Did "Fort Chécagou, a French Fort, really exist at the mouth of the Chicago River?

In the summer of 1795, a conference was held at Greenville, Ohio, between the Indians and the whites. Over a thousand warriors, the representatives of half a score of tribes, assembled at the call of their conqueror in battle, Mad Anthony Wayne, to agree upon the terms of a treaty that should bring peace to the troubled northwestern frontier. In the negotiations which ensued, Wayne assumed, as was fitting because of his recent victories, the attitude of a conqueror. The war had been fought by the Indians to hold, by the Americans to break, the Ohio River as the dividing line between the two races. The whites had triumphed, and accordingly, Wayne demanded of the Indians the cession of a vast tract of land north of the Ohio River. Also, he required a considerable number of small reservations scattered at points of strategic importance throughout the Indian country for the erection of forts to control important highways of communication and commerce. In the course of the negotiations, a spirited debate arose concerning the extent of the French occupation of the Northwest, involving the historical question which forms the subject of this article.

Little Turtle, the famous Miami chieftain, claimed for his tribe the extensive tract of land reaching from Detroit and Chicagoua on the north to the Ohio River on the south; and from the Scioto on the east to a line from the mouth of the Wabash River to Chicago on the west. Wayne objected that the French had had establishments at various places throughout this region, asserting, among other things, that he discovered a "strong trace" of them at Chicago. This Little Turtle bluntly denied and, in the course of a vigorous rejoinder several days later, rudely exclaimed: "You told us at Chicago the French possessed a fort; we have never heard of it." 

Whatever the historical validity of the opposing contentions, the immediate decision of the controversy was made on other grounds. The Indian leader was compelled to bow before the power of Wayne's grim legion. Accordingly, as finally drafted, one clause of the treaty conveyed to the whites a tract of land six miles square at the mouth of the Chicago River "where a fort formerly stood." But over the conclusions, Wayne's legion has no power. Our final judgment upon the issue which the two leaders debated will be determined not by the might of battalions but by the weight of historical evidence. And it is of sufficient importance to the history of Illinois and the Northwest to repay an examination of the available historical evidence to answer, at last, whether the French ever, in fact, had a fort at Chicago. 

Aside from Wayne's assertions in the negotiations at Greenville, a great deal has been said and written on the subject of a fort at Chicago in the French period. Thomas Hutchins, the first and only civil "geographer of the United States," who had traveled extensively in the Northwest, placed an "Indian village and Fort" at the entrance of the Chicago River on the map, which accompanied his famous Topographical Description of 1778. Whether he intended to indicate that the fort, as well as the village, was of Indian origin is not entirely clear, although Butterfield cites the Topographical Description as his authority for asserting that at the time of the revolution, there was "a stockade fort" at the mouth of the river, which, he adds, was occupied only by traders. Many earlier maps might be cited to show the existence of a fort at Chicago in the French period. The testimony of these sources, reinforced by several contemporary narratives that will be considered, has commonly been accepted by historians. Most of the State and local histories that treat of early Chicago with any degree of fullness credit the French fort tradition. 

Mr. Edward G. Mason, a zealous worker in the field of Illinois history, thought there was a fort here from 1685 until the end of French control in this region, and the most recent historian of Chicago concludes that "no doubt a succession of forts and stockades" existed here "at one period or another."

In spite of these numerous assertions, however, it is extremely doubtful whether the French ever had a regular fort at Chicago, and it can be shown conclusively that if so it existed for but a short period only. 

La Salle (René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle {Sieur de La Salle is a title only} translating to "Lord of the manor.") and Henri de Tonti passed by Chicago at various times and their movements are known during the entire period of La Salle's activities in Illinois. But for two exceptions, to be noted shortly, they nowhere speak of a fort at Chicago at this time, and the evidence that there was none, though negative, may be regarded as conclusive. There was no establishment at Chicago in 1687 when Cavelier's party was here vainly seeking to push on to Mackinac, nor in 1688, when the same party, having wintered at Fort St. Louis du Rocher, again tarried {stay longer than intended; delay leaving a place} at Chicago while on their way to Canada. There is no evidence that such a fort was established in the succeeding decade. There is negative evidence to the contrary both in the fact that St. Cosme makes no mention of a fort at Chicago at the time of his visit and that the French government gave only grudging permission to Tonti to continue at Fort St. Louis, limiting his yearly trading operations to two canoes of merchandise, and finally, by royal decree, directing the abandonment of the fort. 

We have thus arrived at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Did the French have a fort at Chicago between the years 1700 and 1763? James Logan's report to Governor Keith in 1718, upon the French establishments in the interior, which was used by Keith in his memorial to the British Board of Trade so asserts. By the latter, the statements of Logan were incorporated in a report to the king, and this, apparently, was the source of Popple's representation of a "Fort Miamis" at Chicago on his great Map of the British Empire in America of 1732.  In spite of this contemporary evidence, which has gained the approval of many historians, it seems very probable that no such fort existed at Chicago in the eighteenth century. That there was no fort here in 1715 is shown by two independent sources. In November of this year, Claude de Bamezay, acting governor, and Begon, intendant of New France, in a report to the French minister dealing in part with the military situation in the region between the Upper Lakes and the Mississippi, recommended the establishment of several new posts. Among the number, a post at "Chicagou" was urged "to facilitate access to the Miamis and Illinois tribes, and to keep these nations in our interests." If a fort already existed at Chicago, the two highest officials in New France would have been aware of the fact, and there would have been no reason for this recommendation. In this same year, 1715, as part of an elaborately planned campaign against the Mesquakie (Fox) Indians of Wisconsin, the French arranged for the rendezvous at Chicago of forces from Detroit, from the Wabash, and from the lower Illinois settlements. A series of mishaps caused a complete miscarriage of the plans for the campaign, but these very mishaps show that if there was a fort, there was, at all events, no garrison at Chicago. The three parties which were to effect a junction here arrived at different times, and each, in turn, ignorant of the movements of the others, abandoned the expedition and retired. Obviously, if there had been a garrison at Chicago, it would have constituted an important factor in planning the campaign; and the various bands which were to effect a junction here would have been informed, on their arrival, of the movements of the others. 

