Vermilion County, Illinois - Chapter 13: Aboriginal Inhabitants - the Several Illinois Tribes, 1879

Chapter 13: Aboriginal Inhabitants - the Several Illinois Tribes

The Indians who lived in and claimed the territory to which our attention is directed were the several tribes of the Illinois and Miami confederacies, - the Pottawatomies, the Kickapoos and scattered bands of Shawnees and Delawares. Their title to the soil had to be extinguished by conquest or treatise of purchase before the country could be settled by a higher civilization ; for the habits of the two races, red and white, were so radically different that there could be no fusion, and they could not, or rather did not, live either happily or at peace too-ether.

We proceed to treat of these several tribes, observing the order in which their names have been mentioned ; and we do so in this connection for the reason that it will aid toward a more ready understanding of the subjects which are to follow.

The Illinois were a subdivision of the great Algonquin family. Their language and manners differed somewhat from other surrounding tribes, and resembled most the Miamis, with whom they originally bore a very close affinity. Before Joliet and Marquette's voyage to the Mississippi, all of the Indians who came from the south to the mission at La Pointe, on Lake Superior, for the purposes of barter, were by the French called Illinois, for the reason that the first Indians who came to La Pointe from the south " called themselves Illinois.'1'' *

In the Jesuit Relations the name Illinois appears as " Illi-mouek," "Illinoues," " Ill-i-ne-wek," " Allin-i-wek " and " Lin-i-wek." By Father Marquette it is "Ilinois," and Hennepin has it the same as it is at the present day. The ois was pronounced like our way, so that ouai, ois, wek and ouek were almost identical in pronunciation. f "Willinis" is Lewis Evans' orthography. Major Thomas Forsyth, who for many years was a trader and Indian agent in the territory, and subsequently the state, of Illinois, says the Confederation of Illinois

*As we have given the name of Ottawas to all the savages of these countries, although of different nations, because the first who have appeared among the French have been Ottawas; so also it is with the name of the Illinois, very numerous, and dwelling toward the south, because the first who have come to the " point of the Holy Ghost for commerce called themselves Illinois." - Father Claude Dablon, in the Jesuit Relations for 1670, 1671.

t Note by Dr. Shea in the article entitled "The Indian Tribes of Wisconsin," furnished by him for the Historical Society of Wisconsin, and published in Vol. Ill o£ their collections, p. 128.

"called themselves Linneway" - which is almost identical with the Lin-i-wek of the Jesuits, having a regard for its proper pronunciation, - " and that by others they were called Minneway. signifying men," and that their confederacy embraced the combined Illinois and Miami tribes; "that all these different bands of the Minneway nation spoke the language of the present Miamis, and the whole considered themselves as one and the same people, yet from their local situation, and having no standard to go by, their language became broken up into different dialects."* They were by the Iroquois called "Chick-taghicks."

Many theories have been advanced and much fine speculation indulged in concerning the origin and meaning of the word Illinois. We have seen that the Illinois first made themselves known to the French b}T that name, and we have never had a better signification of the name than that which the Illinois themselves gave to Fathers Marquette and Hennepin. The former, in his narrative journal, observes: -"To say Illinois is, in their language, to say 'the men." as if other Indians, compared to them, were mere beasts." + "The word Illinois signifies a man of full age in the vigor of his strength. This word Illinois comes, as it has already been observed, from Ittini, which in the language of that nation signifies a perfect and accomplished man.'" \

Subsequently the name Illini, Linneway, AVillinis or Illinois, with mure propriety became limited to a confederacy, at first composed of four subdivisions, known as the Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Tamaroas and Peorias. Not many years before the discovery of the Mississippi by the French, a foreign tribe, the Metchigamis, nearly destroyed by wars with the Sacs to the north and the Chickasaws to the south, to save themselves from annihilation appealed to the Kaskaskias for admission into their confederacy. § The request was granted, and the Metchigamis left their homes on the Osao-e river and established their villages on the St. Francis, within the limits of the present State of Missouri and below the mouth of the Ivaskaskia.

