USA > Indiana > Knox County > Vincennes > History of Old Vincennes and Knox County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 27
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Augustin Maltin de la Balme, a Frenchman by birth, who had been a lieutenant-colonel in the French cavalry, and who also claimed that he came to this country with Lafayette, in the fall of 1780 was at the head of an expedition that marched against Detroit. He recruited about forty or fifty soldiers at Kaskaskia and Cahokia and raised a like number of men at Vincennes. On August 22d he embarked upon the Wabash, ar- riving on September 3d at the Indian village of Miamitown, (Ft. Wayne) where his troops plundered the English traders of large quantities of stores. The conduct of the pillagers not only exasperated the traders, but incensed the Indians as well. Under the leadership of Little Turtle, the Miami In- (lians determined to avenge the wrongs that had been committed on their villages, and in the night stealthily crept to the tents of the looting soldiers on the banks of the river Aboite. Antoine Rembault, an officer of the troops, who had joined the expedition at Vincennes, was the first man to discover the approach of the enemy and had just risen from his berth to awaken his sleeping companions, when he fell dead in his tracks, with a tomahawk buried in his brain. La Balme and forty of his followers were killed outright, while the remainder of the troops were taken prisoners and many of them burned at the stake. While the looting of the English traders may not have been an honorable war measure to adopt, the ostensi- ble purpose of La Balme's expedition was laudable, and furnishes only another illustration of the loyalty and devotion to their adopted country of the French citizens, whose patriotic zeal and earnest endeavors in be- half of America during her struggle for the establishment and maintenance of liberty and independence have noticeably contributed in more instances than one to the success of American arms.
Clark had been looking after the civil as well as the military affairs of the Illinois and Wabash countries since his capture of Kaskaskia. The Virginia Legislature, as has already been stated, in October, 1778, passed a law providing for the organization of all territory lying northwest of the Ohio river as the county of Illinois. Under this law, the rights of property of the inhabitants were unabridged, and their religious and civil institutions were left undisturbed. By its provisions power was vested in the Governor of Virginia to appoint a county lieutenant and commandant in-chief, who, in turn, was authorized to appoint deputy commandants, militia officers and commissaries. The county lieutenant was given also power to pardon offenders where the crimes charged were not murder or treason, in which cases he was permitted to issue a respite, pending the laying of the charges before the Executive Council or the Governor of the
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Old Dominion. In May, 1779, Colonel John Todd was sent out here by Governor Patrick Henry to act as county lieutenant and commandant-in- chief of the county of Illinois. He was formally presented to the citizens of Vincennes and later escorted by General Clark to Kaskaskia, the terri- torial seat, to put in motion the machinery of civil government. Clark was glad enough to be delivered from the care of civil responsibilities and took his departure for the Falls of the Ohio. He reached his desti- nation on the 20th of August and at once assumed a sort of a military supervision over both the counties of Illinois and Kentucky, with the hope to some day gratify his long-cherished wish to march against Detroit-but the day never came. Not long after his arrival at the Falls Clark was made a brigadier general. His presence in that locality had a salutary effect on the Southern Indians, and even alarmed the British at Natchez, who, on learning of the bold and fearless methods he em- ployed in taking possession of Kaskaskia and Vincennes, feared he might descend upon them. He built a fort on the eastern shore of the Missis- sippi, below the Ohio, as a menace to the Chickasaws, whose hostilities were renewed afresh after a season of rest. The Indians, after repeated attacks on the fort, attempted one night to take it by storm. They were repulsed with heavy losses, and yet, in order to neutralize the savages, the Americans deemed it expedient to yield the fort and abandon the country. Clark, however, was not there.
