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GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 01861 3635
GC 977.2 ES12HI, V.1
Esarey, Logan A history of indiana, from its exploration to 1850
DO NOT REMOVE CARDS FROM POCKET
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY FORT WAYNE, INDIANA 46802
You may return this book to any agency, branch, or bookmobile of the Allen County Public Library
HISTORY OF INDIANA
A HISTORY OF INDIANA
FROM ITS EXPLORATION TO 1850
BY LOGAN ESAREY, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Western History in Indiana University
THIRD EDITION
Vol. I
THE HOOSIER PRESS FORT WAYNE
1924
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY FORT WAYNE, INDIANA
Copyright, 1918. BY LOGAN ESAREY
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/historyofindiana01esar 0
Dearborn
Knox
Clark
Harrison
Indiana Territory after February 3, 1809, when Illi- nois Territory was set off. Indiana was given its present boun- daries with the exception of a ten-mile strip along the northern boundary, which was not added until 1816.
INDIANA IN 1809 By Ernest V. Shockley
PREFACE
IN the preparation of this book several unexpected obstacles have been met. In the first place many tradi- tional stories popularly regarded as substantial history have been found to be without historical foundation. In the second place there is no considerable collection of historical material to draw upon. Other States have published their documentary materials and thus made them available to historians, but that work remains to be done in Indiana. In the third place many of the State publications have been found, after close study, to be unreliable, others are bound without indexes, tables of contents, or even continuous pagination. In many cases it is necessary to turn through a record, page by page, to find any desired information. These conditions have made it necessary to found every ma- terial statement on a primary source. Such work is slow and very tedious.
INDIANA UNIVERSITY,
October 30, 1914.
No substantial change has been made in the Second Edition. A score or so of minor errors have been de- tected and eliminated and the Bibliography and Index enlarged.
INDIANA UNIVERSITY,
October 30, 1916.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I THE FRENCH IN INDIANA
1 THE JESUITS PLAN A NATION OF CHRIS- TIAN INDIANS 1
2 THE FUR TRADERS 3
3 LOUIS XIV AND THE MISSISSIPPI VAL- LEY 1(
4 MIAMI INDIANS 12
5 THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS IN INDIANA 15
6 THE FRENCH SETTLERS 25
CHAPTER II THE ENGLISH PERIOD, 1763-
1778 31
7 ENGLISH CONQUEST AND GOVERNMENT 31
8 PONTIAC'S WAR 35
9 THE JOURNEY OF GEORGE CROGHAN 40
10 ENGLAND TAKES POSSESSION AND OR- GANIZES THE COUNTRY 44
CHAPTER III THE CONQUEST BY VIR- GINIA, 1778-1779 52
11 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE INDIANS 52
12 THE CAPTURE OF KASKASKIA 53
13 GIBAULT AND THE CAPTURE OF VIN- CENNES 58
14 THE LAST CAPTURE OF VINCENNES 66
15 CIVIL GOVERNMENT UNDER VIRGINIA 74
CHAPTER IV CLOSING CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION 78
16 INDIANS OF INDIANA 78
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
17 . LAST STAGE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR IN THE WEST 87
18 THE INDIANS BECOME THE WARDS OF THE UNITED STATES 99
CHAPTER V INDIAN WARS, 1790-1796 103
19 STRUGGLE FOR OHIO RIVER BOUNDARY 103
20 THE CONQUEST OF THE MIAMIS 117
21 A YEAR OF NEGOTIATIONS AND THE END OF THE WAR 135
CHAPTER VI GOVERNMENT OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY, 1788- 1800 141
22 ORGANIZATION OF THE NORTHWEST TER- RITORY 141
23 THE GOVERNMENT AT MARIETTA 146
24 VINCENNES LAND CLAIMS. 147
25 INDIANA A PART OF KNOX COUNTY 153
26 GOVERNMENT UNDER THE JUDGES 155
27 CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 159
28 HARRISON IN CONGRESS 170
CHAPTER VII INDIANA TERRITORY, 1800-
1816 174
29 ORGANIZATION OF INDIANA TERRITORY 174
30 TERRITORY OF THE SECOND GRADE 180
