I. The Land and Indian Questions.
Probably nothing affected settlement in Illinois from 1809 to 1818 more
profoundly than did changes in the land question, for during this period
Congress passed important acts relative to land sales, and this was also
the period of the first sales of public lands in the territory. It seems
strange that such sales should have been so long delayed, yet the
settlement of French claims, although begun by the Governor of the
Northwest Territory at an early day, and continued by commissioners
authorized by Congress and appointed in 1804, was incomplete when Illinois
became a separate territory, and the United States government adhered to
its policy of selling no land in the territory until the claims were
finally adjudicated. When a list of decisions reported by the
commissioners to Congress late in 1809 was confirmed in the following
May,(225) and the next year a long list of rejected claims arising chiefly
from the work of professional falsifiers, was reported,(226) it seemed
probable that the work was nearing completion, but a final settlement was
still delayed, and the long-suffering Illinois squatters were bitterly
disappointed when, in February, 1812, in accordance with a resolution
presented by the Committee on Public Lands, Congress made provision for
the appointment of a committee to revise the confirmations made by the
Governor years before.(227) The first legislature of Illinois met in the
succeeding November, and adopted a memorial to Congress in which it was
pointed out that the establishment of a land-office in the territory,
several years before, had led to the opinion that the public land would
soon be sold, and that because of this opinion those who constituted the
majority of the inhabitants of the territory had been induced to settle,
hoping that they would have an opportunity to purchase land before they
should have made such improvements as would tempt the competition of
avaricious speculators. The fulfillment of this hope having been long
deferred, many squatters had now made valuable improvements which they
were in danger of losing, either at the public sales of land or through
the designs of the few speculators who had bought from the needy and
unbusinesslike French most of the unlocated claims. For the relief of the
squatters a law was desired that would permit actual settlers to enter the
land on which their improvements stood, and requiring persons holding
unlocated claims to locate them on unimproved lands lying in the region
designated by Congress for that purpose. It was also hoped that as
Congress had given one hundred acres of land to each regular soldier, as
much would be granted to each member of the Illinois militia, since the
militiaman had not only fought as bravely as the regular, but had also
furnished his own supplies. If such a donation was not made it was hoped
that a right of preëmption would be given to the militia, or failing even
this, that they might be given the right, legally, to collect from anyone
entering their land, the value of their improvements.(228) In proof of the
fact stated in the memorial, that speculators had bought many French
claims, it may be noted that William Morrison had ninety-two of the claims
granted at Kaskaskia, his affirmed claims comprising more than eighteen
thousand acres, exclusive of a large number of claims measured in French
units, while John Edgar received a satisfactory report on claims
aggregating more than forty thousand acres, in addition to a number of
claims previously affirmed to him.(229)
A few days after preparing the above memorial, the legislature prepared an
address to Congress, in which reference was made to the arrangement made
between Congress and Ohio by the Act of April 30, 1802, granting to Ohio
two salt springs on condition that the state should agree not to tax such
public lands as should be sold within her borders, until after five years
from the date of sale. Illinois wished in similar fashion to gain control
of the salt springs on Saline creek. The Illinois delegate in Congress was
instructed that if the bargain could not be made, he should attempt to
secure an appropriation for opening a road from Shawneetown to the Saline
and thence to Kaskaskia. It was also desired that the Secretary of the
Treasury should authorize the designation of the college township reserved
by the Ordinance of 1787 and by the Act of 1804, and because “labor in
this Territory is abundant, and laborers at this time extremely scarce,”
it was hoped that slaves from Kentucky or elsewhere might be employed at
the salines for a period of not more than three years, after which they
should return to their masters.(230) Each prayer of this address was
granted. The enabling act and the Illinois constitution ceded the salt
springs to the state and agreed that public lands sold in Illinois should
be exempt from taxation for five years from date of sale; the Illinois
Constitution provided for the employment of slaves at the salt works; an
act provided for the location of the college township; and in 1816 the
making of the desired road was authorized, although at the beginning of
1818 the route had been merely surveyed and mapped.(231)
The memorial which preceded the address was also in large measure
successful. An act of February, 1813, granted to the squatters in Illinois
the right of preëmpting a quarter section, each, of the lands they
occupied, and of entering the land upon the payment of one-twentieth of
the purchase money, as was then required in private sales.(232) This act
was of prime importance. For more than thirty years settlers in Illinois
had improved their lands at the risk of losing them. Since the
appointment, in 1804, of commissioners to settle the French land claims,
the settlers had been expecting the public lands, including those they
occupied, to be offered for sale; thus it was inevitable that anxiety
concerning the right of preëmption should increase as the settlement of
claims neared completion, and contemporaries record that the inability to
secure land titles seriously retarded settlement;(233) now, however, the
granting of the right of preëmption, before any public lands in Illinois
were offered for sale, ended the long suspense of the settlers. Years
before this, Kentucky, now selling its public lands at twenty cents per
acre, had passed liberal preëmption laws, and they were repeatedly
renewed,(234) facts which increased the anxiety of Illinois.
