Daviess County, Indiana - Chapter 2 (1 of 2 so headed), 1886

Chapter 2

The Fort and the Mission at Vinoennes from 1702 to 1767 - The Indian's Ma-nitou and Religious Observances - The First Church at Vinoennes - Regal Policies - The Western Company and the Indian Trade - Francois Morgan De Vinsenne - The Chickasaw Campaign - The Torture of Vinsenne - St. Ange Belle Rive - Vincennes in 1767 - Braddock's Defeat - English Government in the West - Demands of Gen. Gage.

THE Wabash, long only a pathway for the explorer, by the year 1710 had become a highway, over which were transported the commodities of exchange between Europe and the forests. Annual journeys to dispose of peltries collected and to secure the simple goods demanded in Indian barter, called into existence an employment in harmony with the roving disposition of the Canadian, and led to rapid increase in the population nominally inhabiting the post of Juchereau. The life of license, the freedom from the conventional restraints of more refined society and the quick approximation of one race to the manners of the other, led to marriages with Indian girls, at which there was neither priest or civil magistrate. In his contemplative hours the devout son of the church longed to have his children, born of such unions, baptized and made Christians. Neither had he entirely lost his zeal to be counted an instrument in the conversion of the heathen. Under these emotions he invoked the company of the priest at every place where he even temporarily tarried. November 9, 1712, Father Marest, a Jesuit at the mission of the Immaculate Conception, called Kaskaskia, wrote to Father Germon, of the same company: "The French having lately established a fort on the river Wabash, demanded a missionary, and Father Mermet was sent to them."* that end. Thoroughly familiar with Indian character, he sought a discussion with their chief medicine man in the presence of the whole tribe, that he might confound him in the meshes of logic and win his dupes from idolatry to the true faith.

The Indian priest or medicine man worshiped the Manitou of the buffalo, which he asserted was the master of health, and the great healer of disease. After leading him on insensibly to the avowal that it was not the buffalo, but the Manitou or spirit of the buffalo (which was under the earth, and animated all the buffaloes) he worshiped, the Father asked, if other beasts, the bear for instance, worshiped by some of his nation, were not equally inhabited by a Manitou, which was under the earth? "Without doubt," said the Indian. " If this is so," the missionary rejoined, "men ought to have a Manitou within them." "Nothing more certain," said the grand medecine. " Ought not that to convince you," replied the priest, "that you are not very reasonable? For if man upon the earth is master of all animals, if he kills them, and eats them, does it not follow that the Manitou which inhabits him must necessarily have a mastery over all the other Manitous? Why then do you not invoke him instead of the Manitou of the bear and buffalo?" "This reasoning," says the Father "disconcerted the charlatan, but," he adds, " this was all the effect it had."

A severe malady broke out in the Indian village during the Father's sojourn, and the followers of the great medicine sought by costly sacrifices and din of prayers to drive away the plague. Assembling in front of the fort they sacrificed thirty dogs, one for each day the pest had lasted, and with the bodies of their slain pets hoisted upon poles, paraded the boundaries of the afflicted village, dismally lamenting their misery. As the malady continued they at last appealed to the Frenchman to implore his God to interpose. Mermet prayed and ceased not his intercessions, and entered their stricken homes and nursed their sick for many weeks; but in that epidemic, more than half of the good Father's flock of rescued heathens died. The baptized victims of that terrible visitation, laid away by the hands of this loving priest, are sleeping in the old cemetery of St. Francis Xavier.

The First Church At Vincennes

Upon the square of ground to the southeast and separated from the fort by a narrow street, afterward designated as Kue Calvary, Father Mermet erected a church. In this rude building, without other floor than the earth, lighted by an opening in the roof, warmed by fires built after the manner of the camp in the central aisle, adorned with a rude print of St. Francis, the mystery of the Incarnation was taught, and the comforting sacraments of the church administered first in the present great State of Indiana. How long Father Mermet remained in charge of the church he had here dedicated to St. Francis Xavier cannot be determined, but that he and Marest continued to visit this post as late as 1730, is probable, from the statements in the church records at Kaskaskia. It is probable however, that Mermet returned to Canada with Juchereau, as he officiated at the mission at the Sault Ste. Marie, whither Juchereau repaired in 1719.

