USA > Missouri > History of southeast Missouri : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 22
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The life of these Americans was quite dif- ferent from that of their French neighbors. Most of the Americans were men who had had experience in a new country. They had been pioneers in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee ; they were accustomed to the life of the wilderness; and they had that bold, independent attitude which made them im- patient of restraint. They did not possess the social nature of the French. They were entirely willing to do without neighbors and
to forego the delights of social intercourse. We find them seattered about on farms, rather than croweded together into the towns. They took possession of the country and began at once to open up the soil for eul- tivation. They were men of energy and vi- tality. They seemed to have seen something of the future of the country and to have appreciated the importance of subduing the wilderness. They were not so much in sympathy with the Indians, nor with the life of the Indians as were the French. They did not have such a romantic at- tachment for the forest and for the life of nature. They liked the wilds of the new country, but they liked them on account of the possibilities they possessed. Aceord- ingly, they set themselves to the task of clear- ing the land and putting it into cultivation. Their settlements lacked the charm that was present among the French, but they gave evi- dence of prosperity and an energy superior to that of the others. Many of the French officials who visited the American settlements about Cape Girardeau were struck by the evidence of thrift and energy. They wished the French settlers might exhibit something of this enterprising spirit.
The houses of these American settlers were the houses which have been characteristic of new settlements all over America. They consisted, usually. of two square pens built of logs. Between them was an open space usually about as large as one of the pens. Over all was a single roof usually extending far enough in both front and rear to form porches. Sometimes the porch at the rear of the house was boarded up forming another room. The cracks between the logs forming the house were filled with mnd. There was usually one, and sometimes two, doors in each of these rooms, besides one or two open-
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ings for light. These openings were some- times closed with board shutters, and occa- sionally were filled with glass. The rooms had puncheon floors. The space between the two rooms was left open for the circulation of light and air. It was not infrequently left without a floor. In each of the rooms there was a large fire place. The chimney was usually built of mud and sticks, some- times of stone. One of these large rooms
were not much concerned about religion, else they would not have said themselves to be good Catholics. They were most of them will- ing to set aside whatever convictions they had on religious subjects, in order to be admitted to the Spanish territory. The testimony of missionaries who traveled among them is that they were in a deplorable condition, relig- iously. They had no services of their own to attend, many of them were unwilling to at-
HOME OF OUR FATHERS
was used for the kitchen, the other was the family living room. The slaves owned by the family lived in small cabins in the rear of the house. The American family's wealth and importance was estimated by the size of the barns and the number of slave cabins on the place.
These American settlers were part of them Catholics, such as the settlers at St. Michaels and many of those who settled in Perry county ; many of the others were Protestants, and some of them professed no religion at all. It is evident that many of the Protestants
tend the services of the Catholic church, so they were without religious instruction. Sunday among them was too often a holiday given up to the pursuit of pleasure of one kind and another.
Unlike the French settlers, the Americans were people who depended largely upon their own resources. Instead of importing goods for their clothing from New Orleans, Philadelphia or Baltimore, each house of the American settler became a factory where thread was spun and cloth woven to supply the wants of the household. Nearly all of
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the settlers were accustomed to dress in the home-spun eloth ealled "jeans." This was woven from thread, spun at the house itself, and the garments were made from the eloth by the women of the household. This famous "jeans" was dyed various colors, perhaps the one most favored was known as "butter-nut." This cloth was al- most indestructible. It was all wool; there was no mixture of cotton and wool such as is
moccasin was so well suited to the life of the woods that it was adopted by practically all the people who lived among the Indians.
The food of the Americans was by no means so varied nor so daintily prepared and cooked as the food of the French. There was an abundance of it and most of it was wholesome, but there was not that attention to the minor and lighter items of diet that the French gave. Instead of soups, salads,
HOME-MADE LOOM AND OPERATOR
found in almost all the cloth of the present time. There was among these people no such careful attention to dress as distin- guished the French. They were content if they had a sufficient amount of comfortable and presentable clothing. There was but lit- tle effort to follow the fashions, and no great pride was taken in a large collection of gar- ments of one sort or other. The women wore the sun-bonnet and the men frequently cov- ered the head with a cap made from coon skin or bear skin. Moccasins were fre- quently worn by both sexes. The Indian
vegetables and desserts, the staple items on the table of the American settlers were meat and corn bread. This meat was the meat of wild game, deer, turkey and other varieties, or it was the meat of the hog. Bacon was one of the favored dishes to be found on al- most all tables.
American settlers were usually strong and robust. The men were distinguished for their strength of body, their vigor and their hardiness. These qualities were to be ex- pected in a race of men who went out to subdue the wilderness. Many stories are
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told of the feats of strength performed by them. They gloried in their strength. They were usually content in their brawls and quarrels with the weapons with which nature had provided them, and whatever dis- turbances took place among them, were usu- ally settled by an appeal to personal prowess.
