USA > Indiana > Knox County > Vincennes > History of Old Vincennes and Knox County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 6
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a very early date from European shores to the banks of the Wabash a heterogeneous mass of humanity. This traffic in furs and peltries assumed stich enormous proportions that the ambitious governor of Canada and his official household were charged with being silent partners in some of the concerns that were sending shiploads of products across the ocean. The volume of money arising from the trade created trusts [even in those early days], and monopolies sprang up to squelch the weaker traders and trappers ; church and state alike sharing in the revenue derived from sums paid for privileges, which were diverted into channels of charity and for the benefit of widows and orphans. In short, the northwest had gone mad on furs. The worldly motive for gain and gold had supplanted the re- ligious fervor that impelled men and women to leave luxurious homes of culture and refinement to enter upon lives of deprivation and danger in the solitudes of an unknown land. The good and enterprising King Louis XIV, awe-stricken by the spectacle, determined that Canada should not be wholly abandoned to temporal affairs at the sacrifice of spiritual needs and governmental necessities, and suggested to his ministry that immediate steps be taken to infuse the blood of LaBelle France into the veins of Nouvelle France. And subsequently royal heads of the kingly realm dis- patched a fresh allotment of soldiers, young women of a marriageable age, settlers, horses, sheep and cattle to stay the impending danger of a commercialism that threatened the stability of the civil and religious in- stitutions of La Grande Monarque in the new world.
Another eminent authority, Mr. John B. Dillon, whose name is linked with the thoughtful and profound historians of the day, having at that time a large collection of vastly important documents, which have been greatly and regretfully scattered since his death in 1879, says, in his His- tory of Indiana, edition 1859: "After Lamotte Cadillac founded a perma- nent settlement at Detroit, and about the close of the year 1702, the Sieur Juchereau, a Canadian officer, assisted by the missionary, Mermet, made an attempt to establish a post on the Ohio, near the mouth of that river ; or, according to some attthorities, on the river Wabash, at the site which is now occupied by the town of Vincennes." And again Mr. Dillon says: "The Miami villages which stood at the head of the river Maumee, the Wea villages which were situated about Quiatenon, on the Wabash river, and the Piankeshaw villages which stood on and about the site of Vin- cennes, were, it seems, regarded by the early French fur traders as suitable places for the establishing of trading posts. It is probable that, before the close of the year 1719, temporary trading posts were erected at the sites of Fort Wayne, Quiatenon and Vincennes. These points had, it is be- lieved, been often visited by traders before the year 1700."
Mr. J. P. Dunn, Jr., whose historical works are highly prized and have been given conspicuous places in every public library of the state, is ir- reconcilable to the idea that Vincennes was founded in 1702. He admits, however, that it is the "earliest permanent town" in the state, and that
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"although there were three posts in Indiana during the greater part of the French occupation in the eighteenth century, Vincennes was the only one that could be considered a town." While we are only contending that Vin- cennes was formally established in 1702, there is an abundance of evi- dence to show that there were settlements here many years prior to that date. In a very able article, published in May, 1889, in the Magazine of American History, Prof. E. A. Bryan, then president of the Vincennes University, a man of profound learning, devoid of prejudicial or selfish motives, contends that Vincennes was visited by white men during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. In his judgment the fame of its beaver grounds, even if it were not well established by historical data, would alone remove all further doubt of the question. The maps* of that period lay down the Wabash and White rivers very clearly and correctly ; and references to the river St. Jerome (Ouabachet ) occur in documents published prior to 1700. From a mass of somewhat misty evidence, va- rious dates, ranging from 1680 to 1735, have been assigned as the time of the first settlement which, as a matter of course, obtained prior to the establishment of the first fort. The large and open river, the limited portage from the Maumee, which obviated the lengthy water route by the Straits of Mackinaw or the extensive portage across southern Michigan or northern Indiana, had early made the Ouabache (Wabash}) a favorite highway of travel, not alone to the pioneers of this section of country, but to the French traders, trappers and Indians who rendezvoused on the lake shores of Canada and made annual pilgrimages to the hunting grounds in this immediate locality. The country around the Indian village of Chip- pe-coke (Vincennes), which was one of the most populous on the Wabash, contained numerous lakes and bayous, wherein the aquatic and fur-bearing animals, with the skill of masons drilled in the deft handling of a trowel, reared their homes. Inviting prairie lands, easy of cultivation and annually fertilized with the productive sediment of the river, lay around and about
* Franquelin's Maps, 1684.
