USA > Illinois > The centennial of the state of Illinois. Report of the Centennial Commission > Part 19
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# The Olden Time. II. 433.
1 Journals of Congress, IV, 532 ; American State Papers Indian Affairs,
I. p. 11. 16 Washington Writings. Ford . dition, Vol. X. 417.
17 Journals of C :gress, IV, 466-7.
OFFICIAL CELEBRATIONS
Shawnee to a conference. Clark and Butler were still on the com- mission, but the third commissioner was Semuel II. Parsons,> who was to take a place among the makers of the Northwest.19 The conference occurred at the mouth of the Great Miami River during January, 1186. A tiraty was concluded January 31, 1286. The Shawnee were left in possession of a vast sweep of territory north of the Ohio River, comprehending in general that between the Great Miami River and the Wabach. The territory to the east- ward of this tract was ceded by the Indians to the United States. The title of the National Corernment to a great area of the North- west seemed complete, and the procedure for further acquisitions outlined .?. Yet there were other forces which defeated these paper agreement -. The British garrisons continued to occupy the fron- tier posts on American soil; foreign fur-traders vied with American traders for the favor of the Indian; and squatters of American birth equally with uncontrollable Indian bands disregarded the treaty obligations.21
Congress left the meager frontier army to struggle on with the forces which were nullifying the treaties, and went ahead with its legislative program. And a remarkable one this was. fin- portant ordinances followed one another in annual sequence. One in 1284 outlined a plan under which the settlers were to institute goverment and take a place in the political union. One of 1785 adopted a plan of land survey, land endowments for colocation, and a policy of land disposal a- a national asset. An ordinance of 1286, introducing a new mode of handling the relations with the Indians, completed the series." A few weeks earlier the northern
19 Samuel H. Parsons, horn in Connecticut, 1737, graduate Harvard Cel- lege. 1756, hagan practice of las 175a, member of Connecticut Legislature. 1762-1774, inafor in Conn etient Militia, colonel, 1775, major generi!, 17.9, commanding Connecticut line of Continental Army, member and President of Society of Cincinnati in Connecticut, stockholder and director of the Olio Company.
19 Journals of Congress, IV. 554.
" Journals of Congress. IV, hET : American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 11; Butters Journal in Olden Time 11, 5:1, Another Commission Id carried to a similar point of success the negotiations with the Fathern Indians. Journals of Conans . IV. BET.
" Harmar's Letters, June 1. 17:5. June 21. 1785, May 7. 17:6, Goodman Transcripts : Betler's Jour d, Of a Time. 11. 433 : A. C. MeLinghlin, West- ern Posts and British Dries, Atcericon Historical Association Birort. 1994. 413; J. A. Jaines, Some Thues of the History of the Northwest, Mississippi Valley Ihistorical Association, 1914-15, p. I.S.
"- Journals of Congres:, IV, 677.
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and southern Indian Commissions had been discontinued in order to prepare the way for reorganization.ªs
The Ordinance of 1:86 for the Regulation of Indian Affairs created a national Indian department of two districts. The Ohio River became the general line of division. A superintendent in each district was in charge of Indian affairs, and required to report to Congress through the Secretary of War. Other clauses forbade foreigners residing among the Indians or trading with them, and established the license systen for Americans who resided among them or traded with them. The act intended to provide a mode by which the National Government could take an effective hold of Indian trade, make it an American monopoly, and meet and checkmate the British economic interests in the Northwest. A week later Congress chose Richard Butler Superintendent of In- dian Affairs for the northern district."+
The Land Ordinance of 1785 had continued the office of Geog- rapher of the United States, who was virtually Surveyor General, and who with the surveyors appointed by the several states was laying out the land according to the national system of surveys. 23 The significant thing is that a service previously local was national- ized. Thomas Hutchins"" who had served as a national geographer since 1781 was now reappointed for a term of three years. In Sep- tember, 1785, Dutchins took up his work in the Northwest. The election , Butler as Indian Superintendent brought two national agencies of administration into the developing institutions of the new national territorial system.