The French King'S Policy

The regiment Carignan-Salieres distributed throughout the interior of the colonies trained officers, educated to command and accustomed to administering the affairs of isolated posts. And now when the policy of the king aimed at the union of the possessions on the gulf coast with those upon the St. Lawrence, by a cordon of military establishments, along the waters constituting the route between these two borders, this regiment was called upon to furnish the commandants for these stations. Under this ambitious project, the commerce of all New France (Canada) and New Mexico (Louisiana), was granted to Anthony Crozat, " counseller, secretary of household, crown and revenue " by letters of September 14, 1712. In a few years thereafter Juchereau retired from the Wabash to the lakes, and Pierre Leonardy, as the agent of Crozat, had charge of the fur trade upon the lower Wabash. Upon the death of Louis XIV, in the year 1717, Crozat surrendered his grant to the crown of France.

The Western Company

banker, John Law. A new government was formed; an edict issued to collect and transport settlers into the valley of the Mississippi ; the site for a central town was selected ; M. de Broisbrant was sent to the Illinois, and the settlement at New Orleans began. Over 800 French immigrants were brought into the colonies in the two succeeding years. Beports of the finding of rich mines of silver and gold, and even pearl fisheries, near Kaskaskia were spread abroad, and this tide of immigration from the Old World was largely poured into the interior. In 1719 the Western Company obtained from the crown of France the exclusive right to trade with the East Indies, China, and the South Seas, and assumed, in consequence, the name of la Compagnie des Indies; and having by stories of fabulous riches in mines and fisheries lured large numbers of laborers, peasants and artisans from France, the directors endeavored to create a trade in Louisiana by stimulating agriculture. The agents of the company at each station were supplied with seed, and instructed to offer bounties for the production of rice, tobacco and indigo; and to relieve the settler of the severer toil, negroes were imported and sold on a long credit for sums payable in rice, tobacco and indigo grown in the province. Good, merchantable tobacco, in leaves or rolls, by decree of council September 2, 1721, were to be purchased by the company at the rate of 25 livres (about $5) per 100 pounds. In the same decree the inhabitants are urged not to neglect the manufacture of silk, and to set out mulberry trees upon their plantations that they may increase until the population will justify the manufacture of silk. Merchandise imported from France, it was provided, should be sold "at Illinois at 100 per cent advance on the French invoice price. Wine shall be sold at 125 livres per hogshead; brandy at 120 livres per barrel; and the half casks and quarter casks in proportion." In March, 1724, Louis XV published an exhaustive ordinance for the better government of Louisiana. The Jews were banished; slaves were educated in the apostolic Catholic religion and baptized. All other religious rites than those of the Catholic Church were prohibited. Sundays and holidays were scrupulously observed ; the marriage of blacks with whites was forbidden ; children springing from marriages between slaves were the i of the owner of the mother, and the status of the mother and not of the father determined whether the children were free or slave ; markets were regulated, and a comprehensive slave code was established. On the 10th of April, 1732, the Company of the Indies surrendered their charter, France resumed the government of Louisiana, and its charge was entrusted to the Department of Marine.

Attempt To Destroy The French Fort

In May, 1712, at the instigation of the English interests in New York, a desperate attempt was made to destroy the fort near Detroit. Two villages of the Mascoutins and Outaganires had been established and fortified within pistol shot of the French garrison. The people determined to annihilate the post, and called to aid two large bands to help them. On the 13th of May Francois Morgan DeVinsenne" arrived with seven or eight French. That night a Huron came into the fort, and announced that the Pottawattomie war chief desired to counsel with the French, and would meet them in the old Huron fort. Vincennc went over and was told that 600 men from the villages upon the St. Jerome would soon arrive to help the garrison. Upon Vinsenne"'s return Dubuisson, the commander, at once closed the fort, the chaplain performed divine service, and all was put in readiness for a siege. The next day Dubuisson ascended a bastion and casting his eyes toward the woods saw the army of the nations of the South issuing from it. They were the Illinois, the Missouries, the Osages and other nations yet more remote. * The battle began at once between these allies of the French and their Mascoutin enemies. After four days the Mascoutins surrendered, and all but their women and children were slain. The loss of the allies was sixty Indians killed and wounded and seven French wounded. The enemy lost 1,000.

Promotion Of Vinsenne For Gallantry

For gallant conduct at this siege de Vinsenne was restored to a rank forfeited by a previous disobedience of orders, and promoted to a general command for the king in the Illinois, and sent by M. de Vandriel, the governor of Canada, to Sault Ste. Marie, at which place and Michillimacinac, he remained until 1732, when, under the order of Longueville, "for the king," he repaired to the command of the "Poste des Oubache de Leonardy." Vinsenne at once began the enlargement of the fortifications and the repair ' of the old palisade defenses, extending , the line north to about Main Street of the present city, and along Rue St. Louis (First Street, and Rue Calvary (Bienville) to Rue de Perdupleur (of the Yost) now Barnet Street, and to the river bank, and mounting small cannon transported from Quebec. The settlement at Ouitenon (Lafayette), made in 1720, was now broken up and the inhabitants removed to the post.

