The “Peoria War” of 1813 was a big part of the elimination of Indians in Illinois.

A nearly forgotten series of small skirmishes that became known as the “Peoria War” made up a big part of the elimination of Indians in Illinois. The tribe of the Peoria was not involved in this conflict.

In October 1812, Illinois’ territorial Gov. Ninian Edwards launched attacks against Kickapoo and Potawatomi villages in and around the wide area of the Illinois River dubbed Lake Pimiteoui. Some said the assaults — with companies of soldiers and irregulars (militia) destroying the homes and killing dozens of inhabitants — were in retaliation for the Potawatomi victory at Chicago's Fort Dearborn (An in-depth account of the Fort Dearborn Massacre).

Returning to the Peoria area, Black Partridge changed his conciliatory relations with the U.S. military. In his absence, the Americans’ attacks resulted in the destruction of the Potawatomi leader’s home and the deaths of his daughter and grandchild. That caused Black Partridge to renounce his allegiance and take up arms with other resisting Indian forces.

It’s impossible to say what would have happened had the assault on Peoria-area villages not occurred, of course. However, if Black Partridge and other Indian forces had had more resources from the British, with whom they’d been allied since the United States declared war against Great Britain on June 18, 1812, settlers’ westward expansion might have been stopped at the Illinois-Indiana border.

Instead, treachery in treaties and policies, clumsy betrayals, and shifting alliances linked the Peoria War to Tecumseh’s War and the War of 1812 and led to the eradication of Indian villages and their ultimate displacement.

Ties to the Tecumseh War and the War of 1812 started in 1811 and extended to the Treaty of Ghent, where American and British diplomats on Christmas Eve 1814 settled disputes — and abandoned Indians to the changing whims of settlers, troops, and governments.

Tecumseh’s War was a war of resistance against “the children of the Evil Spirit” after the Shawnee chief assembled a coalition of different tribes following the Treaty of Fort Wayne. That pact was supposedly decided on September 29, 1809, when Indian leaders agreed to relinquish 3 million acres in Indiana and Illinois, and although Black Partridge signed, many Indian leaders refused and some declared it a fraud, sparking the Tecumseh War. That armed conflict continued until Tecumseh’s death at the Battle of the Thames in southern Canada on October 5, 1813.

Meanwhile, the War of 1812 had four causes, historians agree upon Britain seizing Americans to forcibly serve on British ships, British trade restrictions, occasional British support for Indians, and a desire by some U.S. leaders to seize Canada from British control.

The Indian population in Illinois had increased after 1811 when Tecumseh’s forces were defeated at a battle at Tippecanoe in Indiana, but there were few U.S. troops or garrisons.

Still, a month after Black Partridge’s home and family were wiped out, another punitive attack came from troops coming to the Peoria area from Fort Knox in Kentucky. Despite the Indian villages having many “neutral” Potawatomi and Kickapoo warriors setting wild grass ablaze to stop the soldiers, troops destroyed villages and killed inhabitants who’d fled into a swamp. Even indecisive Indian villages then rallied against the troops and settlers to fight with the British and Tecumseh’s ragtag confederacy of tribes.

Fort Clark Illustration

About a year later, Tecumseh was killed at the Battle of the Thames east of Detroit in southern Ontario, and a few weeks later, fewer than 200 Potawatomi and Kickapoo warriors led by Black Partridge were beaten back by more than 1,000 soldiers who’d arrived from St. Louis to bolster forces at the newly built Fort Clark (constructed in 1813) on the riverfront near where Liberty Street is now, named for Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark. That winter, Black Partridge met in St. Louis with Missouri’s Territorial Gov. William Clark (of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and brother of George Rogers Clark), ending the Peoria War.

Black Partridge died in 1815, but he was one of several area Indian leaders, men who answered to the names Gomo, Senachwine, Shabbona, Main Poc of the Kankakee, and Black Hawk of the Sauk ("Life of Black Hawk" as dictated by himself). Some had supported the French against Great Britain and colonists in the French and Indian War; some backed colonists in the American Revolution.

Elsewhere, remaining Indian fighters including Kickapoo, Sauk, and Fox defeated troops in two related actions in the area where the Quad Cities are today: the Battle of Rock Island (July 1814) and the Battle of Credit Island (September 1814). But such victories were few.

