History of Iroquois County, together with Historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 10

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co.
Number of Pages: 1180

USA > Illinois > Iroquois County > History of Iroquois County, together with Historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources > Part 10

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# Spark's "Life of La Salle."

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

accompanied by Father Anastius Douay and twenty others, set out to reach the Mississippi, intending to ascend to Fort St. Louis, and there obtain aid from Tonti. They set out on the 7th of January, and after several days' journey, reached the village of the Cenis Indians. Here some of La Salle's men became dissatisfied with their hardships, and determined to slay him and then join the Indians. The tragic tale is thus related by Father Douay : "The wisdom of Monsieur de La Salle was unable to foresee the plot which some of his people would make to slay his nephew, as they suddenly resolved to do, and actually did, on the 17th of March, by a blow of an ax, dealt by one Liotot. They also killed the valet of the Sieur La Salle and his Indian ser- vant, Nika, who, at the risk of his life, had supported them for three years. The wretches resolved not to stop here, and not satisfied with this murder, formned a design of attempting their commander's life, as they had reason to fear his resentment and chastisement. As M. La Salle and myself were walking toward the fatal spot where his nephew had been slain, two of those murderers, who were hidden in the grass, arose, one on each side, with guns cocked. One missed Mon- sieur La Salle ; the other, firing at the same time, shot him in the head. He died an hour after, on the 19th of March, 1687.

" Thus," says Father Douay, " died our commander, constant in ad- versity, intrepid, generous, engaging, dexterous, skillful, capable of everything. He who for twenty years had softened the fierce temper of countless savage tribes was inassacred by the hands of his own domes- tics, whom he had loaded with caresses. He died in the prime of life, in the midst of his course and labors, without having seen their success."*

The colony which La Salle had left in Texas was surprised and destroyed by the Indians. Not a soul was left to give an account of the massacre. Of the twenty who accompanied him in his attempt to reach the Mississippi, Joutel, M. Cavalier, La Salle's brother, and four others determined to make a last attempt to find the Mississippi ; the others, including La Salle's murderers, became the associates of the less brutal Indians, and of them we have no farther account. After a long and toilsome journey Joutel and his party reached the Mississippi near the mouth of the Arkansas. Here they found two men who had been sent by Tonti to relieve La Salle. Embarking in canoes, they went up the Mississippi, arrived at Fort St. Louis in safety, and finally returned to France by way of Quebec.

From this period until 1698 the French made no further attempts to colonize the Lower Mississippi. They had no settlements below the

* Father Douay's Journal, contained in Dr. Shea's "Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi."

BILOXI AND MOBILE FOUNDED.

Ohio, and above that river, on the Illinois and the upper lakes, were scattered only a few missions and trading posts.

Realizing the great importance of retaining possession of the Mis- sissippi valley, the French court fitted out an expedition which con- sisted of four vessels, for the purpose of thoroughly exploring the mouth of the Mississippi and adjacent territory. Le Moyne Iberville was put in command of the expedition. He was the third of the eleven sons of Baron Longueil. They all hield commissions from the king, and con- stituted one of the most illustrious of the French Canadian families. The fleet sailed from Brest, France, on the 24th of October, 1698. They came in sight of Florida on the 27th of January, 1699. They ran near the coast, and discovered that they were in the vicinity of Pensacola Bay. Here they found a colony of three hundred Spaniards. Sailing westward, they entered the mouth of the Mississippi on Quin- quagesima Monday, which was the 2d of March. Iberville ascended the river far enough to assure himself of its being the Mississippi, then, descending the river, he founded a colony at Biloxi Bay. Leaving lis brother, M. de Sauvole, in command of the newly erected fort, he sailed for France. Iberville returned to Biloxi on the 8th of January, and, hearing that the English were exploring the Mississippi, he took formal possession of the Mississippi valley in the name of the French king. He, also, erected a small four-gun fort on Poverty Point, 38 miles below New Orleans. The fort was constructed very rudely, and was occupied for only one year. In the year 1701 Iberville made a settlement at Mobile, and this soon became the principal French town on the gulf. The unavailing efforts of the king in the scheme of colonization induced a belief that a greater prosperity would follow under the stimulus of individual enterprise, and he determined to grant Louisiana to Monsieur Crozat, with a monopoly of its mines, supposed to be valuable in gold and silver, together with the exclusive right of all its commerce for the period of fifteen years. The patent or grant of Louis to M. Crozat is an interesting document, not only because it passed the title of the Mississippi valley into the hands of one man, but for the reason that it embraces a part of the history of the country ceded. We, therefore, quote the most valuable part of it. The instrument bears date Sep- tember 12th, 1712 :

