Sauk Village becomes Quincy

In exchange for a prized
hog, Quincy founder John Wood settled a dispute with local Native Americans to
solidify his foothold in the spring of 1823 in what would become the city of
Quincy.

Wood had been camping since the summer of 1822 at what would
later become Front and Delaware streets. The area was full of Native Americans,
he noted, and only few European-American settlers. Wood soon began construction
of a cabin and spent his first night in it on Dec. 9, 1822.

During the following spring, some of the Native Americans
buried one of their own in a sitting position under a tree near Wood’s cabin.
They had built up around the body a sort of tomb of wood, bark and sticks. Soon
the odor of the decaying body became unpleasant. Wood and early settler
Jeremiah Rose, who had moved in with Wood in March, set fire to the tomb, thus
cremating the Native American’s remains. The Native Americans who had buried
the person were insulted and confronted the settlers. As compensation, Wood and
Rose gave the Native Americans a hog, which they then ate, thus appeasing them
for the affront.

The cremation incident was not Wood’s only run-in with the
local Native Americans. Later in 1823, Wood raised a crop of corn and pumpkins
near his cabin. On one occasion Wood caught a Native American carrying off a
load of pumpkins. Wood confronted the Native American and tried to explain that
taking the pumpkins was wrong; however, Wood was unsuccessful in making his
point clear. Wood relented, gave the Native Americans the pumpkins back and
added a large watermelon to the lot. The Native American was pleased and tried
to thank Wood with the Native American’s minimal grasp of the English language.
He placed his hand gently on Wood’s shoulder and said, “You are a big rascal.”
This was understood to be the Native American’s attempt to state that Wood was
a good “Chemoka” man, meaning a good white man.

Ultimately, Quincy would become a friend to many dislocated
peoples, including African Americans fleeing slavery in the South and Missouri,
Mormons running from persecution in Missouri, and the Potawatomi tribes of
Native Americans on the “Trail of Death” from northern Indiana through Quincy
to Kansas. However, in the early 1800s, European-American settlers and Native
Americans were still determining whether and how to co-exist on the frontier
located in the Mississippi and Illinois river valleys. Quincy was no different.

French explorers Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette had
explored the Mississippi Valley in 1673 and probably had passed through the
Quincy area around July 1. Trading between Europeans and Native Americans soon
arose. A trading post called Bluffs existed here from about 1730 through 1813.
Prior to and concurrently it had been a robust Native American village referred
to as “Sauk Village” by European and American traders and settlers.

The site at Front and Delaware was the beginning of a Native
American trail that led up the ravine to the top of the bluff, one of the few
natural inclines from the Mississippi River to the top of bluff in Quincy. The
trail then wound over toward State Street and east toward Payson and then
Beverly. The Payson and Beverly prairies were buffalo hunting grounds. The
trail continued east to the Illinois River.

On Nov. 3, 1804, five chiefs of the Sauk and Fox tribes
signed a treaty in St. Louis, ceding to the United States the land between the
Illinois, Mississippi, Fox and Wisconsin rivers. However, there was immediately
great disagreement about the terms of the treaty, which effectively pushed the
Sauk and Fox tribes either west of the Mississippi or north. Unrest among the
tribes and between the tribes and European-American settlers continued.

In 1805, Gen. Zebulon Pike was sent by the
federal government to explore the Mississippi Valley further and
secure the United States’ interest in the valley. He
preferred the location of what would become Warsaw instead of
Quincy as a better strategic point for military purposes.
In 1815 Fort Edwards was built at Warsaw.

During the War of 1812, the British and Americans fought each
other for control of the Northwest Territory, which included the modern states
of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and a portion of Minnesota —
and other areas. The British sought allies among the many Native American
tribes, including the Sauk and Fox tribes of Illinois.

In September 1813, U.S. Brigadier Gen. Benjamin Howard lead
approximately 1,400 militia men on a raid from a fort east of Alton, north
through western Illinois. The object was to neutralize any Native American
support for the British and exert control over the area for the United States.
During that campaign, Howard’s troops destroyed Sauk Village. The Bluffs
trading post was abandoned but not destroyed.

