C'2 A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. or captured the greater part of the besieging force. The Poxes and Sauks, sustained by some of the Sioux tribes, and by the Chickasaws, turned their arms against the Illinois, and for a while intercepted the communication between Canada and Louisiana. They, together with the Kickapoos, compelled the Illinois to abandon their settlements on the river of that name ; and the residue of this nation sought refuge, in the year 1722, in the vicinity of the French settlement at Kaskaskia on the Mississippi.* The largest portion of the territory of the Sauks and Foxes, even before their late cession, lay on the west side of the Mississippi. At what time they settled beyond that river is not known. They partly subjugated, and finally admitted into their alliance, the lowas, a Sioux tribe, which is stated by Charle- voix to have been formerly seated on the eastern bank of the Mississippi. By the treaty of 1804, the Sauks and Foxes ceded to the United States all their lands east of that river, bounded, according to their claim, westwardly by the Mississip- pi from the mouth of the River Illinois to that of the Wiscon- sin ; eastwardly by Illinois River and the Fox River of the Illinois, up to the small lake called Sakaegan ; and northward- ly by a line drawn thence to the Wisconsin, and down that river to its mouth. The Kickapoos by various treaties, 1809 to 1819, have also ceded all their lands to the United States. They claimed all the country between Illinois River and the Wabash, north of the parallel of latitude passing by the mouth of the Illinois, and south of the Kankakee River, the most eastern branch of the Illinois ; the southern part of it by right of conquest from the Illinois and fifty years' possession. But, with the exception of a tract on Vermilion River, the whole country watered by the Wabash appears indubitably to have belonged to the Miami tribes. The events of the last war with the Sauks are generally known. According to the estimate, they amount to five thou- sand three hundred souls, the Foxes to thirteen hundred, and the Kickapoos to five hundred. They all now reside west of the Mississippi. There is no doubt, says Charlevoix, that the Miamis and the Illinois were not long ago (1721) the same people, from the
- Charlevoix, passim.
