Part 1 (1/2)
The Settlement of Illinois, 1778-1830.
by Arthur Clinton Boggess.
PREFACE.
In the work here presented, an attempt has been made to apply in the field of history, the study of types so long in use in biological science. If the settlement of Illinois had been an isolated historical fact, its narration would have been too provincial to be seriously considered, but in many respects, the history of this settlement is typical of that of other regions. The Indian question, the land question, the transportation problem, the problem of local government; these are a few of the cla.s.ses of questions wherein the experience of Illinois was not unique.
This work was prepared while the writer was a student in the University of Wisconsin. The first draft was critically and carefully read by Prof.
Frederick Jackson Turner, of that University, and the second draft was read by Prof. John Bach McMaster, of the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to suggestions received from my teachers, valuable aid has been rendered by Miss Caroline M. McIlvaine, the librarian of the Chicago Historical Society, who placed at my disposal her wide knowledge of the sources of Illinois history.
The omission of any reference in this work to the French ma.n.u.scripts, found by Clarence W. Alvord, is due to the fact that at the time they were found, my work was so nearly completed that it was loaned to Mr. Alvord to use in the preparation of his article on the County of Illinois, while the press of professional duties has been such that a subsequent use of the ma.n.u.scripts has been impracticable.
ARTHUR C. BOGGESS.
Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon.
September 14, 1907.
CHAPTER I. THE COUNTY OF ILLINOIS.
An Act for establis.h.i.+ng the County of Illinois, and for the more effectual protection and defence thereof, pa.s.sed both houses of the Virginia legislature on December 9, 1778.(1) The new county was to include the inhabitants of Virginia, north of the Ohio River, but its location was not more definitely prescribed.(2)
The words ”for the more effectual protection and defence thereof” in the t.i.tle of the Act were thoroughly appropriate. The Indians were in almost undisputed possession of the land in Illinois, save the inconsiderable holdings of the French. Some grants and sales of large tracts of land had been made. In 1769, John Wilkins, British commandant in Illinois, granted to the trading-firm of Baynton, Wharton and Morgan, a great tract of land lying between the Kaskaskia and the Mississippi rivers. The claim to the land descended to John Edgar, who shared it with John Murray St. Clair, son of Gov. Arthur St. Clair. The claim was filed for 13,986 acres, but was found on survey to contain 23,000 acres, and was confirmed by Gov. St.
Clair. At a later examination of t.i.tles, this claim was rejected because the grant was made in the first instance counter to the king's proclamation of 1763, and because the confirmation by Gov. St. Clair was made after his authority ceased and was not signed by the Secretary of the Northwest Territory.(3) In 1773, William Murray and others, subsequently known as the Illinois Land Company, bought two large tracts of land in Illinois from the Illinois Indians. In 1775, a great tract lying on both sides of the Wabash was similarly purchased by what later became the Wabash Land Company. The purchase of the Illinois Company was made in the presence, but without the sanction, of the British officers, and Gen.
Thomas Gage had the Indians re-convened and the validity of the purchase expressly denied. These large grants were illegal, and the Indians were not in consequence disposessed of them.(4) Thus far, the Indians of the region had been undisturbed by white occupation. British landholders were few and the French clearings were too small to affect the hunting-grounds.