The subdivision of the Illinois proper into cantons, as the French writers denominate the families or villages of a nation, like that of other tribes was never very distinct. There were no villages exclusively for a separate branch of the tribe. Owing to intermarriage, adoption and other processes familiar to modern civilization, the sub- tribal distinctions were not well preserved ; and when Charlevoix, that acute observer, in 1721 visited these several Illinois villages near Kaskaskia, their inhabitants were so mixed together and confounded that it was almost impossible to distinguish the different branches of the tribe from each other.*

The first accounts we have of the Illinois are given by the Jesuit missionaries. In the "Relations" for the year 1655 we find that the Lin-i-ouek are neighbors of the Winnebagoes ; again in the " Relations" for the next year, "that the Illinois nation dwell more than sixty leagues from here, t and beyond a great river, % which as near as can be conjectured flows into the sea toward Virginia. These people are warlike. They use the bow, rarely the gun, and never the canoe.

When Joliet and Marquette were descending the Mississippi, they found villages of the Illinois on the Des Moines river, and on their return they passed through larger villages of the same nation situated on the Illinois river, near Peoria and higher up the stream.

While the Illinois were nomads, though not to the extent of many other tribes, they had villages of a somewhat permanent character, and when they moved after game they went in a body. It would seem from the most authentic accounts that their favorite abiding places were on the Illinois river, from the Des Plaines down to its confluence with the Mississippi, and on the Mississippi from the Ivaskaskia to the mouth of the Ohio. This beautiful region abounded in game; its rivers were well stocked with fish, and were frequented by myriads of wild fowls. The climate was mild. The soil was fertile. By the mere turning of the sod, the lands in the rich river bottoms yielded bountiful crops of Indian corn, melons and squashes.

In disposition and morals the Illinois were not to be very highly commended. Father Charlevoix, speaking of them as they were in 1700, says: "Missionaries have for some years directed quite a flourishing church among the Illinois, and they have ever since continued to instruct that nation, in whom Christianity had already produced a change such as she alone can produce in morals and disposition. Before the arrival of the missionaries, there were perhaps no Indians in any part of Canada with fewer good qualities and more vices. They have

* " These tribes are at present very much confounded, and are become very inconsiderable. There remains only a very small number of Kaskaskias, and the two villages of that name are almost entirely composed of Tamaroas and Metchigamis, a foreign nation adopted by the Kaskaskias, and oi'iginally settled on a small river you meet with going down the Mississippi." - Charlevoix' " Narrative Journal," Letter XXVIII, dated Kaskaskia, October 20. 1721; p. 228. Vol. II.

always been mild and docile enough, but they were cowardly, treacherous, fickle, deceitful, thievish, brutal, destitute of faith or honor, selfish, addicted to gluttony and the most monstrous lusts, almost unknown to the Canada tribes, who accordingly despised them heartily, but the Illinois were not a whit less haughty or self-complacent on that account.

" Such allies could bring no great honor or assistance to the French ; yet we never had any more faithful, and, if we except the Abenaqui tribes, they are the only tribe who never sought peace with their enemies to our prejudice. They did, indeed, see the necessity of our aid to defend themselves against several nations who seemed to have sworn their ruin, and especially against the Iroquois and Foxes, who, by constant harrassing, have somewhat trained them to war, the former taking home from their expeditions the vices of that corrupt nation." *

Father Charlevoix' comments upon the Illinois confirm the statements of Hennepin, who says : " They are lazy vagabonds, timorous, pettish thieves, and so fond of their liberty that they have no great respect for their chiefs."f

Their cabins were constructed of mats, made out of flags, spread over a frame of poles driven into the ground in a circular form and drawn together at the top.

"Their villages," says Father Hennepin,:}: "are open, not enclosed with palisades because they had no courage to defend them ; they would flee as they heard their enemies approaching." Before their acquaintance with the French they had no knowledge of iron and fire-arms. Their two principal weapons were the bow and arrow and the club. Their arrows were pointed with stone, and their tomahawks were made out of stag's horns, cut in the shape of a cutlass and terminating in a large ball. In the use of the bow and arrow, all writers agree, that the Illinois excelled all neighboring tribes. For protection against the missies of an enemy they used bucklers composed of buffalo hides stretched over a wooden frame.

In form they were tall and lithe. They were noted for their swiftness of foot. They wore moccasins prepared from buffalo hides ; and, in summer, this generally completed their dress. Sometimes they wore a small covering, extending from the waist to the knees. The rest of the body wras entirely nude.

