them up to their women to be buffeted to death.  They speak also of the Mascontins with abhorrence, on account of their cruelties.  The Sauks and Foxes have a historical legend of a severe battle having been fought opposite the mouth of the Iowa river, about fifty or sixty miles above the mouth of Rock river.  The Sauks and Foxes descended the Mississippi in canoes, and landing at the place above described, started east, towards the enemy:  they had not gone far before they were attacked by a party of the Mascontins.  The battle continued nearly all day; the Sauks and Foxes, for want of ammunition, finally gave way and fled to their canoes; the Mascontins pursued them and fought desperately, and left but few of the Sauks and Foxes to carry home the story of their defeat.  Some forty or fifty years ago, the Sauks and Foxes attacked a small village of Peorias, about a mile below St. Louis and were there defeated.  At a place on the Illinois river, called Little Rock, there were formerly killed by the Chippeways and Ottowas, a number of men, women and children of the Minneway nation.  In 1800 the Kickapoos made a great slaughter of the Kaskaskia Indians.  The Main-Pogue, or Potawatimie juggler, in 1801, killed a great many of the Piankeshaws on the Wabash.”

The land on which St. Louis stands, as well as the surrounding country, was claimed by the Illini confederacy, which had acquiesced in the intrusion of the whites.  This circumstance, it is supposed, led the northern confederacy to the attempt, which they made in 1779, to destroy the village of St. Louis, then occupied by the Spaniards.  As the Sacs and Foxes were active participators in this attack, no apology is necessary for introducing the following graphic account of it, from the pen of Wilson Primm, Esqr. of St. Louis.[2]

“In the mean time numerous bands of the Indians living on the lakes and the Mississippi—­the Ojibeways, Menomonies, Winnebagoes, Sioux, Sacs, &c. together with a large number of Canadians, amounting in all to upwards of fourteen hundred, had assembled on the eastern shore of the Mississippi, a little above St. Louis, awaiting the sixth of May, the day fixed for the attack.  The fifth of May was the feast of Corpus Christi, a day highly venerated by the inhabitants, who were all Catholics.  Had the assault taken place then, it would have been fatal to them, for, after divine service, all the men, women and children had flocked to the prairie to gather strawberries, which were that season very abundant and fine.  The town being left perfectly unguarded, could have been taken with ease, and the unsuspecting inhabitants, who were roaming about in search of fruit, have been massacred without resistance.  Fortunately, however, a few only of the enemy had crossed the river and ambushed themselves in the prairie.  The villagers, frequently came so near them, in the course of the day, that the Indians from their places of concealment, could have reached them with their hands.  But they knew not how many of the whites were still remaining in the town, and in the absence of their co-adjutors, feared to attack, lest their preconcerted plan might be defeated.”