In The Boyhood of Lincoln Part 20

CHAPTER XI.

THE CABIN NEAR CHICAGO.

Jasper and Waubeno crossed the prairies to Lake Michigan. It was June, the high tide of the year. The long days poured their sunlight over the seas of flowers. The prairie winds were cool, and the new vegetation was alive with insects and birds.

The first influence that Jasper tried to exert on Waubeno was to induce him to forego the fixed resolution to avenge his father's death.

"The first thing in education," he used to say, "is conscience, the second is the heart, and the third is the head."

He had planned to teach Waubeno while the Indian boy should be teaching him, and he wished to follow his own theory that a new pupil should first learn to be governed by his moral sense.

"Waubeno," he said, in their long walk over the prairie, "I wish to teach you and make you wise, but before I can do you justice you must make a promise. Will you, Waubeno?"

"I will. You would not ask me to do what is wrong."

"It may be a hard thing, but, Waubeno, I wish you to promise me that you will never seek to avenge your father. Will you, Waubeno?"

"Parable, I will promise you any right thing but that. I have made another promise about that thing--it must hold."

"Waubeno, I can not teach you as I would while you carry malice in your heart. The soul does not see clearly that is dark with evil. Do you see?

I wish it for your good."

"The white man punishes his enemies, does he not? Why should not I avenge a wrong? The white fathers at Malden" (the trade-post on Lake Erie) "avenge every wrong that is done them by the Indians, do they not?"

"Christ died for his enemies. He forgave them, dying. You have heard."

"Then why do his followers not do the same?"

"They do."

"I have never seen one who did."

"Not one?"

"No, not one."

"Then they are false to the cross. Waubeno, I love you. I am seeking your good. Trust me. I would make you any promise that I could. Make me this promise, and then we will be brothers. Your vow rises between us like a cloud."

"Parable, listen. I will promise, on one condition."

"What, Waubeno?"

"You say that right is might, Parable?"

"Yes."

"_When I find a single white man who defends an Indian to his own hurt because it is right, I will promise._ I have known many white men who defended the Indian because they thought that it was good for them to do it--good for their pockets, good for their church, good for their souls in another world--but never one to his own harm, because it was right; listen, Parable--never one to his own harm because it was right.

When I meet one--such a one--I will promise you what you ask. Parable, my folks did right because it was right."

"Waubeno, I once knew a boy who defended a turtle to his own harm, because it was right. The boys laughed at him, but his soul was true to the turtle."

"I would like to meet that boy," Waubeno said. "He and I would be brothers. But I have never seen such a boy, Parable. I have never seen any man who had the worth of my own father, and, till I do, I shall hold to my vow to him! G.o.d heard that vow, and he shall see that I prove true to a man who died for the truth!"

The two came in sight of blue Lake Michigan, where the old Jesuit explorer had had a vision of a great city; and where Point au Sable, the San Domingo negro, for a time settled, hoping to be made an Indian king.

Here he found the hospitable roofs of John Kinzie, the pioneer of Chicago, the Romulus of the great mid-continent city, where storehouses abounded with peltries and furs.

John Kinzie (the father of the famous John H. Kinzie) was a grand pioneer, like the Pilgrim Fathers of the elder day. He dealt honestly with the Indians, and won the hearts of the several tribes. He settled in Chicago in 1804, at which time a block-house was built by the Government as a frontier house or garrison. This frontier house stood near the present Rush Street Bridge. Mr. Kinzie's house stood on the north side of the Chicago River, opposite the fort. The storm-beaten block-house was to be seen in Chicago as late as 1857, and the place of Mr. Kinzie's home will ever be held as sacred ground. The frontier house was known as Fort Dearborn. A little settlement grew around the fort and the hospitable doors of Mr. Kinzie, until in 1830 it numbered twelve houses. Twelve houses in Chicago in 1830! Pa.s.s the bridge of sixty years, and lo! the rival city of the Western world, with its more than a million people--more than fulfilling the old missionary's dream!

For twenty years John Kinzie was the only white man not connected with the garrison and trading-post who lived in northern Illinois. He was a witness of the Indian ma.s.sacre of the troops in 1812, when he himself was driven from his home by the lake.

He saw another and different scene in August, 1821--a scene worthy of a poet or painter--the Great Treaty, in which the Indian chiefs gave up most of their empire east of the Mississippi. There came to this decisive convocation the plumes of the Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottawattamies. General Ca.s.s was there, and the old Indian agents. The chiefs brought with them their great warriors, their wives and children.

