USA > Missouri > A history of Missouri from the earliest explorations and settlements until the admission of the state into the union, Volume I > Part 35
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20 Letter of Cruzat to Galvez, dated December 19, 1780.
309
DE BALME
To guard the village from attack by surprise Cartabona, even before the arrival of Cruzat, had seized a bateau belonging to Cerrè and placed it on sentinel duty four leagues above the town, as it was reported that Langlade, an English trader, was approaching. Cruzat began at once to put the town in a position of defense. He ordered a stockade to be built, and says that Auguste Chouteau was selected by him to direct this work, "because of his capacity, zeal, and love for the royal service." A retired French officer, Don Esteban Boucher de Monbrun, then a resident of St. Louis, who had distin- guished himself when the English attacked the town, was placed in command of a detachment of thirty-two militiamen, and kept on the Mississippi river forty leagues above St. Louis among the Saukees, while "Monsieur Mays" with another detachment of twelve men observed the movement of the enemy on the "Ylinoa " (Illinois river).
Cruzat must, also, have encouraged De Balme's expedition, which had such a tragic end, in order to divert the English attack from St. Louis. This Louis Motlin de la Balme, a French officer who had served in the Revolutionary War, was brevetted lieutenant- colonel of cavalry, May 26, 1777, and no doubt was in St. Louis in 1780. Although without means, he recruited and fitted out an expe- dition against Detroit, among the French-Canadians at Cahokia, Captain Joseph du Placey apparently furnishing the means. The Indians who accompanied this expedition were headed by Siggenauk and Le Tourneau. De Balme with his corps got to some point beyond the Wabash and captured the stores of several Indian traders, and then started back with the spoils, finding himself too weak to pros- ecute his march to Detroit. He was pursued by the Miamis under their chief, Pekan, 21 and he, Du Placey, 22 and most of the members of the expedition were killed. 23 But an expedition up the Illinois
21 Pekan was of middle size, about 5 feet 8 inches in height; was in Ste. Genevieve in 1802 and 1803, when old St. Jemme talked to him of the death of Captain du Placey and reproached him for killing him. Pekan shed tears of regret then. He had a nephew of the same name. In 1794 he visited Lorimier at Cape Girardeau. (See Lorimier's Journal, March 16, et seq)
22 Captain Joseph du Placey was a grandfather of Hon. Joseph Bogy and Hon. Louis V. Bogy, both long since dead.
23 Draper's Notes, vol. 5., Trip 1851; also, Draper's Collection, pp. 91, 97, and 100; Goodspeed's History of Knox County, Indiana, p. 1780. La Balme made a song which they sang with characteristic French sprightliness as they marched out of Cahokia, bidding good-bye to their sweethearts, wives, and friends. "We are going to take Detroit,- huzza for Liberty!" was the burden of it .- Draper's Notes, vol. 5., Trip 1851. Also see Joseph Bogy's narrative in Draper's Edition, vol. 26 (Clark Mss.), pp. 19. 91, 97.
310
HISTORY OF MISSOURI
river to capture fort St. Joseph, under command of Captain Eugenio Purrè (Beausoliel), of which mention is made elsewhere, resulted more fortunately.
The news Cruzat received from the opposite side of the river at this time was not reassuring, for the inhabitants of Kaskaskia Cahokia, and other old French settlements were greatly dissatisfied with the lawless condition of affairs which followed the conquest of the country by General Clark. Very little attention was paid to the welfare of the people. The country had become greatly impov- erished and was comparatively unprotected. It was rumored in St. Louis that the people of Kaskaskia and Cahokia had sent a courier to Detroit declaring themselves English vassals and begging for English protection, and the fact that only a small detachment of Americans was stationed at Kaskaskia and no attention paid to the country, and no succor sent, gave Cruzat "motive for many reflections," because, as he says, he thinks he knows "the incon- stancy of the English, who in this case are the same as the Ameri- cans." 24 The only encouraging rumor current in the settlements was that the French had disembarked on the St. Lawrence. What even more greatly disturbed him, was a report which reached Kaskaskia in October, 1780, that peace had been declared between the American colonies and England, and a close offensive and defensive alliance formed between the two countries. A rumor also prevailed that General Clark was coming to the Kaskaskia settlements with six hundred men. He feared that the Americans would become enemies of Spain, descend the Ohio and continue down the Missis- sippi, taking all the forts and settlements along the river, and he was morally certain that if the Americans should separate from their alliance with Spain and unite with the English of Canada, they would conquer the colony. 25 But he assured Galvez that he would do all possible to defend the country to the last extremity with the few forces at his command. In an earlier letter he says that he observed among the Americans "a coolness and untimely inaction which shows that their ideas are not very just, and on the contrary, seem suspicious." In order to discover the motive for this indiffer- ence he endeavored to acquire some information through a certain Bentley, a merchant of Kaskaskia, an Englishman, who was always
