USA > Indiana > Indiana, a redemption from slavery > Part 19
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1 N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. x. pp. 131, 138.
2 Ibid., vol. x. p. 210.
3 Ibid., p. 213.
4 25 Mo. p. 467; N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. x. pp. 1107-1120.
5 Cobbett's Parliamentary Hist., vol. xv. pp. 1294, 1295.
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to establish courts of justice for the determination of all causes "according to law and equity, and, as near as may be, agreeable to the laws of England." It has been argued that the common law was extended over Canada by this proclamation, and that slavery was abol- ished because it could not exist under the common law. The legal aphorism that slavery could not exist at com- mon law was always more poetical than exact, but, how- ever true it may have been in England, it had no appli- cation in the British colonies. Many of the colonies had the common law, but all of them had slavery, and had it lawfully. England fostered the slave trade from the middle of the sixteenth century to the opening of the nineteenth. It was regulated and aided by her laws, and so far as possible her ships were given a monopoly of it. It is estimated by some authorities that she sent more than 100,000 slaves annually to her American colonies. It is notorious that she would not let the colonies prohibit the trade, and that her action in this matter was one of the grievances complained of in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence.1 It is not probable that by this proclamation it was intended that the common law should take the place of the former laws except as to proceedings in the courts of justice.
As the spirit of independence grew strong in the original English colonies, Great Britain undertook to strengthen herself by placating the people of the ao- quired colonies. The effect of this was the series of laws enlarging the rights of Catholics passed in 1774, and of these the most important to us was the one that restored the ancient customs and usages to Canada.2
1 Walsh's Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain, etc., part i. pp. 325-330.
2 14 Geo. III. c. 83.
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The practice of slavery continued under all these changes without any interference from the authorities. The slave trade under British laws continued to supply Can- ada, as other colonies, with slaves. By act of parlia- ment in 1790, extending to all the American colonies, a duty of forty shillings was laid on each negro imported.1 In sum, there was never any action by the British gov- ernment indicating any intention to abolish slavery in Canada. That was left to the Canadians, and they were not late in acting. The rigors of the climate made negro slavery unprofitable; there had been but few negroes imported ; public sentiment was moving towards universal freedom. On July 9, 1793, the parliament of Upper Canada prohibited the importation of slaves, and provided for gradual emancipation by enacting that every child thereafter born of a negress slave should be free at the age of twenty-five years.2 On these facts, then, it would seem plain that slavery existed lawfully in Canada from 1688 until it died out under the law of 1793.
As to Louisiana, the legal authorization was explicit. When the grant was made to Crozat in 1712, he was given not only permission to import negroes, but also the monopoly of their importation. He was restricted from taking them to any other country.3 In 1717, after the death of Louis XIV., Crozat surrendered his grant, and in August of the same year Louisiana was given to the Western Company, more commonly called the Mississippi Company, on the same terms. Under this name, and as reconstructed in 1719 under the title of the Company
1 37 Brit. Stat. at Large, p. 24.
2 Rev. Stats. of Up. Can., ch. viii. p. 18.
8 Joutel's Journal, pp. 204, 205.
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of the Indies, this corporation held Louisiana until April 10, 1732. Negroes were brought to Louisiana during the existence of these companies and scattered through the Mississippi valley ; they were brought chiefly by the companies, and were sold on a credit of three years to settlers engaged in agriculture. There was no importa- tion of them of note as far north as the Illinois country until 1720, when the Company of St. Phillips, a corpora- tion which acted under the Company of the Indies, began its operations in the Mississippi valley. The special purpose of this company was the discovery and working of mines. It was represented in America by Philip Francis Renault, who came to the Illinois country in 1720 with 200 miners and other laborers, and 500 negro slaves. He established the village of St. Phillips, a few miles above Kaskaskia, and worked several of the lead mines of Illinois and Missouri. He continued work after the Company of the Indies surrendered its charter, but left the country in 1744, after selling his slaves to the colonists.1 In 1722 a number of families ascended the Mississippi from New Orleans, in company with the troops under " Captain Renaud," and settled in the Illi- nois country ; and to these " M. de Bienville accorded negroes to cultivate their lands." 2 In 1723 a colony of German families was sent over by the company to form a settlement on the Upper Mississippi, and these also were furnished with negroes.ª The importations of 1720 and 1722 were the principal sources of the negro slaves of the Illinois. A few of them also were brought to the Wabash settlements, but the greater part of those held at these settlements were brought from the English col-
