USA > Illinois > St Clair County > Cahokia > Cahokia records, 1778-1790 > Part 2
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These members of the gentry lived far more elegantly than the American backwoodsmen and were their superiors in culture. Their houses were commodious and their life was made easy for themselves and families by a large retinue of slaves.5 They were in social life pleasant, their hospitality was proverbial, and their courtesy to strangers constant. They evidently maintained the distinction between themselves and the poorer and more ignorant classes, so that the democracy of the American frontier was not established among them. Thus was added to the French settle- ments an element of refinement and elegance, however simple,
1 For these Cahokians see the foot-notes on pp. 624 et seq.
2 Gabriel Cerré was born at Montreal, August 12, 1734. As early as 1755 he was estab- lished at Kaskaskia, where he married in 1764 Catherine Giard. His activities at the time of the coming of Clark are told in the succeeding pages. He did not find it best for his busi- ness interests to remain among the Virginians and by June 17, 1779, had made his preparations for his removal to St. Louis by purchasing a lot in that village. The date he left Kaskaskia is not known, but was probably before the end of 1779. He became one of the most influen- tial citizens of St. Louis and died April 4, 1805. Douglas, "Jean Gabriel Cerré, A Sketch," in Transactions of Ill. Hist. Soc., 1903.
3 See note on p. 4, n. 2. I have to thank Mr. Pierre Chouteau of St. Louis for the loan of Journal A of the trading company of David McCrae, John Kay, Pierre Barthe, and Charles Gratiot. The first entry is dated at Cahokia, August 6, 1778. The journal was written by Gratiot.
+ N. Y. Col. Doc., vii., 965.
5 A member of the Bauvais family owned eighty slaves. Pittman, Miss. Settlements, ed. Hodder, 85.
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which was always lacking in the more virile, if less romantic, communities of the American pioneers.1
Except for the wildness of the surrounding uncleared land and the luxuriance of the growth of vegetation, these villages copied in their external appearance and internal life the similar com- munities of France in the eighteenth century. Just as the English settlers on the seaboard brought with them their English house- hold goods and their English institutions, and planted them by the streams and hills of New England, so these French of the Mississippi valley transplanted from the heart of France their homes with their utensils and ornaments and the village com- munity in which they and their ancestors had lived.
All the houses were of one story with a broad veranda on one or more sides. The less pretentious ones were built of upright beams set in horizontals at top and bottom with the interstices between the beams filled with what was called "cat and clay", a composition of clay and finely cut straw or moss. At one side, and sometimes two, there was a large chimney for the spacious fireplace of the living room and kitchen.2 The better houses were of stone and with their sheds, barns, and slave quar- ters gave evidence of prosperity and wealth. Around each
1 Very severe judgments have been passed upon the French on the Mississippi and Wa- bash rivers by many writers. Among these the most important have been the British officers and the later French travelers. The first class has always been noted for its incapacity to appreciate the good characteristics of a civilization different from its own, and the French travelers, such as Michaud and Collot, visited the region after the events narrated in this Introduction had driven the more progressive men from the eastern bank to swell the Spanish villages. Therefore it has seemed necessary to supplement their accounts from other sources. In writing the description of these people I have first of all had in mind the record of their acts contained in this volume. The picture formed in the mind after reading these records is not that of the most "debased, ignorant, and superstitious of humanity", but rather the reverse. These facts should in part offset the strictures of Fraser and Croghan, as should also the letter of Sir William Johnson quoted above. At their best the French of Illinois were not dissimilar from those on the Spanish bank, so that the description of Ste. Gene- vieve by Brackenridge is correct enough for Illinois. Any knowledge of the conditions in Canada may be used cautiously also. We have two attempts to form judgments of these French, coming from men of different character. The first is by C. F. Volney, who visited the region in 1796 and the other by Edmund Flagg whose visit was made in 1836. The testimony of Governor Reynolds may also be admitted, since he lived among them and knew them well. Fraser, Report, from a copy in the public library of Champaign, Ill .; Croghan, Journals, in Thwaites, Early Western Travels, i., 152; Letter of Sir William Johnson in N. Y. Col. Doc., vii., 965; Volney, View of the U. S., 370 et seq .; Michaud Travels, in Early West- ern Travels, iii., 70; Brackenridge, Recollections, 19 et seq .; Smith, St. Clair Papers, ii., 137. Collot, Voyage dans L'Amerique, i., 318; Flagg, Far West, in Thwaites Early West - ern Travels, xxvii., 52 et seq. An excellent description of the French-Canadians of the period may be found in Coffin, The Province of Quebec and the Early American Revolution, 282 et seq .; see also Franz, Die Kolonisation des Mississippitales, 382.
