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The settlement of Illinois, 1778-1830

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Title: The settlement of Illinois, 1778-1830

Author: Arthur Clinton Boggess


        
Release date: October 9, 2010 [eBook #34049]
                Most recently updated: June 16, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SETTLEMENT OF ILLINOIS, 1778-1830 ***





             Chicago Historical Society’s Collection.—Vol. V.

                        The Settlement of Illinois

                                1778-1830

                     by Arthur Clinton Boggess, Ph.D.

   Professor of History and political Science in Pacific University; a
 Director of the Oregon Historical Society; sometime Harrison Scholar in
  American History in the University of Pennsylvania; sometime Fellow in
             American History in the University of Wisconsin.

                                 Chicago

                         Published by the society

                                   1908





CONTENTS


Preface.
Chapter I. The County of Illinois.
Chapter II. The Period of Anarchy in Illinois.
Chapter III.
   I. The Land and Indian Questions. 1790 to 1809.
   II. Government Succeeding the Period of Anarchy, 1790 to 1809.
   III. Obstacles to Immigration. 1790 to 1809.
Chapter IV. Illinois During Its Territorial Period. 1809 to 1818.
   I. The Land and Indian Questions.
   II. Territorial Government of Illinois. 1809 to 1818.
   IV. Transportation and Settlement, 1809 to 1818.
   IV. Life of the Settlers.
Chapter V. The First Years of Statehood, 1818 to 1830.
   The Indian and Land Questions.
   The Government and Its Representatives, 1818 to 1830.
   Transportation.
   Life of the People.
Chapter VI. Slavery in Illinois As Affecting Settlement.
Chapter VII. Successful Frontiersmen.
Works Consulted.
Index.
Footnotes






PREFACE.


In the work here presented, an attempt has been made to apply in the field
of history, the study of types so long in use in biological science. If
the settlement of Illinois had been an isolated historical fact, its
narration would have been too provincial to be seriously considered, but
in many respects, the history of this settlement is typical of that of
other regions. The Indian question, the land question, the transportation
problem, the problem of local government; these are a few of the classes
of questions wherein the experience of Illinois was not unique.

This work was prepared while the writer was a student in the University of
Wisconsin. The first draft was critically and carefully read by Prof.
Frederick Jackson Turner, of that University, and the second draft was
read by Prof. John Bach McMaster, of the University of Pennsylvania. In
addition to suggestions received from my teachers, valuable aid has been
rendered by Miss Caroline M. McIlvaine, the librarian of the Chicago
Historical Society, who placed at my disposal her wide knowledge of the
sources of Illinois history.

The omission of any reference in this work to the French manuscripts,
found by Clarence W. Alvord, is due to the fact that at the time they were
found, my work was so nearly completed that it was loaned to Mr. Alvord to
use in the preparation of his article on the County of Illinois, while the
press of professional duties has been such that a subsequent use of the
manuscripts has been impracticable.

ARTHUR C. BOGGESS.

Pacific University,
Forest Grove, Oregon.
September 14, 1907.





CHAPTER I. THE COUNTY OF ILLINOIS.


An Act for establishing the County of Illinois, and for the more effectual
protection and defence thereof, passed both houses of the Virginia
legislature on December 9, 1778.(1) The new county was to include the
inhabitants of Virginia, north of the Ohio River, but its location was not
more definitely prescribed.(2)

The words “for the more effectual protection and defence thereof” in the
title of the Act were thoroughly appropriate. The Indians were in almost
undisputed possession of the land in Illinois, save the inconsiderable
holdings of the French. Some grants and sales of large tracts of land had
been made. In 1769, John Wilkins, British commandant in Illinois, granted
to the trading-firm of Baynton, Wharton and Morgan, a great tract of land
lying between the Kaskaskia and the Mississippi rivers. The claim to the
land descended to John Edgar, who shared it with John Murray St. Clair,
son of Gov. Arthur St. Clair. The claim was filed for 13,986 acres, but
was found on survey to contain 23,000 acres, and was confirmed by Gov. St.
Clair. At a later examination of titles, this claim was rejected because
the grant was made in the first instance counter to the king’s
proclamation of 1763, and because the confirmation by Gov. St. Clair was
made after his authority ceased and was not signed by the Secretary of the
Northwest Territory.(3) In 1773, William Murray and others, subsequently
known as the Illinois Land Company, bought two large tracts of land in
Illinois from the Illinois Indians. In 1775, a great tract lying on both
sides of the Wabash was similarly purchased by what later became the
Wabash Land Company. The purchase of the Illinois Company was made in the
presence, but without the sanction, of the British officers, and Gen.
Thomas Gage had the Indians re-convened and the validity of the purchase
expressly denied. These large grants were illegal, and the Indians were
not in consequence disposessed of them.(4) Thus far, the Indians of the
region had been undisturbed by white occupation. British landholders were
few and the French clearings were too small to affect the hunting-grounds.
French and British alike were interested in the fur trade. A French town
was more suited to be the center of an Indian community than to become a
point on its periphery, for here the Indians came for religious
instruction, provisions, fire-arms, and fire-water. The Illinois Indian of
1778 had been degraded rather than elevated by his contact with the
whites. The observation made by an acute French woman of large experience,
although made at another time and place, was applicable here. She said
that it was much easier for a Frenchman to learn to live like an Indian
than for an Indian to learn to live like a Frenchman.(5)

In point of numbers and of occupied territory, the French population was
trifling in comparison with the Indian. In 1766-67, the white inhabitants
of the region were estimated at about two thousand.(6) Some five years
later,(7) Kaskaskia was reported as having about five hundred white and
between four and five hundred black inhabitants; Prairie du Rocher, one
hundred whites and eighty negroes; Fort Chartres, a very few inhabitants;
St. Philips, two or three families; and Cahokia, three hundred whites and
eighty negroes. At the same time, there was a village of the Kaskaskia
tribe with about two hundred and ten persons, including sixty warriors,
three miles north of Kaskaskia, and a village of one hundred and seventy
warriors of the Peoria and Mitchigamia Indians, one mile northwest of Fort
Chartres. It is said of these Indians: “They were formerly brave and
warlike, but are degenerated into a drunken and debauched tribe, and so
indolent, as scarcely to procure a sufficiency of Skins and Furrs to
barter for clothing,” and a pastoral letter of August 7, 1767, from the
Bishop of Quebec to the inhabitants of Kaskaskia shows the character of
the French. The French are told that if they will not acknowledge the
authority of the vicar-general—Father Meurin, pastor of Cahokia—cease to
marry without the intervention of the priest, and cease to absent
themselves from church services, they will be abandoned by the bishop as
unworthy of his care.(8) Two years earlier, George Croghan had visited
Vincennes, of which he wrote: “I found a village of about eighty or ninety
French families settled on the east side of this river [Wabash], being one
of the finest situations that can be found.... The French inhabitants,
hereabouts, are an idle, lazy people, a parcel of renegadoes from Canada,
and are much worse than the Indians.”(9) Although slave-holders, a large
proportion of the French were almost abjectly poor. Illiteracy was very
common as is shown by the large proportion who signed legal documents by
their marks.(10) The people had been accustomed to a paternal rule and had
not become acquainted with English methods during the few years of British
rule. Such deeds as were given during the French period were usually
written upon scraps of paper, described the location of the land deeded
either inaccurately or not at all, and were frequently lost.(11) Land
holdings were in long narrow strips along the rivers.(12)

The country was physically in a state of almost primeval simplicity. The
chief highways were the winding rivers, although roads, likewise winding,
connected the various settlements. These roads were impassable in times of
much rain. All settlements were near the water, living on a prairie being
regarded as impossible and living far from a river as at least
impracticable.(13) The difficulties of George Rogers Clark in finding his
way, overland, from the Ohio River to Kaskaskia and Vincennes on his awful
winter march, are such as must manifestly have confronted anyone who
wished to go over the same routes at the same season of the year.

Wild animals were abundant. A quarter of a century after the Revolution,
two hunters killed twenty-five deer before nine in the morning near the
Illinois settlements.(14) In 1787, the country between Vincennes and
Kaskaskia abounded in buffalo, deer, and bear.(15) For years, the chase
furnished a large part of the provisions. The raising of hogs was rendered
difficult by the presence of wolves. Game-birds were plentiful, and birds
were sometimes a pest because of their destruction of corn and smaller
grains and even of mast.

An early traveler wrote in 1796: “The province of the Illinois is,
perhaps, the only spot respecting which travelers have given no
exaggerated accounts; it is superior to any description which has been
made, for local beauty, fertility, climate, and the means of every kind
which nature has lavished upon it for the facility of commerce.”(16) The
wide-spreading prairies added to the beauty of the country. Land which now
produces one hundred bushels of corn to the acre must have been capable of
producing wonderful crops at the beginning of its cultivation. Coal was
not known to exist in great quantities in the region nor was its use as a
fuel yet known.

Such was the country and such the people now organized into the County of
Illinois.(17) The Act establishing the county provided that the governor
and council should appoint a county-lieutenant or commandant-in-chief, who
should appoint and commission as many deputy-commandants, militia
officers, and commissaries as were needed. The religion, civil rights,
property and law of the inhabitants should be respected. The people of the
county should pay the salaries of such officers as they had been
accustomed to, but officers with new duties, including the
county-lieutenant, were to be paid by Virginia. The governor and council
might send five hundred troops, paid by Virginia, to defend Illinois.
Courts were to be established with judges elected by the people, although
the judges of other county-courts of Virginia were appointed by the
governor and council.(18)

While Gov. Patrick Henry was writing instructions concerning the
organization of government in Illinois, the British general, Hamilton, was
marching to take Vincennes. Henry did not know this particular fact, but
he had a keen perception of the difficulties, both civil and military,
which awaited the county. On December 12, 1778, without waiting for the
formal signing of the act creating the county, he wrote instructions to
George Rogers Clark, to Col. John Todd, jr., and to Lieut.-Col. John
Montgomery. Clark was instructed to retain the command of the troops then
in the Illinois country, and to assume command of five other companies,
soon to be sent out.(19) Col. Todd was appointed county-lieutenant or
commandant. His instructions contained much wise direction. He was to take
care to cultivate and conciliate the affections of the French and Indians,
to coöperate with Clark and give the military department all the aid
possible, to use the French against the British, if the French were
willing, but otherwise to remain on the defensive, to inculcate in the
people an appreciation of the value of liberty, to see that the
inhabitants had justice done them for any injuries from the troops. A
neglect of this last instruction, it was pointed out, might be fatal.
“Consider yourself as at the head of the civil department, and as such
having the command of the militia, who are not to be under the command of
the military, until ordered out by the civil authority and act in
conjunction with them.” An express was to be sent to Virginia every three
months with a report. A letter to the Spanish commandant at Ste. Genevieve
was inclosed, and Todd was told to be very friendly to him.(20) Col.
Montgomery, then in Virginia, was ordered to recruit men to reënforce
Clark. “As soon as the state of affairs in the recruiting business will
permit, you are to go to the Illinois country & join Col. Clarke, I need
not tell you how necessary the greatest possible Dispatch is to the good
of the service in which you are engaged. Our party at Illinois may be
lost, together with the present favorable Disposition of the French and
Indians there, unless every moment is improved for their preservation, &
no future opportunity, if the present is lost, can ever be expected so
favorable to the Interest of the commonwealth.” Montgomery was urged not
to be daunted by the inclement season, the great distance to Illinois, the
“want of many necessaries,” or opposition from enemies.(21) Gov. Henry
deserves much credit for his prompt and aggressive action at a time when
Virginia was in the very midst of the Revolution.

Col. Clark was much pleased with the appointment of Col. Todd, both
because civil duties were irksome to the conqueror and because of his
confidence in Todd’s ability.(22) Upon the arrival of the new
county-lieutenant, Clark called a meeting of the citizens of Kaskaskia to
meet the new officer and to elect judges. He introduced Col. Todd as
governor and said that he was the only person in the state whom he had
desired for the place. The people were told that the government, Virginia,
was going to send a regiment of regular troops for their defense, that the
new governor would arrange and settle their affairs, and that they would
soon become accustomed to the American system of government. In regard to
the election of judges, Clark said: “I pray you to consider the importance
of this choice; to make it without partiality, and to choose the persons
most worthy of such posts.”(23) The nine members of the court of
Kaskaskia, the seven members of the court of Cahokia, and the nine members
of the court of Vincennes, as also the respective clerks were French. Of
the three sheriffs, Richard Winston, sheriff of Kaskaskia, was the only
one who was not French.(24)

Military commissions were promptly made out, those of the districts of
Kaskaskia and Cahokia being dated May 14, 1779. So many of the persons
elected judges were also given military commissions that it seems probable
that the supply of suitable men was small. No fewer than fourteen such
cases occur. Of the militia officers appointed at Vincennes, P. Legras,
appointed lieutenant-colonel, had been a major in the British service, and
F. Bosseron, appointed major, had been a captain in the British
service.(25)

The position of Illinois among the counties of Virginia was necessarily
anomalous. All counties, except the County of Illinois, were asked to
furnish one twenty-fifth of their militia to defend the state. Illinois
county was omitted from the western counties enumerated in “An act for
adjusting and settling the titles of claimers to unpatented lands under
the present and former government, previous to the establishment of the
commonwealth’s land office.” Settlers northwest of the Ohio were warned to
remove. No settlement would be permitted there, and if attempted, the
intruder might be removed by force—“_Provided_, That nothing herein
contained shall be construed in any manner to injure or affect any French,
Canadian, or other families, or persons heretofore actually settled in or
about the villages near or adjacent to the posts reduced by the forces of
this state.” These exceptions were made at the May session of 1779. At
this session, there was passed an act for raising one troop of cavalry,
consisting of one captain, one lieutenant, one cornet, and thirty-two
privates to defend the inhabitants of Illinois county. All officers were
to be appointed by the governor and council. The men were to receive the
same pay as Continentals. Any soldier who would serve in Illinois during
the war should receive a bounty of seven hundred and fifty dollars and a
grant of one hundred acres of land.(26)

Acting upon the policy that caused Virginia to warn all intruders not to
settle northwest of the Ohio, Todd issued a proclamation warning all
persons against such settlement, “unless in manner and form as heretofore
made by the French inhabitants.” All inhabitants were ordered to file a
description of lands held by them, together with a deed or deposition, in
order to be ready for the press of adventurers that was expected.(27)

Some of the incidents of the summer of 1779 indicate difficulties of the
new government. When the governor was to be absent for a short time, he
wrote to Winston, who as commander of Kaskaskia would be acting governor,
telling him not to impress property, and by all means to keep up a good
understanding with Col. Clark and the officers. The judges of the court at
Kaskaskia were ordered to hold court “at the usual place of holding court
... any adjournment to the contrary notwithstanding.” Richard McCarty, of
Cahokia, wrote to the county-lieutenant complaining that the writer’s
stock had been killed by the French inhabitants. McCarty had allowed his
stock to run at large and they had destroyed uninclosed crops, which
crops, he contended, were not in their proper place. Two months later,
McCarty wrote from Cahokia: “Col. Todd residence hear will spoil the
people intirely. I think it would be a happy thing could we get Colol Todd
out of the country for he will possitively sett the Inhabitants and us by
the Ears. I have wrote him a pritty sharp Letter on his signing a Death
warrant against my poor hog’s for runing in the Oppen fields ... on some
complaints by the Inhabitants the other day he wished that there was not a
Soldier in the country.”(28) McCarty’s hogs were not his only trouble. A
fellow-officer wrote: “I received a line from Capt. McCarty [captain of
troops at Cahokia] yesterday. He is well. He writes to me that he has lost
most of his French soldiers, and that the inhabitants are so saucy that
they threaten to drive him and his soldiers away, telling him that he has
no business there—nobody sent for him. They are very discontented. The
civil law has ruined them.”(29)

Col. Todd’s position was difficult because of the discontent prevailing
among both the French and the Americans in Illinois. His salary was so
small that he feared that he must sell his property in Kentucky to support
himself while in public service. He regarded Kentucky as a much better
place than Illinois for the ambitious man, the retired farmer, or the
young merchant.(30) He had been scarcely more than three months in office
when he wrote to the governor of Virginia: “I expected to have been
prepared to present to your excellency some amendments upon the form of
Government for Illinois, but the present will be attended with no great
inconveniences till the Spring Session, when I beg your permission to
attend and get a Discharge from an Office, which an unwholesome air, a
distance from my connexions, a Language not familiar to me, and an
impossibility of procuring many of the conveniences of Life suitable; all
tend to render uncomfortable.”(31) This letter was intercepted by the
British and did not reach the governor.

Great difficulty was experienced in securing supplies for the soldiers. At
times, both troops and people suffered from lack of clothing. The Spanish
refused to allow the Americans to navigate the Mississippi, Virginia money
entirely lost its credit, hard money was scarce, and peltry was difficult
for the military commissaries to obtain. Col. Todd, in desperation,
refused to allow the commander at Kaskaskia to pay the people peltry for
provisions as had been promised, and calling the inhabitants in council,
he told them that if they would not sell on the credit of the state they
would be subject to military discipline.(32) The fall of 1779 saw the
garrison at Vincennes without salt, and starving; while at Kaskaskia the
money was worthless, troops were without clothes and deserting daily.(33)
This great lack of supplies resulted in the impressment of supplies, in
disagreement among the officers, and was a prominent factor in a
resolution to withdraw the troops from their several situations and
concentrate them at a single point on the Ohio River. The discontent of
the French was extreme, and it was increased by the departure of Col. Todd
for Virginia. The officers who were left in command ruled with a rod of
iron and took cattle, flour, wood, and other necessaries, without
payment.(34) Capt. Dodge, of Kaskaskia, refused to honor a draft
presented, apparently, by the government of Virginia, and when sued in the
civil court, he declared that he had nothing but his body and that could
not be levied upon; besides, he was an officer and as such was not
amenable to civil law.(35)

In the very midst of starvation, the French, unaccustomed to English ways,
were wishing to increase the expense of government. An unsigned official
letter says, in speaking of affairs in Illinois: “I find that justices of
the peace, appointed among them, expect to be paid, this not being the
practice under our laws, there is no provision for it. Would it not be
expedient to restrain these appointments to a very small number, and for
these (if it be necessary) to require small contributions either from the
litigants or the people at large, as you find would be most agreeable. In
time, I suppose even this might be discontinued. The Clerks & Sheriffs
perhaps may be paid, as with us, only converting Tobacco fees into their
worth in peltry. As to the rules of decision & modes of proceding, I
suppose ours can be only gradually introduced. It would be well to get
their militia disciplined by calling them regularly together according to
our usage; however, all this can only be recommended to your
Discretion.”(36) Some eight years later the exaction of exorbitant fees
was one of the chief reasons which caused the reform of the French court
at Vincennes.(37)

The plan for concentrating most of the Illinois troops at a single point
was carried out in the spring of 1780. The chief objects sought were to
procure supplies and to prevent the advance of the Spaniards. At first, it
was thought advisable to locate the new fort on the north side of the Ohio
near the Mississippi, and Col. Todd made some grants of land to such
persons as were willing to settle in the vicinity and assist in raising
provisions, but the fact that Virginia currency, although refused in
Illinois, was accepted in Kentucky caused the fort to be built south of
the Ohio, and it is probable that Todd’s grants of land at the site first
proposed lapsed.(38) As the troops had a great need for settlers to raise
crops, Capt. Dodge suggested to the governor of Virginia that immigrants
to Illinois should receive aid from Virginia. This would aid the troops
and would stop emigration to the Spanish possessions west of the
Mississippi.(39)

As the French could neither support the soldiers nor do without them,
commissions in blank were sent to Maj. Bosseron, district commandant at
Vincennes, with power to raise a company there, and to assure the company
that pay would be allowed by the government. It was feared that the
settlers at Vincennes would consider themselves abandoned upon the
withdrawal of troops. It was proposed to leave enough troops among the
French to satisfy them, but scarcely had the new fort been established
when the people of Cahokia sent a special messenger to Clark at Fort
Jefferson, the new fort, asking that troops be sent to protect them. The
Indians so surround the place, say the petitioners, that the fields can
not be cultivated. If troops are sent the people can not feed them, but if
they are not sent the people can not long feed themselves.(40) French
creditors of the government were unpaid and some of them must have been in
sore need.(41)

