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

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  Speaker 1: Section seven of Starved Rock, a historical sketch by Eton
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  Speaker 1: g Osman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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  Speaker 1: recording by Veronica Jenkins Section seven The Drama of the
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  Speaker 1: eighteenth century and Starved Rock in the eighteenth century. The
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  Speaker 1: Drama of the eighteenth century. God said, I am tired
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  Speaker 1: of kings. I suffer them no more. My angel, his
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  Speaker 1: name is Freedom. Choose him to be your king. He
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  Speaker 1: shall cut pathways east and west and fend you with
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  Speaker 1: his wing. Emerson, the scenery of tragedy Starved Rock played
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  Speaker 1: its humble role, or rather was a part of the
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  Speaker 1: mesoncen of the momentous drama of the eighteenth century, when
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  Speaker 1: the single struggle took place between freedom and absolutism for
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  Speaker 1: the possession of the fairest and greatest part of the
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  Speaker 1: North American continent. When the century opened, the French Empire
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  Speaker 1: in America was at the flood tide of its prosperity.
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  Speaker 1: The triple alliance of priest, soldier and trader had, with
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  Speaker 1: unerring instinct and judgment, taken possession of every route to
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  Speaker 1: the interior of the continent, and had so united the
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  Speaker 1: native tribes in the French interest that Canada and her
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  Speaker 1: western frontier were deemed so secure that, as we have seen,
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  Speaker 1: most of the distant garrison were withdrawn as unnecessary to
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  Speaker 1: the preservation of colonial autonomy in the far South. Though
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  Speaker 1: LaSalle's schemes had come to naught, they had been revived
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  Speaker 1: seven years after his death by Tonti, who had successfully
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  Speaker 1: urged the seizure of Louisiana for three reasons, firstly as
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  Speaker 1: the base of attack upon Mexico, second as a depot
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  Speaker 1: for the furs and led ores of the interior, and
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  Speaker 1: thirdly as the only means of preventing the English from
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  Speaker 1: becoming masters of the West. More successful than LaSalle, de Berville,
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  Speaker 1: though he built his fort at Biloxi, State of Mississippi
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  Speaker 1: and not on the river, had actually taken possession of
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  Speaker 1: the mouth of the Mississippi, thus outwitting the English, who
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  Speaker 1: were in fact on the point of seizing the river
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  Speaker 1: and retarding for more than a hundred years the development
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  Speaker 1: of Louisiana on lines of English freedom. New France had
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  Speaker 1: therefore two heads, one looking to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence,
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  Speaker 1: the other to the Gulf of Mexico. And if the
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  Speaker 1: northern wing of the Empire had its hardly concealed jealousy
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  Speaker 1: of the southern end, it nevertheless appreciated the value of
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  Speaker 1: the latter as an aid to stand the incoming tide
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  Speaker 1: of English influence in the North. One strategic mistake only
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  Speaker 1: had the builders of the Franco American Empire made, but
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  Speaker 1: it was vital, irremediable. They had neglected the Mohawk and
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  Speaker 1: Hudson Rivers of New York, which were occupied by the Dutch,
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  Speaker 1: who were even shrewder traders than the French and more
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  Speaker 1: far seeing. Up to about this time, too, the English
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  Speaker 1: had been content to occupy, as agriculturists, a narrow strip
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  Speaker 1: along the Atlantic coast, where they busied themselves and fortunately
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  Speaker 1: for future generations, worried themselves too and their governors with
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  Speaker 1: questions of political and religious rights and privileges, rather than
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  Speaker 1: with what the continent contained behind the Appalachian Wall, which
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  Speaker 1: few of them cared to penetrate or to cross. The
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  Speaker 1: Hudson and the Mohawk Rivers, however, pierced that wall, and
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  Speaker 1: when now the Dutch possessions in New York came into
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  Speaker 1: the hands of the English, the character of the Albany
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  Speaker 1: Colony did not wholly change, but the Englishmen began to
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  Speaker 1: appreciate the possibilities of the vast interior for trade, for
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  Speaker 1: he even then was a more successful trader than even
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  Speaker 1: the Dutchmen. For twenty five years the English traders had
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  Speaker 1: been established on Hudson's Bay, diverting the northern trade of
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  Speaker 1: New France from the Saint Lawrence. If now the English
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  Speaker 1: should also get a foothold on the Great Lakes and
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  Speaker 1: in the famous beaver country of the present Michigan Peninsula,