Edwards, who served from 1809-1818, went on to again order attacks against Indians during the Winnebago War in southern Wisconsin in the 1820s when the U.S. government started setting aside “reservation” land farther west. Also, 5 million acres of land in western Illinois in May 1812 was offered to people who were serving in the War of 1812 — about one-eighth of the current state’s area, and where many Indians still lived. So new settlers and land speculators stepped up efforts to push Indians from the Midwest to Oklahoma, where the Potawatomi Nation survives.

Later, the Black Hawk War, lasting four months in 1832, was the Indians’ last, unsuccessful attempt to preserve their homes in Illinois and Wisconsin.

Pokagon of the Potawatomi in the late 1800s said, “Often in the stillness of the night, when all nature seems asleep about me, there comes a gentle rapping at the door of my heart. I open it; a voice inquires, ‘Pokagon, what of your people? What will their future be?’ My answer is: ‘Mortal man has not the power to draw aside the veil of unborn time. That gift belongs to the Divine. But it is given to him to closely judge the future by the present and the past.’”

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The Biography of Potawatomi Chief Senachwine (Difficult Current). 1744-1831

In April 1812, Chief Senachwine and other Potawatomi chieftains met with Governor Ninian Edwards at Cahokia to discuss relations between the Potawatomi and the United States. Although opposed to offensive war, Senachwine sided with Black Partridge during the Peoria War and commanded a sizable force during the conflict. Senachwine later accompanied the Potawatomi peace delegation, who were escorted by Colonel George Davenport to sign the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis.

Around 1814, a mysterious Baptist preacher and missionary known by Wigby lived in his village. Wigby was allowed to baptize him and later converted Senachwine to Christianity. However, despite Wigby's attempts to dissuade him, Senachwine refused to give up polygamy and retained his several wives. After Wigby's death, he was buried on a high bluff overlooking Senachwine's village.

Senachwine succeeded his brother Gomo as head chieftain of the Illinois River band and was a signatory of several treaties between the Potawatomi and the United States during the 1810s and 1820s. He and Black Partridge would remain the leading chieftains of the Potawatomi for over a decade before their positions of authority and influence were assumed by Shabbona. A year before his death, Senachwine believed that the Potawatomi nation, and eventually all Indians, would eventually become extinct. His son, Kaltoo (or Young Senachwine), succeeded him as chieftain after his death in the summer of 1831.

Monument to Potawatomi Chief Senachwine near Putnam (an unincorporated village) in Putnam County, Illinois.

He was buried on a high bluff overlooking the village, like the missionary Wigby years before, and a wooden monument was placed on his grave. A black flag was also flown from a high pole next to the monument and could be seen from the gravesite for several years afterward. Two years later, his band was removed to the Indian Territory and eventually settled in western Kansas.

In the summer of 1835, twenty-three Potawatomi warriors traveled over 500 miles to visit the gravesite of Senachwine. Their faces blackened, and their heads wrapped in blankets, they performed a ritual invoking the Great Spirit to protect the gravesite and remains of the chieftain. According to a local resident observing the ceremony, the warriors spent several hours knelt around the gravesite as "their wails and lamentations were heard far away." The following morning they performed the "dance of the dead," which continued for several days before departing.

A short time after, Senachwine's grave was robbed of its valuables, including his tomahawk, rifle, several medals, and other personal effects. The chieftain's bones had also been scattered around the site. Members of his band returned to the site to rebury his remains and again placed a wooden monument over his grave. James R. Taliaferro, who had been present at the reburial, later built a cabin near the gravesite and claimed that "Indians from the west at different times made a pilgrimage to the grave."

Gary Wiskigeamatyuk (from left), his son Senachwine, his wife Rosewita, and daughter Kayla visit Chief Senachwine's grave overlooking Senachwine Valley near Putnam. Wiskigeamatyuk is the fifth great-grandson of the legendary Potawatomi chief.

The Sons of the American Revolution chapter in Peoria, Illinois, placed a bronze memorial plaque engraved with his speech to Black Hawk pleading for peace before the Black Hawk War at the supposed burial spot of Senachwine north of present-day Putnam County, Illinois, on June 13, 1937. During the ceremony, an address was given by author P.G. Rennick. Five tribal members of the Potawatomi from Kansas were also in attendance during the ceremony.

Senachwine Indian Mounds. Burial stone monument circled in yellow.

The Putnam village is located west of Senachwine Lake along Route 29, north of Henry, Illinois. The village of some 100 people was originally called Senachwine.

Putnam is the only village in Putnam County on the west side of the Illinois River.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.