Cahokia

“ He is the same, too, who founded Kaskaskia, probably the earliest settlement in the great valley, and whose history ends (significant fact!) with the record of his usefulness. To Father Pinet, who founded Cahokia, and was so successful in the conversion of the natives, that his little chapel could not contain the numbers who resorted to his ministrations: to Father Marest, the first preacher against intemperance; and, finally, to Marquette, the best and bravest of them all, the most single-hearted and unpretending!
Enthusiasm is a characteristic of the French nation ”

“ On the route to Cahokia, another stockade, Grand Ruisseau, similarly inhabited by Americans, was passed. There were about thirty other American intruders in the fertile valleys near the Mississippi, and they, too, gave Tardiveau a petition to Congress.
The Kaskaskia, Peoria, Cahokia, and Mitcha tribes of Indians numbered only about forty or fifty members, of whom but ten or eleven individuals composed the Kaskaskia tribe; but this does not mean that danger from the Indians was not great, because other and more hostile tribes came in great numbers to hunt in the Illinois country. ”

“ George Rogers Clark, who was repeatedly at Cahokia during the period 1778-80, says: “We easily and evidently traced the town for upwards of five miles in the beautiful plain below the present town of Kahokia. There could be no deception here, because the remains of ancient works were thick––the whole were mounds, etc.” Clark’s MS. statement; Schoolcraft’s Indian Tribes, IV., p. 135.––L. C. D.
[11]
This mound was used, at least in part, for burial purposes. ”

“ In every respect the people were the gainers by our coming, and fully appreciated the fact.
The next British outpost up the river above Kaskaskia, was Cahokia, a settlement where considerable trade was carried on, and a depository of British arms for distribution among the savages.
It had been occupied by the Caoquias, a tribe of Illinois Indians, long before the discovery of [Pg 214] the Mississippi. The French settled there shortly after La Salle descended the river, and it was said to contain not less than forty families in addition to the garrison of about sixty soldiers. ”

“ Implements of wood, stone, and copper, could hardly have proved very efficient auxiliaries to the builders, who must have depended mainly upon their own bare hands and weak powers of transportation, for excavating and collecting together the twenty millions of cubic feet of material which make up the solid contents of the great mound at Cahokia alone. ”

“ Things began to happen in Kaskaskia. In the first place, Captain Bowman's company, with a few scouts, of which Tom was one, set out that very afternoon for the capture of Cohos, or Cahokia, and this despite the fact that they had had no sleep for two nights. If you will look at the map, [1] you will see, dotted along the bottoms and the bluffs beside the great Mississippi, the string of villages, Kaskaskia, La Prairie du Rocher, Fort Chartres, St. Philip, and Cahokia. Some few miles from Cahokia, on the western bank of the Father of Waters, was the little French village of St. ”

“ Prairie du Pont is one of the dampest, filthiest, most disagreeably ruinous of all the old villages I have ever visited. A few miles to the north is situated Cahokia, [79] one of the earliest settlements in the state, and the ancient residence of the Caoquias, one of the tribes of the Illini Indians. The place is supposed to have been settled by the followers of La Salle during his second expedition to the West in 1683, on his return from the mouth of the Mississippi. More than a century and a half has since elapsed ”

“ Be true to Cabanacte and put your trust in Coyocop. Listen, señora,” and here de Sancerre bent down and addressed the old crone with impressive emphasis, “as we hurry on, ponder the words I speak; the City of the Sun is unworthy of the spirit sent from God. It is accursed. Its temple runs with blood, and its vile priests have sealed the city’s doom. Come; ’twas your grandson who found Coyocop. ’Tis Coyocop who shall now find Cabanacte.” ”

“ The Cahrocs have, as we already know, some conception of a great deity, called Chareya, the Old Man Above; he is wont to appear upon earth at times to some of the most favored sorcerers; he is described as wearing a close tunic, with a medicine-bag, and as having long white hair that falls venerably about his shoulders. Practically, however, the Cahrocs, like the majority of Californian tribes, venerate chiefly the coyote. Great dread is also had of certain forest-demons of nocturnal habits; these, say the Eurocs, take the form of bears and shoot arrows at benighted wayfarers. ”

