Chapter Five of the History of Southern Illinois

      The boatmen suffered great hardships in bringing their cargoes from New Orleans up the Mississippi river. These brave men were obliged to endure all kinds of weather. They were subject to the fevers incident to a life on the water in a hot climate. The treacherous Indians lined the banks, and life on the boats was never safe. They had often to pull their boats up the strong current by means of long ropes. But with all this the boatmen were the happiest of all the people.
       The social life of these people was one of pleasure. It is said they passed much of their time in singing, dancing, and gaming. The Frenchmen married the squaws of the different tribes and this of necessity lowered the tone of the social life. The population became mixed, and consequently degenerated. There can be little doubt that there were many illegitimate children born. The parish records might lead one to suppose this for they are not uniform in their statement that all children are born of legitimate marriages. The following is from the parish records of the St. Anne church:

       In the year 1743, on the 28th of December of the same year, I, the undersigned, N. Laurent, priest, missionary apostolic, I baptized in the absence of M. J. Gagnon, missionary of St. Anne ‘s parish of Fort Chartres, a daughter, born in the same month and day mentioned above, of the legitimate marriage of Andrew Thomas des Jardius and of Marie Joseph Larette. . . .

LAURENT, P. M. Ap.
       The common people were modest in their apparel. They wore the cheaper fabrics. In summer coarse cotton cloth, while in winter coarse woolen blankets were much prized. Handkerchiefs were worn over the heads by men and women.
       While they were light hearted they were light headed as well, and thriftless; the poorer portion laboring long enough to gain a bare subsistence each passing day, the rest of the time being spent in sporting, hunting, and wine drinking.

       There was entire harmony with regard to religious matters. Every one was a member of the church. The Indians in most cases were regarded as members. There were churches in all the villages except possibly in St. Philippe. The daily requirements of the church have been pointed out in the preceding pages.

       Schools were unknown—at least the kind of schools we are familiar with. The priests may have given some instruction in the rudiments of an education. Certainly something was done in the line of instruction for it is stated that a college was founded in Kaskaskia as early as 1721, and in connection a monastery was erected.

       The government was very simple, at least until about 1730. From the settlement in 1700 up to the coming of Crozat there was no civil government. Controversies were few and the priest’s influence was such that all disputes which arose were settled by that personage. Recently, documents have been recovered from the courthouse in Chester which throw considerable light upon the question of government in the French villages, but as yet they have not been thoroughly sorted and interpreted.
       The Company of the West realized that its task of developing the territory of Louisiana was an unprofitable one, and they surrendered their charter to the king, and Louisiana became, as we are accustomed to say, a royal province by proclamation of the king, April 10, 1732. P. 58
       The two efforts, the one by Crozat and the other by the Company of the West had both resulted in failure so far as profit to either was concerned. Crozat had spent 425,000 livres and realized in return only 300,000 livres. And although a rich man, the venture ruined him financially. The Company of the West put thousands of dollars into the attempt to develop the territory for which no money in return was ever received. But the efforts of both were a lasting good to the territory itself. Possibly the knowledge of the geography of the country which resulted from the explorations in search of precious metals, was not the least valuable. Among other things, these two efforts brought an adventurous class of people into Illinois and this put life into the sleepy ongoing of priest and parishioner.

WAR AND PROGRESS

       The life of the people in the new village of Kaskaskia is somewhat difficult to reconstruct in our minds since few records are available which give very definite accounts of it. However, we may safely conjecture that the village of Kaskaskia became the leading town between the lakes and the gulf. Fort St. Louis was abandoned almost entirely by the beginning of 1700. Peoria was never occupied permanently by whites. Cahokia was possibly a rival of Kaskaskia, but never equaled it in Importance or in size. The settlers at the mouth of the Mississippi, and the people of New France were constantly passing and repassing the village of Kaskaskia. It was a sort of meeting point between the north and the south.

       There can be little doubt that permanent houses were built of timber, brush, and grasses. The Frenchmen were traders, trappers, and voyageurs. They married the Indian women and there rapidly grew up a half-breed race which probably was more French than Indian, at least as to custom, disposition, and general appearance. There was really no civil government. All differences, if there were any, were settled by the priest in charge. The government of New France exercised no authority in Kaskaskia.

       The Kaskaskia tribe of Indians was never large and the presence of priests, traders, and travelers gave the village quite an air of civilization. The activities were simple—hunting, fishing, and trafficking. The two rivers and their tributaries thereto furnished an abundance of opportunity for food. Probably no commercial value attached to the occupation of fishing; each person providing his own table with this sort of food. Hunting and trapping became a profitable business, and regular markets were opened where furs were sold for cash or exchanged for European goods which now began to find their way into the Illinois country. As soon as the French established themselves at the mouth of the Mississippi, the intercourse with the mother country was largely by way of the south and through these new settlements, rather than through Canada. However, it must be remembered that coincident with the first decade of the life of the Kaskaskia colony, there was raging in western Europe a war of considerable import—the war of the “Spanish Succession,” or more popularly ‘‘Queen Anne’s war.”

