Chicago and the Old Northwest, 1673-1835 / A study of the evolution of the northwestern frontier, together with a history of Fort Dearborn

by Milo Milton Quaife

[707] Wentworth, Early Chicago, 47; Drennan Papers, Fort Dearborn post returns.

[708] McCulloch, Early Days of Peoria and Chicago, 99.

With the garrison departed most of the life at Chicago. During the next few years little occurred to interrupt the monotonous course of existence. Rarely a new settler, attracted by the presence of relatives who had gone before, or lured westward by the hope of improving his material condition, would direct his steps to Chicago. Periodically the Indians, who still held possession of the country tributary to Chicago, would assemble to receive their annuities, the payment of which had been stipulated in various treaties. At such times the place teemed with savages and excitement for a few days, during which the traders reaped a golden harvest. Finally in 1827 occurred the Winnebago War, which for a time furnished plenty of excitement for Chicago, and led eventually to the reoccupation of Fort Dearborn by a garrison of United States troops.

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 disappearance marked the passing of the Indian trade, soon to be followed by the red man himself. As a rule, the first white man to penetrate the wilderness was the trader, and the Indian's conception of the white race was based upon his intercourse with the traders, the class of whites with whom he was most familiar. Upon these he was dependent for the gun, ammunition, and other supplies which quickly became essential to his existence; and most of the problems which grew out of the contact of the two races centered around the conduct of the Indian trade.

As early as 1675, Marquette found French traders had entered Illinois and established themselves below Chicago, in the vicinity, apparently, of the junction of the Des Plaines River with the Kankakee.[709] Thus early, too, certain of the Indians themselves had turned traders, and Marquette was attended, on his second visit to Illinois, by a party of Illinois Indians who were returning from Canada with merchandise to trade with the members of their own race for furs.[710] One of the party, named Chachagwessiou, was "greatly esteemed" among his nation because, in part at least, he was engaged in the fur trade; and this, in spite of the fact that he and his associates subjected their kinsmen to the same extortion as did the white traders. That it was primarily for the sake of the fur trade that the French valued the country is a fact easily demonstrable. The economic foundation of La Salle's colony was the Indian trade which he expected to develop. For its exclusive possession he sought and obtained the royal license, and against interlopers upon his privileged monopoly he waged relentless warfare. With his death the license to carry on trade at Fort St. Louis passed to his faithful Heutenant, Tonty, For many years from his lofty stronghold he continued to trade with the Indians of the surrounding region. But the French government looked upon the enterprise with a jealous eye, and early in the eighteenth century at its request Tonty's establishment at the rock of St. Louis was abandoned and he himself departed for lower Louisiana, where he shortly met his death.

[709] Jesuit Relations, LIX, 175 ff.

[710] Ibid., LIX, 165, 167, 175 et passim.

During the greater part of the eighteenth century there was, as far as known, no civilized establishment at Chicago, That traders may have established themselves here for a shorter or longer time is entirely possible, but there was no regular French post here as has often been stated. Until the end of the French régime the trade of the territory around Chicago found outlet at the neighboring posts. The nearest of these was St. Joseph, but there were others at Mackinac, Green Bay, Ouiatanon, and in the French settlements of lower Illinois.[711]

[711] For the posts of the interior and their trade, toward the close of the French régime, see Bougainville's memoir in Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVIII, 167 ff.