French and Indians of Illinois River by Nehemiah Matson, The Conquest of the Illinois by George Rogers Clark (review)

Review Essay Nehemiah Matson. French and Indians of Illinois River. With : 1 new foreword by Rodney 0. Davis. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001I. 288pp. ISBN: 080932 3648 paper).SI9.95. George Rogers Clark. The Conquest of the Illinois. Milo Milton Quaite, ed. with : i new foreword by Rand Burnette. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 200 1. 2 I 6 pp. SliN: 0809323788 (paper). ST). 95. Southern Illinois University Press offers Lis twi) reprinted wc)i·ks t]int highlight the i:iiportalice of written mcinoirs and oral traditions in illuminating the carly hist(, ry of the Midwest. The first is a histi,ry of the Illinois Country, originally published in 1874, by the surveyor and lt,cal historian Nehemiah Matson who preserved for pcisterity his findings about the illinois Indians and their contacts with European traders and settlers. The second is a reprint of Milo Milton Quaife's edited version cit the memoir of Ge() rge R() gcrs Clark and his exploits in the Mississippi ancl Wahash valleys during the Anicric: iii Revolution. () riginally published in Il) 20, this edited version of Clark's account cleans up : ind modernizes the Revolutionary leader's orthography and offers helpful expl:inatory footnotes about people and places mentioned in the memoir. Each of these v(} turtles includes a useful foreword by a present-day histi,rian who discusses tliC Significance 01 the text at hani! atid c() 111111clits (} 11 tic lierspectives <, 1 il·S , luthor. As Rcidney 0. I) avis remarks in his foreword t() French azid indians of illinois River, at times Mats( in writes " with the disciplined assessment of a surveyor who knew well the terrain of his home county," that is, Bureau County : ind nearby areas 01 the Illinois River Valley (ixl. Fixing his gaze on his surroundings, Matson tries to peel away the layers of history that have accumulated in specific places across this landscape . One such place that particularly captures his imaginatic,11 was Starred Rock, a high cliff on the south bank of the Illinois River. Matson describes it precisely: " This rocky cliff rises almost perpendicular from the water' s edge to the hight Idc] of one hundred Fall 2001 ti 9,¥ te 1 i 0! h, 9 0 41' 1.. 1. V 11. I.] X(ils ('<, 1-NTR72, i/ b l' art rf ' br RM'ri' ALAA* Prl RE. Y 11 , 3,} Ct j[, t . 4.{' 29. 464 4 17- ·/ V. A Plan of the several Villages in the Illinois Country,with Parts of the River Mississippi & c. by Tho. Hutchins. 1778 CHS Map Collections) and thirtysix feet, and is separated from neighboring cliffs by : wide chasm, which slic,ws sigi,s cit having been prt)duced by some convulsion of nature. Three sides of this rock rises Isic] like a watch-tciwer; but the fc,urth, next to the bluff, recedes inward, and at one place can be ascended by a steep rocky stairlike pathway" tiol. Starved Rock was a seventeenthcen tury trading and refugee center for Illinois Indians whose homes had been destrt,yed in bloody battles with the 11·(, quois. It w. is alsc) the site of , 1 fc)1't Con structed under the leadership of RendRobert Cavelier, Sicur de La Salle. And, finally, many years later, it was a place about which many legends were told concerning an intertribal battle that led t() the destruction of the Native peoples of the Illinois River Valley. Review Essay 1 3i As Matson retells these legends, he offers a highly romanticized image of the Illinois 11] dians as a nuble vanished people, although his own S 0 u re e. suggest that some survived in the area through intermarriage and aCC() 111 ] 11() 21tions with encroaching white settlers. George Rogers Clark Engraving by T. B. Welch CHS Collections) Matson als(, rc) manticizes the role of Jesilit missionarics in the region. Despite these limitaticins, Matson' s s{) u]ccs arc worthy of a close ex. iminati(} n . They include numerous interviews with descendants of Indians and early settlers in the region, such as Hypolite Pilette, great-grandson of the French Captain Richard Pilette, who married into a Native family iii the Starved Rock regi(} n; Antoine LeClair, a indtis who related information to Matson about tile United States' burning of Peoria during the War of I 8 I 2; and an unnamed grandson of an esca ped AfricanAmerican slave who married an Indian woman livin, g on the Des Plaines River. Findings from these and other interviews make fascinating reading that reveals the multiethnic world of nineteenth -century Illinois as well as the oral traditions of the area. A number of Matson's informants told of times farremoved from their own experience, relating stories handed clown from generation to generation. In contrast, George Rogers Clark discusses events little more than a decade carlier than the time of his writing . His niemoir, composed primarily in I789 and 1790' focuses especially on the years 1778 and 1779 when Clark accomplished his goal of controlling the Mississippi Valley towns of Cahokia and Kaskaski: i and wresting Vincennes in the Wabash Valley fri) m the British. One gets a clear sense of how much Clark saw his campaign as a way to safeguard the expanding white settlement of Kentucky. The memoir offers a close look at Clark's attempts at psychological manipulation of Indians, French settlers, and his own troops. As Rand Burnette explains in the book's foreword, Clark " is a psychologist who is always trying to determine what course of action or what verbal expression will bring the desired results" ( vii).For example, Clark explains hi,w he took advantage of French fears that the Americans were wild and uncivilized. " No part of the information I received pleased inc more than that concerning the inhabitants lof Kaskaskial believing us ti) be m() re savage than their neighbors, the Indians," Clark writes. " I resolved to make capital of this should I be fortunate enough to gain control over them, since I considered that the greater shock I could give them in the beginning the more appreciative would they he later of my lenity and the inure valuable as friends" { 39). Among his own men, he also capitalized on stereotyped images of white ircmtiersmen and Indians to spur his troops to action. When his men despaired of taking Vincennes, Clark reports how he rallied their flagging spirits: " For about : i minute [ stood looking upon their confusion : ind then, whispering to those close by to do as I did I quickly scooped up some water with my hand, poured soine powder into it, and blacking iny face, raised the war whoop" 1 I 241. Both of these volumes arc best read as companion volumes to more recent ethnohistorical work, such : is Richard White's The Middle Ground: Indian.9, Empii·es. aivd Republics 11] the (: real Lakes Region, 16901815 (199I). Reading Clark's memt)ir alone, one misses the range of factors ci,ntributing to the American leader's military successes, beyond tile choices and attributes of Clark himself. Without kidditii) 11,11 reading, it is sometimes diffictilt tc) separate fact from fiction in Matson' s bc, ok, although 1): ivis's toreword is helpful in this regard. Both hoc,ks should spur : in interest in the history of the Illinois Country : ind contiguous areas among readers who nc, w have easier access to these writings in the conveniont format provided by Southern Illinois University Press. Amy C. Schutt Colgate University Ohio Valley History 32 3' 1 ...