Year after year the settlement of land claims dragged on, thus delaying
the sales of land.(235) In an official report of December, 1813, it is
stated that: “In the Territory of Illinois, two land-offices are directed
by law to be opened; one at Kaskaskia, the other at Shawneetown, so soon
as the private claims and donations are all located, and the lands
surveyed, which are in great forwardness.”(236) A tract of land was set
apart in April, 1814, to satisfy the claims recommended by the
commissioners for confirmation.(237) A report of November, 1815, said that
the commissioners hoped to open the land-office at Kaskaskia on May 15,
1816; and finally, in a report on the public lands sold from October 1,
1815, to September 30, 1816, we find that about thirty-four thousand acres
have been sold at Shawneetown and somewhat less than thirteen thousand
acres at Kaskaskia, the price at the latter place being precisely the two
dollars per acre which was then the minimum, while that at Shawneetown was
slightly higher,(238) presumably due to the sale of town lots, which had
been authorized in 1810, although no sales took place earlier than
1814.(239)
The long delay in opening the land-offices in Illinois was fatal to an
early settlement of the region, because the old states had public lands
which they offered for sale at low rates, thus depriving Illinois of a
fair chance as a competitor. In 1779 Kentucky granted to each family which
had settled before January 1, 1778, the right of preëmption—four hundred
acres if no improvement had been made and one thousand acres if a hut had
been built. The preëmptor, by a law of 1786, was to pay 13_s_. 4_d._ per
one hundred acres.(240) In 1781 the sheriffs of Lincoln, Fayette, and
Jefferson counties, Virginia, were authorized to survey not more than four
hundred acres for each poor family in Kentucky, for which twenty shillings
per one hundred acres should be paid within two and one-half years.(241)
In 1791 more than three and one-half millions of acres were sold in New
York at eight pence per acre, while many thousands of acres in addition
were sold for less than four shillings per acre—many for less than two
shillings.(242) Pennsylvania offered homestead claims, in 1792, at seven
pounds ten shillings per hundred acres.(243)
In December, 1796, Kentucky sheriffs were ordered to sell no more land for
taxes until directed by the legislature to do so.(244) In 1800, and again
in 1812, Kentucky offered land at twenty cents per acre, and in 1820 at
fifteen cents per acre,(245) while during the interval preëmption acts
were repeatedly passed.(246) Land in Tennessee sold at from twelve and
one-half to twenty-five cents per acre in 1814, and in 1819 at fifty
cents.(247)
In 1816 various classes of claimants were given increased facilities and
an extension of time for locating their claims in Illinois. The business
of satisfying claims was to linger for years, but with the opening of the
land-offices it ceased to be a potent factor in retarding settlement.(248)
One writer says of Illinois: “The public lands have rarely sold for more
than five dollars per acre, _at auction_. Those sold at Edwardsville in
October, 1816, averaged four dollars. Private sales at the land-office are
fixed by law, at two dollars per acre. The old French locations command
various prices, from one to fifty dollars. Titles derived from the United
States government are always valid, and those from individuals rarely
false.”(249) At this time emigrants were going in large numbers to
Missouri, and the Illinois river country, not yet relieved of its Indian
title, was being explored.(250)
Reports concerning the sales of public lands give the quantity of land
sold in Illinois toward the close of the territorial period, the figures
for 1817 and 1818 being as follows:
Acres in Acres in Jan. 1, Sept. 30,
1817. 1818. 1818. 1818.
Shawneetown 72,384 216,315 $291,429 $637,468
Kaskaskia 90,493 121,052 209,295 406,288
Edwardsville(251) 149,165 121,923 301,701 451,499(252)
312,042 459,290 $802,425 $1,495,255
The percentage of debt showed a marked increase in the first nine months
of 1818. There were received in three-quarters of 1817 and 1818,
respectively:
1817. 1818.
At Shawneetown $32,837 $112,759
At Kaskaskia 41,218 68,975
At Edwardsville 41,426 78,788
During this same period the receipts at Steubenville, Marietta, and
Wooster, Ohio, decreased,(253) showing that Illinois was beginning to
surpass Ohio as an objective point for emigrants wishing to enter land.
The Indian question was interwoven with the land question during the
territorial period. In 1809 the Indians relinquished their claim to some
small tracts of land lying near the point where the Wabash ceases to be a
state boundary line.(254) No more cessions were made until after the war
of 1812. Although the population of Illinois increased, during the
territorial period, from some eleven thousand to about forty thousand, the
increase before the war was slight, and thus it came about that during the
war the few whites were kept busy defending themselves from the large and
hostile Indian population. So well does the manner of defence in Illinois
illustrate the frontier character of the region that a sketch of the same
may be given. When, in 1811, the Indians became hostile and murdered a few
whites, the condition of the settlers was precarious in the extreme. Today
the term city would be almost a favor to a place containing no more
inhabitants than were then to be found in the white settlements in
Illinois. Moreover, few as were the whites, they were dispersed in a long
half-oval extending from a point on the Mississippi near the present Alton
southward to the Ohio, and thence up that river and the Wabash to a point
considerably north of Vincennes. This fringe of settlement was but a few
miles wide in some places, while so sparse was the population near the
mouth of the Ohio that the communication between northern and southern
Indians was unchecked. Carlyle was regarded as the extreme eastern
boundary of settlements to the westward; a fort on Muddy River, near where
the old Fort Massac trace crossed the stream, was considered as one of the
most exposed situations; and Fort La Motte, on a creek of the same name
above Vincennes, was a far northern point. The exposed outside was some
hundreds of miles long, and the interior and north were occupied by ten
times as many hostile savages as there were whites in the country, the
savages being given counsel and ammunition by the British garrisons on the
north.(255) Under conditions then existing, aid from the United States
could be expected only in the event of dire necessity. Stout frontiersmen
were almost ready to seek refuge in flight, but no general exodus took
place, although in February, 1812, Governor Edwards wrote to the Secretary
of War: “The alarms and apprehensions of the people are becoming so
universal, that really I should not be surprised if we should, in three
months, lose more than one-half of our present population. In places, in
my opinion, entirely out of danger, many are removing. In other parts,
large settlements are about to be totally deserted. Even in my own
neighborhood, several families have removed, and others are preparing to
do so in a week or two. A few days past, a gentleman of respectability
arrived here from Kentucky, and he informed me that he saw on the road, in
one day, upwards of twenty wagons conveying families out of this
Territory. Every effort to check the prevalence of such terror seems to be
ineffectual, and although much of it is unreasonably indulged, yet it is
very certain the Territory will very shortly be in considerable danger.