That there was no French establishment at Chicago in 1721 is shown by the journal of Father Charlevoix. This year he was touring the interior of America on a royal commission to examine and report to his king the condition of New France. His letters and history constitute the most authoritative eighteenth-century source for his story of New France. In September of 1721, when the British Board of Trade report was made, Charlevoix passed from Fort St. Joseph, where the city of Niles, Michigan, now stands, down the Kankakee and Illinois to Peoria, and beyond. He had first intended to pass through Chicago, but a storm on the lake, together with information of the impossibility of navigating the Desplaines in a canoe at this season, led him to follow the route by the St. Joseph Portage and the Kankakee. His journal is detailed and explicit; he carefully describes the various posts and routes of communication. He had planned to pass by Chicago and informed himself concerning the portage and the Desplaines River. Yet he gives no hint of a fort here, a thing incomprehensible if such a fort had in fact existed. 

There is abundant evidence in the sources about the operations of the French in the Northwest that they had no fort at Chicago after 1721. In connection with the Fox wars, numerous campaigns were waged in which the Chicago garrison, if there had been one, would have participated. Yet no such force is ever mentioned, and some of the sources make it positively evident that there was neither garrison nor fort here. In 1727 the holding of a great conference with the Foxes the following year at Starved Rock or Chicago was proposed. If this were done, it was deemed necessary for the French to be first on the spot appointed for the rendezvous "to erect a fort" and otherwise prepare for the council. The project never materialized, however, and so the fort was not built. In 1730, when the French succeeded in trapping and destroying a large band of the Foxes in the vicinity of Starved Rock, parties came to the scene of conflict from many directions from Ouiatanon, St. Joseph, Fort de Chartres, and elsewhere; but none came from Chicago, although it was nearer the scene than any of the places from which the French forces did come obviously because there was no garrison at Chicago. In the early winter of 1731-32, a Huron-Iroquois war party passed from Detroit to St. Joseph and thence around the southern end of Lake Michigan and on into Wisconsin to attack the Foxes. The party paused at Chicago long enough to build a fort in which to leave their sick. This fort was evidently a temporary Indian shelter, but it is also evident that if an ungarrisoned French fort had been standing here the construction of such a shelter would have been unnecessary. An official list of the commanders of the various western posts a dozen years later is preserved in the French colonial archives. The posts at Detroit, Mackinac, Green Bay, St. Joseph, Ouiatanon, and elsewhere are mentioned but the name of Chicago is not included in the list. Finally, an exhaustive memoir by Bougainville in 1757 upon the posts and trade of the interior of the continent makes no mention of a post at Chicago, although the neighboring posts which are known to have existed at this time receive careful attention.

It seems evident, then, that the French had no fort at Chicago during the eighteenth century. Did they have one here at any time during the seventeenth? Two exceptions to the proposition that La Salle and Tonti make no mention of such a fort have been noted. In a letter written from the Chicago Portage on June 4, 1683, La Salle speaks of a "fort" here built by two of his men the preceding winter.

Mason describes this structure as a "little stockade with a log house within its enclosure" and declares it to have been the first known structure of anything like a permanent structure at Chicago. 

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But a log hut constructed by two men and never garrisoned by any regular force hardly merits the name of a fort in the ordinary acceptation of this term, even though it was surrounded by a stockade. 

Those who speak of a French fort at Chicago in this period refer not to this structure but to the "Fort of Chicagou" commanded by M. de la Durantaye in the winter of 1685-86. 

Our information concerning this fort is very scant, being confined to a simple mention of it with the name of its commander in Tonti's memoir of 1693. At the end of October of 1685, Tonti started from Mackinac in a canoe on Lake Michigan to go to Fort St. Louis on the Illinois River. Because of the lateness of the season, his progress was rendered impossible by the formation of ice in the lake. This compelled him to return to Mackinac, whence he again set forth, this time by land, for Fort St. Louis. An earlier account of this trip than that of 1693, but of equal brevity, was written by Tonti in the summer of 1686. It does not even mention Durantaye's "Fort of Chicagou," but it adds certain details concerning Tonti's trip of importance in determining the location of that establishment. 

