Commandant St. Ange de Bellerive

Abstract

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.