Its physical force is very inconsiderable, and is growing weaker, while it
presents numerous points of attack.”(256)
To the first feeling of fear succeeded a determination to hold the ground.
Before the middle of 1812, Governor Edwards had established Fort Russell,
a few miles northwest of the present Edwardsville, bringing to this place,
which was to be his headquarters, the cannon which Louis XIV. had had
placed in Fort Chartres;(257) and two volunteer companies had been raised,
and had “ranged to a great distance—principally between the Illinois and
the Kaskaskia rivers, and sometimes between the Kaskaskia and the
Wabash—always keeping their line of march never less than one and
sometimes three days’ journey outside of all the settlements”(258)—which
incidentally shows what great unoccupied regions still existed even in the
southern part of Illinois. As the rangers furnished their own supplies,
the two companies went out alternately for periods of fifteen days.
Sometimes the company on duty divided, one part marching in one direction
and the other in the opposite, in order to produce the greatest possible
effect upon the Indians. Settlers on the frontier—and that comprised a
large proportion of the population—“forted themselves,” as it was then
expressed. Where a few families lived near each other, one of the most
substantial houses was fortified, and here the community staid at night,
and in case of imminent danger in the daytime as well. Isolated outlying
families left their homes and retired to the nearest fort. Such places of
refuge were numerous and many were the attacks which they successfully
withstood.
Rangers and frontier forts were used with much effect, but the great
dispersion of settlement and the large numbers of Indians combined to make
it wholly impossible to make such means of defence entirely adequate. In
August, 1812, the Governor wrote to the Secretary of War: “The principal
settlements of this Territory being on the Mississippi, are at least one
hundred and fifty miles from those of Indiana, and immense prairies
intervene between them. There can, therefore, be no concert of operations
for the protection of their frontiers and ours.... No troops of any kind
have yet arrived in this Territory, and I think you may count on hearing
of a bloody stroke upon us very soon. I have been extremely reluctant to
send my family away, but, unless I hear shortly of more assistance than a
few rangers, I shall bury my papers in the ground, send my family off, and
stand my ground as long as possible.”(259) The “bloody stroke” predicted
by the Governor fell on the garrison at Fort Dearborn, where Chicago now
stands. Some regular troops were subsequently sent to the territory, but
the war did not lose its frontier character. One of the most
characteristic features was that troops sometimes set out on a campaign of
considerable length, in an uninhabited region, without any baggage train
and practically without pack horses, the men carrying their provisions on
their horses, and the horses living on wild grass.(260) Unflagging energy
was shown by the settlers, several effective campaigns being carried on,
and by the close of 1814 the war was closed in Illinois.(261)
Extinction of Indian titles to land was retarded by the war and also by
the policy of the United States, which was expressed by Secretary of War
Crawford, in 1816, as follows: “The determination to purchase land only
when demanded for settlement will form the settled policy of the
Government. Experience has sufficiently proven that our population will
spread over any cession, however extensive, before it can be brought into
market, and before there is any regular and steady demand for settlement,
thereby increasing the difficulty of protection, embarrassing the
Government by broils with the natives, and rendering the execution of the
laws regulating intercourse with the Indian tribes utterly
impracticable.”(262) Some progress, however, was made in extinguishing
Indian titles during the territorial period after the close of the war. In
1816, several tribes confirmed the cession of 1804 of land lying south of
an east and west line passing through the southern point of Lake Michigan,
and ceded a route for an Illinois-Michigan canal.(263) At Edwardsville, on
September 25, 1818, the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Michigamia, Cahokia, and
Tamarois ceded a tract comprising most of southern and much of central
Illinois.(264) The significance of this cession would have been immense
had it not been that it was made by weak tribes, while the powerful
Kickapoo still claimed and held all that part of the ceded tract lying
north of the parallel of 39°—a little to the north of the mouth of the
Illinois river. This Kickapoo claim included the fertile and already
famous Sangamon country, in which the state capital was eventually to be
located, and squatters were pressing hard upon the Indian frontier, yet
the Indians still held the land when Illinois became a state.
During the territorial period, Illinois gained the long-sought right of
preëmption; the French claims ceased to retard settlement; some progress
was made in the extinction of Indian titles, and the sale of public land
was begun. The new state was to find the Indian question a pressing one,
and some changes in the land system were yet desired, but the crucial
point was passed.
II. Territorial Government of Illinois. 1809 to 1818.
The act for the division of Indiana Territory provided that Illinois,
during the first stage of its territorial existence, should have a
government similar to that of the Northwest Territory under the Ordinance
of 1787. In 1809 there were in Illinois two distinct and hostile parties,
which had been formed on questions arising in Indiana Territory before
division. It was with sound judgment, therefore, that the President, going
outside of Illinois, appointed as Governor, Ninian Edwards of Kentucky, a
native of Maryland, who successfully resisted all efforts to involve him
in party quarrels.(265)
Laws for the government of the territory were to be chosen by the Governor
and the judges from the laws of the states. The judges were Jesse B.