Tonti was, of course, familiar by 1686 with both sides of Lake Michigan. In view of this fact, it is extremely improbable that having to go by land from Mackinac to Fort St. Louis in the wintertime, he would make the long detour around the head of Lake Michigan and Green Bay and down the western side of the lake, rather than follow the shorter route down its eastern side and around its southern end. This reasoning finds support in the statements of Tonti about the distances he traversed. The entire distance from Mackinac to Fort St. Louis, he gives as 200 leagues and states that after traveling 120 leagues he came to Durantaye's fort. It was, therefore, 80 leagues from Fort St. Louis. The usual estimate of French travelers of this time of the distance between Chicago and Fort St. Louis was 30 leagues, while the distance overland from St. Joseph to Fort St. Louis was approximately 80 leagues. Incredibly, Tonti would estimate the distance from Mackinac to Chicago by land at 120 leagues and that from Chicago to Fort St. Louis at 80 leagues, a distance two-thirds as great. The supposition that Durantaye's fort was on the St. Joseph River rather than the modern Chicago harmonizes well both with the probabilities of the case and the distances given us by Tonti. 

The foregoing reasoning is not absolutely conclusive of the location of Durantaye's "Fort of Chécagou." It is strengthened, however, by one other consideration. If such a fort was, in fact, here in January of 1686, what had happened to it in the interval between this time and Cavelier's visit in the autumn of 1687? Jouteps narrative of the adventures of this party is given with a wealth of detail. The travelers stayed in Chicago for several days in the autumn of 1687 and again in the spring of 1688. Not only does the narrative impliedly show that there was then no garrison or fort here, but it contains no mention of such an establishment at any previous time.

A detail from a 1688 map by French-Canadian cartographer Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin includes the first reference to "Fort Chécagou" on a map. The terms had been applied to this area as early as 1681 when La Salle referred to the area as Chécagou. On a map Franquelin drew in 1684, he seems to have referred to the "River Chehagou" and the area as Cheagou.

The French had no fort at Chicago in the eighteenth century, then, and if they had in the seventeenth it could only have been a temporary structure that quickly disappeared. It remains to suggest an explanation of the origin of the widespread belief that there was a French Fort in Chicago. It seems evident that it was due largely to the cartographers, who, residing for the most part in Europe, found themselves at a loss to interpret correctly the narratives of the explorers, which were themselves oftentimes confused and inaccurate or lacking in detail. That the cartographers often labored in the dark and that their work was frequently erroneous will be apparent from a comparison of their maps with those of an authoritative modern atlas. The representations of the map-makers can no longer be relied upon implicitly than the narratives of the time, and there is as much reason in one case as in the other for subjecting them to critical scrutiny. 

The erroneous belief in the existence of a French fort at Chicago in the eighteenth century probably originated with Father Hennepin, the garrulous companion of La Salle. He had been at La Salle's Fort Miami on the St. Joseph River and passed down the Kankakee River and the Illinois River with his leader. 

Yet his New Discovery, first published in 1697, contains a map showing "Fort des Miamis" at the mouth of a stream emptying into the southwestern corner of Lake Michigan. It is obvious from a comparison of this map with the one in Hennepin's earlier work, the Description of Louisiana, published in 1683, that this representation is intended for the St. Joseph River and La Salle's Fort Miami in Indiana, which, by a stupid blunder, have been transferred from the southeastern to the southwestern side of the lake.

The myth of a French fort at the mouth of the Chicago River emerged following the publication of this map of Lake Michigan by Louis Hennepin in 1698. His map showed Fort Miami near the mouth of the St. Joseph River. However, he showed the river as emerging from the southernmost tip of the lake. Hennepin's map was widely copied, but cartographers — knowing there was no river at the southern tip of Lake Michigan — erroneously assumed that Hennepin intended to show the Chicago River. So it became widely accepted that a French fort had been at the mouth of the Chicago River.

The New Discovery enjoyed widespread popularity, and numerous editions were issued during the following years, not only in French but also in foreign languages. Hennepin's maps were also widely copied in other works, so the blunder concerning the location of Fort Miami was perpetuated. Evidently, this was the source of Logan's error. Ignorant both of the fact that Fort Miami had stood at the mouth of the St. Joseph River and that it had been destroyed nearly forty years before, he located it at Chicago in 1718. We have already seen how his statement, incorporated in the Board of Trade Report of 1721 and Popple's map of 1732, became the fruitful parent of fresh error. Even though the public school children of Chicago are today being regaled, in one of the authorized textbooks, with a picture of the early French fort at this point, the weight of historical evidence tends to support Little Turtle's contention that such a fort never, in fact, existed.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

A study of the Legend of the Piasa "Bird," an ancient Indian pictograph carved and painted on a bluff in Alton, Illinois.

The ancient mound-builders (i.e., Cahokia Mounds in Illinois) and early inhabitants of this continent made attempts to record some of the more important events of their history.

Figures, either carved or painted on the rocks, in some cave shelter, or beneath some overhanging cliff, are not uncommon along the banks of the rivers in the Mississippi Valley, but especially along the great river where its banks form today's boundary between the States of Illinois and Missouri. Some of these pictographs were seen and noted by the first white explorers, the Jesuits, so we know that they outdated the advent of the Europeans and were doubtlessly made long before the discovery of this continent by Christopher Columbus and may quite possibly be referred to that mysterious race known as the Mound-Builders.

Artist Illustration of Cahokia Mounds, Illinois.

The Piasa (pronounced Pie-A-saw) or Piasa Bird is a mythical monster depicted in one of two murals painted by local Indians on bluffs (cliffsides) overlooking the Mississippi River on IL-Rt 100, just north of Alton, Illinois. Its original location was at the end of a chain of limestone bluffs in Madison County, at present-day Alton, Illinois. The original Piasa Bird no longer exists; a newer 20th-century version, based partly on 19th-century sketches and lithographs, has been placed on a bluff in Alton, Illinois, several hundred yards upstream from its origin. The limestone rock quality on the new site is unsuited for holding an image, and the painting must be regularly restored.

