“The Indians with some exceptions, from Canada to Mexico, along the northern frontier of the United States, are more hostile to the whites, than at any other period since the last war; particularly the band of Sac Indians, usually and truly called the “British Band,” became extremely unfriendly to the citizens of Illinois and others.  This band had determined for some years past to remain at all hazards, on certain lands which had been purchased by the United States, and afterwards some of them sold to private individuals by the general government.  They also determined to drive off the citizens from this disputed territory.  In order to effect this object, they committed various outrages on the persons and property of the citizens of this state.  That this band might the more effectually resist all force that would be employed against them, they treated with many other tribes to combine together for the purpose of aiding this British Band to continue in possession of the country in question.”  General William Clark, the Indian agent at St. Louis, in his official communication to the department, says, “The disaffected Sacs were depending for an increase to their number from the discontented parts of the Kickapoos, Pottawatamies and Winnebagoes,” and that they exhibited a daring opposition, &c. &c.

From the tone and pomposity of these documents, commencing with Governor Reynold’s annunciation to General Clark, that Illinois was in a state of “actual invasion,” and ending with the letters to the war department, just cited, it might appear, to one not familiar with the facts in the case, that a powerful confederacy of warlike Indians, after years of secret preparation, had made a sudden and bold descent upon the state of Illinois, and were about to carry war and desolation throughout the frontiers—­to make the heavens lurid with the conflagration of dwelling houses, and the air resonant with the wails of women and children sinking beneath the murderous tomahawk:  and, that this banded horde of northern savages, had been successfully met, captured or dispersed, by the patriotism, valor and overwhelming power of the combined army of the United States and the militia of Illinois!  And yet, will it be credited by posterity, that this “actual invasion” of the state, fierce and appalling as it has been represented, consisted simply in this:  a part of the Sac tribe of Indians, residing within the boundaries of Illinois, at their village on Rock river, where they were born and had lived all their lives, refused to give up their corn-fields to some white men, who had purchased the same, under a sale made by the government of the United States for the purpose of a technical evasion of one of its own treaties.  In short, thus far, it was little more than a neighborhood quarrel between the squaws of the “British Band” of Indians, and a few white settlers,—­most of whom were there in violation of the laws of the country—­about the occupancy of some corn-fields, which, from time