250 Years Ago* ... November 3, 1763, Laclede Arrives in Ste. Genevieve

On November 3, 1763 Pierre Laclede and young Auguste Chouteau arrived at the village of Ste. Genevieve, on the west bank of the Mississippi River in what is now Missouri.  They had been on the river since the beginning of August, traveling slowly upstream from New Orleans with the royal convoy bound with supplies for Fort de Chartres.

Ste. Genevieve was the most northern French settlement on the west bank of the Mississippi, or at least the most northern settlement downriver from the confluence with the Missouri River.  Although the town of Ste. Genevieve still remains, the original settlement was a victim of Mississippi River flooding. By the 1790's, the residents had moved the entire town back from the river to where it exists today.

According to Gregory M. Franzwa, in his Ste. Genevieve: An Account of an Old French Town in Upper Louisiana; its People and their Homes, Ste. Genevieve was located where it was because of its easy access to the river (there were higher cliffs along the river north of Ste. Genevieve) and the route to the lead mines located northwest of the village.

In the early 1700's, the Royal Company of the Indies appointed a man named Philippe Francois Renault to explore and exploit the mineral resources of Louisiana.  The Company of course hoped he would locate gold and silver mines to rival those in Mexico.  Renault found no gold and silver, but he did find some of the best lead mines on the continent. As part of his arrangement with the company, Renault was granted a concession of land just north of Fort de Chartres and there he founded what became known as the village of St. Philippe.  According to Franzwa, Renault opened Mine La Motte on the Missouri side of the river and by 1725 was producing 1,500 pounds of lead per day.

Renault may be indirectly responsible for the founding of Ste. Genevieve on the west bank.  Sometimes the date given for the founding of Ste. Genevieve is the early 1730's but other times the official founding date is given as occurring after 1750.  Some historians, however, believe that there were people living on the site of the original village soon after Renault arrived, for the simple reason that workers would not want to cross the wide Mississippi every night to go home. But whether these, probably, itinerant workers constituted a village is open for debate.  Without a doubt, Ste. Genevieve was permanent French settlement by the 1750's.

Carl J. Ekburg, in French Roots in the Illinois Country, states that Ste. Genevieve, as a permanent agricultural community, first appears on the 1752 census of the Illinois Country (the French did not do a census every year or even every 10 years and they were not always accurate).   This census reflected eight permanent households with a total population of 23 (free and slave).

Presumably the early itinerant mine workers were superceded by permanent French Canadian families.  Ekburg, in his Francois Valle and his World, says:

Most of the residents of the Old Town [Ste. Genevieve] were a closely knit group of French Canadian habitants, or children of such habitants, who migrated from the east to the west bank of the Mississippi in pursuit of agricultural land. Multiple ties of blood, friendship and shared experiences bound these colonists together. 

By the time Laclede landed in 1763 the population would have grown. In fact, the 1760's saw an influx of French settlers relocating from what was now British Illinois to what they thought was French Illinois.  In 1765 a British captain reported Ste. Genevieve contained 50 families. By 1770 the British were reporting that Ste. Genevieve had 170 families.  French families clearly were not comfortable staying in British dominated lands, but in 1763 the only option for French families who did not want to live under Protestant British rule was to move across the river to Ste. Genevieve or head downriver to Arkansas Post or New Orleans.

In any event,  when Pierre Laclede stepped ashore in 1763, Ste. Genevieve was an established community.  Ekburg speculates that the original Ste. Genevieve was a "string town", a village laid out along one street, La Grand Rue, that would have run north/south more or less parallel with the river.  At the southern end of the village was La Petite Riviere, a stream that ran into the Mississippi.  It was here that the ferry across to Kaskaskia was located.  Secondary streets would have crossed La Grand Rue and homes, situated on lots of one square arpent, were laid out along La Grand Rue and the secondary streets.

Ekburg claims that the original town was a planned community, although no plan exists to tell us what it looks like.  Land grants made by the commandant at Fort de Chartres were not haphazard but were in accordance with a plan made by the royal surveyor, Francois Saucier. Saucier had arrived in the Illinois Country to design the new (and last) stone fort for Fort de Chartres.

