Chicago Historical Society’s Collection.—Vol. V.
The Settlement of Illinois
1778-1830
by Arthur Clinton Boggess, Ph.D.
Professor of History and political Science in Pacific University; a
Director of the Oregon Historical Society; sometime Harrison Scholar in
American History in the University of Pennsylvania; sometime Fellow in
American History in the University of Wisconsin.
Chicago
Published by the society
1908
CONTENTS
Preface.
Chapter I. The County of Illinois.
Chapter II. The Period of Anarchy in Illinois.
Chapter III.
I. The Land and Indian Questions. 1790 to 1809.
II. Government Succeeding the Period of Anarchy, 1790 to 1809.
III. Obstacles to Immigration. 1790 to 1809.
Chapter IV. Illinois During Its Territorial Period. 1809 to 1818.
I. The Land and Indian Questions.
II. Territorial Government of Illinois. 1809 to 1818.
IV. Transportation and Settlement, 1809 to 1818.
IV. Life of the Settlers.
Chapter V. The First Years of Statehood, 1818 to 1830.
The Indian and Land Questions.
The Government and Its Representatives, 1818 to 1830.
Transportation.
Life of the People.
Chapter VI. Slavery in Illinois As Affecting Settlement.
Chapter VII. Successful Frontiersmen.
Works Consulted.
Index.
Footnotes
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 classes
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 manuscripts,
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
manuscripts has been impracticable.
ARTHUR C. BOGGESS.
Pacific University,
Forest Grove, Oregon.
September 14, 1907.
CHAPTER I. THE COUNTY OF ILLINOIS.
An Act for establishing the County of Illinois, and for the more effectual
protection and defence thereof, passed 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
title 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 titles, 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 documents 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 scraps 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 impassable 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 quantities 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 establishing 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 assume 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 coöperate 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 reënforce
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 titles 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 passed 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)
Acting upon the policy that caused Virginia to warn all intruders not to
settle northwest of the Ohio, Todd issued a proclamation warning all
persons against such settlement, “unless in manner and form as heretofore
made by the French inhabitants.” All inhabitants were ordered to file a
description of lands held by them, together with a deed or deposition, in
order to be ready for the press of adventurers that was expected.(27)
Some of the incidents of the summer of 1779 indicate difficulties of the
new government. When the governor was to be absent for a short time, he
wrote to Winston, who as commander of Kaskaskia would be acting governor,
telling him not to impress property, and by all means to keep up a good
understanding with Col. Clark and the officers. The judges of the court at
Kaskaskia were ordered to hold court “at the usual place of holding court
... any adjournment to the contrary notwithstanding.” Richard McCarty, of
Cahokia, wrote to the county-lieutenant complaining that the writer’s
stock had been killed by the French inhabitants. McCarty had allowed his
stock to run at large and they had destroyed uninclosed crops, which
crops, he contended, were not in their proper place. Two months later,
McCarty wrote from Cahokia: “Col. Todd residence hear will spoil the
people intirely. I think it would be a happy thing could we get Colol Todd
out of the country for he will possitively sett the Inhabitants and us by
the Ears. I have wrote him a pritty sharp Letter on his signing a Death
warrant against my poor hog’s for runing in the Oppen fields ... on some
complaints by the Inhabitants the other day he wished that there was not a
Soldier in the country.”(28) McCarty’s hogs were not his only trouble. A
fellow-officer wrote: “I received a line from Capt. McCarty [captain of
troops at Cahokia] yesterday. He is well. He writes to me that he has lost
most of his French soldiers, and that the inhabitants are so saucy that
they threaten to drive him and his soldiers away, telling him that he has
no business there—nobody sent for him. They are very discontented. The
civil law has ruined them.”(29)
Col. Todd’s position was difficult because of the discontent prevailing
among both the French and the Americans in Illinois. His salary was so
small that he feared that he must sell his property in Kentucky to support
himself while in public service. He regarded Kentucky as a much better
place than Illinois for the ambitious man, the retired farmer, or the
young merchant.(30) He had been scarcely more than three months in office
when he wrote to the governor of Virginia: “I expected to have been
prepared to present to your excellency some amendments upon the form of
Government for Illinois, but the present will be attended with no great
inconveniences till the Spring Session, when I beg your permission to
attend and get a Discharge from an Office, which an unwholesome air, a
distance from my connexions, a Language not familiar to me, and an
impossibility of procuring many of the conveniences of Life suitable; all
tend to render uncomfortable.”(31) This letter was intercepted by the
British and did not reach the governor.