Manners And Customs

were prepared from buffalo hides, and from the soft wool that grew upon these animals. Both the wool and hides were dyed with brilliant colors, black, yellow or vermilion. In this kind of work the Illinois women were greatly in advance of other tribes. Articles of dress were sewed together with thread made from the nerves and tendons of deer, prepared by exposure to the sun twice in every twentyfour hours. After which the nerves and tendons were beaten so that their fibers would separate into a fine white thread. The clothing of the women was something like the loose wrappers worn by ladies of the present day. Beneath the wrapper were petticoats, for warmth in winter. With a fondness for finery that characterizes the feminine sex the world over, the Illinois women wore head-dresses, contrived more for ornament than for use. The feet were covered with moccasins, and leggings decorated with quills of the porcupine stained in colors of brilliant contrasts. Ornaments, fashioned out of clam shells and other hard substances, were worn about the neck, wrists and ankles ; these, with the face, hands and neck daubed with pigments, completed the toilet of the highly fashionable Illinois belle.

Their food consisted of the scanty products of their fields, and principally of game and fish, of which, as previously stated, there was in their country a great abundance. Father Allouez, who visited them in 1673, stated that they had fourteen varieties of herbs and forty-two varieties of fruits which they use for food. Their plates and other dishes were made of wood, and their spoons were constructed out of buffalo bones. The dishes for boiling food were earthen, sometimes glazed. *

From all accounts, it seems that the Illinois claimed an extensive tract of country, bounded on the east by the ridge that divides the waters flowing into the Illinois from the streams that drain into the Wabash above the head waters of Saline creek, and as high up the Illinois as the Des Plaines, extending westward of the Mississippi, and reaching northward to the debatable ground between the Illinois, Chippeways. Winnebagoes, Sacs and Foxes. Their favorite and most populous cities were on the Illinois river, near Starved Rock, and

* The account we have given of the manners, habits and customs of the Illinois is compiled from the following authorities : La Hontan, Charlevoix, Hennepin, Tonti, Marquette, Joutel, the missionaries Marest, Rasles and Allouez. Besides, the historic letter of Marest, found in Kip's Jesuit Missions, is another from this distinguished priest, written from Kaskaskia to M. Bienville, and incorporated in Penicaut's Annals of Louisiana, a translation of which is contained in the Historical Collections of Louisiana and Florida, by B. F. French. In this letter of Father Marest, dated in 1711, is a very fine description of the customs of the Illinois Indians, and their prosperous condition at Kaskaskia and adjacent villages.

Prior to the year 1700, Father Marest had charge of a mission at the neck, strait or narrows of Peoria lake. In Peoria lake, above Peoria, is a contracted channel, and this is evidently referred to by Father Gravier in his " Narrative Journal" where he states: " I arrived too late at the Illinois du Detroit, of whom Father Marest has charge, to prevent the transmigration of the village of the Kaskaskias, which was too precipitately made on vague news of the establishment on the Mississippi. I do not believe that the Kaskaskias would have thus separated from the Peouaroua and other Illinois du Detroit. At all events, I came soon enough to unite minds a little, and to prevent the insult which the Peouaroua and the Mouin-gouena were bent on offering to the Kaskaskias and French as they embarked. I spoke to all the chiefs in full council, and as they continued to preserve some respect and good will for me, we separated very peaceably. But I argue no good from this separation, which I have always hindered, seeing too clearly the evil results. God grant that the road from Chikagoua to this strait" (au Detroit) "be not closed, and the whole Illinois mission suffer greatly. I avow to you, Reverend Father, that it rends my heart to see my old flock thus divided and dispersed, and I shall never see it, after leaving it, without having some new cause of affliction. The Peouaroua, whom I left without a missionary (since Father Marest has followed the Kaskaskias), have promised me that they would preserve the church, and that they would await my return from the Mississippi, where I told them I went only to assure myself of the truth of all that was said about it." *

The area of the original country of the Illinois was reduced by continuous wars with their neighbors. The Sioux forced them eastward ; the Sac and Fox, and other enemies, encroached upon them from the north, while war parties of the foreign Iroquois, from the east, rapidly decimated their numbers. These unhappy influences were doing

* Father Gravier's Journal in Shea's Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi, pp. 116 and 117. Dr. Shea, in a foot note, p. 116, says: "This designation {Illinois Du Detroit) does not appear elsewhere, and I cannot discover what strait is referred to. It evidently includes the Peorias."

