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Visit to Isle Rond--Site of an ancient Indian village--Ossuarie--Indian
prophet--Traditions of Chusco and Yon respecting the ancient village
and bone deposit--Indian speech--Tradition of Mrs. La Fromboise
respecting Chicago--Etymology of the name--Origin of the Bonga
family among the Chippewas--Traditions of Viancour--Of Nolan--Of the
chief Aishquagonaibe, and of Sagitondowa--Evidences of antique
cultivation on the Island of Mackinack--View of affairs at
Washington--The Senate an area of intellectual excitement--A road
directed to be cut through the wilderness from Saginaw--Traditions
of Ossaganac and of Little Bear Skin respecting the Lake Tribes.
1834. May 1st. At last "the winter is gone and past," and
the voice of the robin, if not of the "turtle," begins to be heard
in the land. The whole day is mild, clear, and pleasant,
notwithstanding a moderate wind from the east. The schooner "Huron"
comes in without a mail--a sad disappointment, as we have
been a long time without one.
I strolled up over the cliffs with my children, after their return
from school at noon, to gather wild flowers, it being May-day. We
came in with the spring beauty, called miscodeed by the
Indians, the adder's tongue, and some wild violets.
The day being fine and the lake calm, I visited the Isle Rond--the
locality of an old and long abandoned village. On landing on the
south side, discovered the site of an ancient Indian town--an open
area of several acres, with graves and boulder grave stones. Deep
paths had been worn to the water. The graves had inclosures, more or
less decayed, of cedar and birch bark, and the whole had the
appearance of having been last occupied about seventy years ago. Yet
the graves were, as usual, east and west. I discovered near this
site remains of more ancient occupancy, in a deposit of human bones
laid in a trench north and south. This had all the
appearance of one of the antique ossuaries, constructed by an elder
race, who collected the bones of their dead periodically. The
Indians call this island Min-nis-ais, Little Island. Speaking
of it, the local termination ing is added.
During the day the old Indian prophet Chusco came in, having passed
the winter at Chingossamo's village on the Cheboigan River,
accompanied by an Indian of that village, who calls himself Yon,
which is probably a corruption of John, for he says that his father
was an Englishman, and his mother a Chippewa of St. Mary's.
Chusco and Yon concur in stating that the old town on Round Island
was Chi Naigow's, where he and Aishquonaibee's1
father ruled. It was a large village, occupied still while the
British held old Mackinack, and not finally abandoned until after
the occupancy of the island-post. It consisted of Chippewas. Chi
Naigow afterwards went to a bay of Boisblanc, where the public wharf
now is, where he cultivated land and died2.
These Indians also state, that at the existence of the town on Round
Island, a large Indian village was seated around the present harbor
of Mackinack, and the Indians cultivated gardens there. Yon says,
that at that time there was a stratum of black earth over the
gravel, and that it was not bare gravel as it is now3.
(He is speaking of the shores of the harbor.)
Yon says that a man, called Sagitondowa, is now living at
Chingassamo's village, who once lived in Chi Naigow's village at
Minnissais--and that he is about his age. Yon was about seventy. He
further says that the traverse to Old Mackinack was made directly
from the old town, on Round Island, and that it was from thence
they-went over to get rum.
Chusco made the following speech: "Nosa, when I first spoke to you
it was at the camp of the Strong Wind (Gen. Wayne). You then told me
that I should not be troubled with the smoke, (meaning intrusion
from settlement.) It was said to me that a place should be provided
by our Great Father for us. My home was then at Waganukizzi, the
place of the crotched tree (L'Arbre Croche).
"About twenty men had the courage to go, and united in the treaty.
Chemokoman was one of them. The old chief Niskauzhininna did not go.
He was afraid of the Americans. I carried my ancient implements,
which you know I have forever laid aside. (He was the Seer.)
"The English did not come up to their promises. The land was lost.
The posts were lost. They were all given up, and we only were the
sufferers. Hard is our fate.
"Strong Wind said to the chiefs that there should be a place for the
old and disabled, where they should have food. We were absent at
this treaty all summer. We came back late in the fall."
"Forty winters have past. I am poor and old, and cannot go about any
more. Look at me. I want a house and a shelter. Tell me, shall I
have it?4"
2d. Having, on the 19th of April, called the attention of
Mrs. La Fromboise, an aged Metif lady, to the former state of things
here, she says that the post of Chicago was first established under
English rule, by a negro man named Pointe aux Sables, who was
a respectable man.