       This war in no way directly affected our French settlements on the Mississippi, but it prevented France from giving attention to her new settlements and they drifted along for ten or more years. It is true that P. 59 colonists were sent to the Mississippi valley from France by the shipload, as many as 2,500 being sent between the settling of Biloxi and the close of Anne’s war in 1713. But the character of the immigrants and the lack of paternal oversight may be seen in the fact that out of the 2,500 colonists only 400 whites and twenty negroes were to be found in 1813. The settlers about Kaskaskia were evidently more thrifty, and were free from some of the forces which operated to decimate the numbers at Biloxi and nearby settlements. The situation at Kaskaskia was evidently more healthful than that at Biloxi; the character of the settlers more hardy, and the Kaskaskia settlers more industrious, having begun early the cultivation of the soil. There are no means of determining the white population in Kaskaskia prior to the end of Queen Anne’s war; but it may be conjectured that the number of whites was very small.

GOVERNMENT, CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS

       In the grant to Crozat in 1712, it was declared— “and further, that all lands which we possess from the Illinois, be united, so far as occasion requires, to the General Government

A WINTER VIEW OF PRAIRIE DU ROCHER

of New France and become a part thereof.” There certainly was no civil government in the Illinois country during the five years from 1712 to 1717. In 1718 Boisbriant landed at Mobile with a commission making Bienville governor-general over the Louisiana territory and making himself, Boisbriant, commandant of the Illinois country. The growth of the territory was rapid from this time forward, and there was need of better methods of civil administration.
       In 1721 the whole of the Mississippi valley was divided into nine civil jurisdictions, as follows: New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, Alabama, Natchez, Yazoo, Natchitoches, Arkansas, and Illinois. “There shall be at the headquarters in each district a commandant and a judge, from whose decisions appeals may be had to the superior council established at New Biloxi.” Breese ‘s History of Illinois gives a copy of an appeal of the inhabitants of Kaskaskia to the Provincial commandant and judge relative to the grants of lands to individuals and to the inhabitants as a whole. It has four distinct sections. The heading is as follows: P. 60

“THE INHABITANTS OF KASKASKIA TO THE PROVINCIAL COMMANDANT AND

JUDGE OF THE COUNTRY OF ILLINOIS.”

       This petition was duly considered and a notation made upon each section, signed by De Lielte, who was commandant, and by Chaffin, who was judge, and the whole forwarded to the Superior Council for final action. It bears date 1727.

       The religious life of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and other French villages was quite free from outside influence. By the third article of the ordinance issued by Louis XV in 1724, all religious beliefs other than the Catholic faith were forbidden. The article reads as follows: “We prohibit any other religious rites than those of the Apostolic Roman Catholic church; requiring that those who violate this shall be punished as rebels, disobedient to our commands.” This ordinance also made it an offense to set over any slaves any overseers who should in any way prevent the slaves from professing the Roman Catholic religion.

       By an earlier ordinance, issued in 1722, by the council for the company, and with the consent of the bishop of Quebec, the province of Louisiana was divided into three spiritual jurisdictions. The first comprised the banks of the Mississippi from the gulf to the mouth of the Ohio, and including the region to the west. The Capuchins were to officiate in the churches, and their superior was to reside in New Orleans. The second spiritual district comprised all the territory north of the Ohio, and was assigned to the charge of the Jesuits whose superior should reside in the Illinois, presumably at Kaskaskia. The third district lay south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi river and was assigned to the Carmelites, the residence of the superior being at Mobile. Each of the three superiors was to be a grand vicar of the bishop of Quebec. The Carmelites remained in charge of their territory south of the Ohio only till the following fall, December, 1722, when they turned over their work to the Capuchins and returned to France.

       As evidence of the activity of the Jesuits in the territory which was assigned them, we are told they had already, in 1721, established a monastery in Kaskaskia. It is stated in Monette's Mississippi Valley, that a college was also established there about the year 1721. Charlevoix, quoted by Davidson and Stuve, says: “I passed the night with the missionaries (at Cahokia), who are two ecclesiastics from the seminary at Quebec, formerly my disciples, but they must now be my masters. Yesterday I arrived at Kaskaskia about nine o’clock. The Jesuits have a very flourishing mission, which has lately been divided into two.” All descriptions which have come down to us of the conditions in the Illinois country in the first part of the eighteenth century represent the church as most aggressive and prosperous. Civil government certainly must have passed into “innocuous desuetude” by 1732.
       In 1720 a financial panic struck France and John Law was forced to flee from the country. The Company of the Indies kept up a pretense of carrying on its business, but in 1732 upon petition by the company, the king issued a proclamation declaring the company dissolved and Louisiana to be free to all subjects of the king. There were at this time, 1732 about 7,000 whites and 2,000 negro slaves within the limits of the Louisiana territory. The rules of the Western Company had been so exacting that many of the activities of the people had been repressed. Every one seems to have been held in a sort of vassalage to the company. Now the territory was to come directly under the crown.