The combat now raged with increasing fury. The Indians determined to maintain their ground to the last. The terrible voice of Tecumseh, could be distinctly heard encouraging his warriors; and although beset on every side, except the morass, they fought with more determined courage than they had ever before exhibited. The gallant Col. Johnson, having rushed towards the spot, where the Indians, clustering around their undaunted chief, resolved to perish by his side; his uniform, and the white horse which he rode, rendered him a conspicuous object. In a moment his holsters, dress and accoutrements were pierced with bullets; and he fell to the ground severely wounded. Tecumseh, at the same time fell.(1) After the rescue and removal of the wounded Colonel, the command devolved on Major Thompson. The Indians main. tained the fight for more than an hour, but no longer hearing the voice of their great captain, they at last gave way on all sides, and fled for more than five miles before they halted. Near the spot where Colonel killed, thirty Indians and six

Johnson was wounded and Tecumseh was white men were found dead. (2)

In this engagement the British loss was nineteen killed, fifty wounded and about six hundred taken prisoners. The Indians left one hundred and twenty dead on the field. The American loss in killed and wound

(1)" "In this action Tecumseh was killed, which circumstance has given rise to innumerable fictions-why, we can hardly tell, but it is so. The writer's opportunities for knowing the truth, are equal to any person's now living. He was personally, very well acquainted with that celebrated warrior. He accompanied Tecumseh, Elsquataway, Fourlegs and Caraymaunee, on their tour among the Six Nations of New York, in 1809, and acted as their interpreter among those Indians. In 1829, at Praire Du Chien, the two latter indians, both then civil chiefs of the Winnebagoes, were with the writer, who was then acting as commissioner of Indian affairs in the United States service. From the statements of those constant companions of Tecumseh, during nearly twenty years of his life, I proceed to state, that Tecumseh lay with bis warriors, at the commencement of the battle, in a forest of thick underbrush, on the left of the American army. That those Indians were at no period of the battle, out of their thick underbrush; that Nawcaw saw no officer between them and the American army; that Tecumseh fell the very first fire of the Kentucky dragoons, pierced by thirty bullets, and was carried four or five miles into the thick woods, and there buried by the warriors, who told the story of his fate. This account was repeated to me, three several times, word for word, and neither of the relators ever knew the fictions to which Tecumseh's death had given rise. Some of these fictions originated in the mischievous design of ridiculing Col. Johnson, who is said to have killed this savage." * "I could easily write this warrior's whole history, as he often requested me to do." "A few Mohawks, and some other Indian chiefs and warriors belonging to the Canada Indians, about Lake Ontario, were mixed with the British regu. lars in the front line of the enemy. Some of these savages were killed in the action, and the remainder of these ladians on horse back, fled with Proctor. The Indian found dead, belonged to these Indians, not to the Winnebagoes or Shawanese, who in this battle lay in ambush, beyond a morass on the left of the American army."-History of Ohio by Caleb Atwater, pp. 236, 237.

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ed was about fifty. Several pieces of brass cannon, the trophies of the revolution, and which had been surrendered by Hull, at Detroit, were once more restored to our country.

By this splendid achievement, Gen. Harrison, and the brave men under his command, rescued the whole northwestern frontier from the depredations of the savages, and the horrors of war. The national gratitude burst out in one loud voice of applause. The Commander-inChief was complimented by Congress, and by various public bodies; and the distinguished Langdon Cheves, asserted on the floor of the National House of Representatives, that this victory, "was such as would have secured to a Roman General, in the best days of the Republic, the honors of a triumph."

CHAPTER XX.

TREATIES MADE WITH THE INDIANS AFTER THE BATTLE OF THE THAMES, IN WHICH SEVERAL MILLIONS OF ACRES OF LAND WERE CEDED TO THE UNITED STATES-THE NUMBER OF INDIANS IN 1820, IN OHIO, MICHIGAN, ILLINOIS, INDIANA, AND WISCONSIN-TREATY OF 1823—MURDER OF M. METHODE AND FAMILY -IMPRISONMENT OF RED BIRD, BLACK HAWK, AND OTHERS-MURDERS ON IN DIAN CREEK-BLACK HAWK WAR-DEFEAT AND CAPTURE OF BLACK HAWKBLACK HAWK DEPOSED.