The act establishing the County of Illinois would terminate by limitation
at the end of the May session of 1780, unless renewed. At that session,
the act was renewed “for one year after the passing of this act, and from
thence to the end of the next session of assembly.”(42)

The condition of the people in the county during the latter half of 1780
was one of misery. Contemporary accounts have a melancholy interest. An
attack by Indians upon Fort Jefferson being imminent, the few troops in
the outlying districts were ordered to come to the aid of the garrison.
The order reached Cahokia when its few defenders were sick and starving.
Corn, without grease or salt, was their only food. Deaths were of frequent
occurrence. The people of the village had petitioned Col. Montgomery to
ease their burden by quartering some of the troops in other villages, but
he refused the request of other officers for a council and threatened to
abandon the country entirely. In such a condition of affairs, Capt.
McCarty proceeded to obey the orders from Fort Jefferson. The only boats
at the disposal of the garrison were unseaworthy, so five small boats were
pressed for use. On the way, several of the famished soldiers became so
sick that they had to be left along the route. Even military discipline
was bad in the country. Capt. McCarty, upon being arrested for having
quarreled with Dodge, because the latter would not buy food for the
starving troops, was left for months without trial because Col. Montgomery
had left the country and a military court could not be convened.(43) In
October, McCarty wrote: “In short, we are become the hated beasts of a
whole people by pressing horses, boats, &c., &c., &c., killing cattle,
&c., &c., for which no valuable consideration is given; even many not a
certificate, which is here looked upon as next to nothing.”(44)

Of the same tenor as McCarty’s testimony to Illinois conditions is that of
Winston. A remonstrance of the civil authorities against the extravagance
of the military officers was treated as insolent and impertinent. The
military power refused the civil department the use of the military
prison, even when pay was offered, and made strenuous efforts to establish
military rule. Col. Montgomery and Capt. Brashears had departed for New
Orleans without settling the account for the peltry which Todd had
committed to the joint care of Montgomery and Winston. Montgomery was
openly accused of having taken a large amount of public property away with
him. Capt. Dodge was a notorious disturber of the peace, and Capt.
Bentley, a more recent arrival, was equally undesirable. In the closing
paragraph of a long letter is the significant statement: “It Being so long
a time since we had any news from you, we conclude therefrom that the
Government has given us up to do for Ourselves the Best we can, untill
such time as it pleases Some other State or Power to take us under their
Protection—a few lines from you would give Some of us great satisfaction,
yett the Generality of the People are of Opinion that this Country will be
given up to France....”(45)

At the close of October, the troops, with the exception of a very few,
were collected at Fort Jefferson. There the garrison was sick and
starving,(46) clothes were much needed, desertion was rife, and the
abandonment of the post seemed imminent.(47) Among the few troops that
were not called to Fort Jefferson were those of Capt. Rogers, at
Kaskaskia. This company “had to impress supplies, giving certificates for
the value—thus would kill cattle when they wanted them, hogs, & take flour
from the horse-mills—& thus lived very comfortably.”(48)

Mutual recrimination was common among the officers. Todd, in a letter to
Gov. Jefferson, in which he inclosed letters from the Illinois officers,
said: “Winston is commandant at Kaskaskia; McCarty, a captain in the
Illinois regiment, who has long since rendered himself disagreeable by
endeavoring to enforce military law upon the civil department at Kohos.

“The peltry, mentioned by Winston as purloined or embezzled by Montgomery,
was committed to their joint care by me in Novr, 1779; and from the
circumstance of Montgomery’s taking up with an infamous girl, leaving his
wife, & flying down the river, I am inclined to believe the worst that can
be said of him. Being so far out of the road of business, I can not do the
State that justice I wish by sending down his case immediately to the
Spanish commandants on the Mississippi.”(49) From January 28, 1779, to
October 18, 1780, Montgomery drew drafts upon Virginia to the amount of
thirty-nine thousand three hundred twenty dollars.(50) Winston and McCarty
accused Capt. Rogers, who succeeded Col. Montgomery in command at
Kaskaskia, of shooting down the stock of the inhabitants without warrant.
In a dignified defence, Capt. Rogers declared that he took only so much
food as was absolutely required to save his starving sick, and that Mr.
Bentley, who endeavored to secure supplies from the people, offering his
personal credit, was persistently opposed by Winston and McCarty. “I can
not conclude without informing you that ’tis my positive opinion the
people of the Illinois & Post Vincennes have been in an absolute state of
rebellion for these several months past, & ought to have no further
indulgence shown them; and such is the nature of those people, the more
they are indulged, the more turbulant they grow. I look upon it that
Winston and McCarty have been principal instruments to bring them to the
pitch they are now at.”(51) Capt. Dodge, against whom complaints had
become general, and Capt. McCarty, whose quarrel has been narrated, were
ordered to appear before a court of inquiry at Fort Jefferson.(52) Clark
was very angry at Montgomery’s conduct. He sent a message to New Orleans
ordering him to return for trial; he warned all persons against trusting
the offender on the credit of the State, and he requested the governor of
Virginia to arrest the fugitive if he should come to Richmond.(53) How low
public morals had sunk is shown by the fact that Montgomery had the
effrontery to return to Fort Jefferson, where he arrived on May 1, 1781,
and resumed his command. In February, 1783, he made his defense and asked
for his pay.(54) In April, 1781, Todd wrote: “I still receive complaints
from the Illinois. That Department suffers, I fear, through the avarice
and prodigality of our officers; they all vent complaints against each
other. I believe our French friends have the justest grounds of
dissatisfaction.”(55)

On June 2, 1781, Capt. McCarty was killed in a fight between the Illinois
troops and some Indians on the one side and a party of Ouia Indians, who
favored the British, on the other. The engagement took place near the
Wabash. McCarty’s papers were sent to the British, who laconically
reported: “They give no information other than that himself and all the
Inhabitants of the Illenoise were heartily tired of the Virginians.”(56)
There is slight reason to doubt the truth of the statement. It is enforced
by the fact that in 1781, a letter written in French to the governor of
Virginia and said to be signed in the name of the inhabitants of Vincennes
and to give the views of the people of Vincennes, Kaskaskia, Vermilion,
Ouia, etc., declared that the French had decided to receive no troops
except those sent by the king of France to aid in defeating the enemies of
the country. The Indians who are friendly to the French, said the writer,
would regard the coming of Virginia troops as a hostile act. A copy of the
memoir sent by the French settlers to the French minister Luzerne was
inclosed.(57)

On June 8, 1781, the garrison of Fort Jefferson, being without food,
without credit, and for more than two years without pay, evacuated the
place and withdrew to the Falls of Ohio, only to find themselves without
credit in even the adjoining counties of Virginia. The troops were
billeted in small parties.(58) Once again there comes a despairing plea
from the feeble garrison at Vincennes, in the County of Illinois. The
commander wrote: “Sir, I must inform you once more that I can not keep
garrison any longer, without some speedy relief from you. My men have been
15 days upon half-allowance; there is plenty of provisions here but no
credit—I can not press, being the weakest party—Some of the Gentlemen
would help us, but their credit is as bad as ours, therefore, if you have
not provisions send us Whisky which will answer as good an end.”(59)

In the Virginia House of Delegates, a committee for courts of justice
reported that the laws which would expire at the end of the session had
been examined, together with certain other laws, and that a series of
resolutions had been agreed upon by the committee. Among these resolutions
was the following: “_Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee_,
That the act of assembly, passed in the year 1778, entitled ‘an act, for
establishing the county of Illinois, and for the more effectual protection
and defence thereof;’ which was continued and amended by a subsequent act,
and will expire at the end of this present session of assembly, ought to
be further continued.” This report was presented and the resolutions
agreed to by the House on November 22, 1781. Three days later, a bill in
accordance with the resolution was presented. The consideration of the
bill in a committee of the whole House was postponed from day to day until
December 14, when it was considered and the question being upon
engrossment and advancement to a third reading, it passed in the
negative.(60) On January 5, 1782, the General Assembly adjourned, and the
County of Illinois ceased to exist.(61) So far as instituting a civil
government was concerned, the county was a failure. Its military history
shows a mixture of American, British, French, and Spanish efforts at
mastery.

The first important military operation in which the County of Illinois was
concerned, after the well-known movements of Clark and Hamilton, was
organized by the British at Detroit in compliance with a circular letter
from Lord George Germain. The plan was to attack St. Louis, the French
settlements near it on the east side of the Mississippi, Vincennes, Fort
Nelson at the falls of the Ohio, and Kentucky. Large use was to be made of
Indians, and British emissaries were busy among the tribes early in 1780.
An expedition was to be led against Kentucky, while diversions should be
made at outlying posts. It was thought that the reduction of St. Louis
would present little difficulty, because it was known to be unfortified,
and was reported to be garrisoned by but twenty men. In addition to this,
it was regarded as an easy matter to use Indians against the place from
the circumstance that many Indians frequented it. Less assurance was felt
as to holding the place after it should have been captured, and to make
this easier, it was proposed to appeal to the cupidity of the British fur
traders. By the middle of February, a war-party had been sent out from
Michilimackinac to arouse and act with the Sioux Indians, and early the
next month another party was sent out to engage Indians to attack St.
Louis and the Illinois towns. Seven hundred and fifty traders, servants,
and Indians having been collected, on the 2d of May they started down the
Mississippi, and at the lead mines, near the present Galena, seventeen
Spanish and American prisoners were taken. In conjunction with this
expedition, another, with a chosen band of Indians and French, was to
advance by way of Chicago and the Illinois River; a third was to guard the
prairies between the Wabash and the Illinois; and the chief of the Sioux
was to attack St. Genevieve and Kaskaskia.(62)

The expedition against St. Louis and the Illinois towns, as well as in its
larger aspect, was not successful. It was impossible to keep it secret and
as early as March, an attack was expected. Spanish and Americans joined in
repulsing the intruders. Another potent element in the failure was the
treachery of some of the traders who acted as leaders for the British,
notably that of Ducharme and Calvé, who had a lucrative trade and regarded
the prospect of increasing it by the proposed attack as doubtful. In the
last week of May, 1780, the attack on St. Louis was made. Several persons
were killed, but the place was not taken. Cahokia was beleaguered for
three days, but it was so well defended by George Rogers Clark that on the
third night the enemy withdrew, when Clark hastened to intercept the
expedition against Kentucky, while the Illinois and Spanish troops pursued
the retreating enemy and burned the towns of the Sauk and Fox Indians. The
British were much chagrined at the result of the expedition, yet they
resolved to continue their plan of using Indians and sending out several
parties at once.(63)

An expedition which gains much interest from the character of its leader
was that of Col. Augustin Mottin de la Balme. This man had been
commissioned quartermaster of gendarmerie, by the authorities of
Versailles, in 1766; had come to America and been recommended by Silas
Deane and Benjamin Franklin to the president of Congress, John Hancock, as
a man who would be of service in training cavalry; had been breveted
lieutenant-colonel of cavalry, in May, 1777; made inspector of cavalry,
with the rank of colonel, in July following; and had resigned in October
of the same year. The next year, a public notice, in French with English
and German translations, announced that carpenters, bakers, and some other
classes of laborers could find shelter and employment at a workshop
established by La Balme, twenty-eight miles from Philadelphia.(64) In the
summer of 1780, La Balme went from Fort Pitt to the Illinois country.

A contemporary who writes from Vincennes speaks of La Balme as a French
colonel. He was regarded by the Americans with much suspicion. Capt.
Dalton, the American commander at Vincennes, whose character was later
much questioned, allowed him to go among the Indians,(65) whereupon La
Balme advised them to send word to the tribes which Clark was preparing to
attack and to warn them of their danger. La Balme also ingratiated himself
with the discontented French, asking why they did not drive “these
vagabonds,” the American soldiers, away, and saying that to refuse to
furnish provisions was the most efficient method. “Everything he advances
tends to advance the French interest and depreciate the American. The
people here are easily misled; buoy’d up with the flattering hopes of
being again subject to the king of France, he could easily prevail on them
to drive every American out of the Place and this appears to me to be his
Plan.” After thoroughly stirring up the people at Vincennes, the
adventurer left, with an escort of thirty French and Indians, to visit
Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and St. Louis. He and Col. Montgomery, then the
superior officer in Illinois, did not meet, and he received not the
slightest countenance from the Spanish commandant at St. Louis. By the
French inhabitants, La Balme “was received ... just as the Jews would
receive the Messiah—was conducted from the post here [at Kaskaskia] by a
large detachment of the inhabitants as well as different tribes of
Indians.” The French in the towns near the Mississippi were so
enthusiastic that La Balme had little difficulty in raising forty or fifty
troops for an expedition against Detroit. Some of the American soldiers at
Cahokia deserted to him, and when placed under arrest by the military
authorities were rescued by a mob. On October 5, 1780, after telling the
Indians to be quiet because they would see the French in Illinois in the
spring, the French troops set out from Cahokia.(66)

The troops from Illinois were to be joined by a body from Vincennes, but
without waiting for them La Balme pushed on to the Miami towns, where he
hoped to capture a British Indian trader who was especially hated by the
French. The trader was not found, but his store of goods to the amount of
one hundred horse-loads was seized. The expected reinforcements not
arriving, La Balme felt too weak to attack Detroit and started to return.
He was attacked by the Indians on the river Aboite, eleven miles southwest
of the present Fort Wayne, and he and some thirty of his men were killed
and at least one hundred horses, richly laden with plunder, were taken by
the Indians. It was reported that disaffected inhabitants of Detroit had
concealed five hundred stands of arms with which to assist the forces of
La Balme in taking the place. Among La Balme’s papers, which fell into the
hands of the British and are now in the Canadian archives, were addresses,
in French, by M. Mottin de la Balme, French colonel, etc., to the French
settled on the Mississippi, dated St. Louis, September 17, 1780; a
declaration, in French, in the name of the inhabitants of the village of
Cahokia, addressed to La Balme: “We unanimously request you to listen with
a favorable ear to the declaration which we venture to present to you,
touching all the bad treatment we have suffered patiently since the
Virginian troops unfortunately arrived amongst us till now,” dated
Cahokia, September 21, 1780; a note from F. Trottier, a member of the
court of Cahokia, elected under the Virginia government, to La Balme,
saying that no meeting can be held until Sunday next, when he hopes the
young men will show themselves worthy the high idea La Balme has of them,
but that at present there are only twelve entirely determined to follow
him wherever he goes, although others may follow their example, and asking
La Balme to receive depositions against the Virginians, dated Cahokia,
September 27, 1780; a petition, in French, addressed to the Chevalier de
la Luzerne, minister plenipotentiary from France to the United States, by
inhabitants of Post Vincennes, dated Vincennes, August 22, 1780; and a
commission to Augustin Mottin de la Balme as quartermaster of gendarmèrie,
dated Versailles, February 23, 1766.(67) The British promptly set about
promoting the Indian trader whom La Balme and the French had sought to
kill, believing that he would be serviceable as a spy.(68)

In the autumn of 1780, a party of seventeen men from Cahokia went on an
expedition against St. Josephs. The party was commanded by “a half
Indian,” and seems to have included but one American. The attack was so
timed as to come when the Indians in the vicinity of St. Josephs were out
hunting. The place was taken without difficulty, the traders of the place
were captured and plundered, and the party, laden with booty, set out on
the route to Chicago. A pursuing party was quickly organized and at the
_Rivière du Chemin_, a small stream in Indiana, emptying into the
southeastern part of Lake Michigan, the returning victors were summoned to
surrender, on December 5, 1780. Upon their refusal, four were killed, two
wounded, seven made prisoners, while three escaped.(69) The one American,
Brady, was among the prisoners. He told the British that the party was
sent by the creoles to plunder St. Josephs, and that there was not a
Virginian in all the Illinois country, including Vincennes.(70)

In the very midst of winter, on January 2, 1781, an expedition commanded
by Eugenio Pierre, a Spanish captain of militia, set out from St. Louis
against St. Josephs. According to a Spanish account, the party consisted
of sixty-five militia men and sixty Indians, while an American account
declares it to have contained thirty Spaniards, twenty men from Cahokia,
and two hundred Indians.

The purpose of the expedition was to retaliate upon the British for the
attack on St. Louis and for the defeat of La Balme. On the march, severe
difficulties incident to the season were encountered. The post was easily
taken, the Indians were conciliated by a liberal proportion of the booty,
the Spanish flag was raised and the Illinois country with St. Josephs and
its dependencies was claimed for the crown of Spain. The British flag was
given to Commandant Cruzat, of St. Louis. These proceedings made some
prominent Americans fear that Spain would advance claims to the region at
the close of the Revolution.(71)

In the summer of 1781, a party of seven men was sent out by the commandant
at Michilimackinac with a letter to the inhabitants of Cahokia and
Kaskaskia asking them to furnish troops to be paid by the king of England,
and to assume the defensive against the Spaniards. The men reached St.
Louis before visiting Cahokia or Kaskaskia, and were arrested by the
Spanish commandant, who sent a copy of the letter to Major Williams,
knowing no officer in Illinois superior to him. This created jealousy at
Cahokia and Kaskaskia, each of several officers claiming superiority.
Charles Gratiot, a man of some ability, who had removed from Cahokia to
St. Louis because unable to endure the lawlessness at the former place,
wrote that he did not know what course the Illinois people might have
taken if Cruzat had not intercepted the British agents. Illinois was a
country without a head where everyone expected to do as he pleased.(72)

In noting the operations of the medley of military forces in the County of
Illinois, it is easy to conceive how the result might have been different,
but the fact is that as the county ceased to exist, no nation had
established a better title to the region than that of the Americans.





CHAPTER II. THE PERIOD OF ANARCHY IN ILLINOIS.(73)


Illinois was practically in a state of anarchy during the time that it was
a county of Virginia, and when that county ceased to be, anarchy became
technically as well as practically its condition, and remained so until
government under the Ordinance of 1787 was inaugurated in 1790.

Virginia’s legacy from her ephemeral county was one of unpaid bills.
Scarcely had the general assembly adjourned, in January, 1782, when
Benjamin Harrison wrote: “We know of no power given to any person to draw
bills on the State but to Colo Clarke and yet we find them drawn to an
immense amount by Colo Montgomery, and Captn Robt. George and some others;
we have but too much reason to suppose a collusion and fraud betwixt the
drawers and those they are made payable to; most of them are for specie
when they well knew we had none amongst us, and from the largeness of the
sums, proves the transactions must have been in paper and the depreciation
taken into account, when the bargains were made; indeed George confesses
this to have been the case when he gave Philip Barbour a bill for two
hundred and thirty two thousand, three hundred and twenty Dollars and uses
the plea of ignorance.” The transactions of Oliver Pollock, purchasing
agent at New Orleans, should be carefully examined from the time he began
to act with Montgomery.(74) Thimothé Demunbrunt, as he signed his name,
asked pay for his services as lieutenant, in order that he might not be a
charge to his friends—a thing which would be shameful to one of noble
descent. He wished to be able to support his family and to go with Clark
on a proposed expedition. His petition was supported by a certificate from
Col. Montgomery, testifying that Demunbrunt had been active in his
military duty, had gone against the savages in the spring of 1780, had
gone on the “Expedition up the Wabash,” and had gone to the relief of Fort
Jefferson when Montgomery could raise only twelve men.(75)

The military troubles continued. The commander at Vincennes reported his
troops as destitute and unpaid. Richard Winston, of Kaskaskia, who had
succeeded Todd as head of the civil government in Illinois, was arrested
by military force and put in jail. The prisoner claimed that the
proceedings were wholly irregular and that he was unacquainted with the
nature of the charge against him.(76) The next year, he was accused of
treason, the accuser declaring that Winston had proposed to turn Illinois
over to Spain, but that his proposal had been despised by the Spanish
commandant.(77) Upon Winston was also laid the chief blame for the
discontent of the French, he being charged with having told Montgomery
that the French were strangers to liberty and must be ruled with a rod of
iron or the bayonet, and that if he wanted anything he must send his
guards and take it by force; while, at the same time, he told the French
that the military was a band of robbers and came to Illinois for
plunder.(78) However, numerous and well-founded as the accusations might
be, both accused and accuser laid their claims for salary before the
Virginia Board of Commissioners for the Settlement of Western
Accounts.(79) Even the notorious Col. Montgomery presented before this
board his defence, which consisted of a recital of his meritorious deeds,
others being omitted.(80)

Another visitor to the Board of Commissioners was Francis Carbonneaux,
prothonotary and notary public for the Illinois country. Although he came
to get some private affairs settled, his chief mission was to lay before
the Board the confusion in Illinois, and the Board correctly surmised that
if Virginia did not afford relief the messenger would proceed to
Congress.(81) It was but natural that at this time, the people of Illinois
should be in doubt as to whom to present their petition, because Virginia
had offered to cede her western lands to Congress, although the terms of
cession were not yet agreed upon. Carbonneaux complained that Illinois was
wholly without law or government; that the magistrates, from indolence or
sinister views, had for some time been lax in the execution of their
duties, and were now altogether without authority; that crimes of the
greatest enormity might be committed with impunity, and a man be murdered
in his own house and no one regard it; that there was neither sheriff nor
prison; and to crown the general confusion, that many persons had made
large purchases of three and four hundred leagues, and were endeavoring to
have themselves established lords of the soil, as some had done in Canada,
and to have settlements made on these purchases, composed of a set of men
wholly subservient to their views. The Spanish traded freely in Illinois,
but strictly prohibited Illinois from trading in Spanish dominions.
Complaint was also made that the Board of Commissioners had not settled
the Illinois accounts in peltry according to the known rule and practice,
namely: that fifty pounds of peltry should represent one hundred livres in
money.

