended their explorations for mineral be3'ond the " Ridge," recognized as the line of the " five leagues square," although it does not appear that the limits of the reservation were ever accurately determined. Many rich leads were discovered on Indian lands, and miners persisted in digging there, in direct disobedience of the orders of the superintendent of the United States Lead Mines to desist and withdraw from lands on which the United States were not authorized to even explore for mineral. In exceptional instances the right to mine was purchased of the Indians, but in most cases the i-estless searchers for mineral wealth totally disregarded the orders of the superintendent and the rights of the Indians, who, according to the acts of the trespassers " had no right which a white man was bound to respect." Frequent disputes occurred in consequence between the miners and the Indians. Mr. Shull, who had discovered a fine lead and had erected a shanty near it, was driven off, and his cabin destroyed by the Winnebagoes, who, owning the land, did no more, and perhaps not as much, as whites would have done under similar circumstances, to protect and preserve their rights and property. The dissatisfaction and ill feeling engendered by tiiese encroachments upon their territory was, perhaps, a minor cause of the outbreak, but had no other cause operated to further exasperate the Indians, the difficulty might, and probably would, have been amicably adjusted without bloodshed.

About this time, and while these disputes between the miners and Indians were occurring, two keel-boats belonging to the contractor to furnish supplies for the trooj^s at Fort Snelling, while on their way up the river stopped at a point not far above Prairie du Chien, where were encamped a large number of Winnebago Indians. John Wakefield, Esq., in writing from memory an account of the war, if it can be called such (and it must be admitted now, writing in a spirit of bitter prejudice against the Indians, who had been peaceable and friendly with the settlers here, until provoked beyond endurance) says that these boats were run by " Capt. Allen Liudsey, a gentleman of the first respectability in our country," and that he was with his boats on this particular trip, but it is to be hoped that Wakefield was in error,ffor no " respectable gentleman " could have permitted men under his command to indulge in such fiendish excesses, not only endangering their own lives, but imperiling the safety of all the frontier settlements as well.

Reynolds says that after stopping at the Winnebago camp, " the boatmen made the Indians drunk - and no doubt were so themselves - when thej' captured six or seven squaws, who were also drunk. These captured squaws were forced on the boats for corrupt and brutal purposes. But not satisfied with this outrage on female virtue, the boatmen took the squaws with them in the boats to Fort Snelling." Another version given by those who were familiar with the events of that year, is that the boatmen and the Indians had a drunken frolic ; that several squaws were kept on board the boats all night, and put ashore the next morning before anj- of the tribe had recovered from the effects of their " spree," after which the boats continued on their voyage up the river. These accounts agree as to the main fact that the boatmen committed a gross outrage upon the Indians, and provoked an attack.

When the duped and injured Winnebagoes had slept off the effects of their debauch and became sober enough to comprehend the outrage committed upon their women, and the consequent injury done them, they were intensely exasperated, and resolved to wash out the stain upon their honor in blood. What white people would not have done the same, under similar circumstances ? Runners were sent out in all directions summoning the warriors to the scene of action at once for an attack on the boats when they returned. A war party of the Winnebagoes went from Jo Daviess county, in the vicinity of Galena, to aid their northern brethren in avenging the insult they had received. Capt. D. S. Harris, of Cialena, states that at this time a band of 15 or 20 of these Indians stopped at his father's house, on their way up the river, and were very insolent. " Old Curley," a friendl}' Indian, had notified the family of the intended visit, and the younger members had sought refuge in the neighboring cornfield, leaving only Smith and Scribe in tlie house with their mother. " The Indians," says Smith Harris, " wei"e ver)- insolent, as was not unusual for that tribe. They offered no personal injury, for Scribe and I stood by our guns. They did attempt to take some articles of goods we had, but we told them if they didn't let things alone we should shoot, and they knew we meant it. They finally left without doing any harm, and we felt much relieved." This band went north and, it is said, murdered a family near Prairie du Chien. Four Winnebago chiefs called upon the Gratiots, at Gratiot's Grove, and informed them that on account of the action of the whites, they should be unable to restrain their young men from declaring war, and as they did not desire to harm the " Choteaus," (as the Indians always called tlu- Gratiot family) they had come to tell them that they had better remove. But careful inquiry among those who were here during that year fails to develop any evidence that any outrages were committed by the Indians in the mining district at that time, either before or after the insult by those drunken keel-boatmen, and which the injured party intended to avenge uj)on the guilty parties themselves.

