History of Vermilion 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 23

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164

USA > Illinois > Vermilion County > History of Vermilion 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 23

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Gen. Clark, in the postscript of his letter dated November, 1779, narrating his campaign in the Illinois country, says, concerning the prairies between Kaskaskia and Vincennes, that "there are large meadows extending beyond the reach of the eye, variegated with groves of trees appearing like islands in the seas, covered with buffaloes and other game. In many places, with a good glass, you may see all that are upon their feet in a half million acres." It is not known at what time the buffalo was last seen east of the Mis- sissippi. The Indians had a tradition that the cold winter of 17 -- , -called by them "the great cold," on account of its severity,- destroyed them. "The snow was so deep, and lay upon the ground for such a length of time, that the buffalo became poor and too weak to resist the inclemency of the weather;" great numbers of them perished, singly and in groups, and their bones, either as iso- lated skeletons or in bleaching piles, remained and were found over the country for many years afterwards. §

* Further on in his Journal Col. Croghan again refers to "wild hemp, growing in the prairies, ten or twelve feet high, which if properly cultivated would prove as good and answer all the purposes of the hemp we cultivate." Other writers also mention the wild hemp upon the prairies, and it seems to have been supplanted by other grasses that have followed in the changes of vegetable growth.

+ Croghan's Journal.

# Clark's Campaign in the Illinois, p. 92.

§ On the 4th of October, 1786, one day's march on the road from Vincennes to the Ohio Falls, Captains Zigler's and Strong's companies of regulars came across five buffalo. The animals tried to force a passage through the column, when the commanding officer

211

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE GAME.

Before the coming of the Europeans the Indians hunted the game for the purpose of supplying themselves with the necessary food and clothing. The scattered tribes (whose numbers early writers greatly exaggerated ) were few, when compared with the area of the coun- try they occupied, and the wild animals were so abundant that enough to supply their wants could be captured near at hand with such rude weapons as their ingenuity fashioned out of wood and stone. With the Europeans came a change. The fur of many of the animals possessed a commercial value in the marts of Europe, where they were bought and used as ornaments and dress by the aristocracy, whose wealth and taste fashioned them into garments of extraordi- nary richness. Canada was originally settled with a view to the fur trade, and this trade was, to her people, of the first importance - the chief motor of her growth and prosperity. The Indians were sup- plied with guns, knives and hatchets by the Europeans, in place of their former inferior weapons. Thus encouraged and equipped, and accompanied by the coureur des bois, the remotest regions were pen- etrated, and the fur trade extended to the most distant tribes. Stim- ulated with a desire for blankets, cotton goods and trinkets, the In- dians now began a war upon the wild animals in earnest; and their wanton destruction for their skins and furs alone from that period forward was so enormous that within the next two or three genera- tions the improvident Indians in many localities could scarcely find enough game for their own subsistence.

The coureur des bois were a class that had much to do with the development of trade and with giving a knowledge of the geogra- phy of the country. They became extremely useful to the mer- chants engaged in the fur trade, and were often a source of great annoyance to the colonial authorities. Three or four of these peo- ple, having obtained goods upon credit, would join their stock, put their property into a birch bark canoe, which they worked them- selves, and accompany the Indians in their excursions or go directly

ordered the men to fire upon them. The discharge killed three and wounded the others: Joseph Buell's Narrative Journal, published in S. P. Hildreth's Pioneer History. Thirteen years later, in December, 1799, Gov. St. Clair and Judge Jacob Burnett, on their way overland from Cincinnati to Vincennes, camped out over night, at the close of one of their days' journeys, not a great ways east of where the old road from Louisville to Vincennes crosses White River. The next day they encountered a severe snow-storm, during which they surprised eight or ten buffalo, sheltering themselves from the storm behind a beech-tree full of dead leaves which had fallen beside of the trace and hid the travelers from their view. The tree and the noise of the wind among its leaves prevented the buffalo from discovering the parties until the latter had approached within two rods of the place where they stood. They then took to their heels and were soon ont of sight. One of the company drew a pistol and fired, but without effect: Burnett's Notes on the Northwest Territory, p. 72.