Dr. Shea's conjecture is very nearly correct. The narrows in Peoria lake retained the appellation of Little Detroit, a name handed clown from the French-Canadians. Dr. Lewis Beck, in his "Gazetteer of Illinois and Missouri," p. 124, speaks of "Little Detroit, an Indian village situated on the east bank of lake Peoria, six miles above Ft. Clark." On the map prefixed to the Gazetteer prepared in 1820 the contraction of the lake is shown and designated as " Little Detroit."

We have seen from extracts from Father Marquette's Journal, quoted on a preceding page, that it was the Kaskaskias at whose village this distinguished missionary promised to return and to establish a mission, and that with the ebbing out of his life he fulfilled his engagement. From Father Gravier's Journal, just quoted, it is appar- their fatal work, and the Illinois confederacy was in a stage of decline when they first came in contact with the French. Their afflictions made them accessible to the voice of the missionary, and in their weakness they hailed with delight the coming of the Frenchman with his promises of protection, which were assured by guns and powder. The misfortunes of the Illinois drew them so kindly to the priests, the coureurs des Bois and soldiers, that the friendship between the two races never abated ; and when in the order of events the sons of France had departed from the Illinois, their love for the departed Gaul was inculcated into the minds of their children.

The erection of Fort St. Louis on the Illinois, St. Joseph on the stream of that name, and the establishment at Detroit, for a while stayed the calamity that was to befall the Illinois. Frequent allusion has been made to the part the Iroquois took in the destruction of this powerful confederacy. For the gratification of the reader we give a condensed account of some of these Iroquois campaigns in the Illinois country. The extracts we take are from a memoir on the western Indians, by M. Du Chesneau,* dated at Quebec, September 13, 1681 : " To convey a correct idea of the present state of all those Indian nations it is necessary to explain the cause of the cruel war waged by the Iroquois for these three years past against the Illinois. The former were great warriors, cannot remain idle, and pretend to subject all other nations to themselves, and never want a pretext for commencing hostilities. The following was their assumed excuse for the present war: Going, about twenty years ago, to attack the Outagamis (Foxes), thev met the Illinois and killed a considerable number of them. This continued during the succeeding years, and finally, having destroyed a great many, they forced them to abandon their country and seek refuge in very distant parts. The Iroquois having got quit of the Illinois, took no more trouble with them, and went to war against another nation called the Andostagues.f Pending this war the Illinois returned to their country, and the Iroquois complained that they had ent that the mission had for some years been in successful operation at the combined village of the Kaskaskias, Peorias and Mouin-gouena, situated at the Du Detroit of the Illinois; and also that the Kaskaskias, hearing that the French were about to form establishments on the lower Mississippi, in company with the French inhabitants of their ancient village, were in the act of going down the Mississippi at the time of Gravier's arrival, in September, 1700. All these facts taken together would seem to definitely locate the Mission of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the narrows, six miles above the present city of Peoria, which is upon the site of old Fort Clark, and probably, from the topography of the locality, upon the east bank of the strait. In conclusion, we may add that the Kaskaskias were induced to halt in their journey southward upon the river, which has ever since borne their name ; and the mission, transferred from the old Kaskaskias, above Peoria, retained the name of " The Immaculate Conception," etc.

killed forty of their people who were on their way to hunt beaver in the Illinois country. To obtain satisfaction, the Iroquois resolved to make war upon them. Their true motive, however, was to gratify the English at Manatte* and Orange,+ of whom they are too near neighbors, and who, by means of presents, engaged the Iroquois in this expedition, the object of which was to force the Illinois to bring their beaver to them, so that they may go and trade it afterward to the English ; also, to intimidate the other Indians, and constrain them to to do the same thing.

"The improper conduct of Sieur de la Salle. \ governor of Fort Frontenac, has contributed considerably to cause the latter to adopt this proceeding ; for after he had obtained permission to discover the Great River Mississippi, and had, as he alleged, the grant of the Illinois, he no longer observed any terms with the Iroquois. He illtreated them, and avowed that he would convey arms and ammunition to the Illinois, and would die assisting them.

"The Iroquois dispatched in the month of April of last year, 1680, an armv, consisting of between live and six hundred men, who approached an Illinois village where Sieur Tonty. one of Sieur de la Salle's men happened to be with some Frenchmen and two Recollect fathers, whom the Iroquois left unharmed. ( hie of these, a most holy man, § has since been killed by the Indians. Bnt they would listen to no terms of peace proposed to them by Sieur de Tonty, who was slightly wounded at the beginning of the attack : the Illinois having fled a hundred leagues thence, were pursued by the Iroquois, who killed and captured as many as twelve hundred of them, including women and children, having lost only thirty men.

