Upper Mississipi: or, historical sketches of the Mound-Builders, the Indian tribes ... from A.D. 1600 to the present time

Preface

. That portion of the United States to which the following pages are chiefly devoted, was known to the old French traders and settlers as " upper Louisiana," and included the country above the mouth of the Ohio river. That region is now generally called in the West by the name of the " upper Mississippi." The inhabitants of our Atlantic States generally spoke of this territory as "the country north-west of the Ohio river," which name they finally abbreviated to the " North-west; " and were understood by that name to include all the country in the United States extending west from the foot of Lake Erie and the Ohio river to the Rocky mountains. This region was first explored and occupied by French traders and Catholic missionaries from Canada, and was but little known to the English until after the surrender of Canada in 1760, by which the English became possessed of the French trading-posts; but the Pontiac war, which soon followed, implicated many of the French traders and missionaries in the conspiracy against the English, and led to their expulsion from the country; and the long wars which followed soon after in Europe had the effect to lock up the early authentic history of the North-west in the archives of the French government.

Many of these documents, however, have lately been copied, by the permission of the French officials, and published by the authority of the legislatures of New York and some other States; and valuable information touching this history has thus lately been brought to the knowlege of our inhabitants. But as this mass of facts, together with the explorations of the early French travelers and missionaries, are not collated and condensed so as to

PREFACE.

. be of value to the mass of the people, the writer has attentively examined these volumes, with the American histories, and the laws and documents of the United States and of the several States, and thus collected the leading incidents in the history of the north-west; to which he has added his own knowledge of events derived from a residence in the country of over twenty-six years. In handling this mass of facts, the writer has endeavored to group together the kindred subjects for perspicuity, and by condensation to bring them into as small a compass as practicable, leaving mainly to the reader to make his own speculations on the motives of the actors, and draw his own philosophical conclusions. In this manner he has attempted to bring to light the extinct race of people called the " Mound-Builders," locate the north-western Indian tribes, and trace their wars with each other, and their con nection with the "French and Indian" wars of the colonies, and their wars against the United States; marking their emigrations, and detailing the efforts of the whites to Christianize and civilize them; follow the tides of white emigrations, noting the organization of territorial and State governments, and other institutions; describe the physical character of the Mississippi, and the great lakes, and giving the progress of their navigation and commerce ; mark the building of canals, railroads, telegraphs, and other works of internal improvement; and give statistics of the general advancement of civilization.

While the writer has not taken the space for the citation of authorities, he has made a special effort to gather the data from the most original and authentic sources. It is not supposed that a work of this kind will be likely to beguile the devotee of pleasure; but the writer believes that it will be found acceptable and useful, not only to the student of history, but the statesman and merchant, and a welcome companion in all private libraries. With this hope it is presented to the public by THE AUTHOR. Galesville, Wisconsin, September, 1867. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. The Moukd

-BUILDERS. A poet has mournfully declared that " Greece lies slum bering in the tomb ;" but, from the perpetuity of her works of art, the imagination still hears the voice of Pythagoras, the founder of Philosophy, arguing his various speculative theories ; Herodotus discoursing on the history of Egypt and surrounding nations ; Xenophon detailing the exploits of Cyrus and the " ten thousand Greeks ;" Plato preaching of the " transmigration of souls ;" while Socrates proclaims the soul's immortality ; and Homer sings of the beauty of Helen, and of the bravery of Hector and of Achilles. But to us of the New World, there is a " Greece " that, literally, " slumbers in the tomb." A nation or people, which for centuries occupied a territory nearly as large as all Europe, and had a population which probably numbered its millions, have left the graves of their fathers and the temples of their gods so unceremoniously, that their very name has disappeared with them ; and we only know of their existence by their decayed walls and tumuli, and by their bones, exhibiting the human form, although in a far gone state of decay.