There the prairie Indians made their last stand but one against the march of emigration to the Mississippi.

Me-te-nay, the young orator of the Pottawattamies, was there, to make a poetic appeal for his race. But the counsels of the white chiefs were too persuasive and powerful. A treaty was concluded, which virtually gave up the Indian empire east of the Mississippi.

Then the chiefs and the warriors departed, their red plumes disappearing over the prairie in the sunset light. Before them rolled the Mississippi. Behind them lay the blue seas of the lakes. It was a sorrowful procession that slowly faded away. Some twelve years after, in August, 1835, another treaty was concluded with the remaining tribes, and there occurred the last dance of the Pottawattamies on the grounds where the city of Chicago now stands.

Five thousand Indians were present, and nearly one thousand joined in the dance. The latter a.s.sembled at the council-house, on the place where now is the northeast corner of North Water and Rush Streets, and where the Lake House stands. Their faces were painted in black and vermilion; their hair was gathered in scalp-locks on the tops of their heads, and was decorated with Indian plumes. They were led by drums and rattles.

They marched in a dancing movement along the river, and stopped before each house to perform the grotesque figures of their ancient traditions.

They seemed to be aware that this was their last gathering on the lake.

The thought fired them. Says one who saw them:

"Their eyes were wild and bloodshot. Their muscles stood out in great, hard knots, as if wrought to a tension that must burst them. Their tomahawks and clubs were thrown and brandished in every direction."

The dance was carried on in a procession through the peaceful streets, and was concluded at Fort Dearborn in presence of the officers and soldiers of the garrison. It was the last great Indian gathering on the lake.

A new civilization began in the vast empire of the inland seas with the signing of the Treaty of Chicago and these concluding rites. Around the home of pastoral John Kinzie were to gather the new emigrations of the nations of the world, and the Queen City of the Lakes was to rise, and Progress to make the seat of her empire here. Never in the history of mankind did a city leap into life like this, which is now setting on her brow the crown of the Columbus domes.

On the arrival of Jasper and Waubeno at Fort Dearborn, an incident occurred which affords a picture of the vanished days of the prairie chiefs and kings. There came riding up to the trading-houses a middle-aged chief named Shaubena.

This chief may be said to have been the guardian spirit of the infant city of Chicago. He hovered around her for her good for a half-century, and was faithful to her interests from the first to the end of his long life. If ever an Indian merited a statue or an imperishable memorial in a great city, it is Shaubena.

He was born about the year 1775, on the Kankakee River. His home was on a prairie island, as a growth of timber surrounded by a prairie used to be called. It was near the head-waters of Big Indian Creek, now in De Kalb County. This grove, or prairie island, still bears his name.

Here were his corn-fields, his sugar-camps, his lodges, and his happy people. In his youth he had been employed by two Ottawa priests, or prophets, to instruct the people in the principles of their religion, and so he had traveled extensively in the land of the lakes, and spoke English well. The old Methodist circuit-riders used to visit him on his prairie island, and his family was brought under their influence and accepted their faith. When, in 1812, Indian runners from Tec.u.mseh visited the tribal towns of the Illinois River to tell the warriors that war had been declared between the United States and England, and to counsel them to unite with the English, Shaubena endeavored to restrain his people from such a course, and to prevent a union of the tribes against the American settlers. When he found that the Indians were marching against Chicago, he followed them on his pony.

He arrived too late. A scene of blood met his eyes. Along the lake, where the blue waves rolled in the sun, lay forty-two dead bodies, the remains of white soldiers, women, and children. These bodies lay on the prairie for four years, until the rebuilding of Fort Dearborn in 1816, with the exception of the mutilated remains of Captain Wells, which Black Partridge buried.

John Kinzie and his family had been saved, largely by the influence of Shaubena. Black Partridge summoned his warriors to protect the house.

Shaubena rushed up to the porch-steps and set his rifle across the doorway. The rooms were occupied by Mrs. Kinzie, her children, and Mrs.

Helm. A party of excited Indians rushed upon the place and forced their way into the house, to kill the women. The intended ma.s.sacre was delayed by the friendly Indians.

In the mean time a half-breed girl, who had been employed by good John Kinzie, and who was devoted to his family, had stolen across the prairie to Sauganash, or Billy Caldwell, the friendly chief. This warrior seized his canoe and came paddling down the waters, plumed with eagle-feathers, with a rifle in his hand. He rose up in his canoe, in the dark, as he came to the sh.o.r.e.

"Who are you?" asked Black Partridge.