FRENCH LIFE IN THE NORTHWEST
By James Baldwin
You will recall that the French explorers Marquette, Joliet, La Salle, and others established missions and trading posts in the Illinois country. It was due to these early explorations that the French got control of a large part of the Northwest Territory.
The following narrative tells of the simple life of the French settlers in that territory.
It is interesting to learn how the French people in the
Illinois country lived in friendship with the savage
tribes around them. The settlements were usually small
villages on the edge of a prairie or in the heart of the woods.
They were always near the bank of a river; for the watercourses 5
were the only roads and the light canoes of the
voyageurs were the only means of travel. There the French
settlers lived like one great family, having for their rulers
the village priest and the older men of the community.
The houses were built along a single narrow street and so10
close together that the villagers could carry on their
neighborly gossip each from his own doorstep. These
houses were made of a rude framework of corner posts,
studs, and crossties, and were plastered, outside and in,
with "cat and clay"—a kind of mortar, made of mud and 15
mixed with straw and moss. Around each house was a
picket fence, and the forms of the dooryards and gardens
were regulated by the village lawgivers.
Adjoining the village was a large inclosure, or "common
field," for the free use of all the villagers. The size of 20
this field depended upon the number of families in the
settlement; it sometimes contained several hundred acres.
It was divided into plots or allotments, one for each household,
and the size of the plot was proportioned according
to the number of persons in the family. Each household 5
attended to the cultivation of its own ground and gathered
its own harvest. And if anyone should neglect to care for
his plot and let it become overgrown with weeds and thistles,
he forfeited his right to any part of the common field and
his ground was given to another. 10
Surrounding the common field was a large tract of
cleared land that was used as a common pasture ground.
In some cases there were thousands of acres in this tract,
and yet no person was allowed to use any part of it except
for the pasturage of his stock. When a new family came 15
into the settlement or a newly married couple began housekeeping,
a small part of the pasture ground was taken into
the common field, in order to give the new household its
proper allotment.