Latest / Kendall County News - Shaw Local / Reflections: No battles, but plenty of other action took place here in 1776

Transcript

Reflections: No battles, but plenty of other action took place here in 1776 · Kendall County News - Shaw Local

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Reflections. No battles, but plenty of other actions took place
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: here in seventeen seventy six. Written by Roger Mattel for
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Shaw Local News Network. This article is being read by
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: an automated voice brought to you by Everlett. In a
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: previous column, I talked about how Illinois was saved to
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: become part of the brand new United States during the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Revolutionary War. As we get into the year long celebration
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: of the nation's two hundred fiftieth anniversary, it might be
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: interesting to take a brief look at what was going
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: on right here in the Fox River Valley two hundred
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: fifty years ago seventeen seventy six. It would be fifty
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: years before the first white settler came up the Fox
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: River from the Illinois River town of Ottawa to settle
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: in what became Kendall County. But that doesn't mean no
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: one was living here. The entire Fox Valley had been
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: considered a prime hunting and gathering area for a couple
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: thousand years before the Massachusetts Militia and British Redcoats squared
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: off on Lexington Common. The first hunter gatherer people followed
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the melting glacial ice as it retreated north, harvesting the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: huge ice age mammals living on the steadily growing tundra
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: at the glacier's base. Those glaciers had been almost unbelievably huge,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: with the ice at its greatest extent thicker than the
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Seer's Tower, which you may call the Willis Tower if
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: you must, is tall. As the ice retreated north, it
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: left behind a brand new landscape dotted with pothole lakes
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: and gravel ridges, along with huge glacial erratic boulders that
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: would cause problems for builders right up to the present day. Gradually,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: the native people's cultures stabilized into the tribes. The first Spanish, French, British, Dutch,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and Swedish colonizers found living in North America. The Europeans
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: came to northern North America for the rich fur bearing
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: animals that lived in the area, and the contest between
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: them to secure as much of that trade as possible
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: with the Native people led to decades of violent warfare.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: In the mid sixteen hundreds, Iroquois raiding parties struck here
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: to northern Illinois from their home base along New York'
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Hudson River in an effort to control the fur trade
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: that drove the resident tribal groups of the Illinois Confederate
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: west of the Mississippi River. Gradually, the Illinois filtered back,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: so that when the first French explorers arrived in the
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Illinois River valley in sixteen seventy three, Illinois groups were
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: once again living along the river, but the warfare had
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: debilitated the Illinois. In the seventeen forties, the Three Fires Confederacy,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: sensing the Illinois weakness, moved south from their recent homeland
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: on both shores of Lake Michigan and took the Fox
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: and other neighboring river valleys to the east for themselves.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: The Three Fires consisted of interrelated village groups of Pottawa, tomi, Ottawa,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: and Chippewa people. Most of their villages were established in
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: modern northern Indiana, with their territory extending all the way
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: west to the rich area along the Fox River. Villages
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: seemed to have been established in the Big Woods that
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: stretched in a giant triangle all the way from modern
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Batavia on the on the east bank of the river,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: south to Oswego and east to Naperville Merramech Hill near
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: modern Plano, across the river from Silver Spring State Park
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: was another longtime home of Native people, its occupation dating
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: back a thousand or more years in the area's history.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Before the Three Fires arrived, other villages existed at one
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: time or another in the Asseble Timber in today's Naosse
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Township and along Assable Creek. The Three Fires had been
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: staunch allies of the French, who had helped them in
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: their struggles against the Iroquois. After the British one the
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: French and Indian War seventeen fifty four to seventeen sixty three,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: leading to France withdrawing from most of its former North
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: American colonies, the local train Vibes allied themselves with the
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: charismatic leader Pontiac, whose war nearly eradicated British control of
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: the area north and west of the Ohio River, in
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: an effort to bring back French control. As a result,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: when war broke out between the thirteen American colonies in Britain,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: the Three Fires at first apparently participated in some raids
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: against the colonial frontier in modern Kentucky and Tennessee, but
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy eight, Virginia Militia Lieutenant Colonel George Rogers
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Clark managed to seize control of the Illinois country. He
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: negotiated naturality with the Three Fires that the Confederacy took
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: very seriously. In the summer of seventeen seventy nine, British
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: lie Lieutenant Thomas Bennett arrived at the Saint Joseph River
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: in northern Indiana with a substantial force of Native Americans,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: French Canadians, and British regulars, with any eye towards attacking Clark.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: But the Three Fires told Bennett and his legendary second
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: in command, Charles de Langlade, they would anny violate them
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: if they attempted to move any farther west, halting that effort. Meanwhile,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who was running a fur
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: trading post at Chicago, was acting as a spy for Clark,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: while ingratiating himself enough to the British that they eventually
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: commissioned him as a sergeant in their Indian Department. Although
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: no battles were fought here in the Fox Valley during
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the revolution, a number of armed forces on both sides
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: seemed to have marched through or near the Fox Valley,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: and during it all the Three Fires maintained their neutrality and,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: as noted above, enforced it with threats of their own
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: when necessary. Native people continued to live along the banks
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: of the Fox River for several more decades, including during
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the War of eighteen twelve, when the Three Fires decided
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: initially to throw in their lot with the British against
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the Americans who were invading their territory. Chief main Posche
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: at his village at Merrimack Hill and Chief Wabonzi from
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: his village near Aswego both apparently participated. Wabanzi and Shabonah,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: whose village was located west of the Fox River, allied
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: themselves with the Native leader Tecumsa during the war. They
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: were both with at the Battle of the Thames in
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Canada when he was killed in action. After that experience,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: both Wabanzi and Shabona decided peace with American settlers was
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: the better course. They maintained that attitude even during illinois
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Last Indian War, the eighteen thirty two conflict prompted by
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the Sauk warrior Blackhawk, when both aided local American settlers.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty six, the Three Fires people were removed
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: by the U. S Government west of the Mississippi River,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: first to Missouri, then to i Iowa, and finally to Kansas,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: where their descendants lived to this day. While the government
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: had legally obtained title to most of the three fires lands,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: the treaty grant to Shabona was still his village's property
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: when it was illegally sold from underneath him while he
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: was away. Today, a bit of that long ago injustice
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: has been remedied, although it remains a sore subject on
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: both sides. A reminder that while we might not care
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: about history, history cares about us. Interested in more local history,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: visit