The petitioners prayed that a president of judicature be sent to them,
with executive powers to a certain extent, and that subordinate civil
officers be appointed, to reside in each village or station, with power to
hear and decide all causes upon obligations not exceeding three hundred
dollars, higher amounts to be determined by a court to be held at
Kaskaskia and to be composed of the president and a majority of the
magistrates. It was desired that the grant in which the Kaskaskia
settlements lay should be considered as one district. It contained five
villages, of which Kaskaskia and Cahokia were the largest. The grant
extended to the headwaters of the Illinois River on the north. The land
had been granted to the settlers by the Indians, and the Indians, having
given their consent by solemn treaties, had never denied the sale. The
tract referred to was probably the two purchases of the Illinois Company.
Maps give but one of these and, in fact, the other was said to be so
described as to comprise _a line only_. Naturally, this fact was not known
at the time of purchase.

It was frankly acknowledged that Illinois had no man fitted for the office
of president. It was hoped that Virginia would furnish one, and would send
with him a company of regulars to act under his direction and enforce laws
and authority. The president should be empowered to grant land in small
tracts to immigrants. The privilege of trading in Spanish waters,
especially on the Missouri, was much desired. It was said that Carbonneaux
“appears to have been instructed as to the ground of his message by the
better disposed part of the inhabitants of the country whose complaints he
represents.”(82)

At the time of Carbonneaux’s petition, there was no legal way by which
newcomers to Illinois could acquire public land. Virginia had prepared to
open a land-office, soon after the conquest of the Illinois country, but
she seems to have heeded the recommendation of Congress that no
unappropriated land be sold during the war.(83) Some grants had been made
by Todd, Demunbrunt, the Indians, and others with less show of right, but
they were made without governmental authority. The Indians had presented a
tract of land to Clark, but the view consistently held was that
individuals could not receive Indian land merely upon their own
initiative.(84) One of the grants made at Vincennes, which seems to have
been a typical one, was signed by Le Grand, “Colonel commandant and
President of the Court,” and was made by the authority granted to the
magistrates of the court of Vincennes by John Todd, “Colonel and Grand
civil Judge for the United States.” The purpose of the grant, which
comprised four hundred arpents “in circumference,” was to induce
immigration.(85) The grants made by the court of Vincennes became
notorious from the fact that thousands of acres were granted by the court
to its own members.(86)

On March 1, 1784, Virginia ceded her western lands to the United States,
thus transferring to the general government the question of land titles.
The country had been in a state of unconcealed anarchy for more than two
years, all semblance of Virginia authority having ceased, and the cession
is quite as much a tribute to Virginia’s shrewdness as to her generosity.
Never was so large a present made with less sacrifice. The cession was
made with the following conditions, some of which were to have a direct
and potent influence upon the settlement of the ceded region:

1. The territory should be formed into states of not less than one hundred
nor more than one hundred and fifty square miles each;

2. Virginia’s expenses in subduing and governing the territory should be
reimbursed by the United States;

3. Settlers should have their “possessions and titles confirmed;”

4. One hundred and fifty thousand acres, or less, should be granted to
George Rogers Clark and his soldiers;

5. The Virginia military bounty lands should be located north of the Ohio
River, unless there should prove to be enough land for the purpose south
of that river;

6. The proceeds from the sale of the lands should be for the United
States, severally.(87)

In the year of the Virginia cession, Congress passed the Ordinance for the
Government of the Western Territory, but as it never went into effect, its
importance is slight except as indicative of the trend of public feeling
on the subjects which it involved. Should Jefferson’s plan, proposed at
this time, have been carried out, Illinois would have been parts of the
states of Polypotamia, Illinois, Assenisipia, and Saratoga.(88)

Carbonneaux, the messenger from Illinois to Virginia, carried his petition
to Congress. Congress paid the messenger, referred the petition to a
committee, and upon the report of the committee voted to choose one or
more commissioners to go to Illinois and investigate conditions there.(89)
No record of the appointment of such commissioners has been found.
Congress considered Carbonneaux’s petition early in 1785. In November of
the same year comes a record of the anarchy in Illinois. This was
addressed to George Rogers Clark, who was the hope of the people of that
neglected country. The commandant at St. Louis is afraid of an attack from
the Royalists at Michilimackinac, or he has given orders for all the
people in that place to be in readiness when called on, with their arms.

“The Indians are very troublesome on the rivers, and declare an open war
with the Americans, which I am sure is nothing lessened by the advice of
our neighbors, the French in this place, and the people from
Michilimackinac, who openly say they will oppose all the Americans that
come into this country. For my part, it is impossible to live here, if we
have not regular justice very soon. They are worse than the Indians, and
ought to be ruled with a rod of iron.”(90)

During the year 1786, George Rogers Clark was the chief factor in Illinois
affairs. He was regarded by the people as their advocate before Congress.
In March, seven of the leading men of Vincennes, at the request of the
French and American inhabitants, sent a petition to him asking him to
persuade Congress to send troops to defend them from the Indians, and also
saying: “We have unanimously agreed to present a petition to Congress for
relief, apprehensive that the Deed we received from an office, established
or rather continued by Colo Todd for lands, may possibly be a slender
foundation; so that after we have passed through a scene of suffering in
forming settlements in a remote and dangerous part may have the
mortification to be totally deprived of our improvements.”(91) In June,
seventy-one American subscribers from Vincennes, “in the County of
Illinois,” asked Congress to settle their land-titles and give them a
government. They held land from grants from an office established by Col.
Todd, whose validity they questioned. The commandant and magistracy had
resigned because of the disobedience of the people. There was no
executive, no law, no government, and the Indians were very hostile.(92)

Clark was not unmindful of the needs of the people. He wrote to the
president of Congress: “The inhabitants of the different towns in the
Illinois are worthy the attention of Congress. They have it in their power
to be of infinite service to us, and might act as a great barrier to the
frontier, if under proper regulation; but having no law or government
among them, they are in great confusion, and without the authority of
Congress is extended to them, they must, in all probability, fall a
sacrifice to the savages, who may take advantage of the disorder and want
of proper authority in that country. I have recommended it to them, to
re-assume their former customs, and appoint temporary officers until the
pleasure of Congress is known, which I have flattered them would be in a
short time. How far the recommendation will answer the desired purpose is
not yet known.”(93)

Clark’s fears of the Indians were only too well grounded. During the
summer, the American settlers were compelled to retire to a fort at
Bellefontaine, and four of their number were killed. At the same time,
about twenty Americans were killed about Vincennes. The French were still
safe from Indian attacks and were very angry because the Americans
complained of existing conditions.(94) The strife between the French and
the Americans at Vincennes, over the proper relations of the whites to the
Indians, became intense. The French contended that the Indians should be
allowed to come and go freely, while the Americans held that it was unsafe
to grant such freedom. At last, upon the occasion of the killing of an
Indian by the Americans, after they had been attacked by the Indians, the
French citizens ordered all persons, who had not permission to settle from
the government under which they last resided, to leave at once and at
their own risk. The French told the Americans plainly that they were not
wanted, and that they, the French, did not know whether the place belonged
to the United States or to Great Britain.(95) This last assertion was
probably true. The British Michilimackinac Company had a large
trading-house at Cahokia for supplying the Indians, they held Detroit, and
their machinations among the Indians were constant. The feeling of all
intelligent Americans in Illinois must have been expressed by John Edgar
when he wrote that the Illinois country was totally lost unless a
government should soon be established.(96) Clark wrote a vigorous letter
to the people at Vincennes, telling them that unless they stopped
quarreling military rule would be established; that the government
established under Virginia was still in force, having been confirmed by
Congress upon the acceptance of the Virginia deed of cession, and that the
court, if depleted, should be filled by election.(97)

In one respect, even during this trying period, the western country gave
promise of its future growth. There was a large crop. Flour and pork,
quoted, strangely enough, together, sold at the Falls of Ohio at twelve
shillings per hundred pounds, while Indian corn sold at nine pence per
bushel.(98)

On August 24, 1786, Congress ordered its secretary to inform the
inhabitants of Kaskaskia that a government was being prepared for
them.(99) In 1787, conditions in the Illinois country became too serious
to be ignored. The Indian troubles were grave and persistent, but graver
still was the danger of the rebellion or secession of the Western Country
or else of a war with Spain. The closure of the Mississippi by Spain made
the West desperate. Discontent, anarchy, and petitions might drag a weary
length, but when troops raised without authority were quartered at
Vincennes, when these troops seized Spanish goods, and impressed the
property of the inhabitants of Vincennes, and proposed to treat with the
Indians, the time for action was at hand. In April, Gen. Josiah Harmar,
then at Falls of Ohio, was ordered to move the greater part of his troops
to Vincennes to restore order among the distracted people at that place.
Intruders upon the public lands were to be removed, and the lawless and
illegally levied troops were to be dispersed.(100)

Arrived at Vincennes, Gen. Harmar proceeded with vigor. The resolution of
Congress against intruders on the public lands was published in English
and in French. The inhabitants, especially the Americans whose hold on
their lands was the more insecure, were dismayed, and French and Americans
each prepared a petition to Congress, and appointed Bartholomew Tardiveau,
who was to go to Congress within a month, as their agent. Tardiveau was
especially fitted for this task by his intimate acquaintance with the land
grants of the region. Each party at Vincennes also prepared an address to
Gen. Harmar, the Americans declaring that they were settled on French
lands and feared that their lands would be taken from them without payment
and asking aid from Congress, and the French expressing their joy at being
freed from their former bad government. Many of Clark’s militia had made
tomahawk-rights, and this added to the confusion of titles.(101)

From August 9 to 16, Gen. Harmar, with an officer and thirty men, some
Indian hunters, and Tardiveau, journeyed overland from Vincennes to
Kaskaskia, where conditions were to be investigated. The August sun poured
down its rays upon the parched prairies and dwindling streams. Water was
bad and scarce, but buffalo, deer, bear, and smaller game were abundant.

Harmar found life in the settlements he visited as crude as the path he
traveled. Kaskaskia was a French village of one hundred and ninety-one
men, old and young, with an accompaniment of women and children of various
mixtures of white and red blood. Cahokia, then the metropolis, had two
hundred and thirty-nine Frenchmen, old and young, with an accompaniment
similarly mixed. Between these settlements was Bellefontaine, a small
stockade, inhabited altogether by Americans, who had settled without
authority. The situation was a beautiful one; the land was fertile; there
was no taxation, and the people had an abundance to live upon. They were
much alarmed when told of their precarious state respecting a title to
their lands, and they gave Tardiveau a petition to carry to Congress. On
the route to Cahokia, another stockade, Grand Ruisseau, similarly
inhabited by Americans, was passed. There were about thirty other American
intruders in the fertile valleys near the Mississippi, and they, too, gave
Tardiveau a petition to Congress.

The Kaskaskia, Peoria, Cahokia, and Mitcha tribes of Indians numbered only
about forty or fifty members, of whom but ten or eleven individuals
composed the Kaskaskia tribe; but this does not mean that danger from the
Indians was not great, because other and more hostile tribes came in great
numbers to hunt in the Illinois country. The significance of the
diminished numbers of these particular tribes lies in the fact that they
had the strongest claim to that part of Illinois which would be first
needed for settlement. At Kaskaskia and Cahokia, the French were advised
to obey their magistrates until Congress had a government ready for them,
and Cahokia was advised to put its militia into better shape, and to put
any turbulent or refractory persons under guard until a government could
be instituted.(102)

Having finished his work in the settlements near the Mississippi, Harmar
returned to Vincennes, where he held councils with the Indians, and on
October 1, set out on his return to Fort Harmar. Although without
authority to give permanent redress, he had persuaded the French at
Vincennes to relinquish their charter and to throw themselves upon the
generosity of Congress. “As it would have been impolitic, after the parade
we had made, to entirely abandon the country,” he left Maj. John F.
Hamtramck, with ninety-five men, at Vincennes.(103) Harmar’s visit was
doubtless of some value, but he had not been gone five weeks when
Hamtramck wrote to him: “Our civil administration has been, and is, in a
great confusion. Many people are displeased with the Magistrates; how it
will go at the election, which is to be the 2d of Decr, I know not. But it
is to be hoped that Congress will soon establish some mode of government,
for I never saw so injudicious administration. Application has repeatedly
been made to me for redress. I have avoided to give answer, not knowing
how far my powers extended. In my opinion, the Minister of War should have
that matter determined, and sincerely beg you would push it. I confess to
you, that I have been very much at a loss how to act on many
occasions.”(104)

Not earlier than the 24th of November, Tardiveau set out for Congress with
his petitions from the Illinois country. Harmar was much pleased to have
so able a messenger, and spoke of him as sensible, well-informed, and able
to give a minute and particular description of the western country,
particularly the Illinois. He had been preceded to Congress by Joseph
Parker, of Kaskaskia. Harmar seems to have regarded Tardiveau as a sort of
antidote to Parker, for he closes his recommendation of the former by
saying: “There have been some imposters before Congress, particularly one
Parker, a whining, canting Methodist, a kind of _would-be governor_. He is
extremely unpopular at Kaskaskia, and despised by the inhabitants.”(105)

This detracts from the value of Parker’s representations, which had been
made in a letter to St. Clair, the President of Congress. After explaining
that when he left Kaskaskia, on June 5, 1787, the people did not have an
intended petition ready, Parker complained of the lack of government in
Illinois, the presence of British traders, the depopulation of the country
by the inducements of the Spaniards, and the high rate at which it was
proposed to sell lands. His complaints were true, although he may have
failed to give them in their proper proportion.(106)

On July 13, 1787, the Ordinance of 1787 had been passed by Congress. The
Illinois country was at that time ready for war against the Spanish, who
persisted in closing the Mississippi. The troops, irregularly levied by
George Rogers Clark at Vincennes, had seized some Spanish goods on the
theory that if the Spanish would not allow the United States to navigate
the lower Mississippi, the Spanish should not be allowed to navigate the
upper Mississippi. John Rice Jones, later the first lawyer in Illinois,
was Clark’s commissary.(107)

The Ordinance of 1787 was the only oil then at hand for these troubled
waters. The situation in Illinois was a complicated one, and probably the
numerical weakness of the population alone saved the country from
disastrous results. The few Americans in Illinois desired governmental
protection from the Spanish, the Indians, the British, and any Americans
who might seek to jump the claims of the first squatters; the few French
desired protection from the Spanish, the Americans, the British, and soon
from the Indians; the numerous Indians, permanent or transient, desired
protection from the Spanish, the Americans, and in rare cases from an
Americanized Frenchman. Americans, French, Spanish, British, and Indians
made an opportunity for many combinations.

For the French inhabitants, the somewhat paternal character of the
government provided for by the Ordinance was a matter of no concern. The
great rock of offense for them was the prohibition of slavery. An exodus
to the Spanish side of the Mississippi resulted and St. Louis profited by
what the older villages of Illinois lost.(108) In addition to a
justifiable feeling of uncertainty as to whether they would be allowed to
retain their slaves, the credulous French had their fears wrought upon by
persons interested in the sale of Spanish lands. These persons took pains
to inculcate the belief that all slaves would be released upon American
occupancy. The Spanish officials were also active. The commandant at St.
Louis wrote to the French at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes,
respectively, inviting them to settle west of the Mississippi and offering
free lands.(109) Mr. Tardiveau, the agent for the Illinois settlers to
Congress, tried to induce Congress to repeal the anti-slavery clause of
the Ordinance. He said that it threatened to be the ruin of Illinois.
Designing persons had told the French that the moment Gen. St. Clair
arrived all their slaves would be free. Failing in his efforts to secure a
repeal, he wrote to Gen. St. Clair, asking him to secure from Congress a
resolution giving the true intent of the act.(110) In this letter,
Tardiveau advanced the doctrine, later so much used, that the evils of
slavery would be mitigated by its diffusion.(111) The first panic of the
French only gradually subsided and the question of slavery was a
persistent one.

One of the most industrious of those interested in the sale of Spanish
lands was George Morgan, of New Jersey.(112) In 1788, he tried to secure
land in Illinois also. He and his associates petitioned Congress to sell
them a tract of land on the Mississippi. A congressional committee found
upon investigation that the proposed purchase comprised all of the French
settlements in Illinois.(113) Thereupon was passed the Act of June 20,
1788. According to its provisions, the French inhabitants of Illinois were
to be confirmed in their possessions and each family which was living in
the district before the year 1783 was to be given a bounty of four hundred
acres. These bounty-lands were to be laid off in three parallelograms, at
Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, and Cahokia, respectively. They were to be
bounded on the east by the ridge of rocks—a natural formation trending
from north to south, a short distance to the east of the French
settlements. Morgan was to be sold a large described tract for not less
than sixty-six and two-thirds cents per acre. Indian titles were to be
extinguished if necessary.(114)

The Act of June 20, 1788, is an important landmark in the settlement of
Illinois. The grant of bounty-lands was made for the purpose of giving the
French settlers a means of support when the fur-trade and hunting should
have become unprofitable from the advance of American settlement. This was
a clear acknowledgment that the Indians were right in believing, as they
did, that the American settlement would be fatal to Indian
hunting-grounds. The Indians were soon bitterly hostile. Then, too, the
claims of the settlers to land, founded upon French, British, or Virginia
grants, were to be investigated. This investigation dragged on year after
year, even for decades, and as it was the policy of the United States not
to sell public land in Illinois until these claims were settled, the
country became a great squatters’(115) camp. The length of the
investigation was doubtless due in part to the utter carelessness of the
French in giving and in keeping their evidences of title.

By a congressional resolution of August 28, 1788, it was provided that the
lands donated to Illinois settlers should be located east, instead of
west, of the ridge of rocks. As this would throw the land too far from the
settlements to be available, petitions followed for the restoration of the
provisions of June 20, and in 1791 the original location was decreed. By a
resolution of August 29, 1788, the governor of the Northwest Territory was
ordered to carry out the provisions of the acts of June 20 and August 28,
1788, respectively.(116)

The beginning of operations, in accordance with the acts just cited, was
delayed by the fact that the governor and judges, appointed under the
Ordinance of 1787, and who alone could institute government under it, did
not reach the Illinois country until 1790. In the meantime, anarchy
continued. Contemporary accounts give a good idea of the attempts at
government during the time, and the fact of their great interest, combined
with the fact that most of them are yet unpublished, seems to warrant
treatment of the subject at some length.