Female Piasa

The ancient mural was created before the arrival of any European explorers in the region and possibly before 1200 AD. The image was located at a river-bluff terminus of the American Bottom floodplain. It may have been an older iconograph from the large Mississippian culture city of Cahokia, which began developing about 800 AD. Cahokia was at its peak in about 1200 AD, with 20,000 residents. It was northern Mexico's most significant prehistoric city and a paramount chiefdom. Icons and animal pictographs, such as falcons, thunderbirds, Birdmen, and monstrous snakes, were common motifs of the Cahokia culture. The Piasa creature may have been painted as a graphic symbol to warn strangers traveling down the Mississippi River that they were entering Cahokian territory.

The best known of these old pictographs is that of the Piasa, a remarkable painting that once adorned, or rather was exhibited on, the smooth rocky face of the Bluff now in the city of Alton.

A Sketch of the Piasa. Date Unknown.

John Russel, a former professor of Greek and Latin at Shurtleff College in Upper Alton, brought this curious old pictograph to the general public. He wrote for an eastern magazine, the "Tradition of the Piasa," in 1836, which he claimed was obtained from the Illinois Indians.

PROFESSOR RUSSEL'S ARTICLE AS WRITTEN:

"No part of the United States, not even the highlands of the Hudson, can vie, in wild and romantic scenery, with the bluffs of Illinois on the Mississippi, between the mouths of the Missouri and Illinois rivers. On one side of the river, often at the water's edge, a perpendicular wall of rock rises to the height of some hundred feet. Generally, on the opposite shore is a level bottom or prairie of several miles in extent, extending to a similar bluff that runs parallel with the river. One of these ranges commences at Alton and extends for many miles along the left bank of the Mississippi. In descending the river to Alton, the traveler will observe, between that town and the mouth of the Illinois, a narrow ravine through which a small stream discharges its waters into the Mississippi. This "stream is the Piasa. Its name is Indian and signifies, in the Illini, 'The bird which devours men.' Near the mouth of this stream, on the smooth and perpendicular face of the bluff, at an elevation which no human can reach, is cut the figure of an enormous bird, with its wings extended. The animal which the figure represents was called by the Indians the Piasa. From this is derived the name of the stream. The tradition of the Piasa is still current among the tribes of the Upper Mississippi and those who have inhabited the valley of the Illinois, and is briefly this:

Many thousand moons before the arrival of the pale faces, when the great Magalonyx and Mastodon, whose bones are now dug up, were still living in the land of green prairies, there existed a bird of such dimensions that he could easily carry off in his talons a full-grown deer. Having obtained a taste for human flesh, from that time, he would pray on nothing else. He was artful as he was powerful and would dart suddenly and unexpectedly upon an Indian, carry him off into one of the caves of the bluff, and devour him. Hundreds of warriors attempted for years to destroy him but without success. Whole villages were nearly depopulated, and consternation spread through all the tribes of the Illini. 

Such was the state of affairs when Ouatogo, the great chief of the Illini, whose fame extended beyond the great lakes, separating himself from the rest of his tribe, fasted in solitude for the space of a whole moon, and prayed to the Great Spirit, the Master of Life, that he would protect his children from the Piasa. 

On the last night of the fast the Great Spirit appeared to Ouatogo in a dream, and directed him to select twenty of his bravest warriors, each armed with a bow and poisoned arrows, and conceal them in a designated spot. Near the place of concealment, another warrior was to stand in open view as a victim for the Piasa, which they must shoot the instant he pounced upon his prey.

When the chief awoke in the morning, he thanked the Great Spirit and, returning to his tribe, told them his vision. The warriors were quickly selected and placed in ambush as directed. Ouatogo offered himself as the victim. He was willing to die for his people. Placing himself in open view on the bluffs, he soon saw the Piasa perched on the cliff, eying his prey. The chief drew up his manly form to his utmost height, and, planting his feet firmly upon the earth, he began to chant the death song of an Indian warrior. The moment after, the Piasa arose into the air, and swift as the thunderbolt darted down on his victim. Scarcely had the horrid creature reached his prey before every bow was sprung and every arrow was sent quivering to the feather into his body. The Piasa uttered a fearful scream that sounded far over the opposite side of the river and expired. Ouatago was unharmed. Not an arrow, not even the talons of the bird, had touched him. The Master of Life, in admiration of Ouatogo's deed, had held over him an invisible shield.

There was the wildest rejoicing among the Illini, and the brave chief was carried in triumph to the council house, where it was solemnly agreed that, in memory of the great event in their nation's history, the image of the Piasa should be engraved on the bluff. Such is the Indian tradition. Of course, I cannot vouch for its truth. This much, however, is certain that the figure of a huge bird, cut in the solid rock, is still there and at a height that is perfectly inaccessible. How and for what purpose it was made, I leave it for others to determine. Even to this day, an Indian never passes the spot in his canoe without firing his gun at the figure of the Piasa. The marks of the balls on the rock are almost innumerable.

 

Near the close of March of the present year (1836) I was induced to visit the bluffs below the mouth of Illinois River, above that of the Piasa. My curiosity was principally directed to the examination of a cave, connected with the above tradition as one of those to which the bird had carried his human victims.

