Background
Felix Saint Vrain was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, a son of Jacques DeHault Delassus de Saint Vrain.
Felix Saint Vrain was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, a son of Jacques DeHault Delassus de Saint Vrain.
The incident has become known as the Saint Vrain massacre. A sawmill operator in Kaskaskia, Saint Vrain was 31 years old when he was appointed to replace Thomas Forsyth as an Saint Vrain started working for the United States government as an Indian Agent in 1830. He was assigned to the Sauk and Fox nations around Rock Island during William Clark"s tenure as superintendent of the Saint Louis Indian Agency.
Saint Vrain"s appointment came amidst Forsyth"s ongoing criticism of William Clark.
When the Black Hawk War began, Saint Vrain was stationed at Fort Armstrong. The story circulated upon his death by Governor John Reynolds was that Saint Vrain was keenly in tune with Indian culture and was treacherously murdered by a chief who had adopted him as a brother Little Bear.
This story is almost certainly not true. They were most likely attacked by a band of pro-Sauk Ho-Chunk warriors, though sources disagree over the attacker"s tribe.
Saint Vrain and the other victims were buried by a detachment of soldiers under Colonel Henry Dodge.
One account of the massacre, from General George West. Jones (Street Vrain"s brother-in-law as well as the man who identified the body), claimed the attackers scalped all of the dead men, and cut off the hands, head and feet of Saint They then removed his heart, which they ate. The victims" graves are located in Kellogg"s Grove.
In 1834 (either January 6 or March 24) the United States. Congress passed a bill which provided relief for Saint Vrain"s family.
The Congressional relief was in the form a 640 acre land grant in the state of Missouri.
Saint Vrain had almost no experience dealing with Indians but being a member of a politically important Saint Louis-French family he had connections to United States. Senator Elias Kent Kane. While on a mission to deliver dispatches from Dixon"s Ferry, present-day Dixon, Illinois to Galena, under the command of General Henry Atkinson, Saint Vrain was killed along with three other members of his party on May 24, 1832.