It appears that on his arrival at Vincennes, prior to his departure for Kaskaskia, Colonel Todd organized a "court of common pleas for the counties of Vincennes and Illinois" by appointing as judges Francois Bus- seron, Louis Edeline, Pierre Gamelin and Pierre Querez, with Mr. Le Grand as clerk. J. M. P. Le Gras was selected as lieutenant colonel of militia, Francois Busseron, major ; Latulippe, first captain ; L. Edeline, sec- ond captain ; W. Brouibet and P. Gamelin third and fourth captains ; Goden, Richardville, Goden, Richardville and Joseph Rougas, first, second, third, fourth and fifth lieutenants. Mr. Le Gras acted as a substitute for Col. Todd at the Old Post, and manipulated the power of issuing land grants ("fantastically" arranged by Mr. Todd) with greater celerity and lesser scruples than even his superior. Le Gras not only took it upon himself to dispose of the public domains, but he delegated that power to the court composed of the four judges above mentioned. The court, it is charged, did a "land office" business in issuing grants-not only to others, but to themselves, and gobbled up "arpents" as well as "leagues." Three of the four judges (so it is asserted by Judge Law) were left on the bench while one retired. "The court then made a grant of so many 'leagues' of land to their absent colleague, which was entered of record-he returned as soon as the grant was recorded, and another of these 'ermined' gentle- men left the bench, while the chief justice and the other judges made a similar grant to their absent friend. After the grant was made and duly recorded, he returned-the third departed, and a similar record was made
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for his benefit; and so with the fourth. In this wholesale transfer of the public land, if continued, Virginia would have had but a small donation to make her sister states of the confederacy when she gave up the em- pire she held in the Northwest Territory for the common benefit."
Governor Sargent complained to General Washington in 1790 of the "looseness" of these transactions, and among the documents accompany- ing the letter addressed to the "Father of His Country," was a reply from the judges in answer to Sargent's enquiry "by what right these concessions were made." It reads as follows :
"SIR: As you have given orders to the magistrates who formerly composed the court of the district of Vincennes, under the jurisdiction of Virginia, to give you their reasons for having taken upon them to grant concessions for the lands within the dis- trict, in obedience thereto we beg to inform you that their principal reason is, that since the establishment of the country the commandants have always appeared to be vested with the powers to give lands. Their founder, Mr. Vinsenne, began to give concessions and all his successors have given lands and lots. Mr. Le Gras was appointed com- mandant of Post Vincennes by the lieutenant of the county and commander-in-chief, John Todd, who was in the year 1779 sent by the state of Virginia for to regulate the government of the country, and who substituted Mr. Le Gras with his power. In his absence, Mr. Le Gras, who was then commandant, assumed that he had in quality of commandant authority to give lands according to the ancient usages of other command- ers, and he verbally informed the court of Post Vincennes that when they would judge it proper to give lands or lots to those who should come into the country to settle, or otherwise, they might do it, and then he gave them permission so to do. These are the reasons we acted on, and if we have done more than we ought, it was on account of the little knowledge which we had of public affairs. We are with great respect, your honors most obedient and very humble servants,
"F. BOSSERON. "L. E. EDELINE. "PIERRE GAMELIN. his "PIERRE X QUEREZ." mark
No confirmation was ever made by the government of any of the grants made by the above named court. The tract disposed of extended on the Wabash river, twenty-four leagues from Point Coupé to the mouth of White river and forty leagues into the country west and thirty east from the Wabash, excluding about twenty or thirty thousand acres lying adja- cent to Vincennes, which had previously been granted. The government, however, experienced considerable trouble over these authorized grants, as attested by extracts from a letter written June 19, 1802, by General Harrison, Governor of the Northwest Territory, to Mr. Madison, Secre- tary of State, in which he says: "The authors of this ridiculous transaction soon found that no advantage could be derived from it, as they could find no purchasers ; and I believe that the idea of holding any part of the land was, by the greater part of them, abandoned a few years ago. However, the claim was discovered, and a part of it purchased by some of those speculators who infest our country, and through these people a number
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of others in different parts of the United Stated have become concerned, some of whom are actually preparing to make settlements on the land the ensuing spring. Indeed I should not be surprised to see five hundred fami- lies settling under these titles in the course of a year. The price at which this land is sold enables anybody to become a purchaser-one thousand acres being frequently sold for an indifferent horse or gun. And as a formal deed is made reciting the grant of the court many people have been induced to part with their little all to obtain their ideal property ; and they will no doubt endeavor to strengthen the claim as soon as they discover the deception, by an actual settlement. The extent of these specu- lations was unknown to me until lately. I am now informed that a num- ber of persons are in the habit of repairing to Vincennes where they pur- chase two or three hundred thousand acres of this claim for which they get a deed properly authenticated and recorded, and then disperse them- selves over the United States to cheat the ignorant and credulous. In some measure to check this practice I have forbidden the recorder and prothonotary of this county from recording or authenticating any of these papers-having determined that the official seals of the territory shall not be prostituted to a purpose so base as that of assisting an infamous fraud."