The court at Kaskaskia met more than a score of times during 1787 and
1788. Its record consists in large part of mere meetings and adjournments.
All members of the court were French, while litigants and the single jury
recorded were Americans. Jurors from Bellefontaine received forty-five
livres each, and those from Prairie du Rocher, twenty-five livres each.
This court seems to have been utterly worthless.(117) At Vincennes,
matters were at least as bad. “It was the most unjust court that could
have been invented. If anybody called for a court, the president had 20
livers in peltry; 14 magistrates, each 10 livers; for a room, 10 livers;
other small expenses, 10 livers; total in peltry, 180 livers—which is 360
in money. So that a man who had twenty or thirty dollars due, was obliged
to pay, if he wanted a court, 180 livers in peltry: This court also never
granted an execution, but only took care to have the fees of the court
paid. The government of this country has been in the Le Gras and Gamelin
family for a long time, to the great dissatisfaction of the people, who
presented me a Petition some days ago, wherein they complained of the
injustice of their court—in consequence of which, I have dissolved the old
court, ordered new magistrates to be elected, and established new
regulations for them to go by.”(118) Upon the dissolution of the court,
Maj. Hamtramck issued the following:

“REGULATIONS FOR THE COURT OF POST VINCENNES.

“In consequence of a Petition presented to me by the people of Post
Vincennes, wherein they complain of the great expence to which each
individual is exposed in the recovery of his property by the present
court, and as they express a wish to have another mode established for the
administration of justice—I do, therefore, by these presents, dissolve the
said court, and direct that five magistrates be elected by the suffrages
of the people who, when chosen, will meet and settle their seniority.

“One magistrate will have power to try causes, not exceeding fifty livers
in peltry. Two magistrates will determine all causes not exceeding one
hundred livers in peltry,—from their decision any person aggrieved may (on
paying the cost of the suit) appeal to the District Court, which will
consist of three magistrates; the senior one will preside. They will meet
the third Tuesday in every month and set two days, unless the business
before them be completed within that time. All causes in this court shall
be determined by a jury of twelve inhabitants. Any person summoned by the
sheriff as a juryman who refuses or neglects to attend, shall be fined the
price of a day’s labour. In case of indisposition, he will, previous to
the sitting of the court, inform the clerk, Mr. Antoine Gamelin, who will
order such vacancies to be filled.

“The fees of the court shall be as follows: A magistrate, for every cause
of fifty livers or upwards in peltry, shall receive one pistole in peltry,
and in proportion for a lesser sum. The sheriff for serving a writ or a
warrant shall receive three livers in peltry; for levying an execution, 5
per cent, including the fees of the clerk of the court.

“The clerk for issuing a writ shall receive three livers in peltry, and
all other fees as heretofore. The jury being an office which will be
reciprocal, are not to receive pay. All expenses of the court are to be
paid by the person that is cast. This last part may appear to you to be an
extraordinary charge—but my reason for mentioning it is, that formerly the
court made the one who was most able pay the fees of the court, whether he
lost or no.

“The magistrates, before they enter into the execution of their office,
will take the following oath before the commandant: I, A., do swear that I
will administer justice impartially, and to the best of my knowledge and
understanding, so help me God.

“Given under my hand this 5th day of April, 1788.”

(Signed) J. F. HAMTRAMCK,
Majr. Comd’g.(119)

A little later, Hamtramck wrote: “Our new government has taken place; five
magistrates have been elected by the suffrage of the people, but not one
of the Ottoman families remains in. One Mr. Miliet, Mr. Henry, Mr.
Bagargon, Capt. Johnson, and Capt. Dalton, have been elected. You will be
surprised to see Dalton in office; but I found that he had too many
friends to refuse him. I keep a watch-side eye over him, and find that he
conducts himself with great propriety.”(120)

The relief afforded by the new court was not complete, for soon came the
report: “The people are very impatient to see Gen. St. Clair or some of
the judges; in fact, they are very much wanted.”(121) The term of the
members of the court expired in April, 1789, and no new members were
elected, because the early arrival of Gen. St. Clair was expected.(122) An
interregnum occurred, and in November, 1789, Hamtramck wrote to Harmar:
“It is high time that government should take place in this country, and if
it should happen that the Governor was not to come, nor any of the Judges,
I would beg (for the sake of the people) that his Excellency would give me
certain powers to create magistrates, a Sheriff and other officers, for
the purpose of establishing Courts of Justice—for, at present, there are
none, owing to the daily expectation of the arrival of the Governor. Those
that had been appointed by the people last year, their authority has been
refused in the courts of Kentucky, they declaring that by the resolve of
Congress, neither the people of Post Vincennes, or the commanding officer,
had a right to appoint magistrates; that the power was vested in the
Governor only, and that it was an usurped authority. You see, Sir, how
much to the prejudice of the people their present situation is, and how
necessary it is that some steps should be taken to relieve them.

“The powers of the magistrates may be circumscribed as his Excellency may
think proper, but the necessity of having such characters will appear when
I assure you that at present no person here, can administer an oath which
will be considered legal in the courts of Kentucky—and for the reasons
above mentioned.”(123)

At last, on June 19, 1790, the judges for the Northwest Territory arrived
at Vincennes.(124)

The situation at Kaskaskia was even worse than that at Vincennes, because
Vincennes had a garrison. To understand the complaints of the time, it is
necessary to notice the relations with Spain. On the first day of 1788,
Hamtramck wrote: “The Spanish commanding officers of the different posts
on the Mississippi are encouraging settlers by giving them lands gratis. A
village by the name of Zewapetas, which is about thirty miles above the
mouth of the Ohio, and which was begun last summer, consists now of thirty
or fifty families.”(125) In the following October, Morgan made flattering
offers to persons who would settle at New Madrid.(126) At the same time,
the Mississippi was closed to Americans. Joseph St. Marie, of Vincennes,
sent his clerk with a load of peltry to be traded to the Indians on the
banks of the Mississippi. His goods were seized and confiscated by the
Spanish commander at the Arkansas Post. The commander said that his orders
were to seize all goods of Americans, found in the Mississippi below the
mouth of the Ohio. Upon appeal to Gov. Miro, of Louisiana, the governor
said that the court of Spain had given orders to send offending traders
prisoners to the mines of Brazil.(127)

The combination of inducements to such as would become Spanish subjects
and of severity to such as would not do so, secured Spain some settlers.
Hamtramck said: “I am fearful that the Governor will not find many people
in the Illinois, as they are daily going on the Spanish side. I believe
that all our Americans of Post Vincennes will go to Morgan—a number of
them are already gone to see him. I am told that Mr. Morgan has taken
unwarrantable measures to invite the people of Illinois to come to him,
saying that the Governor never would come in that country, and that their
negroes were all free the moment the government should be established—for
which all the remaining good inhabitants propose to go to him. I can not
give you this for certain; I will know better in a short time, and inform
you.”(128) “I have the honor to enclose you Mr. Morgan’s letter _at his
request_, and one for you. You will see in Mr. Morgan’s that a post will
be established opposite the Ohio; and if what Mr. Morgan says is true
(which I doubt not), respecting the inhabitants of the Illinois, the
Governor will have no occasion to go there. Will you be so good as to
inform me if Congress have changed their resolution respecting the freedom
of the negroes of this country; and if they are free from the day of the
resolve, or if from the day it is published in a district.”(129) A few
weeks later, Harmar wrote to St. Clair: “The emigration continues, it
possible, more rapid than ever; within these twenty days, not less than
one hundred souls have passed [Fort Harmar, at Falls of Ohio] daily: the
people are all taken up with Col. Morgan’s New Madrid.... The generality
of the inhabitants of Kaskaskias, and a number of those at Post Vincennes,
I am informed, have quit those villages, and gone over to the Spanish
side. The arrival of your Excellency amongst them, I believe is anxiously
expected.”(130)

The Indians were very hostile, and it is noteworthy that by the middle of
1789, the comparative immunity of the French from attack had ceased. Only
negroes were safe, and they, probably, because they sold well.(131) Civil
government was at low ebb in the Kaskaskia region. By January, 1789, the
court at Kaskaskia had dissolved.(132)

The depopulation of Illinois led Hamtramck to write to Bartholomew
Tardiveau, at the Falls of Ohio, asking whether it were true that the
slaves of the French were to be free. Tardiveau responded that it was not
true, and that he had written from New York, the preceding December, to
Hamtramck and to Illinois concerning the matter, but that his letters had
been intercepted. The true meaning of the resolve of Congress was
published at Vincennes upon the receipt of Tardiveau’s letter and was to
be published in Illinois at the first opportunity. The narration of these
facts was closed by the statement that if the governor or the judges did
not come soon, most of the people would go to the Spanish side, “for they
begin to think there are no such men as a Governor or Judges.”(133)

In September, 1789, Hamtramck received the following petition from
Kaskaskia:

“To John Francis Hamtramck, Esqr., Major of the 1st U. S. Regt. and
commandant at Post Vincennes, &c. &c.

“The inhabitants of Kaskaskias, in the Illinois, beg leave to address you,
as the next commanding officer in the service of the United States, to lay
before you the deplorable situation we are reduced to, and the absolute
necessity of our being speedily succoured to prevent as well our total
ruin, as that of the place.

“The Indians are greatly more numerous than the white people, and are
rather hostilely inclined; the name of an American among them is a
disgrace, because we have no superior. Our horses, horned cattle, and corn
are stolen and destroyed without the power of making any effectual
resistance. Our houses are in ruin and decay; our lands are uncultivated;
debtors absconded and absconding; our little commerce destroyed. We are
apprehensive of a dearth of corn, and our best prospects are misery and
distress, or what is more than probable an untimely death by the hands of
Savages.

“We are well convinced that all these misfortunes have befallen us for
want of some superior, or commanding authority; for ever since the cession
of this Territory to Congress, we have been neglected as an abandoned
people, to encounter all the difficulties that are always attendant upon
anarchy and confusion; neither did we know from authority until latterly,
to what power we were subject. The greater part of our citizens have left
the country on this account to reside in the Spanish dominions; others are
now following, and we are fearful, nay, certain, that without your
assistance, the small remainder will be obliged to follow their example.

“Thus situated, our last resource is to you, Sir, hoping and praying that
you will so far use your authority to save an almost deserted country from
destruction, and to order or procure the small number of twenty men with
an officer, to be stationed among us for our defence; and that you will
make order for the establishment of a civil court to take place
immediately and to continue in force until the pleasure of his Excellency
the Governor shall be known, and to whom we beg you would communicate our
distress.

“We beg your answer by the return of the bearer, addressed to the Revd Mr.
Le Dru, our Priest, who signs this in the name and at the request, of the
inhabitants.

“Dated at Kaskaskia the fourteenth day of September, 1789.

“Ledru, curé Des Kaskaskias pour tous les habitans Français de l’endroit
et outres voisins de la partie Americaine.

“JNO EDGAR.”(134)

John Edgar offered to furnish provisions for the twenty soldiers asked for
in the petition, and to take bills on Congress in payment.(135)

Hamtramck responded to the petition by saying that sickness prevailed
among the troops at Vincennes to such an extent that twenty men could not
be sent thence to Kaskaskia, but that the request would be sent to
headquarters. As to the civil department, the people were advised to elect
two or three magistrates in every village. These should prevent debtors
from leaving, and should levy on the goods of such debtors as had already
gone to the Spanish side. “Let your magistrates be respectable men by
their moral character, as well as in point of property; let them attend
with vigilance to all disputes that may arise amongst you, and in a
particular manner to the Indian affairs.”(136) This reply reached Edgar on
the night of October 27, 1789. The next day, Edgar wrote to Hamtramck
saying that it was probable that the recommendations in regard to
establishing a civil government could not be carried out without a
military force. The French were easily governed by a superior, but they
knew nothing of government by an equal. Indians were constantly incited by
the Spanish. They stole horses and escaped to the Spanish side. Edgar
enclosed correspondence and depositions showing that on the night of the
eighth of October, John Dodge and Michael Antanya, with a party of whites
and Indians, came from the Spanish side to Kaskaskia, made an unsuccessful
attempt to carry off some of Edgar’s slaves, and threatened to burn the
village. He adds “[In] the spring it is impossible I can stand my ground,
surrounded as we are by savage enemies. I have waited five years in hopes
of a government; I shall still wait until March, as I may be able to
withstand them in the winter season, but if no succour nor government
should then arrive, I shall be compelled to abandon the country, and I
shall go to live at St. Louis. Inclination, interest and love for the
country prompt me to reside here, but when in so doing it is ten to one
but both my life and property will fall a sacrifice, you nor any impartial
mind can blame me for the part I shall take.”(137)

One day later, John Rice Jones wrote from Kaskaskia. The answer to the
petition sent by Ducoigne and addressed to Ledru and Edgar, had been
opened by the latter in the absence and by the consent of the former.
Ledru had gone to be priest at St. Louis. At first he had refused the
offer of the position, but when he received his tithes at Kaskaskia, he
found that they would not support him, so he was compelled to move. He met
no better treatment than de la Valiniere and Gibault before him, and no
priest was likely to fare any better until a government was established.
St. Pierre, priest at Cahokia, had gone to be priest at Ste. Genevieve,
and it was said that Gibault was to be priest at L’Anse a la Graisse (New
Madrid). Morgan had been coolly received at New Orleans, and his boasted
settlement at New Madrid was almost broken up. The attempted seizure of
Edgar’s negroes could not be punished, because there was no one with
authority to remonstrate with the Spanish, and private remonstrances were
unheeded. The Spanish were making every effort to depopulate Illinois.
They well knew that the people would follow their priests. Flattering
offers had been made to Edgar by the Spanish, among them being free lands,
no taxes, and free permission to work at the lead mines and salt springs.
He had refused all offers, but if government was not established by the
next March he would go to St. Louis, and if he went, Kaskaskia would be
practically at an end. Twenty-four British trading-boats from
Michilimackinac were on the Mississippi on the American side opposite the
mouth of the Missouri. Their purpose was to attract Indian trade.(138)

Gov. St. Clair arrived at Kaskaskia on March 5, 1790.(139) With his coming
anarchy technically ceased, but naturally the institution of an orderly
government was a gradual process. In August, Tardiveau wrote to Hamtramck
from Kaskaskia, saying that he hoped that Maj. Wyllys had given Hamtramck
such a specimen of the difficulty of establishing a regular government and
organizing the militia in Illinois as would induce the sending of a few
regular troops from Vincennes. Even ten men would be a help. The Indians
daily stole horses, and Tardiveau tried to raise a force to go and punish
the offenders, but he was effectually opposed by a lawless band of
ringleaders. A militia law and the Illinois civil power were useless to
remedy the matter. There were plenty of provisions in Illinois to supply
any soldiers that might be sent.(140) Tardiveau was then
lieutenant-colonel of the first regiment of militia, and also judge of
probate, having been appointed by the governor.(141) Harmar replied that
it was utterly impracticable to comply with Tardiveau’s request for
soldiers.(142)

On June 20, 1788, a congressional committee reported that there were about
eighty families at Kaskaskia, twelve at Prairie du Rocher, four or five at
Fort Chartres and St. Philips, and about fifty at Cahokia, making one
hundred and forty-six or one hundred and forty-seven families in these
villages.(143) In 1766-7, the same villages, with Vincennes, were supposed
to have about two thousand inhabitants(144); and about five years later,
1772, there were some fifteen hundred inhabitants in these villages, not
including Vincennes.(145)

It is not surprising that the population of the Illinois country decreased
from 1765 to 1790. During these years, British and Americans had attempted
to impose upon the French settlers a form of government for which they had
neither desire nor aptitude. The attempt to immediately transform a
subject people was a signal failure, but neither the attempt nor the
failure was unique.





CHAPTER III.




I. The Land and Indian Questions. 1790 to 1809.


A proclamation issued by Estevan Miro, Governor and Intendant of the
Provinces of Louisiana and Florida in 1789, offered to immigrants a
liberal donation of land, graduated according to the number of laborers in
the family; freedom of religion and from payment of tithes, although no
public worship except Catholic would be allowed; freedom from taxation;
and a free market at New Orleans for produce or manufactures. All settlers
must swear allegiance to Spain.(146) This proclamation came at a time when
the West was divided in opinion as to whether to make war upon Spain for
her closure of the Mississippi or to secede from the United States and
become a part of Spain.(147) It tended to continue the emigration from the
Illinois country to Spanish territory, for public land was not yet for
sale in Illinois.

To the professional rover, the inability to secure a title to land was the
cause of small concern, but the more substantial and desirable the
settler, the more concerned was he about the matter. Settlement and
improvements were retarded. Before the affairs of the Ohio Company had
progressed far enough to permit sales of land to settlers, the little
company at Marietta saw, with deep chagrin, thousands of settlers float by
on their way to Kentucky, where land could be bought.(148) Squatters in
Illinois were constantly expecting that the public lands would soon be
offered for sale. The natural result was petitions for the right of
preëmption, because without such a right, the settler was in danger of
losing whatever improvements he had made. In 1790, James Piggott and
forty-five others petitioned for such a right. The petitioners stated that
they had settled since 1783 and had suffered much from Indians. They could
not cultivate their land except under guard. Seventeen families had no
more tillable land than four could tend. The land on which they lived was
the property of two individuals.(149)

                     [Illustration: Indian Cessions.]

Petitions from various classes of settlers, not provided for by the acts
of June 20, August 28, and August 29, 1788, led Congress to pass the act
of March 3, 1791. By this act, four hundred acres was to be given to each
head of a family who, in 1783, was resident in the Illinois country or at
Vincennes, and who had since moved from the one to the other. The same
donation was to be made to all persons who had moved away, if they should
return within five years. Such persons should also have confirmed to them
the land they originally held. This was intended to bring back persons who
had gone to the Spanish side of the Mississippi. Grants previously made by
courts having no authority should be confirmed to persons who had made
improvements, to an extent not exceeding four hundred acres to any one
person. As these lands had in some cases been repeatedly sold, the parties
making the improvements were frequently guiltless of any knowledge of
fraud. The Cahokia commons were confirmed to that village. One hundred
acres was to be granted to each militiaman enrolled on August 1, 1790, and
who had received no other grant.(150) This act throws considerable light
on the causes of discontent then prevailing among the settlers and on the
conditions to which immigrants came.