No written language, or hieroglyphic, tells us the thoughts of their philosophers, the philippics of their orators, the heroic exploits of their warriors, nor of the beauty or chastity of their Helens. The rude tempests of ages have swept over their country, unmindful of their former power, while the dusky savage pursues the chase and the war-path, heedless of the sanctity of the ground on which he treads. To this lost people the antiquarian has applied the name of " The Mound-Builders," as descriptive of an unknown people. It is proposed in this chapter to overhaul the relics of the Mound-Builders, and present to the reader the facts, with observations and deductions, relating to this interesting and ancient race of people. In calculating the extent of the territory of the Mound- Builders, we assume that all the territory in the region round about the clusters of mounds, was the territory of this people, without hazarding an opinion that their territory extended any further.

They may have occupied extensive regions of country where they did not choose to make monuments, and there may be extensive regions where these monuments exist, but we have as yet no trace or record of them. It is possible that they may have had the same customs of the modern Indian tribes, of carrying their dead to cer tain general localities for interment. The Dakotas, at the time of the visit of Captain Carver to that tribe, in 1766, had a common burying ground a short distance above St. Paul, Minnesota ; and at a later day, one instance, at least, is known of a Dakota squaw -carrying on her back, in a blanket, heT deceased husband from Lake Pepin to St. Paul, a distance of nearly one hundred miles. The same custom was prevalent two hundred years since, according to the Jesuit missionaries, from the Chippewas of Lake Superior to the Abenakis of the Penobscot in Maine.

So far as explorations now extend, the chief territory of the Mound-Builders is the Mississippi Valley, including the territory along the Atlantic and Gulf, from North Carolina to Texas ; and along the southern shores of the great lakes, from the St. Lawrence river, to the Fond du Lac of Lake Superior. As these mounds have been found quite numerous at the Bute Prairies, in Oregon, and along the Gila and Colorado rivers of California, we may with safety claim nearly the whole of the United States and her territories as within their jurisdiction. This gave them as fine and rich a country of its extent, as the world can produce. The chief capital, or seat of this magnificent empire, was probably along the valley of the Ohio river, in the State of Ohio, judging from the elaborate extent of their works in that region.

They, like the Iroquois, probably called that river the Ohio, or Beautiful river. One of the first points for our consideration, in examining into the condition of an unknown people, is to ascertain their intellectual capacity. Fortunately for us, on this point, Dr. Morton, of Philadelphia, has devoted considerable attention, and, in his " Crania Americana," has given a number of specimens of skulls taken from the mounds, to which the writer, in the following table, has added a skull taken from a mound in Racine, Wisconsin, as given by Mr. Lapham : Table of Cranial Development. According to Dr. Morton, the mean internal capacity of the skulls of the different races of people are as follows : Ethiopian, 18 cubic inches ; Malay, 81 ; American Indians, 82; Mongolians, 83 ; Mound-Builders, 85 ; and Caucasian, 87.

Dr. Morton, from his investigations, came to the conclu sion that there is a great similarity in the cranial develop- Grave Creek. Tenn. Racine. Sciota. Longitudinal diameter . Inter-parietal .... Vertical Frontal Inter-mastoid arch . . " line Occipito-frontal arch Horizontal periphery Facial angle .... Internal capacity . 6.6 in. 6. 5 deg. 6.6 in. 5-6 5-6 4-[ 15.2 4-4 14- 19-5 So deg. 80 inch. 6.8 in. 5-3 13-8 6.5 in. 6. 6.2 4-5 16. 4-5 13.8 19.8 81 deg. 90 inch. 78 deg. 76 deg. ment of the Mound-Builders, the Mexicans, Peruvians, and all the modern tribes of Indians, and that they all differ materially from the races on the eastern continent. As no mummy of the Mound-Builder has been found in full, we have no positive information of the form or appear ance of the face and body. The crania gives a moderate intellectual development ; the teeth and jaw-bones show only a fullness about the mouth : the pipe sculptures repre sent the usual varieties of countenances, with rather a full ness of face, and, occasionally, the Roman nose ; while the bones of the body indicate, says Messrs. Squier and Davis, " a massiveness, and seem to have been less projecting than those pertaining to the skeletons of a later day."