Prior to Howard’s raid, many Native Americans in Sauk
Village had fled either south to Cap au Gris near Hardin or north to Iowa
or northern Illinois. Those who went south were largely supporters of the
Americans. A portion of those who went north ultimately joined up with Black
Hawk, a Native American warrior who later led them in a war with American
settlers in Illinois. In 1832 Wood volunteered to fight with the Illinois
militia against Black Hawk’s warriors, as did later President Abraham Lincoln.

Between the destruction of Sauk Village and abandonment of
Bluffs in 1813, the Quincy area was a quiet backwater. However, it was a part
of the land between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers in Illinois that became
the Military Bounty Tract. Parcels in the tract were awarded thereafter to the
veterans of the War of 1812 and spurred the European-American settling of what
would be Quincy and Adams County.

Wood and early settler Willard Keyes met during the winter of
1819-20 and together sought a stake in the Military Bounty Tract. In 1820, they
settled in what is now Pike County. Later in 1820 they ventured north to
explore likely parcels for more permanent settlement and passed through “Indian
Camp Point,” a popular Native American camp site. After the area was settled by
European Americans, its name was changed to simply Camp Point.

Wood and Keyes were within 12 miles of Quincy during their
1820 trip but did not visit at that time. In 1821, they returned north and
identified a 160-acre parcel owned by Peter Flinn (or Flynn) as an attractive
location. In the summer of 1822, Wood purchased the parcel, which was
located near the former site of Bluffs, a name still used at the time to refer
to the area.

Wood, Keyes and Rose observed little of what had been Sauk Village or the Bluffs
trading post other than some remnants of traders’ huts such as chimneys and
fireplaces and the “Indian mounds” that pre-dated Sauk Village. Nevertheless,
there were many Native Americans still living in the area.

Gen. John Tillson, Wood’s son-in-law, recorded the Native
American reaction to the steamboat “Western Engineer” passing through the area
in 1820 or 1821. The Native Americans called it a “smoke boat” or “fire canoe.”
On the bow running from the keel was “the image of a huge serpent, painted
black, its mouth red, and tongue the color of a live coal.” The steam escaped
through the mouth of this image. The Native Americans reportedly thought the
steam was the power of their “Great Spirit” and that a big snake carried the
boat on its back.

The Black Hawk War in 1832 and the ongoing expansion of
European-American settlements throughout Illinois, especially northern
Illinois, during the 1820s and 1830s marked an end to large, independent Native
American communities in Illinois. However, Native Americans continued to live
in the state, including the Quincy area, and to interact with the
European-American settlers.

Additional information regarding the Quincy area’s Native
American heritage at the time of Quincy’s founding and much earlier periods is
available from the library of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams
County, the Illinois Room of the Quincy Public Library, the Native American
collections of the Quincy Museum, and Indian Mounds Park in Quincy.

Hal Oakley is a lawyer with Schmiedeskamp, Robertson, Neu
& Mitchell LLP and a civic volunteer. He has authored several legal
articles and edited, compiled and/or contributed to books and articles on local
history.

Sources

Asbury, Henry. Reminiscences
of Quincy, Illinois. Quincy, IL: D. Wilcox & Sons, 1882.

Conover, Janet
Gates. “Some Indian Facts from Adams County.” Unpublished
paper, 1984. In HSQAC Research File: MsI Indians – Adams County.

“How We Celebrated:
Unveiling of the Statue of the Late Gov. Wood on the Fourth.” The
Quincy Weekly Whig. July 12, 1883: 2, col. 1-6.

Stout, David B., Erminie
Wheeler-Voegolin, and Emily J. Blasingham. Sac, Fox and Iowa Indians
II: Indians of E. Missouri, W. Illinois, and S. Wisconsin, From the
Proto-Historic Period to 1804. American Indian Ethnohistory.
New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1974.

Temple, Wayne
C. Indian Villages of the Illinois Country: Historic Tribes.
State of Illinois: Illinois State Museum, 1958.

Tillson, Gen. John.
History of Quincy. In Past and Present of the City of
Quincy and Adams County, Illinois