REAL SAVAGES
--_The savage painted in his true colors from the standpoint of the
frontiersman._
The poets and philosophers who dwelt in security far from the frontier
posts of danger, have been much disposed in the past to extol the
virtues of the savage and bewail his misfortunes, at the expense of the
rugged pioneer who had to face his tomahawk and furnish victims for his
mad vengeance. They went into rhapsodies when speaking of the "poor
Indian," assuming that in his primitive state, before he was corrupted
by contact with the manners and customs of the white man, he represented
all that was pure, good and simple, and that only after the European
came, did this child of nature take on that ferocity and savagery that
made his name the terror of the wilderness. They said that he was
cruelly and unjustly despoiled of his lands and possessions; driven like
a wild beast before the face of the settlements, and by fraud and force
deprived of every right that he had enjoyed. These philosophers, while
thus impeaching civilization, were always ready to condemn what they
termed as the "rude frontiersmen," the men who originally made it
possible that the land might be inhabited, the soil brought to a state
of cultivation, and the arts and sciences brought to bear upon the wild
forces of nature. They were especially severe in their animadversions
upon the Kentuckians. They denounced their raids upon the Indian towns
and villages along the Scioto and the Wabash as barbarous and uncalled
for. They pointed to the fact that the Kentuckians pursued the Indians
with a fierce and relentless hatred, using the scalping knife, and
burning down their cabins and corn fields, forgetting at the same time
the thousands of Kentuckians cruelly slain, the carrying away into
captivity of pregnant women and innocent children, and the horrible
tortures ofttimes inflicted on the aged and the helpless.
It must never be forgotten that despite his stoicism in facing danger,
his skill in battle, his power to endure privation, and his undoubted
valor and bravery, that the Indian was a savage, and entertained the
thoughts of a savage. Toward those who, like the French, pampered his
appetites and indulged his passions to secure his trade, he entertained
no malice. The lazy, fiddling Canadians who dwelt in Kaskaskia and
Vincennes, had no ambition to absorb the soil or build up a great
commonwealth. The little land they required to raise their corn, their
vines and their onions on, aroused no savage jealousies. But from the
first moment that the Americans came through the gaps and passes of the
Blue Ridge, and swept down the waters of the Ohio, with their women and
children, their horses and cattle, the savage scented danger. These men
were not traders; they came to set up their cabins and to build homes.
The wild dwellers in the wilderness must be tamed or swept back.
Conflict was inevitable; war certain. On the one hand was a grim
determination to advance civilization; on the other, just as grim a
determination to resist it. The savage, employing the same arts in his
wars with the white man as he did in his wars with his fellow savage,
used stealth and cunning, the ambuscade, the scalping knife, and the
tomahawk, and tortured his victims at the stake. A terrible hatred was
engendered, that meant death and extermination. In the sanguinary
struggles that followed, many outrages were no doubt perpetrated by
lawless white men upon the Indians. Such men as Lewis Wetzel are no
credit to a race. But there is no sufficient ground either for the
exaltation of the savage, or the condemnation of men like Boone, Kenton,
Hardin and Scott, who stoutly fought in the vanguard of civilization. It
was a war for supremacy between white man and red, and the fittest
survived. The wild hunters of the forest and river, gave way to farmers
and woodsmen, who made the clearings, built their cabins, and laid the
foundation for the future greatness of the west. The passing of the
tribes was a tragedy, but it would have been a deeper tragedy still, had
savagery prevailed.
Among the Indians of the northwest there was one tribe that attained a
considerable fame. In all their forays into Kentucky and Virginia the
Wyandots fought with the most fearless bravery and the most disciplined
skill. Their conduct at the battle of Estel's Station met with many
words of praise from Mann Butler, the Kentucky historian. It was well
known among the settlements that the Wyandots treated their captives
with consideration, and that they seldom resorted to torture by fire.
