The Chickasaws had apparently learned the value of earthworks as defences, from their experience, if not from the English traders. Some of these traders were in the village at the time of the attack, and hoisted the English flag over their cabins. By throwing up the earth around their houses, the Indians had converted each habitation into a fortification. Unfortunately for the objects of the expedition, Bienville learned, on his return to Mobile, that a coöperating column, organized in Illinois, and composed mainly of Northern Indians, which had marched under young Artaguette against the same enemy, had been completely worsted, and their leader was reported killed.
If the movement against the Chickasaws was demanded by the condition of affairs before this demonstration, the repulse made a renewal of it at an early day a positive necessity. A strong force of men was sent over from France under an officer trusted by the Court, and in 1739 an advance was made with twelve hundred white soldiers and twenty-four hundred Indians, by way of the Mississippi instead of the Tombigbee. They were joined at a point near the present site of Memphis by a company under Céloron, and by a detachment from Fort Chartres under Buissonière. Five months were consumed in exploring a road which was supposed to have been already laid out before they started. During this time all the provisions of the expedition were consumed, and the main army was obliged to return without having seen the enemy. The extensive preparations for the expedition had, however, a moral effect. In March a company of Canadians and Northern Indians, which had reported at the appointed rendezvous, penetrated alone to the Chickasaw villages. The chiefs of that tribe, believing that this corps was supported by the expedition, sued for peace, which the French gladly granted them.
Every military effort put forth by Bienville since his return to Louisiana had resulted disastrously. The old story of accusation and counter-accusation between the resident officials of the colony continued during his second term as before. Chagrined at his lack of success, and mortified by evident distrust of his abilities shown by the Court, he tendered his resignation and pathetically wrote: “If success proportionate to my application to the business of the Government and to my zeal in the service of the King had always responded to my efforts, I should gladly have consecrated the rest of my days to this work; but a sort of fatality has pursued me for some time, has thwarted the greater part of my best-laid plans, has often made me lose the fruit of my labors, and perhaps, also, a part of the confidence of Your Highness.” On the 10th of May, 1743, he was relieved by the Marquis de Vaudreuil, and he then returned to France. He was at that time sixty-two years of age, and never revisited the scene of nearly forty-four years of active life in the service of the Government. He was called the “Father of the Colony,” and a certain romantic affection attaches to his memory, based rather upon his professed good-will than upon any success shown in his management of affairs.
During the remainder of the life of the colony, under the administration of M. de Vaudreuil until he was called to Canada, and after that under M. de Kerlerec, his successor, there was no material change in the condition of affairs. All attempts at recapitulation of events resolve themselves into dreary reiterations of what has already been told again and again. Tobacco and rice continued to be the staple products of the colony. Hopes were still maintained that something might be made by cultivating the indigo-plant. The sugar-cane was introduced in 1751.
There was more of tampering with the currency. Incredible as it may seem, there was scarcity of provisions at this late day, and appeals to France for food.[68] The friendly Choctaws were again incited to war against their traditional enemies, the Chickasaws, and strife was also stirred up among themselves. Another warlike expedition boldly marched to the Chickasaw villages and came back again. Criminations and recriminations between governor and commissaire-ordonnateur continued to the end, with few intermissions and with as lively a spirit as characterized the fiercest days of Bienville’s chronic fights. There was another shipment of girls as late as 1751. The character of the troops remained as before, and deserters continued to be a source of annoyance. Even the children of the colonists were affected by their surroundings, if we may believe an anonymous writer,[69] who says, “a child of six years of age knows more of raking and swearing than a young man of twenty-five in France.”
Illinois, separated from the cabals of the little courts at Quebec and New Orleans, showed some signs of prosperity.[70] In 1711 Father Marest wrote: “There was no village, no bridge, no ferry, no boat, no house, no beaten path; we travelled over prairies intersected by rivulets and rivers, through forests and thickets filled with briers and thorns, through marshes where we plunged up to the girdle.” The character of the returns expected by the French from this country had been shown by the expeditions of Le Sueur and La Mothe Cadillac. A few boat-loads of green earth had been sent to France by Le Sueur for assay, but no mines were opened. La Mothe brought down a few specimens of silver ore which had been found in Mexico, and some samples of lead from the mines which were shown him fourteen miles west of the river; but he discovered no silver mines. Nevertheless, the Company had great faith in this region. Their estimate of the dangers to which it was exposed may be gathered from the instructions to Ordonnateur Duvergier in the fall of 1720. He was told where the principal fortifications were to be maintained. Illinois, the directors said, being so far inland, would require a much smaller fort. Communication was to be opened up with that post by land. Positive commands were given to hold a post on the Ohio River, in order to occupy the territory in advance of the English, and prevent them from getting a foothold there. “Illinois is full of silver, copper, and lead mines, which ought to produce considerable returns if worked. The Company has sent to the colony a number of miners to open the mines and to begin work there as an example to the owners of concessions and to the inhabitants. The troop of Sieur Renault, composed of people accustomed to work of this sort, went to the colony at the same time; but the two troops, according to last reports, are not yet at Illinois.”
About the same time it was ordered that “the establishment made by Boisbriant,” originally a few leagues below the village of the Kaskaskias, but apparently afterward transferred to a point about the same distance above the village, should be “called Fort de Chartres.”[71]
In 1721 Charlevoix traversed this region. Speaking of the so-called fort at St. Joseph, near the foot of Lake Michigan, he says: “The commandant’s house, which is but a sorry one, is called a fort from its being surrounded with an indifferent palisade,—which is pretty near the case with all the rest.” The route of Charlevoix was up the St. Joseph across a portage to the Kankakee, and down that river, the Illinois, and the Mississippi, to Fort Chartres, the next French station which he mentions.[72] He describes it as standing about a musket-shot from the river. He heard of mines both copper and lead. Renault, or Renaud, as he is generally called, who was working the lead mines, still hoped for silver. Even after this we hear occasionally of alleged mineral discoveries and revived hopes of mines; but neither the Company nor the Government were destined to reap any great revenue from this source.
The duties of Boisbriant and of his successors were almost exclusively limited to adjudicating quarrels, administering estates, watching Indians, and granting provisional titles to lands or setting off rights in the common fields of the villages. The history of these years is preserved in fragments of church-registers, in mouldy grants of real estate, or in occasional certificates of marriage which have by chance been saved. No break occurred in this monotony till the joint movement against the Chickasaws, of young Artaguette from Fort Chartres and of Vinsennes from his post on the Wabash in 1736. The troops from these posts, who were to move from the North at the same time that Bienville should approach from the South, following their orders, met and advanced at the appointed time. Their prompt obedience brought them to the spot in advance of the dilatory Bienville, and enabled the Chickasaws, as has been previously stated, to meet the columns separately and defeat them in detail. A column from this fort was also in the body of troops from the North which co-operated in the second attack on these Indians.