In the meantime Hannar's western army remained a com- paratively feeble force. In 1185 Congress called upon Connecti- cut. New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania to supply eight companies of infantry and two of artillery. In reality the infantry seldom exceeded 500. Three years later, 1258, the two companies
23 Ibid, IV. 664.
2 Journals of Congress, IV. 6\3: Butler's jurisdiction extended from the Hudson to the Mississippi, and from the Ohio to the St. Liwrence and the Great Lakes.
" Journals of Congress, IV, 520.
" Thomas Hut lins, burn in New Jersey. 1720, entered British army, joined American C tinental army in 1779, appointed geographer for the southern army by Grkeral Givene in 171, appointed sob erngrapher of the Unitel Stites ir 174, continued in office until death in 17\". A Surveyor General was finally created by the act of 1796. Infus Putnam lecame first Surveyor C .eral. Journals of Congress, III, 617, 641; IV. 027, 636, 818.
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OFFICIAL CELEBRATIONS
of artillery were not ver in western service. New York had not minde any provision for recruiting ite quota. The backwardness of the states in fulfilling their national anties which was paralyzing the Confederation in the Fast was also hampering the establish- ment of order and government in the Northwest." The losses of the army in numbers through those whose terms expired and through desertion from dissatisfaction with the service nearly offset the gains from recruiting Harmar complained that he had con- stantly to weaken his forte by sending officers on recruiting mis- sions into the states, and to maneuvre with the old solliers in order 10 re-enli-t them. The necessity of securing the approval of state executives to all changes in officers in each state's quota under- inined discipline."> The Journal of Joseph Buell, a sergeant in Harmar's regiment, gives a glimpse of the kind of manenvering which won re-er listmen s. The entry is for July 4, 1286. It reads as follows: "The gien day of American independence was commemorated by the discharge of thirteen guns; after which the troops were served with extra rations of liquor, and allowed to get drunk as much as they plated."29
There is no evidence that time was creating a well equipped, well disciplined national force capable of coping with frontier con- ditions. The testimony of the witnesses records a constant struggle of the offer> with the soldiers for the maintenance of discipline. In 1286 after a long debate Congress yielded to the urgent repre- sentations of the commander of the western army, the Secretary of War, the Governor of Virginia, and the frontier settlements. The size of the western army was set at 2,000 men. And yet Har- mar reported in 1288 that the limit of his expectations for the year was for 595 men. Such troops as Harmar had were of neces- sity kept scattered in small garrisous along the Ohio Valley.30
" Report of a Committee of Congress, October 2, 1758, Journals of Con- gress, IV. SE4: Harmar, Letter of June 15, 17% . in Goodman Transcripts. " Harmar's Letter, January 10. ITss, Goodman Transcripts.
Hiblretn. Pioneer History, 114.
?" The principal posts were Fort Franklin, near the mouth of French Crock : Fort McIntosh, near it's mouth of the Dis Beaver ; Fort Iliminar, at the mouth of the Mu-kinhn .: Font Steuben, at the rapids of the of to; and Post Vincennes on the Waltsh River: Fort Elarmar was the used head- quarters of the commandant until Fort Washnorton was est thi- but opposite the mouth of the Lieking Ritter in 1789. Harinar to Knay, September 12, 1759, Goodman Transcripts: Journals of Congress, IV, 874.