Campaign Against The Chickasaws

In 1736 Vinsenno, in obedience to orders from M. D'Artagette, led his command from this post to engage in the war with the Chickasaws. The plan of the campaign required a force under Bienville to operate from the South, in conjunction with the troops under Vinsenne, who was to descend the Mississippi. The troops under Bienville were delayed, and Vinsenne", without waiting for their arrival, commenced hostilities by attacking and destroying some small villages inhabited by the hostile Indians. The Chickasaw warriors soon assembled in considerable numbers and defeated their assailants. About forty Frenchmen and eight of their Indian allies were killed. Vinsenne and four of his comrades, among them being Father Senat, pastor at St. Francis Xavier, were taken prisoners and burnt at the stake. Charlevoix learned afterward from an Indian, who was a prisoner at the time of the torture but afterward escaped, that M. de Vinsenne might have escaped, but preferred to die with his men, "whom he ceased not with his last breath to exhort to behave worthy of their religion and their country." Father Meurin, probably the priest in charge of the church of St. Francis Xavier, succeeding Senat, without a line of explanation which has been preserved, but certainly a beautiful and fit tribute to the heroism of this early martyr, as early as 1747, inscribes his church records "done at Post de Vincennes." And after this almost unknown hero, whose ashes were scattered by the winds that fed the savage fires of torture in an Arkansas forest, this city, so prominent in the destinies of our nation in after years, derived its name.

The Successor Of Vinsenne

Not until after the war broke out between England and France, in 1744, so far as ascertainable, was any successor designated to command at Vincennes. After that event, St. Louis St. Ange Belle Eive, was ordered from Fort Chartres on the Mississippi, eighteen miles from Kaskaskia, to take up the command on the Wabash. This war ended by the treaty of Aix-la- Chapelle in 1748, and made no change in the life and events in the great forests. After the treaty of peace St. Ange enlarged the church and procured at his own expense a bell (still retained in the upper gallery of the present Cathedral), tore away a portion of the old fortifications, and opened two new streets ; one, St. Honore (Second Street), led from the rear of the church to St. Peter's (now Broadway) at the lower line of the Indian village. He began to systematically apportion the lands and grant village lots to inhabitants, and appears to have organized a school. * As a specimen of the character of grants, and the quaint brevity of description, one of February 3, 1760, is here transcribed :f

Government Of St. Ange

The policy of St. Ange led to the collection of several tribes of the Miamis, notably the Piankashaws and Pottawattomies, into villages about Vincennes ; and, as a measure for their better protection, obtained a grant or concession to the French people of a large tract of land at that point. His interest in the welfare of the savages, whom he sought to bring under the civilizing influences of church and state, led to the establishment and promulgation of a code for the government of the villages, which repressed gambling, drunkenness and loitering, and encouraged industry and piety by systems of punishment and rewards. Holidays, or recesses from irksome labor, were provided, and innocent games and amusements introduced to supply the place of seasons fWe, captain cnnim aiding for the king at Post Viocennes, certify that there is conceded to Sieure Aiitniiie Urouci de liichardvillo, a lot tiventy-lhe yards on each lace, horderinj; line Calvary Street, ort the oilier the "Street ol the Lost" (?). Made on the third day of Ke'-ruary, seventeen hundred and si.Uy. St. Ange.

