could not be picked up in the woods,
the materials for making it could be grown in the fields. Spinning, and
the processes necessarily preceding and following it, involved a certain
amount of labor. Taxes were not high, nor were tax laws rigidly enforced.
It is thus easy to understand the reasoning that may have led a large
proportion of the immigrants during this period to leave their old homes.

CHAPTER V. THE FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD, 1818 TO 1830.

The Indian and Land Questions.

One of the most important cessions of land in Illinois ever made by the
Indians was that made by the Kickapoo in 1819, of the vast region lying
north of the parallel of 39--a little north of the mouth of the Illinois
River, and southeast of the Illinois River.(324) Settlement had been
crowding hard upon this region and many squatters anxiously awaited the
survey and sale of the land, especially of that in the famous Sangamon
country. In northern Illinois settlement was still retarded by the
presence of Indians. In 1825, the Menominee, Kaskaskia, Sauk and Fox,
Potawatomi, and Chippewa tribes claimed over 5,314,000 acres of land in
Illinois,(325) and there was a licensed Indian trader at Sangamo, one at
the saline near the present Danville, and two on Fever River.(326) Two
years later there were three such traders at Fever River, and two at
Chicago,(327) and in 1827-28 there was one at Fever River with a capital
of about $2000.(328) In February, 1829, there were Indian agents at
Chicago, Fort Armstrong, Kaskaskia, and Peoria, as well as others near the
borders of Illinois.(329) At this time, the Ottawa, Chippewa, Potawatomi,
Kaskaskia, and Winnebago claimed land in the state, although only about
6000 of the more than 25,000 members of these tribes resided in the state.
The eight members of the Kaskaskia tribe held a small reservation near the
Kaskaskia River. Of the twenty-two hundred members of the Kickapoo tribe,
which had relinquished all claim to land east of the Mississippi, about
two hundred still lived on the Mackinaw River, but they were expected to
move in a few weeks.(330) By a treaty of July 29, 1829, the Chippewa,
Ottawa, and Potawatomi ceded their claims in northern Illinois.(331) There
still remained the Winnebago tribe, and not until 1833 was Illinois to be
free from Indian claims.(332)

A war with the Winnebago tribe was imminent in 1827. Settlers in the
northern part of the state either fled to the southward