USA > Louisiana > A history of Louisiana, Volume II > Part 23
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" But," adds Chouteau, " the real motive of Monsieur de Nyon was, to take with him a numerous train, and to descend the Mississippi in triumph, to make the govern- ment believe that all these people followed him for the great esteem which they had for his person; thereby to gain the confidence of the authorities, in order to obtain a place that he had in view. But when he heard, on ar- riving at New Orleans, that the country was ceded to Spain, he determined to return to Europe. He forgot all the promises that he had made to these poor, credu- lous people, who remained upon the strand without know- ing where to lay their heads, and the government troubled themselves but little about them, because they knew that the colony would soon change masters." Some of these people settled in Lower Louisiana, and a few returned to the Illinois, where they received the aid of Laclede.
اللام قلـ
310
[1765
A HISTORY OF LOUISIANA
Nyon de Villiers, the commandant of Fort Chartres, was a brother of the officer who had had the honor of compelling Washington to capitulate at Fort Necessity in 1754. When he went to New Orleans in 1764 he left the command of Fort Chartres to St. Ange de Bellerive, who, as we have seen, surrendered it to the British in 1765. The famous Indian chief, Pontiac, is mentioned in Chouteau's Journal as having offered his help to St. Ange against the British. He said to the tribe of the Illi- nois who hesitated to take up arms with him: "If you hesitate one moment, I will destroy you, like the fire which passes through a prairie; open wide your ears, and re- member it is Pontiac who speaks."
Billon, in his " Annals of St. Louis in its Early Days," gives the names of the thirty men who, on March 15, 1764, were, with Chouteau, the pioneers in the settlement of the town. In 1765 several families left the country ceded to the British and established themselves at St. Louis. They had dismantled their houses, and had brought with them everything that could be removed. The village of St. Philip was deserted by all the inhabitants, except by one family, who were compelled to remain, as they could not dispose of a mill they owned, and as the head of the family was the captain of the militia of the village.8 Laclede was considered the legal proprietor of the new village, but in 1766 a civil government was found to be necessary, and Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, former com- mandant of Fort Chartres, was unanimously elected tem- porary governor by the inhabitants of St. Louis. Joseph Lefebvre was associated with him as judge, and Joseph
Fun
311
CAPTAIN RIOS
[1767
Labuscière, former King's attorney, became acting secre- tary of the temporary government. St. Ange and La- buscière were Canadians, and Lefebvre was a native of France.
At the close of the year 1767, Captain Francisco Rios arrived at St. Louis, with about twenty-five soldiers, to establish the authority of the King of Spain on the west side of the Mississippi, which had been ceded to Charles III by the secret treaty of Fontainebleau, November 3, 1762. The inhabitants of Upper Louisiana were as dis- appointed as those of Lower Louisiana had been to see their country pass under the Spanish domination, and they received Captain Rios with no enthusiasm. The latter, seeing how unwelcome were the Spaniards, de- termined to erect a fort that would serve as quarters for his soldiers and as a protection against the Indians. He chose a high, rocky bluff, fourteen miles north of St. Louis, and began the construction of a work, which he called " Fort Prince Charles." Rios acted in Upper Loui- siana with much more tact than Ulloa in New Orleans, and was respected by the inhabitants. When Ulloa was expelled from the province by the Revolution of 1768, Captain Rios left St. Louis and his fort and went to New Orleans with his soldiers.
The Spanish domination was established on May 20, 1770, by Captain Pedro Piernas, who had been sent for that purpose by General O'Reilly with two companies of the "Stationary Regiment of Louisi- ana " (el regimiento fixo), of which Don Luis de Un- zaga was the colonel. This was one of the regular
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[1770
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Spanish regiments of infantry and was assigned by O'Reilly to the permanent occupation of Louisiana. The headquarters of the regiment were at New Or- leans. There was one company at St. Louis, with squads at St. Geneviève and at New Madrid.9 The popu- lation of St. Louis, at the beginning of the Spanish dom- ination, in 1770, was about five hundred souls. There were in the village, at that time, one hundred houses of wood and fifteen of stone.