The etymology of Chicago appears to be this:--
Chi-cag, Animal of the Leek or Wild Onion. Chi-cag-o-wunz,
The Wild Leek or Pole-cat Plant. Chi-ca-go, Place of the Wild
Leek.
She also says that Captain Robinson, while commanding at Mackinack,
discharged a negro servant named Bonga, who afterwards, with his
wife, purchased the house and lot in which Mr. Wendell now lives
(the old red house next Dousman's, south), where he kept a tavern,
and maintained a respectable character. He afterwards sold out and
went to Detroit, and lived with Mr. Meldrum.
She adds: "The son of this Bonga was the late Bonga, who died as a
comme, at Lake Winnepec, of the Fond du Lac Department. The
present Stephen Bonga of Folleavoine, a trustworthy trader, is the
grandson of this Bonga--Robinson's freed slave. His connections are
Chippewas, and all speak the Chippewa language fluently."
Having seen and known this Bonga, the grandson, I was led to remark
that climate and intermarriage have had little or no appreciable
effect on the color of the skin.
The traditions of Mr. Viancourt, one of the oldest French residents
of Point St. Ignace, who visited the office (24th April), relate
that he was born the year Montreal was taken, 1759. That Mackinack
(the island) was first occupied four years after.
He further says that Gov. Sinclair built a small fort on Black
River, and that he gave his name to that part of the straits which
have since been called St. Clair5. Says
he has been on the island forty-seven years, consequently came in
1788.
The late Mr. J.B. Nolin, of Sault St. Marie, remarked to John
Johnson, Esq., that Governor Sinclair came up with troops the year
after the massacre at old Mackinack; and that he landed with a broad
belt of wampum in his hands.
Aishkwagon-ai-bee, or the feather of honor, first chief of the
Chippewas of Grand Traverse Bay, Lake Michigan, says that the
Nadowas (Iroquois) formerly lived at Point St. Ignace--that they
fell out with the Chippewas and Ottawas on a certain day, at a
ball-playing, when a Chippewa was killed. Hereupon, the Chippewas
and Ottawas united their strength and drove them away, destroying
their village.
The Chippewas and Ottawas then divided the land by natural
boundaries. Grand Traverse Bay fell to the Chippewas.
Another Indian tradition respecting the old village on Isle Rond,
was gleaned:--
Sagitondowa visits the office: he says he lacks one year of fifty.
His earliest recollections are of the old village on Round Island.
It was then (say 1783, the close of the American Revolutionary War)
a large village, and nearly half the island in cultivation. It was
not finally abandoned until lately.
Having his attention called to the deposit of old bones exposed by
the action of the lake, he finally said he knew not how they came
there; that they must be of ancient date, and were probably of the
same era with the bones in the caves of the island of Mackinack. He
said when he was young there was no village on that part of the bay
of Mackinack situated between the old Government house, and the
present Catholic church. This was formerly a cedar swamp. There was
a village near Porkman's (Mr. Edward Biddle's), and another near the
Presbyterian Church.
3d. Seed the borders around the garden lots with clover and
timothy, united with oats. Continue to plant in hot-beds, and in the
ornamental mound. The "Huron" departs up the lake, the "Austerlitz"
returns.
Drove out in my carriage with Mrs. Schoolcraft and children, round
the island. I found no traces of snow or ice.
5th. A gale from the east, which began to show itself
yesterday.
The schooner "Lady of the Lake" comes in, without a mail.
During the afternoon, the wind also brings in the "Marengo," with a
mail, and in the night, the "Supply."
6th. Wind from the S.W. and W. Rain, chilly, cloudy.
7th. A complete counterpart of the weather of yesterday.
8th. The same weather in every respect, with light snow
flurries. The last four or five days have been most disheartening
weather for this season, and retarded gardening. The leaves of the
pie plant have been partially nipped by the frost.
9th. Clear and pleasant--wind west. Drove out with Mrs.
Schoolcraft and children to see the arched rock, the sugar-loaf
rock, Henry's cave, and other prominent curiosities of the island.
There are extensive old fields on the eastern part of the island, to
which the French apply the term of Grands Jardins. No
resident pretends to know their origin. Whether due to the labors of
the Hurons or the Wyandots, who are known to have been driven by the
Iroquois to this island from the St. Lawrence valley, early in the
17th century; or to a still earlier period, when the ancient bones
were deposited in the caves, is not known. It is certain that the
extent of the fields evince an agricultural industry which is not
characteristic of the present Algonquin race. The stones have been
carefully gathered into heaps, as in the little valley near the
arched rock, to facilitate cultivation. These heaps of stones, in
various places might be mistaken for Celtic cairns.