“ On his left side, near the heart, gaped three fearful wounds, which almost divided the chest in two parts, and his hair was bound into a mass by the curdled blood, while his head was cleft with a tomahawk. The Indians only take a scalp when it belongs to an enemy of their tribe. He was carried to the middle of the camp and covered with a buffalo robe. I asked Cachakia what would become of the other man and the girl? ”

“ Crawling through the entrance, Cabanacte drew himself erect in the sunlight, a sentry against whose behests none of the chattering sun-worshippers, who had poured into the square to learn the meaning of the cry which had echoed from Coyocop’s abode, dared protest.
[190] “Say to the Brother of the Moon that what he did was well done,” went on Coheyogo to Noco. “If the draught which he made for the Great Sun gives life as surely as his silver wand brings death, then shall the shadow pass from our weeping race. Go, then, Noco, to the temple quickly, and bid four priests to hasten to me here. ”

“ Cahoonshee keenly felt the degradation of his people. The education he had received in Europe had swept from his mind the Indian superstitions that were cherished and practiced by his fathers. He believed that all European nations were combined to drive the Indian from the forest and appropriate the land to themselves. Yet he held to the religion of his fathers, really seeing no difference between the white man’s God and the Indian’s Great Spirit. ”

“ The enemies of Coacoochee will fall before him as ripe fruit falls before the breath of Hu-la-lah (the wind) . He will kill till he is weary of killing. His footsteps will be marked with blood. Rivers of blood shall flow where he passes. I am old and feeble, but Coacoochee is young and strong. From this day shall he be a war-chief of the Seminoles. Philip Emathla has spoken."
At this announcement there came a great shout of rejoicing, and as the council broke up, the warriors crowded about Coacoochee to tell him how proud they would be to have him lead them in battle. ”

“ As he stood before Philip Emathla and his warriors, with his noble figure and fine face fully displayed in the bright firelight, they were thrilled by his eloquence. With bated breath they listened to his summing up of their grievances, and when he declared that he would rather die fighting for this land than live in any other, they greeted his words with a murmur of approving assent.
Never had Coacoochee been so powerfully affected. The sting of the white man's whip across his shoulders was still felt, and he was choked with the sense of outrage and injustice inflicted upon his people. ”

“ Micco-hatke, you are a great chief, and I believe you are an honest man. Other white men have lied to me and cheated me. They could not overcome Coacoochee in battle, so they captured him by their lying words. With you it is not so. I will trust you. Let my young men go. If in thirty days the warriors of Coacoochee have not obeyed his voice and come to him, then let him die. He will not care longer to live. ”

“ He loved his land and his people. He was determined not to submit to injustice if he could help it, but he shrank from plunging the Seminoles into a war with the powerful and arrogant invaders of their country. He knew that such a war could only result in the utter defeat of the red man, no matter how long or how bravely he might fight. Thus Coacoochee's fiery speech at the council was a source of great anxiety to the old man and caused him to pass a sleepless night. ”

“ Suddenly my men who were employed in cooking informed me that a cayuco was passing near the distant southern shore. I attentively looked in that direction, and just as the cayuco passed in front of the waterfall, I distinctly saw its black silhouette with two men standing erect thrown into bold relief against the white background. Soon after the cayuco vanished into one of the coves in that vicinity, the position of which we impressed upon our memories. This was our first sight of human beings, but the Indians on their part had not noticed us. ”

“ Ludwig counsels retreating altogether out of the cave, and leaving their horses behind. Outside, the wind no longer rages, and the dust seems to have blown past. They but hear the pattering of rain, with peals of thunder, and the swish of the stream, now swollen. But nothing of these need they fear. To the course counselled Cypriano objects, as also Caspar; fearing for their horses, almost sure to be sacrificed to the fury of the enraged jaguar. And where would they be then? Afoot in the midst of the Chaco, helpless as shipwrecked sailors on a raft in mid-ocean! ”