French and British alike were interested in the fur trade. A French town was more suited to be the center of an Indian community than to become a point on its periphery, for here the Indians came for religious instruction, provisions, fire-arms, and fire-water. The Illinois Indian of 1778 had been degraded rather than elevated by his contact with the whites. The observation made by an acute French woman of large experience, although made at another time and place, was applicable here. She said that it was much easier for a Frenchman to learn to live like an Indian than for an Indian to learn to live like a Frenchman.(5)
In point of numbers and of occupied territory, the French population was trifling in comparison with the Indian. In 1766-67, the white inhabitants of the region were estimated at about two thousand.(6) Some five years later,(7) Kaskaskia was reported as having about five hundred white and between four and five hundred black inhabitants; Prairie du Rocher, one hundred whites and eighty negroes; Fort Chartres, a very few inhabitants; St. Philips, two or three families; and Cahokia, three hundred whites and eighty negroes. At the same time, there was a village of the Kaskaskia tribe with about two hundred and ten persons, including sixty warriors, three miles north of Kaskaskia, and a village of one hundred and seventy warriors of the Peoria and Mitchigamia Indians, one mile northwest of Fort Chartres. It is said of these Indians: ”They were formerly brave and warlike, but are degenerated into a drunken and debauched tribe, and so indolent, as scarcely to procure a sufficiency of Skins and Furrs to barter for clothing,” and a pastoral letter of August 7, 1767, from the Bishop of Quebec to the inhabitants of Kaskaskia shows the character of the French. The French are told that if they will not acknowledge the authority of the vicar-general-Father Meurin, pastor of Cahokia-cease to marry without the intervention of the priest, and cease to absent themselves from church services, they will be abandoned by the bishop as unworthy of his care.(8) Two years earlier, George Croghan had visited Vincennes, of which he wrote: ”I found a village of about eighty or ninety French families settled on the east side of this river [Wabash], being one of the finest situations that can be found.... The French inhabitants, hereabouts, are an idle, lazy people, a parcel of renegadoes from Canada, and are much worse than the Indians.”(9) Although slave-holders, a large proportion of the French were almost abjectly poor. Illiteracy was very common as is shown by the large proportion who signed legal doc.u.ments by their marks.(10) The people had been accustomed to a paternal rule and had not become acquainted with English methods during the few years of British rule. Such deeds as were given during the French period were usually written upon sc.r.a.ps of paper, described the location of the land deeded either inaccurately or not at all, and were frequently lost.(11) Land holdings were in long narrow strips along the rivers.(12)
The country was physically in a state of almost primeval simplicity. The chief highways were the winding rivers, although roads, likewise winding, connected the various settlements. These roads were impa.s.sable in times of much rain. All settlements were near the water, living on a prairie being regarded as impossible and living far from a river as at least impracticable.(13) The difficulties of George Rogers Clark in finding his way, overland, from the Ohio River to Kaskaskia and Vincennes on his awful winter march, are such as must manifestly have confronted anyone who wished to go over the same routes at the same season of the year.
Wild animals were abundant. A quarter of a century after the Revolution, two hunters killed twenty-five deer before nine in the morning near the Illinois settlements.(14) In 1787, the country between Vincennes and Kaskaskia abounded in buffalo, deer, and bear.(15) For years, the chase furnished a large part of the provisions. The raising of hogs was rendered difficult by the presence of wolves. Game-birds were plentiful, and birds were sometimes a pest because of their destruction of corn and smaller grains and even of mast.
An early traveler wrote in 1796: ”The province of the Illinois is, perhaps, the only spot respecting which travelers have given no exaggerated accounts; it is superior to any description which has been made, for local beauty, fertility, climate, and the means of every kind which nature has lavished upon it for the facility of commerce.”(16) The wide-spreading prairies added to the beauty of the country. Land which now produces one hundred bushels of corn to the acre must have been capable of producing wonderful crops at the beginning of its cultivation. Coal was not known to exist in great quant.i.ties in the region nor was its use as a fuel yet known.
Such was the country and such the people now organized into the County of Illinois.(17) The Act establis.h.i.+ng the county provided that the governor and council should appoint a county-lieutenant or commandant-in-chief, who should appoint and commission as many deputy-commandants, militia officers, and commissaries as were needed. The religion, civil rights, property and law of the inhabitants should be respected. The people of the county should pay the salaries of such officers as they had been accustomed to, but officers with new duties, including the county-lieutenant, were to be paid by Virginia. The governor and council might send five hundred troops, paid by Virginia, to defend Illinois.