From a man-shaped mound opened at Galesville, Wiscon sin, in 1860, by Drs. Young and Johnson, and the writer, there were obtained pieces of the crushed skull, upper jaw and teeth, the left side of the lower jaw and teeth, both thigh bones entire, one shin bone, and many others of less importance. The thigh bones were eighteen and three-fourths inches in length, and three and three-eighths inches in their smallest circumference ; and the shin bone was fourteen inches in length, and three and one-fourth inches in smallest circumference. From these measurements they inferred that the man was about five feet and ten inches in height, and strongly built ; and from the decayed condition of some of the teeth, perhaps from fifty to sixty years of age at the time of his decease. His skull varied from three-sixteenths to one-fourth inch in thickness; his jaws were round and full, but not distorted ; and his teeth were of the usual number and variety of the white race.

These bones are now preserved in the museum of the " Upper Mississippi Historical Society " at Galesville. That the Mound-Builders were very numerous, can not admit of a doubt, from the great extent of their territory and the magnitude of their earth-works. In the State of Ohio alone, it has been estimated that there are 10,000 mounds and 1,500 inclosures. At Bute Prairies, in Oregon, according to the narrative of the " United States Exploring Expedition," there are " many thousands in number;" According to the surveys in Wisconsin, there have been examined about 100 near Racine, 100 near Milwaukee, about 100 near Big Bend on the lower Fox river, about 100 at Waukesha, about 100 near Fort Atkinson, 100 near Sum mit, 200 near Madison, 100 near Horricon, 100 near May ville, 100 near Bartlett's landing in Vernon county, 100 at Prairie du Chien, 200 in La Crosse valley, and large numbers in the region of the Blue Mounds, along the Wisconsin river, the Fox river of Green bay, and Lake Winnebago.

They have been noticed along most of the creeks and rivers of the State, and new investigations are continually bringing them to light. The writer has also noticed nearly 500 in the southern part of the county of Trempealeau, which are of greatervariety than in any other one locality in the State. It is safe to say, that probably 10,000 mounds have already been noticed in Wisconsin. Mr. Lapham, in his "Antiquities of Wisconsin," page 79, remarks that " it is believed that no works of any con siderable extent exist above this point (La Crosse) on the Mississippi." As large numbers of these works exist at the first village above La Crosse, called La Crescent, in Minne sota, only three miles from La Crosse, and in the county of Trempealeau, twenty miles above, in Wisconsin, we are strongly cautioned against harboring the idea that all the works of the Mound-Builders have already been discovered.

It is probable that nearly all the States and territories in cluded within the empire of the Mound-Builders, on full examination, will be found to contain as many works of this people as the States of Ohio and Wisconsin. Many of these works are of gigantic proportions. The mound near Miamisburgh, Montgomery county, Ohio, con tains 311,353 cubic feet; one at the mouth of Grave creek, Virginia, is 70 feet high and 1,000 feet in circumference ; one at Cahokia, Illinois, is 90 feet high and over 2,000 feet in circumference, containing over twenty million cubic feet of earth ; while the mound at Selserstow7n, Mississippi, covers an area of six acres. The embankment inclosures are also of great extent, and some times include four hundred acres of ground. One near the Miami river has upwards of four miles of embank ments, and only incloses about one hundred acres.

The group of works at the mouth of the Sciota river has an aggregate of at least twenty miles of embankments, but only incloses about two hundred acres. In estimating population from the number of earth-works for graves, we may be justified in calculating that monu ments were only erected to the men who had distinguished themselves among their fellows; for such have been the customs of the world. In the Æneid, VI., 232, it is said of the tomb of the Trojan Hector : " On it Æneas piously heaped A mighty mound sepulchral. The oar, the trumpet, Anns of the man, the airy summit crowned." The dying Anglo-Saxon poet, Beowulf, enjoins his friends to " Command the famous in war To make a mound, Bright after the funereal fire, Upon the nose of the promontory, Which shall, for a memorial To my people, Rise high aloft On Heonesness; That the sea-sailors May afterwards call it Beowulf's barrow, When the Brentings Over the darkness of the floods Shall sail afar."— Beowulf, V. 5599.

