Coles County IL Archives History - Books .....Indian History 1879
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Book Title: History Of Coles County

INDIAN HISTORY.

   When the first white people came to Coles County, there were plenty of
Indians in this portion of Illinois. They were the Pottawatomies, Kickapoos and
Winnebagoes. From Davidson and Stuve's History of Illinois, which contains the
most complete history of the aborigines inhabiting this country, that we have
ever read, we make a few extracts with reference to the tribes that once
occupied this section of the State: "The early traditions of the Winnebagoes
fixes their ancient seat on the west shore of Lake Michigan, north of Green Bay.
They believed that their ancestors were created by the Great Spirit, on the
lands constituting their ancient territory, and that their title of it was a
gift from their Creator. The Algonquins named them after the bay on which they
lived, Ween-ni-ba-gogs, which subsequently became anglicized in the form of
Winnebagoes. They were persons of good stature, manly bearing, had the
characteristic black circular hair of their race, and were generally more
uncouth in their habits than the surrounding tribes. Their language was a deep
guttural, difficult to learn, and shows that they belonged to the great Dacotah
stock of the West. Anciently, they were divided into clans distinguished by the
bird, bear, fish and other family totems. How long they resided at Green Bay is
not known.     *     *     *     *     Coming  down to  the  era of authentic
history, Carver, in 1766, found them on the Fox River, evidently wandering from
their ancient place of habitation, and approaching Southern Wisconsin and the
northern part of Illinois and Iowa, where portions of the tribe subsequently 
settled, while  others wandered further south.     *     * *     *     *   In
the war of 1812, they remained the allies of England, and assisted in the defeat
of Col. Croghan, at Mackinaw, Col. Dudley at the rapids of the Maumee, and Gen.
Winchester, at the River Raisin. In the Winnebago war of 1827, they defiantly
placed themselves in antagonism to the authority of the General Government, by
assaulting a steamboat on the Mississippi, engaged in furnishing supplies to the
military post on the St. Peters.

   "The Kickapoos, in 1763, occupied the country southwest of the southern
extremity of Lake Michigan. They subsequently moved southward, and at a more
recent date, dwelt in portions of the territory on the Mackinaw and Sangamon
Rivers, and had a village on Kickapoo Creek, and at Elkhart Grove. They were
more civilized, industrious, energetic and cleanly than the neighboring tribes,
and, it may also be added, more implacable in tlieir hatred of the Americans.
They were among the first to commence battle, and the last to submit and enter
into treaties. Unappeasable enmity led them into the field against Gens. Harmer,
St. Clair and Wayne, and they were first in all the bloody charges at
Tippecanoe. They were prominent among the Northern nations which, for more than
a century, waged an exterminating war against the Illinois Confederacy. * * * *
When removed from Illinois, they still retained their old animosities against
the Americans, and went to Texas, then a province of Mexico, to get beyond the
jurisdiction of the United States. They claimed relationship with the
Pottawatomies, and perhaps with the Sacs and Foxes, and Shawnees.

   "The Pottawatomies are represented on early .French maps as inhabiting the
country east of the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. At the mouth of the St.
Joseph, falling into this part of the lake, the Jesuits had a missionary
station, which, according to Marest, was in a flourishing condition as early as
1712. Here, an unmeasured distance from civilization, for more than half a
century, the devoted missionaries labored for their spiritual welfare. These
years of toil and self-denial were, however, little appreciated; for, in
Pontiac's war, they proved themselves to be among the most vindictive of his
adherents. Disguising their object under the mask of friendship, they approached
the small military post located on the same river, and, having obtained ingress,
in a few minutes butchered the whole of the garrison except three men. From this
locality, a portion of the tribe passed around the southern extremity of the
lake into Northeastern Illinois. Time and a change of residence seem not to have
modified their ferocious character. Partly as the result of British intrigue,
and partly to gratify their thirst for blood, they perpetrated, in 1812, at
Chicago, the most atrocious massacre in the annals of the Northwest. After their
removal from Illinois, they found their way to the Indian Territory, and, in
18o0, numbered 1,500 souls."

