This chapter examines the role played by woodcutters, carpenters, cabinetmakers, and stonemasons in St. Louis during its earliest years, 1766–1770. Charles E. Peterson, one of the founding fathers of preservation architecture in the United States, wrote three seminal pieces about colonial architecture in the middle Mississippi Valley. Since Peterson, however, there has been no comprehensive study on Illinois Country architecture. Drawing largely on extant manuscripts in the archives of the Missouri History Museum, this chapter compares St. Louis's early buildings with those in other Illinois Country communities (Kaskaskia and Ste. Genevieve), those on the Gulf Coast, and those in French Canada. It also looks at a number of prominent woodworkers in early St. Louis, including Jacques Denis and Pierre Lupien dit Baron. Finally, it considers some of the features of Illinois Country houses and the materials used in their construction, primarily timber.
The standard story of St. Louis's founding tells of fur traders Pierre Laclède Liguest and Auguste Chouteau hacking a city out of wilderness. This book overturns such gauzy myths with the contrarian thesis that French government officials and institutions shaped and structured early city society. Of the former, none did more than Louis St. Ange de Bellerive. His commitment to the Bourbon monarchy and to civil tranquility made him the prime mover as St. Louis emerged during the tumult following the French and Indian War. Drawing on new source materials, the book delves into the complexities of politics, Indian affairs, slavery, the role of women, and material culture that defined the city's founding period. The alternative version of the oft-told tale uncovers the imperial realities—as personified by St. Ange—that truly governed in the Illinois Country of the time, and provide a trove of new information on everything from the fur trade to the arrival of the British and Spanish after the Seven Years War.
This chapter focuses on Louis St. Ange de Bellerive's time as commandant at St. Louis. As of the spring of 1765, no government existed at what would eventually become St. Louis. This would change by the end of year, when St. Ange arrived and established a civil government six months before there was any ecclesiastical presence in the settlement. Crossing the Mississippi with St. Ange were Joseph-François Lefebvre, chief magistrate in the Illinios Country, and notary Charles-Joseph Labuxière. The chapter begins with an overview of St. Ange's administration of St. Louis as the seat of his government in Upper Louisiana and goes on to discuss the revolt that erupted in New Orleans against Antonio de Ulloa and Spanish rule in Louisiana in October 1768. It also recounts the murder of the Odawa leader Pontiac by a Peoria Indian on April 20, 1769, that threw the entire Illinois Country into turmoil. Finally, it considers the Black Legend, an accumulation of propaganda and Hispanophobia that painted Spain as an evil colonial power.
This chapter examines the tripartite nature of the settlement pattern that emerged at St. Louis during the 1760s: it consisted of a nuclear village, plowlands for sowing grain, and commons for pasturing livestock, gathering firewood, and shooting rabbits and squirrels. It begins with a description of the physical configuration of early St. Louis and goes on to discuss Indians' claims to the land on which St. Louis was built. It then traces the history of town planning at early St. Louis before turning to Louis St. Ange de Bellerive's conveyance of land grants in early St. Louis containing an explicit homesteading provision. It concludes with an account of French monarch Louis XV's promulgatation of a land ordinance for Louisiana.
This chapter reflects on Louis St. Ange de Bellerive's diplomatic work with various Indian tribes during his lifetime. From the time that St. Ange was stationed with his father at Fort St. Joseph until he arrived at St. Louis as commandant in October 1765, he dealt with Indians of one tribe or another on a daily basis. His entire adult life was all about Indians, not only in the public arena, but also about the Indian women who bore his children. In discussing Indian affairs, St. Ange never once suggested employing force of any kind as an instrument of policy. Although a military man, his passion, his knowledge, and his skill lay in diplomacy, not warfare. This chapter discusses St. Ange's attitude toward Indians as well as his concubines, his Indian slaves, and the last seventeen months of his life, which he spent in the residence of Marie-Thérèse Bourgeois Chouteau. St. Ange was found dead in his bed on December 27, 1774.
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