" The victory achieved by the Iroquois rendered them so insolent that thev have continued ever since that time to send out divers war parties. The success of these is not yet known, but it is not doubted that they have been successful, because those tribes are very warlike and the Illinois are but indifferently so. Indeed, there is no doubt, and it is the universal opinion, that if the Iroquois are allowed to proceed they will subdue the Illinois, and in a short time render themselves masters of all the Outawa tribes and divert the trade to the English, so that it is absolutely essential to make them our friends or to destroy them."

% It must be remembered that La Salle was not exempt from the jealousy and envy which is inspired in souls of little men toward those engaged in great undertakings ; and we see this spirit manifested here. La Salle could not have done otherwise than supply fire-arms to the Illinois, who were his. friends and the owners of the country, the trade of which he had opened up at great hardship and expense to himself.

Defeat Of The Iroquois

The Iroquois were not always successful in their western forays. Tradition records two instances in which they were sadly discomfited. The first was an encounter with the Sioux, on an island in the Mississippi, at the mouth of the Des Moines. The tradition of this engagement is preserved in the curious volumes of La ITontan, and is as follows : " March 2nd, 16S9, 1 arrived in the Mississippi. To save the labor of rowing we left our boats to the current, and arrived on the tenth in the island of Rencontres, which took its name from the defeat of four hundred Iroquois accomplished there by three hundred Nadouessis (Sioux). The story of the encounter is briefly this : A party of four hundred Iroquois having a mind to surprise a certain people in the neighborhood of the Otentas (of whom more anon), marched to the country of the Illinois, where they built canoes and were furnished with provisions. After that they embarked upon the river Mississippi, and were discovered by another little fleet that was sailing down the other side of the same river. The Iroquois crossed over immediately to that island which is since called Aux Rencontres. The Nadouessis, i. e., the other little fleet, being suspicious of some ill design, without knowing what people they were (for they had no knowledge of the Iroquois but by hear-say) - upon this suspicion, I say, they tugged hard to come up with them. The two armies posted themselves upon the point of the island, where the two crosses are put down in the map,* and as soon as the Nadouessis came in sight, the Iroquois cried out in the Illinese language: ' Who are ye?' To which the Nadouessis answered, ' Somebody '/ and putting the same question to the Iroquois, received the same answer. Then the Iroquois put this question to 'em: ' TTTwe are you going f 'To hunt buffalo," answered the Nadouessis ; ' but, pray,' says the Nadouessis, ' what is your business ? ' ' To hunt men,' reply'd the Iroquois. ''Tis well,' says the Nadouessis; ' we are men, and so you need go no farther.' Upon this challenge, the two parties disembarked, and the leader of the Nadouessis cut his canoes to pieces, and, after representing to his warriors that they behoved either to conquer or die, marched up to the Iroquois, who received them at first onset with a cloud of arrows. But the Nadouessis having stood their first discharge, which killed eighty of them, fell in upon them with their clubs in their hands before the others could charge again, and so routed them entirely. This engagement lasted for two hours, and was so hot that two hundred and sixty Iroquois fell upon the spot, and the rest were all taken prisoners. Some of the Iroquois, indeed, attempted to make their escape after the action was over; but the victorious general sent ten or twelve of bis men to pursue them in one of the canoes that he had taken, and accordingly they were all overtaken and drowned. The Xadouessis having obtained this victory, cut off the noses and ears of two of the cleverest prisoners, and supplying them with fusees, powder and ball, gave them the liberty of returning to their own country, in order to tell their countrymen that they ought not to employ women to hunt after men any longer."*

The second tradition is that of a defeat of a war party of Iroquois upon the banks of the stream that now bears the name of " Irocpiois River." Father Charlevoix, in his Narrative Journal, referring to his passage down the Kankakee, in September, 1721, alludes to this defeat of the Iroquois in the following language : " I was not a little surprised at seeing so little water in the The-a-ki-ki, notwithstanding it receives a good many pretty large rivers, one of which is more than a hundred and twenty feet in breadth at its mouth, and has been called the River of the Iroquois, because some of that nation were surprised on its banks by the Illinois who killed a great many of them. This check mortified them so much the more, as they held the Illinois in great contempt, who, indeed, for the most part are not able to stand, before them." f

The tradition has been given with fuller particulars to the author, bv Colonel Guerdon S. Hubbard, as it was related by the Indians to him. It has not as yet appeared in print, and is valuable as well as interesting, inasmuch as it explains why the Iroquois River has been so called for a period of nearly two centuries, and also because it gives the origin of* the name Watseka.