This same spring, about two hundred and fifty of the inhabitants of
Vincennes had gone to settle at New Madrid.(151) It is not strange that
the act of March 3, 1791, made provisions intended to induce the Americans
who had emigrated to the Spanish possessions to return. The history of the
threatened Spanish aggression upon the western part of the United States
is known in essence to anyone who has made the slightest special study of
the period at which it was at its height. Morgan’s scheme for a purchase
of land in Illinois was not carried out, and he turned his attention to
peopling his settlement at New Madrid. Down the Mississippi to New Orleans
seemed the natural route for Illinois commerce. Slavery flourished
unmolested west of the Mississippi. In 1794, Baron de Carondolet gave
orders to the governor of Natchez to incite the Chickasaw Indians to expel
the Americans from Fort Massac. The governor refused to obey the order,
because Fort Massac had been occupied by the Americans in pursuance of a
request by the Spanish representative at the capital of the United States
that the president would put a stop to the proposed expedition of the
French against the Spanish. The claim was advanced by Carondolet that the
Americans had no right to the land on which the fort stood, but that the
land belonged to the Chickasaws, who were independent allies of Spain. Two
other reasons given for not obeying the order were that it would preclude
the successful issue of the Spanish intrigue for the separation of
Kentucky from the United States, and would hinder negotiations, then
pending, for a commercial treaty between Spain and the United States.(152)
Carondolet regarded the Indians as Spain’s best defence against the
Americans,(153) yet the whites prepared for defence, and in anticipation
of the proposed French expedition of George Rogers Clark, a garrison of
thirty men and an officer was placed at Ste. Genevieve, opposite
Kaskaskia. Carondolet said: “This will suffice to prevent the smuggling
carried on by the Americans of the settlement of Kaskaskias situated
opposite, which increases daily.”(154)

Early in 1796, a petition was sent from Kaskaskia to Congress. The
petitioners desired that they might be permitted to locate their donation
of four hundred acres per family on Long Prairie, a few miles above
Kaskaskia, on the Kaskaskia River, and that the expense of surveying the
land might be paid by the United States. The act granting the
donation-land had provided for its location between the Kaskaskia and the
Mississippi. This land the petitioners declared to be private land and
some of it was of poor quality.(155) Confirmation of land claims directed
to be made upon the Governor’s visit in 1790 were delayed by the lack of a
surveyor and the poverty of the inhabitants.(156) The petition was signed
by John Edgar, William Morrison, William St. Clair, and John Demoulin(157)
“for the inhabitants of the counties of St. Clair and Randolph”(158)—the
Illinois counties. The petitioners ranked high in the mercantile and legal
life of the Illinois settlements, but they must have been novices in the
art of petitioning if they thought that a petition signed by four men from
the Illinois country, with no sign of their being legally representative,
would be regarded by Congress as an expression of the opinion of the
Northwest Territory. The part of the petition relating to lands was
granted, but the major part, which related to other subjects, was denied
on the ground that the petitioners probably did not represent public
sentiment.(159) During this same year Congress denied a number of
petitions for the right of preëmption in the Northwest Territory, because
such a right would encourage illegal settling. It was also during this
year that the first sales of public land in the Northwest Territory were
authorized. The land to be sold was in what is now Ohio. No tract of less
than four thousand acres could be purchased.(160)

In 1800, two hundred and sixty-eight inhabitants of Illinois, chiefly
French, petitioned Congress that Indian titles to land in the southern
part of Illinois might be extinguished and the land offered for sale; that
tracts of land at the distance of a day’s journey from each other, lying
between Vincennes and the Illinois settlements, might be ceded to such
persons as would keep taverns, and that one or two garrisons might be
stationed in Illinois. The petitioners state that the Kaskaskia tribe of
Indians numbered not more than fifteen members and that their title to
land could be easily extinguished; that not enough land is open to
settlement to admit a population sufficient to support ordinary county
establishments; that roads are much needed, and that many of the
inhabitants are crossing the Mississippi with their slaves. The petition
was not considered.(161)

A new factor now appears in the forces affecting Illinois settlement. The
Northwest Territory having advanced to the second grade of territorial
government, in December, 1799, its delegate took his seat in Congress. The
step was an important one for the struggling colony. Before this time such
petitions as were prepared by inhabitants of the territory for the
consideration of Congress had been subjected to all the vicissitudes of
being addressed to some public officer or of being confided to some member
of Congress who represented a different portion of the country. Up to this
time the public lands could only be bought in tracts of four thousand
acres. Largely through the influence of the delegate from the Northwest
Territory, a bill was passed which authorized the sale of sections and
half-sections. In consequence, emigration soon began to flow rapidly into
Ohio. Land in Illinois was not yet offered for sale, but this bill is
important because the policy of offering land in smaller tracts was to
continue.(162)

The territorial delegate was also active in procuring the passage of a
bill for the division of the Northwest Territory. While the bill was
pending, a petition from Illinois, praying for the division and for the
establishment of such a government in the western part as was provided for
by the Ordinance of 1787, was presented. The act for division was signed
by the President on May 7, 1800; it formed Indiana Territory, with
Vincennes as its capital.(163)

The propositions made by a convention of representatives elected by the
citizens of Indiana to prepare petitions to Congress, near the close of
1802, illustrate the needs of the time. It was desired that the Indian
title to land lying in Southern Illinois and Southwestern Indiana might be
extinguished and the land sold in smaller tracts and at a lower
price;(164) that a preëmption act might be passed; that a grant of
seminary and school lands might be made; that land for taverns, twenty
miles or less apart, might be granted along certain specified routes; that
donation-lands might be chosen in separate tracts, instead of in three
specified areas, in order to avoid “absolutely useless” prairies, and also
lands claimed by ancient grants; and that the qualification of a freehold
of fifty acres of land, prescribed for the electors of representatives to
the territorial legislature, might be changed to manhood suffrage, because
the freehold qualification was said to tend “to throw too great a weight
in the scale of wealth.” The petition was considered in committees, but it
led to no legislation.(165)

None of the above complaints was better founded than that concerning the
restriction of the suffrage, and it is well to note subsequent proceedings
in regard to it. No qualification less suitable to the time and place
could well have been devised, and this is especially true of the Illinois
portion of the territory, because there unsettled French claims were to
delay the sales of public lands until 1814, and thus early settlers could
neither buy land nor vote unless they owned it, unless indeed they
purchased land claims from the needy and unbusiness-like French. An
interesting petition of 1807 from the settlement on Richland Creek,(166)
for the right of preëmption, throws light upon conditions then obtaining.
The petitioner inclosed a map of the settlement, with the following
explanation: “Those persons whose names are enclosed in said plot, within
surveyed lines, have confirmed and located rights, amounting to 3,775
acres; ... the residue of the said settlers, occupying about 6,000 acres
of land, have, without any right, settled upon the public land.” The map
shows that there were eleven owners and twenty-two squatters.(167) As the
law then stood, the twenty-two squatters, occupying more than three-fifths
of the land, could not vote. The eleven land-owners must have secured
their land either under the acts of 1788 or that of 1791, or by the
purchase of French claims, a trade vigorously carried on. In 1808,(168)
Congress so far extended the suffrage in Indiana as to make the ownership
of a town lot worth one hundred dollars an alternative qualification to
the possession of a freehold of fifty acres. This was in advance of the
law in some of the Eastern states.

After 1802, the land question can not be traced without reference to the
Indian question in Illinois. That question became important as soon as
American occupation was assured, and it remained important for fifty years
after the Revolution. The desire of the American settlers for land was
directly counter to the desire of the Indians to preserve their
hunting-grounds. Before the close of the eighteenth century, the list of
bloody deeds in Illinois had grown long.(169) The United States Government
appreciated the gravity of the situation and early made efforts to
purchase the land from the Indians. That part of the treaty of Greenville,
of 1795, which affected Illinois, extinguished the Indian title to a tract
six miles square, at the mouth of Chicago River; one six miles square, at
Peoria; one twelve miles square, near the mouth of the Illinois River; the
post of Fort Massac, and the land in the possession of the whites.(170)
The treaty of Fort Wayne, in 1803, ceded four square miles or less, at the
salt springs on Saline Creek, and some land west and southwest from
Vincennes. This treaty, with another made in the following August, ceded
three tracts of land, each one mile square, between Vincennes and
Kaskaskia, to be sites for taverns.(171) The treaty of Vincennes, of
August, 1803, ceded land in Illinois bounded by the Ohio, the Mississippi,
the Illinois, and the western watershed of the Wabash, except three
hundred and fifty acres near Kaskaskia, and twelve hundred and eighty
acres to be located. This last treaty was made with the depleted Kaskaskia
tribe.(172) As the claims of various tribes overlapped, an Indian treaty
rarely signifies that all controversy in regard to the land ceded is at an
end. Frequently one or more treaties must yet be made with other tribes,
and frequently a tribe refuses to abide by its agreement.

Previous to 1804, no land was sold in the Northwest Territory west of the
mouth of the Kentucky River. An act of March 26 of that year provided for
the opening of a land-office at Detroit to sell lands north of Ohio; one
at Vincennes to sell lands in its vicinity ceded by the treaty of Fort
Wayne; and one at Kaskaskia to sell so much of the land ceded by the
treaty of Vincennes (August, 1803) as was not claimed by any other tribe
than those represented in the cession. The register and the receiver of
public moneys of these respective districts were to be commissioners to
settle private land claims. Evidences of claims should be filed before
January 1, 1805, and after the adjustment of claims the public lands
should be sold at auction to the highest bidder. Two dollars per acre was
to be the minimum price; no land should be sold in less than
quarter-sections, except fractional portions caused by irregularities in
topography or survey, and lands unsold after the auction might be sold at
private sale. Although this act provided for the sale of public lands in
Illinois after private claims should have been satisfied, and directed
that such claims should be filed not later than January 1, 1805, Congress
repeatedly extended the time for the filing of claims, and ten years after
the passage of this act there were still unsatisfied claims.(173) Not
until 1814 did sales of public land begin in Illinois. The delay retarded
immigration of that class which would have made the most desirable
citizens.

By the treaty of St. Louis, November 3, 1804, the Sauk and Foxes ceded
that part of Illinois west of the Illinois and Fox rivers. Black Hawk, the
principal chief of the Sauk, did not sign the treaty.(174) By the treaty
of Vincennes, 1805, the Piankashaws ceded a tract lying between the lower
Wabash and its western watershed.(175) No more Indian titles to land in
Illinois were extinguished, and no public land was sold in Illinois until
after that part of the country became a separate territory.

Early in 1806, there came to Congress from Illinois a petition which
betrayed the anxiety of the French settlers, and of the Americans who had
bought French claims, lest the peculiar shape of their holdings should be
disturbed by the orderly system of government surveys. The petitioners
asked that a line might be run from a point north of Cahokia to an
unspecified river south of Kaskaskia, in such a manner as to include all
settlements between the two points, and that the land so included be
exempt from the mode of survey and terms of sale of other public lands of
the United States. The petition was apparently not reported upon, but a
detailed map of the region referred to shows that the holdings were left
in their bewildering complexity.(176)

By the time Indiana Territory was divided some progress had been made in
extinguishing Indian titles, and some also in investigating land claims of
the French and their assignees; but the American immigrant had still the
hard choice of buying a French claim with uncertain title or squatting on
government land with the risk of losing whatever improvement he might
make, and often the added risk of being killed by the suspicious, hostile,
untrustworthy Indians. This was one class of hindrances to settlement.
Another hindrance, next to be noticed, was the unstable governmental
conditions following the anarchy already recited.




II. Government Succeeding the Period of Anarchy, 1790 to 1809.


When St. Clair County was formed, in 1790, it was made to include all the
settlements of the Northwest Territory to the westward of Vincennes. On
account of its geographical extent it was divided into three judicial
districts, but it could not be made into three separate counties, because
there were not enough men capable of holding office to furnish the
necessary officials. The American settlers were few and a large proportion
of them were unskilled in matters of government, while the French were
totally unfit to govern. In 1795, St. Clair, when referring to conditions
in 1790, wrote that since then the population of Illinois had decreased
considerably.(177) Combining this decrease with the fact that there were
in the settlements in what is now Missouri 1491 inhabitants in 1785, 2093
in 1788, and 6028, including 883 slaves, in 1799,(178) the conclusion is
inevitable that emigration across the Mississippi was the immediate cause
of the decrease in Illinois.

In 1795, notwithstanding the decreased population, and perhaps in the hope
of checking the decrease, St. Clair County was divided by proclamation of
Governor St. Clair. The division was by an east and west line running a
little south of the settlement of New Design.(179) St. Clair County lay to
the north, Randolph County to the south of the line.(180)

The early laws of the Northwest Territory throw light upon the conditions
existing upon the frontier. Minute provisions for establishing and
maintaining ferries, with no mention of bridges, indicate the primitive
methods of travel.(181) Millers were required to use a prescribed set of
measures and to grind for a prescribed toll, the toll for the use of a
horse-mill being higher than that for a water-mill, unless the owner of
the grain furnished the horses.(182) Guide-posts were to be put up at the
forks of every public road.(183) No stray stock should be taken up between
the first of April and the first of November, unless the stray should have
broken into the inclosure of the taker-up.(184) In those days stock was
turned out and crops were fenced in. Prairies or cleared land were not to
be fired except between December 1 and March 10, unless upon one’s own
land.(185) The following rates of county taxation were prescribed:

Horses, per head, not more than $.50
Neat cattle, not more than  .12-½
Bond servant, not more than 1.00
Single man, 21 yrs. or older, with less than $200 worth of property, not
            more than 2.00 nor less than .50
Retail merchants, not more than 10.00(186)

A bounty, varying at different times between 1799 and 1810 from 50 cents
to $2 per head, was given for killing wolves.(187) Imprisonment for debt,
a law antedating by many years similar laws in several of the other parts
of the United States, was practically abolished.(188) A frontier region
does not have that social stratification which makes oppression of the
debtor class easy. A county too poor to build a log jail without
difficulty is not likely to be so senseless as to make a practice of
confining and boarding its debtor class.

For the purpose of taxation land was to be listed in three classes
according to value. No specification as to the value of the respective
classes was prescribed. The tax was eighty-five, sixty, or twenty-five
cents per one hundred acres, according as land was first, second, or third
class. No unimproved land in Illinois was to be listed higher than second
class.(189)

The laws above cited were enacted by the legislature of the Northwest
Territory. In May, 1800, that territory was divided, the western part,
including Illinois, becoming Indiana Territory. This made the Illinois
country more distinctly frontier by again reducing it to the first grade
of territorial government, Indiana Territory, as such, not being
represented in Congress until December, 1805.(190) Among the reasons
advanced for dividing the Northwest Territory was the fact that in five
years there had been but one court for criminal cases in the three western
counties.(191)

Illinois soon sought admission to the second grade of territorial
government. In April, 1801, John Edgar wrote from Kaskaskia to St. Clair:
“During a few weeks past, we have put into circulation petitions addressed
to Governor Harrison, for a General Assembly, and we have had the
satisfaction to find that about nine-tenths of the inhabitants of the
counties of St. Clair and Randolph approve of the measure, a great
proportion of whom have already put their signatures to the petition.... I
have no doubt but that the undertaking will meet with early success, so as
to admit of the House of Representatives meeting in the fall.”(192) The
movement for advancement to the second grade was not, however, destined to
such early success, and when it did take place such a change had occurred
that Illinois was much enraged.

The Illinois country early became restive under the government of Indiana
Territory. Much the same causes for discontent existed as had caused
Kentucky to wish to separate from Virginia, Tennessee from North Carolina,
and the country west of the Alleghanies from the United States. In each
case a frontier minority saw its wishes, if not its rights, infringed by a
more eastern majority. In each case the eastern people were themselves too
weak to furnish sufficient succor to the struggling West. The conflict was
natural and inevitable. The grave charge against Governor Harrison, who
had large powers of patronage, was local favoritism. So discontented was
Illinois, that in 1803 it had petitioned for annexation to the territory
of Louisiana when such territory should be formed.(193) Antagonism to the
Indiana government became still more bitter when, in December, 1804, after
an election which was so hurried that an outlying county did not get to
vote, the territory entered the second grade of territorial
government.(194)

In the summer of 1805, discontent in Illinois was again expressed in a
memorial to Congress. About three hundred and fifty inhabitants of the
region petitioned for a division of Indiana Territory, From the Illinois
settlements to the capital, Vincennes, was said to be one hundred and
eighty miles, “through a dreary and inhospitable wilderness, uninhabited,
and which during one part of the year, can scarcely afford water
sufficient to sustain nature, and that of the most indifferent quality,
besides presenting other hardships equally severe, while in another it is
part under water, and in places to the extent of some miles, by which the
road is rendered almost impassable, and the traveler is not only subjected
to the greatest difficulties, but his life placed in the most imminent
danger.” It resulted that the attendance of Illinois inhabitants upon
either the legislature or the supreme court was fraught with many
inconveniences. Because of the extensive prairies between Illinois and
Vincennes, “a communication between them and the settlements east of that
river [the Wabash] can not in the common course of things, for centuries
yet to come, be supported with the least benefit, or be of the least
moment to either of them.” Illinois objected to having been precipitated
into the second grade of government. In the election for that purpose,
said the memorialists, only Knox county voted in the affirmative, and
Wayne county did not vote, because the writs of election arrived too late.
Since entering the second grade the County of Wayne (Michigan) had been
struck off. It was believed that if the prayer for separation should be
granted, the rage for emigration to Louisiana would, in great measure,
cease, the value of public lands in Illinois would be increased, and their
sale would also be more rapid, while an increased population would render
Illinois flourishing and self-supporting rather than a claimant for
governmental support.(195)

At the same time that Congress received the above memorial, it received a
petition from a majority of the members of the respective houses of the
Indiana legislature. This petition asked that the freehold qualification
for electors be abolished; that Indiana Territory be not divided, and that
the undivided territory be soon made a state. It was said that the people
were too poor to support a divided government, and that as the general
court met annually in each county it was slight hardship to the frontier
to have the supreme court meet at Vincennes.(196) It was probably true at
this time, as it certainly was in 1807, that the general court met as
above stated. Appeal by bill of exceptions was, however, allowed. The
supreme court had no original, exclusive jurisdiction.(197) Nothing
daunted by this memorial from the legislature, Illinois, in a short time,
prepared another memorial—this time with twenty signatures. This adds to
the grievances recited in the previous memorial that the wealthy appeal
cases against the Illinois poor to the supreme court at Vincennes; that
landholders on the Wabash are interested in preventing the population of
lands on the Mississippi; that preëmption is needed, and that it is hoped
that the general government will not pass unnoticed the act of the last
legislature authorizing the importation of slaves into the territory. It
violates the Ordinance of 1787. The memorialists desired such importation,
but it must be authorized by Congress to be legal. The population of
Illinois was given as follows:


    By the census of April 1, 1801: 2,361

    Inhabitants of Prairie du Chien and on the Illinois River, not
    included in above: 550

    “Emigration” since 1801, at least one-third increase: 750

    Settlements on the Ohio River: 650

    4,311(198)


The truth of some of the complaints from Illinois is apparent. That a land
company on the Wabash wished to hinder settlement on the Mississippi is
probably true, for Matthew Lyon, of Kentucky, said in Congress, in the
winter of 1805-6: “The price of lands is various. I know of two hundred
thousand acres of land on the Wabash, which is offered for sale at twenty
cents per acre.”(199) It is to be presumed that the company making the
offer could not give a secure title to the land.

