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 unsu