1 Annals of the West, pp. 672-674, 788.
2 Margry, vol. v. p. 579.
3 Ibid., p. 583.
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onies, where they had been captured by the Indians and sold to the French traders. In the almost continuous wars of three quarters of the eighteenth century, to which the Indians of the Mississippi valley were incited by the European nations who colonized there, negroes were frequently captured by the Indians and sold to the whites with whom at the time they happened to be allied. They learned the market value of these captives at a very early date. A white prisoner they would kill on very slight provocation, or on manifestation of inability to keep up with them on their marches, but a negro was never killed if it could be avoided, because they preferred a considerable annoyance to the loss of his value in goods.
The number of slaves held in the District of Illinois is not definitely ascertained, and the estimates are not harmonious. In 1750 the priest Vivier accounted the population of the Illinois villages at 1,100 whites, 300 negroes, and 60 Indian slaves. There was some in- crease after this time, and from all indications the popu- lation of all kinds in the District was greatest just at the close of the French occupation. For this period has been estimated 700 white men, 500 white women, 850 children, and 900 negroes of both sexes; and it is thought that one third of the whites, with a greater pro- portion of the blacks, left the country with De Villiers, Laclede, and St. Ange.1 Lieutenant Fraser reported in 1766, that " the greatest part of those who inhabited our side of the River abandoned it on our getting pos- session of the Colony." The most satisfactory data for the English period are furnished by Hutchins, who gives Kaskaskia 500 white and 400 to 500 negro inhab-
1 Davidson & Stuvé's Illinois, p. 163.
.
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itants ; Prairie du Rocher, 100 whites and 80 negroes ; Cahokia, 300 whites and 80 negroes. It is to be pre- sumed that the panis were counted as negroes in these estimates. In 1771 the men capable of bearing arms in the Illinois country were estimated at 530, of whom 230 were negroes.1 Another estimate for the same period places the negroes in the Illinois at 300.2 Vin- cennes was usually estimated to have 60 families at this time, and there were probably as many negroes as fami- lies, if not more. It should be remembered that, after the adoption of the Ordinance of 1787, the only places from which actual slaves could be brought into Indiana proper were the Michigan and Illinois settlements. A number of them were brought from the latter after 1800, when Vincennes was the capital of Indiana Terri- tory, and therefore drew office-holders and wealthy citi- zens to it.
1 Hutchins's Top. Desc., pp. 36-40.
2 Bouquet's Expedition, p. 147.
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CHAPTER VII.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.
ON July 21, 1787, eight days after the passage of the Ordinance, Congress adopted a resolution directing that either the Superintendent of Indian Affairs or Colonel Josiah Harmar 1 should proceed to Vincennes and hold a treaty-council with the Shawnees and the Wabash In- dians. Harmar had arrived at Vincennes two days be- fore the adoption of this resolution, in obedience to orders previously given him to take possession of the place from Clark. He remained there until the latter part of Octo- ber, excepting a trip of three weeks to Kaskaskia, en- deavoring to arrive at some amicable arrangement with the Indians, but without success. Soon after his arrival he appointed Major John F. Hamtramck commandant of the post. A better selection could not have been made. He was an able officer, a severe disciplinarian, and a man of clear judgment; all of which were valuable qualities in one who was required not only to command a military post, but also to exercise arbitrary civil power over a frontier settlement ; for the government of North- west Territory was not organized until 1788, and was not in fact extended over the French settlements until the summer of 1790. The old court, which had been
