Felix St. Vrain, born Felix August Antoine St. Vrain (March 23, 1799–May 24, 1832), was an American United States

Indian agent In United States history, an Indian agent was an individual authorized to interact with American Indian tribes on behalf of the government. Background The federal regulation of Indian affairs in the United States first included development of ...

who was killed by Native Americans during the

Black Hawk War The Black Hawk War was a conflict between the United States and Native Americans led by Black Hawk, a Sauk leader. The war erupted after Black Hawk and a group of Sauks, Meskwakis (Fox), and Kickapoos, known as the "British Band", cross ...

. St. Vrain died along with three companions while on a mission to deliver dispatches from

Dixon's Ferry Dixon's Ferry was the former name for Dixon, Illinois, United States. It was located on the bank of the Rock River near present-day Illinois Route 26. John Dixon operated a rope ferry service to transport mail from Peoria to Galena, and he also ...

Fort Armstrong A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

, both in Illinois. The incident has become known as the St. Vrain massacre. He was the brother of Ceran St. Vrain, a St. Louis fur trader who was the partner of the Bent Brothers. Together they established

Bent's Fort Bent's Old Fort is an 1833 fort located in Otero County in southeastern Colorado, United States. A company owned by Charles Bent and William Bent and Ceran St. Vrain built the fort to trade with Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Plains Indians a ...

, the only privately held fort in the west. It is located at what is now La Junta,

Otero County, Colorado Otero County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 18,690. The county seat is La Junta. The county was named for Miguel Antonio Otero, one of the founders of the town of La Junta and ...

Early life

Felix St. Vrain was born in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which ...

, a son of Jacques DeHault Delassus de Saint-Vrain, a French aristocrat, who had immigrated to escape the violence of the French Revolution. His mother was an ethnic French woman from St. Louis. St. Vrain married Marie Pauline Grégoire in 1822, and eight years later settled in

Kaskaskia, Illinois Kaskaskia is a village in Randolph County, Illinois. Having been inhabited by indigenous peoples, it was settled by France as part of the Illinois Country. It was named for the Kaskaskia people. Its population peaked at about 7,000 in the 18th c ...

, a former French colonial city in the 18th century. Operating a

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

in Kaskaskia, St. Vrain was 31 years old when he was appointed to replace Thomas Forsyth as a US Indian agent. Trask, Kerry A., ''Black Hawk: The Battle for the Heart of America'',
Google Books link
, Macmillan, New York: 2007, p. 89.

U.S. Indian agent

St. Vrain started working for the

United States government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a f ...

as an

Indian Agent In United States history, an Indian agent was an individual authorized to interact with American Indian tribes on behalf of the government. Background The federal regulation of Indian affairs in the United States first included development of ...

in 1830. He was assigned to the Sauk and

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve s ...

nations around

Rock Island, Illinois Rock Island is a city in and the county seat of Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. The original Rock Island, from which the city name is derived, is now called Arsenal Island. The population was 37,108 at the 2020 census. Located on ...

during

William Clark William Clark (August 1, 1770 – September 1, 1838) was an American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and territorial governor. A native of Virginia, he grew up in pre-statehood Kentucky before later settling in what became the state of Mis ...

's tenure as superintendent of the St. Louis Indian Agency. St. Vrain was appointed while Forsyth continued to criticize

's administration. St. Vrain had almost no experience dealing with Indians but, as a member of a politically important St. Louis-French family, he had connections to U.S. Senator Elias Kent Kane. Kane was a close acquaintance of William Clark and recommended St. Vrain for the appointment. Fort armstrong

Black Hawk War and St. Vrain Massacre

When the

began, St. Vrain was stationed at

. The story circulated upon his death by Governor John Reynolds was that St. Vrain was keenly in tune with Indian culture and was treacherously murdered by a chief who had adopted him as a brother, even naming him Little Bear.Armstrong Perry A. ''The Sauks and the Black Hawk War''
Google Books link
H.W. Rokker, printer, 1887 pp. 414-16. This story is almost certainly not true. While on a mission to deliver dispatches, from

, present-day

Dixon, Illinois Dixon is a city and the county seat of Lee County, Illinois, United States. The population was 15,733 as of the 2010 census, down from 15,941 in 2000. The city is named after founder John Dixon, who operated a rope ferry service across the ...

