Summary of Piankashaw Locations (ca. 1805-ca.1832)(Part 4, pp. 252-257)
/pg. 252/
Some Piankashaws continued to live and hunt in southeastern Illinois and in southwestern Indiana, and to frequent Vincennes and Terre Haute for a number of years (apparently up through 1811 or 1812, at least) after their cession of Royce Area 49 on August 27, 1804 (ratified January 21, 1805) and of Royce Area 63 on December 30, 1805. The latter cession was to be considered valid only upon its date of ratification (May 22, 1807).
What is said to be the last of the Piankashaw villages in Royce Area 49, with a population of ca. 200-240 persons, was destroyed in 1807 by some Whites, and when they fled to some place in the vicinity of what was later called Birkbecks or the English Prairie in southeastern Illinois (within Royce Area 63), they were again attacked by Whites in the same year.
The Piankashaws apparently still were in several groups or factions at this time. Peacefully inclined ones were in danger of being attacked by aroused Whites who were subject to raids by hostile Indians, chiefly those attached to the Shawnee Prophet established in his village near the mouth of the Tippecanoe River. A number of Piankashaws were attracted to the Shawnee Prophet by 1810 and apparently took part in raids on Americans. For these reasons a number of other Piankashaws began to request officials that they be given permission to move west of the Mississippi River, so that they would not be in danger of being taken for hostile Indians by the Americans. By June of 1812 it was reported that about half of the Piankashaws (120-150 warriors, or 480-600 persons) had just moved to Peoria from a wooded "island" in the prairies in north central Illinois and that the other half had joined the hostile Shawnee Prophet and his Indiana.
In October of 1812 the Piankashaw village at Peoria was burned by an American military expedition and the Piankashaws were thought to have left that area. They were thought to have gone to the Sac Indians on Rock River, though some may have remained in the vicinity of Peoria. Over the next few months several "Miami" groups which probably were Piankashaw Indians are mentioned as going to Prairie du Chien with some Sac and Fox Indians, counseling with the United States officer at Fort Madison, as being on Pole Cat River (which may be on the west side of the Mississippi River just above Fort Madison or which may be a tributary to Bureau Creek which flows into the Illinois River above Peoria), and on the River Lemoin (a western tributary to the Mississippi River south of Fort Madison and Pole Cat River). In 1814 the Lemoin River "Miamis" apparently participated on a raid on a White settlement on the Missouri River about 120 miles west of the Mississippi River, and a large number of these "Miamis" (a probably exaggerated estimate of 300 persons and 9 chiefs) were captured by Col. Henry Dodge near a fort they had made that year on the south side of the Missouri River in Saline County, Missouri, and removed to the vicinity of St. Louis. It is not clear what group(s) of Piankashaws were involved in these moves, but there could have been several different ones, including the segments that had been with the Shawnee Prophet or hostile Sac or Fox Indians.
/pg. 254/
When peace was being arranged between the Indians and the United States after the War of 1812 Piankashaws apparently were located in the vicinity of St. Louis and Cape Girardeau on the Mississippi River, though some may also have been in southwestern Illinois near Kaskaskia. Some Piankashaws apparently wanted to sell their unlocated reserve near the Wabash River and to move permanently to Missouri Territory, but others wanted to return to their lands, near the Wabash River, on the Embarrass and Little Wabash rivers.
