Volume II Part 9 (1/2)
For the first year of Todd's administration, while Clark still remained in the county as commandant of the State troops, matters went fairly well. Clark kept the Indians completely in check, and when some of them finally broke out, and started on a marauding expedition against Cahokia, he promptly repulsed them, and by a quick march burned their towns on Rock River, and forced them to sue for peace. [Footnote: In the beginning of 1780. Bradford MS.]
Todd appointed a Virginian, Richard Winston, as commandant at Kaskaskia; all his other appointees were Frenchmen. An election was forthwith held for justices; to the no small astonishment of the Creoles, unaccustomed as they were to American methods of self-government. Among those whom they elected as judges and court officers were some of the previously appointed militia captains and lieutenants, who thus held two positions.
The judges governed their decisions solely by the old French laws and customs. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 48, p. 51.] Todd at once made the court proceed to business. On its recommendation he granted licenses to trade to men of a.s.sured loyalty. He also issued a proclamation in reference to new settlers taking up lands. Being a shrewd man, he clearly foresaw the ruin that was sure to arise from the new Virginia land laws as applied to Kentucky, and he feared the inrush of a horde of speculators, who would buy land with no immediate intention of settling thereon. Besides, the land was so fertile in the river bottoms, that he deemed the amount Virginia allotted to each person excessive. So he decreed that each settler should take up his land in the shape of one of the long narrow French farms, that stretched back from the water-front; and that no claim should contain a greater number of acres than did one of these same farms. This proclamation undoubtedly had a very good effect.
Financial Difficulties.
He next wrestled steadily, but much less successfully, with the financial question. He attempted to establish a land bank, as it were, setting aside a great tract of land to secure certain issues of Continental money. The scheme failed, and in spite of his public a.s.surance that the Continental currency would shortly be equal in value to gold and silver, it swiftly sank until it was not worth two cents on the dollar.
This wretched and worthless paper-money, which the Americans brought with them, was a perfect curse to the country. Its rapid depreciation made it almost impossible to pay the troops, or to secure them supplies, and as a consequence they became disorderly and mutinous. Two or three prominent creoles, who were devoted adherents of the American cause, made loans of silver to the Virginian Government, as represented by Clark, thereby helping him materially in the prosecution of his campaign. Chief among these public-spirited patriots were Francis Vigo, and the priest Gibault, both of them already honorably mentioned. Vigo advanced nearly nine thousand dollars in specie,--piastres or Spanish milled dollars,--receiving in return bills on the ”Agent of Virginia,”
which came back protested for want of funds; and neither he nor his heirs ever got a dollar of what was due them. He did even more. The creoles at first refused to receive any thing but peltries or silver for their goods; they would have nothing to do with the paper, and to all explanations as to its uses, simply answered ”that their commandants never made money.” [Footnote: 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.] Finally they were persuaded to take it on Vigo's personal guaranty, and his receiving it in his store. Even he, however, could not buoy it up long.
Gibault likewise [Footnote See his letter to Governor St. Clair, May I, 1790.] advanced a large sum of money, parted with his t.i.tles and beasts, so as to set a good example to his paris.h.i.+oners, and, with the same purpose, furnished goods to the troops at ordinary prices, taking the paper in exchange as if it had been silver. In consequence he lost over fifteen hundred dollars, was forced to sell his only two slaves, and became almost dest.i.tute; though in the end he received from the government a tract of land which partially reimbursed him. Being driven to desperate straits, the priest tried a rather doubtful s.h.i.+ft. He sold, or pretended to sell, a great natural meadow, known as la prairie du pont, which the people of Cahokia claimed as a common pasture for their cattle. His conduct drew forth a sharp remonstrance from the Cahokians, in the course of which they frankly announced that they believed the priest should confine himself to ecclesiastical matters, and should not meddle with land grants, especially when the land he granted did not belong to him. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 48, p. 41. Pet.i.tion of J. B. La Croix and A. Girardin.]
