Chapter XV · CO-MEE AND TO-QUA-MEE.
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Some of our readers may ask, Was anyone prosecuted for the massacre at Indian Creek? Oh, yes! Co-mee and To-qua-mee who had tried to buy Rachel and Sylvia Hall from their father, as related in Chapter III., were, in the spring of 1833, at Ottawa, Illinois, indicted by a grand jury, and a warrant issued and placed in the hands of Sheriff George E. Walker who had been an Indian trader and spoke the Pottawatomie language, to make the arrests. The Indians had gone to Iowa with Black Hawk and had become members of his tribe.
Alone, Sheriff Walker went to the Sac reservation and placed the Indians under arrest. The two Indians made no resistance, but unshackled accompanied the sheriff to Ottawa. They were allowed to go on a bond signed by themselves, Shabona, and several other Indians, upon their promises upon their honor to return for trial.
When the time for the trial arrived the Indians were on hand, although they had told their friends that they expected to be executed. Many of the friends of the people who had been massacred, armed and threatening to shoot the prisoners, if they should be liberated, attended the trial. There was no jail in Ottawa at the time, so the trial was held under a great tree on the bank of the Illinois. All through the trial the sheriff with a posse of armed men, guarded the Indians.
Mrs. Munson and Mrs. Horn, the principal witnesses, could not positively identify either of the Indians, and as the Indians had voluntarily stood their trial when they might have escaped, the jury acquitted them. When the trial was over the Indians’ friends gave them a banquet at Buffalo Rock (six miles down the Illinois), to which the sheriff and several other prominent men of the time were invited. A fat deer and choice game were parts of the menu, and a great red-white pow-wow was a part of the celebration.
It is said that subsequently when To-qua-mee and Co-mee were drinking with their friends, they admitted that they were present at the massacre, and that they took part in it only because they were angered at Davis for building the dam across Indian Creek. Also, they stated that it was through their influence that the lives of the Hall girls were spared, which was an express condition upon which they insisted before they would take part in the massacre. However, Black Hawk in his autobiography states that it was the Sac Indians who saved the lives of the girls; and White Crow in his speech at Morrison’s, said that the Sacs intended to kill the girls and that the Winnebagoes saved their lives.47