" Louis (the fourteenth), King of France and Navarre ; To all who shall see these presents, greeting : The care we have always liad to procure the welfare and advantage of our subjects, having induced us, notwithstanding the almost continual wars which we have been en- gaged to support from the beginning of our reign, to seek all possible opportunities of enlarging and extending the trade of our American

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

colonies, we did, in the year 1683, give our orders to undertake a dis- covery of the countries and lands which are situated in the northern parts of America, between New France (Canada) and New Mexico. And the Sieur de La Salle, to whom we committed that enterprise, having had success enough to confirm the belief that a communication might be settled from New France to the Gulf of Mexico by means of large rivers ; this obliged us, immediately after the peace of Ryewick (in 1697), to give orders for the establishment of a colony there (under Iberville in 1699), and maintaining a garrison, which has kept and preserved the possession we had taken in the year 1683, of the lands, coasts and islands which are situated in the Gulf of Mexico, between Carolina on the east, and old and New Mexico on the west. But a new war breaking out in Europe shortly after, there was no possi- bility till now of reaping from that new colony the advantages that might have been expected from thence ; because the private men who are concerned in the sea trade were all under engagements with the other colonies, which they have been obliged to follow. And where- as, upon the information we have received concerning the disposition and situation of the said countries, known at present by the name of the province of Louisiana, we are of opinion that there may be estab- lished therein a considerable commerce, so much the more advan- tageous to our kingdom in that there has been hitherto a necessity of fetching from foreigners the greatest part of the commodities that may be brought from thence; and because in exchange thereof we need carry thither nothing but the commodities of the growth and manu- facture of our own kingdom; we have resolved to grant the com- merce of the country of Louisiana to the Sieur Anthony Crozat, our counsellor, secretary of the household, crown and revenue, to whom we intrust the execution of this project. We are the more readily inclined thereto because of his zeal and the singular knowledge he has acquired of maritime commerce, encourages us to hope for as good success as he has hitherto had in the divers and sundry enter- prises he has gone upon, and which have procured to our kingdom great quantities of. gold and silver in such conjectures as have rendered them very welcome to us. For these reasons, being desirous to show our favor to him, and to regulate the conditions upon which we mean to grant him the said commerce, after having deliberated the affair in our council, of our own certain knowledge, full power and royal authority, we by these presents, signed by our hand, have appointed and do ap- point the said Sieur Crozat to carry on a trade in all the lands pos- sessed by us, and bounded by New Mexico and by the English of Caroli- na. all the establishments. ports, havens, rivers, and particularly the port

LOUISIANA GRANTED TO CROZAT.

and haven of Isle Dauphin, heretofore called Massacre; the river St. Louis, heretofore called Mississippi, from the edge of the sea as far as the Illinois,* together with the river St. Philip, heretofore called Mis- souris, and St. Jerome, heretofore called the Ouabache (the Wabash), with all the countries, territories, lakes within land, and the rivers whichi fall directly or indirectly into that part of the river St. Louis. Our pleasure is, that all the aforesaid lands, countries, streams, rivers and islands, be and remain comprised under the name of the GOVERNMENT OF LOUISIANA, which shall be dependent upon the general government of New France, to which it is subordinate."

Crozat was permitted to search and open mines, and to pay the king one-fifth part of all the gold and silver developed. Work in de- veloping the mines was to be begun in three years, under penalty of forfeiture. Crozat was required to send at least two vessels annually from France to sustain the colonies already established, and for the maintenance of trade.

The next year, 1713, there were, within the limits of Crozat's vast grant, not more than four hundred persons of European descent.