212

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

into the country where they knew they were to hunt .* These voyages were extended twelve or fifteen months (sometimes longer) before the traders would return laden with rich cargoes of fur, and often followed by great numbers of the natives. During the short time required to settle their accounts with the merchants and pro- cure credit for a new stock, the traders would contrive to squander their gains before they returned to their favorite mode of life among the savages, their labor being rewarded by indulging themselves in one month's dissipation for fifteen of exposure and hardship. "We may not be able to explain the cause. but experience proves that it requires much less time for a civilized people to degenerate into the ways of savage life than is required for the savage to rise into a state of civilization. The indifference about amassing property. and the pleasure of living free from all restraint, soon introduced a licen- tiousness among the coureur des bois that did not escape the eye of the missionaries, who complained, with good reason, that they were a disgrace to the Christian religion."+

"The food of the coureur des bois when on their long expeditions was Indian corn, prepared for use by boiling it in strong lye to re- move the hull, after which it was mashed and dried. In this state it is soft and friable like rice. The allowance for each man on the voyage, was one quart per day ; and a bushel, with two pounds of prepared fat, is reckoned a month's subsistence. No other allow- ance is made of any kind, not even of salt, and bread is never thought of; nevertheless the men are healthy on this diet, and ca- pable of performing great labor. This mode of victualing was es- sential to the trade, which was extended to great distances, and in canoes so small as not to admit of the use of any other food. If the men were supplied with bread and pork. the canoes would not carry six months' rations, while the ordinary duration of the voyage was not less than fourteen. No other men would be reconciled to such fare except the Canadians, and this fact enabled their employ- ers to secure a monopoly of the fur trade. "#

"The old voyageurs derisively called new hands at the business mangeurs de lard (pork eaters), as, on leaving Montreal, and while en route to Mackinaw, their rations were pork, hard bread and pea

* The merchandise was neatly tied into bundles weighing sixty or seventy pounds; the furs received in exchange were compressed into packets of about the same weight, so that they could be conveniently carried, strapped upon the back of the royageur, around the portages and other places where the loaded canoes could effect no passage. + Sir Alexander Mackenzie's Voyages, etc., and An Account of the Fur Trade, etc. # Henry's Travels, p. 52.

213

THE COUREUR DES BOIS.

soup, while the old voyageurs in the Indian country ate corn soup and such other food as could be conveniently procured."*

"The coureur des bois were men of easy virtue. They would eat, riot, drink and play as long as their furs held out," says La Hontan, "and when these were gone they would sell their embroi- dery, their laces and their clothes. The proceeds of these exhausted, they were forced to go upon new voyages for subsistence."+

They did not scruple to intermarry with the Indians, among whom they spent the greater part of their lives. They made excel- lent soldiers, and in bush fighting and border warfare they were more than a match for the British regulars. "Their merits were hardihood and skill in woodcraft; their chief faults were insubor- dination and lawlessness."+

Such were the characteristics of the French traders or coureur des bois. They penetrated the remotest parts, voyaged upon all of our western rivers, and traveled many of the insignificant streams that afforded hardly water enough to float a canoe. Their influence over the Indians (to whose mode of life they readily adapted themselves) was almost supreme. They were. efficient in the service of their king, and materially assisted in staying the downfall of French rule in America.

There is no data from which to ascertain the value of the fur trade, as there were no regular accounts kept. The value of the trade to the French, in 1703, was estimated at two millions of livres, and this could have been from only a partial return, as a large per cent of the trade was carried on clandestinely through Albany and New York, of which the French authorities in Canada could have no knowledge. With the loss of Canada, and the west to France, and owing to the dislike of the Indians toward the English, and the want of experience by the latter, the fur trade, controlled at Montreal, fell into decay, and the Hudson Bay Company secured the advan- tages of its downfall. During the winter of 1783-4 some merchants

* Vol. 2 Wisconsin Historical Collection, p. 110. Judge Lockwood gives a very fine sketch of the coureur des bois and the manner of their employment, in the paper from which we have quoted.

+ La Hontan, vol. 1, pp. 20 and 21.

