Captain de La Nation des Illinois
Captain of the Nation
Credited to Father Louis Nicolas, 1701. Courtesy of the Gilcrease Museum of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Public Domain.
The complete French title translates to “Captain of the Nation of the Illinois, armed with a pipe and a dart.”
Historically, the Illinois confederacy had up to twelve tribes but at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, there were only three: the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and Peoria. The captains refer to the Illinois only one time, in an entry describing the Sauks and Foxes:
These people [Sauk and Fox] are extremely friendly to the whites, and seldom injure their traders; but they are the most implacable enemies to the Indian nations with whom they are at war. To them is justly attributable the almost entire destruction of the Missourias, the Illinois, Cahokias, Kaskaskias, and Piorias.
The captains’ census reports a population of 50 “Piories & Illinois” souls.[1]Moulton, Journals, 3:407. Despite spending the winter of 1803–04 near Cahokia and Kaskaskia Illinois, the mention of these tribes in the “Estimate of the Eastern Indians” is the only time they use those names to denote peoples instead of places.
After the expedition, the Cahokia merged with the Peoria and eventually all the Illinois were known as Peoria. In 1854, the Peoria joined with the Wea and Piankashaw and in 1873, that confederation joined with the Miami. Today, the Peoria are a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Miami, Oklahoma. Most of the Illinois culture and language has been lost.[2]Charles Callender, Handbook of North American Indians: Northeast Vol. 15, Bruce G. Trigger, Ed. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978), 673, 681.
Encounters
February 7, 1804
Rising 'River a Dubois'
At winter camp across from the mouth of the Missouri, River Dubois—present Wood River in Illinois— fills with mud, and the rising water takes away an Indian’s canoe. Sgt. Ordway returns to camp.
February 27, 1803
Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton
Washington, DC Thomas Jefferson pens a letter to Benjamin Smith Barton announcing that Meriwether Lewis will lead an expedition and asks him to train Lewis in natural history.
