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

[876] For it see Treaties ... from 1778 to 1837 297 ff.

The foregoing provisions were of general application. The treaty contained in addition a list of special reservations of tracts of land which were granted to individuals, usually of mixed descent. The story of the influences responsible for these provisions of the treaty afford a view of the methods by which the terms of such cessions in the Indian treaties of this period were ordinarily devised. The provisions for supporting the work of instructing and civilizing the Indians were due to the exertions of Rev. Isaac McCoy, the founder of Carey's Mission among the Pottawatomies, near the modern city of Niles. Unable himself to come to Chicago, he sent a representative to urge upon both the commissioners for the United States and the Indians the recognition of his project for establishing a mission among the latter.[877] Of more importance, he enlisted the support of Colonel William A. Trimble, who had recently resigned his office in the army and become a United States senator from Ohio. On his way to Chicago to attend the council he stopped at Carey's, and having listened to McCoy's unfolding of his plans and his need of aid to realize them, promised to exert his influence in the missionary's behalf at Chicago. Largely because of this championship, apparently, the provisions already recounted for the support of blacksmiths and teachers among the tribes involved in the cession were made. Shortly afterward McCoy received the appointment as teacher of the Pottawatomies, and his associate, Mr. John Sears, the similar appointment among the Ottawas, while the selection and control of the blacksmiths was also confided to McCoy.[878]

[877] McCoy, History of Baptist Indian Missions, 113.

[878] Cass to McCoy, July 16, 1822, ibid., 145 ff.

"To bring about such an arrangement as this," wrote McCoy, "had cost us much labor, watchfulness, and anxiety. Others, in their intercourse with the Indians, had money and goods with which to purchase their consent to measures to which they otherwise felt disinclined; but we had neither money nor consciences that could be thus used."[879] The significance of this statement becomes evident upon examination of the list of special reservations provided for by the treaty. The traders and their half-breed families and their descendants, shrewder and more influential than the full-blooded Indians, provided for their future welfare by procuring the reservation to themselves of generous tracts of land. That these special grants of land were obtained by the use of improper methods and influences, as McCoy has charged, can scarcely be doubted.[880] One of the witnesses to the treaty was Jean Baptiste Beaubien, the Chicago trader. It can hardly be deemed a mere coincidence that among the grants to individuals are included one half-section of land to each of his sons, Charles and Madore, by his Ottawa squaw, Mahnawbunnoquah, who had by this time been dead for many years. To the chieftain Peeresh, or Pierre Moran, who guided Cass's party from Starved Rock to Chicago,[881] and whose racial affiliations are sufficiently indicated by his name, was granted one section of land at the mouth of the Elkhart River, while two more sections were reserved for his children. "To William Knaggs, or Waseskukson, son of Chesqua, one-half of a section of land," reads another clause of the treaty. Reference to the list of witnesses who signed it reveals the name of "W. Knaggs, Indian Agent," and this individual acted as interpreter during the negotiation of the treaty.[882] Pierre Le Clerc, or Le Claire, the half-breed who had assisted in negotiating the surrender of the defeated Fort Dearborn garrison in August, 1812, now received a section of land on the Elkhart, and his brother, Jean B. Le Clerc, half as much. Another participant in the Fort Dearborn massacre, Jean Baptiste Chandonnai, whose activities as a trader at Chicago and elsewhere have already received our attention,[883] was granted two sections of land.

[879] McCoy, op. cit., 113-14.

[880] The policy of bribing the leaders among the Indians was deliberately adopted by the agents of the government, including such men even as Lewis Cass. On January 1, 1821, Alexander Wolcott, the Chicago agent, thus addressed Cass relative to the contemplated Indian treaty and the expenses of his agency for the ensuing year: "To induce the Pottawatomies to sell their lands, particularly the district of Saint Joseph's to which they are much attached it will be requisite to bribe their chief men by very considerable presents and promises; and that should be done, in part at least, before the period of treating arrives, so that time may be given for its effects to spread through the body of the nation In short, it appears to me that a small portion of the sum appropriated to the treaty can be disposed of in the best and most efficient manner in conciliating and securing before hand the principal men of the nation" (Indian Department, Cass Correspondence, Wolcott to Cass, Jan. 1, 1821). Cass in reply expressed his approval of the proposal.

[881] Schoolcraft, op. cit., 321.

[882] Ibid., 365.

[883] Supra, p. 277.