1 He was brevetted brigadier-general by Congress ten days later.
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acting under its original authorization by Virginia, though entirely out of its proper powers, was peremp- torily abolished by General Harmar ; and as no new civil authorities were established, Major Hamtramck remained for three years the autocrat of the Wabash, -the sole legislative, executive, and judicial authority. He had the good sense to assume all the power that he considered best for the public welfare, and to assert it with firmness. One of his first official acts was a proclamation, issued October 3, 1787, prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors to Indians. This was the first known liquor law of Indiana. In May, 1789, in consequence of a petition to him representing an improper appropriation of parts of the village common by some of the inhabitants, he prohibited all persons, " under the penalty of a fine for the first trespass and imprisonment for the second, from cultivating any lot or piece of ground on the commons, or occupying any part thereof, without regular permis- sion." The most arbitrary of his ordinances was one of March 24, 1790, in these words : " Many persons hav- ing sold their goods and lands, to the prejudice of their creditors, the inhabitants and others of the district of Post Vincennes are expressly prohibited, henceforth, from selling, or exchanging, or mortgaging any part of their goods, lands, or slaves, under any pretext, without express permission from the officer commanding this place. This ordinance to remain in force until the ar- rival of his excellency, the governor." These regula- tions cut off much of the freedom of the settlers, but their effects were seen to be beneficial, and Major Hamtramck's adjustments of personal controversies were so satisfactory that the inhabitants very justly considered him a benefactor. When the acting governor arrived,
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· in the summer of 1790, the citizens presented him an address in which the services of Major Hamtramck were commended in terms of warmest gratitude.1
The permanent settlement of Ohio by families dates April 7, 1788, when the pioneers of the Ohio Company led by General Rufus Putnam arrived at the mouth of the Muskingum and founded Marietta. ) In July, Arthur St. Clair, who had been elected governor of the terri- tory by Congress on October 5 preceding, arrived and began the organization of the government. The judges appointed who qualified were Samuel Holden Parsons,
James Mitchell Varnum, and John Cleves Symmes, who with the governor proceeded at once to the work of legislation assigned to them by the Ordinance. From August to December, laws were made for the regulation of the militia, organization and procedure of courts, oaths of office, and appointment of coroners ; punishments were prescribed for murder, arson, burglary, robbery, perjury, larceny, and forgery, ranging from death for the first three, to fine, disfranchisement, and the pillory for the last ; drunkenness was made finable to the extent of fifty cents for the first offense and one dollar thereafter ; pro- fanity was not made punishable, but all persons were ad- monished to abstain from it, and discourage it in others, to " prevent the necessity of adopting and publishing laws upon this head ; " marriage was required to be preceded by publication of the banns for three Sundays at wor- ship, or posting notice under the hand and seal of a judge in some public place, or special license from the governor. On July 27, St. Clair issued a proclama- tion organizing Washington County, which was made to embrace all of Ohio east of the Scioto, or about one half
1 Dillon, ed. of 1859, pp. 204, 236, 407.
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of the present state. No other counties were organized until 1790; so that there were no means for enforcing the laws made prior to that time, nor was any attempt made to enforce them outside of this one county.
The delay in the practical organization of the terri- tory was due to Indian hostilities, the chief cause of which was the objection of the great majority of the In- dians to the advance of the Americans above the Ohio. The bad feeling was increased by the ill-will and per- petual conflicts between the Indians and the Kentuckians, who were almost as ready for war as the savages.1 The British, in addition to retaining their posts on our side of the Canada line, made every effort to have the Indians insist on independence, both as to government and sov- ereignty of territory, of all the lands north of the Ohio ; and furnished supplies and provisions to the hostiles all through the troubles. Their object was to have the In- dians remain an independent power, and a permanent barrier between the United States and the British prov- inces, as they formally demanded in 1814 at the open- ing negotiations of the treaty of Ghent.2 The United States government was obliged to have these lands to relieve itself of debt and support its existence ; and it held that its conquest of the country, when the resident tribes were allied with Great Britain to maintain her supremacy, left the Indians entitled only to such terms as the conqueror would concede.3 St. Clair was in- structed by Congress to use a pacificatory policy with
1 Western Annals, p. 342; State Papers, vol. v. pp. 84, 88; Dillon, p. 218; St. Clair Papers, vol. ii. p. 198.
2 Am. State Papers: Indian Affairs, vol. i. pp. 93, 148, 158, 164, 190, 196, 243, 323, 337, 487, 489, 547; Ramsay's U. S., vol. iii. pp. 361, 362.