t The Wabash is strictly the principal stream of Indiana, from the surface of which it draws the far greater part of its waters. The head branches of the Wabash are in the Indian country, of course very imperfectly explored. * * The entire length of the Wabash exceeds three hundred miles; it is a fine stream, without falls or extraordinary rapids. It was through the channel of the Wabash that the French of Canada first discovered the Ohio, to which they gave the name of Belle Riviere, or beautiful river, but considered the Wabash the main branch and gave the united rivers its name. Darby's Emigrant's Guide, 1818, p. 214.
# The Wabash Valley was occupied about 1700, the first settlers entering it by the portage leading from the Kankakee. Later the voyageurs found a shorter route to the fertile valley, ascending the Maumee, then called "The Miami of the Lake," whose heads are interlaced with those of the Wabash, and crossing the short portage leading to that stream, they could descend to the Ohio. As the Frenchmen found their way to the confluence of the two streams by the Wabash, and as they knew little of the Ohio, then called "the river of the Iroquois," they took the Wabash for the main stream. * Hiesdale, The Old Northwest, p. 44.
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the town. Just below, with its gravelly bottom, was the river ford, a favorite resort for youthful bathers a third of a century ago. This par- ticular place in the Wabash and the falls in the Ohio river at Louisville, Ky., were on a parallel line with and extended along the old Indian and buffalo trail, by which the swarthy sons of the forest and herds of bison, by hundreds and thousands, passed back and forth from the fertile prairies of Illinois to the blue grass pastures of Kentucky. The route across the country to the lower Illinois and Mississippi* settlements was one that impressed the traveler very favorably. It was not only inviting, but at once easily attainable, and provided comforts not usually to be found in journeys undertaken in those early days. The sheltering places to be found en route, the abundance of water and the plenitude of game, be- sides its directness, made it at once desirable and preferable to all other avenues of travel if, in reality, there were any others to be had at that time. "In view of all these facts," says Mr. Bryan, "it would be in- credible that under these circumstances it should not have early become a favorite stopping place."
* The directors of the Canadian Company, as we have heretofore stated herein, said November 10, 1701, that "the River Ouabache will serve as a boundary between this colony and that which is established on the Mississippi, for it is by it that one goes to Carolina and that the English come also to our lands." It is very plain that the Ouabache was well known and a great line of travel between Canada and the South as early as 1701, at least. F. A. Meyers, Post Vincennes, p. 16.
CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF VINCENNES.
A TRIBUTE TO THE MISSIONARIES AND THEIR LABORS-NATIONAL ACTS OF EUROPEAN NATIONS MAKE LOCAL HISTORY-IMPORTANT RESULTS GROW- ING OUT OF CLARK'S CONQUEST-HOW FOREIGN POWERS ACQUIRED TERRI- TORY IN NORTH AMERICA-VINCENNES AN HISTORIC SPOT- THE MAD RUSH FOR LAND AND ITS BALEFUL EFFECTS ON BURR AND CLARK-CROSS AND SWORD IMPLANTED IN NEW SOIL-"KEY TO THE NORTHWEST TERRI- TORY" DEDICATED TO RELIGION AND CIVILIZATION-FIRST CHURCH WEST OF TIIE ALLEGHENY MOUNTAINS.