Even our modern Indians occasionally throw together piles of stones over some of their distinguished men ; two such piles having been observed back of Red Wing, Minne sota; but probably fifty such piles do not exist in the Mississippi valley. We must further take under consideration the fact, that the Mound-Builders had but few of the aids of civilization for such works, and must have appropriated a large amount of time to prepare their food and clothing, and to seasons of relaxation and merriment. We must, also, make allow ance for the sick and indolent, the soldiers, merchants, mechanics, priests, and officials, according to the regula tions of semi-barbarous nations. From these data, may we not safely estimate that the Mound-Builders, in the height of their glory, had as great a population within their territory as existed in the same territory of the white population in 1850.

By referring to the census of that year, we find accredited to the Mississippi valley . 8,641,754 Pacific slope ......... 117,271 Gulf 1,702.992 Great Lakes, say . i.537-983 Total 12,000,000 It might be urged against this estimate, that we, in 1850, had more populous cities within the territory than the Mound-Builders ; but that excess might be balanced by the large number of Mound-Builders between the Mississippi and the Pacific, where, in 1850, the white population was comparatively sparse. Involved with the question of population, is the fact, were the Mound-Builders an agricultural people '? On this subject, Mr. Gallatin, of New York, in speaking of the mound at Grave creek, remarked : " It indicates not only a dense agricultural population, but also a state of society essentially different from that of the modern race of Indians north of the tropic.

" There is not, and there was not in the sixteenth century, a single tribe of Indians (north of the semi-civilized nations) between the Atlantic and the Pacific, which had means of subsistence sufficient to enable them to apply, for such purposes, the unproductive labor necessary for'the work ; nor was there any in such a social state as to compel the labor of the people to be thus applied." Egypt is celebrated for her pyramids ; but she was also equally celebrated for her dense population, and the extent of her granaries. The nomadic tribes of the old world have never been celebrated for elaborate monuments, and have never lived in walled cities ; while all the nations of the East which dwelt in inclosed cities and built elaborate works, were agriculturalists. The fact that the Mound-Builders built such extensive earth-works, is quite conclusive evidence that they were not only familiar with digging the earth, but that this was their principal employment.

They were evidently great smokers ; and if they smoked tobacco, they probably procured it by cultivation as did the modern Indians, who not only cultivated tobacco, but also corn, peas, beans, gourds, and melons, when they were first discovered by the Europeans. Our O-chunk-o-raws, of Wisconsin, who, in 1639, were said to be " sedentary and very numerous," when first visited by missionaries in 1669, and by Captain Carver in 1766, were cultivating tobacco and the other articles heretofore enumerated. Indeed, the Indian caches, or deposits of corn, are said to have saved our Pilgrim Fathers from starvation the first winter that they inhabited the bleak New England coast. Another evidence that the old Mound-Builders cultivated the soil, is derived from the fact that their mound villages are found located near or upon the richest tables of land in the country, and near a permanent supply of good water.

A large proportion of the villages and cities of the Missis sippi valley now occupy the sites of ancient mound cities. When this ancient population learned agriculture, be comes a very interesting question, in view of the fact that when this country was discovered by Europeans, none of the cereals, such as millet, rice, rye, wheat, barley and oats, so common on the eastern continent, were known in Amer ica; while the corn, potatoes and tobacco of America were equally unknown in Europe, Asia, and Africa. This fact, alone, not only argues the great antiquity of the people in America, but, in a measure, destroys the hypothesis that the Mound-Builders, or the present race of Indians, were the " lost ten tribes of Israel," the castaway Phœnicians, or the piratical Normans. It may not be surprising to us, that some of the customs of either the Mound-Builders, or the modern tribes of Indians, may be siniUar to some of the customs of the eastern continent, when we take under consideration the fact of the common origin of the human race, and the identity of the human form and intellect ; but it would surprise us that even a semi-educated and semi-civilized people should relapse so completely into barbarism as to leave neither written manuscript, hieroglyphic, nor sculptured cornice.