of debauch and contests of vice and cruelty so ingrained into the Indian character. New families - -the Richardvilles, Mellettes, Duboises, Brouillettes, Cardinals -and Bouchies were induced to remove from the settlements about the Isle St. Joseph and take up their abode at Vincennes. Gamelin and La Croix came from Montreal, while Quebec sent out Querrez, Langlois and Racine. The cultivation of the soil and the manufacture of salt at Saline Springs were objects of special solicitude to the commander; and that there might be less excuse for not planting grain, he caused the construction of a mill, after the manner in Holland (a wind-mill) ; and to afford facilities for the condensation of salt, presented the village with suitable kettles, which they were to transport to the springs. As early as 1767 Col. Croghan, a British officer, descending the Ohio from Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) being made a prisoner at the mouth of the Wabash at the hands of a party of Pottawattomies, and brought to Vincennes, in his diary of the journey writes: "June 15th. We set out very early, and about one o'clock came to the Oubache, within six or seven milae of Port Vincent. On my arrival there I found a village of about ninety French families, settled on the east side of this river, being one of the finest situations that can be found. The country is level and clear-, and the soil very rich, producing wheat and tobacco. I think the latter preferable to that of Maryland or Virginia." This writer, however, looked at the inhabitants who had developed this exceptional agriculture through English spectacles, for he continues: "The French inhabitants hereabouts are an idle, lazy people, a parcel of renagades from Canada, and are much worse than the Indians. They took a secret pleasure at our misfortunes, and the moment we arrived they came to the Indians exchanging trifles for their valuable plunder. As the savages took from me a considerable quantity of gold and silver in specie, the French traders extorted 10 half Johannes from them for one pound of vermillion."* The art of tidiness in their homes and the habit of personal cleanliness was often the subject of discourse and lecture by the provident commandant. Count C. F. Volney, at his visit in 1796, remarked the pleasure to the eye the neat

Struggle Between The French And English

Protected by a numerous nation of faithful allies from the incursions of the Iroquois, far south of the path of the deadly Sioux, the French at Vincennes lived a life of peace and contentment. But eastward of the mountains there slowly arose a cloud, destined to pour out its storms of war, to strike, with the lightnings of battle, the beloved ensign of the lilies from above the bastions of Vincennes, where it had so long signified the glory and splendor of La Belle, France, and leave, in its place, the red cross of St. George, as a taunt and reproach. The people of the English colonies regarded their Canadian neighbors with bitterest enmity. Their very name suggested blazing dwellings, children snatched from mothers' arms to be immured in convents and trained up in the abominations of Popery. The English settler in Vermont heard, with a shudder, the evening gun of Fort Frederick, fired by his intruding enemy, and retained the misunderstanding which arose out of the cession of Acadia, under the treaty of Aix la Chapelle.

In the spring of 1753 French troops crossed Lake Erie and threw up fortifications at the point of Presque Isle, sending out parties of occupation to the northern branches of the Ohio. The next spring Capt. Trent, at the head of a company of Virginia backwoodsmen, crossed the mountains and began to build a fort at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny where Pittsburgh now stands, when suddenly they found themselves surrounded by a host of French and Indians, who with sixty batteaux and 300 canoes had descended from Le Bceuf and Venango. The English upon being ordered to evacuate the spot withdrew. Meanwhile Washington, then but a youth, with another party of backwoodsmen, was advancing from the borders; hearing of Trent's disaster he resolved to fortify himself on the Monongahela, and hold his ground until the arrival of succor. The French sent out a party, under M. Jumonville, to watch his movements, but in the darkness of a stormy night, Washington sur- prised them as they lay in a rocky gorge, killed the officer and captured the whole detachment, and then retired to his intrenchments at Great Meadows. Here he was assaulted by 900 French and Indians under the command of the brother of the slain Jumonville. After a day and night of hard fighting, terms were agreed upon, under which Washington crossed the mountains, leaving the disputed territory in the possession of the French.

In 1755 a fleet, sailing from Cork with English troops, under command of the famous Braddock, gained its destination in safety. Not so with a French vessel from Brest, freighted with munitions of war and a body of soldiers under Baron Dieskau, who suddenly found themselves under the guns of an English vessel belonging to the squadron of Admiral Boscawen. "Are we at peace or war?" demanded the French commander. A broadside from the Englishman was the only answer, and the Frenchman struck his colors.

beaddock's defeat. News of these two contests soon found its way into every French village in all New France, and preparations for hostilities upon an extended scale at once began. "Thus."' says Dr. Francis Parkman, "began that memorable war which, kindling among the forests of America, scattered its fires over the kingdoms of Europe and the sultry empire of the Great Mogul; the war made glorious by the heroic death of Wolfe, the victories of Frederic, and the exploits of Clive: the war which controlled the destinies of America, and was first in the chain of events which led on to her Kevolution with all its vast and undeveloped consequences.''' By the 8th of July, 1755, the French had gathered about Fort DuQuesne the hordes of the forest, from the Wabash under the Turtle, to the Mississippi and the lakes under Pontiac; from beyond the Father of Waters, gathered Miamies, Hurons, Ottawas, Objibwas. Delawares and Caughnawagas, interspersed with Frenchmen, from every fort from Chartres to Detroit. In the forests lay the armies of England, commanded by Braddock; with Gage, "who. twenty years later, saw his routed battalions recoil in disorder from before the breastwork on Bunker Hill:" with Gates, the future conqueror of Burgoyne; with one destined to a higher fame - George Washington. An ambush planned by Beaujeu, a captain in the garrison, commanded by Countrecouer, demolished the English army and made Braddock's field England's humiliation. But this victory of the French was never again repeated in America. Disaster attended their arms until, upon the plains of Abraham, all Canada capitulated to British power. The treaty of Paris of 1763 ended the French dominion in Canada. The consummation of this bitter fate for the western posts, by actual occupancy, was committed to Maj. Robert Rogers, a native of New Hampshire, who commanded the Provincial Rangers.

