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 [pg 052] 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 [pg 053] 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 [pg 055] 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 [pg 056] 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 [pg 057] 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 [pg 058] 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.