The Spanish commander at St. Louis was inspired by the news of these brilliant victories to try if he, too, could not gain a small wreath at the expense of Spain’s enemies. Clark had already become thoroughly convinced of the duplicity of the Spaniards on the upper Mississippi; he believed that they were anxious to have the British retake Illinois, so that they, in their turn, might conquer and keep it.12 They never had the chance to execute this plan; but, on January 2, 1781, a Spanish captain, Don Eugénio Pierro, led a hundred and twenty men, chiefly Indians and Creoles, against the little French village, or fur post, of St. Joseph, where they burned the houses of one or two British traders, claimed the country round the Illinois River as conquered for the Spanish king, and forthwith returned to St. Louis, not daring to leave a garrison of any sort behind them, and being harassed on their retreat by the Indians. On the strength of this exploit Spain afterward claimed a large stretch of country to the east of the Mississippi. In reality it was a mere plundering foray. The British at once retook possession of the place, and, indeed, were for some time ignorant whether the raiders had been Americans or Spaniards.13 Soon after the recapture, the Detroit authorities sent a scouting party to dislodge some Illinois people who had attempted to make a settlement at Chicago.14
At the end of the year 1781 the unpaid troops in Vincennes were on the verge of mutiny, and it was impossible longer even to feed them, for the inhabitants themselves were almost starving. The garrison was therefore withdrawn; and immediately the Wabash Indians joined those of the Miami, the Sandusky, and the Lakes in their raids on the settlements.15 By this time, however, Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown, and the British were even more exhausted than the Americans. Some of the French partisans of the British at Detroit, such as Rocheblave and Lamothe, who had been captured by Clark, were eager for revenge, and desired to be allowed to try and retake Vincennes and the Illinois; they saw that the Americans must either be exterminated or else the land abandoned to them.16 But the British commandant was in no condition to comply with their request, or to begin offensive operations. Clark had not only conquered the land, but he had held it firmly while he dwelt therein; and even when his hand was no longer felt, the order he had established took some little time before crumbling. Meanwhile, his presence at the Falls, his raids into the Indian country, and his preparations for an onslaught on Detroit kept the British authorities at the latter place fully occupied, and prevented their making any attempt to recover what they had lost. By the beginning of 1782 the active operations of the Revolutionary war were at an end, and the worn-out British had abandoned all thought of taking the offensive anywhere, though the Indian hostilities continued with unabated vigor. Thus the grasp with which the Americans held the conquered country was not relaxed until all danger that it would be taken from them had ceased.
In 1782 the whole Illinois region lapsed into anarchy and confusion. It was perhaps worst at Vincennes, where the departure of the troops had left the French free to do as they wished. Accustomed for generations to a master, they could do nothing with their new-found liberty beyond making it a curse to themselves and their neighbors. They had been provided with their own civil government in the shape of their elective court, but the judges had literally no idea of their proper functions as a governing body to administer justice. At first they did nothing whatever beyond meet and adjourn. Finally it occurred to them that perhaps their official position could be turned to their own advantage. Their townsmen were much too poor to be plundered; but there were vast tracts of fertile wild land on every side, to which, as far as they knew, there was no title, and which speculators assured them would ultimately be of great value. Vaguely remembering Todd’s opinion, that he had power to interfere under certain conditions with the settlement of the lands, and concluding that he had delegated this power, as well as others, to themselves, the justices of the court proceeded to make immense grants of territory, reciting that they did so under “les pouvoirs donnés a Mons’rs Les Magistrats de la cour de Vincennes par le Snr.. Jean Todd, colonel et Grand Judge civil pour les Etats Unis”; Todd’s title having suffered a change and exaltation in their memories. They granted one another about fifteen thousand square miles of land round the Wabash; each member of the court in turn absenting himself for the day on which his associates granted him his share.