Crozat himself did little to increase the colony, the time of his subordinates being spent in roaming over the country in search of tlie precious metals. He became wearied at the end of three years spent in profitless adventures, and, in 1717, surrendered his grant back to the crown. In August of the same year the French king turned Louis- iana over to the " Western Company," or the " Mississippi Company," subsequently called "The Company of the Indies," at whose head stood the famous Scotch banker, John Law. The rights ceded to Law's company were as broad as the grant to Crozat. Law was an infla- tionist, believing that wealth could be created without limit by the mere issuing of paper money, and his wild schemes of finance were the most ruinous that ever deluded and bankrupted a confiding people. Louisiana, with its real and undeveloped wealth a hundred times mag-

* The expression, " as far as the Illinois," did not refer to the river of that name, but to the country generally, on both sides of the Mississippi, above the mouth of the Ohio, which, under both the French and Spanish governments was denominated "the country of the Illinois," and this designation appeared in all their records and official letters. For example, letters, deeds, and other official documents bore date, respect- ively, at Kaskaskia, of the Illinois; St. Louis, of the Illinois; St. Charles, of the Illi- nois; not to identify the village where such instruments were executed merely, but to denote the country in which these villages were situated. Therefore, the monopoly of Crozat, by the terms of his patent, extended to the utmost limit of Louisiana, north- ward, which, by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, was fixed at the 49th° of latitude; vide Stoddard's "Sketches of Louisiana," Brackenridge's "Views of Louisiana." From the year 1700 until some time subsequent to the conquest of the country by the British, in 1763, a letter or document executed anywhere within the present limits of the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, or Missouri, would have borne the superscription of "Les Illinoix," or "the Illinois."

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

nified, became the basis of a fictitious value, on which an enormous volume of stock, convertible into paper money, was issued. The stock rose in the market like a balloon, and chamber-maids, alike with wealthy ladies, barbers and bankers,- indeed, the whole French peo- ple,- gazing at the ascending phenomenon, grew mad with the desire for speedy wealth. The French debt was paid off; the depleted treasury filled ; poor men and women were made richi in a few days by the con- stantly advancing value of the stocks of the " Company of the West." Confidence in the ultimate wealth of Louisiana was all that was re- quired, and this was given to a degree that would not now be credited as true, were not the facts beyond dispute.

After awhile the balloon exploded ; people began to doubt ; they realized that mere confidence was not solid value; stocks declined ; they awoke to a sorrowful contemplation of their delusion and ruin. Law, from the summit of his glory as a financier, fell into ignominy, and to escape bodily harm fled the country ; and Louisiana, from be- ing the source of untold wealth, sunk into utter ruin and contempt.

It should be said to the credit of " the company " that they made some efforts toward the cultivation of the soil. The growth of tobacco, sugar, rice and indigo was encouraged. Negroes were imported to till the soil. New Orleans was laid out in 1718, and the seat of govern- ment of lower Louisiana subsequently established there. A settlement was made about Natchez. A large number of German emigrants were located on the Mississippi, from whom a portion of the Mississippi has ever since been known as the "German coast." The French settle- ments at Kaskaskia and Cahokia, begun, as appears from most authen- tic accounts, about the year 1700,- certainly not later,- were largely increased by emigration from Canada and France. In the year 1718 the " Company of the West " erected a fortification near Kaskaskia, and named it Fort Chartes, having a charter from the crown so to do. It is situated in the northwest corner of Randolph county, Illinois, on the American bottom. It was garrisoned with a small number of soldiers, and was made the seat of government of "the Illinois." Under the mild government of the "Company," the Illinois marked a steady prosperity, and Fort Chartes became the center of business, fashion and gaiety of all " the Illinois country." In 1756 the fort was reconstruct- ed, this time with solid stone. Its shape was an irregular quadrangle, the exterior sides of the polygon being four hundred and ninety feet, and the walls were two feet two inches thick, pierced with port-holes for cannon. The walls of the fort were eighteen feet high, and con- tained within, guard houses, government house, barracks, powder house, bake house, prison and store room. A very minute description

FORT CHARTES.

is given of the whole structure within and without in the minutes of its surrender, October 10, 1765, by Louis St. Ange de Belrive, captain of infantry and commandant, and Joseph Le Febvre, the king's store- keeper and acting commissary of the fort, to Mr. Sterling, deputed by Mr. De Gage (Gage), governor of New York and commander of His Majesty's troops in America, to receive possession of the fort and coun- try from the French, according to the seventeenth article of the treaty of peace, concluded on the 10th of February, 1763, between the kings of France and Great Britain .* Fort Chartes was the strongest and most elaborately constructed of any of the French works of defense in- America. Here the intendants and several commandants in charge, whose will was law, governed " the Illinois," administered justice to its inhabitants, and settled up estates of deceased persons, for nearly half a century. From this place the English commandants governed " the Illinois," some of them with great injustice and severity, from the time of its surrender, in 1765, to 1772, when a great flood inun- dated the American Bottom, and the Mississippi cut a new channel so . near the fort that the wall and two bastions on the west side were un- dermined and fell into the river. The British garrison then abandoned it, and their headquarters were afterward at Kaskaskia.