# Parkman's Count Frontenac and New France, p. 209. Judge Lockwood, in the paper referred to, speaking of the coureur des bois as their relations existed to the fur trade in 1817, thus describes them: "These men engaged in Canada, generally for five years, for Mackinaw and its dependencies, transferrable like cattle, to any one who wanted them. at generally about 500 livres a year, or, in our currency, about $83.33, furnished with a yearly equipment or outfit of two cotton shirts, one three-point or triangular blanket, a portage collar and one pair of shoes. They were obliged to pur- chase their moccasins, tobacco and pipes at any price the trader saw fit to charge for them. At the end of five years the royageurs were in debt from $50 to $150, and could not leave the country until they paid their indebtedness."

214

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

of Canada united their trade under the name of the "Northwest Company "; they did not get successfully to work until 1787. Dur- ing that year the venture did not exceed forty thousand pounds, but by exertion and the enterprise of the proprietors it was brought, in eleven years, to more than triple that amount (equal to six hundred thousand dollars), yielding proportionate profits, and surpassing any- thing then known in America .*

The fur trade was conducted by the English, and subsequently by the Americans, substantially upon the system originally estab- lished by the French, with this distinction, that the monopoly was controlled by French officers and favorites, to whom the trade for particular districts was assigned, while the English and Americans controlled it through companies operating either under charters or permits from the government.

Goods for Indian trade were guns. ammunition, steel for striking fire, gun-flints, and other supplies to repair fire-arms; knives, hatchets, kettles, beads, men's shirts, blue and red cloths for blankets and petticoats ; vermilion, red, yellow, green and blue ribbons, gener- ally of English manufacture ; needles, thread and awls ; looking- glasses, children's toys, woolen blankets, razors for shaving the head, paints of all colors, tobacco, and, more than all, spirituous liquors. For these articles the Indians gave in exchange the skins of deer, bear, otter, squirrel, marten, lynx, fox, wolf, buffalo, moose, and particularly the beaver, the highest prized of them all. Such was the value attached to the skins and fur of the last that it became the standard of value. All other values were measured by the beaver, the same as we now use gold, in adjusting com- mercial transactions. All differences in exchanges of property or in payment for labor were first reduced in value to the beaver skin. Money was rarely received or paid at any of the trading-posts, the only circulating medium were furs and peltries. In this exchange a pound of beaver skin was reckoned at thirty sous, an otter skin at six livres, and marten skins at thirty sous each. This was only about half of the real value of the furs, and it was therefore always agreed to pay either in furs at their equivalent cash value at the fort or double the amount reckoned at current fur valne. +

When the French controlled the fur trade, the posts in the interior of the country were assigned to officers who were in favor at head- quarters. As they had no money, the merchants of Quebec and Montreal supplied them on credit with the necessary goods, which

* Mackenzie's Voyages, Fur Trade, etc.

+ Henry's Travels and Pouchot's Memoirs.

215

THE FUR TRADE.

were to be paid for in peltries at a price agreed upon, thus being required to earn profits for themselves and the merchant. These officers were often employed to negotiate for the king with the tribes near their trading-posts and give them goods as presents, the price for the latter being paid by the intendant upon the approval of the governor. This occasioned many hypothecated accounts, which were turned to the profit of the commandants, particularly in time of war. The commandants as well as private traders were obliged to take out a license from the governor at a cost of four or five hundred livres, in order to carry their goods to the posts, and to charge some effects to the king's account. The most distant posts in the north- west were prized the greatest, because of the abundance and low price of peltries and the high price of goods at these remote estab- lishments.

Another kind of trade was carried on by the coureurs des bois, who, sharing the license with the officer at the post, with their canoes laden with goods, went to the villages of the Indians, and followed them on their hunting expeditions, to return after a season's trading with their canoes well loaded. If the coureurs des bois were in a condition to purchase their goods of first hands a quick fortune was assured them, although to obtain it they had to lead a most danger- ous and fatiguing life. Some of these traders would return to France after a few years' venture with wealth amounting to two million five hundred thousand livres. *

The French were not permitted to exclusively enjoy the enormous profits of the fur trade. We have seen. in treating of the Miami Indians, that at an early day the English and the American colonists were determined to share it, and had become sharp competitors. We have seen (page 112) that to extend their trade the English had set their allies, the Iroquois, upon the Illinois. So formidable were the inroads made by the English upon the fur trade of the French, by means of the conquests to which they had incited the Iroquois to gain over other tribes that were friendly to the French, that the latter became "of the opinion that if the Iroquois were allowed to proceed they would not only subdue the Illinois, but become masters of all the Ottawa tribes, t and divert the trade to the English, so that it was absolutely necessary that the French should either make the Iroquois their friends or destroy them .; You perceive, my Lord,

* Pouchot's Memoirs.

