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Savage justice By David M. Brady From the onset of George Rogers Clark's conquest of the Northwest Territory through 1795, the Illinois country was a dangerous place to live for American settlers and Native Americans alike. Clashes between the cultures caused suffering and many deaths. Two such deaths became St. Clair County's first murder cases, testing the new government's authority in the territoiy and threatening a fragile peace. Soon after the Northwest Territory was established in 1787, settlers began moving out of the American Bottom, homesteading the higher ground from Kaskaskia to Cahokia. One such pioneer was Robert McMahan. McMahan and his family homesteaded about three miles from the community of New Design, a small hamlet located in present-day Monroe County. On January 26, 1795, four Native Americans—three Potawatomis, and one Miami—entered the McMahan cabin. One Indian reached for a musket on the wall and McMahan tried to wrestle it away. His wife, Margaret, intervened, begging her husband not to resist. A struggle took place. The Indians took the gun and the family attempted to flee the cabin. Margaret and four of her children were killed and scalped. Robert and his nine-year-old daughter, Sally, were taken hostage. The Indians moved north. That night in camp they displayed the scalps of the murdered family. On the second night of captivity, Robert escaped. He spent the night in the wild, with only leaves to shelter him from the cold. The next day, Colonel Samuel Judy of the Territorial Militia found McMahan and took him back to New Design.
Soon after, the party of rogue Indians split up. Two of the Potawatomis stayed in the area; the others continued north toward Milwaukee, where they sold Sally McMahan to an Ottawan chieftain. It would be months before she was heard from again. Meanwhile, at Greenville, Ohio, seat of the military command for the Northwest Territory, Major General Anthony Wayne issued a proclamation calling for cessation of hostilities with all native tribes in the territory, effective February 22, 1795. This agreement also called for the return of prisoners on both sides, with the exchange to take place in Greenville on June 15, when the new treaty was signed. Government news traveled slowly in those days, but word of the slaughter of the McMahan family spread quickly. A warrant was issued for the arrest of the Indians, and two Potawatomis were taken into custody at Kaskaskia. From there they were to be moved to Cahokia for arraignment. The sheriff of St. Clair County was put in charge of the prisoners' transport, and the route he took went through New Design, the place where the McMahan raid occurred. On March 12, the sheriff and his prisoners arrived at New Design and were met by a mob. The sheriff was overwhelmed and his prisoners were taken and executed. For those involved in the executions, retribution for the McMahan raid was swift and just. The mob disbursed and the sheriff returned to Cahokia. But word of the murders eventually reached Territorial Secretary Winthrop Sargent, who, on April 21, wrote to the justices of St. Clair County that he "would never had suspected a crime of this nature to have been ascribed to the people thereof. He also reminded the justices that it was their duty to make peace in the territory. At Cincinnati on May 25, 1795, Governor St. Clair wrote to Judge George Turner in St. Clair County that he had learned of the murders. St. Clair asked "whether any or what steps have been taken to bring the offenders to justice," and he was infuriated to learn that nothing had been done. On June 1, the governor issued a proclamation charging all officers of St. Clair County to find and apprehend the parties responsible and hold them without bail. When word of the murders reached General Wayne, he wrote St. 21 | Illinois Heritage Clair, encouraging him to seek the testimony of Israel Ludlow, who allegedly had witnessed the murders. Soon after, David Musick and George Roberts, both respected citizens of New Design and members of the local militia, were taken into custody and held at Kaskaskia for the murder of the two Potawatomis. On August 29, after the legislative session ended at Cahokia, Governor St. Clair and Judge John Cleves Symmes left for Kaskaskia to hold court. Despite the evidence presented, the grand jury—made up of citizens who knew of the McMahan deaths—returned that there was insufficient evidence to convict the men for murder. At St. Clair's request, the case was brought before another grand jury, this time in Cahokia. On September 25, 1795, Musick and Roberts were accused of willfully murdering two Potawatomis at New Design while the Indians were in the custody of a civil officer. The second grand jury, however, was less impartial than the first. Two of the jurors were related to David Musick. Another juror, John Mooredock, had lost his family to Indian attacks when a child. Other jurors had suffered similar injuries or losses, or knew someone who had. The result was predictable: the charges against the men were dropped. Undaunted by what he perceived as a threat to peace and territorial justice, Gov. St. Clair again tried to hold Musick and Roberts accountable for their crimes, this time for the lesser charge of manslaughter. But the citizens of St. Clair County were equally resolved; they would not convict a man for the crime of killing an Indian. Shortly after the hearings, David Musick and his family left the country. In 1795 he became the first American to take a Spanish Land Grant on the Missouri side of the Mississippi, 12 miles northwest of St. Louis. George Roberts likewise disappeared from the territory. In Milwaukee, Siggenauk, chief of the two murdered Potawatomis, bartered for Sally McMahan, and returned her to Cahokia in 1796. Years later, the Honorable George Churchill interviewed Sally McMahan Gaskill for a paper he read before the Troy Lyceum in 1855. Sally told him that she believed it was the Miami tribesman—not the Potawatamis—who committed the atrocities against her family. Out of the hostilities committed by the citizens of the Northwest Territory came the "Good Faith Law." Passed during the 1795 legislative session, this law was intended to bring hostilities against the Indians to an end. In a letter to President Washington in 1795, St. Clair acknowledged it was his responsibility to end the violence between the territorial citizens and the Indians. The governor had learned a hard lesson, that his citizens held one law above all others: Retribution—an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
But St. Clair was shrewd. In his 1796 letter to U.S. Secretary of the State Edmund Randolph he suggested that justice would be best served in the territory if a hefty fine were imposed for killing an Indian. He wrote, "For it is often seen that the minds of men little tinctured with justice or humanity, have a pretty strong sympathy with their pockets." David M. Brady of Springfield is member of the Sangamon County and Illinois State Historical societies and secretary/treasurer of Illinois Old Roads and Traces Association. He may he reached at dave@frairiearchives.com. For further reading: Robert P. Howard, A History of the Prairie State, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1972. Illinois Heritage | 23 |
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