It grew steadily more difficult to get the Creoles to furnish supplies; Todd had to forbid the exportation of any provisions whatever, and, finally, the soldiers were compelled to levy on all that they needed.
Todd paid for these impressed goods, as well as for what the contractors furnished, at the regulation prices--one third in paper-money and two thirds in peltries; and thus the garrisons at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes were supplied with powder, lead, sugar, flour, and, above all, hogsheads of taffia, of which they drank an inordinate quant.i.ty.
The justices did not have very much work; in most of the cases that came before them the plaintiff and defendant were both of the same race. One piece of recorded testimony is rather amusing, being to the effect that ”Monsieur Smith est un grand vilain coquin.” [Footnote: This and most of the other statements for which no authority is quoted, are based on Todd's MS. ”Record Book.”]
Burning of Negroes Accused of Sorcery.
Yet there are two entries in the proceedings of the Creole courts for the summer of 1779, as preserved in Todd's ”Record Book,” which are of startling significance. To understand them it must be remembered that the Creoles were very ignorant and superst.i.tious, and that they one and all including, apparently, even, their priests, firmly believed in witchcraft and sorcery. Some of their negro slaves had been born in Africa, the others had come from the Lower Mississippi or the West Indies; they practised the strange rites of voudooism, and a few were adepts in the art of poisoning. Accordingly the French were always on the look-out lest their slaves should, by spell or poison, take their lives. It must also be kept in mind that the pardoning power of the commandant did not extend to cases of treason or murder--a witchcraft trial being generally one for murder,--and that he was expressly forbidden to interfere with the customs and laws, or go counter to the prejudices, of the inhabitants.
At this time the Creoles were smitten by a sudden epidemic of fear that their negro slaves were trying to bewitch and poison them. Several of the negroes were seized and tried, and in June two were condemned to death. One, named Moreau, was sentenced to be hung outside Cahokia. The other, a Kaskaskian slave named Manuel, suffered a worse fate. He was sentenced ”to be chained to a post at the water-side, and there to be burnt alive and his ashes scattered.” [Footnote: 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 voudouism, probably with poisoning at the bottom--and that they were actually carried out. See Mason's pamphlet, p. 59.] These two sentences, and the directions for their immediate execution, reveal a dark chapter in the early history of Illinois. It seems a strange thing that, in the United States, three years after the declaration of independence, men should have been burnt and hung for witchcraft, in accordance with the laws, and with the decision of the proper court. The fact that the victim, before being burned, was forced to make ”honorable fine” at the door of the Catholic church, shows that the priest at least acquiesced in the decision. The blame justly resting on the Puritans of seventeenth-century New England must likewise fall on the Catholic French of eighteenth-century Illinois.
Early in the spring of 1780 Clark left the country; he did not again return to take command, for after visiting the fort on the Mississippi, and spending the summer in the defence of Kentucky, he went to Virginia to try to arrange for an expedition against Detroit. Todd also left about the same time, having been elected a Kentucky delegate to the Virginia Legislature. He afterwards made one or two flying visits to Illinois, but exerted little influence over her destiny, leaving the management of affairs entirely in the hands of his deputy, or lieutenant-commandant for the time being. He usually chose for this position either Richard Winston, the Virginian, or else a Creole named Timothea Demunbrunt.
Disorders in the Government.
Todd's departure was a blow to the country; but Clark's was a far more serious calamity. By his personal influence he had kept the Indians in check, the Creoles contented, and the troops well fed and fairly disciplined. As soon as he went, trouble broke out. The officers did not know how to support their authority; they were very improvident, and one or two became implicated in serious scandals. The soldiers soon grew turbulent, and there was constant clas.h.i.+ng between the civil and military rulers. Gradually the ma.s.s of the Creoles became so angered with the Americans that they wished to lay their grievances before the French Minister at Philadelphia; and many of them crossed the Mississippi and settled under the Spanish flag. The courts rapidly lost their power, and the worst people, both Americans and Creoles, practised every kind of rascality with impunity. All decent men joined in clamoring for Clark's return; but it was impossible for him to come back. The freshets and the maladministration combined to produce a dearth, almost a famine, in the land. The evils were felt most severely in Vincennes, where Helm, the captain of the post, though a brave and capable man, was utterly unable to procure supplies of any kind. He did not hear of Clark's success against Piqua and Chillicothe until October.
