7th Class: Northwest Ordinance/Slavery

It was important for a young country with a huge amount of land to create an orderly way for the land to be carved up. Therefore, the survey that created the Base Line and Meridian in Indiana (see IV-B-Itownship.JPG as taken from http://www.geo.msu.edu/geo333/Survey.html) were “one of the country’s greatest inventions,” accordion to Rabb Emison, course instructor.

Book recommended: The Northwest Ordinance, 1787: A Bicentennial Handbook (Indiana Historical Society, 1987), edited by Robert M. Taylor Jr.

Northwest Ordiance of 1787:

--Elimination of Primogeniture (property equally divided among heirs, not just oldest son, etc.;
--Religious and civil liberty allowed;
--Writ of habeas corpus (cannot hold a person in jail without cause/charged);
--Free public education provided for;
--Protection of Indian rights in real estate (thought this didn’t happen in reality);
--No less than five states eventually (didn’t happen);
--No slavery (took a while).

Vincennes University, founded 1801 by Harrison, called Jefferson Academy at the time.

William Henry Harrison (pro-slavery) suspended Ordinance to permit slavery; Harrison was responsibility for slavery allowed in Louisiana Purchase.

Slaves were not uncommon in Vincennes; 7th and Main were Slave Quarters (?). Col. Luke Decker was a big dealer in slaves (Deckertown), an honorable profession in those times, perhaps.

6th Class: Notes on Early Vincennes/Migrations/Post Clark Situation

Additional book about Fr. Gibault is recommended by Gus Stevens:

Donnelly, Joseph P. Pierre Gibault, Missionary, 1737-1802. Chicago: Loyola UP, 1971.

Fr. Gibault was a People’s Priest, Gus said, and very well liked. Hamilton thought Gibault was dangerous and “should be hung.” Gibault was instrumental in George Rogers Clark’s wars, and there is a monument to Gibault in Sainte Genevieve, Missouri.

Local personage named General Washington Johnston. He was not a general but named after George Washington; hence “General” was his real name.

Territorial Period of Vincennes

See a book titled Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (Oxford UP, 1991), by David H. Fischer, discussed major British migrations in America.

Migrations were:

Puritans from New England
Southern England: Lower Coast of America/Virginia
Northern England: Chesapeake Bay/Pennsylvania area
Border/Lowland Scots: 1730s, settled in Uplands/Appalachia/Western Virginia, because the good land was taken. Moved into southern Indiana.

1787: New territory opened up and attracted the Scots-Irish. These were working people who sought a chance to own land. Very egalitarian people: independent, self-sufficient. Suspicious of William Henry Harrison and other upper class people. Became Hoosiers.

Book recommended: Emerging Midwest: Upland Southerners and the Political Culture of the Old Northwest, 1787-1861, by Nicole Etcheson (Indiana UP, 1996).

Post George Rogers Clark Events:

1780: French treated as subservient
1780: French aristocrat showed up: Augustin Mottin de la Balm; mobilized French army to march on Detroit. Little Turtle defeated him and some Vincennes French were killed.
1781: Clark had pulled back to Louisville; things were looking bad in Vincennes.
1783: Treaty of Paris; 10 year Indian War after this, in Kentucky. In Vincennes, people were confused.

5th Class: French Period, Early Developments of Vincennes and Area

Here is a good, brief account of the French Period of Vincennes, Indiana: http://rking.vinu.edu/vinbrief.htm

Vincennes was considered part of the Illinois country.

Company of the Indies (France company), 1717, issued stock.

Cahokia: 1699

Kaskaskia: 1703 (Jesuits established)

1730: The Sieur de Vincennes, Francois-Marie Bissot, (Sieur means “Mr.”), born 1700 in Montréal.

1731 or 1732, he built the Vincennes fort.
1733: Sieur wrote a letter about the Fort here.

Natchez were the last remnants of the Mound Builders, joined Chickasaw.

The the Sieur de Vincennes was burned by the Chickasaw Indians, new commander comes to Vincennes: Louis Groston de St. Ange (1736-64). He converted Vincennes from a fur trading post to a farming community. Hence there was stability and the town survived. In 1740 there were 40 French in Vincennes, by 1764 there were 400.

Brought mills to Vincennes: horse mills, allowed the shipping of mean to New Orleans, good tobacco grown here.

1763- French lose the French/Indian War; St. Ange ordered to withdraw.

Below is a sketch I did about what very early Vincennes may have looked like, at least in concept. The first Fort Vincennes was probably located just in front of the George Rogers Clark Memorial.



The last part of the class tonight was devoted to a book talk by Robert "Gus" Stevens, retired archivist at Vincennes University. The following are books pertaining to Vincennes history or otherwise notable writings that Gus recommends.

Bruté de Rémur, Simon William Gabriel, 1779-1839. Early History of Vincennes. Written by the first Bishop of Vincennes, this was originally published in the Western Sun newspaper and covers the French period of Vincennes.

