Morrill Marston Commandant of Fort Armstrong 1819-1821

Fort Armstrong at Rock Island

Morrill Marston served as commandant at Fort Armstrong from August 1819 to June 1821. After leaving Fort Armstrong, Marston became the commandant of Fort Edwards. His primary duty was to stop boats going up the river and search them for whiskey to ensure it did not get to the Indians.

After leaving the army when Fort Edwards was abandoned in 1824, he began farming near the fort. Unfortunately, Marston drowned in a drunken fit in 1831.

Fortunately for us, he penned a series of letters on the Sac and Fox customs to Reverend Jedidiah Morse in 1820. In addition, Marston said he talked with four of the principal chiefs of the two nations.

They called the land around Fort Armstrong Sen-i-se-po Ke-be-sau-lee or Rock River Peninsula. Government agents had been trying to get the tribes to relocate for some time but had no luck. A Fox chief told him they would not leave because their chiefs and friends were buried there.

The principal chief of the Sacs in 1820 was Nan-nah-que. “He is about 40 years of age, rather small in stature, unassuming in his deportment, and disposed to cultivate the friendship of the whites,” said Marston. However, “he does not appear to possess any extraordinary capacity. The next two chiefs are Mus-ke-ta-bah (Red Head) and Mas-co.” He considered Mas-co too old and heavy a drinker to have much influence over his people.

Wah-bal-lo was the principal chief of the Fox Nation. He was very independent but “rather unambitious and indolent.” The other Fox chief was Ty-ee-ma, or Strawberry. He was more intelligent than most of the Sac and Fox but unwilling to share any information on the tribes.

The Sac and the Fox are divided into two bands, the kish-co-qua and the osh-kosh. The first male child in a family goes into the first band, the next into the second group.

Keokuk was the war chief of the kish-co-qua. Na-cal-a-quoik was head of the Osh-kosh. What seems strange is that Marston didn’t mention Black Hawk in his history of the tribes. Was it an oversight? Or did he consider Black Hawk inconsequential?

The other subject Marston focused on was the current government factory system. He didn’t believe it helped the Indians or the government.

The biggest problem for the Indians was credit. They were destitute at the start of the hunting season and looked to the traders to advance them credit. But unfortunately, the factory system did not give credit. “Even if they did, the number of those establishments is too limited to accommodate any considerable number of Indians. Few of them will travel far to get their supplies if it can be avoided.”

The other problem was the quality of the goods. The factory goods were cheap and poorly made compared to private traders’ goods. If you spoke to an Indian about American trade goods, they would call you a pash-i-pash-i-to (a fool). At best, those goods were meant to be given away, not sold. The Native Americans believed the government factors were cheating them.

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