The tradition is substantially as follows: Many years a<>-o the Iroquois attacked an Indian village situated on the banks of the river a few miles below the old county seat, - Middleport, - and drove out the occupants with great slaughter. The fugitives were collected in the night time some distance away, lamenting their disaster. A woman, possessing great courage, urged the men to return and attack the Iroquois, saying the latter were then rioting in the spoils of the village and exulting over their victory ; that they would not expect danger from their defeated enemy, and that the darkness of the night would prevent their knowing the advance upon them. The warriors refused to go. The woman then said that she would raise a party of squaws and return to the village and fight the Iroquois ; adding that death or captivity M'ould be the fate of the women and children on the morrow, and that they might as well die in an effort to regain their village and property as to submit to a more dreadful fate. She called for volunteers and the women came forward in large numbers. Seeing the braverv of their wives and daughters the men were ashamed of their cowardice and became inspired with a desperate courage. A plan of attack was speedily formed and successfully executed. The Iroquois, taken entirely unawares, were surprised and utterly defeated.

The name of the heroine who suggested and took an active part in this act of bold retaliation, bore the name of Watch-e-kee. In honor of her bravery and to perpetuate the story of the engagement, a council of the tribe was convened which ordained that when Watch-e-kee died her name should be bestowed upon the most accomplished maiden of the tribe, and in this way be handed down from one generation to another. By such means have the name and the tradition been preserved.

The last person who bore this name was the daughter of a Pottawatomie chief, with whose band Col. Hubbard was intimately associated as a trader for many years. She was well known to many of the old settlers in Danville and upon the Kankakee. She was a person of great beauty, becoming modesty, and possessed of superior intelligence. She had great influence among her own people and was highly respected by the whites. She accompanied her tribe to the westward of the Mississippi, on their removal from the state. The present county seat of Iroquois county is named after her, and Col. Hubbard advises the author that Watseka, as the name is generally spelled, is incorrect, and that the orthography for its true pronunciation should be "Watch-ekee.*

We resume the narration of the decline of the Illinois : La Salle's fortification at Starved Hock gathered about it populous villages of Illinois, Shawnees, Weas, Piankeshaws and other kindred tribes, shown on Franquelin's map as the Colonie Du Sr. de la Salle, f The Iroquois were barred out of the country of the Illinois tribes, and the latter enjoyed security from their old enemies. La Salle himself, speaking of his success in establishing a colony at the Rock, says : " There would be nothing to fear from the Iroquois when the nations of the south,

* The Iroquois also bore the name of Can-o-wa-ga, doubtless an Indian name. It had another aboriginal name, Mocabella (which was, probably, a French-Canadian corruption of the Kickapoo word Mo-qua), signifying a bear. Beck's Illinois and Missouri Gazetteer, p. 90. The joint commission appointed by the legislatures of Indiana and Illinois to run the boundary line between the two states, in their report in 1821, and upon their map deposited in the archives at Indianapolis, designate the Iroquois by the name of Pick-a-mink River. They also named Sugar Creek after Mr. McDonald, of Vincennes, Indiana, who conducted the surveys for the commission.

strengthened through their intercourse with the French, shall stop their conquest, and prevent their being powerful by carrying off a great number of their women and children, which they can easily do from the inferiority of the weapons of their enemies. As respects commerce, that post will probably increase our traffic still more than has been done by the establishment of Fort Frontenac, which was built with success for that purriose : for if the Illinois and their allies were to catch the beavers which the Iroquois now kill in the neighborhood in order to carry them to the English, the latter not being anv longer able to get them from their own colonies would be obliged to buy from us, to the great benefit of those who have the privilege of this traffic. These were the views which the Sieur de la Salle had in placing the settlement where it is. The colony has already felt its effects, as all our allies, who had fled after the departure of M. de Frontenac, have returned to their ancient dwellings, in consequence of the confidence caused by the fort, near which they have defeated a party of Iroquois, and have built four forts to protect themselves from hostile incursions. The Governor, M. de la Barre, and the intendant, M. de Muelles, havetold Sieur de la Salle that they would write to Monseigneur to inform him of the importance of that fort in order to keep the Iroquois in check, and that M. de Sagny had proposed its establishment in 1678. Monsiegneur Colbert permitted Sieur de la Salle to build it, and granted it to him as a property." *

