During the War of 1812, the Illinois Territory was the scene of fighting between Native Americans and United States soldiers and settlers. The Illinois Territory at that time included the areas of modern Illinois, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota and Michigan.
Tensions in the Illinois Territory between U.S. settlers and Native Americans were on the rise in the years before the War of 1812. [1] At Peoria, Potawatomi chief Main Poc was a supporter of the resistance movement of Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa and his brother Tecumseh. [1] Raids against American settlers in Illinois increased after the Shawnee brothers' loss at the Battle of Tippecanoe in the Indiana Territory in 1811. [1]
There were few U.S. Army soldiers this far west on the frontier. Ninian Edwards, the territorial governor, directed state militia operations. The low point for the Americans came in August 1812, when a large Indian force, primarily Potawatomis, attacked soldiers and civilians as they evacuated Fort Dearborn in Chicago. [1]
In October 1812, the Americans launched an expedition against the Native villages in the Peoria area. Led by Governor Edwards and Colonel William Russell, they attacked and destroyed Potawatomi and Kickapoo villages, prompting the Natives to abandon the area. [1] Raids continued, however.
In September 1813, the Americans built Fort Clark in Peoria. [1] In June 1814, William Clark built Fort Shelby at Prairie du Chien. [1] The British captured the fort in July and renamed it Fort McKay. Two American attempts to send more troops to Prairie du Chien were turned back by Indian attacks at Rock Island Rapids and Credit Island, the final actions of the War of 1812 in the region. [1] Hostilities between the U.S. and area Native Americans would resume in the Winnebago War of 1827 and the Black Hawk War of 1832. [1]
5 million acres of land in the Illinois Territory, between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers below Rock Island, was set aside as the Military Tract of 1812 to pay soldiers in land grants for their service. This is over 1/8 of the area of the modern state and included Indian-occupied areas, some of whose displaced inhabitants would later join Blackhawk.
The state of Illinois has a list of 1,500 names of militiamen and officers from original muster rolls although the muster lists are known to be incomplete. [2]
The Battle of Fort Dearborn was an engagement between United States troops and Potawatomi Native Americans that occurred on August 15, 1812, near Fort Dearborn in what is now Chicago, Illinois. The battle, which occurred during the War of 1812, followed the evacuation of the fort as ordered by the commander of the United States Army of the Northwest, William Hull. The battle lasted about 15 minutes and resulted in a complete victory for the Native Americans. After the battle, Fort Dearborn was burned down. Some of the soldiers and settlers who had been taken captive were later ransomed.
The Sauk or Sac are a group of Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands culture group, who lived primarily in the region of what is now Green Bay, Wisconsin, when first encountered by the French in 1667. Their autonym is oθaakiiwaki, and their exonym is Ozaagii(-wag) in Ojibwe. The latter name was transliterated into French and English by colonists of those cultures. Today they have three federally recognized tribes, together with the Meskwaki (Fox), located in Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas.
The Black Hawk War was a conflict between the United States and Native Americans led by Black Hawk, a Sauk leader. The war erupted after Black Hawk and a group of Sauks, Meskwakis (Fox), and Kickapoos, known as the "British Band", crossed the Mississippi River, to the U.S. state of Illinois, from Iowa Indian Territory in April 1832. Black Hawk's motives were ambiguous, but he was apparently hoping to reclaim land that was taken over by the United States in the disputed 1804 Treaty of St. Louis.
The Potawatomi, also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie, are a Native American people of the Great Plains, upper Mississippi River, and western Great Lakes region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquin family. The Potawatomi call themselves Neshnabé, a cognate of the word Anishinaabe. The Potawatomi are part of a long-term alliance, called the Council of Three Fires, with the Ojibway and Odawa (Ottawa). In the Council of Three Fires, the Potawatomi are considered the "youngest brother" and are referred to in this context as Bodéwadmi, a name that means "keepers of the fire" and refers to the council fire of three peoples.
The Treaty of Greenville, also known to Americans as the Treaty with the Wyandots, etc., but formally titled A treaty of peace between the United States of America, and the tribes of Indians called the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanees, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pattawatimas, Miamis, Eel Rivers, Weas, Kickapoos, Piankeshaws, and Kaskaskias was a 1795 treaty between the United States and indigenous nations of the Northwest Territory, including the Wyandot and Delaware peoples, that redefined the boundary between indigenous peoples' lands and territory for European American community settlement.
The Illinois Country — sometimes referred to as Upper Louisiana —was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s in what is now the Midwestern United States. While those names generally referred to the entire Upper Mississippi River watershed, French colonial settlement was concentrated along the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers in what is now the U.S. states of Illinois and Missouri, with outposts on the Wabash River in Indiana. Explored in 1673 from Green Bay to the Arkansas River by the Canadien expedition of Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, the area was claimed by France. It was settled primarily from the Pays d'en Haut in the context of the fur trade, and in the establishment of missions from Canada by French Catholic religious orders. Over time, the fur trade took some French to the far reaches of the Rocky Mountains, especially along the branches of the broad Missouri River valley. The French name, Pays des Ilinois, means "Land of the Illinois [plural]" and is a reference to the Illinois Confederation, a group of related Algonquian native peoples.
Billy Caldwell, baptized Thomas Caldwell, known also as Sauganash, was a British-Potawatomi fur trader who was commissioned captain in the Indian Department of Canada during the War of 1812. He moved to the United States in 1818 and settled there. In 1829 and 1833, he negotiated treaties on behalf of the United Nations of Chippewa, Ottawa and Potawatomi with the United States, and became a leader of a Potawatomi band at Trader's Point. He worked to gain the boundary long promised by the British between white settlers and Indians, but never achieved it.
