(pg. 46-55)
The treaty of August 24, 1815 concluded at St. Louis, Missouri, involved two distinct tracts of land. The first of these, Royce #77, consisted of the relinquishment of all claim to land ceded to the United States by the Sauk and Fox through the treaty of November 3, 1804 lying south of an east-west line determined by the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. The question of the occupancy of this tract will be considered first.
This area consists roughly of the region between the Mississippi and the Illinois rivers from the junction of these two rivers up to an east-west line terminating near the mouth of the Rock river. At the opening of the historic period this region appears to have been dominated by a confederacy of Algonquian tribes known as the Illinois. They comprised the Cahokia, Kakaskia, Michigamea, Moingwena, Peoria, and Tamaroa.
When Marquette returned from his voyage down the Mississippi in 1673 he found many of these tribes at points in northern Illinois, chiefly on the Illinois river. The Major village was that of the Kaskaskia, then on the upper Illinois river within the present LaSalle county. Around 1700 they had withdrawn to the settlement in southern Illinois to which their name was given. The Cahokia and Taaroa were also living by that time in their known seats in southern Illinois. The numbers of the tribes composing this confederacy were gradually weakened by wars with the northern Indian tribes and demoralization brought on by the introduction of liquor by Whites was doubtless also having its effects.
Following on the destruction of the major power of the Illinois confederacy about 1765, the region was penetrated by the victorious tribes. The Sauk and Foxes moved down into the Rock river country while the Kickapoo went farther south. For a time the Kickapoo center at Peoria and then gradually extend their range, one group moving into the Sangamon river valley while others pressed on toward the east. The Potawatomi were also among those attacking the Illinois during this period. However, as in other activities, the Potawatomi were not acting as a single political unit or tribe during this period for only some bands participated in the fighting. In 1751 when a Frenchman was killed at Starved Rock, Illinois, a contemporary account specifically states that while the Potawatomi of the Chicago river might be involved, those of the river St. Joseph had not left their village. (Letter from La Jonquiere, governor of New France, dated Quebec, September 17, 1751, to the French Minister. Ms. in Archives Coloniales, Paris. Translation published in Wis. Hist. Colls., xviii, 1908, p. 81.) Not long after this they appear to have penetrated the Illinois valley for in the winter of 1763, Debeaujeu, who was charged with carrying the messages from the French to the Indian tribes, wintered with a party of Potawatomi on the Illinois river. (Wis. Hist. Coll., xviii, 1908, p. 259.) The precise location of this band, however, can not be determined and there is no evidence that a permanent village was established, it being more likely that permanent Potawatomi villages were not to be found on the Illinois at this time. It will be recalled that in the war with England the Illinois country was captured by the expedition of George Rogers Clark in 1778. After taking Cahokia, a large number of tribes came to treat for peace at this town, the group including the Chippewa, Ottawa, Winnebago, Suak, Fox and Potawatomi among others. The result was that the Potawatomi chief at Milwaukee, Letourneau (also known as Blackbird or Siggenauk) was won over to the American cause and remained so through the remainder of the war. On the other hand, the Potawatomi of St. Joseph river were actively engaged on the British side. Accounts of this period frequently mention the activities of these two Potawatomi bands, but there is no mention of a Potawatomi band of the Illinois, despite the fact that the Illinois river was a major route taken by expeditions of the British and their Indian allies striking to the south and by the Americans striking to the north. Surely Potawatomi bands in the area would be mentioned as participants on one side or the other, for if their villages existed in the area they could hardly have escaped retaliatory raids by one of the forces.
Even after the close of the war, knowledge of the area does not expand rapidly. British posts remained under their control until 1796 and during this period Indian opposition to the expansion of the Americans into the area increased. Much of this opposition crystallized around the Messianic movement initiated by two Shawnee Indians, Tecumseh and the Prophet, around the year 1805. Many Potawatomi chiefs that appear in documents of this period become important figures in the war of 1812 that was soon to break out. A large share of the information available on the Illinois region during the war years is to be found in the reports and letters of Thomas Forsyth who was appointed Indian agents for the Illinois river Potawatomi by General William Clark, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis.
In 1812 the Potawatomi are definitely settled in the Illinois river area and again appear to be divided in their loyalties. One Potawatomi band headed by Main Poque was wholly British in sympathy and furnished many men for Tecumseh's forces. Another, band under the leadership of Gomo largely sympathized with the Americans. Apparently, however, Potawatomi sympathies could not stand the strain of American reverses in the early part of the war and soon all of the bands were to be found on the British side until the closing phases of the fighting. References to specific village locations are found primarily when American forces destroyed Indian villages.