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  Speaker 1: the northern wing of New France would be hemmed within
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  Speaker 1: very narrow limits, indeed, and her trade ruined by the
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  Speaker 1: cheaper and better goods of the Yankees. The session to
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  Speaker 1: the English by the Iroquois in seventeen o one of
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  Speaker 1: all their claims to the country formerly occupied by the Hurons,
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  Speaker 1: precipitated the struggle which the shrewd Count Frontenac had long foreseen,
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  Speaker 1: but which the political clerical influence with his successors and
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  Speaker 1: the proverbial corruption of the court at Quebec had left
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  Speaker 1: the colony more or less unprepared to meet. These Iroquois
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  Speaker 1: lands were bounded by the Lakes Ontario, Huron, and Erie,
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  Speaker 1: containing in length about eight hundred miles, and in breadth
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  Speaker 1: four hundred miles, including the country where beavers and all
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  Speaker 1: sorts of wild game keep. They pierced the very hard
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  Speaker 1: New France. The problem, then, that confronted the French authorities
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  Speaker 1: at Quebec was how to stem this unpropitious tide. The
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  Speaker 1: building of afforded Detroit by la Motte Cardillac was the
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  Speaker 1: first step in opposition. Another step in the same direction
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  Speaker 1: brings us back again to starved Rock in the Illinois
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  Speaker 1: Starved Rock in the eighteenth century. Freedom all wing, it expands,
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  Speaker 1: nor perches in a narrow place. Her broad van seeks
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  Speaker 1: unplanted lands. Emerson the Indian sieges wherever the French came
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  Speaker 1: in contact with them. Their relations to the Indians were,
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  Speaker 1: for the most part singularly felicitous. This fact may find
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  Speaker 1: explanation aside from the natural adaptability of the French in
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  Speaker 1: the circumstance that they made no effort to dispossess the
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  Speaker 1: Indians of their lands or hunting grounds. It was at
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  Speaker 1: least tacitly agreed that the savages should be left an
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  Speaker 1: undisturbed possession of the whole of the vast domain of
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  Speaker 1: the west On conditioned that they allowed the French to
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  Speaker 1: control or monopoly as its trade. Besides the Corruur de Bois,
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  Speaker 1: who made New France and built the chain of forts
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  Speaker 1: which bound the west to Canada, though proud of their
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  Speaker 1: French blooded language, were in the bush quite as much
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  Speaker 1: Indian as French, and thus they had immense influence over them.
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  Speaker 1: Above all, the Couruers hated the English, and being the
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  Speaker 1: shrewdest of diplomats, they won over the Indians to themselves,
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  Speaker 1: and both patrolled the forests and lakes as against the
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  Speaker 1: venturesome Englishmen. Even the Iroquois had become neutral for the time,
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  Speaker 1: and the destiny of America seemed already decided. For the
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  Speaker 1: Lilies of France floated without opposition over the entire expanse,
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  Speaker 1: from Quebec to the mouth of the Mississippi, and from
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  Speaker 1: the Alleghanies to the base of the Rocky Mountains. But
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  Speaker 1: the curse of Canada was the monopoly held by the
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  Speaker 1: one trading company, which had legal control of all the
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  Speaker 1: commerce of the colony, and whose goods were not only poorer,
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  Speaker 1: but were extortionately high as compared with those of the English.
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  Speaker 1: The Indians were not slow to discover this difference, and
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  Speaker 1: they began to chafe under the French trading yoke. This
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  Speaker 1: was especially true of the Foxes of Wisconsin, a nation
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  Speaker 1: whose renown for bravery, independence, intractability, and endurance was then
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  Speaker 1: second to that of no tribe of the West. The
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  Speaker 1: behavior of the Foxes so exasperated the French authorities that
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  Speaker 1: it was understood, at least among the Indian allies of
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  Speaker 1: the French, that the governor desired the utter extermination of
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  Speaker 1: the Fox nation. The massacre of a large part of
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  Speaker 1: them at Detroit in seventeen twelve may or may not
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  Speaker 1: have been deliberately planned by the French, but it seems
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  Speaker 1: to have been so understood by the allies, who, after
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  Speaker 1: the siege was over, wherein several hundred Foxes were butchered,
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  Speaker 1: set out for Quebec to claim the reward which they
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  Speaker 1: insisted the governor had promised for the Fox's destruction. The
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  Speaker 1: tragedy at Detroit, though it crippled the Fox nation, did
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  Speaker 1: not destroy it nor break the spirit of these indomitable savages.