By November of 1816 Piankashaws (estimated at 50 men or ca. 200 persons) were located in Missouri Territory about 60 miles west of the mouth of the Ohio River, near the Mississippi swamps, were receiving all the annuities due to Piankashaw Indians in existence at this time. Some Piankashaws at least hunted in southeastern Illinois at least as late as 1817, bringing skins to sell at Vincennes, attending councils at Fort Harrison, and being one of the groups of Indians specifically mentioned by Posey as Indians he was constantly dealing with at Vincennes and Fort Harrison, though in 18177 he protested that since they had moved west of the Mississippi and their residence was near to Kaskaskia, that their annuities should be sent there rather than to him as had happened that year. The band of Piankashaws, who were consorting with Posey on the Wabash arranged with him to sell the unlocated Piankashaw reserve in Royce Area 63 to the United States. The contract was signed by Posey and one Piankashaw chief in January, 1818, and although the money for the land was paid by the Government the treaty was not ratified. In the meantime Clark (August 1817) again had listed 200 Piankashaws as /pg. 255/ living on St. Francis and White rivers in Missouri Territory. These Piankashaws, then living on Current River of Missouri Territory, protested the sale but received no satisfaction for it. Presumably those who did sell the reserve moved west, but this has not been specifically stated in any document found, and it is not known whether they joined their fellow tribesmen west of the Mississippi River, or perhaps joined some other group of Indians.
In a report on trading companies licensed to trade in the Missouri area from ca. 1809 through 1819, several were noted as dealing with Piankashaws, among other groups of Indians.
207 Piankashaws were reported to be living on St. Francis River in Missouri Territory in 1820, and these Piankashaws were the ones receiving the total annuities due to the Piankashaws. In 1820, too, their agent reported that they had been living in Missouri Territory since 1814 and that in recent years, except for 1819 when he had gone to their town, they had come to Ste. Genevieve on the Mississippi River to receive their annuities from where they lived about 150 miles to the west of Ste. Genevieve.
Piankashaws are mentioned as living in the Missouri area again in 1822 and took part in a treaty of peace and friendship with some Osage Indians in that area in September of that year.
In 1823 the Piankashaws living in the Missouri area raised the question of receiving some recompense for lands in Illinois which they /pg. 256/ had not ceded though they had lived there, on Vermilion River, and also asked again about the unlocated reserve sold by one band of them. They are also mentioned in this year as one of the small Indian groups living on White River in Missouri.
By 1824 the Piankashaw agent was having trouble find out anything about the contract made in 1818 between Posey (who was now dead) and the Piankashaw Indian for the sale of the two-mile Piankashaw Reserve in Royce Area 63. It seems apparent from this that little official attention had been given to the sale of the unlocated reserve. Something was done however, about the Piankashaw claims to lands on the Vermilion River. Although the Secretary of War specifically declared that he was not deciding whether they had any valid title to any lands in Illinois(on the headwaters of the Embarrass, Mill Creek, and Vermilion River, as presented in their agent's claim), the Piankashaws were to be given ten square miles of land to be surveyed for them by Clark and $1,000 in cash, to quiet their claim to the unceded lands north of Royce Area 63 and in September of 1824 the Piankashaws signed a quit claim for these lands for these terms. No mention was made of the two-mile reserve in the official transaction, but apparently this quit claim agreement was to cover that, too, since it was not brought up again.
This 1824 agreement apparently did, in effect settle the question of Piankashaw claims to areas east of the Mississippi River, since they did not officially raise the question again within the time period covered by this report. Piankashaws continued to reside on the west side of the Mississippi River throughout the rest of the time period /pg. 257/ considered in this report, though some of them moved from time to time and they apparently continued to form factions.
Eight years later, in 1832, another "final" agreement was held with the Piankashaws, among other Indian groups, for a blanket extinguishment of their Indian title to lands lying in the states of Missouri and IlIinois and to reconfirm all of their previous treaties. The agreement for the Piankashaws was ratified February 12, 1833, when they received 250 sections of land in exchange for their "ten mile" reserve (received in the 1824 agreement), compensation for their salt annuity, improvements on the lands they had in Missouri, and for horses lost in their move further west, plus some livestock and farming utensils and help, for a limited period of time, in settling down to agriculture in their new home.
There is no evidence in later historical materials that Piankashaw in any numbers lived on the east side of the Mississippi River after their signing of the agreement with Posey in 1818, and apparently the majority of them did not live to the east of the Mississippi River after about 1812-1814, when they fled and were removed to Missouri Territory.
[Conclusions
of Piankashaw Locations (ca. 1805- ca. 1832) pp. 257-259)
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