Preceded by an intelligent guide who carried a spade, I set out on my excursion. The cave was extremely difficult of access, and at one point in our progress I stood at an elevation of one hundred and fifty feet on the perpendicular face of the bluff, with barely room to sustain one foot. The unbroken wall towered above me, while below was the river.

 

After a long and perilous climb we reached the cave, which was about fifty feet above the surface of the river. By the aid of a long pole placed on a projecting rock, and the upper end touching the mouth of the cave, we succeed in entering it. Nothing could be more impressive than the view from the entrance to the cavern. The Mississippi was rolling in silent grandeur beneath us. High over our heads a single cedar tree hung its branches over the cliff, and on one of the dead dry limbs was seated a bald eagle. No other sign of life was near us, a Sabbath stillness rested on the scene. Not a cloud was visible on the heavens; not a breath of air was stirring. The broad Mississippi was before us, calm and smooth as a lake. The landscape presented the same wild aspect it did before it had met the eye of the white man. The roof of the cavern was vaulted, and the top was hardly less than twenty feet high. The shape of the cavern was irregular; but so far as I could judge the bottom would average twenty by thirty feet. The floor of the cavern throughout its whole extent was one mass of human bones, skulls, animal bones, and arrowheads were mingled in the utmost confusion. To what depth they extended I was unable to decide; but we dug to the depth of 3 or 4 feet in every part of the cavern, and still we found only bones. The remains of thousands must have been deposited here. How and by whom, and for what purpose, it is impossible to conjecture."

We have given the popular tradition of the Piasa and a description of the bone cavern that was supposed to contain the bones of the monster's victims. The strange story, in some form or other, has had the most extensive circulation. A few years after the publication of the tradition of the Piasa, a letter was sent to Russel at Bluffdale. He answered that there was a somewhat similar tradition among the Indians, but he admitted, to use his own words, that the story was "somewhat illustrated."

As a mere tradition, the story of the Piasa has little, if any, ethnological significance. Cinderella's Slipper and Mother Goose stories tell no more of the unwritten history of Europeans than the myths of the Onondagas or Tuscaroras do of the origin of the Indians. But it is interesting to know that what we now call the Piasa was, in fact, not only an old pictograph but one of a series of ancient pictographs or hieroglyphic records that were seen, and some of them described by the first white men that saw our great rivers and looked for the first time upon the beautiful scenery along their shores. That these old records may be preserved, and perhaps be at some future time translated, is the object of this volume, in accomplishing which we shall find recompense in part for many weary but not unpleasant days among the mounds, caves, and relics of the Mound Builders and aborigines.

Inside of one of the caverns at Piasa Park, Alton, Illinois.

The first notice of the pictograph, now known as the Piasa, is from that courageous and devoted Jesuit priest, Marquette, who was made famous by the historian Parkman in his "Discoveries of the Great West." Marquette and Jolliet, in the French missionary stations on the upper lakes, had heard frequently from the Indians of the Great River or "Father of Waters," which, although discovered by De Soto nearly 200 years before, was still unknown to white men as far north as the Missouri and Illinois. In 1673, these two intrepid voyagers, with a small party, started out from Green Bay to find the "Great Water." The Indians of the lakes endeavored to deter them from going. The country, they said, was filled with savages and frightful creatures, and in the Great River, in a particular part, there was a great monster whose roar could be heard at a great distance, and these terrible creatures swallowed every person who came near them. Traveling on their way and crossing overland to the Wisconsin, Marquette and his companions descended that stream to its mouth and entered the Mississippi. They descended it, stopped a while at the mouth of the Illinois River, ascended the Bluff just above today's town of Grafton, and had their first view of the Missouri River. Where these rivers went, they did not know, nor what manner of life they contained, nor what inhabitants there were on the banks. One can easily imagine that their eyes and ears were wide open, nor were the frightful stories of monsters forgotten, when these intrepid men again pushed off their frail canoes, keeping close to shore, into that mighty, rushing unknown river. Parkman tells it from Marquette's diary.

Again, they were on their way, drifting down the great river. Leaving the mouth of the Illinois River behind, they glided beneath that line of bluffs on the northern side, cut into fantastic forms by the elements. The great bastions and enormous pillars gave them the idea that they were approaching some giant ruins, and for a long time after, the bluffs about where is now Elsah were marked on the old French maps as "Ruined Castles." Gazing with open eyes as they sped along, Marquette's attention is attracted to several singular pictures that are outlined on the bluffs - heathen Manitous {among certain Algonquian Indians: a good or evil spirit as an object of reverence} to this valiant priest.

They beheld a sight that reminded them that the Devil was still paramount in the wilderness. On the flat face of a high rock was painted in red, black, and green a pair of monsters, each as large as a calf, with horns like a roebuck, red eyes, a beard like a tiger, and a frightful expression of countenance. The face was something like that of a man, the body covered with scales and the tail so long that it passed entirely around the body, over the head, and between the legs, ending like a fish, during 1844 and '45.

He confesses that at first, they were frightened, and his imagination and that of his credulous companions was so wrought upon by these unhallowed efforts of Indian art that they continued for a long time to talk of them as they plied their paddles.