Though few in numbers, they acquired the acknowledged supremacy in the
confederation of the northwest, were intrusted by Wayne at the treaty of
Greenville with the custody of the great belt, the symbol of peace and
union, and were given the principal copy of the treaty of peace. Between
the Wyandot and the Ottawa, however, and the Wyandot and the Potawatomi,
there was a striking divergence. If the Wyandot represented the highest
order of intelligence among the savages of the northwest, the Potawatomi
represented one of the lowest. He was dark, cruel, treacherous and
unattractive, and proved a willing tool for murder and assassination in
the hands of the English. There was no place on earth for the chivalrous
Kentuckian and the treacherous Potawatomi to dwell in peace together,
and the imparting of some idea of the true nature of this Indian will
now engage our attention.
When the Dutchman put flint-locks and powder into the hands of the
Iroquois, one of the tribes that he drove around the head of the great
lakes was the Potawatomi. Where did they come from? The Jesuit Relation
says, from the western shores of Lake Huron, and the Jesuit Fathers knew
more about the Algonquin tribes of Canada and the west than all others.
All accounts confirm that they were of the same family as the Chippewas
and Ottawas. From the head of Lakes Huron and Michigan they were forced
to the west and then driven to the south. In 1670 it is known that a
portion of them were on the islands in the mouth of Green bay. They were
then moving southward, probably impelled by the fierce fighting Sioux,
whom Colonel Roosevelt so appropriately named the "horse Indians," of
the west. At the close of the seventeenth century they were on the
Milwaukee river, in the vicinity of Chicago, and on the St. Joseph river
in southern Michigan. They had gone entirely around the northern,
western and southern sides of Lake Michigan, and were now headed in the
direction of their original habitations.
According to Hiram W. Beckwith, the Potawatomi were the most populous
tribe between the lakes and the Ohio, the Wabash and the Mississippi.
Their debouch upon the plains of the Illinois has already been
mentioned. This was about the year 1765. The confederacy among them, the
Kickapoos and the Sacs and Foxes, resulted in the extermination of the
old Illinois tribes, and after that extermination, the Kickapoos took
possession of the country around Peoria and along the Vermilion river,
the Potawatomi of eastern and northern Illinois, while the Sacs and
Foxes went farther to the west. After the treaty of Greenville in 1795,
the Potawatomi rapidly absorbed the ancient domain of the Miamis in
northern Indiana, swiftly pressing them back to the Wabash, and usurping
the major portion of the small lake region in the north end of the
state. They had now become so haughty and insolent in their conduct as
to refer to the Miamis as "their younger brothers," and the Miamis, by
reason of their long wars, their commingling with the traders, and their
acquisition of degenerate habits, were unable to drive them back. In
1810 and 1811, Tecumseh and the one-eyed Prophet were eagerly seeking an
alliance with their treacherous chiefs. A demand was made upon
Tecumseh for the surrender of certain Potawatomi murderers and horse
thieves who had invaded the Missouri region and committed depredations,
but Tecumseh replied that he was unable to apprehend them, and that they
had escaped to the Illinois country. The Potawatomi were now living in
mixed villages west of the present sites of Logansport and Lafayette,
and the southern limits of their domain extended as far down the Wabash
as the outlet of Pine creek across the river from the present city of
Attica.
[Illustration: Shaubena, the best of the Potawatomi Chiefs, and a
follower of Tecumseh. By Courtesy The Chicago Historical Society]
The Potawatomi loved the remoteness and seclusion of the great prairie,
and many of their divisions have been known as the "prairie" tribes.
They seem to have lived for the most part in separate, roving bands,
which divided "according to the abundance or scarcity of game, or the
emergencies of war." Encouraged by the English, they joined in the
terrible expeditions of the Shawnees and Miamis against the keel-boats
on the Ohio, and against the settlements of Kentucky. They were
inveterate horse-thieves. Riding for long distances across plain and
prairie, through forests and across rivers, they suddenly swooped down
on some isolated frontier cabin, perhaps murdering its helpless and
defenseless inmates, taking away a child or a young girl, killing cattle
or riding away the horses and disappearing in the wilderness as suddenly
as they emerged from it. In the later days of Tecumseh's time, these
parties of marauders generally consisted of from four or five, to
twenty. They were still striking the white settlements of Kentucky, and
even penetrated as far west as the outposts on the Missouri river.
