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CHICAGO AND THE OLD NORTHWEST
CHICAGO AND THE OLD NORTHWEST
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Agents THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON AND EDINBURGH THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO KARL W. HIERSEMANN LEIPZIG THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY NEW YORK MARQUETTE AT THE CHICAGO PORTAGE From the bas relief by H. A. MacNeil (Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society) 1673-1835 A STUDY OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE NORTHWESTERN FRONTIER, TOGETHER WITH A HISTORY OF FORT DEARBORN By...
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MILO MILTON QUAIFE, PH.D.
MILO MILTON QUAIFE, PH.D.
Professor of History in the Lewis Institute of Technology THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Copyright 1913 By The University of Chicago All Rights Reserved Published October 1913 Composed and Printed By The University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A....
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PREFACE
PREFACE
There are many histories of Chicago in existence, yet none of them supplies the want which has induced the preparation of the present work. It has been written under the conviction that there is ample justification for a comprehensive and scholarly treatment of the beginnings of Chicago and its place in the evolution of the old Northwest. I have endeavored to produce a readable narrative without in any way trenching upon the principles of sound scholarship. To what extent, if any, I have succeed
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CHAPTER I THE CHICAGO PORTAGE
CHAPTER I THE CHICAGO PORTAGE
The story of Chicago properly begins with an account of the city's natural surroundings. For while her citizens have striven worthily, during the three-quarters of a century that has passed since the birth of the modern city, to achieve greatness for her, it is none the less true that Nature has dealt kindly with Chicago, and is entitled to share with them the credit for the creation of the great metropolis of the present day. If in recent years the enterprise of man rather than the generosity o
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CHAPTER II CHICAGO IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER II CHICAGO IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
It seems quite probable that Chicago was an important meeting-place for Indian travelers long before the first white men came to the foot of Lake Michigan. The portage of the Indian preceded the canoe of the white man, and the Indian trail was the forerunner of the white man's road. Who the first white visitor to Chicago was cannot be stated with certainty. The chief incentive to the exploration of the Northwest was the prosecution of the fur trade, and it is probable that wandering coureurs de
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CHAPTER III THE FOX WARS: A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT
CHAPTER III THE FOX WARS: A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT
With the dawn of the eighteenth century the character of the annals of Chicago undergoes a radical change. The period which had just closed had been marked by great activity on the part of the French in the adjoining region. For a quarter of a century the Illinois River had constituted their chief highway from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi. Upon its placid bosom trader, priest, and warrior alike had plied their bark canoes. For the time being the Illinois realized La Salle's design for it o
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CHAPTER IV CHICAGO IN THE REVOLUTION
CHAPTER IV CHICAGO IN THE REVOLUTION
The years from 1754 to 1760 witnessed the overthrow of the power of France in the new world. For the fourth time in two generations England and France had joined in deadly combat. Twice the issue ended in a drawn contest; twice France was overwhelmed, and the English gained a decisive victory. Each of these great wars had its American counterpart, and the outcome of each was reflected in the disposition made in the treaty of peace of the territories of the warring nations in America. At the clos
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CHAPTER V THE FIGHT FOR THE NORTHWEST
CHAPTER V THE FIGHT FOR THE NORTHWEST
Long before the issue of the military struggle a contest of another sort for the possession of the Northwest had begun. France and Spain had entered into the conflict between Great Britain and her American colonies from no love of the latter, but rather from a desire on the one hand to humble Great Britain, on the other to advance their own interests. With the opening of the peace negotiations, therefore, an effort was made by these countries to limit the boundary of the new nation on the west t
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CHAPTER VI THE FOUNDING OF FORT DEARBORN
CHAPTER VI THE FOUNDING OF FORT DEARBORN
The strategic value of Chicago as a center of control for the region between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi had been recognized long before our government took the step of establishing a fort there. On more than one occasion during the French régime recommendations were made to the French government in favor of a fort at Chicago. As early as 1697 two Frenchmen, Louvigny and Mantet, conceived the project of making a combined trading and exploring expedition from Canada toward Mexico by way o
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CHAPTER VII NINE YEARS OF GARRISON LIFE
