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08 - Starved Rock- A Historical Sketch by Eaton G. Osman · Starved Rock- A Historical Sketch

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Speaker 1: Section eight of Starved Rock, a historical sketch by Eton
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Speaker 1: g Ossman. This librivo's recording is in the public domain
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Speaker 1: recording by Veronica Jenkins. Section eight The last of the
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Speaker 1: Illinois under the hollow sky, stretched on the prairie, lone,
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Speaker 1: center of glory, eye bleeding, disdain to groan, but like
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Speaker 1: a battle cry, peel forth my thunder moan bame wah wah,
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Speaker 1: hark to those whose spirit notes ye high heroes, divine,
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Speaker 1: hymned from your godlike throats. That song of praise is mine,
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Speaker 1: mine whose grave pennon floats? Or the Foeman's line bame
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Speaker 1: wah wah death song, the final tragedy. It is generally
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Speaker 1: believed that the tragedy which gave Starved Rock its suggestive
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Speaker 1: name was a part of the aftermath of the wars
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Speaker 1: of the Conspiracy of Pontiac. Yet really authentic accounts of
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Speaker 1: this occurrence are so few and of so so uncertain
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Speaker 1: authority that Beckworth insists there is really no authority at
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Speaker 1: all to support it other than the vague though charming
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Speaker 1: traditions drawn from the wonder stories of many tribes. Yet
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Speaker 1: no reader of this sketch will I hope be willing, however,
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Speaker 1: meager our authority to surrender at mister Beckworth's dictum, so
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Speaker 1: pathetic in picturesque tale, hollowed as it is by the
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Speaker 1: faith in its truth of our pioneer predecessors, who have
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Speaker 1: woven the tale into the very fabric of local historical tradition.
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Speaker 1: There is nothing in the least improbable in the legend. Rather,
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Speaker 1: there is much to support the affirmation of Indian, French,
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Speaker 1: and American traditions that the tragedy of the obliteration by
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Speaker 1: starvation here of a race of Dusky warriors did actually
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Speaker 1: take place, as residents of the Illinois Valley have been
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Speaker 1: led to believe for at least seventy five years. It
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Speaker 1: is not proposed to dwell on the conspiracy of Pontiac.
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Speaker 1: The student and the reader of romances alike will find
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Speaker 1: the record in Parkman's volumes bearing that title a broad
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Speaker 1: historic projection for the student, history as charmingly told as
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Speaker 1: romance for the general reader. Suffice it here to say
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Speaker 1: that a few days before his death in seventeen sixty nine,
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Speaker 1: Pontiac made his old friend Pierre Chateau, a trader, a
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Speaker 1: visit at Saint Louis and while there heard of an
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Speaker 1: Indian drinking bout or other festivities about to be held
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Speaker 1: at Cahokia. Thither Pontiac went in April seventeen sixty nine, and,
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Speaker 1: while drunk, was at the instigation of an Englishman, murdered
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Speaker 1: for the bribe of a barrel of whiskey by a
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Speaker 1: Kaskaskia Indian. The murder set the whole Illinois country aflame.