“ When Coacoochee left the Indian village on the night of his betrothal and set forth on his journey to St. Augustine, he fully realized that the act marked a crisis in his life, and that from this hour his irresponsible boyhood was a thing of the past. For a moment he was staggered by the thought of what he was undertaking, together with an overpowering sense of his own weakness and lack of worldly knowledge. How could he, a mere lad, educated in nothing save forest craft, hope to compete with the strength, wisdom, and subtlety of the all-powerful white man? ”

“ Coacoochee, filled with thoughts of his aged father and Nita Pacheco held captives by the whites, was even more anxious to make an honorable peace than was his brother chieftain. So it was finally decided that he should take advantage of his safe-conduct, to visit St. Augustine, advise with Philip Emathla, talk with the general in command, so as to ascertain the exact views of the whites, and return to Osceola with his report. ”

“ Thus we need not travel many miles inland from the Isthmus without meeting the Catio, a wild tribe between the Atrato and the [Pg 401] Cauca, more degraded even than the Seri of Tiburon island, most debased of all North American hordes. These Catio, a now nearly extinct branch of the Choco stock, were said to dwell like the anthropoid apes, in the branches of trees; they mostly went naked, and were reported, like the Mangbattus and other Congo negroes, to "fatten their captives for the table." ”

“ At the Coashatay village, about twenty miles above the Great Raft, the commander of the exploring party received information, by an express, from the chief of the principal village of the Cadoes, which is thirty miles farther to the west, "that about three hundred Spanish dragoons, with four or five hundred horses and mules, were encamped near that village, with the design to prevent the further progress of the Americans." The Coashatay and Cadoe Indians of this part of Red river are an agricultural half-civilized people, like the Cherokees. ”

“ The Cayugas were, before that expedition, a powerful tribe, about whom little or nothing had ever been written or known. In their customs and manners of living they resemble in every way the Club Indians of the Colorado, who were destroyed by the small-pox. They led a wandering prairie life, but generally were too cowardly to fight well, and too inexpert in hunting to surround themselves with comforts, even in the midst of plenty. Like the Clubs, they are cannibals, though, I suspect, they would not eat a white man. ”

“ By Jove, Shiela, he's certainly picturesque!"
A sullen-eyed Indian rose as they rode up, his turban brilliant in the declining sunshine, his fringed leggings softly luminous as woven cloth of gold.
"He—a—mah, Coacochee!" said the girl in friendly greeting. "It is good to see you, Little Tiger. The people of the East salute the Uchee Seminoles."
The Indian answered briefly and with dignity, then stood impassive, not noticing Hamil.
"Mr. Hamil," she said, "this is my old friend Coacochee or Little Tiger; an Okichobi Seminole of the Clan of the Wind; a brave hunter and an upright man." ”

“ Many of them were born to freedom in the land of the Iste-chatte. They have fought with us for our liberty, and have died by our side. They are with us as one people, and where we go they must also go. If Coacoochee surrenders, and exerts his influence for the removal of his people, it is only on condition that those of the Iste-lustee now dwelling with the Seminoles shall go with them, and that no one of them shall ever be claimed by a white man as his slave. Are the words of Coacoochee good in the ears of the white war-chief? ”

“ That this entity possessed certain attributes, among which were power, plan and design.
The reader will perceive that such a man, with such a mind, having the exalted views of Cahoonshee, would not feel at home with either white man or Indian. He was ahead of the age, and saw in the dim future the extinction of his race. His tribe was already extinct except himself. He believed that the merciless white would continue to drive the powerless Indian west, until the bones of his race would bleach on the western slope, and be washed by the Pacific. ”

“ In this she lives alone, with her child, in the heart of the Indian village; there is not a white person within ten miles. She says that the village is as well-ordered, quiet, and peaceable as it is possible for a village to be; and she feels far safer, surrounded by these three hundred Cahuillas, than she would feel in most of the California towns. The Cahuillas (pronounced 92 Kaweeyahs) were one of the fiercest and most powerful of the tribes. The name signifies "master," or "powerful nation." A great number of the neophytes of the San Gabriel Mission were from this tribe ”