2 See illustration of a typical house of this character, p. 284. Descriptions of such houses may be found in Monette, Hist. of the Valley of the Miss., i., 183 and Volney, View of the U. S., 368.
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dwelling was a small yard enclosed by a picket fence, within which enclosure were the orchard and the kitchen and flower gardens. The whole presented an attractive picture of quiet and peaceful home life. Within the house everything was gener- ally home made, although some of the more wealthy brought their furniture from Canada. The poorer houses appeared shabby and badly kept, for the French women were careless housekeepers, and rather extravagant and wasteful. At least such was the opinion of the American settlers who lived among them.1
On account of the social character of the people, the isolated farm house was uncommon in the bottom and the village com- munity was the rule. The streets were narrow and the houses were placed close to the edge of the lots, almost on the street-line. The farm land lay outside the village in two large fields, one the com- mon field and the other the commons. The common field was divided into long narrow strips, ten to forty perches in width and extending from the river to the bluffs; these the inhabitants culti- vated. The commons was the wood and pasture land belonging to the community,2 and was separated from the cultivated fields by a fence, which was erected by the proprietors, each being responsible for that part crossing his land. The community had the right to make concessions from the commons and add them to the common field for new arrivals and for newly formed fami-
1 Volney, A View oj the U. S., 373 et seq.
2 The statement is true enough for the period under consideration. This is not the place for a discussion of the history of French land tenure in America, for the origin of the system must be sought in the period of the French régime and the final settlement of the questions arising out of it in the years after the United States took control, so that the dis- cussion of the land tenure will naturally come within the scope of some future volume. How- ever, a few words on the subject may be of value in explaining the situation. The land acquired from the Indians for the purpose of colonization was regarded as belonging to the king's domain, after the company of the Indies resigned the government of it. This domain land was disposed of in two ways. Ist. Large tracts might be granted to individuals as seignio- ries. The character of the title given was that of the franc alleu, which in the eighteenth cen- tury did not differ essentially from the bencfice. These large seigniories were divided by the proprietors into smaller tracts and granted to the habitants as censive holdings, which paid the grantor a perpetual rent of a sou an acre, were subject to the banalities, and escheated to the seignior in case no heirs were found. 2nd. The king might retain the control of the land himself and grant it out himself in censive holdings, as he did at Kaskaskia and Nouvelle Chartres. The land cultivated by the people of Cahokia belonged to the seigniory of the Seminary of Foreign Missions; St. Philippe was a seigniory belonging to the Regnaults and Prairie du Rocher had been originally conceded to Boisbriant, but had been passed on by him to Langlois. In the bottom there were also many smaller concessions in franc alleu and under the British many more were made by one of the commandants. Viollet, Histoire du droit français, 746 et seq .; Archives Coloniales à Paris, Ser. B., vol. 43, p. 789; Breese, Early Hist. of Illinois, Appendix E .; Franz, Die Kolonisation des Mississippitales, 201.