The lives and achievements of the early explorers of the northwest territory should excite our interest and invoke our sympathies. The mis- sionary and the voyageur paved the way for the pioneers to fell the for- ests, clear the prairies, reclaim swamps, lay out farms, build cities, con- struct railroads-in short, to transform the bleak and howling wildernesses into landscapes of bewildering beauty, glorified with a lofty civilization unparalleled anywhere beneath the great blue dome of heaven. The one gave himself to the service of the church and the salvation of souls; the other, with an energy and hardihood almost as pronounced, to scientific research and the development of the fur trade, thus connecting by com- mercial ties the kings and castles of the old world with the hunting grounds and Indian wigwams of the new. The fur trade, however, which carried its votaries into the recesses of wilderness wilds, over pathless snows, through fastnesses of interminable forests, up the winding courses of treacherous streams, over the bosom of mighty rivers and lakes, almost as boundless as seas, was outstripped by religion, whose onward march the greed for gold could not stay. The bearers of the cross held the emblem aloft in the jungles of wild beasts and in the haunts of savages, where men followed, impelled by a force they could not resist, inspired by a daring enterprise and lofty ambition the world had never seen before nor has not since. As the ranks of these holy pilgrims were thinned by the cruel tomahawk, torturing death at the stake, or from disease, the voids were filled by others who pressed onward, undismayed by the fate of those whose places they had taken, coveting to bear the burden of the cross and
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TECUMSEH AND THE PROPHET
CROSS AND SWORD AT VINCENNES. 1202
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to wear a crown of thorns even unto the end of their earthly pilgrimages. The examples of Marquette and LaSalle, of Fathers Marest, La Veigne, Senat, Mermet, Meurin and Gibault, with which we are familiar, and a host of other zealous missionaries who established their "tabernacles in the wilderness," impress us visibly, regardless of our religious opinions or belief, when we contemplate the great hardships they endured, the perils they suffered, the sacrifices they made in the pursuit of spiritual as well as temporal objects. * "Whatever else Jesuitism may have done, it has given to history one of the noblest of those armies of heroes and martyrs with the record of whose deeds and sufferings its pages are glorified. No- where does the love of souls, the contempt of danger and death, patient endurance of hunger, cold, nakedness and bonds, serene self-possession under stripes, and the joyful welcome of martyrdom stand out in more illustrious contrast to the ordinary selfish and sordid phases of our nature than in the early mission story of one region of this continent."
The mind of the Jesuit Father, however, was not entirely absorbed in religious thought at all times. While the conversion of a single Indian to the doctrines of the Catholic faith, or the baptism of an infant were con- sidered a joy and a full recompense for the labor, toil and suffering en- tailed, the frontier priest found time to devote his talents and finely- trained intellect to temporal affairs. And this is the reason, strange as it may seem, that the best and only authentic accounts of the country bounded on the north by the lakes, on the east by the Miami, south by the Ohio, and west by the Mississippi, to be had two centuries ago, were gathered from detailed reports of the missionaries relative to their labors in this field, transmitted annually to their superior.
If it were possible to reproduce these reports, they would no doubt decide for all time the mooted question of the first settlement of Vin- cennes-a subject discussed at length from different viewpoints in para- graphs presented in preceding chapters, and which we cannot dismiss with- out further discussion. The evidence along this line already adduced, as well as that which is to follow, points unmistakably to the fact that the founding of Vincennes, the establishment of a military post, as well as a mission,t were contemporaneous with the founding of other such posts
* Milburn, The Pioneers, Preachers and People of the Mississippi Valley, PP. 72, 73.
t But few of the old records of the early French missions are available. During the French domination of Louisiana, many of the inhabitants of the Northwestern Territory who had emigrated from New Orleans, becoming alarmed after a great flood of the western waters returned thither, and, at the suggestion of the clergy, carried the greater portion of the mission and church records with them, for greater safety. There they were deposited in a vault of the principal church of that place, where they remained for many years untouched. When afterward they were brought to light and examined, it was discovered that they were entirely decomposed by the humidity of the atmosphere.
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along the northern lakes and the Mississippi at the beginning of the eighteenth century; and further, that 1702 was the date when these events transpired.
