BRITISH POLICY IN THE ILLINOIS COUNTRY
1763–1768
BY
CLARENCE EDWIN CARTER
A. M., 1906 (UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN)
THESIS
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE
DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY
IN THE
GRADUATE SCHOOL
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
1908
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
June 1 1908
THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER MY SUPERVISION BY
Clarence Edwin Carter, A.M.
ENTITLED British Policy in the Illinois Country, 1763-1768
IS APPROVED BY ME AS FULFILLING THIS PART OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF Doctor of Philosophy in History
Evarts B Greene
HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF History.
BRITISH POLICY IN THE ILLINOIS COUNTRY
1763-1768
CHAPTER I.—Introductory Survey.
CHAPTER II.—The Occupation of Illinois.
CHAPTER III.—Status of the Illinois Country in the Empire.
CHAPTER IV.—Trade Conditions in Illinois, 1765-1775.
CHAPTER V.—Colonizing schemes in the Illinois.
CHAPTER VI.—Events in the Illinois Country, 1765-1768.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY SURVEY.
In 1763 Great Britain was confronted with the momentous problem of
the readjustment of all her colonial relations in order to meet the
new conditions resulting from the peace of Paris, when immense areas
of territory and savage alien peoples were added to the empire. The
necessity of strengthening the imperial ties between the old colonies
and the mother country and reorganizing the new acquisitions came to
the forefront at this time and led the government into a course soon
to end in the disruption of the empire. Certainly not the least of the
questions demanding solution was that of the disposition of the country
lying to the westward of the colonies, including a number of French
settlements and a broad belt of Indian nations. It does not, however,
come within the proposed limits of this study to discuss all the
different phases of the western policy of England, except in so far as
it may be necessary to make more clear her attitude towards the French
settlements in the Illinois country.
The European situation leading to the Seven Years War, which ended so
disastrously to French dominion, is too familiar to need repetition.
That struggle was the culmination of a series of continental and
colonial wars beginning towards the close of the seventeenth century
and ending with the definitive treaty of 1763. During the first quarter
of the century France occupied a predominating position among the
powers. Through the aggressiveness of Louis XIV and his ministers
her boundaries had been pushed eastward and westward, which seriously
threatened the balance of power on the continent. Until 1748 England
and Austria had been in alliance against their traditional enemy, while
in the Austrian Succession France had lent her aid to Prussia in the
dismemberment of the Austrian dominions,—at the same time extending
her own power in the interior of America and India. In the interval of
nominal peace after the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, preparations
were begun for another contest. The astute diplomacy of Kaunitz won
France from her traditional enmity and secured her as an open ally for
Maria Theresa in her war of revenge.[1] While the European situation
was giving occasion for new alignments of powers, affairs in America
were becoming more and more important as between France and England.
Here for over a century the two powers had been rivals for the
territorial and commercial supremacy.
In North America the pioneers had won for her the greater part of
the continent,—the extensive valleys of the St. Lawrence and the
Mississippi with all the land watered by their tributaries. The
French claim to this region was based almost entirely upon discovery
and exploration, for in all its extent less than one thousand
people were permanently settled. Canada at the north and the region
about New Orleans on the extreme south containing the bulk of the
population, while throughout the old Northwest settlements were few and
scattering.[2] Trading posts and small villages existed at Vincennes
on the Wabash River, at Detroit on a river of the same name, at
St. Joseph near Lake Michigan and other isolated places. Outside of
Detroit, the most important and populous settlement was situated along
the eastern bank of the Mississippi, in the southwestern part of the
present state of Illinois. Here were the villages of Kaskaskia, St.
Phillippe, Prairie du Rocher, Chartres village and Cahokia, containing
a population of barely two thousand people.
In contrast to this vast area of French territory and the sparseness
of its population were the British colonies, with more than a million
people confined to the narrow strip between the Alleghany mountains and
the Atlantic ocean. These provinces were becoming comparatively crowded
and many enterprising families of English, Scotch Irish, and German
extraction were pushing westward towards the mountains. Each year saw
the pressure on the western border increased; the great unoccupied
valley of the Ohio invited homeseekers and adventurers westward in
spite of hostile French and Indians. By the fifth decade the barriers
were being broken through by constantly increasing numbers, and the
French found their possession of the West and their monopoly of the fur
trade seriously threatened.