The fort at Le Bocher (the rock) was constructed on its summit in 16S2, and enclosed with a palisade. It was subsequently granted to Tonti and Forest. + It was abandoned as a military post in the year 1702 : and when Charlevoix went down the Illinois in 1721 he passed the Rock, and said of it: "This is the point of a very high terrace stretching the space of two hundred paces, and bending or winding with the course of the river. This rock is steep on all sides, and at a distance one would take it for a fortress. Some remains of a palisado are still to be seen on it, the Illinois having formerly cast up an entrenchment here, which might be easily repaired in case of any interruption of the enemy.":}:

The abandonment of Fort St. Louis in 1702 was followed soon after by a dispersion of the tribes and remnants of tribes that La Salle and Tonti had gathered about it, except . the straggling village of the Illinois.

* Memoir of the Sieur de la Salle, reporting to Monseigneur de Seingelay the discoveries made by him under the order of His Majesty. Historical Collections of Louisiana, Part I, p. 42.

Decline Of The Illinois

The Iroquois came no more subsequent to 1721, having war enough on their hands nearer home ; but the Illinois were constantly harassed by other enemies ; the Sacs, Foxes, Kickapoos and Pottawatomies. In 1722 their villages at the Rock and on Peoria Lake were besieged by the Foxes, and a detachment of a hundred men under Chevalier de Artaguette and Sieur de Tisne were sent to their assistance. Forty of these French soldiers, with four hundred Indians, marched by land to Peoria Lake. However, before the reinforcements reached their destination they learned that the Foxes had retreated with a loss of more than a hundred and twenty of their men. " This success did not, however, prevent the Illinois, although they had only lost twenty men, with some women and children, from leaving the Rock and Pimiteony, where they were kept in constant alarm, and proceeding to unite with those of their brethren who had settled on the Mississippi ; this was a stroke of srace for most of them, the small number of missionaries preventing their supplying so many towns scattered far apart ; but on the other side, as there was nothing to check the raids of the Foxes along the Illinois River, communication between Louisiana and New France became much less practicable."*

The fatal dissolution of the Illinois still proceeded, and their ancient homes and hunting grounds were appropriated by the more vigorous Sacs, Foxes, Pottawatomies and Kickapoos. The killing of Pontiac at Cahokia, whither he had retired after the failure of his effort to rescue the country from the English, was laid upon the Illinois, a charge which, whether true or false, hastened the climax of their destruction.

General Harrison stated that " the Illinois confederacy was composed of live tribes : the Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Peorians, Michiganians and the Temarois, speaking the Miami language, and no doubt branches of that nation. When I was first appointed Governor of the Indiana Territory (May, 1800), these once powerful tribes were reduced to about thirty warriors, of whom twenty-five were Kaskaskias, four Peorians, and a single Michiganian. There was an individual lately alive at St. Louis who saw the enumeration made of them by the Jesuits in 1745, making the number of their warriors four thousand. A furious war between them and the Sacs and Kickapoos reduced them to that miserable remnant which had taken refuse amongst the white people in the towns of Kaskaskia and St. Genieve."f t Official letter of Gen. Harrison to Hon. John Armstrong-, Secretary of War, dated at Cincinnati, March 22, 1814: contained in Captain M'Afee's " History of the Late War in the Western Country."

By successive treaties their lands in Illinois were ceded to the United States, and they were removed west of the Missouri. In 1872 they had dwindled to forty souls - men, women and children all told.

Thus have wasted away the original occupants of the larger part of Illinois and portions of Iowa and Missouri. In 1684 their single village at La Salle's colony, could muster twelve hundred warriors. In the days of their strength they nearly exterminated the Winnebagoes, and their war parties penetrated the towns of the Iroquois in the valleys of the Mohawk and Genesee. They took the Metchigamis under their protection, giving them security against enemies with whom the latter could not contend. This people who had dominated over the surrounding tribes, claiming for themselves the name Illini or Linneway, to represent their superior manhood, have disappeared from the earth ; another race, representing a higher civilization, occupy their ancient domains, and already, even the origin of their name and the location of their cities have become the subjects of speculation.