The consequences of discovery and conquest on the North American continent made by European countries from the beginning of the sixteenth to the close of the seventeenth century, that bear relationship to the north- west territory, have more than a foreign connection with Vincennes and its first settlement. Some national act committed by either Spain, France or Great Britain has had, directly or indirectly, an influence on the old post -proud and haughty Vincennes-the gem city of the Wabash valley, whose past is enveloped in a halo of historic glory, whose present is made resplendent by the glorious sun of prosperity that shines, undimmed by a single cloud of distrust, upon the devoted and happy heads of a prosperous and enlightened people, and whose future greatness is assured by the grand possibilities to which a progressive spirit and an advanced education point the way. The seat of an empire, within the confines of which a war was waged as far-reaching in its effects as the conquests of the Persians in western Asia and Egypt, as productive of effects as the long hostility be- tween Persia and Greece, finally ending in the expeditions of Xenophon and Alexander. These campaigns in the far east directly enlarged geo- graphical knowledge; they increased the inter-communication of stranger peoples by facilitating locomotion ; they stimulated industry and extended commerce; by increasing commodities they added to the enjoyments of mankind, although such enjoyments may not be of the highest order; and finally, by establishing Alexandria they gave rise to an emporium where the remotest east and west could meet. The conquests of the northwest territory, however, in which America and England were involved, were more holy and righteous, and provided a characterization of heroic gen- eralship on the part of one American commander that has never been ex- celled in the military annals of the old world, either in ancient or modern warfare. Armies of the old world have devastated countries and slaugh- tered myriads, but they have left states and their rulers pretty much as they found them. Lust of conquest and love of glory have impelled Euro- pean nations to engage in war, but Americans have never yet arrayed themselves in battle except for the establishment of human rights and for the preservation of human liberties. The physical and moral advantages gained by George Rogers Clark in capturing Vincennes from the British, in the conquest of the northwest territory, have been so great that a proper estimate has never been given them by their beneficiaries, else an ungrate- ful republic and unappreciative commonwealth would have never allowed their author to have gone to his grave "unwept, unhonored and unsung." But this inexcusable negligence and lack of appreciation on the part of the nation and the states in which he held citizenship do not detract from the glory of Clark's achievement or lessen its beneficent results. Genera- tions yet unborn, and those who are to follow them, long after we have
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gone and been forgotten, will sing his praises and pay tribute to the mem- ory of one of the bravest soldiers and one of the most strategic warriors that ever lived. For the expeditions of Clark and his followers in the north and west of America were no less productive of results than those of Xenephon and Alexander in the east and west of Asia and Egypt. They, too, enlarged geographical knowledge by extending the jurisdiction of the colonies from the Alleghenies to the Mississippi river, carrying with it American liberty, American progress and American ideas. By the acquisi- tion of territory greater in extent than some of the provinces of Asia or Egypt, they converted wilderness fastnesses into communities of civilization and progress, and created new fields for the cultivation of commercial and social relations. While the expeditions of the latter led to the establish- ment of Alexandria on the Egyptian border, giving rise to an emporium where east and west could meet, the expeditions of the former re-estab- lished Vincennes far beyond the line of the North American frontier, made it the capital of the northwestern territory, where north, south, east and west could meet untrammeled by British rule and unawed by the presence of Briton's red-skinned allies. Aye! more than this-Clark's ex- pedition, culminating in the capture of Vincennes from Hamilton, made possible the Louisiana Purchase, which in turn was followed by the an- nexation of Texas, the securing of California and the Pacific coast, and the later acquisition of Hawaii and the Philippines. It installed American freedom and unfurled the glorious banner of American liberty over a dominion extending from the Allegheny mountains to the Pacific ocean, and even unto the Orient, reclaiming a territory which would be other- wise under British or Spanish control.
To briefly recount a few of the many achievements and exploitations of three European nations on American soil is but to present an index to a summary of events pertaining to Vincennes as a field of international warfare and as a seat of international government, as well as furnish, in- cidentally, information relating to it as the scene of not a few international controversies during colonial days, if not to dispel the doubt of its first · settlement, a point upon which all historians are further apart today than ever before.