Thomas and William Sprigg, natives of Maryland, and Alexander Stuart, a
native of Virginia. It is worthy of note that of the twelve laws chosen
before the meeting of the first territorial legislature, five were from
Kentucky, three from Georgia, two from Virginia, one from South Carolina,
and one from Pennsylvania.(266) A people practically southern in origin
was being governed by officials from the south under southern laws.
Illinois entered the second grade of territorial government in 1812,
electing its first legislature in October.(267) In the preceding May,
Congress had passed an act making radical and most important extensions in
the suffrage in Illinois, over that which had been prescribed by the
Ordinance of 1787. The new provision was: “Every free white male person
who shall have attained the age of twenty-one years, and who shall have
paid a county or territorial tax, and who shall have resided one year in
said Territory previous to any general election, and be at the time of any
such election a resident thereof, shall be entitled to vote for members of
the Legislative Council and House of Representatives of the said
Territory.” Each county was to elect one member of the Legislative
Council, to serve for four years. The territorial delegate to Congress was
also made elective by the citizens.(268) One has but to consider what a
complete revolution this act brought about to appreciate its great
significance. Previously the Legislative Council had been appointive by
the President of the United States, from nominees of the territorial House
of Representatives, the nominees being twice the number necessary; the
delegate to Congress had not been chosen by popular vote; and a freehold
qualification for the elective franchise had obtained. Early petitions
show how much the people complained of a landed aristocracy,(269) and
letters written by Governor Edwards early in 1812 show how well founded
was the complaint. No preëmption act had yet been passed, and of the more
than twelve thousand inhabitants of Illinois some two hundred and twenty
possessed a freehold of fifty acres, thus giving the balance of power, if
the territory should enter the second grade under the old provision, to
one hundred and eleven persons. Nearly one-third of the entire population
lived either near the Ohio or between it and the Kaskaskia, and among them
there were not more than three or four freeholders, and not one who
possessed two hundred acres—the necessary qualification for a
representative. With no public lands yet offered for sale, with no right
of preëmption, with a freehold qualification for the suffrage, this law
enfranchising squatters was of prime importance.(270)
The first legislature had few French members, and was apparently southern
in nativity.(271) After more than three years and a half of legislation by
the Governor and judges, the inhabitants at last had an elective
legislature. The journals of the two houses indicate that the belief that
had been expressed in petitions to Congress some years before that such a
body would provide an efficient government, was well founded. The laws
passed were eminently practical for the frontier conditions under which
they were to operate.(272) A man contemplating settlement in Illinois
could now be sure that he would be governed by Illinois men whom he had a
share in electing.
The rude character of the facilities for transportation is indicated by
the fact that the earlier laws of the territory deal with ferries only
rarely and with bridges not at all, while as time progresses and
population increases, ferries multiply and bridges begin to be
constructed. By 1817-18 the desire for banks and for internal
improvements, which was to be disastrous to the state at a later period,
began to show itself. As examples, the Bank of Cairo and the Illinois
Navigation Company will suffice. Nine men purchased the low peninsula
lying near the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and were
incorporated by “An Act to Incorporate the City and Bank of Cairo.” A site
for a city comprising at least two thousand lots, with streets eighty feet
wide, was to be laid out. The lots were to be sold at one hundred and
fifty dollars each and were to be not less than one hundred and twenty by
sixty-six feet in size. Of the purchase money, two-thirds should go into
the stock of the Bank of Cairo, and one-third to a fund to build dykes to
keep the city from being flooded.(273) Considering the time and the
location, the scheme was utterly impracticable. “An Act to Incorporate the
Stockholders of the Illinois Navigation Company” authorized the formation
of a company with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, for the
purpose of cutting a canal through the peninsula between the Ohio and the
Mississippi. Within twelve years a canal sufficiently large for the
passage of a vessel of twenty tons burden should be completed. The company
was given the right of eminent domain.(274) Here again the character of
the project was unsuited to existing conditions. Population was increasing
rapidly at the time these laws were passed, but they required for their
success an increase much more rapid. They were, however, pleasing to the
settlers and the prospective settlers of the day.
On January 16, 1818, Mr. Pope, of Illinois, was appointed chairman of a
select committee to consider a petition from the Illinois legislature
praying for a state government. One week later the committee reported a
bill to enable Illinois to form such a government, and to admit the state
into the union. When the enabling act came up for discussion, Mr. Pope
offered the amendment which changed the northern boundary of Illinois from
a line due west from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, as provided
by the Ordinance of 1787, to a line running from that lake to the
Mississippi on the parallel of 42° 30’. “The object of this amendment, Mr.
Pope said, was to gain, for the proposed state, a coast on Lake Michigan.
This would offer additional security to the perpetuity of the union,
inasmuch as the state would thereby be connected with the states of
Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, through the lakes. The facility
of opening a canal between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River, said Mr.
Pope, is acknowledged by every one who has visited the place. Giving to
the proposed state the port of Chicago (embraced in the proposed limits),
will draw its attention to the opening of the communication between the
Illinois River and that place, and the improvement of that harbor. It was
believed, he said, upon good authority, that the line of separation
between Indiana and Illinois would strike Lake Michigan south of Chicago,
and not pass west of it, as had been supposed by some geographers....”
Although an avowed violation of the Ordinance of 1787, the amendment was
adopted without division or recorded debate. Mr. Pope also secured an
amendment to the effect that the state’s proportion of the proceeds of the
sales of public lands, instead of being applied to the making of roads and
canals in the state, should be used in making roads leading to the state,
and for the encouragement of learning, two-fifths being applied to the
former purpose. Pope pointed out that people would build roads as they
needed them, much more readily than they would supply schools, and that
waste school lands in a new country would produce slight revenue.
