USA > Indiana > Knox County > Vincennes > History of Old Vincennes and Knox County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 10
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* Some historians contend that St. Ange did not reach Vincennes until 1744. Goodspeed, publisher of History of Knox County, 1886, says that "not until the war broke out between England and France, in 1744, so far as ascertainable, was any successor designated to command Vincennes." Dr. Smith says "that about the year 1749 the fort's name became that of Fort St. Ange, in honor of the successor of Vinsenne in command of the post, he having, it is said, improved the church and placed on it a belfry and bell." St. Ange's certificate, published in Mr. Dunn's Indiana, and reproduced in this chapter, shows that St. Ange was appointed a com- mandant at the Old Post by the Governor of Louisiana in 1736.
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been organized to drive back to the eastern mountains the invading hosts of the Six Nations, and who had long since established a village at this point on the Wabash. By assuring the red men that the native forests, wherein roamed the buffalo, elk, deer and bear, would be undisturbed, he persuaded them to donate a large track of land immediately surrounding the post for the use of settlers. This land, as has already been announced, was held in common by the entire population, and certain sections of it were allotted every spring to the respective heads of families, or to any one else who would agree to cultivate it. After the harvest season was over, however, the fences were removed, and the tract became a public property until another apportionment had been made to individuals. Subsequently, he deemed it advisable for the betterment of social and commercial condi- tions of the community, to divide this land up into lots and issue individual* grants for their permanent possession, which grants, as has been heretofore shown, caused no small amount of annoyance to all who held them. Through the constant intercessions of the commandant the friendliest rela- tions were maintained between the settlers and the Indians, and peace and tranquility hovered o'er the ancient village until towards the close of 1751, when Great Britain, through the machinations of emissaries sent forth ostensibly for the purpose of inciting the Indian tribes to destroy the French forts and annihilate the settlements in the Ohio Valley, caused the shadow of war cloud to fall across the serene scene.t This was the signal for St. Ange to divert his mind, momentarily, from civil to military matters, and he further strengthened the fortifications and augmented the garrison by the acquisition of additional forces. While the red allies of the English came within close proximity, and massacred quite a number of friendly Indians in the immediate vicinity, they were not courageous enough to advance within gun shot of the fort, nor brave enough to attack it. By the
* The following is a specimen of all the grants issued under St. Ange's admin- istration, and will readily explain why it were a difficult task to establish clear titles to, or prevent questions of, rightful ownership :
"Nous, Capitane Commandant pour le Roi au poste Vincennes, Certifions avan consede an Antoine de la Richardville, un Emplacement devingt-cinq toises feu tout bordere a faces Rue Calvarie, et autre Rue de perdupond. Fait audo le trois diem Februaire mil. sept. cent soixante. ST. ANGE."
[Translation.]
We, capitan commanding for the King at Post Vincennes, certify that there is conceded to Antoine de la Richardville, a lot twenty-five yards on each face, border- ing Rue Calvary street, on the other, the street of the Lost. Made on the 3rd day of February, 1760. ST. ANGE.
t It seems that an epidemic to kill broke out afresh among the Wabash Indians, and even the erstwhile friendly Piankeshaws were not immune to the disease to destroy. At any rate the savages killed several French citizens in the vicinity of Vincennes and massacred three slaves within sight of the village during the fall of that year. A few months later five or six of the French inhabitants were killed at a village near the mouth of the Vermillion river. St. Ange provided every means for a defensive position directly at the post, but took no aggressive move against the savages remote from the post.