Outside the village was a 7,000 acre agricultural area known as La Grand Champ, which was divided into strips of land that were owned by the villagers.   The whole area was enclosed by a large fence to keep animals out of the field.   After the harvest, the gates would be opened so that livestock could graze. As was typical throughout French North America, the French lived in their villages and traveled out to work their fields.

Although Ste. Genevieve was in French Illinois, it was directly across the river from the towns that would now be under the rule of the new British masters. This could not have been a comfortable feeling.  The French thought of the Mississippi River exactly as  we think of it today - a river located in one unified country, to be freely traversed without harassment from either bank other than from, sometimes, Indians.   As soon as the British arrived on the east bank, the river would turn into an international boundary.

The first thing that Laclede would have noticed about Ste. Genevieve when he arrived was that it was not a military establishment.  The same week that Laclede arrived in Ste. Genevieve, the French governor of Louisiana wrote to his predecessor that he intended to order the commandant at Fort de Chartres to carry off everything from the Fort when it was handed over to the British and deposit the artillery either in New Orleans or at the French post in Arkansas because "in Ste. Genevieve the  English would carry them off on their own perogative."

Governor D'Abbadie also remarked, in that November 6, 1763, letter that "the English officer assigned to command at the Illinois appears to me to be an alarming and seemingly completely dogmatic man" and D'Abbadie suggested that it would be best to warn the French commander in Fort de Chartres of this fact in advance.  Certainly this would not have made the French in the Illinois Country feel any better about the coming transfer of power.

Laclede had arrived in the Illinois Country, but his stay in Ste. Genevieve would be short lived.  Ste. Genevieve was not fortified and there was no secure location to store all of his trade goods.  Fortunately Commander de Noyes at Fort de Chartres (the brother-in-law of ex governor Kerlerec) was on the lookout for Laclede and Chouteau.  According to Auguste Chouteau's later memoir, Commander de Noyes sent a soldier over to Ste. Genevieve to tell Laclede that he was willing to assist Laclede and store his goods in the fort.  Since Fort de Chartres was another 18 miles upriver from Ste. Genevieve it is possible that Laclede and his party spent the night in Ste. Genevieve, but that is just speculation.

According to J. Frederick Fausz in his Founding of St. Louis,former Governor Kerlerec had sent an overland messenger to his brother-in-law, Commander de Noyes,  that had arrived at the Fort on October 25, 1763.  So de Noyes undoubtedly knew that Laclede, the partner of the richest merchant in New Orleans, was on his way.  According to Fausz, Governor D'Abbadie had "loaned" Laclede 300 pounds of the King's gunpowder.  The safest place to store gunpowder would be in the magazine at Fort de Chartres. (Clink this link for a view of the restored magazine building at Fort de Chartres, thought to be the oldest building in Illinois.)  Fausz sees this as evidence that Maxent & Laclede had the backing of the French colonial government in their endeavor to establish a trading post at the Missouri/Mississippi confluence.

Fausz thinks it is clear that the French colonial powers realized that there was going to be an exodus from the eastern bank of the river.  The day before Laclede arrived in Ste. Genevieve, de Noyes had treated with a group of Indians who were requesting French assistance against the British, including a request for gunpowder.  De Noyes had to deny the request because, as far as the French were concerned, the war was over.  He urged the Indians to cease waging war on the British and "retreat under French wings to the other side of the Mississippi River."  The following year, many French would "retreat" to the west side of the Mississippi to the new trading settlement that Laclede would found near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.

Although Laclede's visit to Ste. Genevieve was short, it was important.  It marked his official arrival in the Illinois Country.   By the 1780's the people of Ste. Genevieve were beginning to move to higher ground where the flooding of the Mississippi River could not reach them.  Today Ste. Genevieve remains one of the oldest existing communities west of the Mississippi River and it has the largest concentration of French Colonial Buildings in the country.  In 2008 it was selected by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as one its "Dozen Distinctive Destinations" and some of the old homes are open to the public including The Bolduc House.  Although built in the 1790's, it gives some idea of the type of homes that Pierre Laclede would have encountered in Ste. Genevieve and in the Village of Nouvelle Chartres during his stay there. If you are ever in the area, I strongly encourage a visit.