After the battle of the Thames, on the fifth day of October, 1813, the Indians sued for peace. General Harrison, General Cass, and Governor Shelby, were appointed commissioners by the government, to enter into a treaty with them. Governor Shelby not accepting the commission, General Harrison and General Cass concluded a treaty at Greenville, with the Indians, in which they ceded to the United States several millions of acres of land, comprising the whole territory then claimed by them in Ohio and Indiana, with some small reservations, and the whole of Illinois, south of Lake Michigan. Afterwards treaties were entered into at Chicago and Detroit, in which the Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottowatamies, relinquished more than five millions of acres in the southern part of the peninsula of Michigan.

The Pottowatamies still possessed the country adjacent to Lake Mi-chigan, in Indiana and Illinois, and in 1820 numbered 3,400. The Sacs and Foxes lived west of the Pottowatamies, generally on Rock River, between the Illinois and the Mississippi, amounting to about 3,000 persons, one-fifth of whom were warriors. The Winnebagoes inhabited the country on the Wisconsin, and were estimated at 1,550, while

the Menomenies lived further north, between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, numbering about 550. In 1820, these 8,000 Indians were all that remained of the once powerful tribes that held the country north of the Ohio, east of the Mississippi, and south of the Great Lakes.

In the year 1823, the agents of the United States held a treaty at Prairie Du Chien, with the Sacs, Foxes, Winnebagoes, Chippewas, and some other tribes, for the purpose of bringing about a peace between some of the tribes who were then at war with each other. To effect this object, bounds were set to the territory of each tribe, and it was also stipulated by the treaty, that the United States should protect any of the Indian nations from the hostile attacks of the others, whenever visiting a garrison of the United States.

About this time the lead mines, near Galena, attracted great attention, and avarice and speculation drew several thousand miners beyond the limits of the United States, into the adjacent lands of the Winneba goes. This gave offence to the Indians, and a whole family, consisting of M. Methode, his wife and five children, were murdered near Prairie Du Chien, by a party of Winnebagoes, two of whom were afterwards taken and committed to the jail of Crawford county, Illinois.

In addition to this, in the summer of 1827, in defiance of the treaty of Prairie Du Chien, a band of the Sacs fell upon twenty-four Chippewas, on a visit at Fort Snelling, and killed and wounded eight of them. The commandant at Fort Snelling captured four of the Sacs, and delivered them into the hands of the Chippewas, who immediately shot them. RED BIRD, a Chief of the Sacs, immediately led a band against the Chippewas, and was defeated. Enraged against his ill success, with only three desperate companions, like himself, he repaired to Prairie Du Chien, and killed two white persons, and wounded a third, and then retired to the mouth of Bad-axe river. Here he augmented his force, and waylaid two keel boats that had been conveying stores to Fort Snelling. One boat came into the ambush in the day time, and after a fight of four hours, escaped with the loss of two killed and four wounded.The other boat arrived in the night, and escaped without much injury.

Not long after, General Atkinson, at the head of a large force, marched into the Winnebago country. Here he succeeded in making prisoners of RED BIRD, his SON, BLACK HAWK, KANONEKAH, and others. These were imprisoned, and Red Bird died in prison. Some of the others were tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death, but Black Hawk, Kanonekah, and the son of Red Bird, charged with the attack on the boats,

KEOKUK and BLACK HAWK, were the chiefs of the Sacs and Foxes at this time. Keokuk was in favor of peace with the whites, but Black Hawk, who had been imprisoned for alleged hostility, collected a number of the Sacs, at their principal village on the Mississippi, for the purpose of hostilities. They were joined by a number of warriors from other tribes. On the twenty-sixth of June, 1831, Gen. Gaines, Gov. Reynolds, and Gen. Duncan, at the head of his brigade of fourteen hundred mounted men, took possession of the Sac village without opposition. The Indians had fled across the river, and all but the Sacs abandoned Black Hawk, and returned home. He, therefore, made peace and agreed to remove with his tribe, west of the Mississippi.

