Among the most highly favored recipients of special grants by this treaty were the traders Burnett and Bertrand, and their families. Burnett had married KawKeemee, the sister of the Pottawatomie chieftain, Topinabee, and Bertrand had also married a squaw. The success of these families in securing special favors for themselves from the Indians and the government is evidenced by the recurrence of their names in many treaties. Both Burnett and Bertrand were present at Chicago and exerted their influence in support of the commissioners at a critical stage in the negotiations.[884] John Burnett received by the treaty two sections of land, and four of his children one section each, near the mouth of the St. Joseph River. To the wife of Bertrand was given one section of land, and to each of her five children one half-section. To John La Lime, son of Nokenoqua, a half-section of land was granted. Presumably he was the son of the Fort Dearborn interpreter slain by John Kinzie in 1812. The latter was now sub-Indian agent, and assisting in the negotiation of the treaty. Whose influence was responsible for the special grant to young La Lime can only be conjectured.
[884] Schoolcraft, op. cit., 352-53.
The fatal love for liquor which was working the ruin of the Indians was significantly manifested during the course of the negotiations over this treaty. To their honor the commissioners determined not to supply the Indians with liquor until the negotiations should be concluded. This did not meet the approval of the latter, however, and in his speech of August 22 Metea gave expression to their dissatisfaction.[885] Cass answered him with a spirited rebuke, repelling the implication of parsimony and showing that the liquor had been denied the Indians out of regard for their own welfare, that they might be able to keep sober and protect their interests in the negotiations. He concluded by painting the baneful influence of whisky upon them, and appealing to them to wait, if they were determined to drink, until a proper time. The rebuke was effective in quieting their importunities upon the subject until the negotiations were concluded a week later. Then their pent-up thirst for the liquor, which they had stipulated should accompany the distribution of goods, overcame their power of self-control. The aged Topinabee pleaded with Cass for the "milk" he had brought for them, but was told that the goods were not yet ready to be issued. "We care not for the land, the money, or the goods," he rejoined; "it is the whisky we want—give us the whisky." The whisky was shortly provided, and within twenty-four hours ten shocking murders had been committed.[886]
[885] Ibid., 350.
[886] Schoolcraft, op. cit., 387-88; McCoy, op. cit., 116, 146-47.
The in-rush of white settlers which followed the close of the Black Hawk War made necessary the early removal of the Indians from northern Illinois. The Pottawatomies and allied tribes still held title to a large tract of land between Lake Michigan and Rock River and extending northward from the line drawn due west through the southernmost point of Lake Michigan. With a view to securing the cession of this land and the removal of its owners to some point west of the Mississippi, the last and greatest Indian council ever held at Chicago was convened in September, 1833. It was meet that every warrior of the tribes concerned in the proposed negotiation should attend the grand pow wow, bringing his squaws, papooses, ponies, and dogs with him, and accordingly several thousand Indians assembled.[887] From far and near, too, gathered "birds of passage" of the white race, representing every gradation of character from rascality to respectability.
[887] Latrobe (Rambler in North America, II, 201) says the number was estimated at five thousand. Shirreff says (Tour through North America, 227) "it was supposed nearly 8,000 Indians were assembled." Porter says (Earliest Religious History of Chicago, 71) that on the appointed day "Indians began to pour in by thousands." All three writers were in Chicago while the treaty was being negotiated.
The Chicago of September, 1833, was "a mush-room" village of a few score houses.[888] Most of them had been hastily erected since the preceding spring and were small and unsubstantial.[889] "Frame and clapboard houses were springing up daily," wrote Latrobe, the English traveler, who visited Chicago while the council was in progress, "under the active axes and hammers of the speculators, and piles of lumber announced the preparation for yet other edifices of an equally light character."[890] The one business street of the place was South Water Street, along which a row of one-story log houses sprawled westward from the reservation, its monotony only slightly broken by the two or three frame stores which the village at this time boasted.[891] The unwonted concourse of visitors in attendance upon the treaty taxed the accommodations of the place to the utmost. There were "traders by scores and hangers-on by hundreds."[892] According to one observer, a stranger to America, a "general fair" and "a kind of horse market" seemed to be in progress.[893] Large wagons drawn by six or eight oxen and heavily loaded with merchandise were arriving and departing. In the picturesque language of Latrobe there were "emigrants and land speculators numerous as the sand, horse dealers and horse-stealers—rogues of every description, white, black, brown, and red—-half-breeds, quarter-breeds, and men of no breed at all; dealers in pigs, poultry, and potatoes; men pursuing Indian claims, some for tracts of land, others for pigs which the wolves had eaten;—creditors of the tribes, or of particular Indians, who know they have no chance of getting their money if they do not get it from the government agents; sharpers of every degree; peddlers, grogsellers; Indian agents and Indian traders of every description, and Contractors to supply the Pottawatomies with food."[894]
[888] Shirreff (op. cit., 226) gives the number of houses as about one hundred and fifty. Latrobe (op. cit., II, 206) speaks of "the half a hundred clapboard houses."
[889] Latrobe, op. cit., II, 206; Hoffman, Winter in the West, I, 199, 202; letter of Charles Butler in Andreas, History of Chicago, I, 129-30.