Several explorers who followed a few years later speak of the pictures described by Marquette, as well as of others seen on the Bluff. Douay and Joutel make mention of them. The former, bitterly hostile to his Jesuit contemporaries, charges Marquette with exaggeration in his account of them. Joutel could see nothing terrifying in their appearance but says his Indians made sacrifices to them as he passed. St. Cosme, who saw the pictures in 1699, says that they were even then badly effaced, not so much from the elements as from the almost general custom among the Indians of shooting arrows at the pictures as they passed.

The book "Illinois and the West," by A. D. Jones, Boston, 1838, contains the tradition of the Piasa (he spells it Piasau) in a somewhat different form from that of Russel but the same in substance. He says, "After the distribution of firearms among the Indians, bullets were substituted for arrows, and even to this day, no savage presumes to pass the spot without discharging his rifle and raising his shout of triumph. I visited the site in June 1838 and examined the image, and the ten thousand bullet marks on the cliff corroborate the tradition related to me in the neighborhood.

Lately, as the Sac (Sauk) and Meskwaki (Fox) delegations passed down the river on their way to Washington, their rifles were discharged at the Piasau Bird. On arriving at Alton, they went ashore in a body. They proceeded to the bluffs, where they held a Solemn war council, concluding with a splendid war dance under the cliff on which the image manifested the most exuberant joy."

Another author says that the picture of the Piasa was visible on the rocks during 1844 and '45. A few years after this, the face of the Bluff was gradually quarried away to make lime, and about the time our civil war commenced, all traces of the ancient picture had disappeared.

There is a spirited pen-and-ink sketch, 12 by 15 inches in size, purporting to represent the ancient painting described by Marquette. The picture is inscribed in ink: "Made by Wm. Dennis, April 3, 1825." The date is in both letters and figures. On the top of the picture, in large letters, are the two words "FLYING DRAGON." This picture, which has been kept in the old Gilham family of Madison County, bears the evidence of its age and was sketched some years before Russel's story of the Piasa was written. "Dragon" or "Flying Dragon" was the common name for it before Russel's account of the Piasa came out.

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In 1825, a sketch of the bluff painting was discovered and depicted a horned, seemingly scaly creature that suggested many of the exotic details claimed by Marquette. This discovery is inevitably what prompted John Russell, a former professor from a town near Alton, to publish his own account of the painting in 1836. In his publication, he provided a backstory for the Piasa Bird and as it would turn out, it happens to be the very story engraved on the arrowhead monument at the park. His piece goes into greater detail though and adds vivid descriptions of a cave filled with the bones of all those who had been killed by the Piasa, which he estimated to be in the thousands.

Russell allegedly later acknowledged to his son that he had fabricated this account, but within just a few years of his article’s release, this legend of the Piasa was being repeated and elaborated far and wide and eventually became widely accepted. A variety of explanations of the origins of the painting exist today, ranging from credible attempts to place what Marquette and Jolliet saw into the broader context of Indian culture and the history of European colonization of North America all the way to outlandish claims about Chinese exploration of the Mississippi.

The name Piasa or Piasau was undoubtedly used by the Indians. In his History of Black Hawk (Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak), Col. Paterson says that Black Hawk's father was named Piasau but does not give the word's meaning. Piasau was said to have been killed in a battle with the Osages on the Merrimac River in Missouri. Black Hawk, then a young man, fought by his father's side, and it is said he carried the dead body of his parent on horseback from the battleground to their home on the Rock River in Illinois. Black Hawk was a very intelligent Indian, and we had conversed with several white people who knew him, especially a surgeon in the Black Hawk War. On more than one occasion, he approached the chief on the subject of the mounds and the picture of the Piasa, but Black Hawk seemed to have no information on the topic.

Black Hawk

The Black Hawk War and Illinois' Role (April to August of 1832).

The "Life of Black Hawk" (1767-1838) as dictated by himself.

It is a bit singular that Marquette, in his description of the picture, should always speak of two, as though there were two of the figures when many later authorities should mention only one. It is singular, too, that all modern writers on the subject and those living who remember to have seen the picture (for there are several old citizens who claim to have been familiar with the figure) should always refer to the creature's wings. Although he describes it in detail, Marquette does not mention wings.

MARQUETTE RECORDED THIS DESCRIPTION IN 1673:

"While skirting some rocks, which by their height and length inspired awe, We saw upon one of them two painted monsters which at first made us afraid, and upon which the boldest savages dare not long rest their eyes. They are as large as a calf; they have horns on their heads like those of a deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard like a tiger's, a face somewhat like a man's, a body covered with scales, and so long a tail that it winds all around the body, passing above the head and going back between the legs, ending in a fish's tail. Green, red, and black are the three colors composing the Picture. Moreover, these 2 monsters are so well painted that we cannot believe that any savage is their author; for good painters in France would find it difficult to reach that place conveniently to paint them. Here is approximately the shape of these monsters, as we have faithfully copied it."

One of the most satisfactory pictures of the Piasa we have ever seen is in an old German publication entitled "The Valley of the Mississippi Illustrated. Eighty illustrations from nature, by H. Lewis, from the falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico." Published about the year 1839 by Arenz & Co., Dusseldorf, Germany. One of the large full-page plates in this work gives a fine view of the Bluff at Alton, with the figure of the Piasa on the face of the rock. It is represented as having been taken on the spot by artists from Germany. 

This illustration was drawn three or four years after Russel wrote his story of the Tradition of the Piasa. The account in the German work tells of the tradition and says the pictograph was growing dim and showed evidence of great age.