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Speaker 1: The news spread like lightning through the country, says one
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Speaker 1: account quoted by Parkman. The Indians assembled in great numbers,
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Speaker 1: attacked and destroyed all the peorias except about thirty families,
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Speaker 1: which were received into Fort Chartra. All the authorities agreed
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Speaker 1: that the murder brought on successive wars and the almost
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Speaker 1: total extermination of the Illinois. Parkman's own text says, could
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Speaker 1: Pontiac's shade have revisited the scene of his murder, his
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Speaker 1: savage spirit would have exalted in the vengeance which overwhelmed
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Speaker 1: the ebitors of the crime. Whole tribes were rooted out
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Speaker 1: to expiate it. Chiefs and sacams whose veins had thrilled
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Speaker 1: with his eloquence, young warriors whose aspiring hearts had caught
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Speaker 1: the inspiration of his greatness mustered to revenge his fate,
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Speaker 1: and from the north and the east their united bands
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Speaker 1: descended on the villages of the Illinois. Tradition has but
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Speaker 1: faintly preserved the memory of the event, and its only analysts,
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Speaker 1: men who held the intestine feuds of the savage tribes
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Speaker 1: in no more account than the quarrels of panthers or wildcats,
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Speaker 1: have left but a meager record. Yet enough remains to
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Speaker 1: tell us that over the grave of Pontiac more blood
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Speaker 1: was poured out in atonement than flowed from the veins
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Speaker 1: of the slaughtered heroes on the corpse of Patroclus, and
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Speaker 1: the remnant of the Illinois who survived the carnage remained
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Speaker 1: forever after, sunk in utter insignificance. The specific incident with
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Speaker 1: which the name of Starved Rock is indissolubly linked is
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Speaker 1: nowhere mentioned by the traveler's tales or military reports of
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Speaker 1: the time, nor are the Potawatamie Indians named in connection
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Speaker 1: with the revenge wreaked by Pontiac's Indian friends. Nevertheless, the
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Speaker 1: Potawatamie Indians, who had by this time come into possession
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Speaker 1: of most of the lands in Illinois, formerly held by
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Speaker 1: the tribes, who are named as a whole, as the
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Speaker 1: Illinois were on the ground at this time, and without
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Speaker 1: doubt took their part in the general fighting. The wonder story,
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Speaker 1: which mister Beckwith cites as the most interesting of those
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Speaker 1: preserving this tradition, is that published by the late Judge
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Speaker 1: Kate in a pamphlet entitled The Last of the Illinois
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Speaker 1: and a Sketch of the Potawatomies. The judge, in this
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Speaker 1: sketch says that the wars against the Illinois tribes had
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Speaker 1: so reduced them in numbers that, now, in their direst extremity,
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Speaker 1: driven hither as a last refuge, they found sufficient space
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Speaker 1: upon the half acre of ground which covers the summit
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Speaker 1: of Starved Rock. As its sides are perpendicular, ten men
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Speaker 1: could repel ten thousand with the means of warfare then
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Speaker 1: at their command. The Allies made no attempt to take
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Speaker 1: the fort on the rock by storm, but closely besieged
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Speaker 1: it on every side. On the north or river side.
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Speaker 1: The upper rock overhangs the water somewhat, and tradition tells
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Speaker 1: us how the Confederates placed themselves in canoes under the
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Speaker 1: shelving rock and cut the thongs of the besieged when
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Speaker 1: they lowered their vessels to obtain water from the river,
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Speaker 1: and so reduced them by thirst. But Mitchel, as far
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Speaker 1: as I know, never meant this as one of the
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Speaker 1: means resorted to by the Confederates to reduce their enemies.
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Speaker 1: Nor from an examination of the ground, do I think
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Speaker 1: this probable. But they depended upon a lack of provisions,
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Speaker 1: which we can readily appreciate must soon occur to a
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Speaker 1: savage people who rarely anticipate the future in storing up supplies.
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Speaker 1: How long the besieged held out, Mitchell did not and
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Speaker 1: probably could not tell us. But at last the time
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Speaker 1: came when the unfortunate remnant could hold out no longer.
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Speaker 1: They waited but a favorable opportunity to attempt their escape.
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Speaker 1: This was at last afforded by a dark and stormy night, when,
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Speaker 1: led by their few remaining warriors, all stole in profound
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Speaker 1: silence down the steep and narrow declivity, to be met
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Speaker 1: by a solid wall of their enemies surrounding the point
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Speaker 1: where alone a sortie could be made, and which had
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Speaker 1: been confidently expected. The horrid scene that ensued can be
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Speaker 1: better imagined than described. Nor quarter was asked or given.
