The westward movement : the colonies and the republic west of the Alleghanies, 1763-1798 with full cartographical illustrations from contemporary sources, Part 4

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897. cn
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Boston ; New York : Houghton, Mifflin and Co.
Number of Pages: 622


USA > Mississippi > The westward movement : the colonies and the republic west of the Alleghanies, 1763-1798 with full cartographical illustrations from contemporary sources > Part 4


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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51


The obvious solution of this problem was to establish a post on the Mississippi, just north of the Iberville River, and then deepen the channel of that stream, so as to render its naviga- tion easy and at all times certain. 1


This would carry the stream of traffic through Lake Pont- chartrain to Mississippi Sound, and on to Mobile and Pensa- cola, which might thus be made to flourish at the expense of New Orleans. Already in March, 1767, Gage at New York had received reports of measures looking to this end, and had approved them.


The engineering feat was not an easy one, and its difficulties were palpable. When the Mississippi was at a low stage, the bed of the Iberville was twelve feet above it; in the season of freshets it was as much or more below, but the current was then all the more obstructed by driftwood. Three years before (1764), the English had made one futile attempt to divert the scanty flow of the great river so as to deepen the lesser channel. It now happened that before any serious effort could be made to attack the difficulty afresh, a new policy of strengthening the English garrisons at St. Augustine, Mobile, and Pensacola, in view of needing the troops to quell disturbances now brew-


33


THE SPANIARDS IN LOUISIANA.


ing in New England and likely to spread south, drew away the troops at the mouth of the Iberville and at the Natchez. On this policy Haldimand and the civil governor were at variance, and the general reported to Gage not only the bad effect on the Indians of the evacuation of the Mississippi posts, but the detriment it would prove to the trade which they had hoped to create. Aubry, the French governor at New Orleans, had not been unmindful of these events, and they gave him some relief from his anxieties as respects his English neighbors.


The hope of the English to possess New Orleans by some device had not been out of sight, even when the Iberville pro- jeet seemed promising, for the outlet of the Mississippi was looked to as a means of lessening the financial obligations of the colonies to the mother country, which had accumulated between 1756 and 1765 to near £11.000.000. There was a prospect, if the mouth of that river was left in the hands of the French, that they would outrival the English in tobacco as they had in sugar, and cotton was just beginning to be an export from New Orleans. John Thomas, in his record of events, is confident that fifteen hundred English and two hun- dred Indian auxiliaries could conquer Louisiana. Haldimand was questioned by Gage as to the feasibility of such an effort. That officer thought it not a diffienlt task, and counted upon the readiness of the French inhabitants to throw themselves on the English side in case of a rupture with the Spaniards, which now seemed probable.


It is necessary to go back a little to see how this condition of a French antagonism to Spain had become supposable. At the beginning of 1764, Gage in New York had learned of the proposed change of masters in New Orleans, which had been assured by the secret treaty of 1763. " I have a very extraor- dinary piece of good news to tell you." Gage wrote to John- son, January 23, "which is that the French are to cede all Louisiana to the king of Spain, by which we shall get rid of a most troublesome neighbor and the continent be no longer embroiled with their intrigues. The' French minister has de- clared this to Mr. Neville, with the compliment that it was done purely to avoid future disputes and quarrels with the English nation. I don't know whether they are vet acquainted


34 LOUISIANA, FLORIDA, AND THE ILLINOIS COUNTRY.


with these resolutions on the Mississippi." They were not. The secret provisions for a transfer were not known in New Orleans till October, and a few months later, February 4, 1765, d'Abbadie, the French governor, died, and Aubry became the acting governor. In the following summer, he and the council received word from Havana that a Spanish commandant had been appointed, and would soon present himself at New Orleans. This official was Antonio de Ulloa, now a man of nearly fifty, who had acquired some name by being associated with a scien- tific expedition to the equator to measure the arc of the me- ridian. On March 5, 1766, he arrived at New Orleans and became aware of a strong opposition among the Louisianians to the intended transfer.