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lies.1 This method of laying out the fields and this kind of land tenure were transplanted from France, where they had been developed through centuries; for when the French people found themselves in places where land was plentiful, the power of tradi- tion prevented a readjustment of their ideas in regard to landhold- ings and agriculture. Hence they brought with them the mark system and tenure, with the whole machinery for the adminis- tration of the village land as they knew it in France. The time for plowing, sowing, and harvesting was regulated by the assembly of the inhabitants, as well as all other questions affecting their common property and common interests. The officer elected to supervise the execution of the laws of the commons and the decisions of the assembly was the syndic, of whose presence in the villages on the Mississippi during the eighteenth century there still exists proof. The assemblies of the villagers, which copied the French custom in this particular as in all others, were held before the church door after mass and were attended by all males of military age. 2
The Illinois French were not an agricultural people, although they did send down some grain and cattle to New Orleans.3 For this reason they made no progress in the art of agriculture and continued to till their fields in the same way and with the same kind of implements as had their fathers for generations before them. The profits and the adventurous life of the fur- trader exercised for them such a fascination as to prevent their pursuit of a calling which would have given them a firmer hold upon the soil and might have preserved them from many of the misfortunes which finally overcame them. For the same reason they never speculated in land or attempted to gain possession of large holdings. In later years, when they in a way controlled their own destiny, they tried to protect themselves from the
1 Babeau, Le villege sous l'ancien régime, passim; Flagg, Far West, in Thwaites, Early Western Travels, xxvii., 45 et seq.
2 Babeau, Les assemblées generales des communautés d'habitants; Babeau, Le village sous l'ancien régime, passim.
3 When compared with the Americans, this is true; but the Illinois French raised grain and vegetables to a greater extent than has generally been admitted, and their exportation of grain to New Orleans was an important item in the Mississippi trade. Franz, Die Kolonisa- tion des Mississippitales, 251.
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American land-traders; but the contest was too unequal and, since their own hold on the land was so weak, they were forced to bow to fate and to see themselves supplanted by the Americans, who were builders of more permanent homes.
The most conspicuous buildings in the villages were the churches. The Cahokia church, however, was in ruins in 1778 and was rebuilt in the next few years; but at Kaskaskia there was . "a huge old pile, extremely awkward and ungainly, with its projecting eaves, its walls of hewn timber perpendicularly planted, and the interstices stuffed with mortar, with its quaint old-fash- ioned spire, and its dark, storm-beaten casements." Here the Kaskaskians had worshipped for two generations.1 The people were for the most part very devoted to their religion, and the priests exercised great influence over them. Their attachment was due more to traditional allegiance, however, than to per- sonal conviction. The wild life of the wilderness had not been without its effect, and the lack of proper supervision had resulted in religious recklessness; yet however debauched and irreligious their lives, the coureurs de bois and voyageurs were easily brought by a vigorous priest to acknowledge their dependence on the church. At the moment of death they always sought the consola- tions of religion and left by will money for the saying of masses for the dead. There appears, therefore, to have been no rebel- lion against the church. In one individual case only is there any evidence that the radical thought of France had penetrated to Illinois. 2
In the management of the church property the villagers were associated with the priest through the vestrymen, whom they elected for this purpose from the most prominent men of the communities. Social life centered in the church, as it did in the Puritan New England village, and the people looked forward to the church processions and festivals as important events in their
1 Shea, Archbishop Carroll, passim; Flagg, The Far West, in Thwaites, Western Tra- vels, xxvii., 62.
2 Louis Viviat requests in his will that no pomp and ceremony mark his burial and that no payment be made for masses for the dead, since the deity is not mercenary nor is heaven to be bought. Kas. Rec., Court Record.
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INTRODUCTION
monotonous village life. It was also at the church door that the assemblies of the people met, that the auction of property was held ; and it was after the church service that the Sunday dance took place.1
In 1778 the priest in charge of the Illinois parishes was Father Pierre Gibault, who with some interruptions had been serving the parishes on the Mississippi and Wabash since 1768. He was curé of the parish of the Immaculate Conception of Kaskaskia and vicar general of the bishop of Quebec. Father Gibault came from a good Canadian family. He was enthusiastic in his work, and appears to have maintained order in the parishes, which had been long neglected or served only by Father Meurin who had found himself too old and feeble to perform his arduous duties successfully. Father Gibault during the years of his residence had gained a great influence over the people of the region, which he used at a critical moment to change their destiny.2
The territory of Illinois had been ceded by France to England by the Treaty of Paris in 1763 and two years later British troops had occupied the country. The policy of the British government was very vacillating in regard to the Northwest Territory, and particularly as to the French villages. It is quite evident that there was no purpose of opening the region up for settlement, and there was serious thought of removing the French from their villages to Canada.3 For this reason the government of England was unwilling to establish a permanent civil organiza- tion in spite of the efforts of the French inhabitants and the American traders and land speculators, so that the government remained to the end military. Until 1774 the whole Northwest was subject to the commander of the British forces in America with headquarters at New York, and the relations of the West were closest with the seaboard colonies. In that year, however, by the passage of the Quebec Act the country was joined to Canada
1 Babeau, Le village sous l'ancien régime, passim.
2 Shea, Archbishop Carroll, consult Index; Dunn, Father Gibault, in Transactions of the Ill. State Hist. Soc., for 1905.
3 Gage to Hillsborough, March 4, 1772, Spark's Collection, Harvard lib.
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and steps were taken to provide a civil government for it; but this was prevented by the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.
