Great Indian Chief of the West | Page 4

Miamies and Weas on the
Wabash, and a few who are scattered among strangers. Of the
Kaskaskias, owing to their wars and their fondness for spiritous liquors,
there now (1826) remain but thirty or forty souls;--of the Peorias near
St. Genevieve ten or fifteen; of the Piankeshaws forty or fifty. The

Miamies are the most numerous; a few years ago they consisted of
about four hundred souls. There do not exist at the present day (1826)
more than five hundred souls of the once great and powerful Minneway
or Illini nation. These Indians, the Minneways, are said to have been
very cruel to their prisoners, not unfrequently burning them. I have
heard of a certain family among the Miamies who were called
man-eaters, as they were accustomed to make a feast of human flesh
when a prisoner was killed. For these enormities, the Sauks and Foxes,
when they took any of the Minneways prisoners, gave them up to their
women to be buffeted to death. They speak also of the Mascontins with
abhorrence, on account of their cruelties. The Sauks and Foxes have a
historical legend of a severe battle having been fought opposite the
mouth of the Iowa river, about fifty or sixty miles above the mouth of
Rock river. The Sauks and Foxes descended the Mississippi in canoes,
and landing at the place above described, started east, towards the
enemy: they had not gone far before they were attacked by a party of
the Mascontins. The battle continued nearly all day; the Sauks and
Foxes, for want of ammunition, finally gave way and fled to their
canoes; the Mascontins pursued them and fought desperately, and left
but few of the Sauks and Foxes to carry home the story of their defeat.
Some forty or fifty years ago, the Sauks and Foxes attacked a small
village of Peorias, about a mile below St. Louis and were there defeated.
At a place on the Illinois river, called Little Rock, there were formerly
killed by the Chippeways and Ottowas, a number of men, women and
children of the Minneway nation. In 1800 the Kickapoos made a great
slaughter of the Kaskaskia Indians. The Main-Pogue, or Potawatimie
juggler, in 1801, killed a great many of the Piankeshaws on the
Wabash."
The land on which St. Louis stands, as well as the surrounding country,
was claimed by the Illini confederacy, which had acquiesced in the
intrusion of the whites. This circumstance, it is supposed, led the
northern confederacy to the attempt, which they made in 1779, to
destroy the village of St. Louis, then occupied by the Spaniards. As the
Sacs and Foxes were active participators in this attack, no apology is
necessary for introducing the following graphic account of it, from the
pen of Wilson Primm, Esqr. of St. Louis.[2]

"In the mean time numerous bands of the Indians living on the lakes
and the Mississippi--the Ojibeways, Menomonies, Winnebagoes, Sioux,
Sacs, &c. together with a large number of Canadians, amounting in all
to upwards of fourteen hundred, had assembled on the eastern shore of
the Mississippi, a little above St. Louis, awaiting the sixth of May, the
day fixed for the attack. The fifth of May was the feast of _Corpus
Christi_, a day highly venerated by the inhabitants, who were all
Catholics. Had the assault taken place then, it would have been fatal to
them, for, after divine service, all the men, women and children had
flocked to the prairie to gather strawberries, which were that season
very abundant and fine. The town being left perfectly unguarded, could
have been taken with ease, and the unsuspecting inhabitants, who were
roaming about in search of fruit, have been massacred without
resistance. Fortunately, however, a few only of the enemy had crossed
the river and ambushed themselves in the prairie. The villagers,
frequently came so near them, in the course of the day, that the Indians
from their places of concealment, could have reached them with their
hands. But they knew not how many of the whites were still remaining
in the town, and in the absence of their co-adjutors, feared to attack,
lest their preconcerted plan might be defeated."
On the sixth, the main body of the Indians crossed, and marched
directly towards the fields, expecting to find the greater part of the
villagers there; but in this they were disappointed, a few only having
gone out to view their crops. These perceived the approach of the
savage foe, and immediately commenced a retreat towards the town,
the most of them taking the road that led to the upper gate, nearly
through the mass of Indians, and followed by a shower of bullets. The
firing alarmed those who were in town, and the cry "to arms! to arms!"
was heard in every direction. They