Wakefield says that some of the Indians "came aboard of Lindsey's boat on his way up and showed such signs of hostility that he was led to expect an attack on his return, and provided himself with a few fire arms, so that in case of an attack by them he raigiit be able to defend himself." Other accounts state that the boatmen anticipated an attack upon tlieir return. Why, if they had done nothing to provoke an assault? The Indians were peaceable, and even in the mines, where they had reason to complain of the encroachments of the whites upon their territory, tiiey had done nothing more than to drive off the trespassers.

Of course the boatmen expected an attack on their return trip, for they knew they deserved it, and the <lispa.ssionate judgment of humanity, after the lapse of half a century, concurs in that opinion. Knowing this, they attempted to run by the Wiiinuliago village on tlieir return, in the night. The watchful, vengeful Winnebagoes, however, were not thus to be eluded. The boats were forced to approach near tiie shore in the narrow chaniicl of the river at that point, and there, says Reynolds, "the infuriated savages assailed one boat and permitted the other to pans down " unmolested. The pre-

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The boatmen were not entirely prepared for the attack, although to some extent they were guarded against it. They had procured some arms, and were on the alert to some degree. The Indians laid down in their canoes and tried to paddle them to the boat ; but the whites, seeing this, fired their muskets on them in their canoes. It was a desperate and furious fight for a few minutes, between a good many Indians exposed in open canoes and only a few boatmen, protected to some extent, by their boat. One boatman, a sailor by profession on the lakes and ocean, who had been in many battles with the British during the war of 1812, saved the boat and those of the crew who were not killed. This man was large and strong, and possessed the courage of an African lion. lie seized a part of the setting pole of the boat, which was about four feet long and had on the end a piece of iron, which made the pole weighty and a powerful weapon in the hands of "Saucy Jack," as the champion was called. It is stated that when the Indians attempted to board the boat, Jack would knock them back into the river as fast as they approached. The boat got fast on the ground, and the whites seemed doomed, but with great exertion, courage and hard fighting, the Indians were repelled. ("Jack," unmindful of the shower of bullets whistling about, seized a pole, pushed the boat into the current and it floated beyond the reach of the assailants.) The savages killed several white men and wounded many more, leaving barely enough to navigate the boat. Thus commenced and ended the bloodshed of the Winnebago War. No white man or Indian was killed before or after this naval engagement.

The arrival of these boats at Galena and the report of their narrow escape, created great alarm, intensified by the arrival, the same day, of a party who had fled to Galena for safety, anticipating war, and by the warning given to the Gratiots. All mining operations ceased ; the miners and scattered settlers hurried to Galena for safety, built stockades and blockhouses in their own neighborhoods, or left the country. A little fort was built at Elizabeth, another at Apple river, and still another in Michigan Territory. These forts, although not needed then, were afterwards found " very handy to have in the family."

Governor Edwards received information, on which he relied, that the Winnebago Indians had attacked some keel-boats, that the settlers and miners on Fever river were in imminent danger of an attack from a band of the same and other Indians (although the facts, as reported to him and upon which he acted, have never been made public), and called out the Twentieth Regiment Illinois Militia, under Col. Thomas M. Neale, who were to rendezvous at Fort Clark (Peoria), " and march with all possible expedition to the assistance of our fellow citizens at Galena." The brave citizens of Sangamon rallied to the rendezvous, and, with ten days' rations, marched to Gratiot Grove, and - finding no hostile Indians there, disbanded and marched home.