In the spring of 1776 the military force, which had been maintained in the Illinois was removed, and the commandant in charge appointed as British agent Philippe de Rastel, Chevalier de Rocheblave. The choice was a wise one. Rocheblave had had a long and varied experience in the West, had served as an officer in the French army during the French and Indian War, and at the conclusion of peace had taken refuge, as did many other Frenchmen, under the Spanish flag. He was entrusted with the government of Ste. Genevieve, but having become involved in legal difficulties with the Spanish officials, he returned to the British bank. The exact date of his return is uncertain, but the proceedings against him in the Spanish court occurred in October, 1773, so that he could have been at longest a little over two years in British Illinois, when he received his appointment to look after the British interests in the western country. In his various undertakings he had proved himself bold and resourceful, avaricious and not too scrupulous in his methods, and by nature suspicious. He knew well the nature of the French inhabitants, and had a dislike and deep-seated suspi- cion of the Spaniards. His ambition was such as to lead him to give his best service to his employers, and they in turn had confi- dence in his abilities and willingness to serve them. On August 13, 1777, Carleton wrote that "his abilities and knowledge of that part of the country recommended him to me as a fit person."1 Hamilton says of him, "I shall in my correspondence with Mr. de Rocheblave keep alive the hopes of his being Governor of New Orleans - a more active and intelligent Person is not to be found in This Country of ignorant Bigots, and busy rebels, and had he the means I doubt not of his curbing their insolence and disaffection."2 The intimation in Hamilton's letter was cor- rect enough; for, although the inhabitants treated Roche-
1 Mason, Rocheblave Papers, in Chi. Hist. Soc.'sTCollections, iv., 395.
2 Can. Archives, Q., 14, p. 74.
rochelleneson
Philippe François de Rastel, Chevalier de Rocheblave, Acting Commander and Judge in the Illinois, 1776-1778.
From a photograph of a miniature, in the State Historical Library of Wisconsin.
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INTRODUCTION
blave as commandant and judge, his powers as agent were too limited and the money allowed him insufficient to enable him to accomplish what he saw was necessary for the British cause. Time and again he was informed that he could only draw for his salary and that his expenses were to be met by the sums which the commandant at Vincennes could allow him.1
By what law other officials were exercising civil powers in the Illinois does not appear from the records, but the existence of such is proved from their acts. There were at Cahokia, St. Philippe, Kaskaskia, and Prairie du Rocher officers styling them- selves judges, who put in execution the decrees of the comman- dant. Since at the same time these judges were captains of the militia, it is probable that the French official with similar duties was retained by the British officers. Besides this judge or captain there were a sergeant and a notary in each of the districts of Caho- kia and Kaskaskia.2
The foregoing description of conditions in British Illinois would be far from complete without an account of one very important element of the society. No sooner had the news gone forth that the land to the north of the Ohio River had been ceded to England by the French than the merchants of the seaboard colonies began to compete for the fur-trade of the region in a way that had been impossible hitherto. Up to this time the principal trade in the Illinois had been conducted by Canadian and Louisiana mer- chants, the English colonists having found their way north of the Ohio only just previous to the outbreak of the last war. But now the opportunity was opened to the eastern merchants and they eagerly seized upon it, thus bringing on a commercial war for the trade of the Ohio and the Mississippi. In this the mer- chants of the English colonies had one decided advantage, since they could deliver goods at the villages of the Illinois cheaper than
1 The most important documents in the Haldimand Collection concerning Rocheblave have been printed by Mason in Chi. Hist. Soc's Col. iv. Others have been published in Mich. Pioncer and Hist. Col. vols. iii., v., vii., and ix.