To prevent such encroachments the French sought to bind their
possessions together with a line of forts extending from the St.
Lawrence down the Ohio valley to the Gulf of Mexico. It had indeed been
the plan of such men as La Salle, Iberville, and Bienville to bring
this territory into a compact whole and limit the English colonies to
the line of mountains. New Orleans and Mobile gave France command of
the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River; Louisburg, Niagara, and
Frontenac afforded protection for Canada. The weak point for France was
the Ohio valley, in the upper part of which Virginia and Pennsylvania
settlers had already located. Celoron, who went down the Ohio in 1749,
burying plates of lead to signify French dominion, warning English
settlers and traders, and persuading the Indians to drive out the
invaders of their hunting grounds, saw the inevitableness of the
conflict. The American phase of the final struggle for colonial empire
was to begin in this region.[3]
In the early years of the war Great Britain and her ally met with
serious reverses every where, and it seemed probable that France would
be able to hold her line of defense in America. The French colonies,
however, were fundamentally weak. Being wholly dependent upon the
mother country, when the latter became absorbed in the continental
struggle to the exclusion of her interests in her colonial possessions,
defeat was inevitable. By 1758 the tide was turning in America; this,
together with the victories of Clive in India and Frederick the Great
at Rossbach and Leuthen, started France on her downward road to ruin
as a world power, and with the transference of the American struggle
to Canada by the capture of Montreal and Quebec the war was at an end.
In 1762 the financial condition of France became so desperate that
Choiseul was anxious for peace and he found George III and Lord Bute
ready to abandon their Prussian ally, and even to give up the fruits
of some of the brilliant victories of 1762 which brought Spain to her
knees.[4]
The definitive treaty of Paris was signed February 10, 1763,[5] by
the terms of which France ceded to Great Britain all of Canada and gave
up her claim to the territory east of the Mississippi River, except the
city of New Orleans, adding to this the right of the free navigation of
the Mississippi. Spain received back Havana ceding Florida to England
in return. A few weeks before signing the definitive treaty, France, in
a secret treaty with Spain ceded to her the city of New Orleans and the
vast region stretching from the Mississippi towards the Pacific. Thus
was France divested of practically every inch of territory in America.
The French colony in the Illinois country had been originally
established with the view of forming a connecting link between the
colonies in Louisiana on the south and Canada at the northeast. La
Salle himself had recognized the possible strategic value of such
an establishment from both a commercial and military standpoint.[6]
Before any settlements had even been made on the lower Mississippi,
he and his associates had attempted in 1682 the formation of a colony
on the Illinois River, near the present site of Peoria.[7] This the
first attempt at western colonization was a failure. The opening of the
following century saw the beginning of a more successful and permanent
colony, when the Catholic missionaries from Quebec established their
missions at Kaskaskia and Cahokia,[8] near the villages of the Illinois
Indians. They were soon followed by hunters and fur traders, and
during the first two decades of the eighteenth century a considerable
number of families immigrated from Canada, thus assuring the permanancy
of the settlement.
Meanwhile the contemporaneous colony of Louisiana had grown to some
importance, and in 1717, when the Company of the West assumed control
of the province, the Illinois country was annexed. Prior to this time
it had been within the jurisdiction of Quebec. This gave the Illinois
country a period of prosperity, many new enterprizes being undertaken.
Shortly after its annexation to Louisiana, Pierre Boisbriant was given
a commission to govern the Illinois country, and among his instructions
was an order to erect a fort as a protection against possible
encroachments from the English and Spanish. About 1720 Fort Chartres
was completed and became thereafter the seat of government during the
French regime. In 1721 the Company of the West divided Louisiana into
nine districts,[9] extending east and west of the Mississippi River
between the lines of the Ohio and Illinois rivers. In 1732 Louisiana
passed out of the hands of the Company of the West Indies, and,
together with the Illinois dependency, became a royal province.[10] It
remained in this status until the close of the Seven Years War. During
this period its relation with Louisiana had become economic as well as
political, all of its trade being carried on through New Orleans, and
the southern colony often owed its existence to the large supplies of
flour and pork sent down the river from the Illinois country.[11]