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Speaker 1: For a time, the howlings of the tempest were drowned
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Speaker 1: by the yells of the combatants and the shrieks of
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Speaker 1: the victims. Desperation lent strength to even enfeebled arms, but
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Speaker 1: no efforts of valor could resist the overwhelming numbers actuated
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Speaker 1: by the direst hate. The braves fell one by one,
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Speaker 1: fighting like very fiends, and terribly did they revenge themselves
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Speaker 1: upon their enemies. The few women and children whom famine
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Speaker 1: had left but enfeebled skeletons, fell easy victims to the
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Speaker 1: war clubs of the terrible savages, who deemed it as
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Speaker 1: much a duty and almost as great a glory to
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Speaker 1: slaughter the emaciated women and the helpless children as to
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Speaker 1: strike down the men who were able to make resistance.
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Speaker 1: With arms in their hands. They were bent upon the
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Speaker 1: utter extermination of their hated enemies, and most successfully did
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Speaker 1: they bend their savage energies to the bloody task. Soon
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Speaker 1: the victims were stretched upon the sloping ground south and
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Speaker 1: west of the impregnable rock, their bodies lying stark upon
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Speaker 1: the sand which had been thrown up by the prairie winds.
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Speaker 1: The wails of the feeble and the strong had ceased
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Speaker 1: to fret the night winds, whose mournful size through the
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Speaker 1: neighboring pines sounded like a requiem. Here was enacted the
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Speaker 1: fitting finale to that work of death which had been
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Speaker 1: commenced scarcely a mile away a century before. But the
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Speaker 1: still more savage and terrible Iroquois still all were not destroyed.
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Speaker 1: Eleven of the most athletic warriors, in the darkness and
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Speaker 1: confusion of the fight, broke through the besieging lines. They
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Speaker 1: had marked well from their high perch on the isolated rock,
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Speaker 1: the little nook below where their enemies had moored at
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Speaker 1: least a part of their canoes, and to these they
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Speaker 1: had rushed with headlong speed, unnoticed by their foes. Into
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Speaker 1: these they threw themselves and hurried down the rapids below.
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Speaker 1: They had been trained to the use of the paddle
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Speaker 1: in the canoe, and knew well every intricacy of the channel,
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Speaker 1: so that they could safely thread it even in the
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Speaker 1: dark and voyi stress night. They knew their deadly enemies
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Speaker 1: would soon be in their wake, and that there was
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Speaker 1: no safe refuge for them short of Saint Louis. They
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Speaker 1: had no provisions to sustain their waning strength, and yet
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Speaker 1: it was certain death to stop by the way. Their
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Speaker 1: only hope was in pressing forward by night and by day,
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Speaker 1: without a moment's pause, scarcely looking back, yet ever fearing
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Speaker 1: that their pursuers would make their appearances around the point
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Speaker 1: they had last left behind. It was truly a raceful life.
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Speaker 1: If they could reach Saint Louis, they were safe. If overtaken,
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Speaker 1: there was no hope. We must leave to the imagination
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Speaker 1: the details of a race where the stake was so
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Speaker 1: momentous to the contestants. As life is sweeter even than revenge,
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Speaker 1: we may safely assume that the pursued were impelled to
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Speaker 1: even greater exertions than the pursuers. Those who ran for
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Speaker 1: life won the race. They reached Saint Louis before their
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Speaker 1: enemies came in sight, and told their appalling tale to
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Speaker 1: the commandant of the fort, from whom they received assurance
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Speaker 1: of protection and were generously supplied with food, which their
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Speaker 1: famished condition so much required. They had barely been done
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Speaker 1: when their enemies arrived and fiercely demanded their victims that
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Speaker 1: no drop of blood of their hated enemies might longer
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Speaker 1: circulate in human veins. This was refused when they retired
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Speaker 1: with impotent threats of future vengeance, which they never had
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Speaker 1: the means of executing. After their enemies had gone, the Illinois,
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Speaker 1: who never after even claimed that name, thanked their entertainers, and,
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Speaker 1: full of sorrow which no words can express, slowly paddled
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Speaker 1: their way across the river to seek new friends among
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Speaker 1: the tribes who then occupied the southern part of the state,
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Speaker 1: and who would listen with sympathy to the sad tale
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Speaker 1: they had to relate. They alone remained the broken, remnant
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Speaker 1: and last representative of their once great nation. Their name
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Speaker 1: even now must be blotted out from among the names
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Speaker 1: of the Aboriginal tribes. Henceforth, they must cease to be
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Speaker 1: of the present, and could only be remembered as a
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Speaker 1: part of the past. This is the last we know
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Speaker 1: of the last of the Illinois. There were once a
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Speaker 1: great and prosperous people, as advanced and as humane as
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Speaker 1: any of the Aborigines around them. We do not know
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Speaker 1: that a drop of their blood now animates a human being,
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Speaker 1: but their name is perpetuated in this great state, of
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Speaker 1: whose record of the past all of us feel so proud,
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Speaker 1: and of whose future the hopes of us all are
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Speaker 1: so sanguine. Till the morning light revealed that the canoes
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Speaker 1: were gone. The Confederates believed that their sanguinary work had
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Speaker 1: been so thoroughly done that not a living soul remained.