31 THE TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURE 192
32 AARON BURR'S CONSPIRACY 201
33 DEVELOPMENT OF THE TERRITORY 202
CHAPTER VIII
INDIANA AND THE WAR
OF 1812 205
34 AFTER THE TREATY OF GREENVILLE 205
35 TIPPECANOE 211
36 INDIAN WAR OF THE FRONTIER. 215
37 LIFE ON THE FRONTIER 224
ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER IX FROM TERRITORY TO STATE, 1813-1816 230
38 NEW SETTLEMENTS 230
39 REMOVAL OF CAPITAL TO CORYDON, 1813 239
40 THE ENABLING ACT 242
41 THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION,
1816
247
CHAPTER X THE GOVERNMENT AT CORYDON, 1816-1825 252
42 THE CONSTITUTION IN OPERATION 252
43 THE INDIANS
259
44 FIRST STATE BANK AND THE OHIO FALLS CANAL 264
45 MOVING THE CAPITAL TO INDIANAPOLIS, 1825 269
46 SETTLEMENT OF THE NEW PURCHASE. 271
47 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION 281
CHAPTER XI ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT,
1825-1835 288
48 EARLY ROADS 288
49 THE MICHIGAN ROAD 292
50 STAGE LINES 296
51 OPENING THE STREAMS TO NAVIGATION_ 300
52 THE FLATBOAT TRADE 306
53 EARLY MAIL SERVICE 309
54 SETTLEMENT OF THE WABASH COUNTRY 310
CHAPTER XII RELIGION AND EDUCA-
TION IN EARLY INDIANA 316
55 CHURCHES 316
56 EDUCATION 328
CHAPTER XIII POLITICS FROM 1825 TO
1840 336
57 THE JACKSONIAN PARTY 336
58 THE INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT . PARTY 345
59 THE HARRISON CAMPAIGNS 353
X
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIV REMOVAL OF THE IN- DIANS FROM THE STATE 367
60 THE TREATY GROUNDS 367
61 BLACK HAWK'S WAR, 1832 370
62 REMOVAL OF THE MIAMIS AND POTTA- WATTOMIES 377
CHAPTER XV PUBLIC LANDS OF INDIANA 386
63 THE SURVEY, ITS METHODS AND AREA 386
64 LAND OFFICES 388
65 LAND SALES 391
CHAPTER XVI INTERNAL IMPROVE-
MENTS 399
66 PROBLEM, PEOPLE, AND LEGISLATURE 399
67 WABASH AND ERIE CANAL 402
68 SYSTEM OF 1836 408
69 CONSTRUCTION OF CANALS AND ROADS. 414
70 SETTLEMENT WITH CREDITORS 428
71 FINISHING WABASH AND ERIE CANAL. 436
CHAPTER XVII SECOND STATE BANK 447
72 CHARTERING THE BANK IN 1834 447
73 ORGANIZATION AND POLICY OF BANK 453
74 PANIC OF 1837 456
75 ERA OF FREE BANKS 463
76 BANK OF THE STATE OF INDIANA-
THIRD STATE BANK, 1855-1865 468
CHAPTER XVIII PIONEERS AND THEIR
SOCIAL LIFE 473
77 THE PEOPLE 473
78 HOME LIFE AND CUSTOMS 476
79 OCCUPATION 480
80 FIRST PUBLIC UTILITIES 484
81 FESTIVALS AND FESTIVITIES 486
82 SICKNESS AND PHYSICIANS 489
83 STATE CHARITIES 492
xi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIX MEXICAN WAR 495
84 TEXAS AND OREGON QUESTIONS 495
85 INDIANA MILITIA IN 1846 496
86 ORGANIZING THE INDIANA BRIGADE 498
87 CAMPAIGNING IN MEXICO 502
CHAPTER XX CONSTITUTIONAL CONVEN- TION OF 1850 509
88 EARLY AGITATION FOR REVISION 509
89 ORGANIZING THE CONVENTION 514
90 POLITICS OF THE CONVENTION 516
91 THE NEW CONSTITUTION 519
CHAPTER XXI POLITICS FROM 1840 TO 1852 522
92
A BANKRUPT STATE
522
93 CAMPAIGN OF 1844
528
94 POLITICAL DEMORALIZATION 537
95 FREE SOILERS IN INDIANA, 1846 TO 1850 539
96 LAST STRUGGLE OF WHIG PARTY, 1852 __ 546
INDEX 555
:
1
MAPS
1 INDIANA IN 1809 Frontispiece
2 FRENCH POSTS IN THE NORTHWEST 5
3 THE BRITISH NORTHWEST 46
4 CAMPAIGNS IN THE NORTHWEST 63
5 INDIAN TRIBES OF INDIANA 84
6 THE OHIO VALLEY IN 1795 111
7 EARLY INDIANA TOWNS 235
8 INDIANA COUNTIES, 1814 241
9 INDIAN CESSIONS 272
10 ROADS AND TRAILS OF EARLY INDIANA 298
11 INDIANA COUNTIES, 1822 341
12 REMOVAL OF INDIANS 374
13 LAND SURVEYS OF INDIANA 393
14 INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS 403
15 INDIANA COUNTIES, 1833 455
16 INDIANA COUNTIES, 1852 527
A HISTORY OF INDIANA
CHAPTER I
THE FRENCH IN INDIANA, 1634-1763
§ 1 THE JESUITS PLAN A NATION OF CHRISTIAN INDIANS
THE first account of the extensive plains and prairies south of the Great Lakes was given to the world by the Jesuit missionaries to the Huron Indians. The history of Indiana may well begin by recounting the plans of these early Jesuits for forming a Christian Indian nation around the Great Lakes.