If the American races ever had an ancestry on the eastern continent, it is probable that it was anterior to Confucius of the Chinese, the Vedas of the Hindoos, the Hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, and the Pentateuch of the Hebrews. The Mound-Builders were evidently somewhat acquainted with commerce, judging from the articles found in the mounds. In Ohio we find pearls, sharks' teeth, and marine shells from the Gulf and the Atlantic ocean, obsidian from Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, native copper and silver from Lake Superior, lead from Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, and syenite and greenstone from northern Wisconsin, Alleghany and Rocky Mountains. Their system of traveling for the purposes of commerce, was probably the same as that of the modern Indians — by canoes along the navigable rivers.

Since this country has become known to the whites, trading fleets of several hundred canoes have visited Quebec from the head of Lake Superior and froni Green Bay; while war parties of the Sioux of Mille Lac, have passed two thousand miles down the Mississippi, and war parties of the Five Nations, of New York, have carried their victorious arms to Mackinaw and Lake Superior, and by way of the Ohio river to two hundred miles west of the Mississippi. To what extent the Mound-Builders may have trafficked in corn, tobacco, skins, and clothing, we have no means of judging. Nor have we any means of judging of the kind of habitation which sheltered the family from the winter's cold. It was evidently neither stone, brick or dirt, as no remains of such dwellings can be found. They must have lived either in tents or wooden tenements, all vestiges of which have long since disappeared.

But while they paid but little attention to their houses, it was not uncommon for them to surround what is supposed to have been the site of their villages with an earth em bankment, about equivalent to our ditch fences. These were often built with three sides only — the fourth side being a steep bank of a creek or river. Another style was to run a straight embankment across a promontory of some high table land. A third style was to make double or triple embankments, one within the other. The height of these embaukments, and their location, forbid the idea that they were designed as fortifications ; and while they might have been sacred inclosures, it is far more probable that they were designed solely as fences to protect them selves either from their herds, or from the droves of buffalo which inhabited the Mississippi valley.

When the first hunter was going down the Wisconsin river to settle at Prairie du Chien, in about 1727, he was obliged to stop) his canoe several hours to allow a drove of buffalo to ford that river. In some instances, in Ohio, these inclosures have graded ways, embanked on each side, running to the water. In the manufacture of arrow-points, stone axes, spear heads, and some implements of copper, the Mound-Builders did not much excel the modern races of Indians, but they carried the art of the sculpture of pipes to a high degree of perfection. These pipe sculptures are imitations of most of the common birds and animals known to the white pioneers of North America ; also, of the human face and head. They displayed a fine, modest, pure taste, and close observ ation to natural positions, thereby indicating a people considerably advanced in civilization — the savage tastes delighting in monstrosities and caricatures, instead of faithful copies of the original.

The Mound-Builders w7ere evidently great smokers, and probably believed, with the modern tribes, that tobacco was a gift of the Great Spirit, by the use of which they might receive inspirations from the Deity. It is a remarkable fact, that all modern tribes of Indians of North America still hold the pipe as a sacred emblem of peace ; and when it is presented by one party, the fiercest battle must cease until the council can be held, and the propositions considered and determined. When Father Marquette first explored the Mississippi from Prairie du Chien to Louisiana in 1673, this sacred emblem was at once recognized by every savage nation that inhabited its banks or propelled the canoe along its turbid waters. These pipes of the Mound-Builders were not made of the friable pipe-stone of Minnesota (that locality evidently then being unknown), but mostly of a very fine porphyry of many shades of color.

Some varieties are of a greenish brown base, with fine white and black granules ; others of a light brown base, with white, purple, and violet tinged specks ; but most are red, with white and purplish grains. Some very much resemble the modern Indian pipe stone in color, but greatly exceed it in hardness. As the Mound-Builders evidently were not worshipers of idols, they have left us no sculptures of idol deities, or of the full form of man. It is claimed for the Egyptians, that they became the fathers of geometry from the necessity of dividing out to the tillers of the soil the overflowed bottoms of the Nile ; but the Mound-Builders have exhibited the most exact geometrical skill in many of their embankments and inclos ures, without any such necessity. This point was tested by actual survey, among others, of the two circle, and one square, inclosure at Liberty township, Ross county, Ohio.