24 Letter of Cruzat to Galvez, dated September 22, 1780.
25 Letter of Cruzat to Galvez, dated December 22, 1780.
311
HARMAR'S VISITS
suspected by the Americans, and in whose house lived the American agent, Dodge. 26 He, however, was soon after assured by Galvez that this rumor of peace was unfounded.
In 1782, Cruzat writes that he had made peace with one hundred and forty tribes of warlike Indians. In the same year four principal chiefs and forty Indians of the Shawnees, Delawares, Chickasaws and Cherokees came to St. Louis with four large blue and white belts of wampum and reported that they had united one hundred and thirty tribes between the Ohio and the Gulf, and between the Mississippi and the Atlantic states. They asked the protection of the king of Spain, and proposed to establish a firm and sincere peace with the Spaniards. They reported to the lieutenant-governor that they had journeyed for a year and visited the various tribes, in order to unite them among themselves, and to separate completely from all the affiliations they previously had with the English. These tribes, Cruzat said, had never before visited St. Louis. The Saukees and Renards also petitioned permission to place themselves under Span- ish protection. The killing of Ballafre, chief of the Little Osages, gave Cruzat some anxiety for a short time; but the Indians were appeased by some small presents.
Upper Louisiana was not again attacked during the war, and after peace was finally established, in 1783, between England and the United States, France and Spain, Cruzat remained undisturbed until 1787, in St. Louis. Shortly before he was superseded he invited General Harmar, then in command at Kaskaskia, to visit him at St. Louis, and in August, 1787, the invitation was accepted. Harmar afterward wrote that he was "very splendidly and elegantly entertained, and on his departure from St. Louis accompanied to the landing by Cruzat's son and the principal inhabitants of the town." Of St. Louis, he says that "it is a handsome village, the best I have seen in the Louisiana country." Subsequently this gen- eral also visited Captain Peyroux at Ste. Genevieve, and was "received and entertained with the greatest politeness," but the town, he says, is "much inferior to St. Louis." At this time twenty Spanish soldiers were stationed at St. Louis, and six or eight at Ste. Genevieve. 27
26 Letter of Cruzat to Galvez, dated September 22, 1780.
27 Harmar Papers, vol. 1., p. 340, et seq. This trip was made by land to St.
Louis in a calache, via Prairie du Rocher. Mr. Tardiveau and Mr. Charleville
312
HISTORY OF MISSOURI
In November, 1787, Cruzat was superseded by Don Manuel Perez. When Perez came to St. Louis he found that the wooden stockade which had been erected by Cruzat had practically rotted down. The stone tower of San Carlos and the bastions in the north end of the village, each armed with five cannon, and a ravelin with one cannon, was all that represented the fortification of St. Louis. He sent to Miro a plan of the town and fortifications, which has been preserved in the Spanish archives, to impress upon him the necessity of rebuilding the works. Perez thought it would require about seven or eight thousand pesos to render the fortifications useful for the preservation and security of the village.
During the administration of Perez, Col. George Morgan and his party of explorers visited St. Louis. 28 The rapid growth of the American settlements on the Ohio now caused the Spanish officials no little uneasiness, and the intrigues to separate the western terri- tory from the Atlantic states began to take form, as well as the plan of Col. George Morgan to plant an English-American-Spanish state at the mouth of the Ohio.
It must have been sometime after the failure of Colonel Morgan's plan that a circular was published and circulated in the United States, which set out a scheme to establish a settlement and republic on the west shore of the Mississippi, near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi. A copy of this circular having found its way to New Orleans, and to Cuba and Madrid, it was not calculated to inspire the Spaniards with much confidence. It proposed, in order to form this settlement, to march eighteen thousand men in perfect condition for military service from the Alleghany mountains, and in order to defray the expenses in part, to raise three million pesos by giving to each person advancing ten pesos 500 acres of land in the territory to be conquered, and whoever should advance fifty pesos,
accompanied the General, and they were, he says, "hospitable and kind." Barthélemi Tardiveau, who originally suggested to the Spanish government the plan of attracting to Louisiana the emigration going from Europe to the United States, was a highly intelligent man, a native of France. During the American Revolution he was one of the first merchants of Louisville, where he furnished Gen. George Rogers Clark with much assistance; from Louisville he removed to Kaskaskia, where he exerted himself greatly to secure land dona- tions for the settlers and a confirmation of their land titles. From Kaskaskia he removed to New Madrid, in 1792, where he died in 1799. See his letter addressed to Count de Aranda, dated Kaskaskia, July 17, 1792.