There is no doubt but that the court, in the exercise of "personal privi- leges," felt that they were clothed with authority from Virginia, and had been led to believe so through the representations of Governor Todd, Signor Le Gras, colonel commandant, and Gabriel Le Grand, clerk of the court; and the culpability of their acts, which they averred were performed in good faith, were charged directly to the last named trio. The members of the court, however, never lost caste entirely with their fellow-citizens, and continued up to the termination of their respective earthly careers to occupy positions of honor and trust, while Todd, Le Grand and Le Gras (the latter decamping between two days) were accredited with being the real culprits.
When the legislative act of Virginia, providing for the establishment of civil government by that state in the county of Illinois was passed, its provisions were to remain in force for a period of twelve months, or to the close of the following session of the Virginia assembly. By a subse- quent act, passed in May, 1780, the time was extended to the period when Virginia had agreed to relinquish her claim on the Northwest Territory to the federal government.
Todd's stay in the Wabash and Illinois countries was as brief as it was inglorious, as he departed in the fall following the year of his ar- rival, going to Kentucky, from whence, in the spring of 1780, he was sent as a delegate to the Virginia legislature. The same year, in November, he was appointed commandant of Fayette county, one of three counties then comprising the whole state of Kentucky. He commanded a small force of men at the battle of Blue Licks, and while leading a charge on August 18, 1782, was killed.
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Virginia, by her own volition, allowed her statutory organization of Illinois to expire by limitation in 1781. The elective and appointive offi- cers of the territory, however, continued in exercising the functions of their respective offices; and their authority was not questioned by the people, and probably would not have been by the general government had they not attempted to exert powers with which they were not clothed, es- pecially with reference to grants for lands. And, while we have again touched upon this subject, it may not be amiss to hear from Mr. Dunn, who speaks in a more charitable tone of those directly interested than some other gentlemen whom we have quoted. Mr. Dunn, referring to the court heretofore discussed, says, "they assumed power to make grants of land, and having used it freely for the benefit of others, they generously divided all that remained of the old Indian grant, of twenty-four leagues square, among themselves, each judge, in turn, absenting himself for a day while his associates voted him his portion. The United States of course repudi- ated this action; and yet the French judges had arrived at the conclusion that they possessed this power, in a very natural way. Todd, whom they labelled 'Colonel et Grande Judge civil pour Les Etats Unis,' had been sent to govern them. He had commissioned Le Gras lieutenant colonel of the militia of Vincennes, and consequently Le Gras was commandant of the post. The commandants had always made concessions of land; hence Le Gras had the same power, and Le Gras had given the court permission to make grants. Such was the course of their authority as they explained it to Secretary Sargent."*
The condition of the French settlements of the Illinois and Wabash countries while Virginia occupation prevailed and during the subsequent years, prior to the arrival of General Harmar, caused the inhabitants no little trouble and annoyance. The severance of commercial relations be- tween Vincennes and Detroit after the fall of Fort Sackville, the inter- ference with northwestern trade and traffic on the Mississippi south by the Cherokees, Chickasaws and other southern Indians, who had been won by British gold to make war against Americans and American in- terests, paralyzed commerce and trade to such an extent that the price of commodities advanced more than five hundred per cent and the cost of living at Vincennes then was one hundred per cent higher than it is to- day. And, while it is not pleasant to relate, General Clark charged that a few of the leading merchants took advantage of the direful situation to enrich themselves at the expense of the helpless public. The Mississippi settlements suffered more or less from the impediment of trade, but none of them to such an alarming extent as the Old Post. At the beginning of the year 1781 the Virginia troops were withdrawn from Fort Patrick Henry and sent to Fort Jefferson, the void thus created being filled by the militia. The departure of the regular soldiers, within whose ranks
*J. P. Dunn, Indiana, American Commonwealth Series, p. 158. Vol. 1-15
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were many of the fearless Long Knives who came with Clark, was noted by the Indians, who began to lose that respect for American arms which the terror of the valorous Virginian had enforced, and went forth again on the war path.