   The foregoing extracts give a pretty authentic history of the tribes that
claimed this county fifty years a<xo as a part of their hunting grounds. There
is much in the nature of the Indian to loathe and abhor, and tit ere is, too,
much to pity and deplore. They claimed this great country, originally, by right
of possession, if not of discovery, and it was no more than human nature that
they should maintain their right to it to the last extremity. From a lack of
civilization, they committed acts of barbarity shocking in the extreme, but, to
a certain extent, excusable through ignorance of the "higher law" of humanity;
and even their deeds of cruelty, barbarians though they were, were often equaled
by their more civilized but little less barbarous white neighbors. In an early
day, we are told, they had a trading-post near where village of Camargo now
stands. In was established by two French Canadians, we believe, named Vesor and
Bullbery. They also had a cemetery, or burying-ground in this vicinity, and,
once a year, a grand powwow was held within its precincts. They were friendly
toward the whites then sparsely scattered through the country, and, in their
limited and ignorant way, religious. Says Capt. Adams in the address several
times referred to in these pages: "Their ideas of heaven and hell they
represented on dressed deerskins. On one side was painted a huge fire, and
toward it some Indians going with bottles in their hands. This was a
representation of hell, or the bad hunting-ground. On the other side were
painted beautiful woods, abounding with deer, looking pleasant, and Indians
going that way, dressed finely and seemingly happy. This was heaven, or good
hunting-ground." The following legend belonged to the Pottawatomies, and formed
the basis of their theology and origin: "They believe in two Great
Spirits-Kitchemenedo, the good or benevolent spirit, and Matchemonedo, the evil
spirit. Some have doubts which is the most powerful; but the great part believe
that the first is-that he made the world and called all things into being, and
that the other ought to be despised. When Kitchemonedo first made the world, he
peopled it with a class of beings who only looked like men; but they were
perverse, ungrateful, wicked dogs, who never raised their eyes from the ground
to thank him for anything. Seeing this, the Great Spirit plunged them, with the
world itself, into a great lake and drowned them. He then withdrew it from the
water and made a single man, a very handsome young man, who, as he was lonesome,
appeared sad. Kitchemonedo took pity on him and sent a sister to cheer him in
his loneliness. After many years, the young man had a dream which he told to his
sister. 'Five young men,' said he, 'will come to your lodge-door to-night to
visit you. The Great Spirit forbids you to answer or even to look up and smile
at the first four; but when the fifth comes, you may speak and laugh and show
that you are pleased.' She acted accordingly. The first of the five strangers
that called was Usama, or tobacco, and, having been repulsed, he fell down and
died; the second, Wapako, or a pumpkin, shared the same fate; the third,
Eshkossimin, or melon, and the fourth, Kokees, or the bean, met the same fate;
but when Tamin, or Montamin, which is maize, presented himself, she opened the
skin tapestry door of her lodge, laughed very heartily, and gave him a friendly
reception. They were immediately married, and from this union the Indians
sprang. Tamin forthwith buried the four unsuccessful suitors, and from their
graves there grew tobacco, melons of all sorts, and beans; and in this manner
the Great Spirit provided that the race which he had made should have something
to offer him as a gift in their feasts and ceremonies, and also something to put
in their akeeks, or kettles, along with their meat." *

        * Schoolcraft.


   Davidson, in his history of Illinois, speaking of the psychology of the
Indians, says: "Prominent among these was the idea that every natural phenomenon
was the special manifestation of the Great Spirit. In the mutterings of the
thunder-cloud, in the angry roar of the cataract, or the sound of the billows
which beat upon the shores of his lake-girt forests, he heard the voice of the
Great Spirit. The lightning's flash, the mystic radiance of the stars were to
him familiar displays of a spirit-essence which upheld and governed all things,
even the minute destinies of men; while the Indian attributed these to the Great
Spirit, an antagonistical deity was created in his theology, whom he regarded as
the potent power of malignancy. By this dualty of deities, he was careful to
guard his good and merciful God from all imputations of evil by attributing all
the bad intentions and acts which afflict the human family to the Great Bad
Spirit."