Closeup of the carving from the cliff in the picture above.

These German artists faithfully sketched what they saw dimly outlined, being what remained in 1839 of Marquette's famous monsters. In the German picture, just behind the rather dim outlines of the second face, a ragged crevice is shown as though of a fracture. Part of the Bluff's face might have fallen and thus nearly destroyed one of the monsters, for writers speak of but one figure in later years. The whole face of the Bluff was quarried away in 1846 and 1847.

Parkman says Marquette drew the monsters, but it was lost. "I have, however," continues he, "a facsimile of a map made a few years later by order of the Intendant Duchesneau, which is decorated with the portrait of one of them, answering to Marquette's description and probably copied from his drawing."

Through the kindness of Mr. Parkman, he sent a copy of the portrait of which he speaks, but it was not even close to Marquette's description, nor did it refer to the well-known figure that once adorned the Bluff at Alton.

It is a fact, though not generally known, that there were several of these old pictographs in the vicinity of Alton, and this may account for some of the early differences in the description. Three or four miles above Alton, below the mouth of the stream called Piasa Creek, is a series of these old pictographs, the most prominent of which are the outlines of two giant birds without wings. That these were noted by the early voyagers, there is no doubt.

Many years ago, many of the old citizens of Alton met to discuss the location and appearance of the Piasa. Among those present were the Hon. Samuel Blackmaster and Henry G. McPike, the mayor of Alton at that time. The two gentlemen were especially familiar with the old pictograph and spent some time making a sketch of the Piasa.

From these various sources, an engraving was made of the Piasa. It may be objected to by some finding the work overly elaborate for an Indian artist, and that has merit." This conveys the criticism without explicitly agreeing with it. But Marquette, after describing the picture as representing a hideous dragon, combining birds, animals, reptiles, and fishes with a man's face, remarks: "These monsters were so well painted that the Indians could hardly have designed them. Good painters in France would hardly have done as well."

When it is remembered that Marquette was a priest with education and no small degree of cultivated intelligence, our interest is increased as we wonder who could have been the author of this remarkable pictograph. It is also a matter of interest to the ethnologist {the science that deals with the division of human beings into races and their origin, distribution, relations, and characteristics} to know that, in common with the nations of the old world, most of the Indian tribes of this country had traditions of dragons and other monsters.

Schoolcraft, who traveled in the early days among the Indians, saw their primitive customs and heard their traditions, gives us much information about their history and antiquities in his splendid works. He mentions a number of these traditions. He says:

"The Dacotah’s [the Dakota’s] believe that thunder is a monstrous bird flying through the air, and the noise we hear is the fluttering of the old and young ones. These birds were large enough to carry off human beings, which the young ones were sometimes foolish enough to do. The Dacotah’s also have a tradition that one of these thunder birds was killed, back of Little Crow's village on the Mississippi. It had a face like a man, with a nose like an eagle's bill. Its body was long and slender. Its wings had four joints to each, and were painted with ziz-zag lines to represent lightning. The back of the bird's head was red and rough like a turkey."

We could not fail to observe the resemblance between the description of the Thunder Bird of the Dacotahs and that of the Piasa of the Illinois. Again, he speaks of a great "medicine animal" to which the medicine men of some tribes were accustomed to apply, seeking to propitiate (win or regain the favor of - a God, spirit, or person - by doing something that pleases them) its powers to assist them in their healing arts. Curious to know their idea of the appearance of this monster, Schoolcraft finally persuaded Chief Little Hill of the Winnebagos and himself, a medicine man, to make him a drawing of the animal, which we reproduce here. This animal, he was told, was seldom seen and then only by medicine men. This chief had in his medicine bag a piece of bone that he claimed was part of the remains of one of these animals. Some small portion filed off from this bone was a potent cure for ailments.

The same author gives other illustrations of these Indian Manitous, with serrated backs, representing the scaly bodies of these dragon-like creatures. 

The Winnebago Medicine Animal.

Another interesting pictograph, sculptured deeply in the hard rock, some twenty-five or thirty miles above the mouth of the Illinois River, on the west bank of that stream, high up on the smooth face of an overhanging cliff. It remains today [in 1887], probably in nearly the same condition when the French voyagers first descended the river and got their first view of the Mississippi. The animal-like body, with the human head, is carved in the rock in outline. The huge eyes are depressions like saucers, an inch or more in-depth, and the outline of the body has been scooped out in the same way as the mouth.

The figure of the archer, with the drawn bow, is painted, or rather stained with a reddish-brown pigment, over the sculptured outline of the monster's face. Although difficult to access, we have approached nearly enough to this pictograph to examine it. It appears of great age, although protected by its position from the elements. I somehow received the impression that the painted figure of the human form with the bow and arrows might have been made later than the sculpture. However, the lapse of centuries has affected the painted portion of the archer's form, and one now has to seek a favorable light on the Bluff to get a good view of the outline.

Pictograph on the Illinois River.

There was a tradition among the early white settlers, which they seemed to have obtained from the Indians, that the arrow shown in the figure, which points obliquely toward the foot of the Bluff some distance beyond, indicated some buried treasure in that direction. Several deep excavations in the debris at the foot of the cliff still attest to the work of credulous treasure-seekers.

