Black Hawk does business at Marantette's trading post

From Black Hawk Slept Here

There were two important and principal trails passing through the St. Joseph territory when the first settlers came to it, one of which they followed in their journeyings thither. This was the Chicago trail, between that point and Detroit, along which every year the Western Indians, led by Black Hawk and other less-noted warriors of the Sac nation, rode in immense cavalcade to Malden to receive from the British government their annuities. When, the procession began to approach the settlements, runners would be sent out to notify the inhabitants along the trail that the main body were coming, and to assure them of the pacific intentions of their people. It was rarely that any trouble arose between the whites and these Indians, in fact no disturbance ever was made unless the Indians were intoxicated. Mr. Marantette, of Mendon, mentioned an incident that occurred at the trading-post at Coldwater in 1825 while he had charge of it, although he was then a boy about eighteen years old. Black Hawk and his people had been to Malden and received their annuity, and were returning home, and stopped at the post to trade, that being the last one before reaching Chicago. They dismounted, and soon the room where he sold his goods was filled with the braves and squaws indiscriminately,--all wanting to buy something--Black Hawk, armed with a long lance, among the number. While the bartering was going on, a squaw offered Marantette a very fine smoked deer-skin in exchange for something she saw on the shelves, and at a glance he saw it was one he had bought but a few days before, and which bore his cost or price mark ("sixteen shillings") on one corner. He immediately seized it and claimed his property. The squaw retained her hold upon it, also, and vehemently disputed his title thereto, and amidst the wrangle Black Hawk came up, and laying his lance upon the skin, proposed to settle the difficulty by taking it himself. The boy persistently refused to be imposed upon by the woman or bullied by the chief, and he immediately took another skin he had just purchased, and taking his pen he made a similar mark on the corner of it and laid it down beside the skin in dispute, and pointed to the two marks as evidence of his title, and was greeted with the loud "How!" "How!" "How!" of the Indians, who at once relinquished the skin and drove the squaw out of the room, and patronized the boy-merchant more than ever, buying some five or six hundred dollars worth of goods.

--History of St. Joseph county, Michigan (1877), page 23

Other items to be discussed in this article or referenced here:

• Did this really happen? (There is some corroboration.)
• Could Black Hawk's people really have done $500-$600 worth of business with Marantette?
• Just how immense was that "immense cavalcade"?
• Which other "less-noted warriors" went to Malden? Who besides the Sauk?
• Just where was this trading post?
• Why was there a trading post at this place, and why did Marantette move to Mendon shortly after this incident?
• What's the deal with shillings instead of dollars? Wasn't this the USA?

SpokesWiki links

Patrick Marantette