   The Indians, it is said, never killed a wolf. Old pioneers say that they held
that the wolf, like the Indian, made its living by hunting, and, therefore, it
would be wrong and cowardly to kill it. Even their dogs would not molest a wolf,
and the ravenous little savages would follow a band of Indians for hours to pick
up any dead or wounded game left by them along their route. Mr. Brown, of
Ashmore, relates a circumstance that occurred near his father's, of an Indian
who, in a frenzy of religious excitement, shot and killed a warrior. He was, by
the tribe, considered crazy, and taken to a grove near by and tied to a tree
(rather a novel insane asylum, and as it proved an ineffectual one), from which
the Indian succeeded in making his escape. The incident is more particularly
referred to in the history of Ashmore Township.

   Coles County claims its Indian battle-grounds. Though she can make no
pretensions to any such memorable battles as Tippecanoe or the River Raisin,
there is a tradition (but somewhat dim and misty) of two battles with the
Indians fought on the "sacred soil" of Coles County, at or very near the same
place. As the story goes, the first occurred in 1815, between a corps of
Government surveyors, protected by a sufficient guard of armed men, and a large
band of Indians. The whites were encamped on the Embarrass Hills, a little
distance west of Blakeman's Mill, and, in addition to being well armed, were
protected with artillery. The Indians, in their usual style of battle-array,
attacked them upon the flank, and with blood-curdling war-whoops threw the
engineers and their guard (for a time) into confusion. They soon rallied,
however, and ascertaining the enemy's position, formed their line of battle and
opened upon them with their artillery. A general engagement followed, which
continued some time with great severity, finally resulting in the defeat of the
Indians, with considerable slaughter. This is the prevailing tradition, but how
much of it is true, we are unable to say.

   The other battle referred to occurred in 1818, between the "Illinois
Rangers," under command of Gen. Whiteside, a pioneer Indian fighter, who figured
conspicuously in his day in the Indian wars of Illinois, and a large band of
Kickapoos, Pottawatomies, and Winnebagoes. The Indians had collected in force in
the Upper Embarrass country, and proceeding to the Kaskaskia settlement,
committed many depredations among the scattered settlers. Among other things,
they stole and drove off a large number of horses and cattle. Gen. Whiteside,
then in command of the Illinois Rangers, as they were called, followed their
trail to the site of the Blakeman Mill, where it crossed the Embarrass River.
Near this point, the Rangers came up with the Indians, and at once prepared to
give them battle. Skirmishers were thrown out, and a line of battle farmed. A
charge was ordered, and a shout from the Rangers was answered by one from the
savages, and the neighboring hills soon echoed with the roar of battle. For some
time the fight raided fiercely, but the Indians were defeated and the captured
property retaken. How many were engaged on both sides, and the losses sustained
by each, are not known. Like the account given of the battle with the Government
surveyors, it is traditional. The trees in the neighborhood, however, show signs
of war, we have been told, and the scars made upon them with fire-arms have been
seen by many living witnesses. But these little "scrimmages" between the white
and red races on the soil of Illinois are long past, and in a few years more
there will be none left who remember the red man's wigwam within the borders of
the State.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

THE HISTORY OF COLES COUNTY. ILLINOIS,

CONTAINING

A History of the County—its Cities, Towns, &c; a Directory of its Tax-Payers;
Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; General and Local Statistics; Map
of Coles County; History of Illinois, Illustrated; History of the Northwest,
Illustrated; Constitution of the United States, Miscellaneous Matters, &c, &c.

ILLUSTRATED

CHICAGO:
WM. LE BARON, JR., & CO., 186 DEARBORN STREET.
1879.


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