Letter of Perez to Miro, dated March 27, 1789.
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CRUZAT'S PLAN OF ST. LOUIS, 1780
314
HISTORY OF MISSOURI
2,500 acres of land, and so on. The money thus paid on account of this projected expedition was to be deposited in the Bank of the United States until the number of citizens to form this new republic should be complete. It was also contemplated that every man paying money to promote the enterprise should become a citizen of the new state, either personally or by proxy, and that within two years after the first contingent of citizens should arrive at the destined location, every actual settler should receive 300 acres of land for him- self, and 50 acres for each of his children between the ages of ten and sixteen, and 120 acres for children between sixteen and twenty years, &c., &c., but only industrious and energetic men of good character were to be admitted to this new state. That education might be promoted, land was reserved for a university or public seminary, and the legislature of the new state was empowered to set aside 500 acres in each town for a public school, and 300 acres for the first teacher and 200 for his successor. It was also proposed to civilize and in- corporate the Indians who live on the shores of the Missouri, in this new republic. This scheme, wild and visionary as it now appears to us, undoubtedly then seemed practicable to many adventurers. 29
In 1791 Perez recommended the construction of two strong forts on the Mouis (Des Moines), and San Pedros (Iowa) rivers, to pre- vent the English from reaching the upper Missouri, but Las Casas, at that time captain-general of Cuba, wrote Carondelet that he was not in possession of sufficient local knowledge or maps to enable him to form a judgment of the necessity of these new establishments. In 1792, Carondelet wrote that he thought these forts entirely useless, and would "never interfere with the communications and passage of the English to the tribes living near the Mis- souri;" he also thought that, "being surrounded by warlike tribes," they would "arouse the resentment of those tribes as well as excite the wrath of the English." 30 Perhaps the fact that at this time Spain and England were in alliance against France may have influenced the opinion of Carondelet. During 1793-4 he was under much more apprehension from a combined French-American attack upon upper Louisiana than of English hostility.
While Perez was lieutenant-governor, the Shawnees and Dela-
2º General Archives of the Indies - Seville - Proposition for the Establish- ment on the West Shore of the "Missouri" rivers.
30 Letter of Carondelet to Las Casas, dated January 10, 1793.
315
GENET
wares in considerable numbers first crossed the Mississippi river to settle in the Spanish possessions. This was an emigration favored by the Spanish authorities, because these Indians, having long been in contact with the white settlers east of the Mississippi, were more civilized than the Osages and other Western Indians. Indeed, they were ready to protect the Spanish white settlements along the Missis- sippi against the Osages, if they might be themselves protected from the encroachments of the white settlers. Having been driven from their homes on the east side of the Mississippi in Ohio and Indiana, fre- quently defeated by the English and Americans, and treated in many instances with great harshness and inhumanity, they were also very hostile to the Americans.
