When I arrived at Chikago, I was sick of a fever, and my provisions being exhausted, I was in great distress. I went to Dr. Wolcott to present him the letter from Col. Boyd, the Indian agent at Mackinac, but he would not receive it, nor take any notice of me. He knew well who I was, as he had seen me when I passed Chikago before, and I could not tell why he refused me assistance. I had my tent set up at a little distance from his house, near a wild rice swamp, and for several days, though I was so much more unwell that I was scarce able to sit up five minutes at a time, I subsisted my children by shooting the black birds as they came and settled on the rice. When I was again able with the aid of two sticks to crawl to the house of Dr. Wolcott, I went to represent to him that my children were in danger of perishing of hunger, but he drove me harshly away. When I left his door, I shed some tears which it was not common for me to do, but I was rendered womanish by my sickness. Three or four times I fainted, and lay long by the road side on the way from his house to my tent. But my sufferings, and those of my children, were shortly afterwards relieved by a Frenchman, who had been to carry some boats across the Portage. His wife was an Ojibbeway woman, and commonly accompanied him when he went to take any boats across. Though his horses were now much worn out with the long journey from which he had returned, he agreed to take me and my canoe sixty miles, and if his horses could hold out, the whole one hundred and twenty, which was, at the present stage of water, the length of the Portage, for which I agreed to pay him agreeable to his demand, which I thought very moderate. He lent me, also, a young horse to ride as I was far too weak to think of walking, and he thought I could ride on horseback much more comfortably than in the cart with the canoe. Before we arrived at the end of the sixty miles, he was taken sick, and as there was now a little water in the river, I concluded to put my canoe in, and try to descend in it. His young horse, the night after I gave it up to him, was stolen by the Po-ta-wato-mies. He was seized with the bloody flux, but as he had a young man with him, I rendered him what assistance I could in starting, and let him go back. My Frenchman had deserted from me soon after I left Chikago, and I had now no person to assist me except an old Indian, called Gos-so-kwaw-waw, (the smoker.)[35] We put the canoe in the water, but we could not get into it ourselves, only sometimes the children were put in, and we took them down, one walking at the bow, the other at the stern of the canoe. We had proceeded no more than three miles when I found that this method was likely to prove so laborious and slow that I thought best to engage a Po-ta-wato-mie, whom I met there, and who agreed for a blanket and a pair of leggins, to take my baggage and my children on his horses to the mouth of the An-num-mun-ne Se-be, or Yellow Ochre River, a distance of sixty miles. The An-num-mun-ne comes from towards the Mississippi, and below it there is always, in the Illinois, water enough for canoes. I felt somewhat afraid to trust the Po-ta-wato-mie with my children, and the baggage, which contained some valuable property, but old Gos-so-kwaw-waw was of the opinion that he would prove honest. When he put the children on the horses, he said, “In three days I shall be at the mouth of the An-num-mun-ne River, and shall wait for you there.”
Without any further words, we parted, and the old Smoker and myself continued our laborious and difficult route along the bed of the Illinois. Most of the country on both sides the route from Chikago to the Yellow Ochre River, are prairie in which horses and carts can be driven without any difficulty. On our arrival at the place appointed, we found the Po-ta-wato-mie there, and all safe.
We now embarked every thing together in the canoe, and went down to Fort Clark which is on a narrow neck of land between two lakes, and is thence called by the Indians Ka-gah-gum-ming,[36] (the isthmus.) Here I found some acquaintances, or rather those who claimed relationship in consequence of their having been in some measure connected with the family that I belonged to among the Indians. Here was a Taw-ga-we-nin-ne, a son of him that had been the husband of Net-no-kwa, and some of the relatives of one of my wives. One of these, an old woman, gave me a sack of Wiskobimmenuk, or that sort of corn which is plucked green, boiled, and then dried. Two or three miles beyond this, as I went on my way, I saw a man standing on the bank, who, as I came opposite to him, called out, “My friend, do you love venison?” When I told him I did, and had put my canoe in shore, he lifted a large and fat deer into it, saying, “Perhaps you will like to eat some of this, which I have just now killed.” He was going to turn away when I called him back, and though he refused any compensation for the deer, I gave him a little powder and shot, and some flints, for which he appeared very thankful.
About this time, when I was one day warm at work, I shot a crane and got into the water to take it up. Shortly after I felt somewhat unwell, but not reflecting on the cause of my illness, I went again into the water to get something I had shot, when immediately I fell down, and was unable to get up. My fever returned upon me with such violence that being in immediate expectation of death, I gave the Old Smoker directions to take my children to Governor Clark, who, I was confident, would assist them in reaching my relatives. But contrary to my expectation, I became gradually better, and after some days was able to go on my journey. We passed great numbers of Potawattomies, their lodges standing many together in almost every bend of the river. Some of them started out in their canoes occasionally, and accompanied me some distance on my way. One day a man came running from his lodge to the bank of the river, and asked me who I was. When I had told him, he inquired if my children could eat honey; and when I told him I believed they could, he sent two young men, each with a large wooden bowl full, which they brought wading into the water, and handed to me.