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When Colonel Harmar arrived in the Ohio country he found squatters rapidly taking possession. Some had settled there dur- ing the Revolution.31 After the Revolution it seemed "as if the old states would depopulate and the inhabitants would be trans- planted to the new."32 In the valley of nearly every tributary of the Ohio from the north was one or more pioneer shacks and tiny clearings. In the larger valleys considerable settlements existed. One of Harmar's officers reported a settlement of 300 families on the flockhocking River and an equal number on the Muskingum. It is, probable that the estimate was an exaggeration. There is not evidence enough to determine the exact extent of settlement. It is certain the number impressed those who witnessed the migration. The pioneers were chiefly the Scotch-Irish backwoodsmen from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina who were venturing farther afield. Their civilization was the prototype of that which spreads over parts of the great Appalachian Highland still.23 They were then the vanguard of the American people advancing in steady strides through the forest wilderness of North America. They were not waiting for the formalities of survey and title to the lands which they claimed. Tomahawk rights had been good enough for their ancestors; such rights were good enough for them.
Some of them were beginning the rudiments of state building as their kind had been doing for many years on the borders of Virginia and North Carolina.34 At Mercer's Town the people had chosen justices of the peace and begun to carry on town govern- ment.35 At another place Harmar's men found a call for an elec- tion to choose members of a constitutional convention. From the fact that voters were to cast their ballots at the mouth of the Miami Liver, the Scioto River, and the Muskingum the area covered by the embryonic state can be fairly well defined. The promoters set
31 Ohio Archeological and Historical Society Publi atmins, V1, 133; Ilul- bert, Records of the Offin Company, I, xxi-xxii.
#Olden Tones, 11, 499: Win. Il. Smith, St. Clair Papers, 11, 3-5 ( Cited hereafter as St. Clair Papers).
3J Chio Atcheobical and Historical Society Pull,canons, VI. 135: Olen Time. II, 442-6 : The Journal of John Mathews, a nejdew of Rufus Puttim, in Hildredth, Pioneer History of of iv. 177-8. The litti describes a corn husking am my his dass, and frontier sont minners.
31 12. J. Tmirer, Western Stite Making. Americ in Historical Review. 1. 70. 25 Mercer's Town was in Helmont County nearly opposit . Wheeling. Se Armstrong to Ifirmar. April 12 1783, and Harmar to R. H. LerMay 1, 1795, Goodman Transcripts: Butker's Journal in Olden Time, 11, 443 ; St. Clair l'apers, II, 3.
OFFICIAL CELEBRATIONS
forth in the call the frontier interpretation of dumoney. Their political creed was congressional non-interference and squatter rights in frontier settlement.26 Similar movements south of the Ohio finally matured in statchood without Congressional interfer- ence. For example, the settlements of Kentucky became a Mate without a period of national control. This squatter migration into the Ohio country ran counter to a new national mode of state building, and was forced to give way.
Congress began its territorial policy by closing the western lands to occupation until they were surveyed and formally placed on sale. Intruder, were to be driven off. A proclamation to this effect was published by the commissioners while they were negotiat- ing with the Indians at Fort McIntosh, January 21, 1785, Col- onel Harinor was instructed to enforce the proclamation.37 The impelling motives of Congress in this first step are plain: the promises of bounty lands to the soldiers of the Revolution, the needs of a national treasury bankrupt from the burden of interest on the war debt, and the treaty obligations to the Indians were an effective combination of reasons for a new start in the settlement of the national domain. Ilaimar proceeded during 1785 to expel the squatters who had settled along the north shore of the Ohio and along the courses of its tributaries. In a few places the in- habitants threatened organized resistance; in all cases they gave way in the end before superior forces, sometimes sullenly, but always without bloodshed. Their cabins, such bark or log struc- tures as there were, were destroyed. The bolder squatters were later found to have returned, and the process was repeated until the country was apparently cleared of this type of settlers. The records of the Ohio Company show no evidence of the survival of these squatters, who if they had been present would have plagued it not a little.38
36 St. Clair Papers, II, 5.
3 St. Clair Papers, II, 3: The Olden Time. IT. 340: J. A. Jam , Somtie Phases of the History of the Northwest, Mississippi Valley Historien A su- ciation, Proceedpers, 1913-11. 155.