The American settlers were usually law- abiding people. They had something of a dread of the Spanish criminal law. There were stories told concerning the horrible suf- ferings endured by prisoners in Spanish dungeons and in Spanish mines where crimi- nals were frequently sent. This account of Spanish authority had, perhaps, its whole- some effect in keeping the population quiet ; but the thing that more than anything else operated to produce quiet and orderly set- tlements among the Americans was the law- abiding and independent character of the people themselves. Experience had shown them that people could not expect to be free unless they exercised the virtues of self con- trol. Accordingly, we find the communities of American settlers were very largely self governing. They settled their disputes among themselves, where that was possible, without any appeal to the Spanish authorities or to Spanish law.
Strange as it may seem, nearly all of the American settlers were well affected toward the authority of the Spanish government, and it does not appear that they greeted the change from the authority of Spain to that of the United States with any great rejoic- ing. Spain had dealt liberally with them in respect to grants of land, and, so far as those of the settlers who were engaged in agricul -. ture were concerned, the Spanish regulations did not hamper them very greatly. Opposi- tion to Spain's control of the Mississippi did
not come in any very large measure from west of the river. The opposition which made Spain's continued control of the river im- possible arose in the states bordering along the river to the east. We find even expres- sions of dissatisfaction when the flag of Spain was replaced by that of the United States.
Beside the French and American settlers, of whom we have spoken, there were a few settlements of Germans in Upper Louisiana. We have mentioned some of them, especially those who came to the district of Cape Gir- ardeau. Major Bollinger and the company of men who with him settled on Whitewater were among the earliest of these German set- tlers. They, too, were hardy and industrious people. They were distinguished for their thrift, for their ability to wring a living from the soil, and to accumulate property.
It is rather curious that in all the years from 1762 to 1802, while Spain was in con- trol of the Louisiana territory, there were very few Spanish people who came to the ter- ritory. It seems that the Spanish would have seized the opportunity to settle Louisiana .while it was owned and controlled by Spain ; such, however, was not the case. There are to be found the names of only two or three families in all of Upper Louisiana who seem to have been of Spanish origin. There were a number of reasons why the Spanish did not settle here. The chief of these was the idea that the Spanish held that the new world was not a place so much for settlement and coloni- zation as it was a place for searching for the precious metals. Long before the acquisition of the territory by Spain, it had become ap- parent that Upper Louisiana, while rich in lead, contained very little of the precious metals. It was for this reason principally
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that Spain neglected to colonize the territory. Of course there were other causes which joined with this to produce the same result. One of these was the greater interest which the southern part of the United States and even South America, had for the Spanish. They came from a different climate, and they found the warmer parts of the country more congenial to them.
The merchants who traded in these set- tlements were very different from the mer- chants of to-day. Some of them had very small warehouses, but most frequently, the goods of every kind were placed in a large box. They were brought out for inspection only on the demand of the customer. Within this box all kinds of things were kept-sugar, salt, dry goods, paints, tobacco, gunpowder, guns, hatchets; in fact, the whole store of the merchant was usually contained within a single receptacle. The merchant was usually not very enterprising, and was content to wait for the coming of customers and made no great effort to extend his trade. One re- sult of this system of trading was the pre- vailing high prices of everything that was bought and sold. This was especially true of groceries which were imported from New Or- leans, Canada, or the eastern part of the United States. Sugar sold at two dollars a pound, and tea at the same price; coffee was equally as dear. These high prices extended even to the products of the country; butter sold for from thirty to fifty cents a pound ; eggs, twenty-five cents a dozen; chickens, forty to fifty cents a piece. All of the trav- elers of the time speak of these high prices. Cumings, who visited New Madrid in 1809, says that milk, butter, eggs and chickens were outrageously high and Bradbury, who a few years later made a voyage from St. Louis
to New Orleans, found similar prices prevail- ing. It is probably true that these high prices were in part the result of the system of bar- ter that prevailed in most parts of the coun- try. During the Spanish regime the Spanish officials were accustomed to pay for goods, which they bought, in currency ; and this at- tracted to the west side of the river a con- siderable amount of the produce from Illinois. These circumstances all combined to render the price of articles higher than would other- wise have been maintained.