Because defeated in the plan to erect an independent Indian confederacy between the Atlantic states and the Mississippi, as a protection for Louisiana, for a number of years after the treaty of 1783 was concluded, complicated and tortuous intrigues were car- ried on between the Spanish governors of Louisiana, General Wil- kinson and others. The purpose was to separate the Western set- tlers from the Union in order to secure the free navigation of the Mississippi. But for the adoption of the new Constitution and the formation of the federal government it is more than probable that this scheme would have been successful, and a separate' and independent American state, for a time at least, under Spanish pro- tection, established in the Mississippi valley. The growth of this separatist sentiment was checked by the hope that the new federal government would solve the question of the free navigation of the Mississippi, an expectation in which the people were often disap- pointed. The selfish policy of the statesmen of New England, ready to sacrifice the interests of the Western people in order to promote local interests, became manifest early after the formation of the federal government. While the intrigues looking to separate the West from the Atlantic states were in progress, a new and unexpected factor suddenly changed the thought of the people. The sentiments of the French Revolution were permeating the country. Genet appeared in the United States, and in 1792 attempted to inaugurate in the Western states extensive filibustering operations against Louisi- ana. He sought to involve the United States in war both with Great Britain and Spain, by holding out the hope to capture, by force of arms, the Floridas and Louisiana. Of course, he found adherents in
316
HISTORY OF MISSOURI
Kentucky, where a large portion of the people had always favored taking New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi by force. Genet began enlisting men for an expedition against the Spanish pos- sessions, and his recruiting officers bore blank commissions for the use of American officers to enter the French service. Genet named Tar- diveau as one whom it was desirable to interest in the scheme to con- quer Louisiana ; and he included in his plans Wilkinson, Brackenridge, and others. Lyonnet also recommended Tardiveau as able to suggest useful men in Kentucky, and recommended that "at the head of these filibusters of the woods must be placed General Clark." He adds that much money must be spent for drink, for "the Americans only talk of war when vis-a-vis with a bowl." 31 General George Rogers Clark accepted a commission as major-general, and in the language of Carondelet, giving himself "the showy title of Maris- cal de Campo of the French armies and of the Revolutionary legions on the Mississippi." In order to secure volunteers for the reduction of the Spanish posts on the Mississippi, it was proposed that all who took part in the expedition should have the right to 1,000 acres of land, those who enlisted for one year 2,000 acres, and those serving for two years, or during the war, 3,000 acres of any of the vacant land conquered; officers were to receive larger grants, in proportion to their rank. 32 Among a people who had greatly suffered by Spanish exactions, Genet's project found much favor. Lyonnet in a letter written at the time explained the ease with which Louisiana might be invaded and taken, and states that the first post on the Mis- sissippi, L'Anse a la Graisse (New Madrid), was defended only by a fort built of wood, situated upon low ground which was often flooded and armed only with ten little cannon and garrisoned by 18 to 20 men, commanded by a Spaniard. 33
Carondelet was greatly alarmed at this filibustering enterprise, and, in a letter to the Duke of Alcudia, says that the Americans are "drawing with incredible rapidity toward the west and the Mis-
31 8th American Historical Review, p. 661.
32 Secret letters and enclosures, dated April 7, 1794, of Carondelet to Don Luis de Las Casas. General Archives of the Indies, Seville.
33 Lyonnet was a Frenchman who lived at New Orleans. In his letter "Consideration Sur la Louisiane," 8th American Historical Review, p. 497 he says: " Je crois qu'il est facile de l'enlever sans retarder l'expedition de quatre heures. Mais l'on pourrait s'auparer de ceux du fort de l'Anse a la Graisse s'il n'était pas possible de s'en procurer convenablement. On pourrait encore detacher cent hommes qui en trouveraient aux Illinois sur sa partie Espagnole."
317
PLAN OF DEFENSE
sissippi." 34 In order to protect Louisiana, he urges that the defenses of New Madrid be increased, so as to be prepared "when the Amer- ican states of the West seek to profit by the opportunity offered by the present war against France to open the Mississippi." The defensive plan suggested by him as indispensable was to protect the upper settlements now in Missouri by a full regiment. One bat- talion was to be stationed at "San Luis de Ilinoa," and the second battalion at Madrid, "dividing between them the forty leagues intervening on the western bank of the Mississippi, so as to prevent by a few detachments the incursion of scattered bands that might cross the river; and maintaining at the settlement at Santa Geno- veva, the center of this extension, a strong detachment from both battalions to restrain the settlement of Kaskaskia. This cordon or line supported on the right by the fort at New Madrid, and on the left by that of 'San Luis de Ilinoa,' and in the center by Santa Genoveva, would afford sufficient time for the militia, who are all soldiers, to come up by land to the point of attack, since the journey from New Madrid to San Luis is made on horseback in four days." Then, too, he relies on the savage tribes, Chouanous, Abenaquis, Cherokquis and Osages, who would act as a second line of defense and not allow any hostile party to pass. Finally, four galleys of light draft armed with cannon would guard the river; these galleys would also watch the mouth of the Ohio, only ten leagues from New Madrid, and, if any craft should pass New Madrid successfully then the forts lower down the river could prevent a passage to New Orleans. But such a passage he thought improb- able, on account of the superior artillery carried by the boats of Spain, and on account of the fire of troops, militia, and savages on the western bank of the river. Under the circumstances, he thought it very necessary to fortify New Madrid "in the most serious fashion, because it must necessarily be the first object of attack on the part of the enemy," and his conclusion is, that "if garrisoned with a bat- talion with suitable twelve-pound artillery, thirty artillerymen, two hundred militiamen, and protected by some 1,500 Indians, who can harass the enemy during the siege by occupying the vicinity, molest- ing their men when they go in search of fagots, wood, etc.," it can hold out a long time, and consequently allow sufficient time for the
34 2 American Historical Register, p. 476.