Their retreat after attack was made with the swiftness of the wind.
Pursuit, if not made immediately, was futile. Traveling day and night,
the murderous riders were lost in the great prairies and wildernesses of
the north, and the Prophet was a sure protector. The savage chief,
Turkey Foot, for whom two groves were named, in Benton and Newton
Counties, Indiana, stealing horses in far away Missouri, murdered three
or four of his pursuers and made good his escape to the great plains and
swamps between the Wabash and Lake Michigan.
There was nothing romantic about the Potawatomi. They were real savages,
and known to the French-Canadians as "Les Poux," or those who have lice,
from which it may be inferred that they were not generally of cleanly
habits. In general appearance they did not compare favorably with the
Kickapoos of the Vermilion river. The Kickapoo warriors were generally
tall and sinewy, while the Potawatomi were shorter and more thickly set,
very dark and squalid. Numbers of the women of the Kickapoos were
described as being lithe, "and many of them by no means lacking in
beauty." The Potawatomi women were inclined to greasiness and obesity.
The Potawatomi had little regard for their women. Polygamy was common
among them when visited by the early missionaries. The warriors were
always gamblers, playing heavily at their moccasin games and lacrosse.
Nothing, however, revealed their savage nature so well as their rapid
decline under the influence of whiskey. As we shall see hereafter, one
of the great motives that impelled their attacks on the flat boats of
the Ohio river, was their desire not only for plunder, but for rum. The
boats generally contained a liberal supply. Nothing was more common than
drunkenness after the greedy and avaricious traders of the Wabash got
into their midst and bartered them brandy for their most valuable
peltries. Potawatomi were found camping about Vincennes in great numbers
and trading everything of value for liquor. In General Harrison's day,
he endeavored time and time again to stop this nefarious traffic. On all
occasions when treaties were to be made, or council fires kindled, he
issued proclamations prohibiting the sale of liquor to the Indians.
These proclamations were inserted in the Western Sun, at Vincennes, on
more than one occasion, but they were unavailing. The temptation of a
huge profit was too strong. Carousals and orgies took place when the
Indians were under the influence of "fire-water." Fights and murders
were frequent. At the last, whiskey destroyed the last vestige of virtue
in their women, and valor in their warriors.
After the crushing of the Prophet in 1811, and the destruction of
British influence in the northwest, consequent upon the war of 1812, the
decline of the Potawatomi was swift and appalling. The terrible ravages
of "fire-water" played no inconsiderable part. Many of their principal
chieftains became notorious drunkards reeling along the streets of
frontier posts and towns and boasting of their former prowess. Even the
renowned Topenebee, the last principal chief of the tribe of the river
St. Joseph was no exception. Reproached by General Lewis Cass, because
he did not remain sober and care for his people, he answered: "Father,
we do not care for the land, nor the money, nor the goods; what we want
is whiskey! Give us whiskey!" The example set by the chiefs was not
neglected by their followers.