Great difficulty was experienced in securing supplies for the soldiers. At
times, both troops and people suffered from lack of clothing. The Spanish
refused to allow the Americans to navigate the Mississippi, Virginia money
entirely lost its credit, hard money was scarce, and peltry was difficult
for the military commissaries to obtain. Col. Todd, in desperation,
refused to allow the commander at Kaskaskia to pay the people peltry for
provisions as had been promised, and calling the inhabitants in council,
he told them that if they would not sell on the credit of the state they
would be subject to military discipline.(32) The fall of 1779 saw the
garrison at Vincennes without salt, and starving; while at Kaskaskia the
money was worthless, troops were without clothes and deserting daily.(33)
This great lack of supplies resulted in the impressment of supplies, in
disagreement among the officers, and was a prominent factor in a
resolution to withdraw the troops from their several situations and
concentrate them at a single point on the Ohio River. The discontent of
the French was extreme, and it was increased by the departure of Col. Todd
for Virginia. The officers who were left in command ruled with a rod of
iron and took cattle, flour, wood, and other necessaries, without
payment.(34) Capt. Dodge, of Kaskaskia, refused to honor a draft
presented, apparently, by the government of Virginia, and when sued in the
civil court, he declared that he had nothing but his body and that could
not be levied upon; besides, he was an officer and as such was not
amenable to civil law.(35)
In the very midst of starvation, the French, unaccustomed to English ways,
were wishing to increase the expense of government. An unsigned official
letter says, in speaking of affairs in Illinois: “I find that justices of
the peace, appointed among them, expect to be paid, this not being the
practice under our laws, there is no provision for it. Would it not be
expedient to restrain these appointments to a very small number, and for
these (if it be necessary) to require small contributions either from the
litigants or the people at large, as you find would be most agreeable. In
time, I suppose even this might be discontinued. The Clerks & Sheriffs
perhaps may be paid, as with us, only converting Tobacco fees into their
worth in peltry. As to the rules of decision & modes of proceding, I
suppose ours can be only gradually introduced. It would be well to get
their militia disciplined by calling them regularly together according to
our usage; however, all this can only be recommended to your
Discretion.”(36) Some eight years later the exaction of exorbitant fees
was one of the chief reasons which caused the reform of the French court
at Vincennes.(37)
The plan for concentrating most of the Illinois troops at a single point
was carried out in the spring of 1780. The chief objects sought were to
procure supplies and to prevent the advance of the Spaniards. At first, it
was thought advisable to locate the new fort on the north side of the Ohio
near the Mississippi, and Col. Todd made some grants of land to such
persons as were willing to settle in the vicinity and assist in raising
provisions, but the fact that Virginia currency, although refused in
Illinois, was accepted in Kentucky caused the fort to be built south of
the Ohio, and it is probable that Todd’s grants of land at the site first
proposed lapsed.(38) As the troops had a great need for settlers to raise
crops, Capt. Dodge suggested to the governor of Virginia that immigrants
to Illinois should receive aid from Virginia. This would aid the troops
and would stop emigration to the Spanish possessions west of the
Mississippi.(39)
As the French could neither support the soldiers nor do without them,
commissions in blank were sent to Maj. Bosseron, district commandant at
Vincennes, with power to raise a company there, and to assure the company
that pay would be allowed by the government. It was feared that the
settlers at Vincennes would consider themselves abandoned upon the
withdrawal of troops. It was proposed to leave enough troops among the
French to satisfy them, but scarcely had the new fort been established
when the people of Cahokia sent a special messenger to Clark at Fort
Jefferson, the new fort, asking that troops be sent to protect them. The
Indians so surround the place, say the petitioners, that the fields can
not be cultivated. If troops are sent the people can not feed them, but if
they are not sent the people can not long feed themselves.(40) French
creditors of the government were unpaid and some of them must have been in
sore need.(41)
The act establishing the County of Illinois would terminate by limitation
at the end of the May session of 1780, unless renewed. At that session,
the act was renewed “for one year after the passing of this act, and from
thence to the end of the next session of assembly.”(42)
The condition of the people in the county during the latter half of 1780
was one of misery. Contemporary accounts have a melancholy interest. An
attack by Indians upon Fort Jefferson being imminent, the few troops in
the outlying districts were ordered to come to the aid of the garrison.