Nearly all the settlers of the country were engaged in farming, as we have seen, and their principal products were cattle, wheat, corn, and horses. Other things were grown to a limited extent, but these were the staple products. We may well suppose that agricul- ture was in the primitive state. It is said that in 1804 the entire crop of corn grown by the settlers of New Madrid amounted to only 6,000 bushels. Crops in other settlements were proportionately small. The amount pro- duced barely provided for the necessities of the settlers themselves and left only a small amount for export. Whatever surplus there was was sent east to New Orleans or to Can- ada. Cattle, of course, could be grown with little expense, owing to the vast range where they lived practically without being fed. This was true to some degree of horses also. It was noted, however, that both cattle and horses deteriorated in Louisiana. No atten- tion was given to the breeding of stock and they decreased in size and quality. Horses were especially valuable on account of the fact that almost all travel on land was done either on foot or on horseback.
One of the great hardships endured by set- tlers in the new country is the isolation which
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is unavoidable. It is difficult for us to im- agine the situation of the settlers in New Ma- drid, Cape Girardeau and Ste. Genevieve. They were separated from one another by many miles and they were cut off from the centers of wealth and power by hundreds and thousands of miles. To reach New Orleans or Canada required a journey whose difficul- ties cannot be measured by us. There were no roads. One who traveled by land must fol- low the trails or traces as laid out by the In- dians and adopted for use by the settlers. These trails were simply paths which led through the woods. Often it was difficult to follow them, owing to their indistinctness; sometimes the trees along them were blazed to prevent them being entirely lost. There were no bridges over the streams; the trav- eler must make his way across these as best he might. There were no inns, or other pro- vision for one who made his way along these trails. He must carry with him the supplies necessary for his subsistence. Travel along these trails was necessarily limited either to horseback or else on foot. It must have been a great undertaking to go from the settle- ments in Missouri to Quebec or Montreal in Canada. No matter at what time of year one traveled, he met with great hardships and dangers. The streams were frequently swol- len and dangerous to cross; there were long stretches of country consisting of swamps; wild animals were abundant, and savages were still more to be dreaded. There was great suffering from cold in winter, and from heat and mosquitoes in summer; and yet. as difficult as such a journey over land must have been, it was frequently made. Traders found it necessary to go from Missouri to Canada. Some of them made annual trips covering 1,600 to 2,000 miles on land.
The traveler set out with his horse. On
either side of his saddle he placed such things as were necessary for his comfort. He pro- cured his provisions, in part, by hunting ; he camped at night under the sky, in the forests or on the prairie. In winter time it was fre- quently necessary to shovel away the snow to find a little dry wood with which to kindle a fire. It was always necessary to be on con- stant guard against the dangers of the way.
Strange as it may seem, however, this life of travel came to have the very greatest at- tractions for some men. There was a fasci- nation about the life of the woods, its hard- ships and even its dangers, which drew men irresistibly to it. This was true not only of men who were reared amid such surround- ings ; it was true of Europeans who came from the midst of a high state of civilization. They found something in the life of the woods which made their every-day existence at home seem tame and uninspiring by comparison. Scarcely a traveler of all of those who left a record of their wanderings in the west but reveals the influence of this peculiar charm of savage life. Some seemed to revel in it; to feel that for the first time they had come in contact with nature, and were living the life for which men were destined.
If we turn from travel on land, with its lack of roads and its inconveniences, to travel on the river, we find conditions improved in- deed and yet arduous, still. In the early times travel on the river was in the large dug-outs called bateaus or pirogues. Nearly all of the early voyages up and down the river were made in these boats. They were copied from the Indian boats and were the hollowed out trunks of large trees. In such a boat it required from twenty-five to thirty days to make the trip from Ste. Genevieve to New Orleans, and it required from three
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to four months to make the trip from New Orleans to Ste. Genevieve. One of the Span- ish commandants boasted that he had just come from New Orleans to St. Louis in one of the king's bateaus in the very short time of ninety-three days. It was in boats like these that the produce, the lead and food was exported from Ste. Genevieve to New Orleans. It was not a great while, however, until the pirogue gave way, as a carrier of freight, to the keel-boat.
The keel-boat was a large, flat bottomed boat, somewhat resembling a canal-boat. It was strongly built, equipped with a mast and sail, had space for carrying considerable cargo, and sometimes accommodation for a passenger or two. The bulwarks of the keel- boat were flat and usually from fourteen to eighteen inches in width, forming a walk en- tirely around the boat. It was fitted with a large oar, mounted in the rear, by which it was steered. It was propelled in a number of different ways. Sometimes it was rowed by means of oars; occasionally, when the wind was favorable, the sail was set and the boat propelled by the wind; sometimes it was towed as the canal boat was towed. A rope was fastened at the top of the mast, then brought down through a ring in the bow of the boat, and extended to the bank of the river where it was grasped by a number of men. They walked along the tow path and pulled the boat. Perhaps the most charac- teristic method of propelling the keel-boat, however, was the use of setting poles. These were long poles which were used in the fol- lowing manner : If the water was of the right depth, the men engaged in propelling the boat, took their places along the bulwarks forming a line on either side as near as pos- sible to the bow, with their faces toward the stern. Each man grasped in his hand one of
the setting poles, planted one end against the bottom of the river, put the other to his shoulder and then the line of men pressing against these poles walked toward the rear of the boat. The leading man in each line, upon reaching the rear, dropped out of line, made his way quickly through the boat to the bow, took his place at the rear of the line of men and again walked toward the stern of the boat, pushing as he went. This method of procedure gave a continuous impulse to the boat aud was the method most favored by the keel-boat men.