In 2008 Sainte Genevieve was selected as one of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s “Dozen Distinctive Destinations.” - See more at: http://www.greatriverroad.com/SteGenHome.htm#sthash.V6wqJmne.dpuf

Ste. Genevieve holds the distinction of the having the largest concentration of French Colonial buildings in the country. In 2008 Sainte Genevieve was selected as one of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s “Dozen Distinctive Destinations.” Each year the National Trust for Historic Preservation selects 12 cities that offer an authentic visitor experience by combining dynamic downtowns, attractive architecture, cultural landscapes and a commitment to historic revitalization. Sainte Genevieve’s strength was its preservation, with more than 150 pre-1825 structures. Three of these buildings - the Amoureux, the Bolduc, and the Guibourd-Valle houses - are open to the public. The Felix Valle Home is open to the public and demonstrates the effect of the American influence. - See more at: http://www.greatriverroad.com/SteGenHome.htm#sthash.V6wqJmne.dpuf

Ste. Genevieve holds the distinction of the having the largest concentration of French Colonial buildings in the country. In 2008 Sainte Genevieve was selected as one of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s “Dozen Distinctive Destinations.” Each year the National Trust for Historic Preservation selects 12 cities that offer an authentic visitor experience by combining dynamic downtowns, attractive architecture, cultural landscapes and a commitment to historic revitalization. Sainte Genevieve’s strength was its preservation, with more than 150 pre-1825 structures. Three of these buildings - the Amoureux, the Bolduc, and the Guibourd-Valle houses - are open to the public. The Felix Valle Home is open to the public and demonstrates the effect of the American influence. - See more at: http://www.greatriverroad.com/SteGenHome.htm#sthash.V6wqJmne.dpuf

*Part of my continuing blog series leading up to the 250^th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis in February 2014.

250 Years Ago ... Meanwhile, somewhere along the Mississippi River

When we last left our story about the founding of St. Louis, Governor D'Abbadie of Louisiana had confirmed the trading license for Maxent and Laclede's company granting them the exclusive right to establish a trading post at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and to trade with the Indians in the area.  At that time Maxent must have already been putting together the merchandise that would be taken upriver to be used as presents for the Indian tribes and for trade. Laclede, as the partner who would be "on the ground",  must have already been making final arrangements for the journey.  Laclede would take with him 14 year old Auguste Chouteau, the son of Laclede's life partner Marie Therese Bourgeois. There is a myth that Laclede also took colonists with him, but this was a merchant trading trip.  The colonists would arrive later.

A good account of the journey may be found in Frederick Fausz' book Founding St. Louis, First City of the New West. On August 10, 1763 (which Fausz assures us was a Wednesday) Laclede left a power of attorney with Judge Nicolas Forstall of New Orleans so that his affairs in New Orleans could be handled in his absence. He and Chouteau were to leave with the royal convoy that carried provisions upriver to Fort de Chartres.  Despite the surrender of the French and the subsequent treaties, the Fort was still under the control of the French military as no British troops had yet arrived in the Illinois to take possession of it.

According to histories, five bateaux left New Orleans in the royal convoy in the "first days of August" that year.  A bateaux was a shallow draft boat which could carry up to 40 tons of merchandise.  Fausz writes:

The typical crew of each "king's boat" consisted of a patrone (experienced skipper), a "royal slave" as an expert pilot and at least twenty well-armed marines, who rowed and defended the convoy. 

According to Fausz, the merchandise that Maxent & Laclede were sending upriver was valued at nine thousand livres which "was enough to provide lavish presents for twenty Indian nations."