With regard to the authority of the Spaniards in Up- per Louisiana, Billon makes a statement that applies in almost every particular to Lower Louisiana and is very interesting :
During the thirty-four years of Spanish authority succeeding the first six years of French rule, the place continued to be French in every essential but the partial use of Spanish in a few official documents ; the intercourse of the people with each other and their governors, their commerce, trade, habits, customs, manners, amuse- ments, marriages, funerals, services in church, parish registers, everything, was French; the governors and officers all spoke French, it was a sine qua non in their appointment; the few Spaniards that settled in the country soon became Frenchmen, and all married French wives ; no Frenchman became a Spaniard; two or three of the governors were Frenchmen by birth ; the wives of Governors Piernas and Trudeau were French. With the ex- ception of the Spanish officials and soldiers, not more than a dozen Spaniards came to the place during the domination of Spain; Governor de Lassus was born in France, and Trudeau was of French stock, and nearly all the papers in the archives were in the French language. The country was only Spanish by possession, but practically French in all else.
T
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CUSTOMS
1770]
Religious services were held in a tent from 1764 to 1768, and in a log chapel from 1768 to 1776, when the first church was built. " About four fifths of the early houses," says Billon, " were of posts set in the ground, the best of them hewed about nine inches square; the others of round posts set about three feet deep; a few of the best of these houses were of hewed posts set on a stone wall from four to five feet high above ground. The largest portion of these houses were from twenty to thirty feet in size, divided usually into two, and some of them into three rooms." The household furniture was scant and very plain; the water generally used for drinking was taken from the Mississippi; agriculture, besides vegetables, consisted in a little corn and wheat; the amuse- ments for the men were billiards, cards, and pony races -" rarely anything staked "; for the women, " fiddling and dancing and the usual amount of gossiping and small-talk." As the Sabbath was considered over at noon, after high mass, the principal dancing parties were on Sundays, and the judgment sales, by decree of the gov- ernor, took place on that day at noon, when all the people had assembled to hear mass. There was little coin in the country, and the circulating medium was furs and pel- tries.
Captain St. Ange de Bellerive, first military comman- dant and acting governor of Upper Louisiana, on May 20, 1770, delivered possession of that part of the province to Don Pedro Piernas. The latter had married a French woman from New Orleans-Félicité Robineau de Port- neuf. His administration as lieutenant-governor of
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[1778
A HISTORY OF LOUISIANA
Upper Louisiana was as mild and beneficent as that of his superior at New Orleans, Governor Unzaga; and when he retired from office, on May 20, 1775, the principal in- habitants of St. Louis expressed to him their respect and gratitude.
The successor of Captain Piernas was Lieutenant- Colonel Francisco Cruzat. On May 19, 1776, Father Bernard de Limpach, the parish curate, arrived from New Orleans. The first regular curate was Father Valentin. Father Bernard bore credentials from our old Capuchin friend, Father Dagobert, who conferred on him " the curacy, or parish church, of St. Louis, of Illi- nois, Post of Pain-Court." 10
Don Francisco Cruzat, who was a very estimable man, was succeeded in 1778 by Captain Fernando de Leyba. The latter had been appointed lieutenant-governor by the brilliant Bernardo de Galvez.
On June 20, 1778, Pierre Laclede Liguest, the founder of St. Louis, died at the mouth of the Arkansas, on his way to St. Louis from New Orleans.11 He was the junior partner of the firm of Maxent, Laclede & Co., of which Colonel Antonio Gilberto Maxent, Indian agent at New Orleans, was the senior partner. Laclede's first house, where he transacted his business, was long occupied by the lieutenant-governors, and was finally bought by Auguste Chouteau in 1789. Chouteau was related to Laclede, and up to the latter's death was his chief clerk. Laclede did not leave a large estate; his mill was bought by Chouteau for two thousand livres, and his farm by Chouteau's mother for seven hundred and fifty livres.
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ملح
315
1780]
COLONEL CRUZAT
On May 26, 1780, a party of savages, from the east side of the Mississippi, crossed the river and massacred seven men. The widow of one of these men married John B. Trudeau, " who was," says Billon, " the only village schoolmaster of the Spanish days, and who continued to teach his little French school for almost half a century until near his death in 1827."
Don Fernando de Leyba died on June 28, 1780, and was buried in the village church of St. Louis. Don Silvio Francisco de Cartabona, commandant at St. Geneviève, acted as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Louisiana until the arrival, on September 24, 1780, of Don Francisco Cruzat, who was reappointed to that office by Governor Galvez.
On account of the massacre of May 26, 1780, Cruzat directed Chouteau to make a plan of fortifications for St. Louis. These were begun, but never completed. In the year 1784 there were terrible floods of the Missis- sippi and of the Missouri, and the village of St. Gene- viève was destroyed. It was rebuilt, in 1785, two miles above the original village. In 1783 Lieutenant-Governor Cruzat abandoned the old Laclede mansion, and bought a stone house for his residence and government business. He sold it to Auguste Chouteau in 1787, but it remained the government mansion until the cession to the United States.