Some time before, there had been a large meeting in New Orleans, which resulted in a leading merchant - Milhet by name - being sent to France in the hope of inducing the government to revoke the treaty of cession. This messenger found Bienville in Paris, then a man of eighty-five, and with him he sought an audience of the king, which Choiseul man- aged to avert. It was a cherished hope of that minister, that the time was coming when France could be avenged upon Eng- land for all she had lost. In 1764-66, he had kept a spy, Monsieur Beaulieu, in the English colonies watching for events that he could take advantage of. Some time afterwards we know that De Kalb, on January 12, 1768, arrived in Philadelphia, to see how nearly ripe the colonial discontent was for that break with the mother country which Turgot believed imminent. The minister was again actuated by this same hope a little later, when Spain had secured herself at New Orleans, and he pointed out that her true policy was not to try to colonize Louisiana, for which she had no aptness, but to rule her new province so liberally, even to fostering it as a republie, that the Americans would be lured by sympathy to declare their own independence, - a movement that Choiseul had no hesitation in desiring at whatever cost.


It seemed at first as if Ulloa was going to impede such a tendeney by aets of conciliation towards the unwilling French, but the atmosphere soon changed. He had brought with him two companies of infantry, but they were not sufficient to enforce authority, and it was evident that the French - neither


35


ULLOA AND AUBRY.


troops nor populace - would tamely submit to a change of flag. Indeed, Aubry was apparently the only friend whom the Spanish governor had found. Ulloa had tried in various ways to appease the opposition, and in May, 1766, he had issued a conciliatory order, permitting continued intercourse with the French West Indies; but within four months all such commnu- nication was interdicted.


658708


Thus the situation became critical. The French were doubt- less unfortunate ; and Ulloa, put to the test, was shown to be destitute of tact, and in some acts seemed inhuman. Aubry was soon convinced of the Spaniard's inability to govern. With a hostile population of six thousand, not including blacks, - for Ulloa had ordered a census and obtained some definite fig- utres, - it was clearly imprudent for him to set up his authority without further communication with his government. Aubry had had definite instructions (April 20, 1766) to cede the province, and in his intercourse with Ulloa was complacent, if not time-serving ; but he was without the hardihood of char- acter needed in such an emergency, either to make Ulloa banish his indecision, or to control the French. Accordingly, when Ulloa felt it prudent to retire to the Balize, Aubry soon followed him. Here the two made a documentary record of the transfer of government, but there was not the courage to publish it. Ulloa now established his headquarters on the opposite side of the stream from the French fort, which, in the growing of the delta seaward, was now two miles from the Gulf, when. in 1734, it had been built directly upon the open water. At that time, the island which Ulloa now occupied did not exist.


In December, 1767, Jean Milhet returned from Franee, and declared that there was to be no effect from the eolony's pro- test. The immediate result was that Aubry and Ulloa agreed . upon a plan of joint rule till their European masters could interpose more effectively. Detachments were now sent up the river to establish three posts, the better to patrol the river and to be prepared for deeisive action, and when the Spaniards deserted from Ulloa's regiments, French were enlisted to take their places. One of these detachments was at the mouth of the Iberville, opposite the position which the English later tried to occupy. Another was opposite Natchez. and a third was at the mouth of the Missouri. All these posts were distinct


36


LOUISIANA, FLORIDA, AND THE ILLINOIS COUNTRY.


obstacles to the English project of securing the trans-Mississippi trade ; but the forts were too far apart for mutual support in any contest with the English. Gage had already determined on a stricter observation of the river, and had ordered the arrest of all French traders found on its eastern banks; and before August, 1768, he had sent a message to Ulloa of his purpose.


Events which were taking place in Boston - royal regiments landing under cover of shotted guns - prefigured the coming revolution of the English colonies, and the tidings were to carry joy to Choiseul's heart. A fear of this outbreak had necessi- tated, as we have seen, the evacuation of the British posts on the Mississippi, and it had proved the best protection of the Spaniards. The attitude which the Louisianians were now assuming showed doubtless some of that revolutionary fervor which characterized the New England patriots. Indeed, Aubry suspected that it was not so much devotion to France as a desire for independence which was now impelling the growing discontent. He even informed his government that some of the imprudences of Ulloa might drive a part, at least, of the French over the river to the protection of the English flag.


