: The Settlement of Illinois 1778-1830 by Boggess Arthur Clinton - Illinois History 1778-1865

@FreeBooks

Posted in: #FreeBooks #FreeBooksIndia #FreeBooksApp #gg

Vote Up Vote Down   0 Reactions

Login to give Reaction!

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.

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. The new county was to include the inhabitants of Virginia, north of the Ohio River, but its location was not more definitely prescribed.

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. 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. 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.

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. Some five years later, 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. 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 , 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." 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. 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. Land holdings were in long narrow strips along the rivers.

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. 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. In 1787, the country between Vincennes and Kaskaskia abounded in buffalo, deer, and bear. 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." 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.

Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg

(0)

Login to post a comment!