On November 27, 1787, Don Francisco Cruzat was succeeded by Captain Manuel Perez, who was appointed by Governor Mirò. Perez was succeeded on July 21, 1792, by Don Zénon Trudeau, a captain in the Regiment
خداع المجلسم القصة
316
[1799
A HISTORY OF LOUISIANA'
of Louisiana and a Canadian by birth. The Lieutenant- Governor of Upper Louisiana was often called " com- mandant-in-chief of the western part of the Illinois." In 1794 some works of defense and barracks were completed. They are called by Billon the " Fort on the Hill."
Lieutenant-Governor Trudeau was succeeded on Au- gust 29, 1799, by Colonel Carlos Dehault de Lassus, who had been commandant at New Madrid for the pre- vious three years, and whose appointment, says Billon, was made by express orders from Spain.
Don Carlos de Lassus was born at Lille in 1764. He belonged to an old family of the French nobility in Hainault. He entered the Spanish service at the age of eighteen, in the royal regiment of guards, was appointed lieutenant-colonel, in 1793, for distinguished services, and in 1794 was ordered to the command of a battalion of the King's body-guard at Madrid. His father having been driven from France during the Revolution, Colonel de Lassus requested to be transferred to the Louisiana Regi- ment, of which he became lieutenant-colonel. In 1796 he was appointed commandant of New Madrid, and in 1799 Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Louisiana. He became full colonel of the Louisiana Regiment in 1802, and some time after the transfer of Louisiana to the United States he succeeded Governor de Grandpré at Baton Rouge, where he appears again in 1810, at the time of the revolution in West Florida.
In the year 1802 Colonel de Lassus had some trouble with the Mashcoux Indians, who called themselves Tala- poosa Creeks. Five of them were captured and taken
5
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317
COLONEL DE LASSUS
1804]
to New Madrid, where, by order of the Governor-Gen- eral of Louisiana, De Lassus had the principal culprit executed.
On December 30, 1803, Casa Calvo and Salcedo, the Spanish commissioners, wrote to Lieutenant-Governor de Lassus that they had delivered the province of Loui- siana to the French commissioners on November 30, 1803, and requested him to deliver to the agent or officer of the French prefect the post and dependencies under the orders of De Lassus.
On January 12, 1804, Commissioner Laussat wrote to De Lassus that he had forwarded to Captain Stoddard documents authorizing him to receive the civil and mili- tary possession of Upper Louisiana, in virtue of the treaty of St. Ildefonso, in the name of the French Re- public, and to keep possession of it for the United States. Pierre Chouteau was appointed by Laussat to make an inventory and appraisement of the buildings and houses that belonged to the King of Spain.
On Friday, March 9, 1804, the American troops crossed the river from Cahokia, under the command of Lieuten- ant Worrall; and Captain Stoddard, accompanied by Captain Meriwether Lewis and others, went to the gov- ernment house, and was received by Colonel de Lassus, in the presence of the officials and prominent citizens, some of the inhabitants being assembled in the street. De Lassus then issued the following proclamation:
March 9, 1804.
INHABITANTS OF UPPER LOUISIANA: By the King's command, I am about to deliver up this post and its dependencies. The flag
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[1804
A HISTORY OF LOUISIANA
under which you have been protected for a period of nearly thirty- six years is to be withdrawn. From this moment you are released from the oath of fidelity you took to support it. The fidelity and courage with which you have guarded and defended it will never be forgotten ; and in my character of representative I en- tertain the most sincere wishes for your perfect prosperity.
Colonel de Lassus then delivered to Captain Stod- dard " the full possession, sovereignty, and government of Upper Louisiana, with all the military posts, quarters and fortifications thereto belonging or dependent there- of." The procès-verbal of the transfer was executed in triplicate and signed by De Lassus and Stoddard, with Captain Meriwether Lewis, Antoine Soulard, surveyor- general, and Charles Gratiot, as witnesses.