Gen. Lewis Cass, Governor of Michigan Territory, who had been appointed by the government to hold a treaty with the Lake Michigan Indians, at Geeen Bay, arrived there about this time, and, finding but few there and hearing that the Lake Indians had received war messages from the interior, hastened to communicate the startling intelligence to the military commander at St. Louis. He ascended Fox river from Green Bay, descended the Wisconsin and Mississippi, and in nine days arrived at St. Louis. It is said that " among the Winnebagoes he discovered warlike preparations, but his sudden and unexpected appearance among them in a birch canoe, of larger size than that used by ordinary traders, filled with armed men, with the U. S. flag flying, led the Indians to suspect that he was accompanied by a superior force. To this fact and the rapidity of his movements may be attributed his safety and the men under his command." A single birch bark canoe, with armed men enough in it to overcome thousands of hostile savages for hundreds of miles, must have been worth seeing.

On his way down, Gen. Cass stopped at Galena, where Gen. Henry Dodge and Gen. Whiteside had raised a company of volunteers, I'eady to march against the terrible foe. An eye witness of his arrival says that in the midst of the alarm then prevailing the excited people heard singing, and thought the Indians were coming, but soon their fears were allayed, for they saw, gliding gracefully up the river, around the point below the village, a large canoe flying the United States flag and containing an American oflicer and six Canadians dressed in blue jackets and red sashes, with bright feathers in their hats, who were singing the " Canadian Boat Song " as they bent over their oars, and with measured strokes sent it flying to the bank, when Gen. Cass stepped ashore amid the cheers of the assembled population. Armed men were few and far between in that boat.

Immediately upon receipt of news from Governor Cass, General Atkinson marched with GOO men to the " seat of war," and formed a junction with the Galena Volunteers at Fort Winnebago. " Thus far they had marched into the bowels of the land without impediment." Daring all this period of alarm, excitement and feverish expectation of a descent of the hostile Indians upon the defenseless frontier settlements in the mining district, what were these Indians doing ? They had had time enough to have swept the white settlers on Fever river out of the country, or out of existence, before the " imposing display of such a large number of tioops in the heart of their country dampened their war spirit and induced them to surrender their chiefs," but it does not appear that they murdered a single settler or committed any serious depredations after they had punished the keel-boatmen who had so grossly insulted them.

Capt. D. S. Harris, who was a volunteer in the Galena company commanded by Gen. Dodge, says : "We marched to Fort Winnebago, where Red Bird was brought in a prisoner, and that was the end of it." Tiie Wiunebagoes surrendered Red Bird and We- Kaw, the two chiefs who had led the attack upon the keel-boats, when Gen. Atkinson made the imposing military display in " the heart of their country. ' Red Bird was imprisoned at Prairie du Chien, where he was to be kept as a hostage for the good l>ehavior of his nation, but his proud spirit was broken b}- confinement that he felt was unjust, and he soon died.

Thus ended the Winnebago War, which was really only an attack upon some keelboatmen, provoked by the outrages upon the Indians by the boatmen themselves. There was no war elsewhere, but the prosperity of the mining region was temporarily checked by the alarm and consequent suspension of mining and business.

Whether, had the Indiaus succeeded in their attempt to murder the ofifending crew of the boat they attacked while they permitted the other to pass down the river unmolested, they would have entered upon the war path against all the white scttlement^i in this region, must forever be a matter of conjecture, and wliile there were and are dififerences of opinion, the most of the survivoi-s of that period of excitement coincide in the belief that had not the Indians been stung to fury by these drunken boatmen there would have been no trouble. The mineral lands could have been l)0ught, as they were, subsequently, by treaty. If the government, when it demanded the surrender of Red Bird and kept him as a hostage, had arrested those boatmen and imprisoned them for life, both for the outrage they committed and for recklessly di.>»turl)ing the peace, and destroying for a time tlie prosperity of the frontier settlements, and causing so much damage to the innocent settlers, or had delivered them to the Indians to be kept as hostages for the good behavior of their class, it would have been only even-handed justice.

Soon after this disgraceful, and in some respects ludicrous, affair, a treaty was made with the Wiunebagoes by whicl: for twenty thousand dollars paid in goods and trinkets at faljulous prices, tlii-y were satisfied for the damages sust^iineil by them in eonseiiuence of the tresjjasses on llicii- lands, and relinquished a large tract of tin-,.- lands to the miners.