In October, 1812, Governor Edwards organized an expedition against the Kickapoo and the Potawatomi. On Lake Peoria a village was raised which is attributed by some sources to the Miami while others state that it was the home of the Potawatomi, Black Partridge. (Louise Phelps Kellogg in The British Regime in Wisconsin and the Northwest, p. 292, on the basis of the Draper manuscripts attributes the village which was destroyed to the Miami. The village is attributed to Black Partidge by Ervnest E. East in an article, "Lincoln and the Peoria French Claims,"Ill. State Hist. Soc., Journal, XLII, 1949, p. 43). Certainly in subsequent years the area was dominated by the Potawatomi. A second major expedition which gives information on village locations is that of General Howard which marched up the Illinois river in September, 1813. Specifically, they attacked and burned the village of the Potawatomi chief, Gomo, located twenty-five miles above Peoria. (Louise Phelps Kellogg, The British Regime in Wisconsin and the Northwest, 135, p. 309.) The success of this party caused Potawatomi allegiance to the British to waiver, and the following year which saw the end of the war, was largely a contest between the American agent, Thomas Forsyth, and the British agent, Robert Dickson, to win the allegiance of the Potawatomi. During this period, Forsyth visited Gomo's village on the Illinois which had evidently been rebuilt. (Op. Cit., p. 310). It is possible, though that Gomo's village was rebuilt somewhat to the south of its earlier location for Forsyth in a report to Governor Edwards dated May, 1814 states that he "sent for Gomo and other chiefs from the head of the [Peoria] lake (Letter Book of Thomas Forsyth, Wis. Hist. Colls., XI, p. 318, 1888). A possible alternative, of course, is that Gomo's village is still located farther to the north but that other Potawatomi chiefs are camped at the head of the lake. The distribution of the tribes is clarified in a subsequent letter, dated July, 1814:
"Since my last letter to you by Lieut. Rector, this post Fort Clark has been visited by many Indians from the head of the lake, and upper parts of this river; indeed, they are here daily, bringing in to trade, Meat, Fish, and c. which is of very great assistance to the garrison of this place. We see none but Potawatomies. All the Kickapoos that are in the country being with the Suakies on Rock River, and come over occasionally to the Potawatomie villages to steal horses" (Ibid., p. 320).
It is further recorded that Potawatomi hunting parties ranged south of Fort Clark on Lake Peoria and westward as far as the "Mequon" [Spoon River] (Ibid.,pp. 322-323). During the same period, of course, the same area was freely traversed by war parties of the Sauk, Kickapoo, and Winnebago so that the Potawatomi cannot be said to have had exclusive control of this region.
There would appear to be no question that the western portion of the territory under consideration was dominated by the Sauk. The condition described by Zebulon N. Pike on a voyage from St. Louis to the source of the Mississippi in 1805 and 1806 characterized the extent of their occupation which seems to have remained constant during the subsequent eight or nine years:
"The first nation of Indians whom we met with in ascending the Mississippi from St. Louis were the Sacs, who principally reside in four villages. The first is situated at the head of the Rapids des Moines on the western shore, consisting of thirteen log lodges, the second on a prairie, on the eastern shore about sixty miles above, the third on Rock river, about three miles from the entrance, and the last on the River Iowa. They hunt on the Mississippi and its confluent streams from the Illinois to the River Iowa, and on the plains west of them which border on the Missouri" (Zebulon M. Pike: Exploratory Travels through the Western Territories...Performed in the Years 1805, 1806, 1807...Denver, 1889, p. 125).
Though living within the original land cession by these two tribes, the Fox would appear to have resided to the north of the portion of the tract under consideration. Pike describes their location as follows:
"The Reynards reside in three villages, the first situated on the western side of the Mississippi, six miles above the rapids of Rock river; the second about twelve miles in the rear of the lead mines; and the third on Turkey river, half a league from its entrance. They were engaged in the same wars, and have the same alliances as the Sacs, with whom they must be considered as indissolubly united. They hunt on both sides of the Mississippi from the River Iowa, below the Prairie des Chiens, to a river of that name above the said village" (Ibid., p. 125).
The activities of the war years, with the consequent withdrawal of some of the tribes to the north, saw of the movement of the Kickapoo to Rock River where they joined the Sauk on that stream.
In summary, the tribal distribution in the tract designated Royce #77, consists of the Sauk along the western limits and in the north where they are joined by the Kickapoo. The Potawatomi dominate the northeastern section along the Illinois river as far south as present Peoria with their hunting territory ranging as far west as Spoon River as well as south of Peoria.
The tract of land designated by Royce as #78 was also ceded part treaty August 24, 1816. area consisted a narrow strip running soutwesterly from Lake Michigan to Kankakee River, centering on about what is now Chicago and extending wersterly Mouth Fox River. In period immediately prior cession, region dominated Potawatomi their occupation would certainly, at least near lake, go back mid-eighteenth century.>
A number of specific Potawatomi villages may be located within the area of this tract. The Chicago river, for one, appears to have been a center of Potawatomi occupation. A letter from Thomas Forsyth to Governor Edwards, dated August 8, 1814, mentions a Potawatomi village on Sandy Creek, one of the tributaries of the Kankakee river (Letter-book of Thomas Forsyth. Wis. Hist. Colls., xi, 1888, p. 327). Apparently, however, some Ottawa also lived at that village. In May, 1815, Thomas Forsyth received instructions to have the Indians of the Upper Illinois country assembled to meet with the Indian Commissioners in order to negotiate a treaty. Petchaho, chief of the Peoria band of the Potawatomi (Forsyth speaks of him as head chief of the Potawatomi in the Illinois river who had lately replaced Gomo, or Nasima, recently deceased), and a Kickapoo Indian married into a Potawatomi family of his band were entrusted with delivering the message. Forsyth in a letter to the Commissioners states that Petchaho "would deliver the Ottawa speech to some of that nation who reside at Sandy Creek Village" (Ibid., p. 339). Aside from this mixed village, a not uncommon feature of the area, there is little evidence for other than Potawatomi occupation of the region.
Since the Chippewa, as well as the Ottawa participated in the treaty the presence of the former requires some explanation. The Milwaukee band of Potawatomi participated and their village was composed of mixed Potawatomi, Ottawa and Chippewa. But it is particularly interesting to note that Forsyth's letter to the Indian Commissioners just quoted states that the "Chippeway speech would be sent to Sheboygan, to Michael's band of Chippeways" (Ibid., p. 339). The Chippewa would appear to have been drawn from a considerable distance to the north of the area involved in land cession.