The order reached Cahokia when its few defenders were sick and starving.
Corn, without grease or salt, was their only food. Deaths were of frequent
occurrence. The people of the village had petitioned Col. Montgomery to
ease their burden by quartering some of the troops in other villages, but
he refused the request of other officers for a council and threatened to
abandon the country entirely. In such a condition of affairs, Capt.
McCarty proceeded to obey the orders from Fort Jefferson. The only boats
at the disposal of the garrison were unseaworthy, so five small boats were
pressed for use. On the way, several of the famished soldiers became so
sick that they had to be left along the route. Even military discipline
was bad in the country. Capt. McCarty, upon being arrested for having
quarreled with Dodge, because the latter would not buy food for the
starving troops, was left for months without trial because Col. Montgomery
had left the country and a military court could not be convened.(43) In
October, McCarty wrote: “In short, we are become the hated beasts of a
whole people by pressing horses, boats, &c., &c., &c., killing cattle,
&c., &c., for which no valuable consideration is given; even many not a
certificate, which is here looked upon as next to nothing.”(44)
Of the same tenor as McCarty’s testimony to Illinois conditions is that of
Winston. A remonstrance of the civil authorities against the extravagance
of the military officers was treated as insolent and impertinent. The
military power refused the civil department the use of the military
prison, even when pay was offered, and made strenuous efforts to establish
military rule. Col. Montgomery and Capt. Brashears had departed for New
Orleans without settling the account for the peltry which Todd had
committed to the joint care of Montgomery and Winston. Montgomery was
openly accused of having taken a large amount of public property away with
him. Capt. Dodge was a notorious disturber of the peace, and Capt.
Bentley, a more recent arrival, was equally undesirable. In the closing
paragraph of a long letter is the significant statement: “It Being so long
a time since we had any news from you, we conclude therefrom that the
Government has given us up to do for Ourselves the Best we can, untill
such time as it pleases Some other State or Power to take us under their
Protection—a few lines from you would give Some of us great satisfaction,
yett the Generality of the People are of Opinion that this Country will be
given up to France....”(45)
At the close of October, the troops, with the exception of a very few,
were collected at Fort Jefferson. There the garrison was sick and
starving,(46) clothes were much needed, desertion was rife, and the
abandonment of the post seemed imminent.(47) Among the few troops that
were not called to Fort Jefferson were those of Capt. Rogers, at
Kaskaskia. This company “had to impress supplies, giving certificates for
the value—thus would kill cattle when they wanted them, hogs, & take flour
from the horse-mills—& thus lived very comfortably.”(48)
Mutual recrimination was common among the officers. Todd, in a letter to
Gov. Jefferson, in which he inclosed letters from the Illinois officers,
said: “Winston is commandant at Kaskaskia; McCarty, a captain in the
Illinois regiment, who has long since rendered himself disagreeable by
endeavoring to enforce military law upon the civil department at Kohos.
“The peltry, mentioned by Winston as purloined or embezzled by Montgomery,
was committed to their joint care by me in Novr, 1779; and from the
circumstance of Montgomery’s taking up with an infamous girl, leaving his
wife, & flying down the river, I am inclined to believe the worst that can
be said of him. Being so far out of the road of business, I can not do the
State that justice I wish by sending down his case immediately to the
Spanish commandants on the Mississippi.”(49) From January 28, 1779, to
October 18, 1780, Montgomery drew drafts upon Virginia to the amount of
thirty-nine thousand three hundred twenty dollars.(50) Winston and McCarty
accused Capt. Rogers, who succeeded Col. Montgomery in command at
Kaskaskia, of shooting down the stock of the inhabitants without warrant.
In a dignified defence, Capt. Rogers declared that he took only so much
food as was absolutely required to save his starving sick, and that Mr.