Clark's final effort for an expedition against Detroit was made at the Falls of the Ohio in 1781, but the slaughter at Longhery Creek, of a de- tachment of his picked men, under Colonel Archibald Lochry, by a band of Indians, led by Joseph Brandt, disarranged every preparation that had been made for it. In this conflict nearly half of Lochry's men were killed, the remainder taken captives and tortured.
The year 1782 was prolific for hostilities between the red and white people, and the western frontiers witnessed many battles in which the In- dians were often the victors. The massacre of the Moravians on the Muskingum was a notable exception ; and the plight of these Christianized savages was such as to excite pity. The Indians had assembled in two houses-the men in one and the women and children in the other. When the white murderers descended upon them the doomed Moravians asked one another's forgiveness for any wrongs they had inflicted, knelt and prayed, kissed each other farewell, sang songs of praise to the Almighty, and delivered themselves into the hands of their blood-thirsty foes, who slew them all, the list composing ninety-six men, women and children. A few months after the enactment of this terrible tragedy the bloody oc- currence at Estill Springs, on the Kentucky border, took place. Capt. Estill, with a force of twenty-five men had been pursuing for two days a like num- ber of Wyandot Indians who had scalped a white girl. The Indians when brought to bay put up a standing fight, which resulted in the death of the Captain and nine of his followers and the wounding of five, who, with their uninjured comrades, escaped. The Wyandots suffered the loss of only four or five braves. A month later followed the siege at Sandusky, towards which Col. Wm. Crawford marched his men with instructions to destroy every Indian in sight, whether hostile or otherwise. Entering the plains of Sandusky with nearly five hundred (480). soldiers he was met by a strong force of Wyandot and Delaware Indians which had been per- mitted to gather through his lack of generalship. Notwithstanding his forces were trained militiamen, gathered from Pennsylvania and Virginia, they were overwhelmed by the savages, and routed from the field, after sus- taining a loss of more than one hundred men. Crawford himself, with others, was taken prisoner and subjected to torturing death at the stake. Three months later in Simon Girty's attack on Bryan's Station and the subsequent battle of the Lower Blue Licks, where more than a hundred men were killed outright, including Colonel Todd and Lieut .- Colonel Trigg, and in both of which engagements Boone and Kenton participated, the savages out-classed some of the greatest Indian fighters the Kentucky bor- ders furnished and came out victorious mid scenes of dreadful slaughter.
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Clark, straining every effort to formulate an expedition against Detroit, was forced by the fierceness of the recurring Indian hostilities to abandon the project altogether, and in November he left the Falls with ten hun- dred and fifty troops to march against the Indian settlements towards the head of the Miami. In this, as in all other expeditions he ever under- took, he was successful, and completely routed the savages in every settle- ment from the Ohio to the head waters of the Miami, burning their villages, destroying their crops and supplies, driving the hostiles, terror-stricken, from the country.