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  Speaker 1: It only deepened their dislike of the French into a
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  Speaker 1: grim and undying hatred. After a short truce, during which
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  Speaker 1: they made an alliance with the Sioux, the Foxes and
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  Speaker 1: small war parties began to harass the Illinois, so that
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  Speaker 1: by seventeen fourteen the latter were practically driven away from
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  Speaker 1: their old homes on the Illinois, never to return, having
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  Speaker 1: settled under the protecting arms of the French at Kaskaskia
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  Speaker 1: and Fort Chartre on the Mississippi. Indeed, the Foxes, by
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  Speaker 1: their settlement on Fox River of Wisconsin and their destruction
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  Speaker 1: of the Illinois, had become virtual masters of both lines
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  Speaker 1: of travel between the East and the West, and communication
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  Speaker 1: between France and Louisiana became extremely difficult and dangerous. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: they had almost split the Empire of New France asunder.
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  Speaker 1: The situation had become desperate therefore, and in seventeen sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: des la Vini was sent with eight hundred French and
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  Speaker 1: Indian allies to crush the Foxes at their Wisconsin village.
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  Speaker 1: The latter were again badly punished and gave hostages to
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  Speaker 1: preserve peace. But when seventeen eighteen it appeared that but
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  Speaker 1: one of the hostages remained alive and he had lost
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  Speaker 1: an eye, the Foxes again became restless and soon began
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  Speaker 1: anew to harass the Illinois tribes at length. The crisis came.
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  Speaker 1: The Illinois, in seventeen twenty two, captured the nephew of Oshila,
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  Speaker 1: the principal Fox war chief, and burned him alive, on
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  Speaker 1: which the Foxes attacked them, drove them to the top
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  Speaker 1: of Starved Rock for refuge, and held them there at mercy.
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  Speaker 1: This Illinois tribe was the Peoria, the last of the
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  Speaker 1: tribes to cling to the famous stronghold of Lo Salad
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  Speaker 1: Starved Rock, all the other tribe tbes having fled to
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  Speaker 1: the west. Unluckily, we know nothing of the details of
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  Speaker 1: the siege except the numbers of the slain twenty Peorias
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  Speaker 1: and one hundred and twenty of the besiegers, says Hubbard.
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  Speaker 1: But the bare figures are eloquent. They tell not of
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  Speaker 1: a mere blockade, but of fierce assaults, storming parties, desperate
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  Speaker 1: attempts to scale the heights, the old story of Foxes,
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  Speaker 1: fury and reckless courage. News of this attack on the
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  Speaker 1: Peorias having reached Fort Chartre, a detachment of a hundred men,
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  Speaker 1: commanded by Chevalier deot Quiete and Sieur de Tisne, was
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  Speaker 1: sent to their assistance. Before this reinforcement reached the rock. However,
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  Speaker 1: the Foxes raised the siege and departed. The Peorias nevertheless
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  Speaker 1: abandoned their Illinois home, which they had occupied up to
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  Speaker 1: this time, and united with the other tribe at Kaskaskia,
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  Speaker 1: so that after all the Foxes had been successful and
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  Speaker 1: again had control of the very heart of New France,
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  Speaker 1: the Illinois River. It was a grave disaster for the French.
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  Speaker 1: Cheulevois says, for now that there is nothing to check
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  Speaker 1: the raids of the Foxes. Communication between Canada and Louisiana
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  Speaker 1: became less practicable. At Versailles, this last defense of the
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  Speaker 1: Foxes seemed unpardonable, and the colonial minister declared that the
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  Speaker 1: Ottagamis Foxes must be effectually put down, and that his
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  Speaker 1: Majesty will reward the officer who will reduce or rather
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  Speaker 1: destroy them. In seventeen twenty eight, therefore, Sieur de Lagnieri
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  Speaker 1: went from Quebec with five hundred French and a thousand
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  Speaker 1: Indians to destroy the Foxes. In August, they burned the
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  Speaker 1: Indians village in Wisconsin and destroyed their crops, but the
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  Speaker 1: nimble Foxes escaped him. In seventeen thirty. Colonne de Villiers,
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  Speaker 1: who in seventeen fifty four defeated George Washington at Fort Necessity,
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  Speaker 1: appeared at Quebec with the news that his father, commander
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  Speaker 1: of the old Fort Miami on Saint Joseph River, had
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  Speaker 1: struck the Foxes a severe blow, killing two hundred of
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  Speaker 1: their warriors and six hundred women and children. Vieer's force
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  Speaker 1: of one hundred and seventy frenchmen had been gathered from
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  Speaker 1: various western posts and was assisted by twelve to thirteen
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  Speaker 1: hundred Indian allies under Surge de Saint Age, father and