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cession of Canada the posts of Weatown and those at the head of the Mau- mee, at a later date, became the possessions of the British, and consequently were garrisoned by British soldiers. In his strategic conspiracy to banish the Britons from the country, the wily Pontiac contemplated the seizure and destruction of all British posts west of the Alleghenies. The great chieftain succeeded without hindrance in capturing the forts at Ft. Wayne and La Fayette, but the one at Vincennes was not molested. Pontiac, how- ever, was in conference with the commandant, and in person made many appeals to St. Ange to induce the latter to join him in his movement against the British colonies north of the Ohio river, but the commandant turned a deaf ear to the blandiloquent overtures of the big Warsaw chief, pre- ferring to remain here and complete the good work he had so auspiciously begun in behalf of the natives. Again diverting his attention from mili- tary to civil matters, St. Ange promulgated a civil code for the govern- ment of the immediate community, which forbade traders to traffic in fire- water with Indians, and prohibited gambling, drunkenness and loitering, making them all penal offenses. A social scale was also established, by which games, recreations and amusements were brought within the pale of more civilized bounds. Industry, piety and good behavior were taught, especially among the Indians, and the encouragement of these virtues sought through a system of rewards and punishments. St. Ange did more to encourage the cultivation of the soil among the inhabitants of the old post than any man who came here before Governor Abbott. He preached social economics to the people in such a simple way that his hearers were capable of grasping the full purport of his meaning. Through his per- sistent efforts, indolence gave way to industry to a very great extent, and in a measure the populace became producers as well as consumers. The condensation of salt was one of the lines of manufacture he encouraged, and the enterprise was quite profitable to those who engaged in it. The huge mill, to which the raw product was transported from the saline springs in Illinois, in suitable kettles which he imported from Pittsburg at his own expense, was operated by the wind and constructed much after the fashion of the old Dutch mills of Holland. In 1764 Commandant St. Ange re- turned to Fort Chartres to assume charge of that post, leaving the military and civic affairs at Vincennes in care of Jean Baptist Racine (St. Marie), commandant defactotum, Jean Deroite de Richardville and Sieur le Cain- dre. He seemed to have an abiding faith in the two gentlemen last named, and defines their respective duties in a farewell address* to the inhabitants, which reads as follows: "By virtue of the order of M. de Neyon, major commandant of the Illinois country, to name a person to attend to the police, and to maintain good order among the citizens of this post, as also of the voyageurs and the Indians: I, invalided captain, being about to de- part to the Illinois country, according to the order of Monsieur de Neyon, have named Monsieur Deroite de Richardville, performing the functions
* Indiana Historical Publications, vol. I., 1897.
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of captain of militia, jointly with Sr. le Caindre, soldier of the troops. Their first care should be to maintain good feeling among the Indians, to prevent disorder so long as they are in charge. Whenever complaint shall be made to them against anyone, they will proceed to call an assembly of the more notable of the citizens of the place, where the matter shall be decided by a plurality of votes. Messieurs Deroite de Richardville and le Caindre cannot watch too carefully that the citizens keep up their fences, it being to the public interest that cattle should not pass from the commons to the grain fields. They will check, as far as they are able, the disorders which occur too frequently, occasioned by drinking. Whenever any news shall come to them which may be of importance to the good of the service, they will take care to apprise me of it. In conclusion, in all cases which I have not been able to foresee, I depend upon their good man- agement and their devotion to the public welfare. Given at Post Vin- "cennes the 18th day of May, 1764. ST. ANGE."