Then he wrote to one of the officers at the Falls, saying that he was ”sitting by the fire with a piece of lightwood and two ribs of an old buffloe, which is all the meat we have seen this many days. I congratulate your success against the Shawanohs, but there's never doubts where that brave Col. Clark commands; we well know the loss of him in Illinois.... Excuse Haste as the Lightwood's Just out and mouth watering for part of the two ribs.” [Footnote: Calendar of Va. State Papers, I., pp. 380, 382, 383, Oct. 24-29, 1780.]
La Balme's Expedition.
In the fall of 1780 a Frenchman, named la Balme, led an expedition composed purely of Creoles against Detroit. He believed that he could win over the French at that place to his side, and thus capture the fort as Clark had captured Vincennes. He raised some fifty volunteers round Cahokia and Kaskaskia, perhaps as many more on the Wabash, and marched to the Maumee River. Here he stopped to plunder some British traders; and in November the neighboring Indians fell on his camp, killed him and thirty or forty of his men, and scattered the rest. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, Nov. 16, 1780.] His march had been so quick and unexpected that it rendered the British very uneasy, and they were much rejoiced at his discomfiture and death.
The following year a new element of confusion was added. In 1779 Spain declared war on Great Britain. The Spanish commandant at New Orleans was Don Bernard de Galvez, one of the very few strikingly able men Spain has sent to the western hemisphere during the past two centuries. He was bold, resolute, and ambitious; there is reason to believe that at one time he meditated a separation from Spain, the establishment of a Spanish-American empire, and the founding of a new imperial house.
However this may be, he threw himself heart and soul into the war against Britain; and attacked British West Florida with a fiery energy worthy of Wolfe or Montcalm. He favored the Americans; but it was patent to all that he favored them only the better to hara.s.s the British.
[Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 50, p. 109.]
Besides the Creoles and the British garrisons, there were quite a number of American settlers in West Florida. In the immediate presence of Spanish and Indian foes, these, for the most part, remained royalists.
In 1778 a party of armed Americans, coming down the Ohio and Mississippi, tried to persuade them to turn whig, but, becoming embroiled with them, the militant missionaries were scattered and driven off. Afterwards the royalists fought among themselves; but this was a mere faction quarrel, and was soon healed. Towards the end of 1779, Galvez, with an army of Spanish and French Creole troops, attacked the forts along the Mississippi--Manchac, Baton Rouge, Natchez, and one or two smaller places,--speedily carrying them and capturing their garrisons of British regulars and royalist militia. During the next eighteen months he laid siege to and took Mobile and Pensacola. While he was away on his expedition against the latter place, the royalist Americans round Natchez rose and retook the fort from the Spaniards; but at the approach of Galvez they fled in terror, marching overland towards Georgia, then in the hands of the tories. On the way they suffered great loss and damage from the Creeks and Choctaws.
A Spanish Attempt on St. Joseph.
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. [Footnote: Clark to Todd, March, 1780. Va. State Papers, I., 338.] They never had the chance to execute this plan; but, on January 2, 1781, a Spanish captain, Don Eugenio 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 hara.s.sed on their retreat by the Indians. On the strength of this exploit Spain afterwards 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. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Haldimand to De Peyster, April 10, 1781. Report of Council at St. Joseph, March 11, 1781.] 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. [Footnote: _Do._ Haldimand to De Peyster, May 19, 1782. This is the first record of an effort to make a permanent settlement at Chicago.]
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.