8 Journals of Congress, vol. iv. pp. 294, 295.
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the Indians, but " to neglect no opportunity that might offer of extinguishing the Indian rights to lands west- ward as far as the River Mississippi, and northward as far as the completion of the forty-first degree of north latitude." ( A small portion of the Indians consented to a considerable cession, but the Wabash tribes would not join in any treaty of cession,) and the majority of other tribes united in this course. The treaty of Fort Har- mar, on January 9, 1789, was little more than a farce, and lastened rather than retarded war. (The Indians claimed that the few who joined in the treaty were not chiefs, had no authority, and were intimidated by the whites. The war opened in the following summer and raged for five years, the Indians having rather the bet- ter of their enemies until they were overwhelmed by Wayne at the Rapids of the Maumee in August, 1794. In September Wayne's army moved to Kekionga, and there established a fort which was garrisoned by a strong force of infantry and artillery under Colonel Hamtramck, the former commandant of Fort Knox.1 The new post was named Fort Wayne, and the place has been so called ever since.
In the spring of 1794, John Jay went to London to negotiate a treaty with England ; he concluded his work on November 19. By this treaty it was provided, among other things, that the king should withdraw all his troops from posts within the boundaries of the United States on or before the first day of June, 1796. On learning of this, the Indians realized that their hope of support from England was gone, and in August, 1795, reluctantly made such cessions as Wayne demanded. These com-
1 The fort built at Vincennes in 1788 was named Fort Knox, at the request of General Harmar. St. Clair Papers, vol. ii. p. 92.
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prised all of Ohio east of the Cuyahoga River and south of a line drawn slightly north of east from Loramie's store, near the head of the Big Miami; military reser- vations at fourteen of the most important points in the Indian country, - those in Indiana being Fort Wayne, the Little River portage, and the old Wea towns near Lafayette ; a tract six miles deep along the Detroit, in- cluding the French settlements ; Clark's grant of 150,000 acres at the Falls of the Ohio; Fort Massac, Michili- mackinac, Vincennes, "and all other places in possession of the French people and other white settlers among them, of which the Indian title has been extinguished ; " and the southeastern corner of Indiana, lying east of a line drawn from Fort Recovery to the mouth of the Kentucky River.
These cessions covered all the lands for which the United States had any desire, and founded a peace that lasted for sixteen years. ) Population at once" began pouring rapidly into the new lands, its movements being largely controlled by the great land companies which were operating there. The majority of the settlers were from New England and the Middle States, though the South was well represented in the lands of the Miami Company, and in large majority in the Virginia Military Lands. The Scioto Company, organized by Duer and his associates, - "principal characters of America," who sold their influence to Cutler, - became bankrupt after securing the foundation of Gallipolis by a colony of Parisians, whose sufferings are so directly connected with American thrift that they are humiliating to con- template.1 The increase of population in Indiana was
1 Volney's View, p. 355 ; Am. State Papers : Pub. Lands, vol. i. p. 24; Dillon, p. 209; Western Annals, pp. 487-491 ; St. Clair Papers, vol. ii. p. 154, note.
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very small as compared with the growth of Ohio. Settle- ments were made in the southeastern corner of the state, and in Clark's Grant, soon after the close of the Indian war, but they were unimportant in extent, and had no material effect on the government of Northwest Terri- tory. The additions to the old French settlements by American immigration were of greater consequence.
When General Harmar came to Vincennes, in 1787, he described it as containing " near four hundred houses - log and bark - out-houses, barns, etc. ; the number of inhabitants, about nine hundred souls, French, and about four hundred souls, Americans." 1 A striking view of the post at this time is furnished by the journal of Joseph Buell, an orderly-sergeant in Harmar's regi- ment. He was a man of excellent character, and withal a typical New-Englander of the period in his religious and political notions. His description, therefore, will serve for a statement of the general estimation in which the French settlers were held by the Yankee emigrants who were soon to begin crossing the mountains and peo- pling the wilderness : - " Post Vincent is a beautiful place, was it settled with respectable people ; but they are a mixture of all nations. The principal inhabitants are French, intermarried with Indians, and pay but little regard to religion or law. They are under guidance of an old Roman Catholic friar, who keeps them in igno- rance as much as he can, and fills them full of supersti- tion. The people give themselves up to all kinds of vice, and are as indolent and idle a community as ever composed one town. They might live in affluence if they were industrious. The town has been settled longer than Philadelphia, and one half of their dwelling houses
1 St. Clair Papers, vol. ii. p. 27.
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are yet covered with bark like Indian wigwams. The inhabitants are quite numerous, and people from all parts of the United States are emigrating to this place." 1 The scheming friar to whom this Puritan soldier refers is none other than our good friend Father Gibault, and the superstition with which he filled his parishioners does not appear to have been anything worse than Catholicism.