Mr. J. P. Dunn, the eminent historian, in his valuable Indiana edition of American Commonwealths series (p. 60), refers to the officer we are now discussing, as Louis St. Ange, second son of Jean St. Ange de Belle Rive, and quotes from a certificate made by the former, on August 30, 1773, that he "commanded at Poste Vincesnes in the name of his most Christian majesty, with a garrison of regular troops, from the year 1736 until the year 1764, and that my first commission as commandant of the said post was from his most Christian majesty under the government of M. de Bienville, governor-general of Louisiana, in the said year 1736; that thereafter I was continued under the government of Messieurs de Vaudreville, de Revlerec, and D'Abadie, successors one to another in the said government, until the year 1764; that further, the said post was es- tablished a number of years before my command, under that of M. de Vincesne, officer of the troops, whom I succeeded by order of the king." Mr. Dunn, in the same edition (p. 62), concludes that St. Ange was "a discreet officer and a wise ruler ; that he always possessed the affection and confidence of the people of the Wabash, the Illinois, and the Mississippi is unquestionable ; that tradition describes him as prudent, pacific, generous and philanthropic. All of the existing documentary evidence confirms this estimate, while his promotion to a half-pay captaincy in 1738, and his long continuance in office at Vincennes, show that his administration was sat- isfactory to his superiors, as well as to the people." Of all his biograph- ers, Dunn gives the completest and most accurate history of St. Ange's career and the truest estimate of his worth. Taking up the life of the old commandant subsequent to his departure from Vincennes, the historian says : "After the surrender of Fort Chartres he had gone to the infant vil- lage of St. Louis, and he appears to have continued his government of that place, as a remnant of the district of Illinois. No other source of his authority there is known; in fact it was made the subject of judicial inquiry many years since, and the decision then reached was that he had
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no authority at all, so far at least as the granting of lands was concerned .* It is said, however, that he took service under Spain in 1766, and was in command as a Spanish officer at St. Louis until 1770, when he was suc- ceeded by Don Pedro Piernas.t He certified in 1773 that he was a half- pay captain in the Spanish service; and in certifying his will in 1774, Piernas calls him a 'captain of infantry in the service of his Catholic majesty.' Whatever may have been the legal power appurtenant to his station, he was in actual authority at St. Louis until the arrival of Piernas, and in command of troops thereafter. At St. Louis, as at Vincennes and Fort Chartres, his nobility of soul was evident. In 1769 he had a kindly word for Pontiac, then assuming only the place of a warrior; and when the great barbarian fell a victim to his Kaskaskian assassin, St. Ange sent across the river for his body and buried it with honors of war near the fort at St. Louis. In 1773 we have found him coming to the relief of the people of Vincennes with the strongest confirmations he could give for the protection of their homes. A few months later he passed to rest. On December 26, 1774, Lieutenant Governor Piernas was called to the house of Madame Chouteau 'where the said M. de St. Ange is abed,' to draw and attest his will. In this, 'first as a good Roman Catholic and a true member of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic church, he commends his soul to God, to the Blessed Virgin, and all the saints of heaven, praying them to intercede for him before the Almighty that it may please Him to admit his soul on its separation from his body into the kingdom of the blessed.' He then recites his debits and credits, and after providing for certain masses, and appropriating the sum of 500 livres 'towards the erection of the church projected in his parish,' he bequeaths his little property to his nieces and nephews. And here his worthy disposition is manifest in spe- cial provision for a blind nephew, and in a provision that the two chil- dren of his Indian slave, Angelique, who are left to his niece, Madame Belestre, are to be freed on arriving at the age of twenty-one; the com- mandant is requested to look specially to this. Pierre Laclede is made sole executor, and finally, whether with cause of apprehension we know not, he solemnly declares he has never entered into the married state. His preparation was timely. On the following morning at 9 o'clock Piernas was summoned to view his dead body and seal his effects in accordance with the formalities of the civil law. So he set his house in order and was gathered to his fathers at the ripe old age of seventy-three years. He was buried in the little churchyard at St. Louis, in conformity with his dying request, and there, like Pontiac, he sleeps beneath the bustle and din of the great city. Peace to thy ashes, faithful soldier of France, and may thy honest life be an example to all who shall follow thee as rulers: of Indiana."
* Admrs. of Wright vs. Thomas, 4 Mo. 577.
t Magazine of Western History, vol. II., p. 60.
CHAPTER IX. A PEN PICTURE OF VINCENNES' POPULATION AT AN EARLY DAY.
MISSIONARIES PAVE THE WAY FOR TIIE PIONEERS-THE FRENCH ALWAYS ALLIES OF AMERICA-THE EFFECT OF THE SAVAGE AND THE WILDERNESS ON REFINED NATURES-GLIMPSES OF THE WABASH COUNTRY BY EARLY TRAVELERS-SPANIARDS SAID TO HAVE OCCUPIED THE POST FOR A VERY BRIEF SEASON, AND SOLD LAND IN THIS VICINITY-EXCEPT COLONEL VIGO, NO SPANIARD EVER BECAME A PERMANENT RESIDENT OF VINCENNES.
