Chapter XXII: Appendix: I

FAREWELL WAR-DANCE OF THE INDIANS.

ARLY in 1833 Indians to the number of five thousand or more, assembled at Chicago, around the fort, the village, the rivers and the portage, to treat for the sale of their entire remaining possessions in Illinois and Wisconsin. John Joseph Latrobe, in his "Rambles in North America," gives the following realistic sketch of the state of things hereabouts just sixty years ago:

A mushroom town on the verge of a level country, crowded to its
utmost capacity and beyond, a surrounding cloud of Indians encamped
on the prairie, beneath the shelter of the woods, on the river-side
or by the low sand-hills along the lake, companies of old warriers
under every bush, smoking, arguing, palavering, pow-wowing, with no
apparent prospect of agreement.

The negotiations dragged on for weeks and months, for the Indians were slow to put an end to their jollification, an occasion when they were the guests of the Government, and fared sumptuously with nothing to pay. The treaty had still to be ratified by the senate before its provisions could be carried out and the settlement made. This took about two years.

The money paid and the goods delivered, the Indians shook the dust off their feet and departed; the dust shaking being literal, for once, as they joined, just before starting, in a final "war-dance." For this strange scene, we fortunately have as witness Ex-Chief-Justice Caton, previously quoted herein. He estimates the dancers at eight hundred, that being all the braves that could be mustered, out of the five thousand members then present of the departing tribes. The date was August 18th, 1835. He says:

They appreciated that it was their last on their native soil--that
it was a sort of funeral ceremony of old associations and memories,
and nothing was omitted to lend it all the grandeur and solemnity
possible. They assembled at the Council House (North-east corner of
Rush and Kinzie Streets). All were naked except a strip of cloth
around their loins. Their bodies were covered with a great variety
of brilliant paints. On their faces particularly they seemed to have
exhausted their art of hideous decoration. Foreheads, cheeks and
noses were covered with curved strips of red or vermillion, which
were edged with black points, and gave the appearance of a horrid
grin. The long, coarse black hair was gathered into scalp locks on
the tops of their heads and decorated with a profusion of hawks'
and eagles' feathers; some strung together so as to reach nearly
to the ground. They were principally armed with tomahawks and war
clubs. They were led by what answered for a band of music, which
created a discordant din of hideous noises, produced by beating on
hollow vessels and striking clubs and sticks together. They advanced
with a continuous dance. Their actual progress was quite slow. They
proceeded up along the river on the North side, stopping in front
of every house to perform some extra antics. They crossed the north
branch on the old bridge, about Kinzie Street, and proceeded south
to the bridge which stood where Lake Street bridge is now, nearly in
front of, and in full view from the Sauganash Hotel ("Wigwam" lot,
Lake and Market Streets). A number of young married people had rooms
there. The parlor was in the second story pointing west, from the
windows of which the best view of the dancers was to be had and these
were filled with ladies.

The young lawyer, afterward Chief Justice, had come to the West in 1833, and less than a year before this had gone back to Oneida County, New York, and there married Miss Laura Sherrill. They were among the lookers-on from those upper windows, a crowd all interested, many agitated and some really frightened at the thought of the passions and memories that must be inflaming those savage breasts and that were making them the very picture of demoniac fury.

Although the din and clatter had been heard for some time, they did
not come into view from this point of observation till they had
proceeded so far West (on the North side) as to come on a line with
the house. All the way to the South Branch bridge came the wild band,
which was in front as they came upon the bridge, redoubling their
blows, followed by the warriors who had now wrought themselves into a
perfect fury.

The morning was very warm and the perspiration was pouring from
them. Their countenances had assumed an expression of all the worst
passions--fierce anger, terrible hate, dire revenge, remorseless
cruelty--all were expressed in their terrible features. Their
tomahawks and clubs were thrown and brandished in every direction,
and with every step and every gesture they uttered the most frightful
yells. The dance consisted of leaps and spasmodic steps, now
forward, now back or sidewise, the whole body distorted into every
imaginable position, most generally stooping forward with the head
and face thrown up, the back arched down, first one foot thrown
forward and withdrawn and the other similarly thrust out, frequently
squatting quite to the ground, and all with a movement almost as
quick as lightning. The yells and screams they uttered were broken
up and multiplied and rendered all the more hideous by a rapid
clapping of the mouth with the palm of the hand. When the head of
the column reached the hotel, while they looked up at the windows
at the "Chemo-ko-man squaws," it seemed as if we had a picture of
hell itself before us, and a carnival of the damned spirits there
confined. They paused in their progress, for extra exploits, in
front of John T. Semple's house, near the northwest corner of Lake
and Franklin Streets, and then again in front of the Tremont, on the
northwest corner of Take and Dearborn Streets, where the appearance
of ladies again in the window again inspired them with new life and
energy. Thence they proceeded down to Fort Dearborn, where we will
take a final leave of my old friends, with more good wishes for their
final welfare than I really dare hope will be realized.

The Indians were conveyed to the lands selected for them, (and accepted by a deputation sent by them in advance of the treaty) in Clay County, Missouri, opposite Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The Missourians were hostile to their new, strange neighbors, and two years later they were again moved, this time to a reservation in Iowa, near Council Bluffs. Once more the fate of the poor waif, "Move on, move on," was theirs, and then they halted in Kansas for many years. Their present condition has been already sketched.

Judge Caton is an ardent, devoted friend of the Indians. He knew many of them personally, they having been his faithful companions--by night and day, in summer and winter--in hunting, which was the passion of his early years. Yet here, we observe, he says sadly, that his wishes for their welfare go beyond any confident hope he can feel.