Inhabiting the Canadian peninsula extending down between Lakes Huron and Erie and Ontario was an Indian population of from ten to twelve thousand souls. Along the southern shores of the lakes from Erie to the Mississippi river were situated numerous tribes more or less related to those in Canada ; so that within easy reach of Lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior there were not fewer than twenty-five thousand In- dians. The Jesuits were the most advanced thinkers of that day. What visions they had of ideal government among this unspoiled Indian folk cannot be known. At one time they spoke of commerce and the expansion of France; at another, they expressed their view that if France was to become the ruler of this vast country and its simple folk, the seeds of French culture and patriotism should be implanted in the savage breast; in other letters they indulged the true Jesuit spirit that
2
HISTORY OF INDIANA
the church must outweight the state in the hearts of the new people ; while at still other times they lamented the internal wars of the tribesmen and breathed a hope to see their rivalries disappear in an all-consuming love of God and the king. In vision they saw the red men thoroughly Gallicized, imbued with French culture and patriotism, armed and officered by the French govern- ment, carrying the lilies of France in triumph over a continent won for civilization, the church and the king. They may have indulged the more pacific dreams of Plato or More, or the unborn longings of Rousseau ; but whatever their thoughts and hopes, they perished with their authors in the Canadian wilderness.
The little band of Jesuits who accompanied the first French explorers to the regions of the upper St. Law- rence soon saw the advantages of the situation. During the winter of 1634, while the Jesuit Fathers were gath- ered in the residence of their superior, Father Le Jeune, at Quebec, the plans for this work were laid. Including Le Jeune, there were six of the Jesuit Fath- ers on the Huron mission. They were not at all dis- couraged by the difficulty of their undertaking, although they intended the conversion of a savage nation.1 Le Jeune wrote to his superior in France "the harvest is plentiful and the laborers few." They were not without the benefit of experience, for the father superior himself had been in Quebec several years acquainting himself with the Indians, teaching and converting their children. He had even spent a winter with the Indians in the forest, accompanying them on their hunting trips. He knew very well what life among them meant. The terror of the work, how- ever, only made it the more inviting.
1 Francis Parkman, The Jesuits in North America, 42 seq. See also Jesuit Relations, index, "Huron Mission." Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, Ecrites par des Missionaries de la Compagnie de Jesus, Toulouse edition, 1810. (25 vols.)
3
THE FUR TRADERS
The Jesuits began at once to learn the Huron language and to collect necessary materials for the work among the Indians. The distance from Quebec to the home of the Hurons was almost a thousand miles. After a tiresome journey of a month, poling their canoes up the Ottawa river, the foremost priests reached the Huron villages on Thunder Bay. After they had spent five years in missionary work among the tribes, making regular rounds from town to town, they looked over the field as best they could and decided to make their mission home at St. Marie on the south side of Matchedash Bay. A systematic organization of the tribes was perfected, and the calendar of the saints was drawn on for new names for the Indian villages. There were St. Ignace, St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, St. Michael, St. Marie, St. Louis and St. Paul. When in 1649 everything seemed promising of success, the Iroquois, the ancient enemies of the Hurons, attacked them with customary fury. The Hu- ron nation was destroyed and with it went the dream of a Jesuit empire around the Great Lakes.