The stubbornness of Ulloa brought a natural result when, in October, 1768, a conspiracy organized in secrecy, in which some of the leading colonists were concerned, broke forth. The crisis was reached. Ulloa fled to a frigate in the river, and before 'the month was closed the Supreme Council decreed, notwith- standing Aubry's protest, that the Spaniards must leave. On October 31, Ulloa sailed out of the river, and on December 4, 1768, he announced the result to Grimaldi, the Spanish minister.


Such a daring act on the part of the council needed explana- tion, and this body dispatched a messenger to Paris to make a representation. Ulloa was in advance, and when his report was made known in France, it was not an unwelcome thought to the enemies of England that revolutions were contagious, and that the English colonies were growing ripe for the infection. Though such encouraging sentiments were lacking, the French government itself proved steadfast in their obligations with Spain.


As soon as the Louisianians became aware by a return mes- sage that there was no hope in Paris, they turned to the English in Florida for sympathy and aid, but got none.


37


O'REILLY IN NEW ORLEANS.


The anxious days slipped on, and in July, 1769, it was known in New Orleans that O'Reilly, an Irish Catholic in the Spanish service, with a fleet at his back, had arrived at the Balize. The next day, this Spanish commander sent to the town instrue- tions committed to him for Aubry. He informed the French governor at the same time of his purpose to assume command, whatever obstacles were interposed. He had three thousand troops to add weight to his determination.


The town grew excited over the news. White cockades appeared on the streets. There was prospect of trouble. La Frenière, and other leaders of the conspiracy which had sent Ulloa off, recognized the gravity of the situation, and success- fully exerted themselves to allay the excitement. To help restore confidence, these conspirators, now more prudent, went down the river to welcome the new governor.


The way seemed open for a peaceful occupation. It was hoped the past would be forgotten. But appearances were ensnaring. O'Reilly reached the town on August 17, and on the next day Aubry made a formal surrender.


The purpose of O'Reilly was for a brief period cloaked : but in the end La Freniere and the other conspirators were seized and executed, while still others were imprisoned. By the latter part of November, 1769, the new government was in possession everywhere. O'Reilly's conduct was doubtless shaped by his instructions, and Jay, who later knew him in Spain, thought him " a man of excellent abilities, and possessed of great know- ledge of men as well as of things."


O'Reilly had found the English merchants in complete con- trol of the commerce of New Orleans, and he took immediate measures to dispossess them, and to cut off English communi- cations across the Mississippi. As soon as Gage had heard of O'Reilly's success, he congratulated himself that if he could only spread the tidings among the Western Indians, he eoukl effectually dispel their hopes of further French aid.


While the Spaniards were thus endeavoring to form a barrier against the English, they were dispatching messages to the Indians of Florida, - a region to whose loss, under the treaty of 1763, they had not become reconciled. These added new difficulties to those which beset the loyal officers of the British


38 LOUISIANA, FLORIDA, AND THE ILLINOIS COUNTRY.


crown all along the Gulf and Atlantie coast. They had little time to think further of the forcible acquisition of New Orleans, for the prowling savages were hanging about their interior posts, so as to compel their abandonment, one by one. The Tombigbee fort was evacuated in the spring of 1768, and not an armed station now protected the English traders in the upper country. A wavering and sinister policy, as Adair com- plains, had well-nigh alienated all the neighboring tribes from the English, and made it a common reproach among them to be an ally of that treacherous race which sold firearms to friend and foe alike.


Meanwhile the new political commotions in the older English colonies were checking the unfolding of English power on the Ohio and by the Illinois. To such projeets we must now turn.


Governor Franklin of New Jersey and Sir William Johnson, feeling with their Tory instincts full confidence in the mainte- nance of the royal power on the seaboard, were together plan- ning the establishment of a colony in the Illinois region. To advanee their schemes, Sir William addressed the ministers and Governor Franklin wrote to his father, then in London, who, from his important services in the recent war, was recognized even there as a man of influence. The elder Franklin proved an earnest advocate of the new measures, which were not un- · like in their purpose the project of barrier colonies, to which he had committed himself at the time of the Albany congress in 1754. The expectation at first was to buy needed territory from the French settlers, and Franklin marked out for Lord Shelburne the limits that were proposed on the small-scale map which makes a part of Evans and Pownall's larger sheet. This plan of compensation was soon abandoned, and the government was petitioned for a grant. General Gage and a body of Phila- delphia merchants joined the others in this new memorial. Their aim was to acquire a tract of 63,000,000 acres stretching from Lake Erie to the Mississippi, and bounded in one direction by the Fox and Wiseonsin rivers and on the other by the Ohio, Wabash, and Miami (Maumee). Against the eastern bounds of the proposed colony, and along the Wabash and Miami, lay a French population of some five or six hundred, which were grouped at Vineennes, and at Forts Quiatanon and Miami.