NHfarmor. 1. vender 6, 17 4, April 25, 1755, 35ny 1, 1755, 3 418 1, 1763. and Armstrong to Harmar, Amit 12, 175, Goodman Transcripts, St Chur Papers, 11. 5: Butler's Journal in Olden Time, H. 17. 436, Ho: Journal of John Mathews in Mildredth, Pioneer Ilistory of Ohio, 183.
ILLINOIS CENTENNIAL COMMISSION
Harmar extended his activities against the squatters to the western French villages in 1286. At Vincennes he found that 400 squatters had taken refuge in the village among the French. The Americaus were cultivating their fields in the neighborhood in armed bands in a state of perpetual warfare with roving hostile Indians. He warned them of the worthlessness of their land titles, but later events showed that he failed to terminate these particular lawless encroachments on ladian lands.39 While Harmar was on the Wabash he heard that the Kentuckians were pushing onto the public lands about Kaskaskia as through an open door. From Vin- cennes Harmar extended his western journey to the "great Ameri- can Bottom." He found that many of George Rogers Clark's fol- lowers had made "tomahawk claims" in the region. At Bellefon- taine, a small village near Ka-kaskia, there was a stockaded Ameri- can settlement. A little farther on was another village called Grand Ruisseau inhabited by the same sort of people. His descrip- tions of the Illinois villages and the conditions of living are inter- esting, but aside from the subject at this time. At Cahokia he assembled the French inhabitants and advised them to place their militia on a better footing, to abide by the decision of their courts, and restrain the disorderly element until Congress could provide a government for them. It shocked him to find that "all these people are entirely unacquainted with what Americans call liberty. Trial by jury, etc., they are strangers to." A considerable num- ber of other squatter- were found scattered on the rich bottoms at some distance from the French villages. Everywhere Harmar warned the Americans from the lands they were occupying. For reasons not clear in the correspondence he took no steps to enforce the order. The Indians in these parts, he says, were not numer- outs, but "amazing fond of whiskey" and "ready to destroy a con- siderable quantity." Before returning to the posts on the Ohio he visited the Spanish settlements on the west bank of the Missis- sippi and describe l at some length his experience in the foreign Jand. 40
3% Ilarmar, August 7, 1787, Goodman Transcripts; St. Clair Papers, II, 24, 26 ; Journal of Joseph Buell, Hidredth, Pioneer History, 151; Roosevelt, Winning of the West. 11. 7. 235.
w Harmar to Kyox, December 9, 1787, Goodman Transcripts: Journal of Joseph Thell, Hildredth, Pioneer History, 156; St. Clair Papers. II, Is, 30.
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Ilarmar's well written, informing letters to the Secretary of War give the impression of a faithful, wide awake pul lie servant. They present a continuous account of the struggle of the western army against disorder and lawless colonization. It would seem that Harmar succeeded in checking the squatter movement which had set into the Ohio country, that he drove out the adventurers along the upper Ohio River, that he only partially stopped the same movement across the lower Ohio, adventuring from the Kentucky side below the Falls, and fully failed utterly to master the divers elements in the French villages. The latter passed through eight years of near anarchy." The American frontiersmen in their midst made conditions worse than they would have otherwise been. Remnants of the Virginia county government survived, but with such the French had little sympathy or understanding." The French villages formel in reality city-states as independent as their classic predecessors in the Mediterranean basin had been.
Though Harmar's forces brought the squatter movement under a fair degree of control, the relations of the government with the Indians were constantly embarrassed by the borderers who broke through the line of forts along the Ohio River either for the game or the plunder to be found on the Indian lands. Th. struggle between the roving bands of Indians and the equally law- less whites was a ceaseless one. It would have required a vastly larger army than Harmar possessed to have effectually curbed the ... elements.43 Moreover his efforts were nullified by the influence of British interests on the mothern frontier. Ile constantly pressed on the War Department the view that the United States could never have the respect of the Indians as long as the British garri- sons held American posts on the Great Lake frontier.## Such was the situation in 1987. Harmar was trying to guard a frontier of more than twelve hundred miles which separated the white out-
41 1782-1790.