Bentley, who endeavored to secure supplies from the people, offering his
personal credit, was persistently opposed by Winston and McCarty. “I can
not conclude without informing you that ’tis my positive opinion the
people of the Illinois & Post Vincennes have been in an absolute state of
rebellion for these several months past, & ought to have no further
indulgence shown them; and such is the nature of those people, the more
they are indulged, the more turbulant they grow. I look upon it that
Winston and McCarty have been principal instruments to bring them to the
pitch they are now at.”(51) Capt. Dodge, against whom complaints had
become general, and Capt. McCarty, whose quarrel has been narrated, were
ordered to appear before a court of inquiry at Fort Jefferson.(52) Clark
was very angry at Montgomery’s conduct. He sent a message to New Orleans
ordering him to return for trial; he warned all persons against trusting
the offender on the credit of the State, and he requested the governor of
Virginia to arrest the fugitive if he should come to Richmond.(53) How low
public morals had sunk is shown by the fact that Montgomery had the
effrontery to return to Fort Jefferson, where he arrived on May 1, 1781,
and resumed his command. In February, 1783, he made his defense and asked
for his pay.(54) In April, 1781, Todd wrote: “I still receive complaints
from the Illinois. That Department suffers, I fear, through the avarice
and prodigality of our officers; they all vent complaints against each
other. I believe our French friends have the justest grounds of
dissatisfaction.”(55)
On June 2, 1781, Capt. McCarty was killed in a fight between the Illinois
troops and some Indians on the one side and a party of Ouia Indians, who
favored the British, on the other. The engagement took place near the
Wabash. McCarty’s papers were sent to the British, who laconically
reported: “They give no information other than that himself and all the
Inhabitants of the Illenoise were heartily tired of the Virginians.”(56)
There is slight reason to doubt the truth of the statement. It is enforced
by the fact that in 1781, a letter written in French to the governor of
Virginia and said to be signed in the name of the inhabitants of Vincennes
and to give the views of the people of Vincennes, Kaskaskia, Vermilion,
Ouia, etc., declared that the French had decided to receive no troops
except those sent by the king of France to aid in defeating the enemies of
the country. The Indians who are friendly to the French, said the writer,
would regard the coming of Virginia troops as a hostile act. A copy of the
memoir sent by the French settlers to the French minister Luzerne was
inclosed.(57)
On June 8, 1781, the garrison of Fort Jefferson, being without food,
without credit, and for more than two years without pay, evacuated the
place and withdrew to the Falls of Ohio, only to find themselves without
credit in even the adjoining counties of Virginia. The troops were
billeted in small parties.(58) Once again there comes a despairing plea
from the feeble garrison at Vincennes, in the County of Illinois. The
commander wrote: “Sir, I must inform you once more that I can not keep
garrison any longer, without some speedy relief from you. My men have been
15 days upon half-allowance; there is plenty of provisions here but no
credit—I can not press, being the weakest party—Some of the Gentlemen
would help us, but their credit is as bad as ours, therefore, if you have
not provisions send us Whisky which will answer as good an end.”(59)
In the Virginia House of Delegates, a committee for courts of justice
reported that the laws which would expire at the end of the session had
been examined, together with certain other laws, and that a series of
resolutions had been agreed upon by the committee. Among these resolutions
was the following: “_Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee_,
That the act of assembly, passed in the year 1778, entitled ‘an act, for
establishing the county of Illinois, and for the more effectual protection
and defence thereof;’ which was continued and amended by a subsequent act,
and will expire at the end of this present session of assembly, ought to
be further continued.” This report was presented and the resolutions
agreed to by the House on November 22, 1781. Three days later, a bill in
accordance with the resolution was presented. The consideration of the
bill in a committee of the whole House was postponed from day to day until
December 14, when it was considered and the question being upon
engrossment and advancement to a third reading, it passed in the
negative.(60) On January 5, 1782, the General Assembly adjourned, and the
County of Illinois ceased to exist.(61) So far as instituting a civil
government was concerned, the county was a failure. Its military history
shows a mixture of American, British, French, and Spanish efforts at
mastery.
The first important military operation in which the County of Illinois was
concerned, after the well-known movements of Clark and Hamilton, was
organized by the British at Detroit in compliance with a circular letter
from Lord George Germain. The plan was to attack St. Louis, the French
settlements near it on the east side of the Mississippi, Vincennes, Fort
Nelson at the falls of the Ohio, and Kentucky. Large use was to be made of
Indians, and British emissaries were busy among the tribes early in 1780.
An expedition was to be led against Kentucky, while diversions should be
made at outlying posts. It was thought that the reduction of St. Louis
would present little difficulty, because it was known to be unfortified,
and was reported to be garrisoned by but twenty men. In addition to this,
it was regarded as an easy matter to use Indians against the place from
the circumstance that many Indians frequented it. Less assurance was felt
as to holding the place after it should have been captured, and to make
this easier, it was proposed to appeal to the cupidity of the British fur
traders. By the middle of February, a war-party had been sent out from
Michilimackinac to arouse and act with the Sioux Indians, and early the
next month another party was sent out to engage Indians to attack St.