Dr. Beck, while collecting material for his "Gazetteer of Illinois and Missouri," in 1820, visited the ruins of old Fort Chartes. At that time enough remained to show the size and strength of this remarkable fortification. Trees over two feet in diameter were growing within its walls. The ruin is in a dense forest, hidden in a tangle of under- growth, furnishing a sad memento of the efforts and blasted hopes of La Belle France to colonize "Les Illinois."

* The articles of surrender are given at length in the Paris Documents, vol. 10, pp. 1161 to 1166.

CHAPTER XII.

SURRENDER OF LOUISIANA BY THE INDIES COMPANY-EARLY ROUTES.

IN 1731 the company of the Indies surrendered to France, Louisiana, with its forts, colonies and plantations, and from this period forward to the time of the conquest by Great Britain and the Anglo-American colonies, Louisiana was governed through officers appointed by the crown.

We have shown how, when and where colonies were permanently established by the French in Canada, about Kaskaskia, and in Lower Louisiana. It is not within the scope of our inquiries to follow these settlements of the French in their subsequent development, but rather now to show how the establishments of the French along the lakes and near the gulf communicated with each other, and the routes of travel by which they were connected.

The convenient way between Quebec and the several villages in the vicinity of Kaskaskia was around the lakes and down the Illinois River, either by way of the St. Joseph River and the Kankakee port- age or through Chicago Creek and the Des Plaines. The long winters and severe climate on the St. Lawrence made it desirable for many people to abandon Canada for the more genial latitudes of southern Illinois, and the still warmer regions of Louisiana, where snows were unknown and flowers grew the year round. It only required the pro- tection of a fort or other military safeguards to induce the Canadians to change their homes from Canada to more favorable localities southward.

The most feasible route between Canada and the Lower Mississippi settlements was by the Ohio River. This communication, however, was effectually barred against the French. The Iroquois Indians, from the time of Champlain, were allies, first of the Dutch and then of the English, and the implacable enemies of the French. The upper waters of the Ohio were within the acknowledged territory of the Iroquois, whose possessions extended westward of New York and Pennsylvania well toward the Scioto. The Ohio below Pittsburgh was, also, in the debatable ground of the Miamis northward, and Chickasaws south- ward. These nations were warring upon each other continually, and

THE MAUMEE AND WABASH ROUTE.

the country for many miles beyond either bank of the Ohio was infested with war parties of the contending tribes .*

There were no Indian villages near the Ohio River at the period concerning which we now write. Subsequent to this the Shawnees and Delawares, previously subdued by the Iroquois, were permitted by the latter to establish their towns near the confluence of the Scioto, Mus- kingum and other streams. The valley of the Ohio was within the confines of the " dark and bloody ground." Were a voyager to see smoke ascending above the forest line he would know it was from the camp fire of an enemy, and to be a place of danger. It would indi- cate the presence of a hunting or war party. If they had been suc- cessful they would celebrate the event by the destruction of whoever would commit himself to their hands, and if unfortunate in the chase or on the war-path, disappointment would give a sharper edge to their cruelty. +

The next and more reliable route was that afforded by the Maumee and Wabash, laying within the territory of tribes friendly to the French. The importance of this route was noticed by La Salle, in his letter to Count Frontenac, in 1683, before quoted. La Salle says: "There is a river at the extremity of Lake Erie,¿ within ten leagues of the. strait (Detroit River), which will very much shorten the way to the Illinois, it being navigable for canoes to within two leagues of their river."§ As early as 1699, Mons. De Iberville conducted a colony of Canadians from Quebec to Louisiana, by way of the Maumee and Wa- bash. "These were followed by other families, under the leadership of M. Du Tessenet. Emigrants came by land, first ascending the St. Lawrence to Lake Erie, then ascending a river emptying into that lake to the portage of Des Miamis ; their effects being thence transported to the river Miamis, where pirogues, constructed out of a single tree, and large enough to contain thirty persons, were built, with which the voyage down the Mississippi was prosecuted." | This memoir corre- sponds remarkably well with the claim of Little Turtle, in his speech to Gen. Wayne, concerning the antiquity of the title, in his tribe, to the portage of the Wabash at Fort Wayne. It also illustrates the fact that among the first French settlers in lower Louisiana were

* A Miami chief said that his nation had no tradition of " a time when they were not at war with the Chickasaws.