In this manner I descended the Illinois River, killing plenty of game, and having at all times enough to eat; my health, also, gradually improving, until I came to St. Louis. Here Governor Clark showed his wonted kindness, not only to me and my children, but to the Old Smoker who had been so serviceable to me in my journey. After giving the old man a handsome present, he provided for his return to his own country, and dismissed him. I was detained longer at St. Louis than I had wished, as new clothes were to be made for my children. Some of these not having been completed in time for me to take with me, the Governor sent them afterwards to Kentucky. From St. Louis, I went to Cape Guirardeau in my birch bark canoe, having a letter from Governor Clark to the Indian agent at that place.
At Cape Guirardeau, where I left my canoe, and where I remained but a very short time, I saw some of the gentlemen of Major Long’s party, then on their return from the Rocky Mountains. This was in the fall of the year 1820, and was about one year after my first arrival on the Ohio in 1819. From the time of my capture by Manito-o-geezhik and Gish-kaw-ko, just thirty years had elapsed before I started in the spring of 1819 from the Lake of the Woods. So that it must have been in the spring of the year 1789 that I was taken prisoner. I am now forty-seven years old.
Four months I remained with my sisters at Jackson, fifteen miles from Cape Guirardeau; then I went to Kentucky, and the next fall I returned to St. Louis, to see Governor Clark; but he was not at home, and as many people were then dying in St. Louis of fevers, I made but a short stay. On my way home, I fell sick of a violent fever at the Grand Prairie, which is eighty miles from the place where I had left my children. Fortunately I fell into the hands of a woman who treated me with much humanity and kindness, and I soon began to recover. I now heard that my children were dying with the fever which prevailed so generally throughout the country, and notwithstanding my own miserable and debilitated condition, I hastened home. Only one of my children died. The others though very sick, at last recovered. But I was not alone in this affliction. Seven died out of the circle of my near relatives with whom I then lived, and an alarming mortality prevailed throughout that part of the state.
On the ensuing spring an attempt was made to recover something for my benefit from the estate of my father; but my stepmother sent several of the negroes, which it was thought might fall to me, to the island of Cuba, where they were sold. This business is yet unsettled, and remains in the hands of the lawyers.
In the spring of 1822, I started to go again to the north, not finding that I was content among my friends in Kentucky. I went by the way of the Grand Prairie, and having given my canoe to my brother, I took horses, and putting my children on them, I came to St. Louis, thence by way of the Illinois, towards Chikago.
The Indian agent for Fort Clark lived at this time at a place called Elk Heart, some distance below. He, as well as most of the people on this route, had been kind, and had shown a disposition to assist me whenever I needed any thing. On this journey I stopped at Elk Heart, at the house of the agent, and though he was not himself at home, I had my horses fed, and was supplied with what refreshment I needed for myself and children, free of expense. On the following day, I met the agent on his way home from Fort Clark, and told him of the reception I had met at his house in his absence. He was glad to hear of this, and he told me that I should soon come to a bad river to cross; “but,” said he, “there is a boat now on this side, in which I have just crossed. The man to whom it belongs, lives on the other side. You must use the boat to cross, and then tell him to take it around to the other river, which is beyond his house, and help you to cross that, and I will pay him for his trouble.” We crossed accordingly, but my daughter Martha being now sick, we stopped all day near the house of the man to whom the canoe belonged. I had one very handsome horse which had been given me by my brother, and which this man said he was determined to have from me. He offered to buy it, but I told him the horse was necessary to my journey, and I could by no means part with it. Still he insisted, and said unless I would let him have the horse, I should not have his canoe to cross the other river. He cursed and abused me, but all the means he could use did not induce me to give up the horse. The canoe had been taken around to the river I had to cross for the use of some other person, and when I was ready to go I started, expecting to find it there. But on my way to the ferry, I met the man on horseback who said to me, “I have taken away the canoe, and you cannot cross.” Without regarding this, I went on, and when I arrived, I found the canoe was indeed gone, and that there were no logs, or other materials to make a raft. Fearing to endanger the children by swimming them across on the horse’s backs, I stood for some time in doubt what to do. At last I recollected, that if he had hid the canoe, as was most probably the case, his track would lead me to it. Then going back to the road a considerable distance from the river, I found his track coming into it. This I followed, until I found the canoe hid in thick bushes, about a mile below the ferry. Taking it up to the crossing place, I carried my children, and led the horses over; then giving the canoe a push into the stream, I said to it, “go, and stay where your master hides you.”