Jesuit priests continued to visit the western tribes for half a century, but few of them ever set foot on what is now the soil of Indiana. Within the next half century the Jesuit Fathers, Allouez, Dablon, and Mar- quette, established important missions around the Great Lakes. Some of these priests may have crossed from the St. Joseph river to Kankakee, in Indiana, on their way to the West, but no mission is known to have been established in Indiana at this early date.
§ 2 THE FUR TRADERS
IN the next period, 1650 to 1750, missionaries and fur-traders mingled together. It is always difficult to tell whether a post was established primarily as a mis- sion or as a fur-trading station. The latter was not so
4
HISTORY OF INDIANA
much a place where furs were collected as a center from which agents visited the neighboring tribes to show the kettles, blankets, knives, and other articles of trade furnished by the French, and to encourage the Indians to carry their furs to the large posts on the lower St. Lawrence.
The annual trip of the Indians to Three Rivers, Quebec, or Montreal was full of danger. Usually two or three hundred warriors went together. They made the journey in June and July, going by way of Lake Nipissing and the Ottawa river to avoid the Iroquois tribes. Arriving near Quebec or Montreal, they landed, put up their tents, greased and painted their bodies, and assorted their goods preparatory to trading. Their goods consisted almost entirely of furs and tobacco. The second day was usually devoted to a formal coun- cil between the French officers and the chiefs. After the council, two more days were consumed in bartering. Some of the tribesmen were expert gamblers and tried their luck against the French; others, especially the Hurons, were said to have been skillful thieves. After the trading was all done, the French invited their visit- ors to a grand feast. Then followed a night of revelry, after which the Indians set out at dawn for their homes. In this way, no doubt, many of Indiana's na- tive inhabitants visited the French on the lower St. Lawrence.
During the fall and winter seasons the trader spent his time, in part, among the Indians preparing for the harvest of furs in the spring. He was the leading man of the post or colony holding his commission directly from his king. He had money and influence at court. Around him was a nondescript body of hunters, sol- diers, and adventurers, over whom he held nominal military power. With each band of fur gatherers there went a Jesuit, whose gentle influence welded the strong friendship between the French and Indians. It will
5
THE FUR TRADERS
PO
JAMES
Y
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CHRISTINOS
Late Boyule
E
SUPERI
& Lane
EASTERN aroux
CHIPPEWAS
CHIPPEWAS
OTTAWAA
WINNERAGOS
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FOMEB
Mienne
(MER DOLCE)
NAMOY
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Fort 2
OTTAWABY
For
PETUN HURONS
Fi Miapara
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IRO
OIS
Portage ou Chan
POTTAWATTOMIES
POTTAWATTOMIES Bunaculate Conception
Fori d' Migrom
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Furt Vand
FRIES
40
ILLINOIS
Fort & Charla
Fort Vincennes
SHAKANESE
CHEROKEES
umberland PI
Nov
CHICKASA WS
FRENCH POSTS IN THE NORTHWEST
From Jesuit Relations, by special permission of Burrows Brothers Company
Secondes
....
N
Deckinge
GEORGIAN
KICKAPOOS
MASCOUTING
POTTAWATTOMIES
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MICHIGAN
HURONS
Rawh De.
des Abitibi
Sondual
6
HISTORY OF INDIANA
be enough for our purpose if we describe the labors of one of these traders.
La Salle was a member of the well-known family of Caveliers of Rouen, France, the son of a wealthy burgher merchant. He was educated by the Jesuits, who then conducted the best schools in the world. A brother of his was a Sulpician priest in Canada. With what little pocket-money he could get, La Salle sailed for Canada, reaching Quebec in 1666, whence he went on immediately to Montreal, then little more than a mission of the Sulpicians. He acquired a large tract of land at what is now Lachine, at the head of the rapids, nine miles above Montreal. This place was well situated for the fur trade.
La Salle learned from the Seneca Indians that to the west was a beautiful river flowing through the forest to join another great river which flowed far away to the south and emptied into the Vermilion Sea. It did not take him long to make up his mind that here was a chance to serve his nation and also himself. This, he thought, was the river that would lead him to the South Sea and thus open a route to India. The gov- ernor and the priests of Canada were easily won over to the enterprise, especially since La Salle undertook to pay all expenses himself.
