St. Clair County, Illinois - Chapter 7: The Aborigines, 1881

I RIOR to the Indians, two distinct races are said to have inhabited the American continent. The first race was the most civilized, and the ruins of extensive temples, palaces and pyramids in Mexico and Central America prove that they dwelt in magnificent and populous cities. The second race was the mound-builders, the evidence of whose existence is found in numerous mounds, traces of which are discovered in a tract of country extending in a southwest direction from the southern shore of Lake Ontario to South America; Some of

The Indians who inhabited this part of the Mississippi valley belonged to the Algonquin branch of the great Indian family. The Illinois formed a confederacy of five tribes - the Tamaroas, Michiganies, Kaskaskias, Cahokias and Peorias. In the year 1675 these tribes lived chiefly in the country on the Illinois river. In 1680 the Iroquois burned their principal town, and the several tribes were driven down the Illinois river to the Mississippi. Seven hundred of the women and children of the Tamaroas were taken prisoners, and a large number of these were burned and slaughtered. The Illinois Indians subsequently removed further south. Peoria, Cahokia and Kakaskia became the centres of the tribes which bore those names. The Cahokia and Tamaroa tribes united and had their village at Cahokia. The Michiganies chose a. location near Fort Chartres, on the Mississippi. The efforts of the Jesuits to convert these tribes to Christianity led to the establishment of the villages of Cahokia and Kaskaskia. The Tamaroas at one time had a town at Turkey Hill, but became nearly exterminated in a battle with the Shawnees, near the eastern limits of Randolph county. At the time of the earliest French settlements the Illinois Indians numbered about twelve thousand. In revenge for the death of Pontiac, who was killed by an Illinois Indian at Cahokia in 1769, the Illinois were almost exterminated by the Sacs, Foxs and Pottawatomies. In the year 1800 they had become reduced to two tribes, the Kaskaskias and Peorias, and could only muster one hundred and fifty warriors. Their chief was a half-breed of consid 'rable talent, named Du Quoin, who wore a medal presented to him by Washington, whom he had visited at Philadelphia. Soon after 1800 Du Quoin and his tribes emigrated to the south-west. In 1850 the last remnant of the once populous tribes which composed the Illinois Indians were in the Indian territory, and numbered in all eighty-four persons. After the settlement of St. Clair county by the Americans, portions of the Kickapoo and Pottawatomie tribes often passed through, but after 1808 nothing was heard of them.