A SKETCH of the Upper Parts of CANADA ..


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Maurepas


Boston


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Black R.


Monomonts


Cano R. .


a Otligamis


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LAKE MICHIG


Long Elevated Plans


Mineamis


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ILLINOIS


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Kuskustt


Piankashans


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KUSKUSKES


Great R.


Watdon


Falls


Ohin or Allegany R.


A CORNER MAP IN EVANS AND POWNALL'S LARGE MAP.


St Jeroms R ..


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Ac kagouche R.


Monomony


C.Townfend


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T. AKE Pontchartrain


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Wabash


40 LOUISIANA, FLORIDA, AND THE ILLINOIS COUNTRY.


These settlers were in the main agricultural, and gave much of their labor to the vine : while they varied life with an occa- sional hunting season. They had pined under the change of flag much less than the French nearer the Mississippi, and had in faet established family ties with the neighboring Indians, which served to bind them to the soil, and there was indeed much in their country to attract. Wharton had said of it in 1770 : " The Wabash is a beautiful river, with high and upright banks, less subject to overflow than any other river (the Ohio excepted) in this part of America. It is navigable to Ouiata- non, 412 miles, in the spring, summer, and autumn, with bat- toes drawing about 3 feet of water. Boats go 197 miles further to the Miami carrying place (nine miles)."


The severest wrench to the feelings of the French, whether here or along the Mississippi, came with the establishment, under orders from Gage, of a court and jury according to Eng- lish usage, whither all causes were to be taken. The change from the civil law of the French, applied by judges in their own villages, was a dismal reminder of their new allegiance to a distant master.


The project of a new colony, which should seek to harmonize conflicting interests, give a stable government to the uncertain French, and protect the trading body, appealed variously to those who were lookers-on or had responsibilities. Some like Lord Clare looked to it, as he told Franklin, solely with a view to seeuring the country against a possible revolt of its French inhabitants. Such also was, in effect, the opinion held by Haldi- mand, studying the problem at Pensacola, and dreaming of the reciprocal interests of his own province and the upper Missis- sippi. He had urged his view upon Gage, and had expressed the belief that such a post on the Illinois could be made to sus- tain itself by agriculture. Shelburne fell in with the broader views which were pressed by Franklin, and so became in a way the sponsor of the project when he laid the scheme before the Board of Trade in October, 1766, who, if constant to the views which they had expressed more than once during the last twenty years, might be reasonably expected to favor the project.


It was held by the sponsor and advocates that such a colony would raise up a population to demand British manufactures ;


41


ENGLISH COLONIAL AIMS.


that by it the fur-trade could be wrested from the French and Spanish ; that its settlements would serve as a barrier against the Indians ; that the country could provision the forts; and that it would be the means of giving a eivil government to the French people now scattered there, and repining under the martial law.


Such views, however, availed nothing. The Lords of Trade in March, 1767, reported adversely on the project. They held that such a colony could but poorly answer the end for which colonies should be created. A pamphleteer of the time clearly defines the views, current not only with the Lords of Trade, but with the generally conservative, better-class English subjects.