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  Speaker 1: son from the Illinois settlements, and de Noyelles from among
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  Speaker 1: the Miamis in Indiana. The accounts of the affair are
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  Speaker 1: obscure and not very trustworthy, says Parkman. It seems that
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  Speaker 1: the Foxes began the fray by an attack on the
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  Speaker 1: Illinois at Lesalle's old station of La Brochet, Starved Rock
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  Speaker 1: on the River Illinois. On hearing of this, the French
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  Speaker 1: commanders mustered their Indian allies, hastened to the spot and
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  Speaker 1: found the Foxes entrenched in a grove which they had
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  Speaker 1: surrounded with a stockade. The battle began on the nineteenth
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  Speaker 1: of August seventeen thirty and lasted twenty two days, said Heberd,
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  Speaker 1: who bases his account upon the narrative of Furland. The
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  Speaker 1: Foxes had chosen an admirable position in a piece of
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  Speaker 1: woods upon a gentle slope by the side of a
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  Speaker 1: small river. Although outnumbered four to one, they fought with
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  Speaker 1: their usual dash and valor, making many desperate sorties, but
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  Speaker 1: were each time driven back by the overwhelming numbers of
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  Speaker 1: the enemy. The French, on their part, dug trenches and
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  Speaker 1: proceeded with all the caution they had been taught by
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  Speaker 1: many campaigns against these redoubtable foes. After a while, the
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  Speaker 1: supply of food gave out, and famine reigned in both camps.
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  Speaker 1: The Foxes and the French suffered alike under the calm,
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  Speaker 1: cruel impartiality of nature. Two hundred Illinois Indians deserted, but
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  Speaker 1: the French persevered and began the construction of a fort
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  Speaker 1: to prevent the besieged from going to the river for water.
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  Speaker 1: Further resistance now seemed impossible, but on the eighth of
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  Speaker 1: September a violent storm arose, a coompanied by heavy thunder
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  Speaker 1: and torrents of rain. The following night was rainy, dark
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  Speaker 1: and cold, and under its cover, the Foxes stole away
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  Speaker 1: from their fort. Before they had gone far, the crying
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  Speaker 1: of their children betrayed them, but the French did not
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  Speaker 1: dare to attack them amidst a darkness so dense that
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  Speaker 1: it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe. In the morning, however,
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  Speaker 1: they set out in hot pursuit. The pursuit became a
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  Speaker 1: mere massacre, the Foxes, being then without ammunition, from which
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  Speaker 1: only fifty or sixty of the Foxes escaped. Many of
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  Speaker 1: them were burned at the stake, and the Canadian Governor's
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  Speaker 1: report to Paris closes with the cheering news behold a
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  Speaker 1: nation humiliated in such a fashion that they will never
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  Speaker 1: more trouble the earth. In truth, the offending tribe must, now,
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  Speaker 1: one would think, have ceased to be dangerous, but nothing
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  Speaker 1: less than its total destruction would content the French. The French, however,
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  Speaker 1: never afterwards sent an expedition against the Foxes, but turned
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  Speaker 1: them over to the tender mercies of their allies, especially
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  Speaker 1: the Hurons, their deadly enemies. But even they failed to
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  Speaker 1: annihilate these splendid savages. The remnant of whom allied themselves
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  Speaker 1: with the Socks, a tribe who, as the Socks and Foxes,
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  Speaker 1: were a continued menace to the frontier, and in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty two rose in open war with the United States
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  Speaker 1: authorities under their famous chief Black Hawk. Though they met
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  Speaker 1: the fate of all their race. Nevertheless, the Foxes, unconsciously,
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  Speaker 1: as has been seen, played an important part in shaping
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  Speaker 1: the destiny of the continent. For it was no slight
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  Speaker 1: service to liberty as opposed to absolutism that they closed
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  Speaker 1: the gateway between Canada and Louisiana, and for thirty years
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  Speaker 1: virtually kept it close, thus preventing the consolidation of New
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  Speaker 1: France and paving the way for the Anglo Saxon conquest
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  Speaker 1: and occupation. When the time was ripe for that happy event,
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  Speaker 1: starved Rock, then, as the spot where took place the
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  Speaker 1: most important of those struggles between the French and their
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  Speaker 1: unconquerable savage foes, thus became a by no means insignificant
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  Speaker 1: part of the scenery of that greater contest of races
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  Speaker 1: and ideas, which ultimately closed by handing the continent over
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  Speaker 1: to its rightful inheritors, the free men of America and
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  Speaker 1: of section seven recorded by Veronica Jenkins in Ottawa, Illinois,