During the pendency of peace negotiations between the United States and Great Britain there was a cessation of hostilities towards Americans on the part of both the English and their Indian allies. Provisional articles of peace between the two countries were signed at Paris, France, in No- vember, 1782, followed by a negotiated armistice at Versailles, January, 1783, declaring a cessation of hostilities, and culminating in a definite peace treaty at Paris in September, 1783, which the Congress of the United States ratified in January, 1784. The surrender of Cornwallis at York- town, in October, 1781, precipitated the treaty of two years later, for it was an event which practically broke the backbone of the Revolution. By proclamation, in April, 1783, Congress declared a cessation of hostili- ties between the United States and Great Britain, In the acquisition of the territory resulting from the treaties between America and the mother country, the only argument advanced by the United States Commissioners to this country's claim to the Northwest Territory (embracing the great states of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and a portion of Minne- sota) was that it belonged to the chartered limits of Virginia by reason of "the conquest of it by George Rogers Clark, and the establishment of the forts and garrisons to the lakes by himself and troops, 'serving as the monuments of our possession,' and, carrying out the rules of 'uti possi- deltes,' was adopted as the basis of our negotiations. The British Com- missioners had to yield to evidences so apparent of our use and occupa- tion, and the Mississippi became our boundary on the west and the Lakes on the north, through the wisdom of Jefferson and the valor and enter- prise of Clark. But where now are these monuments of title ?- these em- blems of our power ?- these land-marks of our possessions? Echo answers -- where? Their very foundations are removed. The tall grass of the prairie grows over their dilapidated bastions. The plough-share of the husbandman has furrowed their parade grounds; and the hardy pioneer of the west has long since preempted the localities upon which they stood. More than one generation of the 'sons of the west,' who have occupied these fields, have been gathered to their fathers; while they, as well as their present descendants, have been for the most part ignorant of the valor by which they were won, or the patriotism and wisdom which secured them. The names of Jefferson and Clark should have been household words in every log cabin between the Miami and the Father of Waters, and the
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present owners of these countless acres should never forget the memory of those by whose courage and peril this immense empire was added to the Union. To no state but Virginia is the west indebted for this price- less treasure. It is her child; and cold be the tongue and palsied the arm that would not speak our gratitude for her princely gift, or strike a blow, if required, in defense of her honor and her rights. I very much doubt whether any other state in the old confederacy would. under the circum- stances have made such a donation, 'for the common benefit.'" *
From 1782 to 1785 there was much activity shown by the United States to induce the savage tribes northwest of the Ohio to enter into treaties of peace. Only a portion of them, however, agreed to the terms, and, as an evidence of their sincerity in accepting the government's proffered peace and friendship, they signed articles of agreement held at Fort Stan- wix, Fort McIntosh and Fort Finney. The greater number were determined to hold fast to the lands they had long claimed north of the Ohio, and, to check the tide of white emigration that was sweeping in that direction, formed a powerful confederacy and for ten years or more prevented any perceptible growth of the border settlements.
It was on May 11, 1783, that Congress issued a proclamation declar- ing a cessation of hostilities between the United States and Great Britain, and in July of the same year General George Rogers Clark was dismissed from the services of Virginia. Benjamin Harrison, the Governor of Vir- ginia, who issued the order of dismissal, addressed a letter to Clark ex- planatory of his action, which contained the following paragraph: "The conclusion of the war and the distressed situation of the state, with respect to its finances, call on us to adopt the most prudent economy. It is for this reason alone I have come to a determination to give over all thoughts for the present of carrying on an offensive war against the Indians, which you will easily perceive will render the services of a general officer in that quarter unnecessary ; you will therefore consider yourself as out of command. But before I take leave of you I feel myself called upon in the most forcible manner to return you my thanks and those of my coun- cil for the very great and singular services you have rendered your conn- try, in wresting so great and valuable a territory out of the hands of the British enemy, repelling the attacks of their savage allies, and carrying on successful war in the heart of their country. This tribute of praise and thanks, so justly due, I am happy to communicate to you as the united voice of the executive." At a later period when the ravages of disease and the inroads of age had rendered George Rogers Clark a helpless cripple at his humble home in Clarksville, the authorities of Virginia presented him with a sword as a token of their appreciation for the valuable services he had rendered the commonwealth. It is said he received the gift demurely, thrust the sword in the ground, snapped it off, and flung away the hilt,
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