Chapter 9 cont. HOW THE INDIANS WERE SWINDLED BY TRADERS Bejamin Pike, afterward the first sheriff of Rock Island coutny, told the writer that while in the employ of the Indian trader who, finding that Phelps, of the lower Yellow Banks (now Oquawka) - a branch of the American Fur Company, was intending to send men up Rock river to where the Indians were on their winter hunt, gave Pike an outfit which consisted of a ten gallon keg of whiskey and little else.  When he reached Prophetstown Pike put up his tent for trade, but would not sell anything until night.  The Indian custom is that when going into a drunken spree, they set apart a certain number to keep sober, and to these they give in charge the knives, guns and weapons to keep during the carousal.  An Indian drunk is a fighting maniac, and will froth at the mouth like a mad dog.  When all was ready Pike opened the keg of whiskey, drew a bottle full (all trade was by bottles containing three half pints) exchanged it for a four dollar otter skin.  Pike had pails of water in his tent out of which he filled his keg as emptied, still exchanging the watered whiskey for a deer skin or a lot of skins worth several dollars.  Pike had also brought a lot of bright tin brooches, costing about ten cents a dozen, also brass rings; one of each of these he traded for a beaver or otter skin to these drunken Indians.  Pike's whiskey at first made them all drunk, but by the filling process the water sobered them again, until by morning he had many hundreds of dollars woth of skins while the poor Indians had not a dollar to show and all sober.  Was it any wonder that Davenport did not want the white people to come to this country? Debbie Clough G-erischer G-erischer Family Web Site http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/ Assistant CC, Iowa Gen Web, Scott County http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/ List Manager for: IASCOTT-L * G-erischer-L * D-encker-L Fitzpatirck-L * V-lerebome-L * Huntington-L * Otis-L * Algar-L EIGS-L * Pickens-L * McNab-L * Patris-L - Rankin-L