318
HISTORY OF MISSOURI
gathering of the forces of upper Louisiana and attempting with their aid to raise the siege. 35
Zenon Trudeau was lieutenant-governor of upper Louisiana during this exciting period. The fortifications of St. Louis were put in a complete state of defense, under orders of Carondelet. Many rumors prevailed that a combined force of French and American troops was on the march to the Mississippi from Vincennes; that a fort and camp had been established at the mouth of the Cumberland; that the French-American army was about to descend the Ohio to attack the Spanish posts on the Mississippi. As a result, the commandants of New Madrid, Ste. Genevieve, and Cape Girardeau were constantly employed to guard against any surprise. At this time, Don Louis Lorimier, hav- ing control of the Shawnee and Delaware Indians, was especially of great service to the Spanish government. Through his influence the Delawares who had been embittered by Perez in 1791 were thoroughly pacified. Cape Girardeau was established as an inde- pendent trading post in order to give Lorimier greater authority and more influence among the Indians, and greater independence of action in treating with them. In January, 1794, he employed Louis Francois Largeau as his secretary. In this capacity Largeau kept a daily journal of the events of this time, which has been preserved in the Spanish archives. New Madrid being supposed to be the first place exposed to an attack by this Franco-American army, the Shawnee and Delaware Indians under Lorimier were vigilantly observing the movements of the filibusters on the Ohio. This threatened attack on Louisiana, however, was averted by the decided intervention of the new federal government. Washington issued a proclamation against the enterprise. Fort Massac was re-estab- lished on the Ohio to prevent the passage of any hostile force, and General Wayne by his firm and decided action prevented any inva- sion of the Spanish territory. The French minister, Genet, who had organized this hostile enterprise, was recalled, and the treaty of San Lorenzo el Real secured, for a time at least, the free navigation of the Mississippi and thus pacified Western discontent.36
35 See letters of Carondelet to Trudeau and replies 1793, in General Archives of Indies, Seville.
36 American Historical Review, p. 480.
III.
Spanish-French Alliance - Military Plans and Dispositions - Society of the "Sans Culottes" at St. Louis - Expedition of Don Carlos Howard from New Orleans to St. Louis - Instructions to Howard for Protection of Upper Louisiana-Affairs of Upper Louisiana, 1796 - The Spanish Com- pany of Discovery - Spanish Scheme to Build Flouring Mills at New Madrid and Ste. Genevieve - French Settlers of Gallipolis Attracted to Louisiana - DeLassus Succeeds Trudeau, 1799 - Rumors of English Invasion of Spanish Territory, 1800 - Questionable Land Grants Made by Spanish Officials.
Political affairs then changed rapidly in Europe. Spain and France, lately enemies, now drew together and were soon allied in a war against England. Carondelet was advised by the Marquis de Yurjo, the Spanish minister at Philadelphia that the English were pre- paring an expedition against the settlements of upper Louisiana, and became apprehensive of an English invasion and an attack on "San Luis de Ylinoa." He wrote that the merchants of this place "would have an immense commerce of skins with the natives of Missouri, if they were favored with the freedom of the capital and protected against the Canadian English who usurp it," and suggested that a fort garrisoned by fifty men on the river St. Peter, 120 leagues from "San Luis," would cut off this English commerce with the western tribes, "a commerce so rich that despite the enormous distance of five hundred leagues of desert which must be traveled by their mer- chandise and by their furs they receive in return, the London com- panies so engaged do not gain less than 100 per cent." Such a fort established on the St. Peter river would in a few years, he thought, create a more populous settlement there than the present "San Luis," and serve to cover that part of Louisiana above the Mis- souri against the usurpations of the English and Americans. He then says that since "San Luis de Ylinoa" was surrounded by savage tribes of great valor and more industry than his own people in lower Louisiana, exposed to the insults of the Americans and English in case of rupture with them, and at the same time in the center, as it were, of the commerce of upper Louisiana, it ought to be surrounded with a good stockade. This he plans should be provided with ban- quet and glacis, the first being defended at the two angles forming the field of the parallelogram by two good redoubts clothed with stone, and in the center by the little fort now existing. Part of the inhabitants capable of bearing arms would serve for its defense : wherefore, he says, "I think that four companies detached
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