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Speaker 1: So soon as the escape was discovered, the pursuit was commenced.
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Speaker 1: But as we have seen, without success. The pursuers returned
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Speaker 1: disappointed and dejected that their enemy's scalps were not hanging
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Speaker 1: from their belts. But surely blood enough had been spilled,
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Speaker 1: vengeance should have been more more than satisfied. I have failed,
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Speaker 1: no doubt, to properly render Mitchell's account of this sad drama,
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Speaker 1: for I have been obliged to use my own language.
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Speaker 1: Without the inspiration awakened in him by the memory of
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Speaker 1: the scene which served as his first baptism in blood.
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Speaker 1: Who can wonder that it made a lasting impression on
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Speaker 1: his youthful mind. Still he was not fond of relating it,
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Speaker 1: nor would he speak of it except to those who
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Speaker 1: had acquired his confidence and intimacy. It is probably the
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Speaker 1: only account to be had related by an eye witness,
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Speaker 1: and we may presume that it is the most authentic,
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Speaker 1: while the writer must confess that the learned and venerable
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Speaker 1: jurist's version of the Starved Rock tradition is open to
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Speaker 1: the criticism that some of its details seem improbable. Nevertheless,
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Speaker 1: of the substantial truth of the legend, we believe there
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Speaker 1: can be but little doubt. Even man's wonder stories have
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Speaker 1: always something of fact of human experience or a physical
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Speaker 1: phenomena behind them, as one might reply to mister Beckwith's skepticism.
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Speaker 1: But the story of Starved Rock, as told by Judge Cayton,
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Speaker 1: has been corroborated by other competent searchers for truth, especially
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Speaker 1: by Honorable Perry A. Armstrong of Morris, one of the
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Speaker 1: pioneers of Illinois, who knew personally many of the famous
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Speaker 1: Indians of this part of the state who died subsequently
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Speaker 1: to the coming of the permanent American settlers. Among these
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Speaker 1: was an old chief named Shickshak, claiming to be one
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Speaker 1: hundred and four years of age, who, as mister Armstrong
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Speaker 1: said in an address at a celebration at Starved Rock
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Speaker 1: of the two hundredth anniversary September tenth, eighteen seventy three
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Speaker 1: of its discovery, told him substantially the same story that
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Speaker 1: Mitchell told Judge Cayton, which the latter published in eighteen
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Speaker 1: seventy six. Shickshack said he was present at the siege
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Speaker 1: a boy half grown. The late n Matson of Princeton
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Speaker 1: was another student of this legend. In prosecuting his historical research,
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Speaker 1: he spent much time prior to eighteen eighty two with
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Speaker 1: the descendants of old French colonists who had lived at
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Speaker 1: Keskaskia in Cohokia in the last century. Mister Manson was
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Speaker 1: more than convinced of the truth of the legend so called. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: he goes so far as to identify the only survivor
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Speaker 1: of the fearful tragedy. This warrior, mister Manson tells us,
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Speaker 1: was a young man partly white, being a descendant on
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Speaker 1: his father's side from the French. Being alone in the
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Speaker 1: world after the catastrophe, he went to Peoria, joined the colony,
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Speaker 1: and there ended his days. He embraced Christianity. Mister Manson
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Speaker 1: continues and became an officer in the church, assuming the
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Speaker 1: name of Antonio LaBelle, and his descendants are now eighteen
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Speaker 1: eighty two living near Prairie de Roche on the Mississippi,
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Speaker 1: one of whom Charles LaBelle was a party to a
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Speaker 1: suit in the United States Court to recover the land
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Speaker 1: on which Peoria now stands. Mister Manson further states that
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Speaker 1: Colonel Joseph and Barassa, a descendant of the Illinois French,
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Speaker 1: living eighteen eighty two in Kansas, had collected a large
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Speaker 1: number of stories relating to the Starved Rock tragedy, and
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Speaker 1: himself had heard two aged warriors who participated in the
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Speaker 1: massacre narrate many incidents which took place at that time.