Subsequent history of the state justified both statements. The enabling
act met with little opposition and was signed by President Monroe on April
18, 1818.(275)
One of the provisions of the enabling act was that, in order to become a
state, Illinois must have as many as forty thousand inhabitants. In
anticipation of such a provision, the territorial legislature had passed a
law in January, 1818, providing that a census of the territory should be
taken between April 1 and June 1. A supplemental act provided that as a
great increase in population might be expected between June 1 and
December, census takers should continue to take the census in their
districts of all who should remove into them between June 1 and December
1. The law as framed gave an opportunity to count not only immigrants, but
to re-count all who moved from one county to another (such moving being
common), and to count in each successive county persons passing through
the state. There is no reasonable doubt that at the time the census was
taken, the territory had fewer than forty thousand inhabitants. Dana gives
a census of 1818, in which the number is given as thirty-four thousand six
hundred and sixty-six, and adds: “Another enumeration having been taken a
few months after, the amount of population returned was forty thousand one
hundred and fifty-six, which exceeded the number entitling the territory
to become a state.”(276)
In August, 1818, the Constitution of Illinois was completed. Its
provisions most likely to influence settlement were those concerning the
elective franchise and slavery. It provided that “In all elections, all
white male inhabitants above the age of twenty-one years, having resided
in the state six months next preceding the election, shall enjoy the right
of an elector; but no person shall be entitled to vote except in the
county or district in which he shall actually reside at the time of the
election.” Slaves could not hereafter be brought into the state, but
existing slavery was not abolished, and existing indentures—and some were
for ninety-nine years—should be carried out, although future indentures
should not run for a longer term than one year. Male children of slaves or
indentured servants should be free at the age of twenty-one, and females
at eighteen. Slaves from other states could be employed only at the Saline
Creek salt works, and there only until 1825.(277)
During the congressional debate on the acceptance of the Illinois
Constitution, objection to admitting the state was made on the ground that
the number of inhabitants was doubtful, and that slavery was not
distinctly prohibited, Tallmadge, of New York, who later wished to
restrict slavery in Missouri, being the chief objector. The state was
admitted, however, and on December 4, 1818, the representatives and
senators from Illinois took their seats in Congress.(278)
Between 1809 and 1818, Illinois passed from a non-representative
territorial government to a liberal state government. The energy of the
settlers had done much to hasten the change, and the change, in turn, did
much to hasten settlement.
IV. Transportation and Settlement, 1809 to 1818.
At the close of the War of 1812, an unparalleled emigration to the
frontiers of the United States began. Contemporary accounts speak of its
great volume. “Through New York and down the Alleghany River is now the
track of many emigrants from the east to the west. Two hundred and sixty
waggons have passed a certain house on this route in nine days, besides
many persons on horseback and on foot. The editor of the Gennessee Farmer
observes, that he himself met on the road to Hamilton a cavalcade of
upwards of twenty waggons, containing one company of one hundred and
sixteen persons, on their way to _Indiana_, and all from one town in the
district of Maine. So great is the emigration to _Illinois_ and _Missouri_
also, that it is apprehended that many must suffer for want of provisions
the ensuing winter.”(279) “Nothing more strongly proves the superiority of
the western territory than the vast emigration to it from the eastern and
southern states; during the eighteen months previous to April, 1816,
fifteen thousand waggons passed over the bridge at Cayuga, containing
emigrants to the western country.”(280) “Old America seems to be breaking
up, and moving westward.... The number of emigrants who passed this way
[St. Clairsville, Ohio], was greater last year than in any preceding; and
the present spring they are still more numerous than the last. Fourteen
waggons yesterday, and thirteen today, have gone through this town.
Myriads take their course down the Ohio. The waggons swarm with children.
I heard today of three together, which contain forty-two of these young
citizens.”(281) From Hamilton, New York: “It is estimated, that there are
now in this village and its vicinity, three hundred families, besides
single travellers, amounting in all to fifteen hundred souls, waiting for
a rise of water to embark for ‘the promised land.’ ”(282) “The numerous
companies of emigrants that flock to this country, might appear, to those
who have not witnessed them, almost incredible. But there is scarce a day,
except when the river is impeded with ice, but what there is a greater or
less number of boats to be seen floating down its gentle current, to some
place of destination. No less than five hundred families stopped at
Cincinnati at one time, and many of them having come a great distance, and
being of the poorer class of people, before they could provide for
themselves, were in a suffering condition; but to the honor of the
citizens of Cincinnati, they raised a donation and relieved their
distress.”(283) Of the remote districts, Missouri and Michigan were
receiving crowds of immigrants.(284)
The changes in government and in the land question in Illinois were
typical of changes in other frontier regions, but although worthy of note
as helping to make a more attractive place for settlement, they are by no
means sufficient to account for the great migration to the westward. Why
that migration took place and how it was accomplished are interesting and
important questions.
Emigration from New England resulted largely from financial and industrial
disorganization caused by the close of the war, and a year of such
continued cold weather as to produce a famine. This movement was
interesting, dramatic, and large in volume, but its influence upon
Illinois was slight, because the tide was stayed to the eastward of that
state.(285) Migration from the South was also large, and it was from this
source that most of the immigrants to Illinois came. In 1816 there was a
severe drought in eastern North Carolina, and many planters cut their
immature corn for their cattle, while great numbers sold their property
and joined the emigrants.(286) Kentucky, still a favorite place for
settlement, was in the midst of a land boom which reached such proportions
as to cause a large volume of emigration to Illinois, Missouri, and the
southwest. The buyer of Kentucky land was often a neighbor who wished to
enlarge his farm and work on a larger scale, or some well-to-do immigrant
who preferred the location to a more remote region. Land sold on credit
and at fictitious prices, the seller in turn buying land for which he
frequently could make only the first payment. Retribution did not come,
however, until after 1820, and for some years it seemed as if Kentucky was
to become a source of population, for it was to Illinois and Missouri, and
to a lesser degree to Alabama, what New England was to Ohio.(287) Probably
chief among the reasons for migration from the South was the increase of
slavery, with the resulting changes in industrial and social conditions.
