Indian Creek massacre

In the spring of 1832, settler William Davis built a dam on Indian Creek in LaSalle County, Illinois, to power his sawmill. The dam blocked fish from reaching a nearby Potawatomi village led by chief Meau-eus, who protested to Davis. Davis rejected the request to remove the dam and assaulted a Potawatomi man who attempted to dismantle it. Potawatomi chiefs Shabbona and Waubonsie counseled restraint, urging villagers to fish below the dam rather than retaliate.

This local dispute coincided with the outbreak of the Black Hawk War, which began on May 14, 1832, when forces led by Sauk leader Black Hawk defeated Illinois militia at the Battle of Stillman's Run. Potawatomi leaders, fearing collective punishment if any of their people supported Black Hawk, had already declared support for him treasonous at a council near Chicago on May 1, 1832. Chief Shabbona rode to warn nearby settlers of danger following Stillman's Run, and many fled to Ottawa. However, William Davis persuaded some neighbors to stay, and twenty-three people remained at the Davis settlement, including the Davis, Hall, and Pettigrew families.

On the afternoon of May 21, 1832, a group of roughly forty to eighty Potawatomi warriors, accompanied by three Sauk men from Black Hawk's band, attacked the Davis cabin. Fifteen settlers, including women and children, were killed and scalped; six young men escaped. Two young women, Sylvia Hall (19) and Rachel Hall (17), were spared and taken north to Black Hawk's camp, a journey of about 80 miles. Black Hawk later stated in his memoirs that the three Sauk men had intervened to save the sisters' lives. The Hall sisters were held for eleven days and were ransomed through the negotiation of Ho-Chunk chief White Crow; U.S. Indian agent Henry Gratiot paid ten horses, wampum, and corn for their release on June 1, 1832, at Blue Mounds Fort.

The massacre caused widespread panic among settlers, who fled to frontier forts such as Fort Dearborn in Chicago. A militia company under Captain Jesse B. Brown discovered the victims' remains on May 22, 1832, buried them, and reported the incident, which the Illinois militia subsequently used to draw further recruits. After the war, three men — identified in warrants as Keewasee, Toquame, and Comee — were charged with the killings at the LaSalle County Courthouse, but charges were dropped after the Hall sisters could not identify them as participants in the attack. No one was ultimately convicted.

In 1833, the Illinois General Assembly granted the Hall sisters 80 acres of land each along the Illinois and Michigan Canal in recognition of their ordeal. Monuments were later erected at the massacre site: an 1877 memorial funded by William Munson (who married Rachel Hall), and a 16-foot granite monument dedicated in 1906 following a $5,000 appropriation by the Illinois legislature. The site is preserved today within Shabbona County Park in LaSalle County, Illinois. Historians differ on who led the attack, with some attributing leadership to Potawatomi men and others to accompanying Sauk warriors; an 1872 account naming a leader called Mike Girty has since been discredited by later scholars.