Louis and the Illinois towns. Seven hundred and fifty traders, servants,
and Indians having been collected, on the 2d of May they started down the
Mississippi, and at the lead mines, near the present Galena, seventeen
Spanish and American prisoners were taken. In conjunction with this
expedition, another, with a chosen band of Indians and French, was to
advance by way of Chicago and the Illinois River; a third was to guard the
prairies between the Wabash and the Illinois; and the chief of the Sioux
was to attack St. Genevieve and Kaskaskia.(62)
The expedition against St. Louis and the Illinois towns, as well as in its
larger aspect, was not successful. It was impossible to keep it secret and
as early as March, an attack was expected. Spanish and Americans joined in
repulsing the intruders. Another potent element in the failure was the
treachery of some of the traders who acted as leaders for the British,
notably that of Ducharme and Calvé, who had a lucrative trade and regarded
the prospect of increasing it by the proposed attack as doubtful. In the
last week of May, 1780, the attack on St. Louis was made. Several persons
were killed, but the place was not taken. Cahokia was beleaguered for
three days, but it was so well defended by George Rogers Clark that on the
third night the enemy withdrew, when Clark hastened to intercept the
expedition against Kentucky, while the Illinois and Spanish troops pursued
the retreating enemy and burned the towns of the Sauk and Fox Indians. The
British were much chagrined at the result of the expedition, yet they
resolved to continue their plan of using Indians and sending out several
parties at once.(63)
An expedition which gains much interest from the character of its leader
was that of Col. Augustin Mottin de la Balme. This man had been
commissioned quartermaster of gendarmerie, by the authorities of
Versailles, in 1766; had come to America and been recommended by Silas
Deane and Benjamin Franklin to the president of Congress, John Hancock, as
a man who would be of service in training cavalry; had been breveted
lieutenant-colonel of cavalry, in May, 1777; made inspector of cavalry,
with the rank of colonel, in July following; and had resigned in October
of the same year. The next year, a public notice, in French with English
and German translations, announced that carpenters, bakers, and some other
classes of laborers could find shelter and employment at a workshop
established by La Balme, twenty-eight miles from Philadelphia.(64) In the
summer of 1780, La Balme went from Fort Pitt to the Illinois country.
A contemporary who writes from Vincennes speaks of La Balme as a French
colonel. He was regarded by the Americans with much suspicion. Capt.
Dalton, the American commander at Vincennes, whose character was later
much questioned, allowed him to go among the Indians,(65) whereupon La
Balme advised them to send word to the tribes which Clark was preparing to
attack and to warn them of their danger. La Balme also ingratiated himself
with the discontented French, asking why they did not drive “these
vagabonds,” the American soldiers, away, and saying that to refuse to
furnish provisions was the most efficient method. “Everything he advances
tends to advance the French interest and depreciate the American. The
people here are easily misled; buoy’d up with the flattering hopes of
being again subject to the king of France, he could easily prevail on them
to drive every American out of the Place and this appears to me to be his
Plan.” After thoroughly stirring up the people at Vincennes, the
adventurer left, with an escort of thirty French and Indians, to visit
Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and St. Louis. He and Col. Montgomery, then the
superior officer in Illinois, did not meet, and he received not the
slightest countenance from the Spanish commandant at St. Louis. By the
French inhabitants, La Balme “was received ... just as the Jews would
receive the Messiah—was conducted from the post here [at Kaskaskia] by a
large detachment of the inhabitants as well as different tribes of
Indians.” The French in the towns near the Mississippi were so
enthusiastic that La Balme had little difficulty in raising forty or fifty
troops for an expedition against Detroit. Some of the American soldiers at
Cahokia deserted to him, and when placed under arrest by the military
authorities were rescued by a mob. On October 5, 1780, after telling the
Indians to be quiet because they would see the French in Illinois in the
spring, the French troops set out from Cahokia.(66)
The troops from Illinois were to be joined by a body from Vincennes, but
without waiting for them La Balme pushed on to the Miami towns, where he
hoped to capture a British Indian trader who was especially hated by the
French. The trader was not found, but his store of goods to the amount of
one hundred horse-loads was seized. The expected reinforcements not
arriving, La Balme felt too weak to attack Detroit and started to return.