Early in the century the growing importance of the cotton crop began to
hasten a stratification of opinion which was determined by physiographic
areas. The western parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina,
the northern part of Georgia, and the eastern parts of Kentucky and
Tennessee, respectively, being hilly and less fertile than the coastal
plain, became the center of the southern anti-slavery sentiment. On the
plain settled the wealthy planters, and later the poorer Germans and
Quakers settled in the uplands. Only when cotton-raising became very
profitable was slavery to intrude upon the latter location.(288)
During the war the production of cotton in the United States had been
almost constant in amount and less than in preceding years, but 1815 saw
an increase of over forty-two per cent and 1816 an increase of twenty-four
per cent,(289) while in the latter year South Carolina, after an interval
of thirteen years, resumed its slavery legislation by passing the first of
a series of acts which show that the slavery problem was becoming
increasingly difficult. Similar legislation took place in Tennessee, and
to a lesser degree in Kentucky.(290) Increased production of cotton was
accompanied by an increase in price, middling upland cotton selling at New
York at 15 cents per pound in 1814, at 21 cents in 1815, at 29-½ cents in
1816, at 26-½ cents in 1817, and at 34 cents in 1818, while South Carolina
sea-island cotton sold at Charleston in 1816 at 55 cents a pound.(291) An
increase in cotton production meant an increase of the plantation system
with its slaves, this meant an increased demand for large farms, and also
a strengthening of the antagonism between pro-slavery and anti-slavery
parties. Even in 1812, a man who wished to sell, lease, or rent his
manufacturing establishment in the northwestern part of Virginia,
Frederick county, lamented in his advertisement that “some good men of
strict moral or religious principles should object against forming settled
abodes in Virginia” or other slave states.(292) Census reports show that
the proportion of negroes to whites increased in the western counties of
North Carolina during the decade 1810 to 1820 over the proportion in 1800
to 1810. Conditions above described naturally led to the emigration of at
least four classes of people: those who were anti-slavery, those who did
not wish to change from small farming to the plantation system, the poor
whites who found themselves increasingly disgraced and who at the same
time found that their land was in demand, the slave-holder who wished a
large tract of virgin soil. It is very important to note that these forces
were merely beginning to operate in the time from 1814 to 1818, and that
they did not reach their maximum of influence until after 1830, yet as the
population of Illinois increased less than twenty-eight thousand from 1810
to 1818, it is altogether probable that a considerable proportion were
influenced by the causes suggested. It is also true that some pioneers
moved merely from habit, without any well-defined cause.
Although it is true that the first steamboat that passed down the Ohio and
Mississippi made its trip in the winter of 1811-12, and by 1816 an
enterprising captain had made a successful experiment of running a
steamboat with coal for fuel, also that the speed of steamboats in eastern
waters was a matter for enthusiastic comment, yet it is also true that
immigrants to Illinois did not usually arrive by steamer.(293) The
development of steamboat navigation in western waters was slow, the first
steamboat reaching St. Louis on August 2, 1817.(294) Peter Cartwright
wrote of his trip from the West to the General Conference in Baltimore, in
1816: “We had no steamboats, railroad cars, or comfortable stages in those
days. We had to travel from the extreme West on horseback. It generally
took us near a month to go; a month was spent at General Conference, and
nearly a month in returning to our fields of labor.”(295)
Some instances of the manner and cost of emigration may be given. A man
with his wife and brother having arrived at Philadelphia from England, _en
route_ to Birkbeck’s settlement(296) in Illinois, the party was directed
to Pittsburg, which they reached after a wearisome journey of over three
hundred miles across the mountains. At Pittsburg they bought a little boat
for six or seven dollars, and came down the Ohio to Shawneetown, whence
they proceeded on foot.(297) In the summer of 1818, a party of
eighty-eight came over the same route in much the same manner, using
flat-boats on the river.(298) In 1817, John Mason Peck, with his wife and
three children, went from Litchfield, Connecticut, to Shawneetown,
Illinois, in a one-horse wagon. The journey was begun on July 25 and
Shawneetown was reached on the sixth of November. “Nearly one month was
occupied in passing from Philadelphia through the State of Pennsylvania
over the Alleghany Mountains, till on the 10th of September he passed into
Ohio. Three weeks he journeyed in that State, and on the 23d of October
recrossed the Ohio River into the State of Kentucky ..., and on the 6th of
November again crossed the Ohio River, into the then Territory of
Illinois, at Shawneetown.”(299) Here the family was delayed by floods
which rendered the roads impassable. Leaving the horse and wagon at
Shawneetown to be brought on by a friend, they proceeded to St. Louis in a
keel-boat, paying twenty-five dollars fare, and arrived at their
destination on the first of December.(300)
Shawneetown was a sort of center from which emigrants radiated to their
destinations. It owed much to its location, being on the main route from
the southern states to St. Louis and what was then called the Missouri,
and being also the port for the salt works on Saline Creek. It was the
seat of a land-office. The town thus had a business which was out of all
proportion to the number of its permanent inhabitants. In 1817 it
consisted of but about thirty log houses, a log bank, and a land-office.