English Government Of Vincennes

From some cause this formality was delayed at Vincennes until 1766, when Lieut. Ramsey, of the Forty-second Regiment of British troops, displaced the banners of France from above the old fort, and into the hands of St. Marie Racine, for the people, were committed the " white lilies," which had so long signalized their home and their country. Under this new commander the life of the villager underwent but little change. The fort was repaired, greatly strengthened, and soon renamed Sackville. But trade, gossip, and long jaunts, even journeys to New Orleans, 1,500 miles away, to talk with friends, being not uncommon, went on as usual.

The Pontiac Conspiracy

The Indian allies, who had tasted victory with the French at Braddock's defeat, and shared the disaster at Quebec, encouraged by the overthrown French, developed a great leader in Pontiac, who sought by a secret blow, struck in concert at Vincennes, Fort Wayne, Detroit, and other points, to destroy the English settlements in the West. Foiled by treachery this great organizer, undaunted, set out from Vincennes to rally the Indians of Illinois and Missouri to his standard for another attack upon the English. Alone, at night, in the great woods of the Mississippi bottoms, as he bent over his camp fire, he was assassinated by an Indian who had prowled upon his trace for days, at the instigation of British gold.

British Indian Policies

English power now began to make alliances with the Indian nations, and especially with the mighty tribes lying about Superior and northern Michigan. Belts of wampum and medals with the sovereign's likeness accompanied by speeches of amity and friendship, were scattered froni the Ohio to the head-waters of the Mississippi, and soon produced councils, treaties and compacts without number. Trade was not suffered to decline, and reversing the policy of the French, who sought to interdict the brandy trade, the English silenced all qualms of conscience by contemplating the immense gains it afforded, and abolished all restrictions upon its sale. Soon, about each English fort, waa gathered the scum of the savage population, to be near the " firewater," and ready to earn byany act (no matter how revolting) of treachery and cruelty, a sip from the white man's brandy flask. This opening of trade without restrictions brought hither a flock of traffickers - many like M. Graeter, Francis Vigo and M. Chatteau, honorable and enterprising merchants, but too many were unscrupulous, and void of all sense of restraint. By the year 1772 the central authorities began to look after his majesty's subjects in the West, and upon the 22d clay of April, 1772, Thomas Gage, styling himself " lieutenant-general of the king's armies, colonel of the Twenty-second Regiment, general commanding in chief all of his majesty's forces in North America," from his official residence in New York, addressed a proclamation to the inhabitants of the West. The proclamation begins by reciting "that many persons, contrary to the positive orders of the king, have undertaken to make settlements beyond the boundaries fixed by the treaties made with the Indian nations; and a great number of persons on the river Oubache, are leading a wandering life without government and without laws. Present orders are given," then concludes this document, "to all those who have established themselves on the Oubache, whether at St. Vincent or elsewhere, to quit those countries instantly and without delay, and to retire, at their choice, into some one of his majesty's colonies." This proclamation arrived at Vincennes on the 1st of September following, and having been rendered into the French language, was read in the church by the priest Pieri-e

Gibbeault. On the 14th of the same month St. Marie and fourteen other citizens, in behalf of the French inhabitants of Vincennes, dispatched their reply. They therein " deny that we are leading a wandering life, without law and without government. Our settlement is of seventy years standing, and we hold titles to our lands by grants from his Christian majesty, the king of France." This letter from the French people was laid before Gen. Gage in April, 1773, who proceeded to answer it by expressing surprise at the claims it asserted, which he would "cause to be transported to the feet of his majesty. In the meantime," he adds, "I have to demand, without delay, the name of every inhabitant at Vincennes and its neighborhood, and by what title each one claims." But before this census could be taken, before the "numbering of the people " demanded could be accomplished, the Stamp Act and the tax on tea had made stirring times for "the king's officers and troops," far from the pleasant homes and peaceful haunts of the ancient French settlers upon the Wabash.