" C. W. Alvord, Cahokia Records, Illinois Historical Collections, II, cal, cxviii.
47 Harmar to Knox, August 10, 1788. August 9, 1787, and D. . mler 9. 1787. in German Trinserip's; Saint Clair Pers. IL, IS ; JJons lefJ Pn Mathews, in Hillredth's Pimeer History of Ohio, 177-183: R . w.it. Win- ning of the West. III, SS.
" Harmer to Knox, J'nr 1. 1785; to Francis Johnson, June 21. 17 5: to Thomas Mifflin. June 25, 1751. to Knox, July 16, 1785, and May 7, 17sb, in Gor "man Transcripts ; Butler's Journal in Offen Time, II, 502.
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posts of civilization from the Indian regions. Richard Butler as Superintendent of Indian Affairs with his deputies was engaged in bribing the Indians with presents into keeping their promises, while equally generous British agents at the Lake posts were an- nuling the effect of Butler's work. Geographer Hutchins with his small bands of surveyors was laying out the seven ranges of townships on the upper Ohio River. Of regular civil government there was ione, except the rudiments in the French city-states of the far west; of American population there was no longer any, except that which clung to the neighborhood of the French villages for protection.
On July 13. 1287, Congress passed an ordinance to give the Territory of the Northwest the needed local government. The matter had been under consideration for nearly a year. The plan of government which had been adopted in 1784 needed a pro- vision for the period in which there were not enough inhabitants to constitute a republican government. Congress was in a frame of mind in 1781 to consider a substitute for its carlier measure. Recent researches show beyond doubt that there was an organized drive of investors, holders of revolutionary bounty rights, and of state and national securities of indebtedness to force Congress to sell the western land in large lots and to accept securities of indebt- edness in payment at their face value ; they show farther that these elements were commentel tog ther by the fraternal bonds of a com- mon membership in the Society of the Cincinnati and in the Union Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons ;"" and that they hastened the action of Congress in providing a government for the territory. Ilowever the Ordinance of 1282 in its final form was the result of several years deliberation. The usual emphasis in the consider- ation of the act is on the rudiments of a Bill of Rights and the anti-slavery clause which it contained. Yet neither of thuse clauses much affected the history of the Northwest. The popula- tion of the Northwest would hardly have acted differently if the restraints of the Ordinance had not existed. It is probably true that the oratory which has been expended upon them has consider-
" Journals of Coppress, IV. 701. 702. 703, 746. 747. 751.
46 Records of the Onto Company, Marietta College Historical Collection, I.
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ably stimulated Am rican ikals. But the clauses of the Ordinance which provided for immediate civil government, and finally for the admission of the several portions of the territory into the na- tional union of states on equal terms with the original states were rules which determined the course of American history. They were the fulfilment of Congressional pledges." In them states- manship of the highest order found expression.
How timely the passage of the act was is shown by the events of the succeeding months. Manassch Cutlery and Winthrop Sar- gent19 carried through the dual contract of the Ohio Company of Associates and the Scioto group of speculators. And before a year had elapsed Rufus Putinan'y as superintendent of the company led the advance party which began a colonizing movement as mnotuen- tous as any in American history. 51 Close on these events John C. Symmes"" concluidel a similar contract with the Treasury Board on behalf of the Miami Company, and led in person another body of home builders into the Northwest.33 The leaders and large part of the colonists were Revolutionary soldiers and officers from the far east. Harmar observed that they were a very different class from the squatters whom he had been expelling.54
4. Journals of Congress, III, October 10, 1780.
4 Manasseh Cutler, born in Connecticut in 1742, graduated at Yale Col- lege in 1765, entered the ministry in 1770, pastor in Ip. wich, Massachusetts 1771-1623. chaplain in a Massachusetts regim at during the Revolution, 1. ad- ing stockholder in the Ohio Company, member of Congress, 1801-05, died in 1823.