By July 6, 1669, La Salle with twenty-four men in seven canoes was ready to start from Lachine. His men paddled the canoes up the St. Lawrence and into Lake Ontario. In thirty-five days from the time they left their camp they had reached a small bay on the south side of Lake Ontario near the mouth of the Seneca river. Here they left their boats, and went with some Seneca Indians to their village homes. The Senecas did not take kindly to La Salle's plan of going to the Ohio, and refused to show him the way. The latter went back to his canoes and continued westward on the lake to Niagara river. At an Indian village in
7
LA SALLE IN INDIANA
this neighborhood he met a party of warriors return- ing with a Pottawattomie prisoner. This prisoner La Salle ransomed on his agreeing to lead the French- man to the Ohio. Tradition has it that the party then came on southward from Lake Erie until they reached a branch of the Ohio, which stream they descended to its mouth; thence down the Ohio as far as the Falls at Louisville. Here La Salle's men deserted him and turned back to the east, leaving their captain alone to find his way back to Canada as best he could.
Having returned to the Great Lakes, La Salle is said by Margry to have sailed westward across Lake Erie, through the Detroit river, and Lake Huron, around to the southern point of Lake Michigan, to have crossed over to the Illinois river, followed it down to the Mississippi, and to have floated far enough down the Mississippi to assure himself that it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. That he discovered the Ohio, there is little doubt; but of his early discovery of the Missis- sippi we cannot be sure .? During the following six or seven years he does not seem to have been active. How- ever, he never forgot the rivers he had seen or heard of and the opportunities they held for fur trade and colon- ization. Compared with the frozen wastes of Canada, the prairies and river bottoms of Illinois and Indiana seemed fairyland. The road from Quebec, though, was too long and dangerous, so he planned to reach the new field by way of the Mississippi. By the year 1678 every- thing being in readiness he started west to open up the fur trade of upper Canada. While spending the fol- lowing winter at Frontenac on Lake Ontario, he built a small ship called the Griffin. With this he sailed through Lake Erie and up the Detroit river, across
2 Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, IV, 201; Parkman, LaSalle and the Discovery of the Great West (index) ; Oscar J. Craig, Indiana Historical Society Publications, II, p. 317. Margry, Journal Général de l' Instruction Publique, 1862.
8
-
HISTORY OF INDIANA
Lake St. Clair into Lake Huron, through the Straits of Mackinac into Lake Michigan, landing in September at Green Bay. The ship started back to Niagara. The explorers came on down to the southern shore of Lake Michigan and paddled around to the mouth of the St. Joseph river, which they called Miamis, reaching this place by November 1. Here, near the mouth of the river, they built a fort-the little Fort Miamis-while they were waiting for Lieutenant Henri de Tonty and his companions, who were coming overland.
On the third of December the party, numbering twenty-eight, started in eight canoes for the Illinois country, going by way of the Kankakee portage. They ascended the St. Joseph of the Lakes until they reached the south bend, near where the city of South Bend now stands, watching carefully for the portage path which they had been told was in that neighborhood and by which they hoped to reach the Illinois. Unfortunately while their Mohegan hunter was absent they passed this path without noticing it. While La Salle was on shore searching for it he became separated from his friends. Night came on bringing with it a snowstorm. Wrapped in their blankets the weary explorers lay down to sleep. Meanwhile their leader, hopelessly lost, found a grass bed, prepared by an Indian, and in that he passed the night. So fared these early white visit- ors to Indiana, the first of whom we have any clear and reliable account. At four o'clock the next day La Salle regained the river and soon found his men. The Indian guide who had meantime been hunting for the trail (which he finally found) had returned also and to- gether they started on the portage path for the Kanka- kee, five miles distant. It did not take them long to reach the Kankakee, a narrow ribbon of water, flow- ing drowsily through the tufts of swamp grass, ob- structed here and there with clusters of alder bushes and pools of still water. In this stream they launched
9
FORT ST. LOUIS
their canoes and floated slowly westward toward the Illinois country. Game was scarce and provisions ran low. Finally, when almost exhausted they found a buffalo bull mired in the swamp. They killed him, dragged him out, and feasted. They then floated on down the river into the Illinois, and down that river until they came to a high cliff overlooking the left bank of the stream. Nearby was a large Indian town, but no Indians.