Old Vincennes-the quaint, the beautiful, the picturesque, the ancient village-her feet laved with the crystal waters of the romantic Wabash, her brow kissed by the refreshing breezes wafted from fertile prairie sweeps or flower-strewn woodlands, basked for a score of years in an at- mosphere suggestive of Continental Europe. Among her heterogeneous population were personages from the kingdom of George III, having carte blanche to the royal court of St. James; notables in gold and lace from the land of Ferdinand and Isabella, natives of Madrid and Cadiz; suave subjects of his most Christian majesty, punctuated with ripened savants from Paris and fresh buds from the gardens of Versailles, who mingled with the first American (Indian) citizen ; coureurs de bois, roving spirits of the wilderness, who came and went as the wind; people of the frontier, bronzed by a life in the open, whose raiment was secured with their own hands from forest and stream, or woven from wooden looms that hummed in a half hundred humble cabins; militiamen with stately tread, wearing epaulettes of brightest gold, clothed in uniforms of blue and scarlet, adorned with the head-gear of plumed knights; backwoodsmen, armed with flint- lock muskets, attired in fringed and frayed buckskins, bearing arms in de- fense of their common country, or to safeguard loved ones from the mur- derous assaults of hostile redskins; black-robed priests, with classical brows and gentle miens; dark-eyed maidens, with the tint of roses on their lips and cheeks, gowned by French modistes, or wearing the comely garb of homespun, conversing in sweet and captivating undertones; Canadian mer- chants of French, English and Spanish extraction, absorbed in furs and fire-water; soldiers of fortune, hailing from nowhere, buffeted like rud- derless ships upon the billows of the surging sea of population that was
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steadily sweeping towards the forest fastnesses and the domains of the savage; the polite Frenchman, in the van of European rivals, resplendent with the glow of Parisian polish; his Canadian cousin, whose blue blood had become intermingled with that of the Ottawa or Algonquin; Creole- French, with the distingue features of the noble red man; and Indians, outnumbering all the rest, from every confederation of the Miami nation ; the indispensable and irresistible Creole fiddler, in whose unpretentious domicile the violin was a necessary adjunct, second in importance only to the rifle, and to whose entrancing strains the denizens for miles around were wont to "chase the glowing hours with flying feet" upon the puncheon floors of every cabin home .*
This mise en scene was the creation of the enterprises of the first voyageurs, undertaken without ostentation, executed without inviting the attention or coveting the applause of the outside world-the silent, un- selfish, hazardous pursuits of a coterie of courageous Frenchmen, in whom amiability and politeness were distinct characteristics-whose companions were devout, zealous followers of the meek and lowly Savior-who sur- mounted obstacles with no apparent effort, encountered perils innumerable, climbed mountains and rode the rapids, fought men and beasts on land and water, emerging from every conquest victorious, courting dangers and mocking a fate that would have carried adventurers less fearless and daunt- less down to destruction and death. These men were the redeemers of the untamed wastes of a new world, the forerunners of a new civilization, who braved the dangers of forest and stream, who engaged in deadly strife with the forces of nature, and emerged from the conflict unscathed; whose story of adventure, instead of being a serial of bloody tragedies, becomes merely a narrative of thrilling incidents. And for this reason: The French- man is an apt scholar of human nature, and never for a moment loses sight of the fact that he must accord to the uncivilized the same treatment he would to the civilized man-thus deporting himself toward the Indian as he would toward his white brother. Wonderfully resourceful is the Frenchman in his adaptability-conforming himself to conditions and meet- ing the requirements of men and measures with unerring intelligence and cheerfulness. The Frenchman is willing to await his opportunities, and
* It was not a great while after the establishment of the fort and church at Vincennes that the tide of emigration, not only from the North, but from the South and East as well, surged in this direction with large volume and velocity. Merchants, seeking location, European adventurers, looking for anything they could find on the American continent, turned their attentions in this direction. The hardy and honest frontiersman, English and American farmers were attracted by the description of the wonderful country for agricultural purposes and the cheapness of the fertile lands. The supposition that, besides the beauty and resourcefulness of the earth, hidden treasures beneath its surface were to be found in the shape of precious metals and minerals, brought a few scientific men from all parts of the world and a host of fellows who were not adverse to seek the end of the rainbow in quest of the fabled bag of gold.
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accepts conditions as he finds them. The American, on the contrary, is impatient, and chaffs too easily under restraint. Without the presence of the churchman, however, who paved the way, after having acquired a foothold here, for the pioneer to cause the wildernesses and barren wastes to blossom with fragrant flowers of civilization, the acquisition of this re- sourceful country would have probably never taken place. It was the wonderful influence the priest exerted over the savage that routed the evil spirit, at least momentarily, from the red man's heart. It was through the labor and ingenuity of the black-robed herald of the cross, by a display of emblems of burnished metals, ceremonies, devotions and instructions, in which pomp, patience and kindly consideration were shown, that savage instincts in the breast of the untutored child of the forest were supplanted by peaceful emotions, and the seeds of civilization sown in a benighted land. By pursuing such methods as these, and by being at all times at- tentive, bestowing presents generously and judiciously, having diplomat- ically gained possession of their implements of war, the priests were won- derful conciliators of the savages, and by kindnesses exerted by them- selves, which they forced others to exercise, the untamed waifs of the wilderness not only became meek and docile, but in many instances obedi- ent and courteous.