CHAPTER VII NINE YEARS OF GARRISON LIFE
The privations and loneliness of life at the new post on the Chicago River in the years following 1803 can be imagined by most readers only with difficulty. Only those who have experienced the deadly dullness of military routine at an isolated station can appreciate it properly. All witnesses agree in testifying to the overpowering loneliness of life under such conditions as prevailed at Fort Dearborn from 1803 to 1812. "In compassion to a poor devil banished to another planet," wrote Governor S
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CHAPTER VIII THE INDIAN UTOPIA
CHAPTER VIII THE INDIAN UTOPIA
Meanwhile time and the fates were weaving a fatal web about the almost defenseless frontier. The western Indians, awed into submission for a time by the masterful hand of Wayne, were again stirred by a great unrest. There were, among others, three important causes for this condition: the rapid occupation of their hunting-grounds and the deterioration of the natives by contact with civilization; the steadily increasing influence of the British, to secure advantages in trade or help in case of war
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CHAPTER IX THE OUTBREAK OF WAR
CHAPTER IX THE OUTBREAK OF WAR
The indecisive outcome of the battle of Tippecanoe seemed to necessitate the continuation of the war which Harrison's campaign had precipitated. But Tecumseh's plans were not yet matured, and his British advisers steadily warned him against the mistake of making a premature beginning of the struggle with the Americans, which would permit them to crush the Indians before the British should be ready to come to their assistance. He chose, therefore, to make light of the affair at Tippecanoe, and co
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CHAPTER X THE BATTLE AND DEFEAT
CHAPTER X THE BATTLE AND DEFEAT
On the issue of Hull's campaign hung the fate of Fort Dearborn. With the Indian, war was a passion, at once his greatest pleasure and his chief business in life. He could not remain an idle spectator of such a war as had now been joined between the white races, but must be a participant on one side or the other. The exhortations of the Americans that the red man hold aloof from the war, which did not concern him, and let the whites fight out their own quarrel, would be heeded only on one conditi
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CHAPTER XI THE FATE OF THE SURVIVORS
CHAPTER XI THE FATE OF THE SURVIVORS
Twenty-nine soldiers, seven women, and six children remained alive at the close of the battle among the sand dunes to face the horrors of captivity among the Indians. These figures do not include Kinzie, the trader, and the members of his family, who were regarded as neutrals and were not included by the Indians in the number of their prisoners. Concerning the fate of some of the survivors we have full information, but of others not even the names can be given with certainty, and of their fate w
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CHAPTER XII THE NEW FORT DEARBORN
CHAPTER XII THE NEW FORT DEARBORN
The British negotiators of the Treaty of Ghent which brought the War of 1812 to a close made strenuous efforts to compel the renunciation by the United States of its sovereignty over all of that portion of the old Northwest not included within the line drawn by the Treaty of Greenville of 1795. The avowed object of this provision was to erect a permanent barrier between the United States and the possessions of Great Britain in that region by forever securing the territory thus surrendered by the
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CHAPTER XIII THE INDIAN TRADE
CHAPTER XIII THE INDIAN TRADE
To omit from the history of early Chicago an account of the Indian trade would be like giving the play of Hamlet with the principal character left out. Its origin is coeval with the advent of the white man in this region; and until almost the close of the period covered by this volume it constituted the basis of the commerce of the region tributary to the upper Great Lakes and the Mississippi Basin. With the advance of the settler into the Northwest the wild game receded before him; and its disa
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CHAPTER XIV WAR AND THE PLAGUE
CHAPTER XIV WAR AND THE PLAGUE
Almost a dozen years had passed since the coming of Captain Bradley's troops to Chicago to plant again the banner of civilization on the spot where savagery had triumphed in 1812, and nearly half as many since the garrison had been withdrawn from Fort Dearborn in 1823, when the humdrum quiet of the little settlement was broken by new rumors of war. Two Indian wars and a visitation of war's twin scourge of humanity, the plague, coming in quick succession, served to relieve the monotony of life at
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CHAPTER XV THE VANISHING OF THE RED MAN
CHAPTER XV THE VANISHING OF THE RED MAN
The Treaty of Paris of 1783 which closed the Revolutionary War gave the new nation whose birth it marked the Mississippi River for its western boundary, and a line through the middle of the Great Lakes and extended thence to the Mississippi, as its boundary on the north. Until Wayne's victory over the northwestern tribes in the battle of Fallen Timbers, in August, 1794, however, the grip of the red man upon the territory north of the Ohio River was practically unbroken. Certain treaties had been
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APPENDIX I
APPENDIX I
