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

[141] For the documents pertaining to this affair see Wisconsin Historical Collections, V, 106-7; and XVII, 100-101, 109-30.

Confirmation shortly arrived in the shape of information that the Foxes had captured some of the Illinois near Starved Rock and had burned the son of the great chief of the Cahokias. On this St. Ange, the commandant of Fort Chartres, conducted an expedition against them. Parties of French and of savages gathered from all directions. From Fort St. Joseph came De Villiers and his son, the latter a mere youth, destined, a quarter of a century later at Fort Necessity, to defeat and capture the youthful George Washington.

In all some twelve or thirteen hundred French and Indians surrounded the doomed Foxes. The latter had intrenched themselves in a grove on the bank of a small river, some distance to the southeast of Starved Rock.[142] Under the direction of the elder De Villiers the siege was pressed with vigor. Both forces suffered from lack of food, but the necessity of the Foxes was naturally the greater. On the twenty-third day of the siege, under cover of a cold and stormy night they attempted to make their escape. Their design was revealed by the crying of the children and the besiegers promptly pursued them. As soon as daylight made it possible to distinguish friend from foe an indiscriminate slaughter began. The Fox warriors, weakened by hunger and long exertion and surrounded by overwhelming numbers, maintained their courage to the end. The women and children and old men walked in front, and the warriors stationed themselves in the rear between them and the enemy. But their line was speedily broken. Two hundred of the warriors were killed, besides an equal number of women and children. Some four or five hundred of the latter were taken prisoners and scattered as slaves among the various tribes. A few of the warriors, by throwing away their arms and ammunition, succeeded in escaping, but in such a plight that their fate was little preferable to that of the slain.

[142] Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVII, in, 115, 129. J. F. Steward (Lost Maramech and Earliest Chicago) locates this fort on the Fox River, in Kendall County, Illinois. This does not harmonize, however, with Hocquart's letter to the French minister, January 15, 1731, describing the place and the destruction of the Foxes.

The triumph of the French over the foe that had defied them for a generation was, apparently, complete. Even their Indian allies had been moved to pity by the plight of the Foxes, but no humane sentiment animated the subjects of the Most Christian King.[143] The extirpation of the hated race was decreed, and the savage allies were spurred on to the work of destruction. By drawing in the slaves from the nations to which they had been distributed,[144] the surviving Foxes managed to assemble a village of forty-five cabins the year after their overthrow at the hands of De Villiers. The Hurons of Detroit, ancient enemies of the Foxes, assumed the task of destroying this remnant of the tribe, and sent an invitation to the band of Christian Iroquois at the Lake of the Two Mountains to join them in the work. They accepted, and in the autumn of 1731 a band of forty-seven appeared at Detroit where they were joined by seventy-four Hurons and four Ottawas and the whole set out for Wisconsin.[145]

[143] Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVII, xiv, 167-69.

[144] The Illinois furnished an exception; their captives had all been put to death (ibid., 163).

They followed the Indian trail to the mouth of the St. Joseph River and thence around the southern end of Lake Michigan to the Chicago Portage, where they built a fort and left in it some sick men with a guard to protect them. Some chiefs of the St. Joseph Pottawatomies came to them while here and promised if they would defer their expedition until spring they would join them. They declined to assent to this, and pushed on westward to the village of the Mascoutens and Kickapoos located on Rock River. According to the boastful report of the Indians, made on their return from the expedition, these were asked to join them but refused in terror. They were persuaded, however, to furnish guides to conduct the party to their former allies, but these prudently turned back before the village of the Foxes was reached.

[145] Parkman (Half Century of Conflict, chap, xiv) tells the story of the expedition. For the original documents pertaining to it see Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVII, 148-69.

Winter had now arrived and the party was suffering from hunger and the fatigue caused by the deep snow. A council was held and the old men favored turning back. The young men declined to accede to this, however, and so the party divided. The old men returned to Chicago, while the others to the number of forty Hurons and thirty Iroquois pushed on toward the Wisconsin, where they expected to find their quarry. After several days they came upon the Foxes, who promptly took to flight. For the story of what followed we have only the report of the victors, which is manifestly unreliable. It is repeated, therefore, rather as furnishing a typical illustration of an Indian report of such an encounter than because of faith in the trustworthiness of its details.