[910] Robert Stuart, as agent of the company, received seventeen thousand dollars, and James Abbott, also on behalf of the company, twenty-three hundred dollars.
The dubious character of the claims presented and allowed at this treaty is still further exemplified by the role played in it by the heirs of John Kinzie. Both of his sons, John H. and Robert A. Kinzie, attended the negotiation and signed the treaty as witnesses. The latter was at the time proprietor of a trading establishment at Chicago. John H. Kinzie, the elder brother, had a wide acquaintance throughout the Northwest, with the Indians and whites alike. He had been at different times in the employ of Robert Stuart of the American Fur Company, secretary to Governor Cass, and sub-Indian agent at Fort Winnebago.[911] He had recently resigned the latter position, laid out the land pre-empted by the family into town lots, and thrown in his fortune with that of the nascent Chicago. The interests of the Kinzie heirs, therefore, were advocated by influential spokesmen. Even the welfare of numerous half-breed dependents of the family was provided for. To the old family servant of John Kinzie, Victoire Porthier,[912] and her children, the sum of seven hundred dollars was given under Schedule A. Her brothers, Jean Baptiste and Thomas Mirandeau, and her sisters, Jane and Rosetta, received among them the sum of twelve hundred dollars with the provision that John H. Kinzie should act as trustee of the fund. Thomas is the "Tomah" of Wau Bun, the lad who had been taken by Kinzie to Fort Winnebago the preceding winter to become a member of his household.[913] That Jean Baptiste had also been a servant of the Kinzies at Chicago is stated by the author of Wau Bun.[914] Another member of John Kinzie's household for whom a grant of money was secured was Josette, the daughter of Antoine Ouilmette. Like "Tomah" she was a mere child.[915] She had been a member of Kinzie's household since the spring of 1831. She was granted two hundred dollars and Kinzie was appointed trustee of the fund.
[911] A sketch of Kinzie's career written by his widow is printed in Andreas, op. cit., I, 97-99.
[912] For her connection with Kinzie see ibid., I, 105.
[913] Andreas, op. cit., I, 105; Kinzie, Wau Bun, 376.
[914] Kinzie, Wau Bun, 376.
[915] She was ten years old in 1831 (ibid., 233).
Of the one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars paid out under Schedule B, over one-eighth was given to the four sons and daughters of John Kinzie and to his stepdaughter, Mrs. Helm. To the latter the sum of two thousand dollars was granted, while twenty thousand dollars were divided in equal portions among the former. In addition to all this, a second claim of Robert A. Kinzie for twelve hundred and sixteen dollars was allowed. Although there is no record in the treaty of the grounds on which the various demands presented were based, the improper character of these claims seems obvious. Whatever the basis of the smaller claim of Robert Kinzie may have been, the twenty thousand dollars apportioned in equal amounts among the four brothers and sisters must have been claimed by virtue of some inheritance from the father. The facts that two of the claimants were women, who of course had never engaged in the Indian trade, and each of whom had been for some years the wife of a government official; that the claims of all were equal in amount; and that Robert Kinzie presented a second claim, which was allowed, all point to this conclusion. A claim for damages at the hands of the Indians inherited from John Kinzie must necessarily have been based on the losses he sustained in connection with the Chicago massacre. The losses of Kinzie and Forsyth at that time had been severe, and Forsyth at least had made strenuous efforts to obtain compensation from Congress for them.[916] Whatever ground there may have been for compensation from this source, there was none whatever for claiming it from the Indians in connection with the cession of their lands. The losses sustained were due to acts of war, for which, at the close of the War of 1812 mutual forgiveness and oblivion had been pledged in the treaties between the United States and the various northwestern tribes.[917] John Kinzie lived until 1828, and was for several years interpreter and sub-Indian agent at Chicago. He assisted in negotiating various treaties,[918] yet notwithstanding ample opportunity he apparently made no effort to secure compensation from the Indians for his losses. In the space of a few months after his death, however, his family twice secured from the government, through the medium of an Indian treaty, the sum of thirty-five hundred dollars. By the treaty with the St. Joseph River Pottawatomies negotiated at Carey's Mission in September, 1828, Robert Forsyth was granted the sum of twelve hundred and fifty dollars and the widow and heirs of John Kinzie thirty-five hundred. The allowance to the latter, it was stated, was "in consideration of the attachment of the Indians to her deceased husband, who was long an Indian trader, and who lost a large sum in the trade by the credits given to them and also by the destruction of his property."[919] It was further explained that this money was in lieu of a tract of land which the Indians gave to John Kinzie, and upon which he lived.
[916] See, e.g., his letters to the Secretary of War in Wisconsin Historical Collections, XI, 351-55; also his letters to Captain Heald, January 2 and April 10, 1813, supra, notes 613 and 632.
[917] See, e.g., the Treaty of Portage des Sioux, July 2, 1815, with the Illinois River Pottawatomies. Article I provides that "every injury or act of hostility by one or either of the contracting parties against the other shall be mutually forgiven and forgot." About a dozen treaties concluded at this time with the various tribes contain this same provision American State Papers, Indian Affairs, II, 2 ff.