This vast mass of virgin soil they sold to speculators at nominal prices, sometimes receiving a horse or a gun for a thousand acres. The speculators of course knew that their titles were worthless, and made haste to dispose of different lots at very low prices to intending settlers. These small buyers were those who ultimately suffered by the transaction, as they found they had paid for worthless claims. The speculators reaped the richest harvest; and it is hard to decide whether to be amused or annoyed at the childish and transparent rascality of the French creoles.17
In the Illinois country proper the troops, the American settlers, speculators, and civil officials, and the creole inhabitants all quarreled together indiscriminately. The more lawless new-comers stole horses from the quieter creoles; the worst among the French, the idle coureurs-des-bois, voyageurs, and trappers plundered and sometimes killed the peaceable citizens of either nationality. The soldiers became little better than an unruly mob; some deserted, or else in company with other ruffians, both French and American, indulged in furious and sometimes murderous orgies, to the terror of the creoles who had property. The civil authorities, growing day by day weaker, were finally shorn of all power by the military. This, however, was in nowise a quarrel between the French and the Americans. As already explained, in Todd’s absence the position of deputy was sometimes filled by a creole and sometimes by an American. He had been particular to caution them in writing to keep up a good understanding with the officers and troops, adding, as a final warning: “If this is not the case you will be unhappy.” Unfortunately for one of the deputies, Richard Winston, he failed to keep up the good understanding, and, as Todd had laconically foretold, he in consequence speedily became very “unhappy.” We have only his own account of the matter. According to this, in April, 1782, he was taken out of his house “in despite of the civil authority, disregarding the laws and on the malitious alugation of Jno. Williams and Michel Pevante.” Thus a Frenchman and an American joined in the accusation, for some of the French supported the civil, others the military, authorities. The soldiers had the upper hand, however, and Winston records that he was forthwith “confined by tyrannick military force.” From that time the authority of the laws was at an end, and as the officers of the troops had but little control, every man did what pleased him best.
In January, 1781, the Virginia Legislature passed an act ceding to Congress, for the benefit of the United States, all of Virginia’s claim to the territory northwest of the Ohio; but the cession was not consummated until after the close of the war with Great Britain, and the only immediate effect of the act was to still further derange affairs in Illinois. The whole subject of the land cessions of the various States, by which the Northwest Territory became Federal property, and the heart of the Union, can best be considered in treating of post-Revolutionary times.
The French creoles had been plunged in chaos. In their deep distress they sent to the powers that the chances of war had set above them petition after petition, reciting their wrongs and praying that they might be righted. There is one striking difference between these petitions and the similar requests and complaints made from time to time by the different groups of American settlers west of the Alleghanies. Both alike set forth the evils from which the petitioners suffered, and the necessity of governmental remedy. But whereas the Americans invariably asked that they be allowed to govern themselves, being delighted to undertake the betterment of their condition on their own account, the French, on the contrary, habituated through generations to paternal rule, were more inclined to request that somebody fitted for the task should be sent to govern them. They humbly asked Congress either to “immediately establish some form o
f government among them, and appoint officers to execute the same,” or else “to nominate commissioners to repair to the Illinois and inquire into the situation”18
One of the petitions is pathetic in its showing of the bewilderment into which the poor creoles were thrown as to who their governors really were. It requests “their Sovereign Lords,”19 whether of the Congress of the United States or of the Province of Virginia, whichever might be the owner of the country, to nominate “a lieutenant or a governor, whomever it may please our Lords to send us.” 20 The letter goes on to ask that this governor may speak French, so that he may preside over the court; and it earnestly beseeches that the laws may be enforced and crime and wrong-doing put down with a strong hand.
The conquest of the Illinois Territory was fraught with the deepest and most far-reaching benefits to all the American people; it likewise benefited, in at least an equal degree, the boldest and most energetic among the French inhabitants, those who could hold their own among freemen, who could swim in troubled waters; but it may well be doubted whether to the mass of the ignorant and simple creoles it was not a curse rather than a blessing.
1 See Col. John Todd’s “Record Book,” while County Lieutenant of Illinois. There is a MS. copy in Col. Durrett’s library at Louisville. It is our best authority for these years in Illinois. The substance of it is given on pp. 49-68 of Mr. Edward G. Mason’s interesting and valuable pamphlet on “Illinois in the 18th Century” (Chicago, Fergus Printing Co., 1881).