Our pottery collection from ancient mounds has several pieces ornamented with dragon-like devices. We illustrate two of these: burial vases with a most pronounced dragon head standing up from the vessel's rim. There is the great mouth with the teeth revealed, protruding tongue, fierce eyes, and the general aspect of the Piasa and those mythological representations of the dragon so frequently found in Asia.

From Cahokia Mounds, Illinois.

We present a sketch of another. It is all the more interesting since we found with it a magnificent collection of more than a hundred pieces of pottery at the base of the grand Cahokia Mound in the American Bottom in Madison County, Illinois.

From a Mound in Missouri.

This is the largest artificial mound in the United States, and perhaps in the world, being one hundred feet tall and covering sixteen acres of ground with its base. It is the center of a group of seventy-two others that surrounds it, and this work will describe it. They are situated on a level plain, miles from any natural elevation. For a complete description and survey of them. Monk's Mound."

Monk's Mound with Notre Dame de Bon Secours atop it.
This 1887 Illustration of Monk's Mound is a figment of the Artist's Imagination.

Upon taking these curious old burial vases from the place where they had rested for ages, it was like exhuming a museum of natural history in ceramics, for these were the shapes of animals, birds, reptiles, fishes, and almost all animated nature, together with the shapes the human form. Among them were several vases adorned with dragon heads.

The tradition of the Piasa is analogous to the well-known tradition of St. George, the patron saint of England, who was noted for his piety and knightly valor. Traveling in Asia, he came to a city besieged by a horrible dragon that had taken up its abode in a swamp on the outskirts of the village. Each day, it appeared to claim for its daily repast an inhabitant until the number of its victims began to tell fearfully of the depletion of their population. All efforts to destroy the monster had been in vain. The people drew lots each day to see who should be the next victim. Upon the day of St. George's arrival, the afflicted city was in the utmost consternation because the king's daughter had drawn the unlucky number in casting lots for the next day. Of course, she was beautiful, and when St. George got a glimpse of her, it was a bad day for the dragon, for he went to sharpening his sword and spear, as any true-blooded Englishman would, notwithstanding the Encyclopedia Britannica says he was born in Asia Minor. The next morning, the valiant-hearted knight mounted on his war horse in company with the maiden, who walked and went toward the swamp in the presence of the whole city. The dragon met them, and there was a terrible conflict, which ended with the monster's death by a thrust into its vitals from the spear of St. George. In depicting the scene, some historians have intimated that the girl ran away during the conflict, which is why St. George didn't marry her, but this is not generally believed. Of course, there was great rejoicing in that city, and they carried St. George, as the Illini did Ouatogo, in triumph and had a great Knight Templar banquet.

The pretty and romantic story of St. George has its counterparts among nations in all parts of the world. However, some writers go back for its origin to the mythology of the Aryans and give it a solar significance.

The Buddhists' caves in India are carved and painted great dragons without numbers that would fit Marquette's description of the "Piasa," or the Dacotahs' "Thunder Bird." And sometimes, too hideous images of monsters like these, it has been the custom of the nations of the world to offer up even human sacrifice.

That idea that primitive people should have worshiped the sun seems natural enough. It might be accounted for by the fact that this great luminary seemed, on each recurring season, to give new life to the earth by its warming rays and furnish them with sustenance and warmth, their greatest necessities. The sun seemed to them, and is really, a sort of creative power that brought within their reach the means of existence. To the savage, this was God.

But a puzzling fact to ethnologists is that primitive people so widely separated, even by oceans, whose distant continents and parts of the earth seem to have such wide intervals of connection (especially since their condition gave them such meager means of knowing one another that isolation would seem complete), should have so many customs in common, observances that were alike, and similar traditions.

According to Stevens and other writers, Central America presents many figures of dragons and monsters of that description in the sculptured walls of the ruins of Yucatan and elsewhere.

The last American Antiquarian gives a fine cut of a veritable dragon-head sculptured on the facade of the old pyramid of Xohicale in Mexico.

Since it is admitted that the primitive inhabitants of this continent still do not have an adequate theory regarding their origin, any point Germaine makes regarding the subject is of interest.

The painting on the bluff (below) where the original painting appeared was quarried and thus destroyed during the 19th century. Thankfully, the painting was recreated and later restored during the 20th century, giving birth to the petite yet enchanting Piasa Park.

Piasa "Bird" on the Bluff 1/4 mile south of the current Piasa Alton location. Circa 1950.

Closeup of the Piasa "Bird" at the old location above. Circa 1950s.

The Piasa "Bird" on the current Bluff. © Dr. Neil Gale

The Piasa "Bird," Note the Faded Colors from the Elements. © Dr. Neil Gale

The Piasa "Bird" Closeup of the Facial Features. © Dr. Neil Gale

When contemporary historians, folklorists, and tourism promoters look for a narrative description of the story behind the Piasa "Bird," they often rely on Russel's account. This colorful version of the tale can be adapted to allow a wide range of interpretations and allow other neighboring communities and counties to claim promotional rights to the legend.

Today, Piasa Park is an attractive stop for motorists, picnickers, and bicyclists, set at the base of the giant Piasa Bird mural painted on the side of this huge Bluff. 

Additional Reading:

     The History of the Illinois Country from 1673-1782.

     The Illini Tribal History from the Illinois Country through the Mid-1830s.

     The History of the Illiniwek in the Illinois Country.

     Potawatomi Tribal History, including the Potawatomi of the Prairie.

     The Starved Rock Massacre of 1769 - Fact or Fiction?

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.