Presents for the Indian nations were essential.  Indians only traded with allies and anyone who wasn't an ally was an enemy.  Enemies could be robbed and even killed.  Friends presented each other with presents as symbols of their goodwill.  Being on the good side of the Indians was essential for trade and also for safety.  Reports of the attacks on the British in Detroit and throughout the Illinois country in May of 1763 by Pontiac and the formerly French allied tribes reached New Orleans just before the royal convoy was scheduled to depart. Neyon de Villiers, the commandant at Fort de Chartres, reported that Pontiac and his warriors had captured seven British forts, beseiged Detroit and seized "a hundred thousand pounds" of English merchandise including ammunition. Villiers urged the Governor to maintain a full complement of troops at Fort de Chartres until the British could arrive to take control.  But the French evacuation of Louisiana was underway and would not be stopped.

Laclede and Chouteau were bound for Ste. Genevieve, the French settlement almost directly across the river from Kaskaskia and just downstream from Fort de Chartres.  Ste. Genevieve was primarily an agricultural community which also housed some French who worked the lead mines on the western side of the Mississippi.  Ste. Genevieve was the only port on the Mississippi, above the Ohio River, that the French still legally controlled (although, of course, the King had already secretly ceded the land to Spain). Laclede planned to winter in Ste. Genevieve while he selected a site further north for his trading post.

By the end of October of 1763, the royal convoy was still on its way upriver but getting near Ste. Genevieve. Laclede's journey to Ste. Genevieve took 85 days, which wasn't particularly long in the days before steam powered vessels had been invented.  The convoy would have made only about one mile per hour, operating under human power.  The boatmen had to row or pole their way against the current.   A large portion of the trip involved cordelling, a process by which ropes would be tied to trees along the shore slightly upriver from the location of the bateaux and the men would pull the boats along.  This sometimes involved zigzagging back and forth across the Mississippi.  And always they were laboring against the strong current of the Mississippi River.


The bateaux itself would have little shelter from the elements (whether hot sun or rain) - only a tent. Anyone who has lived through the heat of August along the Mississippi (not to mention the mosquitos) can imagine how hellish the trip must have been. But travel in late summer was preferable to travel during the winter when ice flowed down the Mississippi, or travel during the spring floods.  And throughout the trip the men in the convoy would be under constant pressure to keep watch against attacks from Indians allied with the English.

There is no record that this royal convoy was attacked by Indians. But perhaps the attention of the English-allied Indians was directed east during this period.   

In September, a month or so after the convoy left New Orleans, a British infantry captain arrived in New Orleans to begin the process of the handover of the land east of the river, beginning with Mobile.  On October 16, former Governor Kerlerec would report:  "The English have at last taken possession of Florida, where I think the Indians will give them some work." Also in October Kerlerec reported that the British were planning the process of taking possession of Fort de Chartres via the long trip up the Mississippi:

The English are intending to go and take possession of the Illinois and dependencies by way of the river, and according to the conferences that I have had on this subject with the captain of infantry whom Major Farmar has dispatched to me, it has been arranged that the latter will deliberate about this operation at Mobile with M. D'Abbadie and that they will be able to have the English convoy depart toward the first days of January.  They will be at the Illinois about the 20th of March, and our troops will return here at the end of April.

Laclede and Choteau were unaware of this as they continued their long journey upstream.  By this time in October they would probably have been somewhere near or above the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi.  They knew that Ste. Genevieve was not much further upstream.  I imagine they were dreaming of the day that the journey would be complete. But the leg of the journey between the Ohio River and the Kaskaskia River contained, in Fausz' words, the greatest navigational challenges, partly because quicksand lined the river's edges.  Often bateaux would make only one mile in two hours. Once they reached the mouth of the Kaskaskia River, it would only be 15 miles to Ste. Genevieve. The end was near.

*Part of my continuing blog series leading up to the 250^th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis in February 2014.

September Reading

September's reading was quite enjoyable even if not particularly difficult.  Lots of my favorite mystery writers had newish books that I discovered were out and that's what I mostly read.  Genre fiction?  Comfort fiction?  Commercial fiction?   Whatever.  Totally enjoyable. 