Courts were to be established with judges elected by the people, although the judges of other county-courts of Virginia were appointed by the governor and council.(18)
While Gov. Patrick Henry was writing instructions concerning the organization of government in Illinois, the British general, Hamilton, was marching to take Vincennes. Henry did not know this particular fact, but he had a keen perception of the difficulties, both civil and military, which awaited the county. On December 12, 1778, without waiting for the formal signing of the act creating the county, he wrote instructions to George Rogers Clark, to Col. John Todd, jr., and to Lieut.-Col. John Montgomery. Clark was instructed to retain the command of the troops then in the Illinois country, and to a.s.sume command of five other companies, soon to be sent out.(19) Col. Todd was appointed county-lieutenant or commandant. His instructions contained much wise direction. He was to take care to cultivate and conciliate the affections of the French and Indians, to cooperate with Clark and give the military department all the aid possible, to use the French against the British, if the French were willing, but otherwise to remain on the defensive, to inculcate in the people an appreciation of the value of liberty, to see that the inhabitants had justice done them for any injuries from the troops. A neglect of this last instruction, it was pointed out, might be fatal.
”Consider yourself as at the head of the civil department, and as such having the command of the militia, who are not to be under the command of the military, until ordered out by the civil authority and act in conjunction with them.” An express was to be sent to Virginia every three months with a report. A letter to the Spanish commandant at Ste. Genevieve was inclosed, and Todd was told to be very friendly to him.(20) Col.
Montgomery, then in Virginia, was ordered to recruit men to reenforce Clark. ”As soon as the state of affairs in the recruiting business will permit, you are to go to the Illinois country & join Col. Clarke, I need not tell you how necessary the greatest possible Dispatch is to the good of the service in which you are engaged. Our party at Illinois may be lost, together with the present favorable Disposition of the French and Indians there, unless every moment is improved for their preservation, & no future opportunity, if the present is lost, can ever be expected so favorable to the Interest of the commonwealth.” Montgomery was urged not to be daunted by the inclement season, the great distance to Illinois, the ”want of many necessaries,” or opposition from enemies.(21) Gov. Henry deserves much credit for his prompt and aggressive action at a time when Virginia was in the very midst of the Revolution.
Col. Clark was much pleased with the appointment of Col. Todd, both because civil duties were irksome to the conqueror and because of his confidence in Todd's ability.(22) Upon the arrival of the new county-lieutenant, Clark called a meeting of the citizens of Kaskaskia to meet the new officer and to elect judges. He introduced Col. Todd as governor and said that he was the only person in the state whom he had desired for the place. The people were told that the government, Virginia, was going to send a regiment of regular troops for their defense, that the new governor would arrange and settle their affairs, and that they would soon become accustomed to the American system of government. In regard to the election of judges, Clark said: ”I pray you to consider the importance of this choice; to make it without partiality, and to choose the persons most worthy of such posts.”(23) The nine members of the court of Kaskaskia, the seven members of the court of Cahokia, and the nine members of the court of Vincennes, as also the respective clerks were French. Of the three sheriffs, Richard Winston, sheriff of Kaskaskia, was the only one who was not French.(24)
Military commissions were promptly made out, those of the districts of Kaskaskia and Cahokia being dated May 14, 1779. So many of the persons elected judges were also given military commissions that it seems probable that the supply of suitable men was small. No fewer than fourteen such cases occur. Of the militia officers appointed at Vincennes, P. Legras, appointed lieutenant-colonel, had been a major in the British service, and F. Bosseron, appointed major, had been a captain in the British service.(25)
The position of Illinois among the counties of Virginia was necessarily anomalous. All counties, except the County of Illinois, were asked to furnish one twenty-fifth of their militia to defend the state. Illinois county was omitted from the western counties enumerated in ”An act for adjusting and settling the t.i.tles of claimers to unpatented lands under the present and former government, previous to the establishment of the commonwealth's land office.” Settlers northwest of the Ohio were warned to remove. No settlement would be permitted there, and if attempted, the intruder might be removed by force-”_Provided_, That nothing herein contained shall be construed in any manner to injure or affect any French, Canadian, or other families, or persons heretofore actually settled in or about the villages near or adjacent to the posts reduced by the forces of this state.” These exceptions were made at the May session of 1779. At this session, there was pa.s.sed an act for raising one troop of cavalry, consisting of one captain, one lieutenant, one cornet, and thirty-two privates to defend the inhabitants of Illinois county. All officers were to be appointed by the governor and council. The men were to receive the same pay as Continentals. Any soldier who would serve in Illinois during the war should receive a bounty of seven hundred and fifty dollars and a grant of one hundred acres of land.(26)