Law, John. The Clonial Hstory of Vincennes, Under the French, British, and American Governments: From its First Settlement Down to the Territorial Administration of General William Henry Harrison. Vincennes: Harvey, Mason & Co., 1858.

Thompson, Maurice. Alice of Old Vincennes. Indianapolis: The Bowen-Merrill Company, 1900. This best-selling novel of its day helped make the world aware of Vincennes.

Cauthorn, Henry Sullivan. A History of the City of Vincennes, Indiana, from 1702-l901. Vincennes: Cauthorn, 1902. Gus says there are two versions of this work; an earlier one was an expose of people, the later one was cleaned up.

Hubbard, Madison Smith. Historical Sketches of Old Vincennes, Founded in 1732: its Institutions and Churches, Embracing Collateral Incidents and Biographical Sketches of Many Persons and Events Connected Yherewith. Vincennes, 1902. This published in part in the Vincennes newspaper. It is a more scholarly work.

O'Flynn, Anna. History of old Post Vincenes, 1702-1830. This is a rare pamphlet (56 pages) published by O'Flynn, who was the best historian of her times of this area. She was an educator and author who wrote for McClure's Magazine.

Somes, Joseph Henry Vanderburgh. Old Vincennes: The History of a Famous Old Town and its Glorious Past. New York: Graphic Books, 1962.

Derleth, August. Vincennes: Portal to the West. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1968.

Day, Richard. Vincennes: A Pictorial History. St. Louis: Bradley, 1988.

Day, Richard, and Bill Hopper. Vincennes. Dover, New Hampshire: Arcadia, 1998. (Postcard history.)

4th Class: Historic Indians, cont.

More notes, pretty fragmented, I'm afraid...

55-60 Miami/Piankeshaw Indians in Vincennes; Multiple times 4=maybe 240 Indians here.

Bad feelings in 1756 due to cheaper goods from England; attempts to trade with English are discouraged.

1819 – McIntosh vs. Johnson: Fed. Ruling that only government can negotiate land purchases from Indians, not private individuals.

Indian Beliefs

Manitou – Spirit power
Gitchi Manitou: “Great Spirit, Master of Life,” possibly a later Christian idea picked up from missionaries.

Dreams were very important.

Spirit world would speak to you via dreams and trances.

When aged 7 or 8, a boy would go on a Dream Quest. Would go into the woods for a week of no sleeping/eating. Personal spirit (totem) would appear to him.

There was no priesthood as such, but rather a view of life told through stories.

Lenipenja: Water Monster Panther
Chingria: Thunderbird

Nattes: Sacred Bundles, deer skin bundles in front of canoes (sacred rock, feather, etc., that had sacred power).

Calumet: means Peace Pipe, very important.

3rd Class: The Prehistory of the Vincennes Area

In going over my notes I experience a not uncommon problem: they are merely notes, jottings, not fleshed out. Most of the Big Picture (French/Indian War, etc.) historical material here is available elsewhere in books and on the web, so I am not too concerned about the lack of depth in this blog. I am more interested in relating what I can about the unpublished/ not-generally-known information about the Vincennes area itself that unfolds in this class. I’ll try to include an occasional web site in this blog if I think anyone would be interested in learning more elsewhere. Such as:

The Glenn A. Black Lab at Indiana University is developing quite a collection of online primary sources in its The Ohio Valley Great Lakes Ethnohistory Archives at http://www.gbl.indiana.edu/ohioarch.html , for instance.

Also, occasionally the presenters recommend books and I’ll include these as well. At times my notes will be sparse, at times more informed (or so I hope).

Prehistoric Indians: A time tablePaleo Indians 10,000-7,500 B.C. (associated with large animals use)
Archaic Indians 8,000-700 B.C. (elk, bear, buffalo)
Woodland Indians 10,000-1200 A.D. (pottery, agriculture developed, corn, mound
building, bow/arrows)
Mississippian Indians 6,900-1,650 AD (Angel, Cahokia Mounds, trading from far away)

Most in this area were Adena/Moundbuilder peoples. Mounds tended to be built in threes, always facing east/west.

Vincennes Culture is a little known category from the late Woodland/Mississipian Culture period.

Game called Chunkee played with stones.

Historic Indians

Ohagehi Sioux in this area 1670, according to Souix legend; They were pushed out by the Algonquians.

Mascoutin Indians, 1700-1712 in the Wabash River area.

Southern Indiana was a No Man’s Land due to a 100 year war and raiding parties.

1650 Iroquois received guns from the Dutch, didn’t get along with the French. The Bever Wars of 1650-80.

French armed the Miami Indians in Northwest Lake Michigan/Chicago area.

1712: Miami moved down to the Wabash/Maumee rivers areas.

French waged genocide against Fox Indians, and needed alternate routes to the Mississippi River in these times; started using Wabash River and build a series of forts to protect this route.

Fort a ‘Parent = Fort Apraw

2nd Class: Transportation, Nature of the People of Knox County/Vincennes

Plank Roads were an 1850s fad; the railroads killed them off; they were easy to erode and had rotten wood.