The siege of Fort Wayne took place from September 5 – September 12, 1812, during the War of 1812. The stand-off occurred in the modern city of Fort Wayne, Indiana between the U.S. military garrison at Fort Wayne and a combined force of Potawatomi and Miami forces. The conflict began when warriors under the Potawatomi Native American Chiefs Winamac, and Five Medals killed two members of the U.S. garrison. Over the next several days, the Potawatomi burned the buildings and crops of the fort's adjacent village, and launched assaults from outside the fort. Winamac withdrew on 12 September, ahead of reinforcements led by Major General William Henry Harrison.
Fort Harrison was a War of 1812 era stockade constructed in Oct. 1811 on high ground overlooking the Wabash River on a portion of what is today the modern city of Terre Haute, Indiana, by forces under command of Gen. William Henry Harrison. It was a staging point for Harrison to encamp his forces just prior to the Battle of Tippecanoe a month later. The fort was the site of a famous battle in the War of 1812, the siege of Fort Harrison in Sept. 1812 that was the first significant victory for the U.S. in the war. The fort was abandoned in 1818 as the frontier moved westward.
Fort Armstrong (1816–1836), was one of a chain of western frontier defenses which the United States erected after the War of 1812. It was located at the foot of Rock Island, in the Mississippi River near the present-day Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa. It was five miles from the principal Sauk and Meskwaki village on the Rock River in Illinois. Of stone and timber construction, 300 feet square, the fort was begun in May 1816 and completed the following year and consisted of three large blockhouses, like the replica, on its prominent corners. In 1832, the U.S. Army used the fort as a military headquarters during the Black Hawk War. It was normally garrisoned by two companies of United States Army regulars. With the pacification of the Indian threat in Illinois, the U.S. Government ceased operations at Fort Armstrong and the U.S. Army abandoned the frontier fort in 1836.
Winamac was the name of a number of Potawatomi leaders and warriors beginning in the late 17th century. The name derives from a man named Wilamet, a Native American from an eastern tribe who in 1681 was appointed to serve as a liaison between New France and the natives of the Lake Michigan region. Wilamet was adopted by the Potawatomis, and his name, which meant "Catfish" in his native Eastern Algonquian language, was soon transformed into "Winamac", which means the same thing in the Potawatomi language. The Potawatomi version of the name has been spelled in a variety of ways, including Winnemac, Winamek, and Winnemeg.
The siege of Prairie du Chien was a British victory in the far western theater of the War of 1812. During the war, Prairie du Chien was a small frontier settlement with residents loyal to both American and British causes. By 1814, both nations were anxious to control the site because of its importance to the fur trade and its strategic location at the intersection of the Mississippi River and the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway, a transportation route linking the Mississippi with the Great Lakes.
Shabbona, also known as Shabonee and Shaubena, was an Ottawa tribe member who became a chief within the Potawatomi tribe in Illinois during the 19th century.
Black Partridge or Black Pheasant was a 19th-century Peoria Lake Potawatomi chieftain. Although a participant in the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812, he was a friend to early American settlers and an advocate for peaceful relations with the United States. He and his brother Waubonsie both attempted to protect settlers during the Battle of Fort Dearborn after they were unsuccessful in preventing the attack.
Chief Gomo was a 19th-century Potawatomi chieftain. He and his brother Senachwine were among the more prominent war chiefs to fight alongside Black Partridge during the Peoria War.
Main Poc (1768–1816), also recorded as Main Poche, Main Pogue, Main Poque, Main Pock; supposedly from the French, meaning "Crippled Hand", was a leader of the Yellow River villages of the Potawatomi Native Americans in the United States. Through his entire life, he fought against the growing strength of the United States and tried to stop the flow of settlers into the Old Northwest. He joined with Tecumseh to push the settlers south and east of the Ohio River and followed him to defeat in Canada during the War of 1812.
The Battle of Rock Island Rapids, also called the Battle of Campbell Island, was an American defeat during the War of 1812 at the hands of the British allied Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo. In July 1814, a military expedition was mounted to supply the U.S. garrison at Prairie du Chien after calls for help. The U.S. expedition was ambushed on July 19. In the aftermath another expedition was sent to re-capture Prairie after it fell to the British. This expedition was also ambushed in the Battle of Credit Island and forced to retreat southwards.
Alexander Robinson, was a British-Ottawa chief born on Mackinac Island who became a fur trader and ultimately settled near what later became Chicago. Multilingual in Odawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwa, English and French, Robinson also helped evacuate survivors of the Fort Dearborn Massacre in 1812. In 1816, Robinson was a translator for native peoples during the Treaty of St. Louis. He became a Potawatomi chief in 1829 and in that year and in 1833, he and fellow Metis Billy Caldwell negotiated treaties on behalf of the United Nations of Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi with the United States. Although Robinson helped lead Native Americans across the Mississippi River in 1835, unlike Caldwell, Robinson returned to the Chicago area by 1840 and lived as a respected citizen in western Cook County until his death decades later.
The Western theater of the War of 1812 was an theater of war during the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. Far from the Atlantic Coast and large cities, logistics and communication were more challenging in the western territories and the United States frontier. For many Native American nations involved, this war was a continuation of the defense of their lands against encroaching settlers.
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