Separated from the world, as were the earlier pilgrims following in the wake of voyageur and priest, they acquired novel and varied peculiari- ties. Transplanted, as it were, in new soil, they necessarily lost the fine finish, in language, dress and manners, imparted by their original native polish, but never surrendered entirely the many characteristics of their respective nationalities. The Frenchman, especially, never forgot his earlier training, and never neglected to celebrate the ancient religious and social holidays as often as the dates of these festivals recurred. With luxuries comparatively few, and actual wants fewer, this heterogeneous people be- came a homogeneous class, and a happier or more cheerful lot never eked out an existence upon this mundane sphere. The French were the first allies of America and the first and only friends of the nation who proved their fealty by true tests of friendship. Of all the emigrants from foreign shores who came to make their abiding place with us, their sincerity of purpose was illustrated by a cheerful submission to our laws and the wil- lingness with which they readily grasped our language and adapted them- selves to our manners, customs and habits. They engrafted themselves in- stantly, as it were, branch and limb, on the trunk of our stock, and took deep root in the soil of our affections and in the fields of our social ac- tivities. But strange indeed were the influences exerted by the savage and the wilderness over the more sensitive and refined natures of civilized man. Many of the Europeans of the class we have attempted to portray in the first paragraph of this chapter, isolated from the refining influences of a ripened civilization, frequently showed tendencies, more or less pronounced, to drift into the state of savagery by which they were surrounded, without
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having a taint of wild blood coursing through their veins. Like many of the courcurs de bois, some of whom came of good stock, quite a number of these early Continental adventurers in the new world were prone to throw to the winds upon the slightest provocation all the lofty sentiments acquired by training and education, and sink to the level of the lowest fiends of the forest.
While courageous to a marked degree, the French preferred to fight Indians with love and kindness instead of shot and shell, and in so doing the doughty Frenchmen won nine-tenths of their battles. This mode of "warfare" eventually created bonds between the two races akin to sym- pathy and fraternalism, and it was no uncommon sight to see dusky war- riors, painted and plumed, lounging about the premises of the white man with the same familiarity displayed by a dog attached to the place. A noticeable characteristic of the settlement was the scarcity of females among the white population, which condition led to matings that were as frequent as they were irregular, with the result that at certain seasons the infantile class of half-breeds at the post often outnumbered the pure-blood children. Formerly a predominant element in the permanent population of Vincennes, the intermarriages of the Frenchmen with Indians and Anglo-Americans obliterated all lines of lineage in their progeny, and hence the pronounced type of a race which gave the old town its life and its inspiration melted away like the forest and the savage.
George Croghan, Sir William Johnson's sub-commissioner, who came to the west for the purpose of visiting the more distant Indian tribes, and securing, as far as it could be done, the alliance of the French, who were scattered through the western valleys, and who, it was thought, might be stirring up the savages to warfare, throws a luminous light on the antiquity, as well as the importance, of Vincennes as a settlement. The journal of his voyage may be found in the appendix of Butler's History of Kentucky (second edition), together with the estimate of the number of Indians in the west-"a very curious table, though of course vague and inaccurate," according to Mr. Perkins, the versatile historian. The journal contains passages relative to the character, size and condition of western French settlements at that time (1765)-indicating that they had their origin long before-and states that on June 6th he reached the mouth of the Wabash, and on the 8th was taken prisoner by a party of Indians from the upper Wabash; that upon the 15th he reached Vincennes. "On my arrival." continues Mr. Croghan, "I found a village of about eighty or ninety French families settled on the east side of the river, being one of the finest situa- tions that can be found. The country is level and clear, and the soil very rich, producing wheat and tobacco. I think the latter preferable to that of Maryland or Virginia. The inliabitants hereabouts are an idle, lazy people, a parcel of renegades from Canada, and much worse than the In- dians. Post Vincennes is a place of great consequence for trade, being a fine hunting country all along the Ouabache, and too far for the Indians,
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