2 In the beginning of 1780. Bradford MS.
3 State Department MSS., No. 48, p. 51.
4 Law’s “Vincennes,” pp. 49, 126. For some inscrutable reason, by the way, the Americans for a long time persisted in speaking of the place as St. Vincennes.
5 See his letter to Governor St. Clair, May 1, 1790.
6 State Department MSS., No. 48, p. 41. Petition of J. B. La Croix and A. Girardin.
7 This and most of the other statements for which no authority is quoted, are based on Todd’s MS. “Record Book.”
8 The entries merely record the sentences, with directions that they be immediately executed. But there seems very little doubt that they were for witchcraft, or voudooism, probably with poisoning at the bottom—and that they were actually carried out. See Mason’s pamphlet, p. 59.
9 Calendar of Va. State Papers, I, pp. 380, 382, 383, Oct 24-29, 1780.
10 Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, No. 16, 1780.
11 State Department MSS., No. 50, p. 109.
12 Clark to Todd, March, 1780. Va. State Papers, I, 338.
13 Haldimand MSS. Haldimand to De Peyster, April 10, 1781. Report of Council at St. Joseph, March 11, 1781.
14 Do. Haldimand to De Peyster, May 19, 1782. This is the first record of an effort to make a permanent settlement at Chicago.
15 Va. State Papers, III, 502.
16 Haldimand MSS. Letter of Rocheblave, Oct. 7, 1781; of Lamothe, April 24, 1782.
17 State Department MSS., Nos. 30 and 48. Law’s “Vincennes.”
18 State Department MSS., No. 30, p. 453. Memorial of Françis Carbonneaux, agent for the inhabitants of Illinois.
19 “Nos. Souverains Seigneurs.” The letter is ill-written and worse spelt, in an extraordinary French patois. State Department MSS., No. 30, page 459. It is dated December 3, 1782. Many of the surnames attached are marked with a cross; others are signed. Two are given respectively as “Bienvenus fils” and “Blouin fils.”
20 State Department MSS., No. 30, p. 459, “de nomer un lieutenant ou un gouverneur tel qu’il plaira a nos Seigneurs de nous l’envoyer.”
CHAPTER III
KENTUCKY UNTIL THE END OF THE REVOLUTION, 1782–1783
SEVENTEEN HUNDRED and eighty-two proved to be Kentucky’s year of blood. The British at Detroit had strained every nerve to drag into the war the entire Indian population of the Northwest. They had finally succeeded in arousing even the most distant tribes—not to speak of the twelve thousand savages immediately tributary to Detroit.1 So lavish had been the expenditure of money and presents to secure the good-will of the savages and enlist their active services against the Americans, that it had caused serious complaint at headquarters.2
Early in the spring the Indians renewed their forays; horses were stolen, cabins burned, and women and children carried off captive. The people were confined closely to their stockaded forts, from which small bands of riflemen sallied to patrol the country. From time to time these encountered marauding parties, and in the fights that followed sometimes the whites, sometimes the reds, were victorious.
One of these conflicts attracted wide attention on the border because of the obstinacy with which it was waged and the bloodshed that accompanied it. In March a party of twenty-five Wyandots came into the settlements, passed Boonesborough, and killed and scalped a girl within sight of Estill’s Station. The men from the latter, also to the number of twenty-five, hastily gathered under Captain Estill, and after two days’ hot pursuit overtook the Wyandots. A fair stand-up fight followed, the better marksmanship of the whites being offset, as so often before, by the superiority their foes showed in sheltering themselves. At last victory declared for the Indians. Estill had despatched a lieutenant and seven men to get round the Wyandots and assail them in the rear; but either the lieutenant’s heart or his judgment failed him, he took too long, and meanwhile the Wyandots closed in on the others, killing nine, including Estill, and wounding four, who, with their unhurt comrades, escaped. It is said that the Wyandots themselves suffered heavily.3
These various ravages and skirmishes were but the prelude to a far more serious attack. In July the British captains Caldwell and McKee came down from Detroit with a party of rangers, and gathered together a great army of over a thousand Indians4—the largest body of either red men or white that was ever mustered west of the Alleghanies during the Revolution. They meant to strike at Wheeling; but while on their march thither were suddenly alarmed by the rumor that Clark intended to attack the Shawnee towns.5 They at once countermarched, but on reaching the threatened towns found that the alarm had been groundless. Most of the savages, with characteristic fickleness of temper, then declined to go further; but a body of somewhat over three hundred Hurons and lake Indians remained. With these, and their Detroit rangers, Caldwell and McKee crossed the Ohio and marched into Kentucky, to attack the small forts of Fayette County.
