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.