When a certain traveler came to the place from the South, in 1818, he
found the number of wagons, horses, and passengers waiting to cross the
Ohio, on the ferry, so great that he had to wait “a great part of the
morning” for his turn.(301)
During the latter part of the territorial period freight charges from
Philadelphia to Pittsburg, by land, were from seven to ten dollars per
hundredweight;(302) from Pittsburg to Shawneetown, one dollar; from
Louisville to Shawneetown, thirty-seven cents; and from New Orleans to
Shawneetown, four dollars and a half.(303) The use of arks was common.
These were flat-bottomed boats of a tonnage of from twenty-five to thirty
tons, covered, square at the ends, of a uniform size of fifty feet in
length and fourteen in breadth, usually sold for seventy-five dollars, and
would carry three or four families. A common practice was to re-sell them
at a somewhat reduced price to someone going further down the river. Two
dollars was the charge for piloting an ark over the falls of the
Ohio.(304)
There is much truth in the remarks made by a German traveler in 1818-19.
He said: “The State of Illinois is from one thousand to twelve hundred
miles distant from the sea ports. The journey thither is often as costly
and tedious, for a man with a family, as the sea passage. Any father of a
family, unless he is well-to-do, can certainly count on being impoverished
upon his arrival in Illinois. At Williamsport, on the Susquehanna, I found
a Swiss, who, with his wife and ten children, had spent one thousand
French crown-dollars for their journey. In the village of Williamsport, an
old German schoolmaster, who seems to have been formerly a merchant in
Nassau, told me that the passage of himself and family had cost thirteen
hundred dollars. For an adult the fare is seventy-five dollars—one dollar
is equal to one thaler, ten groschen, Prussian—for children under twelve
years, half so much, for children of two years, one-fourth so much, and
only babes in arms go free.”(305)
It can now be understood why people emigrated to the West, and also why
many went overland. A family too poor to go by water could go in a buggy
or wagon, and if poorer still they might walk, as many actually did. The
immigration to Illinois, which was but a small fraction of the great
westward movement, was still largely southern in origin, Ohio, Michigan,
Indiana, and even New York still staying, in large measure, the tide from
New England. In New England it was the “Ohio fever” and not the Illinois
fever which carried away the people, and the designation is geographically
correct. The men prominent in Illinois politics at the close of the
territorial period, and at the beginning of the state period, were natives
of southern states, a fact hardly conceivable if New England had been
largely represented in Illinois. Then, too, the natural routes from the
South led to, or near to, Illinois, the great road from the South crossing
the Ohio River at Shawneetown, and the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers
being natural water routes. Another fact to be noticed is that much of the
emigration was of relatives and friends to join those who had gone before,
and as Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and even
Georgia, had furnished a large number of early settlers to Illinois, this
was a powerful inducement to continued emigration from the same sources.
Similarly Ohio and Michigan had early received settlers from the East.
Immigration to Illinois was not large in comparison to that to neighboring
states or territories. Indians still held the greater part of Illinois,
and the inconveniences incident to frontier life were more pronounced as
the distance from the East increased. Pro-slavery men, and anti-slavery
men as well, were still in doubt as to the ultimate fate of slavery in
Illinois. This had a deterrent effect upon immigration.
IV. Life of the Settlers.
According to the marshal’s return the manufactures in Illinois, in 1810,
were as follows:
Spinning-wheels, $630
Looms, 460; cloth produced, 90,039 yards, $54,028
Tanneries, 9; leather dressed, $7,750
Distilleries, 10,200 gallons, $7,500
Flour, 6,440 barrels, $32,200
Maple sugar, 15,600 lbs., $1,980(306)—$104,088
This list incidentally indicates the average price of several manufactured
articles. For the first six months of 1814, the internal revenue assessed
in Illinois was:
Licenses for stills and boilers, $490.14
Carriages, $62.00
Licenses to retailers, $835.00
Stamps, $5.60—$1392.74
Of this amount ($1392.74), $1047.37 had been paid by October 10,
1814.(307) For the period from April 18, 1815, to February 22, 1816, the
following were the internal duties:
Hats, caps, and bonnets, $ 66.50-½
Saddles and bridles, $65.25
Boots and bootees, $7.26
Leather, $184.35-½—$323.37
This was the smallest sum listed in any part of the United States, except
Michigan Territory.(308) For 1818:
Licenses for stills, $214.91
Licenses at 20c. per gal., $549.23
Duty on spirits at 25c. per gal., $701.26
On eighteen carriages, $36.75
Licenses to retailers, $1248.80
On stamped paper and bank-notes, $4.50
Manufactured goods, $220.14—$2975.59
Of this amount, $1966.41 was paid, only Indiana and Missouri territories
paying a smaller proportion of their assessment.(309) The small proportion
paid in these three territories may have been due to the poverty of their
inhabitants.