" A colony is profitable," says this writer, " according as its land is so good, that by a part of the labor of the inhabitants bestowed on its cultivation, it yields the necessaries of life sufficient for their sustenance ; and by the rest of their labor produces staple commodities in such quantity, and of such value, as brings for the mother country, in the way of com- merce and traffic, all manufactures necessary for the proper accommodation of the colonists, and for the gradual improve- ment of the colony, as the number of people increase." Be- lieving in such conditions, Hillsborough, the first colonial sec- retary, contended that Murray's scheme of extending Quebec to the Mississippi was the only prudent measure. Indeed, in his conservative view the object of colonization being "to im- prove the commerce, navigation, and manufactures of England. upon which her strength and security depend," the creating of colonial power distant from the sea, and causing delay in com- munication, was expressly detrimental to public policy and an unwarranted charge upon the public treasury. Further there seemed, in his judgment, no occasion to annul the proclama- tion of 1763, in order to promote settlements which were cer- tain in the end to make their own wares instead of buying them from the mother country. Such sweets of commercial inde- pendence, once tasted, were sure, he contended, to create a desire for political autonomy. Further, he argued, there were no people to spare for building up an effective colony, and Ireland. in particular, ought not to be depopulated in the interests of such a settlement, while the seaboard communities of America needed, as he thought, rather to be strengthened than depleted. In his counter arguments Franklin had depended, not so much


42 LOUISIANA, FLORIDA, AND THE ILLINOIS COUNTRY.


upon drawing his colonists from the border settlements, as seeuring them in the more distant plantations like Connecticut ; and he and many others felt sure that the efforts of the minis- try to keep settlements on the Atlantic slope and to increase the growth of Florida and the maritime provinces would cer- tainly be thwarted by the climatic conditions of those regions.


To Hillsborough's plea for a restriction of manufactures, Shelburne replied that an active people cooped up by the mountains was much more likely to engage in handicrafts than if allowed to subdue a virgin soil like that beyond the Alle- ghanies. Wynne argued the point in his British Empire in America (1770). "Great Britain," he says, "a country of manufactures without materials ; a trading nation without commodities to trade upon ; and a maritime power without either naval stores or sufficient material for shipbuilding, could not long subsist as an independent state without her colonies." He then argues that to secure intervals for the soil to lie fallow required, for a country aiming to subsist by agriculture alone, that such laborers should have on an average forty or fifty aeres of land. In fact, some of the seaboard colonies had no more than ten or twenty acres to the man. Prohibit such colonies from sending their surplus population beyond the mountain, and you force them, he said, to live in part by manufactures, and prepare the way for independence. That , it is not possible to restrain a people hungry for land is indi- cated, he further said, in the continual disregard which had been shown to the proclamation of 1763.


No such arguments, however, prevailed, and the ministry were supported in their conservative views generally by most of the royal governors, and by prerogative men in the colonies. The opponents contended that a purely military control of such distant regions was best adapted to retain the French settlers in subjection. Amherst was urging such establishments, not only on the Mississippi, but on the Ohio and at Detroit.


Early in 1768, the movement lost force, Franklin bowing to the will of the ministry ; but Lyman, who had been a strenuous advocate and impatient at the obstacles, had already intimated a willingness to proceed without the sanction of the govern- ment. More prudent council, however, followed, and the pro- ject before long took another shape.


CHAPTER IV.


THE KENTUCKY REGION.


1767-1774.


THE prohibition of settlement under the royal proclamation of 1763, after five years of mingled distrust and indifference, had been practically annulled over the greater part of Ken- tucky by the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768. Washington had always under his breath called that edict " a temporary expedi- ent to quiet the Indians. It must fall, of course," he said, " when the Indians consent to our occupying the lands." In anticipation of such consent he had, in 1767, taken into his confidence an old acquaintance, Colonel Crawford, who was now living on the Youghiogheny. It had been agreed between them that Crawford should proceed quietly beyond the Monon- gahela as if bound on a hunting expedition, and select and de- fine the most desirable lands. The object of secrecy was to prevent rivalry, and while Crawford inspected and surveyed the lands, Washington was to bear the cost as well as the fees for subsequent patenting. He avowed his purpose to secure pre- emption of large areas, of compact acreage and as near Pitts- burg as possible. Such a frontier service meant not a little risk, for the Indians were everywhere jealous of the eneroach- ments of the whites. Charles Beatty, who at this time was traversing the country west of Fort Pitt, encountered the signs of devastations at all points, and even the Chippeways were known to be plundering the bateaux on the Ohio. It was one of the strongest grounds of remonstrance against the royal proe- lamation, that it prevented settled ways and police control over a region where the government was powerless to bar out ad- venturous and vagrant occupants. The House of Burgesses in Virginia were representing to the king that, if settlements were not permitted, this over-hill country would become " the resort of fugitives and vagabonds, defiers of law and order, who in




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