+ General William H. Harrison's Address before the Historical Society of Cin- cinnati.

# The Maumee.

§ Meaning the Wabash.

" Extract taken from a memoir, showing that the first establishments in Louisiana were at Mobile, etc., the original manuscript being among the archives in the depart- ment " De la Marine et Des Colonies," in Paris, France.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

those who found their way thither through the "glorious gate," be- longing to the Miamis, connecting the Maumee and Wabash.

Originally, the Maumee was known to the French as the " Miami," "Onmiami," or the "River of the Miamis," from the fact that bands of this tribe of Indians had villages upon its banks. It was also called "Ottawa," or "Tawwa," which is a contraction of the word Ottawa, as families of this tribe " resided on this river from time imninemorial." The Shawnee Indian name is " Ottawa-sepe," that is "Ottawa River." By the Hurons, or Wyandots, it was called "Cagh-a-ren-du-te," the "River of the Standing Rock."* Lewis Evans, whose map was pub- lished in 1755, and which is, perhaps, the first Englishi map issued of the territory lying north and west of the Ohio River, lays down the Miami as " Mine-a-mi," a way the Pennsylvania Indian traders had of · pronouncing the word Miami. In 1703, Mons. Cadillac, the French commandant at Detroit, in his application for a grant of land six leagues in breadth on either side of the Maumee, upon which he pro- posed to propagate silk-worins, refers to the river as "Grand River " + As early as 1718 it is mentioned as the " Miamis River,"¿ and it bore this name mnore generally than that of any other from 1718 to a pe- riod subsequent to the War of 1812. Capt. Robert M'Afee, who was in the various campaigns up and down the Maumee during the War of 1812, and whose history of this war, published at Lexington, Ky., in 1816, gives the most authentic account of the military movements in this quarter, makes freqnent mention of the river by the name of " Miami," occasionally designating it as the "Miami of the Lake."

Gen. Joseph Harmar, in his report of the military expedition con- ducted by lıim to Fort Wayne, in October, 1790, calls the Miami the "Omnee." He says: "As there are three Miamis in the northwestern territory, all bearing the name of Miami, I shall in the future, for dis- tinction's sake, when speaking of the Miami of the Lake, call it the ' Omee,' and its towns the Omee Towns. By this name they are best known on the frontier. It is only, however, one of the many corrup- tions or contractions universally nsed among the French-Americans in pronouncing Indian names. 'Au-Mi,' for instance, is the contraction for 'An Miami.' " §

The habit of the "Coureur de Bois" and others using the mongrel langnage of the border Canadians, as well, also, the custom prevailing

* "Account of the Present State of Indian Tribes, etc., Inhabiting Ohio." By John Johnson, Indian Agent, June 17, 1819. Published in vol. 1 of Archeologia Americana. + Sheldon's History of Michigan, p. 108.

# Paris Documents, vol. 9, p. 886 and 891.

§ Gen. Harmar's official letter to the Secretary of War, under date of November 23, 1790, published in the American State Papers.

ORIGIN OF THE NAME MAUMEE.

among this class of persons in giving nicknames to rivers and locali- ties, has involved other observers besides Gen. Harmar in the same perplexity. Thomas Hutchins, the American geographer, and Capt. Harry Gordon visited Kaskaskia and the adjacent territory subsequent to the conquest of the northwest territory from the French, and be- came hopelessly entangled in the contractions and epíthets applied to the surrounding villages on both sides of the Mississippi. Kaskaskia was abbreviated to "Au-kas," and St. Louis nicknamed "Pain Court " - Short Bread ; Carondelet was called "Vide Pouche" - Empty Pocket ; Ste. Genevieve was called "Missier " - Misery. The Kas- kaskia, after being shortened to Au-kaus, pronounced "Okau," has been further corrupted to Okaw, and at this day we have the singu- lar contradiction of the ancient Kaskaskia being called Kaskaskia near its mouth and " Okaw " at its source.

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History of Iroquois County, together with Historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 10

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903 Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co. Number of Pages: 1180

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co.
Number of Pages: 1180