Most of the manufactured articles were consumed within the territory. Both
cotton and flax were raised and made into cloth; maple sugar was sometimes
sold and exported, but a large proportion of the supply was used as a
substitute for sugar, another substitute much used being wild honey. A
certain Smith’s Prairie was celebrated for the numerous plum and crabapple
orchards that grew around its borders. The large red and yellow plums grew
there in such abundance that people would come from long distances and
haul them away by the wagon-loads, and would preserve them with honey or
maple sugar, which was the only sweetening they had in pioneer times.(310)
Previous to the War of 1812, little commerce was carried on, although a
few trips had been made to New Orleans with keel-boats or pirogues, and
some goods were occasionally brought over the Alleghany Mountains by means
of wagons. The round trip to New Orleans and back then required six
months; the trip down was easy and required a comparatively short time,
but the return trip was slow. It was entirely a barter trade, money being
almost unknown. Furs, wild honey, and other commodities of Illinois, as
well as lead from the Missouri mines, were carried down and exchanged for
groceries, cloth, and other articles of a large value and small bulk. As a
natural consequence of having to be transported up stream, goods of that
nature were extremely dear, the common price of tea being sixteen dollars
a pound, of coffee fifty cents, and of calico fifty cents per yard.(311)
To go up the Mississippi from St. Louis to Prairie du Chien, in 1815,
required from twelve days to a month, while the return trip was made in
from six to ten days.(312)
In the great American Bottom of the Mississippi, extending from the mouth
of the Kaskaskia almost to the mouth of the Illinois, cattle raising was a
leading industry, the cattle being driven to the Philadelphia or Baltimore
markets.(313) Towards the close of the period land could easily be secured
by government entry. The fertility of the land was such as must have been
new to those immigrants who came from the poorer parts of the older
states. Land was subject to a tax of a little more that two cents per
acre, the tax being about equally divided between the territory and the
county.(314) Public lands were not to be taxed by the state, after 1818,
until five years from the date of their sale. Governor Edwards, who was a
large landowner, offered to pay three dollars per acre for plowing.(315)
Prairies were not yet settled to any considerable extent, but it is worthy
of note that a traveler of 1818-19 suggested what was eventually to be the
solution of the question of prairie settlement. He wrote: “It will
probably be some time before these vast prairies can be settled, owing to
the inconvenience attending the want of timber. I know of no way, unless
the plan is adopted of ditching and hedging, and the building of brick
houses, and substituting the stone coal for fuel. It seems as if the
bountiful hand of nature, where it has withheld one gift has always
furnished another; for instance, where there is a scarcity of wood, there
are coal mines.”(316) The remedy suggested was the one adopted, except
that brick houses did not become common.
Really good roads were entirely lacking. Most of the settlements were
connected by roads that were practicable at most seasons for packers and
travelers on horseback, but in times of flood the suspension of travel by
land was practically complete. A post-road had been established between
Vincennes and Cahokia in 1805, and in 1810 a route was established from
Vincennes, by way of Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, and Cahokia, to St.
Louis. At this time and place, however, a post-route does not necessarily
imply anything more than a bridle-path. Mail was received at irregular
intervals, although the trips were regularly made in good weather. The
post-office nearest Chicago was Fort Wayne, Indiana, whence a soldier on
foot carried the mail once a month.(317) A report for the first six months
of 1814 shows, in Illinois, nine post-offices, three hundred and
eighty-eight miles of post-roads, about $143 received for postage, and
$1002 paid for transportation of mail—a balance of some $859 against the
United States.(318) At this time even Cleveland, Chillicothe, and Marietta
received mail but twice per week.(319)
Books were very scarce,(320) and no newspapers had been published in
Illinois before its separate territorial organization. Between 1809 and
1818 there were founded the _Illinois Herald_ and the _Western
Intelligencer_, at Kaskaskia, the latter becoming the _Illinois
Intelligencer_ on May 27, 1818; and the _Shawnee Chief_, at
Shawneetown.(321) In 1816 the citizens of Shawneetown gave notice through
the papers of Kaskaskia, Frankfort, Kentucky, and Nashville, Tennessee,
that they would apply to the Legislature of Illinois for the establishment
of a bank.(322) This may indicate that the papers of the places named had
a considerable circulation in Illinois.
The character of the immigrants left much to be desired. A good observer
wrote: “After residing awhile in White County, Tennessee, I migrated in
May, 1817, to the southern part of the then Territory of Illinois, and
settled in Madison County, twenty-five miles east of St. Louis, which town
then contained about five thousand inhabitants. The surrounding country,
however, was quite sparsely settled, and destitute of any energy or
enterprise among the people; their labors and attention being chiefly
confined to the hunting of game, which then abounded, and tilling a small
patch of corn for bread, relying on game for the remaining supplies of the
table. The inhabitants were of the most generous and hospitable character,
and were principally from the southern states; harmony and the utmost good
feeling prevailed throughout the country.”(323) Naturally this description
was not of universal application, but the source of the population and the
reasons for removing from the old homes make it probable that it was
widely appropriate.
If it was difficult for an emigrant to reach Illinois, and if, after
reaching it, he was inconvenienced by the poor facilities for commerce,
the bad roads, the infrequency of mails, the scarcity of schools and
churches, he at least found it easy to obtain a living, and to some of the
immigrants of the territorial period it was worth something not to starve,
even though living was reduced to its lowest terms. The poorest immigrant
had access to land on the borders of settlement, because the laws against
squatting were not enforced. This same class could procure game in
abundance, while maple sugar, wild honey, persimmons, crabapples, nuts,
pawpaws, wild grapes, wild plums, fish, mushrooms, “greens,” berries of
several kinds, and other palatable natural products known to the Illinois
frontiersman, were to be had in most, if not all, of the localities then
settled. Hogs fattened on the mast. Log houses could be built without
nails. The problem of clothing was probably more difficult at first than
that of food, but although clothing could not be picked up in the woods,
the materials for making it could be grown in the fields. Spinning, and
the processes necessarily preceding and following it, involved a certain
amount of labor. Taxes were not high, nor were tax laws rigidly enforced.
It is thus easy to understand the reasoning that may have led a large
proportion of the immigrants during this period to leave their old homes.