10th. The schooner "Mariner," our old friend, comes into port
with forty emigrants for Chicago. During the evening the "Commerce"
and "America" join her.
11th. S. Cold north-west wind, gloomy and cloudy.
12th. A report is received that the President has
communicated a protest to the Senate on the expression of their
views respecting the removal of the deposits.
I told a party of Ottawas, who applied for food, that their Great
Father was not pleased that his bounties should be misused by their
employing them merely to further their journeys to foreign agencies,
where the counsels they got were such as he could not approve. That
hereafter such bounties must not be expected; that the poor and
suffering would always find the agency doors open, but I should be
compelled to close them to such as turned a deaf ear to his advice,
if their practices in visiting these foreign assemblies were
persisted in.
13th. A slight snow covers the ground in the morning, it
melts soon, but the day is ungenial, with S.W. wind, and cloudy
atmosphere.
14th. A powder of snow covers the ground in the north, the
wind in the N.W. It varies from N.W. to S.W., and by ten o'clock,
A.M., it is pleasant and clear. Plant garden corn, an early species
cultivated by the Ottawas.
15th. Cold and clear most of the day.
16th. Young Robert Gravereat first came to the office in the
capacity of interpreter. It is a calm and mild day; the sun shines
out. The thermometer stands at 50 deg. at 8 o'clock, A.M., and the
weather appears to be settled for the season. Miss Louisa Johnston
comes to pass the summer.
15th. Ploughed potato land, the backward state of the season
having rendered it useless earlier. Even now the soil is cold, and
requires to lay some time after being ploughed up.
The steamer "Oliver Newberry" arrives in the afternoon, bringing
Detroit dates of May 5th, and Washington dates a week later.
The new brig "John Kinzie" enters the harbor on the 19th, bringing
up Gov. D.R. Porter, of Pennsylvania, and suit, with forty
passengers.
20th. I may now advert to what the busy world has been about,
while we have been watching fields of floating ice, and battling it
with the elements through an entire season. A letter from E.A.
Brush, Esq., Washington, March 13th, says: "Nothing is talked about
here, as I may well presume you know from the papers, but the
deposits and their removal, and their restoration; and that
frightful mother of all mischief, the money maker (U.S. Bank). Every
morning (the morning begins here at twelve, meridian) the Senate
chamber is thronged with ladies and feathers, and their obsequious
satellites, to hear the sparring. Every morning a speech is made
upon presentation of some petition representing that the country is
overwhelmed with ruin and disasters, and that the fact is notorious
and palpable; or, that the country is highly prosperous and
flourishing, and that everybody knows it. One, that its only safety
lies in the continuance of the Bank; and the other, that our
liberties will be prostrated if it is re-chartered. Of course, the
well in which poor truth has taken refuge, in this exigency, is very
deep.
"But the Senate is, at this moment, an extraordinary constellation
of talent. There is Mr. Webster, and Mr. Clay, and Mr. Calhoun, and
a no-way inferior, Mr. Preston, the famous debater in the South
Carolina troubles, and Mr. Benj. Watkins Leigh, the equally
celebrated ambassador near the government of South Carolina. All are
ranged on one side, and it is a phalanx as formidable, in point of
moral force, as the twenty-four can produce. Mr. Forsyth is the
atlas upon whose shoulders are made to rest all the sins of the
administration. Every shaft flies at him, or rather is intended for
others through him; and his Ajax shield of seven bull hides is more
than once pierced, in the course of the frequent encounters to which
he is invited, and from which they will not permit him to secede.
But it is all talk. They will do nothing. A constitutional majority
in the Senate (two-thirds) is very doubtful, and a bare one in the
House, still more problematical. Of course, you are aware that the
executive has expressed its unyielding determination not to sign a
bill for the re-charter, or to permit a restoration of the deposits.
"Houses are cracking in the cities, as if in the midst of an
earthquake, and there is hardly a man engaged in mercantile
operations (I might say not one) who will not feel the 'pressure.'"
Major W. Whiting writes from Detroit, March 28th: "I spoke of the
project of a road to Mackinack, which you wished me to bear in mind.
The Secretary approved the project, and the Quarter-Master General
said it might be done without a special appropriation. I was
authorized to have the survey made as soon as the season will
permit, and an officer has reported to me for that purpose. He will
start from Saginaw some time in the next month, to make a
reconnoisance of the country, and will appear at the head of the
peninsula when perhaps you little expect such a visitor.