2 The subject of the British administration is now under investigation and in the course of time something definite will be said about it. For the above facts I have drawn on the Kas. Rec.
-
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the same could be purchased and brought by way of the lakes and the Wabash or up the Mississippi.1
The British soldiers were hardly established in Fort de Char- tres before the merchants who made their starting place Fort Pitt had arrived. Among the first was one who was to exercise great influence on the development of the Illinois, George Mor- gan, who like the majority of traders from the East came from Philadelphia. He had been educated at Princeton and had then entered the firm of the Bayntons, which became better known in the West under its later name of Baynton, Wharton & Morgan.2 Although young, by his enthusiasm he had persuaded his part- ners to embark on western trade and land speculation, and they established branch stores at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes. Other firms also entered into competition, such as the firm of Franks & Company of London and Philadelphia, whose repre- sentative, William Murray, was a little later than Morgan in reaching the Illinois. About the same time an Englishman, who claimed Manchac in Mississippi as his home, established the firm of Bentley & Company. These and other companies brought with them many agents, clerks, and hunters, so that the list of names of men of English speech in the region became a long one. In 1768 Morgan writes that there were sixty English- men in a militia company which had been formed. Among them were many names which will be mentioned in the following pages. John Henson was the representative of Baynton, Wharton & Morgan at Cahokia, Richard Winston set up in business for him- self in partnership with Patrick Kennedy, and the firm became later the representative of Morgan's interests at Kaskaskia; Richard Bacon served Morgan in his farming enterprise ; others,
1 Fraser's Report, MS. copy in public library of Champaign, Ill .; Smith, St. Clair Papers, ii., 175; Letter-Book of George Morgan, 1767-1768. This last belongs to Mr. A. S. M. Morgan of Pittsburgh, Pa., who kindly loaned it to me. A copy may be found in the Ill. State Hist. Library. See also Franz, Die Kolonisation des Mississippitales, 268 et seq. The cost of transportation up the Mississippi was, however, cheaper. Collot, Voyage dans L'Amerique, ii., 263. Lieutentant Hutchins in an enclosuse in a letter of General Gage's, October 11, 1771, and Captain Forbes in an undated letter affirm the contrary to the state- ment in the text; but Colonel Wilkins disagrees with them and confirms the experience of the trader, George Morgan. The letters are found in the Bancroft Collection of MSS., Lennox Library, N. Y.
2. Letter-Book of George Morgan; Julia Morgan Harding, Colonel George Morgan, a paper read before the Washington (Pa.) Co. Hist. Soc. and printed in the Washington Observer, May 21, 1904.
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either men attached to one of the firms or independent traders, were Daniel Murray, brother of William, James Rumsey, Thomas Collins, Thomas Brady, and Richard McCarty. In the first years of the British rule it looked as if the Ohio River would become the great trade route of the region and supplant the older and, with the French, more popular waterways to New Orleans and Canada.1 Even the British government seems to have approved at first this attempt to turn aside the trade from its older channels, for in 1769 the colonial governments were empowered to appoint officers to superintend the Indian trade, and Fort Pitt and the Illinois were assigned to Pennsyl- vania.2 Thus the Indians north of the Ohio became accustomed to Fort Pitt as the seat of authority in matters in which they were vitally interested.
The fur-trade was not the only inducement to draw the Ameri- can colonists to the banks of the Mississippi, for from the first the opportunity to speculate in lands was a rival attraction. Land traders were early interested in the territory at the head-waters of the Ohio and soon found their way down the river. In this movement some of the most prominent men in America were interested, such as George Washington, Lord Dunmore, and the Franklins, father and son. The Illinois lands offered equal attractions and early became an object of speculation, in spite of the Edict of 1763 prohibiting settlements in the region. It is impossible to enter into the complicated questions connected with the attempt to open up Illinois by making it a new colony.3 It is sufficient to know that many prominent men were con- nected with all such schemes, and that while William Franklin, Sir William Johnson, Samuel Wharton, and others were seeking for a charter for the Illinois colony and Benjamin Franklin was employing his powers to persuade the British government to grant the same, there was formed in March, 1766, a company for the
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