+ Whose territories embraced all the country west of Lake Huron and north of Illinois,- one of the most prolific beaver grounds in the country.

# Memoir of M. Du Chesneau, the Intendant, to the King, September 9, 1681, before quoted.

-216

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

that the subject which we have discussed [referring to the efforts of the English of New York and Albany to gain the beaver trade] is to determine who will be master of the beaver trade of the south and :southwest."#

In the struggle to determine who should be masters of the fur trade, the French cared as little. - perhaps less. - for their Indian allies than the British and Americans did for theirs. The blood that was shed in the English and French colonies north of the Ohio River. for a period of over three-quarters of a century prior to 1763, might well be said to have been spilled in a war for the fur trade. +

In the strife between the rivals. - the French endeavoring to hold their former possessions, and the English to extend theirs. - the strait of Detroit was an object of concern to both. Its strategical position was such that it would give the party possessing it a decided advantage. M. Du Lute, or L'Hut, under orders from Gov. De Nonville, left Mackinaw with some fifty odd coureurs des bois in 16SS. sailed down Lake Huron and threw up a small stockade fort (on the west bank of the lake, where it discharges into the River St. Clair. The following year Capt. McGregory. - Major Patrick Ma- gregore, as his name is spelled in the commission he had in his pocket over the signature of Gov. Dongan .- with sixty Englishmen and some Indians. with their merchandise loaded in thirty-two «canoes. went up Lake Erie on a trading expedition among the In- elians at Detroit and Mackinaw. They were encountered and cap- fured by a body of troops under Tonty. La Forest and other officers, who, with coureur de bois and Indians from the upper country, were on their way to join the French forces of Canada in a campaign. against the Iroquois villages in New York.+ The prisoners were sent to Quebec. and the plunder distributed among the captors. Du Inte's stockade was called Fort St. Joseph. In 1688 the fort was placed in command of Baron La Hontan.,s

Fort St. Joseph served the purposes for which it was constructed. and a few years later. in 1701. Mons. Cadillac established Fort Pont- chartrain on the present site of the city of Detroit. for no other pur-

* M. De La Barre to the Minister of the Marine, November 4, 1683: Paris Docu- ments, vol. 9. p. 210.

¿ War was not formally declared between France and England. on account of colonial difficulties, until May, 1756, but the discursory broils between their colonies in America had been going on from the time of their establishment.

# Tonty's Memoir. and Paris Documents, vol. 9, pp. 363 and 866.

$ Fort Du Luth, or St. Joseph. as it was afterward called. was ordered to be erected in 1686. " in order to fortify the pass leading to Mackinaw against the English." Du KLuth, who erected it. was in command of fifty men. Several parties of English were wither captured or sent back from this post within a year or two from its establishment. Vide Paris Documents, vol. 9, pp. 300, 302. 306. 383.

217

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN TRADERS.

pose than to check tlie English in the prosecution of the fur trade in that country .*

The French interests were soon threatened from another direc- tion. Traders from Pennsylvania found their way westward over the mountains, where they engaged in traffic with the Indians in the valleys of eastern Ohio, and they soon established commercial rela- tions with the Wabash tribes. + It appears from a previous chapter that the Miamis were trading at Albany in 1708. To avert this danger the French were compelled at last to erect military posts at Fort Wayne, on the Maumee (called Fort Miamis), at Quiatanon and Vincennes, upon the Wabash.# Prior to 1750 Sieur de Ligneris was commanding at Fort Quiatanon, and St. Ange was in charge at Vincennes.

As soon as the English settlements reached the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, their traders passed over the ridge, and they found it exceedingly profitable to trade with the western Indians. They could sell the same quality of goods for a third or a half of what the French usually charged, and still make a handsome profit. This new and rich field was soon overrun by eager adventurers. In the meantime a number of gentlemen, mostly from Virginia, procured an act of parliament constituting " The Ohio Company, " and grant- ing them six hundred thousand acres of land on or near the Ohio River. The objects of this company were to till the soil and to open up a trade with the Indians west of the Alleghanies and south of the Ohio.