"As soon as the survey shall be completed, the cutting out will be
put under contract. When this road shall be completed, you will feel
more neighborly to us. The express will be able to perform the
journey in half the time, and, of course, the trips can be
multiplied."
June 4th. Reuben Smith, a Mission scholar of the Algonquin
lineage, determines to leave his temporary employment at the agency,
and complete his education at the eastward.
5th. Ossiganac, an Ottawa, who was formerly interpreter at
the British post at Drummond Island, says that Ottawa tradition
points back to the Manitouline Islands, as the place of their
origin. They call those islands Ottawa Islands, and Lake Huron
Ottawa Lake. They call Lake Superior Chippewa Lake. All the Ottawas,
he says, of L'Arbre Croche, Grand River, &c., came from the Ottawa
or Manitouline Islands. The French first found them there6.
They migrated down Lake Michigan, and lived with the Potawattomies.
After awhile, the Potawattomies growing uneasy of their presence,
accused them of using bad medicine, which was the cause of their
people dying. The Ottawas replied, that if they were jealous of
them, they would retire, and they accordingly withdrew up the
peninsula. While in the course of withdrawing, one of their number
was killed by the Potawattomies.
6th. Ossiganac, at an interview at my house this afternoon,
says that the Ottawas of Maumee, Ohio, sent a message to the Ottawas
of L'Arbre Croche, in Governor Hull's time--consequently between
1805 and 1812--saying: "We were originally of one fire, and we wish
to come back again to you, that we may all derive heat again from
the same fire."
The Ottawas of L'Arbre Croche replied: "True, but you took a coal to
warm yourselves by. Now, it will be better that you remain by your
own coal, which you saw fit long ago to take from our fire. Remain
where you are." From that day the Ottawas of Maumee have said
nothing more about joining us.
Now (1834) the Potawattomies come with a request to join our fire.
Shall we receive them, when we refused our brethren, who are more
nearly related to us? I think not.
7th. The Little Bear Skin, Muk-ons-e-wy-an-ais, of Manistee,
inquires respecting the truth of a rumor, that the Potawattomies,
since selling their lands at Chicago, are coming to the North,
amongst the Ottawas and Chippewas. He deprecates such a movement.
Says the habits of the Potawattomies are so different that they
would not be satisfied were they to come. Their horses are their
canoes. They know nothing of traveling by water; beyond shore
navigation. They are sea-sick on the lakes.
Little Bear Skin says he lives on the first forks of the Manistee.
Although a Chippewa, he is in the habit of cultivating gardens. He
is originally, by his parents, from the North--is related to the St.
Mary's and Taquimenon Indians. He himself was born on the Manistee.
He is a temperance man.
Cherry trees in full bloom. The steamer "Uncle Sam" enters the
harbor, being the first of a line established to Chicago.
9th. Apple and plum trees pretty full in flower.
10th. Mrs. Robert Stuart makes a handsome present of
conchological species from foreign localities to be added to my
cabinet.
15th. Major Whistler interdicts preaching in the fort. Mr. B.
Stuart, having returned recently from the East, resumes the
superintendence of the Sabbath School at the Mission, from which I
had relieved him in the autumn.
I have written these sketches for my own satisfaction and the
refreshment of my memory, in the leading scenes and events of my
first winter on the island, giving prominence to the state and
changes of the weather, the occurrences among the natives, and the
moral, social, and domestic events around me. But the curtain of the
world's great drama is now fully raised, by our free commercial and
postal union with the region below us; new scenes and topics daily
occur, which it would be impossible to note if I tried, and which
would be useless if possible. Hereafter my notices must be of
isolated things, and may be "few and far between."
1: A Chief of Grand Traverse.
2: His daughter, who was most likely to know, says
he died at Manista. See prior part of Journal.
3: At Mackinack, they, in some places, raise
potatoes in clean gravel.
4: In the treaty of 28th March, 1836, a dormitory
was provided for the Indians visiting the post of Mackinack. Chusco
was granted an annuity in coin.
5: Consult Charlevoix's Journal. Is not so, go
far as the origin of the name is concerned.
6: This is pretty well for Indian tradition, but
is not so, in truth, as Charlevoix's Hist. of New France denotes.
This site includes some historical
materials that may imply negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language
of a particular period or place. These items are presented as part of the
historical record and should not be interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in
any way endorse the stereotypes implied.
Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the
Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers, 1851
Thirty
Years with the Indians
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