The Chicago Road: Chicago Avenue in Vincennes was the beginning of this road; ends in Chicago with a street titled Vincennes Street.

Abner T. Ellis: This man was responsible for the railroads coming through Vincennes; he also made the Wabash navigable to steamboats from New Orleans (at least part of the year until the time of low water).

Other than French, two other main groups settled in Vincennes area:

Steamboats in the 1840s brought Germans to the area, escaping from German wars. They established churches in Vincennes, created the Harmony Society, and pulled together as they were labeled “Foreigners.” They also settled what was known as “Dutch Flats” in the Buntin Street area of Vincennes. (For more details on "Dutch Flats," see the information in the ebook version of Indiana: A Guide to the Hoosier State, --thanks to Bill Friggee for sending this information.)

Knox County is very Southern in nature. The people were politically from “The party of Andrew Jackson,” and were (and are today) independent, proud, uncooperative, argumentative type of people. This is the result of many people moving up here from Virgina, unlike the Northern part of Indiana who had a lot of people from the New England states.

Willow Street is the origin of the Red Banks Trace running south of Vincennes.

Fr. Somes book Old Vincennes recommended. (By Joseph Henry Vanderburgh Somes, titled Old Vincennes: The History of a Famous Old Town and its Glorious Past, available in local libraries.

Discussion of Baseline Road, East and West; when the state started laying our property as squares/sections (Note French surveys on map, very different concept).

1st Class: A little background on the origins of the Vincennes settlement

The first class began with the questions of Who were the settlers in the Vincennes area and How did they get here?

Rivers were a major form of transportation, of course, and an important concept is that the Wabash River actually united Indiana and Illinois, instead of dividing us as we view it today.

The original settlers were Indians, the earliest discovers who lived here perhaps 12,000 years ago (70,000 years ago people crossed the Bering Land Bridge by Alaska).

The early European settlers in our area.

The French were the first Europeans to come to Vincennes, and were from Normandy and Brittany and spoke this dialect. There are recordings made (Rose Valley?) in 1947 showing the language was not Parisian.

The French sought fish off the Great Banks, smoked fish off St. Laurence River, and trade began. The fur trade was established, and the French entered the Great Lakes as fur bearing animals were gradually exterminated. Men’s fashion in Europe actually dictated the settlements here.

The Iroquois tribe in the Great Lakes Region was especially powerful south of the St. Laurence River and the south side of the Great Lakes. The French had to avoid this area. The Jesuit Missionaries came with the fur trade.

In 1673 Fr. Marquette discovered the Wabash River, met Indians drive out of Indiana by the Iroquois. The French learned about a “great river,” the Mississippi. Marquette and Joliette voyages to the Mississippi River and passed the entrance to the Wabash River. Wabash was pronounced by Indians Ouabache.

The French came here mainly from Canada (came also to Peoria, Kaskakia, Cahokia); they heard rumors about English traders in the region. The French mainly had about 100,000 settlers, the English had about 1 million; as a result of this lower population, the French used Indian allies.

The Sieur de Vincennes came here with the Piankishaw Indians with the goal of seizing the mouth of the Ohio and Wabash rivers. It is believed the Piankeshaw Indians refused to go further South than Vincennes due to the Chickasaw warriors who had been fighting a 200-year war against the (?) tribes. On 50 miles each side of the Ohio was considered a No Man’s Land, similar to northern Kentucky.

Vincennes probably was in the southern edge of the Piankeshaw hunting grounds. The area was a natural crossroads due to both rivers and the Buffalo Trace.

The Buffalo Trace began at the Falls of the Ohio and passed through Vincennes; the Trace was very prominent in its day. Note the routes in Knox Co. on these maps (Map 1 and Map 2).

The Class Begins

I have started this blog in April, four months after the class began, so I'll be relying on my notes and memory. The class is taught by several local historians: Richard Day (historian and Vincennes State Historic Sites Curator), Rabb Emison (attorney), Robert "Gus" Stevens (historian and former director/archivest, Vincennes University), Bertha Proctor (director, Wabash Valley Human Services), and Catholic Schools Superintendent Mary Traylor. The class is taught in the beautifully restored Old Catholic School next to the Old Cathedral. We meet in the Dan Duesterberg Room, which is a very comfortable arena for learning and presenting. You can occasionally hear the running feet of Rivet students coming and going from various after-school events, which provides a charming, school-like atmosphere for the class members and instructors. The Vincennes History class is being videotaped and is planned to be available in the Knox County Public Library for viewing.

There are approximately 20-25 students from different walks of life who have paid the $75 fee to participate in the class, which will feature an occasional guest speaker and Saturday field trips. There is a vibrant, informal, open atmosphere in the classroom.

There are many materials (photographs, maps, articles) pertaining to the history of Vincennes, Knox County, Indiana, and the Northwest Territory provided by the presenters, and I plan to scan these in and make links on this blog, if possible. Most materials are photocopies, so perhaps at some future time I can replace the scans with better quality originals if possible.