Whatever method was used for the propul- sion of these boats, their progress was slow. Twelve to fourteen miles a day was consid- ered a fair rate of travel and eighteen miles a day, remarkable. If the boats were towed by a cordelle or little rope, there was constant trouble, owing to the entangling of this rope in the tree limbs that lined the bank of the river. Constant stops must be made for the purpose of untangling these lines, and there were many other ob- structions to be overcome, too. Very fre- quently at short intervals there were great rafts extending from the bank out into the river, sometimes for a distance of fifty or sixty feet formed of drift wood which had been caught by some obstruction. Such a raft was called by the French an embarras. Some- times, too, great trees that had been washed down by the streams extended out for a dis- tance of a hundred feet into the river. The keel-boat must make its way around all of these obstructions, and there was always found a swift and violent current around each of these. In spite of all of these difficulties, however, the keel boat continued for years to be the principal means of travel on the river. Large quantities of lead, corn, and wheat, and occasionally passengers were car-
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ried from St. Louis to Ste. Genevieve and New Orleans.
The social life and condition of these peo- ple must always be a matter of the very great- est interest. It is unfortunate that we do not have more complete records of their real con- dition. Enough, however, remains for us to form some idea of their surroundings, and the things in which they took the deepest and most vital interest. It is quite evident that one of these things was religion. We have seen before this time that the first service ever held within the limits of the state was that celebrated by De Soto and his com- panions at the request of the Indians. That religious service was held in 1541. It was destined to be many years before another was celebrated. We cannot be certain as to the date when the next religious celebration was held within the limits of the state. We have no accurate account as to the coming of any missionaries until, at least, the time of Mar- quette. We cannot, indeed, be certain that Marquette landed and held services on the soil of the state. We know, however, that he passed along its border upon the bosom of the great river, and we know that he was a most devout Christian and sincerely interested in spreading the Gospel among the Indians. In fact, he had vowed that should he discover the river, he intended to name it The Immacu- late Conception, and to name the first post planted within the territory in the same way. He fulfilled this vow, and the Mississippi was known for a number of years as the "River of the Conception." We may rightfully in- fer, from these circumstances, that he did land in Missouri and hold religious services; but even if such was the case, it was like the service held so long before by De Soto, only
an incident, long separated in time, from any regular series of religious services.
We are unable to fix the date when regular religious services were first held here. We may suppose that, as soon as settlers began to live about the mines and at Ste. Genevieve, the priests at Kaskaskia and Fort Chartres came to Missouri to hold services. There is one reference in the Jesuit Relations which seems to confirm this supposition. We do not, however, reach a certain period until the be- ginning of the church records of Ste. Gene- vieve. This was in the year 1759.
It should be said, of course, that all the early religious services held in the section were Catholic. The French dominated the territory until its transfer to Spain, and so long as the French were here, religious con- trol was vested in the priests of the Jesuit order. After the transfer to Spain an order was issued banishing the Jesuits from Louisi- ana and the religious control of the territory was claimed by the Capuchin fathers whose establishment in this country was in New Or- leans. The laws of Spain were very strict with regard to the settlement of Protestants in the territory and, of course, forbade under penalty the immigration of Protestant clergy- men and the holding of Protestant services. It must be said, however, that the Spanish of- ficials, who were charged with the execution of these laws, were very rarely bigoted, and they seem to have had little desire to enforce the laws in a harsh manner. What these laws were, may be ascertained from the fol- lowing instructions issued by Manuel Gayoso, the governor of Louisiana, to the command- ants of the various posts :
"6. The privilege of enjoying liberty of conscience is not to extend beyond the first
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generation. The children of those who en- joy it must positively be Catholic. Those who will not conform to this rule are not to be admitted, but are to be sent back out of the Province immediately, even though they possess much property."
"7. In the Illinois, none shall be admitted but Catholics of the class of farmers and ar- tisans. They must, also, possess some prop- erty, and must not have served in any public character in the country from whence they came. The provisions of the preceding ar- ticle shall be explained to the emigrants al- ready established in the Province who are not Catholics, and shall be observed by them."
"8. The commandants will take particu- lar care that no Protestant Preacher, or one of any sect other than Catholics, shall intro- duce himself into the Province. The least neglect in this respect will be a great repre- hension."*
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