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 [pg 047] 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 [pg 048] 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 [pg 049] 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 [pg 050] 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, [pg 051] 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.