Nothing can better illustrate the shocking savagery and depravity of
some of their last chieftains, after the tribe had been contaminated by
the effect of strong liquors, than the story of Wabunsee, principal war
chief of the prairie band of Potawatomi residing on the Kankakee river
in Illinois, and in his early days one of the renowned and daring
warriors of his tribe. When General Harrison marched with his regulars
and Indiana and Kentucky militia, on the way to the battlefield of
Tippecanoe, he ascended the Wabash river, erecting Fort Harrison, near
the present site of Terre Haute, and christening it on Sunday, the 27th
day of October, 1811. From here, the army marched up the east bank of
the river, crossing the deep water near the present site of Montezuma,
Indiana, and erecting a block house on the west bank, about three miles
below the mouth of the Vermilion river, for a base of supplies. Corn and
provisions for the army were taken in boats and pirogues from Fort
Harrison up the river, and unloaded at this block house. On Saturday,
the 2nd day of November, John Tipton recorded in his diary that, "this
evening a man came from the Garrison (Fort Harrison) said last night his
boat was fired on--one man that was asleep killed dead." Beckwith
records that the dare-devil "Wabunsee, the Looking-Glass, principal war
chief of the prairie bands of Potawatomis, residing on the Kankakee
river, in Illinois, distinguished himself, the last of October, 1811,
by leaping aboard of one of Governor Harrison's supply boats, loaded
with corn, as it was ascending the Wabash, five miles above Terre Haute,
and killing a man, and making his escape ashore without injury."
Allowing a slight discrepancy in dates, this was probably the same
incident referred to by John Tipton, and taking into consideration that
the boats were probably guarded by armed men, this was certainly a
daring and adventurous feat.
Yet it is recorded of this chief, that he always carried about with him
two scalps in a buckskin pouch, "taken from the heads of soldiers in the
war of 1812, and when under the influence of liquor he would exhibit
them, going through the motions of obtaining those trophies."
Schoolcraft, whose attention was especially drawn towards this chieftain
on account of his drunken ferocity, and who paints him as one of the
worst of many bad savages of his day, says: "He often freely indulged in
liquor; and when excited, exhibited the flushed visage of a demon. On
one occasion, two of his wives, or rather female slaves, had a dispute.
One of them went, in her excited state of feeling, to Wabunsee, and told
him that the other ill-treated his children. He ordered the accused to
come before him. He told her to lie down on her back on the ground. He
then directed the other (her accuser) to take a tomahawk and dispatch
her. She instantly split open her skull. "There," said the savage, "let
the crows eat her." He left her unburied, but was afterwards persuaded
to direct the murderess to bury her. She dug the grave so shallow, that
the wolves pulled out her body that night, and partly devoured it."
The cold, cruel treachery of this tribe is without a parallel, save in
the single instance of the Shawnees. It has been admitted by Shaubena,
one of their best chiefs, that most of the depredations on the frontier
settlements in Illinois during the Black Hawk war, were committed by the
Potawatomi. The cowardly and brutal massacre at Chicago, August 15,
1812, was the work principally of the Potawatomi, "and their several
bands from the Illinois and Kankakee rivers; those from the St. Joseph
of the lake, and the St. Joseph of the Maumee, and those of the Wabash
and its tributaries were all represented in the despicable act." In that
massacre, Captain William Wells, the brother-in-law of Little Turtle,
was killed when he was trying to protect the soldiers and refugees. He
was discovered afterwards, terribly mutilated. His body lay in one
place, his head in another, while his arms and legs were scattered about
over the prairie. The warriors of this tribe, stripped to the skin,
except breech-cloth and moccasins, and with bodies painted with red
stripes, went into battle with the rage of mad-men and demons and
committed every excess known to human cruelty.
Looking at the Potawatomi in the true light, and stripped of all that
false coloring with which he has been painted, and the facts remains
that he was every inch a wild and untamed barbarian. And while we must
admire him for his native strength, his wonderful endurance through the
famine and cold of the northern winters, and his agility and ingenuity
in the chase or on the warpath, it is not any wonder that the children
of that time, as Judge James Hall relates, "learned to hate the Indian
and to speak of him as an enemy. From the cradle they listened
continually to horrid tales of savage violence, and became familiar with
narratives of aboriginal cunning and ferocity." Nor is it any wonder
that when General Harrison crossed the Wabash at Montezuma and gave an
order to the advance guard to shoot every Indian at sight, that the
rough frontiersman, John Tipton, entered in his diary, "Fine News!"