In 1806, a congressional committee reported on the various memorials and
petitions from Illinois, but the report led to no legislation and thus
settled nothing, and in 1807 petitioning continued.(200) Illinois again
petitioned for separation from the remainder of Indiana Territory, this
petition bearing seventeen signatures. An inclosed census is lost, but a
population of five thousand is spoken of. A new and significant paragraph
occurs: “When your Memorialists contemplate the probable movements which
may arise out of an European peace, now apparently about to take place,
they cannot but feel the importance of union, of energy, of population on
this shore of the Mississippi—they cannot but shudder at the horrors which
may arise from a _disaffection in the West_....” A government was needed,
and that of Indiana Territory was not acceptable to the people of
Illinois. One hundred and two inhabitants of Illinois sent a
counter-petition, in which they said that Illinois had paid no taxes and
needed no separate government, also that the committee that prepared the
above petition was not legally chosen. Most of the signers of the petition
were Americans, while most of the signers of the counter-petition were
French, forty-two of the latter being illiterate.(201) The report of a
congressional committee on the petition was adverse,(202) as was also a
report on three petitions for division that came from Illinois in the
spring of 1808.(203) In the following December, the representative of
Indiana Territory in Congress was appointed chairman of a committee to
consider the expediency of dividing the territory, and to this committee
petitions both for and against division were referred. This territorial
delegate was in favor of division, and his committee presented a favorable
report, in which the number of inhabitants of Indiana east of the Wabash
was estimated to be seventeen thousand, and the number west of the Wabash
to be eleven thousand—numbers thought to be sufficiently large to justify
division, and an estimate which the census of 1810 proves to have been
almost correct. In February, 1809, the bill providing for the division so
ardently desired by Illinois was approved, the division to take place on
the first of the next March. The western division was to be known as
Illinois Territory and was to have for its eastern boundary a line due
north from Vincennes to the Canadian line.(204) In the debate in the House
of Representatives, preceding the passage of the bill for division, the
arguments in its favor were that the Wabash was a natural dividing line;
that a wide extent of wilderness intervened between Vincennes and the
western settlements; that the power of the executive was enervated by the
dispersed condition of the settlements; that to render justice was almost
impossible; that the United States would be more than compensated for the
increased expense by the rise in value of the public lands. Opponents of
the bill declared that the complaints made by Illinois were common to many
parts of the country; that the number of officers would be needlessly
increased by the proposed division; and that “a compliance with this
petition would but serve to foster their factions, and produce more
petitions.” No significant geographical division of the vote on the bill
is apparent.(205)




III. Obstacles to Immigration. 1790 to 1809.


In addition to the inability to secure land titles on account of unsettled
French claims, to the presence of Indians and to the discontent with the
government of Indiana Territory, almost every cause which made settlement
on the frontier difficult was found in the Illinois country in its most
pronounced form, because Illinois was the far corner of the frontier. The
census reports of the United Status give the following statistics of
population:

              1790.     1800.     1810.
Kentucky     73,677   220,955   406,511
Ohio                   45,365   230,760
Indiana                 2,517    24,520
Illinois                2,458    12,282

These figures show how conspicuously small was the immigration to
Illinois. Enough has already been said to show some of the reasons for
this sluggish settlement. When, in 1793, Governor St. Clair wrote to
Alexander Hamilton, “In compassion to a poor devil banished to another
planet, tell me what is doing in yours, if you can snatch a moment from
the weighty cares of your office,”(206) he doubtless felt that the
language was not too strong, and voiced a feeling of loneliness that was
common to the settlers. Nor was there a lack of land in the East to make
westward movement imperative. Massachusetts was much opposed to her people
emigrating to Ohio, because she wished them to settle on her own eastern
frontier (Maine), and Vermont and New York had vacant lands.(207)

One who settled in Illinois at this period came through danger to danger,
for Indians lurked in the woods and malaria waited in the lowlands. The
journey made by the immigrants was tedious and difficult, and was often
rendered dangerous by precipitous and rough hills and swollen streams, if
the journey was overland, or by snags, shoals and rapids, if by water. A
large proportion of the settlers came from Maryland, Virginia, or the
Carolinas. Those from Virginia and Maryland were induced to emigrate by
the glowing descriptions of the Illinois country given by the soldiers of
George Rogers Clark, and these soldiers sometimes led the first
contingent. A typical Virginia settlement in Illinois was that called New
Design, located in what is now Monroe county, between Kaskaskia and
Cahokia. Founded about 1786 by a native of Berkeley county, the settlement
received important additions in 1793, and four years later a party of more
than one hundred and fifty arrived from near the headwaters of the south
branch of the Potomac, this last contingent led by a Baptist minister, who
had organized a church on a previous visit.(208) In general, persons
Scotch-Irish by birth were opposed to slavery, as were also the members of
the Quaker church. This caused a considerable emigration from the
Carolinas. Another motive for people from all sections was that expressed
by settlers of Illinois, in 1806, when they said that they came west in
order to secure “such an establishment in land as they despaired of ever
being able to procure in the old settlements.”(209) We have seen how long
deferred was the fulfillment of their hope of getting a title to the
coveted land. Although the East was not crowded, it is true that land
there was more expensive than that of the same quality in the West. In
1806, three dollars per acre was the maximum price in even the settled
parts of Indiana Territory, while fifty dollars per acre had been paid for
choice Kentucky land.(210)

The greater number of immigrants came by water, but a family too poor to
travel thus, or whose starting-point was not near a navigable stream,
could come overland. Illinois was favored by having a number of large
rivers leading toward it; the Ohio, Kentucky, Cumberland, Tennessee, and
their tributaries were much used by emigrants. The chief route by land was
the Wilderness Road, over which thousands of the inhabitants of Kentucky
had come. Its existence helps to explain the wonderful growth of
Kentucky—in 1774 the first cabin, in 1790 a population of 73,000. It
crossed the mountains at Cumberland Gap, wound its way by the most
convenient course to Crab Orchard, and was early extended to the Falls of
the Ohio and later to Vincennes and St. Louis. The legislature of Kentucky
provided, in 1795, that the road from Cumberland Gap to Crab Orchard
should be made perfectly commodious and passable for wagons carrying a
weight of one ton, and appropriated two thousand pounds for the work. Two
years later five hundred dollars were appropriated for the repair of the
road, and the highway was made a turnpike with prescribed toll, although
it did not become such a road as the word turnpike suggests.(211)

A traveler of 1807 described the river craft of the period. The smallest
kind in use was a simple log canoe. This was followed by the pirogue,
which was a larger kind of canoe and sufficiently strong and capacious to
carry from twelve to fifteen barrels of salt. Skiffs were built of all
sizes, from five hundred to twenty thousand pounds burden, and batteaux
were the same as the larger skiffs, being indifferently known by either
name. Kentucky boats were strong frames of an oblong form, varying in size
from twenty to fifty feet in length and from ten to fourteen in breadth,
were sided and roofed, and guided by huge oars. New Orleans boats
resembled Kentucky boats, but were larger and stronger and had arched
roofs. The largest could carry four hundred and fifty barrels of flour.
Keel boats were generally built from forty to eighty feet in length and
from seven to nine feet in width. The largest required one man to steer
and two to row in descending the Ohio, and would carry about one hundred
barrels of salt; but to ascend the stream, at least six or eight men were
required to make any considerable progress. A barge would carry from four
thousand to sixty thousand pounds, and required four men, besides the
helmsman, to descend the river, while to return with a load from eight to
twelve men were required.(212)

Shipments of produce from Illinois were usually made in flat-bottomed
boats of fifteen tons burden. Such a boat cost about one hundred dollars,
the crew of five men was paid one hundred dollars each, the support of the
crew was reckoned at one hundred dollars, and insurance at one hundred
dollars, thus making a freightage cost of eight hundred dollars for
fifteen tons. The boat was either set adrift or sold for the price of
firewood at New Orleans. It was estimated that the use of boats of four
hundred and fifty tons burden would save four dollars per barrel on
shipping flour to New Orleans, where flour had often sold at less than
three dollars per barrel, but such boats were not yet used in the
West.(213) Canoes cost an emigrant from one to three dollars; pirogues,
five to twenty dollars; small skiffs, five to ten dollars; large skiffs or
batteaux, twenty to fifty dollars; Kentucky and New Orleans boats, one
dollar to one and one-half dollars per foot; keel boats, two dollars and a
half to three dollars per foot; and barges, four to five dollars per
foot.(214)

Horses, cattle, and household goods were carried on boats. Travel by
either land or water was beset with difficulties. The river, without pilot
or dredge, had dangers peculiar to itself. Sometimes, when traveling
overland, a broken wheel or axle, or a horse lost or stolen by Indians,
caused protracted and vexatious delays. It is well to notice, also, that
to travel a given distance into the wilderness was more than twice as
difficult as to travel one-half that distance, because of the constantly
increasing separation between the traveler and what had previously been
his base of supplies.(215)

Sometimes immigrants debarked at Fort Massac and completed their journey
by land. Two roads led from Fort Massac, one called the lower road and the
other the upper road, the former, practicable only in the dry season and
then only for travel on foot or on horseback, was some eighty miles long,
while the latter was one hundred and fifty miles long. Roads of a like
character connected Kaskaskia and Cahokia.(216)

A party of more than one hundred and fifty, which came from Virginia to
the New Design settlement in 1797, set out from the south branch of the
Potomac. They came from Redstone (now Brownsville), on the Monongahela, to
Fort Massac, on flat-boats, and then by land, in twenty-one days, to New
Design. The summer was wet and hot, a malignant fever broke out among the
newcomers, and one-half of them died before winter. The old settlers were
not affected by the fever, but they were too few to properly care for so
many immigrants.(217)

Commerce in Illinois was in its infancy. Some cattle, corn, pork, and
various other commodities were sent at irregular intervals to New
Orleans.(218) The fur trade was carried on much as under the French
régime. Salt was made at the salt springs on Saline Creek, the labor being
performed chiefly by Kentucky and Tennessee slaves under the supervision
of contractors who leased the works from the United States. The
contractors agreed to sell no salt at the works for more than fifty cents
per bushel, but by means of silent partners to whom the entire supply was
sold, the price was sometimes raised as high as two dollars per
bushel.(219) The commerce of the West suffered from a lack of vessels
going from New Orleans to Atlantic ports, and as a result corn sold in New
Orleans at fifty cents per bushel in 1805, while in some of the Atlantic
ports it sold for more than two dollars. At the same time the West had a
good crop, and Kentucky alone could have spared five hundred thousand
bushels of corn, if it could have been shipped.(220)

To secure laborers was difficult. A petition of 1796 said that farm
laborers could not be secured for less than one dollar per day, exclusive
of washing, lodging, and boarding; that every kind of tradesman was paid
from one dollar and a half to two dollars per day, and that at these
prices laborers were scarce. Labor was cheaper on the Spanish side of the
Mississippi, because of the larger proportion of slaves.(221) These wages
were doubtless high in comparison with those paid in the East, just as the
one dollar per day and board paid at the Galena lead mines in 1788 was
more than double the wages then paid in New England,(222) but an Illinois
price list of 1795 shows that the wages of 1796 were by no means
comparable to those of today in purchasing power. Making shoes was two
dollars per pair; potatoes were one dollar per bushel; brandy, one dollar
per quart; corn, one dollar per bushel.(223)

Among the early difficulties in the way of settlement, one of the most
persistent was the presence of prairies. This is by no means far-fetched,
although it sounds so to modern ears. In 1786, Monroe wrote to Jefferson
concerning the Northwest Territory: “A great part of the territory is
miserably poor, especially that near Lakes Michigan and Erie, and that
upon the Mississippi and the Illinois consists of extensive plains which
have not had, from appearances, and will not have, a single bush on them
for ages. The districts, therefore, within which these fall will never
contain a sufficient number of inhabitants to entitle them to membership
in the confederacy.”(224) Some of the most fertile of the Illinois
prairies were not settled until far into the nineteenth century. The false
prophets of the early days will be judged less harshly if we recall that
wood was then a necessity, that no railroads and few roads existed, that
wells now in use in prairie regions are much deeper than the early
settlers could dig, and that the vast quantities of coal under the surface
of Illinois were undiscovered.

As causes for the fact that more than a quarter of a century after the
Revolution, Illinois had a population estimated at only eleven thousand,
may be suggested the presence of hostile Indians; the inability of
settlers to secure a title to their land; the unsettled condition of the
slavery question; the great distance from the older portions of the United
States and from any market; the fact that Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana had
vast quantities of unoccupied land more accessible to emigrants than was
Illinois; the danger and the cost of moving; privation incident to a
scanty population, such as lack of roads, schools, churches and mills; the
existence of large prairies in Illinois. To remove or mitigate these
difficulties was still the problem of Illinois settlers. On some of them a
beginning had been made before 1809, but none were yet removed.





CHAPTER IV. ILLINOIS DURING ITS TERRITORIAL PERIOD. 1809 TO 1818.




I. The Land and Indian Questions.


Probably nothing affected settlement in Illinois from 1809 to 1818 more
profoundly than did changes in the land question, for during this period
Congress passed important acts relative to land sales, and this was also
the period of the first sales of public lands in the territory. It seems
strange that such sales should have been so long delayed, yet the
settlement of French claims, although begun by the Governor of the
Northwest Territory at an early day, and continued by commissioners
authorized by Congress and appointed in 1804, was incomplete when Illinois
became a separate territory, and the United States government adhered to
its policy of selling no land in the territory until the claims were
finally adjudicated. When a list of decisions reported by the
commissioners to Congress late in 1809 was confirmed in the following
May,(225) and the next year a long list of rejected claims arising chiefly
from the work of professional falsifiers, was reported,(226) it seemed
probable that the work was nearing completion, but a final settlement was
still delayed, and the long-suffering Illinois squatters were bitterly
disappointed when, in February, 1812, in accordance with a resolution
presented by the Committee on Public Lands, Congress made provision for
the appointment of a committee to revise the confirmations made by the
Governor years before.(227) The first legislature of Illinois met in the
succeeding November, and adopted a memorial to Congress in which it was
pointed out that the establishment of a land-office in the territory,
several years before, had led to the opinion that the public land would
soon be sold, and that because of this opinion those who constituted the
majority of the inhabitants of the territory had been induced to settle,
hoping that they would have an opportunity to purchase land before they
should have made such improvements as would tempt the competition of
avaricious speculators. The fulfillment of this hope having been long
deferred, many squatters had now made valuable improvements which they
were in danger of losing, either at the public sales of land or through
the designs of the few speculators who had bought from the needy and
unbusinesslike French most of the unlocated claims. For the relief of the
squatters a law was desired that would permit actual settlers to enter the
land on which their improvements stood, and requiring persons holding
unlocated claims to locate them on unimproved lands lying in the region
designated by Congress for that purpose. It was also hoped that as
Congress had given one hundred acres of land to each regular soldier, as
much would be granted to each member of the Illinois militia, since the
militiaman had not only fought as bravely as the regular, but had also
furnished his own supplies. If such a donation was not made it was hoped
that a right of preëmption would be given to the militia, or failing even
this, that they might be given the right, legally, to collect from anyone
entering their land, the value of their improvements.(228) In proof of the
fact stated in the memorial, that speculators had bought many French
claims, it may be noted that William Morrison had ninety-two of the claims
granted at Kaskaskia, his affirmed claims comprising more than eighteen
thousand acres, exclusive of a large number of claims measured in French
units, while John Edgar received a satisfactory report on claims
aggregating more than forty thousand acres, in addition to a number of
claims previously affirmed to him.(229)

A few days after preparing the above memorial, the legislature prepared an
address to Congress, in which reference was made to the arrangement made
between Congress and Ohio by the Act of April 30, 1802, granting to Ohio
two salt springs on condition that the state should agree not to tax such
public lands as should be sold within her borders, until after five years
from the date of sale. Illinois wished in similar fashion to gain control
of the salt springs on Saline creek. The Illinois delegate in Congress was
instructed that if the bargain could not be made, he should attempt to
secure an appropriation for opening a road from Shawneetown to the Saline
and thence to Kaskaskia. It was also desired that the Secretary of the
Treasury should authorize the designation of the college township reserved
by the Ordinance of 1787 and by the Act of 1804, and because “labor in
this Territory is abundant, and laborers at this time extremely scarce,”
it was hoped that slaves from Kentucky or elsewhere might be employed at
the salines for a period of not more than three years, after which they
should return to their masters.(230) Each prayer of this address was
granted. The enabling act and the Illinois constitution ceded the salt
springs to the state and agreed that public lands sold in Illinois should
be exempt from taxation for five years from date of sale; the Illinois
Constitution provided for the employment of slaves at the salt works; an
act provided for the location of the college township; and in 1816 the
making of the desired road was authorized, although at the beginning of
1818 the route had been merely surveyed and mapped.(231)

The memorial which preceded the address was also in large measure
successful. An act of February, 1813, granted to the squatters in Illinois
the right of preëmpting a quarter section, each, of the lands they
occupied, and of entering the land upon the payment of one-twentieth of
the purchase money, as was then required in private sales.(232) This act
was of prime importance. For more than thirty years settlers in Illinois
had improved their lands at the risk of losing them. Since the
appointment, in 1804, of commissioners to settle the French land claims,
the settlers had been expecting the public lands, including those they
occupied, to be offered for sale; thus it was inevitable that anxiety
concerning the right of preëmption should increase as the settlement of
claims neared completion, and contemporaries record that the inability to
secure land titles seriously retarded settlement;(233) now, however, the
granting of the right of preëmption, before any public lands in Illinois
were offered for sale, ended the long suspense of the settlers. Years
before this, Kentucky, now selling its public lands at twenty cents per
acre, had passed liberal preëmption laws, and they were repeatedly
renewed,(234) facts which increased the anxiety of Illinois.

Year after year the settlement of land claims dragged on, thus delaying
the sales of land.(235) In an official report of December, 1813, it is
stated that: “In the Territory of Illinois, two land-offices are directed
by law to be opened; one at Kaskaskia, the other at Shawneetown, so soon
as the private claims and donations are all located, and the lands
surveyed, which are in great forwardness.”(236) A tract of land was set
apart in April, 1814, to satisfy the claims recommended by the
commissioners for confirmation.(237) A report of November, 1815, said that
the commissioners hoped to open the land-office at Kaskaskia on May 15,
1816; and finally, in a report on the public lands sold from October 1,
1815, to September 30, 1816, we find that about thirty-four thousand acres
have been sold at Shawneetown and somewhat less than thirteen thousand
acres at Kaskaskia, the price at the latter place being precisely the two
dollars per acre which was then the minimum, while that at Shawneetown was
slightly higher,(238) presumably due to the sale of town lots, which had
been authorized in 1810, although no sales took place earlier than
1814.(239)

The long delay in opening the land-offices in Illinois was fatal to an
early settlement of the region, because the old states had public lands
which they offered for sale at low rates, thus depriving Illinois of a
fair chance as a competitor. In 1779 Kentucky granted to each family which
had settled before January 1, 1778, the right of preëmption—four hundred
acres if no improvement had been made and one thousand acres if a hut had
been built. The preëmptor, by a law of 1786, was to pay 13_s_. 4_d._ per
one hundred acres.(240) In 1781 the sheriffs of Lincoln, Fayette, and
Jefferson counties, Virginia, were authorized to survey not more than four
hundred acres for each poor family in Kentucky, for which twenty shillings
per one hundred acres should be paid within two and one-half years.(241)
In 1791 more than three and one-half millions of acres were sold in New
York at eight pence per acre, while many thousands of acres in addition
were sold for less than four shillings per acre—many for less than two
shillings.(242) Pennsylvania offered homestead claims, in 1792, at seven
pounds ten shillings per hundred acres.(243)

In December, 1796, Kentucky sheriffs were ordered to sell no more land for
taxes until directed by the legislature to do so.(244) In 1800, and again
in 1812, Kentucky offered land at twenty cents per acre, and in 1820 at
fifteen cents per acre,(245) while during the interval preëmption acts
were repeatedly passed.(246) Land in Tennessee sold at from twelve and
one-half to twenty-five cents per acre in 1814, and in 1819 at fifty
cents.(247)

In 1816 various classes of claimants were given increased facilities and
an extension of time for locating their claims in Illinois. The business
of satisfying claims was to linger for years, but with the opening of the
land-offices it ceased to be a potent factor in retarding settlement.(248)

One writer says of Illinois: “The public lands have rarely sold for more
than five dollars per acre, _at auction_. Those sold at Edwardsville in
October, 1816, averaged four dollars. Private sales at the land-office are
fixed by law, at two dollars per acre. The old French locations command
various prices, from one to fifty dollars. Titles derived from the United
States government are always valid, and those from individuals rarely
false.”(249) At this time emigrants were going in large numbers to
Missouri, and the Illinois river country, not yet relieved of its Indian
title, was being explored.(250)

Reports concerning the sales of public lands give the quantity of land
sold in Illinois toward the close of the territorial period, the figures
for 1817 and 1818 being as follows:

                    Acres in   Acres in    Jan. 1,      Sept. 30,
                    1817.      1818.       1818.        1818.
Shawneetown           72,384    216,315   $291,429       $637,468
Kaskaskia             90,493    121,052    209,295        406,288
Edwardsville(251)    149,165    121,923    301,701   451,499(252)
                     312,042    459,290   $802,425     $1,495,255

The percentage of debt showed a marked increase in the first nine months
of 1818. There were received in three-quarters of 1817 and 1818,
respectively:

                    1817.      1818.
At Shawneetown    $32,837   $112,759
At Kaskaskia       41,218     68,975
At Edwardsville    41,426     78,788

During this same period the receipts at Steubenville, Marietta, and
Wooster, Ohio, decreased,(253) showing that Illinois was beginning to
surpass Ohio as an objective point for emigrants wishing to enter land.