Great Britain was the first European nation to send, by royal authority, adventurers to this country after the advent of Columbus. As early as 1496, only four years after the discovery of America, John Cabot, by birth a Venetian, but a subject of the king of England, having obtained a com- mission from Henry VII to discover unknown lands and annex them to the British crown, sallied forth accompanied by his three sons, falling in with the coast of Labrador, along which he proceeded as far as 67º north latitude. The year following he undertook a second voyage, and on the 24th of June, 1497, discovered the island of Newfoundland and before his return traversed the coast from Davis' straits to Cape Florida. In
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1502 Sebastian Cabot again fell in with Newfoundland and on his return carried three of the natives of that island to England and presented thiem to his patron, Henry VII. England's claim to territory in America grew out of discoveries made by the Cabots, and the subsequent explorations and conquests of Sir Walter Raleigh, William Brown, Sir Francis Drake and others. But, thanks to American valor and bravery, to the strong arms and stronger hearts of our fathers and their ability to foresee fu- ture possibilities, the domains we have wrested from the claws of the British lion, are the choicest of all the parcels over which dissensions have arisen in the centuries that have gone by. And when one contemplates the glory of the deeds that comprise the victorious crown on Columbia's brow, Vincennes' contribution will shine forth as the brightest jewel in the coronet.
Acting upon authority from the Spanish government, John Ponce (Ponce de Leon) in the early spring of 1512 sailed from St. Germain in Porto Rico and discovered the continent of America in 30° north latitude, where the town of Pensacola now stands. Here he landed, and finding the country overspread with a delightful verdure and the trees and herbs in full bloom, he named it Florida, which for long after was the common name of both North and South America. Having taken possession of the "Land of Flowers" in the name of the king of Spain, he subsequently re- turned to Porto Rico, whence he reembarked, in 1521, to asstime control of the province he had discovered nine years before. In Florida he was met by the natives with determined hostility, and in an attack made by them, the Spaniards were driven to their ships, and Ponce de Leon him- self was mortally wounded and died after his arrival in Cuba. Ferdinand De Soto was the second explorer and soldier to go from Spain to America for conquest and adventure. Having led a reinforcement of 300 soldiers and materially aided Pizzaro in the capture of Peru, hie set sail for Florida, landing at Esperitti Santo bay in May, 1539. He and his band of adven- turers contintied for four years to wander from one point to another, ever deceived in their expectations and ever allured by the report of the wealth that lay beyond. The Mississippi river, of which De Soto is the accredited discoverer, was reached in 1541, and the following winter was spent at Washita. As they were returning in 1542, along the Mississippi, De Soto died and his body was sunk in its waters. Upon the discoveries which the dead explorer and other members of his expedition had made, Spain laid claim to the western and southern part of the continent, just as she did to possessions in South America after the conquest of Peru.
It was not until the year 1524 that France attempted to make discover- ies in America. For this purpose John Verrazano, a native of Italy, was sent out by Francis I, and having traversed the coast from latitude 28° to 50° north, returned to Europe ; and in a second voyage some time after, he was lost at sea. In 1534 a fleet was sent from France under Jules Car-
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tier for the purpose of making further discoveries in America. He arrived at Newfoundland in May, and on the tenth of August found himself in a broad gulf, which, with the river that falls into it, he named St. Law- rence, in honor of the day. In this voyage he coasted as far north as lati- tude 57°, expecting in vain to find a passage to China. The next year he sailed 200 leagues up the river St. Lawrence and named the country "New France,"* where he built a fort in which he found an abiding place during the winter, and in the ensuing spring returned to France. Upon these ex- plorations and the subsequent ones of Roberval, Champlain and others, France regarded herself justly entitled by right of discovery to portions at least of this vast and resourceful Eldorado.
In 1753 a conflict arose between Louisiana and the Atlantic colonies which resulted in France being dispossessed of the immense territory ac- quired through conquest and discovery of her explorers and missionaries, and in September, 1760, Montreal, Detroit and all of Canada became the possessions of his majesty, the king of England. In February, 1763, the treaty of Paris was concluded, by which Great Britain became possessed of all New France, and all that portion of the province of Louisiana lying on the east side of the Mississippi, except the island and town of New Orleans, which remained under French dominion. The treaty of Paris, though signed on November 3, 1762, was not concluded until three months later, and during the interim (between November 3, 1762, and February 10, 1763) France, in a secret treaty, ceded to Spain all her possessions on the west side of the Mississippi, including the whole territory to the head- waters of the Great river and west to the Rocky mountains. Thus did the great province of Louisiana become the domain of Great Britain and Spain, the reigning power established by Louis XIV terminate, and the domina- tion of proud France over all sections of American territory, which had been exercised for a period covering more than two hundred years, was abruptly and ingloriously ended.
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