Fayette County, Illinois - Chapter 2: Prosperity of the Colonies. Division of the Territory. Fort Chartres the Capital. English Occupation. Exodus of French Inhaeitants. Ces¬, 1878

Ment Formed. Gen. St. Clair Appointed Governor

PROSPERITY OF THE COLONIES. DIVISION OF THE TERRITORY. FORT CHARTRES THE CAPITAL. ENGLISH OCCUPATION. EXODUS OF FRENCH INHAEITANTS. CES¬ SION TO UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT 1IY THE STATE. TERRITORIAL GOVERN¬ MENT FORMED. GEN. ST. CLAIR APPOINTED GOVERNOR.

ROM 1717 until 1760, France retained almost undisputed posses¬ sion of the country. The people being rudely awakened from their dreams of unlimited stores of mineral wealth, began to rea¬ lize that while disappointed in that respect, they had a country of inexhaustible fertility, and it only remained for them to develop it, and reap the reward of honest toil. In 1721 Louisiana was divided into seven districts, of which Illinois was one, with Fort Chartres as the seat of gov¬ ernment. The fort was situated on the east bank of the Mississippi, a short distance from where the village of Prairie du Rocher now is. It has now entirely disappeared, the river slowly but surely encroaching upon it and destroying it piecemeal. Until 1750 peace and plenty reigned throughout the country. The people had turned their attention to agriculture, and the soil yielded a most bountiful return. A demand arose in Europe for their surplus. Bacon, flour, hides and tallow were exported. Emigrants continued to come, many of them from the colder and less productive Canadas. Sud¬ denly the air was filled with rumblings of the distant storm, which finally broke upon them, and swept forever from France her fairest possessions. The war was concluded in 1759, and in 1762 by the treaty of Fontainbleau France transferred her entire possessions east of the Mississippi to England. Immediately upon assuming control the French prepared to leave en masse.

I Every effort was made on the part of the conquerors to prevent the threat- | ened depopulation. The English government made large concessions, proposed to ratify all conveyances, establish titles, organize courts of justice. All attempts, however, proved abortive, and the territory retrograded even more rapidly than it had advanced. For the succeeding ten years, until the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, very little of interest transpired ( within the limits of the territory, which was under the jurisdiction of Vir¬ ginia. In 1775, George Rogers Clark, after a journey through the country, returned to Virginia and strongly urged upon the Governor of the State the advisability of peopling it with Americans, and in 1778 received a commis¬ sion authorizing him to raise troops and take possession of the territory. In that year he completed the conquest, and the Virginia Assembly denomi¬ nated it the County of Illinois. Soon after the close of the Revolutionaiy struggle the Atlantic States agreed to cede to the general government their title to all western lands. In 1784 Virginia executed her deed of cession.

The territory at this time embraced within its limits all of the country since divided into the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. In 1787 it was erected into a separate territory, with a governor, secretary, and a court consisting of three judges. The seat of government was located at Marietta, Ohio, and Congress appointed Gen. Arthur St. Clair governor. President Washington directed the governor to visit Kaskaskia, and carry out the orders relative to the lauds of the French and Canadian inhabitants.

The grants of land and tenures had been under four different governments - French, English, Virginia, and the United States - and each made grants of land to the inhabitants; the French as early as 1722 at Fort Chartres: these grants were made by the crown of France together with the royal company of Indies. The first organization of Illinois was made by the king of France to Crosat. When the Euglish government occupied the country under ihe cession of 1763, they also made grants of land to »!ie inhabitants. These grants of land were surveyed as the grantees pleased, without much reference to the cardinal points. After the country came into the hands of the Americans, the government of Virginia made grants of land before the cession of the country in 1782 to the United States.

In the year 1788, the United States recognized all the valid grants of land made by the former governments, and made other grants to the inhabi¬ tants. Also, in 1791. acts of Congress were passed making additional dona¬ tions of laud. In 1790, the governor of the north-western territory was authorized to adjust the land titles of the settlers, and the same power was continued with the governors down to the year 1804, when certain commis¬ sioners of the land office were appiinted to settle the land titles. These commissioners remained in office about ten years, and they and the governor of the territory adjusted the land titles to all the lauds in the country, before the first land sales at Kaskaskia in 1814.

Governor St. Clair and Wmthrop Sargeut, the Secretary, arrived at Kas¬ kaskia in 1790. The territory within the present limits of Illinois, extending northward to Little Mackinaw Creek on the Illinois lliver, was organized into a county, and named St. Clair in honor of the Governor. The county was divided into three judicial districts. A court of common pleas was established, and three judges, John Edgar of Kaskaskia, John De Moulin of Cahokia, and Jean Baptiste Barbeau of Prairie du Itocher, appointed to hold court in their separate districts. William St. Clair, a brother of the Governor, was appointed Clerk and Recorder of Deeds, and William Biggs Sheriff of the new county.

About this time the attention of Congress was directed to slavery, which institution existed within the territory. *- The first introduction of slavery into Illinois was by Philipp Francis Renault in the year 1720. On his pas¬ sage from Europe to America he procured from San Domingo five hundred slaves to work the mines in Illinois, and these negroes are the ancestors of the French slaves in^his state. The descendants of those slaves who re¬ side in Illinois are now free, and are located in Randolph County." *

When Virginia conquered the county, and the same was annexed to that state, the right of property in their slaves was guaranteed to the inhabitants as well as their other property. In the act of cession of the county from Virginia to the general government, the right of property, slaves amongst the rest, was secured to the inhabitants of Illinois. The Act of Congress known as the ordinance, which was passed in the year 1787, and by which the North-western Territory was organized as a government, prohibited posi¬ tively the introduction of slavery into the territory, and Illinois at that time formed a part of the territory. This Act of Congress was the great sheet anchor which secured the states of Illinois, Ohio and Indiaua from slavery.

After the organization of the Indian Territory, of which Illinois formedfa part, laws were enacted by the territorial legislature, permitting slaves to be introduced as indentured servants; under that law many came into the territory. The owner could go with his slaves before the clerk of the court of common pleas, and make an arrangement with his negroes to serve a cer¬ tain number of years, and then they became free. The children were to serve their masters: the males until they were thirty-five years old, the females until they reached the age of thirty-two years; this agreement, however, had to be done within thirty days after the slave entered the territory. If the slaves would not consent to the arrangement they could be removed out of the territory within sixty days. This agreement was made a record binding on the parties. This act of the legislature operated as a kind of gradual emancipation of slavery in the territory.

The supreme court of the state in 1845 decided that slavery, French or other, could not exist in the state. That decision liberated all the French slaves in the territory. Public opinion in the state being against slavery, reached the bench, and what was right twenty years before, was wrong in 1845, in relation to slavery. In 1810 one hundred and sixty slaves are said to have been in the territory; in 1820 they increased to nine hundred and seventeen, and in 1830 they decreased to seven hundred and fortysix.

The prompt and efficient-action on the part of Congress can be better appreciated now than at any former time. Had the north-western states been slave states in 1860, the result of the late civil war would have been different, and that foul blot, slavery, would have continued to defile our otherwise pure body politic.