OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS 



17 



PATH THROUGH THICKETED BANKS OF DESPLAINES RIVER. 



Emerging from this century long Indian domination of the 

 county we find that the English, triumphant in seven years of 

 war with France, had come into possession, acquiring everything 

 west to the Mississippi under the treaty of Paris, 1763. 



And now we are getting close to the War of the Revolution 

 in which Cook County Indian Land figured more than most 

 suspect. In the timberland bordering the Calumet river there 

 is the scene, never definitely located, of the Battle of South 

 Chicago- a Revolutionary conflict the same as Bunker Hill, 

 Lexington or Yorktown. 



It was a victory for the British, however. A motley but 

 daring force of Americans, Indians and Frenchmen had given 

 vent to a little revolutionary spirit by a successful raid upon the 

 British fort at St. Joseph, Mich. Laden with loot they were 

 overtaken by a British pursuit force and a deadly conflict was 

 fought out on the banks of the Calumet, Dec. 5, 1780. 



First genuine conquest of the Northwest territory brought 

 George Rogers Clark and his historic band of soldier-pioneers, 

 backed by the state of Virginia, within the present Cook County 

 for battles with the Indians though the decisive actions were at 

 Vincennes, Indiana, and Kaskaskia, the Indian day state capital 

 of Illinois. 



But even after that treaty of 1783 the Indians clung on tenaci- 

 ously. It was twelve years later before Gen. Anthony Wayne 

 delivered the defeat the Battle of Fallen Timbers, across 

 the line in Indiana that resulted in the Treaty of Greenville 

 under which six square miles at the mouth of the Chicago river 

 and fifteen other like tracts over the Northwest were given up 

 to Americans. 