1.  A Question of Honor by Charles Todd.   The mother/son writing duo called Charles Todd has two series that occupy the same universe.  I prefer the series about Inspector Rutledge over the series about Bess Crawford.  This is a Bess Crawford novel and so far I think it's the best in that series.  I'm not sure exactly why I liked it better, but maybe because it seemed clear that Todd is moving WWI toward its conclusion as soon as possible, possibly since it is difficult to have his main character investigate mysteries amidst her duties as a battlefield nurse. 
2.  How the Light Gets In  by Louise Penny.  Another book in her Inspector Gamache series, we return to the little village of Three Pines, south of Montreal.  Gamache is asked to investigate why a friend of one of the residents did not turn up as expected.  Penny has moved away from simple mysteries into the psychology of her characters which makes it much more interesting. 
3. The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde.   This is the second in Fforde's YA series featuring orphan Jennifer Strange.   Not quite as good as the first novel but still fun. 
4. Island of Bones and Circle of Shadows by Imogen Robertson.   I realized that not only was there a newish Crowther and Westerman novel but I had missed the last one.   This series is set in the years during and after the American War for Independence.   I really like the relationship between Mrs. Westerman and Mr. Crowther and am glad that so far it has remained a working partnership and not a romance.  Highly recommended. 
5. Shadow of the Crown by Patricia Bracewell.  I was interested in reading about Emma of Normandy.  She featured as a major, but offstage, character in Dorothy Dunnet's King Hereafter.   I was slightly disappointed to find that this novel tended toward the historical romance than historical fiction.  I haven't read historical romance in quite a while and this was a good one - I just am not that interested in forcing historical facts to fit the romance genre.  But I enjoyed it despite that disappointment.  Recommended with some reservations. 
6. The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to his White Mother by James McBride.  An unusual memoir by a man about his mother.  Recommended. 

In October I plan on starting my "50th anniversary of World War I" reading.   A number of historians are beginning to release books, beginning with Catastrophe: 1914 by Max Hastings.  And I'm looking forward to the end of the month, when Margaret MacMillan's new book will be released in the USA. 

August Reading

August was a great month for reading.  At the beginning of the month I was on vacation and had lots of time to read.  Then through the rest of the month I had a pile of good books that I wanted to get through - and there wasn't much on TV to distract me.   I probably should have blogged separately about some of the books but ... I didn't.  Here is the list:

1. The Dinner by Herman Koch.  Two (Dutch) brothers and their wives have dinner together in a restaurant and talk about what to do about their sons, who have committed a terrible act.    This reminded me of a cross between Louis Malle's film My Dinner with Andre and Yasmina Reza's play God of Carnage.  I truly enjoyed this novel and the way that Koch played with my perceptions of the characters.  Highly Recommended.
2. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan.   I am a huge Ian McEwan fan, although I know that others aren't.  It can't possibly be a spoiler to say that he, as usual, has a twist at the ending of this novel that is fairly meta and many people may not like it.  I did.  Prior to reading this novel I had taken to saying that I miss the Cold War.  It's an odd  thing to say, I know.  But I was born in 1960 and by the time I was in school the Cuban Missile Crisis was over and the world pretty much knew that if we blew ourselves up it would be by accident.  We had no "duck and cover" drills.  But we did have lots of government funding for literature and dance and art and "the arts" so that we could show those Damn Commies that capitalistic societies could have high culture too.  Some of that funding was up font and some of it was under behind the scenes through the CIA budget.  Now that we've won, no one wants to fund anything.  In this novel, at the end of the Cold War, British intelligence is funding writers.  Sigh.  Recommended.
3. Solar by Ian McEwan.   A global warming themed novel where the "work for hire" doctrine of intellectual property ends up being a plot point (ok, my non-lawyer readers won't appreciate that, but I did).  Parts of it were very funny, in part because the main character is somewhat atrocious.  Not as good as Sweet Tooth.  Recommended. 
4. The Mourning Hours by Paula Treick DeBoard.  A woman returns to Wisconsin for her father's funeral many years after her brother was accused of killing his girl friend.  Lots of flashbacks.  Somewhat predictable.   I can totally see this being made into a movie.  There isn't a lot of "there" there, but it kept me reading.  Good Beach Reading.
5. The Bell Jar by Silvia Plath.   I'm not sure how I made it this far in life without ever reading this novel.  I'm glad I read it.  Her portrayal of a young woman's descent into deep depression is searing while at the same time having many humorous moments - life is ludicrous sometimes.  Recommended.
6. The Flame Throwers by Rachel Kushner.   A young woman artist who also rides motorcycles is involved with an older Italian artist from a wealthy family.  I thought this was a powerful novel and I was particularly intrigued by how the main character was an independent interesting thinker who seldom said anything interesting out loud.  I think this is often true of young women, and the question is whether they ever reach a point where they become comfortable enough in their own skin that they can truly be themselves.   I like how Kushner captured the 1970's.  The world changed for women in the 1960's but it didn't change for every woman overnight.  Between this novel and Meg Wollitzer's The Interestings, this has been a summer of remembering the 1970's for me.  Highly Recommended.
7. Murder Below Mount Parnasse by Cara Black.   There was a new Amy LeDuc novel this year and no one told me?  Amy's adventures continue as she gets involved in trying to recover a stolen painting.  I really like this series.   As usual, mysteries are the genre writing that I escape to when I can't read anything else.  I recommend this one but you should really start with the first in the series. 
8. Blood and Beauty by Sarah Dunant.   Last month I read Malice of Fortune, a mystery that featured Niccolo Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci.  But the other main characters were Rodrigo Borgia and his son Cesar.  I wasn't sure I wanted to read another Borgia book so soon, but I generally enjoy Sarah Dunant and, hey, I was on a reading roll.  She didn't disappoint.  Her Borgias are much better fleshed out.  I always like how Dunant makes me feel that I'm really in whatever time period she is describing.  My only complaint (which seems to happen with every Dunant novel for me) is that she spends a little too much time "telling" me things about the characters and plot rather than showing me.  But Recommended.  And there will be a sequel.
9. The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman.  I had a somewhat contentious relationship with this novel.  On the one hand, I spent most of the novel thinking "YES!  That's exactly how a large number of men think about women!"  On the other hand, I kept thinking "Is this REALLY how men  think about women, or if this is just how intelligent women like me and Waldman think men think about women?"  I'd like to hear a group of men discuss this novel.  If you are a single woman thinking about dating, be warned that this may make you give up.  Highly Recommended.
10. Crocodile on the Sand Bank by Elizabeth Peters. When Barbara Mertz, who wrote some of her novels under the name Elizabeth Peters, died recently, I realized that I had never read any of her mysteries.  I decided to start with the first in the Amelia Peabody series.  I've always loved ancient Egypt and, when I was younger, wanted to be an archaelogist.   I was somewhat disappointed, I found the novel rough going.  Too little archaeology in this first one - which was a shame because they were at Amarna!  I'm reading the second one in the hope that now that the characters are established, things will move a little faster.   Meh. 

That's it for August.  I've made a big dent in my "to be read" pile.  And I'm back to having less time to read than I would like.  

Summer Reading - June and July

I know that I seem to have dropped off the face of the earth. The bad news is that I haven't found time to blog but the good news is that I have found time to read this summer. I didn't blog about my June reading so I'm going to combine June and July. A number of books I read I thought were somewhat mediocre so I'm not going to say much about them.

1.  Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. I had this novel for a while but couldn't bring myself to read it because it was about a guy who had been in Iraq. I just wasn't in the mood for war But I ended up loving this. Billy Lynn is one of a group of soldiers caught in a firefight in Iraq that ends up being caught on video and making "heroes' of them. They are brought home for a quick "hero" tour and that includes attending and being part of the half-time show on the Thanksgiving Day Dallas Cowboys football game. Billy tries to make sense of why everyone wants a piece of him during this long day. Fountain captures just the right tone for this novel. Highly Recommended.