The French, being well aware that the English could offer their goods to the Indians at greatly reduced rates, feared that they would lose the entire Indian trade. At first they protested " against this invasion of the rights of His Most Christian Majesty " to the gov- ernor of the English colonies. This did not produce the desired effect. Their demands were met with equivocations and delays. At last the French determined on summary measures. An order

* Statement of Mons. Cadillac of his reasons for establishing a fort on the Detroit River, copied in Sheldon's Early History of Michigan, pp. 85-90.

+ An Englishman by the name of Crawford had been trading on the Wabash prior to 1749. Vide Irving's Life of Washington, vol. 1, p. 48.

# The date of the establishment of these forts is a matter of conjecture, owing to the absence of reliable data. A " Miamis" is referred to in 1719, and in the same year Sienr Duboisson was selected as a suitable person to take command at Quiatanon, and in 1735 M. de Vincenne is alluded to, in a letter written from Kaskaskia, as com- mandant of the Post on the Wabash. However, owing to the successive migrations of the Miami Indians, the " Miamis " mentioned in such documents, in 1719, may have referred to the Miami and Wea villages upon the Kalamazoo and St. Joseph rivers, in the state of Michigan. The post at Vincennes, it may be safely assumed, was garri- soned as early as 1735, and Quiatanon, below La Fayette, and Miamis, at Fort Wayne, some years before, in the order of time.

218

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

was issued to the commandants of their various posts on Lake Erie, the Ohio and the Wabash, to seize all English traders found west of the Alleghanies. In pursuance of this order. in 1751, four English traders were captured on the Vermilion of the Wabash and sent to Canada .* Other traders, dealing with the Indians in other locali- ties, were captured and taken to Presque Isle, t and from thence to Canada.

The contest between the rival colonies still went on, increasing in the extent of its line of operations and intensifying in the ani- mosity of the feeling with which it was conducted. We quote from a memoir prepared early in 1752, by M. de Longueuil, commandant at Detroit, showing the state of affairs at a previous date in the Wabash country. It appears, from the letters of the commandants at the several posts named, from which the memoir is compiled, that the Indian tribes upon the Maumee and Wabash, through the successful efforts of the English, had become very much disaffected toward their old friends and masters. M. de Ligneris, commandant at the Ouyatanons, says the memoir, believes that great reliance is not to be placed on the Maskoutins, and that their remaining neutral is all that is to be expected from them and the Kickapous. He even adds that " we are not to reckon on the nations which appear in our interests ; no Wea chief has appeared at this post for a long time. M. de Villiers, commandant at the Miamis, -Ft. Wayne,-has been disappointed in his expectation of bringing the Miamis back from the White River, - part of whom had been to see him, - the small-pox having put the whole of them to rout. Coldfoot and his son have died of it, as well as a large portion of our most trusty Indians. Le Gris, chief of the Tepicons, ; and his mother are likewise dead ; they are a loss, because they were well disposed toward the French."

The memoir continues: " The nations of the River St. Joseph, who were to join those of Detroit, have said they would be ready to perform their promise as soon as Ononontio § would have sent the necessary number of Frenchmen. The commandant of this post writes, on the 15th of January, that all the nations appear to take

* Paris Documents, vol. 10, p. 248.

+ Near Erie, Pennsylvania.

# This is the first reference we have to Tippecanoe. Antoine Gamelin, the French merchant at Vincennes,-whom Major Hamtramck sent, in 1790, to the Wabash towns with peace messages,-calls the village, then upon this river, Qui-te-pi-con-nae. The name of the Tippecanoe is derived from the Algonquin word Ke-non-ge, or Ke-no-zha - from Kenose, long, the name of the long-billed pike, a fish very abundant in this stream, vide Mackenzie's and James' Vocabularies. Timothy Flint, in his Geography and History of the Western States, first edition, published at Cincinnati, 1828, vol. 2, p. 125, says: "The Tippecanoe received its name from a kind of pike called Pic-ca-nau by the savages." The termination is evidently Frenchificd.

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History of Vermilion 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 23

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903 Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company Number of Pages: 1164

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164