Here La Salle determined to build a fort and gather around him the Indian tribes of the region which now embraces the greater part of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky. To this place he determined to transport his goods and establish a central trading station for all this western country. He could send his furs down the Mississippi river to the Gulf, and thence to France, while his goods to be used in traffic with the Indians could be brought back up the Mississippi in the return- ing boats. The site chosen was the favorite dwelling place of the Illinois Indians. In the vicinity were en- camped the Peoria, Miami, Piankeshaw, Mascoutin, Wea and other Indians, from far and near. There were even refugee Abenakis from the forests of Maine, and Hurons from the lands beyond the Great Lakes driven here by fear of the Iroquois. It is doubtful if a single Indian tribe at this time made its home in what is now Indiana through dread of those wide-ranging maraud- ers, who had secured firearms from the Dutch at New York. La Salle went to work immediately to carry out his plans. He named his fort St. Louis in remembrance of his king, Louis XIV. He gathered furs during the winter, and sent them by different members of the party to Montreal. The faithless agents sold the furs, but never reported to their master. As La Salle was hastening back to Canada to ascertain the trouble, on the way he met a new commander, sent out by the
10
HISTORY OF INDIANA
governor of Canada to take possession of Fort St. Louis.
La Salle concealed his anger, went on to Canada, arranged matters there, but when he returned he found his fort and village completely ruined. In the autumn of 1680 a war party of Iroquois, well armed, and led by a chief in a Jesuit robe, had conquered the Illinois town. The Indians themselves were saved through the tact and bravery of Tonty, the lieutenant of La Salle, but the town was utterly destroyed; so that when La Salle returned there were only enough traces remaining to show what had been the fury of its Iroquois destroyers. Thus was dispelled the dream of making a nation of fur-gatherers out of the western Indians.
The efforts of La Salle, however, did not end with this defeat. During the year 1682-3 he was again busy among the Indians of Indiana and Illinois trying to persuade them to settle once more around his fort. He even invited Indians from across the Mississippi to join him. Indiana was almost deserted of her native popu- lation. But the failure of the plan was assured even before La Salle's death. Had it prospered, what later became the Northwest Territory would have become an immense fur-trading field with the Indians as the fur gatherers. After the downfall of La Salle there was a general migration of the tribes, due to a weaken- ing of French influence.
§ 3 LOUIS XIV AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
AT the opening of the eighteenth century it seemed that France had a firm grip on the north central part of what is now the United States. She held its two natural highways, the Mississippi and St. Lawrence rivers; but there was a fatal weakness both in the north and south. The French were hindered in the navigation of the Mississippi by the hostile Chicka-
11
FRENCH TRADING COMPANIES
saws, who lived on the Vicksburg bluffs. On the other hand they were not able to pass the Niagara river, or the upper St. Lawrence, on account of the hostile Iro- quois. Had it not been for these two tribes of Indians the history of the Northwest might have been different. Nevertheless the French king, Louis XIV, began at this time to take a great interest in the Mississippi Valley. The country was divided between the governments at New Orleans and Quebec, the dividing line running east and west through central Indiana, near Terre Haute. A French explorer named D'Iberville, under instructions from Louis XIV, tried to carry out the scheme of La Salle by concentrating the northwestern tribes on the Ohio, but this failed.
Along with this plan of D'Iberville it was decided to construct a sufficient number of forts within the northwestern country to protect it from the English traders who were rapidly becoming interested in the western fur-trade. D'Iberville himself established a post in 1699 at Biloxi, Mississippi. La Motte Cadillac fortified the post at Detroit in 1701. Forts Chartres and Kaskaskia were established over on the Mississippi in southern Illinois. Since the Indians were moving toward the east, it was planned to fortify the route from Lake Erie to the Mississippi by way of the Wa- bash. It was in carrying out this policy that most of the permanent posts of the Northwest were founded. These guarded the important river thoroughfares and the great portages. Around and in them the mission- aries and traders made their headquarters and for this reason the Indians also frequently gathered near. The policy of the king in selling the exclusive right of the fur-trade to a single man or company had not only ruined the fur-trading business but had demoralized the traders.
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