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Speaker 1: Another old Indian named Mashaw, once well known by early
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Speaker 1: Ottawa hud Been traders, Mister Matson says, also made various
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Speaker 1: statements through an interpreter in relation to the tragedy to
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Speaker 1: early American traders and settlers. Mashaw said that seven Indians
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Speaker 1: escaped from the rock. Mador Jeannette, also an employee of
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Speaker 1: the Chateaus the famous fur traders at Saint Louis, who
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Speaker 1: lived many years in an Indian village at the mouth
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Speaker 1: of Fox River, has left many traditions of this tragedy
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Speaker 1: to his descendants. According to mister Matson, Jeanette came to
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Speaker 1: the country in seventeen seventy two, and says he himself
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Speaker 1: saw the bones of the dead Illinois upon the rock.
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Speaker 1: An Indian name Shatty or Shatty was still another who
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Speaker 1: gave mister Manson details of this story, which he had
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Speaker 1: from his father, who was present Shatty. Shatty said only
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Speaker 1: one man, the half breed La Belle, escaped. Two traders,
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Speaker 1: Robert Malay and Felix Laponce, are said to have left
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Speaker 1: the record that, returning from Canada with goods, they saw
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Speaker 1: the buzzards on Starved Rock cleaning the bones of the dead. Further,
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Speaker 1: mister Manson adds that Father Bush, a priest of Peoria,
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Speaker 1: traveling up Illinois River the following spring seventeen seventy, ascended
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Speaker 1: the rock and there saw the horrid evidences of the tragedy.
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Speaker 1: The Holy Father's written story of this visit being in
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Speaker 1: manuscript dated April seventeen seventy, which in eighteen eighty two
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Speaker 1: was in the hands of one Hippolyte Palais, then living
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Speaker 1: on the American bottom. Not to go further, it may
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Speaker 1: be said in conclusion that there is nothing improbable in
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Speaker 1: the Starve Rock legend. Speaking of the remorseless massacre of
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Speaker 1: several hundred foxes Attigamis at Detroit seventeen twelve by French
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Speaker 1: and Indians Doctor Parkmansas. There is a disposition to assume
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Speaker 1: that events like that just recounted were a consequence of
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Speaker 1: the contact of white men with red but the primitive
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Speaker 1: Indian was quite able to enact such tragedies without the
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Speaker 1: aid of Europeans. Before French or English influence had been
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Speaker 1: felt in the interior of the continent. A great part
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Speaker 1: of North America was the frequent witness of scenes more
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Speaker 1: lurid and coloring, and on a greater scale of horror.
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Speaker 1: In the first half of the seventeenth century, the whole
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Speaker 1: country from Lake Superior to the Tennessee, and from the
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Speaker 1: Alleghanies to the Mississippi was ravaged by wars of extermination,
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Speaker 1: in which tribes large and powerful by Indian standards, perished,
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Speaker 1: dwindled into feeble remnants, or were absorbed by other tribes
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Speaker 1: and vanished from sight. Extermination by red man's and white
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Speaker 1: man's hands alone was the fate of the Indians, and
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Speaker 1: the Starved Rock tragedy was but an incident of the
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Speaker 1: resistless and remorseless Movement of Indian Destiny end of section eight,
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Speaker 1: recorded by Veronica Jenkins in Ottawa, Illinois,