14 Heckewelder, 311.
15 Loskiel, 176.
16 Col. James Smith, then of Kentucky, in 1799 calls it “an act of barbarity equal to any thing I ever knew to be committed by the savages themselves, except the burning of prisoners.”
17 The Germans of up-country North Carolina were guilty of as brutal massacres as the Scotch-Irish backwoodsmen of Pennsylvania. See Adair, 245. There are two or three individual instances of the barbarity of Kentuckians—one being to the credit of McGarry—but they are singularly few, when the length and the dreadful nature of their Indian wars are taken into account. Throughout their history the Kentucky pioneers had the right on their side in their dealings with the Indians. They were not wanton aggressors; they entered upon vacant hunting-grounds, to which no tribe had a clear title, and to which most even of the doubtful titles had been fairly extinguished. They fought their foes fiercely, with varying fortune, and eventually wrested the land from them; but they very rarely wronged them; and for the numerous deeds of fearful cruelty that were done on Kentucky soil, the Indians were in almost every case to blame.
18 A minute and exhaustive account of Crawford’s campaign is given by Mr. C. W. Butterfield in his “ Expedition against Sandusky,” (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1873). Mr. Butterfield shows conclusively that the accepted accounts are wholly inaccurate, being derived from the reports of the Moravian missionaries, whose untruthfulness (especially Heckewelder’s) is clearly demonstrated. He shows the apocryphal nature of some of the pretended narratives of the expedition, such as two in “The American Pioneer,” etc. He also shows how inaccurate McClung’s “sketches” are—for McClung was like a host of other early Western annalists, preserving some valuable facts in a good deal of rubbish, and having very little appreciation indeed of the necessity of so much as approximate accuracy. Only a few of these early Western historians had the least conception of the value of evidence or of the necessity of sifting it, or of weighing testimony.
19 Heckewelder, 336. Butterfield shows conclusively that there is not the slightest ground to accept Heckewelder’s assertion that Crawford’s people openly declared that “no Indian was to be spared, friend or foe.”
20 Haldimand MSS. May 14, 1782. De Peyster to Haldimand.
21 Do. Official report of Lt. John Turney of the rangers, June 7, 1782.
22 Do. Probably some of this loss occurred on the following day. I rely on Butterfield for the American loss, as he quotes Irvine’s official report, etc. He of course wrote without knowledge of the British reports; and his account of the Indian losses and numbers is all wrong. He fails signally in his effort to prove that the Americans behaved bravely.
23 Who were probably at this point much fewer in number than the Americans; Butterfield says the reverse, but his account is untrustworthy on these matters.
24 As Butterfield shows, Heckewelder’s account of Craw ford’s whole expedition is a piece of sheer romancing.
25 Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, June 23, 1782.
26 Do. Aug. 18, 1782.
27 Do. Dec. 1, 1782.
28 Slover asserts that it was taken in consequence of a message sent advising it by the commandant at Detroit. This is doubtless untrue; the commandant at Detroit did what he could to stop such outrages, although many of his more reckless and uncontrollable subordinates very probably pursued an opposite course. The ignorant and violently prejudiced backwoodsmen naturally believed all manner of evil of their British foes; but it is singular that writers who ought to be well informed should even now continue to accept all their wild assertions as unquestioned facts. The conduct of the British was very bad; but it is silly to describe it in the terms often used. The year after their escape Slover dictated, and Knight wrote, narratives of their adventures, which were together published in book form at Philadelphia in 1783. They are very interesting.
29 Va. State Papers, III, 235.
CHAPTER II
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE CONQUERED FRENCH SETTLEMENTS, 1779–1783
THE VIRGINIAN Government took immediate steps to provide for the civil administration of the country Clark had conquered. In the fall of 1778 the entire region northwest of the Ohio was constituted the county of Illinois, with John Todd as county-lieutenant or commandant.
Todd was a firm friend and follower of Clark’s, and had gone with him on his campaign against Vincennes. It therefore happened that he received his commission while at the latter town, early in the spring of ‘79. In May he went to Kaskaskia, to organize the county; and Clark, who remained military commandant of the Virginia State troops that were quartered in the district, was glad to turn over the civil government to the charge of his old friend.
Together with his commission, Todd received a long and excellent letter of instructions from Governor Patrick Henry. He was empowered to choose a deputy-commandant, and officers for the militia; but the judges and officers of the court were to be elected by the people themselves. He was given large discretionary power, Henry impressing upon him with especial earnestness the necessity to “cultivate and conciliate the French and Indians.”1 With this end in view, he was bidden to pay special heed to the customs of the Creoles, to avoid shocking their prejudices, and to continually consult with their most intelligent and upright men. He was to co-operate in every way with Clark and his troops, while at the same time the militia were to be exclusively under his own control. The inhabitants were to have strict justice done them if wronged by the troops; and Clark was to put down rigorously any licentiousness on the part of his soldiers. The wife and children of the former British commandant—the creole Rocheblave—were to be treated with particular respect, and not suffered to want for anything. He was exhorted to use all his diligence and ability to accomplish the difficult task set him. Finally Henry advised him to lose no opportunity of inculcating in the minds of the French the value of the liberty the Americans brought them, as contrasted with “the slavery to which the Illinois was destined” by the British.
This last sentence was proved by subsequent events to be a touch of wholly unconscious but very grim humor. The French were utterly unsuited for liberty, as the Americans understood the term, and to most of them the destruction of British rule was a misfortune. The bold, self-reliant, and energetic spirits among them, who were able to become Americanized, and to adapt themselves to the new conditions, undoubtedly profited immensely by the change. As soon as they adopted American ways, they were received by the Americans on terms of perfect and cordial equality, and they enjoyed a far higher kind of life than could possibly have been theirs formerly, and achieved a much greater measure of success. But most of the Creoles were helplessly unable to grapple with the new life. They had been accustomed to the paternal rule of priest and military commandant, and they were quite unable to govern themselves, or to hold their own with the pushing, eager, and often unscrupulous, newcomers. So little able were they to understand precisely what the new form of government was, that when they went down to receive Todd as commandant, it is said that some of them, joining in the cheering, from force of habit cried “Vive le roi.”
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.2
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.3 Todd at once made the court proceed to business
. On its recommendation he granted licenses to trade to men of assured loyalty.
Todd 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 waterfront; 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.
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 assurance 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 anything 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”4 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 likewise5 advanced a large sum of money, parted with his titles and beasts, so as to set a good example to his parishioners, 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 destitute; 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 shift. 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.6
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 quantity.
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”7
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 superstitious, 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 practiced 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 hanged 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”8 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 hanged 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 afterward 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 Thimothé Demunbrunt.
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 clashing between the civil and military rulers. Gradually the mass 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, practiced 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 buflloe, 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.”9
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.10 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 harass the British.11
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. Afterward the royalists fought among themselves; but this was a mere faction quarrel, and was soon healed. Toward 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 around Natchez rose and retook the fort from the Spaniards; but at the approach of Galvez they fled in terror, marching overland toward Georgia, then in the hands of the tories. On the way they suffered great loss and damage from the Creeks and Choc-taws.
The Winning of the West Page 48