JOURNAL OF LIEUTENANT JAMES STRODE SWEARINGEN, "REMARKS ON THE ROAD FROM DETROIT TO CHICAGO," JULY-AUGUST, 1803 [930] [930] The Journal was kept by Swearingen while en route to Chicago in temporary command of the company of United States soldiers going to establish the first Fort Dearborn in the summer of 1803. The original manuscript is at present the property of a grandson of Swearingen, Mr. James S. Thatcher, of Dallas, Tex. Since access to it was impossible the text presented here is taken f
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APPENDIX II
APPENDIX II
SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR THE FORT DEARBORN MASSACRE The history of lost manuscripts, even in so new a country as the United States, contains not only much of interest to the curious, but much of profit to the serious, who are genuinely interested in the work of preserving the records of the past. Various have the fortunes of these precious documents been. Some have been used by frugal housewives to cover jelly glasses or pack eggs, others have gone to feed the paper mill or the furnace; while
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APPENDIX III
APPENDIX III
NATHAN HEALD'S JOURNAL [961] [961] Printed for the first time from the original manuscript among the Heald papers in the Draper Collection at Madison, Wis. The Journal was kept by Heald in a small blank book about 3 × 6 inches in size. It contains in addition to the autobiographical matter presented here a number of pages of memoranda consisting of military data, financial entries, medical and household recipes, and so forth. Nathan Heald, the son of Thomas Heald & Sibyl, his wife, was b
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APPENDIX IV
APPENDIX IV
CAPTAIN HEALD'S OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE EVACUATION OF FORT DEARBORN [962] [962] The report has been published in various places, usually with the opening sentence omitted. As presented here the report is taken from the Drennan Papers, copied from Brannan's Official Military and Naval Letters (Washington, 1823), 84. Pittsburg , October 23d, 1812. Sir: I embrace this opportunity to render you an account of the garrison of Chicago. On the 9th of August last, I received orders from General Hull to ev
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APPENDIX V
APPENDIX V
DARIUS HEALD'S NARRATIVE OF THE CHICAGO MASSACRE, AS TOLD TO LYMAN C. DRAPER IN 1868 [963] [963] For an account of the two Darius Heald narratives of the massacre see supra , p . 381. The earlier narrative of the two, which is presented here, was related in an interview with Lyman C. Draper in 1868. It is printed here for the first time, from the original manuscript in the Draper Collection. It has never been used by historical writers hitherto, nor, apparently, has the fact of its existence bee
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APPENDIX VI
APPENDIX VI
LIEUTENANT HELM'S ACCOUNT OF THE MASSACRE. TOGETHER WITH THE LETTER [965] OF HELM TO JUDGE WOODWARD ANNOUNCING THE NARRATIVE [965] The letter as printed here is copied from the original manuscript in the Detroit Public Library. Notwithstanding Helm's statement that the narrative would be ready in two weeks, an endorsement on the back of it indicates that it was not received by Woodward until November 10, 1815. In the meantime Heald had severed his connection with the army, near the close of 1814
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APPENDIX VII
APPENDIX VII
LETTER OF JUDGE AUGUSTUS B. WOODWARD TO COLONEL PROCTOR CONCERNING THE SURVIVORS OF THE CHICAGO MASSACRE [967] [967] Copied from the original rough draft of the letter in the Detroit Public Library. The letter as actually sent differed slightly from the rough draft. The latter is presented here with all its erasures and changes. Words and phrases crossed out in the original manuscript are printed in italics and placed within brackets. Michigan , oct. 7, 12. Sir, It is already known to you that o
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APPENDIX VIII[968]
APPENDIX VIII[968]
MUSTER-ROLL OF A COMPANY OF INFANTRY UNDER THE COMMAND OF CAPT. NATHAN HEALD IN THE FIRST REGIMENT OF INFANTRY COMMENDED BY COLONEL JACOB KINGSBURY FROM THE 20TH OF APRIL WHEN LAST MUSTERED TO THE 31ST OF MAY, 1812 [968] Printed for the first time from the original manuscript among the Heald Papers in the Draper Collection. [The roll concludes with a table of recapitulation, a certificate as to its correctness, signed by Heald and Van Voorhis, and a certificate by Heald, dated Louisville, Decemb
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APPENDIX IX
APPENDIX IX
THE FATED COMPANY: A DISCUSSION OF THE NAMES AND FATE OF THE WHITES INVOLVED IN THE FORT DEARBORN MASSACRE No comprehensive record of the names and fate of those who composed the company which marched out of Fort Dearborn under Captain Heald on the morning of August 15, 1812, has ever been made. Here for the first time, a hundred years after the massacre, an effort is made to supply such a record. Such success as has been achieved is due to a study, in addition to the sources of information whic
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adams, Henry. History of the United States of America. 1801-1817 (New York, 1903-4). 9 vols. The standard general authority for the period it covers. Vol. VI, 1811-13, contains an account of the contest with Tecumseh, the opening of the War of 1812, and of Hull's campaign and surrender. Alvord, Clarence W. "The Conquest of St. Joseph, Michigan, by the Spaniards in 1781," Missouri Historical Review , 11, 195-210. A critical study, presenting a new interpretation of the expedition. Condemns sharpl
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