The Indian question was interwoven with the land question during the
territorial period. In 1809 the Indians relinquished their claim to some
small tracts of land lying near the point where the Wabash ceases to be a
state boundary line.(254) No more cessions were made until after the war
of 1812. Although the population of Illinois increased, during the
territorial period, from some eleven thousand to about forty thousand, the
increase before the war was slight, and thus it came about that during the
war the few whites were kept busy defending themselves from the large and
hostile Indian population. So well does the manner of defence in Illinois
illustrate the frontier character of the region that a sketch of the same
may be given. When, in 1811, the Indians became hostile and murdered a few
whites, the condition of the settlers was precarious in the extreme. Today
the term city would be almost a favor to a place containing no more
inhabitants than were then to be found in the white settlements in
Illinois. Moreover, few as were the whites, they were dispersed in a long
half-oval extending from a point on the Mississippi near the present Alton
southward to the Ohio, and thence up that river and the Wabash to a point
considerably north of Vincennes. This fringe of settlement was but a few
miles wide in some places, while so sparse was the population near the
mouth of the Ohio that the communication between northern and southern
Indians was unchecked. Carlyle was regarded as the extreme eastern
boundary of settlements to the westward; a fort on Muddy River, near where
the old Fort Massac trace crossed the stream, was considered as one of the
most exposed situations; and Fort La Motte, on a creek of the same name
above Vincennes, was a far northern point. The exposed outside was some
hundreds of miles long, and the interior and north were occupied by ten
times as many hostile savages as there were whites in the country, the
savages being given counsel and ammunition by the British garrisons on the
north.(255) Under conditions then existing, aid from the United States
could be expected only in the event of dire necessity. Stout frontiersmen
were almost ready to seek refuge in flight, but no general exodus took
place, although in February, 1812, Governor Edwards wrote to the Secretary
of War: “The alarms and apprehensions of the people are becoming so
universal, that really I should not be surprised if we should, in three
months, lose more than one-half of our present population. In places, in
my opinion, entirely out of danger, many are removing. In other parts,
large settlements are about to be totally deserted. Even in my own
neighborhood, several families have removed, and others are preparing to
do so in a week or two. A few days past, a gentleman of respectability
arrived here from Kentucky, and he informed me that he saw on the road, in
one day, upwards of twenty wagons conveying families out of this
Territory. Every effort to check the prevalence of such terror seems to be
ineffectual, and although much of it is unreasonably indulged, yet it is
very certain the Territory will very shortly be in considerable danger.
Its physical force is very inconsiderable, and is growing weaker, while it
presents numerous points of attack.”(256)

To the first feeling of fear succeeded a determination to hold the ground.
Before the middle of 1812, Governor Edwards had established Fort Russell,
a few miles northwest of the present Edwardsville, bringing to this place,
which was to be his headquarters, the cannon which Louis XIV. had had
placed in Fort Chartres;(257) and two volunteer companies had been raised,
and had “ranged to a great distance—principally between the Illinois and
the Kaskaskia rivers, and sometimes between the Kaskaskia and the
Wabash—always keeping their line of march never less than one and
sometimes three days’ journey outside of all the settlements”(258)—which
incidentally shows what great unoccupied regions still existed even in the
southern part of Illinois. As the rangers furnished their own supplies,
the two companies went out alternately for periods of fifteen days.
Sometimes the company on duty divided, one part marching in one direction
and the other in the opposite, in order to produce the greatest possible
effect upon the Indians. Settlers on the frontier—and that comprised a
large proportion of the population—“forted themselves,” as it was then
expressed. Where a few families lived near each other, one of the most
substantial houses was fortified, and here the community staid at night,
and in case of imminent danger in the daytime as well. Isolated outlying
families left their homes and retired to the nearest fort. Such places of
refuge were numerous and many were the attacks which they successfully
withstood.

Rangers and frontier forts were used with much effect, but the great
dispersion of settlement and the large numbers of Indians combined to make
it wholly impossible to make such means of defence entirely adequate. In
August, 1812, the Governor wrote to the Secretary of War: “The principal
settlements of this Territory being on the Mississippi, are at least one
hundred and fifty miles from those of Indiana, and immense prairies
intervene between them. There can, therefore, be no concert of operations
for the protection of their frontiers and ours.... No troops of any kind
have yet arrived in this Territory, and I think you may count on hearing
of a bloody stroke upon us very soon. I have been extremely reluctant to
send my family away, but, unless I hear shortly of more assistance than a
few rangers, I shall bury my papers in the ground, send my family off, and
stand my ground as long as possible.”(259) The “bloody stroke” predicted
by the Governor fell on the garrison at Fort Dearborn, where Chicago now
stands. Some regular troops were subsequently sent to the territory, but
the war did not lose its frontier character. One of the most
characteristic features was that troops sometimes set out on a campaign of
considerable length, in an uninhabited region, without any baggage train
and practically without pack horses, the men carrying their provisions on
their horses, and the horses living on wild grass.(260) Unflagging energy
was shown by the settlers, several effective campaigns being carried on,
and by the close of 1814 the war was closed in Illinois.(261)

Extinction of Indian titles to land was retarded by the war and also by
the policy of the United States, which was expressed by Secretary of War
Crawford, in 1816, as follows: “The determination to purchase land only
when demanded for settlement will form the settled policy of the
Government. Experience has sufficiently proven that our population will
spread over any cession, however extensive, before it can be brought into
market, and before there is any regular and steady demand for settlement,
thereby increasing the difficulty of protection, embarrassing the
Government by broils with the natives, and rendering the execution of the
laws regulating intercourse with the Indian tribes utterly
impracticable.”(262) Some progress, however, was made in extinguishing
Indian titles during the territorial period after the close of the war. In
1816, several tribes confirmed the cession of 1804 of land lying south of
an east and west line passing through the southern point of Lake Michigan,
and ceded a route for an Illinois-Michigan canal.(263) At Edwardsville, on
September 25, 1818, the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Michigamia, Cahokia, and
Tamarois ceded a tract comprising most of southern and much of central
Illinois.(264) The significance of this cession would have been immense
had it not been that it was made by weak tribes, while the powerful
Kickapoo still claimed and held all that part of the ceded tract lying
north of the parallel of 39°—a little to the north of the mouth of the
Illinois river. This Kickapoo claim included the fertile and already
famous Sangamon country, in which the state capital was eventually to be
located, and squatters were pressing hard upon the Indian frontier, yet
the Indians still held the land when Illinois became a state.

During the territorial period, Illinois gained the long-sought right of
preëmption; the French claims ceased to retard settlement; some progress
was made in the extinction of Indian titles, and the sale of public land
was begun. The new state was to find the Indian question a pressing one,
and some changes in the land system were yet desired, but the crucial
point was passed.




II. Territorial Government of Illinois. 1809 to 1818.


The act for the division of Indiana Territory provided that Illinois,
during the first stage of its territorial existence, should have a
government similar to that of the Northwest Territory under the Ordinance
of 1787. In 1809 there were in Illinois two distinct and hostile parties,
which had been formed on questions arising in Indiana Territory before
division. It was with sound judgment, therefore, that the President, going
outside of Illinois, appointed as Governor, Ninian Edwards of Kentucky, a
native of Maryland, who successfully resisted all efforts to involve him
in party quarrels.(265)

Laws for the government of the territory were to be chosen by the Governor
and the judges from the laws of the states. The judges were Jesse B.
Thomas and William Sprigg, natives of Maryland, and Alexander Stuart, a
native of Virginia. It is worthy of note that of the twelve laws chosen
before the meeting of the first territorial legislature, five were from
Kentucky, three from Georgia, two from Virginia, one from South Carolina,
and one from Pennsylvania.(266) A people practically southern in origin
was being governed by officials from the south under southern laws.

Illinois entered the second grade of territorial government in 1812,
electing its first legislature in October.(267) In the preceding May,
Congress had passed an act making radical and most important extensions in
the suffrage in Illinois, over that which had been prescribed by the
Ordinance of 1787. The new provision was: “Every free white male person
who shall have attained the age of twenty-one years, and who shall have
paid a county or territorial tax, and who shall have resided one year in
said Territory previous to any general election, and be at the time of any
such election a resident thereof, shall be entitled to vote for members of
the Legislative Council and House of Representatives of the said
Territory.” Each county was to elect one member of the Legislative
Council, to serve for four years. The territorial delegate to Congress was
also made elective by the citizens.(268) One has but to consider what a
complete revolution this act brought about to appreciate its great
significance. Previously the Legislative Council had been appointive by
the President of the United States, from nominees of the territorial House
of Representatives, the nominees being twice the number necessary; the
delegate to Congress had not been chosen by popular vote; and a freehold
qualification for the elective franchise had obtained. Early petitions
show how much the people complained of a landed aristocracy,(269) and
letters written by Governor Edwards early in 1812 show how well founded
was the complaint. No preëmption act had yet been passed, and of the more
than twelve thousand inhabitants of Illinois some two hundred and twenty
possessed a freehold of fifty acres, thus giving the balance of power, if
the territory should enter the second grade under the old provision, to
one hundred and eleven persons. Nearly one-third of the entire population
lived either near the Ohio or between it and the Kaskaskia, and among them
there were not more than three or four freeholders, and not one who
possessed two hundred acres—the necessary qualification for a
representative. With no public lands yet offered for sale, with no right
of preëmption, with a freehold qualification for the suffrage, this law
enfranchising squatters was of prime importance.(270)

The first legislature had few French members, and was apparently southern
in nativity.(271) After more than three years and a half of legislation by
the Governor and judges, the inhabitants at last had an elective
legislature. The journals of the two houses indicate that the belief that
had been expressed in petitions to Congress some years before that such a
body would provide an efficient government, was well founded. The laws
passed were eminently practical for the frontier conditions under which
they were to operate.(272) A man contemplating settlement in Illinois
could now be sure that he would be governed by Illinois men whom he had a
share in electing.

The rude character of the facilities for transportation is indicated by
the fact that the earlier laws of the territory deal with ferries only
rarely and with bridges not at all, while as time progresses and
population increases, ferries multiply and bridges begin to be
constructed. By 1817-18 the desire for banks and for internal
improvements, which was to be disastrous to the state at a later period,
began to show itself. As examples, the Bank of Cairo and the Illinois
Navigation Company will suffice. Nine men purchased the low peninsula
lying near the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and were
incorporated by “An Act to Incorporate the City and Bank of Cairo.” A site
for a city comprising at least two thousand lots, with streets eighty feet
wide, was to be laid out. The lots were to be sold at one hundred and
fifty dollars each and were to be not less than one hundred and twenty by
sixty-six feet in size. Of the purchase money, two-thirds should go into
the stock of the Bank of Cairo, and one-third to a fund to build dykes to
keep the city from being flooded.(273) Considering the time and the
location, the scheme was utterly impracticable. “An Act to Incorporate the
Stockholders of the Illinois Navigation Company” authorized the formation
of a company with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, for the
purpose of cutting a canal through the peninsula between the Ohio and the
Mississippi. Within twelve years a canal sufficiently large for the
passage of a vessel of twenty tons burden should be completed. The company
was given the right of eminent domain.(274) Here again the character of
the project was unsuited to existing conditions. Population was increasing
rapidly at the time these laws were passed, but they required for their
success an increase much more rapid. They were, however, pleasing to the
settlers and the prospective settlers of the day.

On January 16, 1818, Mr. Pope, of Illinois, was appointed chairman of a
select committee to consider a petition from the Illinois legislature
praying for a state government. One week later the committee reported a
bill to enable Illinois to form such a government, and to admit the state
into the union. When the enabling act came up for discussion, Mr. Pope
offered the amendment which changed the northern boundary of Illinois from
a line due west from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, as provided
by the Ordinance of 1787, to a line running from that lake to the
Mississippi on the parallel of 42° 30’. “The object of this amendment, Mr.
Pope said, was to gain, for the proposed state, a coast on Lake Michigan.
This would offer additional security to the perpetuity of the union,
inasmuch as the state would thereby be connected with the states of
Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, through the lakes. The facility
of opening a canal between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River, said Mr.
Pope, is acknowledged by every one who has visited the place. Giving to
the proposed state the port of Chicago (embraced in the proposed limits),
will draw its attention to the opening of the communication between the
Illinois River and that place, and the improvement of that harbor. It was
believed, he said, upon good authority, that the line of separation
between Indiana and Illinois would strike Lake Michigan south of Chicago,
and not pass west of it, as had been supposed by some geographers....”
Although an avowed violation of the Ordinance of 1787, the amendment was
adopted without division or recorded debate. Mr. Pope also secured an
amendment to the effect that the state’s proportion of the proceeds of the
sales of public lands, instead of being applied to the making of roads and
canals in the state, should be used in making roads leading to the state,
and for the encouragement of learning, two-fifths being applied to the
former purpose. Pope pointed out that people would build roads as they
needed them, much more readily than they would supply schools, and that
waste school lands in a new country would produce slight revenue.
Subsequent history of the state justified both statements. The enabling
act met with little opposition and was signed by President Monroe on April
18, 1818.(275)

One of the provisions of the enabling act was that, in order to become a
state, Illinois must have as many as forty thousand inhabitants. In
anticipation of such a provision, the territorial legislature had passed a
law in January, 1818, providing that a census of the territory should be
taken between April 1 and June 1. A supplemental act provided that as a
great increase in population might be expected between June 1 and
December, census takers should continue to take the census in their
districts of all who should remove into them between June 1 and December
1. The law as framed gave an opportunity to count not only immigrants, but
to re-count all who moved from one county to another (such moving being
common), and to count in each successive county persons passing through
the state. There is no reasonable doubt that at the time the census was
taken, the territory had fewer than forty thousand inhabitants. Dana gives
a census of 1818, in which the number is given as thirty-four thousand six
hundred and sixty-six, and adds: “Another enumeration having been taken a
few months after, the amount of population returned was forty thousand one
hundred and fifty-six, which exceeded the number entitling the territory
to become a state.”(276)

In August, 1818, the Constitution of Illinois was completed. Its
provisions most likely to influence settlement were those concerning the
elective franchise and slavery. It provided that “In all elections, all
white male inhabitants above the age of twenty-one years, having resided
in the state six months next preceding the election, shall enjoy the right
of an elector; but no person shall be entitled to vote except in the
county or district in which he shall actually reside at the time of the
election.” Slaves could not hereafter be brought into the state, but
existing slavery was not abolished, and existing indentures—and some were
for ninety-nine years—should be carried out, although future indentures
should not run for a longer term than one year. Male children of slaves or
indentured servants should be free at the age of twenty-one, and females
at eighteen. Slaves from other states could be employed only at the Saline
Creek salt works, and there only until 1825.(277)

During the congressional debate on the acceptance of the Illinois
Constitution, objection to admitting the state was made on the ground that
the number of inhabitants was doubtful, and that slavery was not
distinctly prohibited, Tallmadge, of New York, who later wished to
restrict slavery in Missouri, being the chief objector. The state was
admitted, however, and on December 4, 1818, the representatives and
senators from Illinois took their seats in Congress.(278)

Between 1809 and 1818, Illinois passed from a non-representative
territorial government to a liberal state government. The energy of the
settlers had done much to hasten the change, and the change, in turn, did
much to hasten settlement.




IV. Transportation and Settlement, 1809 to 1818.


At the close of the War of 1812, an unparalleled emigration to the
frontiers of the United States began. Contemporary accounts speak of its
great volume. “Through New York and down the Alleghany River is now the
track of many emigrants from the east to the west. Two hundred and sixty
waggons have passed a certain house on this route in nine days, besides
many persons on horseback and on foot. The editor of the Gennessee Farmer
observes, that he himself met on the road to Hamilton a cavalcade of
upwards of twenty waggons, containing one company of one hundred and
sixteen persons, on their way to _Indiana_, and all from one town in the
district of Maine. So great is the emigration to _Illinois_ and _Missouri_
also, that it is apprehended that many must suffer for want of provisions
the ensuing winter.”(279) “Nothing more strongly proves the superiority of
the western territory than the vast emigration to it from the eastern and
southern states; during the eighteen months previous to April, 1816,
fifteen thousand waggons passed over the bridge at Cayuga, containing
emigrants to the western country.”(280) “Old America seems to be breaking
up, and moving westward.... The number of emigrants who passed this way
[St. Clairsville, Ohio], was greater last year than in any preceding; and
the present spring they are still more numerous than the last. Fourteen
waggons yesterday, and thirteen today, have gone through this town.
Myriads take their course down the Ohio. The waggons swarm with children.
I heard today of three together, which contain forty-two of these young
citizens.”(281) From Hamilton, New York: “It is estimated, that there are
now in this village and its vicinity, three hundred families, besides
single travellers, amounting in all to fifteen hundred souls, waiting for
a rise of water to embark for ‘the promised land.’ ”(282) “The numerous
companies of emigrants that flock to this country, might appear, to those
who have not witnessed them, almost incredible. But there is scarce a day,
except when the river is impeded with ice, but what there is a greater or
less number of boats to be seen floating down its gentle current, to some
place of destination. No less than five hundred families stopped at
Cincinnati at one time, and many of them having come a great distance, and
being of the poorer class of people, before they could provide for
themselves, were in a suffering condition; but to the honor of the
citizens of Cincinnati, they raised a donation and relieved their
distress.”(283) Of the remote districts, Missouri and Michigan were
receiving crowds of immigrants.(284)

The changes in government and in the land question in Illinois were
typical of changes in other frontier regions, but although worthy of note
as helping to make a more attractive place for settlement, they are by no
means sufficient to account for the great migration to the westward. Why
that migration took place and how it was accomplished are interesting and
important questions.

Emigration from New England resulted largely from financial and industrial
disorganization caused by the close of the war, and a year of such
continued cold weather as to produce a famine. This movement was
interesting, dramatic, and large in volume, but its influence upon
Illinois was slight, because the tide was stayed to the eastward of that
state.(285) Migration from the South was also large, and it was from this
source that most of the immigrants to Illinois came. In 1816 there was a
severe drought in eastern North Carolina, and many planters cut their
immature corn for their cattle, while great numbers sold their property
and joined the emigrants.(286) Kentucky, still a favorite place for
settlement, was in the midst of a land boom which reached such proportions
as to cause a large volume of emigration to Illinois, Missouri, and the
southwest. The buyer of Kentucky land was often a neighbor who wished to
enlarge his farm and work on a larger scale, or some well-to-do immigrant
who preferred the location to a more remote region. Land sold on credit
and at fictitious prices, the seller in turn buying land for which he
frequently could make only the first payment. Retribution did not come,
however, until after 1820, and for some years it seemed as if Kentucky was
to become a source of population, for it was to Illinois and Missouri, and
to a lesser degree to Alabama, what New England was to Ohio.(287) Probably
chief among the reasons for migration from the South was the increase of
slavery, with the resulting changes in industrial and social conditions.
Early in the century the growing importance of the cotton crop began to
hasten a stratification of opinion which was determined by physiographic
areas. The western parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina,
the northern part of Georgia, and the eastern parts of Kentucky and
Tennessee, respectively, being hilly and less fertile than the coastal
plain, became the center of the southern anti-slavery sentiment. On the
plain settled the wealthy planters, and later the poorer Germans and
Quakers settled in the uplands. Only when cotton-raising became very
profitable was slavery to intrude upon the latter location.(288)

During the war the production of cotton in the United States had been
almost constant in amount and less than in preceding years, but 1815 saw
an increase of over forty-two per cent and 1816 an increase of twenty-four
per cent,(289) while in the latter year South Carolina, after an interval
of thirteen years, resumed its slavery legislation by passing the first of
a series of acts which show that the slavery problem was becoming
increasingly difficult. Similar legislation took place in Tennessee, and
to a lesser degree in Kentucky.(290) Increased production of cotton was
accompanied by an increase in price, middling upland cotton selling at New
York at 15 cents per pound in 1814, at 21 cents in 1815, at 29-½ cents in
1816, at 26-½ cents in 1817, and at 34 cents in 1818, while South Carolina
sea-island cotton sold at Charleston in 1816 at 55 cents a pound.(291) An
increase in cotton production meant an increase of the plantation system
with its slaves, this meant an increased demand for large farms, and also
a strengthening of the antagonism between pro-slavery and anti-slavery
parties. Even in 1812, a man who wished to sell, lease, or rent his
manufacturing establishment in the northwestern part of Virginia,
Frederick county, lamented in his advertisement that “some good men of
strict moral or religious principles should object against forming settled
abodes in Virginia” or other slave states.(292) Census reports show that
the proportion of negroes to whites increased in the western counties of
North Carolina during the decade 1810 to 1820 over the proportion in 1800
to 1810. Conditions above described naturally led to the emigration of at
least four classes of people: those who were anti-slavery, those who did
not wish to change from small farming to the plantation system, the poor
whites who found themselves increasingly disgraced and who at the same
time found that their land was in demand, the slave-holder who wished a
large tract of virgin soil. It is very important to note that these forces
were merely beginning to operate in the time from 1814 to 1818, and that
they did not reach their maximum of influence until after 1830, yet as the
population of Illinois increased less than twenty-eight thousand from 1810
to 1818, it is altogether probable that a considerable proportion were
influenced by the causes suggested. It is also true that some pioneers
moved merely from habit, without any well-defined cause.