2.  Three mysteries by Eliot Pattinson:  Bone Rattler, Eye of the Raven and Original Death.   I was attracted to this series because it is set in upstate New York during the French and Indian War.  Not many books (much less mysteries) are set during that time period.  In general I liked these books and I will read the next one when it comes out.  But I was sometimes irritated by how the Iroquois were always noble in these stories.  I also found the plot of the third book ludicrous - I realize that Brits in the 1700's were tremendously anti-Catholic and so a character expounding about a plot by the Jesuits in the Vatican to defeat the British wasn't completely outside the bounds of possibility.  But [spoiler] - it is ludicrous that the author decided to make it the real plot and not just the delusion of a character.  Recommended with reservations.

3.  A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin.    All I can say is that Martin needs an editor who will stand up to him.  This is one of those series where I am enjoying the TV show more than the books.   Meh

4.  The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde.  This is the first book in a young adult series by Fforde.  I decided to read it while I waited for the sequel to Shades of Grey to (finally) come out (will it EVER come out)?   I have actually gotten tired of Fforde's Thursday Next series so it was nice to read one of his books and really enjoy it.  I will read more.  Recommended.

5.  Murphy's Law by Rhys Bowen.  This is the first in a series of mysteries set in early 20th century New York.  The main character is an Irish immigrant and this book spends some time in Ireland, England and on shipboard as she makes her way to America.  Once here she encounters Tammany Hall and many of the immigrants that populated New York at the time.  I feel like this has some possibilities as a mystery series even though I wasn't particularly interested in the plot of this particular book.  Rhys Bowen does a pretty good job of creating the historical world in which the story is set and that makes up for the weak plot.  Somewhat recommended.

6.  Bride of New France by Suzanne DesRochers.   This author turned an academic paper into a novel.  It would have been more interesting as an academic paper.  Meh.

7.  Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.   This is the first novel I've read by Neil Gaiman and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was funny.  I'm not sure why I didn't expect that, but I didn't.  Recommended

8.  Malice of Fortune by Michael Ennis.  Machiavelli as detective and Leonardo da Vinci as the forensic expert - sounded great in theory.  In practice it was booooring.  Meh. 

9.  The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussan.   I nice little book where old ladies remember when they were young and how they ended up how they ended up.  I can't really recommend it but there was nothing particularly wrong with it.  Meh.

That's it so far for the summer, but my August reading stack of books is looking pretty good.  I've finished a couple so far but I'll blog about them at the end of the month.

250 Years Ago ... July 6, 1763

On June 29, 2013, Jean-Jacques Blaise D'Abbadie, the new French Director-General of the colony of Louisiana arrived in New Orleans, replacing Governor Kerlerec.  D'Abbadie's main responsibility was to see to the orderly transition to Britain of the land east of the Mississippi.   Kerlerec himself did not leave until October, providing for an orderly transition.

One week later, on July 6, 1643, D'Abbadie confirmed the trade license and monopoly granted to Maxent, Laclede & Co.  D'Abbadie was originally from Bearn, only fifty miles from where Laclede was from.  He was acquainted with the Laclede family.  That connection could only be beneficial to Maxent & Laclede's venture.

But when the license was signed, Laclede was due to leave with the annual royal convoy traveling up the Mississippi one month later.  Since one month was not nearly enough time to put together the trade goods necessary for such a venture, historians believe that the venture had received the blessing of Kerlerec long before this date.

"Only Kerlerec possessed the power, patronage, and perceptive vision to sponsor Maxent's enterprise, and he had to have issued the trade license in 1762 to give the new company the time to Indian trade goods from the merchant houses of Le Leu in New Rochelle.  The sailing time from that French port to to New Orleans ranged from fourteen to twenty-one weeks, so Maxent and Laclede needed as much advanced notice as possible in order to outfit an expedition to the Illinois country by early August 1763, when the regularly scheduled royal convoy had to depart due to river conditions. "  Founding St. Louis:  First City of the New West by Frederick Fausz.