# Winthrop Sargent, horn in Massachusetts, 1753, graduated at Harvard College, 1771, brame inajor in artillery during the Revolution, a surveyol in the Northwest alter the Revolutom, stockholder and secretary of the Ohio Company, became Secretary of Northwest Territory in 1788, Governor of Mississippi Territory in 179%. diel in 1820.
*. Rufus Putnam, boin in Massachusetts in 1:38. cousin of Israel Put- nam, apprenticed to a millwright in 175%, enlisted as a private in the French and Indian War. 1:57. a practical -urveyor from 1760, entered the Revo- hitionary army in 1775 as Thetenant colenel, became Colonel and chief engi- heur in the army in 1776. Brigadier General in 1753. member of the Mass - chusetts Legislature, leading stockholder and Director of . .. Ohio Company. Superintendent of the Ohio Company from 178, indie of the Supreme Conl' of the Northwest Territory, 1730-1796, Surveyor General of the United States. 1799-1603.
F Cutler. Life. Journals and Correspondence of Monasteh Cuiler, I. ch. 9: The John May Papers, Western Reserve Historical Socrty Bepott Vol .: Records of the Ohlu Company, Marietta College Historical Collections, Vel. 1. 13. 26.
" John C. Symnes, born in New York, 1742. teacher and Mit sutafor. soldier in army of Revolution, member of Congress from New Jersey. 1785. 1786, leading promoter of Miami Coming from 175, judge of Supreme Court of the Northwest Territory 1750-100%, diall in 151%.
23 Symmes. Circular to the Public, Historical and Philosophical Society of Orio. Quarterly. V. 82 ff. A Formar to Kas, April 26, 176%; to Johnston. April 25, 1599, in Good- men Transerirt: : Harmar. March 22. 17 9. and November 9, 1789, in Jour! !! of Ebenezer Denny, Appendix, pp. 440. 445.
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The work of establishing civil goverment began with the passage of the Ordinance. One section of the Ordinance provided for the appointment by Congress of a Governor, a Secretary, and three judges for the temporary government of the entire North- west. The terms and function of the officers were prescribed. The Governor was assigned the executive functions, the judges those of a judiciary. The Governor and the judges together were to form a territorial Legislative Council. This was the bridge by which the government of the territory was to pass from the rule of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs and military commandant to the first stage of republican government when there should be a population of 3,000 free males, On October 5, 1552, Congress chose its President, Arthur St. Clair, ?? Governor of the North- west Territory, and Winthrop Sargent, Secretary.36 Manasseh Cutler's very human and Franklin hke diary bears witness to the view that St. Clair's appointment was a part of the political job- bery by which the dual purchase of the Ohio Company and the Scioto group had been put through Congress.55 St. Clair was a large land owner in the Ligonier Valley in western Pennsylvania. and a stockholder of the Ohio Company.58 The office of northern Superintendent of Indian Affairs, which General Richard Butler had held, was at the same time merged with that of Governor .?? That Sargent and Parsons should be Secretary and one of the three juilges, respectively, was a part of the bargain Cutler, on behalf of the Ohio Company, carried through Congre -. Both were Director the Ohio Company. James M. Varnum," another Director of the Ohio Company, and John C. Symmes, the leading stockholder in the Miami Company, were the other judges chosen 55 Arthur St. Clair, born in Scotland, 17H, educated at University of Edinburgo, entered British army and served in America fu Stenen and Indian War, settled in western Pennsylvania in 1764, became Colonel in Revolu- tionary army, 1776, Major General, 1000. member of Congress, 17\5-7, Presi- dent of Congress, 1787. President of Pennsylvania Socity of the Cincinnati, 1753-9. Governor of Northwest Territory, 1758-1502.
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