The Illinois Confederation of Indians was divided into five tribes. They
were the Peorias, living near the present site of Peoria; the Cahokias and
the Tarmarias, living about Cahokia; the Kaskaskias near Kaskaskia, and the
Mitchagamies near the Great Lakes.
The area of the original country of the Illinois Indians included most of
the territory now within the State of Illinois. But this territory was
continually reduced by wars with the Sioux and Dakota Indians from west of
the Mississippi River, and with the Sacs, Foxes, and the Kickapoos who lived
north of the Illinois Confederation. From the east came the Iroquois, who
were the fiercest of all of the Indian warriors. The power of the Illinois
Indians was decreasing when the French first came to Illinois.
The raids of the Iroquois are the most important from the standpoint of
Calhoun history because they effected the Peoria Indians, and because of the
massacres that occurred in this county. Some years before 1680, the Iroquois
sent an expedition against the Illinois Indians and forced them to flee from
their territory. The Iroquois returned to their home in the east and the
Illinois tribes returned to their villages along the Illinois River.
In 1680, the Iroquois returned and made another attack upon the Illinois
tribes and this time the results were very disastrous to the Illinois
Indians. One of the best accounts of this attack is told by LaSalle, who was
passing through the Illinois country in search of his lieutenant, Tonti. As
LaSalle and his companions neared Starved Rock they found everything in
ruins. Instead of the flourishing village LaSalle says:
"Their town had vanished and the meadow was black with fire. Parts of bodies
and charred buildings remained. Even the graves had been robbed, and the
bodies flung from the scaffolds, where they had been placed."
As LaSalle continued down the river, he found six places where the
Illinois Indians had camped, and on the opposite side of the river, six
places where the Iroquois had also camped. He realized that the Illinois
Indians were fleeing and were being pursued by their old enemies. When he
neared the mouth of the Illinois River, he found that part of the Illinois
tribe had been overtaken. Parkman, the historian, gives us the following
description which he wrote after reading LaSalle's diary:
"As the French drew near to the mouth of the Illinois, they saw a meadow to
the right, and, on the fartherest verge, several human figures erect, yet
motionless. They landed and cautiously examined the place. The long grass
was trampled down and all around were strewn the relics of the hideous
orgies which formed the ordinary sequel of an Iroquois victory. The figures
they had seen were the half consumed bodies of women still bound to the
stakes where they had been tortured. Other sights there were, too revolting
for record. All the remains were of women and children; the men, it seems,
had fled, and left them to their fate. The French descended the river and
soon came to the mouth."
This massacre, the date of which was the last week of November, 1680, took
place in the southern part of the county, about a mile above the present
site of the Deer Plain ferry, at a place now known as Marshall's Landing.
Many skulls, parts of skeletons, and weapons have been found near this spot
in the last seventy-five years by farmers who were plowing the land.
M. DuChesneau, a Canadian official, tells about this flight of the Illinois
Indians in an account which he wrote in December, 1681. He says that about
1200 men, women, and children were killed by the Iroquois on this
expedition, and that the survivors of the Illinois tribes crossed the
Mississippi River.
A part of the Illinois tribes returned to Illinois after their defeat at
the hands of the Iroquois. They were not bothered again by the Iroquois, but
the Indians of the north made war upon them year after year. When the French
government took a census of the tribes of the west, in 1736, they found that
the Illinois tribes had been reduced to about 600 warriors.
In an official letter to the Secretary of War, of date of March 22, 1814,
General William Henry Harrison says:
"When I was appointed Governor of the Indiana Territory (1800), these once
powerful tribes were reduced to 30 warriors, of whom 25 were of the
Kaskaskias, 4 of the Peorias, and a single Metchigamian."
Thus we can see there were few Indians in the western part of Illinois
when the first settlers arrived. One early Calhoun settler said, "The
Indians were as thick as blackberries," but that was probably an
exaggeration. There is little evidence to show that more than a few hundred
Indians ever lived in this county at any one time.
There are many Indian mounds in different parts of the county and in recent
years these have been opened and skeletons and weapons taken from them. But
these mounds do not prove that there was a large permanent Indian population
since they might have been built over a period of several hundred years.
The early explorers said that the region that is now a part of Calhoun
County was supplied with wild game in great abundance, and there is the
possibility that many Indians that lived in the prairie section of the state
came to this region to hunt and fish at certain seasons of the year, but
were not permanent residents. We can be safe in saying that there were few,
if any, Indians living in the county when the first white settlers arrived.
Those that were seen by the settlers were just bands that were passing
through the country on hunting expeditions or Indians who came to get
supplies from the white traders.
There are just two cases of the Indians bothering the first settlers of
the county. One of these cases was the kidnapping of a three year old son of
Jacob Pruden. Mr. Pruden settled in the county in 1829 near the old Squier
place, about five miles below the present site of Hardin. The boy was
recaptured from the Indians five days after he had been taken, and had not
been harmed.
Another case was the kidnapping of Joe DeGerlia, the son of Antoine
DeGerlia, Sr., the first settler in the "French Hollow” neighborhood. Mr.
DeGerlia had not yet finished building his home, when his small son, Joe,
was taken. Nearly thirty years later a man who was acquainted with the
history of the DeGerlia family was traveling among the tribes of the Indian
Territory, and there he heard the story of a white boy that had been
kidnapped many years before from a place not far from where the Illinois
River flows into the Mississippi. He investigated the story and found that
the white boy was Joe DeGerlia of the Calhoun family. Joe had been taught
the Indian language and had grown to manhood among the remnants of the tribe
that had taken him away with them on their way to the southwest. Joe
returned to Calhoun, married, and lived in the "French Hollow" neighborhood
for a number of years. But he was never satisfied in the county and finally
he took his family and returned to the Indian Territory. He spent the
remainder of his life there and his descendants are living in that section
of the country today.
In 1813 the Indian tribes of the northern part of the state went on the
war path and some of the fighting was done in the southern part of Calhoun.
The fighting was between the Indians who came down the Mississippi River and
soldiers from the fort which was built in Missouri, opposite the present
site of West Point ferry, in Richwoods precinct. In the summer of 1813 from
sixty to eighty Indians appeared near this place and a battle took place
between them and thirteen soldiers who had crossed the river from the fort.
Twelve of the soldiers were killed, the only survivor being John Shaw who
later became a prominent official in Calhoun County.
In the summer of 1814, the Indians again appeared in that neighborhood and
fought with the soldiers and settlers from the Missouri side of the river.
On this expedition the Indians were accompanied by Black Hawk, who later
became famous in an Indian war in the northern part of the state. We have no
record of these Indians bothering any of the settlers in the lower part of
the county. Their whole attention seemed to have been directed against the
soldiers and settlers in Missouri.
Although most of the Illinois Indians had moved from the territory between
the Illinois and the Mississippi Rivers before 1800, they still had a claim
to the land. In 1803 part of the tribes ceded their rights to the
government, but it was not until 1816 that the last of the tribes signed the
agreement which gave the land to the government of the United States.
Extracted 20 May 2017 by Norma Hass from History of Calhoun County, pages 5-8.
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