Captain Stoddard replied to De Lassus, and then the Spanish troops at the Fort on the Hill fired a salute or- dered by the lieutenant-governor. " Upon the conclusion of the proceedings at the government house," says Billon, " the American troops were marched up to the Fort on the Hill, where they were received by the Spanish troops under arms, and after an exchange of salutes received possession, and were quartered therein, the Stars and Stripes being displayed on the staff in place of the stan- dard of Spain." The posts surrendered with St. Louis were these: St. Geneviève, New Bourbon, Cape Girar- deau, New Madrid, Carondelet, St. Andrew, St. Ferdi- nand, St. Charles, Portage des Sioux, Maramek, and Missouri.12
At the request of Captain Stoddard, Colonel de Las- sus delivered an address to the Delawares, Abenakis,
1
319
ST. LOUIS IN 1804
1804]
Saquis, and other Indian tribes, announcing the transfer of the province to the United States. He concluded his address with the following words:
For several days past we have fired off cannon-shots to an- nounce to all the nations that your Father the Spaniard is going, his heart happy to know that you will be protected and sustained by your new father, and that the smoke of the powder may ascend to the Master of Life, praying him to shower on you all a happy destiny and prosperity in always living in good union with the whites.
The population of Upper Louisiana in 1803, accord- ing to the census made by the American consul at New Orleans and quoted by Judge Martin, was 6028; and of the whole province, 49,473. Captain Stoddard, how- ever, gives the following figures for 1804, which seem exaggerated: Upper Louisiana, 9020 whites and 1320 blacks; Lower Louisiana, 41,700 whites, 38,800 blacks; total for the whole province, 90,840.
Stoddard gives a description of St. Louis in 1804 which is interesting.13
The situation of the town is elevated; the shore is rocky, which effectually prevents the encroachments of the river. It has two long streets running parallel with the Mississippi, with a variety of others intersecting them at right angles. It contains about one hundred and eighty houses, and the best of them are built of stone. Some of them, including the large gardens, and even squares, attached to them, are inclosed with high stone walls; and these, together with the rock scattered along the shore and about the streets, render the air uncomfortably warm in summer. A small sloping hill extends along in the rear of the town, on the
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[1804
A HISTORY OF LOUISIANA
summit of which is a garrison, and behind it an extensive prairie, which affords plenty of hay, as also pasture for the cattle and horses of the inhabitants.
In his " Sketches of Louisiana," Stoddard mentions an attack upon St. Louis in 1780 by the English comman- dant at Michilimackinac. He had with him about fifteen hundred Indians and one hundred and forty English, and in the attack sixty of the inhabitants were killed, and thirty taken prisoners. Colonel Clark came to the help of the people of St. Louis, and the invaders withdrew. The expedition had not been sanctioned by the English court, says Stoddard, " and the private property of the commandant was seized to pay the expenses of it; most likely because it proved unfortunate."
On taking command of Upper Louisiana, Captain Stoddard published to the inhabitants a judicious and patriotic circular address, which he gives in full in his " Historical Sketches of Louisiana." Speaking of Jef- ferson, he said: " And the merit derived from the acqui- sition of Louisiana, without any other, will perpetuate his fame to posterity." With regard to that part of the province of which he was to be the commandant, Stod- dard uttered these prophetic words: " In fine, Upper Louisiana, from its climate, population, soil, and pro- ductions, and from other natural advantages attached to it, will, in all human probability, soon become a star of no inconsiderable magnitude in the American con- stellation."
Billon, in his " Annals of St. Louis," gives the follow- ing information about Captain Stoddard, the first Ameri-
8
321
1804]
CAPTAIN STODDARD
can civil and military commandant of Upper Louisiana : He was born in Massachusetts, and was appointed cap- tain of artillery in 1798 by President Adams. On July 1, 1804, Major James Bruff became military comman- dant at St. Louis, but Captain Stoddard remained civil commandant until September 30, 1804, when he was re- lieved by General William Henry Harrison, Governor of Indiana Territory. Captain Stoddard was then or- dered to the South, and while there he was promoted to the rank of major in 1807. During the war with England he was mortally wounded at Fort Meigs in Ohio, on May 5, 1813. Major Stoddard's "Historical Sketches of Louisiana " are an interesting and valuable contribution to American history.
Here we conclude the history of Colonial Louisiana. We have related many heroic events, from the first dis- covery by the Spaniards to the cession of the immense province to the United States. In our next volumes we shall give the history of American Louisiana, and we shall see that it is not less interesting and heroic than that of French and Spanish Louisiana.
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NOTES
NOTES
CHAPTER I
1 Spanish Manuscripts in the custody of the Louisiana Historical Society.
2 Gayarré, Histoire de la Louisiane, Vol. II, Appendix.
8 Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
" Martin and Gayarre give the name of St. Denis instead of Trudeau.
" Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
" Gayarre, History of Louisiana, Vol. III.
8 Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society,
CHAPTER II
1 Kindly placed at the disposal of the writer by his cousin, Mrs. Albert Baldwin, of New Orleans, a descendant of Francisco Bouligny.
2 About Paincourt, see note 10, page 341.
CHAPTER III
1 Martin's Louisiana.
2 Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
8 Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
4 Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
5 Fortier's Louisiana Studies, p. 197.
& Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
" Gayarre, History of Louisiana, Vol. III.
& Peter J. Hamilton, Colonial Mobile.
" The letters were all copied from the Colonial Records in London by Mr. William Beer, of New Orleans.
325 ok
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A HISTORY OF LOUISIANA
10 Hamilton's Colonial Mobile.
11 " Diario de las operaciones de la expedicion contra la Plaza de Panzacola concluida por las Armas de S. M. Católica baxo las órdenes del Mariscal de Campo D. Bernardo de Galvez." Kindly placed at our disposal by Mr. William Beer, librarian of the Howard Memorial Library, New Orleans.
12 Diario.
18 Diario.
CHAPTER IV
1 Martin's Louisiana.
2 Monette's Valley of the Mississippi.
& Monette's Valley of the Mississippi.
" Pickett's History of Alabama, Vol. II.
" Archives Ministry of the Colonies, Paris.
" Gayarre's Louisiana, Vol. III.
" Placed at our disposal by Mr. William Beer, of New Orleans.
" In a book printed in Mexico, in 1787, the true date of the death of the heroic conqueror of Pensaeola is given-1786. The title of the book is " Recopilacion Sumaria de todos los autos acordados de la Real Audencia y Sala del Crimen de esta Nueva España, por el Doctor Don Eusebio Bentura Beleña, del Consejo de S. M." The author dedicates his work to Don Miguel de Galvez y Saint Maxent, Conde de Galvez y Comendador de Bolaños en la Orden de Calatrava, the five-year-old son of Galvez. On the first page is a pretty pieture of the boy, to whom the author says that, as the early death of the viceroy has deprived him of the satisfaction of dedicating his book to the father, he dedicates it to the son. He quotes then four letters written by the Audeneia to the King and his ministers about Galvez. In one of the letters it is said that the viceroy died at the town of Tacubaya, on November 30, 1786, at the very moment when the King expressed his intention to maintain him in his office, and his satisfaction at his prudent and active conduct as viceroy. This letter of the King, dated August 18, 1786, disproves the assertion made by Gayarre that when Galvez died the King was on the point of removing him from his office in New Spain, as he was thought to be planning the establishment of an independent government. The King granted a pension of fifty thousand reales to the widow of A
7
1
327
NOTES
Galvez, Doña Felicitas Saint Maxent, six thousand reales to his daughter, Doña Matilda de Galvez, four thousand to his step-daugh- ter, Doña Adelaide Detréhan, twelve thousand to his posthumous child if a son, and six thousand if a daughter. His son Miguel was named " Comendador de Bolaños en la Orden de Calatrava."
Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
10 Martin's Louisiana.
11 Monette's Valley of the Mississippi.
12 Gaspar Cusachs, Publications of the Louisiana Historical So- ciety, Vol. II, Part II (1898).
13 Martin's Louisiana.
14 Gayarré's Louisiana, Vol. III.
15 Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
16 Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
17 Martin's Louisiana.
CHAPTER V
1 Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
2 Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society, Despatch of Mirò, February 20, 1788.
3 Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
" Monette's Valley of the Mississippi.
" Martin's Louisiana.
" Monette's Valley of the Mississippi.
" Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
8 Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
' Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
1º Spanish Manuscripts, Louisiana Historical Society.
11 Judge Gayarre, in his history of the Spanish domination of Louisiana, relates a conversation that took place between the Com- missary of the Inquisition and the officer sent by Mirò to convey Father Antonio de Sedella on board the ship that was to take him to Cadiz. The writer has based his narrative of this curious incident on the same documents that Judge Gayarre had in his possession- the very important copies of documents in the custody of the Louisiana Historical Society-and yet no mention of the conversation is made in the two despatches that refer to the dismissal of Father Antonio.
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It is probable that the latter himself related to Judge Gayarre his conversation with the Spanish officer. Judge Gayarre, who was born in 1805, must have known many persons who played an important part in our history, and must have learned from them facts which are not found in the Spanish documents which were at his disposal and which are now at ours.
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