*Part of my continuing blog series leading up to the 250^th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis in February 2014.

250 Years Ago -- Pontiac Was not a Car

By the early 1760's the British occupied the French posts at Green Bay, Mackinac, St. Joseph (Niles Michichigan), Ouiatenon, Detroit, Fort Miami, Sandusky and Niagara. But an occupation is not a permanent situation and in all previous wars control of the land had, for the most part, reverted to the powers that originally held the land.  So, at first the occupation was peaceful. 

"Except in Illinois country, the British occupied the old French posts without Algonquian resistance.  And despite the belts urging rebellion, most of Onontio's children apparently expected the British to act, if not as fathers, then as brothers. They did not anticipate conquerors ... British policy in 1762, however, dashed Algonquian hopes for accommodation on the middle ground.  Crop failures, epidemics, and famine, particularly severe along the Ohio River and in the Wabash country, swept the [midwest], and the Algonquians begged for assistance from their British brothers. Events had now put both their lives and their conceptions of the British at risk, and the British by and large failed them. The local commanders either lacked the capacity to give aid or gave it grudgingly. " White, The Middle Ground, pp. 274-275.

In 1763 reports that France was officially ceding Canada to Britain reached Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) and began to spread to the western posts.  The French inhabitants and the resident Indians were astonished and could not believe it.  The divide of the continent between the French and the British was so long standing it was probably hard to imagine the French authority leaving out.  British commanders began to receive reports from the Illinois that, although French troops were reconciled to the cession to Britain, the French traders were not and were urging the Indians to kill the British.  There appears to be no evidence the French were officially assisting the Indians in a rebellion, but the Indians certainly seemed to expect that French aid would be coming.  This may have been due to empty promises made by French traders and habitants who, themselves, couldn't imagine the continent becoming solely British.

The British had an experienced and intelligent expert on Indians and the Indian trade in a man named George Croghan.  Croghan warned the British that their victory was not complete over the Indians, who had not "surrendered".  He reported that the Algonquians were desperate enough to begin a rebellion and their past success against the British gave them confidence that they would prevail.  And, at first, they did prevail.

 In April, 1763 Pontiac called a council of war to plan an attack on the Fort at Detroit.  The British were not acting like Fathers or Brothers.  Pontiac was convinced that the British intended to open up widespread settlement in the Ohio Valley.  The threat of settlement combined with a ban on the sale of gunpowder to the tribes, which harmed their ability to hunt, seemed designed to drive the tribes eventually out of the Ohio Valley.  Attacking and driving out the British interlopers seemed the only solution.

The attack on Detroit failed, but this was only the most famous of the attacks that occurred in the spring of 1763.   All of the British occupied forts were attacked and all of them were taken except for Niagara, Detroit and Fort Pitt.  British reinforcements eventually arrived and the rebellion was quashed.  But Richard White posits the theory that this was a wake up call for the British in which they realized that, outnumbered as they were in the western country and (maybe as importantly) wanting the fur markets for themselves, they needed to work with the Indians and occupy a "middle ground" with them rather than acting like conquerors.  George Croghan said that the British needed to emulate the French when it came to Indians - they were "bred up together" and understood each other.

"There is no need to romanticize this relationship, Indians and French abused and killed each other; they cheated each other as well as supplying each other's wants. But their knowledge of each other's customs, and their ability to live together - what Croghan described as their having been bred up together - had no equivalent among the British." White

Pontiac continued, through 1763 and 1764, to move among the Indian villages of the Wabash country, fomenting resistance there and among the French habitants at Vincennes and in the Illinois country.  By the summer of 1763, France had ordered the officers commanding in the now British territory to evacuate their posts as soon as the British arrived.  The British had not, however,  reached Fort de Chartres, mostly due to resistance from the surrounding Indian tribes. So the people in the Illinois country continued under the administration of the French military officers at Fort de Chartres who were now acting for a foreign power.

*Part of my continuing blog series leading up to the 250^th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis in February 2014.