The Man with the Iron Hand

by John Carl Parish

No, the trail of the Iroquois was not hard to trace in the Illinois Valley. Nor was it a difficult task for an Indian to find the route they had taken when, after massacring the Tamaroas, they had moved across country to the valley of the Ohio River many leagues to the southeast. The Iroquois warriors, proud of their victories and glorying in their cruel deeds, traveled with little fear. Laden with furs and plunder, with scores of Illinois slaves in their camp, they did not know that they were being followed. But they were. The Kaskaskia chief, Paessa, who had set out with a war band against the Sioux before the Iroquois raid, had now come back to the valley of his nation only to find ruins and the well-marked trail of the Iroquois.

There were only a hundred in the band, but in their desire for revenge they knew no such thing as numbers. With fury adding to their speed they started upon the track of the enemy and now night by night through the Ohio Valley their camp-fires were coming nearer to those of the Iroquois. The Iroquois were moving on toward home. Far to the east lay their villages of long houses in the land where the Ohio River had its northern source. They had scattered the Illinois and devastated their country. The weaker Miamis they had not harmed, perhaps because they had not yet found it to their advantage. But now they were entering the hunting-grounds of the Miamis who ranged from the Lake of the Illinois south as far as the Ohio.

They happened one day upon a party of Miami hunters and without hesitation the Iroquois fell upon them, killing some and adding others to the Illinois prisoners whom they were carrying home. The winter descended upon them with such vigor that they halted and built three forts at the corners of a triangle, each fort at two leagues distance from the others. Here the Miamis sent a delegation asking for the release of their captives. But they were mocked at by the vainglorious Iroquois. Then they offered a present of three thousand beaver skins as a ransom for their men. The overbearing conquerors, having attacked their own allies, now committed an unpardonable sin against Indian custom. They accepted the gift of the Miamis, but refused to release their captives. The Miamis sadly realized that they had deserted their neighbors, the Illinois, only to ally themselves to a band of traitors.

The winter did not halt the avenging party under Paessa. And one night the daring band slipped between two of the forts and pitched camp in the middle of the Iroquois triangle. At daybreak some in those forts should taste death for the outraged graveyard and for the trampled meadow where Tamaroas had died.

But that same night two Iroquois hunters saw their camp-fire and approached to see who they were. One of the two had entered the camp when a young and rash Illinois brave, unable to contain himself, leaped upon him and struck him dead. Quick as a flash the other was gone. Their secret was out. Surprise was now impossible and the band prepared for a terrific encounter. It came with the daylight. On every side the Iroquois bore down upon them. Outnumbered five to one, the brave Illinois held their ground all through the winter day. At evening both sides withdrew. A third of the dauntless hundred were dead, among them the gallant Paessa. Yet with the morning the unconquerable band again took up the fight. Three times they hurled themselves upon the enemy. At last, seeing the hopelessness of their battle, they drew away and cleared themselves from the hated triangle.

The news of these battles in the Ohio Valley passed quickly throughout the Miami tribes. The chiefs at the great village on the headwaters of the Kankakee, near the foot of the Lake of the Illinois, pondered over the situation in council with much concern. They had allied themselves with the Iroquois against the Illinois, and now their Iroquois allies had treacherously attacked them. In view of the indomitable courage which the Illinois had just displayed in the battle of the triangle, what would happen to the Miamis when the Iroquois were gone and the Illinois tribes came back to avenge themselves upon their neighbors?

They had other important things to think about as well. A few leagues north of their village, where the St. Joseph River emptied into the Lake, there had lain for many months the ruins of Fort Miami, built a year before by La Salle and demolished in April by the deserters from Fort Crèvecœur. But now Fort Miami was rebuilt; for out of the East La Salle had come again. Away back in July on distant Lake Ontario he had found some of the Fort Crèvecœur deserters, shot two who showed fight, and captured the rest. Then he had set out to the Illinois country to rescue Tonty; but it was November before he landed at the mouth of the St. Joseph River. On the day that his canoes touched shore, Tonty, sick and more than half-starved, was struggling northward along the west shore of the Lake, trying to reach the French settlements with the news of the Iroquois raid.

La Salle left some of his men to rebuild the fort and pushed on down the Kankakee, his anxiety for Tonty steadily increasing. At the Kaskaskia village he struck the trail the Iroquois had left behind them, and followed it down the river to the meadow of massacre near the mouth. Nowhere did he find trace of Tonty, and with heavy heart he came back to his men at Fort Miami. In his absence a band of New England Indians, mostly Abenakis and Mohegans, had pitched their lodges about the fort, and when La Salle appeared they joined themselves to his party and swore to follow him as their chief.

One important fact now stood out clearly in the mind of La Salle. If he was to accomplish anything in the exploration and settlement of the Mississippi Valley, he must bring the Miamis, the Illinois, the Shawnees, and other inhabitants of the Great Valley into such firm alliance with each other and with himself that they need have no fear from Iroquois or any other invaders. If he could get such an alliance started, he would feel free to make his long-delayed trip to the mouth of the Mississippi and open up trade by that means with France across the seas. With this in mind he took fifteen men and set out on the 1st of March to open communication with the Illinois, occasional bands of whom were beginning to wander back into their valley.

The men traveled easily over the snow with their snowshoes, but the glare of the sun was so intense that La Salle was stricken for several days with snow-blindness. While he lay suffering, unable to see or to sleep, some of his men came upon tracks which led them to the lodges of a hunting party of Fox Indians, from whom they learned to their great joy that Tonty was alive and had reached a village of Pottawattomies on Green Bay. They also learned that Ako and Hennepin and the Picard had returned safely to the settlements on the Lake.