The French settlers were at this time in great destitu- tion, but their condition cannot justly be attributed to indolence. In 1790 they besought Governor St. Clair to interpose and save them from the expense of govern- ment surveys of their lands,2 and he reported on this subject as follows : "A part only of the surveys have been returned, because the people objected to paying the surveyor, and it is too true that they are ill able to pay. The Illinois country, as well as that upon the Wabash, has been involved in great distress ever since it fell under the American dominion. With great cheer- fulness the people furnished the troops under General Clark, and the Illinois regiment, with everything they could spare, and often with much more than they could spare with any convenience to themselves. Most of the certificates for these supplies are still in their hands, unliquidated and unpaid ; and in many instances, where application for payment has been made to the State of Virginia, under whose authority the certificates were granted, it has been refused. The Illinois regiment being disbanded, a set of men pretending the authority of Virginia embodied themselves, and a scene of general depredation and plunder ensued. To this succeeded
1 Hildreth's Pion. Hist. Ohio Valley, p. 155.
2 Dillon, ed. of 1859, p. 224. .
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three successive and extraordinary inundations from the Mississippi, which either swept away their crops or pre- vented their being planted. The loss of the greatest part of their trade with the Indians, which was a great resource, came upon them at this juncture, as well as the hostile incursions of some of the tribes which had ever before been in friendship with them ; and to these was added the loss of their whole last crop of corn by an untimely frost. Extreme misery could not fail to be the consequence of such accumulated misfortunes." 1 In fact there was actual famine at Vincennes in the early part of 1790. On January 23, St. Clair wrote tender- ing supplies from the government storehouse at the Falls of the Ohio, if they were needed ; and on March 19 Major Hamtramck wrote in reply: "I have this day sent a boat to the Falls for 800 bushels of corn, which I shall deliver to the people of the village, who are in a starving condition ; so much so that on the 16th instant a woman, a boy of about thirteen, and a girl of about seven years were driven to the woods by hunger, and poisoned themselves by eating some wild roots, and have died of it." 2
The American immigrants to the French settlements did not amalgamate readily with their new neighbors. The two races differed widely in their habits and their ideas of government. There was little but a common dislike of the English to unite them. The French were vivacious, noisy, and spendthrift; the Americans serious, taciturn, and thrifty. The past misfortunes of the French begot new ones. Their trade was gone, and they could not compete with the Americans in agriculture,
1 St. Clair Papers, vol. ii. p. 168.
2 Ibid., vol. ii. pp, 131, 132, note,
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The recent Indian war had impeded their farming, and occasioned the loss of most of their cattle. They had not the patience to clear away forests. They were so social in their dispositions that the solitary life necessary to those engaged in opening new land was intolerable to them. The Americans relied on agriculture. They came into the wilderness to open farms, and they pur- sued their purpose patiently and systematically. Men, women, and children drudged and saved, while their French neighbors gossiped and danced. Congress did not recognize the extensive claims which the French settlers based on purchases from the Indians, but it gave them the lands for which they could establish govern- mental grants from France or England ; it gave them their common fields ; and it gave donations of 400 acres to the heads of families who resided in the country in 1783. Before the last-named were allotted, many of the French were in the depths of poverty. If they had been in condition to hold their lands, and had possessed the patience to improve them, they might still have at- tained comparative wealth, but as it was they preferred to sell. Americans were standing ready to buy, and the price paid was often as low as fifty cents the acre, and this not infrequently paid in goods at fancy prices. When the time for issuing patents came, the French claims were largely in American hands. There were of course exceptions to this among the wealthier class of French settlers.
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