If schoolchildren learn one thing about the War of 1812, it’s that the British marched on and burned Washington, D.C.
But Illinois schoolchildren studying the war could also learn about the burning of a settlement in their own territory, one set ablaze by their own countrymen: the village located where Peoria stands today, in a location that had been settled since the late 1600s.
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If schoolchildren learn one thing about the War of 1812, it’s that the British marched on and burned Washington, D.C.
But Illinois schoolchildren studying the war could also learn about the burning of a settlement in their own territory, one set ablaze by their own countrymen: the village located where Peoria stands today, in a location that had been settled since the late 1600s.
The conflagration there, almost certainly unplanned, gave rise to a half-century-long legal fight and slowed the city’s development.
In the early months of that conflict between the British and Americans, tensions grew in the western territories of the United States, including the Illinois Territory, because of fears that local American Indian tribes were either loyal to the British or being induced to attack American settlers, particularly after such an attack at Fort Dearborn.
Hence the decision by the state’s territorial governor, Ninian Edwards, to send a group of militiamen — some from Missouri — up the Illinois River in November 1812 to check into conditions in the village of fewer than 100 people.
“The Missourians were deeply suspicious of this thriving and peaceful village, unmolested within 10 miles of the main council site for Indian tribes that swarmed Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa,” a Journal Star archival piece from 1962 reads.
Capt. Thomas Craig’s men began to sack the town while residents were at Sunday Mass.
“In the face of protests from Thomas Forsythe, an official Indian agent and … the village priest, the property was temporarily returned,” according to another Journal Star historical recounting from 1963. “Harmless shots from across the river, probably by hunters, led Craig to say his boats had been fired upon. The French denied it, but Craig demanded the attackers be turned over to him. When the villagers protested, Craig sacked the town.