One of these circles was 800 feet in diameter, and the other 1,700 feet, while the square was exactly 1,080 feet on each side. Pythagoras himself could not have struck those circles nor made that square, without an actual measurement on geometrical principles. The same scientific accuracy runs through nearly all their earth-works. At Seal township, in Pike county, Ohio, there is an accurate ellipse, and a circle with a square embankment inside, the corners touching the circle. At Brush creek, Kentucky, there is an hexagonal inclosure precisely fifty feet on each of the six sides. The same artistic merit, however, has not been displayed in their animal effigies ; but their similarity may have been some what disfigured by the washing of rains for a thousand years. In fortifications for defense, the Mound-Builders have exhibited a very respectable degree of military art.

Iu the first place, they have judiciously selected commanding posi tions, naturally strong, and easily rendered comparatively impregnable to the ancient warlike implements. In the second place, they never failed to include within their forti fications a good supply of water, and never allowed the contingency to exist that such supply might be cut off by an enemy. This precaution might well have been followed by some of the officers in the great rebellion, particularly by Colonel Mulligan, at Lexington, Missouri. In the third place, all the accessible points were strongly fortified with stone walls or embankments, or both ; and the gateways or sally-ports were much stronger and more intricate than those of modern warfare. These walled inclosures were often of considerable extent. The one near Brownsville, Ross county, Ohio, incloses one hundred and forty acres, with a wall and embankment over two and a quarter miles in length ; and " Fort Ancient," in Warren county, Ohio, has a wall and embankment between four and five miles long, and in some places twenty feet high.

The Chillicotbe and Cincinnati region of Ohio seems to have been the last great stronghold of the Mound-Builders, as it is in this region that the most important fortifications were made. Wisconsin can scarcely dignify any of her old earth works into fortifications. The most important in this State is Aztalan. This is a three-sided inclosure, with the open side on the bank of the west branch of Rock river, with a steep declivity of only fifteen feet to the water. The north bank is 631 feet long; the west, 1,419 feet; and the south, 700 feet ; — the three banks, with that of the creek, inclosing seventeen and two-third acres. The walls are about twenty two feet wide on the ground, and vary from one to five feet in height. Allow for the action of the rains upon an earth wall for several centuries, and we conclude that it originally might have been from four to eight feet high, — a respectable fence, but a poor protection against an assaulting enemy.

But what destroys the probability that the Aztalan works were a fort, is the fact that it was commanded by a ridge on the west side, and the bank on the opposite side of the creek, — both within an arrow-shot of the inclosure. The Mound-Builders were evidently not a warlike people, as we find no instruments for aggressive movements, except the ordinary spear, ax, knife, and arrow, which might only have been used for hunting purposes. It is customary to divide the different ages of Europe into the Stone age, the Copper or Bronze age, and the Iron age. The oldest, of course, was the Stone age, or the age in which the ancients used only stone knives, axes, arrows, etc. This division is said to be finely illustrated at an old crossing or ford of a river in Ireland, where a good many battles had been fought among the ancient natives.

On digging into the bank of the river, numerous war instruments of iron were found ; on continuing down they found a strata containing instruments of copper ; and still deeper they reached the strata where the instruments of war were of stone. These deposits had been covered up from time to time by the river overflowing its banks, and leaving deposits of sand, gravel, and clay, over the carnage of war. As the Mound-Builders had no instruments of iron, and but few hammered out of native copper, we conclude that they had made but little progress in the Copper age, and had not learned the art of smelting the ore. The most important localities where flint rock was found, both by the Mound-Builders and modern Indians, for the manufacture of arrow points, spear heads, etc., in the Mis sissippi valley, were " Flint Ridge," in the counties of Muskingham and Licking, Ohio, and " Flint Bluffs," or " Silver Bluffs," in the western part of Jackson county, Wisconsin.