Fayette lay between the Kentucky and the Ohio rivers, and was then the least populous and most exposed of the three counties into which the growing young commonwealth was divided. In 1782 it contained but five of the small stockaded towns in which all the early settlers were obliged to gather. The best defended and most central was Lexington, round which were grouped the other four—Bryan’s (which was the largest), McGee’s, McConnell’s, and Boone’s. Boone’s Station, sometimes called Boone’s new station, where the tranquil, resolute old pioneer at that time dwelt, must not be confounded with his former fort of Boonesborough, from which it was several miles distant, north of the Kentucky. Since the destruction of Martin’s and Ruddle’s stations on the Licking, Bryan’s on the south bank of the Elkhorn was left as the northernmost outpost of the settlers. Its stout, loopholed palisades inclosed some forty cabins, there were strong block-houses at the corners, and it was garrisoned by fifty good riflemen.
These five stations were held by backwoodsmen of the usual Kentucky stamp, from the up-country of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. Generations of frontier life had made them with their fellows the most distinctive and typical Americans on the continent, utterly different from their old-world kinsfolk. Yet they still showed strong traces of the covenanting spirit, which they drew from the Irish-Presbyterian, the master strain in their mixed blood. For years they had not seen the inside of a church; nevertheless, mingled with men who were loose of tongue and life, there still remained many Sabbath-keepers and Bible-readers, who studied their catechisms on Sundays, and disliked almost equally profane language and debauchery.6
An incident that occurred at this time illustrates well their feelings. In June a fourth of the active militia of the county was ordered on duty, to scout and patrol the country. Accordingly forty men turned out under Captain Robert Patterson. They were give ammunition, as well as two pack-horses, by the Commissary Department. Every man was entitled to pay for the time he was out. Whether he would ever get it was problematical; at the best it was certain to be given him in worthless paper-money. Their hunters kept them supplied with game, and each man carried a small quantity of parched corn.
The company was ordered to the mouth of the Kentucky to meet the armed row-boat, sent by Clark from the Falls. On the way Patterson was much annoyed by a “very profane, swearing man” from Bryan’s Station, named Aaron Reynolds. Reynolds was a good-hearted, active young fellow, with a biting tongue, not only given to many oaths, but likewise skilled in the rough, coarse banter so popular with the backwoodsmen. After having borne with him four days Patterson made up his mind that he would have to reprove him, and if no amendment took place, send him home. He waited until, at a halt, Reynolds got a crowd round him, and began to entertain them “with oaths and wicked expressions,” whereupon he promptly stepped in “and observed to him that he was a very wicked and profane man,” and that both the company as well as he, the Captain, would thank him to desist. On the next day, however, Reynolds began to swear again; this time Patterson not only reproved him severely, but also tried the effect of judicious gentleness, promising to give him a quart of spirits on reaching the boat if he immediately “quit his profanity and swearing.” Four days afterward they reached the boat, and Aaron Reynolds demanded the quart of spirits. Patterson suggested a doubt as to whether he had kept his promise, whereupon he appealed to the company, then on parade, and they pronounced in his favor, saying that they had not heard him swear since he was reproved. Patterson, who himself records the incident, concludes with the remark: “The spirits were drank.”7 Evidently the company, who had so impartially acted as judges between their fellow-soldier and their superior officer, viewed with the same equanimity the zeal of the latter and the mixed system of command, entreaty, and reward by which he carried his point. As will be seen, the event had a striking sequel at the battle of the Blue Licks.
The Winning of the West Page 49