Galena Galena, also called lead glance, is the natural mineral form of lead(II) sulfide (PbS). It is the most important ore of lead and an important source of silver. Galena is one of the most abundant and widely distributed sulfide minerals. It c ...

, under the command of General Henry Atkinson, Felix St. Vrain was killed, along with three other members of his party, on May 24, 1832. This incident was later known by Americans as the "St. Vrain

Massacre A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...

". The St. Vrain party were most likely attacked by a band of pro-Sauk

Ho-Chunk The Ho-Chunk, also known as Hoocągra or Winnebago (referred to as ''Hotúŋe'' in the neighboring indigenous Iowa-Otoe language), are a Siouan-speaking Native American people whose historic territory includes parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Io ...

warriors, though sources disagree over the attackers' tribe.Stevens, Frank E. ''The Black Hawk War'', Frank E. Stevens 1903, pp. 169-171. Available online a
Northern Illinois University Libraries Digitization Project
The Killing of Felix St. Vrain
" ''Historic Diaries: Black Hawk War'', Wisconsin Historical Society. Retrieved 28 July 2007. St. Vrain and the other victims were buried by a detachment of soldiers under Colonel

Henry Dodge Moses Henry Dodge (October 12, 1782 – June 19, 1867) was a Democratic member to the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, Territorial Governor of Wisconsin and a veteran of the Black Hawk War. His son, Augustus C. Dodge, served as ...

. One account of the massacre, from Gen. George Wallace Jones (St. Vrain's brother-in-law and the man who identified his body), claimed the attackers scalped all of the dead men, and cut off the hands, head and feet of St. Vrain. They removed his heart, which they ate as part of their post-battle ritual to take on power of the enemy. The four men were buried in

Kellogg's Grove Kellogg's Grove is an area in western Stephenson County, Illinois, United States near the present-day unincorporated town of Kent, Illinois, Kent. The grove is considered historically significant because it was the site of two minor skirmishes d ...

.Dameier, Evelyn.
Kellogg's Grove
," (

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems ...

), National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, 18 January 1978, HAARGIS Database, ''Illinois Historic Preservation Agency''. Retrieved 26 July 2007. In 1834 (either January 6 or March 24Britton Alexander Thompson. ''Laws of the United States of a Local or Temporary Character''
Google Books link

Government Printing Office The United States Government Publishing Office (USGPO or GPO; formerly the United States Government Printing Office) is an agency of the legislative branch of the United States Federal government. The office produces and distributes information ...

, 1880 p. 436.) the U.S. Congress passed a bill to provided financial aid to St. Vrain's family.
Delassus-St. Vrain Family Collection
', (

), "Biographical Sketch," Missouri History Museum, p. 3. Retrieved 28 July 2007. They made a 640-acre

land grant A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...

to his wife in the state of Missouri.

Notes

External links

William Clark papers
(Keyword search, St. Vrain) ''

Kansas Historical Society The Kansas Historical Society is the official state historical society of Kansas. Headquartered in Topeka, it operates as "the trustee of the state" for the purpose of maintaining the state's history and operates the Kansas Museum of History, Kan ...

'' accessed January 22, 2011. {{DEFAULTSORT:St. Vrain, Felix 1799 births 1832 deaths American people of the Black Hawk War American people of French descent People from Kaskaskia, Illinois People from St. Louis United States Indian agents

Early life

U.S. Indian agent

Black Hawk War and St. Vrain Massacre

See also

Notes

External links