He was attacked by the Indians on the river Aboite, eleven miles southwest
of the present Fort Wayne, and he and some thirty of his men were killed
and at least one hundred horses, richly laden with plunder, were taken by
the Indians. It was reported that disaffected inhabitants of Detroit had
concealed five hundred stands of arms with which to assist the forces of
La Balme in taking the place. Among La Balme’s papers, which fell into the
hands of the British and are now in the Canadian archives, were addresses,
in French, by M. Mottin de la Balme, French colonel, etc., to the French
settled on the Mississippi, dated St. Louis, September 17, 1780; a
declaration, in French, in the name of the inhabitants of the village of
Cahokia, addressed to La Balme: “We unanimously request you to listen with
a favorable ear to the declaration which we venture to present to you,
touching all the bad treatment we have suffered patiently since the
Virginian troops unfortunately arrived amongst us till now,” dated
Cahokia, September 21, 1780; a note from F. Trottier, a member of the
court of Cahokia, elected under the Virginia government, to La Balme,
saying that no meeting can be held until Sunday next, when he hopes the
young men will show themselves worthy the high idea La Balme has of them,
but that at present there are only twelve entirely determined to follow
him wherever he goes, although others may follow their example, and asking
La Balme to receive depositions against the Virginians, dated Cahokia,
September 27, 1780; a petition, in French, addressed to the Chevalier de
la Luzerne, minister plenipotentiary from France to the United States, by
inhabitants of Post Vincennes, dated Vincennes, August 22, 1780; and a
commission to Augustin Mottin de la Balme as quartermaster of gendarmèrie,
dated Versailles, February 23, 1766.(67) The British promptly set about
promoting the Indian trader whom La Balme and the French had sought to
kill, believing that he would be serviceable as a spy.(68)
In the autumn of 1780, a party of seventeen men from Cahokia went on an
expedition against St. Josephs. The party was commanded by “a half
Indian,” and seems to have included but one American. The attack was so
timed as to come when the Indians in the vicinity of St. Josephs were out
hunting. The place was taken without difficulty, the traders of the place
were captured and plundered, and the party, laden with booty, set out on
the route to Chicago. A pursuing party was quickly organized and at the
_Rivière du Chemin_, a small stream in Indiana, emptying into the
southeastern part of Lake Michigan, the returning victors were summoned to
surrender, on December 5, 1780. Upon their refusal, four were killed, two
wounded, seven made prisoners, while three escaped.(69) The one American,
Brady, was among the prisoners. He told the British that the party was
sent by the creoles to plunder St. Josephs, and that there was not a
Virginian in all the Illinois country, including Vincennes.(70)
In the very midst of winter, on January 2, 1781, an expedition commanded
by Eugenio Pierre, a Spanish captain of militia, set out from St. Louis
against St. Josephs. According to a Spanish account, the party consisted
of sixty-five militia men and sixty Indians, while an American account
declares it to have contained thirty Spaniards, twenty men from Cahokia,
and two hundred Indians.
The purpose of the expedition was to retaliate upon the British for the
attack on St. Louis and for the defeat of La Balme. On the march, severe
difficulties incident to the season were encountered. The post was easily
taken, the Indians were conciliated by a liberal proportion of the booty,
the Spanish flag was raised and the Illinois country with St. Josephs and
its dependencies was claimed for the crown of Spain. The British flag was
given to Commandant Cruzat, of St. Louis. These proceedings made some
prominent Americans fear that Spain would advance claims to the region at
the close of the Revolution.(71)
In the summer of 1781, a party of seven men was sent out by the commandant
at Michilimackinac with a letter to the inhabitants of Cahokia and
Kaskaskia asking them to furnish troops to be paid by the king of England,
and to assume the defensive against the Spaniards. The men reached St.
Louis before visiting Cahokia or Kaskaskia, and were arrested by the
Spanish commandant, who sent a copy of the letter to Major Williams,
knowing no officer in Illinois superior to him. This created jealousy at
Cahokia and Kaskaskia, each of several officers claiming superiority.
Charles Gratiot, a man of some ability, who had removed from Cahokia to
St. Louis because unable to endure the lawlessness at the former place,
wrote that he did not know what course the Illinois people might have
taken if Cruzat had not intercepted the British agents. Illinois was a
country without a head where everyone expected to do as he pleased.(72)
In noting the operations of the medley of military forces in the County of
Illinois, it is easy to conceive how the result might have been different,
but the fact is that as the county ceased to exist, no nation had
established a better title to the region than that of the Americans.