In the meantime, in defiance of the treaty of Praire Du Chien, the Sacs fell upon the Menamenies, and murdered twenty-eight of their number. They also, in the spring of 1832, recrossed to the east bank of the Mississippi, and occupied the country upon Rock river, which they had by the treaty of 1831, given up. There had also been several murders committed in the northern part of Illinois. At Indian creek which empties into Fox river, there was a terrible massacre. Two daughters of a Mr. Hall, one sixteen and the other eighteen years of age, were carried into captivity by the Indians. Before they were led away, they saw their mother, and about twenty other persons, tomahawked and scalped. Gen. Atkinson, was therefore, sent into the Indian country with an army, and was encamped at Ogee or Dixon, on Rock river, when the news of the massacre arrived. A detachment of about two hundred and seventy-five men under Major Stillman, marched in pursuit of the Indians. On the fourteenth of May, they came across a small party of whom they shot two and took two others prisoners. On the same day, when they were about to encamp, at night they discovered a small band of Indians bearing a white flag. They therefore, mounted and rushed forward, regardless of all order, several miles, until they crossed Sycamore creek, where they fell into an ambuscade. It was moonlight when the fight began, and soon became so disastrous to the whites that they retreated in great disorder. The Indians after discharging their guns rushed upon their assailants with their knives and tomahawks, and had not the night and situation of the country favored their escape, they would nearly all have been cut off. Thirteen men were killed and several wounded. Immediately after fourteen hundred men marched to the scene of action, where they found the slain mangled and mutilated in a shocking manner.

Black Hawk assembled his forces, amounting to one thousand war

riors, at a point between Rock and Wisconsin rivers. Gen. Atkinson at the head of two thousand troops marched to give him battle. The wary chief, fled to an almost impenetrable wilderness, and Gen. Atkinson was unable to discover the place of his encampment. About this time Gen. Dodge, surprised a party of twelve Indians near Galena, and cut them off to a man, and Capt. Stephenson, after a severe conflict in which he lost three of his own men, defeated a body of Indians, with the loss of six of their number killed. Gen. Dodge then commenced the pursuit of a band of Indians, and came upon their trail about forty miles from Fort Winnebago. They were half starved and flying when he came up with them, on the Wisconsin, near the old Sac village. The battle commenced in the evening. The Indians left sixteen dead upon the field and carried off more than fifty. The whites had one man killed and four wounded.

Being now hotly pursued by sixteen hundred troops, Black Hawk, crossed over to the Mississippi, with his warriors, above the mouth of the Wisconsin, leaving his women and children to descend the Wisconsin in boats. Many of their women and children fell into the hands of the whites, some perished with hunger, some were drowned, and others were scarcely saved from their famishing state.

A battle was soon afterwards fought between the troops under Gen. Atkinson and Gen. Dodge, and the Indians under Black Hawk, on the east side of the Mississippi, about forty miles above Praire Du Chien. Black Hawk had only three hundred warriors, and the Americans thirteen hundred troops. The Indians were attacked on all sides, and were driven from covert to covert, until at length, they were routed with great slaughter. Some attempting to escape by swimming over the Mississippi, were fired upon by artillery from the steamboat Warrior, and from musketry on shore, so that few escaped. Some escaped by land, but more than one-half of the whole number were left dead on the field or were killed in the river.

Black Hawk, was among those who escaped, leaving behind him a certificate from British officers, that he had served faithfully and fought valiently in the war of 1812, against the United States. Gen. Atkinson then ordered Keokuk, to demand a surrender of Black Hawk, and other hostile chiefs, and one hundred friendly Sacs went in pursuit of them. Overtaking them, a battle ensued in which Black Hawk was defeated, and together with several other hostile chiefs were taken pris. oners, and delivered to the American General. On the eleventh of September, 1832, Black Hawk, his two sons, the Prophet, Naopope,