Although it is true that the first steamboat that passed down the Ohio and
Mississippi made its trip in the winter of 1811-12, and by 1816 an
enterprising captain had made a successful experiment of running a
steamboat with coal for fuel, also that the speed of steamboats in eastern
waters was a matter for enthusiastic comment, yet it is also true that
immigrants to Illinois did not usually arrive by steamer.(293) The
development of steamboat navigation in western waters was slow, the first
steamboat reaching St. Louis on August 2, 1817.(294) Peter Cartwright
wrote of his trip from the West to the General Conference in Baltimore, in
1816: “We had no steamboats, railroad cars, or comfortable stages in those
days. We had to travel from the extreme West on horseback. It generally
took us near a month to go; a month was spent at General Conference, and
nearly a month in returning to our fields of labor.”(295)

Some instances of the manner and cost of emigration may be given. A man
with his wife and brother having arrived at Philadelphia from England, _en
route_ to Birkbeck’s settlement(296) in Illinois, the party was directed
to Pittsburg, which they reached after a wearisome journey of over three
hundred miles across the mountains. At Pittsburg they bought a little boat
for six or seven dollars, and came down the Ohio to Shawneetown, whence
they proceeded on foot.(297) In the summer of 1818, a party of
eighty-eight came over the same route in much the same manner, using
flat-boats on the river.(298) In 1817, John Mason Peck, with his wife and
three children, went from Litchfield, Connecticut, to Shawneetown,
Illinois, in a one-horse wagon. The journey was begun on July 25 and
Shawneetown was reached on the sixth of November. “Nearly one month was
occupied in passing from Philadelphia through the State of Pennsylvania
over the Alleghany Mountains, till on the 10th of September he passed into
Ohio. Three weeks he journeyed in that State, and on the 23d of October
recrossed the Ohio River into the State of Kentucky ..., and on the 6th of
November again crossed the Ohio River, into the then Territory of
Illinois, at Shawneetown.”(299) Here the family was delayed by floods
which rendered the roads impassable. Leaving the horse and wagon at
Shawneetown to be brought on by a friend, they proceeded to St. Louis in a
keel-boat, paying twenty-five dollars fare, and arrived at their
destination on the first of December.(300)

Shawneetown was a sort of center from which emigrants radiated to their
destinations. It owed much to its location, being on the main route from
the southern states to St. Louis and what was then called the Missouri,
and being also the port for the salt works on Saline Creek. It was the
seat of a land-office. The town thus had a business which was out of all
proportion to the number of its permanent inhabitants. In 1817 it
consisted of but about thirty log houses, a log bank, and a land-office.
When a certain traveler came to the place from the South, in 1818, he
found the number of wagons, horses, and passengers waiting to cross the
Ohio, on the ferry, so great that he had to wait “a great part of the
morning” for his turn.(301)

During the latter part of the territorial period freight charges from
Philadelphia to Pittsburg, by land, were from seven to ten dollars per
hundredweight;(302) from Pittsburg to Shawneetown, one dollar; from
Louisville to Shawneetown, thirty-seven cents; and from New Orleans to
Shawneetown, four dollars and a half.(303) The use of arks was common.
These were flat-bottomed boats of a tonnage of from twenty-five to thirty
tons, covered, square at the ends, of a uniform size of fifty feet in
length and fourteen in breadth, usually sold for seventy-five dollars, and
would carry three or four families. A common practice was to re-sell them
at a somewhat reduced price to someone going further down the river. Two
dollars was the charge for piloting an ark over the falls of the
Ohio.(304)

There is much truth in the remarks made by a German traveler in 1818-19.
He said: “The State of Illinois is from one thousand to twelve hundred
miles distant from the sea ports. The journey thither is often as costly
and tedious, for a man with a family, as the sea passage. Any father of a
family, unless he is well-to-do, can certainly count on being impoverished
upon his arrival in Illinois. At Williamsport, on the Susquehanna, I found
a Swiss, who, with his wife and ten children, had spent one thousand
French crown-dollars for their journey. In the village of Williamsport, an
old German schoolmaster, who seems to have been formerly a merchant in
Nassau, told me that the passage of himself and family had cost thirteen
hundred dollars. For an adult the fare is seventy-five dollars—one dollar
is equal to one thaler, ten groschen, Prussian—for children under twelve
years, half so much, for children of two years, one-fourth so much, and
only babes in arms go free.”(305)

It can now be understood why people emigrated to the West, and also why
many went overland. A family too poor to go by water could go in a buggy
or wagon, and if poorer still they might walk, as many actually did. The
immigration to Illinois, which was but a small fraction of the great
westward movement, was still largely southern in origin, Ohio, Michigan,
Indiana, and even New York still staying, in large measure, the tide from
New England. In New England it was the “Ohio fever” and not the Illinois
fever which carried away the people, and the designation is geographically
correct. The men prominent in Illinois politics at the close of the
territorial period, and at the beginning of the state period, were natives
of southern states, a fact hardly conceivable if New England had been
largely represented in Illinois. Then, too, the natural routes from the
South led to, or near to, Illinois, the great road from the South crossing
the Ohio River at Shawneetown, and the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers
being natural water routes. Another fact to be noticed is that much of the
emigration was of relatives and friends to join those who had gone before,
and as Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and even
Georgia, had furnished a large number of early settlers to Illinois, this
was a powerful inducement to continued emigration from the same sources.
Similarly Ohio and Michigan had early received settlers from the East.

Immigration to Illinois was not large in comparison to that to neighboring
states or territories. Indians still held the greater part of Illinois,
and the inconveniences incident to frontier life were more pronounced as
the distance from the East increased. Pro-slavery men, and anti-slavery
men as well, were still in doubt as to the ultimate fate of slavery in
Illinois. This had a deterrent effect upon immigration.




IV. Life of the Settlers.


According to the marshal’s return the manufactures in Illinois, in 1810,
were as follows:

Spinning-wheels, $630
Looms, 460; cloth produced, 90,039 yards, $54,028
Tanneries, 9; leather dressed, $7,750
Distilleries, 10,200 gallons, $7,500
Flour, 6,440 barrels, $32,200
Maple sugar, 15,600 lbs., $1,980(306)—$104,088

This list incidentally indicates the average price of several manufactured
articles. For the first six months of 1814, the internal revenue assessed
in Illinois was:

Licenses for stills and boilers, $490.14
Carriages, $62.00
Licenses to retailers, $835.00
Stamps, $5.60—$1392.74

Of this amount ($1392.74), $1047.37 had been paid by October 10,
1814.(307) For the period from April 18, 1815, to February 22, 1816, the
following were the internal duties:

Hats, caps, and bonnets, $ 66.50-½
Saddles and bridles, $65.25
Boots and bootees, $7.26
Leather, $184.35-½—$323.37

This was the smallest sum listed in any part of the United States, except
Michigan Territory.(308) For 1818:

Licenses for stills, $214.91
Licenses  at 20c. per gal., $549.23
Duty on spirits at 25c. per gal., $701.26
On eighteen carriages, $36.75
Licenses to retailers, $1248.80
On stamped paper and bank-notes, $4.50
Manufactured goods, $220.14—$2975.59

Of this amount, $1966.41 was paid, only Indiana and Missouri territories
paying a smaller proportion of their assessment.(309) The small proportion
paid in these three territories may have been due to the poverty of their
inhabitants.

Most of the manufactured articles were consumed within the territory. Both
cotton and flax were raised and made into cloth; maple sugar was sometimes
sold and exported, but a large proportion of the supply was used as a
substitute for sugar, another substitute much used being wild honey. A
certain Smith’s Prairie was celebrated for the numerous plum and crabapple
orchards that grew around its borders. The large red and yellow plums grew
there in such abundance that people would come from long distances and
haul them away by the wagon-loads, and would preserve them with honey or
maple sugar, which was the only sweetening they had in pioneer times.(310)

Previous to the War of 1812, little commerce was carried on, although a
few trips had been made to New Orleans with keel-boats or pirogues, and
some goods were occasionally brought over the Alleghany Mountains by means
of wagons. The round trip to New Orleans and back then required six
months; the trip down was easy and required a comparatively short time,
but the return trip was slow. It was entirely a barter trade, money being
almost unknown. Furs, wild honey, and other commodities of Illinois, as
well as lead from the Missouri mines, were carried down and exchanged for
groceries, cloth, and other articles of a large value and small bulk. As a
natural consequence of having to be transported up stream, goods of that
nature were extremely dear, the common price of tea being sixteen dollars
a pound, of coffee fifty cents, and of calico fifty cents per yard.(311)
To go up the Mississippi from St. Louis to Prairie du Chien, in 1815,
required from twelve days to a month, while the return trip was made in
from six to ten days.(312)

In the great American Bottom of the Mississippi, extending from the mouth
of the Kaskaskia almost to the mouth of the Illinois, cattle raising was a
leading industry, the cattle being driven to the Philadelphia or Baltimore
markets.(313) Towards the close of the period land could easily be secured
by government entry. The fertility of the land was such as must have been
new to those immigrants who came from the poorer parts of the older
states. Land was subject to a tax of a little more that two cents per
acre, the tax being about equally divided between the territory and the
county.(314) Public lands were not to be taxed by the state, after 1818,
until five years from the date of their sale. Governor Edwards, who was a
large landowner, offered to pay three dollars per acre for plowing.(315)
Prairies were not yet settled to any considerable extent, but it is worthy
of note that a traveler of 1818-19 suggested what was eventually to be the
solution of the question of prairie settlement. He wrote: “It will
probably be some time before these vast prairies can be settled, owing to
the inconvenience attending the want of timber. I know of no way, unless
the plan is adopted of ditching and hedging, and the building of brick
houses, and substituting the stone coal for fuel. It seems as if the
bountiful hand of nature, where it has withheld one gift has always
furnished another; for instance, where there is a scarcity of wood, there
are coal mines.”(316) The remedy suggested was the one adopted, except
that brick houses did not become common.

Really good roads were entirely lacking. Most of the settlements were
connected by roads that were practicable at most seasons for packers and
travelers on horseback, but in times of flood the suspension of travel by
land was practically complete. A post-road had been established between
Vincennes and Cahokia in 1805, and in 1810 a route was established from
Vincennes, by way of Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, and Cahokia, to St.
Louis. At this time and place, however, a post-route does not necessarily
imply anything more than a bridle-path. Mail was received at irregular
intervals, although the trips were regularly made in good weather. The
post-office nearest Chicago was Fort Wayne, Indiana, whence a soldier on
foot carried the mail once a month.(317) A report for the first six months
of 1814 shows, in Illinois, nine post-offices, three hundred and
eighty-eight miles of post-roads, about $143 received for postage, and
$1002 paid for transportation of mail—a balance of some $859 against the
United States.(318) At this time even Cleveland, Chillicothe, and Marietta
received mail but twice per week.(319)

Books were very scarce,(320) and no newspapers had been published in
Illinois before its separate territorial organization. Between 1809 and
1818 there were founded the _Illinois Herald_ and the _Western
Intelligencer_, at Kaskaskia, the latter becoming the _Illinois
Intelligencer_ on May 27, 1818; and the _Shawnee Chief_, at
Shawneetown.(321) In 1816 the citizens of Shawneetown gave notice through
the papers of Kaskaskia, Frankfort, Kentucky, and Nashville, Tennessee,
that they would apply to the Legislature of Illinois for the establishment
of a bank.(322) This may indicate that the papers of the places named had
a considerable circulation in Illinois.

The character of the immigrants left much to be desired. A good observer
wrote: “After residing awhile in White County, Tennessee, I migrated in
May, 1817, to the southern part of the then Territory of Illinois, and
settled in Madison County, twenty-five miles east of St. Louis, which town
then contained about five thousand inhabitants. The surrounding country,
however, was quite sparsely settled, and destitute of any energy or
enterprise among the people; their labors and attention being chiefly
confined to the hunting of game, which then abounded, and tilling a small
patch of corn for bread, relying on game for the remaining supplies of the
table. The inhabitants were of the most generous and hospitable character,
and were principally from the southern states; harmony and the utmost good
feeling prevailed throughout the country.”(323) Naturally this description
was not of universal application, but the source of the population and the
reasons for removing from the old homes make it probable that it was
widely appropriate.

If it was difficult for an emigrant to reach Illinois, and if, after
reaching it, he was inconvenienced by the poor facilities for commerce,
the bad roads, the infrequency of mails, the scarcity of schools and
churches, he at least found it easy to obtain a living, and to some of the
immigrants of the territorial period it was worth something not to starve,
even though living was reduced to its lowest terms. The poorest immigrant
had access to land on the borders of settlement, because the laws against
squatting were not enforced. This same class could procure game in
abundance, while maple sugar, wild honey, persimmons, crabapples, nuts,
pawpaws, wild grapes, wild plums, fish, mushrooms, “greens,” berries of
several kinds, and other palatable natural products known to the Illinois
frontiersman, were to be had in most, if not all, of the localities then
settled. Hogs fattened on the mast. Log houses could be built without
nails. The problem of clothing was probably more difficult at first than
that of food, but although clothing could not be picked up in the woods,
the materials for making it could be grown in the fields. Spinning, and
the processes necessarily preceding and following it, involved a certain
amount of labor. Taxes were not high, nor were tax laws rigidly enforced.
It is thus easy to understand the reasoning that may have led a large
proportion of the immigrants during this period to leave their old homes.





CHAPTER V. THE FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD, 1818 TO 1830.




The Indian and Land Questions.


One of the most important cessions of land in Illinois ever made by the
Indians was that made by the Kickapoo in 1819, of the vast region lying
north of the parallel of 39—a little north of the mouth of the Illinois
River, and southeast of the Illinois River.(324) Settlement had been
crowding hard upon this region and many squatters anxiously awaited the
survey and sale of the land, especially of that in the famous Sangamon
country. In northern Illinois settlement was still retarded by the
presence of Indians. In 1825, the Menominee, Kaskaskia, Sauk and Fox,
Potawatomi, and Chippewa tribes claimed over 5,314,000 acres of land in
Illinois,(325) and there was a licensed Indian trader at Sangamo, one at
the saline near the present Danville, and two on Fever River.(326) Two
years later there were three such traders at Fever River, and two at
Chicago,(327) and in 1827-28 there was one at Fever River with a capital
of about $2000.(328) In February, 1829, there were Indian agents at
Chicago, Fort Armstrong, Kaskaskia, and Peoria, as well as others near the
borders of Illinois.(329) At this time, the Ottawa, Chippewa, Potawatomi,
Kaskaskia, and Winnebago claimed land in the state, although only about
6000 of the more than 25,000 members of these tribes resided in the state.
The eight members of the Kaskaskia tribe held a small reservation near the
Kaskaskia River. Of the twenty-two hundred members of the Kickapoo tribe,
which had relinquished all claim to land east of the Mississippi, about
two hundred still lived on the Mackinaw River, but they were expected to
move in a few weeks.(330) By a treaty of July 29, 1829, the Chippewa,
Ottawa, and Potawatomi ceded their claims in northern Illinois.(331) There
still remained the Winnebago tribe, and not until 1833 was Illinois to be
free from Indian claims.(332)

A war with the Winnebago tribe was imminent in 1827. Settlers in the
northern part of the state either fled to the southward or collected at
such points as Galena or Prairie du Chien. “This was a period of great
suffering at Galena. The weather was inclement and two or three thousand
persons driven suddenly in, with scant provisions, without ammunition or
weapons encamped in the open air, or cloth tents which were but little
better, were placed in a very disagreeable and critical position.”(333)
The prompt action of Governor Lewis Cass, of Michigan, averted what would
in all probability have been a bloody war, if prompt action had not been
taken.(334)

To September 30, 1819, the record of land sales in Illinois was as
follows:

                  Acres Unsold.   Acres Sold.         Price.
Shawneetown           4,561,920       562,296     $1,153,897
Kaskaskia             2,188,800       407,027      1,781,773
Edwardsville          2,625,960       394,730   795,531(335)

The balances unpaid by purchasers of public lands steadily increased from
1813 to 1819 until on September 30, 1819, there was due from purchasers of
land in the area of the old Northwest Territory nearly ten million
dollars.(336) An increase would have resulted merely from an increased
sale of public lands under the credit system, but it is also true that the
difficulty of collecting the unpaid balances became so great that the
government at last abolished the credit system, by the act of April 24,
1820. The act provided that after July 1, 1820, no credit whatever should
be given to the purchasers of public lands; that land might be sold in
either sections, half-sections, quarter-sections, or eighth-sections; that
the minimum price should be reduced from two dollars to one dollar and
twenty-five cents per acre; and that reverted lands should be offered at
auction before being offered at private sale.(337) At least two of the
provisions of this act had long been desired by Illinois in common with
other frontier regions: the reduction of the minimum price and the sale in
smaller tracts. Under the new law a man with one hundred dollars could buy
eighty acres of land, while previously the same man would have had to pay
eighty of his one hundred dollars as the first payment on one hundred and
sixty acres, the smallest tract then sold. The great danger had been that
the second, third, and fourth payments could not be made. In Illinois,
before July 1, 1820, there had been sold 1,593,247.53 acres of the public
land at an average price of about $2.02 per acre. Some of this reverted
from non-payment.(338)

                     [Illustration: Indian Cessions.]

During the third quarter of 1820, all sales in Illinois were at the
minimum price and a considerable proportion were of the minimum area. At
the same time, some of the land in Ohio, and a very few tracts in Indiana,
sold at a higher price, one tract in Ohio, but only one, selling for more
than seven dollars per acre.(339) To October 1, 1821, the land-offices in
Illinois reported:

                  Acres Sold.   Surveyed, but
                                Unsold.
Shawneetown           592,464       2,401,936
Kaskaskia             419,898       1,615,942
Palestine                 714       2,880,720
Edwardsville          437,993       2,696,727
Vandalia                7,923       2,545,677

All land in the districts of Shawneetown and Kaskaskia had been surveyed,
but the remaining districts were still indefinite on the north.(340) At
this time, Illinois money passed in the state at par, and the Bank of
Illinois was among those whose notes were received in payment for public
lands.(341)

As more and more land was opened to settlement, a new difficulty arose and
became increasingly troublesome. All public land was to be entered at the
same minimum price, and as a natural result, the poorest land was not
taken up and settlement became widely dispersed on the best tracts of
land. In December, 1824, the Illinois legislature sent a memorial to
Congress portraying the evils of sparse settlement, and asking that land
that had been offered for sale for five years or more might be sold at
fifty cents per acre. Better roads, better markets, and better
institutions were expected to result from such sales.(342) Two years
later, another memorial was sent. This asked that land be offered for sale
at prices graduated according to the quality of the land, suggested that
the poorest land might well be donated to settlers, and declared that
settlement was retarded by the high minimum price of land.(343) Governor
Ninian Edwards pointed out that in 1790, Hamilton had recommended that
public lands be sold at twenty cents per acre, which “was the price at
which Kentucky, long afterward, sold her lands.”(344) In 1828, the
Committee on Public Lands recommended that public lands unsold at public
sale be first offered at one dollar per acre, and if still unsold, that
the price be reduced twenty-five cents per acre each two years until sold
or reduced to twenty-five cents per acre; that eighty-acre homestead
claims be given to such persons as would cultivate and occupy them for
five years; and that lands unsold at twenty-five cents per acre be ceded
to the states in which they lay, upon payment of the cost of survey and
twenty-five cents per acre. At this time, there was in Illinois 1,403,482
acres surveyed and sold; 19,684,186 acres surveyed and unsold, of the
39,000,000 acres estimated to be in the State.(345) Still another memorial
from the legislature was sent to Congress in 1829. It pointed out, in
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